It didn't take Fugaku long to realise that organising the coup had been a very bad idea. He'd woken up, the memory of being killed by his own son still fresh on his mind, and had caught sight of his thirteen year old son. Itachi had tears streaming down his face in a display of emotion he never seemed to show when people were around (Fugaku couldn't even remember the last time he'd seen his son cry…when he was a toddler, perhaps?), and had soon realised that, no matter how hard he tried to call to him, Itachi simply couldn't see him.

He was a ghost — or rather, he was fairly certain he was. He could remember dying (Mikoto he thought with sorrow, remembering his wife's lifeless body falling beside him), and he was certainly showing all the signs of being what he thought a ghost would be like, so he wasn't going to complicate things by overthinking this.

He was dead. He was a ghost. No one could see him, and a quick experiment proved that he couldn't touch anything either; his hands simply went straight through.

All of this for a failed coup. Fugaku grimaced; why couldn't he have done something more productive with his time? Like gardening, perhaps. Or perhaps taking that holiday with Mikoto - they'd often talked about it, loving the idea of spending some quality time together, but other things had always come up. Like work, and the kids, and the planning of coups.

Well, all of those plans were ruined now. And he and Mikoto would never be going on that holiday together, that was for sure.

A quick glance around at his surroundings showed that he was alone — his wife had not followed him here. It was just him and Itachi, who couldn't even see him. Itachi, who was probably too busy hating himself for what he had done — and all Fugaku could do was watch him and feel a burning hatred for Danzo and the council for doing this to his son and his family, and a burning hatred at himself for putting his children in this situation.

Itachi's life was ruined, and Sasuke — God, what had happened to Sasuke? He couldn't imagine Itachi hurting him, no matter what his orders had been, but even if he'd survived, what sort of life would he be living, with his entire family wiped out?

'Fugaku,' he thought to himself, 'you've fucked up. Big time.'

…

He soon came to realise that what ever this was, it meant that he was stuck following Itachi around. Literally — he'd tried to leave a few times, and had found himself unable to go more than a few feet away from his son.

After a while he'd simply sighed wearily and accepted it. He didn't particularly mind. He would've liked to see Sasuke as well, but the thought of seeing his youngest son — his very traumatised, seven-year-old son — made him feeling nervous and slightly nauseous (could ghosts get sick? Fugaku didn't want to find out, since he didn't think he could change out of these clothes. Spending the rest of eternity in vomit-drenched attire didn't sound too appealing).

So, for now, he supposed it was just him and Itachi.

…

Itachi joined a criminal organisation. His thirteen year old boy — who was still suffering from the trauma of being forced to massacre his entire clan — joined a criminal organisation. Sure, he was doing it for the sake of the goddamn Leaf, but that only made Fugaku even angrier. Surely that damn village had taken enough from his son; what right did it have to demand even more from Itachi?

But his son went along with it, because he loved that village, and Fugaku only wished that he had really considered what that love meant when he was alive. Itachi went and joined a group that was, in Fugaku's honest opinion, filled with psychopaths and freaks and lunatics. Itachi didn't seem to mind too much, but then, Itachi was also partnered up with a six-foot shark and didn't seem to mind it, so he was either very good at hiding his emotions, or had completely lost his mind by this point.

At the very least, it meant he fit in with the rest of the group.

Fugaku didn't like the shark-man, who he soon came to know as 'Kisame.' He'd heard the name before, of course, and he shouldn't have been surprised to find a man like him in a group like this.

Itachi didn't seem to like him, but he didn't seem to dislike him either. Overall, it was hard for Fugaku to tell what his son did think about him, since his only real insights into Itachi's feelings came from when Itachi was all alone — and he was hardly going to start sprouting his feelings for Kisame out loud to himself.

Fugaku comforted himself by telling himself that Itachi's feelings probably fell more on the 'dislike' side of the spectrum. He couldn't imagine his son getting along with a brute like Kisame anyway.

…

The two of them got closer. Fugaku, forced to follow his son around, possibly for the rest of Itachi's life, saw a lot.

He didn't like it. Not one bit. He didn't think he'd been a particularly protective father when he'd been alive, but — and he wasn't sure if it was his feelings of guilt over the coup, or seeing so much of his son in the past few years — things had changed a lot since his death.

Things had also changed a lot since Itachi and Kisame had partnered up, and Fugaku did not like it. It gave him a bad feeling, and no matter how hard he tried to brush it off, or tell himself he was imagining things, he just couldn't do it.

Kisame just gave him a bad feeling. He'd watch Itachi sometimes, in a way that would make Fugaku spit, "Back off, he's just a kid!" even though Itachi hadn't been a 'kid' in a long time (even the years had passed by quickly, and he couldn't even call Itachi a 'kid' in a physical sense anymore).

Well. Itachi was his kid, and, grown up or not, Fugaku wasn't going to stand by and let Kisame do whatever the hell he hoped to achieve with those stares of his.

(He didn't know how, since he wasn't exactly physically capable of doing anything, but he'd figure out something).

…

They continued to get closer. Fugaku could see it, what he'd been trying to deny before: the way Itachi would sometimes mimic those glances Kisame gave him, the way his son would laugh at some of the things Kisame said, in a way Fugaku hadn't heard before. He saw the way his son's face would light up at times, and realised that he hadn't seen Itachi that happy in a long time. Since before the massacre for sure, but even further back than that.

For any other parent, maybe that would've been enough. All Fugaku could think was, 'Go to hell Kisame. This is war.'

…

If it was war then he'd lost it. Terribly.

Maybe he should have learnt his lesson after the coup. War and Fugaku Uchiha simply did not mix. It ended like this — him, defeated, and unable to do anything.

In this case, the war had never even begun, because — well, there wasn't much he could do when the person he was fighting couldn't even see or hear him.

He'd started being able to seperate himself somewhat from Itachi. Apparently he was allowed to do that, and he was going to put all his efforts (that weren't spent on thinking up ways to destroy Kisame) into learning this new ability, because he was determined to go and see how Sasuke was doing. If Itachi had ended up like this — in love with a six foot, criminal shark-man, with no manners, and a mouth that would've made Mikoto go running for a bar of soap — then he shuddered to think who Sasuke may have attached himself to (his mind briefly flittered to Kushina's lunatic son, and he grimaced; no, his son would never go there).

It was starting to get easier. Not that easy — he could still only maintain it for short periods of time — but it was getting there. He was getting help from Rin, a young girl he remembered seeing around the village with Obito before her death. She'd been dead a lot longer than him, and had all but mastered the ability by this point. She seemed to spend her time alternating between following Hatake around, and following Obito around — and honestly, what had happened to Obito? Finding out that he was still alive had been a shock, but the shock had soon been replaced by annoyance — if he heard the words 'Tobi is a good boy' one more time he was going to snap.

He walked towards Itachi's room (he could already feel a strange pull, and knew that he wouldn't be able to maintain the distance for much longer), and paused when he saw Rin leaning against his door, accompanied by that weird orange-haired kid who he sometimes saw hanging around the Akatsuki leader and his lady friend. Both of them exchanged glances and started giggling.

The boy glanced at him and said gleefully, "You might not want to go in there."

Fugaku walked through the door anyway. Having people to talk to wasn't that great when they were as annoying as these two. He needed to find a way to get back to the village — surely there'd be other Uchiha ghosts hanging around? Maybe he'd even be able to find Mikoto.

Besides, if he considered all his current options — stalking Akatsuki members, hanging out with a bunch of dead teenagers, and watching over his son — he'd definitely pick the last option.

He paused, stared at the scene in front of him — his son and Kisame kissing — and everything seemed to screech to a sudden halt.

He thought, 'Oh dear God, I need to stop this.'

Then he thought, 'Oh dear God, HOW DO I STOP THIS?!'

Realising he couldn't stop this — and realising that he'd rather gouge his eyes than watch any more of this — he turned around and walked back the way he'd came.

"Told you so," the orange haired kid said, while Rin giggled.

Fugaku decided that he definitely needed to get out of here.

…

The kissing became a regular occurrence. And other things, but Fugaku put all his energy into getting as far away from Itachi as possible when ever there was a sign of that happening.

'It's not so bad,' he tried to convince himself, as he glumly sat at the back of an Akatsuki meeting. Surely there were worse people than Kisame Hoshigaki that his son could be dating. Besides, his son was strong and formidable — if he'd survived ANBU with that pervert Hatake as his captain, then surely he could handle this.

Fugaku caught Itachi glancing at Kisame — and while it was only quick, and there was barely a change in his facial expression, Fugaku had spent enough time around him to realise what that look in his eyes meant.

He grimaced. He definitely needed to find a way to get back to the village — maybe he could find Sasuke instead. Surely his other son would still be far too traumatised to have any romanic attachments.

He didn't care. He just needed to get out. He didn't think he could survive having to watch another of their make-out sessions.