A/N: This was originally a Nana-bash fic, then I made her likeable but powerless. Derp.
- I also know nothing about bullying. I was one of those lucky kids that didn't have it happen to them...or it happened to my back so I was ignorant to it. (I'm gonna go with the second one, that sounds way more likely.)

Disclaimer: Do not own KHR.

Sawada Nana was not someone you could call a bad mother: she cared deeply for her only child, looked after him, fed him, worried about and encouraged him. However, just because she wasn't a bad mother didn't automatically make her a good mother either. She was always a little too ditzy, a little too careless with her words, and she hadn't quite taught her son a thing that'd be useful in life. In fact, her care had left her son being coddled - it did nothing for the bullies, the taunting, the lacking father figure in his life - instead of growing into his own person.

She understood this well; she wasn't quite as oblivious as she acted, after all. She had tried her best to raise Tsuna with the most careful of hands as possible. But she hadn't known what to do to help since Tsuna was five years old; that was where it all started from.

Unbeknownst to her, a part of Tsunayoshi's development had been stunted when he was about five, and it quite literally happened overnight. She didn't know what to do at the time, they were hosting her husband's boss and her husband had finally come home again. It was always a little suspicious to her that Tsuna might have been hurt by the men - even if they were her husband, and maybe especially because it was her husband's boss (the boss that Iemitsu dropped everything, even his wife, for; and if there was a little resentment, she felt it was justified) - so she had taken him to the doctors the moment they left.

They couldn't find anything, just that perhaps Tsuna had developed autism. So she did as they told her to do, it hadn't helped.

But she knew her Tsuna, she knew, that something wasn't right. It wasn't autism - or, well, it was not just autism - there was something inherently not there from her baby boy anymore. Something only she could see, apparently, and that was most frustrating when a doctor told her she was wrong.

But, she had nothing to prove that they may have done anything, and while suspicious, even if it was true she couldn't even pursue that avenue without some evidence (later, when Reborn had been the one to sit her down and explain to her what happened, she wanted to scream, destroy something, call her husband and give death threats - it was still Reborn that gave her the truth of why he was there, and how he could help Tsuna. She had no choice but to accept. And she hadn't regretted it to this day).

That's why she would always be grateful to Reborn. In some ways, Tsunayoshi was more Reborn's son than hers or Iemitsu's, no matter the fact they were his birth parents. It was Reborn's ideals, knowledge and protection that had been crafted upon Tsunayoshi's person - not hers, and certainly not Iemitsu's. She had tried, and perhaps the only thing she could claim to have imparted on Tsuna was kindness; but even that didn't help him when he was broken by bullying (and don't give her that look, she's done all a lone mother can to at least protect her son, not that the teachers seem to think anything of it. Nana knew that bullying was only truly prosperous if the enforcers themselves did it, or ignored it, placing blame on the student as if they had asked for it, instead of taking responsibility for being lousy educators. She had complained, still did, and all that got her was 'sorry, we can't do shit', and her being a seemingly single - she felt it at least - mother was apparently a sign that she was delusional, immoral or stupid. It was only her 'airheaded-ness' that gave her some leeway around these parts).

When she had first met Reborn, she had been wary beneath her sometimes-forced and sometimes-not airheaded persona. Even after all his explanations, and she knew Reborn knew (and maybe respected her for it), Nana had always held a sharp eye on the goings in her household, akin to a lioness and her cub. The reason she was usually in the kitchen more than ever wasn't so that she was out of the way but so that she had access to her knives at a moments notice. And if she went to Tsuna's friend's, Takeshi-kun's, father for some tips when he looked to be starting kendou, well, it was in the name to protect her family.

And wasn't that a surprise? Tsuna finally had friends, and all thanks to a Baby-Man hitman. Her regret couldn't get more profound since some of those friends were from Namimori, the same people who ignored or outright harassed her son. If any of them were some of Tsuna's worst offenders there would have been a bloodbath, and nothing would get in her way - as it was, Takeshi-kun barely scraped past, Kyoya-kun was a good protector, and Ryohei-kun would only do good things for her son's confidence (or scar him, but in a positive way, in her opinion). She didn't particularly approve of Kyoko, either, sweet girl that she was, she reminded her too much of herself in all her flaws and strengths. She would have to say many of the females around her son weren't good for her son, Muira Haru had the right tenacity and will but was only responding to his kindness, Bianchi was too old for her Tsuna, I-Pin-chan and Yuni-chan was much too young, and Chrome-chan was in love with another. It was good, then, that none of them were Tsuna's significant other; her son had chosen his own Tutor for that special crevice in his heart (and the manga-esque flame of purity between the relationship of teacher and student was perfect, in her opinion).

Thinking of Reborn, now, always brought a smile to her face though; for ten years, he had helped shaped her son to be a man, and at first along with the danger there was always a desolate, inherent loneliness draped over his person. As time passed, and Tsuna passed his trials to be a mafia boss - she was glad he had chosen to at least try to change it, and romanticism aside, she just wanted him feel as important as he truly was - Reborn had slowly, almost imperceptibly, grown closer to Tsuna than he had ever intended for anyone. She was looking forward to the day Tsuna would utterly catch him off guard and woo him straight forwardly, she had seen the way Tsuna's gaze would always wander towards Reborn. More so ever since Reborn's curse was broken and he had returned to his original body.

It was a matter of time, she would know, it was Mother's Intuition, and mother always knows best.

So, while she knew she was a terrible mother, she was glad she had Tsunayoshi. Because, he had been someone to fill a hole in Reborn's life. It was all she could have wished for in a son.

(If she had a wistful moment every now and then to wonder how Tsuna could have been if he didn't ever have his flames sealed, it was with the knowledge that, even so, he grew to be a good man.)

Please leave a comment if you'd like to.
Ah, feel free to tell me any grammatical errors. I don't think I re-read through this a lot.