Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or any character appearing in the series.

How to Rock a Baby.

The minute Uchiha Sasuke found out Sakura was pregnant with their first child, he immediately assumed he was going to be a terrible father. Fighting? Cool. Killing? Under control. Breaking enemies bones and watch them bleed to death? Easy. Taking care of a baby? Definitely no clue. Not at all.

Luckily, Sarada's birth, proved him wrong. Not that he was a natural, like Sakura, who managed every situation with the newborn like she had ben studying all her life to do it (well, the truth is she studied a lot about pregnancy and babies during all her pregnancy), but Sasuke soon realized that having a small baby wasn't so scaring as he thought in the beginning.

He was a good dad. He liked rocking Sarada to sleep, he helped with the diapers, he talked a lot to her when she was crying to calm her down (his voice had a magical effect on the little baby. Sasuke believed that it happened because he talked a lot to her when she was in Sakura's belly). He and Sakura were a good team, well coordinated and always ready to face any new situation with the small Uchiha princess.

But Sasuke wasn't ready to be alone with the baby for almost an entire day. Of course, he had been alone with Sarada, but only for short amounts of time like three or four hours. Most of the time Sarada had been sleeping and he was by her side observing her and smiling at the cute Uchiha baby.

That's why, the afternoon Sakura entered their house announcing she was rushing to the Hospital to deliver Ino's baby, Sasuke panicked a little.

"When are you leaving?" he asked.

"Right now. Sai called me yelling. He was about to have a heart attack. I'm sure they are already there. I promised Ino I would deliver the baby. Otherwise she'll kill me." Sakura explained.

"How long is it gonna take?" he asked.

"How the hell I'm supposed to know? Hours."- Sakura rolled her eyes.

"It took you only about five hours to gave birth to Sarada".

"Yeah. I guess I was lucky. For first-time mums, active labour usually takes about eight hours."

"What?No way! Oh please, this poor boy, being Sai's son probably will need a week to find the way out" he teased.

"Sasuke, please, be kind…. Well, I really have to go."

"Okay. What are we doing with Sarada?" he asked.

"What do you mean? You'll stay with her." she replied.

"Yes but… What if she needs something?" he tried again.

"If she wants to play, you can play with her, if she wants to sleep help her sleep, if she needs a new diaper, change it. It's easy. Come on, it's not your first time"

"What if she needs to eat?"

"Give her a bottle"

"I never did that"- he argued.

"I'm sure you'll be able to manage that." she replied.

"What if/?" he started again.

"Please, she's five months old. What could she possibly need? Don't be stupid." she kissed him briefly and took her cloak. Just before opening the door she added "Just don't make her eat tomatoes."

"Tchh…I'm not that stupid, Sakura" he rolled his eyes.

"Just in case." she smirked and left the house.

It was five o'clock in the afternoon. With some luck, Sakura would be home by midnight. He could manage that. He calmed himself. Everything would be just fine. He just needed to relax and enjoy some good quality father and daughter time. It would be nice.

And it was really nice until Sarada woke up around seven o' clock. Sasuke was polishing his kunais (Sakura never let him touch his weapons with Sarada around, but since she wasn't home and the baby was peacefully sleeping in their bedroom, he decided it was a good idea to have the kunais ready for the next training session.) The minute he heard her mumbling and crying a little he hid the weapons and headed to the bedroom. There she was, small Sarada in her crib (yeah, they finally bought a crib for the baby. Now they just needed a new house.) eyes wide open and pouting.

"Hey princess, daddy's here." he smiled and rubbed her belly.

The baby clapped her tiny hands and Sasuke laughed. "Yes, we are gonna have some fun, you and me." Sasuke said taking the baby in his arms, heading to the living room and sitting on the floor.

And they did have fun, for a while, until suddenly and for no reason, Sarada started crying.

"Hey, what's going on?" he asked. He rolled his eyes. Ok, she's not going to answer, he thought. He tried to calm her talking, but Sarada continued crying. Then he tried to entertain her showing her all the toys she had (well, the truth is most of the toys Sarada had, were presents from Sakura's parents who clearly were trying to spoil their only grandchild) but the small Uchiha grabbed all the toys one by one and threw them around the floor. A fluffy lion with a wooden spoon in his hand (A cooking Lion? What the fuck was that? Sasuke thought) went straight to Sasuke's head, the wooden spoon hitting directly into his forehead.

"Auch." he grunted. Definitely his little princess had a mix of her parents temper.

He checked the clock. It was almost nine in the evening. He assumed the baby was probably hungry so he took her in his arms, and headed to the kitchen to prepare a bottle. It wasn't easy to prepare the bottle with only one hand while holding the crying baby with the other arm. Add to the equation that he had one prosthetic arm and the baby was yelling straight into his ear and you'll know why the cold Sasuke Uchiha was sweating like a pig and about to lose his own temper.

Finally, he managed to prepare the bottle and he even spilled some milk on his hand to make sure it was not too hot or too cold. When the baby finished eating, she was calm and sleepy and Sasuke placed her in the crib again, changing her diaper slowly and in complete silence, almost like he was in a secret recognizing mission.

Ok. It was not so bad, he thought. It was ten o'clock. Sakura left five hours ago. She'd probably come back soon, he convinced himself.

But only twenty minutes after, Sarada started crying again like somebody was killing her. Sasuke checked her diaper again, tried to feed her again, tried to play with her, talked to her, rocked her around the house but the small baby cried louder and louder every time. Two hours later, Sasuke was about to cry. He didn't know what else he could do, so he surrendered and decided to call Sakura.

"I'm sorry. She's in the delivery room right now." a nurse explained on the phone.

"Why it's taking so long?" he asked.

"I don't know exactly. I think some complications appeared during the delivery."

I knew it, he thought, delivering that morons baby…

"But don't worry, It will be fine. Ino is in good hands. Sakura is the best medical/" the nurse said.

"I know. She is my wife." he smirked.

"I'll tell her to call you back the minute she's out." the nurse said.

"What? I can't hear you" Sasuke yelled. Sarada was trying to break the sound limits with her cries.

"I'll tell her to call you back." the nurse yelled and hanged up the phone.

"Please, Sarada, calm down. Mum will be home soon" he tried but the baby cried even louder. Sasuke grabbed from the book Sakura was always reading about babies a shelf.

"You can always try to rock the baby harder", he read. "Some babies like rough movements. It will help them to sleep".

He tried to rock Sarada rougher until his arms were aching. Sarada continued crying and Sasuke knew the situation needed desperate measures. He picked up the phone.

"Naruto?" he asked.

"Hey teme!" Whats going on?" Naruto asked back.

"It's Hinata there?"

"Why you want to talk to my wife?"

"I need some advice. About babies."

"Why you don't want to talk to me? I've got a son too"

"Yes, I know dobe, but I prefer to ask Hinata."

"She's not here. She's at the hospital. There were complications at Ino's delivery and she headed to he hospital."

Sasuke sighed.

"Come, on teme, ask me. I know a lot about babies" Naruto tried.

Sasuke frowned, but surrendered again. "Sarada is crying like she's dying. I've tried everything."

"Maybe she's hungry…" Naruto said

"She's not"

"The diaper?"

"No..." Sasuke spat.

"Maybe she wants some toys?"

"Look dobe, my living room is like a toy's graveyard right now." Sasuke was trying to calm himself down.

"Oh…" Naruto suddenly said.

"Oh what?" Sasuke asked.

"Maybe…" Naruto started

"Maybe what?" Sasuke yelled.

"Maybe she's sick. We had to take Boruto to he hospital once. He couldn't stop crying. He was sick. Oh, kami, I got so scared teme! Imagine… poor little thing suffering!"

Sasuke stared at her daughter. She was red and sweaty, her face filled with her own tears. She was sick. She was suffering and he was so stupid he did not realize. Sasuke hated himself. He was a terrible father.

"Teme?" Naruto asked.

"I have to go." he spat and hanged up the phone.

He grabbed his black cloak and left the house. Holding Sarada in his arms he started jumping from rooftop to rooftop as fast as he could. He felt his own heartbeat racing. If anything happened to Sarada he would never be able to forgive himself. Cross that. Sakura would kill him first.

Ten minutes later, Sasuke arrived at the Hospital. He was blank as a paper sheet and sweaty. Suddenly, he realized Sarada wasn't crying anymore. He looked down and saw the small Uchiha sleeping peacefully in his arms with a big smile on her small face. Her skin color was normal again, she was not sweaty anymore and she looked perfectly fine.

"Well I guess you really like rough movement…" he smirked and turn back willing to head home.

Sakura appeared and saw her husband holding Sarada at the Hospital's door.

"What are you doing here?" she asked

Sasuke froze " I…"

"Is everything okay?" she asked again.

"I…I was worried... about you." he replied.

"Awww… That's so sweet. I'm fine. Just really tired. There were some complications but it all ended well. It's a boy. He's super cute."

"Oh, great." Sasuke said.

"You are not going to make any jokes about the boy or Sai?"

"No. Not now." he murmured.

"Let's go?" Sakura asked and they both headed home with the sleeping princess in her daddy's arms. "How was everything with the baby?" Sakura asked.

"Fine, perfectly fine. She's... an angel." Sasuke smirked.

The minute they got home, Sakura headed to the bathroom willing to have a shower. She was exhausted. When she entered the room in her pajamas twenty minutes later, Sasuke was sleeping like a log and the baby was placed by his side on the bed, smiling and clapping her hands, eyes wide open.

Sakura smiled at her daughter and caressed her cheek with her thumb.

"Did you take good care of daddy, didn't you?" Sakura asked and the baby smiled again.

A/N- I had a conversaton yesterday with a couple who had to take their baby at 3 in the morning to the park, walking her in her stroller to make her sleep. That gave me the idea to write this story. I thought Sasuke panicking would be fun. I hope you like it.

Again, please forgive my mistakes. I'm not an english native speaker and it's difficult to me to write in english. I'm trying to improve :)

Many thanks in advance for stopping by and for your reviews.

I'll start writing a multichapter soon. Waterlilly333 (who is super kind) shared with me a brilliant idea (so I'll be sharing the credit with her when I'll publish the story ). I'll keep you posted.

See u soon.