A/N: Thank you for your patience! I plan to keep author's notes to a minimum from now on, so unless I have something serious to report it'll just be the chaps. Feel free to contact me via PM with any questions! I've updated my profile too, so questions on other works might already have been answered there.

Onward!


Infancy

Chapter 1

For the first few days he had a confused impression of a great deal of activity around him. He could neither see nor hear very well, but he sensed things. Felt hands on his face, in his hair. Running over his body. Lips pressed to his again and again. Sometimes the lips moved against his, and he imagined words were being said. Always the same rough, callused hands. Hands he recognized. One time a softer touch shyly stroked his cheek. He'd turned toward that hand, but it pulled away. He sensed that it was the gentle hand that fed him thick, hot broth. That washed him with a warm cloth and helped him void where he lay.

He knew he was weak. He'd tried moving his own hand to touch his face, only to discover that the strength to do so was absent.

Then, on one of those days, strong and familiar arms carried him somewhere. A warm, soft, squirming bundle of flesh was set on his stomach. He and the squirming bundle were both wrapped in furs and taken outside. He knew it was outside because the cold he was already feeling sharpened until he was gasping for air. But for that hot bundle on his stomach he would have frozen. Then he was indoors again. Carried some more and set on a bed. The bundle was removed. He slept.

-oOo-

Over time, his other senses gradually returned. Days, weeks, he didn't know, but his vision clarified. Light and shadow moved around him. Sound was still distorted, though. As if heard underwater. He was still weak, but growing less so. He could open and close is hands, touch his face. Small victories.

A day came when he opened his eyes and the dark thing he saw wasn't shadow, but a head of black hair. Someone sitting in a chair, forearms on their knees, examining their hands. Right then, seeing that hair, his memory returned. He was Naruto, he'd been pregnant, and he'd tried to kill the kid.

The person was speaking.

"- doing beautifully, you should see him. Growing like a weed. Been a little over two weeks now. Hinata's not sure she's mixing the milk right for a newborn, but he doesn't seem to be suffering. Just knocks the stuff back and licks his chops for more. I think he wants me to bring him in to see you, but I won't do that to you. I know how you felt, so when you wake up and tell me you're-"

"Sa…" It hurt to speak. "Sasuke?"

The head snapped up. "Naruto? You're awake!"

Sasuke's face was like a blow to the chest. So dear, so missed…but he remembered everything. Or thought he did. "Happened?"

"It's over. It's finally over." Sasuke gave one of his rare smiles.

Naruto stared at him a moment. He saw that Sasuke now had his hands to either side of his head, leaning over him. He tried to sit up.

"No, don't. Your body's still getting its strength back."

At mention of his body, Naruto looked down. His stomach was flat. Back to normal. He had on one of the fur tunics, but he raked this up to see his stomach.

No mound. Obviously no kid. No scar either, if the kid had been delivered. He slowly put his tunic back down and leaned against the pillows. His eyes moved around the room. "Where am I?"

"In a minute. How do you feel?"

He considered his answer as he studied Sasuke's face. "Sluggish. Rusty. Where are we?"

"We had to move to one of the other houses-"

"Why?"

Sasuke glanced down the rest of his body, straightening the blankets. "Your appetite's been good, Hinata says. Are you hungry now?" He glanced at him. Looked away again.

Naruto processed several things at once. "The kid dead?"

"What? No! He's-"

He turned his head away. "I want to be alone."

"Why?"

"Why? Because you're not telling me what I want to know. And I got nothing to say, really, so leave."

"But what's wrong?"

"I don't know. You tell me."

Sasuke's jaw clenched as he stared at Naruto's profile. "Do you have any idea what we've been through? For you?"

Naruto turned back to him. "No, I don't. You going to tell me?"

Sasuke dropped his eyes.

"Right. Close the door on your way out."

When Sasuke left, Naruto looked around his immediate area and saw a stoneware mug of tea on an end table by his bed. He reached over, snagged it, and heaved it at the door. Thing didn't even make it halfway across the room. All he ended up doing was spilling the tea over his bed and making sure the mug rolled across the floor.


Downstairs, the baby lit up the moment Sasuke walked into the room. Small hands reached for him, and that little face split in a wide smile. The clone he always left to watch over the kid when he had to leave the room disappeared as he reached him and lifted him in his arms.

"How is he?" Hinata asked.

Sasuke cradled his son in one arm, but saw that the boy was listening. He now knew his son heard and understood everything around him. A wave of love swept through him at seeing the alert expression. He bent to touch his nose to the boy's. Tiny hands beat at his cheeks as his son laughed at this, but Sasuke straightened and stared across the room at where Hinata sat mending one of their tunics.

The moment Naruto had been safe, and his son clean, fed, and sleeping, he'd gotten her into one of the empty rooms of this house, shoved her into a corner, and really scrutinized her. She'd stood, chin held high, and let him.

When he was done his jaw had been tight. "So it's really true, then."

"I suppose."

"Get rid of it."

"I can't."

"I said-"

"I tried."

He'd gone very still then. "What are you saying?"

She was completely unafraid of him. No longer shy, and no longer meek. She'd pushed away from the wall and walked toward him. She hadn't stopped until she was close enough for him to smell her. It disgusted him that her proximity and the way his insides twisted at the challenge in her eyes shortened his breath. "I'm saying," she hissed, "That I tried, and I can't, and this is the last time you're going to speak to me about it. It's none of your business. It will never be your business." She'd turned to go, but he grabbed her arm.

"What's that supposed to mean? Not my business? That kid-"

She wrenched her arm free with a good deal of strength. Stepped close enough for him to take a step back or risk her face touching his. "I don't know what makes you think you have some kind of authority over me, Uchiha Sasuke, but you don't. You don't command me. I don't answer to you. And if you put your hand on me like that again, I'll…" she struggled to recall the phrase he liked to use. "I'll drop you."

That was a distinct possibility, if his recollection of the way Tsunade had been beaten was anything to go by.

"And if you say anything to Naruto about it I'll tear your tongue out of your head." Her ponytail nearly caught him in the face when she angrily turned and left the room.

Now, though, he stared at her and his hostility matched the neutral look she gave him. "He's awake. Asking questions."

A high squeal from his son. He glanced down at him and saw him wriggling in happiness, all smiles.

Hinata looked back down at her sewing. "And did you tell him anything?"

"Nothing that would upset him."

"Do you think that's wise?"

"I think it's none of your fucking business." He let the baby squeeze his finger. "You're not going to tell him anything either. Clear?"

Hinata said nothing.

-oOo-

Later, when Sasuke was asleep, she stood outside Naruto's door and took several deep breaths. They didn't help much. Her hands were still shaking. Treating Naruto while he was unconscious was one thing. Speaking to him while he was awake was another. There was every chance that he wouldn't remember the moments right before he'd passed out, but what if he did? What if he remembered raping her, and hating himself so much that he tried to kill his own child? She didn't know if she could face that despair from him again. She hadn't been at fault, but it didn't lessen the fact that she felt guilty for the whole thing. He had died because of her. She owed him whatever information he wanted.

Her hand drifted to her lower abdomen and held there. She'd been avoiding him before the birth. It had probably seemed mean to him. He would think it was because of the rape, and it had been, partly, but that wasn't the reason she couldn't be around him. She'd gotten over the rape itself in a relatively short time. Three days after it happened she'd been ready to forget it and move on. Or try to. But she couldn't. She found that out not long after. She would never be able to have closure, not now. Not ever.

And she didn't know how she felt about facing a lucid Naruto while she was in her condition.

Please. You're not a coward. Not anymore. You faced him before he remembered, and you can face him now.

A shaky sound escaped her. Not quite laugh, not quite sob. Before she could lose her resolve she lifted the candle higher, knocked, and entered.


Naruto was enjoying the wonder of sleeping on his stomach when a sudden presence in the room woke him. He turned over a bit too quickly and instantly regretted it. His muscles were stiff and sore. Moving more slowly, he eased himself to a sitting position and shielded his eyes against the candle being set on his end table. "What the fuck."

"It's me." Hinata sat herself in the chair by his bed. "Just me." She crossed one leg over the other, crossed her arms, and flicked her bangs aside with a toss of her head. "W-what do you want to know?"

His hand lowered. He took the time to note that just being in her presence made him burn with shame. His body actually felt as if it were going up in flames where he sat. And he couldn't look at her. "What? Look, I think you should g-"

"About the birth. Or…or anything. What do you want to know? Sasuke believes in sparing you any information he thinks will hurt you, but if you want to know something, I'll tell you."

Naruto kept his eyes on the ceiling. "And where was this consideration for my feelings when I asked you what I'd done to you? What I'd done to him?" From the corner of his eye he saw her flinch. "Yeah, that's what I thought. Get out."

Hinata stared at his profile and struggled not to cry. She won that battle for the most part, but she didn't back down. "I was trying to prevent the kind of reaction you had when you did find out. But it happened. You know. You remember, so there's no need to hide anything anymore."

He was able to cut his eyes and glare at her with all the hatred and contempt he felt for himself. "I don't like being lied to."

Her stomach chose that moment to cramp, lending his words more meaning than he'd meant for them to have, she was sure. In fact, seeing those blue eyes focused on her, her body went up in a number of alarming sensations. She forced herself to shut them out and think of the matter at hand. "No. Of course not. But we were trying to do what was best for you."

"I can decide what's best for me." He looked away from her.

"I p-promise that I'll never lie to you again. Is that all right?"

No answer.

Her hands opened and closed on her knees. Sweat dampened her skin so that she had to tug on the front of her tunic. "If you want to know, just say the word. I'll…I'll go." She stood up, almost panting now in her discomfort.

"Tell me."

He watched as she stopped by the door, turned, and gave him one of her nervous nods. "Okay. Okay, but Naruto…I'm going to warn you now that it's not pleasant. Okay?"

"Tell me or not. I honestly don't give a fuck."

That made her frown. She knew he felt something terrible at what he'd done, but she rather thought he'd be more remorseful toward her. Instead, he'd been hostile since she'd walked in.

She took her position in the chair again and cleared her throat. "Where do you want me to begin?"

"The kitchen. After you and Sasuke were trying to save the kid. Which I specifically told him not to do." He glanced at her. "How did you save him?"

No lies, she reminded herself. "With my chakra."

He grunted. "And then?"

She went through it all, detail by detail. How quickly he'd deteriorated. The arrival of Tsunade. Her clones. Their fight to save him once the baby had been safely delivered. The failure to do so.

He stared at her. "Wait, what? I was dead?"

She lowered her head. Really, whenever he looked at her she felt as if her skin was blistering off her bones. "Yes."

"What. For like a minute, right? Like how people stop breathing a couple seconds, and someone does the chest thing, and then they're breathing again?"

"You were dead about eight hours. Tsunade…well, there was nothing she could do."

"Eight…" He sat up completely, if with difficulty, and kicked the blanket aside so he could move to the edge of the bed. "Eight hours?" He frowned at her lap. "That's, like, a normal thing to happen in a hospital sitch, though, right? That's normal? People do that all the time? I was dead three days when Sasuke saved me, so eight hours is nothing…"

Hinata fought the urge to fan herself by swallowing. All Naruto had on was a pair of buckskin trousers that were currently unlaced at the waist. She could see the wiry profusion of hair between the laces. His upper half was bare and entirely too masculine for her peace of mind. God, what is wrong with me? "It's definitely not nothing. If a person is dead for more than, say, fifteen minutes, their brain won't recover. You were gone. Rigor mortis had set in, you…you were just gone. And this wasn't the result of a jutsu that could restore your life, such as when Akatsuki had you. This was different."

"But Kyuubi, right? He did his thing?" He frowned as the burning he felt in her presence shifted. Switched to some kind of elemental pull, something that tugged at him. "He healed me?"

"Not the way you're thinking. I told you, Tsunade said she could detect no trace of the seal. Can you? Detect it, I mean? I couldn't when I assessed you, but maybe you can assess yourself and detect it. It's your body, after all."

He hadn't assessed himself. Nor would he. He was very careful about not feeling anything or trying to feel anything where his body was concerned now that his memory had returned. "How'd Sasuke take it? Me dying?"

Hinata, watching his expression carefully, now looked down at her hands. "Not well. Not at all, at first. He wouldn't—couldn't—believe you were dead. Tsunade tried to tell him, but something in him broke, I think. He waited. For you to wake up. Waited hours, just looking at you. He was just incapable of accepting you as gone." She glanced at him. "He only did so when the baby started screaming."

Naruto had his hands braced to either side of his hips, rocking back and forth. "Granny brought me back? Some high-class forbidden jutsu like what brought back Gaara?"

"No. The baby did."

"The-" He went still. "What? No. How? I don't believe that. Explain that."

"Well we both saw it happen. Sort of." She explained what they'd seen. "But whatever he did, it was…it pretty much destroyed the room. Good part of the house. Blasted us downstairs, so I guess we didn't really get to see what he did."

"If you knew the kid has him, why'd you ask if I could sense Kyuubi in myself?" He snorted. "Seems like the little shit took yet another thing from me."

"I was hoping maybe he put it back during whatever he did; I can't see a seal in him either."

Because he doesn't need one. Naruto grit his teeth hard enough to bring on a headache. "How'd Sasuke take my return from the dead?"

"How do you think?" She frowned. "Between you and me I don't think he's okay. He's-"

"None of us are okay," he whispered.

She processed that and wondered at the pensive look on his face. Looked down at her hands as she gathered her courage. "I have to ask you something."

He turned so that he could lie in the bed again, and brought the blanket up under his armpits.

Taking this for permission, she forged ahead. "I need to know if you're going to try again. To kill the baby."

Naruto closed his eyes. After a second, he gave a soundless chuff that was anything but amused. "The shit sounds invincible. Besides, that would involve me getting near him. Touching him. Neither of which is ever going to happen."

"Good. I'm glad to hear that. Not the refusal to touch him, because that's…well, that's petty heartless. But the fact that you don't plan to kill him yourself. Tsunade already tried while you were dead. Sasuke anticipated this, though, and gave me instructions beforehand. I dealt with her."

"You? How?" He was looking at her again.

She stood up. "I have my ways. Do you need anything?"

"No."

"Or…maybe you want to talk about something else?"

"…No."

Hinata studied his profile. She supposed it was too soon to talk about the rape. Not that there was anything to really talk about. Still, the animosity he was showing her made her ill. "I want you to know I forgive you," she said quietly. "I know it wasn't your fault-"

"Did I ask your forgiveness?"

"Well no, but-"

"But nothing. You're unbelievable, you know that? Back when I was all kinds of sorry you couldn't even look at me. Now you're chafing because I'm not licking your heels anymore?" He shot her a venomous look. "There's nothing to forgive. Because it can't be forgiven. It'd be like trying to forgive a typhoon for knocking your house flat. Stupid. It wasn't done on purpose, so there's nothing to forgive. I know it wasn't me, but it was my body so I have to live with that. At the moment the memory hit…well, I was hit, but trust me I know it wasn't me. It wasn't even the little shit. It just happened. The result of a bunch of other shit going on. So there's no forgiving it. No going back to how things were before. There's only now, the after, and how we go on."

She stared, breath held.

"I'm not a logical person, but I'm not as dumb as people think. And logically speaking, you tend to get hurt around me. Very hurt. Logically speaking, there's no reason for you to be here. Not anymore. So go. I need you to go. I want you to go. You'd be safer, and neither of us would have to be reminded of what happened."

He dropped the back of one wrist over his eyes in dismissal. Hinata swallowed hard. "I see," she said. "Lucky for me that I don't take orders from you, then, isn't it? You and Sasuke are both such domineering bastards sometimes. Naruto?" She bent a little closer to him. "I will go when I'm damn well ready to. You ungrateful ass."

He snapped his hand down to glare at her, but she was already slamming her way out of the room. It was only later, when his anger simmered down, that he realized the pull he'd felt around her was also gone.


Sasuke, upon hearing Naruto scream the next day that Hinata was never to come near him again, took up the job of bringing his food to him, but he cornered Hinata later and did some screaming of his own. She yelled right back, face almost purple, until he finally went silent. Her fury shocked him. She was so incensed that her Byakugan was in place and her teeth were bared. Yet even as he watched, she softened. Took a step back. The veins receded, and her lashes lowered. Then she was sobbing into her hands.

He left her room as quietly as possible. As far as he was concerned, she was an explosion waiting to detonate.

Thereafter, things fell into a routine. Hinata now kept house. Cooked, cleaned, or else performed tasks relating to those two things. Sometimes she washed their clothes, sometimes she mended things. Whatever she was doing, it was with such quiet, smoldering violence that he stayed out of her way. He also took over mixing the milk. The baby was fed a warmed bottle in the morning, changed, then left with a clone while he took food up to Naruto and sat with him awhile. He never left the baby alone with Hinata. Sometimes he spoke to Naruto, and sometimes he just sat and watched him sleep. Each pastime was pretty much the same; Naruto never spoke to him except to answer the question he posed to him at the end of each visit:

"Do you want to see the baby?"

"No."

This went on for some time. Faced with continued tight-lipped silence, Sasuke's conversations at Naruto grew shorter. Some days he didn't want to go up there at all. It got so that he made the majority of his visits when Naruto was sleeping. He left food, which was sometimes eaten and sometimes not. That Naruto could get up and feed himself was good news, he supposed.

Except, this wasn't Naruto.

Every day before he went up to Naruto, when he was putting his son down and telling his clone to watch him, he would speak to the boy. "Maybe today. Maybe you can see him today."

He would go upstairs, brace himself, and enter that room. Naruto was usually in bed, if he was asleep. Sometimes he was sitting on the chair, looking out the window. He'd stay for as long as he could stand the silent animosity, sometimes silent himself, before asking the question that signaled he was done for the day. "Do you want to see-"

"No."

Whereupon he'd leave the room and close the door. Felt like he left a part of himself in that room each time he did. He'd go back to his son, who invariably had a questioning look on his face after these visits. He'd be forced to shake his head and say, "Not today. Maybe next time." And then his son would cry. Every time. Without sound. Just his tears and his poked out lip and his hitching breaths. Sasuke couldn't stand it. Eventually he stopped telling the boy, but the baby would see his face when he came back from those visits and cry anyway.

In his quiet moments, when everyone was asleep, and he was left awake, Sasuke would cry too. He recalled this being his biggest fear. That they would all live through the pregnancy only for him to find Naruto no longer the man he knew. Sometimes he would sit and stare at his son where he lay gurgling in his little basket, and wonder what he was supposed to do. He had a child. A miracle of a child, who could perform miracles…but he didn't have Naruto. The two were so opposed to each other—one weighing heavily on the side of positive change, the other just as heavily on the side of complete horror—that they canceled each other out for the most part. Sometimes he thought the price for his beautiful son was too high. Other times he thought to have such a son, one who welcomed him with smiles each time he saw him, was worth any price.

Ah, but Naruto. He'd had him for a little while there at the end, before the birth. Thinking of this only made him hurt more, though.

-oOo-

He went around in a fog of suspended grief. As if Naruto had never truly woken from death. He fed his son, took care of him, tried to play with him, but inside he was dying a little more each day.

Some days he didn't go to Naruto's room at all.

Hinata came to him on one such day. She'd kept her distance as well, but now she stood glaring at him as he slowly put food on a tray. He had the baby in one arm. They both looked at her when she appeared in the kitchen doorway. As usual whenever he saw her, the baby burst into smiles and squeals of delight, reaching for her. Sasuke never let her hold him. "What," he said to her.

"Stop feeding him, that's what. He's able to move around and walk. Goes to the bathroom by himself. If he can't show anymore decency than what he's currently giving us then he can damn well feed himself." She stared at the baby, who'd gone silent at hearing all this. "And if you want him to see his son, take him up there."

She disappeared to another part of the house, leaving him to think on her words.

He didn't take the baby upstairs that day, but Hinata was right. Naruto could find food for himself if he wanted to eat. He looked at his son, who looked back with shining black eyes. He kissed his cheek.

Later that day, the sun came back for the first time in months. It was only for an hour, but it was something.


The lack of food registered, if dimly. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew no one had brought him food for three days, but in the forefront of his mind, and in every other part of his body, he knew nothing. He sat for hours on end in his chair, staring out his window, or else he slept. Both activities followed each other in a seamless loop while he drifted in oblivion.

He wondered if being dead was something like this. He'd walked that particular path twice now and had no memory of either time.

It was a long time before he decided that whatever this was, it wasn't like death. For one, he wasn't really experiencing oblivion. If he was perfectly honest with himself, he'd never known a more potent fury.

It felt…good. Better than good. Like some drug, some powerful stimulant he'd been missing his whole life. He'd been sad more than anything as a small boy. Once he'd learned about the demon inside him, anger came more frequently. True rages had still been rare, though. Unconsciously avoided in order to prevent himself from losing control. There'd never been cause in his life to sustain the kind of rage he was feeling. Maybe he hadn't even been capable of this level of rage. Not for long. He'd never been wronged to such an extent, and if he had, he'd been in possession of his equilibrium. That had always righted the slights done to him in life. He'd always believed in himself, despite his lack of acknowledgement from others.

Now, stripped of his foundations, beaten and battered and broken, the only thing holding him together was his anger. There was no danger of releasing Kyuubi, no perspective against which to measure what he'd lost. His rage ran free. Sang through him with liberal doses of hatred thrown in. Feelings that were so foreign to his nature…but then his nature had undergone a radical change. He had no idea what his nature was now, or who he was, but he had his anger. It pulsed in him, in his blood, in the throbbing veins on his temples. And in his heart that seemed to pound out a slow, steady promise of no more. No more. He could not go back. Would not. No more boyhood. No more softness. No more mercy.

Days went by of this senselessness. Faint recollections of eating ice and snow off his windowsill. Leaping out that same window to answer his calls, only to climb back. It was good exercise. What his body needed.

The sun was back. Each day a little more, and then a little more still. He would sit in his chair during the three or so daylight hours, and try to remember the weeks of darkness. He'd been gone for much of it. A part of him was glad he'd been gone. Too much had happened in the dark.

Sasuke stopped visiting. No food brought to him. It occurred to him that this was wrong. Three people in a house, in the middle of nowhere, ignoring each other. The memory of Sasuke, of loving him and of their relationship, was so far away. He couldn't see it anymore. Had no memory of how it felt. And that was as he wanted it. He didn't want to remember anything.

That third day of no food he slept. For how long, he didn't know. When he woke, and after he'd done his business outside, he saw that someone had taken pity on him. There was a tray of food just inside his door. Not only that, but there was a fresh stack of firewood near his fireplace, and a fire burning. His room was warm and toasty.

For the first time since the…since he'd died, his anger receded. Not by much. Just enough for him to think of something other than how much he'd lost.

Food smelled good. And he was starving…

He was dropping beside the tray before he'd completed the thought. The seal steaks were still hot and dripping with gravy. Some kind of fluffy biscuits were piled up beside them, and there was a dish of peas. A huge jug of sweetened milk topped it all off. He put the thing to his head, drained it in long, throat-churning swallows, and banged it back down with a belch. As an afterthought, he licked each of the plates clean.

When not so much as a crumb or dot of gravy remained, he sat staring at the dishes. It hit him then that this was the first time he'd felt like eating in God knew how long. He actually had an appetite. Remembering the recent days of eating snow, he snorted. "Fuck this."

-oOo-

The hall was deserted.

The layout of this house was different, but he tiptoed past a closed door, past an open one, and down the stairs. Not a sound to be heard anywhere. Maybe they were all asleep? That would be asking too much. His luck hadn't been in since Sasuke had come home with a bunch of scrolls. His worst fear was that he'd suddenly hear the little shit, but there wasn't even a whimper. Not from anywhere, upstairs or down.

He found himself in a living room area. Still no one. He spent a second or two staring at the chairs and couch as he made his way to a doorway he hoped led to the kitchen.

Score. This kitchen was square instead of oblong, and in possession of a table and four chairs…but there was food on the wood-burning stove. He went directly to that pot. Looked like a couple of gallons of bubbling meat stew sitting in the thing. He set the tray he'd brought with him down, took up his bowls, and filled them to the brim.

He couldn't see a fire lit in the stove, but a sudden heat wave had him burning up. Something made him turn around even as he was pulling on the front of his tunic to fan himself.

Hinata was motionless behind him, her face nearly completely obscured by her bangs.

They stood staring at each other for what must have been a full minute before they moved. She did some kind of head tilt that had her bangs falling to one side. A gesture that made his stomach do a slow somersault. Her cheeks were flushed, he saw. Sweat beaded her upper lip.

An odd paralysis gripped him as he realized his heart was hammering. She took a step toward him, her face devoid of any expression whatsoever, and his heart rate climbed. He actually felt his own sweat work its way down his chest as she came another step closer. He swallowed. The pulse in her throat seemed to be beating as rapidly as his was. Then he saw the way strands of hair stuck to her neck with her perspiration, and he thought about asking her why it had to be so bleeding hot in here-

She was holding something. Handing it to him. He finally looked down and saw several steaming bread loaves on a wooden platter she had balanced on her palms. A glance showed an oven built into the wall on the far side of the kitchen. She must have been over there, taking the bread out of it, when he entered. He hadn't even seen her.

His tray was still in his own hands. He was lucky it hadn't dropped in his distraction. She put three fat loaves on it now, squeezing them beside his bowls. The edge of her hand brushed his thumb as she did this and he really did almost drop the tray. A tremor went through him, but he heard her gasp. Saw the way she took a hasty step back and turned around.

He was taking the stairs three at a time a moment later, and closed himself in his room with a shudder of relief.


Sasuke waited a few days before scooping his son up and marching down the hall to Naruto's room. He stood outside the door for a long time. The baby was quiet. Watching him excitedly. The boy knew what was happening and glanced at the door every few seconds.

A deep breath, and then Sasuke was opening the door.

Naruto was just climbing in the window, snow crusted on his clothes. He took one look at the fur-wrapped bundle in Sasuke's arms and said, "Get out."

Sasuke closed the door behind himself and leaned against it. "You can't keep ignoring him. He's your son t-"

Naruto had turned his back the second he was in the room, but now the rage he'd been holed up with broke free. He bent and threw the bed with such force that the entire thing shattered against his door. He wasn't done. Picked up the nightstand and hurled that too. And the firewood. And the chair. When there was nothing left, he screamed at the top of his lungs, feeling his eyes jitter in their sockets with the force of it. And then he leaped out the window again, eager to find an outlet for the adrenaline roiling through him.

Sasuke stood in the hall, listening to the human cyclone that was Naruto destroy the room. The scream had him putting a protective hand to his son's head, but the boy appeared to be listening with him. Attentively. When there was nothing but silence from the other side of the door, he pouted. Whimpered. Then opened his mouth and cried. Sasuke went back to his room. He didn't approach Naruto after that.


Hinata waited a week, but thereafter she never ran into Naruto again. She presumed he made his kitchen forays while she and Sasuke slept. She never saw much of Sasuke either, actually. They both avoided her. Which, in light of things, she supposed was good.

She hadn't noticed it as much with Sasuke. Passed it off as anger. Even laboring under heightened emotions as she was, though, this much anger wasn't like her. And always, she felt it around Sasuke. He only had to look at her for her to entertain thoughts of clawing his face off. The violence of the images terrified her, but not as much as realizing that it wasn't really anger she was feeling. There was some, but the majority of the rage she felt around Sasuke was frustration. Physical…frustration.

Alone in her room, sitting on the edge of her bed, she swallowed.

Horrifying didn't begin to describe the knowledge that she lusted after Sasuke. Yet even this paled in comparison to what happened when she was around Naruto. She'd gone over her reaction to him that time she was in his room, but could find no explanation. It hadn't been nerves, as she'd originally suspected, or fear.

That evening in the kitchen, when she'd straightened from the oven to find Naruto at the stove, she couldn't breathe. She felt as if his body pulled her across the room. And when he turned, when he pinned her with those eyes, she'd felt herself swell and moisten in utterly unmentionable places and thought she would die of need. And then! Torturing herself, she'd gone closer to him. Saw the way he was just as affected by her. Had known that this was the Sasuke thing times ten. And that she was dangerously close to doing almost exactly what had been done to her in a different kitchen.

It was this that had allowed her to regain some semblance of control. To turn away. Thankfully, Naruto had gone and left her to stumble to her room.

She wasn't sure if it was the baby or the way her body was reacting to the pregnancy, but whatever the cause, she was in danger of…succumbing.

As much as possible she tried not to think of her condition, but since that day she'd been forced to. Forced to go farther and think of how the pregnancy had come about. Naruto's body had been swimming in chakra that day, both his own and Kyuubi's. She had to believe that whatever power Naruto's own pregnancy exhibited had also been a factor; hers was no ordinary gestation. Aside from the enhanced strength, and greater stamina, she was self-healing. And no matter what room of the house Sasuke and his son were in, she could feel the child's exact location.

She suspected that her body was reacting to whatever pheromones Sasuke and Naruto gave off. It was strong with Sasuke, but she could resist. With Naruto, it was almost impossible. Another face-to-face with him might end with her panting beneath him. And the only reason she could come up with for why this should be so was that it was Naruto's child in her. There had to be some connection.

He bit you.

That thought had her opening her eyes again. Naruto had bitten her, but she wasn't sure that was the cause. The possibility that part of Kyuubi's chakra resided in and was influencing her…that sounded more plausible. She had no idea. It could be all of those things. Baby, bite, and Kyuubi. Or none of them. Maybe she was losing her mind.

There was one thing she did know, and it was that Naruto was right. She had to leave. If not to keep herself from reenacting some form of Naruto's Kyuubi state, then certainly before her condition was known to Naruto.

Her bag sat packed by her door. She passed it as she stood just outside her room, listening to the house. It was silent.

She'd promised never to lie to him again, but she wasn't telling him about the baby. It was lying by omission, but she couldn't. She could, however, say goodbye. She could withstand the minute in his presence it would take to do this, but she hesitated. It made no sense for her to go within twenty feet of Naruto in light of the strange attraction between them. And all signs pointed to him not caring one way or the other that she was leaving.

Tears were a constant thing for her these days. They came now, and she put her face in her hands.

She loved them both. As miserable as that made her, she couldn't deny it. Even as hideous as they both were at the moment, with Sasuke reverting to the full hatred he'd had for her before the Jounin exams, she loved them. Not as friends, or as people she'd survived horrors with. As men. For their complexities and devotion and nobility. Even when they were stupid and stubborn and enraged her to the point of madness, she loved them. She wanted to stay. And that was another reason why she had to go. Perhaps the most compelling reason.

No goodbyes.

She hefted her bag, closed her door, and left the house.


Not ten feet from the porch a hand on her arm had her whirling on a shriek.

"The fuck, it's me," Naruto said.

She couldn't see his face through the fur of his hood, but she sensed him looking at her bag. "You scared me." A shudder of displaced adrenaline worked through her.

"Where you going?"

"Nowhere."

"Lies."

"No."

"Bag."

She stared at him, willing him to go inside and leave her alone.

Naruto had other ideas. "Get inside." He reached for her arm again.

The weather was severe. A low-grade snowstorm had been blowing since the day before, but she was finding out that her body remained warm regardless. She didn't need to go indoors, and she wasn't about to have a confrontation with him. "Let go of me."

Ignoring her, Naruto countered her strength by using his own. He dragged her in despite her resistance, which, if she was honest, wasn't much. He was shoving his hood back and yanking down his scarf by the time she turned around, ready to argue her way out of this.

God, he was beautiful.

His hair was getting long again, almost obscuring the V of his brows. She got lost in the angry blue of his eyes so that she almost missed what he was saying.

"-know I told you to leave," he ranted, "but seriously? You're just walking out in the middle of a storm to get lost and frozen in the snow? Food for some bear?" He snatched her bag off her back, breaking one of the straps. "And you hardly have any food in here. You telling me you plan to hunt and travel at the same time? Because you'd need to travel non-stop to make it south before you died of-"

She snatched her bag back from him, successfully breaking the other strap. "Nothing I do is any concern of yours," she snapped. "You made that perfectly clear. I'm dead to you, so…oh…"

He'd stepped up close to her in his anger, towering over her, but the minute he did, that heat surged up in her with frightening speed. Her limbs turned molten.

Naruto gasped against her face, his nose nearly touching hers as he suffered the same affliction. He had to lean a hand against the wall by her head for support. His breath washed her face. "What is this?" he said. His voice was strained. "What are you doing to me?"

She tried to step around him, keen to get outside, but he stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. The moment he touched her, she felt as if her body dissolved in a conflagration desire. The need

Naruto felt every atom of her body call to him. Her smell. The feel of her, even through the layers of her clothing. His hand was on fire where it held her shoulder. The heat spread throughout the rest of him in debilitating waves. Overpowering his senses, drawing his attention to her parted lips and the way she gave a soft, grunting moan of pure lust.

His dick was so hard it hurt.

This made him blink. Made him drag his mind back from the edge with brute force. He had to push himself away from her. Once he did, he turned around and walked off a few steps. "The hell," he said in a shaking voice. "The hell was that? Was that what happened before, in the kitchen? Not when I was getting food," he waved an unsteady hand, then switched to squeezing his dick through his pants. "Before. The first time. When I hurt you."

She needed several tries before she could wet her mouth and speak. "No." She could barely stand. The wall held her up more than her legs did. "No."

"No." He turned around. Glanced at her warily. "It's not, I remember. But this isn't me either, so what the hell is it?" His eyes widened. "Is it you?"

"No, I-"

"It is," he whispered, turning so that he faced her fully. "I thought it was guilt on my part. Shame. But this is totally physical." His head cocked sideways, eyes narrowed, as he looked her over from head to toe. "You're pulling me. I can feel it. In my skin. Deeper. Something…you…how are you doing that? Why?"

He studied her face. Her wide eyes and flushed skin said she knew exactly what he was talking about, but he didn't see how someone could generate such a wealth of lust in someone else on demand. Deliberately. And yet, she was behaving as if it was as unwelcome for her as it was for him. She was edging sideways, toward where her bag lay on the floor, and he swore his body turned with her. Locked on hers like a beacon. One that pulsed in time to his thundering heart, and kept his dick hard though he still had a hand on it. He was all but throttling the thing through his clothing. The way his body was so attuned to hers reminded him of the… "No."

She glanced over at hearing him hiss that word, sure he was trying to stop her again, but he wasn't looking at her. His gaze was focused inward. She snagged one broken strap, made it to the door, and was just breathing a sigh of relief when he said, "Tell me it isn't true. Lie to me about that."

The door was open. Blessedly icy wind cooled her cheeks. Freedom was in the sharp smell of ozone on that wind, in the flecks of ice that hit her face, but she heard him walk up behind her, and squealed when he reached past her shoulder and slammed the door shut. Even this proximity had her leaning her forehead against the door in weakness.

He stayed there, standing at her back. Breathing in long, deep breaths of his own struggle at being so near her. "Is. It. True," he bit out.

A small sound left her; she was going to attack him. There would be no stopping it. No way to control herself. And she wasn't sure Naruto would be able to step away a second time.

Light swelled behind them, accompanied by footsteps thumping down the stairs. "What's going on here?" Sasuke held his lantern high to see them. "I heard noises."

Naruto braced himself before turning around, but there was no sign of the kid. He and Sasuke's eyes met. Held a moment, conveying a wealth of hurt and resentment, before Naruto stepped away from Hinata and drew what felt like his first breath in ages. "She's leaving, that's what."

He watched Sasuke carefully as he came another step into the room. Saw the way his eyes ran up and down Hinata's body quickly, before they flicked in his direction and skipped away.

"Oh," Sasuke said. "Good. I mean, if she wants to, if she thinks that's best, let her." He realized what he was saying and drew himself up straighter. "Never wanted her here in the first place."

Naruto smirked, but he wasn't amused. Far from it. "That's…just…fascinating."

"So you're talking to me now?"

"How long have you known? Lied about this too, I see. At the very least you both kept it from me. Oh, you're happy to see the back of her, neh? What, scared I'll fuck her again? Or do you not want me finding out."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Sasuke said.

"Really?" Naruto folded his arms. "Your face says otherwise."

"I'm sure I don't-"

"I can feel it in her, asshole." He waited. "What. No more lies now?"

Sasuke studied the ugly look of hatred on Naruto's face, before he set the lantern on the floor and folded his arms in turn. "Wasn't my business to tell, just like the rape wasn't my business to tell. Both times, Hinata made it abundantly clear how she felt about you knowing anything."

At this, they both turned to Hinata. She straightened against the door, somewhat stronger now that Naruto was no longer so close, and met their stares with a toss of her bangs. "I don't owe anyone an explanation," she said quietly. "I came here to help Naruto, and I have. He's back on his feet, obviously recovered, so I'm taking advice that was given to me and going my own way. As far as I'm concerned, nothing's changed. I don't belong here anymore."

"Except you're carrying my kid," Naruto said just as quietly. Saying it out loud had his insides doing a slow, dizzying roll. "You can't just walk out."

A rush of emotion swamped her at hearing Naruto claim the baby, but she swallowed past it. "Watch me."

Naruto took a moment to order his thoughts before letting his hands drop. He hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his pants. "Okay. I was shitty to you before. But Hinata…" He bent forward a bit. Stared at his feet and shook his head. "I meant what I said, but things have changed. You can't just disappear into the night with my kid-"

"It's not your kid!" she screamed. "It's mine! My problem, my burden, my baby! You don't have a say in it. You weren't even there when it happened. Like you said, it was an accident. Something I can't even forgive you for, so where do you get off claiming something you don't even have the balls to talk about with me? You brushed it off! Well, now you can brush this off. It's not yours. I'm leaving. And if you try to come after me, I will fuck…you…up!" She bit her lip after that, as if she wanted to take that last part back. In the end, she jerked her bag into her arms and slammed out of the house.

Naruto, once he'd blinked the worst of his shock away, tore after her.

Sasuke stared at where their snowy footprints were melting. He didn't have long to wait.

Naruto came back less than twenty minutes later, almost completely covered in ice and snow. "She's too fast," he said as he leaned on the door to close it. "Fucking hell, she's got Kyuubi's shit cooking in her almost as hard as it was in me. Fuck!" He coughed a few times, expelling the frozen air in his lungs, before he turned and found him. "I have to go after her. I can still feel her, but it's getting faint. At this rate she'll be off the continent by morning. Hurry up!" Naruto made as if to sprint past him.

Sasuke checked him by shifting so that his body blocked the doorway.

"What do you think you're doing?" Naruto said. "You're not stopping me from going."

"I don't see why you have to go. She made her decision, didn't she? What does it have to do with you?"

Naruto stepped back. He didn't need Sasuke's narrowed eyes or folded arms to know he was pissed. He could very well feel the strength of Sasuke's rage from across the room. True, the last time he'd seen Sasuke he'd thrown furniture at him, but he rather thought that this transcended any beef between them. Still, if they were going to finally have this out and address their issues, he wanted to be calm and clear in the head. Not in the process of going after someone. "Look," he said, striving for calm. "I know we have our issues to deal with, but they have to wait. We can't let her just go off on her own like this."

"Seems you told her to leave."

"That was before I knew!"

"So you want her to stay because she's pregnant?"

"What are you, stupid? Yes!"

Sasuke tipped his head. The frown between his brows said that he was genuinely confused. "Why?"

Naruto stared at him. "Are we seriously doing this right now?"

Sasuke only continued to look at him.

"Fine." He ran a hand through his hair, half turning around to run his eyes over the rest of the room. "Why do I want her to stay? Because it's my kid."

"And what. You want to be a father to it? Become a happy family with her? Because it didn't sound like she wanted that."

Naruto threw a narrowed glare of his own. "That's what you're thinking? That I want to be a father to it?"

"I'm thinking you're willing to accept her kid but not ours. Ready to brave the elements despite not being fully recovered in order to bring her back to the safety of your side. You won't even look at our son."

Naruto filled his lungs in one slow breath. "Whether or not I want either of them isn't even a question because I've got them anyway. I am their father, regardless to if I accept it or not. But this isn't about that. This is about my kid in her. Mine. As in it's already doing some freaky shit. And I can see by your face now that you're aware. So tell me this. Do you really think it's wise for her to go off into the sunset carrying a kid who might raise the same kind of hell ours did? Don't you think that might draw attention to her? People know she was with us, so I have to figure somebody out there will put two and two together and guess who the daddy is. Which means she'll be a target. Alone. No support system like I had."

That was a different matter entirely, Sasuke thought. "Still. She's not dense, she has to know what might happen regarding the pregnancy. And yours was as bad as it was because you're a man. She's a woman. Has all the right equipment. It won't be the same."

Naruto took a step closer to him. "Mine was as bad as it was because that shit had powers. Abilities, stuff he was doing that complicated things even more. The fact that he had powers was what fucked my ass up. He drained the life out of me, Sasuke-"

"Because your body didn't have what he needed. Hers does."

"Because he was powerful!" Naruto yelled.

"So-"

"It made me want her. The kid she's carrying? It made me want to fuck her just now. Every time I'm around her, in fact. What if that happens to every guy she comes across? What if a bunch of men try to r-" He paused, pinched the bridge of his nose. Went on in a quieter voice. "What is the point of us suffering out here if we're just going to let her go off on her own? Don't you think people will want her kid too? If that's the case, I might as well go back to Konoha. That's what I'm trying to say."

Sasuke looked away. If he said he'd been feeling horny around Hinata too of late Naruto would disappear out the door and that would be that. The wedge between them would become an impassable chasm and they would be over. Now, while he had him talking, was the time to get to the bottom of this. "So this has nothing to do with paternal feelings you have. Once she delivers the kid, you'd let her leave? Assuming she could keep the kid out of someone's clutches?"

Naruto blinked. "I don't know. For fuck's sake, I just found out about it."

"And that right there is my problem. Even 'I don't know' is more than you're giving our kid. You're willing to chase after Hinata to keep her safe, I assume because you care about her. But me? You want nothing to do with me."

"Man, please. Spare me the-"

"Are we together?"

"-melodr… What?"

"Are. We. Together."

The steady, almost lifeless tone Sasuke used gave him a chill. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I think the question explains itself. Are you with me or not? Do you want to be with me, or are we now separate entities?"

"Wha… I… The fuck do you-"

"Do you ever plan to accept him? Really. I want the truth."

This was why he was so pissed at Sasuke. One of the reasons, anyway. Guy had always been stuck on the idea of this kid. Had talked him into having it. Snatched him away from the cabin. Stashed him in this frozen hell until he'd died. And now that he had his precious son, he didn't seem to care what all it had done to him, Naruto. "Didn't I just say that I got him regardless to if I want him?"

"What you said was that you've sired him. That's pretty much what that statement meant to me. You know that's not what I'm asking so I'm still waiting for an answer."

He found himself considering it. Actually considering if he and Sasuke were over. Not a thought he would have been capable of voicing, even in his own mind, before remembering the rape. Hell, before then he and Sasuke had been good. Differences mended, connection reestablished. He ached for those few days they'd had, he really did, but now it was just another part of his anger. Everything was different now. The assault on Hinata was bad enough, but what he'd done to Sasuke… How Sasuke had let him do that, let himself be repeatedly brutalized without complaint…and for what? To protect Hinata? The little shit, maybe? He couldn't say he wouldn't have done everything in his power to protect her himself, if the tables were turned, but he would never have let the situation get that bad in the first place. Never. He felt like he wasn't a priority to Sasuke anymore. Dude was lying to him left and right, keeping things from him, and all he cared about was his shit of a kid. Here it was he'd fucking died, but the only thing on Sasuke's mind was whether or not he was going to play nice with the baby. Of course. Because, apparently, that was all that mattered. "As far as I'm concerned, that little shit doesn't exist," he said. "And as for if we're together? No. Doesn't look like we are."

Sasuke swallowed, but gave one long, slow nod while holding Naruto's eyes.

Naruto stared right back. Daring him to say something else. Almost wishing he would. Sasuke was always the one to say the difficult things that fixed shit between them whenever they fought, but not this time. This time all Sasuke did was pick up the lantern, turn, and head back up the stairs. He heard a door close somewhere up there and just let the tears come at last.

He didn't allow them for more than a few seconds. The space of time it took for him to suck in a deep breath. Then he was striding out the door again in pursuit of Hinata.


Over the next several days the storm worsened to such a point that even going outside to answer nature calls was impossible. The one time Sasuke managed to make it to the roof he beheld the weather run amok: snow, wind, and ice howled across the landscape with such ferocity that the little skin he had exposed around his eyes was burned raw. When he went inside his clothes were solid ice. Moreover, the house was completely snowed in. For better or worse, they were buried.

At the end of a week, Sasuke looked around his room. All his belongings were stuffed into three huge seal skin packs. The baby's few things took up another. He was ready to go as soon as the weather permitted. God only knew when that would be, he thought.

For now, he went to his son. The boy was swaddled in some kind of one-piece thing Hinata had made from a polar bear's hide. It had sleeves and a hood, but no feet. The boy was one large bundle, black hair peeking around the edges of the hood's white fur. "Hey, you."

A squeal in greeting.

He picked him up in his basket and sat with him in front of the fireplace. "Want to talk to you about your dad for a sec." He stopped there, thinking. No matter how much his son understood, he was still a baby. He had an idea that children shouldn't be exposed to adult concepts. Furthermore, he seemed to recall that his son hadn't understood the mature thoughts he'd sent to him before he'd been born. Still, the boy was powerful. And in the interest of preventing him from using those powers again out of fear or confusion he opted for the truth.

"I love your dad," he said. He paused to give a quick smile in response to the boy's chirp of happiness. "I do. Even after everything, most of me still loves him. But things aren't the same. He doesn't want to be with me, and…" He hesitated again, meeting his son's eyes. "He's not ready to meet you. Oh, don't. Please." He awkwardly rubbed the boy's chest as the baby's eyes filled with tears. His little mouth pouted and quivered. Sasuke rushed to say the rest. "He might be ready one day, or he might never be ready. Doesn't matter—well, it does—but I love you, is what I'm trying to say. You'll always have me. All right?"

Two fat tears slowly rolled down the baby's pudgy cheeks, one after the other. His face squeezed up as if he was about to cry in earnest, but he didn't. He took a breath that shook his body, and looked up at Sasuke.

Sasuke scowled in anguish. "Hate seeing you in pain. Babies shouldn't feel pain. But your dad's changed. Pregnancy really fucked him up. Fucked us all up, but that's not your fault. None of this is. It just…happened." Still holding that tearful gaze, he said the next part carefully. "We have to go. Okay? And when we do, you can't come back here. To him. Remember what I said before? After you helped your dad? How you couldn't do that again, just disappear to his side? Well this is the same thing. When we leave you can't come back here to him."

A shivering wail that made more tears fall, but the boy was quiet again as Sasuke went on.

"We have to. This is no place for a baby, and there are now two people out there in the world who know where we are. The potential for discovery is high. And your dad…I don't want you to ever feel rejection from a parent. Family is everything. It's precious. I'm not going to stay here and watch him hurt you. But never mind about him. If he wants us-" His own tears surprised him. Rose up to burst out of him with no warning at all. This set his son screaming at long last. Sasuke rocked forward and put his head on the basket, completely and utterly torn. He could feel the boy kicking in his one-piece, bawling in grief.

But you don't know him, he thought. You don't know Naruto like I do, you have no idea what we've lost.

It was an effort. A big one, but he dragged himself up and braced his weight on his palms, leaning over the basket. He and his son were a mess of snot and tears, but again they regarded each other. "If he wants us, he'll find us. But we're going. Soon as the storm passes and my clones get back."

They were running low on milk. He'd sent two clones out for more days ago. Plenty of time to go and get back under ordinary circumstances. He was sure the storm was delaying them, but if they didn't make it back soon, he was in trouble. He had precisely one sack of powdered milk left once the sack he was currently using finished. At twenty pounds a sack, that gave him maybe two weeks' worth of bottles. Maybe. The boy ate more and more each day.

"Storm has to give out some time," he muttered, hefting his son. "And the clones have to make it back before we're out of milk. All there is to it." He slipped the baby into a front-carrying sling Hinata had also made, scrubbed his hands down his cheeks, then went to the kitchen to see about some lunch.


For a good two or three days he felt good about what he'd told Sasuke. He was done. They were done. Too much had changed. He'd lost too much. Lost everything, really. He didn't want to piece together some parody of what he'd had with Sasuke before; he wanted his old life back, just the way it had been.

This was something that occupied most of his waking hours for the simple fact that he had a sneaking suspicion that it was impossible. Forget the fact that he'd left Konoha. He could always go back. Or that Granny wasn't Hokage anymore. She could be reinstated. Even the fact that she'd betrayed him could be gotten around…in time. That shit was all real, but not insurmountable. It was him. He himself was different. He couldn't find a single thing about himself in keeping with who he'd been prior to Sasuke coming home with those scrolls. Not one thing. He didn't feel the same. Didn't even think the same, if his ongoing fury was any indication. Fuck, he didn't even have Kyuubi anymore…and that particular loss affected him a lot more than he wanted to admit. He hadn't known about the thing for most of his life, true, but he'd always been strong. Powerful. A lot of the respect he'd earned from people came from deeds he'd done. And those deeds wouldn't have been possible if not for Kyuubi. The demon was part of his identity. Now he was nothing. A missing-nin. An outcast. Rapist. And weak. There hadn't been a hope of him catching Hinata. She'd been long gone when he tried to pick up her trail, and he'd barely made it back to the house.

He remembered falling into the main room and coughing until he was dizzy. Then he'd stood in front of the fireplace, thawing out and catching his breath, as this latest development really registered with him. He'd gone perfectly still.

As if discovering what he'd done to Hinata wasn't bad enough, he'd gotten her pregnant. A kid. Another kid. That was forever, assuming the thing lived. No getting over that, or forgetting and moving on. She'd be a mother. Her life would be…not over, but definitely not free. All he'd ever wanted was to return just half of the respect and honor she'd always given him. Instead, he'd hurt her at every turn. That. That moment right there was when he'd just stopped feeling. Everything in him just stopped. Even his anger.

What was that, a week ago? Didn't know. Didn't care. He spent all day either in bed or in his chair. Right now it was the chair.

He'd died…and woken up to this hell. This nightmare that just wouldn't end. So no, he didn't want Sasuke, who was also unrecognizable. Or the kid, who was likely an abomination. Come to think of it, he didn't care what happened to Hinata either, or whatever hellspawn she was carrying. Fuck him up, would she? Bitch could drop dead somewhere. He was so fucking done with everything.

He waited a few minutes to see if he'd feel some kind of remorse for these thoughts. The old him would have. The old him wouldn't have even had these thoughts. The new him felt nothing but indifference. And the need for another nap.

-oOo-

Through what he considered to be sense on Sasuke's part, and blind luck on his own, he never ran into the guy whenever he went looking for food. He knew Sasuke was still in the house. Could feel him. Heard noises from time to time. Once, a couple days ago, he even heard the little shit crying. That had paralyzed him where he'd been pacing his room. First time he'd ever heard him. Made his blood run cold, and his muscles all cramp. Thankfully, the crying was brief and hadn't been repeated. But for all intents he might as well have been alone.

He cooked, ate, and used their squalid bathroom all without incident. Didn't even hurt anymore, that he and Sasuke were over. Seemed everything he'd thought immutable about his life turned out to be nothing more than dust on the wind. Now he munched a handful of raisins as he trudged back to his room, and thought that he was becoming as frozen as the rest of this place. Which was fine by him. He sensed that if he deviated from the linear road of apathy he was on, if he ever turned that corner in his mind, the grief of losing so much would eat him alive. And, in his present condition, probably finish him. He had nothing left. No more fight, no more will. Just nothing.

He brought his hand to his mouth to eat a few more raisins and stopped. Stared at his hand. It occurred to him that he didn't have to go through this. That he could die. Really die. He could do it. There was no Kyuubi to foil the attempt and the kid was nowhere around. He could go out into the snow, far away, and just…be over. Everything would be over. Would be better. All things considered, it was probably the only way to fix all the things that he'd done wrong.

The thought made his heart pound. He wasn't sure if it was excitement or fear, but it was something. More than he'd been feeling, for sure. The knowledge that he didn't have to face years of this hell was welcome. Comforting. And then he leaned over and threw up.


This is bullshit. I'm an elite ninja, Sasuke thought. He watched the amount of powdered milk dwindle to three-quarters of a sack, then half a sack, and still no sign of his clones.

It was incomprehensible to him that the simple elements of nature could defeat him. He could and did infuse every fire he lit in the fireplaces with chakra so that they burned hot enough to warm the rooms. He further kept himself warm by manipulating the fire-based chakra in his own body. But the amount of chakra he'd needed to melt the snow around their house had shocked him. The sheer force of the wind and the level of cold had necessitated more than simple chakra manipulation. Weather had to be sixty below zero, with a wind chill somewhere in the tenth level of Hell. Worse, the ice and snow had frozen again even as he was melting it. A phenomenon he'd had trouble believing despite looking right at it. Nor did the wind just ebb and flow. It blew with a steady, constant strength that only increased from time to time instead of lessened. And despite having seven hours of daylight now, the cold and ice remained unchanged. By the time he'd made it back inside, again frozen solid despite his chakra, he was winded.

He sank to the balls of his feet and tried to think. He could go harder, he supposed. Really let loose his chakra, but to what end? So he could blow up the fucking house? And what if he had to travel in this madness…was he going to use Amaterasu? Seriously? Ridiculous. He would not believe some snow and ice could defeat him like this.

Yet when another week crawled by, with no change in their circumstances, he was forced to look at this fact. Especially when he felt his clones disperse. He created a clone there in the house, and addressed both it and his son as he tugged on as many clothes as possible.

"There's a week of milk left." They gazed at him solemnly, listening. "If I don't leave now, I won't have time to get to my clones' last location and back before it runs out. Clones gave out a hundred and ten miles from here. Means the range of this storm is huge, means I have a ways to go. But it's twenty-five sacks," he said bracingly. "That's a good six months of milk." Done dressing, he turned to the clone and lowered his voice. "I don't think he'll come down for anything but food, but you be careful just in case. Don't get seen. Don't let him be seen." He tipped his head at the basket. "Best time to hit the kitchen is early morning and early evening, so make extra bottles whenever you do. Feed him every two hours, change him every three. He might want to eat sooner than two hours. Feed him. He might take a shit right after you've changed him. Change him again. You keep him fed, you keep him dry. You keep him out of sight, but don't let him out of your sight. Not for a second. Got it?"

The clone gave a grave nod.

Sasuke hunkered down at the basket. "Remember what I said? No going up there. Not for any reason. Understand?"

His son cooed, eyes round.

"Good. Good boy. You stay with the clone. He'll feed you and keep you safe. Okay." He stroked the baby's hair a moment. "I'll be back as soon as I can. Five days. Okay?" He looked at his son and the clone both. "Five days tops."

He left.

The clone stared at the basket. It had Sasuke's knowledge so it already knew the changing and feeding schedule, as well as how to mix the milk. By its calculations, the boy would be due for a feeding in twenty minutes. Picking up the basket, it went to the kitchen.


Things went off without a hitch for three days. Feed the boy, change the boy. Clockwork. Boy slept ten hours a night, waking twice to be fed. Took a couple of two or three hour naps a day. A set routine, easy to follow. Boy never made a sound. Only watched him. It watched the boy back. No encounters with Naruto, ever. Kept the place warm, kept its sword in hand whenever it wasn't holding the boy. Two days to go.

But then on that fourth day it was in the kitchen. Boy was in his basket, on the table. It thought it heard a sound behind the constant scream of the wind, but it couldn't be sure. Feeding time, anyway. Priorities. It turned from filling one of the bottles at the stove to pour the rest of the milk into the bottles it had sitting at the sink. There was a window above the sink. Shuttered. Fur curtains over the shutters. This fur moved. Fluttered. That fur never moved.

It went perfectly still.

If the movement were wind, this would be felt entering the room. Not wind, then. Something. Something was there behind the curtain.

It turned, dropping the saucepan of milk, to snatch up its sword where it was resting beside the basket. Even as it kept an eye on the curtain. Even as it saw a snarling nightmare of teeth and claws smash through the shutters and curtain both, leaping into the room.

Two seconds.

It had time to see the tunnel the polar bear had dug from the surface of snow covering the house to the window. Time to remember that these particular bears had a keen sense of smell and had likely sniffed them out. Time to register that this thing probably hadn't eaten in who knew how long. They were nothing but walking protein to the bear.

And time to set his stance before the boy, sword raised and crackling with chakra. Time to send a katon of wild proportions at the bear, mindful to direct any flames away from the boy. Time to swing its sword once as the bear came right through the flames. Time to feel the biting wind sweep down that tunnel now that the bear's body wasn't blocking it, but it was two seconds. The bear crashed into it, it shoved back, and then it felt the sensation of disbursement. Shit.

-oOo-

The bear howled, fur blazing. One eye was gone behind the downward stroke of that sword. It rolled around in a frenzy of pain, causing the table to skid on its legs to the far wall, but nearly everything else was destroyed.

At length its pain lessened. The man was no more, it saw upon getting to its feet. It smelled another somewhere above it but there was a cub much closer.

-oOo-

He was scared. The feeder was gone, he knew that. There was a lot of noise for a while, and fire-smell. All he wanted was his feeder and his bottle until his person came back. But that wasn't his person putting its paws on the table to look at him. It was something with smoking fur, half a face, and long, sharp-


Naruto woke with a grunt of fright. Some sound had snatched him out of a deep sleep. He could still feel the fuzz of slumber at the edges of his mind, giving him a headache, but most of him was wide-awake. He realized he was standing on his mattress. Saw Rasengan in his hand and clenched his fist to release it.

He took a step that put him in the middle of his room and listened. Nothing. No sound but the wind. Maybe Sasuke had dropped something? That was probably it…until he felt a gust of wind sweep into the room from under his door. That had him frowning. Snowed in as they were, no wind ever made it into the house. He stood there for the next ten minutes as the feel of wind lessened until it was nothing.

Whatever was going on outside his door Sasuke probably had under control. He neither heard nor sensed a threat, and he was cold. His bed was calling him.

When he woke up hours later he went directly to the extra food he'd brought up on his last kitchen run. Enough to last another day maybe. Plenty of firewood, thanks to all his broken furniture. No need to leave his room for a while. He heated his tin plate of mush on the flames and dug in.

Nothing to do after that. He didn't feel like the chair today. Crawled back to bed and disappeared beneath the blankets.

-oOo-

On his really lazy days he didn't bother with the bathroom. Just pissed into his fireplace. He was trudging back to bed after doing this when a sound had him whipping his head toward his door. His days were always so silent that any sound was bound to catch his attention, but this sound…

It was the little shit. Crying. Really wailing, actually. He'd rarely heard him. It was always faint if he did. Gone quickly. He could essentially pretend that he'd heard nothing. But this was ridiculous. Kid was screaming down the fucking roof.

He dismissed it. Jerked his blanket off the bed so that he could use it in the chair. Sasuke would handle it the way he always did and shut the shitter up.

But there he was wrong. That howling went on for the rest of the day, and into the night, as if the kid wasn't even human. Seriously, he never stopped to rest or catch his breath or, apparently, to sleep. He took perverse pleasure in ignoring it. Or trying to. He was sure this was some stunt engineered to make him give a damn. Which wasn't going to happen. He slept without a care in the world.

Until a second day of that screaming greeted him. Sasuke was really pushing it. And he was out of food. Due for a kitchen run. But if Sasuke had the shit down there doing his performance-

He was across the room, wrenching open his door. Enough was enough. "Sasuke, dammit!"

The screaming stopped at once.

He was past caring, storming to Sasuke's room to throw open the door. He didn't actually know which room was his, as evidenced by the light scent that hit his nose. He banged open another door. This room smelled like Sasuke but the bastard wasn't here either. What was present was a bunch of packed bags. There was a clothesline strung across the width of the room with what he thought were cloth diapers hanging from it. He stared at the bags. One of them was open. A tiny sleeve dangled from the top.

Another cry had him slowly backing out of the room.

-oOo-

His careful descent down the stairs reminded him of the night he'd had the little shit. No pain this time, but a wealth of dread. By now he could sense that Sasuke wasn't, in fact, in the house. Which meant he'd left the shit for him to deal with. And he would, so help him. Past time this was over. Thing probably wasn't human, not with the way it had eaten Kyuubi.

Downstairs was notably colder than upstairs. And it stank. Moving cautiously, he crossed the main room. Toward the kitchen. He stopped before he was halfway; there was a bear lying in the doorway. He crept closer, setting his lantern down as he scrutinized the scene.

Carcass nearly reached the lintel, even laid out as it was. Clearly this was the source of the smell, but it wasn't decomposing. He bent to it. The front half of the body was burned to a misshapen mess. Unmistakable recipient of a lightning attack, if the lingering stench of ozone was any indication.

Another cry. Short one this time.

And it occurred to him then that Sasuke wouldn't have left without his bags. Nor would he have left without the love of his life, that screaming little shit.

Adrenaline had him hooking a hand into the fur and hauling the body out of the doorway with one yank. "Sasuke?"

Nothing. He hadn't really expected a reply. Nor did he approach the now empty doorway. He stood for a long time listening to the silence of the house. Staring at that doorway. Knowing that someone was listening for him too. Knowing exactly who that someone was.

There was a sound at last. From the kitchen. A little hum of fear. There and gone.

Clenching his jaw, he put one foot in front of the other and shuffled toward that sound.

He didn't go through the doorway—he stood to one side of it and leaned his forehead against the jamb. Stayed that way, nails digging into the stone. Another sound. Weird. Like a small grunt of greed. He took a deep breath. One more. Then one more, and realized that he was hyperventilating. Made himself stop. Ended up holding his breath. Cold. Shaking like a leaf. Squeezed his face up then finally, finally took a look. Just one eye around the jamb.

His gaze bypassed the mess in the kitchen to zero in on the basket on the table. Even as he watched, two short, pudgy arms rose up from inside, little hands opening and closing. He ducked back out of sight on a shudder.

Then he was looking again. Hands were still there. By the dull glow of his lantern he could see little dimples on each tiny knuckle. After several minutes of staring, he eased his way around the jamb and entered the kitchen.

Each careful step brought him a little closer to the basket, which wobbled at his approach. As if the kid was kicking in anticipation. The arms were revealed more and more with each step. Before he was quite ready, the forearms were visible. Then the elbows. He stopped there. Now he could see part of the quivering bundle that made up the kid's body. Another step would reveal the interior of the basket entirely.

The hands and arms were still held up, but now motionless. Not a sound emanated from either him or the basket. This little shit ruined my life.

He noted that his heart was pounding, but he wet his lips, took a breath…and took that final step.