Patience is a virtue

A/N: This is a little something I found buried deep in the recesses of my computer. I have absolutely no idea why I started it. I think it was supposed to be a chapter fic, but I have no idea what I had planned for it. So it is now a one shot. Enjoy.

Warnings: uh…beware five-year-old Itachi. He's a little on the crazy side.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, but I do own my OC Sayuri, the medic nin.

The Waiting Room

Patience is a virtue. A virtue that one Uchiha Fugaku obviously did not have. The man's right brow was currently twitching as he watched his five-year-old son, Itachi, race around the waiting room in the hospital. They'd been there for a few hours now and Fugaku was surprised he hadn't lost his temper with the little boy yet. After all, as mentioned above, patience was a virtue that Uchiha Fugaku did not have.

"Chichiue! Chichiue!" Little Itachi ran up to his father and began pulling on the man's sleeve. "Chichiue, I'm hungry!" Fugaku let out an annoyed sigh, telling himself to remain calm. He was not going to lose his temper, especially not in public like this. Sure there weren't that many other people in the waiting room, but they were still there. Itachi continued to tug on Fugaku's sleeve and whine.

"I don't have any food, Itachi," he said irritably. "Now sit down and be quiet. You're driving me insane." Itachi crossed his arms and pouted, but climbed into the seat next to Fugaku anyway. After a few minutes of nothing but sitting, the raven-haired five-year-old got extremely bored. So he began swinging his legs back and forth, staring at them in absolute fascination.

Fugaku watched this out of the corner of his eye. He twitched. Why was it so hard for his son to sit still for more than five minutes? Was five minutes of quiet stillness too much to ask for? Growling, the man reached over and grabbed Itachi's legs, holding them still.

"Stop it," he hissed. Itachi glared.

"But I'm bored!" the little boy whined.

"I don't care, Itachi! Sit still and be quiet before I lose my mind!" He snapped. Little Itachi looked up at Fugaku with wide teary black eyes.

"I-I'm sorry Chichiue," he said, his voice shaky due to his unshed tears. Fugaku stared in horror at his child. No way in hell was Itachi going to start crying. No. Way. In. Hell. Itachi sniffed loudly, gaining the attention of the others in the waiting room. Fugaku felt dread take hold. Tears were now starting to fall down his five-year-old son's cheeks and the people around him were all giving him disapproving looks.

"How horrible, making a little boy cry like that!" one woman hissed to her husband. "Especially his own son!" Itachi was now wailing loud enough to wake the dead and other comments had joined the first woman's. Fugaku put his head in his hands. This was going to be a very long day.

Thirty minutes later found Fugaku walking sullenly behind Itachi, who was happily licking a huge ice-cream cone, a smile on his face. After five minutes of listening to the five-year-old's wailing and the comments around him, Fugaku had given in. He'd promptly stood up, grabbed Itachi, and made for the nearest ice-cream stand as fast as he could, which was pretty fast considering he was an elite ninja.

Finally collapsing into one of the hospital waiting room chairs, Fugaku leaned his head back and stared up at the ceiling. He slowly let his eyes slide closed. He would just shut them for a minute…

"AAAAAHHHHHHHH!" Fugaku jumped up from his seat and pulled out a kunai in two seconds flat, looking wildly around for the cause of the scream. His eyes landed on a furious and distressed looking woman, the same one who had been the first to make a comment about how cruel it was for him to make his little boy cry. Her dress was covered in ice cream. The Uchiha head's eyes shifted slightly to the right and found a guilty looking Itachi, hands clasped behind his back and staring at the ground. He sighed. How long did it take a baby to be born anyway? He wanted to go home so badly.

"You horrible little child!" the woman screeched. "How dare you ruin my beautiful dress! And to think I actually felt sorry for you earlier!" Itachi glanced up at her through his bangs.

"I said I was sorry!" The woman looked ready to smack him. So Fugaku strode over, took a firm hold of Itachi's small hand, and yanked him out of the woman's reach. He leveled her with a cool look and for a second, the woman's glare faltered, but she quickly regained herself and stood up tall.

"You owe me a new dress sir!" she exclaimed. Fugaku wondered if she was aware that even the two nurses who had just been passing through, no doubt on their way to do something important, had stopped to watch. "Are you listening to me sir?!" Fugaku took a deep breath in an effort to calm himself. This was really not his day.

"Ma'am, I am very sorry that my son spilt ice-cream all over your…beautiful dress." Now that he looked at it he was rather proud of Itachi for accidentally disposing of the horrid yellow-orange-pink thing. "But I'm not paying for it." The woman's eyes narrowed dangerously.

"Excuse me? Your son ruined my very expensive and favorite dress! You will pay me back!" By now the woman was shrieking. That thing was expensive? Fugaku thought, making a face at it. He shook his head in disbelief.

"Lady," he said firmly, "do you have any idea at all who I am?" The woman looked at him stiffly.

"No, should I?" Somebody in the room gasped and exclaimed, "You don't know?!" in a shocked voice. The woman glared at the man, effectively shutting him up, and then turned back to Fugaku. Everybody else in the room was staring at the woman with wide eyes and open mouths. How could this woman not know?

"Well?" she hissed irritably. Fugaku stood up as straight as he could so that he was looking down on the annoying woman.

"I am Uchiha Fugaku; head of the most powerful clan in Konohagakure no Sato!" Well, maybe not most powerful, seeing as there was still the Hyuuga, but whatever. Close enough. The woman's mouth dropped open in shock. She stared at him for a few moments before stammering an apology.

"I-I'm so s-sorry! I had no idea-I just-well-I…" she trailed off, her self confidence evaporating. Fugaku smirked. Another victory for Uchiha. He turned and sauntered back to his seat on the other side of the room, an awed Itachi following behind.

"Chichiue…" the boy began when they were both seated again, "That was AWSOME!" Fugaku smirked, relishing in the fact that his son was so impressed with his power over the weak. He reached over and patted the little raven on the head.

"Someday Itachi, you will be able to do it to. You will be able to tell of weird ladies who want you to buy ugly expensive dresses for them because your son ruined the one they were wearing." Itachi grinned.

"Sweet!"

Fugaku was proud to say a whole fifteen minutes went by without another incident. He was hopeful that they would make it through the rest of the day with no trouble. Unfortunately, he had to remind himself that this was Itachi he was dealing with. The child was a genius capable of thought and speech well beyond his years, but even so Itachi was still only five-years-old. And due to his high intelligence he was an extremely curious child with the bad habit of investigating anything that could hold his unusually large attention span, which was practically everything.

During the fifteen minutes in which no unfortunate incidents occurred, Fugaku had made the mistake of leaning back and closing his eyes for a bit of rest. Now, considering what happened the last time he closed his eyes, you would think he wouldn't make the same mistake twice, but well, he had a bit of learning curve that day.

While his father was leaning back and enjoying the quiet, Itachi had once again found himself bored out of his mind. So he had decided to take a little walk around the hospital in order to see what was there. He'd never been sick before and the last time he had been inside the hospital he'd been too little to really remember it. Besides, he'd only seen one room and one hallway, if he recalled correctly.

Itachi's little tour of the hospital eventually brought him to a room filled with all kinds of sharp pointy things. Being a future shinobi, Itachi, unlike civilian children, was not afraid of needles. In fact, he was rather…curious about them. So he walked slowly into the room, eyes wide with wonder. He stepped up to one of the tables, grabbed onto the edge, and managed to haul himself up on top of it. Lying on top of it was one of the biggest needles anybody had ever seen, aside from senbon, of course. And just at that moment, as Itachi stared in fascination at the large needle, the table began to tip.

Sayuri hated days like these where nothing exciting happened. All she really tended to do on days like these was run errands for Megumi-san and sit around doing nothing. It was boring to the extreme. She was a medic nin in training! She was supposed to be learning how to save the lives of ninja on the battlefield, not running from place to place doing things Megumi-san was too lazy to do herself! She absently took a left and began to drag her miserable self down the hallway, bemoaning her fate.

As she was passing by a room whose door was ajar, though it should have been closed, she heard a loud crash followed by the scream of a young child in pain. Panicking slightly (and happy that her day wasn't so dull anymore), Sayuri threw open the door and rushed inside. One of the tables in the room, the one that just so happened to hold lots of glass and the biggest needle she had ever seen, excluding senbon, was knocked over. Sitting in front of it, was a little boy, maybe five-years-old. The needle was stabbed through his right shoulder and blood covered his left hand.

"Son of a-!" Sayuri turned around and jumped slightly when she saw Uchiha Fugaku standing in the doorway, staring in horror at the boy. He suddenly pinned his gaze on her.

"Well?! Aren't you going to help my son?!" Sayuri mentally slapped herself and quickly rushed over to the little Uchiha. She knelt down in front of him, mindful of the broken glass, and began to gently pull the huge needle out of his shoulder. When it was removed, she gently set it down before sweeping the child into her arms and carrying him towards another room. She could sense Fugaku a step behind her.

Fugaku meanwhile was cursing his horrible luck. It figures Itachi would've found a room full of needles and decided to mess with the biggest one there. He wondered slightly what his wife would think when he told her everything that had transpired that day while she was in labor.

"There, all better!" Fugaku looked up. The female medic nin was patting a sniffling Itachi on the head and handing him a lollipop. He let out a relieved sigh.

"Thank you, miss," he said. The girl smiled up at him.

"No problem, Fugaku-sama." She picked Itachi up and held him out. Fugaku took hold of the boy and rested him on his hip.

"That'll teach you to go wondering off on your own like that, Itachi," he growled. Itachi sniffed.

"Sorry, Chichiue," he mumbled around his lollipop. Fugaku sighed. The medic nin looked slightly nervous now. He looked her down for a long moment, making her fidget.

"What's your name?" he asked, in no rush to get back to the waiting room. The sooner he went back, the sooner Itachi would be in trouble again. Besides, the medic nin seemed like a perfectly competent person to talk to for a while.

"Ah, Sayuri, Fugaku-sama. Ano…does Itachi-kun get into trouble often?" Sayuri leaned back against the counter. Perhaps her day wasn't turning out to be so bad.

"Unfortunately…" Fugaku muttered darkly, glaring in Itachi's direction out of the corner of his eye. Itachi, who had stopped crying by now, cocked his head to the side.

"Really?" Fugaku nodded.

"Like the time…"

When the nurse that had just entered the waiting room walked towards him and stopped in front of his chair, Fugaku nearly cried with relief. Talking with the medic nin, Sayuri, had actually been rather calming. The Uchiha head had found it nice to tell someone other than his wife or relatives of the horrors Itachi put him through on a regular basis. And Sayuri seemed perfectly content to listen and make the occasional comment here and there.

"Uchiha-san?" the nurse inquired. Fugaku stood.

"Yes?" she smiled.

"Congratulations! You are now the proud father of a baby boy!"

"WOOHOO!" Fugaku turned around, grabbed Itachi and swung him around a few times before bringing him in close and hugging him a little too tightly. "It's a boy! It's another boy! Just like I always wanted! WOOHOO!" Itachi blinked, feeling dazed.

"A...boy?" he asked quietly. Fugaku looked down at his son and smiled.

"You're a big brother now Itachi!" he exclaimed. A smile slowly slid across Itachi's face. He was a big brother now! Oh how he couldn't wait to teach his new little brother everything he knew! This was so awesome!

The nurse meanwhile, stood of to the side, smiling. It was always interesting to see the different reactions of the different parents. She felt kind of bad for the little boy though. Being squeezed to death couldn't be too much fun.

"If you'll follow me, Uchiha-san, I'll take you and your son to your wife now." The nurse turned and began to walk of down the hallway, Fugaku right behind her.

Mikoto was the happiest woman on earth. She just couldn't seem to stop smiling as she gazed down at the little baby boy resting peacefully in her arms. In fact, she was so absorbed in observing the tiny child that she didn't notice the entrance of her husband and elder son until Itachi had hopped up on the bed and crawled over to her in order to get a better look at his new baby brother.

"He looks just like you mommy!" Little Itachi chirped, smiling up at his mother. Mikoto giggled.

"Yes, I suppose he does, Itachi-chan. Did you behave for you father?" As she said this Mikoto caught sight of her five-year-old son's left hand. It was wrapped in a clean white bandage. She gasped and, after securing her newborn baby in one arm, grabbed hold of Itachi's hand. She turned an angry glare on her husband.

"What happened?" she hissed, mindful of her sleeping child. "Why is his hand bandaged?" Fugaku looked at her apologetically before sighing and taking a seat on the edge of the white hospital bed. His eyes landed on his newborn son and for a few minutes he forgot that he was supposed to be answering to his angry wife.

"Uchiha Fugaku, answer me right now!" Mikoto snapped, keeping her voice relatively low. Fugaku cleared his throat.

"Well, it wasn't really my fault," he began nervously. Despite her tired appearance, Uchiha Mikoto was still a Jounin, and therefore a force to be reckoned with. "I was just taking a quick little nap and when I woke up – it was only a few minutes I swear! – he was gone. When I found him he'd somehow managed to tip over a huge table with lots of glass with a huge needle nearly the size of senbon on it. But it was not my fault!" Mikoto glared.

"You were supposed to be watching him and you can't really do that if you're sleeping now can you?" Fugaku looked guilty again. Mikoto sighed. She was too tired for this. "What else did he do?" Itachi fidgeted slightly.

"Well…" Fugaku thought for a moment. "Oh! He disposed of the ugliest dress I've ever seen in my entire life. Stupid old woman wanted me to pay for it too…" Mikoto rolled her eyes. When she looked over at Itachi she saw that he was smirking at his latest accomplishment. She opened her mouth, ready to chastise her husband for his encouragement of Itachi's destructive behavior, whether it was deserved or not, but at that moment her little newborn son opened his big dark eyes and started wailing. Itachi clapped his hands over his ears. Fugaku winced.

The next few minutes were silent as Mikoto calmly breast-fed the baby. Itachi stared, trying to figure out how it all worked. Fugaku stared too, but for an entirely different reason. When the baby was resting quietly in her arms Mikoto settled herself more comfortably against the white pillows.

"What shall we name him?" she asked her husband. Fugaku shrugged. They both watched in contemplative silence as Itachi reached forward, pointer finger extended, and prodded the newborn baby softly in the stomach. The baby giggled. Itachi blinked and poked him again. The baby giggled again. Itachi poked the baby a third time. This time as he was pulling his finger back the little baby grabbed Itachi's hand and stuck the finger in his mouth. Itachi stared. Mikoto smiled slightly.

"How about Sasuke?" she suggested. Fugaku shrugged again.

"Sure."

"What do you think Itachi?" Mikoto asked her son. He glanced up at her, most of his attention still on his baby brother who was still sucking on his finger. "Does Sasuke sound like a good name to you?" He tilted his head to the side for a moment, obviously thinking. Then he smiled.

"Yes!"

And so a new addition was added to the Uchiha family.

A/N: Yeah, wasn't really sure how to end it there. Anyway, yes, five-year-old Itachi is completely insane. As stated at the beginning, I was digging around in my old word documents and found this. I though it was kind of cute and I was in the mood for humor so I decided to do something with it.

Poor Fugaku.

So yeah, if you liked it, please review and tell me so. If you didn't like it, let me know what I can improve on. Also, if you happen to notice any grammatical errors, I'd be mighty grateful if you could point them out.