Whatever it is that's eating you, it must be suffering horribly.
Face to face, they stood across from each other quietly at the gates - the mere feet seperating them like miles. Naruto kept his back to Konoha, and Ayame, before him, watched him with tired eyes. Her bags at her feet. One hand clenched and opened hesitantly as her escorts watched Naruto with wary eyes..
He longed to reach out and hold her - to slid his palms over her smooth shoulders, strong from heavy lifting, and bury his nose in her hair. He wanted to hold the flesh across her back that kept her head so high and feel the muscles beneath moving, alive.
The day was quickly dying, and she had a long journey ahead of her. At the other end of the dusty trail before them, a promise that was made without her waited. For politics. A long road lay behind her - one she knew not the ending to.
Already he was missing the tiny freckles hidden beneath her eyelids and the warmth from her smile when she whispered in his ear, just yesterday; I love you. Forever.
In the light the moon had cast that evening, they had been sprawled happily across the mats padding her home's floor and listened to the whistling song of autumn. Her hair was soft enough to hide his face in and the skin of his hips were just right for her to wrap her fingers around.
But she couldn't stay.
In her memories, his laughs rumbled against her throat, like a healthy cat, rubbing the skin in all the right places. His hands were steady and warm. And he moved like a song, a lullaby, a chorus against her.
She meet his eyes and kept her mouth closed. He didn't breathe through his nose, so he wouldn't remember always in this last moment the way she smelled.
He raised his head higher and held out his wrist, fingers open and waiting. Her answering palm was warm and comforting, a promise as her hand gripped his.
The silence lay between them.
Loose, her arm slowly dropped backwards away from his. She breathed through her nose, then knelt over her belongings. She lifted the weight up as he, hesistant, let his hand fall.
He slouched backwards, fingers curling against his pockets as he watched her walk away. Her and his unborn son. He was quiet, his mind on the image of them and only.
The wind whistled all night and he stood there, watching and waiting, for most of it.