A/N.: lovingbrothers, this is for you!:)
The tiredness was overwhelming, yet some kind of power was still pushing him forward towards the main Uchiha household. It also made him nod to his clansmen who were greeting him with smiles and respect when he walked through the Uchiha district. He even managed a couple of half-smiles for small children, accompanying their mothers in everyday errands, who were eyeing him hesitantly. One of the children, around eight years old judging for his appearance, even bumped into him with full speed. He looked up at him with big frightened eyes, stood up almost immediately and stuttered apologies with a polite bow. Fugaku hardly managed to squeeze his thin arm before the boy was gone. It took him a minute to recall that the child's name was Shisui and he was one of those prodigious children of his clan. He chuckled lightly. Talented or not, he had a long way to go if a simple face of a clan leader made him this insecure. But he heard a lot about him and he knew that Shisui had a great potential within him… It's a pity that his father was such a foolish old elder. A life with such a man as a parent had to be hard to bear, especially with a mother already deceased, and Fugaku, slightly surprised by his own ability to think so clearly in a state he was in, promised himself that he would check on the boy before heading back to the battlefield.
The sun has almost already hide behind the horizon line when he opened the large door of the household. With a mental sigh, he sat down and took off his dirty shoes, trying not to soil the entering area. He stood up slowly and, as quietly as he could, headed straight to the bathroom. He cleaned himself in a couple of minutes and left his dirty clothes next to the clothes bin, put a yukata on and directed his steps towards the master bedroom. His trained ears caught a sound of laughing and he couldn't help a little smile crawling on his lips. He changed in light, comfortable (and clean) clothes and, finally ready, left the room and headed to the garden. He wasn't suppressing his steps anymore.
He saw her before he got to the porch. She was sitting at the edge of the wooden terrace, watching the garden with a soft smile on her lips. She didn't move of an inch when he crouched and sat down just next to her, closing her hand in his own and squeezing it firmly. She blinked apprehensively and slowly reached with her free hand for a small cup to pour some tea from the teapot into it. She handed it to him smoothly and he accepted it without a word.
Only when he gave her the empty cup did she smile a little wider. And he, he leaned forward towards her and pressed a soft kiss to her temple. He felt a hand caressing his cheek for a moment. And suddenly they were once again sitting just next to each other, holding their hands behind their backs. Observing.
A young boy who was crouching in the corner of the garden straightened his back abruptly. He sent a look over his shoulder and blinked at them, uncertain of what he saw. He lifted from the grass and, sparing a nervous look at his mother, moved towards the terrace. He reached towards his mother with one hand and squeezed a fabric of her skirt with his fingers, biting his lower lip with visible unease. The women ruffed his hair softly and half-hugged him with her free arm.
"Itachi, look who has come back home" she whispered with a calm smile. Itachi blinked and leaned closer to her, a little abashed. "What will you say? Hm?" she chuckled lightly when the boy clenched his small hands around her arm that was holding him. "Oh, you little coward" she sighed amused. "Greet your father nicely."
"Okaeri, tou-san" Itachi mumbled, leaning against his mother.
"Tadaima" Fugaku managed a little smile, trying to hide the sadness that was embracing him more and more with every passing second. It wasn't the first time when he hoped for a smile as a greeting from his little son and didn't obtain it. There was only this hesitancy that emerged from Itachi's eyes every single time he came back home. This irritating lack of recognition. His heart ached at the sight of his beloved child who eyed him with an unsure questioning.
It was always the same. Every single time. He registered Mikoto's hand squeezing his own fiercely to give him the power to deal with the disappointment. She understood. She noticed. She always did.
"All right, then" she sighed with a smile. "It's getting late, isn't it, Itachi? And we haven't eaten yet today" she hugged him once again and kissed him on his head. "I am going to prepare everything and by the time I'm finished, you stay with tou-san. He missed you so much, you know? Maybe you could tell him about the kitten you rescued from the lake yesterday, how is that?" and she stood up, not waiting for the boy's answer, and disappeared inside the house. Itachi looked at the door she closed behind her for a moment. Then, his eyes slowly travelled to the man who was looking at him peacefully.
"I rescued a cat" he said suddenly but quietly, his eyes not moving of an inch.
"Did you?" Fugaku mumbled, took off guard for a second. He didn't expect that Itachi would open his mouth first.
"He was little and he was drowning. I helped him. With mommy."
"Is he alright now?" he decided to continue the topic.
"I don't know" Itachi looked away. "He ran away from us when I put him on the grass. But mommy says he is OK, because if he wasn't, he wouldn't be running so fast."
"Your mother is right" he nodded and waited for the boy to say something more, but no words came out. Fugaku's mind was racing in every direction to find something he could say to him, when he registered Itachi climbing up to the porch and sitting quite near him on the wooden floor.
"Will you go away to the war again, tou-san?" Itachi asked hesitantly.
"I will" he answered after a moment. "But for now, I will be at home for the next week."
"A week?"
"Hn."
"And what will you do when you're here?"
"I…" he paused, trying to find a satisfying reply. "I will spend time with you and your mother. I will also see some people and talk to them, as I was gone for a long time and some issues demand my attention."
"And after this week… you will be gone again" the boy concluded uncertainly. And this very again that came out from Itachi's mouth finally made him realized something.
"Do you remember the last time I came back?" he asked slowly.
"Yes… But it was a long time ago."
Three months Fugaku thought. It has been three months that passed in a blink of an eye. But for Itachi, it was an eternity. But… he did remember him. He did.
"Mommy said yesterday that you'd be back" he mumbled again. "She said…"
"What did she said?" he pushed a little, because Itachi didn't seem ready to continue. Suddenly, he stood up and ran into the house without a word. Fugaku closed his eyes and sighed with surrender. The next week… was going to be a series of realizations. Realizations just how much his own son didn't know him. Honestly, Fugaku didn't blame Itachi: he spent the last eighteen months mostly away from the village. Itachi couldn't know him because he was simply seeing him too seldom. And the truth was that Fugaku didn't know his son either. How could he? A week-long vacation he was being given wasn't enough to get to know his child.
He stood up and entered the dark room, rubbing his eyes. The exhaustion was taking over him faster than before. He wasn't even hungry anymore. All he wanted to do was lie down to bed and fall asleep as fast as possible, leaving all his problems for later. But he has just came back after three months long absence and he knew Mikoto would be happy if he sat at the table with them. Thus, he directed his steps to the kitchen.
Suddenly, something bumped into him (for the second time this day) and he instinctively caught the small tottering body. A pair of big, black eyes met his own severe ones and in the weak light coming from the kitchen he recognized his son who was now looking at him intensely, tugging his trousers to make him crouch on the floor. He kneeled down and looked straight into those big eyes from the boy's level.
"Dad, look! I draw a picture for you" Fugaku froze, when he felt a small hand on his shoulder. A second later, it was already a thin arm put around his neck and a small body leaning against his own. A sheet of paper suddenly appeared in front of his eyes. "It's our family portrait. Look, here is mom, me and here are you, with us. And I wanted to draw you with a sword, because mom says you always fight with a sword, but then I didn't draw it because you fight only when you are away and this picture is when you are with us at home. And here is our home and mom's garden and roses. And we're happy, because we're together at home, and the war isn't happening, because mom says that when the war ends, you'll be back home forever. And this is when the war ends and you don't leave anymore."
He felt the boy's eyes on himself, but didn't spare him a look, focused on the hardly visible drawing. He saw three people and a house that Itachi described. He saw everything. He was dealing in his head with every word he heard from the child. When the war ends.
"…do you like it…?" a small voice sounded just next to his ear. Itachi's eyes held a shade of desperation in them, when Fugaku finally turned his head to look at him.
"I like it a lot" he let out finally and his lips turned up into an unforced smile. "Thank you, Itachi."
And just then, he was gifted by the most wonderful smile he has ever seen in his life. And when he felt the second thin arm surrounding his neck, he put his own large arms around the tiny form of his child and hugged him tightly to his chest.
An unwanted thought crossed his mind. A thought that Itachi was his heir and his legacy… The future of the Uchiha clan. A thought that he had to raise him to be a strong shinobi respected by the village…
"Dad?"
"Hn?" he blinked and raised one hand to Itachi's hair. He tangled his fingers in it.
"I missed you."
Yeah. He would worry about turning his son into a tough ninja later.
