The Conversation.

Konoha, 10th March.
Year of the Hare.

"So what were you?"

Sasuke blinked when he was addressed, his long bangs tickling his nose as he raised his chin a little and shrugged. Ume (or as Sasuke dubbed her "Umeboshi" - the stodgy round rice ball with the sour centre) sighed a little and made another note on her clipboard.

"Words, Sasuke-kun. We use words in this room, remember? I can't let you leave until we've had a conversation."

"Do you have a quota or something?" Sasuke muttered, picking at his nails. "I could read a few passages out of a book if it fills in my allocation for the day."

"You don't talk much, do you?" Ume observed, somewhat clumsily. It didn't seem like her, and Sasuke knew a hook when it was dangling in front of him. Still, this could probably go on all day if he didn't bite sometime. Rolling his eyes, he sighed impatiently.

"You obviously don't know anything about me at all."

"No, I do." Ume scribbled something on her notepad, tapping her pen a few times. "You spoke a lot more before."

"Before when?"

"Before as in the first few times I saw you after the hearing? When you were first appointed to me, when you were still coming down off that desperate plea for help? When you needed security. Money." Ume flicked through the pages attached to her board. "You were almost a parrot then, talking at any opportunity. Are you so comfortable now that you thought you might fall back into old habits?"

"I'd never use the word comfortable to describe any part of my life." Sasuke simmered, moving his hands to rest on his middle. The reassurance was unconscious, but Ume didn't let it slide past her needle-like scrutiny. She did soften a little though, it was push and pull with Sasuke. Trauma was never clean-cut.

"It's harder than you think, isn't it?" She began, then shook her head, dismissing the thought. "Well, no. You're far more sensible than that - it's exactly as you thought it would be. You never thought forgiveness was just waiting for you here; that absolution hung like ripe fruit, ready for the plucking. No, you knew it would be work."

"I thought it would be impossible." Sasuke corrected her, quietly. "I thought I'd be separated from her. Them… you know, later. I figured I'd be thrown in prison like all the other missing nin if Kakashi was feeling merciful."

"Which is why you didn't make yourself known until you had to."

He nodded. He remembered. The night he'd pushed into the Hokage's office, barefoot, ragged and soaked from the rain; mad with pain and fear. Mikoto had been howling in his arms, feverish and hungry while he pleaded and begged for leniency. He hadn't known what else to do. "There was no other choice."

"You could have gone to another village. You could have hidden there, made a life for yourself." Ume's wrinkled brow crumpled a little with a frown. Thick blue eyeshadow, as old as the worn couch he was sitting on, cracked under the pressure. "The ninja world is fractured at the moment. Villages are finally recovering for the turmoil, but it's a long healing process and an easy one to make yourself disappear. Why return when you knew it wasn't in your best interests?"

"Because it was in my best interests." Sasuke replied, dropping his gaze to follow the lines of plaid on the couch. "I needed safety, true protection - invisibility can only last so long and I had a hard enough time vanishing when I was alone. There are only four hidden villages active now; four areas that are the safest places in the world. And three of them have death warrants on me; Konoha just listed me as Wanted. You do the math."

"Suna doesn't have a death warrant on you."

"Gaara is Uzumaki's biggest fanboy," Sasuke grumbled. "If I went to him, Konoha would know by proxy."

"That's a pretty grand assumption."

"Newspapers tell me enough. Gaara's disposition tells me more, historically anyway. The Kazekage has all but built a bridge from the Sand to the Leaf - he practically flies Konoha's banners beneath his own." Sasuke shook his head. "I didn't want to come here before I was ready. He would have forced the issue. He's more interested in Uzumaki's well-being than my own. After a time it was clear that I was probably going to end up in Konoha anyway, but I wanted that to be on my terms, not his."

"Conventionally you were never really that worried about being forced to do anything, issues or no." Ume said and Sasuke looked at his hands, crossing them loosely over his belly. "I suppose you don't have the luxury of being so apathetic these days."

"I lost many of my abilities when they changed me." There was a pause, fingers linked. "I think a lot of my chakra was redirected to support the... uh... differences. They pumped me full of drugs and... and I guess hormones and things. Used a lot of jutsu that I didn't recognise. The girl in the prison told me that chakra changes when... when... you know-"

"During pregnancy."

"Yeah." Sasuke shifted uncomfortably. "That. Anyway, she said that if I tried to use Susano'o or any of my dōjutsu, I'd end up a lot worse off for it. Probably wouldn't even do any damage to anyone except to myself."

"And you believed her?"

"Yes. After all, if she had wanted to use me to escape, she would have. I wouldn't have blamed her."

"How strange you seemed so concerned for your own welfare." Ume flipped through the pages again. Paper scraped and shuffled with hollow noises. "After all, from what others have told me and the reports I've read, hadn't you made it very clear that your didn't care what happened to you, as long as you had your revenge? I have several listed instances, several statements which all mention you informing Naruto, almost verbatim, of your complete disinterest in self preservation as long as your clan was absolved?"

"I said a lot of things to Naruto."

"One of the few people you said anything to at all." Ume added.

"Someone had to tell him to shut up." Sasuke muttered. "All that talk-no-jutsu got pretty tedious after a while. I suppose he's gladly been running his mouth now that I'm back. Taking the credit for 'dragging me back' and what not?"

"Actually, he's not been so forthcoming about you these days. Seems he's almost as difficult to get to chat as you are. Same goes for the others in your old team; Sakura, Kakashi." Ume leaned back in her chair. "It appears that you're no longer a major point in conversation for them. Does that bother you?"

"No." Sasuke wouldn't let it, even though it made him feel cold. The fingers tightened around each other, and though he could feel Ume's gaze boring into his skull, he refused to acknowledge her.

"Do you think they're trying to put you behind them?"

"That's what I told them to do in the first place." He shrugged again. At least his shoulders were getting a workout. "Took them long enough to listen."

"But you do care what happens to you now." Ume continued, guiding the conversation expertly. "You wouldn't be here otherwise."

"Hn. I'm ordered to come here. If I don't, someone comes and takes Mikoto away from me."

"So you care what happens to your daughter?"

"Are you simple? Of course I do." Sasuke retorted, finally glaring at her. "What kind of idiot question is that?"

"What kind indeed." Ume mused, smiling slightly at Sasuke's ire and she paused momentarily to make another note. "Your daughter, your son."

"I still don't care what happens to me." Sasuke pointed out, irritably. "This was never about me, nothing was."

"That's not true." Ume countered. When Sasuke shot her a confused stare, ringed with anger, she nodded a little. "It isn't. Who benefits from revenge, Sasuke? Who's going to care that you were such an adamant avenger? Your parents? No, they're dead. Your clan? No, they're gone too-"

"The honor of my clan is-"

"Honor? Well, honor doesn't mean anything to the dead now, does it?"

"You dare..." Sasuke snarled, his voice dropping low, dangerous. He narrowed his eyes as the anger bubbled up inside him - effervescent heat and hatred. "You had better shut your mouth."

"Dare? Oh yes. I'll dare. I'm daring you to think about it, Sasuke. I'm not sure you ever have. After all, what does honor mean to people who can't use it any more? Nothing. Honor only means something to the living - to those who can acknowledge and remember it. And further to that, it really only relates to those who understand it. You might proclaim that the honor of the Uchiha clan has been proved untainted and perhaps those who follow the Shinobi way will identify with that, but what about civilians? What about the progressive villages?"

"I don't care about them."

"Well you were the one who wanted a new world order - destroying the past for a new system of government and law. Why then is something so traditional so important any more? Or does retaining this honor mean that you still had grounds to punish those who wronged you so that you could find relief and peace. So that you could prove your clan's innocence and your brother's sacrifice-"

"You don't talk about my brother!"

"I'll talk about Itachi as much as I please."

"YOU DON'T HAVE THE RIGHT! YOU HAVEN'T EARNED IT! YOU DON'T EVEN SAY HIS NAME!" Sasuke screamed, digging his nails into the couch. His breath came in deep gulps and his forehead beaded sweat but he stopped after his outburst. He sat. He started at her damned face and let the breadth of silence between them stretch for a moment. Someone knocked at the door and opened it a little, but Ume only waved them away, not wanting to break eye contact. When she spoke again, her voice was quiet, level.

"Are you all right?"

"Shut up."

"Revenge is a song you sing to yourself, Sasuke." She explained. "A twisted lullaby to soothe your own soul, no matter how honorably you dress it. I'm not saying it's your fault. I'm not saying it was wrong to think that way. But I'm telling you the facts that you need to accept so that you can start to pull yourself back up again."

"You're accusing me of being selfish."

"People in pain can be selfish, or self-absorbed, and it's not wrong. It's a disorder and it should be better understood, especially in these militant villages where so many suffer loss and fear so often. Your pain is a defense mechanism, Sasuke; a coping mechanism. You narrowed your world down, made it so small, you only had two people to care about: yourself and your brother. And when he was gone, it was just you. You, amplified, augmented. You against Itachi; you against Konoha; you against the world because you couldn't contain that pain anymore, you needed to snuff it out, to make it go away. You could have taken your own life, but that wouldn't have made a mark, that wouldn't have proved anything; you wanted to make things equal. You wanted to show the world how wrong and small and stupid it was, because that's exactly how you felt."

Ume stopped for a moment, letting this soak in. She'd said similar things before and Sasuke had gone quiet and reflective and pulled away. But it needed to be repeated and he needed to accept. Healing the inside took time and patience and Sasuke had a lot of one and still very little of the other.

"You did wrong because you were wronged. You worked in small circles and even though you had access to help and support, you couldn't involve yourself with others because that took the attention away from your own path. Naruto distracted you. Sakura distracted you. So you removed yourself from them." She leaned forward, watching him carefully. "But when you were given something that you couldn't push away, things fell apart. Now it's not just you. Now you have things to protect that are real. That speak. That need attention and nourishment. Now you're being made to care and it reminds you of everything that you gave up for your revenge. It makes you regret.

"She's my clan." Sasuke breathed, his nose prickling. "Mikoto. Both of them. They're Uchiha. I can't not protect them, I'm responsible for them."

"Obito was Uchiha too. So was Madara."

"They were insane."

"They were also hurting." Ume said as Sasuke shook his head. "Mistrusting, hurtful, vengeful all because of their pain. Perhaps no? Perhaps you can correct me on that." She paused again, but he didn't take the bait. He'd started to close in again - she probably had a few minutes left before he'd call it. He wasn't supposed to, but she had decided she was soft that way. "Do you think your brother should have protected you, rather than forcing you on that path?"

"I don't want to talk about my brother." Sasuke replied, tiredly. Which ultimately meant that he still wasn't ready to consider the fact that Itachi could have been wrong. To imagine what life might have been like if he'd stayed, or even if he'd gone with him that night. Run away. Become part of Madara's ultimate plan. What if he'd never met Naruto? What if that bond had never been made? What if they'd bother taken out Madara together before the Moon's Eye plan had even been halfway complete? If Itachi's illness had been properly treated? There were too many ifs, and he had too much time to think about them. He had too much time to think full stop. "I want to finish."

"Tomorrow, then." Ume agreed, slowly easing to her small, wide feet. Her gaze fell to Sasuke's stomach as he maneuvered himself to his feet in a series of awkward shuffling movements. There was a pause as she considered offering to help him, but she knew better than to touch him. He tended to balk at physical contact and she wasn't surprised. "You're looking better these days. How is he doing?"

"Getting stronger." Sasuke relinquished, rubbing his middle through his light yukata. The belt was tied a high than his waist, which was a positive feature, since its position climbed the bigger he became. "I guess. Yeah. Stronger now."

"Does that please you?"

Sasuke just gave her another dark look as he opened the door. She had to admit, she deserved it, but the response was what she'd wanted.

"What the hell do you think?"

The door closed behind him with a pneumatic hush. Ume clicked her tongue and made another note on her pad.

I think he's pleased.