A Mother's Touch

~.~

Chapter three

He had never planned on smoking. Itachi liked to call himself a controlled smoker, because that's what he was. Of course he knew all the risks and dangers of smoking. Who didn't? That being beside the point, he didn't plan on letting it get that out of hand. He wasn't addicted yet. The horrible stench that came along with smoking was just a small price to pay for the calmness it gave him. Smoking, at times, helped him think.

It didn't take Itachi Uchiha long to realize he sounded like every other poor addicted bastard. They didn't plan on letting it get out of hand either, but it had. That aside, Itachi also liked to think he was in control. It was that confidence that let him pick up a cigarette, knowing that he wouldn't let himself feel the need to smoke another, and then another one, until the whole pack was gone. He could count on one hand how many times he had smoked in his life, and that was something not a lot of smokers could say.

Perhaps he couldn't even call himself a smoker. Only a few people knew of his tendency. And those were the people present when he did smoke those few times in his life. Their reactions were all the same, Sasuke's being the most memorable. "So you're a fucking smoker now? It's not cute you know. Women don't like it."

His first reaction was to smile. He didn't have trouble with women, and had not for one moment thought that smoking might attract them. If anything, he had hoped that it would ward them off. Perhaps Sasuke didn't understand him at all. After that thought, his mind would drift off into reverie where he would remember the first time he had smoked. After a few minutes, he would shake his head, and throw out the cigarette. It was he who had misunderstood. Sasuke was just talking, teasing.

For another moment, the subject of women would touch his mind and he would once again smile. He would think, ignoring Sasuke's remark of how much of a bastard he was. Perhaps his reaction was odd, he would muse. Odd and deceiving. He wasn't smiling because he necessarily liked women, a statement that was too general. He was smiling because he had never honestly got to know one, besides his own dear mother, with whom without he would not be sitting at the bar he was then sitting at. That and Sasuke's hasty notion that he might have been using a cigarette to attract some was amusing. What decent woman was turned on by the unpleasant smell of hot smoke?

Itachi knew he was over thinking and over analyzing. He had never been a simple person. He had never seen the world in black and white, rather in many different ranges of colors. The fucked up world they lived in seemed more beautiful that way, and he preferred the diverse colors over the simplistic comfort of perpetual black and white.

His life was like a canvas, the eldest Uchiha son liked to think when he was born, it was blank, and as he grew, swipe by swipe, everything would come together. It wasn't until his final breath, that the final stroke would be made and the painting of his life would be completed. Perhaps, before he was shuffled to wherever, he would be allowed a chance to glance at the portrait of his life. Maybe he could see where he went wrong, or vice versa, where he made the right decision.

It had been a stray idea in his ten-year old mind, and Itachi had paid no attention to it, until that day in her apartment lobby, that day he had needed the cigarette to accompany him in his thoughts, that day he had really got a good, thorough look at the woman, whose life he knew he was about to change. In Hinata Hyuga's canvas, and he almost couldn't believe his mind had strayed to such a childish thought, he was a swipe, and in his, she was a new swipe as well.

You can tell a lot about a person from the clothes they wore, the shoes they wore on their feet, the way they spoke, all the way down to the condition of their hair. He had, at a time, believed that to know a person, all you really had to do was observe them. It didn't take him long to learn that people were deceiving and put on appearances. Most likely what you saw, was not what you got. But occasionally there came along a person who really was what they seemed to be.

Itachi had concluded that Hinata was this type of person. He had concluded this rather hasty observation from her facial expressions. She had come walking out of the elevator, looking determined. A split second later, and she changed her expression as she gazed at the baby, reassuring and kind. Then, she spotted him. He eyes widened, her glossed mouth, parting. After that, she made subtle movements, indicating discomfort. An audible swallow, biting of her lip, hand through her hair. These were all nervous reactions.

She was easy to read, he thought. Itachi then eyed the baby. Perhaps his earlier conclusion was incorrect. Someone who had faked a pregnancy would have to be very well adapted at hiding their emotions. She wouldn't last five minutes in a room full of over-weight, cooing aunts who wanted her to relay her experience. Then again, he had caught her off guard. Again after that, perhaps he was over thinking.

The Uchiha, for a moment, wanted to chuckle. Well, she certainly didn't seem happy to see him. Why would she? She had no clue what he was going to say or do. After she had received Sasuke's call, he was sure she was confused, and maybe a bit afraid. The look that had comfortably settled on her face as he was speaking with her, a look of tolerance, told him that she was then curious. Hyuga Hinata was a woman full of emotion, he mused in the elevator. She probably had an on/off switch.

Hinata didn't trust him at all. His effort to get her to let him drive her to wherever she wanted to go to talk had been politely shot down under what may or may not have been concern over whether the baby had a car seat. Her concern was authentic, as was her clever way of telling him that she didn't trust him.

But then, she had asked him if he wanted to come to her home for a drink. She was frustrated and desperate by that time, he could see. Anything so that they could speak. It was then that Itachi found Hinata to be contradicting herself. Why her home? Why not the lobby? It took a good deal of trust to let him come to where she lived, rather then they just sit somewhere. Momentarily confused Itachi complied, suddenly very aware of the baby he then held in his hands.

Her apartment was nice. It was also very clean, which was agreeable with his own preferable living arrangements. The thought of polite stranger entered his mind as she offered him a drink and then went to go fix it. He peered down at the infant in his arms as he took a seat on her comfortable couch. The baby was looking at him as well, giving him a most delighted look, as if he had just brought her presents.

Itachi wanted to smile, but found himself not. He almost saw Sasuke, staring at him with bright eyes. When was the last time Sasuke had ever looked at him like that? Elementary school, maybe? Being reminded of his deteriorating relationship with his younger brother made Itachi feel a bit uncomfortable. Uncle. The word popped into his mind, a bold statement among his other fleeting thoughts. If things were to go as planned, uncle wouldn't be the exact word the little child would refer to him as.

He was then reminded of the entire reason why he had showed up instead of Sasuke. On the car ride there and even for several days before he had decided to take action, Itachi pondered when he had become so...thoughtful. Not that he considered himself to be a selfish person all the time, all human beings were selfish at some point in their lives, but what was he doing?

Uchiha Itachi wanted to laugh. That was one good question. One that he attempted to first answer when he was overviewing the paternity test that confirmed that the child that Hyuga Hinata had feigned to be hers was indeed his brothers. Her DNA hadn't matched entirely, this missing link, he could only assume, was her sister. He hadn't fully believed Sasuke at first, but as he looked at the results clearly stating the data, Itachi had no choice but to believe him.

For some reason, it bothered him. Sasuke's sudden non-chalant, odd behavior at finding out he had a child, it made him frown. Itachi understood fully though. Sasuke simply had some growing up to do. Still, it was no excuse. Sasuke knew what he needed to do. He needed to claim that child as his, as a Uchiha. Then, Itachi thought about it. By his definition, Sasuke wasn't fit to be a parent of any kind. In fact, the thought seemed unfitting, inappropriate really. How could one raise a child, when he, in different ways, was still a child himself?

Nevertheless, Sasuke was an adult. He could handle his own problems, Itachi concluded. He had never been one to meddle in his brothers affairs, no matter how stupid they were. In the past, he just watched, a scoff here or there. Just a quiet spectator, giving no comment. But for some reason, in that particular situation, Itachi was positive Sasuke would handle it all wrong. He had no patience and wasn't the most sensitive person.

Then, Itachi decided to meddle. It had been after Sasuke's phone call, not even a minute later, that he decided to stop spectating.

"I'll handle it, Sasuke," He voiced carefully.

"You'll handle it? Bull-"

But he had already left.

As he drove, Itachi's mind was in a flurry. He could only describe it as a storm raging on a lake that would otherwise be calm. From years of practice, he had learned how to put on a facade of cool indifference, and on the outside, that was how he would come across to anyone who looked at him. But on the inside, he was thinking furiously.

He had about an hour to where she lived. Subtly turning his head, he gazed out his window at the causeway. Pressing a single button, the window smoothly let down. Then he thought of smoking and all the horrible things it would do to his body. A vague outline of an infant giving him a firm expression of disapproval seemed to linger in his mind, and then he thought of what smoking could do second handedly.

Maybe he was getting a bit ahead of himself. He didn't know a single thing about Hinata Hyuga. There was no guarantee that she would even accept his proposal! She could take a moment, stare at him with a mixture of uncertainty and fear, and quietly accept, dipping her head in agreement or, equally possible in a situation like hers, she could flare up at him, show a range of disturbed emotions, act blindly, and clearly remind him of the absurdity of what he was proposing.

Itachi inhaled deeply, almost tasting the air of the sea with a bitter aftertaste.

It was like he was jumping into the ring without a game plan, blindfolded. Whatever happened, happened.

Itachi bit back a swear.

He could handle it, because he was a Uchiha, and he could handle anything.

Okay, okay. I know this was faaaaar too short a chapter to compensate for the outrageous amount of time I haven't updated. Forgive me. Dx

But, I made it small for reason. This is the first time I've written in Itachi's POV. And, I just want to know the verdict. Pass or fail! I'd love the opinion. I'm always so iffy about writing through his eyes. (: so thanks for reading.

And also, thanks to my lovely new beta, Em!