Okay, here's the next chapter! I got lots of really good reviews for the last chapter, I'm glad that you all enjoyed it, and I can only hope that you like this one as much!

Music: Title Track: "This Lullaby" by Queens of the Stone Age; End Credits: "Ever the Same" by Rob Thomas; Others: "Going In Blind" by P.O.D., "Canon" by Pachelbel, "Here With Me" by Dido

This Lullaby

Where, where have you been my love?

Where, where can you be?

It's been so long since the moon has gone

And oh what a wreck you made me

Are you there over the ocean?

Are you there up in the sky?

Until the return of my love, this lullaby

My hope is on the horizon

Every face your eyes I can see

I plead and pray though each night and day

Our embrace is only a dream

And sure as days come from moments

Each hour becomes a life's time

When she'd left, I'd only begun this lullaby.

--"This Lullaby"

He gently sang the words of the lullaby to the crying baby. Hinata had taught it to him when she had been pregnant. Mariko looked up at him through her tear-filled silver eyes. She sniffed a few times and her bottom lip trembled, indicating that she was still on the verge of a fresh bout of tears.

He kissed her on the side of her dark head and continued to quietly sing to her, rocking her as he paced the dark and empty living room.

He glanced at the cracked clock that was sitting on the mantle over the fireplace; it was now about 5:30 in the morning. He had been awakened by his little daughter's screams over two hours ago.

Like every new parent, he looked awful; he had been almost completely sleep deprived for the last month by Mariko's nightly fits.

She finally stopped whimpering and her eyelids began to close slowly. Itachi sighed with relief and stopped pacing, instead taking a seat in one of the grungy old recliners in the living room. He held his baby close to him as he rocked the chair back and forth gently, reflecting on the past month.

The rest of the Akatsuki hadn't been entirely sure of how to receive the baby into their home. They had arrived back from their mission to Konoha, only to discover that they had gained much more than they thought.

Sasori, Zetzu and Kakuzu sat idly by while Deidara, Kisame and Tobi tried to poke and prod at the baby and Hidan had screamed his refusals at allowing Mariko to stay.

"When we were told that we were allowed to raid and take valuable things, Uchiha, that didn't mean living things! Are you seriously so retarded that you would take a baby?!"

"I had to take her, she's mine!"

"What the fuck are you talking about?!"

"This baby is my daughter!"

"Since when do you go around having kids?" Hidan sneered.

"Well I try not to make it a common practice," Itachi had retorted venomously.

"Who's her mom, un?" Deidara asked, letting Mariko hold his finger in her tiny fist.

"That doesn't matter," Itachi rounded on the blond, a shadow clouding his features, "She's not going to be around."

"Aw, that's kind of sad," Deidara picked up the silver-eyed baby and gently cradled her.

"I'm sure you'll make a good substitute mother, Blondie," Hidan snickered, trying to instigate a fight.

However, the explosion artist wasn't listening; he was too engrossed in the tiny person in his arms. But Mariko did turn her eyes in Hidan's direction and, for a moment, seemed to frown at him. Hidan frowned back.

Itachi had noticed this brief exchange of glares between his infant daughter and the immortal priest and it made him a bit uneasy. They already hate each other, he thought, Although, with Hidan, that's not exactly hard to believe.

He wondered what his daughter's relationship with each of the Akatsuki members would be like when she got older.

She seemed to like Deidara, Kisame and Tobi enough; Zetzu, Sasori and Kakuzu tried to avoid her and acted indifferently towards her when they couldn't. Although Sasori seemed to be warming up to the baby a little more. Hidan was the only one who seemed to have a real problem with Mariko, but Itachi could care less. Not only was Hidan's dislike of her completely unfounded, but also he just didn't care what Hidan did or didn't like. If the silver-haired fanatic didn't like his daughter, that was fine, just as long as he didn't try to harm her in any way.

He began to drift off to sleep, as lulled by his daughter's soft breathing as she was by his. He didn't notice the near-silent entrance of the priest - who was shirtless and bloodied from his morning rituals - on his way to the kitchen.

Hidan paused, noticing the father and infant in the recliner. The "big" Uchiha was fast asleep, but the baby had woken and was staring at him with those big silvery eyes. She didn't cry; she made no noise at all, she just stared. He felt a shiver run down his spine. What a creepy baby, he thought, as he turned and continued on to the kitchen, flipping the switch of the coffee maker.

She had been absolutely miserable for the last month. The simultaneous loss of both her lover and her daughter had been nearly unbearable; she thought that her heart would break into so many pieces that night that it would be beyond repair.

After her their departure from the woods, Hinata had cried and cried endlessly on Kakashi's shoulder. She had wanted to hate him for banishing them, but realized that he could have done much worse and that he was actually doing them a favor. It wasn't until the early hours of the morning that he had picked her up bridal style – she was still very weak – and carried her back to the Hyuuga mansion.

Since then, she had been walking around in a kind of daze. She spent most of her time in her room, but when she was forced to go out, she was like a robot or a zombie.

Kurenai had sent her home from training on several occasions, saying that she should go see a doctor; her friends were all worried sick about her and her family was frustrated at not being able to get any real answers about whatever ailed her.

Her girlfriends had been to visit her countless times, trying in vain to get her out of her room, but, nine times out of ten, she refused their offers.

Kiba and Shino visited a couple times, giving updates about training and telling stories about the few small missions that they had been on without her, while Akamaru sat in Hinata's lap.

Neji and Hanabi would come in to sit and talk with her sometimes, although Neji didn't always talk very much and it was difficult to shut Hanabi up.

She appreciated her family and friends' efforts to help her, but she knew that this was a wound that only time would heal, and even then, it would leave her with a terrible scar.

One visitor who did manage to motivate her a little bit was Naruto. She had been sitting by her bedroom window, looking at the snow falling and reminiscing about the nights she spent watching the snow from that same window with Itachi, when she heard a light knock on her door.

"Hinata?" she heard his voice softly call from the hallway.

"Come in," she replied, not taking her eyes from the gently falling flakes.

She heard the door open slowly and close quietly; she heard his footsteps moving across the floor and stop when he had reached her desk chair, which he had taken a seat in.

When she finally turned her pearly eyes to him, she saw that a look of deep concern was on his face. He had replaced his normal energetic demeanor with a more sober and gentle manner.

"What's wrong with you?" he asked her quietly, his crystal blue eyes piercing hers. "I've never seen you like this before, and it's scaring me."

"I can't tell you exactly what's wrong," she replied.

His face fell. "You don't trust me," he stated, turning his eyes to the floor.

"No, it's not that," she said quickly, "It's just that…even if I were to tell you, you wouldn't be able to help me. This is something that I'll work through myself; it may take awhile, but I'll do it eventually."

He looked at her again. "How long will that be? I hate seeing you like this."

It was her turn to look away; how was she supposed to explain to him the pain that she was feeling? How could he understand the losses that she had suffered? She knew he wanted to help her, it was in his nature to protect the ones he loved and do whatever he could to ease their suffering, but he couldn't help this time. There was nothing that he could do to ease the aching in her heart.

"I don't know for sure how long it will be… awhile," she said.

She was startled by the sudden feeling of his warm hand covering hers. She looked up and was caught by his azure gaze again.

"Hinata, I really care about you, and I hate to see you hurting. But I'm willing to trust you when you say that you can handle this on your own. Just know that if you need anything, I'm here and I will help you."

She nodded, starting to get a bit choked up; his sincerity reminded her of her first meeting with Itachi in the woods.

She thought that Naruto was standing to leave after that, but instead, he leaned in and kissed her ever-so-softly; it was like the tickling of a feather, she wasn't even sure if it had really happened or if it was just her imagination playing tricks on her.

"Call me if you need me," he smiled warmly at her and then stood and left, leaving Hinata very confused where she sat.

"Come on, just eat it, un!" Deidara held a spoonful of what looked like nasty green sludge in front of Mariko, now six months old.

She was strapped in her highchair, her mouth clamped shut firmly, looking at her blond "uncle" with shocked eyes, as if saying, Do you seriously expect me to eat that shit?

"Come on Mariko, just open the tunnel and let the choo-choo in, un. Ready? Choo-choooooo…" He began to swirl the spoon in towards her mouth. Mariko looked like she might cry.

Just then, Hidan walked in, fresh wounds bleeding freely. He paused to stare. "Are you fucking serious?" He said before opening the fridge and pulling out a carton of fruit punch, which he drank straight out of.

Deidara sighed. "Just don't bleed in that, un. Other people might want to drink out of it, you know." He resumed his task of trying to make the disgusting green blob on the end of the spoon seem appetizing to the baby.

In a desperate attempt to escape death by creamed peas, Mariko reached up to the Jashinist priest imploringly. Her silver eyes locked with his violet ones.

Hidan wiped his mouth on his bare arm, set the juice carton down and walked over to where the blond artist sat in front of the black-haired baby. Without a word, he roughly shoved Deidara aside and lifted Mariko out of her death trap, a.k.a. her highchair.

"Tha hell, un?!" Deidara exclaimed furiously, gaping at the green stain now on his pants.

"She was just gonna throw it up again anyways," Hidan replied matter-of-factly.

Mariko held tightly onto the headband that the immortal wore around his neck, which was the only thing that she could find to grab on to.

Deidara glared evilly at the duo. "Whatever, un. Put on a shirt, will you?"

Hidan just flashed his teeth in a wolfish grin. Mariko still held him tightly, watching Deidara with wary eyes.

"Fine, then you feed her, un." The blond thrust the jar of green slime into the priest's hand and angrily stomped out of the kitchen.

Hidan chuckled to himself, then brought the jar of creamed peas to his nose and took a sniff; Mariko winced away from the jar.

"Holy fucking shit! That stuff is nasty! No fucking wonder you didn't wanna eat it! Is this shit even edible?! It should have a warning label!" He began scanning the jar.

Meanwhile, Mariko, who was still hungry, gave a light whimper in Hidan's ear. The silver-haired priest turned his eyes to her. Violet met silver again; his hard gaze met her soft one.

"What?" he asked her irritably.

She gave a small whine again, glancing towards the refrigerator.

"Hungry?" He looked at her and at the jar of "toxic waste" that he held in his other hand. Deciding that it would be unusually cruel to force anything to consume the contents of that jar, he tossed it over his shoulder, not really caring where it landed, and opened the fridge. "What the fuck do you eat anyways, dog food?"

Mariko squirmed in his one-armed hold on her and reached fervently for a bowl of peaches that caught her eye.

Hidan saw her movements and picked up the bowl. "Is this yours?" he inspected the bowl and its contents, then shrugged. "Well, it's not mine, so I don't give a shit if you eat it." He set the baby and the bowl on the floor, where she plunged her hand into the syrupy contents and fished out a sliced peach half, which she began trying to bite and chew with the only two teeth in her mouth.

"Right, well, enjoy." The priest waved at the small child on the floor as he retreated back to his room, leaving her there with only the bowl of peaches.

Mariko watched him leave and then turned her attention back to her food. She looked up when she heard humming and smiled when she saw Kisame walking into the kitchen.

"Mariko! What are you doing? Where's Deidara?" He picked the girl up daintily; peach syrup dripped off of her. "Why are you by yourself?"

Mariko laughed and waved her arms while simultaneously kicking her legs, sending peach juice everywhere, before reaching out for Kisame's sharky face with her sticky hands.

The blue-skinned man held the baby out at arm's length so as to spare his face the annoying stickiness of the peach syrup. He sighed as he looked into her smiling face. "Your dad's gonna have a fit if he sees you like this…let's get you cleaned up."

Her seventeenth birthday had come and gone. By that time, she had stopped shutting herself in her room and had returned to her training and was seeing her friends again, who all still kept a ridiculously close watch on her.

It had been Naruto's visits and gentle encouragements that had helped her out of her depression. He had stayed by her side constantly for the first few months, and even now, he was never far away. Even after the little kiss in her room, they had maintained a strictly "friends" relationship. However, it had grown into something more over the last month. Each had strong feelings for the other, and although she was sure that she could never love anyone like she had loved Itachi, she couldn't deny that she was feeling something akin to love for the blond boy.

She and her girlfriends had resumed their weekly teahouse meetings – they had been put on hold while Hinata was "out of commission".

She sat with her steaming mug of orange pekoe tea in front of her, listening to Sakura rattle on about how she and Sasuke had finally started dating and how she was sure that they would eventually be married.

Ino looked slightly put-off, but Hinata knew that she was officially with Kiba now and was very happy with him, so she doubted that the blond had any regrets about the choice she made.

Hinata looked at Tenten, who was sipping her peach green tea. She had been seeing a lot of the brunette lately, since she had started openly dating Neji about five months ago. Key word: openly. Not that it was really a big surprise; pretty much everyone in their circle of friends knew that the Hyuuga genius and the weapons mistress had been more than friends for quite some time.

She was happy for her friends and a tad bit envious. Once they were a bit older, they would eventually get married and have families and not have to worry about a child from a forbidden love affair out there somewhere.

It wasn't that she regretted being with Itachi or having Mariko, she only regretted that she wouldn't get to be there to see her baby grow up or to help her become the brilliant and beautiful woman that she knew her daughter would be. That was what broke her heart more than anything.

She had no doubt that Itachi would be a good father to Mariko, but she worried about the surroundings that her daughter would grow up in. She knew that Itachi lived in the hideout with the other Akatsuki members, all of whom were men, and not very good role models at that. All of them had done something terrible enough to earn them the status of S-class criminals, she couldn't imagine that they would be the best influences on her baby's life.

But then again, before she had actually met Uchiha Itachi, she wouldn't have thought that he could be gentle and kind and loving; she wouldn't have thought that he would take responsibility for a child that he had unintentionally helped create. Yet, he had surprised her. And who knew? Maybe this group of vicious killers and wanted criminals would turn out to be very dedicated and caring towards her little girl.

She could only hope so.

We would stand in the wind

We were free like water

Flowing down

Under the warmth of the sun

Now it's cold and we're scared

And we've both been shaken

Look at us

Man, this doesn't need to be the end

-- "Ever the Same"