"One Year" Chapter 7

At eight weeks, your hearts have split into two chambers and will soon develop into four. Your hearts are also beating almost twice as fast as mine... If that's even possible. 150 beats per minute and you're becoming stronger with each beat. My stomach does flips every time I think of the thought of really having you two here with me. Just don't show up too fast, okay?

~Mom

Sakura swore that she saw a bump forming by week eight.

The moment that Tsunade had revealed to Sakura that she was carrying twins caused her to realize that she wouldn't be able to hide her pregnancy for as long as she would have liked to, so she stood in front of the mirror looking for any slight change in her body shape any time that she got the chance.

"Sakura?" Ino had walked into the pinkette's office as she was staring at herself in her mirror.

The blonde giggled when Sakura quickly tugged her shirt back over her abdomen. "You're not going to grow overnight, you know."

"I know that." Sakura huffed. "I'm just worried at how fast they're going to grow is all."

She went to her desk and sat in her chair. Ino sat a couple of dishes in front of her from the cafeteria.

"It's already time for lunch?" Sakura groaned. She was finally able to eat better since Tsunade had made her special medicine to help with her nausea, but food still tended to overwhelm Sakura.

"Come on, forehead girl. You've got two growing babies to feed so eat up."

Sakura sighed and removed a lid from one of the bowls. Lucky for her, the chefs had made miso soup.

Her mouth watered against her will, causing Ino to laugh again.

The blonde sat down in a chair in front of Sakura's desk and unpacked her own meal.

"So how is the ER?" Sakura asked. Ino had taken over the ER duties since Sakura was more demanded in the clinic. Tsunade decided it was a better way to take some of Sakura's workload off of her shoulders.

"Oh, it's been nothing that I can't handle," Ino smirked. "You were right when you said the flu was being more aggressive this year. How have you been holding up?"

Sakura took a sip of her soup and sighed. "I'm still not able to sleep well at night. I keep on having these nightmares where Lord Uchiha finds out everything."

Ino frowned. "That's not good. Do you think it's because you haven't told anyone else yet?"

"I'm not sure, but I've decided to tell Itachi about it the next time we meet with each other."

"What?!" Ino gasped. "But what if he tells his dad?"

Sakura shook her head and smiled to herself. "He won't do that. He loves Sasuke too much."

The pinkette turned her attention to her rice and sighed. She had grown bored having to stay in her office for a majority of the day. She really missed the fast-paced work of going back and forth from the clinic to ER.

"Are you okay?" Ino asked.

"I just wish that Lady Tsunade didn't treat me as if I were breakable."

"Sakura, you need to slow down. That's the whole reason behind you being put in the clinic. Once you have the babies, then maybe she'll let you resume all of your duties. You're a healthcare professional, so you should know the importance of staying healthy enough to tend to your patients."

Sakura sighed. "I know that, but I can't help the fact that I still want to do more. It helps keep my mind off of everything." She felt her chest grow tight and her eyes glossed over with tears. "I really miss Sasuke, and this pregnancy isn't doing me any favors. I mean, look at me. I'm just a good for nothing hormonal mess."

"Hormonal mess is right, but good for nothing is completely off!" Ino stood up and put her hands on her hips. "Where is the Sakura Haruno I know? Last I checked, you were still a kick ass medical ninja who wasn't afraid to back down from anything life handed her. Well, guess what, Sakura this is your life now so you need to pull up your big girl panties and deal with it."

Sakura looked up at Ino with wide eyes. She was right. This was her life now.

"Thank you, pig." She wiped her eyes and mustered up a smirk. "I needed that."

Sasuke seemed that he was growing more and more used to operating in the shadows as the days went by.

They always operated in groups of two when they followed their target, switching between twelve-hour intervals. On his off time, he slept or took care of his ninja tools. More specifically, his blade that Kakashi gifted him with before starting the qualifications.

He spent a lot of time honing is skills to be able to run chidori through the blade. Kakashi was shocked when Sasuke first approached him with the idea.

"Now, Sasuke... You do know that a sword is meant for protecting and not taking away lives, right?"

Sasuke was sixteen the first time that he showed interest in working with swords. He was always curious as to why many shinobi chose not to go with something of that nature.

"You sound like you got that from your stupid book." Sasuke scoffed. "I just think it would be useful is all."

"Are you sure it's because you don't want to look lame next to Naruto's rasengan?" Kakashi smirked. His best friend had finally mastered the rasengan and was able to do so much more with it than what Sasuke was able to do with his chidori.

"Tch. That idiot just wishes he was as cool as me." Sasuke grumbled, folding his arms.

In all reality, the whole reason that Sasuke was experimenting with ideas was that he needed to become stronger to prove to his father that he was as brilliant and capable as his brother.

He wanted to show off to his father so he could protect Sakura when he came out with the news that she had given him that morning.

He didn't want to be written off as some sort of head family failure because he had fallen in love with the wrong kind of person compared to what the stupid clan ruled to be propper.

He wanted to protect his little growing family from being treated like outcasts.

Also, he wanted to make sure that if anything happened to him Sakura and their child would be able to fall back onto strong shoulders for support.

He needed to learn to wield a sword, and this would be the time to do it.

The first time that he showed Kakashi what was going on through his mind when it came to the lightening blade, his sensei was impressed.

"You turned it into a literal lightening blade." He smirked behind his mask, raising his brows in amusement. "You still have a long way to go before it's right, but I see the potential."

Sasuke returned his smirk, completely out of breath from his training. "Of course you do. I'm the one that thought of the idea, after all."

He and Kakashi continued on with a secret training for a few weeks when Sasuke was finally ready to reveal to his teammates his new technique.

"Alright since Sakura was finally able to take a break from the hospital for today, why don't we let her and Sasuke spar this time?"

"WHAT?! But Sensei, I am Sasuke's training partner." Naruto whined. "And it's been a week since we got any actual good missions. Please let me spar with him!"

Sasuke and Sakura gave unsure glances at each other. No one else knew about their possible child but them. If she backed down then, Kakashi and Naruto would definitely know something was up. And everyone knew that Naruto couldn't keep a secret.

"Sure, I'm up for it." Sakura finally spoke up after stretching a bit. "I can't let myself get rusty, after all."

Sasuke swallowed, trying to keep his face as stoic as possible. "Hmph. You sound confident."

"But of course," Sakura said as she put on her black gloves. "I am a pupil of the Fifth Hokage."

Sasuke clicked his tongue. He knew she was probably as nervous about fighting as he was. They didn't want to risk the possibility of hurting their child, but this looming threat of Fugaku finding out about them outweighed that fear.

"Come at me with all you got!" Sakura smirked as she launched herself towards him. What she meant was "Take it easy on me, okay?"

They spent a good part of their spar just throwing shuriken and kunai from a distance. It was annoying Naruto, so of course his loud mouth had to say something.

"Hey, what is this?! Sakura you're normally in my face trying to punch me by now, and Sasuke you'd be trying to hit me with your most powerful attack! Just because you have the hots for each other doesn't mean that you can let up on when you're training."

"Tch," Sasuke growled. Naruto was right. If they stayed at a distance for much longer, they would definitely notice how Sasuke was trying to avoid Sakura's abdomen at all cost. He had to do it then.

Sasuke quickly unsheathed his sword at his side and smoothly deflected the kunai Sakura had thrown at him.

"I wanted to use this on the Dobe, but I guess I can show you now that you're here too," Sasuke smirked and ran his chakra through the blade. "Don't let it slice you like a tomato, okay?"

Sakura gave him a smirk in reply. He had said the word, which meant that she was to dodge at the last minute. She wasn't sure how fast his attack was going to hit, so the only thing she could do was build her chakra at her feet and wait to jump away from it.

When he unleashed the spear, it almost threw her off guard. It was something she had never seen before. She narrowly missed getting hit through her chest.

Once the smoke from the attack cleared, Sakura was on the ground with her eyes glued to the tree she was just standing in front of moments before. Sasuke's chidori spear had hit it in just the right spot to break the trunk into thousands of small pieces.

"Okay, I think that's enough you two," Kakashi said with a few claps.

Sasuke went to Sakura and helped her to her feet.

"That was amazing." She whispered.

"I learned it for you, you know," Sasuke responded with a volume only she could hear.

Sakura smiled as her cheeks turned pink.

"Oi! Teme that was so awesome! I can't believe yo-" Naruto cut himself off and his eyes filled with horror. "Sakura are you okay? You're bleeding!"

Sasuke frowned, avoiding the last part of his memory. Sakura tried to tell him over and over again that it wasn't his fault that her cycle had come in that moment. She kept insisting that it was still too early to tell if she was actually pregnant beforehand and that she shouldn't have told him in the first place.

That was a rough time in his life after that happened. He knew that he said that he was prepared to raise a child with Sakura, but he didn't realize that he actually whole-heartedly wanted to have a child with her until after she said she was pregnant.

"Sen~" A singsong voice came from outside of the room he was staying in. "Suigetsu and Juugo will be needing us to relieve them soon. I'm ready whenever you are."

Sasuke sighed. His night partner was Karin, and he definitely wasn't in the mood to deal with her antics after thinking about that memory.

"I'll be ready in a moment," Sasuke called back.

He finished polishing his blade and put it back in its sheath. After being satisfied with the way he had it tied to his body, he nodded at his reflection in approval.

His sensei was right. His blade was meant to protect, and he was going to use it to protect his dream to make Sakura his wife.

Later that afternoon Sakura was getting ready to leave when Itachi suddenly appeared in her office.

"I really wish you'd stop scaring me like that," Sakura said as she grabbed her chest to steady her heartbeat.

She had been gathering up files and putting them away, not paying attention to what was going on around her.

"Is everything okay?"

Itachi nodded and sat down on one of Sakura's lounging chairs as she moved around the room. "I just thought I would stop by before heading back home. I got a letter from Sasuke."

Sakura's eyes widened. "Really?"

He handed her an envelope with her name on it.

"It was delivered via animal summoning, so he only had one person to choose to deliver to. He said he'll write back again next month."

"Thank you, Itachi." Sakura smiled as she took it. She sat across from him as she stared at the handwriting.

"You look better than you did a few weeks ago. I'm sorry I haven't been around. I just got back from a mission yesterday."

"It's okay," Sakura reassured him. "I actually needed time to gather my thoughts before I talked to you again."

"Why? Is something wrong?"

Sakura sighed and sat Sasuke's letter to the side.

"First, tell me how Lady Rikka is? I haven't met with her in a few weeks. Has she had another cycle?"

Itachi raised his brow. "Actually, she hasn't. We're waiting a little while longer before jumping to take a test to know for sure."

Sakura felt a little better after hearing that. Maybe Rikka's ET was a success. She didn't feel as guilty for what she was about to reveal to him.

"That's great news. Just book an appointment with the clinic when you're ready for me to have a look." She beamed.

"So... What did you want to talk to me about then?"

Sakura let out a deep breath. "Itachi, I'm pregnant."

There, it was out in the open between them. She found that Itachi always preferred things to be blunt and to the point, and for Sakura, it needed to be cut and dry before she started crying again.

Itachi chuckled, to Sakura's surprise. She expected his reaction to be totally different.

"Sakura, don't you think I've known this?"

Her eyes widened. "You've known?!"

"When you and Lady Hokage were in her office, I heard everything from the door," Itachi explained. "I have just been waiting for you to tell me yourself."

Sakura was shocked. Itachi hadn't approached her about it because he wanted her to be ready to come to terms with it all.

"If the reason that you didn't tell me until now was because of mine and Rikka's situation, I get it." He gave her a soft smile but quickly turned serious again. " However, please don't keep important things like that from me later on in the future. Otherwise, I won't be able to help you."

Sakura looked down. Itachi was right. Keeping secrets wasn't helping anyone.

"I take it you're fully prepared to go through this pregnancy with out my father's knowledge?"

The pinkette nodded her head in determination. "I will not risk Sasuke's relationship with your family because of this."

"Are you planning on telling Sasuke before he comes home?"

Sakura frowned and shook her head. "He'll want to come home if I do. Sasuke can't come home yet no matter how much I really want him to be here with me. Not until I've fulfilled my promise to him. I'm going to keep on working to make sure that you and Rikka have the child or children you deserve. No matter what the situation becomes. You're precious to him, which makes you precious to me."

"And..." Her cheeks pinkened as she looked away. "We'll need him to take more missions as ANBU since we're having twins after all. Childcare expenses aren't a joke."

Itachi chuckled at that. She was already thinking that far ahead.

The dark-haired man stood and handed Sakura a small box he had in his kunai pouch.

"I've been waiting weeks for you to tell me about this, and this was the only thing I could think of giving to you for now."

Sakura took the small box and looked up at him as if she were asking if it were okay to open it.

Itachi nodded and so Sakura ripped the white wrappings off of it and opened the lid. She was a little surprised when she saw two worn metal rattles neatly secured in a bed of cotton.

"I dug those up the other day," Itachi explained as Sakura ran her fingers over them. "They were mine and Sasuke's. There are another few things I'm willing to part with. The rest I'm going to keep for my own children, of course, but I thought you would like to have these."

Sakura felt hot tears run down her cheeks. She quickly put the lid back on the box and furiously rubbed at her eyes. "Ugh. These stupid hormones!"

She took a few seconds to regain her composure and finally reached forward and embraced Itachi. "Thank you so much. This means a lot."

"Sakura even if my father won't accept them, remember that I do."

It was with those words that her lover's brother spoke, Sakura was able to carry on.

Thanks everyone for reviewing and the questions and just loving this story in general.

As for a question I got the other day, someone asked me why I chose Rikka to be Itachi's wife over Izumi.

Welllllll... I honestly forgot about her. -Is shot-

But I'm also kind of glad that I chose not to put Izumi into this story because of where I'm going to go with it. Rikka doesn't die or anything, but I'm not going further than that much. It's nothing too bad, but I wouldn't want to have Izumi in Rikka's shoes is all.

Thanks again for all of your love and support!

~Ryn