Act Of Mercy: Chapter Nine-Interlude
She was a mother, but somewhere along the way, she'd failed her child. She'd seen it with absolute clarity on the morning that her eldest, her beautiful, gentle eldest, had practically thrown his announcement of the Hokage's choice in his father's face over the breakfast table. It had been a shock, the sudden glint of almost desperate hope that had flashed in her boy's eyes before he'd concealed it under other, more expected emotions. She knew his father hadn't seen it. The man had never seen what he didn't want to see, and much as she loved him once, she knew he had many failings.
But then, so did she. Had she not, after all, closed her eyes to the slow steady falter in her son as he had felt more and more trapped by what her husband's plans were doing? She knew she'd had other options and had not taken them. She had not wanted to admit where her Itachi's choice would lay if he was forced. She had known, and she had been accepting of the consequences that lay in her silence, but it had not been fair. What fairness was there in accepting that your choices would drive your child to desperation of any kind?
She was paying for it now, and truthfully, she felt that the unintentional punishment was deserved. She was fully aware her eldest still loved her. She also knew that she frightened him now, that he had seen something in her on the night of the killings that he had not expected to see, and had not wanted to. That, along with the careful distance forged over years, had left her as something he felt he had to handle carefully. No matter how many months they had spent together now in furtive planning, it had not been enough to span such a chasm. It hurt, but she had let this happen, and her child had grown into a man without her hands guiding him.
She wished she could say otherwise. She couldn't. She had let go of her eldest too many years before, letting the world rip his precious ideals to shreds as he tried so very hard to hold them together. She hadn't helped him. She remembered the days when she turned her attention from him before he'd become a genin, leaving him to his father as a choice. He'd always been a watchful child, and those little abandonments did not go unseen by his far too knowing eyes. Even at five, he'd understood what it meant when his mother would pretend that she hadn't seen him looking back at her as his father tugged him out the door.
He forgave her for that. He'd see, and it would hurt him, but he never blamed her. Somehow that made everything worse on reflection, that he was so willing to forgive her her transgressions, no matter what they were. A subtle pretension that she hadn't seen a hopeful gaze? Moving to another room as he tried to come tell her something? Cutting him off before he could get started on saying something that had made him smile? All of these were things he forgave her for, but with each little rejection came the slow careful build of the shield he lived behind now.
At first it had killed her to do it, to encourage that coldness, but he was the heir. Fugaku had loved his children. No matter what could be said for the man, he had always loved his children, and he had loved her. Unfortunately, that love was harsh at times, and Itachi had never quite managed to be on the better side of it. When he was very small, he was too quiet. When he had discovered his cousin Obito, he had been too loud. After that same cousin died the child was once again too quiet, and this time her husband had not tolerated it. He'd harried the boy, and she knew it even at the time, but she'd been too tired then, heavy with her Sasuke and in no shape to do anything but sleep and hope her little one would eventually remember how to smile.
Instead, her Itachi had closed down further, fumbling his way into learning precision with a kunai as no child so small should ever need to, especially not a child who would flee the kitchen at the first sight of a dead animal about to be prepared for dinner. But he had done it anyway. He would vanish for hours on end, and finally her husband had gotten frustrated with his frequent excursions and had followed him, discovering what he was up to. After that he'd started the intense lessons with her silent little boy, poking and prodding him along to try to force a fire affinity where one didn't appear to be. Watching him at it had been enough to get her to test him one morning, and she'd found that the boy had inherited her primary affinity. Wind. Oddly, to her mind at least, in the years that followed, she never once saw him use a wind jutsu. There had been times when she had wondered if he'd decided that would be cheating. Still, he did learn the fire jutsu his father wanted him to after several horrible failures, proceeding into it with the single minded determination that ran in the family.
It was a very quiet few months, between Obito's death and Sasuke's birth, and she had grown thoroughly sick of it by the time she'd finally had her baby. She'd been miserable, because she'd been certain that this would somehow seal her eldest into silence forever. After all, it was losing someone dear that had caused it, was it not? She didn't dare hope he would open up again. He surprised her though. It was only after Sasuke was around that the child had started to speak again, murmuring secrets to the baby when he was sure that no one could hear him. It had become a game even, with the child silencing himself the second he detected someone near him, which, sadly, was too often before anything could actually be heard of what he'd been saying.
It only stopped once they'd put him in the Academy. The terrible Academy which let him move through so very swiftly, dumping him into his genin team practically before she had fully grasped that he was already in school and out from under her watchful eyes. Still, by then she'd already started to truly let go of him, and he had not asked her one of his sweet fanciful questions in over a year at that point. She still remembered them, even now, when he was leaving her home entirely for the apartments of the Hokage near the tower.
She remembered him asking if butterflies were a way of sending messages. She remembered him sneaking around to the side of the couch and asking her if crows were better than ravens. Her answers had been yes to both, but such questions had been neatly tucked away from her, and she would never get them back. He'd grown up and away, accepting her subtle rejections and pulling from her until when he really needed her, he thought that such a thing would no longer be allowed.
No. That wasn't true. By then, he knew that it was not an option, because he no longer trusted her as his font of wisdom and the one from whom all help should be sought. Those days had long passed, and she had been the one to do it, until finally, it had come to that morning with his desperate hope and his delicate lies. She knew her boy was a beautiful liar, but sometimes, a mother just knew. She hadn't let it pass, of course. He'd given her an opening, and she was a shinobi. You exploited an opening to your benefit, and in her case, she'd immediately tipped her hand. Yes, she'd seen, and knew, and had not acted.
It had been months before he took her up on it though, and she was ashamed to know how happy she had been to see him so horribly shaken by what he'd heard from his father. Yes, she'd been furious at the content of the conversation. Beyond furious even, she'd been utterly murderous, but she had also felt a thrill of happiness. Her baby had come to her for help, finally. Not even her fumbling with him as a child was enough to drive him away from her when he most desperately needed to be a child searching for comfort, and the happiness that had inspired would forever be a source of guilty pleasure.
Now, it was once again back to that cautious untrusting distance, and it was an unfortunate thing that she could not make him unsee the cause. She truly hadn't wanted him there for that, but the chance, once passed, would never come again, so she had simply carried on. Now, her husband was dead, and her eldest child was just a bit frightened of her in a way he never had been before. It wasn't a fear for his life. It was a fear for his trust. Such a delicate thing, her son's trust.
She hated to think of how he would react if he ever had cause to lose his faith in Sasuke. Her ten year old was, she was sure, the only anchor that her eldest had for now. Soon, he would settle into his new robes and hat, and he would find a way that would anchor him into the very bedrock of the village, but for now, even though he was Hokage, he was still her cautious child, untrusting of everyone and so sure the world lay on his shoulders.
She just wished there was still a chance that he would believe her if she told him it didn't.
Unfortunately, she really did know better, and the following years would have made a liar of her anyway.