Itachi wakes up suddenly as uneasiness courses through his body with unparalleled swiftness.
He breaks out into a cold sweat. He doesn't remember his dream, but whatever it was... it was bad.
He looks around the room, nearly unchanged in the ten months Naruto's been gone. He searches for what's missing. What is missing? He sends out his chakra, feeling as the waves swell within the room.
He releases the flow, and sits upright to knead his forehead with his thumb and forefinger. He can't detect that anything is missing, and the only people in the house are sleeping.
Yet feels the loss like a black hole in his chest. What's missing?
Then he freezes, barley daring to even breathe. The connection. His connection to Naruto. It's been severed. It's not possible. The only way for the bond to disappear is through... death.
A hot teardrop rolls smoothly down his cheek, and falls into his lap. He doesn't want to believe it. There has to be some sort of jutsu that the kidnapper's used to block it somehow. It's not possible. She can't be dead. She can't have left him alone with their children.
More tears follow the first. He goes through every possibility mentally searching for a way that his beloved could still be with him. There's no way she would have died so easily. She's going to come back, he needs her back.
She belongs in his arms where he can breathe in her scent. She needs to be there to see their children grow and surpass them.
He places his hand on his chest, as if to fill the void left behind by their connection. It doesn't help. He silently lifts the covers, and walks into each of his children's rooms to retrieve them and take them to his own bed. They don't wake up, and he gently tucks them in. Then he sits on the floor, and places his arms and chin on the bed listening to the rise and fall of their chests.
The moonlight shines through the window to gently caress their sleeping faces. He doesn't try to stop the endless stream of tears soaking into his blanket. He doesn't make any noise. He just silently watches his children, his reason to stay alive and sane, with sightless eyes.
He won't tell the others. He'll let them hope. Hope that they'll find her and bring her home to him. Sorrow eats at his heart slowly, achingly, and depression lingers in the shadows.
Until the day he dies, he will watch over and take care of his children. Of their children.
Naruto fought to keep them safe the day she disappeared. He would take up her place and continue until they no longer needed him. Then he would leave this world and be reunited with the only woman he's ever loved.
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Totally not the end. Stay tuned for the next chapter!
Did anyone cry? I did. I'm one of those readers.