CAUTION: Drama, drama, drama ahead. But with a nice citrusy ending. All's well that ends well, right?

Naruto followed her into the bedroom. Bile rose in his throat when nausea invaded his gut violently. He had the feeling he was not going to like hearing anything she was about to say.

Sitting down on the bed beside her, he took her hand in his. She was shaking. This was going to be bad. Real bad.

"I was going to be forced to marry Obito Uchiha. The wedding would have taken place within the next week. I was going to be a wife and mother. Well, not necessarily in that order," she corrected herself, red spots forming on the apples of her cheeks.

"You were pregnant?" he asked, gulping back the stomach acid after it filled his mouth.

"Yes."

She answered quickly. Too quickly. There was more. Oh, god. He feared was going to throw up for real, unable to hold it back. Squeezing her hand, he encouraged her to go on despite not wanting to hear it.

"The baby wasn't his, but he was going to marry me anyway. He loved me so he was going to do the honorable thing."

Questions. So many questions filled his head. Dare he ask them?

"Did you love him?" Naruto asked tentatively.

"Yes. That's why I walked away from him. I wanted to marry him but not then. Not under those circumstances. And what if later he hated me and resented the child? I couldn't do that to him or the baby," she murmured in a low voice, avoiding looking at him.

At that time, Riko had been dating Obito Uchiha for over a year. Everyone said they were going to get married after university - if their relationship survived. Apparently, it had died way sooner than anyone expected, especially Obito.

Naruto swallowed convulsively, almost choking on the lump in his throat. He hated this conversation and everything about it. But he had to know more. For years he had contemplated what awful occurrence had caused such a gaping chasm to form between his mother and aunt, the two most cherished women in his life. None of his imaginings compared to the truth. The worst part about this was there was more terrible truth to come.

"Who's baby was it?" he questioned her in the most gentle way possible.

"His best friend's," she sniffed, lowering her chin to her chest as shame colored her entire face a dark red.

"Kakashi Hatake!" Naruto yelled.

Riko snatched her hand out of his, rolling over on to her side to turn her back to him. Her body shuddered with a sob. His anger returned with a vengeance, and her tears did not move him. Although the events had taken place ten years ago, he felt like it was happening all over again. He felt betrayed and hurt.

"What the hell did you do?! You don't do that to someone you love!" he yelled, carried away by his anger.

He knew he was attacking her for bad mistakes and dumb decisions she had made long ago when she was still a kid herself. He was sure she would love to go back and change those things, but he could not stop himself or the words.

"How could you do that? What were you thinking? What...what...what the hell... " He finally stopped talking before he unleashed any further verbal venom. He was hurting, and he was lashing out. Unnecessarily so.

However, the rage still simmered inside of him. How could she do something like that? How could she be a two timer, a cheater? And not only that, she got pregnant.

"How could I do that?" she sniffed. "It wasn't as cut and dried as it sounds I assure you. Kind of like how things happened between us."

"Just the thought of you - "

"Yeah, I know. The thought of me being a worthless cheap slut, and worse yet, a cheater sickens you," she said acerbically. Her turn had come to spew words tainted with vitriol. She snorted derisively, "Look at us. Right here. Right now. How could we do this? How could I begin an incestuous affair with my nephew? Things happen. I can't seem to stop making stupid decisions and acting on bad impulses. Sorry," she apologized with more stinging acid in her voice. "I'm so sorry I knocked myself off that pedestal you put me on by being honest."

"I'm sorry too," he apologized, staring straight ahead, unable to look at her. "What happened to the baby?"

"I killed the baby," she said flatly.

"You had an abortion?" he guessed, laying his hand on her back, feeling her quaking under his palm. When she did not pull away, he turned to press his body to hers.

"No. The baby was born dead at twenty five weeks. I made it over half way through the pregnancy. And he died," she sniffled, her voice breaking.

"You were going to have the baby?"

"What I had done wasn't the baby's fault. I wasn't going to punish him by having an abortion. I was going to give him up for adoption."

"The baby was a boy," he mumbled to himself, gulping hard. "You were going to give him up for adoption?"

"Yes, but I killed him."

"But how did you - "

"I don't know. My body couldn't handle it. Maybe it was the stress. I don't know," she repeated, her voice dissolving into a sob. "Sometimes I think if I hadn't hated myself so much, my body could have sustained him. He was the only truly innocent party involved."

"It's not your fault," he sighed, plagued by overwhelming sadness.

Obviously time does not heal all wounds. Her reaction showed how much pain she still suffered from that situation.

"Logically, I know it's not," she said, turning to face him. "But I can't make my heart believe it."

Naruto studied her tear stained face, her red rimmed eyes, the broken, fearful heart revealed through those glittering turquoise irises. Placing his hand on her shoulder, he pulled her forward into his arms. He loved her. Despite her past. He did not know all of the circumstances, any of her reasons, for what she did back then. And he did not want to know.

Circumstance is a tricky bitch. Neither one of the could have dreamed circumstances would lead the two of them in this direction. Despite the shared blood coursing through their veins, he loved her for far more than an aunt. He had decided his fate in this situation, pushed her hand, and fought for this, to be with Riko in a romantic relationship beyond the scope of their familial relationship. Would she look back on their time together one day and exhibit so much bitterness and resentment? He could not live that - or without her.

If Naruto had learned anything, he learned the heart believes what it wants to believe. The heart wants what it what wants. Kissing her on the cheek, tasting the salt of her tears, he knew he wanted her. One day they might regret all of this, making these decisions and acting on these yearnings. That day was yet to come.

"I'll love you always," he whispered to her, hugging her so tightly she started to wheeze. "Aren't you..." He allowed his words to trail off, reminding himself he should tread lightly. "Aren't you worried about getting pregnant?"

"Give me some credit. I'm a grown ass woman. I had my Fallopian tubes tied, cut, and burned when I turned twenty six," she explained, carefully wiggling out of his arms.

"That's kind of drastic isn't it? You really don't want children that much?" he asked, watching her as she unwrapped the damp towel from her body.

"I really don't want children that much," she confirmed, pulling a long t-shirt over her head. Looking back at him over her shoulder, she said, "Besides, I had you. I had already raised a child. I couldn't possibly love another one as much."

Naruto shifted uncomfortably. A sick sensation of regret and guilt oozed into his gut.

"Please don't talk about that right now. Not right now," he said, standing up from the bed. He went to her, taking her into her into his arms. "I don't want to talk about this anymore."

"I have one more thing to say before I'm done."

"Riko, please, not - "

"Jiraiya's a good man. He took on a whole of drama and big hot mess he didn't have to when he invited me into his life. Despite what anyone thinks about him, even if they believe he's a degenerate pervert, and yes, I will admit he is, but he has always been a gentleman to me," she inhaled sharply after her fevered ramble. "He was a father to me. He has taken good care of me. He pretended to be my husband and signed the consent papers for me to be sterilized."

"Oh, really? Why are you telling me all of this? It hurts, you know."

"You're not the only one hurting here," she reminded him.

Riko turned, gazing up at him with defiant determination in her eyes as if she dared him to get angry with her or threaten to leave her and never see her again.

"Because you need to know these things. If you're going to love me as a woman, separate from everything else I am to you, you need to know. I will never bear children, by accident or on purpose. As if I could considering...the obvious reasons. The same reasons we can never progress beyond this."

"Do you sometimes purposely try to sabotage your own happiness?" he questioned her, glaring back at her in the same stubborn way. "I think you do because at the moment you're doing a fantastic job. And you're killing mine as well."

"One day, you may want a wife and children. You'll want a happy, loving marriage like your parents. You might want one, two, three, a dozen, little children running around, screaming 'daddy, daddy!' It's only right and good and 'normal' if you do," she said as if pleading with him.

"I don't want those things," he countered.

Reaching out to touch her cheek, she shied away from his hand. So we're back to that, he thought bitterly, dropping his arms to his sides.

"You don't want those things now," Riko pointed out, making sure to emphasize the present. "But one day you could change your mind and I will allow you the ability to do so without hating you or cutting you out of my life. Until then, feel what you feel, think what you think, but remember one day it could change. I will continue to love you, no matter what. Things will evolve again, or devolve. We will adapt. We will be okay. Okay?"

"Okay," he replied halfheartedly when she jostled him lightly with a her hands on his shoulders.

He tried to extricate his chin from her grip when she grasped it between her thumb and forefinger. However, her fingers bore into skin, squeezing with pain inducing pressure, forcing him to look at her. She was too damn strong for such a little woman.

"We have fifteen days," she reminded him. "Let's make the best of them."

"No time like the present," he growled playfully, grabbing her and flinging her onto the bed.

Riko landed flat on her back, her feet still on the floor. The t-shirt twisted around her waist, exposing her bare bottom half.

Naruto seized her wrists when she tried to cover herself up. Twisting one of the lengths of fabric around one wrist, then the other, he bound her hands together above her head. Pushing her knees apart, he positioned himself between her legs. His fingers combed through the reddish gold thatch of curly hairs trimmed into a neat triangle.

"What are you going to do?" she asked, unable to sit up and look at him since he had tied her hands with the fabric from the opposite side of the bed.

"Something I think you'll like," he replied, sliding his fingers between the labia slick with her natural lubricant. Spreading her swollen, dark pink lips apart, he lowered his head to taste her.

"Oh, shit," she gasped, straining at her bindings. His tongue delved deep inside of her, making her cry out his name. "Naruto!"

She wanted to run her fingers through his hair, pull his face tighter to her while he traced the sensitive vulva with his tongue. All she could do was writhe and whimper helplessly, completely at his sensual mercy. When he touched the tip of his tongue to her aching clitoris, she arched her back wanting him to lick her again. She groaned in frustration when he slid his tongue lower. Her hips pushed upward at him when he teased her entrance, his tongue entering her ever so slightly.

"Please," she begged. Rimming the hole again, he pushed his tongue in a little further before withdrawing it. "Please."

"Please, what?" he asked. He planted a noisy kiss on her clitoris, sucking the throbbing, stiff little organ between his lips.

"Oh, god, I don't know. Do whatever. Just don't stop," she breathlessly pleaded.

He did not stop until he had licked, sucked, and tongue fucked her into oblivion so many times until she changed her pleas. When she had been reduced into a squirming, sweating woman, begging him to stop, he did. He untied her, moving her body to a more comfortable place and position on the bed. Laying beside her, fitting his body to hers, he held her.

"What about you?" she asked, panting. His arm constricted around her waist when she tried unsuccessfully to turn over toward him or move at all.

"Be still. Sleep," he whispered in her ear. "I'll be fine. I wanted to make you forget. To put that out of your head so you could sleep. So you could have sweet dreams about me. Tomorrow can be my day."

"Tomorrow then. I promise."