Authors notes: Ah, seriously "They're both Uchiha, therefore they must hookup." As if my plot was going to be so transparent. So due to an overwhelming number of...well concerns I guess I will say this

SASUKE DOES NOT "CHEAT" ON SAKURA WITH KAEDE!

I seriously can't emphasize that enough.

Happy? (Sorry, it's just getting a little out of hand.) Anyways there was kind of a delay on this chapter, due to my friend lending me season 6 of Supernatural...

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.


The tension was killing me as we left the area. I had so many questions for her, most of which involved my brother. I was curious as to how he found her. He must have been training her while he was in the Akatsuki. The whole trip I could feel her watching me from behind. I could sense that she was every bit as curious about me as I was her. Who knew what my brother had told her. It was possible that he warned her about me. I just didn't have enough information yet.

I tried to focus, I didn't need Kakashi or Yūgao getting suspicious of us. Knowing Kakashi, he would get the wrong idea. I didn't even want to give him the excuse to come looking around. When the opportunity came for us to talk we didn't need any uninvited guests listening in. We skipped past the village that we stayed in the second night. I didn't mind, since I didn't plan on talking to her in a hotel room, where you never knew who was listening in on the other side of some thin wall. No, I would have to take her somewhere secure.

I didn't want to wait until we got to Konoha, it would be almost impossible to talk to her then. We stopped in the forest a few hours after we passed the small town with the hotel. If the chance came, I would talk to her tonight. I made our tent in a hurry. Kaede apparently was on the same page as I was. She didn't pay me much mind, or at least pretended not to. I had a feeling that she wanted to ask me just as many questions that I had for her. She was watching Kakashi and Yūgao, not enough though to gain their attention. We finished setting up camp like normal. Which didn't take long since it obviously wasn't meant to be all that permanent.

Kakashi stoked a fire for most of the night. It was frustrating. Yūgao must have gone in for the night because I didn't see her after she entered her tent. If they knew I was going to play along. I joined Kakashi at the fire, he was cooking some kind of game he had caught in the forest. I had been setting up tent when he caught it. He offered me some, it tasted gamey, but I ate it regardless. IT was the closest thing to real food I'd had in a few days. He watched me eat it, holding his piece close to the fire. I stared back for a few moment before I remembered what he was waiting for. I rolled my eyes and looked away for a minute, chewing on the tough meat of whatever it was that I was eating. I turned back around in time to see him finish pulling his mask back over his face. It made me wonder what he had worth hiding beneath that mask.

It seemed like hours before Kakashi went to bed. I told him I would take the first watch, that gave me four hours. Shortly afterward, Kaede came from the tent, she had changed down to just her undershirt and pants. She sat across from me, staring at the flames that were sending up sparks into the open air. We chatted idly, mostly about things that would bore the pants off of anyone listening in. I didn't waste time when she whispered to me that the coast was clear. We went nearly a quarter mile before stopping to talk. Our campfire barely visible in the distance, blocked by the sparsely spaced trees in this area.

"I just have one question really." She started first. Since she just had the one, I would let her go first, even though I was about to boil over.

"Alright."

"You said you killed your brother a few years ago?"

"That's right. Kind of a long story as to why."

"But that can't be right, because I saw him again not four months ago, he stayed with me for a few days before I came to Konoha. He... never told me about you." It took a lot for me not to burst out. She wasn't the one to blame though, if she saw him that long ago there were a few explanations. Orochimaru had an ability that was capable of bringing people back to life. How he was walking around freely was another matter.

"Someone brought him back then." I sighed, I wasn't sure how to process her bit of news just yet.

"Is that even possible? He seemed just fine, better even."

"It's possible, though I don't have all of the details, I just know that it can be done."

"Alright." I could tell she wanted more information, but on the subject of revival I had already told her everything that I knew. "I bet you have a few things to ask me."

"You have the mangekyou sharingan, how far has your sight deteriorated?" She couldn't hide her reaction, but it was a look of shame. It already gave me a hint at what she had done. I had done the same thing. "Whose eyes did you take?"

"My sisters...Itachi basically taught us everything he knew, he chose me though, all those years ago. He told me what I would have to do... I resisted at first, but eventually I couldn't ignore my situation. It was when other people started to notice was when I really started to consider his proposal."

From what I knew her story sounded the same as what most Uchiha did to their siblings. To think that I thought that particular tradition might end with me. I knew that I wanted to revive the clan, but I didn't know if I wanted that kind of particular information out there for everyone. Violence was what put the Uchiha clan where it currently was, virtually extinct. If there was a way to hide this from the world I would.

"You had a sister?"

"Twin sister actually."

"I see...so how did you manage to hide the fact that you had the sharingan from everyone...except Itachi."

"I guess you could say that there were never any witnesses afterward. Itachi was the first, we attacked him. After he saw our eyes he knocked us out, and hid us in a small town. Trained us in the woods, out of sight of everyone. He treated us like family." Those were words that hurt, but she couldn't have known. "He would disappear for months at a time, but by that point we could more than take care of ourselves. He never stopped pushing us to our limits though in training, especially in skills that didn't involve the sharingan...he was just...so far above us back then. It was hard to imagine that there were people like him out there. So powerful, yet so kind."

I was well aware of what Itachi did all those years ago. Playing the villain. Truth be told, this was the most I had ever heard anyone speak about him in some time. I don't know why I wasn't able to discuss him with Sakura, but this was helping. Maybe now I could. She deserved to be let into my life even more than I had already let her.

"So why go to Konoha?"

"It's where he wanted me to go, he didn't say what for though, maybe it has something to do with you though. I just don't know, maybe he thought I could do good here. He loves Konoha." It was weird to hear her talk about him like he was still alive and well. Even though it was technically possible. I still didn't want to acknowledge it though, I would need to see that with my own eyes. The word of a virtual stranger didn't count for much. Though I didn't think she was lying. Being skeptical and distrusting had kept me alive this long.

"Well, let's get back to camp. The other might have noticed that we're gone."

"No, I can sense them. They're asleep still."

"It's not like I don't have more questions, but I have a feeling that we have time for them later. There's still a whole day of traveling ahead, so tomorrow night we can try again. Let's just get some sleep." We headed back, the whole time I was trying to process her story. I sat by the fire again, which had dwindled significantly. I still was on watch, after a few hours Kakashi came out of his tent, his one visible eye looked tired. He still wore the forehead protector over his left eye. Old habits I assumed. I went into the tent, the only sound inside was Kaede's light breathing. I myself had to focus pretty hard to just to fall asleep. It was hard when the person that you wanted to talk to was sleeping, if she actually was, was right next me. I did eventually doze off though.

The next morning my lack of sleep was apparent, it took most of what I had just to force myself out of the tent. The others were already ready, at worst I was running just a few minutes late. It didn't matter though, at this point it was only a matter of just getting back home. Sakura would be happy to see me, and to be honest with myself I missed her. It was something that I noticed since this was my first time away that missed so many little things about her. It was an interesting feeling, missing someone. I missed my parents, but it was different kind of missing. I just wanted her to be back around. She was literally my one tie to Konoha at this point. I was feeling more confident over the last few weeks though that I would be able to settle down, raise a kid. I wasn't sure if I wanted to continue going on missions, or focus on my own mission.

It wasn't that the missions were particularly dangerous, I doubted that I would ever come all that close to death on one of these missions that Naruto had me running around on. I knew he wouldn't put me on anything that I couldn't handle. Although what could be out there at this point that I couldn't handle? Less than one percent of the population of the world would even have a remote chance of fighting me and having a chance of victory.

After a full day of completely uneventful travel we stopped. It was somewhere near the original campsite we made the first night. I recognized some of the landmarks of the area. We would be back by noon the next day. That was even after a decent nights sleep. Kakashi stayed up the whole night, effectively throwing a wrench in out plan to talk again tonight. I did however manage to tell her where I live. We could potentially meet up again at some point. She knew my chakra at this point. It would be easy for her to find me. She knew to catch me when I was alone though. I knew Sakura had a little complex about other girls. She was definitely the jealous type. I didn't want her to get the wrong idea about me and Kaede.

Kakashi had his usual dulled expression on when I woke up. The typical one that people wore after a night of being awake. After relieving myself out in the woods, then packing the rest of my things we all headed back. Konoha came into view before too long. I wondered why we just didn't bother traveling through the night, since we were only a few hours away. It wasn't up for me to decide though, Kakashi was the captain on this mission, and what he said to do was what were obligated to do. Despite the fact that the way I did things was different than his. My methods back at the cave would have been more direct. I didn't like all the sneaking around that we had to do just to take care of a few guards that obviously posed no threat to any of us. I could have completed that mission alone. Doing things on my own power was just my way of doing things, ever since the war. Going back to being a team player was going to be difficult.

My life in general though was going to become a team effort of sorts. The family that I was starting would be like my own team. If one could think of it that way. I had a few years to get there though, before I started training my child. I needed to change more myself though. All of the nights that I had spent awake, just made me realize that neither Sakura or I were ready to really raise a kid in the way that we wanted. Changing ourselves was just the next step. Growing up really. We had just been flying through our relationship at this point, never really taking a moment to examine it up close. Sometimes I didn't really know what it was all about, maybe she did, and maybe she didn't. We couldn't complain though, it was a working relationship at this point. They say you shouldn't try to fix what isn't broken, and I knew we weren't broken from the moment I saw her face light up as I walked in the door.

"You're home!" She ran up as quick as she could, giving me a kiss which seemed to last for minutes. I had almost forgotten the taste and feel of them as we seemed to blend into each other. "I have some great news." she said as we finally broke off from each other.

"What is it?" She was holding her stomach now which hadn't really grown much as far as I could tell.

"Twins Sasuke, we're having twins." I didn't need to even think about how good of news that actually was. It was terrifying as well, but that only lasted for a moment. It was the same as when she told me that she was pregnant the first time. Two children meant that Uchiha revival would go all the faster.

"That's incredible." I kissed her quickly. "Let's go out to celebrate, to be honest I'm a little starved. Try eating Kakashi's catches for a few days, and you could go for just about anything." She chuckled a little, probably reminiscing about the times that she had eaten the very same thing. Then again, Kakashi probably was far more used to just eating whatever he could come by. Times had changed quite a bit since he was our age. Despite the fact that he was only one generation ahead of us.

"That's fine, I haven't had any lunch yet. Eating for three now anyways."


Authors notes: not really anything of note to put here.