Naruto's home wasn't anyone's home without Naruto in it.
Some changes were subtle: a general lack of attention to neatness, how the people who still lived there moved in rushed, stressed clumps from Point A to Point B, quiet re-settling like a second layer of dust almost before they passed. Some changes were glaring: no Big Breakfasts - no sit-down meals of any type, really; no daily shuttling to and from the ice rink; no squeaks of sneakers on linoleum or echoing smack of a dribbling basketball or crowing battle cries bursting from the gym. And no one laughed anymore. But really, Hinata thought, fists clutched under her chin as she leaned into the balustrade of the grand staircase and listened to emptiness, it was this: a house needed to be a place of connection to be a home, and Naruto was the point where everyone in this place connected.
And Naruto was gone.
Hinata had seen him as the sun for a long time, and she recognized what was happening: they were out of orbit. All of them. Reeling, unbalanced, disconnected. Catastrophe-headed.
They were trying. They were trying. Her heart broke for the way Naruto's parents reached for each other again and again, for the way their reactions to what was happening snapped distance between them, again and again. Kakashi-sensei seemed to be caught in some sort of fight between Uchiha Obito and Rin-san; it had something to do with the plan to free Naruto by force if they had to, and Rin's role in that plan, and it hurt enough to draw tight lines into all three of their faces. No one was sleeping enough. Genma, Raidou, and Iwashi worked doggedly at protecting people who no longer cared, much, if they were protected. Who were actively preparing a scenario where they couldn't be protected. Hinata heard Raidou telling Genma that he didn't know how much longer he could deal with just failing, failing Namikaze Minato, and she bit her lip and ached for them, and made sure to have Genma's favorite almond crescent cookies to go with their next meal. The bodyguard team were the only people who talked to Hinata every day, and she was pathetically grateful that they kept showing up for the food she made. She felt a strange, secret kinship with the lead bodyguards: because they were on the outside, looking in; because they were treated well, but always thought of second, or last, if at all; because they felt like they failed. So she baked cookies. There wasn't much else she could do.
She could sit on the stairs, and listen to emptiness, and wait. Everything was waiting, now: waiting for her final exam scores to be posted, waiting for someone to remember to eat what she cooked, waiting for the next underage-defenders-of-Naruto meeting, waiting for news of Naruto so there was a reason to call a meeting, waiting for her next fifteen minutes with Naruto.
Waiting for Baby-chan. She was thirty-five weeks pregnant. She had one month left, probably: one month until the life she cared for only by caring for herself was suddenly on the outside, a whole separate tiny helpless person who needed her for everything and could be damaged just by being picked up and held wrong and also would trust Hinata to give her a life that was worth living and keep her alive to live it and Hinata was terrified. Given only the track record of her own life, she never would have dared. Maybe... maybe she would have found just enough endurance to give birth, to give her daughter some chance at life. She could have caved to Kurenai-sensei's gentle-but-unceasing "consider adoption" pressure.
Maybe she still should. But she knew what she wanted, wanted so desperately that want wasn't a strong enough word: she wanted to be selfish. She needed to be sure.
Sure that this baby, this little human who didn't ask to be part of this very messed-up world, would face that world loved. Cocooned-in, free-to-fly love. The comfort her own mother's arms, remembered with so much pure warmth that just thinking of it made her eyes sting and her chest burn; the die-for-you determination that grew for Naruto and made her heart dance on its own, dance alive, beating joy for having someone worth putting up with all the worst parts of being alive for. The love that shattered whole people and built them again in mosaics of their own pieces but with pieces of others, too, and cracks that let them reach taller.
The love that filled and burst and scorched this home: pain and loss and gain and hope so intense she could hear it, sitting on the stairs and listening. The house was untouched. The home was gutted.
Hinata breathed in, and deep-under-words knew: she would give birth in this house.
Then she thought: No, of course I won't. I'll be in a hospital -
But she wasn't registered with any hospitals. She had attended only two prenatal doctor's appointments, and would fight against a third. If anyone had been paying enough attention to notice, she was sure they would have scolded her; it was selfish, and stupid, to avoid something that might help her baby… but did the appointments really help her baby?
They didn't help her.
She'd gone only because Neji-nii-san so desperately worried about her. She was glad she'd been there for the ultrasound. She treasured the printouts, the memory of that strong, fast little heartbeat, the revelation that Baby-chan was really there, and really hers - her daughter. It didn't make up for the nightmares that came after, asleep and awake. It didn't seem to matter, in the part of her brain where terror lived, if the person touching her was a female doctor, threatened and vetted by an over-protective cousin.
Being touched was enough (too much).
If she could be in this place that had mostly memories that meant home - if she could be alone - no, if Naruto could be there - Naruto can't be there. But still, relief welled: birth - what had to happen to her body for it to give birth - scared her cold and sweaty and breathless - but it scared her a little less, now. Peace edged the fear-clouds, thin but healing, and Hinata breathed out.
.
YiviY
.
For years that took a far greater toll than he could afford to show, Uchiha Fugaku had longed for home. Under the respectful watch of loyal clansmen, his incarceration had been a relatively civilized affair; he had no freedom, few comforts, and fewer rights; but was protected, particularly from those with cause to seek revenge.
Sometimes he wondered if Itachi had realized that. If he had, was that a piece to the motivation-puzzle that had led a praised and promised son to betray his doting parent? Or did his son harbor a secret frustration - that his father had not felt the full justice he was so determined to bestow? (Because Itachi was - would always be - his. He could not show it: could only suffer for it.)
In prison, Fugaku did not sleep well. For twenty-six months, he slept only when biological need defeated neurological distress. Rest took on a different form: lying on the floor with his feet propped on his bench, easing the work of his heart, as he indulged in painful, pointless, poignant longing. For home.
He was home. In his own bed, with his wife, feet raised on the extra pillows she had supplied for him without question. Cold and surprised and hollow to find the old ache unmoved, throbbing deep and dark and entirely undisturbed by the reality that all he hurt for was here, and it didn't matter.
It was uncomfortable to watch Mikoto sleep. She did so soundlessly, and only because she took sleeping pills, which angered him. The face he had seen only in full make-up and perfectly pretended composure in chaperoned visitation rooms was slack now, her bare-faced beauty as soft as he'd remembered in hours so long and bleak they weighed like decades. She was turned away from him, and lay so close to the edge of their bed that even a slight shift would topple her from it.
He did not deserve this.
He had waited. Waited for experience to teach his son what he had failed to. To teach him about life, and the delusions named honor and rightness and justice, and that there were always choices with too-high stakes and no fair answers. Even a brain as prodigious and precocious as Itachi's needed time, and failure, to understand: there was no black and white, no true right and wrong, only the choices of survival: prey or predator, protector or attacker. Humans loved to paint themselves above the laws of nature, but their survival depended on the same canny balance of selfishness and sacrifice that determined any species' survival. One couldn't choose not to choose, couldn't opt out of the game. There was only what to choose: Fugaku chose family.
Every time.
So he waited. Waited for Itachi to learn. Waited for Itachi to grow, to come, to bend, to bow. The bite of betrayal would not overwhelm his love for his son. Theirs was a clan of fire; it was no surprise, really, to stoke too-brilliant flame and end up burned.
Itachi was born old, and wanted to make true those black-and-white fairytales that would let him be young, and in doing so set afire all Fugaku had toiled and bled and sacrificed the greater part of his life for. He condemned and betrayed his elders, his father. Sent his disappointing, volatile younger brother spiraling into unbridled self-destruction. Upset the delicate balance of Mikoto's weak mental health. Destroyed the reputation of their family - destroyed their family.
All in the name of correctness. Goodness. Justice. You swore an oath to protect and defend - to enforce the law - to bring order - and you do THIS? Are those words as meaningless to you as your actions make them? You are not a messenger of safety, of justice. You are meant to be a guardian of the peace! Father! You serve no one but yourself! This selfishness breeds the opposite of peace - the clan - the clan - it's all about the clan - any evil justified, so long as it's for the clan - And then Fugaku had struck Itachi across the face, something he should have done much earlier, and hard enough to send him to his knees. Sasuke screamed. Fugaku hadn't noticed his younger son eavesdropping.
With Sasuke between them, Itachi changed. Kept to his knees, bowed. Apologized. Then Fugaku knew: he could not trust in this child. His child, whom he loved.
Two days later, Itachi took binders of evidence of KPD corruption so meticulously cited and annotated they must have taken months of dedicated effort to assemble, and delivered them to Konoha judiciary's head prosecutor.
The process was tedious, treacherous, but the ultimate consequence never varied: publicly shamed and humiliated, Uchiha Fugaku began life behind bars.
And then - even then, Fugaku did not deny his son. He answered the elder's cries to disenfranchise and disinherit with calm assurances that they, as Uchiha, were above such petty revenge. Itachi was still very young, still promising, still the genius, the future of the Uchiha balanced on the braced breadth his shoulders. He was also tragically misguided, blinded by ideals he was not old enough to recognize for the tools of manipulation they were. While the consequences of his choice were disastrous, their intentions were good. Solidly, devastatingly good. Fugaku wouldn't cut off his firstborn child. He wasn't a Hyuuga.
One day, Itachi would learn, would see the world as it was, and then the most fearsome mind of the rising generation would, once again, belong to the Uchiha. They only needed Namikaze Minato out of the way.
Once... once, Minato had been a friend. (There were always choices. Fugaku always chose family.)
It seemed it was still time to wait. Wait for Itachi. Wait for Mikoto. Wait for Sasuke - little Sasuke, whose sharpness of jaw and breadth of shoulder and depth of voice startled and pleased Fugaku, those months ago in the visitation box. Whose confident invitation to a sports game was absurd and shy and sweet (like Mikoto - too much like Mikoto.) Who stood only a centimeter or two less than Fugaku. Little Sasuke.
Little Sasuke, who met his father's silent command with eyes that were bold and dark and burning and very, very sad, then turned his back and followed his brother.
(Mikoto's eyes looked at him just the same way, only not at all bold - only cold.)
You killed our Itachi's best friend, Mikoto said, words nearly choked to nothing in the war of rage and helpless fear he read between them. And now you will kill Sasuke's closest friend, too.
She was wrong. Fugaku was blameless, and he told her so. She did not seem to believe him. His cold anger drove her farther. Farther across the room, farther into her not-submissive silence, farther behind her walls. He never had known how to get behind her walls -
He felt the closeness of his cell caving in on him, and leapt from bed. Drugged, Mikoto slept, soundless.
He left the room.
He'd had no part in Shisui's death. None. As for Namikaze Naruto... There are always impossible choices. Who would I be, had I chosen another's child over my own?
Madara had learned a new way to control. A terrible, indefensible, total control. The beat of child's heart, started or stopped with the tap of a finger.
One finger.
Uchiha Madara believed Itachi needed to be controlled. Uchiha Fugaku provided a more valuable source of control. Uchiha Fugaku provided Namikaze Naruto.
To live is to choose. There is only one choice that cannot be chosen. One cannot choose not to choose.
Uchiha Fugaku, striped by streetlight through window blinds, chose what he always chose.
Family.
.
ilTli
.
Riding a motorcycle was a lot harder than she'd expected. Her heart beat hot and high and her shoulders strained and pulled and her eyes stung and every inch of skin from wrist to elbow was swelling and reddening into what was going to be a truly massive bruise - if she hadn't been wearing Naruto's arm guards, she might not have a right forearm - and the TV was off. And she'd almost not noticed.
Sakura went very, very still, then slowly, silently, shrugged her coat back on. The entryway and family room lights were on, and Momma's shoes were in their usual sloppy pile nearer the door than the shoe rack, and the TV wasn't on.
When Momma was home, the TV was on. It was maybe the first how-to-understand-life connection Sakura made, probably before she could talk. And it was always, always true.
Thoughts came too fast, assurances and fears half-formed and tangling, welling up only half-matched to words: Motorcycles are scary-Momma!-Too quiet-She finally-always told her-mute button-Okay it's all okay just adrenaline too much adrenaline-Please be okay Momma, please please please-Sasuke's cousin is dead-they killed-What if-Because Naruto-What would Naruto tell me to-back-out-get-help or inside, see-
"Sakura?"
Her knees gave out, her stomach turned, and when her eyes were working again she was on the floor, hands splayed to catch her fall, one of her stupid, lazy, careless, perfectly safe mother's clumsily kicked-off shoes digging into her butt.
"Honey? I heard you come in. Are you wearing those boots that take forever to take off? Because they cut off your circulation and you should never have bought them to begin with."
Hyperventilating, decided her blank, numb, useless brain. What my lungs are doing. Hyperventilating.
Owww. How does breathing fast hurt so bad? My poor throat?
"Momma's okay," she whispered, not really audible under her wheezing, but at least her tongue was more coherent than her head, so she repeated it over and over until it her brain believed it. Momma's okay. Momma's okay. Momma's okay.
"Well, come in when you get that ridiculous footwear off. I found the mute button for you. But since you're such a slowpoke, I'm pressing it again."
The TV turned on, and Sakura laughed but didn't really have enough breath for it to make much sound and smacked exasperation/relief into the cold floor with her open palm because damnit, Momma, and I was right about the mute button. I was right.
She took her time getting her shoes and coat and scarf and gloves off, and arranged them all neatly in their clearly labeled spots. Then she put her mother's things away in their clearly labeled spots, because no matter how brilliant Sakura's organizational designs were, Momma never stopped being a slob. I analyze information systems all day, Sakura. I need chaos. Life is chaos. The second law of thermodynamics, sweetheart. One gets tired of fighting the inevitable, dear.
So she was breathing normally and her eyes were only a tiny bit red and the girl in the selfie she took to double check looked impressively unruffled for someone who'd fallen off a motorcycle (twice). She shuffled past the entryway, peeked into the family room, whispered a very small, very heartfelt fuck. Momma was staring right at her, right into her, and the usual distracted distance was Not There. Any hopes of this being a normal conversation - questions from one of those "how to unplug and connect with your wired kid" blogs, probably, borrowed by Momma and added to her weekly checklist, matched up with Sakura's sarcastic-but-fond responses - finished their death arias the moment Momma pressed the mute button. Again. And the house was Sakura-all-alone quiet. Again.
It was a day for firsts. Sakura's first time riding, driving, and crashing a motorcycle. Momma's first time using the mute button. It was kind of beautifully symbolic of her life, actually, that the former was a heck of a lot less scary than the latter.
"You haven't developed asthma, have you?" Momma was frowning, and looking uncertain, which didn't suit her Born-to-Command makeup at all.
"What? No." Why - oh. The wheezing - "Sasuke's brother Itachi has asthma though. Weird, huh? He really doesn't seem like the type - I mean, not that there's really a type to have asthma but - okay, forget I said any of that, that was stupid. But. Sasuke had no idea. For years. So I don't feel too stupid for - " Stop babbling. Stop it, Sakura. "Anyway. Um. I, would, I would tell you, Momma, you know that."
Momma smiled, half her mouth curving just a bit, the rest staying flat, a little reminder that in Momma's world, it was never safe to put it all in a smile. Sakura smiled back, with her whole face, like she always did, and told Momma the truth, like she always did.
"You scared the crap outta me, Momma. Using the mute button and all. I thought I'd walk in and find you bound and gagged and tied to a chair, some thug from Suna wearing a balaclava and, and holding a knife - like one of our kitchen ones, the best one for chopping carrots? You know the one - to your throat, demanding I throw the championship game if I ever wanted to hear you making horrible mean fun of talent show contestants ever again - "
"The judges, Sakura. It's the judges I ridicule. Not that I don't take a fair shot at anyone who comes on national TV asking for one, but - One: I would take down any balaclava-clad thug long before they had a chance to try to manipulate my poor, sweet, totally-able-to-own-them daughter, and Two: I am not that predictable. Just because I choose background noise - "
"Why did you use the mute button?"
That got her hit with a full-throttle stare, until she regretted skipping the warm-up, sending them careening head-on into the crisis. It wasn't like she got to banter like this whenever she wanted to.
"Sakura," said Momma, "how are you?"
And just like that, one measly little ordinary question that most people got asked a dozen times a day, and there was a painful lump tightening up her throat and traitorous tears filling up her eyes.
"Your father called," and there it was, the one thing that would make this trying-not-to-cry thing pretty much impossible. "He asked how you're handling... well, I don't want to make assumptions. But we both know you have a lot on your plate, and that's when things are going well. And things probably... haven't been going well, lately."
It would have been her stepmom, her sweet, sincere, very-difficult-to-hate-because-she-actually-understood-emotions stepmom, who worried. Who told Daddy to worry, because while Sakura had given up on hating her she'd never gotten around to telling her she'd stopped hating her, so no direct communication there. And Daddy was scared of Sakura. Well, scared of Sakura having emotions, and crying, and even though it had been years since she'd been anything other than bubbles of light and good cheer in front of him, he still hid behind Momma.
Some things just... couldn't change. Prayers and dreams did nothing. A TV with no sound was the biggest miracle Sakura was going to get.
"Come here," said Momma, and with a look like she was bracing herself for something mildly unpleasant, opened her arms.
Sakura ran into them anyway.
She got at least twenty seconds of arms around her before Momma let go. It ached worse than her bruised arm, that space coming between them again, but Sakura was so full of aches right then that one more could hardly knock her balance.
Sucked to be crying, though. A tissue waved in her face, and she took it, and crept back into her safe corner of the couch, the little throw pillow she'd displaced finding its way into her arms, squeezed tight.
"Is it... Naruto?" Momma tried, even more uncertain.
"He didn't do it! It wasn't him - don't believe what they write, Momma, I know it looks - but - it's because they set him up, his whole life they've-"
"Okay," said Momma, staring at the TV, and it was hard to tell between the tears messing with her eyes and the snot dripping from her nose and the need to find a fresh tissue, but Momma seemed to accept what she said. If what she said was even coherent enough to understand.
She didn't know what was safe to say, so Sakura helped herself to the whole tissue box instead.
"He's been a good friend to you, hasn't he, baby."
Damn. She'd almost stopped crying.
"Come back," said Momma quietly, and held an arm half-open, and gave Sakura a wavering half-smile when she looked up, choking on a sob. I'm trying, Sakura read in that half-smile, and like it always did with her parents, longing and gratitude shuddered through her. Gratitude that they tried. Gratitude that they wanted her. Gratitude that they cared. Longing - unsightly, slimy with guilt, oily with resentment longing - for parents that weren't her parents.
They were exceptionally intelligent. They were responsible. They were kind. They gave her freedom and independence friends like Ino envied. They were respectful and forward-thinking and feminist and everything a thoughtful parenting book could make them, so long as they didn't have to connect. So long as it didn't take too much valuable time. So long as Sakura didn't interrupt the things that mattered most.
Slowly, feeling her psyche's splintering edges, Sakura scooted along her couch cushion, cautiously lowered her head.
Momma smelled like Momma. Lemon lotion and salt. Her thigh was thick and soft. Hesitant fingers pushed sweaty hair back, smoothed over a taut brow, walked the curve of her shoulders and back, raising goosebumps and shuddering breath. Sakura's eyes closed. Felt her heartbeat slow and steady, her breath drop low in her belly, this-is-how-to-understand-life memories whisper, warm: safe.
"I'm sorry about your friend, I'm sorry you're hurting," Momma said, a little stilted, fingers stumbling still. A moment later they were moving again, and Sakura told herself: cherish, with dread and love and longing, and Momma must have pushed the mute button again because the sound of the TV filled the room.
Home, came next, and sleep came with it, and Sakura let it.
.
uIUIu
.
It was getting harder to tell the difference between awake and not. Harder to remember that he hadn't always been inside-out cold from helpless-shaking-pitiful fear. Harder to remember that he wasn't tiny and weak and helpless. Sweat seeped, squeezed through shivering muscle that burned in forced stillness, itched and slid and breathe - one (in) breathe - two (out) the breath, only the breath, one - two -
The first hint of a footstep and all of Naruto's limbs burst out, pushed up. He careened into one too-close wall, bounced off, had his face pressed to the window above the hatch in the door long, dripping seconds before the officer reached it.
"HI! Hey! How are you today? Still early for dinner, isn't it? Didn't we have lunch? How's your day going? Anyone giving you trouble? Wanna vent? I can listen! I can —"
"Talkative? Interrogation is ready when you are."
"No," said Naruto, and took a step back from the door, and hated himself for it.
The man laughed at him, short, mean, and vindictive, then slapped a visitor's registration printout onto the glass between them. "Daddy's here. Shall I pass along your rejection, then?"
Naruto knew the procedure by heart, now, had opened his mouth to say the first 'deny' when the caving closeness of his cell with its stench of sweat and urine and its smothering silence that blended nightmare and memory closed his throat right up. He gulped and shivered and looked, for the half second before it was whipped away, at the little picture of Namikaze Minato's face printed in black-and-white in the top corner of the paper on the window. "Accept."
"Oh, it hurts him, you know - what?"
"Accept."
Sharp dark eyes met his, hard and clear and calculating, and Naruto let some of his own hate through as he stared back. "Accept."
"Well, we are breaking you, after all," the officer said softly, and was gone from view before Naruto could suck his next breath in, heave it out in loud defiance. Bellow and body slammed forward, hit the door, bounced back. His next breath came on the floor, fingers fisting in knotted bangs, and the next came too fast, and the next faster, and they were coming for him and he couldn't do this. They'd be back - the officer would come with guards, this time, and they'd unlock his door and search him and put on the cuffs and walk him down the hall (OUT - out of here - ) and down two more halls and up the stairs and one more hall and behind the little row of visitation boxes and into one of them, where he'd be locked in alone, again, but there, on the other side of the glass-
DAD! DAD I'M RIGHT HERE! I'M RIGHT HERE! DAD! I REMEMBERED - I'M RIGHT HERE - please, PLEASE - DAD PLEASE-
(He was eight and he was small and they'd get him and make him quiet but he'd fight back and Dad would fight them and Dad would win and Dad would take him home and
and Dad turned, just a little bit away, bulky with hockey pads and head half-hidden under his helmet but Naruto knew and Dad knew because he looked right at him and his eyes went big and Naruto smiled and mashed tears out of his eyes with stinging hands but Dad wasn't moving he was just staring and then -
then Namikaze Minato's face went sharp and cold and closed, and his eyes were so angry and Naruto shuddered away from the glass, a terror beyond all he'd felt seizing and shaking and making him hot and cold and sick and scared, scared of Dad.
But Dad was there, even if he'd turned his back, so Naruto shoved to his feet and smashed into the glass and pounded and roared and screamed and begged as Dad dropped his stick, surged forward, sprinted and skidded over the ice to leap the boards and disappear down the tunnel. There was a whole crowd on the other side of the ice, a whole crowd of people shifting and shouting and turning, but none of them saw Naruto, who beat at the glass with knuckles that bled and called out with a with a voice that didn't make sound anymore.
After a while, the game went on anyway. After a while, Naruto's fists wouldn't move anymore. After a while, the arena on the other side of the glass was mostly empty, and Yugito came. He curled in, silent and still, but she just picked him up and held him against her chest, mouth a small, bitten line.
They took him back. Back to the room with no windows.)
In a room without windows, Naruto forced his limbs to unfurl. Made his diaphragm shift, up and down, in and out, until his lungs un-seized, until his muscles would hold him up where he took up stance in the middle of the cell, arms out.
They came, they unlocked the door, they made him stand palms up against the wall, they ran rough hands over all of him. They put on the cuffs. They shifted around to herd him through the door.
It took two tries, but his feet moved. In the corridor his heart skipped and sped, made his head too light. He was out. He was moving forward and the wall wasn't four paces away. He could see twenty meters to the turn in the corridor and it made him dizzy. Up the stairs and his thighs burned. The guards were talking but he couldn't make their words clear; it didn't matter. He just had to stay up, move forward, not think about - about -
There were the little glass boxes, and he couldn't move. Something shoved roughly against him - one of the guards had walked right into him, reflexes too slow to catch the change in his charge's movement and respond. Sloppy. Almost made him laugh. They weren't being sloppy now, though. Were wary and braced, more than ready for him if he was stupid enough to fight. Maybe if he was really, really polite, they'd take him back to his cell -
No.
"Sorry about that," he said quietly, and it came out rough and unsteady, but he was able to take the next step forward. They swore and pushed him and that helped. He bit his lip too hard while they unlocked the door and swallowed blood before stepping in. Just - sit down. Breathe first. Then -
Look up.
Looked up, into a face that was way too old, into eyes that were very blue and very warm and dangerously close to leaking.
Warm. Warm.
"Thank you," whispered Dad. "Thank you for letting me see you. Thank you, Naruto."
Blue eyes closed. Quick fingers flicked at tears. When Dad looked at him again, Naruto still hadn't remembered to breathe. It happened in a gasp and Dad's shoulders hunched tighter, and it had only been twenty-six days since Naruto had seen him but by the way all those lines had set into his face it might have been years.
"How are you? Can you tell me?"
Can I? He opened his mouth, and his heart came out, in words that were too timid and small and true. "I want to go home…"
Seconds stuck tight, and they both swallowed down hard. "Yeah. You and me both, kiddo. I would give anything to get you home."
There was nothing trite in that promise. I would give anything, Dad said. I would give anything, Dad meant. It scared Naruto, a little. "Dad, I, I know I said I would end up in jail but - but I - I really didn't want it to happen, didn't want this - I'm - I'm - "
"It's not your fault," Dad said quietly, immediately. "I need you to understand that. This - none of this - none of this is your fault, Naruto."
Naruto looked at him, looked at the way the creases around his eyes wrote pain. "It's not your fault, though," he said, and his voice was too soft and too strained, so he wasn't even sure it made it through the little holes in the glass.
"I… There's no real point in playing the blame game, I know, but I should have done some things - everything differently. The surgery—by keeping it all hushed up, by not trusting even my closest advisors, I played right into their hands—that's on me, Naruto, you know I pushed you and everyone else into doing it my way—"
"They would've come for me anyway. They'd have found a way."
"…That's not comforting. Please, Naruto, please talk to Jiraiya about what you know. Please. Let him help you."
Naruto couldn't imagine a lawyer doing anything but making things worse, but under the devastation of warmth-and-agony in those eyes, he would have agreed to anything. "Yeah. Okay."
Dad's face lit up, looked more like Dad was supposed to look. "Perfect. Don't underestimate Jiraiya-sensei, kid. He's the reason my name stayed clear during, and after, the revolution. There's no one I'd trust more with your case."
Naruto nodded, and swallowed, and couldn't think of anything to say. Which is probably for the best, because it was still hard to breathe, and his throat was still tight - getting tighter - and the five-minute-warning would sound, and then the one-minute, and then Dad would leave, and he'd go back to the room with no windows.
No, no, Dad wouldn't leave, he was the one who had to leave -
"…see your mother, if she comes? Just five days left to the arraignment, so we'll see you then, but - "
- Dad was still talking, was asking questions, and he needed to answer, but to talk he had to breathe and he could hear air going in and out if him and it was actually really loud but no matter how hard or fast his lungs pumped there didn't seem to be any oxygen and Dad was yelling at him now and someone was unlocking the door and -
"Don't touch him, let him calm down, please don't touch him - "
He wasn't on the bench anymore. He needed to fight, needed to fight so bad. If he hit something he would breathe. What if he killed someone? What if Dad was right there and watched him kill? They were reaching for him. They were going to take him. They were going to make him quiet. Dad was going to leave -
"I'm going to restrain you," someone said, and the words came together so slow in his flying-crazy-fast brain but he figured it out just in time to detach from his body, leave his limbs listless and shivering in someone else's hands while he floated up, reeling with gratitude, because he wasn't going to hurt anyone now.
If he ever saw Dad again, maybe those eyes would still be warm.
.
.
.
A/N: Many thanks to Enbi and Kaist/rinzukodas for kind help and fantastic feedback in figuring out how I wanted to portray Sakura's family. It was long past due for her to get a little more backstory in this 'verse.
And to my fave of all faves mer-may for beta-ing this chapter scene-by-scene so I would keep writing and not give up like I really wanted to which is pretty much the story of the writing of the entire second half of Second Chances: I love you. Thanks for being always amazing.
HUGE thanks for all the of amazing-thoughtful-inspiring reviews! Getting a kind review in my inbox is the best of all bests. Every single time. Some people review each chapter and I just... I'm so grateful to them. You know you who are. THANK YOU
The bad news is that this is probably the last update until July. In June, I'll be taking an exam that will (hopefully, if I score highly enough) be the first step in dramatically changing the course of my life, and I need to study for that above all else. I also plan to finish all 2-3 of the remaining chapters before posting any of them, because the cliffhangers would be just... evil. Too evil, even for me. The good news is that I am really freaking excited to *finally* be ready to write scenes I have planned for years, and some of those scenes have been written for years and just need to be tweaked and edited, so once I have time to write, putting everything together should go relatively quickly. The end... it's coming. Makes me giddy.
If you have time, please review again! It means so much to me!
