Author's Notes: Chapter thirty-seven! Ah ha! Two chapters in one update! I'd post more, but I'm actually about to add insult to injury. If you read it before, chapter forty-seven is giving me hells of trouble and it is nowhere near done at this point. That means that since last chapter, there are less than ten buffer chapters until you hit my most recent stuff, and I am having loads of kittens over it. So, I am ashamed to say that--at least for the time being--updates to Door Number Two will be reduced from twice-weekly to once-weekly, starting with chapter thirty-eight. The new update schedule will be, ideally, late on Thursday (or sometime Friday, depending where in the world you live). I apologize, but at least you know I'm not dead and that there will be more, right? (Insert cheeky "At least you know it's not going to be a two-month wait!" here.)

On a far, far happier note, I have more fanart, this time from the wonderful Howling-Wolf! Check it out at http//www. deviantart .com/ deviation/ 56001024/! Along those lines, I have finally gotten around to fixing my profile (that avatar bit was a big incentive for this, as it turned out), so as of now all fanart (and Lizeth's one-shot) that I know of for Door Number Two are linked there for easy reference (alphabetically, because I am anal-retentive like that).

Also, the very kind Umbra Estel is translating Door Number Two into Spanish! Currently, the first three chapters are available for reading at http//www. fanfiction. net/s /3632815, and if I read it right (with my pathetic, years-unused high school Spanish) updates will be weekly. The link to it is in my profile as well.

Title: Door Number Two

Author: Reaper Nanashi (Lady Shinigami)

Pairing: None Intended

Word Count: 3,364

Type: Multi-Chapter (Work In Progress)

Rating: T (bad words, sexual innuendos, blood, violence)

Date Submitted: 7/21/07

Disclaimer: No.

Claimer: Genko, Byako, Shakko, Hotaru, Nyoko, Aya, Hitomi, Shinju, Akane, Takako, Tsukiko, Mimi, and anyone or anything relating to them is mine

Summary: Maybe it's a dream, maybe it's real. Naruto doesn't know how he got there, but he's not sure he wants to go home. Perhaps the little decisions aren't so little after all--one choice can change a life forever . . .

Chapter Thirty-Seven - Two-Way Street

It had been a long time since he had actually 'visited' his world. Ever since he had spoken to Kakashi, later 'trips' there had been few and far between and, beyond that, had slowly been fading into whispers. He had been worried that he was losing touch with that world--the one that he really belonged in--but the most recent visit was coming in loud and clear. Sakura's familiar, gentle hands smoothed across the sheet on his chest and then she ran a set of fingers through his hair, presumably to make a known-futile attempt to smooth it as well.

"He's going to be okay, Sasuke," she said quietly.

"Hn," Sasuke replied. Naruto could not see him, but his tone indicated that the grunt had actually meant: "How can you be sure?"

He sounds more like himself than last time, at least, Naruto thought.

"His vital signs are strong," Sakura pointed out, also fluent in Sasuke-ese after five years of hearing it daily, probably before even that, being a many-times-rejected ex-fangirl. "I can't say when he'll wake up, but he's really not in any danger."

"Not in danger? Sakura, how are we supposed to protect him when he's . . . like this?" Sasuke demanded sharply. "Anything could . . . Anyone . . . We're not always here and someone from Rain--whatever the hell they want with him--has already tried to suffocate him. If Iruka-sensei hadn't been so close by he'd be dead . . . Akatsuki could turn up again at any time and they're nothing to sniff at."

Okay, maybe not so like himself.

"That's why our friends are on shifts," she informed him. "They'll watch over him when we can't." There was no response and she sighed in mild exasperation. "Fine. I'll go get us some food and you stay here and talk to him."

"Talk to him?" Sasuke returned incredulously. "He's unconscious."

You prick, Naruto hissed silently at his rival. If you're in this much denial about me being okay then you're obviously desperate enough to talk to me even if you think I can't hear you.

Sakura seemed to understand also. "Don't give me that--I know you've been talking to him, Sasuke," she snapped. "Besides that, comatose people often remember when people sit and talk to them--sometimes even what they say. So I'm going to leave and you can rest assured that nobody but him will hear whatever you say."

The door to the room opened and closed and silence reigned for so long Naruto wondered if Sasuke had not left as well. Then:

"I don't know what you're waiting for, but . . . you win, all right? Whatever the hell it is you're trying to beat me at, I concede. Just . . . Just wake up, damn it." There was a long pause and then a quiet "Please," followed. His voice had not altered from its general 'Fuck you, World' tone, but his hesitations and the fact that he said 'please' were big signs that he was concerned, if not afraid.

Holy shit, I melted the glacial man-bitch. Now what? Naruto struggled to speak and to reassure his rival with a few insults, but only managed a weak, ". . . Sa . . . suke . . ."

To his right there was the clatter of a chair being abandoned suddenly and to his left there was a soft shuffle. "Naruto?! Naruto?!"

The door to the room opened. "Sasuke?" Sakura asked.

"He spoke!" Sasuke blurted wildly, sounding a bit more excited by the news than Naruto had thought he would. "Just like Kakashi-sensei said he had!"

Sakura's voice came closer and Naruto felt her hands on his chest and head, buzzing with chakra. "What did he say?"

"Just my name," Sasuke answered, far calmer but still sounding elated. "He didn't sound like he was in pain, only having a hard time getting it out."

Naruto was easily able to imagine Sakura nodding, no doubt zooming through thousands of medical texts she had read. He opened his mouth to speak again, but whatever words he had planned to say were forgotten, replaced by a scream of agony as the familiar angles of a kunai sank into his chest. His eyes flew open and he found himself looking at two worlds overlapping one another; one the sunlit hospital room with Sakura and Sasuke staring down at him in shock, the other his moonlit bedroom in the manor where a ninja hung over him with a hand still on the kunai he had been attacked with. He could feel blood gurgling in his throat with every breath and heard the heart monitor in the hospital room shriek alarmingly as his pulse shot up exponentially. Sakura's chakra-gloved hands began to move across his torso quickly and passed right through the kunai embedded there.

Ah! Stupid, fucking amateur! Why the hell didn't you just slit my throat?! It's quieter and less painful, damn it!

"What's going on?!" Sasuke demanded.

"I don't know!" Sakura cried. "Physiologically, everything's fine!"

Naruto stared up at the ninja still in his bedroom, trying to see or hear or smell anything that would give away who the person was. He heard nothing, but caught a whiff of wet forest and the moonlight was just enough that he was able to catch sight of the four vertical lines etched into the headband's metal plate.

The bedroom door burst open and a golden blur lunged across the room, electric blue eyes snapping with rage. The intruding ninja attempted a frantic and stumbling retreat, but in the face of such fury there was no escape. In seconds the intruder was disturbingly mutilated and, fortunately for the poor fool, very much dead. The Fourth, wild-eyed and with blood streaked across his face, took in Naruto's wound critically. "Naruto?!"

". . . It hurts!" he gasped. Kyuubi, you bastard! Do something!

Not yet, Kyuubi replied calmly. For the hundredth time, it will be immensely beneficial to this body if I don't participate.

"I know," Arashi soothed shakily, oblivious to the other conversation that was occurring at the same time. "Just hold on for me, okay?"

Naruto tried to control his respiration and heartbeat and watched his father make a series of seals. The Fourth then applied his hands around the kunai, though he was careful to not jostle it and cause any more damage until he was able to remove it and swiftly heal the remains of the stab wound. Abstractly, Naruto both wondered at and was comforted by the fact that the hands which had mere moments ago destroyed another life with remorseless ease were trying to save his own.

Still, he thought idly, with all that Rain-nin's blood on him, this can't be sanitary. Sakura would be pissed.

The heart monitor shrilled a flatline.

"He's coding!" Sakura announced with muted terror. "Sasuke, go find Tsunade-sama! She should still be in the building!"

Sasuke darted from the room as Sakura tried to jump-start Naruto's heart. "Come on, Naruto! Wake up!"

The Fourth paused in his work. "Naruto?" His voice lifted in panic when there was no response. "Naruto?" He grabbed Naruto's head in his hands and glared at him with fierce dread. "Naruto! Wake up, damn it! Wake up!"

Sasuke returned to the room with Tsunade, but as the Hokage reached Sakura's side to take over, Sakura's efforts paid off. The heart monitor settled into a weak rhythm and Sakura quickly bent down. She pressed her mouth to Naruto's to breathe into him in hope that it inspired him to take a few more for himself.

It did. He coughed, gasped, and finally breathed on his own. I could probably make a joke about girls kissing me only when they think I'm not paying attention, but sadly, it's more ironic than funny.

Sakura backed off as Tsunade stepped forward to stabilize him and his father hugged him tightly. "Oh, Naruto . . ."

"Dad," he whispered, and Tsunade paused in her examination to look at him. "Dad, I'm okay now."

"Yes, I know that," was the shaky reply.

"What about that thing?" Tsunade demanded.

He frowned, unsure of what she was talking about, before it occurred to him that because Sasuke and Sakura were in the room she technically could not directly mention Kyuubi even if they already knew, since they had not been old enough to remember the fox's attack on Konoha. It's taking the wording of the Third's Law of Silence a bit literally, but whatever. "'S fine. Been with me the whole time."

"Where are you?" she prompted.

He could feel himself drifting sleepily away, so he let his head roll a little and held out his right hand. "Sakura . . . Sasuke . . ." Both of them rushed forward and folded their hands around his. "Thanks for . . . for helping save me . . . It's all right . . . Dad's taking . . . care of me. I'll . . . be home soon."

With that, he relaxed and closed his eyes.

"Naruto!" his father barked.

He jumped and opened his eyes. He was back solely in his bedroom. "W-What?"

"Don't go to sleep!"

"I wasn't," he mumbled sleepily, exhausted. "I just had my eyes closed. I'm really okay now, Dad. I promise."

"I don't care. You have to stay awake until a doctor says it's okay for you to sleep. That's an order from your Hokage."

"Another Rain-nin," his father muttered almost inaudibly as Hotaru read Nyoko a book. Naruto looked up at him from where he was reclined in the Fourth's lap, reading his own book. His father smiled warmly at him and stroked his hair. "How're you feeling?" he asked softly.

Neither Hotaru nor Nyoko knew that Naruto had come so close to dying--had been dead for a short time. Hotaru had been told that Naruto had awakened in time to mostly deflect the stab, so the wound was much more shallow than it would have been. From Hotaru's reaction Naruto had a doubt that she had really accepted that explanation on her own, but had rather been forced to because of his state by the time she had been allowed to see him.

"I'm okay," he responded. "My chest hurts a little, but it's not too bad."

The Fourth automatically lifted a hand to rub at Naruto's chest where the day-old wound was. "Going to have to take it easy for a while, okay?"

Naruto nodded and relaxed against his father's solid frame, closing his eyes and letting the older blond's newly-familiar touch and scent lull him. I'm going to miss this.

Glad you're deciding to go back where you belong, Kyuubi prodded, annoyed. I've figured out how to get you back.

Let this body recover first. We don't know what the recoil might do to it.

That's a bad idea.

Then it's a bad idea. We're staying. Besides, if that myobu's coming we might be needed.

Stupid little fuck . . .

Who's stupid? You said adrenalin would cut off the connection between the worlds and look at what happened!

Adrenalin does cut the connection. The difference was that because you were in your proper body at the time this body was attacked, you were trapped between the worlds. The outside disruption altered that link.

And I would have died in both worlds.

Quite.

Well, then, could I still die in both worlds right now?

Without you, your body cannot survive. Without this body, you cannot survive.

"Naruto."

On that rather morbid note, Naruto gladly exchanged his attention to Kyuubi for his attention to the Fourth. "Yeah?"

"After the Rain-nin's attack, you . . ."--the Fourth hesitated and then briefly made a face for some reason--"you spoke to Sakura and Sasuke. You told them you'd 'be home soon.'"

Shit! He heard that?!

He was standing over you, Kyuubi snorted. Of course he heard it.

Naruto pretended to think. "I did?"

His father nodded, but in a resigned way, as though he had expected Naruto to not remember yet hoped he might.

"Sorry, I---"

"No, it's all right. I just thought I'd ask, in case you knew."

Because he doesn't think for a minute his son would lie to him about something like that, Naruto thought sourly. I will not succumb to a guilty conscience after this many lies, damn it!

Naruto and Nyoko spent the night with their parents, as they had been doing often recently, and the next morning the Fourth surprised them all by announcing that he had taken the day off and the four of them were going to spend it having fun in the village. That was how Naruto found himself walking along a crowded market district street, all but glued to his father's hip so as not to get bumped aside and lost in the crowd. It was not that the people were not trying to give him room--it was that there was no room.

"Arashi," Hotaru called, "I appreciate this, but isn't there a better way?"

"There are over a dozen better ways there, yes," Arashi replied cheerfully, nodding to someone's greeting. "However, my love, you are not a ninja."

They made it to their destination--a classy-looking restaurant--just in time for lunch.

Hotaru gawked at the menu. "Arashi! This is expensive!"

"It's not like I don't have a really good job."

"But---"

Arashi let his menu fall to the table. "Firefly," he said with gentle patience, "how many times have we gone out to eat since . . . since Nyoko was born?"

Hotaru hesitated. ". . . Um . . ."

"Let me give you a hint," he teased, reaching over to point at a zero on her menu. "The number is something like this." He smiled at her look of defiant helplessness. "Now choose. It'll take ages to get out here as it is."

She sighed. "Oh . . . Oh, all right."

"You know you wanted to anyway."

She ignored him and said to the server as she gestured to her very round stomach and then indicated herself, "I'll have a bowl of beef ramen for the passenger section and sweet and sour pork for the captain of the ship."

Arashi giggled obnoxiously.

She shot him a look out of the corner of her eye, then added loudly, "And he'll have the bull dick, because he is one."

"Oh," Arashi whined, unaffected by the wide-eyed stares they were getting. "That's mean."

"It's deserved," Hotaru replied, voice firm but eyes dancing. "It's only mean because you didn't think of it first."

The hour passed mostly quietly since they were all eating, and as they were finishing their food Naruto asked on impulse, "Dad, are you a genius?"

"A genius what?" was the blank response.

"If that's not a good enough answer," Hotaru put in, "I don't know what is."

Arashi made a face at her while Naruto, who was beginning to wonder--though he enjoyed witnessing such moments between his parents immensely--if he was the most mature member of his family, clarified, "A genius ninja."

"What makes you think I'm a genius?"

"You just . . . know so much. I mean . . ." Naruto hesitated, trying to avoid mentioning information from his world. "I mean, the Hokage has to know at least a thousand jutsu. How is it possible to remember so many?"

"Practice. No," he corrected when Naruto groaned. "Listen. It's proven that most people remember words better than numbers. When you practice a jutsu, you associate its seals with its name. Since each jutsu has a different name, you instinctively associate each seal with part of that name and it helps you remember. Writing them down and studying them also helps. So to answer your question, no, I'm not a genius. I just know how to get things done."

"Are you sure?"

"Deathly. Why?"

"I was just wondering." Because I'll never have another opportunity to ask you.

"Are you trying to get me to teach you something specific?"

Naruto considered that. ". . . Nope. Just curious."

The Fourth smiled and ruffled his hair. "Now that you've buckled down and shown that you're willing to train, I'll have to teach you a really cool jutsu. I haven't done that in a while, so it's past time, I think."

Naruto could hardly believe his luck. I won't even have to ask and then sound suspicious! Yes! "Really?!"

"Sure. We can---Oh, hang on," the older blond interrupted himself cheerfully. "I have to help Tubbo out of the booth."

Hotaru's eyes flashed and she got to her feet faster than Naruto had ever seen a pregnant woman--particularly one that far along--move. She swung at Arashi's head and he ducked and skittered out of the restaurant with the hysterical laugh of a person who had virtually gotten away with murder. "Get back here and take your beating like a man, you flaccid piece of chicken . . . neck!" she howled, waving her fist at his retreating back threateningly.

Naruto helped clean Nyoko up and carried her out of the restaurant to where his father was waiting for them, still grinning. Hotaru punched him in the small of his back and he yelped. "Not so low, my love," he whimpered. "You want my kidneys to rupture? You want me to die? Who'd be the breadwinner if I bought the farm, huh?"

Hotaru pointed at Naruto. "He's shown that he'd be a good alpha male."

The Fourth looked at Naruto. "You power-hungry, traitorous mama's boy. The least you could do is side with your own gender."

Naruto snorted. "I'm not too proud to live in a matriarchal society. Are you?"

"Abandoned!" his father wailed, and fell to his knees dramatically. "Abandoned by my own son! How could this be?!"

"You're in quite the mood," Hotaru noted, pointedly placing her stomach on his head so his neck had to support the twins' weight.

"Today's a good day," the Fourth answered with a happy grin, careful to balance the new weight so he did not hurt himself or her.

"So it is. Where to now?"

"The baths!"

"No," Hotaru said firmly. "At least not while that pervert is around."

"Sensei left two days ago," Arashi chuckled. "Also, these baths have roofs, and the walls are the brand-new peeping-proof type."

"Oh. That's fine, then."

"Shall we?"

"We shall." Hotaru reclaimed the job of supporting the twins and Arashi got to his feet to dust off his knees, then offered her his arm. She took it, smiling. "Oh, why thank you, kind sir."

Naruto watched them for a bit, warmed by their open affection, and shifted Nyoko for the umpteenth time. "You're heavy," he told the toddler, who giggled, "I wish there was an easier way to carry you." He recalled their first meeting and how he had held the same desire then. "I wish I had hips." He took in the packed street and all of the hips that were not his to make use of. "Any hips, really, but preferably the really shapely and sexy . . ."--he paused as the word passed through his mind--". . . kind?"

He debated it, wondering if it would give him away.

Hell no, Kyuubi replied. You've been flitting about by yourself so often that it wouldn't be that much of a surprise that you'd learned something for yourself.

That was true, though Naruto doubted it was really the same thing, considering the nature of the jutsu. He was careful to only gather his own chakra, separate from the fox's, so as to not alert the clerics. "Henge!" With his new porn star body--even if it was hidden beneath his clothes--he thrust his hip out as he could see a few nearby women doing and settled Nyoko on the new shelf it so handily provided. He sighed loudly as his back thanked him. "Ahh . . ." He then looked at the little arrangement again and grinned. "That's pretty cool. It's an instant baby seat!"

His parents, hearing the loud announcement, turned to him questioningly. When they saw him, each lifted a hand to cover a gawking mouth.

. . . Uh oh . . .

To Be Continued . . .

Answers To Questions You Didn't Even Know You Wanted To Ask:

"Coding" is general hospital slang for cardiopulmonary arrest (a patient's heart and lungs have stopped functioning). There's no specific color or number or word that indicates it across the board, but "Code Blue" and "Code Red" are the most common.

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Bulls are actually symbols of fertility in many cultures, and eating a bull's penis (or various parts from a number of other animals) supposedly improves a man's sexual performance (there's no documented proof). I wasn't actually thinking of any type of connection until long after I wrote that scene and there still isn't one at this point, but I thought I'd mention it here anyway, for entertainment's sake.

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If you are a man--women are usually more polite with their teasing--do not call your pregnant girlfriend/wife (or anybody else's pregnant girlfriend/wife) "Tubbo" unless you two have an understanding. Obviously, it's rude and insensitive, and any (potential) in-laws aren't going to like hearing you talk like that about their daughter, such as the couple who went out to supper with the wife's parents when the wife was about seven or eight months along. The wife was bemoaning her new girth, claiming she was "as big as a house", and her mother assured her that she was "only the size of a cabin", to which the wife's husband--in an apparent lapse of sanity--responded, "Cruiser." One can imagine the wife's mother gave him a tonguelashing for that (a cabin cruiser is, by the way, a boat ranging from 17 to 45 ft--5 to 13 m--in length).

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The 'instant baby seat' was something said by one of my sister's male friends. He had been observing a toddler wandering about, and when a nearby girl approached the baby, the child naturally lifted his arms to her to be picked up. She did so, and promptly stuck her hip out to support the toddler's weight so her arms would not have to. The male friend was, for some reason, tickled pink by the whole event.

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Don't forget to look for the first part of the Timespan triad!

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Reviews are very much appreciated, thank you.

--RN (LS)