Disclaimer: merely borrowing naruto and it's characters for writing practice.
I had many faults in my life
Prompt by Miko-chan:
"i had many faults in my life." he kneels before her, his dark eyes meeting the blaze of wide, shiny red swirls. "but you, my daughter, were never a mistake."
Sarada stares at him with the newly birthed sharingan, unyielding in stance or expression. However exotic the powers attributed to those eyes, first and foremost they see, second they weep. Perhaps, it isn't so strange for such weapons to arise there where emotions overflowed, where sorrow and rage are given physical form.
"Your mother has told me, tells me often, that you are made with the best parts of us. I never believed it."
She falters at this, a tiny twitch in the downward set of her mouth. She wants to crumple, he knows, buckle against the weight of being unwanted, of lacking. He remembers the feeling, but he cannot help it. He can longer dodge certain truths.
"How can any part of me be worthy enough to pass on? How can I be worthy enough to be called the father of this tiny being whose every breath makes mine catch?"
"So I am a mistake," she says, harsh, cracking further at his words. "You regret having me. You don't want me to be like you."
"Never. It's true I might not want you to be like me, me who has to hope for his child to be more like her mother everyday. I know myself, and I have not always made the right choices. It's only natural I fear you being forced into making similar ones."
"Then who?" she demands, "who should I be like? There is nothing similar between me and her! I don't know who I am anymore."
"You are Uchiha Sarada."
He ruffles her hair.
"This is mine."
He touches the tip of nose, a ghost of a touch, so she shan't smell blood on them.
"And this."
He touches her chin.
"This, too."
He pries a fist open and aligns his lone hand with one of hers.
"My fingernails. See?"
"What about my mother?" Impatient now, so much like him. "Where is my mother?"
"My rage."
"Enough about you already! What about my mother?"
"My bluntness." Though he has been told she has always been a respectful child. "My tendency to be rude when confronted with something I deem stupid."
"Papa, please!"
"You have your mother's eyes."
Sarada shakes her head, the movement minimal but empathic. "What–am I stupid? My eyes are dark!"
She turns as if to bolt, unable to stand listening to him any longer. He reaches for her and keeps her in place. An arm's length away. Near enough, perhaps, perhaps not.
"You have your mother's eyes," he repeats quietly. "You stand before me and look at me with her eyes. You beg me to prove you wrong, to tell you your rational conclusions have overlooked some important detail. You stand before me with trust when nothing I have done before warrants it.
"You have your mother's heart. You come before me and call me, 'papa,' after all I've put you through because she engrained me in your mind as so, because your tongue's muscle memory can form no other term to refer to me but that, because she has single handedly given you a family, given you my share of it. You can't deny me this–how else can you stand there in such pain, begging me to show you proof she is your mother."
He touches her forehead with his fingers, then lightly, tentatively, his lips.
"This is your mother's too," he murmurs to her. "I can go on, Sarada, but I'm afraid I don't know you enough to do her or do you justice. I will tell you everything you need to know when we have more time, but right now we have more pressing issues."
She stiffens in his embrace, belying her words from earlier, about not caring about what happens to the woman who has lied to her for years.
His lies. His omissions.
"Don't get me wrong," he says. "Your mother can take care of herself just fine. She needs to be there when I apologize to both of you, together."
She stands there, shaken, and now more than ever, unsure.
"I will take you to your mama."
It is his turn to nurture their child's faith, to keep her place in their family while she is gone. He shan't disappoint her.
06/12/2015