.
.
"I don't know what I'm doing, Rin. Sometimes I feel like everything I'm doing is wrong."
He stood in the shadows of another room in some nondescript inn, watching as the nin of all five nations gathered. He had already made up his mind to declare war, a last ditch effort to finish what he'd started even though everything had gone off the rails. Konan was dead. Nagato was dead. Everything had gone sideways and for once he didn't have a clear-cut plan.
Rin watched. He couldn't see her, of course, but he spoke to her anyway, bowing his head and speaking to her as if in prayer. "Give me a sign," he said. His eyes slid upwards, and Rin could see they were wet and swollen. "Tell me what I'm doing is right."
Rin stepped forward, letting her hand rest against the small of his back. She rested her lips against his shoulder and tried her best to comfort him.
He sighed, despondent and unable to feel her.
"I will use these eyes to bring you back," he said again, more to himself than to her. "And you'll live a happy life under the Moon's Eye. Declaring war is the quickest way. There's no other way to bring you back."
She wasn't sure if he was trying to convince himself or her.
He rested his head against the wall near the window, tired but too worried to sleep. Rin sat beside him and rested her cheek against the curve of his back, waiting for that moment where he would begin to drift, the moment of half-sleep where he could almost feel her body curling around him.
She knew these nights were the worst for him. Most nights, he could overcome the vague feeling of loneliness, convince himself that he was acting as Madara and renew his convictions. But on the nights he was worried, the persona slipped, and he'd remember that he was utterly alone.
xXx
.
She finds him standing in the darkness by the baby's crib the night before the referendum, unable to sleep and worrying. The baby is asleep, and Rin watches as Obito lightly strokes the baby's cheek with his fingertips. "Am I doing the right thing, Rin?" Obito asks. He lifts his eyes and turns to look at her standing in the doorway. "Sometimes I don't know."
Rin gives him a worried look. She crosses the room to stand beside him, touching his arm.
"It was easier when I was pretending to be Madara," Obito says. He looks at the baby, speaking quietly. "I'd just do what I'd think he'd do, and whatever horrific thing I had to accomplish, I told myself that would all be mitigated. Once the Moon's Eye was cast, everything would be perfect. There'd be no pain. No death. Just the smiling faces of those who were resurrected." His thumb gently fans across the baby's skin, and the rims of Obito's eyes darken. "I don't know what I'm doing, Rin. I'm the leader of the fucking shitty system I wanted to dismantle, and I don't even know how to go about doing it."
Rin wraps her arm around his waist, tugging him close. Obito bows his head.
"I don't want our baby to go through what we did."
"I know," Rin says. She drops a light kiss against his shoulder, her fingertips drifting up and down his arm. "You always try so hard, no matter what you do. I've always loved that about you."
He smiles sadly. She strokes his arm with her thumb, then presses another soft kiss against his shoulder.
"C'mon," Rin says. She rests her palm against the small of his back. "Let's go to bed."
Obito's eyes are wet. He sniffs and nods, leaning against her.
They go to bed. In the dark, he feels her curl against him, her lips finding the tender spot on his neck, where she presses soft kisses while her arms tighten around him. Her fingers lightly stroke the spot she had kissed as she nuzzles and settles against him, and it's only after this that he finally falls asleep.
