Hey, everyone! Need to get some housekeeping out of the way I get to the chapter.
First, I've decided I finally want to explore Amaya and Kakashi's daughter's story. I don't know how far I'll go with this continuation (didn't feel right to make it it's own story), so we'll just have to see.
Second, I want to explore the stories of some of the other characters in the Narutoverse, sometimes through the lens of Kakashi or Amaya and sometimes through their own eyes. If the chapter involves Amaya or Kakashi, they'll go in this story. If they don't, they'll go in a new story I'll be publishing at some point. Each chapter of that story will have a timeline stamp at the beginning denoting what chapters of Healing Hearts the chapter goes between. This way I can hop around and not be constrained by keeping Amaya, Kakashi, and their daughter's stories moving/
Third, my beta reader won't be available for a few months, so this is probably the only chapter I'll be posting until January or February of 2022. This is subject to change as her schedule allows. I should have plenty for her to read by then, though, so keep an eye out.
Fourth, a warning. I have some unfinished plot threads from my original story (looking at you in particular, Itachi) that I'm running with, even though canon has made them implausible/moot. For the most part, I won't be trying to deal with things in Shippuden that might invalidate my story. Plug those inconsistencies however makes you feel better. I also won't be following canon very closely going forward. My story has diverged and changed characters enough that I don't feel like I need to, for instance, have Naruto get married to Hinata.
Last, we all know the Naruto timeline can be hard to figure out sometimes. I've done my best to suss it out and I think I have it as correct as I can. If I'm wrong, oh well. I'm tired of trying to wrap my head around it. This is the timeline I'm going with, just so we're all on the same page here:
~ Naruto's training with Jiraiya lasted about two years; they left in December.
~ The whole of Shippuden lasted about a year.
~ About a year after the end of Shippuden, Kakashi becomes Hokage in November.
~ A year later, the events of Naruto: The Last occur in canon.
~ Naruto gets married early the next year in canon.
~ Boruto is born in March of the following year in canon.
I'll be putting timestamps at the beginning of the Interlude chapters, when appropriate, just to help readers navigate things timewise.
Please enjoy!
Chapter 53 - Interlude 1: Pack Bonding
~ About a year after Naruto went to train with Jiraiya ~
The wailing cry of a baby broke through Kakashi's dreams of sleeping on a fluffy cloud. He cracked open a sleep-blurred, bloodshot eye and groaned when he saw the clock. He'd only been asleep for half an hour. He sighed in resignation and got up, careful to not disturb Amaya. He glanced to make sure he hadn't woken the fatigued mother. She wore a black tanktop and shorts, which he could see because she'd thrown the blanket off at some point. Her hair was tangled and loose, the metal hair band she used lost in the sheets. Dark bags crowded under her eyes. Her mouth hung open a little, letting drool collect on her pillow. He covered her back up against the winter chill and smiled gently at his wife.
Wife. He still wasn't quite used to it. After Amaya had left the village, he'd given up on the hope of ever getting married. When she came back, that hope wasn't something he wanted to acknowledge. It didn't feel real sometimes, even though they'd been married almost seven months. As he stumbled from their bedroom in Amaya's apartment — their apartment, he corrected himself —, his fingers absently rubbed at the silver-and-obsidian wedding ring on a matching silver chain around his neck. He smirked to himself; he was the happiest collared dog in the world.
Taking a quick right into the apartment's other bedroom, Kakashi approached the still-wailing swaddled bundle. He scooped up his five-day-old daughter, the second light of his life, into his arms and checked to see if she needed changing. Finding nothing, he tried giving the infant a bottle of formula, but she only squalled louder. Her little face, usually so cute and pudgy when she was calm, was scrunched up as she cried. Her wispy silver hair stood out against her reddening skin. She really wasn't happy.
He held her close, rocking her in his arms and mimicking one of the songs Amaya hummed to calm her. She stopped for a few moments, her large blue eyes staring at him like she didn't believe what he was doing, her face relaxing back into its usual cuteness. But then she scrunched it up again and cried when he hummed a few off-key notes.
Then he tried rocking her in the chair Gai had bought for them. Still, the little girl cried. "What's wrong?" the exhausted nin asked his daughter. "Tell Pappa what's the matter." Well, more like begged for answers, but she never offered any.
He was surprised Amaya hadn't woken up yet; that she hadn't only spoke to her utter exhaustion. They were both tired and napped whenever they could, but it wasn't enough. He'd caught himself falling asleep in the shower a few days ago, just because he leaned against the wall for a second.
It was like they were on back-to-back A-rank missions without rest. They were deep in enemy territory, barely able to sleep because of nerves or fear of attack, and they still had a month before they could go home. The only thing that kept them going was the faint hope of being able to go home soon. He smiled; though in this case, that hope was that in a few months, she'd finally sleep through the night.
How had his parents managed? He closed his eyes. The thought of them still ached like all his oldest hurts, but thinking of his mother did drag a fuzzy memory to the front of his mind. He'd been three, maybe four, and couldn't sleep, so his mother had had her ninken come snuggle with him until he fell asleep. He paused in his rocking, opening his eyes. Maybe that might work?
Kakashi laid the distressed baby in her crib, which only made her raise her little voice to top volume and flailing in agitation, and quickly summoned his ninken. The dogs arrived, all yawning and stretching before quickly trying to cover their ears with their paws.
"You woke us up for this?" Pakkun grumbled. "Why is my grandpup screaming?"
The Copy-nin picked up his daughter and began shushing her again. Not that it helped. "I don't know! She's not dirty or hungry, so your guess is as good as mine. I was hoping you guys would be willing to stay for a bit and cuddle with her? It was the only thing I could think of."
Bull, his largest ninken, was the first to come over and examine the crying infant, who was currently flailing her little fists, in his boss's arms. Kakashi put his daughter back in the crib and lowered the rail so all his ninken could look closer. Bull put his front paws on the crib so he could sniff the flailing, screaming baby. "You need to feed her more. She hasn't gotten any bigger than the first time we saw her. She'll never be able to take care of herself at this rate."
The silver-haired nin ran an exasperated hand down his face. "She's not a puppy, Bull. I explained this last time, didn't I? Human babies take a lot longer to grow up than puppies."
"How much longer is longer?" asked Bull as he leaned into the crib a little more. "We can't start teaching her until she can walk."
"Bull, get down before you break the tiny human's kennel!" barked Akino when the crib creaked under Bull's weight. The brown dog, for once without his sunglasses, stretched his front legs, the hitai-ate around his neck almost touching the floor as he let out a massive yawn.
"Oh, sorry," said the large black dog, putting all four paws on the floor and backing away.
"Could you all be any louder?" Kakashi hissed. "Amaya's trying to sleep and I don't need you lot adding to all the noise."
"Sorry, boss," Pakkun said, glaring at the rest of the ninken, who looked sheepish. "Take her out of that kennel and we'll make sure she stays nice and warm."
"It's a crib, not a kennel," Kakashi autocorrected as he again lifted his daughter from the crib. "And she won't be walking on her own for a year and a half at least."
"Can she get out since there's no top on that...crib?" Urushi asked, nosing open the door into the living room. The spiky, white-and-brown ninken hopped onto one of the black leather couches, tail wagging happily as Kakashi joined him.
"No. By the time she's big enough to do that, she'll have a normal human bed." Kakashi laid on his side, his daughter tucked against him. Pakkun jumped up and snuggled against the baby, who proceeded to smack him in the nose. The little ninken yipped but didn't move. The rest of Kakashi's ninken arranged themselves on top of or next to their master.
"Tiny humans are no fun," muttered Bull as he settled in next to the couch.
"And loud," Bisuke said, laying on Kakashi's hip.
"But cute," Shiba proclaimed as he curled up at Kakashi's feet.
As his daughter's cries finally began to subside, the Copy-nin felt himself being dragged into sleep. He stayed awake just long enough to see the baby nod off, his last thought a prayer that she might sleep for at least two hours this time.
Amaya woke with a start, sure she had heard her daughter wailing, but when she listened again, she heard nothing but loud snoring. Turning on her side, she saw Kakashi wasn't in bed, so she got up, grabbing a warm, red robe from the floor. She slung the garment on, wincing as a cramp tore through her lower abdomen. The doctors had said she'd be in pain for as long as six weeks after giving birth. She was hoping her body would recover far sooner than that. Once the cramp passed, the auburn-haired woman followed the snoring to the living room.
She smiled at what she saw. Her husband — she smiled at the trill that word gave her — lay curled around their daughter. Kakashi's ninken were piled around them, careful even in their sleep not to roll onto the baby. The infant, for her part, had one little hand on Pakkun's paw and another on his head. At least he'd thought of something to calm her down. Usually, he came to her, tears of frustration in his eyes because he couldn't get her to calm down. Two days in, she'd had to convince him that this was natural for babies and that their daughter didn't hate him. Out of his depth as he was, he was doing his best to help, and for that, she was grateful. She couldn't imagine how some mothers did this on their own or handled more than one child, even with a partner.
Glancing back through the open bedroom door to the window above the bed, she saw early dawn light brightening the clouds to a pale gray. Amaya sighed. Her daughter would need feeding soon, so there was no use trying to go back to sleep. She glanced over at the pile of books and the notepads on the kitchen table. Maybe she could keep looking through baby names; their daughter's naming ceremony was in two days, after all.
She smiled to herself as she went back into their bedroom. She knew which name she liked — Kaiya —, but Kakashi had been adamant they go through all twelve books he'd bought. They were on book ten. Surely, he wouldn't mind if she blazed through a dozen or so pages of names that most certainly wouldn't fit without them. First, though, she was going to take the longest, hottest shower she could.