(Author's Note: If you're reading, please remember to review. Warnings and disclaimers apply to all chapters.)

And the Beat Goes On
Chapter 23: In The Morning Light

Morning sunlight filtered into the room, because someone had forgotten to close the curtains. Groaning and rolling over, Uchiha Sasuke cursed whoever that was, because said sunlight was currently aggravating his already aggravated headache. He buried his head under the pillow and tried very hard not to think.

Unfortunately, his mind was thinking, and his mind was very puzzled by its thoughts. This wasn't his room, it was Naruto's. Which meant he was sleeping in Naruto's bed, which usually meant they'd actually, physically slept together, but somehow, Naruto seemed to be absent. In his hung-over confusion, he could not come up with a plausible explanation as to how he'd come to be sleeping in his boyfriend's bed, without said boyfriend.

Moving hurt his head, but thinking set him into motion. He sat up, slowly, wincing with every movement. His head hurt, his stomach churned, and every muscle in his body ached. The sunlight seared his eyes, making them throb. His pressed his hands to his eyes, as if trying to still the dull pounding.

He slithered out of bed, wrapping the sheet around him, because he felt that searching for his clothes might prove troublesome. His hazy thoughts were piecing things together now. He was naked, which meant he'd undressed, probably with Naruto in his company. So, the blond had to have been there last night.

He stumbled and nearly fell over, just barely catching his balance. He tugged the sheet tighter about himself, the chill of the winter morning's air biting into his flesh. He shuffled to Naruto's dresser, opening the drawers, blinking owlishly at the contents, trying to find something he could possibly put on, instead of wandering about Naruto's house in a sheet.

He finally settled for a t-shirt, and a pair of Naruto's shorts, and found getting them to actually be a bit of a challenge, with his body not quite functional, and Naruto being slightly smaller than him. All in all, he ended up in them, though whether the shirt was on inside out or not, he didn't really care.

Bare feet smacking the floor, he padded out of the room, into the hall, shivering as the bare hardwood transferred the cold into his feet, turning them to ice. The house was silent, except for his own unsteady breathing, and his footsteps.

He padded downstairs, into the dining room, and stared for several minutes. The dining room, the kitchen, the living room - they all looked as though a tornado had hit it, with beer bottles, and Styrofoam cups and all sorts of other crap like that strewn about everywhere.

He wandered a little further into the room, looking at the traces of white powder on the clean, polished wood of the table. Crack, something else? He didn't know.

Lamps and chairs had been upturned, the kitchen had been ransacked, and there were several things broken, lying smashed all over the floor, so he had to be careful where he stepped, because the glass might cut his feet.

There was nobody there, nobody there except himself, and he started to panic. Where the hell was Naruto!

His breath came a little too fast, and he had to sit down, the world starting to rotate before his eyes, making his head spin, and he felt unbalanced. He kept blinking, as if suddenly, he might blink, and the scene would change and Naruto would suddenly be there.

Everything remained the same.

He drew a deep breath, and shivered, wrapping his arms about himself. "Okay, Sasuke," he murmured to himself, trying to calm down, but the sound of his voice rang eerily in the too silent place, and that made it worse.

His heart tripped in his chest and he closed his eyes. "Okay, okay," he whispered, trying to reason things out. "Maybe Naruto went to the store. Or something. What time is it?"

Was it too early for stores to even be open? He looked at the clock, which assured him it was far too early for the stores be open yet, it only being quarter to eight in the morning. The panic started to rise again. He clenched his hands around the underside of the chair he was sitting on.

"Okay. Maybe he went to the neighbours, or something like that, or maybe he went to. . .he went to get Konohamaru, or maybe Iruka.. . .or, or. . . "

This wasn't helping. His mind was muddled, he felt very, very confused, and very frantic. Where was Naruto? He hadn't gotten alcohol poisoning or anything like that, had he? He hadn't overdosed on something? He hadn't been rushed to the hospital, on his deathbed, right?

He felt close to tears and curled in on himself. He remembered his house being like this, so silent and cold, just after his parents died. He remembered coming home to the silence, and it had scared him, because he knew that silence was created by the void, by the space his parents no longer occupied in his life.

He felt sick, he felt scared, just like he was eight years old again, and he had just found out that his parents, that his mother and father were never coming back to him, and he was going to have to fend for himself now. It was shock, it was fear, it was the overwhelming direness of the situation coming back and killing him all over again.

He should have been able to deal with it, because he'd dealt with it before. But he had dealt with it before, and he'd never wanted to deal with it again, which was why it was so terrible to him now. He stumbled up from his seat, into the kitchen, scrubbing at his eyes, choking on a sob or two, determined not to cry.

He sat himself down in one of the kitchen chairs, curling up on it, hugging his knees to his chest, trying to get a hold of himself, trying and trying to calm himself down, and reign himself in.

He should call somebody. Itachi, maybe. No, Itachi was fighting with Orochimaru, Itachi wasn't going to help him, because Itachi was in such a -

'Shut up', he told his rambling mind.

He didn't know who else to call. He didn't know where Iruka was - he should have been here, but he wasn't, and Itachi was out of the question, and he just didn't know of anybody else who could possibly help him.

He sat there, cold and miserable in the silent morning.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Itachi's morning was not much better than Sasuke's.

Currently, he was sitting at the breakfast table, enduring a tense, angry silence. He himself was on the receiving end of Grandmother Uchiha's fierce anger and she was none too pleased with him, to say the least.

She had yet to say anything, to him, yet, but he'd heard the screaming and the yelling that Kisame had endured, and that Kurenai had to endure for an hour or so afterward. The old woman was silent now, though, as if she'd used all her words last night in her raging rant.

He had said nothing to her yet, and he wasn't going to if he didn't have to. He wasn't stupid enough to speak, even just one fatal word, so she could get the ball rolling and have it turn to rock and run him over.

Kurenai was not looking at either of them, seemingly absorbed in the patterns she could draw in the maple syrup on her plate with her fork. The pancakes had long since gone cold.

"Uchiha Itachi," the eldest member of the family said finally, her voice enough to freeze fire.

He said nothing, did nothing, did not look up at her. The icy voice reached his ears nonetheless, ploughing on.
"Do you have no respect for your honourable surname?"

She stopped, as if expecting, or waiting for an answer that she knew she was not going to be graced with. He held his tongue, still refusing to look away from the safety of the tabletop.

She cleared her throat, her old voice warbling and trembling with anger now. "You've disgraced your name, and your parents' name, and worst of all, yourself. Tell me, how are you feeling right this very moment?"

Itachi, again, said nothing, though he had to bite back the snarky reply his mind supplied to her question. He was aware that her glare was focussed solely on him now, but if he could not see it, he could not be intimidated by it.

The old woman sighed, as if she were tired. "Itachi," she said finally, wearily. "You're wrong was not sleeping with a man, nor was it sleeping in your parents' room, when it has been untouched for so long, but it was sleeping with that man outside of your relationship."

Her words seemed a touch bitter, as though she still did not approve of him with another guy, but a little more relaxed, less vehemently against it than only a few days prior.

He tensed his shoulders, but said nothing still. She was saying that his worst error was to have an "affair"? Somehow, this seemed not at all like his great-grandmother, and more like a trap, or something to lure him into something that he did not want to be involved in.

He chanced a glance at her. She had stood now, and turned her back to him. It amazed him how such a frail creature, so old and wrinkled, with her back all hunched up, could wield such power, as she did over the rest of the Uchiha clan.

Before she had time to think of more to say to him, he stood and escaped from the room, retreating to the sanctity of his bedroom, where he could think more clearly.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Iruka's morning was slightly more pleasant than Itachi or Sasuke's.

The brunet teacher woke in Kakashi's bed, wrapped snugly in the blankets, trapped as they had formed a sort of cocoon around his body. He'd yawned and nestled back down, content to lie and rest in bed, for a while at least, as he never did now.

There had been footsteps on carpet, and the door had been opened, he noted, not bothering to roll over to see who was there. He knew, simply by the familiarity of the presence who was there.

Kakashi padded over the edge of the bed and sat down, carefully balancing the tray in his hands so not spill anything. He smiled gently at Iruka, his lover in his bed, for once, a person not eager to leave him, but willing to stay longer than he had to.

"Good morning," he purred, leaning down to gently brush his lips against Iruka's cheek, earning himself a sigh from the younger man.

"I brought you breakfast," he said at last, having been sitting there for a moment or two, just looking at the pretty thing in his bed.

Iruka sat up, and the gentle moment was changed, though not shattered entirely. The brunet smiled at him, a gentle, sweet smile, which was as pure as new fallen snow, and he'd come to love that smile, and often felt, that sometimes, it was a smile just for him, though Iruka often smiled that way with others.

Somehow, when it was just them there, that smile was just that much more. . .private. The sunlight danced about on the rumpled sheets, creating shadows in the valleys of the peaks and folds.

He kissed Iruka again, tasting him, before finally letting the brunet have his breakfast, though he continued to stay near to Iruka, to touch him in someway, so that they were never separate. His hand combed through those sorrel locks, rested on a tanned cheek, and stroked, gently, lovingly. Iruka sighed softly, closing his eyes and enjoying the feel, the feeling of being close to Kakashi, just like this.

Just then, the telephone rang, shattering the moment. Kakashi slid off the bed, leaving Iruka to tend to the food, his footsteps, the sound of bare feet against hardwood flooring, echoing slightly in the otherwise still apartment.

Glancing at the clock, Iruka chewed thoughtfully on his mouthful of food, wondering who would call Kakashi at eight-thirty a.m. on a Saturday morning. He looked at Kakashi, asking his question silently, when the man walked back into the room.

"Sasuke," the silver-haired man said, evenly, flatly.

Iruka quirked an eyebrow, but Kakashi said nothing. His mouth was set in a grim line. There was a moment or two of silence, and then, Kakashi said, "He's at your house."

Iruka was about to start crowing in triumph, because he knew, had just knew, that Naruto would have had the damn Uchiha boy over, but Kakashi's voice stopped him dead.

"He can't find Naruto."

Iruka blinked stupidly, then swallowed. "What do you mean?"

Kakashi shrugged. "That was all he said."
Iruka said nothing, but that may or may not have been because his shirt was literally thrown in his face.

By the time he peeled it off, Kakashi was dressed, looking ready to face the world on this new day. "I'll drive you home," he said, although his tone sounded rather disappointed.

Iruka looked down at his wrinkled shirt, smiling to himself. Kakashi was upset he was leaving, but he knew the older man understood. The boy he had adopted, his 'son', his 'little brother', and his best friend in the world, was gone, and Kakashi knew, and understood that Iruka could not just lie there in bed any longer with that knowledge.

He sighed gently, pulling his shirt over his head, his hair charging with static at the action.

What kind of trouble Naruto had gotten himself into now, Iruka could only imagine. The blond was like a trouble-magnet. Wherever he went, trouble was never too far behind.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

When Naruto came to, he was in a car. A moving car. That was the first thing he noticed, as the scenery whizzed by him, making him feel slightly dizzy, and almost sick. The whirring of the engine buzzed in his head.

He felt as if he'd been run over by a transport truck, though he knew he hadn't had that much to drink last night at the party. The last thing he remembered was torturing his beautiful Sasuke, until. . .

Erm. He blushed and put his head back against the headrest, his eyes throbbing in their sockets. How had he ended up here? He had no idea.

He was dressed, and he wasn't in Iruka's car. This was a new car, someone else's car, someone he didn't know. "What the hell?" he mumbled, opening his eyes again and looking ahead of him, staring at the backs of the heads of the driver, and the passenger.

The driver was a blonde, with four pigtails on the back of her head. The passenger was a red-head, and he was turning about now, and he had such startling green eyes -

"Gaara?" he gasped, his eyes snapping open wide.

The red-head said nothing to him, but oh, that was Gaara alright, no mistaking it.

"Where am I?" Naruto asked, sitting up a bit.

"There's someone who wants to see you," Gaara said, as if that was the most logical answer to Naruto's question, when it didn't answer it at all.
Naruto nearly threw a fit, as he happened to glance out the window and see that they were passing a sign, a sign that said "You are now leaving Konoha".

"Where are you taking me!" he screeched, lunging forward a bit. He felt sick, really sick now, and although the pain that he'd woken up feeling was fading, this feeling of panic was worse.

He didn't know these people, and they were taking him out of Konoha, and they wouldn't tell him where they were going or why and what the hell, what the hell. . .

Someone wanted to see him? Who did he know outside of Konoha? Who did he know who would want to see him? He didn't know, he couldn't think of anyone who would want to see him, and he couldn't think of anyone he knew outside of Konoha.

The car kept going, the wheels kept turning and the road was full of bumps, so he kept jolting up and down, as he watched the trees go by.

They really had left Konoha, Konoha the city at least, because in the city, there were hardly any trees, at least, not like forests, like this, except for in the older end of town, where in the parks and stuff, the trees had sprung up.

After a while, he started to feel a little car sick, though he wasn't sure it was from the car. He watched idly as another car passed them, driving down this seemingly endless road to what seemed like nowhere.

He wished he had a watch, or a road sign or something that could tell him where they were going, or how long they had been going there.

He sighed, and settled down to have a nice, long nap.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Kabuto woke in the morning light, rubbing his eyes, and then discovered that the morning light had turned into afternoon light, as the clock now read 12:01, making it, indeed, afternoon.

He woke to an empty bed, and a silent home, as he usually did, but today, that should have somehow been different, or so, part of him had been hoping. His mind had realized that Orochimaru, of course, would not stay, but his foolish hope refused to drown itself in logic.

He sighed and reached for his glasses, putting them on and making the world come from fuzzy into full, sharp clarity, precision focus. Reality was suddenly so glaring that it hurt his eyes.

He got up, disentangling himself from the messy sheets, making a mental note to wash them before the day was out. Sore, and feeling a little dirtied, he padded about the room, gathering his scattered clothes, then set about finding fresh ones, because today was a new day.
Why was he so tired of today already? He'd merely woken up, and now, he found himself wishing that the day would end, the sun would set, and he could crawl away to bed in the darkness, and overcome his consciousness with unconsciousness.

Bah, who needed anything like that anyway? He'd not been led on, he'd not been offered any promises by his serpentine friend, so why did he feel so let down and betrayed?

'Because the snake went crawling back to the weasel,' he thought bitterly, his face wrinkling up in distaste at the mere thought.

But, again, who cared really, because they were fighting, and unhappy, so let them fight and be unhappy. He would move on and keep going. He would not be dragged backwards into their sess pool of woe.

Not even if part of him, however minuscule that part was, wanted to go.

Bad-temperedly, he kicked at a pile of books on the floor, knocking them over and scattering them. Feeling satisfied that something had suffered because he was hurt, he made his way out of the room, into the bathroom.

He looked banefully at himself in the mirror, hating the face that stared back at him. He looked like a geek, the truth, harsh, plain and simple. His glasses were oversized, his skin was pale, and his face was drawn. He might as well had buck teeth and braces, and a face full of acne, so that he could just say he was a geek and that was all.

He sighed heavily, pulling his hair back out of his face, back into a rather sloppy ponytail. Bitterly, he remembered that Orochimaru's boyfriend wore his hair in a ponytail as well, though his was sleeker, longer, and all around, more effeminate.

Why did he care?

He wasn't sure he wanted to know, he wasn't sure he wanted to get right down to the root of the problem, that was now a wound, made worse and left to fester.

He knew he didn't want to know why he cared as much as he did.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Sasuke dropped the side of the garbage bag, hearing the engine of a car draw close, hearing the crunch of wheels on gravel. His heart dropped into his stomach.

Iruka was home, and this place was still a mess, and Naruto was gone too! He felt tears well up in his eyes and he sat down on the floor, feeling hopelessly pathetic, and lost. He had hoped to have the house somewhat cleaner than it was, but with him in his hung over state, that was almost a lost cause.
He really didn't want to be ranted at, as he knew he would be, because his head already felt like somebody's drum, and he already was scared enough; he already felt bad enough, that he didn't need Iruka to make it worse.

Footsteps, now, Iruka and Kakashi walking up the driveway. The key in the lock, turning the tumblers, and then, the door squealing on its hinges as it was opened, and then, they were inside.

He started to cry. It was all he could do. The breakdown had been looming on the horizon all morning, and now, one more thing had upset the pile, and set him off, like fireworks. He buried his hands in his face, trying to still his cries, and dry his eyes before anything, anyone saw.

"What the hell happened here!" Iruka was screaming now, and he started to cry harder, now unable to stop the reaction.

He was in so much shit, he was just going to die, Iruka was going to kill him, wasn't he? He trashed his house with a party, had sex with his son, and now, had lost said blond.

He decided the best thing to do was make himself look as pathetic as possible, so he threw himself to the floor, sobbing pitifully, as Iruka walked into the room skirting broken glass and such.

The brunet looked, if anything, startled. "Sasuke?" he asked, and the effort it took to keep his voice as gentle as it was must have been tremendous.

He knelt down beside the boy, hesitantly placing a hand on his shoulder, only to be brushed off, and have the ebony-haired boy cry harder.

"Hey," the brunet teacher said, trying to be as soft as he could, but it was kind of hard to with the mess that surrounded him. "Sh. Why are you crying?"

He helped the mess of a teenager up, and was more than surprised when Sasuke literally threw himself into his arms, sobbing loudly, and pathetically. Iruka gently placed a hand on the messy dark head, combing out the tangles in the boy's hair, wrapping his other arm about the smaller male.

Sasuke rested his head on Iruka's shoulder, gradually letting his howls die down to whimpers. He curled his fingers into the material of the brunet's shirt, digging in, as if to stabilize himself. "I'm scared," he murmured finally, his head throbbing now with thrice the intensity as it had before he'd started crying.

"Shush," Iruka murmured, gently relaxing his grip on the teenager. "What happened here?"

"Party," Sasuke mumbled miserably.
Iruka frowned, but said nothing to chide or scold. "Where's Konohamaru?" he asked.

"My house," Sasuke muttered, getting up in search of a tissue.

"And Naruto?"

Sasuke stopped, frozen, then started to cry again. "I don't know!" he wailed, placing his face in his hands again.

Iruka sighed. This was going to be a long day.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

She clutched his hand, tightly, as tight as she possibly could.

This was different now, this was new. This wasn't the same situation, this was a new one, and they were facing it together, instead of her watching it rear its ugly head all alone.

The waiting room was silent, and she looked miserably at her feet, still holding his hand, resting her sweaty palm against his cool one. She wondered how he could be so calm. She wondered how he could seem so confident, when this was as terrible as it was for her to him, when it was as new to him as it was to her.

She glanced sideways at him, and he was staring straight ahead, so he didn't see her glancing nervously at him like that, looking for reassurance from him.

His profile was brave, and noble, his face set and determined. He was a knight in shining armour, there to defend her, the damsel in distress. He was a man, ready to face the world and show them what he really was.

She was so stupid, and so scared, that she couldn't be much else. She sighed softly, and looked back at the ground.

TenTen was waiting, waiting to see the doctor, but this time, Neji was there, and he was holding her hand. He hadn't complained yet, though she knew she must've bruised his knuckles by now, she'd been squeezing his hand so hard.

She was so scared. What would the doctor tell her? What would they say to her? What would Neji say, what would Neji do?

He seemed so vehement that she wasn't to destroy what they'd created, but was he really? Would he balk, and bail, when it was too late for her to rid herself of it that easily, or would he stick it out, and persevere, like he said he wanted to?

Would he stick around, or would he leave?
She didn't know, because she couldn't read his mind, so she had to trust his words for now, and his words sounded sincere to her. But that could have been because she was desperate for them to be sincere, so she'd closed her ears to the false tones in his voice, and everyone else could hear them, but she could not.

The hands on the clock kept moving, but it still seemed to take forever for the nurse to call her name, and for them to rise, his hand still in hers, showing that he was still there for her, and that he was still supporting her.

Together, they walked down that hall, to face the doctor, to face the future.

The most important thing, however, was that they were together.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Kiba woke, at home, in his own bed, hung-over and sick.

He remembered, fuzzily, the party last night, and that explained the hang-over, and the sickness. But how did he get home? He'd thought he'd fallen asleep somewhere in Naruto's house. That, he was almost sure of, and he did not remember how he got home.

He frowned.

He remembered something else too, something involving bed sheets, and squeaking springs, but he couldn't quite place it.

Hinata. She'd been there too, hadn't she? Yes, she had, he remembered now, and she'd been a part of the mess with the bed sheets and the bed with the squeaky springs that he couldn't quite remember.

And then, it dawned on him and he felt sickness creep up on him, more intensely than before. He'd slept with her, hadn't he? He had, he knew he had, even though he didn't remember doing that.

It wasn't a bad thing, because he liked her a lot, would even go so far as to say he loved her, but to sleep with her, especially when he was drunk, seemed so rude and. . .

He had wanted their first time together to be special, even if it did sound stupid and girly. He really cared about her, and he wanted her to feel good, wanted her to have a good time, and he wanted to show her he cared.

Now, he'd probably bungled that. Maybe she'd been just as drunk as he had, and didn't quite remember. Maybe she hadn't been drunk at all and recalled every detail. He didn't know, so he fretted about it.
Akamaru barked in his ear, jumping up on the bed, seeing that his master was awake. He licked Kiba's ear, then his face, wagging his tail excitedly. Kiba groaned and rolled over, covering his head with the pillow.

Akamaru whined, concern showing on his puppy face and he lay down, curling up beside Kiba, as if to say, 'I'm here for you, if you want to talk.'

Kiba smirked a little, though it hurt his head to do that, and scratched behind the pup's ears, which got him an affectionate whine and a lick to the hand. He lay there, petting Akamaru, and thinking, staring at the wall.

When his headache subsided a bit, he'd call Hinata, and talk to her. He'd see what she knew, what she remembered, and then, he'd feel a bit better, he hoped, at least knowing what he'd done.

That depended on what she told him, though, really, because he was simply going to feel worse if she'd not been drunk at all, because he knew he'd have screwed up then

Stupid goddamn alcohol. What good was it anyway?

He sighed, letting Akamaru snuggle closer to him, as he wandered off, lost in thought again.

Downstairs, he could hear his mother yelling for something, but he didn't care what.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Hinata was little better off when she woke up. She was wrapped in the soft, pink sheets of her own bed, and she had no idea how she'd come to be there.

She could only hope that she hadn't stumbled home with Kiba, drunk, and woken up her parents, or anyone else for that matter, because that would be embarrassing, and troublesome, and she'd probably be grounded for the next twenty years of her life.

She sighed softly and got out of bed. She was amazed really, that she didn't feel too ridiculously bad, because she'd always heard that hangovers were the bane of existence, but her headache was minimal, and she didn't feel sick at all.

She stumbled into the bathroom, yawning, and shut the door behind her. She looked at herself in the mirror, and nearly screamed as another memory from her "wild" alcohol-induced night came crashing back into her conscious.

She. . .and Kiba. . .

Oh, here was the nausea now.
They had. . .

She fainted dead away, her head hitting the floor with a solid thump.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Lee hadn't slept a wink. In the morning now, he was tired, wide-eyed, with his eyes sporting that bloodshot look of insomnia.

He simply could not understand why Sakura would not want to go out with him. He simply could not comprehend why she wanted to go with Ino, why she wanted to live like that.

Maybe that was part of his problem. He could never understand her, never understand why she said no, and even though he claimed to love her, he didn't understand her enough to even begin to love her like he wanted to.

He sighed. Maybe all this thinking, and deep thought and such was a product of a night without sleep.

He loved Sakura, or why would he bother chasing after her for so long, and so persistently? He loved her, he must have, because there was no other explanation for why he kept going back to her, when all she did was abuse him.

He loved her, he really did. That, he was almost sure of.

Almost.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Ino, Sakura, and Shikamaru were all sitting outside, on a snowbank. Ino and Sakura had convinced Shikamaru to go sledding with them, even though he didn't want to. Currently, they were taking a break.

The girls were laughing and giggling loudly, occasionally jabbing Shikamaru in the side to try and get him to join their side in their argument, but otherwise, leaving him to his cloud watching.

He wondered how two girls, so different from each other, got on so incredibly well. It seemed completely against nature that they should be friends, and that they should fall in love with each other.

Though, he supposed, watching another cloud drift on by overhead, that it was better all around, for him, because he didn't have to deal with their silly trivial girl things, and he found things like that all to troublesome.
He was glad to be left out.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Orochimaru was lying to himself.

He had made up some excuse about forgetting something of his at Itachi's, and he was telling himself that he had to go get it, because it was some favourite thing of his.

His brain sneered at him, saying, "Liar. You're just going back there to rub it in his face."

And he was, and that was so true. He stomped into the house, trying to forget that he really wasn't welcome here anymore, and that he wasn't part of Itachi's life anymore, because dammit, he'd wasted too much time here just to be thrown out like that.

He shut the kitchen door, slipping off his snowy shoes and was about to head into the house when he happened to look up.

Itachi's great-grandmother was standing there, her hands on her hips, her mouth set in a scowl. He started to put on the shoe that dangled loosely from his hand, ready to retreat.

"You," she said, in her creaky old voice. "Are going to fix things up with him."

Somehow, he knew exactly what she meant, and somehow, he wasn't going to vehemently object, like he was supposed to.

He nodded in agreement and put the shoe down.

- - - - - - - - -