Day 64


It was morning. Flashes of blue peeked out from behind the clouds. There was promise of a cold, uncomfortable drizzle. The ground was still wet from last night's downpour. Itachi could feel the earth pulling at his sandals.

Hinata trailed behind. Her steps - plip-plip - were not fast. She hadn't said a word. He hadn't, either.

The office was small, unassuming. This physician was, clearly, used to being paged in situations requiring a degree of discretion. Hinata checked herself in at the desk and was asked to take a seat, as the wait could be a while. So she sat on the plush, backless settee against one wall, and he sat next to her.

"If it's alright," she said, soft as a petal, "can you stay in here?"

He cleared his throat. "Yeah."

He stared at the blue-gray carpet. She shifted in her seat.

"Why this, uh, office?" she asked. "I-didn't expect-this."

"This?"

She seemed to settle on: "It's...not the hospital."

"Yeah."

That's the point, he wanted to add. I didn't want you to deal with it going public before -

He swallowed the sentence before he could gag on it, spit it out like a piece of gristle. She had diminished when he tentatively suggested a doctor's visit. Her eyes had become colorless, blank, empty. She had told him to do it with the air of a disinterested onlooker. So he had.

An aide retrieved Hinata for the appointment. She glanced back, suddenly, as she went behind the folding screen. She was scared. Then she was gone.

The waiting room held two other people in it; they were complete strangers to him, and it seemed he was to them. There was a vending machine of hot drinks nestled into an alcove just by the entrance. The fluorescent overhead lights were harsh, bluish-white.

Itachi was alone.

He threw his head back and sagged against the wall.

They had talked about it (the pregnancy) in the same way one talks about a pet's death: vaguely. With euphemisms, sideways glances, and hand wringing. The conversation was a soap bubble neither wanted to break. It was logical to do so before it broke of its own accord.

Of course, the first step to talking about it (the pregnancy) was to stop making excuses for not even thinking about it (the pregnancy). He drew in a deep breath, from the gut. Then he exhaled.

He laid out the facts for himself in this way: Hinata was pregnant. It would be six weeks at maximum. This appointment was both to medically confirm it, and to ascertain its wellbeing. The desired outcome, logically, was that everything was going fine.

They turned over and over themselves like a coin in his fingers. That was all he could do. Flip, turn, trace the edge. It made no difference, but it killed time.

Hinata emerged from behind the screen again with the caution of a cat. Her clothes were a bit rumpled. There was a piece of tape peeking out from under the three-quarter sleeve of her left arm.

"Let's go," she whispered.


The chapters will start coming a little easier soon, hopefully. I mapped out roughly what happens first half of the fic. A lot of the first third I'm rewriting from scratch or nearly from scratch but most of the rest are gonna be transplanted & cleaned up in terms of the events going on.

Thanks for reading!