Disclaimer: I own Naruto. Riiight… and Kyuubi secretly likes to be called "Fluffy."

A.N. – This drabble is a little darker than the others. It came to me when my dad told me about how one of my little sisters had had a nightmare some time ago and it reminded me of all the times I'd run into Mom's room when I was little because I'D had a bad dream. And the most frightening ones were ALWAYS the ones where something bad had happened to my mother or I couldn't find her or something. And after I had such a dream, I ALWAYS had to go into my mother's room and make sure she was still there, no matter what ungodly hour in the morning it was. Hence my inspiration for this chapter.

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Musuko

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Chapter 4: Nightmares

Naruto woke up crying. He didn't like crying. His eyes got all puffy and red and it gave him the hiccups and his nose got all runny and his head hurt and it just wasn't fun. Now though, he couldn't help it. He'd had a bad cream. Mommy and Daddy called them nightmares. And they were right, nightmares were scary. And he'd just had one.

He had been in a big crowd but he was lost and everyone he'd asked for help had turned away from him, walking away before he could even get close. He'd called out to them, pleaded, begged for help, cried for his parents.

No one came. No one but the Eyes.

Naruto cried even harder as he remembered them. Big, glowing red cat eyes, staring down at him, making fun of him, poking at him with sharp claws. It told him his parents were gone, that they'd left him behind, that they didn't want him anymore so they left and they were never coming back. He'd called the Eyes a liar, yelled at them to go away, but the Eyes had laughed at him, grinning with massive fangs longer than he was tall. He'd tried to run away, but the Eyes were always behind him, chasing him. He'd been so scared….

Out in the hall, Arashi yawned, stumbling his way back to bed. Nothing hit the spot for late-night hunger pangs like cold pizza. Well, nothing except ramen, but ramen took time to make and Arashi was too sleepy to wait the required three minutes. Come to think of it, he was too sleepy to think either, so he stopped. His bed and his wife's toasty side were calling….

Then he heard whimpering coming from his son's room and all thought of sleep was suddenly the last thing on his mind.

"Naruto?" he called quietly, opening the door. A small, hard, and blond something vaulted from atop the bed and attached itself to his legs before he could take a step into the room. Bending over and unlocking the boy's death grip on his leg just long enough to transfer it to his neck, Arashi scooped him up and carried him back over to the bed. "Hey, buddy," he said soothingly, running a hand through soft golden spikes, "What's going on, huh?"

Naruto said nothing, burrowing deeper into his father's warmth, crying even harder all the while.

"Ruto?" Arashi tried again, but again with no response, save for the tightening of the boy's arms.

Arashi was distinctly worried now. Naruto had had bad dreams before, everyone did, but any distress caused by them were usually soothed away with a hug from his parents and forgotten with a kiss, though sometimes with a little hot chocolate. But now as Arashi tried every trick he knew to calm his son, hugs, kisses, back scratching, rocking, whispering his concerns, and nothing worked, it dawned on him with no small trace of deep unease that Naruto was afraid, truly and deeply afraid. Naruto was never afraid. Not Naruto, who frequently climbed up the many trees in the village just because he thought it magic how everybody shrank when he did, heedless of the many times his parents and various caretakers told him not to. Not Naruto, who loved wandering around the house in the middle of the night just to tell the Boogie Man to stop picking on all his friends. Not Naruto, his precious, courageous little boy.

Something was very, very wrong. This couldn't have been just another nightmare.

Time to call the specialist. Arashi picked up his son again and carried him into this and Rei's room.

Uzumaki Rei was sound asleep when her husband and son entered. She was awake in an instant however when her ninja senses, undimmed by motherhood, picked up the pure fear that rolled off her son in waves. "What happened?" she asked, throwing off the covers so Arashi could lie down next to her.

"Nightmare, I think," Arashi told her. "He was crying when I came in, but I can't get anything out of him."

Taking her son as much into her arms as she could, Rei tried her best to sooth him. Placing a kiss on his shoulder, she cooed, "What is it, sweety? What's wrong? It alright, you're safe now, Mommy and Daddy are both here. We're not going to let anything happen to you, okay? Naruto, please tell me…. Sweety?"

Not getting any noticeable response, Rei glanced worriedly at her husband. Arashi shrugged his eyebrows, clearly just as stumped as she was. The horrible feeling of helplessness began to set in heavily on both parents. She supposed they'd just have to wait it out till Naruto told them what was wrong, though every last piece of her that was a mother hated the idea. Watching your child in pain was bad enough, being unable to do anything about it was near unbearable but what else could they do? Rei bit her lip again.

Finally, after near half an hour, Naruto had fallen silent and Arashi was almost sure he was asleep, "Mommy…? D-daddy…?"

"Yeah, champ?" "What is it, sweety?"

Naruto opened and closed his mouth several times before he said, so softly Rei almost didn't hear him, "Do you… love me?"

Any relief from their son finally starting to open up was swiftly replaced by confusion.

"Of course, sweety!" Rei said, engulfing him with a fury of kisses and caresses, the kind only a loving parent could give. Naruto broke out into fresh tears, turning and latching onto his mother, clutching her soft mahogany locks in him hands.

Arashi let him go, feeling like he just got kicked in the gut. "Naruto," he said, "we've told you everyday how much we love you. Do you really feel we don't love you?"

Since day one, Arashi and Rei had done everything in their power to ensure their son was raised with up most love and care. That Naruto might not feel loved never occurred to Arashi, but the very idea of it made his blood run cold.

Naruto shook his head. "The Eyes t-told me you didn't love me anymore. They said you weren't coming back…"

Slowly, painfully, Naruto recounted his dream to his parents….

It was around four in the morning when Naruto finally nodded off to sleep, surrounded by his parents' arms and love, exhausted from crying for so long. For Arashi and Rei, however, such peace and rest did not come so easily. They were concerned to say the least, and baffled as to where such a dream would mean or where it came from. They told him everyday they loved him, Naruto had tons of friends, so that wasn't a problem, and even if something ever did happen to them, there were people who would take care of Naruto, Higen for one. So why would Naruto dream everyone hated him, his parents included, and that an animal of some kind was tormenting him? That's the other thing. Naruto loved animals, so much so that sometimes Arashi wondered if perhaps his son had been accidentally switched with an Inuzuka.

Arashi hadn't had to wrestle with so many implication and what-ifs and hypotheticals since those few nerve-racking hours before Naruto was born. He hadn't had this big a headache since then either, come to think of it….

Rei, ever the considerate and loving wife, eyed the weariness and lingering hurt etched on her husband's face. Truth be told, she was just as worried by this thing as he was, but unlike her, he didn't have to day off tomorrow (later that day, really), and thus needed to sleep which wouldn't happen with the cogs in his head continued to churn like they were. "Honey," she said softly, careful not to wake Naruto, "You need to get to sleep, love."

"How can I?" he mumbled, burying his face in his hands. "My son just told me-"

"That he's insecure sometimes, just like every other child in the world, and just needed reassurance."

Arashi turned to stare at her. "How can you brush this off so easily? Our son was convinced, by his own dream, that we didn't want him anymore. His own dream! What does that tell us? What does say about us as parents?"

"It was probably some outside influence. Nothing of this sort has ever happened before and three year-olds can't hide their emotions all that well so it has to have been something recent. And that aside, what else can we do besides continue to love him like we have? 'Rashi, I'm just as worried about all this as you, but it was one dream, we can't go to pieces about it. Worrying our heads off now won't solve anything. And I'm telling you to get some sleep is because I wouldn't be doing my duty as your subordinate nor as your wife if I let you be cranky and miserable and make bad decisions tomorrow in the Tower, Hokage-sama, just because you didn't get your sleep." She flicked him on the nose.

Arashi had to resist a sigh. Only Rei could chastise him and make him feel like a silly little kid, yet comfort him, and remind him of his duties and her love all in one go. "What would I do with out you, again?"

"I don't want to know," she replied bluntly, giving him a quick kiss on the lips. "Now sleep, you."

Smiling bemusedly, Arashi let his head fall back onto his pillows, his weariness finally overcoming him. Rei was right. No sense worrying about it now. They knew they loved their son and as long as he knew it, that was enough.

A.N. – The ending seems a little weak to me, but after two days and not being able to come up with anything better, I give up. I was going more for irony in this, I don't know if it came across too well. Even though Naruto's destiny as a jinchuuriki was somehow avoided in this universe, bits of it still echo and will continue to forever more. And that little bit of his destiny are his tears brought on by the dream of Kyuubi, because as Kakashi said, that's basically Naruto's childhood, one big painful wound. The other bit of irony is Rei's thought that Higen would care for Naruto should anything happen to her and Arashi. It hasn't really occurred to her that something could happen to all three of them. You may be asking why I didn't mention Naruto being taken care of by the villagers and it's not because of what you may think. They would (in this universe anyway) but in Japan, the handling of orphans is different than in America. Here, to be adopted is not too big a deal. Don't get me wrong, it is, but at least here it's okay to be open about it. In Japan, adoption only really happens if it can be kept quite and in the family. And if you're adopted, you never talk about it. At least, that's what my Japanese teacher told me. If anybody's ever seen that one episode of Digimon when Izzy finds out he was adopted by his uncle, you'll know what I mean. As for Arashi, let's just say that Naruto feeling loved is VERY important to him. I won't say too much here because I may or may not explain why in a later drabble, I'm not sure yet. That depends on you guys. (hint, hint, nudge, nudge)