This one is shorter, but it's not that short, so I hope you will like it anyway. Enjoy:)

Next night he is back sitting at the kitchen table. He moves and lies down on the sitting pillows trying his best to ignore his surroundings. For the whole day he failed to dismiss all the ideas that came to his mind during their last conversation… He does not know if he would be able to deal with them.

But his mind just cannot settle and stay quiet, no matter how desperately he needs it to. It works all the time, creating ideas, explanations, suggestions. He prays for it to be silent, even if just for one evening.

What is all of this to his father?

Sasuke is not good at considering other people's feelings. He used to be much better at it when he was a child, but his ability to understand others and support them is now long gone.

Well, it is not, not really, but he likes to think it is. He does not need more problems to think about right now.

So, what is their reunion to Uchiha Fugaku?

Is he happy to see his son all grown up? Irritated that somebody disturbs his peace? What is it?

What was the massacre to him? The short what do you know about it from yesterday comes back to him again and he gives up his efforts to keep it out of his mind. Did his father know?

"You're back."

He opens his eyes slowly and sees his father leaning against the doorframe, looking at him. No annoyance or anger present on his severe, tired face.

"Yeah."

"How long this time?"

"Just one day."

"Does it happen more often than it used to?"

"I guess" he sits up, running his fingers through his hair. "Hey…"

"…?"

"That thing you asked to leave for later…" he stops because he really is not sure how to put it.

"You want to know if it's already later" Fugaku murmurs quietly, apparently aware of what his son is talking about.

"Does later ever come?" Sasuke sighs looking elsewhere. He register his father moving to sit in front of him on the unoccupied pillow.

They both keep silent for a long while until it gets too uncomfortable to ignore.

"Why is this happening" Sasuke mumbles. "I got so caught up in those dreams that I stopped questioning what they are at all."

"Hn. I would like to give you the answer, but I can't say I know" Fugaku furrows his brows. "But…"

"Huh?"

"It's a silly thought, but I remember how my grandmothers used to say how the souls of people who had an unfinished business couldn't move on to the afterlife."

"You think that might be it in your case?"

"I don't know. My grandmothers also claimed that those ghosts wander around, disturbing and scaring living people."

"I don't really feel haunted."

"That's good."

And they both allow a small smirk to appear on their faces.

"So… what's your unfinished business?" Sasuke looks directly at his father who loses his small smile instantly. They stare at each other for ten long seconds.

"Sasuke…"

"How much did you know about the massacre before it happened?"

"…"

"No chance I'm gonna go easy on you. You made me tell you things I didn't want you to know about, now it's your turn."

"I'm glad you told me these things."

"I'm not."

"Would you rather I didn't know and our conversation was one big act?"

"I wouldn't be acting. I would talk to someone who knows me for something more than my mistakes."

"I don't condemn you for these mistakes, Sasuke."

"Don't you?"

"It may… seem to you as if I did, but I don't."

"What are you doing then?" his father looks just a bit lost, so he presses. "Yesterday I said the first thing that came to my mind. And it turns out that I'm not the only one who wants to hide something here. Why don't you want me to know the whole truth about the massacre?"

"I've told you the truth. You knew it anyway."

"You told me what happened in general. But the more I think about it, the harder it is to me to believe that you knew nothing about what was going to happen. So… what do you want to hide? Or more like what don't you want me to know?" his mind is working hard now, gathering all the available data: words that have been spoken, subjects that have been ignored…

"I am not going to tell you this Sasuke" Fugaku answers quietly, thereby admitting that Sasuke is, indeed, right.

"And that's because…?"

"Because it will not change anything. I'm dead. The massacre happened. There is no reason to dwell into this mess anymore."

"Bullshit."

Irritation appears on his father's face, but it seems a bit forced.

"I'm still very much alive and it matters to me. And whatever you're trying to hide has something to do with me. It's not just that you're ashamed of something you did."

"You think I'm ashamed of myself?"

"I know how guilt looks like" he says almost softly. An unknown feeling overwhelms him and suddenly he almost thinks the two of them are dealing with very similar issues. "What are you so ashamed of that you can't reveal to me even after you died?"

"They say that the moment a man dies he sees his whole life in front of him for the last time" Fugaku says slowly. "And it's true. I have many regrets, Sasuke."

"Does some of them concern me?"

Silence is his answer and it tells him more than any words would.

"I'd like to know."

"I don't want you to know, Don't make me repeat myself."

"Don't you want to move on to the proper afterlife?"

"It's a legend, Sasuke" Fugaku almost rolls his eyes. "It doesn't matter. Leave it."

"Yeah, sure. Not a chance."

"…"

"Fine, let's go back to my first question. Did you know that the massacre was going to happen?"

"…I did."

It's almost as if Sasuke could feel it when the detailed picture of the events from before nine years cracks. Once again. But he pushes the feeling aside. He has something more important to deal with.

"What did you know?"

"It's not very complicated. The moment I agreed on the coup, I knew it's probably a lost cause. It had to end this way."

"What were another available options?"

"I could report the quarter of the clan to the Hokage as traitors."

"Yet you didn't."

"They were my clansmen and my family. I was their leader. My job was to protect them, not put them in jail or cause them problems."

"Were you protecting them this way?"

"As hard as it is to believe, I was. If I hadn't joined their plot, the hell would have broken out one day. People would die. They would have started a civil war. They were blinded by their anger and regret, they couldn't think straight anymore. They would destroy themselves and their families in the process. Not to mention the village."

"But you were planning a coup, it would result in violence anyway…"

"I was working on a plan that would limit violence to the absolute minimum. For that I needed Itachi."

"Itachi…?"

"With his help it would have worked. But he didn't comply."

"Did you expect him to?"

Sasuke sits still under his father's penetrating look, allowing the man to think on his next words.

"What is this question about?" he asks finally in a muffled voice.

"You're circling around the matter, so let me put it in other words: I can't shake off the feeling that you wanted the massacre to happen."

A whole minute passes until his father opens his mouth once again.

"I did not want my clan to get slaughtered, not to mention by my own son."

"But?"

"…the moment I knew for one hundred percent that Itachi was not going to cooperate with the clan, I knew it was a lost cause. It would have turned into a civil war. I didn't want that" he sighs deeply and closes his eyes. "It was a choice between two hopeless options. If it even was a choice at all."

"So when you knew you couldn't prevent anything… you just gave up."

"It sounds much too plain and simple considering what happened, but yes. You can put it like this."

"All…right" Sasuke restrained himself from swallowing, trying to keep himself in check. "But that doesn't really explain how you knew about the massacre. Itachi didn't join you, but it's not that he told you about what the Council planned."

"He didn't tell me directly, but I knew him. I could say he was going through a hard internal conflict, it was plain visible in each and every move he made in front of me. His opinions were no secret to me. I knew that he was a double agent of not only the Uchiha, but the village too."

"You knew he was betraying you and you didn't do anything about it?"

"And what could I do?"

"Something… Anything. You were the clanhead."

"What was I supposed to do? Choose my clan over the village? And over my own son?"

Sasuke swallows hard this time, watching his father with incredulous expression on his face. Because…

"Yes" he mumbles before he can stop himself. At the man's raised eyebrow he collects himself. "I-I mean… that's what I thought you would have done. What I thought… you did" he taps the table with his fingers, thinking. "Back then it looked like you suddenly gave up on Itachi. As if you decided that he is not worth your time because he didn't meet your expectations."

It is his father's turn to slightly widen his eyes at him in an unspoken bewilderment.

"I mean…" Sasuke tries to put his thoughts into right words. "It looked like that. Especially when you told me not to be like him."

"That's not what I meant by it."

"Well, what did you mean?"

"Your brother was a pleaser. As strange as it may sound, he was easy to manipulate to some point."

"Easy to manipulate? Are we talking about Uchiha Itachi?"

"You didn't know this side of him. He learnt to hide it before you got old enough to remember. But back when he was a child… Let's just say he was not a good candidate for a shinobi. There were no doubts that he was smart and skilled, but his kind nature was not one of a ninja. The only reason he followed this career path was because it was expected of him. There was never any alternative option. He knew he was to be the heir of the Uchiha clan ever since he could remember. He found his own reason to become a shinobi, he wanted to protect others. The village. So the peace lasts. But the older he got, the more evident it became that it was but an excuse."

Sasuke does not even want to think about his mask of indifference that shattered a while ago. He listens to his father with every cell of his body, feeling how the image of his brother that he created over years and verified many times in his life crumbles with every word coming out of Uchiha Fugaku's mouth.

"He was all that a good ninja shouldn't be: kind, compassionate, tender… He learnt to hide all these… disadvantages, as many would have named them, acting as a perfect young shinobi should act. And everybody believed him. Even I got fooled a couple of times."

"And you didn't want me to be like this? That's what you meant back then?"

"What I meant was that I did not want you to be easily influenced by the ideas of others. I wanted you to be able to make free decisions and decide on your own what you consider right and wrong."

I couldn't mess up more then, Sasuke almost says. Free choices. He chuckles, wiping his eyes with his fingers.

"How ironic" he offers instead, looking around the kitchen. His brain is about to explode because of the amount of newly discovered incompatibilities between his ideas and the reality. The pain it causes him is almost physical. "So… you decided you're fine with your son killing you all? Because it was a sign that Itachi made his own resolve?"

"It was the best choice considering the circumstances."

"But you have regrets."

"I let them all die, Sasuke."

"You think you failed as a clanhead."

"That for sure."

"That? So there is something that you regret even more?"

Fugaku looks at him with narrow eyes as if calculating the risk he is going to cause.

"It… surprises me how you keep looking at it from the wrong perspective."

"What is wrong about my perspective…?"

"You wanted to talk about my regrets."

"…yes, I did. Aren't we doing this right now?"

"Partially."

"I wanted to know whether or not you knew about the massacre. And if you did then why you didn't do anything about it."

"Is there something that is still unclear about it?"

"Well… I don't really understand why you didn't fight harder to prevent it."

"It was impossible to prevent. I would have had to go back in time to prevent it."

"There must have been a way…"

"That's what the idealist of our world like to think. But there really wasn't."

"What if you went to the Hokage and told him that there were traitors among the Uchiha?"

"And what would it change? He already knew about them. Itachi told him months earlier and Sarutobi did nothing. It wasn't about him, it was about Danzo. Do you think that the Hokage could manage to arrest nearly a hundred of trained Uchiha without them opposing?"

"Itachi somehow managed to kill them."

"They didn't expect him to do this. And to be honest, I have no idea how he managed to do it. I can only guess the mangekyo allowed him to succeed. Sarutobi would probably want to try to solve this mess, but not Danzo. And as much as the Uchiha had an advantage with the sharingan, we would never win against the ROOT."

"So you choose the less painful death for the clan?"

"I did not want the Uchiha to be remembered as traitors. Because the majority of them didn't support the idea of the coup. I would rather have one of us slaughter everybody than some unknown ANBU slit out throats."

"You said earlier you wouldn't choose your clan over your son."

Silence. The image of the past is now a bit clearer in Sasuke's mind, but there are still inconsistences that he needs to solve, like this one… and his father doesn't say anything that could help him achieve the level of understanding he needs.

"You… did? And this is your regret?"

He blinks. The smell of the forest fills his nostrils when he sits up on the ground. He runs his fingers through his hair in silent contemplation. And it strikes him.

So many words to express something you can put in a short sentence.

I know how guilt looks like. But to understand what someone regrets the most, it's an entirely different story.

He must be right. Either that or... they spent all that time on walking in circles.

I really, REALLY would like to know what you guys think. Please, give me a piece of your mind:)