rating: K
disclaimer: i don't own naruto.

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40. frames

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"Have you checked underneath the couch?"

Sakura's head shakes, herself on the floor and her palms resting on the carpet with her knees bent. Worry is most prominent than anything else she feels at the moment, and it really sucks, Sasuke thinks to himself because Sakura didn't deserve all this stress. "That was the first place I looked…"

Lips, unsatisfied, curling downward, Sasuke readjusts their baby in the embrace of his only arm before he slowly walks to where Sakura is bent over at. "Then I doubt it's underneath the table either." This table is easily visible to anyone who walks past it; if Sarada's glasses were really underneath there, he would know. Nothing fools his eyes.

Sarada makes a gurgling noise—not too distressed, but not too happy either.

To Sasuke, it's merely a soft noise to garner his attention. So, he looks at her. Sarada is smiling, but he can see confusion in her tiny eyes. Her hands had lost some energy and she seems slack against him. Her eyes are awake, yet she makes uncertain waves of her arms in almost a nonsensical way that has him on the edge.

He didn't know her eyesight had been this bad already. Karin is not a qualified doctor, and Sakura's not allowed to put on her doctor's coat just yet as instructed during her maternity leave period (Tsunade just wouldn't allow it despite the protests, a sign that tells Sasuke that she's already well into her role as the overprotective grandmother he never asked for) and he couldn't consult books either.

The books only told him of standard procedures to handling a baby—how to hold it, how to feed it, how to clean it. He doubted those types of books had anything about a baby's eyesight. And when Sasuke's out of options, he leaves it alone.

Then today, Sarada somehow lost her glasses when he and Sakura woke up.

"I already checked the closet, her room, the kitchen, and the living room!" A bit frazzled, Sakura's arm gesture to the living room couch for emphasis. "And now the couch!" Miserable, she shakes her head almost forlornly. "I can't seem to find it… What will we tell Karin? She was willing enough to part with those glasses just so Sarada could wear them."

A memory comes up, and Sasuke thinks about how his old teammate never parted with those glasses wherever she went. Maybe, if he remembered deeper than that, he might've seen those same glasses on her face from their younger adolescent years. Or was that just a fabrication? The details seem blurry to him. He didn't know much people back then, not when Itachi's red slits of eyes were engraved into his head.

"She's had them for a long time," concedes Sasuke, agreeing. "But Karin wouldn't retaliate if she found out." He knew his teammates. While Karin had some questionable habits through the time he traveled with her, the woman never really did start an argument with anyone over something as menial as her glasses.

Though, Sasuke would understand if it was Suigetsu. Those two always butt heads; Sasuke never knew why that is.

With a slight nod, Sakura's eyes lighten a bit. "Yeah… She wouldn't do anything rash… Still—" Sasuke watches as she persistently stand up, her green eyes on the lookout. "—it doesn't mean I can't try to find those glasses. Sarada needs them." Sakura begins to trot out the living room, slipping on her heels as she approaches the front door.

"Where—"

"To retrace yesterday's steps! Maybe someone picked those glasses up, but we won't know until we try!"

Sasuke gets cut off again as she quickly shuts the door behind her, her heels clacking loudly outside beyond the door and he listens quietly as it fades to the background. Sarada gurgles again, and he looks at her. He continues to do so for the next few seconds until she reaches a pudgy hand for him to take. He would oblige if he weren't an arm short.

"We'll try our luck here again," he tells her instead.

He moves very little since his wife covered much of the apartment already before she'd taken off, though he still tries to search for nooks and crannies Sakura might've missed. He and Sarada go to explore the corners of the living room; the underneath of the couch and cabinets greet him with dust. He skips the kitchen because it's a rather small space—Sakura probably searched a dozen times in there in fine detail.

Feet gliding across the wooden floor, Sasuke finds himself securing Sarada to sit on the little counter in the hallway, next to a door that he finds himself opening with his lone hand. The first thing he sees is Sarada's crib—then the curtains, then the windows, then the dresser that held her toys.

Toys, but not glasses. His feet shuffle him inside after he picks up his curious daughter to resume the search.

The room is like any other room in the apartment: not quite small, not rather large. An average size befitting of a baby, he supposes, but then again it's not like he's an expert concerning house structures or baby furniture. An architect he is not, but a man on a search he is.

The moment Sarada is safely tucked onto the petite dresser next to her crib, Sasuke finds himself mindlessly scouring into the drawers only to be met with no clues and a handful of toys Sakura had bought for the child. In the midst of his scouring, Sarada gleefully, abruptly, snatches the ball he was examining (he didn't understand why he was doing that—a ball is not going to give him answers anyway) and tosses it into the air.

She gurgles; blows a raspberry when Sasuke shakes his head with something reminiscent of a smile. Such a wondrous little girl.

In a quick moment, Sasuke has to duck when she unexpectedly tosses the rubber ball in his direction—he flinches a bit at the resulting thud against the wall. A wondrously strong girl. Had his wife been here, Sakura would've cooed at that strong pitch.

It mattered not right now. With his mission still mind, his hand gently pats her head, smoothing out her hair, and Sasuke picks her up again and regards her with fondness that he hadn't experienced in a long time. "We'll try somewhere else."

In a few minutes of pondering, Sasuke and Sarada find themselves in the bedroom. Eyes softening, Sasuke quietly addresses the family photo Sakura had set up on the dresser, just below the mirror that he knew she hung up to check her hair every morning. When he sets Sarada on Sakura's side of the bed, he feels inexplicably guilty; a bit sad, but also nostalgic. But, he shakes his head. Sentimentality only weighs him down. Do not succumb to it.

Midst his self-driveling, he shakes his head once more to get those thoughts out and when he looks at Sarada, he admittedly feels a little stunned. She's holding up her familiar red glasses in her hands, herself tucked underneath the blanket, right in between where he and Sakura would sleep at. He tries to think of a recent time where he and Sakura shared the bed—that was yesterday, him being tired from the long way back, but he never remembered Sarada being there.

Unless, Sakura brought the child to bed with her when he was asleep.

Then it all clicks to him—one by one, piece by piece.

Sarada's head tilts to the side when he meets her eyes, bearing her glasses once more. "Papa?" she tries to ask, mumbling.

He places a gloved hand on her head. "Next time you miss me, you could at least wake me up next time."