"You're the one who dragged me out here in the first place." His voice lowered into a growl again. "And now you want me to leave? God, Sasuke, what the hell do you want from me?! You told me I needed to do this for my family and that we needed to stop Kara before they got started again, so here I am and have been for almost six months, and now you change your mind?!"

As Boruto's voice rose in volume with the waves around them, Sasuke stood tall, a brick wall unaffected by the boy's outburst. "I know what I said," he said firmly, "but it's becoming increasingly clear this isn't as easy of a fix as we expected. But we have made some headway-"

"But now they're targeting my family," he hissed. He thought back to the nameless man they never did get a pulse on, the one who said he wanted Himawari and slit his own throat before Boruto could punish him himself just for his words. The man had slipped through the blonde's fingers and now he had been chasing the opportunity to make someone pay ever since, and everyday they didn't find anything, the burning itch pulled him apart just that much more.

"Think of you going home as a way to protect that."

Boruto fell silent again and listened to the crashing waves against the pier that rocked them gently. "I think I get it now," he said after a moment.

"Get what?"

"You leaving." He squinted up at Sasuke. "You felt like you were the only one who could protect Sarada and Sakura so you left for all those years."

Sasuke sighed and looked away. For a moment he didn't say anything and Boruto could tell he was trying to decide carefully how to word his next sentence. "I didn't want to draw attention to myself," he finally replied, voice softer, and turned back to face him. "My attention alone could get them killed. I couldn't be around for too long or they would have been targeted."

"But you did it on your own." His glare didn't waver as he pierced Sasuke with narrowed eyes.

After a second of challenging each other, the Uchiha finally broke the stare to turn to face the water again. "Take what I'm trying to give you now, Boruto." His voice was harder again, steel against the teen's ice. "I'm trying to teach you lessons I didn't know at your age or as a new father. Just accept them as your sensei. Or if you can't do it for that, for the father of your children's mother."

Boruto scoffed, a small noise in his throat that told Sasuke he didn't believe him.

"And you're right: I did stay away," Sasuke continued, "but that doesn't mean it was the right choice and that doesn't mean you need to do the same. I think I did the right thing for my family at the time, but there's also more I'd do differently, so I'm trying to teach you these lessons now so you don't end up making the same mistakes."

His student looked up at him again and shook his head slowly in disbelief. "I don't get you sometimes, Sasuke. You know that? You told me I needed to fight for my family, so that's what I'm doing and you told me I'm wrong."

"Well, if you don't go home sometimes there may not be one there. You're allowed to take a break and enjoy it; you don't always have to feel like it's coming to an end. This is just for you to go home right now- it's nothing permanent. Like I said, Sarada would never forgive me if you didn't see your children be born. You taking some time off doesn't mean that everything we worked for wasn't worth it."

Boruto sucked in a long breath of sea air, reveling in the salt that burned his lungs. Right now it was the only thing that cut through the numbing rage that had settled in his bones the last few months. The salt also triggered the memory of the first time he had come to the Land of Waves, years ago while he was still in the academy. He had fought alongside- and with- Sarada. Almost every memory he had she was there. She was somehow everywhere and nowhere all at once, and he couldn't help but wonder if she felt the same way.

"Fine," he finally said, twisting his body to stand. "You're right."

The sky was black and the fall air was crisp as Sasuke and Boruto cut across the village toward the Hokage's office. Boruto noticed how the cold seemed to suck the noise from the air, how eerily quiet the village seemed, but he pulled his jacket's collar up higher to his ears and hurried quicker to report to his father. Before they even reached the village gates they had already decided to see Sarada the next morning. Tonight was for delivering their reports.

Naruto couldn't stop his eyes from widening or the bubbling excitement rising in his chest as the two imperceptibly entered his office. One moment he was alone with his endless paperwork, and when he blinked his son and best friend, sweaty and tattered from their journey, were standing in front of his desk.

"You're back?!"

"Don't look so shocked," Sasuke said. He snapped his fingers to get Boruto's attention without looking at him and pointed at the chair in front of Naruto's desk. The boy sank down almost immediately.

"You never said you were coming home so why would I assume?"

As he spoke, his eyes wavered on his son who stared down at his hands in his lap silently. The boy's eyes didn't move from them as though he was afraid or too tired to look around. He was kept up to date on their travels from Sasuke of course, but he never saw his son look this listless or exhausted before, and he definitely wasn't expecting this after almost a half a year away from the village. Usually by now he was raging after a mission to spill all the details, but something about this time was different. What had he been through? Something had happened. He needed to nudge Boruto to talk.

"Well, it's late so we don't have to write up a whole report tonight. Unless there's something you want to share right now. Boruto?"

The younger blonde shrugged his shoulders but still didn't look up at his father.

Naruto looked to Sasuke for an explanation but his mouth stayed firm in a thin line and he knew that meant he wouldn't get any answers from him while the boy was still here. Don't push him, Sasuke's eyes read.

Sasuke started talking. "You don't have to worry, Naruto," he said coolly but his eyes still held his best friend's gaze to silently tell him they would speak later on the matter. "We haven't run into anything the last few days-"

"I failed."

Boruto's sudden words cut through Sasuke's, and Naruto almost tipped backwards in his chair in hearing his son speak, his voice noticeably deeper than the last time they spoke.

"Excuse me?" he asked.

"I failed the mission." He looked up this time and his father could see the tired red ring around his eyes that made his electric blue pop.

Naruto hesitated, not knowing where to go next. "Well maybe it's not the best," he tried slowly. "But I wouldn't say you failed by any means." He reached up and rubbed the back of his head nervously, trying to remember a time when Boruto was ever this serious. "This is manageable because of what you and Sasuke did. You brought in a lot of valuable information and we can move forward now with the other nations involved-"

"I failed," he repeated.

"No you didn't." Sasuke's voice was firmer, rougher. His tone made it clear to Naruto that they had been through this conversation. "I already told you that."

"Whatever you're feeling, you're being too hard on yourself," Naruto added. "Don't beat yourself up."

"You weren't there," Boruto maintained as his voice grew louder. Naruto could see his hands begin to shake. "You don't get to say that. You asked about the mission and I'm telling you-"

"Yeah, well I was there so I do get to say that," Sasuke snapped. Boruto shot a glare up at him and gripped the sides of the chair. Naruto watched Sasuke's eyes bore a hole into his son as they silently challenged each other, months of memories in between him that he didn't have access to.

"I watched a man die and there was nothing I could do—"

"We've all been there before, Boruto, including you," Sasuke snapped. "What makes this time different?"

Boruto's jaw twitched as he grit his teeth together but Naruto couldn't tell what he was thinking. Finally the boy looked down at his hands again, his buzzing energy squashed as he retreated back into himself. The two adults stared in silence at him as Naruto fought to think of any words to make this better.

"Can I go now?" Boruto mumbled after a moment. "I'm tired." After all he had been through, he was clearly still an angsty teen.

Naruto sighed. "Yeah. Get some sleep and we can do this in the morning-"

Boruto didn't need to hear any more than that before he was on his feet, trying to outrace the tightness in his chest again that had taken up home there the last few months. He was so eager to feel the welcoming outside air away from the suffocation of his sensei and his father trying to tell him how to feel that he didn't realize the door was already swinging open as he reached for it. He didn't have time to pull back before he smacked his face against the person on the other side.

As he hissed and grabbed his eye where someone just headbutted him, he heard a familiar voice cry out, "Boruto?"

His eyes flew open. "Sarada?"

He wasn't welcomed by the cool hallway but instead his counterpart staring wide eyed at him, clutching her forehead where his own head had just collided.

"What are you doing here?" they both cried simultaneously.

Fuck, Naruto mouthed. He was so focused on his son that he hadn't even noticed Sarada's chakra making her daily retreat to help him in his office until she was standing in the doorway. He knew Sasuke wasn't going to like this, so when her father looked back at him with eyes blazing, he threw on an easygoing grin.

"Yes, Sarada, what are you doing here?" Sasuke growled.

"Uh, I work here in the evenings with Lor- Naruto..." she explained. She felt her father's burning eyes on her and suddenly felt uncomfortable, so she pulled the large cloak that hid her stomach tighter around her body.

The crackling tension between Sasuke, Naruto, and Boruto suddenly shifted to the two adults now as Sasuke turned back to face Naruto.

"I thought we agreed that she couldn't go out."

"She comes here to help me sometimes," he replied calmly and jokingly held his hands up in surrender. "She's been cooped up for months, Sasuke, and I thought it'd be a nice change for her-"

Sasuke slammed his fist down on the desk, the loud crack causing the teenagers behind him to jump. "That was the entire point of this mission! We knew how dangerous her being discovered could be."

"I'm here. I'm watching her."

"It takes one second, Naruto!"

"Um, I can leave if I'm interrupting…" Sarada piped in, looking between her father and Hokage.

"Yes," Sasuke boomed as Naruto said "No." They both turned to slice each other again with a glare.

"You should probably be resting. Don't you know what time it is?" Sasuke scoffed. "Didn't you also just almost go into labor?"

Sarada's face reddened, feeling like she was a child caught with her hand in the cookie jar. She knew she shouldn't have been surprised that he knew, but she wished she could have been the one to tell Boruto about that. This reunion felt all wrong, and with the hormones frying her brain she was suddenly too frazzled to speak coherently.

Boruto's heart dropped as he watched her lip quiver; he never saw her incapacitated or backing down from a fight.

"Let's go, I'll walk you home," he blurted without thinking. He grabbed her hand and made sure to throw one last disapproving stare in the direction of his father and sensei. He didn't have an opinion over who was right or wrong in the moment, but he was going to blame them for their less than ideal reunion after six months.

Sarada didn't say a word as Boruto pulled her back into the hallway and slammed the door behind him. She let his warm grip lead her through the silent halls, down the stairs, and back out the door into the fall night. The cold air smacked them in the face but they continued down the dark alleyways hand in hand, the only noise between them the soft patter of their shoes along the frozen pavement.

He's changed. Sarada took the time as they weaved into the shadows between streetlights, twisting through back streets to not be spotted, to fully observe him. He was taller, his shoulders noticeably broader in the short six months since they had last seen each other. He had led her by the hand so many times that she couldn't even count them all, but something about this time seemed different. The air around him was distinct in a way that she couldn't quite quantify. But his hard stare ahead of them to lead her safely home was enough in her mind to sense that he was somehow changed. Maybe more mature. Maybe one step closer to an adult.

Sarada hadn't even realized they were in front of her darkened house until he stopped abruptly. Boruto dropped her hand like it had burned him and shoved his hands in his pocket. He then turned slowly to take her in fully for the first time in half a year.

All they had left to do was face each other.

"Hi," she said smally, suddenly feeling shy under his lingering stare that was half hidden in shadow. She immediately cursed herself. This was Boruto. She had no reason at all to be shy around him. But this difference in him, this edge, made her heart race.

"Hi."

His eyes roved over her face and suddenly realized how short she was, but before he could commit that thought to consciousness he noticed the red lump cropping up in her hairline and suddenly recognized the searing pain in his own eye from when they collided.

"Oh my gosh, how's your head? Are you okay?!" he cried. "I'm so sorry." For everything back there, he thought sardonically to himself.

"Heh, yeah, I'm fine," she replied, rubbing her head vaguely and averting her eyes to the ground. His feet are bigger too. New shoes.

Boruto's stream lowered to a dribble as he could sense the uncertainty in her voice. He shoved his hands deeper in his pockets. "Good, good… Do you need ice on it?"

"No, no I'm fine."

"Okay."

Their short quips dripped with a politeness they never shared, so Sarada stared at their shifting feet, trying to think of anything she could say to create a semblance of who they were Before. But she struggled. This wasn't how they were supposed to meet again. She had spent hours daydreaming of how they'd reunite, and none of those ways included a short argument with her father and standing outside her house with no words to say. And why hadn't he even told her he was coming home?

She had always fantasized about him sweeping into her room immediately after returning home and dropping his bags at the door before pulling her into his arms. In her mind, he would feel the babies kick for the first time and the fantasy was always layered in a perfumed bliss that wrapped them up and left no room for the icy uncertainty they were living in now.

Her bump. Sarada's cheeks reddened at the acute realization of how much time had passed and how her body wore every second of time since he'd been gone; she drew her cloak further around her again.

"Are you cold?" he asked. She realized they had been standing there again in silence.

"Uh, yeah, kind of," she muttered.

"Let's get you inside and ready for bed then," he said, turning from her to walk toward the house.

Sarada stayed rooted in place. "I don't want to go to bed." She suddenly felt like a child refusing her bedtime. "I mean, you just got home. I thought we'd...talk."

Boruto turned toward her again, and Sarada swore she recognized the mildly indifferent expression on his face as one her father frequently wore. "Talk?" he repeated.

"Yeah, talk. You've been gone for so long and we haven't really talked except, you know, in baby names. And when you sent me your necklace." She reached into her cloak and pulled out the bolt necklace hanging from her throat.

Boruto gritted his teeth. That felt like a lifetime ago. "Uh...yeah. No, you're right. I'm sorry, it's been such a long journey, I'm still kind of in a daze." He reached up to rub the back of his neck and kicked the ground with his left foot. "Let's talk. Talking would be good."

He followed Sarada inside where she flipped the lights on one by one as she walked through the rooms. By the way Sakura didn't come out to greet them, Boruto quickly figured she must be working.

Sarada finally stopped in the kitchen and instantly reached for the kettle to keep her nervous energy moving.

"Tea?"

"Sure." He sat gingerly in a chair as though afraid he'd break it and tried to remember the last time he had been at this table. He couldn't remember. To shake away that reality, he focused on Sarada moving through the kitchen.

"You can take off your cloak, you know," he muttered. "Stay awhile."

Sarada's hand paused in mid-air as she reached for a mug. It was the moment of truth. Would he react how she pictured? Tonight had gone wrong already so who was to say this wouldn't too? She took a deep breath before she could talk herself out of it and dropped the cloak, then continued moving through the motions like she didn't want to claw out of her skin.

Behind her she heard Boruto make a small gasp as he caught her profile.

Shit.

"Sarada…" he whispered and the girl paused in her position again, this time squeezing her eyes shut to keep out what she was sure to be a negative reaction. "You look…"

"I'm sorry," she blurted like an apology could change anything.

"Beautiful."

"Wait?" She felt the cup almost slip through her fingers as they began to shake. "What did you just say?"

"I said you look beautiful."

His eyes lingered on her stomach and only pulled away when the mug Sarada was holding slipped from her hands and shattered on the floor.

"Oh, I'm-" Both teens raced for the glass on the floor and almost headbutted again in their nervous flurry, but Boruto stuck his hand out in time to cover the glass before she had a chance.

"Don't," he said, eyes inches from hers and shining in a way she hadn't yet seen. "Go sit. I'll finish the tea."

But being so close to him, coupled with his compliment, suddenly fueled her confidence. She closed the last centimeters between them and smashed her lips to his before she could talk herself out of it. At first he tensed up like he was about to pull away, but after a moment he melted into the kiss. For a long minute they sat on the kitchen floor, surrounded by sharp ceramic, sinking into one another and feeling the tension float away as each second pressed on.

Sarada pulled away first, her head screaming to stay connected to him, but kept her hand pressed firmly to his cheek to keep his eyes on her. "Talk to me," she demanded, breathless. "I'm not stupid. It was tense in there. Why did you look like you were going to cry? What happened?"

The blonde jerked away from her and the small connection they had made snapped. His eyes went blank again.

"Go sit down," he repeated like they hadn't just been searching each other's mouths. "Do you need help standing?"

"Boruto. I'm serious. Talk to me. It's been six months and you haven't even started talking to me about what happened."

"Be careful, you're going to cut your hand."

"Boruto."

He sighed and hung his head. "I... I don't know where to start," he said, feeling his eyes start to sting again. "It was a lot. You...wouldn't understand."

"So make me."

He looked up to see red eyes blazing at him in seriousness. He wanted to make a sarcastic comment about if she was going to put him in a genjutsu, but decided against it. Would she get it? Could she get it? Months ago he was scared to confront her and that seemed so petty now. He now knew the worth of every moment. But now there was another gap between them, memories she didn't have with him. How could he ever explain it to her and make her understand? Maybe this was one thing they didn't share.

"I know you enough to know something is off, so tell me," she continued. "You know you can talk to me about anything. Whatever you are, we're in this together. Aren't you the one who told me that?"

"I…" His eyes stung more and his tongue felt heavy in his mouth as he tried to conjure any words to describe his last few months. His brain actively scrambled his thoughts to keep the vision of the dead children at bay. "I don't know where to start…"

"What did you do? What did you find? Your dad hasn't said anything to me about what you and my dad were doing."

"Nothing… I didn't…" What had he done?

Sarada's other hand gripped his other cheek so she was holding both now to keep him from looking away. "You're really trying to tell me you didn't do anything that whole time?"

"I…" Feeling her hands on his face caused the last tightly pulled string of sanity in him to snap, and his eyes started to well over until he couldn't stop the hot tears from leaking from his eyes and the words spilling from his mouth.

"They're back," he blabbered as the rush of bloody images flooded his brain, "but we were just chasing them and they are rebuilding ranks but we couldn't find out where until it was too late and I couldn't save them, Sarada. I couldn't save them."

Sarada tried to lean forward to catch him as he suddenly collapsed into her arms, sobbing. She didn't know who he failed to save, but whatever had happened it was clear to her that he was suffering, truly suffering, in a way she never saw in him. Not when he defeated Kawaki. Not when he saw his father on the brink of death. Not when he didn't know if their village would ever make it back. She also knew it was best not to push now, so she pulled him closer to her so his head leaned against her stomach.

He gripped onto her, fingers pinching, but she sat tall as the iron wall that would keep him steady. Even as his hot tears soaked through her shirt, she kept running her fingers through his hair as something he could count on, something that could keep him from floating away and drowning. "I'm just so glad you're okay," she whispered after a few minutes when his hard sobs began to trail off into a whimper.

"I'm g-glad you're okay," he choked out. "I-I'm sorry."

"You don't need to be sor-" As she spoke she felt a sharp kick in her abdomen.

Boruto's eyes widened and he jerked his head upwards. "Was that...a kick?!" he cried as he instantly forgot about why he was crying.

"Yeah…"

"You can see a foot?!" His hands splayed out behind him for a better angle.

Sarada winced, feeling another jab. "Yeah, Azuki bean is a little more active at night."

"Azuki bean…?" he asked, confused.

"Yeah, we have Azuki and Natto. Natto is a little more active in the morning. Between the two of them I don't really sleep anymore. ...Don't look at me like that, I needed something to be able to tell them apart."

Boruto's eyes began to leak again but this time from laughter. "You named them after food?" he howled.

"Well it's not it's their real names- ow." She winced again. "They're really going now. I have a nice foot in my ribs."

Boruto kicked the broken mug out of the way and lifted her up to move her to the couch. " Do we need to call someone?" he asked worriedly, and helped her lean back against a pillow before reaching behind him for a blanket.

Sarada shook her head and let out of slow breath. "No, no, it'll pass…" she whispered.

Boruto watched, biting his lip, as she breathed through the pain. "Well," he added, "I came home because I heard you weren't doing so well. Let's talk about you."

"I'm okay. Really. I want to get at least six more weeks."

"Wow… only six weeks." He settled in beside her and drew his knees to his chest. "How has your pregnancy been…?"

"Uneventful for the most part. Except for that one scare, which you know about. I, uh, I wanted to wait til you came home to find out their sexes, but everyone else knows. Himawari has been having a field day looking at them with her byakugan and she and your mom have been been busy decorating the nurseries, but I'm not allowed to see them."

"Want to go look?" He wagged his eyebrows at her mischeviously.

"No, like we can't see them. They put a seal on it so I wouldn't sneak a peek."

"You're shitting me."

"Nope. Hima has been taking this very seriously. She's been splitting her time between your house and mine to work on the nurseries when she's not on missions."

Missions. He almost forgot his sister was a genin now. He missed that too.

"She's a great genin," Sarada spoke to his thoughts and grinned slyly when he blinked at her. "You could go home right now," she added. "She usually stays awake to make sure I get home safely after your dad drops me off. She's missed you… We've all missed you."

Her eyes pierced his again and he was instantly transferred back to sobbing on the kitchen floor. He winced.

"You don't have to tell me everything right now, Boruto," she said quietly. "But don't shut me out. Tell me when you're ready. Because whatever you are..."

"You're the same," he finished.

She nodded silently.

"It's worse than we thought." Sasuke stood staring out Naruto's office window at the inky sky.

"What do you mean?" Naruto asked.

"The karma. I supposed that's also why he's so scared. He's having trouble controlling it, and I saw it. He never wanted to talk about it, but be aware."

Naruto sighed and lowered his head onto his desk. "So things are more dire than they were."

"Yes. But he has kids here, so I want him to stay home for a while. He was pissed that I made him come home in the first place and that's where that little outburst of his came from, but I figured we have enough information to handle it. I can go out again with another team if you deem that necessary while he takes some time off."

Naruto knew he was potentially crawling into the mouth of the beast with his next statement but tiptoed into the territory anyway. He lifted his head off his desk and turned to Sasuke. "Why don't you take your own advice?" he asked. "Take some time off, Sasuke. Your daughter is about to give birth. You can have a little time too, I can create teams with the other kages."

Sasuke stared hard at his best friend's reflection in the window. "My time has come and gone, Naruto, you know that. He needs to do that now."

It took a few days for home to feel familiar to Boruto again. It was surreal to see Himawari proudly wearing her forehead protector almost everywhere she went, and it didn't feel remotely real when she hugged him goodbye before her mission and made him promise that he wouldn't try to unseal the nurseries to look inside.

He and Sarada still hadn't had the talk of their relationship status, but all they knew was that they couldn't soak up enough time together. Afterall, could they even become any closer than what they already were? He spent the first three days home glued to her side, bowing to every craving and jumping at every baby's kick, ready to cry out for Sakura.

Then he agreed to go on missions again. He already promised Sasuke he wouldn't go far until after the babies were born, but immediately jumped at the opportunity to join Mitsuki and Konohamaru on a mission at the border. Sarada had been feeling fine, so there was no reason for him to give her safety a second thought as he traipsed out of the village gates. But he later realized that the worst storm the area had seen in decades that rolled through should have been a foreshadowing.

Lightning lit the sky and paved the entire way to the village where they were asked to investigate a lab that had been broken into. It wasn't anything too important, his father had passively announced, but certain items that had gone missing raised red flags of Kara activity. Boruto immediately took the bait.

It had taken them longer to arrive than it should have through the torrential flooding, and at one point even Konohamaru wondered allowed if they should have just waited until the weather cleared. But by the time they made it, the warm towels to dry off with and the thanks from those who hired them pushed the journey from Boruto's mind.

"We appreciate you making the trek," a white haired man cried over the rain as he tried to close the door to the lab that the howling wind kept trying to blow open. It beat hard against it as though an invisible force wanted, needed to get inside.

"It's really no- oh." Before the man could close the door, a bird Boruto would recognize anywhere soared into the room and circled overhead, squawking at the humans below.

Sasuke's hawk.

He knew immediately what it was going to say before he even snatched the bird's foot from the air to untie a small box on its foot.

"What the hell is that?" he heard the white haired man say but ignored him.

Konohamaru and Mitsuki watched with nervous but intense eyes as he quickly read over it.

"It can't wait, can it," his sensei asked gruffly, less as a question and more as a statement.

"We need to go. Now. It's happening."

Boruto didn't even offer an apology or a final glance as he ran back into the whipping rain without the others behind him.