Fate's Garden

Part 3 - Inked

Chapter 4 - Recovery

Naruto was not happy. He was quite specifically unhappy with his father. How could he send him to this life? A life so much like his first…with another Sasuke so much like his own? Why? These were the consequences of his actions should he have survived. He was lying in his bed in his old apartment, the sun coming through his window. Naruto heavily considered staying in bed until he died but he couldn't. He couldn't give up and quit like Sasuke had just because he didn't like the life he'd been put in. He had to 'learn'. He knew what had happened since his almost death in this life without having to try and remember. After all it'd only been a few weeks since the divergence point. Naruto sighed wearily and slid out of bed, heading for the door.

He ventured down the short hallway and into the living room, around the corner and into the tiny kitchen. Sasuke was in there, making himself some breakfast. Since Naruto had survived Sasuke's attack he'd been declared mentally unstable, and unfit to be a ninja, demoted to civilian life. After Naruto had fallen unconscious that day Sasuke had been captured and been taken back to Konoha. The only thing keeping him from being executed on their arrival home was Sakura and Naruto's pleas. Naruto agreed to let Sasuke stay with him, and the teams of ANBU keep steady surveillance on them just in case. The two of them were barely living day to day, unsure what to do with each other, unused to having so much time now that they were no longer ninja.

Naruto's father had directly told him what he was meant to do in this life. He was supposed to tell this Sasuke about what had happened and get from him a second opinion. He was supposed to learn more about his mate, and to come to an understanding. But how could he just tell this Sasuke there were other versions of him, that he wasn't essentially the same Naruto that he'd been when he'd gone to sleep last night? Idly he shuffled over to the kitchen table and sat down, hunched over with his chin resting on his arms.

"Morning, dobe."

"Morning teme," Naruto mumbled.

Sasuke set his meal down on the side of the table opposite Naruto and took a seat. Naruto weighed the pros and cons of telling Sasuke the truth. On the pro side he could learn a lot about his Sasuke, he could learn his lesson sooner, and maybe even enjoy his time in this life. On the con side, what about the mental stability of this Sasuke? Was it fair to him to do this little therapy session? Would he even believe him in the first place? Probably not, he'd have to find some help from his father on that. But how did he get in contact with his dad anyways?

"Mm, dobe, take your meds."

"Kay," he answered, pushing himself up and towards the counter where his orange bottle awaited. He fiddled with the child safe cap for a while in his fatigue before finally getting out two pills and putting the lid back on.

Naruto shuffled over to the table again and popped the pills in his mouth, grabbing Sasuke's glass of orange juice and sipping from it to wash down his medication with. Then he sat down again, 

staring at Sasuke's food, trying to decide if he wanted to eat anything. Sasuke was watching him with…confusion, concern? Naruto didn't know.

"Sasuke…" Naruto started, wondering just how terrible of a person he was for starting this conversation at all.

"What is it, Naruto?"

"I'm going to give you a completely hypothetical scenario and I want you to answer as seriously as you can…alright?"

Sasuke arched an eyebrow at him and smirked, "Fair enough."

"Suppose…that you and I had died…that day…and we woke up in another life, and another and…and…that Kyuubi was really a god and I was his son and that I had to go through a number of lives before I could join him and my extended family in the realm of the gods."

"…okay…someone was creative this morning," Sasuke snorted.

"Yeah, and…and in the…" Naruto counted on his hand before continuing, "third life we went to…you and I got into a fight um…I need to know if, if the things you said…if…"

"Naruto what are you getting at?"

"Well, you, in this hypothetical situation where we had a fight, said that um, that you didn't mean everything you'd said at the valley of the end and that you just wanted me to go back to Konoha and wait for you to finish avenging your clan…and that I was…important to you."

Naruto looked up from the table he was gazing at nervously to gauge Sasuke's reaction. It didn't look happy. Sasuke was staring at him, wide eyed, hands lying tensely on the table top.

"If…if you said those things…would you mean them?"

"I don't know, Naruto, because this situation is hypothetical, I wouldn't say those things," Sasuke retorted icily, "the next time you have a weird dream like that, keep it to yourself."

Naruto melted, his forehead hitting the table. He knew it, he knew it. Why would his father do this to him? Why would he get his hopes up? No…no, it wasn't his dad's fault. Naruto was the one who'd gotten hopeful, he hadn't even noticed it…his walls going down, the hope building in his chest that maybe he wasn't right. Maybe Sasuke did care, and that Naruto was just blowing things out of proportion. Then again…how could this Sasuke know? He wasn't the one who'd said those things…but…they were almost exactly the same person. Their lives had been identical.

"Dobe."

Naruto stiffened, he hadn't heard Sasuke leave the room but he'd just assumed he had. He hadn't left; he'd remained in his seat at the table the entire time.

"What, Sasuke?" Naruto sighed.

"Why…why did I say those things? In the hypothetical argument," Sasuke asked.

"Because I told you that I let you kill me because I'd given up on you, and I was tired of you never caring, that I was…that I was chasing after a dream that didn't mean anything. You said I just didn't get it and to stop wallowing in self-pity…" Naruto chuckled bitterly as he remembered the argument that had kept them apart for decades.

"Where is all of this coming from?"

Naruto realized the flaw in his plan of calling it all a hypothetical situation as Sasuke demanded the source of such a detailed 'what if'. He couldn't very well say that it had all really happened. Like he'd believe that…

"Never mind Sasuke…it's not that important."

"No, dobe," Sasuke growled, catching Naruto off guard, "you don't get to stir up my shit and then decide it's not important."

"Sasuke, if I told you, you wouldn't believe me anyways! I don't see the point in-"

"Try me."

Naruto watched Sasuke's face, waiting for any sign of defeat, of acceptance, but no. The bastard was determined to have Naruto explain. He couldn't just let it go.

"It all really happened okay, are you happy now?" Naruto shouted, "I'm not the same Naruto you know, I'm an alternate version from a different life. The Naruto from the life where you really did kill me."

"…what?" Sasuke spat, his eyes widening but not in surprise or confusion, but in anger.

"The tailed demons? They're actually gods, and all of their children are required to go through a certain number of lives before they can join their parents at home," Naruto rambled on, despite Sasuke's insistent 'dobe', "and ya know what? I was on my last life, my last one, and you didn't like your role in it so you fucking slit your wrists at the doctors so you could just skip ahead of me! And now we're in separate lives and I'm stuck here interrogating you for a second opinion on an argument that I've already moved on from!"

He breathed in deep to replace the oxygen he'd lost in his rant and he glared at Sasuke, "Are you happy now?!"

Sasuke was pushed back from the table in his chair, arms crossed over his chest gaping at him. "Okay, supposing you're not crazy, and all of this is true, what part in this whole children of the gods thing do I have to play? Why am I going along with you to these different lives?"

"You're my mate; my grandfather tied our souls together at the ankles." Naruto glowered at the table, too crossing his arms over his own chest, "Since we're not perfectly happy with each other, my Dad's decided that we need some time apart from each other to 'figure things out'."

"And where am I, or, your version of me?"

"I don't know, probably in some other life that my grandfather picked out to teach him a lesson. Since you're the most similar version of my Sasuke there is I'm supposed to find out what your take on what's happened is…I guess. The only thing that's happened differently here is that you and I both lived."

"Wait…so if you died, then why did I?"

Naruto was about to retort with something sarcastic when he realized he really didn't know. He knew that Sai had killed him, but that was it.

"I think…Sai might have killed you, but I don't know why, I never asked you."

"Hn," Sasuke grumbled.

"So why do you need a second opinion on this argument in the first place?"

"You got angry at me when I still didn't believe everything you said despite the fact that you'd basically yelled at me for hours. I mean, what's so wrong with me trusting you with everything but love? Seriously? I mean, Sasuke you don't really care about me do you?"

The look on this Sasuke's face was…strange. It wasn't pained, or confused, or angry. It was just…tense. Naruto relaxed into his chair and waited for an answer, though not really sure if he wanted one.

"Did your Sasuke say he cared?"

"No, he just said I was important to him and that it was always about me, he was doing all of this stuff for me, leaving Konoha to get strong enough to kill Itachi the fastest he could so he could come home and be with me and that still wasn't good enough and it was all my fault that things didn't go the way he expected them to cuz I just had to follow him and blah, blah, blah," Naruto grumbled, waving his hand in the air to elaborate his exasperation on the matter.

Sasuke's eyebrows rose incredulously, "Really?"

"Yeah, like I'm supposed to believe all that."

"Naruto…"

"Yeah Sasuke?"

"In your, er, version of your first life…before you died did you tell your Sasuke that you loved him?"

Naruto cringed as he felt his cheeks burn, "…yeah, like I told you, the only difference in our lives is that my Sasuke and I died and you and your Naruto didn't."

"Did you mean it?"

"Yeah, of course I did. I don't know why I bothered though, it's not like he cared really."

"…I cared."

Naruto wanted to laugh, but it was stuck in his throat as his eyes adhered themselves to Sasuke's face, which was not smirking, or cocky, but sincere.

"I was angry that you'd died, and that you'd say something like that and that you didn't hate me…it sounds idiotic, and it is, no doubt you've infected me with your stupidity…but, if your Sasuke and I are so similar, than that's what he was feeling when you died," Sasuke mumbled, "if, of course, any of this is real which it probably isn't. I have no idea why I let you go on like this…the doctors told me that I wasn't supposed to indulge your fantasies like this, that it…it isn't conducive to the recovery process."

Sasuke stood up, picked up his plate and scraped off the remains of his breakfast into the trashcan. Into the sink the dishes went, and he disappeared out of the kitchen and out the front door. Naruto barely noticed as the ANBU surveillance team abandoned the apartment's perimeters to follow Sasuke wherever he went. Naruto glared bitterly at the table. He was going to have some words with his father when he got home.

Sasuke discovered that the trick to doing potentially fatal, horrifying things that were ingrained in a memory he hadn't regained yet was to focus on figuring out something else. To avoid crashing himself and his siblings into something he concentrated with all his might on where the elementary school was. Where was it? Where was it? He had no idea. But he made it there anyways. When so preoccupied with something else, sure enough his body had accomplished the task automatically. He pulled into a parking space in front of brick building far smaller than the one in the picture Sasuke had used to help him figure out the school uniform. He turned the car off and pulled out the keys, slipping them into his pocket.

"It's okay Sasuke, I can get the note to my teacher and to Masu's, you don't have to come in with us," Suoh assured him.

"Really? You sure you don't need me to talk to them?"

"Yeah, we'll be fine-Masu, wait up!" Suoh exclaimed as he propelled himself out of the car and after their sister. The small girl with pigtails had skipped her way across the parking lot and towards the school.

As soon as Suoh had shut the door behind him and caught up with Masu, Sasuke put the keys back in the ignition and started the car again. Okay, high school, he could do this. He could be a civilian. They were perfectly fine, upstanding citizens and not to be looked down upon. After all, not everyone could be ninja. The world needed people to run the stores, and banks, and so on and so forth. They had their place in society, and that was fine. Sasuke just wasn't one of them.

Several minutes later he pulled up in front of his school and found a parking space. Absently he hung a parking permit on the rearview mirror before putting the car keys into his pocket and getting out of the car. He locked it, startling slightly at the sudden noise it made as all the doors locked. Okay…he had a schedule, and textbooks, and a locker. He knew where his classes were. He did. Deep breaths. Treat it like a mission.

Sasuke hefted his school bag over his shoulders and strode towards the front doors with the other students. The interior of the building was clearly old, the paint chipped in places and the carpet was dingy and faded. Even the lighting showed signs of antiquity. What time was it? Didn't class start at eight-thirty? A shrill bell echoed throughout the halls and students all around him grumbled and either changed direction or started asking each other about homework. Sasuke removed his backpack from his shoulders and unzipped the largest section, in the hopes of finding his schedule and map of the building. Aha! Alright, what did he have first? Homeroom? What was the point of a 'homeroom'? What did he learn in that class?

Sasuke shook his head, it didn't matter. He had to be in room two-twenty and that was…where? It was on the second floor. He lifted his gaze from the paper and found a set of stairs straight ahead, he pushed his way through the crowds and up the stairs. Once he reached the second floor, according to his map he would need to take a right, and so he did, down the hall and then…there. The room to his left. He entered and wasn't sure where he should sit. There were no other students in the room yet, not even the teacher was there. He frowned and meandered in, choosing a seat near the windows on the left side of the classroom he sat himself down. Not too close to the front, not too close to the back. Sasuke inspected his schedule again and then his map, trying to figure out how he was going to make it to all of his classes on time. The distance between each was ridiculous, and apparently he didn't have all of his textbooks in his bag, some were in his locker, which was in the basement.

Some other students were entering the classroom now as another bell rang, but it didn't sound like the first. None of the people in the hall were hurrying; instead they were finally beginning to move. Each of the people that entered the room stared at him with interest but didn't move to approach him. They remained in their little groups, settling down into assigned seats or dropping their backpacks and continuing to stand around, talking. By the time another, more final sounding bell chimed all of the seats around him were filled and the man that he assumed was the teacher chose to grace them with his presence. Just as Sasuke was turning himself towards the front of the room so he could listen to the announcements he was prodded in the shoulder.

"Hey, dude, you're in my seat."

Sasuke apologized politely and gathered his things, moving out of the way so the person could take their seat. But when he actually got a proper look at the person he froze, his eyes widening. Naruto was slouched in his seat, elbows propped up on the desk. His face unmarred by whisker marks leant in one hand. Sky blue eyes drifted towards Sasuke, narrowed in confusion.

"What're you looking at, man?"

"Naruto?" Sasuke gaped, not thinking straight or else he definitely would have held that in.

"Dude…do I know you?"

"Mr. Uchiha is it?" a regal voice boomed from the front of the room.

"Yes?" Sasuke answered.

"I have a seat for you up front, if you would."

Sasuke gathered his things and awkwardly shuffled to the front where he sat down. He paid no attention as the teacher introduced him to the rest of the class as a new student, Sasuke Uchiha. His eyes were locked onto the Naruto of this world, who was staring out the window. But when his gaze wandered and happened to settle onto Sasuke, the blonde's eyebrows lifted incredulously, and his face donned idle frustration. Sasuke forced himself to stop staring and turn around.

TBC…