Disclaimer- blah blah I do not own Naruto blah

A/N: I am so happy I'm updating again!! There's a certain part in this chapter that I have been waiting to write ever since I started the story! I simply cannot wait for the next chapter, and I hope you all are as excited about it as I am.

Sasuke sat on the couch, his eyes unfocused as he stared at nothing. Naruto had asked Hiashi to go tell the Hokage that Sasuke had returned. Hiashi, however, was reluctant to leave. He eyed the dazed Sasuke warily and asked, "Are you sure that's wise? If somebody comes along, I'm not sure he will be able to protect you."

Naruto was shaking his head even before the man had finished speaking. "Sasuke will protect me no matter what. Everything will be fine."

So Hiashi left, and Naruto was alone with Sasuke and the silence. What's wrong with him? he silently asked the Kyuubi.

Something's shaken him, the fox demon replied seriously.

What should I do?

There was a moment's hesitation as the Kyuubi thought. Talk to him.

Naruto crossed the room and sat next to Sasuke on the couch. "Sasuke?" he asked. The Uchiha didn't even blink. "Sasuke?" Naruto placed a hand on one of the boy's knees and shook slightly.

Slowly, Sasuke turned his way.

"What happened Sasuke?"

Sasuke's eyes fell to the floor in shame. "I'm sorry Naruto," he said very quietly. "I'm not a very good father."

Naruto shook his head. "That's crazy. You're the best father in the world."

"No, I'm not." Sasuke's voice was louder now, and full of defiance and self-pity. "I should have known he was alive. I should have known."

Of course, the first thing that came to Naruto's mind was Itachi, and he let out an explosive whoosh of breath. "What do you mean Sasuke?" he demanded, and his voice trembled. "Your brother?"

Sasuke shook his head. "No. It's not Itachi. Someone else. Someone I should have taken care of long ago."

"Sasuke... tell me what happened. Why were you gone so long? Where did you go?"

But Sasuke wasn't paying attention. "I knew I recognized that symbol," he was muttering. "Why the hell did it take so long for me to figure it out?"

"Sasuke, you're scaring me. Please, tell me!" Naruto clung almost desperately to one of Sasuke's arms, and finally, the Uchiha looked at him, and actually seemed to see him. Sasuke's expression was confused. "You haven't been getting much sleep lately." It was not a question. He rested a hand on Naruto's face, and rubbed a thumb under one eye. "Dark rings under your eyes. Have you been eating like you should, and taking your medicine?"

Naruto choked on something that was half laugh, half cry. "Sasukeee," he whined quietly. "This is no time to be worrying about me. I'm fine, and so are the babies."

Sasuke smiled bleakly and said, "That's all that matters."

Sasuke refused to tell Naruto where he had been or what he had been doing in the past two months away from Konoha. The Uchiha had just fallen asleep when Tsunade walked in. "So it's true," she said when she first laid eyes on the sleeping Sasuke. "The great Uchiha has graced Konoha with his presence."

A bit grumpily, the Hokage opened up her medical bag - Naruto assumed she had heard of Sasuke's condition through Hiashi - and began to work on Sasuke's arm. "Naruto, bring me some hot water will you? And a few rags, too."

Naruto was allowed to wash Sasuke's grimy skin with a wet rag while Tsunade tended the boy's wounds. Sasuke himself sat in a half doze there in the firelight, and his eyes were glazed over whenever he had them open. Tsunade sighed as she finished stitching up his arm. "He should be alright," she informed Naruto. "But I don't think we can expect to get any answers out of him tonight. Let him sleep, and keep a close eye on him if you can. Hiashi is standing outside, and Kakashi is on his way. Our Avenger here will not be getting anywhere except for bed tonight. He needs his rest. In the morning, give him this." She pressed a small vile into Naruto's hand, and it seemed to be filled with a dark amber liquid. "Put it in his tea, and make sure he drinks every drop. He should recover most of his wits after taking that strong a dose, and then maybe he'll satisfy our questions with some answers."

The woman sighed again and stood, bidding Naruto farewell and telling him not to hesitate to call on her if they needed anything else that night. Then she left, and Naruto decided that it was about time to put Sasuke to bed. "Come on, Sasuke," he said as if he were speaking to a child. "It's time to go get some rest."

Sasuke leaned heavily on Naruto on the way to the bedroom, and he occasionally stumbled over his own feet. Naruto, being out of balance enough as is, had to draw on quite a bit of Kyuubi's chakra in order to get the Uchiha all the way to his bed.

Naruto had decided that, since Tsunade seemed to suspect that Sasuke might go running off again if out of sight for too long, Sasuke should sleep in Naruto's room with him for the night. Naruto wasn't about to take any chances. He let Sasuke strip to his boxers - his clothes were filthy and his pajamas were in a different room of the mansion - and then covered him up in the bed. As Naruto lay down next to the already snoring Sasuke, he took the other boy's hand, that way in case Sasuke woke up in the middle of the night, Naruto would know it.

Naruto was not the only one having the nightmares that night. Sasuke tossed and turned in his sleep, sweating and screaming and crying out. The raven haired boy kept repeating again and again, "He should be dead. He's supposed to already be dead." The only person Naruto could think of that he might be referring to was Itachi, but earlier Sasuke had said that it was not Itachi. So then, who was it?

Finally, Naruto got out of bed. Trying to sleep was useless. Too much had happened in such a short period of time, and Sasuke just kept waking him up anyway. Naruto shuffled to the kitchen of the mansion to get a glass of milk, even though he was a bit reluctant to leave Sasuke's side for even a few minutes, then he came back to the room and sat by the moonlit window, reading a book he had picked from the library months ago and had forgotten about.

Naruto was about halfway through the book when the sun rose, and Sasuke Uchiha finally began to stir. The nightmares had ceased sometime during the night, but that had not convinced Naruto to go back to bed. Finally, Sasuke sat up groggily, rubbing his eyes and running fingers through his messy hair. When he saw Naruto reading by the window, and the sunlight dancing in on the hardwood floor, he smiled drowsily and yawned halfway through saying good morning. Naruto was suddenly so greatly relieved to have Sasuke home, he could have cried. Instead of crying, however, he returned Sasuke's good morning, and together they made their way to the kitchen for breakfast.

Sasuke was unusually quite that morning, but that was to be expected. The boy's mood was pensive, but he ate plenty and drank every bit of his tea - under the watchful eye of Naruto. Halfway through the meal, Kakashi Hatake came into the room, and severed himself a plate without asking permission first. He smiled happily at the two already sitting at the table, and added a massive amount of butter and syrup to his pancakes. "And how are the lovely couple doing this morning?" he asked sweetly. Sasuke frowned, but Naruto couldn't help but give a small smile. He knew that Kakashi was just trying to lighten the mood.

Even through his usual cheeriness, Kakashi also kept a sharp eye on Sasuke. Finally, Sasuke burst that the two of them "should stop watching him as if he were a time bomb about to explode." Naruto and Kakashi both kept their eyes on their plates after that.

When the plates were empty and the food was gone, Kakashi waved goodbye and left, while Sasuke and Naruto sat in a sort of awkward silence at the kitchen table. Finally the Uchiha sighed. "I supposed you have a few things to ask me, don't you?"

Naruto nodded slightly. "A few," he agreed.

"Well, I guess we might as well get it over with. Ask away."

Without any hesitation, Naruto jumped at the opportunity to start a conversation he had waited a full two months to have. "What happened that night? The night you left? Where did you go? And why were you having seizures?"

Sasuke gave another heavy sigh before answering, and slowly he filled Naruto in about the attacks he had been having before he left. "It hasn't happened since then," he finished. "I don't know why, but I'm glad."

Naruto gaped at him, feeling slightly hurt and betrayed. "Sasuke... you were sick, why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't want you to know. You couldn't do anything about it anyway."

"Still..." Naruto paused then, thinking. "You didn't say why you suddenly took off like that," he noted. "Why did you leave?"

"Because I remembered something," he answered with his eyes on the table. "That last seizure must have jogged my memory. I finally realized where I had seen that symbol, the symbol the killer left behind." He paused then for a moment, lost in thought once again. "Do you remember that last mission I went on Naruto? Just before my birthday?" Naruto nodded; he remembered. "I was supposed to find a man. He was a wanted assassin; he had killed somebody important in The Land of Lightning. The mission was to either capture him and bring him in, or to take care of him myself if taking him alive wasn't possible. I did find him, and he wouldn't come willingly. I tried to take him, but in the end I had to kill him. I thought I killed him. That symbol burned into the wall outside your apartment? He had a tattoo of it on the back of his neck. I caught a glimpse of it right before I took him out."

Naruto was more than a little shocked by Sasuke's tale. He had never considered anything like that a possibility at all. For a moment he let his mind wander, pondering over the situation. Finally Kyuubi prodded him to ask, "Are you sure it's the same guy? I mean, maybe he was working in a group or with a certain organization or something, and maybe that's their symbol."

Sasuke was already shaking his head. "No, it's definitely the same guy. The last I saw him, he was still alive. It was three days ago. I finally found him again. We fought; that's how I got this." He gently ran a finger across the mark on his cheek. "Last time I fought him I thought he had been easy to take out, but I was wrong. This time, he was working on a whole new level. I could hardly lay a single hit on him. If he really is working for an organization of some sort, I highly doubt that his trying to murder our babies was something that the rest of the group wanted him to do. He's the only one with reason to come after us, to hurt me any way he can. My suspicions tell me that he's working alone."

Naruto nodded. What Sasuke said made sense. But how could one who was once dead still be alive? "Are you sure you killed him the first time? I mean, was he really dead?"

Sasuke nodded. "The first time we fought, he was definitely dead. His body was in pieces, Naruto. He had to have been dead." The Uchiha's expression became slightly confused. "That's what I don't understand about this whole thing. He was dead, but now he's alive. How is that possible?"

"I guess he wasn't really dead then," Naruto told him. They sat in silence for a moment, thinking. Naruto took the chance to really look at Sasuke for the first time since he'd been back. He looked a wreck. His hair was a mess, one could tell that he hadn't bathed in a while and that he hadn't been getting much food or sleep. Also, there was a deep, haunted look in his eyes that hadn't ever been there before, and Naruto knew that somewhere in Sasuke's heart he was blaming himself for the attempted murder on their babies.

Cautiously, Naruto slid his hand across the table and laid it on top of one of Sasuke's. Sasuke looked up at Naruto, his eyes slightly questioning. "It's not your fault you know," Naruto said quietly.

Sasuke's eyes lowered guiltily. "Yes it is, Naruto. It was my mission to take the guy out. I was supposed to deal with him. Because I screwed up my mission... because I failed... we could have lost.... Naruto, look at how much pain this has caused everyone. Think about what we've been through since he tried to kill our babies. It's all because of me. It's all because I couldn't do the job right."

Naruto was almost in tears. Sasuke's berating tone, so different from his usual self-confidence, was almost too much for him to bear. "Sasuke don't say that," he said firmly. Sasuke looked shocked at fact that Naruto's eyes were full. "You can't blame yourself like this. If you're going to continue beating yourself up, how are you supposed to take care of the babies when they're born? How are you supposed to take care of them before they're born? What's done is done, you couldn't do anything about what happened. For now, the babies are fine and so am I. What's important now is finding this guy again and taking him out. Then, life will go on. I promise."

Sasuke opened and closed his mouth several times, as if unsure of what he should say. Finally he just nodded and looked back down at the table. His eyes said that he didn't believe Naruto, and that he was still blaming himself for what happened, but he squeezed Naruto's hand a little tighter.

"Naruto... while I was away, I was thinking... and I've been wanting to ask you something."

"Yes?" Naruto asked hesitantly, wondering why Sasuke was suddenly changing the subject.

"I... Well..." He sighed and started over. "You're going to change back after you have the babies right? Then you're going to be normal male Naruto again?" His voice was very quiet.

Naruto nodded slowly. "Yes."

"Then... I was just wondering if you would be willing to marry a failure Uchiha like me." A sudden blush bloomed brightly on Sasuke's face, and that in itself was enough to surprise Naruto. Rarely had he seen Sasuke blush, but the boy didn't seem to mind so much around Naruto.

There was a great moment of silence then. It almost seemed as if the world had stopped turning. Did Sasuke really just propose? Sasuke Uchiha? A little alarmed by the silence, Sasuke looked up at Naruto questioningly, and suddenly there were tears in Naruto's eyes again as his heart soared. He had never been happier in his entire life. "Of course I'll marry you Sasuke," he said quietly. He gave Sasuke's hand a squeeze, and the Uchiha smiled slightly with relief.

"I'm glad," he replied.

After another moment of stunned silence, when Naruto finally managed to wrap his head around the fact that he had just accepted a marriage proposal from Sasuke Uchiha himself, he asked, "Why did you ask about me changing back though? A second ago you asked if I was changing back once the babies were born... how come?"

Sasuke suddenly smirked, but he didn't let go of Naruto's hand. Naruto was glad for that. "Well, it's like I told Kakashi and Iruka that day you got pushed; since when have the elders allowed gay marriage in Konoha? To them, right now, you are Ayako-chan, and you will still be Ayako-chan until after the babies are born. If we get married before the babies are born, technically it will be a marriage between a man and a woman, and the elders will not be able to fight us. Especially if we have Tsunade on our side."

A wide grin spread across Naruto's face and he gave a short laugh. "That's brilliant Sasuke! How long did it take you to come up with something like that?"

The Uchiha returned his grin, but simply shrugged instead of answering. Abruptly, he stood and let go of Naruto's hand. Silently he walked around the table over to Naruto, and Naruto pushed his chair so that he was facing the Uchiha. "What is it Sasuke?" Sasuke's expression was serious, and there was a look of almost... concentration in his eyes.

"Close your eyes."

"What?"

"I said, close your eyes."

A little confused, Naruto obeyed. What the hell was going on? He nearly jumped out of his skin when he felt Sasuke's lips press to his. But surely those could not be Sasuke's lips. Sasuke didn't like kissing women. Sasuke Uchiha never kissed women. Sasuke Uchiha thought that women were far too excitable and annoying. Why would Sasuke Uchiha be kissing little Ayako-chan? Then again, Sasuke Uchiha had just asked the same little Ayako-chan to marry him. The same Ayako-chan was having the same Sasuke's little Uchiha babies. Therefore those almost had to be Sasuke Uchiha's lips pressed to little Ayako-chan's.

When Sasuke finally pulled back, Naruto's head was spinning. "Well, I usually only kiss the male version of Naruto, but I guess you'll have to do for now." Sasuke's voice was kind of quiet and very warm. It made Naruto feel... happy. Really happy.

"Uh... I'm a little stunned," Naruto replied with a nervous laugh. "I thought... wow. Well... okay."

For the first time in what seemed a very long time, Sasuke Uchiha laughed.