THE DICHOTOMY OF FAMILY AND GENETICS
Naruto never though much about her own family – her background never seemed important to her; a moments carelessness meant she got one whether she wanted one or not. All of a sudden, she finds herself missing what she had never had, and what she had never missed, before. SasuNaru (FemNaru), slight GaaSaku, ShikaIno, KakaRin, JiraTsu, MinaKushi, & YahiKonan.
CHAPTER VI
~ TWO YEARS ~
Gods know I've tried;
Call me a sinner, call me a saint.
Call me your favourite, call me the worst,
I don't want you to hurt.
They had only been waiting two hours, but it felt like forever had passed when Minato appeared at the door of the waiting room. Naruto had snapped to her feet before he could call her name and rushed up to him. Sasuke followed with similar pace, but something kept him from walking beside her too closely.
Until he had caught sight of Mr. Chatty's step-kid trying to drag Naruto's phone number out of her, he had been eager to get as far away from her simply because he was pissed off. That had frazzled out when caught sight of the guy trying to hit on her.
The surge of irrational possessive jealousy had brought him back to thinking rationally - he had almost been ready to do something very stupid. He was still mad but now that he thought about the whole thing, he found it harder to stay furious.
His gut clenched when he saw the unmistakable relief that had nothing to do with the pushy guy when he interrupted her. He really was being the jack of all asses; Tamamo was more important than anything else, but one stupid fight had nearly had everything crumbling around their ears.
As he followed Naruto through the corridor - she was listening with the solid attention of rock to whatever Minato was telling her - he thought about what had cause the argument in the first place. He was still pissed that she hadn't told him anything about the matter, but if he thought about the reasoning behind her secrecy, it wasn't completely irrational.
Still, she could have said something couldn't she? They entered the ICU, and he was brought back to their primary concern as Minato pointed out the incubator, and quietly left the room.
He felt sick seeing all the tubes and wires attached to the three-month old, now sleeping peacefully in an incubator, but he couldn't bring himself to go any closer like Naruto, who had bent down on one side to line he eyes wit Tamamo's sleeping face.
He couldn't stand seeing the worry on her face; in his spiteful rambling, he had implied she didn't care about the baby one way or the other. He knew that wasn't true at all. Why had he said that?
"I... I just didn't think. Sakura told me, she told me that it got cold in there - I just didn't think... it was only open a little bit! I didn't think it would... I didn't think she'd catch pneumonia..."
His attention was jerked back Naruto, his eyes widening; Pneumonia? Pneumonia? That's what all that fussing had been? Those sniffles? He'd thought it was just a cold! He stared at Naruto letting her words flood his mind.
He froze for a moment, then tentatively reached out and pulled her towards him. He didn't know what was going on; only a few months ago he would have noticed her reactions almost before she did. When did everything stop working the way it should?
"This isn't our fault Naruto; I went in for a week remember? I didn't think the window was that important either" he mumbled, trying to reassure her.
He couldn't see or hear them, but the damp patches on his shirt were a sure fire indicator that her eyes were brimming over. He wished he knew how much of them were because of him.
She tightened her grip on him, and he felt another crack of guilt; he had noticed that something had been dominating her thoughts lately - how could he miss it? Every time she looked at Tamamo, something flickered across her face. He had seen it, but he hadn't bothered to inquire about it.
When had he started brushing things like that off? It was always little gestures like that that were the important ones with Naruto. He had never brushed them off before. He could yell and rant and rave about her private decision all he wanted, but he hadn't really been paying attention either.
There were chairs in the corner of the room, comfy ones, and he presumed that they were there for free use. It took some persuading to get Naruto to leave the side of the incubator (guilt stabbed him again), but he managed to persuade her that sleep they both needed the sleep. She sat nervously for a few moments before letting her head slum onto his shoulder.
"How did this happen?" she asked in a hushed whisper; he knew that she was not talking about Tamamo.
"I wish I knew" he replied just as quietly.
He tried to reassure himself, putting his arm around her shoulders and pulling her back towards him again, but doubt and guilt continued to gnaw at his thoughts. Everything seemed to be falling apart, and he didn't know how to stop it.
Naruto woke up with her head on Sasuke's hoody, slumped over the two chairs with an unfamiliar waterproof covering her; confusion reigned until she caught sight of the room's interior; they must have moved at some time during the night because she was back in the waiting room. Or had someone moved her?
She sat up, rubing the sleep from her eyes, looking round the room for Sasuke.
"I see you're finally awake"
Naruto blinked at the bright morning light before finally adjusting her gaze enough to recognise the speaker; Tsunade sat on one of the chairs in her mauve scrubs, the ones separating her from the rest of the surgeons and doctors, and had a grim look on her face. Naruto blinked again in surprise at the visitor – had Tsunade been waiting for her to wake up?
"Tsunade?" the question hung on her name, and the blonde woman removed herself from the chair to take a seat beside her instead.
"Minato told me what happened when I came in for my shift, so I thought I'd come keep an eye on you until things started hotting up on the wards"
Naruto nodded; she was glad to see her midwife right now. She had grown quite close to the woman during her check ups and the week or so she spent recovering from the birth of Tamamo. The woman reminded her of Mikoto in a way, but it wasn't quite the same; she supposed she was more like a grandmother (albeit a young-looking one).
"Where's Sasuke?" she asked; she had noted his absence almost immediately, and for a brief irrational moment she had felt like panicking. The fight from the night before was still fresh in her mind, and she had no idea where it had come from.
Even if she had done something that stupid, Sasuke never shouted like that. He just ignored and glared for days on end and made snide comments till his ego had recovered. Something had snapped last night, and she didn't know what it was.
"His father came by early this morning; he took him to find Minato so they could get the details, amongst other things"
Naruto supposed that explained the jacket – Fugaku worried like that – but she did raise an eyebrow at the mention of 'other' things. Tsunade gave her a calm, calculating glance, seemingly assessing her thoughts with that one glance.
"Minato tells me you and Sasuke were tripping over each other like piles of glass before he left the ICU last night; you want to talk?"
Naruto found that she did, finding the words forming on her tongue almost before she could think of them. It was easier talking to Tsunade than it would have been if she had been talking to Sakura ore Mikoto – Sakura wouldn't understand, and there was no way she could talk about relationship problems with her boyfriend's mother.
She started at the beginning, explaining all the doubts and obstinacy that hade made her so focused on the adoption option for most of her pregnancy, then the mixed emotions she'd felt when she saw the steely-blue eyes of her daughter, before finally getting to the fight.
"I don't know where it came from – it was like an explosion. We shouldn't have been that angry at each other; I know I made a mistake, but I know Sasuke too, and he never yells at me unless it's something really serious, and that was just... that was just stupid. I think if Tamamo hadn't intervened with her problems, he really would have walked out on me, over something as petty as..."
She buried her head in her hands – feeling the sleep-dulled emotions beginning to churn once again. Even after talking about it all, nothing made sense.
"I don't understand what happened; everything was fine. Everything was working out – it wasn't easy for the first month, but it was working, and I thought all that crap was behind me, and now... I just don't know. Hell spawn is sick, and the spawners aren't doing so hot either... it's all a mess"
Head in her knees, she didn't see the momentary flicker of doubt on Tsunade's face, nor the way she bit her lip as if considering something, before pulling her head up from her knees.
"What happened is incredibly simple Naruto; you may have been managing well – probably better than some other girl's I've met in your situation – but that doesn't change the fact that being a parent, was more than you were ready for."
Naruto stared at her in confusion, before feeling the anger building up.
"What's that supposed to mean? I've been doing fine! Sasuke and I read all the books, and covered the plug sockets and all that stuff – we both have a job, and we both keep up with school, not that I really go, but we were fine! Tamamo was fine! I know she isn't now, but-"
A pointed look from Tsunade silenced her.
"If you're so fine, then why are you so defensive? I do not doubt that you've done everything you can, and probably better than some women my own age would, but the fact that your daughter is in here is a case point."
Naruto stared at her in angry confusion.
"Naruto, you've only just passed your seventeenth birthday by a few months. I'm not saying you aren't a good parent, because you're doing a lot better than some women just by being here, but you've been trying to do everything by yourself, Sasuke too. You've done a good job, but the reason things snapped is the same reason you booked an abortion in the first place, and I think you know that."
Naruto bit her lip.
"You've been focusing on Tamamo Naruto, and that's good, but if you don't take a break, or let the people around you lend a hand, what happened last night will happen again – a child is a lot of responsibility, and a lot of married couples wait a few years before having children. You simply haven't matured enough to deal with that kind of responsibility by yourself yet."
"But Sasu-"
"Sasuke is only a few months older than you are Naruto; you cannot rely on him and only him. Mikoto and Fugaku have been trying to tell you this for weeks! You have to let them help Naruto, or this will chew you from the inside out"
Naruto stared her, not knowing how was she was supposed to take this... this intervention, she supposed. She wanted to yell and scream that Tsunade was wrong, that she could handle it, but the fact that she was even speaking to the woman now was proof that something had slipped from her control.
Her outburst to Karui flashed in her mind, and she bit her lip – Tsunade was right. She was not ready for all of this. She welcomed Tamamo with every fibre of her being but that wasn't enough. Mikoto and Fugaku knew that, and they had both been blocking her every attempt to get through to them.
"But... the thing with Kakashi had nothing to do with that" she whispered hoarsely.
Tsunade sighed and put an arm about her shoulders in a comforting gesture; Naruto was glad she hadn't decided to hug her. Those jugs of hers would probably have suffocated her – how the heck did the woman carry those around all day? Surely she got back pain?
"Frustration comes out whenever the timing suits it – it doesn't matter if the topic is relevant or not. When the pressure gets too much it just..."
"...it just snaps" Naruto finished quietly, leaning into the woman's shoulder.
She was surprised to find that the stern talk from the woman had been a relief, and she was even more surprised by how easily Tsunade seemed to find her way to the root of her previously unnoticed problems. Instead of being mad, she was grateful for the midwife's help.
Thanks to Tsunade things didn't seem nearly as confusing or completely hopeless as they had last night.
Tsunade walked down the corridors with her, as if to make certain she didn't get herself into more hogwash on the way to the ICU. When she got there, she found Sasuke and Fugaku waiting outside the door. Judging by the pensive look on Sasuke's face, he had received a similar talk from his father.
Fugaku caught sight of her, and kept his steady gaze on her until she was standing in front of him; he raised an eyebrow, as if daring her to say something before turning to say something – it sounded like a thank you of some kind. He turned away as the woman left for her real job, and turned back to Naruto.
"I trust your stubornness is not going to be a problem anymore?"
Naruto shook her head – Mikoto may be the teacher of the glare, but Fugaku didn't even need the glare to be terrifying. He did all the shit inducing fear with just his tone of voice.
"Good – I've already told Sasuke, but you will be moving in with Mikoto and me instead of that halfway-apartment. We won't be able to help if you live on the other side of the city. Itachi and Obito are already packing things up."
Naruto's eyes widened a fraction but she continued to nod obediently.
"I've spoken with the headmaster of Sasuke's school, and he's agreed to let you join a few revision classes and let you take your exams there. Just because you have a child now is no excuse to fall behind in your studies."
Naruto felt her eye's widen again, but she kept nodding – she didn't dare point out that she was keeping up with her school work just fine now that she was no longer attending it. That would be suicide.
"Are we clear? No more of this... this trying to do everything by yourself – and don't think I'm not talking to you too young man – you need help. End of discussion."
Naruto dumbly nodded again, still to petrified to even consider arguing with the man. A glance at Sasuke showed a wild look in his eyes, as if he was looking for some sort of exit. She wondered if, should he find one, he would let her tag along – Fugaku was scaring the shit out of her.
"Good; now, I am going to visit my granddaughter. When I come out, I expect to see you two still in one piece, and to have sorted whatever mess you two call thinking. Capice?"
They both nodded this time, breath held until he had disappeared into the ward, muttering irritably to himself about early graves and ungodly hours of the morning. The relief when he disappeared into the side room to pull on those blue overalls was immediate.
Naruto caught Sasuke caught Sasuke's gaze from the corner of her eye, and bit her lip; she supposed this was the part where everything was to be cleared up and smoothed over, but she had never been very good at that. Neither had Sasuke for that matter.
For god's sake the last time they had argued it had taken breaking her saxophone on a wall, an intervention from Orochimaru, and loosing her virginity to a Sasuke look-a-like to beat the need for discussion into her thick skull.
Even then the whole affair had been little more than a blubering bawling mess. She still didn't know what had made Sasuke swallow his own pride – the stiffening of his shoulder and wild, slightly terrorised look that crossed onto his face when ever she mentioned it made think she was better off not knowing.
She caught Sasuke's look and they both turned away their gaze awkwardly; running away seemed like a very good idea right now, but that just added more fuel t to the fire of Tsunade's words. Damn woman, making her see reason like that.
"We left the window open" she noted.
Sasuke grunted.
"I should have said something"
Sasuke grunted.
"...we aren't fine are we?"
Sasuke shook his head.
"Your dad scares me, but he makes a good point."
Sasuke nodded.
Naruto gave him a withering look; she was trying to communicate here! The least he could do was give her the same courtesy! Stupid, ungrateful, anti-social-
"I'm sorry"
It was so quiet that she almost missed it; her eyes snapped towards Sasuke in astonishment. Why was he the one apologizing? She was the one who had messed everything up... or was she missing something? Everything seemed so fuzzy now...
Her puzzled expression must have shown on her face, because he looked her in the eye, an expression of complete apologetic sincerity clearly visible.
"I said... I... presumed..."
He frowned, clearly trying to think of a way to explain without sounding... she didn't really know. He was acting weird. He looked guilty – that was odd. There seemed to be a hint of fear there too. Why on earth would he be scared?
"I accused you of... of having second thoughts about Tamamo..."
The conversation flooded back to her, and her eyes furrowed into a very unpleasant stare; she had barley heard that at the time – she had been too busy worrying about the baby in question - but now that she was a bit more lucid...
Without a hint of restraint her fingers curled into a fist and slammed into his face; there was a satisfying crack as something cracked, and Sasuke was sent crashing into a storage cart.
"You... you... you ass! You absolute freaking Asshole! You Prick! You... You Git! You... You...!"
Sasuke pulled himself to his to his feet, hissing at the raging stabs of pain in his nose (which may be broken, if the bleeding was anything to go by), only to sent flying back down by another violent fist.
Fugaku, much to the horror of the blonde paediatrician who he had been discussing the finer details of Tamamo's condition with, gave his two headaches an approving nod as the doctor did his best to fix his son's nose.
By the time he had realised what he had been hearing in the corridor, Naruto had given Sasuke a black eye and a split lip on top of the broken nose. Most parents, or people for that matter, would have been horrified, but Fugaku was relieved.
The phone call from Itachi – after being awoken for car services - had been alarming on several levels, and thanks to the speaker phone, Mikoto had kicked him out of bed and ordered him to fix things.
Mikoto had a habit of making him sleep on the couch when she was irritated. The threat wasn't really necessary, but it was definitely motivation.
Upon arrival, it had been like waking on eggshells, nails, barbed wire, crushed glass, and broken china. The two stuborn idiots had been edging around each other with barley a glance as he had frog-marched them back to the waiting room (sleeping in the ICU?).
The gap between them as they took seats at the opposite ends of the same sofa had been glaringly obvious.
The moment they had both fallen asleep, he had gone looking for that midwife Naruto was so fond of; the woman had listened for about five seconds before reassuring him that she would pound some sense back into Naruto's head.
That sorted, he had tugged on Sasuke's ear, jolting him awake, and dragged him off for a nice, long, chat. There had been shouting, defensive shouting, muttering, grumbling, grunting, and silence, but he was certain he had gotten his point across.
Getting the point across wasn't a fix-all though. He could fix Sasuke, and Tsunade had done a good job of fixing Naruto, but neither of them could fix the most important part of the problem. That was why he left them to their little dispute in the hallway.
Sasuke, from what he had heard during that chat, had already said his peace. Naruto, however, still needed to get her say in. Considering what an ignorant ass his son had been, Naruto's reaction had been a fair one.
Besides, she'd given him a black on the same eye after he asked her out; he believed her precise words had been 'that was for taking your goddamned freaking time to ask me you ass!'
"I can't believe you broke his nose!" Minato mumbled; he shook his head as he dabbed at Sasuke's eye with some cotton wool soaked in a cleaning fluid, before moving to his lip.
Naruto was still glaring at Sasuke, but the gap that had been between them the previous night had vanished as if it had never been the in the first place. Sasuke winced and hissed at the doctor's ministrations, but there was a tiny smirk creeping back onto his face.
Fugaku silently patted himself on the back for a job well done.
Naruto dropped her paintbrush with shaking hands; towards the end of the exam, she had panicked because she had spent far too long on getting the statue's none right, and had forgotten almost an entire half of the still life.
She had been franticly globbing paint all over the place, and the red of that lily still didn't look right to her, but she had finished her last exam with moments to spare. Her hands were still shaking as she walked out of the room in search of Hinata.
The girl would have finished her business administration exam before her Art one ended – the only thing she hated about the art exam was how long it lasted. All. Freaking. Day. There had been a break in the morning, and one for lunch, but still!
After the intervention from Fugaku (which really meant Mikoto), Naruto had moved in with Sasuke and his parents, though it was more like forced. Itachi and Obito had somehow, through means beyond the realm of human comprehension, removed all her things from the halfway flat and moved them into their parent's house in one day, leaving her little choice in the matter.
Apparently, Fugaku hadn't been joking about the schoolwork thing either; once Mikoto was certain she had settled in, she had called Sasuke's head teacher down to go over things – the tiny old dude was a bit mad, and he really should think anout retirement if his hips were as bad as he complained, but he was nice enough.
He was a heck of a lot nicer than Mr. Shimura had been, but she didn't really think that took a lot of effort. The parasitical worms in Sakura's biology books were probably nicer than him, and they were parasitical worms.
As wary as she had been for the first few weeks, she had to admit it was a lot better than trying to do everything by themselves; Mikoto was a lot better at the jiggle than she was, and the expertise that she could provide if needed was very valuable.
Fugaku was helpful too, even if he was a scary old man sometimes; if he thought she was pushing herself, he literally removed Tamamo from her line of sight. He had managed to make her drop a bag of nappies with a mere glare once.
Once he sat her down and began going over her schoolwork, she began to realise she had been wrong about keeping up with it; he was very patient though, and she soon caught up.
A notable change was her relationship with Sasuke; now that she didn't rely on him first and foremost, and that there were other people around, things were startlingly easier than they had been. Compared to now, things had been so murky.
There had been barley any changes but the effects were amazing; she had her own room since Itachi and Obito had places of their own, and that change alone had removed what seemed like a mountain. She still spent the night in his room, but not actually having to was an unexpected relief.
The biggest change though was Tamamo – she had spent two horribly long weeks in that hospital, but once she had come out she was right as rain. Mikoto had shouted loudly at her when she found out about her attempt to try getting her onto solids early.
Naruto had abandoned the idea until Mikoto gave her specific permission – the woman wasn't totally barbaric though, and sympathised enough to let her use the formulated stuff, something Naruto was very grateful for.
Considering the way the girl seemed to double in size after one month of Mikoto-approved diet, it was probably a good thing the woman had been around to point her in the right direction.
It had been a year since those first awful 24 hours that had prompted Mikoto and Fugaku to recruit Tsunade and have an intervention, and it was the middle of November. She was eighteen, and Tamamo had reached her first birthday.
She was much more active now, crawling about all over the place, making incomprehensible baby talk; she was quick as lightning, and too good at hiding for her comfort - she was too quiet to be found immediately.
Tamamo was showing the traits of the perfect prankster; Sasuke's quiet demeanour, and logical thinking, along with her sense of mischief and creativity. The perfect blend for trouble. She sometimes disappeared for up to an hour, only to show up looking smug at the mania she had sent her parents and grandparents into, laughing like a maniac. God the laughing.
Naruto did not squeal, but the first time she had hear that she had been jumping up and down and crowning with delight in a manner horribly reminiscent of the girls in the night classes that fawned over her boyfriend.
Sasuke had insisted on going with her to those classes, and she had been utterly disgusted by the simpering. No wonder the only girl Sasuke seemed to know from the school was Hinata. Apparently Sasuke's headmaster had been a little more discreet about things than her own, because they hadn't known a thing about Tamamo.
A smirk of glee crossed her face as she walked down a corridor, remembering their faces when they found out. Sakura and Gaara had come by with the girl after one of those classes; the girls were convinced that Tamamo was their daughter, and Naruto was the babysitter.
Or at least they had. Sakura had caught on right away when Naruto told her that babysitting was no problem , and they had carried on like that (Gaara's choking noise had almost sent them into hysterics of their own at one point though). That had continued until Sasuke tuned up.
Tamamo, catching sight of him as he headed towards them with Shino, Hinata, and Choji, had immediately brightened. As soon as he was in arms width she reached out, demanding her father to hug her in her baby garble with a firm look on her face. Choji – oblivious - had commented on how cute his daughter was.
It took several long moments for that to penetrate the thick skulls of the girls; they had been convinced that despite being in a by then five year relationship, they still stood a chance. Choji - bless his good hearted soul – had completely shattered that illusion. The memory of their faces still brought tears of laughter to her eyes.
She skipped down the stairs two at a time before landing o the ground floor and heading for the locker room. She quickly located Hinata and Sasuke, talking to Neji about the exams. Sasuke had probably just finished his physics exam. She grinned at the sight of his turned back, and crept up silently behind them.
Hinata saw her, but managed to remain blank faced, and she managed to scare the stuffing out of him by catapulting herself onto his back. Once he regained his composer he tried glaring her off, and filed miserably.
"Get off" he told her bluntly.
She pouted and he rolled his eyes; steering him like a hose, she pulled her shoes from her own locker.
Neji shook his head as they left the gates; Naruto frowned. Neji was so droll sometimes. Maybe she could hook him up with someone from work - maybe Shioin? She had enough backbone to keep up with him. She'd have to see if the girl was seeing anyone tonight...
She finally felt pity for Sasuke, and hopped onto the concrete once they had reached the pavement beyond the school gates. As they walked along beside Neji and Hinata, towards Neji's car (stupid lucky graduates and their stupid cars), she ran her thoughts over everything that had happened in the past two years.
It felt good. She wouldn't deny that it had been hard, especially in the first few months, but... it was working now. For a moment it had been falling around her ears, but not anymore. She hadn't thought once about looking for her parents.
she still wondered – she couldn't help it, every time she saw her daughter's eyes she grew curios – and saved part of her pay check for the task (Killer Bee's was still going strong), but actually doing something was far from her worries right now.
It felt good.
"I'm back! I'm back! Where are they?"
Naruto raced into the house, hopping a long on one foot as she tried to remove her shoes in her haste; she had been at killer bees to go over the changes that would be made once he branched out into Wind, Earth, and Lightning Country.
Samui and Karui would be leaving to manage one of the new stores until they got onto their feet, so she would be in charge of the original – Omoi was awesome, but Killer Bee thought he was a little too absent minded for the job.
It sounded horribly daunting, but since she got a pay rise she wasn't going to complain – she had already asked killer bee if Ino could have her old job as stock manager, and she had several cunning plans on advertising in her head.
She was envisioning Kiba and Sasuke in hand-painted sandwich-boards – Tamamo loved paint, and Naruto loved torturing her boyfriend. Sasuke wouldn't be able to argue once she mentioned letting Tamamo help make the boards.
She had been going over some of the details of the promotion when Sasuke had called – the exam results were back. She had never run so fast in her life. Hopping into the living room, she found Tamamo babbling away about her crayon scribble to Itachi, and she grinned a little.
Tamamo was almost more fond of Itachi than she was Sasuke, and though she glared at Obito a lot, she sometimes caught a smug little smirk on her face that told her Tamamo had a somewhat warped sense of humour.
"Where are they?" she asked breathlessly, taking hold of the sofa-arm to regain her balance as she pulled of her other shoe.
Tamamo looked up from the mass of waxy scribbles and smiled as she caught sight of her mother; she babbled something in incomprehensible baby talk, holding the picture up proudly, then waving it towards Itachi.
"I don't know – Sasuke opened his own and went a little crazy; I think he went looking for father, but I can't be sure – I think I'm supposed to sit still" he gestured towards Tamamo, who immediately glared at his moving arm before dropping her picture and beginning to crawl towards her mother.
Naruto grinned in greeting as the girl crawled over; she took hold of the sofa to pull herself up, and reached out one arm, clenching and unclenching her fingers. Naruto picked her up and blew a raspberry in her ear before kissing her temple.– earning a gleeful giggle from the girl. It was the customary greeting when she returned from Killer Bee's.
"Hello Hell Spawn" she mumbled, before setting the girl back down.
"I think he'll be back in a minuet or so" Itachi told her, pulling himself up from the floor and stretching – Tamamo made a loud number for protesting noises, and pouted petulantly when he left the room.
Naruto finally succeeded in pulling off her shoes and started on her yellow duffel coat. After handing it up, she pulled off the blue hat and scarf that had been keeping out the December cold. She sat down, watching Tamamo as she began to scribble another drawing with the crayons.
She was unusually nervous about how well she had done on the exams; it wasn't like she needed them for a job or anything – she didn't see Killer Bee's going under any time soon – but Fugaku had worked her ass to the bone, and she would probably scream and swear if she hadn't achieved halfway decent grades.
Tamamo reached out a hand for one crayon, but missed, sending it rolling across the floor to land against the side of her feet. As she picked it up, there was the loud sound of frantic feet coming from beyond the walls of the living room.
Turning, she was greeted by her frantic boyfriend as he dashed in from the kitchen; judging by the wet, dirty socks on his feet, he had been in the garden. Catching sight of her, he darted round, jumped to sit on his knees beside her, grasping her shoulders.
"I got them! Physics and maths and Chemistry and that other one – remember I applied for that apprenticeship with that electricians firm in the hokage district? They gave me a conditional, remember?"
he was very wide-eyed, almost jumping up and down on the seat; her own eyes lit up a little – he had been like a moody cow when he got the conditional – his maths grade had been as bad as her own, and wood and metal work (the other one) was not an area he was especially skilled in.
"Even maths?" she asked, beginning to wonder about her own grades.
"Are you listening? I just said that! They sent me a letter telling me they'd accepted the application with my results!"
She stared at him for a few moments as the news sunk into her brain, then she launched her self at him babbling something congratulatory that even she couldn't make out. She had been irritated when he called her away from Killer Bee's without warning, but this was a different kettle of fish.
Sasuke had been after a job as an electrician as far back as she could remember; they had gone to the same primary school, and she remembered he always stole the builders box and hacked away at any plug sockets he could get his hands on with a plastic screwdriver (the teachers hadn't liked that very much).
She was so distracted she didn't notice Tamamo staring at the crayon in her hand.
"This is great and all, but I'd kinda like to see my results too" Naruto told him pointedly, after the small celebration was over.
Sasuke blinked, then looked a little sheepish; he handed her an envelope with her own name on; she rolled her eyes as she opened it up – he had been so hyped up he had taken her results with him.
"watch her" she instructed with a wave towards Tamamo, pulling out her own letter from the envelope.
She scanned her eyes over the paper examining the letters placed beside the different subjects; Art & Design – A, Music – A. Languages: Lightning – B. A slow smile spread on her face at the first three results.
Her art exam hadn't gone as badly as she had first thought. Music had been easy – she had just played her Sax for that, and considering that the owner of the shop she worked at and his kids were from lightning country, and spoke the language fluently, it would have been embarrassing to fail it when she heard it every other day.
"Naruto..."
Sasuke's voice sounded calmer, and a little rushed; he even poked her on the shoulder in an effort to hurry her along.
"Shut up Sasuke, I'm still looking!" she grumbled turning back to the paper.
Maths – C, History – C, Geography – B, Politics – C, Chemistry – A, Hospitality – B, and a B in her native tongue. They were all passes. They were all passes! Holy mackerel and the love of ducks! She hadn't even finished the paper in history! She started again at the paper, intending to make sure she wasn't seeing things, but was interrupted by a savage thump on the shoulder from her boyfriend.
"Ouch! What the hell was-"
"Naruto, Tamamo's walking!" he hissed in amazement pointing at Tamamo.
Her head turned, her eyes wide as she stared t the year old girl; Sasuke was right. She was very shaky, and her steps were tiny, but she was heading towards them, upright, one unsteady foot at a time, her eyes fixed on the crayon she held absently in her hand.
Naruto dropped to the floor onto her knees, crayon clearly in view; Tamamo fixed her eyes on it like a predator and shuffled forward on her wobbly little legs. She wobbled once as she drew closer to her target, putting her hands down to stop herself from toppling completely, then pulled herself back up and continued her journey.
She toppled onto her mothers lap, oblivious to the stun she had just caused her parents, and latched onto the crayon in triumph. Naruto, the first to recover, clamped her arms around the young toddler, and began whirling her around the room, crowing with delight.
"She's walking! She's walking!" she yelled as she danced around, smothering the girl in kisses. It took several moments for Sasuke to catch up, despite being the first to notice.
A laugh escaped from him moments before he joined her, squashing both the red-heads a little, yelling his own tune. The noise was enough to drag Itachi back into the room with Fugaku.
"What on earth is going on now? I could hear you in the garden..." the oldest Uchiha asked, as his eyes were greeted with the cheerful chaos in his living room.
Naruto elbowed Sasuke, forcing him to let go of her. She bent down, placing Tamamo back down, but took a fem moments to mumble something to her, careful to be unheard by Fugaku or Itachi.
"Granddad has one of your crayons in his pocket Tamamo – go get it back okay? It's your green one"
Tamamo was awfully fond of her green crayons, and the one in question had gone missing a few days ago. It was in fact, amongst the pages of a fantasy novel Naruto was reading, serving as a bookmark, but Fugaku and Tamamo didn't know that.
Tamamo stared at her grandfather for a few moments, before toddling over on shaky legs once again, holding her hands out demandingly, making noises that presumably instructed him to hand over her favourite crayon. The two new comers stared at her then at Naruto, who was hopping up and down.
"She's walking! I passed everything, Sasuke's apprenticeship came through, and she's walking! Walking! Walking! Walking!" she chirped excitedly.
Ino was going to be spitting jealous when she heard this! Mujiro hadn't started yet – Ino blamed Shikamaru, accusing him of passing on his laziness. Sakura was going to turn Gaara deaf, and Obito would be cursing – Tamamo already terrified him, and she was hard enough to run away from when she was crawling, but now she was Walking. Walking!
she threw her arms around Sasuke, forcing him to spin around for a moment, deciding this was one time where joyful squealing would be acceptable, before running to find her phone; she felt the sudden urge to video the event and send it everyone she knew and their great uncle twice removed.
It briefly occurred to her that, having reached the walking stage, Tamamo's little jokes and hiding games would be that much more terrorizing, and she would be near impossible to catch, but she didn't care. Everything was the way it should be, and that was good enough for her.
"Naruto, have you thought about going to see Kakashi about finding your parents again?" Sakura asked over the phone.
She and Gaara had both been accepted into National University in the capital, one of the best in the whole country, and communication was only possible with phones and email. Sakura was beginning the long arduous process of becoming a surgeon, and Gaara was doing something to do with food.
"Not really, why?" Naruto answered.
She was on the sofa, apparently watching a children's alphabet programme, but she was beginning to doubt if it was really suitable for kids – the puppets on it weirded her out.
There was the sound of Sakura struggling as she tried to word her answer to the question.
"Things are going well for you right now; you need to start when things are good, if you don't, things will keep popping up that make you push it aside, and you'll never get to it if you do that."
Naruto chewed her lip as Tamamo glared disapprovingly at the TV screen; it seemed she was not very impressed with the programme either, and clambered down from Naruto's lap and toddled into the kitchen. No doubt whatever Mikoto was cooking was far more interesting if it smelled that good.
"I don't know Sakura... I thought everything was going well the last time I tried, and look how that turned out!" Naruto replied tensely, flicking the TV onto a different, slightly more violent channel.
Sakura snorted.
"Naruto, forgive me, but you were being thick headed then; things aren't like that now. Trust me when I say the longer you put this off, the worse it will be if you do find someone – I'm speaking from experience here."
Naruto couldn't exactly argue with that – she had been with Sakura when she finally met her father, and while some of the nervousness had been because she was in the middle of a maximum security prison, most of it had been meeting Sasori for the first time.
"Yeah, but that was the first time you tried! You didn't keep repeating the whole damn mess like I did with Iruka when we were in the orphanage!" Naruto replied, still adamantly trying to keep herself from falling into Sakura's trap.
"...actually, I did try before that, but I didn't find anything then. Either that or Iruka thought I was too young to know the truth, even if I asked – you know how mother hen he can be – anyway... I felt worse because I hadn't tried again after that, because I had left it so long..."
What fresh hell? Sakura had a skeleton? Sakura hated skeletons! She kept her closet so clean even dust wouldn't enter it, and here she had a skeleton? That was her thing! Sakura was stealing her thing!
But skeleton stealing aside, Naruto had to admit Sakura had a point – if any word of that was the truth. Who knew? If Sakura had a skeleton, then doomsday might not be far away.
"I think you should talk to him about it Naruto; it's not like he's going to find anything right away remember? I started looking for Sasori six months before getting past all the legal stuff and finding anything new."
That was also true. Damn Sakura and her ability to point out sense-making things. Damn her and her logic!
There was a mumble from someone else on the other end of the line.
"I know Gaara! I was just about to tell her that! Stop poking me! I'll ask her once I finish talking about the abandonment thing!" Sakura hissed in reply, barley audible, but still loud enough for Naruto to her.
There was more whispering, hushed too low for Naruto to make out, then the sound of Sakura having one of her violent tendencies again (Naruto swore those were the reason she had never been adopted). Moments later the was a scrabble as the phone was picked up again.
"Sorry – back to the point, Kakashi might not even find anything Naruto – Gaara wanted me to remind you that Temari never found their father after he dumped them on the doorstep."
"That may be true, but it's also bull – consider my abandonment thing dealt with for the moment. What did you really call for?"
"Promise me you'll talk to Kakashi first!"
damn it.
"...Urgh. Fine. I promise."
"You promise what?"
Sakura was too damn smart for her own damn good. Damn it.
"I promise I'll talk to Kakashi about finding my parents again! There! Are you satisfied?"
"Yup."
She could feel the smug grin on Sakura's face through her voice.
"Good! I hope you're happy! Now tell me what you called for!"
There was another pause; there was more mumbling from Sakura – worried sounding mumbling. Dozens of nightmarish scenarios flashed through her mind before Sakura returned to the phone.
"Okay... I'm gonna tell you, but you have to promise me you're not going to freak out alright?"
That was not the best of things Sakura could have started off with.
"You'd better not be pregnant; I'll get Itachi to drive me to the capital and kill Gaara myself if you are. And I'll tell Tayuya!"
"I'm not pregnant – I'm not stupid like you"
"I'm not stupid! I took pills! Sasuke forgot the damn condom!"
"Fine – Gaara remembers condoms - but you do raise a good point; Tayuya's going to throw a fit if I don't tell her before someone else does... I'll have to call her after you..."
"Sakura get to the point!" Naruto yelled, frustration growing by the second.
Sakura didn't sound like she was dying, and she was not pregnant, but that still left alcoholism, drugs, debt, and a whole manner of other horrible things. Oh god, what if that jashin freak Hidan from school had dragged her into his freaky cult? Tayuya had mentioned that he went to national as well...
"Give me a moment! This is... I'm nervous alright?"
Dear god this phone call was getting stranger by the minuet; what could Sakura possibly have to say that would make her nervous? They were best friends – there was nothing they didn't know about each other.
Naruto had tried to hide her original attempt at abortion, but she would have told Sakura about it later, even if she'd had no intentions of telling Sasuke. Why was she nervous?
"I... Gaaraaskedmetomarryhim!"
Naruto blinked. She deciphered the rushed babble of words, deciphering them slowly.
"What?" Naruto shrieked.
Of all the things that had been running through her head, that was not one of them; tat was not, strictly speaking, a disaster after all. But still... what?
"what kind of answer is that? You're supposed to say congratulations!"
"I thought that jashin freak had roped you into his cult! I'm a little surprised here! But you're right, congratulations!"
"...What the heck? Hidan? Are you nuts? Hell no! Now we can get down to buisness; can Gaara stay with you for the night next weekend?"
Naruto riffled through her plans for the next few weeks, trying to find anything that it clashed with.
"I'll have to ask Mikoto and Fugaku, but as long as they don't mind he can use my room; why?
"He wants to meet my dad – he's wants his permission or something like that. And I want to know when his parole is coming up! If it's soon, we can get him a lawyer and try for early release, then he can come do that aisle thing! I want the aisle thing! But anyway, next weekend is the only one he has before our half-term tests start. I'd send him to Tayuya, but she's moved in with Juugo, and since Temari and Kankuro live down here now..."
Sakura left the obvious problem floating in the air, and Naruto felt her self nodding in understanding, even if Sakura couldn't see her doing so; it seemed this wasn't quite as mad a decision as she had first thought – Sakura clearly intended to wait before the actual wedding if she was planning on having her dad there.
"Alright – I'll check, but I think it'll be okay." Naruto promised, raising an eyebrow as Tamamo toddled back into the living room with a bowl of something from the kitchen.
The girl held out the bowl beneath her nose – Naruto could see rice and vegetables in a thick spicy kind of soup. It smelled good. Then again, Mikoto's food always smelled good. It always looked edible too – her food still didn't look right, even with Mikoto's tutoring.
"Thank you! Can you go with him to the prison too? I was supposed to go, but my exams start before his do! You know how Gaara is; he can't talk when he get nervous! He might get killed if he turns into a block of wood in the middle of the prison! And he likes you!"
Rhat puzzled her, and Naruto frowned as she took the small spoon that her daughter held in front of her and consumed the contents - it was spicy. It tasted like the food from that Iwan take-out near Killer bee's she sometimes ordered from when she worked a late shift.
She nodded approvingly, and Tamamo brightened, before dashing back into the kitchen seeming rather proud of herself. Naruto supposed Mikoto had allowed her to 'help' her with whatever she was cooking.
"Sakura, I've only met the man once, and that was almost three years ago – how can he like me when I've only met him once?" she asked, thoroughly confused.
"Because I told him about you of course! Did you bang your head today or something?"
No, but she had been watching creepy puppets for two hours before Sakura called, and Sasuke was not around to rescue her from the horror of toddler TV – his boss sounded nice enough (though the thought of all his supposed piercings was creepy), but he didn't seem to know what the word break meant.
Mikoto seemed to think she had overworked herself at Killer Bee's the night before, so she had banned her from doing anything that she deemed too strenuous. Naruto had been taking extra hours recently, wanting to save up some extra money to put with the small pile Sasuke was collecting through his apprenticeship.
They were both desperate to get out of his parent's house now – it wasn't that the help had been unappreciated, but... damn it, she wanted sex without the risk of people walking in, and frankly, Mikoto was getting a little too protective.
That wasn't a bad thing, but they really needed to be by themselves. They had both grown up, and could handle things now; it wouldst be like they would block everyone out this time. They had learned.
"I've been watching toddler TV all day – some of that stuff is enough to make anyone a little off. I can't believe they show it to kids..."
"Whatever! Please go to the jail with Gaara!"
the pleading in her friends voice almost made her laugh – she didn't sound like the Sakura she knew at all – but instead, she reassured the stressed girl.
"I promise your boyf- fiancé will not be eaten by murderers or turn into a block of wood Sakura." Naruto replied, feeling her grin coming back onto her face – Sakura was such a worry wart. She would be a great surgeon.
Sakura ended the phone call with a squeal of thanks and promises to make it back in time for the two October birthdays, when the holidays would begin. she forced Gaara onto the phone for a few moments, but Gaara didn't have much to say other than much of the things already discussed, so that ended quickly.
By the time she had replaced the phone on the hook, Tamamo was standing patiently behind her; the girl was smart, and Mikoto had managed to drill manners into her despite Naruto's awful language – she never spoke when someone was on the phone.
Her first word had been 'Mama', closely followed by 'No', then 'Papa', then 'Tooofu'. She had started talking in may – five months after walking - and while she was an enthusiastic talker, she was a quiet one.
Sometimes her excitement got the better of her though, and then her mouth was just as fast as her mother's was; one notable instance was whenever the deep-fryer came out. She immediately thought of tofu, and began to gabble excitedly about it until someone fried some off and chopped it into toddler-sized pieces.
"Grams made soup! I put mice in!" she told her calmly.
Naruto grinned at her; the pointed tone in her small voice betrayed her excitement more than the word mix up – she had only been talking for three months now, so that was understandable.
"Lucky tyke; that's more than she'll let me do – you put a lot of rice in?"
The girl nodded vigorously, her slate-blue eyes glinting with exhilaration. For the first time in what seemed like months, Naruto found herself wondering where her daughter's eyes had come from. She let Tamamo drag her to the dining room, but her thoughts were not on the food.
Sakura's orders kept coming back to her, and she had mixed ideas on whether she should follow them or not.
Sasuke was staring at a book his new teacher/employer had given him on re-wiring fuseboxes, and he was beginning to thank the gods he had studies so hard for his maths exam – the diagrams alone where near unintelligible. He wasn't anywhere near being let loose on a fusebox yet, but Yahiko told him the early bird always caught the worm.
He didn't really think arguing with a man with almost as many piercings as he had nails was a good idea. Especially when he paid him. He was grateful for Naruto's interruption when she peered around his bedroom door when she did – his glasses had been beginning to hurt his nose.
He hated the things, but near-sightedness seemed to be a defect from his fathers side of the family – Itachi and Obito had glasses too, but he couldn't stand contacts or glasses long enough to stick with one or the other, and often switched.
Naruto hovered on the edge of the doorway, twisting a lock of hair around her fingers nervously, before coming to sit down on the bed beside his desk.
"Sakura called" she started,
Sasuke frowned.
"I know – you told us at dinner remember?" he reminded carefully.
She looked pensive; he hadn't seen her look like that for a long time.
"I know... but she said something else too" Naruto mumbled.
She pulled her knees up to rest her chin on them, frown marring her face slightly. He waited for her to find the words she was looking for patiently – that was always the best rad to take when she was in this kind of mood – she didn't like being backed into a corner.
"She... pointedly suggested that... She thinks I should call Kakashi again" she said quietly; it wasn't a whisper, just quiet, and he turned towards her with surprise on his face.
He wasn't quite as surprised as he perhaps might have been a couple of years previously; since thing things had... cleared, he had finally seen the confusion and questions on Naruto's face every time she looked at Tamamo's.
She had only mentioned her parents in answer when questioned since that time, but she hadn't buried them completely. He doubted she ever would be able to. He could see that much now, so much he wondered how he had missed it before.
"I don't know if it's a good idea or not – I think I want to, but I don't know if I should. So, I'm asking for some help here..."
He gave him a pointed look as she bit her lip – he thought about; he understood Naruto's hesitance, considering what had happened the last time she tried, but it was unfounded. Things were different now.
Besides, Sakura was probably right to point it out; the longer Naruto dragged this around with her, the more of a problem it would be for her. For them. For Tamamo. She needed to get this out of the way.
"I think... Sakura's right. The sooner you find out, the sooner it'll stop following you" he told her calmly.
She considered it for a few moments, staring at the polaroids littering the wall beside his bed – he had amassed quite a collection, but the recent additions included Tamamo. The one she was staring at had been take by Obito when she was still in the hospital, after Tamamo had been born.
Tsunade and Minato were grinning in the background, and he looked like he was about to drop the baby Naruto had just handed him. Tamamo was staring at Obito with a mixed expression of curiosity and terror (presumably from the flash – he remembered that). He knew Naruto was staring at the eyes in that photo, wondering where they had come from.
Naruto mumble something inaudible to her self – it sounded like 'damn it' but he couldn't be sure – before standing up. She paused halfway across the floor, and turned back around, flopping back onto the bed face down.
"I'll go back later" she told him, peering out from the pillow with one eye.
He grunted and turned back to the fusebox book.
Everything was still working.
Yay to the meddling from Fugaku and Tsunade! It was seriously needed.
I don't mention the time changes very blatantly, but please keep them in mind. There will be a few time-skips in this, because if not, there would be no story. I forgot to mention the kanji for Ino and Shikamaru's son last time, so here it is: 山中 貉郎 (Yamanaka, Mujiro)
The 'Muji' comes from '貉' which means 'Badger', or 'Racoon Dog'. The 'Ro' is read as '郎' and means 'Son'.