Betas: ashcat (here at fanfiction[dot]net ) and txilar (at livejournal[dot]com).

Chapter 7: The Measure of Worry

Worry is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained.
~Arthur Somers Roche

"Run!" Someone said hoarsely, almost a shout, and Iruka flinched. He was racing across a bleak, muddy landscape, urged along desperately. "Come on, hurry!"

Iruka was confused. "What's going on--"

The words dried up in his throat when he saw the face of the person dragging him through this wide field of mud. It was Kakashi, but he was dressed oddly... was that a Mist forehead protector?

"They're close." Kakashi's breathing was shockingly loud and quick. "We must hurry."

"Run!" Kakashi snapped out again, and Iruka obeyed. He knew he could move much faster if he took his dragon-form, but then that would mean he would leave Kakashi behind, and he didn't feel strong enough as yet to carry both him and their child.

He fought down a cool sliver of panic as they splashed their way through the foul-smelling bog: he would never leave his husband. They needed each other; and there was that precious bundle strapped to his back, and they needed to leave to keep that bundle safe.

Kakashi suddenly drew up short, as if he had run into a stone wall. Iruka actually ran ahead of him for a few steps, before the tight grip Kakashi had on his hand yanked him back. When he landed heavily on his knees in the mud, the expression in Kakashi's exposed eye made his blood run cold, and then Iruka saw something else that made it freeze almost completely.

There was a row of bright senbon down one side of Kakashi's neck, glinting in the fog that was rolling in.

"Go," he whispered, and the clammy lock of his fingers around Iruka's hand loosened; he collapsed face-first onto the wet earth. Iruka took a quick, sobbing breath and then unstrapped the warm bundle from his back; he used one foot to roll over Kakashi's limp body, so that he wouldn't suffocate in the mud, then placed the tightly wrapped blankets on the driest part of Kakashi's chest that he could find. Then, he stood, and took another breath. He was so tired, but he would have to change. It wouldn't take a moment to shed this human form, this camouflage he lived in so that he could be with his love. Now he would unleash the power of an irate water-dragon on these hunters; they had given their loyalty to this nation, and this was how they were repaid.

Then Iruka would take this payment; and he would take it in blood.

But when he opened his eyes, caught in that breathless pause right before transformation, Iruka saw needles flying in the air towards him, their impact like quick bites into his skin. As he fell, his limbs numb, he saw the blankets on Kakashi's chest wriggle; a tiny hand poked out of the blue wrappings, waving in an almost cheerful fashion. Iruka reached out for the little fingers, but saw a shuriken spinning in the air towards them, sharp edged whirling with deadly intent towards their baby--

Iruka snapped out of his sleep almost violently, thrashing in the sheets. He struggled to sit up, shoving the heavier blankets away as he dragged in deep, whooping breaths; then he groaned, clutching at his stomach. The wards buzzed around him in a worried fashion and Iruka shook his head slowly, as if trying to reassure them. There was an overly distended sensation in his belly, which made it feel as hard as a rock. After a few moments, in which he could feel his pulse thumping in his ears, the rigid feeling began to subside... but very slowly.

"What are you doing in there," he muttered at the baby, and began to control his breathing. The odd dream he had had was fading fast, and Iruka fought to hold onto the fleeting images. His mother had never told him the details of their first attempt to escape Mist. She had only said that they had been captured when trying to leave; other details he had filled in himself, distressing information gleaned from sneaking out the file that was a record of the Umino family's petition for asylum. He had gone to sleep thinking about the child, and how accepting the village would be about their presence... or not, and his imagination had taken care of the rest.

Obviously, he was a little more concerned over that than he had thought.

He was actually worried over a lot of things. Just because he was a good teacher didn't mean he would be a good parent; could he really hold a child's complete future in his hands? He couldn't send the boy or girl home to their parents. He was the parent, and that meant everything he did and said would be of great influence. What would happen when Iruka had to go on missions? He made a mental note to ask Kurenai about that. And Kakashi... he had been in that dream. Iruka had no intention of letting him shirk his responsibility. He had grimly vowed to himself that as soon as the Copynin was back, Iruka would take him to task. They wouldn't be together, that was painfully obvious (and obviously painful for Blue, at the very least) but... their child would know both parents. Iruka would make sure of that.

Iruka rubbed his stomach and sighed.

"Iruka-sensei," Natsu said from the other side of his door. "Can I come in?"

Iruka was about to say no, then changed his mind. "Please do, Natsu-san."

The door was pulled open quickly and Natsu slipped in with a breath of cool night air. Iruka reached over and switched on the small lamp on the table next to his bed, then looked up at Natsu's dispassionate mask, trying to smile and failing. Worry was creeping up in between his ribs and resting heavily on his chest, even as the odd feeling in his stomach smoothed away even more.

"Are you in pain?" Natsu asked, and took a step back to the door. "I'll go get Toshiaki."

"Wait," Iruka said and inhaled deeply before letting the breath out from between pursed lips; he made an effort to quell the distress in his own mind and listened to what his body was telling him. "Wait... I think I'm feeling better now." He smiled up at the ANBU and rubbed his stomach.

Natsu nodded and then took another step to the door; then he stopped. Iruka stared at him curiously when he turned his head and said, "Fuyu."

"Yes," Fuyu answered from the other side of the door. A world of conversation occurred in the space of those two simple words, apparently, because Natsu closed the door and stood there for a few beats, before reaching up and yanking his mask off.

Iruka blinked as Naruto crossed the room quickly and knelt by his side. He snatched up Iruka's closest hand and held it tightly; the metal of his arm-bracers glinted in the warm lamplight, and the weave of his gloves was rough against the skin of Iruka's palm. His eyes were large and worried.

"Are you sure you're okay?" he whispered, as if Fuyu was out there taking disapproving notes on his ANBU conduct. "I mean, I can stay here and Fuyu can go for Toshiaki. Is something wrong with the baby? Oh man, Iruka-sensei, don't let anything happen to the baby, please. You've been gardening too much, that's the problem, in the hot sun all morning and the dirt! That's totally not good for the baby. I'm sure I read that somewhere, I--"

"Naruto," Iruka cut in, simultaneously surprised and bemused at the wave of words. "I won't let anything happen to this baby... at least, I'll do everything within my power to make sure everything goes fine."

"Okay," Naruto sighed out and the sound was so relieved that Iruka had to let out an amazed chuckle.

"Do you think I would actually do something bad to the baby?"

"No!" Naruto cried out, aghast and snapped a guilty gaze over his shoulder at the still-closed door. He returned his bright blue eyes back to Iruka. "No... that's... I'm sorry. That came out wrong." He dropped his gaze and looked so forlorn that Iruka pulled his hand free and placed his arm around Naruto's drooped shoulders, giving him a rough hug.

"It's just that I've always wanted a family," Naruto continued in a low tone, tracing the patterns on Iruka's remaining light sheet with one finger. "When I was kid, I used to see all these happy kids with their moms and dads... and I really want something like that."

Iruka swallowed past the lump in his throat.

"And then I got you, and... and it was like having a big brother and a dad all in one. That was so awesome." Naruto smiled at the sheets, a sweet expression that lifted the corners of his lips. Iruka hugged him even tighter. "Now," and here his gaze shifted to lock on Iruka's stomach. "There's this baby and I just want to make sure that everything is perfect. The world isn't a great place, but... but we can make it awesome, right?" He finally met Iruka's gaze, and then smiled.

For his part, Iruka felt as if his heart was just as swollen as his belly; only instead of a baby, there was pure love. He pulled Naruto close and pressed a kiss to his forehead, at a complete loss for words to express how he felt. His stomach and Naruto's light armour made this operation very awkward, but Iruka couldn't care less.

"Aw, Iruka," Naruto said. He unleashed one of his brighter grins. "You're going to make such a good parent, you know that?"

"And you'll be a good brother," Iruka managed, albeit a little hoarsely; his fears from before were briefly allayed by Naruto's confident tone. "I'll need your help, you know."

Naruto nodded and then reluctantly pulled away from Iruka's hold. He stood, but before he put his ANBU mask over his face, he said, "It's almost morning. As soon as it gets light and Aki and Haru get here, we're going for Toshiaki. Okay?"

"Okay," Iruka answered with a firm nod, and settled back into bed, arranging the sheets over his legs. He reached out a hand to the lamp as the ANBU mask went on and Natsu was again standing in front of him.

"Rest," Natsu commanded, and Iruka extinguished the light. His door swung open silently, a sliver of vague darkness in the deeper night of his room, before all was fully pitch-black again. Iruka tried to find a comfortable spot, poking at his pillows in irritation. The extra strain on his body caused him to experience a dull, constant pain in his hips and back. The medin-nins said that this was normal, since Iruka's frame simply wasn't originally designed to carry the weight in such a manner, even though there had been some helpful changes inside his body due to his water-dragon nature; those long and technical explanations hadn't helped Iruka to discover the best position in which to rest. After finding a spot that seemed fairly comfortable, he finally managed to fall asleep again.

This time, his rest saw no desperate attempts at escape... but he dreamed about a laughing child.

*

"Iruka!" Toshiaki hurried into the kitchen with a worried expression. He set his medical satchel on the kitchen table and took hold of Iruka's arm, pulling him away from where he was perusing a recipe. It had turned out to be such a warm day and Iruka was a little cranky at the heat; his hair stuck limply to his neck, and his clothing felt as if they were wound too tightly around him, exposing how big he felt to the entire world... never mind that the entire world consisted of just ANBU and Toshiaki for now.

As he walked, Iruka discovered that he was actually waddling, and he found he didn't like that at all.

"What happened last night?" Toshiaki demanded as he almost carried Iruka towards a nearby chair. Iruka seized him by the arms and held on tight, squeezing a little until his old friend looked in his face, confused.

"The wards don't like when you grab me like that," Iruka said and nodded up towards the ceiling of the kitchen. Toshiaki looked up and raised his eyebrows. The sealing-lines of the wards were actually visible, crackling along the join of the walls and ceiling. They flashed a sullen grey-blue, the colour of the sky before a storm.

"Also," Iruka continued, taking the seat by himself while the Hatake wards began to calm down. "You don't have to carry me around. I'm pregnant, not dying."

Toshiaki appeared abashed. "I'm sorry. But when Natsu told me you had some strange episode last night, I... well, never mind about me," he finished briskly, turning back for his satchel and rummaging through it. Belatedly, Iruka remembered the story of Toshiaki's wife, Kumiko. There had been serious complications during the birth of their first child. Not even the desperate work of the medi-nins had made a difference, and Toshiaki himself had been hurrying from a distant village, but it had been too late for both her and the baby.

Toshiaki withdrew a small crystal hung on a cord of worn leather and pulled a chair close. He raised his hands to form a seal, but Iruka stopped him with a light touch to his arm.

"Thank you so much for your concern," Iruka told him with a warm smile. "Your care...it means so much to me."

"Ah," Toshiaki answered gruffly. "It's what must be done, yes?" He patted Iruka's hand with great affection. "Now, let's take a look. Your seal?"

With little effort, Iruka released the seal and watched the scales appear on his skin; then, he sat back in his seat and watched the medi-nin at work. Toshiaki went through his hand-seals and formed his forefingers and thumbs into a triangle; the crystal hung in this space, reflecting bright chips of light as it dangled. A thin pink barrier of chakra shimmered within the borders of Toshiaki's fingers; he held them right over Iruka's stomach, moving them slowly around and muttering in a slightly breathless fashion.

Iruka tried to remain silent, but he couldn't help bursting into questions as soon as Toshiaki finished, barely remembering to reinstate his seal. "Is everything alright? Is the baby safe?"

Toshiaki didn't answer, at least not in words. He looked right into Iruka's eyes, and smiled widely. Iruka let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding. How amazing this feeling was; it seemed to trickle from his very soul, filling the pores of his skin. If he felt this way without seeing his child, how would he feel when the baby was in his arms?

"And, Iruka," Toshiaki said with a growing smile. "Don't you want to know?"

"Know what?" Iruka asked, a little lost.

"If the baby is a boy or a girl."

Iruka actually stared down at his own rounded stomach in shock. A boy or a girl; a boy, probably with... with Kakashi's fair colouring; or a girl, with Iruka's darker hair and skin. Or even the other way around!

"Not yet," he said softly, grinning to himself. As a child, he had loved secrets, and here was another; an even larger, more precious one. "Not yet."

"You know, I was a little surprised to see that you weren't carrying twins or triplets." Toshiaki was replacing the crystal in his satchel. "In my research, water-dragons can carry up to nine dragonlets. Did you know that water-dragons are the only kind of dragons that undergo live birth? Well, it only looks like live birth, actually. Water-dragons are ovoviparous, that just means that the mother retains the eggs in her body until they're ready to hatch. Other kinds of dragons just lay eggs."

"Nine," Iruka said faintly, still stuck at that point in Toshiaki's impromptu lecture on dragon anatomy. He couldn't even get to the egg part yet. "Nine."

"...babies." The sound of Toshiaki's voice seemed to come from so far away, fighting its way through the massive shout of NINE BABIES in Iruka's head. He vaguely noticed that Natsu and Fuyu had entered the kitchen; they were obviously suspicious of how Iruka's face appeared (he was probably as pale as a ghost). "Are you listening to me, Iruka-kun?"

"I..." he swallowed heavily. "I think having nine babies would kill me, Toshiaki-san."

"Nine!" Natsu's muffled voice escaped from behind his porcelain concealment; he was obviously so shocked, that his Naruto-personality had come bleeding right through the Natsu-mask. "What the hell?!"

Fuyu pinched him, but the action was more reflexive than warning. Clearly, Fuyu was just as unsettled by this information as they all were.

"Of course you can't carry nine, Iruka," Toshiaki answered, frowning at the ANBU before returning his gaze to Iruka. "You're half-human, that's an important variable. One is really all your body can manage."

"Oh, awesome!" Natsu cried in sheer relief. "Because one is so much better than nine."

"Just shut up," Fuyu advised in bored tones.

"I think you should name your baby after that handsome and awesome Naruto," Natsu advised, unusually chatty today. "Naruto is a fantastic name, I think."

"Why do you keep opening your mouth when nothing sensible ever comes out of it?" Fuyu asked in flat despair but a few questions were bubbling up in Iruka's brain.

"Toshiaki," he said in a low voice. "My mother... she was a full-blooded water-dragon. Do you... do you think she had more than one child? When she had me?"

Toshiaki's kind expression was sewn through with sadness. The ANBU were suddenly gone from the kitchen, as silent as shadows... but Iruka knew they were still somewhere close, watching and listening.

"I thought so when I first met your mother, and now after all this extra research I've been doing, my suspicions are being confirmed," Toshiaki said quietly. "More than likely, they died during those times that your parents tried to leave Mist. I've read that water-dragons will not properly bring their dragonlets to term when they are under undue stress or in captivity. Your mother never said anything to me," Toshiaki answered his question before Iruka could ask it. "But now that I look back, at things she used to say... how she looked at other parents with larger families..."

Iruka swallowed heavily and dropped his gaze, staring at the dark floor of the kitchen without really seeing it. He knew that for himself; whenever they had a chance to take a stroll through the bustling town, his mother would sometimes stare wistfully at civilian parents who were trailed by three or four boisterous children. Shinobi parents usually had just one or two, which was why the Umino family fit in so well with other ninja households, but he had picked up on his mother's yearning. How awful it must have been for his parents to go through that amount of loss. He wasn't sure how he would react if... if he lost...

"But they had you." Toshiaki's tone was bracing and Iruka nodded, still not looking up. "I remember when you had a very bad cold, and your mother brought you in to see me that first time. You were... one? Almost two, I should say. You were sneezing and coughing, but that didn't stop you from hauling down all the books from the shelves in my office!"

Iruka had to chuckle; his current despondent mood, the disquieting thought that he could have grown with brothers and sisters, began to lift.

"And when Ren tried to stop you, you looked up at her and said, 'My books, they're mine.' You spoke very clearly, even at that age. I remember thinking, what a remarkable little boy. And you still are."

"Not so little," Iruka quipped, regaining some of his wry equilibrium as he jerked his chin at his stomach and then smiled up at Toshiaki. "You were like a father to her, you know."

Toshiaki beamed. "And so your baby makes me a great-grandfather now!" he laughed. Iruka blinked at him for a moment, then burst into laughter himself.

*

Iruka dug in the back-garden, Aki hovering over him with an anxious air; he thought that Aki was probably female, because they had a slender, shorter frame than the other ANBU; also, Aki seemed to be more in-tune with Iruka's wants. There were times when he didn't have to ask for a utensil that he needed, for Aki would retrieve it and hand it over silently before he said a word. Haru was on the roof of the compound now, silently keeping watch.

Aki took the small spade he was digging with and handed him a seedling. Iruka nodded, armed the sweat away from his forehead and got back to work. He carefully placed the seedling in the hole he had made and covered it with dark, fragrant earth. Toshiaki said that as long as he felt able, the gardening wouldn't be too much of a strain. However, as soon he felt out of sorts, he should stop immediately. The way Toshiaki said 'immediately', it had been bolded and underlined five times in Iruka's mind. He felt a little exhausted right now and he snorted in half-amusement, half-exasperation. Just a few months ago, he could have worked all day on such a task; he had been at this for just a little under an hour now, and he already wanted to take a nap.

He was promising himself a nice long sleep before lunch, right after he placed the tomato seedlings in the earth, when the chakra-wards shimmered; yet, they didn't seem to have the usual urgency when they were alerting him to the presence of a stranger. Many times the wards would drive him crazy because a bird had flown across their borders and set them off; they were that sensitive, but now they seemed very...muted.

At almost the same time, Haru leaped down from his look-out and stood next to Iruka; Aki was on his other side in a bare second, helping Iruka to his feet before pulling out their katana.

"A pair of strangers just walked right in the front gates," Haru reported in a gruff, low voice. "We haven't been notified of any visitors. Aki, you are to take Iruka-sensei away from here right now."

"Yes," Aki answered and replaced their sword quickly, putting an arm around Iruka's shoulders. Iruka brushed the dirt from his hands and was preparing himself to be lifted, when two dark shadows suddenly appeared at the wide exit of the back-corridor and stood there, cloaks fluttering slightly in the early morning breeze. The plan changed without a signal: Haru simply took up a protective stance in front of Iruka; beside him, Aki's gloved fingers snapped through seals and two clones were created. Aki remained on his left, one Aki-clone took the rear-guard and the final clone protected Iruka's right side. Iruka peered over Haru's wide shoulder and frowned, staring at the hooded figures; the features were completely hidden. They were like ghosts in the daytime and Iruka clenched his fists against the protective wave that was bubbling in his chest, for the baby.

But this was so odd; no-one should have passed through those sealed family wards so easily without Iruka giving them leave... unless...

"...unless you're Hatake," Iruka whispered and then bit his lower lip. Hope, and a emotion that tried to be hostility but didn't come close, welled up in him. "Kakashi?"

Neither of the strangers answered. Then, the closest one raised a fully-gloved hand and pulled back their hood. The other followed after the slightest hesitation.

Kakashi stood there, looking at the overturned dirt of the garden as if he had never seen more interesting soil in his entire life. Iruka recognized the other person as well; Kakashi's kōhai, Yamato, stood behind him, his dark eyes solemn.

"Hm," Kakashi said in very casual tones. "My mother loved tomatoes."