Epilogue

Itachi gazed out the window, not seeing the view of Konoha or the Monument.

'Dai… why? Why would you leave us all alone?' he thought.

"Father, can we go see Uncle Sasuke and Aunt Sakura? They have to have gotten me some presents!" Zoe said happily as she bounced into the room carrying a small vase with flowers in it.

"Well, it is your birthday, darling." Itachi said with a soft smile at his daughter. At seven years old, she was gorgeous with long sunshine hair that went all the way to her knees and crystal blue eyes. She was currently wearing a bright orange sundress with the Uchiha fan in a pattern circling the hem and neckline in midnight blue.

"Yay! She shouted as she put the flowers down on the table and fixed the arrangement. Before spinning around and flinging herself at him.

With a soft chuckle, he scooped her up and gave her a tight hug. With his nose buried in her hair, he just breathed in her scent, a pain in his chest as her scent was so much like his.

Zoe was used to him just holding her when he missed her papa so she just hugged him back as tight as she could and snuggled her head down on his shoulder. They stood like that for a few minutes, just taking comfort from each other and thinking about the missing part of their family. Finally Itachi released his hold on her, putting her down gently and straightened her dress and smoothed her hair back.

"You look so much like him." He whispered with a soft smile at her. Beaming, she hugged his waist before grabbing his hand and dragging him towards the door.

"Come on! Uncle Sasuke should be home now!" As she pulled him out the door, he turned back to look once more into the room before he closed the door and followed his daughter.

O_O_O_O_O_O_O_O_O_O_O_O

Sasuke sighed as he sat down in a comfortable chair. His wife chuckled as she leaned down to lay a kiss on the top of his head even as she dumped their one year old in his lap as she turned to waddle her way to the kitchen to finish the birthday dinner for their favorite niece.

At eight months pregnant with twins, she wasn't nearly as graceful as she had once been, but she glowed like only a prego could and just looking at her you could see that she was as happy as she could be. "Your son decided that today would be an awesome day to try and help decorate the nursery for the twins." She called as she stirred a pot on the stove.

With a frown, he looked down at the angelic looking boy on his lap. "You did what, Dai?"

With a big grin at his father, Dai babbled happily at him. At a year old, Dai was able to make himself understood to a certain extent, but the rest was completely unintelligible.

"What did he do?" he called down the hall to Sakura.

Laughing quietly to herself for a moment, she called back, "You really need to see it for yourself."

With a grunt, he stood up, keeping Dai in his arms as he did so and headed down the hall past the kitchen, glancing inside at his wife who was laughing into the soup she was making. Stopping outside of the nursery, he looked at the closed door for a moment before turning to his son. "I hope you knew what you were doing when you tried to help." He muttered before gathering his courage and opened the door.

Looking around his eyes softened as he took in the changes Dai had made. There were pink, blue, green and yellow hand prints along the baseboard circling the entire room except where there was furniture against the walls. There were colored streaks on the cribs blue and green on one, pink and yellow on the other. There were also ribbons of color dancing along the walls above the hand prints as high as the little one could reach. Everything was obviously made by a child as they weaved about, but it showed that he was excited about the babies and wanted to do something for them.

"You did a very good job for the babies Dai, but no more painting the walls, ok?" he said as he laid a kiss on the messy hair that now that he was looking closer still had some paint mixed in with the black.

Turning, he closed the door and headed for the kitchen. Brushing the short curtain aside, he walked up behind Sakura and wrapped his free arm around her distended waist and held her close. "The Dobe would be proud of his namesake." He murmured into her hair and she sighed forlornly.

"I miss him so much." She whispered as a tear slid down her cheek.

"I know. He would have been in there helping Dai with his masterpiece, which is pretty good for a one and a half year old you have to admit." He said softly as he hugged her tighter.

Laughing, she shook her head as she pulled out of his grip to grab her oven mitts as the timer rang on the oven. "He would have added the Leaf symbol across the main part of the wall in pink and blue or something and then would have helped him do a ring of handprints across the top of the wall to match the bottom."

Chuckling he agreed even as the doorbell rang and he turned to answer it. Opening the door, he was hit with an orange cannon ball that slammed into him, making him stager back to try and keep his balance. "Happy Birthday Zoe." He said as he handed Dai to Itachi and scooped her up to give her a tight hug.

"Hi Uncle Sasuke!" she exclaimed as she squeezed his neck tightly before pulling back to look him in the face to say in a serious voice. "Did you get me any presents?"

Laughing quietly, he put her down and rubbed his chin as he thought. "Hmmm, I don't think I did. I've been so busy with missions, I haven't had time to go get you anything." He said and her face fell.

"But it's my birthday! I'm seven now and you've never forgot to get me anything before!" she exclaimed as she started up at him in shock.

"Don't tease her. You spoil her more than anyone!" Kakashi said as he popped up in the open doorway with Iruka holding a couple of gifts in their arms.

"Sensei." Sasuke said and gestured for everyone to follow him into the living room.

Entering the room, Zoe shrieked in delight as she saw a small mountain of gifts waiting for her on the low table. Laughing the adults settled around the room as Iruka placed their presents down and hurried towards the kitchen to help Sakura.

Within five minutes the room was full to bursting with the rest of the Rookie 9 as well as Tenten, Lee, and Neji, as well as all of their Sensei's and their children. Sakura, Ino, Tenten, Hinata, and Iruka had brought out the mountain of food Sakura had prepared as well as the dishes most of the other guests had brought and spread them out on a long table against the wall.

"Can we open the presents now?" Zoe begged as she stared at the mountain that stretched far above her head.

"You can open them now," Itachi started to say and suddenly she had disappeared and wrapping paper was flying. "… now." He finished belatedly as the others almost died laughing.

"She is so much like him!" Hinata said with a fond smile as she blinked back tears at the memories of the hyperactive blonde that flooded her mind.

Zoe had caught the softly spoken words and hurried over to give the woman a hug before diving back into the pile. Hinata smiled sadly as it was something Naruto would have done as well.

After every present she would tackle the person who gave it to her and give her a huge hug and kiss before snatching up another one. Though everyone spoiled her as she was the son of their savior and was being raised by only Itachi, she wasn't spoiled. She was a very thoughtful and sweet child who constantly thought of others before herself. She was also doing extremely well in the art of the ninja.

Itachi, being the gifted ninja that he was, as well as having no idea on how to raise a little girl, had begun to teach her taijutsu when she was three and had recently stepped up her training. Half of the presents she was tearing open were scrolls so that she could further her training. At seven years old, she could do the Uchiha fire jutsus as well as anyone and was also working on many others.

Once the presents were finished and Zoe had lavished the last hug and kiss on the givers, Sakura stood up and hurried into the kitchen as everyone pitched into clean up the mess. Once the room was clean the presents stacked on the table again, Sasuke dimmed the lights as Sakura emerged with a massive cake with seven lit candles on it.

"Happy Birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Zoe, Happy birthday to you!" everyone sang as the cake was placed in front of her. Closing her eyes, she was quiet for a moment and then blew the candles out in one go.

"What did you wish for?" Itachi asked as everyone cheered.

"I wished papa could be here." She said quietly and many of the group had to brush away stray tears at the thought that Naruto had missed so many of her birthdays.

"I know he would want to be here, sweetie, if he could." Itachi said as he brushed her hair out of her face with a slightly shaking hand. Throwing herself into his arms, she cuddled into his strong embrace, giving him comfort even as she took the comfort her offered. After a few minutes, they separated and everyone grabbed plates of cake and ice cream and devoured it.

O_O_O_O_O_O_O_O_O_O_O

Hours later, as the sun set in a spectacular sunset; Itachi was back in the room looking out at the Monument. He generally avoided looking at it as it was so painful to see Naruto's face on it along side of the other previous Hokages. Tsunade had proclaimed him Hokage after the battle and no one could refute it after everything he had sacrificed to save them all in that final battle.

"Naruto…" he whispered, soft gray eyes blinking back tears that he refused to let fall. After so many years, the pain still wouldn't cease. It was his constant companion and Zoe could only dull it so much.

With one last glance out the window, he turned to head towards the door, only to be stopped by a sound. Whirling in the doorway he looked back and almost collapsed where he stood. Staggering over, he collapsed into a chair and leaned forward to look into crystal blue eyes he thought he would never get to look into again.

"Ta…chi…" Naruto whispered haltingly.

"Naruto… I've missed you so much." Itachi said, tears falling from his eyes endlessly.

After six years of waiting, Naruto had finally woken up.

A/N:

Tada! It's finally finished! I know this chapter is shorter than my usual chapters, but this was basically just tying up loose ends.

How many of you thought he was dead? Come on, a show of hands! LOL!

I am just so relieved that this is done. Be happy, I lost my job and I almost didn't even work on it! But I took my sister to get a tattoo done and I figured I could work on it. I wrote most of this there and just finished it when I got home. Now, hopefully I will be able to work some more on Death and the Kitten!

Also, as I am writing this, this story has exactly 100 reviews! Yay! I know that isn't a ton compared to may stories on FF. net, but I only have one other story that has more and that has 103. I'm sure I will get some from my lovely reads telling me they either loved or hated the ending so soon, hopefully it will have the most. I'm happy either way!

Shinigami-chan