Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

A/N: The reviewers are saying that the Sasuke-getting-pregnant thing sounds like it might be a good idea, but some of the reviewers are also saying that they don't like the way Cheri and Hemiko's relationship is. Actually, not all twins are buddy-buddy. Two of my own friends are twins and they are exact opposites. Anyway, what I'm getting at is, even being Naruto's and Sasuke's babies wouldn't change the way the girls are. Actually it's more likely for them to be this way seeing as they are Sasuke and Naruto's babies. You gotta remember - Naruto and Sasuke loved each other through hating one another.

And besides, I'm planning on making things better, so don't worry.

So enough of my stupid ranting now, read the freaking chapter. (lol)

It took Cheri another two days before she was able to find that room in the mansion again. The first day she had simply forgotten about it, and upon remembering it discovered that it was already too late to search for it anyway. Since it was still wintertime, the sun set early, and it would be pointless if she found the room in the dark. The next day, she made sure to remember, and rushed to find the room as soon as she was home from school. Hemiko can handle all the chores today, she thought smugly. For now Cheri was going to be losing herself within the depths of the mansion.

It took Cheri an hour or so to find the door once she started looking. She had just started to worry that she wouldn't have time to find it before the sun went down when suddenly she came across the first hallway with all of its doors open, indicating that she was finally on the right path. She followed the next few halls, trying to memorize the way she was going. Left turn, then right, then right again. Finally, a hallway with one of it's doors closed. It was the door that had been locked the other night. Now, what was in it?

Excitement filled her, the blood rushed in her veins. What kind of secrets had she unlocked? Would she finally have some clue as to who had lived in this mansion before her family? Smiling to herself, Cheri stepped up and promptly opened the door.

There actually was one small window in the room, one that she hadn't noticed the other night. Little light showed through, but it was enough. She frowned. She had expected something... more. But the room was completely empty, all but for the dust. Her feet left tracks through the thick layer of it on the floor, causing her eyes to water. Dust swirled all around her as she made her way across the little room over to the window. She coughed and sneezed and rubbed at her watery eyes. It took a surprising amount of effort for Cheri to be able to get the window open, but eventually she managed it.

Turning back, frowning on the empty room, it was then that she made the decision. She would clean up this part o the mansion, make it habitable again. At least it would give her something to do, and then maybe... maybe they could put these old rooms to use again somehow. After all, they couldn't just allow an entire part of the mansion to rot while they used only one little piece of it. What had been going through her fathers' minds all these years, leaving these rooms abandoned like that?

Suddenly, Sasuke appeared at the doorway, his eyes wide, and looking surprised to see her there. "Cheri?"

She smiled lightly at him. "What's up dad?" she asked casually.

He glanced warily around the inside of the room, his eyes lingering on the dusty floor. He hesitated before speaking. "What are you doing in here?"

Cheri was confused. What was that guarded tone in his voice? She'd never heard it coming from him before. Was it fear? She shrugged it off. Perhaps it was mere curiosity, and she was just letting her mind get carried away with her. "I'm gonna clean this place up, dad, so we can use the rooms again. I mean, jeez, how long's it been since actual people lived in this part of the mansion? I can't believe you let it get this bad."

Sasuke didn't reply for a while. He just kept looking around the inside of the room. Finally, he took his eyes from it, and they strayed somewhat sadly to the hallway. "Come on, your sister was worried about you. She called for you, but she couldn't find you anywhere."

Like hell she was worried about me, Cheri thought sarcastically as she crossed the room. Sasuke took one of his hands from his pocket and covered his nose because of the stirring dust, his eyes straying back to the dirty floor once again. But he smiled when she stepped up to him. "Look at you, you're filthy." He rubbed a thumb across one cheek, and she pulled out of his reach. "There are smudges of dirt on your cheeks. Come on, let's go clean up, and then we'll start supper."
She nodded. "Alright." Cheri closed the door behind her before they started off down the hallway.

After school the next day, Cheri hurried home. Hemiko called after her to wait up, but Cheri ignored her. Upon arriving home, she went off toward her new room, reminding herself that she would eventually have to move the rest of her things to there from her old room. Cheri decided that opening the windows and tackling the dust in the rooms was probably the wisest thing to do first. She figured that sweeping first was the simplest thing to do, and afterwards she could work on anything else that needed working on, taking this job bit by bit. It would probably take several days just to get a few of the hallways done though, so she realized that this was not something she would enjoy doing. She wasn't even sure why she was doing it. But she'd do it anyway.

The first hallway she began to clean was the one where her own bedroom resided. She opened all the windows in each room and began to sweep up the dust and the dirt. She coughed and sneezed quite a bit, but continued to work. She began with the hallway itself. Once she was satisfied with that, she began taking on the rooms one by one. She decided that she would have to mop the next day.

Night fell sooner than she expected. Had she really been working for so long already? She cleaned herself up - if her father had thought she was a mess the day before, he should see her now - and then made her way to the kitchen only to find that her family had already eaten, and her food was cold. Scrunching her nose at the food left on the table for her, she grabbed an apple instead and went to find her father.

She found her family out back with a few friends - Ayame and Amaya's parents, Hinata and Neji Hyuga. Cheri had never really gotten the chance to know her friends' parents, but they seemed nice enough. Neji, though, she didn't talk to so much, because he always seemed so serious. It was discomforting when he stared directly at her, face expressionless, whenever she said anything to him. Hinata though had always been very kind to Cheri. She was a beautiful woman; she had long flowing hair, and purple eyes without any pupils, just like Amaya and Ayame's eyes were. Actually, Neji and Hinata both had long flowing hair and strange purple eyes. Sometimes you could almost mistake one for the other; it was really quite funny.

Cheri approached the little group with caution, but upon seeing her, Naruto's face lit up with a large grin. "There's my girl," he exclaimed laughing, pulling her in for a rough hug. "Whew! Your hair smells all musty. What've you been doing Cheri?"

Ignoring the question, she turned to her other father and asked, "Do you know where I could find some lamps and light bulbs?" She asked Sasuke because every time there was something they needed to find in a part of the house, he always seemed to know where it was - every time she asked her father, Naruto, about where something was he only ever said that he'd have to ask Sasuke. Also, the reason why she needed the lamps and the light bulbs anyway was because only a few of the rooms in the old part of the mansion had electricity, but the bulbs in them were all blown, and she'd need oil lamps to see her way around inside the rooms that didn't have electricity installed yet. She'd also found that some of the rooms in the old part of the mansion actually had things in them - old boxes, furniture covered with dusty brown and grey sheets... things like that.

Sasuke thought for a moment. "Lamps and light bulbs?" he repeated.

"Yeah. Like, a lot of them."

"Well... I think I might know where a bunch of old lamps might be, but you'll have to wait on the light bulbs."

She smiled at him. "Okay," she said, picturing in her head the way the rest of the mansion would be by the time she was done with it - and what kind of secrets she might unveil. "Can you show me where the lamps are, then?"

"Sure. Go on inside and I'll be there in just a second."

"Okay dad." She gave him a quick hug.

"Nice seeing you again Cheri," Hinata commented as Cheri headed for the house.

"You too!" she replied.

"Oh, the girls are in the house by the way. I think they've been looking for you."

"Oh, okay. I'll go find them."

But there was no need for Cheri to go searching - she ran into the twin girls as she reentered the house. Cheri grinned upon seeing them. "Oh hey you guys. What's up?"

Ayame and Amaya shared a look. It was creepy how they did that. Sometimes it was almost like they could read each other's minds. "What have you been up to Cheri?" Amaya asked.

"We've been looking for you for a while," Ayame picked up, "but you weren't in your room."

"Hemiko said she didn't know where you were. And she was all pissed off 'cause something about you didn't help her with the chores. She called you some very nasty names."

Cheri crossed her arms and leaned nonchalantly against the doorframe. "Yeah," she scoffed. "Wouldn't be surprised if she did that everyday anyway."

Ayame and Amaya nodded simultaneously, the exact same mix of sympathy and understanding on each of their faces, even though neither of them really understood what it was like to be at odds with their siblings. It was discomforting how they did little things like that - like moving at the same time, speaking the same thoughts at the same time, getting the same exact grades and how they liked all the same things. They were inseparable, and they'd never once fought as far as Cheri knew. Sometimes she wondered if they really could read each other's minds, but somehow she'd just never gotten around to asking; Cheri had become somewhat used to their behavior by now.

It was sad though, to see how other twin girls their own age acted. Ayame and Amaya were so close, and the only thing Cheri and Hemiko seemed to be "so close" to was hating each other. For a moment - just a moment - Cheri envied her two friends, but then she shook the feeling off and thought of how much a bitch Hemiko really was, and how the hell could she ever get along with that?

"Well I've been working on a kind of project," Cheri said, coming back to the conversation at hand.

"A project?" Amaya asked.

Cheri nodded. "Yeah. Wanna help?"

And that was what really started "Mission Mansion Clean-Up." From that day onward Amaya and Ayame were there at the mansion helping her everyday after school. Neji and Hinata saw no problem with it, and most of the time it even gave them an excuse to visit their old friends, Cheri's fathers. And eventually some of Cheri's other friends began to join in. Yasashiku wasn't very big on it, as one would imagine, but somehow Amaya had convinced him to come and help. It was strange really, almost as if he returned the feelings she had for him. And he probably did, but Cheri didn't ask. It was none of her business. Anyway, most of her friends' parents felt the same as Neji and Hinata did - at least they could come and visit Naruto and Sasuke more often now.

It was nice to have everybody there, really. Sometimes Cheri's fathers would throw big dinner parties for all of their friends and Cheri's friends, and sometimes a few of Hemiko's friends were invited as well but they never really joined in the festivities. Most of the time, actually, Hemiko would leave, seeing as how she didn't really like any of Cheri's friends. Cheri figured her sister was probably going over to her friend's houses, or maybe even out training, but then again Hemiko had never been the hard-working type. In any case, Cheri found herself feeling... much more alive lately. Better. Whole. She could take a deep breath and feel the air filling up her lungs like a thirsty man taking his first gulp of ice cold water (except for whenever she was surrounded by dust of course). She was much happier now, and she was seldom lonely, because even when all her friends couldn't be there, at least some of them were.

The sadness that had filled her so completely whenever she was at home before was now finally wearing off.

She was glad for it.

And then there was the day she learned Big Secret #1 (only number one because there were more to come), and somehow she felt betrayed all over again.

It was a Saturday, and it was the very first time when not a single one of her friends could come over and help out at the mansion. And besides, they were all beat. Working so much lately was really wearing them out, though Cheri herself was still as determined as ever. Since her father had found all the lamps and the oils and the light bulbs she was now able to work whenever she pleased, day or night. And she managed to get a lot of work done, even on her own. Actually she was sort of glad that her friends were not going to be there that day, because ironically enough they had finally managed to reach the hallways with the locked door she had had so much trouble with before, and she would be working on that room. Somehow, it just felt like she had been meant to find that room. There was a reason she had found it, and there was a reason it had been locked, and she would find out what those reasons were. Perhaps today she would find something - some kind of old memory - hidden beneath all that dust. Or maybe there was something hidden beneath the floorboards or inside the walls. Cheri had thought quite a bit about that room for some reason. She couldn't figure out why it seemed so significant to her.

So when she got home, she ran to the old part of the mansion. By now Hemiko had gotten used to Cheri not helping her out with the chores, and their fathers never said a word against it. Cheri was cleaning house after all - just a different part of the house. "Why is she even bothering cleaning a part of the house that nobody uses anyway?" Hemiko had complained one day at dinner, absolutely fuming. "I mean, what's the point?" Nobody had answered, but Cheri had continued doing her work anyway.

Cheri ran down perfectly clean hallways - everything dusted and polished and straightened up. Every floor mopped so that now instead of kicking up dirt her feet tapped lightly on the faintly shining wood. You could definitely tell where the work had stopped, to say the least, and she slowed down so that she would not have the familiar presence of dust in her nose and eyes. Cheri slowly approached the one room with it's door closed. This was the next hallway she and her friends needed to work on, and she had made sure that every door besides that particular one was open, so that she'd know when they came across it. She smiled when she entered the room, coughed once because of the dirt, and began to get to work.

Thirty minutes into it, she went to the kitchen to get the mop and the soaps ready. She had swept up all the dust for the most part - tedious but satisfying work. Cheri had not found anything of interest in the room yet - other than a small stain on the floor, and that was pretty normal - but that was to be expected she supposed.

In the process of filling a bucket with water and soap, Sasuke's voice interrupted her thoughts. "Working again?" he asked quietly, and there was that strange sound in his voice again; that guarded tone, a mix of sadness and fear. It confused her, really. She turned to look at his face, but it was strangely expressionless.

"Yeah," she replied, turning back to what she was doing.

"If I may ask, why are you doing all this, Cheri?"

She grunted as she lifted the now full bucket and sat it at her feet. "I don't know," she said with a tired sigh, and she leaned back against the sink, propping her elbows up behind her. "I just feel like it's something I have to do - something I'm supposed to do. There is so much more than dust back there, dad. People used to live back there. This mansion was once another family's home. I think about the people who made this place and the people who used to live here and all the memories they made and I wonder how they would feel if they saw it being put to waste. It's a beautiful mansion dad - once you get it fixed up a little bit." She didn't quite know what else to say, so she trailed off.

Sasuke didn't move or reply, and she studied his expression carefully. There was no frown or smile, his eyes did not dance like they usually did but they looked down at the floor. Cheri had the strange urge to hug him, though that was a little weird. Hemiko was the one Sasuke doted on all the time - he hardly seemed like he cared much about Cheri. Sometimes she wondered if he loved her at all, and sometimes she voiced her worriea aloud to Naruto, who would only chuckle and calle her silly, saying that she had nothing to worry about. But where was the proof? Where was the love that Naruto always spoke about - the love that Sasuke supposedly had for Naruto and their two children? Cheri rarely ever saw it, and even when she did she was rarely ever the one receiving any of it.

"Did you ever know the people who used to live here dad?" she asked suddenly. "The people who did use that old part of the mansion?"

If anything, Sasuke's expression only became more reserved. "Yeah," he said quietly and with a small, reluctant nod. "Yeah, I knew them."

"Really? What were they like?" she asked.

He waited a long time to reply, but at the moment he opened his mouth to speak, Naruto entered the room with a big grin on his face. "There she is!" he said laughing and he walked up to Cheri and tickled her sides like she was a little girl again. She laughed and stepped out of the way, careful not to tip over the bucket at her feet. "Isn't she getting so tall Sasuke?" Naruto boasted, but Sasuke was already gone.

"Where'd he go?"

Cheri shrugged. "I dunno. He's been acting funny lately. But I gotta get back to work now okay?"

He smiled and nodded. "Okay," and with a kiss on the forehead he left the room too, following after Sasuke and calling his name.