"We already know."
…beep…beep…beep…
Red eyes blaze open, black tomoe dancing in a deadly ring. What hits first is not a sight nor a sound but a smell. Sterile. Clean. Hospital. Sitting upright, the patient blinks away her medically-induced grogginess. Outside her window is a familiar sight, a sight that she should not have been able to see again. Konoha.
"Uchiha-san!" the young nurse by the door dropped her clipboard and scrambles to pick it up, "You're finally awake—"
"Where are they?" the jonin cuts in immediately, "Where is my family?"
Both women already knew the answer.
The nurse tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and readjusts the paperwork in her arms. She politely turns her back to the patient, pretends not to hear the other woman sniffle, and pushes the door closed behind her. She has a supervisor to inform.
-0-
Sasuke was all but inseparable from his mother before That Night. Their stay in the hospital is no different. So, of course she wakes up on his first day back at the Academy. He sprints through the village, willing the path between the Academy and the hospital to shorten. Passing the recently-familiar faces at the front desk and second floor, Sasuke finally reaches his destination.
The third floor of the hospital fills with silence except for two voices. He wishes for his own to become known.
"Kaasan!"
"Sasuke-chan!" A woman with a bandaged neck covered by a hospital night gown smiles broadly at him. In between the mother and son reunion stands the Saidaime Hokage, a wooden pipe sitting in his hands. The Professor watches the young boy, who for his first week of revival neither slept, wept, nor ate more than a bowl of rice. Now, as though his emotions return to him, the boy bounds over to his mother, weeping into her shoulder.
Several minutes of sobs taper to the child dozing off on her shoulder. Mikoto looks at her son with the Sharingan, ingraining his living breathing whole safe image into her mind. She thinks of another boy that she needs to keep safe. Adjusting her pinned arm around her son, she takes the free one and lifts the mission scroll in the air.
"I accept."
-0-
"Sasuke."
Thud. No honorifics. Thud, thud. That means trouble. Lifting his eyes from the training post in their backyard, Sasuke eyes the tomato slices spread out on the platter in his mother's hands. He finally has the guts to lift them to the stern and less than amused expression crossing her face.
"Sasuke," she repeats, "It's dinner time. You need to eat."
Thud. "I need vengeance."
He returns to the training post, assessing his target. Thud. He hears retreating footsteps on tatami flooring. Thud. He sends a silent prayer and apology to—Thwack.
Sasuke eyes the fallen kunai knocked off course and the wasted fruit that led it astray.
And he relents.
-0-
"Itachi."
"Kaasan."
Mikoto's mouth twitches upward, amused in a detached sort of way. When was the last time he felt free to call her that? When was the last time they were able to sit next to each other like this, mother and son, with nothing but tea at their sides.
"Kaasan," her son repeats. He attempts and fails to maintain the tenor in his voice, his youth now more glaringly obvious than Might Gai's spandex-clad body. He inhales sharply, seeing his mother's dominant hand move towards him. He lets out a sigh as she continues to bring her hand forward, this time palms up. In her hand rests a single flower, a cherry blossom fresh from the Uchiha compound courtyard.
"No need for a verbal report, ANBU-san."
He looks up from her hand and into her eyes. Two pairs of Sharingan meet. And the world turns red.
Three seconds pass in our world, many more in theirs. A few minutes later, nothing is left at the tea shop's booth except for pink petals scattered upon porcelain.
"We already know…and we are so proud, Itachi."