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Warnings: Contains adult language, themes, and suggestions. It is not suitable for anyone below the age of 16 per FFN guidelines.
August 20th, the fifteenth week
"You've been putting this conversation off, Sasuke. Why don't you want to talk about this?" Naruto placed a hand on the Uchiha's shoulder, looking concerned.
"Hn." Sasuke ignored the hand on his shoulder and moved away, carrying a basket of sheets to the front door where a clone of Naruto held it open for him.
"Are you going to ignore me until I drop it?" Sasuke didn't say anything, passing the basket of damp sheets to another of the blonde's clones who took it with one hand and saluted the Uchiha with the other. "You said you wanted to talk about it." The Uchiha turned his head as the blonde moved forward to walk in step with the other male and regarded him carefully.
"Marry me." Naruto called out. The Uchiha didn't so much as hesitate in his gate, he didn't turn his head towards the blonde, didn't even shift his gaze. Huffing indignantly, Naruto continued to stare at Sasuke, knowing the other male would feel it.
"I thought you were a romantic." Sasuke watched as a clone of him came walking up with several blondes, all of them carrying boxes. The Uchiha's clone was carrying a smaller box but didn't seem to be making any complaints as they set the boxes in a pile in the middle of the street.
"You'd ignore me if I did something stupid and mushy." Naruto sighed and crossed his arms over his chest, frowning. Both of the males surveyed the growing pile of boxes, furniture, and other miscellaneous stuff that were in the current homes they were cleaning out.
"Hn." Sasuke was purposely ignoring him, refusing to answer the question. The Uchiha turned his attention to a clone that was jogging towards them, coming from the street that they normally took to the entrance.
"Come on, Teme. Why don't you want to say yes?" Naruto tried again. He knew Sasuke wanted to say yes, deep down somewhere, the prickly bastard wanted to say yes. The clone stopped in front of them, his breathing a little labored. Both Sasuke and Naruto looked to the clone, waiting for him to tell them why he was looking for them.
"Sasuke says he wants you to make more clones to move the furniture to the training dojo behind the police station, we can figure out what to do with it all when we've finished all the houses." A Naruto clone came jogging up to them; his normal orange cargo pants had been replaced with orange shorts.
"The real Sasuke?" The real blonde blinked in surprise, looking from his clone to Sasuke who walked away from the two, intent on taking inventory of what was accumulating on the pile. Nodding, the clone let his eyes follow the Sasuke in front of them. "Where is he?"
"Working with us through some of the houses by the open entrance, he sent half of us there and the other half to the apartments where we were last week. All these boxes are from the apartments." The clone pointed in the direction of the apartments, askew from the direction of the entrance. Shooing his clone away with a few waves of his hand, he turned his attention back to Sasuke, or at least the clone of Sasuke.
"Why didn't you tell me you were a clone?" Naruto hissed. The clone looked over to him, an emotionless expression set on his face.
"What does it matter? I'll remember the conversation anyway." Sasuke looked away as Naruto's expression turned darker.
"That isn't the point!" Naruto stomped his foot down. He didn't care if he was acting like a petulant child; Sasuke was being a real asshole. "I told you I wanted to talk to you after my mission and you leave a clone to deal with me?"
"I left the clone to do laundry, not to talk to you." The clone tried to reason with the blonde but he only grabbed Sasuke's elbow and forced the Uchiha to look at him.
"Bullshit!" Naruto yelled. "You've been avoiding me so you can avoid having this conversation." The clone looked down to the hand on his elbow and then looked back up to meet Naruto's bright blue eyes.
"Go find me then, if you don't want to have this conversation with a clone." The clone of Sasuke pulled his elbow out of Naruto's grip and glared at him before turning away though he didn't walk off. The blonde strode forward, hands clenching and unclenching as he tried to control his anger.
"You know, you can be a real asshole sometimes." Naruto looked back to the clone and shook his head. He turned his head and continued in the direct his clone had pointed out that the real Sasuke was out. The Uchiha clone glanced to the retreating blonde, his expression forlorn.
Naruto wanted to go back and punch Sasuke's clone out of existence but he resisted the urge. It wouldn't be good to get on Sasuke's bad side by showing him any violence so instead he inhaled through his nose. Clenching and relaxing his hands as he made his way through the compound, it helped, a little. Why didn't Sasuke want to answer him?
More than one thought popped into his head to answer the question but each one of them only upset him even more. He wanted to talk to Sasuke about this, not come up with his own ideas of what Sasuke was thinking. This was why they fought all the time; they didn't talk about the things that were bothering them. Naruto had been trying to talk more to the Uchiha, to solve most of those problems but Sasuke was still hesitant in some aspects. Avoiding answering the question, telling half-truths, or simply saying nothing, it frustrated and scared him simultaneously.
They had been through so much together; Haku and Zabuza, their first Chuunin Exam, Orochimaru, and Itachi. Itachi, Naruto unclenched his fists for a moment, remembering Sasuke tell him the whole story in his cramped little cell in the last few weeks he was in isolation. That had been the first time he had seen Sasuke cry. Then there had been saving Sasuke from getting a death sentence, which the Uchiha could only guess had happened, saving the bastards life when those hired assassin's had tried to rape him, convincing the Hokage to put him on probation.
Was all of that really not enough? Did he still have to prove himself to be marriage material? He would have thought being the father of their unborn child would be enough but obviously he was wrong. Naruto shook his head, trying to get those thoughts out of his head; he was jumping to conclusions without even knowing Sasuke's side of the story. He had to be calm, to ask for the reason why he didn't want to say yes. Naruto refused to think the Uchiha's answer would be no.
Some of his clones were on the street he turned onto, carrying suitcases and bundles of clothes they were piling into the middle of the street and they looked up to him as he approached. When they saw him, they set down the stuff in their hands and mock saluted to him, both grinning. He had to remind himself that he had been in a good mood when he had created the clones, a stark contrast to how he was feeling now.
"Where's Sasuke?" The blonde asked bitterly. Both of the clones looked to each other, their expressions changing into confusion at their real counterparts sour mood and then one of them pointed into the house they'd come out of. Nodding to them, the real Naruto turned to the house, the traditional long faced house. Naruto walked into the house.
Furniture was pushed against walls, tracks in the dust on the floor and a pile of belongings stacked in the hallway. Naruto moved farther into the house, the dim lighting of old light bulbs making it hard to clearly see where he was going. Room after room, he glanced into only to find it empty or a clone of his packing things away. After moving through half the large house, he sighed and raised a hand to run it through his hair, frustrated.
There was a panel door that led to the inner garden in one of the room and he opened it, planning on cutting across to make a full circuit around the house. Instead, he found Sasuke. The Uchiha was on the small bridge overlooking a pond; the grass was overgrown, cutting into the rock path and dead. As he got closer to the bridge and his pregnant lover, he could see the pond had an overgrowth of algae and wondered why Sasuke was so intently staring down into it.
"My clone dispelled itself after you left." Sasuke called out as the blonde approached. Naruto paused momentarily, deflating a little in his anger since the Uchiha knew how upset he was. "You want to know why I won't say yes?" The Uchiha asked as the blonde stepped onto the bridge and leaned onto the handrail, their arms from elbow to shoulders touching.
"I came all the way over here, didn't I?" Naruto looked up from the pond to Sasuke, watching for his cold exterior to break, to let the blonde in like he always did, eventually. "You won't talk to me and it's frustrating, Sasuke." The Uchiha's exterior cracked, his lips twitched into a frown and his upper body tensed.
"Hn." Sasuke replied. Naruto took that for Sasuke-nese to mean that he wasn't trying to be frustrating. Shifting from one foot to the other, Naruto bit down on the inside of his cheek, trying not to clench his fists.
"Will you talk to me about it?" Naruto asked. Sasuke opened his mouth and then paused, staring into the murky pond water.
"You could die any day, I could die," Sasuke started. "And our relationship is fine the way it is, why do you want to change it?" The Uchiha looked up, his dark eyes emotionless on the surface. Naruto could read the dark haired male though, the way his eyebrows were furrowed and how he had pursed his lips just enough to be pouting.
"Yeah, we could die on any mission, on any day, but that's part of the job description and we knew that when we decided to have serious relationship together. Getting married isn't going to change it, Teme." Naruto watched the Uchiha's expression darken before looking away again. "Why would you think that?"
"It's just a piece of paper and you're so adamant about it. I don't understand why it's so important to you." Naruto blinked, realizing that Sasuke was just as frustrated and confused as he was.
"You're right, it is a piece of paper, but it's a piece of paper that lawfully ties us together. That's all that would change, Sasuke. I'm not going to leave you if you say no." Naruto told him. Sasuke didn't seem convinced, still staring down into the murky depths of the pond.
"And on top of that, if we got married we'd have to plan a wedding, no matter how small and the Hokage would get involved because she loves to meddle in our affairs." Naruto snorted, nodding his head in agreement.
"True, I didn't think of that." The blonde muttered. He hadn't seriously considered the old hag would want to meddle. "But we can deal with the Hokage and we can handle a little get together of our friends even if it is labeled as a wedding."
"What if I asked you to sign a pre-nup?" Sasuke muttered.
"A what?" Naruto asked, confused.
"A prenuptial agreement, it's a legal document. If we ever got divorced-" Sasuke tensed again, leaning away from the blonde.
"Hey," Naruto reached out and grabbed the Uchiha's shoulder, pulling him close. "Hey, Teme." He stepped closer to the dark haired male, grabbing the Uchiha's chin so their eyes would meet. "I will sign any piece of paper you want me to if it means you'll marry me and I promise, I will never let you go." Sasuke's eyes darted downwards, away from Naruto as he started to blush. Naruto started to smile and watched as Sasuke raised a hand to his abdomen, he had grown accustomed to doing that when he was thinking and the blonde found it adorable. Rubbing the dark haired male's shoulder, Naruto stepped closer, raising his other hand to do the same to his other shoulder and watched Sasuke blink, snapping out of his thoughts.
"If I do say yes," Sasuke began. Naruto began to smile even though Sasuke looked up to stare at him. "If I do say yes to marrying you, if we have a wedding, and if you sign pre-nup or not, whose last name are we going to use?" Sasuke raised an eyebrow questioningly and Naruto looked away, focusing on massaging Sasuke's shoulders as he thought about it.
"I don't know. It would be strange listening to others calling you Sasuke Uzumaki." Naruto grinned, imagining Sasuke scowling at being called Uzumaki during missions.
"So you want to be Naruto Uchiha?" Sasuke raised an eyebrow and gave a small smirk when Naruto's eyes widened and he looked away, his turn to blush.
"I didn't say that, bastard. Can we keep our last names and still be married?" Naruto asked. He looked back over to his partner, watched the other nod and lowered his hands from Sasuke's bare shoulders to his hands, interlinking their fingers.
"What would our little baby boy's last name be then?" Sasuke asked. Naruto blinked in confusion and then frowned.
"I thought you wanted a girl." Naruto felt Sasuke pull one of his hands away and looked back over the rail and down into the pond.
"When did I say that?" Sasuke asked. Naruto rolled his eyes and sighed.
"So you want it to be a boy?" The blonde asked. He watched Sasuke twitch the side of his lips, quirking it into a half smile.
"I, I don't want to know. Every time I begin to think about the baby having a gender, I can't picture it." Sasuke squeezed the blonde's hand and Naruto squeezed it back reassuringly.
"Okay, so should we tell the ultrasound technician not to tell us the gender when we go?" Naruto asked. Sasuke paused a moment before nodding.
"Yeah." The Uchiha answered, a little distracted. Naruto watched the Uchiha raise his hand to his abdomen a second time before realizing what he was doing and dropped his hand. "I want to get this house cleaned up before the end of the day." Sasuke turned away from the pond and stepped off the bridge, pulling the blonde by their intertwined hands after him.
"You do know that means we have to think of twice the number of baby names." Naruto said as he grinned. Sasuke glanced over his shoulder to him, just barely smiling.
"We'll give them a unisex name." The Uchiha replied. Taking long strides so he was walking in tandem with the dark haired male, Naruto shook his head adamantly.
"No way in hell, asshole." The blonde answered. "I want our baby's name to be special." He looked over to the Uchiha, saw the telltale smirk of a joke and his grin got wider.
"Hn." Sasuke responded as Naruto pulled him close to kiss him on the forehead.
August 22nd, still the fifteenth week
"Why don't you want to go?" Sasuke petulantly ignored Naruto's question, sitting at their kitchen table, slouching in his seat with his arms crossed over his stomach. He was dressed in a pair of black shorts that had an elastic waistband and a dark blue shirt with sleeves just long enough to cover his seal. "Sasuke, Sakura is probably there already." Naruto sighed when the Uchiha didn't answer him and leaned against the nearest doorframe. The Uchiha stared back at the blonde, refusing to move. "Come on, Teme. We're going to be late." Naruto tried to reason with Sasuke's logical side, normally he frowned upon tardiness but the pregnant male wasn't taking the bait.
"You have been testy all week." The blonde sighed in exasperation. "You didn't seem all that upset about our secret being found out a week ago." Naruto crossed his arms over his chest and put most of his weight onto one foot, raising the other to tap the tip of his shoe against the floor.
"It's different." Sasuke muttered. Naruto turned his head, watching Sasuke realize he had broken his vow of silence and frowned, unintentionally pouting. "Sakura told this sonographer that I'm pregnant and we don't even know his name." Naruto raised an eyebrow.
"That's what your upset about? Do you not trust Sakura's judgment?" Sasuke looked away, pointedly ignoring the question. Naruto took the quick second to roll his eyes and then looked straight back to Sasuke, hoping the other male hadn't seen it. The Uchiha was still looking away from him and Naruto grinned thinking of a way to tease the stubborn bastard. "Look, Sasuke. We go, he checks you out and if you don't trust him, kill him." That got Sasuke's attention and he did a sidelong glance to the blonde, his pout deepening.
"You're not funny." Sasuke replied quietly. Naruto pushed off from the doorframe and moved closer to the dark haired male.
"Then, use your Sharingan and threaten to kill him if he so much as sneezes in the wrong direction." Sasuke narrowed his eyes in restrained anger. Naruto had to stop himself from grinning but Sasuke turned his head, glaring directly at the blonde.
"You know I can't do that either." Sasuke said. Naruto moved closer, kneeling down in front of him and watched the Uchiha shift. Shifting was something Sasuke never used to do and that worried the blonde a little. When was the last time Sasuke had done any kind of training? He'd have to remind him to train instead of cleaning out houses and taking inventory every day.
"It's not that you can't, it's that you won't," Naruto spoke softly and the Uchiha stilled, eyes glued to Naruto's cerulean pair. "And that's what I love about you." The blonde smiled and stood up, using the table to straighten himself. "Now, are you coming willingly or am I going to have to carry you?" Sasuke's eyes were still trained on him, his arms tense, over his stomach before he looked down at them.
"Hn." Slowly, he reached out, placing his hands on the table and using it to stand. Naruto stepped back, letting Sasuke out from between the chair and the table, smiling. Glancing over to the blonde, the Uchiha turned his head to the door and let Naruto lead the way. When they were out of the house, Naruto slowed his pace so that they were walked together, Naruto with a grin and his hands in his pockets.
"You should train with me tomorrow, Teme." Naruto said offhandedly. Sasuke glanced over to him; the small twitch of his eyebrow told the blonde that he was confused as to why he was bringing training up of all things. "I mean, think about it, when was the last time you did any training?" Sasuke looked down, his eyebrows furrowed as he thought.
"The Chuunin exams." Sasuke answered truthfully. "There hasn't been time." They turned a corner and walked down the street, examining the piles of boxes that were stacked outside several of the buildings.
"But you should make time, Sakura and the books say exercise is key in the later months of pregnancy, it's never too early to start." Naruto raised his hands, muttered 'Kage bunshin no jutsu' and the entire street was filled with clones of the blonde.
"What are you doing?" Sasuke asked. Naruto raised one hand to scratch his head as he lowered the other to grab Sasuke's hand. "It's your day off." Immediately the clones grabbed the piles of stuff, conversing with each other in tandem, filling the quite street with noise.
"It's fine, Teme. I'll be more than rested for my shift on patrol tomorrow and this way, you'll have more free time since you won't be overseeing every single house."
"Idiot, I wanted to do it that way so I wouldn't miss anything." Sasuke let the blonde drag him around another corner, away from the clones and in sight of the gated entrance.
"Come on, Sasuke. Trust me a little!" Naruto sighed dramatically. "I've cleaned out more than enough houses already to know what I'm doing." Sasuke frowned. Then he shook his head and gave up, knowing he wasn't going to win against the blonde who had already made up his mind.
"Hn." Sasuke responded. He dropped the subject but Naruto knew the Uchiha was still irritated about it. Hopefully his clones didn't mess up anything too much before they got back. The rest of the walk through the compound was quiet, both of them having nothing to say and enjoyed their silent company.
When Sasuke opened the barrier and Naruto pulled open the gate though, they found themselves in the middle of a busy, crowded street. The noises were loud and blaringly different from the quiet compound. Naruto let Sasuke through the gate first before he pulled it shut after him and moved to put up the barrier again. A few people looked to them, having seen them come out and for a second or two, stared at them before turning away again, back to whatever they were doing.
Sasuke didn't wait for Naruto to seal the barrier and the blonde had to jog after him, catching up with him easily. The hospital was a few minutes of a walk away and they silently passed hundreds of people on the busy streets and dozens of open shops. They walked side by side in the middle of the street, people moving out of the way for the emotionless Uchiha as Naruto swerved and paused in his steps, letting others pass before him. When the hospital came into view, Sasuke stiffened and Naruto smiled reassuringly and passed through the entrance, looking back to the Uchiha who followed after a few seconds. Naruto opened the door for Sasuke and trailed behind him as they made a beeline for the receptionist desk.
"I'm here to see Haruno Sakura." Sasuke spoke quietly to the woman. She glanced up at him, not needing to ask who he was and looked down to her desk. Naruto leaned forward, watching her flip through a booklet, looking for Sasuke's name.
"Sasuke, Naruto!" Sakura's voice called out to them. They both looked up and watched her come closer. She had on a white doctors coat over her pink ninja uniform, her short pink hair pulled back into a ponytail. "Sorry, I didn't tell them where to find me." She smiled politely and the woman behind the counter nodded in understanding, looking down to her book again. "Come on." The pinkette motioned for the two to follow her and they did.
Deeper into the hospital they went, passing numerous nurses, doctors, patients and gurneys. Sakura stopped at a random room and opened the door, walking in first. Naruto reached the door first and pushed it open with one hand, motioning with his other hand for the Uchiha to go in before him. Sasuke nodded to him, the muscles of his lips twitching in nervousness.
"So the ultrasound technician I picked out for you wants to keep things low profile. He's not looking for trouble so he's not going to ask for your name and he hopes that you won't ask for his." Sasuke glanced over to the woman skeptically and Sakura rolled her eyes. "Sasuke, it took some forceful convincing to even get him to do this so please, just let him do his job." The Uchiha didn't seem convinced and he surveyed the room as Naruto closed the door and moved to look around the room.
"Wow, it's, kind of plain. I was expecting there to be more wires or something." Naruto trailed his hand over the plain doctors chair, the small machine and the attached cart with a monitor on it. "This is all he needs to do all the tests?" Sasuke watched him, eyeing the equipment cautiously.
"He's going to bring an AFP kit, don't pout Sasuke, you need to get it done so we know the fetus is healthy." Sakura punched the dark haired male softly on his shoulder, grinning.
"Hn." Sasuke muttered. If he was going to say anything else, he didn't get the chance because someone knocked on the door. The Uchiha stiffened and moved away from the door as Sakura moved past him, opening it.
"Good morning, how are you today?" Sakura asked politely. A man, probably the same age as Kakashi or even Iruka, stepped in, looking nervous. With plain brown hair, a pair of glasses and an average stature, he seemed like a normal person.
"Fine, um. I'll be your ultrasound technician for the length of your pregnancy, have you told them that-?" The brown haired male looked to Sakura.
"Yes, I just did." Sakura interrupted and pointedly looked from Sasuke to Naruto. "They've agreed to it, right?" She let the unspoken threat hang in the air and the blonde suddenly found the windowless walls extremely interesting.
"Yes." Sasuke grudgingly answered. The sonographer bowed his head and moved his bag from one hand to the other, moving towards a second chair and set his bag down on the cart.
"If you can sit in the chair and lift your shirt, I'll apply the gel and we can get started right away." The brunette male didn't look up to anyone in the room as he rummaged through his bag and pulled out several things.
"What's the needle for?" Naruto asked. He was watching the ultrasound technician's movements thoughtfully as Sasuke sat down in the chair and shifted until he was comfortable.
"It's for the AFP test, normally he wouldn't be administering it but I haven't been trained for that yet." Sakura smiled when Naruto just raised an eyebrow in confusion. "AFP stands for Alpha-Fetoprotein, he's going to insert the needle and take a little amniotic fluid so I can test it for genetic problems or abnormalities. Don't worry, Naruto." Sakura told the blonde. "It's done during the ultrasound to make sure the needle isn't anywhere near the baby."
Sasuke looked up from the technician's fumbling hands and watched Naruto sag forward in relief. He sat forward, shifting to roll his shirt up and leaned back again, lowering his hands from his chest to the armrests of the chair. Watching the technician uncap an unlabeled tube poured a clear gel onto a napkin in his hands.
"So, um, how far along are you?" The male asked. He reached forward with the napkin and then stopped, looking up for a signal of approval before he reached any closer.
"Fifteen weeks." Naruto answered, he leaned on the back of the chair and Sasuke nodded to the technician and inhaled as the cool gel touched his skin.
"A little late for an ultrasound but that's nothing to worry about," The sonographer spread the gel across a large portion of his slightly protruding stomach and looked up, pushing his glasses up his nose as his eyes went straight to the Uchiha's covered shoulders. "Would it be possible for me to see the seal, I've only seen these kind of seals on women before."
"No." Sasuke immediately answered. Sakura sent him a disapproving look and the technician looked down to the cart, crumpling the napkin in his hand and gently tossed it into an open wastebasket.
"The less you know about the seal the better off you'll be." Naruto supplied with a grin. The blonde ruffled Sasuke's dark hair and chuckled when the Uchiha swatted his hand away, lifting his head to glare at him.
"Right, of course." The sonographer glanced between the two and started to manipulate the machine, bringing it closer to him on its wheels as he turned it on. "Okay, um." He murmured after a moment and started to type something on the keyboard. When he looked back to Sasuke and Naruto, the blonde was facing away from the chair, a hand twisted behind his back and wincing as he tried to wiggle his wrist out of the Uchiha's grip.
"Stop messing around you guys, the quicker he can start, the quicker you can get out of here." Sakura sighed and placed her hands on her hips, an eyebrow raised in slight annoyance. Sasuke tightened his grip for a short second and then let go. Naruto happily pulled his hand away from Sasuke, stretching his arm out in front of him.
"Alright, I'm going to turn on the monitor here and we'll be ready to go." The technician leaned forward, pressing a button and the clunky screen whirred to life. "I need to ask you, do you want me to share the gender or do you want it to be a surprise?" With one hand, the male pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose again and spread the gel onto the machine's handheld thing.
"A surprise." Sasuke answered. He watched the male's hands and resisted the urge to raise his hand to his stomach. Finding it hard to ignore, Sasuke bit the inside of his cheek and mentally agreed with the blonde, he was going to have to train. He was losing his calm and collected composure.
"That's understandable. I'll have to check the baby's genital area but I won't explain anything we'll be seeing." The brunette male brought the ultrasound cart closer and dragged his chair softly across the floor so he was closer to the Uchiha. "May I?" The male held the gray handheld thing up and met Sasuke's gaze. Nodding his head, Sasuke watched as the sonographer gently pressed it against his abdomen and the screen of the machine lit up.
Sasuke wanted to look up; it was killing him that he was still staring at his stomach. The pressure felt strange but he fought the urge and waited for the brunette to look up from his stomach before he did. The screen was mostly black, an image of moving gray and white that confused Sasuke for a moment. This was his abdomen? Naruto leaned forward into his line of peripheral vision but the dark haired male didn't want to look away from the screen, fearing he would miss something if he did.
"Let's see here." The sonographer moved the device on his stomach slowly, the gray and black moving into more undefined shapes that Sasuke tried to make out. When he paused, Naruto leaned in even closer, craning his neck forward. "Here we go, this," the technician raised his free hand to the screen and pointed to a roundish mound of blurry grey. "Is his, or her, head." Sasuke had to force himself to breathe evenly, that was their baby. Shivers raced up and down his spine, the idea of being pregnant had hit him hard when the seal appeared on his shoulder but actually seeing the little life growing inside of him, it was proof that his and Naruto's baby was real.
"Wow," Naruto mumbled. Sasuke saw movement in the corner of his eye and glanced to Sakura who had raised her hand to cover her mouth as she tried to hide her teary eyes. "And that," The Uchiha whipped his head back to the screen as Naruto pointed to a smaller blob on the screen. "What is that?"
"That's a hand." The sonographer smiled at the image on the screen and looked back to them. "Would you like to get a picture of this? As a keepsake?" Naruto looked to Sasuke who reigned in his emotions, glaring knowingly.
"No." Sasuke answered pointedly. He saw the technician look over to Sakura and then back to the screen of the ultrasound machine almost dejectedly.
"Okay, well everything looks like it's in order so we'll get the AFP test done and you'll be set to go." The sonographer looked over to the tray and looked up to Sakura again. "If you could apply the anesthesia gel." He reached for the small container and handed it to Sakura. She popped it open and then took the napkin from the cart and wiped some gel with it.
"Where should I?" Sakura asked. The sonographer pointed to a specific spot of Sasuke's abdomen and looked back to the screen, the handheld part of the machine away from the spot he was pointing to.
"Alright, now it's going to tingle a little and then it should start to feel numb and the needle itself will just be pressure, nothing to worry about." The brunette reached for the needle on the cart as Sakura smeared the anesthetic gel on Sasuke's skin. Naruto leaned forward again, watching Sakura and screen of the ultrasound machine simultaneously and the Uchiha looked up to him, glaring at the loss of even more of his personal space.
"Back off, Usuratonkachi." Sasuke growled. The technician leaned back in fear; not realizing the Uchiha was simply giving the blonde a warning. Naruto hesitated but ended up straightening from his spot, looking down and watching over the shoulder of the chair. The technician looked to Sakura, his posture tense, nervous about how the dark haired male would react.
"You're fine." Sakura folded the napkin, discarded it and took the needle from the sonographer's hand. "He's just being a bit testy." She told the technician.
"Hn," Sasuke glared at the pink haired woman and then turned his attention to the screen, avoiding from glaring at the sonographer and scaring him even more than he was. Sakura placed the tip of the needle just above his abdomen and then stopped.
"Is here where you wanted me to take the sample?" She asked. Naruto leaned forward a little, leaning over Sasuke's shoulder as he watched Sakura's hands.
"Yes, there's fine but only take about 15 milliliters." He answered quietly. The sonographer looked back to the screen and moved the hand held part of the machine over Sasuke's abdomen and returned to where they could see the baby's head. Sasuke bit the inside of his lip and looked down, watching as Sakura injected the needle into and through his abdominal wall. There was no pain; just a small pressure and he watched as his pink haired teammate slowly withdrew a small amount of an almost clear liquid. Sakura stopped and pulled the needle out of his abdomen with confidence. The technician immediately pressed a napkin over the area and pressed down on it.
"If you could keep pressure on here for a few minutes, we can clean up and you'll be ready to go." The dark haired male took the hand held part of the machine off Sasuke's skin and waited until Sasuke had a hand on the napkin before letting go. He took a sanitary napkin and cleaned it before replacing it back in its place.
"You mean that's it?" Naruto asked. He looked up to Sakura who was securely capping the syringe's needle and slipping it into her pocket. She nodded and pulled a napkin out for the Uchiha to wipe his stomach clean.
"That's it," The technician murmured. "Sakura will probably have the results back in a week or two, depending on how busy the labs will be." The man turned off the ultrasound machine and pushed the cart away.
"Is there anything we need to worry about though? Could you tell if anything was wrong?" Naruto asked. Sasuke looked up to him and then to the technician expectantly.
"From what I saw, your baby is perfectly healthy and nothing seems out of the ordinary so, I wouldn't be too worried about it." The man pushed his glasses back up to the bridge of his nose and smiled up to Naruto.
"You tell anyone about this and I will kill you." Sasuke didn't bother glaring at the man, knowing the threat would be more than enough. The technician stilled, fear oozing out of him.
"U-understood." The sonographer tried to sound confident but failed miserably. Sakura sighed and Sasuke moved to get up before suddenly feeling lightheaded.
"You okay?" Naruto moved around the chair so he was standing next to the dark haired male and Sasuke watched the blonde gape at him in shock. "I've never seen you get a nose bleed before." The Uchiha raised his hand to his nostrils and pulled his fingers away, wet with blood.
"Ah, I've never seen it either." Sakura eyed his nose curiously and Sasuke didn't have anything to say, to busy trying to think how he should react.
"Here," The sonographer pulled another napkin and held it out to the dark haired male. "That's actually quite common during pregnancy. It might happen a lot or this could be the only time." Sasuke took the napkin and held it to his nose, wiping the blood that dripped down to his lip. "I'll be leaving first, I have another appointment I need to get to."
"Just make sure to keep yourself hydrated and keep your stress levels down." Sakura smiled watched the dark haired male tilt his head back and glare at the ceiling. He heard someone open the door and glanced over to the closing door, watching the sonographer making his exit.
"And uh, when should Sasuke stop training?" Naruto asked. Their female teammate blinked and thought for a moment, her bright green eyes flicking up towards the ceiling as she thought.
"I wouldn't recommend going full out with you or Kakashi anymore, for obvious reasons." Sakura started. Sasuke glanced over to Naruto, watching him nod in understanding. "But you should keep practicing until it feels uncomfortable and at the first sign of that, you should stop, okay, Sasuke?" The pinkette looked over to him and he lowered his head, pulling the napkin away from his nose to check if it was still bleeding.
"Don't worry, I'll make sure he doesn't do anything too stressful." Naruto grabbed Sasuke's hand and intertwined their fingers before Sasuke pulled his hand away, glaring at him only to have something wet drip down from his nose again. Huffing silently, Sasuke lifted his head again, pressing the bloodied napkin back to his nose.
"Oh, I know you won't." Sakura laughed and Sasuke turned away from them, wanting to roll his eyes but stopped himself at the last second. "But he needs to keep the circulation in his feet and legs going since he'll probably be stuck in bed for a large part of the third trimester. When you can't train, take a few walks around the compound and stretch."
"And give him foot massages?" The blonde asked. He was grinning from ear to ear when Sasuke looked over to him and glared. Slowly, Sasuke lowered his head and checked the napkin, finding that the bleeding had stopped.
"Yes, foot massages too." Sakura nodded and looked to the Uchiha, genuinely smiling instead of teasing. "I think I'll always be jealous of how much Naruto enjoys doing things for you, Sasuke." Sasuke found that moment to find the napkin more interesting than the pink haired ninja.
"Hn." Sasuke answered noncommittally. He went straight for the door and opened it, walking out and refusing to look back at the blonde in question. The technician had vacated the hallway and was nowhere in sight, giving Sasuke a sense of some security that their secret wasn't out just yet. He could hear Naruto and Sakura moving after him, the blonde calling out his name.
"Don't be mad at me, Sasuke! I can't help myself!" Naruto cried out. Sasuke emotionlessly glanced back to him, watching the blonde give him a pouting face as Sakura closed the door to the room behind her. "It's because I love you." Feeling the hairs on the back of his neck start to rise, Sasuke frowned and tried to stop the blush that wanted to spread across his cheeks as his face started to heat up.
"Alright, get going you two. You're causing a scene." Sakura nodded to a few people down the hall, Sasuke glanced over to them. A nurse, a doctor and a patient in a wheelchair watching the three ninja curiously down the hallway.
"Hn." Sasuke muttered. Stalking off in the direction of the entrance, Naruto followed after him, waving goodbye to the pink haired woman who watched them go.
"Bye Sakura-chan! We'll see you later!" Naruto called out. Sasuke didn't hear their female teammate say anything back so he kept walking. The blonde was walking beside him seconds later, grinning happily as they made their way out of the hospital. "When do you think Sakura-chan can move into the compound?" The blonde asked. Remaining silent, the Uchiha tilted his head as they passed the front desk, the nurse sitting there, waving to them as the blonde waved back.
"A few days, a week or two." He answered noncommittally.
"I guess it depends on when we finish cleaning the whole place up, huh?" Naruto sighed and followed his male lover to the gates of the hospital and onto the street, the crowds having only dispersed slightly since they're walk from the compound. Several attempts were made by the blonde to grab his hand but the Uchiha would clench his hand into a fist, pulling his hand away and slapping the blonde's hand when he began to feel annoyed.
"Took poor little Sasuke to the hospital because of a nosebleed?" Ino called out as they passed by her family's flower shop. She raised her hand to wave at them as she held a hose in her other hand. The blonde female was watering flowers, her long hair in her trademark ponytail and an apron over her civilian clothes.
"I broke his nose earlier this morning and went to go visit Sakura, that's all." Naruto innocently called back to her. Sasuke rolled his eyes and shook his head, ignoring the female blonde. From the corner of his eye, the dark haired male saw something flick across a rooftop across the street and tensed, he had wanted to turn to the blonde, to see if he had seen it as well but Naruto seemed oblivious as he wrapped up his short conversation with the female chuunin.
"Oops, looks like you're going to get left behind." Ino started to laugh as Sasuke walked away. "I'll talk to you later about switching shifts." She called out and Sasuke could hear his blonde quickly catching up to him.
"You could have at least said 'hi' to her you know." Naruto sighed dramatically and made another grab for Sasuke hand only to have the other male raise both of his arms, crossing them over his chest. Huffing in his fruitless efforts, Naruto rolled his shoulders backwards and then raised his arm, wrapping it around the Uchiha's shoulders and pulled the male close.
"Get off me." Sasuke immediately muttered. The blonde refused, squeezing his shoulders tightly as they walked. People moved out of their way, a few staring in puzzlement that Sasuke Uchiha was allowing the blonde to touch him in such an overly friendly manner.
"Make me." Naruto stubbornly told the dark haired male. The blonde waived to a toddler that had caught sight of his bright colored hair and turned Sasuke onto the street with the entrance to the compound. Blinking once, then a second time, Sasuke took in the response, feeling the blonde's tense grip on his shoulder and seeing they way Naruto would tilt his head in the direction he knew where the anbu was hiding made him think twice about causing a scene outside the compound.
"Hn." Sasuke managed to say and turned his head, refusing to look at the blonde as he was manhandled towards the locked entrance. Naruto only let go of him so he could unseal the barrier and Sasuke could open the door. Both males slipped inside the compound, Naruto shutting the gate behind him as Sasuke resealed it, Sasuke could see the blonde visibly relax and he let out a breath of relief, knowing they were safe now.
"You saw him too?" Naruto asked. Sasuke nodded, "I thought the watch detail was disbanded already." Both males glanced at the closed gate and then back to each other, Naruto looked concerned and Sasuke allowed himself to frown.
"It was." Sasuke muttered quietly. "I think the elders are going to try something again." Naruto tensed and inhaled sharply through his nose. "I'm going to go check on your clones and," Sasuke started to walk away, tilting his head over his shoulder to look back at the stressed blonde. "Then we're going to train." Naruto blinked, his shoulders slumping in puzzlement as the Uchiha's words started to sink in.
"What did you find out?" Koharu Utatane asked. She raised her head from her lap to look down at the anbu kneeling in front of her and her male counterpart.
"Nothing as of yet, we know the Hokage visited them after your conversation but I was unable to get inside the compound." The anbu lowered his head even closer to the ground.
"You have nothing to show after two weeks of surveillance?" Homura Mitokado sounded disappointed and watched how their loyal anbu attempt to remain stationary.
"Except for today, Sasuke Uchiha hasn't left the compound, the new container has yet to be seen and the original container only leaves for missions and shopping. They don't leave any openings for me to take." The anbu lifted his head a fraction as he spoke before lowering his head as soon as he was done.
"When they do, I expect you to take full advantage of it. Find what is going on between the container and the Uchiha, where they went today and who they met. Do not disappoint us again." Koharu Utatane scowled as she spoke.
"Yes, Mitokado-sama, Utatane-sama." The anbu bowed his head so low that his head touched the floor before he quickly jumped to the ceiling, wanting to get out of their presence and back to the entrance of the compound. He would not fail them.