A/N: Before we start, I have a warning: this chapter is way gloomier than the others. I was not planning something like this, but when I had the idea ... it was already there and there wasn't much to do about that.

levi97100: Oh, hello there! I hope you enjoyed the chapters that followed as well :)

Yolusa: I'm not planning to do a sequel to chap 7 so far but a chapter with all the kids is surely on my plans. Glad you liked XD

missstamped: Hahaha, thanks. But, God, I hope this story doesn't give you diabetes.

Bet-sama: Thank so much. Take a look at chapters 8 and 9 and tell me whatcha think.

H. Uzumaki: Thank you ;) I didn't really see Ino and Temari getting along too well, I mean, they're both pretty strong willed and I can't picture a girl like Temari being 100% okay with the fact that a super cute girl is a childhood friend and teammate of her man. On the other hand, when I picture Temari and Sai as friends... I don't know, it totally works for me.

hqhqhq: You're welcome, but it's not always possible find a way to sneak NaruHina in. Patience, grasshopper ;)

"Did you know that fathers sometimes can feel some of the symptoms of pregnancy?" Sakura observed.

"Really? That's nice. If I start gaining weight, I will borrow your girdles." Sasuke answered, turning the page of the book he was reading.

Sakura laughed and rolled over the bed to face her husband. "Are you excited for tomorrow? We will finally get to know if it's a boy or a girl."

"Well, yes, but it doesn't really make a difference to me. I will be happy either way."

"Me too, but we will be able to paint the room, buy appropriate clothes, toys, bedding… and pick a name."

Sasuke closed the book and lied down on the bed just to stare into Sakura's sparkling eyes.

"That's right. Is there any names you like?" He asked playing with her hair between his fingers.

"Hum… I don't know. There's a lot of names I like but there's none that I like especially, you know what I mean?"

"I guess. And we don't have to pick the name so early, we can just decide when the baby is born."

Sakura hummed in agreement then yawned.

"Let's sleep. We'll be up pretty soon tomorrow."

"M-kay, good night, honey." She yawned.

Sasuke smiled a bit and pulled the blanket over them. "Good night to you guys too."

He had a very eery dream. It was that kind of dream where, even though you know you're dreaming, everything felt so real that it was astounding.

He and Sakura were running. Sasuke didn't know why and didn't know to where, but they were running like nothing else matters. Then something crossed Sakura's chest, leaving a huge, bleeding mass where it was supposed to be her heart. They stopped.

"I'm okay." She lied with a weak smile. "We need to keep running."

'No. You need to rest and treat you wound.' Sasuke wanted to say, but what he said instead was: "Okay. Let's go."

They restarted the race, but now Sakura's breath was so loud unsteady that was nearly unbearable to be heard. 'Do somethin! Help her!' He tried to argue with that Sasuke in the dream.

A few steps latter another invisible weapon crossed abdomen.

"Keep running!" She shouted.

'Please, stop!' He tried to beg.

Another moist sound. Another wound.

"Keep… running. I'm okay."

The Sasuke in the dream kept running for his life as Sakura crawled grievously at his side, getting more and more behind.

"Sasuke!" She shouted in a dying voice. "Sasuke!"

He kept running. The Sasuke in the dream only stopped running when he saw a ghost-like, bloody figure before him, staring at him with a painful look on her face… He stopped dead when he realized it was Sakura.

"What else?" The ghost-Sakura asked. "What else?"

"Sasuke!"

"What else will you take away from me?"

"Sasuke!"

He woke up just to find out that the other side of the bed was empty. He turned the lights on.

"Sakura?" He asked. There was no answer.

Sasuke sit up and noticed a small blood stain on the sheets. His heart started to beat faster.

"Sakura?" He called again getting out of the bed.

He listened a muffled cry coming from the bathroom followed by a "Oh, no, no, please don't." Sasuke started to run towards the bathroom, opened the door and got in abruptly to see his wife sitting on the cold floor amidst a blood pool. He froze.

"Sakura, wh-what happened?"

"There's… there's so much blood. Why is there…?" She fell on the ground, unconscious.

WIthout thinking, Sasuke grabbed her and flew to the hospital.

"Help, please! My wife… my baby… she's…" The more he tried to talk more his voice got stuck in his throat.

'It's okay, we will do everything we can." A doctor or a nurse or maybe Shizune (his vision was too blurry by the tears to know for sure) told him. "Please, wait a moment. We will call you out in no time."

They took Sakura - still unconscious - to a room. Sasuke waited standing up. He didn't know how much time passed before he was called by Shizune.

"How are they?" He asked.

"Are you alright, Sasuke-kun? Do you want to sit down or a water maybe? You seem a little…"

"How are they?" He repeated insistently.

Shizune sighed. "Sakura is okay. She lost too much blood so she need transfusion and I'll keep her here for a day or two, but she will be fine in no time."

Sasuke sighed in relief. "Thank goodness. She scared the heck out of me. And the baby?"

Shizune opened up her mouth but made no sound.

"What happened? Will our child be okay?" He pressed.

Shizune took a deep breath. "It was a boy." She said in a small voice. "I'm so sorry, Sasuke-kun. There was nothing we could do."

Sasuke leaned back on the wall. "No. This is… No. The belly was just getting noticeable… She was already on her 15th week, I thought that miscarriage happened before the 13th week."

"That's true… in 80% of the cases. It's rare, but sometimes it happens later."

Sasuke slid down on the wall. "Did you tell her already?" He whispered.

'What else will you take away from me?' For a second, it was like he was back to his nightmare.

And he wished wholeheartedly that he was.

"No. Not yet. I wanted to talk to you first."

Sasuke ran his hands through his face so roughly he left a few scratches. He gave a dark laugh.

"Thank you for the consideration."

"Do you want to tell her yourself?" Shizune proposed.

"Yes. Give me five minutes alone with her to tell her then you come in to explain all the medical things." Sasuke sighed.

The medical nin nodded. "Follow me, I will take you to her room."

He wasn't crying, he couldn't. The sadness that took over him wasn't the kind that couldn't be expressed by tears. It was a sorrow that couldn't be spoken, a pain that cut deep and the cold guilt that run is his veins like ice... It was too much.

Once again he had lost a loved one too soon and too sudden. Once again he would crush Sakura's heart in a million pieces.

He got inside her room.

Sakura didn't cry as well. She was a skilled medical nin after all, Sasuke only confirmed what she already suspected. When Shizune got in she explained them that they hadn't found any reason to the miscarriage.

"It wasn't a risky pregnancy. You're both healthy, the fetus was healthy... It simply wasn't meant to be." She sighed. "I'm sorry for your loss. I will leave you now."

"Wait, Shizune, can we see him?" Sakura asked.

"Huh? Well, I think so. I'll see what I can do."

She left the sad couple alone. They remained silent for several minutes until Sakura sighed.

"It was so fast... I felt cramps, ran to the bathroom and... And..." Finally some tears started to ran through her face. " I've tried to hold him in but..."

Sasuke couldn't think in anything to say but:

"I am so sorry, Sakura." He breathed. "I am so very sorry. This is my fault."

That shocked her, even in her grief. "What do you mean?"

Sasuke leaned back on the chair he was sitting. He stared at the ceiling because he couldn't handle to face her now.

"I am... cursed. It's... I don't have any right to drag you down with me. You don't deserve this." The words of the ghost Sakura escaped his lips: "What else will I take away from you?"

Sakura's expression changed. A light behind her eyes went off and all the color in her eyes seemed to fade.

"You still think that I have nothing to do with your sins, right?" She asked with a heartbroken smile.

"Well, you don't!" He answered, daring to look into her eyes.

There was a deep pain on them, non-related to the lost baby, and once again he knew for sure he was the one causing it. Sasuke took a deep breath.

"Look, you're still young and you are beautiful... You can find another husband, someone more suited to you. Someone whose selfish behavior hasn't crushed your heart and soul so many times. You deserve bett..."

"Don't finish that sentence." Sakura commanded in an angry hiss.

"You deserve better." He finished.

Sakura sat up with an angry look, she looked just about to punch him but she winced and groaned in pain, taking her hands to her womb.

Instinct took over and Sasuke just ran to check on her.

"Are you alright?" He asked, holding her shoulders.

"No. I feel pain, cold and emptiness where before I was bearing our child." She answered firmly. "Our first baby died even before he was born and for that I grief." Sakura breathed in slowly. "But I won't let you take the pain of losing out first baby to fill yourself with loneliness again."

Sasuke tried to talk but his wife shut him with a gesture.

"I'm not finished." She sighed. "You know, I try hard to empathize with your situation. I'm okay with you going away on trips every now and then, I'm okay with your sullen behavior and I'm okay with the fact that it took me a long time to break down your walls."

Sakura stared at him like she was getting ready to receive a punch. She looked beautiful, strong… and vulnerable.

"But I can't stand whenever you act like I got 'caught up' on your problems. I love you, you're the one I've chosen to give my life and heart to and it's not up to you to decide if you're worth it or not."

"I know." He cried, tears were running down his cheeks unstoppably now. "But it was my fault. I know it was, I had a dream…"

"Yes. You were shaking and grinding your teeth, it was what wake me up to see the blood, it was probably what wake you up to see me in the bathroom. If you hadn't had that nightmare, I might had bled to death. It was a wicked kind of blessing, don't you think?"

Sasuke made a funny noise half sob and half chuckle.

"I was so scarred." He confessed, hugging her tightly.

Sakura ran a hand through his hair, trying to calm him down.

"Don't be afraid. One thing I can tell you about fear: it always leads to hate."

And being an Uchiha, Sasuke knew for sure she was absolutely right.

"I love you." He whispered.

"I know… most of the time." She answered honestly.

There was a soft knock on the door. Shizune came in carrying a small box. The couple held back their breaths. Very carefully, she placed the box on Sakura's bed. Sasuke pulled it closer and ran the fingers through the box lid.

"May I open it?" He asked to his wife. Sakura noded and pressed her lips tight.

There it was. Smaller than Sasuke's hand, a teeny tiny baby that shouldn't weigh more than 3 ounces. They both closed their eyes, it was too sad.

"Thank you, Shizune." Sakura spoke as she placed the lid back on the box.

Shizune nodded then left the room.

"We should name him Daichi." Sakura spoke slowly, still holding the box. "Daichi means 'first son', this way we will never forget him."

Sasuke also placed his hand on the small box. "We won't. Not us, not even his future siblings. Daichi will always be the child we never got to know."

Years later, Sasuke and Sarada were visiting the Uchiha grave. He felt the usual iron grip on his chest when they stopped by Itachi's grave.

"It's okay, daddy. I miss my big brother sometimes too." Sarada said, putting her hand in her father's.

That brought a smile to his face. "Do you?"

"Yes, and why isn't Daichi-nii buried here as well?"

"Daichi is special, so we cremate him and fleckered his ashes on the rosebush we have back home, remember?"

Sarada pouted. "Dad, do you think Daichi-nii would love me as much as uncle Itachi loved you?"

Sasuke stroked the top of her head then grabbed her in his arm.

"You know, Sara-chan, that is something that you should ask him when you finally meet." He offered her a smile. "But now, how about ice cream?"