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For Sasuke, Menma’s birth had been completely unexpected.
He hadn’t been ready to become a father.
Guilt settled over him from the moment he woke up that morning, pressing against his chest with a weight that only grew heavier as the hours passed. Naruto tried to ease it away with reassuring pats on his back and the same unwavering optimism that had carried them through half their lives together, but Sasuke knew better.
Because whatever he was feeling, Naruto was feeling it too.
Menma had never been part of the plan.
He wasn’t a child they had prepared for, nor one they had spent months dreaming about. Two men couldn’t simply have children, and Sasuke had accepted that fact long ago. When he and Naruto had decided to marry, the subject of having a family had surfaced only briefly before quietly fading away. They had been content with the idea of spending the rest of their lives together.
That had always been enough.
Sakura and Ino had been the first to offer their help if they ever changed their minds. Sakura had even joked that she would either lend them her womb or personally make sure the adoption process went smoothly.
But to Sasuke, those conversations had always felt distant. The kind of conversations people had because they imagined a future, not because that future was already waiting outside their door.
At the time, he was still wandering through the long road of redemption. He was trying to rebuild his place within the village, but more importantly, he was trying to rebuild himself.
Naruto, meanwhile, had begun preparing to become Hokage.
Their lives had become intertwined, yet they continued walking along different paths. Separate responsibilities, separate routines. They would always return to one another, but neither of them had ever been built for stillness.
Sasuke knew they weren’t what anyone would call a traditional marriage.
Being one of the few same-sex couples openly married in Konoha was enough to earn curious glances from strangers.
But the truth was that even without that, there had never been anything ordinary about them.
The idea of staying in one place for too long made both of them restless.
If there were no missions, Sasuke would find one. The silence of an empty house felt unbearably loud, especially knowing Naruto wouldn’t be there.
And whenever Naruto had a free afternoon away from his Hokage training, he somehow found someone else to help. Sometimes it was the academy. Sometimes it was Sakura at the hospital.
And on the rare occasions when their free time aligned; they disappeared.
Long enough for Kakashi to inevitably send an anbu squad looking for the two of them.
That was simply how they lived.
Maybe it wasn’t anyone else’s definition of a perfect life.
But for Sasuke, it had always been enough.
Because despite everything they had survived together, despite the certainty that marrying Naruto remained one of the few decisions in his life he had never questioned, there was still that lingering unease.
The instinctive belief that he belonged alone.
Naruto carried that same feeling.
They knew each other well enough to understand that love had never erased who they were before they found each other.
Yes, they were married.
Yes, they loved one another with a certainty that neither of them could deny.
But they had always loved each other while moving.
Always chasing something.
Always leaving.
Always returning.
That was the rhythm they understood.
So the idea of a child, of a family. Of someone who would depend on him every single day, filled Sasuke with a kind of terror no battlefield ever had.
A mission always ended.
A war could be won.
But fatherhood, fatherhood was forever.
What if he couldn’t stay?
What if one day the mission called him again?
What if Menma looked at him the same way Sasuke had once looked at his own father, only to watch him disappear?
For the first time in years, Sasuke found himself wishing he were afraid of enemies instead.
Enemies were simple, but this wasn’t.
Sasuke was afraid.
Fear was an emotion Sasuke hated more than most. The numbness creeping into his hands. The cold sweat trailing down the back of his neck. The unsettling feeling that his own body no longer belonged to him.
He hated the loss of control.
His fear always began the same way.
It settled quietly beneath his skin until his thoughts became sluggish, his movements stiff, his breathing uneven.
Then came the helplessness. And helplessness always turned into anger.
Because anger was easier.
Anger gave his hands something to do besides shake. It gave his jaw something to clench besides his teeth. It was easier to be furious than terrified.
Sasuke had never been an expressive person. Not as a child, not as a genin, not now.
Even during his days at the academy, crying in front of others had never felt natural. Neither had laughter. Joy was something he experienced in brief, quiet moments, never loudly enough for anyone else to notice.
Anger, however…
Anger was familiar.
Hatred was familiar.
Those were the emotions people remembered when they thought of Sasuke Uchiha.
The only ones they believed he was capable of feeling.
What very few people ever realized was that his anger had always been born from fear.
Sasuke kept his fist clenched as his eyes remained fixed on the small figure sleeping peacefully inside the incubator.
The steady rise and fall of the infant’s chest was almost imperceptible, hidden beneath a thin hospital blanket.
Menma had entered their lives less than two weeks ago. Not through fate, and definitely not through their choice. But through someone’s arrogance. Someone foolish enough to believe they could recreate the bloodline of the Uchiha.
The experiment should have ended there. But somewhere during the process and the fight, a few drops of Naruto’s blood had found their way into the incubation chamber.
Neither of them fully understood how. Neither of them cared.
All Sasuke remembered was the sound.
A newborn crying.
Not with the hungry cries of an infant, but with the raw, desperate scream of something being forced into existence.
The memory still clung to him.
Naruto reached the baby first.
Sasuke had barely processed what he was looking at before Naruto was already kneeling beside the pod, desperately trying to free the baby from the tangled mess of tubes and sealing jutsus that surrounded him.
There hadn’t been time to think.
Only time to act.
The next thing Sasuke remembered was the two of them running away with the baby.
Naruto had never once looked at the infant as anything other than a child. But the thought of killing the child had crossed Sasuke’s mind.
Only for a moment.
Long enough for him to acknowledge it.
The infant carried both Uchiha and Uzumaki blood.
If he survived…
If he was trained…
There was little doubt that one day the baby would surpass shinobi who had spent their entire lifetimes chasing strength.
A child like that would become a target.
A weapon.
An object of fear.
Sasuke had seen what people did to children born with power.
He had lived it.
Naruto survived it.
The baby would be no different.
A weapon created inside a laboratory rarely remained just a child in the eyes of the world.
He never said any of it aloud.
Because then he had looked at Naruto.
Really looked at him.
There had been no regret in Naruto’s expression when he picked up that baby.
Only fear.
Pure, unmistakable fear.
Not fear of what the child might become. Fear that they were already too late to save him.
Sasuke had opened his mouth.
The words ‘we should end this now’ had lingered somewhere in the back of his throat.
They never left it.
Orochimaru was the only person Sasuke knew who might be capable of stabilizing the infant.
Saving him had not been mercy.
It had been the only remaining option.
“We need to take him to Orochimaru.”
It was simply the only thing he could bring himself to say.
Naruto hadn’t questioned him.
He had only tightened his hold on the infant and kept running.
And when they arrived at Orochimaru’s, Orochimaru had not hesitated to tell them the truth.
The infant’s body was unstable. Two bloodlines like theirs had never been forced together before. His chakra was overwhelming, volatile, impossible to predict. Even if he survived the night, there was no guarantee he would survive the next.
“You should consider ending this now,” Orochimaru had said, his voice carrying the same unsettling calm it always did. “It would be kinder than allowing him to become something neither of you can control.”
Sasuke had understood the logic behind it.
Naruto hadn’t.
Or perhaps he had.
It simply hadn’t mattered.
“Save him,” Naruto had interrupted, his voice breaking for the first time since they had found the child. “Please.”
He hadn’t asked whether the infant would become dangerous.
He hadn’t asked whether he would survive. He had only cared that there was still a chance.
Orochimaru had sighed.
“…Very well.”
The hours that followed blurred together with the quiet hum of machines.
Naruto refused to leave the room even when exhaustion made his eyelids heavy. Sasuke standing besides Naruto, saying nothing.
Neither of them spoke about what would happen if the child survived. Neither of them spoke about what would happen if he didn’t.
Three days later, Orochimaru finally broke the silence.
“He’s stable.”
Orochimaru had offered to keep the infant under his care until his condition stabilized completely.
It was the most sensible solution.
The baby's chakra remained dangerously unstable despite the seal Orochimaru put on him, and the laboratory possessed equipment no hospital in Konoha could hope to replicate. Naruto and Sasuke, meanwhile, had responsibilities waiting for them back in the village. Naruto’s Hokage training could not be postponed forever, and Sasuke’s work outside the village had already been delayed long enough.
Sasuke understood.
He even agreed.
As unsettling as the thought of leaving the infant in Orochimaru’s care was, logic left little room for alternatives.
But Naruto refused. He didn’t raise his voice, he simply said no.
Sasuke hadn’t understood it.
The child was alive. Orochimaru knew his condition better than anyone. Leaving him there for a few weeks was, objectively, the safest decision.
Yet Naruto couldn’t bring himself to walk away.
Sasuke couldn’t understand why, or perhaps he could.
He simply wasn’t ready to admit it.
In the end, Orochimaru relented.
He documented everything. The seal. The baby’s chakra fluctuations. The medication schedule. Every precaution required to keep the infant alive.
According to Orochimaru, only two medics in Konoha possessed the knowledge and precision required to keep the infant alive.
Sakura and Tsunade, but Tsunade wasn’t in the village by the time. So Sakura was the one who they trusted with the infant’s life.
Sasuke never questioned that judgment.
If there was one person he trusted to carry another’s life was in her hands.
With Sakura watching over the seal and Orochimaru’s instructions resting safely in her hands, there was little left for Naruto and Sasuke to do except wait.
Waiting had never been something Naruto excelled at. And it was during those quiet days that Naruto gave the child a name.
Menma.
There hadn’t been much of an explanation.
Naruto had smiled sheepishly, scratching the back of his neck as he mumbled something about it “just feeling right.”
Sasuke hadn’t questioned it.
Names had never held much importance to him.
Besides, ‘Menma’ fits surprisingly well beside ‘Naruto.’
He supposed that was reason enough.
His gaze drifted back toward the incubator
The baby looked impossibly small beneath the thin hospital blanket.
Tiny wisps of dark hair framed his face, almost identical to Sasuke’s own, while bright blue eyes, still too young to focus properly, had inherited Naruto’s impossible shade without question.
Three faint whisker marks rested against each cheek.
Naruto’s.
A quiet reminder that this child had somehow been born from two lives that should never have crossed in that way.
An impossibility.
A mistake.
A miracle.
Sasuke still hadn’t decided which word fit best.
He let out a slow breath.
The sterile scent of antiseptic filled his lungs. The room was silent except for the soft, rhythmic beeping of the monitor beside the incubator.
Sakura had insisted Menma remain under observation for several days.
“His chakra network is… unusual,” she’d explained.
Unusual.
That had become everyone’s favorite word.
No one wanted to say dangerous.
No one wanted to say unstable.
So they settled for unusual.
His eyes lingered on the sleeping infant.
It was strange.
Menma looked; normal. Painfully so. His tiny fingers were curled into loose fists. His breathing was slow. His chest rose and fell with quiet determination, completely unaware of the conversations taking place outside his dreams.
He didn’t look like a weapon.
He didn’t look like an experiment.
He looked like every other newborn Sasuke had ever caught brief glimpses of throughout the village.
Fragile.
Defenseless.
Human.
…
That thought unsettled him more than anything else.
Because weapons were easy to understand. Weapons had purposes, weapons could be destroyed. But children, children grew, children laughed, they learned, they trusted, and somehow without either of them asking for it…
This one would grow up calling him Father.
The word felt foreign
It settled somewhere inside his chest, refusing to leave.
‘Father.’
A title belonged to someone dependable. Someone who came home before dinner. Someone who knew how to soothe a crying child without looking like he was diffusing an explosive tag. Someone whose first instinct wasn’t to disappear whenever life became too still.
Sasuke wasn’t certain he had ever known a man like that.
So how was he supposed to become one?
His gaze fell back to Menma’s impossibly tiny hand resting against the blanket.
It was so small.
Smaller than the hilt of his sword.
Smaller than the scars crossing his palm.
He couldn’t imagine those fingers ever holding a kunai.
Couldn’t imagine them stained with blood.
They were impossibly small, disappearing beneath the folds of the blanket as though the world itself might swallow them whole. Every so often they twitched in their sleep, curling into a loose fist before relaxing again, driven by nothing more than instinct. They looked incapable of causing harm. Incapable of surviving the kind of world waiting outside the hospital walls.
Sasuke had spent most of his life believing strength was something you earned through suffering. Every scar on his body had taught him that much. Shinobi were shaped by loss, sharpened by violence until they no longer knew how to exist without it. That had been his childhood. Naruto’s too.
Menma hadn’t even opened his eyes to the world yet.
And already, people had begun speaking about his power.
Not about the color of his eyes. Not about the way his tiny hand barely reached around Naruto’s finger the second time he’d held him. Not about the quiet sound he made whenever Sakura adjusted the blanket over him.
They spoke about his chakra.
About his blood.
About what he might become.
Sasuke understood why.
He understood it better than anyone.
But understanding it didn’t stop something inside him from twisting every time he looked through the glass.
Because of all the conversations about unstable chakra, dangerous bloodlines, and impossible potential… The child inside the incubator didn’t look like a weapon.
He looked like a baby.
A child too young to understand pain. Too young to understand fear. Too young to know that the moment he had entered the world, people had already begun deciding what he would become.
Sasuke wasn’t any different.
He was painfully aware that his first instinct had been to eliminate the child before he had ever thought of saving him.
That knowledge settled deep inside his chest, heavier than any wound he had ever carried.
He had spent days forcing himself to think like a shinobi. Menma’s blood. His chakra. The danger he represented. Every thought had been practical, detached, almost clinical.
It all collapsed the moment he truly looked at him.
He wasn’t looking at a weapon.
He was looking at a child.
A child who hadn’t asked to exist.
A child who hadn’t chosen the blood flowing through his veins.
A child who had done nothing except survive.
The realization struck Sasuke with a force no enemy ever had.
His breathing faltered.
His vision blurred.
He could feel his fingers trembling despite how tightly he had curled them into his palm.
What kind of person looks at a newborn and thinks of ending his life?
The question echoed inside him like a verdict.
He already knew the answer.
Because, for one brief, unforgivable moment, he had been that person.
For one terrifying moment, Sasuke couldn’t bring himself to look at the child again.
His breathing had grown uneven, shallow enough that every inhale scraped painfully against his ribs. He pressed the heel of his hand against his eyes, willing the tears away before they could fall.
It didn’t work.
The first drop slipped free anyway.
Then another.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried like this.
Not after the war.
Not after Itachi.
Not even after finally allowing himself to build a life beside Naruto.
Those tears had always come with grief or happiness.
But these ones came with shame.
Sasuke had spent years convincing himself that emotions could be mastered the same way everything else could. Grief became silence. Anger became a purpose. Regret became something to carry alone. He had survived because he had learned how to bury every feeling before it could reach the surface.
Shame, however, refused to stay buried.
It lingered beneath his skin, tightening his throat each time his eyes returned to the child sleeping peacefully inside the incubator. Every steady breath Menma took only reminded him that there had been a moment, however brief, in which Sasuke himself had imagined a world where that breathing had never begun.
The sound of the sliding door pulled Sasuke from his thoughts. He didn’t turn around. He couldn’t. He knew those footsteps before they had even crossed the threshold, knew the uneven rhythm of them after years of missions, quiet mornings, and nights spent waiting for the other to return home.
“There you are.”
Naruto let out a breath that sounded almost relieved, scratching absentmindedly at the back of his neck as he stepped into the room.
“I swear, I leave you alone for ten minutes and you disappear. Sakura sent me looking for you. She said I’d probably find you here…” A small laugh escaped him. “She was right.”
The words faded naturally as Naruto drew closer. At first, nothing seemed unusual. Menma slept peacefully inside the incubator, the monitors tracing the same steady rhythm they had listened to for days. Sasuke stood exactly where Naruto expected to find him, his gaze fixed on the child without moving an inch. It should have been an ordinary sight.
Then Naruto noticed the way Sasuke was standing.
His shoulders had always been straight, almost impossibly rigid, but this wasn’t composure. It looked like someone holding himself together with whatever strength he had left. His breathing was shallow, uneven, and his hand lingered near his face a fraction too long before falling back to his side.
Naruto didn’t ask what was wrong.
He had stopped asking that question years ago.
If Sasuke wanted to speak, he would. If he didn’t, no amount of questions would pull the words out of him.
So Naruto simply walked until he was standing beside him. Their shoulders brushed for the briefest moment before both of them looked through the glass again. Menma hadn’t stirred once.
“He opened his eyes for a little while earlier,” Naruto said quietly, his voice carrying none of the forced cheerfulness from before. “Sakura said he still can’t really focus on anything yet.” A smile tugged faintly at the corner of his mouth. “I still think he looked at me.”
For the first time since entering the room, Naruto looked away from the incubator.
Sasuke was crying.
The tears simply slipped down his face one after another, and Sasuke made no attempt to wipe them away. It was almost as though he hadn’t realized they were there.
Naruto’s chest tightened.
In all the years they had known each other, he could count on one hand the number of times he had seen Sasuke cry.
“…Sasuke.”
He spoke his name carefully, almost afraid that anything louder might shatter whatever fragile thing remained holding him together.
The first time Naruto saw Sasuke cry was when they were kids, standing beneath the sky without explanation. The others had all followed loss. This was different; there had been no funeral, no battlefield, no goodbye. Only the quiet hum of the incubator and a child sleeping peacefully between them.
Naruto didn’t ask what had happened.
Experience had taught him that questions only made Sasuke retreat further into himself. If there was something he wanted to say, he would find the words eventually. If he wasn’t ready, then all Naruto could do was stay.
He rested one hand lightly against the edge of the incubator, his gaze settling on the sleeping infant. Menma had barely moved all afternoon. Every now and then his tiny nose scrunched for no apparent reason before relaxing again, as though he were dreaming about something only newborns could understand. Naruto couldn’t help the small smile that tugged at his lips.
“Sakura got mad at me earlier,” he murmured, the corners of his mouth lifting just enough to betray his amusement. “She said I keep talking to him too much.”
Naruto let out a quiet breath through his nose, still looking at Menma.
“I told her that I know he can’t understand me yet… but I figured it’d be nice if the first voice he got used to wasn’t her’s.”
The joke barely landed.
Naruto wasn’t trying to be funny.
He was simply speaking the way he always had, filling the silence because silence had never frightened him the way it frightened Sasuke.
His smile faded gradually as he looked at the child again.
“I don’t know if babies can recognize voices this early,” he admitted after a moment. “Maybe they can’t.”
He rubbed the back of his neck, almost embarrassed by his own train of thought.
“…But I didn’t want him to wake up alone.”
The words settled quietly into the room.
Sasuke felt something inside him give way.
It wasn’t Naruto’s voice.
It wasn’t even what he had said.
It was how effortlessly those thoughts had come to him.
Naruto hadn’t spent the last week wondering whether Menma would become too powerful to exist. He hadn’t measured the child by his bloodline, his chakra, or the destruction he might one day cause. While Sasuke had been searching for reasons to fear him, Naruto had only been worried that he might open his eyes to an empty room.
The difference between those two thoughts lodged itself somewhere deep inside Sasuke’s chest.
His breathing became uneven before he noticed it. He tried swallowing past the knot in his throat, but it only seemed to tighten, making every breath scrape painfully against his lungs. He lowered his head, willing himself to regain control before Naruto noticed anything more than the tears already staining his face.
It was useless.
The guilt had been clawing at him for days, buried beneath logic and duty and every excuse he had constructed to convince himself his thoughts had been reasonable. Standing beside Naruto, listening to him worry about something as simple as a child waking up alone, every one of those excuses collapsed beneath their own weight.
When Sasuke finally tried to speak, nothing came out.
Only a broken breath.
Sasuke remained silent for so long that Naruto wondered if he had changed his mind. His gaze never left the incubator, never strayed from the rise and fall of Menma’s tiny chest. It almost seemed as though speaking required more strength than he had left. When the words finally came, they were quiet enough that Naruto had to resist the urge to step closer.
“I looked at him…” Sasuke’s throat tightened around the confession, forcing him to pause before he could continue. “…and all I could see was another weapon.”
His fingers slowly curled against the edge of the incubator. He wasn’t looking at Naruto anymore. He couldn’t. The shame sitting in his chest had become too heavy to carry while meeting the eyes of the person he loved most.
Sasuke remained silent for so long that Naruto wondered whether he had said everything he intended to. The tears had stopped, but they had left his eyes red, his breathing uneven, his voice worn thin from forcing words through a throat that seemed determined to keep them buried.
His gaze lingered on Menma for another moment before he spoke again.
“I’ve killed people before.” His fingers tightened against the edge of the incubator. “I’ve never regretted it.”
There was no pride in the admission.
Only certainty.
“They were my enemies.”
The silence that followed was heavier than the words themselves.
Sasuke swallowed once before continuing.
“…He wasn’t.”
The knot in his throat returned so suddenly that it hurt.
“I looked at him…” His voice cracked despite every effort to steady it. “…and I still thought it.”
He closed his eyes.
“I knew he was a child.”
Another slow breath.
“I thought it anyway.”
For a long time, neither of them moved.
When Sasuke finally spoke again, his voice had become almost frighteningly quiet.
“…You married someone who could think that.”
The confession escaped him before he could stop it.
Not because he wanted reassurance.
Not because he expected Naruto to deny it.
It was simply the ugliest truth he knew.
His eyes never left the incubator.
“I don’t know what that says about me.”
Naruto didn’t answer right away. He lowered his gaze to the sleeping infant, and for a while the only thing either of them heard was the quiet rhythm of the monitors. His fingers absentmindedly traced the smooth edge of the incubator before a small smile appeared, almost nostalgic.
“You know…” he said after a long silence, “I don’t think I ever told you about the first time Iruka-sensei took me out for ramen.”
The sudden change of subject earned him the smallest glance from Sasuke.
Naruto let out a quiet laugh.
“I thought he wanted something from me.” He rubbed the back of his neck, looking almost embarrassed by the memory. “I spent the whole meal trying to figure out what I was supposed to do to pay him back. I kept waiting for him to tell me I’d misunderstood, or that he’d only invited me because he felt sorry for me.” His smile softened as the memory settled over him. “But he never did. He just… sat there with me.”
He looked back at Menma.
“It wasn’t the ramen I remember.”
His voice had grown quieter now, carrying none of its usual brightness.
“It was that someone looked at me…” He searched for the words, shaking his head with a faint smile. “…and, for the first time, they didn’t look at the nine tails.”
Naruto rested both hands against the edge of the incubator and remained there for a moment, watching the child breathe. When he spoke again, it wasn’t with the certainty of someone trying to prove a point. It sounded more like someone remembering something important.
“I’ve been thinking about that a lot these past few days.” He smiled to himself. “I keep coming in here and talking to him, and I know he can’t understand a single word I’m saying. Sakura keeps making fun of me for it.” A quiet chuckle escaped him. “She’s probably right.”
His eyes drifted toward Sasuke.
“But I keep thinking… if the first thing he ever remembers is that someone was there, maybe that’s enough.”
He let the thought settle before continuing.
“When you told me we had to bring him to Orochimaru, I didn’t stop to think about whether that meant we were becoming parents. Honestly…” He laughed softly. “I don’t think either of us had enough time to think about anything. I just knew I didn’t want him to die.”
Naruto’s smile disappeared.
“You keep talking about the first thing you thought when you saw him.” He shook his head gently. “I don’t think that’s the part I remember.”
Sasuke frowned almost imperceptibly.
“I remember you running.”
Naruto’s voice remained calm, almost matter-of-fact.
“I remember you yelling at me to keep pressure on the seal because I was holding him wrong. I remember you shouting at Orochimaru to hurry up.” A small smile returned despite himself. “I remember you standing outside this room every night after Sakura finished checking on him because you thought nobody noticed.”
He finally turned to look at Sasuke.
“I don’t remember the thought you had.”
His expression softened in that quiet way it only ever did around him.
“I remember every choice you made after it.”
Sasuke lowered his gaze again, though this time it wasn’t because he was ashamed to meet Naruto’s eyes. The tightness in his chest remained, but it no longer felt as though it was crushing him from the inside. Naruto’s words hadn’t erased the guilt. They hadn’t excused it, nor had they tried to reshape it into something easier to bear.
They had simply made it lighter.
For the first time in days, the silence inside his head wasn’t occupied solely by the memory of his own thoughts. Instead, he found himself remembering everything Naruto had just described. The frantic run through the forest. Orochimaru helping out. The endless nights spent leaning against hospital walls after Sakura insisted they should both be getting some sleep.
Naruto had remembered all of it.
Not the thought Sasuke had hated himself for.
Everything that had come after.
Sasuke let out a slow breath, his shoulders relaxing by the smallest degree. It wasn’t relief. He doubted relief would come for a long time. But the unbearable weight pressing against his ribs had shifted just enough for him to breathe without feeling as though he was drowning.
“…You’re unfair.”
The words escaped almost involuntarily.
Naruto blinked.
“Hm?”
Sasuke gave the smallest shake of his head, a tired smile threatening the corner of his mouth despite himself.
“You always do that.”
It wasn’t an accusation.
If anything, it sounded closer to resignation.
“I spend days convincing myself of something…” His voice grew quieter, almost thoughtful. “…and then you come along and make it impossible to keep believing it.”
Naruto laughed softly.
“I don’t even know what I did.”
“I know.”
That was the problem.
Naruto never seemed to realize it.
Another silence settled between them, softer now than before. The tension that had filled the room since Naruto arrived had given way to something familiar, something that had existed between them for years without either of them needing to name it.
Sasuke looked at Menma one last time before turning toward Naruto.
There were still tears clinging to his lashes.
They hadn’t disappeared.
Neither had the guilt.
But when he looked at Naruto, he was reminded of something he had almost forgotten.
He wasn’t carrying it alone anymore.
Without thinking, Sasuke leaned forward until his forehead rested lightly against Naruto’s shoulder.
The movement was so hesitant it almost didn’t happen at all. Very carefully, as though any sudden movement might make Sasuke pull away again, he lifted one hand and rested it against the middle of Sasuke’s back.
He didn’t tighten his grip, and he didn’t pull him closer. He simply let his hand remain there, warm and steady beneath the thin fabric of Sasuke’s cloak.
Neither of them spoke, there was nothing left to explain.
Naruto could feel the uneven rhythm of Sasuke’s breathing slowly beginning to settle, each breath a little deeper than the last. He smiled to himself, resting his cheek lightly against the top of Sasuke’s head.
“…We’ve got him.”
His voice was barely louder than the monitors surrounding them.
“And we’ve got each other.”
Naruto didn’t know whether Sasuke was ready to believe the first part.
But he knew he believed the second enough for both of them.
Neither of them moved for a long while.
Naruto’s hand remained against Sasuke’s back, the slow, absent circles of his thumb eventually fading into stillness. There was nothing left to say. They had spent years learning that silence wasn’t always something that needed to be filled. Sometimes it was enough to simply remain beside one another until the storm inside the other person settled on its own.
Sasuke could still hear the steady rhythm of Menma’s heartbeat echoing through the monitor beside the incubator. The sound no longer felt accusing. It was simply there, constant and reassuring, weaving itself together with Naruto’s breathing until both became impossible to separate. The guilt remained somewhere inside him, but it no longer felt like it was consuming everything else.
Naruto smiled to himself. He knew better than to ruin moments like these by trying to make them perfect. Sasuke had never needed speeches after opening up. If anything, too many words only made him retreat again. So he stayed exactly where he was, content to let Sasuke lean against him for as long as he wanted.
It wasn’t unusual anymore. Somewhere over the years, without either of them noticing when it had happened, leaning on one another had become as natural as sharing a meal or falling asleep on opposite sides of the same bed after returning from separate missions.
After a while Naruto let out a quiet breath through his nose, unable to stop the faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“You scared me.”
Sasuke didn’t lift his head, but Naruto felt the smallest exhale against his shoulder that almost resembled a laugh.
“You’ve fought gods.”
“I know,” Naruto replied. “Turns out crying Sasuke is scarier.”
That finally earned him the slightest shove, barely enough to move him.
“There you are,” Naruto said with obvious satisfaction.
Sasuke rolled his eyes, though the gesture lacked its usual sharpness.
“Idiot.”
Naruto’s grin widened immediately.
“Yeah. That’s definitely my husband.”
The warmth that settled between them felt almost embarrassingly ordinary. A few minutes earlier the room had seemed too heavy to breathe inside. Now it was simply a hospital room again, filled with the quiet hum of medical equipment and the sleepy breaths of a child neither of them had expected to love this fiercely.
Sasuke found himself thinking that perhaps this was what peace actually looked like. Not grand declarations or miraculous forgiveness, but the quiet certainty that someone would still be standing beside you after seeing the worst parts of you.
The sliding door opened with its familiar hiss.
Neither of them noticed at first.
Sakura had only intended to check on Menma before finishing the last of Orochimaru’s notes, but the sight waiting for her in the room made her stop just inside the doorway.
Naruto and Sasuke were standing shoulder to shoulder beside the incubator, Sasuke leaning against him with a familiarity that only years together could create. She had seen them like this before, though never often. They were never particularly affectionate in front of other people, which somehow made the rare moments she stumbled across feel oddly private.
For a second she genuinely considered backing out and pretending she’d come to the wrong room.
Then Naruto looked up.
“…Uh.”
He straightened so abruptly that Sakura’s first instinct was to glance toward the incubator to make sure he hadn’t accidentally bumped it.
“We weren’t doing anything.”
Sakura stared at him.
“Naruto.”
“…What?”
“You’ve been married for years.”
Naruto blinked.
“…Right.”
A sigh escaped Sakura before she could stop it, though the smile threatening at the corners of her mouth made it impossible to sound annoyed.
“I swear, the two of you have survived the worst, and yet somehow you’re still acting like two awkward teenagers.”
Even Sasuke, whose eyes were still faintly red, looked away with the smallest trace of embarrassment.
She spared them one last glance before turning her attention where it belonged.
Menma.
The clipboard came to rest on the counter beside the incubator as Sakura leaned over the sleeping infant, her fingers immediately finding the familiar pattern of chakra woven through the sealing array. Years of practice made the examination almost automatic. She checked the flow of chakra first, then the pulse beneath the tiny wrist resting outside the blanket before finally allowing herself a small nod of approval.
“He’s holding the seal much better today.”
Naruto was beside her almost instantly.
“Really?”
“Mhm.”
She continued making a few adjustments with practiced ease, smoothing one edge of the blanket back into place after finishing.
“The fluctuations are getting weaker. They’re still there, but they’re finally becoming predictable.” She glanced down at the notes Orochimaru had left behind, her expression flattening almost immediately. “…Assuming I interpreted whatever language he decided to invent that day.”
Naruto leaned over her shoulder. “Can you actually read that?”
“Barely.”
“I thought you were supposed to.”
“So did I.”
Naruto frowned at the page.
“…I’m pretty sure that’s not even a word.”
“It might not be.”
Sasuke, who had quietly stepped closer, looked down at the notes as well.
“It’s upside down.”
Naruto blinked. “…That explains a lot.”
Sakura shook her head, though the corner of her mouth lifted despite herself as she took the clipboard back from Naruto before he managed to turn it upside down again.
She scanned the page one last time, comparing Orochimaru’s observations with the notes she had written throughout the day. There were still inconsistencies in Menma’s chakra, still moments where it behaved in ways none of them had expected, but they were becoming less frequent. For the first time since the child had arrived in Konoha, the uncertainty no longer outweighed the progress.
She closed the clipboard with a quiet sigh and looked at the two men standing beside the incubator. Neither of them had realized how tired they looked.
Naruto still hadn’t broken the habit of rubbing at his eyes whenever he thought no one was paying attention, and Sasuke had developed the familiar stillness he always carried after going too long without proper sleep. She had watched the same thing happen after missions, after the war, after nights spent searching for patients during emergencies. The only difference now was that neither of them was willing to admit exhaustion while Menma remained in the hospital.
“You should both go home.”
They both looked toward the incubator at almost the exact same moment, as though leaving the room required permission neither of them knew how to ask for. Menma hadn’t moved since Sakura began examining him. The tiny rise and fall of his chest remained slow and steady beneath the blanket, accompanied only by the quiet rhythm of the monitor beside him. There was nothing left to adjust, nothing left to check, nothing left for either of them to do.
Sakura knew that wasn’t the problem.
“You’ve been here every day,” she continued, her voice remaining as calm as it had throughout the entire examination. “You’ve done everything either of you could have done.” She tucked the clipboard beneath her arm before meeting Naruto’s eyes first, then Sasuke’s. “Staying awake won’t make him recover any faster.”
Naruto lowered his head with the smallest sigh. He didn’t argue, which was unusual enough on its own. Over the years, Sakura had learned that his silence usually meant he already knew she was right. He simply didn’t like hearing it.
Sasuke was the first to move.
He stepped closer to the incubator one final time, his gaze lingering on Menma’s sleeping face with an expression Sakura couldn’t quite name.
Whatever conversation had taken place while she had been gone had settled something inside him, not completely, but enough that the tension she’d grown accustomed to seeing had softened around the edges.
Without thinking, Sasuke reached down and straightened the blanket where it had slipped away from one of Menma’s shoulders. The movement was careful, almost instinctive, and over so quickly that he probably hadn’t realized he’d done it.
“…We’ll come back tomorrow morning,” Sasuke said quietly.
She nodded once.
“I know.”
That was enough.
Naruto looked at Menma for another second before turning toward the door beside Sasuke. He hesitated only long enough to glance back over his shoulder, as though trying to convince himself that leaving for one night wasn’t the same thing as leaving him behind. Satisfied with whatever answer he found, he followed Sasuke into the corridor without another word.
The door slid shut behind them, leaving the room to the familiar hum of machines and the steady breathing of the child asleep inside the incubator. Sakura remained where she was for a few moments longer, looking down at Menma before reopening the clipboard to continue the notes Orochimaru would undoubtedly criticize in the morning.
The hospital had finally grown quiet.
For the first time in days, she hoped it stayed that way.