So it appears there was a crazy formatting error when I last uploaded this story - hopefully it has now been fixed! Thank you to the anonymous reviewers who let me know.

Winter had settled over Konoha and the Hidden Village of the Leaf glistened with a fresh coat of snow. It was the middle of the night and the village was peaceful in the glow of the moonlight. It was a clear night, which meant an uninterrupted view of the starry night sky on the one hand, but on the other meant the temperatures were glacial throughout the environment.

Itachi stirred under the thick down blankets on his bed, he gently opened his eyes to the dark room and frowned at the odd noise filling the otherwise silent bedroom. He sent out his senses, trying to assess what the disturbance was. He could sense Yukio and Hanami sleeping soundly in their bedrooms, their sedate chakra flow indicating their deep and soundless sleep. The house was silent and he could detect no additional presences outside of their little family.

Frowning, he settled back into the mattress and pulled the blankets tightly around his body to shield himself from the cold night air. With his eyes shut, he began to slip back into sleep when the noise crept back into his awareness. Gritting his teeth, he sat bolt upright and scanned the room intensely. When his intent gaze landed on the sleeping form of his wife beside him, the origin of said disturbance became clear.

Sakura's teeth were chattering.

She was laying with her back to him, her body coiled tightly in the fetal position. Her sleeping face was contorted in a harsh frown and her hand gripping the blankets close around her torso. She body shook gently with her shivers and her teeth chattered quietly but consistently.

Itachi's expression softened and a small smile pulled at the corner of his lips. He lay on his side and scooted closer to her under the duvet, his arm snaking around her waist and pulling her tight against his chest. She murmured in her semi-conscious state and then smiled sleepily, snuggling in closer to him. He sighed contentedly, closed his eyes and inhaled the scent of her hair, allowing himself to drift back to sleep.

A few moments later he found himself roused from sleep once more. Sakura was no longer chattering but her shivering had not ceased it would seem. She quivered in his arms, sending small vibrations through his body, he scowled and tried running his hand up and down her arm in an attempt to warm her up. She groaned but continued to shiver, snuggling back into his warmth.

'Sakura,' he said softly, she didn't acknowledge him, 'Sakura,' he said again more firmly. She cracked an eye open and turned her head to look at him. 'Take your night gown off.'

She scowled, 'Ita, I don't th-'

'You're cold,' he interrupted calmly, 'body to body heat is the most efficient way to warm up.' She looked quizzically at him, trying to process the information in her sleep clouded mind. ' Unless,' he went on and leaned in close to her so she could feel his hot breath fanning on her cheeks, 'you're feeling too shy.'

She grinned sheepishly and a slight blush crept across her cheeks. 'OK,' she whispered.

Sakura pulled back from him slightly and began to wriggle out of her night shirt under the duvet. Itachi returned her smile and sat up to pull his top off, he untied the bow at his waist. He slipped his pajama trousers down his legs and kicked them out from under the covers.

With the duvet and blanket tucked up to their necks to protect them from the cold night air, Itachi and Sakura cuddled close together. Pressing their naked bodies into one another, Itachi let his hands rove over her supple frame, 'You're freezing,' he commented.

'Better warm me up then, hmm?' She said in a husky voice in his ear. He caught her lips with his and began passionately kissing her. His tongue explored her mouth and his upper hand ran up her spine and rested on the back of her neck, holding her to him. Sakura moaned under his ministrations, her hand moved from where it was resting on his chest and slid down his flat abdomen and into his thick thatch of black curls.

Sakura cupped him intimately and he groaned into her mouth. She smirked up at him as Itachi gently pushed her onto her back into the mattress and covered her with his body. She moved to run her hands up his back, checking the blanket was still secured snuggly around their entangled bodies, whilst he moved to lavish kisses on the soft column of her neck.

Sakura relaxed into the mattress and closed her eyes, allowing herself to just enjoy and feel of Itachi's warm body against hers and the wonderful things he was doing with his hands and tongue. He returned to her lips and they continued to kiss passionately as his hands slipped down her sides to part her thighs.

Suddenly, his hands stilled and their kisses stopped. Itachi raised his head to part their lips and looked into her eyes intently. At this moment a soft 'tap tap tap' could be heard at the shoji screen from the hallway, 'Mommy?' came the quiet tentative voice.

'You're mother is asleep. Go back to bed, Hanami,' Itachi stated firmly. Sakura fixed him with a disapproving look before placing her palms firmly on his chest and pushing him back. Itachi's eyebrow twitched in irritation but he rolled to his side of the mattress allowing her to swing her legs over the side of the bed. Sakura gracefully rose to her feet, she peeled her nightgown off of the floor and pulled it over her head. She padded softly to the screen and pulled it back to reveal their four year old daughter, Hanami. She was stood in set of yellow flannel pyjamas, a fleece night gown and her slippers. She was clutching a moth eaten floppy eared bunny to her chest and wearing a forlorn expression.

Sakura knelt down so that she was eye level with her daughter and gave her a reassuring smile, 'what's wrong, Hanami?'

Hanami shuffled on her feet, 'I'm cold,' she murmured.

Sakura smiled warmly and placed her hands on the little girl's shoulders, 'Did you get the spare blanket out of your closet?' Hanami nodded, 'and you're still cold?' The little girl nodded again solemnly and gave a little shiver as if to reiterate her point to her soft hearted mother.

Sakura pouted at her youngest child and then rolled her eyes at the gentle, and almost indiscernible, exasperated sigh from the bed behind her. She looked back at her daughter's pleading face, 'Do you want to sleep in our bed?' Sakura did not miss the quiet huff from behind her.

Hanami's face brightened momentarily before becoming nervous again as her eyes darted past her mother to the tall dark form of her father. She could just make out the outline of his lithe form in the darkness, he was now stood from the bed with his back to the door and appeared to be adjusting the waist band of his pyjama trousers. She was snapped back to her kneeling mother when Sakura took her hand in hers and gave it a little tug, 'come on, then,' she grinned, 'and don't mind Otou-san. He's just grumpy because he's cold too,' Sakura teased with a wink.

Sakura led the little girl over to the bed and watched as she slipped out of her slippers and clambered up onto the mattress. Itachi watched with a resigned expression as his small daughter settled into the middle of the mattress - bunny still tightly clasped to her chest. She had a contented smile as Sakura laid down next to her and pulled her into a cuddle. Mother and daughter snuggled happily together under the thick blankets, all cosy and warm.

Itachi was about to pull the covers back so he could slip into his side of the mattress when he sensed another presence. Itachi's face flickered momentarily in irritation again before padding around the bed and to the shoji screen that led to the hallway Hanami had just come from. He slid the screen aside with a resounding thud to come face to face with a curious looking Yukio.

'Yukio,' he intoned questioningly.

Yukio's eye flicked behind him to observe the sight of his mother and sister settled under the warm blankets of the master bed. 'I'm cold too,' he announced. Deliberately making his voice slightly louder to ensure his mother heard him.

Itachi opened his mouth to inform the 6 year old that if he wanted to be a shinobi then he needed to get used to the cold but he was cut off by Sakura, who cheerfully announced from the bed, 'Come on, Yukio! Plenty of space for you!'

Yukio beamed and didn't wait for his disgruntled father to respond as he darted past him, knocking Itachi on the way passed. Itachi shut the shoji screen door a little more forcefully than was perhaps necessary in a small declaration of his displeasure before turning back to the bed. His countenance instantly softened slightly at the sight that greeted him. Sakura was settled with her back elevated on the pillows, an arm around each child who were tightly pressed into her sides. The duvet and blankets were all tucked in around them and their happy faces were just visible in the darkness.

He softly stepped back round to his side, not that much of the mattress was left, as Sakura placed dainty kisses on the children's foreheads. Itachi glanced between the two little forms as he positioned himself beneath what was left of the blankets to Sakura's left on the mattress. 'You coddle them,' he stated.

'They're children,' she responded softly, 'my precious little people. Besides, it is freezing tonight and you said yourself that body heat is the most efficient way to warm up.'

'Hm,' was Itachi's only response, closing his eyes.

Sakura chuckled softly at him and then settled down to sleep herself. She knew he didn't mind, it was just the concept of affection in this manner was new to him and he was adjusting. It would have been unheard of for the great prodigy Uchiha Itachi to climb into bed with Uchiha Fugaku and Uchiha Mikoto for mid-night cuddles. The mental image made her laugh softly and she dropped off to sleep with an amused smile on her lips.

It was three in the morning, or at least that was Itachi's estimate, and the house was silent except for the soft breathing of the three bodies next to him. It had been approximately two and half hours since the children had joined them in bed and Itachi had not gotten a wink of sleep. His daughter, who was laying between Sakura and him, had splayed her limbs about her under the covers. The results of which had meant that both of her feet were firmly rooted in Itachi's lower back. Her hand had knocked the back of his head a number of times and bunny was uncomfortably lodged under his side. Yukio had taken to irregularly snoring and his wriggles had meant Saukra and Hanami had moved further over the bed to allow him space to move. Which meant Itachi was now lying on his side, his back to his little family, perched precariously on the edge of the mattress. The last straw was Sakura's sleep laden moan as she twisted her body, taking the last of his section of the covers with her.

Gritting his teeth, Itachi admitted defeat and slowly raised himself from the bed. Itachi pulled his dressing gown on over his thin pyjama top and turned to look at the tangle of bodies sleeping on the master bed. He let a small smirk tug at his lips as he saw that Yukio and Sakura were sleeping in identical positions, their faces perfect copies of each other. Hanami, on the other hand, slept as if she had fallen from a great height, limbs, hair and cloths strewn everywhere.

The removal of his body from the bed went unnoticed by the other occupants and he walked sleepily to the shoji screen. A few moments later, Itachi was lying in Yukio's bed in the pleasant silence of his young son's room.

Itachi closed his eyes and allowed himself to relax into the mattress. So this is how the mighty fall, he couldn't help muse. Konoha's once most wanted S-Class missing nin, the great prodigy that was Uchiha Itachi, was now lying in a bed that was two feet too small for him, his legs dangling unceremoniously off of the end, having been kicked out of his own bed. The bedding was a pale blue and covered in quaint cartoon animals and an assortment of glowing stars and origami animals hung decoratively from the ceiling.

A small smile played on the corner of his lips as he drifted off to sleep, because, despite the occasional discomfort, he would not change a thing for the world.