Psychotic Azn: That's the end indeed. I make no promises for a sequel, as I'm horrible for writing them. Here's an epilogue, though.
Naruto Otaku: Here's the epilogue and don't kill me, please! If you plan to make good on your offer there (over 500 sasunaru pics! Fwah!):
KageKitsune16: Yes. . .that's the end, but for the sake of keeping the other reviewers happy, here's an epilogue.
Kurisuteru-chan: I always find that mpreg fics go downhill from the time the baby's born to whenever they decide to end. I ended mine before it even got to that stage, but here's the epilogue, dipping into that "and after the baby. . ." I hope I didn't kill the story!
Chiikara: 1. I agree. I just hop-skip-jumped over that. Bad, bad me. I know these things. 2. Here's an epilogue; don't explode. And. . .do you want the baby to have a name? 3. The child borne by Sasuke would be Naruto's successor. Since Naruto is actually married to Sakura, she assumes the title of queen, while Sasuke gets dismissed altogether. 4. Lots of novels end with inconclusive lines like "in the end, everything worked out". It closes the story, but leaves the reader to draw their own conclusions. For example: "Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck, "Gone With the Wind", "Rebecca", "1984", "Fifth Business", "Wuthering Heights" and "Little Women" (I think) end on a rather inconclusive note, just as I did there. It's supposed to make you crave more, and feel a little unsatisfied, yet feel closure at the same time. I guess I didn't quite get that closure across. I'll try to work on that a bit!
Baka possessed Neko: Sensei? Eek. . .I don't think I'm old enough to be a teacher. . .or a doctor. . .or even a manga-ka. . .3 No sequel, as I stink at sequels, but here's an epilogue for you!
Nivell: Tie up loose ends? Eh heh heh heh. . .that's what the epilogue's for? I dunno if this ties up any loose ends, but it is an epilogue. . .I think.
Riddle: Itachi's baby? I never really decided what happened. I suppose. . .it lived. And was a girl. Just to put a spoke in Orochimaru and Itachi's wheels, so to speak. Here's the epilogue!
Malitia: Well, there's no Sakura dying. . .but there is Sasuke having a nice life in the epilogue! . . .Kinda. If you have any questions, leave a review with your e-mail and I'll get back to you asap.
kyon: Er. . .I don't write labour scenes well. And Sakura. . .is just there. Here's an epilogue, not that it explains anything.
Melrose Stormhaven: I'm glad you enjoyed the ending!
Suna no Gaara: You're one of the few who were satisfied with that ending. And here's the epilogue, by popular demand.
Mistress Ethereal: I'm glad you enjoyed the ending, Itachi and Orochimaru's baby lived (happily ever after, no, not really. . .) And here's an epilogue for you all to enjoy!
inu-chan 613: I'm glad you enjoyed the story!
Yuen-chan: I'm glad you thought the ending was fitting/completing to the story. No, there will be no sequels, as I suck at them, and I'm too lazy to be bothered with writing one. Here's an epilogue though!
And now, on with the fic!)
Epilogue
The sun rose hot, and vivid over Konoha, its lively orange tones chasing away the melancholy colours of the night. The first sunbeams of the dawn peeked, pinkish and timid, into the chambers of one sleeping and prince and then, braver, crawled all across the floor, the walls, eating up the darkness and the shadows that lingered there. But the sunrise was not what woke Uzumaki Naruto.
The first few calling birds began to chirp, outside the open window, and the stifling summer breeze drifted into the room, rustling the curtains and waking Yume, who stirred beside her master, her fur standing on end. She sneezed, and curled her tail about her nose. But those noises were not what woke Uzumaki Naruto.
Those were peaceful noises, and what woke Naruto was not, by any means, a peaceful noise. The birds were startled out of their trees and they took to the sunlit sky, and Yume, startled beyond her wits, leapt under the covers and cowered. Naruto himself was drawn out of his slumber and he sat up, suddenly and proceeded to fall out of bed with a solid 'thump'. On the floor, he proceeded to yawn and rub his eyes.
Grumbling about hating to be woken this way, he stood up, and stretched, rather liberally, yawning again. Subconsciously, he scratched his lower back and glanced at the bed. His wife, Sakura was still sound asleep, apparently not as tuned into the sound as he was.
Blearily, he stumbled to the door of the room, and opened and shut it quietly, walking out into the hall. He walked, half-conscious, down the cold stone floor, stifling a yawn, and greeting the occasional far-too-chipper-for-this-time-of-morning servant with a stiff nod. He practically walked into Hinata, not noticing her there. She was ever small, even in presence.
They hesitated for a moment, before saying anything. Naruto forced a grin, and Hinata smiled, wavering, and stuttered, "G-g-ood morning, Uzumaki-sama."
He nodded to her in return, and went on his way, not knowing really what else to do or to say. Things had been awkward between them ever since he'd broken off their adulterous escapades. She had addressed him by his surname since that day, not his first name, and he had never bothered to correct her. It made him wince internally, however, to hear her call him that, for it seemed so detached and cold, when once they'd been so warm to each other. . .
He continued to walk down the hall, shaking sleep, and Hinata, from his thoughts as he went. He stopped just outside one of the doors on his right - the opposite side of the hall from his own chambers, near the eastern staircase at the end of the hall - but, to the casual eye, nobody could tell what was so special about this particular door that it deserved such scrutiny from an Uzumaki prince up at five-thirty in the morning.
Naruto, however, knew that this was a very special room, a room which his entire future, and his most precious treasures were hidden here, away from the rest of the prying world. Only a select few people were allowed to enter the room: Tsunade, Naruto's grandmother, Naruto's father, the Yondaime of Konoha, Jiraiya, Naruto's grandfather, Hinata, the head maid of the household, Sakura, Naruto's supposed wife, and the doctor of the family. Everyone else was locked out of that most important room.
And that was where the terrible sound that had woken Naruto up was emanating from. It was the same sound that had woken him up at about the same time for the past three days. It was a terrible noise, very loud and disruptive, and it unsettled Naruto and troubled him to no end when he heard it, even though he knew that it would soon be stopped and put to rest. He knocked on the door, respecting the privacy of those withing, but there was no reply, except that terrible cry that rang out and made him want to shut his ears to the world.
The noise was dying down a bit, and when he opened the door, he was presented with a rather. . .interesting sight, to say the very least about it. He felt a smirk tug at the corner of his lips, and he fought to keep himself in check.
Sasuke glanced up from the rocking chair, where he was perched, started, and then, like a storm cloud, a look of absolute rage and embarrassment flooded his pale face, and he tugged up what he could of the material pooled below his chest, shrieking, "Naruto!"
The blond chuckled at the other boy's reaction, and shut the door behind him. "You're so . . ."
Sasuke gave him a dark glare, defensively holding the material of both his shirt and the baby blanket draped over his shoulder up over his exposed skin. He broke off his glare, rather suddenly, looking at the tiny infant he was holding with only one arm, rather precariously. Maternal instincts took over, making Naruto laugh, because Sasuke completely forgot to be embarrassed, and dropped the material, getting a safer hold on his first-born baby.
The infant, who's crying had woken Naruto some moments before, was now curled happily into his 'mother''s chest, suckling enthusiastically at 'breakfast'. Naruto could almost swear his baby was smiling, the little devil, probably enjoying the 'privilege' Sasuke denied everyone else, including Naruto - latching onto, and consequently groping, Sasuke's supple chest. Naruto could quite clearly remember the fit Sasuke had upon discovering his body had covered all areas of making him a mother.
He crossed the floor of the nursery, going to stand behind the slightly older human, because, as he'd managed to discover within the first week of the baby's birth, Sasuke tended to try and abandon nursing, being entirely uncomfortable with the notion. Somebody generally had to goad him into it, and that was usually Naruto, because he seemed to be the only one Sasuke could stand to be in the room while he was doing something like that.
He ran a hand through Sasuke's thick, tousled locks, stifling another yawn. "How 're ya feelin'?" he asked lazily, stroking those ebony locks, brushing them back from Sasuke's pretty face.
"The usual," Sasuke replied, rather crankily. "Sore, tired, fat, ugly."
Naruto sighed, rather heavily. "Sasuke," he chided, but went no farther with his statement. He didn't want to start an argument, because that scared the baby, and made Sasuke upset.
The dark-haired boy didn't reply to him. Naruto looked, bored, at the floorboards. Sasuke had quickly descended into self-degradation after the baby had been born, some three weeks ago. He'd been incredibly sulky, and had even gone so far as to say Naruto didn't care about him any more.
Naruto had tried to reason with him at that point, saying that if he didn't care, he wouldn't have paid Gaara and Neji all that money, and let them get off scot-free like he did. Sasuke had, pessimistically, pointed out that he'd been with child at that point, and that child was probably what Naruto was more concerned about.
Naruto had given up reason at that point, and tried to prove that he still loved his Uchiha pet, but his actions had been a serious mistake. He'd attempted to take the human boy to bed with him, which had ended up with Sasuke in tears, and a rather messy situation concerning the bed sheets turning rather red.
As it turned out, though Sasuke had made a rather fast physical recover, despite the hard labour he'd had, in the area of walking and being mobile, but he wasn't completely healed, and the subsequent visit with the physician had told them it would still be a good three or four weeks, maybe more, before Sasuke was physically ready for that kind of thing. Emotionally, it seemed like it was going to take a lot longer than that.
As he'd been thinking, Naruto's hand had been creeping steadily downward, toward Sasuke's exposed skin. It was incredibly irritating to have something like that flaunted in his face and not be allowed to touch it. The action was entirely calculated, and the only point when Sasuke noticed what Naruto was doing was when Naruto actually had a hold of the fleshy mound, and was rubbing his thumb about the other boy's nipple. Sasuke jumped, nearly dropping the baby, and shouted, "Naruto!", then slapped the perverted kitsune-jin's hand away from him.
The baby let go of his teat and started to cry, loudly. Naruto's attention was diverted immediately to the infant, but Sasuke glared at the kitsune-jin prince, and let the child in his arms cry.
"Sasuke," Naruto chided, a little more dangerously, indicating that the Uchiha needed to look after the baby right then, instead of nursing his own anger.
The dark-haired boy sighed, rather heavily, and cuddled the child closer to him, disdain evident in his actions. Naruto sighed and put his hands on Sasuke's shoulders. "I don't see why you're so uptight about this," he mumbled, rubbing light circles on the boy's tense muscles. "It should be natural."
"It's not natural," Sasuke growled, and from his tone, Naruto understood perfectly what Sasuke meant.
It was not natural for boys to get pregnant, or to have children in that fashion, or whatever else went along with it, but he felt, deep in his soul, that it didn't really matter, because right then, they had a baby that was entirely dependant on them for his vitality. They could worry about the wrong and right of it later.
Sasuke was rocking the baby back and forth now, humming lightly to himself, as if he didn't realize he was doing it. The wailing child began to calm down, cooing gently and happily. Naruto relaxed. Sasuke sighed, audibly. "I don't know, Naruto. . .I. . .I just. . ."
Naruto petted the other boy's head lovingly. "You what?" he murmured gently, to emphasize the fact he was paying attention.
"I just want it to be. . .just us. . ," he murmured, trailing off, looking down at the baby. "I feel. . .like the baby's. . .come between us."
"Oh, Sasuke," Naruto purred, pouring sympathy into his words.
Sasuke leaned back in the rocking chair, and looked up at him, his eyes full of melancholy and regret. "Sometimes," he murmured. "Sometimes. . .I wish we didn't have the baby, at all."
"Don't say that!" Naruto cried, looking at his 'mate' in sheer terror. "A baby's a blessing! The gods have looked on us as -"
He paused, noting Sasuke wasn't really listening anymore, just staring off into space. The baby squirmed in the older boy's arms, as if restless or uncomfortable. Sasuke heaved another sigh and started rocking back and forth again, easing their baby boy into an easier position. The baby cooed happily.
Sasuke put his head down, and then, his shoulders started shaking. "Hey," Naruto said, then placed a hand, gently, but firmly on the other's shoulder. "No need to cry. . ."
Sasuke gave a little sniffle, then got up rather abruptly and deposited the baby into the crib, surprisingly, careful not to wake him. He walked about the rocking chair, which was still swinging absently, and curled himself into Naruto, wrapping his arms about the other boy, and sobbing, muffled, into the kitsune-jin's chest. Naruto was, to say the very least, shocked, but he overcame that quickly and responded correctly, by wrapping his arms about the sobbing thing in his arms. They stood like that for a long, long time.
And time went on, through eternity, with the seasons changing, and the years going by faster than the flight of a bird, and then, one day, they ceased to be, but time went on, and on and on, until one day, someone in a small, dusty classroom, a small child perhaps, looked down upon their names in an ancient textbook, watching the yellowed pages curl up, and then, he looked outside the window, and saw the blue sky, and the green grass of summer, and he wondered if vibrant colours like that existed in that distant past on that page, because to him, it just seemed to be rendered in brown and dust tones, like coffee stains and sunbeams and the old pages of his worn textbook.
And who could say for sure whether such colours had really existed in that old, old world that far back, for the people who could have contested so were long in their graves and the dead do not speak, nor do they wake, and the only tale they tell is on their headstones.
And when Sasuke finally looked up at Naruto, it seemed like that eternity had really passed between them, and suddenly, struck with the will to live and a fear of their own mortality, they clutched at each other, scared to lose their precious person. And at that moment, Sasuke's worries were resolved, as the kitsune-jin looked down at him and they brushed their lips together, with nothing more than a sense of forever and togetherness, and with no underlaying promise of more, that had always driven their kisses before.
And that, is where this writer shall lay down her pen, for writing anything more of these two lovers seems a crime, and she shall leave them be, to live out what remains of their days beyond these pages. Someday, when these pages are yellowed and the ink not quite so blue anymore, perhaps, someone will look upon these words of testimony and then, they shall see how a romance can truly end with happily ever after.