AN: Today I just can't get the Inch of Gold update finished due to massive migraine, and this has been sitting on my hard-drive in case of emergency. I'll be slowly posting chapters of this fic again. Not the daily updates that you guys are used to, but whenever an idea strikes or whenever I can't make one of the regularly scheduled updates on whatever fic I'm focussing on.

To keep up with the doings of our favourite Uchiha family and friends, check out The Importance of Being Shin, where they will be mentioned and occasionally make appearances.

The silence of the night is broken by an anguished, terrified howl.

Sasuke has his sword in hand before he is even properly awake, before his mind registers that the awful sound is a baby's wail and not his own cry. It's been decades, but there are still nights when his memories take hold, ripping agonized screams from his throat.

There should be no one else in the house capable of making such a noise.

He is on his feet and out the door within the span of a second, and yet he is still slower than Sakura. She is already in the nursery, Itaku screaming and flailing in her arms while she tries to quiet him.

"Sh! Sh-h-hhh," Sakura urges, rocking him gently while her eyes flit around the room in a desperate search for whatever – or whoever – has scared their child. Sasuke does the same, Sharingan spinning to life lest she miss something.

"What's going on?"

Sasuke and Sakura look up to see Sarada lingering in the doorway, pajama clad and small looking in the unlit room. She is sleepy-eyed, but aware, body tense and just as ready as her parents to offer deadly retribution to whatever is threatening her brother.

In any other household, their collective reaction might be considered over the top. However, given Itaku's sudden agitation, and the Uchiha family history, it's no surprise that the entire family is out of sorts. Barring the first week of his life, Itaku always sleeps through the night. Although he wakes around four every morning, it's normally just hungry fussing, and he falls back to sleep rather quickly.

Today is the longest sustained bit of crying anyone has heard from him since his birth.

"It's nothing, sweetheart, go back to bed," Sakura answers, trying to keep hold of the desperately squirming infant. Only the minor discordant note in her voice betray her words as a platitude.

There is something wrong, she just doesn't know what it is yet.

"But he's crying," Sarada points out, like her mother has missed something vitally important.

"Babies do that," Sasuke says simply, still hovering beside Sakura. He wants to be holding the baby as well, but attempting to do so before he is offered the baby will result in broken fingers. The first six months after Sarada was born, she was fiercely possessive, and the phenomena has repeated itself with this child.

He understands the impulse too well.

"Not our baby," their daughter insists. "Something's wrong. What's going on?"

"Nothing that you can do anything about. Your mother and I will handle it," Sasuke tells her firmly, but gently. He knows Sarada's heart is in the right place, but it's his and Sakura's responsibility to find out what's wrong with their child.

Sarada purses her lips, like she wants to argue but knows better, and lets a burst of air out through her nose.

Seeing at her parents won't be leaving the baby's side any time soon, she quietly says, "I'm going to go make some tea."

Sakura, still holding the fussing baby to her while she rubs soothing circles on his back, glances at her daughter, "Don't worry about it, sweetheart. You should really go back to sleep."

"I'm going to make tea," Sarada repeats, like her parents are hard of hearing and in a tone brooking no argument. The determined glint in her eyes is one Sasuke is intimately familiar with – the 'I'm-going-to-make-myself-useful-if-it's-the-last-thing-I-do-and-don't-you-get-in-my-way-Shannaro!' – look he wife often wears.

She doesn't wear it now, however. Instead, she looks as baffled and out of sorts as he feels.

Itaku continues to wail despite Sakura's soft-voiced entreaties. She adjusts her hold on him, tries walking back and forth, all the while checking his temperature, and performing a quick medical examination. With every minute that passes, her expression becomes more frazzled.

"I don't…I don't know what's wrong," she whispers, staring up at Sasuke in mounting terror; it's an expression he hasn't seen on her face in years. Sasuke's wife is known for her brilliance, her ability to puzzle out usually unsolvable problems. That she can't seem to do this – and the fact that the situation concerns their infant son – is clearly affecting her.

"Let me," he offers quietly. "Perhaps there's something in one of your scrolls…?"

Her face suggests she is making an agonizing decision. A mother's natural inclination is to hold her child closer to her, not give him up when he is so distressed, even to her husband. Her eyes flit to the door, mind likely already on what old tome might hold the answer.

"Okay," she whispers finally, gingerly passing the swaddled baby over to Sasuke. "I'll just be a minute, I just need to check one thing and I'll be back, okay?"

Sasuke nods, though he doesn't need the reassurance, and expertly cradles Itaku in the crook of his new arm.

The baby doesn't stop crying, but the cries alter from anguished screams to soft, weak gasps.

As Sakura darts from the room, Itaku stares up at Sasuke, terror palpable in his too-familiar eyes. It's as if he is begging his father to stop whatever is hurting him, but without words, he can't voice what exactly that is.

Sasuke is at a loss. He has never felt more helpless.

Not knowing what else he can do, he holds the baby close to him and whispers nonsensical words to calm him. Still the keening wails echo in his ears.

As promised, Sakura returns, several scrolls and a parenting book cradled under one arm, the other already reaching out for Itaku. But when Sasuke goes to pass him over, Itaku's cries increase in volume once more as if he's being tortured in some way.

Sakura is pale, confused and obviously hurt by what appears to be rejection from her son, however she says nothing and leaves him in Sasuke's arms. Eventually the cries wane to pitiful mewling, but when Sasuke tries to hand the baby over again, the screaming starts again.

"What's going on, Sasuke?" Sakura whispers, tears welling in her own eyes. She's not used to being without the answer, not used to being unable to fix things.

"We'll figure it out," he assures her, even if isn't sure that's true.

For what feels like hours, Sasuke holds him, walking him back and forth and massaging parts of his little body. Still crying, Itaku buries his head in the crook of Sasuke's neck, wetting it with tears. Sakura follows them both closely, and eventually reaches out to stroke the back of Itaku's hand.

The baby grasps her finger tightly when he notices this – earning a surprised, but grateful gasp from Sakura – but doesn't move from the safety of Sasuke's chest.

When his cries taper off, they try to lift him back into his crib, but he wails and clutches at Sasuke's shirt in desperation and they need to start all over again.

They spend the rest of the night trying to console the baby, relocating to the kitchen when it seems the nursery doesn't provide any particular comfort for him. At least there are chairs around the table for them to sit at.

Itaku is not hungry, or wet, or tired.

He is not sick or wounded or too hot or too cold, by Sakura's expert assessment.

Still, they are desperate to find out what exactly is wrong.

Sasuke breaks a longstanding, self-imposed rule that has been in effect ever since they returned to Konoha with Sarada: he suggests Sakura call her mother for advice.

All that nets them is the suggestion that it's colic ("No." This from Sakura) and an offer to come over right away to help ("Hell no." This from Sasuke).

Sarada bustles around the kitchen, bringing her parents tea, sometimes holding it for Sasuke as his hands are occupied with the fussing baby. She doesn't offer to hold her brother, however, given how tightly he grasps Sakura's finger and hides himself in Sasuke's chest. It's as if he is trying to keep them from disappearing.

It goes on for hours.

As the morning light seeps in through the kitchen window, Itaku eventually falls asleep.

Either he is finally reassured or he has exhausted himself crying. In any case, a wary, hard-won silence returns to the household. Sakura takes the now unresisting baby from Sasuke, returning him to his crib.

Sasuke falls heavily into a kitchen chair, rubbing at his swollen eyes.

"So…" Sarada begins quietly. "What was that all about?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," Sasuke tells her wearily.

"Maybe he was just saving it all up?"

"Maybe."

Neither thinks that's the case, but they don't say so out loud.

"I'm going to go get dressed," Sarada says at long last. "Training starts in an hour; I might as well be there early."

"You should go back to sleep," Sasuke says, frowning. "Training when your tired will lead to making mistakes."

"Yeah, but in battle you sometimes need to fight even when you're exhausted, right?" Sarada counters. "I should at least have some idea of what I can do with little to no sleep."

He doesn't argue with that.

Mostly because he is too tired to.

Even in this time of relative harmony, there could come a day when that knowledge is the difference between survival and death. He's seen too much of the world to accept peace as a constant.

"Come back here and rest when you get home," he tells her instead.

"See you later, Dad," she says, leaning close and brushing a kiss against his cheek before disappearing into the hallway.

Moments later, Sakura slumps tiredly into the kitchen, drawn and pale, her hair lying in limp ranks.

"He's completely out," she announces wearily. "Poor thing."

"He should sleep the rest of the day," Sasuke says, although there's an inquiring note in the statement.

Sakura nods, distracted.

"I have to call the clinic," she murmurs, reaching for the telephone. "There's no way I have the energy for those therapy sessions today."

Sasuke privately agrees, knowing she supposed to be meeting with at least one of the Shin clones today. If there's ever a time to have one's full wits about them, it's in the presence of those boys.

"Honey, can you pass me the calendar?" she requests, rummaging in one of the drawers for a pen.

Sasuke does as she asks, slipping the item off the back of the door and bringing it to his wife. As he passes it over, he happens to glance down at the many circled dates, takes a vague note of today's –

He goes still as Sakura takes the calendar, turning away as she greets whoever is on the other line.

In the frantic activity of the night, his brain didn't even bother noting it. Odd, considering he has been thinking of it the entire week.

Still, that's no reason why…?

"Sasuke? Are you okay?"

Sakura has finished her phone call and is watching him worriedly.

He shakes his head. "Yes. I'm just tired."

An admission he would never have made when he was a child, even to Sakura.

She smiles gently at him now. "How about we go back to bed for a bit?"

"Hm," he agrees, nodding distractedly. "I just want to check on Itaku once more."

"Okay," she says, not asking why. "I'll be waiting for you."

She, too, presses a kiss to his cheek, and disappears from the kitchen.

Sasuke moves silently into his son's room, careful not to wake him after the curious events of the night. For a long time, he simply stares down at the pink-haired baby, sleeping on his stomach and guarded by an old green dinosaur. His tiny features are pulled into a frown, but his breathing is completely regular now.

No choked sobs or panting gasps.

The future of the Uchiha is calm now, sleeping peacefully.

Twenty-seven years to the day since his grandparents and the rest of the clan were cut down.

Sasuke isn't superstitious, or prone to looking for omens. Not even with the knowledge that he is the reincarnation of an ancient demigod.

But he believes even less in coincidence.

The knowledge of what today is, and the abject terror in his infant son's eyes is enough for him to wonder.

So I haven't decided if I'll pursue this little plot bunny in detail, or if it's just something that will be referenced in passing and accepted. We'll see how much time I have on my hands and what you guys are interested in seeing…Concrit is greatly appreciated!

TSU