Memories of the Future

A/N: well, i didn't want to tell y'all i almost had it done, and y'all not believe me. so, here it is, on the sly. i actually really like this chapter, at least the first part, and i hope you all like it too. i know it's been such a long time, but i appreciate and take to heart every single review i get that asks, pleads, and begs me to update. it makes me feel good to know people like it that much.

so, as promised, this chapter is dedicated to Allys, for her wonderful support and glomps!

and for Saiou-chan: those sidestories are not my way of ending MotF. they're actually just parts of the story i want to write but will never get into the story. they also serve as motivation for the muses and whatnot. and thanks so much for the offer of ideas, but i have plenty, including ideas for THE SEQUEL. i just need to time to write them out, haha! ^^ i hope you stick around for the rest of the ride!

WARNING! This chapter contains slight Het! It's Het between Naruto and Sasuke, but Het nonetheless. Plus there's an iota of GaaNaru for those fans, though this is still strictly SasuNaru.

now, finally, enjoy!!


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Memories of the Future: Chapter 14 - Lines not crossed
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Naruto came awake of a sudden, something disturbing his sleep and forcing him into consciousness. He opened dark purple eyes, taking in the night-shaded ceiling, and moved them around the room, searching for the disturbance.

He sat up when his eyes caught sight of Sasuke standing by his door. The Uchiha had one hand on the jamb, the other on the doorknob, his eyes sad and searching.

“Hokage-sama?” Naruto asked sleepily.

The man moved inside the room and closed the door with a quiet click. He stood still for a moment, his long bangs hiding his eyes more effectively than the night shadows.

“I’m sorry to disturb you so late at night, Yuki-san, but I wanted to apologize, and he… my conscience wouldn’t let me be.” He looked up and locked eyes with Naruto. “I shouldn’t have taken my anger out on you. You risked this dangerous secret to save my son, twice, and for that I am grateful.”

The Uchiha bowed, and Naruto marveled at his humility. When had Sasuke learned to set his pride aside to apologize and thank? He guessed it must have been when he’d had to take the position of Hokage.

“It’s all right, Hokage-sama. Kyuubi brings up painful memories for many people, for many different reasons. I’m just sorry I kept this secret from you.”

A smirk graced Sasuke’s lips. “You didn’t know until recently, right? You must have been so afraid of letting anyone know.”

“I don’t care about everyone else. I was afraid of letting you know.” And that was nothing but the truth, as far as Naruto was concerned.

Sasuke was silent a moment before he moved quietly closer to Naruto’s bed. Naruto pulled his legs up and tucked them under himself, gesturing for the Uchiha to take a seat. Sasuke did, and they sat in quiet for a while. It was a comfortable silence that allowed Naruto to take in the moon-kissed skin before him. His heart ached for him to reach out and hold his lover, but he knew he couldn’t.

“I never wanted to be Hokage,” Sasuke whispered. Naruto was surprised that Sasuke of all people had broken the quiet, and his thoughts focused on what the other was saying. “He wanted me to be the Hokage in his place, and no matter how much I wanted to just give up and die, it was the least I could do since I couldn’t protect him, couldn’t save him.”

“Hokage-sama…” Naruto didn’t know what to say to that. To think that Sasuke had been living with this guilt for sixteen years, that the only thing that had kept his husband alive was that small promise made many years before they’d even been married. It was unimaginable.

“It took me a while to finally think about my children, I’m ashamed to admit. But one day I heard an ear-shattering cry from Ayame. She’d been injured in the backyard by a shuriken that Kei had mishandled. It reminded me of when Itachi and I were children.”

Naruto noticed the ease in which Sasuke spoke his brother’s name, and his eyebrow rose in query.

“I had been injured by Itachi mishandling a kunai, which couldn’t have been an accident – it was Itachi – and our parents weren’t around to help. There was a lot of blood, and I don’t know what would have happened if Itachi hadn’t known what to do in that situation. And as I tended to Ayame’s cut, I wondered what would have happened if I hadn’t been there or hadn’t been bothered to do anything. And that scared me.”

Naruto took a low, shuddering breath. He didn’t want Sasuke to stop. Talking about it was probably something the teme had avoided for those sixteen years, so far be it for Naruto to stop him now when catharsis might be waiting at the end.

“Thankfully I had the others to help me, after Tsunade died. So the children got all the attention and protection they needed as I tried to lead the village. But my nights were so lonely and cold. There were many mornings when I thought, ‘If only I hadn’t survived the night.’ But then I’d hear N… Naruto’s voice, telling me I had to live because he’d worked too hard to keep me alive, and I’d sit up and face the day.”

There was quiet again. The Uchiha was staring at the pattern on Naruto’s quilt, either gathering his thoughts or trying to rein in his emotions, Naruto didn’t know.

“I don’t know if I can do it anymore,” came a strangled whisper. “I can’t keep facing life without him! I want to be with him!”

Naruto flung himself forward, unable to stop from doing so when he could clearly hear the tears in the Uchiha’s voice. He wrapped his arms around the slightly shaking man, and wasn’t surprised to feel warm wetness against his shoulder.

“It’s okay, Hokage-sama. It’s not wrong to feel this way. But you’re strong! You’re Uchiha Sasuke! You can overcome anything, and you’ve done so for, well, almost sixteen years. Hell, you’ve been overcoming things since you were eight, and you’ll keep on overcoming, because, I swear, I’ll make this better.”

His mouth was near Sasuke’s ear, the last words spoken as a whisper, unconsciously the same way Naruto used to do it in their bedroom. He felt the slight shiver that traversed the other man’s body, and he tightened his hold, his face pressed into the warm skin of the Uchiha’s neck.

“You’ll make things better?” Sasuke whispered uncertainly.

Naruto didn’t answer aloud, just squeezed the other even tighter, hoping his small, thin arms gave as much comfort as his former strong ones.

Sasuke’s arm crossed both their bodies, his hand coming up to Naruto’s cheek and guiding his face away from the man’s neck. Naruto stared into Sasuke’s onyx eyes, breath hitching as he watched them clear and thaw.

“Thank you,” Sasuke breathed, and Naruto’s heart started to beat faster at how sincere and relieved the raven sounded. It pounded in his ears, distracting him momentarily, so he didn’t notice Sasuke’s eyes haze or notice how the Uchiha got closer to him.

“You’re… like him,” Sasuke murmured, and then lips were placed hesitantly upon his, and Naruto’s instincts to respond to his husband kicked in, taking the initiative to return the kiss. Sasuke hesitated a bit more, pulling back slightly, before surging forward, claiming Naruto’s lips almost desperately, and Naruto lost himself to the warm familiarity of the Uchiha’s kiss.

He opened his mouth, inviting the man to deepen the kiss, wanting nothing more than to reconnect to the man he’d shared his life with, the man who was the other half of his soul.

Strong, confident arms wrapped around his thin waist and pulled him flush with the hard body before him as Sasuke took the invitation and slipped his tongue into Naruto’s mouth. Naruto nearly wept at the reassuring and familiar feeling of it, suddenly missing his old life with an intensity that had yet to come upon him. He missed Sasuke on top of him, under him, loving him as he’d never been loved before, and gods yes, he meant sex!

His hips automatically ground down against Sasuke’s, and he let out an aroused gasp at just the thought of his lover’s cock, hot and hard and needing. But something was wrong, because the Uchiha was breaking the kiss and gently pushing him away.

Dazed purple eyes took in the flushed face of the Uchiha, his kiss-swollen lips that glistened slightly with their mixed saliva. But Sasuke’s eyes were downcast, and it finally registered that the man was ashamed.

That realization brought everything back to him, and then Naruto was ashamed as well. What the hell had he been thinking?

“I’m sorry,” Sasuke whispered brokenly.

Naruto wanted to cry. What must Sasuke be thinking? Here he’d revealed his heart to Yuki, how much he missed his husband; then he was kissing the girl – who was his husband, and who returned the kiss – and this girl was even younger than his youngest child! Oh yes, the Uchiha had to be hating himself right about now.

“You’ve nothing to be sorry for,” Naruto whispered softly, half-heartedly, knowing Sasuke would believe what he wanted and beat himself up about it for some time to come.

The raven stood suddenly from the bed and walked to the door, hesitating a moment before apologizing again and leaving as silently as he’d come.

Naruto sat there a moment, staring at the door, before his face scrunched up in dismay, and he fell sideways, dramatically laid across his bed, his face slammed into a pillow.

In his mind, Naruto called out for Kyuubi, just wanting all of this to be over.

~*~

Morning came, and Naruto was surly. He growled at his children as they gathered in the kitchen for breakfast, set off by Kei innocently asking why Sasuke had gotten up before the sun – when usually he was up just with the sun – and gone into the office early, without breakfast, without seeing Naruto at all. And then the kids were just too damn cheerful, the sun was too damn bright, and his current situation was just too godsbedamned depressing.

Kyuubi had told him last night that the chakra collection was almost complete, but they needed some kind of impetus. Meaning, now that Kyuubi had to transport both herself and Naruto, it would take a dangerous outpouring of chakra to power the jutsu. The fact that Naruto couldn’t just go out into the forest and unleash his chakra on the unsuspecting woodland to jumpstart the jutsu kind of pissed him off.

Needless to say, Naruto was not in a good mood, and as soon as breakfast was done, he left so as not to take it out on the kids again.

“Stupid Sasuke,” Naruto muttered to himself as he walked down a busy street. But Sasuke hadn’t been the only one doing something bad last night. Naruto shook his head. “Stupid me,” he amended, because he shouldn’t have been so lost in his memories that he let that happen, even if he’d give anything to have Sasuke with him again.

“They say talking to yourself is a sign of insanity.” The monotone voice caught Naruto off guard, and he jumped. His kimono got caught under his foot, and he fell forward. But before he could hit the ground, an arm snaked around his waist and pulled him back into a hard, warm chest. For a moment, Naruto’s heartbeat picked up, hoping it wasn’t Sasuke behind him, wanting it to be Sasuke anyway, and knowing he wasn’t that lucky.

“How about we take a walk?”

Naruto could only nod, knowing this was inevitable, and he could feel Gaara’s merciless gaze upon him the entire walk to the park. They settled in a fairly secluded spot where it was unlikely they’d be overheard in the middle of the day, and Naruto let the silence steep for as long as he possibly could. It helped that neither one of them wanted to break the calm the snow-filled landscape required of them.

“Naruto…” Gaara’s voice rumbled in the quiet, making Naruto flinch slightly.

He sighed. It was time. “You… you remember when I… I died?” he asked quietly. He didn’t look at the redhead, knowing the man wouldn’t answer. “Well, I apparently didn’t, the second time, at least.” Even in his continued silence, Naruto could tell when Gaara was questioning the story.

“Okay, yeah, I died. But Kyuubi, who survived – don’t give me that look – saw how awful the future was without me – now what the hell is that look for? – and sought to change it. So he used some time jutsu and came back to just before I died to claim my soul. It took him a few tries to get it right, but that last time, the one I remember, he succeeded in bringing my soul to the future and housing it within his new vessel – Yuki.”

Gaara stared at him, not in any particular way, but Naruto could tell the man didn’t believe him. And yet, the redhead knew he was indeed Naruto, so he at least knew he couldn’t deny the story.

Naruto held up his hand in Gaara’s face. “I know, it’s weird,” he assured the redhead. “But Kakashi believes me, and that’ll have to be enough for you. I mean, Kyuubi’s barely talking to me. I doubt she’ll talk to anyone else.”

Gaara raised a still nonexistent eyebrow. “She?”

Naruto’s eyebrow twitched in return. “Why else would I be in this frickin’ body?” he gritted out.

“Acting out hidden fantasies?” Gaara didn’t look like he was joking, but stranger things had happened to Naruto. Hello. Boobs. He rolled his eyes at his now older friend.

“Pbbt. If I’d been into that, I did have the sexy no jutsu. Besides, Sasuke likes me all male, baby.” He ran a hand down his body, wincing when he realized he no longer had his male physique to boast about, then grinning cheekily at nothing before it faded. “Well, that’s how he used to like me, when I was ‘alive.’”

“So this isn’t a new start for you then?” Gaara asked quietly, almost amusedly but for the trace of sadness and resignation.

Oh, how Naruto wished he didn’t know what his friend meant by that. But he could never just start over. His heart, past, present, and future, would always belong to Sasuke, no matter what form Naruto took.

Naruto thought back to the night before; how both he and Sasuke had let their loneliness and sadness slip the leashes, almost resulting in something that Naruto craved, even though he knew he’d regret it along with Sasuke, if only because he’d caused the man he loved anguish.

A quiet sigh brought Naruto from his thoughts. Gaara must have known how he felt about the situation, because Naruto knew he wasn’t looking for an answer. They sat in silence for a long time, watching as the sun climbed in the sky and enjoying the nice, crisp breezes that played with their hair. They were surprisingly mild for a winter afternoon, and Naruto hoped it meant an early spring. This drab Konoha of the future was starting to grate on his nerves.

“Can I treat an old friend to lunch, Naruto?” Gaara suddenly asked.

Naruto smiled brilliantly at the redheaded kage. “Of course! But not everyone knows we’re old friends,” he added playfully. “Let’s hope no one thinks we’re having an affair.”

Gaara nodded his head once. “Then, as the Hokage’s aide, you will escort me to lunch.”

Naruto jumped up and grinned, starting to march toward his precious ramen. His hands rested jauntily on the back of his head, his long braid swinging in a counter rhythm to his steps as he tried not to trip on his kimono. Gaara followed calmly behind him, smiling gently as he saw his old friend’s figure superimposed over the lithe child before him. Then Naruto stopped suddenly and turned around.

“You’re still buying, right?”

TBC

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you're still with me, right? i hope so! i don't have anything witty or informational to share with you this time, so i'll just say see you next time, and god help me if it takes as long or longer, ne? ^^''

thanks for reading!!