In the cold of space you find the heat of suns

Thank you for the reviews. They really do inspire me to continue this story.

Please see the author’s note at the end of this chapter.

Apologies if the characters have grown differently in their new environment.

Spacer crews travel the Far Borders and the Fringe of occupied space, trading. Spacing is an ancient and honourable profession carved out by millenniums. Most spacers start out as fourteen-year-old boys seeking a future. Few survive a decade spacing.

77. Waiting

Itachi felt peculiarly light: unburdened by memory; released from responsibility; no longer in control of whether he lived or died.

He savoured the day.

He was with Kisame, his best friend.

He watched Sasuke, fascinated by the man his baby brother had become. Mikoto-san would have been proud of him. His men loved him. He treated everyone, even the minkies, with respect. He had the strength to display his love for Naruto with unabashed pride.

Itachi was not surprised that Kiba stared at him as if he was not real. In Kiba’s world men with power were like Orochimaru.

Itachi recognised Kiba’s world.


After telling Gai about the traps and the security system, Itachi retreated to the treatment room. His body had started to tremble, a belated response to his brush with death, and it had taken every iota of Itachi’s will to hide it.

He may have submitted but he retained some pride.

Kisame followed him. Itachi left the door open; an invitation for Kisame to enter if he should wish. Kisame shut the door behind him. The room suddenly seemed very small.

Kisame sat on the chair, Itachi on the treatment bed.

“Please tell me what I did,” Itachi asked.

Kisame did not look at him. “The whole clan was in Tarrasade. You killed Mikoto-san and Fugaku-kyou. Then you evacuated the air from the whole household. Everyone died but Sasuke. Not one other full blood Uchiha survived. Most of the elite fighters died with them.”

“You didn’t stop me?” Itachi whispered.

“I was not there when you killed Mikoto-san,” Kisame replied. “After that, what could I do? Killing Fugaku-kyou was the only way of keeping you alive. I hid Sasuke. You told me that you were sealing everyone in to make it easier for us to run. I found out later you had pumped out the air.”

“Why Mikoto-san?” Itachi queried. Mikoto-san had never been anything but kind to him.

Kisame shook his head. “You never told me.” He pushed on. “You have killed many others since, most in challenges but some dishonourably. You all but killed one of the current crew, Haku. He was our cat and Sasuke was theirs. We challenged, I lost to Naruto and you slit Haku’s throat rather than give him to them. Rin saved him.”

The name Rin was vaguely familiar. He had a fleeting image of a woman’s face with purple tattoos. The thought of what he had done to the cat appalled him; a life without honour was not a life worth living.

“Sasuke should have killed me,” he said.

“Yes,” Kisame agreed. “He still might.”


They sat in silence. Itachi could not see that Sasuke had a choice other than to kill him. His reprieve was due to a leader’s caution; Itachi had been a source of useful information that he had now shared.

If this was his last day, he had things he wished to say to Kisame.

He slipped from the bed and locked the door. Then he turned to his only friend.

“Can I sit in your lap? Please?” he whispered.

Kisame nodded. Itachi went to him. He sat. Kisame’s arm supported his back. He rested his head on Kisame’s shoulder.

It felt so good. Even though it was a sign of weakness, even though it brought shame on Uchiha, even though it was unfair on Kisame, it still felt good.


For Itachi, love and lust were incompatible. Being fucked was about power and pain and domination. Fucking others was, at best, about relieving his need using a body rather than his hand.

This was different. He was safe. Kisame cared for him. He leaned against Kisame’s chest. Kisame stroked his hair. This was intimacy. This was the closest Itachi could come to expressing and accepting love.

Only today was most likely his last day. He wanted to show Kisame that he cared.

“Fuck me, Kisame,” he said. He had hoped his voice would not shake, but it did.

Kisame’s hand on his hair stopped moving. Then it started again.

“No Ita-chan,” he replied. “Never. I would never do that to you. You know that.”


If Kisame would not fuck him there was only one other way. Itachi had not said the words since he was a child. He had, once, said them to his father. It was a memory he wished he had forgotten: the expression on his father’s face; the pain of being struck; the order forbidding him to ever show such weakness again.

He could do it. This was Kisame. He was safe.

“I love you, Kisame,” he admitted.

He had said it. It was true and he had said it. He had finally let go.

Kisame hugged him gently. “And I love you, Ita-chan. I always have and I always will.”


Itachi relaxed. After a while, he slept.


He was woken by Kisame shaking him. There was a polite knocking on the door and Sasuke’s voice asking to speak with him.

There followed a bizarre exchange about the minkies. Sasuke explained that they would be podding the minkies to transport them and that Kiba had advised doing so sooner rather than later. He did not explain why the podding was urgent and Itachi did not ask; he had already guessed that it was a bad idea for the minkies to be attached to someone who was going to die.

Sasuke was suggesting podding them immediately, so Itachi had to remind him that they had been promised fish at feeding time. Podding on a full stomach seemed a bad idea and they settled on next morning.

Itachi found himself describing how much the minkies liked sleeping together in a huddle. Sasuke asked, meaningfully, if there was anything else he should know and Itachi began talking about individual minkies before stopping and promising to make some notes. There was no discussion why such notes were necessary.

Finally, Itachi asked Sasuke if he would come to feeding time and give out the fish. Sasuke agreed.

It was not about fish. Sasuke was promising to take Itachi’s place with the minkies.

Then Sasuke left, closing the door behind him.

Perhaps the conversation had been about minkies.

Perhaps it had been about Sasuke taking on his elder brother’s responsibilities and fulfilling them better than Itachi ever could.

Itachi locked the door and went back to sit in Kisame’s lap.


Next at the door was a Hyuga with a trolley and a list. After consulting the list, he informed them that they had use of the shower in Kabuto’s quarters for a maximum of twenty minutes at a specified time. He said that everyone was meeting to eat and that they were expected to be there.

Kisame looked into the trolley and removed two kit bags, two blankets, two pillows and a rolled foam mattress.

Then the Hyuga left.

“That was Neji-san,” Kisame told him. “He is not a Hyuga. He looks like a Hyuga. He has all the skills of a Hyuga. He was born on Hyuga. However, he is not a Hyuga.”

Itachi tried to imagine the Hyuga his father had employed delivering supplies. “He is not a Hyuga,” he agreed.


Having a shower was good. Washing his hair was excellent. When he came out of the shower he discovered that everything in one of the kit bags fit him. There was even a hairbrush and a comb. Itachi realised, belatedly, that they were his own belongings that Kisame had packed for him. He examined them carefully. He did not recognise them but he could imagine choosing them.

They went back to the treatment room and Itachi began the difficult task of getting all the tangles from his hair. When he gave up, Kisame took over.

By the time they were done his hair was like spun silk, changed with static and clinging to anything that came close, including Itachi’s face and Kisame’s hands. Itachi battled with it as Kisame watched, smiling with his eye. Finally Itachi restrained it in a loose tail away from his face.


The meal would have been difficult if Itachi had not been in another place where little mattered. Rin, the medico, openly hated him; Itachi had a vague feeling that this had always been so. Some of the fighters regarded him with hostility. Neji watched him with his pale, Hyuga eyes.

There was another newcomer, a young man with a copy of the most significant of Uchiha rings on his duty finger. He looked at Itachi with interest, then seemed lost in his own thoughts. That appeared to be his pattern; either utterly engaged with his surroundings or off in some world of his own. Kisame followed his gaze.

“That is Shikamaru, he is Kakashi’s type seven genius. Sasuke calls him the Voice in his Ear,” he told Itachi.

It was a weighty title. Itachi watched him. He and the non-Hyuga were lovers. There was much love in the new Uchiha. Kakashi wore a ring on his heart finger. Hamaki, Terai and Fu no longer felt the need to hide what they were to each other. He overheard talk of Asuma having a woman and children.

Perhaps that was what happened when people followed a leader who was so openly in love.

Itachi caught the edge of one of Naruto’s smiles. It was breathtaking.

“What is he like? Naruto?” he asked Kisame.

Kisame considered. “Different,” he admitted. “I have never met anyone so alive. Sometimes he seems almost simple, but he often shows astonishing insight. He brings out the best in people. Spend time with him and you begin feeling good about yourself. You start believing anything is possible.” He paused, studying the pair. “Sasuke adores him and he loves Sasuke with every fibre of his being,” he added.

“I can see that,” Itachi admitted.


And later, disconcertingly, he heard it. Kisame seemed remarkably unconcerned at the screams of what Itachi assumed were ecstasy.

“Your brother,” he confirmed in response to Itachi’s enquiring expression. “You get used to it,” he added.

Itachi doubted that. By the third bout, Sasuke’s voice was softer but he was accompanied by Naruto, who’s growling and howling was downright alarming.

Kisame opened his eye, saw Itachi sitting bolt upright and chuckled. “Naruto will climax soon and then they will sleep. You are lucky they are tired tonight. Sometimes they go on for much longer.” He relented a little and stroked Itachi’s back. “I was shocked at first,” he admitted, “but you start seeing it as indicator that everything is well. People will be pleased to hear it, because there has been tension between them lately, ever since Kabuto raided the ship.”

“I would never become accustomed to it,” Itachi declared.

Then again, he would not have to.


Next morning Itachi left a sleeping Kisame and sat, cross-legged, outside the door of the room that Sasuke and Naruto were occupying. After some time, Sasuke opened the door. He looked as if he had come directly from his bed and Naruto’s arms, which Itachi decided was probably the case.

“Naruto said he could hear you waiting,” he said by way of greeting. “Give me five minutes and we will go and pod the minkies.” His face was suddenly serious. “After that I will need to do some thinking. For today, until I have finished thinking, you will behave as you did yesterday.”

Itachi bowed. “Yes, Sasuke-sama,” he replied.


The minkies tried to cooperate but it was difficult for them. Kiba had told them that they were being podded so that they would not be left behind. This had persuaded them to accept it but did not make the process less scary. One of the brighter ones started to ask questions about being on the ship; questions about fish and sleeping and whether Itachi would be there when they woke up. Itachi looked to Sasuke, not knowing what to say. He could see Kiba doing the same.

“I will look after you,” Sasuke promised and then repeated it as his answer to any questions until, finally, the minkies settled and the podding could begin.


Itachi looked at the thirty child-sized pods.

“We’ll begin moving them to the Sakura later today,” Sasuke decided. “Kiba-san, I think that Dan-san will be the best person to oversee the task. I will speak with him and ask him to liaise with you. Itachi, stay here until Kisame-san comes to fetch you.”

Itachi watched him leave.

“Why must you die?” Kiba asked once Sasuke had gone.

“I killed his mother, our father and the rest of our family,” Itachi admitted.

Kiba sidled away. “Why are you still alive?”

Itachi was not sure. “I do not remember doing it,” he suggested.


Kiba check and rechecked the pods until Kisame and Dan arrived. Kisame introduced Dan and Kiba. Then Itachi obediently accompanied Kisame back to the treatment room.

“Sasuke-sama asked me how much of your memory was gone,” Kisame told him. “I told him that I thought it was probably about eleven standards.”

Eleven standards; that explained the face that looked back from the mirror.

“He wants me to ask you some questions to check,” Kisame continued.

Itachi nodded.

At the start Itachi did not recognise any of the names Kisame mentioned or the places he described. Later there were some that he knew or that piqued his memory.

“We have been running and hiding since we fled Tarrasade?” Itachi asked when Kisame stopped asking questions.

Kisame nodded reluctantly.

Itachi struggled to imagine it; everything he had been raised to be, gone. From what Kisame had said, he had not even clung to the remnants of his honour. He had slit the throat of a cat rather than give him over as fair reparation. He had killed outside challenge or combat. Kisame was solid, he had remained Kisame. What had Itachi become?

“Is it better this way?” he asked softly.

Kisame looked at him. “Yes. Yesterday was worth far more than the last ten standards. You are the person you were when we met. No one could have given me a more precious gift.”

So Kisame may have still loved the person Itachi had become over those ten standards, but he had no longer liked him. Itachi shuddered. Perhaps it was better to die not knowing.

“I have to report to Sasuke-sama,” Kisame told him.

Itachi nodded. Once Kisame had gone he began training, using moves designed for very limited space. His body was stiff, the regenerator on his arm hampered him, but the familiar actions relaxed him.


He kept going until Kisame returned, even though his limbs cramped and sweat dripped from his chin. Kisame told him that Sasuke wished to speak with him. Itachi cleaned up, brushed his hair and reported to Sasuke to learn his fate.

Sasuke was sitting on the floor. He indicated that Itachi should sit opposite him. Naruto lurked at the side of the room.

“I wanted to speak with you alone, but Naruto will not permit it,” Sasuke admitted.

Itachi agreed with Naruto; Kisame had said he had been alone with Mikoto-san when he killed her. He bowed to Sasuke and then to Naruto before sitting.

“Firstly, I shall speak as your brother,” Sasuke began. “As your brother, I love you and I do not want to kill you.”

Itachi listened and understood. Sasuke did not want to kill him. That did not mean he would not.

He marvelled that Sasuke could still love him.

“Secondly, I shall speak as a son,” Sasuke continued. “I have not forgiven you for killing my mother. I do not know if I ever could. However, I believe you were insane when you did it and that you have no memory of what you did or why you did it.

“As for you killing Father, there is nothing to forgive. He did not deserve to live. It was inevitable that either you or I would kill him.”

Itachi looked into his brother’s eyes but only for a moment. He was too ashamed to hold his gaze. Sasuke knew; he knew what Fugaku had done to him.

“Thirdly, I shall speak as leader of Uchiha. I know you are a murderer. There were the many others you murdered on that day and during the standards since. If I let you live and you murder again, I will bear responsibility for those deaths.

“Lastly, it is not only me. There are the other survivors of the old Uchiha. They lost people who were dear to them. And there is Haku. Haku can claim your life and I will not stop him.”

Sasuke paused. Itachi made himself relax. This was the moment. He braced himself.

“You can live if none of the survivors of the old Uchiha or Haku demands your death, if a qualified Therapist agrees that you are unlikely to murder again and if you agree to give up the Uchiha name. If you wish, you can be sworn to me but it will be as Itachi, not as Itachi Uchiha. There will be no Itachi Uchiha. He will not exist.”


Itachi froze. He had spent his whole life trying to be Itachi Uchiha. If Itachi Uchiha did not exist, who was he? He suddenly needed Kisame very badly.

“What if I say no?” he heard himself ask.

Sasuke stiffened. “Then you die with Itachi Uchiha,” he replied. “Today.”


Itachi watched as Naruto came over and whispered something in Sasuke’s ear. He saw his brother nod and Naruto move away.

Next thing he knew Kisame was beside him. Sasuke repeated his judgement before he and Naruto left, leaving them alone. Itachi put out a hand and touched Kisame’s plaque.

“If I am not an Uchiha, you cannot be a Companion,” he whispered.

Kisame captured his hand and squeezed it. “I will always be your Companion. We do not need a plaque. It does not matter if you are Uchiha. You will have me and you will have Sasuke.”

Itachi thought about it. What else had he ever had? His pride, perhaps, but he had given that up the day before when he had knelt at Sasuke’s feet.

He did not wish to lead Uchiha, he knew that. Everything his father had done to him had been about breaking the part of him that was uniquely Itachi, so that he could be made over in Fugaku’s image. The last thing he wanted was to walk in his father’s shoes.

“It would be a fresh start,” he admitted.

“You would be just Itachi,” Kisame reminded him, with a smile.

Itachi sighed. “The others will probably kill me.”

Kisame considered and nodded. “Yes, but at least you will not have forced Sasuke to kill you when he loved you enough to let you live.”

Itachi had not thought of that. It made the difference. He did not want his blood on Sasuke’s hands. Sasuke should not have to live with that.

He stood and went to the door. As he had suspected, Sasuke and Naruto were outside.

Itachi held Sasuke’s steady gaze as he gave his answer.

“I agree.”

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Author’s note

OK, I need six names for the kits. Any ideas?

For reference, the babies’ names are Hoshi (Star), Hikaru (Light) and Haru (Sunshine).

I did wonder about a ‘life’ theme, like trees or animals. Or weather? Or maybe just a randon selection of nice names.

Any suggestions gratefully received. As usual, you could leave your idea in a review or you could email me. My email is in my profile.

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