Hachi

Chapter Seven

"It's just such a strange feeling," Sasuke said to Ginger as she lay stretched out on his stomach. He reached out and scratched her ears, running his hand all along her back.

"Mer?" Ginger said back to him, opening her eyes and gazing upwards, arching her back.

"Well, I don't mean the baby moving," Sasuke explained. It had happened a few times in the week after the onsen, and now it happened about once a day. "No, I just mean...if this actually works, then...we'll have a baby."

"Mer," Ginger agreed, closing her eyes again and turning her face away, curling up into a tighter ball on top of him, fluffy tail disappearing underneath her.

Sasuke sighed. Obviously his concerns were not riveting enough to hold the feline's attention. "Do you care?" he called down to Ao who was lying on his feet, stretched out and twisted around his legs.

Ao didn't respond, but she did reach out and lick his ankle...whatever that was meant to mean.

He sighed again. Had he really gone into this whole thing without any faith that it would work? How...irresponsible of him. What was he planning to do when the baby arrived? If it arrived. It could all still go wrong, obviously. There were no guarantees.

...and yet. They were at almost four months and really, there'd been no problems. Yes, it was taking more chakra than anticipated to maintain the clone and keep her in good health, but it wasn't taking too much chakra. Everything was going very well, in the big scheme of things. Sakura said the baby was healthy. It was the right size and had all the parts you'd expect at this stage. It was developing well and hitting all the right milestones.

"No," Sasuke said to Ginger, shifting on the couch and siting up. Ginger slid to the side and looked up at him with startled eyes. "It's not that I didn't think it would work- logically, I knew that it could work- it's just that I'd convinced myself that it wouldn't."

Ginger narrowed her eyes at him, looking highly offended. Probably that was because she'd just been tipped off her warm, comfy perch so abruptly, but maybe she was also offended by Sasuke's confession. "Mraw," she growled grumpily, turning around and facing away from him, swishing her tail angrily.

"Yeah, well, what if something happened and we lost it?" Sasuke growled back, reaching over and picking up Ao instead. Maybe she'd be more reasonable. "I'm just saying, it's safer to assume that things will go wrong. To be prepared for it."

He held Ao up in front of him, her legs dangling lazily down in the air. "Mrr," Ao purred, swatting her little paws at him until Sasuke brought her closer and put her down in his lap.

Oh, he was an idiot. He knew he was. At the moment he was more prepared for things to go wrong than he was to have an actual baby in his arms. "I do want one," he assured Ao. "Obviously. I wouldn't have agreed to it if I didn't want a kid! What do you take me for?"

Ao just purred and pushed her head further into Sasuke's hand until he obliged and started petting her properly. Ao liked being scratched under her chin the best, so Sasuke slipped his fingers under her head, digging into her lovely calico fur.

"...I just figured it wouldn't work, and then we could say, oh well, we tried, and then we'd just adopt like normal people." He fell to the back of the couch heavily and closed his eyes. What on earth would he do with a baby that was half him, and half Naruto? Whose eyes would it have? Whose face? Would it be like Naruto, all smiles and sunshine and happiness, or would it be like...him?

He groaned. There was no point worrying about all this now. He should get back to work: Naruto had made him promise to practice his barrier skills tonight. Sasuke was still useless at cutting off sensations from the clone.