Hoshigaki

Candle Light

Kisame took his daughter home at the end of a week to an empty apartment that smelled of bright citrus. Saki liked having candles around. She always bought the same one, and Tropical Sunrise always had been her favorite...

He frowned and shut the door with the sole of his sandal. He'd put away the candles when he had the time, maybe at the back of the cupboards where nobody could sift through and find them. Those candles couldn't just be thrown away. What would Saki say? If he wasted them and—

A sigh rumbled out of his throat as he looked down at the small bundle in his arms. Sakura silently stared up at him, her hands balled up beneath her chin and green eyes searching around his hairline.

He smiled.

"Welcome home," Kisame whispered. He flicked on the lights to the living room as he passed it and took a seat on the couch, placing his elbow on the arm rest and adjusting Sakura to put more support at the back of her head.

At least the rain hadn't touched her.

But now he had to consider his options now that he worked for a time-extensive organization and had to double up as a new father.

For one, Sakura had to be kept as far away from Orochimaru and Sasori as possible. Orochimaru would more than likely experiment on her and Sasori would try to turn her into one of his disgusting human puppets. Kakuzu was... maybe he could reason with Kakuzu through money and favors, but the man had just killed his third partner of the year. His temper was one of the worst he'd ever seen and the last thing he wanted was to come back and see his daughter turned into nothing but a puddle of blood and cartilage.

Zetsu was more or less out of the equation. He ate people and was gone on reconnaissance nearly all of the time. So that left Konan; the only person sane enough to take care of a baby.

Sakura blinked sleepily and started drifting off and Kisame poked one of her cheeks. She wasn't blue or had sharp teeth like he thought she would. She was just a quiet little baby that gave him happy toothless smiles.

He already loved her, and he already knew she deserved better than this.

"Kisame-san."

He stood, holding Sakura close to his chests, and turned to regard his visitor.

Konan could barely restrain her surprise. She'd felt a small blip of chakra that wasn't his and assumed it was the residue from a previous mission—never in a hundred years would she have assumed it was a child. Kisame was only seventeen and she herself was only three years his senior, and not once in her life had she wanted a child. In fact, shinobi as notorious as they were didn't have children.

And not only had the newborn caught her off guard, she didn't even know his wife was pregnant to begin with.

... and now that she thought more about it, she didn't even know his wife's name.

They were coworkers. Not friends. Personal matters were kept personal.

"She's yours?" Konan questioned despite herself. It was such an unprecedented discovery that she found herself unable to bring up any other subject. Kisame nodded, his free hand flexing over his kunai pouch. "I won't hurt her."

"You won't. Or I'll kill you," he warned. He bared his teeth for a split second to seal the threat before turning to hoist his baby's care bag off the floor and onto the couch. 

Konan eyed the movement carefully. She heard stories of how mothers were intensely protective of their children when they were born because they'd fostered them in their own bodies for nine whole months with care and love and a hope to raise what grew inside them. Fathers were protective too, but normally not as much as mothers because they didn't have the same internal connection.