Completely On Purpose

Epilogue

Being a family was nothing easy. Neither Sasuke nor Naruto had seen it really work out. But, they were determined to be the change they wanted to see in the world. Satomi was their reason. She was the most important thing to them. It made Sasuke feel a myriad of emotions.

She was so smart. Sasuke had cried when she told them she wanted to be in the Academy, that she wanted to be a ninja. "It's so dangerous," he had sobbed, but she and Naruto had held him close to them, and Satomi had promised Sasuke that if she felt like she couldn't do it, she... still wouldn't quit. Naruto had beamed at her, pinched her cheek, ruffled her dark hair. Sasuke cried harder.

She was so polite, but she was loud, and very opinionated. She was always yelling out in class, which got her notes sent home from Iruka. "She tried to tell me it's pronounced... catra." Sasuke could hardly sound it out. Naruto snatched the paper. "I used to say that!" He was laughing; Sasuke was going to cry again.

She brought home other notes, too. When Satomi was a genin, Sasuke first discovered the notes that she and Inoko were writing back and forth. He didn't know how to feel. Sasuke had watched as Naruto sat Satomi down, looking very stern and fatherly ever since he'd taken to cutting his hair down short. "What's this about?"

Satomi had shrugged and clutched onto Naruto's collar. "She's my best friend! We just like to tell each other sometimes, that's all." Naruto had hummed in deep thought. Sasuke had read the letters, though. It seemed a lot different than friendship, a lot deeper. Satomi had turned her blue eyes into Sasuke, who could only offer her a weak smile. Every time she looked at him, he was rendered an emotional wreck. It was exhausting sometimes, loving someone with every atom of your body.

It had been so much worse when they had been wed. Satomi was three years old, at that point. Planning a wedding was hard when Naruto still insisted upon taking mission requests, and they had a baby to take care of. Satomi was not an agreeable baby, in any sense of the word. Sakura and Ino helped, of course, even though Ino went on to have a baby herself in the second year of Satomi's life. Sasuke would never be able to thank Sakura for everything she'd done. "Oh," she said with a dismissive hand, "planning your wedding is all I've wanted to do for a while now. And to get Ino to stop eating food at 4am. Little wins."

Sasuke and Naruto got married in the fall time of Satomi's third year of life, with her standing there among Naruto's special party. Sasuke was already shedding tears when he'd watched her sprinkling flowers carefully in a straight line. While they were exchanging vows, Satomi was making faces at Sasuke that made him break his focus until he couldn't take it anymore, and had lifted her up and given her to Gaara to hold.

Everyone had come to see them be wed. Their senseis, their friends from close and far away. Even Sasuke's team from his rogue days, Taka, had come to see them. Suigetsu and Karin had to be sat at opposite ends of the rows, but they still came. "We wouldn't miss this for the world," Karin had said, adjusting her glasses.

Sasuke had watched as he took Naruto's breath away with his vows. "Ahem," he'd cleared his throat, already bawling from Naruto's vows. "I wrote this a while ago. There wasn't much to do in the Land of Iron when I had been captured. So I wrote. I hope this is... enough. I changed it a little bit, but um—yeah." Sasuke had cut his eyes to Gaara, who was holding Satomi's hand in his, and then began.

"I've never felt this way before, I know it now. I sit here, waiting, growing, wondering. I have this baby in me, and she is you. She wakes me up, just like you. She reminds me to eat well, just like you. She is surrounding me with your chakra. She reminds me to go to bed on time. She reminds me to be careful. She is you. I hope that she is just like you. I can't think of anything better.

"I want to tell you something, something that I have been thinking about for years. In school, we learned about the planets, and the solar system; and the sun. Iruka told us something, something I will never forget. The sun, the sun is a star. It makes its own light, it doesn't need anyone else's help. You're a star, you're the light of my life. I feel it when you look at me. I don't know what I'd be doing without you. We are a family, now, and you are the reason why I know what I'm doing from a day-to-day basis.

"But the moon, the moon doesn't make its own light. It  may be the light of the night, but it needs the sun to do that. I need you. I was so lost, so lost in the dark for a long, long time. Felt like an eternity. And it was because, I realized, I was away from my sun. Without the light of the sun, I was nothing, empty, purposeless. You give me a reason to shine, because you shine on me, when no one else will. I've... never been sure of how to tell you that, so I wrote it down. You've always supported me, always, even when I was dead wrong. It didn't matter to you. You've given me life, literally The purpose that I needed. To be her dad, and to be with you forever. I love you, I love you, now and forever."

Sasuke had never seen Naruto reduced to such a mess. Satomi started whining, because she saw Naruto crying. Naruto had taken a step down from the altar to shush her, kiss her forehead, and whisper something to her. When he came back, he was no less of a mess, but at least he had stopped sobbing.

And at the reception, after they'd sent the sleeping Satomi home with Sakura and Ino, Sasuke finally felt it. He was a whole person; a father, a husband, a shinobi, a brother, a son, someone who mattered on Earth. It was Naruto that made him realize that. Kakashi told embarrassing stories about the time they'd done the bell test, but Naruto was too drunk to be mad at him. It was funny, to watch Naruto dissolve before his eyes from the alcohol.

They'd had sex that night, hot sex, great sex, but Sasuke had been worried that he was pregnant again in the next month. He wasn't, and they decided that Satomi would have to be a lot older before they went through all of that again.

13 was a lot older, Sasuke thought, as he stood in the kitchen with the test in his hand. He had already told her, and had made her promise on her will as a shinobi not to tell Naruto until Sasuke was ready. By the time Sasuke had decided to take the test, he was already showing. He was ever one for disbelief. It had felt different, because he wasn't traveling like he had been with Satomi. And she still told Naruto. He had busted in the door, yelling about Sasuke and to show him, show him please.

Sasuke was pregnant when Ino and Sakura got married. Inoko had sat between him and Satomi. They had coordinated dresses. It was a different feeling, watching people get married that he cared about so deeply. And, ok. He had gone into labor at their wedding, but he'd made it until the next day before he had said anything. Naruto said he'd never forgive him, but then he'd held their son for the first time.

Life was what it was supposed to be. Sasuke was sure of that. There was nothing else they were meant for. And, looking down at Kaito, he hoped that life would stay this way forever.