This was written... because I wanted to.

I disclaim.

o

Water Stains

o

She was four years old and her chin rested on the edge of the dinner table where she could see her mother and father. She could hear voices praising the soup - guests - and her mother's voice murmuring politely, "Please, eat!"

Doleful eyes watched her from the darkness beneath the table, soft brown fur blending easily, and she stroked the dog's nose with a happy smile.

This young dog, named Bi, had been a birthday present. He had come in a large box wrapped with red ribbon and a large bow on top. She had opened it eagerly - and let out a squeal of delight when a small furry face poked out, tongue lolling and eyes eager to please.

"Mikoto, hand me your bowl."

She quickly moved to obey, not wanting her mother to suspect that Bi was hidden under the table, keeping one hand on Bi's head to quiet him. Her mother handed her a bowl brimming with soup, and Mikoto accepted it with both hands.

Bi began to bark wildly under the table now that she'd removed her hand, and everyone stopped talking, gazes moving toward Mikoto's seat. She shrunk back in her chair, fearful of their eyes, and her father spoke.

"Mikoto, is your dog in here?" His words were slow and deliberate.

She nodded, shamefaced, and he slowly ordered her to take it out. She had embarrassed him in front of their relatives, his guests, and her face flushed red. The soup in its heavy chimney-pot stand stood before her, as hot as her face felt, rocking slowly back and forth. And then as she was getting up, one hand gripping Bi's collar to lead him outside, he bumped the table and the dark boiling soup spilled out and fell into her lap.

The pain was so horrible she should never remember it, but the heat engraved itself into her skin, implanting itself in her memory. She heard distant screaming, and realized only after a moment that it was her own. She could not see because of all the tears were streaming down her face, and Bi was barking more wildly than ever. Her mother and father were shouting, and then she was carried away in her father's arms.

He brought her to the hospital. The doctors and nurses bathed her skin with cool water, pouring it over her again and again until her breathing calmed and she fell asleep.

She was sobbing, and she didn't realize it.

o

She was seven years old. Her hands were a bit too small on the handlebars of her bicycle, but her father assured her they would fit later. The bike was pink, decorated with flowers and butterflies she'd picked out herself, and she would grow into it, just as she would grow out of training wheels.

With her tongue sticking out between her lips she pushed off and teetered down the hill, tilting both ways with the training wheels to stop her from falling completely. Her mouth was open in a wide smile, and she was peddling faster and faster, letting out a joyful shriek as she barreled down the hill and across the open area of their home, heedless of people in her path.

She made her way back to the top of the hill and did it again. In no time at all she could steer around objects and people, and on her fifteenth time to the top of the hill she climbed off her bike and calmly pushed it over. Kneeling by the side she set about prying off the training wheels, succeeding in removing one, then the other. Righting the bike she held it up with one hand, and admired her work. The training wheels - purple - lay off to the side in a jumbled heap, the screws she twisted out among them. They hadn't been screwed in very tight, and by carefully turning them, she'd eventually gotten them out.

By her own decision, she was ready to ride her bike without them. She had grown out of them in one day.

"Okay…" She had a bit of trouble getting back on - the bike was just a bit too high for her and she couldn't quite balance - but she managed. Carefully balanced on her tip toes and staring down the hill she'd flown down fifteen times before, she raised her feet off the ground and leaned forward. The wind rushed by her face, stinging her eyes, but she didn't close them for breathless excitement.

She wasn't riding a bicycle, she was riding the wind. She wasn't sitting down, she was flying. And her training wheels -she glance backward- she didn't need them!

Her bike swerved, the handlebars jerking violently out of her hands when she turned back. She was still barreling down the hill when the bike twisted from under her, throwing her to the ground and rolling over and past her. Her knee hurt terribly, her side stung and there was blood on the back of her hand where it had smashed into her mouth.

Her eyes flooded with tears and she screamed, a loud shrill shriek of pain. A door slammed in the distance and she saw her mother running toward her, figure blurred and distorted with hot tears.

"Mommy!"

Her mother carefully picked her up, leaving her bike behind and carrying her into their bathroom. After a moment of shifting the contents of the first-aid kit, she came up with a bandage, which she gently applied to Mikoto's scraped knee. Another for her side, bigger, and a drink of water to swish in her mouth to wash out the blood.

"There, don't take the bandage off. Are you alright?"

"Uh-huh…"

"We told you that you weren't ready to ride without training wheels honey, why did you?" her mothers asks gently, gentle like everything about her.

"I-I… I just…I won't do it again…"

0

She was eight, and she was hiding in a closet. Maybe Uncle wouldn't notice. It was an accident, she hadn't meant to. She'd been throwing her ball into the air as high as she could, and it just slipped. The next moment there had been the heart-stopping smash and tinkling of broken glass, and the ball hadn't come back down. She'd fled to her room and barricaded herself in the closet, among her blankets and her teddy bear that were already there, since she often slept in the closet.

"Mikoto? Are you in here?"

Her father was tapping on the door, and she raised her head from her next to listen, then shoved it back down again.

He knew, he knew…

"Mikoto?"

Her door squeaked slightly when it opened, and that was how she knew he came in.

"Are you in the closet again Mikoto? Come out of there, you know your mother doesn't like you in there." She could see the playful smile on his face, and knew he would be angry when he opened the door. She could imagine his shape on the other side of the wall, one hand reaching for the edge, sliding it open...

"I'm sorry, please don't tell Uncle," she whispered into the blankets, flooded with penitence and the wild fear of punishment. "Please don't tell…please don't tell, please don't tell!" She threw her small eight-year-old body at her father, wrapping her arms around him in a tight hug, tears streaming down her face.

"I didn't mean to, I'm sorry!"

"Didn't mean to what?" His voice was gentle, calming, and she felt his hand settle on her shoulder. "What happened?"

"I-I was throwing my b-ball," sobs choked her words, made them come out in scarcely comprehensible stutters, "a-and it… it hit Uncle's window and made it break!"

"It's alright darling, just stop crying. Uncle won't mind, accidents happen."

"B-But I, I killed his window!"

"Oh, you didn't kill it Mikoto, it's okay honey, shh… shhh…"

When she had calmed down, she made her way back to her Uncle's house, watching her feet rustle and slip through the grass. Even though her father hadn't told her to, she wanted to say she was sorry, and offer some kind payment for her actions. He answered the door on the second knock, and she took a deep breath, eyes angled down.

"I'm… I'm sorry Uncle, I was the one who broke your window…" she mumbled.

"And you came to apologize all by yourself?" He wasn't angry, he was smiling. "How brave!" He was proud. "It's alright Mikoto, it can be fixed. Thank you for telling me though."

"I'm sorry Uncle…"

0

It was her number-ten birthday, and she blew out every one of her candles in one blow.

"My wish comes true," she told to herself softly, smiling at decorated cake. One of her friends leaned over her shoulder, eyes bright, and peered at the cake curiously.

"What did you wish for Mikoto, tell us!"

"Tell us! Tell us!" the kids chanted, but she shut her head with a mischievous smile.

"No way! If I tell you it won't come true," she protested, giggling as she shook her head.

Her mother served the cake with an extra rose on top for Mikoto, which she accepted graciously, then proceeded to shovel cake and sweet - sweet frosting into her mouth. She was ten, old enough to have some manners, but not all of them. Cake was a treat she couldn't bear to wait to eat, white frosting and pink roses and Happy Birthday written on top in pink icing.

After cake she opened presents, thanking each person profusely, giving each girl or family member a hug and a kiss. Her favorite was a book of poems from her mother; she carried it with her throughout the entire party, and even after most of the guests had left.

"What's that?" Her cousin asked, and she looked up into his curious face.

"The book my mommy gave me," she answered, holding it up so he could see. He peered closer at it, awed, and she didn't see the sly sideways glance he cast her.

"Hey Mikoto," he said, leaning back a bit, and she returned to the book immediately, though she made a small noise to show she was listening. "What did you wish for? On your cake I mean."

"I wished that…" she paused, blushing. "I wished that Fugaku would ask me out."

Her cousin's mouth opened in a delighted grin, and her eyes widened in horror.

"Oh no! Oh no! Please don't tell!" she cried, turning to face him, throwing her arms over the back of the couch. He couldn't, he just couldn't. She would die. Fugaku couldn't know, she'd be so embarrassed. Already her cheeks were flaming red, and she clutched her cousin's shirt to keep him from running. His grin only grew bigger, wider, and he tilted his head back and drew in a deep breath of air.

"Oh Fugaaaku!" he hollered, cupping his hands around his mouth as he yelled.

"What?" Fugaku's head poked around the corner, eyes going, not to her Mikoto noted, devastated, but to her cousin.

"Mikoto likes you," he sang, grinning to Mikoto. Her face was burning, and she buried it in the couch cushion, certain Fugaku was staring at her.

He was, and his mouth was just a little bit open, but she didn't see that.

0

"I wanted to ask if you would go out with me sometime."

A sixteen-year-old Mikoto looked up at Fugaku and smiled. She nodded, and he smiled slightly.

"Is tonight alright with you? We could go get ramen, or if you don't like ramen I know -"

Mikoto ducked her head shyly, shaking her head. "Ramen is fine."

"I'll come for you at six then," he told her, and they went their separate ways.

Fugaku was such a gentleman. He pulled out her chair for her, paid for the meal, opened doors for her… it embarrassed her that he would go to such troubles, and it made her happy, shy in his presence. Maybe, just maybe, she was falling in love?

0

He made her a cake for her seventeenth birthday, and then he asked her to marry him.

It was all very romantic, he knelt and everything, when he spoke it was almost in a whisper and she could hear the hesitance, the uncertainty.

"Mikoto… I love you. Will… you marry me?"

She accepted, and a few months later they were married. And she was a wife.

0

She was twenty-two and the mother of the most beautiful baby boy in the entire world. The nurses whispered, but she ignored them, as she ignored the implications they carried.

Unnatural.

But if this child lying peacefully in her arms was unnatural, then so were the trees she could see through her hospital window.

0

Itachi was two and she was twenty-five. She found him reading in his bedroom, but that wasn't important. What was important… was that he was reading his father's case reports.

Not looking at… reading.

Understanding and processing.

His eyes scanned the pages, methodically, following the words. He was so absorbed in his activity that he didn't notice her standing there, which was odd, considering that he normally noticed everything around him. He was unusually perceptive.

Fugaku - when she told him - said their son was a genius.

And when he insisted on enrolling Itachi in the ninja academy and he came out the top of his class the first year, she believed it.

0

She was twenty-seven.

The nurses said nothing of her second child.

0

Sasuke was five and Itachi was ten and she herself was thirty-two.

That day she took Sasuke out to her garden, and showed him the flowers growing there, so resplendent in the dying afternoon light, brilliant in the light. Sasuke immediately sat down in the dirt and picked up a worm, holding it out to her with a smile.

She laughed and accepted it, glad in her heart that Sasuke wasn't holding a kunai.

Like Itachi.

0

"They are my sons Mikoto, I can decide how to raise them."

Her eyes were flooded with tears and she was thirty-three.

"Fugaku, don't you realize you're pushing the boys too hard? Itachi perhaps, can handle it, but even he's only human! You're expecting too much of them, especially Sasuke. He's not like his brother, and it's time you realized that!"

"He will live up to expectations," Fugaku replied, shuffling the papers in his hand and taking another sip of his tea.

"As if he's robot?" Mikoto inquired desperately. "As if you can punch in a number and off he goes? Fugaku he's your son! You need to be… be …"

He glanced up.

"More fatherly for goodness sake! You're pushing them too hard! You want them to be everything! You want them to be perfect!"

0

She spent her days doing laundry, sipping tea, and trying desperately to get bad thoughts out of her head.

Thoughts that whispered that their family was falling apart, little by little.

A crack in the stained glass window.

0

Itachi was gone most of the time, he missed meals because he was away on missions for days on end, and the only present she got on her thirty-fifth birthday was a small picture frame from Sasuke.

She noticed that her eldest son was disturbingly distant.

"Are you alright Itachi?" she asked calmly, watching his fingers play across the piano keys, her own curled around a teacup.

"Yes… Are you?"

0

When she was thirty five and her son ran her through with a katana, it was one of those moments where her life flashed before her eyes.

She was sobbing, and she didn't realize it.

Crack.

finis