Simple Moments

"There's a baby?  In there?  Really?"

 Karin smiled at her son's wide-eyed surprise as he placed a small hand onto her abdomen, which still had yet to grow round.  She was barely a few weeks along after all.

"Not quite a baby yet.  He probably looks more like a tadpole right now."

Her son looked even more confused now, eliciting a small laugh from his mother.

"In a few months though, you'll have a brother.  What do you think about that?"

A thoughtful expression suddenly passed over the face of the small child.

"I want to teach him everything that I know."  His voice rose in childish excitement and joy.

 Karin wrapped him in her arms then and held him close, taking in his sweet scent of summer sunlight and grass.

 In his young face she could see both hints of the faces of the family that was lost to her so long ago, as well as Sasuke's clan, the memory of which he still so fiercely cherished and guarded.  She was sure it would be the same with the next child and wondered whom he would most closely resemble.

"You are close to the same age as my own brother was when I came along and made him into an older brother."

"Dad!"

 Karin let go of the boy so that he could go and greet his father at the doorway, and she turned, casting a warm and knowing gaze in her husband's direction.  Their son only knew bits and pieces of the story of Itachi and of how Sasuke had come to lose his family at such a young age.  He knew even less about how Karin had lost hers.  In time, he would be told both stories, but for now Karin wanted him to enjoy the carefree days of his childhood without the pain that had characterized the younger years of his parents.


"We'll take a walk, and you can tell me about everything you want to teach the new baby," Sasuke said as he hoisted the child up on his broad shoulders.  Karin watched them go and tried to savor the moment, one hand on her belly feeling the ever-growing and changing spark of life from deep within.


 Who knew what the future would bring?  She wanted to remember every last detail about such seemingly simple, small moments, knowing full well how quickly everything could change and be taken away.