the secret...

I don't own Naruto… T-T

The blonde Hokage looked at the man in front of her. How would her react when he found out the secret she had held for so long? Where their drunken night had led…

"Alright Tsunade-hime, what is it you wanted to tell me?" the tall, white haired man asked. She looked into the eyes of her oldest friend.

"Do you remember when I left the village the first time?" He looked at her with a look of sadness and confusion on his face. It wasn't a memory he held fondly. "Yeah, you left after that one party held by Yuki." he said. His face showing him replaying memories.

"Have you ever wondered why I left?" He snapped out of his reminiscing, and looked at her, a serious expression on his face. "I've wondered many times why you left, hime. Are you going to tell me?" he asked, looking at her expectantly. She looked away, sadness filling her eyes. She took her time before looking back, grief evident in her expression. He could tell that something about the memory brought her pain.

The night before she disappeared, they had been together for the first and only time. He could still remember the taste of her neck… how her creamy skin looked in the moonlight… the sound of his name on her tongue, her moan…

Although he didn't know it, he had been her first. But he himself had already had multiple partners. He had had many more since that night, but none had meant anything since that time. The only time he had been with the woman he loved.

While he had been loss in the memories he held so dear of the woman in front of him, she to had been remembering that night. She hadn't expected her first time to be with him, but he had been gentle. She could still remember his kisses on her bare skin. The simple pleasure he had brought her with those kisses. The raging pleasure he had brought to her as they became one…

Being held in his arms after had been one of the best moments of her life. It was second only to holding her son for the first time… Pulling herself from memories, she stared at him. She was trying to prepare herself fir what she was about to tell him.

"Jiraiya, I'm not sure how to say this. The reason I left… the reason I avoided you after we were together… I was scared. I didn't know how to tell you. What I should've done…" she trailed off, tears beginning to form in her eyes. He knew whatever she was about to reveal, it was the most painful thing she had ever done.

"What is it hime?" he asked gently, not wanting to cause her more grief. She slowly turned away from him, choosing instead to stare out the window of her office. Not facing him, she plunged in, not able to take it back. " I left because I was pregnant."

Not facing him, not able to see his reaction. No noise came from behind her. She slowly turned back around, and found him staring straight ahead, his eyes wide. "P-pregnant? You had a ch-child?"

He waited for an answer before saying anything else. "Yes Jiraiya. A boy." She turned away from him, choosing once again to stare out the window. "Was he Dan's?" Jiraiya asked, a bit nervous. Envy could be heard in his voice.

She had buried him a few weeks before the party. He had always assumed they had been together. "Jiraiya, Dan and I never slept together," she said waiting for him to realize the thing she had kept hidden for so long.

His face became a mix of shock, sadness, anger, and a small amount of fear. "He was mine?" his eyes grew wide when she nodded. Then his face grew angry. He noticed fear within her amber eyes when she saw his expression, but shook it off. He advanced towards her until they were a hand span apart. They stood in silence for a moment. She opened her mouth to speak but was quickly silenced, "Not a word!" Her mouth shut at his commanding statement. He knew he was scaring her, but he was only concerned with the thoughts stuck in his head.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he said, his fist clenching. "More importantly, why did you give him up and where is he now?" He didn't seem to want to take her feelings in now.

She turned back around, choosing now to stare at the wall. Anywhere but into his angry gaze. Tears once again came to her eyes. He felt his anger dim, the sight of her tears making his heart tug. He might be confused and angry, but he still loved her. She raised her tear stained face and began to speak.

"I gave him up. We were young and the war was starting. I couldn't take care of the child, and help the village that needed me," she paused a moment as more tears fell and then continued, " I left him with some old patients of mine. Their child had been a stillborn. They adopted him." she trailed off again, tears continuing to fall. "I didn't tell you," she said in a strangled voice, struggling to tell him what he wanted to know, " because you would have wanted to keep him. To raise him.  Would have wanted to give him a family." Tears broke in again. She could barely choke out, "To marry me so he would have been legitimate."

He looked at the woman who was breaking apart in front of him. She was trying to regain control over her emotions. She was the only woman he had ever loved, and it tore him apart to see her like this. He knew she was right. He would've jumped at a chance to make her his wife. To raise a child they had made together. But life had other plans for them.

Instead of the family he had always dreamed of, he had been forced to watch the woman he loved fall apart. To not learn about a child they had conceived till nearly 40 years later. To find out the his child was raised by someone else, while they had been alone with only their pain. His son would be about 37 now. He could've had the woman he loved to come home to, and a child of his own… a son. He felt his anger fade away.

"He was a beautiful baby," she said once her tears were taken care of, "He inherited my hair, although it was a different shade. It had your spiky ness to it. When I held him right after the birth, he opened his eyes. They were the most amazing shade of blue…" she trailed off caught up in memories of the lost child. She pulled out an old photo. It was a shot of her holding a baby. A newborn.

His breath caught in his throat. The child looked like Naruto as a baby. But Naruto was only 16, so it had to be… "What… what was his name?" he asked. By looking at the photo, he had figure it out. Her whole secret. She didn't need to tell him, he already knew. He was only asking to have it confirmed. "You already know." He looked at her. "Tell me anyway."


She looked at him, then closed her eyes. "Namikaze Minato," she said, tears starting to fall again. She knew he stood rigidly. Why wouldn't he? He had just found out his student, his favorite student, the young man he had thought of like a son... was his son.
That meant that Naruto, the kid he said was like his grandchild… was in fact his grandchild!

She hadn't yet told him that at first she wasn't going to let either of them go. "I came back you know. I brought him back to the village when he was about 3 months old. I had come back to tell you, and see if you wanted to raise him with me. To see if you wanted to become a family…"

"The night I came back, I carried him over to your apartment. When I knocked, the door was opened by a woman wearing nothing but a towel. She looked at me confused, then asked me what I wanted. I asked were you were, and she pointed to the couch. You were pasted out, naked and drooling. I figured you wouldn't want the intrusion into your life." she said, trailing off. Once again, she looked out the window.

She had come back. She had left again and he hadn't even known she was there. She had saw him asleep after drunkenly sleeping with the first woman he had been with since she left. He had been hoping she would come back and they could be together. But she had come back on the one night his friends had forced him to drink. The same night, she had left again leaving the son he never knew about, and taking Shizune, Dan's niece, with her. He'd never managed fall out of love with her.

Twelve years later, he had been made his own son's Jonnin sensei. Memories of the blonde began playing in his mind. The first time they'd met. The kid had gotten tied to a stump after failing the bell test. When they'd left on a 3 year training trip. He had been the only gennin he had left, the others having died on a mission. Minato getting his own gennin team. The celebration he had treated him to, to celebrate. When he had met Uzumaki Kushina. Him becoming Yondaime Hokage. Kushina and his wedding. It had been a small affair, just Kakashi and Rin, Minato's two remaining gennin at the time, and Tsunade and himself. The small ceremony had taken place in the hokage's office, performed by the retired Sandaime.

More memories continued to play. When Minato had found out Kushina was pregnant. The village had never seen one of it's hokage running through the streets, screaming his head off in joy. When Minato had told him they were naming the child after a character in his first book. How he had refused to allow the Sandaime of himself to seal the Kyuubi. Holding him as he died…

The day they'd buried him, he hadn't let himself cry. Even though he felt he was putting his son in the ground, no tears fell. Now he realized, he had put his son in the ground. He had been one of the few who knew of Naruto's parentage. That he was the Yondaime's son. Now he finds out that Minato had been his son.

He looked at her once again. Tears were flowing gently from her eyes. He walked around the desk and put his arms around her. She began to cry on his shoulder. "He never knew…" he said trailing off. She raised her head at his words.

"He knew," she said. "His foster mother told him before she died, he then confronted me to find out if it was true and to find out who his father was. I didn't want to tell him, but he convinced me. He was so surprised to find out it was you. He saw you as his father already you know. He wanted to tell you, but I wouldn't let him…"

The white haired man held her and thought back on the things he had taught the man he hadn't found out was his son till after he was dead. These are the lessons he had taught him: how to train, how to fight, how to kill, how to grieve, how to summon frogs and how to drink with them, how to enjoy a good book, how to run like hell, how to hold on, how to let go, how to be a legend, how to be a teacher, how to be a man. The boy had figured out how to die on his own.

He looked at the mother of his child. "So what now, Tsunade?"