He's sitting at the kitchen table, whizzing through a word puzzle, not even looking up when Sarada walks in. In fact, he doesn't move until a few minutes later when Mom shuffles through the door, looking pale and exhausted. Then he's suddenly standing, leading her to sit down, offering her a cup of tea and ginger crackers. Mom smiles weakly, Dad squeezes her shoulder lightly, and Sarada feels something like panic rise up.

Because Dad is never so easily demonstrative with Mom unless they're alone. She knows her parents love each other, of course. Mom is overtly affectionate to Dad, but Sarada has never caught them cuddling or hugging like Auntie Hinata and Uncle Naruto, or flirting like Auntie Ino does with Uncle Sai. The closest they ever come to behaviour like that is when something horrible or dangerous has happened. Or about to happen.

Or is happening.

"Is Mom dying?" she blurts out.

Her parents both tense and stare at her in surprise. It occurs to her that they didn't even notice she was in the room. The ability to catch two of the three most powerful shinobi in the world off guard is probably not a good sign.

"Why would you think that?" Dad asks quietly.

"Because you're both always home," Sarada answers at once, and then hurries on before her parents can say anything, "and Mom's always leaving work early or resting or isn't sleeping well or looks sick. And Mom never gets sick. Ever." She stares her mother down as if in challenge. "And if you're sick enough that you can't heal yourself, then it must be really horrible and you must be dying–"

"Sarada –"

"– which would explain Dad being home because that never happens! The longest you've stayed with us between missions is a month, and that was only because you got really hurt and almost died. Now, it's going on two months and you're still here!"

She stops for a breath, mentally running through her thoughts to see if they make sense, and nods to herself when she decides that they do.

Dad eyes her with incredulity. "Do you not want me here?"

"Of course I want you here! But I want to know what the reason is because you've never done it before! If Mom's dying or...or if the world's going to end tomorrow, you need to tell me! That way I can tell Konohamaru-sensei that I'm skipping training until we fix whatever is wrong!"

"You're not skipping training," Mom says softly, amusement shining through her weariness, "the world isn't ending, and I'm not dying,"

"Then what's wrong? Are you working on a new jutsu or something?" Sarada demands. Now that the worst-case scenario has been debunked, she moves on to the next logical reason. "Is it sapping all your strength, and that's why you need to rest all the time?"

"No, I'm –"

"Have you done that before?" Dad interrupts; there are the beginnings of a frown on his face.

"When I was eight, she created this jutsu to tie a person's life force to her own so she could keep them alive until help came," Sarada informs him, pride momentarily shining through her panic. "She saved Uncle Shikamaru's life, but she couldn't walk for a week. Grandma Tsunade said if she ever caught her using that technique again, she'd bind all of her chakra and paralyse her hands permanently."

"Hm." Yeah, that's definitely a frown now, only it's directed at her mother.

"Don't look at me like that," Mom tells him. "Do you realise what Temari would've done to me if I let him die?"

"You can crush mountains with your bare hands, and you're afraid of a woman with a fan?"

"She can decapitate things with that fan. Kind of hard to regenerate cells when you have no head."

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