I do not own Naruto or any of its characters.

Only Part Time

He didn't mind the dark anymore. After spending so long sitting alone in his room, the walls bathed in the faint glow of the moonlight that spilled in through the window, there was little he could do but accept it for what it was. It was reality. You couldn't change it, you couldn't wish it away. It had taken him a while to realise that.

There were times when Naruto felt he had slinked into the shadows and was watching everything from another view. He saw things differently. Like now. The bright sparks of the fireworks from the festival cast a colourful display of lights on the walls. It was the harvest festival. Most of the people were on the streets, celebrating, enjoying the fair.

He should probably be down there as well. Too bad – he hadn't been to the festival for a few years now. His friends continually urged him to join them. He had taken up the offer one time and he had smiled and laughed with them, but even though they were together he couldn't help but feel that something was missing, that each time they gathered there was a hollow, vacant spot beside him.

Besides, she didn't need him to be there with her anymore. No more carrying her around, no more winning her giant stuffed toys. She had her own priorities now. Though even she had tried to drag him down to the celebrations. She had been particularly persistent this time. Stubborn was the word, but Naruto realised that he wasn't one to judge others.

He had never discovered such a convenient use for his father's Hiraishin. He was pretty sure that, thanks to him, she had an extra half an hour before her date arrived.

It was strange, though. He had been so eager to get rid of her and have some time to himself, but now that midnight was fast approaching and he realised that she had been out for hours, he wanted her back. It was like kicking a ball away and instantly wishing it would be back at his feet. Naruto allowed himself a chuckle, as if they were limited and had to be rationed. He was hardly the one doing the kicking around.

The fireworks weren't as pretty as he remembered them to be. Or maybe they had just been extraordinarily beautiful that night. One of the fireworks shot up high into the night sky, bursting brilliantly. Light glanced off the glass frame of the photo Naruto was cradling between his hands. Although he was not aware of it, his thumb was stroking the glass fondly.

"Ow! Why is it all dark in here?"

Without warning the lights came on, causing Naruto to flinch and blink dark spots from his eyes. He tried to focus on the figure by the door, taking off her shoes. "I didn't hear you come in," he grumbled.

"And here I thought you were supposed to be the Hokage." Her voice floated in from the kitchen, and Naruto heard some clanging around. "Want coffee?"

"It's a bit too late for a coffee fix, isn't it?" he asked dryly, joining her.

She shrugged, already stirring a cup of the substance with a spoon. She had a new acquisition, Naruto noticed. Around her neck, the dog tags he had given to her two birthdays ago had company.

"Who gave you that?" When she looked questioningly at him, he nodded at the necklace. Her hand reached up to touch it.

"You know who," she said with a small smile. "I told you I was going out with him today, didn't I?"

"Yeah, but you didn't tell me you were going to come back so late." He didn't need to find himself a clock. "It's past midnight."

She gave him a weird look. "It's the harvest festival," she pointed out, as if that explained everything. In a way, it did, but Naruto was not satisfied. He wanted a concrete answer, but he didn't realise that he was expecting one from himself, not her.

"You could have told me," he said quietly.

"I did."

"How much time are you going to spend with me? What if one of us disappeared tomorrow? How would the other feel?" Naruto was looking straight into her eyes, solemn.

Now she was frowning, coffee forgotten. "You're acting stra-"

His voice rose over hers. "I shouldn't have let you go!"

But she wasn't going to let him have the last word. "What are you talking about?" she shouted back. "You were the one who said I could…" Her voice trailed off, and at that moment both of their irritation ebbed away.

Naruto's mouth opened and closed. He had to turn away. Hands gripping the edge of the sink, he squeezed his eyes shut, breathing deeply.

Her hand was on his, her voice soft. "Dad… I'm not Mum."

"Why do you want the bear? It's ugly."

She crossed her arms over her chest. "You're the one who dragged me out here."

"I drag you here every year, Sakura."

"I've realised." She nodded toward the stall. "I still want the bear."

Leaning in from behind her, his face touching hers, Naruto pointed over her shoulder at another toy. "How about that fox? Doesn't it look like me?"

"It's missing whiskers."

"Take me home," he said in a childish voice, making Sakura laugh.

"You're such a kid, Naruto." She squeezed his hand. "Fine, the fox then. But it'd better be worth it."

His grin widened as he paid for some hoops. "It will be."

He didn't need another try. Once was enough. In minutes, Sakura had a plush doll of a fox in her arms. She spent a while staring it in the face. "It has a retarded eye," she commented. "And why does it have a pouch? Foxes don't have pouches."

"Hey, don't complain." He smiled at her. "Why don't you take a peek? Maybe the fox has something to give you."

Raising an eyebrow, Sakura obliged. "I don't like that look on your face. It looks…" He never found out what it looked like. She seemed to lose the capacity for speech as her hand emerged with a small smooth box. Her eyes found his. "Naruto…?"

His breath was warm against her cheek as he kissed her lightly on the forehead. He opened the case, revealing a glimmering ring. "Marry me, Sakura," he murmured.

Her eyes were wide. Then she seemed to recover, a small smile on her face. "Would you have something to do with this street being so quiet, Lord Hokage?" she asked wryly. "It is the harvest festival after all."

"Shh. They're watching their great leader. Put up a good show for them; don't embarrass me." He leaned in closer. "Say yes."

Her fingers played with the small box. "Give me three reasons why I should marry you."

"Well, that's ea-"

"One second." Her hand was on his head, and before Naruto knew what was happening, his knees hit the ground and he was kneeling. She stood over him, framed by light from the lanterns. She was smiling. "Now you can start."

Trademark grin in place, he reached for her hand. She let him. "First," he said. "I love you."

Her lips twitched.

"Second: you love me."

"How can you be so sure?" she murmured.

He didn't falter. "Three: you can't say no to this handsome face."

She was definitely smiling now. Her eyes were brimming with light. "Yes I can."

"Aha! You said yes!" He leaped to his feet.

"Not in the right context, Naruto."

He slowed down. "How about now?" His tone shifted so quickly that it surprised her. His voice was low and his face was suddenly so close to hers that their noses were touching. "Will you marry me?"

The first time, she used too much force and tore off his collar. The second time, she simply thrust her hand into his hair and pulled him down so their lips could meet.

"I'm going to take that as a 'yes'," Ino whispered to Shikamaru.

If anyone suspected that the Hokage and his daughter were responsible for the small-scale earthquakes and explosions that occasionally rippled through the village, they wisely chose not to mention it. However, their silence was probably not of fear of their leader and more because they had foreseen that Naruto Uzumaki would just carry on his parenting methods elsewhere. So, the two Uzumakis were given freedom to change the terrain of the training grounds.

Naruto leapt back, shaking his head as the ground below him tore into fragile fragments. "I knew I should have trained you myself," he sighed.

His daughter straightened with a grin, flicking her long hair over her shoulder. "Something wrong, Daddy?"

He regarded her with reproachful eyes. "You are demon spawn, Ren Uzumaki. Literally."

Ren laughed. "Come on now, Lord Hokage. Don't hold back."

Naruto tilted his head. "Is it just me or are all teenagers overconfident these days? I was much more humble at your age."

She snorted. "Right. Mum told me all about you, Mr Village Pariah."

His smile was still there, but she noticed that it softened, and that his eyes grew slightly distant. "She told you lots of stuff, huh?" He didn't wait for her reply. "I guess she told you about the Rasengan, too?"

Ren's eyes widened. "You're finally going to use it?" Her voice was spiked with excitement. She had seen her father train with the technique but he had refused to fight her with it, not even at her current level.

Chakra was gathering in his hand. "Even better. If you can beat me, I'll teach it to you."

"Deal!"

"Hey, don't get cocky now!"

Ren knew that her father sometimes made excuses to train with her. This time it was for the grocery shopping. Earlier, it had been the laundry and before that, his paperwork. He claimed it was to aid her prowess ("Be grateful, not all kids have a handsome Hokage daddy, Ren."). She had definitely improved under his guidance, but as she got older, Ren began to sense a deeper significance to her father's time with her.

In fact, she didn't even prefer using chakra-condensed force to produce superhuman strength. But it wasn't like she didn't know. When training with her father, Ren made a point to use the skill as often as possible. Naruto Uzumaki was good at hiding behind masks, but even he couldn't hide the fond smile when, for precious few hours, he could pretend that Sakura Haruno was about to kick his ass.

They expected so many things from him. Not as Naruto Uzumaki – no one should expect anything from Naruto Uzumaki. But as Hokage, they expected him to be diligent and watchful in his duties. They expected him to wisely manage the village's expenses and prioritise all matters.

They expected him to sit at his desk while his child was in enemy territory. They expected him to wait for her to return even though she was four days and thirteen hours late for her report time. They expected him to stay calm when he didn't even know if she was alive.

Bullshit. He was only human.

Naruto didn't mind getting hurt. He had survived so many perilous confrontations that his friends were beginning to suspect that he was damn indestructible. But they also knew that he took a stab to the heart every time one of his precious people was in danger. He couldn't stand it. It was torture to an inhumane degree. It was like holding his breath under water. Naruto drowned.

He had once had a fight with his daughter. Ren accused him of seeing her as a shadow of Sakura – in her every move, everything she said, he thought of his wife, her mother. It was true to a degree, Naruto admitted. Although she had his hair and various other features, Ren was still uncannily like her mother. It was not only the sharp green eyes; her personality, her habits – everything screamed of Sakura. It drove Naruto crazy. When Sakura had been alive, she had liked to wear similar clothes to their daughter just to spite him. Sometimes he just couldn't tell them apart, not even when one was gone.

But they were separate. They were different. And as Naruto tore through the muddy plains, wordlessly ripping into the enemy's holding base, he was not thinking of the village he had left without leadership, or of his actions causing a possible war – not even of Sakura. It was Ren's voice that echoed in his head, Ren's smile and scowl that he saw. It was Ren he thought of.

Ren. Ren. Re-

"REN!" His voice came out as a guttural roar. He barely saw the Mist nins he ripped through. Faintly, he registered that they must have been prepared for him to come. They had targeted Ren because they knew he would come for her. It was enough. He was taking his daughter back. Right now.

She was a beaten wreck when he found her. Naruto's heart pounded and skipped several beats. He almost thought she was dead. He should have been expecting this. After all, Mist had had her for days. Of course she would… But he couldn't help but wish that he had not taken out the enemy so quickly – after seeing what they had wrought to his daughter, he was starting to think that he had taken them out too painlessly.

There had once been chains shackling her limbs but the binds now lay coiled in a corner. Evidently, the Mist had been prepared to abandon the shelter when he'd come. As he gently laid her on her back, Naruto thought he heard her bones crack.

He kept whispering her name, kept smoothing her hair. He knew from her fluttering pulse that she was alive, but he wanted to see the life on her face, in her eyes. Using his limited range of medical jutsu, he carefully tended to the more serious of her injuries, and while he was reducing swelling, Ren coughed, spluttered. And her eyes opened.

"Hey, Sleeping Beauty." Naruto tried to smile. He kissed her forehead.

She smiled weakly up at him. "Dad… Daddy, I…" It looked like she was going to pass out again, but she clung to consciousness and gripped the front of his vest with bleeding fingers. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

He held her hand. "For what?"

"M-Mum would have… castrated them in seconds."

And Naruto groaned. He held his daughter closer, cradled her against his chest. Ren had her face in his chest, silent tears sliding down her cheeks.

"Ren… Ren. It's not about your mother. It's not about Sakura. It's about you. You." He kept repeating it to her, trying to convince her as much as he was trying to convince himself.

He was despaired when his daughter, broken and bleeding from a mission he had sent her on, tried to comfort him. "It's okay, Dad. I… I get it. I know." She squeezed his hand, wincing. "It's okay…"

"Of course it is," he soothed her.

But it wasn't, and Naruto knew that he couldn't keep doing this.

He wouldn't ever have thought that he was a 'sunset' type of guy. Sakura didn't seem to reckon so either.

"Why did you take me up here?" she asked. His head was on her lap and she was absently running her fingers through his hair.

"It looks pretty, doesn't it?"

"It's nice," she agreed.

Naruto smiled. "Do you think sunrise is this nice as well?"

"Maybe. I still think sunset might look better though."

He tilted his head back so that he could meet her eyes. "Why?" he asked.

She blinked. "I don't know, actually. I guess it's because it's sunset. The day is coming to an end… and I think everything is most beautiful before it ends."

"Mm." His eyes slowly slid shut and he allowed the sun to warm his skin. "Is life the same too?"

"Same what?"

"Beautiful right before it's over."

Her hand stopped going through his hair. Naruto's eyes opened and he looked at her. "I don't think life actually ends," Sakura said finally.

"How did you get to that conclusion?"

"When people die, they aren't forgotten. We still think of those that passed on." Her voice softened. "Jiraiya, Lady Tsunade… Sasuke. We still remember them. Don't you think they live on in us?"

"Are you spouting off that 'Will of Fire' thing?" he teased. "Ow!" She'd pulled out one of his hairs. "Okay, I get it!"

She smiled sweetly. "Would you like to repeat it word for word for the class?"

"Ehh… sure…" He rose his knees and leaned forward until Sakura was pressed to her back. He dropped a kiss on her lips. "It means you'll never leave me."

Ren had inherited Sakura's obsession with neatness, so Naruto stood back and let her wipe the gravestone. He cleaned away the leaves and checked for weeds while his daughter spoke with her mother. Ren was awfully alright with talking to a slab of stone. He supposed it was because she had been young, nine, when Sakura had left and not come back. Naruto couldn't do what she could. It wasn't the same.

"I think Dad's been kidnapped and replaced," he heard Ren say. "He was cleaning the toilet today. Something's seriously wrong, don't you think, Mum? And he did such a bad job of it too…"

He poked his head over her shoulder. "Are you sure you're not saying stuff about me?"

"Definitely." She gave him a light head butt. "I'm only telling the truth, after all."

"You little brat."

Ren stuck her tongue out at him.

They didn't stay long at Sakura's grave. Naruto spent enough time sitting beside it. He rarely said anything when he did. They could call him old-fashioned and corny, but he didn't think he needed words.

There was a good view of the village from their vantage point, and they sat for a while. Naruto tried not to make it obvious that he was keeping an eye on Ren. She had only been allowed out of the hospital last week. Protective to the end, he was ready to shove her back in there the minute she looked the slightest pale. But she was so normal, so Ren, that he was beginning to wonder if she had truly spent days under Mist captive. How could she bounce back from trauma like that? There must be a secret formula. He'd just forgotten, that was all.

"I'm not really filling in for Mum very well am I, Dad?" Ren asked suddenly. Naruto glanced at her. Sensing his gaze, she turned her head and met his eyes. You're doing great, he wanted to tell her. It was true. And it was false. No one could fill in for Sakura. Not Ren. Not him.

"Nope. Your mother was more…" He gave an exaggerated glance toward his daughter's chest.

"Well-endowed?" Ren's voice dripped with derision.

He grinned. "You tell me."

"You are such a pedophile."

He lifted a hand to his chest in mock-dismay. "Daddy is wounded!"

Ren rolled her eyes.

Naruto's tone evened out. "But hey, I'm not a bad catch, you know. I'll let you know, I was Bachelor of the Year one time."

"Really now? I'm not sure about you, but I know Youta's dad was."

"You're comparing me to a lazy ass like Shikamaru? Geez, Ren, are you sure that boyfriend of yours didn't replace your brains with tea?"

"I thought you were going to say ramen."

"Ramen is good," he defended.

She thought about it for a while. "True," Ren relented. At least she had inherited his appetite. After a pause, she said, "Youta's decent, Dad."

He glanced at her. "Trying to tell me something? I'm already letting you date him. Don't tell me you want to get married already."

"I didn't say-"

"No." He stared at her. "He didn't get you pregnant, did he?"

Ren really smacked him. She whacked him alongside the head, and she did it so casually that Naruto truly believed that Sakura's spirit had taken form. "I never thought I would be having this talk with you." She raised her eyes to the heavens, as if to ask her mother why she chose such a man.

Naruto rubbed his head. "Yeah, I know. You're already choosing a boy over your old man." He surprised himself by sounding bitter. He hadn't thought that he was jealous of Youta Nara. But then… it made perfect sense. He was Ren's father. Ren was his world. He didn't want to relinquish her to anyone.

Although she had grown out of cuddles, Ren wrapped her arms around her father from behind and gave him a small squeeze. "You know I love you, Dad," she said.

"I know," he said softly. He nuzzled her with his nose, and surprisingly, she didn't pull away. "Do you miss your mother sometimes, Ren?"

"I miss her all the time."

"Mm. Me too." Naruto pulled her into his lap. She was getting much too big now; almost an adult. He half-wished she would become a child again, so he would never have to let go. "I'm not the same as Sakura, huh?"

They both knew he wasn't referring to gender or appearances. Ren just shook her head.

"I thought so."

"But you're a good father," she told him. "You really are."

"Oh? Say that again, Renny. It almost sounded like a compliment!"

She slapped at his hand. "Don't call me Renny."

Naruto just grinned, but Ren was yawning. "Why did you drag me out of bed so early, Dad? The doctor prescribed rest and recuperation, not early wake up calls. Not to mention that you aren't even a morning person."

He pointed at the horizon. "See that?"

"The sky?"

"The sunrise." It was almost as bright and warm as the sunset from that day – but not as beautiful, like Sakura said. Still, it represented what Naruto needed. Closure and a new beginning.

"I really do love you, Dad," Ren murmured.

He smiled. "Yeah, I love you two."

AN: Yeah, another oneshot. It wrote itself in one night while I was trying to work on Precious People. I'll have to thank wolf's paradise, whose oneshot Cinderella led me to the song Cinderella by Steven Curtis Chapman. I was listening to the song while writing this. It's a really great song - listen to it sometime.

So yes, Ren is another of my little inventions. I'm not sure how Sakura died - she just did. I also thought the first part of the story sounded like Naruto and Sakura had divorced, but no, Sakura's actually dead and Naruto was just remembering her. I always wanted to explore the concept of Naruto being a parent. I'm pretty sure he'd make a very good father, but he really is only human, and there are times when it's one or the other.

Quick edit: I forgot to add this earlier, but some people did get a little mistaken, so I'll just clarify. On the last line, it is intended to be 'two' and not 'too'. It's referring to both Sakura and Ren. I'm actually not a big fan of ending stories with 'I love you too' so I thought this would be a little different, and it seemed to suit the context better.