AN: When I first posted this, it did pretty well. But then, a kind reviewer told me that I left out a crucial part in the story, and I completely agreed with them. Now that was a while ago, and it's only now that I've actually had the time to fix it, so here it is! :)

Disclaimer: as awesome as I am, I don't own Naruto.

"I finished that stupid mission, baa-chan!" Naruto hollered as he slapped down his latest mission report on her desk, sending a few scraps of other important documents flying from the impact.

"Thank you." Tsunade growled between clenched teeth and went to pick up the report, only to notice it was half blank.

"Where's the report?" Tsunade scolded and waved the paper in emphasis.

"Right there!" He jabbed a finger at the paper.

"Do you need glasses?" Naruto teased harshly and folded his arms across his chest.

"A paragraph? This isn't a report, this is a little scribble you probably did on the wall outside!" Tsunade roared and threw the paper back to him.

"Do it again." She scolded and returned to her paperwork. Naruto stood in his place for a moment, then bent down to pick up the paper, crumpling it into a little ball and throwing it on Tsunade's desk.

"It was a suck ass mission…" Naruto grumbled and left, slamming the door behind him. Tsunade felt the vein in her temple pulse at the complete lack of respect. She pushed herself up and grabbed the ball of paper, ripping open her office door and charging down the hall after Naruto.

"That little brat!" She screamed to no one in particular and quickly raised a silencing hand in Shizune's direction, quieting the woman about to complain.

"Okay then…" Shizune breathed.

Naruto had made his way to the top of the Hokage Mountain where he sat upon Tsunade's head, kicking his feet back and into the mold of her hair. His usually bright cerulean eyes were fogged over and distant, and his trademark pearly grin was nowhere to be found on his now cheerless face. He looked down on the village, watching all the bustling people run to stores or chase after loose pets. He watched as parents made their way to the academy to pick up their children, scooping their child up when they saw them.

Naruto gave a sad smile at the sight, the strings of his heart tugging at the smile on the kids' faces when they saw their parents.

A sticky breeze passed over him, the humidity of summer making his hair stick to his face. He shook his head to get the slimy feeling to leave, only to have something bop him in the head. He watched as a paper ball landed near his hand and turned around to see Tsunade standing in the shade of the trees.

Naruto turned back around, ignoring her as she approached.

"Are you constipated or something? You're very cranky." Tsunade teased as she came over to Naruto's side, her heels clacking on the rough earth every step of the way.

"No." He spat back flatly.

"Well okay then, grumpy…" Tsunade defended as she sat down next to him, the tail of her green coat flitting across Naruto's face for a brief moment. Her scent burned into his nostrils when the edge of the coat came near. The sweet scent of powdery flowers and a hint of pungent citrus wafted around him as she settled into a sitting position next to him. Naruto imagined her spraying a pretty little glass vial filled with the stuff when she would be getting ready for work.

"Then are you sick?" Tsunade asked softly as she put a hand to his forehead to check his temperature, catching him off guard at the gentle touch and getting a tiny blush to tint his cheeks.

"I'm fine…" Naruto squeaked and Tsunade took back her hand, resorting to staring at him fondly until he cracked.

"I'm just tired." He lied.

"Are you now?" Tsunade asked with an arched brow and a grin playing at her lips.

"It's not funny." Naruto snapped and Tsunade turned serious, frightened at the sudden demeanor change in her usually bright boy.

"Then what's really wrong with you?" She asked him seriously, her eyes trying to find his, failing when he lowered his head.

"Naruto." She stated firmly and gently took hold of his chin, raising his head and making eye contact with him.

"You can tell me." She told him softly while looking into his eyes, seeing the tears brimming at the edges. He blinked them away, not wanting Tsunade to see them and took a breath.

"I was coming back from that stupid mission you sent me on…" He started, making sure he emphasized how much his mission sucked.

"And I saw this kid. He had to be at least two. He had tripped and skinned his knee, and was crying. His mom came over and picked him up." Naruto stopped at the memory of the tall brunette woman hoisting her son up into her arms and cradling his head to her chest.

"I stood there watching him calm down, and he did it pretty quick because his mom was holding him." Tsunade nodded when he finished and paused for a breath.

"Why is that?" Naruto asked Tsunade. She was caught off guard by the question and stared at him with her mouth open, her mind trying to find the right words.

"How do moms' do that?" He pressed her gently and watched her eyes search the landscape for the answer. She was quiet for a long time, trying desperately to give the boy a good answer. Her mind came to an appropriate answer, a sad memory, but a useful one.

"I used to ask my mother the same question, and it would be the same answer every time…" Tsunade said quietly, sadness in her words when she tried remembering her mother's face.

"She would say that it's a built in thing that turns on the moment you see your child for the first time. It's a deep thing that spreads all throughout your body and lets every part of you know how to do this and how to do that." She trailed off and wiped a stray tear from her face while Naruto sat silently listening to her, his eyes focused on her.

" They don't consciously have to think about it…it just happens. And it works pretty well seeing as how that kid calmed down when his mother held him." Tsunade turned to Naruto with a new sparkle in her eyes as the sun started to set before them.

"Is that what happened to you?" Naruto quizzed her quietly. Puzzled, Tsunade turned until she was face to face with Naruto.

"Do you see me tugging around a little Tsunade?" She said as a way to dilute his reasoning.

"Well, I think I would count…" Naruto whispered to himself, hoping she didn't hear him.

No such luck.

"What do you mean?" Tsunade became serious as she watched Naruto turn his head away and stare at the setting sun. Noticing where his gaze lead, Tsunade took him by the chin again and turned him away from the sun.

"Don't stare at the sun, it'll hurt your eyes."

"That's what I mean!" Naruto jumped and grabbed her hand from under his chin and held it to her face.

"When you do things like that, you don't even know you're doing them!" He said excitedly as he let go of her hand.

"You've got that deep thing for me!" He finished with a smile on his face. An inglorious blush splashed across Tsunade's face and she started wringing her hands.

"It's just what your mom said. It happens when you see your kid for the first time and it never goes away, no matter how annoying your kid is." Naruto chirped.

"But you're not my child, Naruto." Tsunade annunciated each denial filled word with painfully slow haste.

"I don't have to be." He said with a little less enthusiasm while Tsunade deflated as well.

"And you don't know…those little things could have been me keeping you from looking stupid. Not-!"

"Then why did you protect me from Orochimaru?" Naruto yelled and Tsunade got quiet.

"You'd only known me for a week! And yet you were willing to die to protect me!"

"How do you know that? You were unconscious!" Tsunade deflected.

"Shizune told me when I woke up." Naruto retorted and brought the main topic back while Tsunade noted to give some peculiar punishment to Shizune later.

"If it wasn't that deep thing, then…" Naruto dragged through his words until Tsunade turned back to him.

"Maybe it was that, or maybe it was something else." Tsunade said.

"No, it was the thing." Naruto insisted, turning to her and looking deep into her eyes.

"Why are you deflecting?" His choice of vocabulary caught Tsunade by surprise and she felt the breath in her chest hitch and she suddenly felt uncomfortable under his gaze, but unable to turn away and prove him right.

"Because I don't like talking about things like this…" She answered Naruto with a melancholy tenor, still managing to keep eye contact with him.

"Because you never had kids of your own? Is that why?" Naruto asked gently, afraid the topic would hurt her but unsure as to what her feelings were by the way she was masking them from him. Why did she do that with him? She never did it with anybody else, she was always glad to tell you how she felt about you.

Tsunade looked at the teenager, his eyes looking older every time she saw him and ragged like an old war veteran's. The maturity she saw in him made her feel a bit more secure, more inclined to tell him things she couldn't even tell Jiraiya after knowing him for nearly fifty years. She felt he was old enough, close enough to the person she'd known he would grow into.

He had the right to know.

"Naruto…" Shaky as she was, she felt a little burning in her gut when she said his name, the affection evident in the way it rolled off her tongue.

"Do you know what happened the day you were born? What really happened?" Tsunade asked, watching the puzzled look grow until it consumed his face.

"The nine tailed fox attacked the village and then the Fourth Hokage sealed it in my gut. That's all that I really know, old man Hokage never really said anything else about it." Naruto answered her with curiosity spilling into his words as he spoke them.

"Why?"

"Well…have you ever wondered about your parents? What happened to them, if they're alive or not. Don't you ever wonder?" Tsunade pressed gently, aware the subject was a touchy one with him. Naruto stared out into the space behind her, the blank void he held in his eyes was enough of an answer for Tsunade.

"All the time…I wonder if they left me, or if they died. I've always wanted to know." Naruto answered honestly, a bitter smile spreading slowly across his face.

"You sound almost cynical there, kiddo." Tsunade jeered as she pulled her knees to her chest, thinking back to their earlier discussion, the deep thing he called it.

"You're right…" She muttered more to herself than anyone; almost forgetting Naruto was sitting inches from her.

"Hmm?" He hummed, his sharp ears picking up on her mumble.

"I do have that thing for you, I've had it since the first time I saw you and it's gotten stronger everyday. I know it's sappy, but it's true." Tsunade said with a smile and a distant, longing look drenching her eyes.

"I was a pretty cute twelve-year old." Naruto winked with a lecherous grin plastered to his face. Tsunade took a deep breath, mentally preparing herself for what was about to come.

"Even before then…I've known you longer than you think." She spoke distantly, her honey-brown eyes unfocused and hazy. Naruto sat erect beside her, the skin on the back of his neck prickling at her words.

"H-how-what are you talking about?" His words were almost panicked now, sweat rolling down his temple. Tsunade took immediate notice, cupping his face with a cool, calming hand.

"Hey now. I haven't been stalking you or anything! Don't freak out like that." She laughed, her minty breath peeking its way into his nostrils, tantalizing him with her scent once again. How did she keep doing that?

"You wouldn't remember the first time we met anyway, it was a long time ago, and you were still so small…" Tsunade seemed to drift off as she looked Naruto in the eyes, the bright cerulean orbs capturing the setting sunlight like diamonds.

"Like a toddler?" He guessed.

"Nope."

"Younger?"

"Much younger, try newborn." Tsunade suggested and Naruto felt his jaw unhinge and dangle like it wasn't supposed to.

"You were the doctor who delivered me?" Naruto guessed excitedly.

"I was in the room." Tsunade added a bit sheepishly, the hint creating a small blush that tainted her cheeks.

"You watched? Gross…" His lips turned into a distasteful grimace and Tsunade had to hold herself from slapping the back of his head. The boy obviously wasn't getting it, the throbbing vein in her temple evidence to that.

"You're not getting it, Naruto. Who are the only people allowed in the delivery room?" There, a simple question that would help break the glacier-thick ice. Naruto closed his mouth and furrowed his brow as he thought. At least he was trying.

"The doctor, the parents, uh…a nurse, maybe?" Close enough.

"Now, we've decided that I wasn't the doctor, so who else could I be?" She tried, all her hope riding on his (very) slow process of elimination.

"Well, you're a medical person, so you had to be the nurse!" It was if he had just figured out a game of Clue, excited at his deducing capacity. Tsunade's small smile dissipated, her hope now crushed from the boy's ignorance.

"I wasn't the nurse…" She said quietly, hoping the answer she had just given him would be enough for him to get it. Naruto had to stare at her and mull the words over a few times until finally-

"YOU-!" He didn't get a chance to finish when Tsunade had put a slender finger to his lips, hushing him instantly.

"I am not your mother's lesbian lover, so don't even go there." Tsunade warned angrily, her eyes mockingly serious. Naruto could feel the tears stinging the corners of his eyes, his whole body tingling from the revelation. Tsunade slowly pulled her finger away from the teenager's lips, uneasy as to how the rest would go, anxiety evident in her soft gaze. The sixteen-year build up was finally starting to leak through her tightly knit seams and spill out into the open.

"I'm sorry, I cou-!" She started crying but didn't have time to finish before Naruto had pulled her by the hem of her green jacket and into an enveloping hug, his head buried into her shoulder. Tsunade sat shocked for a moment, then warming herself into a loving smile as she wrapped her arms around Naruto. She sat there with him in her arms, her chin resting atop his head of identical hair and eyes closed in ease.

"The first time I held you like this was when the doctor put you on my chest after you were born. You were so tiny and I was absolutely terrified of you. Here was this…stranger who had been living in me, eating up all my food for nine months, and I barely knew anything about you. But once I saw your face, all of that fear melted away and the deep thing exploded all throughout my body, and you made me feel like I could conquer the world." Tsunade stopped to wipe the tears falling down her face, then looking down to where Naruto lay.

His own tears had soaked a good part of her shoulder and his forehead was pressed against her neck. Naruto sucked up some of his congestion and met her eyes.

"Why weren't you around? Why didn't you take care of me? Why did you leave me?" His voice grew louder after every heart-wrenching question, his eyes shut tight as he buried himself deeper into Tsunade's neck.

Her heart skipped at the amount of pain and anger caked into his voice and she brought her arms tighter around him, wanting him closer, wanting him to be free of his pain.

"I didn't know where you were." Tsunade muffled her sob as her mind wandered back to that day, the fire and lightning and rain pouring back into her conscious.

"I was only able to hold you for a little bit before the doctor took you to the nursery and told me to rest. It hadn't even been five minutes after he left that I got up to see you." A smile of mirth crossed Tsunade's face.

"You weren't supposed to do that back then, but I did anyway."

"Rebel." Naruto voiced from below, a little laugh in his tone.

"But then once I was halfway down the hall, there was this enormous explosion. The lights went out and the hospital started shaking and that's when I looked out the window." She stopped, eyes hard as they stared off in the distance, resurfacing that image that would forever be ingrained in the sannin's mind.

"There was the fox." Tsunade's voice quivered as each word left her mouth.

"It was so big and each of the tails were longer than rivers. And then I saw Gamabunta appear, and two people were on his head. Jiraiya and the Hokage. I thought my heart stopped when I saw it, but I remember I started running for you, as fast as I could down the hall until I found the nursery. But someone got there before me."

"Who?" Naruto sat up quickly, the suspense of the story gripping him like a noose.

"Minato, the fourth Hokage, he was standing over a few of the basinets in the nursery. He was looking at you." Naruto watched Tsunade's face twist into an angry scowl.

"He went to pick you up out of your basinet and that's when I ran in and hit him. I told him to get lost and that I'd kill him if he didn't. He kept telling me no, he couldn't. Apparently, he had tried sealing the fox earlier into his own child, but the baby died minutes after the sealing."

"That's horrible."

"But that didn't mean I was going to let him try it out on you. I went to hit him again, and you know what he did?" Naruto shook his head.

"He cheap-shot me. He punched me in the gut, and I was still sore from having you, so that really got me to fall to my knees. He said he was sorry and picked you up and left. And that was the last time I saw you." Tsunade hiccupped a quiet cry and closed her eyes, hands holding Naruto closer.

"I looked for you, I scoured every inch of the village, I checked every orphanage and I even broke into houses at night to check and make sure nobody had taken you."

"Sarutobi sensei told me you were probably gone or someone had taken you away from the village, but I kept looking for you. It finally became too much and I had to leave the village because I just couldn't take looking at the children running around, they reminded me too much of you."

Tsunade cupped his exposed cheek and wiped a few tears away with her thumb, leaning her head down and placing a soft kiss on his forehead.

"You don't know how long I've wanted to tell you that. I knew it was you from the first time I saw you with Jiraiya and it was just natural maternal instinct that put me between you and Orochimaru. It was so strong that I didn't even need to think about it. I'd be damned if I let him touch one hair on your head…" Tsunade muttered the last bit darkly.

"And when we got back to the village, I looked through some of sensei's old and secret files and found your file. It was thick and filled with papers stating that he had taken you in for the first year of your life and hid you from me. He changed your name from Senju to Uzumaki, to make sure you would blend in better."

"Why did he hide me from you?" Naruto's voice was angry as he stared deep into his mother's eyes.

"For your safety."

"What?" He cried in exasperation.

"He knew I would most likely take you out of the village. And he knew that if anybody found out your father and I had a child, you would be hunted to no end, just so we could be hurt. I hated him for it for a long time, but as I read over the file again and again, I knew he was right in what he did. I would have been too angry and reckless and would have taken you to places where you could have been hurt or even killed. And then I would have killed every person in sight and that's how you start war."

"He was a very wise man." Tsunade lowered her head sadly, catching Naruto's eyes in her own.

"Then who's the sperm donor?"

"Don't call him that!" Tsunade slapped Naruto on the arm and stifled the rumbling laugh building up in her chest. She felt Naruto's soft chuckle as he sat up, leaning lightly on Tsunade's shoulder.

"Well that was my nickname back in ANBU…" A boisterous voice filled with mirth answered from behind the two. Tsunade closed her eyes and smiled as Naruto shot up like a rocket, his eyes widening at the man behind him.

"It was not…" Tsunade rained on his parade as he walked over, his wooden clogs clacking against the dry earth with each step.

"It was and still is, one of my many aliases, hime. And apparently, I've got strong swimmers by the looks of him." Jiraiya snickered as he pointed towards Naruto, who (dumbly) took a quick glance behind him, making sure he was the one being addressed.

"Good God almighty, Jiraiya. Keep it PG here." Tsunade scolded and looked to Naruto, nearly cracking up at the look of the boy. Naruto looked about to wet himself and burst out into tears of happiness, the actions all occurring simultaneously and could possibly result in making him explode.

"You two did…it?" Naruto sputtered through all four words, utterly confused at the thought.

"We weren't born old, kiddo. And people that age tend to do…just such extra-curricular activities quite often." Jiraiya admitted with a distant, lecherous smirk.

"But the how isn't important, Naruto…" Jiraiya pulled himself away from his private thoughts and back to his son.

"What matters is that we made you out of love. A kind of love that grows every time we see you."

Naruto held his quivering lip as he stared on in wonder at these people he had known for years, who had known him since before his birth. His world had been flipped upside down in a matter of minutes and he knew it would never be the same. He felt like everything was starting to spin and he was beginning to feel dizzy, almost light headed.

The last thing Naruto remembers before fainting was both legendary sannin quickly reaching out their hands to catch him before he smacked his pretty little head on the rocky dirt below. Soft hands had caught his head and another pair of big, calloused hands had his shoulders. Tsunade and Jiraiya both stared down at their son worriedly, shocked at the sudden fainting spell.

"He's out…" Tsunade announced wryly, her eyes crinkling along with her relieved smile and Jiraiya plopping down before her.

"Understandable, in the span of seven minutes he found out who his parents are. That's a lot." Jiraiya reasoned like the wise sage he was as he watched his lovechild sleep in his mother's lap. Tsunade found his eyes, drowning herself in the deep onyx ocean of his gaze.

"We made him out of love…? You are a hopeless romantic." Tsunade teased and Jiraiya blushed under her look.

"I'm flattered, really."

"Whatever you say, Sperm Donor…"

I hope that was better than the original, because I think it is, it has more meat to it! Yummy, meat, I want some now...

Thanks to that awesome reviewer who brought the enormous error to my attention and thank you all for reading!

PEACE :P