Summary: After being frozen for four thousand years the remains of the final battle are uncovered and taken to the Jeffersonian. What happens when what was thought to be a corpse is still alive and kicking… Literally. Lance/Naruto.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, Bones or any copyrighted references or allusions that may be made in this story.

Warnings: Eventual slash.

Edited: July 4th, 2018

Prologue

Three years had passed since the final battle. Three years had passed since Naruto's life had irrevocably changed. Three years, it had been three years since Naruto had won the final battle. It had been three years since he lost everything dear to him.

Naruto won the battle. He had fought longer and harder than he could have imagined himself capable. He fought through the pain. He fought as everyone around him fell to Madara's hand. He fought as his world started to collapse around him. He fought, and he fought, and he fought, until finally he won the war. He won, and then he was lost, for victory had consequences far too great to be considered a good thing.

To win the war Naruto released the forces of all of the bijuu at once. He guided their combined power into a single focused attack on Madara and his forces. The results were catastrophic. Such power being used for a singular task absolutely decimated everything it came into contact with. Each bijuu's power reacting as a multiplying factor for every other bijuu's power until the power accumulated was so exponentially greater than any one demons' that the world could not handle such a thing.

The attack broke the world. An instant after Naruto unleashed his final gambit, the backlash came as a wave of demonic energy that spread farther than anyone could have imagined. A thick, all encompassing, miasma of poisonous chakra spread throughout the land. So powerful was this recoil that it reached even the farthest distances on their continental maps.

The only creatures that could hope to survive such an event were those who had built a resistance to bijuu chakra over time. In other words, the only creatures, let alone people, who could survive were those who were once hosts to the demonic power, the jinchuriki. Unfortunately, Naruto was the only surviving host and even he was not fully immune when he was at the epicenter of the fog. Where the poison was at its thickest, even a jinchuriki could not survive without aid.

Naruto, the man who had given everything to win, the boy who had done everything to be someone beyond a monster, was now at the mercy of his charge. In order to survive, Naruto had to become more than human, and less. In order to live he had to merge with the Kyuubi.

Naruto, did not want to merge. With his ultimate attack he had won the war and it was time for everything to be over. He had lost so much, and yet it was not his choice alone.

The Kyuubi didn't want to die. If his host died, there was a very real possibility of his own death. A death where he would be forced to become the nature chakra that reinforced the genjutsu around the continent. He had seen it happen to his siblings after the attack just then. They were no longer anchored to anything on the physical realm and once their attack was done they were gone. Just gone. He could feel their chakra dissipate all around them and yet could not feel their consciousness. It scared him, he didn't want to die. He didn't want to disappear.

Naruto lay on his back in the middle of the now calm battle field. Staring at the empty blue sky as he choked on the miasma of chakra. He could feel it slowly killing him. A tear fell down his face as he lay there just feeling. It hurt so much. Everything. He just wanted it to be over. Why couldn't it be over? Was there nothing that could be done?

Kyuubi seized that brief instance of conflict. He misconstrued the exact nature of what Naruto had wanted but took it as consent and began the process. He was going to remain extant. He was going to maintain his individuality, his unique mojo, his ass kicking awesomeness. The world could suck it as he survived. The Kyuubi was conceited with an ego to match but he could do this. And so he did.

The merge was sudden. One moment Naruto lay dying and the next he was writhing as transformation began. The pain was intense as he felt his body changing, blond fox ears and tail grew as his canines and nails elongated and sharpened. His senses became farther reaching and power radiated from within. After fighting for so long, Naruto's body finally gave in as he passed out.

Naruto didn't know how long he was out when he next woke. The sun was high in the sky as he was finally able to sit up. After getting his bearing he attempted to stand and survey the scene of the final battle. He was able to stand firmly though the ground was still slightly unsteady as the floating island the battle occurred on was on the move.

Every way Naruto turned he was met with death. The scorched and maimed bodies of comrades and enemies alike were everywhere. Mingled in their finally resting places as if they belonged together, death does not care who you were or who you fought for, it only cared that you once lived. He recognized all of the Konoha eleven who had survived to make it to the final battle. Admittedly, there had only been a handful of that number left alive who made it there. He recognized a few of his senseis, some of the zombies, Madara, and finally, finally, his gaze landed on Sasuke. His face barely recognizable as half of it had been burned away.

The reality of his survival hit him as he ran. He ran away as fast as he could. They were all dead. They were all dead and he was alive. He had run. He had to get away. He had to find someone, anyone, alive. He couldn't be alone in this. He couldn't be the only one who survived what he had done.

He ran and ran for three years searching for others and found nothing. The only company were the some of the plants that had been flourishing with no interference from outside forces. Naruto was grateful that his summons still answered him. The toads were from a different dimension and had survived the war. Naruto spent a brief moment of time with them to rest but went back to his search soon after arriving.

In those three years he searched he found no one but he did learn many things. Through each town he passed he picked up a few scrolls and dedicated himself to learning them to honor the people lost. He would remember them in some way and they would never be truly lost. Their techniques and their knowledge would live on even though the people they belonged to could not.

Upon what Naruto approximated to be the three-year anniversary of the end of everything, he returned to the scene of the final battle. It was time to face his past and pay his respects to the fallen in person rather than through his own personal mental torment and nightly nightmares.

It took a month to find the island despite his tracking skills. The island liked to move quickly and three years was quiet a long time to lose track of something that liked to change locations.

When he finally found the island he was met with a haunted place. The bodies that once littered the ground were now just rotted skeletons. Time had weathered them down into bleached bones. At this point Naruto could hardly guess who was friend or foe if not for the tattered headbands, if they even had them. He stopped and paid his respects to each one as he went on.

Skeletal grins followed him as he quietly made his was to the center of the island. The epicenter of destruction. The place he should have died. The place where he wished he had.

Naruto dropped to his knees at the spot he would know anywhere. A place he could never forget. He looked up to the clear blue sky, so calm and so much like that day, and the tears he had been holding back came flooding out. His grief catching up to him as he grabbed at his arms as if holding onto himself would keep him together. He cried, and screamed, and clawed at anything he could reach as he let out everything that had been building since before even the end. Time lost meaning as grieved. It could have been minutes or hours or even days. It didn't matter as he felt everything he had not truly processed despite all of the time in between. He still didn't understand, even now, and he knew he wouldn't for a very long time to come.

When Naruto came to his senses it was near nightfall and he was curled up on his side in the hard dirt. His body ached and his eyes stung. He was exhausted but he did have a purpose for coming to this spot beyond grieving. He needed answers. Answers only the Kyuubi, or now rather another part of himself, could provide. There had been no word between the two since that day and it was time to talk. He took a few moments to just lay there and collect his thoughts before readjusting his body so he was sitting in a meditation pose.

Naruto took his stance as he took a deep breath and started to call upon the nature chakra around him for some semblance of comfort and support as he felt the entirety of the island. He felt every little detail and memorized each one to know that this was where it ended and this is where it started and this is where he would get the answers he sought. Hopefully, this would also be the place that could bring him peace. With that last sentiment he drew his senses inward to speak with the other part of himself, completely cutting his senses to his surrounding environment. He never noticed the clouds gathering in the once calm blue sky.

Naruto closed his eyes and when he opened them he was in a dead forest. He looked around curiously. He had been expecting the sewer he had gotten to know in his youth. This was not the island, clearly, the trees there had been blown apart in the fighting and the saplings were barely sprouting. No, this was just a dead place. The once clearly vibrant trees were just decomposing logs that had yet to fall over, the moss a dull green brown color, and the the sky a dreary grey. Naruto was surprised but not overly so. He supposed many things had changed, why not this as well?

Naruto walked for what felt like a few minutes before he found the Kyuubi laying on some logs. His nine tails swaying behind him as he grinned a mischievous and victorious smile. Naruto's skin crawled slightly but he ignored the sensation.

"It's about time you came to me, Kit," the Kyuubi said in a flippant voice. It was a mixture of bored yet knowing. "I guess you felt compelled though."

"What do you mean I felt, 'compelled', you stupid fox? I just finished my travels and thought it was finally time to get some answers! What exactly did you do to us? To me? I can feel our chakras have merged and I noticed the little…extras. What else could you possibly need me for?" Naruto practically growled as he tried to keep his composure. Towards the end of the war they had become closer than they had been before but the betrayal of being forced to outlive everyone had set that relationship back. Naruto had not been ready to confront the other before now.

"Well, the bond is almost fully settled and now I just needed you here to complete it." Naruto could feel the irritating buzzing at his skin intensify slightly. He could no longer ignore it.

"What do you mean? We were already merged due to your meddling! What's going on?"

"While it is true we were fully merged on that day it doesn't mean that it was a stable one and the only way to stabilize it was to finally see one another again." Seeing Naruto eyed him skeptically he continued, "Think of if like starting a friendship with someone who was once the enemy. One small misstep before complete trust is earned will ruin everything! All that hard work towards building bridges gone because of one miscommunication or mistake! Just poof! Gone.

"If something were to try and separate us in the last three years, anything at all, our merging just wouldn't have been stable enough to last. Lucky us you killed the only one who would try to do that." The Kyuubi grinned, hoping his mocking would rattle Naruto enough to wake him up from the fog he had been living in the last three years. He really didn't want to spend eternity with someone lost in their own head. It was a rather depressing source of entertainment. Especially so when it was your only source of entertainment.

"Shut up Kurama! You have no right to speak of that! It was killing that man that got us in this mess to begin with! Or have you forgotten that?" Naruto yelled, his anger was enticing to the demon.

"Oh yes, how could I possibly forget? But, I do ever so love getting a rise out of you. Just look at that flush on your cheeks," He took a deep breath as if he were smelling the air around Naruto, practically tasting the anger in those heated words. "It's just so tantalizing to me, causing those types of reactions."

Naruto growled in irritation. There had been more than one reason he didn't want to deal with the fox in the last three years. Even when they had been on speaking terms there had always been a game between them. A game Naruto never wanted to play but always lost anyways.

"Yes, yes just like that. Making you mad or annoyed always just raises my natural trickster self to the surface. Splendid." The fox's grin was large as his tails swayed faster behind him.

Naruto knew this game. He knew he had to control himself and deny the fox his satisfaction. So he continued on with his questions.

"So what does the stabilization of the bond mean to us?"

Seeing the game was up for now the Kyuubi decided to roll onto his back and play with one of his tails in a manner that a human would clean their finger nails and replied, "Nothing much… well aside from the whole aging thing not being applicable to us anymore. That is, until we want to die but that's not really a concern of mine, so it's not really a concern of yours."

"So what you're saying is, that we won't age until we both want to die?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

"And you have no plans to do that whatsoever."

"Got it in one."

"And you'll never change your mind, not even if it's what I really want?"

"Pretty much the head on the nail. When did you get so smart, Kit? You're on a roll!" The Kyuubi started to laugh while tears started to gather once again in Naruto's eyes.

Naruto was now realizing that he would never be able to join his loved ones in the after life. He started to sob once again. Before he had cried for their deaths, and now he cried for himself, for what he will never be. Who he will never be. And though he grieved, and it hurt him to do so, he started to accept what had happened to him. Accept what he could not change, against everything that his younger self would protest, and move beyond it. His tears unknowingly watered the dead ground upon which he stood and started the first steps to recovery.

When they both settled down Naruto decided that he was done being in the fox's presence. He couldn't be near the other right now and he needed space. However, when he tried to wake up he couldn't move a muscle and came back to the forest.

"I'm stuck," Naruto stated indignantly.

"You don't say?" The Kyuubi mocked. It was obvious from his tone that he knew why.

"Well?" Naruto asked expectantly. He could tell the fox badly wanted to to tell him what happened but was being stubborn.

"Well, what? You need to be more clear with what you want," The game was ever going with the Kyuubi and he wasn't above being annoying before being helpful.

"Why can't I wake up?" Naruto asked annoyed. The fox knew he had gotten to him as he looked at Naruto with his wide toothy grin. The sharp teeth glinted from an unknown light source as his tails swayed just slightly faster behind him.

"Who can say? If I were to guess, I would say that you got frozen by that freak storm you ignored while you were talking with me."

Naruto's eyes bugged out in a reaction the Kyuubi was hoping for as he shouted out in panic, "When can I wake up?"

"Like I said, who can say?"

"Well guess!"

"Hmmmmmm, we're frozen now so whenever it is you're completely thawed. However, judging by the amount of nature chakra you've gathered around you while you were meditating, I think the ice will hold for maybe five thousand years, give or take a millennium, if you thaw unaided." He answered flippantly, as if a five-thousand-year freeze was a week vacation you had no plans for.

"Oh, is that all?" Naruto nearly choked.

"Yeah, I mean it's not like time really means anything to us anymore."

"Great. So, I'm stuck with you for that whole time."

"Pretty much. Consider this a bonding experience with your eternal room mate!" A brief flash of Gai crossed Naruto's mind.

"So what should we do?" Naruto took a rather grumpy seat on a log across from the fox. His arms were crossed as he frowned deeply.

"You know… I hadn't really thought that far ahead," he replied as sheepishly as he could, although as he was a fox it wasn't much.

"We could contemplate our place in the universe?" Naruto offered. He wasn't being very serious about the offer, as he wasn't typically one to brood over such things, but it was the first thing that popped into his head.

"Yeah, that could work… I also have cards though," Kyuubi offered as summoned a pack of cards from thin air.

"That could work." With that Naruto hunkered down for what was going to be a long few millennia. He still hadn't forgiven the fox, nor had he truly worked on his grief, but in this moment, and all the moments to come in this frozen nightmare, he could use a distraction.

For the next four thousand years Naruto and Kurama kept each other company. They had worked out their relationship to the point that it was more than functioning but that had taken a very long and painful time. There were still things left unsaid but they could rest for the time being as the mental forest they lived in grew as they healed.

However, beyond their mental bubble, the outside world was changing. The island that had remained within the confines of the genjutsu barrier that protected the hidden elemental continent slowly left that protection. It floated for a long while in the open sea before finally floating into US naval territory. Not long after entering the territory the US navy was made aware of its existence and its artifacts were sent to the top forensic anthropology laboratory in the country, the Jeffersonian, to be examined by their top scientists, the Squints.

Original Author's Note: Yes this is a new multi-chapter fic but I have some of it planned out! I really really do! I have a comp book with notes and possible dialogue and background stories and all that! I swear. Poll for Unsure is still up but I will be taking it down soon so please vote. Please review and help me correct any mistakes I might have made... I write a lot when I'm tired so I usually make mistakes and don't catch them or I write something and it makes total sense to me and then in reality it looks like I'm high or something. Seriously. Flames are welcomed since I like to use them to help make s'mores! Mmmmmmmmm, s'mores... S'mores to all those who review! Please and thank you! I hope you liked it so far!

Updated Note: Wow! Holy smokes y'all, its been so long and so much has changed in my life. Wow, just wow. I started this in high school to procrastinate from doing my school work and now I'm doing this to procrastinate from doing my Master's Thesis.

If you haven't guessed, I'm going to edit this, like, a lot. I could barely get through this chapter to edit and I hope you like some of the changes. And by edit I mean I basically rewrote it and took some bits from the original. My writing style has changed quiet a bit and I discovered I'm a bit of an angst lord when I write now. I can't help it but that will definitely transfer over a little to this. Sorry… Also, I guess I was wrong as to how Naruto would end, but that is why this is an AU where Madara was the big bad and none of that confusing nonsense that followed happened.

Anyways, as to the future of this fic, I have not abandoned this it but I will be cutting it drastically from what I originally planned. There will probably only be ten chapters total and I won't be adding new content for at least another few months. I am currently not in the same country as my notes for this story and I won't be for another month. But I promise you, I swear to you, that this story will be finished at some point. It's been in the back of my mind for the last seven years, I haven't forgotten about it for this long, and won't anytime soon.

Original Publish Date: May 1, 2011

Edit Publish Date: July 4, 2018