jewels
Madara met Saburo Aburame at a point in his life when he was the most lonely he could ever remember being, the quiet warmth that had filled his chest for his whole life having gone numb a few months before and though the constant pain was gone, so was the resonating warmth that had filled his days and calmed his riotous dreams. Saburo was quiet and kind and clever and Madara liked her from the moment he met her, so it was nothing to jump to seeing her informally, more to sooth his loneliness than any expectation of it going anywhere long term as he was almost positive she wasn’t his soulmate. It didn’t sooth the emptiness in his heart but all the same it was the best he could get and she was a good friend if nothing else, so it wasn’t surprising that the people around him took interest in her; the Senju brothers in particular asking a lot of questions, though Tobirama was very circumspect as he still seemed very skittish around Madara (Madara wanted to like the man but there was something about being around Tobirama that never felt right, like something was wrong with Tobirama that Madara couldn’t see and it rubbed him all the wrong ways – as did his guilt for how he had treated Tobirama in the beginning before he got to know the other man better through his work and care of the village).
Still it was nothing short of shocking when one night as Saburo was telling him about Tobirama visiting her she brushed up against him and a soulbond flared to life. In his joy (though….it felt hallow somehow, shouldn’t it not feel like that now?) Madara missed the shock on Saburo’s face, missed the hesitation in her touch as he celebrated (she knew how a soulbond felt and this both was and was not that, she knew because her soulmate was long dead and though she had wished for a new one she was smart enough to know such things didn’t exist; but how could she say that to Madara when she knew how the Uchiha valued a soulbond and how Madara had ached with wanting his soulmate as he waited longer and longer and Saburo had wondered if – but no, not if the bond was her’s. ...Right?).
Madara was happier than he could remember being and if the soulbond didn’t sit quite right (he could love her but…he didn’t burn for her, she didn’t make him feel alive though she was calming to be around, she didn’t make him want to livelivelive but she did sooth him and she was his bonded ((right?))) he ignored that and Saburo seemed happy so no one bothered to ask too many questions as they got engaged and prepared to wed. The village and the clan were all thrilled and the Elders loved Saburo (and the chance of children with her) and her family status and Madara had never felt so close to his clan, even Izuna liked her! Tobirama was being odd and taking longer and longer missions but swept up in a new, strange bond Madara hardly noticed – nor did Hashirama as he was best man and thrilled for his friend, knowing well how badly Madara had wanted his soulmate. Madara wed Saburo in the Autumn a week after she told him that she was with his child (and did it matter if the sex- though good- wasn’t transcendent when there was a child?) and it seemed like his life couldn’t get better (if he ignored the spreading chill in his heart and the way it seemed hard to breathe some days, if he ignored missing– missing what?- did it even matter) and the village couldn’t get any stronger.
The first child was the light of Madara’s life and the second was like having two suns in his sky, (but…) and he took the Hokage hat after Hashirama with pleasure; immediately appointing Mito as Gādokage for his second to give him a little more time to spend with his family and do for him what he and Tobirama had done for Hashirama. It was odd how often his thoughts turned to the white haired man even though Tobirama was rarely seen around Kohona now, oh his spy networks and innovations still poured in and he was still vital to the village but Madara very rarely saw him (at the last festival Tobirama had ended up being present and Madara was in a very good mood and felt far more complete than normal if still a little flat when he saw Tobirama sitting in the dirt in his festival finery, smiling at Madara’s children as they clamored for his attention, one thin hand fixing Reina’s hair while the other two watched him like he was a living kami and asked after him for months after; months where Madara could never tell them Tobirama was coming back and not being able to answer his kids made him restless and sick feeling).
Still, it was a good life (if always a little…empty, he loved Saburo but he didn’t….love her, and he wondered sometimes if there was something wrong with him that he couldn’t love his soulmate as he should) and Madara was happier than he ever expected to be until the day he collapsed in his office clutching his chest and struggling to breath (three days later they got word about Tobirama dieing in a fight with the Gold and Silver Brothers- though he did get the Gold brother before they got him- and Madara missed much of the dealing with that as he struggled to recover from whatever was wrong with him). The healers couldn’t tell him what was wrong and Madara couldn’t seem to recover, struggling to keep living every second as Hashirama buried his brother and Madara couldn’t even be there to support him.
It became clear within a week that Madara wasn’t going to recover and it was then that Saburo came to him and told him the one thing she had never spoken of to him; she had already had a soulmate and he had died and she had no idea how she could have had a second, in fact she wasn’t sure that she had and instead thought that maybe somehow it had been taken from his real soulmate and given to her. It should have shattered Madara- and on some level it did- but….on some level he had always known something wasn’t right and though he wanted to be angry with her for not telling him sooner she had also given him three children and a good life as a supportive wife and mother and how could Madara resent that? Still, when she gave him the cracked and dull opal that she had found in her things and said wasn’t hers it was like he was touching the lingering warmth on the sheets after a second occupant had left already and for the first time in years Madara felt like he could breathe again, and at the same time…every breath was freezing, spreading ice through his lungs and veins.
The cold spread and something in Madara just…gave up. Slipping away as a stone was settled on a grave in Konoha’s cemetery and the sky opened up, turning dirt to mud that splashed over the plain white stone and darkening the empty etched words; Tobirama Senju, brother, founder, fighter.