Midsummer
It was twilight when Shikamaru looked up to see the lit bedroom window on the second floor of his home. Well, his one-time home. He hadn't lived there for years. But as long as his mother was in there somewhere cooking something or complaining to his father, that was home to him. The day hadn't been an easy one for him, but even so it still felt too early to be turning in. Being high summer, the days were long, sundown was late, and the nights were hot and short. And lonely. He didn't look forward to lying down in his old, narrow childhood bed and trying to get to sleep while the humid air stuck to his skin and crickets thundered in the woods. For some reason the exact same conditions didn't bother him when his wife was lying across him, but he knew she wouldn't be there.
It had been several weeks since he'd seen her and it would probably be several more weeks until he saw her again, he thought darkly. He'd tried once or twice, half-heartedly, to convince her to give up being a kunoichi, but that was one thing she totally refused him – with good reason. She was born and raised to be a kunoichi, and it was impossible to argue with a person's nature. He supposed he knew what he was getting into when he married her, but it made things so complicated. He envied Shino, who went home at the end of a mission and knew he would find a hot meal, a fizzy drink, and a wife who had already drawn a bath for him and was ready to join him in it.
It wasn't like that with Temari at all. With missions and training and child-wrangling, it felt like they were always running around, always stressing about something. They never had time to be really selfish anymore. He couldn't even remember the last time they'd made love – not just had quick sex before going to sleep, but actually made love, put some effort into it, made it more than a habit. Often when she got back from missions these days she'd be too tired to even be rude to him, and he would go to sleep depressed because of it. It seemed like if she was home, he was on a mission, and vice versa. She was off to Suna for long stretches at least three times a year, or she was playing Ambassador for her brother, or he was being sent on long and strategically impossible missions where his plans were always thrown out of whack and he ended up being away longer than he intended.
And then there were the kids. He loved them, even if they were too young to make any sense, and it killed him that they were growing up so fast while he was away. When both he and Temari were out on missions they had to leave them with his parents – which was fine, all shinobi parents did that kind of thing in Konoha, but it still made him feel like a bastard. Especially when his six-year-old daughter said goodbye to him and tried to be all brave about it… and just ended up looking pathetic and making him want to throw himself in the river.
Shikamaru didn't bother to knock on the door of his parents' house – he walked in quietly, avoiding the floorboards that he knew would creak. The kids should be long asleep by now anyway. And if the kids were asleep, his mother was definitely asleep. To his surprise, he saw immediately that his father was awake and lounging around in the den, trying to keep his glasses balanced on his nose while he read a civilian magazine. Shikamaru opened his mouth to greet them, but his father cut him off. "You missed them," the old man said to his son.
Shikamaru had to stop for a second, and he wondered when his father had picked up the ability to read his mind. That was it. He had missed them. He was missing them. He felt like he was missing out on everything.
"I mean you just missed them by a few hours," Shikaku explained.
"What? Temari's back already?"
"Yes – just this evening. She got here in time for dinner and took the kids with her when she left."
It took him a second to process what he had heard. It took him another second before he actually believed it.
His feet were already taking him back to the door by the time he found his voice. "Oh well… later, then."
"Not going to stay to say hello to your mother?" his father teased.
"She's asleep," he said, sliding his shoes back on hurriedly.
"She'd wake up to see you. How about a game of shogi?"
"What? Didn't hear you. Later, then."
The door closed behind Shikamaru with a thwack and he set off back the way he'd come, toward the village and away from the Nara family farm, a sudden tightness in his chest. It hadn't even occurred to him that she might be home already. If he remembered correctly, she was supposed to be gone for another two weeks at least.
He knew he probably shouldn't expect much. Certainly not a bath. Although a bath would be nice. But she would probably be tired – chances were she hadn't even changed her clothes yet. She would have come back from the three-day travel from Suna and would have spent the hours wrapping herself up in the kids and catching up with whatever their daughter was learning at the Academy, and after she put them to bed she'd be so exhausted that she'd fall asleep on the couch waiting for him, still in her mission clothes. The kids would have been in bed for hours.
He slowed down to a walk as he reached his block. It was still a good feeling to know you were going home to a full house. He was lost in thought, wondering why Temari would be back so early – she'd been in Suna, and they tended to keep her there for as long as they could get away with it – when he rounded the corner of his street and was almost but not quite knocked over.
"Daddydaddydaddydaddydaddydaddy!" Syllables were lost in the material of his jonin vest while the girl buried her face in his stomach, having thrown her arms around his waist.
"Hey," he said, overwhelmed by the now familiar feeling of sappy weakness in his chest, which he didn't regret in the least, and which he got whenever he saw her again after a mission. He put a hand on her head while she clung to him desperately. "Let go or I'll never get home, Chikako."
She released him immediately and let him grab her from above and wrap his arms around her for a second (trying to hold onto the impossible), but momentarily she decided to slip out of his embrace and latch onto his hand and yank him forward with all her weight, and he found himself being dragged back to his door. "Daddydaddydaddy! Guess what? Mom's home early!"
"Is she?" he said, pretending to be surprised while his daughter dragged him toward the front door. And on a related note, "Aren't you supposed to be in bed?"
"Daddy! Daddy! Guess what? Gramma says I'm a inch taller than last month."
When she was excited, she tended to have a pretty short attention span. "I don't think that's physically possible."
"Daddy! I am! Gramma says! And Daddy guess what? I can throw shuriken. I got third place. Guess what, I was the only girl. Daddy, did you throw a lot of shuriken on your mission?"
His mission had been bodyguard duty. The only shuriken he had thrown were at moths circling the lamplight on the walkway outside his client's cabin.
Her dark eyes were wide and excited, and she had to walk backward toward the front door so that she could talk to him while she brought him home. Whenever she saw him again after an absence, she would dive into a seemingly random string of stories that involved the names of dozens of immediate friends he was expected to know by heart even if she had just met them. "Rie said she could throw shuriken but she can't – she tried really hard and missed when the teacher made her – and Ayaka and Akina didn't even try cause they were being dumb, but Yukio was being even dumber and he threw a shuriken in the dirt and looked ugly and hey Daddy? Do you have a lot of shuriken? And Denji hit the middle of the target on the third try but I hit it on the second, but then I missed so I'm third place. Daddy! I'm gonna be first next time, can you help?"
"I'll help you tomorrow."
"Daddy are we gonna go the your old training grounds? I wanna go again cause I saw fox tracks last time and I think we should look for them again cause don't you think it would scare the deer if they saw it? And I want to practice extra and can we practice kunai too cause that's coming up next and I need to beat Yukio cause he's a jerk…"
"Breathe, Chikako."
They were at the front door already, and he had to pull her toward him so she wouldn't back into it. He opened to warm light and a breeze from a fan somewhere, and as soon as he stepped in his legs were assaulted.
Chikako's commentary continued while his son wrapped his arms tightly around his father's knees. "Daddy guess what? Shikahiro got bigger too! Guess what though, he didn't grow a inch like I did. Guess what, he ate grass! Gramma thought he was gonna die and Grampa laughed at it and Gramma got mad."
Shikamaru leaned down to unlatch his son and then picked him up and balanced him on his hip. The kid stared at him with wide, dark eyes as if he'd never met him before. Shikamaru kissed him on his hairline. "Did you get big?" he asked his son. "Is that what you were doing while I was gone?"
"Hi da," he said.
"Your sister's rubbing off on you."
Chikako did not like to have attention diverted. "Daddy! Look, look what I did!" And then she was running into her room to get something. Something amazing, by the sound of it. His son watched her run off and then started scrambling to get down, and no sooner had Shikamaru set him down than he was running off to find something amazing of his own to show his father.
It was only then that he looked up and saw Temari sitting in a chair at the kitchen table and staring at him with a soft smile on her face. She was sitting sideways, with one armed propped on the chair's back and chin in hand. He took a second to appreciate her. She was not in mission clothes but pajamas, lavender silk pants and a white tank top that did absolutely nothing to hide the fact that she wasn't wearing a bra, and her blonde hair was piled on top of her head in a very messy knot. He stood there and took her in – the messy hair, the crossed legs, the smile somewhere between tender and sly. He wondered if she'd come back early on purpose just to beat him home and enjoy the show, and furthermore if she'd had a bath yet.
He'd ended up in front of her without even realizing it. "Hello," she said.
"Hello." His hand found her neck. His thumb found her ear. She closed her eyes and leaned into his touch.
"Chikako wanted to stay up to see you. They had a shuriken-throwing tournament today."
"So I heard."
He was distracted by his son tugging on his pants and he looked down to see Shikahiro holding up a block. "Here."
"Thank you," he said, taking the proffered gift. It was one of those dice with characters on every side, but it was big enough for his son to play with without swallowing.
"Aren't you sleepy, little man?" Temari asked him while Shikamaru pulled out another kitchen chair and sat on it sideways, facing Temari. "It's bedtime, huh?"
Shikahiro shook his head violently and went to get another block, which he brought back to his parents, bracing himself on his father's knee while he set it next to the first on the kitchen table. Shikamaru couldn't believe how fast he was moving. When had he gotten so fast? The last he remembered, Shikahiro was still grabbing furniture for balance whenever he walked.
He brought more blocks to his father, one after the other from the opposite side of the room, and Shikamaru stared back and forth from him to Temari, bemused. Then the toddler crawled onto Temari's lap so he could reach the table and arranged the blocks based on a logic known only to him. Temari grinned and stuck her nose in her son's hair while he continued to play.
"See?" he asked his father when he was done.
"What did you make?"
"Blocks."
"Aha. Yes. I see."
Shikahiro continued to turn the blocks over and push them around the table, arranging and rearranging them.
While he worked, Chikako ran into the kitchen with a real shuriken in her hand. "I did it myself! I sharpened it! We learned how. Oh wait… this isn't the one… wait, let me go find the good one…" She disappeared again.
Temari was clearly trying not to laugh as she watched Chikako leave. He stared at her and was suddenly aware that there was something different about her, but he couldn't put his finger on it. She was smiling more than she usually did, that was certain, but that was common when she had her son in her lap. "You have no idea how excited she was to see you. I couldn't get her to go to bed for all the shuriken in Konoha."
He smiled at her.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"Stop giving me that look. What is it?"
It was one of those moments where he couldn't stop smiling, and neither could she, and for all his intelligence he would never be able to explain why. They weren't a perfect family by any means, and in a few days they'd be back to their old routines, some of which included screaming and crying and fighting and being annoyed with each other, but for tonight they could have a few perfect moments.
Shikahiro was obviously getting drowsy, his head starting to droop closer and closer to the table. "You've got to go to bed," Temari said into her son's ear. "You're going to be murder tomorrow if you don't."
Shikahiro shook his head again.
"You want Daddy to put you to bed, Shika-chan?"
Instead of answering he slipped off Temari's lap and raised his arms to Shikamaru, who gamely grabbed him up and got back onto his feet, swinging the drowsy toddler onto his hip.
Shikahiro was already starting to doze as Shikamaru set him on the changing table in his room and Temari got out his pajamas. It was a gentle but aggravating struggle to get his son's arms and legs into their appropriate sleeves. Shikahiro was still mostly chubby, and on top of that he was now very sleepy, and Shikamaru toyed with the idea of seeing whether he took after his father by just letting him sleep in his underwear.
"Daddy daddy…"
"Shh!" he said to Chikako – Shikahiro had his eyes closed as Shikamaru scooped him off the table.
She looked momentarily hurt but continued in a whisper. "Daddy, I found it, I found the good one, look, see, we learned how to sharpen it, teacher showed us…"
"Chikako, why don't you show Daddy the shuriken after you change into your pajamas," Temari said.
"I'm not tired!" she whined.
"You have to get up for school tomorrow – you'll be tired then."
"But I'm not tired now!"
"Pajamas," Temari said with finality.
Chikako scowled as only a six-year-old can scowl and left the room.
Shikamaru set his son down gently on his bed. The kid was asleep well before his head hit the pillow – he was up even further past his bedtime than Chikako. Temari turned out the light and Shikamaru stared down at the crib. The boy slept on his back, which left his features perfectly clear in the light of dusk leaking in from the window. He looked a lot like his father and grandfather.
Temari slipped up behind Shikamaru and her hands wrapped around his chest. He felt her press her cheek to his shoulder and sighed. "Did he really eat grass?" he whispered.
He could feel her laugh rather than hear it. "Apparently he was watching the deer graze and decided they had a good idea… I think your mother had a panic attack, but the medics just laughed at her."
Shikamaru could imagine it. And then his stomach made the most horrendous noise.
"Hungry?" Temari asked.
"Do we have any food in the house?" he whispered. They'd both been away so long, anything edible would either be in the freezer or have the word "instant" on its label.
"Don't worry. Your wife may not cook much, but your mother planned ahead and sent leftovers."
They walked out of the room softly and he pulled the door shut behind him, then thought better of it and left it a few inches ajar. Temari beat him to the kitchen and produced a pot of stew from the fridge, wasting no time slamming it on the stove and lighting the gas flame underneath it. When she reached for the bowls on the top shelf of the cabinet, her white tank top rode up and revealed the small of her back, and he smiled to himself.
She'd already eaten with his parents, so while he ate the not-exactly-homemade dinner she filled him in on whatever gossip she'd managed to pick up between her time reporting back to the Hokage earlier today and now. "Shino's been promoted again – he's got an entire division now. Rumors are he's got a cousin in the Academy that he's training personally – the kid's supposed to be terrifying. Does things with bugs that I don't even want to know about. He'll be up for Genin next month with the rest of them. And Genma's got a new girl. Everyone thinks it's Shizune, but she's not saying a word. Sakura practically told me it was Shizune, though. Whatever it is, something is making Shizune unusually easy-going." Somewhere in the midst of her rambling he remembered that he was going to ask Temari why she came back so early from her mission, but he decided to let it wait for the moment.
He got up to put his dishes in the sink, and while he was turned around he heard Chikako barrel into the room, talking at the speed of light. "Daddy, I found it! I found the best shuriken! Look, it's really sharp and we're learning how to throw them really hard…"
He heard the impact rather than felt it.
And then he felt it, a moment later. Right on the back of his right thigh, about halfway between his butt and the back of his knee.
"Chikako! Didn't I tell you – not in the house!" Temari said in a shrill whisper.
He craned his neck and looked. Sure enough, a shuriken (definitely sharp) was embedded in his leg. As soon as the small red splotch started spreading onto his pants, his nerves registered the sting. And whatever spell had woven itself over the house was broken.
Temari yanked it out of him before he even realized she'd moved from the table. Shikamaru looked over to see Chikako utterly frozen in place, her face drained of all color. "Daddy…"
"It's fine, honey," Temari said, fingering the small rip in his pants. "It's not deep, don't worry..." But their daughter had fled the room before Temari had finished the thought.
Temari sighed and crouched down and opened the cabinet underneath the sink, one of the many places in the house where they kept a field kit. "Shikamaru, drop your pants."
This was not the tone of voice he liked when hearing those words, and he was more worried about Chikako, who had looked like she was about to start crying. "It's barely a scratch," he whined.
"It's going to get infected if you don't clean it. That was an Academy shuriken – you don't know where it's been."
"I'm not taking off my pants in the kitchen. With Chikako up."
"Don't be a baby – just pull them down a little."
He sighed and obeyed. As ninja, neither of them were strangers to the occasional stray weapon. Shuriken and kunai wounds were more of an annoyance than anything else.
Temari had it patched in under a minute and slapped the bandage for good measure, making him cry out in surprise. She just smiled and yanked his pants back up. He buttoned up his fly while she picked up the bloody shuriken and examined it. "She must be learning something at the Academy – it is sharp."
"I noticed," he said. "Why are you back so early?"
The question caught both of them off guard – she because she hadn't expected it, he because he hadn't meant to say it out loud. Instead of answering right away, she set the shuriken on the counter and put the field kit back together – sponge, gauze, tape, alcohol spray – and she didn't meet his gaze. "They didn't really need me," she said off-handedly.
He smelled a lie. "That's not true," he said.
"You don't know everything, Shikamaru," she said, shoving the kit across the counter and then turning and leaning back against the edge. She crossed her arms and stared at him, challenge in her eyes.
"I know when you're lying." He moved in and caged her against the counter, leaning his arms firmly on the edge. He kissed her on the cheek and waited there for a minute, just feeling the nearness of her. He could smell the soap still on her skin from the shower she must have taken, and could feel her warm breath just to the right of his ear. He was frankly unrealistically lucky that he'd gotten someone like her, especially considering how little effort he'd been willing to exert in pursuit of women. And it was times like this that he was aware of the enormity of it. He realized mother of my children was a downright corny concept, but there was truth in it.
"I… called in a favor," she admitted reluctantly.
"Why?" he asked.
"I was homesick."
He leaned his forehead against hers and just breathed and savored the moment, because with their life as it was, who knew when a moment like this was going to happen again?
Maybe it was a good thing that they were interrupted. He felt a presence behind him and heard a hitched breath, and he turned around to see Chikako with her bottom lip shaking helplessly. "Daddy… I didn't mean to… are you okay?"
He backed away from Temari and she slapped him sharply on his cut again, making him suck in his breath. "Woman!"
"He's good as new," Temari said, winking at her daughter.
Chikako didn't look reassured. Her eyes were full of tears and just about ready to spill, and she had her hands clasped together anxiously. "Does it hurt?"
Shikamaru fairly melted. It hurt a whole lot more than a shuriken to see his daughter like that. If this kind of technique could be used offensively, he thought, Konoha would take over the world. "Don't worry about it," he said, lazily walking over to her. "You may be pretty good with a shuriken…" he leaned down and grabbed her around the waist and threw her over his shoulder, "…but it's going to be a while before you can beat me up." He stood up while she laughed and caught the back of her knees, balancing her on his shoulder.
"Daddy!"
"Bedtime."
She howled and pounded on his back in objection. She was strong – skinny, but all tendons – and she caught herself on the doorway of her bedroom and held on quite tenaciously until her mother tickled her under her arms. And then it took both of them – Temari with her hands, Shikamaru with her feet – to swing her into bed and pin her down under a sheet. And she didn't settle down until they threatened to tie and gag her, and he promised her again that he would help her with shuriken throwing tomorrow as long as they didn't use him as a target.
And then her door was shut and the house was suddenly quiet, and Temari was standing right next to him in the hall. Her hair was coming out of the messy knot after the struggle with Chikako, but she had that damnable smile on her face again. "Welcome home," she said.
He sighed deeply. "Your turn," he said.
"What?"
He crouched down before she had time to react, grabbed her around the legs, and threw her over his shoulders. "Shikamaru!" she shouted into his back.
"Bedtime."
And he walked into their bedroom and dumped her none too gently on the bed and took the opportunity to show her how much he'd missed her too.
It was fully dark when Shikamaru felt sleep creeping up on him. Sweat was beginning to dry on his hairline and it was too hot out for even a sheet, but Temari was still using his shoulder as a pillow. And he was home. Maybe his kids didn't live here all the time, and maybe the woman beside him was away entirely too much, but it was home. It was summer and the nights were hot and much too short, but there was always tomorrow morning.