Wish Upon A Star

The young blonde girl hid behind a wall that afternoon, listening to her parents yelling at each other. Her little brother was in comfortable in his room, amusing himself. She had wanted to come find her mom, the touch her swollen belly, to see if she could hear the baby. And instead, she had gotten caught in the same room as her fighting parents.

"How could you?" her mother yelled, "How could you be so heartless? So inhuman? He's your son, for crying out loud, how could you even think, even consider…" Her voice faltered and broke. "Your son…"

"It's for the safety, to the benefit of Suna, Karura. I'm the Kazekage, I can't just think of my family. I have to think of the entire village, and all those who live in it," her father replied sharply.

"I can't believe you. You would put your people above your son. You would put this goddamn village above your own flesh and blood. You don't care about your family. We're just status symbols," Karura spat at him.

"Don't get upset. You should be grateful. It is an honour for him to be chosen-"

"It is not an honour!" Karura screamed, "Don't you understand? He will be shunned for his whole life! People will never trust him! He will never know normal!"

"He is the son of the Kazekage, of course he will never know normal," her father snapped, "None of my children will ever know normal."

"They'll know normal a lot better than he will," her mother said bitterly.

"Karura, that's not-"

"It is! No one will be friends with him. No one will be allowed to be friends with him."

"He doesn't need friends."

"There's where you're wrong. Children need friends. Not that you would know. You don't pay attention to your children anyway," Karura said scathingly.

"You're the one who doesn't understand," her father said, "He will be the village's saviour. The village's hero. People will love him."

"No. No. People might admire him, they might respect him, they might even be thankful for him. But they won't like him. They will be afraid of him. Do you honestly think anyone in this cursed village will actually trust a jinchuuriki?" Karura shrieked.

The young girl peered around to see her father throw his hands up in exasperation.

"Why are you even trying to argue this? It's not like you have a choice. It's all been decided."

"Yes. It has, hasn't it?" Karura said, "I haven't been consulted, but my opinion doesn't mean anything, does it? Completely disregarding the fact that I've carried him for nine months, that I'm going to give birth to him, that it's my life that's going to be-"

"There's that too, why do you even care about what will happen to him? It's not like you're going to be around. You won't know him."

The girl didn't know what her parents were fighting about, but she didn't like it. She didn't like them shouting. She didn't like to hear her mother angry- her mother was never angry. It scared her.

"Why do I care?" her mother yelled, "Why do I care? I care because he's my son! Because I actually care about my children, unlike you!"

"You're completely overreacting-"

"Overreacting??" Karura screeched, "I'm overreacting? Do you listen to what comes out of your mouth? Do you understand the concept of love at all? Compassion? Respect for human life? I cannot believe you! I can't think why I married you in the first place! You used to be human. You used to actually have a conscience, where did that go? Where the hell did that go?"

"Don't be ridiculous-"

"I'm not being ridiculous! I don't even know you anymore! And I'm supposed to trust you with my children? Thank god Yashamaru is here, or I would be so afraid to leave Temari and Kankurou with you! Who knows what you'll turn them into, as it's obvious that you just view your children as tools, as objects you can use to your political advantage! If I had known what you'd planned to do to my son, I would not have carried him. I would have got rid of him!"

"You would have killed your own, precious son?" His voice was sarcastic and mocking.

"Yes, I would have killed the foetus! Death would've been better than what you have in plan!"

The girl could hear her mother was crying.

"I really, really don't know who you are anymore! I didn't imagine that you'd ever be capable of doing something like this! I can't believe it! I can't, I can't-" The girl jumped as her mother screamed.

"No…no…" her mother whispered, her voice trembling, "Don't…"

The girl peered cautiously around the wall again to see her mother staring, horrified, at a puddle of liquid on the floor, shaking her head.

"Not now… oh, please god, no…"

"It's too late, Karura." Her father's tone was smug and cold as he said that one last thing to his wife before calling for attendants; "The baby's coming! Get her to the room!" he yelled. "You." He pointed to one of them. "Go get Chiyo. Immediately. Tell her it's time." The man nodded and dashed off. Karura was screaming.

"No! Let go of me!" She was struggling against the hold of the men dragging her off. "You won't have my son! You can't have my son!"

The girl came out from her hiding place in fright, unnoticed in the chaos and people running around. She wanted to know what was happening, why her mom was so scared.

She tugged on the edge of someone's clothes. "What's going on?" she asked.

The woman glanced down. "Oh, Temari, dear, it's you. Go to your room, sweetheart, we're very busy." And the woman rushed away.

Temari scurried in the direction her mother had been taken and heard screaming from a room, which people were coming in and out of.

"NO!" her mother's voice yelled, "NO!" There were more screams, which Temari recognized as her mother's.

So focused was she on her mother's screaming, Temari didn't notice the person in front of her until he said her name gently. She looked up to see her uncle, with a rather unpleasant expression on his face.

"Temari, go to your room. Go to your room," he repeated.

"But mom-" she tried.

"Temari, please, just go to your room," her uncle interrupted her.

She nodded in defeat and ran off, looking behind her to see Yashamaru speaking quietly to two men who then took up position outside the room.

Once in her room, it was silent. Sometimes she could hear a faint echo of a scream and she wished she knew what was going on. She sat at her window as the sky grew dark and winced as she heard the remnants of another scream.

She looked up and saw a star- the first star of the night. Remembering a little rhyme, she closed her eyes and wished with all her heart- that her mother would be fine, that her little brother would be fine, that her new brother would be fine, that her uncle would be fine, that she'd be fine, that whatever her mother was scared of wouldn't happen, that they would all be happy, that whoever her mother was talking about would be fine, that everything would be fine, everything would be okay, and when she woke up in the morning she could run down to her mother and hug her, and her mother would sooth her and tell her that everything would be fine, and she'd be able to see her baby brother for the first time, and they'd all live happily ever after, and her mother wouldn't be angry anymore, that her mother would never be angry again. They'd all be happy.

She fell asleep still wishing, hoping, dreaming.

--

She never told anyone about her wish, and lost a lot of faith in it the next day. She still held onto a small secret hope that the wished worked for Gaara for years though, but when Yashamaru died that hope died with him. She decided that wishing didn't work, it was just a childish dream.

From that day on, she never wished for anything again.

-END-

A/N: Okay. Yeah. This was… sorta inspired by the song 'Wish I May', by Breaking Benjamin (It's an awesome song) and then also sorta half-inspired by 'I Have A Daughter, Golden', by lovesrainscent. Sorta. (Thank you for writing that most amazing story, LRS, I hope that this can inspire half as much emotion in someone as yours did in me).

Yes, it's sad. And the other story idea I have also seems to have an inescapably sad ending (maybe, depends) and I'm sorta trying to see if I can fix that. ^^

For all those following 'Nursery Rhymes Are Murder', I apologize for the lack of updates. There probably won't be any until after the 20th, unfortunately. THIS IS BECAUSE I was a complete retard and fail at life. Okay, so I'm assuming you know about my laptop problems? Yeah, not fixed yet, but anyway, so I started writing the next chapter of NRaM on my account on the school computers (boarding school…) on the second last day of term (when I should've been packing '^^) and then, being a complete n00b, I didn't put it on my flashdrive and so cannot finish it.

My fault. I apologize profusely.

I KEEP SEEING A DYING BATTERY AND I DON'T KNOW WHERE! I CAN'T FIND IT WHEN I ACTUALLY LOOK! GAH!!

… Sorry. Random rant. ANYWAY. Please, please, tell me what you thought of this story!