A/n: Just a one-shot that came to mind when I imagined Ibiki being with someone who was quite the opposite of him (well...in terms of intimidation-ness). Read and review, please.
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. I do, however, own the girl in this story.
Unexpected
Ibiki had never given much thought to what his life would be like after he left his job. He expected to meet a girl, maybe a firecracker like Anko, but all of his expectations stopped at that. He had no idea what would happen when he met a girl, because he had never met one that didn't try his patience.
So when he saw a shy, rather scrawny girl walk into the Interrogation Missions Room, he was caught completely off guard. He was about to turn her down right away; she looked delicate, sheltered, and definitely not up to doing a full-blown interrogation. He was about to turn her down, but stopped himself.
His mouth said yes before his mind could catch up.
He was right in thinking that he would get shit for it later. Everyone in the Interrogation Unit wanted to know what the hell was wrong with him. They had all seen her; she looked more like an assistant than someone who could actually do their own interrogation. But Ibiki quickly silenced all of their doubts, claiming to be just giving her a chance.
Ibiki waited outside of Interrogation Room Twenty-Five, arms crossed over his chest as he waited for the door to open. She was in there, gathering information on an enemy village. He leaned against the wall, waiting for her to come out and tell him that she couldn't do it; that she couldn't bring herself to use violence to get a leg up on another village.
So when she walked out of the Interrogation room, blood smeared across her pretty face, and began listing off information from the guard schedules to the defense system of the entire village, Ibiki was caught off guard. He couldn't send her away after that. She was shy, small, innocent-looking, but she was good at her job. The entire missions room was in shock as well; there were only a few girls that have worked in the Interrogation Unit, and most were hard-headed and ready to kick a guys butt who thought they couldn't do it.
Much to his annoyance, Ibiki's mouth started talking without his permission; particularly to her. He'd congratulated her on a job well done when he had never done that to anyone else in the unit, and he'd even made small talk about the weather when all he ever did to the other ninjas was yell orders. He deemed his mouth insane when one afternoon, he asked her to go out and have dinner after they both got off of work. He also deemed her quite insane when she agreed with a small, shy smile.
Ibiki soon found out that he enjoyed eating dinner with someone. He had always been alone, transporting home after work to an empty apartment and making a dinner for one; but he actually enjoyed the company. He also found out that, despite her shy appearance, she was a great ninja. He learned this by helping her train - something else his mouth asked her to do without consulting his brain - her small frame made it nearly impossible for him to land a punch, even if he was going to pull it at the last second; she didn't even give him the chance.
Their sparring matches humbled Ibiki a little; he had never seen a sparring partner stand atop a tree branch and openly mock him for his slowness. It had been a joke, of course, but he suddenly felt a little more respect towards the small girl. She didn't cower under his gaze, like everyone else in the Interrogation Unit often did. He hadn't expected many things since she started working with him.
Ibiki had never even had as much as a crush before. But when he found himself easily wrapping an arm around her shoulders when it was cold out, and didn't give it a second thought; he knew he had just skipped over the silly 'school-yard crush' and had dove right into the deep end. When she stood on the tips of her toes so she could wrap her arms around his neck and kiss him, he didn't even care that he missed the 'crush' phase of his life.
For some reason, the one thing Ibiki had been expecting was the conversation of moving in together. That was one thing that he had always thought would be hard in his life; what if she said no? The question never crossed his mind, because he already knew what her answer would be. But that one thing that Ibiki had been expecting seemed to be something that nobody else had. When rumor got out - and it got out pretty fast - he realized that they had hardly made their relationship public, and the sudden merging of their living spaces seemed rather quick. Besides the lunches and dinners out, and the small tokens of affection that were hardly seen by others, nobody would have thought they were more than friendly coworkers.
There were a few whispers behind his back and a few odd looks, but he ignored it all. It didn't bother him nearly as much as he thought it would. He sent a few glares, and all of it stopped. Everything went back to normal, except that it wasn't normal...it was far better than it had ever been before. Ibiki worked alongside her, shocked again and again at her skills with interrogation, then went home with her. He thought they would grow weary of each other, but he never grew tired of her small, shy smile.
They made their own little routine throughout the day. It was calming; something Ibiki could count on after a long day of work - something in his life that never had an exact routine. So he was caught off guard when their routine was thrown into another loop. He was supposed to come home after a few hours of some paperwork and find her sitting on the couch, always reading some sort of book. But there wasn't a book in her hands. This little thing threw him, and he was able to push the uneasiness away until she finally turned to him with a look of fear and confusion.
Neither of them had expected a baby. Their routine was tossed down the toilet, quite literally. Every morning, he expected to wake up with his arm wrapped around her waist, holding her against him. He got used to sometimes waking up to her kicking off the blankets in a hurry, rushing to the bathroom. He got used to holding back her hair and buying the weird foods that appeared on the grocery list. They had their routine again...though it was a little more chaotic.
All sense of routine was gone the moment Ibiki heard the sound of glass shattering in the kitchen.
He never thought he would be a 'child' person. He worried that children would react the same to him as a ninja under interrogation since he had always inflicted fear in everyone he met; but all the worry disappeared when the tiny hand reached up and clumsily grabbed his nose. They never got their routine back, but Ibiki had forgotten all about it; his life wasn't easy, but he loved it. Their son was quite the opposite of both of his parents; outgoing and friendly whereas she was quiet and shy, and Ibiki was intimidating and reclusive. In turn, Ibiki was forced to be more outgoing. When he brought him to the park, he had to mingle with the other parents while their kids played.
It all seemed to happen overnight. One moment, Ibiki was walking with his son over to the park so he could swing on the swings, and then he was gone. He had prided himself on his ability to keep his emotions in check, but he couldn't stop worrying as their son started going on more and more dangerous missions. Too quickly, Ibiki went from walking to the park alone, simply to sit on the bench and stare at the empty swings where his son used to swing, a goofy smile on his face, to walking to the graveyard. Ibiki had seen kids die and had seen the effect it had on the parents, but it was never something that would happen to him. He never thought he would be one to put a flower on his own child's grave.
Ibiki wouldn't believe it if someone told him this is where he would be in a few years. He had expected his life to go on as normal, and that he would probably die in battle. He had never expected to have this kind of life. He never expected to meet a girl. He never expected to have a family. Mostly, Ibiki had never thought he'd feel this amount of raw emotion.