"Do you think I'm a nice person?"

Both Shikamaru and Choji laughed wholeheartedly. I didn't know why they had to laugh. It was a simple question, a yes or no would suffice but I would pester them for a reason.

"You're a horrible person."

It was Shikamaru who started handing it to me straight.

"But you're also loving and patient in your own ways."

Choji chimed in to soften the blow Shikamaru had handed out. It was always like this. Shikamaru was brutally honest and then Choji wrapped me up in positive and kind words.

"I've never seen a bigger bitch than you, whiny bothersome hag."

Shikamaru placed his right hand on his tight tapping his fingers on his shaking leg.

"But no one has a bigger heart. Let's be straight, Shikamaru and I aren't easy to like, but you've always accepted us and never given us up."

So I hadn't really gotten my answer. I was horrible and at the same the most loving person. The world isn't a black and white one I had to conclude with. I could be a nice person when I wanted to, perhaps?

"What's this even coming from?"

It came from me feeling like a horrible person. From me being selfish. I couldn't say that, it wasn't something one blurted out during lunch to her two least understanding male best friends.

"I don't know, I read something somewhere."

It was vague but if I had read it somewhere it was in their eyes utter trash and a waste of letters, paper and ink. They wouldn't ask further questions.

"What even makes a person nice? It's such a stupid question, everyone is both nice and bad. Some of us are bad more often, but our good outshines the bad."

I noticed a bruise around Shikamaru's wrist. It was blue turning purple. I didn't know he did physical battle that much anymore. I wanted to tell him to be safe during all his missions, Choji too. I've had too many hospital scares to last a life time and not a day went by when I didn't worry about them when they were out on a mission.

"I'm telling the clan soon, that I'm pregnant."

Four eyes, two pairs were instantly glued on me. I hadn't had anything to do with my clan since I had stepped down after the war. I had named my replacer and never looked back. People had assumed I had stepped out and quit, simply left my clan all together.

It had hurt too much, leading and seeing all of them who were all in their own way so similar to my father. Doing what he had been doing and doing a bad job doing it too. I never got the hang of it. It was all too much to take care of. It was alliances, it was paperwork, it was board meetings, it was reports, it was internal affairs and after the war there had been so many trials and clan meetings. I couldn't do it all and faulted.

"Do you think you're ready?"

A large and warm hand was wrapped around mine. There was always worry in his voice when we touched subjects close to my father and the war. It was as if I was so fragile I would break again. That my world would collapse.

It had been years since that girl grew up, grown stronger and better. I needed to step up now. It was expected of me. I wasn't caring just for me anymore.

"It's time I step up, do what my father trusted me to do."

A slimmer and dryer hand wrapped itself around my free hand. They were always so worried about me, sometimes for good reasons and other times not.

"Don't rush anything, everything is taken care off. Don't do anything you're not ready for."

I would give it some time, see how the clan meeting would go. I had been thinking about it for some time now.

"I'll move into the old house to, the fumes in Naruto's apartment can't be good for any creature, born or not."

The boys shared a glance. I knew what they were thinking. If I had said I was going back to my old job they would have called Sakura and have me admitted. I couldn't blame them. There were many changes in a short amount of time.

I felt ready for it. I felt ready for anything that could happen now. I almost felt confident telling the Hokage just what I had gotten myself into. I felt confident that the clan would rejoice that I was bringing life into the world rather than fuss about me doing it out of wedlock.

I felt more complete now than I had in years. I was genuinely happy.

COCOCOCOCOCOCOCOCOCO

I've finally finished the story, somehow in a way. Nine more chapters to go after this!

Emoprincess21: I can almost imagine Sasuke pestering the priest to marry them quicker while glaring at Itachi in the crowd to make sure he hadn't slipped away for a super speedy wedding in the back.

Sweetlilly90: Had it been further along the story with a bigger belly I would have made her stuck under that bed! The rest is sort of hard to respond to without spoiling everything. The last chapters are intense, that I'll say. Now I almost wish I had an Sakura-Sasuke chapter where I could explain how he was feeling about Ino, why and actually give him a point in his "battle" against his brother when he married Sakura. Oh well… Oh! And thanks on picking up on Ino not being genin, that was a slip on my behalf. I don't watch the show/anime. I'm surprised that I haven't messed up more often.