Suddenly all the screams from Ino were over. There was silence in the hall, and so was Ino's room. A moment or two after, a cry filled his ears. But it wasn't from his wife. It was even high pitched, hoarse and starved for air.
His son.
Sai was staring at the wall but wasn't seeing anything. After all this time, after all those years wandering, seeking a real purpose in life, dealing with unknown feelings and emotions and learning the meaning of true love, Sai felt his body slowly being totally anchored to the earth for the very first time in his life. He had no longer that feeling of being floating through life. It was over.
That crying meant that across that door, was the living proof of his love for Ino. That he was a human, after all. That he had known the meaning of love.
His son.
The proof that he was no longer the emotionless killing machine that Root made. He was a person with feelings, with friends and now with a complete family. People who cared about him. People he would give his life for without thinking twice.
These thoughts made his insides clench, and an uncomfortable sting rose to his throat. It wasn't until Shikamaru patted his shoulder and spoke to him that he realized he was crying.
"C'mon man, I know how it feels. But get a grip and try to not embarrass yourself. Especially in front of her. That would be too troublesome."
He blinked a couple of times and touched his face in a numb motion, Shikamaru's speech falling into place word by word. He was crying, but for what? Nobody died, quite the opposite. His wife just gave birth to their child. Why was he crying, after all?
That Sai learned by himself that people also could cry of happiness.
When Sakura authorized him to get in the room, Sai felt a cold wave wash his stomach. He knew that one, he was anxious. Mrs. Yamanaka was finishing the adjustments on Ino's pillows and blankets and Sakura was writing something in a clipboard.
Slowly he approached like he wasn't sure if he would be welcomed in that place. His wife was dressed in a purple robe, her insanely long platinum blonde hair oozing over her shoulders. She was cradling a small package wrapped in a lavender thin blanket. Ino was looking at the package – his newborn son – with an expression that he never saw her wearing before, utterly and passionate adoration.
Sai didn't notice he was stuck in the place until Mrs. Yamanaka passed by him. "I'm going to give some privacy for you both." He nodded, a bit startled.
Ino looked at him, with a bemused smile. "Don't you wanna see our baby?" She cocked a brow.
The usual blunt self of Ino took him by surprise. After all those hours of labor, he imagined his wife somewhat worn out and voiceless after screaming that much. "I-I-I would love to." He stuttered.
Sakura giggled. "Come closer Sai." He nodded and stepped towards the bed.
"Well, Ino-pig, somebody will be checking you in a couple of hours. By now you're perfectly fine." She passed by Sai and gave him an amicable squeeze on the shoulder."Congratulations, new dad."
He nodded and sat on the edge of the bed, still watching the way Ino was looking in worship to that little body in her arms.
Sakura was almost out of door when Ino called her. "Sakura!"
"Yes?" The pink haired medic turned back.
"Thanks… For everything… Billboard-brow." Ino smiled.
"You know you'd do the same to me, Ino-pig." She answered smiling as well, somewhat slyly. Sai never understood totally what was with the childhood nicknames, and back in their teenager years, he discovered soon enough to not mess with it. "Sarada and Sasuke are waiting for me. Call me if you need something." She waved goodbye and closed the door.
Sai suddenly was too shy to try to approach to Ino. There was some kind of aura around her and the baby he didn't want to break, and besides he could watch her for hours without getting tired. She had delicate dark circle under her eyes, the first sign of tiredness he noticed on her body, her naturally gleaming skin was a bit pale as well, but still, she was the most beautiful woman he ever saw in his life. He knew that he would never get tired of looking at her even in a thousand of years.
"Are you going to stay still all the night?" She suddenly looked at him with those big icy blue eyes. She was blunt as always, but there was an undertone of kindness wrapping her voice. "Just come here already!" She said almost laughing.
Sai stepped by her side, sitting on the edge of the bed and spreading an arm around her shoulders. Ino leaned on him comfortably. The waves washed all over his stomach again while he leaned in to peep over her shoulder to take the first look on his son's face.
"Look. Isn't he gorgeous?" She adjusted herself on the pillows to give him a better view.
Sai looked at the little human being sleeping in his wife's arms. He was a miniature of Ino… With his pale skin. He felt his lips twitch into a smile, a true one. She always teased him about his skin color and always made him wear tons of sunscreen, but instead of calling him pale, papyrus and other things that his comrades always did she called him moon kissed.
He didn't understand the meaning until she patiently explained the pun with the sun kissed expression. Though he never cared about the teasing with his skin tone, he liked the moon kissed thing, he liked that Ino cared so much with something about his features. And now their baby was moon kissed too. His son had his signature skin tone. It was more than he could ever ask for, it was like the universe was giving him a proof that he was his too. A perfect match of Ino and his features. The anchor keeping him down to earth was more grounded than ever.
"He is perfect." He answered distracted, still drowned in that little figure. His head was so small! And covered in fine strands of silvery gold hair, it looked so soft... He stopped his hand hovering few inches above the baby's head.
"Beauty, Can I… Touch him?" He asked Ino with a bit of doubt.
"What?" Ino tilted her head to look at her husband's face. "Of course you can! You are the father, Sai!" She rolled her eyes. "Why you couldn't?" She asked him gently, giving a peck on his cheek. "You wanna hold him?"
"I don't think I'm capable of such…" He couldn't complete his thoughts because Ino shut him with her speech.
"Do you think that I'll be the only one waking up at the middle of the night to take him of the crib?" She cocked a brow.
"I-I… Beauty…"
Ino rolled her eyes and took a deep breath. There was no need to discharge her exhaustion on his husband, and he truly looked clueless about babies in general. She wasn't that much better. They would have to learn it together.
"Look Sai, I thought I wasn't able to hold him until one hour ago when I pushed him out of me. But when my mom handled me him…" She looked dearly the baby on her arms. "I just knew it… I don't know. Maternal instinct maybe?" She looked to her husband, with his moon kissed skin and deep inky eyes. "Do you wanna try?"
With his affirmative nod she made some space in the bed to make Sai sit more steadily and adjusted the baby in her arms. "Just look the way I'm holding him." She watched as he mimicked her position. "Yes, fold you arms like this." She checked his position one more time and started to handle him the baby. "Watch his spine and head. Make sure they are steady against you arm."
Very slowly and a bit afraid, Sai received the small lavender package. It was even more lighter than he thought. Now he was holding his son. All the waves of anxiety and guts clenching were forgotten. He felt peaceful. There was only he, his wife and this little baby in the universe in that moment. Ino leaned the head on his shoulder, and he kissed the top of her head.
Slowly he hovered again his index finger above the golden head and slid with ghostly touches the finger through the strands. It was almost irresistible, he never dreamed of something so soft. It was close to touch a cloud.
The little baby frowned in his sleep and Sai had a fast sight of Ino's own frown when she was mad with something. He was a perfect copy of his mother. "He looks a lot like you, Beauty."
Ino giggled delighted, leaning to catch a better sight of the baby's face. "I know. But he has your moon kissed skin." She smiled "And your pouty lips."
"Oh." Sai's finger slid across the heavenly soft skin of the chubby and flustered cheeks to the chin and for the first time he paid attention to the lips of the baby. He couldn't tell much about the lips, but he noticed as well that he had Ino's upturned nose.
He didn't notice before that mild burning on his chest. It wasn't anger, or anxiety or any kind of emotion he had felt before. He couldn't describe it either. He only could name it as being filled up. With love, happiness and peace. He didn't have experienced this in his life, but Sai was suspecting that would become more usual to him. His family was complete. He was a complete man. He kissed Ino on the lips briefly. "Thank you."
She blinked a bit startled by the gesture. "What are you thanking me for?" She was curious.
He sighed. "For everything. For everything that I am and for everything that I have now."
"Sai…" She said speechless for a moment, she knew how much he'd been through, all his inside demons, but she always was there for him without a second thought. If he felt that way now, it meant that all the dark past was finally being left behind. Ino couldn't be any happier.
She fought back the tears to speak. "You don't have to thank me. You made me a better person, and even you don't believing in me, you taught me a lot of things… You changed the Ino daughter into the Ino woman in all the senses. And now you changed me into Ino the mother."
"I really love you Beauty." He said, meaning every single word.
"I love you too, Sai." He leaned and kissed her forehead, and she buried her face in the crook of his neck, watching her son's face again.
They spent a long moment in a comfortable kind of silence, until Sai asked.
"Beauty, have you decided how we are going to name him?"
Ino blinked. "I thought that we would decide it together" She looked at him.
"You said that time while breaking those paperweights that if you were the one carrying him for nine months you would be the one to decide…"
The blonde woman sighed in regret. She was six months pregnant and Sai kept pestering her all day long with all sort of stupid names he read in books until she snapped and threw around everything she could put her hands on. Another of her pregnancy anger spurts. And again, Sai took every one of her words literally, she never was sure if she loved or hated it about him.
"Well, I was very mad that day." She sighed again. "But I didn't mean that, I want us to choose it together. He is our baby."
Sai glanced for long time to the form in his arms; the baby frowned again and shook shoulders. Somehow he knew he was growing impatient, but he wasn't sure. "Maybe we should name him after your dad. He was a great and honorable shinobi."
It was in times like these that Ino was reminded why she first fell in love with this moon kissed man. For someone that was considered absolutely clueless, just parroting around what he read in books, Sai had this deep moments of truly wisdom. It was one of the first things that Ino noticed about him that no one did before. Even without her family jutsu she saw right thought him, and his heart. If she wasn't that exhausted and if wasn't he holding their son she would have tackled him down with a kiss the way she liked to do. Instead she just smiled in awe to him.
"It is very thoughtful of you, love. But I thought about this before. Dad died as an honorable shinobi, as you said so, and he built his name. One day this baby is going to be the head of the Yamanaka clan. I think he would like to build his own name." She smiled kindly.
"I see." He smiled back to his wife. "But, yet his name need to begin with 'Ino', right? Because of the Ino-Shika-Cho team.
Ino felt her heart fluttering somewhere on the ceiling. Sai not only understood, but respected her clan traditions. She loved that man with all her heart. "I was thinking in-
His speech was cut by a knock on the door.
"Come in!" Ino spoke.
A ponytail in the shape of a pineapple peeped through the slit and then Shikamaru's face was inside of the room. "May we come in? Temari! Wait she didn't-
The mentioned woman cut open her way through the door, past her husband. "It is not like she would be doing something inappropriate. For Kami's sake, she just gave birth." She was holding a five months old Shikadai Nara on her arms. He had coarse dark hair like his father and Temari's fierce emerald green eyes. "What? Are holding the baby?" She pointed to Sai with her free hand.
"Yes, I suppose." Sai looked to the sand kunoichi.
"This lazybum only held our son when he was two months old!" She glanced at her husband with something near to killing intent.
"He was just too small and I-
"To hell with your excuses, Shikamaru Nara!"
"Troublesome woman, I don't – He lifted his hands open to her in a peace gesture.
"Are you guys already bickering?" Chouji's voice at the door's threshold dragged everyone's attention. Strapped to his chest was a eight months old Chouchou Akimichi, giggling at something, her golden eyes shining in amusement, making an amazing contrast with her caramel skin.
"You were right behind us, where did you go?" Shikamaru asked, in a desperate attempt to change the focus of the conversation.
"To the cafeteria, of course." Karui gently patted on her husband's large shoulder making him move to inside of the room, closing the door behind her. "Here, sweetie." She handled him a small box of donuts. "But don't even try to give her a piece, even as small as it is. You remember the last time." She gave him a meaningful look.
Chouji's adam's apple bobbed on his throat. The last time he gave his daughter a piece of chocolate cake she had a terrible intestinal disorder. Karui didn't become the happiest of the wives with him for that. The smell of the dirty diapers still haunted him.
"Can you guys make less noise?" Ino hissed. The baby was getting too fussy on Sai's arms. "You gonna wake him up!"
She took the baby back of his arms and started to cradle him. His features smoothed again and she gave a assassin glare to her teammates. Temari changed Shikadai of arm.
"Him? Doesn't him have a name?" She asked, while she wiped the drool on Shikadai's mouth using a cotton diaper.
Ino rolled her eyes. She just pushed out a watermelon through her unmentionables parts. Couldn't she have a moment of peace with Sai? No. Probably she was asking too much. She released air by the nostrils. "We were in process of choosing."
"Then you guys popped out of nowhere and ruined it." Sai spoke and smiled, now that he understood the art of sarcasm, his fake smiles were the perfect enhancements.
"You know it was rude, right?" Temari cocked a brow, looking more or less angry with him, rocking her son with smooth moves. Now Shikadai was more asleep than awake, despite the noise. He was absolutely his father's son.
"Just for your information I told Chouji that we should visit only when you'd be back at home. He insisted in coming here, however." Karui placed her arms in her hips. Chouchou clapped her chubby hands and smiled, absolutely ignoring the mood in the room.
"Guys… Let's calm down." Shikamaru could sense a tidal wave of rage coming pretty soon for his tastes. Three of the most troublesome women in the world gathered in a room didn't sound like a good idea.
"I'm not forbidding you to visit me!" Ino talked the lower she could hold the throat. "You are my family too!" She sighed exasperated. "It's just I'm really tired and there's so much to absorb and to learn and I didn't have time to settle it down…"
Temari and Karui exchanged a meaningful look. "We know what it feels like." The sand kunoichi gave her a sympathetic smile.
"Well, we definitely do. But just prepare yourself, because it's just beginning."
"The sleepless nights are the worst." Temari mused
"To not mention the cramps." Karui agreed. "And the runny nose."
"Is this supposed to be encouraging?" Sai asked, tilting his head to the side. He secretly hoped that the library had a book about all these things. Soon they were all discussing the daily struggles in being parents while Ino and Sai remained in silence haunted by the brand new perspectives. Shikamaru only murmured about how sometimes a child was troublesome.
Suddenly all of them jumped when Chouji cried out loud. His daughter found his goatee, and clenched her little, and apparently strong, hands on it pulling hard. With his shout, Ino's baby started to cry with all the force of his brand new lungs. A high pitched and powerful scream that was followed by Shikadai, who woke up startled. Chouchou let go of his father and was feeling unease with all that aggressive noise. Her golden eyes started to fill up with water and soon the three kids were crying in the room.
"Look what you did, Chou!" Karui accused, taking the little girl of the kangaroo sling in her husband's chest.
"But she took me by surprise!" He tried to explain, cupping his sore chin.
"Oh my god, now it will take ages to make him calm down and sleep again." Temari started rocking her baby again, mumbling gentle words.
"This is so troublesome…"
"Don't just stand there! Help me out!" Shikamaru hurried in offer to hold the baby to appease his wife.
"Mama and papa are here, everything is gonna be ok." Ino whispered to the newborn on her arms, crying his lungs out, mostly because she didn't have any idea of what to say.
"You know what? We better go, all of us. We'll visit you again as soon as you get at home." Temari motioned to the door and Shikamaru followed her, spitting clumsy farewells and Karui and Chouji followed soon after with their little crying girl.
When the door closed, their son was still crying, and Sai was getting unnerved. Something so small couldn't talk, how he was supposed to know what was that about? He said the first thing that came to his mind.
"Let me hold him again." He offered his arms. Ino frowned, but handled the baby one more time to her husband.
Slowly, very slowly he adjusted the bundle in his arms and gently started to cradle him in a clumsy way. Sai got up of the bed and still very slowly walked around the room. Ino almost warned him to be careful, but she restrained herself because she never saw Sai holding something so dearly. Warmth filled her heart and she leaned back on the pillows, watching her husband and her son.
Sai walked towards the window and leaned on the windowsill.
"I guess you just were in the first reunion of the new Ino-Shika-Cho generation, and you don't even noticed." He spoke softly, almost whispering to the baby, like it was a secret. Ino smiled. "You see that girl over there?" The baby sobbed, and Sai took it as yes, because he kept the talk.
"Her name is ChouChou, and probably she is going to be fat and own brute force as her father." He watched as Chouji and Karui walked out of the building along Shikamaru and Temari with their kids quiet. Apparently they all succeeded in cease the cries. "And the little boy there, can you see?" Shikadai was already sleeping peacefully in Shikamaru's arms. "He already is just as lazy as his dad, which means that he probably will be a genius, and will like to watch clouds like an idiot."
Ino rolled her eyes and chuckled. The baby was just yawning now, and the blonde woman was amazed in how fast Sai managed to lull him. Perhaps his paternal instincts were underrated. He stepped back towards the bed, sitting next to Ino again.
"It was incredible." She smiled, caressing his cheek with affection. Sai was so absorbed on the baby that the touch started him a bit. Ino grinned at the blush that rose to his milky cheeks; she would never get tired of seeing it.
"I just thought it was important to him to bond with his friends, they probably will be teammates, right? Bonds are important." Ino wasn't sure if her heart wouldn't burst of happiness.
"Inojin." He took her out of her reverie.
"What's with this name?" She asked, still looking at his flushed skin.
"I like that name, Beauty."
"Oh." Ino thought for a second. She rolled the name in her tongue. "I-no-jin."She tapped her chin for a moment and smiled. "It's a beautiful name. I like it."
They both looked at the baby, their son, and after another yawn, Inojin flashed his eyes open. They were the same icy blue his mother, and a ghost of a smiled danced around his pouty moon kissed lips, his father's lips.
Here I go again, with another SaiIno (this time with Inojin), and with a bit of InoShikaCho. So, again I apologize for the grammar mistakes (does anyone know how the beta reader thing works?), even reading twenty times, there's always unnoticed mistakes. I started a bit Sai-centric as you can see, and it was supposed to be an one-shot, but I'm thinking in develop into a short fic, around the Yamanaka family, not sure yet, I just have a couple of ideas floating in my mind.
And if you like, please it let me know what you think!