Chapter 6

Shikamaru and Temari stood silently, each with their own thoughts when Konohamaru came running up to them, breathless.

"Yo! Shikamaru, you need to get back to the Hokage tower. Tsunade has suspended your leave. The daimyo will be visiting Konoha this weekend and asked for you specifically. Tsunade says she'll make it up to you later," the young shinobi blurted out.

"Me? What the hell for?" Shikamaru snapped at the boy even though he was just the messenger.

"Dunno. The message just said that he remembered you from his last visit and requested your presence as an attendant again," Konohamaru shared all that he knew.

"Well, tell Tsunade I can't. Tell I've already left. I'm not..."

"You should stay," Temari spoke up. "It's a great honor and you'd be a fool to turn it down. You should think about your career."

"Temari, I'm not staying! I'm going to Suna with you! Tonight!"

Temari shook her head. "Look, it's a nice gesture. I appreciate it, I really do. But you should stay." Then turning to Konohamaru she asked, "It's just for the weekend?"

"Far as I know," he replied with a shrug. "But who knows what daimyos are gonna do?" Clearly the two were irritated with each other he thought to himself. Shikamaru would probably be better off staying in Konoha anyway. Come to think of it, he continued musing to himself, the older shinobi should just take his own advice - women were troublesome.

Shikamaru had an anguished look on his face. Temari was rattled. She hadn't expected him to show up and demand to go with her to Suna. Just him showing up, bags packed, ready to go had caught her off guard. She looked at him and said, "Look, you...you can come later. After the weekend. It will only be three days..."

"Three days... and you'll..."

They both looked at Konohamaru. "Scram," Shikamaru barked.

"Suit yourself," the boy said. "What should I tell Tsunade?"

"That's not your problem. You delivered your message. Just...go," Shikamaru sighed.

Konohamaru complied turning and darting away. He was glad to be done with that brief mission, for sure, and glad to be away from those two crabby older people.

Temari took his hand and as they turned to face each other he took her other hand. The couple returned to their own quiet thoughts before Temari spoke up. "Shikamaru, you can't come. You can't directly disobey Tsunade's orders."

"What's she going to do? Demote me? Dock my pay? I had this arranged through her office properly and she changes it at the last minute. The worst that's going to happen is she assigns me some grunt missions for a while."

"You should think of your future..." she started.

"I am thinking of my future, our future," he said bitterly. "At least, the future I thought ..., Temari, why?"

Temari realized guiltily then that this was a conversation about the two of them they should have had long before the possibility that there could be three of them. And she should have thought of this before she let anything start with Shikamaru in the first place. Family was supremely important to him, to Nara clan in general and she...just couldn't. She was broken and she knew it but it had always seemed like such an abstract impossibility for her to ever become pregnant in the first place. Then reality had slammed into her when she had seen the little plus sign on the pregnancy test.

"Temari," he husked, "Temari, I love you, is there anything I can say or do?"

She could hear his voice quavering and for once she wished she herself could cry about this but she couldn't. She'd spent years building up her own walls that prevented her from doing so. And the truth was she wanted to be able to give him this but...

Somehow while her brain was overthinking this her heart took over and she whispered, "I love you, too, Shikamaru."

He wanted her to look up so he could kiss her but she stayed with her head down. "Please don't do this," he asked then added, "or...if you do...please come back to me."

That caught her off guard. Nara wore his heart on his sleeve. He had periodically nattered on about his plan for a wife and a daughter to take care of him in his old age and she had laughed along, thinking the idea was a ridiculous as him taking on average missions for his entire adult shinobi life. The idea of a family seemed vague and nebulous and in the far-off future not here and now and staring her in the face on a stupid little pregnancy test stick.

And a family was what he had always wanted - she couldn't say he had been deceptive about that. She just had never seen herself in the 'average kunoichi, wife and mother role.'

But now he was implying that...whatever she did...he still wanted her?

It was too overwhelming. She had to get to Suna.

"I have to go..." she started to step back but he let go of her hands and wrapped his arms around her waist, holding her. "And you should stay here," she said stepping into his embrace experiencing for the first time in a long time hot tears pricking at the corner of her own eyes. "For the weekend," she concluded.

"Temari?"

"I won't do anything, I promise. For the weekend."

He wanted to kiss her but she ducked her head down, beneath his chin, leaning her cheek against his chest and hearing his heart beat. She'd always thought of herself as strong but for now it felt good to lean into his strength as he wrapped his arms a little tighter about her and kissed the top of her head lightly. She didn't feel strong at all right now, she felt very weak and small and young...

Memories spiked into her mind like demons and she squeezed her eyes shut against them. The tears finally did spill over her eyelids just a little but she didn't let herself sob. She wouldn't let him hear her cry.