AN: Here I am again with another chapter! Thanks for your comments, I'm so glad people like this story! I've changed a few things from canon (Sakura's dream in Infinite Tsukuyomi, and Shikamaru's as well), but as a writer I'm taking some liberties, so anyway...

Enjoy :)


Sakura was just finished with washing the rice when she felt him press against her from behind, his hands sneaking beneath her shirt to caress her bulging stomach. Even when she had been pregnant with Shikadai, he had never stopped touching her stomach, too wondrous was the miracle for him that was growing inside her.

And this time was no different. He would touch her stomach at every opportunity he had, trying to feel the baby move inside of her, and she loved him even more for it.

"Did everything go well at the medic's?" She laced her hands with his' for a moment nodding at his question, and he pecked her on her cheek before taking the rice and putting it in the rice cooker. She braced her hands on her hips and regarded him with outrage.

"I'm not such an invalid that I can't put on the rice myself."

"I know that, but you also know what the medic said when we found out you're pregnant again. No strenuous activities, you know how bad it was the last time…" He finally looked at her and realized his mistake.

"Nara Shikamaru!", she said angrily, in a way that made both Shikadai and Shikamaru always flinch and admit defeat without arguing, "Don't you dare coddle me!". Shikamaru slowly approached her with raised hands in an attempt to apologize, like she was a dangerous animal that was prone to attacking at any moment and hugged her close.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I won't do it again." He pecked her on her lips, and she relaxed a tiny bit. He kissed her again, this time with a hint of tongue, and she sighed against his lips when she heard tiny feet approach.

"Urgh, gross." Sakura blushed and she could see Shikamaru smirk before she turned to her son.

"Have you finished with the exercises already?"

"I don't see the point in doing them, I'll ace the test anyway.", her son grumbled, and she thought she heard a faint "troublesome" but wasn't quite sure. She sighed in exasperation at her son who was very much like a miniature version of her husband, and then turned to look pointedly at her husband with her eyebrow raised that said, "He's your son, you deal with him." He sighed, but then turned to his son.

"Now see here Shikadai, that's-"

As Sakura opened her eyes, she could faintly hear Shikamaru explaining to their son why it was important to still do the exercises, but his voice slowly faded into the background until she wasn't able to hear anything else.

It was the first time since the Infinite Tsukuyomi she had dreamed of that dream, the memory felt so vivid that for a moment she was too disoriented about her surroundings, something feeling off about them. But the feeling disappeared, the same as the sweet memory from a time that had felt so much happier.

Even though that time had been an illusion.

With a sigh she stood up and made her way silently to the kitchen to turn on the coffee machine. Shikamaru was still fast asleep on the couch, so she quietly stepped out onto her balcony. With her back to the door she sat down on the floor cross-legged and closed her eyes while she listened to the village waking up.

In the beginning she had thought meditating was all about not thinking, of shutting out all thoughts until there was nothing left in her mind but a vacant space. But Sakura wasn't able to do that, her mind too alive, her brain constantly shouting about this and that, and so she had had a hard time to relax. As with many things in life, she became better with time, and she realized it wasn't so much about suppressing all thoughts, and more about letting her thoughts wander and take the direction they wanted to take.

Within minutes she felt her shoulders relax, and with it her heart also started to pump in an even and slow pace. Sakura enjoyed listening to the birds waking up and listening to the beginnings of a day as she heard other people open their shutters. In the distance somewhere a baby was crying for her parents' attention and she could hear other people chattering and grumbling as they made their way to their work.

"I didn't know you meditated." Sakura's heart started beating faster, and with annoyance she noted that her relaxation exercise had come to an abrupt end. As many things did in Shikamaru's presence. Like her composure. Although she was much better at hiding that at least.

"You're losing your touch Shikamaru. You used to know everything about everyone." She stood up and regarded him with a smirk as he took a drag of his cigarette. She hadn't noticed that he had been watching her for this long, he had almost finished with the cigarette he was holding.

"Only because Ino loves gossiping.", he said, a frown in place at the implication of his senses dulling. But he had never been a proud person. That had always been Ino. Shikamaru was more of a pragmatic and logical person, although his only weakness was his curiosity. He loved solving puzzles, because it was one of the few things that challenged his mind.

"I'll go take a shower, feel free to take food and drinks from the kitchen." She didn't wait to hear his reply, but she did feel his gaze following her into the apartment. His gaze always made her feel self-conscious. Was there something wrong with her appearance? Had her mask cracked somehow for him to take notice? The most likeliest of explanation was probably being deep in thought, his eyes carelessly following someone's motions without actually taking notice.

She took a quick shower and then tiptoed into her bedroom because she had forgotten a change of clothes.

Back in the kitchen she grabbed a cup of coffee and joined Shikamaru at the kitchen table. He was holding the cup of coffee with a disgruntled expression.

"Not a morning person?"

"What gave it away?" he asked her wryly in return. "I'm usually not too amenable before I've had my morning smoke and my first cup of coffee." It was a fact that she had known, Ino having complained to her more often than not before the war. He had been the same in the Infinite Tsukuyomi-dream. She had found it adorable back then, as she did now, but she wouldn't tell him that.

"Really?", she said nonchalantly, as if that information surprised her,"do you have work today?"

"Yeah, but I'm off duty after lunch. That doesn't look like your usual hospital outfit, are you off today as well?"

"Mhm, there's the Shikamaru I've missed. Astute observation as always.", she said teasingly, and he tried to flick her off, but his movement was still too sluggish, so she avoided him easily. "The nurses would kill me if I turned up today. Sai is supposed to come by sometime this morning though, and we're going to spend some time together."

"Oh?", he said, faking indifference like Ino would have at that tidbit of information. This time it was her turn to flick his forehead, but the coffee seemed to work its magic because he leaned back just at the right moment, avoiding her fingers by just an inch. He smirked at her victoriously and she rolled her eyes, trying to keep herself from blushing as best as she could.

"Don't.", she said threateningly, and he held up his hands in surrender, much like he had in her dream from last night, and that thought sent a pang through her stomach. Spending her morning together with him reminded her of her dream even more. But she remembered, painstakingly, that it was also very much different. Although they talked and teased like they were friends, there was an unfamiliarity to it. After all, their friendship had no way of competing with her seven-year relationship from the dream.

"I wasn't doing anything.", he said with a grumble after she had managed flicker his forehead, this time completely catching him by surprise.

"Yeah well, just because all my friends are in a happy relationship doesn't mean I have to be in one as well to be happy." Sakura almost hit herself when she saw his expression becoming serious all of the sudden. "Shit, sorry. That was…insensitive of me.". The playful mood had vanished, leaving them both somber and him with a serious expression.

"It's fine." He grumbled.

"No, it's not. I shouldn't have snapped at you. I'm just not used to someone else in my private space."

"You get used to it once you start living with a partner. Well, at least I did, and I used to be someone who valued privacy." That, at least, she knew was true. Shikamaru had never been someone to blab about himself. Even when she would hang out with him as a child, she had practically only known his name, because he had never gone out of his way to talk to her, and neither had she. And only after the Forest of Death incident, when Ino and Sakura had restored their friendship, she had started to get to know him, although it was more accurate to describe it as the slow process of coaxing out information from a tight-lipped Shikamaru.

He had once told her how he loved that people underestimated him, because they only saw him slouching and complaining about everything, never once suspecting that there was such a piercing intellect behind those observant eyes.

Of course, she had no way of knowing that was true. He had told her in the Tsukuyomi-dream, and although that Shikamaru was much like this one, it was different in some respects.

Maybe that had been what had intrigued her about him. They were both cautious about revealing too much about themselves. Or at least that was how it used to be.

She didn't look at his face anymore, but somewhere to her left into the kitchen. So much was different now. "Not sure I want to." I don't want to live with anyone who's not you anyway.

"Wha- ". They both flinched when they heard a knock on the door. Quickly, before Shikamaru could regain his composure and continue his line of thought she went to the door and opened it.

"Hello Sakura." He greeted her with his fake smile intact as always.

"Sai, you're earlier than I expected. Let me just grab my stuff and we can go." Sai merely nodded and waited in front of the door for her. Sakura went into her bedroom to collect her bag, in which she put all her drawing supplies during her cleaning frenzy the day before so Shikamaru wouldn't come upon them and checked if everything was inside.

Back in the living room she turned to the table to say goodbye to Shikamaru. "I'll see you later, okay?"

"Yeah, bye.", he said, still a little dazed, probably from being sleepy.

She sighed in relief once she closed the door behind her. Then she turned to Sai and gave him a smile. "How about we go to yours for a change?", she asked apologetically. Usually they would stay in her apartment to draw, but she didn't want to do that in front of Shikamaru. It was only a hobby, yet she felt reluctant to show more than necessary of her private life to him. Or anyone for that fact.

Sai, understanding as always, or perhaps simply unaware of her predicament, answered her easily and without a judgmentally raised eyebrow, or a wicked glint in his eyes. "Sure. Let's go." They made their way to his apartment which was closer than expected, in a small but quaint two-bedroom apartment.

Instead of turning the second bedroom into a study, Sai had changed the room into his personal atelier, with his pictures displayed on his walls. He brought her a spare chair, and then she set up her station so she could start to draw.

"Do you have a boyfriend now?" Sakura sighed. Blunt as ever, Sai didn't know much about tact, but to be fair, she liked it better than the rambling some other people got up to, so she wasn't very annoyed.

"No, Shikamaru is staying over until he's resolved his issues with Temari." Sakura couldn't focus much on painting, so she just drew random shapes and figures.

"That must make it difficult avoiding him." Sakura stilled. Then she looked at Sai who had continued to paint unaffected, as if he hadn't just dropped a bombshell on her. Sakura gave up on the idea of painting anything now.

"Was it that obvious?", she asked hesitantly. She had thought she had been so good at hiding her true feelings, but if Sai had discovered them…

"I don't think anyone else has noticed, though I'm not quite sure about why you're avoiding him." Sakura put her feet on her chair and hugged her legs tight.

"No reason really."

"Why isn't he staying at Chouji and Ino's?" Sai kept on drawing without looking at her, but she was sure he was aware of how tense she was. If she told him to stop asking, he would, and so it was completely up to her how much she wanted to reveal. It was something she had come to appreciate about him immensely.

"Because Ino's being unsupportive, or so he tells me."

"Is that so. And you let him live with you?" Even though you hate people in your private space was heavily implied. For a while, Sakura didn't know how to answer.

"I was surprised myself. But somehow, I just can't refuse a friend in need.", she said bitterly, and he kept drawing, letting the silence linger. Sakura didn't want to talk about this any longer anyway.

"I met a girl." Sakura's head snapped up at the new tidbit. Sai, with his troubling past, had difficulty being in a social setting, so dating still felt foreign to him. He once told her that he didn't understand why people went on dates, and so Sakura had to explain to him how people got to know each other by talking and spending time with each other, and why surveillance was not the way to go about wooing a girl.

"Really? Do I know her?" She could see the corners of his mouth lifting for a second before they returned to his usual indifferent expression. He had gotten better at making expressions lately, maybe it was because of this girl?

"She's a chuunin kunoichi and a bit younger than we are, so I don't think you know her. She's…nice." Sakura smiled. She was glad that her friend had finally met someone of interest.

"Tell me about her?" And so he did. Apparently, they had met in the art's supply shop, the only one in town. She sometimes worked there to help out her parents, who owned the shop. She had seen him there often but lacked confidence to start a conversation with him. But then, he had asked her about a special type of ink, and she had finally asked him for a date, after explaining to him in much detail about what kind of ink was the best.

They spent the whole morning talking about his first date, which she found more than disastrous but the girl had apparently liked it and asked to see him again. She was glad for it, because even though Sai showed little emotion, she knew that he struggled with his deficiency. It wasn't like he didn't feel the emotions, he just didn't feel connected to them in the same way that others were.

They decided to eat in the village, because Sai didn't have any groceries to speak of other than instant noodles, and so they went for some barbeque.

They parted ways later but promised to meet next week. Sakura went back home to find Shikamaru at the table seriously regarding a piece of paper. She put the bag with her painting supplies in her room and then joined him at the table after making herself a pot of tea.

"Hey, you need any help?" Upon closer inspection she found out it wasn't anything like a mission's report like she expected it to be. Shikamaru had his head in his hands, a sure sign that he was at his wit's end.

"It's a pro and con list."

"Well, good luck." She got up but his hand shot out quickly to take hold of her arm. "I'm not good at this kind of stuff. Whose idea was this anyway?", her voice might have sounded a tad whiney, but she reserved the right to do that when it concerned other people's relationship.

"Ino's.", she almost snorted out loud at that. Of course, it was. She didn't think it was a good way to quantify a relationship. It felt a bit too childish and unrefined to be Shikamaru's idea.

"I don't think a pro and con list is the way to go about it in this case.", she said hesitantly and he looked up to watch her with a raised brow.

"Yeah, I'm beginning to see that." He still hadn't let go of her arm.

"I gather from this that you haven't gotten any farther in thinking?"

"Yeah, and people at the tower have started to ask questions about…" Sakura understood now why he had resorted to this. He was starting to feel pressured into making a decision, and although Shikamaru had always been a very strategic person who worked well under pressure during missions, it was different when it concerned his social life. He liked to take his time, to think about every possible angle of a problem so that he could make the best possible decision.

"It's only been a few days, right? There's no need to rush these kinds of decision. Don't listen to them." Shikamaru sighed.

"Technically it's been over a week.", he admitted grudgingly.

"You-", he pointedly avoided her eyes in a way that showed how embarrassed he was about the whole thing. She sighed. She did that a lot lately. And she blamed Shikamaru.

"Do you…want to talk about it?" She had offered him to stay at her place, and she knew that she would be involved into this mess one way or another. She didn't like being in this situation. Having to be an impartial judge in a case she was very much invested in? Not a good idea in her opinion.

"Let's go for a smoke?"

"Sure." He let go of her arm, but her skin still tingled where he had touched her. She tried to ignore the sensation as best as she could and walked to the balcony. She patted down her jacket she still had on but realized that her cigarettes must still be in her bag. Shikamaru offered her one of his' and she accepted.

Shikamaru leaned on the railing of her balcony, his eyes fixed on the blue sky above them. "When I was younger, I always thought that women were troublesome." Sakura stayed silent while he took another drag and took his time to puff it out. "The only important women in my vicinity were my mother, who constantly nagged at me about everything, and Ino, who constantly pestered me either about training or how Sasuke was the most perfect man on this earth." Sakura chuckled nervously.

She could see why he would think that women were troublesome. Sakura had been no better in her childhood, always gushing about Sasuke here and Sasuke there.

"We weren't really the best company back there. So, what made you change your mind?"

"You did." Sakura looked at him in surprise, and her heart skipped a beat when she met his unwavering gaze. Calm down. "When I saw you defend Sasuke and Naruto in the forest of death, risking your life. And when your conviction didn't sway even a bit even though he left the village and turned traitor… I thought that it was such a drag, but at the same time I admired you a little bit. I had never had anything in life I wanted to protect and pursue like you did Sasuke." Sakura blushed, and he smiled at her before he looked back at the sky in the distance. Hearing his praise made her stomach flutter in nervousness and gratitude.

"I've always hated his guts, and I thought he was stupid for leaving you behind. And then I thought, it sure would be nice if I had someone who felt the same way about me." Sakura brushed some stray hairs behind her ear to gather her thoughts. She hadn't thought that she had such an influence on his opinion on women. She had always thought she was uninteresting to him. After all, he was a genius, and she was…a girl obsesses with an unrequited love.

"That sure feels like such a long time ago now. Was it during the chuunin exams then that you became interested in her?" he snorted in amusement, as if that thought alone was too ridiculous.

"No, back then I was still a brat who thought he had life figured all out. I really started to notice her when we proctored the chuunin exams together. She had changed from this scared prideful girl into this skilled and confident woman who wasn't afraid to stand up for her opinion. Gaara had become Kazekage already and was in the middle of changing old and outdated policies, and she was there for him, opposing the elders together with her siblings, changing old useless traditions, building the future…" he reminisced fondly with a faraway look in his eyes as if he was seeing the scene in front of his eyes. She had to look away as her heart squeezed painfully in her chest. Hearing him praise another woman didn't make her feel elevated at all.

How could she ever compare? Somehow, the possibility of Shikamaru ever noticing her felt like a million light years away. She took another drag to hide her hurt. "Why didn't you ask her out back then?" The both of them had only started dating shortly after the war, about two years ago. They had become pretty serious very quickly, and she had moved here after only three months of dating.

"I thought that it wasn't the right time, what with Akatsuki and the war on the forefront. And when I think back, if it hadn't been for the war I might have hesitated even more, maybe for years. It's funny how that dream changed my mind. The Infinite Tsukuyomi showed me how it could be, having a family with a loving wife, a child, and I knew then that that's what I wanted for my future."

"How long were you in there for?"

"Just a few days. But it was enough for me to realize that I wanted a family for myself. Before the war I always thought of being married as being a chore. I watched my parents fight and bicker and I sure thought that having a family would only be the most troublesome thing that could happen to me." He turned around, leaning his back against the railing and looked at her from the side with an smile that said his childhood-self amused him.

"I almost died too and that made it even more obvious to me that I shouldn't waste my time." She remembered that moment. When she had seen him…she hadn't told anybody how frantic she had felt on the inside while she had put all her chakra into him, but if it hadn't been for Naruto sharing his chakra, she would have used Chiyo's technique on him. If she had thought about the situation for more than a few seconds, she might have realized her feelings for him. But the war hadn't given her any time to do that.

And then the Infinite Tsukuyomi had happened and she had known anyway.

"Maybe if we had talked more about what we expected from life, about our aspirations, things might have turned out differently, but the war, it…made us rush. We were confronted with how life was short and brutal, and we wanted to make the best of the situation." They weren't the only ones. Everyone had carried away baggage from the war. And everyone reacted in a different way.

Some had trouble accommodating to normal life after war and had instead opted to take more reckless missions to feel the same rush as in the war. Some, like Sakura had thrown themselves into work. And others had thrown themselves into their relationships to forget about their lost comrades and families.

"Why do you think things would have turned out differently if you had talked about those things?", she asked him with a frown, just then realizing the bitterness and sadness that had been carried along with his words.

"Well, we would have realized that we wanted different things. Like the fact that Temari doesn't want children, and I obviously do." Oh. Well that would have been good to know. She could see how that would be jarring to find out now, after almost two years of having a relationship.

"Why didn't she tell you before?" Surely, she had known about it before she had entered their relationship. Not wanting children was a pretty big thing not to know, right?

"She told me that she had always thought that she would someday have the desire to have children, and that she was just a little bit late in that regard. And everyone around her wanted them and expected her to want them as well, so she didn't have the courage to speak up after she realized she never would want children. I should have realized. She would always change the topic whenever I talked about having children, but I never made the connection until a week ago when she had broken out in tears and told me."

"I guess it is hard when everyone else tells you how things are supposed to be, and you feel like you're the only one who is different. Societies expectations on women suck." People, especially Ino, kept insisting on introducing guys to her. And people at work keep asking if she was dating anyone. Nobody was asking Kakashi if he was settling down soon, and the gender bias annoyed her to no end. It made her feel all the more pressure for being different, as if she couldn't truly be happy without a boyfriend attached to her.

Not that she was truly happy, but it annoyed her anyway.

"So, what about you Shikamaru?" He looked at her questioningly. All the while he had talked about Temari, but there had never been anything about how he felt about the whole thing. He had wanted a family, had been in a relationship with the woman he had thought had wanted the same. And now it turned out to be different than he expected. But he had yet to tell her about his perspective.

"What about me?", Sakura rolled her eyes at his stupidity.

"You've been talking about how Temari's suffering in this relationship, how she's been enduring all along, but what about you? Are you happy the way things have been going?" She put her cigarette out and waited but nothing came. Finally, she raised her head and regarded him.

"You haven't thought about it, have you? You tend to always put others before you and forget to take care of yourself. I bet you've tried so hard to accommodate Temari in everything that you forgot to think about yourself."

She had often wondered why he would let Temari walk all over him and had assumed that he liked being passive in his relationship, something that was quite different from her version of Shikamaru in her dream. But even when they had fought in their dream, he had never been afraid to tell her about his opinion, about how he felt about the whole problem. He won more than one argument that way, a fact begrudgingly admired about him.

But the more she heard him talking, the more she wondered if that was true, or if he just got himself into that sort of pattern because of some unrealistic notion that a relationship was all about pleasing the woman only.

"I…haven't thought of it that way."

"Seems to me that is something you should think about before making a final decision." He looked at her, his eyes regarding her seriously as if there was something new about her, like he had had a revelation. And she knew instinctively that no one had ever done that for him before, that no one had asked him about how he thought or felt about the issue.

Suddenly the colors around her brightened, the blue of the sky behind him became almost vibrant, the light of the sun became so bright it almost blinded her. She could feel the wind brushing against her skin even though she could have sworn a minute ago there was none. Shikamaru was replaced with an older version of himself, his hair a little longer, and the beginning of a beard making itself known on his chin. He was smiling at her gently, and his eyes crinkled in an adorable way, so different from a few seconds ago. And when she looked into his eyes, her heart stuttered, and then started beating wildly in her chest, and she felt like she was drowning in the affection she could see there.

"I love you, Sakura."

"-ra?" Then she blinked and the colors started to bleed out, to dull into a colder and what she considered to be a more imperfect version of before, and she felt like the rush of feelings that had threatened to overthrow her whole being slowly subsided into a disappointing low buzz. As sudden as the moment had appeared, it disappeared again, leaving her feeling dizzy and aching and sad and lonely.

"Sorry, just spaced out a little, what were you saying?" Shikamaru regarded her for a moment longer before he spoke.

"I was saying that I appreciate your help, Sakura. I'll think about your suggestion."

"Ah-, yeah. You do that." She felt more than a little awkward, and so she retreated into her apartment with the excuse of having something to do for work the next day.

No matter how much she tried she couldn't forget the intensity of the raw emotions from that short moment. It had felt so exhilarating, so absolutely stunning. A part of her was more than a little afraid of what it meant.

But a much larger part of her craved it even more.