A/N: Ops I uploaded the docx version instead of this...my bad...gomen to the 30 something people who read the unbeta-ed version...

A/N: I call this Effie's chapter...

Yay, this is a beta-ed chapter. Me and my beta xXxBLoodDeathLovexXx ops I mean Ciel Orihara are now on the same page! I gave her two of this and she returned it in less than 24 hours ~she's amazing!~...the un-uploaded beta-ed previous chapters are entirely my fault...hmn excuse juggling too many miscellaneous things at the moment :P

Chapter 27

"Where are you going?" Temari hollers upon seeing Shikamaru with his satchel slung over his shoulder. She had just put the deer food and supplies inside the shed and is on her way back towards the house when she spied Shikamaru walking away from the house seeming to carry all the possessions he arrived with.

"I saw a spring. I'm going to wash my clothes there," Shikamaru answers, gesturing at the general direction of the spring within the woods.

"Idiot!" Temari can't help but smile, not wanting to examine her relief upon hearing Shikamaru's reply. "No need to go that far. We have running water and a laundry area."

"I know...I saw your mom just now doing some heavy blankets and draperies."

"Give me that." Temari reaches for Shikamaru's satchel. She suspects Shikamaru doesn't want to share the laundry room with Yoshino out of respect of the older woman's wishes. "I'll do it."

"No need. I can do it."

Temari grabs a part of the bag sling resting on the young man's chest when suddenly the man pulls back. The momentum of Shikamaru's immediate movement as Temari grasps the bag sling careens Temari forward towards Shikamaru's chest.

As Temari hurtles on his chest, it feels like time slowed down for Shikamaru. The moment is enough to bring back memories of when they first met. At that time six years ago, it was Shikamaru who lost his footing and landed on top of Temari, his eyes at a level with her young breasts. She hit him several times after that and he allowed her to. She quit harassing him when she noticed that he wasn't stopping her. She was obviously embarrassed. Her face was flushed pink. Shikamaru smiles inwardly at the memory. His hands have reflexively gone up to break her fall, now they rest on her upper arms.

"What's going on?" a high pitched voice angrily demands. Yoshino has seen Temari being pulled towards Shikamaru or at least that's what she thinks she witnessed. She puts the basket she's carrying, full of wet and heavy blankets and draperies, on the ground to be able to place both her hands on her hips as she glowers at Shikamaru whose arms are still around Temari. From Yoshino's point of view, Shikamaru appears like he's about to shake her daughter.

Shikamaru immediately withdraws his arms from around the younger woman.

Temari swivels around to face her mother. "I was trying to get his bag. He wouldn't give me his dirty clothes so I could wash it since it was our deer's fault that it got sullied in the first place," Temari answers defensively.

"Let him do it," Yoshino snaps.

Shikamaru nods his head and notices the big container with wet linen on the ground. Yoshino was obviously on her way to hang the wet laundry when she noticed him and Temari. It would be harder retrieving the basket from the ground than setting it down. Shikamaru bends low towards the basket to obtain it for Yoshino.

"Don't!" Yoshino bends down at almost the same time to grab the basket. Yoshino's hand touches Shikamaru's hand which grasped the container's handles first, and visibly recoils. "Put it down," she orders.

Shikamaru returns the heavy container to the ground and when his own hands are withdrawn, Yoshino seizes the handles at both ends and lifts the basket. "You can do your laundry inside. I won't be using it again."

Shikamaru could only nod his head.

Temari have watched the exchange. She would offer to help Yoshino but that would only result in underlining the fact that Yoshino refused Shikamaru's, if Yoshino accepted hers. "Give me that!" Temari addresses Shikamaru and proffers her assistance to him instead.

"No need to get me in trouble, woman," Shikamaru mutters before starting to walk towards the laundry area, leaving behind a glowering Temari.

—o0o—

Yoshino is hanging a bed sheet on the clothes line when Shikaku silently approaches her. He has refused to go with Choza and Inoichi on a mission this morning in order to covertly watch his wife and son at home.

"It was your chance to do something for him but you throw it," Shikaku says quietly.

Yoshino angrily glances sideways at her husband.

"We may not get this chance again to get to know him, Yoshino," Shikaku mumbles.

Yoshino continues with her tasks, shaking a printed blanket forcefully before hanging it, then taking another one from the basket, pointedly ignoring her husband.

From behind, Shikaku places both his hands on his wife's shoulders but she shrugs them off. Sighing, he tries again, drawling softly, "He may never come back here after this. Not when you—we treat him this way."

Shikaku's words are only met with silence.

Shikaku, exasperated with his wife's continued lack of response regarding the matter of their real son, groans, defeated, "I just hope you won't regret this."

Giving up in the meantime, Shikaku decides to leave things for now; he has already turned his back and has taken a few steps towards the house when he hears Yoshino speaks.

"Didn't you even consider that maybe...maybe I'm scared? Scared that if I get to know him now...It wouldn't be enough...that I would want more."

Shikaku slowly pivots around to face Yoshino's profile as she talks.

"That I would want impossible things— the image of his first cry, first walk, first day in school, his first accomplishment, his first failure, the story of his first kill, was he disgusted or did it thrill him?" Yoshino stares at the hanging piece of bedding as it flaps with the wind, not bothering to swivel around to face Shikaku as she continues, "There are a lot of things I missed...not just his first, but even his second, his third...I didn't get to see any of those, Shikaku, and if someone asked me if it was worth it not witnessing those moments since I get to see Temari's instead, I really want to answer that someone that yes, it was worth it missing all of that for Temari..."

"It won't mean—" you think any less of Temari, if you are curious about those things about Shikamaru, Shikaku is about to add when Yoshino twists her neck to glare at him, briefly catching his eyes.

Noticing that her husband heeds her warning and deems to stay quiet; Yoshino swivels her head back to the broad sheet, gazing unseeingly at the piece of bedding. After a while, she admits softly, a tinge defensively, "...I'm terrified, Shikaku, that someday I would have a different answer. That someday all I could think about are the what ifs...Don't you see I couldn't have them both? And I have accepted that." Yoshino heaves a sigh of resignation, then her voice steady as she continues, "I don't want to end up resenting Temari's presence in our lives. I have decided and when I said I choose Temari, I mean it. So...stop throwing me and your son together."

Shikaku starts to open his mouth to contradict when he notices Yoshino's trembling shoulders and realizes belatedly that she has given in to her tears. He can't tell her that she's wrong to feel that way. He recognizes that he can't force his own feelings on Yoshino in order to change hers. Finally, he understands that it was her belief that she would be betraying Temari if she gets close to Shikamaru that has been holding her together after all this time...And Yoshino has never pleaded with him before, and this is the closest she would ever get. She normally demands loudly or even painfully, if she wants something from him. This is the first time she has used that almost pleading tone and the first time she has admitted her fears.

Shikaku exhales slowly before nodding his head, knowing that Yoshino will detect his movement.

He has to admit defeat, before he inflicts more pain to Shikamaru and Temari's mother.

TBC

~7 8/27 11AF~