The baby bump was growing.
Now, with the baby turning and moving, she was finding it difficult to sleep. She couldn't get comfortable with her womb settling on her organs. With all the turning of both her and the growing fetus, she would just get restless.
She moved again, making a small groan of discomfort. "Are you alright?" She flinched, realizing the Gaara was awake.
"Uhm, yes, sorry. I didn't mean to wake you." She whispered, trying to settle with the uncomfortable position.
She could feel his frown. He pushed his head against her shoulder to settle back to sleep. She bit back a sudden rush of tears. She didn't want to go through this alone anymore. She didn't want to hide from him. All this lying would add up, and she knew that at some point, it would be too much, and he may not trust her anymore.
She didn't know if what she was doing was right anymore.
She let tears pour down her face and soak her pillow. Maybe it was the hormones, but she felt weak.
Was she being selfish? Wasn't it selfish to want to share the load with him? He had enough to worry about. He didn't need all this stress of her. His treatment now, then he would have to go back to his position and backlogged work. There was distress coming from Konoha he hadn't been informed about yet. The council was cranky now, and they would not make the transition back any easier.
She must have made a whimper that she didn't hear. Gaara jerked up and towered over her to see her face, his own startled and full of concern. "You lied." He didn't mean it as an accusation but of worry of what she might be keeping from him. He thought it was him.
But it was a true statement, and it cut deep.
She sniffed, looking up at him, feeling a deep fear. "I'm just..." She hastily wiped her face off. She sat up, not sure what to excuse herself with. Telling him the part of the truth? She was struggling to sleep and was uncomfortable, that didn't give her reason to cry.
What did she do? She didn't know what to do anymore!
No matter what she said, it was just piling up to be 'not quite lies', but he didn't know the difference. She knew what he thought of being sneaking around facts and the destruction of truth. He had always hated it when people hid the truth in plain sight, but he usually could see it because he looked for it in everyone. He trusted her, and she was hiding the truth from him.
He shouldn't trust her. She was a horrible wife. How would she be as a mother?
She didn't say anything. She couldn't. She just dissolved into the rising panic. She curled herself up and started balling into her knees. She shivered, racking her shoulders painfully.
She could take the weight any more. The world just fell.
Gaara stared flustered for a few seconds before quickly reaching out and holding onto her shoulders. He moved forward to wrap himself around her though he had no idea why.
He held her close, unsure what it was he was meant to do. She never broke down like this. The only time he had seen her cry like this was when he arrived home after she thought he was dead. She was so emotionally strong he didn't understand how he was meant to help her. He just held her tightly as that's all he could think she would want. Her head came to rest on him as she cried.
He laid his cheek on her head and ran through everything he could think of. What could make her so upset to just fall apart? She hadn't reported work stress. She had taken most of her work back in stride like she always did. She returned to her routine. The only thing he could think of was that she was visiting the Hyuga from time to time, once or twice a week. She had said it was a minor clan matter and that it was nothing for him to be concerned about, but it was the only thing he could think. Though she still claimed to be somewhat ill, and Temari had complained about her not going back to training with her because of 'doctor's orders'.
Was she hiding pain? Why would she hide her pain from him?
"Are you hurt? I can call a medic." He tried whispering. If she was hurt, he should be getting one immediately. After a few seconds of no answer, she shook her head. He frowned. Was she not hurt, or did she just not need a medic? He should have been more specific.
He did what he could. All he could was hold her and wrap their blanket around the two of them to stave off the cold of the desert night. She eventually stopped shaking, her tears flowed. She didn't move.
He lifted back and looked at her. He had never seen so much fear in her face before. He had never seen her terrified before, this was a face he had been expecting for years now, but he never received.
Had he finally done something worthy of her terror? If that was true, why did she let him hold her, or had she just been too scared to push him away? Had he been making it worse?
Her voice came out raspy and exhausted. "I'm so sorry." She whimpered desperately.
He blinked at her. She was apologizing?
"I don't understand." He tried.
"I know." Her voice cracked. "I know you don't understand because I have been lying this entire time, and you don't deserve it, but I was trying to protect you. I didn't want to tell you and then the worst to happen, and then you feel the blame even if there was nothing you could do. There is nothing I can do! I have been trying everything, but I can't keep hiding the food I can't eat and getting sick a few hours after dinner just to stop nausea and..." She hiccuped. "Going to my appointments without you and lying to Temari..." She kept listing her supposed sins, but all he could understand was that she was hiding how sick she was. That she had been lying about it, and she thought he was going to be upset with her. He honestly couldn't even be sure if that was all she was talking about. She was hardly taking a breath, so he waited until she started gasping thus stopped rambling to ask a question.
"You're sick?" He asked cautiously, hoping he was asking the right question. "How sick?"
She shook her head. "It's not really that I am sick, well I guess it would depend on what you consider…." She hiccuped and looked away.
"I don't understand what it is that you are trying to tell me." He tried hoping he wouldn't push her into another fit.
She reached out for him, fisting her hand into his nightshirt. "Gaara, I'm pregnant."
He stared at her taking a moment to remember what the word even meant. "What?" Was all that came out.
"I'm about 15 weeks pregnant. The pregnancy is not going well, and I should be doing much better. I don't know if I will make it to full term, and I didn't want to tell you in case I lost it." She rambled.
"Lost it?" He repeated.
He slowly got what she was telling him. She was with child. His child. She wasn't scared that it was his. She was afraid it wasn't going to live. As he tried to process this, she looked at him broken, like he was going to throw her out of their bedroom at any moment.
Did she think he would not want the child?
No. She was upset she had been lying. She thought he would be angry with her for not telling him.
This was what she was hiding all this time? The tea, the picking at her food, excusing herself, the discomfort? He didn't understand why she felt the need to hide it. Was that a thing you did when you were pregnant? Was it a symptom? He honestly didn't have the faintest clue about pregnancy. Had he ever even met a pregnant woman? The answer was likely yes as he had approved leave for pregnant nin, but they never had the telling bump he knew they were meant to have.
In all his thoughts, she had curled around herself, retracting from him. He reached back out for her.
"Do you think I am angry?" He asked.
"I've been lying, hiding your child from you." She whispered guiltily.
He tightened his grip. "Why did you?" He wondered openly.
She stared at him with her big blank eyes, seemingly surprised he asked. Did she think he would just draw a concussion with absolutely no knowledge? He had no clue what was happening. How was he meant to draw any conclusion right now?
"Well… usually, you don't tell anyone for a few weeks in case you have a miscarriage early on, but you didn't usually hide it from the father for so long." She mumbled. "It's not an excuse, but you were still in treatments, and I didn't want to add stress. But then by the time you were out, I was having complications, and we still don't know with any good certainty if it will make it to term." She started crying again. "I was told 30 to 40 percent chance that it will make it full term. That doesn't at all mean that it will survive the birth." She coughed, covering her mouth with both hands. "I just can't take all the weight anymore. I can't keep hiding it when I know you know there is something wrong. I've been lying and hiding, and it's not fair to you." She whimpered.
He considered the information, low birth expectancy. If he understood correctly, he was too. He was premature by weeks and very small.
His eyes glided down to her stomach. He didn't understand much about pregnancy, but shouldn't she have a large bump? Did it grow slower than he understood? Did the womb grow in preparation for the baby, or did it grow with the baby?
She sniffed, wiping her eyes, and he slid his hands from her shoulders to the sides of her stomach. There was a harder area set in the center, his hands ghosted over it more moment, then wondered if she was okay with him doing this. He looked up to confirm.
She was looking down at his hand with her lips tight and her eyes waiting for rejection.
"Why is it so small?" He asked.
She looked confused. "What do you mean?"
"Shouldn't it be larger?" He put his hands out to where he thought it should be to prove his point.
She shook her head. "I'm only 15 weeks pregnant, that's not even halfway yet." She explained.
"So it gets bigger than..." He concluded.
Her face went soft with the drying tear lines streaking her face as she seemed to understand he had no clue how pregnancy works. He understood how it happened, and basically how it came out, but the between, no clue.
Her eyes softened from their distress, and she started to giggle. It came out dry, but it was a laugh. "Did you think it just got huge overnight?"
He felt his cheeks get red, and he frowned. "Not overnight, but does the womb-like expand for the fetus." He pushed his hands to demonstrate again.
She began to laugh. "It gets bigger around the baby, but it doesn't grow full size first."
He shrunk, then looked at the light that had come to her eyes and smiled. At least she wasn't crying anymore.