This one is for my sweet baby Ninquelot, who said:

"...think about writing a chapter where Gaara and Kankuro visit Shikamaru before you bring back Temari home. They are family even if she's not there."

And so, my darling, I have written it! Hahaha!

Shikamaru was awake when the door opened, the sleepy shuffle of his son's small feet across the wooden floor making his mind automatically work when all he wanted it to do was sleep. Asuma came over to the bed and crawled up into it, grunting as he gripped the sheets in an iron grip to pull himself up. Shikamaru could have gotten up as soon as the little blonde had first cracked the door open but his children had always gotten an amazing amount of satisfaction from "waking" him up in the morning.

He crawled over the sheets and to his father's side, poking him in the cheek to prompt him to wake up. Shikamaru cracked his eyes open to stare into the wide green eyes of his son, taking in the boy's oddly solemn expression. Stretching out all of the kinks that a night of good sleep gave him Shikamaru tried to think of a reason as to why his son would look like he did. Usually he was more excited first ting in the morning. Shikamaru paused halfway through his stretch when Asuma spoke up, wide eyes staring at him and threatening to swallow him whole.

"I peed my bed." Well, that explained his expression.

"Alright."Shikamaru sighed and popped his neck, picking the boy up to take him into the bathroom. He spent the next twenty minutes bathing the boy and changing him into fresh clothes, having to repeat again and again that it was fine, that he wasn't mad and that he wasn't going to yell. After helping him with the toilet because the child's remarkably tiny bladder had to be relieved again Shikamaru started down stairs, Asuma hanging onto his neck and the soiled bed sheets in his arms.

Kyoko was sitting at the kitchen table in her usual spot, sipping a glass of orange juice proudly. "Daddy! I poured my juice all by myself so now you don't have to!" The seven year old declared, and Shikamaru ruffled her hair as he passed her, wondering how on earth she had managed to actually spill so much juice on the counter. There were signs of her trying to be responsible and wipe it up with paper towels, but all she had managed to do was push it farther back to where she couldn't see, the soggy paper towels laying forgotten in the mess.

"Good job. But from now on put the cup on the floor when you pour so that you won't spill as much." He advised as he sat Asuma down in his booster seat, going over to finish the job that his delightful daughter had created for him. She nodded happily, sipping from the cup as she kicked her socked feet back and forth beneath the table.

Shikamaru briefly thought about saying something about the value of matching clothes since one of the girl's socks went up to her knee and was a dark purple white the other stopped at her ankle and had white stars on it, but he figured that as long as he didn't let her go out in public like that it would be fine.

"What does everyone want for breakfast?" He asked, shoving his hair out of the way so that he could peer into the fridge and try to see past the juice packets and fruit cups to find something that they could all stomach.

"Pancakes." Kyoko declared, Asuma instantly nodding in agreement. "Pancakes." He confirmed, the two of them making Shikamaru sigh. He knew letting them stay over at Choji and Ino's while he had been locked up at work the other night had been a bad idea. Choji had apparently amazed their little minds by fixing meals that were made from scratch with foods they had only ever seen come out of a box, and now they were constantly demanding for him to do the same.

He peeked into the freezer. "We have waffles. They're like pancakes, and all I have to do is pop them into the toaster."

"No! We want you to make pancakes!"

How the hell was he supposed to do that? True he was a genius, but that didn't extend into cooking. He might have been able to bum something off a neighbor, but that just seemed like too much trouble for so early in the morning. He briefly tried to remember where those cookbooks that he and Temari had found in the cupboards when they had first moved in, but he gave up.

He looked back into the fridge and pulled out the box that contained the pizza they had ordered a couple of nights ago, setting it in the middle of the table and flipping the lid back. "Here, cold pizza." Seeing the look on his children's faces he sighed as he sat down. "I don't know how to make pancakes, so I'm not going to try."

The two children, used to their father's lazy attitude when it came to things like this, gave up their dream of fluffy and warm pancakes, instead digging into the wonder that was pizza for breakfast.

He had Asuma up under one arm while they searched for the boy's shoes with Kyoko pulling on the leg of his jeans, pestering him as she asked again and again if her hair looked pretty because -wouldn't you know it- she had decided to do it herself. He spared the hairstyle a glance and took in the way one of her pigtails was sagging down, the hair-tie just barely hanging on, and how the other was way to far up on the other side of her head to even be considered remotely even.

"Yeah, it's great." He muttered, spotting one of the small red converse sneakers peeking out from under a pile of coloring books. He snatched it up and handed it to his son, the boy struggling to slip it on as he continued to dangle from his father's hold. He spotted the other shoe on the bookshelf -how the hell had it gotten there?- at the same time as there was a knock on the door.

"Yeah, yeah, hold on." He muttered, wincing as he stepped on one of Asuma's mini building pieces, the astonishing pain making him hiss. "Hell. Hold on!" He shouted as the knocking persisted.

"Hell." Asuma agreed, looking down dejectedly at his dangling laces. Shikamaru spared the boy a look just before he opened the door. "Yeah, let's try to not say that." He suggested, shifting the boy to his other arm and opening the door to be greeted by two familiar faces.

"Gaara? Kankuro? What are you two doing here?" The eldest of the two pulled a face, though the absurd amount of purple makeup he wore made it look like he was constipated.

"What? We can't come visit family? And you are technically family, you know." Shikamaru looked the two over doubtfully. True, they did come to visit but it was always with some letter coming before them to let him know or it was them warning him that they wanted to see their nephew and niece so he had better figure out a way to get down to Suna. So what ever they had come for wouldn't be very good.

"Well, come on, are you going to let us in or not?" Obviously Kankuro wasn't in a very patient mood at the moment. With a heavily burdened sigh Shikamaru stepped back and opened the door wider and allowed the two men into the chaos of his life.

"Hell." Asuma said again and Shikamaru shushed him, setting him down so he could run after his uncles. "I told you not to say that." Though he truthfully couldn't have agreed more.

"Man, this place is a mess." Kankuro observed, taking in the scattered toys and general mess that came along with two young children. He turned and took in his brother-in-law's appearance, taking in the fact that his t-shirt had what seemed to be a fresh stain on it and that his hair hung free around his face, baggy jeans that he'd probably picked off of the floor and put on without checking how fresh they were hanging from his hips. "You're a mess too."

Shikamaru leaned against the opening to the living room, observing his children as they both vied for Gaara's attention. "Yeah, and I bet if you had a morning alone with these two you'd come out of it fresh as a daisy." God, he hated it when he felt like people were judging him on the way he was raising his children.

"Uncle Gaara! Uncle Gaara!" Asuma called, tugging on the Kazekage's clothes, wanting to take the man's attention from his sister desperately. "Yes?" He asked, looking down at the determined child.

"Tie my shoe!" He demanded, pointing to his loose laces. Gaara had to wonder at how no one would ever dare demand anything of him -he was the Kazekage after all- other than his three year old nephew. He crouched down and began to tug at the laces, the boy gripping the sleeve of his shirt to keep his balance. Kyoko narrowed her eyes and turned to her other uncle, wanting the attention back on her.

"Uncle Kankuro! Look! I did my hair myself! Doesn't it look pretty?" She asked, beaming at the man. He looked down at her and -without the delicacy most people would have used with a child- bluntly said. "Not really."

"What's wrong with it?" She asked, her voice becoming shrill as she tried to hold back her tears. Shikamaru, seeing how this might possibly scar his daughter, pushed his way past the puppet master and crouched in front of the wide eyed girl. "It just messed up a little bit when you jumped up earlier. Here, I'll fix it for you." He said, quickly and efficiently tugging her hair into two twin pigtails.

"So, what made the two of you come here all of the sudden?" He asked, his now sufficiently pleased daughter hurrying over to Gaara and Asuma to watch as her uncle made fun shapes with the sand he kept in the gourd on his back. Gaara's eyes met with his brother's over the heads of the children as they silently communicated.

"Why, it was to come and see my favorite niece and nephew, of course." Kyoko giggled at the man. "But uncle Kankuro, we're you're only niece and nephew."

"Exactly. But if Gaara ever has any kids you two will have to start to work for it." He joked, both of the kids giggling. He was pulling out the puppets he had made for them when Garra and Shikamaru's eyes met, Gaara motioning his head slightly for them to leave the room and talk. They went into the kitchen, neither of them sitting down. Whatever they were about to discuss didn't feel like the type of conversation where you wanted to sit down.

Gaara didn't bother to work up to the subject that had brought him to Konoha, didn't bother with any false words or round-about subjects. He simply met Shikamaru's eyes with his own and started. "Next week it will be exactly one year." He didn't have to explain because Shikamaru instantly knew. After all, he had been silently counting the days in his head.

One year since she had become lost, one year since they had come to his door and had told him that she wasn't coming home, wasn't coming back to him or their children. One year since he had been cursed to fall asleep in an empty bed, instinctively reaching out for the figure that should rightfully be beside him but wasn't.

"Have you thought about taking her off of the MIA nin list?" Gaara asked. Shikamaru knew what he was saying, knew what he was getting at, but he wanted the bastard to say it himself, wanted to hear those damn words pass from his lips. "And what would we put her on after that?"

"The memorial stone for ninjas who fell in action." Shikamaru felt as it an astonishingly hot poker had been thrust through his heart. It hurt like hell but he couldn't bleed, the heat from the metal rod burning his wounds shut, leaving him to feel all of that overwhelming pain and have nothing to show for it.

"Gaara-"

"Most ninjas are only kept on the MIA list for a few months and yet she has been on there for an entire year. Maybe you should consider giving up on her coming back."

Shikamaru clenched his hands into fists, trying to restrain his anger so he wouldn't alert his children to what they were talking about. They didn't need to know any of this, not when the shadows in their eyes were finally fading.

"Never." He said in a low, harsh voice, his hand coming up to grip the counter he was leaning against. His hands went white from how tightly he held on, his anger burning hotter and brighter the tighter he gripped. "I will never sign her off that list. I will never give up on the hope that she will come home, no matter how slim it is."

"What if she's dead?"

"Then I'll accept it as soon as I see her body lying in front of me, unmoving and cold. And it will be then and only then that I'll let them put her name on that goddamned stone." Gaara watched him unblinking for a long moment before nodding, looking relieved.

"Good."

"Good?" Shikamaru questioned, his grip slackening as he relaxed marginally.

"We don't want to give up either. After all, what kind of brothers would we be if we did something as worthless as that? But Shikamaru," His always grave stare became harder. "Are you really willing to keep hoping and waiting for her to come back? Can you?"

Shikamaru heard the sound of his children's laughter, their joy and cheerfulness easing the heaviness that lay thick in the air. But there was another laugh -one that was a coarser and more straightforward but that still managed to hold a distinct femininity- that was obviously missing from the house. Until he could hear that laugh again, until it filled the home they had started to create together, he knew he could never be completely whole.

"I'll never stop waiting for her." He murmured softly, going back into the other room to make sure his children wouldn't suspected anything.

It's probably a bit graver than you were hoping for, and I apologize if it doesn't meet your expectations.

My fried Missy reads these and the other day she came up to me and said, "You're so mean! Temari is like, dieing and the only thing that helps her stay sane for all these years is the thought of her happy family, and you have Shikamaru hating her and shacking up with some girl!"

A few points here:

No1) Shikamaru doesn't hate Temari (she was referencing Monsters and Shadows), he loves her so much that it hurts. He has never, ever, given up the hope that she would come back some day, and it practically kills him.

No2) He's not "Shacking up" with Maria. They still have the separate homes, even after all their years together because Maria understands that she's just a replacement (and this hurts her more than anything), but she still has hope that one day Shikamaru will look at her without looking for Temari first.

I wrote this to show that Shikamaru never stops waiting for her to come back, no matter how much it hurts him to keep hoping.

Oh! And here's a quick how do you do to my newest sweet darlings NarutoIsMe and AelitaOfTheWolves. Hello! I'm pleased to welcome you to my little story! I hope you enjoy it!

I love you all and I'll be back soon so that I can see those precious little faces of yours.