Sai + Robin

Of all the social retards in the world, Robin was one of the worst. She grew up on a small farm with her mother, father, and two older brothers. Her main source of happiness was her horse Pearl, who her father bought from a breeder when she was ten years old. Two years later, Robin's oldest brother told her that it was the 'angry people' who burned their home, stole their horse, and murdered the rest of their family. When she was fifteen, Robin left the care of her brother, who was not yet twenty. For three years she had lived in fear of him. Every day he would hit her, yell at her, and sometimes worse. After her escape she sought solace in solitude traveling to different places and working odd jobs as a seamstress. She caught wind that Konoha was a peaceful, beautiful, and safe place to live, and she decided to set up a more permanent residence inside its walls. She knew no one in this town, and no one knew anything of her. Because she grew up so secluded and shunned human relationships as a teenager, Robin was a bit of a freak. She got a job working for a tailor and soon was making good money enough to rent a small apartment on her own while saving a little on the side. She met wonderful people who needed mended clothing, mostly shinobi with terrible tears in their favourite uniforms. While Robin immensely enjoyed small talk, she couldn't recall ever having a deep conversation. The thought of one was quite terrifying. What else was there to talk about besides the weather, anyway? Her absolute favourite customer to talk to was a boy around her age called Sai. She liked his name, it meant "paint". He was so good at small talk, it was as if he had rehearsed for hours and hours before actually talking. On a day much like any other, Robin looked up from her stitching to see who had come into the shop.

"Hello Sai." Robin greeted.

"Good morning, Robin!" Sai smiled very easily, but his smile was also very strange, as if it belonged to someone else's face.

"What do you have for me today?"

"Oh, nothing. I don't need an excuse to come and see you, do I?" Robin's face fell. This was not typical small talk. This was going into personal territory. She didn't reply, instead she stared stonily into his face. He was not uncomfortable under her gaze. Rather, he seemed disappointed at her reaction to his attempts at socialization. "I would like to spend some time with you."

"That would be fine with me..." Robin said quietly, instantly regretting her words. The correct response to these sorts of situations was NO NO NO NONO NON NO.

"I shall pick you up at three, when you're done work?"

"Yes."

At quarter to three, Robin was shitting her pants she was so scared. She decided to think up some topics of conversation in advance, so when there was silence, she would have something to say.

"I'm leaving for the day," She told the tailor.

"Okay. Have fun with that boy, Robin. He seems very nice. You have to give people a chance now and then."

"Mmmhmm." Sai came in and greeted the two of them.

"Are you ready to leave, Robin?" She nodded her head and she left the shop with Sai. Her stomach was knotted as she walked down the street next to him. He grabbed her hand as they walked and Robin pretended not to notice that they were hand in hand. "I thought, if you'd like, we might go for a walk, and then I would buy you dinner." Robin didn't say anything. Instead she pulled her hand away to tuck it under Sai's arm and she walked a bit closer to him. She preferred non-verbal communication.

"Oh, hello Sai! Who's that pretty girl on your arm?" A man called to them from a Ramen shop. He ran out eagerly to greet the couple. "Oh it's you, Robin." Naruto was a regular, because he was kind of careless. Robin had fixed his ugly orange jumpsuit too many times to count. "Are-are the two of you on a date."

"Yes." Sai replied, smiling.

"Wow. Well, good luck, buddy. I want a low down on what goes down! You better tell me tomorrow! Bye, lovers!" Naruto ran back into his favourite ramen hut.

"I rather not expain how I know him." Sai said solemnly. They walked down the road until it became a path in the forest, and then followed it more until it became little more than a deer trail.

"Let's sit down," Robin offered. She was having so much fun, just walking next to Sai. Just being with him made her feel better, and the knot in her stomach was replaced with butterflies. They sat down on a patch of moss and Sai whipped out a sketch book from his bag.

"Can I show you some of my drawings?" Robin eagerly nodded. She had always been curious about what sorts of art he did. He flicked open through a few pages of mostly small doodles until he came to a sketch of an old sewing machine. It was the one that the tailor used. Robin watched Sai as he flicked through more pages with drawings of hands on them, hands holding sheets or fabric. Then one of the hands was holding a needle and thread and Robin realized these were her hands. The entire book was full of her hands doing things, hemming, knitting, stitching, threading, and there were pictures of just her hands doing nothing. The last page of the book was a little bird on a small branch. It looked sad and it had a red chest. "It's a robin." Sai said flatly. "I really like you." He added.

"I can tell. You like my hands, right?"

"Yes. I have other sketch books, but this one is the best."

"Others?"

"Yeah." He titled his head back to look at the sky. "It's getting dark, would you like to head back to town?" Robin was really flattered and a little creeped out at Sai's sketchbook. She was glad that she had someone who kind of cared about her.

It had been a few months since their first date. Sai insisted that they were now 'boyfriend and girlfriend', as he called it. Whatever it was, Robin was enjoying it. She loved having him around. One night, after a casual meal at Robin's place, her and Sai sat on the couch. His arm was around her and she had her head tucked into his neck. In a low voice, she whispered to Sai about how he was her favourite customer and the only person in town she had ever talked to outside of work. He told her about his recent difficulty interacting socially with other people, especially his team mates, who seemed to point him in a thousand different directions when he asked for their help deciphering social etiquette.

"So I just decided to follow my feelings instead. When I get stuck, sometimes I like to smile, but I always try to do what every my instincts tell me."

"That's good. You can only really trust yourself, you know."

"I trust you, Robin."

"You trust me with your trousers,"

"Yeah, but I mean in general. I want you to trust me, too." Robin squirmed uncomfortably. She knew where this was heading. Last week, Sai had tried to have sex with her, and they almost did, then Robin got really scared and asked him to leave. She cried all night and didn't show up to work the next day. "Please, Robin. You have to let me know what's going on in your head. What happened last week?"

"Sai, you're the only person in this whole world who gives a damn about me. I don't want you to know what happened to me before I came to Konoha."

"How come?"

"You would think badly of me."

"I could never do that." Robin sat up a bit straighter and started panicking. This was too much for her to handle.

"I want you to leave," She softly plead. Sai closed his eyes and she watched as small tears rolled down his cheeks. Robin was horrified that she made this gentle, wonderful person cry. "No, no please, don't do that," She wrapped her arms around him and started to cry too. After a while he hugged her back gently until their eyes became dry. "What you tried to do," Robin said slowly. The words were hard to say. "My brother used to do to me when I was younger. It started when I was twelve, it scared me and it hurt me. When I was fifteen I got as far away as I could, and then I came here five years later." Sai pushed her away to look at her. He held her face in his hands and looked her in the eyes, as her gaze was somewhere on the wall behind his shoulder.

"Robin," He said. "I'm so sorry. If I had known earlier, I would never have...Robin," He kissed her and she softly kissed back. She liked to think about those horrible parts of her past while he was holding her, his body was comforting her, while her brother's body used to hurt her. All of a sudden Robin felt powerful, like she could control how her memories affected her.

"I love you." She told Sai.

"I love you more." Sai replied. He kissed her again and she watched his dark eyes thinking of so many things at once. Even a normal person would have difficulty assessing what to do given Robin's situation. "I love you." He repeated. "I know now that I always will. I want to be with you forever, I want to take care of you."

"I don't—" Robin started

"—you don't need someone to take care of you? Maybe not. But I will be here. I will never change how I feel about you. You take care of me, Robin. Already I see that you're just a caring person. You like to cook for me, you like to be sad when I'm sad and happy when I'm happy. I love you Robin. And I don't expect anything in return."

"Sai, I am just a mirror of you. I'm the darker reflection, but identical none the less. I want to be with you, too." She ran her fingers through his soft black hair and petted his face, gazing into his eyes. "Now that you know, I want to try again."

"No."

"I at least want to try. Please, it'll be good for me. It'll be like that chapter of my life is over. My brother is hurting me still. I think this is the only thing that can keep me from that pain."

"No, it won't be good for you. The same thing is going to happen."

"How long did you spend reading up about how to engage in sexual activities?" Sai blushed. Robin knew that he didn't figure out what sex was based in his 'instincts'.

"A few hours I guess." He said sheepishly.

"More like a few weeks, right?"

"...Right."

"Please, I trust you, Sai, I know you won't hurt me. You can't. Not even if you tried because I love you too much." She smiled and Sai grinned crookedly; the first time his true smile emerged.

Although the first time wasn't perfect, it was pretty good. Robin was on cloud nine. Her daily routine became less like grudge work and more like a blessing. Every day she had with Sai was a literal gift. They were both so nervous, but after a few weeks of trying they were getting really good and experimenting with different things. The only thing that kept her down was a weak sort of nausea all day long for the past few days. When she went to sleep, she prayed it would leave her, but when she woke up it was always worse. She told Sai about it when he came to pick her up after work and he suggested they ask his teammate who was a medical ninja. Robin hesitantly agreed.

"I know she'll be at the library right now, let's go find her." Sai said. They walked arm in arm to the library as Sai asked her more and more about how he felt. Her answers seemed to worry him, but Robin knew it was probably just something she ate recently, or maybe worse. Maybe she was getting the flu. "I see her over there." Sai said, leading Robin past a few tables over to a pink haired girl with her nose in a book. "Hello Sakura. May I introduce you to Robin? Robin, this is Sakura my team mate." Sakura looked up at Robin and looked very surprised.

"This is Robin?" She asked.

"Hello." Robin said.

"Hello, it's nice to finally meet Sai's new reason for living. This guy does not shut up about you. Ever." Sakura rolled her eyes.

"Sakura," Sai said. "Robin says she doesn't feel well, and I'm worried. Do you think you could—"

"Oh yes, of course, I'll have you feeling right as rain before you can say hopscotch." Sakura said. She invited Robin over and told Sai that he could come in half an hour later once they were done.

Half an hour later the girls were crying. One from happiness, one from fear.

"Robin, this is so exciting! I'm so happy for the two of you! I wish I could have a baby with someone like Sai!"

"You don't understand, Sakura. This is horrible." Robin sobbed.

"Sai is going to be so glad. You have no idea how much he's going to like this. Robin cried some more. "What are you so scared of?" There was a knock on the door, and Sakura went to get it as Robin quickly tried to dry off her face. She started thinking of another town to move to, maybe she would go back to that little place by that river. Where was that again?

"Robin, how do you feel? Did you figure anything out, Sakura?"

"Yes. Robin is just fine, she has something important to tell you, but she's going to be fine. Take her to the hospital in the morning and we'll go over it some more."

"Hospital?" Sai asked.

"It's nothing, Sai. Nothing bad. You two go home." Sai thanked Sakura and asked Robin what was wrong. She said she would rather wait until they got home.

They had been home for two hours when Robin stopped crying. She had no tears left, no energy to cry them. Yesterday she was blissful and happy. Now she was nauseous, sad, and afraid.

"Okay," She said finally.

"Are you pregnant?" Sai asked quietly. Robin stared wide eyed at him and slowly nodded. "I read that that happens. Why are you crying so much, what are you afraid of?"

"It's scary. I don't know what to do or what to expect from myself, from you, or from..." She could barely make herself say the word. "or from the baby."

"Robin, you are my family. And now we're having a baby together. We're just a family now. There are lots of families that get by fine without being sad or afraid. We're going to be happy together. I'm sorry that we didn't plan for this to happen, but this whole pregnancy thing—" He made a brushing gesture with his hands. "It's so small compared to everything else. It's just the sum of all of our immense happiness. "

"I lost you at 'family'."

"I love you." Sai said, grinning crookedly. He kissed Robin. "Don't you want to be happy with me?"

"Yes," Robin said, breathless and quick. "I love you, Sai. I'm sorry that I cry all the time."

"It's no worry."

"You're the only one who cares about me, Sai. I won't have anything if I don't have you."

"Without you I'm nothing, my peach."

"So that's it?"

"That's it." He put his hands on her stomach. "We put the bun in three weeks ago, so in a little less than nine months it will be ready to come out of the oven."