Hi. That's the second story - ok, fist part of the second story from my Nara Family Chronicles fic. I've tried hard... Reviews will encourage me a lot to continue you know... Hope you'll like this one.
Fears. Part 1.
Temari was sitting numb on the roof her eyes fixed on a face of a peacefully sleeping baby in her arms. The picture seemed idyllic on the surface but the young mother's mind was as muddled as Konoha's sky which was getting cloudy with a great speed. "How was that possible? What's wrong with me? Is it going to be this way every single time? I was so close to fail my squad… I was so close to be slain and then…", kunoichi felt again as icy sticky tentacles appeared in the upper part of her stomach and moved straight to her heart. "Kso! I'm Sabaku no Temari! I'm the fearless kunoichi from Suna! I feel no fear!" The last one is certainly a lie… oh, ok, a cunning - but one has to bear up oneself.
The last time before today's one was not so long ago by the way.
Kadzemaru turned five months already. And she picked a time for couple of trainings every day. Joshino helped keeping the house a lot. Shikamaru was almost constantly in the village also. He was appointed to the mission assignment group while she was still pregnant. Young Nara took the new job with astonishing enthusiasm and pleasure. Probably he was stimulated by the fact that his father was the chief of the said group for rather a long time and received the highest accolades. Shikamaru studied attentively trough shinobi's personal cards, read mission reports and observed trainings. Those remarkable brains of him gave birth to loads of combined techniques. He'd organized group trainings, used to formed squads and continued to teach in the academy. As for Temari she began to feel herself "rusted". Yeah, she gave several master-classes in the academy, took couple of short term easy missions with genin teams whose jounins were away at some high ranked tasks. But that was definitely not enough for her dynamic personality. But still she never let an idea to drop feeding Kadzemaru at the breast. So after some considering Temari asked Sakura to employ her in the hospital – she mastered the elementary medical jutsus and wouldn't mind to study more. Everything went pretty well at first and Temari mastered several new tricks in just couple of weeks though to say the truth she was much more effective in studying fighting techniques. She made it a rule to spend in hospital two hours in the morning and two hours after lunch-time while Kadzemaru was asleep under the care of Joshino. She already managed to heal ordinary injuries all by herself.
It was cloudy fall evening then… Gentle rain dropped… Temari was in a staffroom making ready to leave though she didn't really want to go home. Five days ago Shikamaru went for a mission – nothing that special – a reconnaissance , there were rumors about somewhat fishy smugglers. But… he was supposed to be back yesterday. And there were no any messages from his squad. Hokage promised to send a search party if there won't be any news till tomorrow noon. Yesterday's evening appeared to be as long as a month to Temari and she already feared the upcoming evening a lot. But her duties in the hospital were done and her baby was about to wake up, maybe he was already awake. A sharp shout "Shizune! Sakura! Somebody!" and loud clatter in the hall snapped her out of her thoughts. She quickly put on her robe and shot out of the room. Several medics and shinobis bent over somebody lying right on the floor. "To the operating room! Hurry! Call Tsunade immediately!" Sakura's voice sounded with a strange sibilation. Someone rushed to the entrance. Temari took a couple of steps and stumbled upon rent and bloody green vest. Exactly the same as Shikamaru's. She picked it up and a black hair tie fell down to her feet. Exactly the same as Shikamaru's. The vision before kunoichi's eyes began to blur. She got the feeling that everything inside her body shrank into small but very hard lump. She breathed in convulsively and made several firm steps towards operating room when she heard "Hold on, Iruka-sensei! Your students are all ok. We'll pull you through. Just don't you dare to sleep – look at me!" "Temari-san, it's such a luck you're still here!" – young medic kunoichi sprang out to the corridor – "Please help! There're two genins with injuries – nothing bad – but they had no time to take care of themselves hurrying up to take Iruka-sensei here." Temari got busy healing several cuts of a teenager shinobi. About an hour later she was heading home and the vision of a bloody vest and a hair tie on the hospital floor was still before her eyes… Joshino met her with short but irate speech and son – with a desperate shriek and a rather painful bite by his two recently cut teeth. Shikamaru was back four hours later. He was exhausted but safe. Wearing the same vest and the same tie in his hair that loomed in Temari's mind while she was feeding the baby, walking home with him, bathing and getting him to bed, while she was cooking rice for dinner and even when her beloved man was fast asleep nestling up her shoulder with his nose. She went to hospital for a while till then but later told Sakura that obviously medicine's not her story and got herself arranged a course for far distance fighting in the academy.
Today she was back from her first high ranked mission she got after her son's birth. She was so excited when she was appointed to it – she missed a "real action" for such a long time…
to be continued...