Notes: See, I told you I'd update eventually, lol! Captain Sanada is a creation of Maldoror GW, from her fic Diplomatic Relations, and does not belong to me. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping nobody minds me taking him for a little spin before returning him. Thanks for all the support and kind but firm urging for me to post again!

CHAPTER 9: In Which Gaara Doesn't Like Anything

A number of strange rumors were going around Suna.

Many of them involved the Kazekage's seemingly failing health or unstable mental state, and Lee was stopped on the street by an old woman to be questioned about Gaara's chakra patterns on the night of the full moon last May when Jupiter and Saturn were aligned. One of the rumors even stated that that Suna was readying once more for war and they would all die bloody, terrible deaths at the hands of otherworldly marauders who knew secret death jutsu.

Luckily, none of the rumors involved the Kazekage bearing Lee's lovechild.

Still, it made Lee feel jumpy and nervous to see Gaara behind the beaded screen where his father, the former Kazekage, used to sit to keep a proper distance from those meeting with him. Gaara sat quietly, his Kazekage robes billowing out over him to hide his belly, carrying out his public appointments with his usual emotionless expression and neutral tone.

Only Lee knew what had really happened that night and what Gaara was really feeling.

Sakura-san had been recalled immediately, of course, even though she and Naruto hadn't even made it back to Konoha yet. "This had better be good," she told Lee, cracking her knuckles in a way that, if she didn't have such a naturally sweet and kindly disposition, would've made Lee think she was about to bash someone's teeth in.

Namely, his.

Gaara was limp like overcooked ramen, letting himself be poked, prodded, and even scolded by Sakura-san without so much as a peep.

Something was clearly still very wrong with him.

"There's nothing wrong with you," Sakura-san finally declared. "The baby is fine. You're fine. Take your vitamins and eat more green vegetables. I'm going home. Again."

Gaara's lips formed into an odd pucker. He looked down at the bump of his belly and laid one shaky-fingered hand against it. "Naruto," he said in a quiet voice. "Is it still brand new?"

"Eh?" said Naruto, who was over by the counter fiddling with the sink nozzle.

"Babies are brand new," Gaara murmured, "you told me. You said they're perfect and… do you think… do you think I broke it?"

Naruto blinked. "Huh?"

"You said," Gaara continued, "that I should have a baby."

Naruto's mouth hung open. "When was this?" he squawked. "Was I drunk?"

Gaara didn't have a chance to answer before Sakura-san had Naruto in a headlock. "What did you tell him, you little--!"

"Gack! Nothing!" Naruto said, which was a feat with Sakura-san's forearm around his jugular. "I didn't tell him-- gluck gurk gnuhuh!"

"You did," Gaara said, unaffected by the strange purplish color Naruto's face was turning. "When we were talking that night about how wrong it was, sealing demons into children. You said babies are perfect, brand new beings. That even I was once perfect."

Sakura-san paused in her strangle-hold, gaping at Gaara as though he had just said something that changed her fundamental worldview, like "the sky is green," or "kittens bark."

Gaara pressed both hands to his stomach, a crease forming between his browless eyes. "You said that if I had a baby and loved it, it could be perfect too. That even something so broken could create something pure."

Naruto coughed, tugged at Sakura-san's arm, and wheezed, "I did?"

Sakura-san looked down at him, an odd sort of admiration in her eyes. "Did you? Naruto, that's almost… inspirational…"

"Oh," Naruto squeaked, "oh yeah. Definitely. That's me, inspirational to the core, haha!"

"That is so beautiful!" Lee cried, tears running down his cheeks and fist raised in triumph.

Naruto and Sakura-san both gaped. "Er…" Sakura-san began.

"I was also intrigued by the sheer amount of sex Lee and I would need to have to start the baby," Gaara continued, much to the horror of all present. "Though it seems that after four or five times in one day--"

"Ah-hahaha!" said Lee, rubbing the back of his neck and wishing he were dead just a little.

Naruto, who was now hanging loosely in Sakura-san's grasp, had turned a very unusual and most likely not very healthy shade of green. Sakura-san released him, and he fell with a plonk onto the floor. "Tell him the baby's still brand new!" she hissed.

"Uh," Naruto said from the floor, "yeah, sure."

"I want a new doctor," Gaara demanded, looking perturbed.

Lee sighed and wiped away the last traces of his manly tears, glad his boyfriend was reassured and back to normal.

Now that Sakura-san and Naruto had left again, Sakura-san promising she'd be back the week the baby was due, taking audiences behind the bead curtain was only one of the precautions they decided to take. Gaara seemed to be showing more and more every day, his belly getting so big that if anyone saw him standing up, it would be terribly obvious something odd was going on.

Temari was the one to alert the ANBU.

Lee did not envy her.

"I'm sorry, Temari-san, could you please repeat that? For a moment, I thought you said that your brother, our Kazekage, was pregnant."

"Yes, Captain Sanada," she replied. "I did."

"Oh," the current head of ANBU replied calmly. "That explains it then."

Because it did.

For months, the Kazekage had been acting strangely, even for his standards. He'd been unusually distracted in meetings, oddly concerned with internal security, and peculiarly unwilling to leave the village for any extent of time. And then there was the vomiting, the fatigue, and the recently-acquired habit of rubbing at his stomach. Had he been a woman, Sanada would have guessed the situation ages ago.

"He's now six months along, and after the latest, ah… issues…" Temari gestured broadly, "we decided it was time to enlist ANBU support and determine the best course of action. For the remainder of the pregnancy and birth, and... whatnot."

"Yes," he told her, "Of course."

A lesser man would panic. He would shrink in fear in the face of such imminent disaster. He might even cower under a desk and cry for his mother. But Captain Sanada was made of sterner stuff. He had been head of ANBU for over a decade and had proudly served Suna, her Kazekage and people, since he graduated from the Academy at the age of eight. He was a veteran of three wars, had killed and ordered countless ninja to their death, and he was not so easily alarmed.

Sanada bowed respectfully to Temari and then began. "There is an abandoned garrison twenty miles outside the Southern city walls. It hasn't been used in years and is only kept supplied with the absolute basics needed to support life in case of emergency. I took shelter there once during a sandstorm some years back, but as far as I know, no one has been there since, and few know of its existence."

Temari nodded in recognition. "So you think we should take the Kazekage there until this is over, to keep him out of danger and the public eye?"

"No," he told her. "Absolutely not. I think you should call an Assembly of the Elders and inform them of this situation immediately. I think you should call the Konoha healer back and have a staff of med-nins on call twenty-four hours a day in case of emergency, as well as a midwife. I think you should have me double the personal guard on the Kazekage. Moreover, I think you should have briefed me on this situation months ago, and the fact that you did not will only complicate matters now."

Temari sighed and rubbed her forehead in a way that suggested it had been aching for some time. "Right, I know. But it's not exactly like I have a whole lot of precedent for contingency plans in the case of male pregnancy of the Jinchuuriki Kazekage."

"Acknowledged," Sanada replied shortly, not at all pleased at the tight spot she'd put him in, yet very relieved he wasn't in her shoes.

"So then, what was it you had planned for the abandoned garrison?" Temari asked.

"Well," he replied, "in an abandoned garrison twenty miles from civilization, no one can hear you scream."

Temari was silent for several long moments.

"I've always respected you," she told him, "but I never realized how much until this very moment."

Sanada bowed deferentially. "I am at your service," he told her, and swept out of the room to spread the terror to his subordinates.

Gaara didn't like being fat-pregnant.

He didn't like having swollen ankles and the need to piss every hour on the hour. He didn't like how hot it was in his rooms during the day or how cold it was at night or the sounds of people outside the walls in the evenings laughing over their sake. He didn't like having his ANBU guard him even more closely, or hiding his condition from everyone below Jounin level, or Shukaku rustling around on the tips of his thoughts thinking vicious things about the baby. He didn't like his gourd, and he didn't like his clothes, and he didn't like his how he couldn't touch his toes.

In fact, he didn't like much of anything right now.

He especially didn't like the fact that Lee was holding an odd strip of fabric around his painfully stretched belly and mumbling pleasantly to himself.

"Stop," Gaara ordered. "I don't like that."

But Lee only hummed and stretched the strip from his chest to his navel, reading off a number before wrapping the fabric around his waist again.

"I don't like you," Gaara told him.

Lee looked hurt.

Gaara didn't like when Lee looked hurt. "I don't like when you look hurt."

Lee sighed and kissed him on the nose. "I love you so very much, and our baby too," Lee told him, and then pulled something green from his weapons pouch.

"I don't like green," Gaara informed him.

Lee blinked. "You love green!"

"No," insisted Gaara, "I don't. I don't like colors today."

Lee hummed and patted Gaara's belly in a comforting sort of way but generally ignored the comment. "Gai-sensei was so thoughtful to send this! Won't it look adorable, Gaara?"

Gaara looked at the proffered object, which was small and dark green, had what appeared to be arms and legs, and was dangling in the shiny, floppy way only spandex could. Gaara crossed his arms menacingly.

"It's a Baby's First Training Uniform!" Lee exclaimed. "With special tear-away bottom for quick diaper changing access!"

"I don't like Gai-sensei," Gaara told him.

Lee's bottom lip stuck out and threatened to begin quivering. When Gaara didn't relent, his lips puckered, chin trembled, and eyes sparkled with tears, a single drip of snot running down his upper lip.

"I don't like when you do that," Gaara accused.

"Is there anything you DO like, Gaara?" Lee asked, wiping away the tears and snot. "Anything I can get you, or do for you in all my eternal loving devotion, to show that you are first and foremost in my heart of hearts?"

Gaara stared. His Lee said such strange things. He didn't like them.

"Food?" Lee asked. "Or something to drink?"

Gaara shook his head.

"Something to read?" Lee asked.

He shook his head again. "I don't like reading."

"A bath so you can cool down?" Lee offered.

"No," Gaara said.

"A bit of light, doctor-approved exercise to--"

"I don't like exercise," Gaara interrupted before he could say anything about Youth or Springtimes.

Lee frowned. "Sex?"

"I don't like--" Gaara blinked. "Oh. Okay."

Lee beamed triumphantly and kissed him.

Several hours later, Lee was snoring comfortingly with his naked arm wrapped around Gaara's fat middle, and Gaara decided he didn't not like him after all. The baby was jerking, kicking, and likely attempting any number of complex and uncomfortable jutsu in his uterus, all of which pressed very firmly upon his bladder.

"If you knew I was your mother, you wouldn't be doing this, baby," Gaara informed it with a light poke. "It's not nice."

Shukaku hissed something awful and bloodthirsty at the comment, and Gaara frowned. "I don't like you," Gaara told the creature, and it laughed its horrible murderous laugh.

Then there was nothing left to do but ignore the demon and go trudge to the bathroom. The ANBU guarding the hallway made a strange noise and backed away from him toward the wall as he passed. He did the same thing when Gaara came back, which Gaara didn't like. Gaara stopped in front of the man, glaring at his bird mask.

The ANBU swallowed. "Kazekage-sama," he squeaked. "Is there anything you nude? I mean-- need! I mean-- I'm glad you've gotten some sex. I mean-- REST! You're looking very well-hung today! I MEAN--"

The man bowed his head.

Gaara thought he heard the sound of weeping.

Perhaps next time he ventured outside the walls of his bedroom after sex, he should put some clothes on. These humans were so very strange when it came to such things. He didn't like them.

As it seemed the only logical thing to do, Gaara used a Katon on the green Gai-sensei baby outfit. The jutsu flared up brightly for several seconds, and Gaara held the stretchy green fabric out at a safe distance, admiring his work. He decided he liked the outfit better on fire.

Except that it wasn't on fire. It was still hanging there, looking small and green and Youthful. Baring his teeth at it, Gaara threw it to the ground and climbed back into bed with Lee, slapping at his arm when his boyfriend tried to wrap it around him.

Gaara didn't like fire-resistant fabric.