AN: and here we are with temari's pov chapter! there'll be a couple more but hopefully not too many? we're just setting the places here.

guest: again oh my gosh thank you so much! you get pretty much everything i'm trying to get across in this fic. babies don't fix everything. neither does marriage. especially different ideologies and in a ninja world. sasuke does have A LOT to unpack and he'll be back to work on it soon enough. as for boruto,,,, yeah it's gonna mess him up some the poor boy.

They're at a table, all three of them, food spread out in front of them, boys across from her, when she broaches the topic.

"I think we should get married."

In retrospect, looking back, there were probably plenty of ways to do this more gracefully. Gently. But Temari was not raised to be gentle, only to be graceful in battle, and so here? Here she comes out and says it outright.

Shikamaru, directly across from her, chokes on his rice while Chouji goes slack jawed, eyes wide. "What?! What?" The Nara's astonishment isn't too unexpected- it is kind of out of the blue and Temari had made it plain before she had no interest in marriage. Not this young. Not when she had her career and life ahead of her.

But plans change.

"All three of us? Is that legal?" Chouji pipes up, sheepish and wide eyed. Temari snorts, waving her hand dismissively in response. "No. Just me and the Nara. I think it's more needed in this situation."

Shikamaru, as smart as he is, still hasn't seemed to catch on, brows furrowed. "Why?" He states plainly again, staring at her hard. Trying to gauge her.

"Well. I just thought it would be a good step to saving grace- seeing as I'm pregnant and all."

"WHAT?!"

She first noticed the issue several weeks ago. Her period was late- which wasn't too unusual with how active she was and the birth control she was on. Sometimes she'd only get spotting or it'd be late by a week or two. The fatigue she felt, as well, was no issue. She had just returned from Konoha and had been on several country border patrols since her return.

The concern however, came when the next month passed again without her monthly period- and how her fatigue hadn't fixed itself with time. She had been aching more as well, tender in her chest and abdomen- something that hadn't happened since she was fifteen and still developing into her body.

She wasn't an idiot. She knew her body and knew this wasn't normal- and she wasn't naive enough to believe that birth control always worked a hundred percent of the time. She could have lost track of time- missed a pill she should have taken- taken a chakra pill that erased its affects- anything.

She waited another week, just to see if it was a bug, but when the nausea began to hit her- she knew.

An appointment at the suna hospital, armed with a terse glare and promises from the staff not to breathe a word, only confirmed it for her.

There was another Nara on the way.

Wonderful.

She had weighed her options after that. There was no reason she had to stay pregnant after all, or keep the baby after it was born- and for a while that was the main option she looked at. Ending the pregnancy before anyone else found out. In the end, though, a nagging voice in the back of her head about how good her boys would be with children stayed her hand. True she hadn't ever imagined herself with children- but that had mostly been because of the way she was raised. How the world was. Suna and Konoha were different now- she could almost imagine herself raising a stable child in them now.

An almost image that was going to be reality six to seven months, once she made up her mind.

What came next was more planning. Citizens in Suna were rarely married, (it became more common as more and more foreigners moved into the village), and it was even rarer for a Suna born citizen to have a family name. Most had titles instead- a moniker a shinobi could earn and then would pass on to their children once they died. This was how everyone traced their family lines as well. They had no clans of normal means, like in the other hidden villages. (the only exception was her family. the kazekage clan was a means to an ends, back when suna was first formed, a clan of male inheritance and importance so the other hidden villages would take them seriously. rumors still persisted of the first kazekage having actually been a woman, disguised, so the village would be recognized as something to be respected.)

All of this meant Temari wouldn't be judged for being unwed and pregnant. In fact the Suna Council would most likely prefer it that way so, in case she had a son, the Kazekage clan line would stay pure without outside interference. Marriage meant some other clan or village had a claim to a potential future Kazekage.

Yes, Suna would prefer she remained unmarried.

Konoha, on the other hand…

Shikamaru, (and she knew he was the father. the times she and chouji had sex were few and far between.), was the head of the Nara clan. He had enemies in his own clan council and the village council- elders who disliked someone so young with different ideas than their own being the assistant to the Hokage and head. Rising through ranks so quickly and easily.

If word got out he had a child unmarried- they'd use it against him, she was sure. That or they'd force him to marry her anyway and claim the kid. (not letting him not know was out of the picture now- and so was raising the child as if they didn't have any fathers in konoha. temari knew what it was like to grow up with only one parent- always missing and longing for the other- she wouldn't let her child go through that.)

And if Konoha put pressure on Suna to make Temari marry him- Suna's council would have a fit. If they got married by their own choice, however, before anyone knew about the pregnancy-

The council of Suna would still be upset but, not as much as they would with willingly allowing a potential Kazekage heir being sent to the claim of another village and clan. And Shikamaru's clan wouldn't feel disgraced by a scandal-

She was nearly three months along, with another trip to Konoha in a week, when she made up her mind.

She and Shikamaru would just have to get married.

She set off for Konoha again, on her own a week later. There was an United Shinobi meeting again- the official reason for the visit- and Temari was the Suna representative. She didn't let Gaara or Kankuro know, in the end, if only because she knew her brothers. Gaara would worry- he'd refuse to let her leave without several guards- or at all- and that would let everyone know something was up.

And Kankuro would want to kill Shikamaru- or at least maim him a little. Temari couldn't have that yet so, she kept her mouth shut about the pregnancy.

And the marriage idea? That would go over even worse.

And that's what brought her to here, at this restaurant a day or two after the meeting, having dinner with her two boys. She had been attempting to drop hints all day- and clearly by Chouji's expression he had caught on some- but Shikamaru, the genius he was, hadn't seemed to pick up on them.

"You know. What happens when two people fuck-"

The Nara blanched, swallowing, before shaking the shock off his face. The sweat on the corners of his face, beading up, were the only signs he had been half choking earlier.

"God, I got it, Temari."

She put her drink down, eyeing the two, as Shikamaru seemed to think things over. She knew he'd come to the same conclusion she did.

"You've thought this over?'

"What do you take me for, Nara?"

He sighed.

"I guess we're getting married then."

Chouji smiled, leaning against Shikamaru, bright and sweet. "You're gonna be a parent, Shikamaru!"

Temari corrected: "We're all going to be parents."

There wasn't anyway she was leaving either one of her two boys behind.