It was spring in Konoha, and the rains were just coming to their end, heralding the arrival of bright blooms of flowers. It would be a relief for the small garden of the Nara residence where Shikamaru and Temari now lived; as a gift upon her marriage, her brother Gaara had given her several of his most beautiful specimens of cacti, which they had planted together behind the home. Cacti drown easily, and the spring showers had not been kind to them. Now that the skies had cleared, Shikamaru routinely found himself glancing out the back of the house, wondering if the delicate blossoms would ever return to the spiny plants.

A few weeks ago, while the sky outside was gray and drizzly, Temari had given birth to a tiny baby boy. He was almost a month earlier than expected, and he was the smallest human being Shikamaru had ever seen, smaller than Mirai when she was born, smaller even than Naruto's son, who had entered the world that past winter. Temari's brothers had not been present. They were engaged in some high-profile political reforms in Suna, and had not planned to finish until a few days before the baby's anticipated arrival date. It had been a hectic, terrifying night – Naruto sent word to Gaara as Shikamaru stayed by Temari's side with his mother, whom had been Temari's first and best counselor on the tribulations of pregnancy. Ino and Chouji were both there for Shikamaru as well, which filled his chest with love and also with heartbreak, that those he considered his own siblings were there – but that Temari's were not.

And he knew that Gaara and Kankuro had intended on being there for the birth. In adulthood they had grown just as protective of their elder sister as she had always been for them. Some months prior to the birth, Temari and Shikamaru had ventured to Suna to inform her brothers of her pregnancy, and tell them she would not be in any condition to make the journey again until well after her child was born. It was on that trip that not his wife, nor the Kazekage, but the least serious and most flippant of all three siblings, Kankuro, had taken Shikamaru gravely aside as Temari spoke with Gaara. She was smiling gently, but he was not. He looked worried.

It was then that Shikamaru learned for the first time of a mother dead giving life to her child, and suddenly he realized the expression on Gaara's face wasn't quite worry, not really. It was fear.

In bed together much later, sweating from the heat of passion and of the desert, Shikamaru asked his wife about it. She took his hand, resting both his and hers against her stomach, barely swollen in the first weeks of pregnancy.

"It's sweet," she said mildly, staring up at the dark ceiling, "that they want to protect me. But they're fighters, and this isn't a fight. Of course they feel helpless. This is my burden, not theirs."

Shikamaru held her. "Burden," he repeated.

That was when she glanced at him, lovingly, with a little bit of amusement. "You try growing a child inside your womb for nine months," she told him, with a hint of scorn. "Then tell me how it's not a burden."

But it had not been nine months, and their son was born small. When he was born, Temari held him against her skin, and the medical-nin had bound mother to child, flooding his tiny body with her strong chakra. Knowing how exhausted she was, Shikamaru had protested, offering his own instead, but his own mother had been the one to calmly tell him that Temari had plenty left to give her child. He would learn this, she said, in time.

Kankuro's explanation for his brother's fear had returned to Shikamaru then, as he watched his wife, almost unconscious in exhaustion, keep their baby alive. He took her hand, and put his other hand to their child, and doctors be damned, he had given his family everything he could.

Temari had lived. So had their son, whom they named Shikadai. Every night at the hospital he slept on his mother's chest, drawing strength from her, and they took him home a week later. When Shikamaru glanced at the garden upon their return, he saw the closed bulb of a flower beginning to bloom on a desert cactus.

Shikadai was healthy, although he was small. His eyes were at first the bright blues of his uncle Gaara, but they soon began to darken to the deeper blue-green of his mother's. Kankuro sent word that he and Gaara would come to Konoha as soon as they could to meet their nephew, but they must finish some delicate proceedings first. Temari had replied telling them not to rush; both she and Shikadai were healthy and happy, and given that they'd missed the main event, they might as well take their time now.

Shikamaru loved his tiny, precious son. His baby – his with Temari. After everything he had been through, everything he had seen and learned and been given, and lost – there was no greater gift than this. Than a child in your arms, safe and small and gentle, trusting you completely to keep it safe.

Gaara and Kankuro were on their way now. They would reach Konoha in a day or so. Lately, Temari had been missing her homeland, and Shikamaru knew this. She hated rain, and thought it constantly too cold. She would hold her baby while he fed at her breast and tell him stories about her village. "Suna is your home too, Shikadai," she murmured to him, oblivious of Shikamaru's tender gaze. "You are clan to the Kazekage. Practically a prince."

Shikamaru leaned in, placing one gentle hand on his son's head, brushing the wispy hair growing already. To the baby, he added, "Much more exciting than Papa's clan, anyhow."

This had prompted no laugh from Temari. She was slow to laugh now, granting her typical smirks and smiles sparingly. It was, according to his mother, not unusual after a woman gives birth. He would give her time, and space with her child, and all the love he could convey to her.

One night – springtime warmth was beginning to bloom, and he slept half-naked, always too hot in such close proximity with his sleeping wife – Shikamaru awoke in the darkness, and Temari wasn't there.

First there was a spike of fear, that something terrible had happened, that Temari was gone or missing or worse, and then a greater spike of fear as he thought of Shikadai in the other room, tiny, defenseless Shikadai-

And then he calmed himself. No one was after Temari of the Sand or her baby, not in Konoha or Suna. He had heard nothing to indicate a struggle. And her slippers, usually by the side of their bed, were not there. It was perfectly natural for a mother to get up in the middle of the night to tend to her baby. All that surprised Shikamaru was that the crying of their son, of which he was usually acutely aware, had not woken him from his slumber.

Shikamaru got out of bed, and headed towards the nursery. At first they had intended on bringing the baby into their own bed, to continue the chakra treatments Temari had been giving Shikadai in the hospital, but the doctors advised them not to. No matter how Shikamaru's mother disapproved of this, Shikadai had stayed mostly in the nursery – although it was only one room over, so that they could hear the baby's cries clearly.

The door to the nursery was open, and silver moonlight filtered in from a window opposite the crib. Shikamaru stood at the door, leaning against the frame.

Temari sat on the floor, her back against the crib, Shikadai in her arms. She looked tired. She blinked up at Shikamaru, and her normally clear eyes swam with something that looked unfamiliar in her gaze.

Without hesitation, he sat down as well, sitting cross-legged beside her, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. "Trouble sleeping?" he asked.

"Not me," she replied simply, looking down at the baby. When Shikamaru followed her gaze, he noticed that Shikadai wasn't asleep in her arms; he seemed oddly lucid, reaching with one tiny fist towards his mother's face. He made a gentle gurgling sound.

Slightly ashamed that he had allowed the baby to wake his wife without realizing it himself, Shikamaru asked, "Was he crying?"

Temari shook her head. "No."

This gave Shikamaru slight pause. "He hungry?" he asked.

"No," answered Temari. "It's too late for him to eat, besides."

"Is he okay?"

"Seems alright."

There was another pause. "Are you okay?" he asked.

This one, she did not answer immediately. Instead she exhaled a deep breath through her nose, holding her child close to her chest. Shikadai made another slight cooing sound.

That was when Shikamaru realized there were tears on her cheeks.

"Hey," he said, turning to face her, wrapping an arm around her and the baby. "Hey, hey. What's wrong? Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," she answered stubbornly, wiping her face with her shoulder. There was a short silence, wherein Shikamaru got the impression she wasn't finished, and then she admitted: "I'm thinking about my brother."

Brother, not brothers. It wasn't especially hard to guess which one she meant, although it never really was.

"Yeah," said Shikamaru, with a gentle grin. "They'll be here soon – tomorrow, maybe. You need to clean up your act before they get here. You don't want them seeing you like this, huh?"
With relief, Shikamaru saw her respond to this just as he had anticipated. Weakly, she returned his smile. "No, I guess not," she replied. "You're supposed to be the crybaby, not me."

"Right," he agreed, nodding his head. "And you're their big sister. The only strong one out of the three of you, to be honest."

Her smile seemed bitter, but she leaned forward and kissed Shikamaru. He gladly returned the kiss, wiping away the tears still on her face as he did so. When they parted, she lingered at his lips, their baby snuggled gently in between them.

"I used to have nightmares about him," she whispered.

A frown creased Shikamaru's brown, and he pulled away slightly. "About Shikadai?"

Temari shook her head, cradling her baby in her arms. "About my brother," she admitted, in the low darkness of the Nara nursery. "About Gaara. When I was young I was so afraid of him, like everybody else in the village. And it wasn't – it wasn't the demon, the monster inside of him. I mean, it was, on some level, but…"

She pursed her lips, as if struggling to force the words from her throat. Sensing this would take some time, Shikamaru gently pulled her towards him, allowing her to lean back against his chest, putting his arms on hers so they both held their son.

"Kankuro was still so young," she whispered. Her eyes were fixed on her child, and her voice sounded afraid, which was not something Shikamaru was accustomed to hearing in his wife's tone. "He didn't remember her, not really. But I was – just old enough to remember, when she died. It's different from dying in battle, it's all so – senseless."

She broke off, apparently unable to continue. Her arms around their baby slackened slightly, and Shikamaru's tightened.

"He was so small," she murmured, troubled, lost in her memories. "Smaller than Shikadai. So small sometimes I still can't believe he lived. It must have been the demon," she said, as if in confession, as if she had never dared to voice this thought aloud to any other living soul. "The One-Tail kept him alive, I'm sure of it. But I can't stand to let myself believe that. If it's true, then maybe it cared about him more than we knew. Maybe it cared about him more than – more than we did."

There was an agonizingly heavy silence.

Temari closed her eyes and dropped her face towards her baby. "He was so small," she mumbled again, into the cloth swaddling Shikadai. "I should have loved him, but I feared him – I feared a baby, Shikamaru, a child – because I thought he killed my mother."

Lowering his face to press his lips against the crown of her head, Shikamaru replied soothingly, "You were young."

"I was cruel. It would've killed my mother all over again to see how I treated her son."

"He forgives you," countered Shikamaru simply. "He forgave you a long time ago, Temari. If you can't see that, then you don't know your brother as well as you think you do."

Temari gave a small sniff. Shikamaru was uncertain whether or not she had begun to cry again, but he made no attempt to look. After a few moments, her shoulders stopped shaking, and she lay against Shikamaru, loose against his touch.

"Shikadai's not sleeping," she murmured.

"Yes he is," replied Shikamaru. "It's just that he's a baby, he wakes up and falls asleep ten times a night. Kurenai-sensei said Mirai was the same way."

But he heard what lay just beneath Temari's words.

"Of course he's sleeping," Shikamaru added. "Temari, listen. He's a normal, healthy baby. We're gonna love him and protect him. You were a child then too, and you don't have anything to feel guilty about, but whatever it is you're still carrying around – we're gonna make it right, with our baby."

Temari lifted one of her hands, and trailed a finger down Shikadai's tiny cheek. He cooed at his mother's touch. "I love him so much," she whispered, but still, she almost sounded afraid. "More than anything. And I want to love my family now – all of them, I really do. I want to put all of the hate and fear behind me."

She hesitated.

"But," she continued, sounding deeply distressed, "I just can't – I can't understand what would possess a parent to condemn their child to a life of loneliness and suffering. I look at this baby right now and I think I'd rather die than ever allow anyone to lay a hand on him. I'd die." She paused. "That scares me, Shikamaru. How much I love this child. How much I hate my father."

"Temari…if Gaara could forgive him-"

"I'm not Gaara," said Temari icily. "I'm his older sibling. It's my job to protect him and look out for him. And I failed him."

There was a long silence. Once more, Shikamaru enveloped his wife in an embrace, and pressed his face into her hair.

"You were a kid," he muttered, softly. "Listen. He was your father too, and his cruelty against your brother was cruelty against you, too. If you can find all this compassion in yourself for Gaara when he was just a child – surely you can find compassion for yourself, too."

Neither of them said anything. Temari allowed herself to be held. In his parents' arms, Shikadai closed his little eyes, and drifted slowly off to sleep.

Gaara and Kankuro arrived in the evening. At the gates, Temari and Shikamaru greeted them, with the baby in a sling around Shikamaru's chest. As usual, Kankuro hardly had any eyes for Shikamaru, instead greeting his sister enthusiastically, and taking great pleasure in meeting his nephew for the first time. "Look at you!" he teased, swinging the baby up in his hands. "Ah, Temari, look at that – he's got your eyes."

If Shikamaru noticed that Temari did not greet Gaara with any more warmth than she usually did, he said nothing. When they returned to Temari and Shikamaru's home for a meal, Temari gently convinced Gaara to hold her son in his lap. At first he seemed very anxious, as if terribly nervous of doing something wrong, or accidentally hurting the baby. But after a while he seemed to calm down, and Shikadai seemed very happy in his uncle's lap, where he stayed the whole rest of the night.

Gaara fell asleep with Shikadai at his side. In the dead of night, Shikamaru awoke once more to an empty bed. He found his wife leaning against the doorframe of the room where Gaara slept with his nephew. When she heard Shikamaru approach her, she glanced around. Her eyes were dry. She held up one finger before her lips, and whispered, "Shhh."

When Temari returned to their bed, she slept soundly, a gentle smile on her face.