ShikaTema is canon! I know I've got Blue Hour etc. to upload but now that Neji's no longer there and ShikaTema is canon I'm not sure I'm going to have the motivation to complete it… meanwhile, I've fallen in love completely with the ShikaTema pairing and so voila! This is to celebrate.

Pregnancy

Seven months of pregnancy and Shikamaru was beginning to worry about his wife. He'd understood perfectly the potential hormonal imbalances that Sakura and Ino warned him about when he'd first announced the news but he certainly did not expect the behaviour that Temari was so constantly exhibiting; Shikamaru was extremely concerned that Temari may have been developing something like schizophrenia or general insanity. He loved his wife dearly and was appropriately intimidated by her brothers but he did not sign up for this.

Case in point number 1: when Temari was four months pregnant she went through a phase where she would eat nothing but dango – dango for breakfast, dango for lunch, dango for dinner, the house reeked of dango and Shikamaru had developed a very strong friendship with the owners of his wife's favourite dango shop despite not even liking dango that much. At first Shikamaru rest assured that this was one of the normal cravings that pregnant women normally get, that pregnant women gorging themselves on sickly sweet snacks and refusing healthier food was typical, that it would be over before he knew it and Temari would soon get sick of dango and start eating as she did usually… that did not happen. Instead, Temari seemed to get more and more obsessed with dango than ever before, and it was only when Temari had ordered Shikamaru to buy some at 3am that Shikamaru threatened a mental breakdown from worry and his wife subsequently relented.

Case in point number 2: Temari appeared to have lost her sense of time, because the child wasn't due for at least another five months when she had already begun preparations for Academy enrolment. The day when Shikamaru had opened the front door to his home and found his wife poring over enrolment documents and that his study had been converted to a baby room was a day that truly made him begin to panic for Temari's mental health. His wife's response to his shock was a simple I know it's early, but five months is really going to feel like five days. Shikamaru nearly lost his shit – his study was no longer his study and all his documents that constituted the organised mess in it had been haphazardly shifted to the smaller study. Tired after a long day of Hokage administration assistance, Shikamaru could only nod weakly and mourn the loss of his workspace quietly in the bathroom.

So when Temari had told him that she had something very serious to discuss with him, Shikamaru was one step away from exploding. The walk home from his office in the Hokage Tower felt longer than the journey home from his first mission as mission leader, and he bought six sticks of dango just in case he needed to placate Temari if she began overreacting while saying whatever she had to say. Shikamaru didn't notice the happy owner slipping in three extra sticks because he was being "such a loyal customer and avid fan of dango".

Gingerly, he opened the front door and found Temari sitting stern-faced at the dining table. He left the dango in the kitchen and promptly sat himself down opposite his wife, his hands cupping hers and resting on the wood table. She studied his face carefully, and her own expression quickly deepened into a frown.

Shikamaru cleared his throat, noticing the burgeoning belly poking through her kimono. "What is it?"

Temari had begun to glower at him. "Shave it off!" she cried interrupting him before her husband was able to fully pronounce the 't'.

He blinked, and his own face contorted into one of utter confusion. "What? Shave what off?"

She snorted. "Your weird facial hair, of course." Temari rolled her eyes. "What're you trying to be, anyway? You look too much like your dad with that almost-beard and it's honestly super weird sleeping next to you with it."

Shikamaru opened his mouth to respond, but couldn't get a word in before Temari began again, "I mean, good thing you didn't have that thing before we got married or I sure as hell would not have had sex with you – father-in-law was an excellent ninja and an even better man but damn it's really weird."

Shikamaru's confusion turned into bitter uncertainty. Yes, he'd wanted some facial hair because his dad had kept a beard – but so did Asuma! And he also felt that beards really added some oomph to his cool adult persona. But he'd just worked a 12-hour day and could not deal with arguing with his wife. "Would it make you happy if I shave it off?"

Here Temari's eyes finally brightened and her expression relaxed into an eager smile. "Absolutely! I'd be able to sleep better at night, for one. And also I don't understand the whole beard thing in Konoha, like Yuura had a beard and see where that got him. What's wrong with being clean-shaven? Beards make you look older than you are, anyway. Why look like an old geezer when you're only 23?"

Shikamaru patted his wife's hand tenderly and got up. He moved to kiss Temari on her forehead before he walked to the bathroom. "I bought some dango for you on the way home," he said as he rubbed shaving cream on his chin. "It's in the kitchen."

Temari squealed with excitement and hurried to the kitchen, completely forgetting about the beard discussion. She tore through the white paper bag and her smile was speedily worn away by horror.

"I can't eat this!" she screamed, thundering through the house to her husband as quickly as she could with her seven-month pregnancy.

Shikamaru stopped mid-shave. He blinked at her and his eyebrows inched toward each other. "Why not? They're your favourite."

Temari rolled her eyes again and thrust the package in front of her husband's face so he could properly see it. "Look – there're nine of them. Nine," she paused here and Shikamaru's face fell. "You know I can't eat odd-numbered food. You have to get me another stick."

Shikamaru dropped his shaver. The genius wasn't sure what face he made in response, but he knew he was more than ready to cry.