Just thought I should let everyone know in a separate chapter that the sequel is up and named Childhood. If you'd like to read it you're more than welcome, I'd appreciate it. The tone is different than this story, but it'll get to the dark parts and tones from this eventually. I had great fun writing it and hope you will too!

EMG

The First Year:

Mistaken Identity

"I thought you were having a girl…"

Shikamaru looked down in the crib and looked at the face of the baby that was lying there. He had gone to visit his friend, Ino at the Uchiha compound. Something he thought he'd never do. Yamanaka and Uchiha. They just didn't fit.

It didn't seem right that three days ago they had a child together and she still she hadn't left his house. It worked out for the better he knew the life of being one out of two parents and the life as a single parent. There was no doubt as to what he had found most comfortable just considering the workload that came with a child.

Shikadai was constantly crying too. Constantly.

Shikamaru's father had just laughed at him when he had complained. Apparently he had cried his fair share as a child too. Ino and her child on the other hand had been mostly quiet. One would have thought it was the other way around had you known them.

"Maybe she'll grow out of her man jaw?"

Choji tried to comfort his former female teammate. It could be that the child would grow out of that big, square rather masculine jaw. She must have gotten that from her grandfather on the father side, or mother side. The squareness was definitively from the father side.

"She's a cute feminine girl, she doesn't have any man jaw!"

Ino slapped Choji who was closest. They should have known better than to provoke her like that. They knew her and they knew how she reacted to most things and from what they knew she was very protective of her child.

Rumors had spread, or maybe just Sakura had told them when they came, that Ino had already bossed Itachi around to babyproof the house the first day after Inokoto's birth or else Ino would take her and leave.

Itachi wanted to be close to his daughter and was happy to comply to all of Ino's crazy demand. He was certain that their child would never reach to top of the bookshelves in his study, but he was happy to place rubber around the edges, even at the very top.

"Don't let her get your finger."

Itachi warned as he rushed by with paint in his face. Ino had probably bossed him around to paint something. As former teammates they would have a moment of silence for Itachi when they left and five minutes of cheers hoping Ino would move in with him permanently and they would be spared of most of her pestering.

Itachi would always remember the first time he had let his daughter hold his finger. He hadn't known a baby could possess such strength but she had easily dislocated his finger. He'd have to wait for Sakura to clean up before she had a look at it.

Poor Sakura looked more exhausted than Ino who had just given birth. It didn't fit with any of the books he had read. Sakura had been a mess after while Ino had eventually crawled to bed a few hours later with their child clutched in her hands.

Choji would be the one to try and lighten the mood.

"She's still pretty, don't worry."