She was twenty. Twenty, an excellent and diligent student, and a horrible cook, with a very bright future ahead of her. It involved lots of money and her passion. She'd be happy.

But currently, she wasn't happy. In fact, she was very far from happy. For starters, she was sitting on the toilet, freezing cold in the middle of winter because the tiny window inside the bathroom was being incredibly uncooperative and refused to shut against the bitingly cold winds outside. She was awaiting the result of a very important, very life-altering test that sat in the palm of her hands. She was also in the most awful mood for fried calamari, which was especially odd since she absolutely loathed seafood, but that wasn't really the point.

The point was that she was in a freezing cold bathroom in the middle of winter, waiting for the stupid white stick in her freezing cold hands to finally reveal whether her nightmares were becoming a reality or not.

Heaving a sigh and ignoring the sudden fear that settled in her blood, she looked down to see the result.

"Please don't let it be a plus, please don't let it be a plus, please don't—you fucking bitch."

And then the stick died a very cruel, would-be painful (had it been able to feel anything to begin with) death as it was thrown against the wall and smashed to pieces.

You see, while many women might deem an unexpected pregnancy as a Very Bad Thing, Temari was not like many women. Sure, she liked shopping occasionally, if shopping included going to plant stores and stocking up on every kind of greenery imagined; and sure, she appreciated a good day at the salon every now and then (Kami knew she didn't have the patience to deal with her own hair), but hormones and pregnancy be damned. Not only did Temari think that an unexpected (and any kind, actually) pregnancy was a Very Bad Thing, she thought that said unexpected pregnancy at twenty when she had an entire future laid out in detail was an even worse Very Bad Thing.

So it was really no surprise at all that the moment the white stick was brutally murdered and broken to enough pieces to satisfy her that it could never be put back together, she effectively broke down into a fit of frustrated sobs and several cries of, "Why me!"

The creaking of the bathroom door opening made her sudden cursing louder and angrier ("You get the fuck out of here, my fucking lord, this is all your fucking fault, I fucking hate you, get out of my sight before I make you myself!"). And, although it would prove to be far easier to do as she commanded, Shikamaru remained where he was, leaning against the door frame and staring at his oddly emotional girlfriend teeter on the edge of anger and total, despairing grief.

He caught sight of what had formerly been the pregnancy test and its destruction. "You didn't have to take it out on the poor pregnancy kit."

She glared at him, eyes red and puffy and unattractive. She didn't really care what he thought of her anymore; he'd seen her naked enough times to know she was far from perfectly beautiful, and she'd be damned if he had any opinion of her that was negative now that he had managed to impregnate her.

He sighed. She could tell what he was thinking because, as infuriatingly difficult as he was, she'd learned to figure out his ways. And she could tell that he was just as horrified, if not terri-fucking-fied, as her.

He kneeled in front of her, arranging his lanky limbs around him in that awkward, graceless way she loved of his, though at that precise moment, she wanted nothing more than to bury him alive.

"Are you okay?"

If okay meant that she was about to snap and kill him, or that she was angrier than she'd ever been, both at herself and him, or even if okay meant that she was scared shitless and had no way of knowing how to deal with babies or diapers or breast feeding, then yes. She was okay. But if the real meaning of "okay" had not changed in the past three minutes since she had been placed in this predicament of Being Pregnant, then no. No. She was very much not okay.

"We'll do whatever you want," he assured her, his voice trembling with an emotion she could not recognize. And while she may have wanted to analyze him further, try to find what the underlying current in his nonchalant tone was, she was far too out of her own element to focus on him. She was being incredibly selfish and incredibly dramatic, but this was something she hadn't ever imagined herself in. Pregnant. Pregnant with a seventeen year old boy's child. What a fucking joke.

That was when the real waterworks began. Of course, since Temari was not a regular crier, or even an often crier, or even a once-a-year kind of crier, crying was difficult for her. It involved a lot of wheezing and wracking coughs and the complete deterioration of emotional control she had carefully constructed for over seventeen years.

It was most definitely not pretty. Ino would have probably burst into tears in a very beautiful, movie-like way. Hinata would probably achieve the look of innocence that many Japanese actresses tried to emulate. And Tenten would probably not even find herself in this kind of situation to begin with, because while Temari was Smart, Tenten was Sensible.

"Temari."

Her name on his lips, in that tone, made her stop crying briefly to watch him through her tears, confused and beautiful in a childish way that made her heart ache terribly against her chest, because she could deny it and argue and pretend it wasn't there, but she was completely in love with him.

Perhaps that was the real reason why she was so torn. She didn't want to have a child. She was twenty, an excellent and diligent student, and a horrible cook, with a very bright future ahead of her.

But she was also very much in love with him, and getting rid of something that represented their love—as twisted, troublesome, and unfathomably frustrating as it was—would hurt her more than having to deliver a seven pound human through a ten centimeter hole.

And so that was how she decided. In time, she'd grow used to the idea of a growing belly and swelling feet and odd cravings that probably wouldn't stop at just fried calamari. In time, she'd grow accustomed to giving up with being able to bend down and pick up something she'd dropped all on her own and the increasingly drastic mood swings.

In time, she'd come to love her child, and find herself unable to imagine a future without it, just as she found herself unable to imagine a future without Shikamaru.

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