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She gets the call at two in the morning and is tempted to ignore it. It's probably for Sai, anyway. Nobody wants to hang out with her anymore, now that she's incubating a human. However, she has to pee anyway, so she decides to get up and answer it."It's coming," Shikamaru says, and he sounds so calm that for a moment she doesn't understand what he is actually talking about. A more juvenile Ino might crack a joke about his phrasing, but two AM, six months pregnant, 21-year-old Ino just sits there for a moment in the dark trying to decipher what could possibly be coming at this hour.Her eyes widen a fraction, though they haven't adjusted at all to the dark. "Finally!"She hangs up the phone without another word and sort of waddles back to the bedroom as quickly as she can to shake Sai awake. He's always been a light sleeper, of course, so he's already half-conscious when she gets to his side. "We have to get to Shikamaru and Temari's house right now!" She yells louder than she really should at this hour, and then clutches thoughtfully at her abdomen. "After I pee," she adds. He doesn't even blink at her, simply gets up and starts getting dressed unquestioningly. She wonders if he even knows what's going on, or has simply grown so used to obeying her."Shikamaru and Temari live an hour away," he points out ten minutes after they've already left the house."Shit," she murmurs under her breath. She doesn't think that Shikamaru and Temari were considering how it would affect her life when they moved into the Nara clan main house to take care of his mother. She lives in that big house all by herself, Temari had argued, only Ino doesn't know who she was arguing with because Shikamaru had already resigned himself to his fate at that point. He's always been that way, she thinks, smiling nostalgically.She yelps as she feels herself being lifted off the ground, then stares at Sai with wide eyes as he begins to sprint, carrying her in bridal position. The way he's holding her squishes the baby against her bladder in a very uncomfortable way, but it probably halves the time it will take for them to get there so she decides to hold her complaints for now. After all, she can't be late to meet her nephew.It still takes them forty minutes to get to the Nara family's house and Shikamaru is waiting on the porch by the time they do arrive. "The midwife still isn't here," he drawls, chewing on his thumbnail. His tone is almost bored, but his body language is all nerves and new dad energy. She holds back her comments on the fact that they could just take her to the hospital for his baby to be delivered by nurses like most people these days because that would be the third time they'd had this argument and really, it's a bit late. "Neither are Chōji and Karui, for that matter.""They'll be here. Everything will be fine," she says, trying to force her tone to be soothing. When Shikamaru and Temari had announced their pregnancy, the first plan was for Ino to deliver it. When she found out that she was pregnant two months later, that plan had to be changed. The next plan was for Hinata to deliver it, but Hinata announced her own pregnancy two weeks after Ino did so that plan had to be shot down as well. Plan C-- Sakura coming home to deliver it-- was just as unreliable.Now the baby is coming six days late (it really did decide to take its sweet time with that-- she wonders who it gets that from) and they've all been blindsided. She wonders if whoever their backup backup backup midwife is is even awake.When they step inside, there's pained moaning. "If that's not the midwife then I'm going to fucking murder somebody and you've been on my shit list since I was 15, Nara!" Temari yells down the hallway when the doors slide closed behind them. Ino doesn't even falter before stepping into the room, though both of the men do. Honestly, she's been threatening to murder you since you met, she thinks, rolling her eyes. Her gaze inadvertently drifts down to Temari's pelvic area and she winces at the sight of blood and some clear fluid slightly more viscous-looking than water beginning to pool on the floor. Before she can even open her mouth to ask if Temari is alright, the older woman snaps, "Yamanaka if one more person asks me if I'm okay I'm going to destroy everyone in this room one by one and declare myself the new head of the Nara clan with my newly fatherless child as my heir and I happen to like you so don't fucking tempt me."She snaps her mouth shut and sits at her side on the floor, the space on her other side occupied by Nara Yoshino, who's stayed remarkably quiet this whole time. "Temari, you're supposed to be way stronger and cooler than me so I'm gonna need you to calm down because I have to do this in three months," she says, trying to be funny, and Temari gives her a glare like she's kind of trying not to laugh because it means she's not allowed to be mad anymore. "Let's just practice our breathing, okay? Like they taught us in those classes we've been going to with Hinata?"Temari, to her amazement, nods and sucks in a big breath through her mouth, holds it for a few seconds, and then breathes out, allowing her body to sag a bit where she had been sitting rigid before. Ino is ready for the next one, breathing with her even as she doesn't really need to. "Do you... do you remember that time..." Temari starts, breathes, and then exhales shakily. "When I took you out for drinks for your twentieth birthday?""Of course I do," Ino says before Temari has time to go into details, cheeks flushing red. "What does that have to do with this?" Temari shakes her head, takes another breath, and then grabs Ino's hand and squeezes until her knuckles go white. She supposes she should not be as used to the intense pain as she is. Just another day in shinobi life.It's only a few more minutes until Chōji and Karui arrive, sleeping one-month-old in tow. "Did I miss it?" Chōji asks, bursting through the door without knocking. By this point, they've had to take Temari's dress off because it was getting too soaked with blood, and she now sits completely bare on the floor. If Chōji even notices, he calls no attention to it, gentleman that he is. "Oh thank God. I'm gonna be the first person to hold my niece or nephew, Ino," he says, almost challenging."Bet?" She replies, then focuses once more on Temari. Her breathing is surprisingly even, as though she just needed another pregnant lady to come in and remind her to focus. Weirdly specific conditions, but I'll allow it, she thinks, but doesn't say because she knows better than to think that she's safe just because the verbal death threats have stopped. "You're doing so great, honey. I'm sure the midwife will be here any minute," she tries to reassure, though she is starting to believe it less and less."She's not here yet?" Karui says, and she sounds almost angry on Temari's behalf. Temari, seeming to feed off of this anger, nods, wearing an expression Ino can't describe better than trying-not-to-cry angry. Karui chances a glance at Temari's hips, an area even Ino has avoided looking at since she took her seat at Temari's side, before straightening, looking determined. She passes her daughter to her husband and then sits on her knees in front of their friend. "This baby isn't going to wait for a midwife, and it'll be here soon, anyway.""So, what, you're going to deliver it?" Yoshino says, opening her mouth for the first time since Ino got here."We don't exactly have a choice," Karui responds, clenching her jaw. "She looks about ready to push and the midwife isn't here. Who else is going to do it?" The boys all shuffle in place uncomfortably. Ino has to hold back her questions about how Karui knows anything about what being ready to push looks like because she does not think they will help Temari's nerves at all. (Or Shikamaru's, she adds mentally, realizing that she hasn't thought much of him at all since she saw his wife on the floor.) "Boys, get outta here. None of you wanna watch this woman get ripped in half." Oh how the tables have turned, Ino thinks.As the men all scurry away, Karui looks Temari directly in the eyes and begins giving her orders, almost militaristic in tone. It's another fifteen minutes before she's actually ready to push, but once she is, everything enters a cycle of breathing and pushing and screaming and scolding.Karui and Temari are both assertive, aggressive types, and Ino is surprised by how well they seem to be working together in this situation. She was sure Temari would require the sweet reassurance of someone like Hinata to get her through this, but straight demanding her cooperation seems to be working amazingly.Ultimately, it still takes almost two hours and Ino swears she's going to piss herself by the time it's done."It's a boy," Karui sighs, forehead nearly as slick with sweat as Temari's is while she cradles the wailing infant. "Ino, come here and cut the cord," she commands, and Ino does without hesitation, grabbing a kunai from a holster on Karui's thigh and using it to slice the umbilical cord three full inches from the boy's little body. He's proportionately huge for a baby, nearly as big as Chōchō was when she was born in August, but he still looks so tiny and fragile. Ino is suddenly horrified of somehow breaking him when Karui passes him to her to search for something to clean him with and something else to wrap him with.He is screaming and covered in blood and looks kind of like an alien, but Ino has never seen anything more beautiful. He has Shikamaru's dark hair (she thinks) and though his eyes are jammed shut while he wails, she would bet anything from his eyelashes that he has his mother's bright green eyes. He's going to be another Nara genius, I can just tell, she thinks, and suddenly her vision is blurry and she's sniffling as she stares down at this tiny creature that she helped bring into the world. Shikamaru totally owes me for this. She startles herself with a breathy laugh, cradling the infant closer to her own swollen abdomen."Hi. I'm your Auntie Ino. You're gonna see a lot of me for the next few years." She whispers against the top of his head, and she isn't sure if she's imagining it or if he actually settles down just a little. "Your Uncle Chōji is in the other room. He wanted to be the first to hold you, but there was no way that was happening."He stops crying, scrubbing at his face with tiny red hands and making a pathetic snuffling noise that reminds her of a puppy. "Over there are your mom and your grandmother. They're gonna wanna hold you soon, when Mom comes to a little bit more. But for now you're all mine," she says, smiling down at him. "The lady scrambling around trying to find cheap blankets to clean you with and a nice blanket to wrap you in is your Auntie Karui. And your cousin Chōchō is in the other room with your uncles and your dad." For the first time, the baby blinks open his eyes and then reaches for her face, trying to grab at her nose. She feels a happy tear slip down her cheek and has to resist moving one of the hands that holds him to wipe at it. Suck it, Chōji."Aw man," Chōji whines from the doorway when the men are eventually allowed to come back in, multiple minutes later after the baby has been cleaned and wrapped and then handed back to Ino. ("If you hand me that thing right now I'm gonna throw it to Shikamaru," Temari had said, and then promptly passed out.) "I can't believe you got to hold my niece or nephew before me.""Nephew," she says immediately, still smiling down at him. He has fallen asleep, tiny, peaceful breaths tumbling out against her bare arms where she cradles him close to her body.Shikamaru moves to sit next to her, staring at his son with what seems to be fascination. She hasn't seen his eyes that wide since the first time he saw her naked. She almost snickers at the memory. She offers him the baby and he stares at her in horror for a second before seeming to realize that she isn't asking. He holds his son hesitantly, one hand underneath his back and butt and the other hand under his head and neck, and Ino tries not to snicker at how awkwardly holy it looks. Almost immediately, the baby stirs and starts crying again. "Great. Another September 23rd baby to keep me up at night," Shikamaru groans.She hadn't even realized what the date was. "This is definitely the best birthday present you've ever given me, Shika."