Work Text:
Ino selected a large, deep red rose from the pile of blooms on the table. The petals were beginning to crumple in on themselves, but they still felt velvety between her fingers. The stem was strong and smooth save for the large fin-shaped thorns. She held the flower to her face and breathed in. She wanted to experience it before destroying it further, to enjoy the blossom in its final glory and preserve its near perfection for a moment longer. The scent was strong and delicate simultaneously, telling a story of sun and earth and reaching for the sky. The petals kissed her cheeks, and she wanted to bury herself in their softness. It seemed a shame to destroy such a beautiful thing, but its death would birth a more lasting beauty.
She began pulling the petals off the rose one at a time, careful not to maul the pistil or stamen at its center or rip apart the sepal that cradled the bloom. She placed the plucked petals on a strip of dry cotton fabric, giving each one a space of its own until they drew dark constellations on the cloth. She dropped the rest of the flower, now naked and awkward, in a bin at her feet that already played host to a dozen other shorn blooms. She kicked the receptacle under the table and pushed the petal-strewn fabric towards the bay of windows before settling more comfortably on the stool she was using.
Ino paused for a moment to rub her belly. She could feel her baby moving within her. Her due date wasn’t for a few months yet, but the pregnancy was evident in her form and her feelings. She opted more and more for loose sweaters and maxi skirts than her usual crop top and hip-hugging attire. She was at times emotional and in moments reserved. It was strange to both see and feel how this child was already changing her, taking her person and reshaping her in preparation for their future together.
She smiled and began to hum softly, pulling another cloth of petals towards her. These had been from red poppies, but the petals were shriveled and dry, nearly crumbling as she moved them to a mortar. She folded the cotton strip and placed it on a pile of similar fabrics at the corner of the table. She would wash them in the next load of laundry from the flower shop. Then she took up her pestle and began grinding it into the petals, firm and slow, watching as they cracked and tore under her ministrations.
Ino didn’t mind this work. Warm sunlight flooded the table from the windows and guided her hands as they destroyed the petals, taking away their beauty to give it to something else. Rarely did she have time to sit and think like this as she worked, to take her time and enjoy the experience of her body interacting with the environment. Her life was normally full of one task after another, a neverending rush of things to get done. As her pregnancy progressed and morning sickness gave way to aching joints and swollen feet, she had modified many of her duties. More often her relatives would come to her with clan concerns rather than she go to them. She took over desk duties at the hospital so the other nurses could assist Tsunade with patient care. She had temporarily suspended her involvement with the intel division to eliminate the stresses of interrogation. She only spent a day or two helping her mother in the flower shop each week.
Sai had stepped up to help where he could. He was her representative during Yamanaka clan meetings. He kept her updated with the latest intel. He was even helping out more with the flower shop. Normally missions kept him away a few days every other week, but Ino had insisted he cut back until after the baby.
She set aside the pestle, gently brushing the petal powder back into the mortar before she stood and turned on the hot plate under the small kettle they now kept in their shed-turned-studio. She selected a small glass jar from a collection on one of the shelves and carefully poured the ground petals into it. She also grabbed two mugs and measured some tea into homemade tea bags from one of the tins on another shelf. Then she settled onto her stool again, rubbing her belly absent-mindedly as she waited for the kettle to boil.
She was glad to have Sai around more, though even when he was away on missions, she never felt totally alone. Her mother liked to help with little chores or cooking dinner. The other kunoichi were eager to drop by and fill her in on life in the village. Kurenai would bring Mirai over and they would tend to the garden together. Shikamaru and Chouji were regular visitors, too, often wandering unannounced into her living room to hang out like they used to as kids. Shikamaru insisted on accompanying her to and from appointments when Sai was away, no matter how strongly she protested. She suspected it was a holdover from Kurenai’s pregnancy reawakened by his own anxiety over Temari. His wife was due to give birth any day now, and his hovering was driving her crazy. Both kunoichi hoped he would calm down once his child was born.
She smiled to herself as she poured boiling water from the kettle into the jar with the poppy blossom powder, just enough to saturate the crushed petals. Sai and Shikamaru could be incredibly different, but they were both very dear to her. She was glad her husband didn’t hover like her friend. Sai preferred to process much of her pregnancy in quiet observation, sometimes asking questions, but often waiting for her to invite him to be more involved. To another woman, he might seem distant, but she understood that he was unsure of himself and his emotions in this new situation. Instead, she found comfort in his quiet and gentleness in his love. This was new for both of them, and she didn’t mind if they took their time figuring out parenthood together.
That was ultimately why she had asked him to limit his time on missions. She had grown attuned to when he might get overwhelmed emotionally, and as the due date approached, she wanted to make sure he had enough time to work through what this new addition to their lives would mean for their family. It was something she wanted to work through with him because she wasn’t sure, either. She felt the baby kick as she moved the jar of poppy mix nearer the windows next to the rose petals she was drying. The baby wasn’t just reshaping her, but Sai as well. She was both nervous and excited to see what that would mean for both of them.
She wasn’t worried about whether her husband would be a good father. She knew he would be fine, just as she knew the water in the kettle had cooled enough to brew the tea without scorching the herbs.His instincts, when he allowed himself to listen to them, were usually correct. He was also reading every parenting manual he could get his hands on. She didn’t tease him too much about it since she understood he felt more comfortable when he knew as much as he could, but both of them were smart enough to recognize there were elements of parenthood that no amount of studying would prepare them for. She wished her father were here so Sai would have someone to turn to for advice--and so their child could meet him.
She grabbed another jar on the table. It contained a dark yellow mix of daffodil petals and water. She placed it beside a smaller empty jar while she folded a square of cheesecloth to line a funnel. After inserting the spout into the empty jar, she carefully poured the mixture through the filter. She had learned to be diligent in grinding the petals so all that was caught in the cloth was a few slim pieces. Better saturation meant better color and less to clean up. Still, she always filtered the homemade ink. It was best to catch the bigger chunks in the cloth than between paint brush bristles.
She let it sit and drip for a few minutes, taking the time to strain the tea from the mugs and dumping the spent leaves in the basket of plant waste. She swirled one of the mugs, letting the steam carry the scent of comfort to her nose. Sakura had given her this tea nearly a year ago, just a few months before she disappeared to travel with Sasuke. Ino had been both surprised and not when she found a note on her best friend’s door that simply read Out of the village for a while--will write when I can! . She had heard rumors the day before that Sasuke was back in the village. He had started visiting Sakura regularly when he was stopping by to make a report or pick up supplies, even if it was only to say hi and check on her. Ino was glad Sakura had finally worked up the courage to join him on his wanderings and that he had let her. Since they were no longer rivals in love, she was firmly in her best friend’s corner. She only hoped Sakura would be around when her child was born.
Her best friend’s letters were always vague when she talked about returning to the village. Ino would almost worry that she would never return except that all the things Sakura loved (besides Sasuke) were here in Konoha. Her work, her family, her friends--they were all here. She might be willing to leave them and travel with Sasuke for a while, but the unspoken promise was that her absence was temporary. From what Ino gathered from Shikamaru and Naruto, part of Sasuke’s wanderings were him trying to redefine himself as a shinobi of the Hidden Leaf, meaning someday he would come back and stay permanently.
Redefining oneself took time, though. Ino understood that. Living with Sai involved a constant redefinition of things she had known her whole life. It had been strange and wonderful those early months of dating when she had watched him redefine who he was, to fill in the spaces beyond anbu and shinobi to include artist and comrade and friend , and then, when they got more serious, with lover and son and brother . Every time he adjusted his definition of self, she also examined hers.
And now he would add father to the mix. Now they had to work out what their new roles as parents would mean for their definitions of us and me . Even before they had talked about marriage, they had spent hours discussing their relationship in the context of the people in their lives. Sai had no memories of his parents, only Danzo’s strict instruction and distant approval, so she made sure he spent a lot of time with her mother to learn what nurturing love looked like. They also visited Chouza a lot. He had stepped up to watch over her and Shikamaru after they lost their fathers in the war. It was important to her that Sai have a positive father figure in his life as well.
Ino folded the cheesecloth and put it with the other laundry. The one relationship he had more experience with than her was siblinghood. Often Sai seemed both happiest and saddest when he spoke of his brother Shin, and she respected their bond, even though she never had the chance to meet him. He had been arguably the best positive influence on her husband during his youth, and those memories helped her glimpse the child that he might have been. Sai had once equated his relationship to his brother with her bond to Shikamaru and Chouji. She hoped his friendship with her teammates might develop into as deep a bond someday.
Ino screwed a lid on the yellow ink and tucked it into her pocket. Carefully picking up the mugs of tea, she left the workspace and made her way through a short hallway to the studio portion of their garden shed. She adored this space even though she rarely stepped foot in here. Three of the walls were nearly all windows to better trap the sunlight from whatever angle it was descending. A counter and cabinets along the fourth wall contained a variety of brushes, inks, and canvases, and art pieces in various states of completion were strewn about the floor or propped along the edges. Sai’s easel was set up in the center, along with a pair of stools and a small table for whatever materials he was currently working with. It was chaotic beauty bundled into one space. She liked it.
Her husband looked up when she came in, setting aside his paintbrush to take one of the mugs of tea.
“Hello beautiful,” he greeted with his customary soft smile. She kissed his forehead and fished the new ink out of her pocket. He held it up to the light and swirled it a little.
“It looks great! I was just thinking that I needed some more yellow.”
“I should have some red finished by tomorrow, too, from the last of Kurenai’s poppies.”
“Thank you.” He squeezed her hand. It was amazing to remember how careful he had originally been about physical contact. It came naturally between them now.
“Can I watch you work for a while?” Ino asked.
“Of course.”
She slid onto the stool next to his, wrapping her hands around the mug and sipping as she watched. The piece he was working on depicted a bird leaping into flight from a bush of roses. The roses were deep pink with dark green leaves, but the bird was bright yellow and blue. He loved working with birds. She wondered if it had started as a subconscious desire to fly away from Danzo’s control when he was younger, or if it was simply an admiration for the way they glided gracefully through the air.
Sai was usually very still--probably an effect of anbu stealth practices--but when free to create, he was all motion. She loved watching his hands as he painted. She didn’t understand how the subtle turn of his wrist or the imperceptible change in pressure of his fingers somehow produced the precise and beautiful strokes on the canvas. He had tried patiently to teach her, but she was easily frustrated and confused by it. So she contributed to his art by taking the dying flowers from the shop and using them to produce ink. In this way, his paintings were a collaboration, just as their lives had been mixed together in love, and just as their child would contain a bit of both of them. She rubbed her belly as she sipped her tea and watched Sai painting happily. Life could be hectic and confusing, but this was bliss.