Night, Day and Sunrise

Chapter 22 - Food For Thought

It was late in the evening a few weeks later when they stopped to set up camp. Tents were set up before it became too dark to see, and then everyone gathered around the fire to warm themselves and help with the meal. Everyone, that was, except Sakura. Kakashi and Sasuke both saw her clamber miserably into their tent as soon as the final stake was driven into the ground, and they exchanged a look.

So far, pregnancy had been relatively easy on the young medic. But in the last few weeks, things had taken a turn for the worse. She tired far more quickly, but that was easily explained by the fact that she was nearly always nauseous.

Poor thing, Kakashi thought to himself, shaking his head. With all the exertion of their daily hunt, what would normally be morning sickness was lasting through most of the day. For the past three nights, as soon as they'd made camp, she'd immediately sought her bed, skipping dinner and sleeping until after breakfast the next morning.

Knowing that soon the lack of food was going to cause serious problems, Kakashi dished up two platefuls of the thick stew they were eating and made his way over to the tent. The flap was untied - she was done changing, he noted with a nod - so he went right in.

Sakura was lying, curled up away from him on her bedroll. Even in the dim light, he could see she was sickly and pale. She turned her head slightly to see who it was intruding on her solitude, and smiled wanly.

"I'm not really hungry, Sensei." The title was a gentle reminder that she was no longer twelve, needing to be cared for every second of the day.

He sat down anyway and held the second plate out to her. "Eat anyway. You've been expending more calories than you're taking in, and that can't be good for the baby. You're a medic, you should be able to keep your nausea from acting up long enough to get some nutrients."

A blush stained her cheeks as she shook her head, rightly embarrassed by his incredulous stare. "I concentrated of battlefield situations," she explained. "Poisons, healing wounds, surgery, nerve disruption, that kind of thing. Nausea isn't high of the list of 'deadly medical conditions,' so we hadn't covered it yet."

Her reasoning made sense, but it was a dreadful gap to have in her education. Fortunately, it was one that could be remedied. Setting down the food, he exited the tent and went to find Hinata. After explaining the situation, she attended to Sakura herself.

A few minutes later, she left the tent and he returned to see Sakura wolfing down stew like there was no tomorrow. The other plate was already empty, but he didn't mind. It was good to see her eating again.

"That's more like it!" he remarked with a smile, settling down on his own bedding. Studying her, he could see positive changes already: her skin had some color in it, and her eyes seemed much brighter. In fact, she was starting to show that pregnant glow so many people talked about.

Sakura noticed his attention, and it made her somewhat self conscious. "What, is there something on my face?"

Shaking his head, Kakashi tried to explain. "You're just looking healthier for having eaten, that's all."

"Oh," she paused eating to consider his words. "I take it I was looking particularly hag-like, then."

"Not so much a hag as a wraith," his words teased her into a smile, "but, yes. You were looking rather poorly. Now you look much better."

She nodded once and then continued to devour her food, although in a slightly slower, more polite fashion now that the initial surge of hunger had been curbed.

"Is there anything else I can do to make this easier for you?" he asked after a time.

"This, what? Naruto being gone? Not really, no." She didn't even look up as she answered.

"Actually," he clarified, "I was talking about your pregnancy. I know camp conditions aren't exactly ideal, but is there anything I can do to help? To make things more comfortable?"

She laughed, but there was a hint of sting in it. "No, but thank you for asking. You're the first one who has. Everyone else who knows seems to think I've brought this on myself, and should just go back to Konoha."

"They do have a point," he felt obligated to remind her.

"Never said they didn't," Sakura was also a great deal less bitchy now that her blood sugar was stabilizing. "But I still remember the bell test, and I'm not going to abandon my teammates, even if people do say I'm a piece of trash for that choice. It's not something I decided on a whim; it's a decision I made back on that day at Training Ground 3, and I'm sticking by it."

"So what you're saying is, this is all my fault, huh?" He smiled, which showed only by a slight wrinkling around his one uncovered eye, and held up a hand to keep her arguments from being voiced until he was done. "No, it's alright. There are worse things I've been blamed for. I'm actually rather proud of this one."

"Thanks," her appreciation for his approval was heartfelt and sincere.

"That is not to say you should be stubborn if we move too fast for you," he admonished. "It won't do Naruto any good for us to hold back our pace if you can't keep up, nor will it help him if you kill yourself - or the baby - by trying."

"I'll be careful," she promised, touched by his concern. "And thanks for realizing that just because I'm pregnant doesn't mean I don't know my own limits."

"I am operating on the assumption that you still have a brain, and are capable of using it. Should those facts change, so will my opinion."

"Well, that's perfectly reasonable," she teased with a smile, which disappeared as she growled, "unlike some people."

"Sasuke?" Kakashi asked gently, and she nodded. "Ah, that must be frustrating."

"You have no idea," she was warming to her topic, and spoke with passion. "I'm not a porcelain doll; I can do things for myself, and I can do things no one else in this group - no one else in the world - can! I've earned my place, and I want to help. But I know if I let him, he'd send me home first chance he got."

"He hasn't ordered you home, Sakura," he pointed out. "That does count for something."

"Only because he can't figure out how to make my blood jutsu work, and it's frustrating to him to have something he can't do that isn't a bloodline limit."

"I think there's a good deal more to it than that."

"I'm sure there is," she agreed, more frustrated than ever, "but he won't talk to me. Every time I've asked him about it, he just growls and says, 'you're here, aren't you?' What kind of an answer is that?"

"Sakura," her teacher began cautiously, wondering how he'd gotten himself into the role of relationship counselor, "not everyone feels compelled to talk things out like you do. Especially not most guys. And Sasuke likes to talk about his feelings and reasoning even less than most. You've known him since you were kids; he's not going to suddenly change just because you're having a crisis."

She pouted slightly, but she had to admit, his words made sense. Sasuke was more the suffer in silence type. With Naruto gone, he had to be hurting just as much as she was, but her constant attempts to talk about it were probably driving him nuts.
If there was one thing she hated in the whole world, it was being wrong, but she would rather understand her lover than sit alone, stiff with pride.

"So what you're saying is 'silence is assent?'"

"Close enough," he nodded, relieved. "So long as he doesn't bring it up, let the issue rest. And if he does bring it up, argue logically, not emotionally. Save the blackmail for when you need it."

"Blackmail?" she asked innocently. "Why, Kakashi, I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about!"

"Uh-huh, and let's keep it that way." Before she could come up with a retort, he changed the subject. "So, how's the baby doing?"

She blinked, but answered automatically. "I'm about four months along, and Hinata says things are progressing nicely. The baby is definitely going to be good with taijutsu, by the way."

"What makes you say that?" the jounin queried, curious.

For an answer, she reached over and grabbed his hand, pressing his palm flat against her stomach. He was about to ask what on earth that was for when he felt a bruising thump against his palm. "What the...?"

"I told you so,” she smiled wearily. "It's been keeping me up nights, too. I'm just getting settled and I'm about to doze off and then - wham!"

He felt another pair of sturdy kicks before he pulled away, looking at his palm in amazement. "No wonder you've been so tired. You've got to be covered in bruises by now."

Shrugging, Sakura adjusted her seating to ease an ache in one leg. "I can handle that easily enough. I'm not a medic for nothing."

"True," he conceded, still regarding his hand with interest. "How many people have felt the baby kicking like that?"

"So far, just you and me," Sakura said with a sigh. "For some reason, the little scamp likes Hinata, and won't kick her. And Sasuke won't sit still long enough to let me show him."

"Cut him some slack, Sakura-chan," he advised wisely. "I assume this wasn't a planned pregnancy, so he probably hasn't had time to prepare himself."

"We'd discussed having children," she admitted with a blush, "but always as a vague, distant possibility. Of course Sasuke needed to propagate in order to refound his clan, but Tsunade was going to be assigning me to a permanent station in Konoha in another few years, anyway. We planned to wait at least until then."

"That was well thought-out." It showed that his students were not the harebrained idiots some might now be accusing them of being, at least.

"Yeah, it would have been nice if things went according to plan, but they never do."

"Ninja saying number 26," he reminded her, and they quoted in unison. "A plan of attack never survives the first engagement. A good commander knows to adapt."

"Adapting is easy for now," she informed him. "I just have to keep an eye on myself physically and work on finding Naruto. But what about when we go home? What's going to happen then?"

"I don't know, Sakura-chan," he admitted, trying to project a feeling of calm over her nervousness. Their conversation was halted by the sound of the tent lacings being untied, which sound heralded Sasuke's entrance. Their captain said nothing as he got ready for bed and slipped under the covers, and neither of them felt it wise to disturb him.

Kakashi cocked his head to the side, listening to the rest of the encampment, and was surprised by the lack of noise. It was later than he'd thought; everyone else was retiring for the night as well. He nodded briefly to his former students and then curled up on his bedroll, falling asleep even before Sakura blew out the light with a flicker of chakra.

The medic sighed in the dark as she listened to the soft, relaxed breathing of her tentmates. Another surge of motion in her midsection confirmed that the baby was just as unhappy as he always was at this hour. Attempting to find a comfortable position for herself and her growing belly, Sakura settled in for another uncomfortable night of catnaps and bruises. Her last thought before driting off to sleep was that she just wished someone would hold her.


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Yay, chapter! I'd like to thank all of you who've commented so far. Your words have inspired me like nothing else could. Please, continue to let me know what you think. And have a Happy Halloween!
Have a great day and good reading!

Crimson Iris