A New Beginning

Title: Crib

Pairing: NejiTen

Summary: Neji puts his wife and baby to bed. A NejiTen Baby fic.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, Kishimoto does I just like to play with them

A/N: This was written for NejiLovers contest which had the theme 'crib' and since I had just written a baby fic seemed like I should apparently do another one.



Gai and Lee had made it for them so of course it was green. To Neji's surprise it was a muted shade. Flowers and vines climbed over the bars, carved into the wood with each blossom painted with blues, pinks, oranges. The headboard had birds and clouds soaring in blue skies above trees and grass. It outstripped his expectations, which had been that it would be horrible and he would hate it, and still managed to encompass everything his teacher stood for.



Hinata had sewn sheets and blankets for it with the help of Hanabi and strangely enough his uncle. It had surprised him, though he thought now that it shouldn't have, that his uncle had been the originator of his own baby blanket. Neji wondered if they had talked to Gai about the crib, because the colors they chose for the blankets seemed to be perfectly matched, or if it was strictly a coincidence caused by not knowing the sex of the baby.



The gifts spoke of family for more than the obvious reason. Family, he had thought for so many years, he didn't have.



The rocking had been him though. He had started it two years ago, the first time she'd been pregnant, and even after they had lost the baby he'd continued carving it. Between missions, when he needed to get away from the depressing atmosphere of their home in those long months after, and then with renewed passion when they'd conceived again. Somewhere, on a beach far away, there was a small bird that had been carved from the same wood.



Tenten was curled up in it, their baby in her arms. The long, brown hair, she normally kept up in buns, draped messily over her shoulders and the baby.



Neji walked over to the rocking chair, brushed her hair back, and scooped his daughter up.



"Huh, wah..." Tenten mumbled, blinking her deep brown eyes at him and blindly reaching towards him and the baby.



"Shh." He leaned over and kissed her forehead. "I'm just going to put her to bed."



Nodding sleepily, Tenten dropped her arms, pulled the blanket in her lap up around her, and slipped off to sleep again.



Chuckling softly under his breath he stepped over to the crib and laid her down gently. "The sun is coming up so of course now you're tired. Now, Kotori, I'm taking your mom to bed and you're going to let her sleep for awhile before you wake her up again, alright?" He tucked her stuffed turtle next to her and brushed his hand over the soft brown curls. "I love you, my little bird."



Turning back to Tenten he slid one arm under her legs and the other behind her back then lifted her and the blanket out of the chair.



She yawned and tucked her head against his shoulder. "I should get up."



He shook his head at her. "You're going to sleep."



"But... sun's up... training... Gai-sensei..." The words weren't all there but the meaning was.



"Even he will understand if I want to keep you at home in bed for the day after the fifth all-nighter in a row." She'd been handling almost everything with the baby the last few days since he'd had missions that had kept him busy during the day and had refused to let him take the nights. Stubborn as she was he had let her keep them because he knew how much it meant to her and how hard it was for to be away from their daughter.



Shifting Tenten in his arms, Neji looked over his shoulder at the crib and smiled. Putting his girls to bed was becoming an early morning routine. He clicked the light off. It was a good routine.