Freedom ~Gaara~

Laughter fills the air around me as I slowly open my eyes, a sense of calm and peace washing over me. The sun is bright and shinning down on a beautiful sight that warms my heart. No matter how many times I see this, it never fails to bring a string of emotion with it. Black hair floats through the air behind my wife, Chinsei as she smiles and laughs, chasing a young child around the back yard. When she catches him there's a playful childish scream followed my more laughter as they begin to twirl. My heart swells with joy as I watch her hold the child close to her.

I watch as she kisses his little head and rests him on her hip, smiling with the love of a parent. Her eyes of ice sparkled in the sun light as the child reached out with a small hand and grasped a lock of her black hair. He laughed and grinned as he played with it and twisted it in weird fashions. My own heart began to swell with joy as I watched the two.

It isn't long before Chinsei notices me watching and her smile grows as she sets the child down. He runs to me with open arms and joyous expression and I can't help but be excited as well. "Daddy!" He yells. Bending down, I catch the child and lift him high in the air, enjoying his yell of delight. Chinsei joins us, putting herself in my side. "Gaara." She says lovingly. The child makes a face when her lips came into contact with mine, making a small chuckle bubble from my throat.

Everything seemed so bright and happy and... perfect. My family. Precious Chinsei, her smile spread across her face as she looked up to me, and the child sleepily leaning on my shoulder. My family.

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"Gaara." Someone shook my shoulder lightly, trying to wake me, but I wanted to hold onto the image of my dream. "Gaara." The someone said again. My eyes slowly cracked open to the vision of my laughing wife. "Are you awake?"

I pressed the heel of my palm to my eye and nodded. "Is it noon already?"

"Actually, it's 12:30. I let you sleep a while." She said as she set down two lunch boxes and a thermos of tea on my desk. I watched as she joyously untied the cloth around the lunch boxes and poured the tea. "You were smiling." She said with a small laugh. "Were you dreaming?"

 "I was." I admitted, a small smile turning the corners of my lips up as I thought again about my dream. It's not the first time I've had a dream like that, of my family, or at least, of my future family. My eyes strayed down to Chinsei's swollen stomach where our child sat. In only four more months we will meet him for the first time. It was only last month that we were told we are going to have a boy, a fact that didn't seem to surprise Chinsei to much, saying she already had a feeling. She sat across from me at my desk and smiled, pulling her lunch box closer to her as I did the same with mine.

This has become our normal since getting married. Everyday, Chinsei works for the hospital as a hands on training medic student until noon. She told me about how she helped at the hospital during the attack what seemed so long ago and felt like she belonged there. But she also wanted to be near me during part of the day. She had been coming to eat lunch with me everyday anyway when she had said this. It just so happened that one day while she was in my office I had a visitor who wanted to become a resident. But Chinsei advised me not to after he left, saying he had been lying about where he came from and who he was, she could tell. After some digging around, I found she had been right and that he was here to attack.

It was shortly after that incident that I made Chinsei my head advisor. Her perceptiveness with people and ideas for the village where enough to convince the elders. So now everyday she works with me from one until four before going home. Sometimes I worry about her being so active in her state. But she assures me everyday that she's fine, that Nemo gets restless if she isn't up doing something. And if he's restless, she's restless.

"What was your dream about?" Chinsei's excited question startled me from my thoughts.

I looked down at my lunch and smiled, feeling that content feeling again as saw the picture of us three again. "Us. You, me, and Nemo. We were in the backyard."

Her face turned pink under her smile as she ran her hand over her stomach. That's what I like to see the most, her joy at our future together with our son and any children that might come after him. We have both agreed that we would raise Nemo in much better way than we were raised. We would show our son love and concern for his well being. We would laugh with him and be a real family. Chinsei is especially happy about the idea him having a real family. After all, she grew up without a Father and knows how it is to have a Mother who couldn't care less about you. I know what it is to have no one.

But our son will have everything he needs to be happy and grow up strong and healthy. Like in my dream, we will be there for him. I'm sure Chinsei would be more than happy to play and run around with him in the back, with her own special childlike wonder and hyper tendencies. I can already tell they will be the best of friends. I only hope that I can find my own place in our child's life. With a smile I sit back and enjoy the lunch that Chinsei has made. Only four more months.