'He's dead.' Temari was clutching her sides, tears streaming down her face.
Shikamaru’s face dropped. He was dead. Their son. Their only son, had passed from this world without much more than a loss of breath. Shikamru’s eyes closed, his brows furrowing in pain. He was only four years old, succumbing to a perfectly preventable disease that hadn’t been caught because he wanted to be strong; he wanted to be ‘strong like Daddy and Mommy’ and now, here he was lying in a hospital bed with a sheet over his pale face.
Shikamaru could only hold his wife and her sobbing. Seeing her crumbling into his arms, her muscles lax and her body like rubber brought tears to the inner corners of his eyes. He was the husband, the father. He had to stay strong just as his father before him had. But his wife’s sobs, his son, his son.
His knees bent beneath him as he clutched Temari to his chest, the tears running freely now. He tucked his face into the side of her shoulder. There were no words. There was nothing that could comfort them other than each other’s grasps.