A/N: SEQUEL TIME! I am so excited to share this sequel with you all, I've been working on it's concept for a long time, and I am excited to see it finally written out. I hope you all enjoy! If you are a first time reader of mine, be sure to check out my fanfic Sweet Serendipity before you read this one!

July 13th

"This is so… bizarre." Was the first thing Sakura said, as she fell back on the couch. Her eyes taking in the atmosphere of her apartment, and how weird it felt to be back.

"What's bizarre?" Hinata questioned, sitting on the other couch with Tank half on her lap, and Baby sitting right behind her head on the top of the couch. "You've been back in your apartment for a week now."

"Correction, I moved back in a week ago," Sakura shot back, grunting as Shadow jumped up on the couch to lay on top of her. "I got a mission within 10 minutes of officially being back here, and I just got back yesterday. Then you and I proceeded to get blackout drunk, so yesterday doesn't really count either."

Laughing lightly, Hinata reached up behind her head to pet Baby. "I guess I can't argue with that… Since your back in the village, are you going to go see a certain someone?"

At Hinata's very obvious hint, Sakura rolled her eyes and focused on petting Shadow, but her thoughts were on Shikamaru. "I would love to if it weren't for the fact that he is somewhere in the middle of the Land of Rivers on a mission. He apparently left on the mission just an hour before I got back yesterday."

"Oh, bad timing then," Hinata said, having to move her hand quickly away from Baby who decided she wanted to now attack the hand that was petting her. "Well at least Kankuro's going to be here in an hour, and you two can hangout."

"I can't wait, I can already picture all the trouble we're going to get in!" Sakura hollered, causing both her dogs to jump up and start barking. Grinning at the chaos she was causing, Sakura jumped up, and pointed to Hinata. "I'm still hungover, so we need to go get something with a lot of nutrients in it. I need to be in perfect condition for when-"

"Kankuro gets here and you get blackout drunk all over again," Hinata interrupted, causing them both to laugh. When their laughter subsided, she stood up and grabbed her bag. "Okay, let's go. I have to meet my team to train in an hour-ish."

"You said that an hour ago."

"Well I guess I'll be an hour late then..." Hinata trailed off, and paused at the door of Sakura's apartment. "You're such a bad influence."

"I know and you love me for it!" Sakura exclaimed, happily skipping out the door.

The next afternoon, two o'clock

"The mission went smoothly then?"

"About as smooth as an escort mission can go." Was Shikamaru's less than interested reply.

"Shikamaru," his mother's voice was heard, as she and her father entered the Hokage's office. "Is that how you think you should speak to the Hokage?"

"What did I say wrong?" Shikamaru countered, then he shook his head. "Actually, what are you two even doing here? This is a team mission brief. My team, not yours."

"Just dropping off the last of the paperwork to the Hokage," Shikaku replied before his clearly irritated wife could. "We finished clean up for the festival yesterday, and this is the last thing we needed to do."

"Don't let us interrupt you." Yoshino added, her arms crossed over her chest, and eyes narrowed at her son.

Sighing at already being on his mother's bad side within twenty minutes of being back in the village, Shikamaru focused back on the Hokage. "I understand that Asuma has other responsibilities now that Kurenai is pregnant, but am I going to be put in charge everytime he has another commitment from now on?"

Tsunade hummed lowly in thought. "Well you are the only jounin other than Asuma on the team, but I guess I could let Ino or Choji takeover the next time."

"Yes! I've always wanted to lead a mission!" Choji exclaimed excitedly, his usual bag of chips in his hand.

"Oh please," Ino started, a smirk on her face and a hand propped on her hip. "If anything, it would be me that is put in charge."

While that started an argument between the two, Shikamaru sighed heavily and slapped a hand to his forehead. "Nevermind."

That made Tsunade start laughing just as a knock on the door was heard. "Come in-"

"Tsunade! I've had enough!" Was the first thing Shizune exclaimed as she walked in before Tsunade could finish speaking.

"Shizune, can this wait a moment?" Tsunade countered, her hand motioning to the others in the room. "I've got two things I need to get done here, and then I can be all yours."

"You need to stop that, and focus on the real problem," Shizune then pointed back to the still open door. "You need to talk to her, yell at her, whatever! She's getting on my last damn nerve!"

The sound of footsteps was heard just before Sakura appeared in the open doorway, a laid back smile on her face. "Well I have had much better announcements to me entering a room," she said, as that made the others laugh. Her eyes found Shikamaru, and her smile widened. She walked into the room, and stopped beside him. Her eyes twinkling, as a smile appeared on his face too. "When did you get back- hey! Shizune!"

Shizune taking her by the hand, and pulling her over to Tsunade's desk was what had interrupted Sakura. "Whoa thanks for the warning Shizune-"

"You need to do something Tsunade," Shizune interrupted Sakura again. "She's literally been a pain in the ass since she arrived to work at the hospital this morning."

"Literally." Sakura repeated, a big smile on her face, as she found this clearly amusing.

Tsunade had to cough to hide her smile at the sight of Shizune's glare. "I thought Sakura was taking the day off."

"We were short staffed today. The only reason Sakura was planning to take the day off is because she had plans to go out and get a drink with Kankuro last night," Shizune said, before propping a hand on her hip. "Which I might add was a hell of a lot more than a drink as she came into the hospital extremely hungover this morning."

"Ha, you call that extremely hungover? You should have seen me yesterday morning after Hinata and I went out-"

"I don't care about yesterday morning Sakura! I care about this morning!" Shizune exclaimed irritably.

"Can we not even bring my hungover self this morning into this?" Sakura asked, her hand going to rub her head. "It's not like it's that big of a deal. I haven't seen Kankuro since-"

"A week ago at the festival." Shizune interrupted, an eyebrow raised at Sakura.

"Really?" Sakura shrugged her shoulders. "I felt like it was a bit longer than that."

Shizune's glare darkened, as she steamed angrily.

"Actually, since we're talking about the festival," Ino said, her eyes on Sakura and Shikamaru. "Let's talk about what happened at the ball between you two."

"Can we not?" Both Sakura and Shikamaru chorused, making both them share a smirk.

"Well I'd like to know more too." Yoshino added in agreement with Ino. "I mean I think we all knew something was going on, but that was the first time you two actually confirmed anything."

"Actually," Shikaku said, his eyes on his wife. "That wasn't the first time they kissed. It was actually the day of the festival, the day after the opening party we had."

"What?!" Both Ino and Yoshino exclaimed.

Sakura's laughter kept them from saying anything else, and it took her a moment to get to where she could speak. "I'm sorry to disappoint you, but that's actually not true. The first time we kissed was the night before we left the winery."

"I knew it!" Yoshino exclaimed, then a look from her husband made her sigh. "Okay, I didn't know it, but I had a feeling that something like that happened."

"What's this about the winery?" Tsunade asked curiously.

"Tsunade!" Shizune exclaimed before anyone else could speak. "Can we focus back on the issue here?"

At Shizune pointing directly at her again, Sakura smiled and gave a wave in their direction. "That's me, the issue."

"You're not funny," Shizune shot back with a glare in her eyes. "When she came into to start working, she clocked in, but didn't see any patients until almost one o'clock today. She stayed at the main desk, doing nothing for four hours as there was a waiting room full of patients."

Sakura shrugged when Tsunade raised an eyebrow at her. "For the record, I don't think it was wise of me to see patients until after I was in a better mind set."

"That didn't stop you when you started seeing patients." Shizune retorted.

"Oh my god, that isn't fair. The guy had the coolest looking broken arm ever Shizune. How was I supposed to just let someone else have him?" Sakura countered, her eyes lighting up at how that made Tsunade laugh.

However, Tsunade's laughter was cut short at Shizune's glare. She had to cover her mouth and turn her head away to compose herself. When she finally did, her eyes went back to Sakura. "Okay, clearly Shizune wants me to do something about your work ethic today, and as I have known Shizune a lot longer than I have you, I have to oblige."

"Tsunade that's not-"

Tsunade held up a hand to stop Sakura. "So, I figure the best thing I can say to you is... to run like hell."

"Wait! What?!" Shizune exclaimed, her eyes wide.

Sakura didn't waste anytime, as she took off, laughing all the way. Making the others in the room laugh too.

Shizune glared at Tsunade. "What was that?"

"She planned to have the day off from the hospital for a reason Shizune," Tsunade shrugged her shoulders. "It's not really fair to punish her when she basically gave warning that it wouldn't be a good idea to have her work today."

"You only agree with her, because she is taking after your habits of drinking." Shizune shot back, still irritated.

Sighing at that, Tsunade still kept her smirk on her face. "I've taught her a lot of things Shizune, and the only one you ever bring up is alcohol."

A few hours later

"Okay you two, that's enough barking!" Sakura had to raise her voice to be heard over the dogs. Getting the pot of pasta off the stove, she moved over to the sink. "You can come in!"

It was quiet for a moment as the dogs had stopped barking, then the front door opened. Once again stirring up a few barks from Shadow and Tank, as Shikamaru walked into her apartment. The dogs went right to him in order to greet him and get some attention. "What if I was a murderer, and you just told me to come in without looking to see who it was first?"

"Okay one, don't joke about that. The last time I lived here someone did come into my apartment and try to kill me," Sakura said with a laugh. "Two, I was busy draining the pasta, so priorities."

"Right, what was I thinking? Pasta is way more important than safety."

Laughing along with Shikamaru, Sakura nodded, and went back to stir the sauce. "Plus I knew it was you. I don't let just anyone in my house."

That had Shikamaru smiling as he finished petting Shadow and Tank and moved across the living room, then to the kitchen to get to her where he wrapped his arms around her waist. A feeling that he was still new to him, but familiar and nice at the same time. He kissed the top of her bare shoulder. "I'm special then?"

Sakura smiled, as she turned her head to look at him over her shoulder. Her eyes meeting his. "Yeah I guess."

"You guess?" Shikamaru chuckled, leaning his head down slightly, then kissed her lips. Pulling back after a moment, he smirked. "That's it."

"What?"

"I've been wondering what I've been missing this past week that we haven't seen each other," Shikamaru replied, his smirk still on his face as he tucked her bangs back behind her ear. "Come to find out it was this."

When Shikamaru kissed her again, Sakura smiled into their kiss. After they broke it, she focused back on stirring the spaghetti sauce. "Well there's a lot more where that came from."

Almost half an hour later they were just finishing up eating dinner. They had chose to eat over on the couches, Shikamaru on one, and Sakura on the other. However, after she finished eating, she had slid down to the floor to pet Shadow. Her focus was on Shikamaru as they discussed everything that had gone on over the last week that they missed. "So, that was really fun today at the Hokage's office. Ino looked so pissed when she found out how long she didn't know about what happened at the winery."

"I'm glad you enjoyed that," Shikamaru said, shaking his head and smirking at Sakura's laughter. When her laughter subsided, he began to realize something. "You know, I never actually asked you if you wanted to be in a relationship in the first place. We never really talked. It's just after what happened that it just kind of went to this. It-

"Shikamaru do you want to be with me?" Sakura interrupted him. Grabbing her wine glass to take a sip.

Taken aback by Sakura's question, Shikamaru stared back at her in silence. Finally he rubbed the back of his neck. "Okay, so I have to admit. This is the first time I'm doing this, as I haven't exactly really wanted to date anyone before."

"Is that a no?" Sakura countered, smiling over the rim of her wine glass.

"Sakura," Shikamaru replied at her joke, shaking his head before reaching over and taking her free hand. "Do you want to be in a relationship with me?"

That had Sakura smiling ear to ear for a long moment, as she looked down at her his hand holding hers. Her smile widening as she looked back at him. "You're cute."

At her lack of clear response, Shikamaru raised an eyebrow. "Okay, so for the first go around of this whole dating thing, I get a response that doesn't even slightly answer my question- what are you doing?"

Sakura had moved down to crawl under the coffee table. Just barely able to fit as Shadow was really close to her side, and Tank was on the other side of the coffee table by Shikamaru's feet. Once over there, she reached up to rest a hand on Shikamaru's leg to help sit herself up on her knees. Leaning over she kissed Shikamaru. A smile appearing on her face after they broke the kiss. "Yes I want to be in a relationship with you."

Finally it was Shikamaru's turn to smile as he leaned over and kissed her. Taking a break after a moment, he smiled as they remained close. Taking in how her smile lightened up the room almost. "You're cute." He told her after a moment, then he kissed her again. This time his arms went around her to keep her close, as their kisses grew heated.

The next morning

The sound of the dogs barking had Sakura opening her eyes. Propping herself up on her elbows, Sakura looked over to see both Shadow and Tank were off the bed, and seemed to be fighting over a toy. Laughter hitting her ears, had her focus change to her other side. "Being woken up by very loud barking is funny to you?"

"No, but you are," Shikamaru said, chuckling more as he reached over to flatten some of her tousled hair down. "You were dead asleep, and then all of a sudden you sat up like you did. I tried to wake you up three other times, but all it took was your dogs barking to do it."

A smile formed on Sakura's face, as she relaxed back onto her pillow. "What can I say? Sometimes I'm a light sleeper, and other times I can sleep through a war."

Once again, Shikamaru laughed as he moved closer to her, and he kissed her. "Well let's hope there aren't any life or death situations happening while your asleep then."

"Oh, just bring a cup of hot coffee to me, and the smell of that will always do the trick." Sakura shot back, smiling as they kissed again. Feeling a little heat grow in their kisses, Sakura moved so she was more on top of him. The sound of her dogs barking starting up again brought them to an abrupt stop, as Sakura pulled back a little.

"Perfect timing." Shikamaru joked, as he chuckled at the dogs behavior.

"Yeah," Sakura shot back with a smile, moving off of Shikamaru to the other side of the bed. Picking up the closest article of clothing off the floor that resembled a shirt, she slipped it on, and sighed as the dogs rushed over to her. Full of energy, and ready to go outside. "Okay boys, I'm getting up."

Shikamaru remained laying back against the pillows after she left the room to let the dogs out. His arms back behind his head, and he waited for Sakura to return after she let the dogs out then back inside. When she did return almost ten minutes later, he sat up. "I probably should be getting up. I have to turn in the written mission report to Tsunade today."

That brought a smile to Sakura's face, as she began to collect her clothes from the floor. "I'm pretty sure you're supposed to actually write that first in order to turn it in."

"I'll have you know that I did start it yesterday," Shikamaru shot back, moving to grab his boxers from the floor. "Then I came over here, and obviously all plans of finishing it last night went out the door. So, I have to go finish that report, and more importantly change into clothes that I wasn't wearing yesterday."

"I'm jealous," Sakura started, turning to face her vanity mirror to try to smooth down some of her ruffled hair. "While you're doing that, I'm going to be here, doing absolutely nothing."

Smirking at her words, Shikamaru took a pause in getting dressed, as he watched her. "Maybe I'll come back and join you after I'm done."

Shrugging her shoulders, Sakura continued messing with her hair. "I'll be here all day. My team went on a mission yesterday. The only reason why I got out of it was because Kankuro was already here, and I was already pretty wasted by the time they got around to needing to start the mission."

Shikamaru chuckled at that. "Before I left to come over here yesterday, my parents asked if you wanted to come over for dinner tonight. My mom told me it's because she missed having you in the house, but I'm pretty sure it's mostly because she wants to question the status of our relationship."

"I don't know, I'm pretty sure it is mostly because she misses me, because I'm such an amazing person."

"Sure, that's it," Shikamaru shot back, smirking at the sight of her sticking out her tongue at him through the reflection of her vanity mirror. His eyes moved down to the shirt she was wearing, then further down to her legs. "I'm going to be needing that back."

Raising an eyebrow, Sakura turned to face him, as she pulled at the edge of the shirt. "This?"

Nodding slowly, Shikamaru forced his eyes to look away from her legs, and back to her face. "That or I'd be walking through the village shirtless."

Humming lowly, Sakura smirked at she turned to the bathroom. "I don't really see a problem with that," she entered the bathroom, and a moment later tossed his shirt out to him. "There you go. I have to take a shower, so I guess I'll see you later."

Hearing the sound of the shower turning on, Shikamaru remained sitting on her bed. His eyes going from the slightly ajar bathroom door, and his shirt that had landed on the corner of her bed. Without much more though, he stood up, and moved to take his boxers and shorts off again. Then he crossed the room to the bathroom door.

A half hour later

Finishing up pouring coffee in her mug, Sakura added the creamer, then took a long drink of it. Sighing with satisfaction after a few more sips, she moved over to scratch Baby behind the ears. Her damp hair caused her to feel the heat from her coffee a bit more.

"Okay..." Shikamaru's voice was heard, then he appeared from the small hall her bedroom was off of. His hair was still down and wet, and he was pulling a hair tie from his pocket. "I really need to go now."

Sakura was smiling over the brim of her coffee mug, as she raised an eyebrow in his direction. "You said that half an hour ago."

Smirking at her words, Shikamaru finished putting his hair up, and moved over to her. Placing his hands on either side of her on the countertop. His face an inch from hers. "Yeah, well you seem to have made me late."

"As I recall," Sakura started, a mischievous smile on her face. "You weren't objecting."

Smirking, Shikamaru shook his head and kissed her. "No I was not," he said, then he kissed her a few more times. "I'll see you in a few hours."

"I can't wait for our awesome plans of relaxing, and doing absolutely nothing."

"I can't either." Shikamaru agreed, a smile forming on his face before he kissed her again.

Shikamaru's house

"Look who's home." Was the first thing Shikamaru was greeted to when he entered his house by his mother. His eyes moved over to see his mom drinking her coffee in the kitchen, and his dad sitting on one of the bar stools reading the paper.

"Late night?"

"Dad-"

"Look, your father is just stating the fact that you didn't come home last night Shikamaru." Yoshino interrupted him, as she waved off his protest.

Shikamaru was quiet for a long moment, as he felt the eyes of his parents on him. Finally, he sighed and shook his head with frustration. "Troublesome," he mumbled, as he kicked off his shoes. The sound of his dad's laughter hit his ears, and he could see the smile on his mom's face. He turned to walk down the hallway his bedroom was off of. "Don't make a big deal about it."

Later that evening

"Well we weren't exactly trying to broadcast our relationship," Sakura said, finishing off her wine, as dinner was coming to an end. "We just didn't think it was that big of a deal."

"However, for some reason, it's a big deal to Ino, because she wouldn't stop talking about being the last to know." Shikamaru added, as he started collecting dishes to bring into the kitchen.

"I don't blame Ino for questioning," Yoshino replied as they all moved into the kitchen, before she and her husband moved to sit on the bar stools. "You two may not see it as a big deal, but most people do."

"But, it is their choice if they want to be more public with it." Shikaku reminded his wife, a smirk on his face at her shaking her head with a scowl on her face.

Shikamaru, who was taking dishes from Sakura to put into the dishwasher, chuckled. "Thanks for being on my side for once dad, I really appreciate it."

"Well, it's not like it matters now," Sakura said, refilling her wine glass after Yoshino offered the bottle to her. "Everyone already knows, and now hopefully they'll not be so dramatic about it now."

Smirking at that, Shikamaru closed the dishwasher and started it up, then he focused on Sakura. "If only it would be that easy."

"Ha ha," Yoshino shot back, shaking her head at the others laughter. When their laughter died down, her focus went back to her son. "So have you asked about this weekend yet?"

At Shikamaru's hesitation, Sakura raised an eyebrow at him. "What about this weekend?"

Chuckling, Shikamaru rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, I was going to ask yesterday, but obviously that didn't happen. I wanted to know if you wanted to go camping with us."

"Camping?" Sakura repeated slowly with a raised eyebrow. "You don't really seem like the going camping type of person Shikamaru."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

Sakura, who now had a big smile on her face, shrugged as she leaned back against the counter. "Nothing."

Noticing her smile widening, Shikamaru shook his head back at her. "Not nothing. You have that look on your face."

Sakura laughed, as she shrugged. "I just don't picture you going camping to be quite honest."

"I go camping," Shikamaru told her, noting it made her laugh, he continued. "I'm serious."

"I know, I'm sorry."

As Sakura continued to laugh, Shikamaru finally smirked. "Do you want to go or not?"

"When exactly is this happening?"

"We're leaving in a couple days, on Friday," Yoshino replied to Sakura before her son could. "We'll be gone from Friday to Wednesday of next week. So it's a little bit longer than the weekend."

"Also, my side of the family usually goes on the camping trip with us, but we'll have different campsites." Shikaku added.

Humming lowly, Sakura was quiet for a moment, then she met Shikamaru's eyes again."You have a habit of not telling me about things until last minute."

Shikamaru smirked back at her. "I thought you liked be spontaneous."

"Okay, well there is a difference between being spontaneous, and forgetting to tell me about something until last minute," Sakura said, smirking right back at him. "Regardless, I'd love to go. I think it'll be fun. I'll see if Hinata can watch my furbabies for me… I'm sorry, I just can't stop thinking about the idea of you going camping. It's so unexpected."

"No it's not," Shikamaru replied, shaking his head, and reaching over to poke her side. Producing a squeak, and causing her to jump and slap his hand away. Her glare caused him to start laughing. "This is going to be a fun trip."

A/N: I am so excited to start the sequel for Sweet Serendipity. I loved writing that story so much, and I am ready to continue Sakura and Shikamaru's story. What do you all think will happen on this camping trip they are about to go on? Also what was your favorite scene of the chapter?

Don't forget to review, favorite, and share this story with others. Also be sure to check out my other stories.

Be sure to like my page (Ruby1235 Fanfiction) on Facebook and follow me on twitter ( Ruby1235Fanfic) for updates, sneak peeks, and hints for current and new stories :)

Also be sure to check out my blog: ruby1235fanfiction. blogspot .com (no spaces)