Disclaimer: Naruto and it's characters are property of Kishimoto-sensei. All your base are belong to us though. So not even making a profit off of this. Totally not the point. Also...I blame KT for creating an Iruka for my Shizune in our rp thereby getting the pairing stuck in my head in it's infinite cuteness.
The 20 Truths of Shizune - Family Is What You Build
1. She has no memories of her father. He'd been killed by enemy nin before her first birthday. There had been times though in her travels when she'd find herself standing in the middle of a strange town, struck to the core by deep, rumbling laughter that she only remembered from her dreams.
Her memories of her mother have become clearer with age, where most children tend to lose the details. She'd always seen the details; it just took growing up to understand them. She was thirteen when she realized that her mother's bright smiles had rarely reached her pale, sad eyes.
2. She was always at the top of her class growing up. Every time report cards were handed out she hoped that her mother's proud exclamation of "You're so smart, Shizune-chan! Just like your-" would end in "father" instead of the moment of hesitation and whisper of "uncle."
3. Her first crush had saved her one day during a weapons class. Maito Gai had cornered her on the practice field, waxing poetic (at least as much as a seven-year old boy can) about springtime and youth (in the middle of the hottest recorded summer) while waving a handful of shuriken in her face. Her rescue came in the form of a lanky boy of nine chewing on a thin piece of metal. He'd looped his arm around her shoulders and shuffled her off without a word, seemingly oblivious to the green clad youth left behind.
She'd gone home that afternoon and scoured her mother's weapons for some of the long senbon, finding instead a worn leather case with her father's name etched on the flap. Inside was a collection of needles about half the size of a senbon, but just as sharp, and a strange rigging of black leather bands that looked like it might fit around a man's forearm.
4. The day she was given her Leaf headband, she'd tied it around her forehead proudly and run straight home. She wanted her mother to see that she was now a full shinobi of Konoha. It wasn't her mother who was waiting on the front steps though, but her uncle Dan, his face looking as pale as his silvery hair.
5. She'd never forget the expression on her mother's pale, lifeless face. Standing there in the old hospital, her uncle hovering beside her, she'd finally seen a true expression of relief upon her mother's delicate features. She brushed long silver strands away, her small hand grazing across the skin that should have been covered by the symbol of Konoha. Untying her own, unscratched forehead protector, she placed it on her mother's brow, a few tears falling into the grooves of the leaf design as her shoulders shook in grief.
6. It was an odd transition, living with a man for the first time in her memory at the age of nine. Dan certainly tried his hardest to make her feel welcome. She had to remind herself that the silver head of hair peering into her bedroom doorway wasn't her mother. She had never thought to check on Shizune when nightmares would wake her up with a cry. After she assured him that she was fine and he'd gone back to bed, she would cry in her guilt for coming to love him more than she had her own mother.
7. The irony of having her crush on her genin team was not lost on Shizune. Along with Aoba, they became like a close-knit family. They were inseparable to the point where people would comment if one were missing for more than an hour. They learned to read every expression, every movement of the others. If Genma ever read how she really felt about him, he never said so.
8. Her first reaction to Tsunade had been a pang of jealousy. At the age of twelve, she'd had her uncle to herself for the past three years. In that time she'd been shown more affection than she could remember in the rest of her life previously. And here was this blonde woman who was loved by everyone in the village, their very own princess of sorts, with her hand wrapped comfortably in Dan's. His eyes were on her as he introduced them. He had barely glanced her way. Tsunade's amber eyes however, had glinted in amusement as the small dark haired girl had glared at her.
9. She made chuunin just after her thirteenth birthday and had been treated, along with the rest of her team, to a celebratory dinner by Dan and Tsunade. By this point, she'd actually given up her grudge against the older woman, seeing that her uncle was even more enjoyable to be around because of her. She'd even begun studying medicine at the blonde's side in her free time. Part of her wondered how much longer she'd have to wait for Tsunade to become her aunt.
10. Everything changed two weeks later when she came across Tsunade trembling in the rain outside her front door, blood still covering her jounin vest and shaking hands griping a familiar necklace. After she had taken the blonde woman inside, she pushed Tsunade into the shower, stripping away the rain-drenched clothing and letting the water pound on them both until it ran clear.
She waited until Tsunade had fallen into an exhausted slumber, curled around one of Dan's pillows before she went to see the Sandaime. By the time Tsunade woke up the next morning, the details had been worked out and she'd gathered enough of their things to get them wherever Tsunade chose. Officially, they were on a training mission…of indeterminate length. Unofficially, Shizune had been given an A-ranked mission to protect and escort the other woman for as long as they needed.
11. The theory part of her training came as they traveled from country to country, from scrolls and texts and Tsunade's own experiences. If they settled down someplace for any amount of time, Shizune offered her services to the local clinics. Most of the time, the villages were too poor to offer more than a place to stay, but the experience of healing (and losing) real patients was worth more than any gold she could have been given. What gold she did earn though, was kept hidden away except to buy necessities for the two of them.
12. They only went back to Konoha once during their fifteen-year journey. Two years after they had left, the Sandaime had tracked them too a small village in Tea Country, notifying them of the final attack by the Kyuubi and the death of the Yondaime. They'd slipped in amongst the mourners cloaked in henges, revealing themselves only to the Sandaime himself. As soon as he brought up finding a successor, Tsunade was dragging her out of the office and back towards the gates.
13. She saw failure in her sleep. Images of her parents (her father as she saw him in the photo she kept of him, her mother, cold and peaceful in death), and her uncle's smiling face were intermingled with faces, young and old and mostly nameless. Except for one. Shiima Kuri had been a cheerful little girl with a smile as bright as her big blue eyes. A patient in the clinic on the outskirts of Suna, she'd been the one to teach Shizune that not everyone could be saved, even if you poured so much healing chakra into them that you were out cold for a week afterwards. Tsunade hadn't yelled at her that time, only shared a sad, knowing look and a whispered threat if she were ever to be that stupid again.
14. Even though there were times when she longed to return to Konoha, to see her friends and former teammates again, Shizune wouldn't give up the things she had seen and the places she had been. Shinobi, as a rule, tended to travel far and wide. Very few of them saw beyond the dark corners of enemy territory though. She'd gone horseback riding in Lightning Country, shared gossip with the daughters of Earth Country's daimyo, and given her first kiss to a sweet young herbalist in Rain for teaching her what he knew about poison antidotes.
15. Tsunade's drinking habits aside, Shizune rarely drank because she was all too aware of how little it took to get her drunk. One drink would have her relaxed and happy, two would have her saying things that she usually wouldn't dare say aloud, and three would find her kissing whoever was closest. The time that this ended in Tsunade yanking her off of the lap of some guy with scruffy brown hair and a smirking grin by her collar, to be shut in the bathroom until she sobered up…well…she'd decided to stop getting drunk in a strange town after that. Tsunade wasn't often gentle in teaching a lesson and that bathroom floor in the middle of winter with no blanket or pillow had been a cold, hard lesson indeed.
16. When it finally set in that they were actually returning to Konoha, Shizune'd stressed herself out so bad that they'd had to stop traveling in the middle of the day, just two days out of her childhood home, because she was too busy puking up her breakfast. She never felt guilty for leaving, but she felt guilty over never saying goodbye to Genma and Aoba, who had been with her through everything else. She didn't even know if they were still alive to be mad at her when she got back.
17. She couldn't have asked for a better reunion than when, upon seeing her stepping out of the Hokage tower that first day back, she'd been sandwiched between two large, muscular men and hugged until she had to beat them off for air. But when, over Ichiraku ramen that night, they'd told her of Hayate and the other friends they'd lost over the years, her grin had rapidly dissolved into gut-wrenching sobs as she wondered if she could have made a difference had she been here.
18. The bad thing about crushes was that they lingered. But twenty-two years was a long time even for a crush. Her heart still did somersaults around Genma, especially after seeing the man he'd grown to be, but it ached too, for the knowledge that nothing would ever come of it.
19. She'd never seen it coming. Izumo would joke with her about the academy teacher who deserved someone like her. Kotetsu would make obscene gestures if the chuunin were in the same room with them, behind his back. Raidou would beg her to give the man a pity-lay since he obviously needed something better to do than harp on them about their mission reports all the time. But she'd never even considered. At least not until he'd asked her to join him for ramen one afternoon while Naruto was away on a mission, his slight blush making his horizontal scar stand out on his tanned face. Her heart had leapt in her chest as her own cheeks turned a matching scarlet and she found herself agreeing.
20. Any shinobi learns early on not to expect a long life. If they were lucky, they lived long enough to bring a child or two into the world, usually to leave them too soon to fend for themselves. Shizune didn't know how she'd managed to draw a good card, but then, she wasn't going to complain either. She sat at Tsunade's bedside, one hand holding her mentor's once strong one, the other wrapped in her husband's, pressed to her swollen belly. Sakura and Naruto sat on the other side of the bed; the latter still dressed in his official robes. Tsunade's lips moved and she turned her head towards Shizune. Leaning in closer, she caught the whispered "arigato, musume," as those amber eyes shut for the last time, a smile upon the former hokage's lips.