It wasn't as if this was the strangest thing they had ever done, far from it. Fighting one another in the shadow of the quasi-revived Juubi while a recently reanimated Madara attacked the kunoichi's allies, all while some random jonin kept rambling about the passions and flames of youth? That definitely qualified for the 'honor'. This situation, however, was definitely the most surreal.

The place was classy, no doubt about that; it would have to be if the heads of the Senju, Uchiha, and the man who would be Fire Lord himself were here as well. It was a good thing then that she had arrived in this location in her formal sealing get-up then, she supposed, or else it would've been rather difficult to even begin to cajole the current host into letting her stay indoors, let alone lead her to a table.

As she seated herself at a booth near the back that the host had been gracious enough to claim, supposedly on account of wanting to dine away from the heated discussions of the most prominent men of the Fire Nation, she noticed the mild curiosity that was shot in her general direction by an equally well dressed red-haired woman who was currently seated by the future Hokage of the then future Konoha. Trying to quell the sudden nervousness she felt, she quietly placed an errant lock of her blond hair back into her mildly elaborate hairstyle (a phrase he had coined the day of their engagement, or was it the day he had said 'we're both girls here, so you know I've got your back') as she tried once more to calm herself while she patiently waited for him to arrive.

The host spoke a soft sentence of greeting to a new arrival, and with a quick glance at the man standing in the doorway, spiraled gray mask on his face (the one he wore as he told her he was 'no one', when he told her 'I swear to you, by my oath as Hokage, your husband will be returned to you safely') and a very familiar battle fan strapped to his back ('here, this is yours after all'), the butterflies in her stomach returned swiftly, and with a vengeance. Knowing the man as well as she did (she may have memorized his file after becoming Hokage, but nobody had better tell Itachi or there would be hell to pay) she waited quietly for him to make the first move and come to her table, rather to run up to him and drag him over herself (no matter how much she wanted to).

He strode over to her, all lithe confidence with an assurance born and bred into him on the battlefield (he had actually died once, on that fateful mission with her sensei, and when she thought about it now it seemed that her life in that timeline had been the lesser for it) and she had to remind herself in that instant that she was in public and that it would be somewhat frowned upon for her to jump his bones in that particular setting. Not that decorum had always stopped her before from doing something similar (except with Sai in the other room, because she would be damned if she would give him more material for his inane 'sisterly love' comments), but it wasn't every day that you were in the same room with a man whose stone chiseled face had once or twice been the location of previously mentioned liaisons.

"Uzumaki," he said hesitantly and softly when he arrived at the table, so as not to alert any other Uzumakis who may or may not be sitting directly beside a man whose face would quite possibly become the location of little trysts that they didn't really try hard enough to hide from the blonde's husband at the time. It was the way he said her name, though, and immediately she understood that he was in the same boat as she, and the less there was to be confused about, the better.

"Natsume," she replied, the unspoken follow up being 'that's my dominant personality'. Noting his remaining hesitance, as if not knowing how to act around her (not that he had always acted the same around her even in the same lifetime), she supplied further information. Flashing him what was no doubt a very familiar ring (or at least, she hoped it was, because that would be a balm to her heart that was sorely needed after last time) she said, "I suppose it's up to you whether or not that last name remains listed in the family register or not."

A soft snort comes from behind the mask that he is in the process of removing after he sits down across from her. "Quoting your own husband's words, Uchiha Natsume? Keep it up and you'll be known as the copy-nin instead of that scarecrow of a sensei of yours."

Her eyes linger on his face ('nah, I'd rather keep the scars. They make me look badass') and she does her best to hide the light twitch in her fingers as the waiter arrives with the tea and menus. Apparently she didn't hide it good enough, because before she can truly even begin to process what's happening, he's already had the place settings rearranged so when she sits back down at his urging her right hand is able to trace the familiar smooth skin of his left while she hums and reads the menu.

"Sorry I was such an ass last time, Natsume," he says so quietly it takes her three times (which is also the amount of times it took him to propose before she finally said 'yes, idiot Hokage') to make out what he's saying.

Shifting ever so slightly, she rested head on his shoulders, feeling (needing) the contact while she talked with him. "I never could understand why there wasn't any bleed through in that timeline for you. After you…" at this she bit her lip, and they both knew that died was the word she was looking for, but she refused to speak it aloud, "and I got the full memory shard, I spent years studying why this might've been. Hell, even the time I was antagonistic and you were the dashing Hokage who defeated my depraved villainy-"

He smiled at this. ('You surrendered because you were felled by my dashing good looks, admit it!')

"-I still retained at least some of the shard's memories within me. You don't think it had anything to do with ol' One-Eye's partial return in the life before it, do you?"

He rubbed his chin in thought, "It's possible, I suppose. Though maybe my soul had been severely damaged due to my proximity to the Springtime of Youth."

Natsume snorted, "If that were the case, then neither of us would've had the shards pass between lives at all. He's shown up every time."

Her companion frowned. "Even the time we went to the moon?"

"Especially that time. He was the ANBU assigned to me at the time."

A shudder escaped him. "I now suddenly regret everything I said to your companions during that mission. Those poor battered souls."

"Speaking of battered souls, Obito," she says and there it is, finally out in the open and for some reason it just felt so good to just say it and have him respond (because sometimes by the time she learned his name, he was already gone, and then it just hurt so much), "I think it's time we end it."

His muscles tense at this, and she's quick to clarify. "End the bleed through, I mean." For as many times as she's felt the memory shards along with him and had just known then and there that it was worth it because they were going through this together, there were times when they'd do or say or just not do and by the time the shards came to them it was just too late and there was no going towards what they were before.

"I agree," he said (because also been there, longing for her due to a memory he's never gone through while at the same time smile and hug the children that are hers but aren't his as well), "that's why when we were in between this and the last lifetime I shunted our chakra to the side while time was reasserting itself."

At this, she straightened up in her seat. "Shouldn't that have just sent us to that place? Why'd we end up here, in the past?"

Obito took a moment to respond, brushing away an errant lock of blonde hair ('if sensei saw me now' he says as he runs his hands through her hair, 'I'm pretty sure he would kill me and ask questions later. And stop laughing because whether or not you believe me your dad is scary'), "Remember what it said? 'When you're ready to go to that place, just move to the side and I'll find the proper time to fit you in.'"

She shifts closer to him for a moment, and gently entwines her lips with his own (her mother finds it far too hilarious to let her dad seriously injure his own student, so she's unafraid to begin all her missions with a kiss from the Hokage-candidate) before sitting back and grinning at him impishly. "We are so going to make it regret doing that, right Obito?"

His returning smile isn't a cheeky as her own, but there are traces of that emotion within it. "Obviously, Natsume. Do you have any ideas where we should start?"

"Well, I always liked playing matchmaker, and I hear that Tobirama's got a crush on this world's female Izuna Uchiha."

His mind immediately pictures the awkwardness and the tension between Hashirama and Madara that would arise from a Senju-Uchiha marriage, and he can't help but comment that his wife is an evil, evil woman. And that's why he loves her.

FIN