A/N: The title was something I choose from the story at random as it appeared more than once, I couldn't think of anything else so it is what it is. Enjoy :)
Standard disclaimers apply; I do not and will never own Naruto or the characters mentioned.
Ever since her academy days, Tenten has found comfort in the abandoned Uchiha garden outside of the mighty complex. When things fell apart, she'd visit the kindly caretakers and help them water the lilies or pick the overgrowing weeds. She met a varying amount of Uchiha persons in her lonesome visits, and they saw her for what she was; a young, orphaned girl with lively eyes and a feisty spirit. They saw the willpower she lived on, her thrive to be the best kunoichi she could be. They brought her things (old clothes to small for older clan children, kunai and shuriken that didn't make the selection for the academy graduates, tea-lollies - her favorite) and showered her in old tales told to them when they were her age. She was like long forgotten family, without the distinct onyx eyes and jet black hair of the Uchiha.
After the massacre, Tenten was lost. She stumbled in the garden with enthusiasm, and collapsed against the cool grass with sadness, shock, and bitter tears (she recalls the dripping red red red from the nightly garden watch splattered over the white, white lilies and roses, only the recently blooming chrysanthemums left untouched, clean from the bloody stains).
She didn't leave the area until morning, where a jounin found her curled up to the youngest lady corpse (Itachi's and Sasuke's aunt) who had become a surrogate mother to the lonely child, and carried her away to the hospital.
Once she was checked up, required to stay the night for precautions, and released the next morning (by the signature of the orphanage owner) she followed wherever her tiny feet led her and she was back where she was the day before. Except the blood was gone, the corpses weren't there, and the stained bushes were burned to a crisp, leaving only the chrysanthemums to stand alone. It wasn't a huge garden, so there wasn't much missing to begin with but it hurt seeing it so empty, so void of life.
The young girl had sprinted her way to the Yamanaka flower shop and used her spare change (and practiced puppy eyes on the unsuspecting lady behind the counter) to leave the shop with a basket full of lilies, both fire lilies and white ones, a handful of roses, and a variety of others she remembered seeing in the garden, and went to work.
She planted the new flowers, watered the old, and started fresh.
Ten years later and she was still there, taking care of the blooming flowers. A breeze would lift and she would see things. Things, if she told anyone about, people would call her crazy for.
They spoke to her, guided her. They recounted stories and legends, gave advice on bothersome problems and techniques. They thanked her for keeping their precious garden alive while they couldn't. It was like it was before, without the warm hugs and new presents and countless tea-lollies.
They were calling for her; something they daren't do to the two remaining members of their wiped out clan.
And she would listen with a shadowed smile.
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