Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. Or centaurs.
Dedication: To the last person who reviewed Saying Goodbye, because this person pretty much motivated me to get on with my life (in other words, my writing.)
AN: A prequel, of some sorts, to Saying Goodbye. Do not curse me for my writing, I'm trying to get into writing mode again. It's really hard...
Bemusement, she knows she's confused. Rainbows are apparent if you walk in her shoes, they're everywhere. She doesn't know why she sees what she sees, but to her it's as close to reality you can get.
Unicorns are all over the place. She hears screaming far away, but something stops her from finding out the owner of the voice, she doesn't know why but she knows that it's all too dangerous to go.
She walks slowly but securely. Testing out her legs, since she's not sure whether they work in another world or is she just in another place?
Where is she? She doesn't know. Her eyes try to find a sign, but in this world of perfection, she finds no direction. Slightly hating the green, green grass, she stomps, she shouts, she yells and yes she cries, because she's so confused over why there are two moons.
And she's not herself, she's just a shell, and in a world of fairytales only the antagonist is allowed to have a dark side of them. A wicked smile appears on her face, as she thinks about how to crush the princess, crush the prince, and take over the world.
She then realises that she's crazy. Something is wrong, because she certainly does not belong in a world where trees speak, where there are two moons, too many rainbows for it to be possible, and a world where the green grass is so green.
The grass she remembers always had a hint of yellow to it, since the sun always shone on it.
She feels tears fall down her cheeks, and the screaming from behind the mountain that is now up-and-down is getting louder, she has to cover her ears to block it out. She cries and cries, sobs and sobs, but the world doesn't disappear and she has neither a kunai nor a shuriken to throw at something.
She's in a white dress, and if she'd been the one choosing she'd never would've picked this one. It's twinkling, and when she twirls, the skirt follows.
Stop screaming, she says, but something is terribly wrong. The words are clear, but the sentence is incomprehensible, like someone had mixed up her words. All she tries to say is a simple "Stop screaming" but there are so many words, and they're all at the wrong place at the wrong time.
She widens her eyes as she sees centaur running at her in a fast speed, and barely manages to jump away before he runs her over, resulting in her falling onto the grass.
She notices, as she lies on the ground, that the sun is really blue in this place, and that it smells butterflies, and that the water is kind of dry.
And the screaming, the screaming is getting even louder, and the voice sounds like thunder. She gets up and starts running in the opposite direction of the sound, stumbling over the street of candy as she runs through the forest of fire that doesn't burn.
Just as the voice catches up to her, she hears what the voice is trying to say.
"Tenten, it's just a dream, it's not real."
She wakes up, lying in a hospital bed, her cheeks still wet from the crying the dream always causes. She turns in her bed, and smiles bitterly.
Someone has cursed her with a dream that haunts her so badly she hurts herself while unconscious. And it's only about a land where everything is perfect.
But perfection isn't real, because perfection doesn't exist.
She turns again, again, again, but no position fits. And then she looks after the angel – or the devil, depending on if you trust her dream self or the real her – and turns to see a torn Naruto sit on a chair beside her bed, looking tired and old.
She can't blame him. She's old too.
Her voice, where is it? She searches through her mind, body, heart and soul to find it, but she lost it, she thinks. But there it is, suddenly appearing out of nowhere, and she decides that she should ask Naruto what he is doing here, sitting beside her, when it is Lee's night to do it. At least she thinks it is. She's not so sure though, she doesn't trust her memory or judgement anymore.
"Lee's are why tonight it's turn here you," she sputters.
She closes her eyes at her failure – once again speaking doesn't work out. Since when did she lose the ability to speak?
She doesn't know, even though she really tries to know.
She opens her black eyes – or are they brown? – and stares at the man before her, the strong man, as he sits with her, the weak woman. She looks at him tiredly, tries to connect and tell him through her eyes what she wants him to know. It doesn't work. He just returns her look with a stare she can't comprehend.
She doesn't blame him for not knowing how to converse through eyes. She didn't either, until the day she was forced into spending the rest of her life in a hospital bed, seeing, hearing and hating things that aren't real.
He sighs, and stands up, but is enough of a gentleman to offer her an explanation to why he is leaving. "I have a mission, but I'll see you."
He squeezes her hand, and then he's off.
She doesn't mind. Someone else will come, she thinks, and she hopes it's him, the one who always talks about the clouds, because she really needs someone who can converse with their eyes. She needs to talk.
It isn't him. It's that girl. She has long blonde hair and is happy, free and slightly fat. The others say she's pregnant.
What's "pregnant", anyway? She doesn't know.
She's his wife. She's cloud guy's wife cloud.
Sometimes she hates the blonde because of it. Other times she just smiles, because cloud guy surely deserves happiness and if Blondie is the one… well. She just has to live with it.
If living is lying in a hospital and hoping that bemusement will not ever rule over her, that is.
Ino, as the blonde calls herself, smiles at her as she sits down on the previously unoccupied chair. She then starts talking about life in general, whether she should name the kid "Nadeshiko" or "Kyoko", that Shikamaru (cloud guy? She thinks that's his name…) is all too lazy to ever clean the house even though she orders him to and the fact that Naruto (the sparkling guy, she knows) should really know Hinata's (shy girl) head over heels for him. And then she starts knitting a woolly hat – which looks more like a diaper. At least Shikamaru calls it diaper.
She doesn't know what a diaper is. She tries to ask Ino, but her words are once again mixed up. But Ino, she understands. And she kind of understands Blondie's explanation what a diaper is, she thinks.
Hours pass by, she notices, but she refuses to sleep because she knows that dream will come back and she's not ready to face it yet. She never ever wants to see a rainbow again, and she also thinks rainbows should learn that they don't appear in every angle of the sun. Maybe rainbows are stupid.
Ino stands up to leave, saying that Shikamaru is coming any minute now, so it's time for her to go. With an almost suffocating hug, she leaves the hospital room while humming loudly. Nothing ever seems to break down her spirit.
Or maybe there is something? She's not sure. Blondie is getting harder to read for every day.
A few more minutes goes to waste, before cloud guy enters the room with the usual lazy smirk. At the sight of her, expression, he drops his smirk and takes on a look of fatigue. He walks over and sits down on the chair, placing his arms on his knees and rests his head in the palm of his hands.
"Bad dream again?" he questions. When she doesn't answer, he continues. "Blink once if it's a yes; blink twice if it's a no."
She blinks once, and he sighs.
"I though you were rid of those," he says, and rolls his yes at the thoughts rushing through his mind. "The doctors said you didn't hallucinate anymore… but they don't know, do they?"
She blinks twice. He shakes his head, and takes another position on his chair, leaning back slightly with his hands in his pockets.
"No use in not telling them. Maybe they'll be able to fix it."
She manages to snort.
"And they say I'm negative," he jokes. She wishes she could laugh.
He then starts going into a big rant about his day, even though she knows he thinks it is troublesome to be the one leading the conversation. But she isn't able to do it anymore, so he does it for her. She's thankful, he understands her.
She sends the messages her mouth refuses to deliver through her eyes, and he mostly get her meaning. It makes her happy – he knows her enough to understand what she means. Few do.
"Ino wants me to clean the house. I got my Genin team to do it. Hopefully, she won't find out…"
He's a little afraid of his wife. Maybe not afraid of her, more like afraid of her temper. He says it's troublesome to calm her down.
She wishes she could be there to see them fight, wishes she could be a big part of their life. She catches herself wishing the same thing for the rest of her friends – or what are they now? – and smiles.
It's not a real, full-blown smile, it's more like a little quirk upwards of the corner of her mouth, but it'll do for now.
He sees it. "You're not completely gone, are you?"
She blinks twice, making him smile lazily.
"Good to hear."
He then stands up and proceeds to leave, but not before squeezing her hand, making her a little dizzy. And sleepy.
She smiles; he's tainting her with his laziness. But then she feels horrible, because sleeping is bad, bad, bad, isn't it.
Then she realises that if she doesn't sleep, it'll be forever until he returns. So with a tear sliding down her cheek at the thought of returning to the world of perfection, she falls asleep.
But not before hoping she'll dream about the past, and everything she misses, and the people that always manage to make her happy at the end of her day.
She frowns… what did they always call them, including herself?
She remembers now.
She hopes she'll dream about Konoha 11, the only ones with the power to make her happy again, the heroes of her world.
And even in a world of perfection, they can't erase the bright shining stars of Konoha 11, can they?
She's sure they can't. After all, the most perfect beings ever should have a place in a world of perfection, as they're the perfection in living form.
That night, she dreams about them. She dreams about Naruto grinning from ear to ear while painting on a brick wall. Next to him, Sakura almost shines as she smiles, a paintbrush in her hand. Kiba is on Sakura's left side, laughing and pulling a joke to the other two, the painting seemingly forgotten. Hinata is watching them from the side, a soft smile on her lips. She's still painting. Beside Hinata is Ino, laughing about something while looking as pretty as always. Shikamaru is next to her, looking at the blonde while saying how troublesome everything is. Chouji chuckles beside him. On Chouji's left side, Shino and Neji both look emotionless, but if she looks closely, she can see Neji almost smiling, and Shino's eyebrows are up in his hair, something which marks one thing: happiness.
However, most of all, she dreams about Tenten, who looks just like her. Tenten is giggling on Neji's other side, her paintbrush resting just over the last number one in the number eleven.
Suddenly, they all start painting again, and soon enough, it's finished.
She sees what stands on it, and her heart skips a beat. Konoha 11.
Somewhere, deep inside of her, she knows she'll never have nightmares again.
They're watching over her. She doesn't need to be afraid.
She's alright now.