There was someone in the house.
That was Tenten's first conscious thought after being roused awake by something she could not quite place. There was no sound, nothing to indicate that she was not alone, but still she knew someone was there. Years of training and living alone were not forgotten as she reached slowly between the mattress edge and bed frame to retrieve one of her kunai. She was facing towards the window with the bedroom doorway at her back and dared not risk turning in case the intruder realised she was awake.
"It's me."
Tenten's strangle hold on the kunai released and she rolled onto her other side as Neji's shadow slowly detached itself from the darkness outside her doorway.
"You scared me," she whispered just loud enough for him to hear. Something didn't feel right, there was a hesitation in his posture as he remained standing on the other side of her room. "What's wrong? What happened?"
"Nothing," Neji dropped his pearly gaze to the floor in a rare show of embarrassment and uncertainty, "I...can I stay?"
Tenten sat up and eyed him suspiciously for a moment. Dressed in his ANBU uniform, his mask probably discarded with his boots at her front door, he cut quite an impressive figure. With his above average height, broad shoulders and leanly muscled body he could be quite imposing when he wanted, but without his characteristic coolness and standing almost defeatedly in her doorway, all Tenten felt like doing was throwing her arms around him.
"Of course," she slid out of bed and reached for her black silk robe on the chair in the corner. Neji made no move to turn away or stop her, he simply watched as she tied the sash and moved past him into the hallway, turning briefly to ask, "do you want tea?"
Neji simply nodded and followed her out into the kitchen, leaning against the counter as he tiredly watched her move about the room. A few minutes later he was sitting at her dining table with tea and the warmed leftovers of the evening's meal while Tenten sat across from him, one leg folded beneath her as she assessed him over the top of her mug.
"How was your mission?"
"Hn," was his evasive response as he sipped at the tea, feeling the warmth finally begin to spread through his tired, battered body again.
"Fine," she sighed as she set the mug down and rose to find him fresh clothes and a towel. He looked like he needed a good shower and probably had a few cuts and scrapes that would require dressing before he got some rest. If he didn't want to talk about it now then she would wait until he did. And he would, he always eventually told her.
"Ten, wait, " she turned suddenly at his affectionately shortened use of her name, just as his hand reached out to catch hers and halt her departure. He looked suddenly exhausted then, and his shoulders sagged in defeat as he pulled her gently onto his lap. He sighed and dropped his head to her shoulder, effectively shielding his facial expression as he whispered quietly, "I lost one."
Tenten sat in stilled confusion for a moment before the meaning of his words clicked in her head. He had lost his first ninja as an ANBU captain. It was bound to happen eventually, despite all his skill and preparation, but he apparently felt responsible for it. When she thought about it, this was probably the first time Neji had lost a team member on any mission he had been a part of. There had been life threatening injuries and lots of near misses, but in all the time he had been on Team Gai, and his subsequent promotion to ANBU, there had never been a death on one of his teams.
Tenten shifted herself to straddle his thighs, allowing her to face him straight on as she took his head in both of her hands. "I'm sorry, Neji" she rubbed her thumbs soothingly across his cheeks, "but it isn't your fault, I'm sure there was nothing more any of you could have done."
Neji nodded, dropping his head back to her shoulder again, before lifting it to look her over longingly. Three months was a long time - he didn't want his first night back with her to be miserable.
"I missed you," his hands settled on her waist as he said it, fingers unconsciously running over the silky fabric in a circular motion as his lips found her neck.
Tenten grinned softly as she pressed her hands flat against his chest, "I missed you too. Without you here I spend all my time training with Lee."
Neji made a slight frown at that as he imagined her bowing to Lee and Gai's will and joining their spandex-wearing, leg-warmer toting duo. While his imagination was conjuring these awful ideas, Tenten leaned in to press a kiss to his right cheek before attempting to climb off his lap,
"Come on, you need a shower. Probably some medical attention too."
Neji pulled her back down with a slight shake of his head, "I can wait, they're no more than scratches. Unless you want to come with me?" his salaciously cheeky smirk was something only Tenten ever witnessed and it never failed to elicit a blush from her.
"Neji," she admonished as she deftly extricated herself from his grip, "go on." She pressed a quick kiss to his lips and turned away. "I'll get the first aid kit."
Twenty minutes later, after his first hot shower in almost three months, Neji emerged from Tenten's ensuite bathroom with a fluffy brown towel wrapped around his hips to find a long-sleeved grey shirt and old pair of loose cotton pants he wore to meditate lying on the end of the bed. As he was doing up the waist tie on the pants, Tenten wandered through the door carrying a box full of bandages and antiseptic creams and other items Neji couldn't immediately identify. She settled it on the end of the bed and gestured for him to sit down.
"Humor me," was her response to his raised eyebrows, and so he moved to sit cross legged in the middle of the bed while she positioned herself on his left side. Cool fingers worked their way over his bare chest, pressing and testing. He was right, there were no injuries that needed significant attention but he was still pretty scratched and beaten so Tenten figured it was better to be safe than sorry as she moved around him and rubbed the cuts over with an antiseptic wash.
The only real issue was the great bruise down the right side of his body that looked relatively recent. It was still a deep purple colour and the way he winced when she touched it made her wonder if he hadn't bruised a couple of ribs as well. She didn't miss the long scar down the back of his right shoulder, a reminder of how close he came to not coming back after an A rank mission gone wrong eighteen months earlier. Luckily, Shikamaru's quick thinking saved both Neji and the mission. The two men had been good friends ever since.
"Have you reported to the Hokage yet?" she tried to distract him as she examined his side.
"Yes."
"Have you been home?" Neji's gaze immediately turned to her as she looked up from her work. They both knew what she meant - he clearly had not been back to the Hyuuga compound to eat or shower before he arrived on her doorstep. She was asking if that was because he hadn't gone back at all or whether his sudden arrival and request to stay had something to do with another disagreement with the Elders upon his return. "I am home," he returned before turning away again.
Tenten finished up her examination and set the kit on the chair in the corner of the room before turning back to Neji, arms crossed over her chest.
"You know what I mean," she replied, pointedly ignoring his glare that suggested she set it aside while she still had the chance. "What happened this time?"
Neji reached for the shirt and pulled it over his head before walking over to place his hands on her shoulders.
"It doesn't matter." He saw the concern in her eyes and suddenly realised why she was so worried about it. "They don't know. No one does. It was about me wasting my potential having taken so long to become an ANBU captain, nothing to do with you. You're safe, Ten."
He leaned in to kiss her forehead affectionately before leading her to the bed by the hand and pulling her in next to him.
"It's not me I'm worried about, Neji." Tenten pressed her face against his collarbone, soaking in his presence after being separated for so long. She was tired, and now that Neji was home and relatively unscathed it was getting harder and harder not to simply drift off to sleep. Neji noticed this and slipped an arm around her waist,
"Sleep Ten, we can talk about it tomorrow."
It didn't take long for her to fall asleep but as exhausted as he was, Neji's white eyes remained wide awake. He hadn't lied when he said no one knew about them but it didn't stop him wondering once again, as he watched her sleeping form, how they had managed to end up this way.
They had been team mates for a long time, but stopped training together so frequently once Neji was promoted to jounin a few years ago. After a while they stopped getting as many missions together and even though Tenten eventually became a jounin, they never went back to training together everyday. After Neji joined ANBU they saw even less of each other and while he had never spoken to her about it, he had sorely missed training with her. She had always been the only person who really understood him and they pushed each other well when they trained together.
Almost two years ago, after spending so much time apart, they finally got put on a mission together. It had been an undercover assignment and with Shikamaru as team captain, they and three other ninja had spent six weeks on a mission that changed everything. Tenten had been posing as a barmaid at a village tavern and, basically, her and Neji had drawn out their target by pretending to be involved.
While Neji didn't realise it until the mission was over, he had not really needed to pretend. Obviously Tenten hadn't been pretending either, because no sooner had they reported to the Hokage than he had walked her home only to find himself backing her up against her front door as soon as she closed it. Tenten had made no attempt to stop him and responded to every touch of his lips and hands with just as much enthusiasm as Neji offered. Afterwards he had collected his clothes and left, and they didn't speak about it for two months. They continued to be sent on missions together and fell back into the familiar teamwork that had made them such a formidable duo to begin with. But after each mission, after he walked her home and as soon as they were alone, it would all happen again. Neither of them fully understood it, and they hardly spoke about it but whenever Neji wanted, he knew that if he went to her apartment she would not turn him away. She had been with other men before, both as part of kunoichi missions as well as having dated two men from Konoha in the few years before. Neither of her relationships had been particularly serious and although Neji was aware that she had been intimately involved with her most recent partner, he didn't ask her for details and she never offered them.
As time had progressed their spontaneous post-mission encounters had developed into something more. Rather than frantic moments of desperate need where Neji left almost as soon as she fell asleep, she woke up one morning to find the bed still warm, the sheets wrapped gently around her naked body and Neji staring down at her as he traced soft patterns on her exposed back. He remembered how surprised she had been to realise he was still there, almost as surprised as he himself was. It was then that he had decided he was in love with her. He never said it, and although sometimes felt he should just in case she didn't know, deep down he knew she was aware that he did not have to come to her every time the Elders were difficult, or after every mission just to tell her he was back. She knew that he chose to come to her because it was then that he needed to be at home, and the only person he had ever felt at home with was Tenten.
This made little difference to the clan Elders though, since Tenten was an orphan from an unknown family with no bloodline limit and nothing to offer the clan. They would never accept her as a possible match for their prodigy and so they had kept their affair a secret from everyone. Neji had yet to tell Tenten, but he suspected that Hinata was aware of their relationship, though he doubted she would tell anyone or be anything but happy for them as her and Neji had become quite close over the last few years and Tenten was also very good friends with his cousin.
Neji looked down at Tenten again, her loose hair spilling over her shoulders as she slept soundly. It would all have to come out one day, and there was no telling what the Elders might do once they found out. For now, Neji would do everything he could to protect her from the tangled politics and intrigue of his family. With this thought, he finally closed his eyes and fell into a deep and much needed sleep.