The war had been hard. Konohagakure was still not back to its former glory, reconstruction was still a constant presence every day, and the streets were flooded with foreign shinobi who had stayed behind, for one reason or another, to help with the effort. The Five Kage were still in the same place, at least for the time being, because of the political talks speaking of reformation. For the first time, such discussions were open to the public. Sasuke was present at every single one, putting everyone else on edge (despite his blocked chakra paths, monitored constantly by a Hyuuga). Tsunade was recovering slowly, but her tongue was as sharp as ever. All in all, Naruto had decided some time off was in order, and he had quickly made it into a group outing. He had invited Sasuke, but his offer had been rejected. Team Eight sited some business to attend to, and Team Ten didn't feel much like celebrating. That left Team Ten, Sakura, and Temari, who had been unapologetically attached to Shikamaru ever since their very public, very passionate display once they had to seen each other again.

To his surprise, both of Temari's brothers had shown up as well.

The Sand Siblings were interesting people. Allies, to be sure-Naruto was sure Suna would be allied with Konoha for many years to come-but difficult to deal with more often than not. Especially when all three were together. The best way to deal with this, the Konoha shinobi had found, was to get them drunk.

"Hey, hey, Gaara, how much does your sand weigh?"

Gaara blinked, unsure what this had to do with anything. "I… I'm not sure."

"You mean, you've never, like, measured it?" asked Ino, giggling into her hand.

Gaara shook his head.

"Why would he measure his sand?" asked Temari skeptically, downing a shot like a champ. "He has a lot of it. That would take forever. Time that could be spent doing other things. Like cloud watching, huh, Shikamaru?"

Shikamaru nodded, flushing. "That would be stupid, to measure his sand."

Temari, who looked pissed for a moment as if worried he was disagreeing with her, settled down again.

"Oi, Kankuro, what about your puppet?"

Said puppet-master shrugged. "I just know it's heavy, man."

"What about your fan, Temari?"

Temari shrugged, doing a very good imitation of Shikamaru's bored expression which only he seemed to understand. He smirked and chuckled.

"Shikamaru can't lift it."

"Woman!" He chastised, glaring now. "Yes, I can."

"No." She looked genuinely confused, but nonetheless very ready to argue her point. "Remember? You tried, the other night-"

"Temari, you said you weren't sleeping with him-"

Temari made a face. "Pfffbt." No, that wasn't right. "Pbbbt." No, hold on… Finally, a proper scoff. "Heh. I'm not. Obviously."

"Then why was he with you the other night?"

"Because we're dating."

A hush fell over the table, but Temari didn't seem to notice. She rolled her eyes, giving Shikamaru a look that plainly told him how stupid she thought her brother was.

Shikamaru smirked, throwing his arm over Temari's shoulders. He was bigger than her now; she wasn't sure exactly when that had happened. But it was sexy. He was sexy. He was all back muscles and lean torso.

"You're not going to kill me?" inquired Shikamaru, apparently also oblivious to the shock of everyone else at the table.

Gaara chanced a glance at Naruto, who was firmly shaking his head no. "No," said Gaara, "until…"

"Until you hurt her!" chimed in Sakura, punching the air in celebration of having a good answer.

"That sounds good." Agreed the Kazekage.

"He won'ttttttt." Disagreed Temari, puffing her lower lip out in a pout. "He's nice."

"Yeah," defended Ino suddenly, a kind of determination on her face that was not present before. "Shikamaru doesn't do anything half-assed when he actually bothers to do it. He probably loves her."

Just then, before anyone had the opportunity to react, Naruto piped up. "Hey, I'm nice! Why won't you go out with me, Sakura-chan? Do I need to be more like Shikamaru?"

Sakura started laughing-very, very hard.

Shikamaru frowned, sitting up to defend himself. Before he got the opportunity, Temari seized the front of his shirt and kissed him. His arms went around her, and the sound of Sakura's obnoxious laughter faded from both their ears.

Finally, Sakura stopped. "No, that isn't why." She smiled at him. "It's because…" she glanced at Ino, taking a deep breath. Ino furiously shook her head no. Sakura faltered, flushing. "I…" She looked back at Naruto, who was frowning. "That isn't why." She repeated.

"Then why?" demanded Naruto in a loud voice (so loud Shikamaru and Temari broke apart to look for the source of the loud sound).

Sakura mimed zipping her lips, her head shaking furiously back from side to side.

"Well, I'm still waiting for Sasuke-kun." Ino proclaimed proudly.

Kankuro frowned. "The bastard who deserted your village? You could have, like, a loyal shinobi if you wanted. One who wasn't likely to murder you in your sleep."

Ino nodded, her hair flipping. "Oh, I don't want to marry him. I have to beat him up first, though, before I can allow myself to fall in love."

Chouji looked a bit put out. "Why are you beating him up?"

"For all the trouble he caused!" Ino raged suddenly, drawing the attention of Sakura and Naruto now, who had thus far been engaged in a "tell me"-"i won't tell you" tug-of-war. "He broke my heart, he treated Sakura like trash, and he abandoned the village. No doubt if I let myself fall in love before I got to beat him up, I'd become too soft to do it properly!"

Chouji shook his head seriously. "There's no way that will ever happen, Ino."

Ino looked at Chouji in surprise, and then beamed at him. "Awwww, thanks."

Seeing that there were many couples around the table, Kankuro crossed his arms and pouted. It wasn't as if he could have sex with a puppet. That would be fucking weird.

"Kankuro," Temari said suddenly, seated firmly in Shikamaru's lap, "who's is the heaviest?"

For a second, Kankuro's jumped to the breasts of all the Konohan kunoichis. Well, Hinata's, probably, were- She probably didn't mean that, though. Temari didn't swing that way. Obviously. He glared briefly at his sister's new seating choice, and then tried valiantly to prevent his fingers from summoning Karosu.

"It's definitely not Gaara's sand."

Gaara looked put out. Temari ignored him. "Right. That gourd can only fit so much, and then it's full. Plus, sand isn't heavy."

"Not at all," agreed Shikamaru, the sake having made him oddly brave in unspecific ways.

"I'd say it's mine, then," agreed Temari, "my fan is iron."

"Yeah, but you only have one fan." Argued Kankuro, calm despite the integrity of his precious puppets on the line. "I have two puppets at least on me at all times."

"But they're made of wood."

"Look, sis, I'd agree with you if you had two fans. But the fact is, you don't."

Seeing that Temari was pouting, Shikamaru took hold of her chin and guided her lips to his again. Temari sighed-in what Kankuro's opinion was an exaggeratedly loud sound-and wrapped her arms around his neck.

Across the table, Ino was watching Naruto and Sakura keep going.

"Tell me!"

"I'm not going to tell you!"

"Tell me!"

"I'm not going to tell you!"

"TELL ME!"

"I WILL NOT FUCKING TELL YOU!"

"FUCKING TELL ME!"

"I'M NOT TELLING YOU!"

Ino sighed, glancing at Chouji. He was munching on his appetizer, looking pointedly anywhere else but at his best friend making out. That shit weirded him out.

"Ino, do you know?" he whispered behind his hand.

Ino nodded.

"Will you tell me?"

Ino beamed again, excited to share this juicy piece of gossip. She leant toward Chouji. "Sakura won't date Naruto because she's afraid she'll fall in love with him."

Ino was not a drunk person who was able to whisper.

Dead silence sounded around the table again.

Temari and Shikamaru stopped kissing, all four of their eyebrows raising simultaneously.

Gaara was nodding. Kankuro was scoffing.

"You're too hot for him, Sakura. If you want my opinion."

"Nobody asked you for your opinion!" shouted Naruto and Sakura simultaneously.

Sudden realization struck Sakura and she retreated into her knees, apparently following the age-old saying from childhood that if she couldn't see anyone, they couldn't see her, either.

"Sakura-chan…" muttered Naruto in disbelief.

She didn't move, but it was obvious, even with her face mostly-hidden, that her face was tomato red.

Naruto poked her knee, but other than a twitch, Sakura did not move. He moved his hand to her calf and rubbed gently. "Sakura-chan, it's okay…"

Ino was panicking. "Sakura, I am so sorry! I didn't mean to, I swear! At least I didn't tell him you had that sex dream about him-" Ino, aided by Chouji, clamped both of her hands over her mouth. Chouji's were in place as well, just to help muffle her unceasing panicked words of apology.

Sakura, unable to take any more embarrassment, leapt deftly out of the booth and ran out of the restaurant.

No one moved.

"Go after her!" shouted Temari and Ino in unison. The two blonde kunoichi met eyes, smiling in approval at each other.

Shikamaru made an annoyed sound, though the word "troublesome" was lost from his vocabulary, and contented himself with squeezing Temari's thigh.

Kankuro flicked the olive from Gaara's discarded martini at him. Unfortunately, his inebriated aim was a little off, and it went down Temari's shirt.

Shikamaru smirked, lifting his hand-

"Don't even think about it!" roared Kankuro.

Gaara sighed, slumping back against the seat.

Outside, Naruto was determinedly chasing a determinedly running away Sakura.

"Sakura-chan!" he yelled again, unable to move faster. "Sakura-chan!"

Naruto stumbled, falling face-first onto the street.

Sakura stopped suddenly, both at the impact and because her name was no longer being called. She looked back, only to see that he had fallen. Plainly worried, she dashed (with a surprising amount of grace, given her blood-alcohol level) over to him.

"Ow ow ow," Naruto complained, sitting up and holding his wrist. His right palm was scratched up and bleeding a little.

"Let me," Sakura said softly, taking his hand. She was resolutely avoiding his gaze, but as she worked with her bright green chakra, her technique was steady and precise. It was healed in a matter of seconds. Neither of them moved.

"You could… You could fall in love with me?"

Sakura didn't miss the hope in his voice. Her heart was a pounding a mile a minute, though, and it was making it even more difficult to get out the words her heavy tongue already impeded. "Of course I could, you idiot."

"What about… what about Sasuke?"

"I don't know," Sakura answered honestly, clutching her chest with a pained expression. "I don't know.. He… Sasuke-kun ripped my heart out, Naruto. It was the most painful thing I've ever gone through in my life. And I can't…" she took a deep breath, gasping so hard it almost sounded like a sob. "I can't go through that again."

Naruto was hanging his head, but he was nodding. Sakura still wasn't looking at him, though, so he opened his mouth to verbally tell her.

"But…" She finally looked up. "If there's anyone I can trust, it's you, Naruto."

His mouth changed tracks seamlessly. "I will never hurt you, Sakura-chan."

Sakura threw her arms around him and hugged him tightly. Naruto hugged back, burying his smile in Sakura's hair.

In another part of Konoha, Temari, Kankuro, and Gaara were still fighting over whose weapon was heaviest.

"It's obviously mine!" insisted Temari in a loud voice, waving her fan dangerously. She was unsettled at this level of inebriation, and though she had no trouble lifting it, Shikamaru was worried about her ability to hold on to it.

"I have two puppets!" screeched Kankuro in a deep voice, flailing his arms, puppet strings attached, in an attempt to win the argument by being the loudest.

"You don't even fucking lift anything, Kankuro! All you do is wiggle your god damn fingers!" Temari was a shred louder. But only just. To top it off, she started imitating him by waving her fingers in the most ridiculous fashion she could.

Shikamaru and Gaara roared with laughter, the former doubling over.

Encouraged by her audience's approval, she wiggled her fingers even more menacingly. After a few leisurely seconds,Temari placed both hands on her hips and smirked at Kankuro, who was so red in the face it looked as if his kabuki make up was melting off.

Kankura gave a roar of rage, stormed over to Temari, and yanked her fan from her clutches.

"Hey!" she shouted indignantly, but her voice lacked any real anger.

Kankuro scoffed impressively. "This isn't even heavy! What do you do, just open it? Flick it? Pssh, I can do that-" He opened the fan, nearly stumbling over. "Ha!" He smirked at Temari. "And I just wave it? That's not even hard!" He gave the fan a wave, and a blast of air hit Shikamaru and Gaara. Shikamaru only reflected on how strange it was to be protected by the sand instead of being afraid it would attack him.

Temari roared with laughter, doubling over herself. "You didn't- even do anything!" She gasped, crying tears of laughter now.

Kankuro tried again, and this time he lost his grip on the fan. It went whirling out of his grasp and right into one of the nearby buildings.

A tense silence settled among the four.

"My fan!" screeched Temari, sprinting over to it. When she pulled it from the rubble, the top was bent and massacred, unable to open.

Shikamaru's mouth was open in shock. Gaara's arms were crossed, a look of such disappointment on his face that Shikamaru took a step away.

Kankuro's hands were opening and closing uselessly, much like his mouth. "Mari… I'm sorry, I… Temari, I really, I'm really, really sorry…"

Angry tears were in Temari's eyes. Turning toward Kankuro, she charged at him with all the power of an angry bull. He hit the ground hard, her fists making contact with his cheeks, shoulders, and chest relentlessly for several minutes.

When she was done, her chest was heaving with exhilaration, and the damn tears had not gone from her eyes. She loved that fan. She had had it for ten years. And now it was gone. Bent. Destroyed. Useless. She still picked it back up.

Kankuro had been prepared for the punching. He was still prepared for the inevitable screaming, the not-forgiving-him-for-several-months, the cold shoulder treatment. He, however, was not prepared for her actual reaction.

"I'll never forgive you." She told him quietly, sniffing only once. Shikamaru walked calmly forward, mostly sobered up by the tragic event, and took Temari's hand. Instead, she leaned her head on his shoulder, so he swapped by putting his arm around her. Muttering with her quietly, it took Kankuro a full minute to regain use of his vocal cords.

"I.. I didn't mean…"

But they were already gone.

"But is it the flowers that attract the butterflies, or the butterflies that attract the flowers?"

"It's the flowers," insisted Chouji. "Butterflies wouldn't come to pollinate in a certain area if there weren't flowers already there."

Ino, having expected an argument challenging the dignity of her precious plants, was surprised to be agreed with. She smiled at Chouji. "That's what I think, too."

Sakura, who was rapidly falling more and more asleep given how comfortable and warm she was, had quite forgotten they were in the middle of the road. Naruto had to pull back, gently bumping her forehead with his.

The cool metal was a surprising sensation, enough to make Sakura open her eyes. Before she could say anything, Naruto spoke.

"I'll take you home."

She smiled softly at him, and the two stood up. Once they were both on their feet, Sakura took Naruto's hand. She'd never done it before-not like this-but she wasn't analyzing right now. She was still drunk and she was very, very tired, and all she was capable of processing was how nice his hand felt in hers. How safe she felt around him. How she wanted him to smile like that every day, preferably at her.

Sakura's house was not far, but Naruto's apartment was closer. She halted when she spotted it-none of the lights were on, but she recognized it just the same.

"Can I sleep over?"

Naruto didn't have to think about it, she thought. But he didn't sound exactly eager, either. "Of course you can, Sakura-chan."

She told herself it was because he liked not being alone, and he trusted her and liked her, and cared about her, and it was just about the safety of the thing.

"You can sleep on the couch," he said quietly, not unhappily. "Let me just get you a blanket." Despite his words, he didn't move to break her grip on his hand.

Sakura didn't move, either. "Actually…" She blushed, wondering if he knew it wasn't from the alcohol.

He tilted his head.

"I… I would like to sleep with you, Naruto. Next to you. I… I feel safe with you."

Naruto's grin was huge and infectious, and it made Sakura feel like she was walking on air. "Keep your pants on," she teased.

Naruto blushed, his free hand rubbing the back of his neck. "You, too," he managed. She picked up on the something in his tone, even if she was unable to define it. It made her feel funny, the good kind of funny. The good kind of funny she got around him sometimes that he, in all her memories, would always do something incredibly stupid and make it leave very quickly.

But he wasn't moving. Sakura doubted he was even breathing.

She had been to his bedroom before. Been in it, sat on his bed, kicked aside the numerous, incredibly wrinkled clothes on the floor while looking for things-so she knew where to go. Even so, her movements were little more than robotic when she turned toward his room. In they went, and closed went the door.

However, Sakura didn't let herself get nervous. Acting as normally as possible, she gestured for him to climb in first. With a giggle, she noticed his face was scarlet. However, since she was sure hers matched, she said nothing. Once he looked comfortable, she climbed in after him.

It was awkward. She closed her eyes and tried to breathe, to force her body to still, but her eyes shot back open. And there was Naruto, his big, blue eyes so close to hers. He still looked nervous, but happiness was very obvious in his face, too. With another deep breath, she scooted and rearranged herself so that her back was pressed against his front. Like instinct, she thought-for no sooner had she stopped moving than he did it-his arm came around her, secure and gentle and warm. Naruto was very warm.

"I feel so safe with you," she admitted in a quiet, yet very clear voice. Something about the feeling in the room was getting to her, was aiding her already sleep-addled mind in taking down all the barriers. "This safe," she murmured, snuggling, "is something I could never feel with Sasuke."

"I'm so angry!" She fumed. "I'm angry, and I'm sad, and, dammit, Shika, I'm drunk."

He kissed her quickly, brushing his lips against her skin because he could. "I know."

"Fucking Kankuro!" She hissed, an impressive amount of emotion in her voice, even for her. Not anger, but rage, not sadness, but disappointment, depression, fear, not drunk-not that drunk was an emotion-but a sense of betrayal he sort of wished his keen mind wasn't so observant of. He was supposed to be drunk, too.

But then, he always had a strange ability to hold his alcohol.

She broke away from him suddenly, waving her destroyed prized possession. "Look at my fan, Shikamaru! Look at my fan!"

Somehow, his intuition told her she didn't really mean "look at my fan". He looked anyway, though, just to be safe. "We can fix it," he told her gently, "but not right now. It's three in the morning."

This appeared to be news to Temari. Had she really been out that late with his friends and her brothers? She may have been twenty, but sometimes she felt just as young as Shikamaru. Seventeen wasn't that long ago, but he was fourteen three years ago, and any possibility of the two of them being what they are now was non-existent. But then he became her guide, then came the bantering, the annoying tendency he had to stay in her head, and then came the War… There was little else like being scared shitless the person you begrudgingly could not stop thinking about and wanted to be with was going to die to motivate you to fuck everything and tell them.

Luckily, she didn't actually need to tell him. They first second they saw each other after everything was over, they rushed at each other-exactly like some kind of stupid cheesy romance novel-and kissed so hard he lifted her off her feet.

It had been… some number of days since then, and she'd yet to leave Konoha. Yet to leave his side, actually. She might have had a slight case of PTSD, what with seeing her dad, and being scared again that Gaara was going to die, and being scared of never telling him how she felt, and feeling utterly powerless despite all the supposed strength she had as a kunoichi. Naruto had had to save them all, again. And he couldn't even tell the girl he was in love with how he felt.

At least she could one-up him there, take pride in the fact that she had a better romantic relationship.

She raised her hands up to rest on either side of his face. For a second, she was content to hold his face and study the angular slopes of it, half-wondering, as always, when he'd gotten so physically mature. And then she kissed him, long and hard and with-at least-everything she had.

Finally, forced to breathe, she pulled away. She watched his dark eyes slowly open back up, intent on perceiving the swirls of emotion. She felt, because she had not moved away more than absolutely necessary to get more oxygen, him smile, and before she knew it, she was, too.

"What?" he asked her, voice a bit deeper than she was accustomed to. (But it had only been some number of days… like twelve, maybe.)

"You," she said simply, kissing him again. Words were too troublesome to use at this point for Temari, so she moved her mouth against his. She wrapped her arms around him, stood on her tiptoes, fisted her hand in the hair at the back of his neck, and let her body slide against his. As Temari had discovered from the very first second, Shikamaru was not lazy about his kissing.

In fact, he was very meticulous and thorough, never slow, a quick study and not afraid to experiment-with educated guesses-as to what she would like best. She melted every time.

This time, he was the one to pull away. "You spending the night again?"

She nodded. Other women, she mused, might be offended by his question. She knew he was just checking. It was probably something to do with his stupid gentlemanliness, the thing she was surprised to discover so early on in their relationship was so drilled-in to his skull, and probably something else to do with the fact that they hadn't defined anything, and also likely something else about them not knowing what to do when the time came for her to go back. They were both ignoring it with all their might, but sometimes it was flashing neon and screaming: Suna.

She shook her head to clear her mind of the image. She went to his set of drawers, where her clothes had mysteriously ended up, she thought probably thanks to his mother, who had assumed some things of her own Temari wasn't even sure needed correcting, and changed into something more comfortable. He may have been looking. She didn't check. She didn't care.

She wasn't sure when his shirt had ended up under her classification of "something to wear to bed", let alone "something suitable to wear ever", but this is how it had been every night since the war ended.

He was already in bed when she turned back to him. Without pretense, she crawled in after him. He worked the pigtails out of her hair, because he knew she forgot and because he liked her with her hair down. That had been one of the first things he'd said to her after the mad fit of kissing had stopped long enough for talking, a request if she could have it down more.

She snuggled in, wriggling until her ear was right over his heart. It was steady, and this number, the number of nights she had spent listening to Shikamaru's heart beating as she fell asleep, she did actually know: six.

It had probably been six days since the war, but she wasn't sure. It had just been six nights of sleeping in his bed with him, listening to his heart, with his arm resting too-low over her hips to be permissible as anything other than a lover. But she knew the way she touched him wasn't anything less either, anymore. She loved him. He probably loved her. But Temari knew neither of them were ready for the conversation. The wounds were too raw and the adrenaline was still fierce. They had spent too many months constantly on-guard, fearful of dying every second. Right now, they needed this. Stability and freedom and everything that felt good.