This is my first NejixTen, and this idea wouldn't leave me alone... so here you go!
Disclaimer: I'll own Naruto and Co when Switzerland goes to war.
Go on a vacation, they had said. Take some time away to forget him.
They didn't understand. To Tenten, every mission was a vacation—a singularly focused mindset in which the struggle to survive made her forget for a moment.
Lee understood, he really did. On days he found her in the rain; instead of sending her home he would ask her to run laps with him. He knew that in her own way, Tenten was dealing with her pain. When it had been Sakura who lost Sasuke, she had cried and slowly lost pieces of herself in grief. However, the weapons mistress was different. It wasn't that she was any stronger, rather she was weaker and stubborn in her weakness. When Sakura's heart bled, she allowed the pain to surface and leave her, then moved on with what was still bright in her light. Tenten wouldn't acknowledge how deep the wound ran, wouldn't let the pain be released. So Lee tried to help her run and keep running until she realized that running didn't help anything.
"The pain will go away; you'll find someone new." Those strangers voices had said consolingly.
The brunette had rolled her eyes at that because she was a kunoichi, damn it. A little hurt was part of her job, and no one should worry about it. Besides, what was one person to her?
"I'm sorry." Some lost souls had pat her shoulder.
The bun-wearing girl hated that. Sorry for what? What did these unknown people do to cause his death? They hadn't known him, so why be sorry? She wasn't; it had just happened and that was that. It's not like the end of the world.
"Let's do 200 laps." Lee would say with a frown.
His teammate would agree with a like expression. She enjoyed the exercise, but the taijutsu specialist was coddling her really, waiting for her to open up. Tch, as though she couldn't deal with this. After all, life went on.
But it was the medic who stopped her running, who brought a stop sign rudely in front of her face with those honest green eyes.
"It hurts more than anything else. It aches day after day until you wonder why you aren't dead from it. But you just have to take the pain and slowly, let it heal. It would scar forever; but when you have good friends like Naruto and Lee, you remember that there is still good in the world. You just have to stop looking for it."
Tenten had run from that, going faster than she ever had in her life. She kept going for two days and a night in the rain. Finally, stumbling to a stop and landing in the dirt, it came to her.
Running away would get her nowhere.
Then the tears came, swift and bitter, and loving. Soon soft moans issued from her voice to join in the chorus of the sky, and somehow in all her agony; the kunoichi felt complete. This was real.
Tenten crawled back to Konoha, and Tsunade allowed her little rendezvous without punishment. After all, the Hokage knew what it felt like to loose someone you love.
The first thing the young weapon's master did was walk to the large sprig tree on their training ground. It was the place the raven he had counted nested, and the ground was scuffed still from their training months ago. She knelt, now a broken-hearted girl tired of being too weak to cry and too strong to die.
"Neji..." She whispered to the blank stone.
"I love you."
There was silence, but then Tenten could always interpret his silences.
"So I'll live, just for you."
And when she stood, wiping her eyes; she could have sworn that one of the birds had smiled at her. The blind one, with white eyes.
Every time you click the Submit Review Button, a beaten puppy gets saved. Just imagine those sad, wide eyes.