"Hello" whispered that familiar soft voice. "Hn.. so you're back." The door closes and the one light bulb in the room flickers on a few seconds after I reply. It is then that I see her eyes boring into mine showing the answer to everything she left unsaid and the answer to every question I left unasked. "Yeah," she smiles nothing like the one I knew and loved this smile that she smiles seems to be decaying. "I don't know why" she finishes so deadpan that I have to look away from her eyes, because her tone is in her eyes. Not only is it in her eyes but the admission is so damn raw it hurts. "Hinata?" I call to the woman, that stands before who is, and is not my wife…the only woman I love. "Shikamaru, I'm lost." Somehow as she says this she has made her way to the couch, I'm laying on without my noticing. She's whispering something else now in my ear. "Find me, find me, Shikamaru. I've looked so hard it hurts. Find me and make me forget." "Hinata… I can't bring them back." I find myself looking at her again. Her stare its so intense… animalistic…so cold, it reminds me nothing of how she usually is. "Ha you shoulda seen it Shikamaru their eyes glaze over. I think that may have been the second time I'd ever seen Shino's eyes, and Kiba…damn him…that son of a gun he just laughed, like something was funny." She is balling her hand into a fist now. She is bound to hit me unintentionally any second now, and I damn well deserve it. "Even worse," she continues shaking slighty with rage "was when Neji cried…no sobbed over Tenten's corpse it was like a neverending sorrow. Then I finally get back from that hellhole and you're not even at the gates. You didn't think I'd come back did you? You dirty bastard," She looks at my face and she starts shaking harder "you didn't think I'd even make it back! Sitting here," She is yelling now. I've never heard her yell before " in the dark mourning the living. I don't even know why I came back here. I should not have come back here. I should've gone and slept in the spare room at Neji's or on the couch in Kurneai's apartment. I should not have come back to you." She's crying and hitting my chest now. Finally she looks dead into my eyes and lets off this deep and loud laugh, that is at the same time soft and hollow. "You let your stubble grow." I look at her mouth and I smile "Retire." I say "Stay home with me. Quit. I need you more. I'm selfish." Its quiet now like I knew it would be, but did she have to sigh? "Shikamaru" she's using that soft whispery comforting tone "Oh, Shika-kun you know I can't. Remember I promised to never quit. Remember its my way of the ninja. I'm sorry…Shika-kun. I'm sorry I keep leaving pieces of myself out there, but when I said that years ago Maru-chan you knew. No everyone knew." Her eyes close now and her breathing is shallow. I pick her up and take her to the bed in the other room. I look down at her. The moonlight is dancing on her pale skin. I walk out and close the door. I head toward the light and pull the chord as I lay back on the couch with the darkness burning at my eye lids as tears roll down my face. I whisper to our door "That it was a promise of a lifetime."