Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters depicted herein.
It was winter, which meant snow, and that was something the old woman couldn't stand. It seeped into the bones, the ice expanding to stiffen the joints and make them immobile. It took her ages just to walk down the street from her house, passing the closed shops and dimly glowing lights in the darkness of night.
Once, years ago, she'd gone during the day, but the other visitors always recognized her, giving her glances that unsettled her and made her wish she hadn't come, so she'd switched to coming at night, when it was dark and quiet, without any prying eyes to watch her silent lament. The graveyard was ever-expanding, and the grave she searched for was one of the older ones, so she had a while still to go, trudging through the snow with labored steps and breathing. The farther she traveled, the more worn the graves seemed; some of the names had eroded in places, and cracks permeated the solid stone. A few familiar names jumped out here and there: Asuma Sarutobi, the son of the revered Third; Iruka Umino, beloved academy instructor for generations of Konoha Shinobi; even Sasuke Uchiha, once the most sought-after S-rank rogue shinobi in the Five Nations, had been laid to rest here so many years ago by two grieving former teammates after the devastation of the Great Shinobi World War. Most of the names, though, were unfamiliar. Unremembered faces, passing away in a haze when their lives should just have been beginning… there were too many sad stories to bear thinking about.
She shuffled forward, clutching her dark jacket closer around her shoulders. Her thin, almost boyish frame was the one thing that had been left to her over the years. She found it somewhat ironic, considering all that had happened: the opportunities lost, the womb which had never had the chance to know motherhood. This frame… it was fitting, she considered bitterly.
The sight she sought out appeared at the edge of her vision, and she increased her slow gait, until finally she stood before the one grave that still held meaning for her. Easing her old bones into the pain of a sitting position, she traced her hands over the characters, letting them run through the swirls that formed Konoha's crest.
Neji Hyuuga.
"Hello, old friend." She whispered.
It was a night of revelry, and yet Tenten didn't feel much like celebrating. Something had broken her in that war, left her hollow and drained in a way she'd never experienced before. While the rest of her friends talked with giddy excitement, she sat in silence, drinking the sake a bit too quickly for it to possibly be healthy. The world had begun to swim a little out of focus, so it surprised her when a hand landed on her shoulder.
"Stand up." The cool voice slid through her consciousness, but she obeyed, because it had almost become a reflex. In a normal state, she would have blushed at the way he looped her arm around his shoulders, at the gentle touch of his arm around her waist. As they wandered out into the night, she fell more heavily on him for support, giggling quietly at nothing and stumbling without noticing.
"What happened?" The question was quiet, almost not a question, but it was coherent enough to break through her haze.
"Dunno." She slurred, coughing a little. "Guess I lost it. Not all of us have control like you, Neji-kun."
She felt him bristle at the use of that particular honorific; she knew it irked him, but with clouded judgment, she wasn't thinking much about the repercussions of her actions.
"Have you…" he began, then stopped. Stopped speaking, stopped walking, and it threw her off balance. She almost pitched forward into the snow, but he caught her, held her there, and the pressure of one hand around her arm, the other at her waist, was making her sober very quickly.
"Have you considered my earlier inquiry any further?"
Tenten sighed, and the stench of alcohol that emanated from her breath where it produced a cloud of vapor in the air repulsed her. Her vision was swimming and it was getting harder and harder to form coherent sentences.
"Neji, we've been through a war…" she managed, and suddenly the support at her waist was gone. She pitched to the side and, finding a bench within the range of her grip, she held on for dear life, lowering herself to sit.
"So that means you haven't." He said, and his voice was colder than the hint of winter in the air. It sent a chill down her spine, offering her a moment of clarity.
"Neji, it's not like that!" She reached a hand out and found his arm, pulling him toward her. He moved with reluctance, folding his arms as he stood in front of her. "We're just so young and well… look at me." She gestured at herself, grimacing. "I'm a mess."
He shook his head, and the mask cracked a little. She saw anger and hurt flash in his pearly gaze. He didn't look at her.
"Is it someone else?"
"Kami, Neji…" Tenten braved standing up, clutching at his arm slightly for support. He didn't move to help her, but he didn't move away either. "You know there's no one…"
She paused, amending her statement to reflect the truth. "You know there's never been anyone else."
"Then why not?" It was strange to see the normally stoic Hyuuga lose his cool, but his face was suddenly bereft of all traces of calm. He steadied her shoulders with his hands, forcing her to look him in the eyes.
"Tenten, I have told you everything I can think to convince you. If you would simply trust me, you would not regret a single day. I would make sure you were the happiest person alive, regardless of what it costs me."
The earnestness in his face was too much for her to handle, even in her addled state. Tenten shook him off, slowly moving her head back and forth as a sad smile crawled across her face.
"No, no. That's exactly it. You can't afford to do that, Neji. You know that as well as I do. It's too soon for this, and we have responsibilities. Even with the war…"
"Stop." Tenten fell silent instantly, not because of the command, but because his voice had changed. He was no longer pleading; the tone had turned icy once again. "Perhaps I have made an error in judgment. I should not have questioned you about this now."
Tenten watched him, watched the pain play across his face until it was completely erased by impassive stoicism.
Not speaking, he took her arm gently and led her home. He did not leave until he was sure she was safe, but as soon as he was sure of her security, he left without another word.
The cold had settled in with a vengeance, chilling even the blood. Shivers ran over her, wracking her fragile bones, but she didn't move from her place before his grave.
Let the cold take me, she thought. One less year to spend here.
It seemed like a normal day of training, but she could tell something was wrong with him before they even began to spar. He was more brutal than normal, unrelenting in every movement. As a consequence, Tenten had to fight back with even more ferocity, pulling out weapon formations she had barely tested just to keep up with his breakneck pace.
It was only when she went flying across the field, hitting the ground with a sickening thud that they knew something had to be said.
"I'm… sorry." He offered a hand, but didn't look at her as she raised herself to her feet.
"Neji, what's wrong?" It was strange to hear those words coming out of her own mouth; before the war, Tenten would never have hesitated to ask him what was wrong, because he was open with her, because they trusted one another. Recently, however, he'd been about as open as the seal on a Jinchuuriki.
But it needed to be said, and his shoulders fell a little from their traditional rigid posture as he considered the question, still not meeting her gaze.
"I think, perhaps… it would be best for us not to train together anymore."
The blatancy of his words left Tenten in a cold shock. "W-what?"
"I have had some time to consider our earlier conversation—" It wasn't necessary for him to specify which conversation. They both knew exactly the one to which he was referring. "—and I believe it would be best for both of us to… separate ourselves."
"Separate ourselves?" Tenten repeated, and she didn't bother to keep the incredulity out of her voice. "Neji, we're partners! We've been friends for years, what do you—"
"Tell me this, do you love me?"
Tenten's head snapped up, the shock resonating through all of her features.
His face was calm, impassive, infuriatingly emotionless, but his eyes were accusing.
"I…" She fumbled, wishing her voice didn't sound so damn uncertain. "I love you, Neji. You're my best friend…"
"But?" His immediate understanding of her hesitancy was a stabbing pain, leaving her lungs without air.
"But I'm not in love with you. I don't think I've ever been in love with anyone."
That was the finishing blow. She could see right where her weapon had hit the mark, that one fragile place in the target that shattered the whole world around it.
His thoughts must have mirrored hers. "I should always expect a true shot from you."
Neji turned, and suddenly Tenten knew she desperately had to fix things, that this was her last shot.
"Neji, please…"
But he never turned back around.
The moon had broken through the clouds, casting the graveyard in a symphony of light and shadows. The gray of his headstone caught in the light, brightening until it was almost blinding to her pained eyes.
She remained cast in the darkness.
She never attended the wedding, even though it was the biggest event the Leaf had seen in five years. Trust it to the Hyuuga household to throw that kind of festival, even if it was only a member of the branch family and his wife, a girl chosen specifically by the Main Branch. Tenten didn't bother to send a card, either. Lee visited that next afternoon, after everything had settled back into some semblance of order, but she just yelled at him when he brought up the bonds of their team, and kicked him out of her house.
She would apologize to him about the incident later, after the painful sobs and useless pleas to an unseen God had released their hold on her thin body, but things weren't quite the same. She had fallen too far, too quickly. Eventually the team dissolved naturally; Lee moved on to acquire his own genin squad, Neji took on responsibilities as an advisor to the Hokage, and Tenten threw herself into most dangerous ANBU missions she could find. They never achieved what she really wanted.
It was many years later, after one of the many grueling missions, that she was called to the Hokage's office. She was surprised to find Lee also outside the door, and an ailing Gai, who was already beginning to manifest the first signs of senility. The thought made her stomach turn, but she did her best to ignore it.
She couldn't help noticing that one other member of their former team was conspicuously absent. When she turned to ask Lee, he shook his head almost imperceptibly, not knowing any more than she did, but his eyes spoke more than his gesture.
Like Tenten, he feared the worst.
When they entered, the Hokage himself was nowhere to be found, but his wife was in his office, her normally pale face looking white as a sheet. Lavender eyes rimmed with red trained on them, then flickered away. She couldn't keep her composure, and so turned away to the window with her quiet sobs.
After that, there was no need to explain.
And despite every suicidal mission she'd signed herself up for, despite every death trap she'd thrown herself into with no thought of safety, here she still was. Scarred and battered, but alive.
While he'd died at just thirty. The genius of their year, and the only man she'd ever fallen in love with. Unfortunately, she'd only realized that by the time it was far too late.
In the intervening years between their fallout and his death, she'd tried writing to him a thousand times, being direct, indirect, emotional, logical. Professing her love. Saying she never wanted to see him again.
Admitting that she knew things could never be fixed.
In the end, none of them ever went any farther than her fireplace.
In the darkness, she ran her frozen fingers once more, slowly, over the characters of his name, as she always did.
And as they always did, the words "I'm sorry" slipped through her frozen lips before she could bite them back.
With great difficulty, she stood back up. The walk back home would be an arduous one, but it would have to be done before the sun rose, before anyone saw her here. She shuffled through the snow, her thoughts already far away in that green, warm training field from such a long time ago.
With the light of the streetlamps far behind her, the darkness of the night swallowed her up.
A/N: A little deviation from my traditional writing. Hope it doesn't disappoint. Thanks for reading!