Inspiration: Come back to me- Utada

"And the rain falls, oh the rain falls, I don't want to be alone. / Boy you're one in a million."

Pairing: Neji/Tenten Neji/Sakura

Notes: Neji and TenTen are a ship that I, actually have never been a super big supporter of. I mean, I don't dislike them, I quite like them, but I don't really write about them. Ever. But alas I was struck by the inspiration and as such, I must say I wanted to write them. Especially after recent manga events, so here is this. AU TAKE ON PRETTY MAJOR MANGA SPOILERS? Though to be honest, this is an AU take on the Neji-event-that-shall-not-be-named.

This is a fairly angsty and heavy fic. Read at the risk of heartaches and feels.

Probably gonna be about a 15 chapter fic.

Rating: T for now.

Disclaimer; I'm not Kishi. I don't own nothin.


Once, only once, she had looked up into thistle colored orbs and thought she saw something more than a sort of delicate sense of companionship. The kind that was built on many long days and nights by each other's side and could as easily be taken away by a terse, damaging skirmish.

It was a tantalizing thing; the friendship of Hyuga Neji.

He was a fortress of personality, locked deep within a maze of cold gray walls that kept out most curious onlookers. There was a vast supply of tenderness, of worthiness, ethics and reliability, even absurdity and humor, deeply buried beneath the reservations of his upbringings.

A victim of circumstance, he was always an incredibly simple yet extremely complex boy who faced innumerable challenges. Heavy expectations upon his shoulders from an early age had a way of constantly abating his natural liveliness.

He was diminished by his name, jaded by his demon keeping.

Yet he was someone that Tenten simply knew was extraordinary.

The moment they had been placed on a team together; the moment they had trained together, shared the same pains and the same fears. The moment that she had been able to look into his eyes and see his goals, his dreams, his determination exposed within those opalescent eyes was the moment she knew that Hyuga Neji was not what he seemed from an outside prospective.

As he grew into a man he grew into himself. Into his own set of ideals, separate from those which were forced upon him as a child. Those ideals were who he really was.

And, oh had she loved him for what he really was.

She had loved his strength. Refined and beautiful, he was elegant, controlled—a strength that defended him, and boxed him into his fate, a fate which he eternally dreamt of overcoming.

She had admired his kindness; though it seemed he lacked affability, he was truly loyal, civil and just. He would flinch away from injustice, and grit his teeth at the thought of someone's hopes being shattered.

She had even grown to accept his lesser agreeable qualities and the ones which grated against her nerves.

It was true there were many things she saw in him.

And just that one night, she could have sworn she had seen something more in him.

There were crickets calling and frogs belting out songs on that cold fall night. Geometric, autumn leaves fell around them, some of the leaves falling to float lightly atop the surface of the small pond to their side. At their side were trees and several yards beyond those trees was their camp. Rock Lee was happily kindling a fire and busying himself with setting up his sleeping roll, with his trademark geniality.

It had been a particularly hard week for team Gai that week.

Tenten had wanted to sooth the tension that came over their whole team earlier that day, specifically the proud Hyuga before her then. She had wanted to unwind the tightness in his shoulders like a key, had curled her fingers into knotted fists before letting the anxious drive to comfort him divulge her own emotions. The sadness that overcame her to see him so discouraged was betraying her.

If he would have turned around at that moment, he would have seen it so clearly in her trembling fingers and in her heavy-lidded, downtrodden eyes. He did not turn around however.

Tenten was left gazing at his shoulder blades, arching ever so slightly to protrude just beneath the fabric of his slightly dirty white shirt. She had the grace of seeing him without his shirt on before that moment, and had committed to memory the grid of muscles and planes that had shined from perspiration that day beneath the rays of the sun. She had trained extra hard that day at his side, as an excuse to remain near his vicinity.

She didn't have words to say to comfort him. The only sounds between them were organic; sounds of the forest, creaking tree trunks swaying in the breeze, the rippling of water as a fish broke the surface, the sound of her the loose pebbles beneath her feet as she barely shuffled closer to him, her heartbeat thrumming within her veins. She could vaguely hear him breathing, inhaling, exhaling, deep and worried.

He took things harder than most people she knew tended to.

It was a side effect of his hard earned, harder taught nature.

She had never considered herself timid or shy, however this wasn't casual, this wasn't normal. Tenten wasn't certain how to approach Hyuga Neji, how to make him understand. They had known each other for too long, she had cared about him so much for so long.

Crossing the boundaries of caring as a friend, or expressing too much unbidden sentiment, might toss their very delicate balance into ruin. It took her years to be able to understand Neji and for him to speak not just his mind—but also his heart—freely before her. Even still there were days when he was lockjaw, vice grip on distance. There were days in which he was much too far and too guarded to accept her assistance.

She was afraid she would disrupt that reward, revoke it.

She wondered would he withdraw from her touch, from her obviously amorous attentiveness.

Even she could not be certain.

It was a stiff absence of communication that spun around them like a net for what felt like hours before she pressed her somewhat calloused hands together, not trusting their freedom, and her lips parted. "Neji…" She breathed his name like reverence of a prophet. "Are you—Do you want to go back to camp now?" She repealed her original choice of words; are you okay?

Of course, she knew had she had the nerve to ask them, she would have only been paid in silence anyway.

For a moment he offered her that silence, almost like she had expected, accompanied by the wall of his turned back. She could feel her heart sinking like sand in an hour glass at his words, dwindling away—disintegrating— down that narrow pinhole.

However when her bronze eyes watched him spin to face her— with his long, silky hair hanging over his shoulder, his face smudged with dirt from earlier that morning and his brow set in a low, stern line— she was surprisingly relieved.

Her breath came out in puffs of anticipation and she gave him a weak smile to comfort him.

His expression was stoic, perhaps even with underlying tones of frustration beneath those silvery eyes. She would have reached out for him, to lead him away, but such a motion was beyond her control. She was frozen in place by the way his eyes roamed over her.

It seemed very penetrating, with those eyes that saw everything. Someone who was sharp and keen, wise beyond his years, for as world weary as he was he was also positive. During spikes of conviction, he was unstoppable.

And he was gazing at her with a look.

The general passiveness was present, but his eyes were skimming along her features. They reflected the starlight as he peered intently at her own eyes, shifting to view the small translucent freckles that dusted over her cheekbones which were sticky with dried sweat. Shifting upward they languidly traced her hairline, messy and smudged with dirt. He seemed to be content to gaze at her for a moment, to observe her beneath the distinct, navy sky that was visible between gaps in the canopy.

She could feel herself quaking.

It was only a moment then, but she was certain she had sensed it.

Something.

Something present in his eyes. She thought that there was something resounding, less than stolid, less than impassive behind that gaze that night before they wordlessly walked together back to the camp.

She was certain that she hadn't romanticized it. It wasn't a figment of her mawkishness, couldn't have been overstated by her fond memory of the night. Hyuga Neji had reflected something worthy, something tender in his own inconspicuous way.

That night seemed like such a long time ago, as she reflected on it this moment.

As she watched with widening eyes, blanched white as a ghost, lips parted in shock and instantly overcome with grief, she would come to remember that night. As urgent dread was causing her stomach to flip uncomfortably and a scream she wouldn't recognize as her own ruptured from between her chapped lips, she wondered if he had remembered it too.

Did he cherish it?

Did he remember the way her freckles looked, the exact shade of brown her hair had been; like herself, could he remember where every smudge of dirt had pressed a pattern atop her skin as she did for him?

Did Hyuga Neji treasure that moment the way she had?

Her first instinct was surprisingly, not to fall, to bend or break beneath the anguish and surrender to the pain. Her first instinct was to run to him, to try and eradicate the tragedy from his eyes, and vanish away the pain.

However there were lean, tightly coiled arms around her waist which stopped her from doing so.

And she thrashed like a fish out of water, like an overturned beetle with her eyes peeled and her shirt catching the tears that were falling in torrents. She didn't think to peer behind her to see who had gripped her, she could hear them whispering into her ear.

Locked securely around her midsection, Lee was holding her. She could feel his own tears brushing off against her ear and the base of her neck. He was sobbing, attempting to ease her pain along with his own.

In disbelief, they couldn't possibly have comprehended the pain they would suffer, at the sight of their teammate being cut down before their eyes.

They couldn't even take solace in the fact that he had died in battle at their side. He was feet away, with his back facing their directly. Surely he had to have known they were by his side, even if he couldn't see them, couldn't hear them?

Copper eyes were sparkling through the hazy tears, having trouble focusing as the puddle of blood that surrounded their oldest friend grew in width from beneath his torso, spreading out like a red ink stain across rice paper.

And there was nothing they could do; they both knew it.

Tenten had never felt such a wave of emotions. Such emptiness, such sadness, so many reasons to reminisce and so much remorse and regret.

When the light broke through the clouds, as if to mock the shadows of that moment, it brought with it relief.

Like a hymn, harp strings and heavenly light, she appeared beneath that sharp shard of sunlight; dropped from above, she leapt down from atop Uchiha Sasuke's giant snake summon. Strong lean legs landed and immediately folded, collapsed into a bend at their companions side. Pink hair falling to shade her eyes from their view so far away and her hands instantly began their green healing glow.

Haruno Sakura was nothing short of a vision, of a dream, as she appeared at that moment.

During Tenten's greatest moment of fear uncertainty and sorrow, as her tears were flowing and her heart was constricting, Sakura had brought such respite.

Somehow Lee's hands dropped away from her and they stood in awe, frozen among the blur of motion on the battlefield. As if entirely locked into place by the sight; by the hope that that woman could perform miracle.

When her partner, with his green caked in dirt and perspiration finally brushed past her, running towards Neji, Tenten felt that her own mobility was restricted. Her heart was constricting so tightly, with hope and with fear that she was finding anything more than standing difficult to manage. Suddenly, she was having issues running to him.

She wanted to, oh how she wanted to, but she couldn't run.

Rather she stumbled, slowly, wobbling the whole way like a kite on the wind. Her legs carried her slowly towards the two forms crouched overtop of someone so precious to her it hurt to even be near such a scene.

She stood just behind Lee unable to bring herself any closer than what she had, with her eyelids stretched wide, pupils needle-pointed at the body lying on the ground. Orbs darted back and forth, between his pale, shock frozen features and the backdrop of blood that dyed the white of his fabric deep crimson.

For a moment she allowed her copper eyes to drift upward towards someone everyone knew, her comrade in arms, the blossom haired female currently bent forward over Neji's form.

Sweat traced the shell of her face, slipping down her straight, small nose and down her rounded chin. There was also traces of dirt and blood smeared across her features, much like everyone else, Sakura appeared shambolic.

During a moment—what felt like hours into the process—the medic removed one of her hands to refocus it towards her chest. Those agile, skilled fingers quickly reached up and jerked down the zipper of her slightly tattered jonin vest, revealing the dark Konoha standard shinobi shirt beneath. With the vest unzipped, the strong motion of her chest as she breathed was more noticeable. Ebbing and flowing with the pattern of her intense concentration, it rose and fell in a hard, but steady motion.

From where she stood, Tenten could see the focus, the determination and the exhaustion on Sakura's feminine features. She could also, if she regarded her close enough, see the very slight presence of alarm, fright, apprehension beneath the veil of those bright mint eyes.

The harsh, low line of her scrunched eyebrows were enough of a clue to how grim things seemed to look.

No one spoke.

None of them even seemed to think.

They all simply gazed unendingly at one thing or another; Lee gazed at Sakura's features, watching her work desperately, willing her to continue.

Tenten had refocused on Neji somberly. Her entire body was still shivering, her muscles tense and her lips still parted as if she had forgotten how to close them.

Sakura for her part had barely blinked. Her eyes simply bore into the motionless, still and bloodied form beneath her hands. Petite hands which moved occasionally to different areas of the body as she channeled her chakra here and there.

When the moment came, it was as if the entire earth halted on its axis.

The ground felt as though it were moving, as if she were on a boat. Tenten was gazing at his features, dazed and grave. When she heard Sakura release her first very soft, highly mitigated sigh, Tenten was tempted to release one herself. Immediately the hope spread like morning sunlight.

First a twitch, then an uneasy jerk and finally eyelids peeled open to the timing of a deep, suffering gasp which came from Neji's pallid lips. Tenten could have collapsed at the first sign of life within the form of the person she loved so much.

Sakura looked much less anxious as Tenten cast an appreciative, astonished gaze towards the female comrade. She did not meet those green eyes with her own, however. Those green eyes were far too absorbed in the task at hand; gazing into Neji's eyes.

For the moment, she was appeased, distracted, and so Tenten crouched, feeling her tears rekindled, hot and moist down her cheeks. She finally had the strength of will to bring herself down to his level and she gazed at Neji's face.

He was alive.

Somehow, he had survived. It appeared as if he would survive after all.

"Neji." She breathed his name in veneration; however his eyes didn't turn towards her. His gaze was occupied with his medic. Disoriented lavender orbs were trained to her.

"Neji," Sakura spoke and he gazed at her as if it was the only voice he could hear. "Listen to my voice okay," Sakura had a very gentle, sweet but very affirmative voice. It was something Tenten had always admired and liked about the blossom medic. "You cannot move." She ordered, "I'm not finished healing you—but, you're gonna live." She smiled, as if she were very pleased to present the fact. "You're gonna live, okay." It wasn't a question, it was a statement, a fact.

The world was going to envelop Tenten, emotions persisting blindingly, tears never resting and heart never slowing down.

As she felt happiness, relief beyond explanation, Neji had not looked at her once.

At this time, she could not bring herself to care.

Neji was alive.

Her Neji was alive and it was thanks to Sakura.