Nichole's Note: Woo, a nice, quick update. Thank you for all the reviews and hits and favorites/alerts! It means a lot, and it's good incentive to update! So I've got a new chapter for y'all. Read and review. Hope you love it!

A pounding filled my head as suddenly as I found myself able to think again. It pulsated with the beat of my heart, and it echoed throughout my mind. 'Wake up, Tenten,' the beating told me. 'Wake up and see.' But I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to open my eyes.

My eyes were clenched shut, and I didn't feel the need to open them at the moment. With my luck, I'd open them to see a sky running above me and pass out again.

Yet it didn't feel as though I was moving. Or being carried. In fact, it felt like I was lying down.

I stretched one hand out, feeling the cramped and stiff muscle move. "Tch," I said, eyes clenching harder together. My arm had to be moved slowly, as any faster it hurt, until I hit a wall.

Ah, good. A wall. That meant that I wasn't moving. My right eye slowly opened, and I instantly regretted it as the light was streaming in from the window, and it hurt. So, instinctually, I closed my eye once more. Rolling on my side, away from the window, I decided it would be a smart thing to at least see where I was, although I guessed by the bed and the window that I was in a hospital. Most likely, the Konoha hospital.

Both of my chocolate brown eyes opened at the same time, and I had to squint for a minute before anything would come into focus. It felt like my eyes hadn't been used in such a long time, they weren't used to seeing. Or, my brain wasn't used to processing the images.

Stiff legs, blurred eyes… "Geeze, how long have I been out?"

The last thing I could remember was feeling the sudden and horrible pain of being stabbed in the head.

Right… the kunai wound…

I slid my stiff arm upward until I could feel the back of my head. I searched and searched through my slightly greasy hair, but I didn't feel a gaping hole or a bandage. I felt a scar. A medium sized, smooth feeling scar.

I kept running my fingers over it, feeling a strange wonder at it's smoothness. I must have been out for at least a month, maybe more, for it to be healed over this well.

The sound of footsteps made my heart beat ridiculously fast, as though I was doing some kind of criminal act and about to be found out. I shut my eyes, and moved back into the position I had originally been in. I cracked open an eye, barely able to see over my lashes, and kept it trained on the door.

The door opened, revealing a very pink head of hair. I could almost feel a breath of relief at the sight of Sakura; since she went on missions a lot, she dealt mostly with short term patients.

"Well hello there, Tenten," she said in a sing-song voice. "I see you are sleeping again today. Big surprise there." She pulled up a chart from the foot of my bed, and made a few marks on it. She kept humming to some tune I didn't recognize, and then it struck me.

Sakura looked different. A lot different. And I didn't hang around her much, so for me to notice, it must have been drastic.

She looked… older.

"I guess it's time for your bath, then, dearest. Time to start getting you undressed. You wouldn't have a problem with that, now would you? Ah, but first, I guess I have to check your eyes. It's about that time of the week again." She reached into the pocket of her white coat, and pulled out a little light. She walked over to me, pushing a chair, and opened one of my eyelids. It was all I could do not to shut it.

I could see her much clearer now that I wasn't trying to hide my eye. She did look older. Her hair was longer, and she looked a little… more mature in the body, if you catch my drift.

A look of small confusion swept her face, and I realized I had been moving my eyeball around a little bit, so I relaxed it and just stared into space, hoping she would get this done and over with so I could get my hands on that file and find out what was up with me.

Well, that was my plan, anyway. Until she turned on the light.

"Ow!" I exclaimed, trying to clench my eye shut. No one likes to have a light shined onto their delicate eyeball, now do they?

"Geeze, what was that f-" I started, but then stopped at the look on Sakura's face. She looked… confused and frightened, but even more so, stunned.

"Ten…ten…" she muttered, looking at me, still full of surprise. I sat up slowly, coming to eye level with her in her little chair.

"Sakura, what's wrong?" I asked suddenly, when the look didn't leave her face. Her eyes were still wide, and her mouth still hung open a little bit.

"But… but you're… you've been… How did this…"

It didn't seem like the rosette medic was going to finish a sentence anytime soon, so I grabbed the chart from her lap.

I'm not going to lie, it confused the hell out of me. There were marks and notes all over the pages that were stuck inside of it, but the important things caught my eye. Most of them were marked off, like they had been done.

"Multiple injuries, tearing of multiple muscles. Internal bleeding in many places, including but not limited to the lungs and cranium."

"Physical therapy needed for at least 3 years."

"Head trauma, cracking of the skull; occipital lobe torn. Requires weekly healing for at least 2 years."

"Coma induced; has not woken." It was the only one that hadn't been marked off.

"I guess that last part can finally be marked off," Sakura said in a soft voice.

But I was busy looking back over the number of years that were marked down. "Do I need to go to physical therapy?" I said, looking from the chart to Sakura and back to the chart again.

She shook her head. "No, you've moved past that. Well, you still went every week, but only to keep your muscles from degenerating."

The obvious question rang in my head, and I looked straight into her green eyes. "How long… have I been out… then…?

She bit her lip, choosing not to look at me in the eye. "Tenten, I don't think that it's best for me to tell you." I turned away from her. It felt like my body knew exactly how long I had been out; as if it knew exactly how long it had to wait for my brain to respond. My brain, however, was lost.

Konoha was enjoying another sunny, happy day. Kids were playing in the street, people were out in the market, and even the birds were enjoying a cloudless day. Everything looked different; even Hokage Manor, which I could see from my window, seemed much, much different somehow.

"Sakura," I said, letting the realization settle in. "I don't remember the hospital being this close to Hokage Manor."

There was a pause. Silence filled the room, and Sakura let out another breath. "Yeah, well, I think you'll find Konoha much different than you remember."

I continued to stare at her, confusion coloring my face. "Why?"

"Look, Tenten, I don't want to be the one to tell you this. I really don't…" I knew that she was uncomfortable with this. I mean, who wouldn't be?

"Either answer how long I've been out or tell me what happened to make Hokage Manor this close to the hospital."

Another long pause. It looked like she was debating which one would be the easier thing to tell me. Her eyes flashed back and forth, from one point on the tiled floor to another. Back and forth between the two choices.

"You've been in a coma for 5 years, Tenten," she said quietly, finally looking up at me. I just sat there, frozen. 5… years? 5 whole years? My entire mind rejected the idea, telling me she was kidding. It was a bad practical joke. She would burst out laughing and tell me that I had actually only been under for a few weeks, and this whole thing was just a joke. Even the chart.

But my hand subconsciously moved to the back of my head, and I felt the smooth skin once more. Tears formed in my eyes, and I felt ridiculously foolish. Two times in the last three days, I'd cried.

And then realization came to my mind as the tears continued to flow. It had actually been about 5 years since I had a good cry, hadn't it?

"Five YEARS?! Sakura…" I said, rubbing the tears from my eyes with the back of my hand.

"I know it's hard to believe, Tenten." I could hear the pity in her voice. She probably felt like she was talking to a child, someone so young. Yet I was the older one here. I was the 21 years old, compared to her measly 20. But then again, my mind was still the same of my 16 year old self, so I guess in some ways she was older than I was.

"I'm TWENTY fucking ONE! That's FIVE whole years of my life I'll never get back!" I was sobbing harder now, and I felt her hand make its way to my back. "Five whole years…" I thought about everything that had most likely changed since I had gone into this coma. Obviously, Konoha had changed. I wondered if my parent's house was still intact or if they had cleared it out and sold it since I was incapable of living in it.

And I didn't even want to get into the people I had left behind. If Sakura looked this different to someone who barely ever hung out with her, imagine how Hinata much look. Or Lee or Gai-sensei. Or Neji…

"Sakura…" I said, and she hugged me full on. I kept crying, glad to have someone to cry on, even if it was out of pity.

"Tenten, if it helps, this is a great day. You know, some of them doubted you'd ever wake up. But I knew you would. Eventually." I could hear the smile in her voice, and I pulled back to look at her. "You're just too strong to give up like that. It was a miracle when your brain healed fully, although everyone here wondered if you would be able to see when you woke up. It's amazing, you know."

I figured I should be happy, but just being a successful experiment of a medic didn't sound like the perfect thing to brighten my day. Especially not when I was just told some pretty bad news. "I know it is, but it doesn't really help. But thanks for believing in my, Sakura. It means more than you probably will ever know."

She smiled, and I couldn't help but smile back. She was just that type of person. But I still felt rotten inside. We sat like that for a really long time while I calmed down. We talked a bit, and she mostly just listened. But for the most part, she just sat with me while I finished crying.

She stood up, and looked down at me. "Well, I've got to go…"

I knew she had rounds, but I still didn't want her to leave. To be left alone again… I mean, I wanted to think things over by myself. But she seemed closer to me now than I guess everyone else was, and it was comforting to have someone like that here. With me.

"Sakura, could you do me one favor, please?"

"Sure. Do you want to see someone? Do you want me to contact Neji or Lee?"

I bit my lip, frowning. Actually, that was the exact opposite of my request. I don't know why I wanted it to be a secret. I just didn't want to see a ton of people right now. I didn't want to see what these years had done to them, who they had become while I laid here, all alone in my bed. I especially didn't want to see my team. I didn't want to see Neji, or Lee, or what they looked like now. I just wanted to sit here, staring at the wall.

"I'd rather you didn't. In fact, if you wouldn't mind, I'd rather that no one else knew that I was awake." Her questioning glance told me that I needed to elaborate on the reasoning, so I just took a deep breath and began. "I just want to see everyone for myself, before they realize who it is, you know? I want to see how they've really changed without me. I don't want their pity or their fakeness on me. I just want to see."

Sakura nodded, probably finding my reasoning strange, but understandable. "I would hate to break that favor, but since you are a ninja, I'm going to have to alert the Hokage, okay? Do you mind?"

"No, of course not. I guess it would be nice to see Tsunade-sama, if I have to," I said with a smile, but it was immediately dropped when I saw Sakura's saddened expression.

"Actually, Tsuande-sama died a few years back. But I can give you the next best thing; Naruto will be here to see you soon."

Any normal person would have been a little more surprised to hear his name attached to the title of Hokage, but I was one of the people who had believed in his endeavor for a long time. Ever since he defeated Neji in the Chuunin exams, I had a good feeling that he would be going far in life.

"Oh. Well, I'm very sorry. It must have been a great loss to the village," I said, my voice steady. I had missed her dying. I had missed some great terror coming to the village. I had missed 5 years of my life, and everyone else's. That might be a liiiittle hard to come back from.

"Yeah. It was," Sakura said, her eyes dimming for a second. Sakura was always Tsunade's favorite; even between Sakura and Shizune, everyone knew that Sakura took the cake. The pink haired medic walked out, leaving my behind in the room I guessed I had stayed in for five years.I noticed the tag on the door read "Tenten."

It was cool, yet depressing at the same time that I had a room that was all mine. It was cool because only the long term patients got them. But then again, it was depressing because I was a long term patient.

As I sat in my room and waited for the blonde ninja to arrive, I had a lot of time to think. Strangely enough, all of my thoughts seemed to drift back to Neji and Lee, and Gai-sensei. I wondered how they all got along without me. Neji was probably secretly happy… not that he had lost a teammate, but that he didn't have to deal with and protect me anymore. Lee was most likely sad, but he was probably also relieved that he didn't need to walk me home or babysit me anymore. And I kind of doubted Gai-sensei even noticed I was gone. Maybe they told him that I was on a really, really, really long mission.

He would have gone for that.

"Tenten?" A voice rang from the doorway, breaking into my mind theatre's rendition of Gai-sensei asking Neji where Tenten had gone, and Neji telling him that Tenten had decided to take a diplomatic mission to Kirigakure for a few years.

The door opened to reveal a blonde headed, blue eyed Naruto, grinning like an idiot. "Sakura said you were awake, but I thought she might have been kidding. Sometimes her sense of humor can be off if she's been working for too long."

"Hey there, boss," I said, smiling. It seemed too weird to call him Hokage-sama, even if I knew he would be Hokage one day. In my mind, he was still 15.

"Boss… I like that. It's better than being called Kyuubi or Jackass." I giggled, surprising myself at the sound. My voice seemed a little off, but I guess that was just one of the facts of getting older. Things change.

"So Sakura tells me that you don't anyone to know you've woken up. Why? Don't you want to go see all of your friends?"

I frowned slightly, hating to go through this again, but I knew that Sakura thought it was a matter of privacy. Patient confidentiality, after all.

"Because if everyone knew that I was awake and alive, they'd all be here. And yeah, I'd love to see them. But they'd also be really fake. They'd want to pretend like nothing had changed since that day; that they were still the same person. But we'd both know it just isn't true. You're probably about the only person who can be real with me… you and Sakura."

I didn't say anything about not wanting to see Neji with some girl that he had married, or Lee with a team of genin. I didn't want to tell Naruto that I was afraid that I had held them back when I was still with them. I didn't want to tell him that part of me didn't want to know what they had done with their lives.

"I see," Naruto said, looking at me. "I understand what you're feeling, completely." I highly doubted he did, and that just drove the feeling of not wanting anyone to know home.

"But that doesn't mean I want to stay holed up in here," I said. "I want to go around in Konoha and see what's changed. If no one knows I'm awake, I can see them all without fear of pity, right?"

Naruto frowned slightly. "Tenten, I don't think you'll be able to get around town that easily. I mean, it has changed since the attack, I'm sure you've realized."

"What attack?"

"Sakura didn't tell you?" he asked, surprised. His brow furrowed, and he stroked his chin thoughtfully. My mind was drawn back to Hokage Manor, and why she wouldn't tell me what had happened. I shook my head. "Oh. Well, while you were out on this mission, Konoha was attacked. By Pein. He was looking for me, but I wasn't here.

"So he went on the warpath with his various bodies, and kept trying to find me. The bodies killed some people, but they definitely didn't do the most damage."

I wondered where this was going.

"Pein used some kind of jutsu, and turned Konoha into one giant crater. Everything was gone. It was all rubble. People were crushed, buildings were destroyed… it was terrible. So after Pein was defeated, we rebuilt Konoha again. It was much smaller than it had been, but it's starting to grow back to its former glory."

The image of my parents house being reduced to rubble was about enough to make me cry again. It was the last thing I had of them, and it was gone. It's been gone for 5 years now. All the stuff I held dear, and all the stuff I had been used to seeing… Gone.

"Did… any of my stuff…?" I asked, semi-hopeful. Maybe something had survived.

"Well, whatever you had on you when you were attacked is fine. As for your house… I don't know. I can't say. Maybe if Neji, Lee, or Gai decided to retrieve some of it, but if they didn't then… No, I don't think so."

"Oh."

Naruto and I, much like Sakura and I, sat in silence. It was kind of awkward, sitting here with him, being told that my village was reduced to rubble while I was on a mission, knowing that we hadn't really ever been friends before this. Yeah, awkward is a good word.

"Do you think that I could… go exploring around Konoha, then?" I asked, not looking at him but at the sheets of my bed. It dawned on me about halfway through or conversation that my body looked older, and I was just wearing a measly hospital gown, so I pulled the sheets further up on my body.

"Well, yeah, I guess," he said, a little surprised once more. "But it would have to be under conditions."

"Of course," I said, nodding my head. Nothing was complete with a good set of conditions.

"You have to come back here every night, and if Sakura tells you to stay in for some reason, or you be back at a certain time, then you have to come back." I rolled my eyes, feeling like a little kid again.

"I'm not that stupid, you know."

"Just thought I'd cover it. Also, I'm going to need to tell a third person about you."

"What?!" I exclaimed, my eyes shooting over to him.

"You're going to need an escort. I don't know if being in a coma causes side effects. Neither does Sakura. They don't know if something will go wrong, because you've been here for so long, unconscious. For all you know, your vision could fail. And then you'd be screwed. But trust me, they'll stay out of your way, and leave you alone. Unless you want their help, that is."

I nodded, understanding his condition of the escort. He was just looking out for me, I guess.

"Anything else, boss?"

"No, that's about it. Medical conditions and an escort. I'll get Sakura to get you some clothes before tomorrow, so you can set out and have all the explorey fun you want to have."

He grinned once more, and stood up, preparing to leave. "Thanks, Hokage-sama," I said, smiling at him.

"You can call me Boss if you'd like. Or Naruto would work just as well. I like being called Hokage, but it just sounds… strange, coming from you. No offense."

"None taken. Trust me, it feels weird saying it."

"Until tomorrow, then, Tenten."