Shipwrecked

Tenten leans closer in, to confirm that it is indeed what they believe it to be. After a moment she stands and shakes her head, and mutters two words. "A puppet."

She turns away from the "captain" and mutters under her breath, "A puppet. How could it have been a puppet?" All the while shaking her head in disbelief. She sits down on the warm sand and tries to wrap her head around this strange devleopment. After a few moments Neji approaches her.

"This is not a good sign." He starts, "If our ship was sabotaged, then it was likely to kill us."

"Comforting thought." He gives her a few moments to digest what he's telling her.

"The only issue." He begins to speak again, "Is that we're alive." She looks up at him, comprehension beginning to form on her face. "Since we're alive, they'll be coming for us." He stands and offers her his hand, "And when that happens, we must be ready!"She accepts it and he helps her to her feet. His last words are full of a determination that she's never seen out of him. She's seen his determination and he has a lot of it, but this. This is different, she decides. Something about the way he said that, and the look on his face when he said it. There's something different about him, something good. "Tenten?" Neji asks. She realizes that she's still holding his hand. She quickly lets go and awkwardly steps back, "fixing" her hair, and dusting off her shorts.

"Sorry." She manages to awkwardly say. She feels her cheeks beginning to flush and looks away.

"It's fine." He replies, a smile on his face. Her hands are so soft,he thinks. They both stand there in silence for a few moments. Staring at the water together, daydreaming.

Neji looks out over the water and his smile fades, replaced by a look of slight confusion. Despite being trapped on this island, and the captain being a puppet, and someone coming to kill us. I'm actually enjoying this. This time alone with Tenten, its nice. A slight laugh emerges from behind his lips.

"What is it?" Tenten takes a step closer to him. Confusion clearly visible on her face.

"It's just..." His voice fades out as he looks at Tenten. The sun is slowly going down beside her and the light behind her gives her a heavenly look. More than usual, Neji thinks as a smile nearly splits his face.

What's wrong? Tenten thinks, as she begins to worry that she looks weird. She begins to look around to try and figure out whats causing Neji to be like this. Then suddenly she comes to a halt. She slowly lowers her head, as she remembers something. "AAAAAAHHH!" She leaps back trying desperartely to cover herself. Since they had to go into the water to find the captain she had taken off her outer shirt and now only had only a thin undershirt, which is now soaked and semi see through. As she leaps back she trips over a rock and falls onto the sand.

"Tenten!" Neji shouts. Not understanding why she jumped back, he runs forward to help her. A rather large crab had come up out of the sand when Tenten had screamed. This crab now sits in the way of Neji. Distracted by Tenten's sudden yell he doesn't see it and as he runs to help her it trips him up. "Gah!" He cries as he falls forward, he barly clears the rock that she tripped over and lands on her. Not in a way too painful for either of them. She shrieks again, still desperately trying to cover herself. She tries to roll away, but only manages to switch their positions.

Neji lets out a hearty laugh as Tenten gives a resignational sigh and lets herself fall onto his chest, closing her eyes. Not realizing that shes lying on a shirtless Neji. At the sound of his laughter she opens her eyes and looks to the sound. Now their faces are mere inches apart. As realization dawns on Tenten her face reddens. "Sorry!" She mumbles as she tries to get up. She stumbles in her haste and falls back onto him. She closes her eyes and tries to wish this all away. There goes my chance, she thinks, I've embarrassed myself too much.

"What's wrong Tenten?" Neji asks jokingly. "Am I that ugly?" Another fit of laughter comes upon Neji with that last statement.

"N-no!" Tenten stutters. She tries to rise again, slower this time. But Neji grabs her hands and pulls her back down again. What is he doing? Is he enjoying my misery? She closes her eyes and tries to wish this all away, tries to just go back to before this happened. Before they were assigned this mission. She remembers clearly when she first got word of this mission, she was training with Zakku when Shikamaru arrived and told her Tsunade needed to see her in an hour. She soon gets lost in her own thoughts.

"Hey Tenten." She snaps back to the real world as Neji says her name.

She looks down at him, "Ye-" Her response is cut short as Neji kisses her. WHAT?! I-IS NEJI KISSING ME? Her inner voice shrieks, the confusion and suddeness of this makes her forget to kiss back.

Neji breaks away and looks her in the eyes, the smile on his face fading as he realizes that she didn't kiss back. Should I not have done that? Did i make a mistake? His usual stoic face returns as he realizes that he may have messed up. "Sorry." He looks away and tries to stand. He can't since she's on top of him. He refuses to look her in the eyes now, he does everything to avoid looking at her. And seeing her face, knowing that he shouldn't have done that.

"Neji..." Her voice barely above a whisper. He slowly turns his head to her, his eyes still closed. He gradually opens them after a moment of silence. They're open for only a second before she kisses him. He kisses her back, his fears fading away as he does so.

"Tenten." He says with a shocked bot joyful expression on his face after they break away. She shushes him as she lies down on his chest again, this time happily.

They lie there, together, for a while. Neither of them caring about the time, just happily lying there on the beach with one another. As they begin to doze off they are snapped awake by a voice, "Neji! Tenten! Where are you?"

"Lee." Neji says to Tenten as he recognizes the voice. "Come on we need to get up." His usual stoicism returning. She begins to rise but stops suddenly as she hears another voice.

"Well lookie here!" Ino steps into their view, "What've we got here?"

"It's not wha-" Neji's explanations is cut off by Ino.

"Good choice Neji." He looks to Tenten as Ino says that. "She's a keeper."

Neji looks to Ino then back to Tenten. Finally, he says "She sure is." They stand and are about to go meet.

"Umm. What's this?" Choji calls out as he finds the captains "body."

"We better go explain." Neji says with a smile at Tenten. He takes her hand in his as they go to where Choji is. I could get used to this, is all Tenten thinks as she walks with Neji. Her Neji.