At six O'clock the next morning Neji was woken by an annoyed voice.

"Why the hell are you still here and what do you think you're doing sleeping in my room?"

Sasuke stood in front of the window seat, arms crossed over his bare chest and one foot tapping. He scowled at the angel slumped in his window seat. Sasuke had jumped out of bed in surprise when he had rolled over to look out of the window (as he did every morning) only to find Neji sleeping there. It was not the kind of thing he enjoyed waking up to and Sasuke knew he would be in a bad mood for the rest of the day.

"I'm just doing my job," said Neji calmly, standing up and shaking the stiffness from his wings.

Sasuke watched the unusual sight of the angel before him flexing his wings as one would flex their arms after sleeping in such an uncomfortable position on the window seat.

"What exactly is your job? Invading my personal space and my private sanctuary?!" asked Sasuke angrily.

"Among other things," replied Neji, smothering a yawn.

"Which are…?"

"Helping you live your life."

"What the fuck? I don't need help to live my life! I have a perfectly fine life!"

"Hmm, so you say," said Neji pensively.

Sasuke let out an annoyed huff and stormed out of the room, Neji followed. He found Sasuke in the bathroom raiding the cabinet for pills. He watched Sasuke tip several into his hand and search for a cup.

"You're not supposed to take that many," Neji told him quietly following Sasuke into the kitchen in his search of a cup.

"Fuck off."

"How eloquent of you," Neji replied sarcastically. "But I can't let you do that."

Reaching out Neji made his hand corporeal only enough to snatch the pills from Sasuke's clenched hand. Sasuke gave a shout and tried to grab Neji's wrist. But his hand went right through the angel. Sasuke snatched his hand back at the strange sensation of passing through the angel; it felt tingly, not necessarily in a bad way but it gave Sasuke a shock. He tried to grab Neji's hand instead but felt only the same sensation. Sasuke slumped against the kitchen counter in defeat, one hand on his forehead.

"Give me the painkillers Neji," Sasuke said tiredly. "I have a thumping headache which, you realise, is probably your fault."

Neji carefully counted out the recommended dosage and handed Sasuke the tablets. Sasuke downed them immediately.

"It's not a good idea to take more than you're supposed to. You can take two more in four hours time," Neji told him gently.

Sasuke scowled; he hated being told what to do, especially by this 'angel' who had just turned up. He took a deep breath.

"Look can't you just go and find someone else to 'help'?" Sasuke asked in a tone of forced calm. "I can manage just fine on my own."

"Have you always been on your own, Sasuke?" asked Neji quietly.

An odd look passed over Sasuke's face and he looked down at his hands, they shook ever so slightly.

"No, I had someone once." he murmured tenderly, then as though realising he'd allowed Neji to catch him off guard he continued in a harsher tone. "But he is in the past and I live in the present."

Neji raised an eyebrow but said nothing. It appeared that he might have touched on just why Sasuke was so closed all the time. But it was a delicate subject and would have to be addressed as such.

"Where is he?"

"Dead," said Sasuke flatly, his voice was controlled but Neji could sense his inner turmoil.

"I'm sorry."

"I hate it when people say that, it wasn't your fault therefore you do not need to apologise."

"Yeah I know it's just the standard answer. When did he die?"

"Last week."

"So recent… You're a strong guy, aren't you, Sasuke?"

"No… no I'm not," Sasuke turned and walked back to his room.

"I think you are," muttered Neji.

Neji settled himself on the sofa to wait for Sasuke as he got ready for work. When the man returned he did not look at Neji. Instead he walked right out of the apartment slamming the door behind him. Neji sighed and walked through the closed door just as Sasuke turned to unlock it.

"You're not coming," Sasuke said firmly.

"Try and stop me," Neji challenged with a smirk on his face.

Sasuke scowled, of course he knew he couldn't stop Neji from following him to work, not when the angel had no corporeal body. Turning away he strode down the hallway and opted to take the stairs three at a time. At the bottom he glanced up the stairwell. The fact that there was no sign of the angel following him heartened Sasuke but at the same time he was wary. Somehow it seemed to good to be true that Neji would give up just because Sasuke ran away from him.

His suspicions were proved to be correct when Sasuke walked into the entrance hall to find Neji standing in the middle of the marble floor. The angel stood tall in his traditional clothes and smiled slightly as he watched Sasuke deflate in front of his eyes. The man didn't look too surprised to find Neji standing there though. This impressed Neji, he liked the man; Sasuke was elegant, composed and most of all clever.

"Why are you following me?

"I'm your new stalker, remember?"

"Hn."

Sasuke walked briskly across the entrance hall passing Neji by without another glance and pushed through the revolving doors. He knew Neji was following him but he did his best to ignore him, something Sasuke was only too good at.

Sasuke pushed through the day with a composed facade. He couldn't keep telling Neji to leave him alone because it would look like he was talking to himself so he completely ignored the angel as he stood by his side through each of Sasuke's morning meetings. He could feel Neji's hauntingly pale eyes watching his every move and could almost hear the angels brain assessing him. It was annoying to say the least.

When Sasuke gladly returned to the peace of his private office for his brief lunch break he threw himself straight into his large chair. Usually he liked his tall backed chair because it made him feel important as he gave orders to those below him, but right now he liked the chair simply because it was comfortable. He resisted the urge to groan and lean his head on the table, aware that Neji was watching from a sofa in the corner of his office.

Sasuke watched Neji smooth down his robes as he sat on the sofa. Neji sat on the right hand side of the sofa but Sasuke's eyes focused on the left hand seat. Memories flooded his mind as he stared at that spot. Hands, lips, an arched back, strong tanned arms and cerulean blue eyes sparkling with love and passion. Sasuke blinked and the vision disappeared, but the impression the image left on him was enough to make his eyes water. He swivelled his chair around to face the window and blinked rapidly.

Recent though the accident may be, it was still in the past. That man was dead and buried and it was useless to dwell on such things. Sasuke told himself he would deal with grief in his own way. He was quite familiar with death and felt that if he had dealt with it before he could do it again. Somewhere in the back of his mind Sasuke knew he was lying to himself but the most vocal part of his brain told him that the pain of this loss would simply take more time to heal than the loss of his family.

"Do you eat at lunch?" the voice came from directly behind him and startled Sasuke; absorbed in thought he had completely forgotten that Neji was still in the room.

"I'm not hungry today," Sasuke told him calmly, spinning his chair back to find Neji leaning on his desk.

Sasuke made shooing motions and dragged his paperwork towards him, he couldn't afford to fall behind. He knew he was going to have to read the minutes from this mornings meetings very carefully because of how distracted he had been by the angel's presence. Sasuke scowled when Neji remained exactly where he was.

"You're sitting on my workspace," he told Neji flatly.

Still the angel didn't move.

"Eating might help your headache," Neji told him calmly.

"Quit mothering me, I'm not hungry!"

"You should still eat, where do you usually go to eat?"

"My secretary picks up my lunch."

"Call her then."

"No."

"Fine I will," Neji reached for the phone on the desk.

Sasuke didn't know how the angel knew which button would connect him to his secretary but when he saw Neji's finger press the correct button Sasuke moved as fast as was humanly possible to grab the phone from the angels fingertips. Sasuke's hand once again met the tingling feeling of an angel in natural form before he snatched the phone away. Neji smirked and Sasuke knew that he wouldn't have retrieved the phone if the angel hadn't wanted him to.

Sasuke gave a short huff and put the phone to his ear just as a falsely sweet voice called down the phone, "Yes Uchiha-san?"

"Could you bring my lunch to my office please?" Sasuke spoke stiffly to his secretary.

"Of course I'll be right there!"

He hung up without saying another word and glared at Neji who finally got off of his desk and went back to the sofa. Sasuke's eye twitched as the angel sat on the left hand side this time. Neji wasn't to know but he still didn't want anyone sitting there. Neji gave him a questioning glance and Sasuke was about to ask him to move when there was a brief knock on his office door. Without waiting for a reply his pink haired secretary strode into the office.

"Here you go Uchiha-san," she said striding up to his desk in her stiletto boots and setting down a disposable bento box. "I hope this mornings meetings went smoothly?"

"They didn't, so I'll need the minutes as soon as possible. Thank you for lunch Sakura-san, you may leave," Sasuke's tone was dismissive but Sakura didn't step away from his desk.

Leaning closer she frowned at him slightly, "Are you feeling well?" she reached out to rest a hand on his forehead as if checking his temperature.

Sasuke smacked her hand away. "I'm fine, please leave."

She stood up still frowning, "I just worry about you Uchiha-san that's all. To be honest I think you're pushing yourself too hard lately, ever since..."

"Leave." Sasuke's voice shook a little as he spat the word at her. He was fed up of her constant concern for him. Sasuke's young secretary, Haruno Sakura, was a pretty woman. Sasuke often found her overly friendly with him but he knew she could be quite formidable when provoked, as she had demonstrated at the company's last Christmas party.

She finally backed away, "Okay, I'm leaving," she walked away but just as Sasuke began to feel relief at her exit, she stopped, hand on the door handle and turned back to face him, her bright green eyes serious. "Just so you know, Sasuke, you can always come and talk to me."

And then she was gone. Sasuke didn't bother to correct her for speaking to him so informally. Her concern touched him under many layers of annoyance at her boldness; she cared and he had so few people who really cared. Sakura's attraction to him was obvious to everyone, including the cleaning staff. In the early days of their working relationship she had flirted outrageously and repeatedly attempted to corner him into 'work-related' dates. But since a few months ago, when she had walked into his office without knocking, Sakura had realised that she would never have Sasuke's interest. Sasuke was always careful to appear as though he only tolerated her presence because she was a good secretary, but in truth he had come to depend on her solidarity as much as the Uchiha would ever allow himself depend on an annoying woman like Sakura.

Neji had watched the exchange carefully. At the mention of his lost partner Sasuke's face, in a rare moment of weakness, had displayed a turmoil of emotions. Neji wasn't sure what to make of the situation he had been thrust into. But Neji wasn't one to panic, he decided to concentrate on matters at hand and query his suspicious lack of information later. He sat in silence for a short time whilst Sasuke moved his food around with his chopsticks staring at a point somewhere in the distance. After a moment Neji sighed and walked up to the desk again.

"That looks good, you should eat it," he prompted, leaning against Sasuke's desk again.

"I told you I'm not hungry, you eat it," snapped Sasuke waving the chopsticks in Neji's direction.

"I'm an angel, I don't eat."

Sasuke turned his head slightly, cocking an eyebrow. "You asked for a cup of tea yesterday. You drink but you don't eat?"

"Aren't you the observant one? Let me rephrase that: I don't need to eat. You, however, do."

"Hn."

Sasuke picked up a piece of maki-zushi with his chopsticks. Neji smiled to himself in victory as Sasuke sniffed at it. But a second later Sasuke had thrown it back down again and pushed away from the desk. Neji watched him rush from the room in shock before following the dark-haired man. He caught up with Sasuke just as his charge emptied the minimal contents of his stomach into the toilet.

A/N:

bento box: lunch box
maki-zushi: those little rolls of sushi you get that usually wrapped in nori (seaweed) yummy!

Don't forget to review! Ja!