It was much too silent in the infirmary, Tenten noted as she resisted the urge to fidget. Lee had forced her to finally get her ankle looked at, and Kakashi was currently putting it back into order with a touch of basic medical jutsu.

Tenten sighed in relief while Lee cringed as her bones popped back into place with a sickening crack. She traced the snake on her wrist pensively while Kakashi wrapped her ankle up to keep it from shifting back out of place.

She turned to Lee.

"Hey, how's your wrist?" she inquired. "How badly did it hurt this time?"

Lee looked up at her, wide eyes mournful. "Truthfully? It felt like my arm was on fire. Then I found Sakura and I ignored it."

Tenten nodded. "Good."

"How about you?"

"After Mitarashi-sensei and Hatake-sensei, there isn't much that really hurts anymore," Tenten shrugged. Lee smiled wanly and went to the other room to check up on Sakura.

"Little lady," Kakashi called to get Tenten's attention. She turned from the door to focus her attention on him. "Maybe we shouldn't have trained you so much physically. Maybe we should have focused on your brain instead, if you're going to be a moron."

Tenten winced at Kakashi's frank way of speaking and apologized.

Kakashi rose slowly to his feet. "It's fixed. Just try not to fight on it," he instructed, and Tenten flushed in anger and shame at the knowing twinkle in his uncovered eye.

"Now, what do you say to an outside excursion with Sakura and Lee?"

Tenten very much liked that idea, so they got permission from the nurses to take their patient out, and while Sakura insisted on walking, Kakashi snuck behind her with a wheelchair and strapped her in.

Too drained to fight physically, Sakura argued weakly as they wheeled her out to the training fields.

"Oi! Lazy-ass!"

"Yeah?"

"C'mere!"

"Now?"

"Whaddya think, genius?"

Shikamaru groaned. Troublesome. He unfolded himself from the chair and plodded over to Anko with the grace of a tranquilized gazelle. Anko grinned wolfishly at him as he approached.

"What do you want?"

"What's a twelve-letter word for simple?"

"Meretricious."

"And a happy New Year," Anko muttered. "The word?"

Shikamaru sighed. "What a drag… It's M-E-R-E-T-R-I-C-I-O-U-S. Meretricious. Meaning simple, basic, elementary."

Anko nodded.

And then she smiled.

"…Run that by again?"

Shikamaru ignored her in favor of trudging over to Chouji's reclining form.

"Chou?"

"What's up?"

"Mitarashi-san is being Mitarashi-san."

Chouji grinned. "Since when do you whine?"

Shikamaru groaned.

Tenten sprawled out on the grass next to Sakura and sighed. Lee sat down on the other side of their pink-haired friend and Kakashi leaned against the tree that was giving them shade.

"When did spring get here?" Sakura wondered aloud, feeling the grass beneath her fingertips while the gentle breeze played with her hair.

"I'm not sure," Tenten replied. "I woke up one morning after I got here and the sky was blue."

Lee nodded. "I didn't notice until I got out here."

Kakashi looked up momentarily from the book he was reading.

"March twenty-first, the spring solstice," he remarked, flipping the page.

Tenten rolled her eyes. "Hatake-sensei?"

"Hmmm?"

"Shut up."

Sakura giggled and Lee chuckled as Kakashi answered, "Whatever you say, little lady," before turning back to his literature.

Sakura groaned. "Kakashi-sensei, you're not reading that trash again, are you?"

Kakashi grinned, the edges of his mask wrinkling under the force of it.

"Trash, you say? How would you know? Have you read it, Sakura-chan?"

Sakura flushed and Tenten snorted in amusement.

"Hey, Mitarashi-san?" Chouji called, coming up the stairs from the basement where Shikamaru had been cooped up for weeks with few breaks in between.

"Wassup, Chou-boy?" she responded.

"Where's Gai-sensei?" he inquired, struggling with the kitchen door.

"In th' kitchen," she shrugged.

"In here?" He pointed at the door.

"Yeah. Why?"

"I was going to warn him not to go in there," Chouji grimaced.

"Wha—why?"

"Because there's a big hole about to open up in there and Shikamaru doesn't want to see him."

At that precise moment, Chouji heard a yell that sounded distinctly like Shikamaru's come from downstairs.

His shoulders slumped.

"Damn."

Tenten yawned, stretching out on the grass. They'd stayed outside nearly the whole day and it was coming upon night. She heard Kakashi shifting and Lee stood up. He started to wheel a slumbering Sakura inside.

She felt a hand sneak under her bent knees and another support her shoulders and neck.

She protested weakly, mumbling through a yawn, but Kakashi silenced her with a skeptical look. She fell limp in his arms and allowed him to carry her inside. He softly deposited her on her bed and turned to go.

"Hatake-sensei?" she murmured.

Kakashi cocked his head to show he was listening.

"Thanks," she said sincerely.

Kakashi nodded without turning around and left the room silently.

Tenten pulled the blanket over her body and sighed.

None of them were perfect, but they were all trying and that was what was important.

Anko snorted.

"Ya mean ta tell me tha' Ol' Gray is tellin' off th' lil' lady?"

Shikamaru nodded, a ghost of a smirk on his lips as he watched Chouji sweep up and Anko cackle.

"Hey, Shika, can you pass me the dustpan?"

Shikamaru reached for the dustpan and passed it off to Chouji. He shook his head at Chouji's goofy smile, but paused when his eyes went to his wrist.

"It's not going to disappear." Anko's voice was subdued.

"No. I know. I-" Shikamaru looked away.

"That's the worst part," Chouji finished. "That it's there forever."

"Look on the bright side. There are more people who aren't gone," Anko grinned. "Now there's my pink-haired missy!"

Shikamaru followed her eyes to the frame with a rosette of small emeralds in the oval's lowest point. In it, he could see Lee looking tired. His eyes wandered to the square peridot-studded frame near the other end of the wall. Through it, he saw Sakura's distinctive pink hair. She looked straight towards the room's occupants, or so it seemed, and Shikamaru saw her lips form his name.

He pushed himself out of his heat and took a few steps forward. He whispered a few words and as the surface turned reflective, he put his fingers to it and closed his eyes. He sifted through the strands of thought until he found the most recent, then he went upstream to its source before sliding in and seeing the world through Lee's eyes.

Sakura was looking right at him, straight up into his eyes.

"Shikamaru-"

She paused.

"You know I'm-" her voice cracked and she turned aside momentarily, fighting back tears.

She looked back up and her eyes told him all he needed to know.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

I'm sorry, her eyes shouted.

-End Chapter 3-