Happy Monday everyone! Just wanted to share this - written in response to a Tumblr request. This was actually more painful to write than Like the Sun Faces the Moon (oneshot, the third part to the Obon series, if you haven't seen it yet). Both stories took me a while to get over though. :o
Naruto and its characters do not belong to me.
The Stories We Write
i.
The war begins in the shadow of a thousand hurried goodbyes, in the days following a flurry of desperate physical connections, forged on the belief that many will not live to see the dawn of a new beginning.
Team Gai shares a last dinner on the evening before they are due to set off with their separate divisions; that night, as Lee and Gai wave goodbye from the end of the street, Tenten turns to Neji, meeting his gaze with a solemn determination that isn't new to him.
The words that leave her lips, however, are ones that he's never expected to hear from her, but war is upon them, and Neji finds that he isn't surprised by much anymore.
I want you to see me as I am, she tells him, just this once, before it begins.
Tenten is braver than even him, for suggesting what he has never dared to.
In her apartment that night, silvery moonlight dances across her bare skin as she slips out of her clothes, and Neji does not look away.
I.
The war tears through countless lives like a hurricane sweeps villages out of existence. Tenten counts her blessings at the end of every day that she doesn't receive bad news about her team - her family.
And she continues to fight, to deplete her energy and weapons, until the day Neji leaves her behind, and then some.
My only regret is that there wasn't more to us before this, he told her that night. Tenten will never forget the way the moonlight glinted in his eyes, beautiful depths of lilac that have always chained him to the beliefs of his clan.
She doesn't cry when he slips away from the mortal world, between her fingers.
II.
A month after the war begins, it ends, and Tenten is so relieved at the sight of Neji and Gai and Lee in her dream that it feels as if a part of her has been ripped out all over again when she finds herself back on the battlefield, Gai almost burnt to a crisp, and Neji - her heart - lost somewhere far behind, buried in the rubble.
Tenten wears the faded touch of his lips on her forehead like a war scar, except it hurts deep in her chest instead, and she covers it up with her forehead protector, a momento so important that she hides it from the rest of the world.
The reality of his departure doesn't quite sink in - she lives in a daze - and Tenten feels herself falling ill for it, two weeks after the war ends.
Lee finds her by a clump of bushes one day, clutching at her belly, the contents of her stomach emptied in a gory mess on the ground. He drags her to Sakura, and she doesn't protest.
There is a long, uncomfortable silence while she waits in the makeshift hospital room, with Lee by her side, holding her hand. The green glow eventually fades from Sakura's palms; Lee looks anxiously to her for a prognosis, but Sakura holds only Tenten in her gaze.
Tenten learns that she is pregnant in a hospital full of crying babies and rushed, low voices.
She finds that she cannot breathe, that there is moisture on her cheeks but she doesn't remember crying.
The news tears a new gash in her chest; she draws a deep, shuddering breath. Lee pulls her into a big, bone-crushing hug and all she can think about is Neji, Neji, Neji-
The way his gaze smoothed over her newly-bare form (the first thing he did after that was to press his lips to hers)-
The heat of his breath in her ear as he leaned close to her-
Lee is sobbing hard; Tenten holds a tentative hand to her belly, and the caged, buried emotions rip from her gut like a storm unleashed.
Sakura leaves them to their grief in the privacy of the room, but all Tenten thinks about is how Neji has left part of himself behind, and how he's abandoned her - and their child - to fate.
III.
Lee and Gai visit her makeshift quarters a few days later, in the midst of her bargaining with Neji's ghost, who never seems to answer her.
It is only then that Tenten realizes her life is no longer only hers - it is hers, the child's and Neji's, rolled into one.
She pulls her remaining teammates into a tight hug, pronounces them the godfathers of her unborn child - the part of Neji that is still alive.
She will be brave.
ii.
You never cease to amaze me, he tells her quietly, in the shadows of her apartment.
By stripping? she laughs, pulls away the ribbons that hold her twin buns together.
Neji is silent for a moment, when the curls of her hair fall onto her bare shoulders, brushing her clavicles. He takes his time lifting his eyes to hers, and her breath catches when she reads the intensity in them.
By doing what I don't dare to, he whispers. His fingers are warm as he reaches up, tangling them in her hair. She leans into his palm, smiles at him.
You're brave in your own way, Neji, she tells him, with a tiny smile. But I'm sure you know that.
I want to know more of you, is his reply, and Tenten inhales sharply when he presses his lips to her throat.
They write the story of him and her that night, with the moon as their witness.
Probably not continuing this - I don't do kids. ;)
