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Hooking a finger under Sakura's chin, Shikamaru got her to look back at him. "I think you are."

Sakura laughed. "I am not!"

"You are too." Shikamaru murmured, his smirk softened to a smile, as he pulled her closer, and he kissed her deeply.

When their kiss broke, Sakura smiled, and rested her head on his shoulder. I am so incredibly lucky to have found Shikamaru. I couldn't imagine my life without him.

Two and a half weeks later, September 21st

"I am so glad we're not playing with real money." Shikamaru's cousin, Shinji, said. Some of the others agreeing with him, as eyes were going to the end of the table where Sakura was laughing.

"Yeah, I'm pretty good at most card games," Sakura said, then she nudged Shikamaru. "Of course, it's refreshing knowing that you can keep up with my score."

Shikamaru smirked at her somewhat compliment. His eyes going to her unwrapping a piece of candy, and eating it. "You know, if you keep eating the candy, we're not going to have anything to put in place of poker chips."

"I can't help it, and I'm also not the only one eating it." Sakura replied, a hand covering her mouth as she chewed the candy.

"Sakura, shhh." Akara—Shinji's wife—said, having also been eating candy at that moment. She laughed along with the others.

They were currently hanging out playing a bit of poker in Shikamaru's living room. It was a handful of Shikamaru's cousins, Shikamaru, and Sakura. The adults had gone out together to have dinner. Shinji and his wife Akara, as well as his sixteen-year-old cousin, Yoshio, from his dad's side of the family was there. Then two of his cousins from his mom side were there, sisters Kira and Tamaki. Any of his cousins that were younger than fifteen were out with their parents.

"So," Sakura said, her eyes going to Kira and Tamaki. "I don't usually see you two around the village."

Kira shrugged. "Well when I turned sixteen this year, I was accepted into the anbu black ops. I'm still in training, and it takes up a lot of my time. Before that I was on missions often, trying to qualify for the anbu to accept me."

"My teammate, Sai, used to be involved with that," Sakura said, waving it off. "However, as soon as Danzo was gone, he distanced himself from it all. He didn't have much interest in it after all they put him through when Danzo was in charge."

"Lucky for me, Danzo was gone before I got involved with it all," Kira said, her smile warming on her face. "It's been a great experience so far. I'm just so busy now though."

Sakura nodded, as her eyes moved to Tamaki. "What about you?"

"As anti-social as this is about to sound. I'm just not that much of a people person, and don't really go out that much." Tamaki replied.

That had both Sakura and Shikamaru sharing a look and smirking, as Sakura said, "Same."

"But Sakura," Akara started, as she motioned to the slightly younger woman. "You seem like such a social butterfly."

Sakura waved a hand, and took a sip of her beer. "I mean I guess I can be. I'd just rather be at home with my furbabies, and never talk to anyone ever."

"That's like music to my ears." Kamaki said, sharing a grin with Sakura.

Yoshio grew a smirk on his face, as his eyes were on Shikamaru. "It must run strongly in both of our families for Shikamaru to turn out the way he is."

The others had laughed at that, but Shikamaru's eye twitched. "What exactly is wrong with me?"

"Absolutely nothing." Sakura spoke quickly, as she leaned over to kiss his cheek. Noticing that had softened his expression, she finished her beer, and stood up. "I'm thinking about switching over to margaritas. I'm kind of over beer."

Akara clapped her hands together. "Yes, tequila is my favorite thing."

"I know," Shinji said, his arm wrapping around his wife. "Our daughter existing right now is proof of that."

Sakura, who had gone over to the kitchen, paused after getting tequila out of the cabinet. "Speaking of, where is Kazumi tonight."

"She's with my parents." Akara explained.

"Oh," Sakura said, grabbing the blender from where it was stored under one of the counters. "Well, then we have no limits tonight then. No responsibilities."

"Exactly." Akara agreed at the same time Shinji groaned and said, "Oh great."

Shikamaru got up from the couch, and walked over to the kitchen. Leaning against the counter top, he watched as Sakura grabbed some limes out of the refrigerator. Noticing his cousins were distracted by something on the TV, he smiled in Sakura's direction. "So you seem to be getting along with my cousins pretty well."

"I've known Shinji, Akara, and Yoshio for months. And I know that I just met Kira and Tamaki today, but they seem really nice," Sakura said, then she chuckled. "Of course, I'm also a really likeable person."

Shikamaru laughed along with her. Watching her start to open the tequila bottle, his eyes went over to his cousins. "I'm not exactly too thrilled with the idea of watching my younger cousins drink."

"Oh please," Tamaki said, waving off his words. "Shinji and Akara are four years older than you. Kira and Yoshio are sixteen. I'm fifteen, only three years younger than you."

"Almost four years." Shikamaru corrected.

Yoshio shrugged. "I'm not much of a tequila person, so I don't really care."

"Well I do," Tamaki replied, her eyes on Shikamaru. "Just because you weren't cool and drank alcohol when you were my age, doesn't mean the rest of us have to suffer."

While that clearly irritated Shikamaru, Sakura laughed it off. "Oh it's okay Shikamaru. I was doing a lot worse when I was fifteen. It's not that big of a deal."

Shikamaru lost his irritation as he smirked at her. "That's not comforting at all," he said, chuckling as the others laughed. "It's not so much as if I care that you drink Tamaki. It's more or less the fact that my mom would kill me if she found out I was the one giving you the alcohol."

"Technically I'm making the margaritas," Sakura corrected, then she shrugged. "I'm sure your mom wouldn't be that mad. She's pretty cool."

"You're not her child though," Shikamaru pointed out, his eyes widening at how much tequila Sakura was putting into the blender. "We're not trying to die tonight."

Realizing he was referring to how much tequila she was adding, Sakura smirked. "It's not even that much."

Unable to help but laugh, Shikamaru reached over to wrap an arm around her. "I think you and I have a very different definition on what is classified as "too much", Sakura."

"You survived my birthday," Sakura pointed out, smiling at how close Shikamaru was. "So I don't know what you're worried about."

"Let's not use your birthday as a reference," Shikamaru shot back, smirking at how she laughed. Closing in, he kissed her cheek, and finally let her go. "We're all going to regret this in the morning."

The next morning

Waking up to an alarm blaring in their ears, Shikamaru was quick to reach over Sakura, and turn the alarm off. Grumbling lowly, he returned back to laying down, as his arm slipped around Sakura. "Dear kami..."

"I'm pretty sure I'm dying," Sakura mumbled back, trying to bury her face further into the pillows. "Like for real this time."

"You put too much tequila in those margaritas." Shikamaru said, pulling her closer to him, as he wrapped his arm closer around her.

Smiling at how close he was, Sakura nuzzled her head against his chest. "It wasn't that bad."

"Really? It doesn't feel bad right now?"

"Maybe a little..."

Shikamaru chuckled. "I don't know why you didn't just drink the tequila straight out of the bottle at one point."

"I did actually," Sakura said, a hand moving to her forehead. "This hangover feels worse than the one I had the morning after my birthday. Which says a lot, because I'm pretty sure I also died of alcohol poisoning that day."

"I honestly don't know how that hasn't already happened," Shikamaru said, laughing along with Sakura. After a few minutes, he sighed and kissed her. "Okay, as much as I would love to just stay here all day, we need to get up. My mom planned a lunch with the family today. If I don't get up and at least look like I'm being helpful, she'll come in here and drag me out of bed."

Sakura reached over and pulled him back down when he had started to sit up. "Five more minutes?"

Smirking, Shikamaru nodded, and caressed her cheek. "Okay, but if she comes in here, then I'm blaming it on you."

"I'm okay with that." Sakura replied with a smile.

An hour later

The family had slowly started to gather at Shikamaru's house, and Sakura and Shikamaru had kept mostly out of the way by sitting on the porch swing. Baby was resting on Sakura's lap, as that was the safest space away from the dogs and Shikamaru's younger cousins who were running around.

"Yeah well, it looks like some of our kids had a lot of fun last night." Yoshino was saying to Shikamaru's aunt Sumiko.

"I would just like to blame it on Sakura," Shikamaru pointed out before his mom could say anything to him.

"Excuse me?" Sakura countered, an eyebrow raised.

"You are a terrible influence," Shikamaru said, having to dodge her fist. He chuckled. "I'm just kidding, mostly."

"Yoshio shouldn't be drinking period." Sumiko said, her eyes on her eldest son, who was clearly still feeling the hangover.

"Mom, it's not like it was my first time drinking-"

"What do you mean by that?" Sumiko interrupted, her hand propped on her hip.

"To be fair, Sakura and I did most of the tequila drinking." Akara said from where she was sitting with her baby, Kazumi on her lap. A little hungover herself, but was drinking a lot of coffee.

Yoshino nodded, as her eyes swept from Sumiko to Azami, both of her sisters-in-law. "At least they were doing it here. Although my sister was not too happy with her daughters when they got home last night. She sent me a pretty irritated message this morning… Which is funny because she acts like we didn't do stuff like that when we were her age."

"I guess that's true," Sumiko agreed, a smirk on her face. "I mean Shikaku never wanted to drink with me since I was considered his baby sister and all, but I mean I was thrilled when he started dating you. I finally had someone to drink with. We used to have so much fun."

"I just can't picture you drinking, mom. Or having fun." Shikamaru said, smirking at his mom's eye roll.

"I used to be a lot of fun back in the day, thank you very much." Yoshino shot back, smiling as she noticed that had her husband chuckling from where he was on the other side of the porch with his brother and brother-in-law.

Sakura waved off Shikamaru's raised eyebrow, and smiled at Yoshino. "I don't know what you're talking about. You're still plenty of fun."

"Sakura." Shikamaru muttered, smirking.

"No I mean it," Sakura said, nudging Shikamaru's shoulder. "There are only a small number of adults that I can actually have fun around, and your mother is one of them."

"We're technically adults too you know? Young adults, but still." Shikamaru reminded, noticing that made Sakura laugh.

"I mean like real adults," Sakura explained. "We're like fake adults. We're old enough to be legally considered adults, but we still rely heavily on our parents to make sure we don't completely screw up our lives… Well, we're supposed to. I tend to just go ahead and screw something in my life, then my parents have to come in and fix it. You know what I'm saying though, right?"

"No Sakura, I do not know what you're saying. That does not make sense to me." Shikamaru countered, as he and his relatives laugh. Sakura joined in after a moment, however he laughter stopped when she noticed a few ninja approaching the yard.

"What's that about?" Shinji asked, noticing how the group of ninja were all anbu ranked, and looked rather serious as they approached.

Both Shikaku and Shikamaru had stood up, as the men had stopped near the porch. Shikaku clearing his throat. "What can we do for you gentlemen?"

One of the anbu stepped forward, removed his mask, and motioned past Shikaku in the direction of the swing. "We're here for her actually."

Everyone's eyes followed to where he was pointing directly at Sakura. Shikamaru had leaned over to her eye level. "What did you do?"

While that made some of his family laugh, Sakura waved it off, not really worried. "Nothing," she said, getting up and putting Baby back on the swing. A thoughtful look on her face, as she paused beside Shikamaru. "Well, probably nothing."

"Sakura." Shikamaru hissed her name under his breath.

Walking around some of the younger cousins who were sitting on the porch, Sakura went down the few steps on the front porch. Shadow and Tank eagerly following her, but stay seated on the porch at the motion of her hand. She smiled at the group of anbu. "What can I do for you?"

The one who had spoken up to Shikaku, stepped forward, and held up a black tablet. "State your full name."

Sakura was quiet for a long moment, then she sighed. "Sakura Haruno."

The guy hit a few buttons on the tablet, and held it out to her. "Fingerprints."

Sakura lifted her hand, and lightly pressed her fingertips to the tablet. After it scanned them, she smirked. "So what's next? Do I need to give a blood sample? Or is this all it takes to sign my soul over to the devil?"

"Your attempt at a joke is not funny." The guy replied, handing her a stylus to sign in one last place.

"Well your sense of humor could use some work," Sakura shot back, and she signed her name. Her eyes narrowing as she looked at the guys behind him. "Do you always travel with your posse?"

That actually got some snickers from Shikamaru's cousins.

Sakura smirked, but didn't push it. "I'm already bored, if you don't get to the point-"

"Here," the guy interrupted her, handing the tablet back, after closing the cover on it. "You have two hours to review it, and then return with your assessment."

"Yeah okay," Sakura said, as she took the tablet. "But what exactly am I assessing-"

"It is my duty to tell you that this is an extremely classified file, and sharing this information with anyone else will lead you in federal prison. You signed to that effect."

Sakura laughed, then shook her head. "You know that's something you tell someone before they sign it."

The guy deadpanned as he leaned closer to her. "Miss. Haruno, this is not the first time we have met like this. You are fully aware of the guidelines and legal obligations to this. You know that it is just part of my job to verbally explain that to you before the end of our encounter."

Sakura propped one of her hands back on her hips, as she smirked at the guy. "You know we've unfortunately got to stop our meetings. I have a boyfriend now, and he gets really jealous."

While that had some of his cousins snickering, and his other relatives smirking, Shikamaru slapped a hand to his forehead. "Sakura."

The guy only stared back at Sakura in silence for a long moment, then he sighed and turned away. With one hand motion two the masked anbu members, moved to stand by Sakura, and the other started to walk away with the guy.

Sakura instantly narrowed her eyes. "Oh no, I'm not going to be babysat-"

"We go through this every time," the guy interrupted her, pausing to look back at her. "I've learned that you regularly get yourself into trouble. With that document in your hands, you will not be allowed to die."

"So it's acceptable for me to die any other day?" Sakura questioned, before telling the guy "I'm just joking. Jeez, you need to smile more."

"We'll be seeing you in a couple hours." The guy said before turning and leaving with the rest of his men. Putting his anbu mask on his face, before they disappeared.

Sakura sighed as she looked between the two that had stayed with her, and she turned to go up on the porch. Looking over her shoulder at the two. "Stay."

While it looked like the two were going to follow anyways, one growl from Shadow and Tank was all it took to keep them at bay. Sakura just smiled at her dogs. "Good boys. Be sure to teach the other puppy dogs some manners."

"Haruno." Came from one of the two anbu.

Laughing, Sakura moved back to the swing to pick Baby up. Her eyes met Shikamaru's, and she shrugged. "It's not that big of a deal. Occasionally I do work for the council. Not our council, but the Kage council. You know the one for all of the kage's-" she broke off when one of the anbu cleared their throat. "What? It's not like I told them anything specific. Chill out."

That brought some chuckles from the others, and Shikamaru returned to sitting on the swing. "So does this mean you're skipping lunch?"

"I don't think so. This shouldn't take me too long, unless they screwed up big time," Sakura countered, as she leaned over to kiss Shikamaru. "I'm going to put Baby inside, if you would keep an eye on Shadow and Tank that would be great."

"Yeah of course," Shikamaru said, watching as Sakura went to put Baby inside the house, and how she had to keep Shadow and Tank from following her off the porch. "Have fun!"

"I won't, but thanks for the encouragement!" Sakura called back, as she waved back at him.

An hour later

Having finally sat down for lunch, Shikamaru had been trying to stay out of the conversation, as his eyes focused on the blue sky above them. The sound of a cat's meow was heard, and he looked over to see Baby was scratching at the screen door that kept her in the sunroom. "Just ignore her, she'll stop eventually."

"It's so hard to ignore her though," his aunt Sumiko said, smiling in the direction of the cat. "She's so cute."

Shikamaru deadpanned. "I would strongly disagree with that statement."

"Shikamaru she's really sweet-"

"Mom," Shikamaru interrupted, shaking his head. "For some strange reason she really likes both you and dad. However, I can promise you that she loses her cuteness when you get woke up by her digging her claws into your face, or biting you for absolutely no reason whatsoever."

"You're just not loving her properly." Sakura's voice was heard, as she walked around the side of the house, her eyes twinkling. Both Shadow and Tank had got up from where they were laying around the Nara's feet, and went over to greet her.

Shikamaru smirked as Sakura had come over, and he kissed her before she sat down in the chair next to him. "You weren't kidding about it only taking an hour."

"It was an easier fix than I thought. It only took me twenty minutes, but I wanted to stay a bit longer to make sure they implemented the changes correctly." Sakura replied, reaching over for the pitcher of tea to pour into the glass at her place setting.

Grabbing the pitcher before she could, Shikamaru poured the tea in her glass. "Of course."

"So what was that all about?" Shikaku asked the question they all had been thinking.

"Just some tech support really. I can't go into specifics," Sakura said, taking a sip of the tea after Shikamaru had filled up the glass. "Like really, I can't talk about it. If it got back to them they could have me arrested. Like not just like arrested in the Leaf village, I mean like arrested by the government that oversee's all the ninja nations. Which honestly probably wouldn't be too bad. Saying something I shouldn't have wouldn't be the worst thing I've been arrested for."

Shikamaru choked on his drink a little, and that made everyone else laugh.

Sakura only rested a hand on his back. "Are you okay?"

"Are you?" Shikamaru countered, wiping his mouth with a napkin, as he looked at her wide-eyed. "You've been arrested?"

Sakura waved off his question. "Don't worry, the charges were dropped."

Shikamaru deadpanned, as the others laughed. "Oh well, that just made all of my concerns disappear."

A couple of hours later

Settling on the top step on the front porch, Sakura and Shikamaru were watching as Shadow and Tank were running around the front yard. After they finished eating, there was a lot more socializing, and finally his relatives had slowly left.

Sakura had her head resting on Shikamaru's shoulder, and was enjoying the feeling of his arm wrapped around her. "I wish you didn't have to go..."

Shikamaru sighed, looking down at the ninja gear he had on. He got a message from the Hokage that his team was set to go on a mission, and to get prepared to come to the office for a mission brief. "It should only be a few days."

"I know," Sakura said, groaning lowly at the thought. "With my luck my team will get a mission on the day you are supposed to come back. Honestly, I'm pretty sure Tsunade is trying to get in the way of our relationship."

Shikamaru chuckled. "Yeah, I'm sure that's why she's assigning us missions. Not because of the fact that it is apart of our jobs or anything like that."

"I know right?" Sakura countered, laughing along with him this time. When their laughter settled, she sighed, and nuzzled her nose into his shoulder. "Be careful, okay?"

"I always am," Shikamaru said, kissing the top of her head, he rubbed her arm a little. Another minute past, and she still hadn't moved. "As much as I'd like to stay here, I have to get going soon. You know how Ino gets when she has to wait."

"I know..." Sakura trailed off, remaining where she was for another minute, then she sighed ad finally lifted her head off his shoulder. Her eyes meeting his, she smiled lightly. "I'm going to miss you."

Standing up, Shikamaru pulled Sakura to her feet, and gave her a long tender kiss. When their kiss broke, he rested his forehead on hers for a moment of silence. "Okay, I'm going to go meet up with my team. I'll be back in a few days."

"Bye… Be careful!" Sakura called after him, as he started to walk away from the house. Sighing heavily, she brought her hand to rest on Shadow's back, and she had to whistle to keep Tank from following Shikamaru out of the yard. I'm going to miss him.

That evening

Taking a long drink from her wine glass, Sakura sighed as she leaned her head back against the tub. She had a nice dinner, and was trying to relax with a glass of wine and a bubble bath. However, with Baby walking along the edge of the bathtub, she couldn't fully relax, as she was anticipating a small miss-step that would lead to Baby in the bath with her. Then the following hundred scratches she would get from trying to rescue Baby from the water was starting to grow unsettling. "Can't you just go lay in my sink or something? That's a lot less dangerous."

Baby only meowed, and bumped her head up against Sakura's hand for some attention.

The sound of knocking on the front door was heard, and Sakura sighed heavily. "You've got to be kidding me… Whoever it is, is just going to have to-"

The door opening interrupted Sakura, and she raised an eyebrow. Shadow and Tank both got up to trot out of the bathroom to go see who it was, and when she didn't hear barking she realized she was fine. "Welcome to my house!"

"You're alone right?" Hinata's voice countered, as she appeared in the doorway of Sakura's bathroom. Both Shadow and Tank coming back into the bathroom, as they've determined there was no stranger in the apartment. "Good."

"Thanks for waiting for me to respond," Sakura replied, laughing at the thought. "If I was with Shikamaru or something, he'd probably be pissed if you just walked into the bathroom."

"Well it wouldn't have been my fault if the door was open," Hinata said, noting the wine glass in her hand. "Oh good, you're already drinking."

'

Sakura smirked as Hinata had put a fresh new wine bottle on the bathroom counter. "You came prepared though, and I appreciate that. I just opened a wine bottle in the kitchen, you can-" She broke off when Hinata was already leaving the room. "Help yourself!"

Hinata returned back after a moment, and sat down on the floor next to Shadow and Tank. Drinking from her freshly poured wine, she held a deep frown on her face. "So why isn't Shikamaru here?"

"He got sent on a mission with his team," Sakura replied, motioning towards Hinata. "More importantly, you look pissed. Weren't you supposed to go on a date with Naruto?"

Hinata deadpanned. "I don't want to talk about it."

Whistling lowly, Sakura smirked as she focused back on Baby, who had made her way back around the rim of the bathtub, and had stepped on her shoulder. "Baby, Hinata's in a mood, and I see a lot of destructive drinking in our future."

"Cheers to that," Hinata said, holding out her wine glass to clink with Sakura. Before she took a long drink. "I'm sleeping over."

"I figured," Sakura said, eyeing Hinata's pajamas. "Once I finish what was supposed to be a relaxing bath, I'll get in my pajamas too, then we can watch movies and not talk about what Naruto did to piss you off."

"Sounds good." Hinata agreed, taking another drink from her wine glass, before she laid back across the rug on the bathroom floor. Her head resting against Tank, who had thumped his tail against the floor when Hinata had gotten so close to him.

A half hour went by and Sakura and Hinata were out of the bathroom. Sakura was now dressed in pajamas, and had just popped some popcorn. Walking out of the kitchen, she joined Hinata on the couch, as her eyes went to the screen to see what movie Hinata ended up picking out. At Hinata had the screen paused, and was now eating popcorn quickly. "So do you want to talk about it?"

"Not really," Hinata said, chewing the popcorn her mouth, before she sighed. "It's just really annoying."

"Naruto's an idiot, what else is new?"

"He's not an idiot… He can be a little dense sometimes," Hinata countered, sighing heavily at the thought. "It's just that I got all dressed up and looked really cute, and we went out to dinner. Everything was going great, and when we go back to his apartment, he falls asleep! Like excuse me? I didn't put all this effort into looking cute for him to just go to sleep."

"I would say it's unusual for him to do something like that, but that's so him," Sakura said, waving off Hinata's annoyance. "He probably has no idea that he did something wrong. Like you said, he can be pretty dense."

The tension in Hinata's shoulders, slowly lessened, and she finally relaxed back. "Yeah, I guess I'll just have to get him to make it up to me, and maybe we can go on a trip for a few days. Just the two of us."

"That would be fun. I can spend those days relaxed, as that means I can get out of training while he's gone," Sakura said, then she sighed heavily. "Of course it's not like I have much to distract me, because my boyfriend is out of the village on a mission."

"You have your furbabies." Hinata pointed out, motioning to the dogs on the floor, and where Baby was sitting on the top of the couch behind them.

"That's true," Sakura said, scratching behind Baby's ears, then she smiled at Hinata. "Maybe we can have a boys free day for the next couple days. We can go to the hot springs or go and get blackout drunk and see where we end up by the time we sobered up."

Hinata laughed. "I like that idea. Too bad Ino and Tenten are both out of the village on missions."

"Don't worry," Sakura said, waving it off, as she reached for her glass of wine. "You and I are much more self-destructive when it's just the two of us, and we have a lot more fun."

Hinata smirked. "That's not a good thing."

"It really just depends on how you look at it." Sakura countered, laughing along with Hinata, as they settled back to start the movie. An unexpected girls night is just what I needed.

A/N: I think my favorite scene this chapter would be between meeting some of Shikamaru's cousins from his mom's side, as well as the morning Shikamaru and Sakura wake up hungover. What was your favorite?

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