A/N: It's been very interesting reading reviews! I hope that I'm not disappointing people with the direction this story's going. I don't think things will happen like a lot of people expect them to. Also, I got a comment about my paragraph length, and I'm too lazy to write an email, so I'll just apologize here. Sorry if my paragraphs seem too long for screen consumption. I use fanfiction as a practice ground for my original stuff, and my goal someday is to feel confident enough in my writing that I try to get something published. Short paragraphs usually don't look as good in print as they do on the screen, and so if reading the long paragraphs is tough on the eyes, print it out. The chapters are actually short enough that it works out pretty well. I'm still going to keep writing as if it was printed. Sorry!

I'm also going to spoil something for those of you who haven't read Ch. 235 of the manga yet. Yeah, things worked out! I can still use Neji and Chouji in this fic!! I'm very, very happy.

The house was completely silent. Its size had taken him off-guard, but he reasoned that Temari was a special jounin and the daughter of a past Kazekage. There was no reason she shouldn't have a lovely house. Scratch that- the house wasn't silent. Muffled pounding sounds came from the far end of the house, and Shikamaru wondered if he had come at a bad time. Most likely he had. He waited until the noises stopped, listening as the sigh of a door opening reached him. Soft footsteps padded across the stone tile floor, the kitchen doorway suddenly filled with an alluring silhouette. The slightly musky scent of her skin wafted into his nostrils, intensified by the heat of the evening. Sunset hadn't taken place too long ago, and so the desert air had not yet cooled sufficiently. He ignored the sweat meandering down the groove of his spine as he watched his target reach the sink, filling a glass with water as she stood in the nude. She placed the glass to her lips and began to drink, and he materialized from the shadows, one arm wrapping around her waist and the other bumping the glass aside to clamp a hand over her mouth. With a single motion he lifted her off the ground, feeling her heartbeat immediately racing, and backed toward the wall.

"Did I come at a bad time?" he whispered just as her muscles tensed for defense. She relaxed against him, sighing through her nostrils, the warm air passing over the back of his hand. He released her and gently pushed her up against the ceramic tile of the wall, hands roving lightly over her bare skin.

"Sort of," she mumbled. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to see you."

"How did you get past the defenses?"

"You're clever, Temari, but I am, too."

"I never forget," she chuckled, guiding his chin to her face and kissing him.

"Get rid of your guest," he murmured in her ear.

As if on cue, the door across the house sighed again. "Temari?" a deep voice asked.

Temari patted Shikamaru's rear and moved past him. "Something's come up. You should leave," she said, then moved out of his hearing range.

"Way to let him down easy," he grumbled, leaning against the counter and drinking from Temari's glass. He was dog-tired after his travel. Too much chakra had been consumed by his use of shadows as he journeyed.

"I don't care!" he heard Temari shout. "Get out now!" He winced at her volume, pitying whatever poor fool she had snagged. Still, he thought it was sort of odd that she was kicking out her latest conquest just to hang out with him. Maybe there was something to the theory his friends held.

There was some crashing, and he could have sworn he heard glass shatter, but he shrugged it off and sat down at the table. Temari's house was perfectly clean, and he immediately understood why she was always compulsively straightening up his place. Oh well, it saved him trouble. There was a final loud noise and Temari came back into the room, wearing a dark silk robe. "You want light?"

"No," he replied. "You know I like the darkness." He could see by the light of the moon just fine. His eyesight was excellent, especially in the dark, which had become his domain. There was also a chance that she would feel the darkness was cloaking her and would let more expression play over her features.

"So what brings you all the way from Fire country?" she asked, moving to sit down, but he pulled her into his lap instead.

"You visit me all the time. I thought it was my turn."

She laughed and pulled the tie out of his hair, letting its wiry length settle about his shoulders. "How's Chouji?"

"Awake. Better."

"Mmm," she replied, a dreamy smile on her face as she combed his hair with her fingers and retied his ponytail. "You're a bit sweaty. You want to bathe? I have to get stinko's smell off me, anyway."

"Sorry to interrupt."

She shrugged, sliding off of his lap. "No worries. He wasn't as fun as you are, anyway." Her fingers slid over his arm and down to his hand, where she gripped him firmly and tugged. "Come on."

His lungs filled with a deep breath, which he let out slowly through his nose in an effort to calm his thundering heart. There was no reason to wait. "Are you in love with me?" he asked softly.

The strangest expression flitted over her face. It started as confusion, then mutated to anger, then shock, and ended with a deep sort of pain, her eyes turning darker in the moonlight as the corners of her mouth tensed. Her gaze rested on his knees, and when she finally met his eyes, they were wounded. "No," she said, and something behind her eyes cracked. She was lying and he knew it, he knew it like he knew his own name.

He let her pull him to standing, looking down at her face. Her features were pale in the moonlight, and her handsome bone structure was beguiling. If he hadn't been so exhausted, and if she hadn't just finished with someone else, he would have taken her to bed right then and there. She truly was a wonderful woman. "But that's because you don't want to be attached. You don't want a husband, you don't want children."

Her eyes slowly hardened. "That's right. I'm a kunoichi of the Sand, and that's all that matters to me."

"More than me?"

Her expression wavered, then became firm once more. "More than anything."

He smiled, surprising her. "You're wonderful," he chuckled, shaking his head. "You're a young man's dream. You're smart, strong, beautiful, sexual, and there are no strings attached to having you, provided that you control the terms of the relationship."

Her eyebrow lifted. "But?"

"But I'm not just any young man. I'm the laziest, most worthless young man you'll ever meet."

A smile flitted across her lips. "I know that. It's why you're fun."

"I want a wife, however. I want children and a house and a boring life. I'm in love with that life."

Her arms slowly circled his waist and she leaned her head against his chest. The night was silent, save for the sound of the winds pushing the sands ahead of them outside. Her fingers gripped him tightly. "I won't keep you forever. It can't last, and I know it. We want different things. For being lazy, you sure are stubborn."

"If you only live in darkness, you'll never see the delicate beauty of shadow," he mumbled, buying his face in her hair. "I'm yours until you let me go, but then I won't look back. You'll always be dear to me, though."

"You'll always be dear to me," she replied, voice thick, and he knew it was true.

The next few days were full of frenzied lovemaking and possessive cuddling, and he wondered if she thought it would be their last time. His mind wandered to Tsunade's map, and he realized that it very well could be their last time. He wanted to love Temari, but the love he had for her wasn't romantic. The precise nature of his emotions were still confusing to him, but he knew he couldn't picture making a life with her. He was getting old enough that such a thing was really starting to matter to him. A ninja's life was short, after all.

As she led him to the door, he realized he was going to miss her clean, cool house. She was a surprisingly good cook, and their days had passed pleasantly. Conversations with her were interesting, even though the topics were almost exclusively about combat or intelligence gathering. He couldn't talk to her about the sky, though; that was something she just didn't understand. Still, it was difficult to leave, especially since he didn't know when he would see her again, or even if he really wanted to see her again as anything but a good friend. Something in the wind made him tingle, and he wondered if it was that the world was changing.

"So, I'll see you," he said.

She leveled a serious look at him. "You know what's coming, don't you?"

He cleared his throat, hands shoved in pockets. "Yeah. I'm a strategist."

"Then you know there's no way to tell when we can see each other again."

Or if , he thought, but he didn't want to speak the words lest they alter reality. "But if we can, we will, right?"

"Yes," she replied, and attacked him with an embrace.