Author's notes: Wow! My first fanfic ever published! I've done some for final fantasy but nothing serious, but I just got into Naruto and I just couldn't help to do it. This one is a Shikatema, it takes place when Shikamaru's team returns from the Sasuke mission, and it revolves around what Shika and Temari did while they were at the hospital. It's my version of what could have happened there. I follow the storyline literally so there are some spoilers mainly from chapters 235 and 238 in the manga and episodes 135 and 142 in the anime. I do not own naruto.
Oh and I'm sorry for any mistakes, my first language is not English so there could be some grammatical errors, but I think I kept them to a minimum.

She was.

Chapter 1 : The beginning

Shizune rushed to the Hokage office to inform her about the current situation.

"Tsunade-sama" she called desperately "The team in charge of retrieving Uchiha Sasuke is back, two of them are in very bad state, we have to take action immediately!" the two female medics ran to do so in the moment.

Meanwhile outside the hospital, the three sand ninjas were getting ready to return to the hidden village of sand since their work there was done.

"Well we better get going" said Kakarou. Gaara nodded. "It's a long trip and it'll be better to leave as soon as possible".

"All right lets go".

"Wait…" the voice of their sister interrupted them.

"Let's stay until tomorrow it's too late to leave now…" said Temari almost whispering. Both her brothers looked at her with a puzzling expression on their faces.

Don't worry about that we've done the trip before and there was no problem. Besides, I doubt we'll find any opponent strong enough to handle the three of us.

"I have… I have to stay here…"

"What for? Our work is here done. We were only instructed to assist them, now that they're here there's no reason to stay" said Kankuro

"There's some business… I have to take care of…" said Temari while looking at the ground.

This came as a surprise to her brothers; the response they expected was something more like "Because I want to baka!" It was unusual to see their sister act like that, not at all like her normal self, yelling and acting confident around anyone. She seemed a little ashamed, Kankuro though. The last time Kankuro could remember her acting like that was when they were around their father. Containing the urge to investigate further they just decided to accept without questioning.

"All right. We'll look for a hotel to spend the night. Meet us at the gate when you're done" Gaara said, "but don't come back too late, we must return as soon as possible", she nodded.

Temari walked into the hospital and asked for chouji at the reception.

"Emergency room number 6", the nurse in charge replied with a smile. She walked towards the ER and found Shikamaru sitting on a bench on the right wall of the room, toying with his fingers evidently nervous and disturbed. She went to the bench at the left wall and took seat without saying a word, and then proceed to cross her legs. Whereas any guy would have gone red, Shikamaru seemed to barely notice her presence, if he did at all. He was too busy quietly blaming himself for everything that happened. Temari just stayed there apparently offering a quiet sympathy, even though that would be really unlike her. Then she decided to take a dive into her mind and analyze the situation to get things straight with herself.

She wasn't sure why she was still there. She had been trying to figure it out for a while. Both her brothers wanted to return to the sand village after dropping the injured leaf nins but she wanted to stay… even though Shikamaru's injuries were minor. He seemed quite upset, a feeling she had never seen on him since she meet him. "Why should I care about this lazy …" she whispered to herself still sitting in the bench outside the emergency room. She'd never really cared about no one, only her brothers and she didn't really have much to care about in all honesty. She was dead afraid of one of them (even though his sudden chance of attitude Temari couldn't shake away the images of him murdering so many people in cold blood), and didn't though much about the other. He could take care of himself. But this was different…

Temari felt something for Shikamaru that she'd never felt before. It wasn't the respect for having been beaten by him, or cockiness for having saved him just a few hours ago. It was something… weird... She though she knew what it was… but she refused completely that possibility not even allowing herself to think about it again "What are you thinking Temari" she said to herself.

She was confused. That would sum up Temari's feeling at the moment. Of course in the outside, she was as confident as always with a stone cold glare unhesitant. That's what a ninja is trained for after all. But deep inside… she faced issues she'd never faced before.

A few hours passed until Temari decided to break the long silence.

"There's no point in fidgeting. Sacrifice is an inevitable part of missions… didn't you received emotional training?" she said, managing to control her emotions flawlessly.

"Training and actual combat are different…" Shikamaru said, "In a mission you don't know what's going to happen. And I… was a team leader for the first time on this mission. Because of that I understand that… I'm not cut out to be a shinobi". For the first time since they meet Temari saw a truly weak Shikamaru. Willing to give up in an instant what had been his life for all this years. Certainly a soft side she didn't knew he possessed. Or any men for that matter.

"Unexpected fragility… men are strange…" She said. Shikamaru though briefly that that phrase sounded like something he'd say about the opposite sex.

Ignoring the out of order though, he stood up for the first time in hours.

"I shouldn't have been the team leader this time… I just trusted everyone else. I was laid back I didn't' have enough strength… it's all my fault…"

"Are you afraid of being hurt?" Temari said.

Shikamaru keep quiet for a moment and after stuffing his hands in his pockets started walking to the other side of the corridor as if he was going to leave the hospital.

"Maybe the comment was a bit out of line…" she though keeping her cold exterior perfectly.

"Shikamaru" a voice temari couldn't recognize said. After taking a look at the mysterious man she knew it could be no one else but shikamaru's father. "A striking resemblance" she though to her insides.

"You're being talked down by a girl and running away?" the man continued.

"I don't want to have a troublesome argument. Because I'm not a girl" Shikamaru said turning his head towards his father but not looking at him in the eyes.

"Yes… but you're not a man either." The man said. "You're just a regular coward. Even if you quit being a shinobi missions will still occur. Someone will carry them out. Your companions will just be assigned a new leader. Then you friends may just die."

"But if you're their leader that may not happen. If you look at this as a learning experience, maybe you can carry on missions better. If you're friends are really important to you… before running away consider becoming greater for their sake".

Shikamaru stood silent listening carefully to his father or at least it seemed so to Temari.

"That's what it means to be a real friend, you coward!" Shikamaru's father shouted, interrupting the girl's thoughts. Despite her training, she couldn't help to show a saddened expression on her face. She cared about him. As much as she tried to denied it. As much as she tried to stop it. As much as she tried to understand the reason. She didn't know why, she just cared. And that was bothering her even more now.

The door to the emergency opened. It was Tsunade who had some good news. Chouji would recover. Almost instantly Shizune came running to inform about the condition of the other seriously injured shinobi. "Hyuga Neji's condition has stabilized; also I have received information that Hatake Kakashi and Uzumaki Naruto have arrived. He is injured but he'll recover"

For a moment Shikamaru just stood there. Silent. But he soon cracked and tears streamed down his face "next time… I'll carry the mission perfectly". This was a whole new side of him she had never seen before. Shikamaru actually caring about something.

He dried his tears with his hands and continued to move towards Naruto's room to pay a visit to his friend, along with the Hokage.

Shikamaru noticed a change on the Hokage's face. She adopted a more serious look out of nowhere.

"Shikamaru, I would like you to be an academy teacher from now on". Said Tsunade firmly. At the moment he was left speechless having no idea what to reply. A few seconds later with a surprised face he replied "But I just recently became a chunnin, failed my first mission and brought back my team seriously injured. Why do you want me to be in charge of the kids?" being responsible for other people is something new for you. These kids will now be your responsibility; hopefully this can get you familiar with having people under your watch. Take this as a learning experience and as an exercise to test and improve you leadership skills. Not wanting to get into an argument and knowing he didn't really have much choice he agreed. "You'll be starting tomorrow then". As soon as you arrive find Iruka and ask him for instructions. He's already informed. I also want you to take the kids to send of the sand nins off. They're apparently leaving until tomorrow. Temari's face came to his mind then. He had forgotten to thank her. She stayed by his side the whole time he was in the expectative, besides helping him and his team. He hated being saved by a girl, but now that it happened he should be grateful, just as his fine manners told him. Even though he disliked the way most women behaved, he had being though in the traditional ways and followed them. "Never hit a woman, be thankful to other people, and always offer to help, etc… how troublesome" he though. Going back to the reality he quickly gave the hokage the answer she was waiting for. "Hai" he replied while entering Naruto's room.

After a while of talking to him and Sakura (that showed up later) he decided to leave with a much lighter mood.

"I'm so glad everyone is fine" he whispered while closing the door to Naruto's room. He headed for the exit eager to go cloud watching for a while after everything that happened.

Once he arrived to the reception he was surprised to find Temari sitting on a chair next to a door that had the word "enter" written in it, probably 6 or 7 feet away from him. She seemed to be waiting for someone. As soon as Temari spotted him she stood up… and headed for the door.

Based on an impulse Shikamaru went after her and outside the hospital said on a lazy voice,

"Hey…" Temari stopped, giving her back to Shikamaru.

"I heard you guys are gonna stay in the village until tomorrow right?" he continued, "It's probably safer, since it's already past noon". He was holding in his face an expression similar of that of a person that's been forced to do something.

"You can stay in my house for the night. It'll be troublesome but I don't think my parents would refuse" said Shikamaru.

Temari violently turned around to face Shikamaru

"Not even in your dreams asshole" said Temari with obvious irritation.

"Where did that come from…? I only asked because you stayed to keep me compa-

"I stayed to keep you company? Don't flatter yourself baka! It was blatant to Shikamaru that she had started to lose control. Why would I ever care for a lazy self-centered idiot like you? Why… why would I like someone who doesn't care about making something with his life? Why do I like a bum who is not confident enough to… Temari suddenly realized what she just said. She couldn't avoid blushing, but almost instantly regained control of herself.

Look, I only stayed here because the Kazekage asked us to until we knew the condition of your team. We do now so I'll be leaving tomorrow to never see your lazy face again".

"This is why I dislike dealing with women" Shikamaru though to himself absolutely clueless on why Temari was acting so rude, even more than usual.

She then gave her back to Shikamaru again and started walking.

At this point Shikamaru would probably start walking away, to the opposite direction, but…

He felt the urge to stop her. He wasn't sure why though, after that demonstration of attitude talking to her would only cause a troublesome situation, he knew it. The only thing he wanted was to thank her for this day. She helped him after all, and stayed with him, for whatever reason she did. He didn't want to owe her a thank you, so he decided to get it out quickly.

"I don't know why you are acting like that" Shikamaru said on a strong decided voice "and I honestly don't care. I just wanted to say thank you for your help… take care". He then started walking the other way trying to avoid another demonstration of anger like the one just a few seconds ago.

"I'm sorry…" she said on a slow trembling voice still giving her back on Shikamaru. He turned his to face her immediately not believing his ears.

"I just… have some things to deal with myself at the moment. I didn't mean to be so rude" she said almost whispering. "I'm glad you're ok… everyone I mean…"

"My brothers are waiting for me I better get going" she then started running away from him. He was still confused with the sudden mood change but he couldn't help to feel sad when he saw her getting farther away from him. Even though they spoke little her sole presence made him feel more comfortable while waiting to find out about Chouji.

-

"Temari, you are really late" Kankuro said with an angry face. "Shut up idiot" was her reply.

"Looks like she's back to her old self "he told Gaara on a low voice. "What are you babbling about Kankuro? We better go to sleep already. It's a long trip tomorrow" her brothers nodded. The three sand nins then started walking.

-

Next morning…

"Shikamaru! I can't believe you're already a teacher, in such a short time!" Iruka greeted the newly appointed instructor.

"There's not really much to do, just follow this schedule and these texts. I'll give you more details later; however, if you have any especial doubts just ask me or any other teacher. Oh by the way you're taking the kids to go and send off the sand allies right? I'll go get them. Watch them carefully though… they are like roaches…ROACHES THAT YEARN ONLY TO HUMMILIATE YOU AND CONSUME YOU PATIENCE THAT'S WHAT THEY'REE! coughcough, I'm sorry. I'll be right back.

-

"Well it's time to go to at last!" Temari enthusiastically shouted. "Not yet" Kankuro replied. "We were told someone form the village was going to come and send us off. We'll have to wait".

"Someone from the village?" She tough silently "Who could it be?" A few minutes later she glanced at a group of kids coming towards them. With a familiar face leading them.

"Hi" said Shikamaru catching up to them. The Hokage sent us to thank you for your help and send you off. "Kids, what do you want to say to them?", "Thank you very much!" all the kids shouted at the same time. After a small chat between the kids and Temari, Shikamaru apologized for the situation "Sorry about this, I'd like to send you off more properly, but I've also been assigned as an academy teacher now."

"What? This doesn't bother us at all" Temari replied. "Yeah, besides I wanted to meet Konoha's future ninja forces" Kankuro said. "Well, take care, be careful going home" Shikamaru said looking at Temari with a mischievous smile with on his face.

"Yeah" Kankuro replied.

"If anything happens again, we'll help out" the female sand ninja said returning the smile to Shikamaru "is that ok crybaby?"

"You talk too much" he said keeping his smile "because of that women are..." Leaving the phrase incomplete Shikamaru heard Temari laugh for the first time. Soon after the three sand ninjas left his sight.

End of chapter 1

Well, thank you for reading. I hope you liked it. I'll probably update the history within two weeks, so there won't be much wait if you did.