Disclaimer:

Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.

Most of the dialogue comes from episode 148.

Moonlight

Naruto was fairly certain that he was awake. After all, you generally don't dream about getting up in the middle of the night to pee. It was another matter entirely when you saw a beautiful girl dancing in – or rather on – a moonlit waterfall. That was the sort of thing you'd only ever see in a dream. Especially if you were Uzumaki Naruto, dead-last and reviled vessel of the Kyuubi.

If his mind had been working, he might have thought to pinch himself to check. However Naruto's mind was busy elsewhere, mainly on trying to register the fact that there was a beautiful girl standing not that far from him, looking like a goddess bathed in moonlight and doing amazing things with chakra and water.

Naruto had always been an impulsive boy. As such it only took him several eternity's to regain the use of his limbs and leave the boulder he was hiding behind. He wasn't a pervert like his sensei (either of them) and it felt wrong to watch her without her knowing. He felt like a moth drawn to a flame. He needed to get closer.

Unconsciously he reached out a hand to the mysterious girl as he stepped to the water's edge. He felt an undeniable urge to join her. All his life, he had lived on the outskirts, in the shadows. His noisy attitude and pranks had been the only way he could get the spotlight to rest on him, if only for a moment. At that moment, with the dull roar of a waterfall in the background and the full moon painting the world in otherworldly greys, the spotlight of his universe was on the graceful girl before him. And all he had to do to share in that was put one foot in front of another.

Naruto gained control of his voice a heartbeat after he started moving. His eyes were another matter. He didn't seem capable of tearing them away from the graceful silhouette in front of him but that was ok. It was hard enough forcing himself to blink; he feared the girl would vanish as soon as he took his eyes off her.

"Excuse me…" Konoha's noisiest ninja said uncertainly. He didn't want to scare her by suddenly appearing without warning but he'd never been good with words. Naruto would have cursed his inadequacy if he wasn't already busy cursing his clumsiness; he could walk on water, climb trees with just his feet and cling to walls like a damned spider but apparently he couldn't balance on a simple stone without slipping.

"Wha-!" Naruto's startled exclamation was cut off as he fell face forward with a mighty splash. Though thoroughly distracted by clearing his airways, Naruto was sure he heard a feminine gasp and he quickly forced himself to his hands and knees in the calf high water. He was soaked to the skin, his usually spiky blond hair was drooping and his eyes were stinging. It wasn't the greatest first impression but he was determined to put his best foot forward. Hinata had once told him she admired his ability to get up after falling. The present situation might be a bit literal but her words still applied.

He wondered absently why he was thinking of Hinata.

"My bad," Naruto apologized with the biggest grin he could summon. His eyes were still squeezed closed as he lifted his head, facing where he thought she was. "Didn't mean to scare you." He was already kicking himself for disturbing the tranquillity of the moment. Scaring the girl on top of that would be like…like insulting Hinata. Plain mean.

He opened his eyes and the grin disappeared. He gaped. Naruto got to his feet and looked around almost in shock. The sight was still beautiful; a waterfall under moonlight but it was no longer magical. The girl was gone. Gone so thoroughly that he wondered if she'd ever been there.

The dripping of his wet clothes was enough to prove that it was no dream. There was a rather uncomfortable drop of water tracing its way down his back that he ignored. "No one's there…?" Naruto muttered aloud. He made it a question because he couldn't stand for it to be a statement. He was alone. Again. Always.

He didn't know how long he stood there. Ankle deep in water and staring blankly.

The next day, Naruto had regained his cheerful outlook but he wasn't quite as energetic as usual due to his restless night and the slight cold he'd caught. The four Gennin broke camp early and continued on their way to hunt for supposedly extinct bugs. In his days at the academy, Naruto had never thought he'd go on missions like these. Even he, a boy with a nine-tailed demon fox sealed in his navel had to admit ninja hunting for bugs was weird. After Naruto's first few sneezes, Kiba called him on it.

"What's wrong, Naruto?" Kiba asked from where he strode along on Naruto's right, "caught a cold?"

"Maybe a little," the blond ninja allowed. Kyuubi's healing powers seemed to take the edge off most illnesses, which was just as well since he hadn't had anyone to nurse him through any childhood maladies. He raised a hand to cover a sudden humongous yawn that overtook him. Damn but he was tired. He could barely keep his eyes open. Not that he minded much; the image of the girl from the waterfall was branded into the backs of his eyelids.

"After all that sleep, you're still tired?" Shino didn't bother to turn around from his place walking in the lead. His words were a subtle jab at Naruto's complaints at turning in early the night before. He of course had been the first to fall asleep.

Naruto perked up a bit. A small part of him wanted to keep his waterfall girl to himself. The greater part of him wanted to spread the word near and far, rather like the way he told everyone he'd become Hokage. If he said it, he would believe it and his midnight encounter was so dreamlike that he was starting to doubt it.

"You see," the blond ninja began. He spoke in a normal speaking voice rather than the hyperactive yell he was known for. "Something incredible happened when I woke up in the middle of the night."

There was a noise from Hinata's direction, slightly in front and to the left of him that sounded like a kitten sneezing. It was rather cute but he didn't dwell on that thought. "Do you have a cold also, Hinata?" he asked, turning to the dark haired girl in concern. He hoped she hadn't caught his cold. Without Kyuubi's help who knew how bad it could get? Not only would she be miserable but she wouldn't be able to help him find the Bikouchuu with her Byakugan.

Unlike Shino, Hinata turned back to face him as she replied. "I'm ok," she assured him with a little smile. There was something familiar about the curve of her face in that position but the train of thought vanished when Kiba grabbed him around the shoulders with one arm.

"So then," the feral looking Gennin prompted, "what was the incredible thing?"

Naruto turned away from Hinata to focus his attention on Kiba, who faltered a little under the full force of the blond's enthusiasm. "You see, there was this ultra pretty girl in the waterfall."

Naruto could have sworn he heard a familiar gasp from Hinata during his explanation but then Kiba was making interested noises and he forgot about it. Naruto had always been a sucker for a captive audience. It came from having to work so hard for every scrap of attention he'd been given.

The blond ninja threw aside Kiba's arm and backed up a few steps. He was going to need some room to give this tale justice. "When she moved her hand," he continued, raising his voice as he got more excited, "the water was like 'ga'!" he lifted his arms to demonstrate. "It was awesome."

Coming from someone who'd studied under one of the three legendary Sennin and mastered a form of the Yondaime's Rasengan, that was saying something.

There was an odd choking sound from where Hinata was walking in front of them. Naruto couldn't see her face but he wondered if she'd been lying about not having a cold and was holding back another sneeze. It would be just like her to soldier on like that. For such a delicate looking girl, Hinata was tough. He'd seen that at the Chuunin exams.

"And then?" Kiba leant forward, caught up in the tale.

Naruto echoed his posture, leaning forward with intense eyes that would have given Rock Lee's burning eyes of youth a run for their money. "When I called out to her, she suddenly vanished." He decided not to mention that he'd also tripped and fallen into the water. They were just unimportant details…right?

"Are you sure you weren't just dreaming it all up?" Kiba asked sceptically. What Naruto was describing had all the signs of a dream…or maybe one of those old legends about water nymphs and heroic mortals. Kiba respected Naruto but didn't think he was exactly 'legendary hero' material.

Naruto let out a big sigh as his face contorted into a series of expressions of deep thought. He knew he'd been to the waterfall last night. He had the cold and the damp clothes to prove it. Had he only imagined the girl dancing on the water? He didn't think so; his imagination wasn't that good. On the other hand, if she was real then yet again someone had run away from him. He might have scared her off by falling into the water like that but it still hurt. Would it be better if she had only been a dream?

"That's what I'm beginning to wonder," Naruto finally said, feeling down.

Kiba didn't take that admission too well. Naruto had wound him up with his story only to fall apart right at the end. "What's with you? Idiot," he said harshly at Naruto's unusually glum expression.

Naruto ignored the insult and in turning away from Kiba, noticed Hinata's red face. "Hinata, your face is red," he said, distracted from his blue mood by concern for a friend. He walked closer to her and peered at her face while she tried to duck away nervously. "Are you sure you don't have a cold?"

If possible, the white eyed girl went even redder and started poking her fingers together. "I'm fine, really," she stammered and stared at the ground unable to meet his eyes.

Naruto wasn't sure if he believed her; she had to have a fever for her face to be so red! But he didn't think Hinata was the sort of person who'd lie. For a moment he pondered if he should ask her opinion of his waterfall girl. They rarely spoke but she always seemed to know what to say to him to make him feel better.

He snuck a glance over at her, testing the waters and decided against asking her. She was looking rather odd and he didn't want to bother her. Telling Kiba had been a big failure…maybe he would keep the memory to himself and protect it from any more outside disbelief.

Naruto nodded firmly as he made his decision. He'd store the memory of last night with his other precious moments, few though they were. It wouldn't be hard; the image of the girl dancing on the water was engraved on his retinas.

Speaking of which, with three Gennin who specialised in locating the enemy around, he figured he could afford to dwell on that memory a bit and lowered his eyelids until he could only barely see where he was going. He remembered the rumble of the waterfall and the way the moonlight sparkled on the dark waters. The girl's face had been a shadowed blur but her silhouette had been clear, thrown into sharp relief by the reflected moonlight. In fact it had been very clear. Clear enough to tell that she was very much a girl but not yet a woman.

It was at this point that Naruto realised something about his ultra pretty waterfall girl. Something he'd sort of known but not really understood.

…she'd been naked.

Naruto's body kept moving but his mind…well his mind was far, far away. Until the gentle voice of Hyuuga Hinata piped up, "Naruto-kun, why is your nose bleeding?"

I was surprised there was so little fic out there referring to the waterfall incident, so I was forced to write my own. :) Was anyone else thinking of Aragorn and Arwen from Lord of the Rings when they saw that?

- Joy