"Shikamaru. Do we need to talk?"

Her voice alone was enough to send daggers through his skull. It was getting dark and the cold Konoha air chilled him to the bone. Shikamaru gritted his teeth.

The Kage meeting itself had been uneventful, aside from it being the first meeting Temari had attended in almost a year. Naruto had warned him in advance that she would be back in the Leaf Village and had offered his advisor a mission in the Land of Rivers as an excuse to miss the meeting, but he had declined. Enough time had passed since it happened and he would have to face her eventually anyway. Actually seeing her, however, had proved more challenging than he had anticipated.

After the meeting, he had stayed late in the office, missing the traditional evening meal, in order to avoid her. But Temari had always found a way of ruining his plans and here she was – waiting at the door of the Embassy for him when he did finally leave. He stopped walking at the sound of her voice but didn't look at her. He couldn't look at her.

"Don't ignore me," she nagged.

A year ago, her aggressive tone was exciting to him; even endearing. Now, it was all he could do to keep his trembling hands in his pockets instead of shutting her mouth with them.

Their mutual attraction had begun during the first Chuunin exams that they had proctored together. In truth, it had probably begun prior to that, but they had both been in denial. Lingering looks and brief touches had punctuated their usual teasing banter. The war had interrupted things, and it wasn't until after the dust had settled that he finally worked up the courage to ask her out. She had refused him.

"I'm sorry, Shikamaru," she had said. "I just don't think it's a good idea."

She had a point - the distance between them was no simple obstacle – and he had felt a fool to think it might ever have worked. After an initial awkwardness, things between the pair cooled.

That was, until about six months later on one of her visits to Konoha. She was emotional from a recent mission gone wrong and tipsy from her favourite spiced honey wine, and had found him by chance in the streets on his way home from one of his regular visits to the cemetery. He had agreed to escort her back to her apartment and she was in his arms and on his lips before they even reached the front door. The sex was intense, and over too quickly. He didn't stay the night.

For a long while, sex was all it was: usually aggressive, sometimes playful, very occasionally sensual. There were rumours between their comrades of it being more, which they both denied.

Their relationship finally became official when they were travelling together: he was escorting her back to the Sand Village at a time when unrest in the Land of Wind meant that the Kazekage had forbidden her from travelling alone. An apartment had been arranged for him to stay in but he had spent the entire week of his stay in her bed, under the heat of the desert, all sweat and smoke and skin. It had been her idea. She wanted him to belong to her and he was more than happy to do so. She didn't hide it from her brothers and when he returned to Konoha, he didn't hide it from his comrades.

They began sending letters constantly, and secret gifts as often as possible. Each of her visits was like a dream – she'd stay with him in the Nara compound, even keeping her stuff at his place. They'd go out proudly together around their respective Villages, take missions together whenever they could. He ached for her whenever she was gone. Sure, they would fight over stupid things, but the angry sex it always provoked was earth-shaking. It was good. And it wasn't enough.

He watched his friends marry, Naruto even starting a family with Hinata and Ino announcing a pregnancy soon after. Theirs were different circumstances, of course – they didn't know of the yearning that came with a long distance relationship, and how the distance slowed everything down. It was when Karui moved to Konoha to be with Chouji that Shikamaru decided he didn't want to sleep alone any more.

The ring had been silver; a simply woven band with a single diamond. He proposed on the anniversary of them becoming a couple, on top of the Kage monument at sunrise. He had got down on one knee and at first had taken the flush in her cheeks to be a good sign, until she asked him to get back on his feet.

"I'm sorry, Shikamaru," she refused him. "I just don't think it's a good idea."

The ring was lost now, the memory of drowning it blurry in his mind.

They had fought throughout the rest of her visit. She loved him but wouldn't give up her whole life in Suna to be with him; he loved her but wouldn't leave the Leaf for the Land of Wind. He didn't want to be long distance any more but being closer wasn't an option. And if he was never going to be her husband, what was the point in being her boyfriend?

The letters stopped, and on her next visit to Konoha – which would end up being the last one for a long time - she collected what remained of her things from his quarters as she left. It was over.

Except it wasn't. He still had all these feelings for her that he didn't know what to do with. He couldn't stand being around his married friends, couldn't face the pity on people's faces when they learned what had happened. He drank too much, worked sloppily, fought carelessly. For a while, he tried to distract himself with other women but it was always empty and unsatisfying, always a lie.

He was glad that she had stopped visiting the Leaf. Some other Suna shinobi made the visits in her stead. On his first visit he had looked at Shikamaru strangely when he introduced himself, as if he knew something and Shikamaru had beaten him bloody until Naruto pulled him away and suspended him from his duties.

As the months rolled past, time made things more easily bearable. He still had set backs.

In the autumn, Chouji's wedding was particularly difficult, though he couldn't let the groom know so. His friend Ayame had agreed to accompany him as a date and played her role well, squeezing his hand whenever he needed it and distracting him with kind words and pretty laughter. But the whole thing was a charade. There hadn't been a second date.

In the winter, he was redecorating his quarters and found a pair of her underwear underneath the couch. The horror of it hit him unexpectedly and he had wept loudly, alone on the floor of his room, listening to the ghost of her voice mocking him. Crybaby.

In the spring, he still dreamed about her, but her face was a smudge of what she truly looked like. Sometimes, in his dreams he was trying to kill her but she wouldn't die; sometimes he was trying to save her but she died anyway.

Now, a year had passed and he had settled into a routine. The days passed easily enough. Things were okay. He had thought he was ready to see her again, he thought he was strong enough. But having her stand there at her brothers' shoulder, wearing her hair differently now, in a new phthalo dress, he realised it wasn't true. As she first entered the Embassy, she still smelled of sweet spiced chestnuts like he remembered. Upon the obligatory handshake, he remembered the heat of her soft skin on his, the salty taste of sweat on her neck, how she would say his name as a voiceless gasp when he made her come. As she stood across the meeting hall from him, those viridian eyes catching his whenever it was one of their turns to speak, he remembered how he had wanted to share his life with her, to raise a family with her, to grow grey by her side. He remembered how he had loved her. How he still loved it. It was too much.

She grabbed him by the shoulder, forcing him to look at her.

"Shikamaru! I said, do we need to talk?"

He only looked her in the eye for a moment. They were wet and a sick part of him was glad of it.

"I'm sorry, Temari." Shikamaru shook himself free from her grasp and turned to leave. "I don't think that's a good idea."

Author's Note:

Oops, this one turned out to be a tad longer than a drabble! Got a bit carried away with torturing our favourite Nara. (If this ever became a full fic, maybe she'd have disappeared for a year because she was busy having his son..)

Hope you're enjoying this series so far and thanks so much to everyone who has read, faved/followed and reviewed! It warms my sadistic little heart.

Cinder x