"Years go by and I'm here still waiting ...

When you gonna make up your mind?

When you gonna love you as much as I do?

When you gonna make up your mind,

Cause things are gonna change so fast...

I tell you that I'll always want you near,

You say that things change my dear.

Never change." -Tori Amos, "Winter"

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He didn't know what to do, how to reach her. In a moment, in five words, his world had been torn asunder. "I think that was Naruto" It had been years, he had seen the crater there was no way, no way at all. Besides, the boy would know who he was, all Konoha nins did, right? He was suposed to be some big bad criminal, and yeah, ok, maybe he was, but he wasn't all that bad a guy. And she was his now, damnit, how dare that blonde infidel barge in and ruin it for him? He loved her. For the first time in what felt like forever he loved someone, and she loved him back, didn't she? He wasn't so sure any more. Ever since the festival she'd been distant, the kiss he had stolen was practiced, dispassionate. She sat at the edge of the bed and looked out the window. He had to hand it to her, she hadn't cried, hadn't begged him for forgiveness, and she hadn't run away, but she was going to. She was going to, and it hurt worse than any wound he had ever had.

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She didn't know what to do. It was him, she was certain of it, but now her heart belonged to Kisame. She wanted him, she loved him, didn't she? What was she suposed to think when she saw this boy again, this boy that she had spent her entire youth lusting for, that she had gone missing nin for? She had left her family, her home, everything familiar all for Naruto and he hadn't even recognized her when he had seen her. That was it. It couldn't be him, it couldn't. Naruto was many things, but he had been her friend, he would have said hello to her at least, wouldn't he? She knew what she was doing to Kisame, sitting there, thinking as she was. She was breaking him, but she couldn't stop. She needed to know what was in her heart, she need to see Naruto. "I'm going." She said, as she stood up. He just nodded and looked away as she walked past him.

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Something felt uneasy with Tenshi, it was something about that girl. She seemed familiar, somehow, but he was sure he had never seen her before. Unless...unless she was someone he had known before. Before Sasuke was born, before he was Tenshi, before he met Kiki. His memory was black, and if he thought about it too much his head started to hurt and he would sit there crying for no reason he could remember. Sometimes he would wake up late at night sweating and panting with barely remembered dreams of fire and fierce red eyes flashing behind his lids. Once when it had happened he had looked in the mirror and seen those eyes looking back at him. He hated mirrors now.

He sat on the edge of the bed. Kiki was in the other room reading to Sasuke. He let his head fall into his hands. He didn't know what to do. He loved her. He loved her so much, and there was Sasuke to think of. He couldn't go, he couldn't. But he had to know. He was curious about that girl, and maybe it was nothing, but he had to know.

Kiki plopped onto the bed next to him. "What's wrong?" She asked, running one hand through his hair and kissing him on the cheek. "Hmm?" He picked his head up and looked at her with blank blue eyes. "Oh, nothing. Nothing." He kissed her back and lifted up the covers, sliding underneath them and snuggling next to his wife. He loved her and nothing was ever going to change that.

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When he woke up in the morning she still hadn't returned. It was bright out, dawn had come and gone. The inn bed, small though it was, seemed terribly cold and empty without her cuddled next to him. He had always known this day would come, somehow, but he had never expected it to be so soon. He had hoped that he would have died defending her before she'd leave him, but he always knew she'd leave some day. There was a place in him, a place that he went whenever he was killing to survive, that place that everyone has, a white static abyss that leaves no room for emotion, no room for pain. Kisame went there then, his eyes going flat and black as he packed his things together. He packed her things as well in an orderly and dispassionate way, leaving them in a neat pile on the small bed as he left.

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He had to know. He had hoped that when he woke in the morning the feeling would have passed, but it hadn't. Images of her still flashed behind his eyes of a girl with ebon-blue hair. The image of her in the festival kimono standing next to the blue-skinned man was easily explainable, but the dreams he'd had of her, they felt so real. He saw her standing in the sun, her hair so much shorter, smiling, so young. She had looked so cute then, he had thought, and felt like he should have told her. He never had, not even in the dream. It felt like her name was on the tip of his tounge, but he couldn't say it. It was as if he watched her face behind his lids for just a few more minutes he would remember, but he had woken. He had to see her again.

"Um, Kiki?" He started, speaking close to her ear. She moaned and rolled over, "Kiki, I was thinking...we should thank that girl some how. She found Sasuke after all...um, what do you think?" Her eyes opened sleepily and she smiled up at him. "Hm? Yeah. That's a good idea. What do you want to do?" Tenshi felt so guilty all of a sudden. He was lying, lying to Kiki. He didn't want to thank the girl, he wanted to know who she was. He wanted to know if he had ever loved her, or she him. He wanted to know that this, this thing with Kiki was real and not some illusion. He wanted to be wrong, but somehow he didn't think he was.

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She had spent a good portion of the night and the next day wandering. Everyone seemed to know him, but everyone had a different way of getting there. Finaly towards sun-set she had seen him leading a grey mare through the town. He paused to ask a shopkeep after directions to the nearest inn. He nodded and thanked the man, grinning that wide grin of his, and moved along his way. Hinata's heart jumped. That smile. In so many ways he hadn't changed a bit, but the soul behind those blue eyes didn't recognize her last night. What had happened to him in the years that he had been 'dead'?

She intercepted him on the way to the inn. He had just stood there looking at her, his brows furrowed in concentration as his eyes darted back and forth between hers. She had seen that look on his face before, when someone had said something he didn't entierly understand. And now here he was, making it again, in reguards to her. "Naruto-kun?" She made the name a question, but she already knew the answer, even if he didn't.

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His eyes flashed wide open when she spoke his name. His name. He had a name. Her stutter was gone, but she was the same as she had always been. The trail was empty except for him and her when he dashed forward to pull her into his crushing embrace. The horse wandered to the side of the path and began to graze, her owner having dropped her reigns in his rush towards his childhood friend. "Hinata, Hinata..." He said it over and over. He could just barely begin to remember his old life, but her face stood out in his mind. Smiling, blushing, always there for him even when no one else was. Was this what he had been missing all these years? He pulled back to look into her eyes, those same liquid-mercury eyes he had always known, loved.

And he kissed her.

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Never in her life did she think her first kiss with Naruto would be like this, and never had she thought she would pull away from him. But she did. She planted her palms in his chest and pulled gently away. She looked in his eyes. "It can't be like this anymore, Naruto. You have a new life now and...and so do I. I can't tell you how long I wanted you when I was young, how badly, I...I loved you." how long had she waited to say that years ago? It broke her a little bit to know that he had felt the same and she had never had the courage to say anything. But what she said was true. She had grown up, and so had he, and they had the both of them grown apart. "We aren't the same people we were then, Naruto. Think about Sasuke, and your wife. What will they think?" He nodded solemnly and pulled away.

She was right, of course she was right. He placed a second, chaste kiss on her cheek. "Thank you," he whispered, "More than you can ever know." He walked away then, and it was the hardest thing he had ever done. He never looked back as he picked up the horse's reigns and walked home, never looked back because he didn't want her to see him cry. Nothing would ever be the same now.

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It took her two days to track him down after she had discovered that he had gone. Hoshigake Kisame was a hard man to find. But nothing had ever been so sweet as when she threw herself into his arms. He held her tightly. He was shocked, she had spent years looking for this boy, the whole time he had been with her she had been trying to find him, and in the end, when she did find him, it wasn't Naruto she choose, it was him. She loved him. He held her tight to him and let that white static evaporate, let himself feel again. He laughed, and cried, and spun her around with him.

And he kissed her.

-End-

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To those of you who have been along with me for this whole ride, I can not thank you enough. I can drop some names, but to be honest I'm terrified of forgeting someone and besides, you know who you are. Thank you again, so much, more than I can say. Without you this tale may have sat, festering, within my brain and never been compleated. I owe you credit for inspiring me and modivating me to continue. This is only the second or third story I've written ever to reach compleation, and I owe that to all of you. I hope you will stick with me, perhaps, if or when I begin another epic and help me finish that as well.

Thank you -cp