"To those who have already passed through my life and to those who eventually will: I love you, I miss you, the back door will always be unlocked if you ever feel like coming home, I just want you to know that there's always a home for you here."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN


The world was glowing. It was springtime in Japan— the weather was perfect; the sun was out and though there wasn't a single cloud in the sky it wasn't too hot despite the late May date —and to Uchiha Toshiko everything seemed brighter.

Though that perhaps was less because of the unabridged sunlight and more because it was her wedding day.

After a year of no labels and a flirtatious-kissy kind of friendship with Shikamaru that had flourished into something more— despite her both of her brothers very vocal displeasure —and four years spent between going back and forth from Fukuoka and Konoha, before moving back into her childhood home after a spontaneous proposal from Shikamaru— and several months of planning —thirty-one year old Uchiha Toshiko was here.

Dressed in white and awaiting nervously for the ceremony to begin. She could hear the bustle of people from the other side of the door. She could hear Yamanaka Ino's cackle of laughter following whatever Rock Lee had said.

Toshiko had twenty minutes before the service would start and a billion and one things could go wrong. Toshiko rested her palms against her stomach in hopes to claim the somersaulting organ down.

If only— like her brothers had been doing all morning —she could drink to calm her nerves.

Obito had taken his first shot of sake that morning toasting to his old age; he had claimed that if Toshiko was getting married that meant she was all grown up and he was half way into a grave of his own. Shisui had followed Obito because he was— abet somewhat begrudgingly as he had never truly taken another shine to Shikamaru —happy for her. While both Itachi and Sasuke had nearly downed the rest of the bottle between themselves.

Not only had neither of them ever gone back to liking Shikamaru— anytime Sasuke saw Shikamaru he always made a mean spirited quip about You're still here? —but the pair of them had been ready to kneel over when she had told them she was getting married. Toshiko wasn't sure if it was because she was the youngest of the three of them and she was getting married long before either of them or because they had never really stopped being her big brothers.

Perhaps neither of them had ever been overtly protective of her throughout her childhood— it had usually been Shikamaru who hovered behind her growing up, playing protector on the playground and in the hallways —but Sasuke had always been the one she ran to when scared of something whether it be the dark or a nightmare and Itachi the one she went to when she needed someone to uplift her emotionally.

"Come in," Toshiko said when she heard a knock on the door.

Choji's wife, Karui, poked her head in. Since moving back to Konoha Toshi and the older woman had bonded; yes Choji and Shikamaru were practically brothers but more often than not it was Karui and Toshiko who could be found together as they were the only two women— people now, really, ever since Yūgao had retired —in the Konoha prosecutors office.

Sure she had mended ties and once more become friendly with Sakura and Ino and Hinata but it was Hanabi— who Toshiko had gotten to know through Konohamaru —and Karui that Toshiko had found herself constantly with and around.

"Hi." Toshiko flashed Karui a nervous smile.

"You look sick to your stomach," Karui chuckled as she stepped in, shutting the door behind her.

"It's just my nerves," Toshiko half-lied. Karui let out a disbelieving hum; it had been at her persistence that Toshiko had bought the test, apparently once you had gone through the trials and tribulations of pregnancy yourself, you were able to sniff it out in other women a mile away.

Or at least, that's what Karui liked to jokingly claim.

"Look, everything is going to be fine. Everything is fine, just take a deep breath and know in less then a half hour you're going to be Nara Toshiko," Kauri soothed.

"I know, I know, I just—" Toshiko cut herself off with a shrug unsure of what to say because it wasn't as if she was having second thoughts, she had never been more sure of anything in her life than of marrying Shikamaru. And she wasn't worried about him running off, perhaps at one point she would have been after after five and half years Toshiko was confidant in the man she was going to marry.

She never had to figure out just what as Kauri waved her off,

"Trust me I get it, you should have seen me on my wedding day."

"Yeah?" Karui let a breath of air flap past her bright red lips as she nodded.

"I was a wreck, worried about everything. I think I almost made Ino cry," Karui said sheepishly. Toshiko leaned forward, eyes wide. She'd never heard this story before and while she didn't want to hear about Ino crying— Toshiko liked Ino, they were sort of friends —she couldn't help but raise her brows, urging Karui on.

"Oh?"

"She said something about the music for the reception, something had already gone wrong but it would all be okay and I said something like how can anything be okay when your eyebrows look the way they do. I don't know, I didn't mean it. I was freaking out, my adoptive father was running late and it was looking like he wasn't going to make walking me down the isle and Naruto, Choji's groomsman had gone to get him so he wouldn't be there either. It was bad."

"Oh," Toshiko frowned.

"But!" Karui said bright, "Kiba actually came though. He left before we started and may have used the lights and sirens in his car to get BeBe and Naruto to the ceremony on time and Shikamaru made sure the music was right before Choji and I got to the reception."

"He never told me this story," Toshiko said as she leaned back in her chair. Shikamaru had told her how he played best man in Choji's wedding a year or so before her grand-uncle had died but he had never told her about the problems that had arisen during it. All he ever said about the wedding was how nice it was and how he hadn't been a able to stop picturing them up there at the alter, even though that hadn't spoken in years at that point.

Karui shrugged, she took Toshiko's perfectly manicured hands in her own. They were soft despite the self defense training Karui had been doing twice a week since giving birth.

"Don't be nervous okay? Everything is going to go so, so well." Toshiko smiled, her lips pulled back and her teeth bared themselves at Karui.

"Thank you."

"It's my job as maid of honor to make sure you're not going crazy or escaping through a window." Toshiko couldn't help but laugh with Karui at the mental image of Toshiko in her, in her wedding dress, with one leg out the window and a panicked expression on her face.

Knock-knock.

"Who is it?" Karui called out.

"Family of the bride!" Shisui called out.

"I'll give you guys the room. Come on in!" Shisui threw open the door and Toshiko could see her family— Mari and all three of their children, Obito and Kakashi and her brothers —piled together. "Hanabi and I will be back before the ceremony." Toshiko squeeze Karui's hand had she glided past the pack of finely dressed Uchiha's.

"You look so pretty oba-san!" Hideko praised. She was the flower girl; her youngest brother Madara was the ringbearer as Daki, Mari and Shisui's middle child refused to walk in front of people least he be the center of attention. Sasuke liked to joke Daki was more like Itachi then Shisui most days.

Toshiko stood when Karui closed the door behind her only for Shisui to pick her up and spin her around, "Toad's all grown up!"

"Put me down!"

"Shisui!" He did, with a wide smile and a hand on her shoulder as Sasuke made sure to stabilize her so that she wouldn't fall. For as much as he and Itachi didn't like Shikamaru neither of them could wait for Toshiko to give birth.

They both claimed it was different than when Mari and Shisui had their kids because despite as close as Shisui was— he was family; another brother to all three for them —Toshiko was their little sister, the girl they had watched grow up and had helped— their parents and Madara and Obito —raise.

"Sorry," Shisui said, not sorry at all. "You just look like oba-san in the dress."

"Really?" Toshiko's eyes brightened. Her dress had been her mothers, it'd been refitted and altered so that there was a hole in the dresses mid-back and that the lacy sleeves that'd once gone down to her wrists had been severed so that Toshiko's arms were bare.

She kept the lacy collar though, as well as the train that followed behind her as she walked.

"Of course you do," Obito nodded. Over the past few years his hearing in his right side had gone completely leaving him partially deaf, partially blind, with only one arm and a limp that got worse with every day. Not that he ever seemed to mind; since Matio Gai, Toshiko's old high school gym teacher— and Kakashi's best friend —had gotten into a horrible car accident, binding him to a wheelchair Obito had seemingly grown closer to his husbands best friend.

Where Gai and Obito may have once only been friends nowadays Toshiko often found them competing against one another in wheelchair races and one armed push up contests as Kakashi watched on amused and relived; before Gai's accident he used to hunt Kakashi down and challenge him to the craziest of competition.

"They'd be proud of you," Itachi said, "Mother and father."

"Maybe not of your partner—"

"—Jesus, it's been years Sasu." Sasuke threw his hand up. He'd lost the other one shortly after they had buried their grand uncle. A job overseas gone wrong; he hadn't retired though. One armed just like Obito and still kicking ass across the globe.

"Father would have sooner skinned Shikamaru alive then seen you cry when we were kids."

"Papa was not that bad," Toshiko smiled as the children in the room— quietly, and behind their parents backs —began to pick at the candies Toshiko had in an ornate bowl on the vanity.

"Thirty one years later and we're still having this conversation," Shisui rolled his eyes, smiling. "Oji-san was a girl dad Toshi, if you ever asked him to pretend to have tea with you he would have."

"What do you three think you're doing?" Mari asked sharply when she looked over her shoulder at her children. Mari slipped out from under Shisui's arm and moved over to her three guilty looking children.

Toshiko felt her cheeks burn; the older she got the more she forgot about her parents. She could no longer recall what their voices sounded like or how warm her fathers hugs were or what her mother smelled like unless she sprayed the same brand of perfume in the air around herself. But that didn't mean she completely forgot the memories she made with them before their deaths.

Especially the memory of Fugaku watching her as Itachi was with Shisui doing whatever young boys did, and her mother had taken a sick Sasuke to the doctors. She'd been five but he had showed her how a proper lady poured tea and she had taught him all the names of her stuffed animals to which he had remembered them all.

Perhaps he'd been a girl dad but she had been just as much a daddy's girl. Idolizing everything about him.

First borns in Shikamaru's family ended to have a Shika-centric name and Toshiko was fine with that, she wanted a large family anyway. A boy named after her father, a girl with her mothers eyes and a baby who looked like Shikamaru's clone at least and not in that particular order.

"He was a good papa," Toshiko said, "Mama was the best too."

"I don't know," Shisui shrugged, "My mother was pretty kickass."

"Sela-oba was a terrifying woman," Toshiko resorted, not that she disagreed. Sela had been a wonderful woman. Sasuke let out a sigh from behind her, "Oh to be her."

Itachi let out a laugh.

"Please ōoji-san was pretty scary, I wouldn't mind being him when I grow up. I mean imagine don't run too close to the lawn or Old Man Obi and his husband will get you."

"Don't wrap me up in your child murder plans," Kakashi said from his spot on the couch. He still worked as a literature teacher, though nowadays most of his time was spent reading manuscripts for terrible romance novels. "I will be your alibi but I will not be your accomplice."

'You'd be an accomplice after the fact if you lied to the police," Toshiko said, Kakashi shrugged.

"As long as I don't have to help him clean up the crime scene I'm fine. These hands weren't made for cleaning up blood," Kakashi said. The gaggle of them chuckled at Kakashi's nonchalant tone of voice.

"Five minutes!" Karui.

"Right," Shisui said, "That's our que. We'll see you on the other side of this Nara-san."

Toshiko lunged at him, her arms wrapped around her cousins neck and he didn't bother hesitating in pulling her against him. He'd always been by Itachi's side, always been there when she had been young. Perhaps he wasn't biologically her brother but both he and Obito had stopped being just her cousins years ago.

When Shisui pulled away Obito swiped Toshiko and placed a kiss atop her head, the same way he would when she'd been a small child and he'd come up behind her in the mornings while she would be eating breakfast.

"Don't trip on the way down the isle Toshi," Obito laughed as Kakashi knocked his elbow into Obito's side; the silver haired male smiled at Toshiko. His eyes twisted upwards, "You're going to do fine Toshiko."

"Thanks Kakashi. Mari." The older woman winked at Toshiko; Toshi hadn't yet been twenty at her and Shisui's but she had been allowed to stay as the drinking continued throughout the night. She could recall how Shisui and Mari had danced until neither of them could actually stand upright anymore and how it had been Itachi who'd stayed sober despite his best man duties so that they could get home safely before their honeymoon.

Toshiko linked arms with her brothers, Itachi grabbed the bouquet of lilac wax flowers and white scabiosa's off the vanity so that he could hand it to Toshiko. Her stomach clenched, out of nerves or excitement she didn't know.

"We can still get out of here," Sasuke smirked, "I have the team on standby." The team who while Toshiko hadn't gotten any closer to in years had become like another family to Sasuke and who she knew she had to invite if only because they had always made sure he came back and that was a debt Toshiko knew she could never repay.

"I'm going to marry Shikamaru," Toshiko glared. Sasuke shrugged,

"Fine." Toshiko rolled her eyes and looked at Itachi who, with a kind smile and soft eyes was already looking at her.

'What?" Toshiko felt her heart begin to drop, "Is my make up—"

"—It's fine. You're fine. Perfect even," Itachi said. "Shisui was right, that was all. You do look like mother." A fire burned across Toshiko's face.

"Really?"

"And though I'm sure father would hate giving you up—"

"—And Shikamaru—"

"—And Shikamaru," Itachi nodded at Sasuke's interjection, "He would be happy for you."

"Are you?" Toshiko found herself asking as the three of them stalled in front of the door. "I mean," she swallowed the little lump in her throat, "I know you both don't like Shika and I know neither of probably ever will, but you're both happy for me right?"

"Are you happy?" Itachi asked, to which Toshiko nodded.

Shikamaru, the baby, it was all she had ever dreamed about. Sometimes she laid next to Shikamaru at night and listened to his steady breathing, unsure of how she had gotten back to him but so, so, breathtakingly happy all the same. Sure she had kissed him after he confessed but with the distance between Konoha and Fukuoka Toshiko had been sure she'd end up more broken than before, alone forever.

Sometimes she was sure her heart would explode some nights simply because there was no way to contain the magnitude of her joy inside of herself.

"Then of course we are. Toshiko, we love you imōto."

"I love you too. Both of you, so much. You know that right?"

"Of course we do. I've got one arm not brain damage," Sasuke rolled his eyes, nudging Toshiko as he threw open the door to see Karui and Hanabi waiting for them, bouquets in hand.

"Ready?" Hanabi wondered. She looked beautiful in the marron colored bridesmaid dress. Karui wore the same exact one.

"Born ready." Sometimes Toshiko felt like she was born to marry Shikamaru, that he was truly her other half. That the Greeks were right and humans had once had two heads, four arms and four legs. That Shikamaru was as the poets would say, half her heart and the entirety of her soul.

The five of them took several steps to the start of the isle; both young Madara and Hideko were there. Madara with the wedding bands tied to the pillow in his hands and Hideko with a large basket of flower petals. The wedding march began to play; Toshiko could hear the shuffling of feet as everyone began to stand. Hanabi went first then Karui and then Hideko who threw the petals over her head as she walked.

Toshiko winked at a young Uchiha Madara; his face pinked and his bottom wiggled as he did a little dance— Daki might have been quite and reserved but Madara was just like Hideko and his father, bright and outgoing —causing all three of the older Uchiha's to smile as they turned the corner.

Shikamaru.

He was there; not that she ever doubted he would be but something inside Toshiko sagged at the sight of him standing at the alter. Dressed in a well tailored suit and with a tender smile Toshiko had woken up to more then once playing on his lips.

Toshiko felt herself grip her brothers arms tighter. She saw Shikamaru's shoulders press themselves backwards so that he was standing up straighter than he had been.

Shikamaru looked handsome. The suit he was wearing had not only been tailored but the dark green jackets inside had an embroider sika deer by his heart. Toshiko held her bouquet with one hand and pressed other hand against her slightly swollen stomach.

He had cried when she told him she was pregnant; it's only been two months before the wedding and part of her was terrified he'd be upset. Marriage was one thing, a baby was another but he hadn't been. He'd been so excited to have a baby with her— so happy —Shikamaru had swooped her up into his arms and pressed her against him like it was their first time all over again.

There'd been so much passion in the kiss— so much loved poured into it —that as her eyes had fluttered closed in reciprocation that she had wondered why she had ever been worried about Shikamaru's reaction.

Half way up the isle Toshiko saw Shikamaru blink a tear out of his eye. Naruto, Shikamaru's second groomsman handed Choji a tissue and Choji tried to hand it to Shikamaru only for him to wave it away.

Next to her family up front were Shikamaru's parents, and across the isle from them was his uncle. Yoshino's hair was streaked gray and Shikaku's once long hair had been cut to the nape of his neck as he had a stoke several years ago and could no longer brush it on it own.

A foot away and Toshiko saw Shikamaru's hand twitch as if it were reaching out for her; she didn't bother biting back her smile.

Toshiko and her brothers stopped moving; they were at the alter with no where else to go. Toshiko's heart hammered away in her chest.

The priest, cleared his throat and the music stopped. Everyone who had been standing sat.

"Who gives this woman away?"

"Us," Itachi said, "Her brothers." He and Sasuke turned to box Toshiko in; Itachi pressed his lips against the center of Toshiko's forehead before taking a step back, she then turned to Sasuke who did the same. All three of them turned back to the alter.

"Take care of her," Sasuke told Shikamaru, and though his voice was steely and there was the obvious threat in it, his lips were tipped upwards into a smile as Shikamaru reached out and took Toshiko's hand.

"Always," Shikamaru swore. Toshiko stepped up next to her fiancé. To her future husband. The man she was going to marry; the person who was not just half her heart but half of her. Her brothers moved so that they could sit in the pews with the rest of the guests.

Not that it mattered, at that point they could have stood there if they wanted too, all Toshiko could focus on was the man before her.

"Thank you," the priest said, his hands moving as he spoke, "And now without further ado, Toshiko and Shikamaru will read their wedding vows which they have written themselves." The bald, elderly priest nodded at Toshiko who was planned to go first.

She'd practiced her vows for weeks in front of the mirror whenever Shikamaru wasn't home so as not to ruin the surprise.

"Shikamaru," she said with a shaky breath, "When Sasuke and I came to Konoha our lives were in shambles. We'd lost our entire world and been thrust into a new one. I lost my voice, you were seven-eight years old and whereas most little boys would think a little mute girl was weird you never batted an eye at it. You became my best friend, my rock, my heart and maybe we haven't had the easiest of roads. Maybe we lost some years but we found each other again and I will forever be grateful that we did because I don't know what I would have done if I had to live my life without you. You're not just my other half Shika, not just my best friend anymore, you're the air I breathe and the last thing I think of when I go to sleep and the first thing I want to look at when I wake up because I know your smile, even early in the morning, could rival the most famous works of art." Toshiko sucked in a deep breath and blinked away the tears that had started to well up in the corners of her eyes.

Shikamaru didn't hesitate in wiping them away for her.

"I love you Shikamaru. I'll always love you."

Shikamaru let out a shudder as he pressed a chaste kiss to the knuckles of her hands; his eyes never leaving Toshiko's.

"Shikamaru," the priest signaled. Shikamaru nodded and tipped his chin up. He squared his shoulders and though he did all that his voice still came out a reverted wobble.

"I love you Uchiha Toshiko. Now I can saw how you make me be a better man, how you make me want to get up every morning and show you that I can be the kind of man that deserves you but instead I'll tell you how I will love you until my dying breath and I will love you after that. How I'll love you until the sun burns out and I'll love you until my very soul is no more because that's the only way I could ever stop. I'll stand up here and tell you that I knew I loved you the day you defended me against Kiba, when we were just kids and I didn't yet know what love was. I knew I wanted to spend my life with you that first time we kissed and I knew nothing else in the world could compare and I know I messed up years ago but I will never not be sorry for that. I will never not love you or make you feel unloved, I'll never let you forget how much I care about you. Thank you," Shikamaru said, dropping Toshiko's hands in favor of cupping her face, "For giving me the chance to love you as you ought to be loved."

If Toshiko wasn't already marrying him she knew she would be dragging him off to city hall for a certificate after a speech like that. It was why she didn't wait for the priest to pronounce them anything, to ask if anyone had any objections or for the rings before grabbing him by the labels of his jacket and dragging his face forward.

Eagerly Shikamaru responded; kissing her thoroughly and soundly, until the priest's voice cut through the room, calling back to reality.

"Sorry," Toshiko blushed, not sorry in the slightest. Happy that Shikamaru was more than just somebody that she used to know.

That he was her husband and soulmate.

I love you, Shikamaru mouthed as the priest began to beckon Madara fourth.

I love you more, Toshiko mouthed back in return.

Happy she'd been reunited with her other half.


A/N: So this is it; sort of. But before that I wanted to say thank you guys for reading, I know some of you might not liked how the story has ended but I was always going to end this way. The whole concept of this story for me started with Shikamaru's ring necklace in Boruto and it conceptualized itself into a wedding ring and then Toshi was born and the first scene I ever came up with for this story was that confession, was him telling her he waited.

Because yeah maybe it's not the most healthy of romances, but it's still a romance. Going back to your home town and falling in love with someone who has either hurt you or you haven't seen in ten plus years is the bread and butter of the Hallmark channel and so many other romance stories / movies.

Anyway I'm sorry if you didn't like it but it was always going to end this way and thank you anyway for reading. And thank you to everyone who has left me a comment or a kudos or anything supporting this story.

Thank you, I was really self conscious when writing this story, I constantly felt like perhaps it wasn't good enough so your support really helped me push through and get these chapters out.

It also helped me start writing another Toshiko / Shikamaru story. This one actual taking place in the world of Naruto. I start a new job tomorrow but I have set hours and I'll not only post an update here letting you all know when that's been published but I'll add it to a series with this story.

So until then, thank you!