When she woke up again the sun was shining outside. The second thing she noticed was that Shikamaru wasn't lying next to her any more. And the third thing was something that smelled simply wonderful… that must be breakfast, she thought.

Then Sakura sat up and realized that she was still naked and… oh.

It didn't take a scientist to understand that being sticky and a bit sore was the result of their early morning activities. The soreness she didn't mind, it was kind of pleasant, but it might have been wise to take a shower instead of going straight back to sleep. It was a good thing that she did not have to worry about getting pregnant. Every kunoichi was allowed free access to all kind of contraceptives from their genin days, and they were expected to make good use of them. Getting pregnant 'accidentally' was frowned upon, and with good reason – if a kunoichi was incapable of controlling her own body and behaviour, how could she be trusted with anything more complicated than that? Most kunoichi had a combined shot of a contraceptive drug, some vitamins and immune stabilizers every three months and that was that. Problem solved, Sakura thought.

She threw back the sheets and stood up, looking for her clothes. Naked and blushing was ok in bed, but every girl knew that before-sex-naked and next-morning-naked in full daylight were two completely different things and she would walk barefoot to hell and back before she let Shikamaru see her naked and sticky and rumpled… and, and, and… uh… naked! What if he thought it over and he didn't… and what if he didn't mean… what if he realized that it was a mistake… or…

What if you just shut up, Inner Sakura said. Get your sorry ass to the kitchen and see for yourself. At least now you know you're not frigid. Silly cow.

Her inner didn't appear that often these days – there was no need. Sakura wasn't afraid anymore to speak her mind and show her strength. Well, in most cases anyway. But what about now? What will Shikamaru think? Maybe she had better think this over.

Yes. She would just show him that she could be cool about this, and…

God, you know you're an idiot, right?

She forced herself to think. What exactly was the problem?

He's Shikamaru. That's the problem. He could see through you even if he laid eyes on you for the first time today. But he's known you for ages, he's the teammate of your best friend and you've been working in the same lab for weeks. You trying to pull off the femme fatale act with him? Good luck. Idiot.

Sakura was on the verge of grabbing all her belongings and disappearing in a cloud of petals when she saw that there was a midnight blue yukata lying on her side of the bed.

He knew it. He knew that she would be scared and unsure so he found her something to wear. A loving, considerate, tactful gesture on his part – maybe he did care, maybe it would be more than just a date.

It was like a message. I know you're worried. I know you're not the type of girl who would parade around naked. It's okay.

Sakura wondered why on earth she had to worry so much about everything, but this was not a question which could not be answered, but rather the opposite - a question with too many answers. Every single thing she did or said or thought changed the world in a small way and the possibilities were endless, tragedy waiting in ambush on every street corner. She wondered how Shikamaru, who saw and understood even more than she did, could be so easygoing and careless about it all.

Shikamaru was in the kitchen, frying something in a pan and humming under his breath. He was wearing only his jounin pants, his hair in his usual ponytail, and Sakura noted with delight that those hard, dangerous muscles and that tanned skin looked even more sinfully hot in daylight.

Then he looked at her and smiled and there was nothing else in the world but those warm brown eyes with those exceptionally beautiful long lashes and she was walking toward him, hypnotized… and he opened his arms and she was safe.

"Hello there," he said huskily. "Someone is looking absolutely beautiful this morning."

"Having a good opinion of ourselves, are we?" Sakura smiled against his chest.

"I was rather thinking of someone of a female persuasion."

"Mmm. I hope that's me. If not, then show me where she is and I'll kill her."

He kissed the tip of her nose.

"Shower or breakfast?"

"What, can't I have both?" Sakura asked indignantly.

"Troublesome woman," Shikamaru sighed. "Which one first, I meant. Breakfast's ready in five minutes and I'm starving."

"Shower," Sakura stated.

"There's some floral-scented shower gel and shampoo on the bathroom shelf if you don't want to use mine," Shikamaru said matter-of-factly. "Towels on the right. Use as many as you want."

He turned back to the pan, and Sakura saw his back… and yelped.

"Sakura? What's wrong?" Shikamaru asked worriedly.

"Your back!" Sakura said, frightened.

His back was a mess. Angry red scratches and half-moons were forming a seemingly random pattern, crowned by a dark spot on his neck that could only be a bite.

"What about it?"

"It's full of scratches and…"

Her voice slowly died. A moment of embarrassed silence followed.

Shikamaru was the first to speak.

"I strongly recommend you to take a good look in the mirror before you take your shower," he said, the corners of his mouth twitching. "I think you'll find that I have no reason to complain."

Well, he wasn't lying. When she took off the yukata it was easy to see what he meant.

There was a lovebite on her neck, another over her left breast and five purple spots on her left hip – the marks his five fingers left. And the list didn't end here.

Sakura ran her hand over the lovebite on her neck. She remembered that. He bit down, hard, when he came – she felt that hot liquid inside her while he was shaking and cursing and gripping her hard…

She looked up and saw herself in the mirror, lips apart, cheeks flushed, eyes dark green, one hand touching her neck, the other one her breast.

She was different. She looked beautiful. She looked alive.

She shook her head, dazed, then moved away from the mirror and looked around. Last night she just wiped herself clean with a wet towel, she was too tired to care about anything else. Now she carefully examined everything around her. In Sakura's opinion, a bathroom told a lot about its owner. Those shining, spick-and-span, modern bathrooms only existed in commercials. In real life, people left objects lying around, they chose tiles with strange patterns or never cleaned their showers. Shizune, for example, had a stack of medical magazines and journals next to her bathtub – she never had to tell Sakura that when she relaxed in the bathtub, she did it in the loving company of The Lancet, Medscape, Cancer Research, Shinobi Treatment or, if she wanted a laugh, Placebo Journal. And it would come as no surprise to anyone that Ino had several shelves of creams, shampoos and make-up stuff, but who would have thought that she kept them tidily categorized according to price? The equivalent of slumming in Ino's opinion was using a brand of cold cream that could be found in any drugstore.

Kurenai's bathroom had two shelves next to the tub. On one of them lived her things, everything from conditioner to eyeshadow in a friendly tumble of objects, while the lower shelf was filled with rubber toys of all kinds of animals, neatly arranged in strict lines, so that if her daughter in her usual commandeering voice said the ominous words "I want the pink crocodile today" (uttered with the air of patronage that all three-year-olds adopt with their doting parents), Kurenai could find it without delay.

And, strangely, Genma had about a thousand bottles of different hair products, although he always wore his bandana outside the house and no one ever saw more of his hair than a few wisps hanging around his ears. Naruto said once that in his opinion Genma was completely bald under the bandana and used all that shampoo for the hair on his chest, and when Genma heard about it, he outlined in detail several innovative ways of using his senbon on Naruto if he ever brought the subject up again.

Shikamaru's bathroom was blue-tiled, friendly and clean and full of small comforts another shinobi could appreciate: a heap of towels and a towel warmer (some of the towels white, so that they could be bleached, some of them dark blue, so they need not be), a sturdy but unpadded chair to sit on (for a tired shinobi who often came home covered with mud and blood it was a blessing to be able to undress in comfort without messing anything up), and a wire cutter next to a pair of scissors to remind any part of the shinobi equipment that if they were not willing to behave, there was an easy way to get rid of them.

Sakura liked it all.

When she returned to the kitchen, sufficiently clean and neat, smelling of his shampoo, he was sitting at the table, drinking tea and the radio was on.

She always saw him before as a man made of shadows – dark eyes, dark hair. A creature of the night.

Now he appeared to be made of light. His hair reflected the light in a hundred different hues from raven black to chestnut, and his skin was not brown, not even olive, but dark honey. The only dark spot on his skin was the deep blue swirl of the ANBU tattoo on his muscled arm. The song on the radio was a love song, and the singer was opening up his heart to a woman.

"He won't love you like I love you… He won't care for you this way…"

She felt his presence like a shock wave after an earthquake, running through her. He took another sip of his cup and smiled at her.

Sakura took a breath, trying to find something to say, then she saw his back and the medic nin training kicked in without hesitation.

She stepped closer to Shikamaru and gathered chakra into her fingers. Maybe those scratches weren't as bad as they seemed but they must be… troublesome.

She smiled at the irony.

The song ended and the speaker said that it was love song weekend and he hoped everyone found someone special to spend it with or they would find someone soon, and the next song would be about the book of love.

"There," she said to Shikamaru. "As good as new."

"Thanks, but it was all right the way it was," he said. "It didn't hurt that much."

They had almost finished the eggs and bacon and were discussing different types of codes when Sakura had a distinctive feeling of something… different.

She put down her fork, thinking. Danger? No. Déja vu? No. Something wrong, something out of place? No.

Everything seemed all right, the way it should be.

That was it.

Everything was the way it should be.

There was no way to push back the flood of memories now and the shadowy figures of Sasuke and Lee were looming somewhere in the background but the focus was not on them. It was on her.

This was the thing that she always wanted. This was the feeling. Not the breakfast. Not the discussion. Not the sex, even.

Strange. Why did this bring Ino in mind all of a sudden? Maybe it was the feelings part?

Ino didn't often talk about emotions. Funny how they talked about anything and everything and Sakura knew everything about Ino (what colour she loved and hated – loved, purple, obvious, hated, puce, 'not only the ugliest colour in the world but can you imagine something so creepy as the colour flea? Ugh!', her taste in everything from flowers to dresses, the craziest sex she had with a man and her biggest failure) but there was only that one time in the past two years when she said the word 'feel' and it was about Chouji.

'I feel… safe with him. Not just protected. I mean I'm a kunoichi, I can kick anyone's ass. But I feel… right. I can't explain.' Then Ino blushed and began to talk about something else, hurriedly making a bitchy remark about a nurse that Sakura liked to work with and they started bickering and it was forgotten.

Until now.

Sakura never knew before what she was looking for because it wasn't something that could be defined. Not flowers. Not gifts. Lee was very generous with gifts, Sasuke took her out to the best restaurants possible and she never really cared about flowers.

How can you define a feeling?

"You okay?" Shikamaru asked. "You've been staring into space for minutes. I'm pretty sure I didn't poison your breakfast."

"Huh? No. Of course not."

Sakura tried to pull herself together.

"I was just thinking about this code…" she said.

Shikamaru was watching her face intently.

To hell with all the rules and games and whatnot, Sakura thought.

"I'm lying," she said in a level voice. "I'm thinking about how difficult it is to tell in advance what you want from life. How hard it is to see where one would go wrong. It's like… dreams."

"Dreams?" Shikamaru asked. "I don't quite understand."

"They say that dreams don't lie. And it's true. But deciding on what the dreams actually mean… it's harder than deciphering a code. Do you ever dream, Shikamaru?"

"Like daydreams?" Shikamaru asked, pushing away his empty plate.

"No. I mean dreams. The kind where you wake up and say to yourself 'now I know why grandpa used to wear that red coat' just to realize that your grandfather never even resembled that old man in your dream and he never had a red coat. But it all made sense when you woke up."

Shikamaru drew his chair closer to the table. "So you mean your dream told you something important that made perfect sense in its complexity although none of the details were intelligible on their own, maybe not even fitting together?"

"Yes."

"Well, that is exactly like a code so you weren't lying. But where does divination come into it?"

Sakura shook her head.

"It's not divination or fortune telling. That's… that's connected with intuition and seeing the outcome of an event or situation without doubt. What I'm talking about is rather like tactical plans and how life has a way of defying plans."

Shikamaru didn't answer, he seemed lost in his thoughts. Sakura knew the signs, the way he held his head, the way his fingers were playing with his teaspoon. He wasn't making plans in earnest as he didn't form the thinking sign with his hands.

When he looked at her, the intensity of that look was almost frightening.

"We're very much alike, you and I," Shikamaru said softly. "When we make plans, we expect them to be failure-proof. But there is no such thing. We have to make up things as we go, change paths, redefine goals."

He shrugged and looked at Sakura again.

"You know, Sakura-chan, I don't think I've ever talked about something like that at breakfast."

Sakura blushed. Was this a praise or a rebuff?

Shikamaru spoke again before she could ask.

"Uh… I've just had an idea. Would it bother you terribly if I sat down to work on it? It would take just about an hour."

"Do you want me to go?" Sakura asked. It sounded like to perfect excuse to make her leave.

"No. Please don't go. It's just… if I don't write it down… Never mind."

"Oh, it's okay. I don't mind."

That was true. She knew the way these things went, it was the same with her. The moment either she or Shikamaru came up with something new in the lab, it had to be jotted down and explored while it was fresh in their minds. Once they forgot to buy paper and when they ran out of it, they used an old lab coat to write on.

She added as an afterthought, "I just thought for a moment that you might want to get rid of me."

Shikamaru stood up and turned to her.

"Sakura," he said, his voice serious. "Let's make this clear, okay? I don't play games, not like that, and I don't want you to, either. If you've got something on your mind, just say it and I promise to do the same."

"Meaning?" Sakura asked hesitantly.

"Meaning if I want you to go I'll tell you so, ok? In plain words. No hidden meaning. That was about the eighth time you asked me if I wanted you to stay. Why?"

Sakura raised her head to look him in the eye. "Because I hate to be a burden and you're too polite to say if I'm in your way."

"You're ridiculous," he said. "Coffee? And please don't say, 'only if it's no trouble'."

Sakura laughed. "In that case, yes please."

Sakura thought that they would stay in the kitchen but Shikamaru poured coffee for both of them and stood up, cup in hand, and disappeared in the bedroom.

When she followed, she saw that he did not waste his time. There was a bunch of writing paper and some pens scattered on the bed, coffee cup on the bedstand and he was taking off his pants. Was he going to work in bed?

It seemed so.

"Books on the shelf, TV is okay if you keep the volume fairly low, more coffee in the kitchen," Shikamaru said absentmindedly, already absorbed in his thoughts.

"Can I turn the radio on?" Sakura asked.

"Sure, go ahead," Shikamaru answered. He was writing fast, his pen scratching on the paper, his hand racing with his thoughts to put them to paper as fast as possible. He seemed quite comfortable with only a sheet as clothing. Sakura supposed there was nothing wrong with that. He had no reason to be shy about his body or the way he looked and his confidence was... well... attractive.

The radio in the bedroom was on the same station as the one in the kitchen. Sakura wondered whether it was a wise decision to listen to a lot of romantic crap but it seemed the station had a rather interesting point of view on what could actually be considered a love song as it was currently playing If you gotta go, go now and the speaker was announcing that the next song would be Some girls.

Might just be the difference in what men and women mean by love, Sakura thought.

She chose a book from the shelf and without a thought took off the yukata before she climbed back to bed. It was much more comfortable to lie in bed naked… and, Sakura had to admit, she kind of liked that when the yukata started to slide off her shoulders, Shikamaru looked up from his work and his eyes followed her until she lied down, covered herself with the sheet and opened the book.

It was a novel about a man's travels alone in a dangerous world that partly consisted of big cities and partly of an enormous forest abundant with magic creatures. The hero never did what was expected of him and the writer didn't seem to care about the readers' expectations either. Sakura was now at the part where the hero spent a night wandering in a maze of concrete with a wise old tramp, then he decided he was in love with a talking dragon and went back to the wilderness to find her. Or him. The plot and the name both left this particular detail undecided, but Sakura was getting suspicious.

Shikamaru was sitting in bed with a pillow haphazardly tucked in behind his back. He was still naked, the white sheet pooling around his waist, just above his narrow hips. He was smoking a cigarette.

He looked damnably sexy, Sakura decided.

Shikamaru looked up and said "Just a moment…" then carried on writing. It really didn't take more than a moment for him to put down the pen and put out the cigarette in the ashtray with a sigh.

"Sorry," he mumbled to Sakura. "Not quite the way I planned to spend this morning but…"

"It's okay," Sakura said. "It's your time and your apartment. Anyway, I don't quite remember the last time that I had a nice, peaceful morning like that."

"Let's get dressed and do something together," Shikamaru said. He stretched lazily, his eyes closed, unaware that the sheet was sliding lower on his hips and now hardly covered the bulge between his legs. Sakura just couldn't take her eyes off him. She swallowed, looked away, then looked back again. Then Shikamaru opened his eyes and asked, "What about taking a walk?"

Sakura hurriedly averted her eyes and said, "Where would we go? Did you have anything specific in mind?"

Shikamaru shrugged. "Nothing important. Just a stroll. You know, maybe taking a look at the new books at the bookstore, getting some dango, that sort of thing. There's this teashop that I go to sometimes. There's a waitress there who's been working in that shop for years, knows a lot about people. She has a rather amusing way of expressing her views. Or we could go and see if there's a concert or a film you'd like to see or something…"

"Dango is fine," Sakura said. "I like sweets."

Shikamaru nodded and turned away with a smile. "I know."