Chapter 11

Temari woke up to the sound of horses plodding through sandy dirt and the rough discourse of a group of people surrounding them on all sides. Above her was a beige tarp spread over thin rods of wood and her back was against soft, yet thin cushions. There was little feeling of jostling, but she could still tell that she was moving. At realizing that she felt constricted, Temari noticed that she was covered in white bandages nearly head to toe.

"Are you awake?" Came a rough voice to her side.

It was familiar enough that she didn't startle at the sound of it. Looking over, she saw Naruto leaned against the wall and bobbing to the beat and time of their carriage. He was shirtless with a few patches of bandages taped to his skin, but uncovered otherwise. More than anything, it was his face that caught her attention. His look of sadness and disappointment looked like it was etched in stone.

She sat up and stared at her hands, or, the bandages which covered them. "Yeah," she whispered, worried her voice would crack if she spoke even a little louder. "Where are we?"

He blinked, the only movement his face looked capable of creating. "A… cart. We're on our way to Sunagakure."

Temari blinked. The voices outside the cart sounded like they were from the other members of the contract, but their words were distorted by the cart. She couldn't hear anything. Temari looked at him more closely. He was sitting in a bed similar to hers and only covered by a thin sheet. "How long have you been awake?"

He shrugged. "Dunno. An hour, maybe?"

She looked back to her hands. She didn't feel hurt or numb or anything, so why was she covered in bandages? There had been bad burns before, she knew that much for sure, but it looked like they were gone now, or at the very least, they weren't hurting anymore. "So then… it all really happened."

His lips turned pursed and his eyes clenched. "I…" His voice cracked. "I'm so sorry," he barely whispered with an anguished lilt. "I… I wasn't fast enough. I wasn't strong enough. I… I couldn't save him."

Temari continued to stare at her hands while Naruto started to break down, sobbing uncontrollably. She could see through his balled-up hands that tears raced down his cheeks in tracts that he hadn't bothered wiping before. This wasn't his first breakdown. It might not be his last.

Using her sore and cramped muscles, Temari cringed a little bit as she nudged her way towards him. She grabbed one of his fists in both her hands and held it there. She didn't say anything for a few seconds and just held him, tried her best to comfort him. "It's… it's not your fault," she whispered, fearing that if she used her full voice that it would crack too and she would break down as well. "It's not your fault," she whispered again and again.

The sobbing turned into full-blown crying. He grabbed her hands with his and leaned his forehead against her shoulder. "I'm so sorry," he said. "It's all my fault."

She slipped her arms around his chest and let him lean against her. He was heavier than she thought and his tears were making her shoulder wet. He was crying so much. It was almost like his brother had died.

'And perhaps he was,' Temari thought darkly. They had been brothers-in-law for a few days before he died. But even so, Naruto and Gaara hadn't truly spent much time together. How could her shoulder be so wet from someone who barely even knew Gaara? And more to the point, why weren't her cheeks wet?

She closed her eyes and hooked her chin over his neck. Why wasn't the world easier to make sense of? Why did bad things happen?

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Three days ago, night

"Not only has this union turned out to be a shitshow and your village nearly destroyed, but you blatantly lied to everyone! That kid doesn't have any control over his tailed beast. Hell, he hasn't even talked to it! What the hell have you been teaching him!" Ai's chest shuddered with indignation and his cheeks were flushed with rage as he vented his anger the only way he knew how to those in front of him.

"And now," he continued. "We're down one kage, two of the contract members are unconscious, two are barely keeping their eyes open, and there's almost a riot outside!" He paused to take a deep breath and leaned his hand against the wall.

They were all cramped together in a small wing of the Konoha hospital. The air was silent and cold outside. All their heads were dipped and somber. Ai seemed to be the only one able to get fired up. Beside two beds, Tsunade personally kept her hands to Temari's skin, healing the angry red marks and creating new skin for areas in which none remained. Naruto was still strained internally from all the chakra that eroded his system, but was stable, more or less, on the other bed. The rest of the kage and contract members were milling about or found seating on the beds and chairs.

Ai bristled at not being responded to by anyone. "I see now that this was a farce, something which could have only been a pipe dream. The village hidden in the clouds formally recludes ourselves from this contract."

"Don't listen to him."

Everyone had been busing themselves with looking busy, but at this challenge of authority, all eyes were squarely on the two feuding. If possible, the cold air got even colder. The tension could have been cut with a knife. Yugito stood up, the one who spoke, and stood opposite Ai. "We're still in this," she said evenly. "And I'm pretty sure 'reclude' isn't a word."

His nose turned upward. "You have no right to speak in this. I am your superior and you will obey my commands!"

She nodded slowly. "You're absolutely correct. I am obeying your commands."

His eyes turned to slits as he glared at her. "So you will come back to cloud with me," he ground out.

She shook her head. "I will not."

His fists clenched so hard that Yugito might have thought that blood would soon pour from his palms. Before he had a chance to open his mouth to shout again, she beat him to it, shouting back "I do believe that you had ordered me to try my best!"

Everyone was getting fidgety apart from Tsunade, who was concentrating on healing Temari. Eyes made contact with other eyes, everyone having silent conversations without saying so much as a word. Yugito waited a beat to continue. "You ordered me to try my best," she repeated, this time a little bit more subdued. "And I still am. And I still will until I can't anymore."

Ai, for his part, looked dumbfounded. His confusion was starting to trump his anger. "Weren't you the one most opposed to this? What made you change your tune?"

Yugito gulped. "Th-They're my friends." She said those words very unsurely. Like someone citing a fact that they may not know to be correct or not.

It was such an unexpected answer that it almost floored the muscle-bound man. "What?" he asked, an almost comic display of befuddlement on his face. "It's been all of three days."

"Even so," she said, folding her arms over her chest. "I will not go back to cloud until it's the cloud's turn in its rotation. Everything will continue as planned. The contract will go on. The peace treaty will stand."

Ai pointed at the two bedridden shinobi. "You would risk ending up like those two for this peace treaty?"

One of her eyebrows rose. "You wouldn't?"

"It's obvious that there is a terrorist presence that doesn't want this treaty to continue and will do anything in their power to do it."

"And we killed them," Yugito answered simply.

Ai's jaw clenched. "And what of the boy? He's still untrained."

"And I will train him," Yugito answered simply, once more.

"If," Jiraiya said, interrupting their squabble, "I could interject. I don't think the akatsuki was trying to disrupt the treaty per se. They're after the tailed beasts. It looks like Konoha was just collateral."

Everyone blinked in confusion. "What?" Ai asked.

Tsunade sighed. "You may as well tell them everything we know. We were foolish as we were not to do so in the beginning."

Jiraiya clapped both his hands down on his knees and sighed. "Where to begin?" he muttered.

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Present

For three days, the band of the strongest ninja on the face of the continent had been plodding along a well-worn trading route to get to their destination. They could have gotten to Sunagakure by then if they decided to run, but they were also in charge of transporting two unconscious members of the treaty, which gummed up the matters somewhat. They had to take a cart with them to carry Temari and Naruto, both of whom were physically fine, just unconscious.

"Listen guys, I know I've asked it before, but can someone explain to me what happened? Just the bullet points is okay. I just… it's so confusing."

Kurotsuchi, Mei, and Yugito were plodding along behind the cart that Temari and Naruto were resting in, each in their own version of desert garb. Despite the three days of walking, there hadn't been much verbal back-and-forth between them. Everyone was just too depressed. Especially the Konoha ninja, which had made Kurotsuchi more than a little hesitant to speaking overtly to what had happened to Konoha.

Yugito sighed a little bit. She wasn't much for sandy terrain and the oppressive heat of the sun wasn't helping her mood much at all. "Couple of terrorists invaded Konoha with clay explosives and puppets that looked like normal people. Their intention was to kidnap Gaara and extract his beast, which they did, but not before hitting Naruto with something that almost killed him. To save his life, Fu gave him some of Chomei's chakra, but he took too much and lost his mind. He caught their scent and went to the sewers to catch them, but was too late. He lost his mind even more and went full-blown beast mode. You guys almost got collapsed on and I tried to subdue him. Temari escaped on her own and ignited the flammable gasses in the sewer, then directed the fire to where Naruto was, subjugating him. But that's not the only thing she did, as she also killed the terrorists, one by bludgeoning him to death with her fan." She spoke with little pauses between punctuation, like someone who had been rolling the events in her head for quite a while.

Kurotsuchi nodded a little bit. "See, that makes sense. Well, no, nothing about that makes sense, but the way it was explained makes sense."

"Oh, bite me," Mei said with a playful tone. "Just because you can't keep with my exquisite vernacular doesn't mean that I should be held at fault here."

"What does vernacular mean?" Kurotsuchi asked, then turned to Yugito. "And who's Chomei anyway?"

The two older women sighed simultaneously and deigned not to answer, feeling that that would only bring up more questions to answer.

"Oh, so you're just going to ignore me then? Well fuck you guys!"

A small burst of laughter came from Yugito. "Come on, calm down. People will hear you."

"Oh, her yelling didn't stop any of us from hearing you three."

The three in question turned to look at the new face coming into their 'conversation'. Pink hair, green eyes, sour face. Sakura put one of her hands on her hips and sighed. "Everyone can hear you."

Their group was a relatively small one. The contract members, their heads of state (minus Tsunade and Gaara), Sakura, Kakashi, and Jiraiya. Perhaps it was due to the tension, the somberness, or the unwillingness to be the first one to speak up, but mostly everyone had remained quiet so far on the trip. Sakura had, at many times, wished to come over and break the ice, but the four standing contract members were either in their own world, or everything was quiet and she didn't want to be overheard. But those fears were shucked to the wayside once impatience won out.

Kurotsuchi shrugged off her concern, both physically and verbally. "It's not my fault none of you people know how to talk to people."

"You know it's more complicated than that," Mei said.

"But it's not! These people are just fucking around, moping up their lives, and too stuck in the past to put up decent conversation. Fuck that."

Yugito sighed in her palms and largely ignored Kurotsuchi. She looked up from her hand and gave a small smile to Sakura. "I don't think we've introduced ourselves yet. I'm Yugito Nii."

"Mei Terumi."

"Kurotsuchi."

By the time it was her turn to introduce herself, a small smile was also on Sakura's lips. She couldn't deny that their antics weren't amusing, if nothing else. "Sakura Haruno. I'm the idiot's teammate."

Yugito nudged Kurotsuchi. "I didn't know she was your teammate."

The raven-haired girl gave Yugito the stinkiest of eyes. "Children could have come up with better insults."

"I'm sure they could. You would know after all, as you're similar to them."

"That…" Kurotsuchi pinched the bridge of her nose. "That doesn't even make sense."

"Well at least I know what vernacular means."

"Hey!"

Mei giggled into her palm. "Are you quite sure these two aren't your teammates?" she asked Sakura as Yugito and Kurotsuchi split off into their own conversation.

She smiled. "Yeah, he's a blond. And he's also not a girl."

"Are you sure?" Mei asked. "Have you inspected his third arm in detail?"

A smattering of a blush stained the pinkette's cheeks at the vulgar euphemism. "Of course not," she said quickly. "He's always been clothed above the waist whenever I checked on him."

As she was the resident medic, Sakura had been taking care of the two unconscious shinobi for the duration of their trip.

Mei hid her giggling mouth with her hand. "If you say so."

Sakura's eye twitched. Trying to flip the tables on her, she slyly said "What about you? Any confirmations I should be aware of?" She crossed her arms over her chest and tried to look haughty, which was immediately ruined when Mei turned to Yugito.

"Kitten, darling, our resident medic wants to know if any of us have given our dear husband a more… thorough examination since we've met him."

Yugito's eyes narrowed for the second they were confused and shot open at the realization of what her euphemism meant. Kurotsuchi crossed her arms over her chest and stared at the cat woman expectantly. "Yeah, Yugito. Have any of us given him a more thorough examination since we've met him?"

Yugito looked all around herself with almost fearful eyes. "Why is this question directed at me?"

"Well, if I'm not mistaken, you have slept with him before."

"EXCUSE ME?" Sakura asked, equal parts horrified and angry.

"You!" Yugito leveled, pointing a finger at Mei. "You're making it sound like we had sex. We didn't. We were down a bed is all."

"So you…" Sakura started, but floundered with her words a little bit. "So why didn't you just set a bed up for him or something? Pillows on the floor, or a couch?"

"I owed him."

"For what?"

Yugito looked away with wide eyes, not liking where the conversation was going. "There was a disagreement that got a little heated," she admitted. "But we all walked away from it just fine. I owed him."

Sakura's eyes narrowed. "What kind of disagreement? And what do you mean by 'heated'? Was that what the feeling of malice and hatred we all felt the second day-"

"What about you Kurotsuchi? Have you seen his dick?" Yugito asked quickly, hoping to get away from the topic of conversation as quickly as possible.

Sakura might have been a bit more dogged in her pursuit of knowing whether Yugito committed domestic abuse or not had Kurotsuchi's face not turned a bright red at the mention of her teammate's extremities.

Mei's singular showing eye widened a little bit at the unexpected development. "Oh, is there something our little explosion-in-waiting hasn't told us?"

"I…" Kurotsuchi took a breath and regained her composure. "I accidentally walked in on him taking a shower once. No biggie."

"It would appear that it had a lasting impact, however," Mei insinuated. "Any details you could spare? Is he packing? Which angle does it lean?"

"Okay," Sakura said, holding a hand up. "It's my fault we got on this tangent. I shouldn't have started this. I'm sorry. Honestly, I just wanted to come by here and… er, check up, I guess."

Yugito looked at her strangely. "Check up? Like… in a medical sense…"

Sakura shook her head. "No, no, not that. I just wanted to make sure that… you're all… fine… with this."

"With what?" Kurotsuchi asked.

"The…" Sakura sighed, shook her head, and tried again. "Naruto's important to me. He's my teammate and we've been through a lot. I just want to make sure that you're all on good terms with him. Or, failing that, on good enough terms that you don't want to kill him."

"I have no quarrel with him," Mei said simply. "Perhaps he lacks somewhat in tact, but that's no reason to want to kill him."

"He's nice," Yugito said.

"And I'm… okay with him," Kurotsuchi admitted.

The flaps of the tent fluttered open with the push of a belabored hand. "Good to know you're all buddy buddy with me," a coarse and tired voice said. "But I really need to piss."

Naruto pushed his head through the flaps and immediately winced at the angry sunlight pouring down at him. His hands gripped the middle bar for support as he gingerly set about getting out of the cart. He looked bad, but not in the physical sense. His eyes were reddened and his face was pale. There were tracts of dried tears on his cheeks and his voice sounded like it was either overused, or not used enough.

Yugito was the first to react, coming to his side and lending a shoulder he could wrap one of his arms around. Once his feet hit the ground, he hissed at the sudden pain. "Ach, that fucking hurts!"

The cat woman chuckled a little bit in a subdued manner. "Be thankful it isn't even noon yet. At its worst, sand can burn the pads of your feet. And you should really get some sunscreen on."

He began nodding halfway through her statement. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Piss first, then sunscreen and clothes. Actually, is there any ramen? I need some goodness in my system."

The other three women/girls stared at their interaction with varying amounts of unease. Even for the ones who barely knew him more than a few days, it was weird to see him look so defeated. His happiness was a mask. That much was apparent the second they saw him.

Yugito laughed a little bit more. "Maybe a shower first? You smell terrible."

"A shower in the desert? You sure the sun hasn't baked your brain?"

"All you need is a low power water jutsu."

"Which I find a lack of within me."

As they walked away from them and over a dune, the three couldn't help but to stand silently and watch their interaction take place. Sakura finally shook her head and sighed. "Oh, Naruto…"

Kurotsuchi brought her head to bear. "What?"

"He's always doing this," Sakura stated. "Pretending everything's alright when it isn't."

"I wouldn't say that," a voice said from the tent. Temari poked her head out and began to blink out the sun. She looked for the two who had retreated and clicked her tongue. "He must have really had to pee," she said to herself.

"You shouldn't be moving," Sakura was quick to say. "You're injured."

"I feel fine," Temari said, leaning her forearms on the middle beam with a bored expression on her face. "Well, no, I don't feel fine. I feel like shit. But my wounds are all healed up, if that's what you meant."

Sakura approached her and grabbed her arm as affectionately as she could. "Listen, I've taken courses in crisis counseling. If you need anybody to talk to-"

Temari made a noise somewhere between a grumble and a growl, interrupting the pinkette. "Thanks for your concern," Temari said in a way that implied she wasn't that thankful for her concern "But I'll get through everything on my own."

Sakura didn't look so sure, but backed off anyway. "It's a standing offer," she said, falling back to the rest of the group.

"So," Temari said, lounging off the cart. "Who wants to fill me on what's been going on?"

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Yugito had heard men pee before, but perhaps not with quite the vigor and… noise, that Naruto was using. He belted out a sigh and leaned his head back, not that Yugito saw, what with her being turned around to allow his privacy and everything. "I tell you, nothing much beats the feeling of finally being able to pee after holding it in for a while," he said.

"I can think of a few things," Yugito replied with a small amount of humor.

"It's up there though."

Yugito nodded, mostly to herself though. "I would suppose so."

There wasn't much of a view from where she was, just the dark end of a dune they had traversed for the little amount of privacy that they could muster. "Listen," she said unsurely, wincing a little as she said it. She had never really been good with heart-to-hearts. The one time she had tried only ended up with the poor girl devolving into hysterics. Then again, perhaps she could have given more constructive emotional tools than what amounted to 'suck it up, you're a ninja'. "If you… need to talk about what happened…"

He sighed, put away his third arm, and turned around to hobble back up the dune. "Not really. I know what happened. I was too weak to help and because of that, one of my precious people died."

She shot a hand out and grabbed his shoulder once he was close enough. Her grip was like a vice. "Don't say that," she said with no small amount of malice. "That kind of thinking is cancerous. It will eat at you and leave nothing behind."

He shoved her off and started his journey back up the dune. "But it's true!" he almost shouted, cracking apart at the seams. "I wasn't strong enough. I wasn't fast enough. I let the hatred of the Kyuubi's and the Nanabi's chakra consume me, for god's sakes. If none of that happened, if I had been prepared, I could have averted everything."

Yugito was quick to catch up to him. "It wasn't your fault," she said pleadingly. "It was all of our fault for not being strong enough, for not catching them in their plans. If you put the burden of his death on you, then regret will hang above your head for the rest of your life."

"And why shouldn't it?" he gasped out. The dune was steep and he was still unsteady on his feet, not to mention the burning sand he was trying to scramble up. "I was the only one of two people who could have helped him and I gimped the other one and myself in one… in one fell swoop!"

"Do you think this doesn't weigh on us too? I think it about it every day if I had been with you too. I think about the things I could have done to help. I think about the failures I made. I think and think until I hate thinking! You're not the only one with blood on your hands. I've fucked up too. We all have. We're ninjas; it happens. But if you try to bear the weight of the world, then you'll be crushed."

He didn't look so amused. "And what if I want… to… go t- FUCK!" His feet stumbled underneath one another and he lost his footing. He might have fallen the way down had Yugito not been behind him to catch him before he could lean back even ten degrees.

She held him there for a second, circling her arms around his waist and tucking his shoulder under her chin. "The weight of the world is heavy. I should know. I was nearly crushed under it too."

He was on the verge of tears. Angry and frustrated and sad and not knowing what to think or how to think was he. "So what do I do?" he asked helplessly.

Her chest vibrated from the small, irony-filled chuckle that passed through her lungs. "Unless you're caught by the ones around you, then you fall. And sometimes, when you fall, you don't get back up. So make sure there's someone to catch you, ready to pull you back up."

Naruto was silent for a few seconds, allowing the full weight of his body to rest in her arms. "…I think you're mixing your metaphors," he finally said.

She laughed, but this time it was filled with genuine mirth. "The world does need to be held up, but it's lighter when you have people next to you, helping you to hold it up."

He grit his teeth. "I'm weak," he said. His hair tickled her nose as he shook his head. "And not… and not just now. I'm weak in general. I can't do anything."

Yugito pushed him up to his own two feet and ventured a few feet ahead of him, offering her hand to steady his. "Don't worry," she said with a genuine smile. It was the kind of smile that could banish the darkness in a room with not light. "I'll help you grow as strong as you want... We'll help you as much as you want."

It's weird how easy doubt could be banished from a soul mired in it, unable to move even one step forward. All it takes is a nice smile. Such a simple gesture could mean the world to someone stuck in darkness.

00000000

And yet, why couldn't he give the same security to someone who needed it even more?

Funerals in Sand were generally done either indoors or at night. Being outside as the sun bore down on the people grieving wasn't a very good setting, after all. And so, it was at night, on the fifth day of being away from leaf that they held the funeral. A hawk was sent first that reached sand quite a bit before they arrived, so the procession was already cued up by the time they got there. And it wasn't long after that that they were standing in front of a shallow grave made of sandstone surrounded by a procession of people clad in black, doing their best to hold back tears.

Naruto and Temari were set apart from the rest of the contract members as they were the only ones that had true ties Gaara. And yet, even though they were together, they were apart as well. He couldn't talk to her. He couldn't smile at her. The only thing he could do was to bow down his head in guilt. For even though he had resolved himself to get stronger, the fact of the matter was that he failed to save her brother

He and Temari had talked a lot during the next two days to reach sand. They traded black humor and stories of their past, usually devolving into their own family problems, or lack thereof. And it was… kind of enlightening. He kind of liked talking to her. Her disposition had always given him a sort of plain vibe, but there was a lot going on behind the obvious. She thought a lot. And talking to her made him think too. Granted, thinking wasn't really his strong suit, but he enjoyed it when she was there to facilitate.

Despite that, despite his newfound respect for the girl from sand, he couldn't say anything at the funeral. And that made him feel like the worst kind of person.

They were outside the walls of the village and in the front row of seats for his funeral. On either sides of his altar were the councilors and other high ranking individuals. Their faces were somber, but not quite sad. After all, they were people who dealt with tragedy as an everyday occurrence. They couldn't be expected to act with much compassion. At the podium, Kankuro was giving a eulogy, not that Naruto was listening. He wanted to, he really did, but… he couldn't. Temari wasn't going to speak and he didn't think he could either, so they opted out of it. And they were both feeling worse off for it.

Kankuro wasn't wearing his war paint or his cat suit. And without it, he looked surprisingly normal. Almost indistinguishable from any other regular joe. And he… he was crying too. He didn't look ashamed of it. Granted, Naruto didn't know what to expect from the guy, not having known him very well, but it hit home all the worse knowing that his siblings were kind of normal people. The kind of people who grieved over a loved one's death.

And then the empty casket made of sandstone descended into the graveyard of fellow unknown soldiers without even markers to tell where they came from. It was supposed to give a sense of unity, Naruto had been told, that every citizen of sand was your family. That you should grieve for them all as equally as you would your closest friends and family. Naruto kind of felt like the person who came up with that idea had never lost anyone close to them before. Because it felt like a big punch to the gut to think that he wouldn't know where to go to say sorry for failing.

He felt cold, clammy fingers intertwine with his own. They were shaking. He looked to the side and saw that Temari's cheeks were wet with tears, yet she hadn't sobbed yet. Her voice hadn't broken and her eyes remained defiantly open until the very last inch of casket was showing. She took in a deep breath and let loose a shaky, wet breath. She brought her other hand to clasp the first one and leaned her forehead against his shoulder. "I… I don't know why I'm crying now," she whispered helplessly. "I was… I was… completely helpless. I couldn't do anything. And I should've," her voice was interrupted by her sobbing. "And I should've saved him. I'm his older sister and I've never been able to do anything for him. I wasn't even able to save him-"

Before she could say another word, Naruto let go of her hands and wrapped his arms around her, buried her face into his breast, and put his cheek to the top her head. Him silencing her told her everything he wanted to say. That it wasn't her fault. That it wasn't anyone's fault really, other than the ones who perpetrated the madness.

But those two were already dead. So who was left to be blamed other than the self?

Despite his guilt, Naruto knew he couldn't blame himself anymore and he wouldn't let Temari blame herself either. He hated seeing her cry. The choking sobs that punched his chest were just heavier reminders that he needed to get stronger. Stronger than anyone else in the world so he could protect everyone he loved.

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He knew from experience that the walk home was just as bad as the actual funeral. Attending the one for the third hokage was all the proof he ever needed. And while Iruka had walked him home then, it didn't change the fact that he had to face a dark, empty room with no one but himself around.

Now, it was Fu, Yugito, Kurotsuchi, and Mei walking a step or two behind him and Temari as they held each other up. Supporting and helpful they may try to be, they also knew when to give them some space.

The walk went by in a blur. They went through streets, saw common citizenry doing their business with somber expressions, ducked through back alleys, even peered into the houses of families in the process of making dinner.

Why was it that when you were sad that you wanted everyone else to feel like you as well?

And then he was standing with Temari, alone in her room. It was sparsely furnished, without even a picture of their family. The bed was plain, the walls were plain, the closets were plain. Was Temari plain?

No.

She was logical. She saw things through. She had a certain dignity about her. She wasn't much for merrymaking, but she knew how to smile when the time was right, even if it was a small one. She wasn't one for tomfoolery either and was probably the most mature one of their motley crew. She was like everyone's big sister.

She wasn't plain.

She was her.

Temari's hands found their way to his shoulders and she leaned her forehead against his temple. "Please…" she whispered, voice wobbly and about to break again. "Please… stay with me tonight. I don't want to be alone. Please… if only for tonight, make me feel good."

Naruto gulped. What was he supposed to do? Reject her? Accept her? What would be the consequences? What would be the outcomes? What would everyone think? Would the contract come tumbling down?

And why was he thinking anyway? Wasn't he supposed to be a man of action?

After standing in relative silence for a few seconds, Naruto disengaged and put a finger under her chin, bringing her head up so he could look her in the eyes.

He leaned forward and kissed her.

It didn't feel romantic. In fact, it felt like just the exact opposite of romantic. But it also felt like the right thing to do. Both of them were hurting. They didn't want to hurt anymore.

So they decided not to.