In case you didn't notice in the title, this is part two so please read part one before you read this.
Or you could be a rebel and read it backwards, and if you do... more power to you.
Naruto strode quickly through the halls hospital, his Hokage robes snapping around him dramatically as he ate up the distance between him and his destination, the determined look on his face keeping away anyone who dared to want to engage him in idle chitchat. Never breaking his stride he brushed past nurses who tried to get him to pause, easily opening the previously locked door and stepping inside the office that no one -upon punishment of death- was to enter.
"Naruto, I put up with a lot from you because I love you, but I'm warning you right now that I will kill you if you've come in here to tell me something I will find to be very stupid." Sakura looked up at him from over the numerous files and papers that littered her desk. "I do have a hospital to run, you know." Naruto remained silent, quickly making a silence jutsu and sealing the room up so tightly that even his ANBU guard wouldn't be able to infiltrate it without some serious effort.
Seeing this and the serious look on his face Sakura sat her paperwork aside, her forehead knitting together because she knew that whatever was about to come out of his mouth was going to be something big.
"Naruto? What is it?" He walked forward and produced an envelope out of seemingly thin air, holding it as if the information it held was as fragile as spun glass.
"There are some Mist-nin coming in about an hour who have found a missing leaf ninja." Sakura blinked, not all that sure about how to connect everything to get the big picture just yet.
"And? Who is it?"
"Temari." Sakura gaped, not all that sure that she had heard him correctly. After all, there was no way he could have ever said what she had thought he had said. "What? Did you just say that they found Temari? As in, disappeared ten years ago without ever being heard about again Temari?" He nodded and pulled the picture of the prisoner that the mist nin had found out and handed it over to Sakura.
The pink haired woman looked it over, unbelieving that what she was seeing and hearing could be the truth. While the woman in the picture was obviously and astonishingly malnourished and absurdly thin, her hair a mess, Sakura could see in the bone structure that this was absolutely and completely Temari. They had finally found her.
"Oh God, Naruto! Have you told Shikamaru yet?" He shook his head and flopped back into one of Sakura's chairs on the other side of the desk.
"Why not?"
"What if it's actually not her? What if I tell him and it ruins everything for him? And what if she's not ready to see him? We don't know what's happened to her these past ten years." Sakura sighed and slouched back into her chair, nodding as she conceded his point.
"So why are you telling me this? If it's going to be a secret from even Shikamaru I'm guessing that you're not supposed to be telling me."
"Nope. It's supposed to be completely top secret."
"Then why? You know this will probably piss the council off." She warned, but the blonde merely shrugged. "Yeah, I know. But I figured that she probably needs to be checked over again and it might be better if it were by someone she knows, if she can even remember any of us. And I can take care of the old hags." He shrugged and Sakura felt her lips twitch. Even after all the years, even after everything they had went through, Naruto still managed to be Naruto. His job and family might have matured him a bit but when she looked she still saw that glimmer of the troublemaker thirteen year old in his eyes.
"So about an hour?" He nodded and Sakura furrowed her forehead as she tried to find the best way to do this. "Well, if they bring her into the hospital there's a chance of someone happening by and noticing, like a nosy nurse or something like that. But the Hokage tower has even nosier ninjas poking their noses into your business. But maybe we could set up a private room and make sure that even the nurses can't get in. I'll have to use the ANBU to secure the hallway, but it'll make sure that the only people that are allowed in are you, the mist nin and me." Naruto nodded.
"Alright then, do that." Sakura nodded and then winced, hissing.
"Damn."
"What? What happened?"
Sakura propped her chin on her fist and gazed down at her desk mournfully. "Nothing. I'm just thinking about all of the paperwork this is going to turn out to be."
Naruto winced sympathetically but made sure to get out of there as soon as possible since there was no way he was taking the chance of getting roped into doing more paperwork than he had to.
Temari, still so terribly weak after her years of confinement, made the journey back home in the arms of the giant all of the mist ninjas called Butch. They stopped for a rest half an hour away from Konoha, just half an hour away from her home, her old life, her happiness.
God, she knew that everything had changed and she wasn't certain that she wanted to see it all. But she had to, she needed to.
They were all sitting around in a circle, eating and chatting idly when Temari shakily stood up, making her wobbly way to one of the trees to lean heavily on it, pressing her hand to the rough bark as she tried to breathe past the panic.
She didn't know how things would go after she stepped -or was carried- through those gates again. Would she be welcomed? Would she be treated like some delicate doll? Would they even actually care?
Shaking her head she forced those thoughts away, telling herself that everything would be fine, that she'd get through it all perfectly fine. Hadn't she made a promise to Screech?
They sat together in silence at the open window of the room the Mizukage had given Temari to stay in, content to simply sit together and watch the sunrise, the morning breeze brushing kisses across their faces, welcoming them back like an old and dear friend. They both felt an ingrained itch that warned them that something so good could only be ruined, but they ignored it, so happy to just sit and bask in their freedom.
They had just been told that the "Doctor" and the surviving members of his cult like staff had been captured and taken in for interrogation. There was no way that they were going to escape execution, so the two felt their troubled souls beginning to be soothed by the balm of knowing that their torturers were going to be justly punished.
Temari turned her head slightly and looked at Screech from the corner of her eye, still surprised by how the man actually looked.
His thick black hair curled around his gaunt face, liberally streaked with gray. His face was heavily wrinkled and aged after all the years of imprisonment, his dark eyes strong and yet slightly skittish. His hands were so wide -worker's hands- and his bones so frail. Temari supposed that she really shouldn't be surprised about his appearance, after all, she had questioned if he actually existed until they had finally gotten out of the cell and it had been made obvious that other people could see him.
"My wife's name was -is- Luce. We lived on a small farm in the grass country and grew our crops. She was so beautiful and kind. She had the strongest hands of any woman, and she could work right out beside me in the fields when others probably would have stayed inside. We had -HAVE- a daughter together named Celia. She was six when I left... That was nearly -God- eighteen years now." He laughed his usual nervous and high pitched giggle.
"I might even have grandchildren now."
Temari sat still beside him, offering her everlasting and silent support. "I... They've probably moved on. I mean, eighteen years, who would wait that long for someone like me?" Temari moved her hand from her lap and over to touch his arm gently with her fingertips.
"And if they have? What will you do?"He smiled weakly at her and shrugged his thin shoulders.
"They're my family. Even if they've moved on, I want to know them. I want to learn about what they've done and what they've become. I want to see if my daughter remembers my face or the promise she made me to not cut her hair until I got back." He chuckled, a low and mournfully sad sound. "Though it's pretty silly for me to even think that she would do that."
"So you're going to go back?" She asked quietly, thinking about the complete fear that always grabbed her by the throat with razor talons when she thought of ever going back and seeing how things changed. Seeing how her family had changed and left her behind.
God, she was such a pitiful coward.
"What else can I do? I miss them, I've always missed them, always held onto the thought of them as if it was the only thing that could keep me alive -and it probably was. I want to see them and be able to know that I'm finally out of that hell. I want to become whole again."
His hand came up and touched hers softly, their fingers touching each other lightly, both of them still shy from actual contact. "I'm not saying that you should go back to your home just because I am -maybe you're not ready. But I know how desperately you held onto them, I know how difficult it was for you to even imagine forgetting them. I was there with you through every moment of doubt and desperation and I know how badly you don't want to see them living without you. But I also know that you can't heal completely until you do go back. You need them, Girly. You need them so much more than you know."
They'd continued to sit there in silence even after the night had fallen, the lights in their room thankfully blinking on before the darkness became too overwhelming.
Three weeks later Screech and one of the two three man teams that had saved them had been preparing to head out to the place Screech had once called home so many years ago. Temari came out to watch the departure, sitting patiently in the wheelchair they had given her since her legs -after years of not being used as they should- were still unable to hold up her weight.
"Screech," She called, watching as the little man turned and hobbled over to her, his legs only slightly stronger than hers.
"I'm going to go back. I... I want to see them. I want to see them so badly that it hurts." He smiled at her, a surprisingly soft and gentle smile that didn't fit with the voice that she heard all of the years that she had only had that voice and the darkness as company. He put his hand gently on her shoulder and leaned in to press a light kiss to her forehead.
"Good girl." He whispered. He leaned back and smiled at her again before holding out his hand cordially to her.
"It was nice knowing you all these years, Temari. I hope I'll see you again someday." Temari held his hand in hers and squeezed it slightly.
"Yeah," She whispered, her voice suspiciously hoarse, "It was great knowing you, David."
Thank you for being my sanity.
Temari had told him that she was going but now that she almost there, just a mere mile away, she just wanted to hide away from the truth that those gates hid so skillfully. Because she knew that everything had changed, that everything and everyone had moved on without her. How was she going to catch up? Would anyone even want her to?
"Temari-san? Are you ready to go?" She turned her head to look back at Senji, shifting her eyes to look over in the direction that Konoha lay. Was she ready? Could she do this?
"Yes." She whispered, lifting her chin and throwing her shoulders back, saying in a stronger and firmer voice, "Yes, I'm ready."
Because -God help her- she was going home.
They used a jutsu to hide her as they raced over rooftops, the ANBU escorting them to the private room the hospital had reserved for her -or so they told her since she couldn't see out of the cloak they had tucked her in. They jumped through the window and quickly closed it behind them, sealing the room up so that no one, no matter how skilled or curious, could find themselves eavesdropping.
Gently, as if he weren't the size of a house with hands like dinner platters, Butch peeled back the cloak and allowed Temari to blink at the gentle and calming colors of the room. It was different than what she was used to, but since what she was used to was an underground stone cell that the light never once shined in she wasn't all that worried about it.
Butch delicately sat her down so that she was sitting on the bed, moving back so that she could absorb all of her surroundings in their entirety. The door opened and everybody went on alert, turning quickly to protect their charge from whatever danger this stranger presented.
Sakura jumped as everyone whipped towards her, glaring as they reached for their kunai. "Hey," She said, holding up her hands and the clipboard to show that she posed no real threat. They didn't relax and she ran her eyes over the group to assess them and look for any weaknesses they could have that she could use against them, but she froze when her eyes passed over the person on the bed.
Thick and coarse wheat blonde hair tangled down to mid-back, thin limbs folded and wrapped around a thin frame as if to protect the frail body from any harm. Her pale skin was pulled tightly across her boney frame, her face made gaunt by the lack of nutrition over the years, though she was better than what Sakura had seen in the picture Naruto had had. Green eyes, while shadowed and dulled by hours upon hours of pain, were so blindingly familiar that Sakura's breath caught.
"Temari." She whispered, holding the clipboard so tightly that it threatened to crack. The blonde looked her over and smiled a brittle smile.
"Hey Sakura. It's been a while, huh?"
Sakura choked out a tear filled laugh, blinking so that she could keep the woman in focus. "You know who I am? You didn't forget?"
"How could I forget that pink hair of yours? It isn't exactly common, you know." Her voice had changed and it was now hoarser and lower, as if something had been done to her throat. Taking a breath the pink haired girl stepped forward and shifted into business mode, sensing that Temari wasn't exactly ready for a tear filled reunion.
"Well, I'll just check you over to make sure everything is going alright with your body." One of the mist nin -a man who seemed to be the size of a twelve year old- stepped forward as if affronted. "Do you believe that we have not given her the proper care?" Sakura shook her head and plugged her stethoscope in her ears.
"No, I've seen the medical care from your village and I have no worries about the abilities of any of your medics. But Temari is a very important person to us and I want to just make sure myself." The three ninjas nodded and stepped back to allow Sakura to come forward, stopping when Temari held up one of her thin hands.
"Could you... take off the jacket? It doesn't really remind me of any pleasant memories." Sakura nodded, not knowing the exact details of her friend's imprisonment but willing to do anything to put her at ease. She slipped of her doctor's coat and tossed it across the room, walking carefully to Temari, making sure she always stayed in her line of sight.
She was careful and thorough in her examination, gentle and always watching to make sure she didn't push her too far. The wounds she found made her feel violently ill, the scars and scabs making her skin crawl in the most horrible way. She could see the unnecessary operations, the pain and terror that had soaked every stitch that had torn through her skin. She could see it all, and mourned.
Halfway through the examination when Temari was laying back on the bed, her shirt off as Sakura sent small waves of chakra through her body to find even the most minor of discrepancies, Naruto burst into the room in his usual callous fashion.
"Hey, Sakura-chan, how is she?" The mist nin blinked at the sudden appearance of the load man, not sure what to make of the fact that he wearing the Hokage robes. Sakura, vein pulsing furiously on her forehead, grabbed the empty vase that sat on the bedside table and chucked it at him.
"God, you idiot! You don't just come in here screaming like that!" Naruto ducked easily and winced apologetically, the mist nin gaping at how the woman treated her leader. "Yeah, yeah, my bad." He apologized, grinning at the pink haired girl until she sighed and forgave him.
"Ah," Mimi intergected, "Are you two, you know," She held up her pinkie and Sakura gaped, completely shocked as Naruto roared with laughter. How on earth could people think she was with him? Didn't they see her just throw a vase at his face?
"No! We're both married to completely different people!"
"Just because you're married doesn't mean you're not together." Naruto had tears streaming down his face, he was laughing so hard, and Sakura's forehead vein had started pulsing anew. "We are in no way together!" She practically screeched, and Naruto -figuring that she had had enough- waved his hand to catch the group's attention.
"Yeah, that's not going to happen. I'm very happily married and -hey, how about I show you a picture? See, this is Hinata, my wife -isn't she the most gorgeous thing you've ever seen?- and that's our youngest, Mino. How many kids? Oh, we have five, three girls and two boys. See, here's another picture!" Sakura, knowing the astonishing number of pictures that Naruto carried with him of his family and knowing how long he could go on about them knew that she had to stop him now or else they'd never be able to focus on the task before them.
"Hey, Naruto! What did you come here for?" He blinked at her for a moment before tucking his photos back, grinning sheepishly at his pink haired friend.
"Ah, yeah. I came to see how Temari was doing." All eyes focused back on Temari and she smiled weakly at them, though it was a better smile than the one that she had given Sakura earlier.
"I'm doing fine. Better now that I've seen you two." Because they had showed her that no matter how much might have changed there was still so much that would have stayed the same, like how everything was when Sakura and Naruto got together.
"That's great!" Naruto enthused, coming over to sit beside the bed, restraining himself from grabbing onto her and holding on. He was just so deliriously happy that she had come back to them that he could barely control himself. But he wasn't stupid and he wasn't blind and he could clearly see that she was hurting and wasn't ready for all of that just yet.
Sakura finished the rest of the examination while Naruto politely averted his eyes, asking Temari questions about the mission she had been on all those years ago, trying to get the full picture of a mission they had known nothing about for years now.
After she was done Naruto nodded, his face serious as he sat back in his chair. "Well, we put Jin's name on the memorial stone years ago so there won't need to be a change there."
"And mine?" Temari asked quietly, confused by Naruto's sudden smile.
"Oh no, we don't need to do anything about you. Shikamaru never signed off on your death." Temari blinked, not really sure that she had understood him. If Shikamaru hadn't signed the papers to pronounce her dead that meant that she was still married to him. Which meant that Shikamaru hadn't married anyone else. Which meant he hadn't moved on.
Oh, thank God.
"Speaking of Shikamaru, do you want to see him? I can go get him for you if you do." Temari lifted her hand and touched the ends of her hair, suddenly and frighteningly nervous.
"Uh, is there anywhere I can take a shower first?" Sakura smiled sympathetically and nodded, helping her up. "Yeah, you have your own private bathroom with all of the amenities just through this door here."
Naruto watched the two of them get up and then started towards the door, waving to the mist nin as he went. "You guys can just stay here if you want to wait, just ask the ANBU for anything you want. I'll be back with some company." He said as he stepped out into the hall.
"Oh, come on Shikamaru, you can't be serious! Think of the children." Maria begged, though Shikamaru only rolled his eyes at the woman and ignored the puppy eyes she was giving him. Really, she should have known that things like that just wouldn't effect him.
"Maria, no matter what you say, we're not going to the hot springs."
"Why?" She whined, childishly slumping down so that her entire body was practically out of her chair, her chin propped on the table as she looked up at him with eyes that were getting bigger and bigger by the moment.
"Troublesome." He muttered as he flipped to the next page of his newspaper, ignoring the woman as she pouted.
"Oh, come on! You all need a vacation and it will be like a bonding activity. We'll leave town for a couple days, spend some time together being pampered at the hot spring and spa and then we'll come back closer than ever." Seeing the aloof expression that meant she wouldn't be getting her way, Maria huffed and sat up to shove her face closer to his, invading his personal space in a hope that maybe this would break him.
"Please? I mean, Asuma will be a teenager in a few months and then both of them are going to be aloof and crazy mean with their hormones because of puberty and general teen craziness and I just want us all to have some fun. Together." She fluttered her eyelashes and pressed, sensing that he might just crack.
"Please? Please, please, please, please, pleeeeeeeeaaaaaase? Plea-" She was interrupted by a knock on the door. Huffing out her breath she slouched back and crossed her arms over her chest, pouting as Shikamaru walked to the door and escaped.
Shikamaru sighed as he went to the door, already seeing that he was going to cave to Maria's plan, especially when she got to Kyoko roped into the thing. The two of them together when they set their minds to it were damn near unstoppable.
So troublesome.
Opening the door he sighed again when he saw who it was, leaning against the door jam lazily. "Oh, Naruto. What is it?" He heard Kyoko and Asuma come in through the back door, Maria's voice rising as she welcomed them back and undoubtedly started her pitch for the hot spring trip. Naruto's face was strangely serious, his eyes hooded and his face stern without his usual smile.
"Shikamaru," He said, his voice immediately causing the man to go on alert, straightening from his slouch. "I want you to come with me."
"Is it something work related?" He asked and Naruto shook his head.
Suddenly an unexplainable shaft of hope was hammered right into his gut, one that made his muscles tighten in anticipation and his stomach drop in dread at the thought that he could be wrong. But looking into Naruto's eyes and seeing that shifting glimmer in them, Shikamaru knew.
Oh dear God he knew.
He paled and tightened his hold on the door, his breath wheezing for a few heart beats, the sheer rush of emotions making his knees weak. "I..." He wheezed again, unable to figure out just what he was going to do now. He knew what he wanted to do, he wanted to run as fast as he could right back into the place he had missed the most.
God, he could practically taste how close he was to the paradise he had so long ago lost.
But his children were behind him with Maria -Oh God, what was he going to do about Maria?
"Shikamaru?"
"I... Just give me a minute." He didn't wait to see if Naruto nodded his head or not, he just closed the door in his face and made his way shakily back to the kitchen. Maria looked up with a brilliant smile on her face and just beamed at him. "Oh, Shikamaru! You'll never guess what Asuma and Kyoko think about the hot springs..." She got quieter as she saw his face, noticing how pale he was and how he held onto the door way so tightly for support. "Trip." She murmured with a heavy heart.
Because she knew. She didn't know how, she didn't know why, but she just fucking knew.
And it broke her heart.
"I..." He started, leading off as he stared through her with glazed eyes. "I've got to... I need to..."
"Go." She told him, his eyes immediately snapping to focus on her. "Don't worry, I'll watch the kids for you." He blinked and she saw a flash of regret in his eyes, a flash of what could have and would never be in those damnable eyes.
"Thank you." He whispered hoarsely, turning to quickly race away, the door slamming shut with a finality that made her flinch.
"Maria? What happened? What was that all about?" Maria looked down into the curious face of Kyoko and smiled, easily hiding her tears from the girl.
What happened? Not much, just me getting my heart shattered, that's all.
"Nothing." She said chipperly, tucking her hair behind her ear as she walked over to the fridge to see if there was anything she could fix for supper. "It's just that we won't be going on that hot spring trip."
"Man, that sucks."
"Yes," She whispered, staring tearfully at Tupperware bowl of pasta. "Yes it does."
This is just a dream.
This is just a dream.
Please God, let this be a dream.
The dreams were so much better than the nightmares. In the dreams he got to hold her, got to touch her, go to love her, even if it were just for moments. He raced over the rooftops, Naruto barely able to keep up with his desperate pace. He could hear the words he was telling him as if they were being filtered through padded steel, muffled and distant.
They got to the hospital and Naruto had to catch him before he tried to get in through the window or through the front door and the crowds inside. They got in through the door on the roof and then they raced down the stairs. They passed ANBU but Shikamaru didn't see them, all he saw was that final door that held everything he had ever dreamed of.
One of the ANBU, just following the orders that had been given, saw Shikamaru and pinned him to the wall, readying to strike just before Naruto laid a hand on his shoulder. "Hold him still," He murmured, moving so that he filled Shikamaru's line of vision, blocking the door.
"Shikamaru, you need to calm down. She's been through a lot and I don't want to much on her all at once. So just... calm down."
"She's in there? She's really in there?" Naruto nodded and squeezed his shoulder, nodding for the ANBU to release him. Slowly, still feeling that piece of doubt that stuck stubbornly to his heart, he walked to the door and opened it so excruciatingly slowly that he couldn't even tell if he was making progress with it or not.
When it was finally open he stepped in and looked up, scanning the room before settling on the one thing that made his breath catch.
And his whole world focused completely on her.
The differences slapped him in the face: how astonishingly thin she was, how fragile she looked when he was so used to looking at her strength, how long her slightly damp hair was, how pale and washed out her skin looked in the harsh daylight. But everything he was used to, everything he remembered when he closed his eyes in a desperate attempt to be close to her, was still there and they made his breath stop.
Her hair was still the same thick wheat gold, the gray hairs that should have streaked it nonexistent. Her eyes were still the same astonishing green, even if they were now masked with shadows. Her features -though the skin was pulled tight across them- had the same sharp fierceness as they had always had.
It had been nearly ten years -nine years, three months and fourteen days, to be exact- since he had last seen her. Ten God-awful years.
He walked forward slowly, Temari doing the same on wobbly legs that could just barely hold up her weight. "Shikamaru," She murmured, her eyes searching his face just as desperately as his had hers. At the sound of her voice his control broke and he was at her in two quick strides, wrapping his arms around her and holding on, burying his face into the spot where her throat and shoulder met, fervently promising himself that he would never let him go again.
She stiffened in his hold momentarily, her eyes going wide with panic until she felt his trembling shudders and his ragged breaths. She relaxed into his hold as she gently lifted her arms and wrapped them around him, her eyes closing as she breathed in the scent of him -woodsmoke and cinnamon- that had long ago faded from her mind. But now she had it back, just like she had him, and she'd never let either go again.
"Hey," She chuckled roughly, burying her own face into his shoulder as they hung onto each other for dear life, "I thought you would have become less emotional over time. After all, isn't it strange to be the only one crying?" She asked, holding back tears of her own as his tears soaked her skin.
"Shut up, you stupid troublesome woman. Just shut up." He whispered, holding her tightly as a single tear soaked into his shirt. God, she had missed hearing him say that. She had missed his voice, missed the sound of her name rolling off of his lips that few times that he had actually said it. She had missed the feeling of being held by him, the strength that he lazily hid from others surrounding her. She had missed the feeling of his soft hair against her fingers, the annoying feeling of his breath puffing against the back of her neck when he fell asleep as they spooned.
She had missed everything -big or little, annoying or beloved- about him.
"I missed you." She whispered, so desperate to tell him how she felt. He squeezed her slightly closer, calming her with his familiar touch but also giving her goosebumps at the contact she was not used to.
"I missed you too. God, did I ever miss you." Everyone else eventually filtered out of the room to give them privacy, though it wasn't as if the couple had noticed them in the first place. They just continued to stand there in each other's arms until the darkness fell, content with just each other after so many haunting years apart.
Please, God, don't let this be a dream.
No, this is not the end. I know I said only two parts, but there's so much more! (How did Temari reconcile with her kids? How did they take having her come suddenly back? How will Shikamaru and Temari's relationship go? Will she forgive him for Maria? What will happen between Temari and Maria? These are the questions you should torture yourself with! (Cause I already know the answers ;P))
Third part will be up as soon as possible, but it might be a couple of days, I have to read Pride and Prejudice for my AP English class, and keeping my A will have to be a priority (But I won't forget about you my darlings!)
Tata! See you soon!