Hello darlings, guess who just finished a week of exams?

This girl!

Guess who should be working on her speech for speech class?

This girl!

Guess what she's doing instead?

Anything else!

And well, I decided that it was time for another chapter. I had actually wanted to submit this on my story's birthday, but things got a little crazy, so it didn't happen.

But here's to 118 chapters over an entire year, which equals out to a little over 2 chapters a week per average!

Woo! Math!

And here we go, continuing on our adventure!

Temari burst through the doors of the hospital, heart thundering and adrenaline rushing, giving her a rock-hard look in her eyes that made the people around her—people she didn't even notice—edge around her as they walked past. With a heavy weight settling sickeningly into the space between her heart and her stomach she hurried to the front desk, trying not to focus on the fact that she felt like she was going to become violently ill and instead focus on the fact that she needed to know where they had put her Nara.

The small woman who manned the desk barely looked up at her when she approached, busy with a dozen different things since there was an extraordinary amount of patients that had poured in that day in various states of injury. She was tired, the dark crescents beneath her eyes she had attempted to hide with make-up attested to that, and she had just gotten chewed out by the fourth person in the past hour who had insisted that she was not doing her job properly.

And so Temari's timing really couldn't have been worse.

"I need to know where Nara Shikamaru's room is." She said, fingers gripping the edge of the desk in an almost desperate manner, the only betraying sign that could clue anyone in on the face that she wasn't quite as calm as she wished to appear.

"Are you family?" The woman sighed, and Temari grit her teeth. She wasn't going to tell the woman that she was his girlfriend because she wasn't such a juvenile term, but she didn't really think that saying she was his lover would work either.

"No, but-"

"Then I'm sorry. Critical patients can only be seen by family."

Critical.

That was all it took for her throat to tighten impossibly, choking her momentarily as she remembered the phone call she had received from an obviously distressed Hokage.

"The mission took a bad turn... He was hurt very badly... He's at the hospital right now...They don't know..."

"Listen, I live with him. I have to put up with that damnable lazy-ass attitude of his every time I tell him to do the laundry and the fact that he kicks a little in his sleep every night, and if that doesn't in some way qualify me to be able to see him then you need to seriously rethink something here." Temari snapped, the word critical dancing and twirling and screaming within her mind until she had to forcefully shove it out of the way or be driven mad.

"I do not have to rethink anything." The desk-person snapped, the harshness that wished to fill her tone barely kept back. "You, however, need to sit and follow the same policies that everyone else does."

Not able to remember ever being so furious, The blonde was about to give the other woman a good piece of her mind as well as a good chunk of her fist when someone suddenly grabbed onto her arm and began pulling her away. She was going to tear away and probably attack this person too until she realized that it was Shikamaru's mom.

"Come," She said firmly, continuing to pull Temari along as she looked back to see Shikaku talking to the agitated woman manning the desk, obviously trying to calm her down. "He'll want to see you whenever he wakes up, even though he'll deny it, and when that happens I don't want to explain to him that security is barring you from the hospital."

Yoshino continued to pull the girl along behind her through the halls, and Temari only got the briefest glance of her face, but the worried look that was hidden beneath the determined lines of the older woman's face was enough to make her stomach sink.

It was bad.

Everything hurt.

Not wanting to open his eyes, instead wanting to think and figure out what was going on, Shikamaru kept his body lax as his brain quickly went over what had happened. The details of the mission, the way it had deteriorated, and the fight for his and his team's lives that had happened afterward flashed by quickly and were cataloged, and he came to the decision that he was in Konoha since he wasn't outside, being restrained, or dead. The hospital to be specific since his wounds would have required immediate medical attention.

Severe chakra depletion.

Burns, third degree at best.

Fractured bones: ribs and an arm, and probably his collarbone and a couple of fingers from what he remembered.

A concision.

Stab wounds to the stomach, leg, and chest.

And that was only what he remembered. The concussion he had likely gotten from being being slammed through an entire stone building practically head first by the behemoth he had been fighting had muddled things up and a lot of it had faded to black.

But, since he currently had nowhere to go and no reason to get up—if his body would have even allowed him too—he decided to take the chance given to him and just go back to sleep. He'd be able to get away from the pain then, and the incessant and annoying beeping of the heart monitor.

"Don't you even think about it, you bastard. I know you're awake."

Well, that confirmed what he had already known about him being in Konoha. There was no way any other nation would be stupid enough to put her in the same room with him, even if they had expected to get some good torture out of it. They'd had a reservation for dinner at some restaurant she had told him they were going to, and since his wounds were nothing to laugh at he had either been unconscious through that day or he was going to be laid up for it, so that meant she was probably going to kill him.

And that would just ruin everyone's plans.

Cracking his crusty eyes open and wincing slightly at the harsh hospital lights, Shikamaru looked to his side at the blonde woman glaring at him, though he could tell by just how weak it was that her heart wasn't into it. He quickly glanced quickly around the room and discovered that they were alone, and when he looked back at her she was rubbing her eyes tiredly.

"Your parents are here too," She muttered, trying to focus on not crying as wave after wave of relief crashed through her in a tsunami of rioting emotions. "They just went out to get some food and coffee since what they serve here is terrible at best." She sighed and opened her eyes back up to look into the half-lidded and slightly pain and drug dazed eyes that for some brief treacherous moments she had thought she would never see again.

"You've been in a coma for a little over three weeks now." She said, watching him as he processed this. "The doctors and medic-nins did what they could, but they couldn't heal everything since it would have been too big of a shock to your body and you would have gone into cardiac-arrest and probably would have died." She took a breath and a moment to remind herself that she had promised she wouldn't cry when he woke up. It would just make the both of them uncomfortable, especially since there was nothing to be done about it.

So instead, she decided to get angry.

"This better not happen again, do you understand me Nara Shikamaru? Not only did you worry a lot of people, including your parents," And me, "But because of some stupid rule about only family members being allowed to see you, I nearly got kicked out of this stupid hospital." She saw him moving to take his oxygen mask off so that he could talk, but she pointed at him threateningly, knowing that either hand that he moved would be painful since one arm was broken and the index, middle, and pinkie fingers on the opposite hand were broken as well. The medic-nins had been waiting until he woke up to finish fixing those.

"Don't you dare. Just stay quiet and listen to me, because that isn't going to happen again. Do you understand why?" He moved his head slightly in the negative, though she could tell by the tightness of his face that even that had hurt, and the twinge she felt in her stomach just further solidified what she had discovered as she had sat beside him and had watched as she became less and less sure that he was going to wake up. For a few horrifying moments there she had thought she would lose him, but now that she knew she wouldn't, at least not this time, she had a plan to deal with him and the need that had been growing so strong over the years to stay with him no matter what.

"Because once you're healed up and can stand and walk around, we're going to get married." She told him firmly, and for a moment she wondered what his reaction would be. Horror? Fear? Or maybe she had shocked him enough that he was going to pass out.

He didn't do any of these things. Instead he reached up and, ignoring her protests, removed the stupid oxygen mask so that he could talk clearer. After clearing his throat a few times and accepting the drink of water that Temari fumingly gave him, he quirked his lips into a smirking smile and croaked out a barely understandable, "Are you going to want a ring?"

Huffing and crossing her arms over her chest, a slight smirk of a smile of her own covered Temari's lips. "Damn right I do, and you better put some thought into it too, or else you'll just end up right back in this bed."

And as they sat there waiting for his parents to get back, he eventually and inevitably drifting back into unconsciousness, she slowly felt her stomach began to settle along with her nerves as she watched over him with a gentle smile on her face.

There we go! We got some Temari worrying over Shikamaru for once, and the story of how she proposed (demanded). I'll get to the actual wedding eventually.

Life is good, my peoples! I passed my exams, I got a B on my first speech, and I have friends that I cuddle with! (I needed some human contact, and cuddling is the best form of this.)

Also! Have any of you ever tried Betty Crocker's Warm Delights? Those cake/brownie mix things that come in a single serving bowl where you just add water and microwave? If you haven't, DO! These things are great! I love them!

And how are your lives, dearies? Anything terribly important?

I'll see you again soon, I hope!