When the Hokage told him he'd be assigned to an inter-village surveillance team, Shikamaru had been less than delighted. Diplomacy was not his strong suit, and he smelled politics in the assignment.

"I promise you," Tsunade had told him, leaning wearily over her desk and allowing him an impressive, if unappreciated, view down her front. "You will be fine. The ambassador from Sand specifically requested the top strategist in Konoha for this team; they're not stupid enough to think it's anyone other than you."

"So they know me then?"

"Excuse me?"

"ANBU member's identities are top secret. The only way they could know who the top strategist in Konoha is would be if they knew me before I became ANBU."

Tsunade cocked an eyebrow at him. "Well, yes, then, they do know you. At least, the one representative from Sand certainly does, and I assume she passed that knowledge on to the ambassador."

"Troublesome," he sighed. "Temari should know better than to tell anyone such important information."

"You guessed so fast? You haven't seen the girl in years, Shikamaru."

"I... remember pretty well."

Yes, he remembered. The way the two of them had sparred incessantly at her insistence, the way he had come to view her as a rival and a friend more than anyone else. It was strange. She didn't have his intelligence, not even close, although she was smart. But he was afraid to lose to her. Desperately afraid. And he could never place his finger on the reason why.

His friends had told him he was acting strangely, getting nervous if he lost a sparring match to her and irritable if he wasn't assigned to accompany the visiting sand-nins wherever they were going. Ever-observant Chouji had finally told Shikamaru flat out that he must have a crush on the girl, and he better admit it before they all went crazy living with him. Shikamaru had snorted and called him troublesome, flicking one of Chouji's precious potato chips off his lap and into the dust, immediately taking his friend's mind off the issue at hand. But when Temari was called back to Sand to take part in a high-level training session, and later promoted into the ranks of Sand's elite (and therefore invisible) shinobi, Shikamaru had wondered if maybe Chouji had been right, after all.

And then, with the assignment to the surveillance team, she'd come back. After five years, she just walked right back into his life as though she'd never been gone, neatly working herself into a position at his side and leaving Shikamaru scrambling to figure out what she meant by it. It was one of life's many little injustices that all Shikamaru's formidable battle-plotting talent would fall to nothing before this girl, all his rationality disappear with the thought of her fearsome smile.

And once again, the stress of his life was back in even greater doses. Suddenly every battle plan had to be flawless, every jutsu flowing and practiced, every enemy defeated with ease. Shikamaru's notorious lazy expression never left his features, but beneath that bored appearance his mind was working overtime.

"That could have worked out better," Temari said dryly one day as they sat side-by-side on the hospital bench nursing bandaged limbs. Shikamaru's leg had been bent out from under him fighting a missing-nin from Mist, and snapped in the middle of the shin. The medic-nin told him he'd been lucky not to break the knee. Temari, for her part, had blocked a nasty blow with her fan and painfully twisted the muscles in her wrist. She hadn't even complained as she helped the third member of their team, a Konoha shinobi called Honda Yoshiro, carry Shikamaru back. "We'll have to do at least two missions without you now, do you realize that?"

Shikamaru slouched against the back of the bench. "I can't help it that you decided to jump in the middle of my battle, you know," he snapped back. "I could have handled him once I saw what he was doing."

"Yeah, right. By which time you were all out of chakra and desperately needed my assistance. I'm sure that would have worked well."

"Don't be so sarcastic. It's troublesome."

"What? You do it all the time!"

"You're a girl."

"And a better fighter than you are, considering how I had to save your sorry ass today!" Temari shot back, offended. She sighed deeply. "Your problem is that you always think too much of yourself, Shikamaru. You get into situations you can't get out of, for the sake of whatever honorable thing you've got yourself hooked on today, and it makes me worry. I'm tired of it." She hooked her elbow over the back of the bench, staring at him. Shikamaru looked away.

"I don't need your help every time, Temari. I'm not a kid."

"So why did I have to help you today, huh?"

"You didn't need to! You weren't even supposed to," he said, annoyed. "I'm intelligent enough to get out of whatever I get myself into."

"So you're better than me, is that it? The great Shikamaru can do what he wants without fear of death because he's just so very smart?" Temari was leaning forward now, glaring at him with one of those expressions he found deeply frightening, halfway between concern and anger. Well, that was stupid. He didn't need her concern. Not anybody's, but least of all hers.

"Yeah, that's what I'm saying!" he said angrily, grabbing his crutches off the wall and swinging his injured leg into a standing position so violently that Temari winced. "There's a reason they call me Konoha's top strategist and there's a reason I became ANBU so young. I'm not somebody for you to take care of, and you'd do well to remember that! Damn troublesome girl," he muttered as he positioned the crutch under his left arm. "I'm gonna go see if the Hokage's ready yet."

"No," said Temari suddenly, standing up and deftly kicking the crutch out from under him and she swept by. Shikamaru flailed and scrabbled at the wall for a handhold, cursing. "I'm going to go see if she's ready yet. See you." She slung her ever-present fan over her back and stomped out the door.

Shikamaru slumped back onto the bench and regarded the fallen crutch with a baleful stare. "Well, that could have worked out better, to quote a certain somebody," he said to no one in particular. He closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall with a weary sigh.

Just outside the door, Temari smacked the wall softly and bit her lip hard enough to draw blood.