Disclaimer – I don't own them or there would be a hot boys of Naruto swimsuit calendar

Warnings – None really for this one

Sorry for this sad little piece, but I had another idea for a Shikamaru X Temari scene. Some day I'll write something happy with them, I promise, but right now, fate does not like these two.

Edited 2/20/2008

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Everyone Breaks

Shikamaru hated team missions. They were in some no-man's land between Fire and Wind in an area which neither side cared enough about to claim with anything stronger than ink on a piece of paper. The village itself was barely worth a second thought. The tax revenue from a place like this wouldn't even pay for the bother of collecting it, so this hellhole slipped through the cracks.

His team was beat up and tired. The newest member was up for the first time in a day, and only because he was on some major painkillers. He needed medical attention, but it would be better to find a place to stay in town and treat him than to force their way back to Konoha.

Shikamaru led them into the bar, it was a shady place that boasted a few rooms, a hot meal, and a clientele that wouldn't speak of Leaf ANBU showing up. After the end of the latest war, there had been more bandit activity in the border regions than there had been in a long time and it wasn't unusual to see bands of tired shinobi dragging themselves into a normally forgotten town.

His black uniform was dirty. His uniform was different than the three with him. While they wore the protection of the lighter grey vest and arm guards, he didn't bother. He was completely encased in black except for his toes and his upper arms and shoulders. He had no use for the same armor as the rest of them -- it only slowed him down. His deer mask hung from his belt.

He lead his team into the bar, leaving them at a table as he talked to the owner. He returned with a room key and say with his team. "We'll eat, then we'll go to the room."

Bowls of oden were brought, and Shikamaru watched as his team began eating. They were tired. He had pushed them almost past their limits. It was cold and miserable outside and he didn't want to be out here any more than they did. Warming up and resting even at a shithole like this would be their best bet. Their mission was successful. A large raiding party of bandits would not be raiding any more trade convoys.

Once he was sure his team had enough, he started eating. He may not like leading a team, but that did not mean he didn't take care of his men. He turned to the door, the rest of his team following his gesture as he was suddenly on guard in the poorly lit bar.

A woman wearing a black yukata walked in. She was half carrying a man wearing a sand forehead protector and a standard Sand Jounin's uniform. He was bleeding on her, but it appeared most of his wounds were bandaged. The woman looked exhausted. She had a large fan strapped to her back, and her hair was plastered to her head with blood.

Shikamaru knew his team had weapons in hand, but he stood up unarmed and walked to the blond woman. "I have a medic with me, Sabaku no Temari"

She turned to him, her eyes showing no emotion, "Thank you, Nara-san" She allowed Shikamaru to take her injured comrade and followed him as he led her and his team up to their room. His team was silent. Yes, they were allied with Sand, but it was still an uneasy alliance amongst those that remembered when Sand had attacked. Even the events since then had not erased that pain.

Shikamaru put the injured man on the bed and gestured for the medic of his team to get to work. Shikamaru turned to Temari, the formality evident in every word and pose, "Are you injured, Sabaku no Temari?"

She shook her head, her pose echoing the formality of his, "Thank you Konohagakure ANBU-sama for your concern, I am uninjured."

Shikamaru bowed. "By the terms of the agreement between Konohagakure no Sato and Sunagakure no Sato and our respective countries of Fire and Wind, it is my honor to extend out assistance in any way it is needed until such time as it is no longer required."

She nodded, returning his bow. She said nothing as he led her to a chair and helped her sit down, taking her fan as she handed it to him and setting it against the wall. He knew his team was watching him, he didn't treat his own Hokage with that much respect and they all knew it. Hell, he didn't treat anyone with any respect.

The medic of Shikamaru's group straightened up, "He's in rough shape, but he'll make it."

"Thank you, ANBU-sama." Temari bowed her head at the medic member of Shikamaru's group.

The man nodded, "We shouldn't move him, until tomorrow, and then he needs to be taken to a hospital."

She nodded, "Thank you, ANBU-sama."

Shikamaru kneeled down in front of her, looking up into her face -- he frowned. "Temari-san?"

She trembled, trying as hard as she could to not let her body show her closeness to collapse.

He glanced back at his squad before turning back to the woman in front of him. He placed a hand on her shoulder, his fingers gripping her softly. She looked into his eyes, the pain in her green eyes was almost physical, "Ri-chan…"

She swallowed and trembled, finally speaking as he placed his other hand on her knee. "I had a twenty person squad."

His squad saw something then that few had ever seen. Tamari collapsed into Shikamaru's arms. He caught her and picked her up, cradling her as if she was a small child. He carried her over to a corner of the room and sat down with his back pressed into the corner. His rough hands stroking her hair and telling her soft lies of it's all going to be all right.

He pulled a blanket out of his pack and draped it over her, he knew she hated being cold. He knew she hated winter. He knew she hated loosing people. He held her and kept lying about it all being all right. He watched as his medic treated the wounded member of his squad. He watched as the squad settled in to rest, rotating through using the bathroom to get themselves cleaned up once the medic was done cleaning up his two patients, pointedly not looking at their commander. They were ANBU; they knew that even the strongest of them broke sometimes.

He waited until they were done, and then he carried Temari and his pack to the bathroom. There wasn't even a shower in the room, so he cleaner her as best he could with a cloth and the sink. He removed her clothes and washed dirt from her familiar figure. She didn't move as he cleaned her, she wasn't asleep but she wasn't awake. He knew she had taken too many stimulants; a body can only run off those for so long before it collapses. Finally, he dressed her in his spare ANBU uniform. He washed his shirt and her clothes and hung them to the wall with senbon needles.

He hadn't been as dirty as the others, or as she was. He carried her back out and cradled her against his bare chest as they huddled in the room. Using scouting hand gestures he told his team to rest and he'd take the watch. He knew with her in this state, he wouldn't be getting to sleep anyways.

He held her through the night as she shook and silently cried, finally falling asleep in his arms. He held her tightly as he remembered all the other times he had held her, and all the times he wished he could have. Holding her again almost made him forget it was over between them. She was married now. It didn't matter that it was a political move and her husband was four times her age, she was now forbidden. It didn't matter that one night, years ago, they had exchanged their vows in secret, back before the war when they were young and stupid.

Shikamaru sighed, he really had been stupid. He had let her slip between his fingers. He knew she would be up in the morning and pull on her own clothes. He knew she would take her injured teammate and with an exaggerated formality, she would thank them. Then she would be gone.

Come morning he was proven right. She changed back into her sand uniform, her hair back into its normal four-pony tail style and her fan on her back. Then she took her injured person and left them. Thanking them with the same strained formality of the night before. When she left, Shikamaru sat down on the bed, his teammates looking towards him waiting for orders. They didn't say anything about the tears in his eyes or how he carefully folded the uniform that she had worn and packed it away. They didn't say anything as he took a necklace out from under his shirt and fingered a simple gold ring on the chain.

They didn't say anything when he collapsed into his tent that night; they simply pulled the watch shifts between themselves. They had never seen their commander break either, but they knew everyone did at some point. They just never thought that their logical commander's breaking would be caused by love.