Two turtle doves

~*G*O*L*D*E*N*~

"Not again," Sasuke groaned.

Once again she had come home from the library to find something strange at her doorstep.

This time, there was a cage with two white doves and two turtles. On the front of the cage was the same envelope as before.

To my true love

On the second day of Christmas,

My true love game to me

Two Turtle doves

Did Naruto want to be killed? He knew she was busy this week. She sighed deeply. Maybe, maybe he was just trying to lighten the mood with his ridiculous interpretations of the 12 days of Christmas. For now, she would just believe that, since it was too difficult to be mad at him right now.

"What am I supposed to do with these guys?" Sasuke mumbled. She picked them up carefully. She may not have been happy about receiving them, but she couldn't just let them die.

She went over to the back balcony of her porch and let the two doves go. They would probably be fine on their own. Birds are wild creatures even if they have been in captivity for a while.

"I suppose I can't just let you guys go like that," she said to the two turtles. "I'll check the internet to see what to do with you guys."

She placed all her books down on her desk and put the cage carefully next to her laptop. "First, I'll have to figure out what kind of turtle you guys are."

After a quick google search, she found out that they were "Baby red ear slider turtles" and should eat natural plants or bugs. "Well, I don't have any bugs lying around the house, so I hope some lettuce will do for now. I will drop you guys off with Naruto tomorrow and that idiot can figure out what to do for you guys."

Sasuke walked into the kitchen and grabbed a bag of lettuce from the fridge before returning to her room to feed the turtles. She sat down on her desk chair and placed the cage on her lap. Slowly she lifted the door to the cage and reached inside with a handful of lettuce.

One of the turtles shrank back to the opposite corner of the cage, but the other crawled slowly, but deliberately towards her hand. The braver turtle reached out its head and snapped at a leaf of the lettuce from her hand.

Quicker than Sasuke thought possible for a turtle, the brave one had eaten all the lettuce in her hand. When there was no food left, the brave one nudged its head against her fingers.

"Okay. That was kind of cute," Sasuke said with a smirk. "You want some more?"

After a few minutes of feeding the brave turtle, the shy turtle decided it was hungry and cautiously crawled over to Sasuke's hand. "Finally decided I am not a threat, huh?" Sasuke said gently to the scared creature. She tossed some lettuce leaves towards the shy turtle and watched as it slowly nibbled on the food.

Slowly, she reached her finger out towards the shy turtle. It snapped at her finger and Sasuke was just barely able to pull her finger away in time. "Still don't trust me, eh?" Sasuke said softly. "I understand. Trust is a dangerous thing."

Sasuke watched the turtles munch on the lettuce she had dropped. The brave turtle was hovering around the shy one, occasionally eating some lettuce, but primarily watching the shy one eat.

The strange interaction between the two turtles made Sasuke chuckle because they reminded her of the relationship between Naruto and herself. Naruto had been the one to come up and start to talk to her at the café. He had continued to hover around her and bug her for months. Little by little, Sasuke had started occasionally responding to his questions and over an even longer time she had even started asking some questions of her own.

"Naruto Jr. you should be patient with Sasuke Jr. It will take some time for her to get used to you," Sasuke chided gently.

Then, she smacked herself on the forehead for her actions. "I must be burned out from studying. I am talking to turtles and naming them after Naruto and myself." She sighed. "I really shouldn't have named you guys. Now, I don't know that I can just throw you out. Besides, I don't even know your genders. Wouldn't it be great to find out that Naruto Jr. was a girl, heh."

"Ugh, I really need to go to bed," Sasuke groaned. "I'm starting to lose my mind." She went over to her closet and changed into some pajamas. As she crawled in to bed, she glanced over at the turtles in the cage on her desk. "Good night," she whispered before turning out the light and going to sleep.

The next morning, Sasuke's alarm clock was barely able to wake her up. She was exhausted from all the studying, but at least she did not have a final today. She rolled out of bed and took a nice long shower before walking into the kitchen to get some more food for the turtles.

"Morning, guys," she said as she tossed some more lettuce into the cage. "Today, we have to go speak to the idiot who left you guys here without any food or water. He will have to figure out what you guys need to live."

After throwing on some warm clothes, Sasuke picked up the cage and headed towards the café. "He had better take responsibility for leaving you guys on my doorstep," she growled. "Or else he is dead."

"NARUTO!" Sasuke shouted as she barged into the café. "Where are you, you looser!"

Sasuke heard a crash from the back of the café. She rushed towards the sound and found Naruto on the floor behind the counter with an enormous box of sugar on top of him. He was coughing from the weight of the box on his lungs and the mist of sugar floating around him.

"Sasuke? *cough*cough* What's wrong? *cough* Why are you yelling?" Naruto managed to spit out through his coughing.

"You're fine. Get up and take care of these turtles," Sasuke said, slamming the turtle cage on top of the counter.

"Huh?" Naruto groaned. The box may have only been full of sugar, but it was pretty heavy. Also, he had hit the floor pretty hard when he fell.

"These turtles," Sasuke said, pointing to the cage. "You left them on my doorstep last night. Is that right?"

"Uh …. Yeah," Naruto said gingerly. He was not sure how much trouble he was in yet. After Sasuke had snapped at him yesterday, he was not sure whether it was a good idea to continue with his plan or not, but he had never been one to give up easily. All he could do was keep moving forward with his plan and hope that Sasuke would understand.

"Did you even think about how I was supposed to take care of them?" she asked, sounding like a mother interrogating her child. "I have no idea how to take care of a couple of turtles and doves. I let the doves go, but its not like the turtles could just crawl away to the nearest pond. You didn't even leave any food or water for them, stupid! What if I had come home later than usual?"

"So, you're not mad about getting the gift, just that I didn't put in food and water with it?" Naruto asked slowly. Maybe there was still some hope of his plan working.

Sasuke was silent for a moment. "I suppose … this is some weird Holiday joke of yours or something. In your messed up head, this probably was meant to be nice," Sasuke sighed, "but you need to think it out better. I'm going to go to the library to study. I'll be back around 4. By then, you had better get all the supplies and any information I will need to take care of them!"

"You're keeping them?" Naruto asked excitedly and jumped up from the floor. "Really?"

Sasuke sighed. Naruto was too easily excitable. "Only if you get me everything I will need to care for them properly."

"I will. I will. Believe it!" Naruto proclaimed, nodding his head vigorously.

"Good," Sasuke acknowledged. "Can you get me something to go?"

"Yeah," Naruto answered and immediately went to start up the coffee machine. "So, uh, Sasuke?"

"Hn?"

"Do … you … .um …. like the gifts?"

It took a moment for Sasuke to figure out how to answer that. "Well, the turtles aren't horrible, I guess. They seem simple enough to care for and they are … pleasant to have in the apartment. But, the dead bird on the stick was I think hardly what the poem had in mind when it says 'a partridge in a pear tree.' It was disgusting!"

"Eh, hehe," Naruto chuckled nervously. "It took me forever to find a place that would sell me a partridge and the only place I could find only sold partridge meat. And, I couldn't exactly bring a whole pear tree to your apartment, so I figured a branch from a pear tree would work just as well."

"You are an absolute idiot," Sasuke grumbled.

Naruto huffed indignantly. "Excuse me for trying to be ... (romantic) nice," he mumbled as he finished preparing her coffee.

When Sasuke did not say anything for a minute, Naruto turned away from the coffee machine to look at her.

He was shocked.

She was smiling softly at him. It was not a big smile, not an enthusiastic one, but it was there and it was genuine.

"It might be amusing to see what you come up with for the next 10 days," she said finally. "Just no more live … or dead animals please."

Naruto smiled back at her. "Just you wait. I will blow you away with my awesome gifts!" Then, he handed her the coffee he had just finished.

"Well, see," Sasuke replied as she walked away. "And don't forget about the turtles!" she yelled as the door was closing.

"I won't," he whispered. "And soon you will see how much I love you."

~*A*N*G*E*L*~