a/n: If you read the first chapter yesterday, i made one small adjustment- I realized that Naruto wouldnt have been hokage yet so soon after the war (so Shikamaru wouldn't have been his sidekick for hokage duties yet)...haha so i looked up what Shikamaru would be doing post-shinobi war and found that he was chief coordiantor for the Shinobi Union. I guess its not as simple as I thought to throw things into the timeline merp.

insp: Dust to Dust - The Civil Wars / "It takes one to know one… You've been lonely for so long."


Takes One to Know One

It had already been nearly two years since the end of the war.

There were times when it felt like the war had just ended. Times she'd wake up in the middle of the night, sheets twisted around her as she gasped for air and frantically tried to blink away the lingering images of the battlefield. The times she'd flinch at the sound of thunder, because it would remind her of the chakra blasts caused by the colossal tailed beasts that made her feel so small.

And there were times when it felt like it had been so much longer. Times when she'd visit the graves of lost loved ones and think about how it has felt unbelievably long since she's heard her father's bellowing laughter, so long since she's seen her brother's playful grin. Times when she'd walk into her empty apartment, longing for the way her mother's voice would chime through the rooms in their old home, greeting everyone as they'd enter.

Her family wasn't part of a well known clan, but each of them had been skilled shinobi, dedicated to their home village of Konohagakure. And so when the Fourth Shinobi War came around and the Allied Shinobi Forces formed, her family - herself included- of course were a part of the forces fighting to protect the rest of…. well, the world.

Her mother had died protecting her father. Her father led his team into a victory against the enemy forces that killed his wife. That victory cost him his life. Her brother hated violence, and refused to kill- as much as he could afford to as a shinobi in the middle of a war, anyway. He was in the battlefield as a ninja medic, running to the aid of those wounded and saving countless lives in the midst of a war that tried to take just as many. He died when enemy forces attacked their medical station with an explosion.

She had been at the edge of that attack.

One moment she was glancing over across some distance as her brother was bandaging someone's leg. In the next, she was watching the space fill with light and fire and dirt and blood; her legs were collapsing, her heart was collapsing, her world was collapsing; she was screaming as teammates held her by the arms to keep her upright. The battle was still going on. They had to keep moving.

After losing her family, that's what she told herself everyday. "Keep moving."

There were days when she wouldn't realize, but she'd stop in the middle of a task, frozen as her mind trailed into memories of the past. She urged herself to keep living with those two words. No matter how much the loneliness may cause her to ache, or the post trauma anxiety paralyze her, she couldn't just stop and succumb to it all.

Keep moving.

She reminded herself this again when she realized she had been standing still as a slow stream of villagers passed her on each side. Gauging from their mostly uninterested glances, it was likely that she hadn't spaced out too long. She adjusted the bouquet in her arms and resumed her walk to the cemetery.

Because each of her family had been a part of different units, they were buried separately, each with their own teams. She had just finished visiting her parent's graves and was making her way to her brother's when she noticed him.

There were plenty of people that she'd seen visiting the graves of the ones they've lost, but she never took much notice of them. Visiting this place felt too intimately close to the sorrow she felt, her emotions still too raw even after all this time for her to want to interact with others. Because she usually visited during daylight hours, most shinobi were busy completing missions and so the people she'd see visiting graves were almost always civilians. People from the village who of course had loved ones they lost and now missed, but seemed to have found peace, without firsthand experience of the war to haunt them.

She'd never seen him before, but as she stood herself parallel to him, she felt a curious pang of familiarity.

It was hard to place exactly what it was that stood out to her. There was nothing remarkable about the way he stood, shoulders slightly forward with hands tucked in the pockets of his green vest. A recently lit cigarette was balanced between his lips. She had made a comment about those leading to death, to which the man hardly reacted. The comment was intended to be passive, yet there was a sympathy carried in her voice that surprised even her.

When he didn't return her gaze, she realized it was the withdrawn attention that she recognized, the stature of someone who was presently not very present and instead had sunken into a different time and place.

It seems you've been lonely too long*, too.

Along with the thought came a wave of frustration. She didn't know his story, didn't know who he'd lost or who he had left, but suddenly she felt a great sense of unfairness for the both of them. Why did they have to endure such an emptiness in the wake of the people who had died? Why did some people seem to so freely keep moving, while she - and probably him as well - moved through each day, each stride, constrained by the tension and worry of breaking apart at any moment?

You've held your head up. You've fought the fight. You bear the scars*.
She wasn't sure if the "you" in her own thoughts was directed to herself or to the silent man who she had suddenly begun to empathize with. Either way, it takes one to know one*, she thought as she exhaled the smallest of breaths.

We've been lonely, too long*. Her own loneliness was something she thought she'd grown accustomed to bearing. But seeing his reflecting hers made her ache to alleviate it for him. The weight that daily sat in her chest felt doubly heavy as she saw the slump in the man's posture and it was as if she took it upon herself to bear the weight of his sorrow as well.

The burst of rain and her decision were equally abrupt, so she wasn't sure which came first.

Both hit her with equal forcefulness. The rain that came down was heavy and the cold drops felt sharp against her skin. The decision was as sure and steady as the downpour.

As she turned towards him, she saw him toss the cigarette to the side. Then she was grabbing his collar forcing him to finally look at her. Her eyes locked onto his face and for a brief second she almost worried about regretting her brashness. But she'd always been rather impulsive and strong-willed, and besides, any trace of hesitation that she might have held was dispelled before it could even form. As soon as his eyes met hers, the pressure in her chest became nearly unbearable, as if the force of gravity was entirely working in her heart alone.

She read his surface as sharp, clever, strong. But beneath, there was something delicate, softer, something in need of nurture… Misery loves company after all, doesn't it?

It wasn't so much that she needed someone in that moment, but she felt so heavy for him, that he seemed to really need someone. And feeling such a weight for him in addition to her own was just too much... so maybe she did it because she actually did need it as well. In retrospect, she couldn't pinpoint the exact reason why she decided to do it. What she remembers more clearly than the reason, was the experience.

Almost immediately after she pulled him in and pressed her lips to his, he was leaning into her as much as she was to him. To her surprise he was returning the kiss, and his hands were around her face. Then she realized it wasn't just their lips pressed together, but her arms were resting on his chest, her legs were against his… and she was shaking at the knees. Ridiculous. It's not like she'd never kissed a boy before.

It's just that she'd never felt such a mutuality of emotion in any of those kisses. But maybe she was assigning too much meaning to this moment. Maybe she'd just been too deprived of any emotional expression since the war ended that this moment was overwhelming her senses. But she did feel a relief to the weight in her chest. It didn't disappear, but it felt like those times when her arms would ache from carrying a load and a teammate would come from the other side and help her hold the burden. She smiled into the kiss when she felt his body relax against hers, thinking that maybe he felt the same relief and her attempt to ease his tension was a success.

He pulled away first.

She wrapped her arms around herself, attempting to hide her shaking. Was it from the kiss? Maybe she was getting cold from the rain. She couldn't tell.
He asked two questions, what followed by why.

She bit the inside of her cheek to keep herself from grinning too much- she felt strangely very pleased with herself. She made some comment to him about it raining too much, but the rain she meant was the one she read inside of him. Internally, she cringed at how cheesy she felt as the words left her mouth. She knew he didn't get what she meant though.

He was still looking at her, eyebrow slightly shifted up.

She lifted and dropped one shoulder, mirroring his earlier response to her, and told him that he looked like he needed it. And considering how he reciprocated, she was apparently pretty damn right about that.

Not waiting for him to respond, she gave him a parting wave accompanied by another small smile, then turned and hurried away to find shelter from the rain.