Part 2

AN: Sorry for the years of delay in getting this chapter out—I hope you enjoy it none-the-less. Also, the first chapter has been re-worked a bit. Nothing major, but a reread wouldn't hurt .

Chapter Soundtrack: "Say, It Ain't So" - Righthead (Gungrave OST).

She's sobbing like a six-year-old, and the irony is not lost on her that she's gone to pieces on the floor because of something else that's in pieces on the floor. But it was important to her mother, and as she'd watched in what felt like slow motion the jewelry box fall from its perch on the counter and crack itself open sending glass and wood everywhere, it seemed too cruelly like a metaphor for how her mother was standing upright in the kitchen one moment, and had then crumpled to the ground dead the next because of a clotted bit of blood in her brain.

She senses more than hears someone enter her house. She hopes that it is Lee, or even Guy Sensei, because they know how to hug her tightly and tell her she's not alone, comfort her when she's falling apart. But of course she's not that lucky and it's Neji, Neji whose ability to comfort is practically non-existent, Neji staring down at her with a raised eyebrow as if she's grown a second head, and what was he doing here anyway—oh she was supposed to meet him to train…she must be late. She tries to control the sobs coming out of her mouth, but that only makes her sob more. He kneels on one knee and appraises her condition. Are you hurt, he asks and she thinks that's a stupid question because of course she's hurt, she's been hurting for the past month. But she shakes her head no, and by way of choppy hiccupped speech explains to him that the thing in pieces on the floor was all that was left of her mother in this world.

He says nothing for a while, and she wonders if he's even understood her, but then he says quietly "What's left of your mother in this world is you," and before she realizes she's stopped sobbing. He hands her a handkerchief from his robes and as she wipes her face clean, he picks up the pieces of the jewelry box.

A few days later, she returns home and finds said box reassembled on her kitchen table with a terse note—"perhaps this time you should place it somewhere safer." She almost laughs, realizing that Neji did know, after all, how to pick up the pieces when she fell apart. She just hadn't been paying attention. As she holds the jewelry box in her hands, her stomach seems to lurch unexpectedly. Odd she thinks, as she places the box by her bed.

If she could be outdoors, Tenten usually was. The unventilated government offices tended to be stuffy even at this time of the year, and she hated any amount of time she had to stay cooped up in them. She'd been glad to finally leave the confines of the small council room in favor of leaning against the windy exterior of the pink Administration building. She let the cool breeze roll over her skin. It would have almost been relaxing, had the man leaning against the wall beside her not been fidgeting so much.

"Do you feel ready for this?" Hajiki asked when he finally ran out of things to do with his hands.

"We are ready for this," she said firmly.

He lowered his head a little, apparently taking her tone to be reprimanding. Tenten hadn't meant it that way. But if he thought his death was inevitable, he'd probably get himself killed. She just needed to snap him out of whatever doubts he was having. "Don't be nervous," she reassured, pushing herself off the wall. "We've taken the appropriate precautions."

"So we have," he answered absently. "But do you believe it'll be enough?"

"I do."

He sighed, reassured by her confidence, and rubbed the back of his neck. "Don't mind me. I'm just getting a bit sentimental. It'll pass, Senpai."

He still addressed her as an upperclassman, despite the fact that they'd been the same rank for years now. She'd asked him many times to just call her by name, but it seemed this particular habit of his was hard to break. "It's fine." She squeezed his shoulder gently, fondly. "We'll be fine. Now did you get the medical supplies from Sakura?"

"Mostly. She was still looking for replacement roots in the healing salve. The only ones that seem to have worked so far are indigenous plants."

"How long will it take?" She pinched the bridge of her nose to ease the pressure building in her skull. With their approaching departure, the stress had been manifesting itself more prominently.

"She's promised to have it by tonight. Tomorrow morning at the latest."

"I don't want to rush her, but that's cutting it very close. We may have to leave without it if—"

Hajiki cleared his throat to cut her off, indicating with a subtle jerk of his head that she look behind her. "I think you're about to have company." A glance over her shoulder confirmed what he said: Neji was approaching them.

"We're pretty much done here," she said, still looking over her shoulder.

"I'll talk to Sakura-san again."

She looked back at him. "Please. We'll meet tomorrow as planned. I'll make sure Jin is up to speed as well."

He bowed slightly to Tenten, and then to Neji, who had stopped just short of them to avoid any intrusion, before blurring out of view. Neji stepped into the vacated spot in front of Tenten.

"He is the third member of your team?" He asked, looking in the direction Hajiki had disappeared.

She wasn't surprised that he knew, and decided there was no need to dissemble anymore about why she had been so busy. "He is."

"His father died earlier this year."

"Yes."

"I see." He had all the pieces to the puzzle now, Tenten knew. The near-regular private meetings with the strategy council. The sealed scrolls she never let out of her sight. The team members—all without immediate family. If he hadn't realized what type of mission this was before, he certainly had now. Not that he would say anything. Not that he could say anything. He understood too well how classified missions worked.

"I'll be meeting Gasho-dono soon."

She nodded. "You said yesterday. Around noon, right?"

"Yes, here at noon." He turned his head to look at the office building next to them. As he did so, she noticed the slight discoloration of the skin along his neckline, just barely concealed beneath beige fabric of his tunic.

"You're hurt."

He looked back at her questioningly.

"Here," she indicated, stepping forward and tapping his tunic near the collar.

"Hn. That. It's nothing."

"It looks pretty big. Let me see," She gripped his jaw and turned his head up so that the stretch of his neck revealed the bruise more clearly. He stood patiently as she scrutinized his wound.

"How did it happen. Lee again?"

"He was lucky."

"You said that last time as well. Still, it must have hurt."

Neji turned his head towards her, lifting her hand away from his face, but not letting it go. "This is nothing compared to the damage I did to him."

"I am glad," Tenten began dryly, "that fifteen years of friendship has not tempered your desire to beat the living daylights out of each other." Though Neji and Lee's sparring sessions had evolved into something mutually beneficial, there was still something childishly competitive about the way they conducted themselves. "I suppose that boys will always be boys."

"You sound like my wife."

She pulled the hand he still held back to herself, using it to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. "Sei is a smart woman then."

"She tries, but does not understand our ways as you should. Not too long ago you didn't find sparring so intolerable."

He was right, not too long ago it hadn't been. But for reasons she did not like to think about now—hadn't even entertained, until Hyuga Sei had unceremoniously thrown them in her face just a few years ago—she had stopped training with him. Ever so often, he unwittingly picked at that scab.

"It was always intolerable, Neji. I was just too intimidated by you to say 'no' when we were younger."

"That," he replied as his eyes roved the top of the administration building next to them, "I find hard to believe."

She glanced up to the building as well, and caught flicker of silver and black robes from the top most balcony.

Satisfied that she had also spotted the Arrow Country ambassador, he closed their conversation. "I should be going."

"Of course," she swallowed past a suddenly dry throat. "It's getting late for you. Well, good luck, then."

"To you as well." He walked away, but then stopped. With his back to her he said, "And be careful."

The sentiment made her stomach begin to churn. She clasped her hands protectively over it. "Neji!" she called out impulsively as he began to walk away again.

He turned and waited.

"I—" she didn't know why she stopped him. What was she planning on telling him, exactly? How irresponsible. "I—I'll see you." She took a long, hard look at the lines of his face.

He bowed in acknowledgement, and left.

Though she desperately needed it, Tenten could not get herself to fall asleep. She found the most comfortable position she could: lying on her side, with her head cradled between bent arms. For half an hour now, she'd been staring blankly at her nightstand. Her mother's jewelry box sat there. Since her mother's passing, she'd kept it close by; even though it was of little use to her functionally, it had great sentimental worth. The only thing in it was something equally important.

She reached over and opened it. The back of the lid, which doubled as a frame, had an old picture tucked into it. She stared at it, wondering if they had ever really been that young.

Lee, whose hair hugged his face in precise lines from his first freshly cut bob, stood next to Guy. They both had their arms folded over their outthrust chests, wearing similarly large smiles. She herself stood next to them, holding her hands behind her back. She remembered being amused, though it wasn't entirely obvious from her tame expression. Between the two on her right and the one on her left, she looked rather non-descript. Neji was stiff on the opposite end from Guy and Lee, pressed so tightly to the edge that it seemed as if he might fall out of picture at any moment. He'd hated photographs, and probably found that particular one even more insufferable. She couldn't quite see his expression though; the glare from the moonlight had produced an arc of white directly over his face.

She tilted the lid down a bit, squinting until his features became clearer. She looked at him for a while. And then suddenly slammed the lid down, rolling over and harshly pulling the blankets over her head.

These things did not need to be given attention, especially not now, when the last thing she needed was to be distracted. Dwelling only gave them more credence, and she would not allow that. But then, the mind was cruel. The more she tried to push it away, every time she saw him… sought and avoided his company at the same time. It made her sick to think that feelings like that existed somewhere inside her.

"What is this? What am I doing, huh?" She squeezed her eyes shut, but that only seemed to focus her attention more. She kept hearing that soft angry voice in her head.

Liar.

"No."

Do you care for my husband?

Tenten swung her feet over the edge of the bed abruptly and headed for the prestine wooden desk in the corner of her room. If she couldn't sleep, then she would at least use this time to make sure all her affairs were in order. She pulled a clean sheet of paper from the desk's drawer and began writing.

To Be Continued…

Notes: The names of Tenten's teammates are actually names of academy students who were assigned to Neji and Tenten during one of the Naruto filler episodes.