Notes: Set either at times uncovered in the real storyline or in the future. I've taken some liberties with the final outcome of the manga (read: I guessed). And there is spoiler potential here for the manga as well.

Disclaimer: Berry and I still lack Naruto ownership. Maybe one day when we're rich.

Shouldn't, Couldn't, Wouldn't

By Nessie

"The Lovers"

The day Neji was promoted to Jounin, Tenten was pissed. So pissed, in fact, that she could be seen releasing barrage after barrage of weapons, blunt and sharp, for three hours. Gai stood well back, able even in his at-times blinding optimism to know the difference when one needed a hug and when said potential hug recipient was willing to stab a would-be hugger with a remaining blade. Lee watched in pitying awe, absorbing his own disappointment so that it could be vented on an enemy in the next fight.

When Hyuuga Neji himself came by the open field later, presumably seeking a late afternoon training session (as though nothing special had transpired), he regarded her fiery eyes, angrily laboring breath, and mussed hair buns with his usual critical gaze. "Upset, are you?" he questioned coolly.

Tenten faced him, incredulity freshly painting over her tormented expression. "What?" She responded as if he declared her gender debatable.

Neji considered his team's kunoichi, her backdrop a summer sky and fully-dressed trees, their bark brown and chipped by the probably hundreds of weapons she had thrown at them. A tiny smirk graced his lips. "Nothing." He fell into the stance for his Jyuuken. She was only too happy to make a target of him.

Tenten was the anomaly of Team Gai, and it had nothing to do with the fact that she was female. Gai was normally held in doubt by his fellow ninja, Lee's training was brutally rigorous on a daily basis, and Neji carried the burden that ever Hyuuga branch family member endured. It was the cause of these things that they worked as hard as they did.

Tenten, with no known family, competent mastery of basic jutsu arts, and general approval from the Konoha community, could claim none of these as reasons to motivate her to work harder. And she longed forjustification; not only recognition, but a reason to desire recognition.

Neji knew she had not expected to arrive at Jounin status before he had, and he knew that Tenten fully comprehended his unremitting drive to persevere within his clan. But he had been with his teammate on the day the Hokage, Tenten's former idol Tsunade, had taken Haruno Sakura as her apprentice. She had never said as much, but he was aware that Tenten had seen the event as a personal failure.

Just as he was aware that she considered his promotion one more achievement lost to someone else.

He knew he should say something, as her teammate; reassure her, get it out there. He believed in her abilities. And he realized that she was frustrated with herself, even scared that, because she didn't have the tendency to make leaps of progress in the way he and Lee did, her skills had already reached their plateau at age fifteen. Neji knew from their training that this was not the case, that she improved gradually but no less competently than he did. He continued to practice with her so that on the day she did acquire his level of strength, he would be able to defend against her lethal, sharp mastery.

Neji felt he should tell her all of this, if for no other purpose than to make her stop hurling things in Hyuuga-directed rage instead of personal motivation. And he knew that he would stay silent because he also felt he shouldn't destroy the neutral image he offered the world – including Tenten.

Their first S-rank mission alone together was very close to disastrous. Tenten, at last a Jounin, had never articulated as much, but Neji believed it intuitively. Lee had been hospitalized due to a gung-ho charge on the last assignment, which left Neji and Tenten to infiltrate a guerilla base in the Land of Lightning and interrogate the group's leader without the advantage of Lee's excellent speed.

Instead, Neji had to operate incognito as a member of the rebels until Tenten could break in, isolate the leader, and loosen his tongue at the point of a kunai or (if she was feel dramatic) her katana.

Their timing was off. Neji didn't know whose fault it was, and maybe it didn't matter whether Tenten made her move too soon, bursting into the one-story cabin using explosive tags, or Neji created a diversion too late. The outcome was that Neji woke from a lucky punch in the forest outside the Lightning border to find the guerilla leader bound to a tree by Tenten's rapidly diminishing chakra strings. He knew better than to ask her what she had done. He watched the way her arm muscles steadily trembled as she rinsed dried blood from her cold steel that evening as he took notes on the leader's quickly-surrendered intelligence.

There were only a few times in his life that Neji had felt worthless. Those of the Hyuuga clan were rarely without purpose. But he felt that way then, when he saw Tenten release the now-friendless man to the dark wild, her eyes as lifeless as those of the men she had slain. Neji had no idea what her thoughts were.

She came into their tent the next night on their return trip home, to take her turn to sleep and allow Neji his turn to keep watch. She half collapsed on the bedroll he occupied, and for a brief minute the warmth of her exhausted body met the tension of his, one of her hands lifted to curl into the cotton of his shirt. He felt her embarrassment in that moment, her apology, everything he too was experiencing but did not display. He realized how far they had come, what it meant to be adults who had undergone more than just a change of uniform or status title.

His retreat was gentle, but a retreat nonetheless. Then he went out and left her to sleep with moist eyelashes, because Neji couldn't bring himself to stay.

Uchiha Sasuke abandoned Hebi and returned to the village and, after the initial steps taken to ensure his good intent, rejoined what had once been called Team 7. It was almost as though Sasuke had never really left but had merely been absent, the way Uzumaki Naruto had when he'd trained with the Sannin Jiraiya.

Most surprising of all was that Haruno Sakura still held affection for the Uchiha. Neji and Tenten discovered this firsthand when Lee announced he was giving up his pursuit of Sakura's love. The event struck a chord with the Hyuuga, especially when he looked on as Tenten tried to persuade their friend differently.

"But I thought you were completely bent on getting her to care about you, Lee! From when we were thirteen."

Lee fielded the statement with a sheepish look. "I...was, yes. But it's been ten years, hasn't it? I have no intention of interfering some someone else's happiness, especially if it directly affects Sakura-san's own."

Tenten sighed her disapproval of the situation. "You're way too complacent."

Neji agreed that twenty-three was a good age to come to terms with any relationship. He was still highly discomfited, however, when Lee asked not much later and quite out of the blue: "You're still in love with Tenten, Neji, aren't you?"

He was grateful he had already swallowed the tea the two men were having at lunch after a report to Tsunade, otherwise Neji suspected he might have actually choked on it. "Excuse me?" he demanded, his dignity dented but not lost.

Lee wiggled his eyebrows at him, not mischievously but in curiosity, which was a little odder. "Don't pretend like you never have been. We know you have. Gai-sensei and I confirmed it when you two came back from that S-rank mission and you were giving her puppy-dog eyes."

"I did not." But he partially activated Byakugan to check for eavesdroppers anyway, because Hyuuga Neji's love life (or lack thereof) was not simply something to be publicly discussed, and he was very close to forcibly depriving Lee of his capability of speech. "I was...concerned."

"But that was over two years ago, Neji! And the puppy-dog eyes remain!"

"Will you please," he gritted out lowly, "stop referring to me as having puppy-dog eyes?" It was a threat rather than a request.

Lee drained the rest of his tea. "Fine. Deny it all you wish, but it's evident that you love her. You've been in love with her foryears." And probably just to prove that the killing glare Neji was aiming at him had no effect, Lee added, "Though you've made as much progress as I ever did with Sakura. Which is to say, none."

Had they been on a training field, Neji would have pummeled Lee into the ground until his aching spine prevented him from laughing as he ridiculously did now. "She's my teammate."

The Beautiful Green Beast scoffed as they exited the tea shop together, his gait far more jovial than Neji's. "It's really too bad you feel that way. Tenten's been in love with you even longer than you have her. Of couse, her feelings are far more youthful than yours."

That physically stopped Neji, and Lee was actually a number of paces ahead before he noticed Neji was not with him.

"What's wrong?"

"Where is she?"

Lee grinned, the too-white teeth gleaming in the sun. "Don't tell me–"

"I won't. Now where is she?"

"At home. She said she wanted to take a day to repair her..." Lee's eyes went wide when Neji ran past him. "Weapons..."

As the youth-obsessed Jounin had promised, Tenten was on the roof of her apartment complex, likely having come up there to work since it would be too hot inside. She was armed with a small stone wheel on a pedal-controlled mechanism. He didn't bother to study the object any further than to comprehend she was in the process of sharpening blades of various lengths and widths. Seeing them all spread out on the roof nearly gave him pause. He forgot, sometimes, the sheer number of her weapons.

"Tenten."

The brunette kunoichi looked up, her eyes going wide to see Neji standing on the edge of the rooftop, looking down at where she sat working the pedal of her wheel. "What's going on, Neji?" Sparks flew from the grind, the reflection of them in her eyes like drops of gold that faded in moments.

"I'm not going to let you be in love with me."

Brown eyes widened, and Neji clenched both fists at his sides. He hadn't intended to say it like that. Now that he had, Tenten looked somewhere between hurt and irritated.

"What?" Her tone was identical to the one she'd used on the day he became a Jounin.

Neji folded his arms so she could not see the way his chest moved from his erratic breathing. "Lee says you're in love with me. What I mean is...I don't...I would not let us continue this way."

Some of the emotion seeped from her gaze. "I understand, Neji."

"You do?"

"Yes," said Tenten, getting to her feet as the wheel slowed to a stop. "You don't want any hindrances." Her eyes slanted somewhat downward. "And you find my presence, what...distracting?"

Had Gai and Lee been in the vicinity, Neji was sure he'd have received Konoha kicks to the face by now. "No," he told her seriously, desperate to correct any damage rather than further it. "I'm saying...Tenten, you aren't the only one in love."

Her posture slackened now, and she fiddled with the round hilt of a kunai, as though something she had expected was newly confirmed. "Oh. I see. Who is she?"

Who was— Oh. Finally recognizing the misunderstanding between them, Neji didn't bother to hide his smirk. Really, Tenten was very amusing sometimes, but he did wish she would be less kind to him at times. "It's you."

A similar "oh" look came upon her face, and Tenten dropped the kunai just as he stepped toward her to pull her in for a kiss that had been put off for two years.

"Does this mean you're my lover?" Tenten asked with a grin when they broke apart for air.

Neji inclined his head so that the bridge of his nose gently brushed the skin at her temple. "Of course not. It means you're mine."

And he wouldn't allow that to be changing anytime soon.

The End