WARNINGS: Pre-marital sex is mentioned. If you're not comfortable with this, which I understand, don't read it. Also contains references to my past for TenTen. For more on that, please see my 'Curry of Love' stories.

Katana
By: Reggie

It was ironic that her entire life hung on what happened in the next two minutes, and she wasn't even in battle.

No, instead, her fate rested almost completely on this little strip that she'd had to pee on, and now could only wait until it made up its mind whether she had a future or not. Well, no, that wasn't fair. It wasn't the fault of the strip if she didn't. That was all her, with a little help from Neji.

They hadn't meant for it to happen. Of course they hadn't, or it wouldn't have, because they'd both agreed to wait. Wait until Neji had his clan fixed so their family wouldn't have to face the trials he had as a child. Until TenTen had reached Jounin level and had a team of her own that would keep her in the village so she could be with her kids. Until she was sure that she would never be the kind of mother she had. Until they were a real family, with rings and photo albums, and all that stuff so Guy-sensei wouldn't come unglued on them and see them as irresponsible children.

In a weird way, this was partly Guy-sensei's fault. If he hadn't gone and gotten himself almost killed on that mission so that Kakashi-sensei had to come wake her in the middle of the night to say good-bye, just in case, she wouldn't have had to seek comfort from Neji in the dark midnight hours.

She wouldn't have wound up in Neji's bed for cuddles, long kisses, and the promise that someone would still love her if she lost the man who had been her father figure for over a decade now. Somehow those kisses of comfort had melted with the darkening of the night into kisses of passion, and the usual voice of warning in her head had been strangely silent while fear and clothing were stripped away. She had been too afraid for their teacher, of being left so totally alone, that there wasn't room inside her to be afraid of consequences. There had only been space for Neji and the need to know that someone loved her enough to hold, and touch, and kiss. Everything else faded in the dawn until it was just the two of them, sweaty and tangled together in his sheets.

Maybe they had been irresponsible children. They'd certainly behaved like it afterwards. Or maybe that was just her. Neji seemed inclined to recognize that she was his first, to continue that deeper love they had felt. Only TenTen knew they couldn't, because that kind of love was dangerous. It was leaving their weaknesses exposed to the enemy, something she'd been trained from birth not to do. It had made things tense and awkward for the two months.

This wasn't going to help them any, if Anko's statement was correct.

Just the thought of the older kunoichi still sent TenTen's blood boiling. Who had given her permission to swoop in and ruin her life like this anyway? TenTen had just been walking down the road, minding her own business, when she'd run into the purple haired woman. Anko had stopped, pushing the dango in her mouth to one side while she grinned wolfishly, leaning down to pat TenTen's stomach.

"Due in December," Anko had said simply. "The father Neji or some other poor sap from a mission? Little surprised you were that careless, to be honest."

She hadn't been able to process that. It was as if Anko was speaking another language altogether, one she had heard but didn't know. "I…what?"

Anko took a bite of her dumplings, speaking around the mouthful. "I've seen it all the time. That bulge on your belly, you'll have a crying, pooping, slobbery bundle of joy in December. My congratulations."

She couldn't help being a bit insulted in spite of her shock. Hinata was seven months pregnant with her and Lee's twins. That was a baby bulge. The two or three pounds of weight she'd put on from stress eating while her sensei was recovering was not. Then she had remembered the feel of Neji all around her, the smell of his soap in her hair, on her skin, his kisses on every part of her, and it was enough to make her wonder. Enough for fear and dread to choke her until she needed to prove to herself that it wasn't true.

Which was why she was locked in the bathroom in the apartment, waiting with sinking fear as she stared in the mirror at her reflection and the stupid stick sat on a plastic cup on the sink. What would she do if it turned out positive?

She could always tell Neji that it was a mission baby. She'd been on kunoichi missions before, she'd known and experienced sex since she'd turned seventeen. Though she'd always been careful about protection during those times, rare as they were, Neji couldn't know that. She could claim that and spare him the reality she herself could not avoid.

What they had shared that night though…Neji had loved her, in a way no one else had ever tried. They had touched souls, and from that maybe something had been created. If it had, did she really have a right to cut him off from that? He'd mentioned before that he wanted to be the kind of father his own had been. He wanted children, and a family, even if TenTen herself was still unsure.

It was too late to be unsure. Possibly as much as two months too late.

Two minutes was up, and she had to close her eyes and gather her courage before she could look. No matter what happened, she had to be positive. She had to be strong. She'd survived her life this far, she could keep going. She could.

The little blue plus sign looking back at her so infuriated the young kunoichi that she threw it, with a good dose of chakra behind it, at the mirror so that it shattered.

She sank to her knees among the broken glass and sobbed.