Chapter Ten

The Godaime Hokage speared both her and Shikamaru with a steely gaze. "I can trust the two of you to work together despite your history, can't I?"

Oh, great, Temari thought. And then: Of course she knows. Everyone knew. Even in Suna, Shikamaru and her had been the main topic for months after their breakup.

In hindsight, it was a kind of interlude. Only Temari didn't know it at that time. What she knew was that it had been a bit more than one year since she and Shikamaru had broken up. She knew Hi no Kuni had a pirate problem and that a marauding band of missing-nin was plaguing Yu no Kuni. Konoha's forces were stretched thin and Leaf had turned to its allies for assistance. Which meant that after a year of absence, Temari was back.

She had avoided being sent to Konoha for the past months. Gaara had readily assigned her other missions and there was enough that needed to be done in Suna as well. A village, Temari had learned, never stood still. She could now understand why her father had had so little time for his children in the past, even though she still hadn't forgiven him entirely. But even small everyday chores could pile up until Temari was unable to look over her desk and if she had so much work to do – what could Gaara say about his workload? Seeing her younger brother fulfil his duties without so much as a complaint made her proud – and gave her a reason to continue forward. Only this time, when the messenger falcon had arrived, Gaara had singled her out with one glance and had asked her to go to Leaf. He needed someone who knew what he was doing, he said to the Council, and Temari was the best. And while she was proud that her brother relied on her that much she also felt her hands go cold and clammy thinking of whom she would have to face in Hidden Leaf. Then, she called herself stupid. It had been a year since she had last seen Shikamaru. She had moved on. Temari felt a smile blossom on her face at the realization and asked Gaara to be allowed to leave earlier that day in order to prepare for her assignment.

It wasn't yet fall in Hidden Leaf but it still was warm and clear. The gates welcomed her, wide open. The streets and plazas were abuzz with people and voices. The colors of the woods and the village greeted her like a lost daughter: it was as if she'd never been gone. The guards on duty did not seem familiar to her, which was no surprise. But the way along the streets was, and this surprised her. She emerged on the plaza in front of the Hokage's main office and signed in with the jounin at the check-in desk. From there, she was led to the Hokage's office. The room had changed subtly: the curtains were new, as was the small collection of sofas and armchairs in the one corner. There were flowers in the vase on the table. So similar and yet so different. The Godaime greeted her, Naruto by her side, and then Shikamaru walked in.

The same here, too. So familiar and yet so strange. Temari felt herself falling into the routine she had so finely developed in years of diplomatic work: the greeting, the first probing conversations, the tea. Until the moment she tasted the first sip of hot, aromatic green tea with a hint of vanilla, sweetened with honey and milk, she had not known how much she had liked it in the past. The conversation focused on her task – the setup of a joint task-force – and the Hokage shot her and Shikamaru a warning glance. A few last words and they were dismissed.

After four hours of patient planning, of Temari updating him on Suna's forces and them working out a preliminary strategy to counter and defeat the pirates and while, all the time, Shikamaru didn't look at her even once, she snapped. He seemed awkward but determined to make it work. In fact, he seemed to treat her like any other Suna nin – except for that don't-look-at-your-opponent-thing. Temari didn't know whether to be flattered or insulted.

Her pen dropped to her notepad with a muffled sound. "Spit it out." Glaring at him, she leaned back and crossed her arms in front of her chest. "Are you still angry with me? That's really unprofessional, Nara."

She saw him flinch and instantly regretted it.

"I think you have the right to be angry at me," Shikamaru said carefully and put down his pen as well. "And I have the right to be angry at you." But when he looked up and their eyes finally met she saw no anger in them at all.

Opening and closing her mouth she feared she looked like a stupid fish out of the water. "So… So what?"

"I don't know," he confessed. "It just feels awkward. But I think we can get past this." His eyes raked over her face quickly, searching for approval. "Can't we?"

Temari swallowed. "Look, I realize this is hard for either one of us. But I'd really like to skip the Let's be friends, okay?"

"What do you mean by that?" He asked, his voice carefully neutral. Temari went over her words and realized it sounded as if she did not want to be friends with him.

"I hate these fucking clichés!" She exploded. "Can't we just-" Forget about it, she had wanted to say, but it made five of some very beautiful years of her life sound so unimportant. Fidgeting, she looked down, unable to meet his eye.

"Okay," Shikamaru said after a small pause. "I think I got it. In that case…"

"What?" She looked up just in time to catch the tiny smile that spread over his face.

"Friends?" He offered.

Temari thought about it. Then, she nodded. "Friends."

Still a cliché, but she could live with that.

…

Another ten months later they were working on a list of suppositions for the Councils of the Five Shinobi Villages for a mutual contract on the treatment of prisoners of war when a knock resounded and a young, female chuunin entered, and, fidgeting, asked whether they wanted to take a break and whether she should bring in the ordered lunch. When Shikamaru nodded at her she blushed furiously and stammered a few words, then left overly hasty. Temari, who only now realized how starved she was, watched the exchange with a sly grin on her face. Shikamaru caught her and pulled up one brow in a one-sided frown but said nothing. Only when the platter of cold meat and cheese and a basket of bread had arrived – again served by the furiously blushing chuunin – and they had started to eat, he talked again.

"Is it too early to ask you if you have a boyfriend?"

Temari put down the piece of bread she was eating and took a sip of water. It was one of the things he had taught her: think about your answers before opening your trap. "I don't know. What do you think?"

Too early, Shikamaru, really? Inwardly, she smiled. It was his way of saying I know it's none of my business but I want to know, nevertheless. She could still read him so easily, always would be able to.

His answer came almost too fast. "I think you don't have to tell me." Something ran across his face, too quick for her to identify. But there was something in his voice that made her look up and think closer. He returned her watchful glance with one that was almost amused.

"Nara Shikamaru, are you messing with me?" She demanded incredulously and received a snort in return. "You are!" Temari leaned back, a smile stretching across her face.

Shikamaru leaned back into his chair, as well, his fingers idly playing with a few tomatoes on his dish. His face was impassive, but there was no pain in his eyes. Temari didn't feel the hurt, either. So she paused again, took a bite of her sandwich, then grinned at him broadly. "Is it too early to tell you I'm engaged?"

His surprise was genuine, as was the happiness she could see in his eyes. Had it really been two years since they had broken up? It felt so much longer. It felt like it had taken her an eternity to get over him and then another one to even consider dating again, and then another until she had fallen in love again when, in fact, it only had been twenty-two months. Such a short time to get over someone and to fall in love with someone else. Or wasn't it? And while she did not want to talk about everything that had happened since they had separated there were things she desperately wanted to tell him about. Why was it that she still could talk to him so easily? Or was it that she could talk to him easily again? Temari had no idea. "What about you?"

At her question, Shikamaru shrugged. No further questions, his eyes said. Temari decided to change the topic and blundered straight into the greatest faux pas of her life.

"How's Ino, by the way? I haven't seen her at all. Away on a mission?"

She could see her mistake in the way his shoulders tensed and his knuckles turned white. Shikamaru looked as if she had thrown an invisible brick wall at him and had left him no possibility to dodge. Temari, suddenly stricken by a nameless fear, almost didn't dare to ask. She licked her lips and gathered her courage. How to voice it in a way it wouldn't be too hard? Ino would have known which words to use.

"What happened?"

What would be worse, Temari thought, shaking: If Ino and Shikamaru had broken up after being together, or if Ino had found someone else and Shikamaru had watched her slip away, only then realizing that he had loved her for far longer than he had realized?

"One of Ino's missions went wrong. She was attacked by missing-nin. She protected two children and was stabbed in the back. Naruto found her before it was too late, but…" Shikamaru took a deep breath. "She's paralyzed from her waist down."

Temari felt all her blood drain from her face. "We heard a Konoha Anbu was badly injured but I didn't know…"

Shikamaru's voice held no feelings at all as he stared at the wall directly next to her head. "She won't ever walk again."

"God." Temari didn't know what to say. "That's… That's horrible. When did it happen?"

"Bit more than half a year ago."

She tried to imagine it: never being able to walk again. Never being able to run through the desert, feel the hot winds on her face. Never being able to skip down the stairs again… She couldn't. It was darkness and shadows all over.

"How is she doing?"

If Shikamaru was surprised by her interest, he didn't show it. "It was bad in the beginning. Depression and stuff. She managed to snap out of it eventually. It's getting better."

Had Temari been anyone else, she figured, he wouldn't have told her. But they had been so close once.

"Of course," she said with a certainty she wasn't sure she really felt. "It's Ino. What is she doing nowadays?"

Shikamaru stared at his scrolls without actually seeing them. "Working in her parents' flower shop."

"Hey," Temari said, pulling away his papers and forcing him to look at her. "You're not thinking this is your fault?"

He returned her intense stare, his face unreadable even for her. "None of your business."

It almost stung. It would have been her business, before. Now, Temari just leaned back, crossed her arms over her chest and returned his death glare. "No, it isn't. I recommend you talk to her before you suffocate in self-pity."

Shikamaru wordlessly stood up and walked out of the room. The female chuunin, returning with a fresh pitcher of water, almost dropped the object when he brushed past; shot a terrified (or was it accusing?) glance at Temari and departed again hastily.

…

She did it on impulse because she wasn't sure whether she would be welcomed or scorned. Ino was in the flower shop, as Chouji had told her she would be. Temari watched the other woman through the shop window for a minute before she entered the store.

"Temari!" Ino seemed both genuinely surprised and genuinely glad to see her, although her face didn't show much of it. They hadn't remained in contact despite the note on which they had parted. It hadn't been easy for Temari to not think about Ino without anger even though she knew, realistically, that the failure in relationship had been her and Shikamaru's, not Ino's. Still, it had taken her a while to cast aside her jealousy and then it had felt stupid writing to a person she only knew as her ex-boyfriend's childhood friend. What was she supposed to say? What would Ino think, and, worst of all: would she think Temari was writing to her only to ask about Shikamaru? There were a million reasons why the idea of a trans-village friendship seemed ridiculous, so she had left it at that.

Seeing her again after all that time brought back some of her initial feelings towards her – minus the anger. Good. It was nice to know that, even at her age, Temari had been able to grow. She'd always hated her short-temperateness and her habit of judging people too quickly. Ino had become, if possible, even more beautiful. Her silver hair still was shoulder-length. Her face was thinner and her initial sharpness had turned to fragility; it seemed as if a mere gust of wind could blow her away. She was wearing dark clothes and a turquoise scarf draped around her shoulders, nice colors in the vivid flower shop surroundings because they blended in discreetly. The invisible veil that always had separated her from everything and everyone still was there, impenetrable. But there was a smile on her lips that made her look much more real than she ever had before.

"I heard you were in town again," She said, not moving from her place but looking at Temari with something like a welcome in her eyes. "I wasn't sure you'd want to meet me."

"I'm glad I was able to come," Temari said, deliberately cheerful, and crossed the short expanse between them. She clasped the other woman's hand: it felt cool and small in hers. "I meant what I said that day, you know."

"How have you been doing?" Ino asked and Temari couldn't help herself: she glanced down at the wheel chair Ino was sitting in. Ino caught her staring at her legs and a shadow seemed to fall over her. It was as if, sitting in the midst of colors and flowers, scent and warmth, Ino had forgotten that she couldn't walk anymore, and had greeted Temari accordingly. And then Temari had reminded her of reality; a reality that, Temari could imagine, was especially harsh for the dedicated florist and Anbu. If something like this was to happen to her… Temari didn't even want to think about how she would feel.

She tore her glance off Ino's legs and looked her in the face with the dreading feeling that pity and embarrassment was clearly written in her face. Nevertheless, she refused to ignore the pink elephant in the room. "Shikamaru told me what happened."

"Well." What probably was supposed to be a smile died a premature death on Ino's face. "I appreciate the fact that you don't try to beat around the bush. It's extremely awkward when people stare at my legs mutely instead of my face. To think I used to lament over guys staring at my chest." It sounded as if she was joking. Was it possible? Could one lose something one had always taken for granted and still joke about it? "I was lucky," Ino continued. "I could have ended up being paralyzed from the head down."

"How…" Temari laced her fingers into each other behind her back, searching for a topic, words and a place to look at instead of Ino's face. "How do you do?"

"I manage. I have the shop. It keeps me busy. And Naruto asks for my opinion on Anbu matters or Leaf Intelligence now and then." She laughed, a short, pitiless laugh that actually sounded honest. "It's at night that it is hardest."

Temari had the feeling the last words had somehow slipped by Ino's defenses because the honesty and pain that laced her words surely hadn't been supposed to be obvious for her. Despite their long acquaintance they were strangers, after all. On the other hand, sometimes talking to strangers was far easier than talking to people one knew really well.

"But everyone has been really kind to me."

Something in Ino's voice made Temari halt. She eyed the woman who was busying her hands with a small wreath of ivy that she wound and unwound again and again. "You don't want them to be nice?"

"Not…" Ino waved at herself with one hand. "Not like that." Then her face closed itself, reminding Temari of the fact that this still was Ino, despite everything. "Not that it is any of your business, of course."

"It isn't." Temari didn't apologize. "I just… Wanted to ask whether you'd like to go for dinner tomorrow." Impulse only. She hadn't had any plans when she'd come to Ino's flower shop.

"Why not?" Ino seemed surprised at her own answer, and Temari was so, as well.

"Great. Tomorrow at seven? I'll pick you up."

"Fine." They smiled. Temari stayed for another half an hour until she made her way back to the place she was staying in. Shortly before falling asleep, her thoughts drifted back to Ino. How did it feel, smiling in the face of everything that had happened? A conversation popped into her mind, one she had had with Hatori after his father had died. You don't get through this alone, he had told her. I'm lucky to have you.

If Temari wasn't completely mistaken Ino had had the Konoha Twelve – eleven, without her – behind her. She hoped it had been enough.

She resolved to bring Shikamaru's misdirected guilt trip up sometime during her dinner with Ino.

…

"You're making Matsuri your personal aide, Gaara?"

Temari glanced up from the papers she was going through. Outside, the midday sun was burning down on sand and the ducked houses of the hidden village. Inside it still was warm but at least the glaring sun-rays did not reach the desk. It was the season of sleeping winds which made the heat all the more oppressing, but at least the amount of sand which was prone to creeping into every crack and every niche was reduced quite significantly.

"Yes." Gaara didn't look up from his reading.

Kankurou, on the other side of Temari's desk, glanced up as well, an obnoxious grin on his face. "She's the best there is, isn't she, little brother?"

"Better than you, although that is not very difficult."

"Outch!" Kankurou pressed both his hands to his chest. "You wound me, brother. Am I not doing my best for you each and every day here?" Temari snorted. Kankurou blinked at her from across the table. "But then, we all know how highly you value your precious little student."

"Do you." Gaara had mastered the art of deadpan long ago, Temari reflected and leaned back. It was on those moments when she loved her brothers most: the quiet, normal moments when they were together, working, doing whatever. Usually it was then when they were interrupted-

"Kazekage!" A shinobi burst into the room without having knocked, the obvious source for the hammering footsteps Temari had heard a few seconds before it had become clear. "There is something-"

The man, a jounin named Katou, came to an abrupt halt in front of Gaara's large desk. He gave a look at his superior and froze in embarrassment. "Esteemed Kazekage, I apologize for the sudden intrusion but there is something you need to see immediately!"

Temari was on her feet before she even realized it. Kankurou already was next to her. Gaara, on the other hand, remained completely calm.

"What happened, Katou?"

The man was stumbling over his own words. "We didn't think it would actually be possible, but then we saw – and the captain of the guard said to call you – it is huge, Kazekage! We never expected – completely taken by surprise-"

Frowning, Temari tried to make sense of the garbled words. She didn't sense any immediate danger from the obviously agitated shinobi in front of her but that didn't necessarily mean anything. It had been quiet lately, almost peaceful. For a second her thoughts went to Hatori – but he was out on a mission, it couldn't be anything concerning him. The thought was enormously calming, although her level of guardedness remained high.

"You just have to see this," Katou ended, sighing as if a huge load had been taken off his shoulders.

"Lead the way, then," Gaara said and motioned at the man to walk. Temari and Kankurou fell into step at either side of Gaara, the position they'd had for as long as she could remember.