Genma rolled his senbon pin in his mouth and looked up at the sky. He couldn't get her out of his mind. It wasn't that he was attracted to her, although she was very pretty, it was that he couldn't stand the way Tamotsu treated her. He had very high standards when it came to how you treated a woman. He'd seen them again this morning. They'd been in the same restaurant he'd gone to for breakfast. He remembered the conversation they'd had.

"I'll have the special. I'm so hungry this morning!" She'd said.

But Tamotsu had interrupted her order, "You've been putting a little weight on babe. She'll have the dieters special, thanks."

"Tamotsu! You know I don't like all that fruit and crap. I wanted eggs."

"Well, fine but you know what happens when you get fat, right?"

"Fine. The dieters special then."

Genma hadn't been able to take anymore. He was sitting in the booth right behind theirs and he turned around. "You know Tamotsu, you're an idiot. You have a gorgeous girl on your arm and all you can do is insult her and be mean. I think it's time for someone to grow up." Then he had winked at her and left.

He considered his actions, he probably shouldn't have said anything at all. After the conversation he'd had with her last night he'd left the bar, exasperated with the situation. He had decided that if she found the way Tamotsu treated her to be acceptable then it wasn't his business to intervene. He should have kept his mouth shut.

He was laying in the grass by the river, and he decided to wander in the nearby forest a bit. He hopped up to the trees because the view was always better from above. He wasn't in a hurry, he wanted to enjoy the view.

He came to stop and looked out over the forest. He loved the forest, there was nothing like it. The trees created a canopy that allowed the sun to dapple through and leave shadows all over the forest floor. The wind would rustle through the branches and make it sound as if they were talking to each other. And sometimes, if the wind blew hard enough it would rub the trees together and make it sound as if they were crying for the wind to stop hurting them. He could almost hear it now. Genma came out of his reverie and realized that the wind wasn't blowing hard enough and that he was actually hearing someone cry.

He hopped down to the forest floor and followed the sound of sobbing. Coming into a clearing he found Umeko, huddled into a ball, her knees pulled up to her chest and her head buried in them. Her shoulders were shaking with the sobs that were escaping her.

"Hey, kitten. Why are you crying?" He walked over and crouched next to her.

She looked up at him. Her eyes were puffy and red, mascara had run down her face in great black streaks that made her resemble a melting panda. And, he noticed, she had a rather large and angry red hand print on her face.

"Did he do that?" The anger in Genma's voice was barely contained.

She nodded.

"Was it my fault?"

"No..maybe. But it doesn't matter."

"It does. You didn't do anything wrong and you don't deserve to be hit, even if you did." Genma's anger was working up now. "Want to tell me what happened?"

"Not really."

"I won't get angry."

"It's my fault anyway."

"Yeah. What did you do? Assassinate his mother? Because hitting a girl is never ok." Genma rolled the senbon pin in his mouth as he thought about this rather sweeping statement and then he pulled his senbon pin out to hold in one hand. "Unless that girl happens to be a ninja assassin with skill equal to your own and she is set on killing you before you kill her." He winked and popped the senbon back into his mouth.

She giggled, "Have you done that then?"

Genma smiled, "Plausible deniability." At least she'd settled down a bit. He really wanted to bring her to Lady Tsunade and get Tamotsu fired but he knew he needed to move slowly. "So you aren't a trained Anbu level assassin masquerading as a filing clerk are you?"

She shook her head. "No. I sucked at being a ninja, didn't even make genin. My father was so disappointed in me. But he got used to it. He was happy that I was working in the filing office, helping the village."

"Was?"

"He died a few years ago."

"Oh. Sorry."

"It's ok. I'm used to it."

"So back to the current situation. Did Tamotsu hit you? Is that his handprint on your face?"

"If I said no, would you believe me?"

"Probably not. What happened?"

"After you spoke to him and left he was really mad at me. He's sure that I've been flirting with you and he is so jealous. We ate and then left. As we were walking around he started getting angrier and angrier. I tried to reassure him but he wouldn't listen. Finally I got mad too. And I told him that if he wasn't going to trust me then I was going to break up with him."

"Good for you!"

"Then he slapped me and said I was a waste of his time anyway." At this she dropped her head back onto her knees and started crying again.

Genma touched her arm. "Hey. It's ok. You're better off without him anyway."

"Am I?" She was almost yelling at him. "I'm almost thirty! All the nice guys have been snatched up and I'm going to be alone. He's a little younger than me but it didn't bother me. I was happy to be with someone that told me he cared and wanted to spend time with me. Now I'm alone again." She continued to cry into her knees.

"Maybe I should have left you alone, then?"

"No. I know he wasn't being nice to me. Or respectful. It's just that it was easy to fool myself and think it was better then being alone."

"Is being alone that terrible?" Genma wondered if he had just come to accept being alone. He hadn't had a serious relationship in years. It was hard to find someone that could accept the limitations of life with a ninja.

"All my friends are married and starting families. I just get to stand by and watch."

Ah. He was getting the picture now.

"And if I want to go out for a drink I have to do it alone or on mom's night out. If I go alone I usually get hit on by the drunkest guys there."

Genma cringed, he hoped he'd never been one of them.

"And then, I have to go home alone, to an empty, cold bed. Do you have any idea how hard that is, night after night?"

"Actually I do. I can't say that the drunk guys have hit on me all that much but my bed is also cold and empty much of the time."

She looked at him. "But you have such a reputation! You could have any girl in Konoha!"

This was news to Genma! "Really? Any girl? How about you?" He smiled at her mischievously.

"Well almost any girl." She smiled back with a glint in her eye.

"Aww. Why not you?" His teasing tone drew another smile from her.

"Because I don't date old men!"

Genma stared at her, his senbon pin drooping from his mouth. Was he old?

"How old do you think I am?"

"I don't know, really. But I think you must be almost ten years older than me. You've been a ninja forever!"

"Really? I'm thirty-two. And I made chunin at thirteen, so I've been a ninja for just under twenty years. Hardly forever. The third Hokage, now he'd been a ninja forever."

Umeko giggled. "You're only thirty-two? Wow. I thought you were much older than that. I'm twenty-eight."

"See, that's hardly thirty. You have ages before you have to worry about being an old maid."

"Mmmm. I guess."

"So let's go see the Hokage. Because I think she'd be very interested in how one of her Anbu treats women."

"I don't want to cause any trouble."

Genma took her hand in his. "Umeko, Tamotsu is the one who has caused the trouble. We can't have someone like that serving in Anbu. Come on, please?"

She got up and they made their way to the Hokage's office. When they arrived it was quiet and he knocked on the door.

"Come in!"

He pulled her along and said, "Come on."

Lady Tsunade looked up in surprise. Genma was pulling a frightened looking young woman into her office. "Genma, I cannot, in good conscience, order anyone to go out on a date with you simply because you can't find a date on your own."

Genma sighed, "What the hell do I have to do to fix my reputation here?!"

Tsunade laughed, "What can I do for you then?"

Genma explained what he had observed that week in Tamotsu's behavior, including what he had seen in the breakroom.

Tsunade looked at Umeko. "Is this true? Is that his handprint on your face?" The rage on her face made Umeko shudder a little.

"Yes Ma'am. It's all true. He was never nice to me. Today is the first time he ever hit me though."

"Yeah, well once they've done it once it'll happen again. There is never a good excuse to hit a girl."

"Unless she's an assassin, right?" Umeko laughed.

Tsunade looked up at Genma, "Just what have you been telling her?" But the laughter in her eyes was apparent. "GUARDS!" she hollered for the Anbu guards that were always outside her door and ordered them to send someone out to find Tamotsu and bring him in to her. "She doesn't need to be here though. I can handle this myself. Genma, why don't you walk her home?"

"Yes Ma'am. Come on Umeko." He offered her his arm.

"What will happen to him?" She asked as they walked through town.

"I don't know. But I do know that she's fair." He looked down at her, she really was quite pretty. "I was wondering if you wanted some ramen on the way home? You know, not a date or anything. Just a couple of friends hanging out?"

"That'd be fun!"