a/n: thank you for reading!

FIVE

The orders came at the end of last October. He'd been stationed with two other men, both from Suna, in a one-room shack on the edges of Iwa for over a week waiting for a ship to come in that had gone far off schedule. The request came during the early dawn as he sat on the rocks and watched the sunrise. The old fisherman whose boat drove by every morning delivered it. He never knew the full-reaches of his allies, but it always surprised him (though it shouldn't: Suna was good at making enemies).

They wanted him in Konohagakure. It was time for him to come home.

Shikamaru took his shitty instant coffee back into the shack and nudged one of the others awake.

"It's your turn," he said, moving to lie out on the undesirable cot that'd been left for him. "Moment this job is done," he continued, "I'm putting in a transfer."

His coworkers laughed, still half-asleep. "You'll be treated like a dog in the city too," they said, but Shikamaru had already closed his eyes and didn't respond.

He submitted his paperwork a few days after they got back. Some people looked at him like he was crazy — going from special forces to babysitting isn't the usual line of occupational development, to say the least; but a few others acted like they understood. Everyone needs a break now and then. And this was only a break, wasn't it?

It was easy. They always needed people in the Fire, and with his qualifications, he was hired without interview; without prior meeting.

It's no matter. He's been told all about her beforehand. He'd seen her for years beforehand. She never knew it, but for years, prior to their meeting, he'd occupied the same spheres as her, orbiting her; watching her.

And once the task comes in, he is taught about her and about the job itself. He is given her schedule, her likes and dislikes, her interests and role in the palace. He studies her as one would an assignment. She is the assignment, after all. She is the job.

It'll surely end with him killing her. He's always known it. It's what happens during a revolution, simply put, even though his assignment is to kill the king. He must go through her — through her is the closest a Konoha-born man can get. In this palace, the king's room is just one floor above hers. It'll be easy. He's been preparing for this for years.

It's been his goal since the day he signed up. In some ways, it'd been his goal long before that. Maybe it'd been his goal since the moment she came into his life all those years ago.

He's been preparing. Preparing. Prepared, as the door opened and he kneeled and she walked into the room, her footsteps on the stone, the hem of her black dress visible in his bowed stance. He's prepared. He's been prepared, every day before. Every day since.

He's prepared, even now.

Even now.

Now.

Did he know, even then? All those years before? When he hated her then — more hatred for her than any of her brothers, than anyone else in a similar position — was it because he knew? Because, somehow, somewhere, he always knew it? Knew that, maybe, when it all came down to it, if there were two options before him, one chosen at the whole expense of the other, he might choose her? …Even long before he knew her, long before… before. Did he always know? When he was a kid and her hair reflected the sunlight until the dust covered the sun for both of them, did he know, in his gut, that it could be her? As though the whole of time stood before him at twelve years old and he knew that, at some point, inevitably, with the same ineluctable enigmaticism as the sunrise and sunset and the crash of the Iwa waves against the shore as the fisherman called out to him and the wind in the pines as the clouds changed shape throughout their journey, that she'd ruin him? That she'd bring him to ruin? That she'd level him, without even meaning to? Did he know, even then? Does he know, even now? Does he know, now, which of the two choices he'd reach out to? Was he? Was he really prepared? For this?

Tuesday, they walk far from the gardens. They are out of the palace, far from the eyesight of others, near the west border of the town, near enough to a stream that, in the silence, they can hear the gentle sound of it.

They're a few feet inside the edge of the woods, the trees not so dense that they cannot walk with ease, but heavy enough that more of the ground is in shadow than not.

She is ahead of him, talking about nothing, recounting a treatise on water rights and land grants a century before that she'd read recently (still reading about laws that are defunct in his current country), and he is watching her, as he always does. He is watching her neck and her hair and the way her shoulders move with her breath. He can feel, without even concentrating on it, how her neck feels beneath his hand.

He's always known, hasn't he? He's never been prepared, for anything. Even now.

He stops and her voice trails.

You know why, she'd said to him, before. It would be you and I.

Not now. Not anymore.

She has stopped a few feet from him, her head turned to her shoulder, catching him, checking on him, from the corner of her eye.

"Three Mondays from now," he says, voice steady, working hard not to emote, to stay on his own feet, "there will be no moon."

There is a pause. Then, sharply, she turns her head away, facing forward. Her shoulders are harder now.

They've never talked about it. They've never talked about that night in the ballroom, in the bedroom, in the hallway. They've never given voice to what they both know is true: her accusation and her choice.

You know why, she'd said.

"You know what you're asking me, don't you?"

She's crying. He can hear it in the shake of her exhale. He waits. He remembers months ago on a balcony overlooking the fields and the fury of her question. He remembers, too, her shoulders pressed against his door.

"You know what your answer is, don't you?" He replies, mimicking a conversation so long ago, he can't even remember what any of them were demanding in the first place.

And then Shikamaru presses forward (she knows where he is, doesn't she) and reaches out to her, turning her around before she can move on her own, palm gripping her shoulder as he forces her to step back.

She doesn't fight him.

She meets his eyes and allows him to walk her back sharply, lets him hurt her, push her into the trunk of a tree, hard until she can't move anymore.

It's always been this. It's always been her.

He thinks of nothing, or too much, pulling a net zero with only the overwhelming urge to lean forward. His lungs ache. His hands are too unwieldy. The desire to press into her, through her, beneath her skin and bone and claw out the muscle, to feel the pulse of her own blood thrumming, to hold her life in his hands in the way only she has ever seemed to hold his.

Shikamaru opens his mouth to kiss her, shares her air, closes his eyes, tastes her on his tongue long seconds in advance of actually touching her.

She has her hands on his shoulders too though, holding him back just enough.

"No." She says, but her fingers are curling into his shirt, the fabric thin enough in the summer weather for him to feel her nails scratching.

His lips feel wet, heavy, watering. The force with which he wants hurts, deep and visceral, to the point that even his teeth ache to urge him forward. He's so close, so close.

"No."

"Is that an order?" He doesn't recognize his own voice.

"Yes," she breathes more than she says. Her pulse pounds beneath his hands. "It's an order."

Shikamaru tucks his chin, but doesn't move back. The air on his face is instantly cooler as he looks down versus looking at her. Her hands are still curled into his clothing, holding him in place.

He watches her chest heave. He has her so pushed back against the tree, she is on her toes, standing on the balls of her feet.

Her shoes are slipping on the uneven ground.

He ducks away, his palms flattening against her and then lifting up, the pressure against them gone. Her fingers release his shirt without hesitation. No one stops him. No one, neither of them, not them, stop him.

And then he is feet from her. She is looking at him, but his eyes are on the ground, capturing only the edges of her toes, halfway up her dress, keeping her in his sights without looking directly at her. He is paid, after all. He's paid, still. He has paid, enough.

Temari — she leaves first. Quickly. It's hardly a minute, and then she's gathered, and she turns back and begins deeper into the woods.

Shikamaru has to work to move his eyes higher, back to her shoulders as he follows her. He can't think of anything other than her. She goes deeper into the forest. Their walk isn't over, she isn't returning to the palace. Yet.

They don't speak. They don't speak again for the rest of the day. She says nothing to him. When she does loop back, eventually, he stays behind her. Unsteady, but behind her. And, hours later, when Mijin appears for his relief, her door doesn't open on the transition to bid one hello and the other goodbye.

"You've been underutilized your entire life," he says.

Temari doesn't look up, but turns the book in her hand over to see the back cover.

"By virtue of my position?" She reaches up to slip the book into the empty slot on the shelf. "It is advantageous to people like you, is it not?"

Shikamaru huffs. He doesn't mean that.

The princess life is not for her. That's what he means.

The silk shoes. Her hair. The gentleness she knows to hold in the set of her mouth when she speaks to others (which she has never used when speaking to him)— it's not—

"What else would I do?" She asks when he doesn't respond, still not looking at him, eyes scanning over the next shelf. They're in a corner of the library he hadn't yet been to. "Where else would we be, you and I?"

That was his intended topic; his eventual question. That was his point.

She's never failed to understand him. That's always been a problem with her.

He still hates her (despite recent appearances).

She sighs lightly as she pulls out another book and Shikamaru straightens his position against the wall. There is dust in the light from the window. When she reaches up, her arm disturbs it.

She'd work in the government, she declares one night as they sit and eat on her balcony and pass a jug of wine between them.

"Something more tangible than this," she hypothesizes. "I'd have a genuine role I'd be paid for." She lowers her eyes, her back pressed against the railing, legs extended on the stone, ankles crossed inches from where he lays, head in his hand. She smirks, chin gesturing at him. "Maybe military."

"You'd be better at it than me."

A huff, half a smile. "Yeah. I know."

Something diplomatic, maybe. They could be together and there would be nothing stopping them like there is now. They could be together without any of this. They could still represent their countries, still love their land, and openly love each other. It was, he dreamed, possible.

He watches her shoulders, darker against the white of her nightdress — yes, that nightdress —, bronzed in the edges of the sun.

He's figured it all out — though others have taken credit and made their own machinations weeks after he had already presented the blueprint to them — by the time he is finally instructed.

They walk back from breakfast to her room. She hesitates (just an off-pace inhale) as he follows her in, but doesn't protest. Her bed is made. His stomach hurts.

Temari, who has been eyeing him in vague question since he entered, stands near the foot of her bed, her hand on one post.

Her eyes are lighter than any other part of her. He's as much a coward as any for his inability to meet them.

It should be easy. All of this — from day one, it should have been easy. He has an easy job. A singular task. He's figured out dozens of trajectories to finalization; hundreds of methods in which he (or someone else, anyone, anyone else) could bring the dreams of his people to fruition. It should be easy. Except it was her.

And nothing about her is easy.

Shikamaru swallows. He still can't meet her eyes (it's easy to be scared of them too — that's something else that's always been easy). How does he ask it? How does she say yes (which she will, because, of course, she is here too; because, of course, she knows this too)?

It was supposed to be easy.

Temari keeps her gaze steady, but she's impatient. She doesn't wait for him to come around. She doesn't wait for the words of whatever he is preparing to bear upon her to come out of his mouth. She has always had better things to do. Annoying him has always interested her — waiting for him hasn't.

Temari huffs, eventually. His throat feels like it's being crushed. He stays still, hardly able to do more than keep upright as she walks past him and over to her balcony, throwing open the doors and stepping out.

It should've been easy.

(and it's not like her arms have ever been open

they've never been open — anything but)

The sun isn't high yet, but stepping into it still makes him squint, despite his eyes never lifting off the ground.

He comes beside her, leaning over the balcony to match her position, letting the stone dig into the sleeves of his forearms. Temari doesn't react at his joinder, but keeps her attention on the gardens below.

"Would you like some flowers?" His voice is scratchier than in his imaginations of this conversation.

Temari takes a long breath.

Before them, gardens stretch across rest of the visible property, only being vaguely cut off by the beginning of the forest and its paths where they first fell in love.

She could send him (or anyone she wanted) to pick a bundle for her. She could go on her own, push her unlabored fingers into the stems and rip them from the bushes. She could ask someone and, before she's even brushed her teeth, have a bouquet in her hand.

"The Yamanaka Shop is the best here, don't you think?" Her tone is measured, paced. "Our flowers look nothing like that back home."

Shikamaru wants to reach out a hand. He can imagine the placement of it on her lower back. He imagines how she would feel beneath him. If it were anything else (the anyone remains), if he were asking something else, he may do it: just to offer something he doesn't yet know how to say out loud.

The Yamanaka shop is the best in town.

"Your brother?" He proposes an hour later as they walk. She doesn't turn around.

It's a bold move. It's a hand he is unsure to play, but does anyway.

What's it worth anymore?

She doesn't even break pace. Anyone around them would hardly notice a question had been asked, much less a die gambled.

"…is he?"

"Gaara," she cuts him off in a little more than a whisper. "Not Kankuro. Not now."

What's it worth anymore: his hands?

"Will he be with us?"

She never breaks step.

"If I ask."

When they enter the shop, an older man is helping a customer. Shikamaru recognizes neither of them. The older gentleman is tying off a bouquet. When Temari enters, only the customer is surprised.

Shikamaru, right behind her, moves in front and, this time, Temari follows.

The stairs down to the basement creak with their weight.

It feels as though it should be dark down here; as though someone should light a single candle from a chandelier and let it swing back and forth. But it's well lit with chairs and tables and tiled floors and stacks of boxes against the wall.

She comes in behind him. They haven't spoken more than a few sentences since his shift began, but her presence is enough to answer the uncertainty he has. Still, as they come to the bottom of the stairs and turn to face the other parties in this meeting (other parties, as though he is somehow other than them), he is reminded of how he hasn't been able to keep anything down in days.

He feels sick even now.

But his father isn't looking at him, and without hesitating, Temari steps past him.

This isn't about him. None of it ever was.

"Commander Nara," the princess says.

Hm.

He wonders, not for the first time, how long she has known — how long she, too, has been waiting. He watched her every day for months. Stripped military ranks weren't something she was taught in class.

If he had been expecting the customary your highness — even here — he still would have been surprised to hear it coming from his father's mouth. They are there to agree to the ending of such title, there to strip her title from her and ensure that none of her ilk will ever hold it again. Yet his father says it; says it even with the respect Shikamaru knows has never come from his own lips.

There is a table with more chairs, but only his father is sitting down. They're surrounded by eight others, five of whom Shikamaru recognizes. Most of them are older, of a generation more aligned with his father, and at least one of the five he knows he only recognizes, distantly, as a former member of his father's staff back before the occupation began. Shikamaru doesn't remember a name. He doesn't believe he has seen the person since he was twelve; but here they are, still by his father's side.

Temari, with a steady step, moves to take a seat opposite his father.

As her guard, he'd stand closer to her; but now, he's no guard of hers. So Shikamaru steps backward toward the edges of the wall (if there were shadows to melt into, he'd disappear among them). Here, he is not her ally.

Temari is much cooler than he is, completely without affect.

"You asked for this meeting?"

Shikaku doesn't look past her at this son, but keeps his gaze upon hers. "Shikamaru believed you would come."

"Here I am."

"Yes," his father exhales and the room immediately shifts, easing up. "We're glad you are."

Shikamaru keeps quiet as she leads him to the only bar they've ever been to together.

It's no time to celebrate, but he doesn't ask her about it.

It's long past six now. He'd be off the clock if they were back at the castle. So she sits in the corner and he turns his back on her as he orders drinks across the room.

It's mostly empty, given the early time of week.

He sits beside her on the round table, knee brushing hers as he adjusts. Temari isn't looking at him, but is eyeing the glass he'd brought back.

"In another life," she says, the words clearly having been on her mind for some time, "would we have ended up here?"

He watches her, knowing she feels it. Her hair is always both lighter and darker than he remembers it to be. He never knows as much about her as he thinks he does.

"In this bar?"

"Don't be patronizing." Temari takes a long drink from her glass, hardly bothering to taste the liquid before committing to it.

"In another life…" He looks down momentarily at the silk of her sleeve. Then he moves back to her lips. He thinks of her smile, back before, in what had been another life. Another time. "We would've always been here."

It's ridiculous. He'd only seen her for one morning over a decade ago. That morning, she'd already known something was coming that he couldn't have predicted. Even right then, before anything was ever actualized, they never could have met and spoken on the same plane.

But it's not like he's lying. It's not wrong. He's thought about it, of course, for almost his whole life (long, long before he kneeled before her that first day, long before he'd received the Iwa fisherman). Ruined, he'd thought once. She'd ruin me.

"You'd have ruined me in any lifetime." Might as well say it aloud. It's true, isn't it? He has always known it.

That gets a small smile from her — more of a smirk, but her eyes stay toward her glass.

"We'd ruin each other," she entertains, repeating it as though trying it out, "no matter what?"

"Probably in the lifetime before this one and the one after."

Temari huffs half a laugh.

"It's a spiral without a center."

"What about in this one though, if we hadn't been where we are?"

Shikamaru takes a long breath.

The plan is mostly in place. She'll speak to her brother, but she trusts his agreement. Her role as ruler is as unwilling (if only nicer in practice) than his role as ruled. At the new moon, when her father comes back, Gaara will meet with the king in the king's room where Gaara will unlock the balcony door. She'll send her guard away and allow Shikamaru to climb from her balcony up. Kankuro will then meet Gaara and the two will stay in Temari's room where Shikamaru will have already departed. Gaara will have figured a loyal assembly and will work over the next two weeks to put them into some place where both countries can transition into peaceful, and separate, rule. And then maybe, maybe, this will all be over.

She was interested throughout the meeting. She asked questions and offered her own recommendations. But her disgust and fear was as palpable as anything else too. What she was being asked to do, what she was offering to do….

Shikamaru didn't know (and couldn't help thinking the entire day) if, in her shoes, whether or not he could make the same choice. He didn't know.

"I'd have seen you on some school trip, probably." It's a fantasy he has all the time. "Maybe through work."

Temari swallows and purses her lips for a moment, but doesn't speak, so he continues.

"You'd annoy me until I relented and went on a date with you."

She smiles now and takes another big drink.

"Why do you think I'd be the one to ask you out?"

"You're older. You know what you want."

Temari straightens and turns to him. "Oh? And what I want, older, more worldly and mature me, is you?"

Shikamaru returns her smile, and sits back in his chair, forcing her to turn to keep her eyes on him. "You'd probably try to kiss me, but miss, because you're too short. And only then, because I thought it was kind of cute, would I actually help you out."

She shakes her head, smirking, a bit of hair falling into her face, and then leans back, reaching for her glass and looking out to the empty tables before them.

"Then we'd get married," he continues, a bit less humorous, "and have children."

A pause. And then, still without looking at him, she asks: "many?"

"More than we planned."

"Huh. Too much sex?"

"Temari."

She glances over and, whatever he was trying to say (or not say) she supplies with her exhale.

"A spiral, huh? In any lifetime? Not a circle?"

"No." He says softly. "We never meet."

"A spiral," she repeats. "Even this time? In this lifetime. After."

In a few years. Her dress is gray. It rustles in the sun. He has a home, already made for the two of them. Light shines on her face. She smiles. He walks her in from the gate, standing next to her. They step, side by side, hand in hand, to their home. A bed. A hearth. A table.

"Not this lifetime," he says. There is no after in this. This can only end one way. "Maybe the next one."

Temari doesn't move. He's never said it aloud, but it's no surprise to either of them.

Then, slowly, she finishes her drink in one more effort.

"I'd always wondered…" she takes her time, and then reaches for his untouched glass, turning it and watching the liquid move, "what would end it." Slow still, she takes a sip.

Shikamaru leans forward to take his own glass from her, taking a sip himself — getting at least one before she finishes his too — and then putting it back before her.

"Why me?"

She huffs, still not looking at him. "You seduced me."

Politically, too.

"No," he says, rising to it just to do it, "you set your eyes on me from day one. You're impossible to crack."

"I've always enjoyed a challenge."

"Hm, am I a challenge?"

She doesn't respond, but takes a long sip of what was his drink.

Shikamaru, any humor, though brief, sobers and drops his hand to her upper back as she leans over the table on her elbows.

"Temari," he says, voicing the fact for what it is, feeling her inhale under his palm, "I'd search the entire world for you, every time."

They have guards on the roof and on various balconies interspersed throughout the palace, but none watching the outside of the building; rather, every guard on it is looking out. The ones on the grounds that are near enough to the palace (most work the perimeter) will be taken care of (he doesn't know the details).

He will use her balcony to climb to the one above. A rope will be dropped from the one above the king's. It's a new moon.

The pieces are in place.

The plan before, Inoichi tells him one night, was to dispatch of every member of the royal family.

"I'd suspected."

Inoichi is quiet for a long moment after that. The older man is looking over at Ino, who is chatting quietly with Yoshino on the other side of the room.

Shikamaru isn't sure what he is thinking about — about young women following their fathers? About something Ino mentioned about Temari? About something else entirely?

"You're a better man than me," Inoichi says after a minute.

Shikamaru, this time, is the one who doesn't respond. He doesn't know what to say, except that through whichever means Inoichi is coming to that conclusion, he's probably wrong.

A held resistance member younger than Shikamaru escapes custody with the help of locals.

Three people, picked completely at random, are arrested and executed.

When she walks past the bodies on display, Temari holds her head high and doesn't shy away from them.

They bide their time.

The best part of his days are the evenings in which he sprawls on her balcony or bedroom floor and plays (wins) shogi.

It's so easy, on those nights, to forget who they are or where they are.

They can discuss (argue) (flirt) about books and history. He laughs at how cunning she is and she calls him disagreeable.

Anyone else. Anywhere else.

She'd be a diplomat.

"I hate being followed."

He smirks. "I hate following."

"No you don't." She licks her lips. "You like watching me."

She doesn't leave it open for more.

"I don't like working at all," he says, looking back down to move his piece. "I want to marry rich and settle in."

A laugh. "And here I thought you'd say something sexist about having to go earn bread for your family while your wife keeps house."

Would you keep house? He wants to ask, but he doesn't. He knows she wants him to, anyway.

She moves her piece and he quickly moves the one he'd been waiting for.

It's so easy, on these nights, to imagine her pushing the board aside and crawling into his lap. She'd hold him, rub herself against him, her dress hiked to allow her legs to open around him, her smiling as she kissed him slowly.

He says none of this, keeping his thoughts to himself, but says something instead about wanting to sleep all day during his middle age.

"I don't think so," Temari says, taking her time on the board. He wishes she'd move faster. They can get two more games in before it's time for bed if she'd just move. "You'd get bored at home. I can see you, sometimes… most times, thinking. It's visible, you know? You'd want more than keeping house."

"Raising kids is hard work!" He protests.

"You want to raise kids all day?"

"Never."

"See?" She laughs, and moves her tile. "It's not for you."

Temari sits next to her brother at the small kitchen table where Naruto has been living in hiding for the past few years.

Gaara knows more about Konoha's internal politics (and its pre-war political bodies) than Shikamaru. More than Naruto, surely, but he is careful to not let Naruto see that.

It doesn't seem cunning, but is seemingly borne out of a respect for the other.

Gaara has followed Naruto's exploits (though Shikamaru has always known that, as he was often working operations against Naruto for Gaara (outwardly, it was clear, given the look Gaara leveled at him upon walking into the farmhouse, that Gaara was aware where Shikamaru's loyalties had lain when they stood in those underground meeting rooms all those years ago)).

Naruto and Gaara are able to draft a strong local governmental body in only a few hours. It's evident that both of them had come prepared.

The other people here don't chime in more than to agree. Gaara and Naruto had done their homework of who can continue a coherent governing body and economy in the wake of liberation; i.e, people who are loyal to Konoha, but who can work with the newly reconstructed Suna; those who can follow Naruto's government while also recognizing Suna and their mutual need for aid and diplomacy.

Shikamaru stands near them, leaning against the counter a few feet from where she sits.

She did good. They've done good, here.

They walk back in the moonlight. Gaara's two bodyguards who accompanied him to Naruto's (loyal to him, but waited outside nonetheless) walk on either side of the siblings, leaving Shikamaru to follow directly behind her (as he always is in public).

He can't take his eyes off her.

If she asked… if she changed her mind about everything, would he leave now?

Would she ask?

Would he?

It's exactly eight when the messenger comes.

He's been dressed for over an hour, but he lays on his bed with a book before him waiting for the inevitable knock to come.

"It's open," Shikamaru calls out casually.

A young palace girl, without any idea what she is doing, tells him that the princess is wondering if he had time to play a game of shogi with her.

He sighs, appears reluctant, and stands, stretching his arms above his head in an extended yawn.

"Sorry," Mijin says when Shikamaru turns the corner of the hall. Mijin stands alone by her closed bedroom door. "I know you must be exhausted."

Shikamaru shrugs.

He is. He hasn't had a proper night's sleep since her family first arrived in June.

"Hopefully she'll lose quickly."

Mijin laughs and steps aside for Shikamaru to knock on the door.

He feels sick.

Temari opens the door herself, wearing only her nightdress, her maids already gone for the night.

"Your highness," he greets with a nod and she steps aside for him to come.

The door closes behind him softly.

It's awkward as soon as they're alone.

She looks dazed. Her eyes are dry, but she's been crying.

Shikamaru steps further into the room and flexes his hands. She looks past him, out absently toward the balcony.

"We could play, if you want?" He offers, gesturing halfheartedly toward the shogi board still on the shelf.

She isn't happy.

Obviously. Of course not. Of course.

Shikamaru bites his tongue.

He's done things like this more times than he can count (never to someone like this — the king or his daughter, but that is still no excuse for the nerves he is feeling).

He wants to help her. To lie down with her and ease any harm from her.

She'll hate him after this, he knows. He's terrified to recognize it, but she will hate him after this, for this, no matter how much she agrees with it.

What will happen tomorrow? Tonight?

Is this the sacrifice he was to make? Is this the decision he has made?

How could he have ever made this choice before he knew choosing her was an option?

He'd meant it — he'd search the world for her, for any glimpse of her, no matter how fleeting.

Temari, with a long breath, goes to sit at the edge of her bed.

"I knew why," he gives without thinking, falling to his knees before her. "You said that this whole time, since we were children." In this very room, standing not far from where they were now. He places his hands on her knees, desperate for her to meet his eyes. "You said I knew. I did. I knew. I always knew."

He doesn't know what he's saying. He can't stop saying it though.

"I've known, every single day since I got here."

She swallows. She's shaking.

"Temari." His voice is foreign to his own ears. "Please. Look at me. Please."

Slowly, slow enough for him to trace each hesitation, she meets his eyes.

"We can leave, now. I can do this without you. I don't have to do this at all if it gives me you. This is enough."

It's enough. It's hyperbole. A moment of pure panic.

The sacrifice he'd always expected to make for his country; the sacrifice he wanted to make, before he'd met her.

What's it worth? What's it worth: his hands.

Carefully, Temari softens her gaze, and reaches down to cup his cheek.

"No," she says. "We can't."

Slowly, giving him time to pull away if wanted to, she brings her hands to the back of his head, toying with the tie holding his hair up.

"I made my choice too." She's quiet. "Just. Sit with me, this one last time, okay?"

He stands and comes beside her, resting his head on her shoulder, allowing her to free his hair from its tie and comb her fingers through it.

"Don't go far," he finds himself mumbling against her skin. "I will find you. Wherever you go."

She laughs loudly, surprising him. "Find me? Deep breaths, Shikamaru. You're just my bodyguard."

He sighs, long. "If you leave," he says, hearing it for the vague threat it is, "I'll never stop." He sits up, her hand falling from him, so that he can meet her full on. "You're the one who said it: it's always been you."

Her eyes are deep. They cut. "I don't know if I did say that."

He ignores her. "I've always known."

She smiles, slow, and leans closer, reaching for his jaw, nails digging slightly into him, surely creating crescents on his skin even though he's putting up no resistance to the drawing in of his mouth to hers.

"Just sit," she mutters seconds before their mouths would've made contact. Now is not the time.

"I'll come back," he says as he moves his head away, and he says nothing more.

And she holds his hand, in silence, for the rest of the hour.

Finally, she rises.

"It's time."

He's cold.

Temari goes to her door and opens it.

"Mijin," she addresses the guard, out of Shikamaru's eyesight. "Will you go ask Gaara if he can come over?"

Mijin hesitates. "I can accompany you to the prince's rooms?"

"No, please send for him. Shikamaru is here. I'll be fine."

Mijin nods and then, seemingly without further instruction, leaves.

Temari closes her door softly and then reaches once more for Shikamaru's hand, guiding him off the bed.

They walk together to her balcony, hand in hand.

She cracks open the door wide enough for him to slide through.

He holds her hand through the opening and she lifts their joining up, opening his palm, and pressing a kiss into it.

This is the last time he will see her. Maybe forever.

Kankuro is in Gaara's room, learning of their plan.

By the time Mijin brings them both back, Shikamaru will be long gone.

"There is nothing more for me here," she says against his palm. Then she looks up, meets his eyes, and gives a slight smile.

And then, without hesitating, she drops his hand and closes the balcony door firmly between them. The rope is hanging to his left.

On the other side of the door, Temari rests her forehead to the pane, looking down.

He can only imagine what she is thinking. All of his time with her has given him no answer.

With her looking at the ground, only faintly visible to him, he reaches for the rope. His weapons are still in place. He pulls a mask out and puts it on with one hand. There is no moon. One would be hard-pressed to see him. And, even if he was seen, by the time someone pinned the movement as a body, his task would be over.

He's worked for years toward this end. This singular goal.

In just a few moments, everything he knows will change.

It will all be over.

The Kazekage first. Anyone else in his way, second.

Shikamaru grabs the rope with his other hand and begins pulling himself up.

He doesn't feel the strain of it.

It's only a floor up, but it passes in no time and in too much time all at once.

He thinks about her. He thinks about his parents. He thinks about Asuma and Choji and Ino and Mirai and everyone else he has seen lose everything. He thinks about his role. He thinks about the sacrifices people made to put him here tonight.

But mostly, he thinks about her.

He thinks about that day, so many years ago, when he saw her smile and the world burned down around him.

He was wrong when he said this was it. He was wrong when he opined that they would never meet again.

Suna will surrender, Temari, and Gaara, and everyone braver than him will make sure of it. And Konoha will rebuild. They will form a government. A year will pass. Suna will retreat. Gaara, probably, will lead it, if his secured support holds. Another year will pass, maybe more, maybe less.

But time will pass.

Adaptability. Normalcy.

Time will pass and they will meet again.

He reaches the king's balcony.

The king. The Kazekage. He's just a man. Everyone who put him there — they're just men.

She will stand in front of this same palace, one day, and they will meet again. This time, they will be equals.

You can't order me to do anything, anymore, can you? He will say.

She'll be beaming in the sun, mouth coy, but the beguiling set of her mouth would be betrayed by the thrill in her eyes.

No, she'll say.

…maybe she'll already be leaning in.

I can't, she'll say. Never could, she'll finish against his mouth.

He steps silently, carefully, over the railing. She's waiting, now, only a few yards beneath him. He crouches, pulls a knife from his boot, and reaches for the door. It's open, as he was promised it would be.

With a sharp noise, half-squeak, half-bang; he opens the door.

a/n: in conclusion of the nara "patriotism v pussy" dilemma, i think the end result is she chooses for him (which, i think, is not pussy). but idk maybe in a few months away from this, i'll evaluate it differently and come to a different result!

there was a one-shot sequel half-drafted mostly to satiate the need for sex, which didn't feel... right in this story itself, you know?, but i wanted it later. that all changed when i got into shikatemamonth2024 (which is all sex), so i scrapped the one-shot... but you can go read that story! (it's almost all sex)!

my deepest condolences to my betas who were forced to stick with me through this muck - appy, carol, evie, and emma. you are the best part about any of this.

And thank you to everyone who read (and will read) this story and spoke to me about it and kept it going after that one post years ago! This would not exist in any form without you. I am so thankful for you and your love and patience.