Perhaps the hardest part, after, was modifying their speech.

After the final showdown, everything was different. But sometimes, people did not remember, so used to their patterns and so determinedly trying to fall back into their old ways, for comfort.

Little things, like habits of speech, the flow of conversation unstilted by sweet forgetfulness – until it hit them, a split second too late, an opened mouth or wide eyes revealing their mistake.

Of course, as everyone now knew, a split second was an infinite amount of time.

x

"Tenten's late. Has anyone seen her today?"

"She's probably with Nej- no, I haven't."

x

Sometimes people were selfish. It was not a flaw – it was a way of self-preservation, of survival. And sometimes, because of that selfishness, people were too wrapped up in their own affairs to think about others. It wasn't a lack of love, but more of a thoughtlessness, that could be quickly remedied.

But sometimes it couldn't, and there was no way to make it better.

x

"Where's Tenten been lately?"

"I'm… I'm not sure, actually."

x

Time heals all wounds, but absence makes the heart grow fonder.

With the passage of lonely days, simple memories are compounded into important ones. Words passed in casual conversation become ominous foreshadowing, become 'what-if's and 'if only's. Bad memories fade - petty arguments are forgotten and simple moments are remembered, wrapped up and tied neatly on a pedestal for worship.

x

"I heard they were engaged."

"Don't gossip about it - the whole team is still mourning."

x

Single, personal losses were sometimes more staggering than the whole numbers.

Thousands had died during the war. That meant hundreds of best friends, of lovers, of spouses and children and parents and siblings and most importantly, of individuals. The world was robbed of them the same way the fallen were robbed of their futures. It seemed empty. When other faces met hers on the streets, she sometimes could see that they were the same as her. They'd lost someone.

x

"People are still dying from their injuries. They're adding a new wing to the hospital."

"Maybe if the Hokage's request for more medic-nin had been taken seriously - shh, she's here."

x

Hyuuga Neji had been a prodigy - left to graduate at the Academy at twelve, instead of earlier, because he alienated himself from all potential mentors. He could've graduated years before, but had trapped himself with his anger, his aristocracy.

Tenten, no surname, had been painfully average, and just barely managed to pass the genin test, and was teamed with a prodigy and a walking, talking fluke. It was a miraculous stroke of luck she'd passed. Elsewise, she would've been trapped in the cycle of poverty, unable to escape or eke out more than a 'living' if it could be called that.

Years later, still hardly more than children, they'd fought and killed, all in the name of their shared village. It was hard. Possibly the hardest thing either of them had ever faced.

And yet, the prodigy was the one who had fallen, while she still climbed.

x

"Tenten... this grieving... it is not healthy."

"Lee..."

x

After a year, things got a little easier for Tenten. She began to wake earlier, like he had always scolded her to, and visited him.

Sometimes Lee came. Sometimes Gai-sensei. But mostly, she was alone. She spoke to him, fairly often, inane babble, the sort of talk he'd despised. It made her smile, just a little, to imagine him groaning. She wanted to inspire some sort of reaction from his grave site, that maybe the force of her affection would bring him back.

She was not alone. Though she was often the earliest, others came. Some civilians, but mostly shinobi that she'd battled alongside. She often saw Ino, and Shikamaru, mourning their fathers together, holding hands and one another with the sort of ease and contentment she'd envied. She was jealous, nearly green with it, at how simple their relationship was, how exactly defined and unspoken it was.

It reminded her of her own with Neji. But as she looked back, she began to wonder if she'd been right, if she had missed anything or read too much into it.

What had she been to him?

x

"She's parading around awfully dramatically. I heard they weren't even together."

"We're all still mourning. Let it be."

x

With Lee around, it was easier to smile. Lee, who remembered Neji, the good and the bad, and did not make excuses for Tenten's admittedly standoffish behavior.

A burgeoning friendship with Hinata was nice, too. Quiet and calm, Hinata provided the same sort of aura every Hyuuga did - of dignity and grace. It wasn't the same, but they began to meet, to train, to eat, to just talk. It was nice, having a girl-friend.

x

After the death of a prodigy, Tenten began going from person to person, asking for tips and teaching skills. And the first time she laughed again, was when she asked Shiranui Genma to teach her how to spit a senbon.

x

"Whoever can blow this the farthest, wins." Brown eyes glinted ambitiously, ready to test a new skill.

Genma was enjoying the challenge. It wasn't often someone showed such interest in his techniques, and he was flattered. Especially since it was such an easy technique to teach, to anyone who actually cared. And Ibiki had known she'd ask him next, and had asked for a favor. He was lucky Genma owed him - big.

Tenten had mastered it in moments, unsurprisingly. And now she was challenging him.

He watched her carefully as she worked, and wondered who else she'd spoken to to teach her. After the death of Hyuuga Neji, she and Rock Lee had been going from shinobi to shinobi, asking for little tips or techniques. Rock Lee had just recently asked Yugao for sword-training.

"Wins what?" he asked, teasingly.

The young woman had been unusually serious since the war. He did not blame her. A little bit of all of them had been lost, then. Everyone who had fought was just a bit more hardened, a bit colder, a bit sadder. He'd made the effort to be kinder, since then, friendlier. And people were receptive to it. They needed it - an extra smile, a softer tone, a touch on the shoulder now an again. Morale was low - but it sparked a new high in people volunteering to become instructors.

The kids would brighten all of their spirits.

Tenten, taller, thinner, more muscular now, turned to him, her buns neatly tied back to combat the wind, looked puzzled. "I don't know. Are you trying to gamble?"

"What do you want?"

She scoffed. "That's implying you have anything I want."

"Cold," he smirked. "Well, if I win... I want a question."

"What?" Her dark eyes flashed up to his suspiciously, her posture defensive. She knew what was coming. "Don't play games with me, then. Just ask. What do you want to know?"

"I want to know about Hyuuga Neji... and you."

Her face hardened. "Why don't you ask the village gossips about it?" She turned to walk away.

"Things aren't always the way they seem on the surface."

Their eyes were the same color. They matched, his searching, hers impassive. Until it cracked, just a little, and she shook her head. "He was my best friend."

"I asked Rock Lee, too."

She stilled, and watched him suspiciously. "Lee wouldn't tell you anything."

"You're right. And he was unusually defensive about it."

"Why do you care?" she demanded, brows furrowed in anger, or annoyance, lids heavy and blinking rapidly, to stop any tears.

He only shrugged. It was none of his business. So he answered, truthfully: "Because if you're trying to get better just to prove yourself to him-"

"Which is none of your business regardless," she answered venomously, interrupting him. But he ignored her.

"Because you're holding some survivor's guilt, and it's bullshit. You can't change the past, and you can't do anything about the fact that your teammate is dead. You're alive, and Rock Lee is a ninja, and Gai... well, he's Gai. Shit goes wrong, but it also goes right. Instead of obsessing, why don't you think about how grateful the people who care about you are to see that you survived?"

She teared up a little at that, and shook her head. "Why do you care?" she asked again, this time morosely.

He shook his head. "Ibiki asked Gai to evaluate you and Lee." He sighed. Having to reveal his hand was a little sappy. "Since the two of you are developing quite a reputation for jumping every other shinobi in the village to get training."

"And?" she never quite lost the suspicious, haunted look in her eyes.

"He wants you to apply for the next jounin exam."

And she lost it, a small, pleased smile spreading across her features, filling them all out - including her eyes, which suddenly did not seem so flat and depthless any longer.

"Congrats. Now go, run along and head over to Hokage Tower. They're in a few weeks, and there's a limit to how many people can sign up per exam."

She bowed, deeply, and he pretended he didn't see the way her eyes shone. Damn Ibiki, for putting him in such a sappy place. He couldn't deal with having Konoha's current sad-sack break down in front of him.

But she didn't, surprising him, and turned, with dignity, away from him - and in the opposite direction of the Hokage Tower.

x

Insecurity could be a creeping thing - surprising its host with the insidiousness of its approach.

But confidence was more blunt and blatant, facing down any enemy with ease. Tenten felt both of these things in the span of an hour. She sat, at his grave site, cross-legged and quiet. She saw Ino, who nodded, but did not interrupt her, instead quietly leaving.

"I am good enough." she said to herself, aloud, for perhaps the first time. And suddenly, the loud twittering of a nearby bird interrupted her thoughts with its shrill trill.

Tenten looked up, just in time to see a white bird flying above her, soaring away, taking her heart, now light, along with it.

x

"Tenten looks better lately."

"Well, I heard she's up for jounin. I'd be excited too."

x

One day, hitai-ate tied tightly and defensively around her forehead, she marched right past any gossipers, right over to where Ino and Chouji and Shikamaru were sitting - celebrating his engagement to Temari.

Perhaps things weren't as clear as they seemed to an outsider.

Chouji and Ino were smiling brightly, and she felt herself do the same.

x

It was Ino, who asked her, straightforwardly, with the typical, direct speech and big blue eyes facing her.

"Were you together?"

Tenten leaned back, sitting on the park bench that Chouji and Shikamaru had vacated.

"I thought you and Shikamaru were."

Blonde hair tossed as she shook her head. "We're just... close. I guess I love him. But he's happy."

Nodding slowly, Tenten answered. "I... never thought I was good enough for him. I turned him down. But he understood... even if he couldn't change my mind."

Ino looked at her, a little sadly, and her cool fingers rested atop Tenten's wrist and palm, feeling the warm blood pulse beneath the skin. "You've always been good enough."

Tenten, a newly polished jounin, nodded slowly, turning her wrist to clasp her friend's hand, feeling the coolness like a balm, that seeped into her bloodstream. "Thank you."