Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

The sun poured it's bright, unforgiving rays on to Tenten, making sweat dampen her blue shirt (her magenta-pink one was in the wash), but she didn't care.

The fight, any fight, brought a strange ecstasy to her. She felt free, she felt empowered for the first time in her long, lonely life. Her aching limbs, neck and shoulder felt free of pain; her mind was clear; her heart unburdened.

Tenten hid her hurts and grievances from the world behind a smile. The smile was a lie; Tenten was no stranger to the power of necessary, saving lies.

It was easier to hide behind smiles than it was to hide behind scowls or tears. More people wanted to talk to you, to be cheerful around you, if you gave a semblance, even a false one, of being happier than you were. It was a sad truth, one that had been hard for Tenten to swallow, but it was true. Humans could be very selfish people.

So she tried to forget the pain of her past. But asking her to forget every single beating she had ever endured as a child, where the pain had been enough to send up stars in front of her eyes, was like trying to forget her skin when she was getting dressed.

So Tenten's smile was a lie. Her jollity was a lie. Sometimes Tenten felt that the house of her life had been built on a foundation of lies that the specters of her father and the foster home had made necessary.

But now, she wasn't smiling. She couldn't keep the deceptive mask up on her face. Everything, everything was in shambles, falling apart at the seams, just like her life.

The village was being slow to recover from the simultaneous Sound and Sand attack. Uchiha Sasuke had defected to the Sound Village and Orochimaru, the dirty traitor.

Choji was thin, Shikamaru was crying, Kiba was recovering from internal injuries due to a self-inflicted stab wound, Sakura was being driven to distraction with heartbreak and worry. Naruto was broken deep inside, even if he didn't show it (His ability to deceive people concerning his emotional state rivaled Tenten's own, but she could see that within his big blue eyes some light, like a flickering candle, had been cruelly snuffed out; for that reason as well as others, if Tenten ever came upon Uchiha, she was going to kill him). And Neji…

As she attacked the wooden post with renewed ferocity, Tenten was oblivious to the fact that there were tears slipping down her face.

She continued on like this until a bit of loose earth betrayed Tenten's left foot. Almost comically, her leg went high in the air, her right foot leaving the ground also. With a short yelp, Tenten expected to land flat on her back, when a pair of hands caught her under her armpits.

"Funny, I don't remember you being so clumsy when we fought." Tenten's brown eyes widened as she recognized that rich female voice; the hands that had caught her helped her back to her feet. Once firmly on her feet, Tenten whipped around.

The Sand kunoichi, Temari, was standing behind her with her hands on her hips. Her eyes were narrowed to amused slits, and she was grinning and giggling, probably with the intent of softening the verbal blow she'd just inflicted on the younger Leaf kunoichi.

Tenten's ambition upon becoming a shinobi—and she was probably one of the few whose ambitions had not mutated even slightly—was to become as strong as she could be. Her model was Tsunade. But if the Godaime Hokage wasn't Tenten's model for strength anymore, then Temari of Suna came pretty close. Being beaten so brutally by that mouth, overbearing, utterly strong girl had spurred Tenten to train harder and learn new techniques; not just with weapons, but with her Elemental Affinity, Fire. But though Temari seemed to have self-confidence in spades, that was still an area in which Tenten was painfully lacking, though she was never show it; she witnessed daily how Neji's timid cousin Hinata was walked over because of her meek and hesitant personality.

And Temari wasn't alone. With her was her youngest brother, Gaara.

The moment Tenten had first laid eyes on his head of vibrant red hair, she'd felt an odd sort of kinship with the strange boy. Here, she thought, was another who had not been treated with kindness by fate and others. He utterly bewildered her. His face, like hers, was as hard and rigid as an ANBU's porcelain kabuki mask, yet his eyes, like hers, were big and vulnerable, the only chinks in their armor.

He was someone like her. It was a few moments before they realized they were staring at each other, and hastily looked away.

"The chunin exams will be coming up again soon." Recovering with startling alacrity, Tenten turned her attention on Temari, cracking a false, predatory, Cheshire cat smile. "You should come. I want a rematch."

Temari let out a short, derisive laugh. "You still won't be able to touch me," she scoffed.

They weren't the threats and insults delivered before a battle, but instead friendly taunts between two kunoichi who were—for the meantime—allies, but not quite prepared to be friends.

Gaara still said nothing, watching their exchange without understanding its subtleties; that was apparent by the faint glaze in his eyes.

Tenten perceived that he had changed since the disastrous chunin exams. He seemed, like her, to finally be stepping out of the shadows, but for the sand wielder, the process was no less painful and arduous than it was for the weapons mistress. Tenten was trying to pout out all the years of abuse and neglect and festering hurt into her training and Gaara was attempting to cast off the burdensome iron shackles of fear and hatred, of being treated like a monster and a tool until he himself believed he was one. Of being unloved, as Tenten had been.

Temari's voice broke into Tenten's contemplation of her opposite. "I can't imagine that training post is giving you any more of a challenge than my punching bag does for me. How about a friendly spar? It's a wonderful day for it." Temari, ever the diplomat, was tactfully ignoring the clear, crystalline manifestations of Tenten's frustration and fears.

She was right, too. It was one of those days that was neither too hot nor too cold; the afternoon sky was shaded a dazzling aquamarine blue, laced with snowy white.

"What?" Tenten smirked, a gesture utterly incongruous with her wet face and bloodshot eyes. "You want to test your strength?" She was relishing the chance to put her new training into practice.

Temari matched her smirk for smirk. They were both enjoying this. "Not me. Gaara."

"Him?" Tenten exclaimed. Gaara cast a look up at his sister, somewhat surprised; evidently he'd known nothing of this either. "Like he needs it. That sand protects him whether he wants it to or not."

"Temari…" Gaara's low, rasping voice was perplexed.

The kunoichi, clearly used to dominating the scene, smiled a little bit. "You look like you could use a sparring partner." She then turned to her brother. "And you could use the practice, being able to fight someone closer to your size."

Tenten heard the message hidden in her words. To fight someone who isn't afraid to fight you.

"Kankuro and I are too much bigger than you to provide an accurate assessment of your strength and skill—God knows Baki could pick you up with one hand," Temari muttered. "I think that as long as neither of you fight using weapons or ninjutsu, or genjutsu Tenten here should give you a real workout."

Tenten frowned, directing a question at Gaara. "Won't your sand get in the way?"

The young boy seemed to be thinking hard about that. "It rained recently," he said finally, "so the ground is wet." Tenten had no idea what he meant by that, but decided to pretend that she was following him. Gaara removed the calabash gourds from his back.

"Watch them for me?" The tone he used to address his sister was almost…pleading.

Temari laughed. "Oh, Gaara, no one's going to take your gourds. No one else would know what to do with them."

Tenten sighed and quickly relieved herself of any kunai, shuriken, paper bombs, and scrolls. "Better not to be tempted," she explained. "Will you watch them?" she asked, an echo of Gaara's question. Appropriate.

"Now that is a better question." Temari waved her hands and backed off a ways, leaning against an oak tree, her arms folded against her chest.

Tenten and Gaara took up position. "Why on earth did we acquiesce to her so quickly?" Tenten demanded of Gaara; Temari was his sister; maybe he'd know.

The Sand genin just shrugged, a habit Tenten found infuriating. "She is very persuasive," he murmured.

That she is. Temari reminded Tenten of her own sister Mayumi, except Mayumi had never been so overbearing or commanding. It had been easy for the kunoichi to, in her younger days, slip out of the watch of her older sister.

They started. Immediately, Tenten realized that Gaara loved the fight as much as she did. His normally subdued eyes danced and sparkled as he dropped, ducked, dodged and dived.

His reflexes are very good, too, Tenten thought admiringly, as he swiftly moved clear of a flying kick and countered with a sweep of the legs.

Again she began to think, her mind reaching a calm state while her body existed in the activity that had become second nature to her. Tenten could remember the short brevity of the conversation they had had yesterday.

"Thank you, Sabaku no Gaara."

She'd seen a great deal in the face of the young man who now fought opposite her.

Tenten was good at reading faces. Gaara's was a mask of taut impassiveness. But Tenten could see past that. Her face was a mask of strange cheerfulness. But they were only masks.

Beneath, there was someone was curled in a ball trying to deny the pain. Tenten saw that person. She saw someone who had had dreams once, but had had all those dreams snatched out from under him. He'd watched those dreams burn and turn to ash before him, probably with the people who had set them on fire dancing over their graves.

Tenten knew the feeling. Betrayed by someone you loved dearly...

He was someone who at one point had wanted to be good, had wanted nothing more than to help others, but had had to sack that want because the world and all of its cruelties got in the way.

He was like her. The world no longer held any sparkle, any wonder for him. That had died out of his eyes a long time ago.

There was someone else, who, like Tenten, looked at the world out of ruined eyes. Eyes that could still see, but they were eyes that had lost light, lost innocence, lost clarity. Eyes that were jaded and cynical. When she looked at those eyes, Tenten saw herself. It was disturbing, but… Tenten didn't feel quite so alone anymore.

They were not intending to injure or kill, but the fight picked up.

Both had shifted and changed to fit the situations they were forced into. They had lost themselves to that. But there was a difference between Tenten and Gaara. Gaara's life was filled with regrets. Tenten, by contrast, had few regrets. Only that she had been weak in a time when she needed more than ever to be strong. Just one regret, but enough to consume her entire life.

But suddenly, Tenten was smiling, and for once, the smile was truth incarnate. It was a testament to her ability to move on that she was able to smile. Her smile perplexed him, making him furrow his hairless brows. But she could tell that his mood was lifting, however temporarily.

It was said that shinobi could read each other's thoughts by the movements of their attacks. Tenten and Gaara were thinking the same thing.

There would be no more hiding behind lies. For either of them. It was like taking a pall from around their eyes.

More people came to watch the fight. Gai-sensei, smiling to Temari and making some comment about the power of youth. Lee, screaming like a maniac and spurring Tenten on. Neji was sitting on a log, scowling slightly, stubborn and even jealous. Whether he was jealous because he was still too weak to join in, or because it was he who usually trained with Tenten, she didn't know.

Here she was fighting him. A boy pale and hard and handsome like Neji but as unlike Neji as anyone could possibly be. He seized her shoulder to throw her across the field and Tenten thought her skin would sizzle from the burn of contact.

Then, as abruptly as it had begun, it was over. Neither of them was seriously hurt, though sore and breathing hard.

Tenten bowed at the waist, her long bangs beginning to get into her face. Her brown eyes shone, and the honest smile had split into a grin.

Gaara's face was more grave; his eyes slightly unsure, but much more cheerful than she was used to seeing. He almost looked… content, at ease. If anything, Gaara no longer seemed to be expecting an attack from all sides. He nodded his head deeply.

The kunoichi felt strangely light-headed, like she was floating on air. I'm not alone. I'm not alone…

For more about my characterization of Tenten, see my fic Phobia. Her entry is at the bottom.

Such an interesting pairing. I hope you liked it!