One Moment

"I would have just finished delivering my report to the Hokage," Temari said. Her unexpected announcement broke the otherwise peaceful silence that had enveloped the area.

"Woman," Shikamaru groaned. "It's only been 15 minutes. It takes approximately a half hour for our weekly meeting with Tsunade. Stop trying to cheat."

Temari was unfazed as she continued to stare at the clouds above them. "It takes a half hour because you're slow to respond and dawdle when giving your information. Assuming I was the one reporting in, it would take 15 minutes."

"The whole point of the report is to be delivered by both of us so that the interests of both Konoha and Suna are considered." Shikamaru felt his eyebrow start twitching but he resisted the urge to roll and glare at Temari. "So not only would it still take a half hour, and you are trying to cheat on time, but you have to report with me for the next meeting. You can't use this to get out of it."

"Fine then, I would have prepared my half of the written report," Temari said.

Shikamaru groaned again. It was highly unlikely that Temari would have finished summarizing her data for the report in only 15 minutes, as her written section tended to be just as long and detailed as her oral report was short and to the point. It didn't seem worth the effort to start the argument over so he remained silent. He could almost see the smug waves from Temari in the corner of his vision, and had a brief consideration that she planned the entire conversation to that effect. He was regretting more and more ever reaching their agreement.

In retrospect, he wouldn't be surprised if Temari had planned their agreement from the very beginning. Shikamaru had thought it was his idea and a clever one at that, but time after time he realized too late that Temari was always one step ahead of him.

It started with a fight, of course. Shikamaru was late meeting Temari for their work on the Chunin exams. When the miffed Temari demanded to know why he was late, he explained that he had been cloud watching and lost track of the time. Anyone in Konoha would have accepted this as stereotypical behavior, but not Temari. She promptly attacked him with a strong wind gust and started a rant on duty and being considerate. It gave Shikamaru an eerie preview of Temari as a mother trying to kill and lecture her children at the same time.

Shikamaru finally calmed Temari down and made sure thereafter to meet her on time, but the seeds had been sown. After Temari caught him napping or daydreaming when they were supposed to be writing reports she refused to let the issue go. She constantly berated him for his lack of enthusiasm and sluggish ways.

"We could have been done an hour ago, Lazy," she'd remark. "I could be training right now. But no, your head's too busy stuck in the clouds. Aren't you supposed to be some kind of genius? Shouldn't you be able to finish a simple report faster than an academy student?"

"For the nineteenth time, Woman, nothing will change if we turn in the report tomorrow when it's due instead of today just because you want to. It doesn't take some kind of genius to know that." He looked wistfully out the window. "It's such a good day for clouds too."

Temari glanced up from her work. "So hurry up and finish and we'll go look at some stupid clouds."

"We?" Shikamaru had never been described as particularly peppy, but anyone looking at him now would call him downright perky. "As in you'll go too?"

"It's only fair to try and see why you're so stuck on the idea," Temari said. Shikamaru thought he detected a hint of an acid undertone but he decided the benefits of Temari trying his favorite pastime outweighed the possible risk that she was doing it just to appease and get him to work faster.

If that was her goal, it was certainly successful. Together they quickly finished the report and headed outside to Shikamaru's favorite spot. Shikamaru settled back to enjoy himself while Temari stared quizzically skyward. "What am I supposed to be doing?"

"Just look at the clouds. See the shapes. Relax," Shikamaru said.

Temari was silent a record minute "and what is this supposed to be doing for me?"

"Give it a bit!" Shikamaru snapped. "You never like anything unless it involves violence or instant gratification. Try not thinking for once."

The resulting silence provided Shikamaru a feeling of accomplishment as he enjoyed the clouds drifting lazily by and assumed Temari was starting to do the same. He was pleasantly surprised when Temari stayed mute for almost an hour. As any skilled ninja he was a master of reading body language, and as a individual he considered himself a master of reading Temari. She could certainly hold her tongue when she thought it was necessary, but it was impossible for her to hide the telltale signs of irritation. Shikamaru couldn't help noticing as he kept her in his peripheral that she was stretched out and had smile lurking in the corner of her lips.

"So I'm not saying this isn't nice," Temari finally said. "It is surprisingly peaceful, I'll give you that. All I'm saying is that in this hour I could have accomplished a dozen different things easily."

Shikamaru rolled his eyes. "Like what?"

"Well, I probably would have written and sent Gaara an update, stopped at the academy, taught the kids a new jutsu, avoided Ino and the latest gossip, got dinner, picked up a gift for Kiba's party, and started a sparring session with you."

"You're going to Kiba's party tomorrow?"

"Aren't you?"

"Yeah, but I didn't know you were going. What makes you think I'd agree to spar anyway?"

'The fact that if you didn't agree initially I'd hit you with my fan. Oh and Kankurou wanted me to go and drop off his present for Kiba."

"Regardless that's still not a dozen things," Shikamaru said.

Temari rolled over and faced him. "At least a half dozen then, and all things I'll have to do later now because we wasted an hour doing nothing."

"I wouldn't call it a waste," Shikamaru wrinkled his brow. "It's important to have some downtime and unwind. You wouldn't want to become overly stressed and wind up in a fight while not at your best."

"That's what parties are for, and coincidentally we're going to one tomorrow."

"Well, what if I help you with some of that list?"

Temari scoffed. "Help? What kind of help could you possibly be?"

"You think I can't manage to do some errands?" Shikamaru gave up on the wispy clouds overhead and turned towards the woman who managed to distract him even from his favorite pastime. "You know I am fully capable of effort I just think it's kind of a drag."

"Which is why you'd half-ass everything and I might as well have done it myself."

Shikamaru sat up and glared. "Seriously, Temari, tell me what you want for Kiba and what you were going to tell Gaara, and I'll get everything done. Possibly even in less than an hour."

"Oh all right," Temari said, sitting up herself with obvious reluctance. "Then I guess we'll meet tomorrow around 7 so you can give me the present before heading to Kiba's party?"

Somehow from this one incident, an agreement was born. Anytime Temari consented to cloud watching with Shikamaru she would keep track of all the things she otherwise would have accomplished in that time, and he would either do or help with everything. More often than not Temari listed things like working with the academy students where she would still go, but Shikamaru had to accompany her. In fact Shikamaru realized that since they had come to this agreement they had been spending the majority of their time together.

His friends had noticed it too. Ino had been merciless trying to find out if they were dating or not. He supposed showing up together for Kiba's party hadn't helped. Probably getting dinner together all the time wasn't helping matters either. Plus regardless of what Temari might say, the cloud watching was calming her down, and Ino couldn't refrain from commenting on her slightly more mellow attitude. Shikamaru didn't get the chance to appreciate that much as Temari persisted in her argumentative attitude with him.

Recently though her habit of exaggerating her capabilities during their "lazy time" as she called it had increased exponentially. Shikamaru spent half of their time trying to talk her down to more feasible alleged achievements.

"I just finished my weekly update for Gaara and sent it," Temari announced.

"Five minutes, Temari. It's been only five minutes. It does not take you only five minutes to write an update to Gaara, let alone sending it. I know, I've done it for you countless times now."

"Oh," Temari said, "I'm supposed to tell you by the way that he loves the side notes you include on my so-called socialization progress with the community. And yes, I would have finished in five minutes this time."

Shikamaru couldn't resist turning to glower at Temari. "I'll be lenient and say it would take you ten minutes, in which case you still have another five minutes to go."

Temari bit her lip, eyes never straying from the clouds Shikamaru had admired so mere seconds ago. Judging by her silence that she was properly chastised, Shikamaru reclined again.

"So I would have picked up Naruto's latest note for Gaara and included that to be sent with my report, which I just sent." Temari murmured.

"That was one minute." Shikamaru sat back up, eyes blazing as he shook Temari by the shoulders. "There is no possible way you did that in one minute, Temari."

Temari remained irritatingly calm as Shikamaru shook her. "Who's to say so? You have no idea what I'm capable of doing in a single moment."

"Oh?" Shikamaru stopped shaking her although continuing to glare. "Do tell what all you can accomplish in a moment."

"Let's see, in one moment I can bring a long standing plan to fruition, outsmart my opponent despite their alleged intelligence, and make a man admit he loves me."

"What?" Shikamaru said.

"I guess I forgot to tell you that with Gaara's approval I have a marriage request from one of the Suna jounin." Temari never changed from her nonchalant position.

"You can't get married. You think a husband's going to let you continue your frequent trips to Konoha, " Shikamaru grumbled.

Temari shrugged. "You think I'm going to let a husband stop me? I could do other things though. Kankurou could take over my position."

Shikamaru was appalled. "But you love representing Suna, and you're good at it. It doesn't make any sense to give it up for some jounin that couldn't possibly understand you…" he coughed, looked embarrassed, but as Temari met his gaze for once found the courage to continue, "like I do. Don't get married, Temari. Stay like this, with me. I care about you."

To his surprise Temari grinned triumphantly. "I know you do. Of course I'm not going to marry him. You think I'd ever accept some antiquated marriage request when I'm not even dating them?"

"Just to be clear, I never technically said I loved you, and that was at least a minute and a half." Shikamaru might have managed to sound exasperated, but he couldn't help but smile as he resumed watching the sky. Sometimes it was best to let your adversary win a game here and there. It kept them on their toes. And, he thought as he casually reached out for Temari's hand, it made your own eventual victory that much sweeter.

Emerald: It was actually a slow week at work, so I wrote this during some down time.

Legolas: We keep the plotbunnies primed for attack at any point.

Duo: Primed and ready for action. There are no safe places where you can hide from us.

Emerald: Anyway, this also means I didn't get to do the best job editing, so apologies ahead of time for any mistakes! I don't know what it is about Shikamaru & Temari, but they always end up dominating anything I write with their conversations.

Duo: And have you noticed that you always give Temari the upper hand? We should work on that.