A/N: This is the first chapter of a fic written for Alyssa009. Its been written about halfway, deleted and is being rewritten now as a multi-chap, just to get it to her.

Chapter 1:

Auspicious Beginnings

The sun was shining; the birds were chirping; dozens of clouds floated lazily past a tall hill in the center of Konohagakure. An indentation in the grass in roughly the shape of a slight, spiky haired ninja ruffled in the cool afternoon breeze. In short, it was a perfect day for cloud watching. Except there was no one to watch.

Nara Shikamaru was pushed roughly across the threshold of the dingy Kumogakure jail cell. Ignoring the gruff guard's treatment of him, he straightened his ruffled shirt and cast his coal-black eyes around. A bunked bed to his right, spiders crawling from the unused, uncovered mattress on the top bunk; a single sink in the opposite corner, its knobs mildewed and rusted; a man sitting on the lower bunk, all pale skin, broad shoulders and bulging muscle and matted, graying hair falling wildly around his eyes.

"Hey, you. You're standing in my light, eh?"

Shikamaru blinked, noticing the man was holding a book out deliberately so that the konoha nin's shadow fell across it.

He was trying to intimidate him. Shikamaru recognized his motives and his mind instantly extrapolated a hundred different situations.

Most of them ended with him gaining bit too much information about the truths behind prison rumors.

But Shikamaru was nothing if not a problem solver and he knew instantly that he had to show himself superior. If he moved his body out of the way, he would instantly be labeled as the 'bitch.' More troublesome than that, however, was the fact that he felt extremely disinclined to move further into the cell at all. No spot he could see would offer him any more comfort than exactly where he was at the moment so, naturally, he moved his shadow instead.

The man's eyes bulged when Shikamaru's shadow leapt neatly to the side, exposing his pages to the dim fluorescent light. He could no more mold his chakra to make his shadow attack the man than he could escape at that moment, but there was no reason to tell him that.

"Problem?" Shikamaru asked, as toughly as he could muster. It wasn't hard to act tough. He just had to imagine how Hidan had behaved before he'd blown him to smithereens.

"Nah, no trouble," the man replied, going back to his book and looking around nervously. "But they'll put you in solitary if they catch you doin' that, eh?"

Shikamaru's eye twitched. This guy's speech was quite annoying, and far more so than Ino's whiny prattle or Naruto's constant, loudmouthed complaining (not that he was one to talk about complaining). He didn't know how much more he could take.

"So you're," the man said after about five minutes. "You're one of them ninjers, eh?"

Shikamaru stared, saying nothing. He considered correcting the man's grammar, but deemed even that small act troublesome. He would probably be broken out in a week, tops. There was no need to tell his cellmate anything.

Shikamaru said nothing, but leaned back against the cell bars, scanning for some sort of weakness in the structure. He found none.

"You're not gonna wanna be doin' that t'soon, eh?" the man said without looking up from his book. "Its bout two a'clock and me daughter will b'comin round yonder."

The shadow nin felt as if his head was about to explode. "Please, stop talking," he finally said. "I like quiet."

"Don't say me didn't warn ye, eh?"

"I'll take my chances."

He fell silent going, back to his reading and Shikamaru thought back over what he had said. His daughter? Who in the hell would want to procreate with him?

He was busy constructing a mental image of the most disgusting woman he could possibly imagine when a hard poke jerked him out of his reverie. A hard poke to his rear. Near that area.

"Aah!" he yelped, leaping across the cell, and plastering himself to the far wall. He whirled around, expecting to see some burly man eyeing him like a piece of meat, but only saw a girl standing at the cell doors with an annoyed looking guard behind her. A beautiful girl.

How troublesome, Shikamaru thought, knowing that his tough-guy act was effectively over.

And worse yet she was laughing. Giggling, more accurately, with a small hand covering her mouth.

"Heheehehehee," his cellmate cackled. "I told ye she be coming."

Shikamaru's expression turned stony and he hoisted himself up onto the bed as the guard and the girl stepped into the room. He flicked a centipede away from the rock-hard pillow and examined the girl from the corner of his eye.

She had dark skin, common of the Kumogakure ninja he'd seen, but it was a smooth, creamy shade of brown that he'd never seen before. She wore a simple tunic he'd seen a dozen times before in the village, but it clung to her curves and seemingly lured his eyes to follow. Long black hair fell from her shouders and stopped at her waist, the dark curls shimmering softly. Her eyes, by contrast were bright green, wide and expressive. Right now, they were expressing amusement. At him.

He blushed and rolled away, staring at the ceiling with his hands behind his head. She's way too pretty, he thinks to himself, watching an ant dip through the crevices of the craggy ceiling. So not my type.

"Your new cellmate is funny, daddy," she said, sitting on the bed next to the odd man and speaking a little too loudly. "And cute too."

Shikamaru's cheeks burned again and he rolled to face the wall, his arms covering his ears.

"Yah, he's a ninjer too, eh? Didja know that?"

"No," she purred, standing on the edge of the bunk. Shikamaru could feel the weight of her forearms pressing against the corner of his bed. A small finger tapped his shoulder twice. "Hey, handsome. You're a ninja? Where from?"

Shikamaru said nothing, purposely ignoring the girl, but she persisted. "I've never met a foreign ninja before. Are they all as cute as you?"

His face twisted into a deeper frown, but still he said nothing.

"I especially," She began slowly, her voice now holding a slight edge of annoyance at being ignored. "Like your foreign butt."

"Aah!" Once again, a finger pressed against his posterior and he yelped and jerked forward. That had the unfortunate consequence of bringing his head solidly in contact with the rock wall and it bounced off with a sharp CRACK!

"Ohmigoodness!" the girl exclaimed, throwing her hands over her mouth as he rolled onto his back, clutching his forehead.

"So troublesome," he muttered. "I hate prison."

"It gets worser!" piped the man from below.

"Much," the girl agrees before jumping down. "Nice to meet you, foreign-ninja-prisoner."

Shikamaru closed his eyes again, wondering why she felt the need to insert everything she knew about him into one title. It was humiliating.

"I have a name," he found himself volunteering. "Shikamaru. Don't call me anything else, please."

"Sure, Shika," she said, then giggled at the unintended alliteration.

After that he was left well enough alone as she talked with her father and read the book aloud to him. Shikamaru couldn't decide which was more annoying, being poked in the rear repeatedly or the girl reading quite expressively a children's tale about a cat and some godforsaken hat. He settled on being poked.

After exactly one hour, the guard finally spoke. "Visiting time is over, Jada. You'll have to finish next time."

They trudged out the door and Jada couldn't resist one final jab at the shadow nin. "Bye bye, handsome. Me an my finger will see you later."

He grimaced and rolled his eyes while the guard slid the cell shut and locked it.

Jada, Shikamaru thinks to himself, wondering if he will make it to her next visit. He'd heard stories of how hard it was to protect your innocence in Kumo prisons, and while they weren't as bad as the tales he'd heard from Kiri ones, he had to be honest with himself, he wasn't doing to well. He'd already been poked in the rear twice by a visiting girl. He didn't even want to see what the actual prisoners would do.

As if to shove Shikamaru's fear directly in his face, the guard returned just a moment later. "Up you get! Shower time!"

To Alyssa009: Hope you like it so far. I've got a lot of stuff on my plate, so i cant promise fast updates, but i'll do my best!