And now...Sannin Angst!

[moonsheen]

Tsunade maps out the future she never had.

The war ends—the war ends anyway, but in her head it ends just a little earlier. A few more battles are won, and a few more people are saved. Or at least he’s saved. He loses a lot of blood, he passes out on the field, but he’s still breathing when the bleeding stops. And he lives. That’s the big thing, he lives. A treaty is signed—and they attend the celebration together, even though he’s on crutches and really shouldn’t be out so soon she lets him though, just this once. They watch the streamers go by and feel, well, not completely happy—he thinks of his sister, she thinks of her brother—but relief, because it’s over, and hope when he takes her hand and smiles and asks if he would let him walk her home. She smiles back and asks if he would like to maybe stay there from now on. Just so it’s less walking. The necklace flashes around his neck as he nods in agreement. And so he stays. And she stays too, because really, where else would she rather be? The bandages come off a month later. She unwinds them herself—little details like this are important, makes it seem like it really happened—the gauze is rough under her fingers and the skin beneath is shiny and scarred, but it heals as cleanly as it can, all things considered. Tsunade is pleased by her work. She’s more pleased by what comes after, but she keeps that quiet—not because she’s a modest woman, she’s never thought of herself as one, but because some things are best kept private, and she sort of likes where this is going.

Peace comes. A gradual effort but the old man handles it well. She’s called out many times a long the way, and every time, she fears for both of their lives, but every time, she returns. Sometimes right after the mission, sometimes after a quick drink with old friends—because Jiraiya, Orochimaru, and her go a long way back and nothing’s about to change there—but he waits for her, when he’s home, and when he’s not she waits for him. Sometimes she thinks she’ll die from worry but she knows there’s no way he can not go, and he comes back. He always comes back. These things work out, after all—at least they should, because damnit, they should have been happy. She doesn’t go out gambling when she waits for him, and she doesn’t do it much more than that when he’s home either. She realizes those childhood days of betting in the streets are done with—and though she’ll still throw her lot into a card game from time to time, she makes sure not to stay out too late.

And things go on, except that’s where things begin to break down, because when peace comes an old man doesn’t die, but goes into retirement, and his successor is, was a boy, just a boy, who had a flash in his eyes that reminded her so much of much of him, of both of them, that it hurt—because he died, and that’s where thought hits a snag. Fact is fact. Tsunade’s never been an entirely rational person but she knows that much, even drunk out of her mind to the point when she’s numb to the fact that the old man’s gone too, and that there’s a boy in front of her who looks like three people rolled into one, and that she’s never had the family she thought she’d have by this point, and that Orochimaru will probably betray her without a second thought again—again—but she left first. That’s fact. She was the first of the three to leave. Because the war ended, and he died. Tsunade can drink herself into oblivion and Jiraiya can jabber on all he wants, like always, but that’s what happened.

What didn’t happen was a whole life, and Tsunade isn’t one to forget little things like that.