Disclaimer: I, Lady Sassy Sas, do hereby disclaim all rights to the wonderful world that is Naruto.

He raced through the trees, impatient on reaching the site of trouble. He had been sent out ahead from the rest of his ANBU team.

Tsunade had called him in to her office half an hour ago, telling him that a two-member ANBU team had been sent out on an infiltration mission half a mile of the Fire-Spring (formally Snow) boarder. This pair had been working together with a pair of Spring's ANBU.

Although Shikamaru hadn't been given the exact details of what they were doing, he didn't need them. All he needed to know was something had gone wrong and as a result the ANBU needed back-up.

He had been dispatched as soon as the debriefing was over with another three members of ANBU heading out as soon as they were able.

"Shikamaru?"

He brought his hand up to his neck to press a button, "Ah?"

"What's your status?"

"ETA 10 minutes. Any more information on their location?"

There was rustling on the other end. "No change."

"Kuso!" he picked up his speed. "Where are the others?"

"We're right behind you, Shikamaru. We'll arrive approximately five minutes after you do." Kiba's voice joined the conversation.

"Who's with you?"

"Hanabi and Ino."

Shikamaru didn't answer for a long minute. Quickly processing his plan he altered it slightly. "Trobulesome."

"Huh?"

"Nevermind. Ask Hanabi if she can see anything."

There was fast talking for a few seconds as Kiba asked Hanabi. Another minute went by before she muttered a reply and Kiba relayed it to Shikamaru. "She says there's a lot of chakra emanating to the North-West a few miles ahead."

Shikamaru's brow twitched. "Did she say what was producing it?"

Another few utterance's crackled through his ear-piece. "She can't tell. She says there's a lot of disruptions and it's erratic."

Shikamaru sighed. "See you in five. Pick up the pace."

He stopped on the branch and surveyed the area in a split-second before dropping down beside the worn-out ANBU member.

"Took you long enough, Nara!" she exclaimed, sending another enemy careening across the clearing she had made.

"Sorry. Next time try not to end up in a troublesome situation. I was enjoying my relaxing time off till I had to come and save your scrawny ass." He shot back as he blocked a kunai with his arm guard.

Sakura panted and put her hands on her knees. "Poor you; some of us have to work you know! We can't all sit on our backsides watching the clouds pass."

Shikamaru snorted as he fended off two enemies at the same time. There wasn't time for another snarky reply as more numbers of opposing forces came out.

"Where the hell are they all coming from!? Has someone else mastered Naruto's signature jutsu?!" Sakura shouted as she sent three bodies flying.

"Hardly, they'd all disappear in puffs of smoke," Shikamaru retorted. "This would be easier if I had a few seconds to make my seals."

Sakura let out a mighty yell and slammed her heel into the ground, sending all enemies flying and out of the direct vicinity. Shikamaru who had just managed to hold himself to the ground with chakra sent her and exasperated look. Sakura shrugged in return. "You're welcome."

"Thanks." He deadpanned. "Next time give me a heads up."

"I did – I yelled."

Shikamaru shook his head in defeat before quickly running through seals. " Kagemane no Jutsu!"

A shadow raced across the ground, splitting and spreading as it went and attached itself to the shadows of the enemies around them. A lot of them exclaimed in shock as they realised they couldn't move of their own free will anymore.

Sakura whipped around when she felt new chakra signatures entering the battle-ground.

"Relax. They're the rest of the back-up."

"Jeesh Forehead! What the hell happened?" Ino asked as she made her way over to them.

Sakura just shook her head. "Long story. Did you meet anyone on the way?"

"Iie. Sakura, where's your partner?" Kiba sidled up to her side.

Shikamaru saw Sakura's body stiffen at the question from the corner of his eye before he picked up on her faint reply. "Burned."

It was silent for a few minutes as they all took in the number of hostages they had. Sakura sighed before whipping her mask to the side and spitting out blood from her mouth. Replacing her mask, she moved forward and stood in front of her first victim.

She squatted down and started rummaging through the clothes on the corpse, muttering as she did so.

"Shit."

They all watched as Sakura ran her hand through her hair and swung around searching for something.

"Sakura? Sakura? Sakura!"

"What!?" she shouted.

Shikamaru gave her a bored look as he replied. "What are you looking for?"

Sakura stopped abruptly, looking at him in confusion. "Huh?"

"What are you looking for?" he asked again, patiently.

Sakura continued to look at him in confusion. Shikamaru frowned at her. He heard movement and whispered words and watched as Sakura's eyes went blank for a second before focusing again.

Hanabi and Kiba came to stand on either side of him and watched as Sakura's eyes went in and out of focus.

"Hanabi…" Shikamaru said quietly.

The girl nodded and activated her bloodline trait taking in the surrounding and everything in it. Kiba shuffled on his feet before sniffing the air. He growled slightly and went to walk around the captured enemies, knocking them out one by one.

"Keep one conscious, Kiba. We're taking three back. The rest will be disposed." Shikamaru ordered in a hard voice, his eyes never leaving the pink-haired medic.

"There's nothing out there and nothing unusual here." Hanabi reported which she received a curt nod for.

"Go help Kiba dispose of the rest."

Another five minutes passed with various shouts of terror and pleads for lives to be spared but the ANBU paid no heed to them. They were quick and efficient at what they did and didn't show any mercy.

Sakura's body fell limp to the ground and he heard a gasp from behind him as Ino regained her bearings in her own body.

Letting go of his jutsu, Shikamaru went to help her up and brought her over to others and an unconscious medic-nin.

"Ino?"

Ino shuddered and gulped in air before she responded. "She- Something's wrong. Her thoughts are erratic and scattered but I couldn't figure out what was wrong before she forced me out; she's still the only person who can do that." Ino caught her breath again before continuing, "I don't know how to describe it. It's like someone's used the same technique as my clan but got thrown out before they succeeded in what they were doing, but scrambled everything up in the process."

Brows furrowing, Shikamaru squatted down beside his blonde teammate. His mind raced through possibilities, scenarios, outcomes and probabilities discarding any that didn't make sense. He let out a breath of exasperation, "She seemed fine when I arrived."

Ino shook her head, "I honestly can't tell you what happened, why or when."

The Nara rolled his earing while thinking.

Kiba and Hanabi finished cremating the bodies of the deceased and securing the unconscious and re-joined the other three.

Kiba sniffed the air and grew tense, "We need to leave and soon."

Shikamaru looked up at him shortly, meeting his eyes and nodded. "Is Akamaru with you?"

The Inuzuka shook his head, "He's still recovering from the last mission."

"Then it'll take longer than normal. Ino, you okay?" when he got a nod in reply he carried on. "Right, you three take the captives. I've got Sakura. I want to get back to Konoha within an hour."

The other three nodded and collected their cargo while Shikamaru picked up the pink-haired Kunoichi and threw her over his shoulder. "Let's go."

"This doesn't seem to be working, does it?" Ibiki growled into the silent observation room.

There was a tenseness in it that had been there for the past two days since they arrived back from having to rescue Sakura from her botched mission. The captives that they had brought back and been taken straight into the T&I headquarters and had been subjected to both in order to get answers.

So far the interrogator's had had no such luck. One of them had died the first night. The next one had been rendered unconscious halfway through the second day and remained so. As for the third…Shikamaru took one last drag from the cigarette between his fingers before flicking it onto the floor and stepping on it.

He sighed and turned around, glaring at the prisoner from behind the one-way mirrored window. Everything they had tried so far hadn't worked. He was fast running out of ideas.

"Has Hatake or Uchiha returned yet?"

"No. Hokage-sama said they're not likely to return for another two months."

"Kuso; we don't have that kind of time."

Ibiki looked speculatively at the male beside him from the corner of his eyes. He liked the Nara-kid. It reminded him of the late Clan-head. Shikamaru was a lot like Shikaku in many ways but in the years since the war he had surpassed his father in brains.

Shikamaru had raced through the ranks in ANBU and within the year he had been promoted to head of Intelligence and worked closely with Yamanaka Ino who was head of Interrogation. The two of them together was incredible to watch as they weaved their separate sectors together.

There weren't many missions that they planned that went wrong which was why this mission Sakura and her partner had gone on caught everyone by surprise. They needed to find out what went South and why.

Which brought him back to the present. He watched with interest as Shikamaru glared at the prisoner on the other side of the glass but he knew the man was trying to formulate a way to break said prisoner.

Eventually Nara sighed and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. "This is going to take more than cigarettes to figure out. I'll be back when I've got something. In the meantime keep working on him and if he lets anything slip, let me know."

Ibiki nodded in assent and Shikamaru left the room.

Ino, Chouji and Kiba were already there when he entered the hospital room. He nodded at the others and went to lean against the wall just inside of the door. His eyes made their way over her body, assessing the damage before resting on her pale face.

"How is she?"

Ino tried to give him a reassuring smile but it came across as a grimace, "They've healed all her physical injuries."

Shikamaru nodded, "And what about-"

"Tsunade still doesn't know. She can't find anything wrong with her medical chakra and I can't even get back inside her head to have another go at finding out."

There was a lull after that all of them looking at each other, around the room or at the patient occupying the bed.

"Does anyone know if Naruto and the others have been told?"

"Kakashi and Sasuke know. They were sent out to find clues. I don't know about the rest." Shikamaru answered Chouji.

Their eyes shot towards Sakura as she moved slightly but they all fell in disappointment when she didn't wake up.

Shikamaru kept staring at her blankly while trying to come up with a solution on how to break the prisoner. For all his renown smartness he sure didn't feel he lived up to that expectation at this minute.

Just then there was a knock at the door and an uncertain chuunin stuck their head in. When they had spied Shikamaru they made their way to him. Shikamaru stooped down so the chuunin could pass the message on before turning tail and quickly exiting the room.

He stayed in that position, mulling over the information before drawing up to his full height. "Ino, come with me."

The blonde quickly followed him out and they walked down and across the hall into a waiting room. As soon as she crossed the thresh-hold, he shut the door and flew through seals to make the room sound-proof.

"Shik-"

"Ibiki thinks that some of Sakura's mind might be in the prisoners head." He interrupted her before she could question him.

Ino stared at him in bewilderment before giving him a dubious look. "Why?"

Shikamaru shrugged. He could really do with a cigarette right now, "The hell if I know. This is all troublesome."

"But it makes no sense. Why the hell would part of her mind be in his?"

"I don't know. It's what I'm trying to figure out."

"More to the point - how could he? Don't you think we would've noticed if he had tried a jutsu?"

Shikamaru closed his eyes thinking about it. He replayed the situation in his head from when he had arrived to when they had left and realised Ino was right. There was no way he would have been able to utilise a jutsu like that in the middle of the chaos. But something was niggling at the back of his mind.

His eyes flew open. "The erratic chakra Hanabi talked about, remember?"

Ino nodded hesitantly not quite sure what her best friend was getting at.

Shikamaru sighed impatiently, "Think about it. It takes a lot of concentration and chakra to that kind of jutsu, right? Well, what if he tried it before we got there only Sakura threw him out of her mind like she did with you?"

"And if she did that when he hadn't quite latched on then she could have easily thrown him out while he was searching and taken that part with him!" Ino caught on, understanding lighting her eyes.

"Exactly." He smirked. "Want to go have some fun poking peoples brains?"

A feral smile alighted the blonde's face, "Hell yeah."

A few days later sunbeams shone through the window casting a golden glow over the hospital room and its occupants.

Shikamaru sat on a chair beside the bed, holding Sakura's hand in both of his, hunched over and his eyes never leaving her face.

So he didn't miss it when her face scrunched up and she began to stir beneath the covers. It took her a few attempts before she was finally able to open her eyes most of the way. He smirked when she looked around the room in confusion before her green-eyes settled on him.

"Shikamaru?"

He raised a brow in answer.

"Wh-what am I doing in the hospital?"

"You're a troublesome woman." He stated in response.

"What?" she looked even more bewildered.

Shikamaru chuckled before sitting on the edge of the bed beside her, still clasping her hand in both of his. "You botched your mission."

"Mission? What mission?"

Shikamaru gave her a curious look before he took pity on her and told her everything he knew. Half an hour later he looked at her in curious amusement as she had a disbelieving look on her face.

"Okay…that's…" she stopped short not knowing what adjective/s to use.

"Fucked up? Yeah." He moved up and leaned over her resting his forehead against hers. "Try not to give me heart failure just yet. I'm not that old."

Sakura grinned and giggled softly. Shikamaru closed his eyes and listened to it, letting it wash through him.

"So how long have I been out?"

"About a week."

"What!?"

Shikamaru laughed as she heard her ramble and rant about things that she missed or needed to be done in the hospital.

Sakura pouted. "Why are you laughing?"

"You do realise that doctors and nurses are the worst patients, right?"

A snort came from the female. "And that's saying something when you take Kakashi into account."

"Sakura?"

"Hmm?"

"Are we now in agreement about not taking any missions until after the wedding?" Sakura scowled, pretending to be annoyed but he knew better. "Sakura?"

"Fine."

"Good girl." He backed away bringing her left hand up to his mouth and kissing the ring and her fingers.

When he looked up he saw her smiling affectionately at him. It made him slightly uncomfortable but he knew how to get rid of it.

"And Sakura?"

"Hai?"

"Stop being so troublesome."

He smiled wickedly as he dodged the kidney dish that had been thrown at him and ducked out the door, listening to her shouts getting more distant as he walked down the corridor.

Well peeps. I had to write this when it came into my head. This is un-beta'd

I don't pair Sakura with a lot of people, three main guys and then two others who rise and fall in my shipping list. Shikamaru is one of the three and if you follow me and have read or look at my other fics you'll know who the other two are.

Anyway, I'm sorry if the ending seems rushed or if the start/middle/ending/all of it is confusing but it's 01:25 here and I started this a couple of hours ago and I'm tired.

I also seem to like the whole Damsel-in-Distress plotline...seems to be a running theme in most of my fics...hmmm. *shrugs*

Read and review or read and lurk. Whatever tickles your fancy.

Lady Sassy-Sas xXx