In Sickness And Health ~Shikamaru~

Chapter 7

The day after I had taken Reira to Alsono's, Ino, Choji, and I recieved word that we were to return to the land of snow. The rebles had decided to rise up again. If this was how it was going to be, going back and forth every week, I was just going to get a house somewhere in the border lands. I decided it bast to spend my last day here with Reira, taking her out of the hospital once again to walk around outside and lay in the grass. She seemed to enjoy the outside better than her room.

Reira smiled when I walked into her room, though I knew she had been looking out her window again. For so long I have wondered what she looks for out there. I know she said she didn't remember but obviously there is something extrodinary that plays in her brain when she looks at the path. "What are you looking for out there?" I asked. She looked back out and seemed to think for awhile.

"I think... I'm waiting for my Mom... to come get me." Her Mom?

"Why her? What about your Dad?"

"He's... not coming back." She looked at that path with a smal sliver of hope in her eyes. "But Mom... said she would... come back for me."

This was really the first time she had ever mentioned anything about family. I knew she had come to live here after her parents left her here to get proper care, but a small part of me always wondered why they never came in to see her. I sat on the edge of her bed next to her. "Where is your Mom, Reira? And your Dad?"

She looked up at me with those empty blue eyes and showed no emotion as she spoke. "My Dad... doesn't want me anymore. But Mom is... far away... helping Aunt Saiko." Reira seemed to be getting an idea in her head, one she couldn't seem to grasp compleatly. "She left the same day... I came here."

"How long have you been here?"

Reira narrowed her eyes slightly. "Three years." Something was making her angry, or upset, one of the two, it's kind of hard to tell with Reira. But in any case I knew something was putting her in a bad mood and I needed to change the subject.

"Reira, lets go outside." Her face almost instantly changed from growing anger to excitement. The sun was out and Reira dressed in a light dress took several deep breaths of fresh air when we got to the hill. I watch as she spread her arms and fell back into the grass, the sun shining on her face. There wasn't anything I could see right now that alerted me to her disposition. It's like the outside fixed everything inside of her.

I layed down next to her, tucking my hands behind my head and looking up at the clouds as they slowly rolled by. "My Mom is really pretty." I looked over at Reira who was smiling with her hands folded on her stomach. "She has long... fire like hair... and I have her... pretty blue eyes." She seemed so happy to be talking about her mother. The smile on her face seemed to make her glow as the sun hit her pale skin.

"Thats nice."

"I miss her." For a small moment her smile faded but then she smiled again and closed her eyes. "But that's okay."

"Why?"

She snuggled into the grass and very openly stated. "Because I have you."