A/N: Just so you know, there are only two more chapters after this (I never intended the fic to be this long) but expect a bunch of action!

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto and am making no profit from this fan fiction.

Venus or Themis

Part Four: Not Bad

By Nessie

Tenten woke unusually easily with her alarm the next morning, one hand curled into the smooth linen sheet she laid beneath, the other crossed lazily over her middle. She had worn a simple Columbia University T-shirt and brown draw-string cotton pants. Her hair was loose and tumbled over her pillow. Outside, she was very comfortable. Inside – not so much.

Well, she thought with a series of blinks to clear away the last vestiges of sleep, she was a goddamn liar.

Not my type, she had told Sakura. She had meant it at the time when she had shown no intention of acting on her interest in Neji Hyuuga. Her initial purpose had been for obtaining only legal defense and nothing more. And then she'd…what?

He had asked her to dinner, and he had been so serious which at first she had somewhat resented but then somewhat admired, because he was good-looking, and he was intelligent, and he had cut her slack and, Christ, it had honestly been a long time since she had been on a date. Tenten sat up and let her forehead fall into a propped-up palm. She felt both weak-willed and strangely satisfied, and the friction between the two was giving her a headache.

Sakura was going to laugh when she found out about this. At least Tenten had her work to keep her mind off tonight, even though she knew the first thing she would do after arriving at the school would be to check her e-mail for a meet-up time from Neji. Why? It just rounded back to the fact that she was a liar.

With a little sigh, Tenten slid out of bed and shuffled into the bathroom for a wakeup shower. Sometimes, she thought with a smile she couldn't restrain, she was disappointed in herself.

---

She was distracted at work. Deciding it was a good thing she only headed the R&D department and didn't actually teach within it, Tenten bore the curious glances and crooked smirks the students she worked with sent her way, zeroing in on her fraying nerves as only college kids could. She gave them basic tasks of the look-online variety and proceeded to hole herself up in her office with its large windows to keep an eye on the excitable undergrads and fret about whether or not going to dinner and a movie with Neji Hyuuga was a bombastically terrible idea.

Tenten had a very good fret going (involving the rigorous tapping of her pen on her desk and copious amounts of coffee) when her office door was flung open by a visitor she hadn't noticed coming her way. Whirling in her swivel chair, she hoped whoever had entered without knocking had invented a poison that wouldn't kill because if a mark had been dug in the wall, she might have had to find one that did…

Her narrowed chocolate-brown eyes landed on the wide charcoal ones of her best friend, and she duly noted that poison would never been enough to put down Rock Lee.

An absurdly tall, lanky man, he was trim from the bowl shape of his gelled black hair to the speed at which he ran after years of track. Technically his name was Lee Rock, but he had reversed it on the insistence that "it sounded better," and everyone still called him Lee anyway. A sculptor whose hobby was martial arts, he actually used different types of rock as a play with his name. His gimmick was to shape the rock into his imagined piece by punching it, but only after breaking small bits out of larger chunks with his powerful legs. His art school professors had called him completely insane. Critics loved him.

Of course, the crazy, praised man only presented that image to those who didn't know him. To those who did, he was a thief of artistic interest. The name-reverse idea was taken from architect Maitou Gai (Gai Maitou on official documents), whom Lee had met when Gai had spoken at his art school. Since then, much to Gai's flattery and Tenten's chagrin, he had mimicked the older man in everything from his hair to his bleached teeth and his penchant for wearing a ridiculous amount of green. Most annoying of all, both of them had a habit of giving thumbs-ups at the moment when such a thing was most uncalled for.

"Your kids are buzzing with the mischievous gossip of youth, Tenten," began Lee jokingly, shutting the door with less dramatic energy.

Telling Lee about her date would prove either de-stressing or disastrous. Feeling the latter to be far more likely, she took a deep gulp from her panda-patterned mug before answering nonchalantly, "They're students, Lee. Making stuff up is how they survive."

Lee laughed in good-natured appreciation of the unfortunate truth, but the story-hungry gleam did not leave his bushy brow-topped eyes. "Even so…you are striving for an intriguing minimum of eye contact."

Tenten immediately locked gazes with him, as though doing so would prove him wrong. "I'm just in the middle of some important research." Catching sight of her computer and its decidedly research-free desktop, she hurried to pull of a file of any kind.

"Tenten," Lee said with a note of seriousness, "have you got a boyfriend?"

"No!" The unique set of eyebrows hiked up, and she inwardly sighed. Disaster it was, then. "I just have a date."

"Thank God! I was worried you would marry a can of mace before too long."

"I've been on dates," she snapped in self-defense. "And I've had boyfriends."

He was practically crowing. "Not since college. And not for more than three months. Tell me." Another note of incognito amusement, "When was the last time you went to bed with someone?" he inquired, his tone of voice reaching for clandestine and managing only boyish curiosity.

She'd have blushed if she wasn't someone who could take apart, reload, and put a rifle back together in under forty seconds. "When did you?" But the truth was that a good deal of women found her overzealous friend attractive. A rather open young lady (with a spot too much to drink) had once informed her that Lee had very talented fingers outside of sculpture, and at any rate, a straight male sculptor was hard to come by. Lee had probably had much more and much better sex in the last few weeks than she had in the last few years.

Tenten experienced a sudden realization that she was pathetic.

"Who is it you're dating?"

"I'm not telling you." He pouted, but it was a sound call. If Lee knew, she ran the risk of him telling Sakura, who would tell Ino, who was the world's biggest gossip-monger, and within a week it would be known over both coasts that Tenten Long had seen a movie with her lawyer.

Her e-mail alert dinged, saving her from a potentially vicious bout of friendly indignation from Lee. Gesturing for him to pour some coffee for himself, Tenten read the first one, a very brief note from Neji telling her the address and meet-up time for Ichiraku's, a pasta and barbecue place, along with a few movie options.

Quickly going to the next mail before Lee could peep at her screen, she scanned a letter from the New York state department. A small gasp she couldn't keep down drew Lee's attention. "What is it?"

"The government's contacted me again. They've doubled their pay offer."

Lee looked over her shoulder at the e-mail. His eyes went impossibly wider. "Tenten, that's huge!" For a second, she was concerned he would spill scalding coffee on her in his surprise. "You're taking that, aren't you? Ten hundred thousand a year—"

"But I don't need that kind of cash."

"Think of the charities you could help out though," observed Lee.

"Yeah." As appealing as government work, pay, and research assistance sounded, the truth was her thoughts kept drifting back to dark hair and pale eyes. "I'm thinking about it."

---

She was late, late, late.

When Tenten found Neji standing near the doors of the wide-front restaurant beneath its brand-new, flashing sign, she took solace in the fact that she looked phenomenal in the slim, black dinner dress purchased in a moment of weakness (she seemed to be having several of those lately). When she clicked over to him in her heels, he spoke before she could rattle off an apologetic excuse.

"You're right on time."

Befuddled, her eyebrows drew together, forming a crease she could not know Neji found incontestably adorable. "But your e-mail said…"

"I told you thirty minutes ahead of time as a precaution." He gestured for her to follow him inside. "There are reservations," he explained with a tone of perfect reason.

Unexpectedly, Tenten laughed, not offended by his honesty. "How very strategic."

The interior of Ichiraku's was large, widely spaced between tables, and a little under par. Tenten didn't know much about decorating, but the place seemed a little blasé to her, the dominating color a pale tan with lighting dim, as though intended for a romantic atmosphere, and succeeding only in lack of sufficiency. Yet when they were led to their table, Tenten didn't need an excess of illumination to recognize Neji's partner, Shikamaru Nara, and Broadway star Temari Sands.

Neji proceeded with introductions, and hands were shaken before their drink orders were jotted down. "I saw you in Envy when you first started last season," Tenten told Temari with a smile. She liked to break the ice right away.

Temari chuckled, her blue eyes glittering more brightly than the diamond on her left hand. "I only wish I could've seen your performance. Shikamaru tells me you were inadvertently instrumental in keeping my brother out of jail. Thanks."

Conversation segued from the trial to current politics (the four generally agreed that George W. Bush needed to go back to Texas) to the menu as they placed their orders. All the while, Tenten was acutely aware of Neji's unabashed attention of her. She desperately hoped she hadn't already done something unbecoming or said something stupid. At one point, she sneaked a sideways glance at him and thought she might have caught him with the corners of his mouth turned up, if not actually smiling. Maybe it was the wine.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the approach of two men and Shikamaru standing up to set a hand on one's shoulder. This man was pleasantly rotund and redheaded, the other blond and thin. Both wore white aprons, though the blond's was fairly well-stained.

"Neji, Tenten, this is Chouji Akimichi," Shikamaru said. "He's responsible for your food tonight."

Chouji waved to them and nodded to Temari, whom he had already seemed to have met. "Unless you ordered pasta; then Naruto Uzumaki here would be in charge of that."

Naruto certainly seemed hyperactive enough to load himself down with carbs and never gain an ounce. "Hi there! We only have about five minutes to talk." Leaning over, he lowered his voice and spoke to the table beside Tenten. "But we really only have eight months under contract here."

"Naruto's opening his own place," Chouji added secretively.

"And I'm taking Chouji with me," Naruto grinned.

"What kind of food?" Tenten asked. From her right, Neji shifted.

"Not sure yet, but it'll look better there, for sure. This place isn't bad," relented Naruto, "but it's kind bland, ya know?"

"The food's not," Chouji quickly assured them.

Dinner was good, and Tenten found she liked Temari and Shikamaru. She liked even more the way Neji seemed to unwind when faced with Temari's quirky conversation and Shikamaru's dry wit. When they parted at nine o' clock, Temari promised her a free ticket to her latest play. Tenten missed it when Shikamaru murmured something to Neji who only raised an eyebrow at him in response.

Neji and Tenten caught a late showing of a surprisingly mature, advanced Disney movie involving cursed pirates and rum-obsessed Johnny Depp . The tension first began to build in the taxi ride to the cinema, although she gave him extra points for trying to keep the conversation going by telling her of his start with Shikamaru as attorneys. The prospect of spending a couple of hours in a darkened theater loomed over them, but once they were there, it was thankfully not as awkward as she had predicted. Hyuuga was a perfect gentleman the entire time and kept his hands to himself while Geoffrey Rush gave swashbuckling laughs and Orlando Bloom looked perpetually confused. Tenten tried not to feel disappointed.

He accompanied her in the cab ride home, Tenten feeling his white stare all the way there. Neji was quietly outgoing, she realized, not shy at all. While he might have been extremely careful about what he said to her, he had no qualms about where he looked. When she spotted him studying the curve of her leg nearest him, his eyes hastily met hers, and Tenten had to suppress a shiver. It was like being touched.

They arrived, and Neji walked her up as she had suspected he would. They had said precious little to each other after the movie but Tenten concluded it had been very comfortable silence. At her door, she turned to him. "Not too bad for a first date, huh?"

Neji's glance was level. "Are you saying you would like another?"

Her pulse went immediately erratic as a thought entered the front of her mind; she couldn't believe she was about to say this… "Are you saying this one's over?"

For the first time she saw that so confident exterior falter when his eyes fractionally widened. She mentally congratulated him on handling his emotions but felt proud of herself for cracking him a little.

Tenten reached for his hand but found it already halfway to her waist. They met in a very hurried, very deep kiss that promptly put her brain on hold and set every nerve ablaze. Whether she had admitted it to herself or not, she'd been imagining this since he had first leaned over the witness stand toward her at Gaara's trial.

Breaking off from him, she turned in his arms to unlock the door, fumbling when she felt his lips fall onto the bare nape of her neck, one hand splayed across her flat stomach. It was a comfort to know he had gone as mindless as she.

When they did manage to get inside, Tenten grabbed his arm, pulled him to her and didn't bother with lights.

To Be Continued