Back To The Past

Past, Future, Present. Always Your Friend.

"You remember.." Naruto mumbled in disbelief, he hung his shoulders as gravity suddenly seemed to weigh down on him and cause him to fall to his knees unwillingly in front of the six other ninjas around him, "oh my god.. Shikamaru you're not joking are you? If you're joking-!" He cried, his entire body trembling as he hid his tearful face in his hands and choked out broken sobs. Sakura and Sasuke tried to comfort him by rubbing his back in slow circles, but even they seemed to be struggling at holding back their own waterworks at Shikamaru's proclamation.. Sakura more so than Sasuke, but the Uchiha boy's bottom lip still trembled a little so Shikamaru counted that as him holding back a wave of emotion.

If only Naruto could hold it back as well as Sasuke could.. it would make this whole ordeal a whole lot less of a drag for Shikamaru to be in the middle of.

"'Course I remember, idiot. Why would I joke about this?" Shikamaru asked seriously, crossing his arms and uncrossing them nervously under the intense gaze of all the ninjas around him.. talk about creepy, being surrounded by a circle of basically time travelers.

Naruto only cried harder, "but- how?! We didn't give you- memories!" He hicupped, and Shikamaru only caught about half of what the blond was asking.. how did he get his memories back? Simple enough question, he took some medicine, he passed out, met his alternate timeline self in the hellish world he resided in, saw some flashbacks, and then merged with his older self to gain- oh that sounded really weird now that he thought about it.

"I uh.. just lucky I guess?" Shikamaru responded nervously, not hopeful for a second that anyone would buy his sorry explanation, "maybe the weather helped-."

"The weather?" Gaara asked with a raised brow, "yeah, okay, say you don't know and get on with it." He waved his hand around, making Sakura and Kankuro laugh at his little joke but making Shikamaru's face flare red in embarrassment. He gets his memories back and is immediately faced with teasing from Sand ninja and bawling from blond Leaf ninja.. just his luck indeed.

But it wasn't entirely the blond boy's fault, Naruto didn't want to cry like this in front of his friends, especially when he was seen as the 'leader' by them, he had to be strong! But.. how could he not cry when one of his best friends remembered now? All of their trials and accomplishments they had gone through before, the steps they had taken to be get where they were in the future!.. in the future where Shikamaru died because of their inability to stop Madara, the whole reason they threw themselves back in time in the first place..

Gaara raised an eyebrow at the emotion Naruto was showing, "he wasn't like this when I remembered the alternate timeline." He crossed his arms and looked at the blond boy accusingly, "I guess Naruto has favorites." He huffed, watching as the Uzumaki laughed nervously, right before bawling again, at the obvious jab of 'favoritism'.. it wasn't that he actually had favorites, you know, all of his old friends were equally great!! But perhaps he didn't show enough emotion when the Sand Siblings had all regained their memories.. yeah that was on him, curse him and his unreliable water works.

"Wasn't like this when Kakashi or Obito remembered either.." Sakura pointed out teasingly, "now what would you call this, Shikamaru? A drag?" She joked, eyes still glistening slightly with unshed tears but definitely more put together now then she had been a few moments earlier.. and definitely more put together than Naruto right now.

"What a-." Shikamaru began to think, but caught himself and shot Sakura a glare out of the corner of his eyes. She seemingly understood what had just happened to the Nara boy and hid a laugh behind her hand, "how annoying." He shook his head. Naruto bawling, Sakura reading his mind, what were the others gonna do? Start flying?.. hell, he wouldn't put it past them.

Shikamaru sighed and shook the obviously (more like hopefully) imaginative thoughts from his head before taking a careful step towards Naruto, his shaking hands shoved deep into his pockets so the others couldn't see just how nervous he really was, "what a drag, Naruto. Bawling like a baby in the middle of the day?" He asked in a friendly-banter tone that made Naruto's tears subside for just a moment and able to look up at the Nara boy, "I may have my memories back but I'm still not caught up on everything going on right now, so how about you tell me?" He asked, smiling down at his old friend before his eyes flickered over to the other ninjas who stared at him like any sudden noise might suddenly make him fade away like a hallucination, "you guys too. We need to catch up."