A/N: I've been ill for the past week, so my brain has had a lot of fever induced ideas. As a result, this is just something I wrote in delirium. I always found the pairing interesting, but it seems like everyone goes with a much younger Hinata, which, I just don't see happening…however, an older Hinata, well, that I can see happening.

I guess I just wanted to try my hand at it. This is a one-shot, and it takes place roughly before the events of the 7th Shippuden movie.

Depending on feedback, I might expand upon this idea, but for now, I'll just leave this as a one-shot.

Living Vicariously

Clacking shoes on the sidewalk, impractical for combat, barely logical as a mother. Why she even wore the heels seemed like a mystery now after a busy day in the streets. Shopping and dealing with the other daily chores seemed to take the place of missions. Even after a few years of being off the active Shinobu list, her training had stuck in her mind like glue. That need to arm herself to the teeth hadn't dwindled in the slightest.

There was just something about several sharp Kunai concealed in all the right places. Empowering.

It made her feel able to stand on her own in a fight, if it ever came to that. Even in the safety of the village, there was always a slim chance, and she wasn't a civilian. She would never dare cower as one, even if she was sorely out of practice.

Bag of groceries in one hand, her purse and a gallon of milk in the other, she was able to fumble the apartment door open. Thankfully, she came home to exactly the same things she had left behind. Her daughter, Mirai was busy playing. Shikamaru was sprawled out on the floor, head resting in his folded arms, as Hinata busied herself with several jonin manuals. Still trying to decide if she felt apt to test into the rank or not.

"Shikamaru, if you keep laying like that, you'll give yourself a stiff neck." Kurenai chided, toeing off her shoes as she stepped into her small apartment.

"Eh, don't matter." He muttered, picking up a red block and putting it on top of the tower. He'd been doing that for hours now, the little girl in front of him seemed to love building them. For the umpteenth time she knocked them down, and started all over again. "I'm always stiff anyway."

"It still isn't good for you." The eldest among them pointed out.

"There isn't any use trying to talk sense into him." Hinata replied with her nose firmly planted into the book in front of her. "I've already tried."

"Do you have to nag?" Shikamaru asked her. "You're starting to sound like Ino…damn pain in the ass that is."

"Language…"

He rolled his eyes as Kurenai snickered at his dilemma. He ignored her, picking himself up off the floor. "Right, well, I need to head out. Got a mission detail in the morning, need to make sure my team's been briefed."

"Kiba has the mission scroll, Naruto's been loitering around the Hokage offices." Hinata then murmured, although it was rather offhandedly. "Keep them out of trouble, please."

"With those two on my team, I'll be lucky to have the squad back in one piece." He said waving her off. He bent down to give the small child a hug, but as usual she clung onto him, expecting to be taken home. Sometimes, he would take her with him, but never on a mission night. "Mirai…" He groused when she clung even tighter.

"I go?"

"Ah, no. You need to stay." He words fell on deaf ears as she managed to worm her way onto his back, clinging into his long hair in a vice like grip. "Little help?"

"What's the matter Shikamaru?" Kurenai asked, taking far too much amusement in Shikamaru's plight. "Too nice to be the bad guy?" She had been watching the entire ordeal as she put the groceries away. This was a common occurrence.

"Too tired." He prodded back, only to see Hinata sigh as she placed down her book.

"Tired or not, you let her get away with murder." Hinata murmured as she untangled small hands from dark brown hair. "You're staying here, Mirai. Shikamaru has a mission tomorrow."

There was always something about their exchanges that Kurenai found amusing. Something that had only come around since Azuma's death and when Mirai was born. She couldn't put her finger on it, but there was an ease there. Perhaps it was because she had a little more time to observe village life, or merely that Shikamaru and Hinata themselves had changed.

For whatever reason, there was an open line of communication. Only they seemed to share it.

Even as he bid Hinata farewell, there was a similarity in the way his hand brushed her shoulder. That same openness reciprocated when she ordered him to come back to the village in one piece. If Kurenai didn't know any better, she could have sworn she was looking at a much younger version of Asuma closing the door behind him, all while Hinata let out a slow breath in mild agitation, knowing he was about to start chain smoking.

"When you two do that, you look like a married couple." Kurenai said offhandedly.

"I honestly wish you wouldn't say that." Hinata rebuked, walking into the kitchen with Mirai in tow.

"It's true." Kurenai said then as she began to prepare dinner.

"It's completely disgusting." Hinata pressed, knowing that it wouldn't do any good. "Shikamaru is otherwise involved in another woman already anyway." Or at least that was the suspicion rolling around the inner circle of the rookie nine. Hinata had no proof to back it up, but, so went the rumor. Even Shino was sure of it.

"If you haven't asked him, you can't know for sure." Kurenai chided, seeing the displeasure in Hinata's gaze. "I know you don't like it when I ask you about your love life, but insofar, it's been non-existent. You should take notice of Shikamaru. The two of you do spend a lot of time together."

"And we both know why that is." Hinata said, handing the small child clinging to her leg a sippy cup filled with water.

"I know Shikamaru's reasons." Kurenai said quietly. "You never have told me yours."

They'd already lost Asuma, Hinata would be damned to ever lose Kurenai, and it was that unspoken agreement that had forged her strange friendship with Shikamaru. Mirai was the bond tying them together. It was as deep, and as fickle, as that. "I wanted to be here." Hinata said with a small shrug as she leaned against one of the counters. "It's not all that complicated, really."

"Hinata, how long have we known each other?"

"About eight years. Why?"

"That's a long time to know someone. Still, even after that long, I don't understand why you put yourself in such difficult positions. Like all of this studying, for example." Kurenai had noticed it a few times before too…how well civilian life suited Hinata. It was true the girl was also a first class kunoichi, but, she just couldn't shake that other image Hinata seemed to portray more and more as of late. "You don't really want to be a jonin, Hinata. The burden is far larger, and the missions are just crude. You enjoy things just fine as a chunin, and besides, motherhood suits you."

Hinata gave her a look, slow and long. It was one of those piercing Hyuga stares that questioned with intrigue. "No blind dates."

"I wouldn't dream of it." Kurenai insisted. "I just don't understand why you haven't settled down yet. That's clearly what you want to do."

"I can't have what I want." Hinata said with a little shrug. "Since I know I can't have that, I'm settling with what I know I can have."

"Sounds fairly rational." Kurenai replied, assuming that Hinata was speaking of Naruto. "I assume that's the reason for your training?"

Hinata made a small noise. Something between a yes and a no. "Going for jonin is part of that settlement, but it's also a back-up plan." Keeping her words ambiguous, she offered just a little more. "Maybe I'm being too greedy, but I can't just retire from active duty either. I feel like I'd be letting go of my pride if I did that."

"What do you want so badly that you can't have?" Kurenai asked.

Hinata sighed. In the living room, Mirai toppled over the blocks, making a mess as she began to stack them once more. In the kitchen, Kurenai was dealing with dinner, doing the same thing she always did, digging deeply into the heart of the matter. Hinata was leaning in the same place she always did, back against the dividing wall that separated the two rooms.

Half an eye on the small child, half an eye on that beautiful woman who still mourned the death of the man she loved. For the past two years, this was the life Hinata knew. However, even prior to that, she was no stranger to this one space. She had stood in this doorway as a student, a teammate, a friend, and she would have continued to do so happily for as long as fate would permit her.

When it came down to what she wanted though…

"This." Hinata murmured. "I want this."

Kurenai didn't understand. The words were so quiet, curtain yet cryptic. "I'm afraid you're going to have to elaborate."

The cat was out of the bag now, there was no stuffing it back inside. "You…and Mirai…a place to come home to." Hinata wondered what good it would do. Actually saying it wouldn't change anything, would it? "I stand right here, I see everything I could ever want, but that's not fair to anyone."

Kurenai was speechless, understandably so.

So Hinata continued. "Most certainly not to you, because even if you might be interested, I'm still a ninja." She was never in the habit of denying herself, and she believed firmly in honesty, so of course she would be truthful. "I can't ask you to make that kind of compromise again." Even if it condemned her later. "It's unreasonable."

It was a shock to the system. Kurenai never expected to hear what she just had. Setting aside the knife she had been using to chop vegetables, she turned off the boiling water and turned to face the Hyuga woman. Had she heard correctly? Her staggering mind demanded to know, and after a breath and a slow lick of her lips, she was no closer to that answer than she was moments ago.

Saying nothing was out of the question, but, Kurenai could only sigh. "I don't even understand..."

"Since what I want isn't an option, I'll settle with what I can have." Hinata murmured again. "If I become a jonin, then at least there's that too."

"And then what, Hinata, join the ANBU?" The question was rough, harsh to the ears, harder on the mind. "You'll get yourself killed that way."

"I'll take on a genin team of my own." Hinata said quietly. "That's what you did, it seemed to work just fine."

Is that what she thought? An outright stupid assumption, but one Hinata seemed to have made. Kurenai would have to correct that. "Asuma and I weren't planning on having children because of our careers. Keeping you six in-line, that was our goal. Until now, I thought we'd done a good job training all of you." Now she was sure that it wasn't. That she made a misstep someplace, she had to have. It was the only explanation. "Then you go and say something like that, and I wonder what capacity you think of me as."

"I'm not twelve anymore, and you disbanded the team as soon as you became too pregnant to train us." Hinata had been fine with that. They were chunin at that point, plenty skilled enough to look after themselves. "You're the one that changed your position in my life. Those old lines faded, blurred I guess, once we just became friends."

"I just don't know where all of this is coming from." Kurenai tried to think back, but she had never once considered that Hinata was inclined to seek out the fairer gender. Hinata had never made any attempt to prove that point. Perhaps because she had never needed a reason to. Either way, it was too new for Kurenai to process. "You've never said anything like this before."

"I've had a lot of near death experiences, and we both know what influenced my choices then." There was a brutal honesty in those words. Dark, murky, but entirely true. "As a ninja I know who and what I am, but then the fighting stops, the mission ends, and I come home." What was she then? Who was she after that? "My clan doesn't need me, I might as well be non-existent to Naruto. Kiba and Shino have clans to lead, and so I come here…to the one place where I've always known who I am."

"Hinata…" Crimson eyes averted their gaze.

"That's all I have to be when I'm here." Hinata said. "Just that..."

Her words had been intense even in their softness. A plea to be understood in a way that Hinata had never asked of her before. Kurenai was forced to reconcile years of time she'd spent with the girl…because it was strictly as Hinata said. She wasn't a child anymore, and the stuttering genin was little more than a ghost of history.

Hinata was war hardened now, the deaths of those she cared about were things that shoved her forward in life. As a chunin she was in her prime, but as she said, that left little room for comfort. Kurenai had always had Asuma in her chunin days. They became jonin together, forging a path that would leave very little room for romance, and the times they did have would be overshadowed by the dangers of their jobs.

What did Hinata have? At this point a woman had three choices. Stay the course…or rise to jonin…or settle down into a civilian lifestyle. Those three options were Hinata's only path, but each one would lead in vastly different directions.

Kurenai took a hard breath to steady herself. "How long have you felt that way?"

"Always, I think…to some extent." Hinata murmured pushing some of her long hair behind her shoulder.

"I don't understand how you could." In fact, if anything, she was even more lost now.

"We're good at playing house." Hinata said sadly. "We always have been. It's just that somewhere along the line, players shifted. The roles changed, so did the rules."

It wasn't all that long ago that Kiba would come tearing through the kitchen with Akamaru in search of something to eat. Shino would follow along out of habit, and Hinata would lean on that very wall that she did right now. Meek, mild, and staying out of the way. They used to crowd around the kitchen like baby chicks after training. It was an equally common sight to see Asuma's team crowding the living room. Shikamaru hunching over a game of shogi, while Ino hogged the radio, and Choji monopolized the snacks.

Even divided, there was a strange togetherness shared by the two groups. The six rookies didn't think anything of it back then, mindlessly following their teachers because that was the right thing to do. They hadn't noticed it then, and most of them didn't address it now, but those genin days had been some of the best in their lives. When they were accepted as children as well as shinobi.

As a genin, that had been a commodity too easily forgotten. In their bloodstained cloak and dagger world, those moments were ones of levity that saved them. All of them.

Asuma doted on Shikamaru the most. That was common knowledge. Kurenai did the same for Hinata. That was also an undisputable fact. Hinata was sure that if Asuma was still alive, that strange family setting would be around in full force. With six chunin chasing after an all too playful toddler, and two jonin keeping everything from falling apart. The six of them would have been seven, and none of them would have found a fault with any of it.

"I know what you're trying to say, but we can't go back to those days." Kurenai murmured. "They're gone."

"But we're still playing, all thanks to Mirai." Hinata said sadly. "Asuma wanted Shikamaru to look after her, so he's going to keep playing. It was the first real promise he ever made, so I know he's going to keep it."

"So what does that make you?" Kurenai asked, almost praying for Hinata's timid side to win out over her serious side. "What do you want from me?" Though, she was sure that modesty wouldn't save the two of them anything at this point, she didn't know how to deal with the woman in front of her. Hinata seemed so sure, so aware of what she wanted. Her confession left loneliness everywhere.

"Everything." Hinata said quietly. "But I'll settle for nothing."

They left it at that, long moments of quietness shifting the room, the intensity still there, soundless and thick. Kurenai should have expected that as she went back to cooking, but in all honesty, she was thankful for the reprieve Mirai demanded of them. Like a second nature, Hinata lifted the little girl into her arms, carrying her to the rocking chair in the corner. They started reading, and Kurenai sighed heavily once again, this was a normal sight too.

Maybe they were playing house, and maybe they always had been…but it wasn't really that simple, was it?

They ate dinner, Hinata did the dishes. Kurenai gave Mirai her bath, and put the little girl to bed. As always, a relaxing nighttime tea blend was already made, sitting on the Livingroom table when Kurenai returned. The evening, like always, was a quiet one. Spent in the company of one another. No words, just companionship.

But that silence was still deafening.

Kurenai was sure that Hinata wasn't studying, her eyes likely rolling over the page blankly absorbing the words. She knew that because she was having difficulty with her own nighttime reading. Even though hers was for leisure, it still seemed like a chore. If she put her book down, Hinata would lift her eyes from that scroll. Knowing this, the frozen reality of that set in, leaving only uncertainty in its wake.

What could she say to the woman across from her? Did she even have to say anything at all?

No…

She didn't…

And things would stay the same. Completely….utterly…the same.

In spite of the comfortable thing to do, the book seemed to close of its own volition. Her voice found purchase. "Hinata…"

"Yes?" And those eyes, just as expected, slowly lifted from the scroll lain out upon the table.

The haze between them, floating in that moment, shared by so many years of blades and turned backs. Trust and farewells. Teacher and student, jonin and chunin, friends. Blurred lines, crossed paths. A million little confessions, suffocating the lies and the deceit that they'd built up around themselves unknowingly. It all shattered like glass.

"Come here." Her call so soft, she doubted that she'd been heard.

Hinata stood, each step she took, another line dashed to bits, kicked aside. The wooden floor beneath her feet might as well have been sand, her feet a non-descript pattern that could never be followed again. The closer she got, the nearer to ruining everything they became. She knew, she was the one doing that, instigating it…aggravating the finely colored reality that they'd painted for themselves for years…and here she was, erasing all of it, in hopes of something else.

Something more.

Kurenai stood up too, and then there was no denying the fact that they were merely an arm's length away. Either one of them could completely destroy everything. There was a small horror in that. There would be no going back. "Do you realize how insane all of this even is?"

Hinata took a breath, another small step forward. "It's not insane. I passed that point years ago." A mere whisper, hot against the nape of Kurenai's neck. "What's insane is covering yourself in another person's blood. When they have someone to go home to, and you don't, that's insane." A kiss upon that same tender flesh, and then, another admission. "I didn't…I still don't."

Maybe it was just ghosts, echoing from the past that they couldn't bring back. The people that were gone, the future they couldn't have. The denial of dreams, the fragments of torn souls. Kurenai would give voice to echoes, because if nothing else, Hinata's breath was warm…the heartbeat of another was too good to deny. Give a voice, so that one day, it didn't have to be pretend anymore.

"Yes, you do. You're home, Hinata."