Rabbit Heart: Chapter One

A/N: Sooo, I was going to wait to write this until I finished my KibaIno fic Grief in a few more chapters, but I got on an updating roll, and got too excited so here we are. Welcome to my new foray into GaaHina. I have two oneshots about them, Story Time and Sunset, so feel free to check those out. Anyway, without further ado...

I can't verify how often this will get updates, maybe once a month, or perhaps more frequently. I do want to get Grief out of the way first because I'm close to finishing it, but don't worry, I'm gonna work on this too!

It had all been quite a scandalous affair.

Prince Naruto was given a rather simple choice, and yet, managed to screw it up. Prince Naruto always was a wildcard. Supposedly, that was how his mother, Queen Kushina had been.

Hinata sat quietly, taking in all of the festivities around her. She had imagined this day so differently in her head, and yet absolutely nothing went according to plan.

Prince Naruto had been given a simple choice of a bride by the kingdom's council, either the vivacious Lady Ino of the Yamanaka clan, or herself, Lady Hinata of the Hyuuga clan. Nobody expected him to pick a simple handmaiden.

Somehow, it had been Lady Ino's handmaiden Sakura to catch his eye, and he promptly demanded that he be able to have the commoner girl as his bride, or remain celibate with no heirs. Nervously, the council conceded, fearing for the future of the kingdom.

Now, she sat at their wedding, watching the happy couple from afar. The new Princess Sakura was quite beautiful, she had to admit, but her heart still ached. She had loved the quirky Prince Naruto, and had been overjoyed when her clan wanted to arrange a marriage with him.

Following the news of Prince Naruto's scandalous choice, the Hyuuga clan had been in an uproar. They had attempted to appeal to the council, but Prince Naruto was adamant. He later admitted to her that he'd been in love with Sakura since the first time Lady Ino visited with her.

"You're a nice girl, Hinata, it just wouldn't be fair to you or Lady Ino," he had said, smiling sadly.

The Hyuuga had been scrambling like crazy to find an appropriate match for her, as there were many fine clans to choose from. Their next choice had been the younger son of the reknown Uchiha clan, Sasuke. As it turned out, Prince Naruto screwed everything up again, this time, by angling rather heavily for Sasuke to marry his cousin, so that he could be related to his best friend.

Running out of ideas, the Hyuuga turned to the Aburame clan, another powerful clan, only to find Shino had been engaged long before any of this had begun. Then they had turned to the Inuzuka, only to find the Yamanaka had managed to match up their daughter to Kiba, albeit somewhat reluctantly.

This came as a surprise to Hinata, who expected the Yamanaka would arrange her to marry the heir of the Nara or the Akimichi, however, her father explained later that the three clans never intermarried, so as to preserve their clan techniques. Hinata herself could not marry one of those boys either, as her clan's technique would likely overpower their own.

Thus, the noble Hyuuga clan became the laughing stock of the kingdom, unable to marry off their heiress. Hinata had thought to herself that perhaps it would not be so terrible to not marry right away, but never quite had the bravery to say so as her clan attempted to find new prospects.

"Hinata," came the voice of her cousin, Neji, bringing her out of her stupor. "Your father wishes to speak with you on the terrace." His face was unreadable, and she hadn't a clue of what to expect.

"Ok, thank you."

Heading from the ballroom to the terrace, and smoothing her lavender gown of any wrinkles, she found her father deep in discussion with a young man. Her heart sank. Had they finally found an available man? Leave it to her father to try to arrange a marriage at a wedding. Approaching the two, she got a good look at the man. He had red hair, pale skin, and very pale green eyes. The eyes were quite strange however, he had very dark rings around them, as if he had not slept for a very long time. Otherwise, he was very handsome.

"Hinata, I believe we have found you a suitable match at last," her father spoke, taking her hand and guiding her closer. She felt the man's eyes examining her, and she blushed, feeling as if he could see through her. Hiashi turned to the young man. "She's quite shy. Very quiet."

"That is agreeable to me," the man spoke. "I'm rather quiet myself."

"Hinata, this is the King of Suna, Gaara. He is a friend of Prince Naruto's, and has recently come of a marrying age," her father said.

"The King? I'm surprised you don't have women throwing themselves at you every day," Hinata said quietly, incredulous that he didn't already have a wife.

"I'm considered unmarriable," the young man answered flatly. Her eyebrows furrowed beneath her bangs. What an odd thing to say.

"That's ok, so is Hinata in these parts. We've had the most incredible bad luck trying to find her a husband," Hiashi said, making the most of the situation. He turned to his daughter. "I heard the young King was coming for Prince Naruto's wedding, and thought I would approach him. We are still working out the details of your marriage."

"I..I see," she stuttered out, playing with her hands in her nervousness. Distressingly, this was not unnoticed by Gaara.

"If everything works out, you'll be the Queen of Suna."

It hadn't sunk in until that moment that Hinata would have to leave the kingdom to move to another, somewhere completely unfamiliar, as a queen no less, with duties and responsibilities. She was in trouble, for sure.

The two men watched as she wobbled slightly, before passing out completely. Hiashi moved to catch her, but Gaara's young reflexes had reached her faster, as he deftly scooped her crumpling form up and placed her where he'd been sitting.

Hiashi merely sighed. This always happened to her at the most inopportune moments. What was he going to do with her?

"Hyuuga-san, I hope you understand that I did not come to this kingdom attempting to find a wife. I will need to contact my kingdom's council for advice on what the marriage contract should contain," the young King said, already anticipating he would need to stay here longer than he initially planned.

"Gaara! There you are! We've been looking all over for you!"

Hiashi blinked in surprise as another young man greeted the young King in such a rude manner. He either knew the King quite well, or was incredibly ignorant.

"Hyuuga-san, this is my quite annoying brother, Prince Kankuro," Gaara spoke, eyes closed. "Kankuro, this is Hiashi Hyuuga. He is making arrangement for me to marry his daughter."

"What? You're coming home with a wife?" Kankuro seemed to be quite surprised, his eyes wide in shock.

"Why not? This may be my only chance."

Hiashi wondered what exactly made the young King so undesirable to the ladies of Suna. Politically speaking, his reputation was rock solid, he was accepted as a smart and competent ruler. Prince Naruto spoke rather highly of him as well.

The Hyuuga patriarch stood and bowed to the newcomer. "Hinata is a delightful girl, King Gaara. I'm sure you will find her a most suitable wife."

Kankuro raised an eyebrow at the girl, passed out on the chair. "Is she ok?"

"She will be absolutely fine, this happens to her somewhat frequently. Gaara-sama, if you would like, the Hyuuga can would be most honored if you could join us for dinner tomorrow evening."

"I will be there, thank you," Gaara said, before leaving the terrace with his brother.

"Temari's going to blow a gasket for sure," Kankuro muttered.

"Temari is otherwise indisposed at the moment," Gaara replied. He had seen her sneaking off earlier, after all.

"So you got a marriage proposition from this guy and decided to just go with it?! We don't know these people, Gaara," Kankuro reprimanded, forced to be the voice of reason in Temari's absence.

"Precisely. She doesn't find me undesirable, and therefore will have no qualms about bearing me an heir. Then, the council will leave me alone about it," Gaara explained, frustrated by Kankuro not seeing his logic.

"I'm pretty sure there's more to marriage than that," his brother muttered, rolling his eyes.

"You can tell me that when you're a married man, Kankuro."

A/N: Ok, so, what'd you think?! Gaara's first impression of Hinata didn't go very well. By the way, he's not obsessed with getting married or having an heir or anything, he just wants the council off his back. The problem is, they want to secure an heir as fast as possible, but nobody wants to marry their daughter to him. So Hiashi made an offer in desperation, and G is running with it. I thought i'd clarify, just in case.

Anyway darlings, go ahead and leave me your thoughts, i'd adore to hear them!

MyHikari