Above You

TheTinyestOne

Welcome to the re-write of two families, you will notice the original is still up, mainly because I got to writing the longer length I found a completely different story which had its roots buried in the original. You may notice Hinata is a wee bit OC, there is a reason for that but I have tried to keep flickers of her in there. Her general personality cropped up when I was listening to the song Yellow Flicker Beat by Lorde, give it a listen.
Enjoy!

It started with a wedding. In the way that things often do, this wedding was to seal a treaty between the leaf and the sand. It also meant that the Kazekage was finally listening to his councillors advice and getting married.
"Naruto, I don't think I can do this," The groom stated running a hand through his dark red hair, sending the spikes spluttering. Idly, he wondered if he should start combing it into a side part, a more mature look mayhap? The idea was quashed by the panic gripping him over the wedding, his wedding. His friend, and fellow kage, just clapped him on the shoulder looking unconcerned at his current panicked state, remaining unhelpfully and unusably silent. While Gaara knew he would still be looking calm and collected to anyone who didn't know him well, those who did would be able to see his panic. Naruto was unfortunately one of those who knew him well. The only one now, outside of his siblings who knew him that well.

"Relax man, Hinata is easy to please, she knows its political just be kind. You'll be fine," Unsurprisingly these words did not comfort Gaara in the least. Sensing this Naruto added

"Hinatas great!"

"hmmm," was all Gaara could manage to add, not finding his friends word at all comforting. Being nice was not his strong point, as Temari consistently pointed out to him, something about his resting face being scary or intimidating or something. At best Gaara could manage a civil interaction with a slightly scary leadership vibe. It was incredibly effective but probably not what a women would be looking for in a marriage.
"Tell me more about her again," he requested, despite the fact he had already read the files he had on her till they were committed to his memory, he watched Naruto scratch his head, before he answered.

"Hinata is… different, she used to be super shy. Stuttered, fainting the lot. Then it just kind of stopped one day. I heard that she lit a fire under her clan when they tried to stop her entering the jounin exam, then threaten to turn into a missing Nin if they didn't let her take up Kurenai's role,"
"As an information retrieval specialist?" he inquired remembering this from her file. Naruto nodded,

"I nearly fainted the first time I saw her after that, she was amazing, if you had asked anyone two years before if they could imagine a confident Hinata they would have said no, and laughed." That was the Nara, leaning on the door frame, "She volunteered for this, you should know that. Make sure you treat her well, Kazekage-sama, they're ready for you now"
Gaara nodded, but Hinata had already left his thoughts, he was thinking of another strong confident kunoichi, and he desperately tried to squash those thoughts. It would do him no good to think about Matsuri today. It was time.

Hinata, meanwhile had to keep reminding herself to breathe, she didn't feel like the strong confident kunoichi that had suggested this agreement between Konoha and Suna right now. In fact she felt as though she was the stuttering mess she had left behind with her adolescence. Trying to calm herself, she took a deep breathe to the count of eight, exhaling to the count of four, she did that five times imagining the breath going through to her toes, her fingertips every inch of her body. It was her normal go to quick calm down meditation routine. It had never failed her, until now, to her horror it didn't seem to matter how times she tried it. She kept shaking like the leaf her village was named for.

"Hinata," Shinji interrupted, "we are ready for you,"

She held up her hand, to ask for just a moment. Closing her eyes and leaning her hands against a pole, at the very least she could make her breathing steady, she couldn't, she wouldn't faint, that would be horrifying on a whole different scale.
I am a kunoichi, I am a jounin, I am Hinata of Konoha, of the Hyuuga I can do this,
"Alright, I-I-I am r-r-r-ready," Kami, She was stuttering, another deep breath and she began the slow ceremonial steps through the huge doors and down the aisles of people all craning to see her in her wedding finery. She had suggested this match, volunteered for it, she reminded herself taking another slow step. If she didn't do this Neji couldn't take her place as head of the clan, this had to happen, She repeated this mantra again and again, as she approached the figure in his impressive kage robes, at least he's handsome, she reflected, and my age, and he's not a relative, these are all great things. She took one last calming breath before placing her small hand into his. He was there right in front of her, teal eyes boring into her own lavender ones, she felt her hands tremble slightly.
Here we go.

At the wedding feast Hinata inspected her new husband from under her eye lashes. Desperately trying to ignore the old tic her hands seemed to be doing on their own, pressing her forefingers together. Neji would be furious if he could see her, it was one of thing he had spent a year helping her break the habit of, Hinata assumed it was the anxiety about today setting off all these old tics, the stuttering, the shaking the fingers, she tried her mediation breathing once more and to her upmost relief found that this time at least it seemed to have worked to stop the forefinger press. Thankfully the wedding, having been set in the late afternoon, only had a small supper to follow the long ceremony, and Suna's traditions stated the bride and groom were at separate tables, giving Hinata time to suss out her husband in a semi natural environment, as he sat surrounded by Naruto, Shikamaru and his brother. It was certainly different from Konoha's wedding traditions but Hinata couldn't help being grateful for it. She had no idea how to interact with a man who she didn't know, who was suddenly her husband. She watched as he picked at his plate listening to Naruto, who Hinata could see gesturing as he enthusiastically told a story that seemed to involved a lot of flying objects. Her husband seemed amused but it was hard to tell, he didn't smile, but he seemed lighter some how. He was certainly a handsome cut of a man, she could tell even with his robes that he had decent muscle structure despite the fact he'd spent ten years behind a kage desk. He was a head and a half taller than her, which was always something she admired in a man. Turning to face her new sister she tried to make conversation about something easy and simple, the possibility of her joining Suna's elite jounin now she was a citizen.

Gaara took a deep breath as he walked into his now shared bedroom trying to summon his courage and simultaneously banish Matsuri from his thoughts. To his horror he opened his door to his new wife sitting at the end of their bed. Dark blue hair pulled away from her face in a long plait, dressed in what looked like only a short silk robe in a lavender color that matched her eyes and clashed terribly with his dark red bed spread. Long legs tucked off to one side, she seemed confident, but she was steadfastly avoiding eye contact with him, her hands placed on her knees, and back straight, clearly waiting, for him he thought with a small twinge of horror. He wasn't sure he could do this. Without a word to her he walked past her and into his- well, theirs now he supposed- dressing room. He was glad to note she had removed the make up she had been wearing, he didn't need any of that rubbish on his bed. Once in his dressing room, he shed his robes taking a moment to hang them up where he normally wouldn't have. Already there was several changes in there, Hinatas ceremonial robes were hanging up, along with what he could only assume was the rest of her wardrobe, indeed he could spot a Konoha ANBU uniform hanging in there. A dressing table with a mirror and a chair had been added as well, with small bottles of frippery on it, a photo of a team which he supposed was her genin team. She certainly looked much more like the girl he vaguely recalled from the chunnin exams in that photo. He took a deep breath and stripped down, pulled on his black pyjama bottoms, not bothering with a shirt or robe. Opening the door back to his bedroom he found, that for the first time in his memory, his courage had failed him and he just climbed into bed, the opposite side from where Hinata sat perched, and turned off the light. Leaving her sitting in her pretty lavender robe at the end of the bed in the dark.

Silently Hinata fumed, wondering if he knew how rude he was or if he was just generally clueless. When he had come out from their dressing room she had had just a small electric shock of frisson shoot through her, his jaw line set, the scarred chest with its muscles, it all made for a rather compelling figure of a man. She had offered a hand, which he had ignored it, he had just stalked past her and gotten into bed, turning off the light with a small trail of sand from the gourd placed by the door. Leaving her sitting at the end of their bed in the dark, hand out like a fool, fuming she activated her byakugan, not knowing the room well enough to negotiate in the dark. Of all the scenarios she had imagined for tonight, each as embarrassing as the one before it, this had not occurred to her as an option. She was completely mortified, as she slipped her robe off, placing on the back of a lounge chair next to the bedside table, leaving her vulnerable in a camisole, and knickers, before climbing between the brown sheets and deactivating her byakugan. She had noted, while she waited for Gaara that brown and red took up a lot of the decorating in the sand. It made her long for the white walls of her clan, or the fresh green of Konoha.
The tension in the room was so thick, Hinata could have cut it easily with a blunt kunai. It was suffocating, she knew they needed to consummate the marriage before it was considered legally binding, if they didn't they left themselves open to annulment. A risk she couldn't leave not in good conscience. She knew as Kazekage that he should understand this, but she supposed that understanding and acting on that understanding were two different things all together. Gathering her courage, this was incredibly important after all, she reached out for him, hand trembling.
The effect was instant, he flinched away from her hand, so straight away she pulled it back to her chest and rolled over, mortified and anxious. She muttered a small stuttered apology, one he didn't deserve she noted bitterly. With a blush staining her face, she pulled her hands to lace her fingers together, knowing she wouldn't be able to sleep with his rejection fresh on mind.

Gaara knew he wasn't being fair to her. It wasn't her fault that he was wishing she was someone else. All he could think of was the feel of the all to brief kiss he and Matsuri had shared just before the war. He found himself missing her in the strangest ways, longing for moments they'd never had. They had never slept together like this, he wondered what she would have felt like in his arms, sleeping next to her, teasing her over breakfast the way the Nara and his sister did on the rare occasions that he spied them together. He wondered what they could have been if it was her next to him instead of this elegant leaf ninja. Furious with himself, he pushed Matsuri and her smile, her kiss out of his mind. He had a job to do.
Slowly feeling completely out of his depth, he reached out to touch Hinata gently on the shoulder, he could feel her trembling and desperately hoped he hadn't made her cry. He could feel the soft skin of her shoulder with an odd deep circular scar under the callous of his fingers, and she rolled back over, so she was facing him. He adjusted his hand so he could gently touch her cheek, finding it dry, much to his intense relief. He leaned forward, using his hand as a guide as he propped himself up on his elbows, lowering down to find her lips with his own, he heard her quiet gasp as their lips met for the second time that day. A current of desire swamped him as she responded with only a moments hesitation, desire shaking him to the core, he deepened the kiss, as she wrapped her arms around his neck. He pulled back for a moment before kissing her again. Then he did something so completely idiotic he was surprised his new wife didn't knocked him out. He moaned a name into her lips.
It was not hers.

"Matsuri,"