Warnings: none; sweetness, happy ending. Hanabi's POV, Minato, SasuNaru

Written from the prompt "Minato, Hanabi, fruit basket, feeling, essence" that I got from the crack generator at tanomono dot net slash generators slash naruto slash crack slash prtl3p-het dot html.

Fate
by vernajast

minato, hanabi, sasuke x naruto

~*~

Usually, Hanabi Hyuuga ignored the grieving parents and spouses, siblings, children, and friends lingering in the waiting rooms and hallways of Konoha General Hospital. After her first week as a candy striper (Thanks, Sis...), she had had her fill of car accident survival stories, suicide failures, and neglectful parenting. When she had finally snapped and told one woman that smoking was a disgusting habit and if she had quit like she said she intended to she never would have left her cigarettes and lighter sitting on the kitchen table...Hanabi was relieved (forbidden) from speaking to anyone else during her stint over the summer.

So it was somewhat reluctantly that she found herself staring at a blond man sitting alone down a slightly darkened hallway away from the main traffic of the hospital. He held his head in his hands, and his posture clearly broadcast exhaustion. Checking her watch, she noted it was nearly seven thirty a.m. He had probably been there for at least a few hours.

When he shifted and sat back against the wall, she stepped around the corner so as not to be noticed, realizing she must have made a stark silhouette against the bright windows of the main corridor.

"Hanabi, what are you doing?" A nurse that was friends with her sister Hinata was coming toward her, talking loudly and likely to draw the man's attention.

Hanabi walked away from the dark hall and the blond man, meeting Sakura halfway with a cool smile. "I was just finishing a delivery, one of those gaudy fruit baskets. As if an unconscious man will be interested in fruit that has rotted by the time he's awake, anyway."

"Hey!" Sakura punched her lightly on the arm, and when they parted ways, the older woman smiled. "Try to work on your bedside manner, silly."

The young candy striper gave her a bland look and moved in the opposite direction. Without really knowing why, she poured two cups of coffee, filled her pockets with sugar and creamer packets, and retraced her steps. She just knew he was going to have another sob-story: my daughter was riding with her boyfriend who was driving too fast, and she never wore her seat belt... It was always something like that.

I'm going to get myself fired.

When she entered the little hallway, her shoes squeaked on the freshly buffed floor and the man sitting farther down on one of the orange cushioned benches immediately looked up. His eyes had a haunted quality that she had never seen before, and his features must have been attractive, but at the moment, he only appeared drawn and pale. Washed out. Or wrung out, perhaps, from worry.

"Here." She held one of the coffee cups out with little ceremony, basically thrusting it into his face and forcing him to take it.

He did so with a trembling hand that steadied around the familiar warmth of the styrofoam cup. His smile was flat in effect, but made up for it in effort and potential. "Thank you..." The pause at the end of his sentence was leading, and it was obvious the man was used to speaking to unfamiliar people.

"Hanabi, sir." She smiled brightly, aware that anyone who knew her would have stared in shock at the warmth that crept into it. "And your name is...?"

"Oh, sorry. Minato. Namikaze Minato." His thumb rubbed at the side of the cup, and it seemed as though he'd forgotten he was holding it.

Hanabi sat down and dumped the contents of her pockets onto the bench between them. "I've got creamer and sugar if you want any. There's a stirrer in your cup."

He nodded slightly, clearly still processing her words. "Thanks. Again."

"You looked like you could use it." She started preparing her own cup, watching the small crystals of sugar slide into the dark depths of the coffee, and bit her tongue to keep from asking whether the man's 'precious person' had been a drowning victim. Whatever it was, it had obviously been a surprise because now that she was closer, she could see that he was wearing running shoes, a t-shirt, and lounging pants of the type one might sleep in. His blond hair was tousled and his eyes--the irises were bright blue, she could see that now--were red with sleep-loss.

"I suppose so." He seemed to stare down at the pile of packets for a moment before taking one creamer and four sugars. He ripped them open all together and dumped the contents into his own cup. "I was asleep when..." A long, slender hand waved in front of his face, the gesture obviously encompassing the hallway, the hospital, the whole ordeal.

Her interest was piqued, she had to admit. Most people were more than happy to tell their life story to a candy striper in an effort to rid themselves of the guilt or the pain they were feeling. This man, Minato, he was sitting quietly and sipping his coffee.

In her head, she could hear her sister's voice: Hanabi, it would be better if you didn't speak to them until you learn the proper way to do so. And Ino's additional: Right now, you only make it worse. Sorry, but it's true.

And yet, her curiosity wouldn't be deterred. "Minato," she said quietly to avoid startling him, "may I ask..."

His head turned slightly, making eye contact, questioning.

"May I ask why you're here, sir?" She turned down her smile a bit. She didn't want him to think she was mocking him. (...not yet...)

He looked away again, toward the doorway across the hall. There was a small sign above a shuttered window that read, Surgery 3. "My son...Naruto..."

Hanabi refrained from smirking. Boys were always getting into trouble, doing stupid things like jumping from roof to roof or making dares. Surgery...hm...

"...he's a police officer. He was...injured in the line of duty." Minato went silent again and sipped his coffee.

Hanabi stared at his face in profile and willed her lips to work. This wasn't what she had expected. "Something went wrong?"

He nodded, nearly imperceptibly. "He took a bullet in the chest for his best friend." His fingers tightened against the side of the cup, and for a moment, she expected them to break through and spill coffee everywhere, but it didn't happen. "Why did you do it..." he muttered to himself.

"You would have preferred he didn't?" It was out of her mouth before she could stop it, and she looked away, waiting for the anger that usually followed such statements.

"I don't know. Maybe." Minato looked sadder than before. "No. He wouldn't have been able to live with himself if he'd let Sasuke be shot..."

"So it's better for him to die instead? Your son's an idiot." Hanabi huffed and sipped her coffee too quickly, burning her lip and blaming karma for what she'd just said.

But Minato had actually chuckled at that, and he was smiling to himself. "Yes, he is."

"You're weird," she said before drinking her coffee more slowly and watching Minato from the corner of her eye. She was reminded of something her cousin told her once: "Maybe it was just fate."

"You! You make it sound as if he's already dead!" There. There was the anger she had expected--but then his voice was gentle again, and he sighed. "Fate...please. We make our own fate. You're too young to be so fatalistic."

Footsteps in the corridor interrupted their conversation, and a young, dark-haired uniformed policeman came toward them at a clipped pace, eyes set firmly on the man sitting beside Hanabi, not even noticing her. "Minato. Sir."

"Sasuke." Minato sounded a thousand times more tired, and Hanabi snagged the coffee out of his hand before he dropped it. She watched him stand and yank the stern young man into a tight hug, his bright eyes shining in the dim light. He spoke into the newcomer's shoulder, "Naruto's in surgery."

"Oh." Sasuke looked lost for a few seconds, staring at the door as if he wanted to flee or bang it down--perhaps both--but the door opened before he could act, and a scrub-clad doctor and his surgical techs and nurses walked out.

"Father." Hanabi backed against the wall, trying to look as unobtrusive as possible.

"Daughter." Doctor Hyuuga's gaze passed between Hanabi and Minato, but he didn't comment on his daughter's coincidental presence. "Mr. Namikaze? I'd like to talk about your son's condition..." He directed Minato down the corridor. Sasuke disappeared into the hospital room. And Hanabi was left alone in the dim hallway, forgotten amidst worry over their loved one.

When the door closed loudly, she waited a breath and then pressed her body against the fake wood texture, standing on tiptoe to see into the tiny, now un-shuttered window.

Inside the sterile room, surrounded by monitors and machinery, Sasuke stood tentatively beside the bed. For a long while it seemed as if he might simply stay there watching the patient sleep, and then blue eyes exactly as bright as Minato's opened and looked up at him.

Hanabi blushed on behalf of both of them. The look in those eyes was... She nearly giggled when Sasuke brushed his fingers across Naruto's cheek and leaned down to kiss him in an awkward gesture that must have been their first.

Carefully, she pulled away from the door without disturbing them, her cheeks flushed and heart thudding against her chest. What she had just witnessed would always stay with her; to love someone so much you would die that they might live... and she had no doubt that the beautiful thing in Naruto's eyes had been the very essence of love. A pure joy at being able to see Sasuke again.

I'll never forget it, she thought as she walked away, hands smoothing the pleats of her candy striper outfit, Perhaps it was fate, after all.

[ .end ]