This is naruhina.

Disclaimer: I do not, nor have I ever, been in possession of Naruto. I am making no profit off of these writings, though I could sorely use it.

Inspiration: "When you were here, I couldn't find the words to say I'll be your lullaby singer. I won't let you down, I promise to try and try and lullaby, lullaby. Lullaby, lullaby." from The Lullaby Singer by Anna Nalick off of her upcoming album Broken Doll and Odds and Ends.

Written: June 2nd, 2011

Her hand reached out, cautiously, but she drew it back almost instantly. Staring down at the boy kneeling on the ground, her eyes welled up with tears at the slump of his shoulders and the way he hung his head. He was in obvious pain, and she didn't even have the guts to comfort him.

She had just firmed her resolve and was about to reach out again when Sakura beat her to it, throwing her arms around him and saying, "It wasn't your fault, Naruto! We fight in this war to protect you! We all love you!"

He was all but swallowed up in a group of his friends, and Hinata stepped back reflexively, a lump blocking her throat. She shouldn't be angry or jealous of Sakura, but she really couldn't help it. She had said the wrong thing, and they all knew it, but Naruto just gave her a weak shadow of his usual grin and pretended that he felt better. But his eyes were still pained, and Hinata bit her lip to keep from pointing it out.

He looked up at her then and smiled, as if he knew that she knew, but in the next instant, he was saying, "Hey, you did pretty good, Hinata! I always knew you could do it! By the way, where's Neji?"

Typical Naruto. She shook her head and sighed, choosing to turn and look for her cousin instead. He was several feet away, standing with Tenten, but at her gaze, he immediately turned towards her and offered her a firm nod. "H-he's over there, Nar-" she began, but she was cut off as Naruto yelled, "Hey Neji! You did pretty good! But I was better."

Neji scoffed at this and walked over to defend his honor, and as they began bickering, Hinata wandered away a bit and began to weave her way around the celebrating shinobi. Everyone was so happy and sad at the same time, manic-depressive, that it was making her head throb, or perhaps that was from her prolonged Byakugan exposure. She activated her bloodline limit and winced as another wave of pain hit her right behind the eyes.

After walking for a bit, she found herself away from the others and almost completely isolated. Sitting down on a fairly large rock, she closed her eyes and thought back on the recent events of the past few days. War. War and more war. And then, somehow, victory. She still didn't completely understand what had happened. She wasn't happy like the others were; they had managed to save the shinobi world from Madara and his evil plan, they had even managed to get Sasuke back to life so to speak, and Naruto was still alive, so that should have been it. But they had lost so many people, a good deal of many of their best shinobi and medics. Even a few of her friends had perished. It was not just a time for celebration; it was also a time for mourning.

Hinata sat there and said a long prayer for them then, ignoring any outside noise and focusing solely on her mourning. Afterwards, she opened her eyes and was somewhat startled to see that the sun was almost ready to set. Instead of rising, however, her thoughts turned to Naruto and her confession. He still hadn't mentioned it, and she was confused and hurt by it. They had been rather busy, and none so more than he, but it still hurt to have her love basically ignored.

She loved Naruto, and no matter what, she would stick by him, and become stronger for him. Her back met the surface of the rock and she stared up at the sky, unconsciously singing to herself. "When you were here, I couldn't find the words to say I'll be your lullaby singer. I won't let you down, I promise to try and try and lullaby, lullaby. Lullaby, lullaby." As she sang, her lids drifted down, and within minutes, she was asleep.

Many hours later, Naruto was enjoying the festivities-which meant he was trying to get everyone to stop glaring at Sasuke, who sat there nursing his sake ashamedly in proper traitor-turned-good fashion-when a thought occurred to him and he glanced around him. "Hey, Sakura-chan," he whispered, nudging the girl next to him, disrupting her half-glare, half-goofy smile in Sasuke's direction. "Have you seen Hinata?"

She blinked at him. "Now that you mention it, I haven't seen her since earlier. Should we ask Neji?"

Glancing over at the stoic ninja, Naruto shuddered at the suggestion. "Are you kidding? If she's missing or something, he'll freak out and somehow find a way to blame her disappearance on me! I'll just go look for her myself."

"Are you sure you don't need help?" she asked doubtfully as he stood, a bit unsure of where to start looking.

"Just stay here and make sure Sasuke-teme doesn't crawl away," he told her with a grin, laughing when she immediately swung around to glare at the Uchiha, as if he were trying to do exactly that. "If I'm not back in twenty minutes, send out a search party."

"Okay!"

Naruto wandered around, searching for the girl in question, and after ten minutes he was about to quit when he noticed an large oddly-shaped rock in the darkness. "Hinata?" he called out softly, moving towards it. The lump stirred, then fell back into its odd shape. As he got closer and his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he was able to make out the pattern of a shinobi vest and dark hair, and he sniffed cautiously. Lavender and vanilla. It was definitely Hinata. Smiling, he crept closer and bent down to look at her face. She looked quite peaceful as she slept, her face relaxed and pale, not flushed as it normally was around him. At least he knew why she blushed around him now.

He frowned at the direction his thoughts was going and realized that he still hadn't thought much about Hinata's confession. He had shrugged it off as a heat of the moment thing then and concentrated on Pain and the Akatsuki, but now that they were again at peace, he really actually thought about it. Unconsciously, he settled onto the ground next to her and leaned his head back against her, wincing a bit as his head was pillowed on something soft. Then he began thinking again, and completely forgot about his comfy pillow until she shifted again and murmured something. His breath stopped as his ears pricked up, and he waited for her to speak again.

"Mmm… Lullaby…"

Lullaby? He shook it off and went back to thinking, smiling momentarily at the information that she spoke in her sleep. Settling more comfortably against her and the rock, he worried about trivial things, like what he had to offer her as a love prospect, if this would potentially ruin his chances of becoming Hokage, of whether she could make homemade ramen, of whether she liked frogs….

Twenty-five minutes after he left, Sakura went looking for him and found Hinata laying on the rock with Naruto curled up beside her, clutching onto her leg and snoring rather loudly. She giggled quietly and rolled her eyes at the fact that Hinata was still fast asleep with all that noise. 'I'll just let them sleep a bit,' she thought to herself as she turned and began to walk away. 'Besides, this will give me a chance to find out just how Sasuke-kun has matured….'

Sorry, I had to add some sasusaku there haha Um, this sort of mutated a bit, but I'm content with it. I haven't posted anything naruhina in a while, and this song is FABULOUS-I've had it on repeat and have listened to it sixteen times so far. I'm anxiously awaiting this album's release, and the only way you can listen to this song is on YouTube. Review, please!