A/N: Thank you for the reviews. I read all of them and take each comment to heart, whether it be to improve the timeline (when the war started, who the leader is etc.) or requests to increase scenes that people particularly liked. I received requests to make both the past and present longer so I'm at an impasse. I will attempt to increase the length of chapters and both the past and present content.
Hopefully, I have cleared up the timeline as well with the last chapter (subtly, but it might've just been more disorienting) but to drive the point home, there is definitely more of the history and the hierarchy revealed in this chapter. I will attempt to minimize spelling errors.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or any of its characters
Chapter 4
Seize the Day
1975, February 3
The first thing Naruto does when he sees Hinata is smile. It's wide and all encompassing – a beacon in the dark – and she just wants to bask in that all day. She feels gritty and tarnished beside him, smelling of medical fumes and sweat and her hair is a little unkempt. Her hands are still a little shaky and she feels some of the grit under her eyes. She doesn't feel clean.
The control tower is just a magnificently large tent – since their constant movement seems to demand efficient transport – and it is probably one of the largest and well fortified out of the whole encampment. Large concentrations of defense as well as the ANBU are constantly seen walking around the perimeter. She can see in one corner of the spacious room, a couple of haggard looking ANBU, sprawled over a map and whispering lowly to themselves.
There are some of the ANBU medics as well, strewn between the ANBU, rare, but present. It is no secret that the sound nin have found it in their top priority to systematically kill all Konoha medic nins and non-ninja villagers. Simply put, less medic nins means a smaller turnout of ANBU able to continue fighting and less villagers means less food and manual labour available to run a village, especially one as nomadic as Konaha is – or has become.
At the back of her eyelids, she can sometimes remember how large the Hokage tower was, how beautiful the streets could be at night with lamps lit and the dinner smells wafting in a tantalizing dance with the breeze. That was so long ago, when Konoha had been cocky and sure it could defend itself. That was until the sound nin had began killing the farmers. The fortified defense around the terrified settlers had led to an opening to their previous Hokage, Sarutobi, who had been killed in the fray. The chill that had went over the village could never be forgotten and by the time the ANBU had been brought to attention, it was apparent that years of tranquility had weakened them. It was only then did the stronger clans devote themselves to the battle, including her father. Nowadays, their lives are so cluttered, that since Naruto took the title of Hokage, it only makes sense to call it a resistance. So many are dead and to call it a war would only remind them how fruitless the endeavour is, no matter how large their victories. The body count rises and the sound only seem to be enjoying themselves. Like snakes in the grass; watching and striking periodically, but always at the heart.
It's Naruto who so easily sweeps her out of her headspace, kind, and lovely, and a reminder of the past because, his eyes always hold hope. It's nostalgic and pathetic, she knows, to want him so much when he knows her only out of her association with Sakura and vaguely through their interactions as genin, but she cherishes his freely given warmth.
"You're being offered a position as a medic nin in the ANBU" he says first thing, and Hinata can see now, upon further inspection, that his smile, though bright, is brittle and frayed. All-encompassing, but losing its luster.
It makes her unbearably sad.
"Y-yeah" she says, then corrects herself "Yes. I agree to their proposition"
Naruto looks subdued, like any fight he wants to bring into the argument is lost. He sighs, "I gave the go-ahead for three medic nins to join the ANBU last week" he says, and looks at her again, "I don't see them among the ANBU today"
The chill touches her gut, makes its way to her throat and Hinata feels like she can't breathe.
"Do you understand what I'm saying? The medics are among the most protected in the ANBU, but once you're out in battle, you're targeted the most"
She knows this, of course she does, but to hear it from him adds a finality she doesn't want to believe.
"I know" she says hopelessly, because something inside her tells her she needs to do this now that she has been presented the opportunity. She remembers her father, bones scattered somewhere out there and she feels the call that she had never tried to understand; it resembles Kiba's eyes.
"Good" and she's surprised to realize it's not Naruto who is saying this, but Sasuke, who's has suddenly appeared behind him. He casts a cold look at her, "You start immediately. You will be in my squad. Izuno's dead so you can see the necessity of your presence."
Naruto hisses, "Sasuke. Have some respect for the dead. He was a good medic nin-"
"But not good enough" Sasuke retorts, crowding into Naruto's space and effectively drawing Hinata out of their conversation.
She feels bereft, but she suspects that it's more than just their argument that's causing it.
"If I have to pay my respect to every single one who dies, I wouldn't be able to function now would I?"
"Well, it doesn't mean you have to be such an ass about it!" and there's this fuming anger in Naruto's eyes that makes her feel cold, and at first, seeing them argue, she thinks that they must absolutely hate each other, but whatever fire she sees is suddenly a paler glow when she notices Naruto's hand clutching Sasuke's arm in the heat of their exchange.
She remembers when Kiba would hold her arm in the rare moments he visited. A desperate grasping hold. A reminder that he was alive and so was she.
She thinks Naruto and Sasuke must be good friends.
In light of that, she hesitantly smiles.
1980, June 15
It's during dinner that Hinata says, "I'm losing my strength"
Sasuke stop eating to look at her.
He's made dumplings, and they smell like vinegar and are smoked in just the right way, emulating the care put into them, but Hinata feels uncomfortable instead, and there's dread pooling in her gut.
"What?" he says.
She lets out a breath, "I realized it last night- no I've observed it since we got here. I can't sense your presence"
"That's because you're re-" he starts but she cuts him off,
"Recovering, yes, that's what I thought too." She musters, "but my healing isn't following the usual progression" she says.
Sasuke frowns, "have you taken into account that there are no medic nins here-"
"Yes! I took that into account. No tools, no full medical examination. I should still be getting back my strength along with the physical healing though." She drops the chopsticks, and looks at her hands, as if they hold the answers. They're pale and there are old scars there. "My chakra paths are scrambled. I couldn't even manage a simple healing jutsu when I got a paper cut yesterday! A paper cut, from reading!" she hiccups in between half garbled words and her face feels hot and wet, "It was a simple healing jutsu. Even genin level ninjas can manage that!"
Sasuke is out of the chair and in front of her before she realizes anything, and he's stroking her hair.
She wonders why he's doing that, and tries to swat his hand away, but he pulls her closer, mustering out, "Hinata calm down. Calm down."
"Calm down…"
There must've been some lapse in time because one moment, she sees the plate she had been eating with, and in the next moment, she sitting in bed and wrapped in a blanket and Sasuke's muttering to her.
"Calm down…"
She latches on to those words like a lifeline but the world looks like it's been compressed in front of her eyes and everything is narrowed into the eye of a needle.
Sasuke seems so far away.
Home is so far away.
"I'm sorry" she manages out, "I'm sorry. I'll be fine. I just need a moment" She wants to wait until her viewpoint isn't compressed to the size of a pin and she wants to see Sakura. She wants to see Naruto too. She wants to see Kiba and even Tenten – and it's funny because Tenten wouldn't really care to see her because she's much too busy looking at medical records anyway.
"I'm here" Sasuke says.
And she wonders why he would say that, but it only takes her a second to realize shes saying everything out loud, "…and Naruto would care, but he'd care as much as he would for anyone else..." and she makes herself stop because Sasuke has an ugly look.
He looks somewhere between painfully indifferent and angry and tired.
He grabs her by the shoulders and he listens to her pulse – that habit again – and he's matches the rhythm of her exhales until she calms down.
They sit in silence.
They sit in silence until her hands stop shaking – she hadn't noticed that they had been shaking.
"Don't break" he finally says, "Don't fuckin' go crazy on me here. Don't ever do that again. Don't scare yourself so much that you can't hear me. Don't go where I can't follow" his grip is like iron, "Do you understand!" and it's not a question, but a statement.
She understands.
She remembers what Tsunade had whispered to Naruto at the start of their one-year undercover mission to the sound. She had meant it to be quiet but the anger had drained into the volume of her tone, "They will grow dependent on each other, more so than what you normally see between partners in the battlefield. Those two amidst the enemy. Can't you see what that can do to…"
And Naruto had said something back so quietly that Hinata couldn't hear but she had stood like a good soldier, at attention, with Sasuke at her side, awaiting orders.
A/N: This chapter was unbearably tough to write. I still feel like I couldn't get the emotion I wanted to get across. But it's done and I'm going to bed.