The last time he'd been to Konoha, Sakura insisted she goes with him, and though she asked as unobtrusively as she could, cheeks mild and flushed, her shoulders folded in that slow, creeping manner when she talks to him; he declined. It never felt right. No matter how well-intended Sakura's intentions were—whatever it is that's supposed to happen between them.
But Hinata Hyuuga wasn't supposed to be here.
"You're a good woman," he said. In bed, Hinata looked his way, weary, sweat running her temples.
Touching her made him feel greedy.
In this dimension, a civilization was wiped out replaced by a new government. At the heart of the planet stood a towering god tree fed with the blood of the previous civilization. Where old matter used to subsist, taken away, left a vacuum hole, a great space to fill. And filled it became, overpopulated to the brim with heat, noise, and stress.
Sasuke had been underway investigating Kaguya, fleeing from the police with laser weapons in hot pursuit on his trail. As he activated a portal, Hinata Hyuuga on a delivery mission in their world came tumbling down and slipped inside, stuck with him in an overcrowded planet until he'd figure how to retrieve chakra from the lizard-looking men who took their powers with a sucking orb and rendered his Rinnegan inoperative.
Getting Hinata Hyuuga out alive became main priority. Though it never came easy. The two struck out on a string of misadventures, got into mishaps, but he turned to know her well, what kind of person she is...
He missed the opportunity years before in the academy.
Rrevenge, Naruto, Sakura, and Kakashi—those stood by the threshold and beyond the line where they stood lay everyone else, Hinata Hyuuga included.
But he saw now how he missed, conscious of the hollow she created.
One time, they had to steal food, stocks of bread equivalent, and Hinata grew worried for the shop's charge, a rangy servant girl with a nervous gaze and fidgety antennae closely resembling a cricket.
She turned back. He grabbed her elbow.
"Stop," he said.
"Let me go," she said, her fragile face firm. "This won't do. I can't."
"There's no point. Let's find a place to hide."
"No."
He pulled her away, but she resisted. With his characteristic frigid glare, he said, "Naruto's waiting."
She took his grip off her elbow. "You don't know what could happen to her."
"That's none of your business."
She stared at him. "Is that how you've always been? That's pitiful, Sasuke Kun."
She returned to the shop where the charge was beaten by her master and saved the girl.
Hinata never paid his practical solutions any heed. She decided their distance and Sasuke could only stay in the shadows, guarding her.
If it were Sakura, she'd uphold his word better than her opinions so long as they could be together.
He liked to think keeping his distance is also for Sakura's sake. Unlike him, she's leaving a lot behind her.
He only sees the flimsiness of her perspective.
Hinata worked hard to earn the girl's trust. Using hand gestures, she offered help collecting debris for measly coins. She formed an odd friendship with the cricket-faced girl who welcomed them to her home in the slums: a cell. Residential conditions for the lowly were prisons and maze-like at best, but it gave Sasuke the benefit of planning their next move in a hidden base.
Hinata cooked dainty meals with strange, scrappy ingredients, brewed medicine for the ailing bug-child next door; never a wasted chance making herself useful for others. Over as simple as her familiarity cleaning the chimney adjoined the rickety bed, the small table and one threadbare couch, she vaguely fascinated him. He hadn't intended to help, but drawn to her, rolled up his sleeves, took a bin for the soot, and made for the fireplace.
She gave way and they worked together without word.
"Sasuke Kun..."
He looked at her figure in the dim, her face white.
"I'll be on this side of the couch so you…" she said, patting the space beside her and placing a banket there.
Sasuke always kept watch by the window sill, sitting on the ledge. He denied her offer, because he knew he'd mention Naruto anyway.
Hinata thinks there's no one beyond Naruto. But what she upholds, the wonders she saw in Naruto, doesn't her drag her down.
"Nobody needs you knocking on their doors," he said.
She paused midway pouring hot water into a mug. "But I do... Their baby's terribly sick."
"You don't know what's sick. Not in this place." He met her eyes and she didn't seem as confident as she wanted to appear.
"That may be so... That maybe so," she said, softer the second time. She sighed. "But I can't just do nothing. I'm making sure I'm not making it worse."
"You're making us worse," he said, looking at the steam rising to her small chin.
"I... I'm being careful. They're good people."
"I never knew you were clairvoyant."
Her brows drew slightly, the blush in her cheeks seeming moist and brighter. "You don't have to be clairvoyant to know. Sometimes we need to trust people."
He snorted humorlessly as she drank. "You can't be serious."
"But I am..." she said, staring straight at him. "I am."
Suddenly, he was at loss for words and lowered his head slightly.
Hinata took another sip. "It's not just about Naruto. I never really knew you... Basing who you are because of what I've heard or what you did in the past, I think it doesn't matter anymore."
Her being kind isn't weakness, but setting things right with herself, square and face-to-face where others would've turned to cowardice. She's gravity, enviably born with steadfast sense knowing what is of virtue; the spirit of true kunochi in all she does. Like the cut down way she'd peel fruit to share or noiselessly leaving warm soup on the table after he got rained on, cold and dismissive.
"Want seconds?" She asked before he realized he reached the base of the bowl. He pushed the bowl a little and she brought it out over the pot for another serving.
"You took longer than usual," she said. "Are you hurt anywhere?"
"Who are you asking?"
She turned. "I asked properly. It wouldn't hurt to answer in the same manner."
"No."
She laid the bowl and as he was dipping his spoon in, grabbed his arm and raised his dark long sleeve revealing a gash extending his elbow to the shoulder.
"Liar," she said. "I get you're Sasuke Uchiha. But we only have each other here. You can't forget that."
Cold and dismissive... But also neither.
Gently, she stitched, discreetly looking up if he showed signs of pain. Her fingers pricked sharper than the sterilized needle; they subtly hover over his skin, seared him with her fingertips.
He was looking at her hair brushing on his forearm. A small flame reflected in the concave of her white irises, almost crystalline. She glanced, he caught up. Fleeting stares, gauging subtle winces in his brows but she found none.
She should've known she'll find nothing about him in the face.
Sometime later, Hinata Hyuuga of the Gentle Fist caught poison for his sake as he fought armored guards to retrieve the orbs containing their chakra.
The height of stupidity, Sasuke had first thought. "I've been in tougher situations and remained unscathed," he said, his throat hurt from huffing and made his voice come out a growl. All the motivation getting out had been to keep her safe. Was this all she amounted to? Hinata Hyuuga with her straight-laced path? How it tormented him with her slipping out of consciousness mounted on his back. "You could've kept that in mind and saved us trouble."
"It doesn't matter… if you could protect yourself then… My body just moved. Naruto Kun would be worried sick if you..." she weakly said, like the same couldn't be said for her.
Back In their borrowed cell, in the receding white light and the suffocated air, pressed in all sides with rotting bark and leaf essences like putrid carcass coming to a boil in a kettle put over the hearth by their weeping cricket host, hopeless as he was for an antidote, Sasuke waited, his thumb on Hinata's faltering pulse.
You're a good woman.
When he said it, she stayed still on the bed, messed up hair weaving patterns into the fabric of the pillow, black circles round her eyes, and for a while it was her jagged breath filling the silence, her heavy breast slow on ascent. Her mouth curved slightly and she tipped her head side to side. She couldn't turn it. The tight, small room, the sparse light, and her being there with him, caused him pain. His fingers jerked on her wrist as exhaustion overtook her and she closed her eyes.
You're a good woman.
Throbbing between his ears, it continued, more full-bodied than the bubbling tonic mixed with the acid in his entrails. Made more clear to Sasuke was the fact he didn't say this out of politeness.
Perhaps, one of these days, if he still lived, he'll appear at her door.
"Is Naruto here?" he'd say. An excuse.
But she must be there to open for him.
By then, maybe she'll have a boy, Naruto's copy, entering rebellion in his adolescence, rowdy and a rascal like his father, giving Hinata a hard time; or if trouble struck Naruto and he couldn't be there—Sasuke would especially long to be someone who'll keep his fingers pressed on her pulse, watching breath pass her lips as she slept.
Konoha's knee-level snow from the previous winter had bleakly thinned and spring was beginning. Sasuke recalled Naruto's letter saying he'd be wed sometime then. The bride-to-be was weak on his back. With an arm missing, Sasuke couldn't carry her in a more comfortable place. He should've opted for that arm, he thought. He felt it then, under his cloak, a phantom hand in his severed limb twitching, unable to reach her.
Sasuke left Hinata at Konoha's hospital. She parted him with a gaze that spoke of her trust fulfilled. The tip of her head faded as she was wheeled into the room and the hallway remained hollow and silent.
