Please see first chapter for disclaimer, rating, warnings, pairings, etc.
Special Thanks: goes out to ariannaisgone, Guest, Narutoimagine01, xXYour DoomXx, farahb, patheticnemesis, Kibachow, The King in White, Starcakes, Saki-Hime, moonlightclock, Mia, Honeyee, Shahar Mystral, aryaputra, wolf-enzeru, rao hyuga 18, and Dani Stark for all your amazing reviews! And also thanks to everyone who's added this story to their favorites and alerts - seriously, you all are beyond epic!
Author's Note: A day early update! Tomorrow's going to be super-busy (my mother is having knee surgery - the same kind she's had twice before on her left knee, now she needs it on her right), so I wasn't sure I'd have time to do it then. I didn't want to post a day late - or worse, skip a week entirely! - so I decided to update early. I'm really amazed at the great response this story has gotten, and I'm so thankful to every single one of you for your positive feedback. I love you all, and I hope you enjoy this chapter!
*~Chapter IV~*
~Damages~
Perhaps one day Sasuke would get used to waking to a dark world.
Hopefully, before that day came, Hinata would do as she promised and fix his eyes so he wouldn't have to do so.
After he finished his usual morning routine - which took him five times longer since he couldn't see - Sasuke found Hinata already in the kitchen, hard at work on breakfast.
"Good morning," she greeted him, sounding far too cheerful.
"Hn." Sasuke sniffed curiously, trying to identify the smells which had woken him. "What are you making?" He headed toward the table, trailing his hand along the wall at waist-height, fingers curled inward, so he wouldn't run into any counters along the way.
"Omelettes," Hinata replied. "I've arranged a plate of fruit, and rice, too."
Sasuke hadn't had an omelette in years - not since his clan was still alive. He sank down onto his cushion at the table, feeling off-balance, trapped somewhere between the present and the past. He hadn't expected Hinata to awaken so many memories, things he'd spent years trying not to remember. First the humming, now the food? What in the world was she going to do next?
And had she made a conscious decision to be difficult, or was she just so much like Mikoto this behavior was natural?
A cup clicked against the tabletop in front of and slightly to the right of him. "Tea," Hinata told him. Then, sounding farther away, "Be careful, it's still very hot."
Ignoring the cup, Sasuke listened to her putter around the kitchen. Her footsteps - and accompanying scent, which he still couldn't identify - approached him several times, accompanied by the clack of plates and bowls being set on the table. Then she'd go back across the kitchen, only to return a few moments later.
He wondered if Hinata was used to cooking at the compound she called home, or if the Hyuuga employed cooks. And, if that were the case, where had she learned to cook (and so well)?
Finally, Hinata took her own place at the table. "Your tea is still to your right. Directly in front of you is your plate with the omelette, and just past that is the platter of fruit. The tomatoes are turned toward you, then the strawberries to the right of that, orange slices on the left, and then grapes bewteen. Your rice bowl is on your left." He heard her pick up her chopsticks, and then, "Is there anything else you want or need?"
"No." He hesitated, almost sure he felt a ghostly pinch on the back of his neck which had to be his mother's correcting fingers. "Thank you," he grumbled.
"You're welcome." The awkward hesitance in her tone from earlier disappeared with the response. "I hope you enjoy it."
If it tasted anything like what she'd fixed so far, Sasuke knew he was definitely going to enjoy it. Mumbling an affirmative sound, he picked up his own chopsticks and secured a slice of tomato. Hinata had fixed the slices just like she had the evening before, with a light dusting of salt - not enough to cover the taste of the fruit, but the perfect complement.
For a few minutes, they ate in silence. Eventually, against Sasuke's will, his curiosity got the better of him. "Where'd you learn to cook?" He just couldn't bring himself to voice so well.
Hinata made a soft sound of startlement, and her cup loudly impacted the table. "Is it not any good?"
...Why did she automatically assume he didn't like her food? "No, it tastes fine. I just wondered. You're the heiress of your clan, right? I just never thought learning how to cook would be in the lesson plans of an heiress." Why did I even ask? If I'd known it'd be this much trouble, I wouldn't have. He sighed inaudibly.
"Oh." Hinata cleared her throat. A strange clicking noise came from her side of the table, but Sasuke couldn't identify it. "It's not, actually. But I used to spend a good deal of time in the kitchen, because it was always so warm there." She hesitated, her silence filled with a thousand things she either couldn't or wouldn't say. "I learned quite a bit just from watching the cooks, and when I got older, I started asking questions. Eventually, I started pitching in, and I learned everything I could. I can make everything from omelettes to sashimi to inari-zushi, so if you're ever hungry for something in particular, please let me know."
He nodded silently, letting her think he would even though he had no intention of doing so.
"I can also make sweets, like cinnamon rolls," Hinata continued cheerfully. "I also make sesame buns, which are Tenten's favorite. Neji asks me to make them a lot so he can take them to her."
"I don't like sweets," Sasuke said automatically.
"I know," Hinata said softly. "You told me that yesterday. I've already made up a menu that excludes them."
Once again, the chill along the back of his neck prompted a reluctant, "Thanks."
After they ate, Hinata once more led him down to the basement. Sasuke felt the dull throb in his head ease a little in the cool, dank air, and he sat still as the Hyuuga healer unwound the bandages from around his head.
"Now's the time we find out what damage, if any, was done yesterday," Hinata murmured. Her cool fingers brushed his temples, and he heard her whisper, "Byakugan!"
Sasuke had the rather unsettling feeling Hinata was seeing further inside him than just the chakra paths around his eyes. He hated the thought those creepy pale eyes were seeing past the physical, down into the blackest depths he'd really rather keep private.
"Hmm," Hinata murmured.
"What?" Sasuke stiffened despite himself. "What do you see?"
"It looks like there was no damage to your eyes - or, I should say, no further damage to your eyes." Hinata's fingers trailed down his temples, then across his cheekbones. "Your head..."
"It hurts," he admitted. "A little."
"It's no wonder." Hinata's hands moved, thumbs just brushing the corners of his eyes, palms lightly pressed just in front of his ears, fingers splayed through his hair. "You're going to feel a warmth. Let me know if it your pain gets worse instead of better, all right?"
Starting at the points where her fingers pressed against his scalp, Sasuke felt the promised heat flow through his head. It trickled down his neck, into his shoulders, then over and around his skull until he felt like he was wearing a nice warm scarf. Almost immediately, the pain in his head eased from a throb to a gentle pulse, then disappeared entirely. "Ahhh," he sighed.
Hinata giggled softly. "Does that feel better, then?" He could hear the smile in her voice as the warmth began to fade away and she withdrew her hands.
"Yes." Surprised, he reached up to touch his head, pressing against the much smaller lump on the side of it. "How did you do that?" Not even Lady Tsunade or Sakura had eased his injuries so quickly or effectively in the past.
"It's the Hyuuga Healing Touch," Hinata said. "And that is all I can tell you."
Sasuke didn't even realize her legs had been pressing against his until she withdrew them. "Are you ready for me to work on your eyes now?" He could feel the warmth of her hands, hovering just next to his skin, but not touching him yet.
"Yes." As her fingers settled into the same positions as the day before, Sasuke cleared his throat and dared voice another question which popped into his mind. "If you can heal my head that quickly, why can't you do the same with my eyes?"
"Different injury," Hinata murmured. She sounded distracted, but to his relief, she kept talking. "Compared to your eyes, the bump on your head was nothing - easily fixed. The damage to your eyes is much worse, far more extensive."
It made sense, he supposed, in a maddeningly vague sort of way. Was she merely prevaricating, though, or was it true? He had to wonder. His original suspicions of the Hyuuga allowing one of their own to work on healing him had not waned, not even after her great show of sympathy. Not even when she truly proved herself by healing his head.
The Uchiha and the Hyuuga had never been friends. But, at least for now, he would give Hinata the benefit of the doubt. Still, though, if she slipped up in any way, he would be ready.
Sasuke's mood changes seemed as unpredictable and changeable as sandstorms in Suna. One minute Hinata felt like he was actually treating her like a normal, intelligent human being; the next, he started imitating a caveman with his grunts and other nonverbal responses.
The tension humming through his form was as visible as his chakra paths. Hinata knew better than to tell him to relax; thankfully, she could work with his eyes without him being a cooked noodle (though it wasn't as easy, him being stiff as a marble statue and all that).
"Will you be all right here by yourself for a few hours?" Hinata asked. She hated to leave him alone again, especially after what he'd done the day before, but she really didn't have much choice.
"Getting tired of me already, Hyuuga?" The artificially blithe note in Sasuke's tone barely hid the acidity beneath.
"Not at all." Hinata drew in a deep breath, working hard to maintain the calm control she needed for Sasuke's therapy - and to protect her own emotional stability. "Tomorrow is Neji's birthday. I want to go to the party, at least for a little while."
The skin beneath her fingers wrinkled as Sasuke presumably raised an eyebrow. "The Hyuuga actually know how to party?" He sounded half confused, half amused.
Hinata felt her own eyebrows crunch down with irritation. "Just because we keep tighter control of our emotions than most doesn't mean we don't know how to celebrate life." In fact, Neji had loosened up considerably in the years following the chuunin exams. Hinata knew it was partially due to his friendship with Naruto, partly because of his more familial feelings toward her, but mostly because he had started quietly dating Tenten. It was hard to keep from smiling around the bubbly, friendly weapons mistress.
"And besides," Hinata continued, "it's not just Hyuuga who are invited. The rest of Neji's team will be there, and his friends as well." She eased the chakra out of her fingertips and withdrew her hands. "You're invited, too, you know," she said. "You didn't know about it sooner because of your - mission, and I didn't know if you'd want to come with me. I didn't want to make you feel more awkward." She picked up fresh bandages for his eyes, suddenly feeling frustrated for no reason she could pin down.
"So you're saying you didn't tell me about it to be nice?" Sasuke asked dryly.
"Yes?" Hinata gently pressed oval guaze pads over Sasuke's eyes, then began wrapping the bandages over them. "I know this is hard for you, and-"
"You know." Suddenly Sasuke's voice ward hard, cold. "You still have your precious Byakugan. You can see everything and more, and you always have been able to. So please forgive me if I don't exactly believe you when you tell me you know this is hard for me."
Securing the bandage, Hinata withdrew her hands. "I'm done," she whispered. Traitorous tears filled her eyes, but she determinedly forced them back. Sasuke was hurting, badly. He was confused and perhaps even a little frightened, and his defense mechanism was to push everyone away.
She shouldn't take it so personally.
"Fine. Go home then. I'll find some other way to get my sight back - I never really believed you would do this, anyway." Sasuke's icy voice drove into her like a spear, striking through the insecure part of her which still wondered if perhaps she wasn't good enough:
Good enough to be a ninja. A daughter. A future clan head. And, at the moment, a healer.
Swallowing back the thick lump in her throat, Hinata said tremulously, "I meant I was finished with your bandages."
The silence stretched between them, filled to the snapping point with a thousand tense screams neither voiced. At last Sasuke got to his feet and then stumbled past her in the general direction of the door. "Fine," he snarled. "Go. Stay. I don't care either way."
Hinata bowed her head and closed her eyes, listening to his footsteps move away from her. At last he found the door and yanked it open, then slammed it behind him, leaving her alone in the darkness.
"I can do this," she whispered. "I am strong enough. I will prove it, to everyone."
Sasuke could throw whatever he wanted at her. He could scream at her, push her away emotionally and physically, hurl insults and degrade her all he wanted. But she would prove to him, and everyone else, that she was strong enough.
Good enough.
I will do this.
*~To Be Continued~*
Author's Ending Notes: My mother's having knee surgery tomorrow (something she's already had done twice on her left knee, now she has to have it done on the right one), so I wasn't sure I'd be able to update then. So instead of being a day - or worse, a week - late, I decided to put this chapter up a day early. I'm so thankful for the positive response I've recieved for this story - seriously, you all blow me away with the reviews, faves, follows, even the hits! I was so nervous about this story, I was afraid no one would like it. So I'm infinitely thankful for you all and your support. Thank you again, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I hope to see you again for next week's update!