Disclaimer: Yes, I own Naruto. That's why I'm sitting here, wishing for more NaruHina, SasuSaku when I could have just made it canon.

"You're late."

The words were soft, but they rang with authority. He took a small sip of his tea, and set the cup down, and the clink of the teacup connecting with the table reverberated through the quiet room in the heart of the Hyuuga compound.

Another, a man kneeling, with his forehead touching the floor respectfully, gave a start at the sudden sound. He calmed himself with a deep breath, and proceded to speak.

"My apologies, Hiashi-sama. There were unforseen circumstances.." He trailed off, and chanced a look at Hiashi's face. There was an almost invisible narrowing of his eyes, and the man knew that he was in trouble. "I was drunk." He blurted out, and he hated himself for the fear in his voice. Hyuugas were meant to be fearless warriors, to charge into battle at the frontlines and eliminate enemies with a graceful strike of their fingers. But he was weak, and better suited to reconnaissance, which was why this job, this humiliating task of stalking a barely five-year-old child had fallen to him.

There was pin-drop silence, and the tension was almost palpable. He dared not lift his head, dared not make even the slightest movement.

"She is doing well?" He had spoken nonchalantly. The sky is blue, he might have said, and there wouldn't be a difference.

The man breathed a sigh of relief, his body losing some of its rigidness, the gesture unseen with his head to the floor. With the four words, the tension was broken. He was forgiven for the moment. If he didn't know better, he might have mistaken the cold indifference for worry. But there was no way. Hiashi was an unfeeling bastard and that fact was set in stone. This was his cue to rise, and he did, keeping his gaze nowhere near the leader of the clan.

He repressed his emotions, and concentrated on giving the report. If there was one more mistake, one wrong word, he knew that the seal on his forehead may most probably activate. Hyuuga Hiashi was not known for his kindness.

He took another deep breath, and exhaled through his mouth slowly. Calm down, he told himself, fighting the urge to scream. "Hinata-sama had been beaten and lashed by a drunken man, and there are bruises and dark purple welts on her back. Her head was also hurt when she was tossed into a wall, but there seems to be no severe injuries done to her skull."

"And?" There was no mistaking the anger in his tone now. Whether it was directed at the unfortunate drunken man, or his daughter, he did not know.

"He has been dealt with." That was true. The man had been relieved of the same limbs he used to pound the girl into the ground.

"She is currently with the... the Kyuubi container, and as of three days ago, is staying in his apartment."

The man had no idea how he would react, and was pleasantly surprised when he showed no outward emotion, and instead dismissed him with a wave of his hand. As he stood up to leave, he noticed the lines of worry on Hiashi's face, and was struck by how he had seemed so worn and haggard, seemed to have aged so much within just a few months. He didn't know why he wanted him to keep tabs on her, when he could have simpy ordered him to fetch her back, but he let go of the thought almost immediately. He would live longer that way.

Alone in the room by himself, Hiashi allowed himself a brief moment of reprieve, and reached into his haori for a picture taken in a rare moment, when the four of them were together, when sickness and death seemed remote. He brushed their faces lightly with his thumb, his head bowed. His gaze lingered on Hinata's, her face so open and so full of trust, and of his recently deceased wife. They were happy then. What went wrong, he could not, but ask himself.

The ache in his heart never seemed to go away. How many times had he wished for her to be back at his side, to soothe him with her calm voice, to wash all his troubles away? As he watched her in the photo, he had only one question for her.

"What would you have done in my place?"

At that same moment in a different room across the village of Konoha, one Hyuuga Hinata stirred. For the first time in a few months, her dreams were of pink pink bunnies, shimmering waterfalls, and beautiful gardens of every kind of flower imaginable. But she knew she had to get somewhere. There was something she wanted, no needed, to find. Even in the presence of such picturesque scenery, she was restless.

She heard it before she saw it. A light step on the grass-carpeted ground, the glimpse of a tanned hand disappearing behind a tree. "Is anyone there?" Her voice was soft, meek. No one answered her call. She followed, slowly at first, but the need to know, to uncover the identity of her elusive quarry caused her footsteps to quicken. The person always seemed to match her pace. She didn't know how long this game of cat-and-mouse had lasted. She was tired, her legs ached, and she was taking more and more stops in between. Her breaths were ragged, and her eyes strained.

"Don't go!" She cried out, and his footsteps seemed to falter for a moment.But he did not stop, instead continuing and disappearing out of her sight behind a grove of trees. Her heartbeat raced, her panic rising, and she just felt so nauseous. The canopy of leaves above her let in flickers of light, blinding her temporarily and just seemed to swirl round and round and round an-...

A hand was thrust into her face, and she saw only a head of spiky golden hair, and light blue eyes. Somehow, this scene was familiar, like she had witnessed it sometime in recent memory...

"-inata-chan! Hinata-chan!"

She opened her eyes blearily. Someone was calling her. The fuzzy image cleared slowly, and she saw a blond boy with a wide grin and whiskers on his cheeks standing right in font of her.

"Ano sa, ano sa, can we go play now? Let's play catching this time!" His boisterous voice sounded too loud in the ungodly hour of... she scanned the room for the large oval clock... six in the morning. She groaned inwardly. Too loud.

"Naruto-kun?"

"Yes, Hinata-chan?"

"Go back to sleep."

Fine, I lied. It's been more than a year since I last updated, but somehow the plot bunny just wouldn't get out of my head, so there you go, a new chappie.

Right, just to clarify some things. Hinata is a little less shy in my fic because..well, while it is adorable, I feel that Hinata is a more complex character than just -blush-faint-blush- and N-Na-ru-to-k-kun. Anyway, to quote Shikamaru, it's just too troublesome to add so many hypens. Anyway, this fic is not on hiatus. I just write i think of a new chapter.

Click on the cute little button down there and review please!