After her conversation with Sakura, Tsunade had gone back to the hospital to check on Neji. To her surprise, she had found him awake, and to her ire; trying to walk around his room. A single glare had frightened him back to his bed where she'd given him a checkup. All of his wounds were healed nicely, and she figured after some rehabilitation he would be as good as new. So, despite her own concerns she decided to send him home to rest up there. In the hospital there was always some risk that he would catch some sickness, but she told him that he was on strict bed rest aside from the physical therapy she set up for him. He agreed quickly, thrilled to be getting out of the hospital so soon. He couldn't explain it himself how he'd healed so quickly. He could see when she changed his bandages the extent of his wounds, and as far as he could tell he had no right to be alive.

His body was covered in cuts, some light, some deep. There was a massive scarred that looked as though it had come from a hole in his shoulder that alone should have ended his life, and it was not the only wound. He'd taken a hard breath at the sight of his body, and hadn't breathed again even though Tsunade assured him that the scars would fade with successive treatments. It wasn't the scars... though perhaps it was them as well, it was how terribly close he'd come to death. He said nothing to Tsunade, he kept his thoughts to himself, but they remained.

Now he lay comfortably in his home, the quiet pressing in on him like a weight. He had nothing to do, no one to keep him company, and only those heavy thoughts lingering in the back of his mind. Though he tried not to be, he was an introspective sort of person, his thoughts always searching through himself to find the new way to push himself. Now that drive was clouded by doubt. He found himself staring out the doorway at the blue sky beyond. For himself, and for his clan he had pushed his own physical boundaries to the limit. The ninja wars now past had almost ended in his death as well, only by grace did he stand here now. And this time as well. Tentatively he touched the curse-mark which lay upon his head, once death had briefly freed him from the curse of his clan; but it was a freedom he had never known. A freedom he would never know in his life. No matter how high he flew, no matter what he achieved he would never be able to erase this mark.

He sighed and let his hand fall. Wondering just a little to himself, if perhaps...

The sound of light footsteps broke through his thoughts, instinctively tensing, looking for a weapon which he did not have. He was more surprised however by the sight of his visitor.

"U-Uncle!" He said, stuttering in surprise, suppressing a blush at his stumble. This was the second time he had stumbled speaking like this, and this time with far less reason. He started to stand, but his uncle made a motion with his hand indicating he should stay seated, and even joined him on the floor a moment later. For a moment, an uncomfortable silence passed between the two of them.

"First she chides me for possibly waking you, then she sends you home to recuperate?" A small tinge of amusement touched Hiashi's voice and face, the man looked out the doorway Neji had open, following the young man's line of sight. "I suppose you know that I have not come to visit you to talk of such things."

Neji glanced at his uncle. "Whatever you want to talk about, I would be honored to listen." He answered respectively, but he was curious. It wasn't like his uncle to come to his home, or even to talk to him at all.

"An unexpected event has taken place in my family; in the death of my daughter. She was my heir, and now I am without a proper one to take her place."

A trace flicker of anger flashed through Neji's eyes, and Hiashi did not miss it. "What about Lady Hinata? Is she not your daughter as well my lord?" His voice was half-choked by his effort to keep his anger reigned in, his words utterly polite because the situation demanded it. Still, he could not believe his uncle. Even at a time like this he was denying his daughter? His daughter who had given her everything to become a mighty warrior in her own right. Including her innocence a piece at a time.

There was another uncomfortable pause between them, and when Hiashi answered him, it was looking at the clear empty sky. "No. She is not." Neji coughed, his chest aching at the sudden startled movement. But before he could ask, his uncle was already explaining. "Before you were born, me and my wife made every effort to conceive a child..." It was obvious that he was remembering another time, and Neji listened though he did not understand. "But we could not. When you were born to my brother, it seemed then as though perhaps we would have no children at all. Hinata... her parents were ninja who died on a mission, and we took her in. Her family was from a distant branch, but my wife... She so wanted a child. So we took in Hinata, and we raised her as our own, we could not know that Hanabi would be born to us."

Neji was silent, his eyes wide as he looked at his uncle. It... explained so much. Why he had always treated Hinata as less, why Hanabi even though younger had been his heir. Yet even knowing this filled him with a certain rage. To lie to his whole family, the whole clan! And now, now that his lie fell about him he could not embrace it. He sought instead to somehow subvert it again? "If... If no one knows, why not let Lady Hinata be your heir? She has proven herself, more than proven herself worthy of the title."

Hiashi sighed. "What you must think of me. But the elders of the clan know. As do the elders of the village who made Hinata's adoption legal. By all rights you are the next in line to take over as the head of the clan." The man rose easily to his feet.

The young man felt like he'd taken a kunai to the chest. It... He'd never even dared to dream or imagine he might lead this clan. It was impossible. "Me?"

"Yes. The elders and I will undertake to remove the curse mark from your head, as the new heir, it would be unseemly for you to bear it any longer." Suddenly Hiashi turned, something bright in his eyes, something in the motion of his body which startled Neji. Yet the man seemed to take hold of himself once again. "Would it... surprise you, to know that I love my daughter Neji? There is... nothing that I would not do for my family, for this clan. And it pains me that she would be forgotten. That she learn that her place is not as she knows it."

"I don't understand." It was to much to quickly, his mind reeled with the impossibility of it all. That he could be, no, would be; free. That he might lead the clan which had kept him half prisoner his entire life.

"I have seen, with my own eyes how much you have done for this clan, you are not undeserving. I would not worry for it's future with you to lead us. But I want you to accept my daughter. I want you to take Hinata as your wife. Cement the ties broken by the moments between my birth and the birth of my brother. Give Hinata back the place in our family which she deserves."

Neji wanted to hate him, and did a little. To build such a lie and expect him to carry it now. Yet Hinata was like a sister to him. It would crush her to lose her family like this. "You should make her your heir and spite them. You should show them her power and ask them how she is NOT your daughter." For the second time in his life he found his strength against this man, his uncle who stood not unlike a spider in its web in the center of all the wrongness in his clan. "If it is to be my place, I will lead the clan... But do you not think that your daughter should choose the man she wishes to marry?" And how could he take that from her, knowing as he did how she loved Naruto?

"Arranged marriages are well known among the clan. We do it to keep the bloodline strong. Hinata will not question, she knows her duty for her family, and for her clan. It is for you to decide Neji, what you will do for them as well." Hiashi took two steps forward until he was standing just outside. "I will call on you again when your wounds have fully healed."

A few more steps and soon the man was out of sight, leaving Neji alone once more his thoughts. Not the same thoughts but new ones. New questions and soul searching to do. The young man's eyes found that waiting blue sky with a sigh, watching the song birds soar freely across the broad expanse of cloudless sky. An ounce of freedom, and another leash.

He closed his eyes trying to find solace in his own mind, but all that waited there were images of his battle. Of his blood raining down on the corpse of a little girl he had not been fast enough to save. Better chained down from the sky than dreams like those. He leaned his head against the wooden wall, not daring yet to close his eyes again. He would wait until he could keep them open no longer. Until weariness dragged him unwillingly down into the darkness.

-MLE

I should say here that in this Fanfic, that Hinata is only distantly related to Neji, and before anyone crucifies me for pairing them, that Neji hasn't made his decision yet. Also, you kind of have to admit that it makes sense as to why her father is so distant from her. =)