A new day's sunlight shined into the windows of the inn. Naruto and Hinata's room was illuminated with the warm and pleasant rays that came through their window. The sheets of the bed lay in a tangled mess on the mattress, and their clothes were still lying on the floor from the night before. Naruto and Hinata though, were not anywhere in that part of the room.
The sound of water running could be heard coming from the bathroom. The shower was running, and the two of them were standing in its stream, arms around each other, kissing like they would die if they parted. However, lack of breath made it so they had to part.
Taking in deep breaths, Naruto said, "Hinata, I love you so much." He said it with love and compassion in his voice, and his eyes shined with a tender light.
"Naruto I love you too," Hinata said with the same love and compassion in her voice as Naruto. Leaning against him, she thought, "And I always will. I'll never let you go." She hugged him closer, pulling his muscled body closer to her own soft body. They embraced for a long time, enjoying the feels of each other's body while the water ran over the two of them.
"Great, another headache," Itachi thought as he sat up in the bed. Kankuro was still asleep on the floor of the room, drooling just a little bit. "Glad you can sleep," Itachi thought bitterly. This was the second time in two days that he had a headache due to have a drink he had the night before, so he was a little upset.
"Damn it, I'm swearing off caffeine now too!" Itachi thought, plopping down on the bed again. Sitting up again, he thought, "There's only one thing that could make it worse right now, and that's-." Itachi didn't even get to finish his thought before Temari walked out of the bathroom, naked as a plucked chicken.
It didn't even take two seconds. The blood started to flow, and it was all that Itachi could do to stop it before Temari noticed.
"Gaaah!" Itachi screamed in his head. "This girl must suspect me! There can't be any other explanation, because there is no way that this boy goes through this same thing everyday!" The blood continued to flow under his hands as he thought this.
Tokiko woke up early, just as the sun started to rise. She had stayed in the tree all night, thinking about what Gaara had said.
"It can't really be true, could it?" Tokiko thought as she headed back to the campsite. "Master Itachi saved my life out of the goodness of his heart. He told me so himself. But this boy doesn't seem like the type of person who would lie. Who do I believe? Master Itachi, or this boy?" Doubt filled her mind like a dark cloud in the sky; distorting the loyalty to the man she had devoted herself to.
"Ah, Tokiko," Kisame said. "I was beginning to think that you weren't coming back. Pack your things. They're getting ready to leave again."
Tokiko went over and silently packed her things. While she packed, she looked over at Gaara. The boy hung against the tree, face expressionless, and his eyes about half opened.
"I have to ask him. I have to ask what he really knows about my master. The next chance I get. I don't want Master Kisame to know what I'm doing."
They finished packing, Tokiko gave Gaara his suppressant, and they left. It was another day of silent travel for both groups. That night, they arrived in the Wind Country. Finding another clearing, Kisame and Tokiko got settled in, and Gaara was tied to another tree.
"I'm going to find a new place for us to stay tomorrow," Kisame said. "Now that were actually in the Wind Country they'll be on the lookout for us. So, we'll have to move around a lot to avoid them. I'll be back in a little while." With that, he jumped away, leaving Gaara and Tokiko alone in the clearing.
Tokiko walked over to Gaara and said, "I want you to tell me everything that you know about Master Itachi."
Gaara looked at her for a second and said, "I thought that you didn't believe what I had to say." There was a slight note of annoyance in his voice. He was obviously remembering the fact that she had slapped him the night before.
"I'm sorry about what I did last night," she said picking up on the annoyed tone. "But what you said made me think. I need to know what he's really like, or at least here what you have to say about him." Her voice was firm, and Gaara could tell that she was determined.
"Fine, I'll tell you," he said. "But don't get mad. Remember, you wanted to hear this." Tokiko nodded, understanding the fact. "All right, then here you go." He started talking, saying everything that he knew about Itachi, from his slaughtering of the Uchiha clan, up until the present situation.
"And now he's after Naruto again," Gaara said, finishing his explanation about Itachi. Tokiko was sitting on the ground, looking pasty pail and like she wanted to throw up.
"I can't… He really did all…" She couldn't believe all the things that she had heard. The man that had been so nice to her, that had saved her life, was a cold-blooded murderer. "He slaughtered his own clan, just to gain more power," she thought, letting it repeat itself in her head.
"I know that you probably don't like what I said, but it's the truth. His younger brother has never told me anything different." Gaara looked down at her. She looked like she had just seen a loved one murdered, but se got up and looked him in the face.
"Thank you Gaara," she said, but her face was still as pale as a ghost. "I-I needed to here that." However, she couldn't hold her composure anymore. She broke down, wrapped her arms around his shoulders and cried. "How can it be true?!" she sobbed into his shoulder. "How can someone who was so nice be so bad?!" She continued to cry into his shoulder, soaking it with tears. Gaara didn't say a word. The most that changed about him was a surprised look on his face that he had gotten when she hugged him.
"I'm sorry," he finally said. "It's the truth though."
"I know it's the truth," Tokiko said through a knot that had developed in her throat. "I know it is, but that doesn't mean I have to like it." She continued to cry on his shoulder for a while, then she picked her head up and backed away a little, but she kept her arms around his neck. "I'm sorry. I got your shirt all wet." She stared into his eyes as she said it.
"It's okay," Gaara said as he stared into hers. "When you live with someone like Temari, you get used to…" His voice trailed off. Tokiko leaned in, closed her eyes, and kissed him. Shock and surprise registered on is face, but soon disappeared, and he closed his eyes too, enjoying the first real kiss that he had ever received.
"Alright you guys, get a good nights sleep," Temari said as she handed room keys to the two couples. "We start searching tomorrow, and it won't be easy for any of us." The group all agreed and went off to their rooms.
"Get a good night sleep she says," Itachi thought. "With her snoring, I don't see how you could."
In their rooms, however, neither of the couples was even thinking about sleep. They were both getting ready for another night of fun.
TWO WEEKS LATER…
"Man, I knew it would take a long time to find Itachi," Naruto said, picking up his drink and taking a sip. "This is ridiculous though."
"I know," Sasuke said, slurping some coffee. "Two weeks and we haven't even spotted a sign of him."
"Sasuke, you of all people should have known that this wouldn't be easy," Sakura said. "Remember, this is your brother, the rogue ninja, that were talking about. Of course we haven't found him yet."
"I know," Sasuke said. 'I don't need to be reminded of that fact."
"Anyway, we'll find him though," Naruto said. "Right Hinata?"
"Uh, right,' Hinata said. She had been staring down into a small bowl of ice cream that she had barely touched.
"Hinata, are you okay?" Naruto asked her. He looked at her with concern in his eyes. "For the last couple of days, you've been kind of out of it. Is something wrong?"
"No, nothings wrong," Hinata said quickly. "I was just thinking about something."
"Oh, okay," Naruto said. "If you're sure that it's nothing." He and Sasuke went back to their conversation after that.
After a couple of minutes, Hinata got up and rushed off.
"What the heck?" Sasuke said. "What was that about?"
"I'm not really sure," Naruto said staring after his beloved. "She's been acting a little weird for the last couple of days."
"Weird?" Sakura asked. "Weird how?"
"Well, she's been running off on her own like that," Naruto said. "She hasn't wanted to search with me either. Also, I woke up a couple of nights ago, and she wasn't in the room."
"Do you know where she went?" Sasuke asked with a raised eyebrow.
"No, she came back to the room right when I was about to go look for her," Naruto said. "But when we went back to bed, I could have sworn that I smelled strawberries."
"Strawberries?" Sasuke and Sakura asked at the same time.
"Yeah, but I didn't say anything," Naruto said. Then he got up and said, "Maybe I should go find her?"
"Hold it Naruto," Sakura said, grabbing his arm. "I saw her go into the bathroom, so I'll go get her. I know that she's your girlfriend, but I'm not letting you go into that bathroom. Think how that would look. A guy going into the girls bathroom." That last sentence settled the matter.
"Alright, fine," Naruto said. He knew she was right. It would be hard to explain why he was in the girl's bathroom, so he let Sakura go.
As soon as Sakura entered the bathroom she said, "Hinata, are you in here?" Looking under the stall doors, she spotted Hinata at the far end of the row. Going to the last door,
Sakura tapped on the door with her knuckles. 'Hinata, are you okay?" There was no answer from behind the door. "Hinata?" Sakura pushed open the door.
Hinata was on the floor against the wall. She was curled up with her legs against he chest, crying into her knees.
"Hinata, what's the matter?" Sakura asked, kneeling down to talk to her. "Why are you crying?"
Hinata looked up at her, tears filling her eyes and streaming down her cheeks. "Sakura," she said, still looking up at her friend. Then she put her head back in her knees and said, "What am I going to do?"
"Why don't you start by telling me what's going on," Sakura said calmly as she put a comforting hand on Hinata's shoulder.
Hinata nodded into her knees, then lifted her head up enough so that she could speak clearly.
"It started a few days ago," Hinata said with tears still flowing a little. "I started feeling nauseous. I thought that I was getting sick, because I had been throwing up a little bit."
"Well, maybe you've got the flu," Sakura said. "I mean, everybody gets sick, so what's there to worry about?"
"But that's not all that happened," Hinata said. "I started to get weird cravings for sweets late at night. I also had headaches and I started throwing up more and more." After that, I started to avoid Naruto, to keep him from worrying about me, but I can't do it for long, and I don't want him to worry about me." Hinata started to cry again.
"Why don't you want to be close to him?" Sakura asked. "What could possibly keep you away from him?"
"It was about two days ago that I realized what was wrong with me," Hinata said, more tears streaming down her face. "I looked at the calendar in our room, and I noticed the date that it said." She started to cry even harder. "That's when I realized that I was late!"
"You realized you were…" Sakura said, voice trailing off. Then realization struck her like a slap to the face. "Hinata, you're…" Hinata didn't say a word. She just looked at Sakura with tear filled eyes and nodded. "Oh Hinata…" Sakura hugged Hinata with a friendly and comforting hug, letting Hinata cry as much as she needed to. The realization that Sakura had had was that Hinata was pregnant.
She was going to have a baby.
