Please see first chapter for disclaimer, rating, warnings, pairings, etc.
Special Thanks: goes out to rao hyuga 18, Kagamine Arimonori, Sachiko Heiwajima, Guest, and Ami1010 for all your reviews! Also thanks to everyone who's added this to their favorites and follows lists!
Author's Note: This chapter was interesting to write. I was coming at it from the perspective of knowing what had just happened in the previous one, but at the beginning of this one I couldn't let any of that come through. Everything had to be normal and happy. It was hard in a way I hadn't anticipated, but I like the progression of emotion in this chapter. I hope you all do - thanks for reading!
*~Chapter XII~*
~Panic~
"It's just so - perfect!" Tenten swirled the last little bit of wine in her glass before swallowing it down, letting its fragrant bouquet linger on her tongue for a moment longer.
Leaning back against the arm of the couch while the movie credits rolled on the television, Hanabi curled her nose slightly. "I don't know," she said. "When I watch a romance movie, I go in more for movies like Pride and Prejudice." A movie they had just watched earlier in the evening, since both women adored it. "Or Kate and Leopold. Time travel is fun, and if there's not time travel, it should at least take place in the past."
"Hmm, while I can see your point, there are a few contemporary movies which get me every time." Setting aside her glass, Tenten reached for the remote to stop the movie and eject the disc from the DVD player. "Return to Me - I don't know, it's just so, like I said, perfect."
"You just like the song." Hanabi bounced to her feet, returned the disc to its case, then ran her finger along the movie shelves to find another for them to watch. They'd both agreed to have a girl's movie night, marathoning romances until Neji finally got off his shift at 5 A.M. It was only now a little after eleven, so they had several hours left. "I know that's what made you watch it in the first place. After all, Return to Me is the first song you and Neji danced to for your wedding."
"Maybe." Tenten scrunched herself back in the corner of the couch and grinned. "The song brought me to the movie first, but the story keeps me coming back. C'mon, aren't you glad you watched it at least once?"
Hanabi rolled her eyes as she stuck her next choice in the player and closed the tray. "All right, yes, once. But this one's better." She grinned as the menu for Kate and Leopold popped upon the screen. "Contemporary and historical at the same time, plus Hugh Jackman - seriously, how can you possibly go wrong?"
"True, true." Tenten hugged a pillow against her chest. "But While You Were Sleeping is next. Another contemporary, but it's also got a great story."
"Okay, you've got me on that one. It's contemporary, but one of my favorites, too." Hanabi picked up her glass of lemonade, the ice half-melted now, and took a drink as the opening scene of the movie played out.
The modern part of the movie had just begun when a knock sounded on the door. Puzzled, Hanabi hit the pause button as Tenten got to her feet and reached for one of her many weapons close at hand. "Who in the world would come to the door at this hour of the evening?" the younger woman voiced the rhetorical question both were thinking.
Holding the katana loosely but comfortably in her hand, Tenten paused a few steps away from the door and called firmly, "Who is there?"
"Inuzuka Kiba," the muffled response came immediately.
Tenten wrinkled her brow at the name. A friend of Hinata's, the most popular of Konoha's K-9 branch of the police force hadn't yet had a reason to visit her and Neji's house. The fact he was there at eleven-thirty on a Friday night made a knot form in Tenten's stomach, but she reassured herself with the fact he should definitely be off-duty. Maybe he was just coming by to talk about what had happened the night before with Hinata. While he was no gossip, he would know her family would know more about what had happened than him or any other of her friends.
"Who is it?" Hanabi asked, appearing in the doorway. Though she didn't hold any weapons, she did have her cell phone in her hand, and Tenten knew she was ready to dial 911 if necessary.
"Kiba," Tenten said shortly. Carefully returning the katana to its sheath, she set it aside before unlocking and opening the front door. "Good evening..." Her words trailed off at the grim look on the dark-haired man's tattooed face.
Briefly glancing past Tenten to Hanabi, Kiba shifted his weight uncomfortably on his feet and then ventured, "Ah, may I come in?"
Tenten noticed it was raining, and wondered when that had started. "Y-yes, of course." Stepping out of the way, she waited for Kiba to move past her before closing the door behind her. "Can I get you anything to drink, or-?"
"Please," Kiba said, holding up a hand. "This is already hard enough to do without putting it off, so please, no pleasantries."
Her mouth went dry, and her heart began pounding double-time as she felt Hanabi grab her arm. "Please," Tenten rasped. "Kiba, what's happened?"
Rubbing his hands nervously on his pant legs, Kiba looked from Tenten to Hanabi and back, opened his mouth; closed it, cleared his throat, and tried again. "There's been an - an incident in the emergency room this evening. There was a four-car accident on the freeway, and the man who caused it was on drugs at the time. It's standard procedure for them to be taken to the ER to be checked out before being taken to jail, and - and Dr. Hyuuga was the one to examine him. Somehow the guy got free of his cuffs, and there were - shots - fired..."
The edges of Tenten's vision fizzed to grey for a moment, and she grabbed on to Hanabi. They held each other up, Please no! beating through her brain in time with her throbbing heart. Neji!
"He's still alive," Kiba hurried to add, as if just then realizing he'd not yet delivered that news. Before Tenten could find solace in that piece of information, he continued, "But they had to rush him straight to surgery. He was shot once in the shoulder, and once in the chest, and - and the second came really close to his heart."
Leaning a little closer, Kiba touched her shoulder. "The chief called me - he knew I'd want to be the one to tell you. I came to drive you to the hospital."
Tenten nodded woodenly. "Yes, of c-course. If you'll give me just a moment...?" It took only a few seconds for her and Hanabi to grab shoes, neither of them caring they were in their pajamas. They grabbed their purses, Tenten her phone, then locked the door on their way out. She didn't even realize until they were in Kiba's force-issued SUV - with a huge cage for Akamaru, his canine partner, in the back, empty since Kiba was off-duty - that she and Hanabi hadn't thought to turn off the lights, TV, or DVD player.
Not that it mattered, not in the grand scheme of things.
As Kiba pulled away from the curb and pointed his vehicle toward the hospital, he flipped on the lights, but kept the siren quiet so as not to disturb the neighborhood. "Hanabi, the back probably smells like dog. Sorry. I haven't had a chance to give Akamaru a bath recently, or the interior of the car cleaned."
"It's all right," Hanabi said, her voice barely above a whisper. "I don't mind." She'd curled herself into a little ball, knees hugged to her chest, chin resting on top. She wasn't crying yet, but Tenten feared the tears were imminent.
Turning around in the front seat, she looked at her cousin-in-law through the mesh separating the front of the vehicle from the back and suggested, "Why don't you call Konohamaru? I'm sure he'll want to - to be here for you."
Hanabi's face brightened for a moment, then her eyes dulled again and she nodded. "Okay." She stared at the screen of her phone for a long time, as if she'd forgotten how it worked. Tenten was just about to offer to call when she heard the phone dialing, and turned back towards the windshield to give the other woman a semblance of privacy.
The majority of the ride to the hospital passed in a blur. Before Tenten really absorbed the fact she was there, Kiba was gently guiding her and Hanabi through the doors into Emergency, one arm gently and protectively curled around each of their shoulders.
Before they could even get settled in the waiting room, the doors swished open behind them, and Konohamaru came running in. He was wearing sandals, his khaki shorts wrinkled, shirt buttoned crookedly, hair sticking up in a decidedly unartful way, as if he'd been dragged from bed. "Hanabi?"
She gave a little cry and pulled away from Kiba, allowing Konohamaru to enfold her in his arms and rock her. He met Tenten's eyes above her head, questions flickering through his eyes. "What happened?"
Kiba, bless him, explained the situation while Tenten went to the front desk. "I'm here for-"
The grey-haired nurse recognized her. "Mrs. Hyuuga, yes. I'm sorry, there's been no news on your husband yet." Leaning over the desk, she grasped Tenten's hand and squeezed it, offering a grimly reassuring smile. "But take heart, my dear - no news is good news at this point, and your husband is a fighter."
Somehow, Tenten found herself in the waiting room, though she had no conscious memory of walking there. Konohamaru had gotten Hanabi settled in a chair; he crouched before her, speaking to her in a low, soothing tone. He stroked his thumbs across her hands, which he held in his own.
Tenten drifted to the window, where she stared out over the parking lot, full of shadows broken by pools of orangish illumination from the security lights. Something niggled at the back of her mind, something important, but she couldn't think of what it was.
A cleared throat behind her drew her attention back to Kiba, who rocked back and forth on his heels nervously. "Mind you," he began, "I don't mean to overstep my bounds, but - shouldn't Hinata know?"
Hinata. Tenten felt a rush of shame briefly overwhelm her mingled anxiety, grief, and anger - how could she not have thought of calling her cousin-in-law, who was more like a sister to Neji?
"No, you didn't overstep." Tenten reached into her purse, still over her shoulder, and pulled out her phone. "Thank you - I-I'll call her now."
Kiba nodded and offered her a bracing smile, then stepped away to sit down a few chairs away from Hanabi and Konohamaru. Tenten clung to the little strength he'd tried to imbue within her and hit the predial for Hinata's familiar number with her shaking hands.
For a moment she thought Hinata might have turned it off, since she and Sasuke were probably still at the Empire State Building. Just when Tenten wondered whether she should leave a voicemail - and if so, what she should say - Hinata answered.
"Hello? What's going on?" The hum of voices in the background nearly drowned out Hinata's soft, puzzled voice.
Tenten swallowed hard, her words suddenly trapped in her throat. She knew she needed to answer, and curled her free hand into a fist as she swallowed back her fear. "Hinata - you really need to come home. There - there's been an accident. Neji's been shot, and-"
Hinata's cry cut off any further words. Tenten half-expected to hear the phone thunk to the ground, but instead, Sasuke's voice carried to her ears. "Hello? Tenten? This is Sasuke. What's going on? Hinata nearly passed out."
Tenten bit down on a sob, though she couldn't completely muffle it. I should have figured out a better way to break the news. "I'm sorry." Before he could say anything more, she went on, "Hinata needs to come home right now. Th-there was an incident at the hospital."
She heard him draw in a sharp breath, but again spoke in a voice thick with tears before he could say anything more. "Neji's in surgery right now - and it's bad. Really bad."
Another bout of silence on the line, and then, "I'm sorry, Tenten, hang on a moment." Low voices on the end kept her reassured he hadn't hung up, and a couple of minutes later, Hinata returned to the phone.
"Tenten, what happened?" Her voice was hoarse, low and labored, as if she were trying not to cry. "We're on the way to the van, to head back to the hotel."
Tenten drew in another fortifying breath and forced herself to be as businesslike as possible, laying out the facts much as Kiba had - though, hopefully, with a little more tact. "The police brought in a guy, higher than a kite, who'd been involved a traffic accident. Neji was just supposed to check him over before the officers took him to jail, but somehow he got out of his cuffs, grabbed a gun, and got off three shots before the police got him under control."Tenten let out another sob, feeling just a few seconds away from completely losing it. But she couldn't, not yet, not until she'd given Hinata all the details. "Two of them hit Neji. One was a through-and-through his shoulder and didn't hit anything major, but the other - it lodged so close to his heart, Hinata. So close. They're trying to get it out now."
Hinata released a ragged breath, then drew in another shuddering one. "Is - is that it, then? Is that all you know?"
"I'm afraid so." Tenten wanted to go beat her fists against the ER doors until someone came out and gave her an update, but she knew she could bang until her hands were bloody, and it would do no good until there was something to report. "I'm sorry to have to tell you this, especially considering everything..."
"No, no, it's all right. Thank you for letting me know." Hinata sniffled. "Sasuke's on the phone right now, trying to find us a flight out of New York. He said - he said he'll wake Jiraiya and have him working on his end, too. We'll be there as quickly as we can, and I'll call back with our flight information as soon as I know it."
"All right." Tenten swallowed thickly and closed her eyes, resting her head against the smooth, cool glass of the window. "I'll see you soon, Hina."
"You too, Tenten." Hinata hung up, and it took a few moments for Tenten to register the silence before she finally lowered the phone from her ear.
Tucking the phone back into her purse, Tenten moved across the room to sit down next to Hanabi, briefly meeting Konohamaru's eyes over her head. Looking away from the concerned sympathy in them, Tenten pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, knowing there was nothing now any of them could do but sit, wait, and pray.
*~To Be Continued~*
Author's Ending Notes: I love girl's movie night marathons. I like a little bit of everything (comedy, action/adventure, sci-fi, fantasy, etc.), but there's just something about sitting down with a whole stack of chick flicks that just makes a night perfect. (And the movies listed? You guessed it, some of my faves. I recommend them all, but especially While You Were Sleeping.) And I broke my own rule - I apologize! It typically drives me crazy when I see American names mixed in with Japanese in fics, even if the fic is set in America. So I tend to avoid doing that when writing. But I threw in Hugh Jackman's name - so I aplogize. I couldn't resist (I did try, promise). Anyway, it was interesting progressing through all the different emotions in this chapter - from silly fun at the beginning, to the sense of something not being right, to the shock and grief and worry. I hope you enjoyed this chapter, thank you so much for reading, and I hope to see you again for next week's update!