Dreamcatcher

By Airyo

A Missing Piece - 1

Itachi was back on rotation for active duty.

Hinata should be enjoying her vacation. There was no longer the wariness hovering at the back of her mind. She didn't need to worry about Itachi prying deeper and deeper into her subconscious. Or staring at her as if he could understand every little part of her.

Something had changed between them the day he first experimented with the Sharingan. Maybe it was the personal tone of her nightmares resulting from his bloodline limit, but Hinata saw the flicker of realization in his dark eyes after she'd woken up. Itachi had noticed something very important, but he remained politely mute and Hinata could only hope it wasn't because it wasn't something horrible.

She was scared to ask.

Hinata had thought he'd make the same amount of progress that all the other quacks had made - negligible - but it was a lot harder to keep him at bay when Itachi hardly seemed to care that she was a Hyuuga.

She had felt nothing but relief when he'd cancelled their meetings until he returned.

But the first day of her break, Hinata found herself automatically packing her things after dinner. She was in the process of leaving her room when she caught herself wondering which experiments she and Itachi would do today.

Hinata quickly stepped backwards into her room and slid the door shut. She stared at the uniform panels of her door, marveling at how easily that pattern would be ruined with one slash of a kunai. But was she upset that she'd looked forward to breaking an old routine, or that she was breaking a new one? It made her head hurt.

A knock interrupted her spiraling musings.

"Hinata?"

"Neji!" She opened the door again with a wide smile. "You're back."

Her cousin frowned slightly as he scanned her outfit, eyes lingering on the shawl over her shoulders. "Where are you going?"

Something about the knowing way he asked her made Hinata pause.

"Nowhere," she said truthfully. Why did she feel so sad when she admitted that? "I just wanted see how this shawl felt."

It was a practical enough reason, and Neji nodded in understanding after a moment. "You only need to ask if you want a new shawl."

"I don't believe in waste," Hinata hedged. "Are you hungry? I can fix something for you."

Neji shook his head, both in response to her question and the clumsy change of subject. "Hanabi-sama told me that you've been seeing Uchiha Itachi."

"Hanabi-sama enjoys gossip, and most likely made it sound like much more than a mere interest in my condition."

Neji tilted his head slightly. "I had not expected for you to admit that so easily. So this is a frequent occurrence?"

Hinata shook her head quickly. "No. No. Of course not."

Neji didn't believe her, but he didn't press for more. She'd regressed back to avoiding Hanabi but there was no doubt that her little sister knew all the details. Probably more than Hinata herself knew.

Instead, Neji twisted his lips into a reluctant smile. "I'm glad you seem happier than back when I left for my rotation," he admitted. "Whatever is going on with Uchiha, it seems to be to your benefit."

Hinata stared up at him in surprise, and this time, Neji's half-smile grew into a full-blown smirk.

"It was would be a little hypocritical of me to demand that you live in a cage and never interact with anyone else in the village. That Uchiha is hardly the worst thing to happen to you." Then all trace of good humor dropped off her cousin's face. "Though I can't say the same for the younger of those two...if either of them hurt you in any way..."

A burst of warmth filled Hinata and she smiled shyly. Normally, she felt uncomfortable and undeserving of Neji's concern, but today, it wasn't a burden, but a gift.

What had changed?

"I'll be okay," she said, surprising herself with the truth in her words. "I'm going to be okay."

AN: Apologies for the absence. Pesky work deadlines ate my soul and spit out a shriveled shadow that considered getting out of bed to be the accomplishment of the day.