I forgot to mention in the previous chapter that the cover image for this story is "NaruHina/Clois" by ToshaLG, found on deviantart. :3 The moment I first saw it, it also set the foundation besides Maisey Yates' book.

I was working on the last of "Sleeping Weasel", its final chapter nearing completion - as well as my very first Star Wars shot - so here you go now. :D

Chapter Two

Red Dust

"Where are we now?"

Hinata had to force herself from looking at him to their surroundings, still composed entirely of sand and lowering temperatures which would create some small sandstorms. At her query, Naruto Uzumaki gave a slight laugh. "Still in the middle of the desert, but I guess coordinates wouldn't mean much to you," he stated.

He was right. The sun itself had gone down behind the sand dunes which served as mountains in the distance, leaving behind a blanket of different shades of purple and blue onward to very dark navy. Seeing it made her think of those desert oasis adventures she used to read and watch on TV - and still did, in her spare time - but it also made her wonder when they would reach the civilized Suna, so she could have a way to call her father or Toneri; her cell had been taken from her in captivity, so everything precious she'd lost made her cry her heart out in secret.

But when she asked the guy about her fiancé and father, he raised a dark blond eyebrow. "What makes you think I'm going to let you call anyone to tell them you are here? I might as well have...bought you for my harem. You might like it there instead of going back home."

Hinata thought she'd jump out of her skin. If she'd thought he'd be a potential good guy like Toneri, she had been an idiot. "You have one?" she asked nervously only for his laugh to be dry as the sand around them.

"Not at all. I don't waste my time on those things."

Despite her relief, it was hard to stay brave, and it was easy to almost choke on her words. "I'm still stranded out here in this desert with you." Hinata wrapped her arms around herself; she was a bit cold now, being only in her black stretchy pants and white poncho with embroidered lavender flowers and Hindu symbols. "In this foreign land -"

"Not foreign to me," Naruto interrupted. "But how so to you?"

"The fact I'm stranded with a strange man like yourself!" she countered, shivering a little and keeping her arms around herself. "You claim to be a friend of the mayor, and you have the nerve to play with me about my future. I'm not in the mood for any of this." And because of this, she wanted to either be mad at him or just cry, falling to the sand either way. Except...

Except crying is never the real answer. Because at the best schools I was put in - the strict and prestigious ones - they say composure is everything. Also, walk but never run. Never raise your voice, but speak calmly. Tears don't change a damned thing...

...just like they never brought back my mother.

Therefore, anger was her approach. And for that, she finally got a look at his face when his eyes darkened a shade and glittered with the same emotion, brows forming a line. The cloth covering his mouth was removed now, showing nicely shaped lips if not full. Now they were curling into a twist. "You think I'm going to take this better than you, huh? Let me tell you something: the Inuzuka were toying with beginning a war between two factions just to keep their ring of thieves going. Trying to blackmail me so that I don't turn on them, since they know if your dear Toneri Oosutsuki learns you were snatched from his soil and whisked to neighboring enemies on sand - or be damned that the mayor's criminal friend has you for any amount of time against your will - the unsettling treaty between us and Kawa is going to be up in flames. You'd better rethink on your own if I'm taking this better than you."

When he was done speaking, Hinata's head began to spin as it sunk in. Her captors knew who she was - and that did include the important piece that was missing from her being and had been pawned off - and bartered her off like leverage, to save their own skins. They got under Naruto's skin, so she supposed she couldn't blame him. "I...I'm going to begin a war just by being here?" she whispered, hold around herself lessening but not leaving.

"Nope. Not if I do things right. If Gaara's father were alive, I could have wanted the war - maybe - but it's impossible now. Especially when his kids tell me that they have the proof to clear my name once and for all, though I wish I could say it will clean away all the hostility back home."

"...you mean you -?" Was he saying he was innocent in the deaths of his parents? Before she could finish, he interrupted again.

"Yeah, Gaara's father was the latest worst thing to happen to Suna as well as my family. He tried to keep it stable, but he ended up bringing misery and poverty to several families. That also means stress between us and smaller neighbors." Naruto's brows softened, but his irises remained dark as the deepest waters, the unspoken message clear and making her colder while her skin had numbed on the outside:

It's a damned shame you ended up being brought into all of this, being used as a pawn like I was.

~o~

Why was he feeling something like sympathy for the young woman when he confessed the reasons for returning to Suna? He had sworn to not let that come to the surface under any circumstances.

He hadn't felt anything like he used to in a long time. He had no real family since his mother and father were taken from him - except Gaara and his siblings, but there hadn't been real physical contact with them since he was trained for his purpose in life, which was to have his name cleared, but he hadn't thought of anything beyond that. He lived in the present, as well.

He lived for protecting other people, putting himself second. That also meant he had to protect this girl until everything was resolved. She might end up sharing the peace goal with him, right? She'd heard every word he said, but she still wanted to go home; might as well be shocked over the last few days and was now coming out of it.

He remembered that feeling all too well, before being overcome by numbness and having night terrors involving the memories of blood and the corpses of Minato and Kushina in their own home. He'd lived a sheltered and protected life until it was butchered before his own eyes.

"Would you mind remaining here while I set the tent up?" Naruto asked her, setting about. "You don't have a death wish, do you, Miss Hyuuga?"

She snorted. "Not at all. Not during day or night. You might have guessed that's why I hadn't gotten away."

"And makes me wonder why you were captured to begin with," Naruto replied, taking to building near a cropping of big rock which would cover their spot as much as possible. The Inuzuka and other thieves weren't the only troubles to encounter in this desert.

There was a pause before she answered. "I went to Kawa, to see Toneri and spend time with him before we announced our engagement. I was kidnapped there and taken across the border. My guide was killed, I think. Last I saw him was us being separated by those crooks." Never knew there were some of Suna's rogues in Kawa - not spotting them in plain sight, anyway. You were damned lucky they figured out who you were.

"How did they learn your identity?"

"...my engagement ring. It had been in Toneri's family since his great-great-great grandmother Kaguya Oosutsuki's time." She held out her left hand, naked of the jewel which she described: an opal sided with a bright blue aquamarine and then a tiny diamond. It was something that could have come from Mother Nature in the form of the rainbow against the clouds and sky. "Not only did they take that, but they took the mother-of-pearl seashell earrings that my father gave me." Her pearlescent eyes were shining with tears she skillfully withheld.

Naruto thought it strange the jewels were not produced or given back as proof, but thieves were thieves when they saw profit. And even so, basic information was easy to get from various sources. He'd heard that Toneri Oosutsuki intended to marry a Konoha heiress in the near future. Politics and convenience, and - "I imagine your mayor loves you, too," he said sarcastically.

She lifted her chin. "He does. I know it's not my connections alone. We've been engaged for several years now, distantly mostly, but we did spend some time together. I love him with all my heart that I look forward to spending the rest of my life with him."

It was none of his business, but somehow, he doubted it. His mother used to say absence made the heart grow fonder, except when it came to politics, it was rare that love was the same for normal people. Minato and Kushina were two different worlds who worked together. "When is the wedding?"

"In a few more months," Hinata answered. "Our courtship took place before, but I was supposed to be officially introduced to his people, so that it could happen before the media." Media as in being on your best behavior for appearances. "Is that your point of not bringing me back to him? You don't want him to know that your people - or even yourself, by an extent - were involved in this. It makes you look weak when you might not be."

She really was smarter than she looked - to most, not himself. "Well, I hadn't had a day in Suna in a while, but you're right: I don't want involvement in a scandalous abduction of the Kawa mayor's future bride."

"I see it now," she said after a moment's pause.

"And what exactly is that, Miss Hyuuga?" Addressing her by formality was much easier than first names, because surname basis kept a safe distance. Since his life in the sandy wilderness where he was always moving made it hard to get and keep a woman, and he'd been taught early on to never treat a lady that way. Even if Mom and Dad never had, then he would have figured it out on his own. He was offered widows and young virgins sometimes, though he had no intentions of bedding them, only relying on them for any vital information they had - just after a fine, honest meal to share with them.

The Hyuuga woman's moonlit eyes scrutinized him. "Everything is just a threat to you," she answered. "Because you're not well-liked based on your reputation." And Rasa Sabaku was to thank for that. While he had been alive, his children sided with him to the public - but secretly with Naruto himself, ensuring his survival and usefulness - and were also working with a few loyalists to find the evidence to one day clean his slate, but it had been difficult since their father did everything to keep his hands clean. Just like a true traitor to off two people he pretended to be friends with.

My loyalty is to the public in general and the few people I truly care about. My parents found out what kind of man their "friend" was, and they paid for it dearly. Being the kind of people they were, they wanted to help Suna's suffering people. Rasa Sabaku just gave no medical aid or anything important for the health of those less fortunate, as well as cruelly taxing them when options would run out. Now they are Gaara's people.

And when he redeemed himself in the eyes of Konoha for these efforts, it meant that he would be well-loved by the place he used to call home as well as this one...and that meant he had to avoid invoking the wrath of Toneri Oosutsuki, who was caught in the middle just like his woman.

"I bet it doesn't make it any better for you to be around me," Naruto stated matter-of-factly. By this time, he was done pitching the tent for them both, which was better than sleeping out in the open especially with sandstorms conjured by the magic of the desert winds.

Seeing it, Hinata's eyes widened a little. "I'm supposed to share that with YOU?"

"Unless you prefer becoming the victim of deadly sand snakes and insects that come out at night in greater numbers than in the day. Between them and more bandits who have the advantage in the dark hours, you want to take the chance of being exposed to the elements?" Naruto replied with a shrug of both shoulders, and she got the point.

~o~

Hinata never shared anything with a man before, not even a tent. But what other choices did she have? If she didn't have any kind of protection, she was at the mercy of more desert thugs as well as the serpents and bugs out there, as he said. But to share a tent with him...

All she had as consolation was that he didn't even want to start a war. Except there could also be another kind of war besides the one which involved death. Hinata thought about telling him that she was still a virgin, since she wanted to be safe than sorry if he thought to try anything before he safely got her back to Toneri after his business was settled.

It was gross to think about, calling it a war involving her hymen. But it was also true, and she really needed to keep her virginity safe.

That tent he set up appeared to be small enough to keep two people close together, given he got it for one person and never counted on a second coming in. "How long do you plan to keep me then?" she had to ask despite everything he made loud and clear. He shrugged, not looking at her while inspecting the setup.

"Just until I no longer need to." At least I don't need to worry about a harem. "Wish I could elaborate more, since there's no more to tell at the moment. Better to evaluate until we arrive at the mayor's place, so you're stuck with me until then." Hinata nodded without a word, all the while looking him over more. Those neutral-toned clothes hid his body structure so that she couldn't tell what his build was, though she guessed that he had a great physique based on his fluid movements.

"So, you buy kidnapped females every night, take them on your horse and share a tent with them?" she asked, just to lighten the mood because she was so tired, settling on looking up at the onyx-and-indigo sky streaked with starlight.

He laughed dryly, surprisingly getting the joke. "No, but I pitch a tent out here nearly every night. And technically, I didn't buy you, but ransomed you, which sounds friendlier than keeping you like an object. Breathing people like us are not made for that, but it's a damned shame there are people who still think otherwise."

He was right, which made him different than the men she'd been imprisoned by in the last few days. He was still a stranger, but he wasn't so scary anymore. No matter eventually sleeping so close to him tonight. But other women would talk about how disheartening it is. And him saying I'm not an object to purchase is comforting.

Hopefully, she could try to sleep tonight, try not to cry again. Father would want her to keep it together so that she could return to him - to Toneri. Because all her life, she'd done everything to make sure she was perfect and helpful, not a burden like she'd been before her mother left.

Except...the dam broke against her wishes when she was close enough to the tent to be half a foot away, and fell to her knees in the sand, clouding her black pants in the process. The dam which kept her tears in place and herself strong during her predicament now loosened because of the horrors she'd just experienced. She let herself weaken and sob hoarsely, bowing her head and letting the hot, wet tears scald her cheeks and hit the sand below. She gasped for air between each cry. Naruto didn't even move to comfort her, console her - anything! He just watched without a word, but it wasn't like she really needed anything from him. Just wanted to be alone, letting his eyes be all there was. If she kept this up any longer, she would have broken like a statue anyway. Just this once. Father isn't here to lecture me, no teacher from my past, not Hanabi - and Toneri isn't here, either.

And this "barbarian" isn't going to scold me, thankfully.

But, just like she expected, she felt weakened to her bones as well as angry at herself for letting herself release the valve. Hinata stood and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand before dusting off her knees, the sandy color stark against the dark fabric. Naruto still said nothing when he opened the tent entrance for her to go inside.

All she wanted to do was collapse with exhaustion, and it was then that her softened bones gave out - at the same time she heard him curse under his breath - and his arms caught her again like when she got off his horse. She urged herself to not joke of this being an affectionate embrace; it was just him steadying her...against his strong arms and chest.

She was falling apart, and he was there to witness it.

It was then that his natural scent - perspiration and musk - reached her nostrils, strangely calming her down. But that wasn't all there was; beneath was bamboo and leather. This was the scent of a man who worked hard to the limits as well as grasped small luxuries when he could. Someone who earned and deserved - but she stopped herself there. This line of thinking had to be part of her breakdown, as was her trembling.

Dangerously enough: she wanted to latch her fingers around his garments as the silent plea to hold her and never let go.

He cleared his throat. "Forgive me for telling you that there isn't a nearby medical unit, so please don't do something to result in your death." She had no death wish, like she told him earlier, but couldn't respond back as she was distracted by the sound of his beating heart, which was a reminder she was still alive like him, connected to the world of the living. "When was the last time you had food - or something to drink?"

She'd been fed, but not a lot during the day on a normal basis, and she didn't remember how many days exactly since she'd been snatched from Kawa. Naruto nodded when she told him, then bringing her into the tent so he could get her some water he had. She sat down on a blanket he'd laid out, him leaving for his pack and then returning with his canteen. As soon as she put it to her lips, she hadn't realized how thirsty she really was, like a man dying for liquor.

But as soon as she was done, guilt washed over her when the last drop touched her bottom lip. "Oh, I'm so sorry, if you were saving this -"

"Nah, I was planning to get more when we reach the oasis, but we can't tonight. It's dark, and you and I are both tired. We might reach Suna by midmorning, but we'll leave after dawn breaks." He was being realistic about everything, so she had to be, too.

She just learned that even though the desert made you feel strong and unbeatable, it also reminded you that you were just a human being whose life could end with nothing nearby to save you. You were just a grain of sand like the landscape around you. If you knew your limits, then you had to live with it and work with it.

Which meant no man or woman had control over the desert any more than they could control dogs and their own young children. Living and surviving as well as thriving kept you powerful.

Hinata realized then she was too cold to sleep alone, so she ended up where she tried to avoid: in his warm, strong arms, which would help them both make it through the night. It shouldn't even be a comfort, but she welcomed it - and his touch made her aware of the dried up parts of her skin from when she'd been entrapped by the Inuzuka bandits.

Sleeping in a man's arms...I was supposed to wait to do that with Toneri, but why am I thinking like this? It's only laying together, nothing further. I really need to...

And fell asleep in Naruto's arms she did.

~o~

Even when the sun began to rise over the dunes and small mountains, making the sand a blend of red and amber like fire, the air you breathed in was still scorching enough for your lungs. That was why he hated riding during the heat in the daytime, so he really needed to get them both to the oasis and wait until it was cool enough to get to the town of Suna.

No way in hell am I going to spend one more night with a shivering woman. And looking her over, she resembled a baby curled up. Just a reminder of how pale and fragile she was, especially with her ivory skin which now had an improbable rosy hue that was common for people with the hair and blue eyes like he had. She was too delicate to keep out in the sun like this, so he had to wake her up now.

Blinking, Hinata yawned and then stretched out. "Ah...oh, no...so, you are real. I wasn't dreaming." She expected to wake up from what she thought was only a dream, huh? Why was he not surprised?

"Sorry, but no, it's all real. And what were you talking about: me or the abduction alone?" Naruto asked. "I like to think I'm better than your kidnappers."

She sighed and sat up, shoulders slouching. "The abduction - just everything. And my body and my skin hurt, and this ground is hard," she ground out.

Naruto chuckled. She wasn't used to sleeping on hard grounds, that was why. If any of them had the power, they would have asked the gods to make the earth soft as a bed in the comfort of home. She scowled at him. "You think I'm silly as a little girl." He watched as she tried to wove her fingers through her hair, only to not finish gliding them through; it must have been a while since she'd been allowed to bathe and take care of her basic necessities. Even if they offered it, it must have embarrassed her just like seeing her naked. He shook his head, needing to rid himself of that thought along with the boil in his blood because of her treatment. He used to let his emotions run his life, but not anymore.

Feelings no more, there was only purpose for him.

"War over her hymen" - my best friend laughed his butt off when he read it over. XD It was also present in the book and too good to leave out of this story.

REVIEW! :3 I appreciate the loveliness and more awesome details.