There was a fog in her mind like she had dipped her head in marshmallow. It was thick and sticky and had got in her eyes and ears. Shapes and color danced around as she opened her eyes painfully. Voices she couldn't identify, were forming words she couldn't make out.
She could barely make out the syllables of her name.
The bright white background where the colors were flashing in front of, told her hospital. The pain told her she was the patient. She brought her hands to cover her face to ward off her nausea, and block out the colors.
She focused on the voices hearing her name more properly. "I-I'm going to be sick." She mumbled, her voice slurred as she was guided to something she could empty her stomach into, only to find she had nothing in her stomach. Acid burned her throat as she heaved, yanking the edge of her empty stomach stretching the muscles around it painfully.
Someone rubbed her back and she was offered water from another direction.
She focused her senses on the yellow figure that sounded female. Tsunade she hoped. Ino or Tsunade. As her eyes focused on her she was glad she was right. She reached out to her.
The older woman took her hand into her much more stable, manicured one. "How are you feeling?" She asked with a smirk of her painted lips.
"N-Not well." She replied, covering her eyes again as well as she could, trying to will away more gagging. She could feel IV's and tubes, she must have been here a while.
"I would guess so. You got hit pretty hard, and you have been out for a while. You have a concussion that is treatable, but I am more worried about other effects." The older woman explained, looking over her clipboard.
"I-I don't remember being hit." She offered, though it was difficult to think at all right now.
"That's what I'm worried about," Tsunade mumbled wearily, patting her hand. "Can you tell me your name, age, and what month it is?"
Hinata felt a trickle of fear, missing memory? "H-Hinata Hyuuga, nineteen, and I think it's mid-summer."
She flinched as she heard a loud crash in the corner of the room. She uncovered her eyes. The room had gone dark, the blinds had been closed in the time she had her eyes covered. In the now dim room could make out a shattered lamp and a male she hadn't seen, or at least she thought she hadn't seen in years.
"Sasuke, don't make me remove you. I told you it was a possibility," Tsunade growled.
"Three years!" He barked. "THREE YEARS!? She won't remember me at all!" He slammed his hand flat into the wall like he was trying his best not to do more damage but still take his anger out on the underlying surface.
"S-Sasuke Uchiha?" She asked bewildered.
Did she know him? He thought she did. When had he even come back?
He locked eyes on her and they were hurt. Lost and pained. Her not remembering him meant something to him. She could feel the rising panic in him or was that just her own as she slowly took in she didn't remember three years of her own life.
What do you do when you can't remember three years?
"I don't know if I should trust you to explain." Tsunade frowned at him.
"You don't have much choice in that regard do you." He growled back.
Tsunade pointed a painted finger at him dangerously. "Watch it, kid. I might not be Hokage anymore but I can still physically kick your ass out of this damn village." She wasn't the Hokage? Noted. The ex-Hokage sighed and her voice went soft. "Do you want me here?" She asked Sasuke with a rub of her temple.
"Quite honestly, no." He crossed his arms, he still glared dangerously but it started to hurt again.
Tsunade turned to her and slipped her hand from away and patted her leg. "I won't be far if you need anything okay?" She told her, Hinata nodded in response. She was intensely curious what the Uchiha avenger had to say to her.
"She will be confused. Take it slow, no big bombs to start with. Let her put it together a bit." She warned, pointing a scolding finger at him as she left the room with a last glare.
Now alone with him, Hinata chewed her bottom lip slightly, not helping her growing anxiety. She was now the center of attention. She looked down at her hands. Nausea came back up but she breathed evenly to attempt to make it pass as the Uchiha crossed the room.
As the fog in her head started to dissipate, she had a lot of questions.
What had she done for the last three years? Where was her family? Shouldn't they have been here when she was woken up? How did she get hit? Who hit her? What was she doing? Had she passed on her title yet?
Her hand flew up to her forehead.
"You're not sealed," Sasuke mumbled, he sat where Tsunade had been at her bedside.
"Wh-Why not? I-I'm 22 I should have passed my position." She fumbled, looking up at him and quickly looked back at her lap to avoid the direct gaze.
"There are several reasons, but the main one was Hanabi." From what Hinata last remembered, her sister and she had just started getting along well. Had they got so close that Hanabi had fought for her freedom? Had she never stepped down?
She stared at her hands as questions piled and despite having stared at them for the last couple of minutes, she seemed to have missed what was odd out there. Two rings on her left hand. The questions washed away to one.
She could feel the Uchiha watching her as she lifted the hand closer to her face and turned her hand over. "Wh-When did I get these?" She whispered, to herself, she didn't think he would know.
They weren't well-made rings. They looked like they had been made manually. The non-precious metals of both rings had tool marks and the one held a dull lavender pearl. They were well taken care of, but showed some signs of wear, scratches on the underside from working with her hands while wearing the rings.
They seemed sentimental rather than fashionable. Had her father let her wear these? He would hate something like this.
She blinked, being brought out her thoughts when he held out his right hand. She looked up at him and hesitantly placed her hand in his to show him what she was talking about. His face held masked pain, poorly masked pain. His eyes were shadowed with it as he gazed very directly at her fingers. His hands were warm and much larger than her own, it felt so personal for her hand to be sat in his like this.
He thumbed over the rings. First, the one with the pearl. "I gave you this one, just under 2 years ago." He mumbled in a low tone. "And this one, I gave you 4 months later. I have one to match."
She blinked at his softened face. He frowned at the two rings as he touched them gingerly. He was gentle with her hand, so much so she hadn't realized he had fully engulfed it in both hands as he leaned his elbows on the hospital bed. He did have a similar ring on his left hand.
It clicked and her face turned red. Panic set in fully.
"W-We are…." She gasped.
"Married." He confirmed bluntly, not looking up from her hand.
"I-I, but, I-I don't..." She didn't remember meeting him after he left at all. When had he come back? She guessed it would have been about 3 years since that's how long he had been concerned about. His hand tightened on hers comfortably like he feared she'd pull it away or maybe it was because she began to shake. She was a bit too shocked to react violently either way.
"You don't remember me at all." He mumbled in a low tone of depression. She realized that this wasn't the same Uchiha she went to school with. He wasn't hard, cold, and arrogant. He was depressed and hollow, and she was almost sure it wasn't just because she didn't remember him. Something deep-rooted that she couldn't remember was there in his eyes. Like his life stopped holding meaning. It hurt to look at.
His eyes slid up to meet her and he gave her the hollow look directly.
"I-I'm sorry." She felt the bubbling tears. She was missing such a huge chunk of her life and she wasn't even the one suffering. She had known him well enough to marry him. She had to have loved him.
Where was all that? Why couldn't she remember that?
"It's not your fault." He growled, his eyes hardening on her. "Don't you start feeling bad for me that's how all this started." His voice trailed slightly.
She sniffed as the tears dropped from her cheeks and his face softened again. He swore. He brought a hand up her face to wipe her cheek and she was surprised, she didn't flinch. She didn't feel any familiarity, but his familiarity to her and the unguarded looks of pain convinced her she could trust him and she should.
She pierced her lip and opened her mouth then closed it feeling it tremble. She wondered what questions to ask first. They piled up, which ones were more important, what could wait? One bubbled to the surface as she thought about getting out of this horrid hospital bed. "Wh-Where do we live?"
His face flattened, seemingly surprised by her first question. After a moment something like relief washed over his face. "I built you a house in the Uchiha district." He then frowned. "I hope I didn't ruin your garden while you were away from it." He mumbled.
"I-I have a garden?" She asked then she got the context. "H-How long have I been asleep?"
"Three weeks before you were stable enough to wake. They told me it was possible you'd slip into a coma and you might never wake up." His hand clenched over her hand, it didn't hurt. He was surprisingly gentle with her. "Before that, you were gone for one week on a mission."
She nodded filling out the information. "Wh-When will you be able to take me… home." It was a new feeling thinking her home wasn't the cold compound. Wait did he say he built it? "Y-You built me a house?" She blushed at her confusion and oddly sequence questions.
A light smirk came to the side of his lip. It was refreshing to see a bit of light on him. "Yes. You were surprised the first time too." He then frowned as the meaning of his own words hit him. "Not sure when I can take you back."
"Well, I just came to talk about that." Tsunade's voice came from the doorway.
Sasuke's face threw up a barrier and glared at the woman. Hinata noted the sudden change. "Well?"
"If you follow very strict guidelines, increase her dietary intake, and come in for ALL her checkups and therapy," Tsunade told him pointedly. "I'll let you take her home tomorrow afternoon. She'll need lots of rest, go easy on her."
Sasuke looked relieved, his hands over hers gently squeezed like a reflex to tell her how he felt. What closeness was she missing?
"Now I have a few more tests to run and I'll explain the restrictions." She started. "So if you can be patient for a few more hours and she feels comfortable with the situation you can take her home in less than 24 hours."
***TheUnstableLiz***
**I know it has been done before, I hope to not hit the same beats or any annoying cliches and just make a sugary sweetheart bleeding story of Hinata rebuilding an understanding through Sasuke's stories of their first relationship.
