Sometimes we create our own heartbreaks through expectations.

Naruto is laying on the couch when Hinata pushes into their apartment.

"Oh my god, you scared me." She gasps when he sits up-the relief making her knees weak.

"I'm sorry." He doesn't look at her, and her already frayed nerves fray further. She tries to ignore them. She's just tense. It's been a hell of a day...week...year?

"I've been calling you." She says.

Naruto shifts on his feet. "I left my phone at Sasuke's."

"Why?" She's struggling with her shoes. Her fingers feel numb. Her entire body feels leaden with a sense of impending dread.

"I left in a hurry." He's dancing around the subject.

She looks at him, seeing his red cheeks-the flush on his skin that's not quite natural. "Have… have you been drinking?" The question is barely above a whisper because she doesn't want to ask it.

"Just a little."

She stares at him, because seriously?! She inhales and exhales with purposeful effort. Of all the dangerous and stupid...at Sasuke's no less. She swallows back her nager, because he's home and at least here she can talk to him and they can figure this out.

She flicks her gaze to his and feels a small stab of anxiety when he looks away.

Something happened.

She doesn't know what.

But something happened that he doesn't want to tell her.

Did he take some of Sasuke's pills?

Get in a fight?

She considers what the likely scenarios are and walks from him into the kitchen. She thinks better when she's doing something.

She needs to be doing something.

Because she feels like there's an axe over her neck.

And for the first time in her life, she feels like it's Naruto swinging it.

Naruto-no matter his condition, or their struggles-has never hurt her directly. His actions hurt her. The things he does to himself hurt her. But do something that would hurt her? No. Naruto wouldn't…

And yet the hairs on her neck are on end and she can't really focus on the food she's making.

His voice, when he speaks, is rough. "There was a girl there. At Sasuke's."

She goes still. There's usually a girl at Sasuke's. That's not unusual. What's unusual is Naruto needing her to know that. What's unusual is the way he won't look at her, the flush on his face, and the way her blood goes cold at his words.

"W-w-why are you telling me that?"

She's stuttering. She can't even remember the last time she stuttered. In college. Before...well, before.

"I'm sorry. Hinata I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to-"

Oh.

"Didn't mean to what? What did you do?" She turns away from the food. It's still cooking but she is not paying attention. All she can see is the guilt in his eyes. Her voice is shaking and her hands are wringing together. She feels sick.

Naruto steps to her and tries to grab her hand, but she recoils from him, stepping away. She wants nothing more than to allow him to pull her into his arms and to hold him and just be and forget this mess...but...she needs to know.

"I need you to tell me what you did." She's firm. Firmer than she thought she could be.

"We kissed." He confesses.

She feels gutted.

Like he opened her right up.

"She kissed me. But that's it. Hinata that's it."

That's it.

He says it like he didn't just yank the heart from her chest. Like he doesn't know how she feels about intimacy and how kissing is as much a betrayal as sex.

We.

He said "We".

It doesn't matter if this girl kissed him first. His confession tells HInata that he returned it. For a moment? For longer? Did it matter?

We. Kissed.

Her Naruto with someone else.

While she was a basketcase at work.

While she was worried and frantic and disappointing her team.

He was kissing some...person...at Sasuke's.

For a moment, thoughts of Sakura flashes across her mind and the old sting makes her shove her way past Naruto. Towards their room.

"Hinata that's all that happened! I promise!" He follows. Not fast enough.

The bedroom door slams in his face.

She locks it.

"Hinata." He knocks on the door. Pleading. "Hinata!" The door bends as he hits it.

She presses her fingers to her lips and leans blindly against the wall, choking on ugly sobs that crawl into her throat from the broken cavity of her chest.

There's a small insecure voice in the back of her mind that she hasn't heard since childhood that reminds her that she always knew that she wasn't good enough.

"Hinata-"

"Shut up!" The words tear out of her and she's not sure if they are directed at him or at herself. "Shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up!"

Logically, she knows that this is part of his bipolar-the mania. That inhibitions are lowered and reckless behavior isn't unusual. She's read the books, been to the counselors, spoken with the doctors. It doesn't change a damn thing.

He hurt her.

She shuffles around the room aimlessly-not knowing what to do-until she just gives up and curls into a ball in the center of their bed and muffles a scream into the blankets.

She lays there for a long time.

Until her eyes ache with scratchy dryness and her throat is raw.

She feels drained. But the anger isn't gone. She wants to hurt him back. She wants to.

And because of that she knows she needs to get away.

She needs to breathe.

She is suffocating under the guilt and her shame and his shame and his needs and she can't think and she can't sleep and she can't-she can't-

She just can't.

Not right now.

It's quiet when she opens the door.

She heads into their small bathroom, collecting her essentials. There's not many. Deodorant, some perfume, her toothbrush.

Naruto rouses himself enough to call out to her. "Hinata… are you taking me back to the hospital?"

"No."

He's confused. "What?"

"No. Clearly, you won't stay there. Besides, you're coherent enough to galavant to your friends place hook up with random women." She hates the way the words taste in her mouth. Bitter and laced with venom. She presses her lips closed. She doesn't want to say anything she can't take back.

"Hina, I didn't…" He shifts again, hand scratching across his chest, his eyes a bit wild. "Are you," he licks his lips. "Are you kicking me out?"

"No."

She hears his sharp inhale when it dawns on him what she's doing.

"You're leaving." His voice is hollow. "You're leaving me."

She can't look at him. She keeps her expression carefully neutral. "It's just for a couple of days."

"Please don't. Please. Please don't leave."

Hinata's jaw clenches and she fights not to cry. "I'm going to stay with my sister. I need some time."

"You can have time right here. I'll sleep on the couch. I'll leave you alone. I won't bother you. Whatever you want-"

"What I want," she overrides him, "is to go to my sisters." She doesn't say anything else, just finishes gathering her things.

Naruto stands statue still watching her every move.

And no matter her own pain there is still a part of her that wants to comfort him. She feels the ache in her chest blossom again and her eyes blur. She's crying again, but she doesn't stop.

When she has everything for a few days she opens the door. She pauses before crossing the threshold, debating with herself. She doesn't really want to see the expression she knows will be on his face-that face she loves so much-but she also doesn't want to leave without seeing him one more time.

He looks just as lost as she thought he would. It hurts just as much as she knew it would.

She shuts the door and locks it.

Her sister Hanabi lives a few hours away. It's not a long drive, but even so she can't shake the feeling of finality she gets when she takes the corner and heads out of the city.

She wonders briefly how Hanabi will react to her showing up in the middle of the night-eyes red and heartbroken-but she knows her sister. She will open her door and offer her a drink, and a shoulder, and call Naruto all kinds of names.

Hanabi is made of sterner stuff than Hinata.

Hinata has always been called soft.

Her whole life.

Soft.

She doesn't feel soft now.

She feels like glass.

Cold.

Hard.

Easily shattered.