The autopilot hadn't let up. Hinata went to work, came home, and sat in her room when she wasn't cooking. Hinata left him meals that he felt bad for because she also paid rent for her room. Her cooking was everything that Naruto said it was, and it made Sasuke kind of bitter, enjoying it. She didn't go out, though he knew she was reviewing constant messages trying to coax her out. She would ignore the buzzing on her phone by just staring at it. He got sick of it. Sasuke picked up her phone and deleted the messages out of annoyance. He then blocked the last five numbers to call her that she ignored and handed her her phone back. Sasuke readied himself for rage, but it didn't come.
"Thank you," She whispered.
It wasn't long before it got out where she was. She had been taking a different way to work, and they were seen together getting groceries. People were asking him if she was okay because he had blocked their way to pester her.
Then they asked the question Sasuke couldn't answer. "Why did you take her in?"
Sasuke hadn't thought about it at the time, but it did look like he knocked her up, and Naruto left, so he took her and his child out of guilt.
He could ignore the accusation, but he wasn't sure she could. She was still shut down, and if he had to guess, that wasn't good for the kid or her relationship with it once it was born. He didn't ask her if abortion was an option for her because if she had already thought about it, she would do it. He didn't need to be involved, but he was rather sure she would keep it because she didn't have a problem being a mother. However, she was for sure not happy about it being a bastard child.
Hinata filed for divorce first. He saw the papers on the counter when she came home from work. Naruto must have never filed, and somehow that had made it worse.
He had no clue how his usually relatively responsible best friend could fuck up so much. He should use responsibility a lot more loosely, but come on.
Every time he thought about or looked at her, he didn't understand it. She was sweet, clean, sane, a good cook, willing and ready to be the mother of his children, and he tossed it at the first sign of everything he had ever said he wanted. He was kind of waiting for something to be wrong with her.
Hinata sorted through his and her laundry, something he never asked her to do. She just did, and he noticed a little set of baby clothes he assumed she had been gifted.
"It's pretty soon for those, isn't it? You're not even showing." He raised an eyebrow at the small onesie.
"People aren't sure what to get but want to help out. Infant clothes of all sizes will be useful as the baby will grow quickly." She mumbled.
Sasuke was a little frustrated with her lack of any real opinion on these things. "What do you need, anyway?"
Hinata stared at him. He had never really taken an interest before. He hadn't acted like she wasn't pregnant. He just didn't bring it up.
She got up, setting her folding aside, and went to her room, returning with a notebook with her clean writing a list of things she would need to find before the baby was born. Things like a car seat carrier, baby blankets, a crib, bottles, pacifiers, a breast pump… he didn't want to know what that was. But it was a short list. Shorter than he thought it would be, there wasn't a single toy on it.
"Don't you need baby toys and high chairs?" Sasuke wondered.
"A high chair won't be needed until it can hold its head up and eat solid food, and there isn't much more than a rattle or chew toys that are needed to entrain a child of that age." Hinata looked at the minimal list.
"I guess the minimalist approach works." When most parents split, he thought the parent who ended up with the kid tried to give them everything to make up for it, but I guess the kid wouldn't have known, and Hinata didn't seem the one to give in to emotional impulse. It dawned on him that she may be trying to keep it small, so she didn't invade his home more than she had to.
"I'll get you a crib." He pointed to the list. "That way, I don't have to pick out clothes or bears." She frowned at him.
"You don't need to get anything you have already given us so much by letting us stay." She tried.
"And I'll be a dick to everyone else if I don't get a gift. Just tell me the one you want, and I'll get it." She sighed. His nose twitched. "You don't have to make a big deal about it."
"You don't have to make up for what he did. I appreciate all you have done for us, but please don't feel obligated to take on my child and me because Naruto failed to be the husband I married." Hinata said. For the first time, addressing the situation. He wondered how long she held her tongue because she looked like she was going blue.
Sasuke assumed that she thought once she had said that, he would throw her out and wash his hands of her. "Nah, he's a bastard, and I'm done cleaning up his messes, but I sat there and was told how wonderful you were for years, and I don't know." He took a breath. "I guess I want to see what was so wonderful that he could just leave like that."
She looked down and closed her eyes.
"I know I took you in because I'm used to cleaning up his messes, but you can stay as long as you want. I always wonder what kids were like." She wiped her eyes. He didn't mean to make her cry.
"Thank you." Hinata started weeping, and he didn't know what to do. He wasn't going to hug her but…. What did he do?
"You okay?" He asked and turned to make tea as that is what she did when he came back stressed from work.
She sniffled a while and accepted the cup when he finished. "I'm sorry, it's just your the only person not pressuring me for answers about Naruto and not asking me what I'm going to do on my own and…."
"That's all anyone wants to talk about." He finished. She nodded.
Sasuke had gotten that too. Constant questions. Was the real father? Why did he take her in if he wasn't? What did he think had gone wrong? What would he do when he got sick of her? When was he going to kick her out for freeloading? No amount of actual truthful answers worked, so he stopped answering.
"The girls at work are half and half. Some of them are so giddy, they only want to talk about the baby. The other ones think I used him or tried to tie him down with a baby and failed, or I cheated with you, and that's why you took me in." He rolled his eyes and nodded, knowing that one. "My friends want to know what happened and what my plans are…." She hiccuped a sob. "And right now, having the baby is all I have planned. I don't have any further because all I had... had Naruto in it." That explained why she stopped going out altogether. Her friends were nothing but reminders that she was drowning in her uncertainty. "Thank you for not adding to it."
"You'll figure it out. Even if I hadn't offered the room, I think you would have found a place you could afford and worked it out. You're not that fragile. If anything, I would say you have handled this better than any other time I've seen a girl get pregnant and someone runoff. The last I saw had a breakdown and blamed everyone else then ...drank" Hinata flinched, putting her hand over the slight bump.
"Thank you, it means a lot that you think so." She sighed, looking at her list.
"If you want to talk about planning, I'm here. Just don't make me shop for baby bullshit."
Hinata smiled for the first time since she ended up in his place. "I won't."
The void had been filled, they could stay in the same room with each other and it wasn't filled with tension. On her phone, Hinata showed him what she had planned to get, a small bedside crib that would work until the child was old enough to not roll over and suffocate on a futon. He had her order it with his card, one less thing for her to worry about.
Her cooking was good. It felt like the home he and Naruto never had as orphans. It gave him a pit in his stomach when he realized that he hadn't had home-cooked food like this in… years since foster care, and it hasn't been good cooking since his mother.
Since the day Hinata started cooking, she had it on the table at the same time every day. If she came home late, she would look panicked until she was sure it would be on time. He hadn't thought much of it until the day she broke down crying when she was 15 minutes late to the table because she set the oven too low. He hadn't even noticed until she started crying.
"I'm sorry…." She whimpered. He stared at her misery, unsure what to do or what brought it on. He didn't even notice the time. "It's late..." She explained.
Sasuke looked at her, wondering if this was just stress or if she was genuinely worried about the time. "Hinata. Honestly, I don't care when you feed me. You don't even have to feed me."
It didn't seem to calm her. She buried her face in her hands to sob. Sasuke took a deep breath. Maybe this was the time for a hug. He crossed the room to reach for her, and she flinched when she noticed he got close.
The fear hit him like a train. He slammed his hand on the counter, seeing red. "He HIT you!?" Sasuke demanded.
"No!" Hinata shrieked. Looking horrified, she hugged herself, and it was clear that wasn't the whole story. No, Naruto wouldn't have hit her, but he knew Naruto when he wanted something. Was his best friend above yelling at his wife when she didn't have dinner on the table or was she so afraid of disappointing him that even the thought would make her this afraid? Was this why she wasn't mad? Did she feel like she deserved it?
He felt sick.
Sasuke reached back out. This time she let him set hands on her shoulders. Hinata tried to wipe the blubbering tears, but they kept coming. "I. Don't. Care." He pronounced. "Your cooking is a favor. You can stop tomorrow and only feed yourself. You bought all the groceries. You put all the work in. It's your food. You are choosing to share it." He made sure not to break eye contact as he tried to gently but firmly get his point across.
Hinata nodded, still sobbing. What the hell had he done to her? Naruto had said she was the perfect wife but had he made her that way, or did she rise to his image of perfection?
He got her to sit down and eat. She picked at her food, but he stayed there until she was done.
"What happened if dinner wasn't on time?" Sasuke asked.
Hinata picked at her napkin, keeping her eyes down. "He had this image of how the perfect marriage would be and would be upset if the routine was broken. If I was late enough, sometimes he would say… that I wasn't trying hard enough to make the marriage work. I didn't love him enough… He never said cruelly, and he didn't mean it."
"Don't make excuses for him. If the story paints him bad, maybe it's correct." Sasuke growled. "Once you start making excuses, it turns from bad behavior to abuse."
Sasuke was putting the pieces together now. His apartment was clean as could be, cleaner than when he moved in. She was attentive to him when he talked but only gave words of encouragement, even if he was just ranting about bullshit or was the bad guy. She was particular about making his morning easier. Coffee was made for him and ready to his liking. His lunch was always something he would eat. Dinner, well, they had just covered that. If he didn't like something, she would apologize and fix it to his liking, even if it was at her expense. How had he not seen all this before? She was so eager to please, and his lack of negative response was starving her need to constantly improve to not disappoint.
"I'm not a hard man to please," Sasuke added. "You could serve me a mountain of sweets, and the worst you get out of me is a sarcastic remark, and I won't eat it. I didn't buy the food, you pay rent, you aren't a burden." He tapped his hand on the table so he would look up at her. "Alright?"
Hinata wearily nodded. He wondered if Naruto had thought she was so wonderful because she was ready to serve him. Why was he the one to leave? Where the hell was he anyway?
