This is page 200 on my google doc for this fic…I'm so proud of myself for making it this far!


March 15th

"What?!" Sakura's voice loud enough that other diners stop to look at them.

Naruto waves his hand, shushing her "We've talked about it, ya know. And all this bull shit that's happened in the past month has made me realize how much time I already wasted not being with her." Heat rising up his neck and onto his cheeks, finding it hard to talk about these things with anyone except Hinata.

Sakura grins at her friend across the table "Good thing you idiot."

"So, burgers?" Sakura asks Hinata as she sits down at the table across from her.

Hinata looks at the busy restaurant, her expression going from confusion to curiosity before she starts laughing. Really and truly laughing. It started as a giggle and it wasn't long until she was clutching at her sides.

"I didn't realize," she stops catching her breath "where I walked into. I was so upset, I didn't even know this place existed."

"Are you sure you're okay?" Naruto questions, covering her hand with his on atop the table.

"I will be, doing that was hard, and I may have broken down in the bathroom just now. But those French fries look really good, so I'm going to go get some of those."

Sakura watches Hinata absentmindedly walk towards the counter to order "She's deflecting." She says to Naruto as he stands to follow her.

"Should I be worried about her?" Naruto looks from Sakura to Hinata and back.

"She probably just needs to process, I talked with her while you were talking to Konohamaru at the hospital. She's doing surprisingly well, she has a lot of support and I think getting to confront them is going to be good for in the long run."

"I got you a cheeseburger and a drink. Sakura I thought you might like this chicken sandwich they had."

"Not sure how I feel about cheeseburgers." Naruto looks down at his half eaten food "Fries though, fries are good." Reaching over and swiping the last few off Hinata's tray, Sakura taking their now empty trays back to the counter.

"I'm going to go back home, alone." Hinata glances sideways at Naruto. "I just need some time to think, go ahead and tell Kakashi-sensei you can go back on missions alright."

"I mean, ya know, if that's what you want."

"It is, can you tell him that I'd like to go back into active duty at the end of the month? Sakura said I'd be good to go by then." As if her name drew her attention, Sakura waved at them from the door, the couple standing to join her.

"I'll see you tomorrow sometime, Konohamaru wants to meet up after lunch at the training grounds." Hinata just nods in agreement, Naruto bending to press his lips to hers.

"See you Sakura."

"Meet you at the shopping district tomorrow morning?" Sakura asks once Hinata is out of earshot.

"There's actually a smaller shop I want to go to." Naruto describes the location of the shop he'd bought Hinata's necklace at three months ago.

March 16th

"Naruto, are you planning on buying Hinata an engagement ring or a weapon?" Sakura eyes the shop suspiciously.

"I thought the same thing when Konohamaru first showed me this place, ya know" Naruto talks a mile a minute, nervously bouncing on his feet. "Just trust me all right."

Sakura watches the boy, turned man, that she's known since they were six years old walk around the dark shop accompanied by an elderly woman for over an hour. Comparing rings, talking about the practicality of a ring with a stone and without for a shinobi. Sakura had walked around looking at all the pretty things placed under glass countertops. Once he had three laid out on the counter he asked Sakura to come over.

"Figured anything with a stone would just get caught on things or broken on missions, ya know. So what do you think?" Naruto motions to the rings, all two gleaming silver as they sat on a soft purple cloth.

The first a thin simple band the edges rounded, while pretty Sakura thought the band itself may be too thin and prone to bending. The second band thicker, the edges almost squared, the metal of this one glinted shimmering under the soft light.

"This one." Sakura points to the one on the right "Hinata uses her hands too much for the first one it'd bend. Well that's my opinion at least." Sakura shrugs, looking at Naruto.

"You're right though, thanks Sakura." Naruto beams at her, the look on his face causing her heart to squeeze. The happiness radiating off of her almost outshines the jealousy she felt. The anger and sadness she held in her heart, the longing for Sasuke.

"Now we talked about engraving." Sakura startles slightly at hearing the older woman speak.

"Yeah, I'd like that, you said it'd take about a week right?"

The woman only nods.

"Alright, go ahead and put" Sakura's mind goes blank at what Naruto says when she realizes his meaning behind it, watching him pull his money from his wallet.

Across the village Hinata stood in her room, knitting bag in hand, thinking about going to the training grounds. Yesterday she had sat under the cherry blossom tree in her family's courtyard for hours. Watching the petals fall, thinking about how not two days ago she had laid there with Naruto. He had picked petals from her hair, mummering about how he'd do the same on their wedding day. Traced his fingers down across her cheek. They had talked about how she wanted to wear the traditional shiromuku, with him in the wedding hakama. Hinata thought about how he had laughed but agreed. She remembered promising him that he didn't have to wear it all day and could change into something less formal for their reception. She never thought the day would come, the day where she would not only be talking about her wedding but be talking about her wedding with Naruto, a wedding where he would be the groom.

He's probably at the training grounds by now. Hinata thinks looking up to the sky. The time alone had been calming. It had allowed her to sort through her thoughts without having to vocalize them. To not have to tell someone how she was feeling and why. It had made her realize that even though she'd been saying she's okay out loud until getting to confront her captors she really hadn't been. Doing that had truly given her the relief she needed. She sighs, hefting the bag onto her shoulder and making her way to the training grounds.

For a mid afternoon the grounds were surprisingly busy, Hinata found Naruto and Konohamaru in the back, where the large trees grew and the waterfall Yamato had created. She could hear them laughing across the field.

"Nii-chan," Konohamaru was lying on the ground, clutching at his sides. Naruto was jumping at the lowest branch on the largest tree in the clearing. Even at its lowest the branch was still a good two maybe three feet over Naruto's head.

"What's he doing?" Hinata eases to the ground next to the younger boy.

"I threw a kunai up there and bet him he couldn't get it down without using chakra or any of the other trees." Konohamaru points to the slight glint of metal Hinata could see embedded half way up the tree. "I gave him five tires, he's on his third." The two watched Naruto look up at the kunai, then over his shoulder at them. He winks at Hinata before pulling his shirt over his head.

Konohamaru rolls his eyes "Really nii-chan?"

"I ripped the shoulder seam on that last one."

"What's that?" Konohamaru asks, motioning towards Hinata's bag.

"I thought you'd guys would still be beating each other up" Hinata referring to their normal sparing turning to to them wrestling on the ground throwing cheap shots. "So I brought knitting" pulling the start to a amethyst colored blanket from her bag. The pair turned at the sound of Naruto's hands slapping against the tree branch. He had taken a running start and finally secured a grip around the branch, a jump that would have been easy for him when he wasn't only relying on his athletic ability.

Hinata's eyes scanned down his back, watching the way his muscles moved, sweat running down his spine. The muscles spanning his back flex as he widens his grip, pulling himself up to stand on the branch near the trunk. Her cheeks go pink, shaking her head, looking away. Gods help me.

"Well crap." The younger boy mummers, watching Naruto make short work of climbing the branches to reach the knife, pulling it from the trunk and flinging it at the ground, sinking into the earth. "Guess I'm buying lunch." Naruto makes it to the last branch before backflipping out of the tree. "Show off!"

He pulls the kunai from the ground, twirling it on his finger, Hinata smiles at the habit she had seen Lord Six do too many times to count with the knife. "Yo," Naruto crouches in front of her and Hinata doubles over in laughter.

"What?"

"You just, wow, you've officially spent too much time with Lord Six." She watches while the two put Naruto's actions together.

"I guess I just need a book and a mask." Naruto shrugs before pressing his lips to hers. "I'm gonna go shower, then you can buy me lunch." Naruto smirks at Konohamaru shrugging on the ripped shirt, taking Hinata by the hand to walk back home.

"Ya know," Naruto starts as soon as the front door closes behind them. "You wore shorts just like these at the bar for Sakura's birthday last year." Hinata remembers the way he held her hip and corrected her aim while playing darts.

"Sakura told me you were staring at my ass"

"Oh, I 100% was. I felt bad then, for staring at you. Felt like I shouldn't be doing that to a friend. You and I both know how I feel about this though." Naruto's arms cage around her, backing her into the wall, his palms landing on her ass and lifting, legs wrapping around her waist. Carrying her up the stairs. "Shower with me?" Naruto asks, eyes locked on hers.

"Will this ever stop?"

"Huh?" Naruto sets her on the bathroom sink, reaching to turn on the water.

"This" Hinata gestures between the two of them "almost anytime we're alone I want to touch you, feel your skin on mine."

"Let's just call it making up for lost time." Naruto chuckles "Cause I can't tell how many times I thought about you while, ya know." He shrugs, loving the way the blush starts low, covering her whole face.

"Naruto!" Hinata buries her face in her hands. "You can't just say things like that." She looks up, only to see him grinning at her as if to say 'so what.' He just takes a step towards her, taking her shirt between his fingers and pulling it over her head. Undressing her until Hinata stands naked in front of him.

The blush works its way down her whole body, Naruto's eyes following it. "Fucking beautiful." He shakes his head, shedding his own clothes, yanking her into the shower and under the warm spray of the water.

Naruto shivers when Hinata moves her soaped covered hands up his chest, over his shoulder and down his arms. Rubbing slightly as she goes. She doesn't stop there, washing down his body, asking him to turn and doing the same to his back. Giggling at his groan when she scrapes lightly at his scalp with her nails while washing his hair.

"You're too good for me." Naruto shakes his head, fingers combing conditioner through Hinata's long hair.

"Stop that." She replies, rinsing and shutting off the water, passing a towel to Naruto.

"I have to go meet Konohamaru." He mummers, lips skimming her bare shoulder "You coming?"

"I need to go find Kiba and Shino."

"Come back for dinner?" Hinata only nods in agreement.

Later that evening they sat in Naruto's living room, takeout containers scattering the coffee table, Hinata's feet in his lap.

"I think I'm going to be going away for about a week, maybe a bit more." Naruto says out of nowhere.

"Why didn't I guess that when you told Kakashi-sensei that you'd be back on this would happen?"

"It's just for the thing with the rails, nothing dangerous, Kakashi-sensei just asked me to handle it, cause, well." Naruto pauses, a large smile spreading over his face. "Kakashi-sensei sat me down today to tell me that he spoke with the village elders and outlined a ten year plan. Ten years of things he needs to finish, well wants to finish before he retires, ya know. And there's certain things he's passing off to me and the rail project is the first of it."

"That means" her grin matching his "you're officially succeeding him!" Hinata climbs into his lap throwing her arms around his neck.

"The other part of it is I'll be in the village more. The elders are convinced I have the outer workings of what it means to be Hokage, they are less convinced I can do the, well, the paperwork side, the running the village side, ya know. They gave me a whole list of books I need to read and things I need to become proficient in. But I got a little bit of time before I need to start that. Got a few things I need to take care of first." Hinata raises an eyebrow at him.

"I'll, um, explain when I get back." He leans in to kiss her "Promise."