Hello everybody! This is my first Naruto fic. So please review and tell me what I can work on! This is also my only Naruto fic. But I'll change that if this one is actually any good.

Sasuke was back. Back from Orochimaru, from the Sound Five, he was back.

Sasuke sat in a white room in Konoha's hospital. The room had no windows and no doors. The walls were so think that you couldn't blast through them unless you had the rasengan. This was the room where they kept people who had betrayed their village and had come back. Sasuke was to sit there for a year at the most, ten months at the least, before he was able to leave and be part of the village again. No matter how you looked at it, he was a traitor, and therefore, an outsider. An outsider with nowhere to go and no means of escape anyway. He was permitted one visitor a month unless it was Kakashi, or a hospital employee. Ando so Sasuke passed the time recovering. He slowly regained his old self but you could tell by the look in his eyes that he still had a little bit of his evil self. After seven months, Sasuke felt like he was going to kill himself but his chakra was blocked off and he had no weapons. Being alone in a small white room for months was hard on the mind and his sanity was about to snap. Thankfully one day somebody appeared to visit him. With her she brought a small object. "Um, Sasuke?" she said upon entering. For once, the hospital person left Sasuke and his current visitor alone instead of watching like a hawk. Everybody knew that Hinata wouldn't do anything dangerous here. "Hinata," he said with some relief. He couldn't stand Sakura or Ino anymore but he desperately needed familiar company. "Um, here," she said, thrusting out a tangle of string at him. He took it into his hands, staring. "What is it?" he asked. She smiled a little and took it from him, untangling it. She wound it around her fingers for a few minutes before showing him. "It's a cat's cradle string," she said, showing him something that resembled a ladder. "I thought that you must get bored here and I asked if you could have this and they said it was fine."

"Finally," he said, uncharacteristically. "Something to do. Thank you Hinata," he said, looking her in the eye, causing her to turn red and tilt her head away. "Sure," she said quietly. "Can you show me how to do it?" he asked. Nodding, Hinata took the string and slowly went through the motions. Because his chakra was blocked, he couldn't use sharingan and had to learn it the normal way so she patiently went through the steps a few times of a few different things until he got it.

A little while later, he and Hinata were playing a game of Cat's cradle and they laughed with each other, talking and seeing how long they could get the game to go. Finally they messed it up and the hospital attendant declared the visit over. "I'll come back next month if that's okay," she said. "You can come back next week," the attendant said. "Really? Is that okay?" Hinata asked Sasuke. He nodded, looking down in concentration at the string and his fingers. "See you then!" she called. "See you."

For the next few weeks, Hinata and Sasuke would play with the sting and anything else Hinata would bring with her. Sometimes she brought food with her and they would eat and talk until she had to leave. Sasuke thought one day that his sanity just might survive. Just might.

"Sasuke, let me help you escape," Hinata, told him one day. "Escape?"

"I know you want to. I studied what the attendants did to get in and out and I practiced it with another person. Come on."

"When? You know you could get into the worst trouble imaginable."

"Yes but, I also want to get away from Konoha and travel around the countries. Come with me. Then we can both be free of here."

"Hinata that's so unlike you," he said, trying to conceal a smile. "I'll come tomorrow night," she whispered, knowingly. "I'll be waiting."