Future and Past

Hinata surveyed her work thus far. Wiping the dust off her hands and then placing them on her hips she looked around the dilapidated house she had chosen and admitted proudly to herself that things were starting to shape up. There was more work to be done, that was for certain, but still she had made some progress in cleaning and restoring one of the Uchiha homes for her own use.

Well, Shikamaru, Sakura and she together had done so she corrected herself. So far, those were the only two 'guards' in her rotation. She felt somewhat self-conscious about using her friends as her personal bodyguards but Hinata recognized the necessity. The topic was still closely guarded, outside the original group only the Hyuuga Main Family leadership was aware of what was going on.

A leadership which now included Hanabi.

It had been a bittersweet meeting between herself and her sister, one which Hinata had done on her own without even telling Shikamaru as soon as the contract was signed between the village elders and her father. She'd invited Hanabi to her apartment and explained the situation to her personally. Initially Hanabi was tearful, feeling that she had somehow been responsible for driving Hinata away but after numerous firm reassurances from her older sister that was not and could never be the case, Hanabi calmed down and was as consumed with curiosity about the whole procedure and process Hinata was going through as any other fifteen year old girl could be expected to be. They had spent the rest of the weekend giggling and gossiping as sisters have done since time immemorial and when it was over, Hinata was beyond relieved to know that her sister would be her staunchest ally through all that lay ahead.

Hinata looked around the empty room. Sakura had been gone for a few minutes to fetch some more water so that they could continue cleaning. Unfortunately there were some significant repairs that were going to be needed on any of the buildings in the Uchiha compound before they could be considered fully inhabitable. Plumbing was among one of her top priorities but she'd have to wait until her circle of conspirators included someone skilled in that area.

Shikamaru had grumbled half-heartedly and complained that her apartment, Kurenai's house and the cabin were all completely occupiable, now. In his opinion, any effort spent to restore a Uchiha house until the plumbing and electricity could be restored was simply work for the sake of work. Nonetheless he had pitched in to help the two kunoichi. He had been particularly adamant about being the one to do any work at a height, extracting a promise from Hinata not to climb any ladders or stepstools.

"Here we go," Sakura announced, returning with two buckets full of water from the lake so that they could continue scrubbing the floors.

"Thank you, Sakura," Hinata smiled, reaching to take one bucket and set it on the floor near her mop.

"No problem," the pink-haired fellow kunoichi said, taking a break and sitting on a dusty end table. "We've got a lot more to do, don't we?" she smiled back, raising a dusty palm and holding it out to show Hinata.

"Yes, we do, but we'll get there," Hinata said encouragingly as she turned to dip her mop in the bucket. She paused, curious about something. "Sakura, may I ask you a question?"

"Huh? Sure, Hinata, what is it?" her friend replied, wiping her forehead with a bandana then stuffing it back into a pocket.

"It's about Shikamaru, he seems...overly concerned. Especially about the ladders. Am I really likely to lose my balance?"

"Well, balance problems aren't uncommon, but it's usually later in pregnancy," Sakura started in her best medical student voice. "What's probably more likely would be loose joints. When you're pregnant your body produces a hormone that allows the ligaments and bone ends to relax and stretch to accommodate the baby and for delivery. But the hormone's in your body, it's not just limited to those particular ligaments, so it is possible that you would be more likely to... twist your ankle for example."

"But would that happen to me even now? It's only been a few days and..."

Sakura shrugged, "Probably not but...Shikamaru's a guy...the whole process is like science fiction for them." And with that she laughed and Hinata joined her.

As she turned to begin mopping the room they were in a stray thought crossed Hinata's mind. Sakura hadn't been doing any of the tasks requiring climbing either. Shikamaru had done all the inspecting of the roof, ceiling repairs and hanging of curtains that had been required so far. She wondered if this was just a coincidence or...

"Sakura," she began slowly, smiling to herself and keeping her eyes down focused on the area of floor she was cleaning, "I noticed you haven't been climbing anything either..." she let her voice trail off and chanced a look up at her friend.

Sakura was blushing furiously, her face almost matching her hair.

"You are pregnant!" Hinata announced with delight. "Why didn't you tell me?" She let her mop fall to the ground and rushed over to hug her friend.

Sakura laughed and hugged her back. "Yeah, I am, we are..."

"But how could you keep it a secret?"

"Hey," Sakura joked back, "look who's talking about keeping pregnancies secret." Then she added somewhat more seriously. "We, ah, I haven't really told anyone except Naruto, Tsunade and Shizune yet. About the time I found out, this, ah, whole situation with you came up and it just ... I just didn't want to influence you in any way."

Sakura was overly cautious, aware she was treading on delicate ground with Hinata with respect to Naruto.

She needn't have worried. Hinata had long since given up Naruto to Sakura in her heart with no ill feelings. She was genuinely happy for both her friends. "I know you've kept it a secret, Sakura-chan but how is it possible that Naruto-kun has managed to..."

"To keep his mouth shut?" Sakura finished for her.

Hinata nodded.

"Well, first of all, Tsunade threatened him with bodily harm if he said anything to anybody before I was ready. And secondly, she's been running him all over the Five Nations on one mission after another just to keep him out of Konoha and to keep him from talking. She told him it was so he wouldn't have to travel as much when the baby got here, but she and I both know it's to keep him from blabbing."

"Well, it's wonderful. Congratulations. How far along are you?"

Sakura shrugged. "About three months. Tsunade says I'll start showing soon. We won't be able to keep it a secret then will we?"

Hinata nodded in agreement, hugged her once again wishing her the best then returned to her mopping, lost in thought over her own potential pregnancy. Suddenly she was consumed with the need to know whether she was or was not actually going to have a baby. She had promised Shizune she'd wait and not get her hopes up, but then again, Shizune had reassured her there was no harm that could come from doing a test, only the possibility of disappointment.

But she couldn't very well run back to the village to pick up a pregnancy test now, could she? Not only would that draw undue suspicion if she were to actually purchase one at the pharmacy, it was quite frankly a stupid thing to do - dash off from the Uchiha compound, through Nara lands all the way back to Konoha's city limits.

However, there was another way, an older way that she could use. She'd been able to resist the temptation up until now, but being here with Sakura, knowing that she was pregnant, Hinata found she just had to know about herself, too. Now.

"Sakura," she called back over her shoulder where her friend was working on the other side of the room. "I think there are some more buckets in the kitchen. We're going to need the water anyway, so I think I'll go down to the lake to get some."

"Sure," Sakura said. "I'll be right here."

Heart beating a staccato rhythm, Hinata darted to the kitchen to fetch the two spare buckets. She hurried down the short path to the lake, walked out to the edge of the dock and sat down, trying to steady her breathing. She wasn't nervous she was...excited.

It had fallen out of favor over the years, but Hyuuga women of her grandmother's and great-aunts' generations had routinely used Byakuugan to determine if they were pregnant. Village women and those of other clans had been quite jealous of this ability and so it had become talked about less and less among her own clan. With the advent of inexpensive early home pregnancy tests, the jealousy factor had gone away, now any woman could find out within a very few days whether or not conception had occurred. Most younger Hyuuga women preferred to do things the same way as their fellow villagers and so now hardly anyone within her clan used the technique.

Still, it could be done. Easily. If she could just settle herself down from her giddy trembling to try to find out.

Sitting on the dock as the sun set lower over the lake she tried to calm her breathing, forcing herself to take several deep steady breaths followed by long exhales. When she felt ready she activated her Byakuugan and looked within herself. Following the paths of her own chakra network to her womb she began methodically searching for what she was looking for.

Only a week. Seven days had gone by. She was searching for the tiniest group of cells.

There! She saw a spark, just a flicker, the smallest flash of chakra.

And it didn't match her own chakra signature.

Wow!

With a long drawn out breath she sat there on the dock, happy and elated and scared and drained and exuberant all at the same time.

Gazing just a little longer she watched the sparkle that pulsed and flickered of its own accord. Before she deactivated her Byakugan she whispered, "Well, hello there."

Scooping up two buckets of water she dashed back up the path to tell Sakura the news. Their earlier conversation echoed in her head and she realized she should be extra careful not to lose her balance. But as good as she felt, as great as she felt it was hard to imagine anything bad actually happening to her.

Shikamaru studied the shelves in disbelief. It had been less than a week. The paper tags he had stocked up on were running low again. Not depleted, but still far lower than he would have expected. This had gone far enough. Genin pranks were one thing, but this was too much. Until now he'd been satisfied to merely speak to a general audience of suspects and remind them in broad terms about proper use of stores.

Now, he was going to have to get to the bottom of this and find out precisely who was involved. He groaned inwardly. This might even require disciplinary action. How troublesome.

How had he ever wound up with this job?

He grumbled and took a couple of the long-burning high luminosity ones with him. With no electricity at the Uchiha houses and the days getting shorter as summer drew to a close, he thought they might need a few in the evenings to finish up the tasks Hinata had laid out.

He looked at the clock. Ino would probably be getting off her shift at the medical center about now. He hadn't seen her and Choji in a while, he'd been spending so much time with Hinata. He decided to take a short detour by her place of work to check in with her and see how things were going.

As he entered the medical center he met a young woman with red hair and glasses. Karin. He'd seen her around the village, remembered when she returned to Konoha with them, but otherwise he didn't know much about her. She was a rather unremarkable kunoichi. She kept herself employed as a shinobi within Konoha running fairly routine missions on a regular basis. Reliable but unremarkable - that's how he would describe her.

Quickly trotting up the steps he turned the corner and went down the cool hall where Ino was just hanging up her lab coat.

"Hey, Shikamaru," she brightened. "Haven't seen you for a while. It's Friday night, you going to make it to barbeque with us tonight?"

"Nah, not tonight, got some things I've got to get done for the exams." Technically it wasn't a lie and she'd be in on the whole story soon enough but he still felt a little guilty for misleading his best friend.

Ino grinned. "Well, Mr. Responsibility, whoever thought I'd see you take a job so seriously." She patted his cheek. "Your mom must be so proud." She turned to put away a few items in the drug locker and accidentally knocked a binder off the table where it was lying.

"I got it," Shikamaru offered, leaning to pick it up. The binder had spread open and a few pages fluttered free. As he bent to retrieve them all he realized it was an appointment book. Karin's name was on several of the pages indicating appointments over the last few days.

Interesting.

"What's Karin coming in so much for?" he asked casually. "She sick or something?"

Ino loosened her ponytail and turned and fixed him with a piercing blue stare. "So - Mr. Responsibility is Mr. Nosy, now too? You know I can't tell you that. It's privileged medical information." Her tone was crisp and no-nonsense much more grown up than his irritating twelve year old teammate had been. She reached around and regathered her hair, putting it back up into a fresh ponytail. The motion of her chest when she raised her arms as she completed this maneuver reminded him that there were a lot of things more appealing about twenty-something Ino than there had been about twelve-year old Ino.

"Hey, it was just a question," he tried to defend himself, curiosity piqued more than ever.

As she gathered her things and ushered him out the door, turning out the light behind her, she responded thin-lipped and quietly, "Let's just say, Orochimaru was a monster."