posted un-beta'd yet again! you know the drill: naruto's not mine, and let me know if you find any errors. Thx!

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Something smelled good. She tried to roll over but she was tangled up. DAMN, her head hurt. What happened? She groaned. Where was she? She flailed around weakly, blocking her eyes from the blazing glare.

"Mornin', Hyuuga"

Hinata froze. She didn't recognize the deep, rough voice that hailed her. Slowly she came to her senses, mind still in a fog. She became aware of the stiffling warmth of the bedroll twised around her body, the campfire burning away in front of her, the tantalizing smell of something roasting, almost at that razor's edge between raw and burnt, almost perfect. She tried to sit up and found it more dificult than she thought it would have been. Her head spun breifly and she fell back into the dirt with a muffled 'thump.' Hinata squinted past the glare of the blaze.

He sat there turning the rabbit in an unconcerned manner, rocking on his heels every now and then. His eyes were focused on the fire between them but Hinata had no doubt that he was watching her intently. The black cloak he had been wearing was missing, as was the slashed headband, leaving his face bare. His features were rough, chiseled even, as if he had been carved from something. In fact, even the thick curve of his shoulder and arm emerging from the mesh-edged shirt seemed made of pale cerulean stone. If not for the fine mop of hair obscuring his eyes and the motion of his hands she might have suspected that someone had abondened this statue in the center of the woods in favor of something softer.

Her throat was sore, her lungs hurt, hell, her whole body hurt, and she was having trouble thinking due to the constant thumping of the space between her temples. He gave the rabbit a final twist then, with a satisfied nod, pulled it from over the fire and laid it steaming on a battered looking metal plate that she hadn't noticed until just then. He glanced in her direction as he pulled a small (small being a reletive term here, the blade was nearly as big as her forearm) blade from his pack and began disjointing the unfortunate leporid. "Can you sit up?" His voice was flat, matter of fact, and clearly stated that he already knew she couldn't. She glowered at him, sideways from her place in the dirt. He looked up at her, and laughed.

"No mistaking it now," He flashed her a wide smile of unusualy pointed teeth. He groaned as he stood up like it was an effort and walked over to her. He leaned over her, his face so close that she had to unfocus her eyes and refocus them to see him. "You're just like he said." he pulled her up. Her heart thundered. She was even less prepared to fight now than she had been when she first saw him. She struggled weakly and his chakra echoed down through those big hands. She could feel it beating over her, could taste it. Her eyes went dark for a split second, then she felt bark behind her head and the sharp pain of her shuriken wounds straining. "Hey." He patted her cheek roughly with the back of his hand, "Snap out of it, Hyuuga." Her eyes focused on something ovaline and grey. She squinted, and strained, and finaly recognized it as a small metal bowl. "Drink this." He held the bowl up to her face and waited for her to take it, but when her efforts proved in vain he sighed exasperatedly.

"Some genious you are," he rumbled as he pushed the metal lip against her mouth and tilted it up, "Done in by four shuriken and a moron with a choke hold." he managed to spill more of the warm, bitter draught down her front than in her mouth. He scoffed at his own efforts and tried again, inching closer to her and angling the bowl differently, "I mean," he started, pouring another mouthful of what she now identified as willow tea into her mouth, "I have it on pretty good authority that your family is one big clan of solid bad-ass. So what kind of Hyuuga are you, anyways?" Hinata swallowed another gulp of the herbal tea and tried to talk, coming to several false starts before she finaly croaked out, "A bad one." He laughed, a short surprised almost-bark of sound, "No kidding. Here." He tipped the rest of the bowl into her mouth then set it aside, "Hungry?" she shook her head no. She was sleepy. What was in that tea?

"Valerian root." he said as if reading her question in the confused wrinkles of her brow. "I found it in your pack. What?" he answered the incredulous expression in her eyes, "I'm more than just a pretty face, you know." He laughed at his own joke as he sat down again by the roast and popped a peice of cooling meat into his mouth at the end of the foot-long blade. "Just rest, Hyuuga." He said, looking away into the trees to his left, "We'll be in a decent town where you can recover properly by tomorrow. I think I can watch over a little bird like you until then, so just go to sleep ok?" When he stopped talking to look at her he realized she already had.