Hinata buttoned her shirt with difficultly.
Her hands were replaced promptly. She smiled at the ever-vigilant husband.
"Are your eyes bothering you?" Sasuke asked as he finished, just the right amount of buttons at her collarbone.
"A little dizzy." She admitted.
"Hopefully, they can do something about that with these treatments." After a few days to rest and gather her weight, and she could now start her treatments.
"Do I get the next part of the story today?" She asked with a smile.
"If you behave for the doctor." He smirked. She giggled as she had a hard time imagining the foul-tempered man he described himself as when he was so sweet. "Sweater, mine or yours?" He asked, moving back into their shared closet.
"I can't hog all your clothes." She replied, tucking her hair out of the collar of the shirt.
"What's mine is yours." He pulled out one of his sweaters, dark-colored, much too big, and tossed it to her.
She put it on as he dug out another for himself.
Hinata puked again. "Sorry, Hinata-chan, I know it's not pleasant." Sakura sighed, holding the bucket and her hair back.
"If it helps, ultimately, I don't mind." She coughed and tried to smile.
"Here." Sakura handed her a cloth to wipe her mouth and went back to healing.
Hinata took a breath and finally said what was on her mind. "We aren't friends anymore." Sakura glared at Sasuke when they entered the room. She snapped at him to wait in the waiting room.
"He told you that, did he? Well, you don't remember that, so I can't hold that against you, can I." She smiled, but it was pained.
"There is a reason for it, though, right?" Hinata played with her rings mindlessly.
"We can talk about it some other time when your head is clearer. You'll be foggy for a while, so don't… don't be so trusting until you can think straight." Hinata took the point and might have got her answer.
It was entirely Sasuke.
"She will need some sleep after these treatments and make sure she eats even if it comes back up in an hour," Sakura told him coldly, barely looking in his direction. "And if you keep feeling dizzy and weak, maybe we will keep the chair a little longer, hmm?" Sakura gave Hinata a light smile.
"Thank you," Sasuke mumbled, turning her chair out the hall. Hinata frowned at him as they got down the street.
His face was stiff, focused, angry, but he was trying to keep a level head.
"You okay?" She asked softly as she could, not wanting to make it worse.
He flinched, and purpose straightened his face and closed his eyes, stopping. "Yeah."
"...Tell me more of the story?" She asked.
He looked at her, and the edges of his face softened as he nodded.
A knock on the door woke him up. Sasuke groaned and tossed himself off the rickety couch to tell whoever it was to find someone else to bother.
He opened the with a slam and received a squeak. He stared into frightened eyes then looked down at what Hinata was holding.
"Really?" He groaned, leaving the door open as he collapsed back on the couch and rubbed his hand through his growing out hair.
Hinata stepped in and set the massive pot and her bag down on the dusty counter. "You need to eat something if you keep fighting. You can't keep this up. This is something you could heat for the next couple of days." She fluttered around the kitchen. She cleaned a dusty bowl and filled it. His musky kitchen suddenly smelled delicious, and he was made very aware of his stomach.
She brought him the bowl and offered it to him. "Think of it as a continued treatment for your injuries." His stomach wasn't going to let him reject her. He took the bowl and chopsticks and dug into what looked and tasted like a beef and potato stew over rice.
She brought him water after failing to find a kettle. He watched her tuck away the stew and rice in his barely working old fridge before washing the dust from his hands, and just like that, with a sorry and goodbye, she was gone, but that scarf was still left by the door.
"And you did that once every week, thought the food should have only lasted half that, but I never finished it when you brought more." Sasuke picked her up and set her on the couch. "We didn't talk about it. You just showed up with food and took it away, washed the dishes I left in the sink, no payment, you never asked I never offered." He moved to the kitchen and started tea.
"You were okay with it?" Hinata wondered.
"If I asked, you would have stopped. I knew I had an option to have you stop coming. That made it much less irritating than what anyone else had tried to force." She nodded. "You began to avoid Naruto like the plague, and that's when others start noticing."
Sasuke noticed her at the market, looking at a list and holding a basket. He knew what she was shopping for immediately. She certainly didn't need to shop for herself. He looked back the way he came and ruffled his hair with an annoyed sigh heading up behind her, glancing over her shoulder. "Do you have tomatoes on that list of yours?" She squeaked, dropping the list and her basket, turning to him and sighing, put her hand over her chest.
"Sasuke-san!" She huffed, bending over to pick up her list. He picked up the basket. "What are you doing here?" She asked, looking up and down the empty side street.
"What do I always do?" He shrugged, putting his hands in his pockets leaving the basket dangle on his wrist.
She frowned and looked at her list as a distraction. "You like tomatoes?" She asked, folding the note over and looking up with a bit of extra light to her eyes.
"And I hate sugar, so stop bringing those things with the glaze." He headed forward toward the shops.
She followed him. "Cinnamon rolls?" She asked, catching up with him. "I love them." She added, looking forward, then back up at him just as quickly, noticing what he was doing, and smiled.
He looked down at her and raised an eyebrow. She didn't say a word.
"You said you liked my recipe." Hinata protested.
"I got used to a little sugar," Sasuke noted. "And you don't glaze mine."
"Did someone say something at the shops?" She asked, taking the tea he handed her.
"You could say that." He tilted his head down to drink his own.
They shopped idly for about an hour, receiving looks and double-takes as they went. Hinata didn't seem to notice or didn't seem to care. Sasuke just didn't care. Most of the hour was taken up as she filtered out ingredients and added new ones with genuine interest. She seemed happy that he was showing interest in his diet. "Yeah, and lay off whatever that berry stuff you bought last week." He said as he readjusted the ever heavier basket.
She giggled, looking up at him with a light in her eyes he hadn't noticed before. "It was jellied blackberries and cream. I will take out all the unnecessary sweets." She promised with a smile.
"Hinata-chan?" They both turned to one of his worst nightmares. "You're shopping again? Don't they feed you in that compound?" Sakura laughed a little too deliberately, glancing up at him with a sharp gaze and back down at her.
"Oh... um." The little woman could feel the tension and be looking for the most peaceful way out. "I like cooking." She excused, lightly trying to take her basket, knowing it would be the next reason for tension.
He refused her, locking eyes on his former teammate.
Hinata fidgeted under the taller woman's gaze and a tight smile. "Sasuke-san is helping."
"Can we talk for a minute?" She suggested.
That's when he felt the mood shift. He shifted from his glare at Sakura to look at Hinata's flat face. "Maybe later." She said firmly.
Sakura looked surprised but nodded. "Well, then, see you tonight, maybe?" She smiled, hopefully. "Come by for dinner?"
Hinata kept a flat face, but her eyes fluttered to him, searching for a no. His conscience and pettiness got the better of him. "She's having dinner with me." He told as he purposely readjusted the basket.
"Oh, how sweet of her. Always helping, even when it's not deserved." She noted. "Well, see you later we can have lunch sometime." She waved and ran off.
"Sakura-chan, was that mean?" Hinata frowned.
"She was that mad. She had reasons. I never returned her feelings, had tried to kill her, she finally found me as a lost cause, and then when I came back, she wanted nothing to do with me and warned all who still thought they had a chance. It caused a lot of tension between her and Naruto." He had been glad about that. "You could call it bitter, but she had every right to be."
"I remember her arguing with Naruto-kun about it once before you came back. She said that you weren't you anymore." She hesitantly glanced at him.
"She was right. I wasn't the same. I had done everything I set my life on, and after that, it lost all-purpose." He held back a shrug. He knew she could see through it. He dropped his shoulders and set down his cup, sitting closer. "But you saw that."
"It sounds like I was just being nice and not letting you kill yourself." He cringed. She noticed.
"Yeah, you were, but you did it because somehow in the shell, you saw something savable." She strained back up, letting the closeness of their faces pass. "Thank you."
"I don't remember it." She looked down.
"Doesn't matter, you put up with an ass and kept him alive long enough to make yourself a husband. Not remembering it doesn't mean I can't be thankful for you." He leaned forward and kissed her forehead. She turned pink and smiled.