Hinata thumbed through her notes, hoping she would find memories to attach to the information, but sadly, she found nothing. She sat on the front porch alone after using her chair as a balance to walk on her own accord. She found Sasuke to be a rather hard sleeper for a ninja, his senses dulled by the sense of home he had created. She would let him sleep while she watched the sunrise. A dull headache had woken her, and she couldn't bring herself to wake him for every ache and pain she had.
Whether it had been the fog of waking up or the end of her concussion, she hadn't thought that it might have been a bad idea until she heard a loud thunk from inside.
"Hinata!" Sasuke called her, his voice full of panic. "Hinata!"
Hinata called back but soon heard a loud crash of something breaking. She called again, and soon the back door burst open to reveal her husband, panting, in a full panic attack. She turned on her knees and opened her mouth to apologize, but his knees slammed to the porch, and he engulfed her shoulders, hugging her tightly to him.
"I'm sorry, Sasuke. I didn't want to bother you." She let out.
"Never! Never do that!" He whimpered into her shoulder. "I already believe I'm imagining all this to deal with your death. Don't disappear on me."
"What?" She squeaked, raising her arms to hold on to him.
She could hear him let out pained sobs into her shoulder. The painful looks he gave to her across the room so frequently broke her even more. How many times had she sat silently across the couch, and he questioned himself. Tears filled her eyes, and she dropped her face into him.
How could she possibly be causing him any more pain?
"You threatened my father!" Hinata slammed the front door in the way only she could, gently and quietly.
"I informed him we were getting married, and interference wouldn't be tolerated," Sasuke confirmed, getting off the couch idly.
"You don't understand! I can't marry you!" Hinata squeaked with a stamp of her foot.
He froze, eyes fixed on her painfully, as his stomach tied in nauseating knots.
Hinata shook her head at him. "No, not that I don't want to, but it can't be legal." She pressed, crossing the room.
"Why the hell not!" Sasuke growled as his heart and stomach clenched in rejection. He just put his life back together, and his reason to live was tossing him out. Wasn't she even planning to ever really accept him?
"Because I am the disgraced heir to the Hyuga! I can not marry the last Uchiha!" She shouted back. His face hardened further. "Did you honestly think they would allow something like that! Now you have gone and offended my FATHER! You didn't even tell me you were going to talk to him!"
"I did!" He barked.
"I didn't think you were serious! I would have told you not to do something that…." She huffed out of frustration, and it turned to a whimper as tears ran down her face. "I have to give this back."
His anger and hurt faded as he realized how much her hands were shaking as she struggled to take the ring off. "You're letting them rule your life."
"Sasuke, I don't have a choice!" She cried, giving up on the ring as she tried to wipe the falling tears. "I have never had a choice!" She looked up at him with tears and desperation.
Save me.
He grabbed her, pulling her to his chest, where she crumbled. He kissed the side of her head and closed his eyes, thinking of solutions to the problem he had made.
"I know what we could do." He held her tighter. "I'm not letting them take you from me." He vowed.
Sasuke curled around his wife more. She sat between his legs. Doing some light reading now that she could. He waited for her to turn the page he was done with. That gave him time to think, not a good thing right now. What if she was gone. He had tried not to think about it. He had tried to ignore the feeling of dread that he may have finally lost it.
What would he have done if she died?
He wouldn't be able to live in the house he built for her. It was her house.
Sasuke wouldn't be able to eat. Nothing would be as good as her cooking. Even when she made something sickeningly sweet or managed to get distracted and burn it. Her humming wouldn't be in the kitchen. She wouldn't smile at the pot feeling accomplished. She wouldn't sip for her teacup so silently he often wondered if she was drinking it. She would never again line the cups up perfectly in the cabinet just because she liked the order.
He buried his nose further into the knitted material over her shoulder.
"Sasuke?" She asked, turning her head.
He realized she had closed the book.
"Are you okay? I've asked three times if you were done with the page." She leaned away to see and frowned. She raised a hand to his face and wiped his cheek clean of the tears that had spilled over. "I'm sorry." She whispered.
"No." He grumbled, holding her tighter.
Sasuke watched from a distance. Hinata stood tall through the following months. She released her public resignation and then said nothing more. The village went insane, asking the council about the sudden resignation. Though some knew the truth, and that made it all the worse for them.
Hanabi tried not to smile as the decision to postpone Hinata's sealing was made until they could calm the issue. It gave her more time to work on them.
Hinata couldn't come around him. She stopped wearing the ring on her finger, but she kept on a chain in her shirt, he knew. Everyone assumed the separation was his fault. She had to agree to stop publicly defending him, so all she could do was stay quiet as people told her that she had made the right choice in leaving him.
Sasuke wore her scarf that she never took home when he went out to show that he was supporting her if she saw him, but to anyone else, he was just moping. He would keep an eye out for her in town just to see she was okay, but he couldn't do that all the time.
He had to find busywork to do. He found a far corner of the compound with a good amount of land and a house that had been worse for wear.
Sasuke tore it down.
He drew up plans, swallowed some pride, and went to get them looked at and redone by a professional.
Then he started building.
He knew what would be perfect for her. In small talk, he had once asked what it was like in the compound. She had answered with a sigh.
"Cold, dark, too closed, open but still feeling claustrophobic. Too many rooms." She had looked into her tea with a small smile. "If I had it my way, I would have a traditional open design with lots of light, with a big modern kitchen. Nice big bath, and a warm bedroom. Oh, and a big green garden."
"One bedroom?" He had asked with a smirk at her dreamy face.
"Well, maybe one more if I were to have a nursery..." Her fantasy caught up to her, and she turned red as he laughed at her realization.
So that's what he would build for her, a flat level with two bedrooms, a traditional bath, a big kitchen all her height, a comfy living room, and a big backyard for expansion and her garden.
He forgot more than basic training and focused all his energy on building, sometimes falling asleep in a half-finished room.
He didn't have all the time in the world.
He had learned how to do it all through trial, error, and annoying questions at the hardware store. He had hammered every nail, painted every wall, and even laid the tiles in the bathroom. The house wasn't perfect. The hall creaked because he laid the boards too soon, the kitchen cabinets were uneven, the tiles in the bathroom were laid improperly, and the roof was off a little, but you could only tell if you stared, but he had built a house.
He hit a wall when it came to furniture. Buying something pretty and new would look odd in this house. He decided to hold off. He didn't have the time anyway. His wedding day was a week away, after all.