Asleep on his shoulder was his wife on her lap was a pampered ball of sand that her hands laid on. He glanced up at his sister-in-law, who was also falling asleep in her seat, curled up on the arm of the chair.
"You can see the resemblance." Temari joked, setting down a tray she brought from the kitchen. She returned to sitting back on her boyfriend's chair, draping her legs over his lap. He did not comment and just placed a hand on the space above her knee.
"Yeah, and then they open their mouths, and they are opposites," Kankuro added.
"I'm not sure where Hanabi-sama gets it." Neji frowned at the smaller Hyuga.
"Overdeveloped sense of competition and superiority." Shikamaru voiced in a half mumble.
Kankuro snorted. Gaara looked over his new family. If she was anything like his wife, his sister-in-law was only sleeping over the noise of the group because she trusted them. Not only that, but she felt comfortable enough to fall asleep in front of them but did not think it was rude. His sister, who last year wouldn't have told him of the boyfriend he knew she had, was openly affectionate toward him. His brother, who hadn't liked speaking to him before, was now openly telling jokes to a less than enthused cousin-in-law.
His wife was snuggled into his side, happily resting among the family she had created for him.
This was all because of her and the natural kindness that brought people to her. She had given him the best wedding present, and she didn't even know.
Waking up the first few mornings were disorienting. Gaara woke to the presence of his wife engulfing him. The mess of hair if she forgot to pull it up, the scent of her soaps on her skin, the sound of her breathing, her warmth.
Gaara moved only slightly before it woke her. She blinked at him, blearily with a hummed question.
"I'm getting up and going back to sleep." He told her.
Hinata hummed an agreement and laid her head back down as he tucked the covers back in where he had been.
She was back asleep in seconds, and he moved around the room quietly. Something he had done without thinking now, he took extra care to not make excess noise though he doubted it would bother her much if he woke her by accident.
Hinata joined him in his office for breakfast as always then their days were the same. Her time that had been taken making his wedding present was now replaced with the oversight and planning of the compound for the Hyuga.
As usual, she would come to his office in the evening. He would either notice her start to drift, or she would tell him it was getting late and ask him to bed.
Gaara noticed she stopped her treatments.
Gaara watched her tuck her hair to the side and curl the blanket around her from the chill of the night before snuggling in. He put an arm around her and pulled her in. She looked at him with confusion.
"You have been making that face all day." She told him.
"What do you mean?" He asked, tucking his face into her shoulder.
She sighed. "Like you don't know where you are." She mumbled into his shoulder.
"I am not used to this yet." He tried.
"How so?" She hummed, pulling back to look at him.
"I am used to you, but you are here now all the time." He voiced, though he didn't know what he was saying.
"Is that bad?" She tilted her head. "I can move back to my old room."
"I don't think that it is bad. It is just not something I have adapted to yet." He explained with a furrowed brow.
"The feeling or the idea?" He paused. He hadn't thought about that. He had been used to her being around, but he had woken in her absolute presence before. Their day had been mostly the same otherwise. Was it the thought that it would stay this way? That there was no risk of her leaving? Was it that she now was his, he had something he could keep?
'If you are going to become a hopeless romantic, tell me now so I can stop listening.' Shukaku dramatically gagged in his head.
"I'm not sure." He told her honestly, curling his face back into her shoulder.
The tanuki gagged again and decided to form and curl up behind Hinata's legs. She giggled. She unwrapped an arm and reached down over the blanket to pat his head as it rested on her hip.
"As long as it's not bad, then we have all the time to figure it out, right?" He could feel her smile.
She nodded on her shoulder.
His.
Hinata yawned and looked over at her husband's desk. He didn't look like he was going to bed anytime soon, but she had had a draining day of arguing with Hyuga because the compound had to have a closed design in a desert environment.
Hinata sighed. She didn't want to leave him in here alone, though. She knew later into the night it got the more stress he got. She set her book down and curled up on the arm of the couch.
She felt a sand tail lay over her stomach. She curled an arm around the rest of the body that was forming onto her stomach.
"You going to nap with me, Shukaku-san?" She asked, lazily petting his tanuki form.
'I get more action than you.' The tanuki laughed in his head.
He sighed. He needed to get this done tonight.
He looked over at his wife, and the tanuki curled up on the couch. He noted the similarity between how she had treated the large dog that her teammate had. She had spoken to him like he was a person too. Did she do that to all pets?
'I am not a pet!' The demon growled, annoyed with observation. He buried its nose into her ribs, receiving his wife's arms curled tighter around him, proving Gaara's point.
The two sisters-in-law's walked down the street, heading to the land plot where the Hyuga compound was being built, while Hinata explained the issue she was having.
"Well, it's not that simple. They don't seem to understand the design can't be so open here..." Hinata stopped when she felt a blockage to her legs that nearly tripped her. She looked down at a mass of messy thin hair.
"Lady Hinata!" The child that had attached itself to her cried cheerfully.
"Come back here!" A plump woman cried in irritation in the distance, jogging in their direction with what looked like the laundry she had been doing in hand. "Leave her be!"
"Oh, I don't mind." Hinata waved to the woman to not mind her. She laid her hand on the child's head, and she looked up the little girl she had found in the alley. "Hello again." She smiled at her.
"Are you coming to play again?" The girl asked with a bright beginning smile.
Hinata kneeled to her level. "I can't at this moment, but if you wait a couple of hours, I can come back after I'm done with my meeting."
"Don't bother the lady, Etsu." The woman finally caught up and scolded.
"I really don't mind." She told her.
The woman sighed, catching her breath and nodding. "We would be honored to have you, Lady Hinata."
"You have done a lot for the orphanages since you came," Temari added.
"Orphanage?" She asked, looking at the little girl. She hadn't thought about why she hadn't seen her run to a parent when the others had, or why she had no mother to comfort her when she was hiding.
"You can come to see all of us!" Etsu cheered.
"Of course." She agreed. The little girl seemed satisfied and let her go waving as the two women went about their way. "Do you know what happened to her parents?" Hinata asked. "She is so young." Hinata heartbroken for her.
"Yeah, Gaara pulled her out of her home after a sandstorm. Small house, poor family on the edge of town where the storm hit the worst. Their house hadn't gotten the structure repair it needed, and it fell in. The crib protected her for the most part." Hinata noted the scars were old and deep. It would make sense she got them young. Temari sighed. "In the desert, not a lot of parents will take on another mouth to feed. We do what we can for the orphans of our nin and misfortune, but there is only so much we can help."
Hinata frowned in thought.
"You did quite a lot for them when you restructured the system. They got a lot more funding, and Baki approved a few renovations to support more children, but I'm not sure what we could do about no one adopting," Temari explained.
"I'll look further into it. Sadly the Hyuga will be of no help." She added.
"One task at a time," Temari noted, nodding to the building site.