Hey everyone. I know it's been a while and I'm sorry about that. I just wanted to make this chapter really good for all of you that stuck around. Anyways, it turned out harder than expected, as it is this is only about 2/3 of the chapter I wanted to present to you but since I'm having some serious trouble writing this particular part I figured I'd give you this much to hold you over.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy,

Trouble 1
~~~~~~~~

NARUTO

"And you're asleep. You didn't even make it to the first enemy ninja." I chuckled as I petted his hair. He didn't so much as twitch, the excitement of the day knocking him out cold. "Sleep tight, little one."

I smiled as I climbed to my feet slowly. I really wasn't looking forward to the next conversation I had panned. I knew it was going to bring back some things I didn't want to go through again, but I didn't really have a choice.

I was lost in thought as I ducked out of the bedroom, so when I was thrown into one of the walls, it was a bit of a surprise. I blinked, trying to figure out why the dog-like man was so close, and so angry.

"What the hell was that?!" he exclaimed furiously.

"Last time I checked it was a story."

"That 'story' was a mission. My mission! And it was confidential!"

"Shush! If you wake him up I'm making you put him back to sleep. And trust me, it's not an easy task," I whispered. He continued to glare at me but didn't start yelling again. "Now, let go."

"No, I want answers."

"Which I'll give you. But I can't prove any of it from here." He kept hold of my shirt, giving me a suspicious look

"Come on Kiba, let him go!" Sakura got to her feet and practically threw him to the ground.

"What did you do that for?" Kiba exclaimed before noticing Sakura's anger. His own fury seemed to fade as he saw her standing over him with her hands on her hips.

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

"He's pretending to be Naruto."

"He is Naruto!"

He blinked in surprise before looking back at me. I sighed, holding up a finger to indicate for them to wait. I walked over to the bowl of water and wetted an old, thread-bare towel. Then threw it over my head and scrubbed until I felt that most of the dirt was out. After removing the towel, I flipped it to a clean side and wiped the dirt off my cheeks. I turned around and sat at the table.

"Is this enough proof for you? I could show you my uncopy-able seal if not. Or the metal plate attached to my chest which, I assume, isn't common knowledge back home."

Kiba just stared in shock as the other three joined me at the table.

"Thought so," Shikamaru said through a yawn.

"Really?"

"You almost said 'datteboyo' earlier. To anyone listening, it was a dead giveaway."

"Yeah, it's hard to break that habit." I smiled, placing the towel towards the side.

"Your whisker marks are larger," Sakura pointed out, motioning towards her own cheek.

"They've been like that for a while."

"Your hair's longer."

"Neji's hair is shorter," I pointed out annoyed. "A lot shorter. What happened, did you lose a bet?"

I continued to stare at his now shoulder length ponytail that I didn't notice before.

"I cut it."

"You don't say."

"What the hell's going on here?" We all looked over towards Kiba, who seemed to be stressed out a bit. "How are you still alive? Where's Hinata? Since when do you have a kid?!"

"Which do you want me to answer first?" I asked, making him quiet for a moment.

"Where's Hinata?" he finally answered.

"Gone."

"Gone? Gone where?!"

"She's dead Kiba."

There was silence for a while as everyone tried to process this.

"So she didn't make it out then," Neji finally spoke.

"No, she made it out with me. She just didn't make it this long."

"I think you need to start from the beginning."

"Yeah, that sounds best." I was silent for a moment before speaking again. "Um, when exactly is the beginning?"

"Just start right when Ino and I got separated from you."

"Ok, the very beginning it is."
- - - -

"We have to go," Neji said as shouts made themselves known down the hallway.

"Not until I get my forehead protector," I exclaimed, pulling myself out of his grip.

I stumbled backwards, almost causing Hinata and I to lose our balance.

"Forget about it! You can get a new one!" Ino said, sounding exasperated. "We have to go now!"

"Iruka-sensei gave me that forehead protector. I'm not leaving without it."

Before we could argue any farther, several goons came darting around the corner.

"There they are!" One of them yelled, pulling out a weapon.

"Say back!" Neji said, pushing the two of us behind he and Ino. "We'll take care of them."

The pair of them, darted towards the men, ready to fight. But regardless of what they said, I had no intentions of staying put.

"Come on." I whispered to Hinata, pulling her in the opposite direction.

"Where?"

"I said I'm not leaving without my hitai-ate and I meant it."

She nodded hesitantly, helping me down the corridor. We had only gotten a few yards away when a stray jutsu hit one of the walls behind us, causing a cave in, and throwing us both to the ground.

"Are you alright?" I asked, trying not to cough on the dirt in the air.

"Y-yes."

I glanced back the way we came to see the whole doorway full of rocks and dirt.

"Guess we can't go back now." I climbed back to my feet, wavering slightly until I grabbed the wall. "Well, let's keep going then."

Hinata nodded before standing up and hooking my free arm over her shoulder again. We made our way down the corridor, slower than I would have liked but that couldn't really be helped. It was a few minutes before we came to any sort of room. This particular room looked to be a storage closet. There were all sorts of clothes and weapons. The strange thing was all of them were different styles, different sizes, even from different countries.

"What is this place?" I asked in awe.

"L-look," Hinata said, pointing towards the closest pile that contained two sets of familiar fabrics.

I stepped away from her and stumbled towards them. I pulled at a pair of bright orange pants that I knew couldn't belong to anyone but me.

"What's our clothes doing here?"

"I-I think these all belong to his v-v-victims," Hinata said nervously.

I glanced over to see her holding a moth eaten baby blanket. It was old, probably twenty years or so. It had a been a dark green color in its early years, with a clan symbol in the center that the moths had eaten away. What struck me was that it was knitted in a pattern I've only seen in Konoha.

"They're h-his t-trophies."

"Then he shouldn't be allowed to keep them." I grinned as I grabbed a ten year old katana from a nearby weapon stack. "Well, not all of them at least."

She nodded in determination as she grabbed two weapon pouches and packed them full of throwing weapons. I moved slower, searching for something particular. Seeing the room, I almost forgot what I was looking for, but now I was focused of finding my hitai-ate. It was only a couple minutes after I started searching that I found a beat up case in the front corner. I opened it to find it full of about a hundred or more headbands from villages across the Elemental Nations. The four on top were Konoha, one of which was definitely mine.

"Hinata! I found them!" I exclaimed, trying it where it belongs. "Head's up."

I tossed Hinata's towards her, almost missing my target completely. She caught it regardless, trying it around her neck with a small smile.

"Let's find a way out, huh?" She nodded, silently offering me a hand. I shook my head, declining.

We left the storage room, continuing down the hall. I leaned on the sword for support, not wanting to burden Hinata anymore than I already have. It was several minutes later that Hinata stopped for no apparent reason. I opened my mouth to ask why just as she asked a question of her own.

"Do you feel that?" she asked, the stutter lost in her excitement.

"Feel what?"

"The wind."

I paused for a moment, closing my eyes to focus on my other senses. She was right, there was a bit of air I could feel playing with the ends of my hair.

"Yeah, what about it?" I asked, opening my eyes again.

"It's fresh." There was a moment of silence as I tried to figure out the significance. Until she spelled it out for me. "That means we're close to an exit."

"Seriously? That's awesome! Great job Hinata!" I gave her a bright grin that made her blush. "We're almost there."

I grabbed her hand and began pulling her behind me. Despite my pace, she still stumbled in surprise.

We rounded the next corner and saw a wooden door with light shining through the cracks. I turned around to smile at her again when something caught my eyes. It was a small slip of paper covered in writing that had just began to glow. Recognizing the symbols I pulled Hinata in front of me, mere moments before the explosive tag went off.

I felt the blast throw us both through the door with an impressive force but I was out before I even hit the ground.
- - - -

"I'm not sure what happened after that," I confessed. "Apparently I lost a lot of blood and was unconscious for quite a while."

"So the blood on your jacket and hitai-ate…" Sakura wondered absently.

"Was mine, yes. They were destroyed in the blast."

"Ok, so that's answers how you survived," Kiba said grumpily. "Now tell us where the hell you've been for the past six years!"

"Here."

"The whole time?!"

"Well, no. The first two years we were in a small village of misfits."

"…Why?"

"I told you I was seriously injured right?" They nodded. "After that it was all Hinata could do to get me to a safe place. She tried to treat my wounds but wasn't very successful. After a few days I was getting really sick and my wounds weren't closing.

"It was then that a hunter found us."

"A hunter nin?"

"No, a real, wild game hunter. After convincing Hinata that he wasn't going to hurt me, he brought us both back to the village. One of the locals knew some healing jutsus so she helped the both of us recover from the ordeal.

"Once we were better, they set us up in an old farm house at the edge of the village."

"Why?"

"They were all in situations like ours at one point of another. There was no place left for them to go, no one willing to help. So they banded together and decided to help themselves, as well as anyone else that happened by."

"But isn't that a bit much?"

"How so?" I asked, giving Sakura a confused look.

"They healed your wounds, fed you, and let you both stay in their homes while you recovered, and then gave you a house! I know you said they were nice but that's an awful lot to do for a pair of strangers."

"Yeah, but by the time we got the house we weren't really strangers anymore. We had been there for a month and after finding we couldn't go home, they gave us a place there."

"What do you mean, you couldn't go home?"

"The Collector had the Fire borders guarded, there was no way for us to cross it. You got away during the confusion but they were organized by the time we tried. So we went back and became residents of the town.

"The house itself was a small, one bedroom farm house that no one was living in at the time. The old owners left and gave the rights to it to the town, telling them to give it, and the farm land to someone that needed it. Apparently we qualified."

"They gave you farm land?" Kiba asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yep, a couple acres worth. I grew the crops to sell and Hinata grew a few different ones to eat."

"One bedroom," Neji asked suspiciously.

"Um, you see I slept on the floor most of the time. Some of the time. Well, I did for the first two months. After that winter really set in and the floor was freezing. And we didn't really switch back. But I'll have you know I was perfectly admirable. We didn't do anything."

Neji glanced over towards the bedroom where Ryuu was sleeping then gave me a pointed look.

"Until we were married," I amended quickly. "Do the math. We got married a year after everything happened, and he was born a year after that."

"A year. You got married after a year?" Sakura asked amazed. "That's a bit short, don't you thing?"

"Yeah, I know. It kinda just happened."

"How do you 'just happen' to get married." Sakura glared at me for a moment until she thought of something. "Was saki involved?"

"No. It was ramen," I answered sheepishly.

"Ok, now you need to tell us," Kiba said with a laugh. "How is ramen involved in getting married?"

"Like this."
- - - -

I had just finished putting away my farming tools for the day. We were in the middle of harvest season, which was pretty exhausting. I was so exhausted that I could swear I smelled ramen. I tried to shake the smell out of my head knowing I would start to want some and there was no way for me to get it.

When the smell didn't fade, I thought about making some of my own, before realizing I had no idea how to do so.

I was still moping about the ramen when I walked inside our house and almost skipped a step in surprise. The small kitchen/dining room was a mess, covered mostly in flour and dirty pots and pans. In fact it looked as if all the cookware we owned, which wasn't much anyways, was suddenly dirty. The table and chairs were the only thing clean in the room, which included Hinata.

She had her long hair tied back in a low ponytail, which she normally did now a days. There were a few strands that had escaped; she must have been busy to not have fixed them yet. She set something on the table and turned around to smile at me. She had on a light purple dress she didn't wear a lot; she only wore it on special occasions. It had a few spots of flour but apparently the white apron caught most of it. There was even a bit of the white powder smeared on her cheek.

"Happy birthday Naruto," she said happily.

I stared at her blankly as I tried to process everything. It couldn't have been my birthday already, could it? Even if it was, how could the kitchen being a mess be something to be 'happy birthday' worthy? Then, with a shock, I saw what she was so excited about. The table behind her was set with two bowls, and a large pot full of still steaming ramen.

When I didn't say anything, she became nervous. She began pressing her forefingers together as she explained herself.

"I went into town to do some shopping and saw the date was October 10th. So I used the money I was going to buy the new blanket with, since our other one works fine, and bought supplies for ramen. I read the recipe a few times, so I remembered most of it. But I'm sure I messed up on a few things, so if it tastes bad I'm sor—"

Before she could finish apologizing I scooped her into a tight hug.

"Thank you," I whispered in her ear before giving her a quick peck on the lips. She blushed bright red even though we'd been dating, in a sense, for a year now.

"B-but you haven't even tasted it yet."

"If it tastes half as good as it smells I'm in for a real treat."

I finally let her go and hurried to pull the seat out for her, my exhaustion all but forgotten.

"After you, miss," I said with a grin.

"It's your birthday."

"So? I feel like being a gentleman for once and since this is the only think I know that gentleman do you can't really say no."

"Ok," she said with a smile. "If you insist."

She settled into her chair as I rushed over to mine. We served up the ramen and picked up our chopsticks.

"Itu…{I can't remember it}!" We both said as we dug in. After the first bite I swear I almost passed out. It was amazing! The best I've ever had! Of course after not eating it for a year, even cup ramen would taste like Ichiraku's. But even after my taste buds calmed down it still tasted fantastic, almost at the same level as Ichiraku's.

"That was incredible!" I exclaimed once the whole pot was gone.

"You think so?" she asked, fiddling with her napkin.

"Didn't you taste it? It was great!"

"I'm glad you liked it," she said with a blushing smile. She climbed to her feet and started collecting the dishes.

"I can wash them if you want," I offered but she only shook her head.

"That's alright, I made the mess, I can clean it up."

"Are you sure? There's an awful lot there." She was about to shake her head again but I interrupted. "At least let me dry and put away once you're done."

"Alright," she relented. "But don't get in the way."

I laughed as gave me a playful smile before collecting the rest of them and bringing them to the sink.

There was a comfortable silence between us, like there was a lot of the time now. It wasn't that we didn't know what to say, it was just that we didn't need to say anything. We were perfectly at ease with each other's company, as if it was always like this. Or always could be like this. I kinda liked that idea, having this simple life until this life was over. With this in mind, my mouth decided to say something before my brain knew what was happening.

"Will you marry me?"

There was a loud splash as a pot slipped out of her grip and fell back into the sink. Neither of us moved for a moment before she turned around to look at me.

"W-what did you say?" she asked quietly.

"I believe I just asked you to marry me," I said as she blinked.

"T-that's what I thought." There was silence again as she thought. "Why?"

"I'm not sure," I answered truthfully. "I haven't quiet caught up to myself yet."

She nodded, excepting my words, mostly because she already knew my mouth was usually faster than my mind.

"Does this have anything to do with the ramen?"

"I don't think so," I said slowly.

"So you didn't just ask to marry me because I can cook ramen."

"If I was like that, I would have asked Old man Ichiraku to marry me years ago."

"True," she said with a smile. "Were you serious?"

"I believe so."

"Then I'm going to have to think about it," Hinata answered before turning back to the dishes. The silence that followed was an awkward one. We were both deep in thought as we went through the rest of our evening.

By the time the dishes were finished and put away I as eager to hear answer. But I gave her a bit more time to think, not mentioning it until we were getting ready for bed.

"Um, Hinata-chan?" She stopped what she was doing to turn towards me. "About my question earlier, do you have an answer yet?"

"I do."

"What is it?"

"Well, I want to say yes…" she was cut off by a shout from me. She waited patiently before continuing. "But I can't, in good conscience do so unless you know for sure you want this."

I opened my mouth to complain but was interrupted.

"Marriage is serious. It's an oath that you stay with that person for your whole life. I don't want to force you into something like this without you knowing what you're doing."

"So you're going to say no."

"No, I'm giving you till tomorrow to really think this through and I'll give you my answer in the morning. If you still want one that is."

"Why wouldn't I?"

"You might retract the question."

"Oh, ok I'll think on it," I said with a grin. I went towards the bedroom, only to be stopped by Hinata.

"No," she said, a smirk appearing on her face, one I've only seen when we were alone. Apparently she acquired a small pranking streak from hanging around me so much, but she was still too shy to show it to anyone else. "You're staying out here tonight."

"But…why?"

"Because I don't want to be woken up at three in the morning by your decision, and knowing you, that's what would happen." I was about to deny it when she gave me a yes-you-would look. "When I said morning, I meant morning."

"B-b-but…the floor's hard!" I exclaimed. She ignored me and headed to the bedroom. I tried to follow her but she shut the door before I could get in. I ran into the door, causing a thunk she must have heard, if the giggling said anything.

"Goodnight Naruto-kun,"

"Goodnight," I grumbled back.

I began heading towards our small couch, but decided last minute that camping out on the porch would be better. The weather was great and staring at the stars always helped me to think. So I grabbed the blanket Hinata had left out for me and set it up on our front deck before laying on it.

The stars out here were beautiful, the sky held so much more of them than Konoha's ever did. Out here I saw constellations I never even knew existed. It was exhilarating, yet calming at the same time, matching the rest of our life here. Even though I was no longer a ninja, I still get excited for everyday that began here. I might not be able to perform jutsus anymore, I still felt whole, as if there was nothing missing from my life at all. I could easily give up my dreams of becoming hokage to keep what I had right here.
- - - -

"It didn't hit me for a few hours afterwards that I would have given up everything I had, the house, the farm, and everything else I owned, just to keep Hinata with me," I said to them, lost in thought. "Hinata was what made that place so great. I mean she took most of the day, a day that as already busy to begin with, to make me my favorite meal just because it was my birthday. That's why I asked her to marry me, and when I told her all this the next day, I like to think that's why she said yes."

When I finally focused on the word around me, I noticed my audience. Sakura seemed completely taken by the story, stars in her eyes and all. Neji nodded his approval and Kiba looked around bored to death, despite being the one that wanted to hear it. Shikamaru, well, he seemed to have fallen asleep at some point.

"As for how we got married so quickly," I continued, kicking Shikamaru awake as I did. "One of my neighbors saw me on the porch that morning and asked me about it later that day. I told him about our engagement and next thing we know we're getting hitched in the middle of the harvest fest the following week. They planned everything for us down to the wardrobe, the date, and even the witnesses. All we needed to do was show up. I swear they were more excited about the marriage than we were."

"That's so cute! I knew you two were perfect for each other," she said happily.

"Yeah, yeah, they're freakin' adorable," Kiba grumbled annoyed. "But I don't see why you had to tell the whole story. You could have just said 'she cook some really good ramen so we got hitched.'"

"I tried that, you wanted more," I said. "Don't complain to me that your answer was longer than you expected."

"Whatever, just get back to the important stuff already. Like how you ended up here."

"Isn't it obvious? The Collector found us." My happy mood disappeared as I remembered what happened next. "It was a couple weeks before Ryuu was supposed to be born that a villager came to our house and told us that there was someone in town that was looking for us. We packed what we could and tried to get a head start but the stress was too much for Hinata and she ended up going into labor right in the woods.

"They caught up to us soon after Ryuu was born and if I didn't pull a fast one on him, we would have been recaptured. But we got away and found this place a few days later. I spent a couple days placing the seals, Hinata activated them for me, and we've been here ever since."

The silence in the room was almost unbearable. It was heavy with the one question everyone wanted an answer to but was afraid to ask. Until Kiba spoke up.

"Then how did she die?"