So, I'm an awful person, but that's obviously been established. So, lets change the subject...

Ooooh! Shiny! New chapter! Distraction!

Whelp, I figure that this is pretty self explanatory. Carry on, my lovelies.

He had thought, foolishly, that the first night would have been the hardest part. Laying down and trying to struggle his way to sleep in the bed they had shared throughout the whole of the life they had shared together, for once in a world without her, he thought that once he did this it wouldn't get any worse. It wouldn't get any better, obviously, not when she wasn't there to make it so, but it wouldn't – couldn't – get any worse.

Because forcing himself to lay where he had laid for decades now without his wife beside him left Naruto feeling the hollow pain that had been cutting into him since that first moment in the hospital when she simply wasn't there any longer more sharply than he could stand it. It felt like someone was cutting into him continuously, pulling out everything inside of him and carving out his insides until he was just a husk that was only filled with pain and a never ending grief. He couldn't even cry anymore because it seemed as if his body simply ran out.

He fell asleep eventually, curled up into himself with the blankets cocooning him, and he thought that those hours of just lying there and feeling how wrong everything was would be the worst of it.

He didn't realize how wrong he was until it was too late and the morning light shined far too brightly into his eyes, waking him up slowly.

And as he woke up, stretching just a little bit, moving around and trying to convince his body that going to sleep would be the best plan, for those slow, sleep foggy moments he was in a world with Hinata again. She was right beside him as she always was and would be, and in just a moment she'd wake up because of his moving around and she'd sigh over his fidgeting, then she'd tell him that if he got up and stop putting up such a fuss she'd make him something good for breakfast. Then he'd get up and they'd go down together, and it would be just another normal day like all the others they had shared.

But as the slow and silent moments of the too early morning dragged on, nothing happened. Nothing happened and Naruto slowly opened his eyes because that was wrong, that wasn't how it was supposed to go, and he already knew why but he couldn't force himself to believe it until he looked to the right and saw the undisturbed pillow beside his own.

And it was like breaking all over again.

I promise that there is more to come!