Disclaimer: I don't own nothing! i'm poor! leave me alone already!

A/N: Ok so I lied again; here's chapter three. I wrote this because I felt like it just seemed to hang, no real ending. So here I am, and I wrote this to be the end of it all. So no matter what I will not, Will not, continue please don't ask. Cause I'd feel really bad, but I still wouldn't do it; cause I'm done with this story

Naruto's apartment was as it always had been, floor covered with various instant noodle containers and trash, sink full to the brim with dirty and used dishes, ninja gear thrown about in every possible direction, Hinata asleep in Naruto's arms on his messy bed. Yep; nothing out of the usual here. Naruto scooted closer in and placed his head in his favorite crook of Hinata's neck, right next to the edge of her jacket, with a tired sigh. He knew this was the woman he loved, the girl he'd die for and the ninja he'd live for. Yet a pull in his chest kept him from blissfully living 'happily ever after.'

Before he could interrogate himself as to what that sensation was, a teasing voice, "Oh ho ho, fast aren't we?"

"Shut up you stupid fox!" Naruto countered.

"Growing defensive of your woman kit?" Naruto choose to send waves of killing intent at the fox rather than reply. "Fine, here's a little tip for you then; there's more than one type of love," with a last snicker Kyubi retreated to the recesses of the seal.

"Gasp! The fox has actually said something helpful. Who'd thought? ...what kind of advice is 'there's more than one type of love' anyways? " the blonde emphasized his point by swinging his free arm in grand gestures.

"N-naruto-kun? Is something wrong?" ever since they'd started going out Naruto learned to read Hinata's emotions in her eyes, and right now concern filled them completely.

"No Hina-chan. I'm alright," the blonde shifted his free harm to scratch behind his head, closed his eyes and dawned his renowned grin, all to hide the guilt he held for lying to her.

It was a gloomy day. The clouds had refused to relinquish their grip on sky to the sun even though it had finished raining since last night, but today seemed gloomier than before. Naruto leaned back into the shape of the tree, receiving a quiet 'eep' at his movement. "Oh, sorry Hina-chan. You good?" he asked the white mass that lay on his shoulder.

"Yea… y-you just s-startled me a little," she answered into chest with a smile. Taking a deep breath of his scent Hinata called her excited nerves, "I'm glad I could spend a beautiful day like this with you N-naruto-kun."

"How so?" he blurted out, causing the Hyuga heir to jerk a little. "I meant the day! How's it beautiful I mean!" he quickly corrected.

Hinata's non-existent pupils returned to their normal non-existent size with a silent sigh of relief, "I mean, r-right after t-the rain it always s-seems so… clean, clear, nice…" Naruto blinked, reexamining the forest around him with confusion. "What do you think N-naruto-kun?" her voice was quiet, but clear.

"I donno…" his blue eyes locked on to the leaves above them, the shrubs below them, and the trees around him. "I kinda think it looks like someone's let the paints run and muddle the whole image a little." Hinata made no motion to move, made not a sound, or even changed her expression, but Naruto could tell he'd upset her some. "But it doesn't really matter what the day looks like to me, because I'm with the woman I love," he cooed into her ear; then leaned in with a brief kiss.

Hinata turned a deep hue of red, the color in which Naruto had name 'hiatari(1) red.' She loved it when he did stuff like that, it wasn't their first kiss; they'd had many just the same, but every time it made her heart skip and her cheeks overheat.

'This is what I've always wanted, love, attention, and recognition! So why am I not happy?!' Naruto's face and posture may seem perfectly content, but just beneath the surface his muscles were ablaze with energy and his stomach weighed down with some unseen lead. He slid his hand into Hinata's own and mentally swears 'I don't care what this feeling is; I love Hinata' he gives her hand a small squeeze, 'with all my heart.'

Naruto sat miserably on top of the northern gate; three hours earlier team eight had left on a mission. He had yet to leave after he said good-bye to Hinata. "You look like someone just died," a voice from behind him says in a joking manor.

Naruto spun around to see the oldest Genin he had the 'pleasure' in knowing, Temari of the sand. Her hair pulled back in her usual fashion of four off shoots, her attire a relaxed version of what she wore when she saved Shikamaru, and of course her ungodly large fan was secured on her back as always. She was giving Naruto a kind of smirk that said 'you're pathetic.'

"What do you want?" his voice wasn't as tired as he was, just her being near brought up memories of the mission they had unknowingly worked together on.

Wordlessly she walked over beside the younger blonde, took a seat beside him, and ruffled his hair with a soft giggle. "You really shouldn't be so down kid," she said after a brief silence.

"And what makes you the expert on these things?" Naruto snapped.

Temari let loose a bark of a laugh that changed to a short fit of giggles, "expert? Hardly; I am the sister of Gaara though. If that doesn't give me some standing over who does and does not have reason to be depressed, what does?"

The young boy felt an icy chill run along his spine with Gaara's mentioning in the conversation; almost as if she'd named him as well under the list of demon containers. "He and I are different people…"

"Ain't that the truth," she exclaimed, giving the younger a hearty slap on the back. "I won't lie that I understand my little brother, or that I know the depth of his pain. What I do know is that in some way, he idolizes you," Naruto's scattered attention suddenly shot to the kunoichi. "He sees you, accepted, loved, and ambitious; I think he's jealous some what," her eyes had drifted to the horizon and allowed a distant expression to enter them. "You have someone to love, be happy for that."

Now it was his turn to turn his eyes away, staring intently at the patterns in the gate he sat on. "That's not… That isn't why I'm upset," he managed to spit out, leaving a vile taste in his mouth.

"Then why are you?" her voice had elevated from curious to annoyed.

"What do you care?" Naruto quickly turns his back on the other blonde.

His nerves were suddenly sent into overdrive when the sand-nin wrapped her arms around his shoulders in a hug. Not the loving grip that he shared with Hinata many times, nor the joyful hold he sometimes gave to those he considered friends; no this was the comforting embrace of someone who cared, not for the heart but for the person. "For the first time that I can remember I had a conversation with my youngest brother without him driving me away, threatening me with violent deaths, or attempted to squish me with his sand, and it's all thanks to you. Face it kid, Kankuro and I owe you for saving our brother from himself. You're family now."

Tears formed in Naruto's eyes, she hadn't spoken with spite as the villagers did, she wasn't angry he'd beaten Gaara, and she obviously wanted to help; it was all too much. He spun around in her grasp and spilled everything to her, from the start of team seven to the weight in his heart, his one friendly ear that he could tell all this to, Konohamaru was too young, it would be too weird to talk about this to Iruka or Tsunade, and Kakashi and Jiraiya would treat him like some kind of pervert. Temari proved to be a good listener, only breaking his rants to ask exactly who one of the people he was talking about was, or to ask why he hadn't beaten certain individuals into bloody pulps. At the end Naruto felt both physically and mentally drained, but relieved none the less; while Temari just was teetering between upset and shocked. The two just sat there for a while, content at the revelations between them. A small portion of the weight on Naruto's heart seemed to fade away; he reached up to clutch at the remaining bit in hopes to coax it out.

Temari rose to her feet and turned back towards the forest of concrete, "You know, you and Gaara aren't that different really," Naruto secretly smiled to himself at this. "I bet after a few hours of sleep he'd be just like you; well you know minus the evil demon eating his soul and all…" her face held a sad smile as she lost herself in memories. "Gaara… he told me a little while ago that… that," she fumbled with her words from the pain they brought her, "he told me about a similar feeling that you have now. He… he said, 'when the children would run from me, it hurt like nothing else; but as long as I had Yashamaru I could deal with it, because I knew that he cared for me. But I still remember the gash he left on me when he betrayed me…' Our uncle was ordered by the Kazakage, our father, to kill the monster he'd created. Gaara was only six years old; and he killed Yashamaru out of fear. He still feels the pain from that." Temari had brought her hand up to her forehead as if the kajin Gaara wore was on her head as well; a small trickle of tears slipped down her cheek.

Naruto looked at the kunoichi, unsure on how to comfort this new addition to his precious people. He chose to place a firm grip on her shoulder and speak in the calmest voice he could muster, "I'm new to this whole family thing, but if there's anything I can do…"

Temari looked over her shoulder at her new brother, "live happily. Live for yourself and for Gaara; hopefully he can find it in himself to allow people pass that barrier that I let him build up for the last seven." She placed her hand on Naruto's mat of hair and gave it a good ruffle before mounting her fan, taking care to wave once she was stable in flight.

Naruto returned the wave with his masking grin; behind the shining eyes his mind was connecting a series of webs together. 'Live happily? For myself and Gaara?' when the last trace of his onee-chan disappeared he let the mask fall from his sullen face. He knew what he needed to do, but that didn't mean he would like doing it.

Naruto looked around at the pitiful state the room was in. The walls were caked with layers of grime from only god knows what, sheets and bedding alike were torn and rip as if by an animal, the floor was little more than a landfill, there were deep gashes randomly scattered amongst furniture walls floor and ceiling, and topping this all off was the myriad of clothing in every direction. He feared venturing in too far after his sandal was pierced by a hidden kunai, but he had something that he couldn't shrink away from.

There! He saw a slight shift in the folds of a bed spread. Taking a calming breath he turned to face the lump, "Sakura…" The lump quivered once, then attempted to burrow deeper into the dieing bed. He took a step closer and repeated "Sakura…" The same reaction. Growing irritated at her actions he closes the distance between them with a few short steps, places his hand on the bed and hisses, "hey Sakura; I need to talk to you."

"Why?" the blankets asked; a small spark of anger shot through his body. He wasn't ready to forgive, not yet.

"Why what?" his hand pulled away from the quivering lump, his muscles twitching with quite rage.

The pile of blankets slid down off the pink haired kunoichi, her face had paled and puffed from lack of sun and abundance of tears, the fine shortly cut hair was now matted and clumped, and her eyes resembled Kurenai's in color; Naruto had to suppress a wave of bile. "Why are you here? Why do you want to talk to me? Why don't you hate me?!" her green eyes shimmered with unshed tears.

'I do hate you! You don't deserve my words!' the words formed on his lips, but fell short when he opened his mouth to say them. Something deep inside him refused to allow him to comply with the burning desire to tear her confidence to shreds. Damnit! "We need to talk," he repeated with a little more tense tone.

Sakura rose to a sitting position and cast her eyes at the gap between her and the boy she thought she'd pushed away forever. "How can you just sit there after what I did to you?"

"Years of practice," another invisible stabbed into her chest. He watched with a sadistic smirk as she cringed at his words; the weight in his chest responded by doubling itself. Submitting to the stupid weight he started again, "I miss it. The three of us I mean; doing missions, training, goofing off, all of it." Sakura lifted her head to see Naruto's face in a stern face; probably the first time she'd seen him not wearing a grin to end all grins. "I just wanted to say… I know how it felt when he left."

"You have no idea." Sakura had managed to pull herself into a tight ball as she had done in the hospital, "you don't have a clue how much he hurt me."

"Oh, how so," a rare wry tone wrapped itself around him.

Her hand reached up to hold the void in her heart, "he left you, but he abandoned me. I tried! I begged for him to stay; when he wouldn't… I… I asked him to take me with him." A mix of shame and sadness flooded her face; her eyes remained locked with the blue pair in front of her however.

Naruto was silent for a moment, to allow the words to sink in. Once the information had been stored in the relatively small sympathy folder of his mind he spoke up, "I'm sure that must of hurt, but he hurt me too." Sakura looked skeptical at the blonde, "I didn't see you coming in with a chidori sized hole in your chest."

Sakura's eyes widened a hair; she'd forgotten the small fact that Naruto had fought Sasuke to get him to come home; risking death in the attempt. She shook her head to suppress the memories again, "He was everything to me! I loved him!"

"In a spam of less than twenty four hours I lost one-third of those who were precious to me," this seemed to get Sakura's attention. "Iruka, Tsunade, Kakashi, Jiriya, Sasuke, and you; guess which third I'm referring too." Again they took turns looking at the other inquisitively while the other turned their eyes to the floor or one of the walls.

Eventually Naruto took the initiative and broke the silence, "Sakura, I need your help…"

Hinata broke out into a swift jog when the walls of Konoha came into sight, leaving the rest of team eight behind.

"She's seemed more 'uppity' since we started back home hasn't she?" asked Kurenai with a mother-like smile.

Kiba barked a laugh with Akumaru's accompaniment, "well she would have reason wouldn't she?" Kurenai shot him a questioning stare; "Uzumaki," he answered.

"What else is new? She's always eager to see him, but usually she stays with us until we get to the gates," the red-eyed kunoichi twisted her brow into a confused look.

Kiba at this started howling up laughter like no tomorrow, leaving Shino to explain. "She's caught him now," short sweet and too the point; that was Shino.

"What do you mean caught?" the red slits of their teacher's eyes burned down at the two.

"Caught you ask?" Kiba had ceased his joyous fit and began to tease Kurenai with a grin to give Naruto a run for his money. Kurenai nodded, not letting the glare down for a second. "What my ever so articulate friend Shino here means is; she bagged him. They've been going out for a little while now."

Kurenai's abnormally colored eyes burst wide open. Taking the young dog boy by his shirt she thrashed him and yelled directly into his ear, "She got him! Why didn't you tell me?! Oh my Kami! When? Where? How? Why? DETAILS CHILD!"

During the sequence of questions Shino had managed to slip away in route for his home. "Traaaaiiiitooorrr!" Kiba called out at the bug user. Shino smiled beneath his high collar.

Hinata trudged along the long hallways through the Hyuga mansion in a haze. 'Where was Naruto-kun' she asked herself, 'he wasn't at his home, the ramen shop, the Hokage's office, he wasn't allowed any missions yet, and no one had seen him around town for a long time.' Hinata had traveled around all of Konoha to find her Naruto-kun, but to no avail. She did however enlist a small squad of people who promised to let her know if the saw him; Iruka, Tsunade, Konohamaru and his squad, Lee, Choji, Kiba, and most surprisingly Temari and Kankuro.

She sighed to herself and headed into her room with a sense of disappointment, she missed her Naruto-kun. She fell onto her bed with a exhausted groan, only to have a snide voice hiss at her; "what's got you so down?"

Neji stood at the entry way to her room smiling as if he was the cat who caught the canary. "Lonely are we?" he dangled a sheet of paper between two fingers, long and messy streaks littered one side, characteristic to Naruto's writing.

"G-give it here!" she immediately jumped from the bed and engaged in a childish attempt to retrieve the paper while Neji held it just out of reach.

"Not a chance Hinata-sama; god knows what that monster would do to-" the rest of his to-be angsty rant was cut off by a powerful gentle fist to the gut.

Hinata followed this up by jumping the crouching figure and grabbing the paper mid-air, running at top speed for the exit. She was nearly to the slums Naruto lived in before she stopped and read the note. It was directions around the Hokage monuments. 'Does Naruto want me to go?' She took to the roofs with all the speed she could muster, following the directions to the dot as they wound their way around the base of the mountain, ending at a small clearing of lilac flowers in the middle of the forest. "W-what's this?"

"About a week's worth of work scrunched up into a day by my guess," chuckled a voice from above her.

"N-n-naruto-kun?" her pale eyes met the blue pools of her love's, "NARUTO-KUN!" Hinata leaped into Naruto's waiting arms with teary eyes. This is what she missed more than anything, just being with him.

"Hey there," he tightens his grip around her and brings her closer to him, "I missed you". The two just stand there, in each others arm, letting the world go by without the slightest care. A slight pull at Hinata's side let her know that Naruto was trying to lead her somewhere, she submitted and followed him up the side of a tree before sitting down on the same limb he'd been on before he'd hopped down to greet her. "Can you look for a second?" he asked, pointing out over to the field they'd just left. She followed his hand and saw what she couldn't see from the ground, inside the mass of lilac flowers a message had been cut out that read 'If only a week I could live, this last week is the one I'd choose. I love Hinata.'

"Oh Naruto-kun…"

Just outside the flower message stood Ino and Sakura panting for breath while trying to remove multiple petals from each other's hair. Ino gave Sakura a look and leaned in to her ear, "not that I'm complaining or anything, but what made you change your mind about Naruto? Why start helping him now?"

Sakura's cheeks deepen a slight bit, "because I've learned what family is; it's not just those whose blood you share. It's those you care for no matter what, and Naruto's got one of the biggest families I've ever seen." The pink haired kunoichi smiled to herself as she watched the two love-birds kiss, "I'm just glad that I'm still a part of it…"

Ino cocked her head to the side and grinned an all knowing grin, "he isn't that bad after all is he?"

"No he's not."

"Do you regret it?" the blonde asked with a slightly sad tone, "do you regret pushing him away?"

Sakura paused, carefully thinking through her answer, "I can't say that I'm proud of myself for doing what I did. I guess it's lucky that things turned out the way they did." Ino nodded to her renewed friend. "I hope that Hinata will become part of this family soon. We need her…"

"He needs her."

"Yea."

The two silently get up and leave the loving couple their privacy. Locked in embrace, over a field of lilacs, staring at the setting sun and each other's eyes. For the first time in that weak, Naruto felt unburdened by his heart, this was love; he had Hinata, his friends, and now a family.

Notes:1 ok Hinata means in the sun, hiartari is a pun on that meaning exposed to the sun; kinda like a sunburn. (for those of you who didn't go 'oh!' I'm referring to blushing)

A/N2: ok so this is the author notes that +90 of you will skip over, and that's fine this really isn't that important. Well it is for me, but not you, the average readers. I'm writing this so I can dedicate this to the love of my life, seeing as this is our one month aniversery. I wouldn't have been able to write this if it hadn't been for you. (holds hand up as if it held an Oscar) This is for you! I Love You! Rin