A/N: I'm currently at an impasse with my novel, so while I'm sorting that out I decided I'd go back and use one of the two Nejitenplz prompts I hadn't used yet, just to get the juices flowing after a few days of writing nothing at all.

How does the theme relate to the story? Try looking up Purple on Wiki (in particular the book "The Color Purple" and information on the Purple Heart).

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All The Pretty

The cold inky void on the bed next to him made Neji's heart ring in his ears. He wasn't sure when he'd fallen asleep, but he was certain that his wife had been there when he did. It was storming now, and she was no where to be found.

With a powerful burst of chakra, he turned his all-seeing eyes this way and that, frantically searching the compound. TenTen was supposed to stay with him at all times. She had promised she would. For three weeks now she had seemed distant, not quite together, and she had promised she would stay beside him because he worried for her.

It was raining hard outside, with lightening oddly distorting his vision as he searched every corner of the compound without moving an inch. She wasn't inside, and he widened his search desperately. It was too soon. He wouldn't loose her. He couldn't.

There was no particular relief when he found her, and he jumped to his feet. Not bothering with trivial things like a shirt or shoes, Neji rushed out into the freezing rain and down the hill. It was just a corner of the compound surrounded by trees and bordered on two sides by the large walls. Before three weeks ago, he hadn't given it much thought at all. He knew, but hadn't processed, what the compound grave yard really meant. A resting place for Hyuuga who were no ninja or had a not died in battle.

A place for babies who hadn't ever really had a chance.

If he'd thought about it, Neji would have check here first. TenTen had stopped by every day, even when he'd asked her not to, and all the time kept looking longingly out the window at the tree line whenever she thought he wasn't looking. He understood her pain, he really did, but he didn't know how to reach her. She was a night breeze to him.

TenTen was sprawled across the slick black stone, her thin blue night shirt clinging to her from the driving rain. She was so still and pale that for a moment all he almost thought he was back at the hospital. She'd been pale then, too, but all around her bright, almost magenta, blood sticking to everything.

He hadn't understood it all, but something had happened so the baby wasn't attached where it was supposed to be anymore. Sakura's hands had been stained and shaking as she'd tried to direct him out. "Your baby wasn't strong enough. I'm sorry, but the lack of oxygen…We did all that we could, Neji. We're doing what we can to save TenTen, but…prepare yourself."

For five months they'd planned for this baby. They were going to name him Hizashi, after his father, and he'd watched with fascination as his wife's belly had gradually began to expand. As TenTen had gone from frightened at the idea of this child, that she would be like her parents, to excited and determined to prove how far she'd come. She'd dreamed of holding him, confided in Neji that she hoped he had his eyes. They had his room mostly ready. Now it was just an empty crib covered in dust and shards of dreams.

Several horrible seconds passed where he thought that he would have to put his wife in the ground next to the son he would never hold now. But she was shivering, and a corpse didn't shiver. And they didn't sing.

"Hush-a-bye," Neji heard her sob softly over the pounding rain. "Don't you cry. Go…to sleepy little baby. And when…when you wake…"

He dropped by her side, trying to rouse her from whatever stupor she had fallen in to by softly calling her name.

Brown eyes fluttered open, closing again briefly until he leaned forward to shield her face from the falling water. "Neji," her voice was scratchy from sleep. "Neji, he was crying, I heard him. The storm, he was frightened…"

Should tell her that dead babies can't be afraid. That she was trying to protect a lifeless stone and a small box of ashes, not a person. Didn't. "You're a good mother, TenTen. He's alright now. Come back inside."

"I can't." She turned away from him, her fingers tracing the characters he'd seen her practicing writing just hours before she was screaming in pain. "He needs me. I can't leave him. What if he gets scared again, and I don't hear him? He needs his mommy."

A void where words should be in his mind was all he found when he tried to find something to say to comfort her.

She knew the baby was dead. He was sure that TenTen knew in her heart that was nothing more she could do for their child. It was convincing the part of her that had dared, for the first time, to dream that she needed to let go that was the problem. That what they were suffering was in no way her fault, there was nothing to make up for. No way to make it right. No magic cure for this new scar, new bruise, on both their souls.

Neji knelt beside her, pulling her into his arms as she began to sob violently, probably reading on his face what he couldn't say out loud. There was nothing.

He kissed her forehead, knowing the points to place chakra that were force her into a dreamless sleep—but one she would awaken from. It was all he could do for her, just like all she could do was try to keep water off a stone. He had no idea if his efforts would be any more successful.

Cradling her now limp form to his bare chest, he trudged his way up the hill. He had to carry her through this, maybe, but they would get through. Neji could not accept losing her, whatever siren's call the purple night held for her. He would not let go.