Night fell, swiftly.

Hinata trained, carving lines of energy against the darkening sky. She balanced herself atop the koi pond in the garden. She moved the water, losing herself in the familiar sounds of splashes, the familiar energy traces that moved all around her. She knelt over the surface, focused her byukagan. The water unfolded in thousands of concentric ripples under her spread hand.

"He's fine." Miya said, unprompted, as Hinata stepped back into the house. "Sleeping like a baby. I've had an extra futon put in Hanabi's room."

Hinata nodded gratefully.

"Why are you sleeping in my room tonight?" Hanabi asked her curiously, sitting up on her bed.

Hinata offered her a gentle, teasing smile over her bare shoulder. "Would you rather I didn't?" She folded her mesh shirt and placed it neatly atop her other clothes.

Hanabi tilted her head, uncertainly. A few locks of shiny dark hair slipped over her forehead. "It's okay... But.." she raised her eyebrows slightly. "..there's lots and lots of other rooms. You could sleep in father's room, if you wanted. He'd never know."

Hinata was absolutely certain that he would know, and he would also consider it to be extremely disobedient of her.

"I suppose I don't want be alone," she said, distantly. She busied herself with unfolding the quilt.

Hanabi lay back on her own futon with a graceless plop. "I still think it's weird." she said.

"I spilled lamp oil in my room." Hinata lied, clumsily. "It needs to air out." She concentrated on smoothing the creases out of one of the pillows.

"That doesn't sound very much like you," Hanabi murmured suspiciously.

"Well, we all make mistakes."

Hanabi studied her with a dubious look. "Come on, why are you really here?" She leaned over her futon, swinging her feet in the air. "Did you mess up a jutsu in there? Did you summon a weird animal? Like something really gross, like a giant slug?"

"No, Hanabi." She leaned over and extinguished the lanterns sitting by Hanabi's bed.

"I'll bet you did. I bet it's eating all of your clothes, right now."

"Go to sleep, Hanabi."

She closed her eyes. She remembered the feeling of his fevered skin under her hands, as she carried him. She heard her sister administer a few token kicks to her pillows, then settle down. And then Hinata was alone with her thoughts. With the crystal clear memory of his lean, strong body... pale and vulnerable and naked, on her bed. His hair gleaming midnight blue in the sunlight.

"Hanabi?" she said, softly. She didn't open her eyes.

The bedclothes rustled.

"You told me to go to sleep." Her sister giggled softly. "I don't wanna, anyway."

Hinata smiled, concealed in the darkness. "Well, could you tell me about your day?"

Hanabi snorted. She flopped one arm over her eyes. Hinata could recognize the sound.

"Nothing interesting happened."

"Then...tell me the least boring thing that happened."

A titter. "Can I make it up?"

Hinata turned her head, gazing out into the darkened garden, the lanterns that swayed in the cold wind. "Yes, that would be fine." she said, softly.

Hanabi told her a wild, implausible story about her sensei being attacked by a hoard of demon crows. They were after his snacks, and he would not relinquish them. There was a lot of amazingly bloodthirsty fighting, with particular focus on the brilliant, talented student who was the youngest daughter of a powerful clan. Hinata wondered what she would do without her spirited little sister. What would she do without her comfortable, safe home and her ordered life... Could she survive without these things? Could anyone? She was certain that she could not.

Hanabi fell asleep before the students and their sensei could defeat the crows... and Hinata drifted after her, safe in the embrace of her dreams, her peaceful life, her intact family.

She woke up to see heavy clouds hanging low over the horizon. By dawn, they were spilling freezing torrents of sleet onto the rooftops and streets.

Hinata stood at the window in the teacher's lounge, sipping tea. She looked out into the muddy, freezing mess that had become of the training yards. The temperature was falling, which meant that it would all turn to ice. Nara Shikamaru strolled up behind her. He was a jounin, a strategic specialist who dropped in to give special lectures to the graduating classes.

"Guess we should have war games today," he said, with a note of peevish indifference. He indicated the steadily freezing yards with a lit cigarette. "Half the brats will slip and break their necks at recess, anyway."

Hinata was lost in thought. Was Uchiha Sasuke going to be safe at her house? Would the servants leak the story? It would only take one of them, one making an unguarded comment outside the house. No one wanted to mess with Miya, but Miya still couldn't be watching every single one of them, every moment. Hinata had heard two of the younger girls whispering as she dressed- in a guest room- that morning. That's the missing-nin and his whole family was killed and I heard that he joined the missing sennin and Hinata-sama brought him in, he's in Hinata-sama's room! and are you serious?

Her fingers tightened on the teacup.

Shikamaru shoved his hands into his pockets, the cigarette drooping from his lips. "We should just kill all the little bastards," he added, nonchalantly.

Hinata was frowning out the window, only half-watching the downpour. What if Uchiha Sasuke woke up.. and was angry? What if he attacked the house? There were only a few branch house retainers on the grounds at the moment, would they be able to protect the servants? Was he dangerous? He'd defected from the village. Missing-nin were locked up for a reason.

"Don't you agree, Hinata-san?" Shikamaru said, smiling at her.

"..that's fine..." she murmured, preoccupied.

He lifted one eyebrow. She saw his amused glance in her peripheral vision, but she was busy thinking of going home, standing guard at the door of her room until he woke up, until she could make sure he was not dangerous. What had she been thinking, bringing him in? Leaving the servants alone? Maybe she should have taken the week off...

Shikamaru nodded, sagely. "I'll go unlock the weapons locker. Ok?"

"Mmm." she replied, thinking furiously. Calling for police guards, or asking Tsunade-sama for jounins to patrol the house would be, of course, impossible. And she couldn't take time off, it would look suspicious.

Shikamaru strolled off, a trail of smoke wafting after him. Jiggling keys. After a moment, she blinked.

"Wait.. Shikamaru-san!"

And he thought it was funny! It wasn't funny at all. He walked off down the hall, chuckling.

Hinata waved her hand in front of her nose, and pointedly cast a air-freshening jutsu.

----------------------------------------------------------

Sasuke woke again, in a particularly foul mood.

He was brutally thirsty. He was still in bed, still in that cheerful room, it's wooden shutters half opened onto a neatly kept stone garden. He was tiring of this. He had work to do. Orochimaru probably intended to annoy him with captivity and subliminal hints of his previous life. It was working. He was very, very annoyed.

And there, on the low wooden table next to the futon, a pitcher of water, two empty wooden teacups. Orochimaru trying to gain his favor.. or lull him into a false sense of security.

Well, he didn't care. He would worry about Orochimaru in a moment. Sitting up hurt like hell. His throat tightened against the water as he forced it down. His stomach turned over. The whole ordeal wore him out completely, he collapsed back on the pillows, out of breath.

He raised one arm to wipe the sweat from his brow. Moving his arm also hurt like hell. He grimaced.

He looked around, trying to make sense of his surroundings.

Genjutsu of a bedroom, clean sheets smelling faintly of flowers. More flowers, dried ones, in a little stone pot on the table. A small carved Buddha. Candles. Books neatly stacked on a shelf. A picture in a frame. Typical Konoha kitsch, three genin with a jounin sensei. The jounin had long dark hair. It was set across the room, too far away for him to make out her face, or those of the three genin in front of her. Clean, well-tended walls and floor, polished and free of chipped paint, torn wallpaper, scratches... A room in the house of an wealthy Konoha ninja clan. Not a guest room. Someone lived here.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sudden arrival of...

He rubbed his eyes with one hand. Very carefully. It still hurt.

...an old woman, wearing plain work clothes, her sleeves pinned up to her elbows. She didn't knock.

"Awake already?" she said, brusquely. She set a wooden tray down by the bed. He glanced over, unsure of what to expect. Instruments of torture? A tray full of hot water, pins, bandages. Small jars of medicine. A steaming pot of tea. He blinked at her, momentarily too surprised to say anything.

"Sit up," she said, with the air of someone who was used to being obeyed, instantly. When he hesitated, she said, sternly "Hinata-sama did not lug you over ten miles of rough terrain so you could die of a blood infection, young man. Sit up."

Hinata-sama? he thought. Hyuga Hinata? He vaguely remembered her from the academy. A very shy, quiet girl. But the old woman was glaring at him now, her hands on her hips. He didn't have the energy for a confrontation. He sat up, wincing as he did.

"Where am I?" he asked her, suspiciously.

She yanked back the covers. He saw that he was half naked. And those cotton boxers were not his underwear. And there was blood on the hem, fresh blood, wetness against his side... what the hell? What the fucking hell?

"You've torn the stitches already." The old woman clicked her tongue disapprovingly. "I wish I were surprised." He looked down on tightly bandaged ribs, a fresh red splotch soaking through one side. He looked from it, to her.

He officially had no idea what was going on.

"Where am I?" he repeated, momentarily too bewildered to glare.

"You're in the house of Hyuga." She said, getting out what looked like an extremely sharp knife. "Hinata-sama found you half dead in the woods yesterday." With a few accurate, clean slices, she cut the bandages away. "If I had to guess, I'd say you ran into a samurai. I hope you learned your lesson."

He scowled down at the angry wound she uncovered. Orochimaru had some samurai weapons. He had a fetish for them. And toxins, too, now that Sasuke thought about it. Orochimaru and his passion for snakebite... A glint of metal caught his eye. The old woman was threading a needle, he really wished she'd stop coming at him with sharp objects. Lighting a small candle, she held the point in the flame.

"This is going to hurt, but it will hurt a lot less if you hold still." she said.

She was right about that first part, anyway.

She left him freshly bandaged, and with stern orders to drink the tea she brought, as well as the miso. The bathroom was down the hall, but she did not want to see him out of bed for one instant otherwise. She would have someone named Momo-chan bring him books, if he liked. But she wanted him to sleep. He was too disoriented by all of this to argue with her.

He lay back, staring at the ceiling.

His hand went to his neck, unconsciously feeling for the hot touch of the seal. He closed his eyes, feeling it's harsh energy, like a second heartbeat. Unless Orochimaru was impersonating the old woman through a combined henge... that, plus the feeling of hard reality, the duration of it, the sharp sensory impression of his injured body... This was not genjutsu. He was in Konoha. He was in the Hyuga clan's house. Hyuga Hinata, of all people, had carried him to her house. The flowers, an expensive silk kimono neatly folded over a chair across the room. the picture... this was probably her room. This was her bed. He had been bleeding on her sheets. He groaned softly, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hand.

His seal was a lost cause. His chakra was weak, and low. Whatever he'd done, or more precisely, whatever Orochimaru had done to him, had completely exhausted his body.

He concentrated on reconstructing his memory. A headlong flight through mountain terrain, then forests. Icy rivers. A simple endurance test? Orochimaru sitting back in his lair, pulling the puppet strings.

Orochimaru had probably been playing with the sharingan, too reckless to bother to use it properly. That would explain his exhausted chakra. And Sasuke couldn't recall a samurai, or any sort of fight, Orochimaru had probably just done the slicing himself. Any of his collection of venoms and toxins could account for the infection. Orochimaru could have made it look like a battle wound, just to mess with Sasuke's head. Orochimaru had a fucking sick sense of humor sometimes. Most of the time. All of the time. He had to get better so he could get back to Otogakure and wring Orochimaru's scaly neck.

He forced the tea down, then the soup. His throat ached. His stomach threatened to toss it all up again at any moment. He finally had to curl up pathetically, like a small sick child. He was too weak to sit upright. He was going to fucking kill Orochimaru for this.

In the meantime, he was stuck here. In Konoha. Konoha being full of all sorts of interfering, nosy people. He wondered if Naruto was already on his way, or if he'd stopped to stuff his face first. Sakura would be with him, for certain. He sighed. There would be a lot of screaming, and Sakura would cry, and then he'd feel even more guilty then usual. He really didn't have the energy for any of that, right now. Maybe he could pretend to be asleep until they left.

And just then, he heard a soft murmuring sound. A trace of a giggle.

He sat up sharply, which was something that continued to hurt like hell. He caught himself before he could wrench the stitches again. He ran one hand over the bandages, no bleeding yet. He wasn't looking forward to another encounter with the old woman's needle. And that sound had come from the far corner of the room, near the open shutters. He scowled, watching.

After a moment of close examination, he picked up one of the pillows. He threw it lightly at that spot.

It bounced off empty air.

"Uh oh," a young, female voice said. There was the sound of bare feet across the wooden floor. A blurry impression of long dark hair and a loose dark-colored jacket as she lost her grip on the jutsu.

He frowned, irritated. It was a simple genin-level hiding technique, a genjutsu suggestion to overlook what was right in front of him. It only worked on very distracted people, or those who were not expecting it at all. And it didn't work at all if you giggled while using it.

A soft footfall in the doorway, too light to be the old woman again. That Momo-chan person with the books? The little feet sounds squealed to a halt. He glanced up.

Another girl, an older teenager, long dark hair. Pale eyes.

The older girl caught the small, blurred figure by the shoulders, dissolving the last of her illusion. "Hanabi..!" she exclaimed. She had a very soft voice.

The little girl took one look at the older one and her entire face lit up in a cheerfully mischievous grin. "Oneesan, there's a boy in your room," she announced gleefully, pointing. "There's a boy in your bed! Is he your boyfr- hey!" The older girl had swiftly sidestepped around the little one, clapping her hand over the little girl's mouth.

"I apologize," she said to him, bowing slightly. She had the little girl completely immobilized in her arms. The little girl kicked and struggled to no avail. The older girl smiled, a bit nervously. "Please excuse us."

Sasuke merely stared after them like words were failing him.

Which they were.

------------------------------

"He's a guest, Hanabi." Hinata said, having safely removed her little sister to a distant part of the house.. "That was very rude of you!"

Hanabi scuffed her bare foot along the floor, sullenly. "I wanted to see."

"I asked you to-"

"'You were acting weird, oneesan." Hanabi interrupted, giving her a pointed look. "And I'm not a little kid anymore, you and father never tell me anything."

"Maybe if you didn't behave like a little kid..." Miya said, unobtrusively, from across the room. Hanabi glared at her. Miya calmly folded clothes, setting them in clean piles. "And you should listen to your sister." she added.

"I am listening to my sister." Hanabi retorted, crossing her arms. Then her lips twitched. She eyed Hinata, smirking.

"He is your boyfriend, isn't he? He's your boyfriend!"

Hinata stood over her, looking down crossly. "That isn't funny, Hanabi." Hanabi just smiled in a way that said she not only thought it was funny, she also would be delighted to do the whole thing all over again.

Hinata stepped back from her sister and sat down, tiredly. She felt as if she had sleepwalked through her classes, worrying. Then she'd come home to find her little sister using an invisibility jutsu to sneak around her room.

"I'm very angry with you, Hanabi." she said, as if that would make any difference to her sister. "You could have been hurt."

Hanabi rolled her eyes. Hinata glanced at Miya, who shrugged, mildly. But she also locked eyes with Hinata for a second, giving her a significant look. And what were you expecting, when you brought that man into the house?

Hinata felt her fists clench. She had to own this decision. She had to take responsibility for it, she had to act like the Hyuga heir, rather then a timid little mouse. "Hanabi," she said, sharply.

Hanabi looked up, a bit surprised.

Hinata stood up. "If you're ready for adult secrets, then you have to be ready to handle them. Are you?"

Hanabi looked a bit startled. "Uh... yeah. I mean, yes." She blinked up at her sister.

Hinata fixed her with a very stern look. "You have to keep this a secret. Do you understand? No one can know he's here. You are not under any circumstances to tell your sensei, your teammates, your friends or any other adult besides Miya and me. Do you understand me, Hanabi?" She couldn't believe the steeliness in her own voice. It seemed to come from someone else. And Hanabi was looking at her like she'd just grown another head.

Hanabi blinked, and looked down for a moment. Then she said, a bit confused "Why? I mean.. I won't tell, but why is it a secret?"

"He's a missing-nin, brat." Miya said, with gruff affection. She reached over and ruffled Hanabi's hair. "They'll chop him up into little pieces and feed him to the crows."

"Because dangerous people will come and kill him," Hinata added, watching. "He's sick, and he needs to be left alone."

And she also had no idea how dangerous he could be. He wasn't her teammate. He was Naruto-kun's. She remembered Naruto being carried back to the village in his wild-haired sensei's arms. He'd just come from a long chase, Hinata heard the whispers that spread through the rookie nine. He'd been chasing Uchiha Sasuke. And Sasuke had tried to kill him. She sat down, hard, on the bench again. She felt almost dizzy.

She looked over at Miya, almost longingly. It was so much easier to be a timid mousy girl, have someone else run the house. Would it be like this always, when her father was gone?

At least Hanabi seemed to have lost interest in the subject. "He looks really mean, anyway." she was telling the cook. "Like, this mean!" She made a ferocious face, sticking out her tongue and fluttering her fingers. "Boys are either mean or stupid, and they're all perverts!" She wandered off to the training garden, dragging her jacket behind her.

Hinata watched her go, and slowly exhaled.

"Am I doing the right thing..?" she whispered.

Miya was moving the folded clothes into wooden baskets, ready to be carried to various rooms.

"Was it right?" she repeated, almost desperately. "Bringing him here?"

Miya reached over and gathered one rough old arm around Hinata's shoulders, a basket balanced in the crook of the other.

"I think your heart is in the right place." she said, not unkindly. "If there's any right way about this, you'll find it, dear."

Hinata watched her distribute the baskets to some of the younger house staff. She got to her feet.

She went up to her room. She eased open the door.

Semi-darkness. Outside, the sun was setting against torn masses of clouds.

A soft rhythm of breathing. He was asleep, motionless. She curled her fingers around the doorframe.

Her byakugan saw the low watermark of his chakra. He wouldn't have the energy to get up, would he? He couldn't attack anyone, in this state... She narrowed her eyes, trying to see intent, the shape of his thoughts. She didn't know him, she knew nothing about what sort of person he was, what had she been thinking?

But Naruto-kun had begged Tsunade-sama. He'd begged her, standing out in the hospital courtyard, arguing with her. All for one second chance to find the missing-nin, Uchiha Sasuke. The one who had almost killed him. Hinata bit her lip.

She closed the door, and let him sleep.