Hinata was exhausted, but would not admit it. She also did not want to talk, but felt obliged to. Sasuke really would have preferred to simply continue kissing her, that was easier and more direct then talking. But eventually the kisses alone were not enough to comfort her. She wanted to know about what the hell Sasuke thought he was doing...

Of course, she didn't use those words. That wasn't even her attitude, she was too kind to realize how crazy this was. There was nothing but relief and affection in her tone. But Sasuke figured that was the main thrust of what she was saying.

He was busy getting her back to the couch, since she needed to rest. He anticipated that she would push herself as far as possible. Also, he had his old memories of the stupid things he had done in his first few days after, when he was blinded with grief. He worked himself past exhaustion, doing it on purpose. It made him feel perversely better, more pain was a good salve for the guilt of feeling pain in the first place. He knew she must feel ashamed, and.. well, he didn't have the energy to really argue her into bed for her own good, anyway. He was tired. They both were tired. A whole houseful of irritating angry people were arriving soon and there was going to be a big loud village scandal right on their heels.

"The entire village is going to be screaming at us." he mumbled, trying to steer her away from the window with one arm. His seal-arm was numb and useless.

"But what will you do?" she said, wide-eyed and scattered, he saw, with fatigue and stress and the fine lines of grief wearing themselves into her. Being able to just pick her up would solve this problem instantly. But his arm wouldn't take any weight, he could barely lift it at all, the damn cursed chakra, or whatever it was.. it was flowing into the muscles. He'd have to get it fixed by an actual doctor. Maybe carving the seal out hadn't been such a brilliant idea after all.

So, half to distract her, and half to ease her worries, he told her again. She'd heard him the first time, but she was just worrying and upset. He could act like a decent person for five seconds, surely, ease her mind. So he told her that he would turn himself in and hope that the Hokage felt like forgiving him, and that Konoha was interested in taking it's ninth rookie back.

"...of course we are. You've done nothing wrong." she whispered, tired and unfocused. She was half-muffled, pressed against his shoulder.

"I've deserted the village and I've been trained by the man who killed the Third." he reminded her, as gently as he could. And he also went to that man willingly. He had almost killed Naruto- twice, and now that he thought about it, that first time Naruto had said that there were several genin with him. And that second time, well...

"..I'd rather not talk about that." he muttered, and then changed the subject. "If my name is cleared, I'll..."

And he hadn't actually thought of what he'd do then. He blinked, and covered it quickly. Not that Hinata was nearly alert enough to notice. He got her to the couch, got her tucked into his arms, got the blanket back over them so they wouldn't freeze to death, the power was still out.

"I'll..." he frowned, and wondered if this was the right word. "...court you." And felt like a clumsy idiot for saying it, so he added, quickly, since this was a certainty: "I said that I would stay with you, and I will. I'll take care of you like I said."

Curled up in his arms, Hinata murmured tiredly about how her family might not approve, and how she would have the power to overwhelm their objections. She said that she would have a voice now. She was too tired, he noticed, to even sit upright. She had slowly collapsed against him. Now she was leaning her head over his lap. The folds of the heavy silk coat she had found for him had settled over her hair, he saw only the dark wave of it over his leg, her pale little fingers turned into the loose fabric of his pants.

But he didn't worry much about staying. It was a given, now, to him. He had made his mind up.

Now, he had only to get Hinata to rest. Then her family would come, and he would turn himself in. He would face Naruto and Sakura.. somehow. He was almost hoping that Kakashi would accompany them. Kakashi could keep a lid on the confrontation. At least, in Sasuke's memory, that was the way it had always been. He felt too out of practice in the intricate skill of dealing with Naruto to manage. But he would do it, it was decided. That was that.

And all the while as he tried to soothe her, Orochimaru's voice was hissing in his head.

Are you still angry, Sasuke-kun?

More than just the memory of genjutsu. Orochimaru's fingers penetrated deeply, he'd had six years of uninterrupted access to everything Sasuke was to do his worst.

It seemed to him that while he would stay, and he would try his best not to make Hinata completely miserable, he couldn't expect anything, really, to change. Nothing can change it, that's what he'd said to Hinata, talking about something else, but also talking about this, indirectly. Nothing could change him, nothing could make him stop feeling this way...

Whether he stayed, or went, or rotted in prison, or Itachi carved his throat out next time, or Orochimaru came for his pound of flesh, or the Hokage had him executed, or the ANBU took him apart in interrogation, or even if he managed to pay for his crimes and rejoin the village- either whichway. This was how it would be. There was nowhere he could go to escape from himself.

How do you feel now?

And after so long in that endless nightmare... was he ready to wake up? Would he be able to face what he woke up to?

Still angry? Ah, you're always so angry.

He was already awake, already aware, hit in the gut with the aftermath, the stinging hangover of everything Orochimaru had done. So he thought. But there were plenty of dark spaces in his memory. Orochimaru had hovered over him with his hypnotist's golden disc, twisting and fracturing his sense of reality. He honestly had no idea about some parts of what he remembered, whether it was genjutsu, or a planted memory, or whether it was real.. and conversely, there were those empty spaces. Places when Orochimaru sat him down and dug his sharp painted fingernails in, stared hard into Sasuke's eyes and he felt himself falling, drifting. Orochimaru had played with possessing him for some time. Like a demon. Or a spoiled, bored, cruel child, for that matter. One who was in the habit of doing whatever he wanted whenever he wanted and to whomever, for fun. Who even knew what Orochimaru had done.

And everything Sasuke had done himself. Not to forgot that. That would be of particular interest to his future interrogators, to be certain. They'd take apart his memory like the hunter-nins cleaned a kill, every disgusting secret would be laid bare. They'd excavate the gaps in his memory. They'd know everything he'd become, everything he'd done under Orochimaru's hand.

Sasuke was actually perversely looking forward to that. He'd like to find out himself.

You're still angry, Sasuke-kun.

Fine, he was. He was the same miserable bastard she'd pulled in before. But he wasn't going to ruin this. He wasn't going to let the goddamn snake slither in, he wasn't going to be like Orochimaru after all. He wasn't there yet. There was still a difference between them.

He held Hinata and watched the sun rise, and did his best to believe that. He could imagine it because of her, he could almost think that it would be possible. He was a bitter cynic, he wasn't the sort of person who believed in the healing power of love or any of that nonsense. But Hinata believed it, and Hinata was not a fool, she was not weak, and she had a lot more common sense than he did, clearly. Which of them was leading a good life, after all? Which of them was destroying themselves? He should trust her. He did trust her.. but...

Hinata was a romantic, he sensed that about her. Maybe she was soft-hearted, and maybe that was a great failing, but Sasuke was tired of hard-hearted people. At least at this moment, tired and half-drunk and completely wretched. Maudlin. Stupidly sentimental, maybe, feeling soft and recklessly affectionate, as if he had some clue how to be near people, how to show affection to them at all.

But Hinata was a pragmatist, her compassion was married to practicality. She'd have to be. He saw it for himself. He watched her drift between waking and sleep, stubbornly fight to stay awake. He had no byakugan, but maybe he could see too, see parts of her that she didn't show to the world. She had already let him come very close to her. Very close, closer than he would have advised her to allow. She'd told him things about her family that he knew would have to be inter-clan secrets. She had taken him into her confidence. Not for nothing, clearly...

And she thought he wasn't just Orochimaru's runaway apprentice, Itachi's lesser brother, the youngest and smallest and most worthless of his entire dead, cursed clan. She thought he was something better. She whispered, and the old woman had said.. that her family would reach out and catch him, they'd pull him under the sheltering roof of their house. He'd be reabsorbed into the Hyuga clan. It would be some ancestral return.. or something. He was too tired to think it through clearly. He was too tired to sneer and work up any decent anger about having to crawl back to his clan's progenitors, a pathetic runaway orphan.

And Hinata thought better of him. She thought enough of him to allow him to be close to her. She didn't push him away. He kissed her again, tilting her chin up, just to feel her warmth against him, to feel the soft touch of her breath, to see again, reassure himself. She didn't push him away, or mention how he was somehow acceptable because he reminded her of better things. She murmured tiredly, and put her warm arms around him... and he really should have just stopped fussing about this. Accepted it.

She believed he could come back from the edge. She believed he was worth saving. She believed it. Why couldn't he?

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

Together, alone in the lower level of the tea cottage, Hinata had watched Sasuke.

They were in the enclosed clay-framed practice room, far away from the dawning sun. The candles were burning down, then.. and in the half-second before he noticed, and looked up and his dark, sharp eyes took over, she saw him. In these unguarded moments, when traces of emotion would show on his face, as subtle as it was... He wasn't silent, emotionless or cold. He was cryptic. You had to pay attention. She did, watching the momentary flash of chakra, his fire-halo pattern dancing all around him. He stood pausing after the last motion of the kata, his arms down by his sides, his shoulders slightly collapsed. Weighted down.. and his head slightly bowed, his dark hair falling into his face. Blackness. Black chakra leaking from the bloodied mess of his seal.

He must have seen her byakugan's invisible lights, he looked up, startled alert, flicked the hair out of his eyes.

It was time.

Hinata thought that somehow, she was drawing closer to this decision, as if she was just waiting to be able to justify it to herself.

It would be right, and simple to just take advantage of this time. Wouldn't it?

But she was tired and she simply sat still and watched. Sasuke took her in his arms and lifted her to her feet. He took her upstairs to see the sun, then he wanted to put her to bed.

So she found the hidden keys and unlocked the genjutsu that hid the lowest level of the tea cottage. There was a bedroom down there, an inscribed bathhouse. They could rest. There were windows, where they could see the rising sun, a bank of windows pointed flush east..

Another day dawning, a new Hyuga sun. Her tired thoughts tripped over one another and into silly fancies. A new sun, one set down and gone into darkness.. passed into death, and now she almost thought she could feel her father's hand on her shoulder, as if his spirit moved in the strange feeling of the morning air. As if they could be together, as they never were in life. She could become him.

But Sasuke was a clear, sharp reality, right in front of her, and he grounded her. She felt dizzy and tired and light-headed, but he got her downstairs, he got her into bed. She was too tired and she was perfunctory, she thought, just grasping his sleeve silently and gently pulling him down with her, when he politely turned to sleep elsewhere...

And after that, it was almost as if she was already dreaming. Everything moved in slow, heavy silence. She watched Sasuke shake the silk comforter out with tired, slow byakugan eyes. Every crease that rippled through the fabric shone vividly, the sun was just starting to peek over the horizon, and the first fingers of light were creeping into the dark room. She was too tired to be polite, speak to him, thank him.. there was a slow peace in being just too worn out to do or feel anything.

Outside a bank of high windows to the far wall, there was a scene stained in early morning blue, all ice and snow-laded trees. The furred dark line of evergreens high against the lightening sky. The traces of pink were gathering from the hidden east. The day was dawning. The family was coming. The consequences were swinging into place, like a million disapproving white eyes. Soon it would all be there. And inescapable..

But today, here, in these few hours, they had one another. They had this time. He would stay. He would go, taken into the dark hands of the ANBU. She would go, taken in hand by her family and the council's clutching hands would close in over her head. Like dark waters, the deep mystical danger of the pearl diver's ocean. Power would pass into her hands. And they would be together, again. Again, when the ANBU gave him up, when her family opened their gates. She would take him into her family. Into her open arms, maybe into her sealed heart. Maybe this could happen, because there was a chance of a future, as he stayed... Maybe. And they had this one moment in time, they could be together.

Sasuke knelt over her, silently attending to her, tucking her hair carefully over the pillow so it wouldn't be pinned under her shoulder. She could only grasp his wrist, now, since they had both numbly undressed down to their underwear. She felt him lie down beside her on the futon, pull the comforter over them.. and then there was just the warmth and covers, the silence settling over the hidden cottage, the sparkle of fresh sun on clean ice outside sending faint dancing rays of light into the room. Sasuke had his warm arm around her, she felt his bare skin against hers, and the warm protective shadow of his body. His chakra danced too, in tiny flashes of flame, and she felt her own flowing to his, their energies buffering one another, falling into synchrony.. or maybe she was already dreaming. There was no firm margin between dreams and waking life, now, in that moment. She wondered, maybe already dreaming, about her father looking down from the Hyuga constellation in the lightening morning sky, his diamond facets of chakra. Like that morning in her classroom, when she looked up. She couldn't see his face, but maybe.. maybe he didn't disapprove.

She had spent her entire life believing that, that maybe he did feel some affection for her, and it was just hidden from plain sight. If she looked carefully, and she believed...

All of that was over now. Her father's face, his heart.. all of it was frozen in time. And she was drawn forward. Another day was dawning. She was moving now, moving away from him. She was looking back, and her father was fading.. slowly. Fading into darkness, with the final end of the long night.

-----

The seal was gone, but Sasuke's arm ached and buzzed with angry swollen chakra. It would have to be fixed. The ANBU would have to patch him back together, and that was fine. Sasuke would be delighted to be their problem. He could survive until then.

But his arm still hurt from shoulder blade to fingertips, and annoyed him with the pain. Getting it up and over his head hurt like a bastard. Poking at the wound made him shake, it hurt so much. He poked it a few more times, for good measure. Harder. Harder. He meant it. He wasn't going back.

He was going to stay. As if this were even a difficult decision.. how hard was the choice? Hinata's warm house versus Orochimaru's repulsive hovel-lairs? Hinata's understanding and affection versus Kabuto's smirk, and Orochimaru's endless games? He was just being foolish, worrying about this. He was going to stay.

He had to. Even if he lost his nerve, even if Orochimaru turned the screws in his head and pulled more post-hypnotic shit on him. Even if the Hokage really did stick him in prison and leave him there. He couldn't go back. The seal was gone.

He poked one extremely painful, swollen part in particular, the chakra shadow of one of the tomoe, maybe. Tears sprang to his eyes. It felt really fucking real now, unbreakable. Contracts seared into his flesh. Orochimaru's name was off him, once and for all.

There was that ill-advised summoning business with the snakes, too, but fine. He'd deal with that. He'd find a Konoha jounin who used snake magic. He'd learn from them. He'd rather deal with the fucking snakes, the real snake demons, than Orochimaru any goddamn day of the week, anyway.

He'd nudged Hinata towards bed in his usual way, the way he did things like this when he had to. Too abruptly. He wasn't good with words, with being there for anyone. He was a horrible friend, he knew. He wasn't sure he'd do much better as a lover.

As opposed, that is, to a fucktoy, right? Orochimaru's pretty little piece of flesh? Orochimaru's plaything, running away.. but amazingly, he had no energy for rage, either.

Later, for that. Mostly he wanted her to get some proper rest. He intended to take her upstairs to the couch, stoke up the fire again against the creeping drafts of chill from the sealed door. He'd planned to go drag himself away somewhere else, sleep as he did when he was out in the dank Otokagure forests, or too furious with himself to go and sleep in his room, like a normal person.

Like someone, that is, who wasn't fucking up everything, and ruining his chances to avenge his family and put things finally back together again. He'd climb into the stone belfries of Orochimaru's warehouse cinderblock village. A village in name only, mostly just a series of dusty unkempt tunnels and raw-masonry hideouts, lairs for poisonous snakes. Wherever he was given to sleep, it always took on the same mixed smell of mildew and slime moulds and illness, the same sick wind of ill fortune that ran through the entire dank place. Full of Orochimaru's sweet-smelling poisons, the same ones that ran slow black fingers through his veins. Otokagure was an utter rathole. No wonder he didn't want to go back, he thought, with a peevish little grimace.

So, he would stay. It wasn't as if he could go back to Orochimaru with his promises broken.

But he wasn't ready to be comfortable, either. He wasn't ready to pretend that he was clean enough, forgiven enough, to touch her. To lie next to her. She decided, she took him with her- it was her decision . She invited him and he went with her. He was filthy, he was the same godforsaken runaway that she'd taken in days earlier.. but if she was going to overlook all that, he'd be a damned fool to argue with her.

So he could accept it... her warm arms, her warm bed. He felt as if he could.

And daytime was easier, always. Rage came slower, the demons that drove him faded out in direct sunlight, just a bit.. and he could no longer see their whirling red eyes. He disappeared from them, their hands couldn't find him, they stumbled through darkness bleeding from their old fatal wounds, and now, only Hinata was with him. He was tired... he was losing his ability to be cynical and expect nothing, hate everything.

He asked her how it would be, and she told him. Her family would arrive in the evening. Over the course of the day, maybe, her sister and her cousin would arrive, and the old woman would come to fetch them. Hinata would have to go perform her duties and he would have to either hide away or be hidden by her family.. or simply slip away and go to Naruto and Sakura. But.. until then, they had no need to go anywhere. He had hoped to walk with Hinata in the aftermath of the ice storm, see all the power lines crashed to the ground with her hand warm in his. Maybe there would still be time for that.

Hinata was exhausted. Her voice was a hollowed whisper, and not just from the tears. He noticed that she wasn't even crying anymore, he saw the flat, tired look in her eyes. He told her to rest so that she would have the strength to face her family, and she produced keys to a lower level. An iron skeleton key hidden under a floorboard, then a hidden iron lock in one of the closets off the main hallway. A genjutsu seal that turned on the mechanism of a lock, he'd never seen that before. Her house must be littered with hundreds of little esoteric jutsus like this, little bits of forgotten pasts.

She took him to bed with her...

..down to a hidden third level, sunken entirely in bedrock. They had chiseled out the floor, and it was pleasantly rough under his feet, solid and cool with the certainty of the deep earth. They had set the polished wood boards of the walls against pure, hard rockface. There was a small bathhouse pool down here, cavernous and marbled, a massive reflecting tub set in the stone. Carved from it, he sees, glimpses, through the open paper door. There was also a bedroom, a beautiful cedar jewelbox with walls set with enameled screens, the glitter of goldleaf flashing in the first bright light of day, too bright against his tired eyes. The futon itself looked freshly tended. The sheets and pillows smelled of fresh laundry detergent. Hinata retrieved a quilt from the bureau, and if he wasn't so tired the fan pattern would have meant more to him... all these echoes of his family, here.. like silent patient ghosts, waiting for him with perfect Zen serenity. Waiting for him to come around, give it up. This last bit of childish rage.

But there was no time for that, or for embarrassment. They undressed, back to back, too tired to peek. He stripped down to his boxers, she slid under the covers as he politely turned his head to give her some privacy, he saw only the collar of her mesh shirt against her white neck and shoulder, the dark cool spill of her hair on the pillows. Probably just her shirt and underwear. He could imagine her soft curves of white flesh coated in that mesh fabric, cotton panties, but he was too tired, his body couldn't even misbehave and embarrass him over that thought.

She wanted him to stay with her, she pulled on his arm, so he got into bed beside her. There was no time or energy for blushing or silliness over just getting into one another's arms. Settling down. She fell asleep first. He had a moment, one endless long perfect pause of morning stillness... just to be alone, feel her body's warmth, her soft heat. The sweet, gentle sound of her slow breathing. To reflect, just for one moment, on what he has been given... he can't imagine why. He doesn't deserve this. But it's real. She's here. It is happening.

And it's comforting.. he feels like he can get away without sulking for a moment. He strokes her shoulders as he lies with her, cuddling her as best he can. He could do this once. There was a time when he wasn't just a raw nerve ending of anger, and he could be close to people. He could close his eyes and remember his mother's arms... that was safer, and easier than trying to deal with Itachi, the memory of all his messed-up feelings for that. His inhibitions were dissolving in the morning sunlight, he wanted to just hold her, touch her, stay close to her. The reasons didn't matter. The need to be strong, and invulnerable.. that didn't matter either.

But.. well, he was still himself, wasn't he? Was he any less messed up, any less damaged for this? He still had no clan to his name.. was her family actually going to allow this? He could hardly imagine it. Hinata was the clan heir, she would have power, clearly.. she would have some say, but he's still the criminal, the runaway, the missing-nin, Orochimaru's instrument. That hasn't changed. He hasn't changed...

And no matter what, no matter what low he had to sink to, no matter what degraded filthy thing he had to do, to allow to be done to him, no matter what, he would do it. He would kill his brother. He would avenge the clan. That was who he was.

And that has not changed. Lying here, Hinata's warm arms around him, Hinata's soft hair feathered over his arm, his shoulder, the safety of Hinata's house and her acceptance and her understanding, the sweetness and warmth of her body... He'll still get Itachi. No matter what he had to let go of, no matter how he had to crawl back to his village, his tail between his legs like a whipped dog, no matter what he had to do to be forgiven, to get back on that right track, to get some real strength for a change. No matter what, he'd do it.

And maybe.. just maybe Naruto never told the village about.. well, fuck, about the Valley, about almost-killing him. About Sasuke taunting him later, that second time. Unsheathing his sword and showing the blade to Naruto, telling Naruto that he'd kill him and do it like it was nothing to him. That it meant nothing, he felt nothing, it was all just a throwaway whim of his... He really had said that. A whim. This was going to be impossible.. repenting for all of this.

And that was stupid anyway.. telling Naruto that. Telling him that it was whimsy.. like he'd ever done anything on a whim.. ever. That was so stupid, Naruto would have never believed that...

But still, lying here, Hinata asleep in his arms, the sun burning at the edges of the window... Sasuke thought he could feel something changing, maybe. All of these cowardly chickenshit little habits of indifference, of never feeling anything, of not needing anyone, hating everything... all of that would have to change, because none of them would be useful anymore. He would have to change.

But at the moment...

He sighed. He was finding it hard to stop thinking about Naruto, thinking about the only fucking friend he ever had, really. Thinking about taking that good thing and just throwing it away. Spitting in Naruto's face. Over.. and over.. and over again.

He didn't know how he was even going to face Naruto and Sakura again. He'd end up doing it again, pushing them away. He wouldn't know how to do anything else. Hinata was an aberration, a one in a million chance.. a person he didn't have to push away. Naruto and Sakura... well, he didn't know how to be with people, be close to them. He'd end up shoving them away again. He hadn't changed one little bit.

He finally fell asleep. He didn't dream. A mercy. Always a mercy. Just the snake, earlier. Maybe it was okay... maybe it would be all right.

----

After a long endless night of ice and snow, there came a day full of lazy dreams. Hinata felt she could rest, somewhere, in a place where she didn't have to be awake, and she didn't have to know. She forgot. Maybe Sasuke was right and she could never forget, not for a second. But maybe some other part of her carries that truth. She falls into the warm sunshine embrace of memories. A favorite one. Naruto-kun. The training ground. The day of the chuunin exam's final matches.

She spoke, then, in a way she had never dared to before. He glanced at her, his bright blue eyes flashing pure and beautiful in the clear sunlight. His blond hair burned dark and molten gold. He was so warm, and so full of energy.. she hid behind the log dummies because she almost couldn't bear to look right at him, he was so hot to the touch. She was too young to fantasize..

..even when she was older, she couldn't. She'd burn her fingertips, thinking about him. He was too much, too fast, too bright. He touched her with his words, his happy, enthusiastic split-second glance, and her entire world was lit up with temple fires. The sacred wells of Hyuga strength, burning in her imagination, the vestal cauldrons they'd light over her father's body, the flames leaping high and dark against the bright sky. High noon. Fire burning against fire. She remembered Naruto, and somewhere deep in the fabric of the dream, she wondered how this would change things.

She hid behind him, and she hid from him. The were chances, and she didn't take them.

But in the dream, she didn't have to acknowledge fear, or what she had done. She could just see, and feel. She had wanted him so badly, once. But it was something she couldn't even acknowledge to herself. She couldn't even imagine it, the two of them together. She could only be near him. Hope that something would work out.

And now, she woke up to Sasuke, sleeping beside her, heavy and warm. She saw the tense knots in his brow, around the edges of his eyes, even in sleep. He looked exhausted, tired, sad, just worn down to the bone.. even as he slept.

He was so different than Naruto, in almost every way.

All of them were, their team. They were strange, exotic.. so different, bright and intense in some way that her team just wasn't. She couldn't be part of that, Team Seven, the secret world between them. The hidden, silent unspoken things that flashed between Naruto and Sakura, in their bright eyes. In their silence. It stood out, that silence. It was uncharacteristic of them. They were charismatic, flashy people. They commanded attention, with their clear voices, their determination, burning hot and fast, or slow and steady. She was nothing.. nothing.. like them.

But Sasuke fit with them. She could see it now. Darkness to their light. Maybe he was what they needed to struggle against, but... She was an imperfect fit. She was a friend to Naruto and Sakura, turning aside their offers of more with a slow hand. Uncertain, but knowing that something just wouldn't fit underneath it all. She didn't know how she would come to fit in with Sasuke. He would stay.. she believed that. But what would happen.. whatever would happen, it would be her responsibility. This choice was hers.

But the warm touch of the sun lulled her back to sleep. She dreamed of confused, happy tangles of training with her team. She dreamed of Kurenai-sensei's quiet eyes and the hard gleam of knowing in them. She didn't dream of her family or her house or the trouble coming, marking it with silence. It was very Hyuga of her, classically Hyuga, to simply fall silent and leave it unsaid. It was strange, the way her father had to die to make her feel like a Hyuga at all.

As if his spirit haunted her... Or became her, mingled into her blood.

But that was not Hyuga at all, the old country's wispy mythologies and beliefs. There were no ghosts in the hard Buddhist reckoning of her family's eternal eye.

Her father would not approve.

His ghost couldn't be near her. Only Sasuke, was.. but...

She dreamt and forgot. She was sure she felt her father's hands on her shoulder, channeled somehow in the warmth and closeness of Sasuke's sleeping body, his still, slow breathing. Things that just couldn't be real coming back.. coming to her.. deep in the underweave of her dreams.

----

Sasuke was fairly certain his parents would not approve of this, sleeping with a girl he barely knows. Even if it is platonic.

Hinata woke first, which didn't please him. He found her staring into the morning brightness, the sky on fire with cold sunlight over the shaggy evergreens outside the window. The snow was brilliantly white under the direct light, he had to shield his eyes. He got up to pull the paper doors closed, shading the bed from the piercing light. She said nothing, for a moment, when he got back into bed with her, nudged her and told her that she should sleep.

"I don't think they will take you to prison." she said, drowsily. Like a little kitten, her eyes weren't even open yet. He brushed his fingertips over her eyelids as lightly as he could.

"Don't worry about that." he told her.

"My family won't let them take you.. even if they want to.."

He really had no idea. It would be up to the Hokage, the Fifth... and he remembers that she was a strange woman, to say the least.

But Hinata wouldn't sleep, she woke up further and tried to argue in his favor. He let her, because it was so strange to him, he couldn't get worked up about it, and he couldn't feel like he had to push her away.

"But.. all you've done is run away." she said, as she closed her eyes. Her voice was heavy with concern, drawing him down towards her. It was amazing that he could actually like anyone this much, that anyone could make him feel this immediately, sharp need to comfort, protect. It really was crazy, all of it.

"You haven't killed.. you didn't break that many rules, and you didn't harm the village..." Hinata murmured. And the recriminations crumbled, made him think that maybe it was a betrayal in name only, maybe in the eyes of the law he was just a pawn in someone else's criminal record.But a betrayal in his heart, because he did mean to leave. He gave up that sacred trust of loyalty. And that was everything.. that was what his father and mother taught him to hold to, and he let go...

Hinata finally fell silent, obeyed, settled down in his arms and went back to sleep. He slept again, too. He was far more tired than he could guess. The seal played with him in his dreams. And in those dreams, he was leaking blood and chakra, spilling it through his hands like seawater, an ocean of it lapping in waves at his ankles. He walked over shifting sands, but the ocean didn't pull him down, or push him out. Nothing was going to force his hand. It was frightening most of all, somehow, to think that he really, really was in charge. This was his decision.

But it's rationalization, he knows, even as Hinata says it. He appreciates her compassion, but he knows better.

The fact is, when Naruto faced him, and told him that so many others had risked their lives for him? The genin that must have come with him, maybe some of them were dead, their lives lost just so Naruto could pursue him to the Valley. What had he said? Something arrogant, stupid, he was full of the heady, dizzy high of Orochimaru's energy. Naruto named them, didn't he? All the genin that had come? What had Sasuke said? Good for them. He spat in Naruto's face. He couldn't have cared less.

They were Konoha ninja, they were taught from the moment they became genin at all that they must fight to protect eachother. They must stick together. That sacred trust, the backbone of the village itself, and Naruto's team of genin had reached out their hands, reached after him. Maybe some of them had died that day, but they'd come. For him. They would not let him go.

He looked into Naruto's blue eyes and heard that. Understood it, but...

Did he care?

No. Not at all. He didn't care if Naruto's entire mission team had died, at that moment. If his entire Academy class was lying scattered in bloody pieces, on the long road he'd cut across the land to Orochimaru's side. If his own team, for that matter...

So. He did deserve to go to prison. For the rest of his life. And they should throw away the key.

If Hinata knew... If she really knew..

She'd still do this. She was too kind. It made him sick, to think that no matter what he did, she'd put up with it. She'd try to save him. He could shake her from sleep right now, brutalize her any way he wanted. He could do everything short of killing her and she'd still speak on his behalf to her family, wouldn't she...?

Like Sakura, who begged him to stay, promising him everything she had, it had made him feel like the lowest of the low, listening to her. And he'd had the horrible sense that she really would do anything for him. Worse, that she'd take anything he did to her, she'd put up with any amount of abuse. Sickening. He would hurt her, he had hurt her before, with some clumsy word or another. And maybe, with Orochimaru's blood pulsing through his veins, he'd hurt her far worse that that, as much as he could, just because he could. It turned his stomach.

And worse, it cut him to the quick of that old self, the part of him that was a vengeful black-eyed ghost. The part that would have taken anything- anything- Itachi did, and still loved him. The part of him that still took it. Anything and everything. He couldn't stand it.

But.. no. Hinata was not this way.

No... there was a hard set to the softness in her face. Her eyes had hidden diamond veins of hardness. She did what was necessary. She would turn him out of this house if she had to, if he raised his hand to her, or to her family. If she knew he'd threatened the village...

And it wasn't as if he didn't feel Orochimaru's intoxicating power and want it. Desire did him in, in the end. He followed gladly, he ran into Orochimaru's arms. And if Hinata knew that, knew that only his tactics have changed...

But he lets her sleep. It's done and he can't ever- ever go back. There is nowhere else to go. He's locked himself in, now. Orochimaru lies in the past.. and he has to go forward.

He lies awake for what seems like a long time, watching the sun rise up in the sky. The paper door glows with it's light, Hinata murmurs in her sleep, and shifts against him slightly. He could close his eyes, feel her heartbeat, just feel good for a change.

But to go forward... he had to turn back the pages. Back to the beginning. Back to being small and lesser. Back to working hard and seeing that his father never really turned around and noticed. Seeing that Itachi did, but Itachi was just a lie, a fake act to cover his plans. And Itachi soon torn the whole world down. Back to that howling void of nothingness that followed it, knowing that the only thing that could possibly be done was to kill Itachi. Holding that ambition tightly, stitching his heart back up around it. Like a second heartbeat, like a father's love, it sustained him. Hatred, just as Itachi had said. So Sasuke hated, and he trained and worked. He never faltered from the high watermark of achievement his father demanded. All was well until he met them, his team. Kakashi, Sakura. Naruto.

He sighed, because he didn't want to remember this. He didn't have the energy to even think about them... about the way they started to change him. He got so close to it once. This. Healing. Changing.

But he couldn't handle it. It took him apart, because he was just a dead body stitched up around a searing core of rage and sorrow and that just couldn't add up to a person, or a friend, or a teammate. He wasn't any different now.

Or maybe that wasn't true, maybe that's just what Itachi wanted him to think. Maybe he was just Itachi's pawn from the beginning, just another bit of quivering flesh in Itachi's hands, killed or not killed on a whim. Death for his father and mother and clan. But for him, life and torment. And then, anyway, Orochimaru came. Orochimaru who had Itachi before him, who was interwoven tightly with Itachi, and with Itachi's Akatsuki organization, and all the tedious, self-aggrandizing dark shadows with dark intricate plans of total horseshit therein. Maybe a shinobi shouldn't get impatient with mythologies of darkness and supernatural forces, but really.. it got on his nerves sometimes, all of it. He knew about Akatsuki, only, really, because Orochimaru found it amusing to tell him.

So Orochimaru and Itachi wove their tangled webs of deception, a right and left hand that didn't know what the other was doing. And Sasuke was even more lost and broken than before, caught between them. Not that he was every happy or secure anyway. He felt some beginning of security in Itachi's arms, but that was all just a lie, Itachi's calculated act of brotherly love. Fuck it. Fuck all of this. He's going to prison because he deserves it and he doesn't know how he'll explain any of this to Hinata. Hinata... who believes better of him. He doesn't know if he wants to shatter her illusions of him, or believe in them, try to become them.

That will accomplish nothing. Telling her that he's worthless and he's never had any leg to stand on, not even when his family was alive. Even then.. and he'll stay but it's no solution, he's still himself, he's still the same fucked-up, wretched, dirty, miserable bastard that she hauled in from the snow. He thinks about this and tries to keep the grimace off his face, but fails.

That's when she starts kissing him. Insistently. Right then.

----

Hinata found her father in the crowds of her returning family, in between the loaded piles of baggage, the dignified murmur of voices that filled the front garden, as the servants pulled all the flags down and carried trays of tea for the returning travelers. Hinata flew out of the house on her bare feet, she forgot her sandals. She was full of urgency and she doesn't understand why. She knew that her father will scold her, he would be unhappy with her for some reason, but she rushes to his side.

She found him, he flashed to her byakugan, like a flare against noontime sun. His hair flew out behind him in a long shiny dark plait. his crisp robes moved in the restless breeze. He was so sharp and crisp and real, vivid in her byakugan sights. The storm clouds drifted away, restless winds moved between them. The murmur of the crowd fell away. Hinata slowed to a walk to approach him the way she's meant to. She walked to his side and she stopped, she bowed. Glad to the bottom of her heart, she thinks, just to see him, just be around him. Her father.

She woke up and it took her a minute to remember.

Sasuke was asleep, but she couldn't cry quietly enough. She thought that she hadn't disturbed him, and his arm moved against her. She became aware that he had been lying still, he'd been awake for some time. He didn't seem to mind it when she cried... even though she's so weak, and she can't stop. And this is exactly why her father would have been angry with her, right this minute.

"You shouldn't talk that way." Sasuke said gruffly.

"..if you're angry with me.." she whispered, wiping her eyes.

He sighed crossly. "I'm not angry with you at all, Hinata, I just wish-" He stopped short. He did sound very angry as he said that, but he wasn't looking at her. He'd set his jaw tightly, and she saw the waves of tension locking together in the bone and muscle, stress settling into the deep tissue of his body, seeding illness. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, and said, with some effort it seemed "It's not weakness. So don't feel that it is. And don't blame yourself."

He didn't seem like he had anything left to say after that. So she left him in peace, and simply lay with him in silence. She couldn't decide if she should cling to the traces of the dream, or try to be strong and resolute right now, practice, so she could face her family.

"I should be happy..."

She didn't mean to say that out loud. Silence cast it's own spell. And the silence that fell between them softly nudged her to speak. She felt like he would listen, and he wouldn't be offended. It was different, the confidence he gave her. He made her feel different than Naruto did. "I think.." she whispered. "..I could be happy."

She felt him shift uncomfortably under her head, her hands. "No, you shouldn't be."

"Because of my father."

He didn't answer at all, but his lip twisted, sharply, deep furrows formed in his brow. She looked up at him, the way the clean daylight washed all the color from his pale skin.

"Because of you..." she whispered, closing her eyes.

"You shouldn't be happy."

"I think.. I am, as much as I can be."

"It's too late." he said, tiredly.

She had to pause, drowsy and full of the tangled feelings of the dream as she was. She knew what he was talking about. "For my father," she said. "But it's not too late for you." He didn't seem to like hearing her say that. She could see how difficult this would be, just being with him.

But she was happy. She sat up, braced her arm into the pillows and kissed him, the angry, defiant, surrendered tilt to his head, his sprawled posture on the bed, one arm clutching her, the other loosely tangled in her hair. If either of them moved, it would pull, she'll have to stop him, carefully untangle it.

"I know what I'm doing." she said, closing her eyes, bowing her head. It was a vow. It's the continuation of so many others, taken in the service of that first decision. Some of them taken when she didn't even know she was the heir, that her father had passed.

"You don't want it to be too late..." she added, softly. Trying to remind him, touch his hand to those decisions he made, too. He seemed lost in his own dark thoughts, drifting far from his own guiding lights. She found his hand in her hair and gathered her fingers around his. They were all tangled up now, together. They couldn't be undone.

He sighed, and it was almost a contemptuous snort, but she knew who his contempt is for, and he's not looking at her. His eyes were closed, the slight twitch of his eyelids pushing to the right, to memory and the past, to choices made.

"If I start living for you, it will be the first time." he said, very soflty, his lips brushing against hers as he spoke. He had his hand to the back of her head now, gently enough, but holding her steadily in place. She couldn't move away.

"But you are alive." she said. She stroked one finger over the soft hollow of his throat, finding his pulse. And then, as he spoke, the heavy quiver of his vocal cords.

"I don't deserve this, or you. You know that."

"...as the heir of the house of Hyuga," she said, and her father's exact cadence of words come so easily to her, his voice bright and vivid in her head, blending with her own. She was so close to Sasuke that she could feel the shimmer of heat from his skin, her eyelashes had brushed over his cheek as she closed her eyes. "I will be the judge of that."

"Do you feel alive?" he asked. His voice was a bit sharp, a bit abrupt. He was still holding her tightly. She had to stop for a moment. And as she did, she understood what he was asking.

"You mean, while my father was alive." she said. Forced herself to say. She had told Sasuke about her father, about the way her father was. She hadn't meant to say it, it was a tacit secret between her father and herself, almost as if she hadn't spoken it aloud, it wouldn't have been really true. There would have still be hope that it hadn't happened, or that Hinata was exaggerating. Or that her father hadn't really meant it.

Sasuke exhaled gruffly and she saw him turn a bit embarrassed and uncertain, seeing that he'd made her cry. She saw him tell her in a few different indirect ways that he was sorry. He didn't let her go, if anything, he pulled her closer.

"Not then." she whispered against his cheek. Between kisses. "Now, I do. I have my team and my friends." She eased herself down on one elbow, and leaned over, kissing his forehead, each sharp cheekbone, the clean line of his nose bridge, the edge of his jaw, working her way around, slowly, searching by touch, keeping her byakugan locked behind her closed eyes. But she had a subliminal sense of chakra, and she could feel it moving in his skin as she pressed her lips, tracing it's hidden lines.

This is something she would never have had the nerve to do before. And just keep doing it, keep showing simple, clear-headed affection. It felt right. Sasuke didn't stop her. He made one soft noise, a sigh, almost of contentment. He pulled his fingers clear of her hair and placed his hands on her shoulders, his fingers kneading her skin gently through the sheer mesh of her shirt. It was very loosely-woven fabric, and she wore nothing under it. Her chest was sliding against his, there was almost nothing in between his skin and hers. And, as she went on, his hand slipped down her shoulder and stroked the indentation of her spine. It made her shiver, something about the way he touched her. And his hand paused on the hem of her shirt.

This too, would be a memory, an impression in flaming sunlight heat, sun spilling into the room in long bright rectangles from the windows. A corner fell over them. She felt the heat seeping into both of them, she didn't have to use her byakugan. She just felt the gentle pressure of his hand, the way he looked at her, breathing a bit quickly now. It was strange, their training maybe.. they were already breathing in synchrony. She thought that they were already close. On some level, they had already done this, touched.. in mind, if not in body.

When she bent to kiss him again, his hand slid through her hair, up the back of her neck and moved her down to meet his lips, exactly. Precise, direct... he moved under her smoothly, with more assurance than she could ever muster. He turned her onto her back, lying over her, the warmth of his body shielding her from the entire world, all it's frightening possibilities.

She honestly couldn't think of whether it was wrong, whether it was disrespectful to her father. Miya would come, and she didn't sense anyone else's chakra anywhere near. The grounds were still blanketed in silence and snow, the ice was melting slowly under the sun's heat. It was turning towards noon.. and she quivered with quiet delight, it felt good, just being held by him and protected this way. The shivers went right through her, quivering into him where they touched, chakra pooling and forming reactive currents. She had to break the kisses, try to breathe. Sasuke kissed her cheek instead, then lower, down to her neck. His lips whispered over her skin, and she was sliding down against the hot press of his body. She couldn't catch her breath, her heart was pounding too hard, beating it's wings against her ribs. Her seal burned under the curious touch of his fingers. Sasuke paused..

And when he did, she saw the downcast planes of his face, whitened with the cool light of midmorning. Outside the snow glowed effervescent white, and she saw a cloud-white slice of sky over the trees. Sasuke opened his eyes and she saw the hard vivid red of his sharingan. She had never seen it before, it's whirling little dots, it's hard focus. He must have see her shock, or maybe it was just more tight precision, those hard dots locked onto her.

Her fingers slid over his cheek. She felt as if she were held tightly in the sharingan-gaze. She had heard about it. She had never seen it, never had it turning slowly two inches above her face, reflected in two hard red mirrors, everything she was... It was silly to gasp the way she did, and she wasn't exactly frightened. She was more taken aback. She really had no right, given how much she'd used her byakugan. She wondered if Sasuke had been shocked this way the first time he'd seen her eyes change. But then.. then he was leaning down, his soft hair was falling over her forehead. He was kissing her gently, reassuring her. He was balancing on his good arm. Behind him, an oilslick rainbow of chakra spilled from the remains of his seal. She avoided touching it, it would have to still be hurting him. There were so many bright paths of chakra moving under his skin, she could touch those instead. He was breathing faster as she did, he could feel it. He was kissing her neck, that dangerous way he had before. The way that had threatened to make everything rush ahead. But this time...

..she just sighed, let herself enjoy it, stretching out under him. She could tell that he was trying very hard to be gentle. And somehow the contrast between his rough callused fingers and the care he took was amazingly exciting. She remembered her uncles telling her about mixed blood and making snide remarks about the Uchiha clan, she saw that jagged edge of sharingan-blood in Sasuke, but she found it wildly beautiful. She was touching chakra channels that lead deep into his body now, the root chakra, she was pushing this forward. Soon, very soon. If neither of them stopped this, right now, it would happen.

But it did feel good. She could catch her breath. She could try to think... it felt wonderful, but she couldn't smile and show him how much she liked it. None of these impossible feelings could be fixed. She kept slipping. When they had to stop and breathe, she said things to Sasuke that were useless, that didn't help anything. She told him that she needed to stop crying, because crying was not helping her in any way. And he nodded, and frowned just a bit more, and she felt worse for reminding him. That slipped out too and he locked his black eyes on her, hard and fast.

"Nonsense." he said. "Don't be ashamed."

"It's not shame." she argued, weakly.

"It's a waste of energy to deny it," he replied, absently now. It seemed to calm him more than her, almost. His hands were very warm, very firm. Very precise. He'd pulled her into that simple embrace, massaging one of her feet now under the covers. To give them both a moment to think, he said. His heartbeat was coming down against her ear.

It did feel good, but she felt bad about feeling good. It was shame. She though that she'd try to remember that he had the right answer before she even thought of the question. She said that too, everything slipped out of her.. and he sighed, tilting the hair out of his eyes with a irritable flick of his head. "Experience." he said. He said that the pattern of calluses on her feet was unusual, and it was because of her gentle fist style and the way it forced her to shift her weight to strike the blows properly. He wanted to talk to her about her taijutsu, at some length. He was distracting her. It was working.. but she felt so bad.

"I can't forget." she whispered. "I'd feel disloyal if I forgot." Or felt good at all.

He looked down at her, and the sunlight flashed across the polished wood floor. Hard, bright light made him white, made his hair shimmer slightly with tiny strands of bright blue. It made him almost atavistic, magical, a son of Amaterasu, a lost prince cast down from heaven. She told him that too, all her silly imagination, and he laughed, short and sharp.

"If only. You won't forget, Hinata."

But he half-smiled, too. There was a touch of color to his cheeks, with a sliver of openness, even behind the hard set of his face, the little cast of sadness.. all these normal things, the way he normally was. He was showing her the truth. As difficult as it was...

She was going to do this. She was going to take him into her house. Deeper than that, closer.. she was going to show him. She wanted him to feel warm and safe, and wanted. She tried to explain, and well...

But this wasn't the time for talking. And it happened so fast, as she turned in his arms and pressed herself against him, kissed him and he kissed her back, his arms slipping around her and tightening. The kisses just got deeper, and it was bottomless, this dark ocean, the warmth between their bodies. She felt him touch the seal on her chest, but hesitate, and she wanted him to touch her. She blushed when she had his hand in hers, when she placed it carefully on her breast. He had been waiting for permission, and there it was. His half-smile was almost soft, gentle. He didn't seem to have to be angry at anyone at this moment. It felt right.. she could do this. His kisses eased her worries away.

At the small of his back, she felt quivers of chakra, spirals of energy running through him, rushing blood gathering. She felt him hard against her, she couldn't help but feel it. They were pressed together. And she was ready too. There was nothing between them but her mesh shirt, his boxers, her panties.

He was surprisingly gentle, in the way he pushed the hem of her shirt up, and his fingertips stroked her bare skin. She had to hold back her own little sounds, she felt that she should be quiet. But her skin prickled with giddy electricity when he touched her. He must have felt the same way, his breath broke rhythm when she rubbed against him. She couldn't get her hand down between them.. and she didn't yet dare to. But she looked up at him, his closed eyes, the half-smile on his face, the lack of tension now, around his jaw and eyes... the shallow quickness of his breathing, and hers. His eyes opened again, dark and bottomless, as sunlight knifed between them, cutting around the edge of the paper screen.

He was waiting for her. This was up to her. There was no one else to do this for her, so just let herself react. She squirmed against him, and said '...please...' nothing more than a whisper.

Something in his eyes deepened, the dark color there unfurling, somehow, into velvety shades of intermediate black, rich and deep, as gentle as his hands. She raised her arms for him, and he lifted the shirt right off her. For a moment there was just heat and sunlight, his hair scattering silken and heavy on her bare skin as he bent and traced one nipple, then the other, slow precise sweeps of his tongue. She gasped, but the air was hushed and close. Sound couldn't travel.

This too, somehow, felt like she was dreaming. It was their mingled heat, the laziness of the late morning sunlight. The shock of him being so close.. and of daring to do this. He had his sharingan in place again, he said that he wanted to remember. They were moving together, and the friction alone was almost enough. She thought about touching him more directly, she thought about what he'd feel like in her hands. She had already cried out for him, very softly. It was a struggle to not do so again, he was stroking one nipple between two wet fingers. She shivered under him, looked up at his hot shadow against the midday sun. She could almost imagine touching him and watching his eyes change, pleasure drift across his face. He was watching her so intently, his sharingan locked tight as he touched her, and then gathered her in his arms, crushed her against him. She was already intertwined with him, chakra flowed between them, jumping the wet connection where her lips pressed to his, and she parted them under his insistence, let him in. That first glancing wet contact was electric, the chakra reacted. To her hidden byakugan, they were one chakra tangle. Everything else that separated them, clothes and skin and inhibition, it was just a formality.

And it was unbearable.. these deep hungry kisses, his arms locked around her and her legs locked around his waist. Shamelessly, she thought. There was no reason to be ashamed. Maybe she just wasn't used to this. Or maybe she was afraid. There was no real first time for a kunoichi who broke her own hymen and was taught these tactics before she even knew what to do with them. There was no reason to be afraid, or to hesitate. It was shame, but it was the shame of feeling good, of being approved of by someone, of feeling like she was getting away with something. But she wasn't stopping.

There were reasons, the moral argument that it was right to save him, to show him this affection, that they were both adults and this was no one's business but their own. Maybe she was just talking herself out of her own inhibitions... and she was rubbing against him right now, she could feel him, hard and warm through the cotton fabric of his boxers. And herself, wet and anxious, nothing but dampening fabric separating them. His hot breath spilled over her face as he moved over her, and she arched her back, these movements had fallen into rhythm and synchrony, too. As if they were sparring, or their bodies just understood one another perfectly, and were just waiting for their better judgment to catch up.

Still... Someone had to stop this. Someone.. either one of them. Even if they did nothing else, the friction alone would do it.

"If you're sure, Hinata." he said quite seriously, almost sternly, breaking the kisses for just a moment. She opened her eyes and saw him leaning over her, balancing his weight on his uninjured arm, curling the other one harmlessly over her, his fingers gently brushing over her breasts. There was a faint flush to even his pale skin, a deep sparkle to his eyes, cutting through and softening even the hard glare of his sharingan.

"It's your decision." he whispered close to her ear.

And she had decided.

Into her house, into her heart, maybe. Into her body. He needed the comfort of it, and so did she.