Still Waters Run Deep

by Winter Weatherman

Hinata stumbles across a heavily injured Sasuke in the forest and smuggles him into her house. With her father away, anything could happen. An attempt to write SasuHina somewhat realistically without glossing over Sasuke's issues.

14. Danger

What the hell was wrong with Hinata's family?

Sasuke had met one member, heard stories about another, and so far he was deeply unimpressed. An unbelievable asshole of a father, and this other son of a bitch, Neji? Sasuke's own family had been far from perfect, but this was ridiculous. And these people seriously believed that they were somehow the absolute pinnacle of perfection? Sasuke remembered clan politics well enough to know that all the noble clans of Konoha boasted that they were the strongest in the village. That was so normal as to be hardly worth noticing. But these Hyuga... how the hell did they sing their own praises with a straight face? Couldn't they see how fucked up they were?

Hinata's asshole father, for instance. He'd said to Hinata's face- in front of multiple witnesses- that it would be better for the family if she was dead. That they 'didn't need her'? Hinata's voice had quivered unconsciously as she'd told him about it, and the sound magic told the tale. It spelled out the pain so well that Sasuke winced, just to hear that much raw feeling. And that asshole, that asshole, that asshole-! Thinking he could treat her that way, that he could just fucking destroy her if he wanted. She was his child, therefore he could do whatever he wanted. Sasuke was glad this bastard was dead. And a heart attack wasn't a nice way to go, it hurt. It took a few minutes. Sasuke couldn't give less of a fuck, he was happy that this asshole had suffered, and then just dropped dead. He was delighted.

His own father, for all his failings, had never, ever done anything like that.

Well, no- his father had merely completely ignored him. He'd worked himself to pieces just to get his father to actually look at him, see him- and half the time his father just wouldn't notice at all. Even when his father started to pay a bit of attention to him, even then it was false. It wasn't about him, it was about Itachi. His father only looked at him at all because Itachi was starting to disobey. He was just a momentary substitute, and an inferior one at that. And he wasn't going to think about this, not now. Not while Hinata needed him, and he couldn't freak out or drop into a depression. And with her cousin lurking around, he couldn't afford to anyway. He had to keep his wits.

And.. about that.

So Neji was the strongest of his generation. Neji was already a jounin and had become one when he was fourteen. So Neji had the byakugan, and all Sasuke had was the inferior, cursed sharingan. No matter- he would win this fight. He'd pull out forbidden snake jutsus on this Neji asshole, if necessary. He didn't give a damn, he was going to pound this asshole into the ground because Neji richly deserved it. And it simply had to be done. He'd do whatever it took.

And another thing- just what the hell did this Neji asshole think he knew?

Sasuke turned and caught him in the full pinion of the sharingan, looked hard and saw all the slight flickers of gentle fist in the tiny motions Neji made, that no one could really stop their body from making, the muscles jumping ever so slightly, as if with the fluid pressure of each heartbeat. The gentle fist- useless to Sasuke, who could fit his hands into the motions instantly now, but who could never have the byakugan to make it all work.

And in all honesty, sharingan-taijutsu took it's toll. Kakashi had been the first one to show him that, showing him how to push and force his body to keep up with what he saw, as Neji's taijutsu-expert teammate zipped through his perfect memory. And he'd done it. He'd managed. He still wrenched and strained every major muscle in his legs, doing it. Worth it? Maybe before his ankles and knees had swollen up in protest.

Of course he went into seclusion. Make it look effortless. Maintain the facade of genius, like he was one- like he was Itachi. That's what everyone thought, anyway. He was just smaller, lesser-Itachi. He was the only tiny scrap of Itachi this village had left.

So maybe that was what asshole Neji thought he knew? That Sasuke was the same blood as Itachi, that Sasuke was doomed and soiled with that same blood? That Sasuke was guilty, guiltier by far than Itachi, because he had just been too weak to stop it all from happening...?

"I'm going to see Hinata." he said, because if Neji had anything of note to say, he could just say it, and Sasuke was going to go look in on Hinata because it wasn't any of Neji's business- and Neji could just go fuck himself if he didn't like it.

Sasuke actually didn't much give a flying fuck if Neji was a genius, Neji was the strongest, Neji was a real prodigy- Neji was not going to stand between him and Hinata. Neji could mind his own goddamn business. Sasuke would be quite happy to beat the crap out of Neji if Neji wanted to force the issue.

Neji-niisan. Neji-fucking-niisanAnger was carelessness, but anger was hard focus, too. Anger and jealousy were crystal-clarity, Sasuke could see everything about this Neji asshole, the way he just thought he was so much better than Hinata, but still wanted to push her around to make himself feel big. And why? What was he missing? What bitter little hole in him made him want to put in all that effort to build himself up while tearing her down? Everyone wants something, Sasuke-kun Orochimaru was a sick piece of garbage. Everyone has something you can use to control them. Orochimaru was a genius, too. Everyone has this weakness- find it and seize them by it. Orochimaru had an expert torturer's grasp of human nature. This piece of shit Neji had something he felt so bad about, something that made him want to dig at Hinata, tear Hinata to little pieces. Sasuke would find out what it was, he'd get his fingernails into Neji- and then he'd tear Neji apart.

Casually. As if it were nothing. Exactly the way Orochimaru had. So many times. Right in front of him. Sasuke had the sharingan memories. He had the malice to want to do it. He had everything he needed. He had this bastard square in his sights. He'd wait for Hinata to feel better, to grieve, to put this behind her. Then he'd tear this asshole to shreds.

-----

There was a conversation with Neji, lost somewhere in the fog Hinata was in, now. She had sleepwalked through it, as if she wasn't there at all. Sasuke rose from the table, spoke to her briefly, then left to train, Neji had looked hard into the far wall, his face as still and grim as a stone statue. As Sasuke's footfalls faded, he said to her, in a tense half-whisper: "Hinata-sama, what is he doing here? He's a missing-nin! He's in the bingo book as an S-class criminal!"

But even as he said that, and his voice was sharp with disbelief, he didn't look at her. He almost studiously avoided looking at her.

Hinata tried her best to explain. She had found him. She hadn't wanted him to be tortured and killed. She knew he was a missing-nin... but she just couldn't do that to Naruto and Sakura. And later, even though it had begun as something that was about them, her friends.. it turned into something else.

Neji listened without comment, as she blew her stuffed nose in the clumps of wet kleenex that seemed to accumulate around her like damp snow, wherever she went. She didn't look at him either. She didn't want to see the look in his eyes, the irritation he must have felt. And she felt, herself, that he must have lost respect for her... he must have thought her smarter than this, less foolhardy. She only heard him sigh, exhaling slowly, as she finished what little explanation she could give.

He must have looked at her then, seen how paralyzed with distress she was. He must have seen that she could barely speak at all, she could hardly be questioned about this. He must have been reminded about the real reason he was here, that she was crying so hard. So he took her by the arm and guided her to the tatami room. They had another 'conversation' there that was mostly silence. Hinata thought she could hear all the unspoken words, unspoken feelings, all the anger and resentment, their whole difficult relationship that just wasn't. Like ghosts... floating around in the same smooth, intricate coils as the smoke from the candles. Neji blew them out, one by one. All but one. He left that one for her. And then he just walked out.

Momoe came to bring her tea and dinner as Hinata retreated to her room. She couldn't remember what was said so much as Momoe's warm, confident voice.. that so many other girls she knew just had that easy confidence. Tenten had it. They were able to face the world with a smile and an innate sense of their own worthiness. No one could that that away from them. Momoe put the tray down and helped Hinata out of her elaborate kimono, because Hinata was just too useless to do much of anything for herself. She was just sitting at her desk, staring at the papers there. Her bank ledger book was out, open, set neatly in alignment with her pens, and the block of powdered ink she'd use to place the stamp. She stared, limply, and her eyes would blur with tears. The neat black numbers would ripple in front of her, jump as her eyes unfocused. Momoe got her up and out of her fine clothes. She set Hinata down in front of her dressing mirror and brushed her long hair out. A bit like she had when Hinata was a small child, small enough to not have had it all hacked off, because a little ninja didn't need to have long hair.

Hinata watched Momoe's nimble fingers in the mirror. Anything to avoid looking at her own face, which was almost grayish with fatigue and sorrow. Her eyes were almost like bruises, pink and swollen. Her nose too, was raw with all this endless crying. Even then, as she sat, she had a crumpled tissue in her hand.

She asked Momoe why they were doing this. Sasuke and Neji. Why? It wasn't the only problem.. it wasn't even the biggest problem she had. It wasn't even something that she couldn't guess at, either. Was she frustrated with it? Angry with them.. for acting like bickering little boys? She couldn't tell. The strange thing was that even though she knew that she was sad, she couldn't quite feel it. She couldn't feel anything. She was just crying.. but inside, she was still numbed right through.

"Older brothers never like their sister's boyfriends." Momoe said, lightly. She was pinning a heavy section of Hinata's hair up in a carved wooden hair ornament. This was to cheer Hinata up. It was an old ritual. Hinata would be upset, Momoe would put her hair up in fancy styles and tell her that she was a very pretty girl, and she should smile. Hinata would try to smile. She didn't think that she could do it now, but there was some comfort in this... anyway.

"And the Uchiha kid.." Momoe laughed gently. "He's so cute, Hinata-sama. I can see why Neji-san would worry about you being alone with him." Momoe's giggle was both conspiratorial and reassuringly normal. As if this was just a normal talk, things were essentially going to be okay.

And life would go on, her father just would not be there.

That would become normal, her father not being there. Just Hanabi, Neji and herself. A new house of Hyuga.. her distant imagining of how it could be, if the house could really be made to change. It was as slow and impervious as a glacier. It would move, but so slowly. It would crush everything and everyone under it, everything that lay in it's way, in the meantime. Change would be destructive, dangerous.. necessary. Hinata closed her eyes. Shino's words- have the courage to accept both the change, and the dark places it leads. She accepted it. It didn't make this hurt less, or make it seem any less impossible. There was only the sound of Momoe's polished wooden brush going through her own long hair. And their breathing, the sound of the clock. The early hours of darkness. Silence, around her now.

She heard their voices out in the hallway, Neji and Sasuke. Sharp with hostility, both of them. She looked at herself in the mirror then, and only then. She knew she'd have to do something. She couldn't just let them kill one another. It would be nice, yes, if there was someone else other than this bedraggled, red-eyed terrified girl in the mirror to run the house. But there wasn't. She had to do something.

Momoe heard too.. and she sighed, almost cheerfully. Because to Momoe nothing was insurmountable, she was optimistic, always. She was enough to pull Hinata out of her worse depressions, sometimes... Momoe told her that this was like the housecats, like the incident with a pair of toms who just couldn't get along with one another. The cats were eventually moved to live in entirely different wings of the house. And even then, they sometimes sat on either side of the closed door, hissing at one another's shadow through the rice paper.

But Hinata did nothing. Momoe went in her place. Hinata heard her absently smacking the butt of the hairbrush into her open palm as she talked to them, as cheerfully as before. Nothing special about the words themselves- now boys, lets not upset Hinata, this is a difficult time and then some words to Neji, suggesting that he go into traditional Hyuga seclusion, to the traditional hours of reflection and meditation. And that maybe Sasuke would like to visit the library instead? Maybe he would like to train? And it was how Momoe spoke, the warmth and brightness in her tone that made it work. Hinata was completely incapable of this. She just didn't have that kind of bright lightness of heart in her. Ever. And now most of all.. more than ever before.

The voices faded. Neji left. Sasuke vanished too. He didn't return for several hours. Momoe went to help with the late dinner that would be served when the family returned, close to morning. And then Hinata was alone with the silence, the gas lanterns, the tick of her little antique water clock. And her thoughts.

She really had tried to explain herself to Neji. She had said many things. They were all worthless, the barest bones of an explanation. He'd said, only- what were you thinking? Quietly incredulous. As if he couldn't believe that she would be so stupid.

She said to him, before that: I found him in the woods, he would have frozen to death. And I didn't want the hunter-nins to take him. And I couldn't do that to Naruto-kun and Sakura-san, they miss him so much! And it had made sense to her, in her own heart.

But as she said the words, they seemed so small and pathetic. She sounded like a guilty little girl, even to herself, making lame excuses. I think I.. like him. I want to.. She couldn't find the words for it. Could she say that she wanted to be with him? That he wanted to be with her, too? The way she felt about Sasuke now, and the way he seemed to feel about her too.. it seemed so delicate and ethereal, a whisper of feelings. Words seemed too clumsy and abrasive. They didn't quite fit. She finally just stopped talking, because she felt she was just digging herself in deeper. She was just making it seem worse and worse, as she tried to explain. She heard Neji sigh, long, almost patiently. But with irritation.

She forced herself to look at him then. But it was hard. She was ashamed of the way she looked, all red-eyed and helpless with grief. She couldn't even explain to herself how she felt, how could she explain to Neji? She looked at him, saw him looking resolutely at the painted scroll hanging on the wall, as if he wanted to look at anything other than her. There was elegant, tightly-contained anger on his face. His emotions were always so dignified, as if painted onto him by a master calligrapher. She envied him his incredible grace, his ability to keep himself so tightly and perfectly in check... as if it were just another Hyuga clan jutsu that he picked out of thin air, executed with astonishing heavenly perfection. She must have seemed so small and pathetic to him.. she always felt that way, standing beside him. She wanted to avoid his eyes. But... she always wanted, too, to get closer to him. As if.. if he accepted her, and loved her, and took her under his wing, then maybe she wouldn't really be worthless after all. She could forget every word her father had said to her, if only Neji would look at her and tell her that she was important to him, that he would help her become as strong as him. That she was strong too..

But for all the dancing around she had done in her own foggy head, she had forgotten that old grudge.. the line of succession. Only now did she remember. It was etched into his face, fine glassy lines of chakra, curved like tiny bonsai trees, flowering with his perfectly contained emotions. He had hated her because she was of the main house, and he was not. Because he was so talented- and she was not. Stunning unfairness- that he should be banished from leading the clan, his father should die, while she was cosseted and protected. In every word he said to her, in front of the chuunin examiners and the other genin and everyone- she heard why do you deserve it? Why? Why should she be so lucky? She was the weak one. He was the strong one. It was so clear to everyone watching, to everyone in the family. She bowed her head. She couldn't argue with him. He was so right to be furious with her. She knew that.

She had put this out of her mind. She wanted it too, secretly.. she wanted to be given the right to be heiress and lead the clan, after her father. She knew it was wrong.. maybe Neji hated her for that, too. He must know, he could see right through her. She couldn't hide anything from him. And now she thought.. he must have begun to believe that her father would choose him, after all. That her father would break the rules, because he had already broken the rules about the clan head teaching a son of the branch house. Even if her father had never said so... how could Neji not have started to hope? So.. she knew that he had every right to be angry. But she just wished... anyway. She wished she could ask him how he was feeling, to tell her. She looked at him and wished she could say something, that she could make him look at her. That she could make this all right for him, somehow.

But what could she say? Please let me know you? Please tell me what you're feeling?

Please forgive me, and love me anyway?

She couldn't say any of that. She was terrified that he would look at her with contempt. The clan head, begging a member of the branch house for a bit of affection! If he looked at her with disgust, she thought her blood would freeze over, instantly. She couldn't bear his scorn. Not now, not ever.

He never let her know him.. he never shared his feelings with her. He never.. ever.. let her get close. She only knew so little, the few words they exchanged in the hallways, or when her father trained them both. A few polite words at meals. A few words- like they were barely even acquaintances. And they were, weren't they? She barely knew him!

There had been one night, about two years ago, when she had accidentally stumbled upon him and Tenten in the darkened garden. She was coming back from training, and she heard their soft voices ahead of her. She caught a glimpse of them through the flowering trees. It had been springtime, and the cherry blossoms had hung in heavy scented clumps of flowers, ghostly white in the torchlight. Neji had been holding Tenten in his arms, kissing her so gently that Hinata's heart dropped into her stomach, she had never seen him that way before. Her cheeks instantly burned, she felt that she had seen something that was not for her to see, that she had intruded. Her aloof cousin, caught in a private moment of deep affection... She had slipped away, neither of them had heard her. It was for the best. Neji would have been angry. Wouldn't he? She was certain he would be. She couldn't help but feel guilty, that she had done something wrong.

But that Neji, the Neji under the cherry trees, talking softly to his girlfriend... that was not the Neji that she would ever know. She knew that. But she ached with loneliness anyway. It made her feel alone in the world. Or worse- unable to ever really be part of it. As if she would be left out of everything. Just the way she was left out of Neji's life. She could catch a few glimpses- guiltily. And then she would have to sneak away, hurriedly, so Neji wouldn't catch her.

And now Neji was somewhere else. She was alone. They were not together. Her father's death changed nothing, brought them no closer at all.

The night wore on towards morning. There were reports that came in, now and then, on the soft feet of servants. The family's traveling party would arrive by daybreak. When the first of these messages had come, Hinata glanced at Neji out of the corner of her eye, saw the little sarcastic twist of his lip that said I doubt that. Neji had very little faith in the family's word... on anything.

Hinata had thought that maybe he had begun to trust them more, but now that she watched him, and thought about it, she could find no evidence of this. Or any reason, for that matter. She got up out of bed. Sasuke was still gone, off in the library, Momoe said. Hinata asked where Neji was. And Momoe showed her. Momoe took her to the far end of the house, where Neji had gone to think.

She sat down with him, and he let her.

They were waiting for Hanabi. They were in the screened porch on the south side of the building. The wooden screens were all pulled closed and latched tightly. Snow was still packed, visibly, between the angled slats. But it was frozen solid, and the space heaters brought the temperature up to a comfortable level. Hinata though that it was a bit like winter survival training at the academy, where the children used jutsus to form powdery snow into wet blocks, and built temporary shelters out of them. Inside, the thick snow walls would admit a dampened strain of light, but very little sound. It was a bit like being underwater, closed in. Safely hidden away, in silence... She had gone to find Neji, because she needed to speak to him. The need was so overwhelming that it drove her out of her snugly warm bedroom and through the house.

Neji was out on the porch, sitting very still. This was a remote part of the house, all but closed down at this time of year, when neither the summer gardens or spring cherry blossoms were out, and all the porch faced was bare trees and desultorily sculpted bare bonsai. It was a summer garden. Hinata thought that Neji must have been meditating, but as she padded up behind him, she saw he was merely staring at the wall.

It was a strange thing for him to do. He was reserved. But she couldn't help but sense, with nothing more than a wispy hint of intuition, a kind of hollowness in him now. Just in his gestures, his body language that was both hard, and slowed, somehow. She thought.. he must have been mourning. His way. She didn't want to disturb him, but he'd heard her.

"Hinata-sama." he said. What he meant was I know you're there. I heard you. So Hinata came in, and chose a place to sit beside him on the floor. A place where she would be close enough that it wouldn't seem that she was trying to not sit beside him, but far enough that she wasn't really beside him, either.

Once there, she thought that maybe all she really needed was to just be around him. Silence could be enough.

"He betrayed the village." Neji said. She heard him draw breath in the silence, but his words still were unexpected. She had grown used to the silence.

"He was very young." she said, after she had composed her own thoughts. "And his family was all killed. We left him all alone."

That word seemed to hang in the air. Alone. All alone.

"The family did." she said. She was staring down at her fingers in her lap, watching her fingers weave together while being somehow disconnected from doing it. "We did." she said, again, softly.

Neji didn't reply. She should have looked at him, tried to guess what he was thinking. But she found herself caught in her own tangle of thoughts for a moment. The reason. The reason why Sasuke wasn't really a criminal. The reason she used to justify it to herself, and it made sense- to her. But she had a quiver of intruding worry, that second, that it wouldn't make sense to Neji. It would sound...

...like she did. When he said "I suppose you're going to tell me that you love him."

Nothing she could say in response could ever sound like anything other than a naive, stupid little girl. She lead with her heart. Her heart meant nothing to Neji. He must, she thought.. think her such a weak and useless clan head. She could see that so clearly. She was saying:

"I trust him."

And Neji was sighing, an slow explosion of held breath. "Of course you do."

And then silence, until Neji said "Because he's nice to you. Am I right?"

He still did not look at her.

"He would be nice to you, do or say anything, Hinata-sama.." Neji said, wearily. "He would say anything to convince you to..."

Neji did look at her then, a sidelong glance. His eyes were as hard as clear crystals. She saw them perfectly, the little white flash of his glance, in her own peripheral vision. He was looking to see if he had to go on. And he didn't. But he said, anyway:

"He only wants one thing, Hinata."

The dropped honorific was significant.

"You believed what he said, didn't you?"

And then, a moment later, as Neji slowly pulled himself to his feet, all fluid lean muscle, he said, distantly "Your father told me to protect you." It hung in the air, one crystalline sentence, as he walked softly away, and his footfalls whispered to nothing. Protect you. He probably still hated her.

And maybe he had a right to. He should have been the heir. He should have been the firstborn. He should have been in her place now, it should have been his. But she wanted it. She wanted to change the house, to change herself, her father was gone but she still had this. He wanted it too, and it should have been his.. but she just wouldn't give it up for him.

And maybe he was right. He wants one thing. Because that's all any boy would ever want from her, according to the words, the wisdom, the way the world was, the things Neji didn't have to say. That boys would just use her, if they bothered with her at all. She was a little shrinking Hyuga mouse. Barely worth noticing. Neji made it sound... so right, so real. Like that's all she was. He didn't even have to say it.

But... alone in the snowy silence, the faint half-light of the heaters, Hinata thought that he wasn't entirely right. She had considered that Sasuke might simply want her for, well, one thing. She had decided...

...she closed her eyes and breathed very slowly, calming herself...

...that she believed that he was sincere, but she would take the chance. If it turned out that he had simply used her- she would accept that she had made that choice.

And she marked that line of reasoning with her own slow, controlled breaths.

She didn't tell Neji. She couldn't tell Neji. His vision of her as a naive girl too lonely to care if she was used or not was just so complete and compelling. Even though she knew it was not, it still seemed like it was the ultimate truth. His vision was just so complete and perfectly realized. She couldn't argue with him. She could only listen.

But she had decided. She had made her decision, all the same.

-----

So it turned out that there would be no fighting with Neji today. Neji-fucking-niisan... Sasuke just turned his back on the bastard and let himself be pushed in another direction by one of those ninja girls. She unlocked the library for him. Fine, he'd spend his time reading about history and Hyuga family jutsus rather than breaking Neji's arrogant smirking face. Fine with him.

Hinata was resting. He gave her time alone to rest. She needed it. He'd needed it, a bit of solitude. He'd had altogether too much solitude in his own time, but it was still necessary. She needed to find her own center again, in all the horrible feelings she'd be going through right now. He couldn't take that pain for her. Not entirely. It would have to be endured. There was only so much he could do.. and right now, he had to leave her alone to think.

And he had to think about how he'd keep his promises to her. How he could actually be in love with someone, since that was where all this was heading. He should be happy about that- and he was.. sort of. But love was new, it was fucking terrifying, it would upset everything that he'd put in place to make his fucked-up life work at all. He wanted a change, he wanted out of this cage of hatred... but that didn't make it easy. That didn't make it something that he could just do, or even try to do, without having to plan and worry. So he took this time to think.

It was silent in the library. There was dust on every surface, as if it wasn't used as much as it once had been. It smelled of leather and old paper, and traces of chemical inks that would be invisible until exposed to certain kinds of light. There were many secrets here. There was the entire complete paper trail of a gigantic dynasty of ninjas here, in fact. There were probably things in here that he would not be allowed to look at. But here he was. No one was snatching the books out of his hands. So he took his time, and found some jutsu books. He went to sit down at the far end, in the deepest shadows of the windowless room, behind thick stacks of books. He set up his candles there and let the silence surround him. It was early morning, and this whole wing of the vast wooden house was empty and cold and full of different heavy silences. The absence of noise, of life. Sasuke liked it, it gave him space in his own crowded head to think. Sound magic could create emotion, mood.. it could give him an illusion of serenity.

And he had to think. He had to think about fucking feelings, which he'd just spent six years trying to not think of at all. He had to think of love, which was distained by Itachi and spat on by Otokagure. He'd tried his best to make that crap work for him, and it just wasn't going to do it. So he had to change. He had to give himself up to love and feeling and let it all hurt him, let that kind of pain be possible again. He had to let go of this empty stupid idea of what strength was. If he wanted to grow up, get better, move on.. he had to. He had to. Knowing that he had to do it wasn't making doing it any easier.

But fucking Itachi and fucking Orochimaru were wrong. To say that love existed was like saying that the sky was blue- so obvious that it wasn't worth saying at all. Sasuke just got tired of the bullshit, not love itself but the sentimental crap about it, all the singing and poetry and moping and... it wasn't magical and he wished people would stop making such a big deal out of it. It was like they were trying to make it into something huge and difficult and unattainable, trying to make it into something it wasn't, as if it would make him somehow weak by association. And all of that just gave him a headache, when love itself was as natural as breathing. As natural as hate, really.

But one thing was for sure. When you fell- and he was falling fucking hard and he knew it- you suddenly didn't want to throw your life away anymore. You just wanted to lie around with that other person, watch the stars, kiss them for hours, that sort of thing. Love was indeed fucking fatal to his plans to kill Itachi. He still had to do it, he couldn't chance having any kind of wife or children without Itachi wiped off the face of the earth. But it was still sapping his reserves of hate. It was hard to get up that same thermonuclear blast of rage to drive him forward, beyond all reason, to hunt Itachi down and kill him.

And maybe that's what he needed. He needed that rage, to push him. To make up for the talent that Itachi had, and he just didn't.

Hate was like love, then. It was rage energy. It could make up for gaps inside him, parts that would never be filled. Love was like hate, maybe.. it could fix him. It could stitch him back together. He could become, if not a real normal person, never ordinary or even okay again- the appearance of one. She did make him feel a bit better. Even if he'd have to do it, have to rid the world of Uchiha Itachi once and for all, silence the screaming ghosts in his head. Hate was like love, after all... it demanded a consummation.

But... He had no idea how to do any of this, so he'd have to ask someone- someone- for advice. If his father had been alive... no, even if his father had been alive, Sasuke couldn't picture his father sitting him down for a chat about this. His father would have had work to do. Or he would have been tired from work. He would not want to be bothered. He would be upset over Itachi.. if, that is, the family had lived. Itachi would have done something, he would have continued his strange rebellion. And to ask Itachi for advice... The idea was beyond absurd. Even though Itachi had never really given the impression that he had no feelings, that he didn't understand love or friendship. He'd never said it outright. And he had- allegedly- friends. And- allegedly- a good close relationship with his father. Sasuke thought of his own father, more and more, as Itachi's father. Because that's how it would look to an outsider. Did his father ever spend any time with his second child? No. And anyway, to ask Itachi for advice about girls would just be... embarrassing. Sasuke would feel weak for asking. Like it was a bad thing, to want to do this at all, to want anything other than endless training. He would feel like he was showing a lack of devotion to his ninjutsu.

But they were both gone, so they were lost causes. Who was left? Kakashi. Kakashi who had a sexual relationship with his right hand, and not much beyond that. Sasuke actually had the uncomfortable feeling that Kakashi might laugh at him. Not outwardly, of course.. that wasn't how Kakashi did things. But Kakashi would smile condescendingly behind his mask. He might not even mean it to be condescending. But it would be. It would be for certain. And Orochimaru...

Well, fucking Orochimaru probably would have enjoyed the novelty of putting his arm around Sasuke's shoulders and putting on an act of extravagant grandfatherly advice. Some of what he said might have actually been useful, Orochimaru liked to blend lies and truth until both faded together. Orochimaru loved masks, he loved pretend to be someone else, almost all-out becoming someone else, just as a momentary lark. Because he was bored.. why not become Sasuke's father for a moment? Do what Sasuke's father would have never, ever done, but Sasuke wanted so badly. Orochimaru had done that a few times. Pulled on his fatherly mask.. and the illusion was so complete. It was so tempting. Sasuke knew it was a lie, but it just didn't matter.

And when Orochimaru tired of it, and broke the strange spell of the moment, Sasuke remembered a heavy pang of loss. Feeling as if... Well. It was a lie anyway. Orochimaru just did it to show him how weak he was. He never learned the damned lesson well enough. He never killed his feelings and ethics well enough. He just couldn't summon the hatred. Even now, knowing that it would have been the wrong path anyway, he felt that he failed. If he was going to become a killer and nothing else, he should have done it perfectly.

There was no tolerance of anything less than perfection, after all. And that was his father's rule.

He couldn't do it. He had failed. He found himself remembering a dull afternoon in his first summer in Otokagure. Orochimaru told him to come and help with a dissection. And Sasuke didn't much care or worry, it would just be a cadaver. Or a dead animal. But it was, in fact, a little girl. A little village girl, terrified and shaking. Orochimaru had strapped her to the table. Sasuke heard her terrified whimpers and tears as he came down the stone steps, into Orochimaru's basement labs where he carried out his medical experiments. Orochimaru had been calmly setting out scalpels as Sasuke came into the room. The little girl had turned wet, glistening eyes on him. Orochimaru had just handed him a heavy, full syringe, told him to inject the girl in her voice box. Later he found out it was full of drain cleaner. Orochimaru did it so the little girl couldn't scream.

But she was in terrible pain as the dissection went on, and Sasuke just couldn't take it. Orochimaru asked him mockingly- was any different from the pain inflicted in battle? He put down his bloodied scalpel and grabbed Sasuke's wrist, seized control of his nerves enough to spark chidori in his hand, then force that hand into his throat. And it did hurt. The only screams in that room were his own.

So. He failed. He failed that lesson. Orochimaru shoved his numb body out the heavy door, smirking. Seems Itachi-kun was right. How disappointing. His legs had been weak from the electrical shock. He couldn't run. But he sure as hell would have, if he could. He'd been almost fourteen. He fucking failed, he'd just wanted to run the hell away.

Run away... run away.. And live with the shame? Well- yes! He'd done that just fine. He'd managed shame and hatred just fine. But still.. somehow.. not enough. Not enough to do it fully. Because here he was, back in Konoha. Staying in Konoha. Running from Orochimaru this time...

Orochimaru.. who took his hand and molded it into the forbidden seals. Who owned whole parts of him now. There were snakes stuffed into every crevice in his memories. Orochimaru had told him, over and over, that the best thing in the world was destruction. To take something beautiful and full of potential, Sasuke-kun.. Orochimaru's painted fingernails shiny in the candlelight of the mausoleum, -and destroy it. As if the dissected little girl- her organs and intestines all torn out and her small body finally still on the bloody table- was Orochimaru's masterwork. As if that was Orochimaru's entire philosophy of life. Hurting others, exploiting others, taking from others- being strong so you could do the hurting and taking instead of having it done to you. Sasuke was so fucking sick of it, but he couldn't sustain the hope of anything better. Not without constant constant infusions of sunlight and warmth and Hinata's soft words. Like he was dependent on her now. Like this love bullshit was the only thing that could save him.

Well- he didn't believe in that. Yes, love existed. Love couldn't save him when he was fucking thirteen. Love probably couldn't save him now. Love could maybe make him feel a bit better. But he'd still be just the same filthy fuck-up inferior son that he'd always been, he'd just be in love too.

And he was. He was falling. Or getting to be in love, whatever. If he didn't want to accept that he fell, then he'd say that he decided. Fine- he'd decided that love was something he'd allow. He'd do it. It was better than nothing!

It was better than this. Anything was better than this. He closed the books, blew out the candles. He took a few back with him. He went to find Hinata. To start trying.

----

With no classes to teach, with no real expectation of keeping up with her training, with no contact with her fellow teachers or her friends or anyone... with almost no one home yet, the entire rhythm of life of the house disrupted, Hinata felt lost. She had no direction, no motivation to do anything. Neji had been informed. Hanabi would have to be informed. Then the family would return, and Sasuke would have to be protected.

So for now, Hinata hid in her room. She heard Hanabi's cat scratching at the door, and it's plaintive meows. She didn't even want to rise to let the poor thing in. She let her lanterns burn out, one by one. She'd have to light candles to get them refilled with oil, and re-lit. Eventually Sasuke came back, she felt his chakra and the soft sound of his feet on the floors. He was healed now. He was almost silent. He could have concealed himself fully. But he let himself be known to her. She lifted her head when he slipped into her dark room.

"I'm awake." she whispered, into the darkness and silence. Outside, the string of paper lanterns sparkled on the snow, and sent little crystal shivers of light into the room. There were faint, icy patterns on the walls from the way the light was sliced in it's long angled fall through the frost on her windows. It moved over Sasuke, the pale colors of his shirt and pants, his white feet and hands, his pale face, as he moved with his intense, focused grace. She watched him re-light the lanterns. She watched the golden light frame the elegant planes of his face. She wanted him to come closer... she wanted him to just come to bed with her.

She was not the kind of person, she'd thought, that this happened to. This was for other girls, ones who were beautiful and confident. She'd spent so much time imagining Naruto- who she could not have, not just because he loved Sakura. Not just because her family would never allow it- and her family would never allow it. To want him just because she couldn't have him? Because somehow she'd become so used to the idea that she would have nothing? Because she was nothing. Not good enough for her father, so not good enough for anyone. For anything. No- she had loved him because he burned right through all of that. He was wild and free. He made her start to dream. That made him dangerous. That made him so alluring...

She could have never imagined something like this. Sasuke was so different. She'd barely noticed him at all, she'd seen his shadow, silently passing as Naruto and Sakura walked in the sun, and he was with them, but somehow never really there. Not the way he was now. Not the way he made himself known to her, now, the way he suddenly, finally, seemed to have allowed himself to become real, or alive. No longer just a ghost. He had alluded to that, in the space of a few words- there are ghosts, Hinata- that she should watch out.

...maybe he hadn't quite meant it that way. But it was one thing to just have a beating heart and a body that breathed and lived in the most basic, biological way. It was another to embrace life, allow yourself to live- to be alive.

Was it because Neji was there, now, the servants were congregating- there was suddenly danger of discovery? Maybe that's where this desire was coming from- the threat of destruction. If Neji saw, if Neji found out.. Neji already knew, he'd said so. And.. she'd told him. I trust him, she'd said that. She hadn't had to say anything else, Neji put all the pieces together immediately- and he understood almost too well. Neji could have seen the change in chakra, in body heat, the flush on her face, all of that would tell the sordid story for her. Her father would have know too. Her father would have been furious. Sasuke had muttered under his breath about her father, her father as a danger. Her father may well have just taken Sasuke out into the yard, pulled the chakra in his hand to a fine point- brushed Sasuke's forehead with one finger and burnt out every synapse in his brain with the briefest touch. Everything that made him real and present and unique and irreplaceable and alive- gone. A little whisper of smoke over his unbroken skin. There were ways to kill so precisely with the gentle fist. There were ways to burn out whole internal organs, whole nerve networks, while barely stirring a hair on the head. It would be so gentle- Hinata had seen it done. She could see it, her father's hand passing over Sasuke's forehead, a falling shadow, and then Sasuke's eyes would just close, he would almost sigh. And then- he'd be gone. Killed instantly. You didn't need the caged bird seal to do it.

And that was so morbid. What was wrong with her? To even think that.. to even remember that... maybe it was the flash of the seal on Neji's forehead, when he'd been lifting the forehead protector back into place. Maybe that reminded her. There were dangers. Her family was not mocked, it's rules were not flouted. If Neji.. if perfect, talented, genius Neji was not pure enough to be free, what would her family do to Sasuke?

And- could she stop them? Could she protect him? She would have to protect him.

I'll take care of you. he said. She owed him security and safety and a home to come back to again- that was the debt of her family. She was the heir. She would have to do it, she would just find a way.

It was morbid to feel this way in his arms, warm and safe and breathless with it- and to be thinking of death.

But death was interwoven with everything they'd done and said together. That letter.. and her fears for his life had brought him into the house. It was death now, the death of her father piercing her heart that somehow... strangely.. wrongly.. made the desire shaper, more immediate. As if suddenly she was aware of limits, of there just not always being another day, another year in which she could maybe have a life, a dream, a bit of love for herself. The academy and Kurenai-sensei and every mission talked of sudden death, but to Hinata it was just words, how many Hyuga died on the battlefield? They thought it was for lesser ninjas- they were all but immortal. They were just so perfect. Her father was still dead- dead of his own heart, his own heart just stopping- and then it was all over. It could all be over at any minute. It made the minutes, the seconds, the hours- sharper, brighter. It made her want to throw herself into Sasuke's arms, even if she felt silly- she knew he wouldn't push her away or sneer at her. He wouldn't hold her at arm's length or just carry on his entire life with other people- other people who were just always so much better than she was. He wouldn't make her wait any longer. Maybe it made sense... Her father was dead. There was nothing now, between her and death. Both of her parents were gone. Maybe it was just so natural, that now she would want so badly to live.

She watched him, and she didn't have to say anything. She just watched- and he came to her. He lifted her from the sheets, swung her up into his arms. She was half-dressed, just her mesh shirt, some clean panties. He carried her, and she was fainting, really, falling off her feet, as he put his arms around her and pressed her to the warm fabric- soft and picking up his body heat. He'd taken off Neji's heavy woven cotton shirt, and now there was just the thin linen undershirt over his sleekly muscled body, just thin fabric again. Like time was bending back, and now it was night, but he was so close again. Like falling into a dream.

She just wanted to close her eyes and bask in the feeling, just for a second. And that second could go on all night. All she wanted, now, was to shut the door on the world. If the house were still empty, if the family were still gone, if she could take him to the higher west wing of the house, where there was a heavy oak door with batteries of iron locks, she could ask Sasuke and he would lock it against all intruders. The door could be sealed with paper tags. And beyond it, there were many guest rooms, she could take him to bed again. They could just be with one another, she could just fall into his arms, and just melt together. Even the grief made her want to, just flee into the easy, heated feeling of this desire. Who cared if it was right, or noble, or even what she should do... who cared about all these responsibilities..

Of course she wouldn't do this, but.. she wanted to just think about it, dream about it. For just a minute.

She wanted to take him to her bed, under the quilt and sheets there could be no embarrassment, no reminders of being so naked and imaging that somehow Neji could see, that the servants could see. But Sasuke had her sleeve, and he pulled her gently into his lap. She was just plunging her hands so slowly under the hem of his pants, feeling his warm skin and the hard muscle in his stomach, the tiny shivers that seemed to run through him. So strange, when he seemed so steady and solid and invulnerable, to be reminded that he was warm and flesh and blood- and alive. He let her touch him. He guided her hands.. but she didn't need guidance. She knew this.. how this worked. She knew how to touch him.. how to hold him, as he just got warmer and harder in her hands.

All his chakra focusing and gathering... his hands were under her shirt, and he'd pulled her panties off, they were lying on the floor somewhere behind her now. His fingers were slipping inside of her. She caught her breath- but she held still, and she balanced with her legs around his waist, so he could lift her shirt and see.. so he could do this, unobstructed. He'd touched her, but he'd never done this, one finger.. two. She knew this, she'd never been trained to be on the recieving end, to enjoy it.. but he body knew and was ready.

He watched her. Steady, his eyes locked on her, concerned. Watching to see if he was hurting her or not. She shook her head, she couldn't speak now, even with so little, just two of his fingers in place. But he'd never been inside her before, no one ever had been. So it was something.. she had to stop, try to breathe. Feel it. She was full of nervous anticipation and glee and ever fear that had a little pleasurable edge to it. She had never done this before. She rubbed him in her hands, slowly, finding a rhythm that he seemed to like. She balanced in his lap and her legs quivered, she rubbed him gently against her so he could just feel the wetness, just the at the tip, just enough so they could both feel one another.

His eyes changed. Softened. His lips parted and he watched her, breathing hard now. His hands cupped her shoulder blades under her shirt, his fingers were pressed into her skin. She moved him against her, then just a bit inside her, stroking him up and down her wet lips. Her hand was somehow so steady even as neither of them could breathe properly, or meet one another's eyes any longer... or want to stop. To just go on with this slight, teasing bit of contact.. so slight, his skin was so smooth right there, right where there was a tiny slit. She'd traced it when the tip of her tongue, and he'd tensed so hard under her fingers, like every muscle in his body pulled tight. She could imagine what he'd feel like inside her, if she just moved a bit, and he arced his back into the thrust- and she could feel the tension coiling in his muscles, he was halting right on the verge of doing it. It was just a twinge of movement away...

But anticipation was the best feeling.. she almost didn't want to make it stop.. ever. The whole house and the whole world around it melted away. There was nothing but his warm hands, his smooth skin, their staggered breathing, harsh and somehow beautiful, against the deep silence of this upper wing of her house.

"...more?" she whispered, finally.

He just exhaled hard, shaking.

"Now.." she gasped into the air, her head pressed back against the gather of her jacket hood.

"-you decide..!" his whisper was so sudden and yet- it wasn't harsh. She pulled herself up straight again and he wasn't scary or intimidating or better than her or out of her reach, he was just another person, another ninja, just like her. Someone so strangely, magically alike to her. She didn't have to be frightened. She just had to gather air into her lungs and then inch herself forward, so she was just starting to part around him, then he was a bit inside.. and then a long, slow, achingly deep slide... And it was done.

He held her at the waist and together they kept it steady. Until she was pressed right up against him. She was having to fight so hard to breathe, and it just felt so good, the struggle of it sent little shivers up and down her chest and it did hurt a bit, but he wet his fingers in her fluids and stroked her where she showed him, slow and firm. Her insides quivered and clenched. He thrust up against her, slow like a gathering wave. She was whispering "...now.. now.. now.." even though she was the one who would decide when to move. Like she was telling herself. He held her to steady her- but she was strong enough. Her leg muscles could move cleanly, over him, then back.. almost a rocking motion. She just slipped.. back and forth on him. He braced his hand so he could keep touching her, never missing a beat. There was no sound in the world than their breathing. There was nothing other than the deep piercing feeling of him inside, making her feel deep parts of her body that never got touched, otherwise, that never had any reason to feel. She just had to move faster.. and faster There was nothing but this.

On to the end, a long, slow, sweet slide, her muscles clenching around him so hard that it almost hurt, but it was so good and perfect, it was just what she suddenly needed to feel. She caught the exact moment as he squeezed his eyes shut and tension flashed though him- and then wetness, hot with his deep body heat. Then his long, shaky last breath, as he relaxed. And her own, as she let herself fall down.. down, into his arms, her insides aching just a bit now, numb and tingling. She could barely feel anything but that, but she tried to keep steady. She tensed her muscles around him, so she could still hold him tightly within her. It wasn't real peace.. it wasn't any kind of solution. But it made her forget, and she didn't want to leave that feeling. She didn't want to let it go.

The minutes passed. She listened to Sasuke's heart as it slowed, and his breathing. And then, his soft half-whisper as he told her that he wasn't ever sure, in this moment, whether he believed in anything, if that was just animalistic. If it was just for animals and animal bodies.

But there was a hard squeeze on her heart, too, at that long, hard moment. She knew it. She was sure of it. She whispered in his ear no. Not just that. And he nodded slowly. He said he could believe for just a second.. having just seen it, felt it for himself. This time, he said. Not any other time.

"But we're not in love yet." he said, almost grimly.

"Getting there.." he mumbled, pressing his lips into her throat, his hair sliding over her chin and the underside of her jaw. He seemed embarrassed. But she felt that way herself, embarrassed to say things, to tell him that she even liked him. When she did love him, how would she be able to say it?

"I hope this is easier when we are." she said. And she didn't have to explain what she meant. They were similar enough, to share feelings like this, they didn't have to struggle to explain, and that was so much freedom just by itself. She let out a long breath of air, relaxing. She didn't have to explain herself... for once. She didn't have to try to make it all sound like it was worth saying.

"It will be." he said, exhaling. It was almost a sigh, like he was contented. She rested her cheek against his forehead and brushed her fingertips against the strange spiky ends of his hair. He was both so safe and warm- and so wild and exotic. Looking at him, she should have been terrified. She should have been so intimidated. She just wasn't, and she never had been. Not really... not when he stopped being a dangerous stranger others had told her about, and started being someone she actually knew for herself.

Outside the paper lanterns burned. Morning was coming. Her little clock said it was almost six am. If this were a normal day, she'd be already up. She'd be done her morning training. But nothing was the same, now. She could just rest. She had to rest. Sasuke said to her, whispering relax.. relax.. His whisper rippled over her ear, slow waves. The minutes were long, endless. She said "I didn't think you'd believe in love." She was just speaking her thoughts, almost to herself. "Not when I first met you."

She closed her eyes, inhaled the slight tinge of scent, soap and a kind of warmth under it, a hint of sweat now, from both of them. "I didn't think you'd even want it."

"Why?" he said, whispering.

"Because..." she was still holding him inside her, he was still tight and warm, filling her up perfectly. She paused to feel that, focus on it for the space of one breath, then continued. "...I thought you wouldn't need it. You'd just be..." she sighed, his hair fluttered a bit under her lips. "...so strong, you wouldn't need anyone."

He thought that over in silence, and the silence was so deep and full that the steady, tiny ticking of her bedside clock traveled through it like sound under smooth waters.

"Of course I believe in it." he said, gruffly.

"Why?" she whispered.

"Because." he said. And they were echoing each others words, perfect harmony, it seemed so natural that she caught her breath, scared to shatter the illusion... and there was a little contented flicker of a chuckle in his tone. "Because. Look out the window...there." he pointed. "What do you see?"

There were little winter birds in the bare branches of the trees in her little hidden garden. Sleeping now, the sunrise was still hours off. The lantern light just brushed against the puffed feathers. Only their feathery shadows and that soft smudging of light gave them away at all. She used her byakugan, saw their tiny eyes shut tightly, their little heads turned over under their wings.

"Sparrows." she said. The sound of his slight intake of breath was as soft as those little downy feathers looked, his lips brushed against her cheek.

"Do you believe in them?" he said.

And when she frowned, he lifted his head so he was eye to eye with her and saw her consternation- "It's a silly question. Of course you believe in them. But why do you believe in them?"

"Believe in them..?" she whispered.

"Why do you believe they exist." he said, steadily. "You're asking me why I believe love exists."

"Well.." she breathed slowly, and tucked herself against his chest, under his chin. His hands came up gently and gathered it, set it neatly over her shoulder, so it wouldn't get pinned. "Because they're right there. I see them."

"That's why." his voice was a warm ripple, pleasant and comforting against the skin of her cheek. "Because it's just there. I've seen it."

As she was silent, he shrugged his uninjured shoulder, shifting her to his other arm slightly. "There's nothing that special about it." Gruffly, almost defensively. "It's just there." But she could feel the same embarrassment so keenly, she could feel how hard it was to say this.

"That's..." she sighed. She almost wanted to thank him for trying to push the words out, say it anyway. Talk about this- as hard as it was. "I... I'm so.." she hunched her shoulders. "...um.. glad. I'm happy. But.. I wish it were more romantic." She hoped he didn't think she was complaining. "I'm glad." she said again, and looked up at him. But he understood. She slowly relaxed her shoulders, and her hands twisted the the loose fabric of his shirt.

She meant- that's so normal. So unremarkable. So.. unmagical, like love was just ordinary, not worth noticing much. It was probably, she thought, the only way people like him- practical people, sensible people, people who were strong- could accept something as soft and, really, useless as love. Did love make you a better ninja? Did it make you strike unerringly? Did it hone your body and mind to a killing point? No.. the opposite really. So it made sense. And she was happy. She whispered that to him again. She was. This wasn't a fairy tale or a storybook romance where things just turned out right. She knew that. She.. accepted it.

I'm not a princess. she said to him. This is not a fairy tale. There would be no prince, no castle, no magic, no perfect solution. There would be change, slow and steady, chiseled out by effort and determination. She said to him "I know that now. I'm not a princess. There's no prince.."

And he laughed. He barely ever laughed, freely like that. It was such a small sound, but so warm. It lit parts of her up, little glows in her snipped-out heart. "You're right about that." he said, gently amused, it seemed. "I'm no prince." And you, he said, you're no princess. You're a queen, Hinata. You're the savior of this whole fucked up house.

She squirmed a bit, hearing him curse, say a bad word like fuck .. he saw that. He sighed. She saw him start to find the words to apologize. "No." she said. She shook her head. "It's okay..." It was. It was just so much, to much to hear at once. Praise was blazingly unfamiliar. It was too much bright light. She hid her face in his shoulder, and he sighed, but it was a contented sigh. He stroked her hair, as he'd done many times before. They'd known each other for only a few days, and already this was becoming familiar.

"It'll be all right, Hinata.." he said. And she believed him. He made it all right.

"I'm not a romantic person." he said a bit later, very matter of fact. And almost very seriously. If her eyes were open, she imagined she would see him furrow his brow just a bit, the way she had seen him do so several times before.

"I know you are." he said, and his voice was lightened into a whisper, almost as if he was a bit intrigued by that. As if it were just interesting, not silly or stupid of her...

"Whatever you need..." he muttered, embarrassed again, suddenly, his skin heating up with a bit of a flush under her. "...I'll learn how to do it."

He was trying so hard, he was making all this effort, just to say these things to her, to get them out- somehow. She could feel the sheer effort of it in every word. She had to say something back, she fumbled for the words. She ended up just blurting, in a nervous whisper "I... I wish I could say things like that to you too." And she was blushing hard, she felt her cheeks burning.

Sasuke shifted her in his arms and stroked her hair back from the side of her face. He frowned slightly. "Just say it." he said.

She closed her eyes. "I think I'm.. I mean, I think I could fall in love with you." In a rush.

And it was the wrong thing to say. It was stupid of her, somehow. Somehow it was wrong. It was too much too soon, and she clenched her shoulder blades together with embarrassment. She hid her face under his chin, and felt it when he drew breath. "I'm sorry." she whispered, shuddering. "I'm... I-"

"Hinata." he said, stopping her.

His voice was warm, that half-whisper, but it was the light touch to her cheek, his callused fingers, that stopped her short. And uncertainty crept into his voice a moment later, he shifted uncomfortably under her. "You don't even have to say that." he muttered, tensing.

She found herself clenching his shoulder, her fingers turning his pale skin white with pressure, and hastily relaxed her hand. "I'm sorry." she whispered. "I'm sorry."

He sighed. "Damn it.. don't be sorry, Hinata..." She felt him raise his hand to gather her hair away from her shoulder. "I just mean.." He was doing it again, trying. Trying to say things. "I just mean that I feel the same way." he muttered, suddenly just as nervous as she was. Just as embarrassed. She could feel it. She was too close to him to miss it, the quivers in his heart, his throat, the way he twitched with discomfort, even saying this.

"I wanted to try." she whispered, curling herself into the hollow of his neck, the loose fabric of his shirt, as if she could just hide her face, hide in his arms.

And before she felt the silence, or felt the space where he should say it, he said- "I know I could." Like it was a fact. Just a fact. He raised one hand past her eyes and rubbed at his forehead, tensely. "..fall in love with you." he muttered, finally. He couldn't defeat his embarrassment, she felt him shift uncomfortably a bit as he said it. She felt the awkwardness in his voice and body. She felt the same twitch, the same worry.. the same unwillingness to let go of the moment. But that just didn't make it any less excruciating.

"I.." she had to say something. She buried her face in his heavy, sleek hair, her lips found the curve of his ear. "...I hope this gets easier."

He sighed, and she felt tension and nervousness, little glimmers of something other then his constant steely confidence. To think that he was uncertain too, that he felt the way she did. He said, with quiet resignation. "...it couldn't get any harder."

It really couldn't. But they had both done it. They had both gotten through that moment, hard as it was. Maybe... maybe that meant it could be done.

-----

It wasn't the sex.

Hinata asked him. Her asshole cousin was telling her things. Telling her that Sasuke just wanted her for sex- as if Neji-fucking-niisan knew the first thing about Sasuke or could tell his ass from a hole in the ground, at that.

But Neji-niisan could shut the fuck up. He wasn't right- not that he was ever right, as far as Sasuke could tell. It wasn't the sex. It wasn't just the sex. He wasn't here to use Hinata and throw her away, Neji could shut his stupid mouth and mind his own business.

Sasuke knew. It sure as hell didn't make it any easier, but he knew he was falling in love. It wasn't as if he was somehow unaware, or still an idiot twelve year old too angry to even want to understand. He'd been there, in Hinata's arms. He'd felt it. He knew.

Alone with her, enclosed in her warm arms, there was nothing left to stop him from completely embarrassing himself. He'd been alone and used to it for so long... to finally have the chance to let himself be close to someone, it was like he couldn't get enough of it. He didn't want to leave- ever. Hinata murmured softly that she wished they had more time to themselves, that her father hadn't died, so her family wouldn't have returned early. She said with those few days, they could have stayed together like this, just the two of them. She could have healed him, just a bit more. And he, he thought, could have healed her. Together, warm tangled limbs and tangled sheets, her hair smooth and heavy over his chest and the soft touch of her breath on his neck, it felt like they really could do something, make things a bit better. There was comfort in it.. in the playing, yes, the slow stroking, the exchange of kisses and gentle hands. But also in the slow conversation, when he held her, or she held him, and their heartbeats slowed again, and they could talk about anything, say anything. There was just nothing to stop him anymore. So he said things he probably shouldn't have.

And would regret later. Not because they weren't true- they were. But because it was just.. not what he was supposed to do. He was supposed to be strong- emotionless. Or if not exactly emotionless, then at least stoic. He was supposed to not need anyone, anything. He was supposed to, if not totally reject love and vulnerability, and wanting, and desire- then to at least to give the impression that he could take it or leave it. That this was all just about getting sex out of her- right? That everything he said to her, that he wanted her.. that he liked her.. that he thought he could fall in love with her? That was meant to be lies. Or rather, things he said but didn't mean, just so he could get what was important. Right?

What would Orochimaru have said? Just fuck her, and be done with her, Sasuke-kun. She's unworthy of you.

Orochimaru, messing with him. Twisting him. Giving him a whole new set of problems, as if he didn't have enough as it is. But Orochimaru couldn't touch this part of him. There were parts, maybe, that were still alive, could still feel something.. could enjoy something other than these sick little reptilian impulses, Orochimaru's worldview. Orochimaru saw the world as full of things to either eat, fuck, kill or dominate. And Sasuke had been pretty sure he was no different. But that was bullshit after all. It was just another of Orochimaru's complicated little fantasies. It couldn't stand against the hard reality of it, this feeling. That moment, what he'd felt... He'd felt something. He still felt it.

So, he said to Hinata- no. It wasn't the sex. He wanted her. All of her. If he'd just wanted to use women for what, a 'cheap fuck'? If he'd wanted that, that was easy. Orochimaru would keep him well supplied with cheap fucks. And that was the way Orochimaru talked, sometimes. Just fuck her, Sasuke-kun, I'm getting impatient. Orochimaru's voice lazy and more fluid than his usual rasp, with the wine. If Sasuke had wanted that, he got plenty of it in Otokagure. Orochimaru would bring him whatever he asked for. Orochimaru enjoyed it- he'd love it if Sasuke asked.

All those bloody little sacrifices, watching Orochimaru slither over the victims while that nasty, furtive little hum of pleasure faded from his body, and after he'd go to bed alone. His partners were either dead, or were wishing they were. And if they were neither, then it amounted to a dirty tactic, a business transaction for influence. And sometimes he was lonely, or his body made it's demands, and he didn't know these women and he didn't have anything to say to them after.

He was not even yet twenty, so this was too much, too soon to be something he should be proud of, so much 'experience', or whatever... He knew boys were supposed to have a lot of experience, he maybe should take some kind of obscene pride in all of it. But it just seemed shameful to him. He'd be mortified if his parents knew... and now that he thought about it, Itachi probably knew, or could find out, if he wanted. You only had to tap into that little hidden current of gossip in Otokagure, to hear all the tales of Orochimaru's favorite. Of all the things that Orochimaru would do for his favorite, the one who would give his body to Orochimaru, who would 'have that honor'. They really did think of it that way. All of Orochimaru's willing slaves. Hundreds of them.

And Sasuke spat in Orochimaru's face, he ignored the honorifics, he was rude to Orochimaru and turned his nose up and did everything he could- all the disrespect he could summon. But deep down, he wanted it too. He knew what Orochimaru would do to him. It wasn't exactly a shock when Orochimaru shoved him to his knees, unfastened his own long sash, lifted the fabric of his tunic.

Sasuke expected it. I want that body of yours- and of course it amused Orochimaru to mean it literally, in the way most people meant it. Sasuke had expected it, gotten that and worse, told himself that it wasn't that uncommon. Child prostitution was all but legal, practiced everywhere. Even his own family, his cuddly little leaf village, if his father or his uncles or the Third- if any of them liked little boys, they could have this too. There were plenty of young men desperate for money, poor sons of farmers. There were always people to be used and exploited- Orochimaru knew that.

He showed Sasuke in a million ways, so it was clear as day and Sasuke understood. He knew the world was like this. And he threw himself into Orochimaru's hands, wanted everything Orochimaru would dish out. Pain was somehow a way out of guilt. It was only what he deserved, wasn't it? It felt right, sickeningly right. Orochimaru shoved himself down his throat and he choked- and didn't care, was almost sickly, perversely glad. He wasn't anyone's son anymore, he wasn't anyone's brother. He wasn't a Leaf nin, he wasn't a member of a village, he wasn't any of these things. He was just a fucking toy, a thing for Orochimaru to use. Orochimaru made that clear. Orochimaru had been right- you love it when I hurt you. Fucking snake.. but it was true. It was the only penitence he could accept.

To even think of what he'd done with Hinata in the same breath as that seemed wrong. It wasn't the same. Not at all. Fuck this idiot ignorant spoiled Neji asshole! Neji-niisan had never lived under Orochimaru's thumb. Neji-niisan had no idea what pain was. Neji couldn't even imagine this, what Sasuke had done, what he'd pulled himself through. Neji could shut his fucking mouth, Sasuke knew all about being used for sex, thank you. And no- that wasn't it. That wasn't what was going on between him and Hinata.

But... Sasuke was the kind of person who did not like these romantic frilly terms. Lovemaking. But that's what it was. The term was apt. Hinata guided his hands. He was a quick, dedicated student, as always. It was awkward, and a bit graceless at first. They weren't used to one another. There was a lot of blushing, even with the faint lantern-light, and exertion turning them both pink, providing plausible deniability. But their bodies were trained. They fit together perfectly- and could speak to one another. They could show the way. Nature could guide them, with perfect symmetry. He could trust that. Something bigger and massively older than himself. Something that didn't make mistakes. Something that was just right.

She didn't cry, he noticed, when he touched her. When he held her. When he was inside her, she stopped crying. There were no tears in the soft cries that he drew from her. He could make her forget, if only for a few seconds.

And she could make him forget, too.

He did not believe in romantic bullshit of any kind. But love was natural and normal. There had been the love of his mother. The awkward, hostile half-love from Naruto. The pure, dedicated childish love from Sakura.. and he wondered if either of them still felt that way. His own fumbling, slow, clumsy affection for them, sheared off at the base just as it started to bloom.

And his own passionate, desperate, despairing, impossibly fucked-up-forever love and hatred for his fucking piece of shit brother, Itachi. All of that. He couldn't deny it's existence. It really messed things up for him. But it was real, love.

And it would come. He could feel it coming. Slowly, just a line of distant fiery warmth, now. Dawning. But it would come.

She trembled against him, her insides fluttering hard. He'd remember that flush that bloomed on her cheeks, her heavy breasts, he could feel it through the mesh fabric. Her bright pale eyes falling closed as her head fell back... The way she whispered his name. He'd remember that in particular, when Orochimaru's whisper started slithering around in his head again. When the nightmares came, and the panic descended again. Which it would. He wouldn't be safe forever. This moment couldn't last forever. But while it did... endless and crisply, searingly real...

He tried to burn it into his memory with the sharingan. Hinata opened her eyes and looked right at him, alarmed for just a second. She wasn't used to it.. and maybe it wasn't something that anyone could ever get used to. It was demonic, after all.

"No... it's all right.." she'd whispered, her head tilted slightly, like an attentive bird, looking deeply. He could see the byakugan start to flash in, start in crystalline structures of tiny blood vessels, little rivers of glinting crystals.. that was blood? Chakra? Intricate lacings of miniscule capillaries, curling together like tiny seahorse tails. He had to blink it away, it was too much. The overwhelming reality of her..

...as real as her deep warmth, her sweet little inner muscles that she definitely had been trained how to use- extremely well. As her soft fingertips pressed into his shoulders, slipped down to the small of his back, stroking and teasing the chakra there. He had to bury his face in her throat, the warm white softness of her breasts. Spilling his heartblood, his life and all it's sorrows into her, with one shuddering long gasp.

Her family would come. The lawyers would come. The ANBU and Orochimaru, Sakura and Naruto with a million accusations that were all painfully true, their love which somehow hurt even more. Itachi was still out there. All of it was coming their way. None of it was all right. All of these battles would still have to be fought. So much would have to be done...

He'd taken one step. One single step.

The sunlight crested over the cliffs and spilled through the glass, glittering on the snow. Bright rays sliced through the crystals of ice laced into the window, dancing over the walls and the polished floors. That exact second, nature's perfect synchronicity. As if this were right. It was. Somehow, it almost was. It was happening, and he couldn't stop it.

"Your ancestors, and mine," Hinata whispered, her heart pounding against his. "Are here. Right here. This is your house, too."

For better or worse.

And her family was coming. They had to get up and plan. Stop this, somehow. He was just moving inside her in slow waves, watching her lie back, her arms luxuriantly draped over his shoulders, her long neck and her beautiful breasts. She pressed his hands to them. He touched her as she showed him, as she locked her legs around his waist, and he moved in tight rhythms. Taking her to another peak, another.. he could do this all day. Let Hinata stroke him back to life with her brutally gentle little hands, the ones that drew all sorts of feelings and gasps from him. He could do that.. just keep doing it. Let her push him higher.. and higher. She could.. do things.. with her chakra control. They had to stop this.. stop this. Plan and get their bearings before the Hyuga clan returned.

Naruto. he thought, between the spaces of their shared gasps for breath. Sakura.

One step taken. He'd have to take another. And another. And another. But he just couldn't stop. He couldn't go back to the way he'd been before.

----

Timelessness.

Hinata knew better, she knew that it would be over so fast. Her family might be angry enough to throw Sasuke out of the house. And when that happened, she'd have to stand up to them. No, she would say. She'd have to practice that, stand before her mirror and practice saying it. No. No- they couldn't do that. She wouldn't let them.

Relax, Sasuke whispered, half-chuckling. He was so contented now, and so was she. She could only remember the outlines of the problems they both had. Nothing was between them now, or trying to tear them apart. He held her above him, and she either moved on him, or just clenched her muscles around him. Slowly. That was the best, there was far less friction on him, that way. He could last endlessly, then, breathless, alight with long glowing fingers of chakra, like columns of light. Orgasm shifted the flow of everything, blood and neuroelectricity, she saw the pleasure explode up through him, tangles of flame, blooming like slow gusts of smoke underwater. Like veins of fire in dark volcanic stone. There was no talking.. no need for it. There was nothing to stop them, she pinched him carefully at the base of his penis and there were no worries then about him being able to last for her. He looked down, vaguely amused by that. Relaxed.. finally relaxed, the tension gone out of the soft skin around his eyes. They moved together, kept quiet together. That she was ever worried about this. That she was ever afraid of him... she couldn't believe it.

But it ended. These things always had to end, no matter how much she wanted them to go on forever. They faded out.. and she had the glow of the memories, but it hurt a bit. She always wanted things to last. But her chakra was finite, and so was her energy. She was run down from all this crying. Her body was complaining at all the repetitive motion. She had to stop. Sasuke half-smiled at her. Are you sure you aren't trying to kill me? He laughed, softly, held her against the hard, steady beat of his heart. She felt a bit better.

Sasuke put her to bed, tucked her in like she was a small child. He brought her the book she wanted from the bookshelf. Her favorite, the deep ocean and the monsters that lived in it. But the treasures too, the adventures, the rewards. Her old way of understanding this.. that change would be so hard, it would be so frightening, but it would be worth it.

The heat and wetness in her body faded, and there were just the deep-set ache where he'd been. Like a valentine-shaped bruise, lacy crepe paper edges, all of these feelings now were mixtures of sweetness with little fingerprints of pain. Her father gone, and her aching with the afterglow of pleasure and muscle strain. An intricate hole snipped out of her heart, too, all the things that she would never have now. No father- and no parents left at all. If it worked out, if maybe they had a future together, their children would have no grandparents. But maybe they could be together. Everything was a lacy quilt of sadness and anger- she suddenly couldn't tell the difference- and little sacred flames, like she really was falling in love. She was trying to focus on the laws of her family, but inside her, she still felt it. It didn't hurt so much as remind her. Like he'd left a little twinge of feeling in her, to mark where he'd moved inside her, thrust in long, smooth strokes.

And her, somehow unable to tell the difference between her body and her heart, like he'd made love to her rather than just had sex with her. And.. maybe he had. She didn't disbelieve him. She didn't sense that he was deceiving her. She sensed that he was uncertain and that he didn't know how to talk about it any better than she did. She could swear that he had these fingerprint bruises on his heart now, too.. like she could touch his heart and not just his body. Like she'd held his heart insider her and gently squeezed it with muscles as delicate as interlaced silk rope, strong enough to break the bones of a grown man's fingers, if the leverage was right. Maybe he felt this way too, aching and marked.

But. It was so.. fast. It was happening so fast, and she couldn't quite trust that. Less than a week! From the moment she'd brought him sake, and he'd barely even bothered to look at her. It couldn't be so quick.. and be really real.

But she couldn't even begin to make a judgment like that. She couldn't even pin names on her own emotions at the moment, they were too slippery and indistinct- and overwhelming- and entirely out of her control. She was just a little bottle cork being tossed around on a choppy sea. Anger one moment, a gut-wrenching sadness the next, remembering bits and pieces of her father's voice and his hands- which were warm and could be gentle sometimes. And then other times when he shouted at her, or struck her. Others, when he didn't bother to do either, he just looked at her with such disgust that it froze her to the spot and her heart skipped a beat.

So... how could she even begin to tell if it was actually happening or not? She had no training for this. She'd been taught some basic underhanded ways of sizing up a man's emotions, his desires. Ways to insinuate herself in through his guard, to act unthreatening, to slip into his bed and then slide poisoned needles into the soft swell of his neck, the inner curve of his thigh. She'd been taught to trace the heavy dark cords of major arteries, swollen down her target's abdomen. A million different ways to kill. But, of course, no one had ever bothered to teach her anything about loving or figuring out love, or how to deal with it. Konoha was a village, not a military citadel- and it was meant to be a place to live rather than a grim house of death. People had families, and even the most elite ninjas were encouraged to feel warmth and loyalty... love as something that would bind them together rather than tear them apart, or destroy their skill... But still, she'd been taught nothing.

She would ask.. maybe.. Miya, who'd had a number of husbands and many children... and would know about these things. Or she'd ask Momoe, who was already married. Or even Momoe's younger sister Kimiko, who entertained the house with her own romantic adventures with the young men who made up the branch house retainers. In fact, it was like everyone, every other woman or girl than Hinata herself, was confident and assured in this. Hinata could ask Sakura- also already married and wise to all of this. Or Sakura's friend Ino- with her long-time boyfriend and intricate grasp of psychology from her family's ninjutsu. Or Tenten- Hinata could ask Tenten, who understood Neji of all people, who managed to expertly navigate a full-scale romance with Neji.. and that was a skill that was so far beyond Hinata's imagining that it really might as well have been magical.

Or she could ask Sasuke... who she imagined would frown in that analytical way, like he was unraveling a complex strategy in his mind's eye. And maybe he was the only person she really should be asking, these things maybe should stay between him and herself. But he'd already told her what he knew... and she felt that she would bothering him, pestering him for answers, if she were to bring it up again.

So silence fell, and Hinata didn't break it. She may have slept. She did, but she didn't notice it happening. Hanabi came home with a crash. Hinata started awake. She'd been dreaming of the sunny blue sky and the fresh cut grass smell in the training yard at the academy. Was she training as a student, or was she a teacher, leading the class? She couldn't remember. All she could remember was the sudden perfection that came to her movements as she caught the rhythm of the jutsu... whatever she'd been doing. As untalented as she was next to Neji, she still had learned, hadn't she? The gentle fist came to her like second nature now. Even Neji's sixty-four palms, the air trigrams, even the things that he had once known and she hadn't- those too came to her on the fluid wavelength of the dream, the perfect memory of the virtuosity of her body.

Sasuke was there, she felt the heavy cloud of his chakra before she saw him.

He was in what looked like shadows, before her eyes adjusted to the sharper glow of the gas lantern's light. But she saw the white of his cheek first, then the soft smudges of his dark eyes, the dark ruffle of his hair. He turned to glance at her. She sat up, blinking, wondering if she'd heard that she thought. Hanabi's voice- oneesan!- a dream memory. Like a ghost, a snatch of an old past. She smelled the burning paraffin wax, somewhere in the house the braziers were lit again.

But then she heard the scamper of Hanabi's feet downstairs and how the wood planks flexed under each step. "My sister is here." she said, to no one in particular. She felt for the side of her own face, her eyes. Every part of her felt disconnected.

There was a soft sound, Sasuke closing the book he was reading. But, of course he couldn't do this for her. So Hinata went alone. Her skin prickled with goose bumps where his fingers had trailed over her neck, her cheek, as he smoothed her hair back into place. That strange glimmer of impressed chakra danced, almost like static electricity, and faded out very slowly as she made her way down the darkened wooden hallway, then the swept and polished stairs. The cones of incense were like glowing orange teeth, grinning at her from deep paper recesses. Her house and all it's comforts.. and it was hers now- I leave it in your hands, her father had said. Hinata-chan, he'd said, and that little bit of affection from him was otherworldly. Magical. And now it was gone, but the house was full of ghosts and whispers and she almost could feel her father's chakra, everywhere, in every room, as if every bit of chakra he'd left from his footsteps, his fingertips, the hard sound of his voice, his presence, it now was set into glowing flames too.

Hanabi was in the kitchen. Hungry, understandably so, after her long journey back from her mission. Her bright eyes glanced on Hinata like faraway flashes of sunlight. "Hi, oneesan." she said, almost boredly. Everything seemed to bore Hanabi now, she was thirteen and newly sick of the world and everything in it. "So who croaked?" she said, between bites of rice ball. "You look too sad for it to be the old witch." She eyed Hinata critically. "Not that old fart, either." The old witch and old fart were their great aunt and maternal grandfather. Disrespect. Hanabi didn't even bother to hide it.

"It's.." It's father. Hinata almost blurted it again, but her eyes caught the eye of a servant. And she remembered- decorum. Tradition. "..come with me, Hanabi." she said softly, and gathered Hanabi's arm and sleeve gently into her hand, prodding her little sister to leave the room, come with her somewhere more private. Hanabi shrugged and popped the rest of the rice ball into her mouth.

In the tatami room, the space heaters weren't quite working. They couldn't gather heat inside the thin paper walls. And there was just too much empty space. The little filaments burned soft red in the semidarkness, outside of the ring of candles Hinata lit. Her hands didn't shake this time. But she could still feel the strange electrical fingerprints on her skin, almost as if Hanabi could see them too. She looked at Hanabi out of the corner of her eyes, a trick she'd learned from her father- by example. How to look at another member of the great house of Hyuga without looking at them, letting them know they were being studied. But to Hinata, this wasn't about taking the measure of a political rival. It was about loving her sister. Concealing it.. because love was almost verboten here- no touching, no kisses on the cheek, no hugging ever, no kind words except in the most starkly formal terms. Nothing was allowed. And Hinata wasn't really sure if Hanabi wanted this kind of affection. Even aside from Hanabi's normal teenager attitude of being embarrassed of her family, not wanting to look uncool to her friends, Hinata still wondered if it was really okay.

But Hanabi's chakra burned like the bright spots of light, her name. Explosive and joyous and exciting.. and entirely unlike Hinata herself. The differences went so far beyond their slight divergences of hair and eye color. Hanabi was strong in a brusque, effortless way. She just didn't seem to feel that bad about.. anything. She could dismiss worries and problems with a flick of her hand. Aw, who cares? Almost like Naruto, Naruto's bright sunny enthusiasm. Both of them were so invulnerable, as if they'd been somehow born without the capacity for deep pain that Hinata seemed so riddled with. As if they just didn't suffer. And maybe she shouldn't worry about Hanabi. Maybe Hanabi wouldn't suffer so much... Maybe Hanabi really had come to hate their father. Maybe Hanabi was just another distant unknowable Hyuga, now. Maybe she was a true member of this house now, having bloomed into the full flower of her blood.

"It's the old fart, right?" Hanabi said, cutting the darkness and the silence, like bright flashes of light. Laser light, so precise and so assured. Hanabi's chakra was like that, webs of sizzling lasers. She snorted. "Even you wouldn't be sad about the old witch, so it has to be the old fart." Hinata raised her eyes from the circle of tealights just in time to see Hanabi cross her arms, satisfied in her decision.

But it was time, and this would have to be said. So Hinata faced her sister, turning her footing so she was on a direct line with her. As if it were a kind of sparing stance.. and maybe it was. Maybe this would be a battle. Maybe Hanabi would fly into one of her tantrums. Maybe Hanabi would shout and throw things- she had before. Hinata had been sitting here on floors like this, kneeling and flushing with sympathetic mortification- as Hanabi talked back to their father, and their father caught Hanabi's upraised hand in his, forced it down to her side.

I hate him.

Hinata heard that as clear as if Hanabi had said it.. you couldn't look at Hanabi and see the way Hanabi looked at their father, the way she spoke to him- and not hear it.

And also- how could you not hate him?

In Hanabi's light, bored, almost vaguely condescending glance, the way she looked at Hinata and sighed, as if Hinata were a slow child, and then smiled as if she would still put up with Hinata anyway.

But as Hinata thought these things and studied her sister, the weight of her direct gaze had caught Hanabi's attention. And Hanabi was actually starting to squirm a bit now, she looked back at Hinata with an uncertain tilt to her head, because she suddenly wasn't sure why Hinata was doing this. Understandable, too. Why would her sister know, or understand? The news had come out of the blue for Hinata, after all. It had struck her- like a blow to the back of her head that she'd never even seen coming.

Hanabi frowned over her own byakugan, a perfect copy of Hinata's own, set in slight miniature.

"Your chakra is all weird." she said, wrinkling her small nose. "And you've got.. " she giggled "..oh my gaaawd, you've got fingerprints on you! You've got boy fingerprints on you! Oneeessaaaaaan!'" she was so delighted by this, it seemed. "Hey, oneesan, he's still here, isn't he! The mean boy, he's still here! He is your boyfriend!"

"Father's dead, Hanabi."

It slipped out. It just slipped out. She couldn't control anything anymore.

Hanabi sucked in her breath, almost as if Hinata had punched her instead.

For a second, her face was still. A white mask. A perfect little white Hyuga doll.

Then her mouth twitched. And she laughed.

There must have been something on Hinata's face, in her eyes- just then. Because Hanabi immediately clapped her hand over her mouth. The metal guard strapped to her knuckles glittered in the candlelight.

But that giggle.. that little gleeful ripple.. it had been sincere, it had been Hanabi's first reflex, her first reaction.

Hanabi quickly apologized, much faster and more eagerly than she would have ever before, for anything else, ever.. as if it really had just come out of nowhere for her too. As if she had no idea why she felt that way, why she'd done that. Giggled. Laughed.

And Hinata was already kneeling now, she had sank to her knees. So she just let her head fall down, and her hair slowly slip off her shoulders and onto her knees. The tears came after it, slow like raindrops at the beginning of a storm. Hanabi sighed in the close half-darkness. And her feet slipped over the mats. Hanabi's arms were strong now, she was a full genin, she was growing up and pulling away from Hinata so fast. She was the only family Hinata had now. Hanabi sighed and put her arms around Hinata, as if she was the big sister and Hinata was the little one. "Aw." she murmured, surprisingly gentle. "Don't cry, oneesan. Come on.. don't cry.. awww.. don't cry..." Circles of words, like a pebble dropped into a pond.

Sasuke found her with Hanabi. Hinata heard Hanabi's voice. Who are you? I'm her sister, who are you, huh? Sasuke took her outside to train. The night was ending. The cold air had the bite of morning. Moving with him, sparring with him... it was all taijutsu, it was all thrust and parry, it was all an elaborate dance, and her footing was perfect. It was something she didn't even have to think about now. Even if she couldn't quite believe it... she almost felt that if she stopped to realize it, that her taijutsu might actually be better than Sasuke's? Then she would jinx it. She'd tempt fate. Like her ability was an illusion. And most of the time, it felt that way.

"Good.." he whispered. "..good." As he guided her hands- and she followed through. Her body had all the right answers, all her muscles held their own perfect memories. One part of her life was going right, for once. ...the one part that had always been wrong.

"I wonder if he would have approved of me now." she whispered, as they paused, both of them out of breath and steaming with sweat and exertion in the cold air.

Sasuke just took her hand and lead her into another attack pattern, it it really was an elaborate square dance, like they slow-danced together in the snow and the early morning darkness. Her emotions were all tapped out, and there was peace in that. The hard exercise was comforting in the way he had said. He kept her moving- so she couldn't stop, she couldn't think, she couldn't have time to remember too much- until she was too exhausted to stand up. Then he carried her back inside. Hanabi's voice flickered in the darkness beyond her closed eyelids.

"You are her boyfriend. Fess up."

And Sasuke's sigh of irritation, closer. And Hanabi's voice again, bright fire- hey, you're really mean. How come she likes you? Sasuke was scolding Hanabi, telling her she should show some respect for her older sister. Hinata would have told him how useless it was to even try, but she was so tired. She just listened. She almost felt comforted by this, it was so normal, Hanabi's sulkiness and offhand rudeness.

And if Sasuke had used ninjutsu, he would have won in a heartbeat. His ninjutsu was worlds beyond hers. His genjutsu might be just as advanced. But.. Her taijutsu.. her taijutsu, the house style, the gentle fist. She'd worked on it so hard that she couldn't imagine not working on it, not training. You trained enough and suddenly it became normal, you barely noticed it. You didn't realize it when you got better.. you couldn't see the change as it happened.

But it happened. Things changed. She got better. Sasuke carried her upstairs. She felt Neji's chakra flickering like the beat of white bird's wings on her temples. Just at the edge of her sunken byakugan. But now she was trained well enough that she didn't have to activate it full to see... or to know. The sun was rising. She felt it, too. Heat gathering. The family gathering close. They were in the village now. The advance scouts were beginning to carry word to the house. The servants all around her were buzzing with activity. As if the house was a paper wasp's nest. Everything being moved into place. And a letter that Sasuke accepted from the servants, and read to her: the news that school was cancelled today, the village would work together to get the power lines back up. And she would have been there. She would have been with Shikamaru and Lee, leading the students in their assigned part of the task. She would have seen Sakura and Naruto. And Tenten, and Neji would have been with her too. Everything would be normal- her father would still be here, at home, when she returned. Even if he didn't talk to her, or bother with her, even if he had no praise for her that day... at least, at least, there would still be a chance.

But now she was all out of chances.

She watched Sasuke call the school administrators- Hinata won't be coming in today. Yes- she's ill. Thank you. He frowned with mild irritation as he spoke- businesslike and steady in a way that made Hinata's stomach twist with sudden sharp envy. If she could only be so strong. He put down the phone- and she watched him lean down and unplug it.

"I'll handle things." he told her. "You rest." He sat beside her bed and stroked her hair. As if she were just a little child. As if none of what was happening now was her problem. And she could almost close her eyes, curl her toes under the warm covers and just feel the warmth of his hands... almost believe it. It was a compelling illusion. Sasuke's voice was as implacable as Neji's. He spoke, he said to her you're strong, Hinata and I don't want to hear what your father said, your father was wrong. And it became true. It became something that could be true. It solved nothing, but she could almost just not notice that.

She slept. She dreamed. The family drew closer, her byakugan watched always, waking or sleeping. Her family's chakra drew near. But never as close, never as near as Sasuke was. He stayed at her side, the entire time. She could sleep. She was safe... finally. He stayed.

It shouldn't have worked. It shouldn't be working. Naruto and Sakura had tried and tried and tried and tried, to no avail, for more than six years. Hinata just couldn't grasp why.. Why now? Why was this different?

Warmth, shelter, understanding, acceptance. Membership in her family.

Was it really that simple?

"He probably just grew up a bit, dear." Miya had said a few hours earlier as she shucked oysters with surgical precision. "Have you ever tried to reason with an angry thirteen year old?" She jerked the knife up towards the second floor, when Hanabi was having her daily tantrum. "There's your answer." she said.

Her family would be so furious. Her family would say the most awful things about his blood, because the Hyuga didn't believe the Uchiha were really good enough anymore. If Neji wasn't pure enough, Sasuke was less than nothing, Sasuke would be dismissed out of hand. She had to stop them, she had to stop her great aunt before she could look Sasuke in the eye and say to him you don't belong here. Hinata had no idea how she could do this, she was so terrified of her aunt, of her uncles, of the council, of all the disapproving white eyes. She'd never been able to stand up to them before.

Sasuke was there, still. His chakra was a contained stormcloud, hovering over her, protectively. She felt him near. The family's long shadow was just falling over them both, their chakra was creeping back into the house.

Sasuke's hand was on her cheek, his arm was loosely gathered around her.

Could she protect him? Could she be that strong. Could she do this... It didn't matter. She would have to.

------

Hinata cried herself out, finally. It took her almost two days to do it, and endless sessions of training and well- lovemaking. He still didn't like that word. He was glad it worked, but he still wasn't the kind of person who made love, ever. Even if he was falling in love with her. She finally seemed to find that place of silence, that peace that came with acceptance of the death. Sasuke lay her down gently against the pillows. He stroked her hair away from her face.

No matter how much pain she felt now, he thought, his hand pausing on her cheek, it didn't change the facts of her strength, her determination. He knew she would go on. She would have a future. These things would never change. He kissed her forehead, gently, so he wouldn't wake her.

He read the letters as she slept.

The storm had slowly broken into a million soft pieces of cloud. The sky was full, and little bits of blue peeked through. The pale gold sunlight of a winter sunrise shone in his face as he climbed out into her little rock garden, it's little benches. He perched on the frozen wood slats. Just let the tears go. He used his usual method, to just not struggle, let them come. And he could feel a bit more like he was just a disinterested bystander, seeing something that had nothing to do with him pass him by.

And when he looked up with wet eyes, the sun glinted at him from every surface.

There was noise out beyond the closed-in walls of the little garden. Voices. Unfamiliar voices, he could hear them wavering up from the front of the house. The travelers were here. He stole up the wood crosspieces, crept over the frozen tiles of the roof. Perched up there like a gargoyle, and one of them looked up, byakugan eyes flashed white-hot in the sunlight. Saw him. Fixed him against the sky.

Who was it? He had no idea. It could have been an uncle, an older cousin, there were many of them now in the front yard, stretching in the sun and yawning into their hands. There were servants milling around them, carrying in bags, and a bit behind them, a whole set of them carrying a sealed wooden coffin, covered with paper tags and sealed with wet black ink.

And beyond that, retainers. Samurai, almost, wildly dressed like the samurai Sasuke had seen in the Wave Country, long ago.

Small and far away, so far below.

But here. Now. Right now.

It was time.