Title: Magnetic North

Neji

Footfalls echoed, uneven against the rough ground, his slightly shambling gait faltering every few steps as he attempted to move his damaged leg in a closer semblance of it's former abilities. Gritting his teeth, the tall man raised his arm to shade the sun from eyes grown un-used to the brilliant light of midday, blinking in the sun's glare. There was still a long way to go, still what seemed an almost insurmountable distance between himself and his destination, but that wouldn't stop him.

Afterall... it wasn't simply any old road that he was traversing. This was the road that led home.

Neji clenched his jaw as the end of the stout branch he was leaning on slipped, digging itself into softened ground and costing him his precious balance. Twisting to reshift his weight, he bit back a sharp exhalation of pain as the motion wrenched his left knee. The joint had never been the same, not since that enemy interrogator had stood over his outstretched leg, grinning in sadistic glee as he brought the butt of the hammer down on the captured Jounin's kneecap.

It had been a long time, years even, since he'd set foot into friendly territory, his 6-month long mission having ended in disastrous failure a scant 2 weeks into it's inception; his team captured, the three of them tortured, then left to rot in some godforsaken hole in the ground that barely qualified as a 'prison'. Obviously their captors hadn't wanted them to die, at least not at first. Otherwise there wouldn't have been the sporadic 'offerings' of rancid food that were tossed in every so often. Barely enough to sustain a single person, they'd been forced to rely on the tough and rubbery white lichen that grew on the walls of their prison. Water had been gleaned by bending - through careful application of something so primitive as a rock bashed against metal - one of their hitai-ate into a shallow dish. With that, they could slide their makeshift bowl through the small chink at the base of the wall to catch rainwater enough to stave off thirst.

At first, they'd raged against their captivity, bruised and broken bodies protesting loud and sharply as they'd worked together to search for a way out of the dank pit that had become their private hell. Fever had set in as his knee had swollen ominously, delerium and pain stealing away whole days of his memories as he drifted between lucid periods and nightmares of sickened fever-dreams. Eventually his own resilience had fought it off, and he'd come back to himself to discover that one of the others who'd gone into the hole with him had not been so lucky. And as the days dragged into weeks, then into months, he'd watched the light fade from his remaining companion's eyes until the man had simply given up. Laid down and refused to move again.

Death had been a swift visitor that time, and by the time the other Jounin's corpse had begun to swell and stink with fetid gases, he'd made up his mind that no matter what, HE would survive. Breach the surface and somehow claw his way free of this hellish nightmare that his life had turned into.

Ironically enough, it had been the veridian mark of the juuin on his forehead that had saved his life. The stoic Hyuuga had no doubt that with his bloodline he'd been considered a valuable captive. The brilliant lines cut into his skin had changed that, he could well remember the muffled curses that his captors had snarled when they'd wrenched the bandages from his forehead to find something other than smooth, unmarred skin. A sealed pair of Byakugan was useless to any rival village, and neither his death nor the forceful removal of his eyes would change the outcome. So instead, it had been torture, designed to break him and gain some useful information from his mind. He'd resisted, they had pushed harder, and the end result had been his consignment to the dark oubliette with body broken and will intact. He had given them nothing, and he had paid for it in blood and nightmares.

Neji no longer knew exactly how long it had been since that day when he - half-conscious from their last round of torture - had met the cold stone floor of the room with a jarring impact to a separated shoulder. The days and weeks and months had blurred together into something barely recognizable as time lost it's meaning in the dark. And then one day... release. Long after the food had stopped coming, long after he'd began to forget what it was like to be free, there had been a shifting of stones and earth, followed by a surprised yell as another body - a LIVING body this time - had plummeted down amidst a shower of rocks and turf to land with a rather displeased curse in the center of what had become his world.

It was hard to tell who had been the more surprised; the teenager who'd stumbled into the subterranean room, or the gaunt, half-starved man who'd begun to lose hope of ever finding release from his cage. That day had been a blur; was STILL a blur of shock and disbelief. He had seen the sunlight for the first time in longer than he even knew, and he wept unashamadely as he dropped to his knees on the grass, shoulders shaking in relief. They'd patched him up as best as they could, the boy and his mother, listening to his tale with horrified expressions on their faces before exchanging a look between the two of them. Then they had told him in halting, hesitant tones that if what he said were true... he'd spent the better part of four years in that pit, buried alive and that it was nothing short of a miracle that he'd survived. The shinobi outpost that had once stood on the spot had been abandoned the last 2 years, and it's resulting disrepair and dilapidation had been the appeal it now held for explorative youngsters.

Though they had offered him shelter, food, a place to stay and build a life, he'd refused. Something burned within him, something too strong for him to ignore. His body protested, so unused to anything beyond the small amount of activity he'd been restricted to in the dark hole, and it was almost a full season before he was strong enough to walk, a season and a half until he could consider himself at least strong enough to leave. And leave he had done, bidding his thanks to the family and setting off with an instinctive haste, towards the siren call of home.

Hinata

"I'll see you tomorrow, same time!"

With a cheerful wave, Hyuuga Hinata ushered her patient out the door before turning to gather up the scattered charts and records that littered the examination room counter. Rubbing her hand across her forehead with a heavy sigh, the dark-haired woman rotated both shoulders, glancing up at the clock with the relief that only one who has just put in a long day's work can appreciate. Finally, the end of the day and the end of the work. Locking the desk drawers, she stood up and swept out the door, flicking the light off as she did so. It wasn't often that she left before dusk when she took a shift at the hospital, though those same occurences had become more frequent since Hizashi was born. The son in question raised his head with a wide grin as she poked her head into the daycare room before sweeping him up into her arms and bouncing him slightly.

"He was perfect, like always. Never made a peep."

Nodding her thanks to the young girl at the desk, Hinata settled her son on her hip and headed out into the fading sunset light. The girls would be home from academy, which meant that Hiromi would be training in her favourite courtyard and Hazuki would be sweet-talking the house servants into letting her help cook. Shaking her head with a slight smile, the Hyuuga clan head began to make her way down the long road towards home.

Stopping here and there to pick up something from one of the little shops or storefronts - a new kunai for Hiromi, a pretty hairclip for Hazuki, something small and innocuous for Hizashi - the dark-haired kunoichi let her mind wander along pathways and directions long-since worn into habit. It had been four years, almost four and a half now, since the failed mission. Since her husband; the father of her children... had vanished. The girls had been 5, almost 6 when it had happened. When the news came that all three members of the team had disappeared less than a quarter of the way into what had been predicted to be a 6-month long mission. She could remember it now, the way the messenger's words had echoed with a soundless knell against the thundering rush of her own blood soaring through her veins. How everything in her field of vision seemed to tunnel, blackening at the edges until she'd suddenly been aware of Kiba's hand hard against her back as he pounded her shoulder with his fist and told her to breathe.

At first, she hadn't wanted to believe. After all, this was Hyuuga Neji. The indomitable, strong, determined man she had lost her heart to when but a child. The one who had been beside her for her entire life, though her eyes had refused to see the truth of her own heart until much later. He had never failed, never come back without completing a mission. 'Failure' wasn't a word in his vocabulary. He would come back. She had kept the news to herself, unwilling to accept it as truth until more news came; the team captured, witnesses who had seen the attack, who had seen her long-haired husband go down against a half-dozen ANBU. And she'd been forced to accept the impossible. That the one person she had thought would always fly... had fallen.

The tears hadn't come until later. Not because the sorrow had held itself at bay, but more... because of the girls. They had sat very still and stone-faced as she had told them, heart aching with every syllable, that their father was not coming back. Twin pairs of eyes, so like her own, so like HIS own, had stared up at her for a long moment before Hazuki began to cry and Hiromi simply nodded and hugged her mother in quiet acceptance. That night she had held her own tears in as she brushed two heads of long indigo hair, forcing a smile and taking comfort in the small warm forms of her daughters as she lay awake between them on the wide futon they had made of their two small ones. One arm found it's way around each precious part of the husband now lost, drawing them closer as she kissed each brow. She'd stayed that way until it was nearly dawn, until the tears had threatened to spill over her cheeks and fall. But she would not cry in front of them. And so she'd made her way back to the lonely bed in it's lonely room, and that was where she finally gave into her grief.

That had been a Tuesday. It had been Friday before she'd emerged from her room, with help from Sakura's gentle insistence and reminders that no matter how hard it was, her children needed her more than ever now. And so she had gotten to her feet again and kept going, taking each day as it came. Some had been harder than others, and there had been times when it had only been the insistent cries of 'Mommy' from down the hallway that spurred her onward. That made her remember why she kept going.

Hizashi had made it both harder and easier. She'd not known of her pregnancy before Neji left for his mission, and the revelation nearly three weeks after forcing herself to accept the truth of things had brought both joy and sorrow. Sorrow that Neji would never know, would never hold the new baby in his arms and smile that rare smile that so seldom graced his stoic features. Regret and anguish that while Hazuki and Hiromi could call up memories of gentle hands and strong arms and kind words, this child would never know the father who had given his life for his village. And also joy... a strange sort of almost-selfish joy that she had not been left entirely bereft. That in addition to the two girls she treasured above all, there would be another small piece of her husband left to share her life.

When the child had been a boy, she had cried tears of bittersweet pride at having finally been able to give him what she knew he'd always secretly wanted; a son. And as tempting as it had been to christen the boy with his father's name, she'd known from the first moment she laid eyes on her son that to do so would only serve to torment her with her loss, as the little boy was as much his father's son as his sisters favoured their mother. And so instead she had gone deeper, reached back further and given their son the name of one who had shaped their lives so much, and in doing so paid respects to a barely-remembered uncle and a much-missed father.

That had been three and a half years ago. Life had moved on, as it is always prone to do. Hinata had begun taking fewer away missions, instead focusing her efforts more on the hospital and the home, devoting her time and her focus to her children. They kept her sane, in a way, kept her from dwelling too much on things lost, things that could never be found. Her friends helped as well, Kiba bringing over little Amaya to play with Hizashi while the twins played a game of tag with Kohaku and Yurika under Sakura's watchful eyes. And while watching Kohaku's green eyes flash as he delivered another Lee-worthy speech about youth and hard work was amusing, and seeing Yurika trying to persuade Hiromi to braid her long locks in the same manner as Yurika's platinum ones heartwarming... the most rewarding part of the more-frequent playdates had been when Hazuki began to smile again, and when Hiromi stopped giving in and began rolling her eyes at the other girl again.

Ino and Sakura had noticed as well, and subtly encouraged their respective offspring even as they themselves supported their friend. Loss went hand-in-hand with their lives, it had touched many of them in some way and it was in that sameness that they found a deeper comeraderie. Kiba and Shino had tried to coaz her back into her work, suggesting more missions, missions that took her away from home on short trips at first, then local ones when they realized how loathe she was to leave her family. They invited her over for dinner, took turns offering to watch the kids, and did everything they could to offer what support they could. And it HAD helped, she couldn't deny that. It had helped so much that Hinata would have been unable to put it into words had she been asked to explain it. And now, almost four years since it had happened, she finally felt that her life was moving forward again. The girls had begun academy this past spring, and already they were a credit to their clan. Hizashi resembled his father more and more with every passing day, and she'd begun taking fewer and fewer missions, instead devoting her time to helping out in the hospital and the needs of the clan.

Her mental musings were broken by Hizashi's small voice as he insistently asked to be put down. Shaking her head slightly, Hinata knelt and set the small boy on his feet, nodding in assent as he automatically took her offered hand. He really WAS so much like his father at times, never wanting help, always stubbornly independent and stoic through whatever life brought to him. His hair had gotten long over the last year or so, and she'd taken to pulling it back in small mimicry of his father's long hair. With the ponytail down his back, in his black and white Hyuuga robes, it was almost like watching Neji all over again as she'd first met him. As the Hyuuga compound came into view, Hinata frowned as the front door flew open and a small figure skidded out and ran towards her, calling out.

"Mom! Mom! You... you've gotta..."

Hiromi skidded to a stop in front of her mother, panting heavily as she braced small hands against her knees, long hair shrouding her face as she gasped for breath, trying to speak around heavy inhalations.

"There... there's a... man... he came... Hazuki..."

Frown deepening, Hinata scooped her son up in her arms and took her daughter's hand in a tight grip. "Show me, Hiromi-chan..."

Reunion

The road home had indeed been as long as he'd thought, and he was shaking slightly from the exertion when he finally beheld the familiar red-painted gate with it's sentrypost beside. When he'd given his name to the two unfamiliar faces keeping guard, the syllables had been met with startled disbelief and a rather flustered demand that he prove what he was saying if he didn't relish a stay in prison. He'd counted on that, hell if he'd been his old self he would have chided them on letting him get as close to the gate as he had BEFORE demanding it of him. But now, after so long, it seemed only as another obstacle between him and his objective; home.

By the time they were satisfied with his identity, the two shinobi had wanted to announce him, to carry him directly to the Hokage so that he could be debriefed and have the medical treatment he so obviously needed in order to restore him to his former level. Knowing there was hardly any way to politely defer, to tell them that what he wanted, what he needed right now more than anything was not to be found in a hospital bed or a mission report, he had simply nodded quietly and waited for them to step away long enough to give them the slip. It wasn't as though he had forgotten the way. Time seemed to both fly and crawl until suddenly he was standing in front of the gate, staring up at the unchanged polished wood with it's etched characters and stone frame.

Swallowing back a sudden rush of emotion, Neji pushed the gate open, grimacing slightly as his shoulder protested against what would have once been an easy gesture. The courtyard was silent, and for that he was thankful as he made his way automatically towards the one place that continued to call to him with an ever-increasing insistence. The sound of children's laughter drew his attention, and as he came around the corner he stopped dead in his tracks, eyes wide as the two girls giggled and teased each other. He could have almost mistaken them for Hinata, so alike in appearance were they to their mother, but he knew who they were without anyone even telling him. Gulping back the lump in his throat, he took another step forward towards his daughters, scarcely able to beleive how much they'd grown since he saw them last.

"...Hiromi...Hazuki-chan... you've grown..."

Twin heads shot up in alarm, the one drawing back slightly while the other set her jaw and reached for a kunai. It was hard not to chuckle. They had changed, certainly, but in some ways stayed the same. Hazuki always the shyer, like her quiet and gentle mother. Always softspoken and hesitant, a dreamer at times. And Hiromi, with her temper and her willfullness, determined to surpass everyone around her and protect her sister. Not for the curse of the juuin, having been born second - Hinata had outright refused to have any of her children caged thusly - but out of the bond they had always shared. The way it was supposed to be with siblings, not the cruel mockery of bunke and soke that had existed for so many generations.

Seconds ticked by, long and silent, his words hanging in the air as they studied him, and he had to bite back the faint twinge of hurt that they hadn't immediately recognized him. Another moment and then another, and then Hiromi clenched her jaw in determination and darted out through the side door in a clattering of sandals and a swish of long hair, leaving him alone with his elder daughter. Hazuki, at least, seemed more receptive to his presence, as the little girl's eyes began to tear up and her lower lip quiver. Standing, she drew herself up with as much dignity as a ten-year old girl could muster and fixed him with a long, searching stare.

"D...Daddy...?"

Words seemed to fail him, as they'd done so often in the past at momentous occasions and Neji found that the only thing he could do was to simply nod and open his arms as his daughter flew at him, winding thin arms around his waist and burying her face in his chest with a wail.

That was how Hinata found them, moments later when she followed her stubborn daughter into the garden, Neji's tall form kneeling in the grass as he held Hazuki close to his chest, trying to soothe the girl's wild sobbing as he murmered softly into the top of her head. One hand came up to cover the small gasp, eyes widening in shocked disbelief as the man she'd thought lost raised his head to catch her tearfilled gaze with his own misty white one, those same tears spilling over and running down her cheeks as he smiled faintly and uttered the one thing she'd thought never to hear again.

"I'm home..."

Authors Notes: Ok, for anyone who is a bit lost, I'm of two minds on this fic. I like it bc I love the idea, but I feel that it rambled in a few places. The title is a reference to a compass' point and how no matter where you are or how far you have traveled, it will always point unerringly towards the same direction. Basically, it's set in a fictional future-time where Neji and Hinata are married and have twin daughters. When the girls are almost 6, Neji takes what is to be a 6-month long away mission. However, the mission ends disastrously when they are captured and subjected to torture and imprisonment. While Konoha believes them dead, the three waste away in a forgotten cell until only Neji is left, kept alive by his own determination to get back home to the family he left behind. He is found almost 4 years later by a passing villager, a teenager playing around at the old abandoned site that once housed the enemy base, and ultimately released and cared for. Driven by the need to return home, he comes back to the surprise of his wife and daughters, and to the son he never knew he had. I took the idea for this from stories of POW of Vietnam and other wars who came home years after being presumed dead, and I wanted to show not only the bittersweetness of the reunion, but the effects that perceived loss had on those left behind, in this case Hinata and her daughters. Hiromi, Hazuki, and Hizashi are my creations, drawn from my huge pot of OC-children that I make up and use here and there as I see fit, depending on which children I feel work best in the story whenever I write a story that has canon-based children.