The first few months went by in a flash.
There was rebuilding to oversee, endless supplies to order and prolonged negotiations with contractors. Buildings were gutted and refurbished. Scaffolding went up, walls and ceilings and floors seeming appearing overnight. Debris was cleared, swept away.
Of course she didn't take much part in that. All active shinobi were out on missions, a bare skeleton guard in the village. Hinata rarely even spent the night at home, one mission after another often solo. She would leave one night, coming back several days later to a new village. The landscape continuously changing.
The village grew under her watch, even though she wasn't really looking.
The rebuilding continued for a long time, eventually petering down to just new signs being put up. Finally life resumed as normal save fore one thing, Naruto was still gone.
It was strange to know he was gone, Hinata sighed brushing her hair. It was late, and she had just returned back to the Hyuuga compound, but sleep was just not coming to her. The crescent moon shone weakly through the thin clouds, almost completely overshadowed by the streetlights and advertising signs.
Her pale face was reflected in her mirror, dark hair straight and down to the tops of her breasts. She seemed unhappy, her brow slightly furrowed and her lips pressed tight. Her eyes gazed back at her, rather listless and empty.
She didn't know what she was doing.
Hinata put the brush down, the clank of the plastic too loud in the dead night. She hadn't seen him in months, no one had. It was like he disappeared off the face of the earth, without a single word or anything to let them know how he was or what he was doing. He had just seemingly vanished.
Sighing she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, her hand moving of its own accord, restless and unable to stay still. She had wanted to tell him not to leave, it had been on the tip of her tongue ready to come out, but she realized she couldn't. It would be selfish to tell him not to go, to keep him from fulfilling a promise just because she didn't want him to leave.
She shut her eyes, exhaling heavily. Hinata felt something in her settle and sink, but she still couldn't do it. Even now, after the distance of time she wouldn't have said anything different. Was it because he had important business, or just because she was to afraid to say anything? She still didn't know, even now.
And she didn't know what to think about that.
Naruto-kun was gone. She hadn't ever felt his loss so keenly before. Hinata had been rather surprised at the emotion, blindsided by the loss. Even when he had left years ago, she had never looked out the window to see if he was coming, or sought out Sakura-san to see if she had heard anything from Tsunade-sama.
She put on her pajamas and slipped into her futon, the cool sheets soothing to her troubled thoughts. The night sounds were a lullaby, the single cricket composing the song to send her to sleep. Hinata yawned and shut her eyes, sleeping within moments.
She lifted off the ground. Floating higher and higher in the bright summer sun. The village shrank underneath her, smaller and smaller until there was nothing but a speck at the edge of her vision. She frowned, her stomach sinking as she realized it was gone. Fading away and out of sight.
The winds buffeted her, knocking her back and forth until she was dizzy. Not knowing where she was or where she was going. The world swirled around her, spinning and spinning. Nothing was like it was, nothing was like it should be. She wanted to cry, but found that she had no eyes anymore. They had rotted out and fallen away, out of her reach.
She awoke the next morning, unsettled without knowing why.
The next few months she settled into the routine.
She went back to the academy, grading papers and taking lessons with Iruka-sensei. The daily grind of quizzes and instruction to plan. A new wing had been added to the building in the meantime, and the instructors put her to work dividing classes and preparing classrooms.
Hinata poured herself into the work tirelessly. She was there early and left late, she took any shifts other's needed off. Her overtime rivaled her normal hours and her paid time off accumulated to their limit.
Her old teammates rarely saw her, only meeting occasionally between missions and classes. Kurenai-sensei invited her over for tea, but more often than not she had to decline, citing a previous engagement. Even her family noted her absence, only seeing her late at night, early in the morning or when holidays closed the academy.
Neji-nii-san had even asked her about it, in his offhand seemingly casual manner. She had smiled, waving off his concerns and changing the subject.
There wasn't really anything to be done, she decided after stapling her umpteenth piece of construction paper to the notice board. The cheery orange paper was too bright under the florescent lights, and her eyes watered from being so close. Hinata numbly pushed the metal stapler into the cork, her hands running on autopilot.
She went to bed with papercuts and red marks inside her eyelids.
She had to get done.
Marking the papers in front of her wildly and madly, finishing one only for another to appear right before her. All the questions were wrong, and the pen in her hand sped until her hand ached. The quizzes piled up around her, mountains of white and red.
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. They never ended. The sun came up and went back down, happening so fast it was like a strobe light. Her hands withered under her gaze, the supple delicate skin thinning. The smooth texture wrinkling. The pale color aging with dark spots.
Her veins stood out starkly, giant blue worms under the translucent skin. Her knuckles thickened, knobby and contorting her joints. But, she still gripped that red pen until the paper around her collapsed on her, burying her wizened form in an avalanche of quizzes.
The last few months found her calmer than she ever expected.
Hinata continued at the academy, but didn't spend all her time there. She no longer took extra shifts unless someone really needed her to. She didn't decline the occasional mission from Tsunade-sama, or the invitations from Kurenai-sensei. She even accompanied Kiba-kun and Akamaru-kun on walks and Shino-kun during bug collecting.
Her family would see her often, joining in training with her sister or cousin. Or arranging pressed flowers through her open door.
Even visiting the other kunoichi. Sakura-san and Ino-san seemed to have grown out of their respective self concern, perhaps realizing that few could understand and relate to their experiences like other kunoichi. She was shy at first, but opened up in time. And while she couldn't call them bosom friends, they were important and she valued their company.
Hinata put down the book on its open side, the tale just not drawing her in tonight. She glanced outside, the high trees dark shadows against the underlit cloudy sky. The leaves blew gently, the wind coming unusually from the east.
There had been rumors. Snippets of gossip and hearsay. And she had smiled.
Word was Akatsuki was no more.
She hadn't believed it at first. So long without a word and then this? It was so sudden and unexpected, but once the initial shock wore off she couldn't help the way her gaze lingered on the village gates. Or the way she passed by the ramen stand on the way home.
However, nothing beyond that had reached her ears yet. Hinata sighed, turning off the lamp and laying down. Was it true? she wondered, as her eyes drifted shut, or were her hopes raised too high?
The answers didn't come in the quiet waking moments, but sleep gave its own.
She awoke the next morning, eagerly watching the sun break above the horizon. The wind chimes in her window ringing.
Disclaimer: It doesn't belong to me.
A/N: Ah, finally getting past the bump! It feels good. A few notes:
I wanted to show Hinata waiting, but not desperately. I don't think she would stay in a rut just because Naruto wasn't around. She's stronger than that.
Yeah, I got rid of Akatsuki. But don't worry, I still have some juicy plot to go through.
I'll let you imagine what Hinata dreamed last :)
As always, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed it!