Thank you everyone for your comments, reviews and feedback. I really appreciate it that you guys took the time to write it down. So please continue! Let me know what you think and if there's anything that's missing or could be fixed or made better.
Enjoy!
IMPORTANT NOTE: I just wanted to point if any of you forgot or didn't do the math but Naruto and Hinata, in this fic, dated for four years, and then were separated for four years. So they met 8 years ago.
This was a bad idea she thought as soon as she pushed through the door and saw his blue eyes staring at her in shock. This was so stupid, she mentally chided herself, what was I thinking?
Hinata had finally made her decision to face Naruto after so many years to find some kind of closer if nothing else, but when she opened the door to his room, her resolve began to crumble.
Naruto turned to look at the person who had entered thinking it was the doctor, but instead saw his ex-girlfriend. To say that he was shocked to see her was an understatement. Seeing her after so many years, Naruto didn't know what to think. He thought his eyes might be playing tricks on him but the look of surprise on Ayame's face told him that he wasn't the only one seeing her. Ayame was surprised to see Hinata but only because she didn't know who she was.
Hinata's entrance had caused everyone in the room to silence and Ayame began to find herself in an awkward situation as Naruto and Hinata kept staring at each other. Naruto was taking in the changes Hinata had gone through in the past four years they had been apart, and he felt a sudden pang in his chest knowing that she might not be the same as she was years ago. Her kind nature and beautiful soul was something he wanted to cherish forever but life hadn't turned out that way. She was the first one he had ever loved so deeply but sometimes that is not enough for two people to stay together.
"Uhm," Ayana cleared her throat to get their attention.
It was like a spell had been broken and for the first time Naruto wondered why Hinata was there.
"Hi, my name is Ayame," she said before waiting for Hinata to answer.
"Oh... I... I'm uh," she finally looked to Ayame for the first time since entering the room.
"Hinata..." said Naruto before he could stop himself. Now everyone in the room was looking at him and he knew he had to say something. "Uh... Ayame, this is Hinata," he said while Hinata stayed quiet, listening to his voice when he said her name.
"Oh, you two know each other?" Ayame asked.
"Yes," Hinata replied immediately, but before she could say anymore Naruto cut her.
"She's a friend from college." Hinata's eyes widened at his lie but didn't say anything for a while until she acknowledged what he said.
"Y-yes, I... knew Naruto in college... and I hadn't seen him since graduation, s-so I wanted to see him after I found out about his accident."
"How did you find out?" Naruto asked curiously.
"I'm listed as your emergency contact," stated Hinata as she stared at him while Ayame tried to hide her shock.
Ayame had never met this woman and Naruto had never spoken about her either. But to hear that he trusted her enough to be the one in his time of need was shocking. They must have been close thought Ayame.
"Well, it's always nice to meet a friend of Naruto's," said Ayame as she extended her hand to Hinata. Slowly Hinata stepped forward and shook the woman's extended hand while displaying a taut smile.
Hinata could not believe Naruto had lied about her relationship with him. Did he not want to at least acknowledge her properly. Was he ashamed of her. This only brought back her resolve to talk to Naruto about what happened between them.
Naruto on the other hand could not believe the circumstances that had lead to the situation he was in right now. He had never thought about changing his emergency contact because he had forgotten about it. Now standing in front of him was Hinata all because he had forgotten one thing. Why did she have to come into my life right now? he thought.
He was afraid to acknowledge their history in front of Ayame because he knew what Ayame would think if she found out, and he did not want that. Also he did not want Hinata to come back into his life. There was a reason why they broke and why he left. That reason was still true to this day so it was better if they stayed far away from each other.
Even with thinking that, Naruto could not help but feel a little elated at the fact that even after all these years Hinata cared for him enough to check up on him. He wasn't a fool to think that she might still love him, because he had Ayame now and she needed him.
"I just wanted to check up on N-Naruto when he woke up, so I'll be leaving now that I know s-someone is with him," Hinata said to Ayame before turning to Naruto one more time. "I'll see you later... Take care," she said before leaving the room.
Hinata knew that Naruto understood what she was trying to say. She wanted to talk to Naruto and now that she knew he was not going to leave the hospital anytime soon, she had the perfect opportunity to see him without him disappearing.
Ayame had seemed like a nice girl and even though nothing was said, Hinata knew that there was something between them. But even then, she had never seen her, not even when she came to visit Naruto when he was in a coma.
How could they seem so close when the woman hadn't even showed up when Naruto was in danger? Hinata thought with slight bitterness but shook her head to dispel such thoughts. She had to focus on one thing at a time. First she had to talk to Naruto.
The next day, Hinata visited the hospital again. This time she was more determined than she had been for weeks. She felt nervous about talking to Naruto but she didn't let that stop her.
She went up to his room and made sure that Ayame wasn't there before entering. She wanted to talk to him privately.
His doctor had just left his room and there seemed to be no one else in the room, so she decided to go in after taking a deep breath to prepare herself.
Naruto heard the door open and for the second time he expected to see his doctor but instead found Hinata. He had been expecting her from the way she spoke to him yesterday but he was still surprised to see her.
She had changed, but he couldn't figure out if it was a good change or a bad one. She was beautiful as always if not more, but he did not know if she was still the same person or not.
"Hi Naruto," his name escaped her like a whisper but he heard her.
"Hinata..."
"How are you feeling?"
"Better... The doctor said that I'll be able to leave in a week." His arm was still in a cast while stitches and bandages ran across his arm, forehead and legs.
"That's good." Hinata slowly walked up to his bed and took a seat in the chair right next to it. Naruto's eyes never left her, anticipating what she would say after the small talk was over.
They stayed silent for a moment as Naruto kept staring at her while she avoided his gaze. He could not believe that she was here in front of him after all this time. He thought that he would never see her again. He had prepared himself for that because that was what was needed. Now seeing her he was reminded of all the love and pain he felt when he left her but it was something that had to be done.
"Naruto, how have you been?" Hinata finally asked as she turned to look him in the eye with a small smile.
"Hinata... why are you here?" Her smile disappeared. "Things ended between us a long time ago. You shouldn't be here," he said as he looked away from her.
"You know, that's exactly what I thought. But then seeing you almost die, struggling for your life while one by one doctors came out, hands drenched in your blood made me realize how long it had been. Four years, Naruto... for four years I didn't see you or hear from you. I didn't know where you were or whether you were even alive.
"I tried forgetting about you," Naruto kept listening to her but never turned to look at her, "and it worked for a while... until I got the call." Naruto finally turned to look at her but she kept going, "I thought that I had given up on you, but I just couldn't bear the thought of you in this condition and all alone. So that's why I'm here. Even though things didn't turn out the way we wanted it to, I still care for you."
"...Thank you Hinata," Naruto tried to suppress the weight that he felt build up in his heart when she spoke. "I know we... ended things on a bad note, but you still came for me so thank you."
"Yeah," she nodded, " we didn't really have a proper ending," she smiled. "You didn't give us a chance to," her smile disappeared once more. "You just ended things and left without any explanation."
Naruto stayed quiet for a while as Hinata waited for him say something, anything. She wanted him to say that things weren't the way she thought they were, or that he tried telling her but couldn't before leaving. She wanted to be reassured by him but his silence wasn't helping.
"If you're here for some kind of explanation," he finally said, avoiding her eyes, "we already talked about it. And my leaving had nothing to do with you." Hinata's eyes widened.
"You can't expect me to believe that...You left the next day. All of your stuff was gone and I didn't get a single word. I didn't know if you were okay or dead...You can't really expect me to not want to know what happened."
"Hinata," he wanted to end this discussion, "there's nothing to talk about here. You should-"
"Hi," Ayame popped her head through the door, "am I interrupting anything?" Both Hinata and Naruto turned to look at the intruder.
"What are you doing here?" asked Naruto.
"Oh, I thought we could have lunch together," she held up some lunchboxes in her hand. Naruto's eyes widened slightly while she turned to Hinata. "I didn't know you would be joining us or else I would've made more."
"That's okay. She was just about to leave anyway," Naruto answered as he looked at Hinata.
"Oh okay... then I'm just going to go to the cafeteria to get some juice for-"
"Okay, I'll wait for you here," Naruto cut her off.
"It was nice to see you again," she said to Hinata. "I hope we can get together and have lunch or something. I always wanted to meet Naruto's friends," she smiled before leaving the room.
Hinata stood up from her chair when she left but she didn't move. Her back was to Naruto but no one said anything.
"You should leave," Naruto said eventually.
Hinata looked over her shoulder to glare at him. She would've stayed longer until he talked because he was stubbornly avoiding the subject, but she couldn't since Ayame would be there soon.
She turned to leave the room but not before stopping at the door to say one more thing.
"There's one thing I know for sure. Now that I know where you are, I'm not going waste my time looking for you. And if you want to beak ties with me then do it all the way so we don't end up in this situation again," with that she left his room leaving Naruto to stare out his window as he laid on his bed. He didn't say more than two words to anyone after that.
Hinata on the other hand felt crushed by Naruto's rejection to talk about what happened. She wanted to find out, but after all these years, she finally saw how he was doing. He had clearly moved on so she knew she shouldn't hurt herself any longer by wondering about what went wrong. He wasn't worried about her so she shouldn't think about him anymore.
As days went by after the meeting between Hinata and Naruto, things seemed to settle down. Naruto was out of the hospital, and Hinata was about to start her job.
She worked as a teacher in a private elementary school. This year she was teaching third grade and she was excited to start the new school year. She had been feeling down recently but seeing all the cute faces of the children always made her happy. She loved working with children, especially where she could teach them, nurture them and hopefully influence them positively.
Amongst the children this year was a new addition to her class. She knew about this and was excited to see the new student even though she hadn't found out their name yet.
It was the first day of school and parents were dropping their children to school. Some cried having to go to school now, while others reunited with friends. Hinata found it nice to watch such enthusiasm in the little ones.
"Hinata!" Hinata turned to where her name was spoken, and found Ayame right behind her. "I can't believe this. It's a small world! I'm so glad there's someone here that I know. We're new in this city and it's kind of scary not knowing anyone." Hinata just heard her words but didn't pay attention as she tried to firgure out why Ayame was at her school.
"What're you doing here?" Hinata found herself asking even if it sounded a bit rude.
"Oh, I thought you knew...Well I'm here to drop off my daughter. Natsumi," Ayame turned to bring forward a little girl.
There was no mistaking it. The blonde hair and those bright blue eyes could only belong to one person. And if there was any doubt then one could see the familiar birthmark patterns on the little girl's cheeks. It was the same as Naruto's.
"Natsumi, this is Hinata. She's daddy's friend," Hinata's heart stopped at that.
This is Naruto's...Hinata couldn't stop staring at Natsumi. The little girl turned to look at Hinata before saying.
"Hi! My name is Natsumi Uzumaki! And I'm 8 and a half years old," her smile was the same as Naruto's. Ayame just laughed at the girl's enthusiasm.
"She's a little excited about starting school. She'll be going into third grade this year."
This girl looked just like Naruto, but Hinata could find pieces of Ayame in her. The shape of her face, eyes, nose...
Hinata couldn't figure out what was going on. It was clear who were Natsumi's parents but to Hinata, it was still confusing.
This girl was more than eight years old. Naruto and Hinata had met eight years ago. That meant that Natsumi was born before they met.
But Naruto never said anything about her, thought Hinata as she felt for the second time in her life betrayed by Naruto. Does he not trust me?
She couldn't believe that Naruto would lie about something like this, for the four years they were together. But it seemed that was the case because here stood Natsumi and Naruto had never told her that he had a daughter when they dated. Ayame, the girl's mother was now with Naruto, and it all made sense. He had chosen his daughter and his family over Hinata. But what she couldn't understand was that why he hid it from her, when they were together and even recently when she asked him again.