Chapter Three

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto

A/N: I apologize for this being so late.

By half past five the next morning Sasuke was awake. He looked at his window. The drapes were closed, but still the sun was starting to peek through. This summer was rather hot. It had been weeks since he felt the need to sleep with the covers on him.

He got up, did some meditation followed by some katas that he repeated for about a half of an hour. He went to the bathroom and by twenty to seven he had already completed his shit, shower and shave routine. Breakfast was leftover fish and rice that Sakura brought for him two days ago. It tasted bad then and it tasted even worse now. Still, he ate. Now that Naruto was married to Sakura the days of good food went when Hinata and Naruto went their separate ways.

Hinata.

Sasuke concluded and accepted that last night's odd verbal diarrhea was the result of a fleeting attraction to Hinata. Just like the farmhouse, the perfect lighting conditions coupled with the exact timing and mood of the day caused her to momentarily stun him with her appeal. He was sure when he saw her this morning she would look like normal and boring Hinata that had a tendency to fade into a background, any background. He wondered if she ever thought about specializing in infiltration. He would have to talk to Naruto about it.

Sasuke paused. Like Hinata, any mention of the ex-spouse was a taboo topic to Naruto. And for whatever reason, Sakura was even worse. Sasuke wasn't sure whether Sakura was drinking tea for Naruto's fever and that was why she was even worse when it came to any mention of Hinata or if she just really didn't like any mention of her husband's ex.

Speaking of taboo topics, Sasuke looked at the calendar. It was the fifteenth of July. It was the anniversary of his godson's death.

He spotted her from a distance. She was at the grave site, her face solemn as she mumbled some prayer or the other. There were two bouquets of flowers there already. Sakura always brought Peace lilies and apparently Hinata bought a bouquet of white and blue hydrangeas. He approached her quietly.

"Good morning, Sasuke-san."

She didn't look the least bit surprised. With those damned eyes she must have spotted him two miles ago when he stepped out of his apartment, he cynically mused.

"Hn,"

He put down his bouquet of white roses next to hers and stepped back. The cemetery was on a hill. He looked out and saw downtown Konoha unfurling before him. The public cemetery – he had heard that the first big fight had been where to bury: The Hyuuga's private cemetery or here. Sasuke wondered if the bitterness in her heart towards Naruto started at that point.

She was still down on her knees. Thankfully she wasn't crying, loudly, that is. He noticed the tears on her cheeks.

"All that I have is doubt," She muttered to her son's grave.

"I know how you feel." He muttered to himself. He felt a spike of chakra and looked towards the trees, but when he looked back at her, knowing that she felt it too, she looked normal. She started to rise, but seemed unable to, stumbling. Sasuke helped her before she collapsed.

"Hinata,"

Sasuke looked up to see Naruto had finally arrived. Oh, so she did see him coming, Sasuke thought as he tried to set Hinata upright, but she was down on her knees and seemed like she would never get up. Naruto hurried over to help her up. The combined of strength of Naruto and Sasuke trying to lift her up momentarily sent Hinata a few inches off the ground.

"You're getting way too light, Hina." Naruto said to her, removing his touch and leaving her to lean entirely on Sasuke. Hinata said nothing. She seemed incapable of existing for a moment. If Sasuke let go of her, Naruto was sure she would collapse.

"Hey," Sasuke called to her, genuine concern on his features. He didn't like the way she looked right now. She looked too pale.

"Hina-chan? Hinata-chan? Hinata!" Naruto's voice seemed to snap her out of whatever state of impenetrable weakness she had fallen into.

"No need to shout, dobe." Sasuke said, but Naruto ignored him. He grabbed his ex-wife's hand. She squeezed his hand.

"Hina-chan, you alright?"

Hinata looked up at him, then down at her right hand in his and pulled away her hand gently. Naruto looked properly rebuked then his features hardened into his usual false smile, just like hers. Sasuke saw that they were resolute in their decision to not have anything to do with each other. He felt a hollowness that he couldn't explain. It was like watching their marriage fall apart again in three seconds.

Hinata straightened up and turned to go without a word to either man.

"Things got so out of hand," Sasuke heard Naruto mutter.

Sasuke turned to look at the gravestone again. "He would've been what, four by now, right?"

Naruto nodded and dropped to his knees and Sasuke already recognized Naruto falling into an angst coma. They were supposed to have a meeting today with Shikamaru at eleven. Sasuke knew he could confidently cancel that meeting because it was impossible to get Naruto to move from this spot before twelve today. He looked at his self-proclaimed best friend and put a hand on his shoulder – a rare showcase that their friendship was not as one-sided that he liked to make it seem. He would be there for him later if he needed someone to talk to or just to sit and say nothing at all. He was excellent at the latter. He squeezed Naruto's shoulder, then turned to leave.

Sasuke followed Hinata all the way to the broken down farmhouse. By the time he caught up to her, her eyes were dry and she looked a lot less like a ghost. Still, the aura of sadness hung off of her like a shroud. She was brave though, and tried to smile when she saw him. The smile didn't reach her eyes.

They entered the farmhouse silently. They both coughed at the same time when the scent hit them.

"I think that one of the neighbour's cats may have gotten into here." Hinata said as she tried to ignore the putrid and sharp scent of cat piss attacking her nostrils.

"Hn. Why didn't the Hyuuga take better care of this place?"

"We were just about to, but there were so many people clamouring to buy our rundown farmhouse that we decided to leave it as is."

Sasuke looked over to her. She was being sarcastic, wasn't she? Was she? He smirked. Maybe the rumours were wrong. She was a true Hyuuga – he couldn't read her at all. Inadvertently, he activated his Sharingan.

"Would you prefer to do this at another time?" He asked noticing the slight shaking of her fingers. She seemed to be emitting an aura of sadness, reverberating around her like the shimmer of heat on tin rooftops. He knew that feeling too well.

"No, no, I'm fine. Look, the floors don't seem so bad." She said as she walked over to the irori. Sasuke followed her, standing next to her, both of them looking at the built-in hearth that probably served as the cat's personal litter box.

They explored the ground floor and Sasuke noted that the hardwood floors were heavily scuffed, but still sturdy. The house itself was not large, but seemed large due to the well thought-out layout. He would have to replace all of the original exterior doors and windows and trade the exterior sliding shoji screen doors and windows for more sturdily framed glass doors and windows to let in more light and keep out the weather, but otherwise it seemed workable.

They headed upstairs to where the bedrooms were and they both noted that he should probably work on getting indoor plumbing. They proceeded to the third floor and stood in the centre of the one small storage room talking about where he would install the interior bathroom or whether he would keep it separate when they heard creaking.

They both looked up in time to see piece of the roofing come hurtling towards them. They pushed each other out of the way as they simultaneously attempted to jump back. Except, Sasuke's strength was far greater than Hinata's and the result was that he pushed her straight to the edge of the window. The old window sill creaked under the sudden impact and gave way. Sasuke rushed to the window. She was lying flat on the ground.

"Hinata!"

"Ugh." She answered a bit dazed. She hadn't braced for that fall at all. Her head was spinning and her back was radiating pain.

"Can you move?"

She nodded and instantly regretted it. Sasuke let out a small sigh of relief that he hadn't crippled her on her son's death anniversary. He jumped down to her.

"I have a question."

"What?" She replied as she tried to sit up, a bit annoyed that he made no attempts to help her.

"Are you going to charge me extra for the skylight?"

Hinata looked up at Sasuke in confusion. His face was impassive, but was there something like humour in those eyes? Was Sasuke…joking? He was! Or maybe she was in his genjutsu. Though she did hit her head pretty hard. Did it really matter? Real or not Sasuke made a joke! An incredibly lame joke too!

A smirk crept up that turned into a full blown smile and escalated into a chuckle. She covered her mouth with her hand, but Sasuke could see that this time the smile reached her eyes.

He didn't know why, but that made him feel better.