I do not own Naruto Shippuden or any of the characters.

Reception

Naruto cracked his eyes open and shut them again. The black eyes that seemed to have developed hurt but the real problem was the light that someone thought put over his pillow.

"Move the light," a voice said.

"Good idea, he must have one hell of a headache," another added.

After a moment, he cracked them open again and groaned. The voice was right. His head killed. He could only imagine how he must look. He tried to look around but his neck was to stiff to move without pain shooting through his body and his eyes were so swollen that he could only see blurry images looking straight closed them again, sighing and suddenly they stopped hurting. He opened them again and his vision finally focused. He looked around and saw that Hinata was sitting directly to his right, beside his pillow with Kushina on the other side. Tsunade was standing beside Kushina, having just healed his eyes so that he could see. Behind her were the others who had gone with him to "rescue" Sasuke, all of them looking a lot worse for the wear but probably much better than him. Choji was the only one not present from the team. At the foot of the bed, behind the heaps of ramen, chocolate, and other assorted get well food, stood Lee, Gaara, and Gaara's two siblings, which terrified Naruto. Behind Hinata stood Sakura, eyes red an puffy, Kakashi, Might Guy, Kurenai, and Jiraiya.

"Are you okay?" Kushina questioned, obviously worried.

"G...G..."Naruto found himself unable to speak even one word so he tried to move his arm.

When that too was too much for him, he simply straightened a finger, pointing toward the Sand Siblings.

"Don't worry," Kushina smiled. "Kankuro and Temari saved your team, and Gaara saved Lee then carried you here to be treated."

Naruto blinked in surprise then smiled and looked around. If his team had been saved, where was Choji.

"Choji is in the ICU," Tsunade stated guessing what was wrong. "He fared the worst, very nearly dying. At least, out of the others on your team."

Naruto managed a painful nod and then looked to Sakura.

"S...S...sor...ry," he managed,

"Don't worry about it," Sakura smiled. "I know you tried your best."

Naruto's eyes as his head went numb, threatening to make him pass out and he heard someone speaking but could no longer hear. Slowly the room was emptied leaving only Kushina and Hinata, both of whom looked extremely reluctant to leave.

"I'll leave you two alone," Hinata finally said standing but stopped when she felt her sweatshirt catch on something.

Both women looked and saw that it was Naruto's hand. Kushina smiled and left instead and Hinata sat down blushing but smiling and sighed quietly deciding to see if he would tell the truth to her.

"Are you okay?" Hinata questioned.

Naruto managed to shake his head before trying to speak.

"Sasu...ke...was...supposed...to...go," Naruto struggled to say. "But I...tried...to...kill...him...and...he did...the same."

Hinata covered her mouth in shock but then lowered it.

"I...couldn't...control...myself," Naruto rasped.

"It's alright," Hinata smiled. "Neither of you died and you're both going to be okay."

Naruto managed to smiled but failed to miss the tears rolling down Hinata's cheeks.

"Were you...worried?" Naruto questioned confused.

"Yes," Hinata admitted. "I was afraid you wouldn't come back."

Naruto smiled and wiped a tear off of her cheek then let his hand fall, gasping in pain as it hit the bed.

"I'm...not...going...to die...any time...soon," Naruto smiled. "I...haven't...become...Hokage...yet. And I...refuse...to...die...without...making...Dad...proud."

"He would be," Hinata smiled. "Any parent would be proud of you. Especially your dad. He's always been proud of you."

Naruto smiled and opened his mouth to say something but before he could his head tilted sideways and his eyes fluttered shut. Hinata glanced at the monitor before smiling and standing to leave. Kushina walked in as she left and smiled at Naruto's sleeping form before turning to Hinata.

"Hinata," Kushina began. "I want you to promise that you will be there for him. I won't tell him yet but he'll need to when he finds out."

"Alright," Hinata nodded. "But I'm sure everything will work out. It always does."

"It hasn't before," Kushina sighed. "But thank you. It means a lot."

Hinata nodded and finally left and Kushina took her seat at Naruto's side.

Read and review. Sorry for the short chapter.