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Shikamaru found himself standing in the kitchen doorway again, silently watching her again as Hinata washed plates in the sink humming lowly to herself as she did the menial task.
Stepping into an empty house with her was like stepping into a fantasy world where only they and sometimes their goddaughter lived. Where Hinata made terrific meals and sang lullabies and laughed loudly with Mirai at silly things she said, she also spared her Sensei with gritted teeth, sharp eyes, planted feet and hands glowing blue as if the very sky above was on her side.
Where only the two of them stayed up at night time to talk about all the unimportant things of the world and some important things too, where Hinata shared her passions and hopes and dreams with him, and he gave her the same level of trust, where they spoke of past failed loves and family problems, clan issues great and small. They shared laughter and tears and smiles and fears, and with every passing day, as natural as breathing and as unstoppable as the sunrise, Shikamaru fell just that little bit more in love with her.
Hinata was bold and strong on the battlefield and loving and caring off it. She was everything, and he was nothing. Compared to her, he was just a lazy, boring, ir-
"Shi-Shika!" Her happy exclaim of his name made him raise his head. "How long have you been standing th-there?"
"A while," a lazy smile found its way onto his face when a blinding one appeared on hers. "Just thinking."
Still smiling brightly at him, her hands started moving again in the foamy water, continuing her task in body only; her eyes and thoughts and focus remaining on him. "About what?"
He couldn't help but notice that as soon as he was at her side, she moved to be closer to him, so they were just almost touching. If he took a deep breath, his chunnin jacket would bump against her bare shoulder.
"Us."
He had never lied to her before. So why would he start now?
Hinata hands slowed in their circle motions with the sponge on the plate she held until they stopped altogether, taking a second to set both down and dry off her hands before giving him her full attention turning in a single graceful quarter turn like she was dancing. "Us?"
"Yeah."
"What about," her fists came up to hold themselves to her chest like she was praying for him to continue looking at him with those wide white eyes that had just the slithers of lavender when the sun hit them just so. "What about u-us?"
His brown eyes moved over her features one by one drinking them in like water before meeting hers again.
"Hinata I-"
A loud pounding on the door interrupted him, and he couldn't contain the fed-up sigh that came out of his mouth. It was always like this. They got so close to-to something, and then it was like the universe pulled the rug out from under them.
Hinata herself visibly shrank, her fist uncurling to allow her forefinger to rest on her bottom lip for just a moment before both arms sank to swing at her sides.
"I'll go see who it i-is."
He could only hum angry at whoever was on the other side of the door, not at her, never her.
She, light as air, took those few needed steps and opened the door, letting out a small surprised 'oh'.
"Sa-Sakura what bri-"
"No time we gotta move," their friend interrupted, poking her head in through the door, looking relieved when she found him standing there before throwing her thumb over her shoulder to add to her impatient tone. "I'll explain on the way."
With that, Sakura was gone, and with a longing look towards him, Hinata followed.
Even with their friends rushed demeanour, the Nara couldn't stop himself leaning against the kitchen counter, muttering his catchphrase under his breath and tapping his fist against the marble of the countertops.
He just-he just wished for some kind of sign that Hinata liked him just as much as he liked her. Was that too much to ask? That he wasn't making up this connection he felt when they were alone, that that longing looks in her eyes wasn't his imagination, that she too felt the air grow thick with things unsaid and feelings not yet revealed.
With a sigh, Shikamaru forced himself to hightail it after them.
The mission was a simple one after the time pressure to get to their destination had settled. Get to Kigen Temple and take out the gang that stopped needed medical supplies from being transported through the mountain pass.
Apart from Sakura running off yelling murder at one of the members that tried to run when the gang were on their last legs, the whole thing went off without a hitch. However, Shikamaru couldn't help but think there should have been some sort of catch the entire mission had gone off so smoothly.
He saw Hinata deactivate her byakugan and lower her stance no longer needed because the group's last member was dying at her feet.
Again Shikamaru was reminded how tough and unmovable Hinata had become, how far she had advanced since receiving her headband all those years ago, growing from nervous, shy Genin to dangerous, powerful kunoichi.
So stupidly lost in his thoughts silently fawning over the Hyuga heiress that he didn't even notice the remote in the gang member's hands until he pressed the button, his eyes rolling into his head the next second, and a deep rumble shook the very earth under their feet.
"Wha-" Hinata stumbled for only a moment just as he did before grounding himself. "What?"
With a second bang, the side of the mountain to their right blew apart boulders the size of the houses fell on their position like hailstones leaving dents in the ground around them, clearly the gang's last resort plan to take their enemies with them should they fall.
The Hyuga had just sidestepped one, blocking her between himself and two more that formed a makeshift wall just from where they had fallen when another came her way.
With only a split second to make a decision, he acted, creating a shadow and shoving it in her direction, pushing her out of the way and before even his brain could realise it, he was being crushed between the earth and hard rock and a piercing stabbing pain rolling over him in waves, gurgled wet sounds escaping his throat and the immediate taste of blood filled his mouth.
"Shika!" The next second, Hinata was back over to him, pure terror on her face as she collapsed beside him, pushing on the rock to no avail. "Shika, are you okay?!"
"Ye-Yeah."
It was the only lie he had ever told her. He couldn't feel his entire left side, and with every breath, his vision was starting to swim.
"Get-" Shikamaru could feel unconsciousness begin to claw up his back and sides to dig its claws into his skull to feel like he was being brought down and away from his body entirely, but Hinata was safe, Hinata was safe. "-Get-Hin-ge-"
His vision went black.
The next thing he knew, he was taking a slow, unhurried breath only to hiss in pain at the pinprick feelings across his chest, not liking the movement of breathing even as lightly as he did just then.
"Oh good, you're awake."
"Shi-Shika."
Forcing his eyes to open, Shikamaru found himself lying in a hospital bed with Hinata sitting on one side of him and Ino standing on the other.
"What a drag guess I'm not dead," he joked even as he hissed and jolted in pain again. "Being dead would hurt less."
Turning to look at Hinata, his first thought was wanting to make sure she was okay and apart from looking nervous and a little pale, she looked safe.
"How-How are you fe-feeling?" She asked in a timid voice that made him frown.
Usually, she greeted him with some kind of gentle touch when her hands were free, a hand on his shoulder or arm, but now she didn't. He felt strangely cold in this knowledge. Hinata shuffled closer but never raised her arms to give him one of those light touches that set his skin on fire.
Ever the excellent team leader, he temporarily pushed his discontented thoughts away to ask. "Where's Sakura?"
"She's getting looked over herself," Ino explained, writing something on the clipboard she held. "Chakra drain just nothing big."
That made sense to him. Sakura probably had to put a lot of chakra into her hands to lift that boulder of him and heal him enough to stabilise his injuries before returning to Konohagakure.
"You're lucky Shikamaru."
He sighed at Ino's words, moulding into his pillow more. "Yea, I know-"
"Your princess here!" Ino tapped Hinata on the nose with her pen making her give a startled blink. "Has been at your side the entire time you were out! Kinda makes you the sleeping Prince, huh?" From her chuckle, Ino thought that was funny somehow.
As secretly glad as he was at Hinata staying by his side, he couldn't only help but be annoyed at Ino's words. Why did everyone say that? That Hinata was some sort of princess? She was far from it.
"She's not a princess, Ino. Hinata's a warrior."
"And he's not a prince," Hinata muttered in the quite adoring voice of hers, making him look straight at her. She didn't look away. She continued to stare unblinking at him, her eyes soft like a caress of its own. "Shika is a ki-king."
Ino, through her smug smile, scoffed lightly to lighten the air. "Only a king on the shogi board maybe," her teasing made him feel a little better. If she was making fun of him, he wasn't in any real medical danger.
"I have to say I don't feel like one right now," Shikamaru replied, not quite being able to process the warmth that bloomed in his damaged chest at Hinata's flooring words. "Feel more like roadkill."
"We had to heal up a lot of your ribs and reflate your lung so you'll be tender for a while."
"It's a drag but I've dealt with worse. Can you thank Sakura for me? I can't imagine what it took to move that thing off me."
The look Hinata and Ino shared then, a dark, troubled look with many potential hidden meanings made a cold trickle of fear enter him.
"I think I should leave you two to talk."
Ino's solemn words and Hinata's bowed head only made that fear grow. "Talk about what?"
The Yamanaka only shot him a look telling him he would not like what he heard before closing his hospital room door behind her.
"Hinata," she looked up again, looking like she was about to be told off for doing something wrong. "What are you hiding from me?" Her silence told him she was doing precisely that. "You never hide things from me."
"I just I-"
Shuffling her chair closer to the hospital bed only drew his sharp mind to what she was really doing. The fact that Hinata hadn't laid a hand on him in comfort or concern, the fact she hadn't fiddled with her long hair or held her finger to her lip in worry-
"Hinata, show me your hands."
With what looked like the want to give a negative reply on her lips, her shoulders lowered in defeat before she lifted her hands out of view and what he saw, after only a moment to realise why something felt off, made bile come up his throat and his lungs turn to ice.
Scrunching up his eyes tight for an extremely long moment, Shikamaru opened them again, and no, he was right, he was right.
He thought he might vomit then and there.
"There's a reason you need to sl-slowly build up to that kind of s-strength in your hands as Sakura does."
Her hands and forearms were bandaged entirely.
"My-My chakra network couldn't handle the-the I just pushed it all into my hands to get the strength I needed to lift it and w-well-"
Five of her fingers were missing, two on her right hand, three on her left, the bandages wrapped right up to the knuckle almost emphasised the digits were no longer there.
Several breaths escaped him, every one was more pitiful than the last.
"My fingers they-"
His trembling hands slid under hers, and when he lifted them, her hands felt lighter than before. When Shikamaru's own fingers curled around hers, his fingers fell through the gaps that were now there, and his vision clouded in tears. She had been so determined to help him, to save him, she injured herself to do, it blew her fingers clean off to pull that rock from him. Sakura didn't have chakra drain from healing him. She had it from healing Hinata.
He wretched hard in his throat.
"They're already making me new o-ones," Hinata said, in a fact giving way, but the biting of her lip told him she was an inch from crying too. She had lost fingers for him, to keep him alive. "Like the way Naruto got his ar-arm I-"
"I thought Sakura got the boulder off me... "
Hinata shook her head to say no as if he wasn't physically holding the evidence of her feat in his hands as if the many spaces where her fingers should have been didn't scream it for her.
"There wasn't ti-time."
Fury rocketed through his veins. She shouldn't have done that. She should not have put herself in danger for the likes of him, for anyone!
"Hinata," he lifted their joint hands. "Look what you did to your fingers!"
"I had to get you out, Shi-"
"You nearly destroyed your hands!"
"You were suffocating-"
"You nearly lost your hands!"
"Stop yelling at m-me."
When she let out that first watery sob, he shuffled as much as his injured side allowed and crushed her to him in a hug, pulling her out of her seat to have her on the bed with him and when Hinata continued to cry, making him feel like the most worthless person on the planet he muttered begged pleaded that he was sorry over and over again.
"I wasn't leaving there without you Shi-Shika and-and you can be mad at me all you wa-want but I-but I need you because," her shaky hands found his cheeks and as warm as her palms were, even through the bandages, the gaps were her fingers should have been felt ice cold. "Because I love you."
Shikamaru slammed a hand over his face when he felt his tears begin to roll down his face, his entire body shaking at the sheer weight of everything he felt.
In some sick, sad way, this was that confirmation that he wanted, that he desired, craved for before this mission, for the last weeks, where he constantly tortured himself about her feelings for him the thought only made him feel worse.
Hinata gasped loudly when he brought their foreheads together with one hand and, with the other, her chest against his entirely. Maybe then she could feel how full it felt, how he had so much to say, so many things to tell her about the ways he loved her but couldn't seem to find the words right that second because he was so overwhelmed with everything else.
"Hinata, I love you so much," it was as if she had given him the air from her very lungs when she released a watery happy laugh at his confession. "I will take such good care of you, okay? I promise-I promise I will-I will do whatever you need I'll-I'll help you put on clothes; I'll feed you, I'll brush your hair, I'll brush your teeth if you need me to."
"I might not want you to clean my teeth, Shi-Shika," finding the strength the meet her eyes, he saw hers shining at him both from the tears still making tracks over her cheeks, but they also shone with happiness, adoration and the purest love the world could possibly hold. "But I like my hair being brushed."
For her? Shikamaru would brush her hair till his fingers fell off and then glue them back on just to keep brushing; it was the least, the very least, he could do for the woman he loved and who, evidentially, loved him back just as passionately.