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The air has teeth tonight. It bites at Hinata’s cheeks the moment she steps out from the hospital wing, cold enough to make her breathe visible is soft, pale puffs that vanish almost as quickly as they form. The streetlamps along the main road are still lit, but their glow feels thin like even the light is tired. Konoha sleeps in that uneasy, post-midnight quiet where the village doesn’t feel peaceful so much as held. Held by routine, by walls, by the assumption that morning will come and everything will still be where it belongs.
Hinata pulls her cloak tighter and keeps walking.
She should have gone straight home. Her hands still smell faintly of antiseptic and chakra-saline, and her shoulders carry that familiar medic’s ache. The one that settles in when your body remembers you’ve been standing for too many hours. Your mind still running through vitals and sutures and the sound of someone trying not to cry on a cot under harsh light.
But “should” has never been a very effective barricade when your instincts are louder than your plans.
The Uchiha district is quiet at the best of times, a place that feels like the village forgot how to breathe. At night it’s worse. Long stretches of shadow, houses crouched like they’re listening, the air damp with old wood and winter soil. Hinata’s sandals scuff softly against the path, and she keeps her pace steady, not hurried or hesitant. The earbuds in her pocket remain unused. She doesn’t want anything between her and the silence. Because the silence has been speaking lately.
Sasuke tends to return at ungodly hours when he returns at all. It isn’t something anyone officially comments on, the way his presence flickers in and out of the village like a knife sliding in and out of its sheath. People have learned what questions not to ask. They file him under Necessary, Dangerous, and Not Their Business.
Hinata doesn’t do that. Or rather, she tries.
She tells herself he’s a shinobi. She tells herself he chose this. She tells herself her job is triage, training, and keeping her own life steady enough that it doesn’t tip. She tells herself she has no right to look for him, no reason to keep finding her steps angling toward the gate when the night is too quiet and her chest feels too tight.
Her body moves away, like it knows something her mind keeps trying to pretend it doesn’t.
The main gate is ahead, looming dark against the sky. Two guards are stationed there, silhouettes in scarves and flak jackets. They nod when she approaches, recognition easy in their posture. Hinata returns it with the same polite clam, the same quiet competence she uses at the hospital
She’s almost past them when something in the corner of her vision catches. Movement, or the suggestion of it, pressed into shadow near the wall.
Her hand goes to a kunai before she can stop it.
Every muscle in her body snaps awake, adrenaline sharp and instant. Her Byakugan is a thought away, a door she can throw open. Her breath catches in her throat, and she angles her body automatically, sideways stance, better to pivot and better to strike.
The shadow doesn’t move. Hinata’s eyes narrow.
A figure sits at the base of the wall, tucked into the blind spot where lamplight doesn’t quite reach. Not standing nor leaning. Sitting. Back against the stone, head down, hair spilling forward and swallowing his face. His hands are open in his lap, palms facing up. Like he dropped something and can’t pick it back up.
That is her first clue. Sasuke Uchiha does not sit like that. He doesn’t do exposed. He doesn’t do helpless. He doesn’t do the posture of someone waiting for permission to exist. He does sharp lines and controlled angles. He does stillness like a weapon. He does silence like a warning.
This is… wrong. Wrong in the way her body recognizes before her mind gives it a name.
She takes a step closer and the guards’ heads turn, curiosity flashing. Hinata lifts a hand slightly, small and subtle, a medic’s gesture that says I have it. They hesitate, then let her pass. Konoha’s trust in Hinata isn’t loud but it is solid, earned.
Hinata’s heartbeat is steady. She makes it steady.
She approaches like she would approach a patient that might bolt, slow and careful without sudden shifts in tone or space. Her breath makes white ghosts in the air. The cold is deep enough that she can smell it, metallic and clean.
“Uchiha-san,” she says softly.
No response. Not even the tensing of a shoulder or a faint turn of his head. He stays folded into himself, hair hiding his eyes, his spine pressed to the wall like he’s trying to become part of it.
Hinata kneels in front of him, not to close but not too far. Close enough that her presence is unmistakable. Far enough that she isn’t trapping him
His hands are still open. Fingers slightly curled, like they’ve forgotten what they’re supposed to hold. She watches his chest; it’s shallow rise and fall. She takes note of the way his jaw is set, too tight. A tightness that doesn’t look like anger. It looks like he’s bracing against something that won’t stop happening.
“Uchiha-san,” she repeats, quieter, as if the first time might have sounded like the wind.
His voice comes out of the dark like a stone dropped into water.
“Tell me if there’s blood on me.” Hinata stills.
Not because the words surprise her, blood is always part of his world. She has seen blood on him before. She patched him up and she cleaned dried rust from his hands. She watched him pretend he didn’t notice her hands shaking afterward.
She stills because of the way he says it. Not a request or a fear, just flat. Hollow, like he’s reading it from a page he doesn’t understand.
Hinata’s throat tightens. She swallows it down because it’s her job, her role in this moment at least, is to be steady. People drown when you panic near them, even shinobi. Especially shinobi who are already halfway underwater.
She leans forward, eyes scanning. His cloak is intact, there are no tears, no damp patches or dark smears. His hair is messy from travel but not matted. His face, what she can see of it, is pale from cold but not shock. His clothes look normal… and suddenly, that is the problem.
She has seen Sasuke come back battered and bleeding, a slice along his ribs hidden under the line of his shirt. He’s come back with bruised knuckles and a raw scrape along his jaw, eyes sharp and distant like he’d left the rest of himself somewhere else. She has never seen him come back fine while looking like this.
His hands tremble once, barely. A small betraying motion, like a bird twitching in a snare. Hinata’s gaze drops to his palms. Clean. No blood in the lines of his skin or dried residue under his nails. There was no scent of iron on the air around him. No chakra residue smeared like ash, the kind that clings after heavy jutsu. He looks like he walked out of a nightmare and then forgot the dream.
Hinata reaches slowly, giving him time to pull away if he wants to. He doesn’t.
She takes his left hand gently, turning it palm up, her touch light enough not to startle. His skin is cold, too cold. Shinobi circulation, sure, but this is the cold of someone who’s been sitting still for too long, letting winter crawl into his bones.
She checks his fingers, the creases at his knuckles, the faint scars that map his history. Nothing fresh.
“No,” she says, voice calm. “There’s no blood.”
His shoulders sag half an inch, like something inside him unhooked but his breathing doesn’t ease. It stays shallow and pinned.
Hinata sets his hand back carefully, then checks his sleeves, her fingertips brushing fabric. She expects him to flinch at contact, but he still doesn’t react. He sits there like a statue that forgot it was meant to be sharp.
She lifts her gaze toward his face. “Uchiha-san,” she says again. “Look at me.”
Silence.
Hinata doesn’t demand. She doesn’t push. She watches.
His head stays bowed, hair hiding his eyes like curtains drawn against a room that’s too bright but his mouth moves, the words scraping out like they cost him something.
“Are you sure.”
It isn’t a question with curiosity. It’s a question with a cliff behind it. Hinata inhales slowly. Lets him match her pace if he can.
“I’m sure,” she says. “There’s no blood on you.”
He swallows; his throat works like he’s trying to force something down that doesn’t want to go.
Hinata’s pulse beats steadily in her wrists. She keeps it steady on purpose.
“Did something happen?” she asks.
There was a long pause. So long the quiet seems to press closer, curious.
Then, rough and low, “I don’t know.”
Hinata’s breath catches before she allows it to smooth out again. He doesn’t know and that is what scares him the most. Not failure or death or consequences. The absence, the blank space where his mind should be.
Hinata shifts closer, carefully, her knees sinking into cold ground. She can feel the stone chill through her clothes, but she doesn’t move away. She wants him to feel the difference between his cold and her warmth. Proof of another body and another heartbeat nearby.
“Where were you?” she asks softly.
He doesn’t answer. Not because he refused, but because he can’t find it. His fingers flex in his lap, palms still open, still empty.
Hinata glances toward the gate guards. They’re pretending not to watch, which is the shinobi version of being absolutely locked in. She doesn’t want an audience for this. Sasuke would hate that if he were fully here. Even like this, some part of him might hate it.
She makes a decision, “Can you stand?” she asks.
His head twitches a fraction, as if the concept is far away.
Hinata reaches again, this time resting her hand lightly against his forearm, just below the elbow. To anchor not restrain.
“Uchiha-san,” she says, steady as a metronome. “Can you stand with me?”
His breathing stutters once. Then his hands close, slowly, like he’s remembering they can.
He doesn’t look up but he shifts his weight and tests his legs. A controlled movement, muscle memory, training. The body doing what the mind can’t quite direct. Hinata rises first and offers her hand. It’s a simple gesture, nothing dramatic and not pity.
For a heartbeat, he doesn’t move. Then his fingers brush hers. He doesn’t grip tight. He just hold, like he’s checking if it’s real. Hinata helps him up, bracing more than lifting. He’s heavier than he looks when he’s dead weight like this, not physically heavy, but heavy in the way someone becomes when they’re not fully in their own skin.
He stands, slightly unsteady and that is her second clue. Sasuke Uchiha does not sway.
Hinata keeps her hand at his elbow, guiding him away from the gate, away from eyes, toward the narrower path that leads deeper into the village. She doesn’t drag him. She simply moves and trusts he will follow, which he does. He walks like someone half-asleep. Someone who knows the shape of the world but not the reason he’s in it.
The streets are empty. Their footsteps sound too loud against the ground.
Hinata’s mind runs through checklists automatically. Concussion? No visible injury. Poison? Chakra interference? Genjutsu aftermath? Possession? She hates that her mind goes there, but she’s learned not to dismiss the ugly possibilities simply because they’re uncomfortable. Sasuke had enemies who would love to break him quietly. He has trauma that doesn’t need enemies.
The cold wind slides between houses, whispering through bare branches. Hinata glances sideways at him. His eyes are open now, barely visible under his hair. Dark and focused on nothing. He looks like he’s waiting for someone who isn’t coming.
“Can you tell me what you remember?” Hinata asks.
He blinks once. A slow blink, too slow.
“I left,” he says.
Hinata nods, encouraging without pressure, “And then?”
His jaw tightens. “I was there,” he murmurs, as if the word doesn’t fit. “And then I wasn’t.”
Hinata’s grip on his elbow firms slightly in an attempt to ground him.
“You came back,” she says, careful. “You made it home.”
He makes a sound that might be a laugh if laughter had ever been born that hollow.
“Home,” he repeats, like he’s tasting the word and finding it unfamiliar.
Hinata doesn’t bite to correct him. She doesn’t say yes, home, because we’re safe here, because you’re in Konoha. She just keeps walking with him.
When they reach the shadowed edge of the Hyuga compound’s outer wall, Hinata pauses. It would be easy to bring him inside. It would also be complicated. Clan eyes, clan questions, clan judgements. The Hyuga have a talent for making even kindness feel like a political statement.
She looks at Sasuke.
“Uchiha-san,” she says softly, “do you want to come with me to the hospital?” He stiffens.
The tiniest recoil, like the word is a blade. “No,” he says immediately. Too immediate, a reflex.
Hinata nods once. Accepts it and doesn’t argue, not yet.
“Okay,” she says. “Then… somewhere quiet.”
His gaze flickers to her face for the first time. It’s brief but it’s there, and it hits her like a cold wave.
His eyes are sharp in shape but distant in focus, like the weapon is still loaded but the person holding it has stepped away. There’s something wounded around the edges of his expression. Tightness at his mouth, tension in his brow, the faint look of someone trying not to break in a way they can’t control.
He swallows again. “I can’t-“ he starts, then stops.
Hinata waits.
He tries again, voice lower, rawer. “I can’t go where there are people.” Hinata’s chest aches.
It’s not pity but because she understands that feeling too well, the sense that eyes become weights, that voices become hooks, that one wrong look can tip you over.
“Then we won’t,” she says simple.
She guides him toward a small training field near the river where the trees are thick and the path is narrow. It’s a place few people come at night. The river murmurs softly, dark water moving like a secret.
Hinata leads him to the wooden bench near the edge of the clearing.
“Sit,” she says gently.
He hesitates, then sits. Not slumped this time but still wrong.
Hinata crouches in front of him again, close enough to see the faint tremor in his fingers.
“May I check you again?” she asks.
His eyes flicker and there’s a pause. Then, barely, “Yes.”
Hinata raises her hand slowly, giving him time to change his mind once more. He doesn’t His gaze stays fixed on her hands as if watching them is easier than looking at her face.
She checks his sleeves again, more thorough. She runs her fingers along the seams where blood might hide. She checks the inside of his collar, the edge of his hairline, and the curve of his jaw. She checks behind his ears for cuts or residue. She checks his hands, again, turning them, inspecting his nails, then the creased in his knuckles. All clean, too clean.
She leans closer, focusing. Chakra-sense isn’t her strongest tool compared to some medics, but she knows how to feel the subtle wrongness in the air around a person. She lets her chakra brush against his like a careful fingertip.
His chakra is tight, coiled like a spring held too long under pressure. And underneath it, faint like the afterimage of lightning, there’s an unfamiliar echo. Not foreign chakra exactly. More like… residue of something intense.
Hinata’s stomach turns.
“Uchiha-san,” she says keeping her voice calm. “Did you use your Sharingan tonight?”
His gaze goes blank again. “I don’t know.” He repeats.
Hinata nods slowly.
“Do you remember fighting?”
No answer.
His hands curl slightly in his lap, fingers digging into his own palms like he’s trying to feel something. Hinata sits back on her heels and watches him.
“Do you feel pain?” she asks.
He blinks.
Then quietly, “I feel… wrong.”
Hinata’s lips press together and she breathes in, out. She could order him to the hospital. She could also call for Shizune or Sakura. She could even alert Kakashi. But Sasuke isn’t a normal patient. Sasuke is a man who spent most of his life treating vulnerability like a weakness someone can exploit. If she pushed too hard, he’ll vanish. And if he vanishes like this, like a half-lit candle in the wind, he might not come back.
So she chooses a different approach.
“Okay,” she says “Then we’re going to make ‘wrong’ smaller.”
Something passes through his eyes again, a faint reaction. Confusion, maybe. Or the faintest hint of amusement buried under all that static.
Hinata reaches into her pouch and pulls out a small field wrap, clean cloth that is medic issue. She offers it to him.
“Hold this,” she says.
He looks at it like it’s a riddle.
Hinata keeps her tone steady. “Just… hold it. Feel it. Texture. Temperature.”
He takes it slowly. His fingers close around the cloth. For a moment, his grip rightens like he’s afraid it will slip away. Then it loosens.
Hinata watches his breathing. It’s still shallow, but it’s beginning to find rhythm.
“Good,” she murmurs. “Now tell me five things you can hear.”
His brow furrows slightly. He doesn’t answer at first. Hinata doesn’t rush. She waits.
Finally he speaks, voice quiet, “Water.”
“Wind” he adds after a pause. She nods.
“Your breath.”
Hinata’s throat tightens, but she keeps her face calm.
He swallows. “Leaves.” She nods again.
His jaw works, then: “My heart.” Hinata’s gaze softens.
“Good,” she says. “Now four things you can feel.”
He looks down at his hands. “Cloth.”
He shifts slightly on the bench. “Wood.”
He flexes his toes. “Ground.” She nods.
A pause, then, almost reluctant “Your hand.”
Hinata realizes her fingers are still lightly resting on his wrist, measuring pulse without thinking. She hasn’t pulled away though, not yet.
“Good,” she repeats, voice gentle. “Three things you can see.”
His eyes lift, scanning the darkness. His focus is sharper now and less distant.
“Trees,” he says. “Water.”
A pause, then quieter “You.”
Hinata’s breath catches again, but she lets it out slowly.
“Two things you can smell.”
He inhales once, deeper. “Cold”
Hinata blinks. That’s not a smell, but she knows what he means.
Then, after a pause. “Medic.” Hinata almost huffs a laugh. It’s soft, brief, like a candle dance.
“Yeah,” she says. “That’s me.” His mouth twitches, barely.
“And one thing you can taste,” Hinata finishes.
He swallows. “Iron.” Hinata’s amusement dies.
She watches him carefully. “Where?” she asks softly.
His gaze snaps back into distance for a second, as if he’s looking at something she can’t see.
“Back of my throat,” he murmurs. “Like-“ he stops. His fingers crush the cloth for a heartbeat, then release. “Like I’ve been biting it to stay awake.”
Hinata leans forward, closer, her voice still calm. “May I look?”
He hesitates, then node once.
Hinata reaches carefully, her fingers brushing his chin, tilting his face toward the faint lamplight leaking in from the path. She peers at his mouth, the inside of his lower lip.
There.
A small tear, fresh enough to sting. Hinata’s chest tightens again.
It’s such a small injury, almost nothing. And it tells her everything. He’s been holding himself together with pain. Using the sharpness of it to keep from slipping. Hinata releases his chin slowly.
“Uchiha-san” she says softly, “you’re here now.”
His throat moves but he doesn’t answer.
For a while, they sit in quiet. The river murmurs. The wind sighs. Somewhere far off, a dog barks once, then goes silent again.
Hinata watches Sasuke’s hands, still holding the cloth. His grip is looser now. More normal. His shoulders are still tight, but not as locked.
He looks down at his palms again, like he’s expecting them to be stained.
Hinata’s voice is gentle when she speaks, “Do you think you hurt someone?”
He closes his eyes for a second. When he opens them, the darkness is them is sharp. Not anger, something else, fear.
“I think I could have,” he says.
Hinata swallows. “Because you don’t remember.”
His jaw clenches. “Because I don’t remember.”
Hinata takes a breath, then asks, “Is this new?”
His gaze darts away. “No.” Hinata’s heart sinks. So it has happened before, and he hasn’t told anyone before.
“How often?” she asks.
Sasuke doesn’t answer right away. His silence is heavy with calculation, the old habit of choosing what to reveal, how much, how to keep control. Hinata doesn’t push, she simply stays.
Finally, he exhales through his nose, a small bitter sound. “When it’s… bad.”
Hinata nods slowly, letting him define the terms.
“What makes it bad?” she asks.
Sasuke stares at the river like it has answers.
“Places,” he says, voice low. “Smells. Sounds.” His hand tightens on the cloth again. “People who beg.” Hinata’s stomach twists.
She’s not shocked by violence; she is a shinobi. She’s seen what missions do to people, but because of the way he says it. Not with pride, with horror.
“Sometimes,” he continues, the words rough, “my body moves before my mind does. And then…” he swallows hard. “Then I’m standing there and it’s over and I can’t tell what was real and what was… old.”
Old. The past. The years that shaped him into something sharp enough to survive, and sharp enough to cut.
Hinata’s voice is steady. “Tonight was one of those.”
His eyes close again, a slow nod.
Hinata reaches out and rests her hand on his forearm, warming through his sleeve. Present.
“Sasuke,” She says quietly. “Did you come here because you didn’t know where else to go?”
His eyes open. He doesn’t look at her, but he doesn’t deny it.
“I didn’t want to go inside,” he murmurs. “I didn’t want to-“ He stops. His jaw tightens, a flash of something ugly crossing his face. “I didn’t want to look at myself.”
Hinata’s throat aches. She understands. Not in the same way, not with the same history, but she understands the feeling of being afraid of what you’ll find in your own reflection.
Hinata leans in slightly. “You come back,” she says. “That matters.”
His gaze snaps to hers, sharp.
“That’s not enough,” he says, voice suddenly harsh, to harsh for how brittle he looks. “It doesn’t erase what I might have done.”
Hinata doesn’t flinch. She holds his gaze, calm as stone.
“No,” she says. “It doesn’t.”
His eyes narrow, like he expected her to soften it. To make it easier, to lie. Hinata doesn’t lie to people on the edge.
“But,” she continues, voice steady, “it also doesn’t mean you’re the monster you’re afraid of.”
Sasuke’s expression twists, anger with pain and something like disgust. “You don’t know that.”
Hinata’s hand stays on his arm.
Her voice lowered, “The version of you that doesn’t care… wouldn’t be sitting at the gate asking someone to check for blood.”
Silence. The wind moves through the trees, shifting shadows across Sasuke’s face. For a second, he looks younger, like the boy he used to be before everything carved him into this.
Then his expression hardens again, the mask trying to slide back into place.
“I don’t want anyone to know.” He speaks.
Hinata nods. “Okay.”
His eyes shift, suspicious. “That’s it?”
Hinata’s mouth twitches faintly, a hint of sass slipping through despite the night. “What did you want? A speech? A committee meeting?”
For the first time, something in Sasuke’s face shifts, an almost visible glitch in the darkness. Not a smile but a fraction of surprise. A faint crack where air might get in.
Hinata continues, softer, “I won’t tell the village. I won’t tell your teammates. I won’t tell the elders.”
Sasuke’s jaw tightens. “And the Hokage?” Hinata hesitates for the first time.
Sasuke’s eyes sharpen. “You’re thinking about it.”
Hinata doesn’t deny it or insult him with false reassurance.
“I’m thinking about what keeps you safe.” She says.
His voice is low and dangerous. “I don’t need safety.”
Hinata’s gaze stays steady. “You do, actually. You’re not a sword. You’re a person.”
Sasuke flinches, small and almost imperceptible. Like the words stuck something tender he didn’t want touched.
Hinata’s hand remains on his arm. “I won’t make decision behind your back,” she says. “But I won’t pretend this isn’t serious.”
He stares at her, eyes burning with something complicated.
“You’re not afraid of me,” he says, voice almost accusing.
Hinata blinks slowly. “I’m not stupid,” she replies. “But not. I’m not afraid of you.”
Sasuke’s stare drops to her hand on his sleeve.
“Why,” he murmurs. It isn’t a demand like it sounded. It’s a question from someone who has never been able to understand why people stay.
Hinata’s chest tightens. She answers honestly, quietly.
“Because you’re here,” she says. “And because I’m here. And because I don’t think leaving you alone with this is… acceptable.”
Sasuke’s lips press together. Hinata watches him carefully
The dissociation is fading now, slowly, like fog thinning. But fear remains. The fear of what he did. The fear of what he doesn’t remember. The fear of the part of him that moves on instinct and trauma, not intention.
Hinata shifts, pulling her cloak tighter, then drapes part of it over his shoulders without thinking. It’s a small thing. A medic’s habit. Warmth, coverage, and comfort without spectacle.
Sasuke stiffens, then doesn’t pull away.
Hinata sits beside him on the bench, not touching now, but close enough that their shoulders almost brush.
They sit like that for a while, listening to the river.
Finally, Sasuke speaks again, voice quieter. “If I did… something… I want to know.”
Hinata’s gaze turns to him. “You want confirmation,” she says.
He nods once, sharp. “I want the truth.”
Hinata inhales slowly. “The we can find out. Without-“ she chooses her words carefully. “Without making it a public thing.” Sasuke glances at her.
Hinata continues, “There are mission logs. Reports. You can check with Kakashi without explaining everything. You can ask for facts.”
His jaw tightens. “He’ll know.”
Hinata’s voice is soft but firm, “Kakashi already knows more about you than you think.”
Sasuke’s mouth twists. “That’s not comforting.”
Hinata’s lips quirk slightly. “It’s not meant to be.”
For a moment, the corner of his mouth twitches again, almost a smile, almost an old version of him surfacing through the wreckage. Then it fades.
Hinata turns toward him, fully now. “Sasuke,” she says gently, “Do you want me to stay with you tonight?”
His eyes snap to hers. It’s the quickest reaction he’s had all night. His first instinct is written all over his face: No. Don’t’. Leave. I don’t need-
The something else crosses his expression. Something quieter. Something that looks like exhaustion finally getting a vote. He looks away.
“I don’t…” his throat bobs, “I don’t know what I need.”
Hinata nods, understanding. “Then let’s not name it,” she says. “Lets just… make sure you’re not alone.”
Sasuke’s fingers tighten on the cloth again.
Hinata’s chest loosens, just a little. She stands first and he follows suit. She offers her hand again. He takes it without hesitation this time but stays in his place for a moment.
“Hinata.”
It’s rare for him to say her name, rare enough that it lands differently, more personal and more human.
Hinata looks up at him, “Yes?”
A pause but then, quickly, “Thank you.”
Hinata’s heart flutters but she keeps her response simple and grounded, “Of course.”