Snapshots: Black & White (3)
Naruto Fanfiction
Title: Snapshots: Black and White (Part 3)
Genre: General/Romance
Pairings: SasuHina
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto
Summary: A series of snapshots through Sasuke and Hinata's relationship. Set in 5 parts
Links
Part I
Part II
Part IV
____________________________________________________________________________
~~~~~~~~
~Part III~
~~~~~~~~
He watches his wife as she sleeps. It’s been ten days, ten long days since she ended up in this hospital bed, and he can’t wait until she’s up and about and looking stronger and they’re all back home.
~~~
Naruto jokingly refers to the Uchihas as the ‘silent couple’, much to Hinata’s dismay, Sasuke’s chagrin and everyone else's amusement. It suits them though, these two quiet people, one taciturn the other shy,who don't need noisy crowds and the bustle of the village to feel alive.
But there's one place which is too still even for them, especially for them. In the Uchiha compound, the silence is too oppressive, too overpowering, too full of memories. It clamours for children’s voices to fill the void, to chase away the ghosts of those forgotten children who would never grow. But children steadily refuse to come. Each month brings another heart-break, a small shake of the head and an resigned nod.
~~~
She stirs slightly and he thinks she’ll wake up, but she burrows deeper into the covers. He coughs, but she doesn’t move. He coughs slightly louder but there still isn’t any response. As he contemplates overturning a chair accidentally-done-on-purpose, he realises that she’s peeking at him from beneath the covers. ‘Very funny,’ he grumbles as she props herself up into a sitting position, ‘I thought we were sneaking out of here before one of the nurses sees us.’
‘Such a strong man, afraid of nurses…’ she says grinning at him, and he resists the urge to stick out his tongue at her. This side of her, teasing and merry she rarely shows to outsiders, and he secretly is pleased because it’s another part of her which is his and his alone.
‘I can go by myself if seeing you’d rather sleep,’ he tells her, making towards the door, but she grabs hold of his hand.
‘Don’t you dare Uchiha Sasuke,’ she says smiling, ‘or I’ll come crawling after you,’ and he smirks as she wraps her arms round his neck and he lifts her up. He knows she would do it, which is why they have this strange routine every morning at exactly two thirty in the morning.
~~~
Then one day, he finds her waiting for him behind the door, face flushed and eyes shining with excitement and hope. He listens transfixed as she wraps her arms around him and tells him laughing that she’s two months gone, the test was positive and it was confirmed, yes Sasuke confirmed! When he manages to believe it, it’s the happiest moment of his life.
Their unbridled joy lasts all of two weeks, when he wake up at night and finds her on the bathroom floor, pale as death and a pool of blood between her legs.
~~~
He carries her gently, keeping out of the way of any nurses who could report their nightly jaunt to Sakura or Shizune. She shouldn’t be out of bed, not yet, and if Sakura finds out that she disobeyed her orders so blatantly there would be hell to pay. No amount of coaxing or commanding Sasuke tries manages to convince her to stay in bed until her stiches heal completely and her chakra is replete. Hinata tells him firmly and apologetically that nothing will keep her away, and that if she can’t walk, she’ll crawl. He unfortunately knows that he's as pliable as putty in his wife’s hands so they reached a compromise - they'll go down together and he’ll carry her, and they’ll go during the early hours of the morning, when no one would see her and carter her off to bed again.
~~~
They’re kind at the hospital but for them it isn’t the end of the world, it isn’t even a baby yet, only a mass of cells and tissue. Tsunade and Shizune talk to them about the possibility that the trouble lies within the genes, that Hinata’s body will reject any child they try to conceive together and that another pregnancy might harm the mother and could aggravate her heart problems. They look sympathetic, try to be gentle, but the message is clear. No more pregnancies. No more.
And when they’re alone, husband and wife and the ghosts of all the children they can never have, Sasuke tries to tell her that it doesn’t matter, that the fact that their most precious dream has been destroyed doesn’t change a thing. But when she looks at him, with a look on her face he never wanted to see, the words die on his lips and he falls silent. Hinata she stares blankly at the wall and when he tries to touch her, she pulls away. So he sits by her side and waits for her to come back to him, something deep inside him aching bitterly.
~
Hinata’s discharged from hospital after a week and Sasuke takes her home, but somehow, their house seems even emptier now.
At night, when they’re side by side, neither of them able to sleep, she speaks and her words chill him. ‘I’m so sorry I’m such a failure,’ she whispers brokenly as he listens, ‘we both wanted a family so much… and I can’t even have babies.’
She turns away from him, shoulders shaking, and he tries to hold her but she curls into a ball, sobbing out apologies.
‘Hinata.’ She doesn't reply and doesn't even look at him
‘Hinata-hime,’ his voice is soft but firm as he strokes her hair. ‘We already are a family.’ She turns to look at him, wounded eyes still full of tears and he puts his arms round her.This time she doesn’t pull away and he rocks her as she weeps, holding her tightly until she falls asleep.
Sasuke wishes he can make it all right again, but he doesn’t know how to fight this invisible daemon, he can only stay there by her side, to show her again and again that to him, she was the most important thing of all.
~
The nurses on night shift turn a blind eye when they see them steal in, this young hopeful couple, who come in at an unearthly hour to sit together near one of the incubators.
~~~
Neither of them brings up the subject again. Sasuke hides the things Hinata had started to sew for their baby, and Hinata clears away all the baby books. People learn quickly not to bring up their childless state after a Hyuuga woman snidely asked Hinata if her husband still wanted her even though she wasn’t even fit to bear children. No one wanted to bear the consequences of being so foolish.
Somehow they get through everyday. They’re survivors, both of them and this won’t break them, not when they’ve got this far.
~
‘No.’
‘But, Sasuke, please, I…’
‘No.’ He’s furious with his wife who won’t understand that it’s dangerous, furious with Sakura who keeps abetting her and feeding her foolish hopes.
‘There might be a chance…’
‘Which part of experimental don’t you understand?’ he asks scathingly. ‘They don’t even know what it does!’ The obstinate look on her face shows him that he’s not getting anywhere with her, and he nearly growls in frustration. He grabs her by the shoulders and glares at her. ‘What happens if it fails?’ he asks her savagely, ‘Another heartbreak?’
‘It- it might succeed,’ she says stubbornly.
‘And if you can’t take it? What if you're not strong enough? I won’t let you risk your life!’ he tells her angrily, ‘Can’t you accept that we’re fine without children?’ She pulls away, trembling and close to tears.
‘I-I want to-to try, Sa- Sasuke, I want to try and have a- a child, and if there’s this-this chance…’
‘There’s also a chance of you dying!’ he hisses, cold tendrils of fear wrapping themselves round his heart at the thought.
She lifts her chin up, determination and despair etched on her features. ‘I don’t want to give up,’ she whispers, holding his gaze. ‘I will take that risk.’
‘Then find someone else to father your children, because I won't’ he spits out before leaving.
~
It’s their first fight, their first real fight and it hurts both of them, but neither one wants to back down.
They tiptoe round each other, him cold and aloof and terrified of losing her, she unhappy and silent and angry with him. He pretends to sleeps on the couch, while he actually spends the night listening to her pace in their bedroom.
~
‘Can’t you understand?’ he asks the empty room while she’s out shopping. ‘You little fool, can’t you understand I’m doing this for your own good?’ He rests his head on his hands, closing his eyes. He hates seeing her unhappy, hates not talking to her, hates himself for making her miserable. But Sasuke doesn't want to give her up, doesn't want to take any risks when it comes to his precious person. ‘Can't you understand?' he whispers angrily, 'I don’t want to lose you too.'
He sits in silence for a while before a small cough makes him start and turn rounf. His wife standing by the door. 'How long have you been there?' he asks.
'Long enough,' she says, eyes cast down.
‘You heard everything,’ he states flatly and she nods. He looks away, and clenches his fists. Sasuke feels her coming towards him, but he doesn't move.
‘Sasuke...I…’ Hinata kneels down in front of him and takes his hands in hers. ‘I don’t want to lose you either.’
~
He’s waiting for Sakura when she turns up at hospital. ‘Tell me about these injections Hinata was talking about,’ he demands without ceremony.
When they settle down in Sakura's office, she starts to explain about this experimental prophylactic treatment. She explains about antibodies and antigens and complement factors and more gibberish, and he wonders why he bothered to come, but the last part makes him sit up and listen. ‘By giving these compound we might be able to stop Hinata’s body from rejecting the foetus until she comes to term,’ Sakura says.
‘What are the chances of its success?’ he asks, watching her narrowly.
‘I don’t know,’ Sakura admits, ‘It’s never been tried before, not in this context anyway. She’ll be monitored daily of course, but there’s no telling which way it might swing’
'Why did you tell her about it if you don't even know how it will go?' he asks her suddenly.
'I didn't,' she says startled, 'she was researching something and came up with this, didn't she tell you?' Sasuke is silent, and Sakura sighs slightly. 'She asked me if it was possible, and I told her what I'm telling you,' she continues gently. 'Theoretically it's possible, but we don't have any practical data.'
'You'd help her go through with it,' he says,' Even if there's a chance she won't make it?'
'She's had medical training and she knows the possible risks,' Sakura tells him and hesitates before continuing. 'If I were in her place,,' she says slowly. ' I'd try it to. I wouldn't be able to live with myself, knowing that there's a chance of having a child which I didn't take.'
'But Hinata isn't physically as strong as you, is she?' Sasuke says, before standing up.
Sakura watches him unhappily as he leaves and wonders why life can't be more fair to Sasuke and Hinata.
~
He watches her as she goes on as usual, his loving, gentle Hinata, but he can see the hunger in her eyes as she watches Sakura play with her little boy, the slight tremor in her smiling lips when she holds Temari’s newborn baby. She’s unhappy, and his heart aches for her.
~
‘You want this,’ he says helplessly, holding her tight as she weeps. ‘You really want this.’
‘Yes.’
But he can’t let her risk it. He can’t. She’s his and he won’t let her break.
But she’s breaking anyway.
~
‘I’m pregnant,’ she whispers happily, as she wraps her thin arms around him and he tenses. ‘I’m glad,’ he manages to say, trying to make himself sound happy and trying to ignore that sudden jolt of fear.
He holds his wife, no, his wife and this child and prays that everything will be alright.
~
Life changes overnight, a whirlwind of hospital checks and blood pressure and examinations and monitoring and daily injections. Sasuke sticks to her side until Tsunade throws him out claiming that his glaring at the nurses makes them too nervous to work
~~~
He sets her down on a chair and drags another one near it. A nurse smiles at them and hands them a blanket. Hinata thanks her politely and Sasuke nods, taking care to cover his wife well even thought the temperature in the room is quite high.
They smile at each other and turn to the little creature in the incubator.
‘Hello, Setsuko-chan,’ Hinata says softly as she reaches out to touch the incubator's glass walls.
~~~
He’s training in the dojo when he hears her scream out his name.
Sasuke finds her bent double in the kitched, clutching her stomach and moaning. And when she looks at him, there’s his agonised thought mirrored in her eyes: it’s too early, it’s too early for this baby to come.
~
When he tries to remember there's a jumbled blur in his memory. The frenzied rush to hospital, a flurry of activity, lights and needles and noise, Hinata in a sterile white room with Tsunade and Sakura barking orders and nurses and medics, trying to save this baby which wants to come too soon. Seven months he thinks, and the thought reverberates through his mind. Still two months to go. Seven months only. He watches as they wheel in a trolley full of surgical instruments.
It’s then that he realises they’re going to operate on Hinata. And he’s going to be the one watching while they cut her open to pull the baby out. Cut Hinata?
Sasuke can feel the blood pounding in his ears and wonders if it will ruin his reputation for ever if he faints away now. As he's contemplating absenting himself until he regains his composure, a muffled cry draws his attention back to Hinata and he dismisses all thoughts of leaving. She’s clutching his hand so tightly that he feels sure there’s something broken, but he doesn't pull away. Her eyes are huge in her pale face, beads of sweat forming on her forehead as she contorts in pain. ‘I’m not giving up,’ she tells him savagely with a look of steely determination. He smiles slightly, wiping her face with a damp cloth with his free hand, trying not to wince at her tightening grip on his other hand. ‘Our baby will make it,’ he tells her as they pump her full of drugs, ‘He’s strong.’
‘It… it’s going to-to be a g-girl,’ she wheezes out before she passes out.
~~~
A small baby with a wrinkled face and a tiny body, with needles and tubes stuck everywhere, dressed in thick woollen clothes, sleeps in the incubator as her doting parents watch her. Sasuke knows she’s the most beautiful baby in the world and he can scarcely believe that he helped Hinata create this perfect little creature, his daughter.
‘She’ll be a strong girl,’ Sasuke says out loud and Hinata nods, her fingers tracing the outline of her baby on the glass casing separating her from her daughter.
‘And beautiful,' he continues, smiling slightly. 'I’ll have to teach her how to beat up Naruto’s brat,’ he muses.
‘Sasuke!’ Hinata looks reprovingly at her husband.
He gives her a sidelong glance. ‘She’ll need to defend herself if he’s as persistent as his father,’ he points out and Hinata giggles and clamps her hand on her mouth, struggling not to laugh. He smirks at her, her cheeks pink from the suppressed laughter and she shakes her head at him in mock disapproval.
‘She’ll be strong,’ he says again quietly, all trace of light-heartedness gone. ‘Just like you.’
His wife starts and looks astonished. ‘I’m not strong, Sasuke!’ she protests.
‘You are,’ he insists. ‘I would never have gone through this again,’ he tells her as he gestures at their daughter, ‘You’re stronger than I am.’ He wants to apologise, to tell her that he had been wrong to think she was too weak to make it, but he doesn't even know where to start.
Hinata places her hand on his. ‘You gave me strength,’ she tells him quietly, ‘You are my strength, Sasuke.’
She smiles at him tenderly and he’d give anything to be able to tell her what he feels and what she means to him.
Sasuke lifts her hand to his lips and kisses her upturned palm. She looks surprised for a moment, for Sasuke hates public displays of affection and this is unexpectedly gentle gesture from such an undemonstrative man.
‘I’m glad you’re my wife,’ he tells her simply and she laughs softly before she presses her soft lips on his.
‘I’m lucky to have such a husband,’ she whispers as she rests her head on his shoulder. Sasuke puts her arm around her and together they watch their daughter breathe.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Methinks I went slightly overboard with this, but I couldn't help it, I simply got carried away!
Next chapter will be much lighter, I promise :p After all, even Sasuke and Hinata need some happy moments :D
Cheers!