Lost Moments

Lost Moments
By: Lynn Metallium
Disclaimer: I don’t own anything. I’m nothing but a poor little American girl who had to spend all of her money on college and therefore even if you sued me you wouldn’t get any money anyway. So please don’t get mad and hurt me Xx;;
IMPORTANT NOTE: Please read/note the changes in the end of chapter six about Hinata’s pregnancy and that she now has twins.

Chapter 7


Neji had only been gone six months but for Hinata it seemed like sixty years. Although training took up much of her time, the nights left her feeling lonely. When she reached over to where her husband should have laid, she only found the cold empty bed sheets.

There was no way to know, Tsunade had told her, just how long Neji would be away in Suna. She was, she said, sorry that Neji would be missing the first months if not the first years of his children’s lives but… such was the life of a ninja. Hinata had only nodded in agreement. The Hyuuga heir had not expected much pity from the Hokage, she was after all, right. To be a ninja, one had to make sacrifices.

Things were strange in the Hyuuga household since Neji had left. Hinata received a strange mixture of reactions from respect to disgust from her fellow Hyuugas. Although they respected her for having contributed to the growth of the Hyuuga clan by producing a son and for establishing herself as a mother, they still did not care for her as a person.

The majority of elders still found her weak. Although they never came out and said so, Hinata knew they viewed her as nothing more than a vessel to produce heirs. It infuriated her to a degree but for now she held her tongue as well as her temper over the situation.

Since her pregnancy and Neji’s leave, Hinata had come to notice things were not as she had dreamed. She had been a fool to think things were safe within her husband’s hands.

Neji was strong, but not strong enough to stand up to the counsel as her father might have wished. Not when the counsel members her father had trusted the most had turned against him. It was pure greed that drove them, to hold power and sway over one of the most prestigious clans in Konoha. She knew now, that Neji and herself had been merely pawns in their game all along. And they had aided them in the best way possible, by giving birth to a son.

Hinata’s heart ached when she thought of her children. They had been whisked away from her the moment she had return to the grounds. Of course she could see them whenever she wanted but…it was not the same. She was always supervised, especially with her son. She was never allowed to nurse him and barely able to hold him.

There was little she could do in protest, her son were the future to the clan and he would be guarded over day and night, molded by the clan into “true” Hyuugas. Even in infancy, her son had become the counsel’s pawn just like his mother and father.

The danger was very real to Hinata now with the birth of her children, just how dangerous things were becoming in her clan. The way things stood now meant demise for her family, she was certain. Yet no matter how many threads she tried to grasp in attempt to hold things together, even more slipped through her fingers.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“The counsel has already signed the papers; your daughter will receive her mark at four years of age, five if she is sickly and unable to withstand the procedure.”

Hinata never even lifted her head to stare at the Elder as she felt her body break out into a cold sweat. They would mark her daughter as a Branch member. She felt faint and almost gagged.

“My daughter is of Main line blood, she has no reason to be marked as such,” Even to her own ears, Hinata’s voice sounded soft and weak. She swallowed hard, trying to draw her courage around herself, for her daughter’s sake.

“Surely you are not so naïve as to think she is going to stay within the Main branch. She is the second born, her blood will be weak.”

“She is of the same blood as my son, she was born even before my son,” The Hyuuga heir’s voice wavered still, despite her attempts to be strong. “She has no reason to be marked.”

“You are acting rather foolish in the matter don’t you think? Your own husband is of the Branch, and you think your daughter deserves to be left with us? You know the rules and yet you try to bend them to your own will. Don’t be such a selfish sniveling woman.”

“The rules have been bent before,” Her tone sounded more aggressive and Hinata felt a stab of pride for herself as she finally looked up at the Elder.

“I do not recall-“

“Hanabi should have been marked!” The words flew from her mouth before she could stop them. Hanabi’s eyes widened from the dais where she sat next to the Elder before narrowing. Hinata had never seen such venom in her sister’s face before and a chill raced down her spine. She had done a horrible thing, Hinata realized. A very horrible thing.

“Do not speak of things you do not even understand. No wonder your father would never let you ascend to head this clan. You understand nothing.”

“He never meant for you to lead this clan either,” Her tongue was flying away with her and Hinata barely managed not to shrink back under the gazes of the counsel.

“Father never meant for you to live! I was trained to lead this clan, it was for me!” Hanabi’s voice broke out as she stood furiously, leaping upon her sister’s body like a lioness going in for the kill. Hinata barely had time to roll sideways, dodging a vicious jab chakra laced jab aimed towards her chest.

The two women rolled across the floor, Hanabi’s wrists captured by her sister’s hands as she strained to wrap the digits around Hinata’s neck. Hinata knew if she let go even for a second she would die in her sister’s murderous rage. Hinata drew her knee upward, slamming it into the larger woman’s stomach, knocking the air from her with a whoosh before shoving her to the side to struggle to her feet.

Hanabi was quick though, grabbing her sister’s ankles and dragging her down to the floor and leaping upon her once more, her fingers poised to punch her in true Hyuuga fashion. Their eyes flashed and the veins around their eyes swelled dangerously as the two rolled sideways once more, Hinata trying to dislodge the younger woman once more but her trick wouldn’t work a second time and she nearly screamed out when Hanabi’s fingers jabbed into her unprotected stomach.

Hinata swung, her fingers clenched into a tight fist and caught her sister across the face, causing her neck to snap to the side. It wasn’t normal for a Hyuuga to punch so and Hanabi was stunned, leaving enough time for Hinata to aim a chakra laced jab towards her sister.

Her hand was grabbed though before she could connect and the two women were dragged apart by red faced guards who had been so shocked by the attack between the sisters they had only been able to gap at first.

“Get out,” The Elder’s voice was as cold as ice. “You humiliate us all with this shameful display! Get out!”
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hinata was all too glad to escape the counsel room, escaping instead to her mother’s room. Her body shook as she tried to steady her breathing, now that she was alone, seated next to her mother’s bed.

“Mother, I have done a foolish thing,” Her voice was quiet but she knew the other woman must be listening to her. “Every time I have done a foolish thing I have come here, hoping you can save me…”

A sob broke from between her lips and Hinata slumped over her mother’s bed ridden form, grasping her mother’s cold hand.

“How dare they…”She mumbled against the blankets, her tears sliding down her cheeks as she buried her face into her mother’s side. “ I have been manipulated all these years by these men; men I had thought knew what was best for my life yet it was only for their selfish whims!”

“All this time I’ve been such a fool. A stupid little girl with her head stuck in the clouds. I can’t allow them to do this to my daughter, to my son! These are my children! Not their pawns to move across the board any way the counsel wishes,”

How Hinata wished that her mother was still able to move, to speak. She would have given anything to hear the woman’s voice, telling her that things would work out and that it would be ok. She would have given anything to feel her mother hug her.

“I understand now, how easy it is to give up, to surrender to them…they are ruthless men and we suffer for it.” Hinata lifted her head to stare at her mother who appeared to be looking at something her daughter couldn’t see outside her window.

“Would you be ashamed to know what has become of this clan? Did you just not care for us? Did you not care that we would struggle the same as you?” Hinata shook her head, embarrassed by her own bitter statements.

“You are our mother and yet…here you lie. I do not know if I should feel bitter or relieved that you are like this, gone somewhere safe, where they can not manipulate you anymore mother…”

There was no sign that the woman even knew her daughter was talking to her as she continued to stare outside the window. Hinata wondered if the woman even comprehended her words, or if she was just ignoring any guilt she may have felt over the situation. Maybe the woman truly was nothing more than an empty shell now, her mind long since gone. Maybe it was useless to even speak to her like this.

“I half wish you would truly escape this miserable life and go free in your death,” She murmured half heartedly at the woman, who was still ignoring her.

A soft knock at the sliding door drew Hinata from her thoughts as a maid entered a room with her mother’s dinner.

“It is time for mistress to be fed Hinata-sama, if you please…”

“Leave it. I will feed her myself,”

The woman bowed, placing the tray on the night stand next to Hotaru’s bedside before bowing once more and scurrying from the room. Hinata was almost certain she saw relief in the woman’s eyes. Hotaru was difficult to feed, Hinata had found out and the women who served the Lady found the task hardly desirable. Hinata though, didn’t mind, the woman was still her mother regardless of the difficulty of the task.

“Come mother, let us eat dinner. You may have given up on your children but I will not give up on you.”

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hinata was awoken by a sharp wailing in the early morning hours. At first her sleep blurred mind couldn’t understand what was going on. It was early, why was someone making such a troublesome noise? It took several seconds for her mind to catch up to the noise to identify it as hysterical weeping. Sleep fled from her brain as the Hyuuga woman sat up and forced herself from bed, pulling her nightgown around her tightly as she moved into the hall.

Outside the wailing was even more pronounced, several voices sobbing together causing the hair on the back of her neck to stand. As she quickly moved down the hallway towards the sound she was nearly knocked over by a maid rushing to get past her.

“Halt, where are you going? What is going on?” Hinata grasped the woman by the arm, causing her to gasp and grab Hinata in return.

“Mistress, the Lady is dying!”

The woman’s voice cut through her like a cold knife and Hinata felt her heart leap into her throat, lodging there heavily as she tried to force herself to breath. Yet all she could do was stand there and stare stupidly at the woman. Her mother…

Hinata shoved away from the woman, dashing down the hallways towards her mother’s room. This was impossible! She had only just seen her mother a few hours earlier and nothing had been amiss. How could things change so quickly? Despite her already deteriorated mind, Hotaru had seemed in mostly good health. Surely there must be some mistake, her mother could be merely sick!

When she finally skidded into the hallway where her mother’s room was located she was shocked to see several maids clustered outside the door, the apparent source of the wailing. Approaching them, the women quickly silenced and merely stared at her blankly, as if they had never seen her before. A few whispered to one another behind their hands as they stared at her.

“Please, move out of my way, I wish to see my mother,” Hinata’s voice sounded calm, even though her insides were raging. The women stepped back, clearing the way to the door but their eyes never left her, leaving Hinata feeling horribly unnerved as she stepped into the room.
As she stepped into the room Hinata felt several pairs of eyes land on her and she was surprised to find not only the physician there but the Elder and Hanabi, watching her with cold eyes. For a moment they all stood, regarding one another and the silence held heavy and pregnant around them.

“Lady Hotaru is dead.” The Elder spoke finally.

“But…how…” Hinata felt cold all over as she stared at the three others in the room. “No one came to me, tell me what happened.”

“We aren’t certain at the moment. There are a few ideas but nothing concrete yet. I am sorry for your loss Hanabi-sama, Hinata-sama.” The physician spoke finally, his face unreadable. He knew more than he was letting on, Hinata realized as she stared at him with distrustful eyes. The elder man however, looked away to retrieve his instruments instead, packing his back with slow methodical movements.

Hinata’s eyes flickered back over the Elder and Hanabi, who was caressing their mothers hair with a trembling hand. Nether would look at her, causing her heart to clench further with grief and alarm. The silence hung around them so heavy Hinata imagined she might suffocate.

“I will send for someone to remove the body for preparation,” The doctor spoke again, the only one who seemed willing to break the silence around him. Picking up his bag, he shot a look at the Elder before slowly shuffling from the room. After a moment the Elder too, left the room leaving the two sisters in the dim room alone.

For a moment they said nothing to one another until Hinata could stand the silence no longer and finally spoke to the other who had yet to turn around to look at her.

“Hanabi…” The younger girl whirled around at the sound of the other’s voice and Hinata was shocked at the fury and malice she saw on her sister’s face. “Hanabi!”

“You killed my mother,”

“What?” Hinata could only gap at her in utter shock. “How could you say such a thing? I-I would never-!”

“Spiteful little whore! You took her from me! You wanted to hurt me! You cant kill me so you killed my mother!”

“She is my mother too! Why would I kill my own mother! I love her more than you ever will!” Hinata couldn’t stop the words flying from her mouth and she stepped back, covering her own mouth with trembling fingers unable to believe herself.

“You think you can fool everyone! But you can’t fool me you worthless bitch! I saw you! I saw you kill her!”
“I- I never-”

“I saw you! You sat with her and complained! You hated her!” Hanabi was advancing on her now, forcing Hinata to back up until her back hit the wall preventing her from moving any further. She put out her hands in an attempt to keep the other girl back.

“I love my mother-”

“You wanted her dead! You said it yourself, you wanted her to die! And you knew if you killed her you could hurt me! You hate me! Because I have the power and you don’t! You’re nothing but a bitter, jealous, manipulating whore!”

“Hanabi!” Hinata shrank back slightly as the other woman leaned closer, her hands posed to strike the other if she even appeared to move in a threatening fashion, yet Hanabi only whispered softly in her ear.

“If you think you can play this game with me and hurt me so, then you are wrong. You will only dream of being without pain when I marry the Uchiha sister. I will crush you.”

Hanabi whirled around, leaving Hinata shaken and pale against the wall.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hinata had poisoned her mother. She was the last one to see her mother alive. She had fed her mother that night. She had said she wanted her mother dead! She hated Hanabi so much that she would kill her own mother to gain revenge on her sister. Those were the rumors that floated around the Hyuuga compound less than two days after Hyuuga Hotaru’s death.

Hinata herself was distraught. Her mother was dead, by suspicious means no less. She found herself sitting up late at night wondering if it had truly been her fault or not. It was true…she had been the last to see her mother well. She had spoon fed her mother the soup that was said to have killed her. But Hinata had not poisoned that soup. She had done nothing to it!

Yet it didn’t seem to matter. There were none who were willing to take her side. When she walked through the grounds she felt heavy with the weight of eyes upon her. The accusing glares made her feel nauseated and so she hid in her room to stay away from them. Of course that only heightened everyone’s suspicions of her actions that day.

By the time her mother’s cremation came around Hinata was at her wits end. She couldn’t even go visit her children without the nurse maids watching her with distressed eyes. As if at any moment Hinata would turn wild and kill someone else.

She had stood next to Hanabi at the cremation, but her sister had not turn to look at her even once, despite Hinata’s desperate stares. How could her sister even dream for a moment that Hinata was to blame for their mothers death.

She had loved their mother, more than anyone. She had been the one watching out for her! Watching to make sure she was bathed and fed. No one else had looked after Hotaru like Hinata had…no one…

Her eyes had watered as she watched the ashes of her mother’s body disappear on the wind. It was the first time she had actually been able to cry for Hotaru. Until now she had been too numb to even bring herself to do much else than stare vacantly whenever she thought of the woman.

Hanabi still didn’t even look at her when Hinata’s shoulders started to shake with the effort not to sob. Her sister’s face looked stiff and cold as she turned away to walk away from the ceremony, not even glancing back to her sister once. It left the elder Hyuuga girl feeling cold and uncomfortable.

Hanabi hated her, of that much Hinata was certain. She was also certain it had to do with the fight they had had in the counsel room. Hanabi had always been power hungry since she had been a child. She had been deceived, which was unfortunate, but not Hinata’s fault. Hanabi had grown up believing she would be the one to take over the Hyuuga clan.

Yet now, things were not going according to her plan. It must hurt, Hinata thought, to think one thing and never get it. She could on one level, sympathize with her younger sister. However it didn’t change the facts that Hanabi had spread the rumors about Hinata. She knew Hanabi was the one who had whispered in others ears, starting the gossip, the rumors and the cold stares.

Hanabi’s threat still hung in Hinata’s mind. When she married the Uchiha… Hinata still couldn’t believe the other man had agreed to the marriage. Sasuke had always been a little strange and messed up in his logic but one would have thought he would have learned his lesson about making poor choices.

Thinking of the Uchiha reminded her that she had promised to help Naruto. Sasuke couldn’t marry her sister. Remembering though made her feel guilty. She couldn’t help her blonde friend now until she cleared her name. No one would listen to a woman they thought was a murderer.


It hurt her that they would be so fooled by her sister and her malicious rumors. What had happened had been unfortunate and Hinata was desperate to know just who had killed her mother. It had not been her to poison the soup and so…who? ….

That was something she couldn’t do on her own. She needed help, people who would trust her. Hinata needed people who would believe her over Hanabi and she knew those people were few and far between. There were few on her side before her mother’s death and now there was sure to be none. All were so certain due to the strange circumstances that Hinata was to blame. Hinata needed someone unfading by her side, even though they didn’t always get along or see eye to eye. She needed her husband. She needed Neji.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“A letter came for you Hyuuga,” Gaara’s eyes flickered over the long haired man who stood in front of him, his back stiff.

“Not a normal one, from Hina-…my wife?” His tongue almost tripped on the word, it was still, after all this time, troublesome to refer to Hinata as his wife.

Gaara gave him a look that seemed to say, ‘what are you, stupid Hyuuga?’ and Neji had the grace to look at least a bit flustered by it. Of course the letter wouldn’t be from Hinata if Gaara was speaking to him about it. Hinata’s letters came by regular post, in fact he had just received on only a few days ago.

“Your Hokage has written you a letter about your clan, it seems there have been some problems.”

“Problems?” He was hardly surprised, but if the Hokage was writing him here then the problems must have been far more serious than Neji had thought.
“It appears that your aunt has died, poisoned by an unknown source. The Hokage asks me to give you leave, if you wish it, to return home to your wife until the mourning periods have passed. You may go if you wish, Temari said it might be important to you.”

For a moment the long haired man was silent as he stared at the Kazekage’s floor. His aunt was dead. Hinata’s mother… poisoned of all things…

“No, I will stay here. Thank you for your offer Kazekage,” He replied after a moment. Gaara raised a nonexistent eyebrow.

“Temari insisted that you might be distraught over your family, however you seem unfazed. Do you not care about this woman?”

“We were never very close,” Neji replied, evading the conversation as best he could.

He barely even remembered what his aunt was like before she had been bed ridden and out of her mind. The long haired nin couldn’t say he had many feelings for a woman who couldn’t even remember her own daughters, much less her nephew. Hinata might be a bit distraught over the thing but she would recover. Her mother was as good as a vegetable, there couldn’t be much of a relationship there.

“The letter says this woman was poisoned. I would find that alarming,” Gaara spoke once more after a moment, regarding the other with curious eyes. “I would be troubled if any of my nin were poisoned.”

“Of course, as would I. But I am here now, I am sure my counsel will take care of the matter. I would do more harm than good to return and get in the middle of their investigations.”

Gaara gave him another unreadable look that left Neji feeling slightly unnerved. He hated how the other could look at him like that, as if he were digging deep inside Neji’s mind. Of course he knew the red head couldn’t do such a thing but it still didn’t keep his mind from supplying the idea whenever Gaara gave him such a strange look that made the hair on the back of Neji’s neck stand up.

“Then you have no wish to go, to see your wife? You have been away from home for some time. Temari says you have children now. She says that parents often like to see their children. Perhaps you would like to see your children as well?”

“No, I have work here to do. They are small, they would not know me even if was to return home now.” Neji resisted the urge to squirm, why did the red headed man have to ask so many questions?

“You will stay then?”

“Of course. I will not let down my mission.”

“Then I will report to Tsunade.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Authors Notes: Aha yeah…only a year in the making…lets hope it doesn’t take a year to finish another chapter X_x;; Hopefully not. Read and Reviiiiew please, the stroking of ego through reviews is gooood.