A/N

My longest project ever - it actually streched over four years and was finished last month - was another Naruto-Universe in which Sasuke and Sakura had a baby but died, leaving Hinata and Neji to raise their son along with their own three children. For that purpose, I really had to think over how those two - Neji and Hinata - could ever become a couple, and I guess I didn´t make it easy for them... Anyway, after two years, I finally managed to write a oneshot on their relationship. It has been posted on a German site for almost two years, and last month, someone reviewed it! I was so happy I had to re-read it, and somehow, this one came to my mind. It focusses on Hinata and Neji already beeing engaged.

Topic: Naruto - slightly AU. Belongs to my own Naruto-Universe, in canon with "Just because" and "The easiest way"

Main Characters: Neji Hyuuga/Hinata Hyuuga

Disclaimer: If I owned Naruto, I would have whacked Sasuke unconscious in the Valley of the End, dragged him back to Konoha, would have annihilated Akatsuki, Madara, Orochimaru and all the bad guys at once, have made Naruto Hokage and would ressurect Jiraiya, Rin, Obito, Naruto´s parents and a few more characters... Just as well it´s probably good I don´t own them. *sigh*

Letters along the way

There were few means for shinobi who were on a mission to actually stay in contact with people and family at home. Sometimes, the missions were short and simple. Sometimes, shinobi returned after a few days abroad, starring all the dirt, dust, mud and blood they couldn´t avoid getting onto themselves, sometimes tired and quiet, sometimes in high spirits and happy. But for those who didn´t plan on returning too soon – who couldn´t, to say the truth, because orders were orders and a good shinobi obeyed – there was only one way to stay in contact: letters.

Little notes on how awful the weather was, how exhausting the journey, how bad the food and how ugly the women (or men). Sometimes cheerful. Sometimes depressed and depressing. But nevertheless – they gave credit to the fact that someone out there was still remembering the people safe and sound in Konoha, and was honestly trying to return unharmed to ones loved ones.

Loved ones.

Communicating with Neji wasn´t easy on his good days.
And the fact that a few day´s journeys and two continents separated them didn´t contribute, either. Perhaps because Neji wasn´t into writing – and Hinata wasn´t, either. Normally, she assumed her role of the dutiful kunoichi and fiancée, fulfilling her missions, working part-time in the hospital, helping both Ino and Sakura, and waiting at home in a huge mansion for him to return. She wasn´t sure when she´d started – her nights blurred together, a black void of loneliness and darkness and quietness she couldn´t face alone – so she´d sat down and scribbled a few words onto a parchment. It was something like Where are you and What are you doing and Is everything alright and – last but most embarrassing, but she didn´t care because it was only him who was supposed to see and no one else and even if she was Head of Clan she still was a human being – I miss you. She couldn´t even remember having sent it – but somehow it got on its way, and somehow it reached its destination.

Two weeks later, she received a reply.

It was short and impersonal and contained few information. But it was Neji´s handwriting, to be sure, and somehow she read his voice and his expression behind the hastily scribbled words and was happy. That´s when it started.

After that, she had the letters. A poor substitute, but nevertheless something to keep her company during the darkness of the night. She started telling him little stories from her job, repeating gossip, making jokes. He replied short and with few words, but something in his words let her know he missed her as well. Or so she hoped, because after all, they were engaged and it had been his free decision. When he wasn´t there, she never was sure of his feelings for her.

She couldn´t remember when they got into a fight.

It was odd, because Hyuuga weren´t known to pick fights much less than actually have them. And it was odd because Neji wasn´t the person to fight because he kept to himself so much and Hinata because she just was too shy to oppose someone else. Maybe it was because of what she had become – Head of Clan – that it started, because she had to fight, had to argue with the Elders, had to oppose all the old and antiquated traditions the Hyuuga still kept polishing. Whatever the reason, though, they got into an argument over something neither of them remembered. When Neji´s letter arrived – this time written on a scroll he seemed to have bought only for the purpose, which bothered her to no end – and in his neat handwriting which strongly antagonized with his words especially chosen to express his anger but not to seem angry – she read it on her way back home from the hospital. She stopped in the middle of the street, shaking with fury, and stormed home, grabbed a scroll and pens and rushed outside into the vast gardens surrounding the Hyuuga estate. A few servants who happened to see her expression ducked away quickly, and not even Hanabi dared to step into her way. In the garden, Hinata re-read his letter, balled it up and threw it at a three. Then she whipped out her own pen and paper and scribbled down her reply, to furious to even bother about her writing, closed and sealed it without re-reading and delivered it to the Hokage´s aide herself who threw her a very curious look but nevertheless promised her to send it along with the Hokage´s next orders for Hyuuga-San´s team.

Then she waited for a reply.

And she waited.

And waited.

And somewhere along the line, her anger died away. She already noticed it one day later – after she woke from a dream she couldn´t remember, whispering a name she didn´t want to think of. During the next days, her fury just seemed to bleed from her – she wondered why she had been so angry, why they had gotten into this fight at all – and she still missed him, missed him more than she had before. She searched the garden for the little ball of parchment and found it, wet and dirty. She pressed it against her heart and cried. She just had wanted him to come home, to hold her again – and now she had destroyed it, had made him hate her – and the thought was unbearable. She unfolded the paper and dried it, but her tears didn´t dry. She feared his next letter.

When it finally arrived, she didn´t open it.

She stared at it during her lunch break and during dinner, unable to put it away but equally unable to open and read it. She wanted to tell someone about the letter – the fight, about everything – badly, but when she tried to talk to Sakura, she just ended up confessing on her loneliness, and her friend held her close and told her she knew what she felt. It was comforting, but it wasn´t what she had wanted to hear. Ino brought her flowers, her worried eyes mirroring the way Hinata felt, but she couldn´t help her, either. She still was waiting. And the letter sat on her chest of drawers – still unopened.

It sat there for one and a half weeks. Then Neji walked through the door, looking tired and exhausted and totally defeated. Hinata hadn´t expected him at all. Maybe I should have read the letter, was her first thought, but she pushed it aside as she stood slowly.

He stared at her for a few seconds. She stared back at him. They were from a family who concentrated on perfecting eyesight, after all.

His shoulders sagged when she didn´t say anything.

"Did you ever read my letter?", he asked quietly. She shook her head and suddenly, there was something else in his expression, not quite hope, but something similar. She wondered how she could read him so easily, seeing him standing there, and her heart skipped a beat. Suddenly, the room was bright again, because she knew exactly what he had written. It had to be the same words she had mouthed so often into her pillow, into her hands, fervently hoping he would hear them but knowing it was impossible.

When she stepped forward, he did the same, and suddenly he was there, he was real, and she felt his arms around her and his lips on hers and his breath mingling with hers.

And distance – and words, or letters – didn´t matter anymore.

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I don´t now how to tell you how much you mean to me.

But I still can show you.

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