Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Kishimoto-sensei.

A/N: Hello fellow NH shippers. It's been a month since I said I had and idea for a fanfic, and I FINALLY finished it. Initially it was meant to be a songfic with Read My Mind, from The Killers, but I changed it to get to the end I wanted. It might have a smutty chapter 2, but for now that's it. There's a line in this fanfic that is dedicated to that pic of Hiashi's face on NH wedding with "all according to keikaku" written on the bottom, try to find xD I didn't think I was going to be able to contribute to NH month, I'm very happy now!

Oh, and that's my first english-written fanfic, sorry for any mistakes :)

Hime.

The word was stuck in his mind. He didn't know why.

He never really thought of her that way until that moment, but looking through the door ajar in her house, listening to the conversation she was having with her father, the ideia of Hinata being a princess from the Hyuuga clan finally reached him. They were talking about Hanabi's kidnap, and Hiashi was still hurt from fighting those men who took her. He kept changing his sitting position on the floor, as if any of them made his pain worse.

"Hinata, we had this conversation before, right after the war. I had tossed you aside as the future head of the clan, but it's been a while since I regretted that decision. I should have had more faith in you. The succession of the clan is already decided, but that doesn't mean you are out of this family. After all, you never stopped being a Hyuuga princess, my first born hime, and so you must honor our name."

Naruto looked at Hinata. She made a small move to low her head and face the floor, but instead she held it a little higher than before and said nothing. Naruto felt a warm feeling in his heart. He knew she had become very brave, braver than that time when they did the Chuunin Shiken, but it was still nice to see her face her father without low self-esteem and fear. Come to think about it, it made her look like a real princess.

"Unfortunately, I'm in no condition of rescuing Hanabi myself. I must trust you to bring your sister back."

"Yes, father."

She didn't even hesitated, he saw. She was full of confidence. More than that, he saw a strength in her eyes that he had never seen before. 'It looks like nothing is stopping her now', he thought, opening a little smile as he turned his head to face the rising sun. The door opened, and they both got out. Hinata looked confused when she saw Naruto smiling at her for no apparent reason.

"Shall we?" he asked her.

"Uzumaki boy." Hiashi stepped in front of his daughter and looked down at Naruto. Naruto shrank a little without noticing. "You better get her home in one piece, without a scratch, and with her sister by her side. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir!" Naruto bowed, not knowing really how to act in front of him. When he got up again, Hiashi looked at his eyes and almost gave in to the temptation of smiling.

"I will take your word on this, boy." He looked at Hinata, who was very embarrassed and trying not to look at them. "You two will get along in your travel. Please take care of her."

That warm feeling he felt earlier grew a little, and he found himself thinking about how he would do anything to protect her. They left and went towards the gates of Konoha, where the others would be waiting for them. Naruto walked by her side, while she remained silent.

"You know, what your father said back there, it wasn't very accurate, was it?

"What?" she turned to him, startled. He chuckled.

"He said 'please take care of her', but every time we are in a bad situation, it is you who save me, not the opposite."

"Oh." She turned her head the other way, her face deep red. It wasn't the first time Naruto mentioned what she did for him against Pain, and she didn't know if it was a good or a bad thing that he never talked about her confession at the time. "But you… have saved me many more times."

"Hmm, I don't know about that". He closed his eyes, one hand in his chin, thinking. "Well, I guess if we stick together we'll save each other, how about that?" Naruto opened his biggest smile, and she couldn't help but smile too. That surprised him a little, he wasn't used to see her genuinely smile very often.

"You should smile like that more times, you know. You look pretty when you smile."

Her face went all the way from white to red, and then set on pink. She never cared much for compliments about her looks, she never received any, but that was unexpected, to say the least. Naruto didn't seem to notice the effect of his sentence on her. He was thinking about that hime thing again. Neji used to call her –sama, he remembered. Should he call her –sama? Or maybe –hime? Was he being disrespectful with her all those years? It was too late to get used to call her by anything than just Hinata, but he wondered anyway.

They passed by Ichiraku's ramen, and a thought entered Hinata's mind. She turned to Naruto.

"Naruto-kun, can I ask you something?"

"Huh?" He looked at her and smiled again. Why was he smiling so much? "Sure thing. Fire away."

"Uhm, I was wondering… Why do you like ramen so much?"

That caught him off his guard. Nobody never really asked him that. People would often reprehend him about the amount of ramen he ate, but never asked why he did that.

"Well, thanks for asking, Hinata-hime, this is an interesting story."

She blushed hard at the sound of him calling her "hime". He was so concentrated in his thoughts about how he should be addressing her that the word just came out of his mouth without him even noticing, and went on with his reply.

"When I was little, there was a blind old lady that lived next door. I think she didn't know I was the jinchuuriki, otherwise she wouldn't be talking to me. The Third must have said to her that I was an orphan that just got out of the orphanage to live in my own house because I was attending the Ninja Academy, and I would need some help with food and other things. She couldn't cook, so she would just order some cheap food for herself and for me. The first time she did that I gained a bowl of ramen. It was the first really nice thing anyone really did for me, and I never forgot that."

Hinata looked down while walking, a sad smile on her face. He endured so much at such a young age.

"Oh damn, did I make you sad? I'm sorry!"

"No, not at all!" she replied quickly. "It's just… grown-ups can really make a child's life difficult, but sometimes their help is the best thing in the world."

He wondered what she meant with that, because the look on her face suggested that that wasn't just about his childhood.

"Funny… You know, no one ever asked me that. I do like ramen very much, but people just assume that's the only reason I eat it so much. I guess no one really cared enough to wonder about it before."

"Well, I care." She said, boldly holding his gaze with a smile that touched her eyes. "I've always cared."

Hinata didn't meant to let that last sentence slip from her lips, but it was too late now. Naruto said nothing, and tried to conceal how it affected him. What was that warm feeling?

They reached the gates of Konoha and the group left.

So many things had happened since that sweet talk they had before they left Konoha, it seemed a lifetime away now. He saw clearly now how she felt about him, and more importantly, how he felt about her. That genjutsu that showed him her memories touched something very deep in his feelings. He built up his courage to confess to her, but her reply wasn't what he was expecting. She left with Toneri. Why?

Putting his hand on the left side of his chest and holding it he could feel his heart beating, but it felt like it wasn't beating anymore. How could anyone live in such pain? He thought about Hinata's memories, those he saw on that genjutsu. One thing that those memories didn't show was how she felt on that long period between her confession and his. It was more than 2 years. How did she endure it? Did she suffer like he was suffering now?

"I'm the fucking dumbest person alive. And now I lost her."

Sakura came in and they had a really nice talk, one that they ought to have had sooner. His eternal competition with Sasuke, his childhood crush on Sakura, how they both came to realize that his crush was just joy to have close friends for the first time, and how their friendship was above it all and would continue to be. Sakura new that her friendship was the most important thing she could offer him at that moment, because he was suffering from deep heartbreak. She tried to put on his head what Hinata's decision really meant, why she would refuse him to save her sister.

Naruto was shocked. Did she really refuse him to have a chance to save her sister by herself? His heart ached even more. Hinata was the best person to walk on this Earth, and his stupidity continued to blind him to the true meaning of her actions.

"But what if it's too late? What if she doesn't love me anymore?"

"You won't know that unless you ask her, you idiot."

He looked at his hand, hopeless.

"I lost my hime because of my own dumbness. I was too stupid to see her right in front of my eyes, the first person to love me for what I was, even before I could love myself."

Sakura turned up the corner of her lips and looked intensely at him.

"Your hime, huh?"

"What?" he looked up, confused.

"You just called her hime."

"Did I?" he recollect the sentence he just said and noticed it. Naruto smiled sadly at her. "But she is, isn't she? My princess. The strongest princess I will ever know, the one that was always there to save me. She is my princess and I love her. I need her."

"You know what to do then."

He gazed at her with fierce resolution in his eyes.

"I will bring my hime back."