He proposes in an Akimichi restaurant where they're serenaded by violins, surrounded by cooing couples and bathed in moonlight.

Toneri carefully puts the silver diamond ring onto Hinata's finger. The answer Hinata would give was never uncertain yet his normally steady hands are trembling and he's just as terrified as Hinata is. But they're young. It doesn't matter what the future holds for them; they have a lifetime to face it together, for better and for worse.

He stands up, brushes the pants of his suit, then catches Hinata's lips with his own.

"I'll love you," he tells her seriously after their chase kiss and the clapping of the audience. For once, Hinata's not paying attention to what the world thinks of her and she smiles back, eyes only on the boy, the man she's known since childhood.

"Then I'll love you too."

Hinata's alone in a taxi when it happens. She's on the phone with her friends, telling them about the proposal they all knew was coming. She doesn't see blaring lights, doesn't hear any loud honking or the taxi driver's cursing.

Hinata doesn't really remember the car accident.

She doesn't really remember anything. At all.

She wakes up to fluorescent lights and bone-white walls. She's lying on a soft bed, unfamiliar and probing tubes and needles sticking into her from all angles.

The doctors and nurses swarm over her within seconds. They coddle her, they use a remote control to help her sit up, gently coax the tube out of her throat when they're satisfied after a few questions about how she's feeling.

They begin monologues and lectures on brains and electric impulses and spinal cords and things that simply go over her head. She nods on cue, smiles when the nurses look at her sceptically and tries to pretend she knows what they're talking about even when half the interns present are as confused as she is.

"Basically," the head doctor concludes magnanimously as she shrinks away from him, "if I asked you your name, you couldn't tell me."

She blinks. Then again. Her thoughts are blank, don't offer up the one piece of information that she should, if anything, know. "Oh," she says, voice hoarse from weeks of disuse, if the nurses are to be believed.

"Don't worry, we'll put your picture up in the newspapers and your family will be sure to collect you," the doctor continues. "It's a pity that you didn't have any ID with you during the crash."

"The... Crash?"

"Car crash. You were in a taxi that was hit by another car. The driver died," the doctor says. He looks down at her through his spectacles. "I'd expect you don't remember."

"Um… no?"

"Exactly," the doctor says, supremely smug while giving her some kind of intimidating look. She shrinks into her bed and one of the interns, maybe a younger doctor puts a hand on her shoulder. It's comforting and warm and she shoots her a sort of grateful glance as the head doctor finishes waxing lyrical about how brilliant he is and leaves with his entourage, telling the younger doctor to stay with her.

"I'm sorry," the younger doctor says, who has been thus far referred to as 'you, girl'. "He's quite up himself. But he's actually a brilliant surgeon. He fixed you up."

"Oh," she says.

"I'm Sakura, Sakura Haruno," the doctor says with a cheerful smile. "I'll be taking care of you for the rest of your stay here."

Sakura helps her take out the rest of the tubes and needles that are left in her; Sakura says that she doesn't really need them. She helps her walk around the ward and the girl can tell that Sakura is surprised by how agile and strong she still is.

"You were out for so long," Sakura tells her. "We had to do some skin grafting and stuff. You are really lucky, they were only burns and a bit of head damage, no broken bones or anything, but I'm really surprised that you're this healthy, that your cognitive abilities and reactions weren't impaired at all. It's almost like you weren't in an accident."

"Besides the memory loss," she says, giving Sakura a side smile. Sakura smiles back; she's a lovely person, she thinks. She's very kind to her, obeying her every whim before she's figured them out herself. Sakura brings in her own clothes for her to wear so that she doesn't have to wear the hospital gowns and brings her pictures of the outside world. Sakura protects her from the crowds of curious doctors and interns too with a fiery glare and sharp words that makes her want to curl up and hope that she's got family out there who are as kind to her as Sakura is.

Only that, of course, they haven't come for her.

"Your crash was on the news," Sakura says, tapping her chin worriedly. "And then when you woke up, your face was on the news again and newspapers and everything. They'll definitely come soon."

She forces a smile and slumps beside Sakura. "Yes."

"The hospital wants you out, though," Sakura continues and the girl freezes with the realisation she's going to be homeless very, very soon. "So I thought that maybe you'd like to flat with me?"

The girl gapes and looks at Sakura in astonishment. "But… but you don't even know me!"

But there's something knowing in Sakura's eyes that makes her want to melt and let Sakura take care of her forever. "I know you enough to know that you're a lovely, good person, and that's enough for me," Sakura says, beaming. "What do you say? It'll be fun! My flatmate just left a few months ago to get married, so there's definitely space for you. My only concern would be my working hours; I'm really only ever home to sleep."

"T-That's…" she's torn over whether to protest that she couldn't possibly take advantage of Sakura like this, or to assure Sakura that she'll be fine on her own. "That's all right, Sakura. You've already done more than enough for me, I couldn't make you d-"

"That's great!" Sakura grins, taking her hand before she can say that she's fine with going to a homeless shelter. "I'll sign you out myself when my shift's over! We'll have to go shopping after this, if you're up for it. After that we can go out for dinner, Kami knows that I'd be sick of the food here if I were you."

"B-"

"You're right, you do need a name," Sakura says and the girl stares at Sakura in astonishment. Since when was Sakura this selective and forceful? "Any ideas?"

"N-No, not really?"

"Hmm…" Sakura says, pulling back to look at her. "You're really optimistic and bright, you know, for what's happened to you," Sakura says and the girl thinks, no, you're the bright and optimistic one. "And you've bounced back so quickly that it's nothing short of a miracle. I bet if you'd woken up in a normal house, you wouldn't have guessed that you were injured."

"R-Really?" she asks, not quite sure where Sakura is going with this.

"You're too brilliant," Sakura says with that warming teasing voice of hers. "You're too pretty, always happy and lovely no matter what. I think I'll call you Hanako."

Hanako frowns, tilts her head then smiles. "Hanako," she says, testing the syllables out on her tongue. They flow off so easily that she's almost sure that that's what she must have been called when she had her memories. But Hanako thinks that there's something wrong with the name, something that makes her squirm and brings tears to her eyes. "I like it."

"I'm glad you do," Sakura says, beaming so widely that Hanako tries to match it. Her lips stretch across her face and suddenly the two of them are laughing and the other patients and nurses are rolling their eyes, aware that the hospital is really just a 24-hour day care centre for Hanako, a place where she's laughing and playing on the hospital's old Xbox 180 with Sakura more often than not.

"You have it so easy," one of the doctors whine when he checks Hanako over before she's released. There's really no point in any of this; Hanako could have walked out of the hospital the moment her eyes opened. "You might as well not be doing any work."

Sakura just laughs teasingly and takes Hanako's hand to lead her out of the hospital and into the afternoon sun. She drags her to a shopping mall and down the high streets of Konoha, pulling and pushing clothes at Hanako and making her try them on. By the time dinner comes, they've bought an alarming amount of clothes and shoes that come with a sky-high bill. When Hanako points that out to Sakura as they drive to Sakura's apartment, she laughs it off.

"I'm too rich, Hana," Sakura grins. "I'm working more than I'm not. It's nice to have someone to spend it on, to spoil, and it's nothing you wouldn't do for me."

Sakura's apartment is in one of those classy areas that makes Hanako's eyes widen. The older female just laughs and gestures for Hanako to go into the elegant, modern flat. It's beautiful in its own way, Hanako thinks, but terrifyingly impersonal and unlived in. But there are strange touches of warmth that seem out of place; a painting of a sun in the living room and a collection of pressed flowers and photo albums. Sakura directs her to her new room.

"The bed and stuff is ready already," Sakura says and flushes a little. "Ino sometimes comes here when she quarrels with Sai. They've not been married long but they're as dramatic as ever."

"Th-"

Sakura rolls her eyes. "Ino's fine with you staying here, it's not like this is really Ino's room anymore."

"B-"

"If Ino comes back, I'll just kick her out," Sakura shrugs. Hanako stares; Sakura's becoming something of a psychic. "She shouldn't have married Sai if she's going to argue with him every other day."

Ino comes up a lot in Hanako and Sakura's often one sided conversations. Hanako understands that Ino's Sakura's best friend; they attended everything from nursery to university together, even taking medicine together until Ino decided to go for neurosurgery and Sakura went for a less intensive specialist role. Ino was, once, the best neurosurgeon in the country after her father, but she'd quit her job some time ago to become a florist instead.

"She sometimes comes in to help out," Sakura says when Hanako stares at Sakura in horror. Ino studied neurosurgery only to become a florist?! Not only that; Ino had even finished the entire course successfully. What was the point of all those years of study if Ino's just selling flowers now? "She's also into the really science-y ground-breaking research so she's helping cure dementia part-time. That's how she met Sai."

"But... Isn't Sai an artist?" Hanako blinks.

"He is," Sakura says so seriously as she dishes up the instant ramen that Hanako drops the subject.

"My friends want to meet you," Sakura says. "They're really curious about you. I've spent more time with you in the past few weeks than I have with all of them put together. They're probably wondering which pretty girl caught my attention."

Hanako chokes and hopes that Sakura is joking because, I don't swing that way, sorry Sakura, and is maybe slightly glad that while she's recovering from the hot noodles nearly sliding down the wrong pipe she doesn't have to panic about the fact that Sakura wants to meet her friends. Her family, as Sakura once called them.

Hanako doesn't deal well with strangers. She's not sure if it's because she doesn't have an assurance of a lifetime of memories or if she's always been like this. Sakura's the only person to invade through Hanako's defences, and she's the only person that Hanako can trust, especially when she can't trust herself to make the right decisions. Sakura's been there for her as long as she can remember, and even if that isn't actually that long, Hanako wants Sakura to trust and genuinely like her as much as Hanako does her. Accidentally offending Sakura's family is a sure-fire way of failing that.

"You don't have to meet them now," Sakura says. "And not all at once. I'm just worried that you'll get lonely, Hana, and I want some people to be there to look after you just in case something goes wrong."

Hanako nods and takes a bite of noodles so that she doesn't have to answer. She's never said no to Sakura before. She doesn't intend to start now.

Ino Yamanaka is as vivacious and as much of a diva as Hanako imagined her to be. She's bubblier than Sakura, even bright if possible and her smile as blindingly brilliant. She takes Hanako under her wing when Sakura's gone, showing her the flowers in her shop and teaching Hanako how to make floral arrangements and work the till. Her mouth works faster than the rate of money that the popular florist makes and by the end of the first day with her, Hanako thinks that she knows Ino's entire life story and exactly why Sai is a useless couch potato.

Sasuke Uchiha is much, much darker. He sends Hanako odd looks and grim faced scowls when he babysits her in Sakura's apartment. Sakura says he's her boyfriend of five years, but Hanako can't fathom out how on earth the cheerful Sakura could fall for someone so brooding and depressing. But she tries her best to be friendly since Sakura really does love him and ends up cooking for Sasuke and staring at him throughout lunch. She looks past the mask that he presents to Hanako and the world, looks past the glittering glares and perpetual frown. At the end of it when Sasuke raises an eyebrow at her, Hanako tells him that he's softer than he looks. Sasuke sends her such a horrified gape that Hanako giggles and thinks that she knows why Sakura loves him so much.

Hanako meets Shikamaru and Temari Nara at the same time. They've been together forever, Sakura tells her, and quarrel more than Sai and Ino. But their quarrels aren't over huge things like Ino and Sai's. They're over petty little things from the non-existent scratch on the car to the exact colour of Sakura's walls. They take her out to a café, quarrelling all the way, and Temari angrily orders lunch for all of them.

"Two green teas, a black coffee with no sugar, one seafood chowder, one chocolate muffin and a cinnamon bun," Temari snaps. Hanako blinks.

"I think Hanako can order for herself," Shikamaru says when the waitress is gone. Temari positively glowers.

"Hanako likes cinnamon buns, right?"

"Yes," Hanako squeaks. Shikamaru looks faintly worried for a split second, then shrugs and mutters a troublesome.

Naruto Uzumaki argues with Sasuke as explosively as Shikamaru argues with Temari, but Sakura insists that she, Sasuke and Naruto grew up together, and talks so often about Naruto that Hinata thinks she knows him before she's even met him. Where Sakura is bright, Sasuke is dark and Naruto seems to be the glue that holds them together. Naruto brings Hanako to his favourite places around the city and chatters brightly with Hanako. Where Ino had talked at her, where Sasuke had only strangely accurate insults at the tip of his tongue and Temari and Shikamaru just argued, Naruto chats with Hanako. He asks her of her opinions, lets her choose where they go and never once brings up the fact that Hanako doesn't have her memories and is just a pity case of Sakura's.

By the end of the end with Naruto, Hanako thinks she's in love. But when she goes back to Sakura's apartment, she sits by the windows and stares at the moon pensively.

She meets Neji Hyuga, Shino Aburame and Kiba Inuzuka in the New Year party that Sakura throws at her apartment. They take a look at her, have a double take when Sakura introduces her and seem to blanch.

"Hanako," Neji Hyuga says silkily, disturbing white eyes flickering between Sakura and Hanako. "Is that your name?"

"Y-Yes," Hanako says. She's terrified, really, of the three intimidating men who look ready to murder someone. "I-I, I mean, I-"

"I named her," Sakura says defiantly. "Problem, Neji?"

"Kami, Sakura, is this some kind of a joke?!" Kiba explodes and Hanako takes a step back, behind Sakura. "I-"

Ino and Sai then appear and they drag the snarling three men away and out of the apartment, citing that they need to talk to them. They don't come back. Sakura sends Hanako an apologetic look. "I'm sorry," Sakura says. "Neji's cousin died a few months ago and those three were really close to her. They're all a bit volatile at the moment."

"O-Oh," Hanako says, still half hiding behind Sakura. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Sakura says. She sends Hanako an odd look. "I think Hinata's happier now than when she was alive."

Hanako understands that something is very, very wrong when Neji, Kiba and Shino appear the next day while she's alone in the apartment and call her Hinata.

They show her a photo of Hinata Hyuga. She and Hanako have the same high cheekbones and pale skin, but Hanako has straight black hair and brown eyes with pupils as opposed to Hinata's long indigo hair and freakish white, pupiless eyes. When Hanako points that out, Neji Hyuga looks so betrayed that Hanako falters and says that his cousin was very pretty. Neji looks slightly vindicated.

They tell her Ino Yamanaka is a neurosurgeon who has been specialising in memories and amnesia for years now, that Sai has always been known to dabble in the less than legal things. Hanako tells them that she knows that, that Ino's going to cure dementia.

They tell her that Sakura's no doctor, that no hospital would assign a doctor to a patient for round the clock observation when Hinata, Hanako was clearly perfectly fine, that no one could go through a car accident where the car supposedly burst into flames and killed the taxi driver and come out as unscathed as Hanako. That no self respecting hospital would put so many tubes into Hinata, sorry, Hanako only to pull them out when her eyes opened without a few days observation.

The doctor that Hanako had first met, they claim, was an actor. They pull out profiles, poke at the medical procedures that Hanako underwent at the hospital and tell her that everything's just wrong. And they're right.

"Are you a doctor?" Hanako asks. She's starting to panic at the sheer determination and conviction in each of the three men's eyes and she wishes that she'd never opened the door. But Sakura's going to be back in less than an hour to take care of this mess and if the men are so convinced that Hanako's a girl that they all loved, surely they wouldn't do anything to her. Right?

"No," Neji Hyuga says. He's clearly frustrated, and he's struggling to keep his voice gentle and calm. "But my family, our family owns the local hospital and there is no record of you ever being there."

"But I'm nameless," Hanako says. "They wouldn't have had any name for me."

Kiba rolls his eyes. "They'd still have had to record you down as Hanako or whatever."

"There is no record of the car crash either," Neji says, continuing his tirade. "There has not been any news of a taxi crash, no news of anyone who has lost their memories, nothing."

Hanako falters at this. Sakura has promised her since she woke up that she was doing everything that she could to contact her family. But she still trusts Sakura more than these insane strangers. Sakura has protected her for so long from so many things, and Hanako's nothing but grateful to her. "You're lying," Hanako tells them.

"I can show you every news clip and newspaper in the past year," Neji counters. "My family owns the media here."

Hanako's eyes narrow. "Your family seems to own everything."

Kiba laughs at this and even Neji looks amused. "The Hyuga name is very powerful," Neji says. "Powerful and old. Our company is called the Byakugan, which you're the heiress of."

"No," Hanako says firmly. She stands up and looks clearly at all three men. "Hinata Hyuga was. She's dead and you have to accept that."

"B-"

"Even if I was Hinata Hyuga," Hanako says, "I'm not now and never will be. I'm Hanako now, and I'm happy as I am. If you really loved Hinata and if you really think I'm her, then for Hinata, please leave me alone. Please don't come back."

"You know we're right!" Shino Aburame snaps. "You know it. And you won't accept it because you're too kind hearted for your own good and you think you owe something to Sakura. You won't accept it because you've never had the bravery to stop accepting things you do not deserve and to vie for what you do."

Hanako all but throws the three men out before Sakura returns. She does it with a strength and fury that she never knew she possessed, does it with the certainty that they would never hurt her.

In the calm after the storm, Hanako's hands shake and she considers the picture of Hinata Hyuga that was left behind on the coffee table. A series of numbers is written carefully at the back, the name Hanabi written underneath. Hanako tries the name, saying it three times in the silence.

She'd always thought that Hanako sounded wrong.

"My name's Hanako," Hanako says. Hanabi Hyuga nods, half distracted by the phone in her hands and takes a sip of coffee. She makes a face and looks ready to call a waitress over to berate her. "I understand that your sister disappeared five months ago."

And suddenly she's got Hanabi's full attention. The younger woman's white eyes are sharp and intrusive and they cut through Hanako's soul. "And?"

"I was told that all the police and private detectives refused to help," Hanako says.

"They were bought off by the Uchiha," Hanabi snaps. "What of it?"

"I'm new here," Hanako says. "The Uchiha don't know me. Tell me who Hinata Hyuga is and I'll find her for you."

Hanabi's eyes bore into Hanako's. "So she's alive?"

"Tell me about Hinata and we'll see."

Hanako leaves Hanabi in the café with a spinning head and calculating thoughts. She walks straight into Naruto Uzumaki whose eyes widen.

"H-Hi, Hanako," Naruto says, clearly surprised. Hanako can't help the shy blush.

"Hi, Naruto," she says.

"What are you doing?" he asks, looking around. "Are you out with someone?"

"I thought I'd take a walk," Hanako says. She'd slipped past Shikamaru when he'd fallen asleep, perhaps because of the thick chamomile tea she'd served him. She'd felt bad for a few seconds, but Shikamaru's the most likely to fall asleep and Sakura's always got someone watching her. There was a time when Hanako had thought it meant that Sakura worried for her so much, but Hanako's wondering if there's a slightly more sinister twist, if Sakura's motives aren't so pure. "What about you?"

"I'm actually on my way home," Naruto says. "Do ya want to come? We can have dinner together or something. I mean, if you want, it's not a date or anything unless you want it to be, bu-"

Hinata really loved this boy, said he was all rainbows and sunshine. His name was Naruto Uzumaki but apparently it didn't work out or something. No one knows why. She said that she ended it, but I think my sister loved him too much to have ever done that to him.

"I'd love to," Hanako says.

"Who's this?"

"That's Hinata," Naruto says, barely glancing at the silver frame on top of the bookshelf in his living room. He bites his lip. "She… she's Neji's cousin."

"Oh," Hanako says, carefully putting the frame down. "I've never met her, but, um, Neji said something about her."

"Yeah," Naruto says, grin suddenly strained. "She disappeared a few months ago. Everyone really loved her, even Sakura, so I thought she'd have told you about her."

"Sakura?"

"Yeah," Naruto says, cocking his head. "Hinata flatted with Sakura and Ino until she disappeared. They were best friends, the three of them. They'd have done anything for each other. Sakura really took it hard when Hinata disappeared. I'm really grateful to you for helping her through it."

Best friends?

"O-Oh," Hanako says. "Um, n-no, it's no problem. Sakura's lovely."

Naruto looks ready to say something, then shakes his head. "Hinata was too. She was going to get married, ya know. That's why everyone was so confused when she disappeared."

Hanako frowns. Hanabi didn't mention any engagements, only unrequited crushes and heartbreaks. "She was?"

"Yeah. She disappeared the night Toneri proposed to her," Naruto explains. "Toneri's… this guy, I guess. They'd known each other since forever and they were always going to get married. She said… they really loved each other."

"Well," Hanako says slowly, mind whirring, "from what Neji told me about Hinata, I think she really loved you."

She calls Hanabi that night, voice low and quiet so that Sakura doesn't hear. Toneri Ōtsutsuki was betrothed to Hinata Hyuga the moment Hinata was born and pronounced to be a female. It had been a match made in heaven and everyone, apart from the two to be married, had been pleased for one reason or another.

"Clan politics," Hanabi says dismissively. "You don't need to know. Anyway, the arranged marriage to be fell through when the Ōtsutsuki were murdered. A plane crash. But Hinata and Toneri found each other later and fell in love or something. It was just after Hinata broke up with Naruto and Toneri had broken up with some other girl."

"I don't think the arranged marriage fell through," Hanako tells Hanabi. "And I don't think Toneri and Hinata fell in love either."

"What, you're saying Ōtsutsuki did away with my sister?" Hanabi asks, voice sharp. "Think carefully about that, Hanako. Toneri loved my sister, romantically or not, and he almost razed the city down when he learnt Hinata disappeared."

"Not him," Hanako says. She sighs. "Hinata really did love Naruto, and Sakura's really good friends with Naruto, and Hinata, Ino and Sakura were best friends."

"What?"

"Do you know who Ino Yamanaka is?" Hanako asks. "She specialises in memory and amnesia. I'm told she's going to cure dementia. I don't think she is."

"Are you sa-"

"Sakura really cares about Naruto. He's her brother. Hinata was also Sakura's best friend, wasn't she?" Hanako points out. "She wanted them to be happy and so she must have stolen Hinata away. They flatted together, right? It would have been easy. Ino did the rest for her; changed Hinata's memories. They all knew that Hinata would spiral back to Naruto, even if she lost her memories. Hinata loved Naruto too much, didn't she? Everyone kept on telling me that; that Hinata Hyuga loved Naruto Uzumaki, that it's the one true fact of life. And Naruto loves Hinata too. Even if he doesn't know she's Hinata, he'll still love her."

Hanabi's silent for a moment. "So if I want to find Hinata, I have to find a girl that's dating Naruto?"

"I suppose."

"Will she look like Hinata?"

"They wouldn't be careless, Hinata's features are too distinctive," Hanako says. "I talked to Sasuke; Sakura's no doctor. She's a chemist. She can change eye colours, hair colours, skin colours and so much more with a few chemicals."

"How do you know that Sasuke's not lying?" Hanabi demands, but there's a desperation in the young girl's voice that tells Hanako that Hanabi's sold on the idea. She wants it to be true. Even though Hanako knows by now that she was born Hinata Hyuga, she can't help but feel jealous of Hinata. Hinata's loved so, so much. Hanako is just… Hanako. Sakura's little guinea pig. She'll never be the Hinata that Hanabi and Neji know and love. She'll only disappoint them.

"As I understand it," Hanako says, "Hinata was part of the group of people that saved Sasuke from the Uchiha. He owes Hinata a debt and he repaid it to me."

"I thought Sasuke was the one who ordered the ban of searching for Hinata."

"That was his uncle," Hanako says. "And that was just to aggravate you. Madara Uchiha told me that if the Hyuga really wanted to find Hinata, you'd have asked the Aburame and Inuzuka for help."

Hanabi laughs, sharp and bitter. "We asked them for help. Kiba and Shino refused. They're the heirs of the Aburame and Inuzuka. Once they refused, their families wouldn't help out either. Apparently Hinata is definitely dead."

"When did they tell you this?" Hanako asks.

"A few weeks ago, sometime around new year's," Hanabi says. "Why?"

Hanako just smiles, gently and softly. "Nothing."

Sakura Haruno and Ino Yamanaka are arrested the next day by the Hyuga military. Apparently no evidence is needed because no trial will take place. Neji was right when he said that the Hyuga name was powerful.

Hanako's allowed to talk to them in the cells and the reason they give her for stealing Hinata away is the same reason that their friends like Shikamaru and Temari give her for not telling her the truth when they'd figured it out.

"We wanted you to have your happy ending," Temari says. Her blue eyes soften. "You were never good at fighting for what you wanted. You'd have been trapped in a marriage with Toneri, a marriage where neither you or Toneri would have been happy in. But when you were with Naruto, you were so, so happy. We wanted you to be happy again. Even if this way broke a few hearts, at least you and Naruto would have been happy."

"No," Hanako says. Temari draws back, blinking. "Sakura and Ino took Hinata away and left me behind. I don't remember who Naruto is, who Naruto was to Hinata. I don't have those memories where Hinata first met Naruto, where Hinata was saved by Naruto and thought that she could love him forever. I'm just me. I'll remember him as the man that Sakura took my life away for and while I like him, I'll never be able to love him. And I don't think he'll ever love me, not when he loves Hinata as much as he thought he should have."

All her friends look at her, hurt. They've just seen two of their friends taken away and now have heard that everything Sakura and Ino had done was all for nothing, that Hinata Hyuga doesn't love Naruto Uzumaki. But, Hanako thinks, it hurts so much because it's true.

Hanako is led to understand that most people in her situation would move away from everything and everyone that was part of their past lives. But Hanako likes the few friends that she's made and goes to stay with the Hyuga in the clan lands. She talks with Hanabi and Neji and meets Hinata's old caretakers and childhood playmates. She falls in love with Akamaru and gives Toneri her blessing when he introduces her to his girlfriend. It's ironic that this is the life that Hinata Hyuga ran away from, once upon a time, but Hanako finds that now that the expectations and responsibilities of being Hyuga heiress are on Hanabi, it's far less terrifying than Hinata had found it to be.

As time passes, Hanako finds marked differences between Hinata and Hanako. Hanako never grew up in a stilted society with judging condescendment. She's told she's far more confident and brazen than Hinata, and far less innocent and trusting of the world. No one feels the need to coddle and protect Hanako like they did with Hinata mainly because Hanako doesn't need to be. She likes the feeling of being loved when Neji and Hanabi speak up for her during clan meetings, but Hanako can protect herself, and frankly, no one wants a repeat of the disaster that happened the last time Hinata's friends tried to protect her.

"You loved Hinata too much," Hanako tells Sakura. "And so you tried to do everything for her. Maybe Hinata was weak, maybe she did need to be cocooned and kept away from everything wrong with the world. But Sakura, if you'd kept on sheltering Hinata, she'd only have been hurt even more when she was allowed to grow up. Hinata had made her decision when she broke up with Naruto and she didn't need you to change it for her. She wasn't a child, Sakura. She knew what she was doing and she needed to face the consequences herself. "

"I just wanted you and Naruto to be happy," Sakura says brokenly. Hanako's heart clenches because in the end, Sakura is still the first friend Hanako made, still the person who risked everything to save Hinata from a loveless marriage.

"Hinata was already happy," Hanako says. "Maybe she didn't end up with Naruto, but she was still happy and she would have been even if she'd married Toneri. Naruto wasn't the only person she loved."

"Are you happy now?" Sakura asks with a small voice. There's a hopeful gleam in her eyes, as though everything would be justified if Hanako is happy.

"Yes," Hanako says. She smiles at Sakura. "I'm happy now."

"Toneri proposed just now," Hinata says. She's in a taxi, on the way back home. She'll see Sakura in less than ten minutes, but there's something so wrong with everything and she wants to hear Sakura's soothing voice. "I… I said yes, but I don't know what to do."

"Oh, Hinata," Sakura sighs into the phone. "I'm so, so sorry."

"It's just…" Hinata bites her lip and knows she's close to tears. Her voice is terrifyingly high and hysterical and the taxi driver is shooting her concerned glances through the mirror. "I'd hoped that we could figure it out before the deadline and I always knew it was coming, but I-I… Naruto… I'm not sure if I can do this anymore, I'm not sure if I can make Toneri love me when he loves Hitomi so, so much and I love Naruto more than anything, and Sakura, what should I do?"

"Shhh," Sakura says. "Don't fret about it. Where are you? Are you on your way home?"

"I'm in a taxi," Hinata says.

"Okay," Sakura says. "Ino's coming over right now."

"But I don't want to bother her!" Hinata wails. "She'll b-"

"Don't be silly, it won't bother her. She wants to come," Sakura tells Hinata, and something in Hinata thinks that with friends like these, friends who have always been by her side, she'll get through this. "Don't worry, Hinata. We'll make it right again."

Inspired, a little, by a collection of sci-fi movies that almost always seem to have a startling amount of romance included whenever someone loses their memory.