Prompt: From chapter seven of the Konoha Hiden where Naruto talks to his plants and Hinata presses flowers.

Hinata hummed as she watered the cluster of stargazer lilies, taking care to give them just the amount that Naruto told her would be good for them. She patted the soil to feel the texture and nodded in satisfaction. She sighed as she sat back and wiped her cheek with her free hand, feeling a streak of soil left behind in its wake. The summer sun shone relentlessly overhead and she mentally patted herself on the back for remembering her wide-brimmed straw hat. The last time she forgot and joined Naruto in gardening, she burned rather badly and he had fretted over her for the rest of the week with each wince and hiss of discomfort from her. He had been more than happy to help smooth aloe lotion over the sensitive skin though.

There was no Naruto at the moment to tip her hat back playfully or to sneakily exchange dirt handprints on each other's clothes. He'd been away for the month on an ambassadorial mission to Sand. Hinata smiled fondly as she remembered Naruto's pout when he told her how long he'd be gone. She couldn't even go with him this time, despite her own extensive experience in the art of diplomacy.

Naruto had scrunched his nose up not at the thought of the work involved, but at the displeasure of leaving her for so long. They'd only been married a few months but the time certainly flew quick as the wind. The days felt like both an instant and an eternity when she was with him. It seemed like only yesterday they were exchanging cups of rice wine to drink out of three times, saying their wedding vows, and slipping the rings on each other's fingers but it felt like she'd been with him her entire life.

Both, she mused, were true.

Coming home was not the same. The house was quiet and empty. Eating alone was a lonely experience. There was no one to share her day with, no one to tell her how his day had gone. Going to bed without his warmth to curl up next to was the hardest. She slept on his side of the bed since he'd gone and appropriated yet another old shirt of his to use as sleepwear. Even if she couldn't couldn't have the comfort of his arms or the lull of his heartbeat to guide her to sleep, she could at least breathe in his scent and hug his pillow a little tighter and wish him home a little faster.

If she wasn't training, out on short missions, visiting Kurenai and Mirai, getting lunch with Shino and Kiba if either were home from a mission, or helping out in the hospital with Sakura, she gravitated towards the garden at the back of the house. It was technically their garden but it was Naruto who spent the most time there. Hinata was surprised but delighted when he revealed the extent of his knowledge on flora care and they made it a point to garden together whenever they could.

The garden was one of the places where they would often lapse into a comfortable silence and just appreciate each other's company. Those were some of the moments she loved most, trimming brown leaves side by side, breathing in the fragrant smell of the blooms, and just being vibrantly aware of the person she treasured most by her side. They'd sit back and admire their work, listening to the cheerful chirps of birds and the gentle buzzing of bees. He played with her hair often then, reaching up and entangling his fingers in her long locks. She'd lean in and rest her head on his shoulder, loving how she fit so perfectly against the nooks of his body.

These were the moments she kept tucked close to her heart, to remember on those rainy days. And even though the summer sun was shining now and the flowers were blooming better than ever, Hinata thought this still counted.

She picked up the bucket she set down close by and drew it closer, leaning forward to once again rest on her knees. She rolled her sleeves up and got to work pulling up the weeds that poked up from around the cluster of stargazer lilies. She hummed as she worked, but soon trailed off into silence again. It didn't feel right, trying to fill up that space with just herself.

"Oh no," she sighed as a dandelion root she unearthed clung to the lily roots. "Come on, little guy, you're going to have to give your spot up now."

She tugged a little more insistently and frowned when the root refused to dislodge itself. She shed the gardening glove on her free hand and gently started to pick the two roots apart.

"Maybe we should have a dandelion patch," Hinata mused. "You work so hard to grow as much as you do and I know you can't help where you end up…"

Her voice trailed off as she realized what she was doing. A sheepish and amused laugh bubbled up as she realized that she'd unconsciously adopted the habit that she fondly teased Naruto the most about.

It was something she walked in on by accident and it surprised her that it took as long as it did for her to find out.

If there was one thing that could totally capture Naruto's undivided attention, it was gardening and it was often a game she'd play, to see how far she could sneak up on him before he noticed. Of course, despite being engrossed in the plants in front of him, Naruto would always sense her and spin around to tackle her to the ground with a playful yell. Hinata never had to do so much laundry since they started gardening together.

But one time, he didn't notice her presence for whatever reason and Hinata was able to creep up till she was right behind him. A mischievous smile danced on her lips and her hands came up, ready to goose him, when she heard him talking quietly not to himself but to the indigo iris flowers he was tending to.

"You sure took your time flowering, geez," Naruto muttered. His hands and motions were gentle and slow as he loosened the soil with a garden fork. "I was afraid you weren't going to make it there for a while. You're doing ok now though. Maybe I should've talked to you more to help you grow. I'm not singing though. You really don't want to hear me sing. I'm pretty sure that was what killed Ferny." He winced and Hinata vividly recalled the sadly wilted cinnamon ferns but she thought that was because they'd accidentally planted them under direct sunlight instead of in the shade.

He was quiet for a moment, entirely focused on breaking up clumps of dirt and brushing away any weeds his fingers encountered.

"You probably would've bloomed right away if Hinata sang to you. She has the prettiest voice. Heck she could have just talked to you and you probably would've sprouted up in an instant." He sat back and Hinata could almost see the goofy smile that stretched across his face. "Wait 'til your buds open so you can see her. You're never going to want to wilt. You're going to love her more than the sun."

Never had she loved him more than in that moment.

Whenever Hinata went into the house to prepare some snacks for them or to finish up some chores in the kitchen, she'd always open the window so she could hear his voice exuberantly talking to the plants and flowers, calling each one by name and telling them silly little facts or anything that was on his mind.

Most people knew Naruto as the saviour of the world, container of the fiercest of the tailed beasts, and a young man with unimaginable power.

Never would they imagine such an exalted figure kneeling in the dirt and cooing encouragingly to the growing apple sapling whom he affectionately called Mei, the small herb garden that had a different name each time, and the stubborn daffodils he once irritatingly referred to as Sasuke.

It was those parts she loved the most, the parts of himself he didn't know were just as remarkable as his ability to level mountains. They were parts he always thought were unimportant or valueless but Hinata made it point to let him know that when she loved him, she loved all of him.

So with that in mind, she took a deep breath and spoke on.

"It must seem a little unfair, getting uprooted and moved to a different spot. After all, you were probably here first weren't you?" she chuckled a little as her fingers continued to gently untangle root after root. "I promise the next place you go to will have lots of room for you to stretch your roots out and to grow as tall as you can. You can talk to the lavender and the rosemary and have all the bees come and visit you. You'll be with wonderful company."

"More so than the current company?" A voice sounded behind her and she almost yanked the iris root out in surprise and delight before warm arms encircled her torso and the smell of sweat and wind enveloped her senses.

Naruto ducked his head to the crook of her neck and dropped a kiss on her shoulder. "I'm home."

"Welcome home, Naruto," Hinata murmured, smiling so widely that her cheeks hurt. She tilted her head up to kiss him properly and she hummed contentedly as he happily obliged. She missed this. She missed him.

He gave a tired sigh as he rested his chin on her shoulder once more, still holding onto her from behind. She smiled and continued disentangling dandelion roots, savouring the heat of his body and comfort of his presence.

They sat wrapped up together in peace for a while before Naruto spoke again, his voice tired but mischievous. "Were you talking to the dandelion flowers before I came?"

Hinata felt her face grow red. "Maybe?"

Naruto chuckled. "It sounds much cuter when you talk to them anyway. You should talk to them more."

"I think they're more used to the sound of your voice," Hinata teased gently. "They haven't been growing nearly as well the past month without you around to talk to them."

"Lies," Naruto scoffed. "They look better than ever to me."

"You've probably been looking at nothing but sand and stone for the past month," Hinata pointed out. "Of course anything green will look good at this point."

"Not true," Naruto argued. "Gaara's been building this amazing greenhouse! I gotta show it to you next time we're both visiting him. He's been growing all these cacti and succulents. It's pretty amazing actually. We should get some." His head shot up and Hinata looked around at him in alarm. Naruto's eyes were wide and slightly panicked as he hurried to address the plants in front of them, "Not that I still don't love you guys! You were some of the first flowers I planted, I'd never neglect you!"

Hinata burst out laughing. Naruto's face grew red but he smiled sheepishly at her.

"Gotta make sure they know." He shrugged a little self-consciously, but ended up laughing right along with her.

"You are wonderful. I'm sure they appreciate it." Hinata leaned over to kiss him on the cheek. "I love you."

"Love you too." He caught her lips against his and as Hinata angled her head to deepen the kiss, she thought at the back of her mind what a great father he'd be.

Hinata didn't think her prediction would come true as fast as it did but within a few weeks of Naruto coming back, she came home from a check up with Sakura with news that had Naruto on his knees crying while smoothing his hands over her belly again and again and again and her own heart soaring.

The first few months of her pregnancy were a little scary, but mostly it was a thrilling and exhausting experience for her. Kurenai and Tsume both talked with her so she knew what to expect: the morning sickness, the fatigue, the cravings, the mood swings, the backaches, the fainting. Sakura was also always a phone call away and visited often to make sure she was doing ok, physically and emotionally.

Naruto rarely left her side and even requested Kakashi to give him missions that took only a day or were close to the village so he could Hiraishin back in an instant. The first time Hinata fainted, having not eaten enough throughout the day, she woke up to Naruto almost hyperventilating next to her and Sakura trying to calm him down. He looked near ready to faint himself.

The mood swings and fatigue hit her the hardest. She always felt so sorry for Naruto, who had to keep up when she was happy one moment swinging to tired, anxious or depressed the next. Whenever she apologized though, he would always shake his head, gather her up in a hug, and tell her there was absolutely nothing to be sorry about. He only wished he could share the moments when she was down so it wouldn't be such a burden for her to carry.

An enormous comfort to her whenever Hinata felt her mood start to dangerously fluctuate was her album of pressed flowers. She found herself flipping through it more and more often, first as a distraction and later for remembrance and support. The first half of the book was filled with fragile, gently faded pressed blossoms and her mother's beautiful, elegant handwriting underneath. Little messages were written on each page, a one-sentence summary of the day and occasion. Reading through each entry always brought a smile to Hinata and a slight ache to her heart.

The second half of the book was all hers. The flowers she pressed dated to the beginning of her time as a gennin, going all the way to the present. It was a beautiful kind of diary, she reflected as she flipped through the pages. She still remembered where she got each flower and something about the day that made it extraordinary.

She'd often read or describe the flower to Naruto as he went about converting their spare room to a baby's room. Whenever she tried to help him, he always insisted she just sit down and rest.

"If you faint in the middle of painting the wall while on the ladder, my nerves are not going to last until this baby is born," he joked. She reluctantly acquiesced but she always kept him company at the very least.

She didn't think Naruto noticed just how significant the album was to her and how much it lifted her spirits until she started finding little notes around the house. Not just little sticky notes, but small cards each containing a carefully pressed flower and a note written underneath in Naruto's distinctive scrawl.

The first one she found after waking up cranky, sore, and still tired from a long nap. Naruto was out getting groceries. The house always seemed larger and emptier in the silence and Hinata felt a little weepy as she headed towards the kitchen to get a drink of water.

It was ridiculous, to think even a simple grocery run would trigger her hormones into such a sensitive overdrive but Hinata learned from experience that it was more wearying to fight it so she allowed the tears to roll down her face as she fetched a glass from the cabinet and filled it to the brim with filtered water from the fridge.

She set the glass down on the counter and turned to grab a tissue but was stopped short by a small, innocuous card sitting in front of the tissue box. The outside was smooth and unmarked. Hinata picked it up and curiously flipped it open.

The beautiful vibrantly indigo face of a larkspur flower peered up at her, pressed on the page. Underneath it in neat hiragana read: 'I don't know how you manage it, but you are more and more beautiful every day.'

If she was sniffling before, she was full out crying now but this time her tears were ones of happiness and love. Naruto came home to her surrounded by tissues, her nose red but her eyes crinkled in a smile and the card held to her chest as she flew to kiss him soundly home.

That was the first of many cards she found throughout the months. Each, it seemed to her, was more wonderful than the last.

An azalea bloom, with 'You're going to be the best mother!' greeted her in the utensil drawer in the kitchen. A hydrangea flower, with 'What do you get when you plant kisses? Tulips!' cheekily joked at her from her bedside table. A sprig of Queen Anne's Lace, with 'Don't forget to eat some vegetables, even when the only thing you're craving is ramen!' sat on the kitchen table. She laughed at the irony of that particular message. A rose, with a simple 'I love you!' was left on top of her album.

They were scattered all throughout the house and the more she found, the more she wondered how on earth Naruto was hiding so many from her so easily.

She shook her head ruefully over her own silliness. When she was tired these days, she was completely conked out. Never had Hinata slept so much and so deeply before in her life. It wouldn't be hard to summon several shadow clones and to distribute the notes in every corner and drawer that he could.

It was a new game they played everyday, to see how many she could find before the day's end. Trust Naruto to find a way to turn her mood swings into a mild inconvenience rather than the tiresome reality of her day-to-day. She recognized each and every flower from the clusters and beds that grew in their garden, the garden that she and Naruto tended to all year round.

She was slipping the last card with the rose into her album when a noise in the doorway drew her attention. She looked up to see Naruto leaning against the frame, watching her with a smile that warmed her bones and left no room to doubt that he completely and utterly loved her.

"You know, I chose all the flowers in our garden for you." Naruto nodded towards the card in her hand. "I just... I guess, well, I wanted to help grow your garden too."

Hinata was surprised by his phrasing, but at the same time she wasn't because he'd always known how best to fill up the spaces of herself she always thought were meant to stay hollow with colour and laughter and blooms of flowers. A garden for her soul.

He sat down next to her on the couch and she flipped through her album until the page came to rest upon a bouquet of pressed chrysanthemums. Naruto smiled and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, drawing her close, and planted a kiss at the crown of her head.

There were a hundred different ways they said 'I love you' and she held them all in her hands in a worn album: the gates to their own secret garden.

AN: This was always meant to include Boruto and Himawari but it got so long I split it into two chapters. I absolutely love anything to do with flora and the sunshine family so it was only a matter of time before I wrote something based off these wonderfully canon and dorky traits. Enjoy! The second part should be up in a few days.

Stargazer lilies: I miss you, romance
Iris: passion, faith, hope, wisdom
Larkspur: levity, lightness
Azalea: take care of yourself for me, temperance, womanhood
Hydrangea: heartfelt emotions, gratitude, perseverance
Queen Anne's Lace: protection, sanctuary
Rose: desire, love
Chrysanthemum: fidelity, optimism, joy, long life, loyal love