Author's Note: Another alternative universe fic. I love to have several stories going at once. Always something to work on.

Romance-type story that has been bouncing around my head for a while. So, some parts of the plot might be a little sketchy because I tend to focus more on the romance. Hope no one is too much out of character with me moving them from one universe to another.

There is a mystery.

Things have been changed and might represent a nod to the anime/manga.

And yeah, might add more to this note as I think of it.

Hope you guys enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own. Not even the lyrics. Which inspired this story.

Bulletproof Love

My love for you was bulletproof but you're the one who shot me

Pierce the Veil – "Bulletproof Love

Hinata's Apartment

Several Months Earlier

I don't recall leaving it like that. Hinata noticed that the door to her apartment was ajar. A kind of alarm went through her body as she stood in the empty hallway. She stepped away and began digging in her purse for her phone.

That was nearly the last moment of her life.

A blur hit her like a semi-truck, slamming her into the next wall as a gloved hand smothered her mouth and nose. More out of instinct, Hinata threw up her arms and put her head down, the thick curtains of her dark hair fell around her face, obscuring her view. Her scream, though muffled, was strong.

Her attacker was trying to wrestle her back into the apartment, but Hinata flailed, using her sharp elbows as daggers. Her purse went flying, the contents scattering on the linoleum tiled floor as she fought for her freedom.

Hinata managed to bite the hand covering her mouth, surprising her attacker enough to let her go. Her lavender eyes welled up with water from the lack of breath. Desperate, she screamed – hoping her neighbors would hear her and come help. Perhaps her cousin, Neji, was home next door and would come to her aid.

It didn't take her attacker long to grab her again, trying to force her inside the apartment once more. The iron smell of blood filled her nose, even as the assailant tried to cover her face again. Randomly, a familiar, sweet scent filled her nostrils; a memory that would not quite surface in her mind. There was something important about that scent, something that if she could place it, would stop this attack.

But that was irrational. She focused her attentions instead on trying to get away. Hinata's legs kicked out furiously, but her attacker was more skilled.

The door slammed and locked, leaving them in the darkness. A vase that she remembered was near her door crashed, pieces flying everywhere.

I'm going to die, she told herself, as the air staled in her lungs.

Vaguely, Hinata thought she heard someone pounding on the door as the aggressor pulled her through her apartment to the living room. The lights of the city illuminated the room just enough that she noticed the prone figure already on the floor, a body that she recognized but couldn't place in the haze.

She was dropped on the floor beside the corpse. Her white carpet was wet and the liquid seeped into her cream jacket. Hinata had just enough time to glance at the face, her housekeeper, before the blackness.

Uchiha Special Forces - Headquarters

Several Months Later

Uchiha Itachi glanced at the name on the file before him as he waited at the polished black table, a steaming cup of tea untouched to his left. He didn't need to glance at the contents to know what was inside the plain folder.

Hyuga Hinata.

Heiress to a fortune in dojos and specialized martial arts – Gentle Fist style.

Attacked and left for dead in her own apartment. Her housekeeper, murdered not too long beforehand.

Itachi figured it was probably a case of mistaken identity. The attacker had been after Miss Hyuga and had murdered the housekeeper instead. Naturally, the attacker was still at large.

Her father had been hoping to hire on a bodyguard or agent from the Uchiha Special Forces to keep a detail on his daughter always, this time after a kidnapping attempt in the hospital while the young heiress was recovering.

Hyuga Hiashi was not a man who took "no" for an answer very easily. Itachi's father, Fugaku was also not a man who liked "no" all that well.

Exactly the reason I'm sitting here now, waiting for this meeting when I could be training.

Itachi didn't want the case, but he was the only qualified agent available and the money wasn't so bad. But looking after a probably spoiled heiress? Not his cup of tea.

However, Fugaku said it would look great on his portfolio, should he want to transfer to a special ops position one day.

"Right this way," his father was saying, as he and another man walked past the solid glass walls of the executive meeting room.

Hyuga Hiashi nodded at Itachi as he stepped into the large room. Fugaku only used it for debriefings and when he wanted to impress potential clients.

"This is my older son, Itachi," Fugaku said as he took the seat the at the head of the table.

Itachi nodded and waited as the men settled in, and after the formalities and an offer of refreshments, they were able to get down to business.

"My older daughter, heiress to my fortune," Hiashi started, "was attacked, not once but twice. She refuses to give up her independence and come live at home again. She's in a different apartment, naturally, but the very least I could give her would be a bodyguard or escort detail. So, that's why I've come to your company."

"And I've got my best man for the job," Fugaku said, looking at his son.

"This is your son? I looked at his resume you sent me. Very impressive, I might add. Hinata would be in good hands," Hiashi said.

Itachi acknowledged his accomplishments with a simple dip of his head and took a sip of his now cooling tea. He only half listened as his father negotiated the terms.

Almost 24-7 protection, at least for a few weeks. His younger brother, Sasuke, could fill in as needed should Itachi need breaks to report information or to clear his head. Escorts to her job, the store, doctor's appointments, and any other activities as needed. Some surveillance – outside the front door, maybe her phone. He would also be making reports of any interactions in her life. Hiashi had not ruled out someone that was close to her instigating the attack.

Flipping through the folder again, more out of a lack of something to do, Itachi looked a little harder at Miss Hyuga's picture. It was almost 99% certain he would be on the case and would be spending a lot of time with her anyway. Especially since she was being stubborn and refusing to move back home where she would, in all probability, be much safer with her father's personal familial guards.

Why hadn't Hiashi just protected her with guards from his family anyway? This thought had nagged at Itachi since his father had first plopped the folder down on his desk. Unless…does he suspect that the threat may have come from home?

Miss Hyuga was a very pretty girl, at least in the picture gem-clipped to the file. It must have been snapped at some kind of event he imagined. Long, almost-plum hair was pulled into a bun, evenly shaped on the top of her head. Wide, lavender eyes accentuated by winged eyeliner staring at the camera, eyes set in porcelain skin, with full lips bearing a neutral color so as not to detract from her eyes. Rosy blush painted the apples of her cheeks, giving her also a doll-like appearance when taken with all of her other features. A dark blue, shimmering dress hugged her curvy figure, baring her shoulders and exposing more creamy skin.

Itachi had to admit that she was very attractive, not the kind that graced magazine advertisements or covers, but in a homegrown kind of way. At least she is easy on the eyes, he thought ruefully.

No matter how gorgeous this girl was, babysitting a spoiled heiress was not the mission that Itachi had been hoping for when his father said it was a special assignment. He closed the folder, just in time for the business to conclude.

Itachi decided that he would just treat it the same as every other job: get in, get out, move on.

"Neji, I'm perfectly fine," Hinata sighed for the third time, twirling a long strand of hair around a slender finger. She sank a little deeper into her plush arm chair, tucking her legs further beneath her curvy bottom. A cup of steaming tea was waiting on the end-table next to a bestselling novel she had put off reading.

It had been difficult to concentrate now that she was in a new apartment. Her things had been moved for her from the old apartment. Everyone was in agreement that returning to the scene of the crime was not in her best interests. Particularly since Miss Tatski had lost her life there. The police had picked up on how much Hinata and her housekeeper had looked alike.

In an effort to make Hinata feel less guilty, the lead detective explained that the assailant was probably lying in wait and grabbed Miss Tatski thinking it was Hinata and that she also probably had never known what hit her, literally. This information and the gallows-type humor did little to ease the guilt.

He must be feeling guilty again too, she thought, just like I am. Neji had called the police and then broken into the apartment himself. The attacker had escaped in the darkness and confusion, by probably dodging around Neji as he rushed to find Hinata.

"Your father doesn't need to hire someone from outside," Neji argued. "We don't know who attacked you. He could hire the goon that tried to kill you!"

Hinata could imagine her lithe cousin busily pacing the shining hardwood floors of his own apartment across town, shrugging the heavy curtains of his hair over one shoulder. She and Neji had been friends since they were very small. There had been rough patches, when his temper got the better of him.

"He's just doing what he thinks is best." And I have no idea why I'm defending him. But, it would get her father off her back. Hinata didn't want to move back home and be stifled by her father's iron fist. But she didn't like the other alternative of nearly dying either.

"What he thinks is best, hmph. It's his fault that you're in this mess."

She rolled her eyes and wondered how to get Neji off the phone. Her cousin had good reason to worry about her. The knock on the head and her stab wounds had been nothing to take lightly. She had spent a lot of time in the hospital recovering.

Hinata couldn't say she remembered much of that time either; bright lights, antiseptic, people talking in measured drawls, and terrible food. Her wounds had healed fast, but even now not all her memories had returned. Might never return the doctor had said. Head injuries were tricky.

Her father had dictated that he was going to hire someone, once she was allowed to go home, to guard her and now she supposed he would be dropping by soon – at least that was what the text had said – with whoever had acquiesced.

"Anyway Neji," she said, interrupting his tirade. Neji had not been treated fairly by the family; long-running family feud. There was a knock at the door.

A shiver of fear raced down her spine. It did, regardless of whether an event was expected or unexpected. PTSD, the doctor had called it. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

"I've got to let you go. Someone's at my door." They exchanged quick goodbyes and she rose from the oversized armchair. It was her favorite spot in her apartment, where she felt safest and spent the most time just curled up.

Hinata wrung her hands, something she had almost stopped doing before the attack. Her family tended to make her so nervous and shy that it was difficult to function.

Standing up on tiptoes, Hinata peered through the peep hole for a glimpse of who was on the other side. To her great relief, it was her father and presumably the bodyguard he had threatened her with for the last month.

Those stupid attacks had ruined the careful life she had carved out for herself. Unlike the rest of her family, Hinata cared nothing for her family's legacy of fighting and violence.

Her talents lay elsewhere in flowers and baking, of which she hoped to return soon. Her business partner, Ino Yamanaka, probably had all she could manage down at the flower shop and bakery.

"Hinata, are you there?" her father asked, knocking on the door again.

"Y-y-yes," she stuttered, hating herself for reverting back to another one of her old habits. Her delicate fingers trembled as she fumbled with the multiple locks on the door. She finally cracked open the door and her father pushed through with another man in tow.

"Hinata, if you won't come back home, then you are going to have a bodyguard," Hiashi lectured as he glanced around at the arrangement of her apartment.

"A b-b-body g-g-guard?" The stutter grew more pronounced when she was flustered, just as she was now by his sudden intrusion. She had just managed to get the door closed. It seemed that her father never rested, always jumping right to the point.

"That stuttering, Hinata. Anyway, this is Uchiha Itachi," her father introduced, gesturing to the man beside him.

His face was young, but his dark eyes were old with deep lines on either side of his shapely nose. Calmly, those eyes watched her from a narrow face with high cheekbones that lent him an air of arrogance. His skin was clear but a little sallow, which made him seem jaded.

Long, dark chocolate hair was pulled in a simple queue at the nape of his neck, spilling over the shoulder that wasn't toting a bag. He was dressed simply in a dark blue top with fitted black pants. On his hip, she noticed a small pouch, easily in hand's reach. She supposed it probably had some sort of weapon in it.

Uchiha Itachi regarded her coolly for a moment before his eyes flicked around their surroundings.

"He's going to be staying here with you, in the guest room, keeping watch all the time for at least a few weeks."

Not trusting herself not to stutter, Hinata settled for a simple inclination of her head. She brought her index fingers together multiple times, the self-loathing at an all-time high even as she completed the ritual once so familiar.

Her father started to say more, but his cellphone rang. With a deft movement, he answered it and began speaking rapidly to someone on the other end. Hinata avoided looking directly at Itachi, instead looking down at her bare feet. She needed to paint her toenails, she supposed, brighten them up even if she was the only person to look at them.

"I apologize profusely," he said after a moment or two, covering the ear piece with his large hand, "but I've got to go see to a problem. You'll be fine here, right?" He was addressing Itachi.

Of course, she thought. He wouldn't be talking to me. I wish he hadn't made me the heiress. I told him I didn't want it. But Hanabi isn't responsible enough either.

Hinata thought briefly of her younger sister, Hanabi, the fun-loving party girl. Her sister had caused so much scandal and their father still bailed her out, but didn't rein her in. Hiashi wanted Hanabi as the sole heiress, but she was simply too immature.

It had been at least 6 months since Hinata had spoken to her, and that was only because Hanabi had drunk-called her once at 3 am.

As her father retreated and she went through the gesture of waving at his back, Hinata also thought about whether or not her father really loved her. She supposed he did, in some way, or he wouldn't be going through all this trouble and expense.

And Uchiha Itachi looked expensive. The Uchiha family was almost as well-known as the Hyuga family in their town.

Itachi shut the front door firmly behind her father and paused.

Hinata was struck by the fact that this man was a complete stranger, who would be staying with her for who knew how long. What if he was the stranger that attacked her?

That's silly, she thought. I think I know his little brother, Sasuke, from school years ago, but I didn't speak to him much. He was Naruto's friend and rival.

This thought, although a step in the right direction to calming down, didn't stop the cold sweat that had broken out on her forehead and beneath her loungewear of dark yoga pants and a loose-fitting lavender cashmere sweater that hung from one shoulder.

"I have my resume and credentials with me," he said softly, as if anticipating her thoughts. "If that would help."

"O-o-okay." She waited as he turned and retrieved a folder from the bag he was carrying.

Inside were all kinds of official documents about missions completed, success rate, customer testimonies.

"S-s-s-s-s-" Hinata had to stop. She was sounding like a snake. She breathed deeply and tried again. "I-I k-know y-y-your br-brother."

"Sasuke? Probably." He smiled briefly and Hinata found this unexpected display of affection warmed her. Itachi was younger looking when he smiled, more carefree. "Do you mind if I just look around, familiarize myself with things while you relax?"

His business face was back and Hinata found there was just the slightest disappointment creeping in.

She shook her head and made to curl up in the chair again, watching as he started walking briskly around the apartment, looking at everything from the way the furniture was organized to the artwork on the walls.

With him examining everything, Hinata found it was really difficult to get into the storyline of her book. When Itachi lost himself in his work, she noticed that his expression changed again from grim determination to one of academic curiosity.

He glanced at her, and she felt her face heat. She had been caught red-handed ogling him. After that, she buried her nose in the book but didn't see the words. Her mind was reeling.

Ino would say she was being stupid; a good-looking man was alone in her apartment and she should take advantage of the situation.

I just don't have your courage Ino, when it comes to guys, she thought. Her crush, back in the day had been Uzumaki Naruto but she had never lucked out with him either. Once she had grown up some, the crush had fizzled out somewhat, especially after he moved away.

Eventually, she had gotten up and busied herself in the kitchen to keep her mind off Itachi. Feeling a little more comfortable, she began preparing a meal and desert for her guest.

Itachi found the layout of her apartment, the way she organized things, was in some ways very similar to his own apartment – which he missed right about now.

He had been in the process of unpacking his bag in the guest room when the rich smell of marinated pork filtered into his nose and made his stomach grumble. Stepping down the hallway, he found the source of the smell.

His host was busy cooking up dinner. More smells called to him; spices and chocolate, the ginger marinade of the pork, boiling water.

Like a dancer, the Hyuga heiress flitted between the stove and the island, stirring and chopping in turns. Itachi would have been lying if he hadn't thought that she was somehow more attractive in this setting, a place where she was obviously very comfortable. Strings of classical music filtered in from a radio and Itachi pictured her more as a conductor now, bringing the best out of each piece of the meal.

He watched as she leaned over and fussed with something in the oven. Cupcakes – in a rich, dark chocolate. She pressed the top of each one with a pale fingertip, checking the firmness with the same gentle motion a mother might give a child she taps on the end of its nose.

Itachi felt more than his stomach tighten, as a thought – of this young woman with child and how tender she would be with the baby. What a beautiful mother she would make…those hips… They were highlighted by the tightness of her lounge pants, cupping her bottom into a pleasant shape. The loose-fitting sweater did nothing to disguise her natural hourglass shape.

Itachi tried to bring his thoughts back to something else, but it wasn't easy.

Deciding they were done, she set them aside to cool and stirred a bowl of icing vigorously, with unexpected agility and strength. Itachi was fascinated. He had seen his mother cook for years when he had lived at home, but somehow what Hinata was doing didn't seem like cooking.

This was mesmerizing. Like a television show. Or a secret power.

Itachi noted this was not the scared girl who had let him into the apartment earlier. He moved closer, hoping not to break the spell but overwhelmingly curious as to what else was in store. Two large, black and white filigreed bowls were set out, for a ramen dish he assumed.

"Smells delicious," he told her. Her spine stiffened and he felt a momentary wash of fear that he had thrown her off her gait. After a moment, she continued in the same rhythm as before but she did turn to smile at him.

He sat down on one of the barstools at the island.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" he offered. There was the clatter of utensils to the floor. In a flash, she was down, scooping them up and tossing them into the sink.

"I am so sorry!" he said, reaching across the countertop of the island automatically, even though he knew he couldn't reach.

She shook her head and continued with her work, prepping the bowls for the noodles and meat. He watched, as she carefully sliced the meat, laying each piece on the noodles like a surgeon.

After a few moments, she set a colorful steaming bowl in front of him with a pair of chopsticks.

"Are you going to eat?" he asked, keeping his voice soft, as if he were speaking to a frightened animal.

She nodded, but turned away again and began prepping the icing for the cupcakes by putting the thick, creamy mixture into bag and fitting a tip. Rather than eating right then, Itachi watched with rapt attention as she adroitly iced the cupcakes in large, lazy swirls. This was also an obvious ritual for her, something done all the time.

When she was finished, Hinata sat down across from him and ate, but kept her face down the whole time. Itachi realized he would have to treat her very carefully; she was more fragile than he had originally thought.