Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of its characters. If I did, NaruHina would've happened a long time ago.

A/N 12/17/13: I had a new idea! Yay! It's a tad on the sad side, but yes it will get happier. I don't know how many people are going to enjoy this, but let me put this first one out there! Let me know what you think!

Summary: When she returned from war, Hinata didn't realize just how much it had truly affected her. Stricken with depression, she closes herself off completely. Everyone, especially Naruto notice how much more withdrawn she's become. Can he help her? NaruHina

Warning: None yet.

Chapter 1: Tormenting Feelings

It was late at night. Yet she was up. Tossing and turning ensued but she still couldn't sleep. She was trying so very hard. This was how it had been since the war had ended. They'd won, and it was a glorious victory, hopefully one that would end any chance of a war any time soon. She should be happy right? She was, she really was. But at the same time, her mind wasn't letting her.

'Come on Hinata just a few hours of sleep. You can surely do that, can't you?' she repeated to herself over and over again.

Even chanting to herself was futile. Her mind was feeling too incredibly restless. Every time she even felt a bit of sleep, her eyes shot back open when scenes from the war played back in her mind.

She sighed and slipped out of bed. She could see the clock from the corner of her eye. It was almost 4 in the morning. She went into the bathroom and turned on the faucet and began splashing her face with the cold water. It was the middle of winter, but she didn't care. She looked up at herself in the mirror and nearly cringed at what she saw. Tears threatened to fall when she saw just how gaunt her face looked. There were dark circles under her eyes and her eyes were shrunken in. Her already pale complexion was paler than usual, and her body as a whole looked a lot thinner.

"You're a shinobi, you should be used to seeing bloodshed! Death is part of life, you can't let something like that get to you!" she said to herself. This was something she'd say to herself often since she had returned from war. But even she couldn't get herself to believe it. When she had to go train in a couple of hours, she'd just say that she was just a little tired.

She opened her cabinet and stared at the bottle of sleeping pills. She had bought it recently when she realized that there was no way in hell that she could drift off to sleep on her own. She didn't tell anyone about it, because if she had, she was afraid that people would think she was suicidal or something. People had forgotten the real purpose of these pills. She stared at the clock and sighed. She'd have to skip out on taking them tonight. If she took them now, she'd be out for hours and miss her morning training.

She slammed the cabinet shut and sluggishly made herself walk back to her bed. She was hoping that she would fall asleep the minute that her head had hit the pillow. As usual, she had been wrong. She was tired. Her body was anyway, her mind however wasn't. She continued to stare up at the ceiling, drawing patterns with her eyes, but the only thing she was able to draw were scenes from the war…

Kiba and Shino were in there usual spot, just waiting for their teammate to arrive. There was nothing unusual about that, she was always the last to appear, seeing as her house was the farthest away from their training ground.

"Here she comes," Shino said, breaking the silence. Kiba, who had been leaning against Akamaru, open his eyes and looked. She was coming all right, but there was something off about her. And by off, he meant the usual as of late. She was swaying back and forth, indicating that she had gotten little to no sleep the night before.

She approached them and smiled. Kiba and Shino did their best not to cringe at the sight of her. It didn't really matter how much concealer she put on, her sleepless night was clear as day on her face.

"Um, so shall we get to training then?" she smiled, fighting back a yawn.

"Hey, I think you should take the day off. You look a little tired," Kiba suggested. "Little tired" was a sad understatement.

"No you guys. I'm fine I really am, just having a little trouble sleeping, honest," she said.

"You've been having a hard time sleeping since we got home from the war. Are you sure you don't want to talk to someone?" Shino asked.

"No!" she yelled. She immediately regretted it, because she sounded way too defensive. Her teammates weren't stupid and they worried about her. But she didn't need to share her feelings or anything with them. She didn't need them thinking she was weak or incapable of taking care of herself.

"Are you sure you want to train?" Kiba asked. He studied her face, seeing if she really wanted to. Fortunately for her and unfortunately for them, she was a master when it came to masking her emotions and thoughts.

"Come on guys, please?" she pleaded. Her eyes went wide and her bottom lip began quivering. The two boys sighed. They had becoming immune to that look. But there was no denying her when she begged. They did, however, know that it was a terrible idea to allow her to train with them in this state.

Kiba groaned, "All right, you can train with us. But if we see you acting out of the ordinary, we're stopping immediately."

Hinata nodded, "All right Kiba-kun."

She didn't act all that out of the ordinary. She was able to focus, although it did bother the two others that she was training way too hard. It wasn't the usual "training to get stronger" kind. It was more of the "training to forget or keep your mind off of something" kind.

"All right Hinata, I think you've overexerted yourself enough. I think we should take a break," Shino commented as he watched Hinata on her knees, completely drained of chakra.

"Just one more go please?" she begged.

The two boys shook their heads, "No, you're completely drained of chakra. You might end up seriously hurting yourself or worse…"

"Just one more and then we can stop," she persisted. The boys sighed and shook their heads. They really didn't want to, but again she wasn't doing anything that they could prove to be out of the ordinary.

They let the weapons loose once more, and Hinata was once again ready to take them as she had been doing. But as she was about to activate the Byakugan, her mind drifted as she saw the weapons coming towards her. Her mind immediately twisted the image of the weapons to that of giant wooden splinters. The same ones that had nearly gotten her killed on the battlefield. The same ones that had cost her cousin his life. Her body went stiff and she found herself unable to move.

Kiba and Shino definitely noticed this and when they saw the weapons coming at her, her not moving, and the shocked fear in her eyes, they immediately sprang into action.

"Hey Hinata! HINATA!" Kiba yelled, but he was unable to snap her out of her trance. He cursed and ran towards her. The weapons were coming and just before they could shred her to bits, Kiba pushed her out of the way. They both went rolling and the weapons struck the ground she had been standing on just seconds before.

Hinata snapped out of it as she blinked and the scene of their training ground reappeared. Kiba was panting as Shino was rushing over to her. What had just happened?

Shino knelt down to look at her and saw that she was coming back to her senses. She began getting up, but very slowly. Kiba pushing her had resulted in her shoulder hurting quite a bit.

Kiba regained his breath and looked up at his teammate irritably. "Okay that's it. I don't know what's up with you, but are you trying to get yourself killed?"

Hinata blushed, embarrassed, "N-no I w-was just…"

"Okay Hinata, clearly you're not feeling up to training. And we already warned you that if you acted out of the ordinary, we would stop. And guess what? That little stunt just proved that you're not up to it today," he continued. Hinata averted her gaze to the ground, feeling ashamed.

"That's enough Kiba. And you Hinata, go home and get some rest. You don't look that well right now," Shino suggested, helping her get back up.

"But I'm f-," she tried to say, but was promptly cut off by Shino.

"No you aren't. Look, if you're more yourself tomorrow you can train with us, but until then, go get some rest."

Hinata looked around and saw an injured Kiba and weapons all over the place. She could've gotten herself killed.

She sighed and nodded her head. She turned and ran back towards the village, looking like she was going to cry.

"You were way too harsh Kiba," Shino commented.

"Well, she nearly got herself killed just now. On a move that she can do perfectly. After we told her not to push herself so much," Kiba shook his head.

"Still, you were too harsh," Shino said once again.

Kiba sighed, knowing that Shino was right. He'd apologize to her in a bit, but right now she needed her space.

Hinata didn't cry as she ran, but she was rather feeling ashamed of herself. How could she have been so careless? She could've hurt Kiba along with herself. But what bothered her more than anything was the fact that she had recreated that day on the battlefield. Up until now, they had only haunted her at night, but they had never crept up during her normal, everyday routine. That was beginning to scare her. The more the memories came back to plague her, the more depressed and out of control she felt.

She was so lost in thought, that she had not been paying attention to where she was going. Suddenly she felt her shoes catch on something. She began falling, but a pair of strong arms caught her before she could hit the ground.

She looked up from the corner of her eye and saw an all too familiar face. He looked worried.

"N-Naruto-kun!" she squealed. Now she had made a complete fool out of herself. In front of Naruto of all people!

"Woah! Hinata are you okay?" he asked. He looked at her with genuine concern. She slowly tried getting back and Naruto removed his arms.

"Y-yes!" she said quickly.

Luckily Naruto didn't notice that, instead he looked at her face, which looked very tired and worn out, "Training hard, I see!"

She blushed at his statement. Was that a compliment? She wasn't so sure, but she smiled, "Well I've been trying." She decided not to tell him about the little training fiasco she had had today.

"Yeah, so um I was wondering…"he brought his hand up to scratch the back of his head. He looked nervous. She gave him a strange look. He had never seemed so nervous in front of her.

"Y-yes Naruto-kun?" she asked, eager to hear what he had to ask.

"I, uh, was wondering, if you weren't busy tonight, if you'd want to get some ramen together," he stammered. He started kicking himself mentally. He had expected the question to go a lot smoother. After all, he hadn't been this nervous when he would ask Sakura out.

Hinata froze in place. Was he asking her on a date? She told herself mentally not to faint or anything. Those days were over. "L-like a d-date?"

Naruto laughed nervously, "If you want it to be."

Hinata smiled outwardly but inside she was dying. She'd been waiting for this moment since she'd met him. It was finally happening!

"O-of course!" she answered cheerfully. She wanted to punch herself because that sounded way too eager.

Luckily for her, Naruto didn't notice that, "Great! I'll pick you up from the Hyuuga Compound at 7 then?"

Hinata nodded her head. She thanked the heavens that her family now approved of Naruto, because that made going on a date much easier on her. She hoped that this little ramen date would hopefully develop into something more…

Hinata closed the door to her room, smiling. It was the first time in months that she had smiled a sincere smile. This was what she needed. Maybe it would help her heal from her other issues. But she shook her head. There was no need to get so hopeful. She looked at the clock and saw that it was only 1 in the afternoon.

She sighed as she lay back on her bed. Six more hours. But out of nowhere, for the first time in weeks, her eyelids began to grow heavy. She knew that a nap was coming upon her, so she grabbed her alarm clock and set it to 5:30. A nice nap after months of little to no sleep was definitely in order.

Hinata's Dream:

Hinata stood in the middle of the battlefield. The smell of blood and death surrounded her as she looked around. She looked out in front of her as she saw Naruto looking up shocked at something. That's when she saw it. Giant wooden splinters were coming his way. Without so much as thinking she jumped in his way, hoping to intercept the deadly attack. But the pain she had expected never come, instead she looked up and saw one of the most horrific scenes she had ever scene. Neji had taken the blow.

She looked back at Naruto and wanted to scream at what she saw. He had somehow been run through too, she looked around. The bodies of her friends and family had all been impaled by the splinters. In fact, the entire alliance had been wiped out completely with this one blow. Only she was left standing…

Hinata woke up screaming and panting. This was what she had been afraid of. Every time she could sleep, this was the nightmare that playedover and over since she got back. She looked over at the clock and saw that it was 5 o'clock. But she was in no mood to get up. She buried her face into her pillow and began sobbing. The realization dawned on her that these nightmares and feelings were here to stay. And she would be alone in her ordeal. No one could help her with this. The feeling of depression slowly crept up and grabbed her heart, refusing to let go…

Please Review

Well that was chapter 1. Well, I guess you could say I like writing emotional stuff, and personally I like how this turned out, but my opinion hardly matters, as it is you the reader whose opinion matters. So here's the question: Should I continue? If yes, what do you think should happen next? Loved it? Hated it? Let me know! Plz R&R! Thanks! Til next time!

CherryXButterfly(Angel)