Episode 6

"No." Sasuke put the tomato paste back on the shelf.

"What?" Hinata wondered.

"No more tomato dishes for dinner, you can make my lunch with them, but I heard the doctor." He explained.

"It's your favorite." She whined.

"And you need to think about your health." He pressed.

"Alright." She picked up the paste again anyway. "For lunch." She excused.

"I'm not above ordering take-out for you if you try to sneak it into dinner," Sasuke smirked at her stubborn expression.

"Alright, I promise." He got a smile out of her.

"Hinata-sama." Hinata turned around. He could feel her blood pressure rise as her cousin headed for her. He recognized him from high school.

"Nii-san." She mumbled a greeting.

"You look well." Neji glanced down to the belly and up to him. The look at her was soft. The look at him was daggers.

"Thank you." Hinata set a hand on the swelled mass. She looked proud though it was shadowed by her anxiety.

"You didn't tell me you moved." Neji started. Sasuke sighed out loud, earning him more daggers.

Hinata glanced back at her cousin. It had become a common rumor. She was staying with him, but not everyone knew. She hadn't mentioned her cousin at all, so he assumed that they didn't talk much. Sasuke wondered briefly if he was one of the numbers he blocked on her phone. "I couldn't stay there."

"You should have come home." Not could, should. Sasuke felt his face darken. This little prick didn't have subtlety. "Has the divorce gone through?" Not helping. So they talked about her getting a divorce but not about her living situation? How did he find out?

"...He hasn't been found to sign it yet." No one knew where he was. Some said he was backpacking through some mountain country. Some said he was living in a van on the other side of this country.

"Just like him to avoid responsibility." Sasuke wondered if he should start a tally of how many times this guy could say the worst thing for the situation. "Do you need anything, do you need a crib, or ..."

"I have nearly everything, Sasuke-san got me a crib, Hanabi-chan sent me a car seat, the girls at the office set me up with diapers for the first couple months leftover from their kids," She had also gotten hand me down clothes, and they offered toys, but she declined most of those.

Neji's face became soft. "Are you sure you don't want to come home? You can't do this on your own." Sasuke had had enough.

"She's done just fine without anyone's help." Sasuke finally snapped.

"And what do you get out of playing the father," Neji growled. "Unless..."

"Don't even say it," Sasuke growled. "You don't seem to have a lot of faith in her if you even need to ask."

Hinata looked down at her eyebrows knitting together. "The father walked out of our home days after finding out about his child. Sasuke has been nothing but helpful. You will do your best to respect that." The command in her tone was not something he had heard before.

Neji blanched. "...Of course, Hinata-sama." He answered obediently.

"We have a movie to watch..." She mumbled, putting the can of paste in the cart and pushing it forward.

Sasuke looked down at the older Hyuga, who watched her walk away from him as she had never once done that. "Take care of her."

"She doesn't need it." Sasuke put his hand in his pockets and followed her.

———

Hinata had a tantrum in the car.

Sasuke was more than a little surprised as he got in and shut the door calmly, only to stamped her feet and screeched before burying her face in her hands. He wasn't sure how to react, and he wasn't sure he should say anything.

Luckily he didn't need to. "I should have gone home!?" She screeched. "So my father could tell me he told me so!? That I should have listened to him? That I turned out to be even more of a disappointment!? So he could tell me I should have gotten rid of the bastard child!?" Hinata waved her hands from the windshield to herself wildly as she yelled. "So I could have been under scrutiny for every decision? So I would be pressured into shaping her into my father's image!?" She shouted at the dash like it was at fault. "I don't fucking think so!" She yelled before sitting back and staring hard at the dash breathing hard from the frustration and screaming.

He stared with his mouth open and noted the first f-bomb she had ever dropped. She had been so internal about her stress. He had never thought to ask why she didn't return to her family. He never thought it would be such a trigger.

Her lip quivered, and she started to cry. Sasuke reached over and patted her leg.

"He looked like he got the point." Sasuke tried.

"I don't think he did." She spat out, turning to him, looking angry and saddened by the idea. "I think that he proved that by trying to ask me, a person he had known all his life, if I, a married woman, had slept with my husband's best friend. That crossed his mind as something to say in front of me!" Her voice was desperate and angry. He wondered if the hormones she had mentioned were keeping her from calming down. Not that he didn't think she should be this mad, he just knew that she wouldn't be under normal circumstances. "How dare he!? After everything, he knows about my father and me. How dare he even suggest that you or anyone else, for that matter, are not fit for my child to be around!? It is not his decision!"

Sasuke waited for her to blow off the steam as she started to mumble about things he wasn't sure he understood. Whether it was because she wasn't making a full sentence or that it was likely a family issue, he remembered when she had been married. Her father not showing up to the wedding had been a big thing, as was her leaving the Hyuga corporation to work in a much less prestigious office.

"You're not mad that he thought you couldn't handle it." He wondered.

Hinata deflated immediately. "I can't handle it."

"What? You're doing fine." Sasuke wondered.

"I'm not. I wished for a girl so much just to spite Naruto that I didn't know what to do if it was a boy." Hinata squeaked.

"You would have gotten over it," Sasuke assured her. "You're not capable of hating it. I don't think you have that in you."

"What if she looks just like him?" She whimpered. "What if I can't just look at her and not see him?"

He sighed. "Hinata, even if she looks cut out of his ass. I don't think for a second you are going to be able to bring yourself to hold it against her."

She didn't look so sure.

"We could always just dye her hair." He got a smile.

"I'm not dying her hair." She squeaked, her smile growing.

"Why not? If it's blond, it will be easy." He shrugged. "Dye it rainbow. The kid will love it."

"Sasuke." She squeaked.

"If you're not willing to do it, then it doesn't bother you that bad." He concluded. "As I said before, you have done way better than any single mother your age I have ever seen. You haven't made rash decisions or went looking for a fast step-dad or, I don't know, went bungee jumping."

She sighed, resting her head back.

"You're handling it." He reiterated. "You're handling it just fine."

"Where do I go after she's born?" She asked, closing her eyes.

"You stay. I meant it. I don't mind having the kid in the house. It's just like a roommate, and roommate gets a dog." He got a look for comparing her kid to a dog. "It won't need its own room for a while, and by then, maybe you'll be on your feet, or maybe we will find a place with an extra room."

"I don't think..." He waved his hand.

"For now, that is the plan. If you want to move out on your own or get a boyfriend or something, that's fine, but you and the kid stay for now. You're welcome to it." He told her honestly.

"You only took me in because Naruto walked out. You feel obligated because he was your friend." She mumbled.

"Is that bad?" Sasuke asked. "Yeah, I took you in because I cleaned up after him, but it worked out. Having you in the house has been nice, and I think you need something to come home to not drive yourself insane." He added. "I get better cooking than I get at restaurants, and you do my laundry, so I'm not complaining here."

"I do like staying with you." Hinata sighed in acceptance.

"Then why change it."