Episode 2

Hinata slept on the couch the first night. She didn't even change out of her clothes. She curled up while he made some arrangements, and he threw a blanket over her when he discovered her passed out. She must have been tired. It was weird, but he knew the autopilot feeling after his parents died. He had become numb for weeks. Everything had felt like a chore to do, and he was only a kid. She was an adult, a woman who had just found out she was pregnant, and she was mourning her loss. He wasn't sure if she had been angry yet, but if not, what she had displayed in her apartment was likely a drop in the barrel. He wasn't sure he wanted to see it when it split. But he would. He had made this decision.

He had an extra dresser. He emptied the drawers out of it and pushed it into the spare room. He threw what was scattered into boxes and put them all in the corner. He would go through it later. He had meant to get rid of some of it anyway. He had a spare futon in his closet, ironically when Naruto got too drunk to head home independently. He tossed a pillow and blanket on it and headed back to the living room. She had slept through the whole commotion.

Sasuke wiped the sweat from his forehead and set his hands on his hips. He debated moving her to the soft futon, but he decided not to disturb her likely much-needed rest. He pulled his shirt off on the way to the shower.

———

Breakfast was quiet, and the air was tense. Sasuke pointed her to the bathroom, showed her how to turn on his shower, where he kept his towels, and that all was all the more he had said to her. He didn't keep much food, so he waited for her to be done with her shower and dressed and took her down to the coffee shop he usually hit on weekend mornings.

The first thing she said all morning other than thank you was. "This is the worst pastry." She mumbled as she continued eating it in little picked-off chunks.

Sasuke snorted. "Yeah, the coffee isn't that good either."

Hinata looked out the window at the street. "Why do you come here?"

"As bad as the coffee is, it's close, and I can't make it myself." He admitted with a sigh.

"I can." Hinata whispered, eating the last crumbs of her pastry. "I can do that." She whispered again. It was an offer.

She was offering a service for her stay.

Sasuke licked his lips and thumbed the rim of his cup. "If you want."

They were strangers. They knew of each other, but other than the passing comment or question, the only thing they had in common had abandoned them both. Now that he wasn't here, the air was empty, and he could feel the void between them.

———

Hinata quietly put all of her things away in the drawers of the dresser he had moved. He found another place for his old guitar and random junk. He dug through it. Some of it went to the trash, some of it got shoved in the closet in his room. Against her best wishes, she decided to go back to the apartment to pack some more things, mostly her kitchen supplies, he had none, and though most of them were wedding gifts which left a sour taste in her mouth, she couldn't cook with just chopsticks and one pan. She took one final look and snapped some pictures with her phone before sending a text to Naruto. He could have the rest. His name was on the lease. It wasn't her problem.

She went to work against Sasuke's recommendation to call in a sick day. She regretted it, it was clear to everyone there was something wrong, and no one wanted her to have peace. The next day was just the same, if not worse, and by the third day, she had called in sick for the rest of the week.

She bought groceries for his home. She silently wondered how he still ate only take-out and quick-cooked rice. She quickly shook the idea as it brought pain to her heart. When she had started living with Naruto, he lived on ramen cups and didn't understand her need for fruit.

When she made her list, he told her what he did and didn't like it. She cooked, he would mumble a compliment, and she would wash the dishes and look through her phone before she went to bed.

It was like merely surviving for either of them, but it would do for now.

———

The autopilot hadn't let up. Hinata went to work, came home, and sat in her room when she wasn't cooking. Hinata left him meals that he felt bad for because she also paid rent for her room. Her cooking was everything that Naruto said it was, and it made Sasuke kind of bitter, enjoying it. She didn't go out, though he knew she was reviewing constant messages trying to coax her out. She would ignore the buzzing on her phone by just staring at it. He got sick of it. Sasuke picked up her phone and deleted the messages out of annoyance. He then blocked the last five numbers to call her that she ignored and handed her her phone back. Sasuke readied himself for rage, but it didn't come.

"Thank you," She whispered.

It wasn't long before it got out where she was. She had been taking a different way to work, and they were seen together getting groceries. People were asking him if she was okay because he had blocked their way to pester her.

Then they asked the question Sasuke couldn't answer. "Why did you take her in?"

Sasuke hadn't thought about it at the time, but it did look like he knocked her up, and Naruto left, so he took her and his child out of guilt.

He could ignore the accusation, but he wasn't sure she could. She was still shut down, and if he had to guess, that wasn't good for the kid or her relationship with it once it was born. He didn't ask her if abortion was an option for her because if she had already thought about it, she would do it. He didn't need to be involved, but he was rather sure she would keep it because she didn't have a problem being a mother. However, she was for sure not happy about it being a bastard child.

Hinata filed for divorce first. He saw the papers on the counter when she came home from work. Naruto must have never filed, and somehow that had made it worse.

He had no clue how his usually relatively responsible best friend could fuck up so much. He should use responsibility a lot more loosely, but come on.

Every time he thought about or looked at her, he didn't understand it. She was sweet, clean, sane, a good cook, willing and ready to be the mother of his children, and he tossed it at the first sign of everything he had ever said he wanted. He was kind of waiting for something to be wrong with her.

———

Author Note: This is not a Naruto Bashing story. He's an antagonist here but there are always two sides to a story.

Please be kind to each other in the comments. I don't want to hear people from either side of the argument bashing or defending.

I didn't choose Kiba because it didn't fit my narrative and connection to Sasuke. Naruto will come off as a mildly selfish idiot nothing more.