Alone Together
It was very empty in the streets in the early morning, late night hours. She clutched her stomach and gnawed her lip trying to forget. Forget the lives so few realized had been lost. That morning, the epidemic among the Aburame's insects had finally been cured though at the cost of too many, maybe half of the population. Could it have been a quarter? Less? And the ANBU messenger bird that an enemy troop had caught had also been lost. His spine had been broken but she'd mended nerves before. And her last customer, the little girl with her family dog. Why had it had to have been a dog? He was so old and too sick. She'd even resorted to lending chakra. Wasted chakra? No, never wasted for a patient. But the tears, the little girl's tears. She paused and leaned against the fence, squeezing her eyes shut tight. It was hard to be solely responsible for all the pain, to be all alone.
He couldn't see them anymore. But he kept screaming for them, kept screaming. Even when they set him down, even when the forest was quiet again, even when all he had were names. And he was beyond alone, not even truthful with himself, so isolated. And then it started again. The protective arms running him to a safety he didn't want. And he screamed. And screamed. And-
THUD! Iruka's eyes snapped open as his fall jarred him awake. He shivered and wiped his face, crawling into bed, knowing he must have screamed aloud again. The neighbors were probably- he heard footsteps, fast and hard. Were they that mad? The doorknob turned. He yanked the covers up over his nose, eyes widening to double their normal size. The door bounced off the wall behind it. Slit pupils danced around the room before halting on his confused doe eyes.
"Ha- Hana?"
"You- someone screamed- I heard screaming and- and," she couldn't focus on her statement anymore, "and- you- you're…" He blinked tears he hadn't realized he was crying out of his vision as she took a staggering step forward. She raised her arms tentatively and stumbled to the foot of his bed. Her pupils were round again, riveted to his own.
"It's hard to be alone." It wasn't an explanation. "I didn't realize that you," he tried to control the shake in his voice, "I never saw how you were so alone." The mattress sank under her added weight and they found shoulders to cry on. It wasn't as hard, to be alone together.