Warning: Angst, Romance, and a tiny bit of smex.
Random idea. Story format may be a bit confusing- to explain, the first two 'entries' are later in the story plot, and most everything else goes one after the other. I didn't really want this in order, but the rest of my story ended up going that way. I hope it makes sense, if not let me know so I can correct it.
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He held her, unmoving, as her lithe form shook with the force of her sobs. She cried out, the lime green manicured nails of one hand clutching a crumbled piece of paper. She buried her face deeper into his green jonin vest, gasping in the scent of sandalwood and rain as her mind went numb and her hands shook uncontrollably.
"It's going to be okay, Sakura." He ran his gloved hands up her arms; their aged leather consoling, soothing, and easing her pain. He kissed the crown of her head as he gently pried the scrap of paper from her fingers, letting it flutter to the stark-white tiled floor. Sakura cried out harder, grasping with both hands at his vest, as they sat there on the floor in the hospital's hallway; medic nins, doctors, and nurses all stepping around, and avoiding them.
"We're going to get through this, baby." He murmured into her hair, rocking her softly as she hiccupped and sobbed. "We're going to get through this. Together." His voice was firm, strong, unwavering.
Heaven knew that was what she needed.
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"Sakura, are you alright?" Shizune frowned at the sickly pale woman sitting in the hospital break room. "You're looking awfully pale today."
Sakura waved a shaky hand in her direction. "I'm fine, I'm fine. Just feeling a little under the weather, really." She sipped at the steaming chamomile tea in her cup. Shizune sighed.
"Well, don't be afraid to come to me if you need anything, alright?" The more stoic woman plucked 50 cents from her pocket, the steady clink, clunk, clank, of the coins slipping into the machine echoed softly in the silent room.
"I know Shizune-san." Sakura took another sip from her own hot beverage as the soda machine beep-beep-beeped with Shizune's selection. The crash, boom, thud of her diet cola as it dropped was ominous and loud to both women's quiet sensibilities. Shizune bent over and grabbed her drink, tapping the top before pulling the tab. She surveyed the young woman sitting across the room before taking a sip.
Her pink hair was frazzled; the bags under her eyes were dark and deep. How much sleep had the poor girl gotten lately? Kakashi had come back from a mission three days ago, maybe it's that kind of sleep deprivation getting to the girl. Shizune smiled as she headed back towards the door and her own patients, the click-clack of her 2 inch heels on the tile floor sticking out like a sore thumb.
"Yes, well, don't forget it then." Shizune turned back towards the woman as she opened the door to the break room, immediately letting in the hustle and bustle noise from the hallway into the sanctuary. Shizune winked before exiting. Sakura's hands began to shake with the click of the door.
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"Aiko!" Sakura screamed as another blast mere yards from her cast dirt and blood into the sky. It rained down, blanketing the early evening sky in a smoky, dusty haze. "Dammit Aiko! Where are you?!" She screamed. Another blast and the earth near Sakura's feet cracked; her hearing in one ear nothing but a high pitched, distant ringing. Sakura let out a frustrated scream as she slammed her fist into the ground, expulsing her anger in the direction of the enemy.
A high pitched scream caught her attention, and that millisecond of distraction caused one explosion to catch her side, toppling her into the trench near Achabeko village's horrible medical facility lay. Her second home for the past 6 months. Another piercing scream and Sakura was up again, cuts and abrasions all over her right side and hand be damned!
"I'm coming Aiko!" She lunged towards the edge of the trench. "I'm coming! Hold on!" She yanked herself up, lurching over the trenches edge and rolling on the ground before jumping to her feet and springing towards the clinic. Dust floated in the air, and she took no time in flinging the flaps to the little hut open.
Aiko lay in a pool of her own blood, the midwife trying to help. Aiko screamed again- more blood, more pushing, and then there was too much blood, too much pain in Aiko's screams. Sakura was to her side in a second.
"You're going to be okay Aiko." Sakura soothed as she passed a healing hand over the woman's forehead to assess the damage.
"There's too much blood, Sakura-san!" The mid-wife yelled over the explosions; dust from the huts roof sparkling in the fading light falling through its patch-work walls. "I don't know what to do!" She wailed. Aiko looked to Sakura's green orbs in panic, grabbing blindly at the young woman's hands with her own bloody ones.
"Ignore what that dumb woman is saying, Aiko." Sakura soothed. Another blast and the furthest part of the hut caved in, starting with the roof, and letting in light- too much light, and haloing the young pink-haired woman to Aiko's gaze.
"You're going to be just fine. However, you must keep pushing for me, understand?" Aiko nodded.
"Good, now on the count of three, push." Sakura replaced the mid-wife between the young teen's legs, soothing the poor thing with a squeeze to her knee. "One, two, three!" Sakura helped hold the young woman's legs open, concentrating on helping the young girl give birth.
"You've got to breathe, Aiko- breathe!" Sakura's voice was loud, strong, unwavering; her words were powerful, coming up from her diaphragm and pushing the woman on. "One, two, three!" She expunged the air from her own lungs as the ground beneath them shook again. Aiko screamed- shattering, painful, and murderous. And then, Sakura had it. The baby was almost here.
"That's it Aiko! That's it!" She hollered over another explosion. More dust fluttered down from the shoddy roof. Sakura wedged herself between the woman's legs, ignoring the burning sensation from her own cuts and gashes. She reached for the baby as its head popped out. Aiko screamed again, and so did something else.
Sakura held him up; a good solid, seemingly healthy baby as it cried and screamed to prove its lungs were healthy. She handed him over to the mid-wife.
"I need more towels!" Sakura growled. "Now! Let's GO!"
"H-hai Haruno-san!" The mid-wife, awe-struck and reverent, hurried off with the baby for the towels. "And bring me clean water too!" Sakura hollered after the waddling woman's form.
"Alright Aiko, let's heal you up here." Sakura's hands glowed green as she lowered them to the pained woman's abdomen. Aiko smiled at her in relief.
In that moment, Sakura didn't care that she was covered in blood. This was where she belonged, helping those in need.
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Sakura hurried into the hospital, taking the steps two at a time up to the third floor- room three hundred and sixty-two – where her fiancé sat. She flung the door open, not caring what his state of dress might be, or who might be in there healing him.
"Hatake, Kakashi!" She growled out, hands on her hips and lips pursed in a puckered-up pout as her eyes narrowed on his shirtless form sitting on the hospital bed. Shizune stood next to him, with another set of bandages to wrap around his injured abdomen and chest. "What did I tell you six months ago when I left for Johan and Achabeko village?!"
Kakashi hedged as his hand reached up to the back of his neck. "A-hahaha, ah- Sakura, my lovely wife to be, you see-"
"Don't give me that shit!" she fumed "I told you to be careful!" Her arms shook as her hands fisted in anger. "I'd prefer to not come home and find my husband to be etched on that memorial stone!" She screeched like a hawk, talons digging into the poor man's heart as he sat there. Shizune continued to bandage him up, reaching for his heavily gashed arm as the two continued to stare at each other. Kakashi sighed.
"Sorry, dear." He murmured.
"Don't you 'sorry dear' me, Hatake Kakashi." She crossed her arms over her chest and stared pointedly at the wall. "It's not going to work this time."
Kakashi scratched the back of his neck, his eye crinkling. "How 'bout some angry make up sex then?"
Shizune nearly choked, trying not to laugh at the poor man's attempt to make his bride-to-be laugh. Sakura's eyes narrowed on his form, promising something very angry, but not as pleasurable. Kakashi sighed.
"Dinner it is then." Kakashi rolled his neck and shoulders as he got the kinks out of his system. "From scratch of course- tilapia or salmon?" Kakashi reached for the new jonin shirt sitting next to him on the bed. Sakura's eyes went back to a spot on the wall again.
"Salmon." She deadpanned.
"Hmm…" Kakashi replied as Shizune helped the man get the shirt over his head so he could pull it down himself. "Salmon, in a butter-lemon sauce, and fresh vegetables- steamed, maybe some mashed potatoes- garlic and herb flavored of course." Kakashi hopped off of the bed, reaching for his vest that had been flung into the visitor's chair upon his arrival.
"Maybe a nice bottle of champagne, chocolate cake for desert…" He pulled on his vest with deliberate slowness.
"…And strawberries." She mumbled, arms still crossed and eyes still staring pointedly at the wall as he approached her. She glanced up at him from the corner of her right eye.
"And strawberries." He agreed, and smiled- his eye creasing as his mask moved with the dimples in his cheeks that only she knows are there. He holds his hand out to her- age-softened leather glove palm side up.
"Let's get home so I can start that bubble bath for you, so I can get to the grocery store and get what we need to start on dinner while you become more beautiful." He nudges her foot with his, and Sakura's reaching for his hand before she even knows it.
"Okay." She relents- like she always has for the last three years; she always does.
Kakashi grins as he takes her hand in his own. He knows if he works this right there'll be lots of gratuitous sexing tonight. He hopes the strawberries in the market look good and fresh.
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He holds her body when she comes- screaming, crying, shaking, all involuntary actions at best, when she collapses onto his body and fits so snuggly to his own. His hands smooth down her form, searching, soothing, rubbing out all the tense muscles that he can reach. She hums in the blissful afterglow; snuggling up to the man she's fallen in love with. He thinks she's asleep, but she sits up on her elbows, hovering over his limber form.
"Thank you." Her beryl eyes bore into his mismatched orbs, searching. He raises his hand to the back of her knee, rubbing that sensitive spot.
"What for?" He murmurs, continuing the caress of his fingers on her flesh. She doesn't answer as she lowers herself onto his form, her face hidden in his neck. He thinks she's fallen asleep again, when she whispers something in his ear.
"Hmm?" His voice is thick with sleep as he trails a hand up her side.
"Two weeks." She murmurs, but nothing else passes her lips as sleep finally claims her. Kakashi holds her tight and smiles.
Two weeks, ten hours, twenty-four minutes, thirty-seven seconds, and counting…
Not that she would know he's so diligently counting down to their wedding.
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The wedding was a small affair; close friends only and a mask-less Hatake Kakashi for their eyes to see. Sasuke and Naruto approach them after the ceremony, one as stoic as ever; the other teary-eyed with a trembling lip.
"It suits you." Sasuke says to her, arms crossed as he glances away at the man who was their sensei- now her husband.
"Yeah." Naruto quips as he wipes the tears from his eyes.
Sakura looks at them, confused. "What does, you guys?" She twiddles with the end of her shoulder-length curled hair, courtesy of Ino's magic with a curling iron and hair products.
"Hatake Sakura." Sasuke murmurs, uncrossing his arms and stuffing his hands into the pockets of his dress suit.
"It fits." Naruto adds as he eyes the small buffet, where Ino and TenTen have strategically placed a bumbling Hinata, still intent on getting Naruto's attention.
She laughs and hugs them both. Her smile is even brighter the rest of the night.
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"Hey, Kakashi?" Sakura calls from the doorway of their bedroom, shaky legs not allowing her to step past the doorways support. She can see him, lounging on the couch Icha, Icha in hand.
"Hmm?" He calls back, flips a page in his trusty book as he gently spins the simple silver wedding band on his finger. The engraving amplior quam verba est*on the outside rubs against his callous-roughened thumb.
"I'm not feeling so good…" Her voice trails off as he looks up in time to see her knees sink to the floor, as she began to cough and hack, whole body convulsing with the motions as she gasped for air. Kakashi was next to her in seconds.
"But you were fine last night…" He frowned.
"I know. I don't know what-" She coughed again, body convulsing as she choked on air.
"Let's get you to the hospital. Have Shizune check you out." He wrapped his arms around the gasping woman and helped her to her feet.
"No, no I'm-I'm fine." She gasped out. Kakashi pulled her into their bedroom anyways.
"Two months ago you said it was probably just the flu, but you keep having symptoms on and off." Kakashi frowned as he dug through their closet to get her some comfortable clothes. Sakura coughed again.
"And now you're coughing." He glanced at her over his shoulder, before pulling out one of his own jonin tops and a pair of her jonin pants from the closet. He tossed them to her sickly looking form on the bed. "We are going," He murmured, "And that is final."
Sakura watched him as he pulled on his own jonin top, pulling the mask portion up over his face, as she pulled on her pants and then slipped into his jonin top that he gave her. Kakashi headed towards the door.
"I'm going to call Shizune at the hospital and make sure she has a room ready for us."
Sakura nodded at him. She hugged herself in his shirt as she listened to his footfalls disappear down the hallway.
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"Well, Sakura, these symptoms do seem like the flu. However, it's been going on much too long to just be the flu." Shizune scribbled some things down on the young woman's chart. "Let's draw some blood and run some tests, just to be on the safe side." She smiled. Kakashi sits in a visitors chair next to where Sakura sits on the bed.
Sakura looked up from where Kakashi's hand held onto hers in her lap. "Alright." She murmured. Kakashi's thumb rubbed soothing circles on her skin as he held her hand.
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Shizune's tight-lipped and pale face greeted a familiar sight as she entered hospital room 264. With a nostalgic sense of déjà vu, Sakura sat on the bed as Kakashi sat in a visitors chair on her left side, cradling both the woman's hands in his own as they rested in her lap.
"Well," Shizune murmured as she grabbed the rollaway barstool near the door "the test results are in." She reached out for Sakura's file and flipped it open, a shaky hand reaching out for the piece of paper that told of Hatake Sakura's fate.
"Here." Shizune passed it on to the other young woman's own shaking hand. Sakura's eyes skimmed the paper as her entire body began to shake uncontrollably. Concerned, Kakashi looked from one pale-faced woman to the other. Sakura looked up at Shizune, and both women seemed to deflate.
"I'm sorry, Sakura." Shizune's calm, sad, pain-laced words pierced the room's silence. They spilled forth like a babbling brooks apologetic murmur. "You're apparently in one of its later stages, but that can't be helped. No one realized that Aiko had it- gosh that was so long ago."
Kakashi's eyes watched Shizune's nervous form as she babbled. "What, exactly, is it that Aiko had Shizune?" Time seems to stop as Shizune breathed in for courage.
"Human Immunodeficiency Virus, also known as AIDS." Shizune's solemn voice broke out. "I'm so sorry Sakura. We think you've probably got four more years to live." Tears began to stream down Shizune's face.
Kakashi ran a hand through his hair. "I don't understand."
"Kakashi…" Shizune's face was pained as she turned towards the distraught man hanging on to his wife's hand like a life line. "You should probably get tested as well…" Sakura gasped.
"Oh God, I've given it to you!" She sobbed, her body shaking with the force of her cries. "I should have followed procedure seven years ago- gloves, antiseptic, oh God…Oh God!" Sakura wailed as she flung herself off the rollaway patient bed and flew out the door, paperwork still clutched in hand. Kakashi was immediately up and running after her.
"Sakura, Sakura!" he dodged a nurse carrying a lunch tray and a man being pushed in a wheelchair as he followed, hot on her trail. He reached out and lunged, wrapping his arms around her as they fell to the floor. He hung on for dear life.
"I'm so sorry!" She sobbed "I'm so sorry! It's my fault! All my fault!" She cried harder as he cradled her form to his chest. "I ruined our happily ever after!" She screamed as her nails dug into his vest.
And Kakashi held her, unmoving, as her lithe form shook with the force of her sobs. She cried, the lime green manicured nails of one hand clutching a crumbled piece of paper. She buried her face deeper into his green jonin vest, gasping in the scent of sandalwood and rain as her mind went numb and her hands shook uncontrollably.
"It's going to be okay, Sakura." He ran his gloved hands up her arms; their aged leather consoling, aiming to soothe her pain. He kissed the crown of her head as he gently pried the scrap of paper from her fingers, letting it flutter to the stark-white tiled floor. Sakura cried out harder, grasping with both hands at his vest, as they sat there on the floor in the hospital's hallway; medic nins, doctors, and nurses all stepping around, and avoiding them.
"We're going to get through this, baby." He murmured into her hair, rocking her softly as she hiccupped and sobbed. "We're going to get through this. Together." His voice was firm, strong, unwavering.
"You didn't ruin anything." He whispered. "None of this is your fault, its circumstance." He held her tighter as she shivered and spasmed in his arms. He slid his left hand up to the back of her neck as he buried his face in her neck.
"I love you." He breathed out. "I always will." His left hand rubbed her neck as he held her there, his own breathing growing ragged as Sakura's calmed down.
"I love you too." she whispered in his ear before she sobbed and slid one hand into his hair to hold him to her.
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In Shizune's tear streaked face and teary eyes they were the epitome of the perfect love.
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"Sakura was like a sister to us," Naruto's strong voice rung out as his lip quivered. The scent of freshly turned dirt and rain clung to the air. "And Kakashi was our older brother." Sasuke hovered at Naruto's shoulder, arms crossed; face never leaving the newly upturned dirt ten yards from where they stood.
"I remember when Kakashi told us he wanted to ask Sakura out on a date. I thought he was nuts, but three days later we saw them sitting in Sakura's favorite little Italian bistro. And three years later they were engaged, and I couldn't have been happier for the two of them." Naruto gasped for air as the tears began to stream down his face. Sasuke placed his hand on his shoulder and squeezed.
"I'll never forget the wedding," Sasuke's solemn voice rung out as he stood beside Naruto's hunched and crying form. "The name Hatake suited her; it really did. And I was truly happy for them." Sasuke helped to hold the blond man up at the shoulders as Naruto continued on with the speech.
"Their deaths were three days apart, and it fit them." Naruto breathed in deeply as he got a control on his emotions. He looked out towards the huge misshapen sea of black that stood before them in mourning. "They're together even now, and they will be forever. And it fits for them and their love."
Both boys glanced over at the two mounds of freshly upturned dirt, where the other half of their 'family' now lay. Sasuke looked back towards the crowd as Naruto went to grab their lilies for the grave.
"Finis vitae sed non amoris." Sasuke cleared his throat as the pain of burying his 'sister' stuck in his throat. "'The end of life but not of love.'- it was one of her favorite quotes." Naruto came back with their white lilies. The two young men calmly went down the stairs and towards the grave of two of the greatest shinobi from this world. They set their flowers down and bowed their heads, getting a few moments alone before signaling for the mourners to go one at a time to deposit their own flowers.
A year later a Sakura tree could be seen in full bloom next to their grave site.
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Don't tell me if I'm dying, cause I don't wanna know
If I can't see the sun, maybe I should go
Don't wake me cause I'm dreaming, of angels on the moon
Where everyone you know, never leaves too soon
-Thriving Ivory- Angels on the Moon
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*-Amor meus amplior quam verba est - My love is more than words
A/N: Reviews would be great, and you should listen to that song from Thriving Ivory- it really inspired this entire thing.