Healing is a delicate business

AN/ Something that was written over last summer, and finished recently. Short and sweet.

Disclaimer: these characters are borrowed from Kishimoto-sama with love. e

His eyes slid open slowly, pulling against the weight that clung to his consciousness, to focus on the flash of colour that had caught his attention in the bright light at the doorway. He blinked at it, a slow, heady movement, with pupils dilated, unable to focus enough to discern the nature of the thing before it shifted, a dash of brightness that dipped and wove, growing nearer.

He blinked again with excruciating slowness, until he could identify the colour, a unique shade of pink that was completely out of place with the muddy brown, earthen colours he had grown up with. It was then he realized that he was examining a person, short in stature, a slender frame bent over a desk, indistinguishable apart from the outlandish colouring of the long strands of hair spraying from a hastily pulled up knot.

The figure turned, until he could distinguish delicate, feminine features, pinched in a tight, pursed expression of concentration, light green eyes keen and certain in the dark as they scoured the tent, before coming to rest at his side of the room. Her lips parted in a small sigh, and she seemed to take a moment to pause, considering him, before she approached.

He stayed still, unwilling to presume anything, waiting for her to approach. He knew this woman, this kunoichi of the hidden leaf. Sakura. They hadn't initially met on the best of terms, and whilst they were not enemies now... he would not be able to say what they were to each other. The gap in his memories concerning his current situation didn't speak well to any sudden movements either – for how he had ended up in the care of the Konoha medic, he could not recall.

She grew nearer, brushing past the linens of his futon, before she paused, hands clenched briefly into fists. He tensed, reaching for his chakra – and found his movements limited due to his complete lack of chakra, and energy, much to his consternation. She didn't seem to notice, instead making a beeline for the end of the bed, picking up some documents that had been roped to the bedpost. She flicked impatiently through the pages, her face twisting into a frown – and with a modicum of relief, he realized that she had yet to notice that he had regained consciousness.

The sound of crinkling paper and plastic reaching his ears, and as his mind connected the scene, and the collection of the stained and discarded medicals supplies, he realized this meant she was leaving.

His chest hurt at the realization, and he was hit by a sudden thought: it was too early.

The statement was accompanied by something strong and urgent within his chest, that tugged at recently formed scar tissue as his lungs abruptly expanded. His chest was tight, almost to the point of pain, and he couldn't reconcile it – there were no fresh wounds, no reopened sores that could be responsible for this pain, so what was it? A sudden panic gripped him, sending his breathing into a rasp that caught her attention and made her grow near, until suddenly she was at his side, and the new sensation subsided.

"Kazekage-sama…?"

Her eyes widened, surprise flitting across her expression as she caught his eyes, and time seemed to slow for a moment. Her cheeks were flushed, from exhaustion or stress, he couldn't tell – but all of this seemed to fall away as she examined him. Then her professionalism returned, and she was moving. The green glow of chakra danced her fingertips, and her hands skimmed his body, a series of light, brief touches, that probed and assessed his condition, checking his vitals. Her eyes were bright when they found his, curious as they scanned his features for any visual cues. She appeared satisfied, as a sudden spark of joy lit her features, the lines of strain on her face dropped away, as her expression relaxed, her lips forming a small smile.

"Welcome back, Kazekage-sama."

He found himself dazed as he looked at her, his vision swaying as he fought against exhaustion, but he couldn't seem to look away. Her chakra felt familiar – more familiar at that moment than the ichibi's had ever been, striking a resonance with his own energy that seemed natural. In the midst of all this uncertainty, however, one thing became startlingly clear – that he desired something more from her, needed it. He wasn't sure what exactly had changed between them, or when this change had occurred – but he felt himself in need of something abruptly, desperately. That desperation gave him strength, and with a dry sweep of his tongue over his cracked lips, he voiced a plea he had never expected to make.

"Sakura…san. Please… stay."

She blinked back at him, startled. Silence reigned over them for a few moments, and his eyes flickered shut as he felt himself losing the battle against sleep. He was only barely aware of her reply, a quiet, respectful whisper.

"Of course."

Her touch was cool as she reached over gently to make contact with his head, and the soft glow of chakra infiltrated his senses, softening the world's edges as it swept him towards the darkness. He could feel her fingers as they brushed away strands of his hair in a soothing motion, before he fell back into the realm of sleep.

"Sakura! You are needed at the eastern flank, immediately. Bring everything."

The urgency in her teacher's bark was unmistakable, even from the miniature form of Katsuya, and it was with mounting alarm that the impromptu war medic had grabbed all of the supplies she had on her and pegged it into the forest that separated the two camps. The scant few miles of landscape that separated the two fronts of the united shining alliance were largely deserted at this time of the war, abandoned purely for the reason that it had no useful qualities to serve as a war front, and her passage was made in record speed. At just under the one-hour mark - despite the work put in by her aching muscles and tendons, boosted by the scarce chakra she had pumped into her limbs, the distance was just too far for her travel time to be cut anymore - she finally arrived, panting and dirty, in the camp of the Kages, her racing heart tight with the possibility that she could be too late.

Another tall nin she didn't recognize had grabbed her arm as soon as she had stepped in camp, and before she could ask just where her patient was, Sakura had found herself shoved through the doors of the main tent, facing a flurry of indistinguishable activity. The room stank, almost as if rotten carrion had been left for a week, and Sakura had stared about the crowded tent in bewildered confusion. Catching a flash of blonde at the far edge, hands tightening around her gear, she had made to move forward to her Shishou - when her eyes caught sight of the crimson stained table, and it was then that she saw their patient.

Or what was left of him. The charred and soot stained flesh was barely recognizable as human, although the stature and the number of his ribs, that she could count sticking through his chest identified him as a male. Her breath caught in her throat, and she air pressed the urge to gag as another wave of that sickly sweet odour filled her nostrils, and she realized in horror that this smell had come from him.

There was a soft shuffle of sound at her shoulder, and her wide eyes met the serious golden of her teacher. Mouth opening, she blurted the only thing that rang through her mind: "how is he alive?"

Her teacher's eyes flickered back to the living corpse on the table, and the dozen ninjas that surrounded it, hands outstretched as the soft glow of their chakras mingled, before returning to her student with a weary smile. "Them." Her expression shifted, and in a span of a second she was an aged, older woman, turning back to her student with a bitter tilt to her lips. "I cannot help him."

The woman sagged, as if a great weight had settled on her smaller frame as the light within amber eyes dulled, a deep sigh reverberating from her chest. The lines of exhaustion and stress deepened, and suddenly the proud woman that had the strength of a hundred men seemed older than her age, as if she could break. Without realizing it, her hand reached out to her shishou, but it was brushed away with a light huff and a look. "This is your moment, Sakura. You will save the Kazekage. You must."

The eyes of her patient were glazed, the dilation of his pupils making his state unable to focus, as his hooded lids emphasizing the deep shadowing beneath his eyes as they followed her movements around him. Moving from one side of the tent to the other as she checked the dwindling supplies, mentally sorting the requests she'd have to make into the queues of priority, she watched, and listened carefully, hoping, and praying, for some indication of consciousness, instead of another drug-fuelled delirium. She'd not been here for the first time he had woken, but one of the medics on hand had nearly been killed – as even without the Shukaku, the sand casing that guarded Gaara's skin had awakened with a vengeance. It was only through the subversion of medical jutsu that they had managed to remove his chakra, and subdue his sand. Since then, Sakura had agreed to heal him, and wait, and since the first incident, the weeks of time which she had spent with him had been quiet, intermittent with only a few moments of lucidity, before he fell back into his dreams.

The last time had been a week and a half ago.

There was a clattering, and she glanced down to see that the equipment in her hands shaking, her fingers trembling against the metal. Kami, it had been three weeks since she had been assigned this task. Three weeks in this coma. She forced her hands into fists, stopping their shivers through willpower alone, before she pushed forward to medical station situated at the opposite end of the tent. Adding them to the sterilization queue, she brought her empty fists to her head, clenching them in her hair, before she forced out a ragged breath. The thoughts she had been avoiding, the one that preyed on her during those small periods of peace between emergency medical shifts, were getting harder to escape. What if she had killed him?

It took one brisk, sharp head shake, and she was on her way, medical instruments returned to their proper places, the recovery room stocks checked, before it was time to check the machines that monitored his condition. Annotating his medical chart - slight increase in blood pressure, but nothing serious, the rest of his vitals stable - she smoothed her hands down her clothes in a vain attempt to regain some control – and she paused, as she caught sight of her reflection. Patting at the stubborn fabric to banish the crinkles was nice and all, but with the state of her clothes – not to mention her hands, which were stained light pink, she was a wreck. Her pale complexion was off-colour, despite her frequent washes, and her smile faltered as she realized just how much blood had sunken into her pores during these weeks of war, the lives that had fluttered beneath her hands - and before she could stop herself, she saw it all; images of blackened flesh that she had barely managed to stitch back together, her hands dripping crimson - and she was left shaking in the wake.

She clamped down on the images almost immediately, suppressing them and forcefully shoving them out of her mind, and back into the recesses of her mind. There, they would no doubt haunt her sleep – but now was not the time for this breakdown, for this moment. She'd glanced back at her sleeping patient with grim determination, his quiet plea for her to stay echoing in her ears to remind her of her duty - when she met a jade gaze that was, for once, lucid.

She stopped, frozen in the middle of the room, unable to breathe.

His brow was furrowed, his pulse-rate and breathing faster as his head raised an inch from the pillow, obviously struggling to keep his gaze level. When she caught his eyes, his own breath had hitched, and as she approached his bedside, he took in her appearance, lingering on the bloodstains and signs of wear-and-tear on her clothes, before the tent surrounding them. When they met hers again, he did something she entirely did not expect – he smiled.

"Sakura...san."

Her breath was caught in her throat, increasing the rate of her steps as she approached his bedside and stopped a short distance from the head. A glance at the beeping machines at his bedside assured her that this was happening, real. His eyes hadn't completely lost the glaze from the fever that had taken the medical teams days of struggle, but had regained a welcome clarity that seared away the stresses and fears that had haunted her during this brief segue.

Somehow, against all of the odds, he had made it.

"Thank you… for staying."

She had to choke back on the small cry that threatened to break free of her throat as heat rushed to her face, her eyes burning as she gazed at him. She managed to meet his smile with one of her own, as she took a step towards him.

"Of course."