Ninja are a dying breed, more myth than fact, waging a secret war against other hidden villages for the protection of their country. Sakura scoffed at the believers; acquainted it to UFO abductions and alligators in sewers. She was not prepared to deal with a traumatized patient who spoke of a ghost in the night, a ghost that was looking for her. Kakashi/Sakura
Dreamers
Chapter One
Sakura abhorred clichés and the symbolism associated with them. She hated in-box thinkers and predictability; she hated being given a heart-shaped box of chocolates on Valentines Day. Aside from the fact that chocolate made her feel ill and caused her skin to break out, there was just something so absolutely repulsive to her about a heart-shaped anything on a heart-shaped day with all its heart-shaped calligraphy and all its heart-shaped merchandise that bored her to tears. Give her flowers on a random Tuesday, sometime in March, she'd be happy. Buy her groceries and send them to her house next week, she'd be happy. Try to patch up a dead relationship with a heart-shaped box of cheap chocolate on a day meant to shame single people? Fuck you.
She should have left it at her door. Her next-door neighbours dog could eat it and get sick; what would it matter to her? She was a doctor, not a vet; she did not have to stick her hand up a cow's ass for her training. If the dog got sick, that would have been just great; she didn't like chocolate or dogs or her neighbour either, for that matter.
Instead, she sat on her couch, turned the television on, and opened the box of chocolates. With a meat tenderizer in one hand and a little tiny chocolate in the other, she spent her time watching the conspiracy channel and smashing the chocolate into chocolate dust and inwardly sighing at yet another single Valentines Day.
She hated the conspiracy channel, too, but it was the only decent thing on cable. She didn't want to watch the news, which was always good on the political front and awful on the home front. She knew all about the rape and murder and even those scandals that she didn't want to hear about first hand. She either had to patch up the victims or sign off on the cause of death and then the family members gossiped like there was nothing better to do in life.
For cable, anything from news to infomercials to extremely awful melodramas seemed to do, the best bits of entertainment were the conspiracies, and her favourite from the conspiracy channel was that of ninjas.
She could read, she was aware of this. However there was some sort of vindictive pleasure that came when she watched the conspiracy channel. They were all morons, for one, and for another that the spoke with such an honest enthusiasm that she couldn't help but pity them for their beliefs. It was like seeing a grown man who still wholly believed in Santa Claus. You had to applaud them for their childish belief, for keeping it alive despite what an awful world we all live in, but you had to pity them for their ignorance and naivety and the fact that if they took one step wrong the world would swallow them up.
The lead detective, a small, exuberant young man who called simply called himself Konoha, wore orange goggles and had a bright yellow hair and a smile so wide and blinding it made his eyes squint shut. He was entertaining to listen to, if a bit pushy. Ninjas are real, ninjas are real, they're real, you know, believe, believe, believe, believe it! If it weren't for his insistence on their existence to the point where it was almost painful sometimes, she would genuinely like him. It was hard to hate someone who loved life as much as Konoha did, even if he was off his rockers.
Tonight he was trying to explain how their continent was once made up of several countries with ridiculous names such as Fire Country or Wind Country of Earth Country. Of course, he used old dialect, but that was what it more or less translated into. His drawings were awful and his explanation was too vibrant to be believable, and because he wasn't going to go on and talk about how they apparently could use magic, Sakura turned her television off.
Her box of chocolates was empty and the plate in front of her was full of chocolate flakes. Experimentally, she licked her finger and tapped the pile of chocolate dust. Tasting it, she decided it wasn't as cheap as she initially decided, might even be useful as a topping for her morning coffee. It didn't stop her from hating the man who sent them to her.
She was not going to read the card; she had nothing to say to him and he should have nothing to say to her. How could they patch it up, anyway? It wasn't him, it was her. It was the fact that she felt no attraction to him after that initial bout of lust. It was an itch than needed a scratch, but if she scratched too much she'd cut right through her skin and bleed to death. He wasn't worth it.
With a groan she stretched out on her couch and with a blind hand searched for the pager on her coffee table. Picking it up, she brought it to her face, and willed it to need her. For anyone to need her. Saving lives was more valuable than friendships, not that she was good at them anyway. No matter who she met, they had this fake quality to them that made her instantly distrust him. Not that she didn't try, she hung out with co-workers and went out on dates and had people who would call her up to invite her out for a girls night or dinner or shopping.
But they didn't really know her; she hardly spoke of herself and endured their company just for the sake of not being alone. Regardless of what she did, what she said, they always disapproved of her in some way that would have her storm off in a fit. Days would pass, she would feel lonely again, and the cycle would repeat.
She rolled up and off the couch, picked her coat up from where she had draped it over the adjacent chair. Maybe she should just drive out of the city, just for a night. It was Valentines Day; the singles doomsday, guaranteed to show up once a year so you can party like it's you last night on earth. Valentines Day, the day of massive mistakes and one night stands, the least she could do was go out and flatter herself with some attention.
Patients were such awful flirts, her co-workers were even worse.
She checked herself in the mirror on her way out of the door, pulling faces at her reflection to ensure her makeup was in its correct position. It wasn't the best, but she supposed it would do. Hopefully she wouldn't get thrown out yet another club.
One of the issues of wearing a sweater and jeans in a club with next to no makeup on was that you were automatically considered at the bottom of the barrel in terms of choice. Not that Sakura had any problem with that, because honestly, who wanted guys to come up to you only because there was a homing beacon on you and they were following the signal through their dick? It was disgusting and they were pushy, besides, what with her odd pinkish, strawberry blonde hair she had no problem with sticking out.
They could think she was a soccer mom all they wanted. That she was cheating on her husband, that she was having a midlife crisis at the age of thirty. It wouldn't matter – none of it would. People could come up all the same, they would ask if they could buy her a drink, and she would wait them out until they get bored or did something interesting.
For the time being, she was sticking to water. It was only a quarter past ten and she was officially off duty after midnight. If they called her in anywhere between the two or so hours from now till then, she would have to be sober.
Her water was in a martini glass, something she asked for specifically. It helped with the image that she wasn't some pregnant weirdo alone in a club, and it also lowered others' guards around her. No one likes someone who sits at the bar and drinks a glass of water, not this early into the night. The drunk flocked to the drunk, and the sober stuck out like a sore thumb until alcohol clouded that too.
She twisted her upper body in the seat, and took another tiny sip of water. Her eyes scanned the club, what few people were there, sitting at the tables that surrounded the dance floor. Al Martino was a small, dignified club a few blocks from her home. Due to the distance, she took extra care in keeping her temper in check, but usually, due to the small, 'intimate' size of the establishment, strangers were better behaved. Al Martino's was not a place vacationers went to when they were in the city.
It was located on the second floor, just above a cake shop and a convenience store. Its windows were blacked out and the floor was a glistening black, always exceptionally clean at the beginning of the night, but smudged beyond recognition by its close. The walls were a dark wallpaper, probably purple, but due to the disco lights and strobe she could never be entirely certain. The chandeliers were her favourite, but because some dickhead a few weeks ago broke one, the club had taken the rest of them down.
She watched each person in the crowd. She scrutinized their faces.
Clubs weren't really her scene, but that didn't stop her from going with a near perfect attendance. She had to find him again, had to see his face, his hair, had to see those dark, black eyes and feel it again.
Familiarity.
It hadn't been a comfortable familiarity, like she had known him her whole life. It didn't make her feel safe; it didn't make feel like he was some long lost friend. It twisted her stomach up and she felt like she was in danger but that didn't mean anything because she saw his face and she felt. She responded to someone's face that wasn't just an acknowledgement of their status in her life.
It was like knowing someone, without knowing them. It was reacting to them without a cause. It was exhilarating, it was fascinating. She absolutely had to find it again, to find him again.
But as her eyes passed over everyone in the club, passing and passing and passing, she realized that he was not there. Not yet, at least.
The pager in her pocket vibrated. She ignored it for a moment, double checking each face in the room, triple checking, and then pulled it out and read the emergency and which room she was required in.
Another time, then.
The worst part of post-surgery cool down was that little nudge of a fact that when she passed out from exhaustion, she could only think of failure.
Blood pouring, gushing, soaring into the air and splashing her face, her hair, her hands are red, so red, red like the gloves she's wearing, red like…
It made her neck cramp up and for her to sweat, it made her co-workers bring her food and wake her up, a bottle of water in hand and even some Tylenol. She found a place to rest in a closed off waiting room, her body bent with her knees near her face and her head against the concrete. The staff room was closed, and she couldn't take an unoccupied bed in case it was needed; she also didn't want to sanitize the cot after she finished.
It smelt like death and air, death killing the air, the sent of death so much stronger because of the air. She didn't understand how she was fixing the wound, but she was, slowly, weakly; where were the clamps? Where was the thread? Cauterize the wound, stitch it, close it, anything. What was she doing?
A quick jolt of her elbow woke her up with a splintering headache.
Kicking her feet to the floor she pressed her thumbs into her eyes and used her forefingers to massage her temples. Dammit, why! It was such an unreasonable dream that she just couldn't… ugh! It made her so frustrated! The dreams were starting to make her paranoid to go into surgery because every single time she fell asleep after a gruelling set of hours, she would fail. The person would die, bleed out, they were dying and she couldn't stop it.
She was too weak in the dream, she couldn't help them, she wasn't using her knowledge to save him, she was just placing her hands and feeling like she was pouring her soul into healing him but nothing was happening. She just let him die and it was always a failure. She woke up as a failure despite the fact that her last patient survived and was currently resting post-surgery up in room 308 of the Carter Wing.
She checked her watch, silently wondering if he would be awake yet. The anaesthesia would have worn off, at least.
"Dammit," she said as she pressed the heels of her palms on the side of her head. She needed food. She needed food and coffee and a bed and for someone to actually talk to. Someone who she could confide to, explain how she felt like she was in some never ending loop of boring and stasis and that sometimes, on really bad days, it felt like her dreams never ended, they just morphed.
"There you are!"
Sakura lifted her head to see Lori, one of her co-workers she should probably consider a friend. Why couldn't she consider the girl a friend? Why? It wasn't that Lori was off-putting in any way; she was as sweet as her button nose and next-door look suggested. She was kind, soft-spoken, and extremely trustworthy.
"Hey," Sakura smiled, and pushed herself to her feet. "Just needed a nap." Go away, go away, go away.
"What about the staff room?" Lori walked over to her and looped one arm around Sakura's. "You know those couches are more comfortable than, like, anything ever."
"Full."
Lori laughed. "All of them?"
"This was closer," Sakura shrugged, and as non-obtrusively as possible freed her arm from the blonde's grasp. "I'm off the clock, actually."
"What?" Lori tilted her head and put her hands into the pockets of her nurse's uniform. "Oh, no silly. We're going to the cafeteria."
"I have a craving for ramen." Always craving it, searching it out, searching for it like it was her favourite food despite the fact that she was never satisfied afterwards. She was also fairly certain she didn't like it. It never satisfied, it was too salty, and the texture of noodles was just… blah.
"Ramen?" Lori pulled away to look at her. "Really?"
Sakura shrugged.
"Oh," and once again Lori was hugging Sakura's side. "Okay I think I have an hour for lunch, we could go somewhere!"
"You think?"
Lori laughed nervously, and rubbed the back of her head. Why was that such a… Sakura shook her head to clear her thoughts. "Someone always needs help, you know. And it doesn't take me long to eat and…"
Sakura merely patted the girl's shoulders.
It seemed everyone was a hard worker these days.
Her ear was pressed against the door, and she counted the people walking by, taking note of their gate, their weight, their shoes. She was such a creep, it was almost hilarious. And yes, she was going to ignore the fact that she was only slightly hiding in a closet to hide from Lori, and mostly hiding in a closet as a hobby.
What else was she going to do, go home?
Her patient wasn't awake yet, the rest were sent home because there had only been minor and, let's be honest here guys, she was great at her job. She didn't have a cat, she hated plants, she had finished pounding her gifted chocolate into smithereens before she left last night, and at the moment Lori had fulfilled her social quota for maybe the week.
So… she was going to guess all she could about the people that walked by.
How lame. But she was bored and if she could do that she was at least somewhat still more interesting than the rest of the people in the hospital.
Like, seriously, hey men, you want to date me? Watch what I can do because it's super epic – I know how to avoid people from inside a closet!
Not that she had much luck in the dating department, anyway. The shithead who had given her chocolates was about as creative as a doorknob with a face to match but it had been different. It had been different but more importantly it had been different when it was so unbelievably hard to break monotony.
Go to work, save people, come back from work, try to find something to do online, but for some screwed up reason there were no dance classes or painting classes or yoga classes or anything, really, (like, seriously what was wrong with this town there was nothing to do except clubs and work and sleep).
So she had to do them by herself. She bought herself a canvas, but the painting turned out all brown and disgusting so she burned it. She watched videos on how to dance, but never had a partner to try it on. She did yoga, which was for the most part successful but between yoga and workout videos all that landed her was a killer body she didn't really want to show to anybody.
She had a membership to the local gym, but that building was on its last legs and the most she went for was the punching bag. No one seemed interested in talking to her. No one seemed interested in really talking at all (not that they didn't, it just seemed to be about boring life drama that everyone had).
She went shopping a lot. She bought a ton of shoes and a ton of clothes and purses and jewellery because what else was she going to do with her paycheck? There wasn't anything to do with it – the theatre was guaranteed to be flat, though she couldn't understand why, the movies she went to see were so very strereotypical that they just made her cringe, but to their credit she did go see them anyway.
She wasn't an idiot.
She knew the problem wasn't the town (how could it be?). The problem was her. There was something broken inside of her that just couldn't take the daily life of a nobody and had to make everyone else seem like they were bricks with faces and maybe a few words to say. But they weren't. They were real, she was just a closed-off bitch.
But how could she fix that? She's tried.
Oh, mid-weight, approximately 190 lbs, wide stance, hurried pace, expensive, leather shoes – for show, really, because it was about 90 F outside and no man in their right mind would wear leather anything in this weather. So he was important, would probably be wearing a suit, ready to go for a night out of town which meant that whoever he was in the hospital for it would have to be family, or a really, really good friend and the accident would have had to have been recent.
She opened the door, and poked her head outside.
Sure enough, a man with rather broad shoulders wearing a suit was walking down the hallway, he was trying to restrain himself from running, but that didn't stop him from nearly falling into the reception desk to ask for the room number. If he was in this wing then whoever he was after was fine; which meant that those expensive shoes had travelled quite a far ways away to get here for now, because usually family members showed up while the patient was still in the ER or in the surgery room.
She could go up to him and confirm her suspicions, but that would require sounding somewhat important enough to bullshit through the fact that she only knew one patient here, and…
Well, the guy could be there for her patient.
With a sigh she stepped away from the closet, and quietly shut the door. The nurse that was delivering medication on his trolley stopped and looked at her from the moment. Sakura looked back. Yes, boy, she thought, I did just come out from the closet. Let's just say I was masturbating in peace and part ways.
Wow, if she had said that out loud who would feel more mortified?
Ah, maybe she could establish herself as the resident sex-obsessed doctor. That was a part of every male's fantasy, wasn't it?
But think of all the sexual harassment seminars they would make her go to. Think of them. Ugh. Why couldn't a girl just somewhat assert her sexual dominance?
Which was another reason she and that guy who gave her the chocolates broke up. He wanted to be in charge, but… it was just so weak – how could she ever, in her right mind, allow him? If he wanted to be dominant, he would have to fight for it tooth and nail and she nudged him and he caved. God, he was pathetic.
The nurse gave her a weak smile and continued on, disappearing into the closest room and Sakura was allowed to walk up to the reception and ask about her own patient, because hey, she hadn't stuck around to wait for them to set up shop for the guy – she had more important things to do, like pass out and then eat shitty ramen.
Seriously, why can't ramen ever be good? When had she ever thought it tasted good? Maybe in another life she had taken to sprinkling weed on it and then the subsequent munchies made ramen seem like the best dish in the world?
That wasn't that bad of a thought – where did drug dealers hang out? Because she sure as hell couldn't raid the medical marijuana without someone finding out, and then there went her medical license and maybe her freedom if they decided to press the issue on to the police instead of dealing with it internally and then she would be bored.
No people to save? That just wouldn't be a life.
"Ah," she began at the receptionist's desk. The woman set her pen down and looked up at her expectantly.
"Yes, Dr Haruno?"
Yes, Dr Haruno, what is that you want? Figure out his name, you shitty doctor, you know his insides, you've practically violated him, the least you could do was remember the poor bloke's name.
"Right," Sakura smiled, "Richard Edwards, please. I thought I would check up on him."
The woman blinked in confusion. "You mean Edward Rabalski? You're patient from last night?"
Sakura snapped her fingers and flicked herself in the forehead. Her massive, unbelievably unattractive forehead (okay it wasn't that bad, but it made her face a bit more disproportionate than she would have liked, and it made wearing hats and sunglasses impossible.) "Yes, sorry, it's been a long day."
"It's no problem," the woman smiled, and Sakura discreetly checked her nametag so she wouldn't screw up her name as well. Lonnie, it read.
She definitely would have got that one wrong.
"Is he awake?"
"He was last time Stephanie went to go check in on him," Lonnie said, "he's in room 308."
Ah, good, she did remember correctly. "Thank you."
Room 308 was a good room; not that it was in any way different from any of the other in the Carter Wing, but it had a semi-decent view of the park. And this semi-decent view, accessible to all those residing in the -08 rooms of the building was situated just between two of the nastiest looking looking apartment buildings. But still, a park.
The man with the Italian shoes wasn't in the room, which was almost a shame, but the man was awake and she supposed it wasn't a complete waste of her time – she was going to visit him at one point or another, ask him how he was feeling, etc, etc, etc. She liked talking to her patients, it was like their brush with death or just a freakish amount of pain reawakened them to the world of the living. They were the only people she genuinely enjoyed talking to.
"Hello, Edward," she called as she knocked on his door. The man looked away from the window and towards her, and immediately tensed up. "Is something wrong?"
"Who are you?"
"My name is Sakura Haruno," she explained, "I'm the doctor in charge of your case."
"Sakura Haruno?"
"Yes, your pronunciation is really good." She walked in and sat down at the chair next to his bed. There were no personal affects on the bedside table, no flowers or cards – his family must not have come yet. How sad. "You were pretty beat up when you first came."
His hands slowly began to gather up the bed sheets before clutching them in his fist. The strain his hand was going under made her frown. "Would you mind telling me how it happened?"
He stared at her, his brown eyes sparking into fear, his face darkening with a myriad of lines that ranged from terror to worry to an extreme fatigue she had only ever seen on people recovering from almost dying.
"I…"
"Take your time, it's better to figure it out beforehand, so I can put the cause down in your folder. That way when you give your statement it's easier."
"It happened so fast."
"Anything you can remember would be fine." His skin had been charred and cut with a blade that not only sliced but pulled the skin apart. It had been a nightmare trying to stitch together the organs, because the cells weren't cut, they were burned.
Now that she was slightly more awake, she realised how much this concerned her. It was similar to what would happen if someone were to cut someone else with a hot knife; cut and then burn the flesh and tissue, but what happened to him was…
Different.
Yet so painfully familiar.
"Do you remember who it was that attacked you?" She tried instead, keeping her voice low and sweet, because hell yeah her bedside manner was top notch when she wanted it to be.
"A ninja."
She blinked. That was… "And what did this ninja look like?"
The man brought his arms close to his stomach, dragging the sheets away from where they were tucked in underneath the bed. "He had silver hair."
She frowned. An old man in black stabbed him with a burning knife. Great. This one would require the police to question him. "An old man, you mean?"
Her patient quickly shook his head. "No, he wasn't old. I… I was walking home. I didn't see him… It was just-" Edward knocked his head against the propped up mattress and stared at the ceiling. "I was walking home, and… suddenly he was there. He… he pushed me against the wall and then there was this knife against my…" He raised his hand to hover at the bandage around his throat. "I had never been so scared in my entire life."
"Did he say anything to you?"
"He… uh," he shook his head. "I don't know. Maybe?"
"He had you against the wall, had a knife against your throat, what happened then?" It was easier to guide them through, sometimes. Then again some patients knew too many details and just wouldn't stop talking.
"He pulled the knife back… he… he asked me where she was…"
"Where who was?"
She could see him try to search his memory. "The knife started to spark."
What.
He swallowed, and pulled the sheets closer towards him. "He demanded to know where she was, but… the knife was… it was like electricity and… and…"
"Hey, hey," she hushed him, patting his arms in an attempt to calm him down. "It's alright, you're alright – you're going to be just fine. I patched you up myself."
He pulled away from her.
"What did you say your name was again?"
She frowned, and retreated from her position, back in to the chair. "Dr Sakura Haruno."
He didn't say anything to that, but she watched as his jack tightened and his breathing became erratic. "The ninja… he was asking… I thought your name seemed familiar… it was… I didn't know who you were… I… I said I don't know I don't know I don't know I swear I… I swear and he said… he said where is Sakura Haruno… and I didn't know and he… and he… He got angry. He pressed the…"
Sakura Haruno.
"He pressed the knife against my neck and it… It burned. It hurt… It hurt so much…"
Sakura Haruno.
"And he asked me again… and I… and he stabbed me… He held it in there and it hurt so fucking much… and… and then…. He pushed me to the floor…"
Sakura Haruno.
"And then… he was gone… and…"
Sakura Haruno.
Sakura Haruno.
"I swear he was going to rip my heart out."
Sakura Haruno.
A/N: This isn't going to be that long of a story, but what it will make up for in length it will hopefully make up for in substance. This is the first time I'm writing in this fandom, first time in awhile that I'm writing at all, so I hope you enjoy it! This will be Sakura/Kakashi, might contain lemons, it depends on how daring I am, but for that reason I'm rating this fic M. Read and review!