Crybaby

The halls of the hospital were stark white and hollow, larger than Sakura could remember them ever being. Her heels clicked on the tile flooring and her doctor's coat swished open behind her. She was walking fast—there were passing faces, grinning nurses, greeting her with expressions that had never known hurt—and suddenly she wished she could be somewhere else.

There was an empty void where her heart should have been, and as she glanced the nursery ward up and down, taking in the neat rows of babies all tucked in to sleep for the night, the knew exactly why.

Her heart was resting with the child she'd just killed.

-0-

When Yuuhi Kurenai had raised her fist to pound on Sakura's office door, looking—for all the world—like she was bursting at the seams, Sakura had stepped aside and ushered her into the room without question.

Kurenai, even in her deep-breathing, half-alert state, had scanned the office with assessing eyes, giving an approving nod at the powdery blue walls, the white molding around the edges, the instruments of gleaming steel.

Sakura asked her to change into a gown and then she called for a nurse. Several moments later, Yamanaka Ino burst in from the hallway, huffing as if she'd run a marathon. Her large blue eyes were solemn and smart, and her skin looked almost sickly white. She seemed taller than before, and so thin and angular that Sakura suspected she'd been overworking herself.

For a while the two of them only stared at eachother, admiring the changes that time had brought to each of them, but then Kurenai was gripping their hands, squeezing so tightly it was as if she was trying to imprint the patterns of her bones into their flesh.

It was understood then that there wasn't time to waste.

They moved quickly, settling her into a bed, and Ino helped to pull her feet up into the stirrups, mindful of her swollen ankles—which were still, despite the slightly purple skin, delicate and slender as her tiny wrists.

Sakura sat herself on a low stool and regarded the woman before her, pleased that her stomach was rising so high she could barely make out her face.

You are anywhere, she assured herself, this is any birth.

She reached her hand into the warm cave of the pretend-stranger's body. The amniotic sac was still intact, and through it, she could feel the baby's head, smooth and hard at the same time, like a baseball.

She allowed herself to smile and instructed Kurenai to relax; everything was progressing nicely. …Yet even as she said this, an intense wave of pain gripped the woman and the baby shifted in the birth canal, breaking the amniotic sac. Another contraction rippled through her and Kurenai made a noise of protest but Sakura didn't think to comfort her. She focused instead on the strange contrast between their ages—how strange it was that she, Sakura, should be delivering the baby of a woman nearly twice her age.

(It should have been Tsunade.)

Ino grabbed Kurenai's knee and Sakura caught the flash of the silver watchband on her wrist. It was almost frustrating how, in such an important situation, she could hardly bring herself to care about anything more than the tiniest of details. She watched as tiny beads of sweat collected on Kurenai's brow and glittered in her eyelashes, mixing with tears. She was completely and utterly bewildered that someone could manage to look so beautiful while experiencing what she was sure must have been…quite a lot of pain.

Several hours passed in this way: Kurenai tensing and crying out while Sakura sat, unresponsive, and Ino tried to reassure them both that it would be okay.

By the time that the head crowned, Sakura snapped back to attention. In three good pushes, the baby was out.

It was a boy, blue-faced and dark-haired, his eyes cloudy and his skin slippery with traces of blood. She had to lean forward to catch him, he came so quickly, and she cradled him at her chest to make sure he didn't fall.

The lack of crying startled her, so she patted his back a few times, willing him to choke, but he only blinked at her once and then closed his eyes to the world. Frantic, she handed him over to Ino, who had been rubbing circles on Kurenai's forehead consolingly, congratulating her on doing such a great job.

Ino stared at the infant in confusion before she ran off with him, and soon Sakura's ears were filled with the distant buzzing of machines and Kurenai's racing questions.

Her vision swam with images of dancing bears and rabbits, for a nursery, and pastel colors like sea green and warm yellow.

Then there was screaming, and a strange feeling of being lighter than air. And finally, darkness.

-0-

When she woke up, she was in her apartment, wearing her favorite pair of pajamas. Her hands had been scrubbed raw and the entire place reeked of bleach.

In an instant, Naruto was next to her, offering a bowl of ramen. She shook her head furiously, trying to ask what had happened to the baby—where was Kurenai's baby?

Naruto didn't need to hear the words to realize what she was trying to say. He grabbed one of her abused hands and stroked it softly, and she couldn't help but notice how tiny her fingers looked next to his.

She wanted to scream.

(Again.)

Fin.