With Each Breath

Chapter 1

Coughing hard, Naruto silently gagged as a large amount of mucus exited his mouth, spitting into the bowl the nurse was holding, he leaned back and closed his eyes for a moment. This was Naruto's life, ending up in the hospital for something that was normal, and not dangerous for someone else, but for someone like Naruto, it could very well be life threatening, you see Naruto had a disease called Cystic Fibrosis, which meant that his body produced too much mucus, which often went down into his lungs, nearly suffocating Naruto without the help of medications and breathing treatments to help break the mucus up. Unfortunately for Naruto, there was no known cure for CF, which meant that Naruto would eventually succumb to the disease. It was because of this that his parents had surrendered Naruto to the state, they couldn't take care of a sick child that could die from the germs from his healthy brother. So Naruto was left at an orphanage, watching as his parents drove off with his healthy older brother Kurama. Naruto had hoped and prayed that they would come back for him, but so far he had not heard a word from them.

When Naruto was 13 years old he was forced out of the orphanage and into the foster care system, where he was moved from home to home because no one wanted to adopt a terminally ill child. Not that Naruto really spent all that much time in the hospital, until recently when he'd developed a sore throat and a harsh cough which worried his current foster father, Iruka Umino greatly and made the man rush Naruto to the ER. Naruto hating having to visit the hospital so much, but he knew that he needed to be here if he wanted to live, and Naruto wanted nothing more than to be able to live. He didn't want to have to fight for his every breath, but that's the life he had been dealt and he was determined he was going to make the best of it, even if he didn't get to live the life that he wanted to live.

"Try to cough up a little more." Shizune said, "I know that it hurts, but you have to get some more up."

"I'm tired of this." Naruto moaned, as he coughed again, his chest aching with each time he coughed.

"I know," Shizune said gently. "I wish I could make things better for you, but unless Tsunade becomes a miracle worker over night, there won't be anything we can do for you other than what we are doing now, which is the medication and breathing treatments."

"I know, and I know that you are working hard everyday to help those like me." Naruto said, moaning as he gagged again and spit up more mucus into the bowl. "I don't think I can do anymore."

"You done well." Shizune said. "I'm thinking that you will probably be able to go home in the next day or two."

"Good." Naruto said. "No offense to you but I'm ready to get out of here."

"I'm sure you are." Shizune said. "You tend to spend more time the normal here." Naruto shrugged.

"Iruka worries too much." Naruto replied.

"At least you know that he cares about whats going on with you, that last family of yours should have been shot." Shizune hissed. Naruto grimaced, he had been staying with the Takashi's. At first they had been nice and friendly towards him. Somewhere along the way, after Naruto had been hospitalized a few times, each visit lasting about a month, they had decided that Naruto could do without those visits and that his medication wasn't necessary.

"You are quickly becoming a drain on this family," Mr. Takashi told Naruto, who lay wheezing on his bed. He had started feeling bad earlier, and he'd told his foster father that he had felt like he was coming down with something, which meant that Naruto needed to get to a doctor as soon as possible.

"Boy, the only thing you're coming down with is sheer laziness. I told you that I want you out there pulling weeds with the other boys." Mr. Takashi said.

"I can't, I can barely breath as it is, but going out there, with my allergies getting bad, isn't a good idea." Naruto said, his chest aching with each breath that he took. He had to make his foster father realize that he desperately needed medical treatment, that Naruto could die without it.

"If you don't get your ass out there and help them, get your ass to bed. If you are sick you are going to get treated like it. No super for you since I'm pretty sure that you won't be able to handle eating anything."

"That's not fair." Naruto protested, he couldn't help it that he had been born with an incurabledisease that would end up killing him.

"What's not fair is hiding behind that pathetic excuse of an illness to avoid doing any work. I can see now why no other family wanted to you in, your too lazy to do anything and you claim your stupid disease is the reason why you are a lazy bastard." Mr. Takashi yelled, his face turning red. "So get your no good, worthless ass up those stairs and into bed. I think in the morning I'm going to do what I can to have you moved. You're a bad influence on the other kids."

"That's not fair." Naruto protested with tears in his eyes, it wasn't his fault that he was sick. He never used his illness as a reason to get out of doing anything and it had been unfair of the man to say that. Naruto wanted nothing more than to be able to live a normal life, but that wasn't what fate had in store for him.

"Get your ass out of here." Mr. Takashi yelled again, and Naruto grimaced as he turned and started towards the door. He heard the man mutter about his friends not wanting to fuck a little boy could stop breathing at any had wondered briefly what he had meant by that but the concern quickly disappeared as he made his way up the stairs to his bedroom. Upon collapsing onto his bed, Naruto had coughed and coughed trying loosen up some of the mucus that he could feel building up in his lungs. He needed to go to the hospital, but he wasn't sure how he could get there without his foster parents.

Several minutes later, as Naruto continued coughing, his door was slammed open and one of the older foster boy's rushed into the room.

"Listen here you lazy fuck!" the older boy snarled as he reached down and grabbed Naruto by the throat. "You need to shut the fuck up before I give you something to cough about!" Naruto didn't even want to know what the older boy meant by that.

"I can't help it, I'm getting sick." Naruto wheezed. "Nobody is listening to me, any kind of sickness can prove to be fatal to someone with my illness."

"I don't care, you need to shut your mouth, before I feel it with something that will really make you cough." The teenager said. "And our father can pound you so hard that you don't have to worry about your lungs." Naruto frowned, he didn't like the sound of that and he thought that perhaps he had been sent to the wrong kind of home.

"If you don't shut up, I'll make sure to fuck your ass so long and so hard you won't think about using the getting sick excuse to get out of work." The teen dropped Naruto back onto the bed, and left Naruto gasping for air. He didn't know how but he knew he had to get away from there.

As the night went on, Naruto felt chills begin to set in and he had to struggle to hold his coughs in, he didn't want to be used in a way that he wasn't made for, but he also knew that he would be lucky to survive the night if he didn't find some sort of help. As the night wore on, Naruto's fever grew worse and he suspected that he wasn't going to make it through the night. As Naruto lay there, gasping for his next breath he began to hear moans and grunts from the other room, and Naruto wondered how long those activities had been happening and if that's the reason that he had been taken in to begin with.

As Naruto's consciousness began to fade, he barely heard the sound of doors being thrown open and angry shouts and angry footsteps hurrying up and down the hallway. As his own door was thrown open, Naruto turned his head and saw a dark headed man standing in the door.

"I have a sick one here!" Naruto heard the man call before he heard footsteps coming towards him. He felt a hand on his forehead, and tried to turn his head away, any kind of germ from other people could kill someone like him.

"I'm Itachi Uchiha, and I'm going to get you out of here and get you some help." The man said, his voice kind and gentle as if he was talking to a frightened animal.

The rest of that night had been a blur in Naruto's memories, he'd been rushed to the hospital where he'd spent the next several weeks fighting a stubborn infection. He had learned later that Takashi and his wife had been arrested for child prostitutionand physical and mental and sexual abuse. Naruto had wondered what would happen to him next, because no one wanted a sick child. That's where Iruka had come in, Naruto had been sitting in his hospital bed staring out the window and wondering where his future lay when Shizune had entered the room with a brown haired man with a scar across his nose. Naruto could admit that he had been scared of the man at first, despite the man's gentle eyes. He had been put through hell with his other foster families and as such had given up on the idea of someone ever wanting him in their family, especially since they could literally prove to be the death of him. But despite Naruto's fears the meeting with Iruka had gone very well, and Naruto could admit that he had liked the other man very much, he just wasn't sure that Iruka would be able to cope with Naruto's illness, because Naruto often needed lengthy hospital stays to get him right again, although there would come a day when nothing that the doctors tried would work and Naruto would leave this world. He didn't want to but he knew that's how it was going to be.

"I'm worried that Iruka's going to get stressed out and decide that he doesn't want me to be part of his family anymore." Naruto said. "After all him and Kakashi are getting ready to get married, they don't need a sick kid on top of it all."

"I would never give up on you." A voice said from the doorway, and Naruto blushed when he realized it was Kakashi and Iruka. "I don't care how sick you get, I will always be here for you, I won't get sick of dealing with your illness. You deserve to have someone to be there for you. In fact, we were coming to ask you if you would consider being a part of our family for good?"

"I'm dying, I don't know when, but I have a much shorter lifespan than most people do." Naruto said, although the thought of being a part of a family thrilled him to no end. Knowing that someone wanted him was enough to make him happy.

"I know and you deserve to have someone with you at the end." Iruka said. "I can't think of anyone more perfect for our family."

"Yeah about the only thing perfect about me is how imperfect my lungs are." Naruto said.

"That doesn't matter." Iruka said. "You have a big heart that's willing to do anything for anyone, why don't you let us do this for you?"

"If your okay with me dying, earlier than anyone else, and your okay with me needing to be hospitalized for weeks at a time, I guess I am more than okay with it." Naruto said.

"I'm more than okay with it." Iruka said. "you won't have to spend anymore time in the hospital wondering what's going to happen to you next. We'll make sure you get everything you need, and support you until the end." Tears filled Naruto's eyes, the moment making happier than he could have imagined. He'd never thought that anyone would ever want him because he had been born with a fatal illness.

"Good, and Shizune says you'll be able to come home soon, you're doing very well." Iruka says, crossing the room. He wanted nothing more than to be able to reach out and wipe Naruto's tears away, but he also knew that any kind of touch could prove to be hard for Naruto to handle. Naruto wouldn't be able handle the germs very well, and Iruka really didn't want to be the one that made Naruto wanted everything to be okay for his gentle hearted foster son, but it was out of Iruka's hands to be able to do that, so he was going to settle for giving Naruto the one thing that Iruka knew that he had always longed for, which was a family of his own.

Thanks for reading, and I hoped you enjoyed. Should I continue? Liz