Title: Of Problems and Concussions
Characters/Pairings
: Minato/Kushina (who are quickly becoming my OTP or something), lots of Rin and a smattering of Kakashi. Jiraiya, that lovable old man, is mentioned.
Rating:
Uh, T. For a couple naughty words and adult concepts. Sorry, all. This one wasn't one of those 'crouching lemons, hidden perversions' kind of things, you know?
Notes:
Yay part two! The next installment (which is the final one) is written and awaiting editing, so that should be up as soon as I can manage it. Also, yay Minato point-of-view. This is significantly longer than the first bit, as Minato is much more wordy than I'd given him credit for. (I might also have turned him into one sick chicken, but whatever.) Also, everything even vaguely related to medicine here I have picked out of my mother's brain. I find that talking to her about this stuff is much more fun than poking around the internet for it, given that she's a) hilarious, and b) an actual doctor, and as such, can describe real-life cases of concussions, details from which I can, in turn, stuff into my fics. And as always, please remember to review!


Namikaze Minato had a problem.

And she had fire-red hair, a temper the size of the Tsuchikage's ego, and hazel eyes that seemed to shift color depending on the light and the ferocity of her smile.

And, he thought with an edge of panic, she's nearly dead. He watched with an intensity that was unlike him as Rin examined Uzumaki Kushina's body, running chakra-covered hands over it and pausing only to make hurried notes on a clipboard.

"MRI and CAT scan, stat, and IV piggy-back of Vicodin. I need a medic with specs in orthopedics to take a look at her ribs and skull, check for a depressed fracture…" Rin rattled off instructions to the nurses around her.

"Well?" he asked when she had finally finished, and nurses wheeled the body away. He watched it go with a roiling feeling in his stomach.

There was a worrying furrow between Rin's brows. "It doesn't look too good, Sensei," she said in that quiet manner of hers. "Broken ribs, broken finger, abrasions and contusions on every scrap of uncovered skin. She's lucky she hasn't got a punctured lung. But that's nothing compared to that concussion. I can't tell where it's bleeding, if there's been bruising or tearing. I've ordered scans of course, an MRI and CAT scan to start…"

He was no medic, but he did know a thing or two about head injuries. "Rin," he asked, "just how bad is it?"

She sighed and pulled off her latex gloves, looking older than her years. "She's been unconscious for half a day, Sensei. That's very, very bad news. I can't tell you when she'll get up, or even if she'll make it that far. And even when—if, really—she does, I can't tell you about any neurological damage she might have sustained until I see it." Rin shook her head, sending chocolate-colored hair flying. "Headaches, dizziness, cognitive impairments, difficulty making decisions, concentrating…"

"Not good at all, huh?" he asked after a moment of silence. He winced, his words jarringly misplaced, too inane for the situation at hand.

"No," she said quietly, and she looked him over with her quiet eyes that saw too much. But there was a unique kind of helplessness that plagued her: she loved the men in her life selflessly, fiercely, but there was so little she could do for them—they outstripped her, easily, and all she could do to help was patch up the injuries she could see and send them home to heal the cuts and bruises they had on their insides, because she couldn't heal those. Minato understood all of that, and understood, again, that Obito still stood like a sentinel among them, more potent dead than he ever was alive.

"No," she said again, for only something to say. "But I'll look after her the best I can, Sensei, see what I can do."

There was nothing else to say, so she made her way out and left Minato to his thoughts.

He leaned against a wall and closed his eyes.


That night, he dreamed about her—hair dancing in a halo around her face, color whipped into cheeks that had been chillingly white while he carried her back to Konoha. She laughed at him, held her arms out to him, smile wide and welcoming, holding the promise of the entire world, and all her could think about was running to her because everything else was utterly, utterly meaningless.

He woke in a cold sweat and sat up reading the rest of the night.


The next morning, he ran into Kakashi sporting spectacular chakra burns across his left arm, and took it upon himself to escort his former student to the hospital, because, knowing Kakashi, the youth would drag himself home, sleep for days, and express mild concern for his arm upon waking.

It was also time, he figured, to face his damning failure to protect.

He found her alive instead.

And the inferno of tightly wound emotion broke and flared.


His week had gone downhill from there.

The paperwork after the mission and ambush had been hell; and as Hokage-in-training, he had to slog through all of it. There were a total of twenty-seven-and-a-half forms to fill out for that mission alone—mission reports, injuries notifications, payment invoices, certification of hospital records —the list went on far longer than Minato cared to remember. Sarutobi-sensei had also seen fit to lob all sorts of busy-work at him, so he found himself sourly trudging through what seemed like all the paper in Konoha's bureaucracy and then some. He sat at his desk for long hours day after day, pen scratching away on scrolls and a headache whining behind his eyes. It was important work, he knew, and it was just as important that he learned to handle it all, but he wished it didn't make his brain turn to mush and dribble out of his ears.

His development of the Rasengan didn't get much further either. He'd managed to manipulate the shape into a sphere of dense chakra, but adding wind chakra was proving much more difficult than he had anticipated which further caused his mood to blacken.

And underneath it all thrummed the sickening thought that he had robbed a comrade of her mind, her ninjutsu, and possibly her livelihood. And then threatened her when she was down.

He avoided thinking about it, because thinking about her made him either very angry (and anger was never an emotion he was very comfortable with) or filled him with self-loathing (which he was much more familiar with, but didn't enjoy feeling at all).

And guilty (which was something else he had plenty of experience with and didn't like at all). As he squinted at fine print on a scroll or melded spinning chakra, her shocked face and wide, hurt eyes danced in his head. He had hurt her—her feelings, her pride, her loyalty—and quite possibly ruined their friendship, and the thought made his mood sour like not even mountains of paperwork could. It made him uncomfortable, her unwavering loyalty and commitment to teamwork, and he didn't like how it made his heart quicken with both fear and something he was reluctant to name, that she had put herself in harm's path to save his skin. His skin, of all people.

He didn't deserve that kind of loyalty; what man like him, who couldn't even save his students—one from death, one from loneliness, one from helplessness, deserved that?

He also didn't want to examine the raw rage that had coursed through him when he had caught sight of the Iwa-nin pawing at her while she lay helpless. The very picture had been jarring, disturbing in its distance from reality: Kushina-san fought and bit and scratched like a wildcat, not lie yielding and still during assault, and his control had broken as icy fingers dripped down his spine.

He had killed the ninja, and he had not been merciful.


Rin brought him dinner and tea one night when he was stuck in his office.

"How is she?" he asked midway through a lull in conversation, trying to be nonchalant and failing miserably, if only because Rin knew him too well.

"She's fine, Sensei." Rin frowned at him. "And I can't tell you anymore than that. Doctor-patient confidentiality, remember?"

"Not even to your old teacher?" he smiled at her charmingly.

She smiled back, but said, "Sorry, not even to you. If it helps, there are confidential files on her status in the Hokage's office. You know. If you're curious. Which you're not, of course."

His smile widened. "Of course not."

"I've got to get going, Sensei. Enjoy your dinner."

"Of course. And again, thank you."

"Drink your tea."

"I will."

"Take the aspirin if you get a headache. The Alka-Seltzers are in the cabinet to your right, in case your acidity acts up again."

"I'll keep that in mind."

"And don't stay here all night, okay? I don't want to have to deal with your stiff neck in the morning."

"Yes, mother."

That scared her out. He waited for her soft footsteps to fade, counted to a hundred, and slipped out of his office.


He peered at Kushina-san's file in the dim light of Sarutobi-sama's office, feeling a bit like a dirty old man. He wondered for a second of that was what Jiraiya-sensei felt like when he wandered off to peep on bathing women, and dismissed the thought. Jiraiya-sensei had the rather disturbing propensity to lose all morals and codes of decent behavior when confronted with scantily-clad women.

Uzumaki Kushina, the report read, shows all signs of normalcy after the injuries sustained on her person during the last mission in which she was an active participant. Injuries resulting from blunt trauma, such as her ribs and finger, have all been healed and said parts are back to previous functional levels. All abrasions and contusions have likewise been healed.

The patient also sustained a major and complex concussion on the right side of the head. Following a GCS score of 14, the patient was determined to be at low risk of bleeding. MRIs and CAT scans all indicate that there is no abnormal bruising or tearing in the brain. The concussion, against all odds, has not impaired the patient's cognitive, decision-making, and/or problem-solving skills. There are no observable signs of alterations in her behavior, apart from an increasing tendency to be irate, though this could be attributed to the patient's oft-professed distaste of hospital confinement. The patient was determined to be at low risk of bleeding.

Other symptoms, such as headaches, dizziness, nausea and sensitivity to light are persistent. As the concussion was severe and complex, this is to be expected, but whether or not they will be chronic or fade cannot be determined at this time. Further observation is required.

Medicine prescribed: Ergotamine, 200 mg tablets, to be taken as needed, oral. For headache, nausea, sensitivity to light.

Recommendation: four-to-six week leave with bed-rest and abstinence from strenuous physical activity and chakra-molding for the first month or until the symptoms fade. Gradual reintroduction to physical activity and chakra-molding should take place during the rest of the leave. Weekly appointments with the Neurology and Psychiatrics departments and attending medics for the first two months and later as needed as determined by patient and chief attending medics. C-class missions only until cleared by chief attending medic.

It was nowhere near as extensive as he would have liked it to be, but it was nonetheless what he had expected: pared down to the bare bones. He replaced the file and headed for home, discomfort that rankled suspiciously like guilt curling in his stomach.


He dreamed about her again that night.

This time, he saw her across a battlefield, one fraught with energy and flying jutsu and weaponry. She danced with her whips, an eerily enchanting promenade of lashing leather, glinting metal and flashing eyes. Her hair flew around her body in a bloody crescendo of fire, scintillating and deadly. She turned and pirouetted and bounded with the grace of a hunting leopardess, intent gaze flitting between enemies, feet light and sure, moving so fast they barely touched the ground as she whirled.

She was painted with fire and brimstone, branded in his mind in oranges and reds of sunsets and battles.

He woke, panting and painfully aroused.


He avoided her after that, until Rin, armed with lunch, ice tea and a slouching Kakashi, ambushed him in his office.

"Don't you two have work to be doing?" he asked snidely. His lack of sleep and lack of progress on the Rasengan had caught up with him, and he swore the paperwork was breeding.

"Just got off my morning shift, Sensei. I thought I'd drag Kakashi-kun along," Rin said happily, setting out a lunch of vegetable stir-fry noodles and orange chicken. "Seriously, I can't do this for you forever."

"You need a girlfriend or something," Kakashi piped up, his one visible eye curling into a crescent moon.

"Or something," he retorted. He liked females like he liked sushi or a good book—cerebral appreciation with no emotional edge. He wasn't one to wax poetic about the 'downy breasts of the goddess of the night, plump in the moonlight, milky in pallor and silken in their texture'; that was strictly Jiraiya-sensei's domain. (And ever since he had heard something about midnight ceremonies—'initiation rites' they were called, though he couldn't fathom what cult they were for—involving black magic, a goat, and his used tissues, he had kept a wise distance. Rin had laughed it off, albeit uneasily, so he refrained from asking. Some things were better off unsaid.)

Besides, the reason he didn't have a significant other, her mused, nursing a glass of iced tea and squinting at a particularly verbose document, was that he had never quite found a woman with enough—enough character, enough tenacity, enough—well, he wasn't sure what it was, exactly, that elusive quality he desired (though in all fairness, his ninja career had hardly given him enough leisure time in which to ponder upon it), but he had never quite found someone who would welcome his faults and his foibles along with his exploits. They all saw the genius, but wanted to know nothing of the man simmering beneath.

And none had rushed to his defense like Kushina-san had, either.

He wanted to squash that thought, squash it until it was a nothing more than a smear, but he heaved a sigh and blotted a spot of ink on the scroll on his desk.

He wasn't proud of the way he had acted in her room. He hadn't meant to dress her down like that; anger that should have been directed inward had found itself drawn to her much too easily—it was shamefully simple to blame her for being reckless and irresponsible rather than lash himself for not being competent enough. She had scared him, her and her willingness to give up her life for him, to defend him. It was…and odd kind of fear, one he didn't like at all, like something infinitely precious was falling off an infinitely high precipice and he was lunging—in desperation, in vain—to snatch it back.

In any case, it was time he manned up and apologized.


He conned her appointment schedule out of Rin the next day, and timed it so he would be taking his oft-ignored lunch break just as she emerged from the hospital.

He caught sight of her before she saw him. He sighed; she looked well and strong, her skin having regained its peach blush and her movements unhindered by injuries. Her hair, glossy and shining in the sunlight, danced around her hips, which brought to mind another sort of dancing, and he shut that thought up with gusto.

She finally caught sight of him and stopped, brows furrowed, face unreadable. Minato panicked slightly, then panicked some more because he didn't make a habit of panicking, and thus, didn't quite know how to deal with it. Kushina-san was not unreadable—her face was an open, expressive book, a painting of emotion; she wasn't a typical kunoichi, having specialized in pure blunt-force combat and having absolutely no skill for the special brand of feminine dissemination that was familiar to so many of her female comrades. But now, he couldn't read her face, couldn't discern the ripples in her wide hazel eyes, couldn't decipher the quirk of her mouth.

It disconcerted him. He knew next to nothing about her—he knew her combat abilities and what justus she had mastery over, but nothing important: did not know what she liked for breakfast and what she thought of the Academy's emphasis on rigid rule-adhering behavior, what her favorite foods were, what expressions she would make in the throes of passion, or how her hand would clutch at the sheets, or the weight of her sleep-laced smile in the morning, or how her hands curled around a cup of coffee or how--if, really--they tucked under her chin.

He did not give voice to his thoughts. Instead, he smiled widely and asked, "Would you like to join me for lunch?"