I do not own any rights to Naruto.
As it turned out, it was a matter of weeks before he saw her again.
His team had been assigned to what should have been a relatively simple reconnaissance mission in Cloud country just after his second hospital appointment. Three weeks of Genma, Shisui, and himself dropping in and out of the capital, slowly drawing out information like poison from a wound.
The analogy, however, had proven only too apt.
A day before they were to return home, an ANBU team from Cloud had passed just a hair too close to their campsite and felt the brush of foreign chakra. If it had been anyone other than an ANBU-level team, they might have slid under the radar, but luck had not been on their side.
Retreat was not an option. Their presence could not be reported back to the enemy. The ensuing battle, however, had almost cost them everything. At some point in their two hour long battle, Genma had been grazed by a poisoned senbon. Itachi was forced to utilize his freshly-healed doujutsu to end it quickly and get his comrade home.
His Mangekyou and Shisui's Shunshin were probably the only reason Genma even made it to the front gates.
Soaked to the bone from their run through the elements, Itachi blinked past the rain water and blood obscuring his view and marched through the doors of a hospital he was becoming all too familiar with.
He didn't even manage to get a word out before a wide-eyed nurse picked up a phone and shouted a, "Code Blue!" order.
The next few minutes proved to be a bustle of gurneys, bandages, nurses, and IV bags.
"Get a line of antibiotics in him!"
"No major breaks, but evidence of major contusions."
"Call Haruno-sensei. He's not going to survive with anything less."
Another nurse attempted to usher Itachi into one of the exam rooms, but he simply waved her off. With no major injuries, he was content to remain in the waiting room until the fate of his teammate was determined. Shisui, however, was hovering at the edges of chakra exhaustion from his overuse of both the Sharingan and his Shunshin technique and was admitted.
Three long hours – longer than their actual battle – Itachi sat waiting for any sort of news, never falling asleep, but reaching a sort of resting meditative state.
Finally, an exhausted nurse, still covered in blood from the OR, emerged in the waiting room. "Uchiha-taichou?"
Itachi was already on his feet. "Shiranui's status?"
The nurse gave him a tired smile. "Alive and thriving." Itachi had no idea how tense he was until those three little words released every ounce of stress he had been holding onto. "He will be admitted and kept in ICU overnight for close observation, but he is expected to make a full recovery."
Itachi nodded. "Thank you, and the rest of your team, for all of your hard work."
The nurse waved him off. "It's our job, Uchiha-taichou. Besides, Haruno-sensei did the heavy lifting."
As the nurse left to find a clean pair of scrubs, Itachi was overcome with the urge to thank the medic personally. He hadn't seen her exit, so he deduced she had returned to her office or her rounds. Navigating deeper into the hospital, Itachi first checked Shisui's room and found his cousin fast asleep recuperating. Then, Itachi followed the familiar route to Haruno's office.
Upon arrival, he noted the door was cracked open just slightly. He knocked twice politely, before pushing open the door the rest of the way, only to freeze at the sight that greeted him.
She had indeed returned to her office, but it seemed just barely. Similar to the nurse who had checked in with him, she was also still wearing her dirty scrubs. It appeared that she had intended to sit for a moment on her couch and review Genma's paperwork, which must have fallen from her lap onto the floor the moment she lost consciousness. Her head had, luckily, landed on the arm rest of the couch, but her neck would certainly be in pain tomorrow if she remained in that position. Her left hand, he noticed with a frown, was holding one of those damned protein bars, unwrapped with a single bite taken out of it.
Would this woman ever learn to take care of herself the way she cared for her patients?
He knew with utter certainty that he could not leave her like this. Especially after she had spent all of her energy saving his teammate.
Closing the door behind him, he strode across the room and knelt beside the couch, gathering the fallen papers from the floor and extricating the protein bar from her grip. Reaching over her too still form, he plucked a pillow from the other side of the couch. As carefully as he could, he reached around her shoulders to rotate her frame and slide the pillow under her head. He wouldn't be able to do anything about the dirty scrubs, but after a quick examination, he found a blanket in a basket beside the couch and laid it over her.
The entire time he was seeing to her comfort, she did not so much as shift in her unconscious state. Knowing what it took to dull a shinobi's senses, even in sleep, only made Itachi more agitated.
How often was she leaving herself completely defenseless? In the event of an attack, she would be completely unprepared to defend herself. Her door had even been left open.
A quick assessment of her face showed deep bags under her eyes and cheeks that appeared hollower than the last time he had seen her. This was not a new phenomenon.
Sitting with his back against the couch, the ANBU captain kept his steely gaze trained on the unconscious medic and wondered what his path forward would be. He admired Sakura, thought she was intelligent and gifted in a way few appreciated. She was also recklessly selfless, giving everything to her job when she had nothing to prove to anyone.
He had walked into her office against his will to get his eyes fixed, only to have his interest piqued by his brother's teammate, the unlikeliest of people.
Mind made up, Itachi levered himself to his feet with only some stiffness and activated the lowest level of his Sharingan. First, he had some adjustments to make to her office security. He had to ensure she remained safe while he had some errands to run.
The first thing that hit her was the aching. Chakra overuse always came a price, and, in this instance, that price felt similar to the last time she had been Tsunade's punching bag.
The second thing she did was try and remember how she had gotten here in the first place. Thinking back, she remembered working on an antidote equation with Shizune in the lab when a chunin called for her in the OR.
Genma, she suddenly remembered, she had been working on Genma. Shizune's relationship with the pervy nin prevented her from taking the case, and Sakura hadn't hesitated for a moment to scrub in.
The poison he had been infected with was one that was familiar to her – what had they been doing in Cloud country? – but it had spread enough to make her task a difficult one. The extraction had taken two hours of careful, chakra-consuming work, then rebuilding what the neurotoxin had tried to destroy had taken another additional hour.
By the time the procedure was done, Sakura had been dead on her feet. She had directed the head nurse to inform his teammates and Shizune of the patient status before trudging back to her office, one foot at a time. She didn't even remember being handed his charts. The path from office door to desk drawer for a snack to couch was a familiar one. She wanted to mark some details of the neurotoxin's progressed path on his charts for future record, but the world went sideways before she could make it happen.
Tsunade was going to rip her a new one. Again.
Realizing she had to face the music sooner rather than later, Sakura sighed and slowly began to blink her eyes open. Her first view was of the pretty periwinkle pillows Ino had gotten her for her office, which was surprising. She didn't think she was going to be lucky enough to land on one of those this time.
Pushing herself up, Sakura hissed at the immediate twinge from her cramped muscles and did her best to breathe deeply past the pain. Holding her head in her hands, she gave herself a moment to consider pulling the pillow over her face and ending her own misery.
"There are painkillers on the table, Haruno-san."
With a very un-shinobi-like yelp, Sakura jumped and found her gaze pulled to the other side of her office, where, miracle upon miracles, Uchiha Itachi appeared to have taken over her desk.
He didn't look up from his work, despite her sudden attention. Merely continued writing what appeared to be a mission report with smooth, unhurried strokes of his pen.
Sakura was half-convinced she was dreaming, or at least hallucinating.
Why on earth was Uchiha Itachi of all people doing in her office, minding his own business, while she was dead to the world?
The question was thought-provoking and mildly concerning in so many different ways her brain didn't know where to start.
When it became apparent to him that not all of her synapses were firing correctly yet, he finished his sentence and looked up from his work. He gestured smoothly with his chin towards her coffee table and tried explaining again, "There are painkillers and water on the table. There's also real coffee from outside the hospital. I wasn't sure how you took it, so it's black. I hope you don't mind."
Yup. She was definitely hallucinating. There was no way this was real.
But the smell of coffee was just starting to hit her, and the vein that was beginning to pulsate in her head demanded she take the painkillers that were indeed sitting on the table in front of her. Carefully reaching out, she snagged two pills and downed them with the full glass of water before turning her attention to the coffee he had brought.
A single sip confirmed that, wherever it came from, it wasn't the sludge that they served in the breakroom. The dark roast burned all the way down to her stomach and made her feel a little more human again. Sakura couldn't help the way she sighed happily.
A quiet humming sound reached her ears, and her eyes snapped open to meet the Uchiha's gaze once again. She wouldn't say that he was smiling, but the twinkle in his eye was definitely something new.
Now that she was a little more alert and awake, a million questions came to the forefront of her brain, but, before any of them could escape her mouth, she forced herself to say, "Thank you, Uchiha-san, for the coffee."
He nodded politely in return. "I have heard caffeine is good for the migraines that follow chakra exhaustion."
As far as accusations went, it was certainly subtler than what she was used to. However, the innocence underlying the words made her eyes narrow. Setting down the mug of coffee on the table, Sakura answered in the same blasé tone as the Uchiha. "Yes, well, unfortunately emergency procedures don't allow for a lot of preparation. What's a little chakra exhaustion in the face of a life or death situation?"
Something in that statement made his features sharpen just the slightest bit. It shouldn't have made her anxious, but Sakura fought to keep from swallowing in an outward show of nervousness. Carefully setting down his pen, Uchiha Itachi slowly leaned back in his chair and let the full weight of his attention settle on her.
Caught in the web of his focus, he went in for the kill. "How many emergency surgeries precisely does it take to drain the entirety of your chakra? I would imagine, as the Hokage's apprentice, that a single poison extraction should not deplete your stores entirely."
Sakura could feel her heart beating harder in her chest, but she refused to let him see that. She kept her gaze firmly pinned on his own, determined not to be intimidated by his pretty Uchiha eyes. "Normally, it would not," she conceded, "but, I was on shift at the time and had been working on several other cases."
"How long?"
She blinked at his sudden question. "Pardon?"
"How long were you on your shift?"
That was the kicker. Sakura went through her schedule in reverse from the time of Genma's call. She had been working in the lab on a new poison from Sound with Shizune, who had made a breakthrough as Sakura was doing her rounds, of which she pulled a double shift.
Sakura winced internally. Oh yeah. Tsunade was going to kill her.
If Uchiha Itachi didn't get to her first, apparently.
But why did he care, she wondered, at a complete and total loss. They had only met a handful of times, were only connected through her work and through his relationship with Sasuke. Why was he acting like he had the right to question her schedule and her work?
A spark of irritation pushed past her nervousness, and Sakura found herself answering more sharply than she had originally intended. "My hospital hours are none of your concern, Uchiha-san. While I appreciate your hospitality, I most certainly do not need an interrogation over my work ethic."
"I am not questioning your work ethic," he countered easily enough, "quite the opposite." Gracefully, he pushed the chair back from her desk and reached into a bag he must have brought with him. Pulling out two small boxes, he rose to his feet and made his way over to the couch where she was still sitting. Setting the boxes one by one on the table, he continued, "You have proven that you are committed completely to your work, even at the cost of your own personal health."
Sakura could only watch in stunned silence as he carefully opened one of the boxes to unveil a beautiful bento display – was that handmade? – that immediately made her mouth water, reminding her that she hadn't eaten since before working in the lab with Shizune.
But, quickly, she forced herself to remember that he was still chastising her. "I'm the medic here, Uchiha-san," she told him sullenly. "I do not need to be lectured on my health."
"No," he agreed, surprisingly, as he handed her a pair of chopsticks, "but you do need to be taken care of, apparently."
She almost dropped her chopsticks in her lap. "I do not–"
"Eat first," he cut across her immediately, digging into his own bento. "It will give you more strength to argue later."
And, despite herself, Sakura actually found a quiet huff of unexpected laughter escaping her mouth.
"Well," she mused, as she scooped a large serving of rice into her mouth, "I can't argue with that."
A/N: Sorry this took so long for me to post, you guys! The original plan was to have this be three chapters, but I think I like it to much.
Let me know if you guys agree!