*****
2 Weeks Later
*****
"But Sakura-chan, what if he never comes out of this coma?"
"Naruto, how many times do I have to tell you, being in a coma this long is only natural, his chakra reserves were completely depleted to the point of collapse and those 'oh so gentle' ANBU that Tsunade sent after him left him so beaten up it's surprising he didn't die in the 3 days he spent in isolation."
"But…"
"No buts, you helped re-charge his chakra and even YOU were out of it for a whole day."
"Alright, but I still want him to wake up so I can pound him into the ground a couple of times for being so close and not even having the decency to come visit…"
"Naruto!"
Suddenly, a window on the third floor of the Konoha hospital, the floor reserved for patients recovering from surgery, was smashed out as a 22 year old blonde haired young man was heaved headfirst out of it. Naruto, being used to Sakura's random outbreaks of rage, was ready, and braced himself for the crash and nimbly bounced off of a nearby building in one smooth movement and jumped back in the same window. When he landed with his hands lightly touching the ground and his knees bent, he sees Sakura standing next to the window with her fists clenched so hard he swore he could hear her knuckles breaking.
"You self centered, egotistical prick, I exhaust myself to the point of collapse TWICE during surgery trying to save him and all you want is for him to recover so I can just come back and do it all again?"
"Sakura-chan, I was only kidding, please, don't hit me again…" Naruto pleads, cringing back against the wall, trying not to trip over some of the shards of the broken window.
"If you weren't who you are, I would heave you out of here and tell you never to step foot in this Hospital ever again." she fumes, slowly unclenching her fists, the anger visibly fading from her face. "But you are you, and I really don't know what I'd do without you here."
"Sakura-chan." he says, standing up. He takes 3 large strides across the room and wraps his arms around her as she buries her face into the soft orange fabric of his jacket. He feels her start to shake with silent tears and he lowers his forehead to her shoulder and tries to give her some form of comfort. "I know, it's so hard seeing him laying in that bed, hooked to all of those machines, and not knowing if he really will pull through this."
She continues to cry into his jacket and Naruto just holds her, sometimes nuzzling her shoulder or hair, sometimes just looking over at the unmoving figure of their team mate, his dark hair the only splash of color against the white of the pillow and the white of his skin. He was hooked to at least half a dozen different machines, most of which he had no idea what purpose they served. At least they didn't make any noise, after the first couple of days of listening to the overlapping beeps, he snapped and told the nurses to turn off the sound. The noise really wasn't necessary, either himself, or Sakura, but most of the time both, were always in the room and would be able to call for help if anything happened.
When he noticed that Sakura's crying was starting to slow down, and that the sun was slowly going down, he reached down and picked her up bridal style, her face still buried into his shoulder, and gently placed her down on the 1 other bed in the room, which had been left empty for them to use when they got tired during their seemingly never ending vigil. As he pulled away, Sakura looked up at him with red rimmed eyes and gave him a small smile, which was her way of saying thanks when something like this happened. Darting forward, he places a small kiss on her cheek and then pulls up the covers over her shoulders.
"Sleep Sakura, I'll keep watch."
"Ok…"
She closes her eyes and pulls her knees up to her chest underneath the blanket and doesn't fall asleep as pass out from exhaustion. Naruto smiles weakly at her slumbering figure and turns towards the doorway. Opening the door, he quietly calls to the nurse on duty down the hallway.
"We're going to need a new window in here."
"I see, we'll get someone in there right away Naruto-sama. You're just lucky it's not winter, at least you'll get some breeze in there instead of freezing to death." the nurse rolls her eyes and grabs the phone at her elbow and starts speaking into it too quietly for Naruto to hear from his location in the doorway. He smiles, and turns back into the room and closes the door. Looking again towards Sakura, he sees that she's still asleep from his little conversation with the nurse. He walks to the other side of the room and grabs the broom from the corner next to the window and begins sweeping up the shards of glass that litter the floor. The last time that this had happened, she had thrown a potted plant at him, and he had been told that the cleaning crew wasn't responsible for cleaning up after 'preventable' messes. So he had requested that a broom be left in the room at all times just in case.
Lulled into a soothing rhythm by the strokes of the broom, he began to remember what had brought him to the hospital this time, and it had all begun from a visit from a very distraught Sakura.
*****
Flashback
*****
"NARUTO!!!"
"Sakura?" he calls out into the darkness, he had dozed off on his small couch, the book that he had been trying to read by order of the Hokage had fallen out of his hands and was on the floor. His window was open to the night and he swore that he had heard his pink haired team mate yelling his name from just outside his window.
"NARUTO, I NEED YOU TO GET OUT HERE RIGHT NOW!!!"
"COMING!" he yells, quickly jumping to his feet, forsaking grabbing his jacket and bag for speed, and bounding out the door to his apartment and down the stairs to the street. He sees Sakura standing there shaking violently, her face bleached white with fear, and without any weapons on her at all. The only time that Naruto had seen her like that was when Kakashi-sensei had been admitted to the hospital after being poisoned by a rogue mist ninja 2 years ago. She had been put in charge of interrogating the ninja and had come out of it emotionally drained and scared for her teacher's health.
"What on earth is going on, Sakura-chan?"
"It's Sasuke, Naruto. The ANBU brought him back a few days ago." she stumbles out, tears starting to stream down her cheeks. "Tsunade put him in isolation for 3 days and she just had me interrogate him."
"What the hell? How could he be here without us knowing it?"
"That's the thing, she left orders that we not be told until she gave me the assignment. The only problem is, Naruto, he's dying!" she sobs, falling to her knees on the pavement and holding her head in her hands. "He's suffering from so many internal injuries, infections, and chakra depletion that I don't know what to do…"
"Sakura, where is he now?"
"The guards at the prison took him to the hospital and Shizune told me to get you and to meet her there ASAP."
"Then let's get going!"
"I… don't know if… I can…"
"Then I'll take you there myself."
Naruto bends over, picks Sakura up off of the ground and jumps up onto the rooftop of his building. Sakura grasps onto his shoulders tightly as he jumps from building to building towards the hospital as she continues to cry into his mesh shirt. It is late enough that he can see that there are only 2 windows that are lit in the Hospital and luckily enough for him there is a balcony outside of one of them. He takes the final jump and lands nimbly on the balcony, one arm still holding Sakura and the other one reaching for the door handle leading into the ICU waiting room. Before he can open it, Tsunade herself is pulling the door open and moving aside so Naruto can carry a suddenly quiet Sakura inside.
"Where is he?"
*****
End Flashback
*****
From that point, his memories are a jumbled mess of being dragged into the operating room, being placed in a chair next to the bed and being ordered to give up as much chakra as he could spare to help the surgeons and to feed directly into the shell of his best friend, and then passing out in that same chair when he gave too much.
Sweeping the last of the glass shards into the garbage can, he places the broom back into it's corner, and takes a seat in the one chair in the room, directly between the two beds. On his left hand side, the girl who had stood next to him these last 10 years through all of the missions and least of all the searching for their missing friend. And then, on his right, the friend, the brother that had left him for promises of power and vengence, the friend who had almost killed him in the Valley of the End only to leave him, swearing that he would gain power without killing anyone, the friend who had alluded them for all this time only to show up again without even a hello.
He didn't know who to look at, who to reach out and touch, who to worry about more. He settled for reaching out one hand to both of them, placing his left hand on Sakura's head, into the mass of silky pink hair, and his right hand on the lump that was Sasuke's shoulder underneath the blanket. Satisfied that he was connected to both of them, he settled into watching the moon rise above the rooftops.
*****