*Disclaimer: It's my mind, Masashi Kishimoto's characters.*

Kankurou sat down in a chair and kicked up his feet again. It took him almost an hour and a half to put all of Sakura's books away. And she had plenty of them. They ranged from little paperbacks on the integumentary system to colossal leather bound monstrosities that held everything known to man about every herb or plant ever found. Just as he was relaxing in his seat a knock sounded on the door. And Sakura answered in a cheery voice, like filing scroll after scroll wasn't mind numbingly boring.

"Come in."

Kankurou turned to watch the Reina enter hesitantly. "Sakura-sama I hope you don't mind but I asked the department heads to meet in the conference room down the hall."

For a second it looked like she would duck out the door but she stayed standing.

"That's a great idea Reina thank you. I'm glad you came."

"R-really?"

Sakura stood knocking Kankurou's feet off her desk as she walked over to the door. "I was wondering if you'd help me out until I got the hang of things here. You'd be working directly under me as my assistant. You'll be getting paid for your time as well."

The curvy brunette beamed at her new boss and bowed. "I'd be honored to work with you Sakura-sama."

She smiled at her taking her shoulder and exiting with her. Kankurou sighed following them out and closing the door behind him. He was one of the last to enter the bright conference room. He took up a spot leaning against the wall by the door as Sakura took the seat at the head of the table. Reina stood behind her, off to the side.

"As you all are probably aware, the hospital's been in a change of hands."

She heard the words temperamental bitch muttered and she quickly let her gaze rest of the mumbler.

It was a blonde bimbo. Well she was the Head Nurse so she probably wasn't a bimbo but you get the idea. Her blue eyes burned with hatred. Sakura was going to end this before it starts.

"I don't care if you talk about me behind my back but I can hear you mumbling under your breath."

Her blue eyes widened under Sakura's green eyed observation.

"If you want to join you're lover, I'll have it arranged."

The blonde immediately broke their eye contact and looked at the table. Sakura sighed. Usually the Chief of Medicine was sleeping with the Head Nurse. For once she wished that this overused soap opera cliché wasn't true. She turned her eye to the rest of the Heads of Hospital.

"If any of you have a problem with me or the way I'm going to run this hospital tell me now so I don't have to waste time finding your replacements later."

She saw a few eyes dart nervously around the room and when their eyes landed on Kankurou near the door all eyes fell back to her.

"My name is Haruno Sakura. I'm a Jounin Medic from the land of fire. I've been running Hidden leaf's hospital for two years now. Gaara has asked me to come and help with an epidemic. He has also given me full leeway to run this hospital as I see fit." She watched them carefully for any sign of unease or argument. "The first thing I wanted to be enacted immediately is the end of this bogus rule of civilians see civilian doctors."

The Head Medic-nin raised his voice. "Why would you do that?"

Sakura turned to the wiry white haired man. "Because medics can find the root of the problem faster and spend less of the hospital's money doing it. And besides this hospital was meant to be a teaching hospital. I'll be training several medic-nins along with your departments help of course."

He watched the man as her words hit home, she left him no room to argue.

"The second thing I'll be abolishing is those nurses' uniforms."

This got the head nurse out of her stupor. "What!? Why!? They are completely practical!"

Sakura fought the urge to snort at this woman. Of course she thought it was practical, it fit her like a second skin. It looked practical when she was making out on top of the chief of medicine's desk. She quickly stored away that information in the back of her head. She'd have to ask the janitor to sanitize it to within an inch of the wood lacquer's life. But she had others things to handle like the glare she was getting from the blonde.

"What's practical about having blood drip down the front of your shirt when you're trying to stop a hemorrhage in a injured ninja's leg? What's so practical about a skirt so short that you might as well just tell everyone around you what color your underwear is?" She got a lot of sniggers from the people at the table around her. She could hear Reina try to hold it back. It was her former mentor that was the brunt of the joke after all. Kankurou grinned at the back of the blonde's head. "And what might I ask is so practical about wearing heels for 12 hours straight?"

This got the nurse riled up. She stood letting her chair scrape behind her roughly. "If the uniform goes, I go!"

"If you really care more about your outfit than the health of the patients at this hospital then you should leave."

She looked like someone had stuck her she was so shocked. She looked around the table for backup and when she didn't get any she glared at Sakura before turning on her heel and leaving. Sakura noticed how she didn't even look at Kankurou as she passed.

"Now, I'll ask again, if anyone else wants to leave, this would be the time."

They looked around the table and seemed fine were they were at. An old gray haired women with a round happy face smiled at her.

"I was going to retire this month from being the Head of Radiology and Hematology but I think I'll stick around. You look like fun kid."

She smiled at this old women, grateful that she seemed kind. She'd be working with her until she found out what this epidemic actually was after all.

"Well I think that about sums everything up. If I need to say anything else I'll send a message through Reina and we'll meet here. If you need me I've taken up Yun's old office and I'll be splitting my time between my ten patients, clinic duty, and running the hospital." She stood up and gave them all a friendly smile. "Any questions?"

The psychologist raised his hand. He was young and exotic looking. He had dark purple hair and vibrant gold eyes. "May I inform you that your attire is inappropriate for your position as well."

Sakura looked down at her medic shorts and skirt and her red shirt with her family symbol.

"I think you're right. If the nurses get to get new uniforms then I guess I should get one too." She smiled at all of them. "It was nice meeting you all."

She left the room with Reina and Kankurou in tow. They followed quietly back to her office as Sakura picked up a few scrolls and handed them to Reina.

"These medicines should be available in the pharmacy. I want you to make sure the nurses start them on the ten right away. We'll give it three days to run its course, if it doesn't work then it isn't a new strain of the influenza virus. I'll need blood work done every morning. And make sure the word gets round that you nurses can start wearing scrubs again. The hospital will reimburse them."

She bowed to her a smile still playing on her lips. "Yes Sakura-sama."

She closed the door as Sakura reached the file cabinets in the back corner of the office. She opened three drawers before she found the hospitals current budget. She sat down and placed the hefty file on her desk.

"Now to make sure the hospital won't go bankrupt while I'm here."

Kankurou sat down and put his feet up on her desk again. "I think maybe Gaara might have let loose a monster."

She didn't answer him. She just used her hand that was free of sorting papers to push his size elevens off the desk.

It had been four days since Sakura arrived in Suna and took over the hospital. On the second day she did get a new uniform. She took up Temari's offer and borrowed black dress pants and a few nice blouses. Reina had even gone out of her way to find her a white doctor's coat that Sakura had altered to fit her style. She used dye for the diagnostic tests to imprint bright red zero's along the cuffs and around the bottom of the coat. When Kankurou walked in to find her sitting cross legged on her desk with paintbrush in hand he didn't question it. He just sat and started. She was one of very few people that surprised him. But then again her best friend was at the very top of that totem pole. Naruto had always stumped him. Of all the things he noticed though, one thing stood out far more than anything else.

Sakura didn't eat much. Breakfast wasn't breakfast. Breakfast was usually two cups of coffee. Two cups of straight black, strong coffee. He was surprised when she first poured the inky liquid in her cup and drunk it down. He'd guessed that she'd pile in the sugar and boy did he guess wrong. Sakura also didn't eat lunch, more like she didn't have time to eat lunch. And dinner was a different story. She picked at her food while she read medical reports or test data. So on the fourth day he decided to intervene because he knew Tsunade, not to mention Kakashi, hell half of Konoha, would be pissed if he let Sakura returned as a bag of skin and bones.

Around lunchtime Sakura sat at the nurses desk going over her medic-nin's notes that they had taken while making rounds in the clinic. She glanced at him to tell him hey. He smiled at the nurses working around her. They all smiled back. One, who he'd been flirting with for the better part of the week, winked at him. He really did love being the only rooster in the chicken coop.

"Ladies if you don't mind I need to steal Sakura away."

The one that winked rested her chin on her hand and pouted at him. "Why can't you steal me away Kankurou-kun?"

He gave her a lopsided grin. "One of these days I might just do that but right now it's Sakura's lunch time."

Sakura waved her hand vaguely in his direction. "I'll eat later, I busy Kankurou."

"No, I think you'll eat now." He smiled down over her and the nurse's grinned with him.

He wrapped his chakra strings around her torso careful to pull her fists against her so she wouldn't try to swing at him if she broke free, though it wasn't likely. Kankurou prided himself on no one being able to break his chakra strings.

"WHAT THE HELL!?"

Kankurou just walked to her office tugging her behind him. He looked over his shoulder to find the nurses giggling quietly.

"KANKUROU! I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!"

He pulled her through the door to her office and smiled at the nurses down the hall. "Sakura's on break for half an hour. Don't knock unless it's an emergency."

He shut the door and turned back to one hell of an angry Kunoichi.

"Sakura if I let you go will you try to hit me?"

"YES."

He sighed sitting on the couch and pulling two hearty sandwiches out of a bag from the cafeteria. He unraveled one hand from his chakra strings and inched forward to hand her a sandwich. She couldn't move much because her body was still wrapped tightly in glowing blue. When she didn't take the sandwich he danced it in front of her face.

"Mmm sandwich."

He gave her an overly cheery smile and she groaned as she reached out and took the sandwich form him.

"I hate you."

He shrugged, " Ninja's gotta eat. Medic-nin especially."

He caught her eye for the last part and she huffed. He'd noticed her eating habits. He knew that she needed to keep her stamina up to use her Jutsu effectively.

"Let me go. I can't promise I won't take a swing at you but I'll eat the damn sandwich."

He smiled, "Atta girl."

The second he unraveled her from his strings she plucked a tomato from her sandwich and it landed directly in the middle of his cowl. He pulled it from his head and sighed. "I guess I deserved that."

She shrugged, "I don't like tomatoes."

She leaned back into the sofa and bit into his sandwich as a thought popped into his mind. "So what else don't you like?"

She chewed her bite before talking. "What is this twenty questions?"

Kankurou nodded talking past a mouthful of ham and cheese. "You ask me one I ask you one."

She narrowed her eyes at him but shrugged. "I don't like when people talk with their mouths full."

He swallowed what he was chewing. "Dually noted."

"Did you know that you have a red tint to your hair?"

He sat there for a second. Of all the things for her to ask she asked about his hair. "No I didn't."

She shrugged spinning her chair side to side. He realized she was waiting for her question.

"So Chouji huh?"

Another tomato landed on his forehead. He slid it off and used his ruined cowl to wipe the tomato juice off his head. "You're gonna smudge my paint."

She huffed biting into her sandwich viciously.

"You can't ask me a question until you answer mine."

"Fine. Yeah I dated Chouji, your point?"

He smiled, "Got anymore tomatoes?"

She peeked under her bread and eyed him suspiciously. "No."

"This is going to make me sound like I'm a dick but I can't just picture you and him together."

She glared at him and he felt the urge to duck behind the couch he was sitting on for cover. "What because of his size?"

He pulled at the collar of his shirt. He could have sworn her glare could melt the polar ice caps. "Well yeah."

She kept glaring at him until she sighed and picked at the lettuce on her sandwich. "Well when we dated he wasn't big. In fact he's just a little taller than you."

He quirked an eye brow at her. "What, do you mean Chouji buffed out?"

She shrugged, "I guess you could say that."

He waited for her to explain as they both ate their lunch.

"I hadn't seen Chouji in a year. I was on a mission with Kakashi and of course he got hurt. I was trying to heal him when some goon said that he was going to steal the sharingan. So I beat the crap out of him but he nicked me with a poisoned kunai. I did what I could for Kakashi but he was still too weak to fight. Then the goons' friends came. I was having trouble standing let alone fighting. Then out of nowhere this ninja broad sides the five guys coming at us. If it wasn't for the Leaf symbol and the Family seal on his armor I would have never known he was our ally. But at that point in time I could put two and two together and get macaroni. After he finished with the goons I was barely conscious. I told him that we needed to get back to Konoha and that I had the poisoned kunai for an antidote. He told me that I kept calling him Hitoyama because I couldn't focus on his face. I could only see his outline. He was huge like this massive mountain of a man."

He smiled along with her. He liked knowing these things about her.

"So he got us back to Konoha and me and Kakashi ended up okay. Well except for me."

She laughed and it was nice sound. A sound Kankurou could get used to.

"I was out of it for a few days. Apparently the after affects of the poison in my system was a strong hallucinogenic. I think I called Kakashi dog breath for the rest of the week." She put her finger to her lips in thought then a soft smile came across her face. "Chouji came visit me every day. He told that he wouldn't stop coming until I stopped calling him Hitoyama. And I didn't stop it even though the drugs wore off. I didn't stop for seven months. I think that's when I felt requited love for the first time. But I couldn't stay with him. I loved him too much."

Kankurou brows furrowed together. He wasn't big on the whole you have to find true love rule that every single woman in the world tried to live by. But somehow he thought he understood it better than Sakura.

"What do you mean you loved him too much? Isn't that the whole point of being in a relationship? To find love."

She laughed at him. "Oh yeah, the ladies man should talk."

He grinned but motioned for her to go on.

"I don't know. Somewhere in the back of my head, twisted and stupid as it sounds out loud, I felt like because I loved him he would leave… like Sasuke."

He gave her a small smile, "Sakura, you're right it sounds stupid. Really damn stupid."

She sighed balling up her sandwich wrapped and chucking in into the waste bin on side of her desk. "I just wasn't ready. He knew that I loved him but I just couldn't be with him. It wasn't fair that I compared him to Sasuke. He was better than Sasuke but by the time I figured that out he'd moved on. I could only be happy for him though. He found someone that could love him like he deserved to be loved."

He watched as countless emotions passed over her face. Some he had felt before. Guilt, anger, longing. And a few he never thought he see from her. Pain, sadness, regret.

"I don't know who the hell he could have found better than you."

She locked eyes with him, "Ino's cousin Anzu."

Kankurou was sure that the nurses heard their laughter all the way down the hall.

Hitoyama means mountain. And the next chapter will probably be a little hefty.