Chapter Four: House Call

Part 2

All of eight years old, and the child's height still didn't pass Shikamaru's hip. He gripped Yuuri's hand and walked her to the end corner of Sakura's studio apartment. He practically had to lift her onto the bed, she was weakened so by her cold. Tucking the little girl in, he listened as Sakura noisily cleared off her coffee table and strategically placed the photos and files atop. His chocolate eyes stared down softly at his God daughter. Her tiny hands held the blanket tightly to her chin. Yuuri's eyes lidded heavily. And her airy voice, nearly drowned out by Sakura's noise, called to him as he turned to walk away.

"Shikamaru?" she rang.

He stopped, looking down at her struggling, sleep wanting form. And waited for her words to come. When they did, the sentence was so garbled that he had to chuckle. Whispering for her to sleep snugly, Shikamaru walked past the lamp and shut it off.

The only light now came from the kitchen and barely reached past the living room quarter. Trudging into the lighted area, bare feet cold against the hardwood floor, Shikamaru eyed the Sakura from behind. At least fifty files and matching photographs laid on the coffee table. More were scattered about the floor. Sakura stood in front of the floor pile, holing up sheet by sheet to examine. Her cheeks were flushed from frustration and exhaustion marred her heavy eyes. And as she mumbled to herself, reading over the file in hand, Shikamaru inched closer. A droplet of blood seeped through the paper's pores from a tiny paper cut on Sakura's pinky. Peering over her shoulder, Shikamaru speed read to the point at which Sakura's silent lips mouthed. As he continued on, her lips stopped. With Sakura's head turned slightly, observation switched parties.

Meeting her gaze, Shikamaru held out his hand for the file.

"So you will help me?" Sakura said with emphasis, clearing her throat as she handed him the paper. Her large eyes searched his scruffy face, hopeful.

Nodding, Shikamaru took the paper, folded it in half, then proceeded to sit in the floor, amongst the largest of piles. He sighed heavily and ran a rough hand over his face.

Some time passed. In which, Sakura had warmed tea and snuggled into her sofa while Shikamaru swept though the files. He had insisted on her getting rest. If only a little. After much protest, she had obliged him. Thus now lay snoring, sprawled out with her blue and white plaid blanket. Soft coughing from the shadows harmonized with the snores, filling the air. He hardly heard any of it as he finished familiarizing himself with at least three fourths of the files. And when he stopped reading, his face pale and his stomach sick, he jumped to his feet and rushed to the telephone. All of the sign and symptoms of the illness rushed his inner workings. The wheels turned and a light went off behind his eyes.

His ruckus woke Sakura. As Shikamaru wrestled the phone to a stool and dialed quickly, Sakura mumbled sleepy garble and struggled to sit up. Once up, she slung her legs over and stood, steadying herself on the coffee table. The blanket bunched up on the floor. Stepping over it, she hobbled, rubbing the sleep from her eyes, towards Shikamaru, who sat, body rigid, but voice in a panic as he rasped into the phone. By the time Sakura has reached him, he slammed the receiver down violently and cursed as he whirled around. He had not noticed her silent approach, however, and crashed against her when he turned. Both were startled. Upon crashing into Sakura, Shikamaru had steadied her half delirious form by grabbing her biceps. She stared up at him, her face a mask of confusion. His eyes were wild.

"You're breathing funny," she said in an asking tone. "Whats-"

"She has it!" he cracked. And flinging her loose, Shikamaru made a break for the front door, his shoes forgotten. "God damn it!" he yelled as he jerked open the door before Sakura could call him. And then he was gone, leaving the door standing wide open.

Sakura stood there, in the middle of the pile of photographs and paperwork, brow furrowed and mouth agape. She could hear him running from her apartment complex in a hurry, kicking up mud. Slowly her face relaxed. And then contorted into sheer terror. 'She has it,' he had said. Ino.

"Oh God," Sakura moaned. Shikamaru was rarely mistaken. About anything. She knew if he was right, then he too would contact the illness by rushing home to his highly contagious wife. Running to her opened door, she fled, barefoot as well. "I have to stop him," she said to herself, running after his footprints in the mud.

The time was fifteen after five, morning hours. She knew this because, as she ran and screamed after Shikamaru's distant form, the clock in the middle of Konoha chimed. The sun peeked out from the clouds. Shikamaru was obscured by early morning fog and sheets of heavy rain. Her lungs burned and her feet felt numb. She shivered as she ran, teeth chattering and eyes wide as Shikamaru's modest apartment came into view.

"No!" she yelled and lunged forward at him.

His open palm connected with her cheek, and smashed her face. They rolled until Shikamaru was on his back. Sakura sat on top of him, struggling to settle his frenzy and speak to his rational mind. But he bared his teeth and tried to throw her off of him.

"Fucking get off me," he growled. "She's in there! I have to see if she's all right!"

"Stop," she bit out, spitting the blood that now oozed from her lip beside of them. "Just stop!" Her breathing was erratic as she tried to catch it.

They both panted, puffs of white meeting between their muddied bodies. Exhaling one last, hard time, Shikamaru relaxed back into the water puddle. It splashed around them, rinsing some of the caked mud from Sakura's forearms as she held onto him still. He had given up for now. His head lolled to the side and he looked at his own front door.

"She didn't answer," he whispered, still out of breath. "She didn't answer. . ."

"Oh God," Sakura moaned, closing her eyes and letting the rain wash over her face as she lifted it to the skies. "She's been out of work for days," she said and touched her cheek. Her eyes were now open and shined with a saddened enlightenment.

"What. . .What?" Shikamaru rasped as he turned his face back, now half brown, and looked to her. "Why didn't you say something?" he barked and sat up. He shoved her off of him, but Sakura gripped his leg as he stood.

"I've been preoccupied," she defended. "I assumed you were caring for her. She's your wife. Your responsibility."

"No. She's Takashi's lover. His responsibility. Has been for a while now," he snapped. Then turned to the door, wrenching loose. He turned the door's knob and nothing happened. He reached into his pockets, then remembered that his keys were at Kurenai's. "Fuck," he gritted between his teeth, face skewered, and began banging on the locked door. "Ino! Open this door!"

All the while this was happening, Sakura sat still on the ground, holding her cheek. Realization soaked into her features. She wasn't even watching him. It wasn't until the loud crack of his foot meeting the wooden door echoed in her head that she snapped out of her daze and looked up at him, hand dropping into the puddle of murky water.

"If you waltz in there, unprotected," Sakura said with a sympathetic face that argued against her sudden voiced authority, "you are going to contact this disease, Shikamaru Nara. And it's apparent to me that I can't figure this shit out on my own. I need you. So stop being so God damned selfish. You need a mask. And so do I because I'm going in there with you."

They stared at one another after she stood up and unnecessarily dusted herself off. Finally, Shikamaru pulled the sweater from himself and ripped it into pieces. His eyes bore into her with hatred and he breathed through his mouth, teeth slightly showing. He thrust the piece of wet cloth in her face and told her that would have to do. Nervously, she took it. Staring at it for only a few seconds before she tied it around her nose and mouth. The drenched material made it difficult to breathe. Shikamaru looked at her once more before he kicked the door in. The pair was immediately met by a waft of putrid stench. Through the hastily crafted mask, Shikamaru bellowed his wife's name, and Sakura followed close behind as he wound through the small home. Across the living quarters and through the hallway. He followed the smell like a hunter's companion. And when they reached the door before the opened bedroom, the smell nearly overtook Sakura. She gasped and began fanning herself.

"Don't you faint on me," he pleaded.

She could hear the desperation in his voice. In that moment, as she looked at him with water in her eyes (from sadness of knowing or disgust, she was uncertain), she saw the boy in him that she once knew before all innocence had been torn from them both. And she reached out and held his hand. Something terrible was falling on all of Konoha. That smell of rot coming from Shikamaru and Ino's bathroom solidified the knowledge. Something dark was happening. She knew it and so did he.

With a shaking hand, Shikamaru turned the knob and creaked open the door. Slowly the view from inside met them. Sakura whimpered when she saw. Held back her scream, but not the tears that leaped to her eyes. She fell to her knees and tried to speak to Shikamaru. To say something of comfort, but her vision stilled and became blurry as she sat back on her haunches, unblinking at the ghastly sight inside of the porcelain tub. Her lips flapped silently. Walking, mostly in her line of sight, Shikamaru neared the bathtub and knelt quickly, reaching into the water with urgency. Sakura's eyes twitched over the scene, still stinging and blurred. He was shaking Ino. And she was stiff in his arms. Her eyes wide open and glassy, skin swollen and blue, mouth open and home to large, buzzing flies; hands clenched around the arm of Doctor Takashi, who lay naked on Shikamaru's bathroom floor. The doctor was covered in vomit and other excrement, long dried to his passed body. She couldn't hear Shikamaru's crying, and she was glad.

The funeral had been small and to the point. Her friends and family, what was left of her family, stood by and watched the coffin being lowered into the damp ground. Finally, the storm had ended a day prior. Ino was laid to rest. Sakura held tightly to the man beside of her. And she watched him closely, occasionally glancing at the older woman who also clung to him from the opposite side. When the last of the dirt was packed into the ground, Shikamaru gently freed himself from their grasps and turned around, began walking the graveled pathway away from the graveyard. The crowd was breaking up slowly, leaving. Those that walked by gave their second condolences and reached out to shake his hand. But he didn't take any hand shake, and stopped only briefly to light a cigarette. Inhaling, he looked over his shoulder and watched Sakura coming his way. Kurenai, with Yurri close behind, accompanied the magenta haired woman. He blew his smoke out as Sakura stepped up to him.

"Shikamaru," Sakura, voice muffled by the mask around her face, began as mother and daughter joined the pair, "I'm so sorry. I wish I-"

He stopped her with his cigarette wielding hand. He took another drag, then dropped the cancer stick to his feet, where he ground it out. Smoke still glided up around them as the ashes finished burning away. His eyes drifted over Sakura's flushed face, red from the sudden cold that had sneaked up on summer. He flicked his gaze behind her, to the other five funerals, all going on in unison. And as Kurenai and Yurri embraced him quickly, telling him to stop by soon, Shikamaru locked eyes with Sakura and a knowing passed between them. Once they were alone, Shikamaru nodded toward the distance, where families wailed in sorrow.

"You know what has to be done," he said.

And she shakily inhaled the crisp air.

"We have to weed out the sick," he said dryly. "We have to start quarantining." His eyes were red and he thought he would never cry again. Numb, he began walking with Sakura down the hillside. Today was bleak and he would spend it drinking the last of his alcohol while looking over pictures of his dead love.

Sakura walked with him as far as his apartment. She watched him go inside. They had seen something that had changed them. Not only that, but both had read over the terror in those files sprawled about her apartment, still. Repeatedly. And both had looked into the eyes of the other and shared a silent knowledge. She stood there for a while. She wasn't sure how long. Finally, when it started to get dark, Sakura felt the tears well up again. And she turned and began running, not home, but to the hospital.

Something dark weighed heavy on the shoulders of all who walked the streets. All who sat at home, sick. All who cried for their dead. Something wicked. More and more men, women, and children wore masks and steered clear of the public.

Together, she thought as she rushed into the emergency room and toward her office, she and Shikamaru, along with whoever else would lend a hand, they would find the source of this and squash it out. Before the entire village became a ghost town. And as these thoughts paraded through her, suddenly a light, faint in the distant, clouded, denial, flickered until she could ignore it no longer.

This disease was going to spread past Konoha. Fast.

NOTE: Wow, sorry that took so long. Work is keeping me busy lately. But never fear, the updates will continue! Hopefully faster than this one!

Thanks to the reviewers on here and other sites. I appreciate it a whole bunch.