*Deep breath* Just an epilogue to go after this, and then this little project will be complete.

Chapter Six: Six Degrees

It should have been such an ordinary day. The last day of school before the Christmas break. I woke up on time, after my parents had both left for work, ate breakfast, gathered my things, and walked over to the house beside mine.

Jenna's mother let me in before I even had to knock. My best friend was awake but just barely. She was dressed, at least, seated at the kitchen table, picking at the breakfast set out before her. She gave me a half-hearted wave and gestured to the chair opposite her. But I heard her mother sigh warningly behind me. "Jenna."

I smiled a little at her groan. There was significantly less to keep her motivated when volleyball wasn't in season. She could rack up a few extra absences, her grades could afford to slip a little… But her parents were having none of it.

"I mean, seriously?" Jenna grumbled, shivering as we finally made it outside. "It's a half day. We're not even going to be doing anything."

I knew she was right. I also knew her attitude would perk up once she was fully awake. I wondered briefly what she would do once she was off to college—would her roommate be the type of person to lose patience with dragging her out of bed each morning? But this thought sent a pang through my chest that I wasn't in the mood to analyze, so I quickly changed the subject.

"Remember how exciting it was, the first day we were allowed to walk to school on our own?"

It was no great mystery why I was feeling so nostalgic. It wouldn't be long before Jenna and I were making this familiar journey for the last time. But my diversion worked. She laughed, gladly obliging my request.

"Of course! My mom was a nervous wreck! All that week we were arguing about whether twelve was still too young. And the school's only, like, two streets away! I remember telling her over and over again about how kids in the city walk to school every day and there's so much more that can go wrong there. And then, once I did manage to convince her, we were the nervous wrecks!"

I laughed along with her. We had almost been late that day. Jumping at every shadow. Turning a ten minute walk into an adventure twice that long. Today it was over much too soon. We filed into the school, joining the throng of students getting off the buses, and Jenna headed to her locker… But the secretary waved me over to the main office, and it wasn't exactly like I could ignore her. I was that student all the office and cafeteria workers loved, if only because I was too nice to treat them like they were invisible when I didn't need something from them, as was the norm for so many others. It was hardly like I could get away with ignoring her now.

So I pasted on a smile as naturally as possible and ducked inside as the other students surged past. We made pleasant small talk for a moment about the coming snow before getting to the real reason I'd been called into the office. By the time I left, it was with the added weight of a slip of paper requesting my presence in Ms. Paccard's office before I left for the day.

Ms. Paccard was the guidance counselor assigned to the students whose surnames fell in the middle of the alphabet, like mine. She'd upgraded from being Miss Paccard my freshman year—perhaps concerned about maintaining her authority now that she was approaching fifty and still single. In any case, I had not become truly acquainted with her until the latter half of my sophomore year when she ran the SAT prep sessions. It's not that she'd ever been anything less than kind to me, but she was usually less than helpful. I knew what she wanted now. She thought I ought to be aiming higher than community college.

It wasn't a conversation I was particularly excited to have. I was getting sick of being told how much potential I had—what a shame it would be if I didn't go on to earn some competitive degree. Like maintaining good grades at this small town public school was really such a feat.

My sigh drew Jenna's attention from the next desk. Here we sat in a class presided over by the one teacher who insisted on making use of every minute allotted to him. Jenna raised her eyebrows, but I knew no one else was paying any more attention to the chemical formula on the board than I was. My best friend slumped over onto her desk in an exaggerated gesture, and I gave her a small smile.

How was it that Jenna remained so unaffected by all the pressures of the future bearing down on us? The older I got, the younger I wanted to be, it seemed. I longed for the days when my greatest worries were that my spirited best friend would wise up to my dreariness and find a more fitting crowd to align herself with. These days, I'd begun daydreaming more and more of existing in a world disconnected from all my real-life responsibilities. A fantasy world, I knew. But appealing all the same.

There was no lunch period on a half day. All too soon, we found ourselves headed back to homeroom to await the final bell. I still had not told Jenna about my summons to the guidance office. I knew this extra ten-minute block at the end of the day was the perfect opportunity to get that meeting over with, but I didn't get up to bring the pass to my homeroom teacher.

I mean, it was the last ten minutes before the winter break. Was it really so much to ask to leave the future alone, at least for now?

"What's wrong, Ronnie?" Jenna whispered. "You've been weirdly quiet all day."

Only Jenna was spared the trouble of having to specify how today differed from my usual quiet. She knew me too well to have the patience for that sort of deflection. I took a moment to mull over my answer. "Do you ever wish… we didn't have to graduate?"

She scrunched up her nose. "What, and stay in high school forever? No thanks! You can't have actually bought into the whole 'best four years of your life' drivel. What's really going on?"

I didn't find an answer before the bell rang, signaling our freedom. Jenna was one of the first to jump up, and I was close on her heels. I glanced briefly at the main office when we reached the ground floor… before pushing ahead with an extra burst of speed. I could deal with Ms. Paccard in a week and a half, when we got back.

Jenna didn't question my mood. She just laughed and helped me to push through the crowd. We were soon met by the frigid air and veered away from the crowd of students shoving their way onto the buses. It should have been such an ordinary day… Except when I veered towards the main street that would lead to our neighborhood, Jenna grabbed my arm and we careened off onto the dirt path we took when we wanted to go the long way around. This path was part of the nature walk the science classes liked to take—for purely academic purposes, of course—when the weather started getting nice.

But Jenna and I would turn off on another side path about halfway through, where we would have to cross the railroad tracks. This path would take us around the backside of our neighborhood, and we usually cut through Jenna's backyard when we started to regret the decision to prolong our journey home. The fact that Jenna would choose this route while the sky was threatening true winter meant she wanted to talk. I knew I'd been acting a little strange today and should have figured Jenna would catch onto that. But what was I supposed to say? I wish we could be eight years old again? Jenna was thrilled to graduate. For her, the future couldn't come fast enough.

Luckily, my best friend knew when I needed space. It wasn't her strong suit, but she would have to build up to the hard topics. So for now, her overly cheerful mood continued. "What a waste of a day, huh? And Mr. Bergen still tried to teach!"

"Can't say I expected any different," I replied. Then, knowing this had been a lackluster response, I hopped up onto the railroad tracks, allowing myself to stray a little from the path as the tracks curved away. There was a very thin stretch of woods between us and an abandoned property behind the school that was currently under construction. The sounds of beeping and machinery clanking wasn't having any trouble reaching our ears, but it was background noise. Almost too easy to block out.

Without warning, Jenna leapt up onto the tracks in front of me. I pulled back abruptly, so I just got the sting of her hair on my nose instead of an actual whip across my cheek.

"It's so cold!" she exclaimed, and I had to smile. Jenna's energy had always been infectious. I jumped down to the far side of the tracks and pulled out my phone, checking back in with my weather app.

"Six degrees," I supplied, welcoming a way to pad the conversation. "First snow of the year should start tonight."

Jenna groaned and hopped down onto the other side so that the railroad tracks separated us. "Ugh! When I get older, I'm going to live somewhere it never snows!"

There's no way to know where this conversation would have gone if we'd had more time. I'm sure I would have responded with something teasing and utterly banal, with as much optimism as I could muster. Jenna surely would have teased me back before finally going after the reason behind my distance today. But it wasn't to be.

The air didn't suddenly feel colder. The world wasn't suddenly drained of all sounds. In fact, and ominous, near-deafening creaking sound assaulted our ears before we could continue. It only took a second to glance up and see the crane zooming down towards me. There was no time to so much as form another thought before I was engulfed in that now-familiar sense of utter nothingness.

But there was something else this time. Something that I was sure must have been invoked by the odd gypsy woman's spiritual awakening, because I couldn't possibly have been conscious of it at the time. The shrill, panicked voice of my best friend echoing through that void.

"Veronica!"

…

And there was my missing piece. Suddenly the puzzle made sense. I could remember being that shy little girl with the exuberant best friend. With a quiet jealousy, a love-hate relationship with her nickname, and a growing unease towards the future. In that moment, just coming to in the hospital… still in that state between my past and my present, I felt it all. All that I'd had and all that I'd not quite gotten to. All summed up in that one missing piece.

"Veronica," I whispered before the darkness claimed me again.

…

Matsuri was currently entrenched in the worst stake-out she'd ever experienced. The Kazekage had stopped by with his sincere well wishes. Both of his boys were apparently shaken up but physically fine. The other little girl—the one who'd tried to push Hisako out of the way—had been left with a broken arm. Matsuri knew she ought to track this girl down and express her gratitude—Yodo's actions had turned what surely would have been a crushing blow into a grazing strike—but she couldn't bring herself to abandon her post beside her daughter's bed.

The only movement in the room was the steady rise and fall of Hisako's chest. There was a thick white bandage wrapped around her head. Matsuri had never had much medical training besides basic battlefield first aid. The doctor had explained some complicated procedure they'd done to relieve the pressure on her brain… Matsuri thought it sounded suspiciously like they'd just cut another hole in her head, so she tried not to give that too much thought.

Which left her with plenty of time to think about other things. Were her own actions the reason she was sitting here right now? She had not thought to ask if Gaara knew why the children had made this expedition to visit some gypsy woman on the outskirts of the village. She just had this feeling that it had something to do with Hisako's strange behavior as of late. Had Matsuri not caved to her fear and brought her in to see a doctor earlier, would they be in these position right now? Perhaps she would have received some… unwelcome news. But if it was a choice between knowing her daughter was mentally compromised or her daughter becoming permanently brain dead… Well, was that a question that even had to be asked?

And the more time passed, the more unsettling her questions became. Was this the fault of her own compromised compartmentalizing? Had her judgment fallen victim to her wretched crush again? Her friends had urged her not to deny the other aspects of her life just because she had now embraced motherhood, but now she found herself making promises to whatever deity might be listening. If Hisako recovered from this, she would completely reprioritize. She wouldn't even look at Gaara unless absolutely necessary. She would live her life like a monk if that's what it took.

The doctor had reminded her more than once as the hours passed that Hisako's coma was medically induced. She wouldn't wake until their observations were complete—and then depending on their findings.

But Matsuri's head shot up as Hisako's breathing broke pattern ever so slightly. Her own breath caught in her throat as she watched her daughter's eyelids twitch. All at once, they shot open, a single tear sliding down her cheek. She whispered one word that Matsuri couldn't quite make out, and then her eyes closed again and her breathing returned to that even, regulated state.

Though at that point, of course, there were nurses and doctors rushing into the room to check their monitors, take her blood pressure again, pull back her eyelids to shine light in her eyes… Matsuri had stood up and backed away to let them work, but she found herself more relaxed than she'd been since first receiving the news of her daughter's head injury.

She'd been reminded of something she'd known since the first day. Hisako was a fighter. Matsuri was suddenly comforted by an instinctive certainty. Hisako was going to be fine. And Matsuri would be there to support her in whatever came next.

Review please!

I don't own Naruto.