A Haunting Kind Of Memory

Chapter 6

O O O

Sakura's head was screaming and wailing and raging and shredding itself to pieces while on the outside the only hint of what she was going through was the misting of her eyes and her pallor complexion. More than once, Chiyo had to snap Sakura back to attention from zoning out with sharp words and firm hands gripping her shoulders. But it was nearly impossible to stay focused when he was under her hands, bleeding out onto her skin, staining her and marking her.

It had been hours since she had first walked in and discovered him, recognized him, and finally put a name to the face of the other patient. She had had a long time to think--hence her zoning out--and was somewhat calmer, though she was still on the verge of bolting from the room and screaming her head off. She was still shaking and biting her lip to keep from saying his name again.

She had received odd looks from screaming it out in the beginning.

And her heart had taken to beating unsteadily and so fast that she found it a miracle it hadn't combusted or completely stopped yet.

"Sakura, here, put this in the pan," Chiyo instructed, handing her the tongs gripping the blood drenched bullet. The lacerations to the spleen and surrounding tissue and muscles were deep and deadly, and it was going to take another hour or so to fix as much of the damage as possible. The rest would have to heal on its own.

Sakura turned away from the table, taking the moment to inhale deeply a few times, before dropping the bullet into a small tin pan with a 'ping'.

Chiyo glanced up as she came back to the table and frowned. "The worst is over, why don't you go check on the driver."

"Okay," Sakura replied in a raw voice and eagerly turned away; a part of her still held fast to the metal rods of his bed, refusing to part.

Out in the hall, Sakura stood for a moment and fought back tears of frustration and keeping the anguished screams in her throat. She was so confused. She was mad and spiteful that he had turned up in her life again, but scared, worried, terrified and miserable for the way he had shown up. It would have been so much simpler if he had just walked by her on the street. It would have been easier to pass him by without a thought.

It would have been easier to never see him again, but apparently that was asking for too much.

O O O

"Inaho? What are you doing in here?"

Sakura frowned gently and watched as the young nurse stood abruptly from her seat and ran a hand nervously through her short brown hair, avoiding Sakura's curious eyes.

"I-I...nothing, I was just..." she glanced around the room before sighing and shrugging her shoulders. "He looked lonely, is all. I thought he might like some company."

Sakura, grateful for the distraction from Gaara, shut the door behind her and walked further into the room. Inaho bit her lip and fidgeted on the spot, alternating between watching Sakura as she checked the man's vitals and watching the man himself. Sakura found it slightly amusing.

"Has he awaken at all?" she asked, glancing at Inaho over her shoulder.

Inaho started, having been distracted watching the man. "Oh! Oh, no, he hasn't. He did stir a bit before...but he hasn't regained consciousness yet."

Sakura muttered under breath incoherently before looking down at the man, really looking at him, and was shocked. His red hair snapped her throat closed, having for a moment believe that he was someone else, but then she breathed easily once more as she looked at his unbruised eyes. It wasn't Gaara, it was someone else entirely. Still, the resemblance was disconcerting and she decided she didn't want to be in the room anymore.

"I'll leave him to you, then, Inaho. Make sure he's comfortable and..." she smiled to herself. "and keep him company."

A light pink flushed dusted the bridge of Inaho's nose and she turned her face away, voicing her assent before Sakura left the room. Out in the hall, she was stopped by someone calling her name and for one wild moment she thought it might be Gaara. But it wasn't when she whipped around, and she knew that she needed to go home because she was starting to hear and see him everywhere.

"Sakura," Ugai called again, walking briskly down the hall with something clutched in his beefy hand. As he approached, Sakura had the distinct impression he was assessing her shrewdly from behind his wire framed glasses and tensed under his sharp gaze.

When he stopped in front of her, she asked, "What is it, does Chiyo-sama need me back in surgery?" She sincerely hoped not.

"No, no. Not exactly," he said, and she allowed herself a brief moment of relief. "But we found something. On the young man, I mean."

Curious, she glanced at what Ugai was holding in his large hand before meeting his eyes once more. "Is that what you found?"

"Er...yes, it is." He didn't offer it up and Sakura frowned impatiently.

"Can I see it?"

He handed it to her and his eyes sparked with a curious intensity. "Sure."

O O O

Sometimes in his dreams he was allowed to go back. It was nicer in his dreams, he wasn't so bitter and angry and he preferred things this way then to how things had really been like. In his dreams he was allowed to touch her gently and softly like he had always wanted, but hadn't because of a deep carnal instinct that would always prevent it. When he was asleep, she wanted him just as much as he wanted her and there was no hurtful words from him to cut her down. Only soft reassurances and apologies for what he had done, and promises that he would never do it again if she would only forgive him.

She always did. She would always kiss his scar and his eyes and his lips and then gently caress him with the soft touch he had been craving and desperately needing for so long. He would sigh and breathe easily and hold her close, ghost his fingers over her soft skin, whisper her name over and over again in an attempt to bring the dream to life.

But he would wake up shortly after hearing her breathe his name in return, filling that one word with so much emotion his head would spin.

It had to have been hours since he had last been awake. He had the distinct feeling that he had been asleep for far too long and that things had happened without him knowing. He didn't fully appreciate that, and frowned to himself. So, with more strength than he would normally use, he opened his eyes; and immediately snapped the shut once more.

The light was blindingly bright, and he groaned throatily as his pupils dilated painfully behind his eyelids. After a moment, he tried again and felt slightly apprehensive to find that the room was relatively dark and there was no reason for his eyes to have hurt in the first place. Feeling put out for some reason, Gaara opened his eyes all the way and blinked a few times.

A startled gasp followed this and he tried to find the source of the noise. Abruptly a face popped into his view and if he hadn't been practically thrumming with dulled pain, he would have flinched back.

"Gaara? Gaara, are you awake?" It was Temari, and she looked positively frantic with worry and grief. Gaara had never seen his sister so...so scared before. It reminded him of a leaf barely hanging onto its tree limb in the winter months when it was inevitable that the leaf fall off. It was disturbing, Temari had always been strong and confident, and to see this, her frightened beyond the point of understanding, was making his stomach churn uncomfortably.

But it wasn't just seeing her that made his stomach hurt, there was something stinging there. And the stinging was getting worse the more he dwell it.

"...said you might feel some pain and that you might not remember everything for a few days." Temari had been saying, and Gaara turned his eyes back to hers with a worried frown. What had she been talking about?

When he tried to talk, to ask her to repeat herself, he choked and stared, bewildered, up at his sister. Something was over his mouth and down his throat, he couldn't speak and he shouldn't be able to breathe with that thing sticking in him but he was.

Temari brushed back the fringe of his hair reassuringly as she sniffed and wiped away a few stray tears with her sleeve. "Don't worry, okay? That tube is helping you breathe and sucking out the stray blood that leaked into your lungs. You have to keep the mask and it on."

What happened to me? he tried to ask her, but only choked again and saw spots dance in front of his eyes. Temari stood and leaned over him, shushing him and holding his face in her hands.

"You were in an accident, you might not be able to remember for a little while. But you're okay now, you're going to be fine, the doctor said so." Her voice broke when she said 'fine', and she teared up again. "Oh, Gaara, I thought I was going to lose all of you...don't you ever scare me like that again, do you hear me!?" she hissed, and she would've been relatively scary if it weren't for fat tears streaming over her flushed cheeks.

Gaara blinked and tried to move his hand to take hers, to reassure her somehow. She saw the movement and immediately sat on her chair beside the bed and took his hand between both of hers. They were warm and chased away the cold from his own.

"Hidan's awake, too. He was the first out of surgery last night. He...he told me that he saw you, and he wanted to speak with you when you feel you're up to it." She looked away from him, chewing her bottom lip. "Kankurou's not awake yet," His hand tightened around hers and she looked up at him morosely. "he's in a coma, and they don't know how long it will be before he...before he w-wakes up." she said thickly and pulled back to wipe her tears away again.

He had been in an accident and Kankurou and Hidan were both injured, too. Hidan was, apparently okay, but Kankurou...

Gaara screwed his eyes shut as a pang stabbed the side of his head. He could remember flashes of the accident, but nothing would stay solid. As soon as he felt himself remembering something, it melted away to the shadows of his mind and refused to be seen again so soon.

"The doctor said they would take the tube out later today, since your lungs are better now," Temari said, giving him a watery smile when he opened his eyes. "Kankurou is wearing one too, but his has to stay in for a little while, there was more damage to his lungs."

Gaara frowned and gave a tiney shake of his head, trying to tell her that Kankurou was going to be fine. She didn't need to worry like this, they had been through worse, hadn't they? Their entire family had been through more ups and downs than was mentally possible, and they had survived it, right? He wanted to convince her of this, but he was trying to convince himself, too. Kankurou was his brother, a part of him, and if...if Kankuoru left, Gaara felt that a part of him would disappear and he would be a shell again. Like he had been under the influence of that Mercital drug he was subjected to in the asylum.

After a moment, Temari started biting her bottom lip again and avoided his eyes. "There's something else, Gaara," she said quietly, furrowing her brows and gripping his fingers firmly. "I saw someone earlier on my to your room." When she looked back at him, her blue-green eyes were hard and calculative. "Do you remember Sak--"

"Hello, Mr. Sabaku--Oh! You must be his sister, Temari, right?"

Temari twisted in her seat and nodded to the nurse standing in the doorway with a clipboard. She smiled warmly at Temari as she made her way over and started checking the machines and tubes running around and into Gaara. "Quite a fighter, you are, Sabaku-san. Thought we were going that bullet was going to take you away from us, but you didn't give up." she said nonchalantly as she fixed his sling on his shoulder.

Gaara stared up at her with widened eyes. Bullet?

The nurse glanced down at him and quirked an amused brow at his expression. Turning to Temari, she asked, "You haven't told him about his injuries yet?"

Temari shook her head and stepped away as the nurse moved closer to Gaara's side. "Well, then, I'll just tell you, how's that? Let's see," she mumbled and scanned her clipboard. With a bright smile she turned back to Gaara. "As you know, you were shot in the stomach area and the bullet pierced your spleen. It ruptured, naturally, and we had to operate immediately. Now that was nerve-wracking, lemme tell you. You began having these little fits on the table, making it right difficult to get in there and remove the bullet."

Luckily, Chiyo-sama is one of the best doctors around and she fixed you up real nice. You also had a dislocated shoulder, I set that myself," she grinned happily, confident of her work. "You're leg is broken, though, and Hosho gave you a pretty black cast to wear. He said you can get your friends to sign it with silver Sharpies to make it look cool. There's some cuts on your face and chest, and a bit on your arms as well from the cars' windshield, but those shouldn't bother you much aside from a little sting now and then..."

By the time she had finished talking, Gaara had a raging headache and wished she would just leave. There was only so much squeaky talking he could take from her and frankly, he wanted his sister to tell him who she had met in the hallway. It had seemed rather important, she was upset by it obviously. More than anything, though, he wanted his picture back.

He was almost certain that they had taken it since his jeans were gone and replaced by hospital clothes. It took a considerable amount of willpower not to struggle, and he was sure that being exhausted and in pain had something to do with him staying put. But he wanted his picture. Without it, he couldn't think straight and his heart would not stop pounding, which the nurse noticed by now and was trying to talk to him in a soothing voice to calm him down.

She thought he was getting worked up over this whole ordeal, and that might have had some influence on it, but was not entirely it by a long shot. That picture was all he had. If he didn't have it, it was like she was never real in the first place, and to think like that was physically painful.

"You could do with some rest, I think," the nurse finally said, exasperated. "You're husband was looking for you, I just came from there, and I'm about to check on the driver." she told Temari. "Until later, Sabaku-san."

O O O

"Mom?"

"Yes, honey?"

Kankurou frowned and watched his mother walk across the playground to reach him. When she was close enough, she reached out a gentle hand and ran her fingers through his mussed hair affectionately as he balanced himself on the toddler jungle gym. He tightened his small hands on the metal and stopped swinging his legs. Something felt...weird. For a split second he thought he was supposed to be bigger than this. So big that the jungle gym would only reach the top of his shoulders, like his mom.

But that was impossible, because he was only seven. He was small, not big. He wouldn't be big like Mom for a while.

Mom is supposed to be dead.

His eyes started to water as the thought passed through his head and he looked up at his mom with bright eyes. "I don't want Momma to be dead," he hiccuped. "I want Momma to stay with me."

She smiled worriedly at him, her eyes confused. "Mommy's not dead, darling. I'm right here, with you. I'll always be with you."

But you're not supposed to be.

O O O

The food was fucking terrible, he decided, and promptly shoved it away from him while fighting the urge to vomit what he had managed to swallow back onto the tray. It he ever was given a bowl of oatmeal with chopped carrots and eggplant again, he was going to kill someone. The sticky mess in his mouth sat on his tongue like a lead weight and he grimaced in disgust. How could they give their patients this slop? It was hardly fit for a dog.

"Dr. Chiyo told me the police will be here sometime this evening to talk to you, and Gaara if he's able." Temari said, stabbing Hidan's jello with his plastic spork. "What are you going to tell them?"

Hidan swallowed thickly and looked out the window at the orange sun making its way slowly to the middle of the sky. "I don't know. The truth, I guess. That's what you want me to do, isn't it?"

Temari frowned and put down the spork. "I would like you to tell me the truth."

"I can't."

"And why the fuck not?!"

Hidan stared at his wife with wide eyes, not used to her using such vulgar language. Sure, he used it on a daily basis and his bad habit was bound to rub off on her at some point, but he wasn't so sure he liked it. She was too pretty to talk like that. Hidan scowled at her and shook his head, getting angrier as his hair fell over his eyes.

With a growl, he swiped back the strands only to have them flop back in his face once more. Temari snorted and when he looked at her, she was red faced and clamping a hand over her mouth to stifle her laughing.

"What?" he demanded.

She shook her head, and took her hand away from her mouth. "You look like a cherub."

He stared at her incredulously. "Did you just call me a fucking baby-face?"

"I did."

"Jashin, woman," he huffed. "I'm not a baby-face!"

Temari laughed out loud and turned her face away, trying to gain control of her giggles desperately. She figured it was just the stress getting to her. In short, she was just losing her mind. No big deal.

When she had regained her composure, she turned back to Hidan and talked to him idly for a moment about mundane things. He seemed to have taken a blatant dislike for carrots and eggplant, and oatmeal in general and made her promise that she would never fix it for him ever. She agreed only if he promised to never scare her again. He promised.

"I need to know what happened, Hidan. I deserve that much."

He sighed and looked down at his lap, tracing a few scars left behind by the windshield slicing him on his way flying out. He had a few on his face, too. They weren't so bad, he decided. In fact, he was quite fond of one that cut from the middle of his left cheek to the bottom of his jaw. Temari had commented that it made him look more 'manly', and Hidan discovered that she was sucker for battle scars.

"I know you do, but I don't want to put you in danger."

She bristled. "Are you saying I can't take care of myself?"

"No! No, fuck woman, you can knock me three ways from Sunday, I know you can handle yourself."

"Then what's the problem?"

He hesitated before replying quietly, "I don't want to take the risk."

Temari sighed and leaned over the bed, pressing her lips gently to his and drawing him into a sensual, intimate kiss. His lips were firm but compliant beneath hers, and she just about burst into tears again at the knowledge that she could've lost him so easily the night before. She pulled away after she felt his tongue brush against her lip, much to Hidan's frustration because he felt he needed her now more then ever, and not just in that way. He was still very much terrified that she was going to disappear from him.

"This entire relationship was a risk, is a risk. I knew what I was getting into when I agreed to marry you and we made vows to tell each other everything. Do not keep secrets from me, Hidan. Whatever happened will not change how I feel about you." she said firmly, staring at him with hard eyes.

He couldn't resist her, not when she was demanding like this. Not when she was so right. "Alright," he said finally. "Okay, just...just answer me a few things first?"

"What?"

"Have you seen Sasori yet?"

She shook her head. "I'm not family, they won't let me in to see him. I don't even know if he's awake."

Hidan contemplated her answer for a second before looking back up at her. "I need to talk to Sasori before I tell you everything." At her angered and hurt expression he added quickly, "Just to get the story straight, I can't remember everything and Sasori has answers that I don't. I won't to tell you everything, the entire truth, but I can't do that if I don't know it myself."

It hardly did anything to comfort her, but Temari nodded nonetheless and stood. Running her fingers through his hair she turned and walked to the door. "I'll see what I can do," she sighed. "And eat your food or I'm going to call in a nurse to spoon feed you, baby-face."

Hidan scowled, but grinned as the door shut behind her. Jashin, was he in over his head for that woman.

Was that better than the last chapter? I didn't feel so obligated to fix something in this one as the last, so hopefully it doesn't feel that way to you guys either. I hope you understood Kankurou's little part, too. Just in case you didn't, I 'll explain, okay? Since he's in a coma, I decided to let him 'dream' about a place that he would probably like to be the most. With his late mother. But to make it understandable that it wasn't just flashback of his, I put in those thoughts about his mom supposed to be dead. If you still don't understand, then include that in your review and I'll try to explain it better. Again, there are no OCs in this story. All the characters' names given can be found on the Naruto wikia.

I forget to do the disclaimer every time, so I'm just going to put it here and then that's it, okay? I do not own Naruto, all characters in this fiction belong to its rightful owner. I only own the plot. Thank you.

So this was supposed to actually be posted at three o'clock this morning but my spellcheck program was effed up again, so I had to restart my computer and I fell asleep while it was doing that (sweatdrop). Hopefully you can forgive me! I would really appreciate any feed back you guys can offer, so don't hold back. Please review and see you next time! Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!