A/N: Here is the finale of Selective. I hope you enjoyed it. My next project is The Mosquito, but don't think that's coming any time soon. I have a long way to go with it. In the meantime, I might pander around with some one-shots. Question: should I consolidate my one-shots into one document? I know it works for some people (see The Hutch by Mary B. Wolf), but I just want a general census.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Selective
Ends and Ends

Rhythm came to me first. There was the feel of my own heart sedately drumming within my chest, sending radiating pulses throughout my body. There was the sound of a heart monitor, beeping in time with it, making me see a flash of red to accompany each sound. There was the steady pump of cold air against my face. When I breathed, it was a great relief to have that cool air in me. My body felt sluggish, but perfect and calm, something I hadn't felt in weeks.

I opened my eyes and watched the colors swim in front of me before they solidified completely. Ah, clarity, I had missed you.

I tried to sit up and found that—yes!—I could. And then, because I could, I flopped back down, and thought. Always a treacherous thing to do.

Why did I deserve to live when Sasuke didn't? I had been so sure that I was going to die. I had been prepared for it. I had wanted it. What right did anyone have to take that desire away from me, to give me life again, and vigor, when all I wanted to do was sleep?

I felt young and old and thankful and hateful… There were too many emotions, all creating mud. Like when a painter mixes his colors together, he forms an ugly brown.

I wanted to be sick.

"I see you're awake," a medic said. She strode through the door and came over to me. "Sit up, please."

I did so. "Um, is there a bucket?" I asked. My voice was a little dry, but nothing to be worried about. She paused in removing the butterfly needle from the crook of my arm and looked at my queasy expression. I felt exposed without my mask on, but by then, there was nothing I could do.

"Yes," she said carefully. She set the needle on the counter and went into the adjacent bathroom, returning a moment later with a white pail. "Here you are," she said. I took it gratefully and set it in my lap, taking off the oxygen mask covering my face and putting it to one side.

"Are you going to be sick?" the medic asked.

"Probably," I said. Then, there it was: that little lurch in the back of my mouth. I leaned forward and emptied my stomach into the pail. The medic looked away.

"I'm sorry, Hatake-san, but I have to give you a shot," she said. She was still staring at the ceiling, waiting for me to finish.

"Can I brush my teeth first?" I asked. I wiped my mouth with a tissue she gave me.

"Must you do it this instant?" she asked in response. I didn't like her proper, impatient tone, and decided to make a show of it.

"Do you want me throwing up again?"

"No…"

"Then yes, I must go brush my teeth this instant."

Without a word, she stepped out of the way, and I got up out of the bed. I was dressed in a hospital gown, one of those scratchy potato sacks that I could never stand. I could hear the medic sigh as I went, and she took the pail away to be washed.

I spat into the sink of the tiny hospital bathroom and used a toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste that were lying on the counter to give my teeth a good scrub. My body felt renewed and alive. I hoped I would be leaving the hospital that day.

The door to the bedroom opened then, and Sakura's voice came through. "Kakashi-sensei?" she called.

"In here," I said. I rinsed out my mouth and wiped my face using one of the thin towels on the rack.

She came in to the bathroom and threw a bunch of clothing at my head. "There ya go. Put those on and sit down so I can talk to you." Then she shut the door.

It was just a pair of gray new sweatpants and a black shirt that said in white lettering, "I still won't admit that I'm stupid." I rolled my eyes and put them on, thankful for at least having clothes and the fact that Sakura obviously had bought them for me to wear. ANBU had probably already invaded my apartment and burned everything that I had touched.

There was probably no apartment left.

I sighed and opened the door.

Sakura was switching the settings on the oxygen machine and fixing up a little pan of alcohol for the butterfly needle. When I appeared, she looked up at me briefly, then nodded to one of the chairs and said, "Sit."

I sat and watched as she finished her little tweaks and pulled up a chair opposite me.

"How do you feel?" was her first question.

"Better than I have in a long time," I said.

She frowned. "Your reactions to it all—the disease, the treatments, the surgery, everything—are so different than the ones Sasuke had."

I looked away.

"Don't be a coward," she snapped. The intensity of her voice jolted my attention back to her. "Listen to what I have to say."

The first medic came back in then, holding a white syringe with some clear liquid in it. "It's time for your shot, Hatake-san," she said.

"I'll give it to him, Mei, thanks," Sakura said. She held out her hand for the syringe, and Mei, looking slightly perturbed, handed it to her and then hesitantly left. "Should I give this to you now or later?" Sakura asked, turning back to me.

"Depends on what it is," I said.

"Just some antibiotic," she said.

"Now's as good a time as any, then," I said. I extended my arm to her, wrist-side up. She stood and came over, found my elbow vein, and pushed the medicine in. I closed my eyes. There was a similar coolness to the quick treatment she'd given me in the bar, but it didn't speed up my breath or alter my vision or make me feel like I was lying on my back in a cool tub of water. It just felt relieving, like there had been pain I wasn't even aware of. When I opened my eyes again, Sakura had removed the needle and was sitting back across from me.

"So what did you have to say?" I asked after a few seconds.

"We think the different reactions have something to do with Uchiha blood."

"What?" There was no hiding my surprise. I couldn't fathom how that was possible. I knew that the Uchihas sometimes gave birth to inbred offspring, but I thought those kinds of diseases were with them from their very first moments, not when they matured.

"It's the only plausible answer," Sakura said. "A lot of people were exposed to Sasuke during the time he was sick, but only you contracted the disease."

"I'm not an Uchiha," I pointed out.

"You have the sharingan," Sakura said. "It must have latched on to that. I went through the records with Tsunade-sama and we found out that the First Hokage created the disease to attack sharingan users and only sharingan users. He called it selective tuberculosis."

I leaned back in my chair, my mouth slightly open. At least Naruto didn't have to worry about anyone else getting sick. But I was still confused.

"How did Sasuke get it in the first place?" I asked.

"Selective tuberculosis can survive for up to one hundred twenty years in an area of infection," she explained. "The Land of Canyons was the sight of an Uchiha-Senju battle about seventy years ago, and the Senju released ST to end it. Your body reacted differently than Sasuke's because, while you don't have Uchiha blood, you have an Uchiha eye. ST is supposed to harden the lungs so that the victim suffocates. For you, the flesh was torn and the nerves were shut down, making it easier to treat. When Sasuke died, his lungs were almost like stone."

"How," I said, sighing, "unfortunate."

Sakura grimaced. "You'll have to take that shot every day for the next ten days to make sure everything's been cleaned out," she said.

"Speaking of which," I said, "what did you do to me, exactly, during the surgery?"

"We stripped each infected cell of the disease," Sakura said. She shrugged. From a manila folder she had put down on the nightstand, she took out a gleaming x-ray, and wordlessly handed it over. "This was taken just before we put you into surgery. You can see that the inner walls of your lungs are almost white with ST spores. Under a microscope, they look like dulled senbon. Under normal circumstances, like Sasuke's, they'd form a hard sheet over the membrane. In yours, it was looser and easier to get at. The shot's just a precaution, but it's important that you take it."

I gave her back the x-ray. "When do I get out of here?" I asked. "Not in ten days, I hope?"

"No," Sakura said. "I'll be dropping by your apartment every evening at six-thirty to administer the antibiotic and to do a few healing sessions to get rid of the scar tissue. It's fine to take the shot in conjunction with food and water, just not alcohol."

"Right," I said.

"So, if you're ready, we can check you out."

"Oh, wait," I said. I looked up at her. "What about my mask? And wouldn't ANBU have blown up my home by now?"

"No mask with me, unfortunately," Sakura said. "We could bandage up your face if you like. And no, ANBU didn't blow up your apartment, you idiot—we had medics go there and disinfect the place. They should be done by the time you get back."

Hesitantly, I held out my hand. Sakura looked at it, bemused. "What's that for?" she asked.

"Bandage?" I said.

She stood up and went rifling through the nightstand drawer, then gave a little squeak of triumph when she found what she was looking for. She tossed me a thin roll of cloth. "There ya go," she said. "Nice face, by the way. I've been meaning to tell you that. I wonder why you've never shown it off before."

"I like the ambiguity," I said, and proceeded to wrap up my face. I imagined I looked like I was playing at Zabuza for Halloween, but I didn't really care. I just wanted to get out of here and dress in something more flattering, not the shirt that I now knew was supposed to make me look like an idiot. When I finished wrapping up, I pulled off the shirt and turned it inside out before putting it back on. "There," I said. "Nothing offensive."

Sakura scowled and put her hands on her hips. "You're no fun," she said. I just smiled at her.

There suddenly came a loud crash, a few angry shouts, and the thump of anxious footsteps.

"Naruto, hold on! You can't just barge in there—he could be sleeping!" That was Tenzou.

"Shizune said that he came out of surgery and I want to see him! He is not going to die on me, Yamato-taichou! And if he does, I'm seeing him before it happens! Get a move on, Sai!"

I put my face in one hand. "Oh, God," I said. Sakura giggled. "I'm not sleeping!" I called.

They fell silent. Naruto slowly edged open the door. I gave him a smile from where I was sitting. "Hey there," I said. "Miss me?"

I probably should have expected him to rush forward and hug me at that point, but I didn't. He picked me up off the ground and twirled me around a bit, hugging me so tight that I couldn't breathe. I panicked a little.

"I'm so glad you're okay, Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto said, dropping me. I landed on the floor with a thud and put a hand over my rapidly beating heart. I closed my eyes and swallowed. "You okay?" Naruto asked.

"Fine, just don't do that again, please," I said, standing on wobbly feet. "No offense, but you hug too tight."

"Sorry, Kakashi-sensei," Naruto said. He sounded sincere.

"Don't worry about it." I took a great lungful of air and then let it out, just to be sure. "Anyway, I'm getting out today. You're lucky you didn't miss my departure—you'd be heading for a wild goose chase."

Tenzou laughed. When he stopped a moment later he said, "Can I talk to you by the cenotaph tomorrow? Say, before six pm?"

I blinked at him. "Yeah, sure," I said. I knew better than to ask what was wrong.

My shoulders were hunched as I made my way to the cenotaph. There was some residual pain in my chest that Sakura said would be there for the next few days, slowly fading as the medicine and her healing did their work. It wasn't too bad, but it was enough to detract slightly from conversations that I wanted to have. The jolt after Naruto hugged me was what started it up.

"Tenzou," I called when I saw him. He was standing with his hands in prayer to one of his old teammates that I had met once at a meeting. She was a nice woman. I had always guessed that he'd loved her, but I could never have been sure. Seeing that I wasn't the only one who prayed was nice, though, even if we went about it differently. "Tennie," I called again.

"I haven't heard that one in a while," he said. He opened his eyes and dropped his hands. I walked over to him.

"What did you want to talk about?" I asked. I threw a mental prayer to Obito as I said it.

"Why you're so secretive."

I blinked. "That was blatant."

"Like you never are," Tenzou said impatiently. He stuffed his hands in his pockets. It was nearly summer, but it was cloudy and cool. "You could have just told us, sempai. You could have told any one of us. We would have helped you." He looked at me out of the corner of his eye. "You could have at least told Sakura."

"I thought we went over this already. I didn't want anyone to worry about me," I said.

"And that worked out wonderfully." Tenzou rolled his eyes. "Do you think I wasn't worried when you came to your door that night I picked you up? There were bags under your eyes that would have given Hayate a contest, and you looked like your skin was made of ash. I thought…" He looked up at the sky. "I didn't know what to think. Don't you think I was worried—we were all worried—when you passed out at the bar? That was terrifying, Kakashi-sempai."

"Sorry," I said quietly. There was a pause. "Is that all you wanted to say?"

"Yes."

There was another pause. The wind rustled the trees. A shaft of sunlight illuminated the Third District, and then it was eaten by the darkness of the clouds.

"What time is it?" I asked.

"You need to know the time?" Tenzou asked skeptically.

"I need to be back home at around six-thirty for a shot and a healing session. Sakura will kill me if I don't show."

"It's around six-fifteen," Tenzou said.

"All right," I said. "Thanks." I didn't tell him being in the presence of an Uchiha's grave was unnerving me now.

I started walking away, but then turned to walk backwards so I could talk to him again. "Say," I said, and he looked up at me, "what do you think of the whole 'Life means suffering' stuff?"

Tenzou shrugged. "I've never thought about it, but I guess it must be true to some extent. Otherwise it wouldn't be the basis of a religion, now, would it?" He smiled and then returned to praying, and I continued walking towards my apartment.

She slid the needle in, pushed the foot to administer the medicine, and took it out again. Then she brought chakra to her hands and placed them over my bare chest, crossed over one another.

"It will feel like you inhaled a breath of dust," she said. "You'll be coughing for a while, but don't think it's the disease come back to finish you off, okay?" She gave me a smile.

I nodded. Those icy claws were scraping at the sides of my lungs like they were searching for a sample, scratching away the stiff scar tissue to allow for new growth to resume. I could feel the chakra eat away at the particles of flesh and then let them float around in my lungs. Sakura quickly pulled her chakra away and allowed me to cough for a few minutes into my fist.

"Did you talk to Yamato-taichou?" she asked when I had finished.

I nodded.

"Why so quiet?" she asked. She tilted her head to one side and tried to catch my eye, but I only had a mind for my Buddha tantou.

My uncle had been a Buddhist before he died from heart failure when I was ten. If he ever gave me one piece of advice, it was always, "There is a path to the end of suffering, Kaka-kun. But you have to look for it in the most unlikely of places; otherwise you won't really be living your life." According to Buddhist law, he was a bad Buddhist. But I loved him for that advice nonetheless. And now I wanted to act on it, to tell him that I had found the end of the road he never did.

I leaned forward and kissed Sakura full on the lips.

She seemed surprised at first, but then she kissed me back.