Call Me When You're Sober
Sabaku no Hime well, here we are, another chapter. It's closing in on the end, I think two chaps tops left, maybe three. I'm ashamed of the last chapter posted, just because it wasn't my usual quality. Again, I'm not good with gory stuff. I figured it'd give me some practice, but it didn't help, that scene in the last chapter.
Another thing I should mention is that I'm a healer, not one to hurt people, even my characters. It disturbs me. And I have a morbid phobia of needles. You should see me when it's time for bloodwork or a tetanus booster, hehehehehehe. It's pathetic.
DE-LISH-CIOUS, sorry, I know it was pretty sick. The rest will be easier.
Love Child, thank you. The rest of it won't be so gory, but a cliché or two might be fun. Btw, if you wouldn't mind, sign in with your review, I'd really like to read some of your stuff (and maybe get some pointers from a pro on the gory stuff) if you don't mind.
So to make up for the last one.
Enjoy…
Chapter 10
Nearly There…
Sakura didn't know how long she'd been out of it until she heard the door to her small apartment open. The click of the lock setting again sounded ominously as she prayed for the death of either herself or Orochimaru. He was back, already damn him. Why couldn't he have let her die of infection?
She could feel the infection in the large, weeping gouges setting in, and she knew she wouldn't last long without medical help. She'd taken too much damage to be able to do anything about healing herself, and even if she could, she'd checked. Her chakra was blocked somehow.
Steps echoed through the apartment, and Sakura shivered in horror.
What was that bastard going to do to her this time?
'Sakura?' Came the horrified whisper as she saw his boots come within her line of sight.
Salvation in the form of a former monster, she almost smirked at the thought.
'What? Oh shit,' she could hear the surprise in his voice and watched the boot lead to a knee that thumped in front of her half closed eyes. 'Are you still alive?' She could feel him checking for a pulse in some places, but other times, he leaned over and she couldn't feel anything.
Briefly, she wondered how extensive the nerve damage would be if she lived.
'Hold on,' he grated desperately as he picked her up. A tortured moan escaped her throat, a sound she didn't think she'd be able to make as he shifted her and picked her up, damaging infected wounds and causing partially clotted spots to bleed freshly.
'What the hell happened?' he growled in her ear as he shifted her to form the seals for a teleportation jutsu.
When they arrived at what Sakura assumed was the hospital, they were met with cries and she felt herself taken from him and laid on a gurney. She sniffed at the smell of the antibacterial air spray they used, and the underlying stench of illness, injury and death.
Or maybe that was just her own scent right now. She wasn't sure. She didn't really care, though, either. She just let them poke and prod her as the pain grew more and more distant, until she finally didn't feel it any longer. There was only the grayness and an occasional voice in the endless, glittering gray.
She felt at peace. The fact that she'd been killed so brutally wasn't an issue anymore, if she was dead. She thought on it, once, and decided that it was a meh kind of issue.
Sakura allowed herself to float around, happily oblivious to anything but her own peace and the distinct lack of 'pain' she felt. The not-feeling was amazing, she loved it. She wasn't sure how long she was there, in the spot of no-feeling before she became disturbed by one voice that seemed to echo through the grayness.
She could hear it, the slightly desperate, furiously raging edge to it almost cut her right to the bone. It wouldn't go away, the voice was there, just there. He was bothering her; his deeply crackly baritone irritated her. She didn't want to listen to him. She just wanted to not-feel, and not-hear anything.
But he wouldn't let her. For a while, she couldn't make out the words he was saying, could only hear the endlessly furious babble of his dark voice. Then, after he'd finally shut up for a minute, he was back, talking to her. And she could hear just what he was saying.
Well, mostly. He was telling her how she should come back to him, and how he wanted her to get better. How could she get better? This not-feeling place was the best place she'd ever been. But she was growing mightily annoyed with this voice that wouldn't stop talking to her.
Violently annoyed.
She decided that it might be a very good thing for her to find the owner of the voice and shut him up. So she set off with the vague notion of bopping the voice's owner on the head and finding the no-feeling place again.
She walked for what seemed to be years, and didn't find herself getting any closer to the voice's owner, but he still wouldn't shut up.
'Shut up you damn idiot!' she yelled in a random direction. Then she realized that the voice had been coming from all around her, and she'd just been haring off somewhere. The only problem with that was the fact that the scenery never changed. Just glittering grayness, utterly featureless.
'Wake up, Sakura,' she heard the voice call, more distinctly this time.
'Shut up you dobe, I don't want to leave.' She yelled back.
Then something changed, and she felt herself rising slowly through the featureless gray, rising to where she didn't know. It felt like she was swimming up, trying to gasp for air, and she jerked her arms reflexively.
Her eyes shot open and a deep, startled breath filled her lungs as she saw a perforated section of ceiling.
'Are you awake?' a voice off to her side asked.
It was that voice. The same damned voice that wouldn't let her rest. 'Shut up, you wouldn't leave me alone.' She grated out, voice feeling weird.
'You're awake,' a sigh of relief and rustling of clothing. The presence by her side disappeared for a minute, only to be replaced with two.
'Sakura,' a familiar female voice echoed in her ears. 'You made it back to us. Thank kamis,'
'What do you mean, Tsunade sama?' she asked, blinking the fuzziness from her vision and trying to look over to her old sensei. For some reason she was far too weak.
'Orochimaru,' Tsunade replied. 'You were out for a week,'
'What are you talking about?' Sakura asked calmly. 'Orochimaru is in the village of sound. Don't you have some ANBU trying to kill him?'
'I'm not too surprised. Gaara, I warned you about this. When she's well enough, can you and your sibs take care of her for a while?' Tsunade asked, and Sakura moved her head just enough to bring her line of sight to bear on her lovely blond haired sensei and her red haired tormentor. 'Don't try to prod her memory. Just take care of her.'
'Not a problem, Tsunade san.' He replied coolly. 'I'll send some of our ANBU to help yours, since he came into Suna; it's our problem now too.'
'You're stretched awfully thin,' Tsunade protested.
'Shut up, both of you,' Sakura griped. 'I have a headache.'
'You need to wake up, Sakura,' Gaara chastised softly. 'When will she be well enough to take out of the hospital, Tsunade san?'
'I don't know. Ask one of the nurses; Sara seems to have been keeping an eye on her lately,' she replied, and Sakura closed her eyes, trying to ignore them.
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When Sakura came to, she felt like she'd been run through a meat grinder. Every part of her body ached. Even her bones ached. Why would she hurt so badly?
Opening her eyes to a small slit, she groaned as bright lights invaded her vision, dazzling her.
Blinking a little bit, she realized that it wasn't that much light, just that she'd been very deeply asleep. The room she was in was pretty dim, all in all, she decided, noting the shadowy outlines of furniture.
She shifted a little, moving the heavy blanket that was on top of her, and snuggled in to the soft mattress more deeply, with a soft yawn. Maybe she should get up. This definitely wasn't her apartment, nor was it the hospital where she'd been for some odd reason.
Stretching slowly, catlike, she felt half of her spine and most of her other joints pop satisfyingly. With a soft sigh, she moved her feet to the edge of the bed and down, encountering floor. The mattress was on the floor. Hrm, odd. Where was she?
Oh well. No big deal, she thought to herself as she sat up slowly. Her stomach growled, trying to munch on her spine, and she decided that wisdom would dictate food.
Slowly, she slid out of the bed, onto the floor, enjoying the feeling of hard granite against her back. Sakura sat up slowly, and grasped a nearby table to help her to her feet. She walked through the shadowy room and out the door, knowing she looked somewhat zombie like. Oh well, she had to have been out for a while, so who really cared?
Food, then shower, she decided, finally feeling the greasy, itchy crawling sensation on her scalp and realizing that the old sweat smell wasn't the bedclothes, it was actually herself. Disgusting. Did I have a fever or something? She wondered to herself as she meandered down a short hall to a set of stairs leading down.
Wisely, she took the railing as if it was a lifesaver, and held tight, knowing she wasn't quite steady on her feet yet.
She was grateful for that when vertigo hit her as she looked at the landing, fifteen steps below.
Taking a deep breath, she looked straight in front of herself, and took the steps slowly, one stair at a time. She allowed herself to stay on each stair as long as she needed to, to catch her breath and find the strength to keep going.
She finally looked down, certain that she had to be near the bottom due to the fatigue and length of time she'd been on the stairs, only to see the top of messy red hair and a huge gourd.
'Uhh, hi,' she offered lamely as she met his aqua gaze.
'You should have called,' he growled at her, letting his arms uncross as he started up the steps towards her.
'Gaara,' she croaked, wondering how long she'd not spoken for.
'What?' he asked as he reached her stair and scooped her up over his shoulder, turning and walking effortlessly down the steps that had seemed insurmountable to her.
'Uuh,' she offered, loving how smart she sounded. Kamis, Sakura, great way to impress someone. Just sound educated like that. She snorted inwardly.
'We'll get you some food. Then you sleep.' He told her, and she bounced slightly against the gourd on his back.
After a good deal of bouncing around, he set her down, to her endless gratitude, on a kitchen chair. It was padded, thank kamis, and she relaxed.
'You should have called me,' he accused. 'I would have come. Now, ramen?'
She set her head down on her folded arms and made a sound, agreeing. 'Where are we?' she asked, curious. This wasn't Gaara's place.
'We're at Temari and Shikamaru's house,' he replied. 'Temari and Kankuro have been looking after you when I have to go to work.' He told her.
'What happened?' she asked, perplexed. 'I don't remember much. I got home from the hospital while the sandstorm was going and then I woke up in the hospital and you and Tsunade sama wouldn't shut up. What happened to me?'
A weird expression crossed his face, and his nonexistent eyebrows lowered. 'You got sick. We think it was sand fever, which usually attacks in the wintertime, so we're not sure how you got it, except for overwork and being around sick people all the time.'
'Sand fever?' she asked, the name wasn't ringing a bell at all. 'I've never heard of, and haven't seen it in any of the case studies I've read over.'
'It's not something that happens often. I'll get Tsunade sama to fill you in on it when you go back next month to report and brief the Leaf med nin.' He told her as he put a pot of noodles on the stove and lit the burner.
'Okay, that works,' she replied. 'Though I wasn't sure when I was supposed to go back to report.'
'Just for a little while you're not allowed to go back to the hospital. The virus stays in the system for quite a while.' He told her, and she noted the odd way he wouldn't meet her eyes.
'Oh, okay then. Is that why my body feels like it's been ripped to shreds and sewn back together?' he nodded, scratching his nose as if he was allergic to something, and looked relieved as Temari made her way into the room.
''Bout time you woke up, Sakura chan,' she gruffed at the younger nin, heading to the fridge and pulling out a bottle of pills.
'Prenatal vitamins,' she shrugged. 'they're really good, even if you're not trying to get pregnant.'
'Really?' Sakura asked, chuckling a little bit. 'Maybe I should go and get some then,'
Gaara grabbed the pot of noodles off the stove as it started to bubble over and started dishing them out into bowls. 'Want some, Temari?' he asked quietly.
'Nah, too early in the morning for me to be eating noodles.' She smirked at them and straightened up as she heard a slightly cranky wail. 'Gotta go. Time for trouble to wake up.' She took off hurriedly in the direction of the stairs.
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Cheesy timeskip. There's nothing really interesting happening right now anyway, so we'll just skip over it.
The lot of them settled into a routine over the next few weeks. Sakura wasn't allowed but the very barest training, so she tended to hang out with Temari a lot when the older woman wasn't busy training, or doing the other million things that kept a home and marriage going, not to mention the ten million things that kept a baby taken care of.
She babysat a lot, and read case studies that Gaara had the decency to bring home for her to keep her amused. Shikamaru wasn't taking missions outside Suna and Konoha at that time, since he and his wife were trying to get pregnant.
Gaara and Kankuro tended to take shifts in the office, leaving either of them with a little more free time. Kankuro wasn't taking too many missions either, and Sakura had the opinion that he was trying to court himself a wife to be.
She and Temari spent many hours at the diaper table or bathing the baby talking about Kankuro's up till now nonexistent love life.
End cheesy timeskip
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Three days before Sakura left for Konoha to brief the nins, she had a bad case of insomnia. She'd been sleeping almost horrifying amounts lately, mending from the sand fever. She'd finally almost recovered, and her energy levels were almost at a normal level.
So she crept down the stairs from her room, trying to be as quiet as possible so that she didn't wake up any of the others, and made her way towards the kitchen to get a midnight snack.
She found it lit, which was odd, considering Gaara liked the dark and Temari, Shik and Kankuro should be asleep by then.
So, being Sakura, she decided that it might be fun to sneak up and try to figure out why the kitchen was lit up like day.
She snuck up quietly, and peeked into the kitchen, seeing the lot of them, and wondering why there was a conference going on without her.
She smirked, deciding to come in and say hi as she got some cookies until Gaara spoke.
'She still doesn't remember,' he said softly.
'We haven't let her out of our sight, Gaara,' Shikamaru said, just as quietly.
'Orochimaru hasn't shown his face since he mutilated her,' Kankuro said. 'I wonder why he hasn't. she was talking about how he said he was going to come back and kill her when we took her to the hospital.'
Orochimaru? What the hell are they talking about? Sakura frowned to herself. What did Orochimaru have to do with anything?
'She was really bad when I found her,' Gaara said, voice quieter than normal. 'He'd done some pretty horrifying things to her.'
Horrifying? From Gaara? Something really bad had happened then.
'He'd pretty much shredded her. He'd poked her all over with a senbon, and she was almost dead from the shock, not to mention what he did to her with the kunai and stomping on her bones-'
Sakura had a feeling her shocked gasp was the reason all conversation ceased in the other room, but she couldn't help it.
Vague memories came bubbling to the surface of her mind, not things she wanted to remember by any means, but they were all vague, and hazed over by pain and a sense of unreality.
It was those dreams she'd been having for the last week or so. Only they weren't dreams. They were real.
What the hell? She asked herself.
'Sakura,' Temari chastised. 'Don't you know it's rude to eavesdrop?' she said, trying to mask the horrified expression on her face.
'I remember now,' she said quietly. 'It wasn't a bad dream that kept recurring. I should have realized it,' her eyes opened wide in horror at what had happened and she stepped into the kitchen, walking over to a cupboard for cookies.
'We'll get you some counseling as soon as we can,' Shikamaru told her. 'You'll need it. And we need to deal with-'
Sakura flinched as he cut himself off, knowing that she and Orochimaru had unfinished business to take care of.
'You won't be alone.' Came Gaara's soft vow.
Sakura felt herself smiling gently at him. 'Thank you. All of you, for being so patient with me. It must have been hard to not say anything, or give away why my body was so damaged.' She sat down on a spare chair and offered cookies around.
'I guess we can un-seal your chakra now.' Temari nodded decisively.
'So it wasn't-'
'Originally, yes it was him. But when we found that you couldn't remember, we didn't want the injuries to jog your memory before you were ready to deal with them,' Kankuro offered. 'So Tsunade san sealed your chakra off for a while.'
'Oh.' She blinked, sort of shocked. 'I guess I owe all of you a major debt,'
'Not likely,' Temari scoffed, 'Although you could do something for my little brother there-'
'Temari-' he cut her off shortly.
'Well, Gaara,' she started.
'I doubt she remembers,' he told her quietly.
'I remember certain things,' she frowned. 'What am I not remembering?' frustration laced her tone as she stuffed a cookie in her mouth.
Gaara got up to get milk and glasses after he saw Sakura's distressed look, cheeks puffed out full of dry cookie.
'You don't need to remember yet, just take care of yourself, and know that everything is alright,' Shikamaru said.
'Oh?' she asked, kind of worried.
'Don't worry. You'll remember on your own when you're ready to do so,' Kankuro told her.
They left Suna the next day, a little earlier than planned, though she figured this might just be to throw off Orochimaru in case he had something planned. Her chakra was still sealed, so Shikamaru and Gaara used teleportation jutsus to get them to the end of the desert more quickly, since Tsunade was the only one who could release the seal.
By the end of the day, the two men were exhausted, and Sakura wasn't much better off, so they decided to camp on the edge of the desert to replenish energy. They had a cold camp, and ate rations out of Suna, which consisted of sun dried vegetables and preserved meats. All in all, she didn't feel like complaining, since Konoha fitted them with energy bars and meal replacement powder to mix with water.
She fell asleep almost instantly; Gaara and Shik deciding to take watch splitting it in an unequal half, since Gaara still had insomnia.
Sakura's dreams were haunted with a senbon and a kunai covered in her blood, the dripping, viscous fluid being flicked in her eyes and licked up by a forked tongue.
She woke up with a slight start to a tiny noise at the perimeter of the encampment, wisely not moving, more due to reflexive training than anything else. She thanked muscle memory and stayed silent and still, equalizing her breathing to resemble sleep.
'Why do you want her dead, dobe?' was Gaara's low whisper. 'What did she do to you?'
'Nothing, really. Konoha has Sasuke and Itachi, so I can't have either of their bodies, and I know that Sasuke liked her a little.' Came the hissing answer. 'I have my reasons for everything,' he finished.
'I doubt it.' Shik offered. 'Who's giving you orders, fool?'
'Someone's giving me, me orders?' he laughed, a full-throated evil sound. 'Who could give me orders?' he asked.
'Someone smarter than you, I think.' Gaara laughed softly. Sakura sat up silently.
'Yes, my little toy.' Orochimaru smirked. 'I'm going to make your death painful, and I'm also going to link your mind to those you care about, so they can witness your death firsthand,' he shot snakes out of his sleeves, one heading for each of the men, two for her.
Sakura leapt up to a tree branch, grabbing a kunai from the sheath on her side with a curse. Shit. There was nothing she could do, she was sealed.
She could only cut at the snake heads that came towards her, watching Shik starting to use his shadow jutsus and Gaara's sand whirling around furiously.
'Shikumi no jutsu' Orochimaru called, creating hand seals so quickly she couldn't keep track of it.
What? His hands worked? Since when?
Then she was overtaken with a vision of her own painful demise. She screamed in agony as the other day when he'd played with her seemed to be preferable.
Shikumi no jutsu- death foretelling jutsu
Sabaku no Hime I'm sorry to leave it here, ladies and gentlemen, but there's a pretty big battle coming up, which doesn't deserve to be an afterthought tacked onto the end of a chapter. It won't be as disturbing as the torture scene, and I won't go into much detail with her vision of death; I'll leave that to your own imagination.
This chapter was much better for me to write. Just recovery. And what is it that she's not remembering? You don't know yet, but my muse told me, and it's a doozy. He's finally cooperating with me, and when he does, the world is a fun, fun place. He's finally decided we've had enough tea that he'll be nice to me. By the way, translations for the jutsus used will be in parenthesis beside the first use of the jutsu, just so that we all know what's going on.
Thanks to Wikipedia for the wonderful information on jutsus, I'd be toast without it. Very extensive Naruto section, check it out if you want, it's the perfect research companion.
Luff, and enjoy!!