I am sorry this took so long. I had a bit of writers block. So I edited some of the earlier chapters while I went back and read them to help me get a second wind. I didn't think I was foreshadowing that much. But the good news, everything's escalating now.

*Disclaimer: It's my mind, Masashi Kishimoto's characters.*

Two days later and all but the two oldest of the ten were released from the hospital. Gaara had even gone so far as to station two Jounin in the small apartment complex to make sure the poisoneer wouldn't try anything again. Sakura would be heading home tomorrow afternoon. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't shake the sadness in her heart. She kept telling herself that this was better. If by some miracle he would return her feelings she'd be leaving and things would end before they had started. She wouldn't throw their friendship away like that. And if he did return the sentiment what would they do? She could never ask him to leave Suna and try as hard as she might she couldn't see herself anywhere besides Konoha.

She sighed as she bottled more of the antidotes she had made. Now all of the ninja were equipped to fight this wacked poisoneer if they came across him. They were also set up with an array of other antidotes courtesy of Kankurou and her. The second he deemed himself better he drug her into his storage room and they had made, found, and retrieved dose after dose of antidotes for others poison they might come across while fighting this guy. Well guys or girls. Gaara suspected that it was a group of people. The super said that there were regular visits to the complex by maintenance men from the water board. For the ingredients of the poison that was used, at least two of the botanists were behind it because of the two person shifts they were required to work on. She just signed the charts she was handed by Kankurou. He really was a help to her now that Reina was made Head Nurse, even if he grumbled and complained about it.

"Hey today you get to tell your interns they made it through boot camp."

She growled at him, "Stop calling it that!"

He just laughed as he walked out of the room, leaving her no choice but to follow. She grumbled as she climbed in the elevator with him. Once, just once, she made them run one hundred laps. It was right after one of the female interns passed out after healing a laceration on a civilian's leg. If they didn't have enough stamina for that they should have stayed in the academy. So Sakura took them to one of Suna's bare training fields and made them run laps. When they complained she crushed the ground beneath their feet.

"I can do this one hundred more times and still have enough chakra left to heal one of you completely, if Kankurou wasn't here, possibly three."

She got a few laughs from them easing their scared expression.

"Medic-nin are still ninja. You still have to train your bodies. You all have precise chakra control but what makes a medic-nin is your stamina and sheer will power. That's the difference between a great medic and a decent medic. Healing three or healing a hundred. So give me my one hundred laps."

One of the medics grumbled under his breath.

"You never had to do one hundred laps before."

Kankurou just shook his head as he sat on a chunk of uprooted earth. Sakura smiled at how pale the medic-nin got when he noticed that everyone had heard him.

"You're right I didn't have to run one hundred laps."

The rest of the group visibly relaxed but Kankurou was still grinning.

"I had do one hundred pushups, two hundred sit ups, hit two hundred targets, and then run one hundred laps."

The interns stared in awe. "Sakura-sensei is that when you trained with the Hokage?"

She shook her head, "No that was when I was Hatake Kakashi's student. I wished the Hokage let me off that easy."

The all looked pale as she jumped out of the rubble and onto the sandy flat ground.

"I'll run with you," she glanced at Kankurou as he sprawled back on a rock, "somebody called me rusty this morning."

She smiled a little as the doors opened on ground level. She'd miss his teasing. And his jokes. And she'd miss him.

Kankurou had been studying her quietly the whole time and he saw her smile fall. He wanted to make her smile again. He wanted to keep her smiling until she walked out of the cliff path that served as Suna's gate. She must have been sad to leave the hospital. Everyone here was sad that she was leaving, Kankurou most of all.

"SURPRISE!!!"

And Sakura was. Only Kankurou's hands on her shoulders kept her from falling down after colliding with him in her shock. He smiled down at her to comment on her face but she turned on him.

"DID YOU HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THIS KANKUROU?!"

He pulled his hands away from her, "NO! NO! I didn't know," his eyes flitted over faces pulling one out of the crowd, "Reina must have pulled this all together."

Luckily the pink haired medic let her angry gaze fall on the Head Nurse.

"I can't believe you did this! It's… too much." The girls exchanged a friendly hug.

Kankurou slid down the wall grasping at his heart. How could Sakura make his life flash before his eyes and not one second later make the whole room smile? He watched as her subordinates and other hospital workers from different departments gathered around her giving her words of appreciation and hugs. In a month these people came to know her. Her angry temper that was once unnatural and scary just a small flaw they came to love along with the pink haired medic. He caught himself watching her move throughout the hodgepodge crowd as Reina walked over to him.

"They'll miss her too."

He immediately pulled his eyes away from Sakura's smiling face to Reina's.

"But I think you'll miss her more."

He opened his mouth to deny her statement and closed it. Why did girls have this weird sixth sense? And more importantly why was it never anything good like picking lottery numbers instead of just picking up on things you'd like to keep hidden. But he just shrugged his shoulders and pulled himself off the floor. He stood next to her watching as Sakura was presented with a cake.

"I won't tell her but you should."

He could only stand there and watch Sakura smile and joke around with her now full-fledged medic-nins. Her eyes sparkled evergreen as she laughed. It was easily the only thing he heard in the crowd. He stored this moment away in his heart; her smiling face, her soft tinkling laugh, her bright viridian eyes, and those unmistakable pink locks. He joined the party after a few minutes of memorizing her hoping that the red cups being passed around were spiked with something strong.

Sakura really didn't feel like celebrating but she felt his eyes on her. So she smiled and laughed as one of her medics, no, one of Suna's medics told her how scary she was when he first met her. The truth was she was sad and she didn't want her painted faced bodyguard to see it. So she talked and laughed and hugged and ate the cake they handed her. When her face started to hurt from her actions she put her drink down. It wasn't helping much anyway since it was plain punch. She liked her on calls sober anyway.

"Alright, you've all told me to get lost so get back to work you slackers!"

They laughed and some grumbled but they didn't really listen and Sakura really didn't mind. If they were here then she could clean out her office and leave quietly. She felt Kankurou walk up alongside her as she made her way to the elevators.

"You can stay. I know how much you hated putting away those books you don't have to help me pack them too."

He shrugged as he reached out to press the up button. "You could use an extra pair of hands. I think you're leaving with more than you came here with."

"I'll help too Sakura-sama."

She smiled at the generous brunette as they all stepped into the elevator.

"I'm sorry for springing that on you. Your interns twisted my arm."

"They are their teacher's students after all. And the cake was really good even though it was kind of weird cutting into my own face."

Reina laughed as the elevator came to a gentle stop and pinged open. She stepped forward and Sakura was going to follow her out except Kankurou's voice caught her at the door.

"You're going to miss them aren't you?"

She let her hand rest on the frame to hold the door open. "I'll miss you more."

She stepped out into the hall wanting to make sure he couldn't see the sadness in her eyes. Reina was just ahead of her. She smiled back at her and turned to open the door. Sakura was nearly six feet from her when she caught the smell. It was the smell of burning paper and heated ink. Fear gripped her bones. She started to call out to her but it was too late. Reina's hand was on the door knob and Sakura could only watch as she opened the door to receive a wall of red heat and orange flames. Sakura was thrown back with the force of the explosion. She braced herself for the pain but it never came.

She felt something heavy on top of her. Not something but someone and they were breathing hard. She didn't have to open her eyes to see who it was. She could smell his face paint even over the sulfur and ash, over the smell burnt flesh. Her eyes flashed open. Her heart stopped at the pain in his eyes. He was gripping her so hard she was going to have bruises. But she didn't care, as long as he held her he was alive. The medic in her kicked in as she heard people rushing from down the hall. She gripped Kankurou's face in her hands placing her fingertips on his temples and pushing chakra there to numb him from the agonizing pain. Just peeking over his shoulder sent a shiver down her spine. He threw himself in front of her and took the entire explosion. She couldn't distinguish his black shirt from his burnt skin.

"Kankurou stay with me." He was clenching his jaw but his eyes were glossing over. She pushed more chakra into his brain cutting off the pain receptors.

"Please, please stay with me Kankurou."

His eyes locked onto hers as his breathing became less ragged. She found the bundle of nerves that lead to his spinal cord. She kept her hands there and kept the chakra flow steady. The medics and nurses finally came.

"Sakura-sama! Kankurou!"

Sakura didn't break eye contact with Kankurou. From what she guessed it was a controlled explosion. She couldn't smell any smoke. That bomb was meant for only for her. It was only meant to kill her. But they had taken Reina's life instead. And they almost took Sakura's too if it wasn't for him. Why did he save her?

"Get me morphine! We've got to get him to the burn unit NOW!"

A gurney was making its way to them and it felt like it took hours. She kept pumping chakra into Kankurou. His fingers were still digging into her arms and he was still lying on top of her. She wouldn't move him until they got him something to kill the pain

"Reina!"

Sakura didn't look toward the nurses looking through the rubble and the burnt remains of her office. She kept her voice steady. "Reina is dead. No one would have survived that explosion."

Kankurou's hands tightened his grip on her even more. She pushed more chakra into him.

"WERE THE FUCK IS MY MORPHINE!"

She started to brush away the tears that were flowing down Kankurou's face with her thumbs trying anything to soothe him.

"Just a little longer, just hold on a little longer."

Two medics rushed in with two ANBU in tow. Kankurou was given his morphine before being lifted off of Sakura and onto a gurney. They rushed him down the hall as an ANBU helped her to her feet. She saw the destruction and she felt her knees shake. She wouldn't have survived that explosion if it wasn't for Kankurou. She felt like throwing up. One of the ANBU held her arm to steady her on her feet.

"Sakura-san are you injured?"

She wanted to scream at him. A woman was dead and her best friend was critically injured from saving her life from a bomb meant to take it. But she couldn't bring herself to say anything. She shook her head looking down the hall where Kankurou was being wheeled into the burn unit.

"You're crying."

She raised a hand to her face to find it wet. It must have been his tears but she realized that her own were flowing freely down her face. She must have been crying for some time. She roughly wiped them away with the sleeve of her doctor's coat as she turned to the ANBU.

"Find out who did this. And someone, bring Gaara here."

She ran down the hall full out toward Kankurou. Now was not the time for her to go into shock. She had to fix him before she allowed herself that.

"Get out."

They all stared at her but did as she said when she pushed them away from him. A few of her medics stayed close by as she rushed to Kankurou's side as he was going under. She spoke to him softly.

"Kankurou, I have to separate your skin from your clothes and I have to scrub your wounds clean before I can heal them. It's going to hurt. I'm sorry."

She adjusted his morphine until she was sure he would barely feel it. She swallowed the bile that rose in her throat as she started to meticulously pull away tiny shreds of his shirt that had melted into his skin. One of her medics stepped forward and helped her remove every peace delicately. An hour later and his skin was finally free of fabric but it was raw and pink and bleeding from cleaning the wounds. Third degree burns covered his entire back. In some spots Sakura could see that the skin was burned down to the muscle. Her hands started to shake as she started to heel the horrific burns.

"Sakura please let us help."

She nodded silently as she started on the worst of his back. It would be a slow and painstaking process. They had to regenerate muscle tissue and several layers of skin. It would take an immeasurable amount of chakra to heal him and to re-grow his destroyed skin. Another hour passed and she let her hands fall onto the soot stained bed. Her medic's kept their glowing hands moving ever so slowly, inch by meager inch down his back. They wouldn't have enough chakra to heal him completely but she was no good to him in the state she was in. She walked out in to the quiet hall and shut the door behind her. She slid down the wall falling to the floor as she cradled here head in her hands. Everything came rushing back to her; Reina, the flames, his pained expression. She didn't know how long she'd sat like that, shaking. She was trying to get her breathing under control when she was pulled off the floor by strong hands and pulled into a fierce hug.

"Sakura."

She wrapped her arms around Gaara the second she heard his voice. He pulled her into his chest.

"Are you all right?"

She nodded into his shoulder letting out a rush of air. "I am but Kankurou's has third degree burns covering every inch of his back. My medic's are healing him as best they can."

He still didn't let her go as the ANBU watched their Kazekage show an unseen amount of emotion before them. Sakura noticed now that Matsuri was watching her with sorrowful eyes. She let Gaara go and hugged her tightly.

The smaller girl held on just as tight. "I was so afraid when we heard the news Sakura."

"What about Reina?"

Matsuri held her hand as she spoke quietly. "I'm sorry Sakura. She perished in the explosion."

She gripped her hand and turned back to the Kazekage who was looking into Kankurou's room as her medics healed his back.

"I want four ANBU on this floor at all times. Two stationed at this door. Matsuri stay here with Sakura."

Gaara walked off down the hall with one ANBU close on his heels. Sakura turned to Matsuri.

"Have they found anything yet?"

Matsuri still held her hand as she spoke, "We have our best trackers working on it. There was barely anything left of your office. Whoever did this was an expert demolitionist. There are only four people in Suna who could pull it off. Gaara's having them all tracked down. We'll find out who did this."

Sakura ran a shaky hand throw her hair. An ANBU stepped forward. "You might be suffering from shock Sakura-san. Maybe you should rest."

She glared at the painted blue dog. "I'm a medic. I know when I'm in shock. I'm not leaving this hospital. Besides Gaara' had it searched from head to toe right? This is the safest place for me."

No one could argue with her reasoning. But they all went to block her from Kankurou's room door. She shouldered past the ANBU and opened the door again. She stepped in to the clean room and sat down in a chair in the corner. Matsuri was talking to the ANBU outside quietly. She kept shooting her worried glances but Sakura didn't care. She was too busy trying to keep herself from shaking at the sight in front of her. Kankurou's broken and burnt body. He was like this because of her. She pushed the heel of her palms into her eyes to force back the tears. When she pulled her hands away she saw little cracks full of gray sooty ash.

"I'll be back to check on him in a little while. Don't push yourselves."

They gave her small smiles but she didn't feel anything as she walked out the door completely ignoring the ANBU watching her. She walked to the end of the hall to the nurse's station, not glimpsing the desecrated crater that once was her office. She was glad to see that the on call room was completely deserted. She pulled out scrubs from where Reina once had. The shower was almost too hot to bear. She laughed darkly at herself. If he could bear flames she could bear hot water. Then under the stream of water and in a room of steam she cried.

"Kakashi's already on his way here."

"He can meet her halfway."

"Do you honestly think Kakashi won't want a hand in this?"

The soft voices that Sakura was hearing faded into silence. Of course they had sent word to Konoha about the attack on her life. She hadn't thought about that. She hadn't thought about anything except for those few moments during the explosion the whole night. Even after her shower she stayed in Kankurou's room. She sent her medics away around midnight and then she took up healing him as she regained her strength. The sadness she felt earlier was now just a hollow feeling surrounded by gut wrenching anger. She wanted to find out who did this and make them understand just how much she wished they'd actually taken her life. That would be far less painful than this night had been.

She wanted to drift off to sleep again but Kankurou's voice broke the silence.

"I want her out of Suna."

"Then what do you want me to do?"

"Have four armed ANBU escort her back to Konoha."

She slipped out of her chair pulling the blanket off her body. She took a moment to frown at the hospital's white bed spread. Then she turned her frown at the two sand brothers that had noticed that she was awake. Gaara watched her calmly but as Kankurou turned away she could see the tendons in his jaw jump as he bit down hard.

"First of all I'm not going anywhere. Second of all get back in bed. I'm not finished healing you."

Kankurou still didn't meet her eyes, "you're going back to Konoha. You're mission's over."

She growled at him as she crossed her arms. She looked at Gaara. "If you send me back you'll find your ninja four days later stumbling in the sand with some pretty nasty bruises."

Gaara's eyes widened. This was the first time Sakura had ever seen him surprised. Yes, she was implying that she would go rouge. The second she stepped over Wind country's border she would turn right back. She rushed on in his silence.

"They won't be expecting you to send me after them, it's the perfect plan."

Kankurou turned to her now, brown eyes held green and fury sparked throughout the room.

"You ARE going back to Konoha even if I have to drug you!"

"I'm not going anywhere!"

"Let someone else handle this!"

"I'm NOT letting anyone else die for me!"

Kankurou blinked and then looked down as he heart fell. He wasn't expecting that.

"They wouldn't be expecting it."

Kankurou's head jerked up. Gaara held his brother's fuming glare. The Kazekage knew that Sakura wouldn't give this up without a fight. He knew that Kankurou knew that as well even if he was trying to deny it right now. He watched as his brother clenched his jaw. He would be with her every step of the way. She'd be well protected. He had proven that to the Kazekage one too many times already last night being the most fresh and most potent reminder.

"Sakura are you sure?"

"Gaara you can't be serious!?"

He leveled teal eyes at his older brother. Everything is his stance screamed to not disobey me. Kankurou bit his tongue at the aura of power that his little brother exuded. He had no say in this. He cursed under his breath.

"I'm sure."

"Tsunade will strangle me."

"She knows how I am. It's not your fault."

Kankurou nearly choked on his breathless utterances at the underlying meaning of her wounds.

It's not your fault if I die.

He swallowed hard trying to ignore the stiffness in his back. Gaara had made his decision and Kankurou could do nothing to change it.

"When do we leave?"

An ANBU's quiet landing in the room broke the tense quiet. Gaara looked at both of them, his heart heavy.

"Now."