The Surgery:
The waiting room was tense, filled with a thick air of foreboding and anxiousness that you could cut through with a knife. It had already been around 10 hours since the surgery had begun, and it was almost 4 in the morning—although the group was tired, none of them could bring themselves to nap, and waited tirelessly for any news.
Yamato walked into the room with two bags filled with containers of food, looking around to see how everyone was doing. He almost grimaced at how depressed they looked, the heavy aura taking him a while to become accustomed to upon walking in. He took an empty seat next to Gai, glancing at Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke across from him. It looked like they were all in dire need of some sleep.
"I brought some fried rice for you guys…you should eat," Yamato began awkwardly, "there's still a long time to go before we get any news—Lady Tsunade said it might even be a 24 hour long surgery."
No one made a move to take the food out, or acknowledge Yamato's statement—they weren't particularly hungry.
"How can you even think of food right now?" Naruto said in disdain from his seat, crossing his arms as he shifted uncomfortably. To his chagrin, his stomach began to grumble with emptiness, at the worst possible moment. He felt his cheeks flush with heat, and chose to ignore the slight smirk on Yamato's face.
"Naruto, you should eat something. It's unlike you to go hungry for so long," Sakura told him supportively, placing a hand on his shoulder and giving him a concerned, tired look.
Naruto returned the eye contact tentatively, sighing with a hand on his churning stomach. "Thanks, Sakura, but I can't. I'm too worried about Kakashi-sensei."
"Yeah…" she exhaled apprehensively, leaning back, "Me too."
Sakura glanced at Sasuke, noticing that he had a steely look in his eyes, his lips stuck in a frown.
"Sasuke, what about you? Do you think sensei will…be okay?" she asked reluctantly, wondering what was going through his mind.
"…No," he told her honestly, not showing any signs of fear or anxiety. His body was rigid, as still as a statue.
Sakura frowned at his response, her brows furrowing together.
"What did you just say, Sasuke?" Naruto asked him with a quiet dangerousness to his voice, "How can you say that? What is wrong with you? Do you not care about sensei at all?!"
"Naruto, that's enough," Yamato intervened quickly, noticing how Sasuke had made no move to respond or even look up, and how they were starting to get looks from other people who were also waiting for their loved ones. He knew that Sasuke was probably right when it came down to it, and that admitting the glaring truth didn't necessarily mean he didn't care.
The truth was, Kakashi hadn't been okay for a very long time, and the surgery had a greater chance of failing than actually being successful. There were only 2 ways to deal with that news: either face the reality head on, or hope that everything was going to be okay without any solid reason to think that it would, all the while knowing deep down that everything might turn out horribly.
Sasuke was just choosing not to hide his dread behind false hope.
The Uzumaki opened his mouth to retort, but settled on keeping it shut, knowing that he wasn't in the right state of mind to begin picking fights. He didn't have the capacity nor the mood to argue, even though Sasuke's attitude definitely didn't sit right with him.
Across from them, Gai was hunched forward, with his hands in his face. Asuma was sitting next to him, and made no move to see how he was doing, as he was in his own world, thinking deeply, with a troubled look on his tanned visage. Kurenai was leaning on him, with a half-lidded gaze that made it seem as if she was about to go to sleep.
"Gai," Yamato started, putting a hand on his hunched back, "Are you okay?"
The man slowly pulled himself up, taking his hands away from his face and bringing them to his sides, tightly gripping the cushion of the seat. Suddenly, Gai got up, pausing as if he were trying to make up his mind on where to go. He had too much pent up energy, and couldn't stand sitting for a moment longer, much less 10 more hours.
"I'm going to go find someone…There has to be someone outside the OR that can tell me how he's doing."
He began to walk away, but abruptly felt himself being pulled back, Yamato's hand grasping his wrist.
"Gai, come back," Yamato told him, pulling him back into a sitting position, "All we can do right now is wait…they'll come here to tell us when there's news."
"I can't do this anymore, Yamato…I-I just want to know that he's okay…if he dies, I…I won't be able to take it," Gai said despairingly, his voice cracking with emotion. He gulped deeply, looking up at the ceiling and blinking back the tears in his vision.
His chest ached with tightness and anxiety, and he couldn't understand why all of this had to happen to Kakashi, of all people, his best friend.
"I know, Gai…Me neither."
Gai sighed shakily, his thick brows furrowing as he thought about how he would be able to bear sitting there without going crazy—his mind was racing, constantly worrying for Kakashi's condition.
When Shizune walked in, still in her surgical scrubs, this caught his attention, as well as the rest of theirs. He acutely felt extremely relieved, as having to be alone with his thoughts without any news was borderline excruciating.
"Shizune, how is he?!" Gai said, standing right back up.
She parted her lips, glancing at the ground and then back at him with a look that said she knew more than she was willing to share.
"He's…stable right now…there are still a few more hours to go until we can finish up," She started uneasily, "I just came out here because I thought you guys could use an update."
"Damn right we could," Naruto muttered, scratching the back of his stiff neck, "Shizune, how has he been handling it? Has anything gone wrong?"
"Well…" Shizune began, gulping deeply, "Like I said, he's stable right now. However, there have been moments where he's gone into acute ventricular fibrillation…and he's losing more blood than we were prepared for. But Kakashi's a fighter—he might just pull through. And we're trying our hardest to make sure that happens."
She wasn't mentioning that in addition to losing a lot of blood, he'd also flatlined a few times already during the rigorous surgery, and they had had to work hard to keep him stable.
"Will he be okay? What are you guys going to do?" Sakura asked with a deep furrow in her brow, the tiredness leaving her body.
"Losing blood, that's bad isn't it?" Gai interjected, rubbing his face vigorously, and pushing his bangs back out of his face.
"Actually, it would be helpful if you guys could donate blood…Kakashi's blood type is O negative, which is pretty rare. We could use your help."
After a pause to process the information, the rest of them stood up, ready to do whatever they could to keep their friend alive. It was better than waiting and doing nothing.
"I need to do some labs on you guys first, to determine your blood type," she told them with a small, forced smile, "If you would follow me, we can get started."
With one last look at their solemn faces, she turned towards the door and began to exit, the group following after her.
Shizune walked towards the OR with 2 units of O negative blood in her hands, hoping that no serious complications had happened in her absence. Tsunade had sent her to go find some blood almost an hour ago, and she'd only managed to obtain it from Gai, who fortunately happened to share the O negative type.
Exhaling forcefully to release any pent up nerves, she entered the scrub room, quickly scrubbing in, and then walking into the operating room, her eyes immediately finding Kakashi's body, which was surrounded by almost a dozen professionals and cut open, his bloody insides visible to the world.
Admittedly, seeing the inside of his chest didn't seem as daunting to Shizune, as she'd helped operate on his brain a few hours earlier.
"He's bleeding out," she heard Tsunade say to the surgeons next to her, "O2 sats are below 88…We need to do a rapid infusion, right now!
Shizune darted to Tsunade's side upon becoming aware of the seriousness of the situation, handing two units of blood to the surgeon next to the operating hokage.
"What took you so long?!" Tsunade said frantically, glancing at her apprentice momentarily, and then immediately turning her attention back to the ailing Hatake, "I think there's a nicked vein, Shizune, a-and I'm trying to repair it, but..."
Shaking her head and cursing under her breath, Tsunade wiped her sweaty brow with her forearm and stuck her stained red hands back into his torso to try and catch the source of the bleed. Upon attempting to grasp the slippery vessel, she felt a thick, warm squirt of blood spray across her masked face.
At that moment, she felt her heart stop, her body becoming heavy, and her breath quickening. She could see Dan in her mind, covered in blood and slipping away from her no matter what she did to try and save his life.
"Lady Tsunade?" Shizune said in concern, noticing the way she'd just stopped in the middle of the procedure, her eyes glossed over and panicked. Her hands were held out in front of her, as if she didn't know what to do with them anymore.
The hokage's fear of blood had certainly come in her way before, but Shizune had thought that it had gone away for the most part—for it to show up during such an important surgery was a great reason to worry.
Shizune stared at the monitor with a grave look, and then turned to Lady Tsunade, who was still standing motionless, completely frozen.
"Lady Tsunade!" she cried forcefully, "I know you're scared, but you need to act now, or Kakashi will die, do you hear me? He's going into V-fib, you need to stabilize him!"
Inhaling shakily, she pushed past her trembling superior, realizing that there was no time to convince her to save him. If Shizune didn't do anything, and soon, then it would be too late.
"We have to massage his heart," Shizune said with a furrowed brow, her forehead beaded with sweat. Quickly adjusting to the fact that she could see Kakashi's organs, she carefully wrapped her fingers around his heart and began to squeeze, repeatedly glancing at the frantic monitor to see if there was any change in rhythm.
"Come on, Kakashi…Come on…" she whispered tensely, being careful to manage the direct pressure she was placing on the delicate organ with her healing chakra.
The beeping began to slow and grow more steady, and Shizune pulled her hand out of his torso with a relieved sigh, nodding with an unfaltering look, and already thinking about what needed to be done next.
"He's still bleeding…we need to locate the nick and repair it," the kunoichi told the surrounding surgeons, unable to see where it was due to how much blood was filling the cavity, "I'm going to need a clamp…Suction, please."
After someone came and cleared out some of the red fluid, Shizune began to look for the tear, her hands steady as she caught the vessel and quickly used a thin chakra stream from her finger to patch it up.
"BP's stabilizing…I need factor IV and platelets…and someone please pack his chest," she exhaled, eyes glued to the monitor, "How much do you have left, Lady Tsunade?"
The hokage blinked, shaking herself out of her stupor. "Not much…we've already finished up on the brain and most of the superior lobe of the lung, so…perhaps a few more hours."
"Okay," Shizune responded curtly, glancing down at the thin chakra scalpel in Tsunade's hands, "Let's do this then."
"You can do this, Lady Tsunade…You have to do this. You are okay."
Gulping deeply, Tsunade nodded, raising her arms and focusing her gaze back to Kakashi. Her heart was racing as she thought about the possibility of losing him on the table—his life was in her hands, so if he didn't make it, that was on her. If it weren't for Shizune, he could've died.
She needed to get it together.
There was absolutely no room for hesitation, or taking breaks, because Tsunade knew that she wouldn't be able to live with the guilt of killing Kakashi.
Tsunade walked into the waiting room with Shizune at her side, pulling off her sweaty scrub cap and heading over to Kakashi's friends.
When they caught sight of her, they all stood up, their eyes boring into her approaching figure. She exhaled shakily, the pressure of their anticipation only adding to the mental strain that she had suffered from performing an almost 24 hour long procedure.
"Kakashi pulled through the operation," Tsunade started, placing a hand on Gai's shoulder, "We were able to take out all of the tumors…he did suffer some blood loss, but luckily, we stabilized him in time. He is now in the post-operative care unit."
Gai blinked, his brows raising up as he breathed a heavy sigh of relief. Sobbing gratefully, he enveloped the hokage in a bone crushing hug, his tears and snot staining the cloth on her shoulder.
"Thank you…thank you…"
The rest of them broke into tired smiles, collectively feeling as if a huge weight had been lifted off of their shoulders.
Sakura moved to hug Naruto, laughing with tears in her eyes, and feeling hope warm her chest once more. Maybe Kakashi-sensei would live. One day, maybe he could even be their sensei again.
Naruto blushed, surprised at first, but then happy to return the hug. He closed his eyes with a contented smile, his nose flaring as he sniffed her hair. It smelled like cherry blossoms.
Meanwhile, Sasuke stood with a wide-eyed gaze, his lips parted slightly as he took in the news. He didn't want to admit it, but he felt extremely relieved, as if he could finally breathe properly after a long period of not being able to.
Glancing at Sakura and Naruto curiously, Sasuke realized that the Haruno no longer acted like his personal fan girl, feeling an unrecognizable emotion well up in his cold heart.
Tsunade peeled Gai off of herself with a hidden grimace, holding him by the shoulders and looking him sternly in the eyes.
"Gai, if you want to thank anyone, you should also thank Shizune…she did excellent work today."
Tsunade turned to her apprentice and smiled lightly, her eyes gleaming with pride. Shizune blushed at the validation, blinking rapidly. Before she knew it, she found herself in Gai's tight embrace, feeling as if she was being choked.
"…Can't…breathe," she gasped, prompting Gai to release her.
"Can we see him? Is he going to be okay?" Naruto pleaded, a sense of urgency in his voice.
"Not right now…and there's no way of knowing until he wakes up," Tsunade told him, "He's not allowed any visitors at the moment…and you all have been here for almost a whole day. Go home and get some rest. And shower, because you guys stink."
Grumbling under his breath, Naruto hesitantly agreed, turning around and slowly walking towards the hospital doors. Sakura ran to catch up with him, and Sasuke sauntered behind with a scowl, his hands in his pockets.
Soon, Asuma and Kurenai followed after them, their hands clasped tightly together. Everyone but Gai was left in the waiting room, and soon, even Shizune and Tsunade went away, leaving him standing there all alone.
Despite the exhaustion he felt from donating his blood, he stood there for what must've been another hour, tears streaming down his face, a glazed look in his eyes as he stared ahead. Gai was just overwhelmed with happiness, not knowing how to bring himself to leave the hospital. At the same time, however, he knew he wouldn't be truly satisfied until he saw Kakashi open his eyes.
Feeling his legs began to grow tired and heavy, he sniffed and trudged back to the chairs, collapsing into one and deciding to wait until he was allowed to visit Kakashi.
"Visiting hours start right now, right? Can I see Kakashi Hatake?" Gai frantically asked the receptionist at the front desk, slapping his hands against the counter. It was around 8 in the morning, meaning that he had stayed in the hospital since the surgery.
"Yes, they do, and yes you can," The receptionist told him in response, flipping through a binder to see where Kakashi was, "You can find him in the ICU, room 7."
Nodding rapidly, Gai hurried to his friend's room, ignoring the exhaustion weighing down on his body. He was short of breath and his legs felt like jello, probably because of the fact that he'd barely eaten or slept for two days, and had given blood on top of that. At that moment, however, he didn't care—he just wanted to see his best friend.
Before long, he'd stumbled to the front of Kakashi's room, exhaling deeply with his hand on the doorknob, before thrusting it open and entering.
He was met with the sight of Shizune and Tsunade by the Hatake's side, the hokage holding open his eyelids and shining a bright light into his eye. Clicking her tongue, she pulled her hand back and stuffed the flashlight into the pocket of her white coat, a deep frown on her face.
"Equal pupils, but weak response to stimuli," Tsunade said to Shizune solemnly, unaware of Gai's presence in the room, "Shizune…this is my fault…"
"What's your fault?" Gai asked suddenly, before the apprentice could respond, walking closer to Kakashi's bedside and catching the two of them by surprise.
"Gai!" Shizune cried out in shock, almost flinching at his sudden appearance, "We didn't see you there…"
"What happened? Has Kakashi woken up?" he continued fearfully, feeling nausea bubbling up from within his queasy, empty stomach.
There was a long pause, and Shizune made tense eye contact with Lady Tsunade, urging her to say something. The hokage sighed and then looked back at Gai, who was anticipating her response with his breath held in his throat.
"No…Kakashi has not woken up," Tsunade started hesitantly, "But that happens sometimes after brain surgery."
"But he will wake up right? When will he wake up?!"
"…I don't know, Gai…it could take a few days, or a few weeks…we just need to keep being there for him," she told him empathetically, catching sight of his ashen visage and heaving shoulders.
He looked like shit.
"No…" Gai whispered in denial, going to Kakashi's side and tightly gripping his hand, "N-No…you have to wake up..."
The steady beeping of the monitor filled in the gaps of silence left by Kakashi's unresponsiveness. Gai felt his eyes water as he took note of the thick bandages wrapped around the Hatake's head and torso, and all of the wires attached to his body. His eyes were bruised, swollen shut, and a tube was going down his throat, his arms lying limply to his sides.
"Wake up, Kakashi…" Gai pleaded with the unconscious man, cupping his sallow face in his hands desperately, and then moving to rub his arm, all in the hopes of getting him to open his eyes, "You've already gotten through so much…you can't give up now, my rival! You can't…"
Gai began to breathe heavily, his pale face becoming beaded with sweat. Even so, beyond all rationality, he continued to urge his friend to wake up, ignoring the way spots began to dance in his vision.
"Gai, you need to sit down," Tsunade told him worriedly, upon noticing his unsteady demeanor and quick, panicked breathing, "When was the last time you ate, or slept? You don't look so good..."
She placed a supportive hand on his back, holding his trembling arm and guiding him to a chair. He fought against her grasp, going back to Kakashi's side and tightly gripping the bed railing.
"Kakashi, please…Wake up! Please, wake up!"
"Gai, listen to me!" Shizune said firmly, coming forward, "It's completely normal to not wake up the morning after such a major surgery–this happens to a lot of people, so there's no need to worry right now!"
He sobbed in exhaustion when Kakashi made no move to respond, his chest physically hurting from all of the emotional pain he felt. Hunched over the bed, he inhaled shakily, his thick brows furrowing when he felt his lips begin to tingle and go numb, a ringing becoming apparent in his ears.
His knees buckled to the ground before he realized what was happening to him, and he collapsed onto his side, his fingers unraveling from the side of Kakashi's bed.
"Gai?!"
The spots in his vision began to grow in size, and he closed his fluttering eyes with a confused grunt, his cheeks still wet with tears. Even on the brink of passing out, all he was able to think about was the terrifying possibility that Kakashi may never wake up.