Beta: Windshades. You rock, love. :cuddlepets:
Kakashi-sensei smells shaken, and he forgot to cover his sharingan again; it spins uselessly as he stares through nothing, dazed. This must be the first time he's been so openly stunned; Naruto doesn't care enough to bother him about it, though. He feels the same; he can't quite believe it. On the other side of the waiting room, Sakura's parents are waiting, white-faced and shell-shocked. He wonders what's worse; being told that your daughter was just brought in with a badly gouged back and if she doesn't die she might stay paralyzed, or actually seeing it and not being able to stop it.
His thoughts chase each other like crazy dogs after a fox, around and around and around.
He can't believe she did that.
Kakashi-sensei must have it worse than him; it doesn't look good for a jounin sensei to be protected by his weakest genin.
At least Sasuke completed the mission.
Fuck the mission.
He can't believe she did that. He just. Can't believe. She was safe. She was out of the way. No one paid attention to her. She could have -- Kakashi-sensei would have found a way to dodge; he always dodges everything. Always. He can't die. It was stupid of her. She should have stayed hidden. Saved herself...
He knows that she couldn't have completed the mission even if she had stayed hidden and left them to distract the enemy -- not enough destructive power.
She's so smart, smarter than him, but somehow, not enough to know when to run away.
...Yes. He can understand. That doesn't mean he wants to accept it. She's supposed to be safe, they're supposed to keep her safe. Kakashi is right to keep the three of them out of sight behind that huge potted plant, her parents probably hate them. And he hates Sasuke for jumping into the opening like that, for using her sacrifice like a distraction.
He tells him so; Sasuke sneers. She's a professional. She's doing her job. How stupid is he to let himself get so attached that he'd rather drag her along as useless baggage than see her be useful for once?
They would no doubt get banned from the hospital if Kakashi didn't pull out of his trance long enough to grab them both by the hair, drag them outside, and knock their heads together, hard, when they try to free themselves. He doesn't say anything; he just stares at his students, eye still spinning.
Sasuke doesn't apologize, but he looks away first. He still smells like Sakura's blood from when he scooped her up and started running, still has it under his nails.
Naruto slings an arm around his shoulders, and Sasuke doesn't pull away, and it says everything that needs to be said.
Kakashi covers his eye, finally, and goes back inside. His steps are dragging just a bit, wearily. Naruto and Sasuke stare at nothing a while longer, pretending that they're not leaning against each other, pretending that their world hasn't just trembled on its axis. Sakura isn't supposed to put herself in danger so recklessly. Sakura is the least likely of the four of them to die.
Sakura is a ninja, just as they are. This is the first time that they're forced to accept what it means.
When they go back in, her parents are gone. Kakashi tells them that the couple is inside, visiting.
He stares at them a second longer, then shakes his head and pulls his book from his pocket, slowly, and they understand that she's going to live. The doctors wouldn't have let the Harunos in just yet if they were still operating on her. And if she had died, Kakashi would have read it in the nurse's body language and -- and, no book. No book is a bad thing. Naruto is happy to see that stupid book. So very happy. He's never going to try stealing it and scribble all over the pages again.
He's not allowed to visit her until the next day. He camps in the waiting room anyway. Sasuke stays almost all night, then leaves, sneering. When he finally gets to see her, Sakura is awake and pale and still pretty, and she's eating an apple that still smells a little like him. Naruto grins.
Sakura's injury was mentioned in passing in Teamwork : The Night, and will be mentioned in another Teamwork prequel (if I finish it one day, that is. XD).