The cold water felt like heaven on her heated face. Looking up at her reflection in the glass that separated the operating room and wash room, she noted that she almost looked awake as the water flowed down her chin and dripped into the sink.
Although, her eyes were only half-way open. And she no longer had the strength to keep the corners of her mouth from turning down. And now that the excess water had runoff and her face cooled, she could see just how pale she was.
Really, Sakura thought to herself, she looked great. For someone that had just stood over patients for 8 hours straight, trying to stitch up their mangled insides with a rapidly depleting supply of chakra, and that was after another 8 hour shift, she was a beauty queen.
Sakura rolled her shoulders, cracking the joints in her neck and back before she was reminded of the task at hand.
Priority number one: Wash away the blood body fluids that were currently staining her arms up to her elbows.
Priority number two: Find a spare cot somewhere, one that noone will ever find her in, and pass out.
Priority number three: Burn her uniform. Because really, it was just gross.
She wondered not for the first time if there was just something about Mondays that made people want to run into sharp things. Or fall into pits. Or eat things they found on the floor. Or go strolling in the Forest of Death. Whatever it was that had gotten them injured and brought them to her hospital. She didn't know why it was the case, but Monday after Monday hordes of injured villagers, shinobi and civilians alike, marched into her emergency room to seek medical treatment like it was going out of fashion.
Maybe the thought of death just seemed that much more appealing on Mondays.
It had been a revolving door at the hospital from the moment she had come on duty at 7:30 that morning. A farmer got kicked in the chest by an irate donkey he was trying to saddle, cracking a rib. A gennin fell on his own kunai while training. An ancient, fragile fossil of a woman tripped over that same bleeding gennin as his mother was rushing him to the hospital, breaking a hip. All of this was easy enough to treat for Sakura, if not a little time consuming.
As soon as the healthy glow of chakra dissipated from her hands as she finished mending the old woman's hip, a nurse burst into the room, breathlessly asking for her assistance with frantic hand motioning. It seemed that the first batch of injured shinobi had just arrived. So it began.
One thing that Sakura could say about this job was that it wasn't boring. Sure, it was tedious; studying rare diseases and cures for hours on end, but it had variety.
Today, for instance, she got a wide selection of many interesting injuries to deal with. Some patients where stabbed, others slashed. Some poisoned, some strangled. Some drowned, some crushed. Some burned, some frostbitten. Bleeding profusely, suffering from extreme blood loss... the list went on. Everything and anything that could have happened on a mission had. It was a veritable smorgasbord of injuries.
There was just something about Mondays.
It was after Sakura had set her third broken bone of the day that Tsunade finally decided to take pity on her apprentice and dismissed her for the day. For this Sakura was highly grateful, if the speed with which she dropped the newly healed arm was any indication.
But now, back to Priority number one.
There was just no way she could sleep while dried blood was still caked on her skin, no matter how tired she was. Drowsily she scrubbed at her hands and arms, feeling an odd satisfaction when the water ran a light pink and then finally, clear.
Sakura grabbed a towel from the rack beside her, slowly drying off her hands. There was no rush now, no one was dying. It was late and she was almost home free.
"Haruno-san!" A frantic young medic burst in to the entrance of the washroom, chest heaving from her obvious run. "You need to come quick, they need you in the south wing."
The towel dropped from her hands. Oh, for the love of...
"What happened?" She asked wearily, with little real interest. So close.
She wished fancifully that it was an early surprise party for her birthday, and that there would be cake.
"ANBU, pretty ugly. Tsunade-sama took the worst one, but we're all tied down, so..." She trailed off, glancing over her shoulder anxiously in the direction she had come from.
"I'll be right there." Sakura replied wistfully. No cake.
As she followed the younger girl down the hall, Sakura wondered fleetingly if it was anyone she knew.
At first she had worried constantly when Naruto, then Sai and finally Sasuke joined ANBU. Every time word came of an impending arrival of injured ANBU, Sakura would drop whatever else she was working on and rush madly to meet them.
She soon learned that it was pointless. Rarely was either Sai or Sasuke seriously injured, and even then, they brushed it off as nothing.
Naruto, she was convinced, was invincible.
Fushino Raidon, Sakura decided as she entered the south wing emergency room, was clearly not.
He was lying on a gurney about 20 feet away from her, his head turning restlessly from side to side. As she got closer, she could hear faint groans of pain and see the nasty looking gash on the side of his otherwise flawless forehead. The swelling was something awful, distorting the shape of his face. His hair was matted with blood.
Sakura took a quick deep breath to gather her strength, shaking off the weariness that had crept into her. She had work to do.
Quickly, efficiently, she surveyed the rest of his body with both eyes and lightly glowing hands, finding nothing. Beside the obvious hole in his head, she couldn't find anything wrong with him, not even scratches on his hands or tears on his clothing. Some one had obviously gotten lucky in causing his injury.
Sakura reached for the gauze the other medic had placed on the table beside the gurney and dipped it into the antiseptic solution, bringing it to Raidon's forehead. She wiped away the dark, drying blood on his skin and moved the hair out of the way gently before cleaning the laceration.
He was extremely hot to the touch, even though the wet cloth. She took another and repeated the process, delving a little deeper between the edges if the skin, gently brushing away dirt until she could just see his skull. He moaned, trying to turn his head away, but didn't wake up as she grasped it to keep him in place.
Satisfied, Sakura dropped the gauze on the table and brought both hands to his head. Tentatively, she leaked some chakra into his skin, searching out the infection she could already see. She found it immediately and directed more chakra to contain and eliminate it. It was fortunate that the cut hadn't been deep enough to crack or breach his skull. Swelling and infection was something she could handle. Brain damage, not so much.
Fifteen minutes later found Sakura swaying on her feet, grasping the side of the bed to keep herself upright.
Honestly, she wasn't sure how she had managed to even finish treating him, but finish she did. She had even mended the skin, loathe as she was to leave him permanently scarred. All that was left now was a small pile of pink-red gauze and a pink line about 2 inches in length above his left temple. In a matter of days it would be gone completely.
The whole time Sakura had been working on him, Raidon had only woken up once. He had looked past her with dazed, unseeing eyes and then promptly passed out again.
Just then, he woke up again. This time his gaze was steady and focused as his eye lids fluttered open, taking in his surroundings before finding Sakura leaning over him.
"Hello." He greeted her curiously.
The last thought that passed through Sakura's mind before the world went dark and she slumped over Raidon's chest gracelessly was that he had pretty eyes.
Raidon caught her easily, sitting up so he could keep her from sliding to the floor. He winced at the pounding headache that immediately assailed him.
"Hey! Over here!" He called to a nearby medic, waving his hand in the general direction of the lifeless body still weighing him down.
It was quickly removed to an adjacent gurney, the medic hurrying back to his own patient. Raidon sat up fully, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and fought off a wave of nausea before he let his feet touch ground.
He paused briefly over Sakura's sleeping form, studying her features before smiling slightly to himself, and left the hospital.
When Sakura woke up again, it was Tuesday afternoon. She could tell because she recognized the nurse hovering by the door, talking to some man. She sat up a little higher on the bed, blinking away both sleep and confusion from her eyes and noticed that she was in one of the hospital rooms upstairs.
Huh. When had that happened? The last thing she remembered was standing over Raidon, trying to keep her eyes open. She looked around the room again, looking for any clues. Belatedly, she came to the conclusion that she also recognized the man the nurse had been talking to.
Raidon was walking towards her, carrying a vase of flowers that she recognized as having come from the Yamanaka flower shop. He smiled at her when their eyes met.
"Hello again." He said cheerfully, putting the flowers on the bedside table.
Sakura smiled shyly, "Hi."
"I didn't get a chance to thank you yesterday for fixing me, so hence, these." Raidon motioned in the general direction of the flowers.
Sakura blushed. "Its my job. They're very nice, but you shouldn't have."
He brushed off her protest. "It was nothing. I would also like to treat you to dinner, to thank you. Your work was flawless." He added as he brought a hand up to the fading pink line at his temple.
Sakura blushed even harder, the heat spreading to her hairline and her neck, at the compliment. He was charming, she decided. Still, this wasn't the first time a patient had asked her out.
She opened her mouth to gently turn him down. "I'm flattered, but I don't think that's–"
"I insist." He interrupted her.
Sakura paused. Really, why was she saying no anyway? Ino would smack her silly if she found out Sakura had turned him down for a date. If it was a date.
And she was curious about him, after that weird exchange with Kakashi in the restaurant. Might as well hit 2 birds with one stone, Sakura thought to herself.
"Alright." She finally answered, earning a pleased smile from Raidon.
"Good. I'll meet you here tomorrow, after your shift. I asked the nurse when you got off." He added in explanation when he saw her questioning look.
"Ah. Ok." Sakura nodded, unsure of what else to say.
He didn't seem to notice her slight discomfort.
"I need to be going. I'll see you then." Raidon said, waiting only long enough to see her smile and bid him goodbye.
Just as he was turning to leave, Naruto and Sasuke appeared in the doorway. Both came to a complete stop when they noticed Sakura's other visitor. Raidon kept walking, acknowledging them with a curt, impersonal nod before neatly stepping around them and leaving the room.
Sasuke was the first to notice the flowers by the bed, but Naruto caught the direction of his gaze quickly enough.
"Was that who I think it was?" He asked slowly, nodding towards the now empty doorway.
"It was. And I think he might have just asked me out." Sakura answered, looking somewhat perplexed.
"Kakashi's not going to be happy." Sasuke mused.
That Naruto still hadn't said anything should have tipped her off that something was up, but Sakura hadn't noticed. Her mind was on other matters.
"Why would he care? We're not really close. And I'm dying to know what's up between them."
"True." He let the subject go. "How are you feeling, by the way?"
"Fine. Just drained myself too much yesterday. Mondays, and all that. I was actually working on Fushino-san when I–"
"Damn, you work fast, Sakura-chan! He got your clothes off already!" Naruto exclaimed, not able to hold it in anymore.
At the moment, she was wearing a standard hospital gown, her filthy uniform folded over a chair by a thoughtful nurse.
Sasuke sighed when he noticed Sakura's eyes narrow menacingly at Naruto's crack. They all really needed to stop pissing her off like this. None of them would ever even think about hurting Sakura, but she didn't seem to have the same qualms when they deserved it. Or when she thought they deserved it.
"Good to see you're okay. We'll be going now." Sasuke said nonchalantly, if a bit hastily, as he pulled a still grinning Naruto to the door and out of harm's way.
"You better run!" Sakura yelled at Naruto's retreating back, contenting herself with just threats for the moment. It wouldn't do to chase after him with her whole backside hanging out for the world to see.
She did have a reputation to uphold here.
"You know, Naruto, she will kill you one of these days." Sasuke commented lightly as they walked out into the street.
Naruto didn't seem overly concerned with the prediction. "You worry too much. She knows it was a joke. Besides, it was funny! Come on! 'You work fast!', 'He got your clothes off'... classic. I can't believe I'm such a funny guy!"
"I can't believe some of the things you are either." Sasuke muttered sarcastically in response, but smiled secretly anyway. Sometimes Naruto was pretty funny, even if it was at Sakura's expense. All that mattered was that she didn't hear him laugh.
"So, do you think Kakashi-sensei will care?" Naruto asked when he finally stopped laughing at his own joke.
"Care about what?" A familiar, bored voice asked, intruding on the conversation.
Sasuke and Naruto stopped dead in their tracks as Kakashi stepped out from a food stand. Sasuke recovered first.
"Where we take Sakura for her birthday." He responded casually, hoping the older man wouldn't notice the momentary pause.
The exposed eye regarded him carefully.
"Wherever. Just not too expensive." He replied finally with his usual blase tone of his, still eyeing Sasuke.
"Alright then, I'll give you details later." Sasuke said, moving to pass the other man, hoping that was it. Naruto followed silently.
They got as far as 2 steps before Kakashi's cool, disinterested voice stopped them again.
"Oiy, Naruto, who works fast?"
And suddenly, Sasuke wished he knew that jutsu of Sakura's that could make the ground swallow a man whole.
Him, in particular.
This is purely kakasaku, but this probably isn't going where you think it is. So stay tuned. And review.
