When Kakuzu looked back on the few weeks that followed that awful day he could hardly believe they'd made it through. As soon as they'd reached the hospital Hidan was rushed into emergency surgery and Kakuzu was readmitted to the CCU, bradycardic and with a suspected second degree heart block. What had followed had been unequivocally the worst six hours of his life as he waited for news, fully aware that at any moment a surgeon could appear and tell him that they'd lost him. Not being there was almost unbearable. Wired up to a heart monitor and drugged up to the eyeballs, he had a taste of the helplessness Hidan must have felt the night before. Could it have only been the night before? It felt like another lifetime. He began to run over all the events he could remember from the party, tormenting himself with regrets. If only he'd taken better care of Hidan that evening. If only they hadn't argued. If only he could have some happy memory to hold onto, rather than this cold horror that Hidan was about to be taken from him, and that their last hours together had been so desperately miserable for him.

At some point during that morning he actually started talking to Jashin. Kabuto had given him Hidan's rosary when they took him into surgery and for hours he'd been running the beads through his fingers like Hidan always did, and tracing the cold metal of the symbol. It felt like a natural extension to start talking to it. He felt like an idiot and blamed the drugs, but carried on anyway. Whether he believed anyone was listening felt irrelevant - it felt at least like he was doing something. Something Hidan would have wanted. And over the weeks that followed that didn't stop.

But initially Hidan's surgery had gone well. When the surgeon came in to the CCU to talk to Kakuzu he was smiling. "You've got a fighter there, Mr Taki," he'd said. "He's stable." Hidan's broken arm had been set, his leg - a full tibia and fibula fracture - had been mended with metal plates, as had three of his ribs. The internal bleed - from his spleen, as Kakuzu had guessed - had been contained without having to remove the spleen, and although there was some considerable lung contusion, there was no sign on his x-rays of any dangerous bleeding. He had a hairline skull fracture, but they weren't too worried about that - they'd done an MRI and his scans didn't show anything to worry about. He was on IV wide spectrum antibiotics to manage infection risk, and hydromorphone for the pain.

When he'd had opened his eyes in recovery Kakuzu had been back at his side - the CCU team were aware they'd do more harm than good by trying to keep him away, so they'd changed him over to a mobile cardiac monitor and wheeled him through. Although Hidan barely knew where he was he'd recognised him; he'd been happy to see him despite the pain and confusion and nausea. Kakuzu would replay their short conversation over and over in his head in the weeks to come.

"Sweetheart, how are you feeling?"

"Fuck, I - I don't know," Hidan had slurred, his voice hoarse from the hours of intubation. "I don't know if I am feeling. I don't understand!" Suddenly he was panicking, his eyes darting around the ward trying to make sense of his surroundings.

"It's alright love," Kakuzu soothed him, his voice cracking with emotion. "It's just the anaesthetic - you'll feel much more normal once it's fully worn off."

But clearly Hidan wasn't feeling normal at all now. "Tsuchi died, Kakuzu," he said suddenly, wildly. "She was just dead, on the bathroom floor, I couldn't do anything." Tears started to roll unchecked down his cheeks.

"I know, I know." Kakuzu smoothed them away. "It's not your fault love... don't cry… don't..." He realised as he said it that he hadn't ever seen Hidan cry before, not properly. He remembered that telltale dampness through his shirt as Hidan had pressed his face against his chest in another hospital weeks ago, and how it had surprised him then. He could picture in many different settings an angry or aggrieved sparkle in those violet eyes - tears that never fell, but this… it was not surprising, but it was new.

Hidan took in a shuddering gasp of breath. "I thought you were too, they said on the phone… I thought I'd be too late…"

"What?" Kakuzu hadn't thought too much of it then, though it would torture him later. "I was fine love, I was always fine…"

Hidan forced himself up onto one elbow and Kakuzu desperately tried to ease him back down. "No love, don't do that-"

"Jashin…?" Hidan interrupted him. "Where did he go? Why didn't he take me with him?"

"Because… because you wanted to stay with me," Kakuzu murmured, heart breaking a little more. "You said you wanted to stay with me." Hidan looked so lost and anguished that he added, "but Jashin's with you anyway, you know that."

"The sky flashed," Hidan told him, slumping back down, and looking through him rather than at him. "Did you see it? That was Jashin."

Kakuzu didn't like to tell him that was most likely his best friend blowing himself to smithereens. He took his hand, then promptly realised he was about to throw up and got a disposable bowl in front of him just in time. It was hardly anything, of course, just some frothy greenish liquid. "It's alright, love, it's alright," he soothed again, giving him a sip of water. "You're safe now. We're in the hospital. You're all fixed up and soon you're going to feel a lot better, okay?"

But it wasn't as simple as that.

"Kakuzu," Hidan gasped suddenly. "I feel... fucking weird-" He clutched his chest, he was breathless. "It's like - like fucking popping candy, fuck, I can't-"

"Shit!" Kakuzu leapt to his feet, dragging wires out of his monitor. "His lung's collapsing!" he yelled out into a world that Hidan couldn't see anymore. Everything was going black. "Get a team here!"

The last thing Hidan remembered was being wheeled along a corridor which felt like it was tilted at about 45 degrees, so he was freewheeling or falling rather than rolling, someone forcing something over his face, there were bright lights and voices he didn't understand. And then there was more time that was just missing. There had been so many of these chunks of missing time now that he had no concept at all of how long this had been his existence for - it could have been years.

When he resurfaced he was trapped under the earth. Maybe up on the Heath, maybe he'd sunk down into that mud he'd picked his way through with Kakuzu in his white shoes, years ago now, it felt like. Or maybe that was when he sank down here, and everything since then had just been a dream. He'd sunk down so far that the mud and clay were pressing on him, completely immobilising him, and he'd been there so long that tree roots were growing around him. Most distressingly, one had grown right into his mouth and down his throat. It made him gag and retch but nothing he did could dislodge it.

But somehow, now, other people are here too. They say they're nurses, but they can't be. There aren't nurses hiding in the ground on Hampstead Heath. They're something else in disguise, lying to him to try and keep him here. Otherwise why wouldn't they try and get the roots out of him? There's one growing into his left side, growing through his flesh, poking right into his chest, he can feel it going deep inside him. It's really painful, he moans with the pain around the mouth-root, tries to call for Kakuzu, because maybe he's not far away, maybe he's walking the dogs up above him on the Heath, maybe he'll hear. He knows he's the only person who'd help him.

"Your boyfriend's coming up now," the 'nurses' are saying, "Kakuzu's going to be with you really soon, we've called the CCU and they're bringing him up."

Yeah, like fuck, he thinks. I know they're not. He doesn't remember what the CCU is, but he knows the nurse-creatures are lying to him, and that they won't let Kakuzu near him. He's pleased with himself for remembering not to trust them, but desperately sad. He closes his eyes.

Then he hears Kakuzu's voice. He is there! But he's not doing anything. He's just talking, and Hidan can't hear him properly over the buzzing that's started up in his ears. He tries desperately to tell him the 'nurses' aren't really nurses, that they've conspired with each other to bury him alive but he can't speak, can't make him understand. More little roots are poking into him he notices now, one into the back of his hand, one into his arm. If he lets them carry on growing they'll take over his whole body, turn him into some kind of puppet, a tree puppet, something like those freaky things Sasori used to make.

"Get me out," he keeps mouthing to Kakuzu around the central tree root. The tap root, it's called, he remembers. That means it's feeding off him. Sucking out his life force. "Get me out." Kakuzu's saying he's in hospital, but that's wrong. It's Kakuzu who's in hospital, and he's buried underground and can't get to him. He can't see properly, everything's a blur, he's got grit in his eyes. Earth. He can't blink it out, and he can't move his arms properly. The nurse-creatures are back again, leaning close, their eyes big and limpid with false sympathy. Doe-like. Kakuzu trusts them. Kakuzu believes them. But they aren't nurses, they're sinister sylvan creatures masquerading as nurses. There's a sickly thumping as well as the buzzing in his ears now, and he wonders whether it's his own heart, strangled by roots, struggling to beat. There's an eerie humming sound. Lots of humming sounds actually. And sirens. Again and again sirens. They crystalize into four notes, up and down, up and down, and words start to mix into them out of memories he didn't even realise he still had.

Tell to me, Tam Lin, she said, how came you here to dwell?

The queen of fairies caught me when from my horse I fell.

He's in the living room of the little council house where he grew up, his mum playing records and dancing, but there's glass all over the floor and she's barefoot; her feet tread bloody footprints, smearing arcs of red as she sways across the room to him. Come on baby, she says. Dance with me . She sings along: And at the end of seven years she pays a tithe to hell. I so fair and full of flesh, and feared it be myself. Full of flesh. He always hated that line. Hated it, but listened out for it; and on some level wanted to hear it. And now that's all he was, flesh, pierced by tree roots, earth pressing on him, suffocating him.

If my love were an earthly knight, as he is an elfin grey,

I'd not change my own true love for any knight you have …

True love. My own true love. That's Kakuzu, but Kakuzu's in the CCU - and he remembers about the CCU now - with permanent damage to his heart. Permanent damage, permanent damage, permanent damage, the words hum along with the buzz in his ears. But he was here, he tries to tell himself. But you can't see him, say the voices in his head. So is he really? He can't turn his head to see if Kakuzu is really there or not, but with an enormous effort of will he manages to force his left arm to obey him. He rips at the roots growing over his face, managing to pull out a fine one that had been snaking down his nose and into his throat, and then he went for the big one - if he could only get that out, he could get out of here - but before he can his arm is wrestled down again and another root was circling his wrist. Kakuzu was the one doing it. Kakuzu is holding his arm down while the root tightens. Why is he helping them?

Then the root he'd pulled out starts forcing its way into his nose again, and it hurts so much; it feels so wrong. He can't bear it, having been betrayed by Kakuzu, and the strength goes out of him. He feels trickling down the sides of his face, but can't wipe it away. Mud, and rain, probably. His body isn't his own anymore. He can't feel his leg at all, or his right arm. They're probably not attached to him anymore. He's in pieces, like Sasori, half his head gone. "The negative space of a presence, yeah?" says Deidara, suddenly there as well and also in pieces. "Boom! Gone!"

The collapsed lung - or pneumothorax, as it was in Kakuzu's head - had only been the start. The main issue - and in fact the direct cause of the pneumothorax, combined with the damage to the left lung - turned out to be post traumatic pneumonia and after being rushed back into surgery Hidan went straight to the ICU. He wasn't able to breathe for himself and was on a ventilator from the start. Some time in the night his condition worsened dramatically and that was the infection really setting in. There was a horrible inevitability about it. They'd known it was likely, they'd planned for it, medicated for it - but now there seemed to be nothing to do but ride it out. Hidan wasn't responding to the antibiotics they already had him on, so they added another kind. They'd switch completely a few days later, when his test results were back. They claimed the bacterial culture they'd tested was responsive to the third antibiotic, but by then Hidan was so very sick that it was hard to tell if it was having any effect. It was an old drug and not a gentle one - it upset Hidan's stomach badly, and so they added a new antiemetic to the mix as well. Even that didn't work very well, and they had to switch to an intravenous feeding system instead of the naso-gastric tube that Hidan had resisted so hard on his first day in the ICU. Now, he didn't even seem to notice it was gone.

Kakuzu barely left his side. It was so touch and go that the medical staff had not even suggested for a moment that he should leave, and for the first few days his own care was transferred to the ICU. He suspected Kabuto may have had something to do with it, though the ICU team were kind and understanding and never once made him feel like he shouldn't be there. They were keen to involve him in Hidan's recovery as much as they could. He called it that from the beginning - Hidan's recovery. He wasn't prepared to even consider any other outcome.

Still, that first week was utter hell. Hidan lurched from crisis to crisis. In the first few days he was still strong enough to rip his lines out and had to be constantly restrained. He hated the ventilator, hated and resisted being sedated, and if he was conscious at all he panicked if Kakuzu was away from him for a single second. But his condition was rapidly worsening. On the second or third day - Kakuzu was rapidly losing track - his left lung started to bleed into the pleural cavity - hemothorax - and he was in danger of it collapsing again. So he went back into surgery for the third time, to surgically reattach the lung to the chest wall.

After that they briefly tried to use non-invasive ventilation to avoid excessive pressure on the damaged lung, but then the pneumonia worsened. His blood oxygen was plummeting and they had to make the difficult choice to risk more damage to his lung from the ventilator. Heartbreakingly, he was too weak now to resist it, or even move. Intubated, on IV fluids, antibiotics and hydromorphone, catheterized, parenteral feeding tube, his broken right leg elevated in a sling, machines and monitors whirring and humming and beeping around him; Kakuzu could barely take in that this was his beautiful, vital, indestructible Hidan. He remembered him on the warehouse floor now and could only think how vividly alive he'd seemed then compared to this.

Hidan did mind going back to the tracheal intubation, but he wasn't in much of a position to let anyone know. This time he was hallucinating that he was at a party - it was Kakuzu's party and it wasn't going any better than the real life version had. Also it seemed to be taking place in The Admiral Duncan. Again there was broken glass everywhere. He felt so terrible that he supposed he was utterly fucked up on something. He was lying on the floor, in the glass and he knew it must be cutting into him because there was sharp pain everywhere. Kakuzu was somewhere here, he thought, hope and fearful shame mingling uncomfortably within him - when he found him like this he'd be mad. Or - the thought dropped into him like a stone - maybe Kakuzu had gone without him. Gone home. Left him here. Panic rose in him, higher and higher. And, most horrifying of all, someone was forcing something into his mouth and he couldn't seem to even lift a hand to stop them.

He seemed to be surrounded by people. He was hot, much too hot, the air felt close and muggy, he needed space. Music was pounding in his ears, too loud - he couldn't make out the tune. He remembered that he'd fought Zabuza and supposed maybe he wasn't just fucked up, maybe he was hurt. Badly hurt by the feel of it. Where the fuck was Kakuzu? It was his party, wasn't it? So he couldn't have gone home. There was that thing in his mouth again - hard and horrible and unwelcome. He wanted to push whoever it was away, but he couldn't move his hands, couldn't even twitch a finger. Now it was halfway down his throat, forcing in, making him retch and gag. Shame flooded through him - why was he so helpless? And who, who was doing this? Zabuza...? Tobi...? Definitely not Kakuzu, Kakuzu would never do this to him... but he was there now - just standing there beside him - not stopping it. He had a sudden aural memory of his deep voice saying ' to be perfectly honest, I'd have been happier if you'd given him that blowjob,' but he couldn't remember the context, or who he'd said it to, and he started to cry because it was all so horrible and there was nothing else he could do.

Kakuzu was stroking his hair now, kissing away his tears. "I'm sorry, love, I'm sorry," he was saying. Sorry for what? Hidan thought desperately. Are you part of this? "Make it stop, then," he mouthed. Kakuzu seemed to understand because he said, "I can't love. It's so you can breathe." But Hidan didn't understand that at all. It made no sense. All he could do was try to detach himself from what was happening. Kakuzu wouldn't help him and there was nothing he could do to help himself.

That was one of the moments Kakuzu would remember afterwards, mainly because of how completely steamrollered he felt. It was the most distressed Hidan had been and although he knew that everything that had been done had to be done he'd felt so terrible about it he'd almost wanted to stop them. Now he sat blankly at Hidan's bedside as the day morphed into evening and the other visitors on the ward left, all but one tiny old lady who was constantly at her husband's side, so still it was easy to forget she was there. He felt utterly drained, emotionally exhausted. Hidan was quiet now, he'd drifted back into a state of semi-consciousness and then fitful sleep. Kakuzu held his hand, then let himself droop forward til his forehead was resting against Hidan's hand as well.

"Please, love," he whispered. "I love you so much, please get better now. You have to get better now…"

Maybe he actually slept for a couple of minutes - the next thing he was aware of was a hand on his shoulder and a doctor and a nurse gently rousing him. He snapped to attention immediately, instinctively checking Hidan's monitors in a way he really wished wasn't still second nature to him now. Because they didn't ever say anything he wanted to hear.

"Mr Taki?" the doctor was saying. They drew the curtains around Hidan's bed. "You should really be lying down. We'll call you if anything changes-"

"It's already changed." Kakuzu was surprised at how ragged his voice was. He could hear from the tone of the blood oxygen monitor's beeping that the situation was worse. Hidan's hand felt hotter than before too, and his pulse was rapid.

"We need to do his airways, love," the nurse gently. "You lie down for a few minutes and we'll come and have a word when we're done."

The doctor - young, male and not one of Kakuzu's favourites - glanced down at his ECG trace. "You've had another arrhythmia," he said matter of factly. "I'll page the CCU - maybe we need to tweak your meds a bit."

Lying down was a relief, and being spared watching the tracheal suctioning was another kind of relief - one that came with a hefty dose of guilt attached. But Kakuzu didn't really spare much thought for the arrhythmia. He supposed Kabuto would be talking again about pacemakers, but there was no way he'd go into surgery with Hidan like this. They'd just have to up the meds.

When the pair finally came to talk to him they laid it out gently but definitely that if Hidan didn't start to get better very quickly then he was going to be in a very serious situation indeed. "We're talking 50:50," the doctor said. "He's not responding well."

Kakuzu stared at him, wide-eyed. He'd never felt terror like this, and at the same time he couldn't believe it. Half formed thoughts about specialists he'd once known, other drugs they could try swarmed in his head and fizzled out. He had no suggestions, no ideas. Only an overwhelming need to be near him. A conviction that somehow if he was holding onto him, Hidan couldn't go anywhere. "Please," he said hoarsely, interrupting what the consultant was saying because he was barely hearing it. "Just let me go back to him now."

It was a long night. From somewhere the team found a more comfortable chair for him that would recline a little bit and squeezed it in beside Hidan's bed. There was no more talk of him going to his own bed. He held his hand again, and made sure he had his rosary in the other. He imagined that he was sending energy into Hidan through their clasped hands - that he could use his own life force to heal him. He talked to him randomly about anything and everything they'd done together, and tears filled his eyes at the memory of their many arguments and frustrations, all so confusingly shot through with more love than he'd ever felt for another person in his life. He bitterly regretted every harsh word he'd ever said to him, and at the same time felt every second of their time together as so precious - just as it was - that he knew he'd never change a moment of it.

The ICU team seemed to come and go in waves. Hidan's airways were suctioned again and again, his IV changed, another dose of antibiotics put through it. They tried a lot of different things to get his temperature down, cooled IV fluids, IV paracetamol. Things worked for a while, and then didn't again. They talked about trying various NSAIDs, the possibility of renal failure, sepsis... Kakuzu recognised the names of the drugs, and knew the complications they could cause but he felt completely detached from the clinical decisions. Occasionally they asked him questions but mainly he just tried to keep out of the way. The noise of the monitors became a blur and he existed in a state of half drowsing, half hyper alert. At some point in the night the blur of machine noise became a comforting kind of stability. Nothing had changed for a while. Hidan's hand was cooler. He was dimly aware of flurried activity in other areas of the ward; later, of alarms going off a few beds down, and a while after that someone's relatives coming in. Hushed voices, someone crying. Someone gone, or going fast. But Hidan held on.

He only realised they'd made it to the morning when Kabuto appeared beside him and forced himself into his field of vision. He hadn't really been seeing what was in front of his eyes for a while and it took him a minute to even recognise him. Kabuto was saying that he'd just nipped up before his shift started to check on Kakuzu's ECG trace for himself, since the ICU consultant had paged him and Kakuzu blinked, trying to take it in. For a few moments the words didn't really make sense to him, just hung there in his fogged brain. The light had gone grey, and Hidan's nurse was still there by the bed, checking his monitors and preparing his charts to hand over to the day shift. "Good morning, lovely," she said to him, smiling. "His temperature's a lot better." Kakuzu had to put off responding to Kabuto while he checked Hidan over for himself, and the relief that flooded through his whole being when everything wasn't worse made it hard to take in his words for a while longer.

Once he was able to focus a little better he realised Kabuto was apologising for not having come up before - he'd had a couple of days off since that last shift when they'd found Hidan, apparently. He told Kakuzu he'd been up for 24 hours straight that night. Kakuzu actually thought - once he was really looking at him - that he was looking worse now. Maybe he's having trouble at home with Orochimaru, he found himself thinking irrelevantly. He was beginning to feel a strange kind of euphoria - probably borne mainly from lack of sleep - at just still having Hidan alive beside him.

"They found Deidara," Kabuto said then, looking sombre, and Kakuzu's heart sank. "Apparently it was a gas explosion, set off by whatever he was working on, and he was at the very centre of the blast. And by some fluke that meant he avoided the main part of the shockwave. He's got some serious burns and lung damage from the smoke, but nothing like you might expect."

Kakuzu blinked at him. He was having some weird after images at the edge of his vision and his head felt like it was spinning. "You mean he's alive?" He could hardly believe it. He'd been assuming Kabuto was breaking the news of Dei's death in an incredibly tactless way.

"Yes, by some miracle." Kabuto looked back down at the ECG trace. "I think you are going to need that pacemaker, Kakuzu. I'll book you in for another echocardiogram. Yes. There wasn't anything left of the building around him, so the fire didn't get established there. Of course it's early days, but apparently his condition is pretty hopeful."

Deidara was back at the Royal London, he told Kakuzu as he helped him back to his own bed. Kakuzu had hoped for a moment that he might be here, and his imagination had leaped ahead - that once Hidan was a little better they could recover together. They could mend their friendship. Encourage each other in their convalescence… But they'd have to wait for that.

"Is anyone with him?" he asked drowsily. 'Did they find Tobi?" But there had been no trace of Tobi.

"Konan's been looking in on Deidara," Kabuto told him. "She's in and out of there anyway with Nagato Pein and she… Well, you wouldn't have heard. Yahiko went missing too, the night of Hidan's accident, and they've finally found- Well. It seems he took his own life. Konan's utterly devastated, of course. And Nagato - the shock about Yahiko - he's taken a definite turn for the worse and he'd not expected to last very long now."

Kakuzu could barely take it all in. He asked Kabuto some more questions, but promptly forgot them and didn't hear the answers. He heard Kabuto say he'd come back after his shift, and then sensed him leave. He could hear Hidan's monitors, still sounding the same, and his day shift nurse moving around his bed. It was such a relief to be lying down, and knowing that Hidan was alright - at least for now - that he thought he'd sleep immediately, but before he could thoughts came crowding in. Konan, alone and grieving, but still the only person there for Deidara. Yahiko - who'd seemed so unfazeable, so self-sufficient - human enough to kill himself. Why? Whatever could have happened? He realised he'd never really known Yahiko, never looked beneath the smooth blond surface… His final thought was about all those catty opinion pieces Shikamaru Nara had written about the Akatsuki crowd's misfortunes. How he must be rubbing his hands with glee now.

Kabuto made some alterations to Kakuzu's prescription and after that he felt markedly better, but for Hidan things still hung in the balance. He wasn't getting noticeably better and there were frequent small crises - he wasn't in any way stable. But things weren't getting dramatically worse any more either, and that in its way was progress. By the Monday of the second week Kakuzu was officially discharged from the ICU, which meant he was sleeping either in the chair by Hidan's bed, or very occasionally in the visitor's room. He hadn't been discharged from cardiology though - and probably wouldn't be until he'd had his pacemaker inserted.

That morning Kisame came by the hospital to bring Kakuzu some things from home. He and Suigetsu had been looking after the dogs ever since aborting their trip to Devon, and Kakuzu rushed down to the A&E entrance to see him with them. Kimimaro had come by to check on Hidan's fractures when Kisame texted, and had insisted that he go down. "I'll stay with him," he'd promised, with an open sincerity that reminded Kakuzu so much of the old days. "He'll be fine, and you need to get off this ward for ten minutes."

There wasn't time to say much - he only stayed a few minutes, and half of that was taken up with the dogs going crazy to see him. But it changed his outlook - Kim had been right. Although it made him feel hugely guilty, it was a relief, just to be out of there for a moment. Away from the noise and machines and tension. And he realised he really needed to think about his own recovery more seriously.

Kisame told him, among snippets of other news, that there hadn't been any more damaging articles - maybe this was too much misfortune for even Nara to crow over. Sasori's retrospective had been taken over by the Suna family and merged with Chiyo's - Gaara was taking charge of it. Konan had hired Karin Uzumaki to run Akatsuki Gallery and had taken an indefinite leave of absence. And no-one had seen Tobi. Kisame had no idea what the future of Akatsuki magazine was going to be, or if he even still had a job.

A few days down the line Kisame and Suigetsu came to visit again, and this time they came up to the ICU. Hidan had in fact had a hopeful few days, and Kakuzu was feeling positive - but the sight of him was enough to have Kisame weeping openly, an utter wreck. It brought it home to him for a brutal second just how much his perception of what was normal had shifted. Suigetsu, however, was much more useful. He sloped in and sat calmly down by Hidan, talking to him about nothing much even though he was barely conscious, and showed no sign of panic at all. Kakuzu took Kisame out to the visitors room for a few minutes' relief. He looked at him looking so broken up and suddenly, out of nowhere, he remembered Hidan saying 'he needs a fucking hug! ' His voice seemed to sound clearly in his ears and for a moment it was almost like he was standing there beside him. So, tears in his own eyes as well now, he gave him one - hard and masculine, but deeply grateful.

"Kisame, I didn't have time before to say it, or even think of it, but thank you," he said, his voice cracking despite his best efforts to keep it under control. "I'd never have found him in time without you."

Kisame took a shuddering breath. "Oh god, Kakuzu. Was it in time? He looks- he looks- oh Christ! I can hardly believe- I'm so sorry-" He stifled another sob. "I should never have gone out of London, I should have been here from the start…I just keep thinking how we must have walked right past him on our way home..."

"Don't," Kakuzu said quickly. "Don't go there. It is what it is." Despite his efforts, though, his mind was going there. If Hidan had been found at 4am instead… no. Stop it. " What happened anyway?" he asked, to distract himself as much as Kisame. "The last thing I remember of Saturday night is you and Killer Bee yelling at each other…"

Kisame told him, and Kakuzu began to understand why he'd felt London was too hot to hold him. He hadn't realised the connection before, but Bee's brother was incredibly influential, not just in classic art world circles but in underground street art as well. He was rumoured to have gang connections, and, "he's still out for my blood Kakuzu," Kisame confided. "There's always someone watching the flat and they still have Samehada. We had a brick through the window the other night."

"Christ!" Kakuzu exclaimed.

"Mm. Luckily me and Suigetsu were over at yours, feeding the dogs. Zetsu was there, but he was too high to be upset, luckily. To be honest, your dogs are the only reason I feel safe going onto the Heath at the moment."

"How are they?" Kakuzu asked. He felt a pang of guilt about them too. He should be walking them himself by now. It would be good for his recovery - he knew he should be doing more cardio - and they must be missing him. Under any other circumstances he would be pushing himself absolutely as hard as the cardiac team would allow, but leaving the ICU now was out of the question for him.

"They're good, man, don't worry." Kisame clapped him on the shoulder. He sniffed hard. "You just get Hidan back on his feet. Nothing else matters now."

"Oh!" he added as they walked back to the ward, "did you know that Asuma Sarutobi died? It was the same night you had your heart attack. Talk about coincidence, no?"

Kakuzu froze. Was that why Nara wasn't capitalising on this latest round of misfortune? Somehow, just the mention of Asuma had his blood running cold.

Kisame and Suigetsu's visit seemed to mark a turning point. Hidan's body began to fight off the infection, and by the end of another week, the team were beginning to try and wean him off the ventilator. It was clear that it was going to be a long process, but he was ready to at least try and breathe unaided. They let him try progressively longer intervals without the machine and it was in these times that he began to talk to Kakuzu - not really lucidly - he didn't make much sense, and he still thought the nurses were trying to kill him, but he was at least capable of forming drowsy sentences. And maybe because quite a lot of the time in normal life he hadn't made a great deal of sense either, it really felt like having him back again. His voice was hoarse from the multiple intubations, the weeks of nil by mouth, the relentless coughing while he struggled with pneumonia. Not to mention the sickness that the cocktail of drugs he was on had been causing, but Kakuzu started to feel a lightening of the immense weight that seemed to be constantly pressing down on him. He became correspondingly dedicated to his cardiac rehab and physio, thinking ahead to getting out of here, to taking him home.

Already the physio team were starting to work with Hidan too, though it was more a case of just moving him about than him actually doing anything himself. He was still far too weak to even lift his hand off the bed, though they were encouraging him to try. Kakuzu learnt all the routines and exercises and assisted them as much as he could.

They had strange disjointed conversations most of the time Hidan was awake. As soon as he was even semi aware of his environment he was bored and claustrophobic, and disturbed and discomfited by the casts, lines and machines that surrounded him. Kakuzu did his best to distract him from it all, but what he said didn't necessarily bear much relation to the things Hidan would say back. He talked about events that had almost certainly not happened and seemed preoccupied with thoughts of being underground, buried. He was still hallucinating, and often thought there were other people crowding around them, glimpsed from the periphery of his vision. Loud voices on the ward made him panic. Quite a few times he asked if his mum was coming in. But sometimes he would allude to a fall, or a crash, and slowly Kakuzu began to piece together a bit more of what had happened to him.

Hidan didn't really want to talk about it though. Most of all he wanted to talk about Jashin. "I didn't know he'd have wings…" he whispered to the ceiling one afternoon as Kakuzu was doing his exercises beside the bed. "They were so fucking beautiful. I don't know why he left me... maybe I hadn't suffered enough…"

"Hidan love, I think that's bullshit," Kakuzu said matter-of-factly, carrying on with his bicep curls. He'd heard a lot of Jashinist theology every time Hidan had woken that day and there didn't seem to be any point in treading carefully with him so out of it anyway. "You'd already broken your ribs, your arm, your tibia and fibula, cracked your skull and ruptured your spleen by that point."

Hidan fixed him with an intense gaze - or was he looking a little past him. "Yes, but I hadn't lived with it, had I..." He paused to try to hack up what sounded like an incredible quantity of phlegm; he was just beginning to get capable of clearing his own airway now, but Kakuzu suspected the team would need to suction it out again within the next hour. Hidan hated that procedure more than anything, but he was out of breath now, panting a little. "When he came back - when you were there - then maybe I'd endured it long enough..." - another pause - "... to be… worthy of him…"

"Well, fuck him if he wanted that!" Kakuzu said indignantly. "Fuck you Jashin!" he addressed the ceiling where Hidan's gaze was still lingering.

"Or maybe he came because you came…" Hidan's eyes were shining and he was getting the translucent look Kakuzu had come to associate with his oxygen levels dropping. His anger morphed painfully into tenderness and he pushed the button for the nurse.

"I expect so," he agreed with him gently. "Being a classic dog in the manger, the bastard…"

Hidan actually laughed a little at that, then tried to cough and didn't quite manage. "Stop… fucking… blaspheming. I think… maybe… he wants my life to be a constant act of worship…"

Kakuzu privately determined it would be no such thing. He was anxious that Hidan might start to resist his recovery as an extension of these ideas, and that frightened him. He held his hand as the team arrived and re-ventilated him even as he drowsily insisted he didn't need it. Kakuzu knew from the experience of the last few days that he would do that every time and just murmured to him comfortingly, agreeing with him even as he assisted the team to get the oxygen mask in place.

The next day was a definite progression. Hidan's temperature was a lot better and he was managing longer off the ventilator. He was still drowsy and confused, but seemed to be able to focus for a little longer. He even managed to eat a little. But with increased comprehension came even more awareness of his situation - and with it pain, frustration and fear. All morning he'd seemed to need constant reassurance that Kakuzu was there. Every time he woke he'd say his name, "Kakuzu?" in a lost hoarse whisper that brought a lump into Kakuzu's throat every time he heard it. "Yes, Hidan?" he'd say. "I'm here." Mostly that was all he needed to hear. He told Kakuzu more about the exact colour and texture of Jashin's wings, and Kakuzu told him about how Deidara was in hospital too, after blowing up his building.

"I thought you might have gone to see him," he told him. "When you didn't arrive, you know, the morning after I…"

He didn't really expect Hidan to fully take it in - he'd got so used to talking to him and talking to him, first with no response at all and now with random or delirious ramblings. But, "no..." Hidan said, meeting his eyes and looking so much clearer that his heart began to pound. "He - he texted me though. When he heard about you… shit, I never texted him back…"

Suddenly he was retching, and Kakuzu, ever alert, whisked a disposable bowl in front of him. He brought up everything Kakuzu had painstakingly got down him at lunchtime, and his heart sank again. They were going to need to try another antiemetic… He was pale and clammy, and Kakuzu gently wiped his face and helped him take a tiny sip of water.

"Where is my phone?" he asked, after Kakuzu had settled him back against the pillows. Then, "Oh!" - and he seemed to retreat a little inside himself.

"What is it, love?"

Hidan turned away from him, turned his face into the pillow. "I forgot. He threw it down the steps after me. I- I heard it smash…"

"Who?" Kakuzu took his hand, his heart in his mouth. "Who threw it?"

Hidan's mouth opened but no sound came out. He looked frightened and haunted; his eyes darting from side to side as though the spectral people that Kakuzu couldn't see were closing in on him. Kakuzu bent close to him, his lips brushing gently against his cheek. 'Whisper it to me, baby," he murmured. "It's okay. No-one's going to hear us."

Somehow, when Hidan did, it wasn't even a surprise. Somehow Kakuzu felt like that name had been in his head all along, occupying his thoughts and hovering at the edge of his consciousness. Shikamaru Nara. No, it wasn't surprising at all, and Kakuzu felt a cold clarifying anger replace the formless, helpless rage that he'd been keeping tamped down for so long.

As soon as Hidan was asleep again, which was fairly soon - he seemed exhausted by even thinking about what had happened - Kakuzu called the police number he'd been given for the investigation and told them. They seemed to take it seriously, and even said they'd recovered a phone from the scene which they'd test for fingerprints. Kakuzu was heartened.

Unfortunately, during one of Hidan's semi-lucid periods the day after next, a police officer came to see if they could take a statement from Kakuzu - and Hidan insisted on speaking to him too. Kakuzu and the ICU nurses made it clear that Hidan was still in no condition to be interviewed, but the officer took down what he said all the same. It involved a vivid description of Shikamaru with deer antlers, bathed in demonic light, and the physical manifestation of Jashin in the public toilet, heralded by a shaking of the earth and brightening of the sky. "Our Lord made manifest!" Hidan urged the officer, eyes wide. "Did you see him?"

At that point the ICU ward sister suggested that Hidan should be tested for a urinary tract infection - notorious for sending patients a bit loopy - and sent the police officer packing. Kakuzu didn't like to tell her that this was a fairly normal delusion as far as Hidan was concerned. But he was clearly exhausted and actually starting to hallucinate again - the stress of recounting the experience maybe, even in such a garbled state. He thought Jashin was in the ward, though it was actually his bedside monitors he was pointing at with awe and reverence. They put him back on the supplemental oxygen.

Two days later Kakuzu heard that Shikamaru had been taken into police custody for questioning, but then released without charge. There wasn't enough evidence apparently, and Shikamaru had an alibi. The phone had no fingerprints on it but Hidan's. If anyone else had held it, they'd said, they'd worn gloves.

If?! Kakuzu was livid, but he kept the news from Hidan who was beginning to do a little better and that day had only needed an oxygen mask periodically and one episode of airway clearing. He was resolved that they would have justice for this eventually, but for now, like Kisame said, the only important thing was Hidan's recovery. Anything else would wait.

He began to question that as Hidan's condition became more stable though. It seemed he hadn't bargained with how important resolution and closure might be to him - that started to become apparent a few weeks later, when he'd been transferred to a step down ward - the High Dependency Unit.

It hadn't all been plain sailing to get there - Hidan had succumbed to other infections even as his pneumonia improved, and his leg fracture had not been healing successfully and had to be reset with a frame. In Kakuzu's opinion it was an early transfer, and he was anxious about it. But a major trauma incident had come in during the afternoon and beds were urgently needed in the ICU. Hidan was sleeping when they brought him through in the early evening, and he proceeded to have a rough night. Kakuzu started to worry that he'd deteriorate seriously and need to go straight back to the ICU, but to be honest the level of care in the HDU was still very high, and the new team were capable and reassuring. Around 3am Hidan settled down and slept peacefully, and by mid-morning the next day he was still sleeping.

The HDU was pleasant - light and airy and less noisy - and the slightly lighter nursing gave them more privacy. Kakuzu had woken at the normal time and spent some time arranging the various bits and pieces that they'd accumulated during their stay in their new area, then took a brisk walk down to the hospital entrance to meet Kisame with the dogs and his post. Then he settled down to sort out some paperwork that the bank had sent, to do with the sabbatical he'd arranged to take. It was dry and thankless work and he found his attention drifting. He looked out of the big windows at the end of the ward, and wondered if he wanted to go back to work at all. He began to think maybe not. Hidan's bed was the second back from the window and he could see nothing of their surroundings apart from the tops of a few tall buildings. The sky was a bright clear blue. The heatwave that had been oppressing them on the day of the party was back in force, but in here there was nothing to be felt of it. When he'd gone down to meet Kisame it had already been like stepping into an oven.

He suddenly realised Hidan was awake and looking at him. His gaze hadn't been so focused for the last couple of days, as he fought off the latest infection. Kakuzu put aside his papers and smiled at him, and with some effort Hidan's thin hand made its way off the bed and into his.

"What day is it?" he asked quietly.

Kakuzu squeezed his hand gently. "I... think it's a Wednesday... I've lost track too," he admitted. "How are you feeling, love?"

Hidan struggled up his pillows a little way. "Kind of… clearer," he says finally. "But, man, so fucking weak ! Can you - can you help me sit up?"

Kakuzu fiddled with the bed controls. He didn't want Hidan to put undue pressure on his chest and abdomen, but equally, the sooner he got used to moving again the better. "It might hurt," he warned. "You're still going to be very tender…" He supported him into a sitting position and Hidan was panting with effort by the time they got him comfortable. Kakuzu gave him a few sips of water and watched him anxiously.

Hidan settled into his new vantage point and looked around the ward. "It's different…" he said. He spied the familiar tower of disposable bowls on the night stand and gave a rueful smile. "Ahh, the fucking little eggbox hats," he says. "How many of those fuckers did I get through last night, babe...?"

"A lot," Kakuzu says drily. He was poised to grab one the moment Hidan's jawline made the distinctive little clench that he now recognised as an inevitable precursor to him bringing up the contents of his stomach. For the last few days he hadn't been doing very well at keeping anything solid down - even water had been a problem. They were still mainly keeping him hydrated intravenously. But so far today he seemed to be coping with it. Although Kakuzu told himself repeatedly, 'be realistic', his spirits started to rise. Maybe it had been the right time to leave the ICU behind after all.

Hidan was interested by the change in his surroundings, but after half an hour he wanted to lie down again - he had a headache and his chest was hurting. A nurse came on the med round to put his morning painkillers through the IV, and once they'd kicked in he felt sick again, although he didn't actually vomit. Once he was sleeping again Kakuzu grabbed the doctor on duty and asked him to prescribe a different antiemetic.

"It's not working well enough," he said flatly. "That or change the pain relief. He needs a break from feeling awful. It's impacting his recovery."

The doctor gave him a harassed look. "We've tried a number of different ones already."

"So try another. Or several. You've hardly exhausted the options. I can give you a list." He could, and did. He'd started reading a lot of clinical studies about every aspect of Hidan's condition. "He's actually only had metoclopramide and cycladine. We could try prochlorperazine. I used to find that was very helpful for postanesthetic nausea. Or, getting creative, there are a lot of possible combinations with ondansetron, and that's just for starters."

The doctor took the paper Kakuzu was aggressively proffering at him and even looked slightly impressed as he read through it.

"We just need to get it right," Kakuzu reiterated. "There's no reason for him to still be nauseous. He'll start refusing pain medication if this carries on. And then he won't want to move and we'll have even more serious problems."

"Ever thought of re-skilling and coming back to the NHS, Mr Taki?" the beleaguered young doctor said tiredly, entering a prescription for prochlorperazine into a battered laptop.

"Well, I was a surgeon, not a doctor…" Kakuzu demurred, deflecting the question, and wondering how it was that his reputation kept preceding him like this. But he'd be lying if he said the thought hadn't occurred to him.

The new drug seemed to do the trick. When Hidan woke up that afternoon he didn't feel sick at all, and even ate half a piece of toast. Kakuzu was ecstatic. The young doctor was almost as happy - and Kakuzu remembered with a wave of nostalgia how it had felt to be the one to make such a breakthrough with a patient. Maybe, finally they were on track to be discharged.

But before that could happen Kakuzu himself needed to have his pacemaker fitted. Kabuto had been right - the damage to his heart had developed into a stage 2 heart block, and away from constant hospital monitoring they'd agreed that a pacemaker/defibrillator was the best option. Kabuto was keen to get things underway.

However, Hidan feeling better added its own complications. He was so much more aware, both of his surroundings and the state of his body, and he felt helpless and paranoid. Several times Kakuzu came back from quick errands - getting a cup of coffee, or briefly meeting Kisame and the dogs - to find him frantic and on the verge of a panic attack, two nurses trying to get him to breathe. He'd calm down almost as soon as Kakuzu was back beside him, but it didn't bode very well for future periods of separation. It was hard to see how it could be managed at all.

Kisame and Suigetsu were regular visitors now, sometimes with Zetsu as well, and they stayed with Hidan while Kakuzu had an echocardiogram and a stress test. It wasn't terrible but it wasn't great either - he was unsettled and disoriented for a while afterwards, and that was without the burden of anxiety that would be a factor when Kakuzu had the actual procedure. He persuaded Kabuto to put things off a little longer.

Still, in the interests of re-socialising Hidan a bit, he asked Kisame to let the rest of their friends know that they could drop by, and Konan came in to see them briefly the next day. She was as soothing and kind as always, and it was good to hear some news of Deidara - who seemed to be recovering well - but she was so obviously grieving that her sadness soon started to infect Hidan too. Nagato Pein had died a few weeks before Hidan had left the ICU. Konan told Kakuzu as she was leaving that she was moving back to Wales, where she wanted to set up a gallery and project space in memory of him and Yahiko.

"That's what I always wanted, really," she told him with a sad smile. "To give something back to where I came from - to give the kids in Merthyr a way to engage with the arts. We… all lost sight of that I bit, I think."

Kakuzu walked her to the door of the ward, and as they reached it a young blonde nurse passed him on her way in, and he thought she looked vaguely familiar. Vacant icy blue eyes, ridiculously long hair… but he couldn't place her. She went to speak to the ward sister, Konan went off down the corridor, and Kakuzu decided to pop to the toilet since he was halfway there. He was just reaching for the door handle when one of the nurses came running after him and asked him to come back.

"He's in a bit of a state," she said. "Just after you left the ward something seemed to trigger him and he-"

But by now Kakuzu could see the state he was in, and wasn't listening anymore. "Hidan!" He crouched down by the bed and grabbed his hand, making his voice utterly calm despite the inner turmoil. "Hidan, slow down, you're not making sense."

"Kakuzu!" Hidan clung to him. "Thank fuck you're back!" He was white and shaking. Nearly hyperventilating. This was more than just separation anxiety.

"Breathe, love, come on..." Kakuzu held him firmly, stroking his back. "I won't be able to understand if you don't breathe-"

Hidan took a gulp of air and shook his head frantically. "I need to tell you-" he gasped.

"Okay, baby, okay." Kakuzu took his face between his hands. "What is it? What happened?"

"That voice!" Hidan stammered. "I heard the voice that… on the phone that night… she was here , Kakuzu, she was in the room!"

And suddenly, Kakuzu could place the blonde nurse. He let go of Hidan and wheeled around but she had gone. She had been with Shikamaru Nara at Sasori's funeral.

Once he'd calmed Hidan down and after asking both nurses to write down statements detailing exactly what had just happened, Kakuzu got the blonde nurse's name from the ward sister and called the police number again. It could be the tiny thing Nara had overlooked that could bring him down.

He had a pretty clear picture by now of what had happened that night. The phone call, the ride down to South End Green, the car door. Then Shikamaru Nara, an altercation, a fight - somehow tripping or pushing Hidan down those steps. If they could pin the phone call on Nara's friend, Hidan's confused testimony suddenly seemed much more credible.

When everyone had gone, Kakuzu drew the curtains around the bed and put his arms around Hidan and just held him for a while. He was still a long way from okay.

"I'm sorry," he said shakily after a few minutes.

"Don't be…"Kakuzu murmured, but he could see how crushed with shame he felt.

Hidan shook his head. "I feel so - so fucking pathetic! But just hearing her voice I was right back there, thinking you'd had another cardiac arrest, thinking I should've been there, and I might not make it in time, and you might be- be-" His voice rose and tear started in his eyes. "And then- and then-"

"It's okay love." Kakuzu's heart was melting. "I'm here now."

"You can't always be," Hidan whispered.

That was kind of unanswerable. "Well, right now, baby, I do really need a wee…" Kakuzu admitted. "I guess I can hold on a little longer, but…"

Hidan struggled to get a little more upright. "Take me with you then," he said. "I need to go too. And I don't wanna see that fucking horrible portable toilet again ever in my life !"

Kakuzu assessed him for a moment. It really would be much better for him, if he could manage. The physio team had shown him how to get Hidan safely into a sling or wheelchair from the bed and he knew he could do it. "Okay," he said. "I guess we'd better tell the team what we're doing though…" He pushed the button.

"Alright?" he asked. Hidan nodded, though he was biting his lip. "Nervous?"

Hidan took a deep breath. "A bit."

"We'll take it really slowly. We just need to get you sitting on the edge of the bed and I can help you into a wheelchair-"

"What the fuck?" Hidan stopped moving abruptly - he looked close to tears.

"Baby, you're not going to be able to walk there," Kakuzu told him gently. "Not yet. Maybe we can try a few steps tomorrow, but you'll need to get used to a frame or crutches before you can make any kind of distance. Okay? You've got a tibia fibula fracture, remember? And even the good leg is going to feel pretty wobbly."

A nurse appeared - Kakuzu told her what they wanted to do and she was happy enough to get a wheelchair for them. Hidan swallowed, and looked like he might be going to bottle on the whole idea. Then he straightened up a little. "Can I at least try standing on it?"

Kakuzu sighed. He knew how this would go. But he was confident he could keep him from hurting himself, so, "if you hold onto me," he agreed, after a quick glance around. This was something the team would probably not like... "It won't be easy," he warned him. He helped him to ease himself around, and to the edge of the bed. Hidan was panting with effort already. "Okay, good foot on the floor," he instructed. Hidan nodded. He bent his knees so that Hidan could hold around his neck. "Right. Push with the good leg, no weight on the bad leg. Alright?"

"Fuck me!" Hidan was shaking with effort, clinging to him. He managed to get upright, with Kakuzu straightening up too, and keeping a steadying arm around his waist, but after wobbling there for a moment the leg gave way and he sank back onto the bed. " Fuck !" He dashed away tears of frustration. "Why? Why is it like this?"

"I'm sorry..." Kakuzu said. He crouched down so he could look him in the eye. "You were completely immobilised for nearly two weeks, and even after that you were seriously ill. You mustn't expect too much of yourself. But it could be a lot worse. We started your physio back in the ICU, which will have saved you from a fair bit of muscular atrophy. You'll get back - but it is going to take a little time."

Hidan closed his eyes. "Okay then, the fucking chair," he whispered. "Fucking hell."

When Kakuzu flicked the lock round on the toilet door, he suddenly realised they were properly alone together for the first time in nearly a month. It changed everything about the way he felt, like a flood of relief. He bent down and kissed Hidan gently on the mouth. "God, I've missed having you to myself…" he murmured.

Hidan's hand clamped around his forearm. "Kakuzu…" he whispered, voice cracking, and pulled him closer, kissing him back as fiercely as he was able. Clearly he felt the same. "Oh fuck!"

Kakuzu parked the wheelchair in the corner while he had his long awaited wee, but somehow Hidan managed to manoeuvre himself alongside. "Fucking hell," he said, eyeing Kakuzu's dick, "it's been so long since I got any of that…"

"Hidan!" Kakuzu exclaimed, though he couldn't help laughing. "You don't have to watch me urinate just to get a glimpse of it! I'm perfectly happy to bring you here and show it to you any time…"

Hidan smirked a little, though he was bright-eyed and drawn with the strain of so much extra exertion and emotional trauma. "I don't mind. I know we never got into watersports together, but I feel like I wouldn't mind you doing that all over me… Wow, you've been holding on a while haven't you…"

"Have you no shame?" Kakuzu demanded. He finished off and tucked it away. "I'm not doing that to you!"

"Aww..." Hidan complained. "Of course I haven't, not with you ! You know that."

"Yes, I do," Kakuzu agreed sincerely, not even bothering to try and hide his emotion. "And I wouldn't change that for the world." He supported Hidan out of the chair and deposited him carefully onto the toilet. "Right now it's going to come in handy..."

"Yeah." Hidan was tight-lipped, whether with pain or embarrassment he wasn't sure. "This isn't the most dignified is it?" He twitched at the hospital gown. "Just make sure you get this fucking dress out of the way, I don't wanna shit on it."

"Do you want me to step outside?"

"No, of course I fucking don't! I want you to show me your dick again."

"Hidan!" Kakuzu chided. "At least wait until you've finished on there! Which could take a while with all the morphine you've had..."

Hidan made a face. "Ah, man, stop it, that's too much!"

"Oh, t hat's too much?" Kakuzu sat down in the wheelchair to wait.

"Okay, it is going to take a minute," Hidan admitted after another moment. "Turn around…"

That had ended up being a good day, and so was the next. Hidan was fired up with the novelty of not feeling 100% terrible and pumped to start his physio properly - and trips to the toilet became something to positively look forward to! Frustration soon began to set in, though. He'd lost so much muscle mass and rebuilding his strength wasn't a quick process. It wasn't just the muscle atrophy, but his chest was still vulnerable and he coughed and got breathless with any exertion. The spleen injury meant that his left side was still very tender and the leg and arm fractures were just in the way of everything. Also, now he was more aware he was bored to the point of tears, but not really able to focus on much either.

Still, after a week in the HDU he started to be able to move around the ward with a frame, with Kakuzu and a nurse or physiotherapist on either side supporting him. He soon became a favourite with the physio team because he was actually pleased to see them - re-mobilising after a serious illness was such a painful process that most patients dreaded their physiotherapy. For Hidan, nothing was worse than keeping still, even excruciating pain. He hated feeling so helpless, and he simply didn't care about the pain so long as he was moving. He would have pushed himself way beyond his limits if they'd let him. As it was, it was hard to gauge where those limits were. He repeatedly asked for his pain meds to be reduced so he could 'feel properly', and at first the team took this at face value and did so. He got himself into a state of fatigue and sleeplessness with his blood pressure rising dangerously before Kakuzu realised what he was up to and had the levels raised again.

Apart from that all went well until the day he made it to the window. Kakuzu hadn't thought about it - no-one had - but the HDU faced out over South End Green. Hidan reached it, alight with triumph - and his face changed immediately. It was, again, as though he retreated inside himself. The light went out of his eyes, the blood drained from his face. He started visibly trembling and even before Kakuzu had closed the tiny space between them he'd let go of the frame and was falling. Kakuzu got his arms around him just in time, and could feel his heart pounding through his whole body. He was hyperventilating by the time two more nurses materialised next to them seconds later to help them get him back to the bed.

It was a panic attack, of course. 'Just' a panic attack, but it marked the beginning of a deterioration in Hidan's mental health that threatened to derail his recovery. Kakuzu blamed himself bitterly for not thinking of the impact that seeing the site of his horrendous ordeal would have. Of course he would have seen it eventually, but if it had happened when he was a bit physically stronger, maybe it wouldn't have hit him so hard. After that he couldn't even look at the window from his bed, he made Kakuzu keep the curtains drawn on that side all the time which made it gloomy and claustrophobic.

Any attempts to mobilise him for the rest of that day and the next resulted in him getting dizzy and short of breath. He was coughing more than he had been as well, and that was exhausting him. He lost the little appetite he had and vomited the little he did manage to eat. By the second evening he was requiring supplemental oxygen and the team were wondering whether he needed to be readmitted to the ICU. They suctioned his airways again, and said they'd have to put the feeding tube back in if he didn't get better at keeping food down. Kakuzu knew that had to be avoided at all costs. Having that back would send Hidan into a spiral of depression that would completely negate any positive effects.

As the evening drew on Kakuzu began to feel quite despairing. He supposed he had better tell Kabuto to put off the pacemaker insertion again - they'd scheduled it for a week's time, since Hidan had been doing so well. Now, it seemed unthinkable. He was utterly at a loss, and so tired that he stopped understanding the conversations he could hear around him on the ward - they just ran through his head in a stream of gibberish. To add to his disorientation, the shift changed and the ward went into night mode. Hidan went to sleep, which wasn't really much of a change - he just drifted from unresponsive drowsiness to unconsciousness. "Jashin, you utter bastard," Kakuzu found himself saying quietly into the darkness. "Don't you value him at all? After all those rituals, all that devotion? I'm doing everything I can for him and you're doing jack all, as far as I can see. You need to step it up."

He watched Hidan's face through the dimness, angelic in repose, as always. Thinner now, and with a constant crease of pain between his eyebrows, but still the closest thing to perfection he'd ever seen, or could even imagine. "It's going to take both of us, you know," he continued, half crazy with exhaustion himself. He ran the rosary beads that trailed from Hidan's closed fist gently through his fingertips. "What kind of god are you anyway? Show me what you can do. If we have to go back to the ICU I'm declaring you officially impotent."

He sighed, feeling ridiculous but not caring. He thought of the 'wings of pain' Hidan had tried to describe to him, and the face - the face of god - that had time and again come between them. "I suppose he'd say I shouldn't talk to you this way," he said tiredly. "I expect it's blasphemy or something. But… just get him through this? Please?" He remembered the vacant eyes of that blonde nurse and a chill ran through him. "Shouldn't you be smiting down his enemies while you're at it?" he added. "I'd do it myself, but I'm not leaving him alone here… and you don't seem to have a problem with that."

Suddenly he realised Hidan's eyes were open and watching him. "Kakuzu…?" His voice was weak and hoarse, but there was something in his tone he hadn't heard for weeks. A spark of something - animation, engagement. "Are you praying ?"

"Uhh," he began, ready to deny everything, but the delight in Hidan's face stopped him in his tracks.

"Kakuzu!" Hidan struggled into a semi upright position. "Oh my God!" Tears were streaming unchecked down his face as he forced himself to sit up and nearly fell off the bed throwing himself into Kakuzu's arms. "I'm so fucking happy! Fucking hell! I thought this would never happen!"

"I thought you were asleep…" Kakuzu said awkwardly, stroking his back and conflictedly relishing the feeling of having him fully in his arms while also worrying about the pressure on his injured spleen and the whether he was going to dislodge his IV line. Carefully and regretfully he stood up to deposit him back into the bed.

"And I thought I was fucking dreaming, but no!" Hidan coughed a little from the exertion. He grabbed Kakuzu's hand. "Kakuzu, it wasn't blasphemy," he said seriously. "Talk to him however you want to - show him who you really are, your real self. That's what he wants."

"Alright," Kakuzu agreed, kissing him and feeling fraudulent but, then, after all, he had been praying in a way.

Hidan wouldn't let him go. "Kakuzu...?" he pleaded, "Can't you lie down with me? I can't sleep properly without you next to me."

Kakuzu did find a way to squeeze in next to him, perching a little higher up the bed so he could fit around him, slowly easing one arm under his neck to drape around his shoulders. They wouldn't have got away with it in the ICU - but here they might get an hour or so. He stroked his hair and kissed the top of his head, then laid his cheek against it. "I love you, sweetheart," he whispered, caressing the side of his face with his free hand and sliding it down to rest lightly on his chest.

"I love you too, babe," Hidan whispered back drowsily, turning his head in towards him and nestling into his shoulder.

Kakuzu lay awake a little while longer after Hidan had fallen asleep again, and checked his various monitors, and his oxygen levels were better and heartbeat was stronger. He could feel it under his hand, anyway, now. Even his breathing sounded easier, and he began to have a little hope, after all, that they would make it through this.

He didn't mean to fall asleep like that, but he was so tired, and holding Hidan - however awkwardly - felt so right after the weeks of distance. He was not long after by a ticking off from the ward sister, with a crick in his neck and a cramping shoulder muscle, but it had been worth it.

Hidan woke the next day back on track physically, but mentally still very precarious. He'd go from hyped and over-excited to almost catatonic with misery at the drop of a hat and with often no discernible cause, though any small setback could be guaranteed to throw him into depression and damaging self-blame. His sleep was more disturbed than ever, and plagued with nightmares. He did finally let Kakuzu draw the curtain back, though, and with constant effort - so long as they kept away from the window - Kakuzu developed ways to keep him just about emotionally stable. It meant keeping him occupied every second he was awake. He got Kisame to bring in his iPod, which helped a lot. He tried reading to him and playing card games, but he still couldn't really concentrate well enough for that. They spent a lot of time just talking, and they started to make more little excursions with the help of the frame and wheelchair. Encouragingly, he found that if Hidan was getting really fractious and depressed then taking him along to the toilet and spending a little private time kissing him back into good humour was still remarkably effective. They didn't go beyond that, although Hidan developed a habit of stealthily undoing Kakuzu's shirt buttons which he had to keep an eye on to avoid shocking the nurses.

Once his IV was removed Kakuzu even took him down to the hospital entrance to meet the dogs, who went crazy with joy to see him. Kisame and Suigetsu were clearly letting them get into emotional habits - and Kakuzu found he didn't care. Hidan was delighted that they remembered him, though he shed a few tears for Tsuchi at the sight of only three of them. He was also beyond excited to see the outside world again. He actually slept soundly after that for a couple of hours, and Kakuzu made sure to do it as often as he was well enough.

When the day of Kakuzu's operation came around, it was Hidan himself who wouldn't accept any more delay. The thought of the damage to Kakuzu's heart terrified him - in fact it formed a large part of his constant nightmares.

"No! You have to!" he said urgently, when Kakuzu told him they could still put it off if they needed to. He put his hands on Kakuzu's chest, over his heart; remembered that punishing rhythm he'd pounded into him on the bedroom floor. He couldn't do that now. He wondered if he'd ever have the strength to be able to do something like that again - it felt impossible. So there had to be something else to save Kakuzu now.

After lunch Suigetsu and his friend Jugo came in to sit with him while it was done. For Hidan, Suigetsu had proved to be by far the best visitor. He could keep inane conversation up for hours, and crucially he never seemed stressed or anxious. He'd started bringing Jugo along on the morning dog walks when Kisame was busy wrapping things up at Akatsuki Magazine, and Jugo proved to have an incredibly soothing air about him which Hidan found he liked a lot. It was hard to panic with Jugo there.

It wasn't a long procedure, with minimal risk involved, and the team had scheduled his physio for the same time to take his mind off it, but nothing could really do that. Even with Jugo and Suigetsu distracting him to the best of their ability he was scared in the way he had been when Kakuzu had gone into emergency surgery all those weeks ago - even though he knew logically that it was nothing like that time. He tried to engage, but everything seemed like it hurt more than usual - he felt like he couldn't do anything properly. Without Kakuzu's involvement and encouragement it felt like there was no point, until the physio team, well attuned to his moods, suggested that Suigetsu and Jugo might be able to take him though to recovery in a wheelchair when they were done. That perked him up a lot, so as soon as the message came through that Kakuzu was out of surgery, that was what they did.

It proved cathartic for both of them. It was the same recovery ward that Kabuto had taken Hidan to along that endless seeming corridor, what seemed an endless amount of time ago. Hidan felt now almost as if the clock was turned back - like they could undo everything that had happened in between and do it all again differently.

As they approached the bed and he could see Kakuzu lying there - eyes closed, still not aware of them - that fantasy evaporated, but still, it felt like a huge hurdle that had been looming ahead of them for so long had finally been passed. And now the rest of the way seemed clearer. He lifted Kakuzu's hand off the bedcovers and held it firmly, then found himself stroking his fingertips the way he always used to do.

"Hidan?" Kakuzu said immediately, in surprise. He slowly lifted his head off the pillow to look at him, and smiled. "I love it when you do that," he murmured, laying slowly back down.

"I know..." Hidan told him. "I do too…"

"I didn't think they'd let you come…" Kakuzu said.

"Physio let me do what the fuck I want." Hidan giggled. "I'm their golden boy, after all…"

Kakuzu laughed too. "This time, sweetheart," he promised him, holding his hand tightly. "This time I reckon we're finally going to make it out of here!"

"Yeah," Hidan agreed. He was tired, from being up longer than usual and the stress of being apart from Kakuzu and worrying about him - but he didn't feel out of his own head, the way he had over so much of the last month. He laid his head down on the bed beside Kakuzu and felt his hand caressing it. "How soon do you think we can go home?" he couldn't hold back from asking. Suddenly he felt just desperate to be out of here - alone with Kakuzu, independent again.

"I don't know. Soon." Kakuzu stroked his hair, combing his fingers through it, and it felt so nice, he wanted to just stay like that, although his chest was hurting from leaning forward and even he knew he was probably on the verge of overdoing things. Across the ward he could see Jugo and Suigetsu waiting in the doorway. He knew that soon they'd come to take him back - the doctor in the HDU had been slightly disapproving of the whole enterprise and didn't want him to be here long. But something had distracted them. A familiar figure, striding onto the ward as though he owned it. Kimimaro.

"Look, Kakuzu!" he said as Kimimaru slowed, then turned. "They know each other!" They both strained to hear.

"Is - is that Jugo...?" Kimimaro said, his voice totally stripped of the veneer of arch sarcasm he normally protected himself with.

"Kim?" Jugo's face was transformed. "I didn't know you were in this country - I never thought- I thought we'd never see each other again! Oh my God!"

According to Suigetsu, (who gleefully told Hidan everything once they were back in the HDU and Jugo had run off to find Kimimaro again) they had met on Jugo's gap year, when he was teaching English as a foreign language in Sudan and Kimimaro had been working with Medecins Sans Frontieres. They'd connected instantly, but been separated by the situation there. Jugo hadn't even been sure Kim had made it out alive and it had been one of the major regrets of his life.

"Seriously, Kimimaro looked like a different person," Hidan said. It made him feel all over-emotional. He remembered how much he'd hated him on their first meeting, and what a dick he'd been at the dinner party - but then how he'd been there with him to keep Kakuzu alive, and had now become one of the doctors he trusted most here. Kakuzu had told him how he'd tortured himself for years over Orochimaru, and, "it's fucking beautiful, man," he said to Suigetsu, tears in his eyes. He could hardly wait to tell Kakuzu all about it.

All of this positive progress was slowed down when Hidan was moved out of the High Dependency Unit onto a general medical ward. It happened very suddenly, as once again several beds became urgently required in the ICU, prompting a knock on effect downwards. Kakuzu took one look at the ward and knew it wouldn't do. There were twenty seven beds and three nurses, and clearly there was going to be an insane drop off in the level of care. He'd known they'd come up against this eventually, but he'd thought there would be some warning, that he'd have time to organise something. Worst of all, he would no longer be allowed to be there 24 hours a day - when visiting hours were over, he'd have to leave. Intensive Care was accommodating because your loved one was pretty likely to actually die. High Dependency wasn't all that different, though their approach could have been - he'd been lucky that there was a lot of communication between the teams here. But this was different. The patients were much more stable. There was no excuse for partners to be permanently there.

If he'd been the patient here, his insurance would have covered a private room, and he decided he'd just pay for Hidan to be moved across the hospital into the private wing - but, frustratingly, it couldn't happen immediately. They had to wait for someone to be discharged, and then for the room to be made ready, and there was paperwork to be done, forms to be issued and signed. They were told it would probably be tomorrow morning before he could be moved.

Hidan found the new ward stressful and confusing. If Kakuzu hadn't been with him he'd only have been mobilised once, when the physio team came round. There just weren't enough nurses to patients; Kakuzu found himself doing things for the patients around Hidan just to stop them distressing him by moaning. After lunch the patient in the next bed was sick, and no-one was on hand to clean it up, even though Kakuzu pressed the buzzer twice. Hidan couldn't stand the smell and was sick himself, luckily into one of the disposable bowls - but only because Kakuzu was there to whisk one in front of him. So then Kakuzu cleaned the guy up. He started to wonder what the insurance situation would be if he had to lead a crash call. Not good if they lost the patient probably. He made up his mind that he'd just stay until they tried to chuck him out, and then state his case for not leaving as eloquently as he could.

When visiting hours were over Hidan was sleeping - the change had made him very tired. Kakuzu managed to fly under the radar for another hour before he was noticed, but then, although he argued his position vociferously, the nursing team here didn't know him and weren't having any of it.

He had a very bad feeling. "Hidan will panic!" he told them, starting to panic inside himself. "Do you know what he went through?" Anxiety and irritation made him state his case less coherently than he could have done. He cited the mental health issues Hidan had been dealing with, the depression and anxiety and panic attacks, but he was acutely aware that the ward sister was on the verge of calling security to remove him. Clearly his reputation was worth nothing here.

"If he wakes and asks for me, please call me," he implored them. "If he has a panic attack, call me, don't sedate him. He doesn't respond well to it, it'll set him back. I'd- I'll be able to calm him."

The ward sister told him that they knew how to do their jobs, and he stormed off back to the ICU to speak to whichever consultant was on duty there. He certainly wasn't going to go home. He texted Kabuto and Kimimaro on his way, but neither responded immediately.

It was Shizune in the ICU - one of the doctors he trusted more than most. She was sympathetic but pointed out regretfully that since Hidan didn't require one to one nursing care anymore they couldn't justify keeping him on the HDU any longer. Kakuzu disagreed. "I think he does still need one to one care, and I've been giving him that and no-one's taken it into account. If I can't be there it's a completely inappropriate place for him."

"Well, you do have a point there," she agreed. "I can't think why they asked you to leave - they're stretched enough as it is."

"Well that doesn't exactly fill me with confidence!" Kakuzu was outraged.

"Look, I'll come and talk to them, just let me finish handing over to the night shift, okay?"

Waking alone shortly after Kakuzu left, Hidan stared across the dark ward and saw nothing familiar. He immediately sensed that Kakuzu wasn't beside him and before any rational thought processes could kick in and save him, he was back in the rubbish on the subterranean toilet, lying on the cold wet tiles. The hospital curtains around his bed became walls looming up around him. He felt terror and claustrophobia clutch at him. He couldn't breathe properly and felt a cold sweat start out all over him. Kakuzu , he thought desperately. Is he okay? I need to call the hospital, tell them I've been delayed. But my phone - I can't reach my phone...

Suddenly he realized that he could move his arm. He wasn't so helpless. It felt heavy, and it hurt, but he reached out and groped blindly in the darkness. He felt nothing, and began to struggle upright. Terror clutched him again, that he might make it up those steps, crawling or dragging himself, only to find Shikamaru Nara waiting at the top. That he might be kicked back down, fall again - and he couldn't take that again - if that happened, he knew it would truly be the last thing.

There was nothing for it but to try though. It was better than lying here. And if he could make it to the hospital they'd sort him out. If Nara was there, he'd just have to try and take him down…

His groping hand found something - not his phone, but it sort of felt like a phone. He clutched it tightly - it was better than nothing. He lurched forward and nearly fell - saved himself just in time. Something was caught on his leg - that was what had tripped him - and he tried to wrench it off but that was agony, so he just dragged it along with him. Panic rising, he walked into something and it fell with a clatter. He felt like he couldn't breathe, like something was being forced over his face, and began to lose all sense of where he was, or what was happening, leaving just a painfully urgent instinct to get out here, get away.

He'd only got halfway across the ward before falling. Then he attacked the nurse who came running to help him with the remote control in his hand and was physically restrained and sedated with IV lorazepam. By the time Kakuzu and Shizune rushed onto the scene they were nearly at the point of transferring him to a secure psych ward. The only reason he hadn't already been moved seemed to be that he was in considerable respiratory distress; also, something seemed to have seriously jolted his leg frame - they said it probably happened in the fall but it didn't look like that to Kakuzu. He was furious. "You've probably set his recovery back weeks!" he berated them, barely getting his words out coherently. "I could have handled this, but oh no, we know how to do our jobs, you say! Well congratulations. Either you readmit him to the HDU now or-"

"Kakuzu!" Kabuto appeared at his elbow before he could threaten to sue the hospital trust for all they were worth. "I just got your message, I'm so sorry. What happened?"

"Ask these incompetent clowns," Kakuzu spat bitterly. "Honestly, what is the point of us even being here? I can bring him in for his physio. He doesn't need - didn't need - the IV anymore. He was managing his airway fine. And at least at home with me he's not going to be assaulted and tied down ! And I'm not going to be treated like a criminal for caring about him!"

"Please keep calm, Kakuzu," Kabuto urged him. "Let me check him over-" He broke off, looking at the leg. "I'm going to page Kim. He should look at this."

"He fell !" Kakuzu couldn't be calm. He was nearly in tears. "They actually let him fall . This would never have happened if only they could have brought themselves to listen to me." He strode over to Hidan's bedside, Kabuto and Shizune at his heels. " I will check him over. I know what I'm doing as much as anyone here!"

"Kakuzu!" Kabuto's voice was a hard whisper. "You will get yourself removed if you carry on like this. Calm down! For his sake if not your own."

"Kakuzu!" Hidan - still conscious, resisting the sedative with all his might - grabbed for his hand and with a painful effort he managed to channel his anger into cold efficiency. He squeezed Hidan's hand gently even as he looked daggers at the ward sister and the on-call doctor who hovered noncommittally behind her.

"If you ask me to leave again, I will sue you for negligence," he assured them. He turned back to Hidan and blocked the rest of them out, focusing solely on calming him down and letting him know that he was safe. He could sense things being negotiated behind him - he was aware of Shizune talking and sounding very calm and very senior, and Kabuto interjecting every now and then, and he left them to it. And looking into Hidan's frightened eyes, he managed to shelve his anger for the time being.

"Baby, I know you hate it," he told him, stroking his cheek and wishing he could get on the bed and hold him, "but you'll feel awful if you stay awake now. Stop fighting it. You'll wake up in a couple of hours feeling a lot better, and I'll be here. It's okay. You can relax."

"Kakuzu!" Hidan said again, still full of panic. "Don't leave me here!"

"I won't," Kakuzu promised him, hoping desperately it was a promise he could keep. "I wasn't far away, love. I was arranging to be able to stay…"

Kabuto appeared at Kakuzu's shoulder, Kim by his side.

"It's alright," he said. "Saved by the bell. The night shift are happy to let you. That sister is an utter bitch - you got unlucky."

"Tch," Kim hissed, after a glance at Hidan's leg. "Butchers! How the hell could they let this happen?!" He probed it carefully. "It feels alright but I'm going to request an x-ray anyway. If it needs correcting I'll put him on tonight's list."

"Thank-you," Kakuzu said numbly. He started to really feel like this cycle of misfortune would never end.

But for once, they were lucky. Apart from inflammation caused by trauma at the pin-sites Hidan's leg hadn't sustained any obvious further damage. Lorazepam was a bad drug for him - Kakuzu had pointed out icily that it said so in his notes - so he spent most of the night delirious and was intermittently sick the next day, but by then they were in the private wing, and things were much more to Kakuzu's liking. Of course the level of care wasn't anywhere near the ICU or HDU, but there was space, and privacy, and - a huge relief - an actual bed for Kakuzu.

Hidan came on well there, but he was restless and longing to be anywhere else. So with constant pressure from Kakuzu, after only another week the hospital agreed to discharge him into his care. It was an early discharge, only made possible by Kakuzu's medical experience, and although they were told during the morning they ended up waiting around most of the day for paperwork and drugs. There were a lot of them. Kakuzu would have to bring him in for physio every day for a week, and a community nurse would be coming to visit them to change dressings and assess Hidan's mental state. Kakuzu said he could do that, but Kabuto, who'd come to see them off, reminded him that he was still in recovery himself, and warned him not to reject support when it was offered.

"I know you want him to yourself," he said, "I do know how that feels." He dipped his head slightly, the light catching his glasses and hiding his eyes for a moment. "But honestly, it's not an easy road, taking care of someone for a long time."

Kakuzu glanced at Hidan who was saying an emotional farewell to his favourite nurses, who'd come down from the HDU. "Is there something you want to tell me, Kabuto?" he asked, lowering his voice. "Is everything okay with you and Orochimaru?"

Kabuto sighed. "To be completely honest with you, Kakuzu, it's not. We've… had a very codependent relationship for a very long time and… well, I'm… making some changes."

"Well, good for you," Kakuzu told him.

"He'll always be in here," Kabuto touched his chest lightly, looking away with a glazed expression. "But I need to be my own person again now. And I'm done with always playing second fiddle. Or... sometimes third." He shot Kakuzu a tight little smile. "I don't regret a second of the time we spent together, but- well. I feel I've grown… as a person I've grown beyond that now."

This was a good deal more than Kakuzu wanted to get involved in right now. He began to regret asking at all - and felt a bit guilty about that after everything Kabuto had done for them. "Sounds like the right decision," he said quickly, resting his hand on Kabuto's shoulder a moment.

Before he needed to say anything more Kisame and Suigetsu came in through the double entrance doors. They'd driven down in Kakuzu's BMW so that he could drive Hidan home. I'm parked on zigzags so you'd better hurry," Kisame said cheerfully. "I put a note on the windscreen but the traffic wardens are like sharks around here!"

Kakuzu prised Hidan away from his circle of well wishers and wheeled him to the entrance. The team applauded them out. Kisame and Suigetsu held open the doors. He knew they still had a long way to go, but it felt triumphant. Finally, finally, they could be uninterruptedly together again. They could get on with building a life together. The worst was surely over.