Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto!

20: Sasori

Deidara wasn't too heavy, but he wasn't light. I would have run to the hospital if I could have, but he weighed me down a little. Tobi seemed like he was on the verge of a breakdown, and he told me that he needed to go to the hospital with me to tell the secretary to get a certain doctor. I didn't ask. All I was concerned about was getting Deidara there, and then we could talk specifics. Deidara had let his head fall back off my shoulder (where Tobi had originally placed it) and hadn't flinched once since I had picked him up. I was concerned about that, but I didn't want to check his face in fear that I might run into something if I wasn't watching. (It had actually been known to happen to me.) When we got to the hospital, Tobi went straight to the front desk.

The woman there looked up when she saw him and asked, "Tobi?"
Tobi nodded and said, "Hi, Shizune. Deidara needs Dr. Tsunade. Can you please get her? Tell Tobi she isn't busy."

Shizune stared at him for a minute, and then called up the doctor. "What happened?" she asked when she was done.

"Another gang war," Tobi answered, shaking his head. Shizune nodded as if she understood, and then stood up when a woman with blonde hair pulled back into two loose pigtails at the nape of her neck walked out. The woman had a diamond on her forehead and she looked irritable.

She glanced around, caught sight of Deidara and seemed to completely understand what happened without anyone telling her. I watched a few expressions cross her face – concern, fear, anger, and then back to her irritable look. "Bring him this way," she instructed me, gesturing me to follow. I did and so did Tobi. The others waited patiently in the waiting room, except Pein and Konan who went home.

After x-rays and surgery, Deidara was put in a room where I couldn't see him until Tsunade said I could. It wasn't fun. All I got to do was sit outside the room and wait with Tobi. After awhile, Tsunade went into the room and shut the door behind her. I was frustrated. Then I heard the screaming.

"When I saw you there, I was scared out of my mind! I thought you were dying and I was afraid I wouldn't be able to help you! What were you thinking? I thought you were done with gangs!" Tsunade yelled.

"I was…But then I heard they were going up against The Guardian and I didn't want them to go into a war unprepared, yeah! I wanted to help them, and I didn't mean to scare you," Deidara sounded really guilty. I was confused. I had thought he was all against joining our gang, but here he was saying he joined so he could help us.

There was a silence and then I heard Tsunade, her voice quieter now, say, "Is he dead?"

"Mm-hmm. I killed him, yeah." Deidara didn't sound guilty about that.

There was panic in her voice as Tsunade cried, "And what if you had died?! What would I do? Did you even think about that when you went in there?!"

"No. Mom, I just wanted to get rid of him, yeah. I was mad at him. He deserved it, yeah." I let my jaw drop when I heard him say "mom". Is that why Tobi wanted Tsunade? Because he knew that?

"And did Sasori deserve what he got?" I snapped my mouth shut.

Silence. "No. But I didn't think about that, yeah. He kissed someone else and it hurt. I didn't even consider how cruel I was being, yeah. I wasn't trying to be like Kakashi. I do feel horrible now, yeah."

I looked down the hall, feeling horrible. "Why'd you kiss him anyway?" Tobi asked from behind me.

I didn't look back at him as I said, "I don't know, he was freaked…"

"That's what Zetsu said too." Tobi's voice sounded far away and when I glanced at him, he was standing, staring at the wall in front of him with his hands in his pockets.

"Have you apologized?" Tsunade asked.

"I've tried, yeah! He doesn't seem like he wants to hear it. I'm sure I'm the last one he wants to hear from, yeah." As he said that, Tsunade opened the door and beckoned for me to come in.

"Are you sure?" she asked.

"Yep. He yelled at me when I tried, yeah," Deidara said bitterly. He was lying on the bed, one hand behind his head and the other at his side. He didn't have a shirt on so I could see the bandages that were wrapped around his shoulder.

"I'm sorry for doing that," I told him and watched him sit bolt right up, rubbing his shoulder as he regretted that. "I was upset because of what you said to me. I should have taken a minute to listen." He stared at me incredulously. "I'm also sorry for kissing Zetsu. I don't know if Tobi or Zetsu said anything, but Tobi freaked out Zetsu and I was trying to help him calm down. I wasn't even thinking when I did it. I'm really sorry for that."

He continued to stare at me for another minute or so, almost making me squirm. "I'm sorry for saying what I did, yeah. I thought I didn't matter when I heard that you kissed him. And it felt like Kakashi all over again, yeah." Deidara paused, lowering his eye. "I panicked. I was scared and hurt, yeah. But I still didn't have any right to do that."

I realized at that point, that we'd been talking about this with both Tobi and Tsunade in the room and I felt my face flush. I walked over to Deidara's bed and leaned over him. "I'll forgive you if you forgive me."

He looked up at me and smiled. "Deal." And we kissed, ignoring Tsunade and Tobi as they cheered.

Deidara was under "house arrest" after that. Tsunade didn't want him doing anything stupid with his damaged shoulder, so his little sister, Ino, was assigned to keep an eye on him and make sure he was pretty much just a lump on the couch. He was bored out of his mind, and I tried to visit as much as possible between going to school, hanging out with my other friends, doing homework and spending some time with Gaara. A month later though, he got to leave the house and the first thing he did was climb a tree.

He's trying to hurt himself, I know it.

A/N: Yeah not so sure that this is the end. I mean, it sounds like it, but I really wanted to get past chapter twenty. So…I'll think hard and see what I can come up with, alright? Sweetness.

And, is anyone besides me wondering how they keep getting away with this? Is anyone wondering why Tsunade wasn't worrying more about if Deidara was going to go to jail? Well, here's the deal: I didn't think about that when I started writing this chapter and I was too lazy to go back and fix it. There you go. Okay, tell me what you think please!