Darkness had crept into the room, and when Tenten opened her eyes, she struggled to focus on the dim, fuzzy shapes in the corners of the room. Only a sliver of light broke through the window, the rest obscured by a pair of heavy curtains – that much she could discern from the slight draft that made them wave gently against the glass pane.
She reached a hand out to grasp the bar that rose along the side of her bed.
That wasn't normally there, she noted with some concern. Where was she? The memories were coming back in patches at best, and even then they were distorted, like fever dreams rather than true memories. For all she knew, that really could be the case.
She tried to use the bar to raise herself to a sitting position, but attempting the action quickly reintroduced her to some of the memories that had been eluding her. Trying to move her left leg was like pulling on a tree stump, and it only caused the muscles in her thigh to cramp painfully. She expected pain in the lower part of her leg as well, but strangely none came.
The realization made her feel like she had swallowed a block of ice, one that now sat at the pit of her stomach, immovable.
Peeling back the thin sheet that covered her, she craned her neck to get a closer look at the leg. Gone were the loose, bloodstained bandages, replaced by a stiff cast. Her foot peeked out of the boot, pale even against the backdrop of the white sheet. She could see dark discoloration near where the cast ended, though it was hard to tell whether that was more bruising or just shadows. She tried to wiggle her toes, but they didn't move.
The ice in her stomach expanded.
She was recalling more and more as the languid grip of sleep slowly loosed its hold on her: her team's desperate fight against the unexpected setback of the rogue shinobi; the way her leg had shattered under the weight of her considerably larger opponent; the unsteady grip she'd held on consciousness over the remaining days as her teammates bore her back to the village…
Tenten snapped up so fast it made her dizzy, and she fought to quell an outburst at the pain that shot through the upper part of her leg. Her teammates! How could she have forgotten for even an instant?
They must have been exhausted after that journey, and she had no idea what kind of injuries they might have incurred along the way. Had she not been anchored down by the deadweight of her leg, she would have set out to find them immediately, but as it was, she was rather stuck. She'd regained enough of her faculties to recognize that she was in Konoha's hospital, which likely meant that Neji and Lee were as well. That thought only made her worry more. What if something had happened to one of them that she, in her addled state, hadn't been aware of?
Resolve getting the better of her, she drew on all of her strength to roll over on her side and try to drag herself off the hospital bed. Tears of frustration and agony streamed down her cheeks, but she persisted, determined to find her teammates.
Unfortunately, luck seemed not to be on her side. She felt herself falling before she truly knew what was happening; her brain had not quite processed the sensation when she hit the ground, hard – she could practically feel the bruises rising under the skin of her upper arm. Her cast came tumbling down after her, and it fell with a resounding thump, practically shaking the entire expanse of the floor.
"AUGH!" The pain returned tenfold and the tears gushed from her eyes in torrents. She tried to keep the cries quiet, but her mouth simply wouldn't comply with her thoughts. The wails issued from her mouth in an unending stream, half scream, half sob.
It was a few moments before she heard footfalls outside in the hallway, and still more before she realized that someone was actually kneeling next to her, attempting to speak to her. She tried to silence herself enough to hear what the medic was saying, but the pain still came in waves, and she only half understood what the girl was saying.
"Tenten, can you hear me?"
Somehow, Tenten managed a discernible nod.
"Can you tell me how this happened?"
She had managed to quiet herself, but the pain still hadn't been completely quelled; she curled into a ball on the tile, shaking her head.
"Oh, Tsunade-sama is not going to be happy about this…" She heard the girl mutter, and the statement struck Tenten as odd, even distracted as she was. Tsunade? She was perhaps the most skilled medic-nin in all the nations, but why would she be involved in something as simple as a broken leg?
Tenten tried to make sense of it, but she found her thoughts were beginning to run together, and her vision clouded. She was vaguely aware of a cold sensation in her leg, but even that faded and melted into oblivion.
Neji woke to the sound of a cacophonous thump. He jumped from the bed, his entire body rigid and alert, despite the confinement of bandages.
What was that?
He didn't have to wait long for an answer to his silent query.
A scream that made his hair stand on echoed down the hallway from, if he judged correctly, the critical patient recovery ward. The sound left him cold, not simply because of the pure, unbridled pain present in the cry, but because he knew exactly to whom that voice belonged.
He stumbled toward the door, cursing with every step. In the darkness, he could barely see, a fact not helped by the fact that his eyes were still recovering from the mission. In an effort to get home as quickly as possible, he'd overused his Byakugan, straining his eyes to a dangerous extent. Sakura had examined them upon his arrival, and she had reassured him that they would be back to peak performance in a matter of days, but until then, he was to do as little as possible to hinder his recovery, which included using the Byakugan to strengthen his night vision. As it was, he made it to the door with no small effort.
The corridor was better lit, and he only had to follow the direction from which the screams issued to find the room. A few hallways over from his own recovery room, he came to a room with several medics crowded in the doorway. The screams had been reduced to a piteous wail, and he heard the murmur of soft voices. He wished to simply push through the gaggle of medics to see what had happened, but his better judgment kept him waiting just outside.
A familiar pink head passed through the door way moments later, and Neji caught her shoulder. At first she looked merely surprised to see him, but then her eyes narrowed.
"What are you doing here? You're supposed to be in recovery!" Neji noted with passing amusement that her desire to drag him back from whence he'd come was only thinly veiled by her professionalism.
"What happened? Is she alright?" He tried to keep his voice level, but even so, a hint of panic seeped through his monotone.
Sakura raised an eyebrow. "It seems—"
"Sakura-san!" A familiar, overly-loud voice echoed down the hallway and Sakura groaned audibly.
"Really?"
"Sakura-san!" Lee came to a quick stop in front of them, barely managing to keep from crashing into the pink-haired medic. "Was that our beloved flower I heard wailing? What has happened?"
Sakura glanced between the pair of them, Neji with arms crossed, waiting expectantly, and Lee, his enormous eyes wide with unconcealed worry. She scowled.
"The pair of you need to get back to your rooms. If I have one more patient that further injures themselves, Tsunade-sama is going to have my head!"
A wall of grey passed over Neji's vision for a moment, but he blinked it away. Recovering or not, he wasn't leaving until he found out what was wrong with his teammate.
Apparently, Lee had the same thought. Rather than waiting for an answer, he sprang into action, pushing past the medics to enter the room. They tried to hold him back, and Sakura rushed after him, muttering curses, but Lee, even with a bandaged leg, proved too much for any of them and emerged on the other side, rushing to Tenten's side.
Seeing opportunity in the chaos, Neji followed.
Tenten was ghostly pale and her eyes were clenched shut, not in sleep, but rather as though she were keeping an enormous amount of pain at bay.
Lee reached out a tentative hand to touch her arm.
"Tenten?"
She whimpered weakly in response, but her hand reached out to find his, clutching it in a death grip.
Sakura looked utterly bewildered and she gestured to Lee, and back toward the door.
"You cannot be in here. I—"
"Sakura-san," Lee explained kindly, "we cannot leave our beloved teammate in this state. Do what you must to treat her; we shall remain here."
Sakura's mouth gaped open, and she struggled for words, looking to Neji for possible support.
Neji simply walked around to Tenten's other side and claimed the chair, pulling it closer to bed. Her other hand stretched out, and he tentatively offered his own. Tenten squeezed it gently, if only to reaffirm that she was, in fact, still alive.
"We will stay." He stated simply.
Sakura let out an exasperated sigh, and the medics behind her looked to be at a loss.
"Fine. I'll be back in a moment. If anything changes, notify one of us."
They trailed out of the room, Sakura last, with one last glance at the two young men standing vigil at their teammate's bedside.
A/N: I can't believe all the reviews/favs/alerts I've gotten! More than I ever expected for just the first two chapters of the story, I assure you. Leave your comments and reviews if you'd be so kind, and thanks for reading!
- Senka