"Just Carrying it For a Friend" Chapter 5
There were times that Sakura loved her job, and times that she wished that she had gone a different route. Today was one of those days, in the midst of her 28th week of pregnancy.
She had just gotten off of night shifts and switched over to lead the day shift ER staff. School had just started, so it was getting more and more common for children to be coming in with their parents for some fake illness to get out of going. It was getting more and more annoying with each patient she saw.
"How stupid can these parents get?" Sakura groaned as she sat down next to Ino in the break room.
"Tell me about it." Ino rolled her eyes. "Thank goodness we both have more common sense to wait things out before coming in for the tiniest thing."
Sakura laughed. "Yeah, tell me that when this one gets here."
Ino rolled her eyes. "Come on, forehead. You know that we nurses wait until someone is dying before bringing them to the hospital."
"I know, I know. I'm just teasing you." She nudged the blonde.
"Sakura, we have an incoming. ETA 5 minutes." One of the nurses peeked her head through the door.
Sakura groaned and put her hair back up. "Get them in bay three when they get here."
She and Ino stood up and stretched simultaneously. "We still got ten hours to go. You good?"
"I would be if people would think more." Sakura groaned and threw her empty cup away after finishing off her tea.
Ino nodded in understanding, then waved her off to go do her job.
Once the ambulance arrived, an EMT was giving Sakura a rundown on her newest arrival. It was a boy approximately ten years old, that had started seizing on his way to school. He had deep red hair and his eyes were going to the back of his head, so she was unable to check his pupils' reactions.
"How long has he been like this?" Sakura asked as they pushed the stretcher into the bay he was assigned to.
"Since we got there."
Sakura clicked her tongue and pulled out a syringe filled with a clear liquid to inject him with. She aimed the needle but was quickly smacked away.
"Doctor?" Everyone was staring, shocked that she missed.
Sakura narrowed her eyes and went to inject him again, but the seizing boy knocked her hand away again.
Sakura put her hands on her hips and glared at the boy.
"Doctor, we need to-"
"Shh!" Sakura cut the nurse off. "Don't touch him."
After a few more seconds, a gurgle came from the boy.
Sakura blocked the nurse from touching him. She was noticeably irritated by now.
"Are you not going to do anything, lady?!"
The room fell silent as the boy's "seizing" had stopped, and he was furiously glaring up at the doctor.
"You guys can go, we've got it from here," Sakura ordered the EMTs.
The boy sat up and puffed his cheeks out. He avoided the burning glare the pinkette was giving him.
"Sweetie, what's your name." The nurse asked.
"Don't think that just cuz you're being nice that I'd tell you." He stuck his tongue out at the woman.
Sakura's brow twitched. "Okay, then you'll tell me. You're already in trouble for this little stunt you pulled, so you might as well cooperate with us so we can get in contact with your parents to come and get you."
"Heh. Won't work, granny." The kid smirked. "My mom doesn't wake up before noon anyway, so you're out of luck."
Sakura balled up her hand into a fist. Granny?
"If you're not going to tell us anything, my police friends will have to come here. You wouldn't want that, would you?"
"Hmph." The kid rolled his eyes. "Like I care."
Sakura was getting more and more annoyed with this kid's attitude by the second. Just who in the hell did he think he was?
"Fine then." She turned to the nurse. "Hana, I'll be back. Make sure to keep your eye on John Doe, here."
"Yes, ma'am." The nurse nodded, and Sakura swiftly turned on her heel out of the room.
After about fifteen minutes, Officer Hatake and Sasuke showed up.
"So, what seems to be the problem, doc?" Kakashi asked, nodding to the woman in greeting.
"I have a kid in bay 3 that thought it would be a brilliant idea to waste my EMS's time by faking a seizure on his way to school. He refuses to tell us his name, and is being completely uncooperative."
"These teens keep getting more and more defiant these days." The white haired man shook his head.
"He's ten." Sakura flatly stated.
The two officers raised their eyebrows at this information.
"Follow me."
She led the two officers to the child, who was sitting on a gurney watching TV and drinking juice.
"Hana, I said to keep an eye on him, not reward him." The doctor looked more annoyed at the sight of the relaxed boy.
"Sorry, I'm not that good with kids." The young nurse hung her head.
"Don't worry about it." Sakura sighed. "We've got it from here. Go help with the patient intake."
"Yes, ma'am."
Sakura pulled the curtain back and flipped off the TV as the officers came in behind her.
The boy looked to the doctor in annoyance. "I was watching that."
"It sucks, doesn't it." She glared back to the child. "I was enjoying a little break before you were brought in."
The boy scoffed. "From the looks of it, you need to lay off of the breaks."
Sakura's mouth fell open at his comment. She started to lunge forward when Sasuke put his hand on her shoulder and cleared his throat.
Sakura took a deep breath and forced a smile. "Now that the officers are here, why don't we have a little chat?"
"Nah. I don't feel like talking. Thanks for asking, though."
"I don't think you see how serious this is." Kakashi sat down next to the boy. "You can be put in juvenile detention for what you pulled."
The boy looked at the officer in confusion. "But I didn't do this at school. They can't give me detention for that."
"It's where kids go to jail," Sasuke told him.
The boy's eyes widened. "But I thought only adults went to jail."
"It doesn't work that way. That's why Doctor Haruno here was trying to get information so she didn't have to call us." Kakashi explained.
"Yeah. We take these kinds of things very seriously." Sasuke narrowed his eyes. "What if they couldn't have gotten to someone that really needed medical attention because you were wasting the EMS's time?"
"It's still funny." The boy mumbled as he turned away.
"You're the only one that seems to find it hilarious," Sakura growled.
"Look kid. We really don't want to have to arrest you, so just tell us your name and how to contact your parents." Sasuke was as cool as ever when he spoke to the brat. Sakura was amazed that he wasn't as annoyed as she was.
"Arrest me?! You'd really do that?!" Now horror seemed to show through the boy's facade.
"Yeah. Juvi isn't a good place for ten-year-olds to go, so I'd start talking if I were you."
The boy looked down at his hands and sighed. "Fine... My name is Yasuo Uzumaki. My mom is named Karin, and we just moved here a few days ago."
Sasuke narrowed his eyes. Uzumaki... As in Karin Uzumaki? There's no way she was back. Not after her disappearing act she pulled after high school ended.
"Do you have her contact information?" Kakashi asked. "If she comes to pick you up, we'll just let you off with a warning this time."
The boy sighed and slowly nodded.
Sasuke stood up to leave the room. "I'm going to check on something. Do you have everything else handled?"
"Yeah." Kakashi nodded. "I'll wait here with him."
Sasuke motioned for Sakura to follow him, and the two adults left the room.
"His mother must be a piece of work to raise her child to act that way," Sakura grumbled. "The nerve of him implying that I'm fat and old! If I were his mother, I would have made him apologize right then and there and put the fear of God into him!"
Sasuke laid a hand on her head, calming her down a little.
"If this is the Karin I know... The boy's actions don't really shock me."
"Wait. You think you know his mother?"
Sasuke shrugged and opened his phone to text the dobe.
"Naruto has this cousin that lived with him while he was growing up. She was the most infuriating and annoying person I'd ever met." Sasuke sighed and put the device back in his front pocket once the message was sent. "To be honest, after graduation we got shitfaced at my grandfather's lake house. She was my first and only one-night stand, and no one had heard from her since then. It's been almost eleven years now."
He looked to the closed curtain the boy was behind.
"Wait... You don't think that-"
"I don't know," Sasuke answered, already knowing the question she was about to ask. "I mean, it was only the one time."
"But once can be all it takes." Sakura sighed.
"Look, I can be wrong, so let's not just jump to conclusions." Sasuke gave her a small smile. "I just want to be safe about this."
Sakura snickered. "Because you weren't 'safe' when you fucked his mother."
He frowned. "Very funny, Haruno."
She leaned up and kissed his cheek. "Whatever the outcome is, I don't care. I did some things in my past that I'm not too proud of, either."
Sasuke's phone started ringing as he was about to say something. He pulled it out and frowned at the picture of Naruto staring at him from the screen.
"Take it. He might know what's going on." Sakura nudged him to go outside to take the call.
Sasuke sighed and answered. Sakura laughed when she heard the frantic yelling on the other line as he walked out and attempted to get the idiot to stop being so loud.
"Here's the lab reports for bay 6." One of the nurses tapped on Sakura's shoulder.
"Thanks." Sakura smiled as she took the reports. She still had nine hours to go.