"Someone thank their lucky stars. Looks like he's coming around."

That wasn't Sakura. That voice was more strict and stubborn, more masculine in a sense.

"Shizune, fetch me more bandages. It's about time to finish healing up these wounds."

"Hai, Tsunade-sama."

"Kakashi? Wiggle your fingers if you can hear me."

He couldn't honestly tell where anything was, but he tried to do as she asked. Apparently he succeeded.

"Good. Kakashi, listen to me. You're alive and you're in Konoha's hospital. Do you recognize my voice?" Tsunade leaned closer as she spoke.

Kakashi forced his mouth open, but as he attempted to speak, it felt as if he had swallowed a handful of sawdust. He cleared his throat and began again.

"Where is Sakura?"

"Answer the question, Hatake. You know how this goes," Tsunade replied firmly.

"Tsunade…where is she?" Kakashi asked again, rasping out each word with effort.

"Just hold on, Hatake. Just a few more questions."

"No. Is she all right? Just tell me…how is she?"

Tsunade sighed then and Kakashi heard her heels click-clack around his bed to sit in the chair beside it. She scooted it closer so that he could hear her whisper if she chose to. Kakashi's stomach ate his heart as it fell. Of course this meant nothing good.

"She survived, Kakashi, and only because you got her here moments before she would be deemed unsaveable. If you had been any later, it's possible she wouldn't still be here," Tsunade murmured gently. Kakashi rarely heard this tone from her. It was usually always demoralizing at best.

"Where is she?"

"Critical care. Half the nurses in this hospital have already been there to pay their respects. You wouldn't believe how many surprised eyes followed me down the hallway when I was pushing her gurney to her room."

Tsunade sounded tired. But since when didn't she, Kakashi thought.

"She won't be able to walk for a week, but at least she's alive and breathing. Her lungs were in the worst shape, one deflated and full of blood and the other extremely overworked…" Tsunade trailed off and finished with a sigh before standing to her feet and placing a hand on Kakashi's shoulder. "You did a brave thing, Hatake, even though you were disobeying orders," Tsunade said with a slight smirk. "Perhaps I will be able to pardon you from further punishment."

And that's when she punched him in his injured arm. Kakashi winced, but didn't let out a pained sound.

Shizune came in minutes later with the rest of his bandages and Tsunade fixed him up. After she finished fully healing him, he was able to open his eyes and sit up in bed, although it took tremendous effort. His shoulder and arm were screaming at him, as were his legs, but thankfully it was only throbbing and not pain.

Kakashi later came to realize that when he told Sakura he loved her, it had all been a dream, a figment of his drugged up, unconscious imagination. Partially he was relieved, but the other half of him wished he had been able to express such a thing to her. He shook his head at the thought, though; there was no way she felt the same about him. Besides that, he'd never say anything anyway. He sighed.