Bodies shuffled outside the door, the hustle and bustle of the hospital bringing a momentary wave of anxiety crashing through her. A few nurses had stopped by in the last half hour to let her know her assistance was required for two particular cases that needed her expertise. The first case was simply a combative patient, a fellow shinobi that had one too many to drink and had snapped his leg in two. Nothing too concerning, but when he had berated half of her staff and tried to forcibly restrain one of her team, she had been forced to deal with the nuisance.
The other was a shinobi who had been injured in battle, an unknown poison wracking the man's system until he dissolved into fits of uncontrolled tremors and severe respiratory distress. After withdrawing the poison over the course of three hours, the man finally stabilized and the remaining toxins had been sent to the lab for analysis and antidote preparation. Which led her to her current predicament.
She had been sitting in the chair for so long her legs had gone numb and her back ached terribly as she slumped over the microscope. Emerald eyes focused in on the tiny blob before her, swirling slowly under the slide, as she chewed her lip in nervous anticipation. Countless numbers of duplicate slides lie unceremoniously in the trash, and as she waited with bated breath for the final few minutes of her study, she hoped fervently that this combination proved successful.
She wondered absently how the young man was faring after his brush with death. Her stomach churned at the thought, her mind instantly bringing forth the image of his pale form, limp and unmoving before her as he gasped a rattly breath every so often. Loose midnight locks hung haphazardly in his face, dirty and crusted with blood from a recently healed head wound injury, and she shared her thanks with the medical team for their fast action. His form lay broken before them, several nurses infusing their chakra with his skin to repair the gashes littering his body whilst others moved to prepare IV's and set about his machines and medications in the event of the worst. Her team moved efficiently, filling in as needed and rotating when they grew tired after expending so much chakra. She would have to thank them properly afterwards, but as she assessed her patient internally, she gasped aloud and ordered for immediate blood transfusions. They were going to need it.
His eyes were scrunched closed as he shuddered beneath her grasp, and the sickly rattle of his lungs rang out over the noise of the nurses in the room. A rush of adrenaline had shot through her then, his audible stridor pushing her into action, ordering a nearby nurse for propofol and sending another to grab the necessary equipment. She had intubated the man, placed him on a ventilator as he fought desperately against the machine for all he was worth. Her hands glowed a minty green against his chest as she scanned his lungs, fighting through the shock at the mess of the tissue she found awaiting her there. His lungs had filled with blood, the interstitial space in his lungs collapsing in on itself and forcing his lungs to fill with the coagulated mess. His garbled breath was drowned out by the frenzied beeping of the machine before her, though she had no time to pay it any mind as she focused her energy on repairing the capillaries whilst simultaneously draining his lungs of the rapidly accumulating substance.
It took what felt like forever before the capillaries had closed, the process slowed by their less than ideal conditions and intermittent draining of his lungs. Around her, her staff alternated between allowing her space to heal the injured man and switching to giving manual breaths when his oxygen dropped to critical levels. His body still wracked with violent tremors, some so bad that he had to be physically restrained to the bed lest he take a nasty spill that none of them could afford. He had lost so much blood, and even with the transfusion pumping quickly through his veins, she knew it was just keeping him at a plateau- neither depleting nor strengthening his reserves. As the last of the collapsed capillaries had been healed, she moved glowing green hands up and down his body, pulling the remainder of the toxin from his system and performing a final assessment internally before withdrawing from his body. Tired eyes scanned his form once more, the pinch in her features relaxing as she listened to his lungs and finding them perfectly clear, at least for the time being. She moved to the bowl at her side, a dark wash of black lying heavily at the bottom of the basin, and sealed the container before ordering a sedative for the exhausted man. Duty done, she wasted no time as she practically flew for the stairs, rushing past staff and friends alike as she rushed to the seventh floor and plopped herself into the nearest lab.
The remainder of the hour had been spent in quiet observation, her hands running along the various shelves and pulling out the necessary equipment. She had gone through nearly a fourth of the company's slides, testing previously made antidotes for a hopeful reaction to the unknown poison. Her heart beat painfully in her chest as she stared at the sample beneath her, mind sharp as she focused on healing the man a few floors down. She worried even now as she sat stiffly in her metal chair, face trained dutifully on the microscope beneath her, hoping that the nurse appointed to his care was alert for any flash of onset pulmonary edema.
A shaky breath passed her lips as she saw the blob's outer shell disintegrate under the latest attempt at an antidote and the base of the poison succumbed to her creation, dissolving into tiny microscopic specks that would dissolve completely at a later time. Eyes brightening, the pinkette flew out of the chair with such force that it toppled over in her wake and a bad crick slammed full force in her joints that she paid no mind to. Her hands never idled as she went through the motions of recreating her latest vaccine, and after another ten minutes of preparation, she had practically sprinted out the door, down the various hallways and into the ICU where a startled nurse jumped right out of her chair in fright.
"Slow down, billboard brow! We aren't going anywhere!" Ino cried, her sapphire eyes narrowed in annoyance as she glanced over her childhood friend. Her ire quickly melted away when she saw the genuine concern in the other woman's eyes and the flush in her features. Reaching out gently, she pat Sakura on the back while she struggled to catch her breath, "He's fine, really. A little shaky still, but he should live."
Sakura choked on a cough but nodded nonetheless, jade eyes taking in the sight of the man shivering before her, but relatively relaxed. His skin had flushed with a nice wash of color, lighting up his fair skin more pleasantly than the dull gray he had once been. His hair and body had been washed in her absence, and though she knew the man before her was not her once dead love, the resemblance was almost striking. Her breathing quickened almost imperceptibly, and though she fought to ignore the critical eye of her best friend, she forced herself to turn to the blonde with a small smile, "Thank you."
"Don't mention it. Seriously, don't," Ino huffed, plopping herself back down in her seat at the head of the bed. Curious baby blues raked over the file in her hand, regarding the material somewhat bleakly, though the furious flicking of her gaze alerted the rosette to her own worry. Shaking her head absentmindedly, Sakura went over to her patient and rolled the sleeve of his gown up before injecting the newfound antidote into the skin of his shoulder.
"His left femoral artery was nicked before you got there and he took a nasty spin off a cliff it would seem," She replied casually, running her eyes over the file in her grasp while Sakura administered the vaccine, "No traumatic brain injury, luckily, but one hell of respiratory arrest. The vent coulda told me that though."
Sakura nodded, her gaze fixed on the ninja's face, her heart clenching painfully as she took in his boyish features. This was the first time she truly allowed herself to look at him, an emergency hardly the appropriate time to ogle his chiseled cheeks, the slender nose sat delicately above gently parted full lips. If it weren't for the scar splitting beneath the flesh underneath his left eye then he could easily have passed for her undead love, and with that realization brought on a fresh wave unbidden wave of anguish. Tears pricked at the back of her eyes and with a hitched breath, she pulled her hand away and took a few steps back, hoping that no one was privy to her momentary lapse of control.
He's gone, Sakura! she scolded herself, blinking away the moisture before it had a chance to fall. Get a grip.
Turning away from her patient, she found a curious blonde eyeing her warily. She could feel her hackles rise at the knowing look in the other woman's eye and though Sakura wanted nothing more than to run from her penetrating gaze, she straightened her spine and responded in a strictly clinical tone, "He needs to stay on observation for the next twenty four hours. I just gave him an antidote for a newfound poison that seems to be causing the tremors and respiratory distress. Give him sedatives as needed and monitor his vitals hourly, if he drops in any way or any problems arise, call me immediately."
"I've got to write a report and put in the orders. Pass on the message to the others, pig," She sighed tiredly, watching as the blonde wrote down her instructions and gave her a small nod, though she could tell that the kunoichi had more to say. Whatever it was that Ino had wanted to say, Sakura couldn't handle the sympathy she found in her eyes, the worried crease in her brow, nor the way she spoke with such concern.
"Sakura are you-"
"I'm sorry, Ino. I've got to go. Take care of him for me," she blurted, choking down the lump in her throat as she watched the woman before her look at her with such pity. The walls seemed to close in, the air growing thin as the onslaught of emotions bubbled just below the surface. Turning on her heel, she forced herself to take steady, even strides out of the room and back to her office before she broke down in front of anyone.
Brushing past everyone, her feet carried her up the flight of stairs absently until she found herself inside the small room that she called her own. Her office wasn't large by any means, but she hadn't minded. It wasn't like she spent much time here anyway. The space held all that she needed, a simple desk with an old yet reliable computer and printer, a few chairs for the odd staff member that came to see her, a few filing cabinets lining the back wall of the room, and a small locker where she stored her valuables. Clean, simple, unobtrusive. Locking the door despite her shaking hands, she walked the few feet to her desk and slumped unceremoniously into her worn leather chair and began to type out the events of the last several hours.
She shut out the world, ignored the lessening footfalls outside her door, pushed away the despair that threatened to consume her and charted like her life depended on it. For nearly an hour she wrote, putting in orders for the nurses to follow and writing out exactly what had happened into her new patient's file. Once done, she put the information into his file and set them in her records in case anyone would need them at a later date. With the last of her tasks complete and the adrenaline of the day having worn on her frazzled nerves, she fell into a broken heap on her desk. Trembling hands came up quickly to stifle her sobs, the last coherent thought she had before images of Sasuke's broken body filled her mind. She could still feel the pulsing of her chakra, fluctuating just beneath her skin as she lost herself in bitter memory as she performed the cursory exam and prepared the necessary equipment for embalming. Her eyes shut blearily trying to block out the sight of his empty sockets staring unseeingly into the sky above while she struggled to sew them shut. His skin had been deathly cold against her fingertips, her own flesh burning at the contact and forcing her to new waves of tears. No longer would she be able to reach out to him, to see his penetrating gaze, to witness his redemption and shower him with the love she had kept at bay for so long.
Haunted by the regrets that plagued her heart and the vivid memories that tormented her mind, she forced herself to take greedy gulps of air as her chest tightened with the onslaught of her grief. Her heart hammered painfully in her chest, the sharp stabbing pain shooting through it bringing with it the realization of another panic attack. Her eyes scrunched in despair and had she had the right frame of mind to truly think, she would have sent herself a burst of calming chakra through her system. Unfortunately, all she could focus on was the remnants of her failure, her broken heart and shattered dreams.
Though she had tried her best to quiet herself, she could hear the wail tear from her throat, hear the sound of shuffling nearby and the quick yet forceful opening of her office door and the feet that accompanied it. Strong arms hauled her out of the chair with as much care as they could manage in their haste, and though Sakura bristled initially on the contact, she found herself soothed by the familiar scent of pine and earth, befitting one such man. Her eyes blurred with more tears as she struggled to calm her erratic sobs.
"Sh-Shino.." she sniffed, hating the way her voice cracked in her sorrow.
"Shh, It's okay," he assured, his voice low and soothing as he pulled her tighter into his arms, "You're okay."
She buried her head in his shoulder, too exhausted to fight him off. He let her settle against him, his hands taking the time to stroke her back and her hair in a tender caress that only served to make her even more distraught in his grasp. His quiet reassurance both soothed and frustrated the woman in his arms, and though she felt weak and vulnerable in his grasp she knew that no matter what, Shino was a loyal ninja and friend. So she did the only thing she could do, accept the gentle comfort he provided and trusted that no matter what else happened, he would be there for her.