The Pack's Luna 3
Disclaimer: I don't own any rights pertaining to Harry Potter or Naruto. Just the right to enjoy them.
Since I couldn't leave you guys hanging for long... (;
-3-
Suzume floated. She was surrounded by a comfortable darkness, reminding her of her fuzzy memories from residing in her mother's womb. (Which had surprisingly shown up during one of her Occlumency sessions.)
Occasionally, her peaceful state was interspersed by panicked shouts of people she could not recognize. Sometimes even hectic feet. Only moments later she would sink back to the easy in-between, strangely disconnected from reality.
So Suzume lost track of time, just floating along. No cares, no worries. She was so weightless, it was tempting to remain in this not-quite-reality forever.
Sometimes she heard whispers, telling her to wake up, to squeeze their fingers, to twitch just a little bit, to flutter her eyelashes. Those voices promised to let up on scaring boys off, to cut back on missions and coming back safe, to take care of each other. To protect her better, this time.
She just had to wake up.
Not for long, the voices assured her, only for a moment or two, to calm everyone down.
Once or twice, the ravenette thought she felt a raspy tongue on her face, licking her cheek. Other times someone's warm hand squeezed hers, stroking her hair gently in a fatherly gesture or tickled her feet. (An unfortunate weak point her boys had discovered two weeks in, after Katsu had accidentally toppled over her in the darkness. They had been camping at the time, preparing for their first C-rank. A complete disaster.)
But the easy darkness, the floating, was too tempting to give up just yet, so the petite kunoichi remained unconscious. None of the guilt she would have usually felt reached her in this state.
The next instant Suzume became a little more self-aware, she could feel something wet drip on her naked skin. Someone is crying over me? she wondered curiously, almost disbelievingly.
This time, there was only one voice, sounding so utterly lost and broken, something in her sparked back to life. Slowly that spark grew, flooding her body with warmth long forgotten.
She still cared about somebody outside of her ANBU team.
She was alive.
She had to keep her promise to her mother.
So, Suzume mentally gritted her teeth, working through the white-hot painpainpain and suppressed everything else, stubbornly forcing her fingers to squeeze the other ones comfortably.
The petite bird summoner knew she had succeeded when the voice hitched slightly, rapidly changing from apologizing to cheering her on.
Emboldened by her success, the young woman shoved the pain away, into some dark corner of her brain, and began to work on her eyelids. They had never seemed so incredibly heavy before, she noted absentmindedly.
Still empowered by her prior win against her own mental blocks, the kunoichi gradually managed to pry her eyes open.
Suzume had to blink several times, to let her irises adjust properly, but then identified her current guard as Kakashi. Sharingan-no-Kakashi, the coldest fish in ANBU, was crying over her.
Somehow that made her feel a bit giddy.
"Don't move. I'll get you a medic," the last Hatake ordered sternly, growled out, before vanishing out of her tiny room. Only seconds later he reappeared with a startled med-nin, in a shunshin.
If she could have, Suzume would have smiled like an idiot about his personalized affectionate mother hen gesture.
The medic determined that the ravenette was indeed on her road to recovery, surprisingly.
Apparently, everybody but her genin-team and Kakashi had given up on her ever waking up again. Suzume surmised from the pitying glance shot at her from the corner of the med-nin's eyes she would probably not be joining the Corps anytime soon - if ever again.
Still exhausted, the petite raven-haired kunoichi did not manage to stay awake for longer than fifteen minutes. She could barely speak, her voice was that raspy, but nodded in the right spots when lectured about the next step in regaining her health.
Kakashi didn't leave the entire night.
In the morning, Suzume blinked as the sunlight hit her face at just the right angle to prevent further rest. Her faithful watchdog had been replaced by Takeo-sensei who was studying her like a particularly interesting specimen he had never encountered before.
Which in Aburame-speak (probably) expressed his relief about her choosing to leave the coma behind.
At least the ravenette took it to mean that.
There was even a tiny smile curling her sensei's lips upwards when their eyes met over the bed.
"Good morning, Suzume-chan," the older male greeted in his ever-level voice, something light and happy carrying in his tone.
She tried for an answering smile, returning the polite words.
Before anything else could be said, a medic entered, head bowed over a clipboard. He nodded absentmindedly to both the Aburame sitting in an easily defensible corner of the room and his patient. After a general examination, he assigned her several different appointments to test her body's capacities.
Those would eventually determine if the eighteen-year-old officially could remain a kunoichi or not. Following this rather depressing, but blunt announcement, the harried medic left.
"We are glad to see you awake," Takeo-sensei stated calmly. "Why? Because we were exceedingly worried about your health."
In response, Suzume's smile gained some (more) warmth, broadening noticeably. "Thanks for believing in me, Sensei," she replied, sincerely grateful for his and the others' support.
Nevertheless, the petite young woman would probably not tell them about remembering their whispered words of encouragement to her unconscious form.
Takeo-sensei just petted her bandaged leg almost absentmindedly, in another rather paternal gesture, so unlike the usual stoic Aburame. He must have been really worried about her, Suzume concluded with mixed feelings.