I don't own Naruto okay? I know I haven't updated this one in awhile, and many factors go into that from being busy with other stories to a faulty computer, I will not forget about any of my stories if you don't. So anyway, enough of this A/N, on with the fic!

"What is it?" Sakura asked as she followed Naruto back to the ER.

"We just finished a mission! My partner has a deep wound in his leg with what I think is a poisoned sword." Naruto explained. "The poison didn't seem to be doing much and he was losing massive amounts of blood fast, so I put a tourniquet on. It seemed to staunch the bleeding." Naruto then turned to Sakura in desperation. "He still has the poison in his body!"

"Don't worry, I can handle it!" Sakura said pushing Naruto aside as she headed to the patient. She nodded and turned to Naruto's partner when he was wheeled in front of her in the ER. First thing she looked at was the tourniquet that Naruto had applied and smiled. Apparently Naruto had paid attention when she taught him first aid. After checking his partner's vitals and she could tell that the poison Naruto believed was in the sword wound reacted slowly, not to take full deadly effect on the victim until they got back to their home village or at least very far away. It was meant to look like sudden but natural death from an aneurysm. It was only with the training she had got from Lady Tsunade herself that she had been able to detect it.

"Why do you think the poison was on the sword?" She asked Naruto.

"It was dripping with purple stuff. I just acted as if it was poison. Why?" He asked.

"I don't think the poison entered the body in the wound. It may have come from somewhere else and made to think it came from the wound." Sakura explained.

"Is he going to be okay?" Naruto asked.

"Get me Shizune and Lady Tsunade. Tell them that I need to know if any other ANBU members on your mission have a similar issue with slowly failing vitals and large wounds. If they have the vital failure and no wounds, then my theory is correct that the poison entered another way." Sakura ordered as Naruto ran over to the other side of the ER where Shizune and Tsunade were treating other patients from the same mission.

Tsunade then turned to Sakura and asked, "Sakura, you are suggesting the poison was administered through another wound than the large sword wound your patient has?"

"Yes Mi Lady!" Sakura said. "I can see from here that your patient has only minor shuriken wounds and poisoning shuriken is highly impractical as the poison typical does not stay on while in flight. While not to downplay the severity of the wound, they need to be taken back to the village to fully heal it. Only first aid can be done in the field. This opponent was confident but still wants to eliminate their enemy . With entire groups of shinobi dying it weakens a village and causes the deaths to seem like a plague or some other genetic condition."

"So we must look for needle marks near major blood vessels. Based off ANBU armor, the needles would need to be near the neck." Tsunade said. "Medics!"

"Yes mi lady!" three additional medics not attending to any patients said running over.

"I need you to check the vitals of these ANBU and if their pulse is normal but slightly slowing, extract the poison. Most people would overlook it but there is something more there." Tsunade explained.

An orderly brought out a through supply of poison extraction solution and Sakura took a supply for her own use for her patient. "Naruto?" She asked.

"What is it Sakura-chan?" He asked.

"Hold him down. As with the time with Kankuro, it will really hurt and he will probably react on instinct. ANBU or not, this hurts like hell." She explained. Sakura was in her element here in the hospital treating patients. So what if she couldn't have a child of her own anymore, she cared about the patient and that is where her maternal caring instinct was to be used, much like with Lady Tsunade. It was here in treating those who fell ill or wounded. Her shift may have been long over, but she was going to stay to make sure that the patients from ANBU were out of the danger zone first. Seeing that the solution she had was used up, she took another batch of it and extracted more of the poison. Naruto was staring at her with a respectful awe. No matter how long she had been at it, he was always amazed at how she could heal people. She noticed him staring at her and looked up. "Naruto, can you do me a favor?" She asked.

"Sure, anything!" Naruto said.

"Tell Sasuke what happened. I have to make sure these guys will be okay before I go home. As their teammate, you could explain what happened to them better so that Sasuke would understand." Sakura sighed as she placed the waste in the bin. "I'm sure he's getting worried."

"Will do." Naruto said. "Make sure my partner is okay."

"Will do" Sakura smiled.

Meanwhile, Sasuke looked up at the clock. Sakura's shift had ended more than an hour ago. "She's late. AGAIN. I told her they are working her too hard..." Sasuke yelled.

He had never quite gotten used to the idea that he and Sakura would never have a child of their own. One of his fellow officers in the Konoha Military Police force had just brought in a picture of his wife and their newborn child after he had been on leave for a week to make sure they were okay. At the moment he brought out the picture, Sasuke made to get up like he was going to get some lunch when all it did was remind him of what could not happen anymore. While he was heading to the market to see if they had gotten some fresh tomatoes in, he happened to run into Shikamaru and Temari heading to the Sand Village. While he was talking with Shikamaru, he found out that Temari was now pregnant as well and it made him even more upset and angry. He managed to keep his composure around them, as he knew Shikamaru wouldn't think too much of it but Temari was fiery and if he told her what he was upset about she'd smack him, and that was when she wasn't pregnant. He then showed a polite indiffernce. He didn't care about the kid. Everyone who wasn't as skilled or as important in blood as he was was having kids and now he couldn't. Sometimes he did think about leaving Sakura for another woman, but the thought of the gossip was something he couldn't bear. There was enough gossip about him since he left the village already. The villagers gossiped about what happened with Orochimaru, from criminal to things of sick sexual abuse, why he didn't kill Itachi if he was out in the world for all those years, about what he was doing with the curse mark, this all among other things and it would just sensationalize him even more if he dumped Sakura after her miscarriage and infertility. Leaving Sakura would be a stain on his reputation he couldn't take. It was only on Naruto's plea he was let in the village anyway. Not only would it be a stain on him, it would be a stain on the Uchiha clan. As Sasuke checked the clock again, he heard a knock at the door.

"Come in!" Sasuke yelled as he sat down in an armchair.

"It's me," Naruto said, moving his ANBU mask down from his face. "Mind if I sit down, or would you prefer I stand? Just got back from a mission..." He asked motioning at the amount of blood on his uniform.

"Sit in that armchair." Sasuke said pointing to an old, mismatching chair in the corner with stains on it.
Sakura always sits on that one when she comes home from the hospital covered in blood." He mentioned. He turned back to Naruto and asked, "So, why are you here idiot?" Naruto took the 'idiot' comment in stride. He knew that even when he became Hokage, Sasuke would still call him, 'idiot'.

"Sakura told me to tell you she would be late. ANBU came in at the end of her shift and we had five severe injuries with poisoned wounds come in at the time. Sakura is about as good as Grandma Tsuande with poisons and antidotes, so she was needed to stay and help stabilize the injured ANBU members." Naruto explained.

"So, they have her working late AGAIN?!" Sasuke yelled.

"Dude! We got back as fast as we could! It ain't easy when over half your squad is injured!" Naruto yelled. He thought that Sasuke would understand why Sakura had to work late but he did not and he was rather angry at his indiffernce to Sakura and frankly him and ANBU. "We were on a secret mission in the Grass Village near the border of the Sand Village! Normally it takes two days to get there on a good day and it takes two days to get back! We made it back in less than a day with members severely injured! Do you think I was on the mission and I thought 'Hey, let's fuck up so I can bring my injured teammates to Sakura at the end of her shift to make Sasuke mad,? NO! I didn't time it that way, it just fucking happened! And you know as well as I do that if she was off even, she would still fucking get called in for a case like that! Lay off Sakura. I know you're mad about what happened. We all are. But you need to move on." Naruto yelled. Sasuke was descending into a state of mind that he knew could hurt Sakura and he was not about to let that happen. Sasuke's sentiments about Sakura had been this way since the miscarriage. Before, he never seemed to mind what Sakura did. He even came in and said "Hi" to her while she was sequestered at the hospital during a triage of patients. It seemed that he actually blamed her for what happened when it could have happened to anyone.

"You don't understand." Sasuke said simply, looking away from Naruto. He knew that Naruto was right deep down, be he couldn't admit it.

"What don't I understand?" If Sakura becomes too ill from the work, Grandma Tsuande will send her home or call you to do it. She knows what she is doing." Naruto said.

"I was supposed to restore the clan. If I couldn't kill Itachi, I could at least do that..." Sasuke mumbled. "If Itachi got some barmaid pregnant in his Akatsuki travels, that wouldn't be a true Uchiha in my mind."

"Oh, that's why you're acting like a jerk about all this?! LET IT GO! Adopt a kid if you want to be a dad so bad, but with the attitude you have now, I don't think you should! You don't respect Sakura, your own girlfriend enough, so I doubt you would respect a kid who isn't a blood Uchiha." Naruto said. No matter if Sasuke was his best friend, he couldn't let Sakura be with a man who thought like that.

"Your clan wasn't elite and wiped out by a psycho!" Sasuke snapped.

"You're off on everything except wiped out by a psycho. We were wiped out. Uzumakis were the regal clan in the Whirlpool Village where they were from before it was destroyed! Many were chosen to bear the Nine tails because of our chakra. We were all pretty much wiped out, so you can't give me that BS. My mother was an Uzumaki and gave her life to protect me when the Nine tails attacked nearly 20 years ago!" Naruto snapped back. "So if your clan is more important than Sakura, you deserve to have it wiped out. Let Uchiha be carried on by Itachi if that is how you think. Because if you don't care to treat Sakura like a man should his wife, then you dishonor Uchiha like you think Itachi's bastards would." Naruto said getting up and slamming the door behind him.

His stomach started rumbling so he went to Ichiraku's Ramen for a post-mission feast. He sat down at the counter and ordered.

"What'll it be?" the owner asked.

"My usual post-mission order. Pork miso and don't skimp on the noodles!" Naruto said.

"Should have known." The owner said with a smile. As he turned to prepare the order, Naruto sighed as he looked at his chopsticks. Sasuke had changed since Sakura's miscarriage, that was as clear as day to him, but was it to Sakura? Just some of the things that Sasuke said made him worry about what he would do to Sakura. If Sasuke was blaming her for the miscarriage, then Sakura was surly blaming herself as well. Naruto had noticed that in Sakura lately as well, well at least until she went to work in the hospital. And as a medic, she could find some way to 'logically' justify it. Doctors could be some of the worst patients when they got sick. It was during this time of contemplation when Kakashi walked in.

"Naruto, how was your mission?" He asked.

"A complete clusterfuck." Naruto sighed as Kakashi nodded. From his own ANBU days, he knew what that meant. "But not as clusterfucked as Sasuke is."

"I'm sorry?" Kakashi asked confused.

"He blames Sakura's miscarriage on her duty." Naruto said breaking his chopsticks as his order was placed in front of him.

"I have seen many medics have many kids while pulling the same amount of work if not more than Sakura did." Kakashi said. "Sometimes these things just happen."

"I know. Grandma Tsunade told me about it. Doesn't help now that the complications made Sakura infertile. I know Sasuke wanted to be a dad but I didn't think it was only so he could continue his clan. I mean I mentioned adoption to him and he scoffed at the idea." Naruto sighed.

"How is Sakura taking that?" Kakashi asked, growing worried about his former students.

"I think she blames herself too." Naruto said. "And she doesn't see she deserves to be treated better."

"I'll talk to Sasuke. You need to talk to Sakura." Kakashi nodded. "She may be hurt badly if we don't act." Naruto nodded. "But in the end, and I know this is just wrong, it is her choice to stay or go and abuse only happens if the victim submits to it. Sakura is strong and needs to be reminded of that. If not, who knows what'll happen."

"Right." Naruto said as he began to eat his ramen. With Kakashi helping, maybe Sasuke could move on. At least that is what Naruto hoped that is what would happen. He didn't want to think what would happen if he didn't.

So how was that? Good? Bad? Boring? Let me know in a review. I know it took me forever to update but life happens and when it does, it sucks. I don't have much to say here so remember to read, (well you just did) and to review. Ciao for now,

otherrealmwriter

aka

realm.