Yay, chapter three! this is actually one of my favorite chapters! I took advantage of my four-day weekend to type up as many chapters as i could. Then all i have to do is upload it at school!! I really should be working on a drawing that i'm getting payed to do but...my sketchbook is not within arm's reach and the computer is so...oh well!! Enough talk and enjoy! (Btw, something's wrong with this Document thing, it made all my capital letters lowercase, so sorry if someone's name isn't capitalized, I'm trying to fix it!)

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"Don't let go of my hand, Dei," said Seiryu.

"Mm-hmm," Deidara replied, gripping his umbrella tighter as the sky gave a loud rumble. It was pouring and had been so since Seiryu had picked him up from school only twenty-five minutes ago. Seiryu taken advantage of her lunch break (which was at three-forty five p.m.) to pick up Deidara from school. Now she had come back to serve the last two hours of her shift, though Deidara knew that when they got home she might still be called to replace someone or to be assigned extra hours. She was a coroner, whatever that meant, and her work schedule tended to be a bit irregular.

Amegakure Hospital was a large, five-story building that had to be at least seventy years old. The lights of some rooms were on, the yellowish glow visible from the small and slightly grimy windows. It was an old building but it was still good enough to be Amegakure's hospital. Seiryu and Deidara went in quickly and were greeted by the sudden warmth. They paused in the small lobby to close their umbrellas. The lighting had been done hastily and without much care; the place was bathed in a semi-bright and unsatisfying, sick yellowish glow. The counters were empty, no clerks. No one sat in the ancient, hard-backed chairs or attempted to wrestle stale candy bars (while the clerks weren't looking) from the candy machines with their "Out of Service" signs permanently taped to them. Seiryu led Deidara down a dimly lit hallway that he was now familiar with. They began to descend down a flight of ancient steps. Deidara had been to the morgue several times before and had not once (not even on his first visit) been afraid of the dead bodies. Seiryu had been surprised but proud. Deidara was now allowed to watch Seiryu and her assistant, a young brunet man called Akira, perform autopsies (without her boss's knowledge, of course). He loved every minute of it.

They walked down the stairs, their footsteps resounding at a hollow, mismatched pace. It had gotten darker, the temperature cooler. The air smelled funny. It always did, but Deidara had never thought to ask why. Until now.

"What's that smell?" Deidara asked, his voice made unnaturally loud by the stone walls.

"It's formaldehyde. It always smells like it in the morgue, Dei. we kind of use it to preserve the bodies. So they don't decompose-"

"Like when you leave meat out for too long?" deidara interrupted.

Seiryu laughed. "Yup. We can't let the bodies rot, so that we can perform the autopsy just fine..." she replied. If there was one thing she took pride in besides Deidara, it was her job. It was the only thing that made her feel herself. Nagato couldnt interefere with her job. He had been unemployed for three years now which was why they had moved to Amegakure from Iwagakure. Seiryu had gone to medical school and was able to get a job at the hospital as a coroner. She made the money, but Nagato decided how to spend it.

They came to a landing, turned, and came to a door with a frosted-glass panel. They could hear water runnning inside. Seiryu opened the door and Deidara followed.

The place was empty except for a woman, lying dead on a cart and Akira, who was in the usual mint-green surgical scrubs, and rinsing something in the large sink. Seiryu removed her coat to reveal identical scrubs.

The sink was wide with a tall crook-necked faucet, a drainboard, and a hanging scale. There were three more sinks along the wall closest to Deidara's left. The walls were of a sky blue ceramic tile, and there were long stainless-steel counters with a large amoutnt of drawer space. It looked like some sort of kitchen, but Deidara knew nothing edible was prepared in here.

Akira looked at Seiryu and raised a bloodly gloved hand as a greeting. He waved at deidara, too. Deidara waved back.

Now Deidara could see the body up close. It was a young woman, probably in her mid-twenties. She had long black hair and lay very still on the cart, her eyes closed. Her bloodless face was free of any emotion. She was not breathing, and her skin was very pale, almost gray.

Seiryu washed her hands, and made Deidara do the same. She handed him a shirt only because he could not wear full scrubs, he was too small. She sat him on an empty cart so he could watch.

Deidara looked at the woman's feet expectantly and saw what he had been looking for: the woman's toe tag. He always read them, even though it was just a bunch of numbers.

Akira got out a spray bottle of disinfectant, which he began to squirt onto the stainless-steel counter he had been working at. Once he was done, he turned to Seiryu and began laying out tools on a tray: a scalpel, forceps, different sized saws, and a surgical drill that seiryu seldom used.

The blonde looked on as Seiryu got to work, starting, as always, by making a large y-shaped cut down the middle of the woman's body, the top portion of the y between her breasts. Deidara watched, fascinated, as one of the saws came to life whirring loudly. The whirring becoming high-pithed and annoying as it struck bone.

A few minutes later, Seiryu was done and was now examining the woman's heart and lungs.

"She was a smoker..." Seiryu murmured and Akira turned to jot something down on a clipboard. "But i don't think that's what killed her..."

Akira nodded.

"I think it might've been-" she held up the woman's heart, which was twice the normal size, and placed it on the hanging scale. "-something else..."

Akira's eyes widened and he scribbled on the clipboard, taking a quick glance at the scale.

Deidara smiled excitedly. This was getting good.

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Seiryu's pov

I rubbed my eyes and looked down at my half-finished report. It was two in the morning, but i had to get it done.

"Immediate cause of death...seems to be a ruptured aortic valve. probably from impact with the steering wheel," I muttered, writing as i spoke. "Sternum and multiple ribs were fractured. ascending aorta incompletely torn- just above superior border of the valve cusps. Slso, massive aortiv adventitial hemorrage. Toxicology reports indicate that alcohol was not a factor-"

Thump.

I paused, my pen hovering an inch off my paper. I looked around, everything was dark, except for my desk, which had a small circle of light thrown upon it by an old desk lamp.

A hand placed itself on my shoulder. "Seiryu..." said a husky voice. the strong scent of scotch and sweat scurried up my nose and i jumped up, startled. I turned around and saw Nagato standing there, very drunk, by the look of him.

"You're up late," he said, his words slurred. "You doin' work?"

"Yeah...i'm just about done," I said softly, only answering his question and nothing else so that he could keep this rare light mood. One wrong step and he would blow.

I stepped into the kitchen. "D'you want something to drink?"

"Nah...i'm alright," Nagato replied, leaving into the living room. He turned on the light and then set to look for an unknown something. Minutes later he seemed to find it and sat down on the couch. The light in the living room dimmed considerably.

I poured myself a glass of milk, being too tired to make coffee. I set my glass down on the table and walked into the living room.

Nagato's nose was reddened. He had taken out a mirror and a razor blade; he was busy laying out a couple of lines of coke. His facial expression was hungry.

"Where's the brat?" Nagato asked as he bent over, using a rolled-up scrap of paper like a straw and his nostril became a mini vacuum cleaner. He lay back on the couch, his eyes closed, his fingers pinching his nose closed. He opened his eyes and looked down, wetting his pinky finger and cleaned surface of the jagged mirror. He ran his fingertip across his gums with a speed that suggested it was his last time doing this.

"Asleep," I answered.

"Good," he replied. He stared out at the window and began to laugh aloud.

I said nothing and went back to my report. It was at three in the morning when my report was finally finished. I turned off the lamp, stepped into the living room and put a blanket over Nagato, who was fast asleep on the couch. I quickly took a shower and dried myself off. I slipped on some panties and a bra and finally a loose nightgown. Carefully, I stepped into Deidara's room and kissed his forehead, stroking his semi-long blond hair. He looked like an angel to me, but so did every child in their mother's eyes. I was convinced, however, that my Deidara was special and he deserved better than the life he lived in this house. He deserved a better father. He deserved a better mother. He deserved real parents and a safe and comfortable house. Tears clouded my vision and I smiled down at my little boy, who was growing up so fast. I wiped the tears from my eyes and closed his window, which was letting in a cold breeze. I stood at the doorway, looking at Deidara for a few minutes before stepping into my room.

My room.

Nagato and i had slept in separate bedrooms for almost a year now. It felt horrible not to wake up and see another face, or to crawl into bed and be welcomed by someone else's warmth instead of the bedsheets' cold indifference. But it was better this way- for all of us.

I stood at the door, holding back tears because of the state my family was in. It had fallen into disrepair like the house. Yes, the house...it needed fixing up and only made our situation worse. Our couches were old and the house needed painting. One of our windows was broken because of Nagato and the only good thing in the house was the T.V., which belonged to Nagato. It was a 50" flat-screen that was mounted on the wall and no one was allowed to watch it without Nagato's permission. I had chosen the best room for Deidara. The carpet was the least worn out and the walls the least chipped. I hated our house but I needed the job, we needed the money. It didn't matter what i thought.

I sighed and locked both locks on my door and crawled into bed, easing myself into the stone-cold sheets and set the alarm for the next morning. This was just another night at home: my husband, as always, was drunk and high, sleeping on the couch. My little boy sleeping in his room, his door reinforced by two additional locks for fear that Nagato might hurt him while I was sleeping for reasons uknown to everyone but himself. Quickly, I drifted off to sleep, my brain projecting slowly-fading images of bloody crime scenes, noiseless morgues, and my now broken family.

End Seiryu's POV

Normal POV For Next Chapter

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I kinda find this chapter sad...ah well, how was it? R&R please? Arigato!