Syncope

Chapter 5

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After her light knock didn't get any reply, Shizune cautiously opened the door to Sakura's room and peeked inside. Sasuke occupied the chair at the bedside, a fixture she became familiar with since Sakura's hospitalization. His full attention was on his ill wife, watching her every rattled breath with rapture, like it could be the last, which wasn't that far from truth. Shizune's heart clenched in a sympathetic pain. Sakura was a dear friend and a fellow disciple of Tsunade and seeing her struggle for her life and slowly lose felt like a personal failure for the medic. Sakura certainly didn't deserve this, not when she had such a devoted husband losing his mind with worry over her. And poor Sarada-chan, she also didn't deserve to lose her mother so soon...

Shizune had already vowed to herself that she'd do everything possible to save Sakura's life. With the time passing and no results, the chances for success were getting slimmer, but the new data brought from the Sound base as well as Karin's help could be enough to make a difference. Shizune wasn't going to give up just yet.

She coughed lightly to signal her presence to the Uchiha. He swiveled his head robotically towards her. With one glance of her trained medic eyes she recognized that he was suffering from sleep deprivation. "I came to change her IV," Shizune said softly and after a few seconds of delay, Sasuke inclined his head in a silent understanding.

Shizune swapped the IV bag that was running empty with a new one. Sakura was too weak to spare energy for normal eating and digesting, so she was given the necessary nutrients straight into the vein, along with her medication. Ironically, her weakness was precisely caused by the same chakra blockers. They were what stopped her chakra from wreaking havoc on her body but at the same time they robbed her of her strength. She was left with only the minimum of chakra to keep her alive and even that chakra was viciously eating through her, like an acid.

"How much longer?" The scratchy, unused voice startled her.

"Sasuke-san?"

"How much longer will it take? You have to find the cure, before it's too late," Sasuke said.

"I know. We're doing the best we can. Believe me, everyone here wants to save Sakura," Shizune assured him with a tight smile that didn't reach her eyes.

"She won't survive on everyone's wants and good wishes," Sasuke shot back with a glare. "With every moment, she's slipping further away. She needs the cure and fast," he enunciated sharply, like he was talking to a particularly slow person, his eyes filled with contempt towards her like she was incompetent. Like she was a quack, a fraud, a failure.

And suddenly, that was the last straw.

"I know that!" Shizune burst out, her impressive composure crumbling like a house of cards. "What more do you want me to do?! These things take time! We're dealing with something completely new here! I can't just give her some untested medicine, I need to be sure it's safe or it might just kill her!" She took a huge gulp of air after the rant, then she slumped tiredly and slid down the wall into a crouch. "I'm trying my hardest to save her, I swear..." she whispered, looking into her hands like they were holding a secret key to the universe. A few drops fell onto them, taking her by surprise. It couldn't be rain, she was inside the building... That's when she realized with a sob that she was crying.

Damn. So unprofessional. Tsunade-sama would have my hide... "Never show your emotions to the patients and their families. You can cry, scream, puke, just do it out of their sight and earshot," that's what she used to say.

Shizune rubbed her face dry with her sleeve and stood up. To her surprise, Sasuke was holding out a water bottle to her with a slightly contrite look on his face. She accepted the peace offering and took a sip, the cool water soothing her raw throat from the inside.

"Thanks..." Shizune said and drank some more. Feeling refreshed, she screwed the bottle's cap. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have yelled."

Sasuke averted his gaze back to his wife. "It was entirely my fault. I pushed you too far... It's just difficult to watch Sakura like this..." he said. Even though he was too proud to simply say sorry, Shizune recognized the apology for what it was.

"There's still time," she told him. "She's not critical yet. Thankfully, her chakra attacked her core first, instead of the brain. It's possible to reconstruct all other organs, only the brain is irreplaceable. As long as it's intact, she has a fighting chance."

The words were only meant to comfort. When the results of Sakura's next full body scan came in, Shizune was kicking herself for jinxing it.

The aggressive chakra was moving up towards Sakura's brain. She had only a few days left, a week tops.

Only in rare moments Shizune ever hated her job. Healing was in her blood, she loved being a medic-nin. But when she had to go and tell the bad news to Sakura and her family, seeing their hope in her slowly extinguish and the despair settle in made the bile rise up in her stomach.

Sakura took the news stoically. Maybe she was too weak to muster any sort of emotional response. The resignation with which she closed her eyes suggested she'd already sensed this coming.

Sasuke also didn't make any sort of a scene, though his face took on a grey pallor and his fists clenched on the material of his pants. He only inquired about the usefulness of the data he'd brought and Karin's study into Sakura's chakra. Shizune rushed to assure him that they were indeed getting closer to finding the cure.

However, now they were running against the clock. And she had no idea if they'd make it in time to save Sakura's life.

Sarada took it the hardest. At first the girl went still, eyes wide with shock, pleading with Shizune to tell her that this wasn't true, that her Mama wasn't going to die. Then her lower lip trembled and Sarada ran out of the room, a hand over her mouth stifling a cry.

Shizune felt truly awful after that talk. Instead of going straight back to work, she took a detour to the hospital roof. She needed a breather, five minutes to herself. She leaned on the railing and looked to the horizon. The reddish sunset over Konoha was pretty, but in her eyes it seemed too ominous in the current circumstances. Shizune released a deep sigh.

"I need a drink," she muttered to herself.

"Sorry, I didn't bring any. Hospital rules and such," came the unexpected reply.

Shizune jumped up and whirled on the spot. "Kakashi-sama?!"

The masked ninja made an exasperated sound. "I told you a million times to drop the 'sama'. I'm not even a Hokage anymore, there's no need for formality."

"Yes, yes, Kakashi... sama," Shizune replied. She couldn't resist to tease him like that. It was an old joke between them from the time she had worked as his assistant. "Why are you here?"

He shrugged. "I like sunsets. And I overheard about Sakura's condition."

Shizune gripped the railing tight and braced herself for literally anything—pointless rank-pulling, questioning her ability, threats of demotion, laying blame on her shoulders...

"How are you holding up?" Kakashi asked instead.

"Me?" she repeated, taken aback. So there was one thing she wasn't prepared for. He was asking about her? But it was Sakura who was ill...

"Yes, you." He cast her a shrewd look from the half-lidded eyes. "Sakura's illness is hard on all of us, but you're her friend and her medic. That's a double burden on you. So how are you doing, Shizune?"

"I... I..." she stammered, feeling so touched that someone actually took her into consideration. "Honestly? I'm just... so tired. I want to save her so much, but it's like the closer I get to the cure, the more it slips away from my grasp. I just want this to be over."

Kakashi laid a hand on her shoulder and gave her a brief squeeze. His calm strength flowed into her and grounded her. "If anyone can do it, it has to be you. You are Tsunade's apprentice, after all," he said with a full confidence in her.

Shizune blinked back her tears. "Thank you..."

"Speaking of, when this is over, I'll get you that drink you wanted. So let's both do our best, okay?" Kakashi said with a wink and teleported away in a swirl of leaves.

"... You're just going to skip on the bill like always," Shizune muttered, but she was smiling a bit. Their talk made her feel ready to continue working until she found that damn elusive cure.

One way or another, she was going to have that drink, however she vastly preferred to drink in celebration, not mourning.

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Sarada tore through the hospital hallways at a full speed, barely able to see anything through the tear-stained glasses. Her Mama was going to die in a few days and nothing made any sort of sense anymore.

Until now, Sarada endured the changes in her life caused by her mother's illness with maturity. She didn't complain even when she often felt lonely and sad by herself at home, she just gritted her teeth and focused on her training and missions. She did the chores and cooked for herself. She studied the medical texts on her own, hoping to find some way to cure her mother. She even managed to go with her father on a mission, despite her presence being completely unnecessary in the end. Sarada did all those things because she was convinced that her Mama would be healed soon and everything would go back to normal. She'd have her parents back with her and their family would be happy again. Instead, Sarada learned that all her efforts to help amounted practically to nothing. No matter what she did and how hard she tried, her mother was still going to die.

Sarada couldn't accept that. Every fiber of her being rebelled against such a blatant injustice. The sheer wrongness of it repulsed her on a visceral level. Sarada couldn't take this standing, so she ran.

She ran half-blind until she crashed into someone and went down on the floor in a tangled mass.

"Sarada? What's the matter?" a woman beneath the crying girl asked in clear worry.

"Mama... she's going to..." Sarada couldn't say it, she just sobbed harder.

"... Let me help you first." Sarada accepted a hand up. The red blur of a person took off Sarada's glasses, wiped them on her sleeve and gave them back. When Sarada finally saw who it was, her blood boiled as her feverish mind latched onto the most logical theory for her mother's condition that she could think of.

"You! This is all your fault!" Sarada burst out. "You want her to die!"

Karin frowned, at once put on guard. "What are you talking about?"

"Don't pretend you don't know! I heard what Orochimaru told you! You didn't come here to help my mother! You're here to make sure she dies, aren't you?!"

Sarada's loud accusations attracted more people and a crowd started to form around them. Karin looked around for a backup, to no avail. Her lips pressed together in displeasure and she crossed her arms defensively.

"Kid, I don't know what you heard, but you've got it all wrong. Orochimaru has nothing to do with my reasons for coming here," she said. "I understand you're in distress and can't think clearly. Go home and get some rest."

Sarada's fury rose to the point her Sharingan involuntarily activated.

"You're lying! You think I didn't notice my mother getting worse since you came to Konoha?!" she shouted, hands balled into fists. "I know this is your doing! You-"

"Sarada!" a sharp command cut her off. Her father made his way through the surrounding people.

"Papa!" Sarada cried out in relief. Her father was going to take care of everything now. "You need to arrest her, she's working for Orochimaru-"

"Sarada, that's enough," her father said as he reached her.

"But, Papa, she's killing Mama!" Sarada protested.

Sasuke shook his head, brow marred with disapproval. "I said 'enough'," he repeated sternly and put a hand around his daughter.

"But..." she looked up at him with a wounded disbelief. The culprit was right there and he was just going to do nothing? "But she's..."

"Karin's innocent." Sasuke briefly lifted his calm gaze to the pensive woman to check on her, then turned back to Sarada. "Don't take your grief out on her. Nothing good would ever come out of it, only more pain," he spoke with a distant look as he stroked Sarada's temple. "Sometimes... people just die and it's no one's fault."

"P-Papa..." Sarada whispered brokenly, convinced at last. She sagged forward, buried her head into his shoulder and cried her heart out, hugging onto him tightly. Somewhere in the background she heard Karin's raised voice, barking at the crowd to stop gawking and get lost.

Sarada gave up. She didn't care about anything anymore. In that moment, she was just a scared teenage girl who didn't want her mother to die.

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Sasuke slipped into Sakura's room, no longer caring that the visiting hours were over. He figured that with the time limit on his wife's life, he had the right to spend with her as much of the time she had left, to the very last second.

Her vivid green eyes, underlined with heavy bags, seemed much paler in the moonlight as she gazed at him from the bed.

"Sasuke-kun... I knew you'd come..." she murmured lifting her hand. He grasped it gently, lacing their fingers together.

"Of course," he replied hoarsely.

"How's Sarada? I'd talk to her, but..." she gestured at herself, hooked to the IV and other machines.

"She's... not taking it well," Sasuke said, deciding not to mention the extent of their daughter's devastation or her outburst at Karin. The situation was handled, no reason to stress Sakura. "She's sleeping at home now. I called Ino to watch over her for the night."

"That bad, huh?" Sakura commented with a knowing look. "That child... I worry about her." She bit her lip hesitantly. "Sasuke-kun, when I'm gone..."

"No. There's still time," he fiercely objected, though he was just trying to convince himself.

"Let me finish," she said firmly. "When I'm gone, take care of Sarada. I trust you with her... like you trusted me."

He just shook his head mutely. "Without you... I don't know if I can do this. You deserve all the credit for raising her so well. I was gone for so long..."

Sakura touched his cheek tenderly. "It doesn't matter. You are a good father, Sasuke-kun. I know it and Sarada knows it. You don't need to hold her hand. Just be there when she needs you and everything will be okay."

Sasuke put his hand over hers and closed his eyes, savouring her feather-light touch on his skin. "Alright," he uttered.

"Two more things," Sakura said after a pause. She was getting tired from all the talking and her breathing was becoming laboured. "The slug summoning scroll... I want Sarada to have it... If she chooses to sign the contract... Katsuyu-sama will teach her Byakugou..." She then told him the secret location of the scroll.

"I promise she'll get it," Sasuke assured his wife.

"Good..." She gave him a tired smile. "The other thing... Burn my body... I don't want a burial... Give me a funeral pyre... like an Uchiha."

He nodded, even though the finality of her request, the certainty of her own death made his insides twist into knots. "As you wish," he replied thickly.

She grabbed his wrist with a surprising strength.

"Don't leave... a single strand... of my DNA... laying around..." Sakura said with difficulty. "I don't want... Edo Tensei..."

"I won't allow it," Sasuke replied vehemently and she relaxed. He understood her request all too well. Just the idea of some new maniac using that abomination of a technique on his wife, desecrating her body and treating her like a puppet, roused a murderous rage inside him.

Sakura's breath was now loud and wheezing, and something rattled in her chest dangerously. Then she covered her mouth and coughed hard. When she took her hand away, it was slick with blood. Sasuke wordlessly took it and wiped it clean with a tissue, meticulously rubbing between fingers until there wasn't a speck of blood left.

When he was done, he laid her hand down on the covers. "You should rest now. I'll stay," he said softly.

Sakura inclined her head a tiny bit, too drained to move and speak. A shiver went through her once, then twice.

"Darling, I'm cold..." she whispered. "So cold..." She raised her gaze to him. "Would you..."

She didn't manage to finish, but it was easy for him to guess. Sasuke toed off his sandals and slipped under the covers next to her, laying on his side in the small hospital bed. He pulled Sakura into his arms and held her close to his chest, running his hand over her back smoothly up and down. He used to hold her like this, in their own bed, where they shared all their love and nothing stood between them. With a painful clench of his heart, he realized that he could count her ribs.

In his embrace Sakura warmed up quickly and his steady heartbeat lulled her to sleep.

"Sasu...ke...kun... I love... you..." he heard her softly whisper.

He held her a little bit tighter. Then he buried his nose in her hair and inhaled, looking for her own rose-like scent under the sharp smell of medicine and soap. It was barely there, faint but still present. Just like her life.

Sasuke held onto his wife desperately, as if it could stop her from being taken away from him. And only then, in the privacy of the isolated hospital room, under covers with Sakura asleep in his arms, he allowed himself to break into tears.

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AN: Thank you for all the reviews! It keeps me writing.

Please let me know your thoughts about this chapter too and see you next time :)