Author's Note: First and foremost, thank you all for the reviews and support of Love Child. It keeps me motivated to keep writing and makes me unbelievably happy!
Second, I need to correct a mishap in continuity. The very first scene where Sakura realizes she is dying is said to take place 4 months after the rest of the story but I have to correct that. That initial scene, as of now, takes place 6 months after. I miscalculated the amount of time that needed to pass to develop the plot. However that doesn't change the fact that Sakura, when hospitalized, is four months pregnant. The flashback of Yamato and Sakura's first romantic encounter in the last chapter is 5 months prior to her waking up in Yamato's bed in chapter one. The order so far goes Yamato&Sakura, Main Plot, Sakura's Hospital Scene from Chapter One.
Once again, thank you all so much.
"Yamato," calls Tsunade, luring him out of his half-conscious state. "Keep your eyes open, let me see your eyes."
The captain blinks furiously, his vision spotted and blurry. His Hokage's blonde pigtails sway over him as she leans in to pull back his eyelid. His pupils refuse to dilate.
"He doesn't have much time, people, move it faster!" she demands.
"Raido is clear, ma'am," says Shizune, the snap of fresh gloves echoing like a thunder-clap in Yamato's brain. It makes his head ache.
"Raido," wheezes Yamato. He musters the strength to grab onto what he thinks to be Tsunade's wrist hovering over his chest with her medical ninjutsu. He grips it tight, both to get her attention and to hold himself steady in reality. The beeps and static and nervous jabbering of the operating room are making Yamato nervous. "Is Raido going-" he takes a rattling breath, "is he going-" The words refuse to come out.
"He's doing just fine, Tenzou. I need you to focus on staying awake, okay?"
Tsunade removes his grip from her hand and restarts the medical ninjutsu. It feels like she's tearing at his insides.
"On the count of three we're going to pull the shuriken out of his abdomen," explains Shizune to the rest of the medical team standing by. "Suppress the bleeding and get your hands in there to start healing whatever you can, as quickly as you can."
He should know their faces. Why doesn't he know their faces?
"Akira," croaks Yamato, eyes wildly looking around him to see if the rookie jonin had joined him in the operating room. "Where's A...Akira?"
Tsunade simply looks at him and shakes her head.
Yamato feels a stab of pain that has nothing to do with the shuriken being forced from insides. He forgot. The boy had died before they even reached Konoha.
"He needs pain meds," a nurse nearby says shrilly as his heart rate starts to drop.
If Yamato could talk properly, he would beg for them.
"No. If he gets pain meds, it will put him under. His head injury is too severe. If he goes to sleep, he won't wake up." She looks up at the nurse. "His body is in shock, he can't feel much. Keep working."
"Tsunade." His voice barely comes out in a whisper. No one answers him. "Tsunade!" he rasps.
Her worried chocolate eyes meet his. But before he can say anything else, Yamato starts to slip into a seizure.
"Time is running out!" the Hokage snaps as she pulls her hands away from Yamato's body to dismiss the medical ninjutsu. She turns him on his side as he seizes, gritting her teeth. "Is Chamber 2 ready yet?!"
"Yes ma'am!" replies Shizune. "Move him out!" the medical ninja calls out to the team.
They wheel Yamato as quickly as they can to Chamber 2. The Hokage jogs beside his stretcher. His sheets are soaked with blood and his almond shaped eyes have rolled back into his head.
Tsunade wants to be sick. She wants to scream for Yamato. But she can't. There is so much work to be done.
They enter Chamber 2 where they carefully pick Yamato up and place him on the floor in the middle of a chakra diagram shaped in a triangle that grows a bright medicinal green. Tsunade takes her place at the point, sitting down hurriedly as she shrugs off her jacket. Shizune and another medical ninja sit at the two corners of the base.
"Begin."
The three of them put their hands together in a sign and a bright green character glows on Yamato's forehead. Chakra emits from their bodies to the lines and symbols of the diagram like a current, healing the damage to his brain and his skull.
Two other medical ninja sit outside the triangle, aiming their chakra for the injuries to his broken bones and his abdominal wound.
Yamato stops seizing.
"Come on, Tenzou," Tsunade whispers with a grunt, a bead of sweat dripping down the side of her face. "Don't leave her like this."
As if Yamato can hear his Hokage, he pictures a pink haired Sakura, sleepy eyed and gorgeous in the morning light, smiling at him from her side of the bed.
Then everything goes white.
"How's he doing?"
Kakashi snaps his head up to meet the eyes of the Nara clan's prodigy. He shakes himself out of his festering thoughts and rubs the back of his head. The copy ninja gives a sigh.
"I don't know. We haven't heard anything yet."
He looks around at the waiting room. It was full to the brim earlier with shinobi wishing for good news. A nurse kicked most of them all out since they were crowding the entrance to the hospital where other patients needed to come and go. Only a few lingered.
Naruto sat nearby, his head leaned back against the wall as he stared at nothing in particular. Sai sat next to him, equally quiet although he intently watched the doors of the operating wing, just waiting for somebody to come through and let them know something.
A few jonin that Kakashi knew to be ANBU milled about in the corner, talking quietly amongst themselves.
He heard one of them whisper Sakura's name.
Almost as if Shikamaru read his thoughts, he threw his hands in his pockets lazily and asked seriously,
"And how is she holding up?"
He didn't need to clarify the she that he was talking about.
Sakura laid her feelings for Yamato bare for everyone in the hospital to see. Their secret is out.
It makes Kakashi grind his teeth together. Then he chides himself for envy when Yamato could very well be dead behind those doors.
The older ninja jerks his head to the break room that settled a few doors down from them.
"Naruto took her in there earlier to lay down. She was sound asleep the last time I checked."
"Yeah," Shikamaru sighs, giving the slightest nod of his head. "Yamato and Sakura." He gives one of his signature 'this is troublesome' huffs and scratches the side of his face. "Who would've guessed it?"
It takes everything in Kakashi's power to not make a fist. Because no one, not a single soul would've guessed it. Yamato always played by the rules, always the perfect gentleman and shinobi.
Dating his teammate just seemed like too much of a reach for Kakashi to comprehend.
But that was only the jealousy talking again.
"Yeah. Who knew."
He closes his eye and sees Sakura's face as she races alongside his stretcher. The man's hand reached up, trying to touch her, but he couldn't.
He remembers Sakura kicking and screaming to get away from him when last night, all she wanted to do was hold him. All for Yamato.
How could he have not seen it?
After all this time of watching her when she wasn't looking, after trying to stomp away these petulant feelings in the pit of his stomach whenever he was around her, how could he not see that she was always looking at him instead?
But Kakashi guesses it was probably because he was never watching Yamato.
"Hey," Shikamaru interrupts, clapping Kakashi on the back. The silver haired ninja stirs and turns his head to look at the genius. "He's going to be alright."
Kakashi gives a lazy smile, taking a deep breath as he nods to the boy. But Shikamaru doesn't know him well enough to realize that the gesture doesn't reach his eyes.
"You're right. Worrying will get us nowhere."
The copy ninja's gaze lingers on the door where Sakura is sleeping. He wants to go in there. He wants to wake her up and demand to know when they started. Kakashi wants to know how and where.
But most of all, he needs to know why.
Why did she crawl into his bed when clearly she belonged in someone else's?
Why did she come to stay when she was never really there to begin with?
Was Sakura thinking about Yamato while Kakashi made the best love he has ever made to a woman to her?
The thought twists into acid, coating his insides until he feels physically unable to stand any longer.
"Listen, Shikamaru, I have to go take care of a few things," says the shinobi casually, almost lightly.
Kakashi has always been a good liar.
"Keep an eye out for Naruto and Sakura and let me know if anything happens?" Kakashi asks as he turns on his heels. The chunin nods and Kakashi starts to take his leave. Naruto acknowledges his sensei as he passes by, going quickly back to thinking and worrying while Sai watches curiously from the corner of his eye.
"I'll be back later," he calls to the both of them, giving a lazy wave over his shoulder.
The hospital doors shut softly behind Kakashi and he waits until he gets to the gate so he can turn the corner.
Once completely out of sight, Kakashi does what he does best; he runs.
He runs until the hospital is far behind him. The copy ninja runs until he passes his house. Then Yamato's. Then Sakura's.
He sprints as fast he can, angry that he can't outrace something that's inside of him.
The shame is about to eat him alive.
Yamato flinched as the enemy's medical ninja healed the burns from his body.
It became a rather repetitive cycle.
Shock them, drown them, crush them, burn them.
Heal their broken bodies. Then do it all over again.
The cage jutsu that the three of them were captured in ate away at any chakra that they tried to build up, making it nearly impossible to form an escape plan when Yamato barely had it in him to stay conscious. His skin was raw, the nerves drawn out and exposed before the sloppy medical ninjutsu overlapped brand new flesh over the charred remains, flushing out infection and scars. Most of the time.
From his left, Raido's routine began again. He writhed on the ground of the cave, gargling and spitting as the shock of lightning set his blood on fire.
From his right, Akira drowns for the hundredth time in the past few days.
"Stop," rasps Yamato. "Let them go. They don't know anything." He grips the wrist of the ninja healing him and gets a punch to the jaw in return. He feels it break beneath the force once again.
The captain turns over on his side and holds his shattered face in his hand. But he refuses to cry out. He resigns himself to shouldering the pain silently and passively.
His cage regenerates around him and Yamato wants to scream.
But before he can even open his mouth to do so, the cage crackles and lightning strikes him. Yamato falls back from his sitting position and waits it out, grinding his teeth despite the sharp ache in his mouth. His muscles spasm and his body clenches and unclenches, jolting from the joules upon joules of energy coursing through him.
"Your body can't stand this much damage and sudden repair, Yamato of the Leaf. Give us the information we want," the enemy leader purrs as he sends an extra charged surge through the captain which nearly throws him to the opposite side of the cage. "And I will let you live."
The lightning stops and Yamato sucks in a breath, keeled over on his hands and knees as he tries to both breathe and not puke at the same time. His arms tremble, barely able to withstand his own weight. Sweat coats his shoulders and his back.
"Do you know what happened," Yamato pants, "to the last man who tried to take the Nine Tails from the Hidden Leaf? You will meet the same fate."
Yoshirou laughs. The captain collapses and rolls onto his back to watch his captor grin and chuckle, one hand still holding the cage together. The man has long jet black hair nearly to his waist and cold blue eyes. A thick scar runs from the corner of his mouth down to his neck.
Yoshirou Tanaka, rogue ninja of Jōmae, the Lock Village.
The captain has been studying his movements, his quirks, his words closely for the past few days. He wants Raido and Akira to only worry about surviving.
"You silly little man," coos Yoshirou as the cage begins to fill up with water. Yamato can only sit and watch, knowing that he will drown. Although he refuses to show it, panic grips him in his chest. "I don't want to capture the Nine Tails. I just want to know his weak spots. I want to know what makes him tick."
The water has reached Yamato's waist as he struggles to his feet. He's too tired to tread water. Already, the captain can feel his body protesting.
"No one in the village, or any affiliated with the Leaf, will give you what you want on Naruto," spits Raido as he nurses a crushed arm and ankle from inside his cage. His captor, the gorilla looking man named Kenta who beat Yamato within an inch of his life upon capture, has left Raido's face cut up and sliced until it festers with infection. Yamato grits his teeth.
Yoshirou chuckles, jerking his head to Kenta. The man releases his chakra cage only to stomp on Raido's already shattered ankle. He howls in pain.
"That's fine. The Lock Village will get info on the Uzumaki child one way or another. If you don't want to double cross your teammate," the enemy leader pulls the crumpled picture of Team Kakashi from his pocket and looks at, smirking, "I understand. But I doubt that unwavering loyalty passes on to other shinobi less beloved than the jinchuuriki. Kakashi of the Sharingan, Shikamaru Nara, the Inuzuka clan, the two young Hyuuga brats, Ibiki Morino, Inoichi Yamanaka and his pretty young daughter, Shikaku Nara, the strangely creep Aburame clan, the list goes on."
Yamato presses his face to the top of the cage, trying to catch every last breath that he can before the water completely devours him.
"Why do you need that much intel? And why from us?" Yamato sputters as the water starts to pass over his chin. He doesn't have much time.
"The Lock Village is unparalleled in espionage. A small, overlooked village of incredible shinobi. While the eyes of the Great Nations have been averted elsewhere, we have been raising an army. And we will find the weak spot of every single shinobi in the Leaf until not one soldier can stand against us."
Akira, moaning and gasping after a lightning strike, calls out to Yoshirou,
"We'd rather die!"
"That can be arranged, young Akira, don't you worry. But first, I will break your body."
Yamato's head is completely submerged in water. His lungs burn with the effort of holding his last breath. He watches Yoshirou's lips move as he talks with Akira. Yamato begins to see spots in his vision. A ninja's training to hold their breath is exceptional but it doesn't last forever.
Especially with no chakra.
"My friend's and I have created the ultimate torture chamber, driving your bodies to the physical and psychological breaking points. You have been here for days. There is a limit to how much more you can take." Yoshirou grins slyly, eyes flickering to Yamato who just opened his mouth to let water into his lungs. "And once they are broken, once they are unable to hold up the existence of your wretched lives, we will break into your minds and take what we need."
Akira throws himself against the side of his cage, the chakra force throwing him back. He snaps his eyes up to Yoshirou and growls,
"Then what is the point of asking us to give in if you're just going to break us anyway! You're wasting your breath!"
Yoshirou laughs, nodding his head to Akira's captor, a tall lanky man by the name of Hiro. The subordinate of the enemy releases his chakra cage to grab Akira by the throat, choking him until the boy gasps and claws at the wrists of Hiro. The boy's dulling blue eyes stare up at Yoshirou who is releasing the water from Yamato's cage. The captain lays unconscious on the ground, nearly blue in the face as his captor releases the jutsu to allow the medical ninja to revive him.
"I want you all to die knowing that with your last pitiful breath, you sold out your own comrades."
Yoshirou laughs as he watches Akira fade from consciousness, Hiro seemingly choking the life out of him while Raido recovers from his latest shock of lightning.
"I want that kid close to death, do you hear me!" Yoshirou shouts at Hiro who has reformed his cage around Akira. The man nods, acknowledging the order of his superior, and sends fire down into Akira's cage until he is screaming.
Raido repeatedly throws himself against his own confinement, not being able to stand listening to the youngest member of his team howl and cry beneath the burn of fire. He can smell the charring flesh of his teammate and it makes Raido keel over and heave.
If only there was anything left in his stomach to throw up. He can't remember the last time they had been fed.
Akira writhes and thrashes, trying to put out the flames encompassing his body while Hiro, Kenta and Yoshirou watch, amused at the little jonin's attempt to save himself.
That's when Yamato's eyes fly open.
"Ninja Art: Wood Release!"
His right hand turns into a wooden spear which he runs through the medical ninja. He topples over and Yamato uses his body as a shield for the kunai that Yoshirou has thrown at him. Yamato prints to Kenta and sides weeps his legs out from under him, causing the disruption of Raido's cage.
"Get up and fight!" Yamato orders, even though he can barely stand himself.
Raido stomps onto Kenta's jaw until it breaks, throwing his elbow into the man's throat until he sputters. With the little amount of chakra that he has been able to accumulate in these past few moments, he summons a sword using his kenjutsu to cut off the enemy's right hand. The hand that held him captive.
Hiro releases his hold on Akira and sends a boulder from the ground flying into Yamato's side. His body still weak and unable to react as quickly, takes the hit in his right arm which cracks and splinters until the bone sticks out from Yamato's skin. The impact sends him flying several feet away.
Raido takes this opportunity to lock into battle with Hiro.
Yamato gives a growling cry and staggers to his feet.
Yoshirou throws his head back and laughs.
"Oh little Yamato, is that all you can muster? That pathetic wood spear and some half-assed taijutsu? I assume you're out of chakra already and the damage that you have done to my team," he jerks his head to the dead medical ninja, "is replaceable. Give up, boy. Your escape plan was a cute attempt. But you can barely stand on your feet!"
Yamato had blinked and it was his biggest mistake. A master of weapons, Yoshirou had unrolled a scroll from his belt and a produced a large windmill shuriken that was now lodged into Yamato's stomach.
The pain set the captain's body on fire and he drops to his knees by Akira. The boy's eyes, after not being able to be healed of his burns, have gone still. Yamato howls.
"Captain!" cries Raido, struggling to keep up with Hiro. His resolve has all but vanished.
Blood drips onto the ground in puddles as Yamato presses his hand to his external wound.
"You've lost, boy. Give up!"
Yoshirou gives a swift kick to Yamato's chest and it collapses his right lung.
He stares up at the enemy leader, wheezing as he tries to get his airways to work.
The enemy squats down beside Yamato. He grabs a fistful of his hair, tugging his head back as he slams his fist into Yamato's jaw, once, twice, three times-it shatters at a greater magnitude than earlier.
"The Leaf Village will fall by the hands of the Lock Village and all will blame the wood-user Captain Yamato and his spineless team." The man's cold blue eyes gleam as he watches Yamato cough up blood, his hands struggling to put pressure on his own wound. "What does it feel like, boy? To be the traitor of Konoha. I will tell them. I will give them all the gory details of how the great Captain squealed the Village's secrets like a pig." He takes Yamato's jaw in his hand to make the leaf shinobi look at him. The bones crush and grind against one another as Yoshirou clenches his grip. "What do you say, boy? Are you ready to die?"
Yamato looks up into the eyes of his enemy.
And he spits in his face.
"Fuck you."
Yamato does a quick hand sign and trees roots burst up from the ground, binding Yoshirou and Hiro's feet. The flexible, crushing wood slithers up the limbs of the enemy, binding them together until both men are held captive on the ground, angrily sputtering and squirming.
"This is impossible, how do you have so much chakra!" cries Yoshirou, struggling against the hold of the Wood Release.
Yamato, to his agony, gets up and limps over to Akira. He grabs the dead boy by his flak jacket while Raido stands next to his captain. The two of them start performing hand signs, slow and almost blindly as their vision blurs in and out of focus.
The Captain points to the roots that are binding the enemy.
"Nature is on my side, gentlemen. Those tree roots have been storing away what little chakra I was able to build up during my healing intervals on the ground. They sank into my body from beneath me and leaked away the chakra before your cage could, saving it for the perfect moment to return it to me."
Yoshirou cries angrily, blood lust in his cold eyes as he thrashes around, trying to free himself.
"But you're still too weak to kill us! I will have the Leaf Village! And when I do, Yamato, I will take your head as a fucking prize to hang on my wall!"
Raido completes the last hand sign and he grabs onto Yamato's shoulder.
A string of letters and seals travel up the lengths of both their arms, glowing a bright yellow.
"That can't be right!" Hiro's eyes widen as he's nearly blinded by the light of their jutsu. "That's the Flying Thunder God Technique!"
Yoshirou nearly foams at the mouth with rage. He begins to snap Yamato's wooden bindings, piece by piece.
"I'll slaughter you," he seethes, "I will find you, cut you open and gut you like a fish!" Yoshirou stands, beginning to break the bindings on his arms. He gets ready to perform hand signs.
Yamato sees Sakura's jade green eyes flash before him. He narrows his eyes at the enemy in return.
"Not if I find you first."
And in an instant, Yamato, Raido, and a lifeless Akira, disappear onwards to Konoha.
There's the beeping of machines, the slow, even current of oxygen flowing into his lungs, and the small, smooth hand holding his against the comfortable, yet slightly itchy, sheets of a hospital bed.
Yamato opens his eyes and squints at the bright hazy light of sunset peeking in through the blinds. The walls are plain and achingly white. But a vase of flowers blurs and then focuses in his line of vision, sitting quietly on the edge of his nightstand, when he turns his head to look at the person sleeping against his leg.
The unmistakable pink of Sakura's hair, her cheeks stained with dry tears, slumps forward onto his hospital bed, sound asleep. Her delicate fingers intertwine with his loosely and she snores quietly, her head resting against his thigh.
If Yamato had the strength to, he would haul her into this bed and crush her to him.
How many times did he think that those fleeting moments in the hospital, before setting off on that wretched mission, were going to be the last time he would ever see her?
But she's there, in the tired, aching flesh, sleeping against him and Yamato could get on his knees and thank the gods that he lived to see another day where Sakura Haruno wanted him enough to wait by his bed until he woke up.
The captain fumbles with his oxygen mask, peeling it off his face. He breathes in the horrid smell of antiseptic and disease but he doesn't want to worry about that right now. His left hand, with all the strength that he can muster, squeezes her fingers.
"Sakura," he rasps. Yamato curses his dry throat and tries again. "Sakura."
The young kunoichi stirs, groaning something about Naruto being useless for wanting ramen again, and sits up. She rubs her eyes with her free hand and blinks at Yamato, clearing her sight to see him staring back at her.
Alive and awake.
His almond shaped eyes soften as she jumps up from her chair, nearly knocking the thing over. He attempts a smile but his jaw protests, a sharp sting of pain shooting down the length of it. He flinches and Sakura grabs his face gently. The waterworks have already started, her jade eyes leaking tears as she rubs her thumbs over his cheekbones. One hand smooths his messy brown hair back from his forehead as Yamato leans into his touch. Her lower lip trembles.
"Don't you-" she says haltingly in sobs, "Don't you ever do something like that again. Do you hear me? Or so help me god, I will kill you myself."
"I'm so sorry," he exclaims as she throws herself into his waiting arms. Yamato pretends not to notice the pain as he lifts her up into the bed to let her curl up there beside him. The girl cries, hard, against his shoulder and Yamato rubs her back soothingly. He plants kisses along her forehead, her shoulder, her wrists, anything that he can reach while he tells her over and over again how sorry he is.
"I thought you were going to die. I thought you were going to die today and I-"
I slept with Kakashi Hatake last night.
Yamato holds her crying face in his hands, the right one enveloped in a cast, and he touches his forehead to hers.
"Sakura, I already told you." His lips touch hers, softly, and he smiles, ignoring the scream of discomfort snaking along his jaw. "I couldn't leave you even if I tried."
The kunochi gives a half-laugh, half-sob kind of sound that makes Yamato chuckle to himself, pulling Sakura into his chest where she clings to him by the front of his hospital shirt.
"How did you get back? Lady Hokage said that you were being held hostage and that they didn't know if they could reach you in time," she starts jabbering, trying to pull away to look up into his eyes.
Yamato reaches up and unties her forehead protector from underneath her hair.
The headband falls face down between them. Sakura traces the other recieving half of the Fourth Hokage's transportation jutsu which has been inscribed on the underside of it.
"I wanted to come home."
Kakashi watches from the window to Yamato's hospital room as Sakura cries herself to sleep in his arms. The man he calls friend strokes Sakura's back, his hand in her hair and his lips on her shoulder.
It makes Kakashi angry enough to want to throw something.
The kunoichi reaches up to kiss him and the captain kisses her back, his almond shaped eyes closed and relishing from the feel of Sakura's lips on his.
Kakashi would know that feeling because it happened in his bed last night.
The thought drives the copy ninja to turn on his heels and leave the Intensive Care Unit even though Naruto calls after him, telling him that Yamato is awake as the blonde peers in through the window that Kakashi was just standing at.
The sensei ignores his students and shoves the door open to jog down the stairs, desperate to get as far away from the image of Yamato kissing Sakura as he can.
Kurenai's words echo in his mind, leaving a bad taste in his mouth as he continues down the stairwell of the hospital.
He should be happy that Yamato is awake. He should be relieved that he doesn't have to bury another friend.
But the animal that they call jealousy rages inside Kakashi.
We've already lost Genma, Kakashi. Don't lose her too.