Fic: Under the Sun
Mar. 29th, 2011 10:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oroburos69Title: Under the Sun
Beta:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lady_of_scarlet
Fandom: Naruto
Rating: FRT
Pairing/Characters: Tsunade, Sakura, Kakashi
Summary: Tsunade knows what Kakashi tried to do and she is not pleased with either of them. Sakura doesn't mind the punishment, though.
A/N: I gave this series a title, because it doesn't seem to want to die. This is the next part in the Friendship by Numbers series.
Previous stories in this series:
Something to Look Forward To
Worth It
Bad Decisions and The People Who Make Them
It Seemed Funny At The Time
The blood on her lab coat was still wet when the nurse told her that Tsunade wanted to see her. Sakura nodded and advised the shell-shocked genin to look into puppetry. His hand went into a biohazard bag and Sakura left. She hated working in the hospital.
The genin's teammates’ faces were wet, eyes rimmed with red. Sakura didn't bother trying to comfort them. It was their own damn fault. He hadn't even needed a fucking tourniquet. She paused and looked at them. "His hand had to be amputated."
Their jounin teacher's jaw twitched, and he laid his hands on the shoulders. It wasn't a gesture of support.
"You wanted to see me?" She leaned against the wall by the thick oak doors, tugging her shirt so it lay flat. Sakura had forgotten to take off her lab coat. It smelled like blood.
Tsunade looked up from her paperwork. She glanced at the stains on Sakura's arms, but didn't comment. "We didn't cover all of the pressure points yesterday," she said, holding out a scroll marked with her insignia. "This has the rest of them marked on it."
Sakura pushed away from the wall and came forward to take the scroll. Her smile felt dry and thin, but her gratitude sounded honest. "Thank you."
"Kakashi's degree of responsiveness is unusual," Tsunade said, the corner of her mouth quirking up. "As was his willingness to be a test subject for multiple tests. Most people find it progressively more uncomfortable."
Sakura unrolled the scroll, checking to ensure that it was the one Tsunade had intended to give to her. Last autumn, she'd been given a summary of something very important. The subsequent interrogation and memory blurring had been remarkably unpleasant. "Because of his chronic chakra exhaustion?" she guessed.
"Most likely," Tsunade confirmed. "I'd like you to check on him today and see if there were any side effects, and to what degree it enhanced his chakra production. The technique is new; I only developed it last year. I'm still testing it."
Sakura nodded absently, imagining the dull black and white drawing super-imposed over Kakashi's body. She tilted her head, a faint smile curving her lips. "Testing on Kakashi?"
Tsunada chuckled. "He was late to his last four mission briefings," she said. "A bit of discomfort would have done him good."
"If it's any consolation, I think he was deeply uncomfortable at a few points," Sakura replied, rolling the scroll closed and tucking it away.
"True." Tsunade returned to her paperwork.
Sakura took that as her dismissal. She grabbed the heavy brass handle of the door.
"...And Sakura?" Tsunade said, an odd note entering her voice.
"Yes?"
"How long ago did he try to kill himself?" she asked. There was a faint rustle--the sound of Tsunade putting her pen down.
Sakura released the door handle. She was proud of herself for showing no other reaction. A second later, she was irritated. She would have reacted if she hadn't known.
"Ah," Tsunade said, satisfied. "I thought I recognized your work."
Sakura turned to face Tsunade, her back against the doors, her face as blank as she could make it.
"Answer the question, Sakura. When did my best shinobi decide to kill himself?" Tsunade asked softly, her eyes utterly implacable.
Sakura glanced nervously at the window.
"Sakura!" Tsunade snapped. "I checked his records. You made no note of his attempt at self harm, even though you are obligated to do so."
Sakura wondered, slightly desperately, if she could lie her way out of this. She swallowed, her mouth dry. "I..."
"Do you have an explanation?" Tsunade demanded. The desk creaked under her hands, the wood protesting her grip on it.
"I took notes," Sakura protested. She had, they're in her apartment. "But he wouldn't let me treat him unless I promised not to add it to his file."
Tsunade's voice turned gentle, "And how long ago did it happen?"
Sakura knew that the offered kindness was a lie. It was still damn hard not to trust it. "Two weeks ago," she admitted, staring at the stained and chipped floor. Tsunade liked to throw things when she got mad.
"And after you healed him, what did you do?" Tsunade asked quietly.
"I told him it was my birthday in a week and that he still had to be alive then, otherwise I'd be really mad," Sakura said. Her throat was tight and her eyes were stinging, and she didn't know if it was because she was sad, or afraid, or what. She dared to look up, staring at Tsunade across the length of the office. "Then I made up a birthday party, and invited him to it."
Tsunade laughed. She was taking notes. "And did you see him before then?"
"He was on a mission."
"Was he healed enough to be on that mission?" Tsunade asked. It was an important question. If he hadn't been, and Sakura had let him go anyway, things would be a hell of a lot worse for her.
"He was fine," Sakura said. She refused to look away. Tsunade was leaking intent...not killer, but still deeply intimidating. Sakura had been around her long enough to know that she couldn't show weakness now. Any sign of doubt in her own decisions and Sakura would be in far more trouble. "I healed everything before I let him go."
Tsunade narrowed her eyes. "And after he returned...?"
"I took my birthday off, and I met him outside his apartment. We went to Team Seven's old training grounds and ate eggplant. He gave me a cupcake," Sakura said.
Tsunade actually looked surprised for a second. "A cupcake?"
Sakura nodded firmly. "It was vanilla."
"Well I suppose that makes everything better," Tsunade muttered. The hovering sense of doom abated and Sakura had to lock her knees to keep from collapsing. "I want the notes you took," she ordered Sakura.
Sakura nodded and licked her lips, trying hard not to pant out of relief. Tsunade was, bar none, the most intimidating person Sakura had ever met. Kakashi was just going to have to understand.
"And, since you seem to have kept him from killing himself, I'm putting you in charge of his health. You'll be his primary physician, under my supervision. If he dies, I'll withdraw my nomination of your name for the next med-nin exams," Tsunade concluded.
Sakura cursed, low and bitter. Yet more hoops to get out of the fucking hospital. "Fine," she said, ungraciously, ill-temperedly, and with a distinct edge of sullen. "Are you going to tell him or am I?"
Tsunade smiled cheerfully, looking nothing at all like herself. "You are. I'm busy."
"Great. So I've got to check on his chakra levels, tell him that you know he tried to kill himself, and tell him that I'm his primary physician," Sakura said, counting the points off on her fingers to make sure she didn't forget any.
"One last thing," Tsunade said, steepling her fingers. "He seems to trust you--"
Sakura snorted. Kakashi didn't trust her.
"--unlike any other medics currently on duty, so I want you to heal him."
"Like, of what?" Sakura asked warily. He wasn't hurt, so far as she knew.
"Is Kakashi in the best possible condition he could be in?" Tsunade asked, her tone turned lecturing.
Sakura's stomach sank. "No." Shit.
"I want him to be." She raised one delicate eyebrow, amused. "And if it isn't done in three months..."
The sound of fabric ripping alerted Sakura to the damage she had just done to her coat. "...you'll withdraw my name," she said dully. This fucking promotion was almost more trouble than it was worth. "Will the work count toward my practicum?"
"How much time do you still owe?" Tsunade asked.
"Eight hundred and ninety-eight hours," Sakura recited from memory, hating the number with every fibre of her being. She loathed working at the hospital.
Tsunade hummed. "Tell you what, so long as I see real, appreciable results, you can claim up to three hundred of those for use in healing Kakashi."
Sakura mangled her lab coat. "What?" She covered as quickly as she could, "I mean, thank you." She gave a very clumsy bow, almost shaking from excitement. A third of her hours, gone.
"Oh trust me, you'll need all of that time and more," Tsunade told her. She grabbed a stack of papers from beside her, at least five inches thick. "This is his full file. Have fun!"
Sakura felt an instant of trepidation, but pushed it to the side. It wouldn't be in the fucking hospital. She could handle it. A thought gave her pause. "Wait," she said. "What about his missions?"
Tsunade smiled. "I think Kakashi deserves a good three months of medical leave, don't you?"
She whistled softly, imagining Kakashi's reaction to that. "You're punishing him?"
"Our policy is to not punish suicide attempts," Tsunade replied, "but fuck policy, I'm damn pissed at him, and I don't trust him to not try suicide by mission."
"I think he's mostly stable," Sakura offered, trying to lessen Tsunade's wrath a bit.
"So did I." Tsunade stood up suddenly, still holding Kakashi's medical file. "I want him healthy, with improved chakra levels, and I want him mentally stable. I'll be throwing him into a psych evaluation at the end of his medical leave." She shoved the file into Sakura's arms.
Sakura stumbled back a bit--it was hard not to when Tsunade was pushing--and clutched the file to her chest. It smelled like sweet, sweet forty hour work weeks. It was probably a punishment, but Sakura clung to the wonderful sense of hope.
"Now get out."
Sakura opened the door, still slightly dazed. "Thanks," she muttered again.
"You're welcome." The creak of the heavy wooden doors almost drowned Tsunade's last words, but they sounded like, "...And congratulations on your enragement."
Sakura stared at her blankly. That had made absolutely no sense. She wasn't even angry.
She shrugged and left. A lot of things Tsunade said didn't make sense.
An hour and a half later, Sakura was damn near giving in and just going to work in the hospital. She couldn't find Kakashi. He wasn't at his apartment and...well, she'd drawn a blank after that, but he wasn't walking down any of Konoha's main streets. Sakura had checked. No one had seen him recently, either.
She'd gone to the training grounds, deciding to take the time to review his file there, even if she couldn't actually find him. The grass was green and a trifle scorched from mis-fired jutsu, the birds were singing merrily, and she could hear the soothing sound of genin screaming in the distance. Sakura sighed happily and pulled Kakashi's file out, casting a minor genjutsu over it so no one other than her would be able to remember what it was. It was the first time she'd been outside in days.
Sakura stared at the first page in confusion. The date was...a very long time ago. Sakura did a quick calculation and realized that she had twenty-two years of injuries taken during active service to go through. Damn, Kakashi had started young.
The first incident report was for an ear infection caused by slime. Sakura skipped down to the section that detailed the mission where the injury had occurred, and giggled out loud. Apparently D ranks had sucked when Kakashi was a kid, too.
The next page had a picture stapled to it and Sakura grinned. Kakashi had been an adorable kid, even if the picture had been taken to record the extent of a really bad poison ivy rash. He was glaring at the camera with both eyes, holding his mask to his face like someone was trying to take it.
There was a flicker of familiar chakra in the tree above.
Sakura rolled over and waved. Typical. She stopped looking and he appeared. "Hey. I need to talk to you," she said, closing his medical file and putting it back in her bag.
"Tsunade said you're the reason that I'm on three months of medical leave?" Kakashi sounded appalled at the very idea. "Three months!" he repeated, like the number was going to change or something if he said it enough.
Sakura kicked his tree hard enough to send it rocking. "It's her fault, not mine," she protested when he jumped down beside her. She offered him a warm juice box from her bag and patted the ground beside her. "Sit down and I'll explain."
Kakashi gave her a suspicious look, but took the juice box like the peace offering it was. He shoved the straw through the little foil circle, then stuck the whole thing under his mask.
Sakura stared, then snickered. She could see the outlines of his hand and the juice box under the dark navy fabric. It looked ridiculous.
"I'm thirsty," Kakashi said defensively, the straw wiggling between his lips. He slurped up the last of the liquid and handed the empty box back to her. "So explain why I'm not allowed to take any missions for three months."
Sakura bit her lip thoughtfully, wondering if there was a diplomatic way to say this. "Tsunade figured out that you tried to kill yourself and that I healed you, when she saw you yesterday. She was pissed, so she put you on medical leave and made me your watchdog. If you die, I don't get to take the medic-nin exams this year." If there was a diplomatic way, it probably wasn't that. She should have emphasized the 'him not dying' more than the 'her not taking the medic-nin exams.’
"Well shit," Kakashi said. He finally sat down, sinking into the tall grass more gracefully than Sakura had ever managed. Stupid jounin. "What am I supposed to do with three months of free time?" he asked her, sounding bemused by the very implication of a vacation.
"Well, that’s the good news," Sakura said, trying to put a positive spin on things. "You get to continue to be my training dummy!"
"Really?" he asked, sounding intrigued.
Sakura suddenly remembered what she'd been testing on him yesterday in vivid detail. "But not like that," she said sheepishly. Unless it turned out that it had helped, in which case, it was a completely valid form of therapy, right?
"Oh," Kakashi said sadly, pulling Icha Icha Paradise from his back pocket.
"Well, maybe. It depends on how effective it was," Sakura amended, thinking of the scroll Tsunade had given her. Practice made perfect, and Sakura did love being perfect. "I have to 'significantly improve' your health over the next three months, or I don't get to take the exams."
Kakashi lowered his book and eyed Sakura over the edge. "Which means...?"
"I'm gonna fix you up real nice," Sakura said cheerfully, mashing her hands together to show him what she meant. "And then I'm gonna show you to Tsunade and get my fucking promotion."
He leaned back. "Do I get any choice in the matter?"
Sakura frowned, seeing her promotion trying to escape. "No. You don't," she told him, folding her arms across her chest defiantly. "I'm going to fix you, and that's final."
"But I'm not broken," Kakashi protested, setting his book down on his thigh. "I'm okay, really."
Sakura tilted her head. "No you aren't," she said.
"Yes I am."
"You tried to kill yourself," Sakura pointed out.
"I changed my mind."
"What if you try again?"
"It had nothing to do with my physical health, so 'fixing' me won't help," Kakashi said in exasperation.
"I'm supposed to fix that, too. You're getting a psych evaluation in three months," Sakura said.
"Fuck." Kakashi didn't say anything else for a few minutes. "How do you intend to fix my mental health?" he eventually asked, drawing his legs up to his chest and resting his chin on his knees.
It felt important, so Sakura held back the sarcastic answer that sprang to mind and actually thought about it. "I've got no idea," she admitted. "I figured that I'd try being your friend. Because, we're, like, friends," Sakura concluded, feeling ten kinds of lame.
"Yeah?" Kakashi said, tilting his head. His mask moved and she thought he might be smiling. His eye looked happy.
Sakura nodded hesitantly. "We could do...friend things." She flailed blindly in unfamiliar territory, then pulled on memories from her last friendship. "Like...each other's hair. And movies. And, like, sleepovers."
Kakashi looked confused. "I thought friends played games together," he said, casting a look at Icha Icha Paradise, abandoned on the grass beside him. "And went drinking," he added after a second.
"We could do that too," Sakura said. She was almost certain that most friendships involved stuff like that more often than doing each other's hair. It was something of a pity. Sakura missed playing with someone else's hair.
Kakashi nodded. "I can deal with that, so long as you promise not to use mind altering jutsu on me."
"Those exist?" Sakura asked eagerly. That sounded so much easier.
"No," he denied, snapping his book up to cover his face.
Right. "Okay," Sakura said. She could research it later. "How about this: I'll do my best to make you happy, if you do your best to be happy."
Kakashi peeked over the edge of Icha Icha Paradise. "Deal."
"So is there anything physical I can fix right now?" Sakura asked, trying not to sound too enthusiastic. She wanted to make something better today. "I could finish fixing your arm," Sakura offered. "I only got partially through yesterday."
Kakashi extended his arm. "You'll make the healing not hurt?" he asked, keeping just out of her reach.
"Yeah," she agreed, leaning forward and grabbing his wrist. Since she was done at the hospital today there was no real reason to conserve her chakra.
Sakura tested his chakra, prodding it a bit to see how active it was. It was still thicker and denser than most people’s, as much as intangible energy could be said to have physical properties, but it was also... "Hey, how are you feeling today? Like, compared to yesterday?"
"At what point yesterday?" he questioned, a hint of smugness in his voice.
"Before I commandeered you as my training dummy," Sakura clarified, smirking a bit. Truth be told, remembering yesterday made her feel pretty smug, too.
"Good? Better than usual, anyway," Kakashi said vaguely. "I don't know, can you be more specific?"
"Check your chakra levels and tell me if they're higher than usual," Sakura asked, petting his chakra with strands of her own. It tumbled through his chakra coils, rolling and spinning with rapid, enthusiastic turbulence. If chakra could be ascribed an emotion, she'd call it giddy.
His chakra practically licked her fingers, then quelled for a second, tamed. "Well, that's different," Kakashi said, tapping his book against his chin thoughtfully. He shook his hand free from hers and sent a wave of chakra crackling over his palm. "I haven't had this much chakra in ages," he said, letting the lightning settle back under his skin.
Sakura smiled. "Those pressure points do encourage chakra production, which is great, because I'm supposed to fix your whole chronic chakra fatigue thing, too."
"You don't say," he said, looking at her hopefully.
"I think I just found the first part of your therapy," Sakura said cheerfully. "We'll see how long it takes before your eye sucks it all up again."
Kakashi's eye curved in a happy smile. "I think I'll take advantage of all this time and energy by doing some extra training," he said, "possibly even lots of extra training."
Sakura laughed. "Let me heal the scars in your arm and I'll let you go train to exhaustion." She picked up his hand, ignoring the prickling shocks of left over static charge.
A drop of sweat slipped off her nose, landing on the fabric of Kakashi's glove. Sakura sighed and let go of his hand. "Okay, that should do it." His arm was free of the tiny scars from channelling too much chakra.
Kakashi shook his hand, then stretched out his arm. "I don't really feel any difference," he said.
"You probably won't." Sakura sprawled back into the sweet smelling grass. "But it will make it easier to use chidori, I think."
He lay down beside her, covering his eye with his newly healed arm. "Every little bit counts?"
"Something like that," Sakura replied, yawning. She'd used most of her chakra, and a pleasant lethargy filled her. The distant screams of genin had faded and all she could hear was the soft rustle of leaves and the faint chirping of birds.
The sweat on her skin cooled in the light summer breeze even as the sun warmed her down to her bones. Sakura closed her eyes, letting the rest of her senses take over.
Kakashi's chakra was a healthy, bright glow in the corner of her mind. Sakura sent a strand of chakra toward him, smiling lazily when it was wrapped in his chakra and held there. Kakashi had taught her it as an exercise in control, a long time ago when the boys had been fighting and she'd been on the sidelines.
"Is this like a sleepover?" Kakashi murmured, his knuckles brushing against Sakura's arm.
"Sort of," she said sleepily. "It's better with movies, though."
"Next time?"
Sakura nodded, shifting to a warmer patch of grass. If it happened to be closer to Kakashi, that was a coincidence and nothing more.
Previous
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Beta:
lady_of_scarlet Fandom: Naruto
Rating: FRT
Pairing/Characters: Tsunade, Sakura, Kakashi
Summary: Tsunade knows what Kakashi tried to do and she is not pleased with either of them. Sakura doesn't mind the punishment, though.
A/N: I gave this series a title, because it doesn't seem to want to die. This is the next part in the Friendship by Numbers series.
Previous stories in this series:
Something to Look Forward To
Worth It
Bad Decisions and The People Who Make Them
It Seemed Funny At The Time
The blood on her lab coat was still wet when the nurse told her that Tsunade wanted to see her. Sakura nodded and advised the shell-shocked genin to look into puppetry. His hand went into a biohazard bag and Sakura left. She hated working in the hospital.
The genin's teammates’ faces were wet, eyes rimmed with red. Sakura didn't bother trying to comfort them. It was their own damn fault. He hadn't even needed a fucking tourniquet. She paused and looked at them. "His hand had to be amputated."
Their jounin teacher's jaw twitched, and he laid his hands on the shoulders. It wasn't a gesture of support.
"You wanted to see me?" She leaned against the wall by the thick oak doors, tugging her shirt so it lay flat. Sakura had forgotten to take off her lab coat. It smelled like blood.
Tsunade looked up from her paperwork. She glanced at the stains on Sakura's arms, but didn't comment. "We didn't cover all of the pressure points yesterday," she said, holding out a scroll marked with her insignia. "This has the rest of them marked on it."
Sakura pushed away from the wall and came forward to take the scroll. Her smile felt dry and thin, but her gratitude sounded honest. "Thank you."
"Kakashi's degree of responsiveness is unusual," Tsunade said, the corner of her mouth quirking up. "As was his willingness to be a test subject for multiple tests. Most people find it progressively more uncomfortable."
Sakura unrolled the scroll, checking to ensure that it was the one Tsunade had intended to give to her. Last autumn, she'd been given a summary of something very important. The subsequent interrogation and memory blurring had been remarkably unpleasant. "Because of his chronic chakra exhaustion?" she guessed.
"Most likely," Tsunade confirmed. "I'd like you to check on him today and see if there were any side effects, and to what degree it enhanced his chakra production. The technique is new; I only developed it last year. I'm still testing it."
Sakura nodded absently, imagining the dull black and white drawing super-imposed over Kakashi's body. She tilted her head, a faint smile curving her lips. "Testing on Kakashi?"
Tsunada chuckled. "He was late to his last four mission briefings," she said. "A bit of discomfort would have done him good."
"If it's any consolation, I think he was deeply uncomfortable at a few points," Sakura replied, rolling the scroll closed and tucking it away.
"True." Tsunade returned to her paperwork.
Sakura took that as her dismissal. She grabbed the heavy brass handle of the door.
"...And Sakura?" Tsunade said, an odd note entering her voice.
"Yes?"
"How long ago did he try to kill himself?" she asked. There was a faint rustle--the sound of Tsunade putting her pen down.
Sakura released the door handle. She was proud of herself for showing no other reaction. A second later, she was irritated. She would have reacted if she hadn't known.
"Ah," Tsunade said, satisfied. "I thought I recognized your work."
Sakura turned to face Tsunade, her back against the doors, her face as blank as she could make it.
"Answer the question, Sakura. When did my best shinobi decide to kill himself?" Tsunade asked softly, her eyes utterly implacable.
Sakura glanced nervously at the window.
"Sakura!" Tsunade snapped. "I checked his records. You made no note of his attempt at self harm, even though you are obligated to do so."
Sakura wondered, slightly desperately, if she could lie her way out of this. She swallowed, her mouth dry. "I..."
"Do you have an explanation?" Tsunade demanded. The desk creaked under her hands, the wood protesting her grip on it.
"I took notes," Sakura protested. She had, they're in her apartment. "But he wouldn't let me treat him unless I promised not to add it to his file."
Tsunade's voice turned gentle, "And how long ago did it happen?"
Sakura knew that the offered kindness was a lie. It was still damn hard not to trust it. "Two weeks ago," she admitted, staring at the stained and chipped floor. Tsunade liked to throw things when she got mad.
"And after you healed him, what did you do?" Tsunade asked quietly.
"I told him it was my birthday in a week and that he still had to be alive then, otherwise I'd be really mad," Sakura said. Her throat was tight and her eyes were stinging, and she didn't know if it was because she was sad, or afraid, or what. She dared to look up, staring at Tsunade across the length of the office. "Then I made up a birthday party, and invited him to it."
Tsunade laughed. She was taking notes. "And did you see him before then?"
"He was on a mission."
"Was he healed enough to be on that mission?" Tsunade asked. It was an important question. If he hadn't been, and Sakura had let him go anyway, things would be a hell of a lot worse for her.
"He was fine," Sakura said. She refused to look away. Tsunade was leaking intent...not killer, but still deeply intimidating. Sakura had been around her long enough to know that she couldn't show weakness now. Any sign of doubt in her own decisions and Sakura would be in far more trouble. "I healed everything before I let him go."
Tsunade narrowed her eyes. "And after he returned...?"
"I took my birthday off, and I met him outside his apartment. We went to Team Seven's old training grounds and ate eggplant. He gave me a cupcake," Sakura said.
Tsunade actually looked surprised for a second. "A cupcake?"
Sakura nodded firmly. "It was vanilla."
"Well I suppose that makes everything better," Tsunade muttered. The hovering sense of doom abated and Sakura had to lock her knees to keep from collapsing. "I want the notes you took," she ordered Sakura.
Sakura nodded and licked her lips, trying hard not to pant out of relief. Tsunade was, bar none, the most intimidating person Sakura had ever met. Kakashi was just going to have to understand.
"And, since you seem to have kept him from killing himself, I'm putting you in charge of his health. You'll be his primary physician, under my supervision. If he dies, I'll withdraw my nomination of your name for the next med-nin exams," Tsunade concluded.
Sakura cursed, low and bitter. Yet more hoops to get out of the fucking hospital. "Fine," she said, ungraciously, ill-temperedly, and with a distinct edge of sullen. "Are you going to tell him or am I?"
Tsunade smiled cheerfully, looking nothing at all like herself. "You are. I'm busy."
"Great. So I've got to check on his chakra levels, tell him that you know he tried to kill himself, and tell him that I'm his primary physician," Sakura said, counting the points off on her fingers to make sure she didn't forget any.
"One last thing," Tsunade said, steepling her fingers. "He seems to trust you--"
Sakura snorted. Kakashi didn't trust her.
"--unlike any other medics currently on duty, so I want you to heal him."
"Like, of what?" Sakura asked warily. He wasn't hurt, so far as she knew.
"Is Kakashi in the best possible condition he could be in?" Tsunade asked, her tone turned lecturing.
Sakura's stomach sank. "No." Shit.
"I want him to be." She raised one delicate eyebrow, amused. "And if it isn't done in three months..."
The sound of fabric ripping alerted Sakura to the damage she had just done to her coat. "...you'll withdraw my name," she said dully. This fucking promotion was almost more trouble than it was worth. "Will the work count toward my practicum?"
"How much time do you still owe?" Tsunade asked.
"Eight hundred and ninety-eight hours," Sakura recited from memory, hating the number with every fibre of her being. She loathed working at the hospital.
Tsunade hummed. "Tell you what, so long as I see real, appreciable results, you can claim up to three hundred of those for use in healing Kakashi."
Sakura mangled her lab coat. "What?" She covered as quickly as she could, "I mean, thank you." She gave a very clumsy bow, almost shaking from excitement. A third of her hours, gone.
"Oh trust me, you'll need all of that time and more," Tsunade told her. She grabbed a stack of papers from beside her, at least five inches thick. "This is his full file. Have fun!"
Sakura felt an instant of trepidation, but pushed it to the side. It wouldn't be in the fucking hospital. She could handle it. A thought gave her pause. "Wait," she said. "What about his missions?"
Tsunade smiled. "I think Kakashi deserves a good three months of medical leave, don't you?"
She whistled softly, imagining Kakashi's reaction to that. "You're punishing him?"
"Our policy is to not punish suicide attempts," Tsunade replied, "but fuck policy, I'm damn pissed at him, and I don't trust him to not try suicide by mission."
"I think he's mostly stable," Sakura offered, trying to lessen Tsunade's wrath a bit.
"So did I." Tsunade stood up suddenly, still holding Kakashi's medical file. "I want him healthy, with improved chakra levels, and I want him mentally stable. I'll be throwing him into a psych evaluation at the end of his medical leave." She shoved the file into Sakura's arms.
Sakura stumbled back a bit--it was hard not to when Tsunade was pushing--and clutched the file to her chest. It smelled like sweet, sweet forty hour work weeks. It was probably a punishment, but Sakura clung to the wonderful sense of hope.
"Now get out."
Sakura opened the door, still slightly dazed. "Thanks," she muttered again.
"You're welcome." The creak of the heavy wooden doors almost drowned Tsunade's last words, but they sounded like, "...And congratulations on your enragement."
Sakura stared at her blankly. That had made absolutely no sense. She wasn't even angry.
She shrugged and left. A lot of things Tsunade said didn't make sense.
An hour and a half later, Sakura was damn near giving in and just going to work in the hospital. She couldn't find Kakashi. He wasn't at his apartment and...well, she'd drawn a blank after that, but he wasn't walking down any of Konoha's main streets. Sakura had checked. No one had seen him recently, either.
She'd gone to the training grounds, deciding to take the time to review his file there, even if she couldn't actually find him. The grass was green and a trifle scorched from mis-fired jutsu, the birds were singing merrily, and she could hear the soothing sound of genin screaming in the distance. Sakura sighed happily and pulled Kakashi's file out, casting a minor genjutsu over it so no one other than her would be able to remember what it was. It was the first time she'd been outside in days.
Sakura stared at the first page in confusion. The date was...a very long time ago. Sakura did a quick calculation and realized that she had twenty-two years of injuries taken during active service to go through. Damn, Kakashi had started young.
The first incident report was for an ear infection caused by slime. Sakura skipped down to the section that detailed the mission where the injury had occurred, and giggled out loud. Apparently D ranks had sucked when Kakashi was a kid, too.
The next page had a picture stapled to it and Sakura grinned. Kakashi had been an adorable kid, even if the picture had been taken to record the extent of a really bad poison ivy rash. He was glaring at the camera with both eyes, holding his mask to his face like someone was trying to take it.
There was a flicker of familiar chakra in the tree above.
Sakura rolled over and waved. Typical. She stopped looking and he appeared. "Hey. I need to talk to you," she said, closing his medical file and putting it back in her bag.
"Tsunade said you're the reason that I'm on three months of medical leave?" Kakashi sounded appalled at the very idea. "Three months!" he repeated, like the number was going to change or something if he said it enough.
Sakura kicked his tree hard enough to send it rocking. "It's her fault, not mine," she protested when he jumped down beside her. She offered him a warm juice box from her bag and patted the ground beside her. "Sit down and I'll explain."
Kakashi gave her a suspicious look, but took the juice box like the peace offering it was. He shoved the straw through the little foil circle, then stuck the whole thing under his mask.
Sakura stared, then snickered. She could see the outlines of his hand and the juice box under the dark navy fabric. It looked ridiculous.
"I'm thirsty," Kakashi said defensively, the straw wiggling between his lips. He slurped up the last of the liquid and handed the empty box back to her. "So explain why I'm not allowed to take any missions for three months."
Sakura bit her lip thoughtfully, wondering if there was a diplomatic way to say this. "Tsunade figured out that you tried to kill yourself and that I healed you, when she saw you yesterday. She was pissed, so she put you on medical leave and made me your watchdog. If you die, I don't get to take the medic-nin exams this year." If there was a diplomatic way, it probably wasn't that. She should have emphasized the 'him not dying' more than the 'her not taking the medic-nin exams.’
"Well shit," Kakashi said. He finally sat down, sinking into the tall grass more gracefully than Sakura had ever managed. Stupid jounin. "What am I supposed to do with three months of free time?" he asked her, sounding bemused by the very implication of a vacation.
"Well, that’s the good news," Sakura said, trying to put a positive spin on things. "You get to continue to be my training dummy!"
"Really?" he asked, sounding intrigued.
Sakura suddenly remembered what she'd been testing on him yesterday in vivid detail. "But not like that," she said sheepishly. Unless it turned out that it had helped, in which case, it was a completely valid form of therapy, right?
"Oh," Kakashi said sadly, pulling Icha Icha Paradise from his back pocket.
"Well, maybe. It depends on how effective it was," Sakura amended, thinking of the scroll Tsunade had given her. Practice made perfect, and Sakura did love being perfect. "I have to 'significantly improve' your health over the next three months, or I don't get to take the exams."
Kakashi lowered his book and eyed Sakura over the edge. "Which means...?"
"I'm gonna fix you up real nice," Sakura said cheerfully, mashing her hands together to show him what she meant. "And then I'm gonna show you to Tsunade and get my fucking promotion."
He leaned back. "Do I get any choice in the matter?"
Sakura frowned, seeing her promotion trying to escape. "No. You don't," she told him, folding her arms across her chest defiantly. "I'm going to fix you, and that's final."
"But I'm not broken," Kakashi protested, setting his book down on his thigh. "I'm okay, really."
Sakura tilted her head. "No you aren't," she said.
"Yes I am."
"You tried to kill yourself," Sakura pointed out.
"I changed my mind."
"What if you try again?"
"It had nothing to do with my physical health, so 'fixing' me won't help," Kakashi said in exasperation.
"I'm supposed to fix that, too. You're getting a psych evaluation in three months," Sakura said.
"Fuck." Kakashi didn't say anything else for a few minutes. "How do you intend to fix my mental health?" he eventually asked, drawing his legs up to his chest and resting his chin on his knees.
It felt important, so Sakura held back the sarcastic answer that sprang to mind and actually thought about it. "I've got no idea," she admitted. "I figured that I'd try being your friend. Because, we're, like, friends," Sakura concluded, feeling ten kinds of lame.
"Yeah?" Kakashi said, tilting his head. His mask moved and she thought he might be smiling. His eye looked happy.
Sakura nodded hesitantly. "We could do...friend things." She flailed blindly in unfamiliar territory, then pulled on memories from her last friendship. "Like...each other's hair. And movies. And, like, sleepovers."
Kakashi looked confused. "I thought friends played games together," he said, casting a look at Icha Icha Paradise, abandoned on the grass beside him. "And went drinking," he added after a second.
"We could do that too," Sakura said. She was almost certain that most friendships involved stuff like that more often than doing each other's hair. It was something of a pity. Sakura missed playing with someone else's hair.
Kakashi nodded. "I can deal with that, so long as you promise not to use mind altering jutsu on me."
"Those exist?" Sakura asked eagerly. That sounded so much easier.
"No," he denied, snapping his book up to cover his face.
Right. "Okay," Sakura said. She could research it later. "How about this: I'll do my best to make you happy, if you do your best to be happy."
Kakashi peeked over the edge of Icha Icha Paradise. "Deal."
"So is there anything physical I can fix right now?" Sakura asked, trying not to sound too enthusiastic. She wanted to make something better today. "I could finish fixing your arm," Sakura offered. "I only got partially through yesterday."
Kakashi extended his arm. "You'll make the healing not hurt?" he asked, keeping just out of her reach.
"Yeah," she agreed, leaning forward and grabbing his wrist. Since she was done at the hospital today there was no real reason to conserve her chakra.
Sakura tested his chakra, prodding it a bit to see how active it was. It was still thicker and denser than most people’s, as much as intangible energy could be said to have physical properties, but it was also... "Hey, how are you feeling today? Like, compared to yesterday?"
"At what point yesterday?" he questioned, a hint of smugness in his voice.
"Before I commandeered you as my training dummy," Sakura clarified, smirking a bit. Truth be told, remembering yesterday made her feel pretty smug, too.
"Good? Better than usual, anyway," Kakashi said vaguely. "I don't know, can you be more specific?"
"Check your chakra levels and tell me if they're higher than usual," Sakura asked, petting his chakra with strands of her own. It tumbled through his chakra coils, rolling and spinning with rapid, enthusiastic turbulence. If chakra could be ascribed an emotion, she'd call it giddy.
His chakra practically licked her fingers, then quelled for a second, tamed. "Well, that's different," Kakashi said, tapping his book against his chin thoughtfully. He shook his hand free from hers and sent a wave of chakra crackling over his palm. "I haven't had this much chakra in ages," he said, letting the lightning settle back under his skin.
Sakura smiled. "Those pressure points do encourage chakra production, which is great, because I'm supposed to fix your whole chronic chakra fatigue thing, too."
"You don't say," he said, looking at her hopefully.
"I think I just found the first part of your therapy," Sakura said cheerfully. "We'll see how long it takes before your eye sucks it all up again."
Kakashi's eye curved in a happy smile. "I think I'll take advantage of all this time and energy by doing some extra training," he said, "possibly even lots of extra training."
Sakura laughed. "Let me heal the scars in your arm and I'll let you go train to exhaustion." She picked up his hand, ignoring the prickling shocks of left over static charge.
A drop of sweat slipped off her nose, landing on the fabric of Kakashi's glove. Sakura sighed and let go of his hand. "Okay, that should do it." His arm was free of the tiny scars from channelling too much chakra.
Kakashi shook his hand, then stretched out his arm. "I don't really feel any difference," he said.
"You probably won't." Sakura sprawled back into the sweet smelling grass. "But it will make it easier to use chidori, I think."
He lay down beside her, covering his eye with his newly healed arm. "Every little bit counts?"
"Something like that," Sakura replied, yawning. She'd used most of her chakra, and a pleasant lethargy filled her. The distant screams of genin had faded and all she could hear was the soft rustle of leaves and the faint chirping of birds.
The sweat on her skin cooled in the light summer breeze even as the sun warmed her down to her bones. Sakura closed her eyes, letting the rest of her senses take over.
Kakashi's chakra was a healthy, bright glow in the corner of her mind. Sakura sent a strand of chakra toward him, smiling lazily when it was wrapped in his chakra and held there. Kakashi had taught her it as an exercise in control, a long time ago when the boys had been fighting and she'd been on the sidelines.
"Is this like a sleepover?" Kakashi murmured, his knuckles brushing against Sakura's arm.
"Sort of," she said sleepily. "It's better with movies, though."
"Next time?"
Sakura nodded, shifting to a warmer patch of grass. If it happened to be closer to Kakashi, that was a coincidence and nothing more.
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