Current mood:	anxious
Entry tags:	haruichi

All Over Again [closed]
[backdated: set after Genma & Raidou's return from their ill-fated "It takes..." mission]


The next time Haruichi saw Kanae-sensei he thought he might completely lose control of himself and hug her. For apparently it was she who had achieved the nigh impossible - a direct line of communication between the HQ medic on call and the Hospital's ER. Not fifteen minutes after Raidou and Genma had returned from their mission in delerious bits and pieces the word had come through to Haruichi. Of course, he'd been on the secure radio frequency to the hospital like a shot, getting apprised of their condition and checking the medical records they had for the men included all the salient up-to-date details for treating their injuries: what drugs they could be put on, what medications they were already taking, which doctors were cleared for what data to ensure comprehensive treatment and more. The call had taken all of two minutes for the pair of them combined. It was remarkably swift and efficient.

Then he'd gotten off the frequency, put the radio down and stared at it. Because there was nothing else he was allowed to do. The hospital had them, the hospital could and would do a better job of treating them then he could, and thus the hospital would be left to get them through the night and onto the road of recovery.

Two minutes later and he was still staring at the radio. He wasn't sure what he was hoping for, and then he remembered. He had a system, a trusty old pattern, for dealing with the tension that built up in the back of his head at times like these. It was one which he had practically lived inside for weeks at a time during his first stint as HQ medic; so he centered himself and set about getting back into it, sure that two years absence hadn't denied him the ability to triage his own thoughts. He’d start with the simple facts, put his thoughts in order, and move on to something else. The facts were that Genma was capable of summoning frankly shocking degrees of inner strength and that Raidou was practical and hardy as a boulder shaped like a coffee table. Both had survived worse, and both were in the expert care of Konoha’s best doctors. Fine. That was that, he would have to be patient and wait for news and in the meantime he’d either have an agent walking in with a kunai in their backside any minute, or if things became dire he could go up to the Rec Room and find somebody to march down to the Infirmary for a check-up.

Fine. The pattern worked. Issue resolved.

Hours later and he was still sitting at his desk, eyeing a particularly inexplicable water-stain on the ceiling and not having moved out of earshot of the radio. That odd discolouration right above the desk always irked him when he remembered it was there, but no matter how much paint was put over it the thing just bled through and remained steadfast. Haruichi was composing mental lists of things worth doing to it and had just reached sandblasting when a crackle of coded static from the radio nearly had him fall out of his chair. His hand shot out, snatched up the radio, keyed in the numbers and yes - as expected and predicted the news was that Genma and Raidou were going to be alright.

Haruichi took notes on their files, thanked the hospital for the call, and then went home. Hoshi was already asleep, and he found a note and a valiant attempt at sushi waiting for him on the table. The fact that Pika hadn't devoured it as soon as her mistress's back was turned gave him an idea as to the chance he was taking, but he ate the small portion anyway and like any other night got ready for bed.

He didn't sleep. Even with Hoshi's gentle breathing lulling restfulness into the air beside him, he stayed awake and alert and grew more and more weary with it. His white eyes remained open, his body refused to relax, his thoughts ran every direction - becoming clouded and impossible to clear, yet never slowing for an instant to give him peace. He couldn't keep himself from picturing what wounds Raidou and Genma could have, would have sustained; or from feeling that cloying ill-ease at not having helped them. It was when he found himself trying to evade his own imagination by methodically flitting his eyes to and fro across the ceiling above his head, looking for that water-stain, that Haruichi gave in and admitted it to himself.

The old pattern was shot to hell. He was going to have to learn how to do this all over again.

He’d changed.

...Damn.

_______________________________


Oh-seven-hundred hours rolled around the next morning and there was no prize for guessing who was standing outside the administration post for the secure ward housing the injured ANBU brought in during the night. Haruichi was leaning slightly against the wall, yawning into his hand and waiting for somebody to come staff the desk and buzz him through before he decided to avail himself of his elite ninja skills and just walk through the half-open door.

The Hyuuga rubbed a knuckle against his eye and then shoved his hands into his pockets, shrugging in his vest and attempting to project a suitably professional demeanour. His uniform felt too big, and he needed that like a hole in the head. His pale skin and white eyes made the sleepless smudges under them look about as serious as bruising. And he’d clearly forgotten not only how to functionally cope with the stress of severely wounded but unavailable patients, but how to pull an all-nighter as well.

He’d thought the point of being stable was that you were better able to cope with things like this. It turned out that what it did was give you a much higher pedestal to slip from when they came along.

“Hyuuga-kun?”

His white eyes flitted up from the toes of his navy sneakers to the face of a grizzled and familiar nurse about three times his age and definitely three times as spry. “Funny seeing you in uniform,” she remarked, sitting down behind the desk at the post as he approached. Haruichi was more than sure that was a dig, but bit his tongue.

“I’m here on business, Yamazaki-san. I should look the part.”

A smirk for that. Yamazaki Nori had been one of the nurses who’d dealt with him during his long-stay hospitalisation, as such she was well accustomed to all things Haruichi. Including what he looked like when he was restraining his wit.

“What’s your business?” she demanded, her tone clearly indicating that she’d be the judge of whether his answer constituted business or bother.

Haruichi didn‘t care. “Checking on the condition of Namiashi Raidou and Shiranui Genma.”

A raised eyebrow for that, and a much more closed expression. Very few people knew those two were in hospital - those that did know had better have a damn good reason for showing up before they were approved visitors. “Nature of your relation to those two?”

“Family doctor,” Haruichi replied, prompting a sharp glance up to his face, and a knowing look.

“Well then, that’s different.” A pair of clipboards were handed to him, hospital code for ANBU lightly dashed in pencil in the corner of each chart.

Yes, thought Haruichi as he pushed through the double-doors. It is.