Good ninja were supposed to waken instantly at the slightest disturbance in their room. Good ninja probably weren't even supposed to sleep in a strange place. But when an elderly monk had led Natsumi from her bath-and-bandages session to a quiet tatami room where Asuma lay cool and peaceful, fever broken and wounds tended, the Hokage himself couldn't have kept her from the futon laid out at Asuma's side.

The whispered curse dragged her out of darkness. She yawned, squished her cheek comfortably against her pillow, and slitted her eyes open.

The monks had shaved Asuma. She'd missed that somehow, before, and she lost a dangerous moment admiring the clean line of his angular jaw. Then he mumbled his dire guess, and she laughed out loud.

His head jerked on his pillow. He stared at her for a moment in bewilderment; it was a good look on him, she decided. Almost as good as that brilliant grin. And she was probably the delirious one, now, except that the monks had been careful to burn out the first traces of fever they'd found simmering in her system. Hysteria again, then. Relief. She didn't quite care.

"After all the work I put into saving you, I'm sad to hear it," she told him gravely, propping herself up on one elbow to gaze at him fully. Clean face, clean but sleep-tousled hair, no visible bruises at all. A set of parallel scratches darkened the skin above his collarbones where his yukata gaped open, but they were already scabbing over. She almost reached out to touch him--real, alive, safe--before she caught herself. After the first twitch, though, she didn't even try suppressing her smile. "How do you feel?"