| [Jan. 22nd, 2010|03:00 am] |
Sakamoto Chihiro did not like being made to wait, but there were good reasons to grant an exception every now and again. Today she'd arrived at a little after eleven, expecting to find her grandson just waking from some kind of complicated surgery on his leg. It had been explained to her the day before, by Ginta's sharp-faced doctor, in detail which she really didn't retain. The important thing was that Ginta's leg was healing. Ginta was healing. The infection was gone, which meant surgery to graft bone into some of the nastier breaks could proceed. Which meant Ginta would be out of that ghastly skeletal framework, that looked more like torture than treatment. He'd have a normal plaster cast. He'd look more like a man who was going to recover.
The doctor had assured Chihiro and Ginta both that as soon as Ginta'd built up his reserves and the bones had finished mending, he'd be able to return to active ANBU duty. It had cheered Ginta, even if it had appalled Chihiro. But all she had to do was look at her grandson in that hospital bed, and she saw Gousuke. She could feel the ghost of her husband whispering in her ear: being a ninja was Ginta's birthright. He would never be happy any other way, just like Gousuke himself.
Ginta's hospital room was empty, but one of the nurses found Chihiro and told her the good news: Ginta was being moved from ICU to the regular ANBU ward. He should be back from surgery soon, if Chihiro wanted to wait. The new room held two beds instead of one, both unoccupied. The one by the window was designated for Ginta. Chihiro hoped he wouldn't have to share the room. She settled into one of the visitors' chairs and pulled out her needlework.
At noon, with Ginta still not back, she went to inquire. He was in recovery, they told her. Surgery had taken longer than expected, but it had gone very well. At twelve-thirty, they finally brought him to his room. He was terribly pale--paler than he'd been the day before--but the doctor with him swore it was just the effects of anesthesia, and everyone always looked bad right after surgery. Swore it had gone fantastically well, better than expected. They'd taken longer because they were able to do more work with chakra acceleration of the bone and tendon healing than they'd planned for.
Ginta just whimpered while two medics lifted him onto the bed, propped up his leg, now encased in gleaming white plaster, and covered him with layers of blankets. Chihiro waited until they were finished before she moved to his bedside and brushed fine blond hair back from a cool forehead. The fever was gone. Ginta turned his head towards her hand, mumbled something indistinct, and went back to sleep.
For another forty minutes, Chihiro watched her sleeping grandchild and waited. Then the nurse came back to hang new medicine on the IV. When she left, Chihiro followed her out of the room, closing the door softly behind her. If she was going to wait, she could do so with a cup of tea. After years of waiting for the men in her life to wake up in this very hospital, she knew exactly where the break room was. |
|