sunshineverse | [Open] Restore life the way it should be

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[Open] Restore life the way it should be

Who: Ami and whoever wants to see her sick and vulnerable
Where: The training grounds for her teammates, the hospital for everybody else.
When: February 14th to the 22nd
Notes: Ami has a fear of hospitals, and is terrified she'll die from illness in one, like her mother. So this'll be fun.

[February 14 - Team Shisui's Training Grounds]

Ami circled around her opponent, mindful of their teacher. She was thankful that they had headed right into sparring today; it helped explain the flush rising in her face, and the way her gaze was drifting slightly. She had staunchly ignored the signs of fever that had crept up over the past few days, stifling the coughs and sneezes as much as possible to avoid worrying her family. They always got so worried, because colds and flus hit her harder than most.

Like her mother.

Ami shoved down the stab of terror that lanced through her chest at the old memory. She was quiet normally, but she had all but taken a vow of silence since her voice started turning hoarse. She buried her face behind her collar and sniffled quietly, springing to the side to avoid a kick. Her head swam at the sudden motion and she stumbled, turning her ankle and tumbling to the ground, hard. The impact forced a cough out of her, and it was as if the floodgates had opened.

She hunched over, hacking and hacking. She felt something wet spatter against the palm she had raised to her mouth, and drew it away. It was speckled with saliva and... redness. Blood. Ami remembered that sight—blood, oozing from between her mother's fingers, the older woman smiling and trying to hide it from her little girl even as she swayed in her bed.

"I—" She coughed again, hard, unable to force out the fear that made her hoarse voice small and tremulous. "I think I'll need to forfeit."

[February 14-22 (Discharge Day)]

Ami hated the hospital.

She hated the smell, she hated the walls, she hated the tile, she hated the linens, she hated the feeling of the stethoscope on her chest and back as she was told to inhale, again and again, and she hated the way none of it had seemed to change at all in the past nine years. She snuffled miserably and tried to ignore the doctors and nurses that talked with her aunt and uncle when they visited. Bronchitis, they said sometimes. The mother had chronic bronchitis, didn't she? Mama had a lot of things, Ami remembered, and curled up tighter under the blankets heaped over her. A lot of things. But her lungs had been the worst.

She buried her face in her pillows and tried to convince herself that the pain in her throat was what was making her eyes sting with tears.

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To hear that Ami had come down with the same flu Adela was recovering from... That was unfortunate enough. To hear that Ami was in the hospital over it sent worry through her though, and she couldn't help fidgiting even with the mixed assortment of flowers in hand. Adela was still under the weather herself, wearing a mask as a precaution and making sure that her hands were thoroughly sterilized before she opened the door. Ami was cleared for visitors, but maybe she didn't want them...

"Ami? It's me, Adela. Can I come in?" Adela was still recovering her own voice, but she was confident that it was strong enough to at least hold a conversation if she needed to. The whispers she'd heard around the hospital had her on edge, but... That was the last thing Ami needed to see. Right now, Adela needed to be a good senpai and give all the support she could.

By now, the bloody coughing had subsided into drier, shallower hacks. Her voice had gotten a little better, but being cooped up in the hospital for so long had taken a definite toll on Ami's normal air-tight facade and confidence. She sniffled a little, and after a moment of quick contemplation she shuffled up into a sitting position. "...yeah."

She sounded... young. She looked young as well, pale and haggard and bereft of any high collar to hide behind. She had been restricted to a pale pink set of hospital pajamas—there was a faint daisy pattern in a darker shade of pink, because they had been forced to choose from the young children's selection for her. Her eyes, moderately less foggy than they had been for the majority of her stay, quickly flicked to the flowers.

Cut, not potted. The knot in her chest loosened. She was still expected to leave soon, thank goodness.

Adela gave her best smile for Ami as she found a vase in the room, filling it with some water and setting the bouquet in it on the stand next to her bed. Once that was done she took a seat, looking over Ami appraisingly and making sure that she could catch Ami's eye.

"So that flu got you too, huh? I'm still on the mend from it myself..."

"Mhm." She nodded, knotting her fingers in the covers on her lap. "...I started coughing blood during training." It was easier to admit that than it should have been. If she was paying attention, Adela could probably draw parallels to Ami's behavior in the wake of her kidnapping. She looked down, hands fisting briefly.

"I hate it here."

The smile turned more sympathetic and she reached a hand forward, resting it on Ami's in a small plea for her attention, "Yeah, it sucks here. You'll be out soon enough - from what I've heard you've improved a lot from when you first came in, and it's not surprising to hear that."

After a beat, her expression softened further and she added, "You've gotten Seph to look at you after all, so there's no way you're gonna succumb to a little illness like this. You're way too strong for that."

Most worryingly—tellingly—of all, her small fingers trembled briefly before she released the covers and turned her hand to grip Adela's. Ami didn't do handholding usually, because it made her feel even more childish. And she often had to reach up to grasp the hand at all. "I want to be out now. I want—I—"

She faltered, looking up.

"If I die here, can you tell him what happened?"

"... Only if it comes to that, but I sincerely doubt you will, Ami," Squeezing her heand just a little, the smile was visible behind Adela's face mask as she added, "You'll be out soon, even if it's not today. You'll be healthy and you'll be able to see him again."

It was obvious Adela wasn't looking down on Ami for the moment of weakness -- far from it. The last thing she wanted was for Ami to think that she was being judged for feeling frightened, so Adela was doing her best to make sure that Ami would at least have some comfort.

Hm... Comfort. She closed her eyes then, closing her eyes as she hummed a simple tune, quiet and sure -- more sure as she went on, as if she were remembering. It didn't take long for lyrics to follow, aligned with the tones as she began to sing softly;

"The rarest flower meets the most trouble out and all alone,
It's lost in mist without a single friend to call its own.
But the Sun will come to shy the darkness and the mist away,
In sunlight a flower friend waits for a friend that will stay.

One day in sun a friend came by with cool water to share,
That friend had a sweet voice which the flower knew was rare.
When the flower thought that it would wilt its friend came by again,
And when the sun once more came out that new friend gave it rain."

It was such a long time since she'd heard that song that she felt for sure that she had messed it up somewhere, but she hoped that Ami would at least get the intent from it. After all, it was a song that was a little confusing - she was sure it wasn't very old. But... Well, maybe Ami would get the same benefit from it Adela once did.

Ami listened quietly. She wasn't one to really be moved by art or song, outside of craftwork or embroidery, as a byproduct of her family and self-discipline. But she appreciated the effort, all the same; it obviously had some sort of nostalgic value to Adela.

She could at least return the favor a little bit.

"Mama..." She faltered and turned away in a small coughing fit. "Mama would get a little better and then a lot worse." She let her eyes drift to the flowers. "She died in here." Well, not in here. In a different, long-term ward. "She was always—" Small. Delicate. "Frail."

Ami did not want to be frail.

"I'm sorry," She seemed more sad then, shifting so that she could get a little closer to Ami. If that was the case... This place probably brought up a ton of bad memories. That was when she thought of something - it was silly, but it was the same way she thought for herself, so maybe...

"You know... I like to think that my parents have been watching over me ever since they had to let me go. They help when they can, and they make sure I make it through whatever ordeals are before me. I bet your mom's doing the same for you right now - she's gonna see you out of here, and so am I. I'll visit every day until you're released from hospital, now that I'm well enough to."

"I don't think Mama can help me do something she chronically failed to do." A bit of her normal candor shined through for a moment, which could have been a good sign. But it might have just as easily been her hackles raising in response to what Adela had said.

She went to the Memorial stone when she wanted to talk to her father, but reports about her life and progress were given to her mother at the family altar, always. Ami wanted her to rest at home, if such a thing as spirits actually existed. The thought of her stuck in the hospital even for Ami's sake—especially for Ami's sake—sounded hellish.

"S-Sorry," Oh man, she didn't think that the comment would get Ami that riled up. Adela took a moment to let Ami get that out of her, and then she moved to sit on the bed - gently moving to hug Ami to her chest.

"I guess I'm not good at this, but... I want you to know you'll be okay. I promise, Ami. You'll be out of here sooner than you think. You're probably one of the strongest kunoichi I've met, and I know the bug you're fighting is not going to be the thing that takes you down."

"All the effort in the world is useless if my body betrays me." She turned her fingers back to the blanket, just so she could have something to dig her nails into. ""It's... I can't afford to ever get sick, because..." She clenched her jaw and forced the words out. "Because I was premature and I'm predisposed to contracting some of Mama's illnesses and infirmities."

She coughed once, hard. "So don't make promises that I could begrudge you for someday."

"... You know, you're not the only one who was premature," She sighed a little, though really it was more for herself than for Ami. Predisposed to illness, huh... That would explain why the same flu that infected Adela got Ami into the hospital. Still, she was just doing all she could think of to help Ami get through this ordeal.

"I'll stay with you until you get better. I already told you, you're too strong to die just like that -- especially if Seph has his eye on you. He wouldn't have noticed you at all if you weren't strong, Ami. Please remember that."

"It wouldn't be as hard if that was the only problem." Her shoulders slumped, a little of that bowstring-like tension draining away. "It's the predisposition that causes trouble." She blinked angrily, trying to fight off the urge to cry. She succeeded, but it roughened her voice even more.

"I haven't had an episode like this in years," she bit out, furious at—herself, she supposed. "I try so hard and—I train so much. I do taijutsu, and I eat well, and I even take supplements." Less than she had to when first entering the Academy, but she dutifully asked the doctor at the pharmacy near her home for recommendations every year, post-check up. "And... he hasn't seen me like this."

Like Mama.

"Even he knows that people get sick, Ami. And you're doing all you can, fighting to get better - the fact that you still have a fever means your body is still fighting, too. You're stong, and I know you're going to keep fighting as hard as you can. That's how I know you'll beat this, okay?" She could feel Ami shaking in her arms, even if the tears weren't there yet. Without really thinking about it she began to pet down Ami's hair and back, simply holding her close for the moment.

"You'll get better, and you'll be out of the hospital soon. If anyone can recover from something like this, it's you."

"Stop saying I'm strong."

There was venom in her voice. It wasn't entirely Adela's fault; it had been a building issue, and it was finally boiling over. "Just—stop saying that. All of you. 'You're strong'. 'You'll get through this'. 'I have faith in you'. None of it is worth the air you're using. It doesn't matter if I'm mentally or emotionally strong. It doesn't matter. The facts are that I'm sick, and while there's a chance I could get better, there's also a chance that this sickness—or the next one, or the one after that—will kill me."

She paused, leaning heavily against Adela as she tried to catch her breath. "...Mama was strong. She forced herself to smile everyday for me. But she never promised me that she'd get better, or come home soon, like the nurses did. She never lied to either of us."

Her vision blurred, hot tears finally overflowing.

"... I wouldn't say it if I didn't believe it, Ami," The words were soft, almost sad as she just held Ami. There was only so much she could do though, and she'd heed the wish - she'd stop saying that. It was only upsetting her more, and that was the last thing she wanted. At that point the older girl only held Ami close, letting her cry and get what she needed to out.

"I'm here. I'm here for you."

"And I believed that someday I'd make jounin and my parents would be there." It came out sadder, smaller than it should have been. Less bitter, and more broken thanks to the tears. "And then Daddy died on a mission and Mama collapsed at the market and went to the hospital. And that was that. Belief isn't—there are other things to rely on."

Effort. Help. Tangible things she could control or get from other people. She squeezed her eyes as a set of sobs tried to bubble up.

Adela didn't say anything else, letting Ami cry and continuing to pet and soothe down her back. Sometimes... Breaks like this were needed. And that Ami was so distraught... It made her sad to see.

"... Ami... Are you scared of what might happen...?" Once more she squeezed the smaller body to hers, letting Ami have time to think and answer however she liked. All she could do now was let Ami know that this was a safe place to answer, and that Adela wouldn't think any less of her for it.

"Scared?" Ami let out the first laugh Adela had ever gotten out of her, though it was watery and self-deprecating. "No. I'm terrified. Every time flu season rolls around, I think about her. Her, in a bed like this, smiling and withering away." She sucked in a quick breath. "I don't... I'd rather die like Daddy. I don't want to wither."

A death on the battlefield wouldn't be drawn out, stained by the unkillable hope for the day she'd magically 'get better' as the people she loved watched her follow in her mother's footsteps.

"It's okay to be scared," Closing her eyes, she just held the smaller figure and tried to soothe and comfort where possible. There wasn't much else she could do, but she could at least try for Ami's sake, "Being sick, being put on dangerous missions, they're both just different ways of fighting for your life. This one's just scarier 'cause you can't just stab whatever's threatening you. So it's okay to be scared, right here, right now."

"...I hate being here," she said again, with feeling. The tears subsided to sniffles and huffs, but more or less her base composure was finally returning, now that she had gotten the chance to finally let out what had been dragging on her the past few days.

Surprisingly contrary to what Adela said, she—she didn't feel scared. Right here, right now.

"Then, better or not, you're not staying here."

She let those words hang before she finally pulled back, grabbing a few tissues for Ami and handing them to her when she spoke, her smile clear behind her mask again, "I won't let you stay in here. Whether you're cleared or not, you need fresh air and to be out of here sometimes or you'll just go crazy. So if you're not out in the next couple of days I'll break you out if I have to so you can get that fresh air and outside time. Sounds good?"

Edited 2015-02-15 03:33 (UTC)

As uninterested as Masanori had set about playing at, there was something to learn through observation about one's allies and enemies. The latter was absent, but the former was as close to present as it could be, he supposed, and it was for that reason he had taken to making use of his peripheral to observe the spar between his teammates whilst tending to the spiders in his care.

Yes, spiders.

In addition to Miourugumo, he was accompanied by a younger spider roughly the size of a hand who had seemed rather intently focused on Ami and taken to whispering in his usually free ear. Something was wrong. He had gathered that himself, of course, for her silence. Both Mi-chan and her sibling had confirmed it, but Masanori said nothing. He continued to say nothing, watching with a seemingly relaxed gaze via his peripheral.

That is, until she fell. Then, he turned his head to look directly at the scene he had been observing and was utterly still save for that movement. The words pierced the silence, however, and he stood slow, moving onto the field uncannily quick for how precisely slow his movements were a moment earlier. He stopped in front of her and lifted a finger as though to warn against further action, his gaze dropping to Ami.

Not prey, he has to remind himself, for all that she looks it in that moment. Not prey.

"You 'think'? Idiot," he practically spat the words. "You shouldn't have set foot on the field knowing your health was compromised. Would you have done the same on the battlefield? Who's going to replace you if you fall, aa? Did you even think this through? Well, answer me!"

Harsh? Perhaps. As far as Masanori was concerned, however, anyone willing to set foot on the battlefield in a compromised state had better be willing to accept the potential lashing that might follow, be it physical or verbal. Anyone who didn't expect or accept it with grace was a fool.

Her eyes were usually the only thing expressive about her, but right now they were as glassy and unreadable as a doll's. As a trade-off, her expression was much, much easier to read. Worryingly so. Her brow furrowed as she tilted her head to look up at him. "In the past, when I was ill, moderate physical exercise followed by fluids and rest worked well." Well. For the last few years, at least.

It hadn't been this bad for years.

Her voice was rough enough that it almost hid the bone-deep weariness within it. "If the choice was between dying on my feet and dying on a medic's cot, then yes. Th-that's hardly the c-case n... now. Ugh." Her pulse picked up as another coughing fit overtook her. Her hand had more red on it when she looked and her mouth tasted like copper. There was probably blood on her lips, she realized, and she clenched her teeth against the trill of fear that slid down her spine.

It wasn't the case now. It wasn't.

It had been long enough since Sasuke had been able to put in a shift at the hospital that he'd been startled by having actually missed the regimented predictability of making rounds. More startling had been the look that Tsukiko had given him, something that made him feel uncomfortably transparent, before she'd given his hair a gruff ruffle and sent him off to deal with the short-term stay ward.

Most of the people in the ward were victims of the same flu that had taken Adela out, it seemed, a group composed largely of the fairly young and the fairly old. He was surprised, then, to see a name he recognized on the roster.

The notes on the chart by the door were casual enough that he wasn't worried when he pushed through, clipboard in hand, though they did make note of a history of susceptibility to infection and family fragility. He raised an eyebrow at the note on fragility as he approached the bed, waiting to see if she was awake enough for the usual run of check-in questions.

Illness usually wasn't a good enough excuse to keep away from practice, so a bit of a sniffle and a stray cough here and there could be overlooked. It was what Shisui had sort of being doing, though he'd been on the alert anyway since the outbreak earlier. So whenever he caught Ami sniffling, he'd make note, but had decided to let it go until she--

Oh.

The smell of blood has him frowning, brows knitted as he kneels beside her, rubbing her back while she coughed. "You need to get that checked." It wasn't a suggestion. "Now."

It was years of admiration for his clan and the tentative growing hope that she really was getting better that had Ami more composed than she had been previously. Well, that and Adela's standing promise to break her out if she wasn't discharged soon, but the point was that when Sasuke entered the room Ami sat up a little straighter and met him with more poise than most of her other visitors had earned.

"Good afternoon, Uchiha-san," she greeted.

She wished she was wearing something other than the daisy-pink pajamas, all the same.

Her fingers convulse ever so slightly, ever so briefly, the impulse to hide weakness warring with the logical understanding that he had probably seen it already. Her hand relaxed, dropping down to her lap, and she instead tried to ignore the irritating twinge in her ankle.

"I suppose so," she murmured and despite her very best of intentions...

There was a quiet terror, muffled under her forced calm. She didn't want to go back to the hospital. She didn't want to hear the doctors deliberate and diagnose and hem and haw over whether or not she'd keep getting better or take a turn for the worse. She didn't want to die. Not the way her mother had, drawn out and pale, wasting away in a sterile white bed. Her hand fisted in her skirt.

"Afternoon," he greeted, slipping easily into the matter-of-fact tone that he'd learned off med-nin doing their rounds before he remembered that he technically did know this patient personally. "There's no need to sit up if you're feeling weak. How are you today?"

His pen hovered over the checklist on his clipboard, ticking off a few categories he could see from visual inspection: eyes clear and able to focus, voice coherent.

He'd heard about the girl being in the hospital, and all he could think was that this was not the month for people being in good shape. Still, he came by, tapping on the doorframe as he came into the room. "Ami-san, are you awake?"

"I'm not feeling weak." That...came out a bit more waspishly than she really intended it to, but she forced back the flash of remorse that tried to bubble up. She actually didn't feel as fatigued as she had been for the past week and a half, when the cold first began to dig its claws into her.

Still, she softened her tone. There was no point getting angry at the hospital staff; she had learned that years ago. "I feel... more energized. My coughing continues, and my throat hurts, but it feels..." She furrowed her brow as she searched for the right words. "It feels drier, I suppose."

"Iruka-sensei?" Her voice came out as a croak, but it didn't rob the answer of any of its underlying surprise. "I-I mean..." She paused to cough, still a bit longer than she liked to think about. "Yes. I wasn't expecting to see you today." Or at all, really. She hadn't seen him since graduation.

"I don't forget my students. I'm sorry I missed coming by to gift you something for the holiday. I'm afraid I didn't hear sooner." He didn't comment on the cough, instead moving to the chair.

The snap in her tone was as good a sign as any, Sasuke ticking off Patient is alert and aware. The rest was to be expected in the progression of the flu she'd caught -- the same thing Adela had had, a pernicious gift from climates that most Konoha-nin didn't spend much time in. Ami's symptoms were clearing more slowly than the average, it seemed, but they were definitely on the way out.

"How frequently are you coughing now?" He stepped closer to the bed, glancing over the breakfast tray sitting on the side table to see how much had been eaten.

He listened. That Masanori was indeed listening may very well have shocked many familiar with his presentation, but he had a little less care about that at the moment. The only ones present were himself and the team he had been assigned to and this would be forgotten for the pressing issue that was Ami's deteriorating health.

Her present state wasn't something he would soon forget, though. There was more and less expressiveness than he was used to and that look, the blood, those words --

"Hn."

It was an unreadable utterance. No more and no less than what it simply was. Moving forward, he paused in front of her and extended his hand quietly, unreadably.

"Once every ten minutes, or one fit every hour. It varies with how active I am." She fiddled with the sheets in her lap. "But only shallowly, and I can breathe more deeply without triggering a fit, now. "No blood."

There hadn't been blood for a while; not since the first few days of her hospitalization. She had clung to that fact in the small but growing corner of her heart clinging to hope.

Why did he have to look so damn similar to an Uchiha?

It was worse, when it was just them and Shisui; the resemblance was near uncanny, and it triggered a lifetime of admiration and obedience in all the wrong ways. For a person that was all wrong. Shizuoka Masanori wasn't collected or composed—usually. He wasn't reticent or respectable—most of the time. Except for the startling, stark moments when he suddenly was all of that and more. More perceptive, more dangerous, more alert and... almost intimidating.

in return, Ami was too tired to—meek, even, too scared to fight against her reflexes. Her non-bloodied hand gripped his and she used it to lever herself up, stumbling as she put her weight on that twisted ankle and her head swam again.

"We're going to the hospital," Masanori said, his tone one that quite subtly suggested there was to be no argument on the matter.

He wouldn't accept it if there was. A shinobi was nothing without their health and it was a detriment to the team if Ami remained in such a compromised state. He reached for a sleeve wordlessly and gave her a tug, an encouragement to lean if she needed without any verbal prodding. Dignity was something he'd rob her of unduly, but for all their time together, his back wasn't something he could offer.

"Mm. Sensei would not permit anything less." She remembered the disaster that was their first transport mission—the way he had cradled her against himself, protectively, savagely—the scent of blood and the lingering fear from the drugs and the box. There was a stiff strength to him, then.

Masanori seemed to have contracted a fraction of that same strength now, unwilling to let her falter on alone. It blurred his image in her mind even further.

Sasuke's pen scrawled across the notepad for a minute longer before he tucked it into its clip and returned the board to its bucket at the end of the bed. Everything looked in order, even with the severity of her intake symptoms taken into account; he was assuming that she could recognize as much herself, which was why he lifted the stethoscope looped around his neck without bothering to explain further.

"Lean forward," he said, pressing chestpiece to his palm to warm it.

That man wouldn't permit anything less. It was a point of agreement realized by Masanori in that moment and accepted without resistance.

"Sometimes, old men know something useful."

Sometimes, but not always and it tended to vary from old man to old man. The reluctance that colored his statement was accompabyed by the mental image of a particular old man. His epression expression very briefly gained a note of severity before he relaxed it. Glancing to Ami once again, he nodded.

"Come on. Let's get going," he said, prepared to match her pace for pace.

"Sensei would not have been assigned as our instructor if he weren't capable and knowledgeable."

That was... a bit too long for her current condition. She twisted as far away from Masanori as she could while still half-clinging to him for balance, and hacked that unsettlingly wet cough again. She held still for a moment as it died down, as if to make sure it wasn't coming back. Then she carefully shifted her weight and continued walking, trying for a pace that would minimize the time she had to spend like this.

She fell a little short, out of fear. If she began breathing hard... Well. That would just defeat the purpose, wouldn't it?

Another point made with which he might have agreed, but this time, Masanori would breach no verbal agreement. Talking evidently came with slick red consequences and his medical knowledge was limited. It wasn't his function, after all. Mind, he knew something of basic first-aid to make due on the field, but this was different. Ami needed a medic and while he was many things, he most certainly wasn't that.

"Take your time," he offered, continuing with diligence to match her pace as his thoughts sharpened.

Her aunt would need to be informed. He would take care of that. Shisui and Itsuki would no doubt be shadowing them, so that wasn't a major concern. Her breathing, though...

Edited 2015-03-05 09:19 (UTC)

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[Open] Restore life the way it should be

20th, after hearing about Ami

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14th - TRAINING GROUNDS

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02/21

Feb 14, at practice

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17th

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