When Sasuke opened his eyes again, his brother was gone, replaced by his parents, who were talking quietly.

“Where’s Itachi?” Sasuke asked. He hoped that Itachi hadn’t left to go track Naruto down, Sasuke meant it when he said he didn’t want any drama going on.

“He went home to get some rest. He’s pretty tired, he’s had a long day,” Mikoto said. “How are you feeling?” Sasuke shrugged, he supposed he could feel worse, but he felt pretty good for a change.

“I suppose I should feel pretty rough for having just had a transplant.” Sasuke told her. “But for the first time in what feels like ages, I feel pretty good.”

“The kidneys are doing their job.” Fugaku said. “And working properly. I suppose its because you’ve been sick for so long that you feel so good right now.”

“I’m going to have to get used to feeling well again.” Sasuke admitted. “I won’t know what to do with myself.”

“You have to be careful for a little bit.” A voice said from the doorway, and Sasuke turned his head to see his doctor standing in the doorway. “You don’t want to rush into anything, but it’s great that you feel better already.”

“Will I be able to play soccer again?” Sasuke asked. “I would like to try out for the school team.”

“I don’t see why not.” Shizune replied. “As long as you take care of yourself and pay attention to the signs that your body is giving you.”

“Like what?” Sasuke asked.

“Feeling sick, and run down like you have the flu.” Shizune replied. “You could be trying to reject the kidneys, or it’s possible that you could just be getting the flu. Either case will put you in the hospital, so it’s important to focus on how you are feeling.”

“And the medication?” Sasuke asked. “I’ll have to take those pills for the rest of my life?”

“Yes, they are to prevent you from rejecting the kidneys.” Shizune replied. “Sometimes they don’t help though.”

“I hope I don’t reject them,” Sasuke murmured. “No offense to you but I’m sick of being in the hospital.”

“I can’t say that I blame you for that,” Shizune replied. “Considering your history.” Sasuke sighed, every since he’d been diagnosed with leukemia, he’d spent months on months in the hospital as Tsunade had believed that it would be impossible for him to achieve remission. Sasuke was thankful that hadn’t been the case, and he prayed like hell that he didn’t ever have to go through that again.

“If the cancer comes back, will I have to go through this hell again with my kidneys?” Sasuke asked.

“That’s a hard question to answer because it was the chemotherapy that destroyed your kidneys to begin with,” Shizune said quietly. “You were on a pretty aggressive form of chemotherapy. How bad the cancer is depends on how aggressive your treatment is.”

“Tsunade didn’t think I would go into remission at all. I guess that’s why the treatment was so tough on me physically. I don’t want to have to go through that again.” Sasuke said. “It was a nightmare.”

“I’m sure it was, I’ll do what I can to make sure your kidneys stay in good shape, I can’t make promises though if you go back on chemotherapy,” Shizune said. “Because those drugs are pretty potent.”

“It’s a shame that it was meant to save my life but it almost ended up taking it instead,” Sasuke said.

“Yeah, it’s weird how that works out,” Shizune said. “Do you have any other questions?”

“How long am I going to be stuck here?” Sasuke asked. “I just want to go home.”

“Three to five days depending on how well things go for you,” Shizune told him. “But you’ve been doing well, so I don’t anticipate things going wrong.”

“I hope not,” Sasuke murmured. “I’ve dealt with enough for a lifetime.”

“You can’t rush your recovery,” Mikoto said. “Don’t jump into doing things right off the bat, take your time to make sure that you are truly ready for it.”

“When do I rush into anything?” Sasuke asked. “I take my time and think things through.”

“For the most part you do,” Fugaku replied. “But with you having been sick for so long, I fear your going to jump right into doing something just because you feel like you can.”

“I’ll be careful,” Sasuke promised. “I’ll take it easy for the first couple weeks once I go home.”

“It might be longer than that.” Fugaku pointed out. “But we will see how things go. I just don’t want to see you push yourself so hard you end up in the hospital again.”

“That’s the last thing I want.” Sasuke replied. “Once I get home, I’m not leaving for a year.”

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“I hope we can make that happen.” Mikoto said. “But I know you and how complications seem to be drawn to you.”

“No more complications for me, I’m going to behave myself. This journey has been difficult enough as it is. No need to make it worse on myself.” Sasuke told his mother. “But I am curious about the kid that died, can you tell me anything about them?”

“The only thing that I can say is he was your age.” Shizune replied. “Even though he’s dead there’s such thing as patient confidentialty, and out of respect for his parents, I can’t give you any more information.”

“I understand.” Sasuke murmured. “I want to be able to thank them for making the decision to donate his organs, without them I wouldn’t be making it much longer.”

“I knew the boy and his parents, and they are anything but decent people.” Shizune said quietly. “I’m sure there was some sort of monetary reward for them donating.”

“Doesn’t that defeat the purposes of donating?” Fugaku asked. Shizune nodded.

“But they can get by with pretty much whatever they want to.” Shizune commented. “No one will dare stop them.”

“So someone pretty much bought my kidneys.” Sasuke said thoughtfully. “Perhaps I need to thank those people.”

“Maybe if you can find out who it was.” Shizune said. “I would tell you but there is no official record since it technically wasn’t a legal transaction.”

“There has to be a way to find out though.” Sasuke said thoughtfully. “It can’t be that difficult.”

“I’ll look into it.” Fugaku said quietly, he was a powerful businessman himself, it wouldn’t take him too much digging to find out what he wanted to know, especially if it was who he thought it was that had bought the organs.

“I hate that a family lost their child.” Sasuke said quietly. “I know that he didn’t specifically die to save me, but still it bothers me knowing that a kid lost his life when he should have been living to the fullest.”

“Unfortunately, these things happen all the time.” Shizune said. “As a doctor I can’t save everyone that comes onto my table as much as I wish too. But I am glad that you will finally get to live the life that you deserve to get to live. So don’t get too sad over a lost life, just remember that a part of this kid lives in you and so a part of him lives on.”

“I guess that’s a good way of looking at it.” Sasuke said. “I probably wouldn’t have thought of it that way.”

“No matter the situation there is always a positive way to look it.” Shizune said. “But it’s up to you to find it.” Sasuke nodded, he knew he would be bothered by the other teen’s death for a long time, he would wonder what had happened to take him from his family and if the death could have been prevented.

“Do you think what happened to him could have been prevented?” Sasuke asked suddenly.

“It might have been,” Shizune said reluctantly. “If someone had given a damn and had looked into his situation. He very well could have been saved.”

“Was he in an abusive home?” Mikoto asked.

“Not abusive as such but something was going on that no one knew about,” Shizune replied. “I don’t know if the truth will ever be told or not.”

“I hope it does,” Sasuke said. “If he died because of what someone else didn’t do, he deserves to get some justice.”

“What goes around comes around. If something was going out, it would eventually be found out.” Shizune replied.

“I hope so.” Sasuke replied. “I don’t want his death to have been completely meaningless.”

“It’s not your job to worry about what happened to this person.” Fugaku said. “I’ll look into the situation as much as I can, but not much may come from it. Not without revealing who this kid was, and I’m not sure that the doctors want his identity revealed.”

“I don’t care about the identity part of it.” Sasuke said. “I understand those reasons; I just want to make sure that he had a natural cause of death and not someone else deciding to help him out of this life.”

“Our doctors are working on that too.” Shizune told him. “An autopsy will be done to find out cause of death.”

“Well, I hope you find out the answers.” Sasuke replied. “And if there is anything suspicious that you nail the person responsible to the wall.”

“Justice will be served one way or the other.” Shizune replied. “But for now don’t you worry about, just focus on yourself and taking care of yourself so you don’t end up here again.”

“Like I said if I have my way, I won’t be back.” Sasuke said. “At least not for anything more than a check up.”

“And that’s the way it should be,” Shizune replied offering him a small smile. “Unfortunately, I need to go talk to some people, I just wanted to make sure that you were doing okay.”

“I’m probably just going to go back to sleep anyway,” Sasuke said turning to face his parents. “You guys might as well go home and get some sleep yourself. I’ll be okay by myself.” It wasn’t like he had anyone out to make sure that he stopped breathing, and he wanted to see if his hunch was correct and Naruto would show up when no one was around.

“If you insist,” Mikoto said quietly. “I am tired and I would like to sleep in my bed instead of one of these chairs.”

“I promise I’ll be okay, the only thing I’m going to be doing is sleeping,” Sasuke promised. “I’m not up to running a marathon just yet.”

“I would hope not,” Fugaku said. “But I agree with Mikoto, sleeping in our bed sounds like a great idea tonight. If you’re sure that you’ll be fine, I guess we’ll get going.” Sasuke nodded and watched as his parents stood up and followed his surgeon out of the room. For the first time since he’d been brought in, he felt like he could breathe.

“Okay, Naruto, I don’t know what your deal is but you can come out now,” Sasuke said, hoping he wasn’t as crazy as he was starting to feel.

3.2

“I was starting to wonder if you were ever going to notice that I was here,” Naruto said, stepping into the room from outside the door.

“Why don’t we start with why you are here?” Sasuke asked. “My brother thinks you are stalking me.”

“That’s not my intention,” Naruto replied. “I can assure you of that, and I guess my needing your help couldn’t come at a worse time, I don’t need you getting sick again.”

“I’ll be okay,” Sasuke replied. “Do you need my help with Sakura? Do you want me to ask her out for you?” Naruto shook his head and ran a hand through his wild blonde hair.

“It’s a little late for that now,” Naruto replied. “I know she never would have accepted me anyway. That’s not what I need your help with.”

“If not Sakura then what?” Sasuke asked frowning. “You’re one of the smartest kids at school, so I know you don’t need help with your homework.”

“You are right about that, it’s not homework,” Naruto replied. “It’s complicated and I don’t know how to say anything without sounding like I’m crazy.”

“When have you ever cared about sounding like you were crazy?” Sasuke asked. “For as long as I’ve known you, you’ve never been at a loss for words.” Naruto chuckled and rubbed at the back of his neck.

“I suppose you’re right, but that’s about to change. Something happened to me.” Naruto said. “Something that I can’t come back from, but I need your help to prove that it happened, otherwise the person is going to get by with it.”

“What could I possibly help you with?” Sasuke wondered. “And why me?”

“I need your help proving that my brother killed me,” Naruto told him. “Because you are the only one who can see me.”