Maya - a Naruto Fanfic

7. Playing Doctor

 The nurse who receives me is totally unfazed by my injuries. 

"I'll clean you up while the doctor gets ready to check you over, so if you'll just follow me." They say, only giving me the briefest glance over before walking to stand a little way away. 

"Behave yourself while you're here. I'll come back to pick you up when they're finished treating you." Izumo tells me. He shoves me towards the nurse and then poofs away. As much as I oppose this place from a moral standpoint, I really want to learn that trick. 

"You'd better not charge me for this..." I grumble, but there's no energy in it. I'm starting to feel very sore, and very tired, and just plain gross. These clothes will probably need to be burned. There's no way I'll ever get the smell out of them on my own. 

The nurse - Nao - leads me to a room with a simple desk and hospital bed. The walls are all stark white, with the same ugly green linoleum floor all hospitals seem to have. Everything smells of cleaning solution. Nao produces a white yukata from a drawer and hands it to me. 

"Please change into this and leave your clothes here." They say, and I nod, fully prepared to do as they say, only they don't turn around. 

"Are you, uh, gonna watch me change?" I squeak, and they blink at me for a moment before finally speaking; 

"I've been told you're a flight risk."

"Excuse me?" I scowl, but nurse Nao is unfazed. 

"The Hokage believes you may try to escape." 

"I'm not going to try to escape." They'd probably kill me if I even tried. 

"Even so." 

I huff, but do as I'm told, changing as quickly as I can. The yukata is too large, and the fabric is rough, but as I kick my clothes away from me the awful stink follows them to the corner of the room. 

"Please sit up on the bed." Nurse Nao instructs, but as with all hospital beds, it's kind of high. As if to remind me, my shoulder twinges, and I curse my small stature. 

"Um, I can't." I bite down hard on my lip and flush in shame. I must look so stupid. 

"Why not?" Nao frowns. Emotion looks strange on them. 

"I think Ibiki - I think my shoulder's dislocated." There's no guarantee that he won't hurt me for telling people what he did. Right now, I think it'll be better to play it safe, and keep what happened to myself. 

"Stand so your back is against the bed." Is all they say in response. I do as I'm told, and they lift me up onto the bed by my waist. I shuffle back to get myself more comfortable, and wait expectantly as Nao fishes what looks like a basic first aid box out from under the bed, and places it next to me.

"Your hands, please." They say, and I raise them so they can check the damage, from my badly broken fingernails to the grazes on my palms.

They douse a piece of cotton wool in disinfectant and dab gently over the tips of my fingers, cleaning away the congealed blood. It stings, but not quite as badly as it felt before.

Once they're satisfied with their work, they wrap each finger in bandages down to the knuckle, leaving both hands pretty much useless.

"Um..."

"It's better not to move your fingers too much as the wounds heal and your nails grow back. Your palms will heal without bandages. Please roll up your sleeves." Just as I've finished rolling up the sleeves of my dislocated shoulder, the door opens and a nurse pops her head round.

"Nao? There isn't a doctor available so could you treat miss..." Her eyes flick over to me.

"Maya." I supply, and she smiles faintly.

"Of course." Nao nods, and the nurse vanishes back around the door. When the turn back to me, they hiss. My sleeves had been covering the damage to my wrists, but now the mottled, shredded skin is clear. They take my hands carefully in theirs and turn them over to expose the insides of my wrists, rubbed raw and riddled with splinters from the wood of the chair. They fish a pair of tweezers out of the box and start pulling out every sliver of wood they can see.

As they tend to me, my mind starts to wander. It must have been a few hours now since I arrived in this crazy place. Has my mum realised I'm missing yet? Is she looking for me? Maybe she's already called the police. They might think I've been kidnapped, or just run away.

Wait - what happened to that rabbit?

"There." Nao's voice brings me back into the room, and I look down to see my wrists have been carefully bandaged, and more. The skin up to the middle of my forearms has been completely covered.

"Thank y-" I start, but Nao simply talks over me.

"You said your shoulder is dislocated?" They ask.

"Yes." I nod.

"Which one?" I gesture with my good arm. They help me pull my arm out of the sleeve of the borrowed yukata so they can check the extent of the damage. My arm ends up in a sling, after Nao is satisfied that whatever damage Ibiki did, he also fixed when he wrenched my arm back. It doesn't make me like him any better, but at least I won't be going through pain like that again.

Finally, Nao declares me completely patched up, and leads me out into the foyer where Kakashi is stood waiting for me, still holding the rabbit by the scruff of it's neck.

"I believe this belongs to you." He holds it out to me and I'm quick to gather it up in my good arm.

"Thank you." I murmur as it presses it's tiny, shivery body closer to my chest.

"Have you got a name for it?" He asks, completely out of the blue. Why does he even care? By all accounts, he shouldn't. Maybe he's just trying to make me drop my guard? Like that's ever gonna happen while I'm here.

"I don't know yet." I stroke the top of it's head with my thumb as it gazes up at me with big, brown eyes, it's little nose twitching. What was the Japanese word for nose again...?

"Doesn't matter either way. Come with me, Nao says you need to eat something." Kakashi shrugs, and I quickly turn to Nao and bow low before he can leave me behind.

"Thank you very much for everything." I say before scurrying off, once again left behind by the man who's really supposed to be guarding me. Unbeknownst to me, Nao watches me go, lips pressed into a thin line.