Protein Bar: Sometimes, it's the most insignificant details that are the most telling.

I do not own any rights to Naruto.

Shinobi were never comfortable in a hospital.

Naturally, their profession required quite a fair share of time spent in medical facilities and clinics. It was an unavoidable part of their job. However, despite how accommodating and professional the resident staff and medics strived to make the space, there was always going to be an air of discomfort and the sting of raw memories of loss and pain associate with the place for the ninja who frequented it.

Uchiha Itachi was a hardened shinobi. ANBU rank by age 11, captain at 13, current leader of squad Alpha, the deadliest task force the village of Konohagakure had at its disposal; there were very few things that would faze him.

But, even he did not like to spend time in the hospital.

Therefore, when the Hokage became aware of his condition and requested that he make an appointment with one of the available medics, he politely refused. When she threw her sake bottle at him in a less-than-polite request, he dodged both the physical and verbal blow.

When she pulled rank and threatened to suspend him, leaving him stranded in the village for a month with nothing but D-ranked missions and familial duties, he sighed and walked directly from her office to the nearby hospital.

Her orders were, of course, strict and left no room for negotiation.

"March your ass over to my apprentice's office and get your eyes fixed immediately, Uchiha, or, so help me, I will have you chasing cats up trees and staring at wrinkled Uchiha elders for a month straight!"

Itachi was left wondering at times like this how that woman, with her fiery temper and foul mouth, had managed to become Hokage in the first place.

The automatic doors of the main hospital entrance opened as he strode confidently into the building, willing himself not to betray an ounce of anxiety and the white-walled, antiseptic-smelling space. Once he reached the front desk, he courteously asked the head nurse where he could find the Hokage's apprentice.

"Haruno-sama?" the woman replied. She glanced quickly at the clock hanging on a nearby wall and replied, "You came at just the right time! She should be in her office on break at the moment. If you hurry, you should be able to catch her."

Nodding his thanks, he made his way down the hall in the direction she pointed and soon found himself in the administrative wing of the hospital. Wandering slowly down the stretch of hall, he carefully glanced at every nametag until he came to the one that stated in clear, bold letters:

Haruno Sakura, Chief Medic

He found himself silently surprised at the title. He wasn't aware that his otouto's teammate had made such a name for herself. The way he talked about her, it was hard to imagine she had grown from the overdramatic 12-year-old teammate who spent more time on her hair routine than her training regimen.

Forcing himself to quickly reevaluate his own preconceptions of the Hokage's apprentice, he knocked firmly on her door and awaited her soft approval before entering.

Even given his own standing in the village, he had to admit that her office was impressive. A full bay of windows made up the outer wall of the office, bathing the space in fresh sunshine. Beneath the windows sat a large, plush sofa that he imagined was used for private patient visits. Every available inch of wall space was either filled up with bookshelves or anatomical drawings. Despite that, piles of tomes littered the floor surrounding the wooden shelves. In the center of the space, a great oak desk dominated the room. Across its surface were hundreds of sheets of papers: forms, personal notes, clinical records.

And, behind that desk, hunched over a stack of those papers, was the Hokage's infamous apprentice.

She should have been dwarfed by the space and the coordinated chaos that filled it. Yet, somehow, with her bright pink locks messily pulled back with a senbon and her austere white coat, with its sleeves rolled up to her elbows, she seemed an integral part of the room.

She didn't look up right away at his entrance, so engrossed was she in her work. Her pen moved swiftly across a scroll as her eyes absorbed line after line of a massive book. In her other hand, she held what looked like a simple granola bar. As she turned the page of the textbook, she seemed to remember that the meager snack was in her hands and take a quick bite of it, then continued on as before, fully captivated by her study.

Itachi imagined that he could have stood there all day waiting for her to look up from her book. However, eager as he was to escape the hospital, he made his presence known. Clearing his throat softly, he was vaguely amused at the way she seemed startled by his interruption, as if she hadn't invited him in in the first place.

He surmised that her surprise must have come more from the fact that he was the last person in the world she expected to show up in her office.

"Uchiha-san," she greeted belatedly, blinking owlishly. "How can I help you?"

"Haruno-san. I hope I'm not disturbing you."

In the next few seconds, she seemed to come back to herself.

"Not at all!"

Glancing between the scroll, the book, and her snack, he watched her not-so-internal struggle to maintain professionalism. Snatching a seemingly random paper off of her desk, she shoved it in the textbook and slammed it shut, simultaneously chewing the bite of granola bar she had taken just before his arrival as quickly as possible.

Surprisingly, rather than being irritated at the time it took for her to collect herself, he found the display rather…amusing. Coming from an environment where any show of discomposure was immediately frowned upon, it was almost refreshing to find someone so human.

She seemed to understand that she was keeping him waiting. Standing abruptly from her chair, she brushed her skirt free of crumbs and repeated her earlier question.

"How can I help you?"

"The Hokage…requested that I come see you."

His less-than-informative reply left her puzzled for a moment and, as a result, she appeared to look him up and down, giving him a physical exam from across the room. He could have simply told her what was wrong with him, but he was suddenly overcome with an innate curiosity to see what she would deduce for herself.

Or, at least, that's what he told himself. It certainly had nothing to do with the fact that he was unwilling to relinquish any kind of perceived shortcoming on his own.

Once her head-to-toe scan of him was complete, he was left at a complete loss when she met his eyes once more and graced him with a small smile.

"I see. Why don't you have a seat on the couch? This should only take a moment."

Feeling an eyebrow quirk at her unexpected answer, he nodded and acquiesced to her request, strolling over to the large, grey sofa he had taken note of before and sitting down on it. She followed shortly after, straightening her coat and plopping down on the couch across from him, making herself comfortable in a cross-legged position.

"Now," she began, searching his features carefully, "how long have your eyes been hurting you?"

He stiffened, mildly shocked that she had managed to infer as much in a matter of seconds. No one outside of his clan other than the Hokage was aware of his condition, and his family took great pains to keep the results of Sharingan overuse a great secret. Any weakness to the clan's great doujutsu would bring harm to their hard-earned reputation.

Some of his misgivings must have slipped through his ironclad mask, as she smiled ironically at his reaction.

"Oh please, Uchiha-san. I've been teammates since childhood with not one, but two Sharingan users. I could hardly call myself a medic if I miss something so obvious as an organ strained from chakra overuse."

Her light tone set him slightly more on edge. That she talked so casually about such a well-kept secret…

"You must understand," he intoned carefully, attempting to convey the seriousness of his condition, a condition that many of his clansmen shared, "that any word of this…condition would only serve to weaken a great number of Konoha shinobi."

His words had an unanticipated result. Now she appeared well and truly offended before him. With a narrowed gaze and pinched professional tone, she bit back, "What I understand Uchiha-san is that my duty as a medic-nin of Konoha would prohibit me from divulging any patient condition without their explicit consent."

It had been a long time since Uchiha Itachi had felt properly chastised. Not since his childhood, at least. Sakura's words filled him with a strange feeling of instant regret that he was completely unfamiliar with.

"Forgive me." Words he had so rarely had the occasion to use. "It was not my intention to offend you."

Her strangely bright emerald eyes narrowed in on his expression and took a moment to study him, as if ascertaining whether or not his apology was honest. She seemed to find what she was looking for because, in the next moment, any trace of hostility had vanished from her face, and she was the dutiful medic-nin once more.

"It's quite all right, Uchiha-san. You would be a poor clan heir if you were not concerned with the secrets of you family's doujutsu." Scooching closer to his seated form, she performed a series of hand seals and met his gaze once more. "May I?"

He nodded, and she gently placed her fingertips at his temples. Her chakra was warm and comforting. Unlike many other medic-nins he had encountered, he felt no aversion to her examination. Gradually, her eyes slipped shut and her brows furrowed as her warm chakra probed deeper.

Itachi was taken aback when her eyes flew open suddenly and her emerald gaze met his once more.

"Uchiha-san, are you aware of the severity of your condition?"

Denial would serve neither of them well, so Itachi found himself nodding. "My eyesight began deteriorating at the age of 13. It is only in recent months that is has become a hindrance."

Sakura's eyes were widened with horror. "Thirt–" she couldn't even finish her question.

"When I was made ANBU Captain."

"That's over a decade of degeneration to your optic nerve!" The flood of warmth at his temples increased slightly as she pushed more chakra into his eyes. "You're lucky you're not already blind!"

He did not answer, but merely closed his eyes as her soothing chakra dulled the every-present burn that pained his eyes. He had grown used to it over time, but, as she said, it had been over a decade since he had felt relief.

They must have sat like that for over a half an hour. Eventually, Sakura pulled her fingers away from his skull and questioned, "Now, how does that feel?"

Slowly, he pried his eyes back open once more and had to work to keep the shock from bleeding through his expression.

In less than 30 minutes, Haruno Sakura had changed his world.

He saw the bands of sunlight filtering through her window backlighting the dust that floated through the air. He saw the individual threads that made up the pillows of her couch. He noticed how many shades of pink and coral made up the strands of her hair.

Despite his best attempts, some of his disbelief must have shown on his face, because Sakura's lips widened into a pleased grin.

"That's the exact same look both Kakashi and Sasuke gave me when I worked on their eyes."

"The improvement is…impressive."

His blasé statement only seemed to make her amusement grow. "I'll take that as a compliment."

Levering herself off of the couch, she stiffly made her way to her desk and reached into one of the top drawers. Only his well-trained eye caught the small quaking of her hands as she pulled out another one of the snack bars she had been eating earlier.

"Now," she informed him as she peeled open the wrapper, "your condition is much too severe to be healed with one session. However, seeing as overloading your optic nerve with chakra is what got you into this mess, it would be detrimental to do it all over again, even with healing chakra."

He nodded in understanding. "When should I return?"

"Two weeks. One more session should do the trick, but," she warned, "you will need to schedule an appointment with me every time you overuse your chakra, especially when you use the Mangekyou, and I would advise you to be gentle with your doujutsu."

Such a demand was not unreasonable, but it was not ideal either. "Thank you, Haruno-san."

It was only as he was walking out of her office that he heard her heaving sigh. "He's gonna ignore me just like those other two idiots."

This time, he didn't try to hide the smirk that came to his face.

A/N: Here's the new story. I've been mulling over this one for a while, but am only slowly getting around to writing it. As always, let me know if it sounds interesting enough to continue!