Chapter Two: Passion and Pain
A/N: A second chapter that I didn't plan on but needed to be written.

One delivery. Three triage patients, two coding. A child with a broken arm. One post-op. One DOA. One crash.

Tsunade didn't have a chance to clean herself up. She'd forgotten to remove her surgical cap until one of the nurses reminded her that she still had it on, just as she walked out the door. Every muscle in her body ached. She had personally saved three lives that day, and she knew that was supposed to be her reward. Yet, as she walked down the street, her feet drug in the dirt.

Her fingers brushed her hair back from her forehead, and she grimaced at the lingering smell of latex and soap. Sixteen hours. It wasn't supposed to be that long, but patients don't care about schedules when they have an allergic reaction to their medicine because a tired nurse missed something on the chart.

It was always hard to pull herself out of bed at five in the morning for her six-o'clock shifts. The added challenge of shoving Jiraiya's dead weight off of her cost her ten minutes, and she had to forgo most of her makeup routine to earn back the lost time. She'd been asked repeatedly if she was ill, and she wanted to punch the next person who mentioned it. She was a medic; She'd saved three lives that day, but God forbid she didn't put on lipstick.

By a quarter after ten, she would be home. At ten-thirty, she would be showered and could search for dinner. With any luck, she'll have eaten by a quarter 'til eleven. Fifteen minutes to read and decompress, and then roughly seven hours of sleep, thanks to the attending who took pity on her by letting her come in at seven rather than six the next morning.

She fumbled for her keys in her pants pocket, cursing how deep they were on her scrubs. When she found them, they sat at the very bottom, a quarter down her thigh. Key in hand, she inserted it into the lock and opened the door to her apartment. Dazed, she shuffled in, kicking off her shoes beside the door. Finally, she allowed herself to yawn, tears gathering in the corners of her eyes from the effort. Rubbing them with one hand, trying to ease away the fatigue, her other hand ran against the wall in search of her light switch.

Her palm brushed upward, and she hesitated when her skin touched plastic, the switch already in the 'on' position.

She blinked her eyes open, squinting in the light as she examined the tornado that had hit her living room. Various pieces of paper were taped onto her walls, all covered in scribbled characters. If there was any semblance of order in the layout, she failed to see it. Balled, crumpled sheets were scattered across the carpet, while several more, pristine leaves gathered around the feet of her coffee table. In the middle of it all sat Jiraiya.

He hadn't bothered to tie his hair back, and he looked more like an electrocution victim than a shinobi because of it. To her displeasure, and yet not to her surprise, she noticed that he'd dressed himself only as far as his boxers. He wrote like a madman, pen flying across the page until he ran out of room. He carelessly slid the paper out of the way, where it gathered with the others on the floor.

This was the first time that he'd made her speechless. Ruefully, her eyes roamed the chaos in front of her, not sure where she should begin. Impulse told her to throw him through the window without opening it. Fatigue told her to just sink down to the floor and cry. Logic, however, took a moment to jump into action.

"Why are you here?" Her voice was bewildered, and she looked at him in total confusion. She had been gone for sixteen hours.

"Can't talk. Writing." Jiraiya answered her in short syllables. "Take-out in the fridge."

She opened and closed her mouth a few times, trying to process the situation. Her stomach growled, and she sighed, looking down at her feet. She was far too tired to deal with this. Hoping to buy herself a little time to get her thoughts together, she walked into her kitchen. She opened the refrigerator, greeted by a Styrofoam take-out container on the middle shelf. Curious, she popped the tabs and lifted the lid.

Grilled chicken breast and stir-fried vegetables. God bless that man. Part of her wondered if he'd planned ahead by buying her favorite meal, to placate her. She tore the top of the container off and put the tray in the microwave, warming up her dinner. Even if he did, she begrudgingly had to admit that it worked. It didn't answer her question, and it didn't clean her mess of a living room, but it was one less thing she had to worry about that night.

The microwave beeped, and she took out her now-warm meal before digging around in a drawer in search of a fork and a knife. Weighing her options, she took a seat at the kitchen table. Finding out what he was up to could wait a few minutes. With hardly five minutes to herself at the hospital, dinner took precedence over everything else.

She supposed that this was payment enough for the chaos. It beat the hell out of the trail mix she'd planned to scarf down. Far hungrier than she thought, she finished the plate, where normally she would have tucked half away for another meal. Tempted as she was to just let her head fall against the table, she forced herself to stand and dispose of the trash. The utensils, she decided, could sit in the sink overnight.

Entering her living room once more, she saw that Jiraiya was no longer writing. To her amusement, he seemed to be trying to piece his pages together in the proper order. Of course, he couldn't just set them to the side, one on top of the other, like any sane person would do. His lips moved, but he made no sound, clearly talking to himself in the process. He paid her no mind.

Deciding that it wasn't worth the effort, Tsunade turned down the hall and walked to her bedroom. She closed the door to the master bath and turned the shower on, the water heating to an almost unbearable temperature. She stripped off her scrubs and threw them into the hamper before entering the shower. Soap lathered between her hands as she began to cleanse her body, trying to abrade away the negativity and death along with her sweat and grime. It was a ritual at this point. If she had to battle her hemophobia, that is.

The stinging water, coupled with an almost compulsive need to wash every inch of skin, was enough to make her feel clean. Her light complexion was flushed pink from the heat, and she felt a little light-headed, but it was nothing unusual during her ritual. Her fingernails scratched against her scalp as she kneaded shampoo into her hair, breathing in and out through her nose in a steady rhythm. The water washed away the cleanly odor of the hospital, and she inhaled the scent of sandalwood from her soaps. She liked to think that she inherited her fondness for woody, earth perfumes from her grandfather. It made her feel close to him, and, by extension, safe.

She dried her face with a washcloth as she fumbled for the tap, cutting off the steady stream. The room was fogged with water vapor, and the cloud only grew when she drew back the curtain. After bending over and wrapping her hair in a towel, she wrapped another around herself before stepping out into her bedroom. Her jaw nearly dropped when, to her surprise, her house guest was nowhere to be found.

Normally, she would have expected to see him right outside the door, panting like a dog. Realization dawned on her when she felt almost insulted by his absence. He'd risked life and limb the last time they went to the hot spring just to get a peek at her. The fact that there was something more important than his perverse pursuit was surprising. Granted, it was psychologically healthy, but surprising nonetheless.

A glance at the alarm clock at her bedside told her it was ten-thirty. In a stubborn refusal to alter her schedule in any way for Jiraiya, she dried off and pulled on her favorite pajamas, the ones that, to her, were comfortable enough to be a reward after a day from hell. She hung her towel back on the rack and closed the door to her bathroom before walking back down the hall.

There he sat, lost in his work, not even turning at her approach. She'd never seen him like this. This level of dedication and focus was rare for him; even when he was training with the toads, from what she'd seen when he was in this realm, he hadn't been able to work this long. If she was right, and she was sure she was, he would have woken up at about nine that morning. The clutter he'd produced was very possibly the result of twelve hours of work, probably without many breaks. He'd eaten, clearly; well, at least dinner.

It dawned on her that he'd probably answered the door for the delivery man looking like he did now, and a sense of dread filled her stomach. Well, she wouldn't be ordering from there any time soon.

She approached him, slipping behind him to take a seat on her couch. She leaned forward, resting one forearm on her knees as she placed a hand on his shoulder, careful to brush his unkempt hair aside. At her touch, he jolted, his entire body going rigid. It was almost like he was brought out of a genjutsu. He raised his free hand and brushed her fingers, realizing that she was behind him.

When he turned to look at her, concern flashed in his eyes. "What happened?" he asked, setting down his pen and abandoning his work. "You don't look well." He rose to his knees and placed the back of his hand against her forehead. "You're warm."

"I just got out of the shower, idiot." She did her best to snap at him, but she appreciated his concern too much to be terribly scathing. "Do you want to tell me what happened to my living room?"

Jiraiya looked around, as though he was seeing the disarray for the first time. He let out a low whistle. "Sorry about that. I'll clean it all up, I promise." He pulled himself up to sit beside her on the couch. "I don't know… I just woke up, and then, BAM! I had to write. I guess, once I started, I couldn't stop." He grinned sheepishly, regretting his blatant eccentricity.

Tsunade quirked an eyebrow at him, amused by the way his hair stuck out at odd angles around his face. "So that's why you're still here."

A moment of silence passed between them before he admitted, "I wasn't aware you'd wanted me to leave."

She sat up a little straighter, gesturing with her hands and shaking her head. "It's okay. If I had to let a madman into my apartment to destroy my living room, you'd be my first choice." She'd hoped the joke would get a grin out of him, but she failed. "It's not that I wanted you to leave, per se. It's more like I expected you to." She clicked her tongue. "Honestly, I thought you'd disappear for a week before showing up again."

He did have a nasty habit of running off like that, but only from his various flirtations. His lips parted slightly when he realized what she was saying, ready to spit out a string of protests. All of them sounded superficial. Without thinking, he said with indignance, "I'd never do that to you."

Unsure how to respond, she settled for a satisfied, "Good."

Something was wrong. "Did I do something?" he asked, carefully watching her reaction.

She sighed and turned, stretching her legs out on the couch and overtop of his. "No," she assured him, rubbing her forehead with her fingertips. "It's just been a really, really long day." And I wasn't expecting to come home to any of this. Before she could forget, she added, "Thank you for dinner. Really. That was a pleasant surprise."

He hummed in acknowledgement as he let his fingers work at the soles of her feet, earning a contented sigh when he kneaded the arch. "I figured as much, when you weren't home by eight."

Her lips curled into a grin. "You were waiting for me, you giant sap."

He shrugged nonchalantly.

Her stomach sank as she watched him, seeing only his profile as he looked straight ahead. He was smiling in that way he did when he was enamored with her; only with her. There was something in his eyes, in the slight lines at the creases. Suddenly, she felt like she needed to vomit, almost as though someone had plunged a hand into her and tore out her stomach. She jumped to her feet, using everything she had to squeeze out two words. "I can't."

The pain in her eyes knocked the wind out of his lungs. He froze when she retreated, walking with purpose and fists clenched at her sides, back down the hallway. The sound of a door slamming was enough to get him to his feet. His hands fumbled with the doorknob, jerking it from side to side against the lock. He pounded with an open palm against the wood. "Princess, open up!"

"You need to go." Her voice was muffled on the other side.

"We need to talk," he countered.

"Go home."

"Tsunade, I swear to god I'll break this door down. You know I will." His voice came out as a growl, far more aggressive than he'd intended. He instantly regretted his tone, but, for whatever reason, he heard the faint click as the locking mechanism released.

The door opened, and she stood in the entryway, looking up at him. She was weary. Her eyes were almost lifeless, her posture slumped as she steadied herself on the door frame. After taking in a deep breath, she leveled her voice as much as she could. "I need you to go home. I can't, Jiraiya. I just can't."

"Can't what?" he pressed, taking a step toward her with the intent of embracing her. She evaded him by taking a step back at the same moment. "You need to talk to me."

"No, I don't," she insisted, shaking her head. "Not about this."

This stung him deep into his core. They'd always been able to talk, even when it hurt one of them to do so. "Tsunade…"

"Don't." She'd always been small in comparison to himself, but he'd never seen her look so fragile. Her voice caught in her throat and the backs of her thighs bumped against her bed. Allowing herself some comfort, she sat down, cradling a pillow against her chest as she took several, measured, deep breaths.

He let out a labored sigh. The last thing he wanted to do was push her, but part of him wanted absolution for something he didn't know he'd done. Not following her demands was dangerous. He'd never seen her like this. He'd seen her broken, torn to pieces, lifeless; the way she was now radiating a level of self-loathing that exceeded her guilt at Dan's death. In his opinion, she wasn't safe. Until he decided she was, he didn't want to leave. He didn't want to leave her to the thoughts in her mind, deeply afraid that she would harm herself if he did so. With this decision, he stood in silence, his back against the doorframe. He left a considerable, respectful distance between them, but his crossed arms and stern expression showed his resolve.

She wouldn't look at him. Her chin dug into the pillow as she hung her head, eyes trailing the pattern of her quilt. His gaze burned, but she chose not to do anything to help the pain. It was tempting to dig deep, to cut him where it hurt so that she could make him run away. Perhaps she would have done so, if he were anyone else. Jiraiya and Orochimaru were the only two people on this earth that she couldn't imagine tearing into that way, and this left her without any defense.

Her voice was quiet, just on the edge of his hearing when she said, "He knew."

"What?" He took a cautious step closer, if only to hear her better.

"Dan." The way she said his name rang hollow. "He knew that you love me. He knew everything. But he wasn't jealous, or threatened, or angry. He never was." His security in their relationship was one of the things she had cherished.

"I didn't know that."

Her fingers sank deeper into the feather pillow, clutching it tighter. "I know it's been three years. I know he wants me to move on. He loves me enough to want that."

Jiraiya didn't address the shift in tense she'd made.

"I have. I like to think I have. I was fine before. Yesterday… there was nothing wrong with yesterday. I felt okay. Happy. He wants that for me." She drew in an unsteady breath. "I came home today, and you were still here. You're everywhere. With your work and all the paper and the food in the fridge…" She shook her head. "And there was nothing wrong with it. I didn't mind. And now I feel so goddamned guilty because you're here, and I can't even look at his picture! I miss him. I miss him so much. But, today and yesterday, I didn't even think about him until now. Not even when you asked me about him. I don't know if it's because I didn't want to or if I didn't care, but I feel like the worst fucking person alive."

"Princess," he exhaled, daring to take a seat on the other side of her bed.

"It's just so wrong!" Finally, she let her anger leak through. "It's not fair! It's not fair to you, it's not fair to Dan! I'm such a goddamned selfish person that I didn't care. Oh, God, what's wrong with me?!" She buried her face in the pillow, muffling a wordless scream of frustration. Her shoulders shook, and she pulled away just enough to speak. "I'm betraying him. He's heartbroken; he has to be. And it's you, of all people. I'm taking advantage of you, and I can't separate it, and it's not fair to you or to him, and I'm such a fucking awful person to act this way."

He didn't know if his touch would be welcome, but he could see her teetering on the urge of a panic attack. He moved to her side and drew her against him, murmuring. "Breathe. In. Out. In. Out." He modeled his own breathing to match the instructed tempo. Her head rested against his sternum, and she could hear the pattern which her body subconsciously began to mimic. He let her pull away when she was ready, visibly calmer than she was before. Upset as she was, he knew that her silence and the brief touch on his knee was the only way she could show her gratitude.

"It's not fair," she repeated, barely a whisper.

"If it's alright with you, I think I'm capable of deciding what is and isn't fair to me." He didn't force her to look at him, didn't touch her. Whatever distance she wanted, he would give. "You want the truth? Yes, I love you. You know that. It's nothing new, so stop treating it like it is. Yesterday… yesterday was amazing. But nothing's changed since then. At least, not for me. If I thought that having sex would change the way we could just be with one-another…" he left the sentence unfinished.

Framing it the way he did, she realized that, had yesterday not ended the way it had, she probably wouldn't have thought twice about any of tonight's events. He knew where the spare key to her apartment was hidden. He had no qualms about letting himself in, the same way he had none about entering Orochimaru's lab. The dinner he bought for her wasn't any different than the times he brought take-out to her at the hospital on late nights. Even his physical touch didn't pass any boundaries they'd set in the past.

"Oh, my God," she lamented, her fingers nesting in her damp hair. "I'm such a fucking idiot. I can't… I shouldn't do this to you. I'm so wrapped up in my own damned head that I can't think."

"So don't." He said it like it was the most obvious conclusion. "Look, I'm not going to treat you any differently. Why would I? If you decide you want me to get lost, well, you haven't had a problem telling me that before." His smile went unreturned. "I just need you to be honest with me. Running off, hiding, that's not you. That's never been you. Now, if you want me to leave, look me in the eye and tell me to."

"I think I need you to stay. I know it's selfish," she admitted. She was feeling unstable, and she wasn't nearly as good at treating mental trauma as she was physical. She was temped to open up her bedside drawer and take out the photo frame that lay face-down, which would only torture her. "I have to go back to the hospital in the morning. I can't afford to stay up all night."

"And me staying will help?"

She nodded. "I won't go to sleep if I'm alone. I can't make myself, and it's already…" she glanced at the clock. "Midnight," she sighed. "Dammit."

He reached out and took her hand. "Here's the deal. You and me, we stay the same. Just Tsunade and Jiraiya. I don't expect anything else. But," he added, "that means that I'm not going to act any different. So, if I want to buy you dinner, or tape my outline around your living room, I'm going to do it. Okay?"

Finally, she looked up at him. She smiled weakly as she asked, "That was an outline?"

Jiraiya snorted at that. "Don't question my methods. I wrote seven chapters today, thank you very much. I'd say you're good luck, but we both know that's a lie."

She took a swing at him and missed. Seeing that she was in a slightly better mood, which is to say no longer crying, he reached over her and took the telephone from the bedside table. He held the base in his left hand and the phone in his right, dialing a number from memory.

"Who are you calling?" She raised an eyebrow.

"Shhhh," he cautioned her. "Hi, yeah, can you patch me through to admin?" he spoke into the phone, earning a comical look of confusion from Tsunade. "Thanks." He waited a moment before speaking again. "Hi. Yeah, I'm calling for Tsunade Senju. She won't make it in tomorrow. Yeah, real nasty case of food poisoning." He leaned back, out of her reach as she tried to snatch the phone away. "Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah. Great, thanks." He depressed the lever on the base, ending the call just before she was able to get a hold on him. Her fingers wrapped around his wrist and pulled him back, and she snatched the phone from his hands.

"What the hell?" she demanded, visibly annoyed.

"I'm helping."

She was caught between wanting to strangle him and wanting to laugh at the grin on his face. Too tired to do either, she simply shook her head. "Sure." Fatigue pulled her down to lie overtop of the quilt, and she lifted a hand to rub her eyes. She wanted to blame her outburst on exhaustion, and perhaps it played a part, but she was torn.

Dan's death pulled the light out of her life. She was so far gone that Jiraiya and Orochimaru took turns keeping an eye on her, just in case her grief took her. Three years, and she'd begun to heal. She still ached. Jiraiya's presence didn't soothe the pain, but it was a pleasing distraction in its own right. As much as she wanted to believe it, to condemn herself for it, she wasn't intentionally using him. It was like their interactions were a world apart from those she had with Dan. Somehow, it didn't seem like they ever intersected. Her guilt came about when she remembered, when she felt as though she was leaving one of them behind. It was confusing and painful. All she wanted to do was sleep.

She was pulled from her thoughts when his large, rough hand took hold of hers. It was so different. Dan had been slender, all angles and grace. It was different… but not unpleasant. She turned her palm over and laced her fingers through his, finding solidarity in the touch. It wasn't the same; it would never be the same. And, yet, wasn't that the point?

No longer feeling like she would lose control, she squeezed his hand, staring at the ceiling as she asked, "Do you hate me?"

"I don't think I could if I wanted to," he replied, voice soft.

She hesitated. "Do you think he hates me?"

"No," he answered truthfully. "He doesn't." Jiraiya wrapped an arm around her waist and drew her to him, curling around her and holding her. "Stop trying to convince yourself that you're a bad person, Princess."

She allowed him to cradle her, and she permitted herself to feel safe in his grasp. He had a knack for calming her down, helping her ground herself. Giving herself a few minutes of solace, she turned over in his hold and pressed her forehead into his shoulder. He hummed quiet reassurances and gently rubbed the small of her back until he felt her relax. When she spoke, he felt more than heard the words that were lost against his skin.

"You have to come up if you want to talk to me."

Lifting her head proved to be a challenge, requiring her to fight her way through the mess of white hair that did its best to cling to her face. Her nose crinkled as she huffed her annoyance. Once free, she repeated herself. "I said that I won't be able to sleep yet and asked if you wanted to watch a movie with me." If she could become distracted enough by the plot, it would hopefully put her mind at ease and stave off any impending nightmares. If she slept in the state she was right now, she'd be awake throughout the night from bad dreams.

"Can I pick?"

"No. You may have been gone, but Oro and I haven't forgotten about last time. Being away doesn't get you out of your ban; it just suspended it."

"Come on," he groaned dramatically, falling onto his back as though wounded.

"And put some clothes on. Pervert."