A/N: Hello lovely readers! Happy holidays! To start the year right, I decided to update! Yay! You should all be proud of me. I worked on this AAAALL break long...okay, not really. But I had the concept by Christmas and half of it done right before New Year's Eve. :D

Anywho, I hope you've all enjoyed your holiday! I'd really like to know how you spent yours. Maybe you have a different religion that doesn't celebrate Christmas, or if you just have your own family traditions. I'd love to know, so leave 'em in a review!

On the other hand, while we're all enjoying turkey (or in my case, roasted pig) surrounded by the people we love and abhor, a tragedy has hit. A typhoon named Washi (Sendong, locally) hit Southern Philippines last December 17th, 2011. It affected thousands of people, with the death toll at almost 3,000. Most of the victims were washed away by the floods as they slept.

For my countrymen reading this, hopefully you've done your part. Donations are always welcome at many establishments. For those abroad, prayers are always welcome. Pray for all those who had to spend their Christmas and New Year in shelters. Pray for those contracting diseases in crowded evacuation centers. Pray for the government that needs to adress all this.

I love you all, and MERRY HOLIDAYS! x

~Bella

N is for Nurse: because their manly pride bagged them the best one.

All was at peace in Sakura's life. The ANBU team had been given leave for the Holiday season, and Sakura was using it to work extra hours in the pediatric ward of the hospital. Nothing made her happier than seeing little children enjoying Christmas.

By mid-December, the snow was thick and the air a frigid cold. Even she, a trained kunoichi, was bundled up in an undershirt, a wool sweater, long pant, knee-high boots, a forest green trench coat and a white-knit scarf her grandmother gave her last year. Her gloved hands were tucked in her pockets, let out only to save her matching knit hat from flying away with the chilly breeze.

She was delighted to reach the hospital. The warmth embraced her like a waiting friend, and she gladly accepted it. Passing the receptionists with a quick wave, she made her way to the children. They tackled her legs happily, excited to see their Sakura-oneesan again.

Sakura began working in the pediatric ward annually when she was taking under Tsunade's wing. The kids here were usually those with serious cases—isolation, serious injury, terminal illness—and couldn't go home for the holidays.

"Kids, Sakura-oneesan has a surprise for you guys!" She announced, gathering them around her. She was met with awing eyes and excited gasps as she brought out (sugarless) candy canes for all the kids. Everyone that received one got a kiss on the forehead as well. She then spent the next hour reading storybooks to them before starting with checkups.

By the time she was finished and about to go home, a receptionist nurse called her over, saying she had a phone call. As Sakura walked over to her, she couldn't help but wonder why the nurse had a far off, dream-like look on her face.

"Hello?" She said curiously into the receiver.

"Sha-ku-ra...I'm shick." The voice on the other end said.

At that moment, Sakura broke down...laughing.

"YOU are sick? Almightly Uchiha-sama is sick? You gotta be kidding me." She said in between breaths. "Just come to the hospital."

"I can't." Sasuke's nose was obviously clogged, and his voice was raspy and hoarse. "I'm schick."

Sakura rolled her eyes. "That's what hospitals are for, Sasuke."

"Let me make thish clear," he said, struggling with a lisp. "I'm schick."

Then did the medic get it. The (poor, spoiled, egotistic brat of an) Uchiha couldn't let his image be ruined if he's seen walking the streets of Konoha with a cold.

She gave a groan to tell him that he was a spoiled child, but nonetheless said "I'm on my way over."

~O~

"Well, your temperature has just hit 39 Celsius." Sakura analyzed the thermometer. "What the hell were you doing that got you THIS sick?" She inquired, knowing that Sasuke wouldn't let himself get sick.

"Training."

"How supplemental." Sakura berated. "Were you outside?"

Sasuke gave a slow nod from his place on the couch. He was in his pajama bottoms, and nothing else. One would expect Sakura to be immune to it after a gajillion times.

She was.

Sakura found herself immune to hot guys after spending so much time with them. It's not like she didn't find them attractive. Of course they were. It's just that she had a lot more self-control than other girls out there, so any seduction tactics by certain males will not be very effective.

"Were you shirtless, outside?"

Another slow nod.

Sakura allowed herself a face palm. "Sasuke, it's below zero outside and you didn't have a shirt on. Of course you'd get sick."

"Justh make ith go away." He said, attempting to rub the headache away.

A blanket was flung his way. "Wrap yourself in that." The medic ordered with a stern voice. "You've got to sweat it out. And no, that doesn't mean you can exercise or train. You need to sit here, drink a TON of orange juice and water, take your medicine every four hours. GOT IT?"

She knew Sasuke would absorb this effortlessly. He was already beginning to wrap himself in the blue wool blanket, and she expected him to stay under it. She also expected that she'd have to stay with him for the rest of the night. What she didn't expect was the next event that happened.

The telephone rang. Sasuke poked a hand out of the blanket he had maneuvered into, and picked it up. After a few muffled grunts, he passed the phone to his pink-haired companion.

"For you." He grumbled.

Baffled, she seated herself beside him on the grey couch and pulled the phone towards her, the cord stretching across the Uchiha.

"Yes?" She spoke into the reciever.

"Aah, Sakura-chan. It's Hyuuga Hinata." The familiar, quiet voice of the Hyuuga princess said with quite a bit of urgency, worrying Sakura. "I'm sorry to be bothering you and Uchiha-san, but the nurse at the hospital told me you might be here."

"Hinata-chan, is something wrong?" Sakura asked.

"It's Neji-niisama. He's quite sick. I'm afraid he's contracted the flu that's going around." Hinata said.

"Oh Hinata-chan, don't you have family doctors on call at the estate?" The medic asked.

"Well, that's why I'm calling." The hint of nervousness evident in Hinata's childhood days had just resurfaced in the last few words. "He..he only wants to be treated by you."

~O~

After a lengthy (albeit one-sided) debate with Sasuke, she finally got him to bed and got him to stay there. At 8 PM, she stepped back out into the cold, full of hot tea she made herself in the Uchiha's kitchen and made her way purposefully to the Hyuuga compound.

Sakura was always welcome with open arms in the Hyuuga compound. The door was answered by a lower house member, and she was escorted into the main members' house. From there, she made her way from memory to Neji's bedroom.

She met Hinata right outside his door as she abruptly exited the room and slammed the sliding door shut. The dark-haired girl looked exhausted, as if in an actual fight.

"He isn't very pleasant with a headache." She managed to breathe out. "Be careful."

Sakura sighed. "I know." She then pushed pass the other girl into the room.

She barely missed a pillow to her head with a quick snap sideways. Composing herself, she saw that Neji was a complete and awful mess on his bed. His brown hair was out of its dignified ponytail. Red rimmed his pale eyes and his forehead and bare chest were beaded with sweat.

Nope, hot, shirtless guy still had no effect on her.

"Neji, calm down! It's just me." Sakura cried out before another pillow came her way.

"It's painful." He moaned, clutching his head.

Sakura picked up the fallen pillows and walked over to the bed. She placed they gently behind the prodigy and pushed him down ever so slightly to let him rest. Man, was he a mess, even more so than Sasuke was. Neji was shivering and sweating, his fever was soaring, and he probably had the worst migraine one could ever receive.

She sat beside him as he sat up and studied the thermometer. There was really not much she could do, regardless of his incessant begging. All he needed to do was take his meds and get rest, which she reiterated several times.

Moved out of pity, she put her hands on his temples, rubbing them gently. When he gave an approving moan, she went on to massage the rest of his head. Oh, she'd never get over his hair! It was just so damn soft.

Before she could get to his shoulders, Hinata came with a cordless telephone at hand.

"Sorry to disturb, but it's Temari-san on the line." She said, peeping through the small crack in the door she had made for herself. Apparently, she was still cautious of Neji's temperamental state.

Sakura really wondered how all these people could find her.

"What's it about?" Sakura asked, detaching herself from (a secretly very unwilling) Neji. She stood up to speak with the younger Hyuuga.

"Well, Shikamaru-kun has been vacationing in Suna and..."

"Don't tell me he's gotten sick too." She sighed, and exited the room quietly with Hinata.

~O~

Two geniuses were left in their beds thinking to themselves that night about how their favorite medic was torn away from their bedsides. Just a little more, they thought, and she could've been mine.

Neji, a witness to Sakura receiving a call in his own house;

Sasuke, who was a bridge to track said medic;

both wondered...why did Shikamaru always get her?