❝Hi, you've reached Haruno Sakura. If this is a medical emergency, please leave your name, location, and a brief description of the injuries.❞

（ sunagakure's third division was a medical corps. the last remnant of lady chiyo, gone in an instant against edo tensei, targeted specifically because of their utility. they'd made a tactical mistake, and the third division had fallen back from the main flank. white zetsu clones had poured out of the earth and slaughtered them nearly to a man before they even knew what they were up against. generations of knowledge and talent eradicated from the world. they still have medics, of course — only a foolish commander (and gaara is hardly that) would have stacked their deck so poorly, but they are stretched thin in the regions, and there aren't enough to spare to teach replacements in any quality or quantity.

so, in the name of their alliance — and in honour of lady chiyo's memory — she drafts up a plan. spends a few months working out the logistics with konoha's own medical division and with suna's delegates, until they've landed on a suitable arrangement. sakura will be effectively 'on loan' from the hokage to the kazekage, for a period of three months (or more, at her discretion) until such time as they've found equilibrium again, and in exchange sunagakure will give them cuttings of their rarest plants and poisons, secrets so closely guarded that only chiyo knew where they grew in the wild.

both kankurō and temari welcome her warmly at the borderlands, accompanying her in a symbolic honour guard to the village. it's been months since they've seen each other, and the idle chatter is pleasant and bracing the way it is between strong acquaintances with the promise of friendship lurking on the not-too-distant horizon. they talk about anything but the war. temari's contract summon is a new father, with four strong kits. kankurō is designing a puppet to replace those destroyed in the war. temari murmurs in a stage whisper that he'll talk sakura's ear off about it if he lets her, and they all have a good laugh. it feels — nice. freeing, almost, to laugh like this.

(one thing shinobi are is resilient. you would never know that they buried nearly sixty thousand collective souls less than six months prior. you'd never know what they lost.

maybe that's more sad than it is strong.)

they set her up in a beautiful room, high in one of sunagakure's towers, with a view of the city and the endless sand. it's palatial — far fancier than anywhere she's ever stayed in konoha, and she finds herself uncomfortable amidst the finery and pillows and gauzy drapes. she ends up sleeping on the floor more often than not, or sometimes not sleeping at all — down in the clinics, giving succor to those with long-term injuries held over from the war. missing limbs, bodies twisted with awful rigor. an unusual number of them seem to have locked-in syndrome, frozen stiff but for the way their eyes track her frantically across the room. it's puzzling, and not something she's ever seen before in these great numbers — no history of ischemic stroke, but something seems to be affecting their corticopontine tracts in the brainstem.

she makes a mental note to ask if there was an undocumented poison specialist among the resurrected on suna's side — it could account for a somehow undetectable haemorrhage — and sets to her work. by day, she trains a baker's dozen of handpicked students, each with promising aptitude. sakura doesn't judge them by their grades or even their chakra control — both are nice, and helpful for advanced techniques, but what's more important by far is one's will to do the work. healing isn't for everyone, after all.

by night, she works in the clinic.

when she does sleep, it's done in fits and starts, jarred awake most frequently by the stir of scouring sands that seem like wild spirits trying to grind the city down to bleached bone. sirocco, they're called, and even the word seems foreign on her tongue. in konoha, you could count on gentle rain or the trill of insects to lull you to sleep most nights. here, it's harder — and it's not the only thing that is wildly different. the village guard changes at unfamiliar times. the people rise earlier and sleep in the afternoon to escape the heat. the food is different, more things fermented or dried, and heavier in fatty meats than she's used to. fresh vegetables and fruits are an imported luxury, as the carefully tended greenhouses in sunagakure have strict regulation about what can and cannot be grown. temari brings her strawberries once and refuses to say where they're from. oh, i have my ways, many and mysterious as they are she says, and sakura snorts.

but it's a thoughtful gesture, and the taste of strawberries is never far from her mind.

she finds herself enjoying temari's little visits. they spend a great deal of time talking about konoha, the cultural differences thereof. temari has a broad and far-reaching knowledge of tactics and war history, something she's clearly spent more time studying than sakura ever has, but she knows poetry, too. they discuss ato hiyori's beautiful waka poetry, more than once arguing interpretation of various verses until the sun was a slow burn on the horizon.

sakura had known temari was smart — her performance in the chūnin exams both in konoha and its second iteration in sunagakure where they both graduated more than proved that — but she hadn't known she was so studied. it's intriguing. maybe a little exhilarating. they still live in a world, after all, where women are expected to blunt themselves to a dull edge, and temari's refusal to do so is refreshing.

more than once, conversation drifts to the nara clan, and sakura finds herself being oddly jealous.

(it's ridiculous. she shouldn't be jealous. what is there to be jealous of? she likes shikamaru. she'll be happy for him, if that's how this all ends. but she does wonder if temari's ever brought him strawberries.)

they both have their duties — and as one of the village's elite jōnin, temari sometimes seems to blow in with the breeze and vanish just as quickly, here and there and gone on missions in an uncertain pattern that's comforting in its familiarity.

one day, she returns with an injury.

nothing serious, kankurō tells her, although there's a tightness to the corners of his eyes that belies his worry. sorry, could you take a look? he's fetched her at the end of one of her classes, when she is messy and sweating and missing the cool fall evenings in konoha, and off they go.

temari's quarters are plainer than hers, which surprises her (but, she supposes it shouldn't) and kankurō excuses himself to tend to other business, leaving her alone to clear her throat as she enters the room. she should probably be flattered he trusts her enough to leave her alone with his sister. ）

Ah — Temari-san? Kankuro-san said you could use a medic.