Rust

by bmouse

Summary:

Karura has no bedside manner to speak of, tries anyway.

When he wakes up in the hospital his wife is folded into an alcove in the wall, fiddling with his ID token.

"They got your hair color wrong."

"It's brown."

It's better to just talk when she gets like this.

"No" she snorts. "You just need to stop standing next to Sasori in the official pictures."

He flexes his hand underneath the blanket, good as new. He almost doesn't remember what they broke.

"But it makes me feel so much taller."

He smiles faintly as he says it, split lip pulling a little and that is proper as well, good medics don't waste chakra on superficial things.

Karura stands. Walks across the room. Strokes his filthy hair.

"I'm having it changed." she says in an even tone. "In the official records; 'brown' to 'red' so you..." her fingers tighten "...will just have to stay here and out of the mission lists until they sort that out."

Notes:

Yeah it's funny, I am a little fascinated with the /other/ Yondaime. People tend to write him as this spectacularly evil bastard but Karura doesn't seem like the type to put up with that (considering their no-nonsense kids) and I always thought they must have been happy at some point, maybe before he became a Kage and the stress of trying to hold together a declining Village snapped him like a twig.