Naruto 1. The Story of an Umbrella

She remembered that day all too well

She remembered that day all too well. There are moments where you believe that if you just don't think of it, the memory will eventually soundlessly fade away, and give you the bliss of not remembering. However, this was not the case. Sakura couldn't stop thinking about it.

She would lie awake every night, thinking about it, trying to figure out what it meant. Eventually her head would ache, and she would want to drink some water. She would go down the stairs, pass the phone, go back, look at it a long time, thinking about the number she could say in her sleep by then, and then pass it again. It wasn't going to change, even if she knew she wouldn't make the call she would want to.

Then all of a sudden the idea of just dragging on a warm coat and running to his house would overwhelm her, and she would already have opened the door when she slammed it again and proclaimed herself silly.

She would stamp into the kitchen, going over the memory for the millionth time, seat herself in the sofa and then eventually—when she sighed and her mind had worked furiously all for nothing—fall asleep.

_She had just left the hospital after another day of work. It was cold outside and she dragged the coat closer around her small body, her hands__ went cold and useless from trying to zip the unzippable zipper. The warm colorful autumn had gone over to a grey cold winter, and she soon would have to fix it. _

_She assume__d from the look of the dark-grey clouds it would surely be raining soon and she wanted to be home with a nice cup of coffee before it started._

_She began her walk towards her new apartment, silently celebrating (once again) the feeling of being a__lonely apartment-owner. Her mother had kept her home as long as she could, but by then Sakura had finally managed to persuade her parents to let her move out. So she did._

_It was a small apartment, with hardly any furniture__. (for the hundredth time she promised herself to buy something, something that wasn't a silly new frame for their team-seven picture('s) like the ones she had begun buying each month for no reason at all. A sofa maybe...) _

_The small's' had been added on the picture some months ago when Naruto had finally achieved his goal to buy a camera, and then had totally overused it. Taken pictures of everything, everyday, every moment. They had all been so annoyed that Kakashi finally managed to destroy the miracle-mashine one day, of course it had been an 'accident'. _

_It was a fine home nonetheless. And every home became cosy with a cup of tea and a cookie. Maybe she would call someone, maybe Ino. Probably not. _

_Going through all the people she knew in her head she realized she didn't have a cosy-person. She had people to talk with, friends most people would say, friends to train with, friends to get out her aggressions on (mostly referring to Naruto) and girls to go shopping with, but she didn't have a cosy-person. Maybe because no one ever had such a ridiculous idea as being a cosy-friend, it was only she who could think of such a thing. Or maybe the really did exist, and she wasn't granted one. Maybe she was just thinking too much about those incredibly uninteresting and inconsequential questions of her weird world. She would have to stop._

_She had actually never thought about it, but she wanted a person to snuggle up with, a person to talk on the phone with for hours, buy a chocolate bar and dip in tea with while the rain was smashing down outside the window._

_She supposed ninjas just weren't those type of people._

_She really liked the idea of a sofa __though, a red one. It would not be one of the cosy ones, those where you sank in and felt like sleeping in. A red, hard, sitting-sofa. Sakura didn't like sofas much and thought it was just an excuse for sitting in a bed in the middle of the day, not to mention sleeping in the middle of the day. It was just too Shikamaru-like._

_So it had to be an impersonal, uncomfortable red sofa._

_Somehow she had managed to go further than she wanted, because she couldn't recognize that part of the city. Without thinking about it much she turned around and went back the way she had come from, which eventually turned out to be another direction. She considered her possibilities for a long time, seating herself on a bench under a tree on the side of the road; she was looking through the houses and their numbers and name-signs when she recognized one._

_**Kakashi Hatake.**_

_She smiled. At least she knew someone in this part of the city. She hadn't even thought about where Kakashi lived at all, but logically he had to live somewhere._

_Tsunade had made the new deal that every ninja would have signs with their names and rank on their doors. It made it a lot easier to send the ninjas an urgent message, the messengers wouldn't have to have an address-list with them and they wouldn't have to search for house-numbers and so on. Though of course Naruto had pulled his sign off, exclaiming that if someone needed him they could at least know where he lived. "AND REMEMBER IT! BRATS!"_

_She was rather exited to go knock on her former sensei's door; she hadn't seen him in a long time, there had just been so much to do at the hospital, it seemed like every normal man was sick with floo, and at least 3 of 4 insisted that it was serious and they would have to stay in the hospital._

_She missed her team though. It had been a long time since they had been on a mission together, Naruto and Sasuke had their own things, Kakashi had a new group of __ninjas from the school. (and they hadn't failed their test, yet)_

_But all in all team 7 didn't talk to each other much anymore. Kakashi didn't anyway, but she didn't even know if they were continuing their missions or if they would travel like they had said._

_They really needed to have lunch together someday, and if they wanted to have Kakashi there they should probably tell him they would gather two hours earlier. Last time he had arrived when they were done eating. Lunch had actually turned into quite a tradition since everyone a hoped Kakashi would drag down his mask and eat something, their plan hadn't worked yet though._

_First, no one answered the door, and Sakura was about to step away and try to find her apartment on her own when the door was suddenly ripped open. There was no one, but she heard steps tumbling out of the hall and further into the apartment. There was loud music as well, and it sounded like a whole bunch of elephants were dancing in the living room. Sakura peeked her head in curiously. _

_Kakashi sensei was having a party._

_She couldn't believe it. A party! Her old sensei!_

_Sakura__ couldn't help but laugh. Not sure whether to enter or not, she finally stepped into the apartment and closed the door silently after her. She found a whole bunch of jonins and chunins in the living room, some dancing, some laughing, and talking. She made her way through the people and got into the less-filled kitchen._

_It was there she saw him. It was weird though, typical but weird. The two of them were all alone on the kitchen, Kakashi hadn't even noticed her, but was sitting with his precious little perverted book wide open, gashing into it greedily._

_While all the others ar__e having the time of their life, she thought sarcastically._

"_Umm…" She eventually tried getting his attention, but he didn't seem to notice._

"_Kakashi?" He looked up with a lost expression. A very typical, lost expression, that was just about saying: where exactly__am I?_

_She smiled. He just looked at her for a few minutes before eventually realize she was actually there. And not just a fragment of his, surely perverted imagination, from reading too much Icha-Icha Paradise._

"_Sakura!" He smiled beneath his mask and his eyes crinkled in that special way that let anyone see the only way to detect a smile on Kakashi's up-covered face. He then seemed to consider a thing for some time. "How do you know where I live?"_

_She smiled, flushing slightly, trying to talk over the music. "Umm… that's why; I don't even know where I live."_

_He furrowed his brow in thought. "You are suffering under… memory loss?"_

_She couldn't help but giggle. "No," she said between giggles, Kakashi just looked confused. "I am not." He seemed to be rather relieved. "I'm just lost. I didn't recall this part of the city and saw the sign on the door…"_

"_I'll help," he answered __**gladly**__, "I'll just go… Tell Genma…" He quickly got up and placed the book carefully on the table. Considering a moment, he took it again and laid it back in the pocket he always had it in. "Sit." He nodded towards the sofa and Sakura reluctantly sat down while he disappeared into the crowd in the living-room._

_Of course it was one of the typical bed-like sofas. Could she expect anything else from Kakashi?_

_But it smelled lovely of the silver-haired jonin and Sakura just leaned back and drowned in the cosy smell a moment._

"_Sakura?" He had appeared again and waited for her in the doorway._

"_Ready to go." Without waiting for her to answer he headed for the living-room, making his way through the dancing people, Sakura quickly followed and only barely got out without being squeezed between the people. There certainly wasn't much space in his apartment. Not the ideal spot for throwing a party._

_When they finally pressed themselves out, after having been held inside for some time by a drunken Genma blocking the door, proclaiming that they surely didn't want to go__and that it was cold and raining outside. Genma hadn't even given in for a persuasive Kakashi, who told him first to let them pass, then to bugger off. Luckily for them some girl came and began snogging Genma, Sakura looked the other way, not really wanting to see her teacher's friend sucking the brain out of someone._

_The both breathed in the fresh air with relief when they got out._

"_Why are you…" Sakura trailed off, but Kakashi seemed to get it, rubbing the back of his head as he always did in blush-moments._

"_Genma's idea. I don't really like… parties." He took a red umbrella that was hanging on the door-knob of the apartment opposite his own, explaining he was only borrowing it._

_Sakura smiled at the thought of the enthusiastic Genma dragging a horde of people into the unwilling Kakashi's apartment. She could clearly imagine them arguing at the door._

"_So, shall we?"__He held out the umbrella for her and both, a bit embarrassed, shared it through the rain. Sakura actually didn't mind getting wet instead; rain in Konoha at spring was always warm, and she used to welcome the feeling as she walked through it when it was raining after work. Maybe it was also because of the fact that her new apartment, even though it was great, was still expensive, and she didn't have money for everything. That included a new umbrella._

She didn't actually remember much of their conversation on the way to her apartment,not because they talked much. Sakura didn't know what to say, and Kakashi wasn't really the chatting-type, but she remembered when she realized for the first time there was something wrong.

"_How do you even know the way to my apartment this well?" she chuckled. It had been more like a laughing-question, not one that she actually thought there was an answer on._

"_Well." He rubbed the back of his head again, ruffling his grey hair so it lay even weirder. It was a freakish hair-color too, just like her annoyingly pink hair, she thought. He wouldn't have to worry of becoming grey-haired at least._

"_I've walked it off several times."_

_Several times?_

"_What do you mean walked it off?" she laughed._

"_Well," He seemed rather embarrassed. "You know."_

"_No I don't, enlighten me?"_

_He chuckled embarrassed. "Umm," he started. "I kinda…"__He turned quiet for a while and stopped walking, Sakura stopped too and looked curiously at him.__"I kinda have to go this way to get to my own you know." At least that wasn't true, he didn't work in the hospital and a supermarket or anything else needed was in the totally different direction, so he did not go this way for necessities._

_He suddenly moved a bit closer under the umbrella. She could feel his body-warmth through the fabric and his soft breath in her hair just over her forehead. It was the first time she noticed that she was quiet short, compared to him at least; the top of her pink hair only just reached his jaw-line. Of course she knew that she had been short as a kid too, but she had thought that at some point she would be as grown up as him, at least._

_His voice felt raspy and raw when he spoke again, like it hadn't been used for days._

"_I should be going." He suddenly seemed to change whatever he had had in mind and took a step back so his shoulder peeked out into the pouring rain._

"_Sakura you should…" He trailed off when their eyes locked. Sakura's emerald ones were wide in question, shining with curiosity._

"_Get inside," he finished, his voice not more than a mumble._

_She nodded her head slowly, while Kakashi took one more step back out into the rain._

_Water poured over his hair instantly and made the tips that used to stand so characteristically straight up hang down into his face instead. The rain also poured down the tip of his nose; it made him look funny, wet, lost and totally silly. Most of all she wanted to invite him in for tea, or something less grandmother-like, but the strange situation couldn't allow it._

_Even slower, looking back over her shoulder questiongly, unsure about what all that had been about, she took a few steps out in the rain and up the stairs, dwelling on the third._

_Then, before she really understood what happened a hand took hold of her wrist and swirled her around, he was there, just below her. The stair made them become about the same high, and taking away her breath he kissed her quickly, softly, though she believed she had tasted a slight hint of alcohol in it, enough to make her feel bad afterwards._

_A thousand thoughts shot through her head in that split-second, but even if it was all confusing, there was a part of her deep inside, in the darkest corner of her confused mind, that wanted it to last longer. Not forever, but just slightly longer. She had wanted to wrap her arms around his warm neck, but it still was her ex-teacher for God's sake!_

It hade been an annoyingly small and innocent kiss, such a one that Sakura would lay awake night after night, trying to understand its meaning.

_Then he turned around quickly, without a single explanation, walked a few long steps, and disappeared as he used to. The memory about the time they had tried to follow him and get to see what was under his mask brought a small smile to her lips. When he had disappeared that way all the time, which always made her remember how great a ninja he was._

_Sakura stood there staring out into the air. She could still feel his hair tingle on her forehead, and the smell of Kakashi around it. He had had his mask down and she hadnt noticed his face, not even looked at it. She had been so surprised she had missed the chance of a lifetime.  
_

_After a while she raised her hand to touch her lips where his kiss still felt warm, as if to confirm he had really kissed her. She couldn't believe it. A really real kiss. From Kakashi._

_A blush as pink as her hair shot over her cheeks and a fluttering feeling crawled up her spine. She knew somehow it wasn't only embarrassment._

_The rain suddenly felt much colder._

_And he had even forgotten his 'borrowed' umbrella._


	2. Of Winters and Ways to Tell the Truth

Sakura was happy

Sakura was happy.

She had been in a great mood for days; everything seemed to be going the way it should.

She had done all her boring paperwork and was now just sitting and whistling along to that song that had been on radio all week. The cold winter-sun was shining beautifully through the leafless trees outside her hospital window, and even thought she missed the summer, winter wasn't all that bad. Konoha was beautiful in the winter, some years the snow fell several meters high, some years not at all. But the air was always cold and everything seemed to be covered with a thin veil that was glittering back at the cold, warmthless sun.

Also, it was a great time to clear one's head, let all the thoughts take the room they needed, and make some space in a mind that had suffered under the summer's clutter and stress. That was what the winter-sky was for. The air was so free and high above the head that every thought could have space, so the places between each of them could get fresh air after a long year. It was then Sakura could take a new perspective on life, and change the old stuff that had been going round in circles.

It was at that time she could see herself from the outside and wonder who she was, instead of _'who am I?'_

Sakura liked winter. She could get wrapped up in work, without being wornout, and manage to better her treatment and knowledge without feeling drawn up in a corner. Once in a while she got the feeling she was actually a good person, saving lives every day, instead of taking them, like most ninjas on their missions. That was how a medic should be feeling: they were the building power in society, the source of life and living, and the world needed more of them. They were just supposed to feel great and good when saving someone, instead of being blamed and feeling guilty for weeks like they always did when someone died in their hands.

In that moment she was feeling completely utterly happy about being herself, and a good person. No, it was not just because she had luckily saved a man who had been injured so badly that he had almost died just a few seconds before, and it was not just because it was a beautiful winter day. And Sakura did really like winters. The year needed more of them.

Secretly she knew why she was in such a good mood, though it wasn't like she would ever admit it to herself.

Kakashi was coming back from his long mission tomorrow. He had been gone for three months. Three long months… three horribly impatient months, where Sakura could not sleep well or think well, and felt like she was always walking on tiptoes.

What would happen when they met again? Would they pretend that nothing ever happened? _Did anything ever happen?_ Would he remember? Would she have the courage to ask?

She didn't want to give herself time to fantasize, she would begin imagine things, like the idea that 'love' could be involved.

She sat back in her chair. Her shift was ending in about 2 hours and she would go straight home. She wanted to go to Tsunade and ask when exactly Kakashi would return, but Sakura was afraid she would suspect something.

_What was there to find out? She was just a normal girl wanting to greet her teacher when he returned from a long mission. Wasn't she?_

No, it didn't sound normal. And she had thought of a thousand ways till now, thought she hadn't found a good one yet. One that wouldn't sound like she was in love with him.

Which, by the way, she was not.

When the clock reached 6 p.m. she began packing up her things and headed for the door, out onto the street. The lights had begun to be turned on, and the darkening area was lit mildly.

Winter was also so great because the light changed from one time to the other, from light to completely dark on just a few hours. Sakura definitely liked winter.

She still hadn't fixed her zipper, and she just hugged her books a little tighter, which didn't warm much. They were medic journals, which she had intended to read when she got home so she could get wrapped up in the feeling of actually doing something to save lives.

She wouldn't though, she knew that after a 10 hour shift like this one she would open them and then, defeated and completely exhausted, sink into her own dream-world where medic-journals and hospitals didn't exist.

Oh, she had forgotten. There was one thing about winter she didn't feel comfortable with.

It was not that she didn't like it; the little fluff-love part of her brain honestly adored it. But Sakura just dreamed so much better in winter than she did in summer. Every night since… well… _**that**_ day she had been drowning in sweet dreams, at least the days she didn't suffer from sleeplessness, involving silver hair and several engagement rings.

She knew she was being silly. No one had to tell her. It was simply the way her brain worked— one drunken unintentional kiss, and suddenly she was a lost soul.

She wasn't really in love with him.

She wasn't, seriously.

_Maybe just a tiny bit_.

Not even that.

No. She wasn't. It had just been one stupid kiss.

Not even a kiss, a peck. A tiny innocent peck.

She was so doomed.

Sakura sighed. It was all so terribly complicated. Nothing could ever happen between them, he was not in love with her and she would just have to feel the same. _That she was not in love with Kakashi Hatake. And would never be. He was only a good friend and an... ex-teacher to her._

She brushed away some strands of pink hair that had fallen over her eyes with an unsteady hand. A painful thought had suddenly laid itself deep onto her heart, pressing on the cry-button.

_What if there would never be more than this to it?_

_What if this was just the way it would be? _Her crush would eventually pass, and they would never, ever, get that close to each other again? They would just ignore it and then that would be the end of the story. Nothing more to the fairytale.

She couldn't let that happen, could she? What happened to 'seize the day' and 'you are a girl who knows what she wants and gets it, Sakura' ?

She sighed in defeat.

She would have to go past the Hokage building anyway. It couldn't hurt to ask Tsunade about when exactly tomorrow.

Sakura sat down on the chair with a puzzled expression. But the Hokage just stayed quiet for a while. Tsunade didn't like giving bad news, especially not to her favourite apprentice.

She quickly found the spot where her sake bottle stood and turned around to take a swig.

Feeling a bit easier now she turned around to face Sakura again. The girl was the closest she had to a daughter, and Tsunade loved her. It was always harder to make another person sad when the person was close to you.

She sighed, then leaned her elbows on the desk, with a clean, emotion-free expression, like the ones she would put on when giving a patient bad news. Maybe she just didn't like bad news in general. Probably.

_When do the jonins return tomorrow? _There was no doubt she had meant Kakashi and the others, but this was a question Tsunade had been fearing, and trying to produce an answer for two weeks. She needed a good way to tell her, but that was the only thing she just didn't have. Or know.

"Sakura, there have been complications on the Suna-mission." The pink haired kunoichi seemed the more puzzled, furrowing her brow thoughtfully._'What do you mean?'_ she could already hear Sakura ask. That hadn't been the way to tell her, she was just trying to avoid it now. Tsunade mentally slapped herself. She was the Hokage, one of the most powerful women of the world, she could just snap her fingers to kill someone, she shouldn't have to avoid _anything._

At least not her own apprentice.

"Complications?" Sakura asked, a bit frightened. "What do you mean Shishou?"

Tsunade knew she would have to tell her eventually. That the mission had failed, and everything else— even though it would break the girl, and even though Tsunade didn't want to.

The Suna mission she had assigned the jonin-team for was of great importance, and therefore she had gathered the best of the ninjas on a team, including Kakashi, the copy-nin.

It had been an advanced group, and Tsunade still didn't know what exactly went wrong.

The mission had been to travel to Suna with an important person, a person that could stop wars, save lives; a person even Tsunade hadn't been trusted to know the name of.

The group had gotten there without problems, but then when they were to travel through the desert the connection to them had been cut off.

She hadn't heard from them in days when a quick-bird arrived with a shocking message: two of the jonins had been found, cut open in a vulgar way just outside the gates of Suna.

It had been a threat that war would soon begin, presumably between folk from the deserts and Suna. But what Tsunade didn't understand was why Konoha's men had died for Suna.

She had quickly send out troops after the, surely, captured team, but received them back, dead and cut open outside Konoha's walls.

Tsunade had been shocked. _Who were their enemies?_ When she again tried to find them with another team, they had detected the enemies' base, only to find it empty except for the dead, tortured bodies of her best jonins. Strangely, not including Kakashi. And not including the person the mission had been designed to protect either.

It gave Tsunade a headache.

"There were… losses…" she mumbled, not even noticing how fear crept up upon the girls face. Tsunade's mind was straying in the happenings one month ago.

_They hadn't heard from Kakashi or anyone in one month, and Tsunade was afraid they had lost them both. But she refused to give up. The person they had been assigned to protect was of greater importance, and if he died, Konoha would surely end up at war with someone. The most confusing thing was that they didn't know who was against them._

_Suna seemed to be in the same situation as them. Several of their ninjas had been killed since the 'Konoha Incident', as they called it, when half of her Team had been found dead outside their gates. She had hoped that they somehow had a sign, how they had been killed, maybe something that could lead them to the killer or the place. But the abduction had been without success._

"_Why do ninjas have to be so bloody fastidious about covering up after themselves?"_

_She wondered out loud in the empty office._

_So what she did was send out special ANBU troops to find Kakashi, without much luck, just a few blooddrops and a kunai a bit west from Konoha._

_But that only gave them Suna as the enemy. And they weren't._

_Her other ANBU squad of about 10 men hadn't come back yet, but she had sent them out some weeks ago and they should be returning soon, hopefully with good news._

"_Tsunade. I think you should see this." Shizune had peeked her head around the door, motioning for Tsunade to follow her._

"Sakura." Tsunade leaned back in her chair, trying to find the words she knew were far too hard to say to the girl.

_Shizune made her way through the endless corridors of the Hokage building, she took one underground that would bring them to an outpost in the North forests outside Konoha._

_Tsunade didn't question her. She had great faith in Shizune, always had._

_When they got out in the fresh air again, coming up from the underground corridor in the outpost building, several ninjas had gathered up, and the little clearing with the outpost building was secured by some ANBU's._

_Tsunade looked around some minutes at the people that had arrived without her order._

_She realized something was wrong. There was a big hole someone had dug up in the middle of the clearing and some of the men were carrying up bodies form it._

_Tsunade covered her mouth with her hand in shock when she stepped closer._

"Kakashi Hatake was found dead along with some from his team and 10 ANBU soldiers I send out to find him." She didn't see the shock fill the girl's widening eyes.

"It was a month ago," she stated. "Before you ask, I didn't tell you because I do not need to. It is not your business." Tsunade knew Sakura would realise that she only snapped at her because she felt stupid. A tear began to form in the corner of the girl's eye though, and she wiped it away angrily.

"Funeral is thursday," Tsunade continued in her cold tone. "It was a mission failure, and that is what happens."

They both turned silent. Then after a while Sakura spoke with an impressively calm and controlled voice: "So Kakashi-sensei is really dead, is he?"

"I'm sorry Sakura," Tsunade replied slowly, sighing and snapping a bit out of her hard form.

"There is nothing we can possibly do. He was killed together with all the others, and no, we will not be able to find his murderer. I know you were all close to your teachers, but ninjas are always prepared to die. That is what comes with our job." She sighed again when she realized she had no more explanations for the girl.

"Go to the funeral Sakura, you will find you can think of so many more answers then than I can give you. Tell your friends not to come to me."

Sakura was furious at her, she would be for a long time, but Tsunade knew that she only wanted to bury herself in her apartment and cry, and Tsunade couldn't stop her. She really was worried about Sakura, but there was not much she could do. With no more to say she turned back to arranging her papers.

She heard the pink haired ninja slamming the door after her in rage.

The days up to the funeral were the most lonesome she had ever witnessed. But she hadn't cried yet, she didn't intend to.

It felt strange, like a little piece of her soul was gone; dreamless nights and hollow days began counting down to Kakashis' funeral. She hadn't seen Sasuke since… well she didn't remember, but not since Tsunade had told her about Kakashi.

She had spoken with Tsunade several times, asking her about the mission every time, but Tsunade didn't tell her anything more—just that the mission had failed, and that several other jounins had been killed.

_He had been gone for months, why hadn't anyone sent someone out for them?_

Sakura had seen Naruto through his window one night when she was restless, intending to throw a rock at it to make him follow for a late walk, to talk about Kakashi…but she didn't when she saw he was sitting all silent, staring at a picture.

_Their picture,_ she thought sadly. He surely did it every night just like herself, he with a bowl of ramen of course, but still.

She knew Sasuke wasn't as emotionless as he seemed to be either. Team Seven had lost their teacher, but it was so much more than a teacher that was lost. It was their friend, and their team Kakashi.

On the way home Sakura just stared at the place where they would be buried tomorrow, the Memorial-stone where Kakashi had once held their training and their first survival test. She smiled when she remembered how they had totally miscalculated the situation and fought one by one when all it had been about was teamwork. It felt like centuries ago, they had all been so naïve and childish back then.

'_And stupid,'_ Inner Sakura added.

She still remembered how Naruto had been a jerk (hadn't he always?) and shouted that he also wanted to be a hero, that his name would also be written on that stone.

"_Yeah, but these heroes are of another kind, they're the ones that died in service."_

Sakura felt her throat stick; Kakashi's name would be there too now.

Without really being bothered by the cold rain, Sakura stopped and just looked at it for what felt like for hours. She seemed to not look at anything particular at all; her eyes strayed long within the woods into nothingness.

She had never felt someone so close just… die.

When they had been altogether the last time they had had ramen and had talked about the future. Kakashi hadn't really spoken, but Naruto on the other hand couldn't be shut up with his_: "I'm going to be a Hokage!"_ No. Naruto hadn't changed one bit. He was still as young and naïve and childish as he had been the first day. _'And stupid,' _Inner Sakura added.

Team Kakashi had not changed much either, though. She herself had grown up and Sasuke had become much more relaxed, not much happier though, since he had his revenge, much more hollow, like he really didn't have anything more to live for. He had wanted to leave for a long mission, but Tsunade hadn't allowed him yet, Sakura was sure she would after the funeral though. They all would need a bit of off-time.

She wasn't sure what had really happened when he had faced his brother, they didn't like to talk about it, but somehow Sasuke had killed him, and then found out he had been good all the way through. He had sure changed a lot since.

But Kakashi hadn't changed. He had still read his famous little 'perv' book, and liked to express himself not through words, but things like a smile: mostly, she suspected, because it couldn't be seen anyway as his entire face was covered up. It was ironical, funny, and stupid, it didn't make any sense at all, and it was Kakashi Hatake.

So no. Team Kakashi was, she corrected herself, _is_ still the best team, and every member of it would always remember it as the best team of their life.

'_Come on get over it Barbie.'_

But she hadn't realized that the ramen would be the last time they would ever meet Kakashi again. A ninja had to be prepared to meet death every day, but she had never really been a ninja, she had never been prepared to take the consequences a ninja should. Maybe it was because she had only wanted to be one because Sasuke wanted to, back then. But after falling out of her stupid girl-crush she realized it didn't make any sense why she was one.

It wasn't because she regretted it, but surely every other job would have been just as good. She was happy to work in the hospital though.

Sakura began to feel the cold, pouring rain. _Just like that day…_

Now she would never know of course, why he had kissed her and all. Maybe it was best that way.

Most people said it was better to meet friends and then have them die than not to meet them at all… no wait, that was about love: _It's better to love and lose than never to have_… Anyway. It didn't feel that way right now, and maybe when she grew old and sat in her chair with her grandchildren (surely produced by marrying a man she never loved, but was only a close friend to her) buggering around, and she thought about her childhood and her friends, she would think it was a good thing to have met Kakashi… It brought her further in life and whatever old women would think.

But it just didn't right now.

Without looking back she walked straight to her apartment, turned off the phone, turned on the TV in the living room completely without reason, just to hear life in her empty apartment. She slammed the door after her to her bedroom and buried herself, sobbing, in her blankets.

Maybe she had been in love with him after all.


	3. Brownish Sofas

Sakura stood and simply looked at it for a moment

Sakura stood and simply looked at it for a moment. Sure, it was the most old and ugly piece furniture she had ever seen, but it looked exactly like the day she had first seen it. Slowly and carefully, as though afraid of destroying the atmosphere around it, she sat down and just let herself sink back into it and take a deep breath, taking in the wonderful scent.

_Yes. This is it_, she thought with a big clutch of sorrow inside. _This is as close as it gets._

She had placed it in her living-room, which was practically the same room as her kitchen, only parted with half a wall. In the most eye-catching spot, just beneath the bigger window with the low coffee table which she always hit her leg on in front of it.

She wasn't sure if she was allowed to do something like that, but obviously she didn't care.

When she had seen the undefined-brownish sofa from Kakashi's apartment again, it was just outside his block. Someone had been moving out his furniture and left the sofa unguarded on the street. That was one thing they should not have done and Sakura had seen her chance.She had gotten Shikamaru to help her moving it, not because he was the best helper one could get, and definitely not because he was easily persuaded, but he was too lazy to bother telling anyone that she was stealing her old sensei's sofa, which would be considered strange by a lot of people. Which was why she hadn't asked Ino. If she had, they would know it in Suna by now.

She closed her eyes and massaged her temples—one of the new little annoying things she had begun doing lately—and before she knew it she was back in another dream involving silvered hair.

It had always been completely dark before sunrise in Konoha. Today however, the sky was dark grey, and she could see the last morning stars. Sakura cuddled into her pillows again. She had made the center of her little home the sofa, where she slept, ate, and wrote her reports.

To Sakura's dismay it had begun smelling more like her than Kakashi, although that was only to be expected seeing as she practically camped there.

She had been zapping through the channels like a dozen times and eaten like a dozen pizzas, and the boxes were all stacked on each other on the coffee table. Except of one, which she had taped to the corner of the table, as a protection for her leg which had gotten so many blue marks she couldn't count them anymore.

She hadn't slept much since the day Tsunade told her about Kakashi.

She hadn't talked with Tsunade since, either. Or anyone else for that matter.

She couldn't keep doing that. At some point it had to end. It was not like they had been married or anything. Maybe she should come to grips with it, and get over herself.

Other people went through much worse things without getting themselves killed, and there was no reason why she was being so silly about such a small thing.

Mrs. Pentre on the floor above her had her husband die last month, for example. Her kids had left her about a year ago, and then her cat died yesterday.

How did Sakura know that? She had met her in the stairs. Mrs. Pentre wasn't sleeping either.

Sakura stared up at the ceiling, tired of watching bad videos and macabre documentaries.

She hadn't been eating pizza for a while either. She silently counted the days on her fingers. _Four days._

Training was a great deal easier however. When she trained she could forget the world around her and just concentrate on her own heartbeat and the rush of adrenalin. Sakura sighed. She had been training a lot.

The funeral had been great. She didn't go.

She didn't know why, it just didn't feel like it wasn't necessary. She had taken her umbrella out for a walk instead, and held her own memorial, in her own way.

Maybe she should have been there, it was expected of her, and if she had, then maybe she wouldn't have kept on wasting the days like she did. Maybe she could have gone on like nothing happened.

She left the house with some coffee at 5 a.m. ready to take the night-shift from a very tired Akari, the enormous disaster of a nurse who always left the hospital upside down, which was why Sakura got the shift after her. After checking the pulse on several patients, she made herself comfortable with a coffee in the small hospital-office.

She had gone on like that many nights. Since Kakashi's death she had begun only taking the night-watches, and staying in bed all day. Somehow she felt it wouldn't do any good to go out. It was not just because Kakashi had died. It was also because of the fact that ninjas were on life-endangering missions almost every day, and if everyone died anyway it didn't make sense to try meet new people. She knew it was a silly reason.

Hopefully she would get over the crisis—it sure felt like a real crisis, like the ones that were serious. She had always thought people over-exaggerated crises, but now… it was pathetic that she would rather not meet anyone mortal, who could die at any time, than to enjoy spending time with them in the spare time they _were _there for her.

Ino had already hit her for it several times.

"_Get on that stupid red dress of yours and get your cute ass out partying tonight!"_

Of course she had somehow managed to follow Ino's advice, get insanely drunk and snog both some innocent "_older-than-her-(_**"Stupid-**drunk-**forehead!"**_)-jonin"_, _and_ an innocent Shikamaru, who she pulled away from his chess-game—he only struggling weakly and framing himself when he added _"how troublesome,"_ as Ino slapped him.

"_Innocent little Sakura! You're a bloody fucking idiot to take advantage of her state! I'm not going to forget this. Ever. And I'm not done with you yet, damn jerk!" _and a lot of other things Sakura did not recall because she chose that particular time to throw up the cherry cocktails instead (the expensive ones). All on one night.

Ino had then finally dragged her home, leaving her on her bed with a: _"I'll come get you again when you are less stupid. Till then, stay in your bed and answer your goddamn phone!"_ She had then pulled it from its place on the wall and thrown the thing at him.

Sakura sighed. That was what she had done the last month. Staying in bed, sometimes meditating, training sometimes at night too, feeling sorry for herself while sipping her tea and _not_ answering her phone. She tried to ignore the little innocent _'not'_, even if she did think she wouldn't be able to ignore it anymore when Ino came banging on her door, which she would definitely be doing someday soon.

Even her family, who hadn't called her once since she moved out, had begun leaving her weird messages.

**Sakuras' answer-machine:** _(A couple of days ago. Probably filled up since last checked.)_

"Hey Sakura-Chan. I just got a little worried; we all are, in fact, so call me. Us. Umm. Come eat some ramen, I'll drop by tomorrow yeah? Go Sakura-Chan!" _Beep._

"Hey again. Just forgot, it was me, Naruto you know." _Beep._

"Me again. Shikamaru's not angry you know…" There was a bit of laughing from Ino, Choji and Shikamaru in the back of the room "… Ino-pig isn't either." He lowered his voice to a whisper._ "She just pretends to be because she's in love with Shika."_ Slaps were heard in the background. _Beep._

"Hey Honey! It's your birthday soon! So call us! Your dad and I planned a surprise party! Isn't that exiting? _('Great you remember to inform the one that should be surprised'_) Just call us Sweetie." _Beep._

Sometimes she was really embarrassed by her mother, even when no one else was around. It was like a constant reminder that she had been her cute, little, totally humiliated Sakura once. All mothers were probably like that.

Silence. "Hey Sakura… Naruto told me to call." There was a pause again, where Sasuke probably considered saying something more. But he didn't. "Don't call me back." He then signed of. _Beep._

_When even Sasuke was worried she should probably call somebody_, she thought to herself. Then she lay back on her bed, snuggling into the blankets and going over her memories with Kakashi again. _Or not._


	4. My Own Little Breakdown

"So here we are again

"_So here we are again."_

_She swirled around, her pink strands flying around her face, trying to spot where the voice came from. She looked up when she noticed she was holding an umbrella. And a minute later she could also hear the rain drumming in a silent, distant rhythm outside the reach of the red fabric._

_She looked around. Yeah, there they indeed were again, just on the first step to her apartment block, the autumn filling the grey air around them with its mystical scents._

_She looked at him with her wide frightened eyes, standing out in the rain, all wet._

"_Why didn't I invite you in?" she asked with a thin voice. He just chuckled in reply._

"_I guess you just didn't think you could, Saku." She didn't look down and blush like she knew she would have if it had been reality._

_The rain drummed down on the street outside her dry umbrella's reach._

_She stopped breathing for a second and dropped the umbrella so it softly rolled down the step. Without warning she threw herself in his arms. He was wet and warm, and smelled wonderful. She just held on tightly, pressing her eyes together to keep the tears from her cheeks and press the pain down deeper inside._

"_I miss you," she mumbled into his neck. He chuckled slightly again._

"_No, you miss the __**thought**__ of me. Remember your self-to-self arguments?"_

"_No," She couldn't help but smile that he knew such a thing. "No. I miss you, I really do. I just keep going like you aren't dead yet but you are, and I miss you so much I can feel it in my tip-toes." They both looked at each other, sharing another of those moments like the one time he had woken up when she was healing him on a mission, he had just looked up saying: "Oh my God I know now why sick ones sleep that much." While trying to stay conscious and not to faint by the look of all the blood. _

_His smile let her know he was thinking about something similar._

_She blushed and looked down, __his smiles did that to her. But he just lifted her face up again, his hand cupping her jaw._

"_Yep," he stated, giving her a smile. "Pink, just like your hair." _

She woke from lying on her desk over the paperwork. Her head was spinning weirdly from keeping such an uncomfortable position for a long time, and she stretched her arms. She had been having one of those dreams. Often, she didn't remember them when she woke up, but this one had been something else. It left her with a clear memory, and a hollow feeling inside.

Sakura stared out in the room that was now as dark as the night outside, and she tried to make her eyes get used to it so she could find the light switch. The room was cold, and Sakura had never been very happy about being in dark places either. It was a trauma from her childhood: every time someone turned of the light she would feel the panic grasp her; every time she woke up in the middle of the night she wouldn't be able to move, just stare out in the air, fearing that somehow the thing that had happened once would happen again.

Sakura sighed, she knew where the light switch was, she had been in this office almost everyday and knew it in and out. It was just beside the doorw…

It was then she saw something move in the doorway out of the corner of her eye.

Sakura stopped breathing. "Who's there?" She was almost sure she could she the shape of a man leaning on the wall. Her heartbeat quickened and she felt the fear creep up through her spine.

"Who's there?" she asked again, a bit louder, annoyed that the person didn't answer. It was surely just a patient or something, if it wasn't just her imagination

When she didn't receive an answer this time either she slowly began to stand up. Her eyes feverishly tried to trace the movement she was sure she had seen, but the doorway was only dark.

Slowly she walked towards the seemingly empty doorway, and then she heard something. It sounded almost like a breath, yes, it was, deep heavy breaths, following each other in an uneven rhythm. With a last step she was standing before the door, face to face with the person she couldn't see, and she reached for the light switch.

The lights turned on quickly, leaving no split-second for the eyes to adjust. Sakura clasped her hands before her mouth in horror when she finally realized who it was.

He just gave her a weak smile.

"Sakura."

Sakura just stared at the man in the doorway.

She just stopped and stared at him, his long, messy, silver hair, his perfect single dark eye, his face lines, his mask, covering up half of his face, his nose which you could just recognize through the black fabric. Everything.

"Go away," she then said shortly, holding back the tears that were pressing on her eyelids.

At that his legs gave in beneath him and he slid down with his back against the wall to the floor. He was hurt. And not just a bit.

He looked so real.

In pain he leaned his head back on the wall and pressed his legs against his stomach. "Sakura, come on! This hurts goddammit!" His voice suddenly sounded more powerful but faded away.

She turned away her head. She wouldn't let her own world become just like the dreams. It was too painful. Slowly she sat down on the chair beside the doorway, staring out into space. After a time she glanced up to find him still there. Troubling.

_She was imagining this. It was an i__llusion_, she kept telling herself.

She glanced up again. He was still sitting there, breathing more heavily than before. Why did her mind have to torture her? What had she done wrong?

She buried her face in her hands, feeling destroyed inside and realizing that it didn't even matter, nothing really mattered. It didn't matter that she didn't see any friends because if she didn't want to see them, then why would she need them? It didn't matter that her mom was annoying, Sakura didn't visit her anyway. It didn't matter that Tsunade was furious at her for not speaking with her, it didn't matter that her friends had a great life without her, it didn't matter that she hated Sasuke for leaving them and still hadn't apologized, and it didn't matter that she missed Kakashi because he wouldn't come back.

She glanced up again. He was still sitting there.

After a while his breathing stopped for a minute. "Just take the time you need right?" he said with the familiar voice.

_Oh my God I'm crazy._

Again she glanced up. _He wouldn't stop being there!_

She could have just cried and buried herself in her thoughts right then, but she didn't.

Instead she did something that she hadn't intended to do: stood up. Keeping her gaze directed at the man sitting with his back against the wall she slowly walked to the doorway and sat down just before him. She looked into his mismatching eyes for a second and then her inner medic took over.

She couldn't let him die again. No, it was not that she couldn't let him, she just couldn't do that to herself. It would kill her if he died right before her eyes. And if she didn't do anything it would soon be too late.

He growled and pressed his hand further into the wound to ease the pain. With a calm control of the situation that only her medic-self could get up with, without really noticing what she was doing, on autopilot, she helped the imagined Kakashi to a bed and began cleaning his wounds.

The deep wound on his stomach was, she supposed, caused by a weapon—an axe or a sword—and so deep she would have to cut some of the skin off around it to get it to heal properly. He had a bunch of kunais stuck in his left arm, seemingly having been there some days, because the wound was already healing around them. This meant she would have to cut it open to get them out at all. He had some broken ribs too and several broken fingers on his right hand, as well as leg bone fractures in more places than one. His left knee was a mess of bone and blood. It had obviously been cracked under a heavy weight, but he had tried to take of the pressure on the knee by tying a thick branch into his boot, and all the way up to the broken knee. His sharingan eye was swollen and red from overuse, and she was wondering how he had managed to stay conscious at all. And how he at all had managed to get so messed up. She had never seen anyone with so many injuries.

And that was quiet something when it came from her.

'_That could be because you're imagining it.'_

He was loosing blood fast too and she still hadn't checked his back or neck. She feared the worst—if one of the necks bones were broken, or worse still, if his nerve-system had been damaged, it would result in serious damage to his chakra chambers—but most of all she was focusing on saving his life, not saving his future as a Ninja.

Her heart beat quickly when she removed his mask, not even noticing the face which she, Naruto and Sasuke had always been so interested in. She didn't have the time if she wanted to save her imagined Kakashi's life.

To her great relief his back and neck were intact and had only small and medium bruises all over. But sadly he still had a high fever and was loosing blood too quickly. She could only hope she would be able to save him.

He was already unconscious, leaving his life in her unsure, shaking hands. She took a moment to clear her thoughts, than began gathering chakra in her palms.

_Damn you bloody jerk._


	5. When Even Your Dreams Start Hating You

First it had just been a nagging thought in the back of her head, but now she realized it didn't happen

She woke up, lying over the bed which Kakashi was lying in.

How could she have fallen asleep? She hadn't even been all done. The night had been hell, between gathering chakra for hours and healing; gathering and healing. He had been so messed up that sometimes she had sworn she wouldn't be able to heal him, then at some place she must have fallen asleep. She was a disastrous medic. Medics didn't do that, it was the absolute hardest rule in the healing-codex, it was a thing that she had never done before.

If he had died during the rest of the night it would have been her fault.

The fearful thought crept deep into her mind instantly and she sat up quickly, ignoring the pain in her head. Obviously from chakra loss.

The bed was empty, looking exactly they way it did when the last patient who had slept in it left it, except that she had rumpled the sheets. Her eyes searched frantically around in the room. As she finally realized there was no one there she ran out in the corridor, trying not to slip on the floor.

She really needed to tell the person who cleaned not to make the floor that slippy.

She flew into the office, swinging the door open, and found three nurses together with two surgeons in a meeting. She only knew a few of them; one was her shift partner form the acute end of the hospital, Erika.

They just stared at her breathless figure.

"Where is he?" Sakura shouted.

The nurses looked at her, stunned.

"What do you mean Sakura?"

"Kakashi!" she said, starting to get annoyed. He was there! He was back! She needed to find him, she needed to find him right now. "Where is he?"

The nurse furrowed her brow. "Sakura, I don't know what you mean, are you okay? If you mean Kakashi Hatake then we got a death document for him months ago, is it that you mean? Do you need it maybe?"

Sakura was just about to scream at the obviously totally stupid, ignorant nurse-doll, that she was embarrassed to be around such idiots, who don't even notice new patients, and that he had come back the night before, that he was alive, wonderfully glorious alive, that she had saved his life and he was back, that he was well and fine and… then she realized it hadn't been real.

After a while her racing heartbeat slowed in disappointment. She looked down, more than ever embarrassed by _her_ naïve and girlish mind.

First it had just been a nagging thought in the back of her head, but now she realized it didn't happen. She had been sleeping, walking in her sleep, but still sleeping. She had known it at first, that it wasn't real, but then she had given in. How could she be so stupid? She could slap herself.

She turned her head, shaking it slowly, and stared out the window where the sun had already risen and was now shining coldly out in the winter world.

"Are you sure you're okay Sakura-san?"

Slowly she shook her head, turning around and grabbing her things, which lay just inside the doorway where she had imagined him last night. It was a blood free spot, no evidence of a half-dead jonin at all. She felt her heart fall again, silently wondering how deep her body was: by now, it would be in China.

She massaged her temples and slowly walked down the corridor, damning herself over and over again. The nurses looked after her, shaking her heads in bemusement at the two surgeons.

It had been a dream. Just like all the ones she had had a hundred times before. An illusion, and she had fallen for it. She always did. Ever since she had been a child, she could be troubled by the simplest magic tricks. Her father was the furthest you could get from a magician, not to mention that he was very, very bad at the cheap simple tricks, but they had still been able to puzzle her for hours.

Which might be why she chose such an unusual job as being a ninja.

She opened the door, feeling weak and tired all of a sudden. The streets of Konoha were grey as always and it had been raining. She closed her eyes. She knew the way from the hospital to her apartment so well by now she could walk zombie-like it in her sleep if she wanted.

Once in a while she just stopped and tried to cry for a minute. She hadn't cried for a long time; since the big flood after Kakashi's death she just couldn't anymore. She wanted to cry, she really did, it was so much easier, the sorrow wouldn't cramp itself together like that dry big clutch inside when she did.

She sighed.

A crushed pink-haired kunoichi was walking lonely, slowly, through the street of Konoha when it began to rain again. She buried her face in her hands, while the rain was dripping down her pink hair, making her body go all wet and dull, completely aware that the red umbrella lay neatly in her bag.

Rain always had a cleansing effect on her.

Just not right now.

_Okay, right, I admit, I'm sorry. As much as I'd like to make him return, I just love annoying you guys, __and well, I'm sorry to say it, but wouldn't I be a bit hypochondriac if I'd make him return?_

_Although I love to annoy you, I really like to hear (read) your opinion on this, so don't let me scare you away. And anyway, stop reading this damn self-centered blast and get on with the reviewing._


	6. Yo

Sakura was fumbling with her keys. She didn't like doing that. A good friend once told her—or to put it more directly, Ino once told her—that a girl fumbling with her keys was a girl who wanted to get kissed.

"A girl who fumbles with keys, leaves a sign—listen to me and stop that Sakura. You're getting a tip from the master. A girl who wants to get kissed, lingers by the door. Shut your pretty little mouth Sakura, it doesn't matter if there is a boy beside you or not, somebody could still walk past you, like an hunky jonin from the upper etage, I had one of those once and you know he had this huugee—" (and that was where the wisdom came to an end.)

Since then she had tried to avoid it. She didn't want to be kissed: not by a stranger, not by Kakashi, not by anyone. Not now.

She mentally slapped herself and buried her heated face in her hands to clear her thoughts for a second. She didn't want to think about it. She just wanted to get into the bloody apartment and bloody go to sleep. She didn't want to fumble with keys or think that the only reason she was, was just because she wanted to get kissed. And she clearly didn't.

It also was an annoying sound.

Finally the lock clicked, freeing her from her thoughts for a split-second.

She had never been good in fights. But she had always been clever. It was her curse.

She had known for a long time why genius is often connected with madness.

She guessed she was a bit like Kakashi-sensei on that area, only he remembered things by only looking at them once with his sharingan as help.

It was almost cheating.

Sakura was about to throw her bag in the corner where she usually threw it, when her body connected with something big standing in her way. With a short "Oh" she lost balance and fell backwards. She was caught midway with a hand on the small of her back.

Then she was gently drawn up and placed on her feet again. Her scared, wide eyes stared right up into the very familiar face of a very familiar ninja.

Kakashi just gave her an eyecrinkle in what he obviously thought was a suiting answer to her shocked expression.

"Yo."

**

Sakura instantly pulled away and all the way back into the door. Her eyes were wide and she supposed she looked mad, and it didn't help that she kept mumbling, 'Oh no' and 'oh my God' over and over again.

And he just stood there, perfectly fine and alive and well and obviously a dream but anyhow still there, with his hands neatly in his pockets, in his usual lackadaisical way that made everyone believe he was as sloppy a ninja as it gets.

It was right there she couldn't stop it anymore, all she had been holding back seemed to stand on the other side of her eyelids all of a sudden. And the flood was coming, whether Noah was ready or not.

Sliding down with her back against the door she just sat there. Maybe it was the shock, maybe the sorrow, maybe her 'one-hell-of-a-crush-curse', it didn't matter, she couldn't say anything. Just sit there like some unstable lunatic, with an emoness reaching all the way up to the highs of her uncertainty, and cry.

**

There are people who sound cute when they cry, and even the red rings around their eyes and the running nose seem to fit naturally into their face and give them the kind of 'feel-sorry-for-me' look that makes a man want to kiss them. Sakura wasn't in that category.

**

When the warms hands glided onto her back in an embrace she could only welcome it. Shifting to sit on her knees she found a position where she could lay half onto Kakashi's warm chest, and still have her face buried in the drowning effect of his shoulder.

When her sobs finally turned quiet and she could only feel cold and embarrassed, they both pulled away. He gave her a small smile and wiped away a tear with his thumb.

"I'm happy to see you too Sakura."

In an attempt to laugh and cry and ask questions all at once she ended up wrapping her arms around him again. Then she straightened up, trying to tell herself she couldn't do that, and that he wasn't her private cuddle-dog. She breathed in slowly and tried to form the squirming and whirling thoughts running through her head and out again to just a few question. Anything intelligent to say at all.

"What… Would you like… tea?" He laughed at that. Wonderfully gloriously laughed, with his warm chuckle that sounded so much like it would belong to a movie-star. She only wanted to buy him some extraordinary big sunglasses and get him some bodyguards. Minimum 4.

"I do like tea Sakura, but I don't think that's what you really want to make right now. Am I right?"

He couldn't be more right, but she could only nod her head, silently glaring up at that face in adoration. She had thought she would never see it again.

"You're dead," she whispered; he only pat her head like he always used to do.

"Apparently not, but I think you might need to take that discussion somewhere else than on the floor."

"No, I think the floor's fine," she whispered back, sounding a bit like a four year old child that had just been filled with the bliss of seeing a unicorn.

So without arguing he sat down on the other side of the, luckily rather narrow, hallway, and took her hands in his. She knew he felt how the pulse quickened slightly.

"I guess I should say thanks for saving my life last night, Sakura."

She could have fainted right there.


	7. An Old Friend Returns

"This is not, like, really really real right?" She tried to concentrate on his form, just to find out if it would disappear sometime soon, her head was spinning and she wasn't sure at all if it was the newly gained happiness that was doing it or too much coffee, work and illusions.

"Well, I guess it's like really really real," he only answered, giving her a friendly push.

She still felt like in a moment she would wake up in her bed and everything would just have been a dream, like always.

"But you're dead! I was at your… Well no I wasn't, but they held your funeral!"

"And you weren't there? Well now I'm embarrassed about my students, I thought that even with all your plans on killing me you still loved me truly and devotedly deep down inside." He shook his head. "I must have been wrong." She laughed.

She couldn't believe it, she laughed. Even if just a bit, she still couldn't remember how long it had been since last time she'd even shrugged or smiled because she was happy. His eye formed that crinkle that let her know he was smiling too.

Then her face fell into seriousness.

„That was when I realized this thing," He travelled a hand through his already messed up hair, that from the look of the dried blood, dirt and dust really seemed to be needing a bath already as it was.

„I just can't, I don't know why I didn't see it earlier, I should have... Somehow I should have been able to... I..."

The space between Sakura's brows got those creases that always appeared when she was concentrating or concerned.

Kakashi remembered some days when he would lay and watch those crinkles for hours and hours of healing He liked them, not because it was the most amusing memories, mostly because from his experience it seemed to be Kakashi himself that was focus of those creases.

Not to mention focus of the healing shifts, for hours and hours.

„What do you mean Kakashi? What happened?" He didn't even notice the missing title. He sighed, not really feeling okay about the answer himself.

„He was one of the damn 7 swordsmen."

She only furrowed her brow, and her lower lip gained the tiniest bit in poutiness. She'd never show when there was a thing she didn't understand, it was something he loved about her. She hated the feeling of having been left in ignorance, as much as she hated feeling stupid, so still when her pride didn't allow her to ask, she would only, maybe automatically, choose to shut up and look cute instead.

He couldn't help but smile a bit at her, but the seriousness of the situation quickly wiped it off again. „We've had the pleasure of the company of one of them on our way to the Waves a few years ago."

Her face lightened up at the hint. „Zabuza." She whispered, carefully, as if his name would somehow rip up the ghosts of long ago. He only nodded.

„You probably know Kisame Hoshigaki too, and Raiga Kurosuki, the kids from team Gai and Naruto killed that guy some years ago." He shook his head in thought. „The 7 swordsmen is a group formed in Kirigakure, it might give us a target, but it seems there hasn't been any war-actions in the land of water since the day they stopped their brutal training methods, and Zabuza did set quite a stop on that. So why would his group and Kirigakure have anything to do with each other?"

But that doesn't make sense, the three ninja you mentioned are dead, sensei."

He nodded. „But their group obviously isn't."

Sakura stood up, and began searching for her shoes that were surely thrown somewhere in a random corner. „We need to get to the Hokage, Kakashi," she ordered. „I can't believe you didn't go straight to Tsunade. Someone could have followed you, and if this group's still there it might be a threat to Konoha."

„It is," he stated, but didn't move from his seat against the wall.

She found a shoe. „So that's why we need to tell Tsunade. What if this will mean war? We just barely avoided one with Akatzuki and the Orochimaru thing!"

„Sakura."

„And we just can't." She felt tears press up in her eyes again and for a second she gave up tying her second shoe. „We can't have a war again."

She couldn't handle war again. The losses last time had been too big, and that hadn't even been a real war, just secret murder of troops all the time. She didnt even know how many of her friends and colleagues she had lost. And last time they had lost Sasuke, well they had him back, but did they really _have _him back?

Sometimes it seemed like it wasn't him anymore.

And what would a war do to Naruto, one who had fought so much for his village and his friends over the years? He had thrown his life into getting Sasuke back, saving gaara, finding the Akatsuki... and she knew he would stupidly do it all again.

And Kakashi. She could not lose Kakashi. Not again.

Tsunade would know what to do, she would fix the problems, she would know how to organize and fix it all. She should. She was the Hokage.

„You need to tell Tsunade all you know."

„I can't do that Sakura." She turned around; he only met her gaze with a strong determination.

„But the swordsmen, Kakashi!" She bit her lower lip. „And that man that killed your group!"

„I can't."

The tears seemed to have built some kind of highway to her eyes. „But why?"

„Because it was Obito."

„I want 20 men armed and ready by dawn."

„Yes sir." The white-dressed ninja disappeared quickly, happy to be free, leaving the other two ninja alone and vulnerable.

A tiny smile appeared on the lips of the man with the black sword pushed deep into the earth beside him.

He eyed the remainder of the group.

„So, pray tell, what exactly happened to fast and clean?"

The two ninja before him looked at each other a bit uncertainly. The long black halls were so empty they seemed to be even longer, and they didn't give off much emotion, much as they didn't give any courage at all.

Hàtomaru was like the halls, empty, emotionless and hard, to the ones who knew him at least. Or _knew_ might be too strong a word, nobody _knew _Hàtomaru Senju, the men just feared him.

He wasn't dark at all, though, not on the outside anyway. Through his thick, medium length brown hair two nutbrown eyes were shimmering back. He dressed in blazing white, wearing the same uniform as an Konoha nija, albeit without the jonin-jacket, because he felt it was tiredsome and big, too heavy for his fast attacks.

At first glance everyone liked him, he had a special openness in his appearance that seemed pleasant on the eye, yet didn't cross a line and became too personal. His clothes were casual, his voice low, his manors strict and his eyes friendly.

The two ninja looked down, not knowing what to prepare themselves for.

The halls were silent.

„I heard about the long hours in the camp." He smiled with compassion. „I hear it's a bit rough with the endless training and bad food."

He sat down on the steps leading up to the higher part of the hall and picked up his sword. „I'm sorry to hear the systematic breaks do not seem to be sufficient," he said, beginning to play around with the edge of the black, thin but long sword. The ninjas couldn't help but feel the cold run down their backs, they didn't know if they were supposed to say anything.

„We think we would work better if the training went back to... normal..." one of the ninja stated poorly.

There was a pause.

The noise when the blade was quickly dragged against the floor for testing made both ninjas jump and left a significant white scratch in the black stone floor.

Hàrumaru took a deep breath before looking up again.

„THEN WHY IS THE NEWS I GET THIS MORNING THAT YOU HAVE FAILED!"

The two guards still looked down at their feet in despair, both trying to produce an answer in a short time. One of them began opening his mouth but shut it again because of the small warning kick from the ninja beside him.

In a split-second the blade was up, cutting silently but fast through the necks of the ninjas. Blood spirted onto the wall beside them while the heads rolled onto the floor, with eyes left to stare up at the wide, intense and blazing white ones almost hidden by the brown strands of hair of the Kirigakure Dove.

He only shrugged when a guard appeared to take new orders, neatly avoiding the mess of blood and bodies on the floor.

„Call the Uchiha."

Sakura didn't know why she was all of a sudden insanely running through the rain, following that flash of silver hair that she wouldn't let out of her sight.

When he crossed the road she quickly turned onto the path to her right, jumping over a few railings and fences and one rooftop. She came out onto the road again, so quick that she didn't even see him coming a few metres behind her.

There was a sudden wet smash when they collided.

She fell onto the hard road and besides getting herself totally wet she even scraped up her forearm, she didn't care.

She got up quickly, ignoring the sudden pain in her leg and head. When ninjas smashed into each other, at escaping-speed, it wasn't just „_running_ into each other".

She got back her balance and then shouted at him before he could turn around and disappear again.

„Don't run from me!"

Kakashi only stared at her, not having tripped at the "bump". His silver strands of hair were now wet from the rain and hanging into his surprised face, maybe because he didn't see her coming, or maybe, Sakura's inner, proud self hoped so, because he hadn't even imagined she would be able catch up.

She didn't think she'd changed much since he'd left, but now she considered it she had a better speed now, her muscles were smooth and hard and her techniques seemed easier and simpler. She had never been much of the training type normally, but when something bad happened she'd basically sleep on the seventh training-ground, only that she mostly forget the closing-eyes, sweet-dreams thing.

„I wasn't." Kakashi objected.

She couldn't keep the tears out of her eyes, why wouldn't he take it seriously?

Well maybe he did, but didn't take _her_ seriously. He always babbled about friendship and loyalty, but when it came to sharing plans he didn't have time for her, maybe it was different with the boys, but she didn't care. She was sick of being looked at as weak and childish, and girlish. She needed Kakashi to trust her, at least a bit. She knew she couldn't be totally useless. The lump pressing against her throat seemed to have gained infinite size.

„What are you doing Kakashi?" she asked with a voice that seemed only to get more pathetic and silly in the drumming rain. The growing pain in her leg didn't help either.

He sighed. And even seemed to look like he was sorry, Sakura didn't know if it was for real. "I'm leaving Sakura." He paused for her reaction. "Tsunade is going to find out soon."

She needed a second before the words sunk in. He was _leaving._

He couldn't be leaving, not again! Her brain demanded explanations to be able to convince him not to, but sadly she recalled Kakashi as a man with only few of them, few he'd like to share at least.

"Why?"

As she said that another realization slumped into her brain: he obviously expected her to be the one to tell Tsunade.

She really hadn't heard of anyone else who didn't think Kakashi was long dead, buried and eaten by worms.

„No," she mumbled, shaking her head. „I'd never...-"

„But it's your duty Sakura."

She looked at him, confused. „You're talking about duty? What is this, some kind of wrecked sense of irony? What's wrong with you?!" She almost shouted, trying to get the sarcastic voice that always appeared in her head when she was angry and confused and standing in pouring rain with a bleeding leg, trying to keep the only man who meant something to her, to stay.

„Sakura I'm going to leave. I'm going to betray Konoha."

She stared at him. „What?"

„I don't expect you to understand, you've healed me and I thank you for it, but understand our ways part her e."

„No. What's going on sensei?"

He didn't answer. She just stared at him, not understanding. She knew there'd been some kind of thing between Kakashi's group in the past, she'd read the files, but she was sure Obito had been announced dead, so how could he show up suddenly?

And why would that mean so much to Kakashi?

Why would it make him leave Konoha?

„Who's Obito?"

Kakashi only rolled his eyes. „Sakura, it's not…" He sighed. " I learned a long time ago to value friends over my village... it's-" He trailed off. Maybe wandered into memories. She shook her head.

„Of course friends are important, but you have friends here too!" She didn't know who Obito Uchiha was, she was sure he and Kakashi had had some kind of important connection in the past, before he died, but whatever it had been it couldn't be more important than the city behind her.

Home.

And everybody who belonged to it. Naruto, Sasuke, Sai, Lee, Gai, Anko, Tenten, Hinata, Neji, Tsunade, Genma, Shizune, Shikamaru, Ino, Choji, Iruka-sensei, she could go on listing up names. What was one friend to them all?

„I don't know Uchiha Obito, but he has obviously changed sides sensei, he killed your group! Why can't you see it?"

„It's exactly why I need to find him."

She fell silent.

„Sensei, you dragged me into this and you can't just leave me here now."

The rain still drummed down on their heads, but Sakura didn't feel cold. Her pulse was racing beneath the skin and her breath was quick.

„Kakashi..." Should she say it? Was it the moment? Was he even supposed to know? Could it keep him here? She needed time, he couldn't appear again and then leave _again._ And why did it happen to be people who weren't staying that she loved? Why couldn't people just stay for a while? Why did they need to leave all the time? Did it give them some manly satisfaction? Her heartbeat seemed to have doubled since the last 2 seconds and was getting faster.

His eyes found hers at some point, and she couldn't help the little jump of her stomach. She didn't even notice that she now, unusually, was looking into two of his eyes.

„You're right. I can't just leave you here." His voice had taken a serious tone and she searched his face for the cause of it. The answer was lightening red.

She heard herself saying „Oops."

The last she remembered was the sharingan beginning to spin.


End file.
