Hi! I'm back after 3 billion years! I'm almost done with college now, and the last fic on my page is from 7th grade, so... You do the math. This story evolved from a prompt about gloves, but it is most definitely not about gloves anymore. A couple AU things: Sasuke is not an asshole, he stayed in the village, and Kakashi never became Hokage because I know he didn't want to. Please enjoy! (Reuploaded AGAIN bc it didn't upload the way I had formatted it... -_-)

Sakura thought it was her anger making her see red, but when the feeling had faded, her world was still stained.

The splatters on the walls were explosive, and she stared blankly at the crushed corpse in front of her. Her ears hadn't stopped ringing yet, her own screams echoing inside her mind. Unable to hold her weight any longer, her knees buckled and she hit the wooden floors on her hands and knees. Her head hung as she looked down on her splayed fingers digging grooves into the wood, her eyes widening as she took in the slick blood coating the backs of her knuckles, her hands, her wrists.

The black leather of her gloves was shiny, which was odd. They were inside, weren't they? Sakura's head shot skyward and sure enough, there was a full moon lighting up the night sky where the ceiling should have been. Another body that she hadn't noticed before hung on the edge of the roofing, impaled through the stomach on a beam.

She felt herself trembling as she took in the rest of her surroundings more thoroughly: the large bed that cracked down the middle, the floorboards torn up and splintered, two more bodies that lay unmoving on opposite sides of the room. One was unrecognizable, face swollen and chest cavity caved inwards. The other lay the way it had fallen, sideways, curled in vulnerably, blood still pouring out of a gaping wound in his abdomen.

His silver hair that used to stick out in all directions now glued together within the crimson pool forming around his body. The Sharingan eye, with no more chakra to consume, had faded to a black darker than his own natural coal grey eye. Beneath the spandex of his mask, Sakura could see the outline of his lips, still parted from his last labored breaths.

She crawled towards Kakashi's empty body, not even caring as his blood painted her skin and clothes as she sat back on her legs and tenderly brushed the matted locks from his face.

She recalled the countless times he had done the same to her. After a spar, when the shorter strands fell from the ponytail in which she'd tied the rest of her hair, and she'd smile and swear that she'd beat him next time. When he tried talking to her while she fluttered around her lab and he had nothing better to do, mixing this and that to concoct an antidote to Shizune's newest poison, and he'd put one hand on her shoulder and the other to her hair, gentle words easing her ever-growing frustrations. In his bed, or hers, both of them covered in a thin layer of sweat as he buried himself within her, and she had her eyes closed but she still felt the electricity from his fingertips brushing away tangled locks before his lips crashed down on hers.

Sakura closed his eyes with gentle pressure, glancing back and forth from his familiar eye to the black one she'd never seen, searching desperately for the life she knew was long gone. She removed the hitai-ate he had pushed out of the way for the battle, careful to keep it out of the blood that now surrounded both of them. Reaching around, she also took the little orange book she knew was in his hip pouch and put it, along with his hitai-ate in her own pouch. She pushed her ex-sensei out of his loose fetal position so that he lay on his back and took his now cold hands into her own, pulling off his navy blue gloves.

Unlike Sakura, Kakashi wore his gloves even when he wasn't on missions, leaving his palms so much smoother than his calloused fingers. The metal plates were terribly scuffed, but the dyed blue leather had been reliable, soft and pliable from constant use.

As she stared down at him, she felt the knot in her throat tighten painfully and she let out a broken sob. Curling her fist that wasn't gripping Kakashi's gloves into his flak vest, she let the events of the night catch up with her as she cried into his unmoving chest. Her head pounded and her chest ached, and she hated herself more than she ever had before.

It was supposed to be a simple mission. They had done this a hundred times before. But he was dead, and she was alone.

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She didn't know how long she sat there before ANBU had found them. Her crying had long stopped, but she never lifted her head from Kakashi's chest, her hands still holding tightly to whatever pieces of him she could. She didn't even move when the Black Ops shinobi raised their chakra signatures as not to startle her.

"Haruno-san…" one of the ANBU spoke up, a woman by the sound of it.

Sakura didn't respond, no, she couldn't respond. Her throat was too dry and her mind was too numb to even register that someone was speaking to her. A gloved hand placed itself on her shoulder, but she didn't even flinch.

"Sakura, hey," said another voice, male this time. She vaguely recognized it in her reverie, and she lifted her head weakly to see the unmasked face of Uchiha Sasuke looking down concernedly at her as he crouched beside her. This rare display of emotion from her old teammate brought a fresh wave of despair down upon her, reducing her to tears once more. "We have to go home now. Let's bring him home."

So weak. How are you still so fucking weak.

It didn't matter how strong she had gotten physically because here she was crumbling all over again. It didn't matter how many lives she could save with her medical jutsu, she had failed the one that had become the most important to her. He had gone so quickly that she didn't even have the chance to try.

The pain she felt now was stronger than any physical wound she had ever received. There was no bleeding to stop, no muscle to ease, no way to ease the crushing pain she felt in her chest. It was so hard for her to concentrate, for she felt lost within herself, disconnected from the outside world and suffocated by her own anguish.

She heard herself screaming as Sasuke coaxed her off of their former sensei's corpse, too distraught to even think about using her chakra to break his hold. She was covered in Kakashi's blood, smearing it on Sasuke's armor as she beat against it with her fists, and all she could think about was much she wished it was her own instead. She heard Sasuke talking to the other shinobi in the room, something about shock, something about her being erratic and irrational at the moment.

The female ANBU and another man gathered Kakashi into a body bag while the other two members of their unit disposed of the other bodies in the room, piling them into the middle with the intent of just setting the whole place on fire. The last thing Sakura remembered before she drifted off, completely drained, was Sasuke picking her up bridal style and continuing to stare at her, his brows furrowing in worry.

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When Sakura reached jounin status two years ago at eighteen, she and Kakashi were paired abnormally often. Naruto and Sasuke had moved on to join ANBU together, and she was left behind yet again. She buried herself into her work at the hospital, her missions, her training, anything to distract herself from her inadequacy.

Tsunade formed a few powerhouse jounin teams after the war to aid ANBU in hunting down the hundreds of missing nin that disapproved of the Great Shinobi Alliance. There were dissenters from every village and the Five Great Villages put out the thickest bingo books to date. The Godaime knew her shinobi well, and paired her best medic with the two jounin that she knew cared the least about their well-being during a mission. And so, Haruno Sakura, Hatake Kakashi, and Shiranui Genma were sent off, bringing back or annihilating this rogue and that one for the sake of the Alliance.

One particular mission had the trio masquerading as a troupe of travelling musicians, and there was something about the look in Kakashi's eyes when she stabbed her flute through a frenzied earth user that made Sakura realize that their relationship had changed.

He was almost impaled himself while he was busy gawking at her, and later, as the pink haired medic healed and berated him, he grabbed her glowing green hands and pulled her into his lap. He then proceeded to yank down his mask and kiss her thoroughly before pulling his mask back up and giving her his signature eye crinkle. She was shocked by the action, then annoyed when she realized she had probably missed the most perfect opportunity ever to see his face.

They kept their evolving relationship under wraps, with Genma, Naruto, and Sasuke as their only confidants. It wasn't always easy, random ninja seeking both of them out at odd hours for missions or hospital emergencies. However, Kakashi and Sakura both knew that it was far more likely that people just didn't say anything. They worked too well together to afford being separated, and as long as they didn't allow the personal to interfere with the professional, no one saw the harm in continuing things the way they were.

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A cacophony of beeping from various machines greeted Sakura as she woke. Every part of her body was heavy as she willed her eyes to open. For a sweet, blissful second, she looked around for a familiar mop of silver. It was rare for her to be hospitalized after a mission, but Kakashi had always made it a point to be there when she awoke, whether she lay there for a day or a week.

"You're exhausted. Just rest." A tired voice came from her right, and she slowly turned her head to take in the image of a disheveled Genma. His senbon was absent from its place between his lips, and his brown locks were sticking up oddly without his bandana to hide it. "He would've killed me if you woke up alone. You've been here for three days."

Three days. He's been dead for three days.

She tried to speak, but she choked on the dryness in her throat. Genma lifted her head gently and brought a cup of cool water to her lips, and she took small sips before pushing the cup away.

"It's ok," she rasped. "You don't have to stay with me." The tokubetsu jounin gave her an empty chuckle in response.

"I'm not just doing this for him. You're my friend too, you know." He ran his hand through his hair wearily and sighed. "I should've been there. I'm so sorry."

"Gods, no, Genma-"

"No, let me apologize. I was careless on our last mission together, it's my fault I couldn't go with you two. I should have been there."

Too tired to argue, Sakura nodded and accepted his apology. She would give him her opinion on that when she didn't feel so heavy. She fell asleep to the steady beat of her heart monitor and Genma's warm hand in her own.

There you have it! Please review!