AN: I'll be continuing my other work should the need arise, but I've had this in my mind for ages and ages and really desperately needed it out of my brain. I'm taking some serious liberties with the Naruto Universe by writing this. So I plan on leaving some holes unfilled. No beta present! However, I expect it to be a good story regardless. Please R&R xoxo

I.

His hands, worn, but softer than her own, traced the slight curve of her hips as his mouth devoured hers. Sakura squeezed her eyes shut, tightly so that maybe she could erase the face of the one doing this to her. He pulled away and whispered into her ear, the soft cadence of his words were indecipherable, but his hot breath caused a tremor to erupt through her body all the way to her core. Daring a glance, she opened her eyes just as he pulled back, and all the saw was a swirling, red sharingan.

Sakura woke with a start and glanced around her, the arousal brought on by the dream still burning her from the inside out.

"Sakura-taichou, is everything okay?" Her eyes fell on the ANBU seated a few feet away. Although she knew there must have been at least five scattered around the campsite, hidden from view, she only interacted with one at a time, Raven was the third one to accompany her directly.

"I'm fine, Raven. I just.. Why don't I take the next watch and you go and get some sleep?"

"I'm sorry, Sakura-taichou, but the mission clearly states-"

"What did you call me?" She cut him off, voice seething with unchecked rage.

He faltered, pinned in place by her stony, jade gaze. "Sakura-"

"Taichou. " She finished for him. "So, the next time I give you a request, it would behoove you to take it as an order. Have I made myself clear, Raven?"

She could feel the scowl emanating from behind his porcelain mask. Without another word, he rose from his seat and disappeared to locate his pack.

"You know, Sakura-sensei, you don't have to be so abrasive with us. A simple please will suffice."

She rolled her eyes and suppressed the audible groan tearing up the back of her throat. "I should have known they wouldn't let me leave the village without the infamous Copy-ninja by my side."

He chuckled and took a seat beside her. She wasn't sure if it was her imagination, but he felt too close. His body heat could be felt, permeating her senses and leaving her feeling muddy. Fighting the urge to scoot further away, Sakura forced the tension from her shoulders and tried desperately to act natural.

"Someone as important as Haruno Sakura needs the extra security after her last mission."

She frowned but said nothing, instead chewed on her tongue in thought.

When the beloved Hatake Legacy stumbles into the village carrying his own detached arm and using a scroll to keep his entrails from becoming his outrails, he's up and running in a week.

Sakura makes one simple miscalculation that almost gets her killed, and they keep her in the village for two months and don't trust her to carry out a diplomatic mission without an army at her disposal.

"He is too green to be on the field anyways. His unwillingness to heed my authority is textbook insubordination. Or misogyny. Either way you see my point. I can't believe they still let children in ANBU."

Kakashi hummed in response, clearly not in the right frame of mind to deal with the often tumultuous landscape that was Sakura's mood. He also didn't want to point out that Raven was only a year younger than himself. The last thing on Kakashi's wishlist was to remind Sakura of their age-gap, something he had been cleverly (or so he hoped) steering her away from for the past three years.

"I can see that you are glad to To be back on the field."

"Yeah." Sakura heaved a heavy sigh as her eyes clouded with images he couldn't see. "I'm already passing my prime. Soon, I'll be confined to hospital duty and diplomatic missions. Oh wait."

"You are not old, Sakura-sensei." His tone was bored and he was more than unhappy with the ironic turn their conversation was taking.

"How old are you again, Kakashi-kun?"

He sighed. Obliging her in her self pity was the safest option at this point. "Twenty-two."

"Exactly! I've known you since you were five! Do you have any idea how that feels? To be lead around by kids half your age?"

"First of all, no one here is remotely half your age. Secondly, in all fairness, you were only sixteen when you met me." He took a deep breath and pushed his ANBU mask up. "And although I enjoy enabling you to wallow in a mid-life crisis, what is this really about?"

A vein in her neck twitched as she swallowed the anger boiling from her chest. She was not having a mid-life crisis. That would be easy. If only things were that simple. She prayed that Kakashi continued to believe her capable of such shallow vanity, because the alternative was so much worse. Being attracted to her teammate's student was unacceptable behavior. And were it not for that dream and the half dozen she'd had before the most recent one, she never would've even thought it possible.

"I suppose I should just ignore the Sai-worthy tactlessness of that last comment, but it'd be foolish to waste a lesson in etiquette on a child."

Though her words held no real venom, she could see they did the trick. Hurt flickered across his eyes before disappearing completely.

That should keep him at arm's length for awhile, she thought. But as He stood to leave, guilt twisted in her heart.

"Wait, Kakashi."

He turned, the porcelain mask firmly in place again, hiding his expression. "Yes, Sensei?"

"You've not been a child to me in years. But you'll always be Naruto's student, and it's hard sometimes to remember that you grew up a long time ago. I shouldn't be taking my frustrations out on you."

He dropped back down beside her and pushed up his mask. "Well, both of us could stand to be a little less sensitive."

She laughed but didn't respond. Instead, she listened to the lulling symphony of crickets and frogs as the forest around them came to life. She never really did get used to sleeping during the day and traveling at night, but neither could she deny the usefulness of darkness.

They weren't traveling through enemy territory per se, but Water Country had a huge population of rogue ninja, and until recent years trained their shinobi, with with unsavory methods, to treat foreign or enemy shinobi with extreme prejudice. Although many of their tactics have fallen out of practice, there were still veterans working for Kirigakure. So even though the mission was entirely diplomatic, it was always good to have as many advantages as possible when entering unsafe territory.

"Sakura-sensei, their is something that I have been meaning to talk to you about." Kakashi said suddenly, the forest seeming to grow quieter at his admission.

She held her breath. There was something in his tone that alerted her to exactly what he wanted to talk about. It didn't take a fool to notice that Kakashi had been pining for her since he was thirteen, since she rescued little Obito from his self imposed martyrdom.

She, Naruto and Sasuke had nearly killed themselves saving the Uchiha brat. The moment she woke up to Kakashi's large, strangely mismatched eyes that were so full of surprise and adoration, she knew it would take something really big to shake devotion like that. So far, she hadn't been successful.

She licked her suddenly very dry lips, regretting the words before they'd even left her mouth, but fate intervened as per its wont and the pair found themselves surrounded by six shinobi.

Clearly they were in Kirigakure territory. Their pallor, war-worn faces and sharpened teeth said it all. Luckily Kakashi had had enough time to cover his face with the porcelain mask. The last thing they needed was to be identied on the spot. He'd been listed internationally in most Bingo Books, which is why Sakura didn't quite understand his continuation of being in ANBU.

"What are a couple of Konoha Ninja doing so far away from home?" One particularly bulky shinobi asked, his voice rough, but surprisingly high-pitched.

"What makes you think we're from konoha?" Sakura asked in an accent so undeniably not Konoha that she surprised even herself. She always had a knack for languages, but given her schedule, wasn't able to do more than master accents. Unlike Kakashi whose eye let him memorize pages of new words. Although he couldn't speak them with any adequacy, he was a rather proficient translator.

"State your business. What are you are you doing so close to Kiri's borders?"

Sakura reached into her bag slowly, keeping steady eye-contact with the man, and withdrew the proper documentation to get them to the Mizukage.

He read over it carefully, scrunching his weathered face in thought. "It's coded properly, clearly from Mizukage-sama, but it's outdated. Could be stolen." He said to the women standing to his left.

She eyed the Konoha-nin carefully, skimming over the scroll as she did so. "We'll have to take them into custody. I should have been home three weeks ago and I don't think they want a fight anymore than we do."

Sakura was thankful for the woman's exhaustion, but couldn't help gritting her teeth angrily. If Tsunade had allowed her to leave the village a month ago when they received the scroll, then this wouldn't be a problem.

The woman turned back to them. "How many more are in your party? "

Sakura looked at Kakashi as he held up five fingers.

"What are you some kind of princess? Don't answer that. Just tell your men to get over here. We have to take you int Into custody and let the higher-ups decide what to do with you."

Kakashi threw up a few hand signs and six clouds of smoke appeared, revealing Lemur, Raven, Rat, Bear, and Goat. Sakura knew all of them by mask only during a few late night rounds in the hospital.

"Kirigakure is about 5 hours north, but I don't feel like trekking that far with a bunch of foreigners, so we will be teleporting to the village. If any of you tries anything, I will not hesitate to kill you."

Sakura turned around to give them all a look that demanded compliance, her eyes lingering on Raven longer than the rest. Although, she didn't expect any funny business. ANBU was probably the only faction among their ranks that didn't have that rash, overly passionate, "fight until we drop" personalities that so many Konoha ninja were famous for.

The Mist-nin tied loose but sturdy knots around their wrists. Apparently someone recognized the light indigo rhombus in the middle of Sakura's forehead that stood stark against her fair complexion, because she was the only one who received a strong chakra seal. She really couldn't complain, she decided. This took hours off of their journey, and although she would not admit it unless it was a real problem, the pastel-haired kunoichi was still tired from being off the field for so long.

As they all walked in a single file line through the humming forest, Kakashi couldn't help his eyes from training on the long, pastel braid that swung between Sakura's shoulder blades with each swivel of her hips. Its length was a sign of how the past two months had flown by without his notice. The gentle sway of pink on black caused his eyes to glaze over with memories of the last time he saw Sakura before this mission. The day she almost died.