Hero's End

She'd known that she would be able to find him there, sitting in front of the memorial stone, still wearing the black clothing from the day before. At the funeral he'd stood by himself, silent and alone, no emotion showing in his one uncovered eye, and she had all but ignored him at the time, too busy dealing with her own grief and that of her friends. She had almost forgotten him, though when she had turned to leave she had seen him, standing still, his eyes locked on the newly engraved names.

She should have realized much earlier that he wouldn't leave the stone that night.

It was only in the morning, with the damp cold of a Konoha winter creeping under door, that she sat straight upright in her bed, jerked out of a fairly restful sleep by the thought that he might still be out there.

Damn, damn, damn!

Throwing back the coverlet and pulling herself out of bed, the frigid air biting at her exposed skin. She half hopped, half ran across her floor, trying to avoid standing for too long on the cold tiles. Shivering, she pulled open drawers, slipping into the warmest garments she could find. Shirt, pants, flak jacket buckled securely, closed toed boots on her feet. Before she left her apartment, she returned to her bed, grabbing up and folding one of the warmer blankets. He would probably be freezing out there by himself.

Idiot.

It was still early, the sun having barely risen over the horizon. Frost crackled underfoot, in the dirt, in the grass, on the leaves that had fallen earlier in the year. She hurried along, because even though he was an idiot for staying out there overnight, she was the real idiot, because she hadn't realized that was what he would do.

Stupid, stupid, so incredibly stupid...

Her pace had increased to nearly a run by the time she reached the clearing. And there he was, just as she had thought, on the ground in front of the memorial stone, staring blankly ahead. She paused, arms fidgeting with the blanket in her arms. Then she stepped cautiously forward.

"Kakashi?" she called out, but if he heard her he gave no indication. He was shivering; she saw that as she drew closer. Her face falling because of this, she knelt down beside him, pulling the blanket around his shoulders as tightly as she could, holding it shut for him when it looked as though he wouldn't even move to do that. His one exposed eye was red rimmed with lack of sleep, the fine lines in the skin looking more pronounced than ever. He looked old, and weary, and tired, and so, so cold.

"Come inside, Kakashi," she said softly, her breath puffing out before her in white clouds. "You'll freeze to death out here."

There was no response, and Sakura turned her head so that she could see the memorial stone. Flowers lay at the base, covered in frost, the petals curling in the cold. She reached out her hand and ran her fingers over one of the names, letting them trail over the cut stone.

Inuzuka Kiba. He had died two years ago in a skirmish on the borders. He had only been twenty one. There were many more names after his.

"It's hard to believe they're all gone." Sakura let her hand drop into her lap, staring down at it. "I-I used to think that I would be one of the first to go. Back when I was twelve, you know. I never thought..."

Yamanaka Ino. Tortured and killed at the age of seventeen while completing a mission in Mist. Chouji brought her body back.

"You shouldn't be out here," she said, turning so that she faced Kakashi. She pulled his hands into her lap, holding them in hers, trying to feed warmth back into them. "If you keep this up, I'll have to drag you in to the hospital, and I know how much you dislike it there." She cupped his hands in hers; the gloves that he typically wore were gone and his fingers were long and white. Smoothing them out, she picked up one hand at a time, rubbing it between her own. He was so cold to her touch.

"I should have been there." His voice came out in a hoarse whisper, though Sakura could hear each word clearly. There was pain there, more than she had heard in it before. There had been a little more each and every time a name was scratched into the hard stone of the memorial, but this was the first time that he had sat before it overnight, in such a daze that it didn't seem as though he even realized that time was passing by him.

Shiranui Genma. A standard reconnaissance mission gone wrong. They brought him back covered in blood and he died even as Shizune tried to stop the bleeding. Sakura remembered the man, sitting in a bar with Kakashi, laughing at the younger man's pathetic hand of cards.

"You couldn't have done anything. It wasn't your place." She saw his eye close as though he were in pain and she reached forward, pulling the blanket back around his shoulders because it had begun to fall and she could see him shivering all the more. "It wasn't your fault. Please, Kakashi. Come inside."

Her words weren't doing anything. Even as she asked him, she knew that he would stay out here, because that was his way of dealing with things, just like hers was to curl up in a hidden corner of the hospital and cry.

Uchiha Sasuke. Dead, dead, dead. Long gone, at the hands of her and Naruto and Kakashi. His name wasn't on the stone, and it never would be.

Sakura set one hand to either side of Kakashi's face, looking straight into his one eye. "It's not your fault. It's not your fault, Kakashi. There's nothing that any of us could have done. Can you here me? I couldn't have saved him, had I been there."

This time he was looking at her, though there was still little life on the exposed portion of his face. "I understand that, Sakura." But that didn't mean that he could come out of the cold. That didn't mean he would stop staring at the stone.

She let her arms slip down around his shoulders, because he was still freezing and because he needed the comfort. "You still have us, Kakashi. I'm still here. Naruto is still here."

Sarutobi Asuma. Yuuhi Kurenai. Both died in battle. Neither was there for the other's death.

She tightened her grip on him, and felt as his body shifted, moving closer to her warmth. His head fell to rest on her shoulder, his forehead protector cold against the skin of her neck. "I'm so sorry, Kakashi. I'm so, so sorry."

"Don't be." His voice was muffled now, though still hoarse. "There's nothing for you to be sorry about."

"Then what should I say? He was your friend, and now he's d-dead. I'm sorry that you lost him."

She felt his hands tighten almost painfully on her waist. One of her own hands found its way to his hair and she let her fingers run through it, consoling him as though he were a small child. There was a dampness against her skin now, and she realized that left side of his mask was wet, as though...as though he were crying from that eye and not from the other.

She lifted the forehead protector from his head, as the cold from the metal was freezing her skin. As her fingers brushed against the now uncovered skin, she found that she was correct; the eye that was his Sharingan was crying, tears trailing down a short expanse of skin to be absorbed by the material of his mask.

"It's alright," she murmured, smoothing his unruly hair. Time was taking everyone from them, and for each life that was snuffed out a new name was carved onto the stone. Soon, every face of it would be covered. Soon, they would need a new stone, because deaths would never stop. Someday, maybe someday soon, their names would appear on the stone, etched for eternity, disappearing only when wind and time turned the stone into dust.

Maito Gai. Killed on a classified mission. If the rumors were true...killed by Akatsuki.

His was the newest name.

She sat with her former teacher as he mourned for a friend who would never come back. Because he needed her, and because she wanted to be there for him. She hadn't been there before, but she would be there for him now.

A/N: Originally written back in summer 2006, for a contest in DeviantArt's KakaSaku club. Never submitted. Only a small part was revised before posting here, due to new events in the manga.