i.
When Kakashi Hatake sees Sakura Haruno again after years of space and silence, she is five inches taller and almost three times as strong. He has time to appreciate and learn this first-handedly when Sakura breaks his nose in the first ten minutes of their fight. Then it takes her and Naruto half a day to solve the bell test, which they do so, gloriously.
He feels a pride that lessens the pain.
"Surprised?" laughs Naruto, clutching his cracked ribs. He fell from at least a dozen of trees.
"Relieved" he says, sitting down. He touches his nose and it is no surprise that the mask is wet with blood. And though he winces, he is also smiling. "Finally you can teach me something too."
There is a touch then, on his right shoulder, light as a feather.
It's Sakura and she is pointing at his face.
"Let me see."
There is a pause in which Kakashi stares at the towering girl before him, all determined.
"I think you just want to have a peek." His voice is nonchalant, but Sakura sees that he has a glint in his eyes: he is amused. She rolls her eyes.
"It's broken isn't it?"
"I suspect, yeah." She smiles then, all teeth and warmth. "I hope you don't want to hit me from a different angle, Sakura."
"Why bother when I'm better at healing?"
A truth universally acknowledged.
He lets her pull down the mask as much as she wishes.
ii.
They have their first S-mission together a year before Sakura is appointed Chief Medical Officer at the record age of twenty.
Their task is delicate - escort the four year old daughter of Shibuki - head of Taki - from Konoha back to home, the village near the waterfalls. It is only delicate, because assassination attempts are sure to come, and Kyo, the daughter, cannot stop talking.
"The moment we get back " Sakura says when they finally manage to lull Kyo asleep on the third night. "I am going to sleep for a week."
Kakashi thinks of his plants, all dying.
"Hm."
"Are you seriously judging me." her face deadpans when she sees his expression. "And here I was, thinking you are the king of napping the day away."
"I prefer cleaning my flat."
For one long moment, they look at each other. The fire is long quenched; they are sitting in the dark while Kyo snores in the sole tent they brought.
Then Sakura starts to laugh and cannot seem to stop.
"Wait" she says after a long while. "You are serious."
He holds his hands up.
"I never lie."
Sakura sticks her tongue out.
"Liar."
A hero and a murderer has many other names. Kakashi knows this from experience. Tsunade calls him one of the greatest shinobi genius of the century and a despicable pervert (usually in the same sentence or breath). His apprentices call him weird (and very lazy). Obito used to call him a showoff. Very few people call him their friend. Gai is one of them. Naruto is another.
Sakura, he thinks as she stops laughing and starts to unroll their sleeping bags, is also a friend.
iii.
They almost make it eventless.
Except, just at three miles out of Taki, next to the Terendo fall, the ambush squad finds them.
It is Sakura who hears it first, the snap of a branch, the inaudible whisper, buried under Kyo's babbling.
She manages to hurl the child away, along with Kakashi (who is heavier than expected), but she gets a fucking lance in her thighs in the process, so she decides that okay, it's a draw.
"Run!" she shouts when Kakashi takes a step towards her. She can see the gates of the village in the distance, throbbing with the promise of shelter. "Mission is first and I can heal myself!"
He is too stubborn and so of course he stays. Kills the one who threw the javelin almost immediately.
"Kyo" he instructs as he shifts his headband out of the way. "Stay here with Miss Sakura, please."
He disappears.
The girl runs to her, terrified.
"Hey" she smiles, trying to act like it's but a scratch. Resists the urge to cringe as she gouges the weapon from her leg. "See - not poisoned."
Before she can tend to her own wound though, and pick her up, two men appear from the water next to them.
She draws the girl under her with her right while hurling the bloody lance with her left. There is enough power in it to hit both the attackers, but not enough aim to injure anything crucial.
The taller one laughs.
"We just want the girl missy. And - " they both look at her leg, oozing its red liquid. " seems like you are done playing the men's game."
"Thanks for the advice, mangame." Sakura snarls. "I'd rather win this."
She has to but touch the soil under them, soft and mushy from the current nearby and it opens up, like a melody. The men's mouth are opened in surprise as they sink below the ground.
"Good one" Kakashi cheers from behind. They turn, and she notes how both his eyes - the saringan is active and neonlike in the sun - are still somber.
They are out in an open field and they should absolutely not be.
Sakura notes he lost his vest, but otherwise, he seems unharmed. She lets out a breath she did not know she was holding.
"Mr. Scarecrow" Kyo is crying real tears.
He crouches and lets Kyo climb up in his arms. It's like he reads her mind and she is grateful for the time he presents her.
Sakura starts to heal the muscles and the tendons in her thighs - recites to remember: vastus lateralis, please let us do good, vastus medialis, let us do no more harm than necessary.
There is an unearthly shriek coming from behind them and they see a single man tearing his chest open with a blade the size of Kyo. Sakura hobbles up, leg half-mended, blade readied.
An act of sacrifice. Summoning.
"Fuck" Kakashi says and Sakura blood goes cold. He tries to search Kyo's body for a seal, but they are a moment too late.
Kyo is lit on fire.
The ambush squad does not even bother to attack them anymore. Their task is done.
The man falls too, most probably dead.
Kakashi swears one more time. Lifts the child up, who screams in agony, then simply loses consciousness.
"Sakura" he begins and she snaps out of her fearful trance.
Steel yourself, girl - she hears Tsunade in her head, now a part of her inner mind - you are capable of anything as long you will it.
"In the water" Sakura orders, unnaturally calm.
She forgets about her own wound entirely.
iv.
There is advantage of being one of the tallest people in five kages. Kakashi is so lanky that it takes a full three minute until the water finally licks his waist. Sakura has a hard time positioning herself, so she asks him to turn towards the shore so she can stand on a higher ground and actually move her arms above water.
The procedure is relatively simple.
Steel yourself. Remember.
Sakura sees the textbook before her; hears the Medical Instructor's careful voice in her ears as they step, as they sink into the water. It is freezing, but the adrenaline, ironically, makes her sweat.
In case of a burn the very first thing to do is to stop the burning process in order to prevent the tissues from dissolving further. The source of burns is usually fire that needs to be put out. If the victim is able and conscious, then one should either drop the piece of clothing that caught fire or/and roll around to extinguish the flames.
If that is out of question - the victim is unconscious or more severely harmed per se - and the burning/burned area is both large and exposed, then the skin needs to be cooled first and after some time - that depends on how much and how severely the skin was exposed to hear - the blisters need to be covered and bandaged with clean and wet cloth.
Kakashi and Sakura spend one hour and thirty minutes keeping Kyo's body in and her head out of the water. The worst is when she gains consciousness and starts to wail. In the first hour, Sakura uses all of her chakra up to keep her alive.
Above all, she knows, do no harm.
Keeping her awake is cruelty.
v.
The last thirty minutes depend on luck and perseverance.
She inspects Kyo's skin with extreme care. The skin has started blistering - a sign of the body recleansing itself. She will live. The question that now remains is how much scarring this girl of four has to live with.
Sakura bits her tongue. Licks her lips and shivers despite herself.
Kakashi's hands too, despite being the most disciplined hands she knows, are trembling. Whether from fatigue or the cold or the adrenaline wearing off, or the mixture of all three - she knows not.
"We do not have clean bandages" he comments.
Sakura considers their options.
"Kakashi" she says finally; very carefully. "One of us has to alert the father and bring backup. She is out of fatal danger. But we cannot risk infection. We cannot risk moving her too much or too quickly. After all - " Sakura touches his shoulders and feels him tensing. "she is very small."
Kakashi knows this means either him leaving her all alone, or her leaving him all alone with an injured child. He feels an immense, all-consuming dread at the thought of leaving Sakura alone in here. It's an old, very familiar feeling.
He clenches his teeth together. Now his hands tremble for a completely different matter.
"You go. I stay." Sakura's eyes widen. "Be quick."
Be safe, it is what he means to say; what he almost says, but her hands leave his shoulder and the water already feels cooler.
vi.
They complete the mission. Shibuki, Kyo's father, weeps upon seeing her daughter and tears at his hair, his clothes.
Kakashi and Sakura stand in the corner in the narrow corridors of the medical hut. They are straight and silent as arrows strung up - being mere spectators, mere shielding materials in the complex net of such rivalries.
Kyo survives. There is a giant scar that will remain, just below her neck, uglying her torso.
It is but a cicatrice, they say. No true damage. An aesthetic slip, rather.
vii.
They eat, they sleep and leave at first light the next day.
As soon as they step through the gates that guard the city of waterfalls, Kakashi stops and turns to her.
Sakura opens her mouth to ask him, but she realizes she has begun to cry - hot tears carving their ways through the creases of her face.
He hesitates - this she can feel through the sorrow; because his hand lingers at her shoulder - so she simply grabs it and tightens both her hands around his fingers. Then presses that same hand onto her face, and that is when Kakashi envelopes her, his body warm and real and constant.
viii.
When she is thirteen and curious, Sakura hauls Ino to the Central Archives of Konoha and goes through every picture of Kakashi Hatake in hopes of finding out how he looks without his mask.
"Argh" Ino spits after two hours of fruitless search. "What a complete weirdo. Who wears a mask at the age of six anyway?"
"He does, apparently." Sakura is disappointed.
They find a picture of his father, to whom the sensei must bear resemblance, but it is a half-truth, more of a mirror than a window. His father, named Sakumo, has a small smile on his face, all dimples. The back of the picture says, Konoha's White Fang with son, Kakashi (4). Next to him, Kakashi is heavy-lidded, dark-eyed, pale.
The next photo shows him alone in a middle of a ceremony, with the first prize. He is supposed to be eight years old, but he looks much older, somehow worn out.
"He has the saddest eyes I've seen." Ino whispers.
Sakura closes the album.
ix.
His one visible eye is honest and open. He is saying something she does not hear. It is all in his eyes, the trust she does not feel worthy of.
That stops her crying.
She steels herself.
If he survived and emerged victorious through these endless strings of petty violences, so will she.
ix.
Just upon entering Konoha, Sakura speaks up for the very first time since they left the falls.
"Also" It is out of the blue. Kakashi stops. She has been picking cherries which she decides to save for later. Maybe she will make a pie for her parents as a gift. "You are very skilled with children."
Kakashi steals a cherry from her, ignoring her loud remark - then hangs it on his pouch on his vest. He, too, saves them for later - but must look ridiculous, because Sakura snorts, really, really loudly.
"Charming." he says and she sticks her tongue again. "I deal with children every day, Sakura. And this does not necessarily mean the genins."
"Are you thinking of teaching another team again?"
"Gods no. Just imagine."
Sakura makes a face he cannot translate.
"What?" he is curious, despite himself.
"You should." she blushes. "Take up another team again, I mean." She takes a deep, deep breath. "Not everyone is a Sasuke Uchiha, you know."
They have never spoken about him. Not time, but deepdeep shame is what stopped him.
And then he realizes, here, at the gates of Konoha, at the age of thirty-three, supposedly wise but a fool, that Sakura Haruno is braver than he or Sasuke will ever dream to be.
She smiles a bit, then waves, wanting to race to the gates, her hair reflecting sunlight and he is also very sure that he could never forgive himself for underestimating her.
x.
They don't see each other for a while after. Kakashi is sent on an A-Mission two days later, then she leaves to Suna on Tsunade's direct wishes, before he returns.
Someone has to prepare the medical units for the Chuunin exams and oversee some new medical facilities and sort out the staff and basically set up a new kind of health care system in that village, no? And who else, if not Sakura - Tsunade's brightest legacy and pride?
He takes on a new team at the next possible opportunity. Sakura is the first to know - Kakashi makes sure of it.
She sends an alarm clock a week later, with a note full of sandprints; saying: "You will need this. (Attention! Very loud!)"
Her handwriting is elegant, loopy, free. Something moves in his chest that he cannot (fears to) name.
He writes back formally, and hates how stiff he sounds.
"Thank you. See you soon."
He adds an exclamation point to the first, then to the second sentence. Tries to write only one sentence. Then decides to write about his team. Turns out to be a novel. He could, he wants to tell her everything, all of a sudden.
Throws all the drafts in the bin after an hour of agonizing overthinking.
In the end, he sends a picture of his new team, and writes a simple Thank you! in the back of it.
"Great!" he tells to no one particular. To the new plant in the window.
Obito's voice is but a whisper in his mind.
"Kakashi. You are so fucked."
xi.
They meet approximately three hours after they set up their camps in the outskirts of Suna.
Umma has broken her right leg. Again. Kurenai frowns when she sees Kakashi running with his students in his arms. Iruka is positively fuming.
"Gods damn it all, Hatake" the younger man shouts as they - Kakashi with Umma in his arms, Koshi and Tassun following - run past. "Every bone has an expiration date!"
Suna burns around them, the buildings seemingly melting in the heat. Umma's face is covered with tears and sweat; she is hiding her face in his shoulders, but he can still feel her pain.
"I know" he says soothingly, forcing an adult-like authority and sureness in his voice he is not sure he will ever have. He sees Naruto talking to Gaara.
"Wow, Sensei, not again!" he exclaims. "Sakura is going insane with the workload. She is gonna kill you."
Kakashi wants to scream.
"Just point me to the med tent, will you?"
Gaara points to a tent wearing a red cross. Clever.
"Who is going to kill you, Kakashi sensei?" chirps in Koshi as they run forward. He reminds Kakashi of an apathetic version of Naruto.
"Does this mean we don't have to take the exams?" shouts Tassun from his left. He makes a note to talk about respect and attitude at the next training day. Honestly.
By the time they reach the medical tent, all three of them are out of breath. Kakashi only starts to sweat when Koshi runs in to find Sakura.
The heat has nothing to do with it.
xii.
Here, far from the drone and frenzy of the chunin exams, is peace. And maybe because Sakura Haruno is tired from patching every nin in the country at least once a day, she does not kill him. She even smiles upon seeing his form at the entrance of the tent. Just points at the nearest table and says,
"Place her here, please."
The tent is orange from the setting sun, and it is an almost-sin how the light chooses to travel and move across her face as she mends the bones and soothes Umma's pain away. Two other men are there to assist and jump as soon as Doctor Haruno opens her mouth.
He was never one to idolize or beautify anything. Kakashi and the reality of grief has grown up together a long ago, until grief and him became one. This does not leave much space for euphemisms.
Yet he looks at Sakura now - and is not untouched by what he sees. Here, her brows knitted in attention, her movements controlled and contorted in their focus - he sees her as she is: a fort of devotion. This tender tenacity, he muses as she very gently touches Umma's ankles to test the success, is what made her a healer. This kind of devotion made her strong.
Moving to the other side of the operating table, Sakura now shows her back to them. Her hair is all pinned up, her face flushed, her neck all tanned from living and walking around in the desert and Kakashi sees that therethere, at the nape of her sweat-beaded neck, her hair is damp, a darker shade of magenta. His heart falters at the sight.
It knocks the air out of him, this sudden, urgent longing for her. Suddenly, he feels greedy for the weight of Sakura's gaze and Sakura's body. Imagines how her fingers would feel on the skin under his clothes. Whether the skin between the valley of her breasts would feel soft or rough under his hands.
The alarming sound in his head is loud as his brain screeches to a halt.
Stop, he says to himself. In the corners of his mind, Obito is laughing. Rin looks sad. How low can I sink, he wonders, while trying to temper this want, how selfish can I be.
Sakura straightens. Her spine does a lazy curve, all lovely. He fails to look away.
"All done!" Umma is looking at her leg now, not quite believing what she is seeing and feeling. "Bit more careful next time."
Umma smiles and waves. Sakura smiles at him again, beckoning him closer to the table, to her.
Kakashi waves back, wanting to forget that outside this tent there is an arena of students dying to fight; and outside this village there is a war to wage and no place for him to feel what he feels for Sakura and her smile.