Because everyone has a breaking point, when you have a brush with it you need to re-sort your life back together. Another one where I'm sending feelers out into the darkness of the Naruto world. Also: Inspired by recent events in the manga, but no direct spoilers. But could also be a standalone-standapart from the general canon.

Victory had seemed uncertain for so long, and so many had fallen that when the cry went out that they had won, it was in a rising, wavering, questioning tone. But as the cry was taken up it gained strength, and people's shoulders began to relax as they looked around the fields of battle, trying to meet a pair of eyes they knew. As Kakashi's eyes swept out he bit the inside of his cheek to ready himself for whatever he might see—what if she had been one of those lost in the last, triumphant move? Where would he find the words to possibly tell Naruto? Would he ever sleep again if he lost either of them?

He needn't have come up with a worst case scenario, because almost right where he had left her Sakura was being helped to stand by another shinobi. She was pale, and the Sharingan twitched to tell him she was shaky as well, but already her back was straightening and her head lifting. And then she was beginning to halfheartedly smile, but Kakashi could see the worry in her face as she glanced around her, searching.

"Kakashi-sensei!" With a smile, one she only saw because she knew him, he raised a hand in the air and began picking his way towards her. She made similar headway, and when they finally met she threw her arms around him and cuddled into his chest. One of his hands found her shoulder blade and the other cradled the back of her head. He rested his cheek on her forehead and allowed himself to be properly crushed by her hug.

"Hatake-taicho, we're about to contact Naruto-san's group, what is our report?"

Kakashi closed his eyes for a moment, remembering the dead shinobi, the men and women whose lives stained his hands with a coat of fresh, bright red blood over what was already there, and he inhaled the strange scent of Sakura's hair—it was neutral, but with a tinge of antiseptic, a hint of sweat, but was predominantly laced with the smell of blood and smoke. He thought of the shinobi who had survived, and of Naruto's almost-a-man face and all of the seriousness he had acquired in a few short weeks.

"Tell Naruto, not whoever he's with, tell Naruto—no one was abandoned, but not everyone is coming home. Don't tell that to anyone but Naruto. After that I don't care what you tell the other generals as long as it is factual." Sakura readjusted her grip around him as her shoulders hitched—she was trying not to sob, he could tell as her breathing against him became rapid and shallow. How many had died on their way for her aid? How many more had died under her hands? Sakura knew the hidden meaning to his message to Naruto, one that only a member of team seven would truly understand—we stood our ground, and there are bodies piled on that ground because of it.

"Do you think they're okay, Kakashi-sensei?" her voice was small, but it didn't waver—she wasn't quite crying yet.

"We're talking about Naruto, Sakura, his mission-casualty record is the envy of Konoha, and Konoha's mission-casualty record is the envy of the five hidden villages."

She laughed a little into his jacket, a smile in her voice, but each of them knew that he hadn't answered the question. She was old enough and had been through enough that he didn't have to lie to her anymore that things would be okay—she knew that sometimes not everything was okay, and couldn't be okay, she was a medic after-all. Telling someone it was okay was like giving them a numbing chakra pinch—they were so small and afraid in that moment, and anything other than the most blatant lie would destroy them. Lying was what kept young shinobi from self-destructing, and superiors did it often until the Genin was promoted or had gained enough experience to know how shinobi life was.

But as they stood wrapped around each other like lovers, if lovers even embraced after a bloody war such as this had been, Kakashi wished that they could still lie away the problems which were undoubtedly just over the horizon. The world would be much different after this day, and he suddenly felt too old to face it all. His eyes, still closed, crunched shut and he inhaled sharply as he fought his own tears. Sakura didn't make a peep as he dropped himself to sit cross-legged on the ground, even as he cradled her up against him like a child.

She and Naruto were the closest people he had to family, and if Naruto had been next to him the young man would have been trapped in Kakashi's arms as well. But he didn't have Naruto, he only had Sakura, and he needed to definitively prove to himself that she was alive and well. He needed to hang onto her for as long as it took to regain his composure. He decidedly ignored whatever looks his underlings were giving him, they hadn't fought this war constantly knowing that their daughter-sister-wife was on the same battlefield as they were, their loved ones either fought in different divisions or were back home away from the fighting. Kakashi had known as he went out, every day, that his wife-sister-daughter-whatever-Sakura-was-to-him was nearby, and that if she were killed he might have to watch her die.

To have seen her standing on her own, scant minutes ago, had filled him with wonder and gratitude. Wonder at realizing how deeply he had worried for her, and gratitude that she was okay. And now as they waited for news of Naruto, that dread crept back at perhaps having to tell Sakura that her brother-husband-whatever-Naruto-was-to-her was dead. That worry brought with it an incredible tiredness in Kakashi, as he just wished for once he might be happy at the end of a successful campaign.

Or maybe not happy, but not emotionally broken. It would be nice if the practice of lying was continued higher into the ranks, because as this exhaustion settled into his bones he wished someone would come up to him and lie to his face about the way of the world.

"Kakashi, it will be okay, I just know it. I promise."

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