Title:Malady
Author:TinaMustDie
It took a long time to write this. I hope it's okay.
Kakashi has made many mistakes. He has lived and fought, and dammit, he feels so old. There's not a day he doesn't wish he'd done things differently.
So when he sees those bright, hateful, accusing eyes, he looks away. Kakashi cannot look what he's created in the face. He turns his back, but he can still feel those eyes burning into him as they drag her away.
The sound of her muffled sobs haunt his dreams.
She has been in the hospital a year before he works up the courage to visit her. They say she is getting better, nearly fully recovered. He walks down the sterile hallways and the smell of antiseptic is enough to make him sick. The nurse ahead smiles prettily and halts. There's her room. Number 7. He doesn't find it funny.
But before he can turn and run, because this is a bad omen if he ever saw one, the woman twists the handle and calls softly, "Sakura-chan, you have a visitor."
There is blood everywhere. The only way he can tell them apart is the barely visible patch of blond hair. Years of practice hold back his rising nausea.
The landscape is chaos, obvious traces of battle strewn across the horizon. The sky is the darkest gray and the odor of burnt skin and torn flesh permeates the air. Her body is heaving with dry sobs, her voice hoarse and quaking.
"Oh God. Oh God. Naruto..."
She keeps shaking, completely oblivious to his presence. Her hair is a matted red, slick with blood.
"Oh, no, no. Naruto."
As he approaches what was once Uchiha Sasuke, she notices him. Her head jerks up, meeting his visible eye.
"He's gone." She breathes, horror evident on her face.
"He's gone."
She repeats it over and over, a twisted mantra, as he carries her back to Konoha.
The room is bright, yellow curtains pulled from the window, sunlight streaming through. She is sitting in it, basking like an angel. She turns to face him, smiling sadly.
"Kakashi-sensei."
His heart stops for a moment. She's tragic, and oh God, he hates himself.
"Sakura."
She smiles again and stands, motioning towards two chairs in the corner. He follows and watches her move with a sort of tired grace.
He takes a seat on the cold plastic, uncomfortable and terrified of doing something wrong.
"You look well," she says, voice heavy, but not unpleasant.
"Thank you. Your doctor says you're being released soon."
"In three weeks. How is everyone?"
"The Yamanaka girl married Shikamaru Nara," he tells her.
"Did she?"
The idle talk continues for sometime, him telling her about Hinata Hyuuga being engaged to that Inuzuka kid, and Rock Lee teaching at the Academy. An awkward silence falls over them and the urge to flee intensifies tenfold.
Luckily, the nurse knocks a few moments later and tells them visiting hours are over.
He stands, and so does she, him heading for the door, her the patch of sunlight. Kakashi stops as he steps through the threshold and turns to say goodbye.
He thinks he sees something flash in her eyes. Malice.
But then she's smiling that sad, strange smile, and it's gone.
"Goodbye Kakashi-sensei." She leans back into the light and glows in the sunbeams.
Three weeks go by way too fast.
She is released today, he thinks as he glides through the trees. She's out of the hospital.
He went to the Hokage yesterday. He has made sure he will not be in Konoha for another three months at least. He strains forward, eagerly towards the S-Rank mission and away from his former pupil.
She is crying furiously, plastic identification bracelets snapping as she beats them against the ground. Her fists are bleeding, but if she notices, she doesn't care.
She's being treated for post traumatic stress disorder, at his insistence when he'd brought her back. He followed her to the roof of the hospital. The staff didn't notice her leave, she's far too smart for that.
Suddenly she stops and looks straight at him.
"This is your fault," she hisses the revelation.
"Everything. All of it. Your fault." Her short hair is sticking to her eyelids, soaked with tears, and her flimsy hospital gown is rippling in the wind. The sky is blacker than he's ever seen it and he knows there's more than one storm brewing. Her eyes are bloodshot and shining with a hatred so unworldly it takes his breath away. "They're DEAD because of you! He's dead because of you!"
It takes eight men to restrain her. She is bound tightly, the straight jacket pale white as her skin.
The trek back to the village has never seemed so short. It is the middle of the day and the sun has no mercy. Nevertheless, he walks as slowly as possible along the dirt road. He is more afraid of his past than dehydration.
The day is clear, but snowing, the cold seeping into the bones of the villagers. He knows that cold will stay there. Kakashi stands in the crowd full of broken hearts and watches his two former students lowered into their graves.
He's glad she's not there to see it. Sakura is safe in the psychiatric ward at the Konoha hospital. He sincerely hopes she stays there.
Kakashi stands there long after everyone else leaves, staring at their names.
Uzumaki Naruto
Uchiha Sasuke
He remembers when they were all younger and he'd thought, half jokingly, that one day those two were gonna kill each other.
If only he'd known how right he was.
Kakashi knows that no matter how much the village loves her, a vicious hate like that doesn't just disappear. As he nears the gates he feels like he's headed for his execution.
For the next few months he doesn't see much of her. She hasn't been put back on missions, so she spends her days helping the new Mrs. Nara run her flower shop. He is immensely grateful for this.
But he feels the atmosphere in the village and knows what's happening. It's an awkward dance, like walking on eggshells, be careful or she'll break.
Apparently someone has two left feet, because eight months after she is released, she goes missing.
They search for days. It doesn't surprise him. Sakura won't be found until she wants to be. He sees the effort the Hokage puts into apprehending her and realizes that Tsunade knew this was going to happen all along. And let her out anyway. As a reminder perhaps? The closest thing left to an unstable prodigy and a tirelessly faithful outcast? Kakashi keeps looking and marvels at the selfishness.
When he finds her, he wishes he hadn't. It's a bright night, moon full and casting an ethereal blue light on the world. The stars shine, burn, in the distance.
It's the spot where they first introduced themselves. Where she had smiled, young and giddy, her future best friend loud and proud. She sits there now, crumpled and empty, swigging at a bottle of sake, dressed in nothing but a white tank top and her underwear. She runs her bone thin fingers through her disheveled hair and sighs. There are tears streaming down her face.
Without warning, she throws her liquor bottle at him. He dodges and it lands a few feet behind him.
"God, I was such a bitch."
He understands that it's time for her to talk and he has to listen, so he sits down, like so many years ago, and gives her his undivided attention.
"I was so stupid, wasn't I?" Her voice is low but harsh.
"He was right there. They were right there and I couldn't see them. I didn't see just how fucked up he was. I didn't see that he needed a different kind of love. Like a mother. Like a family. Like someone who would just shut the fuck up and listen, because he tried to tell us didn't he? He was sitting right there. So close. And I just let him slip right through my fingers and into a snake pit."
The tears are coming faster now. Her voice is getting louder, impassioned with her grief.
"And God, he would have been horrified at what he'd become. He was his brother. He was just like him."
She let out a hoarse laugh.
"And there he was, and I didn't see how strong he was. How full of life. And I should have appreciated that. He brought hope wherever he went and he was beautiful. And I'm sorry. God, I'm so sorry. I should have been nice to him. I should have given him whatever he wanted, because he deserved it, dammit! I should have seen how hard he had to work to keep his head up and smile at the world like he did. He needed me, and I was such a bitch,"she wept bitterly, shaking with the pressure.
And while he'd known that Sakura had loved Naruto, he didn't understand just how much until now.
"They needed me and I failed them and so did you."
She stood, furious.
"Where were you when Naruto and I needed you? With Sasuke. Where were you when Naruto had to train for the exams? With Sasuke! You went to Sasuke and left Naruto with a man who you knew wouldn't be able to teach him! He had to find Jiraiya all on his own! And what about me?"
She was screaming now, eyes rimmed red.
"When did you ever teach me a damn thing? When did you give a fuck Kakashi? Was I not good enough? Was there not enough talent there? Hm?"
She paused and gave another laugh. When she continued, it was in a calm, soft tone.
"You put all your efforts into Sasuke and look where it got you. Look where it got him. He should never have been a ninja, and you should have known that. It was like adding fuel to a fire."
Here she stopped, giving him a look.
"I will never forgive you." It was barely above a whisper, but it broke his heart.
She stumbled past him and onto the shattered glass. Blood smeared across the ground like a demented version of a child finger painting. Sakura fell to her knees, skin tearing on the shards. She grasped a thick piece of glass and twirled it through her fingers.
"God, I hate you," she breathed, in a choked whisper. "I hate you so much."
She pressed the glass against her wrist, and before he could stop her, sliced.
Two hours later, he was informed by the medics she would live.
The next morning he slips onto her windowsill.
She is strapped to her bed, wrist bandaged, eyes dead. Her skin is sallow and her hair lies around her in disarray, like a broken halo. She lies still, except for the slight movements of her chest. Kakashi wonders when they will have to force her to breathe, when they'll have to take measures to insure she doesn't bite through her tongue.
He leaps off the windowsill and never comes back.