Ripples in the snow

The woman on the balcony below Sakura was crying. She was leaning on the edge, her blood red silk dress contrasting against the thin layer of snow around and below her. Luckily for Sakura, it hadn't snowed that night, and it had made her mission of waiting on the roof for her partner to give her the sign of death a little more bearable. She took in the view of the thin creature below her, how her short, dark page revealed the pale skin of her neck ever so slightly. No obstructing jewelry that would make any clattering noises, no fabric to cut through. Perfect.

The woman in red leaned over the edge of the balcony, grabbing the railing until her knuckles turned white, scraping her rings against the metal. There was a slight nudge on Sakuras left shoulder, and she knew it was her cue to intervene, and with a soft thump, (which she made on purpose), she landed behind the woman, who slowly turned around, fear evident in her eyes. Her voice was broken and pitiful.

"Did she send you?" The woman breathed, her dark eyes starting to tear up. She was disturbingly young, not much older than twenty-five, but her face looked so worn by hardships that it made her seem at least ten years older. Sakura shook her head slightly.

"I'm here to help you." She said calmly, taking a few steps towards the trembling being in front of her. A glimpse of hope glistened in her eyes.

"He loves me then?" She smiled, a few tears running down her cheeks, ruining her expensive and elaborate makeup. "I knew it all along…" Sakura let a comforting smile brush over her face.

"Yes, he sent me. Everything will be fine now." More tears stained the woman's face and Sakura took another step towards her, catching her before her knees gave in on her. With her arms around Sakuras neck, she fell limp against her as the cold steel slit her throat. The kunoichi felt the life drain from the pathetic existence leaning on to her, tainting her white alpaca coat.

She carefully lay the woman down on the snow, the blood quickly pooling around her head, heat from it steaming in the cold air. She looked peaceful laying there, smiling forevermore; the last thought being that of a man she had loved, and that he had finally decided to rescue her. Sakura looked down on her stained coat, and then on the wretched creature in front of her again. It had been worth it.

She didn't even turn around as she jumped back onto the roof again, readjusting her blank, white mask over her face as she leapt through the air. The person next to her who had been watching her every step, clad in the same white dress that she was, didn't utter a word as she returned to her perch. He merely turned his head and gave a nod, approving of her actions.

"It is going to be difficult." Tsunade started, looking out of the window as she spoke. The pair in front of her studied their Hokage closely. She didn't get troubled about things if she didn't have the cause to. "It's an A-rank mission. But don't worry, it's not the target that'll be difficult." She held the scroll in her hand, looking intently at it before she reached it over to Sakura. "But it'll probably scar you for life. You get a day to decide if you want it or not."

Sakura took the scroll and decided against opening it then and there. They'd just gotten home from their last mission, and for once she'd actually been stupid enough to expect them to be able to catch a break. Thankful that she was still wearing her mask, a small frown crept on her face. She'd barely had time to charge up her chakra between missions, let alone study any medicine at the hospital for nearly two months. She still reeked of blood as she was standing there, coat soaked with it, and all the same Tsunade just threw another mission at them.

Sakura was not impressed with Tsunades planning.

Seeing how Kakashi liked for them to do their mission planning and reporting in peace and quiet, they bowed to the woman, and as she didn't continue to speak they turned to leave. But just as Sakura closed the door behind her, she heard the clearly troubled woman behind her open the squeaky drawer in her desk that she knew contained a bottle of sake, mumbling something that sounded suspiciously enough like 'sometimes I fucking hate this world'. Maybe Tsunades days weren't so damn pretty either then.

As one of the radar pairs of Konoha walked back to their apartment slowly and in silence, it was getting late, the sun was setting, and a chill wind swept through the streets. They looked like strange ghosts with their plain white porcelain masks still on, Sakuras coat still partially covered in blood, and the soft moccasins that barely made a sound as they moved on the ground. People avoided them, which suited them fine just then.

Kakashi uncharged the chakra-identifying lock and walked in to the white, sterile, first hallway. There were two closets there, and they changed into their robes and slippers in silence. No gear in the house. It was a way to keep work outside and just let home be home. No embarrassment, no giggles, just the safety of each others company. Needless to say, they didn't feel safe without it anymore. They'd been partners so long that it felt unnatural to be apart.

When Sakura slipped her mask off, she found that the bottom inside part of it was covered in dry blood. It had made a sickening, sticky noise when she'd pulled at it, and she let her right hand trace the line of her jaw and up towards her cheek, only to find more dry blood on it. It must have splattered on her as she'd slit the poor woman's throat, she thought to herself, and looked over to Kakashi. His moccasins that were thrown in a corner of the small space had a few stains on them, but that was all for his part. She shrugged slightly at the observation. He killed in a different way than she did.

"Done?" He said absentmindedly as he locked the door behind them with a weak glow of chakra, and she wondered slightly at his behavior, reflecting for a second over his paranoia. Nobody would ever dare come after them, let alone try to break in and rob them. Even so, she had not been able to convince him of just having a regular lock. The paranoid pain of a man…

"I guess." She answered, and shuddered as she realized that they hadn't turned on the thermostat yet. "Let's go home."

She closed the door behind her as she stepped into their 'real' hallway, the one that their guests stepped in to from another door, the one that contained the pictures of their precious people, the one that was painted a warm terracotta and smelled like sandalwood and vanilla incense. Finally home, she thought, and saw more than heard how Kakashi took a deep breath and relaxed his muscles. She had to smile. They hadn't been gone for more than a few days.

"Homesick much?" She asked him, smiling a warms smile which she was happy to see that he returned in full force.

"Always." He said joyfully, making his way to the kitchen. "Go shower, you need it... I'll throw something together." She heard the fridge open as she stepped into the bathroom.

"There's chicken in the freezer. I bought some before we left. Use it."

"Well planned Sakura. Now go shower."

After they both had showered and taken turns to cook, they sat wrapped up in their second set of robes and enjoyed a heartwarming chicken soup in silence. Sakura looked out the kitchen window, sleepy eyes studying the snowflakes attaching themselves to the glass.

"Seems we brought the weather back with us." She stated absentmindedly, resting her chin in the palm of her hand.

"Hm." Kakashi answered, sipping his soup, following her look out the window. "It would seem so." He put down his bowl, and replicated her body language. "You wanna' go out tonight?" Sakura shrugged, not even trying to fake some enthusiasm.

"I'll go if you go." But Kakashi just sighed at her.

"I don't mind staying home. But I'll go if you go." She raised a brow at him.

"You mind making you mind up?" He smiled at her through his mask.

"I'll go where you go, Sakura-chan." He teased, and she sighed back at him, smiling a tired smile.

"Hopeless man." She stated and glanced at the clock that hung above the kitchen doorway. Eight o'clock. How was it not more? It felt like midnight. "I'm staying in." She finally finished, being answered with a nod and a yawn from her teammate. Gathering all the strength she could, she got up to put their dishes in the sink. "I'm not opening that mission scroll tonight. I'm not sure I want to know what Tsunade is throwing our way just yet." The mess of silver hair nodded quietly again.

"We could do with a night off. It's been a lot for us lately." Sakura frowned, knowing he was right, scolding the Hokage in her head one more time.

"Hm." She hummed in agreement, moving up to him and putting a hand on his shoulder. "You okay?"

She felt him tens up for a second beneath her touch, then relax again and saw how his head fell forwards and heard him yawn.

"I'm fine." He mumbled, putting a hand on hers. "And you? Are you okay?" He asked softly, sounding very sleepy. Sakura smiled and grabbed his hand, pulling at it carefully to get him to stand up.

"I'm as fine as I can be, and no sleeping in the chair tonight either." She watched him get up, his eyes half lidded again, looking at her with that look that didn't reveal anything most of the time. She raised her brows at him when he just stood there, clearly studying her face. "Talk to me?" Sakura tried, cocking her head towards the livingroom. They went to sit down on the sofa, and Sakura placed a pillow in her knee, warming her hands under them. Warm, safe and home. What more could you ask of life?

"Hm." He started, eyes staring out into the nothingness of his thoughts. "There's too much money in the world right now." He stated flatly, but Sakura just shrugged and picked up a bowl of bonbons from the low coffee table.

"You sick of missions?" She asked, indulging her sweet tooth. Kakashi mock-frowned at her.

"I still don't understand how you can like those." He mused, switching on the lamp behind him. Sakura decided that he looked awful, not being fooled by the look on his face one bit. It looked awful as in something was really bothering him, other than that she supposed that he looked quite handsome. She chewed down on the bonbon in her mouth, earning a loud cracking noise. Focus woman. "Anyway, I think there's too much money in the world whenever regular people start buying lives like they have lately. I've never received this amount of assassination missions before in my life. Not on regular people." He shook his head. "What ever happened to just sorting things out the regular way? Talking? Just, something else than… this damn mess."

Sakura swallowed half of her bonbon with a loud 'gulp' and let the other thoughtfully roll over her wisdom tooth. He was right, and the thought had struck her too. Were people lacking in humanity, or was it just a bad period right now?

"People with too much money get megalomaniacal." She stated bluntly, crushing the remaining of the lemon flavored candy between her teeth.. "They get a kick out of controlling the lives of others." She sighed as she picked up the mission scroll from the table, giving him a questioning look, getting no reaction from him. "Or death I suppose, maybe even more so." She continued, frowning deeply and letting out an exasperated sigh. "Peace makes the world prosper and get rich again. Fewer people die, but for all the more selfish reasons."

There was a moment of silence, when they looked into each others eyes and saw the sting guilt the other one was feeling. The fact that they had death for as close of a partner in their job as the one sitting in front of them right now was one that they tried not to think actively about, but in moments like this it appeared all too clear to them. They'd invited him. They could complain all they wanted about people ordering other people to be killed, but the shinobi were the ones who put the knife to the throat in the end.

It wasn't that anyone who had died by their hands had been innocent, because in this world, nobody was ever innocent, and they didn't just execute people on a whim from some rich guy. Tsunade didn't accept every request. But the truth was that every time they stood by the memorial, they couldn't help but think of the gruesome fact that in some other place, in some other village, there was a name on a stone that they had put there. On the other hand, living so close to death certainly made them appreciate the value of life even more.

In a way it was quite bizarre that they were feeling what they did, they who had so much experience, and yet there were people who could distance themselves enough from it that it to them was reduced to nothing more than a signature on a piece of paper. The sweet taste in her mouth did nothing to keep the sick feeling in her stomach away, and she saw how Kakashis face had gone blank again, his visible eye staying on her all the while.

"Sakura, please put the scroll down again. I want to be able to sleep tonight." She shrugged and put it down on the table in front of them again, too tired to argue. She'd grown curious, but it could definitely wait until the morning.

"You think you'll be able to?" She asked distantly, eyes falling on the picture of Sasuke and Naruto that hung on the wall behind him. He stood up and stretched his arms above his head, joints cracking and mask straining over his yawn.

"I might need some help." He answered, giving her a questioning look, and Sakura stood up next to him, not bothering to answer. A habit that she, no doubt, had picked up from her former sensei, and he smiled a little at it.

The value of living, she thought as she brushed her teeth and washed her face one more time. The value of living and the realization that nothing lasts forever was exactly what had put her in this place to start with. The apartment, that was.

Sharing an apartment with Kakashi on the few rare occasions that they actually were allowed to stay home in Konoha for more than a night at a time, sharing every room with him but her bedroom. If people around them would have dared to, they would most certainly have talked behind their backs. But as so happened to be the case, the only ones who had voiced their thoughts of concern were Naruto and Sasuke. The rest of Konoha, along with the usually talkative Hokage, had kept their traps shut about it and minded their own business.

And even when Sasuke and Naruto had gathered some guts to ask her and Kakashi about it, they had explained it to them very simply: They'd been a two man team for several years by now, spent months after months on end together, and they felt safe together. So safe, in fact, that they had troubles sleeping apart, and they hadn't needed to go in on the details of how a severely fucked-up shinobis head worked. The plain truth that they all knew was that it didn't. The minds of shinobis were not to be poked about in by anyone but Ibiki, or maybe Ino, as things had turned out for her.

Whatever felt right you had to make work for you had been Sakuras argument, and that was not a fact that their two teammates were about to argue with them on. It would have been the kind of hypocrisy that would have caused Sakura to beat them up so bad that they would regret ever being born. Also, Naruto was working on his bad habit of throwing rocks in glass houses, and had actually managed to not do it at that time.

The place was nice as well, she thought, thinking about the first time they'd came to look at it. They'd picked a spacious, four room apartment in the middleclass part of town, and their bedrooms lay wall to wall. The furniture looked perfectly mismatched, there were doubles of everything in the kitchen, and the place was constantly scattered with ninja gear, empty medikits, Icha-Icha-novels and whatnot. And she'd loved it from the first night that she'd slept there. Kakashi was there, in the room next to her, and then everything was fine. Just like on their countless missions. Safety really was a very relative word, she reflected, grabbing her hairbrush from the shelf under the bathroom mirror. And she wasn't the only one who had issues with them.

Kakashi leaned against the doorframe of his bedroom and watched as Sakura sat on the edge of his bed, brushing her long pink hair. She still hadn't looked up at him, but her breathing was calm and she hadn't changed her body language, so he supposed that she was just tired like himself, and comfortable around him. In many ways, he found it strange that anyone could feel genuinely comfortable around him, knowing how odd he must appear to the world around him. But she didn't care. Maybe she knew him too well by now.

She looked so peaceful sitting there, even with the white, standard ANBU tank and shorts on her. At home she was so different from on the missions, and it was one of the things that made it great to come home again. To see her like that, all calm and slightly more lighthearted, happy even. The thought had hit him many times before, and the thought that he cared so much for someone else's happiness frightened him more than a little. It made him feel vulnerable.

"Hey..." He started, not really knowing how to continue, but he knew that he wanted to say something. Thank her maybe, but for what? Not being afraid of him? Not pushing him away? Making him feel vulnerable, and that it still felt good?

"Hey there." She said softly, still brushing her hair, turning her head to smile at him. Definitely worth feeling a little vulnerable for that sometimes, he thought to himself. He didn't see any reason to lie to himself about it. "You ready to get some sleep?" She continued, and he shrugged, turning the spotlights in the ceiling off, only leaving the dimmed light of the bedside lamp to cast shadows on the walls around them. But he still didn't move, just stood there, quietly looking at her until she put her brush down.

For a year and six months it had been like this. Ever since that night in august when his mind had decided firmly against being able to sleep without being in the near direct vicinity of Haruno Sakura. It still astonished him that anyone had been able to have that effect on him, and he watched the young woman in front of him thoughtfully, as if she was about to do something. He was waiting, but had no idea for what. Sakura on the other hand, now a very drained Sakura, quirked a brow at him.

"You're spacing out again." She mused, jumping in on the bed and pulling the cover up to her waist. "Now come to bed Kakashi."

The man in front of her snapped awake at the sound of his name being mentioned and silently moved towards the bed. He pulled his t-shirt off but left his dark flannel bottoms on, then crept down in to bed with… her. This woman who somehow was everywhere in his life, and still not close enough for him to be completely satisfied.

"Sorry." He mumbled through his mask and halfway into the pillow, effectively muffling it.

"Sorry?" She asked, ever smiling at him, and he sighed into that very same pillow, trying to keep his mind straight.

"Sorry for spacing out." He said again, turning his face towards her. "And sorry for being such a bother." But Sakura merely shrugged at his words and reached over to turn of the light.

"You sure are a sorry creature then." She teased, falling back onto her pillow. "But I'm very forgiving as a person, so it should be fine." Kakashi turned his back towards her and pulled his blankets up around him, and heard her do the same thing.

"Night Sakura." He mumbled, feeling that wonderful feeling of 'home sweet home' settle in his gut. The feel of your own sheets, the way that they smelled, and the solid heat from two people warming up the bed all but numbed his senses out. And to top it off, he could hear Sakuras calm breathing begin to get heavier by the second.

"Night 'Kashi." She answered dreamily, lulling of into sleep, and he reached a hand back to find her own waiting for his, and her fingers gripped his ever so slightly when he touched it. Home, was his last thought before drifting off into a deep sleep.