A/N: Stopped my reread of Gone With The Wind long enough to write this. Fantastic book. I think I'm happy with this chapter. I'm on vacation right now (the mountains are beautiful, btw), so that may or may not be the reason for my sudden inspiration. Oh, and I also changed the rating to M - just to keep my options open, you know.


Stand Or Fall

Chapter Two: Perfectly Wrong

"My dear, I don't give a damn." - Rhett Butler


Smoke rose in grayish black clouds, wispy and unyielding, from the dying fire pit, allowing little heat for the shinobi sloppily arranged around it. Kakashi poked at the red embers with a short stick. Sparks and dust flew up into the air. He realized belatedly - and with a mild regret - that he didn't care enough about the chilly night to focus his effort on refueling the flames. He tossed the stick onto the useless ashes, stifling a sigh as he laid back down, his hands behind his head.

This was his sixth successful mission since his return to the village two months ago. They had kept him tied down in the hospital for a week monitoring him to make sure he had no lasting injuries. Of course, everyone was most shocked to find that Sharingan no Kakashi was recently without his fabled sharingan. It had made the first team he led out very fearful. Everything that they had ever heard about him was praise, but it was usually associated with his unusual eye. Now, missing that eye, they didn't know what to expect. A few of them had had the brains to dig up some research on him. They found in those old facts that he had been quite accomplished long before he had ever gained the sharingan's power. It had comforted them, but it was still a long ways away from assurance.

It was his job to do that, to instill the trust and confidence in his subordinates that he had once received upon glance. It didn't take long for his teams and for the village to realize that a Kakashi without a sharingan was not a useless Kakashi. He now commanded his soldiers with an iron will, and they followed like obedient dogs.

Explaining to his Hokage what had kept him chained for so long was no easy task. Naruto held such a faith in him that Kakashi was pained to see the disappointment in his former student's aging face. Those kids had always thought of him as indestructible, even when he was constantly bedded in those damned hospitals. Of course, being drained of blood and chakra everyday coupled with being starved and beaten didn't make it easy to take on twenty guards. Naruto at least understood the dilemma. If anything he was shocked to know that Kakashi had even survived after hearing how he was punished for his…incompliance.

Kakashi could sense the dawn coming. He sat up heavily, kicking the body closest to him roughly. Kiba rolled over, his head falling against his shoulder as a muffled growl died on his lips. Kakashi's mouth formed a solid line. He kicked again - harder.

"I'm up," Kiba grunted.

"Act like it."

Kakashi glanced over his shoulder to Neji and Kei, the team's fill-in and earth element specialist. Neji was already awake, working on reviving their last comrade. Kei seemed to shrug out of sleep, quickly slipping into the same attitude as Neji. Both were moving to grab their equipment as Kakashi destroyed evidence of their fire. He kicked Kiba once more for good measure when the younger shinobi refused to cooperate. "We're leaving," he announced. "We're two miles away from the village. I want us back before dawn breaks."

"Of course you do," Kiba sneered.

"Don't be difficult," Kakashi drawled.

"Don't be an asshole."

"Can't help that, I'm afraid."

Kiba glared at him but stood and grabbed his pack. "So much for getting any sleep," he grumbled.

Kakashi glanced back at Neji, who stood staring back at he and Kiba with a look of boredom and impatience. Kakashi sighed. "All right, let's go."


He was disappointed to have arrived slightly behind schedule. The sun was just cutting through the mountain peaks as his team had made it through the gates. Having returned and given his thorough report - which would never have been so thorough had not he been trying to win a war - he quickly made his way to return home. He stopped on the way to buy a bag of chocolates before turning the corner to reach his apartment building.

Well, it wasn't technically his building. He had moved into the charming two bedroom apartment with Sakura once he had been released from the hospital, having discovered that she had a spare room where Tenten had stayed until her engagement to Neji was finalized - meaning Neji actually said it. To be honest, it had made to quite the advantageous arrangement. Upon his return he hadn't wanted to spend a moment in the absence of those he loved, and living with one of those loved ones put ease to that ache in his chest. Soon, however, the ache had lessened and he found it easier to be separated. He had started taking his missions again then, and at that point also started paying Sakura back for all of his expenses. She said it wasn't necessary, but he wasn't blind to her poor paycheck. Given that his own payments were cut in half to fund the war, he felt that sharing the weight of the bills made them both sleep easier.

He entered the apartment, shutting the door behind him and laying both his key and the chocolates on the counter. The apartment opened up into the kitchen. There was a small living room beyond that, a bathroom and a closet tucked neatly beside his bedroom. Sakura's bedroom resided on the opposite side of the living room, closer to the kitchen. Kakashi plucked off his mud-caked boots before making a bee-line straight for the bathroom.

It was a little past four in the morning, so Kakashi knew he had half an hour before Sakura woke up and started going about her day. He quickly stripped himself of his mucky clothing, intending to be clean and dressed before she woke. That plan was quickly shot to hell, however, when his sore muscles met the heat of the hot water pouring from the shower. He swore it was seven minutes before he even moved to reach for the soap.

And then there was the ever-expected banging on the bathroom door.

Kakashi groaned, mumbling something about being out in a minute. Liar.

When he finally emerged, dense steam streaming from the bathroom and towel wrapped securely around his waist, he found that Sakura had already put the chocolates in the freezer and was working on devourig her breakfast. She glared at him tiredly, leaning against the counter with her mouth full of toast. Kakashi raised his eyebrows but shrugged as he turned to enter his room.

"You could pick up your clothes," she called.

He ignored her. A little sadistically, he left his door open as he entered his room and began his search for a clean uniform and a pair of boxers. Sakura stopped at his doorway on her way to the bathroom. She leaned against the frame and moaned as he held up a wrinkled pair of spotted green boxers. "You have no idea how sexy you look," she purred.

Kakashi looked over his shoulder at her. He quite enjoyed her mocking. "I have a faint idea," he answered with a grin.

Sakura rolled her eyes with a frustrated sigh. "You could at least try to be easier to live with."

"You only complain about me in the mornings."

"You're only annoying in the mornings."

"Hey, you're the one who offered to let me stay. Don't go changing this up to make me out to be the bad guy."

"You're living with me. You are annoying me. Forgive me, Sensei, but that makes you the bad guy."

Kakashi frowned. "I bought you chocolates."

"Thanks."

Kakashi's frown deepened. "That is my apology."

Sakura didn't reply.

"I am not going to say it."

Sakura shrugged. "I don't care if you do."

"Yes you do," Kakashi hissed.

Sakura tilted her head. "Did you sleep last night?"

"Not a wink. Why?"

"It's just a reasonable explanation for your behavior," she answered. "You're never a slob, and your showers don't last longer than three minutes!"

"Sometimes they do," he objected, defensive.

Sakura smiled at him and made off to the bathroom, having both insulted him and confused him. "Huh," he murmured. "Tricky girl."

He decided that nothing of vital importance required his attention for the day - Naruto always gave him the remainder of the day off any day that he was returning from a mission - and so he dressed casually. Or, as casually as his closet would allow. He had almost no civilian clothes. Two pairs of pants - neither of which even fit him anymore - and a cotton shirt that he complained itched terribly; that was all that made up his civilian collection. So he grabbed a uniform, leaving behind his weapons and his flak jacket, as well as his other accessories. He left his mask as well. He tended to do that; Sakura's apartment had such a warm, sweet smell. It almost always put him to sleep.

He made his way to the kitchen, fully intending to steal whatever was left of Sakura's breakfast. He paused, a soft breath escaping his gently smiling lips as he saw two plates on the circled table, one which was half empty. He laughed softly, his heart warm. What a sweet girl.

He was standing at the sink downing a glass of milk, his plate waiting patiently to be cleaned, when Sakura made her speedy entry. She grabbed what was left of her food and began stuffing it into her mouth as she carried it with her to her room. Kakashi stared after her. He always liked the way the white of the cotton towels looked against Sakura's skin and in contrast to her hair. He pushed his sleeves up and wet the sponge. When he was drying his glass, Sakura came whirling back in, her shirt crooked and lacking her weapons, and dropped her plate into the sink. Without pause, Kakashi picked it up and began washing it. He started humming.

"Stop that," Sakura ordered as she began to fix her shirt. "You're no house wife."

"There's nothing wrong with being a house wife. It seems like a perfectly happy life," he answered. "And I like to hum."

"Hn."

"Do I sound bad?" he questioned, smiling in amusement despite himself. "Am I out of tune?"

"You sound like an angel," Sakura huffed quickly. It was a talent that Kakashi couldn't fathom. How could she drip sarcasm even when answering in a dismissive manner? "You're off today," she added dully. "How unfair."

"I'd happily switch places with you," Kakashi offered.

"You don't know a damn thing about running a hospital."

"You'd be surprised," he chirped.

Sakura frowned. "I don't think I would."

Kakashi dried her plate, placing it back in its proper location. He turned back to face her. "Thank you. For breakfast, I mean. I knew you must've been pretty mad at me, so that just made it that much a nicer a thing for you to do."

"I'm no saint," she grunted. "Don't let my random acts of kindness confuse you."

"Oh, never," he mocked, a hand flying to his chest.

"You're way too happy to be home."

"I need sleep," Kakashi sighed.

"You do," she said seriously. "Rest. I'll be back tonight."

"You're not coming home for lunch?"

"I don't think I'll even be taking lunch."

"Well that's not right!"

Sakura stared at him. "You are not coming to the hospital."

"The hell I'm not." He sounded adamant too.

Sakura sighed. "I'm leaving."

"M'kay. See you."


Strange, Sakura thought as she shrugged out of her formal white coat and quickly signed out. Kakashi had been the gentleman, bringing her lunch and, in consideration of her own feelings, leaving it for her without so much as a word. She had not even seen him.

And the lunch had been good too. Well made and sweet, it was just what she needed after the chaos of emergency surgery.

Her nerves were always frayed at the end of every week. She only took one Saturday off every two weeks. Naruto was working her hard. She swore that she was being driven into the dirt. And then coming home to Kakashi of all people. She rarely saw him - he was almost always out on some important mission or another - and when she did he usually went out of his way to tease her and spoil her. Half the things he did didn't make any sense, but then he had always been like that. It was just a hard thing to get used to living with. Not that he was hard to live with - no, he wasn't a bother in the least bit. He was just a bit confusing. Sakura still felt like a child trying to unravel the workings of his mind. She'd come to terms with the fact that he was the genius, not her, and that made things easier.

But then he would go and buy her chocolates, or bring her lunch, or put her to bed when she fell asleep on the couch. He would kiss her forehead and laugh at her as she blushed. None of that was confusing though - it was just him showing affection, and she could handle and understand that. It was when he started being rotten that she got confused. Kakashi was naturally a hard person, he wasn't one to pet your head and tell you how pretty you were, so she expected at least a little roughened edge from him. But waking up in the middle of the night to find him dripping in sweat as he pushed his body in training, slapping her away and gruffly ordering her to mind her own business? That was a little much. She supposed she at least preferred that to his silent treatments. Kakashi's silent treatments were a complete distance between himself and every living thing around him. Sakura could only guess that those moods of his weren't really directed specifically at her. She hoped.

She wasn't surprised to find him asleep on the couch with Icha Icha Paradise lying haphazardly over his chest. He had almost certainly fell asleep waiting for her. Dinner was waiting on the table. Kakashi hadn't touched his food. He had made it a point to at least have dinner with her when he was home.

Kakashi was a strange sight when he slept. It wasn't in the same sense as one would normally assume that to be. Kakashi didn't look calm and serene and peaceful when he slept. No, that wasn't his case. Kakashi looked strange only because he wasn't forcing expression, and in doing so he managed to look much more natural. For a man who had hidden his face from the world for the majority of his life, he didn't seem to be hiding all that much.

Sakura went and shed herself of her day clothes, slipping on something looser and more comfortable. She was mildly surprised to come back to see that Kakashi was still sleeping. He must have been exhausted - he would never have been able to sleep through the soft noise that she had made otherwise. Sighing, she picked up Icha Icha, closing it with a quiet tap and setting it on the coffee table that one of Kakashi's feet had invariably found. The touch had been enough to stir him.

Sakura had discovered that a Kakashi at home was not that different from a Kakashi on a mission. He woke up just as gracefully, although perhaps a bit more slowly, and he kept things just as organized and necessary as he always had. Kakashi's lone eye looked up at her through thin, white bangs. His lips pressed together in a soft moan as he heaved himself up, sitting back against the couch. "You're home," he stated blankly.

"Yep."

"Hn." Kakashi pushed his hair out of his face. "Dinner's ready."

"I noticed. I was waiting for you, sleepyhead."

"Don't tease me." His voice was low, not at all playful; but also not forceful.

"Did you sleep all day?"

"No." He looked her over, obviously somewhat regretting his short ways with her. "I brought you lunch," he offered.

Sakura nodded. "You didn't stay long enough for me to thank you."

"I was under the impression that you didn't want me to."

Sakura was getting frustrated. She hated when he was like this, when he was dry and expressionless. "You're still tired."

"I'll go back to sleep after dinner," he answered.

She looked at him strangely. "Have you eaten today?"

"I had breakfast."

Sakura's eyebrows lowered. "So you were awake long enough to make lunch and bring it to the hospital for me, but not long enough to feed yourself?"

"Something like that."

"You're a dud."

"What's a dud?"

Sakura shook her head, grabbing his arm and pulling him to get him to stand up. He was heavier than he looked. "Let's eat."

"Hn."

Situated and dining, Sakura paused. "Are you going to be here tomorrow?"

"Probably not," Kakashi murmured. "Why do you ask?"

"No reason," Sakura passed. "I was just making sure so that I'd be able to make plans."

"Don't inconvenience yourself on my behalf."

"You say that so casually. It's like you don't care at all," she whined.

Kakashi shrugged. "I've learned that people always try too hard to be nice, especially to friends. You have a life, Sakura. It's okay to live it."

"You're not just my friend. You're my roommate and former sensei."

"And that changes things how?"

Sakura sighed. "You're so difficult."

Kakashi didn't answer. He went back to eating.

Sakura tilted her head. "Is it very different? Not having the sharingan, I mean."

"You're awfully talkative," Kakashi noted. "I'm not entirely sure how to answer that question. Remember, there was a point in my life when I didn't have the sharingan. I was never really meant to have it anyway. I'm not of Uchiha lineage. The sharingan was a strain on my body. In the sense that I have much more chakra to spare, yes, it is different."

"Do you miss it?" She almost regretted asking, but she was too curious.

"Miss it?" he echoed. "Hm. That's a complicated question."

"How so?"

"There's backstory that expands so much time and importance of my life that I'm not sure I'd even be able to explain it right, even if I could manage to stay awake long enough to tell you." Kakashi stuffed another bite into his mouth. He swallowed. "Let's just say that yeah, I miss it."

"Huh." That gave Sakura a lot more to consider. And the way he avoided the question was so painfully obvious. "Is that why you push yourself so hard when you train, to make up for what you lost?"

"No. I've always trained like that."

"Really?" She sounded genuinely shocked.

"Yeah. Really."

"That has to be unhealthy."

Kakashi shrugged.

The man really didn't give a damn what she had to say on the matter.


Saturday mornings were Satan's territory. Sakura fished through her closet for at least an hour. Where the hell was that dress? The one that Ino had bought her along with a box of condoms as a gag for her last birthday? The one that her mother had pitched in to buy? It couldn't have just upped and vanished.

"Kakashi! Did you move my dress?" she yelled.

She wouldn't be surprised if she had woken him up. She heard a yawn and the creakings of a mattress as he shuffled out of his room. "Which one?"

"The little black one."

Kakashi raised his eyebrows. "Haven't touched it, but I'd sure like to see it. What would you be doing with a dress like that?"

She cast a glare over her shoulder, insulted at the implication that she specifically would have no use for such a dress. "None of your business."

"Fair enough."

She went back to searching.

"So, is this the plan you were so graciously putting on hold in consideration of poor, little me?"

Sakura opened her mouth to tell him to go to hell, but she instead squealed in delight as she held up her trophy. "Yes! Got it!"

"That's a mighty tiny dress."

"Shut up," she said, spinning around to face him. "And what are you still doing here anyway? I thought you would have left for a new mission by now."

"Naruto asked me to stay another day. He has a conference coming up and he wanted me to look over the information and give him my opinion before he went in. I suggested that he use Shikamaru instead, but he said that the elders and leaders would feel more comfortable if he used me."

"Why you?"

"Experience."

"You're not that old."

"I didn't think so either."

Sakura unfolded the dress, frowning at the wrinkles. "So, you'll be staying home again today?"

He shrugged. "Probably. But don't let that stop you from going out," he added with a grin.

"I shouldn't go anyway. I have to be back at the hospital in the morning. And these wrinkles are ridiculous."

"I agree about the wrinkles."

"Of course you do. These'll take some work," she said, staring down at the black silk. Sakura threw the dress on her bed. "You want to come?"

"Oh, an invitation! Finally!"

Sakura growled at him. "Maturity," she reminded him, "is a gift."

He smiled at her. "Sakura, do I look twenty to you?"

It was a rhetorical question, but Sakura examined his face seriously. "You could pass for twenty."

"That's the nicest thing I've heard all day."

"It had better be. I don't compliment you freely."

"Trust me, I know."

Sakura put her hands on her hips. "I'm seriously though. You should come."

"Sure, get me drunk and hung-over before sending me out to sabotage an elite unit. Brilliant."

"I was being nice, asshole," she grunted.

"I've been being called that quite a bit lately. Huh."

"Maybe there's some truth in it."

"Maybe," he allowed. "I don't really care though."

"I guessed as much." Sakura glanced at her clock. Seven thirty-eight. "You woke up early to talk to Naruto, didn't you?"

"Yeah. I just went back to bed when I got home. Figured I had nothing better to do."

"I need to get going. Ino'll blow a fuse if I'm late."

"What are you doing?"

"Girls' day out. And night. Whatever."

"Have fun."

"I hope so." Sakura grabbed the bag leaning against her bedpost and stuffed her dress into it. She added, concerned, "Remember to eat today, all right?"

"Sure thing."

And she was reassured that he would, if only because she had asked him to.


He was tall and well built with short hair and pale brown eyes. He was charming and his voice was smooth and his hands were large and warm and he just smelled so good. His touch was gentle and his joking was playful and open. He was just a few years older than her. He was a new Jounin. He had seen the battlefield twice. His squad captain was usually Aburame Shino - which made sense because Shino was such a good fighter to have when taking on a large group of enemies.

She had forgotten his name three times that night, and now she was grasping for straws, desperately trying to remember what it was. But she guessed it didn't really matter because he was taking her home and she hadn't gotten laid in such a very long time.

And then he did something stupid like push her against a dirty brick wall in some backways street, shoving his tongue into her mouth and letting his hands roam and grope her body senselessly. She pressed her hands against his shoulders and pushed him away gently. "Easy. Just a bit longer."

"No, now," he groaned.

And then she was disgusted at his touch. She shoved him away, watching him fall and stare up at her with wide, shocked eyes, his mouth hanging open like some idiot. "You stupid drunk! You just couldn't do this right, could you?"

She walked away grumbling about giving Ino a piece of her mind and something else about beating the hell out of loser shinobi just promoted for the war who groped the wrong places and said the wrong things and who would probably die next week defending some rundown shack that was being used in place of an outpost.

Sakura really had to raise her standards.


Sakura didn't come home that night. Kakashi went to bed with a slight smile on his lips.

She was such a naughty little girl.