AN: I've decided to care less while writing this and so far it's been a great deal of fun working like that. It's strange, working with materials I wrote so many years ago, but I think I'll keep at it for a while. There'll be no promises of regular updates for this, and it runs the risk of getting major plot holes or characters turning out OOC or any number of things that come with next to no planning, but I'm going for it! The three first chapters are being revised to get the worst mistakes out, and I'm working on a fourth. Let's see where it leads us (and let me know if you've got ideas for where that might be, maybe I can make it happen).


For most of his first month at Heimstaðir Kakashi sleeps. Twice a day he goes to the barn and feeds the sheep, in the evenings he eats dinner with his hosts Sunna and Þorir, and the rest of the time he spends in his bedroom. The waking hours are divided between lying on his bed looking at the ceiling or sitting in his armchair looking out the window. It's hard to say if the hollowness of his mind wears him down or bores him out, but when it does he falls asleep. Usually he wakes feeling even more tired. If this is some kind of undetectable genjutsu draining his energy, it's been around since the end of the Fourth War. Given the company Kakashi keeps it is unlikely such a thing would have gone unnoticed, but you could never know. He tries disrupting his chakra flow a few times, to make sure, but nothing changes.

It comes to the point where he feels like sleeping forever might be a valid lifegoal. He orders himself to get up then, and only a life of military discipline allows him to get dressed and go outside. Whatever this is, especially if it's a genjutsu, he will not let it beat him.

With little else to do Kakashi runs. All use of justus and the likes are forbidden which render practicing any actual combat skills impossible, but at least he can keep in shape. Without using chakra to boost him he runs until his legs are stiff and shaky. He knows he's fit by a civilian's standard but compared to what he's used to it still surprises him how slow he runs, and for how short distances. Stopping himself from finding footholds by channeling chakra takes most of his focus and keeps his mind comfortably occupied. After so many years as a shinobi it's second nature to him to not sink down in the water that hides under the grass in some places. As he's still learning to properly read the ground up on the hillside it takes a lot of willpower to allow his feet to get wet.

With the taste of blood on his tongue and his pulse beating throughout his head Kakashi lets gravity bring him down on some random spot of decently dry and flat grass that is somewhat protected from the ever-present wind. He lies there, struggling to get his breath back, watching the sky. For that short time every day he feels fully alive, and that's all the proof he needs that this is not a genjutsu. The chill in the air usually registers at the same time as the blankness trickles back into his head. He gets up then and makes his way back to the farm.

The day after Hermione showed up is the first time Kakashi deliberately chooses a specific turf for his rest. It's the same one where she joined him, and maybe it's an invitation for her to come back. Kakashi is not convinced he wants her to, yet here his is.

Hermione, with her straightforward, continuous stream of small-talk makes Kakashi wary. He's not used to such bluntness in any issues that can be considered personal, or even worse; emotional. Konoha shinobi, Kakashi very much included, wouldn't dream of admitting to such things as loneliness or feeling lost. Kakashi is convinced they all carry darkness inside of them from time to time, but they deal with it as shinobi should: Quietly and on their own.

"Góðan daginn" Hermione says as she reaches Kakashi. He can feel his hair moving as he nods along with his "yo!"

Folding with her hands on her knees Hermione huffs out a breath and then pushes herself up. "I can't believe you actually go running here." A hand comes up to remove a strand of wildly curly hair that has fallen across her face. "It's steep, and uneven, and I'm ridiculously winded from just walking the closest route."

"Hm," Kakashi says, "it's a good challenge I think. Keeps me in shape." Hermione sits down uninvited this time, legs stretched out in front of her in a very civilian manner.

"Yeah?" Hermione questions. "You do trail running or something similarly crazy?"

The open curiosity is strange, even if Kakashi should be prepared this time. Pictures of training and jutsus, missions and war, teammates and death, flash before Kakashi's eyes and for a moment he considers lying. Saying yes would be simple. In the end he settles for something closer to the truth and in line with the cover Tsunade gave him. He is not fond of outright lies and his cover is probably all over the grape wine as it is. Hermione will hear about it soon enough.

"I'm a soldier." He allows. It's a redacted truth, but as close as he can come without spilling secrets that he has swore to keep. He could maybe have used the word mercenary because most of his life he's been just that if in a slightly more formal setting. He has, however, been told that translation that can get adverse reactions from people. Apparently making a living the way shinobi do isn't uncomplicated in large parts of the world.

"And now you're here feeding sheep?" Hermione asks, looking intrigued. Since it's not a question that needs an answer Kakashi shrugs and turns to look out over the valley. The broken cloud cover allows for splashes of sunlight to travel across the ground at moderate speed. He's getting used to the absence of threes and greenery, and the sky that goes on forever. It's easy to feel insignificant here.

Kakashi thinks of pulling out his ever-present book to dissuade any further questioning but decides against it. He's not convinced it'll work on Hermione anyway.

"Now I'm even more curious about how you ended up here." Hermione could have easily phrased it as a question, but she doesn't. Kakashi is grateful, and maybe that's why he chooses to answer.

"My boss told me it was a mission." He says, folding his eyes into a smile that never reaches his lips. It doesn't hurt as much anymore, but he's not happy about it either. "Said it was S-rank, a personal favor where she needed someone she could trust." He doesn't say out loud that it clearly was a lie. Hermione will figure that out or she won't. He definitely doesn't tell her about the letter Tsunade sent him, telling him as much.

Hermione stays silent, and it drags words out of Kakashi he didn't plan to share. "She apparently thought I needed a break." It's what she wrote after all, and a plain and simple fact like that can stand being shared. He doesn't mention the feeling of being exiled, nor the absolute certainty that she'd done it to keep him from becoming Hokage now that he's lost his sharingan. Not that he thinks he should be Hokage, but it would have been nice to have her say it out loud or not at all. Tsunade is not known for circumventing issues like this.

"Did you?" Hermione asks when it's clear Kakashi's not adding anything else. "Need a break I mean," she clarifies when he fails to answer. As if he hadn't understood what she meant. Kakashi thinks back on the time immediately after the war. How he'd slept when he came to Heimstaðir. How much he still sleeps.

"Maa Hermione, who knows?" Kakashi keeps his voice airy and offers her a beaming smile, confident she won't be able to tell if it's real or not behind his mask. After all, there's a lot of wiggle room between not lying and telling the truth. Bullshit answers like this have served him well all through his life.

Fact is: Kakashi knows there's a chance the letter has a point. Continuous strain has ruled his life ever since Pein attacked Konoha (ever since he died) leaving only stolen moments to recover. Even after the Fourth World War ended there had been no real rest for the survivors. They had friends to bury, injured to care for, new alliances to cultivate, societies to repair, and in Konoha's case; a village to rebuild. Kakashi, given his role in the war, had been kept incredibly busy. They were all tired, but he just can't see why he would need a break more than anyone else?

"Yesterday evening I missed a valve in the milking room." Hermione offers, making it clear she won't push the previous subject any further. "Or maybe not missed. More like I forgot that the milk truck had been around and that they leave it open. So instead of opening the valve to the milk tank I closed it."

When she fades out for a second Kakashi turns to look at her. She is smiling slightly and seems to take his attention as a sign to tell him more. "About a quarter of the cows into milking I thought I felt something a little bit off with the machines. It was honestly probably make-believe but luckily I checked the milk room."

Hermione turns towards Kakashi, halfway to a laugh, and he's sure she's withholding the end to make him ask for it. He raises an eyebrow to call her bluff but still allows himself to prod the conversation further. "And?"

"A relief valve was spraying milk everywhere. The floor was like a white lake because it didn't go down the drain fast enough." The laughter infects Kakashi, and while he remains silent he can feel it in his body. It's a lightness after the weight of their previous subject.

"Kristín choose that moment to show up and save me. Laughing while she did it because I apparently did quite a good deer-in-headlight-look." The stretched-out legs are drawn in and Hermione places her elbows on her knees. Kakashi wonders if it's the chill or a sudden sense of vulnerability that makes her do it.

"At least she wasn't angry." Hermione admits, and Kakashi leans toward the latter of the reasons. Fear of not being good enough is something he can relate to. "Apparently everyone does it at some point. She congratulated me on being a full-fledged farmer and asked me to try not to do it again." The smile that wavered for a second is back with full strength.

It is unsettling how Hermione shares her mistakes so easily, even allowing some of her insecurities around them to shine through. Shinobi doesn't generally laugh at their own mistakes, and while it's refreshing that she does Kakashi has no idea how he should respond. Are you supposed to laugh when someone makes a joke at their own expense? Or do you tell them it was a mistake, no harm done? Civilians are confusing.

They trade a few mishaps from the country life. Or maybe trade is a misleading word, but at least Kakashi tells Hermione of the time the sheep got out into the yard and he had to exit the house through a window to get them back without scaring them out into the road. Hermione tells him about how one cow shat on her shoulder, of getting swatted over the head by endless tails, of the hardship of keeping a wheelbarrow of pellets on even keel past 30 hungry cows, and how terrifying bulls can be when they get loose.

"I'm so happy the light's returning." Hermione eventually says, the previous subject currently emptied.

"It has it's upsides." Kakashi agrees. When he came to Heimstaðir it was the end of February and they had only four hours of sunshine a day, given that the sun came out at all. It's quickly getting better. "Although we're losing the perfect reason to go to bed early and get up late." The real smile comes easy after so many laughs.

"Point well made." Hermione smiles back at him. "But maybe that would have been a better thing in a city. Out here the world goes so small when it's dark outside. Especially this time of the year when everything is grey." Kakashi hums noncommittally at that.

"I think it was easier when there was snow," Hermione continues when she realizes Kakashi won't add anything. There hasn't been all that much snow since he arrived. "In a way it makes everything complicated, but it also makes the world clean and bright. This part between winter and spring is sad, I wish we could just skip it."

They're at the point where the chill of the damp and the wind has worked its way to their bones, and they break up to get back the prepare for their afternoon chores.

Jumping between the unstable tufts of grass in the boggy part of his way back Kakashi realizes Hermione's company isn't as bad as he thought. Being part of a conversation forces him to wake up and be present. He might even have had a good time talking to her today, enough so that he doesn't mourn the loss of his sky-watching time very much.

.oOo.

Hermione shouldn't have said it. When Kakashi wakes the next morning it is to a howling wind and raging snow. He steps out of the front door in his borrowed coveralls and rubber boots. Feels the wind trying to rip him to shreds and the snow like needles against the bare part of his face. The snow is piled too high against the human sized stable door to get it opened, but if he climbs into the pen he can use the sheep's door. Crossing the courtyard Kakashi feels as if the whipping air fights against his lungs for every breath, and somehow that makes his chest feel less hollow. He finds himself smiling behind his mask as he ducks into the stables.


AN: Please let me know what you think :)