Kakashi took the car. He cursed himself while he did so, but he took it. Genma smirked when he saw the keys in Kakashi's hand as they left for the day, and Guy exclaimed loudly about good fortune and the prime of their lives.

As usual, Genma traded a toothpick for a cigarette and headed off on foot to the bar down the street. Hidden Leaf something or the other. Also, as was their tradition, Guy loudly and openly invited Kakashi to join them. Kakashi declined.

"Our great and noble leader will be here tomorrow Kakashi. I hope you aren't late."

Kakashi "hmmed" and "mmed" and that seemed to be enough to convince Guy he was listening. When everyone was finally gone, and the setting sun dyed the pavement purple, he swung the keys momentarily between his fingers, sighed, and gave in.

It was better than the bus.

When snow hit up in their neck of the woods, it liked to play dirty. White, glistening, christmasland looking hills would be frozen solid with ice waiting to bruise and batter you. Clear blue skies and high yellow suns meant biting winds that burned your lungs. And a storm, well, this time instead of depositing two feet of fluffy white childhood, the recent rise in temperature for which most of the town had been grateful after weeks of below zero, made it look like they were about to pelted with inches of sloppy ice instead.

Dangerous, heavy ice.

And it was supposed to hit Sunday.

So naturally, on Thursday, Kakashi set to work preparing for the weeks ahead. He was going to need snow chains, if not now, then eventually. And he'd promised himself a new camera this season. Once the spring and hail hit he'd want it anyways. Christmas was only a few weeks away, he could buy himself something nice and call it an early present. He'd get gas, stock up on pretzels and instant coffee, and when the sleet inevitably brought down a tree branch on some unlucky sou'ls house, he'd be ready to drive.

At the very least he was glad he was not working auto anymore. Guy was going to be very, very busy in the coming week.

Kakashi had quietly removed his old car from his policy, and now had the issues of trying to figure out how he was going to handle his "gift". He wanted to strangle the person responsible for all this, but instead resigned himself to getting his new car registered and insured by the week's end.

Extra paperwork he really didn't need right now.

Blessing whatever was out there that wasn't actively after his soul, Kakashi spent his last free Sunday watching the world from his bedroom window. His one good eye, grey and steely like the clouds outside, stared back at him from the glass.

The storm was the worst on record, it lasted four days, and Kakashi, along with most of the town, lost power. When he finally was on the road after the worst of it had passed, he learned so had most of the state.

"...and then I came home to find this giant ass-uhg!" the woman threw her hands up. She was dressed in casual suit pants and a lab coat. Her blonde hair was thrown up in a messy, frazzled bun. "Look, I just got off the worst shift of my life. It's like everyone forgot how to drive this weekend."

Kakashi nodded in sincere sympathy. This was his eighth case today and he was sure there would be more to come as the week rolled by. Like all the others so far, this one existed in a suburban area surrounded by trees, presumable because some jerk city planner felt they were aesthetic. The sad, sagging yellow house was now the proud victim of the largest branch Kakashi had ever seen.

"Ms. Senju, I'd like to thank you for your time. Do you mind if I take a look at the damage?"

There was hardly a need. According to the woman, the tree that stood in the front yard of her home was planted there by her great grandfather, who had been a passionate ranger (and Kakashi suspected she meant park ranger) and while she hated the "damnable nuisance" it had been, she had promised her parents to look after it when they let her the house, and just maybe she should have cut it back before winter began, but she didn't know God was planning to throw a fucking blizzard at them, and her power was out so she really didn't appreciate this at all and the only reason she was at the hospital is their generator let her get access to piping hot hospital coffee.

And from where Kakashi was standing, the tree, plus sleet, mean the roof was going to need to be replaced. A total loss.

Nonetheless, thorough was in the job description. He'd broken out his ski mask for the biting cold, and with heavy gloves and boots packed full of heat pads he scrambled onto the roof via iced over ladder leaning against the west side.

"Don't kill yourself."

Sound advice, coming from a doctor.

Standing at the edge of the roof only confirmed what he thought. He grimaced. It would probably be awhile before anything in town could get fixed given most were still without power. Save Walmart and the Hospital. If there was one thing Kakashi had learned in his years making money off other's misfortunes, it was that Hospitals and Walmarts always had backup power. He suspected from the souls of the damned.

He was distracted then as a candy pink Land Rover rolled into the driveway at a much too reckless speed.

"Oi! Grandma! Sakura told me you might need a hand. My place still has power- what the fuck happened to your house?"

The car stopped and the blonde hopped out. He had squeezed a brown winter trench coat over his bright orange parka, and dark green snow pants were tucked into rugged brown boots.

"A tree fell on it, what the fuck do you think. Don't call me grandma."

Naruto grinned. There was no venom in Ms. Senju's words, and Kakashi decided staying on the roof was a great idea and thanked the heavens Naruto had apparently not noticed the black Camry parked on the side of the street.

"Eh. Who's that guy?" Naruto pointed to where Kakashi was pretending to seriously study the now mostly rubble remains of the roof.

"Pointing is rude. Brat."

Naruto squinted up at him, but Kakashi made no move to come down. He was glad for his hat today.

"Hey! Guy! I think the roof needs to be replaced!"

There really was no escaping his fate.

"I know," he called back, and climbed down.

Naruto squinted, then grinned. "Kakashi!"

"You know this guy?" Ms. Senju asked, crossing her arms.

Naruto froze, and if Kakashi weren't so not happy to see him he would have taken quite a bit of pleasure in milking the fact Naruto obviously hadn't shared his little "I totalled a stranger's car at 3AM on a Tuesday" story. As it were, he only took a small amount of amusement.

"Mr. Uzumaki helped me with a flat on Tuesday. A real life saver." Kakashi quirked a sinister smile at Naruto, who's blue eyes had gone saucer wide. He coughed to cover up his weird behavior and turned it into a sheepish grin.

Ms. Senju turned suspicious brown eyes on Naruto who shrugged and looked at the ground.

What a terrible liar, honestly.

"It would seem, however, that since then I haven't quite been able to get rid of him." Kakashi added breezily.

Naruto glared.

Ms. Senju grinned. "Oh he does that. Be real careful Mr. Hatake, he's like a puppy, feed him once and he'll follow you home."

"It's a good thing I didn't take him up on that ramen then."

Naruto turned red and Ms. Senju laughed, smacking Kakashi across the shoulder in what he was sure was meant to be good humor, but felt like she might be trying to kill him. She turned to Naruto.

"Give me a bit to grab my things. Your place got hot water?"

Naruto nodded.

"Oh thank God." And Ms. Senju stomped up the stairs and into her house.

Kakashi turned to find Naruto staring at him, mouth agape, an accusatory finger in his face. He noted the gloves this time, that hid the prosthetic.

"You lied."

Kakashi blinked. "Yes."

"How can you lie like that? Y-you liar."

Kakashi felt torn between amused and annoyed, and decided to settle on annoyed, but uncaring, like he might feel about a bird flying too close, or Guy challenging him to Rock, Paper, Scissors.

"If you'd rather," he drawled, "I could always tell her about how you-"

Naruto jumped at him, slamming a hand over his mouth. "Don't you dare."

Kakashi offered Naruto his best one eyed glare. In the past week he had been in physical contact with this idiot far more than he was comfortable with for someone he didn't know and had been actively trying to avoid.

Naruto seemed to realize that perhaps he was going over board, and stepped back, putting space between them.

"Heh. Sorry. I get carried away sometimes." He perked up, "Oh, do you want to grab dinner with me and Tsunade?"

"No."

"Why no~"

"I'm here on the clock. I'm going to finish up and head to my next case. And I am going to pray I never see you again."

Naruto stared, head titled to the side. He put his hands on his hips.

"Rude."

Kakashi came to the realization that things were going to get worse the way you drown, slower than you'd like, painfully, and soaking wet.

He knew this because he had almost drowned once. He was six. That was not the point.

Kakashi's entire life had been haunted by death and shadows he could only spot out of the corner of his eyes. Good fortune, and bright people with brilliant smiles, were the first signs of danger on the horizon. And Naruto showing up twice was reason enough for him to pack up all his things and head north. His case workload having doubled because of the storm, and the need for travel and shitty motels because of his lack of power, were a convenient and powerful excuse.

After a while, bad things stopped bothering him. People lost houses, pets, power. Children were cold, parents had no money to put them up and so ended up pawning them off on relatives while they waited for schools to open. Car wrecks, and fatalities, businesses, already on the brink, shutting their doors forever. The worst part was, for sure, the homeless shelters and soup kitchens, already strapped for money and time, now without power, or worse, with busted in windows, broken roofs, and more. Kakashi found himself bouncing from town to town, dealing with one frazzled person after another as the week wore on.

It wasn't as bad as when he worked auto. There were a lot more deaths in auto. Or when he very briefly tried his hand at social work, only to realize that Hatake luck and kids wouldn't mix. It was probably worse than when he worked independent catastrophe. Back when he was young, and needed far less sleep, he would travel the country in his car. When hurricanes or tornadoes hit, Kakashi and men like him would follow in their wake. Sometimes they were a godsend, but more often than not to people who lost everything one more man in a suit with a stack of papers was enough to push them over the edge.

One week stretched into two. His company sent more cases his way, and the Camry ran reliably, if a little slippery, on the roads once equipped with proper tire accessories.

Kakashi stopped at a small business, some kind of mom and pop hotel thing hidden in the trees northeast of the city. The damned trees. The amount of damage done by the storm had been exacerbated by the city's lax attitude about trimming back the trees. Probably a year overdue, many branches that should never have reached so insidiously over the homes of the residents came tumbling down under the weight of three days worth of sleet.

The hotel's power cables had frozen over, city men were already at work further down the road trying to get things up and running. Debris everywhere. Place was a mess. Kakashi had had to very strategically offroad to make it to the front door.

The owner stood outside with Kakashi, clearly distressed. Kakashi, just nodded as he mindlessly took a statement and eyed the surrounding chaos.

"All right, all right, thank you, sir-sir!"

The man paused mid panicked ramble and stared at Kakashi wide eyed.

"I'm going to need to survey the damage to get an estimate, do you mind if I walk the property or-"

"Of course, of course."

And that was how Kakashi managed to escape his past ten hours of almost non stop talk with panicked humans. He took his time. Walking around the buildings, the man had given him a master key for when he needed to get inside, but Kakashi needed the break. His boots crunched over deceptively white snow, and through thick layers of ice that poked insistently at his calves. Kakashi was really beginning to hate winter.

"Are you a summer kind of guy?"

Kakashi turned to regard his classmate coldly.

"Nah." the black haired idiot grinned, and jabbed him with a bony elbow. "You strike me as more of a fall kind of person. Everything dying and decaying around you. Rain for days."

"What the hell are you going on about now?"

Obito had died in the winter. Rin in the spring. His father also chose spring to take his life. His mother left in the fall. Hayate, though not as close a friend, had left them in the winter.

Kakashi's mind stayed there, in the past, with old conversations and long dead friends. Which is how he probably didn't notice the lake he'd accidentally wandered into until the ice gave way beneath him with a thunderous crack.

Hatake luck, he thought numbly.

And, when he lay in the hospital a few hours later fending off nurses, he decided that somehow, someway, this was Uzumaki's fault.

"You've got shit luck, you know that?" Genma had once said, leaning over his desk after Kakashi had returned to work with a severely dislocated shoulder. Kakashi had grinned up at him. And Yamato, still new to the job back then, had frozen, eyes darting between Genma and Kakashi like he thought that might start a fight.

But Genma had laughed, dropped a Thomas the Tank Engine "Get Well Soon, Son" card on his desk and went back to his side of the office.

The only person who incurred as many hospital bills as Kakashi was Guy, and that was because Guy was reckless (otherwise, really, there would be no need for hospital bills as Guy spent most of his job in auto shops).

He lay in the hospital for a day, resulting in countless jabs and needles from doctors, and enough money spent to insure a steady diet of ramen for the foreseeable future. He was suddenly and involuntarily grateful to the car sitting outside in the parking lot.

He hated hospitals, especially strange ones.

"No, there's no one," he said, after the third time a nurse had kindly asked if he needed them to contact someone.

Two weeks after the storm, and work was still going strong, and Kakashi had gotten back on his feet much faster than the doctor had said was advisable.

He was actually, finally heading home, and hopefully he'd have power. A hot bath seemed to be in order after the trying week he'd spent on the road.

Kakashi pulled into the parking lot of his complex, glad to see it was mostly shovelled. He grabbed his bags from the back of the car and headed towards his tiny, green painted door on the third floor. There was no elevator.

To top off a trying week, and the hospital bills he was sure were on their way, just outside the door to his apartment Kakashi found a small present, wrapped in orange.

It was mushed, like it had been sitting there a while, and the orange, glittery wrapping paper was soaked and caking off.

Kakashi picked it up and smiled despite himself.