"How many have you got now?" It might have been six years since they'd seen each other but she knew what he was referring to. At the end of her training he had been away on missions a lot and would check on her when he could. He would always ask how many jutsus she'd managed to learn when he was gone. Sometimes it would be the same infuriating number and other times she'd flush with the triumph of surprising him with a higher number.

As they kept walking in silence Narue considered not answering but it seemed childish. Besides, there was a cursed part of her that still desperately wanted his approval.

"721." She knew his number was in the thousands nowadays but compared to most ninjas hers was an unattainably high number. They kept walking in silence for a while. They had been on missions together so many times before they didn't really need to adjust their speeds or confer about which paths to take. "How are Rei and Jin?" Her two teammates on Team 3 had been her best friends in Konoha but had failed the high standards Kakashi set for his students. Narue had been a special case, and Kakashi had been appointed private tutor for her by the Third.

"They're getting married. They took over the bookshop when Rei's dad retired and only work as shinobi in case of emergencies. Rumours are there's a Rei or Jin Junior on the way, that's why they're not here", Kakashi replied and she couldn't help smiling. Her two best friends had been one of those couples, where you could tell from a very early age the two of them would end up together.

The dusk fell and was turning into night when they both stopped to camp. No words were needed as they gauged the distance to enemy lines and deemed it too close for a fire, as Kakashi settled to take the first watch and Narue rolled herself up in a ball and went to sleep.

POV

Kakashi sat in the dark, his back against a wide tree trunk, listening for any other sounds than Narue's quiet breathing. He'd spent the way trying to wrap his mind around the fact that she was back in his life. Not one of the dreams she often visited in, or even the shameful daydreams he had about her in his more private moments, but real, living and breathing. And hating you, a little voice said in the back of his head.

He'd sent her away from her friends, from what little family she had and from her home. She hadn't said anything on the way except for asking about her former teammates, but he could see signs that the last few years hadn't been too easy. There was a defiant glint in her eyes that he recognized from the days when people shunned him because of his dad. When all were against you defiance was the easiest way to cope. He'd given her a life where she had to cope.

If it weren't for him she would have made jonin at age 15 and been a celebrated hero in Konoha, she'd still have her friends and her aunt.

He let his head fall back against the tree trunk. No matter how many times he went over it in his head, how many times he berated himself for failing her unfairly and sending her away he knew he couldn't have done anything differently. He'd been balancing on a slack tightrope, with what felt like utter insanity below. So he'd done it and then spent the next six years trying to forget he had. The last four of them he'd been distracted by Team 7, the most challenging teaching he'd ever done. In a way it had been comforting because each of them represented something that reminded him of Narue, Sasuke's burning determination, Sakura's passion and Naruto's ability to overcome paired with his loyalty. In a small way he felt as if setting things right again, starting over.

Then he'd failed both Sasuke and Naruto, not realized the fundamental difference between them, not tried harder to quench their competitiveness and ended up seeing them both leave while Sakura stayed behind training under Tsunade. All in all he felt he'd been a bad teacher all around, failing to understand his students completely.

But none had he failed worse than Narue. He'd thought he'd never see her again, that with every passing year he'd think about her less and less until one day she would just be a vague memory. In the six years that had passed he hadn't thought of her every second of every day. What scared him was that whenever he did think about her it was in the same way he had before. Like a man in love.

Or possessed, depending on how you viewed it, which was how he had acted the last year she lived in Konoha.

He glanced over to where she was sleeping. In the dark he couldn't see much more than a darker mass but his mind could still recall perfectly what her sleeping face looked like. He'd watched her sleeping face during many watches on many nights but he knew the picture he carried with him was from just after he'd realized his feelings for her, before he'd realized the magnitude of the situation, before the madness swallowed him. They had been on a simple enough mission, just collecting something for the Hokage in a nearby village, but the item was important enough for him to send Kakashi, and since it wasn't going to be very dangerous he'd thought he'd bring Narue along so they could train on the way. Or in his head, so he could be with her, two long days of just the two of them.

That trip had been the beginning of the end. Just walking out of Konoha he'd been so intensely aware of her presence, he figured rather how someone using a Byakugan on a really close range would feel, and terrified that it would somehow show. So he'd walked with his hands in his pockets, his eyes on the ground as they started out. She'd sensed his mood somehow and just walked next to him in silence. Then the silence had gotten to thick for him, it felt like too much intimacy was implied and he'd blurted out,

"How're Jin and Rei?" She'd laughed then and told him Jin had come up with a new technique that was almost like a shadow clone but of other people. It worked like a mirror so it couldn't really be used in battle and frustrated at the lack of success he'd added the twist that the mirror clone appeared naked. That'll throw some off, he'd said. Unknowingly Narue had then walked in and got hit by the jutsu, standing stark naked in Jin's house and then Rei and her had chased Jin around for revenge ever since. So far he'd managed to escape, narrowly. She finished the story, her eyes glittering with mirth, as to say 'isn't that funny'?

All that had danced around his head was the fact that Jin had seen Narue without her clothes. He'd been torn between monstrous jealousy, wanting to beat Jin up and pleading on his knees to make him repeat it. He'd managed a forced laugh knowing that he'd be taking the whole watch that night, there was no way he'd let his guard down by going to sleep and letting images of Narue haunt him.

So instead of sleeping he'd sat up all night trying to avoid thinking about it. And every child knew that if you tried not to think of something you ended up thinking about it more. The image of her face from that night was the one that stayed with him, in the soft firelight, her features relaxed and her hair in golden coils around it. The clear brow, the straight, narrow nose, the high cheekbones and cheeks that still then held a hint of youthful roundness in them, the arched brows in a slightly darker gold than her hair and the mouth, the soft lips with the cute cupid's bow and full bottom lip that made it so expressive whether it was laughing, pouting or giving him her trademark teasing smile. At that moment the features had been etched in his memory.

Kakashi returned to the present and shook his head to clear it of the image. Experience had to count for something, he thought, he'd lived through this once - he could do it again.

POV

Narue woke up as if a clock had gone off in her head. The force of habit was just too strong, even after six years she knew when she'd slept for three of the six hours they would rest on missions. She sat up and blinked, she could make out his shape in the dark but nothing more. He got up from the tree trunk he'd been leaning against and she took his place. The warmth of his body lingered and she knew her sixteen-year-old self would have revelled in it, imagining Kakashi sitting behind her as she curled against him. Those days were over, she reminded herself. She was no longer sixteen trying to impress him in any way she could. She didn't have to spend her days tossed between ultimate joy and shrieking despair because he had or hadn't done some thing or other. No longer imagining him being desperately in love with her and filled with self-doubt when reality didn't match her daydreams. She wouldn't sink that low ever again. Not for any man. Then again, he wasn't like other men, was he?

She was fairly sure was one of the people who knew him the best, maybe apart from Guy-sensei. She knew him because in a time before what she now referred to as "the insanity" they'd been friends, or as close to friends as anyone with an eight-year age difference could become. In the ninja world you were forced to grow up fast and they shared some common ground.

Neither of them had parents any more and had to face growing pains and problems on their own. More than once they'd run into each other at the Memorial Stone, where the name of his mother and his teammate were inscribed, as well as Narue's parents. She was one of the few who knew how it pained him to not see his father's name on it. His dad had not died during a mission but in shame and by his own hand and was therefore not among the names on the stone.

She held no great love for his father, she thought it was unforgivable to leave his child to fend for himself but she loved her teacher. So she had gone to the Third, asked him if it were possible to put Hatake Sakumo's name on the stone, and if not for the hero he'd been for the son who grieved him. The Third had looked at her in silence for a long time before responding,

"Sakumo disobeyed the Rules, he ignored what is best for Konoha and abandoned a mission, Narue. His name among the people who gave their life on a mission would be to dishonour their sacrifice."

"There would be a lot more names on that stone if it weren't for Sakumo. Times are changing; he has a lot of admirers for putting others before himself. Besides, even if you can't admire him for what he did then he carried out hundreds of successful missions before that. I think keeping his name off the stone is petty and not worthy of either you or him." With that she had left, seething from what she thought of as coldness from the Hokage's side.

Then he'd done what she'd love him for forever, he'd changed his mind. The next time she'd gone to the stone she'd noticed a new inscription, Hatake Sakumo – for his bravery and undying loyalty. Bolting up she'd run to get Kakashi.

Narue had found him outside the Academy where he was talking to some fellow jonin.

"Kakashi-sensei! Kakashi-sensei!" He'd turned and she'd almost crashed into him, and he'd caught her by the shoulders. Sensing her excitement he'd leaned down to bring his face level with hers,

"Calm down, Narue, what is it?"

"You have to see it, come look!" She'd grabbed him by the hand and dragged him away as his fellow jonin rolled their eyes. But Kakashi had never had any airs, even though he was and always had been a prodigy, so he just followed her, letting her drag him by the hand until they got to the Stone.

"Look!" He gave the Stone a blank stare, it looked like it was still in place and in one piece, his gaze said. Then it sharpened and he stepped closer, she felt his hand around hers tighten and her thirteen-year-old heart swelled in pride. She'd done something important, something that mattered to him.

"Did you do this?" He asked without looking at her.

"Yes. But there were many who wanted it. A lot of your dad's teammates from that day have kids at the Academy and they…they all agreed it was wrong to not have his name on the Stone." He hadn't said anything else, just stood there with his hand in hers. He hadn't had to say anything; she'd known perfectly well what it would feel like to not have the tangible memory of her parents, their names on the stone that she could physically visit.

It was one of her best memories, from the time when she'd seen him as some sort of demi-god, idolized him and looked up to him as her favourite teacher, happy at any chance to be beside him and she'd done something important for him. It was when she was older and realized he was human that she fell in love with him.

It was in the happy friend zone she'd learned why he always wore a mask. She'd been fourteen then and had started to realize the nature of relationships between men and women, and she'd wondered why someone like Kakashi, who was obviously handsome under the mask wore one. For a short, laughable period she'd thought it was because he was too handsome and women fell in love with him at sight when he took it off. Luckily, she'd never shared this suspicion with Kakashi who probably would have laughed out loud at it.

But she had asked him and after a brief hesitation he'd told her that when he was very young he had looked remarkably alike to his mother. It had been just after her death and every time his father looked at his son, pain would flash in his eyes. He'd see the features of his dead wife echoing in his son's face. Sakumo would avoid looking at his son and Kakashi, a perceptive and possibly too intelligent child, had donned his first mask. Then it had become a habit and now, he explained, he felt naked without it.

"But isn't it uncomfortable?" she'd asked as they were sitting under a tree, enjoying the shade after a drawn out practice session, he leaning against the trunk, eyes closed, appearing to nap and she cross-legged pulling up grass like the child she'd still been then. She thought she saw a ghost of a smile under the mask.

"Not really, I'm so used to it now."

"Do you sleep with it on?" He opened his uncovered eye to peer at her.

"No, why do you ask?"
"Well, I mean," she furrowed her brow to word what she meant right, "You're at your most relaxed when you sleep, right? And if you sleep without it on, doesn't that mean it's more comfortable to not wear it?" He blinked in surprise, as if he'd never thought about it before.

"I guess that's true. I suppose it's because no one sees me when I sleep." She nodded wisely,

"So you still wear it for the same reason, you don't want your face to be seen by others?" He didn't reply and she was quiet for a moment, then asked, "Can I see you without it?" He seemed to consider it for a while before he shrugged and pulled the mask down. As she'd guessed his face was very handsome, the scar over his left eye saving it from the dullness of perfection. He had a narrow face with a straight nose, the kind of high cheekbones she'd heard the girls in her class covet and a sculpted mouth.

"I've seen pictures of your mum." She tilted her head, "You're not as pretty", she said teasingly. He laughed and seemed to relax. After that she'd seem with his mask and without it but he seldom took it off around people he wasn't completely comfortable with. She carried that knowledge in her heart like a treasure.

After she'd turned fifteen the hero idolization phase had passed and made for a more comfortable friendship. As she was allowed on more and more missions but wasn't on any three man cell team she'd go where she was needed and sometimes not see Kakashi for weeks and then go on a mission with him and spend every waking moment together for a while. The fact that she missed him when she didn't see him should have been a tip-off but she hadn't seen the warning signs back then and thought of him as just a good friend.

Maybe if she'd seen it earlier she would've been able to stop it, would have avoided having her heart shattered. Torn into tiny little pieces when he had calmly told her she needed to move by order of the Hokage. She'd thought they were friends back then, that maybe one day when she was older he'd see her differently and they could be more than friends but he'd sent her away without batting an eye.

Her skills had undeniably improved from it, she thought with a bitter smile, but that was mostly due the fact she'd worked in a frenzy of rage, frustration and pain rather than benefitting from relocation. For a long time she imagined using every new jutsu she learned on Kakashi, still did sometimes.

She had adjusted to the Hidden Mist but she would never be one of them – as they let her know as often as they could. In one way the war had been a blessing in disguise as it brought all the villages together and ended long-standing rivalry. The forehead-protector she wore around her arm no longer showed the Leaf of Konoha, now she was just part of the Allied Shinobi Forces, not an outsider any longer. Since the reasoning behind her relocation had been fuzzy the people in Kimigakure had assumed she had been excommunicated from Konoha and instead of making them friendlier since she couldn't be a spy they had shunned her on suspicion of some crime she'd never committed.

She sighed and shifted; sitting still in the early morning chill was making her stiff. Narue glanced over at where Kakashi had settled down, he was lying with his back to her so she couldn't see his face but his even breathing convinced her he was still asleep. Truth to be told she had no idea how to act around him anymore. She was still furious with him for sending her away, the futility of it, for not caring enough about her, not even as a student or friend to let her stay in Konoha. It was only the fact that he couldn't know how she'd felt about him that had kept her from punching him that day. Pride had prevented her. Had he known he wouldn't have been just callous, he would have been a first class bastard. As it stood she could be mad at him for ignoring three years of friendship, making her go against her will, for making her leave everything she knew and loved behind but she couldn't breathe a word of the real reason she felt so betrayed. Couldn't let him know he'd broken her heart that day, and every day since that she hadn't been ordered back to Konoha. To just not say anything at all seemed to be the wisest move. If she broke the dam of six years of pent up rage and hurt she didn't know if even Hatake Kakashi's impressive skills could save him.

A/N: I hope you liked it!