A/N: Thank you so much for the reviews, follows, & favorites! I am so honored to see that readers have taken interest in my story. :) Anyway, I know as a medic nin Sakura has the ability to heal with chakra, but for the sake of this story, I like to think of her as more of a traditional field medic. With that being said, here's chapter three! Enjoy.

-BCerise


Sakura yawned sleepily as she hefted her basket of laundry against her hip, crossing her small yard and ascending the short set of steps that lead up Kakashi's porch. She reached out to rap on the door with her knuckles but hesitated when she remembered their conversation from last night.

She tried the doorknob and found it unlocked, just like he'd said. It was around 10 AM or so and she had just finished her fourteen hour graveyard shift at the hospital. She wanted nothing more than to get this load started and then head straight back to her house and crawl under the covers to sleep the day away.

Sakura glanced around at the unfamiliar interior, surprised by the unexpected cleanliness of Kakashi's abode. The furniture was simple and male and very impersonal: predictably Kakashi. Sakura almost thought it slightly sad that there wasn't a picture frame nor personal belonging in sight. She didn't understand how Kakashi could even call it a storage unit if he didn't have anything worth storing in it.

She passed through the small kitchen, that was eerily clean save for a couple rinsed dishes in the sink, to the laundry room at the back of the house. Sakura set to work at once, separating the colors and depositing them into the washing machine. Once the basin was loaded she struggled with the cap of her liquid detergent for a moment, before her thumb slipped, cutting it open on the sharp plastic edge.

Cursing colorfully under her breath she jammed her bleeding thumb into her mouth while she finished setting up the machine with her free hand. She hated it when she was sleepy like this, it made her so damn clumsy. Hitting the start button, the machine chugged into life before she went off in search of Kakashi's bathroom for a band aid.

She found the common one in the house, under the stairs off the living room but it was empty except for a roll of toilet paper and a half-used bar of soap next to the faucet.

Men... she thought sourly. Sakura figured there must be a bathroom in Kakashi's master bedroom so she headed up the stairs to the far end of the hall.

The door was closed but she figured the Copy Ninja was probably out and about by now: it was late morning. She turned the knob and had just stepped through the door when a kunai came flying at her face.

Sakura threw herself to the floor just in time to dodge the deadly hurtling blade. As she hit the floor, she caught a glimpse of a messy-headed, shirtless Kakashi sitting up in bed.

"Jesus Christ!" she shrieked angrily. "What the fuck is wrong with you?!"

"Sakura!" he exclaimed. "Shit, I'm so sorry! I completely forgot I told you to come by and do laundry!"

Sakura sat up and rubbed her elbow that had collided painfully with the hardwood floor.

"You could have killed me!" she griped.

"Well, that was the intent. You arein my bedroom unannounced," Kakashi replied matter-of-factly. She wanted to smack him or yell at him again but he had a point. She wasn't even supposed to be upstairs and the realization quickly dampened her anger.

"What are you doing in here, anyway? Coming to join me?" he asked flippantly, raising his brows at her. She quickly averted her eyes as she realized his half-dressed state.

"Of course not! I thought you were gone and I cut my finger and- OH MY GOD!" she cried, clapping a hand to her mouth as she shot to her feet. Her eyes screeched to a halt on the enormous angry wound, haphazardly stitched up and bruising, that traveled down the side of his torso, starting from just below his arm and ending somewhere out of sight beneath the sheet that covered his lower body. Kakashi looked around in alarm.

"What happened to you!?" she gasped, moving up to the side of his bed to get a closer look at the stomach-turning laceration. Now she understood why Tsunade had made him take time off. The kunoichi had been correct in assuming the jounin was under-reacting to his injuries, as always.

"Oh," Kakashi replied when he realized her concern was for him. "Nothing. Just a scrape," he said with an air of infuriating non-chalance.

God, he was so stupid! He never did understand how much it worried or scared his team in the past when he was seriously hurt or in actual danger.

"Just a scrape, my ass. It looks like someone or something tried to fucking rip you in half!" she replied crossly.

"Tried... Did...," he replied with a shrug. "What's it matter? I'm still in one piece...now."

Hardly, Sakura thought, fighting the urge to roll her eyes.

"He was an angry man, though. I don't think he liked me very much, but he had good taste in shoes," Kakashi rambled in his usual genial manner when anyone was expressing what he thought was unnecessary concern for him.

"Who stitched this for you?" she interrupted him, not in the mood for his brush off tactics.

"I did," he stated as if it were the most obvious answer in the world.

Sakura gritted her teeth as she studied the wound closer.

"You stitched this. You didn't even go to a hospital or any kind of medic." It was more of an outraged statement than an inquiry. Her frustration with him was rising.

"Why would I?"

"Because you did it wrong."

"Well, despite the fact I'd look damn sexy in one of those cute little uniforms, I'm definitely no medic nin."

Sakura did roll her eyes this time.

"Shut up and get downstairs. I'm fixing you," she ordered.

"Yes, ma'am," he added cheekily, only causing her exacerbation to grow.

Five minutes later, Kakashi was downstairs perched on his dinner table like an examining platform. As Sakura rounded the corner, pulling on the gloves from the first aid kit she had retrieved from her house next door, something dawned on her as her gaze fell on her patient's mildly interested expression.

"You're mask," she breathed. It was gone. It wasn't there. She was staring at Hatake Kakashi's naked face. How had she not noticed upstairs? She had been so overtaken by her dutiful, medic side that she hadn't even realized its absence.

"Oh yeah, that old thing," Kakashi replied offhandedly. "I don't sleep in it. Not in my house, anyway."

"Oh," was all she could manage to say as her gaze roved his handsome features freely. As much as Sakura hated to admit it to herself, she couldn't help but appreciate how damn good-looking he was.

"I don't usually get unannounced guests in my bedroom but if I do, they don't often live to tell about it. You're sort of a fluke," he said, but Sakura could barely register what he was saying she was so lost in studying his features.

She had wondered what mystery lay beneath the scrap of fabric constantly when she was younger, it was a subject her and her teammates had often joked about, saying Kakashi had a weird nose or some other hideous facial distortion that caused him to keep his face hidden. They had even made games out of it, trying to catch him off guard to pull it down or trick him into eating in front of them. But they had never been met with success. Even now, years down the road, when he came over in the evenings to spend dinner with her, he rarely ate, only sometimes sipping ramen broth through his mask.

And now, here he was, sitting in front of her, face exposed at last. Sakura had a feeling he had wanted this. There was no way that after all this time, after so many failed attempts and complicated plans they'd come up with, it was as easy as walking into his bedroom unexpectedly. She knew if he had wanted to stay concealed, he could have easily covered himself in time.

This new thought caused her to wonder what exactly his motives were behind this new milestone in their friendship and she met his mismatched gaze in search of an answer, taking in the dark, jagged scar that arched from his left brow down the middle of his smooth, angular cheek.

"If it bothers you, I can put it back on," he said lowly, a hollow edge to his voice. Sakura started slightly, alarmed and embarrassed when she realized how long she must have been staring.

She shook her head vehemently, dropping her gaze back to the medical kit as she fumbled nervously to thread a sterilized hooked needle.

"No, no," she responded. "It's...nice."

She felt her face flare when the absent compliment slipped from her.

"I mean, it's nice- your face, I mean...to see it... after so many years..." she rambled aimlessly. She was unnerved by his silence but was immediately sparked by irritation when she glanced up to see the amused expression on his face.

Why was his face so goddamn pretty under that mask? She could have lived with discovering an elephant's trunk or a hideous mole the size of Konoha underneath it. But she hadn't expected this! Perfect, pale lips, high cheek bones and a straight, even nose that lent to a ludicrously handsome profile.

Dammit, she needed to focus!

"Um, lay back," she insisted, her tone a little more harsh than she had meant it. Kakashi obeyed at once, settling comfortably on his back on the wooden tabletop. Sakura fought to keep her eyes from straying inappropriately over his half-naked, muscled jounin's body. "I'm sorry I don't have anything to numb the pain," she said, cutting away at the first, haphazard stitch but Kakashi didn't so much as flinch.

"That's okay. I did have an emergency eyeball transplant, once. With no anesthetics. In the middle of nowhere," he replied as if he were making pleasant conversation about the weather, though she didn't miss the darkness that lurked behind his gaze at the allusions to his somber past. Her eyes flicked nervously over the shimmering, ruby sharingan that was directed at the ceiling, before returning to her work of removing Kakashi's heavy-handed threading. They were too tight and the way he had done them would've resulted in unnecessary scarring and would've taken much longer to heal.

Sakura could feel her heart beat quickening as her hands moved lower and lower on his body, passing his navel as she worked, finally coming to the last stitch before they disappeared beneath the waistline of his sweatpants. How much further did they go on?

She hesitated, her hand hovering over the loose elastic waistband. The longer she waited the more nervous she got and the more there was a chance Kakashi would notice her embarrassment. Angry with herself for being so painfully childish, she took a deep breath and curled her fingers over the edge of the fabric and pulled them gently down a few inches. She was pleased to see they ended promptly below, but the tail end curved slightly inward instead of out toward his hip. No matter, she was an adult and a trained medical profession. She could handle it. After all, she'd seen men's junk on the operating table hundreds of time in the past. This wasn't any worse.

But she couldn't stave off the throb of heat that flushed her cheeks and other private parts of her body when her eyes fell on the faint trail of silvery hair that gathered below his taut navel and went down, down, down... Sakura swallowed hard and tore her eyes away, snatching up the alcohol pads she had already prepped after removing the last four or so stitches.

Kakashi was awfully quiet for the time being. Suspiciously quiet. Sakura wondered if the stupid pervert was actually aware and enjoying the torturous effect his body and bare skin were having on her. She didn't dare glance at his face for fear of making eye contact. Shaking her head slightly and brushing the hair out of her eyes with the back of one hand, she forced herself to stay on task as she busied herself swabbing up the fresh blood that had squeezed out of the newly unbound wound. Despite her best efforts, she still found her gaze wandering, sweeping over the countless number of other harsh scars that littered his chiseled body. No doubt, more past needlework of the Copy Ninja himself.

Tossing out the crimson stained cotton pads, she took up the fresh needle and thread at last to sew him back together like a broken doll. After much painstaking work, she stepped back to survey her handiwork.

Much better, she thought, thoroughly pleased with the neatly-executed stitching patterns. The wound looked much cleaner and far less frightening now that she had spruced it up.

"Finished!" she exclaimed, satisfied with herself as she peeled off her latex gloves.

Kakashi sat up at once and turned to set his feet on the floor and face her.

"Thanks, doc," he said brightly. "Do I get a treat?"

"Depends."

"On what?"

"If you're a good patient and take care of yourself. Just keep it clean."

"I always take care of myself."

"Oh, please," Sakura said exasperatedly, though she was smiling herself.

"So no sucker?" he said, feigning a pout. Sakura ignored the fact that this expression was entirely too adorable on him.

"Sorry, Charlie. Sweets are bad for you," she replied with a wink.

"That's not true. Your company does me plenty of good," he said, grinning lightly and pulling a plain white t-shirt over his torso.

"Flattery won't get you anything, either," she said dryly, though a small smile tugged at the corners of her lips.

"Tough nut to crack, eh? But really, thanks for this Sakura. Nice to know someone cares for an old, lonely pervert."

"That's what I'm here for," she replied distractedly as she packed away her supplies, her exhaustion from her hospital shift finally catching up to her again now that all the excitement was over. Suddenly, his hand closed lightly around her wrist, causing her to meet his gaze and her skin to breakout in tingles.

"Really," he said again, his face void of all comicality. "Thank you."

Sakura recognized the rare sincerity in his tone and she felt slightly humbled to receive such gratitude from a man she had fought so hard to please and impress in the past. It only made sense that she would finally gain his approval years later when she was simply demonstrating her true self instead of trying so hard to trump her two male teammates.

"You're welcome-" she cut off her words just in time. She had been about to call him 'sensei', again. Why couldn't she let that stupid habit go? It really was such a long time ago that they had been teacher and student...

However, there was something about Kakashi's presence that caused her to feel so young again...small... Like she was still his subordinate. Inferior, maybe. No, that wasn't it. He made her feel... overpowered. Feminine?

Yes.

His masculinity was practically intoxicating when she let her guard down. He was so damn tall. And he was presently standing over top of her, thrillingly close. She was losing herself in his odd eyes, heat emanating from her wrist where his large fingers were still gently clamped around it. Again she drank in his handsome face, mesmerized by how uncannily becoming he was underneath that stupid mask. Suddenly the shrouding scrap of fabric seemed blasphemous to her, truly a thing of evil for sheltering such a beautiful thing from her and the rest of the world for so long. She wanted to say something about it, tell him how gorgeous he was, tell him never to wear the damn thing ever again but her throat was dry and she was hardly breathing.

"Do you want to go to bed?" she heard him murmur throatily. The simple question branded Sakura, making her stir internally at the prospect of what he meant by this simple inquisition as his free hand reached up to brush her hair back from her face.

"Wh..at?" she mumbled back, her head was fuzzy with fatigue and rampant desirous emotions, her eyes fluttering shut as his finger gently brushed the top of her cheek, sending little electric pulses down her neck as his fingertips curved behind her ear to hold back a stray lock of bubblegum hair.

"You look exhausted. Go home and get some sleep. I'll bring your laundry over when it's finished," he said, his tone normal again and his hands slipped away from her.

It was as if a shining hazy bubble had popped from around her.

Sakura wavered slightly on the spot, blinking hard as she tried to register what had just happened. Her sleep deprivation was making thought processes harder than ever, though, and Kakashi's suggestion was the best she had heard, yet.

"Okay," she replied distantly. Before she knew it, her feet, clearly on autopilot, had carried her next door and into her room. She was so mentally and physically drained she fell asleep almost immediately upon laying her head down, giving her only a few sparing moments to take notice of the warm, desire that pulsed between her legs, born from the most unlikely source she could have imagined.