"How was the hospital?" Kakashi asked, finishing up making a pot of soup as I climbed in through the window.

"Ah, fine," I responded, more than a little shocked he'd asked such a mundane question. "Do you need any help?"

"Just take the vegetables out of the fridge," Kakashi tilted his head towards the refrigerator. "This is just about ready."

I put the veggies out on a plate and placed it in the middle of the table. Kakashi took out a couple bowls and filled them both with delicious smelling miso soup. We sat in silence, barely even glancing at each other over our bowls as we ate. Usually my silences with Kakashi are expected and almost comfortable. This one was practically painfully awkward. There were questions I wanted to ask that I knew he would never answer and I might have been imagining it, but there seemed to be a line of tension around Kakashi's visible eye. But, he and I weren't the kind of people to just talk about things; that just didn't happen. So, we ate in silence.

The rest of my first week in Konoha passed by in much the same pattern as the first day. I'd start out the morning, being woken up by Kakashi climbing in through the window, returning from wherever he disappeared to before the sun rose, then we'd head to the training grounds to meet up with his team. The team would either start training as a whole or we would break into partners to spar. At noon, we would separate, Sakura to the hospital, Sai to various places he claimed he needed to be, and Naruto to continue his chakra nature training. After one day of training with Naruto and one day of following Sai, I found that the hospital was surprisingly the best of the three options; it also had the added benefit of being the most relevant to what Kakashi called my most important training: "Be social, get the village to trust you." As I had quickly realized that surgery was not my calling, Shizune was eager to try me as an intern in other sections of the hospital, and this was how Friday afternoon found me in the pit, stitching up a fidgeting pre-Genin's arm.

"If you hold still, this will go a lot faster," I said, as patiently as I could while the small girl squirmed restlessly.

"But it hurts, Medic-san," she whined mournfully. "And I'm missing kunai throwing practice now."

"The anesthetic should have gone into effect around the wound," I tried again to be reassuring. Whoever thought giving clumsy 5 year olds weapons obviously had no idea what they were getting themselves into. "You'll be getting back to your practice in no time."

"Stop being so troublesome, Momo-chan," the teen with the dark spiky hair grumbled from where he stood next to the patient bed the girl was sitting on. I assumed he was a teacher's assistant since he was my age and he'd been the one to bring the kid in. "You were the one who got Irri all riled up."

"But he was calling me names first, Shikarmaru-sensei!" The girl sputtered indignantly, which in turn jostled her arm again. I used one of my hands to grip her wrist tighter, trying to avoid making a scene that Deira, my supervisor that day, aware that there was any trouble. Momo-chan got no response from Shikamaru-sensei and shifted her countenance into a pout. Pouting was good for me though, hopefully it meant less movement and I could just finish these stitches.

The guy sighed again heavily and leaned his slouching form against the wall. He turned his aloof gaze from the ceiling to let his eyes rest on me.

"You're new," he observed, eyes scanning me from head to toe. I spared a glance up at him before returning to my work. The conversation stopped there for a few moments while I didn't respond and I felt his eyes searching me for something. "Are you related to Kakashi-sensei?"

Oddly enough, most of the people I'd run into through the hospital and the markets (aka without an introduction by Sakura) never placed that I was Kakashi's daughter. They generally thought I was visiting from another village as a sign of goodwill or a learning opportunity. I didn't often bother to correct them, just slipped away after a quick conversation and went on with my business. So, this guy had to be something different then.

"You know Naruto?" I questioned him back.

"Yeah," he snorted softly. "What's that got to do with anything?"

"He was telling it all over the village that Kakashi had a daughter and she was here in Konoha. If you know him, I'm not that impressed with your deduction," I said, finishing the stitches and cutting the thick black thread. I turned back to my supplies and got out the iodine and anti-bacterial ointment.

"Huh, so that's you, then. Jaada, was it?" He asked, sounding disinterested again. I gave a brief nod as I dressed the young girl's arm. "I'm Nara Shikamaru, pleased to meet you."

"You too, Shikamaru," I responded, trying out his name and nodding politely to him.

The second I finished wrapping the bandages around Momo's arm, she bounced off the patient bed.

"Aright! Back to kunai practice?!" She asked, practically jumping in Shikamaru's face.

"Geez, yeah, yeah, we're going," he muttered to her, taking her small hand in his while handing me the academy accident report to sign. He added to me, "I guess I'll probably see you around then."

"I'm sure," I said back, signing the papers and handing them back to him. He was slow to get going though, so he wasn't quite quick enough to miss Sakura and Ino getting out of their last surgery of the day.

"Oi, Shikamaru-kun! What are you doing here?" Ino accused in her rather loud, high voice.

"Ugh, I was just leaving Ino. Relax," he groaned, tipping his head backwards, eyebrows furrowed in annoyance. Io stuck out her tongue in response to him and he hurried the small girl out of the hospital.

"Don't mind him, Jaada, he's a lazy sexist bum," Ino muttered, eyes following him as he left.

"He seemed ok to me," I said, wrapping up all the materials I'd used for Momo's arm and throwing them into the biohazard wastebin.

"He's actually one of the village's top geniuses," Sakura supplied, coming up to us after talking with Deira. "And he is ok, Ino's just jealous because he's got a thing with Temari, not her."

"Shut up, Forehead! I do NOT like Shikamaru," Ino grumbled narrowing her eyes at her friend.

"Sure you don't, Ino-pig," Sakura murmured with an almost evil undertone. Then she turned back to me more civilly. "We're done for the day, but we did decide on having a girls' night tonight. Are you still up to join us?"

"Sure, that sounds fun," I said, slightly hesitant, but I'd learned over the past couple of days that Sakura and Ino were amusing, if a bit annoying, company.

"Great!" Sakura grinned as we made our way back to the locker rooms. "We're meeting up at the BBQ restaurant in an hour, so you could shower, change, and meet us there!"

"Ok," I squirmed a bit about the 'change' comment. "Is this a dressing up kind of thing?"

"Not if you don't want it to be," Sakura said reassuringly. I let out a breath of relief. Good.

"Yeah, I'll meet you guys there then," I said as we parted ways at the locker room. I grabbed my things, waved to the two girls, already entering another argument and ran back to Kakashi's apartment.

It took about an hour for me to get there, shower, put on clean clothes, and brush my hair out into some semblance of a neat braid. I debated briefly about bringing my weapons, then decided on just the small pouch on my hip. I could easily fit my wallet in there as well, so there was no need to worry about a ridiculous purse or bag of some sort. I glanced into the book room and saw no sign of Kakashi having returned from Naruto training yet, so I figured I'd best leave him a note since I had no idea how late this girls' night usually went.

Kakashi

Went to dinner with Sakura, Ino, and a couple of their friends. Be back late. Don't wait up.

Jaada

I'd been to the BBQ restaurant once before, on the day I'd gone for afternoon training with Sai. It was one of those odd little facts that Sai had a soft spot for their grilled pork; he could eat practically 3 orders worth of it, regardless of how skinny he looked. Anyway, I had no trouble finding the place, or locating Sakura and Ino once I'd gotten inside. They had both changed into more casual dresses and had put on makeup for the occasion. The other girl in the booth look like a tiny porcelain doll. She had the palest skin, the whitest eyes, and the darkest ink black hair I'd ever seen. She needed no makeup at all and was wearing a rather formal looking, purple floral kimono.

"Jaada-chan!" Ino greeted me enthusiastically and shifted into the booth closer to Sakura, motioning for me to sit down. "Jaada, this is Hyuuga Hinata. Hinata, Kakashi's daughter Jaada."

"H…H…Hello, J-Jaada-chan," a blush rose to those pale cheeks as Hinata stuttered a greeting.

"Nice to meet you, Hinata," I said in response, almost worried that someone could break her if we scooted too close in the booth.

"Have you been here before?" Sakura asked, glancing around Ino to look at me.

"Yeah, once."

"What did you have?" Ino asked "My team comes here all the time, it's Chouji's favorite place."

"Well, if she came here with Sai, she definitely just had the grilled pork," Sakura chuckled, addressing both Ino and myself.

"Sai eats almost as much as Chouji whenever he comes here," Ino sighed. "I don't get why he isn't so fat."

"Probably because he hates ramen and we always have to eat Ichiraku with Naruto," Sakura grimaced.

"W-W-Well, N-N-N-Naruto-k-kun's favorite f-f-food is r..ramen," Hinata added, another intense blush passing over her face.

"Yeah," Sakura sighed. "Don't we all know that…"

"Hey! Sorry I'm late guys, Neji wanted to run through his katas with me at the end of practice. Gai-sensei and Lee were being particularly abominable today," the new girl threw herself into the seat next to Hinata. She was dressed in typical training clothes, like me, with a dark burgundy top, sensible trousers, and her hair tied up in two dark brown buns. She had chocolate brown eyes and a lightly tanned, heart-shaped face. Her gaze landed on me across the table. "Oh! You're new!"

"Umm…" words darted around my brain as I tried to come up with something to say. She was rather bouncy and cheerful; her bright tone of voice completely different than Shikamaru's, who had said the exact same words to me earlier in the day.

"Yeah, Tenten, Jaada. Jaada, Tenten," Ino said quickly, gesturing between the two of us. "So, are you and Neji like official yet?"

"Hi Jaada," Tenten said, smiling openly at me. I couldn't help giving her a grin back, her exuberance was oddly catching. "And no, Ino, how many times do I have to tell you? Neji and I are not dating! I may have had a crush on him ages ago, but we're really just good friends now."

"It would be impossible to stay sane on your team if you two weren't friends," Sakura laughed as the waitress finally came over to bring us drinks and take our orders.

As our dinner wore on, I got more comfortable in the presence of these girls. Sakura and Ino were their usual selves, taking up much of the attention in the restaurant and being overall dramatic. Tenten was a bright sort of person, though she was also quite perceptive and talkative as well. I learned quickly that she was one of the few kunoichi not involved with medicine and that she was extremely adept with weapons. She seemed to be incredibly excited as well when I suggested that we spar together sometime. Hinata quite clearly had a crush on Naruto and no one really seemed to know why, but it was there. Her stammer slowly receded as the evening progressed though her voice remained timid and she would never interrupt when someone else was talking.

"So," Ino started as the bill was placed on our cleared table. "We've gone through this entire evening and you haven't given us your opinion yet, Jaada."

The other three girls turned to look at me as well. Tenten had confusion in her eyes, but Sakura looked just as expectant as Ino.

"Ah, my opinion for what, exactly?" I asked for clarification.

"Which guy do you think is the cutest?!" Ino practically screeched as we pooled our money in the middle of the table.

"Oh, right," I said, trying to find a way to stall. I had no idea who was cute and who wasn't, I'd mostly been tuning out that part of the conversation.

"That's not entirely fair to ask yet Ino, she still hasn't met Chouji or Neji," Tenten pointed out.

"Well, it wouldn't be Chouji, he's fat and wears his headband like upside down underwear," Ino grumbled, rolling her eyes.

"You shouldn't talk about your teammate like that, Ino-pig!" Sakura exclaimed, smacking the back of Ino's head, strangely reminiscent of the way she always hit Naruto.

"Well it's true," Ino said indignantly. "But, Tenten, you have a point about Neji. He's definitely high on the hotness scale."

"N-N-Neji-niisan shouldn't c-count; he m-must marry by my f-father's approval," Hinata added, blushing rather furiously.

"Niisan?" I questioned, looking across the table to her.

"H-hai, he is my cousin," she responded softly.

"But Hinata-chan, she's a Hatake! That's got to be good enough for your father. The Hatakes are a really old, powerful clan too!" Sakura interjected. "We should definitely wait until you've met Neji, Jaada."

"Ok," I agreed, shrugging. I hadn't really been too keen on the discussing of boys anyway, so I was happy to postpone it. We all got up from the table and walked outside together in a group. The sun had already disappeared beyond the horizon and the stars were twinkling brightly above us. I couldn't hold back a smile, it was a beautiful night.

"Ooo, we should go out to the bar for a while!" Ino said, clapping her hands together as we walked down the road, still rather busy for the hour.

"I have a mission early tomorrow morning," Tenten said, pressing her lips together. "But I'll come out with you guys when we get back!"

"So responsible you are, Tenten," Ino sighed and brushed her off. "Hinata, you probably have to be home early, don't you?"

"H-hai, Ino-chan," she said. "You know I can only g-go to the bar w-when N-Neji-n-niisan agrees to escort m-me."

"If we all go when Tenten's team returns from their mission, Jaada can meet Neji!" Sakura said, excitedly to Ino.

"Oh! That's right!" Ino grinned widely. "How long is the mission, Tenten?"

"4-6 days, shouldn't be longer than a week," Tenten shrugged.

"It's settled then! We'll go out and drink and dance next week!" Ino smile widened even further. "Tenten, use your cunning powers to help convince Neji to take Hinata out."

"Right, yeah, because that always works so well," Tenten muttered, though I think I was the only one who could hear her. Then she made her voice louder again. "Alright then, girls, I'm heading home. Goodnight!"

"I-I think I should l-leave as well. G-goodnight!" Hinata squeaked shyly, waving as she turned in another direction.

"How about Jaada?" Sakura asked turning to me. "Want to come hang out with us more or are you going to call it a night too?"

"I actually feel like going for a run," I said glancing out at the clear sky with its bright stars again. "Thanks so much for having me though, I did have a great time."

"No problem!" Sakura smiled. "Enjoy your run!"

"It was great to hang out with you outside the hospital," Ino added nicely. "We'll definitely be seeing you more often!"

We said our good nights and I parted with them to take off running a couple laps around the outskirts of the village.

When I got back to Kakashi's apartment, I knew it was well into the night already. But the cool, sweet air had been far too welcoming and the running had felt amazing after an entire afternoon of sitting in the hospital. I'd ended up doing several laps around the village and then explored the forest above the Hokage Mountain, running through some of my practice forms for my sword fighting.

I swung myself in through the window to the main room and found myself unsurprised at the fact that the light was still burning on in the book room. I took off my shoes and padded over to look into the room to say good night to Kakashi, but I froze when I got to the doorway.

Kakashi was asleep on the couch, but he wasn't alone. Iruka-sensei was sitting on one side of the couch, using an edge of that gorgeous desk to grade papers, presumably tests or essays from the academy children. Kakashi was stretched out along the length of the couch, with his head nestled comfortably into Iruka's side. It was a sweet scene of domesticity I'd never seen growing up. Ro had never had lover and, excepting the times I had nightmares, he was never one to really coddle me. I felt my eyes stinging slightly at the sight; it looked so warm, so peaceful, so easy, and somehow so right. And it was then that I felt I could finally begin to understand what it was that Sakura, Ino, Hinata, and sometimes Tenten constantly talked about boys for. If this is what it lead to, they might have a point in wanting me to join in their observations and decisions regarding the boys.

Kakashi shifted in his sleep, letting out a light snort, and causing Iruka to turn away from his papers. Iruka looked down at Kakashi and his entire face softened, the light catching the heavy emotions in his dark brown eyes. As those eyes slid back to his paperwork, they looked rather startled catching me. I raised a silent hand to greet him and he responded with a warm, kind smile. I let myself smile back at him for a moment before turning away from the doorway and heading back over to the bed.

For several minutes I just sat on the bed, unable to move, trying to capture everything I had felt with that moment and hold onto it. That moment was the reason I had come to Konoha. That moment represented what a real, true home should feel like. I needed to find a way to feel that content, satisfied feeling every time I thought of this village. That was my goal.

I finally brushed my teeth, got my pajamas on, and settled into bed with that thought running through my head. I saw something to aim for. Before I had only been working towards becoming a jounin. Now, I saw what it meant to belong to the village. And having dinner with the girls of my age group had been getting one step closer to that feeling. Finally, I felt like I was on my way.