The entirety of the Uchiha clan had neglected to ever mention that the sharingan could be this much of a pain. Sasuke's eyes kept activating at random moments and refusing to deactivate again. In the three days since they'd finally left Zabuza and Haku at Tazuna's house, it had happened five times. It was annoying and an area of the sharingan that Kakashi couldn't help him with.

"I can't deactivate mine," he'd explained. "That's why I keep it covered."

So Sasuke now had a ton of really pointless moments perfectly memorized. And apparently the sharingan needed at least two tomoes before he could perfectly replicate the things he memorized. It was frustrating, but it also meant that Sasuke was the first one on Team 7 to notice Kakashi's slowly deteriorating health.

They had spent two additional days at Tazuna's house recovering from the battle on the bridge. Kakashi had spent most of the first day asleep while Zabuza grumbled under his breath about being fought to a standstill by a man who was practically half dead, and then the second day he'd spent eating like there was no tomorrow. By the time they'd left, Kakashi had seemed tired but otherwise recovering quickly.

Three days later Kakashi was starting to look bruised under his visible eye, and his shoulders were hunched in discomfort. Sasuke wouldn't have noticed anything at all if he didn't have a picture perfect recollection of what Kakashi had looked like only an hour after they'd left. He wasn't sure if their sensei just wasn't sleeping well after everything that had happened (Sasuke knew he wasn't after all) or-

Sasuke's eyes flicked down to the ruined front of Kakashi's jounin vest that Tsunami had done her best to stitch back together.

-if he wasn't healing properly.

Sasuke had caught a brief glimpse of the ragged stitches that Kakashi had referred to as an 'ANBU patch job.' He didn't know more than the incredibly basic first aid that they'd learned at the Academy, but even he didn't think that those stitches would last well. And he was… he was worried, damn it! Sasuke didn't like not knowing for certain what was wrong, and they'd already watched Kakashi nearly die twice on this mission. He'd already lost too many people that he cared about. He couldn't stand the thought of potentially losing another.

Naruto and Sakura didn't seem to have noticed anything was wrong, yet. Maybe the sharingan was making him jump at shadows? He'd have to keep an eye on things.

Sasuke nearly swore as he accidentally activated his sharingan yet again. If he hadn't seen Kakashi in action these past two weeks, he'd be starting to suspect that his clan's gekkei genkai was highly overrated.

The next day Kakashi was definitely looking worse. A touch of a flush was peaking above the edge of his mask, and he actually stumbled over a rock on the road. He wasn't walking any more slowly, but he'd been practically lethargic when they'd stopped for lunch. Naruto and Sakura were starting to shoot him worried looks as well.

Sasuke didn't like it, and he didn't know how to fix it which he liked even less.

They were still sleeping in shifts, so that night once his watch was over Sasuke woke Sakura as well as Naruto.

"Ngh, the sun isn't up, yet," Sakura groaned, pulling her blanket over her face.

"Team meeting," Sasuke whispered.

Sakura pushed her blanket back down again and sat up with a frown. Naruto was already rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

"What is it?" Sakura asked softly. "And why aren't you waking up Kakashi-sensei, too?"

"Because Kakashi-sensei is the one I'm worried about."

All three of them looked over to where Kakashi was sleeping fitfully. Sasuke suspected that, under normal circumstances, their whispering would have woken him up.

Naruto hugged himself.

"Me, too," he admitted.

"I think his wound might be getting infected," Sakura agreed, her eyes worried in the banked glow of the fire. "We should make it back to Konoha tomorrow, right?"

Sasuke nodded,

"As long as we don't slow down too much, we ought to be there just before supper."

"I think we should skip reporting into Hokage-jiji and just take Kakashi-nii straight to the hospital," Naruto muttered. He paused, and a thoughtful look settled onto his face. "Hey Sakura-chan, is your arm still numb?"

Sakura grimaced.

"Not my whole arm, but it still sort of feels like some of my fingers are missing, and I'm getting pins and needles in my elbow. According to Haku, that should be wearing off soon, though. What are you thinking?"

"Kakashi-nii isn't always the best about his own health, because he really hates hospitals, but if we say we want to get your arm checked out before we report in, he definitely won't say no. And once we get him through the front doors, the med-nin definitely won't let him leave without a checkup."

"Won't he catch on?" asked Sasuke.

"Probably," Naruto shrugged, "but he's not going to put up a fight, because Sakura-chan's arm is a legitimate concern."

"And if his fever gets worse, he might actually not notice," Sakura added. She wiggled her left hand fingers sluggishly and frowned at them. "After this plan, one of you gets to be the decoy next, though."

Kakashi was so glad that they were almost back to Konoha. He'd been changing his bandages, but the wound in his chest was definitely infected. ANBU patch jobs were supposed to hold up to a couple of days of hard travel until you could reach a proper medic. Kakashi had been hoping that this one might last longer with an easier pace of travel but evidentially not. Tazuna's village hadn't had a proper doctor, and Kakashi was much better at putting stitches in other people than himself despite his unfortunate amount of practice.

He was definitely running a fever, and he ached all over. It was straight to the hospital for him as soon as they had finished reporting in. Kakashi grimaced at the thought. He really hoped that this could be fixed with a quick bout of chakra healing, so that he could get home to his kitchen and his oven. His old nightmares about Rin's death were back with a vengeance as well as the ones about the Kanabi Bridge mission (though featuring the exciting new twist that now it was sometimes one of his students trapped under the rock instead of Obito). He had so much bread he wanted to bake.

He really missed his bakery.

"Hey Sakura-chan, how's your arm doing?" Naruto asked, arms folded behind his head as he walked.

"Tingly. And it still feels like I only have a thumb and index finger on that hand."

Sasuke looked at her contemplatively.

"You should probably get that checked just to make sure there's no nerve damage."

Sakura winced at the thought.

"Hey nii-san," Naruto turned to Kakashi, "our mission wasn't super important to the village, right?"

"All missions are important to the village, but ours wasn't exactly critical, no."

"Then it would be okay for us to get Sakura-chan's arm checked before we report in, right? It's not like our mission was time sensitive."

Kakashi considered this and glanced over at Sakura. She was staring down at her left hand, the anxiety clear on her face. Honestly, he'd feel better if they got Sakura's arm checked, too. He didn't like how long it was taking her to recover.

"That would probably be a good idea," Kakashi agreed.

He realized he'd been played about halfway through the hospital's front doors. A hand closed on each of his arms, and Kakashi found himself being towed forward by Naruto and Sasuke as Sakura marched up to the front desk.

"I need my arm and shoulder checked for nerve damage, and we think that Kakashi-sensei's wound is infected," she informed the kunoichi behind the desk. At the mention of his name, every medic in the room turned to look at Kakashi like sharks scenting blood.

Yikes.

"I was planning to come straight over to the hospital as soon as we reported in, you know," he told Naruto and Sasuke but didn't resist as they continued to tug him forward.

"You were swaying when we got through the gates. Jiji can wait."

Sasuke nodded in agreement.

A med-nin strode up to Kakashi, swept a critical eye over him, and then held a palm full of diagnostic chakra to the right side of Kakashi's face. The med-nin frowned.

"Could we get a gurney over here?" he called.

Kakashi tried to back up, but Sasuke and Naruto held him firmly in place.

"That's overkill, isn't it?" he protested. "I definitely need my stitches redone, but I can walk just fine."

"Whether you can walk or not isn't the issue. You're suffering from chakra exhaustion and running a high fever – you shouldn't be walking." The med-nin pointed at the blood stained front of Kakashi's vest. "When did that happen?"

"A week ago," volunteered Sasuke. "And he'd already been recovering from chakra exhaustion for a week before that."

The med-nin's eyes narrowed, and Kakashi grimaced. So much for not being admitted to the hospital.

"Don't worry, sensei," Sakura had joined them again, "we'll come back and keep you company after we report in."

Naruto patted his arm.

"You took care of us. Now we're taking care of you."

Kakashi sighed.

"You're all menaces," he told them matter-of-factly, but his words were fond.

Sasuke crossed his arms,

"We're shinobi – it's a job requirement."

There was a brief moment of silence. Naruto goggled at Sasuke.

"Teme… did you just… make a joke?"

"Hn."

"You did! You totally did!" Naruto crowed happily.

"Shut up, dobe."

Kakashi reluctantly climbed onto the gurney when it arrived.

A relatively short while later Kakashi was ensconced in a hospital bed and hooked up to an IV of antibiotics and fluids. His wound had been cleaned out and properly closed, and he'd been promised some chakra healing to speed things along once the infection was cleared up and the swelling had gone down. (Chakra healing worked best on fresh wounds.)

Kakashi shifted, trying to find a more comfortable position. The kids had probably been right to just take him straight to the hospital. Now that the mission was officially over and he was lying down, even the thought of sitting up almost seemed too much. He was exhausted down to his bones, and his head was swimming with fever. He wondered whether it was worth the effort of sitting up to retrieve the spare blanket from the end of his bed. His hospital scrubs were thin, and the surgical mask he'd been given to wear left his neck uncomfortably chilly and bare.

There was a knock on his door. Kakashi rolled his head to the side just in time to see Iruka come in carrying a stack of library books.

"Hey." Kakashi offered him a tiny wave that was really more a flopping of one hand.

"Hey yourself." Iruka set the books down on Kakashi's side table. "I sent your team home and told them to wait until morning to come visit, so they should be here in about half an hour." He pulled a chair over and sat down. "I also stopped by your apartment and picked up one of your spare eyepatches."

"Thanks."

Iruka was quiet for a moment while Kakashi slowly secured his eyepatch in place.

"We haven't done this in a while," he finally murmured.

"No," Kakashi agreed. He shot Iruka a wry look, "I figured I was safe until they at least made chuunin." Iruka snorted. "Maaa, I know – it was uncharacteristically optimistic of me."

"I think your team has officially made the Top Ten List of Most Disastrous First-Time-Out-of-the-Village Missions."

Kakashi closed his eye with a grimace.

"They nearly died," he whispered.

A hand settled on his shoulder.

"But they didn't. And now you have three overprotective little hellions who would go through hell or high water to make sure that they don't lose you either. I thought that they were going to start threatening the Sandaime when it was suggested that perhaps it would have been wiser to turn back as soon as it became apparent that the mission's danger level had been lied about."

Kakashi huffed and opened his eye again.

"In retrospect, I really should have aborted the mission."

"No recriminations. You did the best you could with the information you had at the time. You all made it back to Konoha, and your students, at least, even managed to do so in one piece."

Kakashi sighed softly and changed the subject.

"How's Ukki-san doing?"

"Foaming away like a happy yeast culture." Iruka started sorting through the books he'd brought. "So I assume you can't sit up at the moment-"

"Not really, no."

"-so which of these am I reading to you? And, fair warning, it's not any of the romance novels."

"Aw, but I'm sick."

"No. You can read those on your own time. Think of it as motivation to heal faster."

Sasuke jerked awake from yet another nightmare with a gasp. He sat up in bed and wiped the sweat off his forehead. That was the third one tonight. He glanced at his alarm clock. Just after one o'clock.

Damn it.

Sasuke rolled out of bed. He hated his room at night, and he doubted he was going to managed anymore sleep. To hell with this.

Sasuke started rummaging through a drawer for clean clothes.

He was going out.

Lightning crackled in his hand, and blood was splattered across his face. A pale, young face smiled up at him.

"It's okay, sensei. It was only an arm."

Kakashi's eye snapped open. That was a new one.

He took a slow, deep breath in through his nose and breathed out through his mouth. Fever induced nightmares were always some of the worst. Kakashi continued to breathe in and out slowly, trying to calm his hammering heart.

A soft sound caught his ears.

He wasn't alone. And it was still pitch black outside. Had Tenzou stopped in after a late patrol?

Kakashi shifted his head.

Sasuke was curled up in one of the chairs next to his bed.

Kakashi blinked.

"Couldn't sleep?" he rasped. He didn't point out that visiting hours had ended long ago. They lived in a shinobi village – visiting hours were more of a suggestion than anything else.

Sasuke started slightly.

Silence stretched out, and just as Kakashi was beginning to think he wouldn't get any response at all or at best a noncommittal 'Hn,' Sasuke admitted,

"No."

"I'm not doing so well on that front either," Kakashi agreed.

Sasuke looked away.

"It was just… too quiet."

"Mmm," Kakashi nodded. He wondered if Sasuke had come in the hospital's main entrance or just snuck in through the window. Probably the window. "Sasuke," he waited until his student was looking at him again, "do you actually want to be living in the Uchiha District?"

Sasuke blinked.

"Where else would I go?"

Kakashi stopped himself from shrugging just in time. That would have hurt.

"Your own apartment. Or, if you really wanted, I could put you up at the Hatake estate for a while – I don't use it. You own the Uchiha District – it's not going anywhere without your explicit say-so and a lot of paperwork – but nothing requires you to live there unless you want to."

Sasuke stared at him for a long time, dark eyes wide and haunted. When he finally spoke, his voice was a barely audible whisper.

"I don't."

"We can start looking at options once I get out of the hospital," Kakashi murmured. The adrenaline of his nightmare was wearing off, and he was exhausted again. His eyelid drooped.

Just as he was drifting back to sleep, he heard Sasuke whisper,

"Thanks, sensei."

Sasuke was still curled in the hospital chair watching Kakashi breathe as the first gray of false dawn started to lighten the sky. As long as he could see that Kakashi was breathing, he knew for sure his sensei wasn't dead and he hadn't lost another person. Also, as long as he was in Kakashi's hospital room, Sasuke didn't have to be alone, and he could justify it to himself as standing guard.

There was a soft scraping sound at the window. Sasuke stiffened and then relaxed as he saw that it was just Naruto letting himself in. Naruto wordlessly picked up one of the other visitor's chairs and set it next to Sasuke's. He didn't look like he'd slept much. Neither of them spoke, and Kakashi didn't stir.

Outside the window the sky lightened and brightened to true dawn, and the sun began its slow climb.

Two minutes after visiting hours officially began, the door gently opened to admit Sakura. She collected the last chair and joined them. After a few minutes, she leaned her head against Naruto's shoulder.

In the silent presence of his teammates and sensei, Sasuke slowly drifted back to sleep. If there were any more nightmares, he didn't remember them when he woke up.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" asked Sakura dubiously. The bag of groceries in her arms wasn't heavy, but its bulkiness made it awkward to carry. At least the lingering tingling and numbness in her left arm from Haku's senbon was finally gone. (During the little sleep she'd gotten the previous night, she'd fallen asleep with her left arm above her head, and when she had woken up it had felt heavy, numb, and unresponsive again due to being left at such an awkward angle for so long. It had scared her more badly than she would have expected.)

"Sure it is!" Naruto assured her cheerfully. "It's a team building exercise!"

"Does Kakashi-sensei actually know we're using his kitchen?" asked Sasuke, shifting his hold on his own bag of groceries.

"Well, yeah – I asked first," Naruto shrugged as he pulled a key out of his pocket. "He just said that if we get his hot water cut off, we'll be running laps of the village until our legs fall off."

Sakura and Sasuke both winced.

"Well, curry isn't that hard at least," Sakura muttered.

Naruto nodded.

"Iruka-sensei taught me his recipe. It's really good, and if we run into any major problems, he lives just down the hall." Naruto unlocked the door and then pressed his palm to the wood to deactivate whatever security seals Kakashi used. "Kakashi-nii hates hospital food, so this will make him really happy."

Sakura trailed after her teammates into their sensei's apartment. She wasn't entirely certain what she'd been expecting Kakashi's apartment to look like, but she supposed she would have pictured something a little more Spartan. Or possibly flour to be liberally coating everything since their mission to Wave Country was the first time she'd ever seen Kakashi entirely flour smudge free. Instead, Kakashi's apartment appeared to be exactingly neat with touches of personality that softened it. Three bookcases stood against one wall. The first was entirely filled with cookbooks – no surprise there – and the first three shelves of the second bookcase were filled with books in a variety of sherbet colors that mostly likely meant they were romance novels. The remaining space in the bookcases was taken up with a bewildering variety of fiction and non-fiction. A striped green and cream blanket was thrown over the back of the couch, and a few smooth, fist-sized, gray rocks sat clustered on a side table. There was also a crayon drawing in various shades of orange hung on one wall. It appeared to depict a frog with some sort of sword or stick dancing in a hail of shuriken. Or maybe a cloud of deformed butterflies. Sakura was going to go ahead and guess that Naruto had drawn that.

"Kitchen's in here!" Naruto called.

Sakura realized that she was gawking but didn't feel too guilty, because Sasuke had been, too.

When they reached the kitchen, Naruto was standing on a counter and grumbling about tall people who put important things on the top shelf. Sasuke snorted in amusement, set down his bag of groceries, and began looking through the cupboards for pots. Sakura started unpacking the groceries they'd brought.

Something bright red caught Sakura's eye, and when she turned her head, she found herself staring at a very familiar, mischievous grin. It was Naruto's 'Ha! Gotcha!' smile that generally put in an appearance after a successful prank, but it wasn't on Naruto's face. It was on the face of a woman with long red hair holding the Hokage hat in one hand. Sakura blinked and then asked before she could think better of it,

"Naruto, is that your mom?" Because if you ignored the eye and hair color, the woman looked spookily similar to Naruto.

There was a moment of dead silence in the kitchen, and Sakura belatedly hoped that she hadn't asked a horribly insensitive question.

"What?" Naruto hopped down off the counter, and Sasuke straightened up from the cupboard he'd been peering into.

Sakura twisted her hands together for a second and then pointed at the woman in the picture.

"It just- Well, she has the exact same smile as you, and I've never seen that outside of families before."

"Oh, that's Kushina, the Red Hot-Blooded Habanero. She was a super badass kunoichi and married the Yondaime." Naruto pointed at another photo that Sakura hadn't noticed. "Kakashi-nii has been telling me stories about them for years."

The other picture Naruto had indicated was definitely an old team photo and… woah. Yeah, that was definitely the Yondaime. The Yondaime… who had spiky blond hair and blue eyes.

Sakura's head swiveled from the man with Naruto's hair and coloring to the woman with Naruto's smile and face, who had apparently married him. Sakura's brain went blank with shock.

"Holy shit." Sasuke turned from the pictures to stare at Naruto. "You're the Yondaime's son." Evidently he'd come to the same conclusion as Sakura.

"No, I'm not, teme. Don't be crazy. I… I…." Naruto glanced at the pictures, and the palpable longing on his face was painful to witness. "You- you really think so?" he finally asked, voice soft and hesitant.

Sakura nodded vigorously,

"You look far too similar to both of them for it to be a coincidence."

"But… why wouldn't-?" Naruto looked lost, and Sakura reached out and pulled him into a hug, because he looked like he really needed one. "Thanks, Sakura-chan," he mumbled into her shoulder.

Sasuke patted Naruto awkwardly on the back when Sakura finally released him.

"Come on, dobe – let's make curry and then go interrogate Kakashi-sensei while he's still trapped in a hospital bed and can't get away."

Naruto let out a slightly watery laugh,

"I think Hokage-jiji might be the one who needs an interrogation, but asking Kakashi-nii would probably be a good start."

Kakashi stared at the ceiling of his hospital room. He had started reading one of the novels Iruka had left him, but he'd run out of energy. IV antibiotics were the worst. Okay, not the worst, but Kakashi definitely hadn't missed them. They always left him feeling even more drained than he already was. The chakra exhaustion wasn't helping and had probably contributed to his wound getting infected in the first place, too.

The door of his hospital room rattled and then swung open. Kakashi turned his head to see Sasuke, Sakura, and Naruto filing in. They were carrying a bag each, but Sakura seemed concerned, Sasuke had a look of grim determination on his face, and Naruto appeared to be a strange combination of hopeful and upset. Had something happene-?

"Is Naruto the Yondaime's son?" Sasuke demanded before Kakashi had a chance to say anything.

"Subtle, Sasuke-kun," Sakura sighed. "Remember? The plan was to be subtle."

Finally.

"I can neither confirm nor deny that Naruto is related to Minato-sensei," Kakashi told them, "and it's definitely not because of a ridiculous order that would get me into a bunch of trouble if I did."

Naruto's eyes widened in comprehension, and Sakura nodded.

"So that's a yes," she stated decisively.

Sasuke nudged Naruto with an elbow,

"Told you."

"How was I supposed to know? Also, your interrogation skills suck, teme – believe it!" Naruto's expression had gone from upset to thrilled, though, which was a relief. "Oh, wow! My parents are-!"

"Please don't shout S-class secrets in my hospital room, Naruto," Kakashi interrupted. "I'll get in trouble."

"That reminds me! We made you curry!" Naruto waved enthusiastically at the bags they were carrying.

"Thank you. …You didn't set my kitchen on fire did you?" Kakashi had been wondering why Naruto had wanted to borrow his kitchen for a 'team building exercise.'

"No," Naruto protested indignantly. "Only you do that!"

"It's one of the perks of having your name on the lease," Kakashi nodded and attempted to prop himself up on one elbow without pulling the stitches in his chest. His head spun. Ugh – fever and low chakra were not a good combination.

Sakura immediately came over to help him. Naruto and Sasuke started rearranging chairs and the side table, because apparently 'We made you curry' was actually code for 'We're having team dinner in your hospital room,' and Kakashi was perfectly fine with that.

These kids – Kakashi wouldn't trade them for the world.

In fairly short order, Kakashi was propped up in bed with a couple of pillows and the curry and rice had been unpacked.

Sakura pulled a brand new box of chopsticks out of the bag Naruto had been carrying. She handed a pair to Kakashi.

"How is it that you don't have any chopsticks that match, sensei?"

"That is a question that I have been asking myself for years," Kakashi told her. He accepted the chopsticks and bowl of rice and curry that Sasuke was holding out to him. It smelled like Iruka's recipe.

Kakashi hesitated a fraction of a second, then casually reached up, pulled off the surgical mask he was wearing, and tried a bite of the curry.

There was a clatter as Sakura dropped her box, and chopsticks went rolling across the linoleum floor. Kakashi looked up and wished that he could use his sharingan to memorize Sakura and Sasuke's gob-smacked expressions.

"What?" he asked innocently.

At the foot of the bed Naruto cackled with laughter.

"You've been hiding your face from us for months, and all that was under that mask was a mole?! Naruto told us you had fangs!" Sakura was waving her arms and shouting.

"What the hell, sensei?!" Sasuke agreed.

Kakashi just smiled to himself and took another bite of curry.

You didn't need to wear a mask around family.

A/N: Hey folks! So I have good news and bad news. Let's get the bad news out of the way first - the tendonitis in my wrists is acting up, making it painful for me to type. Because of this, it's going to be a while before you get the next chapter. I don't want to push things and run the risk of ending up in matching wrist braces again. I can make no promises on when the next chapter will be appearing, but have no fear - I adore this story and I will be back. The good news is that writing long hand doesn't bother my wrists like typing does, and every single chapter of this story is hand written long before it is typed up and edited, so while I might not be posting new chapters, I will be writing them. The other good news is that, because I won't being trying to write new chapters, type up old chapters, skim old episodes to remind myself how certain things were/weren't addressed in canon, and go to work, this is going to greatly increase the possibility that this story will continue on into Shippuden territory. No guarantees, yet - I'd really like to go there, but it's going to take a lot more work and planning than writing this story pre-time skip.

Thank you all for your patience and understanding, and hopefully I will be back with new chapters sooner than expected!