Author's Note: OMG guys! I really am sorry for having you wait this long! But I have so much going on, I try to update when I can. But Spring Break is here and I'm going to try and make the most of it. I hope you guys are still interested or am I jut being paranoid? Heh, well I hope you enjoy this chapter, don't worry, the next one will be everything you guys were hoping for. Also, I'm thinking about resurrecting OMG Kakashi-sensei is hot! because now I know where I want to go, alas, I still don't have much by way of incentive, but I'll try my best to get on it.

Disclaimer: This does get annoying, but what the hey, for old times sake, I don't own Naruto, some awesome japanese man named Masashi Kishimoto does. He should do Naruto yaoi, he'd make a killing. Luckily, reviews are like money to me as money is to him. I love getting paid in reviews for my hard work! Thanks again all of you who reviewed.

Situational Hazard 21

Maybe someone was knocking on his door. Maybe someone was calling out his name. Or maybe it was just the pounding in his head…

"Kakashi! Kakashi, you little jerk, open up!" The loudmouth on the other end of his consciousness made his head explode in pain. The voice was insufferably loud, and a bit deep, just the kind of tone that made him want to crawl off the edge of a cliff and die.

"Open the door! Your brat wants to see you! If you don't open this door, I won't let you visit him for a month!"

Kakashi sat up abruptly and despite the death-defying pain in his head, he stumbled sluggishly over to the door. On the other side was Tsunade, who didn't look amused in the least. He gave her a tired stare and distantly wondered if she had come with something to make the pain stop.

"Finally! I knew you were in there. I come here to personally escort you to Naruto and you have the gall to be sleeping."

Kakashi knew that telling her what was on his mind was likely to get him decimated. It was something along the lines of: "I'm in agony, you heifer!" Oh well, he could always go to Icha Icha land.

"Excuse me for being in pain. What was I thinking?"

She glared wicked daggers at him but didn't say another word. He silently followed, trying in vain to get his vision to stop blurring and the world to stay still and walked into right into Tsunade. She let out a small growl and he wisely made his way over to her right side to avoid certain travesties that involved his body and her fist.

"He's been nagging my head off to see you," she shrugged, "I don't know why though, who would want to see a boring, lazy, annoying bum like you?" Kakashi would have glared her to ashes if he could. Not for his lack of trying.

She laughed at the pained look on his face trying to morph itself into a glower of contempt, and got an evil idea. So Naruto loved this man, eh? Was he good enough for her little brother?

She stuck her foot out. A good shinobi would have sidestepped, dodged, jumped, kicked, or stopped. But Kakashi tripped. And fell flat on his face. She couldn't help it and burst out laughing.

He slowly crawled to his knees and stood. Calling him a lazy bum was one thing, that didn't make his headache worse. But tripping him so that he fell so hard his head felt like it imploded was another. He was beyond pissed.

"You bitch!" He lunged at her to end her laughter but a sudden wave of agony went through his neck and against his will his legs went limp as a blade of grass and he tripped again. Tsuande was in hysterics, holding her sides like she was dying, like tripping the famous Copy-ninja of Konoha was the funniest thing in the world.

She fully expected him to try and attack her again and give her some more amusement….but Kakashi wasn't getting up. Her giggles died down and the smile was reduced to a worried frown as she cautiously tiptoed over to the fallen Jounin and poked him in the side with her heel. He was unconscious.

"Shit." Now she had to drag him back to her office. How troublesome. Hefting his nearly weightless body over her shoulder, she wondered in the back of her mind, if he even ate at all and now much. Kakashi was unusually skinny for a Jounin, but his strength and abilities more than made up for that. The Hokage herself was what she would call 'healthy', in some areas more than other, but all the same, she didn't like skinny people all that much.

Which almost led to her punching out Yamanaka Ino one day.

The blonde girl had come into her office under the pretense that she had something important to ask her about medical ninjutsu, and Tsunade, being the ever-nice person she was, allowed her to step into the office even after she ruined her chances of sneaking some sake under her desk. Ino looked Tsunade in the eye and with an annoying smile asked, "How do you get you waist so small to make your boobs look so big? I want to do that, please teach me. You must not eat any fatty foods at all, huh? Sometimes I can't help myself, what wi---- and she continued to ramble on and on about how skinny she wanted to be and how she never ate between meals and how fruit was the devil no matter how good it tasted. Tsunade quietly growled out that she was busy and had Shizune escort the babbling girl away before she lost her temper. At least Kakashi was light, not that it would have mattered. She was the Hokage, she could pick up Chouza Akimichi if she had to!

People kind of stared and whispered when they were out of eye and earshot of her as she walked confidently as ever down the village to her office with the copy-nin sprawled across her shoulder. The little brat lived hella far away. She sort of wished she hadn't tripped Kakashi in the first place, because if Naruto found out…well if Naruto found out then everyone would find out. The loudmouth would have her ears for it. Some insurance would be necessary if she wanted to get through the day without attempting to drown herself in a vat of sake. She had promised Shizune that she would stop drinking on the job, but little did the dark-haired assistant know how terribly difficult it was.

"Tsunade-sempai! What happened to Kakashi-sensei?!" Tsunade sucked her teeth. She had been so close to getting back without anyone bothering her.

"Don't question me Haruno. Nothing of your concern has happened."

The pink-haired girl sighed. She could take a hint. But….

"Can I come with you? I mean, just to see them that is?"

Tsunade grit her teeth harder. She had forgotten that she would fetch the flower girl for Naruto, it only made sense to bring the heifer by. A snide comment bubbled its way up her throat, but she decided that she would hold her tongue again. It wasn't like she could make the girl want to see her teammates any less and she had to give Sakura some credit where credit was due after all. If it wasn't for her, Kakashi wouldn't even be swung over the Hokage's shoulder, and Naruto would more than likely be dead. Sakura was a selfish young woman, but when it came down to it, she had saved her friends, and deserved to see them.

She nodded and Sakura squealed, a noise which Tsunade would have to somehow ensure she never heard again. Now that she was there….

"Carry him." Tsunade thrust Kakashi into Sakura's arms and the girl almost fell, startled.

"Wha—I—I—

One look from Tsunade and she was done talking.

When they finally got back to her offices, she sent Sakura to make a room with Naruto and Kakashi so that whichever of them woke up first would have the privilege to see the other. In the meantime, she needed to get drunk to numb herself to Naruto's overly loud, indignant yells and powerful lung fury. Shizune watched her from her usual corner with a stern gleam in her eye that Tsunade pretended not to notice, but a firm had stilled the one she had sneaking beneath her draw to her stash and she sighed resignedly and let her head fall with a thud on the desk. Shizune smiled to herself. She had been working on getting the Hokage to drink less and take on more responsibility, as it had seemed like Tsunade could do nothing but drink when she was stressed. Shizune had been there for the worst of it and by then had already known what was required of her as a loyal shinobi and friend. Today Tsunade looked stressed, no doubt dying for a drink, but she wouldn't allow it. Besides, there was paperwork to be done.

When she lifted up the stack of papers from the chair behind her and dropped it on the woman's desk, Tsunade looked up slowly, as if she were looking to her doom, and blinked. Then she began to cry.

"Shi-chan, why?! Why now?! Why ever? Why did I become the Hokage just so I could see how little control I have? I don't even like to read, and yet that's all I do. I miss the life I had before, where I could gamble and lose and run and drink and just be myself, and not someone else's hero."

Shizune looked down at her without a single sliver of sympathy and said, "You aren't going to give up, are you?" Her tone was hard and slightly disappointed, but she knew her sempai and friend could tell that she was just being encouraging, even after all, she wouldn't be a very good friend if she wasn't.

The blonde shook her head no and banged it again on the table before noncommittally inching her hand to the first of dozens of documents. Stupid Shizune and her stupid rightness.

Sakura leaned over her sleeping friend and watched him with a broad smile on her face. It was good to see him without respiration masks and needles and patches and bandages on him for once even though he had a strange device on his abdomen. Kakashi was lying unconscious in the bed next to him, like Tsunade told her to situate him, for reasons she had yet to understand, whatever it was, she was happy that they were in the same room together at any rate.

"I'm here now, I promise not to leave you again."

For another half an hour she sat and stared at them, thinking about all the things that had happened, all the things that had changed, and all the things that could have been. Fortunately they were alive at all.

She didn't want to leave them just yet, but Tsunade stuck her head in the room and told Sakura that they would see her when they got out. There was no harshness in her voice like there usually was and that made Sakura smile inside. Maybe things were finally going to get better.

'Huh'

There was a weight on his chest—not a subduing weight, but there was definitely something on top of him that should not have been there. Since he didn't usually wake up with things on him, he almost cautiously peeked his eye open to see yellow. He blinked, and the yellow was still there. He brought his hand up to touch it to find that it was soft and fuzzy an warm and I sort of felt….alive. Just as he made to push whatever it was off of him, the thing beat him to it. It had wide, clear, beautiful blue eyes and a tired smile and a cute nose, and pouty lips, and—

"Naruto…?"

Naruto's grin got bigger before an almost covert blush wisped across his nose and he hastily removed his hands from Kakashi's chest. "Ah, sorry about that, sensei, I must have fallen asleep." He yawned and stretched with feline grace and the man's eyes couldn't help but skirt the muscles on the younger boy's half-exposed firm chest.

Naruto realized what he was doing and yanked his hands back down to his sides, the blush seeping down to his cheeks. "Haven't had a good sleep like that in a long time. So Kakashi-sensei, er…why are you here?"

Kakashi's eye glazed over as he tried to remember why it was he was lying in a hospital room with his blonde student on top of him, however wrong that may have sounded. Tsunade…agonizing pain….the ground….

"That bitch tripped me." A golden eyebrow arched at the expletive. He had never heard Kakashi cuss before.

"Who?"

"Tsunade. That drunken heifer will wish she never---

"Oh you guys are up! And I hear Kakashi is hallucinating again. Maybe I should take him to the psych ward." Tsunade smiled with her hands clasped together like a peasant and briskly walked over to the bed to stamp her hand across Kakashi's mouth. Naruto was glaring at her.

"Why would Kakashi-sensei be hallucinating?" He asked slowly, his eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"Well," she explained, "It's just an unpleasant side-effect of the medicine I gave him to help his headache go away."

"You mean the headache I had when you came to my house and tripped me?" Kakashi supplied spitefully, seeing the look Naruto was giving her. It amused him to see Naruto angry at the Hokage over him. He thought it was cute.

"What's he talking about, Baa-chan? You wouldn't do that, would you? Why?"

"Naruto, don't listen to him, he's---

"Why?!" The blonde snapped before he could help himself. No mere trip would land a person like Kakashi in the hospital. Sure he was glad his sensei was there, but when he woke up to see the Jounin lying next to him on another bed unconscious, he had thought something terrible had happened. But Tsunade tripped him. Tripped him.

Tsunade may as well have just given up and gone to the nearest bar to drown the rest of her already shot day in some burning liquor. Stupid Kakashi and his stupid over-sensitive head.

"Shut up kid," She was the Hokage, not some guilty simpleton. "He's here, right? Like I said, he'd be there when you woke up, I never said he'd be in good condition. I know you're upset because you lo---"

Naruto shot up from his seat and slapped his hand over her flapping lips. "Shut it old lady! Say another word and I'll tell Shizune about the wine and sake you have the orderlies at the hospital sneak you when she isn't around!" Tsunade jerked the boy's hand away from her mouth.

"Geez, alright kid! But you'll have to tell him sooner or later."

"Yeah whatever like I---

"I have work to do, you know, my Hokagely duties." With a wave she twirled out the door before the oversized flowerpot connected with her head.

Naruto sat stiffly, enraged to the point of running after her down the hall but a clearing throat broke him out of his vengeful haze and he realized that Kakashi hadn't exactly disappeared.

"Oh," he laughed nervously, ruffling his limp blonde spikes. "hehehe."

Kakashi gave him a curious look. "What was that all about?" He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed to stand. His head had stopped hurting, which he thanked the deities for and he was hungry. He wondered if Naruto was allowed to go home yet. Not that it mattered what she said, after all, she owed him for giving him the tour of pain central.

"N-nothing. It was just uh…just…nothing." He replied unconvincingly. Kakashi shrugged it off; if it was nothing then it was nothing. All he knew was that if he didn't get something in the space between his pelvis and his chest he was going to keel over and die or starvation.

"Ramen, Naruto?" The teen's eyes lit up like Christmas morning.

"You know it!" The Jounin chuckled at his adorable display of enthusiasm and resisted the urge to pet him on the head, he looked so happy.

Teuchi had been giving them suspicious looks since they say down but Kakashi knew to feign ignorance when feigning ignorance was due so he merely pretended that the old man wasn't giving him the eye. Unfortunately, Naruto wasn't as lost to the attention as he had thought.

"What?" He said loudly and the old man looked off somewhere else and muttered something under his breath.

"Louder, old man I can't hear you!" Ayame tried to shake her head at him to diffuse the boy's irritation but Teuchi put the bowl he had in his hand down and said to him, "Iruka doesn't come here anymore. I asked him why and he said that you had gotten into some trouble with Kakashi."

This time Kakashi decided to pay attention.

"What did he mean by that? I didn't get into any trouble with Kakashi-sensei, that's not what happened at all."

Teuchi looked surprised, then confused. "Haruno-san said something happened…though I think she was a kind of wasted, I suppose it could have been a misunderstanding."

"I'm sure it was." Kakashi piped up all but snatching the steaming bowl from the man.

The conversation might have ended there, if Naruto wasn't so curious. "So, what did she say happened?"

Teuchi looked stuck for a moment, as if he were debating whether or not to keep what he knew to himself. "I-I don't think it's my place to say after all." And he ducked behind another curtain in the back of the shop before Naruto could ask any more questions.

Naruto grumbled in disappointment but didn't press the issue any further, and not because a hot bowl of ramen was placed before his hungry eyes.

"Itadakimasu!" He dug in with his usual ramen-relish, inhaling the entire bowl before Kakashi even had the chance to break apart his chopsticks.

"Slow down, you might choke one day, then what will I tell people? The future Hokage met his end at the hands of a bowl of noodles?"

"Ushuphahashisheshe!" Only because of his sheer genius could Kakashi translate the mass of nonsensical gibberish as 'Shut up Kakashi-sensei', in which case he would have to make sure to teach the brat some manners. He was paying for their meal after all.

"I didn't think passing by here for old times sake would lead me to Tsunade-sempai's escaped captives.' A voice from behind them giggled. Naruto swallowed a mouthful of noodles and broke out into a full smile before turning around to glomp Sakura.

Kakashi grunted and used the distraction to hurriedly eat his food and innocently wait for her to start talking to him. For once she hugged back, enthusiastically, and rubbed his head the way an older sister would do. Looking over the blonde's shoulder at Kakashi, "So what are you guys up to? Besides eating I mean?"

There was nothing to do after lunch but go home, and some teasing was long overdue for him. Better get a head start and really piss the boy off.

"Oh," Kakashi closed his eye and waved his hand casually, "Naruto and I are just out on a date."

Sakura felt Naruto stiffen immediately in her arms and, with the same stiffness, turned to face Kakashi, his eyes blazing with the flames of fury.

"We are on no such thing! Don't joke around like that, you lazy bum!" He snapped, swinging for Kakashi's head and obviously missing. Sakura couldn't help but find the exchange amusing, not sure whether it was because she had her suspicions that the two had some sort of thing going on, or because it was simply cute. Everything, in and of itself, was back to normal. More or less, everyone was alive, even though some people were a little worse off than others, she was still glad that she had some people to call friends that still looked at her the same way they had before everything had happened. That called for a fresh new start, she thought, and, if she were lucky, they could be a team again. If not, then that was all well and good too. A girl could hope.

"Maa, Naruto, are you trying to say that dating me is a joke?" He said with a poor imitation of hurt, trying to make Naruto even angrier so he could say something interesting.

Sakura watched on, smiling, surprised to find that she was not as weirded out by the idea of Naruto and Kakashi actually dating. After what she heard about Asuma and Shikamaru, she would be really unfair to find something to be angry or jealous about. At least Shikamaru had survived.

"Don't go to sleep tonight, Kakashi." Naruto warned, purposely leaving out the honorary to stress his threat.

It wasn't exactly the reaction Kakashi was looking for, but all the same, he'd be much more entertaining at home.

"I'm happy to see that you two are alright, and you're still as loud and expressive as usual, Naruto." Sakura winked at Kakashi when Naruto wasn't looking. The Jounin only blinked cluelessly and she rolled her eyes with a snort.

"Well, I'm headed off to see Hinata-chan. You should come and see her soon Naruto, she asks about you a lot." She purposely left out 'everyday' so as not to give the boy the creeps. And it actually was sort of creepy the way Hinata would ask about him nearly every five minutes.

"Oh yeah, I almost forgot! Hinata doesn't seem like the type to go crazy, or sleep and have a baby with a bastard like Sasuke. I'll have to find out what she was thinking. And the baby." Then as an afterthought, "I hope it doesn't look like Sasuke." He finished with a shudder.

Sakura laughed and patted him on the back. "He's a cute kid, and yeah, he actually does look quite a bit like Sasuke, but has more of a Neji-thing going on with the constant scowl and the eyes. Don't worry about it, Naru-kun."

At the mention of the friendly pet name, Kakashi gave the girl a dull-eyed glare that she seemed convincingly oblivious to and stood. Before he could tell her that he had better things to do than talk about the Hyuuga heiress' crush on Naru-kun she beat him to the punch.

"I have to be going now, I guess I'll catch up with you guys another time soon. I still don't know where you moved to Naruto." She ran out of the shop with a wave and down the street leaving them alone together again and the distinct feeling of someone nosy watching them.

Naruto glanced at Kakashi warily. "You do realize that I don't have the money to pay for this, don't you?"

"If you did then I wouldn't be."

Naruto sucked his teeth and stalked past him with a bit of limp in his step. In their haste to leave the hospital before Tsunade had noticed, they had forgotten his wheelchair. Not that he needed that thing anyway; he was Uzumaki Naruto and he could walk just fine!

Kakashi paid the curious shop owner and ducked under the curtain before he realized that he forgot to interrogate Sakura about her recollection of their ordeal. It didn't matter because his head was starting the familiar hum that signaled an incoming migraine and he absentmindedly reached for the left breast pocket of his flak vest for the pills Tsunade had tucked away when he was drifting through the realms of consciousness. He was not a medicine man, but he wasn't a glutton for pain either.

Naruto watched him take the pills with what could probably be described as a bitter grimace if the displeased crinkling of his right eye was anything to go by. He had no misconceptions that Kakashi was an otherwise strong, will-oriented person and that it would have to take a lot to make the Jounin do something out of his element or anything that would make him seem even fractionally dependent on another thing. Anyway, he hoped Kakashi felt better and vowed internally to give Tsunade the yelling at of a lifetime for tripping Kakashi in the first place.

"Back to our regularly scheduled lives," Naruto murmured to himself with a smile.

TBC……..

I really hadn't meant to leave you guys on this cliffhanger, but I'm working on OMG, Kakashi-sensei is hot! for you guys. And other—ahem—things. So the last line of this chapter is the beginning of the rest of Kakashi and Naruto's lives. Minor time skips will ensue, but nothing more than a few insignificant days if any happen by, but I'll try to avoid them anyway. And so, I leave you guys with this, and hope I can update as soon as possible. Thanks for all the reviews, you guys have no idea how happy you make me. I will explain a few things about Hinata and Sasuke, and maybe Iruka but nothing in great detail, just enough to appease your curiosity, if you guys have any.