I couldn't stop the quivering, as I lay there surrounded by the warmth of a bed with my eyes still shut. I didn't want to open them, to open them would be worse because there was something so terrible wrong with me. I could feel it, my chakra might have been twisted before but it had been mutilated now.

For a few moments the pain dimmed and I tried to crack open my eyes, only to have my body wracked by a spasm of pain and a ragged scream ripped from my throat.

"Shoko, Shoko it's alright, it'll pass I promise it'll pass…"

I recognised that voice, I'd been hearing it in my hellish dreams for however long I had lay there, that voice anchoring me and pulling me from my nightmares mercifully.

"Ka…Kaka-"

He was there, hand over my mouth to silence me as I finally got my eyes open. They adjusted swiftly, my body quivering and jerking still as I lay staring at him from the medical bed. He watched me, lord did he look so tired and weary, how long had he sat there?

Probably since you arrived.

Yes, that sounded like something Kakashi would do, a silent watcher until Gai could drag him elsewhere. Had Gai been unsuccessful? Or had he simply not bothered to try, I'd have to find out later.

I wanted to talk, ask him what was wrong with me and I would beg and plead to find out I truly would because something was so wrong. I felt blind, my chakra was surging out as it always did but the images were wrong, blurred and twisted with gaps and blank spaces.

"You've been asleep three weeks." Kakashi told me in monotone "They told me to give you something to drink when you woke up."

I couldn't manage a nod so I just let him lift my head, letting the water soothe my aching throat and quench the thirst I hadn't realised had been there. It felt nice, and distracting me from the pain until the next spasm hit.

When it did, Kakashi was soothing me again as I screamed. Doctors came and went, unable to ease the pain even slightly as they tried remedy after remedy. The spasms had been worse they told Kakashi when I had been asleep, that they'd get better in their own time, that pain relief would not help.

Well I could have told you that.

But they were right, slowly but surely my spasms faded and the pain with it, even if it did take a long time. Anko visited later that day, and she cried and hugged me and sobbed and I cried and wept with her because she wept and…well, you get the picture.

"I thought…sniff…you were going to die!" She wept as Gai and Kakashi hovered nearby, watching worriedly as we cried, because if there was one thing Anko and I never did, it was cry.

Well, not when in anyone else's company, we'd cried together before but never with anyone near.

She left and I regained my composure, and I looked over at Kakashi nervously. He hadn't said much since I had woken up and his silence was making me anxious, shouldn't he had said something by now? Anything?

"You okay?" I croaked, my throat still tight and raw from screaming so he helped me drink more water.

"No."

Well, I can't say I expected a straight answer, that was one of the things that both amused and annoyed me, he never gave you anything straight. I waited for him to elaborate, again not expecting him to, but he did.

"I couldn't help you."

Ah, there was the problem. Guilt. I opened my mouth by Kakashi glared at me until I shut it, why was he angry at me? What had I done?

"The noises you made…like a dying animal." He looked haunted, I hadn't seen him like this since Minato had died. It wasn't something I wanted to see, it frightened me to see that haunted look in his eyes.

"I held you, I thought you were going to die…I don't think I could handle it if you did." He scoffed "After what happened to my father, I told myself I'd never love."

Well, that explained the anger, but he was still glaring at me like it was my fault.

"Don't you get prissy with me," I croaked angrily "takes two to tango."

This did nothing for his anger, it just riled him up more than before and I waited for the explosion because that was how Kakashi dealt with things. He bottled everything up inside of him for years and years until it all exploded in a ball of rage and fists. I could already feel his angry chakra, and it stung against mine and I bit my tongue to hold back a cry because damn it he needed to explode for crying out loud.

"I kept my distance from you, but Hiro just kept pushing it whenever you weren't around," Kakashi was snarling now "talking about you like you were a prize, made it out to be some sort of competition between us. It pissed me off."

Well it would piss me off too, but I kept my mouth shut, as his chakra got hotter and the pain got worse I kept my mouth shut and waited for him to finish.

"I told myself I was doing it to protect you but then I actually started to like you, just like I'd sworn I wouldn't." He stared at me "I'm broken goods Shoko, you could do better."

"I don't want to do better idiot." I gritted between my teeth, and Kakashi frowned down at me.

His chakra wavered slightly, pushing and pulling to see what was wrong with me but every touch hurt, like burning. Still I kept steady, Kakashi stiffened when he found one of the tears.

"I'll kill him." He vowed, then he sat down, held my hand in his and waited like a silent guardian just as he had done before.

No you wont, Sasuke will, but I thank you for the sentiment.

Two weeks later I was released, my friends rallied around me, and soon I was training my chakra again. Every lesson was agony, but I was going to be stronger than before, because there wasn't long left until doomsday and I couldn't be weak for when it arrived.

Doomsday came quicker than I ever could have know.

The next chapter will have a massive time jump, straight to the beginning of Naruto guys so the main story will begin soon!

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Tulip Out.