FORGIVE ME FOR THE SHORTNESS OF THIS CHAPTER! I'M TRYING DESPERATELY TO KEEP THE THOUGHT CLOUD BREWING WITH THIS STORY!! I SWEAR THE NEXT CHAPTER WILL BE WORTH READING!!

OH~! AND THANKS TO THE PEOPLE WHO REVIEWED THE LAST CHAPTER!


Once she had finally cried herself into exhaustion, Rin had slept more soundly than she had in the days before her appointment. She couldn't stop thinking and worrying to do much else before, and now if felt like the same anxious feeling had been amplified by ten. She spent every waking hour, desperately trying, and failing miserably, not to worry about Kakashi. She didn't have the temperament or the energy to keep up with that level of misery--it wore her out. She felt like she was caught in some sort of unheard, suffocating grey area of existence. She didn't have the privilege of naivety like some of the women in the Village. She'd been out on missions countless of times. Most of her medical expertise came from the battle field. She'd lost her best friend on the battle field. It was how she'd met Kakashi to start with. She saw, in full detail, the ugliness of war. It was the primary and most important reason she was having this baby. A Nakaue heir would open trade between the two countries. With the new resources, the Village Hidden in the Leaves would be able to conquer any offending Village and probably become a leading power again.

She didn't understand Kakashi's decision when all he had to do was play out the waiting game. Not even the Hokage was taking missions seriously right now; just renegade work to make it look like they had it under control. She couldn't ask him not to do what he had already signed up for. She knew that at some point he would have gone back to Active Duty, but she didn't expect it to happen this way. He had told her on several different occasions how he could never see himself doing anything else--no matter what the consequence or the heart break. He was, and always would be, a shinobi. She knew and respected that. She just hoped that maybe he would have stayed with domestic duties to look after her, considering the circumstances. She would have done it for him without thinking twice about it. Now that she thought about it, she did do it for him and didn't think twice about it. The consequences of that decision was still undecided. There was still a rift in between the two of them. It was something that nobody could see. It was something that she wasn't even sure she understood. She just knew that it existed.

Most of her time was spent occupying her side of the bed in Kakashi's apartment. She felt awful. She looked awful. Under circumstances like that, she didn't want anything from anybody. She only wanted to be left alone, and it was the one thing Kakashi wouldn't give her. He came home three times during the day to make sure that she ate--not much said between them.

"Kakashi." She finally said one say, so tired of being isolated and living with the one man she had probably ever had genuine feelings for at the same time.

"Hm?" He asked, swallowing whatever he had bitten in to. The details weren't really what mattered to Rin Inuzuka lately. She was satisfied with the fact that he was eating; it probably went both ways. Since she had gotten pregnant, Rin felt like a completely different person. She was someone she didn't even recognize.

"I think that it might be better if I moved back to Collin's for awhile." She suggested to see how he woud react. She had spent all day trying to form a conversation in her head about how she wanted to approach this, but every time she had an idea it felt inflated and fake. As much as she hated to resort to drastic measures, she thought about the one thing that would crawl under Kakashi's skin more than anything. Her baby's father.

His eyes seemed to visibly dull as he looked at her oddly. "Why?"

"You'll be gone a lot." She reminded, sounding a lot more vindictive that she felt. She had no intention of making him feel bad about his decision, but it was clearly what happened. His eyes saddened as he shifted his gaze towards the food he had in his hands, making her feel the guiltiest she had ever felt in her life. She forced herself to keep going. "I'm just not comfortable being by myself."

"Rin." He interrupted.

"It's no big deal. I can pack tomorrow since he'll be here on Friday to talk to the Third." She rambled, trying not to get any more upset than she already was. The anguish in her voice hit Kakashi just as well as if she'd plunged a kunai into him.

"Rin." He said again, trying to get her attention.

"He really didn't want me to go anyway. It'll be no problem-

"Rin!" He shouted, grabbing her wrists and holding them tightly-jerking her towards him abruptly. "Stop it." He told her softly. He held her gaze, amazed by how hurt she looked. He would have waited a little longer to re-enlist if he had known she would have been in so much turmoil because of it. It wasn't that long ago that they were comrades. He really didn't think that it would hurt her. He knew that she would worry, but he didn't think she would actually be hurt. "Stop it." He repeated.

Tears started to fall down her face, running across the tips of his thumbs as he held her face to make her look at him. "I love you, you know that right?' She asked between sobs.

He pulled her closer to him, holding her tightly as she started to lose control of the rest of her composure if there were any. He had known Rin for years. They had been through some of the darkest times of their lives together, but he had never felt as guilty as he did now. All the tears that soaked into his shirt were tears he had caused. He wanted to take it all back. "I love you too." He murmured into her hair, realizing he hadn't said that to anybody since his father died. That was all Rin had wanted to hear when he ran her away. It had been so impossible for him to say it before and now it was the most honest thing he'd ever said to anybody. It'd been months since Kakashi felt this conflicted.