"I love you." He said as he pressed his lips against the slender wrist he held in his hand, his eyes never leaving Uzu's face as he laced the fingers of his other hand with her own, leveling himself up on his elbow so that he wasn't pressing down on her too much. Uzu smiled and squeezed his hand and he licked along the pale blue veins under her skin, gently nipping at the spot before sucking the skin into his mouth, the desire to leave marks on her skin was so over powering that he didn't really care where he left them as long as he was the only one other than her that knew that they were there.

"Kashi..." He released her wrist and dropped his head to her neck, inhaling her lovely scent of honey suckles, wild roses, and lavender as he rubbed his face against her throat and rocked his hips. She gasped and let her head fall back onto the pillow with a moan. He was being so gentle with her, treating her as if she were glass, slowly driving away her ability to think and reason.

"I love you." He repeated the words as he gripped her hand tighter, his breath coming out in short bursts against her skin. He had longed to be with her like this. Calm, slow, not the least bit concerned with the world outside. The was one of the most perfect moments he had ever known. In this place, there was only the two of them. The village didn't exist. Uzu was healthy, and whole, and-wait.

He lifted his head as a sudden feeling of dread settled in his chest. Whole? Healthy? What was...

He looked down at her and quickly jumped back away from her as blood started leaking out of the corners of her eyes, a thin trail of blood slipped out of the corner of her mouth as she lay on the bed sobbing. A look of horror crossed Kakashi's face as several men appeared out of nowhere and started raping her.

He lunged at the closest one, aiming to grab him and rip him apart but he passed right through him, stumbled and slammed into the wall as he heard Uzu's sobbing getting louder. His heart pounded against his ribs as he tried time and time again to reach her, to cut down the men hurting her before he collapsed to the floor clutching his head and screaming.

(*************************************************************************************************************************************************************)

There was a loud bang as Kakashi bolted upright in the bed with a hoarse yell of alarm and immediately noticed that he wasn't in his home and looked around to get his bearings. Yellow wall paper, a dirty shirt lay on the floor next to the bed and he was laying on a bed with a pale blue, turquoise, and topaz blue blanket on it. Uzu... His mate. This was her home, he was sitting up on her bed in her room.

He took a shuttering breath as everything from the past few days came back to him. Uzu's mission. The rape. The destruction of the enemy base. Everything came back to him in startlingly vivid detail. He looked down and felt the familiar pull of panic when he realised that she wasn't in bed and quickly surged to his feet and bellowed so loudly that the walls shook. "UZU!"

There was another bang from somewhere outside of the room and Kakashi's head snapped to his left and he crossed the room and threw open the door and all but ran down the short hall way looking for his female.

He stopped in the living room and noted that the front door was still closed, the window was still shut and locked so that meant that no one but himself and his mate should be in the small apartment. There was a clanging sound coming from the kitchen followed by a softly muttered swear and Kakashi felt some of his panic and tension ease up and sighed before heading into her kitchen and finding her sitting on her knees on the floor surrounded by some broken eggs, a packet of bacon and a large frying pan.

"What are you doing?" He asked curiously as he stood, leaning against the door frame staring at her pale face, his arms crossed over his chest as she looked up at him with a suprised look on her pretty face.

"K-Kakashi! I'm sorry. I didn't mean to wake you, I just wanted to get up and move around and fix something for breakfast-" She was babbling, her face turned a peculiar shade of pink as she averted her eyes and continued babbling.

"I didn't mean to drop the stuff and break the eggs and-" Kakashi sighed and moved to kneel down in front of her.

"Uzu, honey look at me-" Kakashi said gently and waited for her to look at him. When after three minutes or so she didn't look at him he reached out and lifted her face with his finger tips so that they were eye to eye.

She looked like she was going to cry. Was she really that upset about a few stupid eggs? Or was she thinking about something else that was upsetting her? "You should have stayed in bed baby. You had a really high fever up until a few hours ago and need the rest."

"But breakfast-"

"I'll fix breakfast for us both." It would give him a chance to provide for her, something that he felt she really needed right now.

"But you-"

"Stop worrying about me Uzu. I'm fine." That was a bald faced lie. He wasn't okay, not after what he had seen her suffer through. His nightmares were a testament to his state of mind, but he was doing considerably better than her.

She was trying to keep herself busy so that she wouldn't have to deal with what had happened. She was grieving, and in pain and she didn't want anyone to know or see. He understood that, he had had a few break downs himself. Stress related, job related, and grief related. Which was part of the reason that he truly believed that he could help her through this as long as she didn't try to hide from it, he could help her face her fears and move on.

It would take time.

Months.

Years.

But he could be a very patient man when he needed to be, and he would wait as long as it took for her to get better.

He smiled at her and scooped her up off of the cold floor, she made a squeaking sound as he cradled her in his arms bridal style and carried her out of the kitchen and over to her couch and set her down on it and grabbed several pillows from the corner and propped her up and left the room for a second after giving an order for her to stay put and came back several seconds later with the blanket from her bed and wrapped her in it before touching his hand to her forehead to make sure that she hadn't irritated her condition in a way that would cause her to run another high fever.

Once he was satisfied that she was'nt running a temp he leaned down and brushed his lips across her temple and straitened up and walked back into the kitchen to clean up the mess and fix something for his mate to eat.

Some scrambled eggs, toast, some bacon and orange juice sounded really good right about now.