As the sunlight began to seep through the window Aiko's eyes fluttered open, and she was staring at the empty space in the bed next to her, the space where Kakashi should be. She couldn't sense him in the room, and when she turned over, she noticed the blanket was folded and placed in the corner with his pillow laying on top.

Aiko recalled the events from the night before and somehow managed to pry herself out of the comfort of the bed. She undressed on the way to the bathroom, leaving a trail of clothing in her wake. She turned on the shower and let it run until the water was as hot as it would go, then she stepped in and allowed the water to turn her milky white skin a bright shade red. She sat down on the shower floor with her back against the wall and let her mind go blank. She felt the water burning her skin, but nothing else. While she was in this space, she wouldn't allow herself to feel the guilt of hurting her ex-lover, or the regret she had over dragging Kakashi into it. The only thing she would let herself feel was the mix of comfort and pain the hot water was bringing her.

The young woman was startled when the shower door opened. She peered up to see Kakashi standing over her, he turned the water off, wrapped her in a towel, and lifted her into his arms. "I wish you'd stop doing that Aiko, doesn't it hurt you?" He asked her sincerely.

"It's fine," she said, "a little pain helps now and then." She closed her eyes and rested her head against his chest.

"Helps with what?" Kakashi asked in a whisper, his brow furrowed.

"It helps get me out of my own head, it pushes my thoughts away, and I can just be still for a little while. That's the best way I can explain it Kakashi." Her voice was weak, and it was a struggle just to speak to him without crying.

Kakashi laid her down in the bed, and took her in his arms again, "It sounds like you boarder on self-mutilation in order to keep yourself from feeling certain emotions." The Copy Ninja was speaking to her gently, and caressing the outline of her face with his fingers.

"Maybe." Aiko breathed out, barely a word at all.

"Aiko," Kakashi said, "we need to talk about this now."

Aiko was thankful that she was turned away from Kakashi in this moment. She tried to wriggle away from his arm that was circled around her waist, but she had no such luck. Kakashi wasn't letting go. In order to give herself a modicum of comfort during this conversation, she brought her knees up and hugged them against herself. While giving her a sense of security this position actually caused her physical discomfort since Kakashi's arm was still tightly wrapped around her.

Kakashi sighed in aggravation but pressed on. "It was my idea to come here, so I can't really be upset with you, I can't say I'm happy that that man kissed you last night, but it's not what I'm concerned about. You need to tell about what happened to you after you left the village," Kakashi stopped talking for a second to nuzzle his nose into her hair, "I need to know and understand what I did to you, Aiko."

She finally unwrapped her arms from around her knees and stretched her legs straight. "Kakashi, it was so long ago, we were so young, and I had been hurt so much. There's no reason to drudge up the past, it'll just hurt both of us." The raven-haired woman shut her eyes silently pleading for the Copy Ninja to let the subject drop into obscurity. She briefly recalled the happiness she had felt with him when they had been sent on this mission, and now she felt it slipping away out of her grasp, and she sighed.

Kakashi used the arm that was wrapped around the pale woman to turn her onto her back and then rolled on top of her. He kissed her forehead and then began to place light kisses all over her face. "I need to know, Aiko, please…" Kakashi trailed off letting his forehead rest against hers.

Aiko allowed herself to enjoy the feeling of her lover's lips pressed against her skin, then took a deep breath in, and told Kakashi her story.

She told the beautiful man who was lying on top of her every gruesome detail of what happened to her from the moment he left her at the lake until Tsunade summoned her back to the village. By the end of the story, Kakashi had moved his head to rest on the left side of Aiko's, with his chin sitting on her shoulder. He couldn't bear to look her in the eye.

The seasoned shinobi had known that he'd hurt the woman he loved, but in the back of his mind Kakashi had always hoped that Aiko understood why. Through all the years, the one-time Kakashi of the Sharingan had held out hope that the girl whose heart he had broken into pieces had understood that he did so to protect himself rather than to intentionally hurt her. If she hadn't understood, he always just assumed that she would hate him, blame him for her unnecessary pain. Instead, she grew to hate herself, the love of his life blamed herself for his mistake for an entire decade, and that was something he couldn't take back. Upon her return, he had explained himself and apologized, but he was still shocked to find that she had truly blamed herself for all of these years. His heart sank into his stomach as he realized how naïve he'd been.

Aiko was lightly running her nails up and down her lover's back, "Kashi, say something, please?"

The future Hokage rolled off of the raven-haired woman, and propped himself up on one arm so that he was looking at her, "I knew I had hurt you, but I didn't realize how deep the pain went, Aiko. I always allowed myself to believe that on some level you understood what I did had been out of selfishness, but that was stupid and naïve of me. I don't deserve your forgiveness, Aiko."

For a long moment, they were both silent, afraid to speak out of fear of scaring the other person away. "Kashi, almost my entire life I've been trying to understand what it was that I did to deserve the pain I endured as a child," Aiko said with a shaky voice, "you've known extreme pain too, and I've always been aware of that. However, as I've already said, you leaving me the way you did broke me, on top of everything else, I couldn't figure out what I had done to deserve your cruelty. As a result, I spiraled, and if it hadn't been for Dai and Granny downstairs, I probably wouldn't be alive. I love you though Kakashi Hatake, I've forgiven you, and I trust you not to hurt me again. Now I need you to figure out how to forgive yourself, so we can get on with our lives. Can you do that?"

Kakashi was staring up at the ceiling now because he couldn't bear to look at the woman lying net to him. "I don't know," he said, barely above a whisper.