The sun sank beneath the horizon, gold and orange deepening to purple or blue as stars fought their way through dusk. Kakashi sat at his desk with a stack of paperwork beside him; the words had begun to blur together. He stubbornly refused to admit that his vision wasn't what it had been ten years ago. Thirty-three and already an old man, Kakashi thought. He blamed it on the stress of raising genin, then leading the village; it had nothing to do with age.

Truth be told, Kakashi should have gone home hours ago. The summer sun set well after the end of the day for most office jobs, but he wanted to try and get ahead of his workload. It kept his mind from wandering to all the things that he didn't have. There was no one for him to rush home to, no one who cared if he spent an extra three hours working on reports, or even stayed at the office all night.

Popping his neck, Kakashi rose and removed the Hokage's robes. The hat rested on an empty chair on the opposite side of his desk. He only wore them when necessary, but hadn't bothered to change back after his last meeting. Even the newly designed jonin armor felt more natural, though he wasn't wearing that beneath the robes today. The charcoal grey pants and undershirt were comfortable enough since he'd planned to be at his desk all evening. It wasn't as if half a dozen Anbu wouldn't appear at the first sign of danger, anyway.

With one glance at the work still piled on the desk, Kakashi turned toward the door. He started to open it, then stepped back in surprise at finding a figure in the shadowed hallway. Sakura glanced up at the sound, lip caught between her teeth and eyes puffy from crying. Kakashi did a double take, hating the way his chest tightened at the sight of her. When he said her name as a question, the girl forced a fragile smile onto her lips. Then, her facade crumbled, and a single tear slipped free of her left eye.

The protective barrier shattered, and Sakura threw herself forward with a sob. Kakashi managed to catch her awkwardly, if only to keep them from falling to the floor in a tangle of limbs. Her arms curled around his middle, body achingly warm in a way that had nothing to do with the summer heat outside. Belatedly, Kakashi realized that Sakura wore jonin blues and no armor over it. He struggled to suck a breath around the lump in his throat. "What happened?"

Tears spilled out of Sakura along with broken words. "Sasuke said I'm too clingy and needy, that he's already told me that we'll never work together. And he has, I shouldn't have tried to get him to spend time with me when he was back in the village. I shouldn't have-"

The next words were muffled when Sakura hid her face against Kakashi's chest. As the dampness of her tears bled through his shirt, hot anger stirred in his gut. Kakashi normally prided himself on his ability to divorce emotion from his life, but not this time. Sakura's hands tightened, and his heart hammered hard enough that he feared Sakura would be able to hear the sound. He struggled to draw breath through his constricted throat.

Thankfully, heartbreakingly, Sakura pulled away and wiped her eyes with trembling fingers. "I'm sorry. You must think I'm being terribly childish."

"Not at all," a voice that sounded very much like Kakashi's answered. Then, it continued. "I think he's a fool who never deserved you in the first place."

Sakura's green eyes widened. She pulled back until they stood half a dozen feet apart: Sakura shy and embarrassed and Kakashi conflicted by the truth he hadn't meant to say.

Her eyes searched his, looking for Kami only knew what, then she nodded. "Thank you for saying that."

"It's true." Kakashi had more control over his voice this time, but barely. "What you have with Sasuke isn't love; it's not supposed to hurt this way."

Heat flared between them, and Sakura closed the distance to glare up at Kakashi. "And you're an expert on it?"

Of course not, Kakashi thought. Look at how poorly I've handled this. For months, I've felt something, but I refused to admit it until it came spilling out like poison. Kakashi couldn't say that. Sakura's anger wasn't directed at him, anyway. He could bear the brunt of her fury if that's what she needed. He could bear a lot of things. "I know enough to see that this isn't it."

Kakashi knew that he'd made a mistake when Sakura looked at him with a mixture of pain and disbelief. The room spun, and he thought that he might be sick. He fought the nausea down and took a half step in her direction. "I'm sorry."

"For what?" Sakura spat. Somehow, she drew herself up, towering over Kakashi in her fury. "For lecturing me about something you don't understand? For acting like you cared about me? For-"

"For falling in love with you." The words hung between them for a moment, louder than the echo of Sakura's anger.

Kakashi had never looked squarely at the thought, never viewed what was happening between them as more than general protectiveness. But now, he knew it for what it was. He let out a breath and closed the distance between himself and Sakura. "I'm sorry, but you deserve someone who won't put you second or third or fourth every time."

"And, that better is you?" Sakura's voice changed in a way that Kakashi couldn't quantify. It had a breathy quality, an uncertainty, but he couldn't read the tone over the buzzing in his ears. "Is that what you mean?"

Kakashi forced out a humorless laugh at the suggestion. "No."

"You're just like Sasuke," Sakura accused, stepping into Kakashi's space. "You throw that word around so easily that it doesn't mean anything."

"I am nothing like Sasuke," Kakashi ground out, biting off each word. Icy numbness and burning anger surging through him in turns.

Could Sakura honestly believe that Kakashi would say something like that to make her feel better if he didn't mean it? That he'd make up a lie to help her forget the stupid boy who had never loved her or protected her the way that she deserved? Sasuke had always been more empty words and broken promises than anything else. Kakashi had broken only one, one that he made to himself months ago.

It would be easy to cross the line now, everything was falling apart anyway. Kakashi could pull Sakura back against his chest and show her how inadequate words were. Except, he couldn't bring himself to do so. He's already said far more than he should have, more than he ever thought he'd have the opportunity to say.

Sakura looked up at Kakashi through teary lashes, eyes red and puffy. She didn't speak at first, didn't respond to the venom in his voice. Then, she challenged him with her stare. "Did you mean it?"

The hope in Sakura's voice made Kakashi ache and his lungs clench. "I can't-."

Before Kakashi could finish his thought, Sakura scoffed and turned away. HIs hand caught her wrist, gentle enough that she could pull free if she wanted to. Then, a voice that sounded so much like Kakashi's spoke without his permission. "You deserve more than I could ever give you."

Sakura exhaled and leaned in enough for Kakashi to feel the residual heat from her body against his. Her hands came up and brushed Kakashi's cheek, pulling a soft sigh from his throat. Emboldened, she hooked her fingers in the fabric of his mask. Sakura paused at the whispered warning of her name, fingertips slipping away from the fabric, then asked, "did you mean it?"

Kakashi couldn't deny the truth, not with those brilliant green eyes shining up at him. "Yes."

Rising on her tiptoes, Sakura pressed her lips to Kakashi's, the fabric of his mask between them. The tentative brush made his knees weak, especially when her hands slipped down to his shoulders. Closing his arms around her felt like the most natural thing in the world as the room tipped around him.

Kakashi waited for some sign that Sakura felt the same, some indication that everything had changed, but she didn't speak. He took courage from the fact that Sakura didn't pull away at least. Kakashi raised one hand to trace the delicate curve of her lips and felt the shiver that raced through her body. He couldn't breathe through the fabric of his mask, so he lowered it.

Sakura's eyes remained squeezed shut when Kakashi lightly kissed her forehead. He whispered against the skin, hardly recognizing his voice. "I didn't mean to make things more difficult. If you don't feel the same, we can pretend like this never happened."

"Can we," Sakura asked Kakashi's chest, head dropping forward to rest against him.

When Sakura's eyes didn't rise to meet his, a swirl of anxiety twisted through Kakashi. His heart pounded hard enough to break his ribs when he hummed in agreement. "If that's what you want."

The words came easily, but Kakashi didn't know if they were true. He had only recently started to realize that the anger and fury he felt when Sakura talked about Sasuke went beyond friendship. If she turned away from him now, he would accept it, but things would never be the same. He feared what the kiss had done to their relationship, even as he longed to pull her closer.

Kakashi didn't push Sakura for an answer. He waited without speaking until she lifted her gaze. Sakura paused, taking in both the familiarity and foreignness of the face that she'd seen through a mask for so many years. Kakashi forced himself to smile like his entire life wasn't hanging on her answer.

Sakura's hand came up a second time, tracing the bare skin. It took every ounce of self control that Kakashi possessed not to pull her tighter. Then, with aching slowness, she rose to kiss him. Colors exploded behind Kakashi's eyelids at the warmth of Sakura's lips against his. The curve of her body beneath his hands, the touch against skin so unused to it-everything left the room spinning.

They parted slowly, just enough to draw a breath but Kakashi couldn't stop the way his head tipped back toward Sakura's. He tasted her breath on his lips and almost crossed the line a third time. In that instant, he knew that he would never be able to go back to just friends. This moment, no matter what came from it, would be cemented in his memory forever. He would never be able to look at Sakura without remembering the soft curl of her hands in his shirt or the pattern of freckles he'd never noticed across the bridge of her nose.

After a moment, Sakura let out her breath in a whoosh that made Kakashi's knees weak. Then, she looked up and smiled so beautifully that it made his heart skip a beat. "I want to know if it's ever more than empty words."

A dozen flippant replies rose in Kakashi's throat, but he quieted them at the memory of what drove Sakura to his arms in the first place. None of his replies would have been enough to convey the depth of what he wanted to say. He raised one hand to brush her cheek, then slid down to tilt her chin. Sakura sighed when Kakashi met their lips together a third time, a breathy uncertain sound that knotted his stomach.

For a moment, Kakashi felt trapped on the edge of a precipice with logic and safety on one side, the unknown spanning below him. He tightened the arm around Sakura's waist, pulling her closer as he surrendered to the dizzying emotions spiraling through his chest. If Sakura needed something more than words, he could offer actions.

Kakashi poured every ounce of withheld longing into his touch, dropping his walls in a way that he'd never done for anyone else. Sakura melted against him, every perfect inch of her body pressed against his. Kakashi threw himself over the edge and plummeted through the heartstopping freefall.

It took Kakashi a moment to realize that his hands had drifted low enough to lift Sakura from the ground, and a longer second to realize her legs were wrapped around his waist. Electricity pulsed through his body as he stumbled back toward his office until she bumped into the edge of his desk. Sakura's fingers tangled in Kakashi's hair, inviting him to follow her backward.

Bracing his palms on either side of Sakura's hips, Kakashi pulled back to gasp in a desperate breath. The space gave him the clarity that he needed. He wanted Sakura more than he'd ever wanted anyone else, more than anything. And, he knew that was the exact reason to stop, before he didn't have the strength to do so.

Kakashi leaned his forehead against Sakura's, surprised when she didn't object to the sudden stop. He drew another shaky breath before attempting to speak. "I don't want this to be tangled up in your relationship with Sasuke. I don't want to be the one you run to when it's bad only to have you promise me that everything's better the next day. I don't want-"

Sakura pressed a finger against Kakashi's lips. "I know."

Darkness poured through the windows behind Sakura when Kakashi turned his gaze toward them. She drew him into a gentle kiss that held only a flicker of the earlier fire. "I don't know what to say," she confessed in a soft whisper that made bile rise in Kakashi's throat. "I never expected you to say these things, I never knew that I wanted you to say them."

The woman glanced away, a blush coloring her cheeks as she continued. "I just-can we take things slow? I don't want any of the things you mentioned either, but I know that I don't want to leave this room not knowing if I'll ever feel this way again."

"What are you saying," Kakashi questioned, leaning more weight on his hands. He would take whatever Sakura gave without a hint of disappointment, at least until she left. Only then would he allow himself to feel the pain. He braced for the truth, that she wasn't ready for more or that she'd just gotten caught up in the moment.

Sakura raised a hand to run her thumb along the scar that had taken Kakashi's original eye, tracing the path the mask normally hid. He fought the urge to pull away when she followed the curve of his cheek, and turned instead to lightly kiss her palm. The blush on her cheeks deepened. "I'm asking you to dinner later this week," Sakura finally answered.

Kakashi couldn't stop the chuckle that rose in his throat. None of her words even remotely suggested that, but he wanted it enough not to care. "Only if you'll allow me to walk you home tonight." The corners of Sakura's lips pulled down, but Kakashi quickly added, "just to the door, I promise."

Snorting softly, Sakura nodded and Kakashi offered a hand to help her jump down from his desk. Fire scorched through his entire body at the connection but he forced himself not to react, especially when her fingers threaded through his. By the time they'd reached the street, Sakura pulled away and walked beside Kakashi like she'd always done. But, he couldn't shake the thought that nothing would ever be the same again.