Sakura's heart skipped as she felt that achingly familiar chakra behind her. It was ironic that she was sitting on top of Kaka-sensei's cliffside head when the real one would find her.

Her throat tightened as her hands clenched.

She was afraid to move. She felt that if she made any sudden movements, he'd run like a spooked deer. As she listened to his soft footsteps come closer she thought of making a loud noise. Or running herself.

She exhaled softly as he slowly sat next to her, her eyes locked on her feet in front of her. He sat close, but not close enough to touch. Her mind whirled as she saw his left foot extend out past hers. She imagined him sitting there, arm propped on his bent right knee, leaning on his left hand. It was a common sitting posture Kakashi-kun had when they played Shogi. It had a mild air of indifference, but she knew it couldn't be farther from the truth.

She stared at his foot as it leaned to the left, inches from her leg. So close, and yet so far. Just like Kakashi Hatake had always been to her.

Would always be.

They sat in silence, the air swirling around them in the gentle breeze. She thought she was going to be sick. She had been waiting so long to finally see him, to talk to him, to explain herself and now here they were, finally together again and she wasn't ready. She wasn't ready for whatever came from this. Anger? Hatred? Betrayal?

As much as she tried to find it, she couldn't find any tension in the air. It was almost like 'old times.' Like he always came up here to find her. Like they always sat up here together watching the village. Like he hadn't been avoiding her (like she hadn't been avoiding him). It was driving her crazy, but she didn't dare speak. She couldn't. What could she say? Her throat was tight as she tried to keep her chin from trembling. She focused on watching her foot fall to the left, almost touching his shin. But not quite. He didn't move or shift. She flopped her foot to the right.

The sun dipped and dusk faded into darkness. The houses below them twinkled like the stars above. How could she ever really speak to him again? How could they be a team; be the cobbled together family called Team Kakashi? Her real family couldn't survive her absence. How could this one? Not after the trust she shattered.

He would have trusted her to keep her distance, to stay aloof and to not toy with his feelings and emotions. To not lose him the only tie to Minato-sama, the man that raised him, who loved him. To not be able to do the same for his son.

She had known. She might not have known everything, but she had known enough. She should have kept her distance and never allowed him to get close enough to fall in love with her. To allow herself to fall in love with him. To hold him, to kiss him to-

Her eyes snapped open, dispelling the memory of Kakashi-kun's hooded gaze. How could she look Kaka-sensei in the eye and not see the ghost of-

"It was quite the ordeal." He spoke softly, his deep voice almost getting carried away in the wind. "They didn't want 'me' wearing my mask." She heard him pat the rock beneath them. "I asked if we could just forgo this tradition entirely."

She held her breath, afraid to breathe. "I was unanimously overturned." He sighed dramatically, "Tradition or something." He scoffed playfully. "What's the point of being Hokage if no one listens to you?"

He was filling the silence with a menial topic. A safe topic. She sighed in relief. She took a stab at it. "No one ever listened to you." Her voice was small and meek.

"You would be surprised." He chided. "There was a time when I was a feared and respected Shinobi. And then I became 'Kaka-sensei' and it all went downhill." His tone was light despite the 'woe-is-me' in his voice.

She couldn't help the smile that pulled at her lips. Her mind screamed and her heart twisted as they sat in silence again. "Fear of catching a glimpse of your porn, maybe."

He chuckled softly.

Silence settled between them again. Her foot moved to the left and then back to the right. "When did you start reading porn in public?"

He hummed, his foot moving away. "When did I become 'Kaka-sensei?'" He said lightly. Part of Sakura remembered Kaka-sensei's deep voice, but she had grown so used to Kakashi-kun's higher voice it was disjointing. "I have always openly enjoyed Icha Icha, but It wasn't until I had three heathens running around underfoot that I started doing it intentionally." Her heart flipped at his low chuckle. "I started doing a lot of things on purpose then." She dared a glance at him. "Like wearing two masks."

He was sitting the way she imagined. Right arm propped on the right leg, leaning back on the left. His bare right hand hanging casually over his knee, his gloves no doubt long since retired.

He was smiling, even in the dark she could see it clearly behind his mask.

He looked the exact same as she remembered Kaka-sensei looking. As if it hadn't been almost six and half years since she'd seen him. Yet…he didn't. He seemed more relaxed. An uncoiling that had started after the Fourth War unraveling without her. An unraveling that she thought she had a hand in. But like with almost everything that had to do with Kaka-sensei…she had a feeling she didn't really know.

And then…there was his difference from Kakashi-kun…

He was taller than Kakashi-kun, less wiry. His face was more angular, nose slightly more pointed. His hair was still wild, but shorter, tamer.

The deep scar on his face wasn't covered anymore. His left eye no longer mismatched red.

His fingers twitched slightly, as did his jaw. He still hadn't looked at her. He had a lot of weight in that propped right leg, ready to run if he needed to.

And yet…

"I'd long since stopped caring what people thought." Her eyes had unfocused. Her attention snapped back to his face. He still didn't look over and so she looked back across the village. "The books were a bit of a reprieve from the bloodshed and death of my early twenties." He cleared his throat. "An escape from the loss of my teenage years." There was no jibe, no animosity. She felt it anyway.

"You were doing a lot of ANBU missions then." She noted softly. This was knowledge she knew before leaving.

"I only did ANBU then." He corrected softly. She looked back over at him, her heart beating painfully in her chest. She hadn't known that. "I stopped doing Jounin missions at eighteen. I was in ANBU until I was twenty five and I was demoted to Jounin sensei 'for the betterment of my soul.' Or however Gai put it…" He rubbed the back of his neck.

She looked away. "That's a long time to be in ANBU."

"It's why I was so adamant about the mental hospital." His laugh was breathy. "It beats the hell out of genin-sensei therapy."

"And Icha-Icha therapy." She quipped. She couldn't help it. She had been part of the 'genin-sensei therapy.' And the Icha-Icha…she clenched her eyes shut, willing the tears to not spill.

"I wouldn't go that far." Silence again. The lightness in his voice was too much. He should be angry with her, not joking with her. "Becoming the town perv was the least of my worries." She looked back up at him when he started laughing, He was finally smiling down at her, his shoulders pulled back. "They still made me Hokage!" He looked back to the village.

"Plus…" He paused. Her heart hammered in her chest as she looked back to the village. "Icha Icha reminded me of someone that was very special to me."

The silence became thick. "Yeah?" She said weakly. She wanted to pull her legs to her chest, but she just moved her foot back towards his shin. She refused to wipe away the tear that rolled down her cheek. She focused on breathing.

"Yeah." His words were almost lost to the wind. His foot moved back towards her.

They sat in silence again, watching the village.

III

As the weather changed, Kaka-sensei sought her out on the Hokage Mount more and more. They sat close, but not close enough to touch. They mainly sat in comfortable silence, only disrupting that to talk of menial things; the status of the hospital, dull meetings, her and Naruto's training, gossip between the Kages. He spoke of the time she missed without referring to it that way. He had spent a lot of the last six years with Gai, practically living with him as he adjusted to his life as Hokage. About juggling meetings and learning how to be Hokage while teaching Naruto at the same time. About training sessions with Naruto to let off steam. The weekly Team Kakashi dinners became nightly ones between the two of them until Hinata started joining them. And then Gai. And then they were back to once a week once Naruto and Hinata's family started to grow.

Sakura sat silently, her knees close to her chest. His tone was calm, loving. He had no ill will in telling her these things, similar to Ino, or Gai, catching her up on all she had missed.

It wasn't fair. He should be mad. Angry. Not…whatever this was.

She was going to explode.

III

"When…when did you realize it?" She asked in a whisper. It was the twelfth time he sat up here with her. The twelfth time he danced around the subject. She couldn't take it anymore.

She looked up at him, blinking tears back as she exhaled shakily. His body tensed at her question, his hands clenched and unclenched in the crisp night.

Night couldn't mask the shine in his eyes as they searched the village for the answer to her question. He looked down and then back out to the village before nodding.

"After you and Sasuke left." His whisper was a soft resignation. The wind rustled between them as lights flickered in the village. They sat in silence for what felt like hours. "It was…too coincidental." He looked back down before looking in every direction but her own. "I hadn't-" He licked his lips through his mask. "I hadn't thought of her in a long time. Of that time." he exhaled deeply. "I pushed it so far back in my mind.

"It wasn't until I saw you disappear that I started to think about her again." He didn't look at her. "And then I couldn't get her out of my head. And then I thought…what if…" He shook his head.

Her. He kept saying Her. Why is he saying her?

Sakura's heart twisted nastily in her chest. Guilt pressed down on her, pushing tears down and across her face. Her.

"That's when I got the pictures from Gai."

Gai? She shook her head. Her mouth opening, but he cut her off. "I couldn't stand to keep anything of hers in my apartment." Hers. He spoke as if she wasn't sitting there. That she wasn't-

Sakura paused.

Perhaps she wasn't. Her left fingers found her hair. Even in the dark she could see the light locks. Maybe-

"I packed everything her away in that box and gave it to Gai. I never spoke of her after that." Kaka-sensei said softly. "I did the same in my mind. Locking her away." He spoke of it so lightly as if talking about the stars in the sky. "I focused on my job. On being a shinobi."

"ANBU." She said softly. She could only imagine what that was like. Her mind shifted back to Kakashi-kun when she thought she had lost him. Had Kaka-sensei been the same? Worse? She hadn't been there to-

She pushed that train of thought from her mind. I did nothing but make everything worse.

"It kept me busy, out of the village." He sighed, defeated. "Away from everything that reminded me of her." He looked up at the sky and then back to the village. "Away from the boy."

That stung more than anything. The boy. She remembered when Kakashi-kun refused to call Naru-chan by his name. To keep that distance. She never blamed him. Not when she knew why.

The silence that sat between them was heavy. She regretted bringing this up. But if she didn't-

She took a deep breath, calming her heart as she looked out at the village.

"I realized too late what I had done." Sakura said softly. She hugged her shins as she looked up to the stars. "I had become too comfortable." She looked at his profile. "I thought I knew what I was doing. I thought I could…" She couldn't find the right words. "I saw his pain and thought I could be some omnipresent force that helped ease the loss of the best friend who would eventually turn into a super villian.

"But I didn't know about Rin." She hated how her confession sounded accusing. He didn't move. "I had explained to Minato-sama where...where I came from. I told him he had a small student named Kakashi Hatake and another named Obito Uchiha. That Kakashi Hatake would overcome terrible losses and become Hokage.

"That I was his teammate and his friend." She swallowed, forcing the tears to stay behind her eyes. "Minato-sama had some prophecy about meeting a girl that traveled through time. Superficially, when he met me, he thought it was exciting, so much so he never told the Third who I really was. But it wasn't until I told him that his small student would begrudgingly become Hokage that he truly believed who I said I was." She smiled at the memory. "Because apparently even then you thought becoming Hokage would have been the worst thing ever."

He chuckled. It was warm and low and confusing.

"I warned him of the biggest loss. I told Minato-sama that Kakashi-kun would lose an eye and something far more precious in the process." She pressed her eyes into her knees. "At the time I didn't know. I didn't know how much more loss…" She lifted her eyes back to the village. It was better than the memory of Kakashi-kun after losing Rin. Losing Minato-sama.

Losing Naru-chan.

"As sorrowful as it was to lose Obito, Minato-sama was relieved when it was over. My prophecy came true and he was ready to move on and really help me prepare to defeat Sasuke-kun.

"I-I didn't know about Rin." She sighed, "Everything fell apart after Rin." She wanted him to comfort her, to touch her, to slap her, to get up and leave, to say that he blamed her for everything, but he didn't. She buried her face in her knees, taking deep breaths. "After that, Minato-sama didn't trust me. Maybe he thought I was just another Uchiha hater. That I was behind Obito's death. Behind Rin's death." She sighed, looking back out at the village. "I suppose if I was in his shoes, I wouldn't have trusted me either." He shouldn't have trusted me. She looked over. He was looking down at his clenched fist. "I think he felt responsible for her death since he trusted me, and I-" She hated how quickly the tears fell from her eyes. "I wanted to be there for Kakashi-kun as much as I could, though Minato-sama kept me away. I wanted him to know that someone was there. Someone was willing to take away some of that burden.

"Then Minato-sama put him in ANBU." She took a steady breath before plunging on. "I vehemently was against it, despite knowing he went into ANBU, but I couldn't help it." She looked up to Kaka-sensei, who was watching her, listening. "Thirteen." His eyes shone brightly. She looked away, her face reddening. "Minato-sama wouldn't listen.

"And then...we- he almost lost him." She whispered. She had no right to ever include herself "I should have known - I did know- he didn't lose him. But I got caught up in myself and…"

"And then Sasuke-kun attacked." She shook her head. "They had come too close to where he had been hiding. The last thing he wanted was what happened-Konoha ANBU ambushing him.

"Because he knew his future sensei was young when he joined ANBU." She swallowed,

"I just...I wanted to do something. Make some kind of difference." Tears were streaming down her face as she swallowed a thick lump in her throat. "I couldn't change anything big, but being there for him, I-" She paused, shaking her head. "And then Naruto was born." She felt her lips quirk as her breath caught. "I saw that small baby and knew. Knew in my bones I had to protect him as much as I could. For as long as I was there." She shook her head "I should have known that it would blow up in my face. I should have-"

"You did what anyone would have done. Should have done." Her heart caught in her throat as she felt his hand touch hers. She looked to where his hand covered hers and then up to his face. His eyes shined down at her. "You did the right thing."

She swallowed thickly, taking a deep, shaky breath. She looked back down at his hand over hers. It was slightly bigger than she remembered.

"No…" she shook her head, brushing tears off her cheeks. "No I didn't." She wanted to remove her hand but she couldn't. She didn't have the strength. "I-I despite my better judgment...-I-I became selfish. With Naruto. With-with-" She wanted to disappear but she knew she had to continue.

"If I hadn't come to the past then Naruto would have had you." His large hand twitched on hers. "He wouldn't have been so alone and, you-" She tried to pull her hand away, but he kept a light hold. "If I had never gone back and deceived and lied and broken that trust you-"

"If I had never met Sakura Uzumaki…" He paused. The night paused. The world paused as she felt his thumb rubbing her hand. She watched him with shining doe eyes. "If Sakura Uzumaki had never fallen from the sky…and everything happened the way it had…" His eyes searching hers. "I would no doubt have done what I had when she left. Dived deeply into ANBU, maybe to never emerge.

"I've thought about it a lot. Her. A lot, over the past six and a half years." He said softly. She tried to swallow the lump in her throat.

Her.

About everything.

"I was selfish with her. After Sensei and Kushina died…I felt that she needed me. And despite myself-" He paused, "I never wanted to get close to anyone again. I didn't even want to look at the boy.

"I didn't want to be the reason for his death." He shook his head. "If it wasn't for Sakura Uzumaki, I would have never gone near him." He squeezed her hand. She felt his other hand on her chin. "We would have both been so alone without her." He brushed a tear away.

Her.

"Because if it wasn't for her I would have fallen. Fallen so far that you would have lost me."

Her heart lurched. You

"And losing her was hard." He squeezed her hand. "It was like losing Sensei all over again. Or Rin. Or Obito. But part of me knew she wasn't dead." He smiled at her. "And that was enough."

"I developed feelings for Kakashi-kun." She confessed. His eyes were transfixed on hers, shiny brightly in the dim moonlight. "I thought I was helping him." She laughed at her own absurdity. She couldn't stop the tears. "And then I started to rely on him because of Naru-chan. I let down my guard and the next thing I knew I...I had fallen in love."Kaka-sensei didn't move. "I wanted to keep my distance, but everything was always chaotic. And then when Sasuke-kun attacked him...it only got worse.

"And I lied to him." She confessed. His hand twitched on top of hers but the other still held her chin. "I told him once after an incident with Sasuke-kun that I was afraid that I was never going to see Naru-chan again. But he was what kept me going as I tried to reach safety. I wanted to see Kakashi-kun again. To be with him." She hated how her voice cracked and her body shook and how she wanted him to hold her and to leave at the same time.

"He tried to kiss me. I-I brushed it off as hormones or the silly rivalry with Gai-san or anything else that wasn't that I let him get too close. That I had failed on the one thing I should have been able to control. He had lost so much in his life and I couldn't stay with him. I too would leave.

"It wasn't until he tried to do it again...and-and that time…it was all I wanted...But he wasn't in love with me, he was in love with Sakura Uzumaki." His eyes bore into her soul. She pulled away, his fingers slipping from beneath her chin. She looked out to the village. "But…" She let it die. But who was Sakura Uzumaki?

The unspoken question sat between them in the silence. His hand not moving on hers.

"Did you ever lie?" He asked softly. "About who you were?"

She gripped her knees tightly. "I said I was-"

"But you were always Sakura." He said simply. Too simply. "I don't think you could be anyone else. Just…Sakura…And he knew that." Her face scrunched as her throat constricted. "He was…in love with 'just Sakura.'"

Was. A punch in the gut that she had be expecting. Sakura looked up at the sky. Was. She just didn't realize how much it would hurt.

"You were right about one thing." Kaka-sensei's voice was very quiet as he settled back down. His hands withdrew from her, leaving her very cold. He pulled down his mask. "Kaka-sensei would have wanted you to kiss him senseless."

She tried to gasp but it turned into a violent coughing fit. That was...not what she expected.

"And…" he added. She dared a glance at him. He was looking out at the village. "And knowing everything…" He gestured out at the village. "In hindsight…" His eyes slid down to her. She could see his smile. "If you had to do it all over again, he'd wished you would have kissed him senseless sooner."

Her face flushed.

The silence that settled between them was heavy, but not as tense. She felt she could breathe somewhat.

"Do you regret anything, Sakura-chan?" Kaka-sensei said softly. His fingertips brushed hers.

That was the question she had been mulling over since she got back. Did she have any regrets about what she did in the past? Regrets with Minato-sama or Kushina? She had a feeling that's not what he was asking about.

With Naruto?

With Kakashi-kun?

"I'm sorry." tears rolled down her cheeks. She felt him pause before moving away. He was going to leave her.

"But no." Like a snake, she shot out and grasped his hand. She looked up at him, fresh tears staining her cheeks. He paused. "No regrets." Memories swirled in her mind, feelings bubbled and ebbed in her body. She could recall the looks, the touches, the smiles. The kisses. She could still feel his lips on hers. The way his voice sounded in her ear as he told her he loved her. The way his eyes widened slightly when she said she loved him.

She nodded. His eyes studied her, his brows furrowed tightly. Panic set into her gut. Please don't tell me, please don't-

Slowly his fingers found her wet cheeks. "No regrets." He repeated.

No regrets.

He pulled away smiling. He shifted their hands, their fingers intertwining as he lowered them between them. He settled back down, his gaze looking out to the village.

Her chest uncoiled, relaxing for the first time in years as she looked out at the twinkling lights, their shoulders brushing.

III

Author's note: When I started writing this story 10 years ago, this was where I wanted it to end. And I like this ending. But my heart wasn't quiet done.

Epilogue to follow.