Welcome back for another slice of my fic. :D

Disclaimer – I do not own Naruto. This is written for fun (If you call stressing over a story fun,) and characters may be OOC.

Thanks to TDotShia for reading the original version, and giving me the encouragement to finish.

Apologies for the slight delay. Please read the authors notes regarding this chapter at the end.

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Chapter 5

Sakura had no idea how she managed to get through the next few days. It was as though all the life had been sucked out of her, and although she insisted she was fine people began to worry.

There was one person, however, notable by his absence, and that was one Hatake Kakashi. Because he knew that Lee was out of town he had taken a couple of short missions, but he had decided that once the obsessive boy came back he would go back to watching over Sakura – at a distance.

Of course, he had eventually been collared by Naruto and Sasuke. They demanded to know what he'd done to Sakura, but he'd refused to talk to them, flatly telling them that it was none of their concern. Needless to say, Team Seven did not have their meeting that week.

Eventually, Ino decided to go and find out what was happening with Sakura. Her friend had not spoken to her for almost a week now, and as far as she was concerned it was high time for some answers.

She knocked on the door, and waited for a reply. Eventually Sakura opened up.

"Oh, hi Ino. Come in." Ino was shocked. Sakura looked worse than she had expected. What on earth had happened to her normally cheerful friend?

"Sakura?" Ino radiated concern, "What on earth is the matter?"

Sakura sighed, "It's nothing." She sat down on the couch.

"It can't be nothing, not if it's affected you this badly."

"I really don't want to talk about it."

Ino sat next to Sakura. "It's ok," she soothed, "You don't have to tell me, but it might make whatever it is easier to bear if you do."

Sakura was silent for a few moments longer. Ino waited to see if she would speak. Eventually, she was rewarded.

"Ino, do you remember my reason for turning down every boy that asked me on a date?"

"Yes, you always said that you were interested in someone else…"

"Well, I really thought I had a chance with… that person, but it's over before it even started. I think he decided that I was going to use him as a crutch for my problems with Lee-san."

"So, was he interested in you too?"

"I think so," Sakura replied, "I'm not so sure anymore."

"Did you tell him that it had nothing to do with Lee?"

Sakura sniffed and stared at the floor, "I didn't even get a chance to. He just said that he would not take advantage of me and left. I haven't seen him since. He's avoiding me."

"Hmmm," Ino mused, "If he said he wouldn't take advantage then he must feel something toward you."

"You think so?" Sakura looked up.

"Sure I do." Ino Paused, "So if he came round would you still want to know?"

Sakura nodded, "I think so. I understand why he did it, but he'll never come round. He's too stubborn." She sighed, "Don't worry, I'll get over it."

"Never say never, Sakura," Ino admonished her friend. "All we've got to do is get the message that he was never a crutch across to him, and the first thing we should do is get rid of the biggest obstacle."

Sakura looked at Ino quizzically.

"Oh, come on Sakura, you aren't that dense. We need to get Lee-San out of the picture. If he's not harassing you anymore then you can't be using anyone as a crutch."

"I suppose you have a point…"

"I know I do," Ino smirked, "So, do you know when he is due back in town?"

"Lee-San? Any day now, I think. What are you going to do?"

"Something I should have done a long time ago. Make you go to the Hokage and tell her about it!"

Sakura sighed. She had known deep down that it would come to this eventually. It could no longer be avoided. Especially considering what it had cost her to delay.

"Ok, I'll go to the Hokage and tell her tomorrow."

"No, you'll go now. It's not too late in the day and I don't want you to change your mind again. Besides, you don't know exactly when that… idiot is going to be back and it would be better to tell her before he returns."

Sakura nodded and Ino dragged her out of her apartment and to the Hokage's office. She waited with Sakura until she was called.

"Good luck, Sakura," she whispered as she made to leave.

"Where are you going, Ino?" Sakura wondered. She had thought that her friend would be going in with her.

"I'm going to find a certain Shinobi and give him a piece of my mind!" Ino almost laughed at Sakura's shocked expression. "Come on now, I'm not completely blind. I know exactly who I should be looking for."

And before Sakura could even think to protest, she left to make good on her word.

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It took Ino quite a while to find the famed Copy-Ninja of Konoha, but find him she did, sat in a tree near the memorial, reading one of his favourite Hentai books.

"Ah, there you are, I've been looking for you." Ino wasn't pleased at how long it had taken her to track him down.

Kakashi raised an eyebrow. "I'm busy," he said shortly. He didn't really feel like speaking to anyone at the moment, least of all anyone associated with Sakura.

Ino waved a hand in response, "Yeah, whatever, you sit there and read your little book and I'm going to talk."

Kakashi sat there and did not answer, so Ino continued.

"I hope you realize what you've done…" Kakashi started to tune the girl out as she carried on, but something made him tune back in rather sharply, although he didn't show it.

"… didn't you even get WHY she never went out with anyone? I've got no idea what she sees in someone like you, as far as I can see you have no redeeming features, but she's held a torch for you for YEARS. And you go and repay her like this? Well at least one good thing came out of this mess. She's finally gone to Tsunade-Sama about Lee-san and hopefully she'll sort him out and Sakura will be able to get on with her life in peace, well, as much peace as a medic-nin can expect anyway…." Ino tailed off, a bit disconcerted that Kakashi seemed to be totally ignoring her and not quite knowing what to say next.

After a moment he looked down at Ino. "Finished?" he asked.

Ino sighed. "Yep, I think that's about it."

"Don't let me keep you then." He went back to staring at his book.

Ino shrugged, "Fine, whatever. I just hope you can live with yourself." She left without a backward glance. If she had looked back, she might just have seen him leave.

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Sakura sat in her apartment staring blankly at the walls. She had just spent a good long time with Tsunade and she felt completely wrung out.

Eventually, after having questioned the young kunoichi for what had seemed like hours, Tsunade had gently chided Sakura for not coming to her sooner and said that she would start enquiries to ascertain just what was going on with the troublesome young man who was harassing her. She had also told her to take the next few days off as it really looked as though she needed some rest.

Sakura had accepted the offer of time off with obvious relief.

Idly, she wondered if Ino had found the person she had gone to look for. She sighed and kind of hoped that she hadn't found him, although she did wonder what she would have said to him if she had. Her musing was cut short when there was a knock at the door.

She cursed as she got up to answer it. Right now she just wanted to be left alone.

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Kakashi made his way across town deep in thought. If what Ino had said was true then he owed Sakura an apology at the very least. That was if she would even consent to talk to him.

Staying away had been one of the hardest things he had ever done, and he had firmly believed that if he had stayed with Sakura they would both have ended up hurt in the long run

In the end it hadn't taken much to persuade him to change his mind. It seemed quite pathetic really.

He should have known there was no way that Sakura would use anyone as a crutch. If she had felt that intimidated by the boy then he was certain that she would have dealt with it by herself eventually in one way or another. Of course, she would be upset that he hadn't trusted her and that he had arrogantly decided that he had known best. If he was totally honest with himself there had been a little fear at getting involved on his part too, which, considering his past, seemed quite understandable.

He slowed as he reached her apartment block. Would she even want to see him now? There was only one way to find out, and he wanted to try to make things right at the very least.

He reached the door, hesitated for a moment, then knocked.

It seemed an eternity until Sakura answered, and when she did he was shocked. She was pale and she had dark circles under her eyes. He could not help but stare. No wonder Sasuke and Naruto had been so mad at him.

"What do you want, Kakashi-San," she said tiredly

Kakashi sighed at the use of the honorific. "Can I come in?" he asked.

For a moment, Sakura looked as if she were amazed that he could ask such a thing, then shrugged and beckoned him inside.

Once inside, he hesitated for a moment whilst he decided how best to start. "I believe you have gone to Tsunade about Lee." She nodded and he continued, "Would you like me to go and tell her my observations?"

"Yes, thank you. That would help. He's obviously not going to get a clue so I thought I'd better get it sorted out before he ruins my life completely." She didn't mention that Ino had made her go. She knew that she would have ended up going eventually even without intervention.

Kakashi winced at that. He knew exactly what she was getting at. "I'm sorry, Sakura," he said gently, "I should have listened to what you had to say instead of leaving like that."

"Yes you should." She sounded upset, "Don't get me wrong, I'm pretty sure I understand why you did what you did, but it was still wrong."

Kakashi shrugged and gave a wry smile whilst rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment, "Damn, I'm sorry. I really messed up, didn't I?"

Sakura looked at him and thought for a moment, then came to a decision. "Its ok, I forgive you," she said. There was no way she could stay mad at the infuriating man, especially as he knew that he had messed up. After all, his heart had been in the right place, and he really did look sorry, in his own unique way.

Kakashi looked at her in amazement, he had not expected that she would forgive him so easily.

"But," she continued, "if you run away from me like that again then I won't forgive you."

He stepped forward and pulled her into a rough embrace. He'd fought against it and almost lost out because he had misunderstood the situation and wasn't willing to take a chance. He wasn't going to fight anymore, but he needed to ask her…

"Are you sure about this, Sakura?"

"Never been so sure about anything." She said with conviction.

"You do realize that it's not going to be easy?" Naruto and Sasuke came to mind almost instantly. They would probably be quite upset to say the least, and he knew he was in Ino's bad books. Plus there would be the usual gossip associated with the fact that they had once been teacher and student, amongst other things.

"Yes, I do" She looked up at him, "Let's just take it one day at a time."

They stood there together, simply enjoying the closeness when suddenly Sakura let out a huge yawn. She went pink with embarrassment.

Kakashi was concerned, "Have you been sleeping properly?" he asked.

She shrugged, "Not really." Sleep had been hard to attain over the past few days.

"In that case I'll leave you to get some sleep and I'll come back to see you tomorrow."

Sakura nodded, Kakashi gave her a chaste kiss on the forehead through the mask, and left.

After that she slept better than she had in days.

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Early the next morning Maito Gai trudged along the road toward the hidden village of Konoha, unusually depressed. He was not looking forward to getting back. He had been away with Lee for a week and he had told his young clone that it was for training. In reality it had been a last gasp attempt on Gai's part to break the green clad boy of his ever growing obsession over the pink haired girl without the shame of having to take the matter further.

He was doubly glad now that he had let his Eternal Rival off the hook with regard to that bet. His curiosity over Kakashi's reactions was not worth the risk of hurting the young Medic-Nin involved, especially at such a bad time. She had got enough to deal with without the idiocy of two drunkards making it worse.

He sighed as he regarded the green-clad Chuunin who strode confidently in front of him. He didn't know what had caused the young man to flip over into this obsession, but it seemed deeply ingrained and beyond his power to break. Lee had become so delusional that he brushed aside anything that disagreed with his rosy vision of his future with Sakura, and Gai knew that he would have to report the matter to Tsunade on his return.

He really was not looking forward to that.

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Kakashi entered the Hokage's office. The woman in question was sat behind her desk, reading some papers just to keep Shizune off her back. She raised an eyebrow at the masked man.

"What can I do for you Kakashi?" she asked.

"I've come about Sakura's little problem with Lee…" Tsunade nodded him to continue and she sat in silence as he explained his observations about the Chuunin.

"Well, Gai has just been in this morning to tell me about Lee's behaviour himself," Tsunade replied. "It seems that the trip he took Lee on was a final attempt on his part to stop his charge from chasing Sakura."

"I take it that he was unsuccessful?" Kakashi knew that Lee was too far gone to listen to reason.

"From what he told me, yes. I've yet to have Lee in for an interview, but from what I've heard already it sounds as if he could be a real problem, especially as no one seems to know where he is right now." Tsunade sighed as she considered a moment. "Once I've talked to him and found out what the problem is I'll take it from there. Also I would like you to keep a watch over Sakura until we find out what is going on."

"Hmm, that sounds easy enough." He didn't add that he was going to do that anyway as it could have prompted questions that he was not quite ready to answer yet. Then he thanked whoever might be listening that Sakura had forgiven him last night. If she hadn't, things could have been unpleasant.

If Tsunade was surprised that Kakashi had agreed so easily she didn't show it. "Thank you, Kakashi. Ordinarily I'm sure that she could cope with him herself, but it sounds as though he might be well on the way to becoming unstable which will make him hard to predict. Also I've given Sakura a few days off. She's looked so tired recently that I felt it would be best for her to get some rest, and it's probably for the best that she is not around whilst we attend to this… nuisance."

Kakashi sighed. He knew that he had been at least part of the cause of Sakura's recent lack of form. "I understand. I'll make sure she is kept safe." And with that, he left.

As he went, Tsunade stared after him. He had agreed rather quickly, which was extremely unusual for the masked man. He usually gave some kind of token argument about anything she asked him to do and she had really expected some resistance over this… babysitting duty. On top of that, he had come to her without having to be asked first. For a moment she wondered if… No, that would be stupid, wouldn't it?

She shook her head and laughed at her imagination, then turned back to the piece of paper she had been looking at when Kakashi had arrived. After all, THAT would never happen, she would bet her life on it!

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Sakura was making coffee when there was a knock on the door. She answered and found Kakashi hanging from the ceiling.

"Yo!" he said

Sakura laughed. "Come down and I'll make you a coffee."

"Ah, coffee, the nectar of the Gods," he joked as he appeared before her the correct way up. He followed her into the small kitchen. It seemed a shame to break the good mood, but he needed to tell her. "I've just been to see Tsunade."

"Oh, how did it go?" Sakura turned away.

"Lee is back in town." He said as gently as he could. He saw a shudder go through her, but he carried on, knowing better than to hide anything. She needed to be prepared. "Gai has been to Tsunade to report his condition and it doesn't sound too good."

"So what is going to happen?"

"She is going to have him in for an interview and take it from there." He paused. "But based on what she's been told she thinks he might become quite dangerous. She knows that usually you could take care of yourself, but an obsessed person like Lee is not to be taken lightly, so she's assigned a Jounin to ensure that he can't get to you in the meantime."

Sakura turned to face him in shock, "She really thinks it could be that bad? So who did she assign?"

"Me." He grinned, then almost had the wind knocked out of him as Sakura grabbed him hard.

"Thank goodness," she whispered. She didn't think she could have stood it had it been someone else.

Sakura looked up at him, and the mood changed somewhat. She decided to take a chance and reached up to remove his mask, only to be thwarted by a knock at the door. She bit back a curse as she stepped away.

"I'd better get that," she said, "Can you pour the coffee?"

"Sure," he replied nonchalantly.

Sakura went to answer the door. Ino was waiting on the other side.

"Hi Sakura!" Ino was full of beans, "How did your meeting with Tsunade go?"

"It went well, but can I tell you about it later? I'm a bit busy at the moment."

"But I also need to tell you…" Ino trailed off as she spied Kakashi inside Sakura's apartment. "Ah, never mind. I'll leave you to it. Catch you later. Oh! And good luck!"

Sakura stood there puzzled for a moment as Ino hurriedly left, before shrugging her shoulders and closing the door. She returned to the lounge and sat on the sofa next to Kakashi who had set the coffee on the table.

There was an awkward silence for a few moments where neither of them seemed quite sure what to say. Eventually, Kakashi put his arm around Sakura and she leaned into him.

"That was Ino," Sakura started the conversation. "She wanted to tell me something, but she suddenly said it could wait until later and left."

"Strange," Kakashi was pretty sure he knew what it was that Ino had wanted to say, "Hardly worth coming here for."

After a few moments, Sakura sat up and took a drink of coffee to settle herself. She turned towards Kakashi and stopped in shock. He had removed his mask. Damn, but he was gorgeous. No wonder he kept his face covered up. Had he gone around with his face exposed he would have hordes of women constantly chasing him, and probably a few men too. This brought a brief flare of jealousy, which she squashed almost immediately. After all, he was with her.

He gave her an amused look as he caught her staring. "What? How else am I supposed to drink this?" he asked brandishing his coffee.

"You know, I never thought that far ahead." She smiled as she replied, knowing that if he had wanted to, he could have drunk that coffee without showing his face. It felt nice to be trusted like that.

She decided to change the subject, "How about we get out for a while? I need to do some grocery shopping." As much as she would like to have stared at him all day, her cupboards were bare and even ninjas couldn't live on fresh air.

Kakashi considered for a moment as he replaced his mask and adjusted his forehead protector. "That should be ok. I doubt that Lee is so delusional that he would try to do anything whilst I am with you." 'Yet,' he added to himself.

He hoped that Lee had been found. The sooner Tsunade could deal with him, the better.

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Authors Notes.

Originally this was chapters 5 and 6, but there were several parts in both chapters that I felt did not work or really fit at all. I removed and edited so much extraneous crap that I felt it was better to combine the parts into a larger chapter rather than have 2 much smaller ones. I think it improves the story over all and I know that I'm certainly a lot happier with it now. I realise there are a couple of places it might fall a little... flat, but compared to how it was before... I had serious misgivings over going ahead as it stood. I'd been worrying about this part ever since I started posting the story on here. (sweatdrop)

I've got the rest of the fic fixed up now and I've uploaded it all so it's ready to publish on here, so hopefully no more delays :P

Thanks to:

"Me" - Sasuke and Naruto have been mentioned a couple of times in past chapters. I suppose it wasn't much, but they weren't really important to that part of the story. Well, I never claimed my story would be perfect. :-P

Catc10 – Thank you. :-D I'm glad you like it. I haven't even seen the whole series. I watched something like 1-38 then 77-90 (starting with the "Live-eviL Parody Sub" from April 1 2004) then 102-present and then 101 when TDotShia told me to a few weeks ago (funny funny) I've also seen the movie and the 2 jump festa specials. So as you can tell, there are some gaps in my knowledge of the series anyway. I am intending to put that right with a few sessions of watching from the beginning at 2x ('Power Anime Watching' as it's called by someone on a forum I'm a member of) – although I just had to stop after ep 21 as I almost got mental trauma from watching Gai and Lee at double speed LOL.

Freakenout – I'm glad you think it's cute. I tried to make this fic a little different and even though there is the opportunity for a lemon or two in a couple of chapter's time, I don't think I want to write them XD.

Also thanks to December Jewel, Senx2, Black-Aria, Ruka-Kun, Majin Leviathan, Wendytigges, Allyluv, Hao'sAnjul, Neko Celes and ArishaGinkaze. Every positive review makes it worthwhile.

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