Iruka lay still for a long time, his heart pounding as if it would burst. Hot tears spilled out of his eyes and down the sides of his face, making his ears uncomfortably wet and noisy. What could he do? He couldn't fight, he couldn't even form seals. Would Ochiro Akira actually rape him? Of course the doctor wouldn't see it that way if he did. He had known Akira-san since he was five and Akira always got what he wanted, he was incapable of taking no for an answer. Iruka had never felt more helpless. And Kakashi was gone.

Just what kind of man am I? He asked himself angrily. I call myself a Konoha shinobi and here I am whining because my lover isn't here to rescue me from this scary… what? Doctor? Ok so I'm wounded, like that's never happened before. I can't fight and I can't hold a weapon, not that I have any. So that leaves retreat. He looked down at the flimsy hospital gown and his heart sank. In his current state he didn't think he could summon the stealth needed to go through the streets almost naked and he couldn't dress himself with his teeth either.

Suddenly Iruka's mind came into sharp focus as he heard someone at the door. After a couple of long moments the door opened and two gennins walked in. They looked around the empty room.

Sasuke opened the closet door and lifted the towel draped over the bottom shelf. "Iruka-sensei, can I help you find something?

"Er no, it's ok, I have it." The teacher said extracting himself unsteadily and wrapping the towel around his torso as modestly as he could, while his cheeks flushed brilliant crimson.

Sasuke's face showed no emotion at all but Sakura's was almost as red as Iruka's as she desperately tried to suppress her giggles. "Iruka-sensei, what on earth… ?"

A glower from her former teacher made her stop short and change the subject. "Have you seen Naruto? He was supposed to meet us so we could see you together but he isn't anywhere."

The teacher looked at his two former students with horror, Naruto! As if he didn't have enough to deal with! Why did everyone insist on forcing that demon on him? He didn't think his nervous system could handle being in the same room as the kyuubi right now. One more reason why he had to get out.

Sakura, Sasuke will you help me. I… I just can't stay in here any longer. Sasuke will you help me to get dressed so that I can go home?"

Sauke looked at him coldly. "Wouldn't Kakashi-sensei want to be the one dressing you?"

Iruka was too desperate to pay any attention to the tiny sneer in his voice.

"Kakashi was called away by the Hokage before he could… " He blushed as he flashed back to just what Kakashi had been about to do. "I don't want to wait until he gets back. Please! I just want to go home."

Sakura waited outside as Sasuke eased Iruka into the shirt pants and sandals that Kakashi had left folded on the top shelf of the small closet. Then each supporting the man under one arm, they helped him to walk out of the hospital and onto the street. He was still weak and after a while just standing upright was an effort. The young teens were not as skillful at finding his balance as Kakashi had been, but by stopping to let him lean against a wall every few blocks, the two gennins gradually took him home.

Sasuke almost carried him up the steps to his apartment then left him propped against Sakura while he opened the door.

"Watch out for the traps." Iruka warned, but Sasuke had already avoided them. He gave the teacher a superior look and opened the door with a metal pick.

Once inside Iruka almost fell onto the couch. Relief flooded over him at being back in his own territory.

Sasuke looked at him darkly. "You were an idiot to leave the hospital."

Sakura gasped. "Sasuke! You can't call Iruka-sensei an idiot.

Sasuke glared at her. "Well he is." He turned back to the teacher letting him briefly see the swirling red sharigans. "I can see your hands. They'll be useless for weeks. How do you think you're going to cope on your own if you can't touch anything or pick anything up? You won't even be able take a piss without help."

Iruka looked down at the floor, unable to meet the boy's knowing eyes. "I had to get away, to come home."

The boy took his lack of denial as agreement.

"I'll stay here with you and help you until Kakashi-sensei gets back." He spoke with no more emotion than as if he had been commenting on the weather.

Iruka was stunned. "You don't need to do that Sasuke."

"Yes I do." There was no disagreeing with the look in the Uchiha's eyes. "Lie down you're tired, I'll make some tea. When did you last have something to eat? You won't heal if you don't eat properly. Sakura, go and buy milk, eggs, tofu, fresh fruit. I'll make a list."

oooooooooooooooooooooooo

It took Kakashi longer than he expected to reach Hidden Sound. Then he nearly went passed it in the dark, the place lived up to its name. Luckily he had picked up on the footsteps of a Sound messenger and his escort. Following silently with total stealth, he caught a few snatches of conversation between the two.

"I don't know why they insist on us bringing it here. Everyone knows he hasn't been in the village for months."

"Some other poor fool to run it over there."

"Hah, and then guard duty, that's a joke."

Parting from them in the marsh, he skirted round to the far side of the village, downwind. He hoped Tsunade appreciated his dedication, if there was one discomfort he could not stand it was cold wet feet. Immediately his nose told him everything that he had gone there to find out. The light breeze carried all the odors of a ninja village: breweries, bakeries, people, animals, dust. There was one smell missing, foundries. They were not making weapons, not preparing for war.

Strictly speaking he could leave now, but some confirmation would still be good. He nicked the side of his thumb and wiped the blood along the edge of a scroll. Pakkun appeared at his feet. The little dog cocked his head to one side.

"You were told not to go in there."

"Well I'm not, I'm sending you."

The Pakkun's eyes narrowed, on a dog the expression was particularly unsettling. "Hmph, like that's different. Do you still have those forbidden scrolls?"

Kakashi patted his inner pocket. "Of course why?"

"If I come running out of there with Orochinaru on my heels I'll expect you to use one."

They had been tracking back along the wall and were now in view of the gate. Pakkun darted forwards then squeezed under it and out of sight. Kakashi slipped back to a more defensible position, but one where he would still see anyone who came or went. You could learn a lot about a hidden village just by looking at its visitors, especially those that visited at night. But that night at least, none did.

When the little dog came scurrying back to his side three hours later, bars of grey light were visible on the long horizon to the east.

"So?"

Pakkun sat down and yawned, uncurling a surprisingly long tongue. "Nothing going on in there. Except for a few colourful characters you wouldn't even guess it's a ninja village."

The copy nin raised a white eyebrow. "Colourful characters?"

"Yeah, looks as if every freak from every hidden village on the continent has moved in here."

Kakashi thought for a moment. Could Sound have freaks more freakish than the Aburame clan? "And Orochimaru?"

"Not there. There are people moving around in the Kage's offices and the lights are on, but they're just keeping up appearances. I don't think he's been there for months."

Kakashi's mind flashed back to the snippet of complaint he had heard from the messenger. 'I don't know why they insist on us bringing it here. Everyone knows he hasn't been in the village for months.'

So no war and Orochimaru missing for months. That was news he could bring back to Konoha.

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Within a day Iruka and Sasuke had fallen into a routine together.

Sasuke made tea and breakfast then helped the teacher to dress and tended to his wounded hands. They spent the morning working on building up his strength. At first just walking, then climbing stairs. Within a couple of days he could run from the bottom of the steps up the two flights to his apartment without even getting out of breath.

After lunch the boy would leave him resting on the couch with a few scrolls, while he attended to his own training and other business. He prepared dinner and after eating Sasuke would usually go out again but sometimes stay and make, if not exactly conversation, at least an effort to be more than a brooding silent presence.

Each night he would tie plastic bags around the teacher's hands, help him to bathe and settle him in bed.

The Uchiha boy had never looked after anyone, anything, other than himself in his life. Not even a goldfish. The experience of helping his old teacher back to health, even in this remote taciturn way, was new to him. Somewhere deep inside he found it richly rewarding.

He found himself getting up early so that he would be ready with tea and breakfast when Iruka woke. Feeding the teacher in particular pleased and amused him in a way he couldn't begin to understand, much less acknowledge.

Of course Iruka was aware of the, not exactly softening, but perhaps less insistence on being hard, in the boy's behaviour. After a few days, at breakfast he decided to risk a tiny opening. "I've enjoyed this Sasuke, you being here and caring for me."

Sasuke turned his back as if looking for something on the counter that he had forgotten. His answer was a well-honed reflex. "I don't care. I'm just doing my duty as one Konoha shinobi to another. Caring causes pain, it makes you weak."

Iruka kept his voice quiet and low, a teacher teaching, not a friend sharing, That would be too intimate for the boy to stand. "Pain and joy are the two sides of one coin. Affection can make you weak but it can make you so much stronger too. It's what makes us human. I remember when you first came into my class. I just wanted to hug you, you were so proud but you seemed so lonely."

Sasuke turned just enough to see the man out of the corner of one eye. "Why didn't you?"

Iruka risked a small chuckle. "Because you were Uchiha Sasuke, you would probably have taken my head off."

The boy stiffened. "I wouldn't have hurt you, I'm not a monster."

Naruto is the monster but you've always been willing to hug him. He thought, but didn't say.

Iruka seized his chance. "Can I hug you now?"

Sasuke gave him a dark look as if making a hard decision, then pulled the teacher to his feet and stood stiffly in front of him. Iruka slowly raised his arms around him and squeezed gently, holding him for a few seconds. He thought he felt a slight easing of muscle tension.

He lowered his arms and Sasuke stepped back. "I have to go out now, we need more milk." He said to the wall before hurrying out of the room.

During the rest of the day Iruka was almost certain that the dark haired boy was a little less careful to avoid physical contact with him. And that evening he stayed with the teacher, reading silently the whole time but apparently wanting to be in the same room, almost as if he was enjoying the company.

After being bathed and helped to bed, Iruka lay awake for a while. He could hear a sound from his guest bedroom that might just be sobbing.

Iruka woke up and reached out to Kakashi beside him. He wasn't there, that's right he had been called away for a mission. Suddenly Iruka lay very still, had he just remembered what it felt like to have the silver haired man beside him? He closed his eyes and sat up slowly.

He remembered how when he woke and sat up in the morning, Kakashi would wrap his arms around his waist from the back. The teacher's skin tingled delightfully at the memory of the contact.

He remembered how one of his lover's hands would creep down to grope him, to tempt him to stay in bed a little longer, and with a wide grin he remembered how he succeeded about half the time.

He focussed on as many details as he could, trying to fix them in his brain so that he would never lose them again. He lay back down, reaching out to where he had felt the imaginary Kakashi beside him and was overwhelmed by the man's scent. He grabbed the sheet, bunching it up under his nose and inhaling deeply. It smelled freshly laundered, soap. Disappointed he let the memory of the smell flood back, Kakashi's smell, fresh and sharp with the tang of spice. He loved that man so much."

All at once he could remember everything. When they had met, how Kakashi had started showing up in unexpected places after that, how he had asked him out to dinner without warning, how he had pounced on Iruka that first time and how much Iruka had wanted to be pounced on. How could he have survived without these memories for, what? More than a week?

Then another memory invaded. His mother kissing him goodnight, his parents laughing with him as he learned to fly a kite. He could remember the them too, the kyuubi hadn't stolen all this from him after all.

The kyuubi.

A wide grin on a face with silly whisker-like lines, a shock of golden hair and the loudest voice in Konoha. Naruto. He loved Naruto, like he loved Kakashi, well not in the same way, but just as much. And he'd pushed him away, said that he hated him. Iruka sat up clutching at his chest and gasping with grief. He reached one of his bandaged hands towards a sudden ache in his back.

Sasuke burst into the room. He had felt the disturbance in the mans chakra two rooms away, "What is it? What's wrong?" He asked with far more emotion than Iruka was used to hearing in his voice.

Iruka looked around the room wildly. "I… I remember everything. Kakashi, my parents, everything. But Naruto, I have to see him, I have to tell him that I still love him. I've been so cold, so unkind. You see I didn't, I couldn't remember"

Sasuke felt something tighten inside. So the memory seal had broken. Now he'd never replace the other boy in Iruka's heart, not that he'd really wanted to, caring made you weak.

"Naruto isn't around, we haven't seen him in nearly a week. He probably went off on one of his dumb training sessions." He looked over at Iruka and seeing the pain in his eyes added icily. "I'll bring him here as soon as he gets back."