Chapter fifteen
Reunion

----

Sakura wasn't sure how long she sat, staring unbelievingly at Pakkun, but it must have been a fair while because he grew impatient and sneezed with annoyance.

"I assume you haven't had much opportunity for conversation recently, but in polite society it's customary to greet someone when you run into them."

She swallowed, and kept staring. "I-Is that you, Pakkun?"

The dog scowled and got up on all fours, padding across her ribcage and placing a paw on either side of her neck. "What does it look like?" he said, face very close to her own. She blinked and thought she caught a hint of mushrooms on the whiff of his breath.

She reached up and put her hands on his shoulders, hooking her thumbs below his forelegs before sitting up slowly and placing the pug in front of her. She surveyed him in amazement as she crossed her legs. "I was dreaming," she said, and he whuffed, derision clear in his regard.

"While I'm obviously flattered, I think it would be highly irregular for you to be dreaming about me."

He almost had a point. She smiled sadly and felt her lips crack at the gesture. For a dream, it was a rather sensory one. Why couldn't it have been about something - someone - else? "I guess my subconscious is just feeding me the memories I have of him," she murmured. "And you must be linked to him in my head."

"Him?" Pakkun asked, tilting his head to give her a curious stare. "You mean Kakashi?"

She sniffled. Dammit! She'd promised herself there would be no more crying. She was sick of crying, and of course she hadn't packed a handkerchief. How foolish of her to have left on a mission without anticipating she'd be crying for a great chunk of it. "Yes," she replied, lifting the flap of her skirt to wipe her runny nose.

"I'm certainly glad you wear undershorts," Pakkun remarked waspishly. "That was particularly unladylike."

"Why am I dreaming about you lecturing me?" Sakura asked, a flash of irritation stabbing through the familiar grief. This was rather unusual, but she had to admit it was almost a welcome change compared to her regular nighttime remembrances.

Pakkun sighed. "I've already told you this isn't a dream. I have no intention of repeating myself all afternoon, so if there's some way I can prove this to you and hasten your recovery, please let me know now, before we waste more time."

She blinked. "How could there be any proof this isn't a dream? I really don't know why I have to explain this, but I guess it's pretty simple. You can't be here, because you're Kakashi's summon. Kakashi can't summon you, because he's...he's..."

"Dead?" Pakkun supplied helpfully.

She stiffened at his almost curious frankness, but nodded after a moment, tears welling up and sliding down the track marks she assumed were etched into her face by now.

"Yes," she whispered. "He's dead."

The dog looked thoughtful. "Well, I can see how you would have assumed that. It didn't occur to me until now that that's what you'd be thinking, and I'm not sure if he's considered it either. But yes," he continued, almost to himself, "I can see that now."

He glanced over at her and his dark eyes seemed to soften a bit, lending his droopy face a bit of compassion. "This past week must have been very trying for you."

"Eight days," she corrected automatically, her mind whizzing over his strange, unsettling words. "But what do you mean, something he hadn't considered? What are you talking about?"

He coughed slightly and stared up at her, features set. "You seemed convinced this is a dream, but who's to say it's not? Did you see Kakashi's body, Sakura? Did you find his corpse anywhere after he opened the scroll?"

She looked away. Hadn't she only just been despairing at her lack of closure, that the absence of a body afforded her no release from her grief?

"No," she replied carefully. "No, there was no body."

Pakkun nodded. "Then listen to me with an open mind, and believe me when I tell you that not only are both Kakashi and the boring-man alive and well, but my esteemed master has sent me out to track you down. As soon as I find you - which, I suppose, is now - I'm meant to send the signal and direct him to where you ended up. He'll follow as quickly as he's able."

She sat and processed. Something was touching her thigh and she glanced down to see her hand pressed on top of it, trembling uncontrollably. She brought the hand up and pressed it hard against her chest, leaning over her body in an attempt to stop the shaking.

"He's really alive?" she asked him, voice cracking painfully in mingled excitement and fear. She wanted to believe the dog, wanted to trust his words but she was so afraid of letting herself hope again. She'd opened her heart only to have it bruised and battered, and if events betrayed her one more time she thought she might be broken forever.

"Oh, for goodness sake," said Pakkun irritably, before standing up and crossing to her, and sinking his teeth into her leg.

----

"You didn't have to bite me that hard, you know," Sakura told him later, after he'd brought her up to date with what had happened to Kakashi and Akio in the time they'd been away. She poured water onto a strip of gauze and dabbed at the wound his sharp little teeth had left on her thigh.

"Yes, I did," he replied, sunning himself on a rock beside her. "You wouldn't have believed me unless there was a lot of pain involved."

"Would too," she countered, flicking some water at him.

He snuffled and shook his head, sneezing at the water. "Would not."

She gave a short bark of laughter and wondered why it felt so good. Oh, that's right. Kakashi is alive. They'd all survived. He wasn't dead. He hadn't left her alone in the world. He was alive and he was safe and he was coming -

Her laughter stopped and she frowned down at the dog. "Didn't you say you had to contact him, somehow?"

"Ah, yes." Pakkun stood up and shook himself. "I'd quite forgotten, what with all that convincing I had to do." He gave her a pointed look but she brought her hands up, affronted.

"What did you expect? I've just spent the last eight days trapped in my own misery, thinking he was dead! Then you appear out of nowhere - while I was, incidentally, dreaming - and try to tell me that it was all a big trick, and actually everything is a-okay?"

His face turned sly. "You seem to have taken this rather hard, you know. You're a shinobi. The luxury of emotion is one you can ill afford in this tumultuous time. Why were you so affected by Kakashi's death?"

She looked away, feeling the heat of a blush travel across her cheeks. "I - nothing. I mean, no reason. He's my teacher, of course. I've known him for five years and..." she trailed off. And what? What had she decided when she was all alone? "And I care for him," she finished off carefully.

"Right," Pakkun replied. "You care for him. Like a daughter, perhaps?"

"Hardly!" she returned, scandalised. "He's nothing like a father to me."

Somehow the dog managed to raise an eyebrow.

"I mean," she tacked on hastily, feeling like control of the conversation was running away from her, "he's...er...not old enough to be my father. And I have a father. Of course I do. I don't need another one."

She bit her lip and wondered what she'd say if the dog challenged her again. These strange and delicate feelings were still too new to share with anyone, least of all a creature of Kakashi's own. She'd only become aware of them when she thought there was no hope. Now some hope had appeared to her, in the form of this irascible, surly pug, and she still wasn't sure what to make of it all. How could she put what she felt into words?

Fortunately, Pakkun appeared to have satisfied his curiosity for the time being and didn't ask any further questions. He rose to all fours and craned his neck behind him as if to bite his own neck. He couldn't get around as far as he needed to, and Sakura forgot enough of her discomfort to ask him hesitantly what he was doing.

He dropped his head and frowned. "I was trying to check that the henohenomaheji was clean and centred."

She blinked. "The what now?" The name tickled a memory at the back of her mind, but she couldn't remember where she'd heard it before.

"The face on my back. Is it dirty or wrinkled?"

She moved behind him and tugged the little vest down, smoothing it against his back. The black lines of the face were clear against the white background, and she couldn't see any blemishes at all. "You're looking good," she told him, giving him one last pat before sitting back down.

"Always do." He grinned at her. She rolled her eyes at him but found herself grinning back, filled with a kind of dizzying excitement at being in the presence of someone else again. The fact that her companion was a talking dog didn't bother her in the slightest. Pakkun was smart, resourceful, and he'd brought her a bit of hope.

He was also doing something really, really weird.

Sakura stared as he bowed his head and tensed, each leg stretched outward and stiff. His back curved up to a point where his tail poked upright and bristled. If his eyes hadn't drifted shut she would have thought him about to attack someone. The lines of his body fairly screamed taut strength and power, and she wondered what he was channeling, and how. And then she stopped wondering and gasped instead, because the strange picture on the back of his vest had ceased to be just plain white and black, and was now pulsating a gentle, glowing blue.

"What have you done?" she whispered in awe.

Pakkun yawned and sat, his back still shining, throwing the clearing into relief. "What I had to." He shrugged. "Ive just contacted Kakashi. He'll be here as soon as he's able."

----

Naruto stared at him for a moment before his eyes slid down to the glowing ANBU tattoo, a pale beacon, stark against his arm. "He's found her?" the boy echoed, brow creasing in confusion.

"Yes." Kakashi fought to keep his stance loose and tone normal. His muscles were straining in anticipation and a voice inside was complaining loudly at the delay. Hurry up! the voice commanded. We're wasting time!

Jiraiya shifted and seemed also to be eyeing Kakashi's arm with something like respect. "How very impressive," he remarked, white eyebrows raised. "A communications jutsu. Where is the dog's symbol?"

"On his coat." There'd be time for them to be impressed later - they had more pressing concerns at present. "He's to the east; let's get going."

Naruto visibly filed away his interest for later and then stood, brushing the dirt from his knees. He smiled suddenly, a feral baring of teeth revealing pointed incisors. "To Sakura-chan!"

Jiraiya sighed and adjusted his pack. "I guess we're off again."

Kakashi felt the insistent throbbing in his arm relax to a regular, gentle pulsing that steered him irrevocably to the east.

"Yes," he said, turning in that direction and feeling an insistent tug from behind his navel. "Let's go."

He felt rather than saw the other two exchange glances, but if they had reservations, for once he didn't care. He knew what he was doing. He had to. There'd be no more second-guessing in this endeavour, not any more.

He tensed and shimmered, reappearing in a tree above where he'd been standing. He looked down at them and smiled humourlessly, studiously ignoring the freshly turned earth. He had a fair idea of what was under there, and it was up to him to make sure no more graves needed to be dug. "Let's go," he said for a third time, and finally they obliged, moving up to join him before bounding off into the sunset.

----

Sakura sighed and blew an errant strand of hair from her eyes. It was a losing battle since most of her hair hung over her face, positioned as she was in a handstand in the middle of the clearing.

It had been three days since Pakkun had found her, and there was still no sign of Kakashi. She'd spent the first evening on a kind of giddy high, shaky with anticipation at how their reunion would play out. She imagined it would go something like: Pakkun would tell her Kakashi was coming and she'd run out to meet him. She'd smile brightly so that he'd never know how affected she'd been by his apparent death. He, in turn, would be happy to see her safe and sound, and they might even hug, embrace chastely, making Sakura equal to that hateful Yumi in terms of physical intimacy.

That still really made her mad.

She'd had plenty of time to imagine the meeting, because he hadn't shown up that evening, or the day that followed. It was unsurprising, really. She shouldn't have expected he'd appear immediately, but she'd wanted to see him so badly that it hadn't occurred to her - despite Pakkun's explanation - that Kakashi would need to make his way from where he'd landed to where she had come to be. And I didn't make it any easier for him, she thought ruefully, remembering her thoughtless flight off into the woods. She'd wanted distance, needed to get away from Izanami's house, but she'd done them both a disservice and prolonged the wait until they would see each other again. But, I couldn't have known, she reasoned. And we won't be waiting much longer...

"Are you sure we wouldn't make things easier by moving back towards Ontou?" she asked Pakkun doubtfully.

The dog shook his head and she felt queasy, looking at the motion from her upside-down perspective. "There's no point," he said, resting his head on his paws. The symbol on his back still glowed and she closed her eyes to keep her balance. "What if we crossed paths unknowingly along the way? I've said this every time you've asked me, Sakura, and I still think it's a bad idea."

She nodded and nearly fell over. "Ow. You make a good point."

"I always do," the dog replied, stifling a yawn.

Deciding she'd had enough, Sakura flipped back upright, swaying for a moment as the blood rushed back through her body and the world righted itself around her. She crossed to her pack, lying next to the dog, and withdrew her waterskin, dribbling a small amount onto her palm and then patting it over her face.

Pakkun regarded her critically. "Was it really necessary to spend the last four hours on your hands?"

She frowned down at him. "Well, no. But what else could I do? You said we shouldn't change locations and I'm bored out of my brain by all this waiting. Unless you can suggest something more worthwhile to occupy my time?"

"Perhaps you could take a bath," Pakkun suggested, wrinkling his nose pointedly. "Seems like you've been travelling hard."

She flushed at the subtle insinuation, but after giving herself a discreet sniff, found she couldn't argue with the pug. Had she washed more than her face, since leaving Izanami's? She thought she might have, but if so, when? It must have been days since her last wash. Pakkun deserved a medal for putting up with her stench as well as the tactful way he'd made her aware of the fact. Her flush deepened. It was fortunate after all that Kakashi hadn't found them yet. How potentially embarrassing.

She nodded stiffly and retrieved her toiletries, along with a grubby towel and a change of clothes. There wasn't much to pick from, but for once she didn't care what she looked like. It was more important, she decided, to not smell like a racehorse.

"You remember where the stream is?" Pakkun asked lazily. She had to flush again because she'd been to the stream twice to fill up the waterskins and rinse the pot, and yet neither occasion had prompted a personal hygiene epiphany. I was distracted, she excused herself mentally. I was so relieved that Kakashi was alive and well that other things just slipped my mind. Inner Sakura held her nose and waved at the air in front of her. Shut up, you, Sakura told her, before scowling at Pakkun.

"Yes, I remember."

"Just wondering." The dog nodded, then closed his eyes, settling down for a nap. "Don't get lost, now."

Sakura gave him a very rude gesture before stomping out of the clearing. His low chuckle drifted out after her and didn't help things at all.

----

The pulsing in his arm was more frequent now, and he could tell they were close even without Naruto scratching at his nose every ten minutes.

"You can smell her?" Kakashi called out, not wanting to drop the pace for conversation.

Naruto gave him a searching look, but then nodded. "She's nearby," he said grimly. "Pakkun's scent is around here as well."

The call was...insistent. He could hardly sleep while it was activated and had volunteered to keep watch, an unnecessary gesture since Jiraiya had Sannin-senses and Naruto could apparently smell an enemy coming. Neither argued, however, and Jiraiya gave him a tight but understanding smile.

"Do what you have to do," he told Kakashi, before rolling himself up in a blanket and promptly dropping off to sleep.

Naruto followed him into slumber after giving Kakashi another unreadable look, but they'd been running hard and the boy was soon out like a light.

Kakashi watched them sleep, and used the time to think.

The second day passed much the same as the first. When evening came he wished he could have caught a few snatches of rest the night before, because being this close to the symbol made his arm beat every other second. Exhaustion dulled his senses and he finally drifted off for what felt like only a moment, and he was once again awake before dawn, watching the sun rise with gritty determination to find Sakura before another morning passed.

He felt like a bastard for shaking the other two awake soon after the sun touched their campsite on the third day, but his arm held a violent drumbeat and he wanted to get there as soon as he could. They were close and it angered him, because there were only close, and not there already.

Naruto rubbed his eyes but rolled out of his blankets without complaint. Jiraiya gave one of those smiles that said everything despite being empty.

"My arm -" Kakashi started, almost defensively, but Jiraiya interrupted.

"I know."

His smile widened but Kakashi dismissed it. Whatever the Sannin thought he knew was just that - a thought. The depth of his feelings for Sakura was something he had kept to himself and had chosen not to divulge to Jiraiya or Naruto. Admittedly, the former probably wouldn't care, but the latter...

There was no point in thinking about it. His emotions were private and he'd promised himself not to burden even Sakura with their weight.

Yes, there was definitely no point in thinking about it. He pressed on with new vigour and left it to the others to catch up.

----

The stream was deep and inviting and Sakura hoped she never had another period in her life that completely overshadowed her innate desire to bathe. There was something about being able to take off dirty clothes and immerse oneself fully in cool, rinsing water, and she relished the sensation of liquid against skin.

She waded out into the middle, pleasantly surprised to find the bottom so deep she couldn't touch it with her toes. There was something - had always been something - that was dangerously alluring about being isolated in water. It was the only time she really enjoyed being out of her depth.

She closed her eyes and dunked her head under the water, giving herself up to the gentle tug of the current and how it felt against her body. She brought her hands up and rubbed vigorously against her skull, running her fingertips through her knotted tresses in an attempt to make order of her hair.

It didn't work. She needed a comb.

Rising to the surface, she opened her eyes and kicked up, bringing her feet to the top and floating aimlessly for a couple of minutes. It felt good - no, it felt wonderful - to be free and unfettered like this, at one with the water and warmed by the gentle rays of the afternoon sun. Eventually, she swam back to her things and grabbed the soap and comb, before going back to the deep part and actually washing herself this time.

The soap was an abrasive linseed blend that produced minimum suds for a maximum clean. It was a hard product, one she disliked immensely, but there was no point in pretty soaps with sweet scents, not for a ninja. Shinobi bath items were practical ones and this one cleaned blood from skin efficiently, an advantage she couldn't really deny.

She lathered it over her head and tore ruthlessly through the tangles with the stiff comb, ignoring the tears that welled up at the action. She'd always been sensitive about brushing and the like, to the extent that her mother had refused to brush her hair due to the crying. Years ago she'd taken Sakura to the hairdresser and had it all cut off, and it wasn't until Sakura had learned a certain boy liked girls with long hair that she'd amassed the fortitutde to withstand much brushing. Her hair now, however, seemed filthy, and she watched in amazement as dark water sluiced down her shoulders and arms before running back into the stream. Yuck! She'd never been that dirty before. Unless -

Her thoughts were cut short at a noise behind her, and she whirled in the water, dropping both items as her hands came up protectively to cross her chest. She sunk down up to her chin and glanced around worriedly to see where the dislodging of what sounded like a stone had occurred.

There was no one. Or was there? A flash of dark hair and then the barest ripple on the water, and then all of Sakura's reunion conversations were forgotten, because there, in front of her, stood one very alive Hatake Kakashi.

She stared. She was suddenly glad all the premeditated scenarios had flown her mind because she couldn't have recited them even if she'd wanted to. Her vision faded in and out. All the moisture had gone from her mouth and it was entirely possible that her throat wouldn't work at all.

"Sakura."

Kakashi seemed as shocked as she was. All the colour had leeched from his face and he actually stumbled a little, his toes sinking down into the water before he gathered enough chakra to go back to where he'd been, positioned lightly on top. He returned her gaze for what felt like hours before catching himself and glancing around quickly, behind him and to the side. "Looks like I got here first," he murmured, but the sound travelled easily across the water.

She drank up his voice like the sweetest of drinks and paddled forward, still staring at his pale, beloved face. The face that had haunted every moment of her existence since that terrible day. "I thought I'd never see you again," she whispered brokenly, the words pushing through her dry throat with a rasp.

"I know," he said, and while his tone was tender, the shifting of the trees threw shadows across his face.

Sakura was still too shocked to notice anything besides the fact that he was alive and he was here and he was with her right now. "You're alive," she said, more strongly now, and his laugh was rueful and joyous all in one.

"I am," he agreed, before crossing the distance between them and releasing the chakra that kept him afloat.

She blinked as he dropped into the water, droplets splashing everywhere and obscuring her vision for a moment. When he resurfaced, she reached out, pressing her shaking fingers against the plane of his cheek. Brown strands of hair slipped over his forehead and she smoothed them away, feeling warmth pricking at the corners of her eyes at the overwhelming sensation of skin against skin.

"You're alive," she said again, and he gave another low laugh, reaching out to encircle her, the sodden sleeves of his shirt sticking to her bare back.

"Yes," he replied, and almost before she knew what she was doing, before she could rationalise the rights and wrongs of her action, she leaned close into his water-cooled body and pressed her trembling lips against his own.

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This chapter originally had an extra paragraph on the end, but due to the important announcement (wah, that sounds so pompous) I'm about to make, I thought everyone would appreciate a not-cliffhanger over the next month.

Yes, that's right. Despite having promised myself and most likely other people that I wouldn't take another break, things have become dire in regards to this story. I'm currently almost halfway through writing chapter 18, but things aren't flowing. I'm very very afraid that I'm going to fall behind very very soon, so I'm taking a month off this time in the hopes of wrapping TS up. I've anticipated 24 chapters in total, and now that I can see the end in sight, I want to be able to concentrate on finishing it. This is my own fault for giving myself a weekly update schedule, and all I can do is apologise for the delay, but I'm also hoping that once the month is up and I've completed the fic, I'll be able to post every 2/3 days until all chapters are up. Surely that will be good. Surely?

I have a complete, five chapter Narusaku WAFF fic that I'll be posting in the interim. Many of you will probably be adverse to the pairing, and that's fine, but I like it and I feel better when I'm at least posting something, so if you get author alerts that's what they'll be for.

Thanks as always to my stable of betas and everyone who reads and reviews. I hope this chapter ending hasn't been too traumatic for you, and a few sharp-eyed readers might be getting cookies if they pick up on what I hope they do. I appreciate everyone's understanding and patience, and hope you stick with the story till the end. :)