AN: Some Sakura cuteness up ahead. Sorry for the delay... erm... I was distracted over the weekend. My boyfriend is in the army and he came in from the field for the weekend, so I was caught with him. :) Anyways, I'm sure you don't want to know about that. But that's my excuse! I forsee this wrapping up in the next four chapters. This is officially one of the longest stories that I have ever written! Thanks for all the encouragement! It means a lot to me!

Disclaimers: Don't own it. The only profit I get is shirking my chores. :D And that's good enough for me.

Chapter 7

Her bum was cold and instinctively, she squirmed to the spot where it was the warmest. Her chilled fundament bumped up against something solid and warm. She sighed happily, finding relief and slipped back to sleep.

She was having an odd dream. A dream about wearing a pair of pants where the seat was made out of hands. She frowned, wiggling her bottom as the sensation of fingers squeezed. Slowly Sakura woke but the feeling persisted. She attempted to roll onto her back but found herself trapped against a warm, moving wall. Cracking her eyes open, ever so slightly, she peered up at the slumbering face of her former sensei and then she realized why the sensation of her buttocks being squeezed hadn't gone away. With a yelp, she swatted his hands away and sat up, glaring daggers at the man.

"What are you doing?" She shrieked.

"You're bottom was cold, so I thought I would return the favour and help you warm it." Kakashi said pleasantly.

He sat up and the cloaks pooled around his waist, leaving him mostly exposed to the chilly air. "Get something on, I don't want you catching hypothermia again!" She ordered, thrusting the sweater in his face.

Nodding, Kakashi stood and again. Sakura screeched, "You are a pervert!" Voicing her convictions anew, she pointed at his erection straining against the crotch of his pants. "You were feeling me up in my sleep and you liked it!"

"What? This?" He pointed downwards and grinned, "That's normal, Sakura-chan! Every man experiences this in the morning! It's called a morning w–"

"I DON'T WANT TO KNOW! ECCHI!" She wrapped the cloaks around her body and scooted as far away from him as the cave would accommodate.

Kakashi chuckled as he tightened belts and buckles, replaced his mask and hitai-ate. He stoked the fire and squatted in front of it, spreading his hands close enough that the flames licked at the palms of his gloves. "The snow still hasn't stopped yet." He sighed, looking up at the small hole that the ANBU had left in the jutsu-made cave lid.

While his back was turned, Sakura had managed to slip back into her pants and sweater. She was pulling on her boots when he turned and smiled at her. "I think we should wait here for a while." He said as he settled down on the mattress made up of three separate cloaks. "We'll wait to see if the storm stops soon."

"I think we should get moving. There's no sense sitting in this cave. We have more than enough protection against the cold." Sakura said reasonably.

"Yes but the wind is strong enough on these peaks that it would more than likely blow you off a ledge."

"Oh."

The duo lapsed into silence, listening to the wind howling angrily over the mountain. "Sakura-chan, I seemed to have met a relative of yours." he said suddenly.

She mentally cringed, "Oh?"

"Yes." Kakashi nodded, "When did she study at the academy?"

"Study?" She echoed faintly.

"She's a medic-nin."

"Oh." Sakura watched his profile in the soft light of the fire. His hair caught the light, reflecting it softly. The gold painted across the smooth contours of his face and the material that bound it. She found herself mesmerized by his attractiveness. "Uhm... yes. Well, she studied... uh... 15 years ago."

"And she's what? Twenty-four? Twenty-five?"

Sakura shrugged, unwilling to talk to the man about her secret identity. "I don't want to talk about her." She said softly.

Kakashi nodded and pulled out his handy Icha Icha Paradise. He stretched his legs out and crossed them at the ankle. He leaned back against the cave wall and rested the arm not holding his book, against a stone. His head tilted to the side and rested on his knuckles.

She was still a bit groggy from using up most of her chakra. The night hadn't been kind to her, but neither had Kakashi, who she found out was a habitual blanket-hog as well as an all-around pervert. She curled against the wall, opposite of Kakashi. With the fire's warmth against her face, she sighed and tried to go back to sleep.

A hand clamped around her mouth, stifling the scream from her mouth. She found herself dragged deeper into the cave, farther away from the opening. The fire had been hastily kicked out, casting them into a painful darkness and leaving Sakura even more panicked than when she woke.

"Someone is out there." Kakashi's voice said softly in her ear. "It's not one of ours. He's looking for us."

She nodded, clamping her lips closed as he removed the iron-like grip from her mouth. Touching her lips experimentally, Sakura figured that they'd be bruised in the morning. "What do we do?" She asked quietly.

"Just pray that they don't see the smoke hole. I'm sure that it was the smell of the wood burning that attracted them to begin with. They must be desperate if they are up on this mountain in such a storm."

"What would they want?"

"I don't know but I'm in no position to find out, either. I'm still drained from the hypothermia."

And she was drained from treating two men's hypothermia. Almost to the point where she still could barely feed her mark and maintain her body even after a few hours sleep. "What are we going to do?"

"Deeper down in the cave, there's an underground river. It leads to the valley of ends. We can get down there and follow the river out. It'll be quite a few miles, but it's better than sitting in here, waiting to be caught."

Sakura nodded and buttoned up one of the cloaks, making a bundle out of the rest. "Let's go then." She said softly.

They picked their way down the cave, the sound of rushing water got louder and louder. Quickly, the retreated to the water's edge and glanced out across the inky water. The chakra it took to keep themselves above water was a minimal effort, but in their weakened state they knew that they'd only get a few miles before they couldn't hold themselves up anymore.

Up river they went, wobbling as exhaustion took its toll and caused their footing to slip. More than once, Sakura found herself sinking if she lingered too long. The brisk pace that Kakashi had set was also punishing her overtaxed body. She staggered and fell against Kakashi's back. "I can't go any further, Kakashi-sensei." She whispered.

He scooped her up and carried her a few more miles before exhaustion took its affect on him too. They found a nook in the cave wall that was big enough for the both of them. Kakashi hoped that the water wouldn't rise and drown them while they slept, before he laid out the blankets and plunked Sakura down before crawling in himself.

Kakashi woke her up with a nudge to the shoulder. She got out of bed and wordlessly wrapped up their bundle before moving on. She kept glancing behind her, half expecting to see someone behind her but there never was. She dug out the last bit of food, a crust of bread with some cheese before handing the largest chunk over to him. The food would have a great effect on her ailing reserves of energy, and she ate it with that in mind, drink periodically from the chilled river that ran beneath her feet.

"Get behind the rock." He ordered suddenly, pulling out a kunai.

She listened and scrambled to find a spot where she could watch both ends of the river and Kakashi. Sakura pulled out her own knife and they waited. For a while, all they heard was the steady roar of the rushing water, but Sakura had complete faith in Kakashi's ability to know when they were in danger. It came in the form of a half-dozen shuriken, whistling through the air and splashing into the water that Kakashi dodge from. The attacker appeared, one of water country's missing-nin, and he grinned as he sank below the depths of the water. Kakashi pulled off his hitai-ate and scanned the water calmly. The contrast of inky black eye to scarlet was disturbing to Sakura, who watched him intently. It was only when hands, as cold and as wet as a fish's belly, wrapped around her throat, did she pull her eyes from him.

"Kakashi!" She strangled out, gasping for air as the hand tightened.

Sakura found herself whipped around like a rag doll. She sailed through the air and slammed up against a rock wall, the sharp juts digging painfully into her back, causing all the air to rush from her lungs. She landed on the narrow, steep bank. The cold water bit at her legs, causing her to shiver but she was too dazed and hurt to realize what was going on.

The fight ended quickly and with relative ease. He silently berated himself for letting the water-nin get to Sakura. Kakashi turned and found her laying on the bank with the lower half of her body bobbing in the current. He carefully turned her over and pushed away the clumps of wet, pink hair that clung to her face. "Sakura." He said softly, picking her up out of the water.

It took Kakashi an extra four hours to get out of the underground cavern. The watery sunlight bit at his visible eye as he tried to adjust to the light. He had wrapped Sakura tightly in the bundle that had miraculously stayed dry, thanks to the tight weave and water resistant material it was made out of. She shivered still, the water was slowly lowering her temperature. He knew that if he didn't get her to someplace warm, she'd die.

He fished in his back pouch for a vial that held small, dark pellets. Eating a few, he waited for them to take in affect before moving forward. When it came, he moved in a powerful burst of speed that left snow and dead leaves swirling in his wake. At this rate, he knew it would take him a day and a half to reach Konoha but it was a day and a half that he didn't think his young ex-pupil had.

When the last of the soldier pills were taken, he was only a half day's reach from the village but he could go no further. Before his legs collapsed beneath him, he tucked Sakura into an abandoned hut where there was a rickety old bed in the corner. The person who had stayed before hadn't used up all the firewood, which he was thankful for. Kakashi set a fire and pulled off Sakura's wet clothes before dragging the mattress closer to the fire and collapsing beside her. Using their cloaks as blankets, Kakashi pulled the shivering bundle of soft flesh and damp, pink hair to his chest and gently stroked the back of her neck, massaging the tense muscles and warming her skin with his own body heat. Soon she relaxed in his arms, her breathing turned deep. The sound of it soothed Kakashi's own worries and he brushed his lips against her forehead, feeling her warmth from beneath the thin material of his mask.

TBC