I futzed around with the timeline, aged-up characters in some places. And as I said on Jack_of_All Blades, there are so few fem!Kakashi x Minato fics out there. I will literally go down with this ship.
(Also, I love Kushina, but this is very MinaKashi-centric and thus she kind of… fades out? Idk don't hate me)
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The beginning finds her wailing into his vest as his hand runs over her short hair in an attempt at comfort. But she doesn't want comfort.
She wants her father back.
She's seven and more than a little lost. Her mask is soaked with tears and snot when she finally retreats. Her eyes are even more droopy than usual and bloodshot. But the sixteen year old jōnin smiles that smile he reserves just for her and assures her that he won't leave her, and that's a promise.
She couldn't love him more if she tried.
She is eleven and horrified at the thought that she'll be dealing with this the rest of her life. She has no mother or female relatives to explain things to her, Rin hasn't run into this yet, and she refuses to approach Kushina for advice.
To her eternal mortification (and his, she hopes) Jiraiya is the one who takes it upon himself to educate her to the ways of a man and a woman. Granted, his form of teaching is to plonk her down in one of the training grounds, ramble disjointedly about biological processes, hand her a book with a lurid orange cover, and wander off.
When he later asks if she has any questions, she's grateful for her mask, because she's sure she's the color of a tomato as she shakes her head in the negative. Everything is pretty self-explanatory, and honestly, she never knew people could be that flexible.
She is thirteen and she knows exactly who she wants in her life. Her sensei is right at the top, followed by Rin. And somehow even a boy with orange goggles finds a place as well.
But there are places in her heart they cannot go because they're already full. Her hair remains short, hacked off with a kunai when it grows long enough that she sees a different face in the mirror.
Every mission they take only seems to solidify her desire for rules and rigidity. She refuses to be like him. Refuses to ever be a traitor to Konoha.
She is fifteen when her world ends for the second time. She thought it was bad when Sensei told them first about the wedding, and then about the baby. But that . . . that has nothing on what she's just lost.
Watching, powerless, as the Barrier keeps her from his side, as the destruction within obliterates her world. Held back from the rampaging Kyuubi, in the interests of keeping the children safe.
She doesn't feel like a child. Not after losing both her teammates (her friends). She feels like a soldier, a fighter.
She'd do anything if only to have him back.
She's nineteen and she's never been so alone. She keeps her hair butchered short in uneven spikes, because she refuses to look like the man she'd called father anymore than she has to.
She throws herself into her missions, doesn't let her ghosts linger long enough to become real. And if she glimpses a white haori or orange goggles out of the corner of her eye, it doesn't mean they're there. She tells herself that and bathes in blood as though that would purge away the sins already on her hands.
She doesn't believe the small girl with purple marks on her cheeks when she tells Kakashi to forgive herself. It doesn't matter because they're not really there. It doesn't matter because . . .
Because she doesn't know how.
She's twenty-three and gets pulled off the roster to teach a genin team.
The Hokage's reason is her increasingly frequent brushes with death, and the need for talented ninja at the Academy to train the next generation. But she doesn't believe him. The old man has more turns than a fox and he's been watching her closely for a while now. But when she fails her first team, he doesn't seem surprised.
He appears to be waiting for something.
She's twenty-seven when she's faced with the perfect mixture of the one she loved and the one who she could never be. The years have blurred between then and now, but she never wanted to remember the intervening time. And now it's staring her in the face with a determined expression.
She's failed every genin team she's been given but she doesn't have the option with this one. Much as she wishes to.
His dreams are an echo of those fulfilled by his father, and she can only be grateful that his hair is not Kushina's deep crimson. It would only serve to remind her of other painful memories, of impossible wishes that nearly drove her mad.
The faded memories of her team still cling like cobwebs, but their grip is beginning to loosen. Her sojourns to the Memorial Stone are becoming less self-flagellation and more contemplation and she allows herself to lay some of her burden down.
She's thirty as she pushes her team to become stronger, more resilient. Each have their own hurdles and she forces them to overcome them no matter what. But both the boy genius and the civilian girl are determined to make their mark. And the deadlast is the most determined.
There is promise, and at first she loves him for his father. But in time she loves him for himself.
And if over the years he slips up a few times and calls her Mom, she says nothing and only loves him all the more, in her own silent way.
But she sends him off to war, knowing—wondering—hoping he'll come back. He's the last part of her heart that's still beating, and she can't lose her boy like that.
She locks those emotions in a box and only lets them out when she's alone with her ghosts. There's a battered photograph that she had once tucked in her locker at ANBU headquarters. Team Minato grins out at her, bright and excited and completely unaware of what's waiting in the wings. Creased and grubby from years of handling, it used to sit on the Yondaime's desk.
And now it sits on hers.
The robes feel too big on her, despite being tailored to fit, and she feels older than her years. She's Konoha's first and last defense, and she feels like the title was handed to the wrong person. She will never be fully what the village needs, but she will die trying.
She's thirty-two when the war grinds to a final halt. Konoha is decimated and those picking up the pieces are also greeting the once-dead.
He hasn't aged a day past twenty-four, fresh-faced and bright eyed while she is neither. But they recognize in each other the jagged edges rent by loss, by war, by love. There are gaps where there had once been people and they have to learn how to navigate without them. They know healing comes in many forms, and they know a second chance is being offered.
The dead look is gone from his eyes, as well as the cracks seaming his once-tan skin. But death will do that to a person, and Edo Tensei's grip will not disappear for a long time. After being dead for sixteen years, she has him back, against all odds.
And when their son puts his arms around them both, hugs them tight and cries into their shoulders, Kakashi understands that she hasn't lost anything. She promises she wouldn't ever give them up again.
She couldn't love them more if she tried.
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