I do not own Naruto or RIlo Kiley's song.

Sometimes Things are Left Unfinished
challenge: If only

Let's get together and talk about the modern age. All of our friends were gathered there with their pets, just talking shit, about how we're so upset about the disappearing ground, as we watch it melt. It's all the good that won't come out of us, and how our eventual our hands will just turn to dust if we keep shaking them, standing here on this frozen lake.

The genin never notice this, but shinobi become bitter. After a lifetime of warfare one can come to hate themselves, and in turn, hate those who created them. Someone has to even out the fervor and loyalty of the genin and chuunin, why should it not be the scarred jounin? Asuma always lights more cigarettes than usual when they gather around that old picnic table underneath the oak tree. Kurenai often keeps her mouth shut, studying, watching the others grunt and frown and complain about the state of things.

"Some things just aren't sacred anymore. Like love. It used to be you had sex with that person you loved, even as a shinobi with the life expectancy of twenty years. Now, everywhere you look around people are fucking each other—"

"It's an attempt to feel things, I think. We may not think so, but things are harder now. Or at least different. The geniuses are gone or fading and who are they left with? After the Uchiha clan was fully extinguished and Tsunade relinquished her post to that bastard . . ."

They make a special effort not to glance at Kakashi when the words genius and Uchiha are brought up, but it's hard to ignore that sort of presence. They're right, and this old, retired shinobi knows it. He's not even a shadow of who he used to be, and the only way to bring back even the memories is to submerge himself here, in this place where everyone tries to pretend life used to be better.

Finally, the conversation begins to die down, and Kakashi finds his old friend amidst the dense swarm of people. They walk home slowly, in silence. Both of them know that their memories haven't failed them yet, and that life hasn't changed that much.

"Iruka, do you ever think that . . . that things might have been different?"

It's the same question he always asks him, and it's the same answer every time. "No, Kakashi. You know better than I how destruction works. Stopping it is harder than one can imagine."

But this time Kakashi isn't talking about the destruction of his first, and only, team. He's gone further than that.

I do this thing where I think I'm real sick, but I won't go to the doctor to find about it, 'cause they make you stay real still in a real small space, as they chart up your insides and put them on display. They'd see all of it, all of me, all of it, all of the good that won't come out of me, and the stupid lies I hide behind. It's such a big mistake, lying here in your warm embrace.

Oh, how to tell them that their son had died to save his team? How to tell them that their son had given him the only things that were his to give: his life, and his bloodline? Kakashi let his forehead protector fall over his injured eye once more as he glanced away from the mirror. He didn't look as different as he felt. The only things that could possibly tip someone off were the dark bruises beneath his eyes, one of which was hidden anyway.

Rin is waiting for him outside, and she'd traded her usual kunoichi-wear for a more casual kimono, decorated with pale green leaves and tied up neatly in the back. She had gone through the extra effort to look nice for this, but her eyes were still red. All the way home, Kakashi had thought she'd begun to accept it since the sobs had diminished, but that had only meant she'd begun to cry silently.

Oh, Rin. Kakashi, for the first time in his life, wished to hold her, but he held back. He hadn't changed his clothing, just laid down on his futon until Rin had knocked. He was still dirty and if you looked hard enough you could see the stains still covering his shirt collar. The two of them trudged towards the Uchiha complex, and Rin didn't comment or nag as she usually might.

No one stood there expectantly, waiting. There was no time for that anymore. Those who were not out fighting were recuperating or running Konoha; there was no time for welcome home parties, especially those for failed bastard sons like Obito. So the two of them walked slowly towards the building where they knew Obito's mother would be minding the children. It resembled all the others, and they could only tell it was Obito's home by the number 54 neatly painted over the doorway.

Suki was crying, and the sound of it was jarring. She'd been Obito's favorite, maybe because she was too young to realize that he was only her half brother and a terrible Uchiha, on the top of that. Maybe because she knew how it felt for tears to fall so continuously.

Closing his eyes and digging his feet into the ground, Kakashi refused to take another step. Her sobbing filled his ears, and it was as if she already knew that her brother was dead. Let Rin face the family, expression her deepest regret, and cry with them, hold them as they clutched their aching hearts. But she wouldn't. He felt Rin's warm fingers link with his, and she pulled until he uprooted himself. The two them took the next few steps together, and Kakashi knocked on the door.

Suki's cries faltered and then eventually died away completely. Obito's mother opened the door, looking harrowed, but still eager. Eager to see her son, even if no one else was.

Oh, Kage.

The two of them watch her in silence, as her eyes swept past them, searching for the black hair that would lead her to her son. But, as her eyes only focused on Kakashi and Rin, her face fell. She knew, without either of them saying anything, what had happened to her son. Her lips mouthed the words, but as long as they were not voiced out loud, as long as they never escape into the air it won't be the truth.

"Obito's dead."

The words are out, and to Kakashi's surprise, Rin voiced them. She didn't dissolved into the gasping sobs he had expected. Neither did Obito's mother. Maybe it was a female thing, finding that inner strength to deal with pain. Kakashi realized too late that he was the one crying.

Her son was dead and she closed the doors in their faces. As Rin and Kakashi marched on, back to their respective homes, they heard Suki's wails start up again, but different this time.

They resonated loss, and the remainder of Team Yellow Flash would never be able to face her again.

Kakashi allowed himself to be pulled home by Rin, where she held him until he doesn't need to swallow back tears anymore.

Oh, you're almost home, I've been waiting for you to come in. Dancing around in your old suits, going crazy in your room again. I think I'll go out and embarrass myself by getting drunk and falling down in the street. You say I chose sadness; that it never once has chosen me. Maybe you're right.

Rin always said that she would come back. Even as she shouldered her pack on that last winter day, her cheeks red in the face of the season's harshest whip, she told me with her smile that she would return.

"I need a break, that's all." Well, couldn't she have a sojourn with him? Did she need to abandon everything and just go off on her own? She was only seventeen, what if someone took advantage of her naiveté? She needed him to protect her, like he'd promised.

Years pass slowly, snow and blossom taking their damn time to fall. Kakashi began to accept that she'd left him behind. Everyone really was gone, weren't they?

Kakashi had never been the type to go out with the rest of the victorious ANBU and drink until the world was hazy, and his emotions felt like rubber, but that night so full of resentful epiphanies, he said he would. His fellow shinobi raised eyebrows, but they let him tag along, silent and sulking. But once his fingers were wrapped unsteadily around a mug of warm sake, he loosened up, and his mouth spilled things he'd kept bitten back for ages.

"I mean, I 'unno why ssshe left an' shit, I weren't a bad boyfriend r'nothin'. She seemed ta like tha sex an' . . .I miss her so fucken much."

Their reactions didn't matter, just as long as he could let it all out.

At some point he left them, and the whole world seemed to be tilting. Oh, Kage, he thought desperately as he felt himself stumble over his own feet and land painfully on his knees, the hard concrete ripping the fabric and then his skin, making them raw and bloody. He got up, barely feeling the heavy silence of midnight crowding him, just knowing that he'd rather be at home, on his own futon, than in the middle of the street.

Rin.

He remembered everything, or maybe it was just his mind paying spiteful tricks on him. He stumbled into his apartment, and left the door half-open as he moved onward, mind focused only on making it to bed.

Kakashi, why don't you just cheer up?

What do you mean? Are you going to tell me I need to smile more, because I will punch you in the face if you do.

Hah, I know you don't mean that but, no, I wasn't going to say you need to smile, even if it does make you look so handsome.

Stop it, Rin. What did you mean, then?

Well, you're always brooding, and yes, I understand you have a reason to mourn, but this is too much! You can't dwell on it forever, Kakashi. You need to move on, and realize that as a shinobi you will lose people. It's our lives, now. We chose this.

Suck it up like a man?

Suck it up like a manly man! See, this stubble proves it. You simply can't get manlier.

Hey, pull that back up!

But the stumble! I am only succumbing to the stubble! So this is why you wear the mask. You want everyone to be able to sustain their self control in your presence.

. . . How did you guess?

I'm insightful, you know that. Hmph, not being a genius doesn't mean I'm a complete waste of talent.

The next morning, amidst the throbbing pain reverberating inside his skull, he maked a decision. He'll smile, but not because he's happier. He'll smile so that Rin will come back. So that she'll know he hasn't forgotten her promise to return.

Let's talk about all our friends who lost the war, and the all the novels that have yet to be written about them. It's all the good that won't come out of them, and all the stupid lies they hide behind. It's such a big mistake, standing here on this frozen lake. It's all the good that won't come out of me, and how eventually my mouth will just turn to dust, if I don't tell you quick, standing here on this frozen lake.

"Kakashi, you never talk about them." Iruka mentioned this casually as he poured the tea into his cracked teacups, both a creamy color with worn designs on the handles.

"Talk about who?" Kakashi replied innocently, picking up his and taking it to the table. Why was Iruka so damn inquisitive? What did Kakashi's past matter at this point anyway?

"You know. Your team. Sometimes I wonder if it was just loyalty the three of you felt . . ." He sounds particularly sly as he padded over to his housemate, taking a seat beside him, legs tucked neatly beneath him. Was he implying what Kakashi thought he was implying?

"You know Rin was my lover," Kakashi told him, unsmiling.

"And if Obito had lived?"

Kakashi didn't glance away, but kept his one bare eye on Iruka's guiltless expression. Hah. With two fingers, Kakashi pushed his forehead protector upwards, exposing the scar and his uneven eye. "He didn't. No point in swimming in a sea of what ifs."

"Would Rin have left?"

This time Kakashi didn't react calmly, but terribly, standing quickly, his legs bumping into the low table and making the tea spill over the sides of the unstable cups. He didn't lean over to clean up the spill, letting the little rivulets of the murky liquid drip off the table and onto the wooden floor. Iruka didn't move either. "How the hell am I supposed to know what she would or wouldn't have done? Maybe someone else would've died and Rin would have abandoned this way of life anyway."

"Even if both Obito and you were anchoring her to this place?"

"Stop it!" he yelled, kicking the table so that cups flew off, too, smooth arcs of steaming tea following after. Fantasies of lying with Rin's arms wrapped around his middle from the back and Obito's body pressed against his from the front were clouding his mind, and he was unable to clear it and keep himself stolid. "You know nothing."

He regretted it as soon as the words tumbled out, too loud and too clumsy. Of course Iruka knew about loss, he'd experienced it himself, time and time again. They'd both lost family, friends. That was life as a shinobi, loss and the eventual acceptance of that loss.

The seemingly unruffled man didn't answer; he just looked at Kakashi with those serious, pitying eyes. Like he was so wise, and Kakashi so foolish. Kakashi covered his eyes with the sweaty palms of his hands. "What do you want me to say, huh? Do you want me to say I'd hold them until they shattered into pieces, and even then, I'd clutch those shards to my chest? That I'd kiss them both silly, until their lips were red and swollen and beautiful?"

He didn't wait for an answer; there wouldn't be one. Just Iruka with those disappointed eyes, staring, staring as he left the room, shutting the door behind him softly.

It was cool outside, an antithesis to the humid sticky feeling of the afternoon. Kakashi pondered several options, one being taking Asuma up on that cigarette. What the hell difference did it make if he was killing himself or not? In the end, though, he resisted the temptation of sinking into yet another addiction.

So he opted for taking a long walk around Konoha, revisiting old memories, reiterating their stories to himself. Maybe if he went back far enough, talked long enough, he'd remember a time when Hatake Kakashi had strived for good and experienced true happiness. If that being had ever existed to begin with.