AHHHHHHH! Do you know how frusterating this has been!

Shiko: no they don't. They're not you, idiot.

Bara: I HATE HATE HATE HATE my computer. I swear to any higher power that's listening that I haven't posted because my stupid F#$&ing computer wouldn't let me access this chapter. I'm posting this from school.

Shiko: Breathe.

Bara:takes deep breath: Okay, I'm good.

Sorry I haven't answered or replyed to any reviews asking me to update, I've barely had time to read them, but THANK YOU very much. It's very encoureging to know that people want to read more of this. So on with the fic!

Disclaimer - Don't own nothing about Naruto. I just own the plot.

Chapter 6 - Conversations with a Teacher : Part One

-Thunk-

A kunai planted itself in the tree a couple of inches from Kakashi's face. Kakashi grimaced. 'Damn, spacing out again.'

"Kakashi-san, please get out of the tree. You've been following me for the past three months. I can't keep pretending you're not there."

Deciding it wouldn't be a good idea to get him angry (or at least any angrier then he already was) Kakashi swung out of the tree and fell in step with the annoyed teacher.

They walked in silence for a while.

"Hatake-san?"

"Mmm-hmmm?"

"I'm sorry for my rudeness earlier. I had no right to take my frustration out on you."

"No problem, Iruka. Hard day at the Academy?"

"Not any worse then when Naruto was there."

"Then why so stressed?"

Iruka raised an eyebrow at the jounin. "When is the teacher of hyper-untrained-ninja-children-who-carry-sharp-pointy-objects-on-their-persons not stressed?"

"Point."

Silence settled over the two again.

"Hatake-san?"

"Sensei, we're both mature adults. My name isn't Hatake, it's Kakashi. Hatake-san makes me sound old. Hell, I don't even let my students call me 'Hatake-san'."

Kakashi received a glare from the teacher for swearing. "Fine. Kakashi-san, then. Why have you been stalking me?" Kakashi noted the emphasis on 'stalking'.

"I haven't been stalking you."

"Then what do you call it?"

"Follo…errrr. Observing. Gathering information."

Iruka didn't look impressed.

Kakashi sighed. "Actually, I've been wanting to talk to you about my team."

"Oh?" Iruka looked thoughtful. "Well, we're nearly at my house, why don't we talk over some tea?"

"Sounds fine."

---------

When Iruka opened the side door of his house, Kakashi found that it opened on to a small entrance way. Along the wall on the left of the door was a row of hooks, on one of which Iruka placed his vest before slipping out of his shoes. He placed them neatly along one of the walls before climbing the few stairs to the rest of the house, motioning Kakashi to follow his example. Looking through a smaller room at the top of the stairs –'likely a study, from the number of books in it' – Kakashi could see a set of steps leading to the second floor, which likely contained any bedrooms and personal rooms of the house.

Turning around the corner to follow Iruka, Kakashi's sight was immediately drawn to the picture window in the living room. Outside of the window stood two trees, their branches intertwined above the window, creating a beautiful frame. The one on the left was an old maple tree it's branches full of unopened leaf buds. On the right stood a sakura tree, which was in the stage just after it bloomed. Some of the first fallen flowers had settled on a worn stone path that led around the pond in the center of the yard. Flashes of golden-orange and white told Kakashi that koi fish lived in the water.

A low, stone wall ran along the left side of the yard facing the forest, but that melded into a high wooden fence facing the neighbors on the right side. Climbing the fence was ivy, and the gardens below the fence were just starting to show the first of their summer colors. The land along the stonewall, however, was wild. It had been left to grow as it pleased, allowing the forest to start taking it over, and in places you couldn't see the wall for the overgrowth. Behind it, you could see the forest, and Kakashi could only guess the number of animals one might see from the bench under the trees.

One side of the yard was a complete opposite from the other. The right was well maintained and cared for, while the left was allowed to run uncut with no fear of interruption for human hands. Near polar opposites, but they still melted together wonderfully in the middle.

Iruka noticed his guests' examination, and laughed softly as he came to stand by Kakashi in front of the window. "My parents used to call it the Garden of Life as a joke, since it was filled with so many memories of their life. They loved telling people the story, and now I keep on telling. Care to hear?"

Kakashi's visible eye curved to show his interest. Iruka grinned, "When they were kids they met through helping out the old man who lived here. He told them once to take his backyard and do what they would with it. My mother took the left side and my father took the right. It took them three summers to finish the stone wall and wooden fence. When they finished that they transplanted the maple and the sakura trees from each of their yards. The next summer my dad asked my mom out on her fifteenth birthday. Ojiisan, as they'd come to call the old man, was delighted to hear that they were in love. They came over more and more frequently to work on their gardens. After they had finished planting most of the yard, Ojiisan suggested that they put in a little pond, with some koifish. They did.

"About four years after their first date my father proposed to my mom while they were sitting next to the pond. With Ojiisan's permission, they held their wedding in this garden, under the blooming sakura tree. They laughed at Ojiisan's wedding present, a trowel and a rake.

"Two years after that, my parents found out that my mom was pregnant, with me. The news arrived when they were talking to Ojiisan in the garden. Ojiisan smiled, and gave them their real wedding gift; this house. They said he had said that he wasn't going to last much longer, and it would be a shame to leave the house and garden to someone who wouldn't care for the garden as they did. He died a week after I was born. My mom found him dead on the bench near the pond when she came home from work one day. She said she thought at first he was resting like he always did, with me asleep in his arms. It wasn't until she came to wake us up that she realized he was gone. She always said that his last moments in life must have been his happiest; for his smile was one of the largest she'd ever seen. He'd never had children of his own, since his wife died a few years after their marriage, and he'd never remarried. Dad told me that Ojiisan said he'd found his children in my mom and dad, and had died with his grandson, me, in his arms. Ojiisan was buried between the two trees that he's watched grow alongside his children. I grew up in this garden, filling it with even more memories for my parents," Iruka paused, smiling. "And for myself. My dad set up dummies in the center and helped me practice my ninjutsu. Mom taught me to paint out there, and it's always been a safe haven for me. After the Kyuubi's attack, Sandaime and a couple of my parents close friends helped me to bury the bodies of my parents under their partners tree. My father lies beneath the maple, my mother beneath the sakura, with Ojiisan between them." Iruka stopped talking at this point.

"And so it ends?" Kakashi questioned, wanting more information, but not wanting to be rude.

"No, a story never really ends you know. It just has a different tone added to it. After the attack from the Kyuubi, I came here more and more. I came to talk to my parents and to the grandfather I can't remember. I'd come and keep my dad's flowerbeds in good condition, weeding and replanting. I added my own touches. But it was later that the garden actually became a garden again." He smiled a Kakashi. "You know, a garden isn't really a garden without love and laughter in it."

"When did it become a garden again?"

"When Naruto found it."

to be continued ...
There's the chapter. Please don't hurt me for rambling, 'cause I know i did that.

It was brought to my attention that spacing doesn't always work in the chapters. If anyone else is being annoyed by that I'm sorry. I try to go through and get rid of any errors that may pop up, but I'm sure more sneak by. I'm really sorry.

Thank you to everyone who's reviewed,or added this fic/me to any alertsor communities.

On that note, to those of you who have added this to your communities, I've gone and look at the communitesit's in and thank you.I noticed that some ofyou don't want to put any yaoi (slash) fics in, so just as awarning ... yaoi might end up finding it's way into this fic. I have to admit I am a yaoi fangirl but I'm really trying to stear clear of any hint of romance (herterosexual or homosexual) between main charecters, but I near garentee that it will slip in as I'm writting. I hope this won't push anyone away, but for any annoyance in the future, I'm sorry and I'm trying to avoid ruining the fic by putting in badly written romance of any kind.

Also, this hasn't happened but please don't write long reviews in another language. I speak English as my first language. I know some Spanish, like three words of French and German witha dash of Japense but not enough to read long reviews written in those laguages. Writting short simple reviewsIshould be able to handle, so please give me the courtesy of writing longer reviews in the laguage I know best, English. I want to be able to read and understand the reviews!

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