TWO MONTHS LATER...
"How have you been sleeping lately?" Yoko peered at Sakura from over the top of her half-moon spectacles. In her first counselling session, Sakura had felt exposed by that gaze. Now, she knew there was no judgment in those eyes.
"I still get the occasional bad dream, but I've started sleeping through the night instead of breaking into Kakashi's house and asking him weird questions." She laughed self-consciously.
"That's great. When we last spoke," Yoko's eyes flicked to the open notebook resting in her lap, "you said that you were worried about leaning on Kakashi-san too much. It sounds like you've been working on that."
"He's still my…" best friend? Hero? Reason for getting up in the morning? "...person. But now that my other friends understand everything, it's easier to talk to them without feeling like they're judging me."
Yoko smiled, and jotted something down in her usual coded scrawl. "Speaking of talking to people, have you gone to see Sasuke-kun yet?"
The leather chair suddenly felt too small. "Not yet," Sakura shifted uncomfortably. "It's still pretty low on my to-do list; somewhere after 'buy clothes that I don't hate'' and 'go an entire day without forgetting I'm still a teenager.' I thought it might be best to wait until the new year at this point."
Yoko's expression remained neutral. "New Year's, then. How about your training? Last session we talked about the possibility of your returning to active duty." She reached for a stack of papers on the desk. "I have the clearance forms right here if you're ready?"
Sakura hesitated. "Physically, I'm back at my peak; Kakashi's been helping me train. But it still feels weird to think of myself as an active-duty kunoichi, let alone back at chuunin level. I'd hardly know where to start."
Yoko rifled through the papers, handing one to Sakura. "There will be a new intake period for Jounin prep classes in the new year. When they start getting too easy, you'll know it's time to take the test."
There were classes for medicine, taijutsu, ninjutsu, and half a dozen different types of weapon. Sakura's gaze lingered on the last class: genjutsu.
"You're right; I can't put this off forever."
Kakashi stood in the middle of training ground three, trying to calm his breathing and focus on the landscape. Between Sakura's announcement that she would be returning to active duty and Tsunade's ominous request that he come see her 'as soon as convenient,' his thoughts were swirling faster than the flurries of snow in the air.
He heard a tell-tale crunch from his six o'clock, and threw himself to the side just in time. A barrage of snowballs passed over his head, but they were just a distraction. The real threat came from below, in the form of a boot aimed at his kidney.
He twisted to the side, grabbing Sakura's foot and using its momentum to drag the rest of her out of the snowbank she had concealed herself in. She sprang up easily, white powder falling from her hair as she broke from his grasp and moved in for a left hook.
Her right flank was left open, and Kakashi went for the hit a split second before he realised he'd fallen for a feint. His fist soared straight past her body, and with a cry of triumph Sakura grabbed the back of his neck and pushed him face-first into the snow.
"I win!" She crowed, before stepping back and allowing him to get free.
"Good job with the feint," Kakashi told her. "You took the problems I'd pointed out in our last match and used them to trick me." They made the Seal of Reconciliation and began brushing themselves off.
"Hey Kakashi?" Sakura's former glee had turned to something more contemplative. "Can I ask a favour?"
Kakashi cocked his head to the side. "What's up? Do you want to go again? Because I think I'd need to warm up a bit first." He rubbed his hands together for emphasis.
Sakura shook her head. "Not another sparring match. I was actually hoping we could go over some genjutsu."
Kakashi could sense the hesitation in her voice. "Is this about your return to active duty?"
She nodded. "That, and the classes I'll be starting after New Year's. I know there's a good chance I'll have to break out of a genjutsu again, and, well," she blushed, glancing at him through her lashes, "I wanted the first time to be with someone I trusted."
Kakashi hoped the flush of colour on his own cheeks could be chalked up to the cold and not his Jiraya-corrupted mind reacting to her particular choice of words. He coughed delicately. "You want me to give you genjutsu training?"
"I just want to do it a few times with you before I start the classes."
It was a bad idea; Kakashi didn't want to get into Sakura's head and he certainly didn't want her in his. But she was trusting him, and he owed her that trust. "Alright" he sighed, and Sakura's face lit up.
"Thanks! Just think, soon we'll both be jounin."
Kakashi made a noncommittal noise. Something about the way that sounded coming out of Sakura's mouth gave him a pinch of anxiety.
"Do you want to start now?"
She nodded. "I'm ready."
"You might want to start sitting down for this. It'll be easier on you if you collapse."
Sakura scoffed, moving into a horse stance. "I'm not gonna collapse over a basic genjutsu. Besides," she kicked at the snow, "I'm wet enough as it is."
"I'm going to use a genjutsu that will make you think you're under attack," he told her. "You must stay focused on the fact that it's just an illusion. Try not to react at all unless it's to release yourself."
"Wait!" Sakura threw up her hands. "Um, before you start, could you remove your mask?"
Wordlessly, he tugged the fabric down to his neck. Sakura gazed at his bare face for a moment, then nodded.
"Okay."
He formed the seals quickly, throwing Sakura into an illusion that would feel like being dragged under a quicksand jutsu. She gasped, staggering in place. With a soft whumph, her body fell backwards onto the snow, and Kakashi dropped the illusion.
She didn't immediately rise, and Kakashi stepped forward guiltily. "I thought it might have been a little too much," he began, "but it's easier to train against something that promotes a strong physical reaction, like being smothered."
Sakura's lips parted, but no sound came out. Shit.
The snow crunched under Kakashi's feet as he raced to her side, lifting her out of the snow and inspecting her. She gazed up at him, a dazed expression on her face.
"Are you alright?" He asked, voice strained with the latent tension of finding himself back in this position. It hadn't even been that strong a genjutsu…
To his surprise, Sakura giggled.
He frowned, waiting for her to reveal it was all a fake out. "What's so funny?" he asked, and Sakura shook her head.
"Don't know."
"The snow is pretty soft, so hopefully we can rule out concussion." Kakashi used his free hand to gently feel the back of her head. "Does that hurt?"
"Mmm," Sakura leaned into his touch, gazing up at him with a lopsided smile. "You're very handsome, you know that?"
There was no hiding his blush this time, which prompted another bout of giggles from Sakura. "What's gotten into you?" he muttered, intercepting her hand as it reached out to touch his face.
"Dunno." She grinned through chattering teeth.
He lifted her up off the cold snow. "Do you think you can use a diagnostic jutsu on yourself?"
Sakura rolled her eyes. "Of course I can, because I'm awesome at that." She paused, appearing to concentrate as she clung unsteadily to his arm. "Oh."
"What is it?"
"I've been poisoned."
"By what?!" Kakashi cried, and Sakura cackled.
"Oxygen."
"Oxygen?"
"Yep! My mind thought it was drowning again, so it oxygenated my blood. But I wasn't, so bam, double the oxygen."
Kakashi raked his hands through his hair. "I shouldn't have started with asphyxiation," he said, voice strained. "I'm sorry Sakura, that was cruel of me."
"No, it was useful," she mumbled through lips that had begun to twitch. "Turns out my body's fail-safes are actually super exploitable. Listen, can you take me to hospital? We have to fix this before I pass out or have a seizure, and right now I'm kind of…" she gestured to herself with a giggle.
"Right. Of course." He couldn't remember the last time Sakura had needed to go to the hospital; her body was so capable of healing itself that it never seemed necessary. Sweeping her up into his arms, he transported her via teleportation jutsu for the second time in as many months.
The desk staff at Konoha hospital seemed far less perturbed than the situation seemed to call for, in Kakashi's opinion. Granted, he had caused quite the scene, striding in with Sakura giggling in his arms. He'd called for a medic immediately, but the man and woman at the front desk simply raised their brows.
"What happened to Sakura-san?" The woman pointed at the figure in his arms. Sakura waved back drunkenly, and Kakashi had to adjust his grip to keep her from falling.
The male desk attendant laughed, and Kakashi glared at him. "She's got oxygen poisoning. She said she might pass out or have a seizure if it wasn't treated quickly." Half the hospital waiting room was watching them now, a pair of female orderlies whispering something behind their hands. He wanted to scream at them all for being so slow to react.
The desk attendants glanced at one another. "Fetch a gurney," the woman told the man, before coming around the side of the desk to inspect Sakura. "I guess that explains why she couldn't just do it herself," the woman mused, trying to reach for Sakura's pulse while Sakura batted her away with shaking hands. "She's in no state to mould chakra."
Sakura giggled brokenly, before closing her eyes and curling into Kakashi's shoulder. "Tired," she muttered.
The gurney arrived. Kakashi lowered Sakura onto it, and the male attendant wheeled her towards the cream double doors at the end of the room.
Kakashi went to follow, but the female attendant threw her arm out to stop him just as Sakura disappeared through the doors and out of sight.
He glared down at the woman. "What?"
"Are you family?"
He gaped down at her. "How many years have I been avoiding this place, and now the one time I actually want to go in, you won't let me?"
She shrugged. "Rules are rules. Now what is your relationship to the patient?"
"I'm...her teacher. Is that good enough?"
The woman shook her head. "Listen pretty boy, I don't care if you're the Hokage. If you're not her father, brother or husband, then you can come back during visiting hours."
The whispering orderlies were still staring, and he overheard one of them sigh.
"That was like something out of a movie!"
Fists clenched, Kakashi turned and stalked back out of the hospital. It was only when a blast of frigid winter air hit his face that he realised his mask was still down.
It was just getting dark by the time Sakura got back from the hospital. She knocked on Kakashi's door before reaching for the handle to let herself in like normal, but for the first time since they had become neighbours, the handle wouldn't budge.
After several seconds of waiting in the corridor, the door finally clicked open. She would have walked in and headed for her usual place on Kakashi's couch, but Kakashi himself stood in the entrance, blocking her path. His mask was up and it was hard to read his expression in the dim light.
"Hey," she said, feeling off-balance. "Um, I just came back from the hospital. I wanted to let you know I'm fine now, seeing as you didn't come back to visit me." She tried and failed to keep the reproach from her voice.
"That was fast," Kakashi remarked. "I thought they'd keep you overnight at least."
"Yeah," she rubbed the short hair at the back of her head. "It was a simple enough fix, I was just too loopy to do it myself. Listen," she began, "I'm sorry about them kicking you out like that. Kaori likes to tease, but she's harmless really."
"It's fine," Kakashi said. "I had some stuff to take care of anyway."
"Oh?" Sakura glanced pointedly at the sliver of apartment that was visible through the door, and Kakashi finally seemed to take the hint.
"Yeah, Tsunade mentioned that she wanted to see me about something," he said as he pushed the door further open and stepped back to let her in.
Sakura stepped inside, but instead of flopping onto the couch or raiding his fridge she remained standing, hovering in the living room. "What did she want?"
"Among other things? Team Kakashi has a B-rank mission tomorrow. Recon at an outpost that's gone dark."
"Wow," Sakura said, "Less than a day of active duty and I've already got a mission."
"Actually, I told Tsunade you might not be up to it."
"You what?" Sakura spluttered. "Why?!"
"Because you were just in the hospital?" Kakashi raised his brow. "Most people can't get cleared for missions so soon after being discharged."
"Never stopped you before."
He gave a short exhale of laughter. "Fine, fine. But don't forget," his masked face grew serious, "this means we're officially back to being captain and subordinate."
"We can't be friends anymore?" An all-too familiar feeling of rejection squeezed at Sakura's heart.
"We're still friends," Kakashi assured her, taking a hasty step forward. They looked at one another, standing in his living room, and Sakura could tell he was picking up on the sudden awkwardness between them. "It's just...complicated, isn't it?" he said softly.
"Not to me." Sakura closed the distance between them. She had meant it as a gesture of defiance, a defence of their current friendship against those who only knew their past history. But now that she was actually standing so close, all she could think about was the Kakashi in her dream asking if she could be happy with him.
Her gaze slid off the real Kakashi and landed on the door behind him. "Well, if we have a mission tomorrow then I guess I should probably turn in."
"Good idea," Kakashi said, and Sakura couldn't hear anything in his voice that suggested he had intuited her thoughts. "We're meeting at 0700 at the A-n gates. Naruto and Sai already know."
"See you then...Captain."