Pakkun is the only emotionally-stable adult here.

WARNINGS FOR: discussions of canon child/teen death (Rin and Shisui), navel-gazing philosophy about the nature of relationships you don't remember, references to inappropriate minor/adult relationships (as a result of misunderstandings, not actual intent), and people bullying their friends into self-care

Kakashi gets them to the hospital courtyard, and then hesitates. It's not entirely empty, but the only people there are civilians, and Kakashi doesn't expect them to recognize Rin.

"Do you need to sit down again?" Rin asks.

Yeah.

He does.

He collapses on a bench, and puts his face in his hands. Rin's tiny form hops up next to him, and wraps her arms around him as best she can.

Rin is alive. Shisui is alive. Obito is probably going to make better choices.

Itachi was given highly-sensitive information that he's hopefully going to use for good.

He lets his leg bounce, taking weight off it before he jostles his own head with the motion. "This entire situation is a mess."

"Yeah," Rin sighs. She kicks her legs, sandals just barely brushing the cement below. "It is."

Kakashi looks over at her, and something in his chest finally, finally untwists without him having to force it.

She's alive.

She's alive.

He wraps her in a hug, so sudden that she squeaks, and pulls her close.

Rin is alive.

She's in his arms, and she's tiny, and she's alive.

It's absolutely terrifying and the best news he's gotten in his life.

"I missed you," he says, and tries to put as much feeling as he can into the words, to the sister-that-wasn't.

"I'm sorry you had to go through so much alone," Rin says. "That part wasn't my fault, we can blame all that on Zetsu, but…"

She seems to drop all pretense of normality and just crawls onto his lap like a child to hug him better.

She's smaller than Juugo and Shin. About the same size as Sai.

Damn it, she's still just a kid.

"We'll talk about it later," he promises. He thinks he's supposed to be the adult in this situation.

Is she a child still? In body, perhaps, but in mind? Legally, definitely. Would she be upset if he told her that she shouldn't have to take care of him, because he's got ten years on her now, and she shouldn't have to worry about his mental health?

She shouldn't have to no matter what, because as traumatizing as all this is for Kakashi, 'died and got brought back to life in a way that may have incidentally killed the genuinely good person that did it' is probably on the same level for Rin.

"Are you okay?" he asks.

"I've spent the past twenty years coming to terms with my death," she tells him. "I wasn't necessarily aware of all of it, just patches, because death is… complicated. I don't remember much of the between place, really, so it doesn't really add more than a year or two, mentally, but… Kakashi-kun, the only thing I regretted was that I made you kill me. Everything else was out of my control, beyond my skills or reach or—or was being manipulated by this Zetsu person, but that, that, was all on me, and I haven't forgiven myself for that night any more than you have."

"Mm," Kakashi says, and Rin presses the top of her head into his neck, just like an actual kid. He rubs a hand across her upper arm, and his mind spins off into some half-hearted attempt at poetry about how the summer air can't hope to warm a body chilled by death for this long. He's not very good at poetry, so he goes on a different angle instead. "Team Minato just ended up a messed-up bunch, didn't we?"

"Yeah," Rin says, soft and finally letting herself sound as broken as they both had, back when Obito was dead to the world, and Sensei had just gotten promoted while his wife was newly pregnant, and it was nothing but the two of them against the rising tide of grief. "But we can fix it. There's time, now."

They sit like that for a while, and then Rin asks, "So, should I be calling you Kakashi-nii now?"

He blanches. "No."

"Senpai?"

"No."

"Kakashi-ji."

"Rin, no."

She giggles behind her hands, the very picture of an innocent teenager, and he swears to himself that for all he couldn't protect her before, he'll do it now. He'll do whatever it takes, because the universe—or, well, dead, crazy Sasuke from the future, apparently—saw fit to give him back a member of the family he'd thought lost forever, and he's never going to let her go again.

"Come on," Rin says, hopping off of Kakashi and letting Pakkun jump to the ground. She takes Kakashi's hand and smiles up at him. "Let's go see Sakura-chan."

#

Kakashi lets himself into the room, Rin just behind him. Nobody really stops him, because for all that the hospital is Sakura's territory, Kanna's got just enough of the right credentials to run her wife's treatment until Tsunade shows up. That means she's got authority over the room, and nobody's going to override it. If Kanna doesn't object to Kakashi coming in, he's clear.

There's an empty chair on the other side of the bed. Just one.

He takes it, right across from Kanna, and Rin retakes her position from earlier.

Kanna has Sakura's hand in her own, eyes sightlessly fixed on some point beyond the wrist. She doesn't acknowledge them at all.

He waits.

"Boss?" Pakkun asks.

Kakashi shakes his head.

They wait.

Kanna finally stirs, looking up from whatever she's doing. There are bags under her eyes, far deeper than there should be just an hour or two after the incident in the cave. She's pale, too, and Kakashi's willing to bet that the loss of chakra and blood has stripped a few pounds from her frame.

"You look like shit," he offers.

Kanna rolls her eyes. With a smirk, she says, "Pot, meet kettle."

Rin laughs softly, and Kanna's eyes drift down to her. She grimaces. "I'll call for another chair."

"You don't have to," Kakashi protests.

"Yeah, no," Kanna says. She shakes her head. "Listen, if you were the same age, or she was way younger than she is, nobody would blink twice. But a mid-teens girl sitting on the lap of a grown-ass man that regularly reads porn in public is probably going to get people calling for an investigation, no matter how platonic it actually is."

Fair.

He hates to admit it, but fair.

"You can puppy pile with the kids later," Kanna offers. "Hana and Shin are about your outward age, Rin, and with that many people, it's not going to actually turn heads to know that us grown-ups get involved."

"I'm not a real grown-up," Kakashi immediately says. "Your mini-me told me."

Kanna gives him a stink-eye.

Rin slides off and sits on the floor. There's an empty bed to their sides, but Rin's too much of a medic to sit on there in her dirty clothes.

Kanna eyes them all for a moment, and then sighs. "I can't talk about the details here. Too much risk."

Kakashi nods. That's expected.

"For what it's worth," she says carefully, "I am sorry that lying to you was necessary. I only got to know you since we moved to Konoha—"

Since the time travel.

"—but you've been very important to Sakura for a long time," Kanna says. "And she fretted about building some sort of connection with you."

Kakashi looks down at the woman in the bed. She looks serene.

"I'm not…" he trails off, unable to word it in a way that will get the idea across without sharing too-risky information. "I don't know how to be what she wants me to be."

"You mean yourself?" Kanna asks.

Kakashi looks at her.

"We knew what we were getting into," Kanna says, leaning forward and fixing him with an even stare. "We never planned on anyone having the relationship we wanted with them, except each other, and Kurama. Every damn step was a risk, okay? We left behind everything knowing that. We never expected anything from you but a chance, and maybe help with protecting Naruto. We hid things about our backgrounds, yes, but believe me when I say that Sakura was ecstatic with building a real friendship with you."

"And you?" Kakashi asks, because this is a whole lot of emotion that he does not feel equipped to handle.

"Eh, I could take you or leave you," Kanna says, utterly dismissive. "You're kind of annoying."

It is, technically, easier with Kanna. She's just admitted that they were never close, in the alternate future. Friends of friends, given her relationship with Sakura. He's also interacted enough with Kanna and Karin that, even with the new info, they feel like separate people, still.

"Were you like her?" Kakashi asks, unable to help himself. "Karin, I mean. When you were her age."

She blinks slowly at him, like she knows exactly what he's trying to say. "No. Not at all. Kusa was… I already told you what they did. I didn't get out of that situation until I was almost fourteen. I had a bit of a temper, but most of it was tamped down just to survive. I was… meek. Shy, for my own protection. I stayed out of trouble, and then I got dumped headfirst into a village that rivaled Kiri for unnecessary bloodshed in the pursuit of bullshit, and I had to toughen up or die trying."

"And Karin saw you and went 'oh, I can be that' and just went for it?" Kakashi summarizes.

"Less than a week after we got to Konoha, she'd basically done a full 180," Kanna confirms. She laughs at that, a little. "I keep telling her I'm not actually someone to emulate, but she points out that I got to marry Sakura and can fight a bijuu bare-handed if I want to, so clearly I did okay."

"It's true," Kakashi says. He feels a slight pressure against his thigh, and finds that Rin has decided he makes for a good pillow. Maybe being brought back to life tires a person out. He puts a hand on her head, and brushes his thumb down the way he would with one of his dogs, or maybe even the kids. He looks up again and meets Kanna's eyes. "So, for the most part, you and I are basically where we were before today happened."

Kanna shrugs. "I mean, there's a handful of things to talk about, but yeah. There isn't some deep and meaningful history that you miraculously don't remember, any more than you with, I dunno, Iruka?"

Kakashi barely knows Iruka beyond 'that one teacher that Naruto is inordinately fond of' and a handful of random facts to do with his field skills. They've taken one, maybe two missions together. Kakashi can comfortably say that he knows Umino Iruka about as well as he knows any Konoha shinobi in passing.

"I can work with that," he says. "Whereas Sakura…"

"Her, you're going to have to talk to," Kanna says. Severity sharpens her tone. "I'm not going to lie to you. There's a history you don't know about here, and it's impacted how and why and when she's let herself get close to you. She was a lot more cut up about the secrets than I was, and while I can't force you to do anything, I'd like to ask you to keep in mind that she cares about you more than anyone in Konoha short of me and the kids."

Kakashi almost asks about Tsunade, about Haruno-chan's parents, about Shizune.

He doesn't.

"I'll talk to her," he promises instead. "Because… I don't want to lose this friendship either. I care a lot about both of you, but I don't… I don't know. It's a lot to process."

Kanna nods.

None of this surprises her.

"Kurama-sama said that the issue might be fuuinjutsu backlash," Rin says quietly. "What do you think?"

Kanna grimaces. "I know more about taking people apart and changing them than about actually fixing them. If you tell me a person needs a lower magnesium concentration in their blood and the usual medication is setting off MCAS, I can break down a solution. If you tell me a person lost an arm, well, I've got a brute force solution to that too, if I like them enough. Taking a look at the cells and figuring out what's wrong is… harder."

Rin's brow furrowed. "But you're listed as…"

"I'm not a medic, kid," Kanna sighed. "Not the ways Sakura is. Diagnoses are beyond me for more complicated stuff, or I can figure out what's happening, but not why, or I don't have the right education to recognize how it links to past instances of the same thing. I'm a field medic, sure, and a damn good medical researcher, but I'm not actually a doctor. I can tell you that her chakra is too low, that her coils are sore, that there's a weird feeling to her eyes, but I'm not about to go in and poke her nerves or spinal column with my chakra. I know where the problem is, but actually figuring out what the problem is in a context that means something? Yeah, no. Waiting on Tsunade for that."

"You don't want to mess things up more than they already are," Kakashi surmises.

"Would you risk it?" Kanna asks. She doesn't wait for an answer. "If Tsunade gives the all-clear, then we're going to move on and get Inoichi involved. I want to rule out primarily medical causes first, then get a look at mental plane, since… well, Sharingan."

Kakashi considers that for a moment. "Is there a chance that a Hyūga could help?"

"Not much they can see that I can't sense," Kanna says. "But I'm going to defer to Tsunade on that one."

"Fair," Kakashi says. They sit in silence for a bit, and Kakashi lets his mind wander.

He should eat something. The trail mix was a good stopgap, but he still needed something more, right? And Rin hadn't eaten more than the handful of bites that Tenzō had passed her of his ration bar.

"Have you eaten?" Kakashi asks.

Kanna blinks at him. "Oh. Shit."

That answered that.

"Right," Kakashi says, getting to his feet. "What works best for you? After something like this?"

"Protein and carbs," Kanna immediately says. "And iron. Right now I need to regain fat, muscle, and blood."

"Anko's probably going to be here with the kids soon," Kakashi says. "Should I just… get ramen for everyone? That's filling. It's got plenty of meat and carbohydrates. I know their tastes."

"They're not going to be allowed in here for long," Kanna points out. "But sure. Oh, get Shio for Anko."

"Right," Kakashi says. He looks down at Rin, and hesitates.

She shrugs. "I probably shouldn't go out into town yet. Can you get me one of the Kushina specials, if he still does them?"

Kakashi swallows. "Right. Yeah, of course."

"Give it a second," Kanna says. She digs a notebook out of her pocket, and starts scribbling. "Just so we have a record. The three of us, five Uzumaki kids, Sasuke, Anko. I can feel Shisui getting herded this way by Jiraiya, so let's add them since I'm pretty sure, now that I think about it, that Tsunade's going to insist on full physicals for Rin and Shisui. Tsunade and Shizune are still… two hours out? Yeah. Two hours, give or take. So we can worry about them and Tenzō later."

"Kurama," Rin adds. "Unless he doesn't eat?"

"He does," Kanna says. She tilts her head. "And he's… interested. Okay. I'll add him to the list. Kakashi, I'm going to spot you the cash because this is a ludicrous amount of people to feed and half of them are mine, at least by quantity of ramen. I think the Hokage might be coming directly here to handle the Sasuke situation, so… should we get some for him, too?"

Kakashi blinks.

"Sure?"

Kanna finishes the list with a flourish, digs out a wad of notes, and passes them to Kakashi. "Here you go."

It's a long list, with favorites written down for anyone Kanna knows well enough, and quantities. Most have one bowl listed. Jiraiya, at his size, has three, and Kanna's recovery necessitates the same. Naruto has six, plus appetizers.

Kakashi isn't actually surprised, but this does in fact justify Kanna's point about half the food being her people.

"I'll be back… well, not soon, but when I get all of this," Kakashi promises.

He goes out the window, and it's only mostly habit.

#

Kakashi gets back faster than anticipated. Apparently, Teuchi has a sixth sense for when huge ramen orders are coming up, and he barely blinks when Kakashi hands over a list. He's scribbled out some of the names, but the Uzumaki are still bright and clear on there.

"Naruto got to pick dinner?" Teuchi asks wryly.

Kakashi sighs. "I wish it were that simple."

Teuchi doesn't ask him to elaborate, taking the vagueness for the evasion it is.

So the ramen is made, packaged, and handed over in record time, and Kakashi leaves a hefty tip of his own money for the man. It's deserved. Getting back to the Hospital with over twenty bowls of ramen is not an easy task, either, but Kakashi has summons that are more than willing to help out, and he's good at balancing.

It would be an interesting challenge with Gai, maybe. He'll consider it another time.

He makes it back before the kids show up.

"Here we go," Kakashi says, handing Kanna a small stack of bowls, and Rin her own, single bowl. Shisui and Jiraiya are already in the room, and Kurama's re-manifested at some point since Kakashi left.

Actually, hadn't Kakashi had the externalization anchor scroll in his pocket when he left the tower? Kurama must have disappeared pretty soon after that.

Well, Kanna's here, so it doesn't matter. Kakashi hands out more ramen to the bijuu, the sage, and the dead man.

His life is so damn weird these days.

"Watch out, you're eating as fast as the brat," Jiraiya mutters.

Kanna flips him off.

"Please don't choke," Jiraiya says. "I don't want to explain to your wife why you died in the middle of a hospital."

Kanna flips him off, but with emphasis this time.

Jiraiya looks at the sky with an expression best described as 'pleading.'

Kanna swallows, and immediately says, "I'm not going to die of a ramen overdose."

The very idea seems to disgust her.

"Jiraiya's just a grumpy old man who doesn't want to admit he cares about you," Kakashi says. "As like… a cousin-in-law? Maybe? Minato was his heir originally, so Kushina was functionally like a daughter-in-law, and you're some undefined degree of cousin to her. So. Cousin-in-law?"

"You'd best stop talking," Kurama advises.

Kakashi shrugs and goes back to hunting down opportunities to eat without showing his face.

"We should get T-shirts that say 'dead teens club,'" Shisui suddenly says, eyes on Rin.

She blinks at him. "Teen zombies is better."

Kakashi has no idea why he thought she'd be sensible about this.

"We'll workshop," Shisui promises.

"I feel like 'dead teens club' would be potentially triggering to, like, a fuckton of people," Kanna comments.

"Yeah, that's why 'teen zombies' is better," Rin says.

Well. Well, yes, but.

"You're probably going to be doing therapy together," Kanna points out. "Isn't that kind of the same thing?"

Shisui blinks at her. "I don't need therapy."

Kakashi doubles over laughing. It's probably not healthy. He can't help it.

"Kid," he says, standing up and wiping away a tear. "You just came back from the dead. I already heard what went down to make you dead in the first place. You need therapy as much as I do."

"And that's saying something," Kurama mutters. Several people look at him, and he raises an eyebrow. "If any of you suggest that human psychology applies to a millennium-old chakra beast, I'm going to throw you out the window."

Shisui pouts. "I don't need therapy. I just did what I did because there was no other option."

"If Kakashi thinks you need therapy," Jiraiya says, "Then you need therapy. You're former ANBU, how can you even think that you don't? You know you need, at minimum, a full psych eval."

"I was dead, not tortured!"

"Sage save me," Kakashi mutters. He draws himself up straight. "Shisui, as your former ANBU captain—"

"Oh, you are not pulling this shit."

"As your former ANBU captain," Kakashi repeats, "I am saying that you should have been receiving more frequent therapy than you did prior to your death. If you plan to reenter ANBU, I will personally ensure that you go to therapy at least once a month."

"But—but taichou, you can't!"

Kakashi considers his reticence for a moment. "Were your psych evals with Root before?"

"I think so, but—"

"Yeah, no, let's make that twice a month, whether you join ANBU or not," Kakashi says. "Danzō's dead, we don't have to worry about Root, and you are getting therapy. Do you understand?"

"I don—"

"Do you understand, agent?" Kakashi snaps, and Shisui stiffens into as close an approximation of ANBU-attention as he can while holding a bowl of ramen.

He's silent for a moment, and then relaxes. He slumps against Jiraiya, "Taichou, you know I hate it when you use captain voice."

"And you know I hate it when subordinates hide injuries that need tending. Mental counts."

Rin makes a small noise. "Did you stop hiding your injuries, Kakashi?"

Kanna chokes on her ramen, and then collapses into snickers.

Kakashi stares at her, nonplussed. He answers Rin. "I'm definitely better at it than I used to be."

Taking pity on the assembled unknowing, Kurama says, "Kakashi has repeatedly broken into the house to get medical attention directly from Sakura."

"In my defense," Kakashi says, over Shisui's sudden laughter. "In my defense, I was dealing with some severe poisoning that caused too much paranoia for the hospital on one occasion, and had used an emergency reverse-summoning on the other. I did not control where the reverse summoning took me."

"We had to replace the cupboards," Kanna bemoans. "Because he bled all over them and we couldn't get the stains out."

Kakashi pouts.

Shisui laughs harder.

"Oi," Jiraiya says, poking at him. "Kid. We literally just got you back, you can't go and die on us because you laughed too hard. That would be more pathetic than Uzumaki dying on ramen."

"Get fucked," Kanna drawls.

"I'd lo—no, nope, not around you," Jiraiya cuts himself off and turns back to Shisui, who is now on his knees and clutching his stomach. "Kid. Kid. Come on."

"Was he… always like this?" Rin asks.

"No," Kakashi says. He tilts his head and watches as Jiraiya scruffs Shisui like a cat. The kid keeps laughing, possibly harder, and Jiraiya doesn't seem to know what to do with that. He looks at Kanna, which nets precisely zero results, and then turns and shoves one gangly, hysteric teenager at Kurama.

"The hell?" Kurama demands, but catches Shisui mid-stumble and pulls him into a hug that seems less about affection and more about pressure. Kurama glares at Jiraiya over Shisui's shoulder—barely, because Shisui's tall for his age of death, and Kurama is decidedly average in height—and says, "Focus, kid."

Shisui's laughter turns to sobs, and then hiccups, and finally just shuddering, shaky breaths.

It's incredibly awkward to watch.

"So," Kurama says. "That was not a funny enough joke for that response."

"Yep," Shisui stutters. "I, uh, I might. Be wrong."

"About needing therapy?" Kurama asks. "Because yeah. Dead wrong. Quite literally. We're shoving you at whatever bastard in the psych department is unlucky enough to deal with S-rank secrets."

Shisui flinches. "Wouldn't have taken the Kyuubi for a dad type."

"I'm almost a thousand years old. Humans are basically all weird, hairless babies, as far as I'm concerned," Kurama grunts. "You, you're still adolescent, that's basically still a fetus."

"Rude," Shisui says. "Hey, hey taichou, I think dying made me a bit broken."

"Yeah," Kakashi says, because he can't think of a better response. "That happens sometimes."

Shisui whines, like he kind of wants to laugh again, and then collapses bonelessly against Kurama. This is a feat, considering he hadn't exactly been not collapsed in the first place. "You're good at this, Kyuubi-sama. Am I being spiritually adopted? Is that what's happening. I vibe with that. It's confusing, because I've legally been an adult since I was like eight, but I can work with it."

Kurama rolls his eyes. Tetchy bastard. He pats Shisui on the back. "Do I look like an Uchiha to you? Fuck no. I picked my idiots and they don't have magic eyes, just chakra reserves and voices bigger than one of Shukaku's belches. I'm doing this because, for some fucking reason, I'm the closest thing this room has to an emotionally-stable adult that knows how to calm you down."

"I've already told you all that I'm not a real adult," Kakashi points out.

"I'm not good with crying people unless I know them personally or it's about a breakup," Jiraiya says. "Or, like, grief on the battlefield. This was out of my wheelhouse."

"I'm just an asshole," Kanna adds.

Shisui squirms, and turns to eye Kakashi. "Taichouuuuu."

"No."

"Save me."

"Nope."

Kakashi pulls out his porn.

"The kids are going to be here in like two minutes," Kanna snaps. "Put that away."

"No, I need help ignoring Shisui."

Kanna makes a noise of disgust.

Rin giggles, and then holds up Pakkun. "I've got an emotionally-stable adult right here."

Pakkun blinks, entirely comfortable with this appellation. "Yo."

Shisui ditches Kurama to shunshin across the room—entirely unnecessary, but hey, he hasn't exactly been doing much these past two years, so Kakashi cuts him some slack—and gently takes one of Pakkun's paws in each hand. "Oh my god? You are the cutest thing? Taichou, why didn't you ever get him out when we worked together."

Kakashi looks at the ceiling. "Because we were ANBU and generally not looking to share our identities."

"It would have been worth it," Shisui croons, taking Pakkun from Rin and dropping to the floor to cuddle the dog. Kakashi was pretty sure Pakkun didn't mind. He looked comfortable enough.

"So," Kurama says. "Mood swings."

"Definitely worse than before," Kakashi confirms. He nudges Shisui with a foot. "Hey, the kids are going to be here soon. You wanna get set up to say hi to your little cousin, or…?"

Shisui looks up at him. "But… puppy."

"Pakkun's a big boy," Kakashi reminds him. "He can handle it."

"Kakashi, absolutely nothing about your dog is big. He is precious."

Kakashi looks at the ceiling and wonders how he ended up talking to a zombified teenager about his talking dog.

Like, he's dealt with weirder.

But he'd like a map to avoid this in the future.

A flowchart would be acceptable.

"Pakkun," Kakashi says slowly, "Is an adult. And while he does a very good job at being an emotional support dog when I need him to be, and has in fact performed that exact function today and multiple times in the past week, I need you to understand that there is a soon-to-be-ten-year-old en route to this room to find out that you are no longer dead as the best possible birthday present we could have given him, and if you prioritize an emotionally stable dog over an emotionally compromised Academy student, I will be petitioning to get custody of Sasuke myself since you're clearly not ready."

Shisui stares at him.

"Taichou?"

"What."

"You're still scary."

"I've always been scary. Get up and get ready to make a little kid's year."

A/N: My favorite line in this chapter is absolutely "I'm just an asshole," Kanna adds.

Anyway, I wrote most of this while without internet and couldn't check to see if Shisui ever actually WAS on Kakashi's team. It's not impossible that he was at some point, and just got shuffled out later, so I'm going to say Yes and ignore canon if I'm wrong, because it gives me an opportunity to have fun with their friendship.