Standard Disclaimers: I own nothing of Naruto nor its characters. I make no money!

Dusk was falling and the town was shaking off the day's activities like a dog shaking off water before curling up on a rug. From Kakashi's vantage point on a rooftop he could see vendors packing up their wares in the distant market and shops turning on their outside lights as they prepared for new customers. Even the sound of voices, parents calling children home from the park, made their way to his lofty perch.

It wasn't his fault.

Kakashi banished the thought, shoving it down into the depths where it belonged. He was on a mission, he was at a target site, and he was waiting for his comrade. His focus should be on the tasks ahead and nothing more.

During their initial walk around the town, he and Tsunade had identified the lord's residence and his office. Either one could have provided clues about the poison being used, or if they were very lucky samples of the poison itself.

Tsunade had decided that it made sense to search the office first. After all, what sort of man left deadly poison in his house when he had small children running about? Kakashi, on the other hand, had pointed out that not all men were so careful and they knew nothing about the lord's character.

It was, admittedly, a very weak argument. What he didn't say was that he had a hunch about the mansion. He'd been ANBU for years and his hunches were conclusions that his subconscious mind put together while he wasn't paying attention. They were almost always right. That sort of thing was difficult to explain sometimes, so he didn't bother trying now.

The ensuing argument had started out friendly, but rapidly became filled with irritation on both sides. The lines of authority in regards to the mission were just blurred enough to make things complicated and neither of them felt like they should have to explain themselves.

Of course, it didn't help that once Tsunade had finally bowed to his insistence about where to check first, they had a new topic to cross metaphorical swords over. Tsunade had wanted to wait until it was well into the night to head out. Kakashi felt it made more sense to go when the dining hall was serving the mansion's staff.

It was her fault for being so loud.

The argument had gotten the attention of their landlady - their overly romantic and nosey landlady. The speed with which Tsunade had gone from outraged Hokage, certain that a jonin was screwing with her just because he could, to a flustered young woman was truly amazing. And when the landlady had chided them both, she'd even conjured up tears.

"Now, now," the landlady had soothed, "Go on. You two kiss and make up. It's not right that you should be upset with each other."

Perhaps it was a trap that Kakashi Hatake, Copy Ninja extraordinaire, could have wiggled out of. He could have used a joke, Shunshin no Jutsu or even just rudeness by telling the woman to mind her own business. But that would have been dangerous and there was no way that Hiro Soohoo, slightly naïve farmer scarred by a rogue baking accident, could have done any of it.

So there'd been nothing for it.

He'd had to kiss Tsunade.

And, once the landlady had protested that she'd seen better kisses given to a pillow, he'd had to kiss her properly. Pulling her close against him, as if she belonged nowhere else, the scent of her hair filling his nose while the taste of her lips and tongue filled his mouth…

It was her fault for that soft little noise she'd made in the back of her throat…

Fine. It would have been fine! So she was a good kisser. So what? He'd kissed and been kissed by skilled lips before. So what if he'd enjoyed it?

So what if he'd found himself focused too much on kissing Tsunade, a woman who hid behind her temper as often as he hid behind her mask, who possessed a sharp wit, a rebellious heart, and a body that had inspired more than a few passages in his beloved books…

…. and not nearly at all of Tsunade, Hokage, and woman of his father's generation.

It didn't matter. Everything still would have been fine.

Except…

The door closed behind the innkeeper, the smug woman giving the two their "space". Tsunade heard the soft scrape of the panel hitting the frame and immediately pushed Kakashi away. The shove wasn't completely surprising. It was Tsunade, after all. He was just grateful she didn't send him through the wall while she was at it.

However, the sheer venom in her gaze as she glared at him caught him completely off-guard.

He raised a hand to his hair, doing his best to look non-threatening despite the whirlwind of his thoughts. "So, that was interesting, wasn't it?" He smiled at her.

Wrong choice of words apparently, as the glare became even fiercer. "If you /ever/ do that again…." She hissed at him. Her lips twisted in something akin to disgust and she wiped her mouth with her sleeve.

Kakashi went very still and his eyes narrowed.

She actually wiped her mouth off?

"We all do unpleasant things to accomplish a mission," he said flatly, "Something I'd expect a genin to understand, much less a woman who claims the title of Hokage." His eyes were hard and he nodded his chin to the door, "I'd also expect a Hokage to speak with a little more discretion, given the thinness of the walls here."

Kakashi shifted his weight on the slates of the rooftop, watching the last of the light fade from the sky. That had been it. There'd been no salvaging anything after that. Her expression had done some sort of twisting thing, and even with all his experience reading people, he hadn't been able to tease out all the threads in it. He'd braced for rage, for a fight, for any number of things that never actually came.

Instead, Tsunade had just stared at him until those emotions turned to stone in her eyes. Then she'd calmly told him how they were going to complete the mission. He was to head out and scout the mansion and see if he could find any patterns in staff movement that they could exploit. She would stay behind (she didn't give a reason) and follow him as soon as possible.

Until she joined him, however, he was not to enter the mansion. He was not to go in alone. This was her decision, as Hokage, and he was to obey. There was no discussion on the matter.

He'd nodded and left without a word.

It wasn't my fault.

He repeated it to himself.

As long as he could keep his unruly thoughts going back to that phrase, and stayed away from replays of caught breaths and irrationally hurt feelings… he'd be fine.