As the sun rose in the eastern sky Kakashi watched the grey slot below the window blind transform into a bar of golden light. He inched the sheet towards him, stripping Iruka of his only covering and allowing the sunlight to touch his lover's naked skin. He was rewarded with the best, the most beautiful, view in the universe. A landscape of shadow and gold.

As the sun kissed the rounded peaks of Iruka's shoulders it defined every cut and every curve in high relief, and made every tiny dark hair shine like silk. No wonder the man felt like satin. It highlighted the smooth mounds of his buttocks, turning them into perfect golden orbs. And cast into shadow the long valley of his spine, which was decorated more than marred by the pale crevasse of that precious scar.

He reached and smoothed some loose strands of hair away from the bump at the back of Iruka's neck, watching the sun pick out glimmers of gold and russet in the ebony locks. He circled it once with his middle finger then stroked upwards to massage the little notch at the base of his skull. Iruka groaned softly and rolled over to face him, dark eyes blinking open as he ran his own fingers through the tangled mess of his hair.

"Damn you Kakashi, you stole my hairband again didn't you? You know that it gets all knotted up if I sleep on it wet."

Kakashi was too full of love to pay any mind to Iruka's scolding. "It just fell into my hand during the night. I'll comb it out for you… in the shower." He waggled his eyebrows in a dead on imitation of a certain Toad Sannin of their acquaintance.

"Right. The whole reason I showered last night was so that I'd have more time in the morning. Just watch out that something of yours doesn't fall into my hand during the night."

But kakashi was completely naked, there really wasn't anything he could steal. Lacking anything better Iruka slipped his fingers between them and wrapped them around Kakashi's softest part, which responded immediately by becoming distinctly less soft.

Kakashi melted into the caress. "Ahh, I don't think I want to wait until night."

There was a clunk and a rattle from across the hallway. "Dada oo Dada oo Dada um Dada oo."

Iruka released his grip and sat up. Kakashi pulled him back down and rolled over onto him in a lighthearted attempt to pin him in place. "Ignore her, perhaps she'll go back to sleep."

Iruka wriggled out from beneath him and made for his robe on the back of the door. "Yeah, when did that ever happen? And it's time for me to get going anyway."

Suddenly Kakashi was between him and the door. "We need to make time for us too Iruka. When did we last do anything together, just the two of us?"

'Um, let's see, we've had Keshi almost a year and a half now?"

"Exactly. Let me take you out tonight, on a date, somewhere nice."

"Ah Kakashi, I'd love to but I have these tests, and the lists, the ones for…" Iruka tried to reach past him, only to find his wrist caught in an iron grasp.

"Somewhere nice. We'll get barbeque and sake. I'll get the kids to babysit."

Iruka lowered his trapped hand and stared at the floor. "It's really tempting, maybe next week when I'm…"

Kakashi let go of his hand to cup his face instead, tilting it up so that Iruka was forced to meet his eyes. "I'll even call it a mission and pay them. It's worth it just to piss Naruto off, making him do something D rank."

A tiny smile twitched the corner of Iruka's mouth. "You aren't going to take no for an answer are you?"

"Got it in one Sensei. You know I've always loved you for your mind, sharp as a razor."

Iruka licked his lips and folded his arms around Kakashi's chest, rubbing his groin against the hard muscle of his thigh like a horny dog. My mind eh?

A moment later he was on his back on the floor with a thick layer of copy nin pressing him into the polished wood. "Exactly Iruka-sensei, has anyone ever told you that you have the sexiest mind in Konoha?"

A plaintive wail called them back to the harsh world of parental responsibilities. "Dada oo Dada oo."

The gleam in Iruka's eyes faded from flaming lust to sincere regret and Kakashi knew he was defeated… for now. He pulled them both to their feet then unhooked his robe and slipped it on as Iruka headed for the shower. "I'm coming Princess. You're in for a treat, Daddy One's making breakfast today."

Iruka found them in the kitchen. Kakashi at the table drinking bitter black coffee and Keshi in her high chair eating fistfuls of scrambled egg.

She gave him an eggy grin. "Dada oo!" The palm of her hand glowed as if it was licked by white flame and she slammed it into her plate, showering egg in a circle around her chair. "Hahaha eggs go pow!"

Iruka stared, wide eyed and slack jawed. "Kakashi, look, did you see that?" He brought the flat of his hand down on the table, mimicking her action.

Keshi giggled, and did it again. This time with a much larger flash, that sprayed egg to the far corners of the kitchen. "Pow kapow!"

"See? She's playing with chakra. I couldn't do that until I was nearly five. Look at her control, it's… it's amazing."

The copy ninja smiled, barely looking up from his coffee and leaving Iruka with the distinct impression that he wasn't surprised at all. "Good I'll be able to teach her chidori soon."

He ducked the blow just in time.

"Joke Iruka, joke."

The other man stood over him, hands on hips, visibly seething. "Not a good joke Kakashi, not good at all. Do you have any idea the problems we academy teachers face with kids that have been taught to do jutsus way beyond their level? Jutsus that they can't possibly understand or control properly? Just because some stupid jounin in the family thought it was cute. We had generations… generations of Uchiha's and their fireballs."

Kakashi took a sip of coffee. "Well you don't have to worry about them anymore do you?"

Silence hung in the air like an unpleasantly oily mist.

Iruka swatted it away with one hand. "And don't you dare try to change the subject by distracting me."

"Come on now, I said it was a joke." Kakashi caught the hand and shoved a buttered muffin into it and a mug of coffee into the other. "And don't forget our date. I'll pick you up from the mission room at six." He glanced at the clock and raised an eyebrow. "You'll be late for school Sensei."

Iruka gave him a final glare then teleported away. Kakashi took a broom from the corner of the room and started to sweep up the scrambled egg. Crap, his one last hope had been that Keshi would be a late bloomer. But maybe if all she used chakra for was to fling food around they could still keep it quiet for a while longer.

At a casual glance no one would have noticed anything unusual about the two men eating at a corner table. They would have assumed them to be old friends catching up, maybe even brothers, except for the difference in their colouring. A more observant person however, would have noticed their interlaced fingers and thighs pressed together under the small table, and the way they stared into each other's eyes in the candlelight. And since there are no unobservant ninjas, they were dining at a nondescript little Korean Barbeque, on the wrong side of the river, deep in the civilian district.

"…the cutest most adorable…"

"…but completely useless after a couple of years. It's not as if we're likely to have another."

That got a sharp reaction from the dark haired man. "Hell they'd better not be."

Kakashi drained his sake cup and reached for the bottle. Iruka snatched it away, then relented and refilled it himself, fluttering his eyelashes and bowing his head in some kind of demented geisha impersonation.

Kashi ginned in triumph. "So a full size futon or bed it is. And when Keshi's grown up and gone we can use it as a spare for guests. Or for me when I piss you off too much."

Iruka suddenly looked very sad. Yes, ten more years and she'll be part of a team. She'll have her own life before we know it."

He felt his hand squeezed tighter under the table. "But we'll always be a part of it, just as she'll always be part of ours. Look at us, we came all the way out here to get away and all we've done is talk about her the whole time."

Iruka grinned in agreement. "Then I suppose we might as well go home." He straightened his back and squared his shoulders. "Would you like a shinobi escort sir? It's very late at night for a pretty thing like you to be out on the streets, especially since I can tell that you've been drinking."

Kakashi opened his eyes, well make that eye, very wide and pressed his fingertips together coyly in front of his chest. "I don't know kind sir, shinobi escorts can be very expensive."

Even the most unobservant would have noticed him jump as Iruka groped him under the table. "Don't worry about that my lovely. I'll work out a way for you to… compensate me. Later."

Kakashi grabbed the offending hand, dropped the payment for their meal on the table, and teleported them to the street outside. It seemed he wasn't the only one who'd drunk more than he was used to.

They may not have been completely sober by the time they reached home, but they both recognized the use of chakra even from outside the house. Kakashi teleported into Keshi's room as Iruka ran inside, to find Naruto and Sakura standing next to two crude cardboard patches on the wall of the main room.

"What the Hell? Just what happened here while we were gone? Did you invite all your friends over for a jutsu party?"

The teens looked at him and then each other in silence. When Iruka's face had reached the shade of red that indicated that he was mere moments from losing it, Naruto blinked. "It wasn't us, honest Iruka-sensei. It was Keshi. We were playing with Mr Bunnikins, just you know, throwing him around, and then she threw him right through the wall."

"She used chakra? Enough chakra to throw a stuffed toy through a six inch thick wooden wall?"

Naruto grinned widely, showing all his teeth and wrinkling his whisker marks. "And how, you shoudda seen that thing blow."

"And the other hole?"

"Oh yeah, that was Kittikat. Well we had to see if is it was just a fluke didn't we. After that she looked real tired so we put her to bed. She seemed ok, she is isn't she?"

Kakashi was standing listening from the doorway, deathly white and deathly still. A version of the copy nin that Iruka barely knew, but that Sakura and Naruto recognized only too well. After all they were the ones who were with him on missions.

"Yes she's fine, just sleeping. But you can't tell anyone. This information mustn't leave this room. If it gets out that Keshi has this kind of power, at this age, she'll be in greater danger than ever. We all will."

Surprisingly it was Naruto's face that registered complete understanding. "Right Kakashi-sensei, but surely the Old Lady needs to know."

"Of course. I'll inform Hokage-sama, but it has to be done the right way, and only when I understand exactly what it is I need to tell her."

Naruto nodded and dragged a still stunned Sakura towards the door. "So er… goodnight Iruka-sensei. Kakashi-sensei, guess we'll see you tomorrow." He turned back for an instant, "You aren't gonna take the damages out of our fee are you?"

"No, in fact I'll double it. You can call it hush money."

"Yay! And will you upgrade the mission to C rank too? Doesn't look good for the future hokage to be doing…"

He ducked the lightly tossed kunai and slammed the door shut.

Iruka pulled out the kunai and turned it over in his hand, leaning back into the door. "We do have to tell Tsunade-sama don't we?"

Kakashi pulled down his mask and nodded mutely.

"And then what?"

He shook his head. "We'll pull her out of the nursery, they can deal with a few sparks and flares but they aren't trained to handle anything like this. And we mustn't do any seals around her, none at all, she's a quick learner. If she starts picking up jutsus she can't control…"

In four paces Iruka was wrapped around him, head nestled into his throat and whispering into his ear. "What else did they do Kakashi, with you?"

"Got me a tutor and put me in the academy as soon as I cold speak full sentences. I was a gennin at five, chuunin at six."

"And?"

"I'd hoped to avoid it. Instilling that kind of discipline into a very young child, well lets just say it can't be done gently."

Iruka could feel Kakashi trembling and he pulled away to see his face wet with tears. He brushed them away and stretched to press his lips to his forehead. "Isn't there some other choice?"

"We could seal her chakra, until she's mature enough to handle it. But the marks wouldn't stay hidden all the time. In a ninja village people would know, and it would make them suspicious."

"We could explain."

Kakashi shook his head. "You know that's not the way it works Iruka."

Iruka did know. Ninja prodigies were pushed and encouraged, no matter what the cost to them and their families. It wasn't about happy childhoods, it was about power and survival. He looked at the pain in Kakashi's blue eye. Sometimes the cost was too high.

"I still think it's the way to go."

Kakashi nodded and relaxed a little. "But I'd rather not do it on my own. I was still learning sealing techniques from Sensei when…"

"When he died?"

He nodded again, more slowly. "I'll start tracking Jiraiya down in the morning."

Iruka pulled him into a lingering kiss. "Let's go to bed. I still need payment for an escort mission." He circled the middle finger of his left hand around his nipple, through his shirt. "He was an important man, famous, must have been B rank at least."

Kakashi yanked off his mask and shirt and loosened the buttons on his pants with one hand as he dragged Iruka backwards towards their bedroom. "You did well. It looks as if you got him home safe and happy. I think that might even qualify for some kind of bonus."