Iruka idly thumbed through last year's lesson plan book at the kitchen table. There had to be something here he could use. Why did each class have to be so… different from the one before? He knew other teachers who used exactly the same lectures year after year. Hell he'd walked past old Akira-sensei's class a few weeks ago and heard him teaching the same lesson, word for word, that he'd taught him, when he was nine.

He'd only been given two days of leave to stay home with Kakashi, now that he had finally been released from the clutches Tsunade's medical staff. And he'd be damned if he was going to spend them planning lessons.

He knew the man was valuable to the village, and he knew that he was reckless, and God knows, he knew how many times he'd risked causing himself permanent harm by doing too much too soon. But eight days! Kakashi had been kept in that room for eight days, where he couldn't kiss him without feeling that dozens of pairs of unseen eyes were watching. Where Kakashi kept himself hidden behind his mask, or his book, or buried under the bedcovers. When, after this long and dangerous separation, he needed to see him so very much. He needed him home, he needed to touch him, he needed to lie beside him and feel his weight on their shared mattress.

And then there was 'the Kagura situation'.

His grudging acceptance of the woman had become complete when she'd saved Keshi's life, how could it not? But he still couldn't bring himself to actually like her.

Not that there was anything to really dislike. She was efficient, helpful, a decent cook and housekeeper. And Keshi adored her, which, he reminded himself pointedly, was a good thing. But there was a look he sometimes caught from the corner of her eye, as if she considered Iruka the intruder in this household.

Ok, so he shouldn't have gone ballistic when she'd rearranged the contents of the kitchen more to her liking. After all she was the one who used them ninety percent of the time. And she should have asked before she'd bought 'My Pretty Pony' covers for Keshi's bed, covers that Keshi was at that moment helping her to put back on her bed. True her old dolphin ones were looking tired and faded. Kid's bedsheets got washed a lot. And she'd stepped way over the line when she suggested to Keshi that it was high time she got rid of that old dolphin crib mobile, now that it didn't match.

He'd heard that particular conversation by chance as he'd come back from the hospital to grab some edible food. And had felt his chest swell with quite unjustified pride when, genetics be damned, Keshi had let rip a temper tantrum to match any of his own at that age.

No, the woman's presence was a done deal. And he'd be damned if he ever let Keshi know how much it still rankled. Or Kakashi.

Now that was a bitter pill to swallow. Because Iruka knew beyond any shadow of a doubt, that the only reason Kakashi had been allowed home was because Kagura was here to help nurse him.

He closed the book with a sigh, he couldn't even concentrate. And poured the ramen he'd been heating into a large bowl.

Yes, a very bitter pill. Letting Kagura take care of Keshi was one thing, but Kakashi… At least she'd never see him without his mask, he was confident of that. It had to keep some kind of reasonable psychological distance between the two. That was one reason why he still insisted on taking Kakashi his meals when he could. He didn't want his lover to eat everything in one swallow. That just couldn't be healthy.

Gathering chopsticks and a spoon from the wrong drawer, he cradled the hot bowl in a napkin and made his way to their bedroom.

And froze.

Kagura was seated on the side of their bed.

As Iruka watched, thunderstruck, she eased down Kakashi's mask and rested her hand against his cheek. Kakashi's eyes snapped open. He placed a hand over Kagura's and lifted it away, while he replaced his mask with the other hand.

"You shouldn't do that Kagura." He glanced towards the door.

She leapt to her feet and shoved her way past Iruka and out the door.

Iruka had only the dimmest awareness of the bowl falling from his hands and bouncing once on the hardwood floor, before tipping over and depositing the noodles in a heap that leaked broth in an ever widening puddle.

He advanced slowly towards the bed.

"Kakashi? What the hell was that about? Do you know her?"

Kakashi's one eyed gaze didn't falter. "Yes. Not well, but I know her. Iruka, you should sit down." He patted the side of the bed.

Iruka didn't.

"She's Keshi's mother."

Iruka felt as if his knees had been knocked out from under him. His backside met the bed before he'd even realized it.

"The woman you… who…"

Tiny pieces of the puzzle started to fit together. The way Tsunade had insisted that Kagura was best qualified to look after Keshi. The natural bond that was obvious between the woman and her daughter. And the feelings that she obviously still had for Kakashi.

"And you had Tsunade bring her here? To live with us… with you?"

And hadn't Tsunade mentioned that it was Kakashi's idea in the first place?

Rage roared through him like a forest fire.

"Get out! Get out of this house, I never want to see you again, and take your your… woman with you."

But rather than pushing Kakashi away Iruka shoved him down into the bed and ripped off his mask, replacing it with a covering of his own lips, kissing and biting fiercly. With a tiny infusion of chakra from his hand he shredded Kakashi's thin tshirt as if it was rice paper.

Kakashi managed to force out a strangled chuckle. "Hey Ru, not that I don't enjoy seeing this side once in a while, but have a little mercy and go easy on me. You know, invalid here, fragile, still weak from sharingan overuse and all that. Don't want to rough me up too much do you?"

Iruka eased himself up with both hands, so that their faces were a few inches apart. "I won't let her near you Kakashi, you're mine and you'd better remember it."

"Always Ru. I told you, it was part of a mission."

"Fuck you Kakashi."

"Yeah, I kinda got that part already. But at least take the time to…"

Iruka collapsed onto him, his hot tears running in streams down both their faces and gathering in the hollow under Kakashi's collarbone as a cold puddle, all their passion spent.

Kakashi held him tight, ignoring the way he flinched at his touch, although it burned his heart and soul like acid. "Hey hey. This isn't like you." Where's my fierce hot tempered stubborn as an ass sensei?

He blotted the tears from Iruka's face with a corner of the bedsheet. "That's better. Now will you let me explain before you tear me a new one and throw me out on my ear?"

Iruka sniffed but wouldn't meet his eyes. "Will I like what you've got to say?

"No. But I promise you won't hate it any more than I do. Listen, who knows everything, and I mean everything, that's going on in a great house or a castle?"

"Kakashi! I don't see what…"

"You will, just answer the question."

The servants. They have access to the whole house and can share all the gossip. Look everyone knows, it's basic infiltration techniques. But I don't see…

"Right. And the best and most discrete way to get that information out of them is…?"

"Sex."

"Good. You did learn all this stuff Sensei. Did you ever have to seduce someone for information on a mission?"

"Just once. But I… I didn't like it."

Kakashi gave him an unreadable look. "Actually most consider the sex as a bit of a bonus. And anyone in a truly commited relationship would tend to pass by that kind of mission, except…"

Except?

"Except some of us with 'special skills' aren't given a choice. Somehow Orochimaru knew all about that. Well it's not too surprising, he was a Leaf nin too, a sneaky bastard and attractive in his own way from what I remember. Probably did his share of infiltration when he was younger. It was just his bad luck that I hooked up with Kagura rather than the women he'd planted for me to sleep with. Actually I slept with them too, but only once. They didn't tell me anything useful and unfortunately for him none of them got pregnant."

Iruka was now sitting on the edge of the bed, ramrod straight. "Right, so you screwed every woman in the whole household. Now I feel much better. And how the hell would you know that this woman was the only one you managed to knock up?"

"Because I was careful, and if one of his carefully chosen floosies had succeeded in getting pregnant Orochimaru wouldn't still be coming after Keshi. He wants a female Hatake child and he'll go to any lengths to get one."

Iruka snorted disdainfully. "Are you suggesting that Orochimaru set up the situation in Thunder Country just so you'd be sent out there and knock up some poor woman?"

Kakashi eased himself up on his pillows so that he could see iruka's face more easily.

"More or less, or at least he was quick enough to take advantage of it when he saw which way it was going. Actually I'm pretty sure my daughter is a second choice. What he really wants is me, but female."

Iruka rolled his eyes. This conversation was rapidly going from bizarre to ridiculous. "And how the hell would he get that?

But Kakashi's voice had taken on a serious tone that Iruka had only heard twice before. When he'd told him that Sandaime was dead, and when he'd came back to Konoha carrying an unconscious Naruto to tell him that Sasuske had defected to sound.

"I think Orochimaru stole some of my father's remains, actually he might have had them a long time. He was still in Konoha when… and God knows there was enough blood everywhere… Anyway, he's been experimenting. Tsunade's been uncovering… stuff. Babies with Hatake DNA. Dead ones."

He grabbed Iruka's shoulders, scared and exhilarated by the suppressed emotions he could feel pushing for an outlet. "You do realize I'm not supposed to tell you this? Hell I'm not supposed to know it."

Iruka pulled himself away. "But you do don't you? Don't tell me, you worked it out before Tsunade did."

Kakashi bared his teeth in a humourless grin, or it could have just as easily have been a snarl.

"She hasn't worked it out… yet. I thought maybe if Keshi's chakra was weak, it might have been, there was no guarantee, with a civilian mother."

He tapped his covered eye. "Have you any idea what the chances were of this thing actually working. Of anyone who isn't an Uchiha being able to use a sharingan? Of course there are things I can't do, but others I can do better than an Uchiha. Imagine what a Hatake born with these eyes could do."

Iruka's jaw dropped as the horror of the possibility dawned on him. "You mean Orochimaru wants Keshi… and Sasuske! To…? But Kakashi, she's only two years old!"

Kakashi slumped forward, picking at the ragged remains of his shirt. "Doesn't matter. Baby girls are born with their eggs already formed. All he has to do is harvest them and plant embryos into surrogates. He'd revive the Uchiha clan, create an army of sharingan users and provide himself with a limitless number of host bodies all at the same time. Sweet deal. And you can see why Tsunade can't let him, no matter what it takes. If the council had the faintest idea they'd have had Keshi destroyed the moment she was brought through that gate."

"Destroyed! You mean…?"

Kakashi nodded grimly. 'That's why she has to leave. We'll dye her hair blond. Orochimaru won't be looking for a mother and daughter, especially not in Grass country."

"Mother and… Damn you Kakashi. If you manipulated me…"

"No I didn't Iruka, I promise. That's just the way it worked out. I never even thought that you'd be jealous of Kagura, because you shouldn't be you know. But don't you see it's for the best. We can't protect Keshi here, the only way to make her safe is to make her invisible. And to do that we have to send her away. Her mother is the only person in the world, outside this room, that we can trust to do that."

Iruka stared at him through newly wet eyes. "But but… her mother didn't want her. She abandoned her."

Kakashi's voice was flat and resigned. "She didn't have a choice. Orochimaru was tracking her down so she sent Keshi away, to keep her safe. Shouldn't we be willing to do as much?"

Iruka blinked and the tears ran from his eyes, catching in his scar and following its path until gravity took over and pulled them to the point of his chin. "Kakashi I can't. I love her too much to let her go."

Kakashi pulled him onto his lap and wrapped his arms around him again. "No Iruka, you love her enough to let her go. We both do."

Kagura was with Keshi in the garden, arranging her toys for a tea party. She knew only two well what must be going on back in the house. She'd changed her name and fled to the house of Shiro in far away Hekireki to escape the heartache of a failed affair. Only to have her heart broken again, and to find out that she was pregnant to boot. So she'd fled again. And then she'd heard from a kitchen maid who'd been a close friend, that suspicious strangers had been paying some of the servants large sums of money, asking after pregnant girls.

She didn't know what any of this was about. But she knew that right now her fate, and the fate of the child she loved, was being decided by the man she still loved and the man he loved more than he could ever love her.

And she hated it.