Author's Note: Hey all! There's not much to say for this chapter - as it has no specific theme - except that it is the third last. That means that yes indeed there will be 20 chapters of Living Arrangements. The whole series should end around May 25th. I'm thinking of possibly taking two weeks to write the last chapter as A) I am becoming increasingly busy B) I wish for it to be tip-top and perfect and C) I'm going to make it over 10,000 words. Anyway, those are all your announcements for this chapter! Hope you enjoy! :)

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

The residents of Konoha awoke to a very dark and gloomy Monday morning. Lethargically, they got themselves out of bed, and moved through their houses, preparing themselves both mentally and physically for the terrible day that would start most of their weeks.

Rin woke with a sudden jolt as she rolled unceremoniously off her mother's living room couch. She let out a yelp of surprise and pain, rubbing her head in an effort to soothe it from the beating it sustained due to the hardwood flooring hitting against it. Her eyes became quizzical for a moment as she surveyed her new surroundings. Where was she? Kakashi would have never made her sleep on the ratty old couch. She tilted her head to glance at the couch to the side of her, and noted that it was not ratty at all. In fact, it was one of the nicest leather couches she had ever come across.

Her gaze only turned normal when her mother came rushing into the room, asking her if she was ok. A flood of memories came back to her, and Rin remembered what she was doing in her mother's apartment in the first place.

"Rin, are you ok?" her mother asked worriedly. "I heard a crash, and then you made a loud noise."

"Yeah, mom, I'm fine," Rin assured the older woman. "I just…kind of fell off the couch."

"Oh, well, thank goodness," the woman let out a sigh. "Well, let's have breakfast then, if you're up."

Rin nodded and headed off in the direction of the washroom to freshen herself up before consuming her morning meal. The smell of eggs frying and bread toasting wafted through the apartment, tickling Rin's sense of smell with delight. It had been a while since she'd had a chance to eat a decent breakfast prepared by someone else. That was something she could get used to.

Finishing with her activities in the washroom, Rin headed out towards the kitchen and seated herself down at the head of the table. Rather promptly, her mother emerged from the scene carrying a large pan and plates already filled with food.

"Look, it's your breakfast!" Her mother chirped happily, setting the plate down in front of Rin. "And it's happy to see you!"

Looking strangely at her mother, then looking at her plate, Rin agreed that indeed her breakfast was happy to see her. Two sunny side up eggs served as the face, with the yolks as eyes. A sliced green pepper trailed down the centre of the albumen of the egg, playing the role of the nose. A squiggly strip of bacon ran across the bottom of the eggs, completing the face with a slightly deranged smile. Two pieces of toast with strawberries were placed precariously on the edge of the plate, and there was a bowl of rice next to it.

While the display was without a doubt childish, Rin couldn't help but feel giddy as she regarded her food with apparent eagerness. The gesture on her mother's behalf was appreciated immensely and simple as it was, it provided Rin with more fuel for the hope in her heart.

"Thanks mom," she grinned up at her mother enthusiastically.

"You're welcome," her mother grinned back in the same manner, both their faces looking frighteningly alike.

Both took their seats and dug into their meals, conversing casually as they ate. "Oh," Rin's mother cried, swallowing a piece of toast. "I almost forgot to tell you!"

"What is it?"

"I went to the Hokage a couple of weeks ago, and he told me that if I managed to remain sober and submit myself to numerous drug tests – and come out clean of course – that he would re-instate me as a shinobi."

Rin's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets in surprise and she nearly choked on the rice in her mouth. "You serious?"

"Yep."

"Mom, that's great!" She exclaimed, but part of her couldn't help but disagree. If her mother was reinstated as a shinobi then that would mean that she would have to go back on missions – possibly missions to Earth country or other very dangerous places. Her mother had been away from the shinobi lifestyle for so long, and so much had changed since then – Rin feared that she would be unprepared. Rin wanted to be excited for her, but she also wanted her mother to be safe and alive. You can't stop her from doing this. She's so excited about it. And that's the life of shinobi. She'll get hurt, but it'll be protecting the village. Finally, she resolved to just live with it for now, and put on a smile for the moment.

Her mother accepted the deceiving smile with gratitude, and she felt pride swell inside her when she saw her daughter being so supportive. Deciding to start being a bigger part of Rin's life, her mother questioned, "So how is work at the hospital?"

"Work. At the hospital." Rin repeated these words with confusion at first, but her eyes dawned in understanding soon after. "Oh shoot! Work at the hospital! What time is it?" She stood up at an alarmingly fast pace, sending all the blood rushing to her head and making her dizzy.

Her mother appeared stunned for a few moments until she glanced up at the clock. "It's about 10:30, why?"

"Ten thirty? Already? I'm going to be late for my shift!" Taking the last piece of toast and stuffing it in her mouth, Rin made a bound at the door, calling behind her, "Thanks for the breakfast mom! I'll be home in a few hours!"

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Kakashi woke up groggily. A family of birds had formed a nest outside his window and were boisterously chirping, determined not to let the inhabitant of the apartment they were nesting on rest. Getting up and walking over to his window, Kakashi rapped on it harshly a few times, trying to show the birds that they should shut up lest they wish to find a nesting place elsewhere. The rapping startled them, and all at once their symphonic choir of chirps ceased.

"Stupid birds," he muttered tiredly, and headed over to the washroom.

While brushing his teeth, Kakashi stepped out of the washroom and headed over to his kitchenette, where he proceeded to fire up the stove and crack a couple of eggs into a pan. He set the pan on the stove and made his way back into the washroom to spit the toothpaste-y contents from his mouth into the sink. Ever so slowly, he finished the rest of his morning rituals and after pulling on a shirt; he sniffed the air, wrinkling his nose at the stench in his apartment. Was that something burning?

As his eyes widened in realization, he bounded into the kitchen and shut off the stove, just barely avoiding having his entire apartment catch fire due to the pair of eggs. "Stupid flammable eggs," he mumbled darkly, throwing the burnt parts of egg into the garbage and pulling out a box of cereal.

Eating slowly and without much purpose – for he didn't really have much of an appetite – Kakashi ploughed through the bowl of cereal in the time span of an hour. Sparing one more glance at the clock, and seeing that it was already 10 in the morning, he decided to head over towards the hospital and wait there for Benjiro's release.

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Upon reaching the hospital, Rin punched in her time card, and headed over to the receptionist's desk. "Good Morning," she greeted politely, "I'm here to start my shift."

"Good morning Rin-san," the young male receptionist smiled back, "give me a moment and I'll find your clipboard for you."

The receptionist shuffled around on his swivel chair, lifting piles of papers and searching under stacks of files. After a few minutes, he emerged back into Rin's field of vision, and handed her the clipboard with a smile. "There's not too much work today for you, Rin-san. Your first patient is just about ready to be released."

"Well, a slow day is a good day," Rin responded, taking the clipboard from him along with a stack of patient files and heading over to her first room.

Twisting and turning down familiar hallways, she realized that this was a room she had been in recently. Opening the door to the room, Rin noticed that her patient was the young ANBU who had come in with Kakashi. She slid the door shut behind her and placed the remainder of the patient files into a holder on the back of the door.

"Oh, it's you," Benjiro remarked with surprise when Rin presented herself at his door.

Rin chuckled lightly at his amazed expression and replied, "Good morning to you too Benjiro-san."

At this the boy flushed with embarrassment for a moment, before commenting smoothly, "Good morning Rin. It's always nice to see a happy face so early in the day."

She was surprised at his lack of honorific, but found that she was not offended in the slightest. Relaying to him the information that there was a good chance he'd be released today, she proceeded to begin the final check-up. First she would check the eyes, ears and mouth. Once those were proven to be ok, she checked his muscles, joints, and reflexes.

Halfway through her examination, the door to the room opened, and another figure stepped in. Rin paid no heed to this newcomer at first, for she was certain that s/he was another hospital employee, yet her head snapped up abruptly when she heard Benjiro call out, "Morning Kakashi!"

She looked up at him; he looked down at where she was performing the final examinations. They stared at each other for a little bit before turning their heads back to Benjiro.

Kakashi had no clue what to say. He had come to the hospital thinking that he was just going to grab Benjiro after his release and leave for the border. Rin's working at the hospital had not been factored in to this whole equation and now that he saw her, he hadn't a clue what to do or say. It wasn't like he had a speech planned out in his mind, and he wasn't entirely sure that if he had had a speech, that it would be one of apology. The majority of him believed that what he had done was right; the only thing that made him doubt it was how upset Rin had gotten.

Rin also hadn't a clue of what to say. Two days ago she had gotten into a fairly major argument with him and she'd been very upset, but now that argument seemed like a far off event. After learning the circumstances that surrounded his overworking himself, Rin just couldn't bring herself to feel as angry as before, nor could she bring herself to apologize. No matter what she had done or said, she still felt that all her points were valid, and that reminding him that he needs to keep safe was a good thing to have done.

Since neither had anything to say, and Benjiro was just anxiously awaiting their responses to the other's presence, an awkward silence passed over them. Rin eventually set back to work, staring shyly at her instruments, and neither Kakashi nor Benjiro made any movements or sounds. Finally finished her tests, Rin broke the silence by announcing, "Well Benjiro-san, everything seems to be fine. You're free to go."

Benjiro thanked her and stood up, leaving the room with Kakashi.

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Once out of the hospital, Kakashi heaved a sigh and Benjiro stared straight ahead. "Whoa," Benjiro commented, "Can you say awkward? Neither of you were saying anything, and then I just had to keep quiet, because I feared that we'd all like spontaneously combust or something from the tension in the air."

He paused his rant to look over at his younger partner who was staring off into some other direction. "And now you're distracted. Hey, are you even listening to me Kakashi?"

At hearing his name, Kakashi's mind reverted back to the one-sided conversation at hand. "Yeah, I'm listening."

"So what are you going to do about it?"

"Hmm?"

"This whole argument thing. What are you going to do about it?"

Kakashi shrugged in answer to Benjiro's question.

"Well you better think of something?"

"Hmm?"

"I said, you'd better think of something. Jeez man, wake up! It's like I'm talking to a brick wall!"

"Hmm?"

Benjiro sighed exasperatedly. "You know what? That's it. We're going to fix this, and we're going to do it before we leave."

"But we need to get back soon. Otherwise, the commander may give us another week's worth of duty."

"This little issue that you have with that girl is distracting you. If we don't fix it now, you will continue to be distracted," Benjiro explained slowly as if talking to a young child, "If you continue to be distracted, we won't be alive long enough for you to apologize or to get potentially another week's worth of duty. So yeah, we're going to fix it. Just so you don't get us both killed."

"It's not distracting me," Kakashi insisted stubbornly.

"Sure it's not."

"Hmm?"

Benjiro sighed once more and rubbed his temples. "You just proved my point. Now come on," he said, pulling Kakashi in another direction, "let's go make this girl like you again."

Before Kakashi had a chance to protest, Benjiro had silenced him with a murderous glare and an even tighter grasp on his biceps.

Author's Note: Well, that's it for this chapter! I guess I left you guys with a bit of a cliffhanger, so you'll have incentive to keep on reading. ;) Thanks to all those that reviewed Chapter 17: chibirain94, Hikari Minamoto, ninbunny alchemist, rileyonline, Sakra-chan, Konoha's White Fang, JoiZ. D, gumshoe1101, and Piccylo.

Chapterly Challenge: Last week's answers were, "Cleanliness is close to godliness," for the English and, "Even a god finds it hard to love and be wise at the same time," for the Latin. Congrats to all those who got it.

Now, let's take a look at our standings:

Chibirain94 - 10

Catgirl9696 - 15

Sakra-chan - 15

Snappa - 24

Hikari Minamoto - 25

EndDragon - 15

Piccylo - 25

JoiZ. D - 15

Rileyonline - 25

Konoha's White Fang - 10

Without further ado, here are your Latin and English challenges. Remember that you only need to give the correct answer to one to be rewarded five points. Here they are:

1) Individuals who make their abode in vitreous edifices would be advised to refrain from catapulting petrous projectiles.

2) Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito.