Enjoy!

OOOOOOOOO

The sheets were itchy. He hadn't noticed for the first few hours – mostly because he had been agonizing over his actions when he woke up and trying to understand the situation he was in. But since he'd verbally tossed Naruto and Kakashi out of his room, no one had even paused in front of his door. The mass of wires attached to his hands and head would alert any of the nurses if he took a turn for the worse, so they had no need to check-up on him.

And so he'd languished in the room for several hours. He'd reached an impasse in his thoughts and desperately needed to talk to someone – anyone – to get a handle on his realities. But without visitors, all he could do was think about how itchy the sheets were and how he was going to avoid Kakashi at all costs.

Heels rang against the hardwood floor, drawing closer and closer to his room until the door was flung open. Light from the window across the hall framed the Godaime, making her look more dangerous and powerful than ever.

"Hokage-sama." Iruka levered himself into a sitting position, wincing as the IV needle pulled slightly.

"Please, don't get up." She held out both hands to signal him to stop moving. "I really need to talk to you, and if you rip out those stitches, this will just disintegrate into me yelling at you for being an idiot while I try to hold your side together."

Iruka cupped the clean bandages that wrapped around his waist and over his shoulder. "I didn't realize it was that bad."

"Actually, if your teammate hadn't had some medical nin training, you never would have made it back here. She managed to mend the wound enough that you didn't bleed out while traveling. The biggest scare we had was after you got here. We discovered that a small portion of the blade broke off in the wound. We had to open you back up, but your body was already in enough shock that your heart rate and breathing plummeted, and we almost lost you. But, you eventually awoke and seemed…fully alive."

He'd been listening silently, somewhat amazed at how close he'd come to death only to slide under the radar again, but groaned and covered his face with his hands when she added the last sentence almost as an after thought.

"Yes, what was that all about?" Her eyes flashed with barely controlled amusement.

Her hidden laughter almost convinced him to tell her to sod off. To hell with the fact that he'd been craving someone to talk to only minutes before, he had no desire to be her own personal jester.

"And you said something about the village being under attack?" This time the smile was gone. "Iruka. Did you learn something on that mission?"

"What?" Confusion wrapped it's familiar arms around him.

"You thought the village was under attack. Why? Was it something the missing nin said?"

"No. It's not…it's not like that Tsunade-sama. It was in the past…not the future."

A single gold eyebrow arched, waiting for an explanation.

"Look, when I was injured, everything went black, and I woke up in my bed, and I was..I was fine! I remembered leaving for the mission, but not coming back, and I figured it must have just been an extraordinarily detailed dream. But then I got to the academy, and Mizuki was there, and the kids were kids again. I-I couldn't believe it, so I checked for my scar – the one Mizuki gave me – and it wasn't there. It was as if the world had…reverted…to a point before Naruto's graduation."

Tsunade folded her arms, "Did everything happen the same from then on?"

"No…yes…. Everything was…normal..ish…to the point where Naruto faced the graduation test. I didn't spend time with Mizuki the way I did the first time around. I just couldn't face him." Iruka slapped himself mentally. The floodgates were open, and he was babbling out everything from his dream. "I…actually I spent time with Kakashi-sensei. He ran into me when I was checking for the scar, and I told him what was going on, and everything that I remembered from before I'd woken up. He wound up teaching Naruto the kage bunshin because of what I'd remembered - or dreamed or whatever it was - so, at the academy exam, I tried to pass Naruto for demonstrating it, but Mizuki refused to pass him. I saw something dangerous in Mizuki's eyes. Something I remembered from when he attacked me. So I went to warn the Hokage - the Sandaime. It was before you got here – that something might happen."

"You were afraid that Mizuki was going to steal the scroll since he wasn't able to con Naruto into it."

"Yes. And he did. The way it happened was different, but the end result was the same. Mizuki was arrested."

"It's actually all very astute of you."

"Eh?"

Tsunade settled on the edge of the bed. "Everyone believes that they can change the people around them. Well, everyone wants to believe that, but most realize that people don't change. We are who we are at heart. Many people dream when they're unconscious, and most of those people relive past experiences. They usually look at traumatic moments, sometimes even the point where they were injured, and re-run it over and over to try and change the outcome. Their minds might even allow them alter it. But," She held up a finger. "You realize that you can't erase everything. You are very good judge of character and are very good at reading people, but you know that you can't change who people are. So as much as you may have wished that Mizuki was a…good…person, your brain could not rationalize that. You tried to change it. Your brain let you run into Kakashi, which took Naruto out of Mizuki's clutches, and perhaps helped you make up for being a snot to him in the past."

Iruka glared at her. "Wait, you weren't even here for that! How did you…?"

"Please, Iruka." She spread her hands wide. "I'm the hokage."

Had he been completely healthy and in control of his faculties, he would have managed to swallow the snort of disbelief. As it was, he had to utter a muttered apology after it.

"Alright, I'll let you in on one of my secrets." She leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially. "Sometimes you are disturbingly easy to read, Iruka-sensei, considering that you're a shinobi. In all the meetings we've had with the jounin and the chuunin, you greet everyone you pass. Except him. I've even seen you slide by him shoulder to shoulder when it's really packed in the room, and you don't even acknowledge him. I had to find out what happened."

"Great."

"Well, it wasn't too hard. You know how shinobi gossip. Apparently you two were quite the talk of the town after that little incident." She grinned wickedly. "Just be glad there wasn't anyone else in here when you kissed him."

"Do I even want to know how you found out about that?"

"I merely asked him how you seemed to be doing when I saw him." Tsunade tapped a finger against her chin. "I believe he said that you seemed very….enthusiastic."

She laughed out loud when Iruka groaned and buried his face in his hands for the second time in so many minutes.

"But, that whole bit aside, the way your mind handled a re-doing of the past is very intelligent. Your actions clearly affected the way events unfolded, but the natures of the people you interacted with were always the same."

"The Sandaime mentioned something similar about premonitions in my dream." Iruka combed his fingers through his snarled and sweaty hair, and his face suddenly brightened with recognition. "We'd had that discussion before, when I was at the academy. He came and lectured on foresight versus intuition. That discussion we had in my…dream… was almost word-for-word from that lecture." He shook his head. "Why didn't I realize it?"

"Because, had you'd realized it, you would have suspected that you were either dreaming or in a genjustsu, but you would have been unable to escape. You were unconscious because your body needed all your energy put towards healing you. You couldn't wake up until you healed. So imagine, that you realize that what you're faced with is not the truth. What would happen? You'd try to wake up or to escape, only to discover that you couldn't. That kind of panic would have likely killed you."

"So your saying that I didn't realize it because my subconscious was trying to protect me from something it was creating."

Tsunade snorted. "Something like that."

Iruka finally dropped his hands from where they'd been wandering between worrying at his hair, massaging his temples, and scratching at his scar, to his lap. He took a deep breath. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"I think I'm okay. This whole thing has been…unnerving, to say the least. But…but I think I'm okay."

"Good." Tsunade patted his shoulder with a surprisingly gentle hand given her extraordinary strength. "You'll have to stay here for another day, but then you can go back to work."

OOOOOOOO

He'd actually spent another two days at the hospital. His temperature had climbed that night, and Tsunade, worried about infection, had forced him to stay the extra day. He'd returned to teaching immediately after that. When he'd gotten in front of his class and started scrawling information on the blackboard, one of the girl's hands had shot up, and she proceeded to inform him that they had covered this subject three months ago.

It had taken him a good five minutes to realize that he'd started teaching where he'd let off in his dream, and another five minutes to figure out what he should have been teaching. He'd then spent every spare moment in each day reviewing his lesson plans.

Until today. He'd finally gotten himself back into the swing of teaching, and he had nothing to distract him.

Iruka picked through his lunch idly, barely noticing that his other hand was beating out a tattoo with the eraser of his pencil. He was bored. Terribly, awfully bored.

And the only person he really wanted to see was Kakashi.

But not this Kakashi. This Kakashi he would avoid at all costs. He wanted the one from his dream. The one that he'd built something with.

It was hard to believe that he'd only been unconscious for a couple of days. The time he remembered was on the order of weeks, if not months.

He wanted it back.

Iruka heaved a massive sigh and dropped his head down onto the rough surface of his desk.

OOOOOOO

Kakashi whirled, easily avoiding Naruto's wild punch as well as the three or four clones that followed. He hadn't bothered to uncover his sharingan, but the youngster had matured a lot in the past few months, and it wouldn't be much longer before Kakashi would have to fight all out to avoid getting hit by Naruto. The genin still didn't stand a chance of actually taking him down, but he was learning quickly.

As he swept his leg around and dropped into a crouch, his gaze passed over a uniformed figure standing at the edge of the practice grounds. Naruto must have felt his attention shift, but instead of taking advantage of opening, he looked in the same direction.

"Iruka-sen..argh!" Kakashi'd shoved his hand upward, grabbing Naruto by the front of his jacket and pulled him straight down to the ground.

He dropped into a cross-legged seat and planted an elbow on the back of Naruto's head, enjoying the frantic squirming and muffled curses. He rested his free elbow on his knee, his chin in his hand and smiled up at the pony-tailed chuunin as Iruka crossed the packed dirt towards them. "Here to explain your actions earli…?" He trailed off at the dark look plastered across Iruka's face.

Naruto struggled free of his jounin sensei's grip. "What actions?"

"Ah Naruto, I already paid for your lunch at Ichiraku on my way by, but they may give it away if you don't…" Iruka jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

"REALLY? Thanks, Iruka-sensei!!" By the time the cloud of dust from Naruto's hasty exit cleared, Kakashi was standing directly in front of Iruka, his arms folded across his chest.

"Can I help you, Iruka-sensei?"

The chuunin shoved a box out to him. "Here."

"You brought me lunch?"

Iruka sighed. "Just humor me."

Kakashi waited until Iruka'd gotten a large mouthful of food. "So, are you going to tell me about that dream." His eyes sparkled with amusement as the poor chuunin choked and coughed up a couple of grains of rice.

"Dream?" Iruka's voice peaked in the middle. "Who said anything about a dream?"

"Maaa, there's this old story about a man who dreamed he was a butterfly. When he woke up, he wondered if he was a man dreaming he was a butterfly, or a butterfly now dreaming that he is a man…Sound familiar?"

Iruka was staring at him. "I'm surprised you even know that story."

"It was in a book my mother used to read to me when I was young." He paused thoughtfully. "Really young."

"Me too." Iruka shrugged. "Well, probably not as young as you."

"Alright, so there was a dream." Kakashi set the box aside, having inhaled his lunch as usual. "Are you going to tell me about it?"

"It's…it's not important. Nothing to do with you."

"Your first reaction when you wake up is to kiss me, but you tell me it's not about me?" He leaned towards the chuunin, who looked away.

"Maybe I thought you were someone else." Iruka muttered, though his expression saddened for a second when he said it – as if he was paraphrasing something he didn't particularly want to remember.

"I find that highly unlikely. Plus you said my name when you woke up." His gaze rose skyward as he contemplated it. "Unless there's another Kakashi in the village."

"Can we just…not talk about this?"

"You came to find me, Iruka-sensei. You even brought me lunch!"

The chuunin huffed and stood up suddenly. "Look. I'm sorry, okay? What happened, happened. I don't want to explain it. I…I don't even think I can. This," His wide, sweeping gesture encompassed both the empty lunch boxes and Kakashi. "Was to prove a point to myself. Which I have done. And now I will stop bothering you." He dusted off his pants, gathered his stuff, and turned tail.

Kakashi propped his chin on his hand and studied the chuunin's retreating back, puzzling over the other man's actions. Iruka'd stated that he didn't want to explain whatever 'it' was, but it was clearly bothering him enough to come and find Kakashi, which, given his actions at the hospital, seemed fairly counterintuitive. Kakashi'd expected to not see the chuunin for several months after that. "And just what point were you trying to prove, Iruka-sensei….?"

OOOOOOO

"Idiot. Idiot. Idiot." Iruka'd been muttering the mantra since lunch the day before. "Of course he's not the same person. What were you expecting? A comfortable conversation? A food fight?" He quite literally smacked himself in the forehead with the heel of his hand. "Moron."

"You really shouldn't call yourself names, Iruka-sensei."

Between one moment and the next, Kakashi was standing directly in front of his desk, and Iruka jerked back, hand dropping towards his weapons on reflex.

"And you shouldn't just sneak into people's rooms!"

"Did you treat me like this in your dream?"

"Can't you just drop it?" Iruka snapped defensively. "Why do you have to keep bothering me about this?" He really was an idiot. This Kakashi wasn't even remotely the same. This man was simply here to annoy him.

"Maa, come now, Iruka-sensei, you have a dream that makes you kiss me. I have to be interested in what kind of dream that was." The smile under the mask stretched into an unmistakable leer.

"It was not like one of your porn books!" Iruka leapt to his feet, planting his hands on his desk.

"Well, of course not. If it was Icha Icha, we never would have made it out of the hospital." Kakashi stared at him as his anger deflated almost instantly, and he sank back into his chair. "Iruka-sensei?"

"You…you said something almost identical in my dream."

"That's only minorly creepy. Have you been spying on me, Iruka-sensei?"

"What? No!"

Kakashi folded his arms across his chest. "How else would you know what I would say?"

"All I had to do was come up with something perverted that fit with the conversation." Iruka rolled his eyes. "You're not exactly unpredictable."

"If you're so put off by it, then why did I appear in your dream? Or why didn't I have a different personality?"

"You did have a different personality." The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them, and he bit his lip, wishing instantly that he could have taken them back.

The teasing expression vanished from Kakashi's face. "What?"

Well, the cat was out of the bag, he might as well dive in head first.

"You did have a different personality, Kakashi-sensei. Perhaps my mind created a person that I could relate to and rely on to help me get through the weirdness that was going on, and it just happened to grab your face to hang on that personality. But it was not you. When I woke up, I remembered several weeks of eating lunch with your…doppelganger…everyday. That's why I brought you lunch. To prove to myself that you aren't that person. And that's why my dream and my actions do not concern you." Iruka pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, swallowing the lump in his throat. "Despite the extreme unlikelihood, I did actually mistake you for someone else."

The silence in the room was so loud it hurt. Kakashi's breathing made only a tiny dent in the lack of sound.

"Please…just…leave." Iruka whispered.

"Did you really expect lunch to be the same?" Kakashi finally asked. "When you had a set of memories that I don't. You were coming at the situation from a completely different angle."

"Why?" Iruka dropped his hands, and pleaded, "Why can't you just leave me alone?"

"If I left," Kakashi dragged a chair over from the closest desk and settled into it. "Who would you talk to about this?"

He opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

"That's what I thought. This dream is tearing you up inside." Kakashi propped his elbows up on the far edge of the desk. "And I am not a person who walks away from someone in need."

"Is there a reason why you're sitting on the bathroom floor with no shirt on?"

"Feeling better, sensei?"

"Tell you what. I'll come over so you can cook something that at least remotely resembles real food, and in return you can tell me about the dream you had."

The words echoed around in his memory. Though on the surface, it seemed like the Kakashi from his dream was simply poking fun at him, he had sought him out – purposefully checked up on him and, when needed, forced Iruka's hand into a dinner 'date' to ensure that the chuunin was actually okay.

Was it actually possible….?

"If you want, I…I could make dinner tonight." Iruka dropped his gaze, unable to meet the piercing eyes. "If you're not going to leave me alone until I talk about this, and it's kind of a long story, and I'd rather not tell it in here, since the students are still around, so we might as well be…comfortable and…well-fed." He groaned – that had sounded a lot less lame in his head.

The jounin inclined his head. "Deal."

OOOOOOOOO

'Was it actually possible...that they weren't so different'

Like where it's going? One or two more chapters to come.