A year, maybe five, had passed since Haruno Sakura's name had been added to the Cenotaph when Kakashi once again found himself flat on his back in a bed surrounded by the smells of sickness and cleaning solvents. He kept his eyes closed and his breathing even, attempting to piece together where he was. He was not in Konoha, and he was not dead. It left few options, none of them good.
He could hear little. Night sounds came to him distantly, that of crickets and wind and the cries of nocturnal predators. He was in the country, then, and either the room he had been placed in contained a window or its walls were very thin. There were none of the usual sounds indicating another patient: low, pain-filled moans, uncomfortable shiftings and rustlings, labored, ragged breathing. He had been isolated, but why?
Suddenly, a door slid open, and light footsteps approached his bed. He attempted to continue to feign sleep.
"I know you are awake," a warm, low feminine voice commented from just above him – an achingly familiar voice.
His eyes flew open. Something was blocking his sharingan, but it didn't feel like his hitai-ite. It didn't matter. There was indeed a window set in the far wall, and it let in enough moonlight to see by.
The woman who stood over him had long, dark hair and equally dark eyes. But he knew her face, would know it anywhere.
"Sakura…?"
The woman who wore Sakura's face smiled, "So, you have found me at last." Her voice was resigned, peaceful even.
"How… Where the hell am I?" He kept his voice down by dint of the fact it was night and he had no idea who could be waiting in the wings to slit his throat. That he was still breathing surprised him to no end.
"You are in my clinic," she easily replied, turning to fiddle with the wick of a lamp on a bedside table. "May I?" she asked before lighting it, as if he had any real say in what she did. He could barely feel his chakra, let alone grasp hold of it, and every part of him ached as if he had been worked over by an expert masseuse with a grudge. He nodded anyway.
She lit the lamp and replaced its cover. The light it cast about the room did little to alleviate Kakashi's paranoia as it seemed to only enhance the shadows instead of banish them. It did, however, provide him a better look at his current hostess and former student – former friend.
Her pink shock of hair was gone. A thick, black mane of loose curls now fell to her waist, and nondescript brown eyes had replaced her vibrant green. Her sun-bronzed skin was now the pale ivory of one who had learned everything she knew from books or who had never seen the sun except through her window. Her face was slightly more defined. She had lost any residue of youth in her time away from Konoha. But she was still beautiful – still his Sakura.
She continued to look down at him, a strange little smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. And then she spoke again. He hadn't realized how much he had missed her voice.
"I felt you stirring as I made my rounds. I wanted to make sure you didn't try and run off while you were still in such a bad way and undo all my hard work. I would have only had to collect you again in the morning, anyway. I doubt you could make it more than ten steps as you are, which means you probably would have gotten all the way down to the koi pond with your idiotic stubbornness." Her smile widened into a grin for a moment.
"You should try to go back to sleep. Not all of your wounds are healed, and as you probably have noticed, your chakra is still thoroughly depleted."
He knew she was right. Even after this brief of an encounter, his eyelids were already drooping, betraying him. He yawned, his jaw cracking loudly. "How long have I been asleep?"
"Eight days," she replied succinctly.
He could only give an inarticulate grunt in response. Eight days? And he was still so weak.
"I will check on you in the morning." She could still make the most innocuous of phrases sound like a threat. "And, I will answer any questions you might have, as well." And she was still as cunning as ever. She had laid her bait. He wouldn't try to leave until after he got his answers.
She leaned down and carefully blew out the lamp. "Good night," she said as she pushed open the door. He waited until it slid home behind her to give in and allow his eyes to drift closed once more. If he dreamed, he did not remember it.
When next he awoke it was to the smell of tea and honey and to the feel of sunlight tickling his nose. He opened his eyes to find Sakura placing a serving tray bearing a white ceramic tea pot, two cups, a pot of what he assumed to be honey, and a bowl of what smelled suspiciously like plain rice porridge on his bedside table.
"Good morning," she offered, that same inexplicable smile from the night before gracing her lips. She was wearing a plain blue yukata, and her hair was pulled back into a tight bun. After helping him to sit up and adding an extra pillow behind his back for support, she poured him a cup of tea, leaving it plain as he preferred, and handing it to him without a word.
She pulled a chair next to his bed and fixed her own cup of tea, adding a generous dollop of honey and stirring exactly seven times. Some things never changed. Crossing her legs at the ankle, she took a sip from her cup and cocked her head to the side expectantly.
He continued to stare at her. Finally, "How did I get here?"
"Some of the local boys found you quite a bit more than half-dead in a soybean field. Luckily for you, they ran and got me instead of their fathers. The people here… are not overly fond of shinobi, of any soldiers, really." She took another sip of her tea.
He followed up her response with the next logical question, "Why didn't you kill me?"
"Believe me, the thought had crossed my mind." She smiled ruefully into her cup. "It seems I am still more self-centered than I would like for it would have been very, very selfish of me to ensure my continued existence by ending your own."
"And very ill-mannered," she continued after a short pause. "I owe you my life, after all."
There was nothing to say to that – nothing worth saying out loud, at least. He could have said that he hadn't done it for her. That it had been for the sake of his own conscience and Naruto's remaining innocence. That he hadn't wanted the burden of killing his renegade student heaped on top of all the others that he bore. But, he would have been lying.
So instead, he sat and drank his tea until there was nothing left but bitter dregs.
"Eat your porridge before it gets cold," she counseled, taking his cup and replacing it with the unappetizing bowl of mush.
He could feel her eyes on him, following the movements of his hand as he proceeded to eat his breakfast. He imagined her ready to swoop in at a moments notice should his grip waver. Struggling valiantly to keep the tremble out of his hands, he dutifully fed himself under her watchful gaze. Suddenly, a wave of dizziness assailed him
"What… did you put… in this…?" he ground out, his vision blurring, his words slurring.
"Nothing that will do you any harm, Sensei. Sleep." He felt the bowl plucked from his nerveless fingers. And then he felt nothing at all for some time.