Author Note: So even though I asked for more reviews before I'd post the next chapter, I'm going to post what I have typed of this chapter as a Christmas present for my readers. So Merry Christmas, and please remember to review after you're done reading.

A Place To Stay

Mika followed closely behind Naruto, as he showed the way to his place.

"So, you're going to be here a while eh?" Naruto asked glancing over his shoulder at Mika.

"Until I'm well again, yes" she answered sadly.

"What's wrong?" Naruto asked stopping and turning to look at her.

"Well, I really don't want to go back," she explained averting her eyes so she was staring down at her shoes instead.

"Why not? Don't you want to get back to your home, your friends, your family?" he asked walking again.

"My family is all dead; I'm an orphan, so I really don't have a home. I live in a ninja orphanage and I don't have any friends. My teammates hate me and so do the rest of the orphans I live with. They all think I'm too different, too kind and soft-hearted. They think I'll end up getting the killed if we're on a mission and so everyone avoids me as much as possible. I tend to go on solo missions because my teammates always find a way to get out of the mission if they can, and when we are on missions together, they tend to give me the easiest task and then ignore me."

"That's horrible!" exclaimed Naruto.

"I'm used to it," she shrugged indifferently.

"That's still horrible. I know how you feel though," he added as he climbed a set of stairs in an apartment complex.

"You do?" Mika asked taking one step and stopping. She couldn't make her legs go up, because it hurt too much.

"Mmm hmm," Naruto mumbled as he continued to climb.

He stopped when he realized she had, and went back to her.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"I can't do this alone. My legs and body are to sore."

"No problem, I can help you up!" he shouted, before picking her up and throwing her over his shoulder.

"Naruto!" she squeaked in surprise.

He laughed as he walked up the stairs, down a hallway, and stopped in front of a door.

"You can put me down now, Naruto," she ground out once he'd stopped.

"Nope, not yet," he laughed again as he opened the door, walked in and kicked his sandals off.

He closed the door with his foot, before walking down the hall into another room. Mika assumed it was the living room when she saw a TV and a shelf full of brightly coloured books, which looked like the one she'd seen Kakashi reading. Her assumption was confirmed when Naruto dumped her onto a couch. She glared up at him and he just grinned and laughed.

"Welcome to my place Mika!" he cheered holding out his arms as if showing off the room.

"Come on I'll take you for a tour."

He reached out his hand and took hers, pulling her up from the couch.

"This is the kitchen, my second favourite room."

Leading her back into the hallway he pointed to a closed door.

"That's the bathroom and the closet is right here," he pointed to a door next to his bathroom.

"And this is my bedroom, it's my favourite room," he said as he walked through the door at the end of the hall, just before the living room. He let go of her hand and hugged the wall before adding, "I love my bedroom."

She covered her mouth with a hand and started to giggle, but stopped when she realized how much laughing hurt. Naruto turned and grinned at her.

"You have a very pretty giggle," he commented offhandedly.

"Uh, thanks," She said quietly, covering her blush with the hand currently on her face.

"So what do you wanna do today?" he asked moving back into the living room.

"I don't think I could handle much more walking, so do you think we could just stay here and watch a movie or something?" she replied following him.

"Sure!" he cheered, "sit down and I'll pick one out!"

Refraining from giggling at his almost insane cheerfulness, Mika sat down on the couch and waited. After Naruto had found a movie, he turned it on then went and sat down beside Mika. About twenty minutes into the movie, Mika started to fall asleep. Unconsciously she leaned over and fell asleep on Naruto's shoulder. He didn't even seem to notice because he was so absorbed in the movie.

When the movie was over, Naruto went to get up but stopped when he finally realized Mika had fallen asleep on him. He didn't want to disturb her, but he was hungry, so he tried wiggling out from underneath her. He gently laid her head on the couch cushion, and then walked into the kitchen to make himself some ramen.

When he was done eating, Naruto came back into the living room and saw Mika curled up into a ball, shivering. He smiled and walked over to his closet to grab a blanket, then laid it over her. She let out a sigh and relaxed, warming up almost instantly. He chuckled quietly and walked over to his bookshelf to grab a book. He thought he'd read while Mika slept, so after he grabbed the book he sat down in front of the couch and leaned backwards against it.

Mika woke up about and hour later more tired now them she had been before she fell asleep. She blinked her eyes before opening them fully. She was surprised, to say the least, when her eyes met a mess of bright blond hair.

"Naruto?" she mumbled, her voice a little scratchy from sleep.

He jumped slightly, startled by her voice, and then spun around to grin at her. She immediately blushed when she noticed how close his face was to hers, the tips of their noses were actually touching. As she blushed, she scooted backward away from Naruto's face.

He just kept grinning and laughed, "you must have been really tired," he teased, "you've been asleep for almost two and a half hours now."

"Really? I'm sorry Naruto; you must have been really bored."

"Don't worry about it; I just made myself something to eat then grabbed a book to read. I wasn't bored."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, no problem."

He turned the rest of his body to face the couch, and then laid his cheek on the cushion.

"So, feel better now that you've had a nap?"

"Not really. Actually I'm more tired now."

"You can go lay down on my bed if you like. It's more comfortable then the couch," he offered, shifting his head so it was resting on his chin.

"no, no, that's fine. I should be fine till this evening," she declined.

"It's alright, I don't mind. Besides I have to quickly run to the store to get some food. There's definitely not enough here for two people, there's barely enough for just me," he laughed.

"Why is that?"

"Because I'm rarely home, and most often when I am, I eat at Ichiraku."

"That's the ramen place you were at, right?"

"Yep, with Iruka-sensei," he nodded his head.

"Oh yes. He seemed like a very nice person," she remembered/

"The best. Iruka-sensei's been like a father to me since forever."

"Um, Naruto?" Mika asked carefully.

"Yeah?"

"Where are your parents? How come you live alone?"

"I have no clue where my mom is...I'm not sure if she's even alive. And my dad...died sealing the nine-tailed fox demon, Kyuubi, inside me," he replied quietly.

Mika was shocked. She hadn't actually expected him to answer her. She had just expected him to brush it off or ignore her.

"So you're the one with the great tailed beast sealed inside their body?"

"Yup, that's me. Jinchuriki Naruto!" he laughed pointing to his chest with his thumb.

"You're a goofball, Naruto," Mika giggled forgetting how much it hurt to do so.

She grimaced and bent over, her face contorted in pain.

"Are you ok?" Naruto asked worried.

"Fine, just a bad idea to giggle, it hurts."

"And people say laughter heals the soul. Apparently they forgot to include the side-effects, flashes of pain."

"Please don't make me laugh," she choked out, holding in more painful giggles.

"Did I mention that your giggle is beautiful? It's so sweet and heart warming."

Mika blushed and covered her face with her hands, not quite sure what to say. Naruto chuckled and stood up.

"Go lay down on my bed, I'll be back in a few."

"Really, I'm fine. If you don't mind, I'd like to come with you. I think I'm just over tired and need to move around."

"Ok, I don't mid the company."

He reached down and took hold of her hand. He helped her to her feet, then the two of them went to the front door and Naruto helped Mika put her shoes on. It was slow moving but they finally got to the market. They had barely been there five minutes when they ran into Kakashi and Iruka, who were -to Mika's surprise- once again holding hands.

"Hey Kakashi, hi Iruka-sensei!" Naruto cheered as he waved at them enthusiastically.

"Yo," was Kakashi's only reply.

"Good evening Naruto, Mika-chan. What are you two doing at the market this late in the day? Naruto, don't you usually do you shopping in the morning?" Iruka inquired.

"Mah, well, we were watching a movie and Mika fell asleep. I didn't want to disturb her so I let her have a nap. I was going to make us some dinner after she woke up but realized I don't really have all that much food in my apartment. I usually do shop in the morning and would have waited if I was just alone but, since Mika's staying with me now, I can't really do that. It'd just be rude not to feed her, now wouldn't it?"

"My, my. You certainly have grown up haven't you?" Kakashi laughed.

"Oh shut up sensei, it's none of your business anyway!" Naruto snapped.

Kakashi and Iruka just laughed at him before starting to walk away.

"See you later Naruto!" Iruka called.

"I expect to see you both on the training field tomorrow, Naruto! Don't be late!" Kakashi yelled over his shoulder.

"You should maybe listen to your own words sensei! It'd be nice if you started up on time!" Naruto retorted with a glare at the back of his teachers head.

"What!? And miss a morning walk on the path of life!?" they heard him say before the two men rounded the corner.

Naruto rolled his eyes before leading Mika off again.

"Naruto?" she asked quietly, shyly.

"Yeah?" he replied.

"Are those two together?"

"Who?"

"Kakashi-san and Iruka-san," she elaborated.

"Ewe! No way! I'd never let that pervert near Iruka-sensei!"

"They seem awfully close though. I mean, they were holding hands."

"What! That's impossible, you must have been imagining it," he argued.

"Don't think I'd imagine that twice. They were holding hands last time I saw them too."

"But there's no way Iruka-sensei's gay!"

He stood there in shock trying not to believe it. (A.N. who ever thought that'd be in the same sentence as Naruto lol)

"Hey Dobe, why do you look like you've just been told you're allergic to ramen or something?" came Sasuke's voice from ahead of them.

Naruto looked up and it took his mind a few seconds to process it was Sasuke.

"Sasuke! Please tell me Iruka-sensei isn't gay!" he shouted once his mind had caught up with him.

"What the hell?" Sasuke asked totally confused, though not showing it.

"Mika thinks that Kakashi and Iruka-sensei are dating. But that's impossible because Iruka-sensei isn't gay, right?" Naruto sounded worried now.

"You mean to tell me you didn't know about those two?"

"Then it is true! Oh god no! Iruka-sensei!" Naruto cried, falling to his knees.

Mika knelt down and patted Naruto's back to comfort him. Suddenly he stood and grinned.

"I bet that means he's seen Kakashi's face! I sooooo gotta know!" he shouted.

He ran off leaving Mika and Sasuke behind. She glanced at him shyly and wasn't sure what to say.

"He can be such and idiot sometimes," Sasuke scoffed.

Mika made to get up but noticed, once again, her muscles wouldn't obey. She was stuck kneeling and it was starting to hurt.

"Uh...Sasuke was it?" she asked timidly.

"Yeah?" he answered curiously.

"Could you do me a favour?"

"Depends..."

"Could you help me to my feet? I can't get up."

He nodded his head, walked over to her, and helped her up. However, once on her feet, Mika instantly felt dizzy and ended up passing out.