Italics=Flashback

/\/\

Kakashi tried not to breathe as Keiko advanced on him, stalking towards him with the grace of a panther as they hunted their prey.

"You lied to me," she continued, snarling through her teeth."You pretended to be my friend, then betrayed me, killing everyone I had left. You tried to kill me, too, and you would have if Ryuu hadn't found me. He nursed me back to health, comforted me while I mourned, and helped me plan your death. Kakashi Hatake, I will kill you."

She lunged, her hands extended in front of her like claws. That was another thing he had forgotten about her.

She summoned, trained, and merged with cats, and just like the Inuzuka clan, she acted like them, too.

Keiko snarled when he was able to leap above her, dodging her attack. He crouched behind her, acutely aware of his temporary students being held hostage.

She really had planned this out well.

Kakashi slipped a kunai out of his pack, holding it ready as he contemplated the situation.

Keiko was mad. She wanted to kill him for what he did to her on that mission. He couldn't die, not when he had two kids at home now.

God, what was he going to do?

Kakashi stood in the Hokage's office, staring at his sensei.

"Are you sure you can do this?" Minato asked worriedly.

"Yes, Sensei. I'll do this, because I need something to do. I need to get out of the village," Kakashi answered.

"Okay. You leave in an hour."

/\/\

Kakashi crouched in the shadows, staring through the window and into the bedroom. The person he was watching was brushing her chocolate hair, oblivious to the shinobi watching her.

Her husband crept up behind her, snaking his hands around her waist. She laughed and tilted her head back to stare at his face, smiling happily. She said something and he nodded, leaving the room to get something.

Her gaze slid back to the mirror and she ran a hand over her cheek, glancing around the room through the mirror.

Her husband came back with a baby boy, and she held her arms out for the baby. The boy twined his fingers through his mother's hair, twisting the dark locks harshly. She just laughed, cooing at her son.

Kakashi sighed, almost dreading the fact that he was going to have to destroy this beautiful, picture-perfect family.

/\/\

Kakashi forced a smile as Keiko poured some more tea into his cup. "Thank you," he said.

Yoshiyuki slung an arm over his wife's shoulders. "'Kashi, when are you going home?"

"A couple months from now," he answered.

Daisuke cooed and grabbed his mother's hair again. She smiled down at him.

Kakashi didn't know if he could do this anymore.

/\/\

Kakashi panted as he wiped the blood from his arm. He gazed down at the three bodies in front of him: Daisuke, Yoshiyuki, and Riko. People he had learned to care about over the past few month; people he had to kill because a mission.

Keiko backed away from him, her left arm limp against her side. "Why?" she whimpered. "I thought we were friends."

"I was on a mission. It was all an act," he muttered numbly.

"I let you eat at our table," she said. "I let you live in our home."

"I had to eliminate your family because of your powers," he continued.

"Why?" she shrieked. "Why did you do this to me?"

"A mission. That's all it was."

Then the kunai cam slashing down, aimed at her heart. Blood splattered on the ground and the front of his clothes. Keiko fell to the ground.

Kakashi tore himself out of the memory, ducking a shuriken.

"Why?" Keiko screamed. "Why did you do this to me?"

"It was a mission," he replied. "I had to do it."

"No you didn't!" she cried. "You could have stopped it!"

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm so sorry."

"No, you're not! You're not sorry!"

"Yes, I am. Keiko, the time I spent with your family was a time I cherished. I didn't have that growing up; my father was never around, and my mother died when I was a couple years old. It killed me inside to do what I did to you; and now I know how you were feeling. I have two kids of my own, and I can only imagine how it felt to lose everything in the space of a few moments.

"My father committed suicide. My mother died on her first ANBU mission. My entire family on my mother's side died because someone was afraid of their power, and my best friend died on my first Jonin mission. The girl who loved me was killed by the fact that the boy who loved her was gone. She knew she could never have me, and her world came crashing down around her.

"I know how you feel, Keiko. And I know you can't forgive me for what I did to you. I respect that. But try to understand that I know what you went through."

Keiko had frozen at his words, not believing that what he had just said was true.

"I don't believe you," she snarled suddenly, snapping out of her daze. "There is no way that you went through that."

"I did," he promised. "I swear I did."

"NO! You didn't!" Keiko lunged at him again, her nails growing into claws. She aimed a punch at his face, using her cat-like reflexes to adjust her direction as he dodged.

As they fought, Kakashi saw another shinobi appear out of the corner of his eye. Daichi was fighting his way through the ninja holding his students hostage.

Now that he didn't have to worry about the Genin anymore, he made his decision.

Kakashi fell to all fours, howling up at the glowing moon as he shifted into a gray wolf (1).

/ \/\

Iruka paced the length of his bedroom at Kakashi's apartment. When he had officially adopted the two Uchiha's, the Hatake had moved to a bigger apartment. Now instead of only one bedroom, he had three. One for him, one for the two boys, and one for Iruka.

And now as the brunette paced, Itachi appeared with a crying Sasuke in his arms. "Daddy," he said. "Sasuke's cwying again."

God, damn it. Itachi had slipped back into little kid mode. That had been happening more and more often lately. And Sasuke refused to do anything Iruka tried to do with him while Kakashi was gone.

"I'll take care of him in a minute, Itachi," Iruka said, waving Itachi back into his bedroom. He glanced back out the window as he walked out of his room, biting his lip.

He would never admit it to him, but he missed Kakashi more than he would like to admit.

A/N: (1): This is a reference to my other story, True Love Never Dies. You don't have to read it, I'll explain everything soon, but if you want to have a bit of background information I would suggest you read it. The only thing that's different is that Minato and Kushina didn't die.

GOD! I finally finished. You will never believe how hard it was for me to write all of that flashback stuff. And in case you got confused, Riko is the twin sister, Yoshiyuki is the husband, and Daisuke is the baby. Keiko was obviously the woman Kakashi was staring at through the window.