"Fuck, fuck."

Kana exited the bathroom and tugged her shirt over her head, beelining to her duffle bag to ignore the curious raised eyebrows she earned from Raido, who was sitting on the couch with a bowl of cereal. She didn't have time for the questions she knew he had, considering she had been able to hear his snoring stop for about half of an hour last night when she and Genma had been talking, so she quickly sped through the process of putting her Anbu uniform on. If there was one thing she preferred her jonin wear over the standardized uniform Black Ops had to wear, it was how simple it was to put it on. No straps, no sword, no extra mask - just her flak jacket, one piece and standard pouches.

When she was dressed and fully geared, Kana dropped down into the dark blue easy chair next to the sofa and quickly threw her hair up into the tight braid that she pinned into a bun when in the black and white uniform. "You sleep okay?" she asked with a sigh.

"Well enough. Don't have time for breakfast?"

"I don't have time for coffee," she grumbled, "I forgot to set a fucking alarm." Kana could practically hear the unspoken questions screaming at her from inside his head, so she began to go down the list. "Yes I knew you were awake last night, Gen and I got into a fight. Then I punched him and we kissed but it was weird and we decided there was nothing worth pursuing. I miss anything?"

He shrugged with a look that bordered amused and relieved, eyes glued to the TV screen, "No, that about covers it," he said, voice still husky from sleep.

She tightened the straps on her boots and made sure her kunai pouch was secured before bouncing off of the seat cushion. "Then I gotta go, Anbu are on rotation standby and I needed to leave ten minutes ago. See ya."

"Be safe."

Kana slid her porcelain mask over her face and shut the door behind her.

'Knock…knock'

Kana froze with her body hovering over the table, the plate full of tempura warm even through the thick oven mitts she wore. Maybe she was still on edge from work, but she could feel a sense of dread coming from behind the door. The knocks were too slow, too soft.

As she set the plate down there were two more knocks, this time faster as if the person making the noise was impatient. Raido made to stand from the chair he was sitting in but the woman waved at him to sit down, pulling off the oven mitts and walking over to the door just as a familiar voice called her name.

"Kana?" Iruka's voice sounded strained. When she opened the door, his face looked twelve times as bad and Kana found herself almost taken aback by his appearance. Iruka had dark circles under his tired, bloodshot eyes, and his skin looked unnaturally pale for his normally tan complexion; she realized the expression as panicked exhaustion just before he spoke again. "Shishi… He's having an episode… He won't eat – won't look at me –I tried to touch him and…" Iruka's voice was cut off by a choked sigh and Kana glanced down at his exposed wrist to see a nasty bruise forming.

She shot a glance back at the two men still sitting at the table, who nodded wordlessly as Kana slipped into her sandals.

"Next time, don't just grab him or whatever you did to get that bruise," she said slowly, holding onto Iruka's jacket as his hands quickly formed the seals for the transportation jutsu.

"I don't know what else to do," he whispered, "I don't know this life. I didn't know what else to do..."

The frustration in his words made Kana's heart sink as they appeared in Iruka's living room in a cloud of smoke. It was common knowledge that those who went on constant A and S ranked missions saw horrible, terrible things that left scars on them each and every mission; there were some that hurt worse than the others, leaving them in a dark place that was more than difficult to get out of.

Not only was Iruka just a chunin, meaning he only ever goes on C and B ranked missions, but he had been a teacher for so long that Kana honestly couldn't remember the last time he had been on an actual mission. You could tell just in the way he blindly trusted and cared for others that he couldn't possibly understand what it was like to feel that darkness.

She didn't need to ask to figure out where Kakashi was – she could feel his chakra signature the minute she appeared in the living room, even as he expertly suppressed it. The door to the bedroom opened with a slight creaking noise as Kana stepped through, watching her friend remain motionless in a dark corner. "Kashi?" she asked cautiously, "Are you hurt?"

He didn't move from his cowering position but Kana could see blood pooling around the left side of his body, and that his pant leg was torn open. As she got closer she could see two more tears on Kakashi's left arm and a deep gash on his chest.

Shit, there went her normal routine.

Kakashi's mismatched gaze was intensely anxious as she kneeled in front of him, watching every movement she made and analyzing the situation.

"Kashi, you're bleeding," she said in a low, gentle voice, "Let me help you." He flinched when Kana reached out to him, and her hand froze between them as she remembered the bruise on Iruka's wrist from when he did the same thing. She felt like her heart was tearing in two when she heard his breathing quicken; Kana let her hand slowly fall down to one of Kakashi's, the one that wasn't wrapped around a kunai.

He pulled back when Kana's fingers wrapped around the back of his hand and brought it up, so she let go and instead used her hand to tug at the hair fastener that kept her braid together. The hostile edge in his gaze faltered, telling her that her message got across. "Let me help you," she whispered.

A whoosh of breath she didn't know was being held was released from Kana's lungs when the man dropped the kunai he held, blade clattering to the wood flooring loudly, before slowly reaching out to touch the ends of her hair. She waited a few moments to let him settle down, keeping close watch on the tension in his shoulders and face. When Kakashi's gaze softened enough for her to feel comfortable taking hold of him, Kana reached out again took his other hand in her own.

She stood up first and wrapped a firm arm around his rib cage for support before helping Kakashi stand. The exhaustion she saw in his eyes didn't even begin to compare to what he must have been feeling, because his legs almost immediately gave out underneath his weight and Kana had to quickly release his hand to loop her other arm around Kakashi's waist before he collapsed to the floor. He was large, much larger than she was, but she was able to keep him upright by holding him tightly to her chest.

"I've got you," she cooed when he made a noise that sounded like a cross between a grunt and a whimper, "Let's get you into the shower."

When Kana was training, she knew there were going to be positive perks to having developed muscles - she just didn't know that she would need to use them to all but literally carry a man twice her size into an adjoining bathroom while having to listen to his labored breathing and pained moans. As much as Kana wanted to, she couldn't allow herself to fall behind the stoic veil she projected in situations like this; it would ease her mind as she gently sat Kakashi on top of the toilet seat, but past experiences told her that he needed his friend. Not a shinobi.

She stood in front of him and slowly took hold of the zipper to his flak jacket, paying attention to any changes in Kakashi's body language as she dragged the zipper down and pushed the vest off of his shoulders. He wasn't making eye contact with her while she untucked his grimy uniform shirt and slid it upwards, but he wasn't resisting Kana even if he was still visibly tense.

His wounds were bad – deep, crusted with drying blood and dirt as more seeped out, and angry looking; she sucked in a sharp intake of breath at the sight as she assessed the extend of Kakashi's injuries. He had bruising over his ribs, surface scratches all along his left side and the gashes she saw earlier. Kana couldn't help but wonder what could have possibly hurt Kakashi so badly.

She knelt down and placed her hands over the gash on his arm, paying close attention to how his muscles instantaneously flexed at the movement. Kakashi brought his uninjured arm up to lightly hold the end of the black braid that had fallen between his knees; Kana watched his eyes soften with his shoulders as his long fingers worked out the woven hair.

"I made tempura for dinner," she said idly, watching the gash close enough under the green chakra to where it was no longer posing any threat, "I know you don't really like fried foods all that much, but Gen and Rai really seem to like it. I think they're just glad they don't have to cook while I'm there." Her hands steadily moved over to Kakashi's chest. "Though I don't really get to cook all that often since the elders have basically put all of the Anbu force on a constant standby so I have to make an obscene amount of food at a time. I don't think they actually cook anything while I'm gone so I'd rather them not revert to cold cuts and takeout."

This wound was a lot deeper than the one on his arm and Kana briefly wondered if she should just insist on him going to the hospital for proper care; Kakashi stayed silent but continued to release her hair from its braid inch by inch, almost as if all of his concentration was focused on the task he had given himself.

"Oh, yeah, and Raido said the other day he wants a cat. I don't really know what brought it on but he just said out of the blue that he wants a cat." There, the chest wound was closed up enough. Kana swiftly removed Kakashi's muddy sandals and undid his leg tattered wrappings before she glanced up at him, tapping the waistband of his pants with her index finger, "Do you think you can get these off yourself, or do you need me to?"

Kakashi quit paying attention to her hair long enough to drop his gaze down to his bloodied pants; he placed a shaky hand on the counter and, with a heavy grunt, pushed himself to his feet only to fall back to the toilet seat halfway up. Kana quickly caught him by the waist and swiveled their bodies around to help him lay on the cool tile floor.

"Anyways, I'm not really sure if that would be a good idea considering we leave all of the time-" The sight of the gash on Kakashi's thigh stunned Kana out of her idle ramblings. It was deep, dangerously deep, and looked as if it was infected or damn close to being infected.

'I should have gone to this one first. Fuck.'

Kana focused a little more chakra to her hands and placed them over the seeping wound, feeling just how deep it was as she closed it; he was lucky, whatever cut Kakashi had missed his artery by only a couple of inches. If it had been angled just a little more to the right…

The idea of Kakashi bleeding out, alone, was something she didn't need to be envisioning right now.

"Don't stop…" the man croaked, snapping Kana out of her musings; he didn't meet her questioning gaze, but must have felt it. "Your voice…"

'Oh.'

Kana moved her eyes back down to the slowly healing injury, "And I saw Lee the other day with Guy after training. His rehab's going well enough – Guy started giving him these green food pill things and I don't know if it's some sort of placebo effect or not, but it looks like it's helping. Which, by the way, I found it kind of odd that…" she continued babbling on, her eyes flitting back and forth between the injury and Kakashi's haggard face.

Several minutes later, when the wound was closed enough to where it no longer scared the hell out of Kana, she stood up and pulled the plain blue shower curtain aside before turning the shower on. A sense of déjà vu washed over her when she helped a very limp Kakashi step into the bathtub, holding him steady by the armpits as she helped him sit down on the porcelain floor. For a brief moment she considered just kneeling outside of the tub but, the last time she decided against getting in with him, Kakashi had passed out and nearly cracked his head open on the faucet.

Toeing her sandals off, Kana crawled over the edge of the tub so that she was kneeling behind him with a washcloth. She meticulously rubbed the soapy fabric over his back and trembling shoulders, over his chest and down his flanks while Kana watched the layers of dirt and grime run down Kakashi's pale skin in grey rivulets.

"They used children as human shields."

Her hands stopped their ministrations as her mindless prattling came to a screeching halt. Kakashi's voice was low and hoarse, just barely louder than a whisper, but she was still able to hear his explanation.

"They were using an orphanage as a hideout… The others couldn't bring… Themselves to hurt the kids… I… The mission required that the enemy be taken out… I didn't have a choice – th-the others… They didn't m-make..." Kakashi's words were choked off by sobs that shook his shoulders under her hands. 'Oh, Kashi…'

Kana pulled him to her chest, a soap-slicked hand rubbing at his dirty cheeks as he tried to bury himself into her.

"I didn't have a choice," he whispered, though it sounded more like he was trying to convince himself rather than her as his eyes began to flutter closed.

She allowed him to sleep for the remainder of the shower, gently washing around his wounds. When he was properly cleaned, Kana decided to let him sleep a little while longer and kneaded her fingertips into his shoulders and back, massaging at the stiff muscles and pebble-like knots she found in the teres major region.

When it came for the water to turn cold, though, she had to wake the sleeping Kakashi to pull him out of the tub and get started on the first aid. It wasn't so much that she needed him to be awake due to an inability to maneuver his body on her own as it was she remembered that the last time Kana tried to give Kakashi stitches while he was asleep, she wound up with a broken arm and two cracked ribs before she could even open her mouth.

Kakashi didn't even react to the burn of the peroxide when it was swabbed into each of his wounds, or flinch when a sterile needle wove thread through his skin. Kana looked up into the haunted eye that stared back at her and could practically see every horrible thought that was flashing through his mind.

She had seen him do this before, on multiple occasions; it was Kakashi's way of punishing himself. He replayed every horrific act he had performed, remembered the screams he had heard, as a form of torture. Whenever she tried to snap him out of it, the man would only ignore her pleas.

Closing the first aid kit, she helped Kakashi off of the toilet and lead him to the bed. Kana tucked him into the covers but didn't crawl in after him – partly because this was Iruka's house but mostly because she was still completely soaked – so she leaned over and entangled her fingers in the wet silver locks, touching her forehead to Kakashi's temple.

"Kashi, we do what we do so others don't have to," she whispered against the shell of his still damp ear, "We're not bad people. You're not a bad person."

An exhausted, choked sob escaped his lips. Kana saw his hand grip the pillow he was laying on. "They were so scared... They didn't even understand what was happening..."

The door opened behind Kana and Kakashi visibly tensed, his hand coming dangerously close to tearing the pillowcase. Iruka walked to the bed wordlessly, picked a pillow off of the bed and dug around in the dresser for a pair of sleeping pants and a shirt.

"I'm sorry, I kind of made a mess-"

"There are pajamas in the drawer, you can stay the night," Iruka cut her off with a strained but understanding tone, "He'll have nightmares tonight, but you probably already knew that."

Kana flinched inwardly at the vitriol that entered his voice just before he clicked the door shut – Iruka rarely ever showed any expression other than parental-like concern and cheer, so seeing him look so… Jealous and pained… It was startling. When she turned her attention back to Kakashi, it was clear that he felt the same way. She rested a hand on his hip and massaged it through the duvet, "You should really talk to him, Kashi," she murmured, "This isn't fair to Iruka."

When he didn't respond, she sighed and walked over to Kakashi's duffle bag and rifled around until she found a plain black t-shirt and matching cotton boxers Kana could wear as shorts; it would have felt too weird to wear Iruka's clothing, especially in a situation like this. While she reorganized, putting everything back into its place so Kakashi didn't have a conniption, Kana saw a small glossy sheet of paper wedged between a pair of socks.

She pulled it out and unfolded it, a small smile spreading on her face when Kana looked down at the impossibly worn photo. It was taken by Guy a couple of years after the first mission the three of them took together; Kana was sprawled across Kakashi's sofa with her head in his lap, staring up at the silver-haired man in awe as he read Icha Icha with a hand in her hair. It was the night she had been allowed to see him without his mask on for the first time and she had been so captivated by Kakashi's face that Kana basically just stared at him the entire night – after choking on her rice, of course. Kakashi protested against the photo being taken, as he hated physical evidence of his face existing, but Guy insisted on preserving the moment.

It was almost ironic to find it in Kakashi's bag. It was frayed at the edges and had heavy creasing, as if it had been folded and unfolded too many times to count.

There was another photo next to the one she was holding; Kana pulled it out and noticed it had suffered the same amount of abuse, if not more. She saw a black-haired boy wearing orange goggles and a toothy grin standing next to an unamused Kakashi, who looked to be about… Ten, if she had to guess. When her eyes fell on the Fourth and a young girl, Kana realized that she was looking at Kakashi's genin team. The grinning boy must have been Obito Uchiha, and the girl was Rin; Kakashi had spoken of them in the past on multiple occasions, but she had never seen a photo of them until now.

Viewing the photo began to feel too personal, as if Kana had overstepped a boundary of sorts, so she quickly put the pictures back into the duffel bag between the socks and rushed into the bathroom to change. There were bloodied bandages and first aid supplied littering the bathroom so she made sure to clean up the mess and scrub the remains of Kakashi's dirt out of the tub before peeling her soaked shorts and top off of her damp skin. For a moment Kana wondered if she should keep her panties on, considering she didn't have any with her, but decided that going commando for a night wouldn't kill her so she toweled herself off the best she could and threw on Kakashi's clothes.

It was almost comical to see just how large the shirt was on her small frame; she could have easily worn it on its own, considering it covered her butt better than she liked to admit, but Kana figured Iruka would have appreciated the extra modesty provided by the too-large boxer shorts.

'I don't know if I'm a midget or if Kakashi's just fucking enormous,' she grumbled while crawling onto the double bed, 'I mean I know I'm a little short for my age but it seems like he just towers over everyone and-' Her musings were cut off by Kakashi's arm darting out to pull her towards him.

"Jesus, Kashi," she hissed, "At least let me… Of course… You're… Asleep…" Kana sighed and twisted awkwardly in the iron grip so that she was in a more comfortable position with her face nestled in the crook of his neck.

His breathing was short and measured, telling Kana that he was still in "Mission mode," despite being in bed next to her, which was when he normally relaxed; she chalked it up to Kakashi not being in his own bed, all things considering.

Kana just sighed and decided it was time to study, doing her best to ignore the gentle sobs coming from the living room.

Medical ninjutsu was ridiculously complicated, Kana decided.

It was something she was able to grasp, of course, and once she understood what the textbook was telling her, she realized that it would be pretty simple for her to execute it on the field. It seemed like the Mystical Palm Technique was one of the more difficult jutsu, and she had that shit down to a science after nearly three years of using it, so a vast majority of the rest of it just almost felt like lesser branch versions.

Kakashi began trembling in her lap for the third time in the last couple of hours, catching her attention; she figured out pretty quickly he was having a nightmare and decided it was best to let him try to roll through it for now. Waking up a shinobi from a nightmare was a lot more dangerous than one might think.

Looking back down at the book, the Pre-Healing Jutsu was what was currently captivating Kana's attention, and it was fascinating. Healing her body before it's attacked was enthralling.

And absolutely complicated.

Kana could understand what was being told to her by the textbook, but the act of repairing something that isn't in need of repairing left her embarrassingly confused. 'Is this really only an A-rank jutsu…?'

Kakashi stirred in her lap with a groan, pulling her out of her musings as she set the textbook down to look at him. Her hand snaked into his bushy silver hair and rubbed gentle circles into his scalp in a vain attempt at soothing the man; his eyes snapped open only half of a second before he grabbed Kana's wrist in a painful grip.

'Shit, shit, shit that hurts.' She whimpered against the tightening fingers, wondering if it was worth the risk of waking Kakashi up from the nightmare to save him from snapping her wrist.

Kana's eyes flickered to the empty nightstand surface and wondered if there was a kunai anywhere in the general vicinity other than the one on the floor in the corner. A flash of her kekkei genkai told her that there was one between the mattress and the box spring.

She gingerly began to scoot out from under Kakashi just as he decided to jump up, still holding Kana's wrist in an impossibly tight vice grip, and use his free hand to grab at her throat.

Another whimper escaped her lips. Kana focused her chakra to the numbing wrist and her throat, creating a small barrier that pushed back against Kakashi's near-inhuman strength; she didn't want to hurt him with a full on body blast so this was going to have to be enough.

"Kashi," she wheezed, the pressure on her neck still restricting her airflow, "Kakashi, you're safe. It's… Me… You're home."

The fingers only curled harder, pressing the barrier into her skin, and Kana released a pained cough; this was bad. This was really, really bad – she had never been in a situation where Kakashi didn't immediately come out of the nightmare when she started talking to him. If she struggled too hard, it could only scare him and make things worse but, even as she pushed back harder with the barrier, she knew it wasn't going to be enough. Her chakra barrier was for deflecting projectiles, not for completely stopping the force of pressure like this. Especially when Kana didn't need her Kurogan to know that Kakashi was applying chakra to his hands.

The bedroom door swung open to a wide-eyed Iruka.

"Iru-ka, no-"

He moved faster than Kana could get air into her lungs and by the time she could wheeze out a warning, Iruka was already next to the bed and making an attempt to grab Kakashi's forearm. 'Is he fucking stupid, you don't just grab a shin-'

Kana's thoughts were cut off by the sudden release of her wrist as Kakashi thrust his palm directly into the center of Iruka's chest, knocking the chunin back against the wall and probably winding him. She used the opportunity to bring her hands together to seal for the Paralysis Jutsu, a stroke of guilt hitting her in the stomach when the glazed look in Kakashi's eyes was replaced by one of genuine panic as he finally snapped awake.

"You're safe, Kashi," Kana whispered hoarsely after the grip on her hand loosened. When his expression changed to that of horror, she released the jutsu and struggled to push herself up from the mattress as Kakashi fell to the side. "No, no, it's okay – hey, look at me." She was well aware that the gravelly sound of her voice wasn't helping matters, but the way he was curling in on himself told Kana that he was slipping into a panic attack; the best thing to do was to start talking to him.

Iruka had picked himself off of the floor by this point and threw his hands up into the air. "You know what? I can't do this anymore," he said through angry tears, "The night terrors, the shutting away-"

"Iruka this isn't the fucking time," Kana snapped, voice cracking as she tore her gaze away from Kakashi long enough to shoot him an incredulous look.

Iruka just rolled his eyes and turned to leave the room, "Whatever, I want him gone in the morning."

She grit her teeth and did her best to not allow the chunin to rile her up, instead focusing back on Kakashi's trembling form. It was very, very rare to see him this shaken up over something and while Kana was fully aware of what had tipped him over the edge like this, it never ceased to horrify her.

Kakashi had always been a rock in her life, much like Guy. He was strong, powerful, cool and proud in every situation he found himself in no matter how tough or bleak things became. Kana remembered how she all but worshiped him as a child, like he was some sort of god of war. As she got older she came to the understanding that he was human, just like her, when Kakashi let her in to view the kind and tender side of himself that he kept shut away; it wasn't until she was fourteen that Kana saw him fall apart like this, and she had only seen it happen three times since then.

The level of trust he ensured in Kana was dizzying, but she couldn't shake the feeling of her heart caving in on itself when she saw Kakashi lying next to her looking so… Broken.

A hand slid its way up Kana's thigh, over her clothed hip and over the baggy shirt she wore; she returned the gesture by weaving her own fingers into Kakashi's hair to massage his scalp. Thankfully he didn't attack her again, sighing instead and using the hand on her ribcage to pull her down next to him.

"I am… So, so sorry… I… Sweetheart, I-"

"I know," she cut him off, doing her best to downplay the scratchy hoarseness of her bruising throat, "You didn't mean it. I'm fine."

They laid on the bed together in silence, bodies pressed flush, as Kakashi slowly calmed down; he thumbed the forming bruise that ran across Kana's throat.

"I know this is a really, really horrible time for real talk, Kakashi," she murmured, "But if you want to save what you have with Iruka then you need to let him in. This is hurting him."

Kakashi released a shaky breath into the top of her head while literally curling his body around hers, "I tried," he whispered, "I tried, and every time he just…" Kana could feel his arms tighten around her chest and waist as he forced out a long sigh. "He gets so frustrated… He doesn't…"

"He doesn't understand," Kana finished for him, earning a nod from the man behind her.

"And he pushes me away. That was why we ended things again."

A million questions flew through her head but Kana fought them back and squirmed around so she was lying on her back with her legs over Kakashi's bent ones. "Then why are you here?" she asked, "Why don't you just stay with Guy? You know he has the space…"

It made her feel horrible, but she felt somewhat relieved that Kakashi looked tired instead of panicked; that meant he was moving on from the trauma as he spoke, "We thought we could try again..."

Kana raised a hand to stroke the small dark freckle next to his mouth with a sigh, "I'm sorry, Kakashi…"

He looked down at her wrist, rubbing the bruise with regret etched into his exhausted face. "No, I'm sorry. I hurt you again…"

"I've gone through worse."She immediately regretted saying the words as they left her mouth, watching guilt flash across Kakashi's face as he misconstrued her words, "No, I didn't mean it like-"

"I always hurt you," he whispered ,"Why do you always come back?"

Kana tried to force a small smile to ease his worries, "Because you're one of the only people in this world that I trust my entire being with," she rasped, "You're my best friend. And I'm not exactly a bundle of joy to deal with, either."

She cupped the man's darkening face in her hands and stroked his cheeks with her thumbs as she gazed up at him tenderly, "Kashi, you're war-weary. You need to sleep, you'll feel better in the morning."

He squeezed his mismatched eyes shut, turning his head into one of her hands with a depressed sigh.

Guy didn't make any jokes when the pair appeared on his doorstep, and helped his rival into one of the guest bedrooms of his rather large apartment while Kana prepared the bed for him.

She stayed with Kakashi through the night just like she always did, and just like he always did for her.