Author's Notes: Chapter three of seven live! Kakashi manages to surprise Sakura and they both begin to wonder what it is that's happening between them.

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Chapter 3: Spread Your Wings

One of these mornings you're gonna rise up singin'

You're gonna spread your wings and take to the sky, take to the sky

But until that mornin' there's nothin' that can harm you

So, hush, little baby don't you cry

Summertime by Renee Olstead

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With a green-nailed finger, Sakura turned the page in the Kunoichi Quarterly magazine resting on her knee and took a pleasurable sip from the chamomile tea steaming out of her mug. Right when she placed it back on the coffee table, a polite knock sounded at her door.

Her eyebrows furrowed together and she rubbed her eyes before glancing over at the stove clock. She'd only been home from work for an hour and it already felt so late, though that came to her as no surprise – there was hardly a day she came home from work not utterly exhausted.

Perching the magazine facedown on the arm of the couch so as to not lose her spot, she sauntered over to the door, baffled at who it might be, and for what reason.

What she found on the threshold of her apartment wasn't the most shocking thing she could think of, but in and of itself, it was amusingly surprising.

Kakashi stood on her doorstep, looking fairly expectant. Sakura blinked at him, still attempting to process his presence. Kakashi decided to break the silence.

"Yo," he greeted, holding a hand up in a half-assed wave.

"Hey," Sakura replied with a raised eyebrow and quirked smile. "What's up, Kakashi? Oh please don't tell me Naruto and Sasuke got into a fight that's about to destroy the village again."

Kakashi shook his head, his shoulders slumping. "No, not at all. You see, I figured I would try something new for a change, something different. May I come in and…chat?"

Sakura's eyes widened considerably. He was reaching out instead of waiting to be reached. Obito…you really did change something in him.

Finding herself again, she swung the door wide to grant him entrance and began rattling off the snacks and drinks she had in case he was interested in some refreshment. She paled when she watched his eyes land on the fist-shaped hole in the drywall near the door and silently thanked him when he didn't inquire about it. Her panicked heart relaxed in her ribcage only slightly, however, and evolved into a sort of butterfly feeling for some reason she couldn't quite figure out.

Kakashi chose the sofa across from her favorite chair and lowered himself into it gingerly as if to not disturb the atmosphere. He took in her apartment like a small child in a zoo for the first time.

"I'll have what you're drinking, if you don't mind," he replied in a soft murmur.

Sakura spun to shoot an incredulous glance at him.

"You drink tea?"

Kakashi retaliated with a look of his own that clamped her mouth shut. Without anything more, she refilled the kettle and put it on the stove to boil.

"I've never been in your apartment before. This is all very new to me," Kakashi commented lazily.

"Well I haven't had it for very long and I don't get any visitors whatsoever, so this is new to me as well," she called over her shoulder.

Once the water boiled, she whipped him up a mug of chamomile tea, no sugar, as per his request, and meandered back to sit in her chair, handing him the mug over the coffee table. As he received it graciously, Sakura noticed his other hand was poking at the stack of notes he'd left in her mailbox over the past few weeks. Sakura's cheeks warmed and she felt a sort of embarrassment well up in her for some undetectable reason she couldn't quite pin and reflexively hid her face behind her mug, unable to comment on it without seeming girlish and stupid.

A smile brought up the corners of Kakashi's lips under his indigo mask when he caught her watching him.

"I've got yours as well. I keep them in a tiny inner pouch of the mailbag that's too small to be of much use for anything else." Kakashi took a hearty sip of his tea (through his mask, the weirdo), rendering them in a comfortable sort of silence.

Sakura tapped a quiet finger on the side of the ceramic cup and bit her lip.

"A mailman, though? How did you get saddled with that? Couldn't Tsunade have assigned you a job more fitting of your skills and expertise? There are still those rich old men who are paranoid of being attacked in their vulnerable state – you could have been a bodyguard, at least."

Kakashi shrugged, expressing so much indifference toward the situation Sakura had trouble seeing through it.

"It was just what had been picked out of the hat. Tsunade wouldn't let me choose anything too vigorous anyhow. She's trying to keep my occupied, but not worried about getting killed mid-mission, or anything of the like. A happy medium, as they say, and though I don't feel its very applicable, it's not my place to argue at the moment."

Sakura nodded slowly, the mug lip pressed against hers.

"Everyone has had to pitch in for the village, even in the smallest of ways. And she's right, you know," Sakura added cheekily over the rim of her mug, "to keep you moving and occupied though not with anything life-threatening or rigorous. You nearly died in the war due to the strain you'd put on your body. And you got your eye ripped out, for Kami's sake! This is the closest Tsunade can get to assigning you to permanent bed rest for a while, and since she knows just how well anything of that sort goes, this mailman job is working quite nicely."

Kakashi emitted a sigh and leaned forward on his knees, shoulders hunching over the mug cradled in his large, calloused hands (ungloved, for the moment, she noticed). She had given him the mug that said "coffee? – ninjas run on adrenaline!" It had been a gift from her father when she moved out.

As Kakashi stared down into his tea for a pensive moment, Sakura took the opportunity to really let her eyes wander over him, and found she very much enjoyed the look of him draped on her sofa, holding that mug in his hand. It was very…idyllic.

She blinked, taken aback at the direction her thoughts had taken. It struck her out of nowhere, though she couldn't help but agree with it. She couldn't deny she was beginning to like having him around; his presence was centering, almost, as if everything else in her life left her careening madly through time and space, but as soon as he stepped in, all grew calm. Sakura could forget about Sasuke's big dumb head and simply relax into Kakashi's aura. From what she could see, he appeared pretty content himself, sipping his tea and making himself comfortable on the worn sofa, which doubled as a hand-me-down as well as a housewarming gift from her parents when they got a new one.

Sakura's lips quirked up as she finished off the dregs of her diminishing tea.

"Thank you for dropping by, Kakashi," Sakura murmured. "This is really nice."

Kakashi tilted up his head to meet her emerald eyes with his matching black ones, and nodded.