Naruto was out with Sasuke and Sakura when it happened. It was late Sunday afternoon, and Kakashi had dressed her in her long black pants—it might rain, he'd said—and her grey t-shirt. She and Sakura had dragged their third teammate out with them to enjoy the sunshine, and take a walk through the monthly craft fair being held near the market. It was fun, to see the art and pottery and weavings, especially once she realized Sasuke was rather picky about aesthetics, and would mercilessly criticize any object he was asked about which didn't meet his standards. She was careful to ask out of earshot of the creators, because even if it was rather entertaining, it was still mean.

They were near the end of the block full of pop-up stalls when their attention was caught by a ruckus half a block further away. The yelling drew Naruto's eye just in time to watch someone go down and stay down, angry people crowding in around them, and before anyone could stop her, she was involving herself. "Hey!" she shouted, running towards the commotion. "Get off of him! What's going on? Why are you attacking him?!"

Many surprised eyes turned on her, but she couldn't figure out why as she pulled a civilian off of the man on the ground by the collar. He was bleeding from his nose, and looking up at her like he'd seen a demon. She was just starting to get irritated that she was going to be treated as nothing more than a jinchūriki when she had just saved his ass, when she realized two things in rapid succession.

One, she knew this man. He'd hired her team for one of their very first missions.

Two, he was freshly short two fingers, his hand still wrapped in bandages.

Naruto froze, short-circuiting, looking down at a man who she knew for a fact had seen her naked. Who had touched himself looking at her body, looking at the things she'd been forced to do and be. Her vision went double, and she swayed, only to be caught by a civilian woman with a very kind voice who was saying very kind things, none of which were being processed by her brain as words. Her breath starting coming very fast, and none of her inhales seemed to be bringing in any oxygen as it hit her that anyone she met—anyone—could have bought those pictures her landlord sold. She'd never be able to look any man of the village in the eye without wondering if he was imagining her with her legs spread and a man's semen smeared on her stomach.

Suddenly, she understood why Kakashi had wanted these people to hurt. They had hurt her. She hadn't realized it, because they hadn't been real to her, but now they were real and it hurt.

All the shouting and the people talking to her faded into white noise as Naruto stared down at the terrified man on the ground. She saw his lips form the words I'm so sorry. Then she turned tail and ran, as fast as she could, for as long as she could stand to.

…

Sasuke and Sakura found Naruto on the training grounds fifteen minutes after she collapsed there. She was immensely grateful for the delay because she'd let herself have an ugly, screaming panic attack for a few minutes when she'd first gotten there, and she'd since tamped it down into regular, normal person crying. She didn't stop or say anything to her team as they settled down on either side of her. They didn't say anything either, but Sasuke wrapped his arm around her shoulders, and Sakura put hers around Naruto's waist. She let herself be held, crying into her hands until the pain and humiliation didn't feel so sharp, so insistent.

"I'm sorry," she whispered after a while, wiping at her eyes as her tears slowed. "I'm sorry. I think I just didn't process that there really were people in the village who had—who had pictures of me—"

Sakura made a sympathetic, soothing noise, her free hand landing on Naruto's knee, and she marveled that she felt so safe being touched so much by her teammates, even as Sasuke scoffed and chided her, "C'mon, dobe, don't be stupid. You knew there were."

"I know, I just—I think I thought I'd know if I saw them. Like they'd have a menacing aura, or be evil, or something, but he was just—just a guy who hired us to rake his leaves."

Inhaling in surprise, Sakura jerked a little. "Oh, that's who he was. I thought he looked familiar. What a creep."

"Don't worry," Sasuke added, sounding rather pissed even as he pressed their sides closer together. "I gave him a good kick for you."

Laughing wetly, Naruto smacked at his knee without any force. "You shouldn't have, you're going to get in trouble." She felt her smile melt back off her face, though, as she continued to try to explain her emotions. "I think… I just finally realized that anybody could have the pictures, and I wouldn't know. Asuma-sensei could have them, or Teuchi, or Ebisu, or—" Iruka's face and that of his fiancé flashed in her mind's eye, and guilt flooded her for even thinking something so awful. "Anyone," she finished weakly, looking out at the storm clouds on the horizon.

"They wouldn't, though," Sakura answered as though it was simple, squeezing Naruto's thigh to comfort her. "And Pakkun and his team are working really hard. Maybe they'll get everyone who has those pictures. There can't be that many men in the village who are interested in things like that."

"Probably not," Naruto allowed, trying to make herself sound positive for the sake of the worry in her friends' eyes, trying to straighten out her shoulders. "Yeah… Maybe they'll get them all."

"I don't know why that guy is still in Konoha in the first place," Sasuke burst out suddenly, as though he'd been waiting for a natural point in the conversation to bring it up and simply run out of patience. "If he had any brain cells at all, he'd cut off a couple more fingers and move to a different village."

"Why cut off more fingers?"

She could practically hear her teammate rolling his eyes. "So no one knows he's a pedophile. Not a lot of villages have that exact punishment anymore, but a lot of them would recognize it if they saw it."

Too tired to pretend to know things, she asked exhaustedly, "He's a peddy-what?"

Sasuke briefly froze up, then sighed, withdrawing his arm from around her shoulders. "A pedophile. Someone who's sexually attracted to children."

Naruto tried and failed to process this, blinking down at the grass in front of her. "... It's like a whole thing, then? It's not just for kicks?"

Sasuke and Sakura exchanged a look over her head, and she let them. "Maybe you should talk to someone older about it," Sakura suggested slowly. "I don't think Sasuke or I are really experts."

"Okay," Naruto allowed, letting her eyes fall shut. "Can we not tell sensei? He gets really intense about these kinds of things, and I really don't want to deal with it." Her friends agreed quietly, and she sighed as thunder clapped in the distance. "Can we change the subject and chat a little so I don't go home looking like I've seen a ghost? … Cool, thank you guys. I have gossip again. Iruka-sensei is getting married."

"What! That's wonderful, to who?"

"A really nice guy named Fumihito, apparently. He works at the public library, and he seems like he really likes Iruka-sensei…"

…

Kakashi could tell something was wrong the moment Naruto came in from the rain, shivering and soaked through to the skin. Her energy was off, her chakra spastic, and she wouldn't look him in eye. He was on his feet instantly, and back from the bathroom with a dry towel before she'd finished toeing off her boots. He wrapped it around her shoulders, and she let out a grateful little sigh. "Hey," she greeted him, sounding tired and falsely cheerful. "How was sparring with Guy?"

"Feel like I took a tumble off a cliff," he admitted easily. "Got caught in the rain?" She nodded, and he hummed. "Go get the bathtub running, I'll bring you some pajamas."

"Bring me your sweatpants?" It had started off like a command, but halfway through, it tilted up into a request, her big blue eyes sweetly pleading.

"Sure. Go, you're shivering."

Naruto had never returned his sweatpants, something Kakashi enjoyed immensely. She struck him over the head with how damn cute she was in them every time she wore them. He found them in the drawer where she kept her athletic shorts, and grabbed her a sleep shirt and a dry pair of underwear as well. When he returned to her, she was standing on the bath mat, rain dripping from her clothes as she held her towel tight around her shoulders. The tub was running, steam rising from the water within, and that satisfied him, that she would soon be warm.

"Thank you, Kakashi," she sighed (and gods, it still delighted him every time she called him that), discarding her towel as he set her clothes on the sink. That was his cue to go, but he hesitated, wanting to ask what was wrong. She noticed, though, turning to him with her fists clenched in the bottom of her soaked shirt, and he jerked his eye up from the way the wet fabric clung to her breasts and stomach to her little concerned frown, noting that she was still not quite making eye contact. "You need something?"

"It can wait. Get warmed up." Kakashi turned to leave, but she huffed, clearly frustrated. "What?"

She was pouting, so damn cute, and he could feel his resolve crumbling before she even said what she wanted. "I'm going to be stressed out the whole time about what you were gonna say, so just say it real quick."

Her teeth were beginning to chatter, just before she set her jaw in a stubborn expression, and he gave in, turning back to face her properly. "Maa, well. It's just that I know something is wrong, and that you don't want me to know what it is."

Her nose scrunched up in the most adorable expression of vexation. "You're right, I don't want you to know what it is," she huffed. "Whatever, I'm cold, you can wear me down later."

Kakashi felt himself smiling. "Great. I'll make dinner."

…

While he was nowhere near the cook that Naruto was, Kakashi didn't mind the activity. He'd cooked for himself for years, after all, and still made breakfast a few times a week. Miso was quick from dashi stock, and rice was quick with his rice maker, so that's what he made, thinking soup would be cozy on such a rainy day. Thunder rolled near continuously, and the wind was beginning to sound rather severe outside. He added tofu, mushroom, and some spring onion, and everything was pretty much ready to serve by the time Naruto returned from the bathroom, dressed in her pajamas with her hair up in a towel and her nipples subtly tenting her shirt.

He loved her like that, loved the casual intimacy of it. She began portioning the rice, he poured miso into two bowls, and they met at the table.

"Looks good," she complimented as she sat down, pressing her palms together. "Itadakimasu."

"No problem." He passed her a pair of chopsticks, and they dug in, passing a peaceful, comfortable meal together in silence broken only by thunder. He liked to watch her eat; she was quick, but neat and efficient, with no movements wasted, her next bite always poised and ready by the time she'd swallowed her last. She also always ate every bit, and as he lowered his bowl from draining most of the remaining broth, he watched her deftly gather the last few grains of rice in her bowl with her chopsticks and place them in her mouth, her soup long gone.

A particularly loud clap of thunder sounded, and the power flickered. "Really coming down, huh?" Naruto asked vaguely, standing and gathering up their dishes.

"It is," he agreed. Then, foregoing a segue as she sat everything in the sink, "So what's wrong?"

"Why do you think something's wrong?"

"You won't look me in the eye."

She turned, bracing herself against the counter with her palms as she leaned back against it, making intense, pointed eye contact all the while. "I have no idea what you're talking about," she bluffed badly.

"Maa, clearly." There was a pause. "Really, though, what is it?"

Frustrated, Naruto huffed, throwing her hands up in exasperation. "Can I not have anything to myself?" she bristled. "It's not enough that you know what underwear I'm wearing and where I'm at in my menstrual cycle?" Guilt twisted in his gut, his mind on her journal, and he was prepared to drop it, but unexpectedly, her face screwed up in an expression of shame. "I'm—I'm sorry," she apologized softly, eyes on his feet. "I didn't mean to throw it in your face, that you like to pick my clothes. I told you it's okay, and it is, I swear. And I know you can't help it that you can smell really well…"

She looked diminished and upset, and he hated it, feeling an urgent need to soothe her. "It's okay," he gentled her. "I know you didn't mean it like that. I'm just worried. You don't... have to tell me, if you don't want to." The words were hard to get out, because even though he meant them, he wanted to know, wanted to know everything about his girl. And he really was worried.

"I'll tell you soon," Naruto promised, looking incredibly tired as she rubbed at her eye, shoulders sagged. "Just—just let me process it first. I think I'll go to bed early, if you don't mind."

"Of course not," Kakashi told her, even though it was only seven and he was really rather concerned. "Sleep well. Don't forget to brush your teeth."

She rolled her eyes, but made an affirmative noise, shooting him a smile over her shoulder as she disappeared into the bathroom to do just that.

…

Kakashi's worry spiraled into anxiety as he spent the evening alone, and even as he laid in bed that night, staring at the ceiling in near perfect darkness, all he could think about was what might be wrong with Naruto. The only things he'd known to genuinely disturb her recently were being touched, hit on, or otherwise perceived as a sexual object, none of which could he permit.

Maybe Sasuke finally made his move. He seemed like he might be working up to it, letting Naruto hang on to his arm, initiating contact with her more. But he'd been doing the same to Sakura…

Or maybe it was that someone had said or done something to harass her, and she was afraid he'd lose it and go after them. Which, to be fair to her, was not outside the realm of possibility. If she hadn't broken bones the last time someone had harassed her, he would have gone behind her to finish the job.

But maybe it was something else entirely. Maybe one of her peers said something to make her feel inadequate. Maybe a civilian had been particularly cruel to her due to being the village's jinchūriki. Maybe, maybe, maybe. It was driving him crazy that he didn't know, that he'd just have to wait for her to tell him.

In the end, though, he didn't have to wait all that long. Around eleven, there was a clap of thunder that shook the building and cut the power, judging by the fact that he heard the building go silent, the usual white noise of electricity humming fading away. He heard a muffled thump from the other room, followed by an aborted cry, and started to sit up to go check on Naruto with his heart in his throat, but she came to him first. The door to his room burst open, and he cracked open his sharingan eye to see her looking terrified with tears on her face.

She threw herself onto his bed, stumbling, and buried her face in his chest, covered only by his quilt. "Whoa, hey," he soothed her, feeling a little panicky as he wrapped his bare arms around her shaking shoulders and held her to him. "What's wrong? The storm?"

"I'm not afraid of thunder," she gasped, managing indignation even as she was threatening to hyperventilate.

"Maa, sorry, sorry. Breathe with me. Okay? In… out… in… out…" It was a struggle, but gradually, she began to manage it, each one of her breaths sounding less painful and strained than the last. Unfortunately, as panic receded, genuine, heart-wrenching crying took its place, pitiful wretched sobs, and all he could do was hold her, stroke her messy hair and her back. "What's wrong?" he begged her again and again. "What's wrong? Tell me, I'll fix it."

"Can't fix it," she sniffled miserably when she began to calm down, followed by a cut-off sob, all muffled by his quilt. "I just… just had a nightmare. I'll go back to bed, I'm sorry."

Kakashi tightened his arms around Naruto when she went to pull away, causing her to collapse onto his chest. She didn't protest this, though, just sank bonelessly against him, letting herself be held. "What was your nightmare about?" he asked quietly, resuming his petting of her hair.

"I— … I ran into the man who's fingers you cut off in the village today," she confessed in a horrified whisper, and Kakashi's heart clenched with pity. "And it made me realize… I knew him, you know, in passing. And I never knew—I never knew he'd seen me like that. And I just—all I could think was that…" She paused, drawing in a long, shuddery breath, and he held her closer. "It could be anybody. Anybody I see could have them, and I'd never know. It could be someone I trust."

Kakashi felt rather like he'd been impaled on his guilt. Of course he'd never want to see those images, would be incapable of enjoying her abuse, and wasn't attracted to her at ages the photos had been taken. But he was attracted to her now, only a little older even if her body had changed a lot. He was someone she trusted, and he wanted her the same way Yoshida had—

He shook himself internally. No. He didn't want her the same way Yoshida had. It just wasn't true. He wanted to take care of her, and be good to her, and keep her. Yoshida had wanted to use her and throw her away. Kakashi wanted to give her only what she asked for, and Yoshida had wanted to force her to take more. He wouldn't do that. He wasn't capable of it.

He had no idea what to say. "I'm so sorry, sweetheart," was what left his lips, and it felt so inadequate it nearly made him flinch. They laid together in silence for a while, Naruto's crying having quieted, although her shoulders still jerked in silent sobs. "And your dream?" he prompted eventually, as gentle as he could possibly be.

Laughing an awful, humorless, pitch-black laugh, Naruto shook her head against his chest. "It was fucked up," she whispered. Then, only a little bit louder, in halting words, she explained, "I dreamt that I was… walking through the village. And every man I saw was missing fingers… bleeding from the stumps. They were going about their business, just, leaving trails of blood, leaving it smeared on door handles… letting it drip on the sidewalk… streaking it on their faces as they scratched their nose or whatever. It was… everyone. The other genin… Teuchi… Guy and Asuma-sensei… the Sandaime… I-Iruka-sensei…" Her shoulders jerked again, voice cracking badly as she continued in a high-pitched whine, "And I came home, and you were in the kitchen, covered in blood. And I watched you—I watched you cut off your own fingers, too, on our cutting board, with our kitchen knife, and—"

She broke down again in earnest, and Kakashi felt helpless and sick. "I'm so sorry," he murmured, impotent. "I'm so sorry."

"I'm sorry," she countered in a pitiful little cry. "Even in a dream, I can't believe—I know you wouldn't do that to me. I know Iruka-sensei wouldn't. I know Sasuke wouldn't. I'm sorry, sensei— Kakashi. I'm sorry." She pulled away, sitting up next to him on the bed, and he let her, wondering desperately what he should do.

Kakashi cracked open his sharingan eye again, seeing that Naruto looked absolutely miserable, and apprehensive as she looked over her shoulder towards the door. "Stay here with me," he heard himself say, in a small, sad voice he didn't recognize. "Let me hold you."

"You don't have to—"

"I want to." The power kicked back on in the silence that followed, the AC resuming its usual low hum. Cautiously, Kakashi tugged at the bedding caught under her, and she shifted off of it. His sharingan could see her conflicted expression, but also the want as he lifted up the blankets and shifted to make space for her. "Come here."

He watched her crumble and break, and shut his sharingan eye as she obeyed, curling up into a little ball facing away from him. He settled his quilt over her, relishing her body heat, and couldn't stop himself from asking in a whisper, "Can I put my arm around you?"

Naruto hesitated, but her answer was a soft, "Yeah." He shifted himself close, tucked his knees against the backs of hers, pulled her back against his chest with an arm around her slender waist. Their height difference made things a little awkward, and they didn't exactly fit together like puzzle pieces, the way couples so often did in his romance novels. But it wasn't bad. Having longer thighs than hers minimized risk of scaring her with a morning erection, since their hips couldn't meet without a significant change in position, and tucking her head under his chin was incredibly satisfying.

She smelled like tangerines and sunshine, and she was so slight in his arms. Holding her soothed something inside him he hadn't even known was twisted up. "Comfortable?" he asked, and she nodded, the motion apparent against his neck and chin. "Good. Try to get some sleep."

Kakashi had rather thought he'd stay up, to savor holding his girl while she slept, but her deep, even breathing lured him into dreams without him even realizing.