A week after Kakashi dropped from the sky, Obito watches with incredulity as he and Rin pack their bags with supplies. He can barely believe this is already happening. While Kakashi has been ready to be released from the hospital for a couple of days, Rin didn't allow for it until they got the final okay from the Hokage to commence with their mission.

Now, they are in Rin's living room making final preparations for the two's departure.

"Alright," says Kakashi as he leans back on his haunches after having finished zipping up his bag. He meets Obito's gaze and says, "Rin and I will take our time traveling for the first few days so it won't be difficult for you to catch up with us after Lady Tsunade and Jiraiya arrive."

Obito frowns for what feels like the wrong reason to him. He should be upset about the implied insult in Kakashi's words. He doesn't need the two of them to slow down for him. He's more than capable of covering far distances quickly.

Except he's not mad about that.

Obito is uncomfortable because on the small chance something happens in the few days they are apart, it will be because he wasn't there for his team. His stomach rolls. He knows they agreed on this course after receiving Jiraiya's letter the day before yesterday, but he's having second thoughts. Obito can't lose either of them. Not Rin, the mother of his daughter, and not Kakashi. He won't do that. Never again.

"Are you sure we can't wait for Tsunade and Jiraiya to arrive for the kids?" he asks (pleads). "I'd prefer if we all went together."

Rin's expression is sympathetic, but Kakashi levels him with an unimpressed look. "No," he answers, clipped and almost rebuking.

Obito cringes but tries to hide it with an apologetic smile. "I had to ask, Bakashi," he says in a falsely cheerful tone. "You know I've always hated when you started the fun without me!"

"I understand," he replies with his visible eye softening with something that just might be fondness (for him? Man, this Kakashi really did grow up weird, didn't he?). Voice firming up, he adds, "This part of the plan is set and in motion, it can no longer be changed."

He nods. He knew it was almost futile to ask in the first place. Kakashi is possibly more stubborn than anyone else Obito has ever met in his life. That's saying something too since he's encountered dozens, possibly hundreds of new people, since he first met Kakashi when they were a couple of kids.

All the same, he admits, "I can't believe the Hokage is just letting us do this."

"The Third has his faults, but he does care about the village," Kakashi says as he gets to his feet and slips on his pack to start adjusting the straps. "He doesn't want to see it, and the whole world, destroyed."

"I agree," joins in Rin. She's also done packing and has moved on to straightening her apartment. Currently, she's putting away a short stack of books from her kotatsu table.

When they lived together, Obito asked her once why she cleans before leaving for missions. She had told him she likes coming home after a hard mission to a place where she doesn't have to do more work than fixing herself a bowl of rice. Obito picked up the habit himself after that. Rin made a good point.

He groans internally thinking of the sink of dishes he's got at his home. Even if he does clean them up, there will be a new pile when he comes back. Nika (even though she really isn't supposed to) stays in his apartment on the occasion he and Rin are both gone from the village. She's said in the past it makes her feel less lonely. Mikoto and Shisui often come by to check on things for him and if they see her, invite her to dinner or to help them with their errands.

"I'm more surprised he is agreeing to let you do this right now. I only deemed you fit for missions a couple of days ago," says Rin, yanking Obito back into the present. Finished with putting the books away, she picks up a duster she keeps hidden on the top of her bookshelf and starts to displace the dust around the room. As she does, she frowns. " I feel it's possibly too soon."

Kakashi rolls his eye and Obito bites his tongue. "Time is of the essence, Rin," he counters. "I can rest once we've taken out these world-ending threats."

"Right," she replies as she puts away her duster and sits down in the high-backed armchair she keeps next to her bookcase.

Eying the boy, Obito rubs his chin and asks, "So, because you'll be setting off tomorrow morning, is there anything you'd like to do before you leave the village, Kakashi?"

He tilts his face towards the ceiling and doesn't answer immediately. Obito is going to start prodding him when Kakashi declares, "I'd like to meet your daughter."

He blinks. "Nika?" he says as he exchanges a look across the room with Rin. She smiles and so does he. "Yeah, sure!" he agrees. "She'll love to meet you."

"We've told her stories about you," Rin tells Kakashi.

He startles at her words. "You have," he says, tone miffed.

Obito furrows his brows. Why is he shocked? Kakashi is why they're alive. He was sorely missed by many, by Minato-Sensei (when he could miss people) and them in particular. "Of course. You were our teammate," he tells Kakashi.

His shoulders fall and he exhales. "I wasn't a very good one," he says, staring at his toes. Then he looks up, studying Obito and Rin with his lone eye. "Right? I know I wasn't to you two in my universe."

Rin hides her mouth behind one of her hands and Obito shakes his head. No, Kakashi hadn't been a perfect teammate. That didn't change who he was or what he did. It didn't change that they still have missed him all of these years. "In the end, we knew how you felt about us," he explains.

Kakashi's gray eye turns touched. "That's… I'm happy you knew."

Rin reaches out and touches Kakashi's back, causing him to lean away as if she's burned him. Obito almost snaps at Kakashi for the pain on the kunoichi's face but stops himself. Kakashi looks pretty regretful.

Recovering from her hurt, Rin forces herself to smile and declares, "I'm sure your Obito and Rin knew how you felt about them too,"

"…I don't think so," Kakashi whispers after a beat, eyes having fallen to the floor as he spoke. Obito frowns when the boy balls his hands in the navy pants Rin found for him. "But thank you, Rin, for being kind." Lifting his head, he looks between them and asks, "Now, where is Nika? At the Academy?"

"Yeah, but I'll pull her early," Obito says, pushing himself off the wall he's come to lean against during his time in Rin's apartment watching the two prepare. "This is a special occasion."

"No," refuses Kakashi. "Let's all meet her after she's finished," he tells them. He chuckles, his visible eye curving with amusement. "That will be quite the surprise when she walks out of the Academy, don't you think?"

He shrugs. If that's what he wants, Obito doesn't have a problem with waiting. He glances at Rin who nods. "Sure," he agrees. Smiling then, he says, "We've got an hour till then. Did you want to get a snack before we go wait?"

He makes a noise to the negative. Expression faraway, he says, "If you're okay with it, I would like to visit the Memorial Stone."

Obito winces. That sounds like a bad idea. Especially since—

"I do know my name will be on it," Kakashi tells them. Obito releases a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. Good, he or Rin aren't going to have to mention that.

"Will you be okay seeing your name on it?" asks Rin, anxious.

Kakashi nods. "Yes, of course."

He can find no reason to deny the boy. So, Obito pushes himself off the wall and gestures for Kakashi (and Rin) to follow him. "Then let's go I guess."

-O-

Obito and Rin stand side-by-side silent as statues as Kakashi traces the different names on the black stone. He finds names with uncomfortable ease at times and, during other moments, he stiffens, hand hovering above the stone. Finally, after what feels like a lifetime, Kakashi steps back from the memorial. He bows once to it before turning back to them.

When he looks up at them, Obito can't help himself. He reaches out and swings an arm around the boy's shoulder. Kakashi tenses at first, surprise obvious in his lone eye. It vanishes quickly, however, and he stays under his arm.

Out of the corners of his eyes, Obito sees Rin reach for Kakashi's hands. He doesn't jerk away from her as he did in the apartment. In fact, he seems to stretch under his arm to accommodate her too. Obito decides it's better to say nothing about the way he's indulging the both of them.

Kakashi is kind of easy to embarrass, actually.

"Did you find out anything interesting?" he asks Kakashi as they begin to head in the direction of the Academy.

The boy nods. "Yes," he says. "Many of the names I saw are the same between our dimensions." His voice grows softer as he adds, "I was relieved there aren't some names on it that I was afraid could be."

Obito squeezes his teammate's wiry shoulder. "That's good to hear," he says.

Kakashi nods.

-O-

Obito feels a grin split across his face when his daughter steps out of the Academy doors. She is quarreling with Hyuga Hanabi, one fist raised threateningly over her head as the other girl falls into a fighting position. Before things can escalate, Obito cups his hands around his mouth and yells:

"Nika!"

Immediately, his daughter's attention snaps to him and the Hyuga girl stumbles in her form. When Nika sees him, her brown eyes double in size when she sees he is not alone. Fist dropping back to her side, Nika abandons the other girl without so much as a backward glance.

Jogging over, she smiles at him and Rin then at Kakashi with a slight look of confusion on her face. "Hi Dad, Mom," she says. She tilts her head and stares at Kakashi with an expectant expression.

"Hi," replies Rin, reaching out to cup Nika's chin. "Did you have a good day?"

The girl nods. "Yup!" Her lips then twist and she looks over her shoulder at the little Hyuga heiress. "Except for when Hanabitch tried to start somethin' a minute ago."

"Uchiha Nika!" scolds Rin, face red and tone mortified.

Obito feels a bit ashamed himself, but also pretty amused. Except he knows he can't show that so gives his now sulking daughter a stern look and tells her, "That's not a nice thing to call your classmate."

Kakashi completely ignores that they are trying to correct their daughter and chuckles. "She's definitely your daughter," he says. "She looks like you Rin, but reminds me of you, Obito." The teenager looks out of the corner of his lone eye at Obito and irritation sparks in his chest.

The little shit is trying to goad him. Obito clenches his teeth, cementing his smile. "Yep," he replies, returning his attention to his perplexed daughter. "She's our kid."

The most annoying part is that Kakashi isn't wrong either. Nika is just shy of Rin's double. If she didn't have Obito's coloring, people would think Rin had been experimenting with the likes of Orochimaru and cloned herself. Except that isn't really true either. Even if she were her mother's copy, people would know she's Obito's from what spills out of her mouth. She's loud, emotional, and passionate in the exact same way Obito was at her age (and still is sometimes).

"Who's this?" demands his daughter finally, having grown tired of being unintroduced.

Rin sighs and Obito winces. "Ah," he says, "Well…"

Kakashi saves them and damns them. "Hatake Kakashi," he says. "I was a teammate to a different version of your parents."

Nika is a smart girl. Far smarter than he'd ever been as a boy (she takes after Rin in that way), but she's still only seven. "Huh?" she says.

Obito sighs and reaches over to sweep his daughter under his arm and says, "We'll explain everything better soon." Smiling, he tells her, "It has to do with why we've both been at the hospital so much this last week. First, we'll get you some daifuku and tea." Walking the four of them away from the academy, he asks his daughter, "How does that sound to you?"

His daughter looks from him to Kakashi to Rin. She slowly nods. "Okay," she agrees. "I want ichigo daifuku."

He squeezes Nika's shoulder. "Sure, kiddo."

-O-

Obito and Rin break the news to Nika that they will be gone on their mission after they are served their tea and Nika's ichigo daifuku. After they do, she pulls the half-eaten confection from her mouth and puts it down on her plate. Eyes critical, she frowns and demands, "When will you come home?"

He looks away and rubs the back of his head. How does he tell his daughter he doesn't know? It could be anywhere between a few months to a few years before he, Rin, and Kakashi are home for good. "Ah…" mumbles Obito as he attempts to stall.

Nika is all too familiar with his tactics, however, and turns her sharp look on Rin across the table. "Mom?" she prompts.

Rin smiles at the girl, but Obito can see the unease in her gaze. "It's a little hard to say right now, Nika," she answers. "Soon, we hope," she adds as Nika's expression darkens.

"How soon? Next week? Next month?" she questions. Eyes narrowing, she demands, "Next year?"

Nika then bursts into noisy tears.

Obito, feeling panic rise in his chest, hurries to soothe his upset daughter. Putting a hand on her shoulder, he draws her from her chair and into his lap. Holding her, he kisses the side of her head and says, "Even if the mission keeps us away for an extended amount of time, we'll report back here on occasion and see you too." Cupping her chin in his hand, he lifts her face and makes her gaze into his eyes. "You won't go months without seeing us, Nika, I promise."

Her bottom lip trembles and she stares back at him with despair. Suddenly, a fire ignites in her eyes, and her gaze snaps to Kakashi across the table. Baring her teeth, she snarls, "I liked it better when you were dead!"

"Nika!" cries Rin, horror on her face as she jumps to her feet. Obito tightens his grip on his daughter and leans back slightly, afraid himself of what Rin might do. He wouldn't put it past her to slap their daughter for the first time in Nika's life. She'd deserve it too. Wishing someone dead is almost unforgivable.

Kakashi reaches for Rin's sleeve, tugging on it. Obito looks at the boy and sees there is only a tired sort of understanding on his face. He's not hurt or sad by the remark. Obito does not like that. How can someone be so unaffected by such venomous words?

Have people wished Kakashi dead a lot where he comes from? Obito prays that's not the case.

"It's okay, Rin," he tells her. Offering a smile to Nika, he addresses her. "I understand your anger," he says. With a humorless chuckle, he remarks, "I've really shaken up your world, haven't I?"

Nika turns and hides her face in Obito's chest. "Hmph," she grumbles.

Undeterred, Kakashi asks, "Did your parents ever tell you who my dad was?"

They had.

Nika turns her head slightly, peaking over at Kakashi with a sulky, but curious look. "The White Fang," she answers as Kakashi stares back at her in encouraging silence.

He nods. "Right, he was Konoha's White Fang. Did you also know he was even more powerful than the Three Sannin?"

Nika gasps at those words. Turning right back around, she shows her passionate spirit by declaring, "No one's stronger than them!"

Kakashi laughs— This time sounding truly amused. "They probably would be a challenge for Dad these days," he admits with his eye curved with a smile. "Anyway, my point is our village relied heavily on my dad. He was often taken away from me on missions, some of them being quite long." Putting a hand on his chin, Kakashi looks up at the ceiling of the café they are in. "I remember when I was five, just before I started at the Academy—"

"—And Graduated —" Obito mutters under his breath.

"—Dad was asked to go on a mission that would keep him away from me for two to three months," continues Kakashi, not letting Obito's commentary bring a halt to his story. "I should have been used to it, Dad was always going away for missions. Usually for a week or two at a time. Except…" he trails off and a sad sort of quirk comes to his visible brow. "The last time he had been away so long I was too little to remember very well."

"I acted like it was no big deal at first," he admits. "The closer it came time to leave, though… I got pretty angry. I didn't get why my dad had to be the one to go away that long. He was all I had. Surely there was someone else who could take the mission. I tried to hide his weapons so he wouldn't be able to go."

Kakashi shakes his head as he continues to recollect the story to Nika, "It was stupid and he realized what I had done pretty quickly. That was when Dad asked if I realized he goes on missions to protect me." Splaying a hand across his chest, Kakashi bore his gaze into Nika's and says, "Konoha is our home, sure, but it's also safe. He could leave me here, behind these walls, in the hands of our friends, fellow shinobi, and even the civilians, and know they would care for me in his absence. If he didn't have his tools for his mission to protect Konoha, he can't protect me either."

"Dad never wanted to leave me— He had to. It was the best way he knew to protect me," finishes Kakashi with his head held high and features sharp behind his mask.

Nika doesn't reply right away and Obito looks down his nose at her. She has her nose scrunched, clearly deep in thought. Tentatively, she asks, "So Dad and Mom are leaving me to protect me like your dad did?"

"Yeah," agrees Kakashi with a nod. "They don't want to any more than he did, but—"

"—It's the best way they know how to," Nika completes with a satisfied smile.

Kakashi chuckles. "That's right," he says. "She's pretty smart," he remarks to Obito and Rin with a warm, approving tone.

Obito cuddles his daughter closer with affection and doesn't hesitate to tell Kakashi, pride thick in his voice, "That's her mom in her."

Rin's lips curve in a slight smile. "You're no slouch either, Obito," she compliments.

Nika squirms in his arms until he lets her go. Trotting over to Kakashi's side, she bows deeply and tells the boy, "I'm sorry I said I wished you were dead still."

Kakashi's eye goes wide in surprise and Obito frowns. Why is he so surprised someone, his kid especially, would apologize for their harsh words? Did people not do that in his home universe? Obito wishes just a little bit he could go there and yell at the people Kakashi called his "friends". It's wrong. So, so wrong because it's easy to see that Kakashi is sad beneath all of this fire burning in him right now, but Obito is glad they're dead and he's now in their hands.

They will cherish Kakashi the way they should have cherished their Kakashi, the way Kakashi's home should have cherished him. Obito will make him happy when this is all over, damn it.

The boy surprises Obito when he ruffles Nika's hair and gently tugs her out of her bow. "It's okay," he assures the little girl. He then horrifies Obito (and Rin too, if the glance they exchanged is anything to read into), with his next words. "It's not like you're the first person to want me dead," he tells her. Kakashi then laughs and jokes (badly), "It kind of comes with the territory of being a highly skilled shinobi."

Nika is as unimpressed with Kakashi's joking as they are. "It was still bad," she insists with a heavy scowl.

Kakashi blinks. "Yeah, okay," he agrees, looking away from her. "It's not something you should say to somebody."

Apparently satisfied with Kakashi's reluctant agreement, Nika turns to Obito and Rin. "I'm done eating," she proclaims. "Can we go to the park to play together before you leave tomorrow Mom?"

"Sure, sweetheart," agrees Rin.

She and Obito then get to their feet, straightening out their dishes to make it easier for the waiter who will come to clean up after them. Obito tucks away Nika's unfinished ichigo daifuku in a napkin for later. As he does, he notices Kakashi does not rise from his seat. Instead, he's sunk lower in it, arms crossed and eyes fixed on the street outside the window to their left.

He's not the only one who's noticed. Nika has too. She huffs and stomps a foot and whines, "Kakashi, why aren't you getting up?"

The boy hums. "I figured I would just stay here and have more tea while you all have family time together," he says.

It's on the tip of Obito's tongue to tell him that they want him to come with them to the park, but he doesn't even get the chance to open his mouth before Nika shakes her head and cries, "No! I said we, not just Mom and Dad, Bakashi!"

Obito's eyes blow wide and he covers his mouth to hold back his laughter. Rin, on the other hand, groans into her palms, "Nika…"

Kakashi hasn't so much as flinched at the insulting nickname. Instead, he uncrosses his arms and rises to his feet. "Huh," he murmurs. "Guess you're right. You did say that. Sorry, Nika."

The girl gives him a magnanimous nod and latches onto one of his hands. "Naruto always plays on the monkey bars with me when we go to the park together," she informs him. A little shyer she asks, "You will too?"

Kakashi looks over in their direction. Obito hides a smile. He does not look thrilled at the prospect of climbing on kiddie equipment but curves his eye into a falsely cheery smile as he returns his attention to the waiting Nika. "I guess I can play with you on those too," he replies.

The smile Nika gives must be worth the torture of playing on monkey bars because Kakashi's shoulders lose a bit of their perpetual slope. As they leave the café, Nika leads the way for them, babbling happily about all of the games she plays with Naruto, Sasuke, and even Sakura at the playground when they have time to see her.

Thank you for reading and let me know your thoughts with a review