Chapter fifteen

Primal wounds and apologies

He had no idea how long he was sitting in the middle of the field before Sakura found him. Senbei had done his best to comfort him before eventually falling asleep with his head in his lap again. It had been a long day, a nice day. Kakashi had felt so… content. Happy. Sitting beside Sakura, he had almost given in, he had almost...

But then his whole life, everything he always understood about himself, about his father, his mother, and his relationship with Tsu—with the Fifth Hokage crumbled in an instant. He'd hardly made it out of the house before the betrayal, the utter heartbreak of it, poured out of him.

Kakashi hadn't cried—not really—in years. But this… this first pain, one not thought about in decades and buried under so many others, would not be pushed away. He blindly followed Senbei until he was bent over, hands on his knees in the middle of the field, struggling to breathe around suffocating sobs.

Everything, his entire miserable life could have been different if only she had been there. And she had been, just not for him. She wasn't dead as he'd always believed. She was alive and out there, living her life, knowing he needed her but letting him suffer alone. Then she'd had the audacity to waltz back into his life as an adult and make him think she cared, make him think they were friends and never even say anything.

"Boss?"

Kakashi staggered back, sitting down, and let Senbei climb into his lap to lick his face. "I'm okay… I'm…" He coughed, cleared his throat and clung onto the warm, furry dog in his lap. It was so familiar. This was the pain, these were the tears of a child. His ninken had been his only comfort then, Senbei was here with him now.

As the immediate anguish began to ebb, Kakashi tried to organize his thoughts. His mother had always been a vague, tragic figure to Kakashi. She had died when he was born, been beloved by his father and probably beautiful. What her name was, what clan she might have belonged to or even if she was a kunoichi were never things he was given answers to while his father was alive. Then he had died and any interest Kakashi may have had in a dead mother withered along with anything else good or childlike in him.

How many people had known the truth? Was it a secret only his father and his—she knew? Or were there even more people conspiring to keep it from him, to keep him alone and vulnerable? Hiruzen knew, and somehow that did not surprise him. What about Minato? What about Jiraiya?

And…

Why hadn't she wanted him?

As long as he had known her, she had never been able to trust her heart. Letting people in was as hard for her as it had always been for him. She believed for years that she was cursed. Not unlike he had felt for so long. But she cared so much for Naruto, for the village… for Jiraiya.

So why couldn't she love him?

Was it just him?

He hadn't ever dreamed of being Hokage like her little brother or Dan. He had just needed her. She wouldn't have even had to tell him she was his… His mother. Had she just not wanted him? Would it have mattered if he'd come out with blond hair or if he'd been born a girl?

No. Probably not. Like she'd said, she wasn't the mothering type. Her extreme fear of connection only exacerbated the situation. Maybe the woman she would be in twenty-five years could have loved him. Maybe she did. But not enough to tell him the truth.

Not enough to make sure he was looked after when his father had died.

That was what hurt the most.

He could forgive her for not wanting to be a mother. The way his own life had gone, as dark as things had gotten for him, if anyone had brought him a baby even five years earlier claiming he was the father, he probably would have handed it off to the Hokage to deal with and never looked back. Probably.

But she hadn't fully left. Not really. She would have heard about Sakumo's death. She would have known that their son was alone, and everyone knew most orphans were left to fend for themselves and worse in shinobi villages. She could come back for Naruto, some spunky, sunshine kid with no real connection to her.

But not her own son when he had no one else.

Fuck, he really needed a cigarette.

He felt Sakura's presence long before she actually approached. She must have been giving him time to decide if he wanted her company or not.

He did. More than anything.

When he made no move to flee, glancing back at her as he stroked the sleeping dog sprawled across his lap, she finally joined him. She sat down beside him, looped one arm around his and dropped her head on his shoulder. Exhaling, relieved, he indulged in the comfort she offered, burying his face in her hair.

After several minutes of tense silence, she sighed. "I'm sorry, Kakashi. I lied to you."

He tasted bile. Not her too. He started to pull away and to his further distress, she let him. "What?"

"When we saved Sakumo and you asked me how I knew about when you graduated and your Chunin exam, I lied about how I knew. I…" She laughed softly, chagrined. "I didn't look it up. Gods, I was so obsessed with Sasuke back then I didn't care about your record, or anything else really. It was Tsunade."

Frowning, he looked down into her eyes. "What do you mean?"

"A couple of weeks into her training me, she was drinking—which wasn't unusual as you know—and you came up. She went on and on about how you were such a child genius. How you were the youngest Genin and Chunin ever. A Jōnin at only nine and nearly ten years in ANBU. A war hero. A prodigy. 'Hatake Kakashi, the famous Copy-nin.' She seemed so proud of you. I just thought it was because you were friends. But, knowing she's your mother…" The shoulder not tucked into his side lifted slightly with a shrug. "She may not have been able to love you, and she could have done literally anything to make your life better and chose not to, but she kept tabs on you. She was proud of you. That was probably her idea of looking out for you. I'm still a little mad at her, and Sakumo. But… I've already yelled at her. It's probably not my place to hold a serious grudge for you, too." Her smile was apologetic and a little shy. "I'm sorry I keep getting so angry on your behalf, Kakashi. I can't seem to help myself."

He took her hand in his. "Don't apologize. I all but asked you to, this time. You're protective of the people you care about, Sakura. I would have carried you off with me if I didn't want you to say anything to her."

"Hm." He thought her smile might have widened before she pressed the side of her face into his shoulder. "Well you can carry me off to bed if you want. We should probably talk about the implications of them knowing who we are but I'm too tired, Kakashi."

She was right. Who knew what Tsunade would do with that information. But he was tired too.

"Alright. Hey, wake up Senbei, we're going to bed." The sleepy, now grumpy dog got up and started trotting off towards the house, too tired to wait for them. Pulling Sakura to her feet, he crouched in front of her and waved for her to climb on. He heard her scoff but she did it anyway, wrapping her arms around him and tucking her cheek against his neck.

"Sakura?"

"Hm?" She sounded half asleep already.

"Why did you lie about Tsunade telling you about me?"

"Oh." She yawned, her breath tickling even through his mask. "I didn't want you to think we sat around gossiping about your traumatic youth."

"Hm. Is that what you did?"

One of her hands reached up and started carding through his hair, lightly scratching his scalp. He liked how she was always doing that. "No. She just gushed that once. It did always bother me though." Another yawn. "The first Hokage specifically didn't want child soldiers. And yet every time there's been a warring period, that's exactly what we get. You were so little. Kakashi-kun is so little. Dangerous, but so little and precious."

He couldn't help a light chuckle at the sleepy indignation in her voice. "Well, I'm glad he has you looking out for him." After a moment, when he was almost sure she was fully asleep, "I'm glad I have you looking out for me too, Sakura."

Kakashi woke first, as he almost always did. It was a lucky thing. At some point in the night his subconscious need for comfort, for her, overwhelmed his rigid self control. He was wrapped around her, holding her close, her cheek pillowed against his heart. One of her legs was nestled between his thighs and hooked around his knee. She was just as tangled around him as he was her.

If he moved, she would probably wake. Would she be angry? Embarrassed? Would she feel as content as he did?

She shifted, burying her nose in his shirt and letting out a soft, happy little sigh.

He wanted to press into her, kiss her awake and draw more of those sweet sounds from her lips.

It was not too difficult to restrain himself. Burying his own nose in her hair, he savored the weight of her in his arms and let his eyes flutter closed.

The next time he woke, he was alone in their room. Somehow she had slipped from his embrace and left without waking him. He didn't think he had ever slept so deeply.

As he was pulling on his shirt, snagging one of her hair ties and slipping it around his wrist, there was a knock at his door.

"Ayame's already up, Kakashi-kun. Probably out in the garden."

The door slid open a few inches revealing an apprehensive looking Sakumo. "Ah, he found her already, actually." Their eyes met for what felt like eight of the most tense seconds of Kakashi's life. "I was wondering—eh that is… I was hoping we could talk." He pulled a fresh pack of cigarettes from one of his pockets and held it out. "Ayame said this is your preferred brand. I don't smoke often enough to really care that much."

He was surprised that she had noticed. "I should probably cut back."

Sakumo grunted, tossing him the pack. "That's what Ayame said."

The corner of his mouth twitched. The last time she'd caught him smoking, she had wondered aloud how well she could treat lung cancer with ninjutsu and would he be so kind as to donate his body to science so that she might study it? "I guess we probably should talk."

"Right." His father backed further into the hall so he could join him. "Ayame took Kakashi—well…" He winced, unsure of how to think of them as one person and different at the same time. "They went to the market."

"Hm."

Neither of them spoke again until they were outside, legs hanging off the edge of the engawa, three drags into their cigarettes.

"I thought I was crazy. You smell the same, you know. I'm surprised you didn't even try to mask your scent. But time travel… it's impossible, isn't it?" He huffed. "When you fought Minato, I thought, 'he knows exactly what he's doing.' You'd faced him before, hadn't you?"

Kakashi nodded. "He was my sensei."

"Hm. Your taijutsu is the same. You move the same."

"He was a good teacher… until he died too."

Sakumo watched him for several seconds before taking another long drag and looking away. "I laid awake all night, thinking about what little Ayame told us about your life, wondering about the rest. I…" It sounded like his voice caught but he covered it with a cough. "I should have been there for you. I don't know why I thought abandoning you was the right thing to do." He paused, his eyes searching Kakashi's bare face. "I could spend every day of the rest of my life apologizing, trying to make it up to you, and it would never be enough."

Kakashi blew smoke into the still morning air and searched his heart for what to feel. He was long past being angry at his father. Now, after seeing what the man he barely remembered was dealing with, he thought he understood him better. "After you died, I was… alone. I don't know how to explain that what you did has shaped every day of my life. I can't count the number of times I woke up in a hospital bed and wished I hadn't." His intention had not been to inflict more pain, but the devastated frown Sakumo tried to hide told him that he had. "My years in ANBU, after everything that happened with my first team… were not my best. I would have been happy to die. I'm glad now that I wasn't coward enough to do it myself. I wanted to be better than you. But really, all my attempts to die at the hands of enemy shinobi weren't any different, just less successful." He took another drag and gave him a chance to interject.

"I'm sorry your life was so wretched. Ayame was right, you needed me and I failed you."

"You did." Kakashi sniffed. "But we're Shinobi. Our lives are wretched sometimes."

"That doesn't make it any better—"

"I didn't say it did. But…" He sighed. "You did a good job hiding how bad things were. I didn't realize…" Another frustrated sigh escaped. "You failed me, but Hiruzen failed you. When you died, the war happened anyway and it lasted five years. No one even remembered or cared about your failed mission by the end. That speech he gave this time was bullshit. He never should have let it get as bad as it did, and the worst part is he knows it. He used you, and when you were gone he did the same to me and I never even questioned it."

Sakumo dropped his cigarette into the dirt and crushed it under his heel. "You're not wrong."

Tired of discussing something neither of them could change, Kakashi finished his own cigarette, lit another, and asked about his mother.

"What happened between you and Tsunade?"

Letting out a long, harsh breath, Sakumo shook out another cigarette too. "We had been friends for years but I had never looked at her as anything else. After Dan, she wasn't emotionally available and besides, Jiraiya was in love with her. Well, we went on a pretty shitty extended mission together. You were in ANBU, I'm sure I don't need to explain about using casual sex as a cope for stress. It was a fun three months, shit mission notwithstanding. We were not in love, but we were friends and held a certain amount of regard for one another.

"I didn't see her for months when we got back. Not until after she'd had you. She showed up one day out of the blue with a baby claiming he was mine. It was impossible to deny just looking at you. You were only two months old but you already looked just like me." He reached over and brushed the wild spikes of Kakashi's hair and smiled. "The Hatake genes almost always win out, even against Senju blood. I saw that hair and smelled myself in you and knew you were my son." His smile faded and he stared out into the garden. "She said she couldn't keep you. She just knew you'd have a terrible life with her, if you even survived her dreaded curse. She was… Like you said: we're Shinobi. Sometimes our lives are wretched." He examined the cigarette in his hand. "I guess she wasn't completely wrong. Only it was my fault, not hers. You know, when I held you the first time, I felt the pain I'd lived with since the loss of our clan, finally beginning to heal. I had family again, a pack. I felt whole for the first time in years. I know what it is to be alone in the world, to feel the kind of loss that makes living excruciating. And that… it makes what I did unforgivable. I'm so sorry, Kakashi."

Kakashi tried to swallow but there was a lump in his throat. Blinking hard, he stared down at his lap. The old pain, dredged up from a childhood he barely remembered the night before, came back so fast it nearly knocked him over. What was he supposed to do with it? His life couldn't be changed. Sakumo's sincere and heartbroken apology was mildly gratifying to hear but it didn't change anything. All that mattered now was what he did with the second chance they had given him.

"I… I know." His brows pinched tightly and he risked looking at his father. "Don't waste this time. I don't understand why we're here, but I won't forgive you if you let him down a second time."

Sakumo's eyes were glassy as he stared into his, giving him the barest hint of a nod. "I won't. I swear."

They were quiet for a while after that. There wasn't anything left to be said. Kakashi thought the air felt clearer between them. He still wasn't his father, not really. He wasn't exactly Kakashi anymore. But having him know the truth felt like a relief.

It was not until he was stamping out his second cigarette that Sakumo spoke again.

"So, is Ayame really your wife?"

Kakashi wasn't surprised by the question, especially after what Taga had said months before. The trouble was, he wasn't sure how to answer. She wasn't really his wife, but he loved her, he wanted her to be his in truth even if he still wasn't sure he could be what she needed. If he said no, would Sakumo take that as her being available? Would he pursue her? Would she be receptive? She had been so close the night before, almost pressing herself into his side. And she had slept so content in his arms… 'I want to stay with you.'

Could she want him, too? If he had had the chance to kiss her, if they hadn't been interrupted, would she have pushed him away or kissed him back? He had promised himself that he would not interfere if she found love with someone else—even with Sakumo—but that was before he had woken up with her in his arms, before he had almost kissed her.

"Your delay in answering is an answer in itself." He laughed ruefully, watching Kakashi closely. "Tell me, does she know you're in love with her or are you keeping that to yourself for some idiotic reason?"

He could not keep the incredulity from his face. "What—"

"Do you plan to ever tell her? Because she is a magnificent, powerful, kind, beautiful woman who deserves to be loved and loved well." The smirk that slid across Sakumo's face was fully intended to goad him. "If you won't do it, I would be delighted to take up that burden for you."

His teeth clenched as, for just a moment, the same furious hatred he had felt towards Jiraiya pushed every other thought from his head. Then he saw that Sakumo still smirked at him. He's teasing you. Scrubbing a hand across his face, Kakashi took a breath, forced himself to relax, and really looked at the man that had once been his father. He'd died long before Kakashi was old enough to ask for advice about women. Minato had managed a serviceable, if extremely awkward, sex talk, but he too had died before a teenage Kakashi had any real interest in dating. After that, what was left of his life fell apart and he'd lost himself in the darkness of ANBU. There hadn't been time for anything more meaningful than occasionally sleeping with the same woman more than once. If he asked now, would Sakumo take it seriously? Did he even have any experience with serious relationships or had his love life consisted of a string of moderately satisfying hookups too?

"I have never felt this way before." He tore his eyes away from Sakumo's to stare out at the flowers that reminded him of her. "Casual sex is one thing, this is different."

"Nothing about your relationship is casual. Just kiss her. It's not that hard."

Kakashi sucked his teeth and flicked a bit of ash into the dirt. "It's not that simple. We have… a complicated history."

He could see Sakumo shake his head out of the corner of his eye. "It sure doesn't look complicated to me."

"I was her Genin sensei."

Sakumo scoffed. "She's an adult, you're not an old man. There aren't any rules against sleeping with your adult subordinates."

Kakashi sighed, now positive neither of them knew anything about relationships. He rubbed his eyes, voice dropping to a soft rasp. "She deserves better."

He took a long final drag of his cigarette before stamping it out. "I've never met a shinobi that didn't have at least some emotional trauma if that's what you're worried about. This life… it doesn't breed easy men or even tempered women. Doesn't mean we don't deserve to have things."

"Tch." She's too good for you. "I won't get in her way if she wants to find that elsewhere. But—" He sighed again. If she did want him—

Sakumo clicked his tongue. "I thought you were supposed to be a genius." Without warning, he snatched the pack out of Kakashi's reach.

"Hey—"

"You need to cut back, remember?"

Glaring, Kakashi reached for them but Sakumo held his arm away. Before it could devolve into a fistfight not really even about the cigarettes, Sakura slid open one of the doors and stepped outside to join them. They immediately sprang apart, Sakumo giving her his most charming smile. "Ayame-san, welcome home. How was the morning market?"

Her eyes slid between them, a mildly confused smile on her face. "Oh, um, it was fine. Kakashi-kun was very helpful as always."

Sakumo laughed cheerfully and it made Kakashi feel sick. The bastard was actually going to go for it. "Perhaps if I'm home, I might join you next time."

"Oh—" She tried to look at Kakashi but he refused to meet her eyes. "That would be nice. I guess you two had a chance to talk, then?"

"We did."

They carried on like that for a few minutes but Kakashi did not hear anything they said, busy as he was trying to supress the urge to tear his father's throat out.

She deserves better than you. Maybe Sakumo could make her happy. She loves the kid, she could be his mother. He'd love that. Tenzō would still have two parents. Maybe I could go to Iwa with Min—

"Kakashi!"

His head snapped up. "What?"

He instantly regretted allowing his mood to spiral, but the hurt she hid so fast he almost missed it just made it worse. Great. Now he'd yelled at her. She probably thought he was angry. Senbei, who had come out with her, was looking between them looking like he was wondering why mommy and daddy were fighting. Great.

"I was just saying that Kakashi-kun was out for the afternoon and now would be a good time if we wanted to tell Sakumo about our plans for the future." Her voice was tight, clipped, annoyed.

"Yeah. That would be good."

Without another word, she spun on her heels and went back inside, leaving him with his bad mood and his father. He caught Sakumo's eye and did a double take at the unimpressed glare. "What?"

He merely shook his head, utterly disappointed, and followed her.

"Boss?" Senbei nosed his knee, his head cocked to the side as he looked up at him. "You mad at Ma?"

Frustrated, with himself and Sakumo and the day and the sun for shining, Kakashi reached down to scratch him behind the ears. "No. I'm not mad at her." I'm just an idiot.

He licked his fingers. "You love, Ma?"

"Yeah…" He ran his other hand through his loose hair and sighed. "I love Ma."

"Good. I love Ma too. Training? I wanna play hide and find. And maybe tackle." He snapped his teeth at him playfully. "Ma can fix you if I get too rough, right?"

Kakashi huffed, batting his bared teeth away. Life was so simple to a puppy. "I have to go talk to Ma and Sakumo for a while but we're going to train after."

He barked excitedly and leapt down into the garden. "Need me?"

"Nah. Go play." Kakashi took a moment to watch him romp around the garden and let go of his annoyance before going inside.