Hi all! I hope that you will enjoy this one! I had a blast writing it :D Many thanks to dearvolume12 from AO3 as well as Tainan republic, rose and Guest from FFN for the lovely reviews! They really do keep me writing :)

Warnings: Pet cruelty, PTSD, Zabuza being Zabuza and Haku being triggered by pretty much everything

Chapter 5: Elastic

Haku held his hand out, palm up, waiting. Then, he felt the cold droplet hit. It was tiny, really, nothing more than a sign of an incoming drizzle, but even a drizzle in this cool weather could spell an incoming cold. He wasn't willing to risk it. He retreated under the safety of the jutting terrace of one of the bay houses.

Kaede had indulged him well enough, before she offered an apologetic smile and said that she had to work briefly. She didn't leave him empty-handed when she went to treat the numerous awaiting citizens of the small settlement. She gave him a list of things the Temple was in need of and a pouch of money. It made him feel warm inside. Being needed in such a way, regardless of the importance of the task. He knew that Kaede had likely carefully selected what he could manage in his state and taken on the rest of the work herself. However, after sightseeing around the bay, trying the delicacies which weren't at Kana's bakery and in the end getting all of the small errands done, which was mostly picking up the seeds for the herbs they didn't have at the garden or some of the ingredients for cooking, Haku was left waiting at the meeting spot. Nestled in between two tall three-story houses, he leaned against the wall to ease the pressure off his hand on the cane and waited. His bag of ingredients was sitting safely on the ledge, dry. That was when he heard it. The soft meowing.

He followed it on impulse, really, tossing one last glance at the bag on the ledge. If it wasn't close enough, he would return for the items. But, the meowing originated quite close to where he was. Haku found a little kitten, fur muddy and glued together with grime, struggling in an abandoned fishing net. Gingerly, he reached out and sacrificed his fingers to the fierce claws and teeth to disentangle it. Soon enough, it was hissing at him from a safer distance. From the look of things, it was malnourished and rather violate.

"Be careful next time," he said softly, rising. Then, he walked back, leaning onto the cane, to his belongings. There, he stood yet again, waiting for Kaede. His mind wandered as he watched the drizzle turn into a proper downpour.

The little white rabbit. He would likely never forget that little thing. A few months ago, he wouldn't have done as he had all those years ago. He wouldn't have shown interest, but faked indifference. Zabuza had taught him that with that little white rabbit.

His mentor had never minded animals, but pets he abhorred. They were apparently a sign of weakness and a gateway into the grave. And yet, no little white rabbit had led him to his grave. Ironic. Haku hadn't been more than ten. He'd picked up that little rabbit, lost, injured and starving, on his way home from the nearby settlement. He'd kept it secret, fed it and nursed it back to health. And then, when the rabbit was well again, he'd showed it to Zabuza. Asked to keep it. His mentor had agreed all too quickly. Allowed it wholeheartedly. Allocated funds for Haku's new friend. That in itself should've been a warning sign. A tool had no need for a pet.

The little white rabbit had been but a means to an end. After months of travelling, of spending time with his new friend, Zabuza had revealed the true purpose of the animal. He'd given Haku a kunai, tied up the rabbit and asked him to kill it and prepare a stew. The little white rabbit had been a way to slaughter whatever was left of Haku's humanity. To fully transform him into the tool he needed to be. It was a gateway to killing humans.

Haku could still recall the kunai swimming in his blurry vision as he stared at his beloved pet, unable to slaughter it. Zabuza had sighed back then, leaving them both alone. Haku hadn't been able to follow that order. He hadn't. He doubted that he could even after. The following night, he asked his master to forgive him, begged more like, and then admitted that he'd given the rabbit away. He'd given it to one of the nice farmers in the village they had passed through. Zabuza had shrugged off the apology, all too nonchalant about it. That should've been another clue. But his younger self still hadn't known much about Zabuza or the world of shinobi. That evening, Zabuza had cooked them a meal. Stew. Only after eating, his master had told him what had been in the stew. Haku vomited the whole thing back up through tears. Since then, he'd had no issues killing people. But, since then, he'd also avoided animals like the plague.

A purring sound got his attention and he found the little cat snuggling against his legs, brushing left and right against his ankles.

"I'm really not the right person for this," Haku sighed, crouching down. He patted the kitten, his heart sinking at the bones he could clearly feel through the sticky fur. The little thing was barely holding on. "You should go find your mother."

"It died," a new voice remarked and Haku looked up. A woman was smoking at the window right next to where his head had been. The lady pointed to the kitten. "There's two more like it. Wandering about. Their mother got bitten by something from the marshes. Died a few weeks ago." Haku looked back down at the cat snuggling against his feet.

"Then its fate is sealed," he sighed. A few years ago, he would've gone running to purchase food for the cat. Maybe he'd have given it some clothing to provide a nest of sorts. He'd have attempted to help. But, now, he knew that it was pointless. Without a mother, at such a young age, the little thing would surely die.

"It's a pity," the woman said, expelling smoke slowly from her lungs. "But it's the way of the swamp." She nodded to him, tossed her cigarette away and then retreated back into her home, closing the window. Haku stayed there, petting the kitten for a while longer. Then, he straightened up, brushing his hands on his kimono, and gave the cat an apologetic smile.

"Run along now," he said. He wished his circumstances were different. He wished he could be so free as to offer the small thing at least a chance at survival. But, he was merely a guest at the Temple, a burden himself. He couldn't possibly provide even more attachments to the already freeloading burden. The kitten did its best to gain more attention from him, but after he didn't give it, it left. Haku sighed, leaning back against the wall of the house and closing his eyes. The pitter patter of rain soothed him. He wouldn't allow for another thing like the little white rabbit incident to reoccur. While Zabuza might not be there any longer, waiting to make another horrifying stew, he didn't trust himself enough. He didn't trust his humanity any longer. He'd been broken by that stew, no matter how much he'd assured himself that he hadn't.

Meowing caught his attention yet again. He looked down, letting out a laugh and giving in. The little cat was back, this time with reinforcements. There were three of them now, muddy and dingy, twisting around his legs desperately. Haku decided that there was no harm in indulging them while he waited.

"Alright, you win," he gave in, dropping back down into a crouch. Soon enough, the three cats were in his lap, twisting and turning for as much attention from his fingers as they could get. He lost track of time quickly. Playing with the small things on his lap, Haku didn't even notice Kaede coming over until she was right in front of him, her shadow falling over his knees.

"What have you got there?" Her voice made his head snap up. He quickly smiled, full of regret. While Kaede wasn't one to scold about such things, like Zabuza, surely she wouldn't be pleased with him playing with the animals. After all, there was a substantial risk of them carrying a disease.

"A pastime," he answered, slowly reaching for the kittens that had settled on his lap and picking two up. "I'll be ready to go momentarily." Kaede crouched in front of him, inspecting his lap.

"Cute little ones," she cooed, reaching over to pet one of the cats. "Where's their mom? They seem to be too young to be left without one." Guilt pooled into his stomach. Guilt, sympathy, sadness. All of it together in one mass.

"Dead," he said. "According to the woman living there," he pointed up at the window. Kaede frowned.

"Poor things," she said, still petting one of the kittens.

"Indeed," he agreed. "I'll just leave them here, I suppose," he managed to get the words out of his mouth and lowered the kittens onto the planks of the wooden walkway. Kaede was still frowning when he looked back at her.

"You don't want to keep them?" She asked.

"I couldn't possibly," he shook his head. "I'm already imposing at the Temple, much less to bring…" he trailed off, looking away from her. Then, Kaede's hand was on his cheek, forcing him to meet her eyes. She looked positively angry, which was a new expression for him to see on her face.

"Do you wish to keep them?" She asked.

"I-I-" he stammered.

"Well?" She asked again.

"I would if I could," he sighed, being honest. There was no use lying to her anyways.

"Why can't you?"

"Because they're additional responsibility and a bother." Kaede huffed.

"Right, because we're so busy we can't possibly handle three cats," she shook her head. "Haku, if you want these cats, you're free to bring them with you to the Temple." He balked.

"What?" Kaede smiled at him, patting his head.

"You can do what you want," she said. "Want pets? Bring them with you. I'm fond of cats. Saeko-sama doesn't mind animals. Master really doesn't care either way, he quite likes the company. I mean, they were fine with Mei raising a whole troop of poisonous things in her room, what's three cats?" Haku couldn't quite follow. He was following, yes, but the doubts were creeping in. He kept seeing the image of that accursed rabbit stew in a bowl.

"To keep them safe and help them grow, right?" He asked slowly. Kaede looked at him like he'd grown a second head.

"What else do you keep a cat for?"

"S-stew?" At that, she looked positively horrified.

"We're not that pressed for food," the face she made when she said that mirrored his thoughts on pets in food. "I'd rather eat the whole herb garden then make cat stew." Then, her hand went to her mouth. "Oh, he didn't…" Then, she sighed, her eyebrows furrowing. "Of course he did." Her hands went to his, and he felt the warmth of her skin transfer through her gloves onto his skin. "We don't practice the out-of-date barbaric shinobi breaking techniques at the Temple. You want the cats, you bring the cats, dammit." And he adored her even more, if that was possible.

"Alright," he smiled, gripping her hands right back. "I'm bringing the cats." Kaede nodded, smiling widely.

"Good," she said. "Have you named them?" He shook his head. She inspected the little things that were wriggling around their legs and purring. "I'm no vet, but it looks like you've two boys and a girl there," Kaede noted. "Think about it on the way up. We need to leave now if we're planning to make dinnertime." She pulled him up to his feet, gently by the hand and then helped him collect the little animals, keeping two in her arms and letting him take one in his free hand. "What do you reckon they eat at this age?"

"Meat?" He suggested, tilting his head. He had absolutely no idea what a kitten might eat. Cats were carnivores, though, so meat would definitely be a safe option.

"Must be some stuff on them at the library," Kaede mused, starting to walk down the alley while staying under the roofs of the houses to keep out of the rain. "We'll figure something out." Then, when they reached the final row of the houses, she opened the large umbrella he hadn't spotted in her hand. "Come on, we've got a long way up." He accepted her hand, looping his arm through hers to keep out of the rain. Slowly, they went back up the stone steps, this time joined by three new friends.

"What've you got there?" Haku winced at the new voice in the bathroom, not turning around but ducking his head down. As if physically guarding against the expected berating. He glanced at Kaede, finding her turning around and smiling up at Master Jōichirō. He wanted to tell her somehow, signal her, not to tell him that Haku had been the one to bring the cats. He wanted to escape the situation, even if it meant that the ground would open and swallow him whole. Bile rose in his throat, the taste of rabbit stew in his mouth.

"Haku found these little ones down in the village," Kaede said. "We wanna keep them." He closed his eyes, waiting. For the yelling. Or the sigh of disappointment. Or the comment about resources and responsibilities.

"Oh, they're just adorable, aren't they?" Haku almost fell onto his butt. He opened his eyes, chancing a glance up to see Jōichirō's genuinely smiling face. The Master of the Temple inspected the little squirming kittens that were getting their bath. "They seem rather scrawny. We'll have to feed 'em well. Where do you guys want to keep them?" Haku immediately spoke up.

"I'll keep them out of sight, I swear," he said, stumbling over his words. "You won't see or hear them, I promise." Jōichirō and Kaede exchanged glances, then Master's large hand fell onto Haku's head, messing up his short hair.

"Raise 'em in the kitchen if you want," the man said. "Cats are rather independent and once you teach them what is and isn't allowed, they make for good pets. I quite like them and Saeko is fond of them, too. We had a whole litter one year that we brought up from the village, but they went off to live independently after a year or so." The gentle, warm hand left his head with a final pat. "Make yourself at home, kid. You've left the warzone. Be comfortable."

"And more selfish," Kaede added, doing her best to get some stubborn grime out of one of the kitten's fur. She was squinting at it with determination, a wrinkle on her nose.

"That, too," Jōichirō laughed. "They'll need somewhere to sleep," he mused. "How about we get them started in your room? We can get a basket and some old clothes and they can stay there until they learn the layout? What do you think?" Haku nodded, dazed.

"I would like that," he replied to the expectant grin on Jōichirō's face.

"I'll go find something suitable and bring it there," he left the bathroom. "Oh, and remember to get them clean of parasites!" Master added from outside. "They need that in order to get some weight on them." And then, Haku and Kaede were left alone yet again. He turned to her, expression questioning.

"Master's got more experience with animals," she misinterpreted his question, or ignored it. Regardless, he was glad for the course she chose. "He travels a lot, so he takes care of everything he finds along the way, animals and humans alike."

"Are you certain that they won't be a bother?" Haku couldn't help himself. He doubted the warm feeling which had been spreading through his body, similar to the warmth of the Temple as soon as they had entered. He always doubted that feeling. Kaede reached over and patted his hand with her own, very much the same as his, soap-soaked one.

"You haven't seen abnormal pets," she sighed. "Mei is fond of venomous and poisonous things. She has raised a whole bunch of them in her room throughout the years." Kaede shook her head. "I remember one time when she forgot to close the environment for her scorpions and they got all over the Temple and caused quite a bit of chaos with the patients staying there." Haku raised an eyebrow.

"Scorpions?"

"She thinks they're cute," Kaede sighed, shaking her head again. "I fail to see their charm points." With a shrug, she gently bathed the kitten in her hands free of bubbles and then picked it up, reaching for a dry towel. "Cats are much more endearing, no?"

"Yeah," he agreed absent-mindedly, washing his kitten clean of bubbles, too. Something deep inside him, which he'd locked away a long time ago, had sprung free. He'd thought it broken. But, it had been more like a rubber band, stretched as far as it could go and buried as deep as it could be. But, within the healing Shitchi Temple, like the rest of him, it had begun to mend and ease back into its rightful place. He felt, yet again, that he might walk out of the Temple as more human than he'd come into it.

"They look mighty cozy," Kaede giggled, watching the basket of bathed, fed and snoozing kittens next to Haku's bed. Jōichirō had prepared a wicker basket for them, wide and comfortable for three grown cats, and he'd padded it with soft clothing. He'd even tossed in a ball of yarn there, just in case. Haku had picked the spot for the bed, which had been left on his desk. He'd chosen to leave the kittens to sleep almost right next to his pillow, by the nightstand that usually held the books he was reading through. Now, seated on his bed, he could touch the cats with his foot easily. And, he only had to reach out to get to them with his hands. He felt pleasantly warm.

"They really do," he agreed. Kaede sat down next to him on the bed and reached into her kimono. She extended something out to him, gently tapping his hand with the cool, smooth surface. Haku glanced down, then to her with wide eyes. "Kaede-san, wha-"

"I'd rather you go back to dropping all honorifics, like before," she teased him. "Thought we'd gotten closer than that." He felt his face heat up. "I saw you looking at this rather longingly. Do you have any experience with acupuncture?" He opened his palm when she didn't move the small, red box away from his hands. Kaede gave it to him.

"Plenty," he admitted. "Z-" his voice cracked. "My mentor required me to be capable of… disposing of someone in an inconspicuous manner," he settled on saying. How could he tell her that he'd been trained as an assassin? How could he tell this gentle soul that he'd used his skills numerous times without remorse? How could he tell her that his hands were blood-stained in all the wrong ways? "It felt nostalgic seeing the kit." He was dirty. He was beyond dirty. His blood was dirty. And his hands were dirty with blood. And Kaede… Kaede was not. Her hands were bloody from saving people.

"Well," Kaede smiled. "We do lack a good acupuncturist at the Temple," she emphasized. "If you ever feel like getting back into it, I have this awful kink in my back that could definitely use some treatment." She stretched her arms above her head so far that Haku heard a small pop in her back before she sighed in relief and fell back onto his bed. "No pressure, though," Kaede added from her new position. "You're free to do as you like."

"Would it be helpful?" Haku leaned back on one hand, still not daring to open the acupuncture kit and peer inside. He was afraid, really. He was terrified. Terrified that he would see the needles and remember all the times he'd used them before. He didn't want to face that. But, for Kaede, he would. To be useful to her, he would. "Would I be useful if I took on acupuncture here?" She saw right through him, of course.

"None of that," she scolded gently from her position on the bed. She caught his eye, that green gaze making his body feel warm. "If you pick that up here, you do it because you like it, not because anyone else says you should. If you don't want to, that's fine, too." He opened the kit. The contents were in order. Definitely hadn't been used, by the looks of it. Or, it had been meticulously maintained. The red velvet cushion housed the needles and other necessary equipment for acupuncture. He traced his fingers over the soft surface. No memories flashed before his eyes. He closed the box and placed it on the nightstand. Did he want to practice acupuncture again? He didn't know. He didn't know anything. He felt like he was freefalling with all of these choices placed before him. He felt lost. Drifting and there was no shore in sight.

"Can you give me an order?" He asked in a small voice. "Please, Kaede-san, can you just give me an order. I will fulfill it regardless of what you tell me to do. I promise, I will follow it well." Kaede rose from her position and her hand reached out and grasped the one he'd closed the kit with. He turned to her, hoping for some kind of guidance. But, she was simply smiling gently at him.

"It's hard, isn't it?" She said more than asked. "You feel lost when you lose the chain of command. You feel like you've got no purpose. You feel like there's nothing tethering you to reality." He nodded, mutely. "That's okay. It will go away. Find what you like. Decide what you liked doing. If there's nothing in your past that you liked, discover something new. Try everything. You will find something," she told him. "And when you find what you're passionate about, don't let it go." She was patting his hand so gently that he almost broke down crying again. "We will give you all the support that we can here, so that you can do what you want." She'd hit the nail on the head. She really had. Haku couldn't look at her. He couldn't look at her because his face would betray how lost he felt, despite her reassurances.

"I'll try," he promised in a whisper.

"Good," Kaede nodded. "Let's get you to bed." He didn't protest when she helped him get into his bed. Nor did he attempt to get her to leave him alone in the bed again. He welcomed the fact that Kaede simply turned off the light and then crawled into bed next to him, like it was the most normal thing in the world. He didn't even think before he snuggled into the safety of her warm embrace, where his nightmares couldn't chase him down. Her arms wrapped around his shoulders, careful not to agitate his wounds. "Sweet dreams," she told him, in that crackly voice reminiscent of a fireplace. Like a warm hearth of a home.

"I wish you sweeter ones," he responded honestly, already slowly sinking into the land of dreams. But, he didn't lose consciousness right away, like he did on most nights. He managed to stay awake long enough to hear her breathing even out to the accompanying purring of the kittens next to the bed. The warmth of her body combined with the softness of the bed beckoned him to sleep. He was terrified. Terrified of the darkness both when he closed or opened his eyes. Because that darkness was the first step to the pit which tasted and smelled of earth. But nothing smelled of earth. The fresh sheets on his bed smelled of sunshine and fabric softener. Kaede smelled of herbs. His room smelled of paper and wood. There was no earth around him, only the warm embrace of the woman he was hopelessly in love with. Secretly and hopelessly. He surrendered to that feeling, deciding to enjoy whatever scraps of affection she would give before she discovered his inappropriate thoughts.

That's all folks!

Replies to reviews:

Guest:
Thank you so much for the lovely comment!
I'm glad that you're enjoying the fic! I love writing about Haku and I'm happy to contribute to the fandom :) He really does lack a bit of work when it comes to the Haku/OC section :P
Enjoy the new chapter!

Rose:
Hi and thanks so much for the review!
I'm glad that you're enjoying the read :D Of course, feel free to translate it, but kindly keep a link to the original and I'm completely cool with it :D I was very flattered when I read your offer :)
Hope you'll keep enjoying the story!

Tainan republic:
Hi! Thank you very much for leaving me feedback!
I'm so glad that you're enjoying the story and I hope that I will live up the expectations hahaha
Best!