Kakashi was underwater, pulled helplessly by the current until he lost all sense of which way was up and which was down. There was a pressure on his chest that seemed to build a thousandfold with every second that he sank, and the water was making all the sounds that reached his ears simultaneously muffled and amplified, like they were travelling a long distance to reach his ears.

"…shi."

It took what felt like a thousand years to finally comprehend that the sounds he was hearing were actual words.

"…kashi ple…"

He tried to follow the source to freedom, but he was in too deep and his body no longer knew how to swim.

"…"

The speaker, whoever they were, had gone silent. Kakashi strained to hear even another syllable, but it was no use. Either they had left him to his fate, or he had finally reached depths where nothing could ever reach him again.

"…ey, what are y…"

Suddenly they were back, and this time there was a jolt of panic in their voice. He listened hard, willing his body to fight for its life even as some part of him shied away from whatever waited at the surface.

"Stop!"

The voice was scared. And Kakashi's head was beginning to clear, the water ebbing away and the light drawing nearer. He could feel the edges of his body now, feel that he wasn't underwater at all, but lying on his back somewhere.

"Kakashi." This was a different voice, he could tell. "Wake up."

"He was sedated for a reason." The first voice was still there, growing clearer. "Whatever this is about, he's in no condition to deal with it right now."

That's right, Kakashi realised. Something happened to me.

"I'm afraid that if he doesn't wake up and deal with this now, you're both going to have to deal with Danzo."

That name was enough to bring full clarity back to Kakashi's world. He forced his eyes open, hissing against the fluorescent lights overhead. Two figures peered down at him.

"Sakura." She had been the first voice, the one trying to bring him home. The one trying to protect him from the second voice. "Tiger."

"Glad you're awake." Tiger's masked face revealed nothing, but he had known Genma long enough to sense that there had been some uncertainty he would wake up. "Sorry, but there's not much time to explain everything."

"You haven't explained anything." Sakura glared at him. "You just walked in here, unhooked his sedatives, and then injected him with…" she glanced at something just out of sight, and grimaced. "Flumazenil."

Tiger shrugged. "I needed him to wake up."

"It's okay, Sakura." Kakashi struggled into a sitting position. "Tiger's on our side." He took in the room properly for the first time, and what he saw confirmed his suspicions. "I'm in the hospital."

"Sorry for the rude awakening, but as I said: Danzo's on his way to see you. He'll want to talk to you about what just happened with Itachi, and if you're non compos mentis he'll make the doctors keep you here forever. Then he'll start in on her." He nodded to Sakura.

"Itachi." Memory flooded back in, threatening to force him under again. He looked down at his body, half expecting it to be hacked to pieces.

A hand was on his shoulder immediately, grounding him.

"It's alright," Sakura soothed. "He's gone, and what he did to you was never real."

"It felt real," he murmured, wondering if it was the combination of sedatives and sedative antagonists fighting it out in his system that made him feel like throwing up, or three days' worth of genjutsu at the hands of a blood traitor.

"I know," Sakura said, and Kakashi shook his head (which unfortunately made the nausea worse).

"No, you don't." He knew she was just trying to comfort him, but she wasn't there. He could still hear the calm way Uchiha Itachi had spoken, like they were back in ANBU discussing a mission strat instead of counting down the remaining seconds of torture.

"Yes, I do." Her hand tightened, and Kakashi noticed for the first time that there was a bandage snaking its way up her bicep, disappearing under a set of standard-issue hospital scrubs.

"Not here," Tiger snapped impatiently. "Catch up all you want once you're home; I've already updated your security seals. But you need to get discharged first. A doctor's going to arrive about sixty seconds from now, and it's your job to convince her that you're well enough to leave. I've updated your chart so it looks like another doctor was already prepping you for discharge and just got sloppy with the paperwork, so hopefully she won't ask too many questions about why you're already awake; but don't be afraid to turn on the old Kakashi charm, if you have to. Got it?"

Without waiting for an answer, he crossed the room and stepped out the open window.

"Who was that guy?" Sakura murmured, as the window slid shut once more.

Kakashi didn't answer. He had to save whatever energy he had left for the upcoming performance to the doctor; not to mention the walk back to his apartment, if he did manage to get discharged. At least he'd be walking away from the hospital.

Part of him wanted nothing more than to hook the sedatives back up and let the water rush over him once more. Hadn't he suffered enough recently? Didn't he deserve to rest?

But if Tiger was right, the next time he woke it would be under Danzo's supervision. And in the meantime, Sakura would be without her handler. Root would swoop in, and all their fights about obedience would be for nothing. She'd disappear as thoroughly as if he'd never found her at all.

The door swung open and an older woman in a lab coat stepped through.

"Mr Hatake." She blinked, clearly surprised to see him awake. "How are you feeling?"

He forced himself to smile. "Great."

ⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵⴵ

Sakura was too tense to sit, so she stood at the edge of Kakashi's bed instead. She knew her hypervigilance was stressing out a man who was, frankly, already stressed to his limit (she had been supporting him on the slow walk home and had felt every tremor that had passed through his too-tense body), but until she could believe he was actually going to be okay, she wasn't going anywhere.

Now that it was just them, with no doctors to impress, he looked…bad. It wasn't surprising for someone who had been forcibly woken up from sedation to be twitchy until one or both drugs wore off, but it was clearly more than that. It was only when the washing machine changed cycles and Kakashi flinched hard enough to rock the bed that Sakura realised what was happening: he no longer felt safe, even in his own home. It was a feeling she understood all too well.

There was a brief knock at the door, and now they were both flinching.

"Who-?" Sakura had barely crossed to the door when it opened of its own accord; something that, if Tiger was to be believed, shouldn't have happened for anyone but the residents. Or a particularly powerful ninja.

Her hand reached automatically for the space at her hip, but grasped air; she had left her sword propped against the wall.

"I'm home~" The newcomer spoke in Sakura's own voice, and Sakura could have kicked herself for getting worked up over her own blood clone.

The clone must have already figured out that the original didn't leave the village when she meant to; but clearly, she hadn't expected to find her wearing nurse's scrubs while Kakashi lay in bed. "Am I interrupting?"

"No." Sakura glared at her copy. "Go kill yourself already."

It sounded harsh, but it certainly wasn't the first time she'd had to dismiss a clone outside of battle, and she needed the chakra back.

"Fine." The blood clone walked to the bathroom (less messy to do it there), but Kakashi held out a hand to stop her.

"Actually, if there's two of you, that means one can go fetch Gai for me. I need to talk to him."

The blood clone gave an exaggerated bow. "At once, sire."

Sakura grimaced. She'd formed the clone when they were still giving each other attitude. It all seemed so childish now. "Just go already."

Once it had left, she turned back to Kakashi. "Sorry about her. Me."

"Don't be." He waved his hand dismissively, and his whole body seemed to sway with it.

"Are you okay?" Ninjas weren't usually given the strong stuff, and for good reason. "If you want to try sleeping, I can give Gai a message?"

"It's alright." He threw back the covers. "Time I got up anyway."

He seemed steady for a moment, but then he tried to take a step and almost ended up faceplanting onto the floor.

Sakura was at his side automatically. "Actually, I think you should sleep."

"Don't want to," he said softly. He was still swaying in place like his scarecrow namesake; just how long had he been fighting the sedatives?

She placed her hands firmly on his shoulders, forcing him down to a sitting position on the edge of the bed.

He didn't resist. "I should be sorry," he murmured. "It was stupid to tell you that you have to act like a 'proper' ninja." He made a slightly strained noise that Sakura realised was a laugh. "You'll always be exactly what you are."

"Kakashi…" She pressed the back of her hand to his clammy forehead. She wasn't sure he was even aware of what he was saying. "Worry about yourself, not me."

"You shouldn't have to pretend you're someone else."

"Just rest, okay? You've been through a lot today." And you're still drugged out of your mind.

"Today?" He laughed hollowly, and then a shiver ran through his body. "Feels like longer."

Her hand wandered further up his forehead and started smoothing back his flyaway fringe. She hoped he didn't remember this later. "I shouldn't have brought it up."

"You said you knew it was like. Before. At the hospital." He gazed up at her with some complicated emotion in his (slightly glazed) eyes. "Because of what Obito did?"

She shook her head. "No." It wasn't the time to tell him everything. Later, when he wasn't drowsing, she might let him know that she had seen what Itachi could do, and very much understood why his mind was desperate to outrun it. But for now, it was too much for them both.

"I'm sorry for that, too." His head tilted forward, so that she couldn't see his face. "For Obito."

"I know." Again, if he weren't so loopy then she might have given him a harder time. But she wasn't a complete monster, no matter what people whispered behind her back. "Now, what is it you need to tell Gai?"

"Need to tell him…" He was still talking to the floor, head basically resting against her abdomen. She shifted him gently until he was laying back on the mattress. "Tell him that he needs to look after Sasuke and Sakura. I'm not sure I'm up to it right now."

"No kidding." She lifted his feet and tucked them back under the covers.

"Tell him Sasuke still can't control his seal."

"Seal?" Sakura frowned, but Kakashi's eyes were fully closed now, sedatives pulling him further from consciousness with every passing second.

"And whatever you do…don't let Sakura get another strike."