Chapter 20

"I don't wanna go home." Kakashi grumbled as they threw the last of their bags into the trunk of the SUV and crawled into the backseat.

Sakura started laughing and he looked over and gave her a dirty look. It was Friday and they decided to return home a couple days early to settle back in, in preparation for the upcoming work week.

"Don't you find that at least kind of ironic?" she asked him as she calmed down.

Confused, Kakashi just gave her a puzzled look and a raised brow in reply.

"You didn't want to come here to begin with! It took me convincing you to come and now that we're leaving you don't want to leave!" she added.

The silver haired man just shrugged and leaned back into his seat as they drove away from the cabin and began heading home.

"Well, I didn't know I was going to have such a wonderful time and with such a lovely person too." he explained as he shot her a cheeky grin.

"Kiss ass." Sakura shot back as she rolled her eyes and began working with her phone.

"I have yet to kiss your ass, thank you very much."

Kakashi didn't even flinch when he received the expected slap to his arm from her. Catching the small hand that hit him, he gently brought it up and kissed her knuckles. He glanced up to her after letting go and found that the bodyguards face was as pink as her hair.

"I love you, silly." he teased, which only got him a happy smile from Sakura as her blush deepened in color.

Satisfied with his results, he grabbed the book he brought along to read for the long car ride home. After a few more moments, he noticed Sakura had regained her composure and pulled out her laptop and continued doing her own work. The next couple of hours passed in a comfortable silence as the SUV soared along the freeway back to Konoha and home.

"We'll need to stop for gas before we enter into Konoha, Mr. Hatake. Ms. Haruno."

Kakashi looked up from his book and nodded to the man looking at him in the rearview mirror. He marked his page and sat it on the seat as he did a half stretch in the cramped back seat.

"Fine with me, I'd love to stretch my legs out right about now."

A couple minutes later, the couple found themselves wandering around the tiny gas station while they waited for the driver to finish getting gas. Sakura mentioned she'd like to grab a soda before getting back on the road.

"Oh my god." he heard her breath out.

Turning quickly to see what evoked her, he found her staring at a magazine rack of tabloids.

"What is it?" he asked as he moved over to stand next to her.

The pinkette shoved the bottle of diet soda into his hands before she quickly reached out and snatched a magazine off the rack.

"It's me!" Sakura said in disbelief.

"Huh?" Kakashi replied as he looked as the cover and realized what she meant.

He rolled his eyes as he sighed before looking back down to see what it said.

""More than just an assistant? CEO of Hatake Int. brings the woman he says is his assistant along with him on his yearly trip to the family cabin in Sugi. A first for the young bachelor!"" Sakura read the attention grabber out loud.

"We haven't hidden our relationship, so this is a lame rumor." he pointed out.

Sakura turned and looked at him and for the first time he goes to see the look of surprise on her face.

"Maybe so, but they have my photo on the cover! When did they take this photo?! I never noticed it! This is from when we went shopping for the trip! Oh god, am I slipping up and getting rusty?! I never even saw the photographer!" she whined as she basically crumbled the tabloid in her hands.

Kakashi put a hand on her shoulder to get her attention. When she looked back up to him he gave her a reassuring smile.

"You're not slipping up, don't worry. The photo was obviously taken from a cell phone. It looks like a shopper or one of the workers took it and sold the image and "story" to a tabloid for quick cash." he explained.

She gave him a look like she didn't fully believe and he squeezed her shoulder and continued.

"Trust me, this is not the first tabloid article about me and it's definitely not going to be the last. Sadly, you're an indirect target of my wealth. For some reason, people want to know every detail about you when you're rich. This includes everyone who associates with me, even the pretty pink haired girl who happens to be my "assistant" and girlfriend."

Sakura pursed her lips and nodded as she seemed to accept his reasoning.

"They could've at least taken a better photo…" she pouted.

"Mah, Sakura! You look beautiful at every angle!"

Bright green eyes just rolled at his loving tease as she shoved the now crumbled tabloid into his hands as she took her soda back.

"You know I have to pay for this now!" he continued to tease her as he playfully waved the magazine in his hand and followed her to the counter to check out.

'God, I love her. So much.'

"We'll be home soon." Kakashi spoke up from her left side.

"I'm glad to be home and in my bed again!" she sighed happily, "Are you excited to go back to work?"

"It'll be nice to go back, yes. Only thing I'm not looking forward too is all the New Year meetings. Now those are a snooze fest that you'll learn to hate very quickly." he said as they took the exit and entered into downtown Konoha, "All talk and goals for the upcoming year. Can we please just turn around and go back to the cabin and cut our losses?"

Sakura just shot him an amused look at his displeasure for meetings.

"You just don't like meetings, darling, so of course yo-" she started to reply, but the sudden sound of a ton of car horns blaring interrupted her.

Looking past Kakashi, she saw another black SUV swerving through traffic as it sped directly towards them.

"Kakashi, get down!"

Sakura reached out and grabbed the collar of his shirt and yanked him towards her right as the SUV collided with his side of the vehicle. The next moments were a blur as the impact shoved them back against her side of the car and pain shot up her right side and the back of her head hit the window behind her as the car nearly rolled over onto its side. She felt the spray of shattered glass rain over them as she kept a near death grip on Kakashi and tried to cover him from any other flying debris.

They were jerked forward again as the SUV landed violently back on all four tires. After a few more seconds had passed and the ensuing silence continued, she felt Kakashi move within her hold.

"Sakura, are you okay!?" he spoke up as he sat up and looked at her with wide eyes.

"You damned idiot, stay down!" she scolded harshly as she pulled his head back down against her side. Another shock of pain ran up her side as she pressed him against her.

'Fucking damn it, did I seriously hurt myself?!'

"I'm as fine as I can be in this situation." she eventually replied, "Please stay down and follow my directions. Are you hurt?"

She reached into her coat and pulled out her hand gun she kept strapped against her side at all times.

"I'm fine." he told her, "You obviously saved me again."

Sakura gave a sigh of relief at the news of his safety. That relief was short lived when two gunshots ricocheting off the car alerted her that they were still in danger.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me!" she bit out as she reached behind them and tried to open the car door and sang a silent praise when it gave way. The force of the impact didn't trap them inside and rendering them helpless.

Stepping out she all but dragged Kakashi onto the ground when another gunshot whizzed by them.

"Oh god." she heard him breath out.

"Please stay down. I'll take care of this." she warned him.

Sakura stood up and stepped around towards the front of the SUV before he could reply and immediately pinpointed the gunman and fired off four shots directly at them. One of the four shots struck the guy in his right arm, near his elbow, and caused him to drop his gun. He immediately screamed out in pain and turned to start running away.

"I got him, but he's running! Damn it!" she shouted as she moved to start running after him, but before she could take two steps she felt a hand grasp her upper arm and stop her.

Sakura whipped around to find that it was Kakashi who was holding her back. She tried to pull her arm away to no avail.

"Kakashi! Let go! I need to stop him before he gets away!" she shouted, but his grip only tightened.

"Sakura… I can't… I-I can't risk losing you." he whispered to her.

The bodyguard couldn't believe what she was hearing right now.

"Kakashi! He's disarmed! This comes before anything! You promised! I need to protect you!" she shouted at him as she finally freed herself from him and turned and finally got around the SUV to run after the guy. But she soon realized that the gunman was long gone, lost in a crowd of people gathering around the accident, "No! He got away!"

Sakura felt herself get furious at the results of this. The sounds of sirens and shouts from witnesses and police filled the air around them. Turning back around, she quick holstered the gun and marched towards her boyfriend.

"Damn it, Kakashi! You promised!" she screamed at him, the threat of tears suddenly rushing in as she pointed an accusing finger at him, "You promised me when we got together, Kakashi, that you wouldn't stop me from trying to protect you! You told me that you understood that my job comes first! Why did you do this!?"

She watched the CEO recoil at her wrath.

"Sakura… I can-"

"No! You're going to fucking listen to me right now! The guy who was trying to kill you got away because you stopped me! I could've stopped him, Kakashi! I was able to disarm him! I could've taken him down in seconds! Now he's out there pissed because I shot him! And there's going to be another threat towards you now! He's going to try and kill you again!" she continued lashing out at him, "Because you held me back!"

Before either of them could reply or continue, a handful of police officers ran up to them.

"Mr. Hatake! Ms. Haruno! Are you two okay?" an officer frantically asked.

Coming down from the adrenaline rush she had been experiencing, she felt the earlier pain return at full force and her head began to throb. The current fury she felt towards Kakashi suddenly shot down to the bottom of her list of worries.

"I need to go to the E.R." she revealed, "I think I may have broken a rib or two and I hit my head pretty hard on the window."

She watched out of the corner of her eye as Kakashi turned to her frantically.

"Why didn't you say anything until now?! You said you were fine!"

"Because I needed to do my job first!" she snapped back at him viciously, "But they got away, so now I get to deal with this!"

The bodyguard saw the pained frown come to him. He clearly knew his mistake and she knew she shouldn't be as harsh as she was, but she couldn't contain her anger.

The next thirty minutes were tense and quiet as Sakura and Kakashi gave their initial statements and then got into an ambulance and went to Konoha General for her to get checked out.

The nurses separated them shortly after they arrived as Sakura went back for x-rays and a CT scan while they brought him to a private room and checked him out and cleared him. He was unscathed thanks to Sakura's quick thinking. Rushing to the room they assigned to her, he found her propped up in her hospital bed with her eyes closed and a slight pained expression on her face. She wasn't in her clothes that they had came in and she in hospital gown with a blanket covering her lap.

"Oh god, Sakura." he breathed out as he rushed to her bedside.

Sakura opened her eyes and just stared blankly back at him.

"I don't wanna argue right now. I'm too sore and tired."

Dread washed over him at her reply.

'I've fucked this all up.'

"Have they given you any answers?" he asked tentatively as he grabbed a chair and pulled it up next to her.

"X-ray results should be back anytime now, but they know that at least two of my ribs are broken on my right side from their initial exam. I'm a little bruised up. CT scan looks like I may have a mild concussion too. It'll be confirmed or not soon as well."

Kakashi felt every negative emotion known to man hit him like a tidal wave as she relayed him all the stuff that's wrong or possibly wrong with her. He leaned forward and propped his elbows onto her bed and let his head fall into his hands.

"I'm so sorry."

He felt awful. Devastated that the woman he loved was so beat up from protecting him. He thought that her getting a cut on her cheek was the worst thing ever. He didn't know how he should be feeling right now.

He knew he fucked up by stopping her from running after the guy. He promised her, yet his body betrayed him. He was so afraid that this shattered the trust she held in him.

"Why are you sorry?" she asked.

Kakashi finally lifted his head up and looked at her to find her giving him a curious look.

"Because look at you! You're here because of me!" he explained in a strained voice.

"No. I'm here because some idiot smash his SUV into ours and tried to kill you. I got hurt as a result. That wasn't your fault at all. Now letting the guy get away? That was one hundred percent your fault." she stated flatly.

Kakashi just flinched slightly at the blunt answer she gave him. She was obviously still peeved about that and he fully understood her anger. Looking back down to the his clenched fists, he let out a soft sigh.

"I don't know what I can do to make up for that. I broke a promise to you and to myself. Not only did I put both our lives in danger, I let the guy get away because I let my fear of losing you take over."

He watched as she placed a warm hand over his cold ones. Kakashi felt as a small smile tugged at his lips at the minor affection. It showed that he hadn't completely screwed up their relationship. The CEO looked up to find a small smile at her lips as well.

"I'm not going to lie, I will probably be quite pissed about this for a while, but I do forgive you. I get to use the excuse the letting my feelings take over for me to protect you. And, it is slightly, and I do place extra emphasis on slightly, unfair that you don't get to do that too. However, my job allows me that advantage unlike yours."

Kakashi just nodded along as she spoke.

"He's going to come after you again, whoever he is. That's just a fact at this point. It's only a matter of time now. When that time comes, that's when you can redeem yourself. Just let me do my thing no matter what, darling. Okay?"

"Okay." he whispered with a single nod of his head.

Sakura moved her hand then and made to intertwine her fingers with his. Lifting their hands up, he placed a couple kisses on her knuckles. He looked back to her and found a slight blush on her cheeks.

"I love you." he whispered.

"I don't know how you still do. I tore into you pretty bad earlier."

Kakashi let out a half laugh then.

"I will always love you. No matter how angry you get with me." he replied.

After a couple more minutes, a soft knock pulled them both back to reality when the doctor came in with her results.

"You have three broken ribs on your right side. You're already bruising, so you're going to be quite sore for a while. So, I'm advising that you need to take at least three to four weeks off to rest up and let yourself heal. As for the concussion we were worried about, there was no signs of one like we thought initially. You did hit your head pretty bad though, so you'll probably have a headache for about a week." the man explained in a monotone voice.

Kakashi felt a wave a relief hit him at the news that she didn't actually have a concussion. Looking over to her once the doctor informed them that she could be discharged now, he found a deep frown marring her usual delicate features.

"What's wrong?" he asked her the moment they were left alone.

"I can't take time off!" she whined quietly.

"Yes, you can and you are. We're just not going to return to work now."

Sakura turned and shot him a dirty look.

"You can't keep taking so much time off of work either!" she reasoned.

"I can too. It's my company, Sakura. I can come and go as I see fit. I just go into work because it's something to do. Plus, I can easily do all my work from my home office."

Sakura opened her mouth to try and argue further, but he shot her the usual "end of discussion" look and she clamped her mouth shut and pouted instead.

"No more arguing today. We need to get home and get you settled in." he added on.

The woman he loved just groaned in response to his matter of fact statement and he just gave her a warm smile in reply.

'I love her so much. I can't let her get hurt like this again.'

A/N: HEHE EARLY UPDATE. I just know if I don't do it now, I won't have time until late tomorrow to post and I love y'all tooooo much to make you wait that long.

Will they ever get a break? I wonder how things are going to play out now that Sakura is out of commission for the time being?

Please leave a review if you can! Hit follow as well so you won't miss any updates! ;)

Shout out to Taytay95 for being a rocking beta as always!