Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or the characters contained therein, they belong to Masashi Kishimoto who is kind enough to let fans write fiction. I make no profit from this nor do I intend to.

A/N: I'm not sure where this one came from. Lately, I've wanted to flip some of the scenarios from Simple Things, I'm thinking it probably come out that. Maybe?

As always many huge thanks to my wonderful Betas La Moonlight Lily and WitchesRayne! I truly appreciate all your help!

The Way to a Medic's Heart

"Ugh!" the pink-haired woman exclaimed as she settled herself into the corner of the natural rock formation at the back of the open-air bath.

Her companions exchanged glances, silently debating whose turn it was to ask Sakura what had gone wrong this time. That the occasionally short-tempered woman had called an emergency kunoichi's night out was indication enough of what had probably happened.

The shy Hyuuga woman lost the silent round of janken their debate had morphed into and turned her attention to the irritated medic. "S-so things didn't go as planned with Ikuo?" she asked with no little trepidation. The last they had heard, Sakura had planned on surprising Ikuo that evening by coming home early for an evening in, so to speak.

"Ugh! Men! I don't even know why I bother!" Sakura exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air dramatically.

"So, Forehead, I'm guessing something went wrong?" her former rival prompted her, not wanting to have to wait all night for the juicy details.

"Was he not home?" the brunette weapons mistress asked with the sinking feeling that judging from Sakura's irritation, it was probably something worse than her boyfriend just not being home for an evening of fun.

"Oh, no he was home alright," the pink-haired woman growled.

"Then what was the problem?" Tenten asked, genuinely puzzled.

Ino just raised an eyebrow, beginning to suspect where this story was going, while Hinata took a moment to tilt her head to the side questioningly.

Sakura shook her head before responding. "He was home. But, he wasn't alone."

"Oh…" Hinata and Tenten managed in unison.

"Caught him in the act, did you?" the blonde woman asked with a grimace.

"Yeah." The irritated medic gave an angry snort.

"Anyone we know?" Ino couldn't help but ask.

Hinata gasped as her cheeks turned crimson and Tenten cringed sympathetically at the impertinent question.

"Nope." Sakura shook her head with a little annoyance. "Another civilian."

"What are you going to do?" Tenten couldn't help but ask, dreading the response. This was not the first time Sakura had caught an unfaithful boyfriend - it wasn't even the first time she'd caught one in the act. The four kunoichi had agreed in the past that pink-haired medic's long days and occasionally unpredictable schedule were most likely to blame for her some of her past boyfriends' wandering eyes.

"Besides what I've already done?" Sakura muttered darkly.

"What did you do?!" A surprised Hinata couldn't help but ask with true concern.

Sakura waved a negligent hand. "Tossed his ass out the door and his stuff - including the soiled bedding - out the window. Then I sealed the apartment until I can get a locksmith over to change the locks."

Ino nodded, seemed sensible - nothing that would get her in trouble anyway. "What about her?"

She shrugged. "I let her get dressed and get out on her own - it's not exactly her fault Ikuo turned out to be a weasel. Besides, whatever she got from Ikuo was probably punishment enough."

Tenten raised a skeptical eyebrow. "How do you know she didn't know?"

Sakura sighed. "You can't fake that kind of surprise and fear."

The other kunoichi nodded. Civilians tended to give them all a wide berth if at all possible. Like this particular bathhouse for instance. Because of the intimidation factor of having shinobi sharing the bath with them, civilians tended to avoid going entirely unless the bathhouse had a shinobi hour. Shinobi hours were usually not all that convenient but then again, shinobi didn't usually have regular schedules anyway so that wasn't all that much of a detriment. Besides, the deeply discounted rates made it more than worth their while even if the timing wasn't usually all that great. Granted, shinobi were not by any means limited by shinobi hours - they were welcome to turn up whenever they pleased. However, the lower rates and promise of no civilians around asking awkward questions were usually more than enough incentives to make them choose to go during shinobi hour.

"What did you mean when you said, 'whatever she got from Ikuo was probably punishment enough'?" Hinata couldn't stop herself from asking, finding the phrasing of Sakura's statement more than a little troubling.

Ino asked what the Hyuuga couldn't. "He doesn't have an STD or something does he?"

Sakura shook her head and felt her cheeks heat just a little before answering honestly. "Ikuo was terrible in bed. I'd hoped he would improve but, well, not so much. So, that woman probably got what she deserved from him - which wouldn't have been all that good anyway."

"What?!" the three women chorused in surprise.

Sakura shrugged, not particularly wanting to explain herself.

Ino recovered fastest. "So, if he was that bad in bed why did you stay with him?" she asked, flipping some of her hair over her shoulder. "Would have been easy to dump his ass and get someone better." There was no question that that's exactly what she would have done. Though, if it had been her, she wouldn't be wasting time messing about with civilians in the first place - none of them would.

Sakura sighed. "True enough. But if I were to be absolutely honest, the best I've had have all been shinobi. Pretty hard to top really." She paused in thought for a moment. "Probably asking a civilian too much to even try."

"So, why don't you go back to dating shinobi?" Ino asked incredulously - it seemed like such an obvious solution to Sakura's problem.

"Yeah, I never really understood why you started dating civilians anyway," Tenten added with a slight frown. "They just don't measure up when push comes to shove."

The other women exchanged glances at Tenten's unintentional innuendo and giggled.

Once their mirth was under control the pink-haired medic shrugged. "I keep asking myself the same thing."

"Then why do you do it, Forehead? Save yourself some trouble, forget the civilians and go get yourself another shinobi!"

"As bad as Ikuo was in the bedroom, his outstanding skills in the kitchen more than made up for it."

"What?!" all three exclaimed in surprise. This was a novel sentiment - unless there was something new about bedroom skills being applied to the kitchen of which they were unaware.

"Ikuo was a fantastic cook," Sakura explained, realizing that they weren't likely to understand what she was telling them unless she spelled it out.

"Oh…"

She nodded. "Yeah, and not only was he a good cook but he had an office job."

"So?" Tenten asked, uncertain what possible innuendo she could be missing. Or if there was some new trend involving office workers. In Konoha, one never really knew - last she had heard, hot sales clerks were the new in-demand type of man sweeping the hearts of the single civilian ladies of Konoha.

"So, that meant he was home at night most of the time." She eyed the women sitting with her speculatively, wondering if she would have to explain this as well. After a moment's thought, she realized she probably would. "Do you know how many times I got home to find a note on the kitchen table from my last shinobi boyfriend saying that he had to leave for an unexpected mission, or how many times I came home to him gone for who knows how long and no note at all?"

"Sakura, you were working your way through some of the elite ranks," Tenten interjected tentatively. "That's not exactly a common problem amongst the regular ranks. You could always just shift your attention a bit to find someone who is in the village more often."

The pink-haired woman shrugged, knowing that it came with the territory. "Thing is, it's the elite who really know what they're doing. Hard to make a compromise there - if I'm going for a shinobi, I'm going to go for a gifted one."

"Ah, and I bet they're just as mediocre in the kitchen than you are," Ino added.

"Nope, not many anyway."

"R-really?"

"Yeah," she sighed, "they're even worse."

The other kunoichi laughed at the dejected tone in Sakura's voice.

"Hey, it's not all that funny."

"Oh, yes it is Forehead. Basically, what you're telling us is that the way to your heart is through your stomach?"

Sakura rolled her eyes. "I work ten to twelve hour shifts at the hospital most days. The absolute last thing I want to do when I get home is to make dinner."

The other kunoichi sobered quickly. Of the four of them, Sakura had the most demanding schedule by far. None of them could blame her for being swayed by hot homemade food ready for her when she got home in the evening. Especially not after spending the whole day at the hospital.

"Sorry, hadn't thought about it quite like that."

"It's fine." She sighed again. "Maybe I should just look for a roommate who happens to cook instead. This boyfriend thing is just not working for me."

Doing his best to be as invisible as possible, the lone occupant on the men's side of the open-air bath sat still in silent contemplation. He had not expected to have company for his evening soak. Then again, this wasn't the silver-haired man's usual bath time or bathhouse. However, he'd been forced to seek refuge here instead of the bathhouse on the corner of his street - someone had been foolish enough to sneak Guy very strong alcohol just after a long soak at their regular haunt and then suggested that perhaps a challenge would be in order. The damage done had been extensive, resulting in the bathhouse having a strict no shinobi rule - at least for a while anyway; the owner would soon figure out his mistake when his profits took a dive and probably then re-evaluate his no shinobi stance.

Since then the elite jonin had been on his own personal mission to find the perfect replacement bathhouse. It wasn't as though he didn't have the time for something as frivolous as finding the perfect bath. Not with the Hokage pulling him from active duty on the pretext that he needed to recuperate longer from his most recent stint in the hospital - one instance of chakra overuse too many for someone of his age was the official reasoning. Her unofficial reasoning was to effectively keep him out of action until he conceded to her most recent demand. Of all her tactics, this was perhaps the dirtiest in that it had the best chance of actually working. He was, in fact, becoming nearly bored enough to give in and take the job he'd never wanted.

Another wave of laughter from the other side of the divider brought his attention back to the matter at hand. This bath had seemed to be a top contender as it was altogether deserted when he arrived and not too far from his apartment. The last three he had tried, while much closer to his apartment, were frequented by the younger set and consequently, he found the topics of most of their conversations to be not entirely to his liking. Though, after the enlightening conversation he had just heard, if he cared enough to do so, he could now return to any one of those baths at shinobi hour and answer quite a few of the questions that were always raised in regard to his former student's love life. Such as why she was no longer dating shinobi; there were quite a few who were interested in her but were frustrated by the fact that recently she didn't seem to want to date anyone who wasn't a civilian. However, he found that he just didn't quite seem inclined to do so - sharing that information seemed counter-productive to his own goals. Never mind the fact that he'd been wondering some of the same things himself and now had some interesting information to contemplate.

"What kind of a weird mission is this?!"

The loud irritated voice caught the silver-haired jonin's attention. Casually, so as not to appear that he was listening, he slouched closer with one of his ever-present orange companions in hand.

"I'm sorry but it's all we have right now. Take it or leave it."

The irritated man exhaled and shook his head. "Leave it. I'll find some other way to make the cash I need." He stepped away and started to leave before remembering how foolish it could be to get on the wrong side of the clerks who assigned the discretionary missions. "Thanks anyway," he tossed over his shoulder before sauntering off to go scrounge up a one-off security gig - the last ditch effort of many a shinobi who needed quick cash.

Curious, Kakashi wandered closer to listen to the clerks as they shuffled their paperwork back into order.

"You know we're never going to get that mission assigned."

"No kidding! How anyone thought that we'd be able to find someone to fill it is beyond me."

"No jonin in their right mind would volunteer for this kind of thing. At least not one with the amount of skill required to complete it anyway."

Interest almost painfully piqued, Kakashi found himself at the desk. "I need something to do while I kill time between Icha Icha novels." He gestured to his book for effect.

The two clerks exchanged glances. The elite shinobi in front of them didn't need to point out that he'd been sidelined for the foreseeable future due to one instance of chakra overuse too many. Everyone knew that the Hokage was having him cool his heels for a while. And it was entirely clear to the two paper-pushers that the man was beyond bored.

He decided he'd have to prompt them. "Have anything available?"

The clerks silently pondered the request. They had something alright, and it wouldn't be going against the Hokage's orders as it was C-rank at best and based right in the village, but it certainly wasn't a mission the legendary Copy Ninja would be interested in doing…

As he made his way around the little supermarket, he almost absently pulled together the ingredients needed to make a fancy five-star dinner, fully aware that he was being watched. Just as he was about to make his way to the register, he paused, distracted by a display of wine that would pair nicely with his planned meal and allowed to his shadow to catch up to him.

"'Evening Sakura," he greeted her as pretended to just notice her presence behind him. Quickly, he made his last selection and placed in his basket in order to turn his full attention to his former student.

"Kakashi, long time no see," she returned the greeting with a genuine smile. "It's been months! Where've you been all this time? Tsunade swore up and down that she hadn't changed her mind and assigned you to some top secret long-term mission elsewhere… but with you gone for so long, I couldn't be sure."

"Eh-heh." He raised a hand awkwardly to rub the back of his neck. "I took a discretionary undercover assignment to kill some time and it turned out to take a little longer than anticipated…"

She laughed, having suspected that it would be something simple like that. Leave it to Kakashi to take some straightforward discretionary mission and turn it into something else entirely - just so he could keep his record for being late or to possibly avoid the off chance that Tsunade might change tactics and see fit to assign him to one of the unpleasant extended border patrol missions recently appearing in the regular mission logs.

"Celebrating something?" she asked, nodding toward the wine display. After a moment's pause, since she couldn't see him opening a bottle of wine for just himself, she had to add, "with company?"

"Why would you think that?"

"You don't often pick up bottles of wine. You're more of a shared bottle of sake at the pub sort of man."

He chuckled. "You've got me there." He paused wondering how to dispel her mistaken belief that he already had dinner company lined up. "Well, partially anyway."

"Partially?" she asked with some confusion.

"Hmm… You might say I've come to certain decisions regarding my future and I figure I might as well celebrate... privately, while I still can." He tilted his head to the side as if considering something. "And a bottle of wine can go pretty well with dinner even if one hasn't exactly found someone with whom to share it." His eyebrow quirked and the side of his mouth lifted for only a moment - she would've missed it if she wasn't watching.

Sakura's jaw dropped for a moment before she hastily shut it. Was he hinting at what she thought he was? Almost more importantly, had Tsunade's tactics actually worked? If so, Kakashi, an elite, would be more or less grounded in the village just like she was… Hastily, she shook those interesting thoughts from her mind and concentrated on the present.

Noticing her moment of silent speculation, he smiled to himself before taking a couple steps toward the register, unsurprised when she followed him.

As they walked, she made a show of eyeballing the other selections in the attractive older man's basket and raised an eyebrow. "Those are some fancy ingredients in your basket. You sure you know how to use them?"

He suppressed a chuckle. "Do you?"

She sighed. "Nope." She looked over his basket again - she had no idea what those ingredients made but was fairly certain it was fancy and likely very tasty. "Since when do you?"

He let his amusement show and laughed. "I have many skills of which you may not be aware, Sakura." He raised an eyebrow and quirked a smile that was just short of suggestive - allowing the expression to linger far longer this time so she would not have to question if she had indeed seen what she'd thought she'd seen.

She couldn't help licking her suddenly dry lips or prevent her next statement from passing through her lips. "Prove it."

He chuckled at her response. "You sure that's what you want?" He looked her in the eye and held her gaze. "Something like that could have unexpected… consequences, you know."

Suddenly, she began to wonder if they were still discussing his skills in the kitchen. A moment's thought on that particular revelation informed her that she didn't care. If Kakashi could actually cook and would be sticking around the village…

Before she could put voice to her opinion on the matter, a short stocky dark-haired man with a big grin on his face approached.

"Mr. Hatake! I can never thank you enough! Without your help, we would never have figured out that it was the sommelier, not the sous chef who was stealing recipes as I had originally assumed!" He beamed at the silver-haired man with clear joy. He let his gaze slide to the pink-haired woman standing with Kakashi and his grin managed to get even wider. "To show my thanks you must bring your young lady with you sometime soon - on the house!"

Confused, and uncertain how she felt about the interruption of what had turned into an extremely intriguing conversation, Sakura turned her attention back to her friend. "Kakashi, what is he talking about?"

The happy man was only too pleased to jump in and answer her question before the somewhat bemused man could respond. "Your man there just spent the last two months washing dishes at my restaurant!"

She raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Really, did he now?"

The restaurant owner nodded enthusiastically. "Oh, yes. I could not believe that the legendary Copy Ninja had agreed to take on my little undercover mission." The stocky man shook his head in disbelief. "But it all worked out in the end! He was able to save me from ruin - I still cannot thank him enough. I would never have believed it was the sommelier!"

Sakura couldn't help but send an amused glance at her former sensei.

After a moment's pause, it suddenly occurred to the dark-haired man that he might have interrupted something. "Oh! Excuse me, I think I must be going. It was nice to see you again Mr. Hatake, do make sure you bring your lovely young lady in some time." He glanced down as he started to walk away and noticed Kakashi's shopping basket. "Oh! Well! It looks like your time in our kitchen may not have been all spent washing dishes and catching crooks - I see you may have learned a thing or two! You have the makings of one fine dinner for two there." He winked. "Maybe you do not need to bring your lady to my restaurant to impress her after all - looks like you can probably do that all on your own now."

Sakura turned her attention from the rapidly retreating restaurateur back to her silver-haired friend. "Washing dishes, Kakashi?"

"Eh, heh… I prefer to think of it as learning new and useful skills in preparation for an upcoming career change."

"Oh, really?" She raised a skeptical eyebrow.

He chuckled. "I'm more than happy to show you exactly what I've learned." He paused for a beat, trying his best not to laugh at the myriad of emotions as they quickly flashed across her face. Sensing that she might need prompting, he shifted his basket to his left hand and held out his right arm for her to take, an eyebrow raised in challenge.

She licked her suddenly dry lips again and shifted her gaze from his face to his arm and back again, hesitating for just a moment before smiling and taking his arm for what she was sure would be an interesting evening.