Wow over 100 reveiews! *Does little dance*

Don't know why but this chapter gave me huge trouble so its just a short one.

Disclaimer: As usual, own nothing

Sakura was sick.

When Kakashi had first put Sakura to bed on Halloween night he'd hoped it been a simple case of too many sweets and exhaustion. He'd left her whimpering under the covers as he went to change out of his now vomit covered clothes, throwing them straight in the washing machine. He forced some water down the poor girl's throat and at her insistence waited until she'd fallen asleep until he left for his own room.

Kakashi would be the first to claim that he had very little paternal instinct, but he had to grudgingly admit he might have acquired some from somewhere as he lay on Sakura's bed next to her, absentmindedly stroking her hair until she dozed off. He quietly went to his own bed, hoping to get perhaps seven hours uninterrupted sleep.

Fate was not so kind. Two hours later Sakura came in whimpering that she'd been sick again. Kakashi had been forced to drag himself out of bed and check on the little girl. He knew it was more than just candy sickness the moment he turned on the light. Sakura flinched away from the brightness and her little face was unnaturally flushed. A hand to the forehead confirmed that she most likely had a temperature.

"What hurts?"

"Too hot," she whined. "And nose stuffy and throat hurts. Make it go away Kaka-kun."

A quick inspection later showed that Sakura had vomited all over her bed and pyjamas. Kakashi had unfortunately been putting off doing the laundry so he had to sacrifice one of his own tops to use as an oversized nightdress for the girl. He quickly got her changed. Fortunately one of them was too ill and the other too worried to be embarrassed about him changing her, a task she'd completed on her own up till now. One pain pill, a glass of water and a cold damp cloth placed on the forehead later, Kakashi placed Sakura in his own bed with a bucket beside her.

He then chucked Sakura's sheets in the washing machine along with his clothes and got it going before returning to see how his mini student was doing.

He spent the rest of the night dozing while she slept and playing nursemaid when she woke up needing a glass of water or to throw up again (though she managed to throw up into the bucket this time for which Kakashi was immensely grateful).

A frantic call to Tsunade was made as soon as the sun was up, and she came rushing over as soon as she could. It was, in retrospect, slightly over the top to get the best medic in the village to check on a sick child at an ungodly hour in the morning for what turned out to be nothing more than a nasty tummy bug. However Kakashi felt Tsunade should have been able to do more than order him to make sure Sakura rested and drank lots of water and only ate plain food. What was the use of medical ninja who couldn't cure a cold? Though Kakashi made sure not to voice this opinion.

As the morning rolled by he discovered the good thing about ill children. They may cause you endless amounts of stress and paranoia, but a sick child slept a lot. Hence his morning was relatively quiet.

In the afternoon he discovered the bad thing about sick children. Just because they were sick and didn't have the energy to run around like they normally did, didn't mean that they didn't get bored. They did. Rather quickly.

"I'm bored!"

"Why don't you try sleeping?" Kakashi asked, a wide fake smile fixed firmly beneath his mask.

"Done that."

A few beats of silence.

"I'm really bored! Can't we play something?"

Kakashi learnt another childcare lesson that day. Let the child win. When he beat Sakura at snakes and ladders twenty minutes later she looked ready to burst into tears. He was forced to play four other games where he allowed her to win in order to make it up to her.

He was also required to participate in Sakura chess. In Sakura's version it wasn't so much about strategy as it was using her pieces to knock over Kakashi's by throwing them across the board. Sometimes she'd miss and hit Kakashi in the eye, which eventually became her main objective.

By eleven that evening Kakashi had played and lost multiple board games, read stories, drew pictures and helped Sakura plot Naruto's demise (which he found fun, though slightly disturbing). He had also done several loads of laundry, cleaned several vomit covered floors, cooked simple plain meals for Sakura and turned away all her anxious friends desperate to see her after she'd eventually gone back to sleep.

Kakashi himself had no trouble sleeping that night himself.