Kakashi carries her in his arms back up the cliff side. She holds on to him with her arms around his neck like a baby, her eyes wide and runny.

They sit on the cliff top in the grass. And she has never been a smoker, but feels the need. She grabs a pack from Asuma's guitar case and lights up, sending illuminated distress signals up into the night sky. Puffs of airy smoke that ultimately no one will see but them.

Kakashi's takes out Asuma's old guitar. He fiddles around, tuning it with sure hands, and begins to play a little. She realizes that she has never seen his naked face before and squints desperate to study it's contours in the shadows.

She thinks to herself that he's absurdly beautiful. With perfectly symmetrical features and angles and lips. And feels sorry about his eye. Although it adds, she thinks ,character to his beauty.

His physical perfection adds eerie surreality of the night. It's bizarre. She looks at him and he looks up and smiles. And as if his lips aren't used to moving in such a way, the smile hangs crookedly from his face. She feels something quiver at the base of her spine and imagines Asuma face naked behind that same guitar playing his favorite song.

Kakashi strums a few chords, then is silent. He looks at Kurenai smoking, then out towards the water. And she thinks she notices his eyes get shiny. But when he looks back at her, they're dry.

It's unspoken between them. It's time.

She stubs out her cigarette and he replaces Asuma's guitar almost lovingly in the case, with the rest of his things, closing the case. They stand up, slip into their robes and sandals and together they push the case out off of the cliff and into the water.

Then Kakashi holds out his arm like an umbrella and she walks underneath it and lets him curl it around her shoulders. She loves him.

His body is still wet in places. Water from his hair drips down onto the top of her head. Her ear is pressed to his chest. A strange sense of something comes over her as she watches the coffin floating out to sea. She can't quite put a name on it, this strange new feeling, but she is glad to hear Kakashi's heart beating.

They stand together like that and watch the coffin for a while. When it's just a speck on the horizon, breaking dawn and causing a splatter of pastel light across the sky.

She says "You know, I almost saw Heaven."

"Asuma was there." Kakashi replies without hesitation or question. "Yeah." she says. Then "You know he's not dead to me, yet." He pulls her closer and now she is sure his eyes are wet. She can hear it in his voice when he says "He never will be."