"and this is how you grow"

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Kakashi doesn't dream very much about the ones he loves, and he doesn't really remember the dreams when he does. It's enough for him to wake up in the morning and think 'I dreamt about them last night' and know without a shadow of a doubt that his best friend is more than a skeleton buried in rubble and an eye in his head, that his teacher is more than the seal on the belly of a boy and a face on the mountainside, that his father is more than the knife and face he gave his son. It's not as good as the real thing, but it's enough.

Kakashi never dreams of Rin, though. He doesn't need to – he sees her every day.

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Surprisingly enough, Kakashi doesn't need to visit the hospital that often. It's been years since he left ANBU, and although he's suffered injuries on missions since then – a broken arm three years ago, a bad stabbing a few months after that, when he ignored medical advice and took an A-class mission too soon – the chronic chakra exhaustion that plagued him as a boy and young man is no more.

He visits anyway, because Rin is there.

Kakashi doesn't bother to disguise his visits – in a town like Konoha, where every other person is a spy by vocation, his story is well-known, well-traveled. To the jounins and chuunins, they are teammates, close not because of any real choice but because the war put them together. They remain close because shinobi avoid making unnecessary enemies. In other words, their meetings are safe. No one would bother to listen in.

That doesn't mean they shouldn't.

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As ever, he goes to her office in the hospital sometime during her shift. There is never any pattern to his visits, except that they happen every few days – Rin varies her shifts according to some internal pattern only she knows, and Kakashi follows along. If she is not there when he is, he tidies up a bit. Rin is meticulous about cleaning and about her medical supplies, but everything else is always woefully disorganized within a halfshift. This gives Kakashi a chance to look for listening devices.

It's been three years since he found one, but a good ninja always checks.

Then Kakashi sits in one of the patient chairs and waits. Sometimes, if the wait is particularly long, he fills out Rin's paperwork – technically illegal, but Kakashi has never cared about that. Kakashi is not a medical specialist himself, but he knows enough about the hospital paperwork that he can write it out, and it saves Rin time if all she has to do is correct his few mistakes instead of writing it all out herself.

The wait can take hours, and after half an hour Kakashi usually hides his chakra signature and sends out a clone to wander around in public, reading porn and avoiding work. Kakashi is not sure how well this deception works, but the Third and the Council have always searched for his clone, not himself, so he considers it a success until proven otherwise.

Eventually, Rin walks into the office. The first thing she does is make coffee. The second thing she does is sit down in the supremely comfortable chair behind her desk. The third thing she does is take off her shoes.

At that point, Kakashi knows it's safe to talk.

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Not that Kakashi says anything. First he slides his headband up and looks at her legs with Sharingan, eye swirling lazily as it catalogs the flickering chakra pathways in her body and the way the ones around her left knee and left ankle pulse angrily. He sighs a bit and tugs the headband back down before walking around the desk and kneeling at her feet, picking up the left one in his hands. It seems small and delicate, and indeed, it is – the injury that took Rin off the active-duty roster was not debilitating, but she will never be able to walk on trees again. The other medics can stand upright a day at a time, just circulating chakra through the legs. After a half-day, Rin walks with a limp and stands on one leg in the operating room, like a water bird at rest.

She gasps a little in relief as he starts circulating chakra through her damaged leg, and rests a hand on his hair in thanks. "Have you been waiting long?"

Kakashi just shrugs a bit in answer, his visible eye curving into a crescent. She smiles a bit in response, and they stay that way for a moment more. But as her pains ease, her expression turns more serious. "How was the orientation with the Third?"

Kakashi grunts, mind half on the chakra flowing from his hands, half on the meeting yesterday with the other jounin instructors. "As well as you could expect, I suppose. I have Uzumaki boy, of course, and the last Uchiha, and a clanless girl with the best academic scores in her class. The Third wants me to pass them, I think. At least, he's confident they'll pass my test…" In his mind, Sarutobi's wrinkled, lined face looks out at him, as inscrutable as always. Kakashi has always been good at looking underneath the underneath, but the Third is a riddle to him. Half of his decisions are made for the good of the village, but in his old age, more and more of the rest of his policy follows his own whimsy.

"Do you think they'll pass?" Rin's voice drags him back to the present. Kakashi stops circulating chakra and just massages the foot normally – chakra cannot cure everything, after all.

"I watched them a bit, yesterday. I don't think so; they seem like all the other teams I've been given…," Kakashi smiles a bit under the mask. "Then again, they might surprise me. We'll see."

The coffee pot chimes, although it's hardly needed. The sharp, heady smell of the drink is obvious in the air. Kakashi sighs a bit and carefully puts down Rin's foot. He looks up at her a moment, and she looks back down at him, and between them, there is the perfect understanding of teammates, closer than family and better than friends. Between, they are thinking of the last Uchiha and the Kyuubi container and a wildcard girl neither of them knows.

Suddenly, Rin smiles at him and brushes her knuckles against his masked cheek. "Go on, get out of here. You're late, aren't you?" Kakashi just winks at her as he stands up and prepares to leave. His clone starts wandering towards the hospital – Kakashi will just substitute himself when the clone wanders past the office.

"Kakashi?" He looks back at her, but she's not even looking at him. She's pouring coffee.

"Yes?" He enquires, amused. He can guess what she's going to say.

"Don't go easy on them." Kakashi barks out a laugh, then substitutes himself for the clone. The clone is dispelled seconds later, and Kakashi is wandering on the roofs of Konoha, moving elliptically towards the Academy. He'll get there in about half an hour. By then, his new genin team should be furious.