Warnings: Kakashi's severe, ongoing PTSD and trauma, including nightmares, flashbacks, and panic attacks, and suicidal thoughts. We have reached the fix-it part of the story, so any deaths and fighting will be much less apocalyptic, and I'll post individual chapter warnings for that.

Kakashi is not actually a child, and arguably child neglect warnings do not apply to him, but there will be references to similar experiences during his first childhood and it could still be trigger-y. I am not out to assassinate anyone's character here. Sakumo isn't a bad or malicious person in this story; he's an extremely busy single parent with very little parenting experience, and has a genius child who is determined to prove that he can raise himself without any outside interference. I was trying to create a realistic backdrop for the man Kakashi will become, and in my opinion, healthy, well-adjusted six-year-olds do not become chuunin.

Timeline Note: I have an excel spreadsheet cross-referencing the anime and wiki that I spent hours on, and then I just (metaphorically) chucked the whole thing out the window. I couldn't reconcile a single, coherent timeline. I took some ages and information about childhood personality from canon, and some I just invented. I hope the end result isn't too confusing, but I tried to be very clear when backstory deviates from canon (mostly ages and when they first meet Kakashi).

Once again, Kakashi finds himself an outsider in his own mind, disembodied and disoriented.

Who are you?

Once again, he can feel the surprise, fear, and curiosity of his younger self, much less controlled than the last time. So he must be very young indeed. He doesn't have any more of a clue what to say to explain his presence this time around, how to convince himself of his mission, but it also doesn't matter, because he no longer believes that he can do it.

You're from the future?

How many times does he have to fail before the people around him acknowledge that it's just his nature? Ah, but now there's no one left who knows him.

You're strong.

Now that it's come to it, Kakashi doesn't want to be the dominant personality. If he just gives his younger self a few hints, maybe that will be enough. He thinks of a lifetime of promises, to Obito, Rin, sensei, Naruto, Gaara… and he doesn't think he can bear the weight any longer. It's too much, and he's all alone now. He'll be breaking those promises—for the second or third time, in some cases—but he's used to being a disappointment.

I don't know what to do.

And it's as Kakashi is passively awaiting oblivion, more at peace than he's been for decades, that his younger spirit takes the initiative, pulling Kakashi in and fading out of existence.

I hope you do.

And Kakashi breathes.

Kakashi doesn't recognize where he is.

Again.

It's not as nice as where he woke up last time, in the Land of Waves. It's bigger, but everything could use a good wash, and there's something oppressive in the air, sapping the little will he can muster to get up and investigate.

But he can't lie here forever. Or, he shouldn't, rather.

With a small moan, he forces himself to unbend, his limbs stiff from being so tightly curled up, but not as stiff as they should have been. That's one thing about these time shifts that isn't completely horrible: physically, he seems to get healthier every time.

Mentally, well…

He stands and leaves the depressingly bare room to look around, because if there's one place he absolutely does not want to be, it's inside his own head. The main room is equally shabby, and the table is littered with bottles and the odd overturned cup: signs of solitary, unhappy drinking.

Okay, so this definitely isn't Kakashi's apartment, wherever it is. He never drinks alone.

The house is much more traditional than he prefers, with delicate screens and real tatami flooring. The table is an antique, though like the rest of the house it's seen better days. The wood is dull, and there are distinct scores where someone has dug a kunai into the edges.

And then it hits Kakashi like a fist to the head, what his mind has been trying to protect him from.

This is his home, his childhood home, in the days after his father's last, fatal mission, but before the fatal part.

Kakashi runs out of there, briefly considers looking for a bathroom but settles for the kitchen instead, won't be the worst thing that's happened to this sink, and he throws up before he remembers he's wearing a mask and chokes, rips it off and throws up again, right into the pile of dirty dishes.

Even standing on his toes, he can barely reach.

He retches until there's nothing left in his stomach, then leans against the filthy counter and just tries to breathe, though the air seems to get caught in his throat.

The sodden mask is dripping onto his shirt, so Kakashi folds it up and rests it beside the sink. For some reason, it's suddenly very important that it be placed just so, and he tries to find a free space on the crowded countertop.

From somewhere deeper in the house, there's a sound, something alive and moving, and he doesn't try and identify it, can't, because there's loss and then there's loss and he isn't ready for this, will never be ready for this.

His mind comes to his rescue, goes completely blank, and his feet start moving of their own accord. He sprints through the house, sliding on bare wood where the mats don't cover, careening off the walls with enough noise to wake ten elephants. He stumbles into his own room more or less by accident, dives into the closet, and crowds into the corner, pulling as much of his haphazardly folded futon over himself as he can.

He can hear only the sounds of his own ragged breathing, forces himself to hold his breath, every muscle taut as he strains his excellent hearing for…

He can't even form the thought.

There are no more sounds, the whole place is as silent as a tomb, and he allows himself a tiny, shallow breath.

His body clamors for more, but he doesn't let himself gasp, trying to stay as quiet now as he was loud in his mad dash through the house.

He's a little dizzy, between the controlled breathing and the suffocating weight of the futon, and he falls asleep before he hears any signs of life but his own.

Kakashi stirs—groggily, because he's still a bit oxygen-deprived. There's a weight being lifted off him.

He assumes it's a body-in his experience, statistically likely-and he blinks as sunlight streams through the wide open doors of the… closet?... and then a face comes into focus before his watering eyes and Kakashi just. Stops.

He feels like his soul is lifting along with the physical weight, body or whatever it doesn't matter because sensei.

The light fills his hair, so it looks like he's glowing, and his smile is a warm fire on a cold day and oh-so-familiar and a touch worried—though that's familiar, too—and there was a time Kakashi believed that everything in the world would be alright, just because this man said it would.

Before Obito.

Before Rin.

Before Kyuubi.

And all that weight comes crashing right down again, because Kakashi hadn't been thinking before, hadn't wanted to think before, but it's not just fa… Sa… this house that he's going to have to live through the loss of, but so, so much more.

Kakashi turns away from that face, not that it isn't already burned on the inside of his brain forever, and tries to curl up so tightly that he disappears.

"You didn't come to training yesterday."

Kakashi is never leaving this closet.

"I hoped that you'd finally listened to me and taken a break."

Even with perfect chakra control, which this tiny, useless body does not have, he can't survive more than a week without water. A week isn't so long.

"Obviously I should have checked on you sooner."

Kakashi curls up tighter, and he still doesn't disappear but it is painful, and between that and the hands clamped over his ears he can almost pretend that he can't hear anything.

He's concentrating on that so fiercely that he's not sure how long it takes before he realizes that he really can't hear anything, he's alone.

Sensei left.

His stomach feels cramped. It must be hunger.

An eternity later, Kakashi opens his eyes, roused from a half-doze by voices.

Familiar voices.

"I thought he was your friend!" Sensei again, aggravated like he only gets with one person.

"I'm no nanny, and he's a grown man!" That was Jiraiya, the one person.

"And what, that means you haven't bothered to speak with him? Don't you even care how he's doing?"

"I have! I do!"

"When?"

"He said he was fine!"

"Does this look fine to you!?"

Silence.

Short-lived silence, as sensei barrels into Kakashi's room, dragging Jiraiya by the hand like a recalcitrant child.

"Look at my student," sensei says. "He has been fifteen minutes early to every single training session since I got him, and constantly bothering me for more besides. Now he won't come out of the closet. He's got vomit all over his shirt, for fuck's sake."

There's a long, heavy silence. "And Sakumo?"

"I haven't seen him," sensei says. "I've been a little more concerned about my student, who, as you ought to know, is five. There should be someone looking after him."

"That kid is more together than most adults I know," Jiraiya says.

Sensei whirls on him so quickly he almost yanks Jiraiya's arm out of its socket. He pins Jiraiya with a look that should have incinerated him on the spot, opens his mouth, but only a furious squawking sound emerges.

Jiraiya holds up both hands in a frantic request for truce. "I didn't mean that. I mean, I did, but I also see your point, you're totally right." He's slowly backing out of the room. "I'm just going to go check the rest of the house, you, you carry on, captain. Minato." He flees.

"I think Kushina's been a bad influence on me," sensei says. "Though I'm sure she would say it's a good influence."

He moves out of Kakashi's line of vision, and Kakashi doesn't try to follow him. He's already decided never to move again, and given that his arms and legs have long since lost any feeling, he probably couldn't have moved even if he did want to.

"Wouldn't you like to get cleaned up a bit?" sensei asks. He moves back where Kakashi can see him. "Where are your clean clothes?"

Kakashi breaks his own rule about not responding to any external stimuli, and closes his eyes.

"I found some on the floor but… they're cleaner, certainly." He laughs a little, though it comes out strained. "And the ones hanging in the bathroom aren't dry yet. Why aren't they outside? They'll dry a lot faster if they can get some air."

Kakashi doesn't answer.

Sensei sighs loudly. "Okay," he says.

The next thing Kakashi knows, his limbs are protesting painfully as he is lifted into the air. He makes a short, startled noise before clamping his mouth shut, resisting the urge to spit when he tastes old sick.

Sensei pays no heed to his unresponsiveness, sitting him against the wall and briskly stripping him of his shirt and trousers. He disappears, there's the sound of running water, and then all Kakashi can see is a towel, vigorously rubbing his face.

After he's apparently clean enough, sensei tosses the towel on the floor and strips off his vest, bundling Kakashi in the bulky material and lifting him onto his hip.

Kakashi is struck forcibly by how small he is now, because he hasn't been held like this since… actually, he doesn't think he's ever been held like this.

He has an unsettling urge to rest his head against sensei's shoulder, which he resolutely ignores, and experimentally pushes against the arm restraining him.

It doesn't budge, of course, and sensei merely gives him a stern look and carries him—carries him—out of the room.

Both of Kakashi's hands are free, but even if he could somehow defeat sensei from such an awkward position—unlikely—what did it matter? Where would he go? What would he do?

He exhales deeply and forces his tense muscles to relax, and his head falls naturally into the curve of sensei's shoulder. Why did he object to this earlier? His dignity? What a joke.

He can just see sensei's concerned expression out of the corner of his eye, so he closes his eyes, wishing he could shut out the world so easily.

Eventually, he is set back on his feet. It seems like too much effort to keep standing, and his legs fold under him, leaving him sprawled on the floor.

"Are you alright?" sensei asks, sitting him up and leaning him against… something. It doesn't matter.

Kakashi doesn't answer.

"…right. Do you want a bath?"

Silence.

"Well, I'm going to give you a bath, okay?"

Kakashi passively allows himself to be bathed and dressed in one of sensei's shirts. He ignores food and water, and is eventually deposited in a large, western-style bed.

"I'll be back in the morning. Try and get some sleep."

Kakashi ignores the concern, just stares up at the ceiling in the dark.

This goes on for a while. Kakashi isn't making any attempt to keep track of time, but the painful emptiness in his stomach is numbing slightly, and it's easier to sleep now, so… a while.

Sensei keeps trying to get some response from him, and persists in periodically washing him.

The frantic worry on his face does give Kakashi a few pangs, but he can ignore them. It's just sensei's nature, taking pity on broken or helpless things. But he barely knows Kakashi, he'll get over it. Better now, before he develops some kind of attachment.

They're at a table, and Kakashi is having some difficulty holding himself up even with the support of the chair. There's food, but it doesn't interest him.

Jiraiya and sensei are talking—arguing, rather—as they often do.

"Maybe you should try the hospital again."

"Minato, I've tried to take him, you've tried to take him, they're not going to take him, and that's the end of it. And I'll notice you haven't taken your charge to the hospital, either."

"I just can't believe any healer would turn their back on a patient!"

Jiraiya sighed. "Yeah, well, people are idiots. They're scared, and they're blaming Sakumo because he's the most convenient target."

"It's unprofessional! Medical and psychological help should be available to anyone who needs it, and village gossip shouldn't even be a factor! This kind of thing never happened when Tsunade was here!"

"Well she's not here, is she?"

Silence. "Sorry, Jiraiya-sensei. I shouldn't have said that."

Another, longer silence. "You really could try to take the kid in. Not sure why you haven't."

"And what if they won't take him, either? Or try and sabotage his treatment?"

"Do you really think things are that bad?"

"I'm not sure. I think Kakashi was being harassed, but he refused to talk to me about it. And certainly he's been… shunned… as completely as his father has."

"Shit."

"And this isn't exactly a normal situation. What am I supposed to tell the medic, that suicidal depression is suddenly a contagious disease? Kakashi is five. Yes, he's a genin, but he's never been on a real mission, there's no obvious cause of this total shutdown. Even I'm having a hard time accepting it, and I'm living with him." Sensei's voice is starting to rise, in pitch and volume. "And you know what? Sometimes I want to just shake some sense into Sakumo, which isn't fair, I know, the man has been through a terrible ordeal, but… how can he not care? His son might die, and he doesn't care!"

"I think you need a break, Minato. Go home, get laid, get drunk, something."

"I'm not leaving."

"I really think—" Jiraiya cuts off abruptly.

That can only mean one thing. The two men speak freely in front of Kakashi, as if he's no more than a piece of furniture, but they're a little more circumspect around the fourth occupant of the… wherever this is.

Kakashi tries to think of nothing, to find the haze that has clouded his thoughts of late. He'd foolishly indulged in the pleasure-pain of hearing two voices he never thought he'd hear again, but now he's awake enough to be aware of the man shuffling in, stooped under an invisible burden.

Kakashi doesn't want to see him, doesn't want to acknowledge him, can't appreciate that he usually doesn't see him, because in this moment he is. After destroying the future of the entire shinobi world—twice—this one death shouldn't affect him as much as it does.

But it's his first failure, and even after all this time it's like standing in a rainstorm of needles, cutting him up inside and out. He was the only one in the house, he saw the man every day, he should have known, should have done something, and it was bad enough when he hated the man for his weakness.

But then he had his own fuck-ups and came out the other side of his passively suicidal ANBU career, and with that came understanding. Forgiveness.

And, of course, pain.

So much more pain.

As punishments go, it's no more than he deserves, but he's weak enough to hope he won't have to endure this much longer.

And this time he gets off lightly, because sensei decides he's tired of watching Kakashi stare at his food and lifts Kakashi out of his seat and into his arms, like a baby, and carries him out.

They go back to the room that's apparently been designated as Kakashi's, and that's when they have the first break in their routine.

Instead of letting Kakashi doze on the bed and reflect on his failures, sensei sits them both down. Kakashi's head lolls back.

With a noise that's equal parts angry and sad, sensei grabs some pillows to help support him, then grasps Kakashi's chin in his hand and forces him to look him in the eye.

"I've obviously let this go on far too long already. I'm going to give you a choice: either you start talking to me, right now, or I'm taking you to the hospital. Tonight."

Kakashi's eyes widen. This is unexpected. And, judging by the look in sensei's eyes, no idle threat.

"There's something so strange going on right now, and I can't trust that the hospital isn't a part of it, but I suppose I'll have to accept potentially-dangerous help before you're beyond help—" He cuts himself off, takes a deep breath, scowls. "And, and I know how much you hate the hospital, you're the most uncooperative patient I've ever met, and I know Jiraiya-sensei thinks I'm crazy but I thought there was a better chance you'd talk to me instead of some strange psychologists. Which, okay, I can admit when I'm wrong. Probably I should just take you now…"

"Don't," Kakashi croaks.

Sensei gives him a smile he's never seen before: grimly triumphant. "Well, I'm going to anyway. I am the adult, you are the child. I am the sensei, you are the student. It's my job to know what's best for you when you don't have the perspective or the judgment to make those decisions for yourself. And right now, I am ordering you to talk to me. Or I am taking you to the hospital. Your choice."

Kakashi is speechless with indignation, which sensei somehow divines is different from his earlier apathy and has the nerve to look pleased with himself. While Kakashi might care about this man more than he's ever cared about anyone, right now he kind of wants to punch him in the face.

"You can punch me if you want," sensei says, and for a moment Kakashi is terrified that he's somehow reading his thoughts. "You can hate me, you can cry… whatever you're feeling, it's okay. Just tell me."

Kakashi isn't feeling anything, he wants to say, though that's obviously a lie. Despite his best efforts.

"Hospital then?" sensei asks, when the silence stretches.

Kakashi opens his mouth to protest, since he's already talked and technically fulfilled his part of the agreement, then quickly shuts his mouth. Sensei's knowing look makes the punching option seem more and more attractive. He's acting like he really is five again, letting himself be manipulated like this.

Then again, it's obvious that if he doesn't say something of substance he's going to be having this conversation with the specialists at the hospital, and that was bad enough in ANBU where no one gave two shits who his father was.

"Why?"

Sensei jumps and almost pitches off the bed.

Kakashi rolls his eyes.

"What do you mean?"

Kakashi eyes the man suspiciously, but he seems genuinely confused. It's a look sensei does well, and makes him look eerily like his son. Actually, here in this time, he's not much older than Naruto as Kakashi last saw him.

He adds that to the list of things to never think about again.

"Why do you care?" Kakashi clarifies.

Sensei's face falls, and for a horrifying second Kakashi thinks he's about to start crying. "Why… Kakashi, how could you ask me that?"

Kakashi doesn't want to answer, because he's in the all-too-familiar position of having verbally misstepped, but not sure how or where.

Sensei reaches out and gives him a little shake. "Don't do that. Tell me what you meant. Now."

"Well," Kakashi says, still feeling wrong-footed and as childish as he currently appears, "I meant, you don't know me, you've only been my sensei for a few months, doing stupid D-ranks you could do in your sleep, and I'm just… some stupid kid, taking up all your time with my stupid problems, and you're a great ninja, the youngest jounin in the village, prodigy of one of the Legendary Sannin, you're going to have real students someday, and they'll be as great as you" to me, anyway, before I fucked them up, too "and, and…"

Kakashi trails off. He doesn't know what else to say, and his rambling speech was kind of ruined by his having to stop for breath every three words. Sensei still listens patiently, of course, and Kakashi's abused heart aches a little more. He, of course, remembers years with this man, but before sensei forced the issue by enrolling Kakashi in the chuunin exam and Kakashi had the audacity to pass it, the village treated its youngest genin as a joke. This sensei has never fought beside his student against impossible odds, saved his life and had his life saved in return.

That relationship isn't ever going to exist.

Sensei grasps his shoulders again, and Kakashi's so tiny that those hands can almost circle his whole body, and Kakashi thinks he's going to be shaken again but instead sensei… hugs him.

Sensei pulls back before Kakashi can decide what, if anything, he's going to do about this totally unexpected development. The man makes sure Kakashi is looking right in his eyes. "Kakashi. Nothing about you or your situation is stupid. You are my student. Your problems are important to me. You are important to me."

The bottom drops out of Kakashi's stomach, and he forgets how to breathe.

"Kakashi, breathe with me, slow down, shit, sensei!"

"What did you do!?"

"I don't know! We were just talking and he freaked out!"

"Well you can't both be freaking out, here, let me help…"

There are black spots in Kakashi's vision when he finally manages to get his breathing somewhat under control. As soon as he's capable of any sort of coherent thought, he throws himself out of sensei's grip, which hadn't a chance in hell of working if sensei hadn't let him, and ends up sprawled awkwardly half across Jiraiya's legs.

Swearing, Jiraiya helps him to sit up, letting him lean against his massive chest.

Kakashi's thoughts are tumbling all over and around each other. He wanted to remove himself from the situation before sensei got too attached, but now it looks might be too late, and Kakashi never ever ever wants anyone to feel the way he felt, feels, because Kakashi is the one who is left, not the one who leaves, but he can't, he can't bear this, not even for sensei, he can't endure this again…

"Don't start that again," Jiraiya says, shaking Kakashi hard enough that his thoughts rattle around in his skull, getting all jumbled up.

That's fine, he doesn't want to think anyway.

"Now, obviously you did something," Jiraiya says, sounding as stern as he ever does, and sensei squirms a little.

He's only a teenager, Kakashi reminds himself, somehow finding it in himself to feel even worse than he already does. Fuck, Kakashi's probably twice his age, what is he doing, putting his problems on this… boy.

"I just told him that I would care if he died," sensei says, sullenly, and he sounds so disturbingly like Sasuke in that moment that if there was anything at all in Kakashi's stomach he would have been sick.

As it is, he still makes a noise, and Jiraiya pounces on it. "What was that?"

Obviously he can't say anything about Sasuke, and his attempt to explain earlier made everything so much worse, so he's just not going to say anything.

Jiraiya shakes him again, and he catches his tongue painfully between his teeth.

"Sensei…"

"Quiet, Minato."

"No," Kakashi says, quite without meaning to, but once it's out, he decides that's what he wants to say. So he says it again. "No."

"No what?"

"No, no one would care!" Kakashi snaps.

Jiraiya reaches over and actually claps a hand over sensei's mouth, cutting off whatever he'd been about to say. "Then you're blind and deaf as well as stupid," he says.

That… is not what Kakashi was expecting. He can't see Jiraiya's face from this angle, which is frustrating in the extreme.

"Your dad throws a fit every time you're in the same room together, and he's so determined to distance himself from you 'for you own good' that he's trying to distance himself right off the mortal coil!"

Now that's completely unfair, and Kakashi slams his fist into Jiraiya's leg, even though in his weakened condition it's probably not even noticeable. "You're so full of shit!" he shouts, and has to gasp for air when his body protests the effort. "People don't kill themselves for the good of others! It's all about them! Because they can't deal with their shit! It's just selfish, it's not, it's not…" He can't catch his breath, his whole body protesting, and he's forced to just sit there and seethe.

"You're wrong," Jiraiya says. "People kill themselves for all sorts of reasons, and maybe part of it is selfish, but right now, with your dad, he's got it into his fool head that he's ruining your life just by existing."

"Fuck you," Kakashi wheezes, and if he could have lifted his arms he would have tried to strangle Jiraiya. "I would do anything, anything, if I thought for one second he cared enough to… to stay for me."

"Well," Jiraiya says, "did you try?"

"Jiraiya," sensei says, and his face Kakashi can see, and he looks as furious as Kakashi has ever seen him.

"The entire village is either spitting in his face or pretending he doesn't exist, which one are you?" Jiraiya says ruthlessly.

That stops Kakashi in his tracks, because it's true, he was a cowardly shit who threw himself into his training to be the best ninja in the village and covered his face so people would stop associating him with his father and…

He is the same as them.

He didn't even bother to support his father, at all, in any fashion.

It seems there was still one aspect of that situation that he hadn't included in his self-flagellation, and he feels like the lowest worm. "Both," he says, because the absolute least he can do is own up to it.

Jiraiya doesn't say anything, just made a disgusted sort of noise in the back of his throat, and it's like a knife in the eye.

Kakashi pulls his knees up, and even that is a strain, and rests his head on his arms, one hand going back for the tanto he used to carry. He used to sit like this all the time, before he went into ANBU and learned more effective—and less childish—ways of coping.

He used to fantasize all the time about coming home just a little earlier.

One day early, because he dropped out of the exam when he realized he wanted his father to be there, and his father would promise to come next time, and they'd train together.

A few hours, and he would tell his father he made chuunin, and he'd realize his son was worth noticing, and they'd have dinner to celebrate.

Even just one hour, and he could have put himself between his father and the blade, it was short, it could have saved him…

His hand meets nothing but Jiraiya's sleeve, because of course he doesn't have that tanto yet.

Because this time, it's not an hour, a few hours or a day earlier, it's many days, weeks maybe, and if Jiraiya isn't lying…

He could save him. He could fix this.

Sasuke died despite his efforts, but was Kakashi really trying to save him? He can't be sure.

This time he would be sure, and if comes down to it, and he has to put himself in front of that blade, well, it's still a dream come true.

"Father thinks I don't need him?" Kakashi asks, because there's no room for misunderstandings here.

"Well, basically," Jiraiya says.

Kakashi nods once, decisively. He's going to be the neediest child in the Five Elemental Nations.

He digs down deep for the strength that carried him through a thousand missions, and forces himself to sit up straight.

"I can't believe you did that," sensei says.

"He's not ready for what you're offering. If looking after Sakumo gets him up and eating, then you have more time to convince him you're right."

"Kakashi is not in any way responsible for his father's condition, and to let him think that is… wrong."

There's a pause. Kakashi swings his legs off the bed and tries to stand. "You didn't see Tsunade," Jiraiya says. "You don't… you've never faced this. Sometimes you have to let people fuck themselves up, because at least they're still alive, and there's still a chance."

"Tsunade is a grown woman. What happened to her was awful, but she is a medic and a ninja and an adult. Kakashi is a child."

"And a shinobi."

"That was still wrong."

"And if we're all very lucky, Kakashi will grow up to hate me for it."

Kakashi's legs won't support him, but Jiraiya puts an arm around him and basically carries him into the other room. He even drags a chair over so Kakashi doesn't have to sit on the floor.

And there is his father, looking deeply troubled. "Kakashi?"

Kakashi tries to look helpless. It isn't hard. "Tousan, I'm hungry."