A/N: An older fic that I never posted here, written after another read-through of Kakashi Gaiden. Just a fragment of the future that I dearly want for the Narutoverse.

He wonders when he'll stop seeing her in every girl he passes on the street, what it would take to keep the past and present better separated, lines marked out cleanly and clearly and never toed, much less crossed. He wonders if he even wants that, because keeping those memories close is the only way he has of holding on to them.

And so when he looked at the girl on his newest genin team, it had come as no surprise that he saw Rin in her, too.

But it was a surprise how much they'd been alike - the large eyes, the upbeat personalities, the lack of aggression in serious combat, everything right down to the need to be protected and the infatuation with the prodigy of the team. Sakura hadn't been a medic-nin when he'd first met her, and she's changed as time has passed, but the parallels were already drawn years ago, for better or worse, and they breathe a new life into his memories.

When he's watching her work, he sometimes forgets who she is, and what's more who she isn't. The way she's bent over her patient, brow furrowed in concentration, perhaps biting her lip, is so very familiar that he almost feels thirteen again, surrounded by war and bloodshed and the calming presence of his gentle, brown-haired teammate. The reassuring smile, the concern in her tone as she lectures an injured shinobi, the small, delicate hands carefully binding up wounds, they're the same, a piece of his past lodged unexpectedly in the present. For a moment all colour bleeds away, leaving the world tinted in shades of grey; for a moment the clear voices of tiny bells replace the sweet scent of cherry blossoms; for a moment, he never lost her.

And then she turns around and shatters a wall with nothing more than one of those delicate little hands, something shy, humble Rin had never done, could never have hoped to do. The illusion shatters as well, colour floods his vision once again, pink hair and green eyes coming into glaring focus, and he has to look away for a moment to get his thoughts in order and lay old memories to rest yet again.

He can't help but think of her this way, can't help reflexively pushing her aside or behind him, safely away from the action, despite her protests that she can handle herself in a fight. He knows this, but he also knows that smashing walls and exchanging blows with an enemy are two vastly different things, and he hadn't been there back in that River Country cave to see her dodging and spinning and flipping, reading each and every attack sent her way and trashing puppets left and right.

So it's actually a good thing when he finds himself on a two-man-mission with his former student, backed against a wall by at least a dozen enemy nin.

Without a second thought, he's already moving forward, turning his head to tell her that he'll protect her through life and death even if it costs him everything, repeating those words to this girl who is so much the same and so very different from the other girl he said those very words to almost twenty years ago. Maybe he's saying them reflexively; maybe it's because he really does want to protect her; maybe he's trying to make up for his failure to fulfill them back then by sacrificing himself now.

But this girl isn't looking at him with wide, tear-filled brown eyes, isn't huddled and terrified and thirteen and hopelessly in love with him; this girl is staring straight ahead with her vibrantly green gaze, slim body tensed and ready for action, expression calculating and confident and not in the least bit afraid. She shoots him the briefest of glances, and he can see the hint of a smirk on her upturned lips, and then she lunges forward, slamming her fist into the ground, rock shattering as easily as glass, the once-smooth terrain between their enemies and themselves turned into a dust-shrouded boulder field in the space of three heartbeats.

She darts away into the haze, gone in a flicker and a flash of pink and red; and this time, Kakashi lets her go.

The skirmish is over in a matter of minutes, and he finds her kneeling beside a body just off the road, calmly prying a pair of bloodied shuriken from the sternum of one of their attackers. Casually wiping them off on the dead man's shredded jounin vest, she tucks them away and stands, fiddles with the straps of her knapsack for a second, then trots over to join the silver-haired Copy-Nin on the path.

Her expression is at ease, almost cheerful, which is somehow far more intimidating than Sasuke's sullen stare or Naruto's rakehell grin; she isn't even breathing hard, hasn't even broken a sweat, every inch of her body still humming with chakra. She truly is an even match for either of her teammates now, Kakashi realises - it's anyone's guess who would come out the victor if she were to stand toe to toe with one of them and fight all out, holding nothing back. No longer is she the fragile one, the one who cries over every little thing, a foolish girl who is more interested in romance than the skills that keep her and her treasured comrades alive.

She is a woman, a fully-fledged kunoichi of the Leaf. She doesn't lag behind, forced to watch Naruto and Sasuke's backs, not anymore; now they all stand together, back to back to back, each one fully trusting in the strength of the other two. They are equals, three parts of a circle, and together, they are unstoppable.

And while Kakashi had a hand in forming Naruto and Sasuke, Sakura is a masterpiece to which he has no claim.

Maybe it's Rin's fault. Maybe he overlooked her because sometimes he couldn't help expecting to find brown eyes looking up at him instead of green, and because of the painful twinge of memories each time that expectation went unmet. Maybe he was doing it on purpose, doing his best not to see her. Maybe he hadn't thought she'd last long out in the field and didn't want to get attached. Maybe he'd wanted to have to protect her.

Or maybe he's putting too much thought into this and he really just didn't notice all that hidden potential that he probably couldn't've done anything with anyway.

But as she falls into step with him and gives him that bright smile that has nothing of Rin in it, that is purely Sakura, hers and hers alone, he wonders how he ever could have thought of her as weak.

Kakashi & Sakura – All that time when I didn't see you, maybe I was the one who was weak.