Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, or any of the characters therein. I do not make any money from writing fanfiction.

"It was deserted. Naruto and I conducted a search of the base with the backup squad after we secured the perimeter. There were no sentries."

Back in the Hokage's office, Tsunade shook her head. Not a person to be found? It was unlikely that every ninja at the base was deployed with the task of dispatching Kakashi. Although that was certainly possible, particularly if they knew of him, there must have been others who had duties other than defense. Disgruntled, she decided to abandon that train of thought until Kakashi woke up and was able to tell her more about the base and its operations. That was, if he even had anything more to contribute to their intelligence. She let out a long sigh.

"And the base itself? Were Kakashi's preliminary observations correct?"

"Yes, his observations were remarkably accurate considering the limited time he had," Sai seemed to hesitate, "but if I may, it is too soon to make any final conclusions concerning exactly how much potential danger the site presents to Konoha."

"Oh? And why would that be?"

"We were not able to search the entire area."

An eyebrow shot up.

"Explain." The command was short and terse. The leaders of the retrieval squad who were packed into her office stiffened. Her temper was legendary.

Sai continued on smoothly, ignoring the tense atmosphere. "There are four levels to the base, the first beginning approximately thirty feet below ground. On the lowest floor there is a doorway that we could not open. It is ringed with multiple protective seals and surrounded with explosive tags. I believe that the tags will detonate if we attempt to breach the seal without taking appropriate cautionary measures. Nor do I believe that they are the door's only protection. Whatever is beyond the door way is undoubtedly integral to the function of the base."

A secret room? Tsunade's mind flew.

"Neji. Sensory Division's report."

Neji stepped forward beside Sai. He cleared his throat.

"We were not able to obtain any information on the area beyond the seals. It appears as though the seals disrupt any chakra attempting to pierce though them. No one was successful in sensing beyond the door."

Now that was troubling. Genjutsu could be used to fool even some sensory type ninja, but clouding the Byakugan was no easy feat.

Troubled, Tsunade brooded. When she was younger, she would have marched down there and punched the door in if it weren't for the explosive tags. Now she had to sit back and strategize.

"Does anyone have anything else to add?"

Her ninja shook their heads.

"Dismissed then."

Tsunade remained in her chair as the room emptied. She swung her chair around leaned back, gazing out on the village below her. Everything about this situation wheedled its way under her skin. Orochimaru was dead. There had been no signs of any organized Sound ninja attacks since his death. So why now? And why in such large numbers?

"Shizune,"

"Yes Tsunade?"

"Get Shikamaru up here. We've got some work to do."

The smell of antiseptic bit her nose. Glorious.

Sakura breathed in deeply as she walked down the familiar halls of the hospital. The walls were bathed in golden light from the large windows on one side of the corridor. Humming to herself, Sakura looked out of the windows at the hospital garden a floor below. The morning's dew made everything glow gold in the early sunlight. Why hadn't she ever noticed that before? In fact, everything seemed pretty damn golden this morning. Maybe it was just her mood.

Gliding down the hallway, Sakura hoped that she wouldn't run into anyone who would question her presence in the hospital. Most of the staff were probably the same as when she left, but the thought of Tsunade warning them that she had been ordered home had crossed her mind.

Tsunade had ordered her to rest last night, leaving the official debriefing to Sai and members of the backup squad. Some of whom, she had been delighted to find, were members of the Konoha Eleven. She had been greeted by the sight of Tenten, Neji, Shino, and Kiba and Akamaru as they raced towards the compound. They hadn't had time for long greetings, her being loaded down with an unconscious, exhausted Kakashi, and them under strict orders to provide immediate aid to Naruto and Sai, but it had been a much needed, very joyous greeting as she could've hoped for.

After flying back home on an eagle ink-beast with Kakashi slumped against her back, she had dragged him to the hospital, leaving him in her Shishou's care after much cajoling and some not to subtle hints that she needed to go home and get some rest or else be placed on forced leave.

But that was yesterday. Tsunade hadn't specified how long she needed to rest at home for. Surely she was allowed back today. Besides, she hadn't completely exhausted her chakra; the healing jutsus imbedded in her seals had seen to that.

The low hum of two voices came from behind a closed door and someone's shadow crossed the panel of frosted glass. Feeling like a child scooting past a parent's turned back to steal from the cookie jar, she crept past the door on her tiptoes.

She smiled to herself as she sashayed down the hall until her stopped outside of a door and knocked as quietly as she could. No reply. As gently as possible, she turned the door handle and peeked into the room.

Kakashi lay in a narrow hospital bed, fast asleep.

Glancing behind herself mischievously, she stepped into the room and closed the door as silently as possible. Hospital infiltration: cha-check.

She circled around his bed and then relaxed into the lone visitor's chair between the bed and the window. Man did it ever feel good to be back. She had always loved her job, but it was nice to be able to take her time checking up on someone in the hospital without the pressure of getting her paperwork done before the end of her shift, or her conscience nagging her about not giving her patients equal time, or being hailed to clean up somebody's blood or vomit because oh my shift is ending now so I can't do it, but I thought I'd let you know, Sakura-senpai. She snorted, and immediately glanced guilty at Kakashi. He didn't move. Yeah, in spite of all of that, it would be good to come back to work. And after demonstrating a few new ways to seal chakra, she was willing to bet her best kunai Tsunade would have her teaching other medic ninjas not cleaning up vomit.

But Tsunade probably wouldn't have the time to see the culmination of her and Sai's efforts until at least tomorrow when she would be done dealing with the reports from the backup squad. In the meantime, Sakura was content to laze around and check up on Kakashi.

A clipboard on the table at the end of the bed caught her eye. Kakashi's medical forms. She stood up and bent over to pick them up and then plopped back down in her chair. Her foot bounced as she scanned the familiar forms.

She recognized her mentor's neat and clinical script. Chakra depletion, general exhaustion, scrapes and bruises. Nothing unexpected. No note on his Sharingan, so it was probably back to normal. All the same, she made a mental note to check on it when he was awake. Her seals had worked perfectly and hadn't missed anything vital. Proud of herself and immensely grateful to Sai, she opened her eyes and looked over at Kakashi's slumbering form.

The sun streamed in onto his body, setting his mop of hair, still muddy in places, ablaze in gold. How funny he would look as a blonde. She stifled a giggle. This time Kakashi heard her. A tired eye opened and focused on her.

"Sorry," she whispered, leaning closer to him, in too light of a mood to be truly sorry, "I didn't mean to wake you."

Kakashi blinked himself awake and breathed in deeply, letting out the air in a long sigh as he gingerly propped his head up and glanced around the room.

"You know," he mumbled, "talking to yourself is the first sign of insanity."

A smile spread across her face. "I wasn't talking to myself, I was laughing."

"Oh? At what? A man in a hospital bed?"

"I was imagining you as a blonde," she admitted.

"…"

Sakura let out another laugh. "Don't look at me like that."

Kakashi let his head flop back down onto the pillow and a groan.

"I… nevermind."

They sat in a companionable silence for many minutes while the sun warmed the room.

Finally, Sakura broke the silence.

"Thanks for the food," she said quietly.

Kakashi looked at her and then turned his head to look back up at the ceiling. "It's nothing."

Sakura smiled. "Seriously, thanks for breaking into my apartment."

He was quiet for a moment.

"Second weirdest sentence I've heard today."

"… Seriously."

His shoulders gave a slight shrug. "I figured stopping to pick up groceries wasn't going to be the first thing on your to do list when you got home; it's never on mine."

She made another mental note to return the favour in the future.

… Actually, she could return the favour today. Technically he did just get back from a mission; he might be stuck in the hospital and couldn't go home, but there was no reason why she couldn't bring some food to him.

"Are you hungry?" she enquired, "I could grab something from the market if you don't feel like hospital food."

At the mention of hospital food a pained expression crossed Kakashi's face.

"Oh come on, I know it's not the greatest, but the food here isn't that bad."

His eye widened in disbelief. "Have you ever tried it?"

Well, now that he mentioned it, had she? "Um… I'm pretty sure I've had some of the free coffee in the break room…" she trailed off.

"Free coffee? They don't have that in the jounin lounge. Maybe I should have been a medic," he mused.

"Sorry sensei," she teased, reaching over and slipping a finger under his hospital bracelet and tugging his wrist up a few times for emphasis, "but being a patient is as close as you're going to get."

He paused and considered their hands. She watched him, curious, but he didn't move.

Feeling extraordinarily happy to be home, to be back in the hospital, to be beside a safe Kakashi, she slid her finger out of the plastic bracelet and let her hand come to rest in his.

"So. Breakfast?"

He looked up from their attached hands. "Maybe in a while."

She nodded and settled back in the chair and crossed her ankles on the edge of his bed. It was a great morning, she decided as they listened to birds chirping outside the window and the hospital come slowly to life.

Nearly imperceptibly, his fingers closed over hers.

It would be a while before Kakashi could get the image of his face with Naruto's sunshine locks out of his mind.

Author's Notes:

1) Opening: Hi. Well, uh… well I'm not dead. Yes, let's start with that - on a happy note :)

2) Updates: Yes, I do realize that I have not updated in nearly a century. No, I don't think I am going to abandon this story – frankly I'm far too stubborn to do that and I have received too many nice reviews and requests to update to just stop now. Seriously though, thanks to everyone who reviewed. Rereading reviews always gets me excited about writing again, even when I haven't for written for quite a while.

3) Side Note: Tsunade's perspective again? I have no idea why I keep gravitating back towards her. Maybe I should write a oneshot from her perspective or something to get this out of my system.

4) Kakashi: ARGARBARLARBERBLARG! I am not happy with how I portrayed Kakashi in this chapter. Not. Happy. Don't know what went wrong, but it's going to be fixed for next chapter!

5) Length: When I first got the idea for this story, I didn't really have an ending planned. Good news folks! I have one now! (sort of – it's flexible.) I'm not going to drag this story on forever, in part because I have next to no experience in writing long stories that I haven't made meticulous outlines for, and in part because I don't have a whole lot of time now that I've started university (finishing this story AFTER I've finished my degree is not an idea that I fancy.) Thus, I've got a checklist of things get done in this story, relationships to build and create and I'm going to get them done pronto! I'm not going to sacrifice the quality of my writing just to get this finished, but I'm certainly not going to make this a huge saga. Just thought that I'd let you know. Writing this down helps me get my thoughts straight and keeps the brave souls who actually make it this far into the author's notes "in the know" ;P

6) Please do review. Let me know if this chapter seems out of place with the rest of the story since there was a substantial gap between writing it and the previous chapters. Hope you all are having great winter holidays!

Lots of love,

KaKiara