Author's Notes: A birthday present for my friend Kiterie. Thank you for inspiring me to write. It's been forever and I have missed it.

The first time he saw her she was limping, paw held up off the ground. Her fur was a grungy gray-brown, as if life had been so cruel to her she couldn't find the energy or the care to clean herself. Even the light in her eyes seemed dull, the reflection from the lamp post barely visible in the shadows where she carefully weeded her way between bushes. It was most certainly dangerous for her to be out, to be visible, and Kakashi wondered what was so important she risked being caught by predators.

The shinobi in him-the rational, realistic, logical side of himself-thought it would be best to let her be picked off, to be put out of her misery, to allow nature to take its course. Another animal would benefit from the nutrition her body would provide. It was the cycle of life and this cat had reached the end of hers.

Sakura stared unblinking at the box sitting at her feet for a moment before she looked around, as if she could find the person who had left it for her simply by looking at them. She was a well trained kunoichi, but even she couldn't read minds. So she picked the note off the top of the box and started to read.

Open with care.

She made a slight huffing noise, impatient and suspicious. There were places to be, work to do, more training with Tsunade-sama. She certainly hoped this was important because if it turned out to be one of Naruto's pranks born of boredom and mischief she was going to give him a piece of her mind.

It was near 3 a.m. the next time Kakashi saw the little feline, less grungy and stalking something in the fallen leaves. The rustling sound was so soft even he had trouble hearing it, but it was there and he couldn't tell if the little mouse had felt the intensity of her gaze or if it had yet to figure out it was being stalked. He watched the cat, sitting so perfectly still, gaze locked with all the intensity of a predator, and he couldn't help feeling some sort of stirring joy and respect for the cat.

She sat on all four paws, poised and prepared, patient and quiet. He would have to find a way to thank Sakura without giving himself away. He wasn't a cat person, after all. He preferred dogs. And she would find it too endearing to know he'd gone out of his way to help a stray cat. He was not endearing. He was Hatake Kakashi, ex-Anbu, ex-sensei, ex-everything except for the one thing he could never escape. He would always be a shinobi. A porn reading, mask wearing, perpetually late and lazy shinobi. He had a reputation to maintain and it did not include cats.

Not even this mildly interesting cat with her grungy gray fur and perfectly executed attack. She would not go hungry tonight, and he secretly hoped she would never again.

It was a silly thing for a grown man to do he thought, leaning against the trunk of a tree with his legs stretched out in front of him and his book resting in his lap. The fish lay on the ground in the underbrush of a bush, freshly killed, deboned and skinned to make it easier for her to eat.

Kakashi knew she was close because she smelled of blood and moved with less grace than he'd seen her capable of when hunting. It was the life of a cat to wander the forests, to hunt and kill and to fight predators or rivals, and it wasn't his place to interfere with the life and death cycle of a feral cat. But here he was, slouched and uninterested, waiting for her to come closer so he could make sure she had another chance to fight again someday.

Sakura wasn't amused to find the evil feline sitting at her doorstep again. The last time she'd seen this furry monster she'd learned a valuable lesson. Cats had claws and they were not afraid to use them.

Today's lesson: Someone in the village clearly cared about this cat.

There was something very satisfying about being stalked by a cat. Kakashi was enjoying it so much he returned to the same little patch of forest clearing to sit and be stalked for hours at a time. He'd returned to check on the little female cat after Sakura had gone off on a rant about believing Tsunade-sama must have been a cat in her past life or something along those lines. Sasuke would not be as amused as Kakashi was to hear that he was also a cat in his past life according to Naruto.

It was a rare moment to have two of his three ex-students in the same place as himself. Life had a strange way of keeping them apart. Sakura had taken over Tsunade's job of running the hospital and Naruto was busy being Naruto. Training. Missions. Training. Avoiding Iruka-sensei because he hated writing reports and the man was anal about punctuation and spelling. Training.

Not his own, but his own students. No. Naruto had advanced far beyond everyone's expectations. He was on the path to become the next Hokage.

The cat, on the other hand, had plenty of time to spend stalking him from the bushes. Each visit she would creep a little closer and sit hunched and ready to run just in case. Each visit she ate his offerings with both eyes him, one slightly clouded from an old injury. He noticed as she grew bolder that she had a slight notch in her left ear and that her tail wasn't perfectly straight. She also had intricately woven lines of varying shades of gray ranging from near silver to near black.

She was beautiful he thought one day when she'd crept close enough to sniff the bottom of his sandal for five seconds before wandering three feet away to lay in a patch of sunshine.

Kakashi was not worried. He did not worry about feral cats. He did not get attached to anything or anyone. Life came and went, it was the nature of all things to hunt and be hunted, including shinobi. So when he spent an entire week scouring the forest for a small, silver-gray cat he came to the conclusion he was getting too old and too sentimental to be allowed to continue being a shinobi.

He didn't tell anyone what he was thinking, of course. Hatake Kakashi sharing his true thoughts and emotions? Never going to happen.

But he had put a lot of effort and time into this cat, earning her trust, and he had to know what happened to her. He respected her in life, for her skills, her grace and beauty, for her ability to take her time to get to know him, no rushing, cautious and careful the way any good hunter should be.

She had become an exceptional companion. He would read and she would find cat-logical reasons to lay closer and closer to him, cleaning and licking her pristine coat. And he never doubted that she was always watching him, cautious and clever, only pretending to be lazy and uncaring.

Cats were amazing creatures Kakashi decided as he sat watching the flames licking at the air, taking energy and growing more alive as it fed on the remains of his companion. He'd finally found her with Pakkun's help. Although the pug had given him a very strange look when he made no effort to hide the sadness he felt seeing her lifeless body being picked apart he said nothing about Kakashi's odd attachment to a cat and her kittens.

The small bundle of newborns sat protectively in Kakashi's lap. Three furry felines who would instinctively know how to hunt, how to stalk and to protect themselves, but would never know what their mother knew. They were no bigger than his hand and each of them was so very different and unique in color. The female was a calico. One of the males was almost black except for the hidden markings that were so very much like his mother it made Kakashi smile beneath his mask. The other male was entirely orange with an interesting spotted stripe pattern of darker orange winding its way around every inch of its body.

Pakkun had found them after tracking the female's scent back to the old trunk of a tree hidden by thick brush and an overgrowth of a thorny vine. The perfect hiding place for an intelligent, cautious mother cat who risked her own life to lure away a predator.

Three bowls sat side-by-side because Kakashi discovered the kittens had trouble sharing one bowl, no matter how big it was-and the bigger bowls only meant they had to climb inside to eat, which led to food being scattered throughout his apartment. In fact, they couldn't share anything. Each kitten had to have their own toy, their own bowl, their own spot on his bed.

Sakura liked sitting between his arm and chest. Naruto enjoyed practically laying on his face and would settle for rooting around in his hair. Sasuke sat by his feet. He was more like his mother than the other two. He would sit with his back to them, cleaning himself and Kakashi never doubted he saw everything despite pretending to not be interested.

Naruto chewed on everything, including his precious books. Sakura had fits of hissing, spitting, fights with both the boys when they became too annoying. Sasuke was mostly well behaved and quiet. But when he thought no one was watching him he would have ridiculously cute battles with his reflection. All fluffed out with his back arched and ears back.

But at the end of the day they all slept together in a pile of purring, furry sweetness, and Kakashi didn't have the heart to separate them so he could have his pillow back. One day, maybe he would find them proper homes. Cats were adaptable. They were survivors.

Not today. Today, they were kittens and his responsibility.