i. Kakashi:
an unexpected run-in

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The first time that it happened Kakashi was on his way home from a mission. It was a S-class assignment with the usual near-death scrapes that he managed to come away from with all ten fingers attached (though his pinky was sticking out at an unnatural angle like one of those bendy straws). He was passing through a village at the border of Fire and Rain country late in the afternoon, and it was terrible weather as usual. The rain was coming down in sheets while his standard issue waterproof poncho wasn't really living up to the "waterproof" bit. Instead, the green thing just stuck to him like a second skin as he trudged through the muddy streets looking like he had a rough run-in with a giant algae monster.

Part of him just wanted to hurry and get back to Konoha where he could kickback on the examination table and let Sakura fuss over his broken pinky while Naruto jabbered in his ear about his latest exploits, but a larger part of him was cold, worn down, and most of all just plain miserable. Gray mud oozed between his toes and even his battle-hardened skin was prickled with a colony of goose bumps. He looked up morosely from beneath his hood and soaking mop of gray bangs. A faded red lantern painted with the characters "alcohol" fluttered madly in the high wind. Before he could even begin weighing his options, a cold gust suddenly blasted past him, sending an unwanted spray of rainwater straight into his face.

'Right then.'

Without missing a beat he stepped towards the entrance of the bar; Konoha would have to wait a bit longer. He slid open the door and was hit by a swell of dark, humid air reeking of beer and the damp clothes of travelers who had been on the road for too long. A few coarse looking men with necks and arms that bulged with slabs of muscle glanced up from their drinks to see if newcomer was looking for a fight.

Or maybe they were just irritated by the draft that he let in.

Whatever it was, upon seeing that he was nothing more than a one-eyed, scrawny looking fellow draped in what appeared to be an aquatic plant, they immediately lost and interest and returned to their respective drinks.

The establishment was paneled in dark wood, dimly lit, and despite the time, crowded, but Kakashi's excellent vision immediately picked out a spot back at the bar.

Working his way around the tables and their murmuring occupants, he shucked off his pathetic excuse of a poncho and let it unceremoniously drop with a loud plop to the floor before sliding into the empty stool. To his right a shaggy, bear-sized man mechanically downed—judging by the six empty glasses by his arm—his seventh beer before slurring out an order for an eighth. At his left, a slighter looking figure in a black traveling cloak sat quietly, waiting for his first drink. The stranger's face was completely hidden within the shadows of his deep hood, but as soon as he had sat down, Kakashi recognized him immediately.

The other man must have been deep in his own thoughts, because he didn't realize Kakashi was there until the silver haired man called out his order for a flask of hot sake. Out of the corner of his good eye Kakashi caught the figure flinch at the sound of his voice, and he smiled sadly beneath his mask. It seemed seven years of separation had done little to dull either of their memories.

"Make that two cups," Kakashi amended loudly. Suspecting his identity had been compromised, the cloaked figure shifted as he prepared to silently slip away, preventing this chance encounter from becoming anything more than a simple coincidence, like when the planets aligned, or when someone said out loud, word for word, the exact thoughts you had been thinking in the silent tomb of your head. It's all completely arbitrary, but it is human nature to sometimes try and find meaning in such things, and he wanted to leave before that happened.

The man's attempt to vanish (or flee, from Kakashi's perspective) was interrupted when the bartender plunked their drinks down before them.

"One beer. One hot Sake with two cups," the bartender behind the counter said as he gave the cloaked man the hairy eyeball. "You leavin' sir?" He asked gruffly, noticing how the patron's bum was already half-off the stool seat. "That'll be 10 ryo."

Next to him, Kakashi poured the sake from the flask and into the drinking cups. "Relax Sasuke, I'm not taking you in," he said mildly and nudged the second cup towards his ex-student.

The Uchiha seized up at the sound of his name, and Kakashi could almost hear the wheels whirring frantically in his head as he considered his options. After a long while, Sasuke visibly sagged and slumped back onto the stool; resigned, as if the noose had already been slipped over his neck, though that didn't mean he'd cooperate completely. He kept his hood up and ignored Kakashi's proffered drink, choosing to nurse his own glass of beer instead.

Satisfied that Sasuke wasn't going to drink and dash, the bartender left them alone.

Not appearing the least bit miffed by Sasuke's cold shoulder, Kakashi sipped his sake while enjoying the same silence that was slowly driving Sasuke up against the wall. Seven years was a long time and though he never expected bear hugs all around, the silver-haired man's Zen attitude in the face of such a huge, coincidental happening-upon was preying upon Sasuke's paranoia, and the damn scarecrow knew it too. Was it really a coincidence? Or was it all planned, and awaiting him at the edge of town was a battalion of ANBU soldiers armed to their underpants?

"What're you doing here?" Sasuke drawled out at length, hoping to sound nonchalant while still trying to get a pulse on the situation. Of course Kakashi saw right through it.

"Oh you know," he said airily by way of answer, punctuating it with a loud sip of his drink. The silence closed up between them a parted sea rushing back together, and Kakashi let Sasuke sweat it out for a bit longer.

"I just finished a mission nearby," his old teacher finally answered.

Not sure what to make of his statement, Sasuke took a sip of his beer in order to avoid being caught speechless. Kakashi saw his face flash into view for a just a moment, but it was long enough for him to get the general picture. Sasuke was tired, and it wasn't something a good night's rest could cure. Dark, purplish bags hung beneath his eyes, and the fire that had once raged in his eyes had burned itself out into cold, dull coals. It seemed the world had ground him down to a stub.

After helping Naruto take out Madara, there was a period of celebratory mayhem, during which The Last Uchiha Boy—he had still just been a boy then—wordlessly disappeared.

Naruto spent the next few years scouring the land in search of him. Even now when his missions took longer than expected, everyone knew when the blonde slapped on a makeshift grin and cheerfully explained that "the little bastards put up a hell of a fight," he had really just taken a detour on his way home, hoping to run into his cantankerous best friend.

Sakura dealt with it by making it a point not to talk about him. In the early stages it had seemed as if she had finally accepted the reality of Sasuke's disappearance, folding him up and tucking it away into a quiet corner of her heart. Then one evening Kakashi had spotted her wandering through the Uchiha compound. She had looked twelve years old again then, terribly alone and lost among the long, dark shadows cast by setting sun's dying glow.

But that was all a very long time ago.

A few moths back, when he and Naruto had visited her for dinner, Kakashi had noticed the photograph of Team Seven missing from what he had once thought to be its timeless place on her counter. He hadn't said anything, and neither had Naruto, but it had signaled an tectonic shift in the great plates underlying her life. After that, Kakashi had never again seen her stray near the Uchiha manors.

The fact that Sasuke had left on such peaceful terms was perhaps what had hurt the most. Kakashi could almost argue that it had been more difficult to accept than the first time he had left. At least then everyone could point fingers at Orochimaru's manipulation and blame it on Sasuke's grief and clouded judgment. There had been the belief that once Naruto had made amends with Sasuke, everything else would just naturally fall into place, and he'd return to the village with all all the boom and flare of hometown glory.

Naruto did make a crude sort of amends with Sasuke, but the prodigal son didn't come home, and then there was nothing left to believe in anymore.

Sasuke's disappearance this time rang with a high, clear note of finality. It ripped open new wounds and rubbed old ones raw, but they were all human, and ninjas on top of that. Thus, they were built with a surprising amount of grit and resilience, so they survived. Time slowly stitched together the giant hole left by his absence, and the pain became bearable enough that it stopped showing on their faces. Eventually it faded into a faint scar that itched every now and then, but nothing more.

After chancing upon his lost student, Kakashi rummaged deep within himself for some kind of triumphant jubilation- some sort of "finally!" or "at last!", but he found none. Instead his heart just beat steadily on, glowing softly with a mixture of content and nostalgia and maybe a bit of sadness. Perhaps he was just getting old, or perhaps broken bones really did mend stronger.

Kakashi finished the rest of his sake and slipped off the stool. He let out a grunt as he stiffly bent over to pick up his poncho before fishing around his pocket for his wallet. "I better start heading back to Konoha," Kakashi said as gave his old student a sidelong stare, wondering if the mention of his former village would rouse something within the Uchiha. He didn't even blink and Kakashi silently chided himself for his false hopes.

"Well," he started and clapped a manly hand on Sasuke's shoulder, taking it off before he could shake it off. "I hope you've been well," Kakashi said and meant every word. He placed a few bills on the counter, enough to cover both their orders as a sort of homage to a brighter long ago, and left.

Sasuke felt a sharp breeze at his back as the door opened and closed with the other man's leaving, and just like that the old scarecrow was gone.

The low hum of the bar's other denizens continued without a beat. Gasses clanked, chairs scraped against the wooden floors, and despite all the aligned planets, pseudo-telepathy, and chance meetings, the rest of the world spun on. Sasuke glanced over at his elbow where Kakashi's offered cup of sake quietly sat, the only physical proof of their strange, momentary encounter. Without even realizing what he was doing, he reached over for the drink and tipped it down his throat. He set the ceramic cup back down on the table as the corners of his mouth twisted in disappointment.

It was cold.

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Author's Notes_ (in which things are…explained…sort of…)

1. Yeah. I have not clue where this came from. I guess sleep deprivation and refusal to do all my spring break work and loads of other important shit that are pivotal to my college career is a good place to start…

2. Yes Sasuke and Naruto sort of fist-pounded and made up (not too much detail here because I might go into that in the next chapter LIEKZOMGSPOILER sortofnotreally) but in my world Sasuke kind of slinks into the shadows after the whole battle thing is over since, really, can anyone image him skipping back to Konoha after all the shit Kishimoto—I MEAN KONOHA WUT put him through? It'd be too…I don't know…contrived? Then again, lately the arcs all seem like they've been force squeezed from between Kishi's butt cheeks, so hey, whatevah. That's what fanfiction's for. I DO WHAT I WANT *cue hair-flip here*3.

3. Don't get me wrong, I love Team Seven and their whole rag-tag-cobbled-together-I-WILL-NEVER-TURN-MY-BACK -ON-YOU-family thing (I am an absolutely motherfreaking SUCKER for that kind of shit.), but I guess I wanted to try going down a different path in this story. Like, what might realistically happen, not idealistically. That's not say that everyone has necessary turned their back on Sasuke, more as it's just they've come to grips with the situation and his decision, because really what do you do when the Uchiha isn't revenged crazed anymore and still doesn't want to come home? Plus seven years is a long time, and I feel as if Kakashi's sentiments (I was going to write "feelings" but then it kind of came out sounding slash-y...) towards Sasuke would have cooled after seven years (if they haven't already frozen over by now in the canon. You know… after the whole almost-killing-Sakura-FOR-REALS-thing.)

4. I'm expecting this to be short and sweet and three chapters long. It's a quiet kind of thing, so don't expect guts to start spewing or organs to explode anytime soon. Also, Sakura probably won't make an officially-official appearance until the very last chapter, and by last chapter I mean chapter 3. Then again, this story could probably stand on it's own (in wobbly…gimpy…sort of way…DETAILS) so there might not even be a chapter two. But then that would make my claims of this being a SasuSaku story totally null and void, and there'd be flames and pitchforks and cries for me to sacrifice my first born child. Okay, so maybe no pitchforks, but you get the picture…wait, what was the picture again? I don't know…

5. I. Am. So. Tired. Shit. Also, if you managed to crawl all the way down here despite the lack of dialogue and general non-Sasuke/Sakura-ness, I think you're really quite amazing. Also-also, these notes are obscenely long, and my only excuse is that whatever happened up there was very short, and vague and needed some sort of justification, coherence be damned.

6. Uhm…reviews…hee…?