This fic was actually inspired by a Yondaime X Kakashi video on youtube (even though it's not really related to the fic much…. The song was just perfect). Anyway, it's called Yondaime X Kakashi - Dreams Last and it's by VildeChan, if you're interested.

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It was a cool, brisk day after the war. Hidden villages were being rebuilt as shinobi from all villages were recuperating in a time of relaxing peace. Hatake Kakashi was reveling in the fact that his genin team was once again back together. Sakura, Sasuke, and Naruto. The two teenage boys were bickering about something and the kunoichi wasn't above hitting either unconscious yet she wasn't succumbing to their low level 'fight.' He smiled as they walked through their destroyed village. There had been a small box to make it out of the wreck relatively unharmed. It was an important box to the silver-haired man; it had been given to him many years ago by his beloved sensei (who had in fact been brought back from the dead to help fight with them, but that was beside the point).

He hadn't opened the box since before the Fourth Hokage's death, but for some reason, he felt that now was the right time. He called his students over to him.

"Now that you have all met the Fourth, however briefly, I want to share some of my memories of him with you. This box contains mementos of time that we spent together, I think that you, Naruto, will find it most interesting." He gave them all a smile as they looked excited to be let in to their mysterious sensei's past.

Kakashi opened the box slowly, but hesitated. Something was not quite right. It was empty, there was nothing inside. Then all four shinobi were thrust into darkness.

"What is this, Kakashi-sensei?" Naruto shouted as they finally came to their senses again. "I thought we were done with all of this crazy perverted stuff!"

"I don't know," he murmured, "really, this box was filled with kunai, notes, and pictures. Unless…." He trailed off as they recognized their surroundings. The trees of the village, a gentle breeze, leaves on the trees barely beginning to change colors.

"Unless?" Sakura prompted.

"Unless the box was tied directly to the Fourth Hokage's memories and we are now being forced to relive them." Sasuke said bluntly, not needing to look to Kakashi for confirmation.

"Is that even possible?" asked Naruto, slightly awed and slightly mad that Sasuke seemed to understand what was going on while he didn't.

"Yes," Kakashi sighed, "if he had tied the box directly to his memories of me, then after his death, the box would serve as a vial to contain them and keep them safe for the intended viewer. Which would be me, since he did give me the box." He sighed again, of course Minato-sensei would leave me a mess like this.

"So, what do we do?" Sakura wondered aloud.

"We sit back and follow the memories," replied Kakashi. "There's no way to stop them and they won't hurt us." Physically at least, emotionally I'm probably going to be at a loss.

"Are you sure you're alright with us seeing so much of your past, Kakashi?" Sasuke commented wryly.

"I guess there's no stopping it now," the Copy Nin glanced up as he could make out three figures now moving rapidly through the trees that had come into view around them.

They were a three man team, though if you looked close enough, you could see that there were really only two men and the third looked barely old enough to be considered a teenager. The first man to come into the memory-travelers' view had long grey hair, barely tame enough to be pulled back into a ponytail, deep-set charcoal gray eyes, and a sturdy yet thin body structure with heavy-set shoulders. The second man looked much thicker than the first due to his clothing as well as an abundant mass of white hair, but he was also in obviously good physical shape. He had thick red lines tracing from the outer corner of each eye to a few inches lower. The last, small, slight figure was absurdly blond with bright blue eyes and a certain light grace about his movements that his companions could never match.

"Ero-sennin," breathed Naruto, as the second figure had come into view.

"The first one," Sakura whispered, "is he…?"

"My father," Kakashi confirmed.

"That leaves the last one to be a young Namikaze Minato," Sasuke contributed.

"Ah, Sakumo-san, where are you going?! We have to report to Hokage-sama immediately," Minato gasped trying to catch up to the silver-haired nin. A hand clapped onto his shoulder.

"Our mission has changed, Minato-kun. We are to escort Sakumo to his home first. Saurtobi-sensei understands our need to watch out for him while his guard is down," Jiraiya said gently, but careful to keep his eyes on the White Fang, not his student.

"Hai, Jiraiya-sensei," Minato sighed, confused but willing to go along with this for now.

As they neared the bustling of the village, Sakumo took a sharp turn to more a secluded clan area. A signpost bearing the clan name HATAKE rose from the ground as a small house came into view. A pained shriek rose from inside the house, and the three shinobi's pace increased tenfold, despite their obvious exhaustion.

The three all but burst into the house and followed the sound of another pained gasp into a bedroom. On the bed there was a dark-haired woman, delicate face contorted with pain, bending over her was a young medic-nin with two long blond pigtails and a purple diamond on her forehead. There was a small table that had tall sides and was obviously filled with blankets next to the medic-nin. Inside this stack of blankets, you could barely make out a swatch of light-colored hair atop an unmoving, but solid bundle.

"Ahiru-chan! Tsunade-chan! How… Is… What happened?" Sakumo was half shouting and half barely daring to breathe.

The young Tsunade turned to him, wiped the sweat from her forehead with her arm, and gave him a small smile.

"He has only just been born, Ahiru-chan needs you here with her while she recovers a bit more. I will take the baby into the next room to take his vitals."

"He's alive?" Sakumo's question was barely above a whisper now.

"Yes," Tsunade said, though her undertone was grim, "your son is alive. I plan to keep him that way."

"My son…" Sakumo's breath let out in a gasp as Tsunade wheeled the small table into the large bathroom behind, motioning for Jiraiya and Minato to follow her.

Minato still looked beyond confused at the situation he'd suddenly found himself in, but his sensei did not look as though he were about to explain anything, so the young teen closed the door behind him as Tsunade put up a sound barrier between them and the bedroom. She heaved a deep sigh and turned to stare frustrated to the bundle.

"How is he?" murmured Jiraiya, as though he was afraid of the answer. She broke out of her thoughts and turned on the tub to fill with warm water.

"He's alive," she said, "heart beating, fingers wiggling, and lungs breathing."

"Something is wrong though," he glanced into the bundle and winced a little at how gross newborn infants really looked.

"Of course something is wrong! Ahiru has had 3 miscarriages, and 2 babies that didn't live for longer than a month! Her body is being torn apart from the inside out, she will NOT be able to survive another child! I just told them, not even a year ago, that impregnating her again was NOT an option!" Tsunade slammed her fist on the edge of the sink. Jiraiya and Minato both winced and looked at the door, hoping the sound barrier jutsu held.

"They're still young, how could they have lost so many children?" Minato wondered aloud after a moment. Jiraiya frowned and figured he should probably fill his student in on the situation since he was, unfortunately, now involved.

"Sakumo-san is the last of the Konoha branch of the Hatake clan. Every country has at least one branch of the Hatake clan to their roster, it was a part of the peace treaty which arose when the First Shinobi War ended. The Hatakes were a large, vital, powerful clan, so their splitting among the countries seemed a good way to share the wealth, so to speak. The clan head had actually been the one to offer it." He paused for a moment as Minato nodded, he had heard of Hatakes from other countries. Sakumo-san was considered one of the greatest, so it was his name that most recognized. "As the last Hatake of Konoha, the elders have put a great deal of pressure on him and Ahiru to have at least one child, preferably a son, to carry out the Hatake name and place in the treaty." Minato nodded again. Each clan was very important to Konoha, with Sakumo-san as vital to the village as he was, there was really no surprise that the elders wanted to be positive his genes were carried on.

"It's awful though, if this is what has led to Ahiru-san being so ill," Minato murmured, more to himself than the other two. Jiraiya nodded solemnly.

"Unofrtunately, I think Sakumo-san wants this child even more than the elders do. Even if it means risking his marriage. I can't imagine him just using his wife though –"

"Oh this will most definitely be their last child, I removed her uterus as soon as he was out," Tsunade interrupted smugly. "There really was no other option." The two males just watched her blankly.

She apparently deemed the tub full enough to her liking, and unwrapped the little, barely moving bundle. She cooed gently at the tiny baby in her arms as she scrubbed him clean with the warm water.

"He's so tiny," Minato said in wonder.

"He's quite a bit smaller than average, but he'll grow to be at least as big as his father. Their size at birth doesn't mean much," Tsunade recited as she continued bathing him.

"If he lives," Jiraiya couldn't help but point out.

"He will live," Tsunade countered darkly. "I refuse to let this child die." Conversation stopped as they listened to the soft noises of the baby squeezing water into his tiny fists, Tsunade's gentle cooing, and the baby's gurgled laughs.

Eventually, Tsunade pulled him out, quickly dried him, and re-wrapped his blankets. She had been taking careful measurements of his vitals since he came out into the world and now she was at least satisfied that he wasn't going to die at the drop of a hat. She heard a deep chuckle behind her and turned to glare at Jiraiya. Her glance became playful though as she realized the infant had an unusually strong grip on one of her pig tails, tugging hard on her head as she turned it. She laughed and gently replaced her hair with a finger for him to hold.

"Look at that hair," whispered Minato in awe. The older two looked down at the baby. Now that he was clean and dry, it was clear that he had a shock of thick, bright silver hair, close but not really anything like the dulling grey color of his father's.

The tiny baby was much more lively now that he was clean. One little fist was squeezed around Tsunade's finger while his other (and his little feet) kept rearranging the blankets around him.

"You're going to be quite the little brat, aren't you?" Tsunade sighed as she re-tucked the blankets around him for the third or fourth time since his bath.

"I'm going to bring him in to his parents now, and explain that they are to have NO more children. You two would probably be best to head out this window," she nodded towards the window. Minato nodded eagerly, more than ready to get out of the extremely private life of one of his superiors. Jiraiya was more hesitant.

"Are you sure you don't want us to stick around for a while? Give you some moral support?"

"No, this is something they need to hear from their doctor alone. Also, Jiraiya, I trust Minato, but you? Don't go spreading gossip."

Jiraiya huffed a disgruntled sigh, but still squeezed her shoulder gently before following his student out the window.