FicWad

Chapter Five: Scars

And there are hues not always faded,

Which speak a mind not all degraded

Even by the crimes through which it waded:

The common crowd but see the gloom

Of wayward deeds and fitting doom;

A close observer can espy

A noble soul, and lineage high...

(from The Giaour by Lord Byron)

--------------------------------------------------

Kakashi showed his pass to the orderly at the desk, who glanced at it and handed it back. "Our boy's popular today," he remarked.

"Huh?"

"You're his second visitor today," the orderly explained. "By the way, that means you'll have to wait a few minutes. They're only allowed one at a time, and then they have to be reassessed between visits. It won't take long."

Kakashi shrugged and sat down on a chair while he waited. He wasn't even sure why he was here, or at least he wasn't sure he wanted to admit why. As much as he had reassured Sakura that he didn't really bear Sasuke any lasting ill will, there were still some things that had been eating at him for a long time. For years.

He had been sitting for about ten or fifteen minutes when he heard a door open. He looked up and saw Naruto come out into the corridor. The young man's normally cheerful face was deeply troubled. He glanced up and caught Kakashi's eye. He hesitated, almost nervously, for a moment, then went over to him.

"Um..." Naruto rubbed the back of his head. "Go easy on him, okay?"

"I don't think I'd be allowed to do anything else," Kakashi said dryly. "Don't worry," he went on in reply to Naruto's look of concern. "I don't plan to stay long anyway."

Naruto gave a slight nod, picked his weapons pack up from the desk, and walked away down the corridor. Another orderly opened the door and looked out. "Anybody else?" he asked the man at the desk.

The seated orderly nodded towards Kakashi. "Yeah. Is it okay out there?"

The other man shrugged. "He's barely moved."

"Okay." The orderly at the desk pointed to a basket before him. "Leave any weapons here," he told Kakashi.

Kakashi got up and went through his pockets and belt pack, dumping a collection of kunai, shuriken, exploding tags, and senbons into the basket. The orderly raised an eyebrow but said nothing. He jerked his thumb towards the door. "Go ahead."

Kakashi followed the other orderly as he was led out into a large, open area behind the hospital. It was surrounded on all sides and above by chain-link fencing. The area had been minimally, yet attractively landscaped in a somewhat Zen style, probably to lend it a feeling of serenity, but it still felt like a cage.

On a wooden bench in the middle of a grassy patch, sitting with his back to the door, was Sasuke. Someone had finally cut his hair more or less to the length Kakashi remembered it being before he left.

"Okay, keep it on an even level," the orderly advised him, sounding bored, and walked away to go sit in a chair against the wall in the shade.

Kakashi walked up to the bench and around to the front of it to face its occupant. Someone had also finally given him a shave. Probably with an electric razor, Kakashi thought. Sasuke's wrists were heavily bandaged, and the IV drip in the back of his hand had been securely sealed. Since he often refused to eat, he had to be kept on the drip, but he had pulled it out several times, once to use the needle to slash his wrists open. Needless to say, he wasn't responding to treatment since he came out of his coma two weeks ago.

Sasuke glanced up momentarily, then looked back down. Although he moved only imperceptibly, he still looked like he was cringing like a dog about to be kicked. Some little voice in his head began to tell Kakashi that he should just go, that nothing would be accomplished by his being here. He promptly switched off that part of his brain.

"I'm not sure how long I can stand to be here, so I'll just get to it," Kakashi said quietly. He paused to collect his thoughts. He had gone over several speeches in his head before he finally decided to come here, but he forgot them all. He started again from scratch. "I can deal with you trying to kill me. I think I can eventually get over how you tried to kill my daughter and rape my wife. It's been pretty much established that you weren't responsible for your actions. At least not recently." He kept his voice low, not wanting to alarm the orderly, but he couldn't hide his bitterness. "What I resent most is why you never gave me a chance. You never came to me, someone who actually gave a shit about you, and said 'Kakashi, I need your help.' But no, even after I sealed the curse mark for you, and after everything I told you about what a waste of time revenge was, you had to run off to your pimp daddy Orochimaru because he promised you power, something you seemed to think I couldn't give you. Or maybe you just didn't feel like listening to me when I'd try to tell you that power is only as good as what you use it for."

Sasuke hadn't moved, and Kakashi started to feel a deep anger well up inside him. He forced it down and went on. "But hey, you got what you wanted, right? You offed Itachi. You even tossed his pieces around so they wouldn't find each other. Everything worked out just the way you wanted it to. So I have to ask, Sasuke, was it worth it?"

At first Kakashi wasn't sure Sasuke had even heard him. The younger man sat motionless, staring at the ground for several minutes. Kakashi was on the verge of turning his back on him for good and leaving, when Sasuke slowly shook his head back and forth. "No," he said finally in a rasping, dry whisper. "It wasn't. Not even being able to kill Itachi made any of it worth anything."

"Big surprise," Kakashi muttered.

Sasuke raised his face and Kakashi was shocked at his appearance. He felt like he was looking at a dead man. Sasuke's gaunt, pale features, with deep lines dragging down from his eyes, almost made him look, ironically, more like Itachi. "You could have taught me everything you knew," he went on. "But you never could have given me the one thing I needed, the only power Orochimaru gave me that was of any use." Tears started to spill from his eyes and run down his face. "That was hate. It was what I needed, and I lost everything I ever had to get it. I hated Orochimaru, I hated Itachi, I hated you, I hated Naruto and Sakura." His face began to convulse into a mask of tortured grief and he drew in a sobbing breath. "But most of all, I hated myself. I hated myself for letting Orochimaru do what he did to me. I killed him and the hate got worse instead of better because I couldn't make what he did to me go away!"

Sasuke leaned forward, slipping off the bench and landing on his knees, pulling the IV stand down beside him with a clatter. The orderly on duty got up from his seat and started forward, but Kakashi raised his hand. The orderly paused a short distance away, eyeing them cautiously.

Kakashi looked back down at Sasuke. He realized that the younger man hadn't just fallen off the bench. He was on his knees, leaning over on his forearms, prostrating himself in a posture of humility. He drew in long, shaking breaths of air, sobbing wretchedly. "I thought this was all I wanted, but when I was done there was nothing! I have nothing left! I have nothing left! All I want to do is die, but please, please...sensei...forgive me!"

The orderly was supposed to keep the patients from getting upset, but this looked like something that needed to happen, so he kept a respectful but watchful distance. Kakashi stared down at Sasuke as the last remaining member of the once mighty Uchiha clan wept like a brokenhearted child with his face in the dirt.

Kakashi gave a long, quiet sigh. Shit, he thought darkly to himself. I must be getting soft in my old age. He lowered himself to his knees and grasped Sasuke's upper arms, pulling him partway to a sitting position. The younger man hung limply in his hands, his body still wracked with sobbing. Kakashi pulled him closer against his chest, one arm around his shoulders and his other hand against the back of his head. Sasuke leaned into him, exhausted, almost grateful, and continued to weep for some time.

---------------

"When I got back here I thought I was only about eighteen or nineteen. I have whole chunks of my life that are just blank." Sasuke shook his head and gave a short, humorless laugh. "Apparently I'm twenty-two." He and Kakashi were seated side by side on the bench. Without realizing it, Sasuke was leaning against Kakashi's shoulder, not out of affection, but from sheer exhaustion, and Kakashi let him stay there. Their heads hung close together, silver and black.

"If I tried to describe it like a nightmare, it would never do it justice," Sasuke went on. "When I first got there, Orochimaru pretty much left me alone. He was still getting over the body transfer he had just made. I was put into a little room and left there. I was fed well enough, I guess. I wasn't really paying attention. The days just started to blur into each other. Then he came into my room. I asked him when he was going to start training me. He just smiled and said, 'soon enough.' Then he-" Sasuke's voice caught in his throat as though he was about to gag. He swallowed and went on. "I don't really know how it started. I couldn't move. He was using his mind control jutsu, but that didn't even occur to me. I just lay there while he stripped off my clothes. Then he stood there and looked at me for a long time. Then he stuck that tongue of his out. He put it...it...it went everywhere!" Sasuke shuddered violently. "And that was just to start with."

Kakashi really, really did not want to hear any more of this, but he knew he had to because Sasuke needed to tell it.

"When he was done, he left, and a little while later Kabuto came in and cleaned up the blood and everything else and healed up my...my wounds." Sasuke's clasped his hands together so tightly his knuckles turned white. "This went on for days. For weeks. Then Orochimaru finally let me out of the room and told me to come with him. We went into a bigger room, sort of like a laboratory. There were three other guys and a girl in there. He made me stand and watch while he made the men take turns with the girl, then with each other. He manipulated them the whole time. Whatever came into his head he made them do, and he would make me watch. I-I think the girl died. He did this again and again. I don't know where he found the time to find all these people. Sometimes he'd make me join in. As hard as I tried to fight it, I couldn't. There were times I'd end up killing people I didn't want to kill.

"Yeah, sure, sometimes he actually showed me some new jutsus," he went on, his voice raw with bitterness, and his words started to spill out faster. "I even managed to learn them, or one of me did, anyway. I forget which one. I scared the shit out of Naruto and Sakura and that Sai kid that one time. I acted all calm and detached, but I was standing there next to myself, screaming at the top of my lungs for them to get me the fuck out of there, but they couldn't see me and I couldn't make them hear me. But Orochimaru knew what I was trying to do, and when he took me back, I was punished.

"But I got him back, finally. After nearly three years of this, he told me I was ready to face Itachi, but if I wanted to leave, I had to try to kill him first. He said that like he was sure I couldn't and he'd be able to go ahead and use me for his next vessel but by that time there were enough of me and I outnumbered him." Sasuke unclasped his shaking hands and opened them up, staring at his palms. He gave an odd, almost childish laugh. "It was kind of like tag team wrestling. So I got him, finally. Pulled his head right off." He drew in a deep breath and wretched dryly, having barely anything in his stomach. He coughed and went on. "Kind of surprised me how easy it was. Same with Itachi and that other guy, Kisame."

Sasuke paused for a while. Kakashi's mind felt numb and he was starting to feel sick to his stomach. When he spoke, he kept his voice calm. "There was a long stretch of time from when you left Orochimaru to when you came across Itachi. What happened in between?"

Sasuke shook his head. "I don't really know. I don't really remember which one I was. A lot of times I just forgot where I was or what I was doing. Then one day it just sort of hit me that the next thing I had to do was reestablish my clan, because that was what I had planned to do. It was the only clear thought in my head. And I had this really strong memory of Sakura wanting me to stay with her, so she's the one I thought about." Sasuke raised his head suddenly, a look of panic on his face, as though he only just realized what he had done. "I'm so sorry, Kakashi! Oh, God, I'm so sorry!"

"Sasuke, it'll be okay," Kakashi told him. Eventually.

The orderly stepped up behind them and cleared his throat. Kakashi looked over his shoulder at him. "It's been, like, two hours," the man commented. "You can come back tomorrow, but it's been way over time."

Kakashi nodded and turned back to Sasuke. "I have to go now, Sasuke." He gave the younger man's shoulder a firm squeeze. "You want me to come back tomorrow?"

"Yeah. Thanks, sensei."

"Do me a favor, okay? Try to eat something. Then you can get that thing out of your hand."

"I'll try."

----------

"Kakashi?" Sakura got up from where she had been reading on the couch and went over to her husband as he came weaving in through the door. It was ten o'clock at night. He had sent her word that he would be late, and she knew he had needed some time to himself. He didn't tell her he would be completely plastered. "Oh, honey, what were you doing all this time?" she demanded with gentle reproof.

"Getting completely plastered, my dear, sweet, loving, understanding little cherry blossom of mine," he drawled, leaning against her heavily. "I had some very seriously dark, smelly shit dumped into my brain today by our mutual Sasuke-kun friend and I spent a couple of hours trying to wash it out." He drew a deep breath. "Then I threw up, and then I did it all over again. I'll s-s-sleep on the couch, if you'd..." He slipped through her arms and collapsed on the floor.

Sakura got down on her knees next to him. Tears started to form in her eyes, but she gave a little laugh. She leaned down and pulled his forehead protector off. It would feel like a vise grip in the morning. She kissed him lightly above his right eyebrow. She wasn't going anywhear near his lips. "Oh, my sweet Kakashi, they broke the mold when they made you."

She stood up, grabbed both his ankles and dragged him carefully into the bedroom. Focusing chakra through her arms in a technique used at the hospital to move patients from one surface to another, she lifted him onto the bed. Then she pulled his vest and shoes off him, covered him with a blanket, kissed him on his forehead again, then went off to sleep on the couch. She loved him more than life itself, but he smelled funny.

----------

"What are the babies names, Daddy?" Aiko asked again, dragging on Kakashi's hand impatiently.

"Haru and Hiroshi," Kakashi told her, smiling and trying to resist her pull. "Slow down, honey, this is a hospital. There's other babies here trying to sleep." He looked at Sakura, who walked beside him carrying a large floral display in a basket. "You want me to carry that and you can let Aiko drag you down the hall?"

"But you're doing such a good job, dear," Sakura said sweetly to him. "Anyway, here we are," she announced. She knocked on the door of one of the hospital rooms.

"Come in," they heard from inside. The three of them entered. Surrounded by flowers, reigning over the room like a queen in her bed, was Hinata, looking joyfully serene. In a chair by the window sat her father, gazing down with calm approval at the baby in his arms. Standing by the bed, a goofy smile on his face, holding the other baby, was Naruto.

He grinned at the newcomers as they entered.

"Oh, cool!" he cried, keeping his voice as hushed as he could manage. "This is so cool! And now you get to do it again! Sakura, you're so lucky!"

Sakura exchanged an incredulous glance with Hinata, then both women laughed. Aiko went up to Naruto, who bent down so she could look at the baby. "Which one's him?" Aiko asked.

"This is Hiroshi," Naruto told her.

"No, I have Hiroshi," Hiashi said. "That is Haru."

Naruto straightened up with a look of panic. "Are you sure?"

"Quite sure," Hiashi replied calmly. "Hiroshi has a red band on his wrist. Haru's is green. It even says 'Haru' on it." His voice sounded patient and had none of the ascerbity it might normally have in addressing his son-in-law. He was too pleased right now.

Naruto quickly searched for his son's wrist amid the blanket he was wrapped in. He found the tiny green band and gave a deep sigh. "Oh, man, how am I gonna keep them straight when they grow out of these things?"

Aiko went over to Hiashi and laid her hand on his arm as she examined the baby he held. "This makes you a grandpa now," she informed him.

"Yes, it does," Hiashi said with a slight smile. Hiroshi's eyelids blinked opened momentarily, revealing bluish pearl-grey eyes, which was one of the main reasons why Hiashi was feeling so expansive.

"My mommy's going to have a baby, too."

"So I hear. You must be very pleased."

"Yeah," Aiko replied, matter-of-factly. She glanced over at Hinata, then at her mother. "Mommy, how did the baby get in your tummy?"

The room grew very quiet for a moment as Aiko studied the faces of the adults around her. Finally, Kakashi said, "It involves yucky kissing."

"Oh." Aiko looked vaguely disappointed and dismissive. She gave a slight shrug and turned back to Hiashi, who had lowered his head and closed his eyes, his shoulders shaking very slightly with laughter.

"That was smooth," Naruto commented to Kakashi in a lowered voice.

"You're a dad now, Naruto. You're gonna have to know this stuff," Kakashi replied.

They left after a brief visit, then, as the three of them walked down the corridor, Kakashi paused. "Sakura, there's something else I'd like to do, and I'd like to take Aiko with me."

Sakura looked at him thoughtfully for a few moments, then nodded. "Okay. I think it's probably time. I saw him earlier today," she added. "He seems pretty good."

"I'll see you a little later, then." Kakashi gave her a brief kiss. "We probably won't be too long."

"Where are we going?" Aiko asked. This was something she hadn't expected, and she looked up at Kakashi curiously.

"I want to see an old friend. Someone I'd like you to meet."

"Okay."

Kakashi led her down a couple of corridors and up a flight of stairs. They finally stopped at a door, identical to all the other doors in the hospital. Aiko wondered how anybody could tell where they were going here. Kakashi knocked on the door and waited. A voice from within called, "Come in."

Kakashi took Aiko's hand tightly in his and opened the door. Sitting back in a chair, his feet propped up on the windowsill, was Sasuke. He had put on a fair amount of weight over the past two months. His hair reached to his shoulders now, effectively losing that unfortunate waterfowl's behind look. He looked over his shoulder, then swiveled around in his chair, dropping his feet on the floor and standing up.

He stood at about 184 centimeters (roughly 6'1"), putting him just slightly taller than Kakashi, which the silver-haired jonin found slightly irritating. Other than his intense black eyes, there was very little left in Sasuke's face of the boy who left nine years ago. His face, framed by the black hair that hung around it, was thinner and more angular, and there was nothing boyish about it. Kakashi wondered if he would ever quite lose the haunted look in his eyes.

Aiko stared at him for a moment, and as his dark eyes met hers, she suddenly flinched and gave a startled cry, running around behind Kakashi and clutching at his pantleg.

"Daddy! It's the bad Sasuke man!" she cried in a frightened voice.

Sasuke looked at Kakashi wryly. "Maybe this isn't such a good idea."

Kakashi bent down and put his arm around Aiko. "Honey, it's okay now. He's not like he was before, and I didn't want you to be afraid of him anymore. If you don't want to do this, we'll go. But there's nothing to be afraid of." Aiko turned her frightened gaze to look at her father with solemn eyes. "What do you think?" he asked her.

With another wary glance at Sasuke, Aiko nodded, but she stayed close to Kakashi. Sasuke stepped back and sat up on the windowsill. Kakashi sat in the chair and Aiko climbed up on his lap. The two men regarded each other in a more or less companionable silence for a few moments, then Sasuke spoke.

"Sakura came by this morning," he said. He looked at Kakashi a kind of grave wonder. "I don't remember her being so beautiful."

"You never noticed," Kakashi replied, smiling briefly under his mask. "I did."

"Yeah, I guess so." Sasuke nodded. "She seems really happy."

"Well, they don't call me the Genius of Konoha for nothing."

Sasuke smiled for a brief moment, then it faded.

"So what about you?" Kakashi asked. "You look a lot better, even since I was here last."

Sasuke gave a slight shrug. "I'm okay, I guess." He glanced down at one of his wrists, rubbing at the recently healed scars with his thumb. "Tsunade told me that I'm supposed to be discharged in a few days." He didn't sound pleased.

Kakashi raised his eyebrows. "That soon?" he asked.

"Yeah. I can't leave the village, of course. And I'm going to be under observation. Naruto's looking for an apartment for me. I have to do something about having my family assets unfrozen, or whatever you call it." Sasuke pushed his fingers tensely through his thick black hair.

"Let me know if you need any help," Kakashi said calmly, beginning to recognize the nervous gestures that signaled Sasuke's growing agitation.

"Thanks." Sasuke closed his eyes and took a couple of deep breaths. "It'll be more than enough for me to live on. I won't be supporting anyone else."

"Do you think that will last forever?" Kakashi asked, curious rather than sympathetic.

Sasuke looked at him gravely and gave a slight shake of his head. "Kakashi, I don't know if I'll ever be able to have a normal relationship with a woman." He gave Aiko a quick, anxious glance, unsure of the appropriateness of his remark.

"Well, that's what therapy's for," Kakashi said.

"I don't know," Sasuke replied noncommittally. He appeared to not wish to pursue the subject. He met Aiko's gaze again. She had been only partly listening to the conversation, but also had been silently assessing the young man sitting on the windowsill. He sure seemed quieter than he was before, and her father's confident ease was probable the best indication that he was not a threat. He had haunted her dreams for a long time, and as far as she was concerned, he still had a lot to answer for.

"I wanted to say that I'm sorry, Aiko-chan," Sasuke told her.

She was a little startled at being directly addressed by him, and her hands curled around Kakashi's arm. Somehow she couldn't quite bring herself to tell him it was okay.

"Your parents told me that you're going to be a big sister," Sasuke went on.

Aiko gave a slight nod. "Uh-huh."

"I think that's something you'd be pretty good at."

Aiko grudgingly conceded that point to him, since she was fairly certain he was right. "Thanks."

"You know," Sasuke said after a few moments of hesitation. "I've been thinking lately that your dad's kind of like the older brother I should have had."

Kakashi gave him a wry look. "You're starting to sound a little bit like a suckup, Sasuke."

Sasuke's dark eyes flicked up from Aiko's face to his. "No," he replied quietly. "I really have been thinking that."

"Well," Kakashi said, shrugging it off. "I've learned that as much as you want to, you can't change the past. You can only make the future better." He turned to Aiko. "You ready, sunshine?"

"Uh-huh," Aiko replied, somewhat relieved.

Kakashi stood up, setting Aiko on her feet. Sasuke slid off the windowsill and, for a moment, towered over her. She looked up at him, alarm growing in her eyes. Sasuke went down on one knee in front of her and held out his hand.

"I'm glad I got to meet you like this," he said.

Aiko glanced down at his hand, then up into his face, then back at his hand. Her eye fell on the red, puckered lines that crossed the inside of his wrist. She took his hand in both of hers and turned it to get a better look.

"Did that hurt?" she asked. Her father had a long scar on his face, and so did Iruka-sensei.

"Yeah, it did." Sasuke self-consciously pulled his hand away. "But it's okay now."

Aiko nodded, then looked into his face again. He didn't look much like the boy in the photograph with Naruto and her mother and father. But he didn't look mean like he did before. He just looked kind of sad.

"Did you wake up from your nightmare?" she asked suddenly.

Sasuke regarded Aiko thoughtfully. He knew she could not have the slightest conception of the sort of nightmare that he had been through. "Almost," he told her, putting discretion before valor.

Aiko gave a little nod. She considered giving him a kiss on the cheek, but then thought better of it. Maybe next time. She waved at him instead. "Bye," she said.

"Good bye," Sasuke replied, straightening up. He exchanged a nod with Kakashi, and father and daughter left the the room and walked down the corridor to the exit.

"So what did you think?" Kakashi asked.

"You mean about Sasuke?" Aiko gave a little shrug. "He's okay, maybe."

"Yeah, maybe we'll keep him around." He gave her hand a squeeze. "I think you deserve some ice cream."

"Oh, yay! Is it okay if I have chocolate?"

"Chocolate it is, sunshine."

------------------------------------

AN: I have found that it's a whole lot easier to post on FanFiction. So unless you are a real diehard Ficwad person, check me out there. I have a sequel to this plus a kind of prequel to everything. Look me up under the penname of doublezee.