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Denial	By : djserani Category: Naruto > Het - Male/Female > Kakashi/Sakura Views: 4298 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: As always, I don't own the world or characters, I just like to torment them. Kishimoto-sensei gets to keep them permanently. (I make no money from it!)

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She was very tall, frighteningly thin and much too pale. But she had a quick smile, friendly blue eyes, and long thick dark hair pulled up into a ponytail. She waited next to her carriage, leaning on the step, her face turned up to the sun. Despite the very warm weather, she wore a long-sleeved yukata, long pants, socks and closed shoes. When Kakashi and Sakura approached, she stood up and smiled in welcome. "Hello."

Kakashi nodded in greeting. "Hello."

Sakura smiled in return. "Hi. I'm Haruno Sakura, this is Hatake Kakashi. We'll be your escort. It's nice to meet you."

Maiko gave a slight bow of her head. "Takahashi Maiko - soon to be Sugitani. Nice to meet you, too. I have heard of you both - and that you are two of the best in the village." Sakura blushed and Kakashi waved it off. "Well, I'm honored to have such famous escorts. I really don't expect any trouble. My father is simply very over-protective. He believes I'm very sick and should be watched over all the time." She shrugged.

"I was told you have some health problems?" Sakura began, but Maiko just waved at her.

"Not really. I get tired easily and I often am cold when it isn't really, but it's nothing. My father keeps trying to force me to the doctors or the hospital, but I have tried to tell him I'm fine." She shrugged. "He doesn't want to listen. Anyway, I am afraid there isn't much space in the carriage." She said in apology. "I am going to Port City permanently, so most of my belongings are with me." Sakura looked over the carriage and that wasn't an understatement. There were trunks and bags tied in every possible way on the coach. There wasn't a clear spot to be seen. Even the driver's seat was partially stacked with stuff.

"Quite alright," Kakashi said. "We're used to walking."

When Maiko didn't look convinced, Sakura hurried to add, "I think I've probably walked the length of this continent several times over the years. Please, don't worry."

"Well, if there's anything I can do�" she said.

"Don't worry about us, really." Sakura assured her. "But we should get going. We'll be stopping in Otafuku Gai for our first stop."

"Sounds good to me," Maiko said and turned to the carriage. Kakashi opened the door for her and offered her his hand. She smiled up at him. "Thank you, you're a real gentleman." Sakura snorted, and his eye twinkled in response. He inclined his head to Maiko and shut the door for her.

Kakashi signaled to the driver. "We can keep up with you, choose your speed and don't worry about us." The driver nodded and settled into his seat.

After years of being together, they didn't need to speak. Kakashi set up on one side of the carriage and Sakura, the other. They glanced at each other and as they started to walk, they heard the driver slap the horses with the reins and the carriage wheels creak as they began to move. Silence descended and Sakura sighed. It was going to be a long trip.

* * *

The problem with a trip like this, Kakashi thought philosophically, was that it gave a person too much time to think. Were he not in view of their client, he might take his book out and at least try to distract himself a bit with it. But she was there, so he left it in his pouch.

They were looking at several hours before their first stop. Four hours, to be more precise, with the speed the carriage was moving. It would give them a good measure of how long Maiko could travel at one time. There were precious few inns along the way, but that was one of the few benefits of this mission - sleeping in a bed. With Maiko's illness, her father had insisted that they stop at inns whenever possible along the route.

There were only three major villages between Konoha and Port City on the tip of the Tea Country peninsula. Otafuku Gai, the first on their trip, was about four hours from Konoha. Then, the next major village was an ocean side fishing village in the northern section of Tea Country, at least three days away. And that was three days if they walked at a good pace and could go for at least eight hours a day. He wasn't sure they'd be able to. After that, Degarashi Port was about half way between the fishing village and Port City.

Stops between Otafuku and the fishing village could be tricky, at best. He knew of only one other inn along that route, though it had been quite a while since he'd gone that way, so another may have been built since he was there last.

It didn't help that Maiko insisted that she didn't have any health problems. It was going to be difficult to work around her when they didn't know, for sure, what to expect. He'd have to try to get Sakura to explain what was going on.

Sakura - there was the biggest problem on this trip. How was he going to manage to keep his hands off of her the entire way to Port City? How was he going to manage to keep from slipping in next to her at night? This would be the first night in�dear God, three weeks, that he wouldn't be sleeping next to her.

Had it really been that long? Three weeks? But as he thought it through and counted, it was true. He shook his head at himself. Every night for the last three weeks, he'd been slipping through her window at midnight, making love to her, falling asleep next to her and leaving just before dawn. What had he done?

But he knew. It had been happening gradually for a very long time. Little things here and there, that at the time, he didn't recognize. The heroines in his novels had all started to look the same - pink hair and green eyes. There were the times she simply stood with him at the memorial. He'd stopped dating, not that he did much to begin with. They were only ever one-night stands with women who understood what they were getting. And who gave the same things back.

But one night, about two years ago, he realized he was in bed with someone and had spent the entire time thinking of someone else. The pink hair and green eyes again. He'd replaced the woman under him with Sakura in his mind and he'd been thoroughly disgusted with himself for it. It hadn't be right to the woman he was with and it hadn't been right to Sakura. He hadn't been on a date since.

He shook his head at himself, again. He still couldn't stay away from her, no matter how hard he tried. He couldn't keep from touching her, making love to her, just being near her, no matter what he did. He'd tried, there was no doubt about that, but he just couldn't do it.

He glanced up at the sky at Shikamaru's clouds. What the hell am I going to do?, he asked them. But, as he expected, there were no answers forthcoming.

* * *

She'd seen him shake his head out of the corner of her eye. She'd spent the last hour trying to think of anything but him. She'd gone over Maiko's scroll in her head, flipped through her mental medical books, and tried to figure out what she could.

It hadn't worked, of course. He was too close, even the three meters away that he was. She hadn't been able to concentrate. She kept glancing over at him out of the corner of her eye. Which was how she caught him shaking his head.

She wondered what he was thinking. Was he thinking about her? Was he trying to figure out what to do about her? Did he regret them?

She hoped not. She knew that there was a rule that said they shouldn't be together. But there were rules - and she knew how he felt about them - and there were feelings. And she knew that he walked a fine line between the people he cared about and the rules. The rules didn't dictate his feelings. He might not act on them because of said rules, but it didn't stop him from experiencing them.

Except she just didn't know what those feelings were. It was true that he came to her every night. For� she paused to count, three weeks, now, he'd slipped in through her window. He'd made love with her, filled her up with himself, made her forget everything but him.

She had to forcibly shift her thinking. If she kept up with that, she'd be blushing profusely and she didn't want to be that obvious what she was thinking about. She sighed.

But showing up, even every night like he had, and doing the things to her that he did, didn't guarantee that he loved her. He wanted her, that much she knew. But wanting and loving were two very different things.

She knew she loved him. She didn't know when it had first happened. She couldn't point to any one moment in time that said - there, that's it. There was a spark of a touch when he helped her up during training, the cup of tea he brought her at the hospital on the night she was working really late.

There was the anniversary of Sasuke's death. It was pouring rain and she didn't care. She sat at the foot of his grave with nothing but her tears. He'd stood with her, covering her with his umbrella until she was ready to go. He hadn't said a word, just waited. And when they got to her apartment, he'd wrapped her in a blanket and heated her some soup. And held her when the second batch of tears came.

There were small gifts over the years, as well. One year, it was a new pair of gloves for Christmas. He must have noticed the holes in hers and she never seemed to have the time to replace them. Another year it was a necklace of a tiny cherry blossom. The newest book from her favorite author. And it wasn't so much what the gifts were, it was that he never forgot.

And then he showed up today. He went to one of the places he hated most - a hospital - to tell her, in person, that he was being sent out. He could have left her a note, he could have passed a message through someone else. But instead he came to see her. That had to count for something.

In the end, she didn't care about the rules. Hell, she'd even challenge them, if she could. But she still didn't know how he felt and she wasn't sure she wanted to put herself out there and find out that it wasn't anything more than wanting, than lust. That he didn't love her. She'd done that once before with disastrous results and she'd promised herself she'd never do it again.

She let out another sigh. She was going to go crazy, she was sure of it. By the time she got to Port City, they'd be putting her in a straight jacket for the return trip.
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Denial