Chapter Text
“It’s time,” Kakashi says.
His voice is smooth, nonchalant to the point that she could almost think that it was nothing. Nothing at all, it was nothing, absolutely nothing that he may come face to face with his own mortality. Again. Only that gravelly undertone to his voice, ever-present and usually concealed by his levity but oftentimes bleeds out, especially at moments like this, hints at the gravity of this situation. Where he pretends it's assumed, honourable, and worst of all banal, that he puts his life on the line, and she accepts and waits.
But then, she pretends too.
It’s time. She’s heard that before. How many times was it now? Well, it isn’t like she can remember. Each instance blurs together, just as the words themselves blur together every thread of dread and panic and just about every other emotion that she can’t untangle either.
This time, like many other times, she nods solemnly, stepping towards him with folded arms. Not out of disapproval, but reluctant, sombre acceptance. She silently checks his jacket, his holsters, his weapons, the routine almost ritualistic, finishing with a pat on his strong shoulders, only to send him out there again.
“Be safe,” she whispers, automatically. It’s a prayer and a command, but they both know in all his skill and experience it's one he can’t promise to adhere to.
He would normally say something to ease her mind, a joke, a grin - but it’s different this time. Instead he nods, and lets her avert her gaze. He’d rather not see that look in her eyes, hurt but acquiescing, a look that makes him doubt himself. A look that tempts him to think that he was a fool to kid himself that he was a good enough man for any of this, for a wife, for an impending family, for any kind of affection or commitment. He pulls up his mask and turns away. Maybe his expression is hard on her too.
He finishes fastening his flak vest with that signature combination of duty and tediousness that always mesmerises her. While she watches his back, she notices, like she notices every time, that his shoulders are broad. It tends to go unnoticed by everyone including her until they’re up close. He's strong. Stronger than he seems from afar. It surprises her every time too, but he’s good at concealing it. A true shinobi, she thinks sardonically. But she’s proud too. Even if admitting it leaves a bitter taste in her mouth.
Maybe she takes it for granted, maybe everyone does - after all, she thinks, as the blood-red strokes for six that adorn his back bore into her eyes and jeer at her (what an apt colour, dignified, Hokage-like, violent as it is), that all this man has ever known is servitude and self-sacrifice, and it’s at least in part why they’re all here. Why the village is still standing. Why everyone in it is safe - why she’s safe. It would be a lie to say that it didn’t make it easier to love him. Maybe her ambivalence, her bitterness, is what’s most terrible of all. It’s his responsibility, his burden, to protect this place. At the very least she could appreciate it, not just accept it. Of course he has to go. He has to fight.
He’s fought all his life. He deserves to rest now. Besides - she loathes herself for this, but the thought spills through her mind too often to push away - he’s not the only one potentially sacrificing something each time he risks his life.
When she says that to him, he only gives her that warm smile and a matching wink - but somehow the scar that bisects his left eye bisects his attempt at reassurance. It hurts even more. Everyone fights in one way or another, he says, life is battle, and his is just literal. He’s trying to protect his village, his home, his friends, her - everything. Of course he has to go. He has to fight.
Kakashi whispers the words to her calmly, but somewhere, somewhere in the room and his heart, she hears the ghost of a sigh.
And what is she if she can’t at least provide him a home enough in herself? Doesn’t he deserve that much? Even if he mightn’t come back to it. Even if her last memory of him might be his broad back that she doesn’t tell him enough that it’s only the smallest of the things about him she loves so much.
(That’s not to say she doesn’t tell him. She loves all of him so much, she can never tell him enough. Her affection is unfiltered, excessive, compared to his - but somehow it’s still never enough compared to his either. How could she compare to him, the Scarecrow, the one that lets himself get destroyed from the outside in so new, happier, better things can grow?
Tonight, even his name hurts.)
But he deserves more. He deserves a home apart from the home he's fighting for right now, apart from the village to which his duty chains him. One that would be there when all is said and done.
After all, she’s aware she’s complicit. It makes her quietude all the more insufferable to her. Aching with anxiety over her husband, wishing him luck and to come home alive in one piece - the heart of this conspiracy, if she wants to believe there is one, is her. Maybe she can be that ‘home’ instead, if home could be a person. Or two, she thinks, and pats that still inconspicuous bump.
“I’ll be waiting, Kakashi,” she reminds, gently, placing an even gentler, unwavering emphasis on his name despite it all. She still manages to sound resolute, even in her soft voice, he notes, and he turns back to face her. She continues, with the most angelic smile, “I’ll be waiting for you to come home.”
His eyes widen. And she does it again, miraculously - self-sacrificing, even if she can’t see it - rekindling his motivation. Is it really that simple? He decides against questioning it. Regardless of this horrible situation, the fact that it isn’t the first and won’t be the last, she has hope. More than that, she thinks he’s worth it. So he better be. He meets her smile, and his hand meets hers on her stomach, and his eyes bore down on hers.
I’ll come back alive.
He picks up a stray kunai from the floor - rather, it practically flies to his fingers, with the skill, drudgery and monotony that only a man who is a veteran of combat and its anguish can have. He tucks it away with a similar relaxed detachment, but there’s a resolve to him now, a… if she could use an optimistic expression, a spring in his step? Almost. But whether or not it’s sensible to believe, she can’t help it.
He has to come back alive.
“I’ll be back before you know it,” he agrees, and his voice carries levity with it now. One masked kiss on her forehead before disappearing from their home in one seamless movement.
She smiles, finally allowing the tears that she’s been keeping at bay for too long to flow - instead of seeing his back last, it’s his eyes.
He will come back alive.