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It is two in the morning, and Tsunade is aimlessly pacing the corridors of Konoha’s hospital.
Out of all the ways she’d expected to be spending her first night back in her village, this was probably last on her list. She could have been drinking her head off, trying to forget the responsibilities that come with being made Hokage. She could have gone into town to go try her luck at the dice and the cards. She could’ve been sentimental and visited her sensei’s grave, or could’ve given in to Shizune’s nagging and started her administrative duties, or could’ve gone to sleep like a regular person.
For some reason, she doesn’t really feel like doing any of that. By lack of anything better to do, she’s ended up at the hospital. She tells herself that she’s here because this is all hers now, because she should familiarize herself with her hospital and her staff and her patients. Which is true, but it’s not the full reason; barely even the main reason. In reality, she’s here because she’s tired of staring at her mountain of paperwork and too damn restless to go to sleep. This is at least a better place to pace around than her dead sensei’s office is.
The still-mostly-familiar location and the almost-quiet help clear her head – though the drink she had before coming here probably helps with that as well – and she wanders around directionlessly, thoughtlessly. The hospital is mostly the same as she remembers it, though the walls are cracking under the weight of the past twenty years and the paint on the doors and windowsills has chipped away in most places. The nursery has also switched places with the general inpatient ward, which means the inpatient ward is now on the second floor instead of the third floor. She’d been there earlier today to treat her three patients, but Naruto had been hurrying her along and she hadn’t really registered that they’d climbed two staircases instead of three.
Her subconscious successfully leads her to the inpatient ward regardless. She doesn’t realize, not until her gaze catches on a familiar name posted next to a door, and she halts abruptly.
Hatake. Her mind still connects that name to the wrong Hatake, even though she knows he’s long gone. He’s been gone for almost as long as she’d been, and only his son remains. Remains here in the hospital, freshly promoted from coma patient to regular patient and undoubtedly messed up after what Uchiha Itachi’s Tsukuyomi put him through.
She can sense his chakra signature through the door. He is awake. Unmoving but agitated, probably trying to sleep and failing. Probably thinking about those seventy-two hours of torture he had to endure.
In a burst of impulsiveness, she barges into the room.
And scares the Hell out of him. His Sharingan snaps open immediately, glowing bright red in the moonlit half-darkness. The rest of his reaction – his muscles tensing, his hands balling into fists, his legs pushing him into a sitting position as he prepares to defend himself – is delayed, as is his recognition of her as medical-nin instead of threat. She lets him puzzle it out, arms crossed as she waits.
Eventually, his shoulders sag, and his left eye slides shut again. “Evening,” he says, his voice still hoarse with disuse, “Tsunade-sama.”
She acknowledges his greeting with a hum of approval. So he knows she’s the Hokage now. Between trying to assess how badly Itachi’s bullshit had scrambled Kakashi’s brains and Gai trying to hurry her along to his student, she hadn’t had the chance to introduce herself. Someone must’ve caught him up on the new development, though.
It’s weird to hear him talking so respectfully. She doesn’t recall ever seeing a single hint of Sakumo’s manners on him when he was still a boy. The last time they met, he’d been six and a newly-minted chuunin and swearing at her while she set his broken arm. Sakumo-san’s potty-mouthed little brat.
But here he is, using honorifics, which she’s never heard him do before. And she hasn’t forgotten what he did first thing when he woke up, either: he apologized to her for screwing up, so quietly. She would’ve preferred it if he’d cussed at her again. She would’ve deserved it – she’d scolded him like she would scold that child she remembers. She hadn’t realized until afterwards that she’d been trying to get a rise out of him, searching for a sign that, even though this village has changed a lot in the past twenty years, at least the people are still the same.
But it’s sharply undeniable: Sakumo’s little brat is no longer Sakumo’s little brat. For starters, he’s not little anymore. Twenty-six years old, his medical chart had said. And a jounin. And a teacher, which she’ll be sure to tease him for – later, when he no longer looks so pitiful. When his reflexes are no longer shot and the circles underneath his eyes are no longer as dark.
He blinks at her groggily, straightening his back a bit, visibly trying to figure out whether he should stand at attention or not. “So,” he starts, with a hint of awkwardness that reminds her far too much of Sakumo, “what are you doing here? It’s… late, isn’t it?”
Tsunade shakes herself out of her memories and tries to plant herself firmly in the present. Sakumo is gone. His kid is here and he has a problem she can fix. “I came to figure out why you’re not sleeping,” she replies, harshly but not nearly as harshly as she’d been before. She doesn’t need to hear him apologize in that sad little tone of his again. “You’re apparently one of the best shinobi in this village, and I need you to rest if I want you back in the field any time soon.”
“Respectfully, Hokage-sama, I did sleep,” he replies drily. “For almost a month, as a matter of fact.”
The retort reassures her more than she’d admit out loud. Uchiha Itachi did not scramble Kakashi’s personality out of his brains, then. She holds back her smile and levels him with a stern look instead. “That was just your body trying to keep you alive by any means necessary. I want you to sleep so that you can actually heal.”
He holds her gaze for a beat, considering whether to argue, and she looks right back at him. Eventually, he sighs and turns away. “If I could, I would.”
There’s that poorly-concealed sorrow again. This time, Tsunade won’t stand for it. Not when it’s something she can fix.
She strides towards him – it startles him again, though not badly enough to make him try to fight this time – and stands next to the bed with her hands in her sides, palms already glowing with medical ninjutsu. Kakashi observes her groggily, slightly leaning away from her; after a long moment, he finally settles back so that his head is within her reach.
Tsunade makes an approving noise and rests her hands against his head, one on his forehead and one just above the top of his neck. She can feel his agitated chakra prickle against the palms of her hands; slowly, she begins to wrangle it into a calmer pattern with her own chakra. She doubts he is actually as anxious as his chakra signature insists he is, but she also doubts he has any control over it. The Tsukuyomi wreaked havoc on his entire chakra network. It’ll be a little while before he’s able to control its patterns himself again. At least this will help remind him of what calmth feels like.
As she works, he begins to relax, very slowly, until she’s pretty certain that nothing except her hands is keeping his head upright. He must be moments away from falling asleep when he speaks, mumbling.
“I’m sorry about your sensei.”
It almost makes her laugh – not the condolences, not Hiruzen-sensei’s death, but rather the absurdity of it. The fact that Kakashi apparently thinks it necessary to fight off sleep in order to tell her this. The fact that he’s more earnest about it than anyone has been so far. The fact that she hasn’t done much more than snap at him, and yet. And yet, even though he owes her nothing on the emotional front.
Illuminated by the glow of her medical ninjutsu, he looks far too much like Sakumo. Despite the mask, despite the scar across his eye. Despite the weight in his voice that tells her he’s carrying more grief than his father was able to bear. She knows most of it; the rumors spread well beyond Konoha. His father, his teammates, his sensei. She supposes it makes sense that he sympathizes.
She should say something in return, but by the time she’s figured out what she should say – she was never good at this, and her people skills have undeniably gotten worse over the past two decades – Kakashi’s head is lying heavy in her hands, both his eyes closed and his breathing evened out.
She smiles, almost fondly. Hatake Kakashi accepted medical help without making a fuss. Sakumo would be proud. Seems like his kid has grown up to be quite like him – respectful, kind. It worries her, in a way. She’ll have to keep an eye on him, make sure he doesn’t end up resembling his father too much. It’s the least she can do. She wasn’t around to fix Sakumo, but she can try her best with his son.
With a sigh, she props a pillow behind Kakashi’s head and leans him back against it, then steps back. He doesn’t seem to notice any of it, successfully dead to the world. She’ll instruct the nurses to leave him be for a bit in the morning, to check on him at nine o’clock instead of six. He needs all the rest he can get.
Far too soon, she’ll have to send him back into the field – missions to make sure this battered village won’t have to deal with a war on top of everything else, operations to fix the mess Hiruzen-sensei left behind. But for now, she can let him sleep.
Silently, she leaves the room.