The Routine

Author's Notes: Chapters 1-7 had been written for some time, like over a month, before I uploaded it to Adultfanfiction. But chapter 8 I started and finished tonight. This one contains Kakashi's point of view about the situation. So its mostly reflective thinking on his part. I tried to write it so it flowed so let me know if it worked out for you as the reader.

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When he could no longer ignore the bright sun shining through his eyelids he risked glancing over at Moiya. She was laying on her stomach over his arm, her hair draped across her neck and back, hands tucked under her pillow. He smiled softly noticing how her skin reflected the soft early morning glow. He moved to roll over on his side next to her, he wanted to touch and kiss her beautiful skin, but the pain in his side made him groan loudly as he lowered himself back onto the bed. Moiya’s eyes fluttered open and her head jerked up at the sound “What’s wrong?” He could hear the concern in her voice as she moved over to look down into his face freeing his arm.

He quickly wrapped it around her waist to recover the lost warmth of her stomach, pulling her into him. It took a moment for her to remember that he was still injured and her eyes snapped down to the bruise on his ribs “Oh god did I hurt you? I completely forgot.....” “It hurts.” he interrupted “but only because your not distracting me from the pain.” he smiled a boyish twinkle in his eye. Moiya’s face reddened as she relaxed against him again, snuggling up along his side, her head on his shoulder. She could feel Kakashi’s hand tracing invisible pictures across her back as she closed her eyes replaying the previous nights activities in her mind, a small smile spreading across her lips.

Kakashi’s POV

They laid there for a long time together, neither of them speaking, just enjoying the comfort between them. All the years leading up to this point ran through Kakashi’s head as he searched for what he knew he needed to say to her. It was inevitable that they reach a point where they had to talk about all the changes their night together would bring. And there were things he needed her to understand. He wanted her to know. There was no going back. After all the thinking and worrying he had done to come to his decision to stay with her, to finally offer himself to her, he knew he didn’t want to go back to the way things were between them. The cold space that separated them after Yondaime’s death. It had never been colder than it was the other night when he had found his way back to her again. And it was then he knew he wouldn’t survive if he didn’t find a way to close the gap between them as he sat in the chair silently letting her fingers roam the familiar path over his body.

He knew it was his fault. He had pushed her away, kept her at a distance, but never so far away he couldn’t watch over her or protect her if she needed him. And their friendship had always been there. He clung to it in fact, the one thing that connected him to the world. It was the only thing that made him feel alive. When everyone else he cared about had left him. Moiya was still there. But he had never been able to explain to her why he needed the space to be there between them. It was the same reason why he spent so much time at the memorial stone. Death followed him wherever he went. But she was the light that always pulled him back from the darkness and he knew he couldn’t push her so far away that he wouldn’t be able to find his way back to her. So he clung onto their friendship like a life line.

It was the reason he had come to her that first night. Why he continued to find himself here over the years, hurting in more places than just his body. She was the light in the darkness of his life. He didn’t realize it then of coarse. In fact he never remembered how he had gotten there that first night. One minute he was pulling his kunai from the head of his enemy and the next he was standing in her bedroom doorway staring at her. What he did remember was the feeling of relief and comfort he felt just seeing her there in the bed, peacefully sleeping away as if there weren’t horrible things in the world, like your enemies grey matter on your hands. It had taken him a few minutes to realize she was there in front of him, then a few more for the worry in her eyes to register as she led him into the kitchen. She had cleaned him up, eased the pain from his injuries, all in complete silence. Unknowingly healing a little piece of his heart. And he had repaid her by leaving before she woke in the morning.

Then he found himself in her kitchen two months later. Still unable to remember how he had gotten there as she pulled his mask away from his face. Again, he had repaid her by leaving. And then over time he found himself here more often. Always after the most difficult missions, the ones he could never remember, except in pieces or in nightmares. It was during this time, between their routine and their friendship, that he started trying to sort things out in his head. But no matter what he thought about, his life, his work, his heart, his soul, everything led back to her. He often wondered how a genius shinobi could be so stupid.

And this particular genius shinobi had taken over two years to discover why. Why he had started coming to her after missions, why he clung to their friendship, why he had pushed her away. She was his light in the dark, his lifeline, the one who healed his heart and helped him take back his soul, the constant in his world. And she never asked him for anything in return. She suffered silently all these years and never once turned her back on him no matter what he did, or how much he hurt her.

He had known for some time he was in love with her, that he needed her in more ways than one. Their routine had not only begun to heal him in so many different ways he couldn’t explain them all, but it had also woken up a part of him he thought was long dead or that he never had. The feel of her hands on his skin, her scent, her warmth, everything about her began to wind its way into his mind, into his body, in a way that no other woman had ever done for him. He had never forgotten the things that had attracted him to her in the first place. Her smile, her laugh, her tenderness. But since the start of their routine he had begun to realized that he had never truly appreciated the beautiful woman she had become. And with each night she spent searching his body for injuries, trying to piece him back together, that realization became harder to ignore.

But he didn’t know what to do with his feelings, emotional or physical. He was never good with dealing with things as unnecessary as emotions. They had only caused suffering in his life and shinobi were only weakened by them. Then for a short time when Moiya had first come to live with Yondaime, he had been learning. She had been his teacher. But that had all ended when the young Hokage surrendered his life to protect the village. And it had taken him ten years to have the courage to allow himself to feel again. Add to that the sexual frustration of being so close to her without actually being able to return her touches and he thought there were times he would go insane as he slowly re-entered the world of the living, feeling human for the first time in a very long time.

Then two nights ago, everything he had been trying to figure out, everything he had been feeling, all came together like a puzzle he had been trying to piece together since that first night he stood in her doorway watching her sleep. And he couldn’t leave. He no longer wanted to leave. He wanted to be with her. He needed to be with her. He had tried to leave despite his feelings. He knew if he really wanted to leave he could have. After all, he had done it so many times before. But this time the reasons to stay outweighed the reasons to leave. His only fear was that after everything he had put her through she wouldn’t want him. That he had missed his chance to have her completely. Even if she never turned her back on him, would always be there for him, he was afraid he had made her wait too long for him to find his courage, to find the final piece to the puzzle.

At the end of the day he found the decision to stay had turned out to be the easiest when compared to the moment he had held her in his arms for the first time in a long time. She could have told him to stop, she could have asked him to leave. For brief moment he was sure she would do just that as he stood there with his eyes closed waiting for her to do something, anything. Kakashi opened his eyes as he felt Moiya moving around next to him then pulled the covers back up over her. He waited to see if she would wake up completely but she only sighed in her sleep.

He hadn’t really considered where his decision would lead he thought running a finger across her cheek gently. Although he had an idea and last night was definitely one outcome he had been hoping for. But laying here next to the woman he loved he knew, there was no other place in the world he would rather be and he would spend the rest of his life making sure she knew what she meant to him.