The Routine

Author's Notes: Last chapter had Kakashi's point of view of the events and feelings leading up to their first night together. This chapter has Moiya's point of view and I beleive is longer. Maybe its because women or more complicated, I dont know. If you dont think it works this way then let me know and Ill try to fix it.

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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.

Moiya’s POV

Moiya could almost feel the child like giddiness welling up inside her as she thought about their night together. Biting her lower lip to keep the grin from spreading too wide across her face, she chanced a peek up at the man laying next to her. He was staring up at the ceiling, obviously lost deep within his own thoughts. His hand still lazily caressing her back with his fingertips. She loved that he felt so comfortable with her that he could lose himself and not feel the need to constantly be aware of his surroundings or his actions. He appeared relaxed, content, peaceful, even vulnerable.

The side he would never expose to anyone else was completely revealed to her and it wasn’t the lack of his mask or his hitai-ate or even his clothes. She had known his face for many years now, he hadn’t been as secretive as a thirteen year old as he was now. At least not around her or Yondaime. She had seen his sharingan before, both in action and on his off days when they just lounged around together. She had even seen most of his body before last night, having been the one to take care of him for so many years. The memories of all those nights, the missions he took because he felt the need to punish himself, that he deserved to be punished, forced the smile from her face.

She knew he had taken on more dangerous missions as a way to ease the ache in his heart. He had always felt guilty for living when others had died and even blamed himself for the death of his teammates, first Obito then Rin. She knew he also carried the guilt over his fathers suicide and for believing what the villagers had said about him until Obito so wisely pointed out how he had been wrong. Then there was the added pain of losing his sensei, his mentor, the only person who had ever tried to get close to him. The only person he had allowed into his heart after so many years of guarding it from the world.

She had watched him withdraw into himself again following the funeral, then he simply disappeared from her life for nearly a year. The only reminder of their unbreakable connection to each other had been the occasional gifts he left for her on the kitchen table when she was sleeping or away on a mission. She had never tried to convince him that he was wrong to blame himself, to want to punish himself. She hadn’t tried to stop him from withdrawing from the world, from their friendship. She knew her words would fall on deaf ears. Words meant nothing to the silver haired shinobi.

The only thing she could offer him was a place he knew he could always return to, like a haven, a sanctuary he could trust to be there for him no matter what happened. She wanted to be the one constant in his life in hopes that one day he would find his way back to her. And maybe he would someday be able to open his heart again and let her back into his life. She loved him more than her own life, her own happiness, and she would have waited for him, supported him from a distance if that is all he was capable of letting her do for him.

Closing her eyes she remembered the first time she had met Kakashi. She was ten years old the day Yondaime had brought her to his home and taken her into his life as his own child. He had wanted her when no one else did and she couldn’t have been loved more she thought smiling to herself. Even if it had only been a year before the day he sacrificed his life for the village and people he loved, it was the happiest year of her life. She learned more about herself and the world around her in that one year than all the lessons combined in the ten years she had been alive. He was a cheerful patient man with warm smiles and bright blue eyes.

But meeting Kakashi that day had been more like being introduced to an eternal rival compared to meeting Yondaime the first time. He hadn’t smiled or made any attempt to make her feel more comfortable. No hand shakes, no words of comfort, nothing. In fact she had wondered if he ever smiled or if his eyebrows always stayed wrinkled and brooding like they did whenever he caught her staring at him. But she had learned with time and patience that it just wasn’t his way to be open with his emotions. Unless they were the type of emotions that would make you want to slap the arrogance right off his face. Moiya smiled to herself as she pictured the thirteen year old shinobi in the man she had fallen in love with.

She had also learned that he didn’t express himself the way other people did when he did make a mistake. No apologies, just a glaring expression that said “What are you looking at?” No, Hatake Kakashi’s way included setting a basket of peaches, her favorite fruit, on the table next to her bed when she had refused to look at him for three days because he hadn’t accepted the flower she had tried to give him. She was ten, after all, and the flower was a significant attempt at letting him know she liked him. Of coarse, being thirteen and a boy, he had to ask Yondaime why she was obviously angry with him. But once his sensei explained about girls and flowers he had made the effort to apologize to her by sneaking into her room and leaving the basket.

In fact all his efforts went unnoticed by the rest of the world because they were so subtle, stealthy even, to the point that his normally cold arrogant exterior shadowed over the small gestures of friendship. She had to keep hoping that with time and patience he would understand that she would always be there waiting for him, like the flower, it was her gift to him and the only way she knew how to reach him. And his gifts to her fueled that hope, the subtle reminders that their friendship was indeed an unbreakable connection. Even when it seemed hopeless to everyone else that he could be saved from himself she had continued to love and support him because she knew the person he was trying to hide from the world.

Then over time he very slowly crept back into her life. It had started with a flower just like when they were kids. Moiya smiled softly and sighed as she recalled that day. She had been laying out in the sun drawing the children playing in the distance when he appeared in front of her. He just stood there staring down at her for a few minutes then down at the grass around his feet. She thought he had been trying to think of what to say when he bent down and grabbed a dandelion growing next to his foot. Holding it out in front of her face, all she could do was stare at the weed he was offering her, then into his mismatched eyes before taking it from him. And then he was gone. But she understood what he had been trying to say to her and that meant more to her than words.

After that day he started to appear more often and stay longer. They rarely talked, but when they did it never had anything to do with their missions, and they more often teased or flirted playfully instead of talking about anything in particular. She was always amazed at how much they could convey to each other simply by looking into each others eyes. Or more often through less obvious forms of communication like helping with the dinner dishes or siting quietly relaxed in the same room reading. She never complained, after all she got what she wanted. He was letting her back into his life a little more each time he visited and he now knew he had a place to go, where he was wanted, and where she would always be waiting for him.

Then he was there in her doorway that night, covered in blood and staring at her with a strange expression on his face. Her heart had stopped for a moment as she rushed over to him. She had realized after looking him over quickly that he wasn’t dying, but seeing him so broken, in pain and confused as he stared back at her had broken her heart more than when he had disappeared from her life. And all she had been able to do for him was clean him up, try to heal some of his wounds, then offer him a place to rest. That night she realized how useless she was to him so long as he continued to punish himself.

But their friendship had continued like it had been, silently spending time together, as if the company was all they really needed from each other, an occasional playful tease or flirt thrown in. But she knew then she needed him more than he needed her and that she would never be able to tell him. And then he had come again, in the night, broken and bloodied. All the while their friendship continuing on as usual. But then it had started to feel as if they were in two different relationships. The friendship that was comfortable and had become light and playful over time. Then their silent, middle of the night moments full of pain and heartbreak and sadness that she could never convey to him if she wanted him to keep coming back to her.

She had believed she would never have him in her life the way she wanted him. And as he came to her more often over the last two years, in the middle of the night after the most dangerous mission, she had come to accept it. The way she had always accepted and supported him. Because she loved him and respected his reasons for being and living the way he did. Just like when she hadn’t tried to tell him he was wrong for feeling guilty or for blaming himself, she wouldn’t tell him he was wrong for putting himself or her through so much pain. Just like she hadn’t tried to stop him from disappearing from her life or from the world, she wouldn’t stop him from coming and going when he needed to. And so she had found herself silently taking him in and patching him back up only to watch him go back out into the world and break himself to pieces again.

But when he had stayed instead of sneaking out before she woke, the way he had every night before as their routine dictated he would, she had no idea what to think or feel about him and his behavior. So she took it as another step in their friendship. That their two separate relationships were blurring at the edges and would eventually become one over time. She hadn’t been expecting him to stay the whole day, or to watch her clean the house, or fall asleep reading his stupid book. And then he had suggested he would be staying permanently, shattering what she had thought she understood about their relationship, about the boundaries that had been unconsciously created over the years.

She didn’t understand what he was trying to do and it hurt too much to believe that anything other than friendly intentions were involved. But the moment his arms wrapped around her and she heard his voice in her ear she felt more afraid than she had on any mission against all the enemies of the world. It had happened so suddenly and after so many years of having the cold empty space between them, separating them, keeping them just far enough apart to make him feel safe, that she couldn’t believe he was there. But the moment she realized what he was offering to her she surrendered, desperately wanting to grab hold of him just in case he did change his mind so he would finally know how she felt and to hell with everything else.

All the years that she had kept her feelings for him under control, hidden away and guarded, so she could continue to be what he needed her to be, to give him what she knew he needed from her. She could no longer pretend, she no longer wanted to pretend. And in that one kiss, their first kiss, she knew she wanted, no, needed to show him how she felt. The way he had shown her in the way he kissed her, held her face in his hands, responded to her touches.

The memory of last night brought Moiya back to what she had been thinking about when she started remembering how she had come to be here in the arms of the man she loved more than her own life, her own happiness. Letting her emotional and physical exhaustion overcome her, she snuggled closer to Kakashi’s warmth before drifting off to sleep. Her final thoughts of how she could spend the rest of her life showing the man she had devoted her life, her heart and even her soul, how much she cherished and loved him already leading her into her a dream.