Sakura was determined to wait for Kakashi to return, but after several hours of waiting her imagination of a fourteen-year-old Kakashi and his girlfriend, of the various possible ways he might have broken up with Rin and how he might react if she was to ask him why he hadn't told her about it were as exhausted as Sakura herself. In one last attempt to keep herself awake she picked up the worn out, orange paperback resting on the nightstand and started to read.
She didn't get past the first two lines.
When the book was pulled away from under her face Sakura woke up.
"I'm sorry!", she watched as Kakashi inspected the somewhat crumbled pages, meticulously smoothed out every crease, no matter how small, in silence. She wondered if he might be cross with her for so much as touching his precious Icha-Icha book, mumbled further apologies, which Kakashi didn't seem to hear. After what felt like hours he got up and placed the book on a shelf – high enough to be out of reach for Sakura (at least until she was able to mold chakra again) – before he left for the bathroom.

Sakura still sat in bed when Kakashi returned. She asked, what had happened; Because, yes – he could be a little peculiar when it came to his favourite books, yet Sakura refused to believe that a bit of wrinkled paper would upset him enough to downright ignore her.
"Nothing", Kakashi said. He picked up blanket and pillow that lay neatly folded at the foot of his spare-bed and returned to Sakura.
"Do you mind?"
She shook her head, made room for him. She wrapped her arms around her legs, rested her lips against her increasingly aching knees and watched her own feet move under the sheets. It was the simplest thing to ask, why didn't you tell me she was your girlfriend. Yet she couldn't say it out loud.
"Why-", she finally found the courage to speak, but at the same time Kakashi had decided to end his silence.
"Madara's body was found."

A letter from Kumogakure had arrived today; The body had been discovered close to the country's border with the Land of Frost, after a small earthquake had triggered a landslide. The autopsy was still in process, but his identity had been affirmed.
Sakura listened patiently, nodded from time to time.
"If he's dead...", she said after Kakashi had finished "...how - ?"
Kakashi shrugged.
"Maybe", he said very slowly "It wasn't him to begin with. Maybe it's just me, losing my mind."
Sakura watched him as he leaned back against the wall. She had never noticed that he bit his nails, she thought, then reminded herself that a mere week ago he still had been her chronically masked and completely untouchable former sensei.
Carefully she took hold of his hands, pulled them away from his teeth.
"You're not", she said.
"You couldn't have brought Rin back from the dead", she said. Her fingers traced the fine pattern of scars that covered his skin.
"Neji wouldn't have seen what he saw", she said.
"And Naruto...", there she paused, "Naruto hadn't... I – would have known."
She looked at Kakashi, who had his eyes closed.
"Maybe it is his ghost", Sakura suggested, "Or maybe there's another explanation. Either way, as soon as I'm back on my feet, I'll go to Kumogakure and take a look at that body myself."
At this remark Kakashi opened his eyes, closed his hands around hers.
"You can't", he whispered.
"Why-"
"Because I need you here."

For a second that stretched endlessly they just looked each other in the eye, then Sakura – she didn't really know why – turned her head, slumped back against the wall and said:
"So I can kill you, if things go awry."
Had she so much as blinked, she would have missed Kakashi shaking his head. She didn't. Yet she remained still, waited with a mixture of curiosity and anticipation. She was a little disappointed, when all Kakashi did was squeeze her hands, then let go of them and slip under his blanket.
The second she too lay down, he had his arm wrapped around her, pulled her towards him.
Sakura closed her eyes. Her sense of touch still had not fully recovered, but it was there, undeniable, told her that Kakashi's hand rested flat on her stomach, his thumb drew small circles right below her solar plexus. She felt his lips against the back of her neck, his breath against her skin. And she couldn't tell if it was because of the numbness she had felt the past few days, or for some other reason she did not understand, that this small amount of physical contact felt so much more intimate than any physical intimacy she had experienced so far in her life.