The weekend was bright and sunny, temperatures walking up and trying to touch sixty. Happy and cheery, but Kakashi didn't overly notice it. He spied his neighbors out clearing yards and brushing aside all the sand that they had spilled on their driveways to have traction against snow. The Scarecrow wasn't really in the mood for all the happiness wandering around; it struck him sometimes, where he just had the intense need to brood. The two sunny days were spent curled up on his couch, staring at nothing as something deep in his brain tried to work itself out.

Whatever it was had worked, however, and as Kakashi drove in Monday morning he felt rested and recuperated.

The same could not be said for Gai. Seeing the Green Beast in the hall, Kakashi saw dark circles under his eyes. That was the only sign, however, because he was smiling and bright and acted for all the world as if his job wasn't in jeopardy because an idiot had called DCF. Kakashi walked up to his friend. "Any news?" he asked.

The smile dropped for a split second, and for Gai it was the best indicator that it was bothering him. Deeply. "No, my eternal rival, I have heard nothing from that illustrious institution. They are a sadly overworked collection of caretakers of youth, and this case is clearly not a priority; no doubt it will be several months before I hear word."

Kakashi took a moment, staring at the dark eyes and thinking about the dropped smile. "That sucks," he said. "You're in limbo in the meantime."

Gai openly laughed. "Kakashi your concern is touching! Were I not already dried out I would be shedding tears of movement!"

That thought was slightly disturbing. "There's no need to go that far," he said quickly.

"Ah, but I do, rival of mine," Gai said, slapping a large hand on the Scarecrow's shoulder. "Yours is the friendship I value most in this beloved school, and your thoughts of me give me strength and fuel so that I may continue working at this institution for however long I may have. Besides," he added, flashing a shiny grin and a thumbs-up, "I think I'll come out ahead on this one."

And that made Kakashi feel one hundred percent better.

The day started out well enough, and by the time the bell rang for B period to be let out and for C period to start, Kakashi was making plans to wander to the library and blow off the period. He'd been neglecting his dearly beloved book, and it was currently demanding his attention, poking him from its place in his pocket and letting him know that it had been weeks since it had been opened. The thought of being lost in the bowels of the library, deep it its aisles where no one could find him was too tempting, and Kakashi finished writing up his agenda for his next class and headed out his door with that dreamy thought in mind.

Asuma met him at the doorframe, a more than slightly wild look in his eyes. "Kakashi!" he said. "It's missing!"

Oh, well.

"What's missing?" Kakashi asked.

"The money! It's missing!"

"... What money?"

"The cookie and cake money!" Asuma very nearly shouted. "The fundraiser!"

Ah. The most recent fundraiser for Kakashi's team was a cookie and cake order. The students wandered about the school and their neighborhoods and solicited adults to place and order for some kind of cake or box of cookies. They would collect the money with the order, and then deliver the goods once they arrived. Asuma had been in charge of the collection.

Kakashi blinked. "That finishes this week doesn't it? How much did you have?"

"Over three hundred fifty dollars!"

Several curses filtered up through Kakashi's head, but he decided to remain level headed. "Okay, the obvious questions first. Where was it last?"

"I was keeping it in my desk," Asuma said. "It was in an envelope under all the order forms. I deliberately kept it underneath so nobody could see it. I know I had it this morning. Sakura and Matsuri both handed in their forms. I put it right where I always put it and just now, when I went to check it, it was gone!"

"Who was in your homeroom? Your classes? Was anyone by your desk without your permission?"

"We were doing an exploration in negative numbers today," Asuma said, his hands gesticulating violently. "They were all over the room because those damn desks are tilted and they had to find a level surface. They were on the floor, the front desk, the back counter, the heater..." Asuma closed his eyes, putting a hand unconsciously to his mouth to take a drag of a nonexistent cigarette. "Goddamn it who was using my desk?" he muttered. "Nobody last period, I didn't trust any of them. Who was it in first period?"

Kakashi's mind was also working, mentally filtering through the grade and determining just who would steal that kind of money. When he mentally tallied the first dozen, he gave up, knowing that there were too many who would see that opportunity and be too tempted, or too hard on their luck, or too desperate, or just too stupid to not do so. Then there was the possibility of doing it to be cruel or to get back at Asuma for some reason; of course that list was particularly shor--

"Asuma, have you had Kankuro yet?"

"Last period of the day," Sudoku-sama muttered. "A period was such a pain in the ass today, who was at my desk?"

"Do have Gaara? Or Temari?"

That seemed to snap the math teacher to attention. "Temari? I had her first period. She was working with Genjimaru. She was being really bitchy about something, I don't know what."

"Was she at your desk?"

"No, I don't think so," Asuma said, scratching his face. "Genji I trust, but not her."

Kakashi sighed. "All right, grab Gai and Kurenai. Let's tear your room apart first before we start leaping to conclusions. If we can't find it by the end of the period, we'll make the announcement to SSR that it's missing and start making some inquiries. With luck it'll mysteriously appear before the end of the day."

Between the three of them, they searched every inch of Asuma's room. The desk was the first victim, being completely emptied out and gone through folder by folder and paper by paper. The back counter went through similar scrutiny, checking all the cabinets and the shelves. The desks were given a once over, looking underneath them and around the floor, and the front desk was picked apart as well. The longer it took, the more upset Asuma became, and in the last five minutes of class he had a cigarette out and ready to light before Kurenai snatched it out of his fingers.

"Okay," Kakashi said. "We make the announcement in SSR. I'll pass the word on to Iruka. We'll give them until lunch period. If nothing comes up, then we start pulling them out of lunch and asking them what happened." He paused before adding, "Do you want me to cover for you while you go have a cigarette?"

A deep breath and, "No, thanks. I've got it." Asuma's face was black as a thundercloud.

The bell rang, and Kakashi stopped briefly across the hall to pass on to Iruka what was happening. Naruto was already in the room and working on his vocabulary. Gaara was there with his head on his desk.

"Three hundred fifty dollars?" Iruka repeated, his eyes widening in shock. Naruto and a few other students looked up. "That's a lot of money."

"It's also a world of trouble to the student who's caught with it," Kakashi added glibly. "Theft is a criminal offense, after all. I'm already picturing over a dozen different faces in orange jumpsuits and hand-and-ankle cuffs. Anyway, pass the word and we'll see what happens."

Back in his room, Kakashi briefly made the announcement. As expected, several students did not take it seriously in the slightest; happily announcing that they stole it to buy a new car or some other absurdity. Others were more than happy to point the finger, usually at the "losers" of the grade that everyone hated. Naruto's name came up with disgusting frequency, but between Kakashi's declaration that pointing fingers usually means you have something to hide and the furious stares of Sasuke and the angry "Hey!" of Sakura, his SSR quieted pretty quickly.

Kakashi's normal rule of only one person to the bathroom he let slide on the off chance that someone would use the excuse to give the money back, and he overall kept a keen eye on the kids, looking for guilty looks or anxious faces. But they were all reading (or pretending to read) and only three people left the room. Naruto had finished his work in Resource and had quietly slipped over, taking his normal seat and pulling out his manga. He glanced at Kakashi twice, but made no indications that the teacher should come over and so the English teacher waited.

The bell rang, and as he was getting up to ask Asuma if the money had returned, Naruto tugged at his sleeve.

"Kakashi-sensei," he said softly, watching the door and waiting for the class to empty out. When it was just the two of them, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a roll of money. "I, uh, found this. In the boy's bathroom."

Kakashi took the roll slowly, looking at the thickness and mentally estimating; it was all the money. He looked to the boy. "The boy's bathroom?" he asked skeptically.

Naruto looked down. "Sensei, you said that theft was a criminal offense."

"Are you admitting to stealing the money?" That was just impossible, it was Naruto!

"No!" the blond said quickly, startled at the though. "But I might have had to... well... steal it back."

It took a lot for Kakashi to be speechless, but for a full forty-five seconds he could think of nothing to say as he processed what the boy had just revealed. Pride suddenly radiated off Kakashi, and he saw Naruto sense it; the boy blushed and looked around, unsure why he suddenly felt embarrassed.

"Would you be willing to name who this person you - hypothetically - had to steal from?"

"Hypo-what?" Naruto blinked, but then he realized the rest of the sentence, and he started shaking his head almost violently. "Nuh-uh! No way! They'd kill me if they found out it was me!"

It was more than one person, then; two or more people in league with each other. That would help narrow down the list. "That's okay Naruto. You're heroic enough for just returning the money. Get to class before the 'they' you mentioned notice anything."

"Yes, Kakashi-sensei!"

Asuma was thrilled to get the money back, and was completely pole-axed to learn it was Naruto who had returned it.

"I need a cigarette," he muttered, pulling out a pack and disappearing from Team.

"We need to reward him for this," Iruka said. "This is good. This is good; he needs some kind of positive reinforcement for that, if nothing else to let him know he's not going to jail," he added, leveling a flat glare to Kakashi. The Scarecrow flipped a page of his book in reply.

"We can give him a good citizenship award," Kurenai said, "That is, if we had that category."

"That is a good idea," Gai agreed, his eyes noticeably brighter with this bit of good news, "but those awards are at the end of the year. I think it best to give him a more immediate reward."

"A certificate," Kakashi offered. "We used to have them back when we did student of the month. We can blow it up to a full-page size; have the old man and everyone here sign it. Something nice and flowery."

"And maybe a prize of some kind," Kurenai added, running her hand through her locks of hair. "Like a gift certificate to the school store."

"Better yet, a bookstore," Iruka said. "Like three manga comic books or something. He's addicted to those things, and his language and reading skills and increased exponentially because of it."

"A gift that keeps on giving," Kakashi said. "I like it. Now who's good with Photoshop?"

They'd spent all of Team on that certificate. Asuma, when he'd returned, had looked at the sketch Kurenai had drawn up and began to make it on the computer while Gai dug out some of their old high-gloss paper. Meanwhile, Iruka and Kakashi made a list of the manga that they'd seen Naruto read or talk about, trying to figure out which one's he'd be most interested in.

It was printed after school, and after Kakashi scrawled his signature with permanent marker on the high-gloss paper he drove to the bookstore with the list they'd come up with, deciding finally to buy two volumes of a series and an art book of a ninja manga he enjoyed (this was in addition to several purchases of his own). The next morning he filled out the form for reimbursement and checked with Sandaime to see if he'd signed the certificate. He had.

Putting the manga into a manila envelope, he stopped off at Asuma's room to pass it off. Given his abject fear of whomever it was that stole the money in the first place, they all agreed it would be a private ceremony.

Wandering over to Kurenai's room, he saw that Iruka and Gai were already there. They gathered into Kurenai's back room and, within five minutes, Asuma trailed in with a nervous looking Naruto in tow.

"Am I in trouble?" he asked, his eyes darting across all the teachers nervously.

"Oh, about the biggest trouble you could possibly get in," Kakashi said lightly.

"I told you I didn't steal anything!!" he shouted, suddenly backing up in abject fear.

"Oh, really?" Gai said, "Then I guess we don't need to reward you."

"... Reward me?" the boy repeated, clearly confused.

Iruka knelt down. "Naruto, for finding and returning the money that was stolen yesterday, we want to present you with this." He pulled out the envelope and gave it to the boy. He took it tentatively, clearly expecting handcuff inside. He opened and overturned it, his face becoming openly shocked as he saw the manga fall through his hands to the floor.

"Wh-what?"

"There's more in there, pull it out," Iruka pressed.

With some tugging, Naruto pulled out the certificate, the fancy script and large letters jumping out at the boy. He read it slowly, and then again, and then again. He stared at the signatures, and then finally glanced down at the manga.

"This... this is for me?" he whispered.

"Yes," Asuma said. "It's a thank you. Not many people would do what you did, and it deserved a reward."

"Wow..."

The moment hung, all the teachers welling with pride and Naruto shocked at such an act being done to him, before Kakashi judged that too much time had passed.

"Well, anyway," he said. "You go enjoy yourself. We have homeroom to get to."

The spell broke, and they all shuffled out of Kurenai's room. The Scarecrow noted that Temari was stared at them as they filed out.

Well, Naruto just couldn't be quiet. He announced to the whole world that the teachers had given him a certificate of heroism, signed by the principal, and manga as a prize. Everyone had asked what he'd done, and on that score he still kept his mouth shut, not wanting to be killed by the original thieves. Sakura was bursting with pride for him, repeatedly smiling or sporadically hugging him and saying how great it was. Even the ever stoic Sasuke had a tiny grin on his face whenever he glanced at Naruto, and he seemed unusually good-natured about the gaggle of girls that followed him (well, until one proclaimed her love for him, then he went back to leveling flat glares).

The next day found the boy still boasting, but Kakashi could not begrudge the boy the right to bask in the glow of it all. He'd been glow-starved for several years, and wanting to savor it was natural - just as long as he didn't get annoying. The strained look Iruka had between classes indicated that he just might be. Kakashi mentally started germinating possible teasing things to say to Naruto to let the boy know he was going overboard when he heard a resounding crack.

His attention snapped to the students in the halls, and he was surprised to see a collection of eighth graders there. The students were all gathering around something by Kurenai's lockers, and Kakashi made a direct beeline, shouting "Move!"s and "Excuse me!"s as he shoved his way through the wall of kids.

On the floor was Naruto, flat on his back on the tiles, slowly lifting an arm to his head. Sakura was there, screaming and crying by his head while holding her shoulder. The wall was closing in, giving the pair a claustrophobic sense of containment. Kakashi raised his voice.

"Give them room!"

The students instinctively backed away from his volume, remembering all to well the time he had silenced the entire hallway from his room in January.

He knelt down and bit back one of his finer curses when he saw all the blood. Naruto's face was covered in it.

"What happened?" he demanded of Sakura.

"Those eighth graders! Kimihiro and Shizuka, they just rammed his head into the lockers! Sensei, he's bleeding!!"

"I can see that, Sakura," Kakashi said slowly, keeping his voice calm.

Kurenai appeared from somewhere, plastic gloves on her hands. "I've called Tsunade," she said quickly, "She's calling an ambulance as we speak. Help me take him to the Health center." She pulled out a series of paper towels and clinically began wiping the blood away.

Kakashi moved to pick up the dazed boy, careful not to get blood on his own clothes, Kurenai still wiping away the blood; it kept oozing out of a horrific cut on his forehead, and his eyes kept wandering around, unable to focus.

"Ssensei..." he managed to slur. "Wh'happ'ned?"

"Don't worry about that," Kakashi said softly.

"Ssak'ra, 's sshe okay?"

"I'm right here, Naruto," the pink haired girl said quickly, still rubbing her shoulder.

Kakashi stood up, finally. Naruto was surprisingly light in his arms; the boy's clothes were so baggy one rarely realized that he was small for his age. The students were still hovering, some cheering at the blood while others were white with terror. The English teacher took a deep breath.

"Back to your classrooms!"

Even that did not pull them away from the carnage, but Asuma and Gai were already at work, shouting and badgering students back to where they belonged while Kakashi started walking down the hall, Kurenai at his side and still working to wipe away the blood. He turned his head slightly. "Sakura, with me."

The girl immediately followed suit, and he quickly realized he had another follower, Sasuke. He allowed it for the moment, he didn't really have time to try and kick him back to class. The procession made it to the Health Center without incident, class had already started and while Kakashi was certain they turned a few heads, no mob started. Tsunade met them halfway and immediately started doing her own assessment. They went not to the center, but outside; an ambulance was already waiting.

"I'm impressed," he said. "They usually get here in fifteen minutes."

"It's been fifteen minutes," Tsunade growled. "What the hell took you so long?"

"It's called a mob," he said glibly. "Look at Sakura, I think she was pushed, too."

Sasuke turned startled eyes to the girl. "I'm fine!" she insisted. "I'm fine! But Naruto--"

"Don't worry, Sakura," Kakashi said lightly. "He's in the very best of hands." With much effort, Tsunade and specifically Sasuke were able to pull her away and back to the Health Center. Turning to Kurenai, he said, "I'll ride with him to the hospital until he's settled. Make sure his foster father's called, and I'll call you when there's news." He realized belatedly that Kurenai was white as a ghost. She could only nod mutely before turning and reentering the school.

By now the EMTs had Naruto safely strapped in, and Kakashi followed them into the ambulance.

"Sensei, my head hurts," the boy complained, sounding much more lucid.

"I imagine it does," Kakashi said lightly.

"Okay," an EMT said, "I'm going to ask you some very simple questions, alright?"

"Do you have to?" Naruto muttered. "Just gimme an aspirin and let me go to sleep."

"We have to make sure nothing scrambled your brains, Naruto," Kakashi said, keeping his voice light. "We wouldn't want you to suddenly start thinking you're Sasuke, would we?"

"Ew! Don't even say that kidding!" the boy winced at the thought, again bringing his hand to his bleeding forehead.

"What day of the week is it?" the EMT asked.

"I don't know," Naruto said. "I never know."

"Certainly you do. Have you had Social Studies yet?"

"Yeah..."

"What was your warm up?"

"Current events. Oh, then today is Wednesday."

And so the EMT went on asking simple general knowledge questions. Kakashi needed to prompt Naruto a few times. Despite their best efforts, the kids would never retain some pieces of information; they were too busy just surviving. The first president of the United States? The hint is Sakura, a.k.a. cherry trees. What's your home address? Reword it to how you get to school. What month is it? Well it was a Fool's Day over the weekend; and so on. Naruto did manage to answer the questions though, and by the time they arrived at the hospital he was very cranky.

"It's just a stupid headache, all I need in an aspirin!"

"We'll let the doctor's decide that," Kakashi said.

"Why do you gotta take their side?" he whined.

"Because they know what they're doing, Naruto. Do you remember those test questions you wrote for Sasuke and Sakura? The doctors have their own tests questions, and their curriculum is in a language even I don't know."

"But you know everything, sensei," Naruto exclaimed.

"Omnipotent, Naruto, not omniscient. I don't know medical jargon, otherwise I'd bust you out of here myself."

The EMT riding with them grinned, but got right to work wheeling the boy into the hospital. Kakashi was just as quickly relegated to forms, and he quickly explained that he wasn't a parent but a teacher; he gave Yondaime's name and the nurse went about looking him up to call. Kakashi, too, whipped out his cell phone and dialed the school, passing on to Tsunade that they'd arrived at the hospital and that the doctors were looking at the boy now. He learned from her that Sakura and been next to Naruto when the eighth graders had shoved the boy, and that she'd banged her shoulder into the lockers but that aside from some ugly bruises she was fine. She was actually still in the Health Center, had refused to leave until she heard that Naruto was fine, and so Kakashi told the head nurse to put her on the phone.

"Kakashi-sensei! Is he okay? Is he okay?!"

"Breathe, Sakura, breathe," the English teacher said lightly.

"But there was so much blood!"

"Well, the doctors are looking at him now," he said, still keeping his voice singsong and unaffected. "He answered all the questions right in the ambulance, so I'm pretty sure we can rule out any serious injury. He does have a very thick head, after all."

"Don't make this a joke!" she cried out, but there was a smile in her voice, and Kakashi knew she was relieved to hear the good news.

"Do you think you can go back to class now?" he asked. "If for no other reason than to tell Sasuke to stop glaring at the world like I know he's probably doing right now?"

There was a long pause, Sakura clearly not wanting to go back.

"There's nothing more you can do, Sakura," Kakashi said, his voice becoming much more serious now. "You have to get back to class and let Sasuke know everything is all right. You also have to take very good notes for Naruto for when he gets back."

"... Okay."

"Good, now give the phone back to Tsunade-sama, please."

They exchanged a few final pleasantries, and Kakashi had finally hung up when he heard a booming voice.

"Kakashi!!"

The teacher turned around to see the frantic face of Yondaime as he thundered into the room. Yellow Flash had looked that frantic twice that Kakashi saw, and the resemblance as always was startling and painful. He pushed it aside however, and walked up to the man who was currently throwing out some very creative explicatives.

"The first thing I'd recommend is calming down. I'm sure wherever Naruto is he can hear you from there."

"You don't know where he is??"

"He's with the doctors, but no I don't know the exact room. Would you like to calm down now, or be thrown out before you see him?"

That seemed to work, and the blond man took several deep breaths, willing himself to quiet. A nurse nervously asked if he was Uzumaki Naruto's father, and soon he was filling forms. When he was finished, he turned his very blue eyes to the Scarecrow and demanded to know what happened. Kakashi explained everything he knew, including his speculations on why Naruto had been shoved.

"But they were eighth graders," Yondaime said finally.

"Exactly. Monday, a student or group of students stole several hundred dollars from a teacher. Naruto got it back, and then the next day he was shouting on from on high that he had been rewarded for a good deed. The student or group of students figured out exactly what happened, I believe, and wanted payback without drawing attention for themselves, ergo the eighth graders."

"Isn't this all a little complex for middle school?"

"You'd be surprised at exactly what a middle school student is capable of," Kakashi said, remembering what Kankuro had done just last week to get a teacher, to get Gai, in trouble. The Scarecrow suspected strongly that the boy was the one responsible for the theft of the money, but he had no proof and therefore kept his mouth shut.

"Excuse me, Yondaime-san?" A doctor came up and the two men immediately stood. He blinked a moment, looking at the blond. "There must be a mistake, you're listed as his foster father, not his father."

"I am," he said quickly. "I know. We do look a lot alike."

"And you are?" the doctor said, looking to Kakashi.

"Hatake Kakashi," he answered. This was the part where he was going to be told he wasn't family and to beat it, but,

"He's family too," Yondaime said, overriding whatever the doctor was about to say. "How is Naruto? Is he okay?"

"He's whining up a storm, if that tells you anything," the doctor replied, smiling. "There's no serious damage, no concussion either. I think we'll want to keep him overnight for observation, make sure nothing happens, but I'm about ready to give him a clean bill of health."

"Oh, thank god!" Yondaime said, letting out an explosive breath. "Can we see him?"

"Of course. Right this way."

The doctor led them through the halls to the boy's room, and both adults were happy to see him sitting up and squinting at them. There was a patch hidden under a wrapping of gauze around his head. Without the blood, it looked much less morbid, and Kakashi found himself letting go a breath he wasn't aware he'd been holding. Meanwhile, Naruto looked outraged.

"You asshole!" he shrieked. "You can't afford to just get off work like that! What the hell are you doing here?!" Given that his finger was pointing dangerously at Yondaime, Kakashi assumed that was the focus of his rage.

The foster father reacted in kind. "What am I doing here? What am I doing here?! I get a call that you're going to the hospital and you expect me to just say 'Oh! Okay thanks for passing it on, I've got a meeting to get to'?! What kind of foster father do you take me for?"

"An asshole, obviously!!"

"Ungrateful brat!"

"Stupid foster!"

"Knucklehead!"

"Ah, there's so much love in the air," Kakashi interjected lightly. The pair gave identical blushes, as if only just realizing that there was another party in the room. He gave them an unguarded grin before turning to the boy. "So, you're okay?" he asked.

"Uh, yeah. I guess," he replied, still embarrassed at how he and his foster father were reacting.

"Good. Sakura and Sasuke will be very happy to hear it. Oh, and you'll still be responsible for all the work that you miss. Just thought I should mention."

"You--" Any explicative the clearly energetic Naruto might have given was cut off as Kakashi quickly spun on his heal and left the room, leaving the two alone. He did hear some new shouts thrown at the door, but he just whistled tunelessly while he again pulled out his cell, happy to pass on the good news.

The week was not over of course.

Naruto, Yondaime said, was to be kept out for the rest of the week. His head was killing him, and the Yellow Flash doppelganger thought it better to be safe than sorry. The team had been relieved to hear the good news, Kurenai's color finally came back and Gai made several obligatory (and long-winded) speeches about youth, while Iruka just let out a breath and sank into his chair. The following period, Sakura and Sasuke, too, looked much happier to hear about the clean bill of health. Sasuke, the teacher noted, was holding an icepack to Sakura's shoulder.

The next day, the weather finally stopped flirting and finally cleared sixty. The warm weather was germinating energy in the students; there were a lot of eyes wandering out the windows, looking for signs of budding trees or green grass.

Kakashi spied Team 1 in a tight huddle as he walked in Kurenai's dent of a hall leading to her corner room. It was a sight he had started to see more and more of, and he was curious. This deep into the year, however, the grade knew just how good Kakashi was at, well, anything, and at first site the three of them immediately snapped their mouths closed. That made him wonder even more, but he pressed on and let them get back to talking. He had other ways to learn things; he'd keep his ear to the ground if he got signs that something would happen.

And, as it turned out, something did happen.

They had all ordered sandwiches from a local sandwich place, and Kakashi had gone to the front with the money to collect the foodstuffs and pay the delivery boy. He'd just stepped back into the school to see Ebisu (a man he didn't particularly like at the moment) and Ibiki run into the cafeteria. It was currently seventh grade lunch, and he poked his head in to see what was what.

Not three feet from him he watched as Ibiki pulled Temari off a scratched up and bleeding Sakura, who was holding her head. Bits of pink hair were on the floor.

He sighed. Catfights were always so much more vicious. Ebisu and the other teachers half pulled and half dragged the girls to the office, and he watched with more than mild interest as Sasuke trailed after them, and even more interest when he saw Kankuro and Gaara watching it all. He couldn't do anything about it, at least until someone called him, and by this point he was sort of hoping in a rare moment of selfishness that he wouldn't have to step in. Even he got tired of one catastrophe after another.

He passed the word on as he entered Team, handing out the sandwiches and salads. Iruka wrote it all down as he bit into his meatball sub. "It's cold," he muttered.

"My salad has pepper," Kurenai muttered. "I hate peppers."

"You did say all veggies."

"Yeah, but their menu never said anything about peppers."

"You mean to say this is how you spend your time; complaining about food?"

All five teachers spun around to see Sasuke standing there, glaring at them. His fists were balled at his sides, shaking in anger. Kurenai started to say, "Sasuke, you're supposed to kno--"

"And you're supposed to care!" he yelled, cutting her off. "You're the people who are supposed to give a damn about what happens to us! Instead you're talking about your damn lunches!"

Kakashi stood up. "Come with me," he ordered, walking up to and then past the boy. "We need to talk." He threw a glance at the team before heading out the door, taking long strides around the corner to his room. When he opened the door Sasuke mutely followed, and the English teacher left the lights off and closed the door behind him.

"Sit down."

Sasuke didn't move.

"I said sit down," he repeated, changing the pitch of his voice. Sasuke's gave a near imperceptible flinch, but still held his ground.

"You can't make me," the boy replied, fire in his eyes. For a brief moment, Kakashi saw a resemblance to the boy's brother, Itachi.

The teacher sighed. "Okay, we can do this standing if you want. Let's start at the beginning, shall we?"

Sasuke only continued to glare.

"That's you're cue to start yelling and screaming blue murder," Kakashi offered, taking his seat at the front desk. "This is the part where you yell and shout at me that I'm not doing anything, about what good I am because in spite of all the drama and tragedy that's happening at the school - and believe me, there's more stuff happening than you could even guess at - we teachers finally had an unplanned moment of humanity: we complained about the food we ordered out." He paused, gauging the student. "Well?" he said, "Aren't you going to start shouting?"

"Look at what's happening!" Sasuke stated, determined not to rise to Kakashi's bait and start yelling. He didn't realize that the true bait was getting the boy to start talking. Kakashi leaned back and listened. "You haven't lifted a finger all week over this!!"

"And what is 'this'?" he asked, sounding perfectly coy.

" 'This' is that bastard Kankuro! Isn't it obvious? He's the one who planned on stealing that damn money from Asuma-sensei; he had Temari do it so they could give it to that bastard Gaara!! Everything's because of that bastard!"

"I'm sorry, but which bastard?" Kakashi asked, still keeping his voice light. He was going to get some prime information out of this; Sasuke was better informed than he was. Was that because Naruto trusted his teammates? Kakashi believed it was.

"Don't you ever pay attention?!" Sasuke shouted, now completely worked up, his anger overtaking his reason. "They're always causing trouble! Temari and her snide know-it-all jabs at Sakura, Kankuro starting all the fights and stealing the money, Gaara and his freaky outbursts, they're nothing but trouble! And you do nothing! You just let them keep messing with people! What the hell ever possessed you to put those three together?" And so the rant started, Sasuke reciting and entire litany of what Team 1 did over the course of the school year, from Temari manipulating the girls and inciting Ino and bullying Sakura to Kankuro and his behind the scenes antics to Gaara's silent intimidation of everyone around him. The Scarecrow was reminded, not for the first time, that the student perspective of things was sometimes deeper than his. He was good, certainly, but he wasn't with the same group of kids since kindergarten, like the kids were; Kakashi only had a set amount of months to see the students, in a school setting and limited further by any or all absences. The students saw each other upwards of every day, in multiple settings, and often knew things that adults would never know.

Listening to the rant, Kakashi had new insight to Team 1. Kankuro could calm Gaara because he was the only one manipulative enough to get under Gaara's skin and apply ice to the hot zones. Kankuro was a student, too, making him much more approachable than the authority figures of teachers. Temari fit in by keeping them on an even keel, preventing one or the other from getting in too deep, and serving as the one to keep their grades up, helping them stay invisible, under the radar. It was a stellar set up, but they used their newfound power selfishly, from the looks of it. The theft and the abuse of Gai was testament to that.

"And you just sit there on your ass!!' Sasuke concluded, finally out of words.

He gave the child a pause, letting him take a breath and calm down, or at least stop seeing red. When enough time had passed, Kakashi said, "And therein lies the core of the problem. You're not angry at me for doing nothing, you're angry at yourself."

The boy snapped to attention, his face a complex mix of emotions.

"You can't be angry at me for doing nothing, Sasuke, because you of all people have seen what I do for you. I was at the hospital, helping you through the entire DCF process, I helped you escape from the grocery store, took you home when you had no where else to go; and by now I think you've figured out that whenever things are problematic but doesn't need teacher intervention I push you to your team, Naruto and Sakura. No, you're not upset that I do nothing; you're upset that you've done nothing.

"But that thought is erroneous, Sasuke. You do much more than you realize."

"No, I don't," the boy whispered, looking down and hiding his face with his thick locks of dark hair. Finally, the boy sank down into a chair. "No I don't. They're so much further than me..." There was a deep intake of breath, releasing in deep shudders. Was Sasuke crying? Kakashi couldn't tell. "Even Naruto..."

"Sasuke," Kakashi drew out, sighing himself. "You can't judge your emotional development on those two. Sakura had a warm, healthy, well-adjusted home. Of course she's 'further' than you, she's been in an environment where she can become very strong emotionally.

"Naruto, meanwhile, I don't think is as far ahead of you as you think. He's a boy who hides a lot of his pain. Actually, if you want to be picky, he's much better at it than you." Sasuke's head lifted slightly. "He hides it by being constantly being positive. I'm sure you've heard all his proclamations, his 'believe its!', his goofy jokes, and even his deliberate clumsiness. He feeds off of all that positive energy, and it prevents him from going completely insane. That's how he defends his psyche from the kind of onslaught that he's been put through.

"That's very different from you, because you've come from both of those worlds. You know what the warmth and kindness of Sakura's world is like, and you know the tragedy and pain of Naruto's. Having so recently coming from both, you haven't figured out your own defense mechanisms. Or rather, the only thing you can think of to do is brood, be quiet, be dark, because that's how you view your life. Am I right?"

There was no response.

"Sakura and Naruto don't see you like that. They see you for who you are. But I think you know that. You know it so well, you're so grateful for it, that you want to do anything you can for them."

The boy glanced up at him, but only briefly. Kakashi mentally sighed in relief for finally hitting the right buttons.

"And we're back to what we were talking about before. You're only twelve years old, and there's only so much that you can do. Last time I told you that you couldn't do anything; and for that particular problem you can't. But for this you can. The funny part is that you're already doing it."

Finally, Sasuke looked his teacher full in the eyes, raising his head and allowing his shocked and confused expression to show.

"You're there for them," he said simply. "You're wrong if you think I don't watch. I saw you follow us when we were taking Naruto to the ambulance. I saw you later that day holding the ice pack on Sakura's shoulder because it was awkward for her to do so and do her work. You followed again today at lunch, and I'm certain you had your own say in whatever it was that lead up to that catfight. I'm curious, how many times do you find an excuse to stop by their houses, to make sure they're okay?"

Sasuke looked away, embarrassed that a teacher knew him so well.

"Sasuke," Kakashi pressed. "It's something to be proud of, what you're doing. You're displaying a kind of strength. It is, perhaps, the best kind of strength to have. You're much stronger in that field than I am, and I want you to keep training in it. Get as good as Sakura, get as good as Naruto if you really think he's further than you. Be proud of that strength you have."

He stood. "When you're ready to get back to class, knock and come in, and I'll give you a pass."

Kakashi left the boy in his room and went back to Team. He had a lot to pass on before the bell rang.

Most of this is a true story. I had money from a fundraiser disappear from where I (Mirror) was hiding it to have it mysteriously return when we started questioning students. In a separate incident, there was a student who had his head rammed into the lockers, like Naruto, because some eighth graders were in the hall when they weren't supposed to be in. (The lockers were permanently dented.) There was yet another student I had who, over the course of the year, would return money when people dropped it, and fundraiser money that a fellow teacher left out. (He was a sweetie. Lord knows how, given how the rest of his family were jerks and dreaded whenever you had them in class...) Technically, whenever there is blood involved, you're not supposed to touch it. That's why Kurenai was cleaning up, she had plastic gloves. Kakashi, however, shouldn't have picked up Naruto and carried him to the ambulance in case there were other injuries he could aggrivate. But this is Kakashi, and with his military and battlefield experience, he just wouldn't sit still for the EMTs to arrive.

For any of you who are expressing great disbelief in Kankuro deliberately harming himself in order to get a teacher into trouble from last chapter: That was a true story from a coworker, including the questioning-of-the-class that solved it. Neither of us can stress this enough, it's a different culture, it's a different mode of thinking, and it's more reactionary than thought not. The DCF mess that Ebisu created, happened to one of us directly, however, and that was the MOST DIFFICULT part to write of the entire story. Gai's speach on how he will keep teaching made me cry writing it, and Image cry reading it. What Kankuro did was secondary to the botched handling of calling DCF and being interviewed without a union representative in the room. That was the most DANGEROUS part of the chapter. *shudder* Moving on.