The primary word for the vacation was: sleep.

Kakashi didn't really remember much of the week off other than sleeping. He would go to bed somewhere around nine to get up eleven or twelve hours later. Given that he'd been prone to losing sleep because of various and numerous students that worried him, it was nice to put a dent on all the hours he'd lost since, oh, January.

The second word that described his vacation was: memorial. He went to it three times, one for each dearly departed member he'd loved and lost, reaffirming himself, reminding himself of his promises and needs. The hours he spend there were painful, hard to go through, but at the same time he felt stronger for it, better for it.

On his second trip he'd run across Iruka, who'd come to visit his recently passed mother, and they'd made an afternoon of it. Iruka didn't particularly want to repeat the previous scenario at a bar, but the two of them ended up having both lunch and dinner together because they'd spent so many hours talking at a restaurant.

So, on Monday morning when he wandered into the building, there was a noticeable skip in his step and brightness about him.

It sapped out of his body in four steps.

That feeling was there, still, that something big, something dark, was going to happen, was about to happen. He found himself scanning the student body as they flittered back and forth, doing a threat assessment and tactical analysis. Shaking his head when he realized what he was doing, he made a beeline to Gai's room.

"Ah! Kakashi, my rival! To what do I owe the rare honor of your gracing your presence on me before--"

"Something's up," he said. It was a testament of the feeling he was getting that he didn't bother to listen to Gai's longwinded and flowery speeches. "I don't know what, I don't know when, but I feel it. Something's going to happen. Big. Bad."

Gai immediately sobered. "How do you know?" he asked.

"I don't know," Kakashi tried to explain. "I just feel it. Whatever it is isn't going to be pretty."

"I'll let Asuma and Kurenai know."

"I'll pass word to Iruka."

The two disbanded from the room and the English teacher walked three steps to his special education teacher's room, ignoring the various students who vied for his attention. He quickly explained his dark perceptions. Iruka frowned, skeptical.

"Look," the Scarecrow finally said, "Every time it happens, every time, I'm right. Something is going to happen."

"I don't doubt you, Kakashi," Iruka said slowly. "I just don't know what to prepare for."

"Prepare for the worst."

That said, nothing happened for three days. Iruka and Kurenai in particular were having a hard time believing it all, but seeing Gai and Asuma - who had seen these premonitions come true time and again - still on edge and eyeing the student body kept them alert.

Thursday was when it happened.

During SSR, Kakashi putting up a pretense of reading (a fact that his book was complaining about loudly) as he kept sweeping his eyes over the class, not knowing what to expect but not willing to let his guard down, he saw the red head of Gaara pass by his room and enter Gai's room, Iruka close behind. He glanced back to his book and managed to read two whole pages before,

"Bullshit!!"

The entire class looked up to see Gaara there, at a desk, rocking back and forth. Iruka was there, bending over, trying to coax him out of his chair. "Come on Gaara, let's go back to class, alright?"

"This is fucking bullshit," the boy muttered, staring at nothing. "It's all fucking bullshit."

Kakashi stood up, walking over. "What's going on?" he whispered.

Iruka shook his head, lifting his shoulders. Gaara got up roughly, pushing the desk aside, overturning it, and stomped out of the room. Iruka followed, helpless to stop it because of the hands-off policy of the school. All he could do was follow and try to coax the child back to an isolated classroom; he couldn't touch the boy for fear of someone taking it wrong or suing the school for assault. Kakashi followed the pair out of the room, watching them turn the corner towards Asuma's room.

The sad truth was that, at the moment, there was nothing he could do. Gaara was the special education department's charge, and he had a class to man. He gave the class a sweep of his eyes again, looking at their concerned, confused faces, and shrugged his shoulders in reply. Even teachers didn't know everything.

The bell rang fifteen minutes later, and the grade disappeared off to their specials while Kakashi went immediately across the hall. Iruka wasn't there. Walking over to the phone, he picked up the receiver and dialed the isolated classes. Someone picked up, a student it sounded like, and the teacher, when she finally got on, didn't know where Iruka was. Frowning, he hung up and called guidance. Nobody picked up. He called the office. Shizune said the pair was in the nurse's office, trying to get the child to take his medication.

After hanging up he stared at the phone in Iruka's room for a long time. His mind was working hard; trying to piece together something he wasn't sure he understood. There were warning bells bouncing across his mind, he knew the bad feeling he was having had to do with what was happening now. Signals were firing back and forth in his mind, but they wouldn't connect, wouldn't form anything.

Unable to process it all, he gave up and wandered around the corner to Team. Iruka's wasn't there to pronounce, "You're late!"

"Where is he?" Gai asked as Kakashi was slinking into his chair.

"Gaara was in your rooms too?"

"Hell yeah," Asuma said. "Scared the hell out of my class."

"Mine, too," Kurenai said. "He even scared me. I've never seen him like that before."

"Yes, it was more than his usual mutterings to himself. Our poor gothic youth was shouting out at phantoms we could not see."

"I'm worried," Kakashi said slowly.

They spent the rest of Team Time wondering what was happening, and over all got very little done.

When the bell rang and the kids filed into their F period classes, Kakashi almost couldn't concentrate on attendance. He only barely started getting through the material when,

"Will the Symtex repairman please call the office."

The students all filed behind his desk quietly while he poked his head outside, saw no one, closed and locked and covered his door, pulled the blinds, and joined the students. He sat between Teams 6 and 9 to prevent any issues to begin with, and looked over at the rest of the class. Team 7 was huddled together; Team 10 right next to them, the boys Kiba and Shino protectively encasing Hinata in their arms. Shikamaru and Ino were also close, Ino once again refusing to sit on the floor because of her white pants.

The lockdown didn't last as long as it had earlier that year, just over half an hour before a pale looking Shizune came through and opened the doors. When Kakashi asked where the old man was, she merely shook her head and said he was busy.

Class was of course shot to hell, no one able to focus on the work because of the lockdown. G period was even worse, the last period of the day and rumors ran through the air. The police were in the building, and there were mutterings that the office was closed - a feat that was unheard of. The Scarecrow squished anybody who talked about it, saying that rumor-mongering didn't do anybody any good. They of course had no idea what that word was, and it was a successful diversion to lead back to class.

There was no Iruka, however.

The bell rang; and he happily threw all the students out of the building, and made a beeline to the office. When he arrived, he could only think of one line.

Silence was oppressive.

The office, a bustling center of activity, filled with noises of phones, calls, students complaining to vice principals, secretaries writing passes, teachers making copies, files being opened and closed, drawers being searched through, etc. But now, there was nothing. No noise, no whisper of activity, nothing.

The atmosphere was not all, the place looked as though a hurricane, perhaps a tornado, had ripped through the walls. The large room was trashed. The half-walls that made the cubicles for secretaries or for students to work were overturned, leaning on desks or flat on the floor. One had a whole punched through it. A fax was in pieces littering the floor amongst the menagerie of posters, papers, copies, and envelopes; to say nothing of the pens, pencils, and other assorted things that are expected in an office. Phones hung by their cords, one desk was completely overturned, and there were dents that looked suspiciously like fists in the wall. It was like something out of a nightmare.

He could only stand there, staring, the silence pressing on him.

Something sparked in his spine, and on their own, his feet started moving. He backed out of the office, casting one last horrified gaze, before backtracking to his corner of the school. He didn't go to his room, he went across the hall to Iruka, and the special education teacher was there, at his desk, head in his hands.

Kakashi closed the door and pulled up a chair. The special education teacher glanced up wearily, his eyes heavy and tired.

"Today was hell," he muttered.

"What happened?"

"You were right. Something was in the water. Gaara went psycho."

Iruka? Using inaccurate vernacular? No, that was unlike him, the statement was completely accurate. And Kakashi was suddenly scared.

"What happened?"

"Something happened over break, I don't know what. But he's been completely silent the entire week, wouldn't even talk when he was aggravated; that's why he was in isolation. Today he finally acted out. You saw him earlier, right?"

"Yeah."

"It gets worse from there. We finally got him to the office, somewhere in lunch I think. We tried to take him to the nurse to take his medication - at least try and attain some kind of rational functioning from him - and he went completely nuts. He tried to lock himself in a room, but someone had their head in the door, and started trying to slam the door on him. Then he ran full tilt into the office. Sandaime was there and he had all the doors closed and locked, and he went to town. You've been in there?"

"Yes."

"I've never, ever, ever seen anything like it. He was frothing, screaming, incoherent. I don't know how we were able to get access to the PA or order the lockdown." There was a long pause, Iruka reliving the moments. "The police were finally able to restrain him, and Yashamaru is here, I think.

"He was misdiagnosed, Gaara was, but I don't know how they could have missed it. He had all the signs, and if it weren't for the fact that Yashamaru insisted on waiting until his triennial next year, I would have tested him myself. I've been suspecting this since he overturned the desk a few weeks ago. And his medication... no wonder it was causing him problems!"

Kakashi realized that his friend's hands were shaking.

"He's not coming back." It was a statement, not a question.

"He shouldn't have been here in the first place. He should have been in an isolated facility since kindergarten. What was his dad thinking putting him an environment like this?"

"That was the same man the tried to kill him, remember?"

Iruka's head shook in his hands. "Make it go away," he moaned.

The English teacher stood finally and pulled on his friends arm. "Come on," he said quietly, "My couch is waiting."

After Iruka was settled and the more socially adept Kurenai was thrown in to help him and she and Asuma and Gai were briefed on what happened, he took a deep breath and went back to the office to see if he could find Sandaime.

His timing turned out to be perfect. Gaara's uncle was stepping out of the principal's office, an officer, Ebisu, Orochimaru, and Tsunade also trailing behind. Kakashi quickly leaned against a wall and pulled out his book, opening it up and turning his ears on.

"Yashamaru," the old man was saying. "I understand this is a lot to take in."

"Yes, it is. He's never acted like this before. I don't know what to say other than I'll find a way to pay for the damages."

"As you've said repeatedly. But for this to occur there must have been some kind of trigger. Did something happen, perhaps over vacation, that may have begun this particular reaction?"

"I don't think..." Yashamaru stiffened slightly, his eyes widening as he remembered something. "Oh, Gaara," he whispered. A hand came to his face, hiding it.

Sandaime nodded, apparently satisfied, and he and his entourage dispersed. The old man saw Kakashi loitering and gave a slight nod. Pushing himself off the wall, he followed the principal into his office. Another cop was still there, filling out forms before getting up to join his partner. The English teacher sat down, and saw that Sandaime looked ancient, older than he ever had.

"There are days when I wonder if it's past time I retired," he said slowly, rubbing his pained face with a withered hand.

"Don't even say that kiddingly," Kakashi said, crossing his legs.

"Everyone's time comes eventually."

"Yours isn't for a long time yet."

A natural pause fell between them, and for the first time Kakashi realized how old this beloved leader was. He was Asuma's father, after all, and the Old Man was always so quietly lighthearted one hardly ever noticed his real age. Kakashi felt something between sympathy and empathy for Sandaime, and he suddenly wasn't sure if he should bring anything up.

"You've a very bad habit towards self sacrificing heroism," the old man sighed. "You get it from Obito, I think."

Kakashi unconsciously stiffened.

"I'm really not in the mood for more of it."

The Scarecrow struggled with it, but finally he said, "Iruka's pretty upset by all this."

"We all are, and the torture is not yet over," the principal said. "I'm certain that reporters out circling the building as we speak, and then there's the emergency faculty meeting tomorrow morning where I need to find some way to explain all this."

"His hands are shaking," Kakashi said. "He looks like I did my first year."

Sandaime looked up, gauging the English teacher. "I will talk with him," he said finally.

"Good." Kakashi paused. "Who do you talk to?"

And here the old man actually laughed. "My grandson, Konohamaru," he replied.

And Kakashi felt that he and his team, and the school, might actually survive the school year.

Both of us disagree with just locking the doors once the whole situation was explained. That kid was a danger to the other students, and because of that, a lockdown should have been called. Of course, that school wasn't all that great to begin with, but... Of course, the local newspaper chewed up the school into little pieces, vomited it, then flushed it down the toilet.

This chapter is also an exercise in not explaining everything. We know exactly why Gaara went nuts. Kakashi could have easily eavesdropped on it, but after discussing it, the two of us thought it better for Kakashi to not be all-knowing. There are some things that, as a teacher, you just won't find out. Since the kid was never officially diagnosed, neither of us ever found out what his issues were. Gaara's issues are explained in the story and if you read between the lines, you can piece together what happened to him.

Also, this chapter feels way too short.