Dreams of the Past

Primal Wounds and Apoligies

Chapter fifteen

Primal Wounds and Apologies

He had no idea how long he was sitting in the middle of the field before Sakura found him. Senbei had done his best to comfort him before eventually falling asleep with his head in his lap again. It had been a long day, a nice day. Kakashi had felt so... content. Happy. Sitting beside Sakura, he had almost given in, he had almost...

But then his whole life, everything he always understood about himself, about his father, his mother, and his relationship with Tsu—with the Fifth Hokage crumbled in an instant. He'd hardly made it out of the house before the betrayal, the utter heartbreak of it, poured out of him.

Kakashi hadn't cried—not really—in years. But this... this first pain, one not thought about in decades and buried under so many others, would not be pushed away. He blindly followed Senbei until he was bent over, hands on his knees in the middle of the field, struggling to breathe around suffocating sobs.

Everything, his entire miserable life could have been different if only she had been there. And she had been, just not for him. She wasn't dead as he'd always believed. She was alive and out there, living her life, knowing he needed her but letting him suffer alone. Then she'd had the audacity to waltz back into his life as an adult and make him think she cared, make him think they were friends and never even say anything.

"Boss?"

Kakashi staggered back, sitting down, and let Senbei climb into his lap to lick his face. "I'm okay... I'm..." He coughed, cleared his throat and clung onto the warm, furry dog in his lap. It was so familiar. This was the pain, these were the tears of a child. His ninken had been his only comfort then, Senbei was here with him now.

As the immediate anguish began to ebb, Kakashi tried to organize his thoughts. His mother had always been a vague, tragic figure to Kakashi. She had died when he was born, been beloved by his father and probably beautiful. What her name was, what clan she might have belonged to or even if she was a kunoichi were never things he was given answers to while his father was alive. Then he had died and any interest Kakashi may have had in a dead mother withered along with anything else good or childlike in him.

How many people had known the truth? Was it a secret only his father and his—she knew? Or were there even more people conspiring to keep it from him, to keep him alone and vulnerable? Hiruzen knew, and somehow that did not surprise him. What about Minato? What about Jiraiya?

And...

Why hadn't she wanted him?

As long as he had known her, she had never been able to trust her heart. Letting people in was as hard for her as it had always been for him. She believed for years that she was cursed. Not unlike he had felt for so long. But she cared so much for Naruto, for the village... for Jiraiya.

So why couldn't she love him?

Was it just him?

He hadn't ever dreamed of being Hokage like her little brother or Dan. He had just needed her. She wouldn't have even had to tell him she was his... His mother. Had she just not wanted him? Would it have mattered if he'd come out with blond hair or if he'd been born a girl?

No. Probably not. Like she'd said, she wasn't the mothering type. Her extreme fear of connection only exacerbated the situation. Maybe the woman she would be in twenty-five years could have loved him. Maybe she did. But not enough to tell him the truth.

Not enough to make sure he was looked after when his father had died.

That was what hurt the most.

He could forgive her for not wanting to be a mother. The way his own life had gone, as dark as things had gotten for him, if anyone had brought him a baby even five years earlier claiming he was the father, he probably would have handed it off to the Hokage to deal with and never looked back. Probably.