blackkatmagic:

The very first thing Sakumo does
when he wakes is reach for his son.

I understand why you made the choice you did, and I’m proud of you.

The words ring in his head,
absolution where he never expected it, and he chokes on a breath, a cry. He curls
his hand around Kakashi’s elbow where he lies limp, hangs on to his child as
cries ring through the rubble. He has Kakashi, Kakashi is alive, Sakumo is alive and even if he can’t understand
the whys and hows of it he doesn’t care.

Kakashi forgave him, praised
him, and twenty years of cold, dark loneliness, full of regret, have been
washed away beneath a tide a relieved joy.

His eyes burn beneath closed
lids, and Sakumo can feel the sun on his face. He tips his head back, a breath
shuddering through him, and lets himself believe that everything will be all
right.

---

The hospital hasn’t changed
much, he thinks wryly, the second time he comes back to consciousness. It’s
been upgraded, and the walls have been repainted, but everything else is
precisely the same as he remembers, right down to the sharp smell that always
makes him want to sneeze.

Sakumo is alone in the room, the
curtains drawn tightly. No way to tell what time it is unless he gets out of
bed to check, and his limbs feel far too heavy to even consider it. His body is
weighted down, but—

His mind is lighter than it’s
ever been.

I understand why you made the choice you did, and I’m proud of you.

He smiles, feels it curl his
mouth in a way that’s become all but unfamiliar, and tells himself he won’t cry
again. No more of that, not now, not when what he had never thought could
happen actually did.

There are footsteps in the hall
outside, brisk but not rushing. Professional, and Sakumo marks them as they
approach, listens as they pause before his door. There’s a long moment, and
then a hand on the knob, a click. The door opens, and a woman in a white coat
enters, eyes on the clipboard in her hands. Her hair is dark, pinned up in a
complicated knot, and her face is forgettable, but vaguely pretty.

One glance up and brown eyes
meet Sakumo’s as her brows lift in quiet surprise. She looks him over, then
says, “Welcome back to the land of the living, Hatake. Are you feeling all
right?”

Sakumo takes a deep breath,
smells oleander blossoms and ghostly nightshade with something sharp beneath. He
smiles, and it takes less effort than before. “Tired,” is the only complaint he
has.

The slant of her mouth softens
just a little, not quite sympathy but maybe not entirely divorced from it. “Pein
called back all the souls that were close, but some had farther to travel than
others. If it helps, the Yondaime isn’t back on his feet yet, either, and he
was dead almost a decade less than you.”

Sakumo wonders if anyone else in
the world would catch the waver in that steady voice. Likely not; he was dead
but hardly departed, and he had more than time enough to watch everyone he
loved while he was gone. There’s no one else close enough anymore to pick out
the tells.

“Jiraiya,” he says, and watches
her check the nurse’s notes on the form at the end of the bed. “I thought I felt
him lingering as well.”

The pause before she answers is
just half a beat too long. “He came back as well, though I have no idea how,
given that he died all the way in Ame.”

“He was watching over you,” Sakumo
says gently, and doesn’t let the stiffening of narrow shoulders stop his next
words. “I know it felt like we left, but…we were always there.”

A slow, careful breath, and she
turns away, long earrings swaying. “I think you’re confused,” she says
dispassionately. “I’m—”

Sakumo laughs, and it’s rough in
his throat but he means it kindly. “Lovely, you should know by now that even
you can’t fool a Hatake nose.”

For an endless, breathless
moment, there’s no sound, no movement. Then the ripple of a henge fading slides
across the doctor’s body, and Orochimaru sets the clipboard down on the foot of
the bed.

“You were supposed to be asleep,
mutt,” he says, and the words are harsh but he isn’t looking at Sakumo, which
means more than tone ever could. “Trust you to complicate everything.”

The urge to smile fades. Sakumo knows
precisely what his death did to this man. Ironic, really, that he and Kakashi reacted
so differently, but were also so much the same. Orochimaru threw himself into
Root, devoted himself to his research, and Kakashi clung to his training, to
the rules of shinobi life. They’d both shattered, in the end, and Sakumo will
never forgive himself for being the trigger.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and it’s a
worthless apology, but it’s all he can offer.

Behind a fall of raven hair, he
can just see the way Orochimaru’s mouth tightens. Not anger, he thinks, though
that would make him feel better. But—grief, maybe, and it aches somewhere deep
inside of him.

“No one knew,” Orochimaru tells
him, perfectly even, but his eyes are on the covered window. “It was a secret
even from your son. And when you killed yourself, there was nothing I could do.
No way to step in. He grew up thinking I was just another monster.”

Sakumo closes his eyes, chest
aching, because there’s nothing he can say. He’d worried, once, what people
would think of him, taking up with a younger man after the death of his wife. Worried
what Kakashi would think of him, how he would react, and Orochimaru had never
seemed to care whether it was a secret or not, but—

Clearly he did, and Sakumo was a
fool not to see it.

A fool for so many reasons,
really.

The touch of cool fingers against
his cheek is a surprise, and Sakumo blinks, looking up into the elegant,
strong-boned face of the man he left behind. Golden eyes are eerie in the
darkness, but there’s no rage in them, no hate, even though Orochimaru has
every right.

“Twenty years,” Orochimaru says,
cupping his cheek, even though there’s nothing soft in his expression. “Twenty
years of looking for a way to bring you back, not just find you again. And all
it took was a little boy with a handful of inspiring words.”

It takes far more effort than it
should, but Sakumo reaches up, presses his hand over Orochimaru’s and laces
their fingers together. “I think,” he says, faintly wry, “that it was a little more complicated than that,
lovely.”

Orochimaru’s mouth tips up, ever
so faintly. It’s hardly a smile at all, but—

Well. It’s enough to give Sakumo
hope, even so.