As Hoshi watched Pakkun-sama talk, and Kakashi relax afterwards she couldn't help grinning as proudly as she ever had in her life. He was awake and he was talking (sort of, well, mumbling his mouth counted!) and he didn't seem brain-damaged or traumatized or whatever else Haruichi had probably been worrying about every time he looked over at this grey-haired guy. He was okay! Look what her Haruichi had done!

Excitement gripped her and she beamed at Kakashi's masked and slightly bewildered face again before gently patting his shoulder and running over to where Haruichi was dozing under his anatomy encyclopedia. Hoshi reached over and lifted the heavy book up by the spine and dropped it onto her chair beside his bed with a careless thump, then gave her fiance's sleeping face a mischieveous look before brushing his hair back and kissing his forehead to wake him up. It always worked, and this time was no different.

Haruichi's eyes blearily opened, saw Hoshi, then were squeezed shut by a yawn as he propped himself up with his good arm. Once he could speak he did, face turned to Hoshi and words carefully framed. He'd been pissed as hell to realize the cast on his arm closed over his wrist, and signing was out the window for a good while, but luckily she was far smarter and more capable than he was when it came to communication. "What happened?" he asked, seeing the bright change in her face and his own expression curious in response.

Hoshi pointed over to Kakashi, who she'd been hovering over just as much as Haruichi when he'd been brought to the room, and Haruichi's eyes snapped over. The read of the monitors, the change in his breathing, the open eye. He was awake. Haruichi only looked at him for a long moment, then felt Hoshi's fingers twin through his own and deliberately brush the little wooden prayer beads she'd looped around his wrist when she'd found him here. He squeezed her fingers gently, and called across the room.

"Looks like my fantastic plan worked out after all, Kakashi. You've even still got all your arms and legs."

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That wasn't something you saw every day. Kakashi watched with surprise as the colourful girl--Hoshi?--woke Haruichi up with a kiss and a smile, and slipped her hand into his. Apparently Haruichi had come back from wherever he'd gone with more than just himself.

That or Kakashi was hallucinating, which was probably much more likely.

Very, very carefully he pulled his left hand up to his face, tugging plastic coils of medical tubing with it. The effort of movement made the monitors rattle out a little complaint of beeps, and shifted pain around in interesting ways under the dull blanket of what had to be some fairly heavy duty painkillers. Kakashi kept at it until he could hook his fingers into the edges of the oxygen mask strapped over his face, and pulled it down past his chin. Without it filling his nose with the scent of plastic and dry air, he managed to breathe in other things. Pakkun's familiar musk, and the antiseptic combination unique to Konoha's hospital. Under that was Haruichi, another dog, and the new mix of his... fiancée. Her scent was mostly drenched in sunshine and happiness.

Haruichi's fiancée.

That was so weird.

Kakashi coughed in an attempt to clear his throat, and managed to rasp, "You're a... genius. How..." he coughed again. "How... long?" Meaning, how long had they been here? How much time had passed? And the unasked question, how bad was it?

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A slight wince quirked Haruichi's eyebrow as he watched Kakashi cough, but it didn't turn into anything worse so he didn't worry. He felt Hoshi's fingers squeeze a little tighter, and rubbed the back of her thumb with his gently. She really had been upset about Kakashi, too. It shouldn't have surprised him, and it hadn't, he just hadn't anticipated it and that was the surprise. He'd already been cleaned up, patched up, knocked out and tucked in bed by the time Hoshi had been called to the hospital - she hadn't seen his uniform, his mask, or the blood. Kakashi, though, she'd seen worse for him. Then nobody had come to sit by his bedside, so Hoshi had when she could pry herself over. And Pika had apparently adopted Pakkun or something when she'd come barking and storming outside the ICU, demanding to know where her mistress's idiot man-toy was. It was all getting complicated and confusing and quite loaded up with emotion - which was how Haruichi knew his fiancée was around, he supposed - and what was there to do but bear it with her? He'd made her cry, coming back like this; even if she had a braver face than him now he wouldn't forget that.

"We got back about thirty hours ago," he told him, glancing to the clock over the door. "And you got out of surgery about fifteen hours ago." Another yawn reared up, but Haruichi had to just leave it and let it show, hands occupied or incapacitated that they were. He blinked and realized his glasses had fallen onto the blankets at his lap. "You're going to be fine. The hospital went all out on healing jutsus in the Ward Chamber and accelerated your healing on top of fixing the damage. I tried to get them to surgically remove your martyr complex but alas, it was beyond the powers of modern medicine."

He lifted his cast-bound arm and pointed one finger in Kakashi's direction. "You're to rest in that bed until somebody says stop. If I have to I'll go to the Palace, get it turned into a mission, and bring the order back and tape it to your forehead. Got it?"

Beside him, Hoshi couldn't read Haruichi's lips at that angle and she didn't much need to. She knew what a Haruichi Lecture looked like, and she couldn't help smiling fondly at her Hyuuga and hopping up onto the bed next to him with a wink at Kakashi as she let her legs kick easily over the side. All the talking had finally woken Pika up from the first nap she'd taken since marching into the room, and the blonde dog yapped once at Haruichi to shut the hell up before shaking her fur out and padding over to Kakashi - fixing him with a blatantly assessing stare... before eventually yapping once at him too and wandering back to sprawl happily on the floor in the middle of the room between the feet of the two beds and their occupants.

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That was a lot to absorb when you'd only been awake thirty seconds. Kakashi blinked, thrown in more ways than one, and tried to pick out the important details. That they'd been back thirty hours was a major one, and he'd been in surgery for at least half of that--which explained the seals wrapped around his right arm. Undoubtedly there would be more around his ankle. Fast healing jutsu to get him back on his feet and mission-fit a lot quicker than normal medicine would.

He'd be able to run missions still. Relief was heady.

The other piece of great news was that Haruichi was fine, judging by his ability to sit up and mouth off. If he was making threats he had to be okay. For the first time since the man had pulled him out of his cave, Kakashi was able to get a clear look at him. Haruichi looked older, but two years of absence would do that. His hair was shorter, but if he'd added any height or muscle, Kakashi couldn't see it. Despite the cast, the IV, and the hospital bed, he looked healthier than the last time Kakashi had seen him. There were no shadows to his skin, and no scent of sickness oozing from his pores.

And there was a girl holding his hand. Kakashi wasn't sure what was surprising him more; that she was doing it, or that Haruichi was letting her.

Pakkun nudged his elbow, sliding a glance at the dog on the floor that had yapped at them both. Kakashi followed his line of sight, and lifted an eyebrow at Pakkun's slightly blissful expression. Then at the prayer beads fastened around one of his front paws. "...what?" he croaked, reaching out to touch them.

"Hoshi gave them to me," Pakkun informed him, chest puffing up slightly with delight. "She wasn't sure if you'd want them, so she gave them to me. Handsome looking, aren't they?"

Kakashi wasn't quite sure what to make of that. He looked at the couple curled together across the room, and smelled happiness too real to be genjutsu or hallucination. He wasn't sure what to make of that, either. After a second he remembered himself enough to pull his hand back and let it drop over his mouth, hiding most of his lower face. The effort was exhausting. When he was masked as best he could manage, he managed to wrap his hazy-feeling mind around one more word. "Thanks." He wasn't quite sure if he was speaking to Haruichi, or the girl holding his hand.

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Hoshi couldn't, but Haruichi heard him. He touched her elbow and inclined his head towards the other bed, picking up his good hand and signing the one-handed motion for 'thanks'. Hoshi, who'd been trying on his square-framed glasses (a favourite past-time, whenever she could get her hands on them) turned and looked at Kakashi through the thick lenses, then smiled and waved. She thumbed Haruichi's glasses up to sit in her brightly coloured hair and signed to him, so he could speak to Kakashi for her just a bit.

Haruichi resisted the urge to nab back his glasses and translated for her. "Hoshi says... she's happy you're awake and feeling better and that--" A small sigh of resignation. "--Pakkun-sama did a very good job of looking after both of us and he is a very clever dog." He turned back to Hoshi and rolled his eyes slightly. "You know it was a joint effort, right?" Hoshi didn't miss a beat and signed back to him. Haruichi nearly spluttered. "I am not splitting the paycheck with him! Do you want furniture in the apartment or not?" More signs. A groan, badly suppressed. "Alright, alright. Pakkun, Hoshi says she'll sew you a cape if you'd like. Kakashi, she doesn't know why you're hiding your face because she thinks you're--hey!"

Hoshi's silent laugh lit up her face again and she nudged him in the side and kicked her slippers off while Haruichi's pale face reddened and he did his best to protest in one-handed sign a whole series of things he'd never, ever say outloud.

Pika, for her part, snorted in canine amusement and settled down to sleep.

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If it were possible to levitate with pride and glee whilst not actually moving, Pakkun was doing just that. His head came up, his chest puffed out more, fur bristling, and he gave Kakashi a look filled with the nobility of sphinxes. Kakashi moved his right hand very carefully, and poked him gently between the ribs. Pakkun ignored him, too busy grinning. "I get a cape, brat. My own cape! How come you never knit me capes?"

If there was a safe way to answer that, Kakashi didn't know it. He contented himself with a wry look, and watched Haruichi's blush deepen from across the room with a great deal of interest. Apparently the medic wasn't have much success winning his argument.

"Though I have to question her taste," Pakkun continued. "I mean, she dates that guy, she thinks you're pretty..." he sat up, looking thoughtful. "You think she'd let me choose my cape colours? I mean, otherwise I don't know what she'd do! I need to have something suitably heroic."

Kakashi swallowed down something that felt oddly like laughter, and looked at Hoshi with much more interest. If she really did plan to knit Pakkun something, he'd feel safe betting it was going to end up colourful. And apparently Haruichi lived with her, judging by that apartment comment. The surprises just kept on coming.

Which begged the question, why on earth was Haruichi back in ANBU if he had a fiancée to worry about?

Kakashi let that thought slip to one side, not feeling quite awake enough to consider it for long, and lifted his left hand just enough to make an ANBU sign. One that spared his throat. He waited until Haruichi looked at him, and flicked his fingers. You okay? He could see the cast, but thirty hours was a long time. Surely he could have left for home a while back, unless there was something else keeping him here.

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Haruichi had hit some sort of barrier in logic in his erh... discussion with Hoshi and knew he was admitting defeat by glancing away, but couldn't help it. His glance to Kakashi sent a clinical little undertone of 'no, of course I'm not bloody well jealous' darting along the back of his mind and he quashed it pretty quickly by focussing on the hand gesture while Hoshi hit the winch on the bed and propped up the top half even more as she settled in.

Hn. He'd realised. Haruichi glanced to Hoshi, who was busy stealing most of the blankets and pillows, and looked back at Kakashi with his face angled so she couldn't see. "I burned out. I'll be fine." It was the short answer, the only one Kakashi or anyone would ever get from him, but Kakashi had been teammates with Rin-sensei and he'd know... when medics burned out it wasn't quite the same. More than a few from the class Tsunade had trained, his cousin's class, had died from it - but Haruichi hadn't been anywhere near that level of exertion. Obviously, or else it'd be him with the chakra wards plastered over every visible inch of skin - rather than under his shirt, which was where they were right now. Out of Hoshi's sight.

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Burned out? How fast had Haruichi run them home? The last memory Kakashi had was a dizzy impression of breaking apart in leaves while Haruichi had told him to shut up and made him do just that with a handful of delicate green chakra. Haruichi who'd run for twelve hours already, healed Kakashi as much as he could, and half drowned before he could finish. Not to mention cutting down ninja Kakashi could only remember by the feel of their hands, the cadence of their voices, and the oily touch of their chakra. That and the sound of his arm breaking again.

The same arm as Haruichi's, come to think of it.

"And you... say I'm the martyr," managed Kakashi, in a voice like crushed gravel. Questions crowded his mind, each demanding to be said. What had really happened? How long would they be in hospital? How bad off was Haruichi? But the one that finally rasped out of his mouth made Pakkun snort with laughter. "Why do you... have a fiancée?"

Because really, some things were too weird.

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Haruichi looked at Kakashi like he was an idiot. Which wasn't very different to how he usually looked at Kakashi, but there it was all the same. "Because she said 'yes'," he answered, his voice even sounding slightly confused as to why Kakashi needed to ask.

Said 'she' was curled up at the top of the bed now, having fortified her position in an ensconscement of blankets and taken the pencils and notebook out of her pocket, ignoring the chair she was supposed to be sitting in. She'd be sketching or doodling or whatnot for hours now, Haruichi knew, and he couldn't have been more relieved about it. She wasn't worried or upset if she could do that.

He supposed Kakashi might have meant how did he get her to agree to marry him, how did he even get her to agree to talk to him? Even if Haruichi had been the type inclined to answer he wouldn't have, and couldn't have. He didn't know. He reached down to gently unsnag his beads from the IV in his left arm and supposed he took it on faith.

But he realized, looking at the bruises on his arm, what else Kakashi was trying to ask. And it wasn't something he wanted to answer then, or perhaps any time. He shifted his heavy, plaster bound arm out to his side and judged how much space Hoshi had left him to lie down in. "You should rest, Kakashi. And put your oxygen mask back on, it was there for a reason."

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Which probably translated to 'shut up, and stop asking awkward questions'. Haruichi seemed to say that a lot. The 'shut up' bit, certainly. Kakashi was too tired to argue with him. A hefty combination of drugs, exhaustion, and healing seals eating his chakra was already tugging him back under the surface of sleep. He was more willing to go this time, now that there was much less risk of waking up dead.

It took Pakkun's help to hook the mask up over his face, which was frankly embarrassing, but the pug settled carefully down on his uninjured shoulder and tucked his small warm body against Kakashi's neck, nose resting against the pulse of his throat. He heaved a faint, contented sigh, blowing hot air over the copy-nin's bruised skin, and Kakashi forgot about Haruichi completely for a moment. It was amazing what being warm and safe could do for your focus, even if you still hurt.

"Glad you're not dead, brat," rumbled Pakkun, finishing the ritual that ended every mission.

Kakashi's fingers twitched enough to scratch the soft fur between his ears. "Hmm," he agreed, eyes closing.

"And you," added Pakkun a little louder, for Haruichi's benefit. "Even if you are a pain in the hindquarters. Could you tell your girl I'd like a blue cape? Maybe with my name on..."

Kakashi snorted softly, and fell asleep before he heard the answer.

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