Working out lasted longer then Kakashi expected, but not as long as he wanted. Halfway through the sixth set of push ups, after the kata practice and the brief but unwise attempt at balancing on his hands, his shaking arms gave out and his face narrowly missed an intimate meeting with the stone floor.

He lay and panted and felt his heart trip-hammer, and didn't try to get up again. Too much chakra-exhaustion, not enough red meat; it'd be a bitch to get back into shape when he got home.

He was very specific about thinking when.

Sleep happened like a landslide, the exact same kind of almost-unconscious that had gotten him through the medic's ministrations without a twitch. He dreamed, mostly about suffocating and Genma. Time passed.

Awareness came back after the sun had gone down, when the door clanged, the lamp flared, and a hand closed around his t-shirt-covered shoulder. Kakashi reached out, without any kind of brain-input, and wrapped his fingers tightly around someone's throat, hard enough to crush the larynx.

Or would have, if the man hadn't put his wrist in the way.

"Ow! Hey, ow! Bloody hell." Fingers pinched Kakashi's ear in something that felt remarkably like a suicide attempt. "Wake up! I'm on your side."

The second blow was much more thought-through; Kakashi lashed out with the hand he'd been lying on, which had gone numb, and may or may not have connected with something like a nose. Then he opened his uncovered eye. The view was a little distorted and sepia-toned, what with the angle and the lamplight, but seemed to be mostly filled by a handsome, black-haired man holding onto Kakashi's fist, looking slightly cross-eyed, tired, and annoyed. Kakashi's other hand was still clenched tightly around the man's wrist.

They regarded each other for a long, strange moment.

"If you're not Fujita," Kakashi rasped, "I'm going to feed you your own hands."

The man sighed. "See, that is exactly why I can't get a medic in here when you're asleep. Yes, I'm Fujita. And you are a political disaster. Let go of my wrist."

Kakashi blinked once, trying to clear his head. "Say 'please'."

"How about I say screw you sideways, and we get down to business?" Fujita twisted both hands neatly, straight into the axis of Kakashi's grip, and broke free. Jounin-slick. Then he fisted a hand in Kakashi's shirt and helped yank him upright. "How're you feeling, Hatake-san?"

"Super," said Kakashi dryly, all rasp. He leaned back against the wall, letting it support his aching skull. "You?"

"Like I've just spent twenty-eight hours trying to negotiate the release of a man with a deathwish. Was it specifically Iwa you wanted to piss off, or were they just convenient?" Fujita sat seiza, back beautifully straight, hands on his knees. He smelled like steel will and, oddly, lemons. "Seriously. I'm curious."

Kakashi offered him a smile that felt exhaustion-drunk. "Flash," he said.

Fujita whacked himself on the forehead. "Right, sorry. Thunder."

Two of the oldest code-words, completely unusable now that Iwa had them on tape, but Kakashi couldn't think of anything better. They were good enough; Fujita smelled honest.

"I felt like a challenge," Kakashi said, which wasn't exactly true, but humour was the first thing you looked for in an unbroken agent. Humour, bravado, the crying-need to go home. "Let me guess: I don't have an invite."

"Not yet." Fujita's voice gentled a little, as if he expected Kakashi to go to pieces right there on the floor. "I'm working on it. Anything you need?"