Sown

fifty

"I can make it. I feel stronger already!" The two men shared another glance over the top of her head, Tatsui conveying in the nicest way possible that he had his doubts but if it made her happy they should at least try.

He took the plant from her arm and turned back towards the hospital building. "You lovebirds better get going if you want to make it back in time."

-

"Why did you want to come here?" Kakashi finally asked when they reached the red torii gate of the cemetery.

Hanae had gathered some of the flowers from her room before they left, holding the bouquet of pink hydrangeas and white bellflowers close to her chest. "I have someone I need to talk to," she mused. The redhead bowed her head in a prayer for all the graves before setting out to find the one she sought. "Where is your father's grave?"

Kakashi stopped short. "My father?"

She continued down the row of gravemarkers, slowly passing each as she read the names. "Yes. I never got to tell him thank you before." Her feet carried her perpendicular, something in her gut telling her that this was the right way. By the time Kakashi caught up to her she had managed to find the grave in question. Hanae split the bouquet she was holding in half, placing one in the alloted stone vase on the right and handing him the other.

"Sakumo-san." Her voice was warm, greeting the stone as if talking to an old friend. She brushed away some of the wayward leaves that had managed to settle on the marker, running her fingers across where his name was etched. "I kept part of my promise. You'll have to give us some time before I get to the most important part, though." Hanae reached out to rest her hands on Kakashi's shoulders when he knelt beside her. "Knowing this one, he won't have a problem helping out with that." The giggle that escaped her was light and refreshing, joining the chorus of noontime birdsong. She continued the one sided conversation, sharing little things that had happened since waking and sweet nothings about her family, bringing up points that without context really made no sense.

All the while he sat in silence. When was the last time Kakashi had visited his father's grave? It must have been years ago at this point and even longer since he had done more than just give the marker a glance. Most of his time at the cemetery had been spent with Rin and what he thought to be Obito. With what had happened weeks ago, he didn't really see himself coming back anytime soon. The wound was still too fresh. "Hanae." It was no more than a mumble.

"Hm?" She turned away from the marker, keeping the hand not holding onto him resting on the stone. "I'm sorry, I'm doing all the talking, aren't I? Did you want to say something as well?"

Kakashi shook his head. There was a smile visible under his mask. "Did something happen that you didn't tell me about?" He was still holding his half of the flowers.

"Oh! I didn't tell you, did I?" She shifted into a more comfortable position. "Do you remember that jutsu you told me about? The one everyone else was trapped in by Madara." Kakashi nodded, now facing her and fully invested in the conversation. "Well just like you said, it puts you in a dream, a dream of the thing that you want most in life. In my dream we were married. Shocking right?" Hanae pushed her hand into Kakashi's arm when he chuckled ; it was true, but she was still shy about it. "We had a big house attached to my store, a big family home. It was nice because I dreamt I was pregnant as well. You weren't there at first, but Sakumo-san was. He was helping me around because I was so big I could barely do anything for myself.

"We went to the Tatsumi gate to greet you when you came back. Every once in a while your father would tell me something about waking up. I didn't understand it at first, but when we were eating, he let me know it was a dream and that I was in danger ; he knew I was close to dying in that tree. Somewhere in my subconscious I thought it was funny that I was able to dream about someone I've never seen let alone met." Hanae took a moment to collect herself - her voice had begun to waver somewhere around the middle of her explanation. She took her hand away from Sakumo's grave, pressing her chilled fingers to her lips when they began to purse. "He came to my dream to save me. That's what I believe. I'll never really know, I'll never be able to ask him, but it's what I like to believe.

"He told me he wanted to see you happy. That's all any father wants. He begged me to stay alive so that I can be the one to make you happy, to let you do everything he missed out on. I never got to tell him that I would, so I wanted to come here to make that promise. Face to face."

Hanae rested her temple against his shoulder, trying to duck low enough out of his vision to hide the fresh tears that had begun to fall down her cheeks. They weren't sad tears by any means, they were happy, overwhelmed tears. No matter how many times Hanae said she wasn't afraid to die for her convictions, she was happy to still be alive, to be here in this moment. All she wanted was to make people happy, it was her dream - she was put here to make the lives of those around her easier whether they were living or passed. To be trusted to do that from beyond the grave? It would be overwhelming for anyone.

Kakashi snaked his arm around her shoulder, pulling her closer to his side. He placed the flowers in his free hand into the empty stone vase closer to him, trailing his fingers across the bottom of his father's grave marker. "How many rooms were in that dream house of yours?"

She gave the question a moment of thought. "I would say," Hanae began. "Our bedroom was downstairs, and there was about . . . Three upstairs? The store faced the roadway, and there was a huge garden in the back. Plus the kitchen, bathrooms, all those kinds of things."

"Three, huh? I guess we have a lot of work to do if we want to fill all those rooms."

"Kakashi!" Hanane buried her face in Kakashi's chest, blush burning at her ears as he laughed and ran his fingers through her hair. "You can't say things like that in front of your father!"

"And just how do you think I got here?" He pressed his muzzle into her crown, the earthy scent he had become so accustomed to invading his senses. The baby hairs on the back of Kakashi's neck stood on end, the breeze passing over the cemetery carrying a faint electrifying feeling. It was familiar, something he felt often as a child when he and his father would walk home hand in hand. "We should head back - your father already promised to break my legs if anything happened to you, I don't want to think of what your brother would do."

He helped Hanae to her feet, pulling her closer to him as he glanced one last time at Sakumo's grave. "We'll come see you again, Dad. I won't let you miss out on anything else."