There is Time

Obito wakes slowly to the sound of two soft voices and the by now familiar ache of his right side. The voices give off a slight echo that he has come to associate with being in a cave after so long and he keeps his eye closed in sheer despair.

Was it all a dream?

Did… did he just imagine being with Rin and Kakashi?

Or was it one of Madara’s genjutsu?

He hasn’t used one of those on Obito in ages. Not since the early days of his healing in fact. Obito still feels conflicted about that, because Minato-sensei, Kushina-nee, Kakashi, and Rin weren’t really there. But without any pain medication, the escape from physical agony was a heady relief.

Until he came down from his euphoria enough to recognize the illusion, and then it felt like his heart was breaking.

So near and yet so very far.

Tears well up under his closed eye that slide down his scarred cheek before he could help himself, and a half choked noise escapes his throat.

It had felt… so real…

He is so mired in desolation that it takes a moment to realize that the voices have stopped and someone is calling his name. He almost lets himself slide back into sleep as he is in no mood to deal with Guruguru, Zetsu, and Madara. Even if it was only a dream at least he could be with Kakashi and Rin again for a little while, but just as he is drifting off he notices something different through his brain’s sluggish thoughts.

The voice that is calling him is female.

For a moment it feels as if the breath has been stolen from his lungs, and he claws his way towards awareness.

The more cognizant he gets, the more he realizes things are different. The horrible malice-filled atmosphere of the cave he has been in is absent. He can hear the gentle sound of water trickling in the background. The smells are different, filled with scents of fresh water and life. He is warm for the first time in an age and even with his eye closed he can register light in the area.

A further assessment and he can feel the entirety of his whole body aching. The ache of his right side just feels more acute.

Even after all these months he is still getting used to the way his prosthetics register feeling. It isn’t quite the same as the rest of him anymore, and the signals he does register distract him with their sense of wrongness more often than not. He is getting better at working through the sensation though.

He can feel the slight weight of clothes covering his skin. A shirt and pants both. Not those ragged torn pants he has been wearing for so long, but a real set of clothes. Further still he can feel the weight of blankets covering him.

Healing chakra is running through his system and the feel of it is distinctly familiar even as it feels different.

Rin…

That is… Rin’s chakra…

Joy and hope are mingled so tightly beneath his skin he feels almost delirious with it as her voice comes fully into focus.

He’s aware enough now to sense them both, Kakashi and Rin. Kakashi on his left and Rin on his right. He’s been afraid that he would forget the way their chakra brushed up against his own after all this time, but it feels more like coming home than anything ever has.

And he is terrified.

Terrified he’ll open his eyes and find that his senses are deceiving him.

That he’ll be all alone with a crazy old man and…

And of course Kakashi, anti-social jerk that he is, just won’t leave it alone even if his tone is something he has never heard from Kakashi before. “Come on crybaby, you’ve slept long enough you’re going to be late.”

A fierce scowl twists on his face and his sharingan activates automatically as he opens his eye to glower at Kakashi. His tongue feels a bit like sandpaper, but he manages to bite out a rasping “Not late” anyway.

The look on Kakashi’s face startles him out of his irritation as the relief in Kakashi’s voice softly echoes throughout the cave. “Aa, no you’re not.”

The scowl slides off his face as fast as melting butter. All thoughts of confusion at being in a cave over being in the Konoha hospital forgotten, and the look in his own eye slowly slides to wonder.

Obito can never quite forget how people look at him, or rather look through him. It’s always been that way even from members of his own clan, perhaps especially from members of his own clan. Clan is supposed to be family right?

But he remembers sitting and watching families in the clan, for all that the Uchiha specifically preach the dangers of love, he sees how parents regard their children. How even siblings regard each other, always those looks that actually see.

He has wondered for so very long what must be wrong with him that no one ever sees him. One would think the glares of his family, the disdain would be what would hurt the most. But his grief has always been driven by those seemingly careless looks. The ones where, even though he holds every bit of their attention, no one ever sees him. Each unseeing glance wears on his worn and aching heart.

He wonders how long it has been someone looked at him and truly saw.

Rin. Rin was always the closest in his memory to someone who ever took the time to care enough to see. But even she didn’t see everything. Still… he thought she might someday. So he loves her and has loved her for years, because what else was he to do but love the one closest to seeing him.

And Kakashi… he always worried about Kakashi. Every time he looked at Kakashi, he saw those same looks directed at him, the ones that looked and never quite saw. Not since Kakashi’s father was alive has he seen anyone look at Kakashi and truly see.

Obito tried… he tried to show Kakashi that he wanted to truly see him, because if no one else was going to someone needed to. He doesn’t care what anyone says, no can want to not have someone actually see them.

Obito succeeded for a time in at least gaining his attention. Kakashi never sparred with anyone outside of assigned matches in the academy aside from Gai and himself.

And Gai was… well Gai.

But after Kakashi lost his father he just… shut down.

Existed.

As if living held no more meaning for him anymore beyond the shinobi rules.

Obito hated it.

He never even knew why Kakashi was that way until Minato-sensei told him about Sakumo.

But.

He never quite managed to actually see Kakashi though, not until the Kanabi bridge mission when he was lying pinned under all those rocks…

And Kakashi hadn’t quite seen him then. He’d started to… he’d started to see Obito, but Kakashi’s heart had been a raw broken tangle after being frozen for so long.

Rent with new grief.

Obito had thought the love he felt for Rin was romantic love, but in those moments he found he loved Kakashi just as much as her. He’d recognized it for what kind of love it was then, a deep unending love for his little makeshift family.

There was little he could do for the both of them as he felt himself fading. So he’d given Kakashi his eye as a gift to replace the one he lost defending him. Obito wanted to see the future with him that was true, but what Obito really wanted was for Kakashi to have someone that would always see him. Further, Kakashi promised to look after Rin, so there would be someone there who would always see her as well.

But… but looking at Kakashi now, he feels his heart freeze in his chest. Relief and concern in equal measure are painted on his masked features. He is unspeakably glad that his sharingan is active so this moment is forever etched into his memory, because for once Kakashi is looking at him and not through. A half second passes for him to process this before Rin is leaning into view as well, and through her own concern and relief, her eyes see him too.

Obito’s ragged heart is aching again, but it is a good healing pain, one he had almost resigned himself to never feeling. The temptation to give in to tears has never been stronger for him than at this moment.

Happy, healing tears of joy, but then he remembers the circumstances of his last thought before he lost consciousness and he is consumed by worry of his own.

“You two all right?” he asks. The positive nod that Rin gives does nothing to assuage his concerns, if anything it makes him start to panic and his heart thunder in his chest, because while Rin and Kakashi may be looking at him they are not looking at each other. Something clearly is wrong and…

He grits his teeth and drags himself up slowly into a sitting position, while his eye darts frantically between the two of them trying to find any hidden injury and studying their chakra.

Clearly seeing that Obito is not to be deterred and fast working himself into a fright, Kakashi sighs, and if the stiff cadence of his voice does not away his distress the defaulting to formal speech does. “We are in disagreement over the tactics implemented in our last enemy encounter.”

Left unsaid is Rin’s attempt at suicide, and Obito feels all the adrenalin that he used to lever himself into a sitting position drain out of him.

“Oh,” is all he says as he sways slightly only to be braced by Kakashi on one side. After a moment, his brow furrows as his gaze shifts between his two teammates, “What exactly was going on anyway? I mean I saw how Kakashi tried to stop and how you just stood there Rin…” and here he feels Kakashi stiffen even while bracing him.

“I know I made Kakashi promise to take care of you Rin, but I never thought I needed to make you promise to look after Kakashi too since you always have,” Obito says and he detects a flinch from Rin at this comment before he continues. “What—”

Rin interrupts his ramblings seemingly unwilling to listen to his floundering attempts to understand. “Kiri sealed the Sanbi in me, but they deliberately made the seal unstable so that the Sanbi would be released inside of Konoha.”

At the mention of an unstable seal, Obito’s gaze darts to Rin in alarm.

“It’s okay,” she says. “The Sanbi could have broken free anytime now, but apparently we have reached a truce of sorts.”

Kakashi’s body twitches an infinitesimal amount, but just enough to make Obito aware that this is new information to him. Obito sucks in a shaky breath of air in relief and feels his face taking on a distraught expression. “That still does not explain why you were trying to make Kakashi kill you though,” Obito says. “Surely there were other options?”

“I—” Rin starts.

“You know what? No,” Obito says shaking his head and drawing Kakashi and Rin into as fierce a hug as his weak and aching body can give. “No, we’re not doing this. This is partially my fault for leaving the two of you. So, we are making a pact right here and now that the next time an enemy is trying to kill one or all of us, they take all of us or none.”

Obito makes his voice take on a melodramatic superior tone. “Not that I believe anyone will manage to win over our teamwork, because we are the most awesome team seven of Konoha.” He hears the most beautiful music possible right now as Rin dissolves into giggles.

Obito has a bright, sly smile that tugs at the scars on his face as he continues. “But clearly you two are utterly incapable of looking after yourselves without me around.” He feels more than hears Kakashi’s silent huff of laughter and the slight easing of tension in Kakashi’s lean frame.

“So, all or none of us?” he asks as he looks from one to the other, lamenting his lack of peripheral vision that prevents him from seeing them both at one time. But… he sees the apology in Rin’s eyes and the forgiveness in Kakashi’s eye, and the world suddenly seems that much brighter. The hurt would never be forgotten, but then it shouldn’t or it might happened again.

A moment, and Kakashi and Rin reach out with their free arms simultaneously to complete a group hug.

A new beginning.

A new pact.