THEORY OF TIDES
for Halley & Sammie

...

Sakura lived for two weeks without her memory.

There was no explanation for it; no plausible reason. Her mind, overwhelmed, had simply malfunctioned, they said. She'd been left with the knowledge she needed to live, but everything else had been stripped away. There were no parents, no siblings, no friends, no lovers. Her distinct accent and the nickname she'd been given by the nurses were her only claims to an identity.

"Sakura" seemed fitting, they said, looking at her hair with gently smiling faces.

Only a man named Sasuke; a handsome drifter that kept vigil over her bedside until the day she'd left with nothing more than the clothes on her back, stayed by her side. He didn't have anything other than an old camera to his name, but he appeared content with his circumstances. And he didn't seem to mind when she followed him down the road, playing with her breath in the icy winter air.

Sakura couldn't be sure whether he knew her or not; she spent hours searching his face for clues of her own life, had from the very moment he'd shown up outside the door of her hospital room with his camera dangling from his wrist, examining her closely for something; what, she didn't know. He didn't provide much in the way of answers.

She didn't know a lot of anything anymore, but Sasuke seemed to know for her and that was enough.

For three days, they walked along the coast. The journey was a quiet one, spent counting footsteps and watching the ocean meet the sand in a seemingly endless dance; a beautiful, soothing one that left her speechless at times. Sasuke, for all his silence, kept his pace slow and pulled her close when the cold became too much in the dark.

He was the closest thing to a friend she had.

At the end of the third day dusk came quickly, much as it had everyday before. The sun sank below the horizon in a glorious array of colors; reds, oranges, purples and blues, warming the skin of her face for a long moment before giving way to the gold moon.

Eventually, they came upon a lighthouse. It stood tall amongst the waves at the top of a shallow cliff; a lonely sentry offering guidance to the lost.

Approaching it, the young woman stood at the foot of the structure and gazed upward, eyes alight with wonder. Though her hands were burrowed in her pockets, and her cheeks stained a frosty pink, she turned and beheld the sea; the waves as they crashed into the rocky shore, casting saltwater into the wind.

Looking back at the man watching her, dark eyes unreadable, Sakura smiled. Bringing her here was to make her remember something. Her memories didn't come flooding back, but the serenity of the lighthouse touched upon something she hadn't felt since she'd lost it all. It gave her the words to speak to him, and the bravery to speak them.

"I must have loved you."

Sasuke met her eyes briefly, tilting his head as he regarded the ground at her feet, "Not me."

He nodded toward the lighthouse, "Kakashi."

The name, like the waves, rolled over her mind, bringing with it the faintest memory; a beacon.

"Kakashi."