Summer Vigil

A thousand words won't bring you back; I know because I've tried. Neither will a million tears; I know because I've cried.

One humid, sunny day in July, Sakura decided to go visit Lee at the hospital.

It had been a week or so since the Chuunin exams, and she hadn't seen him since he'd stood by her side as they watched Sasuke and Gaara do battle, before the whole stadium had been shrouded in Kabuto's genjutsu and she'd lost sight of him as she, Shikamaru, Naruto, and Pakkun had rushed off to Sasuke's aid as he pursued Gaara and his siblings. The last time she'd seen him, he'd been bandaged, on crutches, and very worn-down looking, the polar opposite of the energetic, if not a tad overzealous, young taijutsu prodigy who'd asked her out before the start of the exams, had risked his life for her in the Forest of Death, and had hurt himself so terribly when fighting Gaara, to prove himself to her.

It was the absolute least she could do to go see him.

So, in the mid-afternoon, a daffodil from Yamanaka's Flower Shop in hand, Sakura strode up to the doors of the hospital, got Lee's room number from the woman at the front desk, and, after knocking tentatively on his door and receiving no answer, slowly opened up and peered inside.

She saw him straightaway, lying under the pure white sheets, looking rather picturesque with his shining black bowl cut sprawled all over the pillow, a ray of sunlight cascading onto his face; he was asleep. She smiled softly when she discovered that he snored, the sound echoing slightly in the almost-empty room. He was no Sasuke—cool, carelessly handsome, and cunning—but even in sleep, Lee was charming.

Wordlessly, she placed the small glass vase she had brought, with some water and the daffodil floating inside, on the bedside table next to where Lee slumbered. There was a chair in the corner of the room, and Sakura had a lot of time on her hands and not much to do, since Naruto had left the village with Jiraiya-sama and Kakashi-sensei had been hospitalized, putting Team Seven's training on hold. So she pulled the hard-backed chair over to the side of the bed and sat, silently waiting and hoping he might awaken before she left.

As she sat, her thoughts drifted, as they did so often, to Sasuke. Since Naruto and Kakashi-sensei were out of commission for the time being, she'd attempted, on more than one occasion, to approach the Uchiha prodigy while he trained and asked if he'd like her to join him. Each time, she'd receive the same cold brush-off, that he preferred to train alone. She'd always leave him disappointed; ever since the exams had concluded, they never saw each other anymore. She hoped Kakashi would get better and that Naruto would return, soon, so they could all train together or go on a mission. It had been too long, and she was missing her Sasuke-kun.

After a little under ten minutes, she got up, gave Lee's sleeping form a gentle parting smile, and headed down the stairs to the hospital's exit.

To her surprise, on her way, she was passed by what seemed to be a high-speed, green tornado, calling out in a carrying, boisterous voice, "Out of my way, if you please! Patient coming through!" Sakura let out a small "Eep!" and jumped to the far side of the staircase, and when she blinked, the human whirlwind was gone, leaving her hair in disarray and her heart beating wildly like a frightened rabbit's. Mere seconds later, she was passed where she stood by two white-clad, male medic nin, both looking somnolent.

"Gai-san," one of them called out wearily, "there was no need to transport the patient. The hospital staff could have taken care of it."

The other rolled his eyes, jogging up the stairs with his partner. "Don't waste your breath, man. There's no taming 'Konoha's Noble Green Beast'." He noticed Sakura standing there looking dazed, nodded, and gave a polite, "Hello," then, "sorry about that."

Sakura sighed, fixing her hair ruefully. "It's all right," she replied. Lee's sensei. She should have known. There was no one she knew that was quite like the overexcited, jovial Maito Gai—at least Lee knew how to control himself in public. As the two medics headed towards the hospital room where Gai had taken the patient he'd been carrying, she asked them, out of curiosity, "Who was that he had with him?"

"Oh." The one who'd spoken to her turned his head. "Uchiha Sasuke."

One sunny, but mild, day in July, Sakura went to Ino's flower shop for the second day in a row.

"I can deliver that for you, you know," she hinted, slightly desperately, with a glare at the red rose in the blonde's hand.

Ino snorted. "Don't be ridiculous, Forehead. You're not delivering my flower for me." She gazed at her rose wistfully. "Besides, I can't wait to see the look on my precious Sasuke-kun's face when he receives this symbol of my undying love!"

"Don't hold your breath, Ino-pig," Sakura said, annoyed. "All the medic nins at the hospital said it could be a long time until he wakes up." She felt a lump rise in her throat. "Maybe even forever. They don't know the effects of the genjutsu his brother used on him."

As she fought back the tears she'd been unable to hold in yesterday afternoon, she simultaneously felt a rush of fury towards Uchiha Itachi. How could he be so cruel…to his own brother?! He truly was a monster. What if Sasuke really never did wake up? What if she never saw him again?

"Woah, Sakura-chan." Ino's slightly worried voice brought her back to the present. "Are you okay?"

Embarrassingly, Sakura realized too late that she'd started crying. Damn! Why was she always doing that? Why couldn't she get a grip on herself for once? "Yes. I'm fine, Ino," she said hoarsely, wiping her eyes hastily with the back of her hand.

Pursing her lips as if in disapproval, Ino immediately hardened and said scoldingly, "Come on, Forehead. Snap out of it! This is Sasuke we're talking about! The powerful, invincible Uchiha Sasuke! No stupid genjutsu is gonna take him down. Have a little faith!"

While Ino's words were by no means totally true—after seeing Sasuke suffering from Orochimaru's curse mark in the Forest of Death, Sakura knew better than anyone that even the Uchiha heir wasn't invincible—they were still comforting, in a way. Sakura smiled weakly. "Of course I have faith in him, Ino-chan. He'll be okay!"

Ino smiled widely back, and then turned around and marched in the direction of the hospital. "Yes, my beloved Sasuke-kun will be okay! Because when he hears my voice, he will awaken instantly and realize how blind he has been to ignore me for all these years, and quickly make me his girlfriend!"

Instantly, Sakura's mood soured all over again. Growling, she shot back while running to keep up with her friend, "Not on your life, Ino-pig!"

One cloudy, blustery day in July, one week after Sasuke's admittance into the hospital, Sakura deposited her daily flower in the vases beside his and Lee's respective beds, and sat herself down next to her teammate silently.

After a moment of staring at his motionless form, she said shakily, "Kakashi-sensei's still bedridden, too, Sasuke-kun. For the same reason as you. Because of Ita-." She broke off, unable to continue. Biting her lip, she tried again.

"Naruto went off with Jiraiya-sama for some training. Apparently, they're also looking for an old teammate of Jiraiya's—Tsunade-sama, the famous medic nin. So that she can be the new Hokage." No reply, but then, she hadn't expected one. A small breeze that wandered in through the window blew a strand of her pink hair loose; she tucked it back behind her ear absentmindedly, to find that it wouldn't stay put. "I just can't get used to this new haircut," she said jokingly. Silence. She took a deep breath, then went on.

"This Tsunade woman is supposed to be the strongest kunoichi in the world…and the most beautiful," she added as an afterthought. Her gaze wandered to the vase on Sasuke's bedside table and caught her reflection staring, wide-eyed and broad-browed, back at her. I wish I could be that beautiful, she wanted to say, but didn't.

Sakura looked back at Sasuke, who looked so pale, so strangely fragile and delicate, so unlike the way he did when awake. Seeing him like this…it made Sakura realize that he was human, too: he was as vulnerable as anyone else.

In a strange way, that almost made her a little happy, but mostly she hated it, because this wasn't her Sasuke-kun, her powerful, unbreakable Sasuke-kun.

Quietly, she said, "Tsunade-sama is also supposed to be the best medic nin in the world. People say she can heal anyone with any affliction." Another gentle breeze flitted into the room, and this time, it was Sasuke's hair that was made messy, his bangs covering part of the left side of his face, including his eye. Instinctively, Sakura reached out her hand, then hesitated. Slowly—oh so slowly—she raised a trembling hand, as though afraid he would wake up and be angry with her, she brushed the hair out of his face until it looked the way it had before, neat and perfect. But he still wasn't the same. He slept on.

Sakura teared up. "Don't you worry, Sasuke-kun," she whispered. "I know Naruto will succeed in bringing Tsunade-sama back. And when he does, she'll know just what to do to heal you…"

Suddenly, the largest and strongest of all, a gust of wind swept through the hospital room, blowing both her and Sasuke's hair all around and nearly overturning his bedside table. Instead, the vase on top with two daffodils inside (one from today, one from the day before), fell to the ground and, before Sakura could stop it, crashed to the floor and shattered into a thousand tiny, glass pieces. Water pooled onto the floor, and the daffodils lay there pathetically in the puddle on the tile.

"Oh," Sakura cried, diving down to the floor and hurriedly trying to pick up every piece of broken glass. Her hands were shaking again, and she cut her finger on a larger shard, a drop of blood dripping down and mixing with water.

She dropped all the fragments in her hands and started to sob.

One miserable, rainy day in July, Sakura brought a whole bouquet to the hospital, which was already soaking wet by the time she made it inside. But the flowers were nothing compared to her, drenched to the bone.

Once upstairs outside Lee's door, she realized that she'd forgotten about his flower, for the first time in two weeks. She would make it up tomorrow, she decided.

She made her way to Sasuke's room—she could walk there with her eyes shut by now, if she wanted—placed the arrangement of daffodils, lilies, and tulips in the new vase, and sat down in her usual spot beside his bed. Rain rapped on the window that she always kept closed, the sky outside nearly pitch black, even in the height of the afternoon.

"Happy birthday, Sasuke-kun," she murmured. Outside, the rain came down harder.

It was another sunny July day, and suitably so, when, mere minutes after Tsunade predicted his recovery, Sasuke woke up.

"Sasuke-kun." Sakura couldn't say anything else. Behind her, Naruto had returned to the village. In the next room, Kakashi-sensei would be all right. In her arms was Sasuke, hale and hearty and awake at last.

She couldn't help it; she started to cry, but this time, with joy.

Three years later, one night in July, Sakura couldn't sleep.

Kneeling on her bed, bathed in the glowing light cast by the moon outside her window, she clutched a wooden-framed photograph in her hand. It was dusty. With the tips of her fingers, as light as a feather, she rubbed three years' worth of dust and grime off of the glassy surface of the frame, and, ignoring the residue that flitted down onto the bed, gripped the photograph in both hands, and stared.

There was Kakashi-sensei, looking just the same as always, one eye shut in a lazy half-wink. There was Naruto, and Sakura herself—their twelve-year-old forms looked like strangers to her, and for the first time since the hyperactive blond had returned to the village, she marveled at how much they'd both changed.

Against her will, her eyes drifted over to the left of where she stood in the old picture, to a face that she'd remember until the day she died, and longer. The face she'd spent countless hours pretending not to be staring at, the face she'd grown so accustomed to after so many missions, the face she'd watched for signs of movement when she'd sat by his bedside three years ago. She'd recognize it from miles away.

But she wouldn't see that face again, she realized, her throat tightening. It had been years, and he would have changed as much as she and Naruto had, if not more.

She wondered: if she ever saw the boy she loved again, would she recognize him?

Would he recognize her?

As the tears rolled uncontrollably down her face, she wondered if, even if he did recognize her and Naruto, he would even care.

One hot, summer evening in July, Sakura decided to go visit Sasuke in prison.

It had been four years since he'd left the village, though it still felt like it had been decades longer, so unfamiliar was Uchiha Sasuke to her now. Four years ago, she would have done anything to protect him, and, as her teammate, he would have done the same for her. In the past year, they'd tried to kill each other more than once. Four years ago, Sasuke had been obsessed with killing his brother. Now, today, he was obsessed with avenging him. Once, they'd both been members of Team Seven, and now, there wasn't a member of that four-person team whose life he hadn't tried to take.

He wasn't even the same boy anymore, if you could call him a boy at all. The Sasuke she'd known had been arrogant, proud of his clan and his name, and at times a bit bigheaded, but even at his worst, Sasuke had been human, capable of rational thought and tender feeling—she knew because she'd seen it. But now his eyes grew wide with hatred when he spoke of his clan, he said things, angry words, that didn't make sense, and when Sakura heard people call him a heartless monster, she understood exactly what they meant. She remembered, back in the Forest of Death, when the curse mark had taken over, and Sasuke had lost all control, turning into a sadistic killing machine on the Sound ninja. Back then, she'd thought she'd never have to see Sasuke like that again…but now, that was the way he was like all the time.

She wondered…why and how it was possible to love someone more than anything and hate them at the same time?

That day, she had to take directions from people she approached on the street, for she didn't know where the village prison, where the most dangerous criminals were kept locked up, was located. It wasn't the same as taking the old beaten path up to the hospital, the path she knew so well. She'd never been to this place before. She had never thought that, one day, she would have to.

The prison was hard to miss, once she knew where it was. It was a large, stone building surrounded by chakra-wire fences, guards wherever you looked, and signs advertising its existence and warning civilians to keep away from the fence. There were no buildings in the large radius surrounding the prison, and it sat upon the waterfront by the river. It was easily the unfriendliest-looking place in the village (not that Sakura had expected anything less), and the thought of Sasuke, her Sasuke-kun, locked away in there gave her the feeling that something had grabbed her heart in its fist and was twisting it until it hurt to breathe.

"Oi!" As she approached and came very close to the chakra fence, a guard strode over from his outpost and spoke to her from the other side. "This is a restricted area for civilians," he said firmly.

Sakura swallowed. "I'm not just a civilian, sir, I'm a ninja."

"So am I," he sneered. "You still aren't allowed in here unless you're visiting someone."

Something in his face aroused Sakura's easily-riled temper, and she stood a little taller, glared right back at him, and snapped, "I am visiting someone. Take me to where you're keeping Uchiha Sasuke."

They were keeping him in the most high-security, high-surveillance holding cell in the entire prison. Until Tsunade and the Council reached their verdict on Sasuke's fate, he was to remain here, under guard 24/7, and with the strictest possible security measures being taken.

The cell, aside from the numerous cameras and locks on the door, was the same as any other on the outside. However, behind the bars, all running with chakra like the fences outside, Sasuke was actually confined by his arms to a heavy metal device that seemed to work to restrain him from any movement, and he was blindfolded tightly, by material that Sakura guessed to be chakra-sensitive and would set off an alarm if he removed it or tried to use the Sharingan. Not that it was even really possible. The guard that had led her here had told her in advance that he was being heavily and frequently tranquilized, so whenever he was awake, his chakra, stamina, and energy level in general were all too low for him to successfully perform any jutsu. He had to be fed and given water by hand, by several Chuunin-level-or-above guards, and, as the one guard had complained to Sakura, if he had to use the bathroom, they had to help him do so where he was chained.

In other words, he was completely, utterly helpless, and this scared Sakura far more than it relieved her. She hadn't seen him like this since she'd stayed by his bedside when he was in that genjutsu-induced sleep, what seemed like an eternity ago. The sight of Uchiha Sasuke now was unsettling as it had been back then.

For a moment, she waited to see if he'd say anything to her. Then she remembered that he couldn't see her, probably didn't even know it was she, and not another guard, who stood there.

A quiver in her voice, as though she were twelve years old all over again, Sakura addressed him: "S-sasuke-kun?"

Even with him blindfolded, Sakura could see something, a muscle, in Sasuke's face move, perhaps his eyebrows rising slightly in surprise. In that moment, Sakura was glad to know that he knew she was there, but still he stayed silent, not even acknowledging her with a "Hn" or her name said back to her.

Suddenly, Sakura wasn't sure if she could do this. What had she had been meaning to say to him? She couldn't remember—she couldn't remember if she'd even come here with anything in mind to say. All she could think of was the sight of Sasuke standing helpless before her, Sasuke imprisoned, Sasuke alone…

Tears stung her eyes, but she didn't allow them to fall. She refused to cry in front of him again, whether he could see her or not. Still, she said the first thing that came to mind, the only thing she could say, a whispered, "I'm so sorry." For what she was sorry, she had no idea. By all accounts, he should be apologizing to her, apologizing profusely for everything that he'd done. But still she was the one feeling guilty and miserable to the point of tears, and he just stood there in silence. Did he feel anything at all?

"Sasuke-kun," she repeated, desperately, then, almost inaudibly, "Sasuke," dropping the suffix. "Please…please say something," she begged. "Anything…please, Sasuke."

Again, she was only answered by more silence, silence that cut her to the core, that made her shake with—what? Sadness? Rage? Both? She wasn't sure. Why didn't he just answer her?

Why won't you ever tell me anything?

"Sasuke…" She swallowed. "Why?" When he didn't respond, she went on, her voice rising. "Why did you do all this to yourself? To Konoha? To me?" Her eyes kept stinging, more and more, but she wouldn't cry, no. The last thing she would do was cry. "You didn't have do go so far for revenge! Revenge didn't make you happy before, does it make you happy now?"

She waited for him to contradict her—she wanted him to contradict her, why else would she say those things? But he didn't argue. He didn't say a word. It was like talking to his unconscious, sleeping form in the hospital all over again.

"You're not even the same person anymore!" she cried, because it was true. This wasn't Sasuke, this was a stranger, a new person changed by hatred and Orochimaru and Madara and an endless cycle of anger and revenge. She remembered Naruto, who she knew visited here every day, like she had done so four years ago for him in the hospital. "When Naruto comes here…" she whispered, "do you talk to him? He used to be your best friend."

She might as well have been talking to the wall, such was his nonexistent response. Frustration unlike anything she had ever felt welled up inside of her until she thought she might explode. Or cry. But she wasn't going to cry. Not over him. Not again.

But she cared for him so much…too much…

Am I supposed to just stand by and watch you tear yourself apart?

She lost control. "LOOK AT ME!" she screamed, a tremor in her voice that reverberated off of the walls of the holding cell. She didn't even care if he was blindfolded, that he couldn't look at her if he wanted to. He could raise his head, he could answer her, he could say something that might make her believe all wasn't lost after all.

He didn't move.

In that moment, she realized that maybe she'd been wrong the whole time.

That he had been right all along.

Maybe she never knew Uchiha Sasuke the way she thought she did. Naruto thought he knew Sasuke, too, but look where that unyielding faith had gotten him.

In a way, Sakura thought, nothing had changed in the way Sasuke acted towards her. No matter what she said, what she did, how she looked or dressed or acted, he had never once looked her way. All her advances, friendly or romantic or otherwise, were rejected, time after time. When she said something to him he didn't care to hear, he simply ignored her. And wasn't that what he was doing now?

She had no idea what to do anymore. He wouldn't listen, he wouldn't care, no matter what she said to him now, nothing would ever change.

I'm so in love with you I can't even stand it!

"I—," she started, then stopped. What was the point?

She'd lost him for good. She'd lost him a long time ago.

One day in July, it was raining again.

Sakura looked out her window and clutched the photograph in both hands, the way she had done on so many lonely nights. She looked down and stared at the boy in the picture that she had once thought she knew, stared good and hard, and didn't pretend to be doing otherwise, her green eyes transfixed on the coal black ones. They looked to the side, not meeting her own.

What else was new?

The rain came in through the open window. Sakura closed her eyes for a long minute, then opened them again, waiting for the tears to fall…

…And was shocked to find that they didn't, because she had no tears left.