Kakashi lay across his bed, watching the shadows and moonlight play across the ceiling. Life seemed to elude him the more he tried to integrate himself back into it. It had been just over a month since he'd dragged himself from the pit of despair he'd allowed himself to sink into after Sasuke's death. He'd gotten his room back in order. He'd started to slowly get his body back in order. With Kyoko's help, he was slowly getting his head back in order too. Getting his life in order however seemed to be the one thing he couldn't do. No matter what he did, no matter how many steps he took in the right direction with Kyoko, he still felt as if he were standing still. Half of himself was missing, and he couldn't figure out how to live life as a half of a person.

Closing his eyes to the play of light and shadow over the ceiling, Kakashi concentrates on the feel of the warm spring breeze washing over his body. He'd left the window and the door open to allow the breeze to blow through his room, freshening air that seemed somehow perpetually still and stale without the sound and smell of Sasuke moving about. Kyoko had taught him a technique a week before to settle his mind when his thoughts began to race and twist about. Concentrating on the physical helped to calm the mental. Kakashi had discovered a few days into the practice of this new technique that one of the best physical stimuli to allow him to find that calm center in his mind was a warm breeze. He'd taken to spending more and more time outside since then, just walking and feeling, and sometimes sitting high on a branch in a tree letting the breeze wash over him.

Opening his eyes, Kakashi pushed himself to a sitting position and stared across the room out the open door, seeing the faint sparkle of distant stars. Mind clear, he slid from the bed and moved silently to his desk. Looking out the window over the desk for several minutes, he let the breeze rustle the curtains on either side of his head. Staring up at the moon, Kakashi felt a peace that was unusual to him since Sasuke's death. Slowly, he lowered his gaze to the row of pictures lined up along the back of his desk. For a long time after the tragedy, all of his pictures had laid face down on his desk as he couldn't bear to see them. After he'd been working with Kyoko for a couple of weeks he'd been able to set the pictures back up. Reaching down, Kakashi picked up the picture of his old team, smiling at Naruto's scowl and Sasuke's aloof glare. He glanced at the picture of his own first team, smiling wider as memories of just how alike he and Obito Uchiha had been to Naruto and Sasuke when younger. Setting that picture back on the desk, Kakashi looked at some of the other pictures: Team 7 older, his parents, his father and himself, and several pictures of him and Sasuke. He smiled, then frowned at the picture taken at the Chunin exams shortly after he and Sasuke had made their grand entrance, late of course. What should have been a bright spot in their past had been marred by Orochimaru.

Pushing aside negative thoughts, Kakashi centered himself with the feel of the breeze washing over his face again. Once he felt at peace again, his gaze seemed to automatically stray to his favorite picture. It had been taken just days before that last mission had taken Sasuke from him. Kakashi picked the picture up and made himself concentrate on the picture rather than his failure. They were standing under a tree, bright sunlight falling through the leaves, leaving them dappled with light and shadow. Sasuke stood next to Kakashi, turned just slightly toward him, head tilted to look up into his smiling eyes. Kakashi's face was lit softly with joy and love, as it always was when he looked at Sasuke. Sasuke's face was a match for Kakashi's, but it seemed as if some trick of light put an unusual darkness in his eyes. Kakashi looked closer at the picture as he noticed something he'd never seen before. Sasuke's eyes weren't the same. They seemed to hold some regret not yet expressed and a deep sadness. It seemed as if he knew, even then, days before his death, that he was going to be leaving Kakashi.

Kakashi wasn't even aware he was crying until a single tear fell, glittering briefly in the moonlight before dropping onto the picture, just between he and Sasuke's images. Kakashi closed his eyes, allowing himself only a brief moment to remember the day the picture had been taken, trying to remember if he'd noticed that look in Sasuke's eyes then, or if he was only imagining he'd seen it. Love seemed to wrap a thick, comforting fog around his memories of Sasuke, and he knew that he couldn't always rely on memory for an accurate recollection. Kakashi opened his eyes again just before another tear drops to glimmer in the moonlight before splashing on Sasuke's image. A sound coming from the open door turned Kakashi to look, drawing him from the edge of that hurt.

"You missed your appointment. I figured I'd better come light a fire under your ass. It's not like you to stand me up."

Kyoko glanced down at the picture held in Kakashi's hand, but didn't comment. Kakashi saw her glance and turned back to the desk. He wiped the tears from the picture, then set it back on his desk before he turned back to face Kyoko. He leaned back against the desk and stared across the room at the other ninja, letting the warm breeze wrap around him again, drying the tears and calming his racing emotions. It wasn't until he was completely calm again that he allowed himself to really look at the woman standing in his doorway. She wore a blank mask, hiding all emotion but the compassion of a doctor in her eyes. Kakashi had spent enough time with her over the previous month however to be able to fairly accurately read her emotions even through her professional mask.

"Sorry if I worried you. I guess I lost track of time. I was enjoying the weather and trying on some more pleasant memories."

Kyoko stared silently at him for several moments, not commenting on the tears she'd seen glittering on his face when she'd first arrived. Stepping back, she motioned down the road as she spoke. "Well then, shall we take a walk and enjoy this weather?"

Kakashi smiled in spite of himself and nodded as he followed the psychologist out the door. They moved off down the road in companionable silence, each with their own thoughts until they found themselves in the same area the last picture of Kakashi and Sasuke had been taken. Kakashi looked to the tree he knew they'd been standing under in the picture. He stopped walking and stared at the tree for a while, trying to work through a jumble of emotion and thought until the mess was untangled.

"A few days before that last mission, Sasuke and I had come out this way with Iruka and some other friends, just walking and spending time talking. It wasn't often we all had downtime together, so we were just enjoying one another's company, renewing friendships." Kakashi paused and pointed at the tree. "Sasuke and I were standing under that tree talking with one of our friends when Iruka pulled out a camera and called our attention to him. He told us to smile for the camera, but Sasuke and I could only smile for one another. Iruka snapped the picture anyway. Sasuke and I both loved that picture from the moment Iruka handed it to us a couple of days later."

Kakashi paused, letting himself enjoy the warmth of that memory before forcing himself to face the doubts in his mind. "I was looking at the picture tonight and I noticed something dark in Sasuke's eyes. The longer I looked at it, the more it seemed to me that Sasuke was sad; regretful. It was almost as if he knew that moment would be one of the last happy moments we would ever have together. The last memory to keep me warm on cold nights spent alone without him." Kakashi paused to gather his thoughts, not noticing the hard look that flashed over Kyoko's face briefly, followed by a curious mix of hope and intrigue before the professional mask fell back into place.

"I tried tonight to remember back to that day. I tried to remember if I'd seen that look in his eyes then, only forgot about it, pushed it away. All of my memories are almost unreal, wrapped in this soft fog of love, all the sharp, clear edges blurred. Memory isn't reliable. I was too in love with him to notice anything negative if it was even there. Even still, I don't remember seeing that look in his eyes that day. Which do I believe? Was the look just not there, or was it there and my love blurred it away? Am I just projecting the hurt of his loss?"

"Well, that's possible of course, but not having been there myself, I can't say. That is one thing you'll have to figure out on your own. It's important to you isn't it?"

"Yes, it is."

"Why?"

That question left Kakashi confused for a while as he didn't know why. They walked on in silence for a long time before Kakashi finally spoke again. "I'm not sure. I just feel like it's important. There's something about that that I need to know."

Kyoko nods, but remains silent, letting Kakashi gather his thoughts further. "Part of me is saying that I need to remember, I need to know. Until I get past that, I'll never be able to heal."

Kyoko nodded and glanced up at Kakashi from the corner of her eyes. "That could very well be. Your subconscious knows better than you just what is needed. Let it guide you, don't fight to remember or not and it will come to you."

Kakashi sighed and rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands. "Yeah, I know that. I can't poke at it any more tonight anyway, I'm exhausted."

Kakashi looked up then, startling when he realized just how far the moon had moved across the sky since they'd started their walk. Hours had passed as he worked through his thoughts, talking his way slowly through what was in his mind. He glanced at Kyoko and nearly laughed at the look on her face. She'd been fully aware of the amount of time that was passing, but she hadn't pushed him, but once he'd reached the point he needed to be at, she was ready to give him hell again. Kakashi could only brace himself and grin behind his mask as he waited for her scathing comment.

"Well, I wonder why you're so tired. Maybe because it's the middle of the night and we've been walking for hours? If you'd come to my office like you were supposed to, neither of us would be out in the middle of the night walking around like a couple of lost kids."

Kakashi could only grin wider behind his mask as he shook his head. "Yeah, yeah, I said I was sorry. I'll be there when I'm supposed to tomorrow night."

"You better be. Don't make me have to come find you again," was Kyoko's parting shot before she'd faded into the shadows and disappeared.