Sakura tapped the door to Tsunade's office ever so gently, she winced when a loud and curt enter was her answer.

"Did I or did I not tell you to leave it alone?" Those were the first words that Tsunade said, she stared at Sakura with malice in her eyes.

"I-"

"Did I or did I not?" Tsunade insisted. Sakura nodded. "Then why is your name on yesterday's visitor logs to Sasuke's room?"

Sakura tried to, nonchalantly, shrug, she was too nervous to act nonchalant. "He's an acquaintance, I heard he was in the hospital, so I visited."

Tsunade nodded. "And while you were visiting, your acquaintance, it completely escaped your mind that he was in the psych ward?"

Sakura shrugged again. "I knew about his bipolar disorder before, it wasn't a shock or anything."

"Don't act all coy with me you chit." She waved a paper in Sakura's face. "I've been getting reports, you're slacking up, how are you hoping to get into a decent fellowship if you can't get through the first year of your residency? You think cardio is for slackers? Get a reality check then."

Sakura's shoulders slumped. "I told you that I'll obsess over it. I can't stop." She turned her pleading eyes Tsunade's way. "I have to get it out of my mind, please help me, I can't focus on anything else, unless I…"

"Unless you what, Sakura?" Tsunade asked. "You already have a diagnosis, bipolarity."

"I know." The rosette exclaimed. "But something's not right. I can just feel it, you're the one that said that physicians must trust their instincts as must as they trust their heads. Well, something's telling me that there's something fishy about this diagnosis, I am not a shrink but I know it, please, shishou, I have to find it, or else, I'm screwed."

Tsunade sighed. "What's this something fishy you're talking about? What did you catch?"

Sakura straightened. "What can you tell me about the boat accident?"

Tsunade froze for what felt like forever, she looked at Sakura with her eyebrows in her hairline, opened her mouth then closed it again. "How the hell do you know about the boat accident?"

Sakura blinked. "He…told me."

Tsunade's expression went even more astonished. "He told you? Just what kind of spell do you have on the kid? He's practically mute!"

"I asked, and he answered, that's all he said though, he said that he lost a friend in a boat accident, what kind of accident?"

Tsunade clasped her hands together and stared at Sakura. "What kind of relationship do you have with Sasuke? I know he's younger than you and-"

"No, nothing like that. We met just like a month ago, that's all." She waved her hand in the air in denial. "What happened in the boat accident?"

"I want your promise that what I say here, does not leave this room." Sakura eagerly nodded. "Sasuke was seven maybe eight at that time, his grandfather, paternal side, took him and a friend, his name was Juugo, in a boat. A fishing boat, they were supposed to have a good time, but then, something happened, and I guess, Juugo was pushed, I think it was a loose sail, to the water."

Sakura gasped, horrified at the idea of a kid in open sea. "He was just a year or so older than Sasuke, and the fishermen weren't paying them attention, grandfather said that they had secured a big catch, some sort of gigantic tuna fish, they couldn't hear Sasuke's cries for help over the excitement."

Sakura pulled herself to the edge of her seat, her eyes wide, and her stomach bottomless. "Sasuke was a good swimmer, he jumped in after his friend." She cleared her throat. "Alas, even if he was a good swimmer, the waves and the…he couldn't have saved him, and the fishermen, well, they weren't used to kids on boats."

Sakura's eyes widened, and her heart sank. Oh, god. "Shishou, no."

"They went back to shore, and it was only when they were unloading that they noticed that the two kids were missing. Sasuke was hanging on to a buoy for dear life, and Juugo was never found."

Sakura balked."How…the shrinks never considered PTSD? That's just…horrible."

Tsunade shook her head. "Sasuke was always a temperamental child, I mean sure, the accident did a number on him, but he was always this way, prone to tantrums, normal one second, then miserable the next."

"But, that's not BD, people who suffer from BD are elated over extended periods of time, jubilant, active, euphoric really, then depressed, and sad, and dead to the world, that's not Sasuke. What you described is just a serious case of Brat disorder, a child that misbehaved like any other child."

Tsunade dismissed the rosette, after once again, gaining her promise that she would keep the matter between them. Sakura could not do that though, she gave the promise but she couldn't keep it.

"Hello," Sakura gave the greeting through the phone as she walked down the street to her apartment, her shift finally over. "Is this Dr. Sarutobi's practice? Yes? Could you please book me an appointment? As soon as possible." She checked the time. "Yes, two hours from now is perfect."

Sakura had never been at a shrink's before, granted, it wasn't much different, there were no diagram, no heinous couch either.

The shrink was an aging man, with tuffs of white hair on the sides of his hair. "You say that this consultation is for a friend?" He regarded her with indifference, and doubt, there was doubt in his eyes, well hidden, she'd have to give him that.

"Yes. I know how that sounds, but honestly, it's not for me. I am a resident at Konoha hospital, a surgical resident, and there's this patient, well, he's diagnosed with BD."

"Bipolar disorder?" He clarified, already scribbling on his notebook.

"Yes, he's been diagnosed for a long time now, and is on treatment, recently, he relapsed, went into a depressive episode."

"Well," He coughed, "If he's been diagnosed before, what is the issue?"

"It's this, I don't think that he has BD." She answered truthfully. "Patient has been a subject of a severe trauma involving water, now, he has developed a phobia, I believe that along aqua phobia, there have been several other effects that were mistakenly diagnosed as BD."

The older man narrowed his eyes. "He's been diagnosed by…"

Sakura winced, guessing where he was heading with his thoughts. "Several psychologists, but I have reason to believe that he was misdiagnosed."

"Explain these reasons to me, Dr. Haruno."

The rosette cleared her throat. "Like I said, this patient of mine relapsed, went into a depressive episode, supposedly, he had been suffering from hypomania, but really, there were no evidence of that."

"Hypomania is generally characterized by a euphoric state of mind, hyperactivity, creativity, hypersexuality, an overflow of energy which generally manifests in the person's behavior, would you say that your patient experienced these?"

Sakura was already shaking her head before he even finished his question. "No, not at all. In fact, indifference is what characterizes this patient, indifference and aloofness, I would say."

He scribbled on his paper some more. "Interesting, you said that this person suffered from trauma, relating to water?"

"Yes, he lost a beloved in the water, and was stranded in open sea for hours."

Dr. Sarutobi scribbled on his notepad some more. "Could you think of anything that would trigger the episode?"

Sakura nearly danced with triumph. He was thinking the same way that she was. "Yes, actually, he recently experienced an incident in which his niece nearly drowned, that was how I figured out that he was aqua phobic."

"Dr. Haruno? Have you heard of association theory?"

She nodded. "It states that concepts are learned by reinforced connections between a stimulus and a desired response, almost like Thorndike's law of effect?"

"Almost." Dr. Sarutobi announced. "See, the same principle of Thorndike's law of effect applies on humans, only in reverse, see, an unpleasant reaction, makes the action itself unpleasant. It is not farfetched to believe that your patient, is experiencing the same, in the form of PTSD, the near drowning of his niece was the action, his mind has associated water with the drowning of his friend, and therefore, associated water with an unpleasant reaction."

"So, BD is not it?" Sakura asked, her hands clasped on her knees. "It's just PTSD."

"If what you said is true, then I don't think that it's bipolar disorder at all. It is actually hard for me to believe that other psychologists have not considered post traumatic stress disorder."

When Sakura entered Sasuke's room the following day, she didn't know what to say, so she said the first thing that came to mind. "I don't think you have BD."

Sasuke stared at her for a few heartbeats. "You're like this bug, aren't you? You exist to irritate me, and no matter how many times I swath you away, you just keep on coming back."

She grinned at him.