Locked Away

Summary: "I don't think you'll ever leave."

The light scuffling of gym shoes against a bleached tile floor and the subsequent slamming of a heavy wooden door is what prompted Kakashi to look up from his book and throw a smile, kind and unseen, towards his patient. As he watched the pale girl confidently recline into the leather couch he had in his office, he grabbed a black notebook, with pink stars riddling the cover and unintelligible notes inside. The girl gave a thick smiled back at him, her glass green eyes crinkling in the corners and her fine pink hair tossed into an unruly bun. Heavy, dark circles marred the skin under those bottle green eyes and her skin shimmered with sweat, but still she smiled, seemingly pleased to be in his presence. Blinking slowly, she said in the most sickeningly sweet voice she could muster, "Good morning, Kakashi."

"It's Doctor Hatake, Sakura," he gently corrected, flipping to a blank page and scrawling down the date. Subtly, he flipped the switch on a recorder, silently documenting their interactions.

"I feel like we should be more comfortable with each other, Doc. Friendly even," Sakura said, interlacing her fingers behind her head. "We both know that I'm never getting out of here and you're never getting out of here, so we should be friends, no?"

"Why do you think that?" the doctor asked, scribbling some notes down.

The girl gave a glance towards the man, her eyes locked with his. In the moment, circles under her eyes seemed heavier, her skin seemed clammier, and her bright smile all but disappeared, becoming nothing more than a pair of lips and white teeth. "You know why," she said, her smile returning.

"I want you to say why," Kakashi told her, leaning in closer.

"I see dead people," she said creepily, making claws with her hands and growling towards the end. She playfully swatted the air and burst, "Not in like, The Sixth Sense or Dawn of the Dead type shit. Just ghosts or spirits or corpses or whatever the hell you wanna call it. Honestly, you can't even tell the difference between them and living people. I think everyone sees them, but since I'm the one who said something, I'm the crazy one."

"There's no such thing—"

"—As crazy, I know."

"I think you're suffering from schizoaffective disorder. It's almost like a mixture of a mood disorder and schizophrenia," Kakashi said, his voice gentle but cold. His steel grey eyes locked on her small frame, drowning in thick, fuzzy pajamas that seemed two sizes too big for her. Sakura didn't move from her spot nor did her smile falter. She lifted her eyes towards him and pointed a finger.

"Yeah, you've got my nurses trying to dope me up and shit. That shit's not cool at all, Kakashi. You should've gave me a heads up, like 'Hey I think you're batshit and there really isn't a cure so I'm gonna recommend that they pump you with chemicals'. That was a dick move. You're a dick," she said, narrowing those green eyes.

"I don't think that at all," Kakashi said. "Sakura, I think you're ill."

"You think I'm delusional."

"I think you suffer from delusions when you're depressed or manic."

"That's bullshit and you know it," Sakura quipped, sitting up and slinging her thin legs to face him. Pouting, she crossed her arms across her chest and narrowed her eyes. "You said yourself that I'm not bipolar."

"That doesn't mean you don't have a mood disorder. Sakura, you go into manic states. You had your...incident during one. You know this," he said, his voice stern but soft all at once. The girl looked at him, her face hardening, jaw clenched. She dug her fingers into her arms with enough force to leave half crescents into her pale skin, breaking it in some places. "We know this."

"I wasn't me during that time. I wasn't manic or depressive," she said softly, angrily. "I wasn't myself. Sakura would never—I would never drown anyone," she said, her tone increasing. "Konan wanted Yahiko back and she used me—"

"—Konan died—"

"—I know she died!"

"You're angry—"

"Sasuke said you wouldn't believe me," she huffed, unclenching her jaw. She glanced over her shoulder and scowled, but softened her face. The fire still burned behind those glass eyes but she widened them, unwrinkling the sides staring back at Kakashi. Slowly, almost unwillingly, the pressure from her fingers eased, leaving her skin marred and in some places bloody, but doing no further damage.

"Sasuke?" Kakashi asked, watching and noting the subtle transformation.

"You know him," she said flippantly. "He's a patient here."

"What?"

"Sasuke. Sasuke Uchiha. Dark hair, dark eyes, pale skin. He believes me. He's the only one who believes me," she said, adding the last part softly.

"How...how do you know him?" The doctor asked, tossing his notebook aside and stopping the recorder.

"He's my new roommate," she said, a small smile appearing on her face. "He's the first person who actually knows what it's like...he really understands me. I've never met anyone like him," she sighed, placing her chin in the palm of her hand. A small gleam appeared in her eyes, crow's feet developing, and a wistful smile on those lips. In an instant, she looked less like the twenty-two year old woman who'd been hospitalized for three years, thin and angry, aged and enraged, and more like the nineteen year old girl who only said that she made a mistake and begged for help.

"Sakura, I think you should know that—"

"—Sometimes our soulmates die before we meet them, and we go our whole lives without ever knowing."

"Sasuke's—"

"I might be a little too late, but I think I finally met mine."

"Sasuke isn't real, Sakura. You've never met him."

"Why do lie to yourself?" Sakura snapped, furrowing her eyebrows. "Sasuke is real. You've seen him. You talked to him. He sat on this couch and had conversations with you about literature and about art. You know he's real."

"Sasuke is a figment of your imagination, Sakura," Kakashi said, tiredly. "He is not real. He was never...real." His voice quivered on the last word but he remained resolute, dead set to remove this notion from his patient's mine. "You're lonely and afraid that—"

"He is real...and he loves me...and I love him. You can't fight this," she sighed, shaking her head at him. "He's real, real dead."

"Sasuke's not—"

"Death is natural, doctor. It's beautiful. It's why Konan wanted Yahiko to experience it. Sasuke wants to show me, when I'm ready."

A chill enveloped the room, sending strong shivers down Kakashi's back. His patient could be seen murmuring something, though she was too quiet to hear. Her body trembled in the cold, convulsing and turning and twisting until finally, she stared at the doctor with one green eye and one brilliant red one.

"Sakura?" Kakashi asked, hesitantly.

"She's asleep," the girl responded in a voice that was not her own. Deeper, masculine, and detached. "I really hate doing this to her. It stresses her out real bad."

"Sasuke?" Kakashi asked, astounded.

"In the flesh. Not mine, but what can you do? Look man, I don't want to be here long—"

"What do you want?"

"For one, stop ignoring me. We both know I'm real, we both know what happened, why am I the only one acknowledging it? Erasing me doesn't make it go away, Hatake. It's really unhealthy, actually," he said, a smile appearing on the girl's face.

"You smug little shit," Kakashi said, a smile cracking onto his face.

"And stop pretending like she's crazy. We all know she's not."

"Done."

And in a breath, Sasuke was gone, leaving a small, frail girl in his place. Quickly, he switched the recorder back on, looking at his patient with a small smile.

"Sakura," he spoke, his voice monotone and grey, "I don't believe that you're ever getting out of here."