Thank you to my reviewers! I'm sorry that this has taken so long to update. I'm not going to make a bunch of excuses, just one: school. My muse for this fic (and pretty much all my others) kind of died for a while, and i haven't been able to write a complete chapter for well over a month, i think. Well, until this (thank god it's a four day weekend). Thanks for putting up with my terrible lack of updating. Hopefully this chapter will make up for that! A little bit. Maybe.

In Too Deep
5. Before Our Eyes

The house creaking as it shifted brought Sakura back from the convoluted realm of dreams, and her eyes flickered open. Blurry shapes and colors were all that she could see at first, as the room was cast into a dark gray haze. A thin ribbon of light peeked under the doorway.

She brought a heavy hand up to her face and rubbed her eyes wearily, and slowly the room came into focus and her eyes adjusted to the poor lighting. She pushed herself into a sitting position and swung her legs off the side of the couch, the thin gray blanket pooling around her waist. The house was silent again and she couldn't hear much of anything from outside, besides some faint rustles that she assumed were tree leaves rubbing together.

A yawn suddenly worked its way up her throat and out her jaws, making her eyes water. She rubbed the tears away, and once she could see again she gazed around the small room, taking in the small table and chairs that served as the dining room a few yards off.

With a sigh she rose to her feet, stretching her arms overhead as she did so, and then picked up the blanket that had fallen to the ground. She dropped it in a heap back onto the couch and fumbled with the drawstring on the pine-green flannel pants she was wearing, courtesy of Lee. The were a few sizes too big and always slipped down her hips, so she often found herself retying them, but they were comfortable and much more practical to sleep in than her jeans.

The more she blinked the more colors came into focus, the rich brown of the floorboards and gray-white of the walls. The floor was cool beneath her feet as she tiptoed over to the door, raking a hand through her sleep-matted hair in an attempt to flatten the flyaways. She didn't want to wake anyone else in the house, and now that she herself was awake, she decided that she might as well take a look around outside. She would be the first to see the day's new landscape.

She was blinded the minute she opened the door, for the sun was already high in the sky, and was being reflected off of a large expanse of water that stretched out at the bottom of the slope.

"What in the world," she muttered in awe, squinting down at the marvelous sight and trying to shield her eyes the best as possible from the violent glare.

The rustling she had heard earlier had in fact not been rustling at all. It had been the sound of small waves crashing onto a sandy shore.

It was a beach. Where the lake had been the day before, and the menacing forest before that, was now an endless expanse of rippling, shimmering blue, stretching on and on into the horizon and seemingly disappearing over the edge of the world. An ocean.

The sight was so beautiful that her lips curved into a delighted smile and a short laugh escaped her mouth. She carefully closed the door behind her and walked down the gentle hill, green grass tickling between her toes as she went. Her arms swung haphazardly at her sides as she picked up speed, and soon she was half jogging down the slope. All of a sudden, grass met sand in an all too perfect line, and her feet sank into the soft, warm grains as she came to a stop.

The air even smelled of the sea, or so she assumed, having never actually been to the ocean before. She took in a deep breath, savoring the salty, fresh scent that filled her lungs. It was perfect. Everything was perfect.

She sat down in the sand and wrapped her arms around her knees, and admired the view. Her eyes drifted closed after a while, and she rolled her neck in a circle. It cracked several times, loudly. She could feel the stress rolling off of her in waves, and was a bit surprised to find that she had been harboring so much. She yawned again and leaned forward to rest her forehead on her knees.

The waves came in and went out, their sounds peaceful. In, out. In, out. The corners of her lips lifted into a smile as she listened. Time was unimportant. Here on this beach, alone, she could just sit and be. It was such a liberating feeling. There were no expectations to fail to live up to, no reasons to feel ashamed of herself, nothing to fail at. She liked this strange place more and more.

She had the sudden urge to go in the water. She lifted her head out of its nest and her eyes rested on the ocean; it looked so…nice. So sparkly and smooth and cool and enchanting. She stretched out her legs and rolled up her pants until they were above her knees, and combed her hair out of her face. Her toes flexed in the heated sand, and she stood and stepped forward.

The water was tepid, the perfect temperature as it licked her ankles. The waves were small swells, peacefully crashing onto shore and being sucked back out. As she stared out at the vast expanse of water, she found it hard to believe that it had once been a forest, and then a lake. It was impossible, it had to be. And yet, there it was, right in front of her eyes. She didn't understand it, but then again, she supposed that she didn't have to for it to be real. Perhaps that was what made it so magical: not knowing why and how it was real, but just knowing that it was.

She had taken a few more steps into the water when she heard a whinny to her right, and she stopped and turned. It was one of the traders from the other day, clomping through the sand on his horse's back. Sakura slowly approached, mostly waiting for the horse to reach her, and shielded her eyes so she could look up at the man.

"Excuse me, are you one of the same guys from yesterday?" she asked, squinting as the sun glared down from overhead.

He just seemed to have noticed her, and turned his head to look back down at her. "Yes," he said simply.

"Where's your friend?"

"Not a friend. He was taken by Her Majesty and thrown in the dungeons. He is gone."

"O-Oh…" Sakura was a bit shocked, and took a step back. As she did so, she was able to more easily look into the trader's face, and what she saw was a bit unnerving. His eyes were blank and gray, focused on her but at the same time they had no existence behind them. His eyebrows and forehead showed no expression, and his voice had been empty of emotion.

"I have brought the windows."

Sakura's eyes snapped away from his face as he said this, and she watched as he dismounted his horse and began to work with some knots that had tied two large, rectangular packages to the saddlebags. Once the rope was loose, he caught the two cloth-wrapped packages and placed them in the sand at Sakura's feet.

"Your delivery. I hope that they are to your satisfaction."

It sounded like those were lines that he said a lot, like they were programmed into his head, as he said them with no hint of concern over whether or not she truly liked the windows.

"Um, thanks. I'm sure they'll be just right." She looked from him to the wrapped windows, and them back up again. "Oh! Um, I don't know what you expect as payment. I could ask Lee for money or –"

"No need," the trader cut in, raising a hand to quiet her. He looked out at the ocean, his gaze far away. Or maybe not, Sakura noted, as he seemed to always look a bit spacey. But then he said quietly, "A storm is coming," and Sakura wasn't sure what to make of it.

"A storm? Are you sure? It looks really nice…" She looked out over the water as well, and all she could see was the blue sky and a few wispy, white clouds.

"Yes, a storm is coming," repeated the trader, and Sakura looked back at him when she heard him mount his horse.

He turned it around with a tug at the reins, and they began to leave.

"Will your fr– Will the other trader guy be alright?" she asked.

He didn't turn around as he answered, very unconcernedly, "I do not think so. But one never knows with Her Majesty."

She watched him leave, standing rooted in the same spot until he became a small speck on the beach. The sun was intense on her shoulders, and her forehead was damp with a sheen of sweat. She wiped it away with the back of her hand, and reached down to grab one of the packages. The fabric was knotted on the bottom, and she could feel two windows inside. It was heavy and large, and she sighed as she hoisted it onto her hip so that she could get a better grip on it.

"What're those?"

Her heart leapt, startled, and she turned. Somehow, Sasuke had made it to the bottom of the hill without a sound, and there he stood, giving her and the parcel in her arms a questioning look. He looked like he had just gotten up: his hair was tousled and his eyes were still glazed with sleep. She felt her heart leap clumsily again, and looked down at the second package at her feet.

"Windows. Help me and carry that one up to the house."

He obliged silently, quickly overtaking her one the trek back up the hill. He was waiting for her at the top, and when she arrived he asked, "When did these get here?"

She dropped her two windows to the ground carefully, next to Sasuke's. "Not too long ago. A trader came." She took a long breath and raised her eyes to the sky. "He said a storm's coming," she said quietly.

"Yes, there is a storm coming, in fact."

Sakura jumped, and Lee passed through the door and came to a stop next to her. She was tempted to complain at him for scaring her, but bit back the words when she saw how intently focused he was on the horizon. She followed his gaze, but once again saw nothing amiss in the bright sky. "Are you sure, Lee?" she asked, and he nodded.

"Yes, I can feel it. I am surprised you cannot. Everything else has." He motioned around them with his arms.

"What do you mean?"

"The animals," Sasuke answered her, understanding coming to him. "There are none."

And it was true. Now that she thought about it, she had not seen a single bird in the sky, nor a squirrel on the grass. Lee nodded gravely. Sakura looked at him, worry in her eyes.

"But it's not going to be anything…big, is it? Just like, you know, a rain storm. Right?"

Sasuke looked at Lee with the same worried questioning look. "Lee?"

Lee shook his head. "No, I am afraid that it is going to be rather large. Look." He jerked his chin up, motioning towards the bottom of the slope. "It is almost as though it can hear us."

"Holy…" Sakura could not finish her sentence. She took half a step forward, and then out of fear took two steps back so that she was slightly behind Lee; she could still see the sea, though. The waters were receding drastically as they all watched, being pulled away into the deep blue but no longer expanding back onto the shoreline. And there was foam, streams of the white stuff swirled into the water.

Sakura was never one for environmental science class, but she was sure she remembered something about foam and receding tides having something to do with tidal waves. Her stomach felt like it had dropped right out of her; a sinking feeling of dread trickled down her body, from her scalp to her toes.

"And I was hoping to be able to put in those windows today," Lee sighed, "I suppose that I will not have a chance quite yet."

"Lee! It's not really a tidal wave, is it?"

"It really is," he said, and Sakura knew it was true. Nothing was impossible anymore. And so she could not bring herself to be truly surprised as the edges of the sky on the horizon faded to dark gray, only very afraid.

"We have to run!" she shouted suddenly. Her legs were already taking her backwards.

Lee looked at her over his shoulder. "I highly doubt that you will be able to outrun this storm."

"But- but then what do we do?!" Something on the rim of the horizon shifted, and the line separating sea and sky rose. "It's coming! Why is this happening, Lee?! What if we die?! What if- what if-" But she didn't know what else to say. Her thoughts were a jumble of sharp fears, incoherent and confusing.

"I do not think we will die," Lee answered, sounding as though there was nothing at all worrying about the impending wall of water that was racing towards them. The sky darkened, and soon there was no more water on the beach; the sand sloped steadily downwards.

It was too much. It was too fast. It was too hard to believe.

"You will be okay, if you want to be."

While a part of her was terrified – her heart pummeled in her chest and her hands were clammy and cold and her whole body felt numb – another part could only watch in horrified amazement as the wave grew and neared. Her world had come to a halt, and this was the end; she stood no chance against a wave that enormous, she hadn't ever even learned how to swim, not that that would have helped much anyway. She couldn't run away, and she couldn't protect herself. All she could do was watch, and, according to Lee, want.

It was incredible, really, such a massive wall of water. A voice in the back of her head marveled at how wondrous nature was, to be able to produce such a phenomenon. Such a terrible, terrible phenomenon. The morning had been so beautiful, had it been taunting her?

Right when she thought that everything might possibly be okay, in every way, life reverted to its old habit of proving to her that no, everything would not be okay.

"Lee, what's going to happen when it hits?" Sasuke asked, coming out of his stunned silence at last. The alarm in his voice only made their doom feel all the more real. Sakura knew that Sasuke wasn't fearless, but he hid his fear well, almost perfectly. The fact that he wasn't even trying to do so now was too much for her.

She needed him to protect her. "Sasuke!"

The wave reached the beach and rose above them. Sasuke twisted around and lunged for her, but she was focused on Lee, waiting for his answer though she knew that it would probably not bring any reassurance.

The roar of the water drowned out whatever Lee said; she saw his mouth move, but all she could hear was crashing and thundering.

She didn't think a multitude of things; her past and memories didn't flash before her eyes. Her mind was stalled, frozen on an image of the beach as it had been no more than an hour earlier. She was still trying to piece together what had gone wrong, but the threads she had been grasping at had fallen away, and now all she could do was wait.

The shadow swept across the grass in less than a second, at the same time that Sasuke wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her against him, grasping the back of her head with his other hand. Her fingers closed instinctively into his shirt, knuckles white against his back.

She squeezed her eyes shut, and waited for the impact…