Title: Discovery
Author: Winter Ashby (rosweldrmr)
Disclaimer: Naruto © Masashi Kishimoto & Challenge © kakasakudrabble at LiveJournal
Rating: K
Word Count: 500 - exactly!
Summary: She discovered him broken, and leaking fragments of his humanity in the shadow of the memorial stone. She watches him and tried to understand, but she confuses his face for another in the dead of night. (Kakashi & Sakura)
Authors Notes: Week 13 Theme: Discovery. Ha ha - I can change perspectives! Welcome to Sakura's side! Number of time I used the magic word - 8!

She discovered him that night, alone, in the never-ending rain, shivering, nearly catatonic in the shadow of the black monument. Her heart ached for him then, because it was almost the same, and yet not.

Long ago, she'd heard the story of his past, and the history of his legendary Sharingan. But it didn't help her to understand him any more. He was an enigma – a package of guilt and pain and unbridled lust that walked in the past and laughed in the sunlight.

But she could see him in the shadows now, and she was sure that she was missing something. There was a piece of him that he'd kept hidden, all these years. She wanted to know what the missing part was.

Perhaps it was because somewhere, in the back of her convoluted mind, it registered that if she figured out what part of him was missing – she might be able to find the piece of herself that she'd lost so long ago.

He reminded her of someone else. Just sometimes though, like in the picture from his chuunin team that she'd seen above his bed. His cold eyes and stubborn pout was just the way she remembered it.

But she couldn't have remembered his pout, because she'd never known him with it. So she replaced the scarecrow from her nightly vigils with the flaming fan from her past. It didn't always work out the way she wanted.

And when she dreamt at night, blood-red eyes and raven hair were beginning to be replaced by half of the blood-red eyes and silver locks that still stood in front of a sleek, stone memorial.

She discovered that it wasn't so hard to dream of him and wake to find him still keeping his vesper in the face of a past he was haunted by. She couldn't tell if he'd moved. She assumed he had. She assumed too many things these days.

She wondered what he dreamt of, and with a slight chill on the early autumn morning, she admitted to herself that she probably didn't want to know what he saw when his mismatched eyes shut to the world.

She discovered his humanity and frailty. He was lost in the middle of a snow-less winter night, drunk and stumbling past the stone to weep in the low bushes.

She discovered her empathy for him.

She discovered that he was easier to carry home that she would have guessed.

She discovered that he was warm in the dead of a cold winter night, regardless of snow.

She discovered that when she woke to the new day, he was gone, like a ghost on the wind. But she didn't worry too much about her empty bed or used towels.

She knew where to find him. In the snow or rain – he was faithful and drawn to the pain, like a moth to the flame.

She'd discovered his pattern.

He was her silent Brigadoon.

Perhaps, she would discover him again one day…

Foot Notes:

Brigadoon is a mysterious village in Scotland, which comes to life only once every hundred years. But then it fades away into the mist at dawn, and it won't be discovered again for another 100 years.

If you have any other questions, please just ask. I will do my best to answer them all clearly! ;)