She couldn't kiss him the way she wanted to anymore. She couldn't touch him, or speak to him, or spend a life that she once so desperately wanted to with him. She couldn't protect him or help him, or offer him comfort and company when he curled up in his room and wept for the people he lost.
There were many things she'd wanted to do for and with Sasuke-kun that she'd never be able to do again.
She could watch him now, she could be with him and make sure he was never alone, even when he thought he was. It seemed like an echo of what she'd wanted, a ghost of the wishes she'd once had, and a bitter twist of the way she'd once felt invisible to him.
Still, it was something, even though she never really understood why she ended up here and not wherever she should have gone. It wasn't as if death came with a manual. It wasn't as if she'd researched it extensively, either. She hadn't planned anything. She'd planned on a long life, she'd hoped for that long life to be alongside her friends and Sasuke-kun.
Now…
She had trouble remembering the timeframe surrounding leaping into the path of the jutsu and finding herself trapped at his side and insubstantial. Whether it was the effect of a jutsu, concentrated willpower or…any other thing, she'd probably never have the chance to know now.
There were worse ways to spend a lifetime she'd never get to live, even if it was a bittersweet torment to watch and never touch, to be at his side and never comfort or company, to be 'his' in all practicality and never have 'him' in return.
There were moments she didn't mind it as much as others, though. Such as times like these, where he slept off the exhaustion of training, sprawled carelessly atop blankets with an ease and relaxation she'd once wanted to see him carry in her presence. He seemed nothing like the man who almost burned down the battlefield before her death.
He looked…normal. Or, he did until some sort of a dream or nightmare began to plague him, twisting his features into distress and tangling up the sheets of the bed beneath him. On instinct, she reached out to him. It was the coincidence of a passing dream…but she liked to think somehow her touch reached his unconscious state and offered him some help after all.
Perhaps then she could be his guardian in sleep, if she could be nothing but a silent sentinel in the daytime.
The thought earned a soft, sad smile, as much as one without a body could hold an expression, and she leaned down to hover her lips over his skin. If she tried to touch she'd only pass through as if he were an illusion (instead she was, she supposed, an illusion only she could see come to life), but…if she hovered just at the point of contact, she could pretend to touch him. While he slept and held still, that could be enough.
Maybe in dreams, just maybe, some part of her wishes could seep through to his mind.
She'd like that.