She was out.
She was out only for a day when it happened, and all of the plans and chances she might have had to change things or save people and Sasuke were lost.
She…didn't know what to do when he showed up so early at her door, tripping over his words and asking questions like she'd already had the time to get the news by the time he got there.
Of course she'd let him inside, resisted the urge to hug him—or touch him at all—without permission after his trust had been shattered by his closest loved one. And she listened of course, but listening wasn't…really…what he needed from her.
She gave him a blanket and a drink to fight off the chill of the rainy day that seeped through the thin walls of her home, and…stalled. Even the questions she had answers for, they weren't easy or nice answers. She wanted to give him comfort, to gather him up in her arms and promise him that everything would be alright, and it was all just a misunderstanding and a mistake.
She wanted to give him back the innocence and gentleness that he'd had torn away from him the night before.
Medical jutsu could ease his exhaustion and soreness, and repair what had been physically disturbed by the harsh genjutsu in his head, but there was nothing it could do for his lost family. It could do nothing for shattered trust and ruined dreams, and it couldn't soothe the turmoil and pain in his mind.
She did try with words, but in some ways she thought they could do even less.
Eventually she sat near to him, open for hugs if he wanted them, but without demanding or encroaching on his space, and spun grisly truths around to try to make them seem pleasant. It didn't really work in her opinion, but she tried and she almost believed that it made things a little better.
She didn't think telling him that his brother must have loved him too much to hurt him, and told him to run away to protect himself out of love would carry much weight when he'd actually hurt and terrorized Sasuke, but she suggested it anyway. She wasn't sure that it helped all that much.
In the end, when Sasuke was out of questions and hot drink and she was out of answers and fairy tales, she promised him that they'd find the real answers together. They'd find his brother, they'd get the answers to all of it, and somehow…somehow it would all make sense the day they found that out.
She never promised things would be better, she never promised that he'd be happy, or that things would all be alright again.
She thinks, though maybe she's only fooling herself, that helps him. A little, insignificant, tiny amount, at least.
And that…that had to be worth something.