Utterly alone in a strange, ancient wood on a ridiculous hike precipitated by an unraveling, a crisis. Of course, despite doing all the right things like wearing a garish orange jacket to ward off wayward hunters and making sure to trek the abandoned trail with friends — as if they would have actually ever been able to fight off bears or other predatory animals, packing snacks and following tracks and weighed down with flares, flares — !

Swinging his pack off with a grunt, the movement makes him dizzy, that massive adrenaline dump usually following trauma arriving on schedule. He lands on hands and knees in the mud, and his collapse releases unsettling and rich terroir smells, hazy through the overwhelming and coppery tang of his blood pouring inside out.

Rooting desperately, fingers fumbling with zippers and velcro flaps, digging and seeking and he chokes, throat tightening at the pain starting to seep through the adrenaline’s cloaked protection. He is so stupid, he could have gone skydiving or drunk himself comatose in a bathtub or any number of normal crises but he was convinced to come find his heart and soul on an adventurous camping trip after his family’s arranged marriage for him fell through. Leave it to his dumb best friend to convince him.

His fingers shake and hitch momentarily before closing with relief around the flare. Red:  Emergency, immediate assistance needed.

He flicks his thumbnail under the cap and it arcs, landing in the pulpy soil. For a moment, it’s a beacon against the loamy brown, sitting lonely in the mud. Snatching it up, he gasps against the wave of encroaching pain; it’s starting to puncture the defensive cloak of adrenaline shock. Curling his fingers into a fist around the plastic, his knuckles pop and sing. He startles at a strange, low wounding sound reminding him of lonely, winter-stranded animals, before registering that it’s coming from him.

He pulls the scratch of the flare cap across the black, rough strip. Nothing. Strength dwindling fast and pain spreading swiftly, he swipes it again in anger, crying out.

Breathing shallower.

It happens too fast for him to perceive properly, and one bullet whizzes by so close he can swear it tickles his cheek, and then,

perhaps it’s lucky another one hits true, aiming to take him out of this misery.

Lodging itself less accurately than the first, the impact a glancing blow against his left shoulder.  He sways, suspended in a crystallized microsecond of agony before the ground rises up to meet him without mercy and he lands facedown. He fades in and out, tasting blood, the pinch of smoke, and his own sweat.

Footsteps in the mud squelch toward him, heavy but with a sense of urgency. A mistake, Sasuke mouths into the forest floor — a mistake. Blood, liquid and loose in his mouth. Tries to cough and clear it but the attempt makes him nearly blind with pain. At least one person, maybe three? His mind is scrambling, spinning, fighting off nearly three decades of memories all spilling into frayed milliseconds of impending doom.

“Hmm, human. Didn't expect that.”

Someone else groans and he can sense they are closer, grumbling in tones bearing the weight of physical work and hard years.

“Flip him over.”

And someone does — not gently, and with his boot, lifting and then kicking to roll him over the rest of the way.

Well, there go his hopes.

Two men stand on either side of him, making Sasuke feel as though he’s at the bottom of an endless well, drowning and all. With the view of the forest trees fluttering at the edges of pain and panic, he groans against the threat of unconsciousness tugging, its claws too close.

He registers these strangers’ details in flashes of barely managed understanding: Boots for difficult terrain, thick wool coats knit for the forest's endless chill. Both carrying an ease and familiarity with the whispering woods surrounding them. Left man shoulders his rifle onto his back, tilts his head with a sour grimace and blinks his strangely filmy, vacant eyes. Right man picks an unruly nail and, nostrils flaring, kicks Sasuke in his side again, and none too lightly.

The man on the left:  “Ah, we may be in trouble for this one.”

His counterpart: “‘We?!’ Neji, you shot him!”

“What do you mean ‘you shot him’?” This voice is new.

Sasuke cries out at least as much in frustration as pain; he’s sure he’ll bleed out before these imbeciles complete their ridiculous conversation. Eyes falling closed against what might be his first unvarnished taste of the pain, goodbye adrenaline, his body bucks and his hand flies to his shoulder. Immediately soaked and thick with blood, he tries to staunch it, teeth gnashing, seething all the while.

Someone new enters the clearing, casting a strange and spectral hush. Sounds defined now only in their reverberating absence, the gut sensation of missing a step down the stairs. Twittering birds, moaning and majestic trunks of trees, the ululating, sharp wind. All smothered, vanished, perhaps scattered by the twined scents of cherry and smoke, of steps crackling the leaves underfoot, fluttering and light and, if his soul wasn’t being wrung of blood via two bullet holes, he’d like to look upon this specter, drawn to its strangeness.

Inhuman. Asked later, he would not be able to give words or shape to this kernel of knowledge, only surety running in deep fjords in his very bones.

Sasuke senses close movement, his body shakes with simultaneous heat and chill.

“Perhaps you shouldn’t—”

A soft sound of rustling fabric —

“— touch him,” Neji sighs.

And Sasuke feels delicate fingers on his cheek. A woman’s? Slight callouses, skincatch and gone.

If he does one final thing before he dies, he needs to open his eyes.

“I’ll have to, if I want to ensure he lives. How could you?”

“According to the genius here,” and Neji’s chilly tone slides into clipped arrogance, sharpening each syllable, “there was no question it was animal game.”

“Imbeciles.” There’s no doubt she’s muttered it a million times before.

Sasuke’s breathing shifts, bursting in gasps now, shallower in each one passing, and she taps his cheek gently. In a low voice she asks, “Can you tell me your name, sir?” Her hands move quickly, seeking a pulse in the hollow of his neck, fingers pressing the wound between his to help along the pressure.

In his dying haze, a flutter in his gut. Flicker and fear, and something yawning and dark.

He tries to oblige her request, but of course, there’s blood backing up into his throat. It comes out as choking and bubbling instead.

“Need to move a little faster,” she mutters, seemingly to herself. Patting his fingers with a fairylight, sticky touch of blood, she removes her hands and he’s oddly desperate; but then, that could simply be the response to not wanting to die on the ground alone.

There’s whispering, and he wonders if hallucinations are standard exhalations of the body in crisis. Odd and serpentine, skinsmears on bark, open your eyes open your eyes open your eyes —

With a last burst of desperation, Sasuke does.

Again, such frantic and chaotic processing: Glassgreen eyes, pursed lips that now part slightly at the sight of him, silk pink hair braided into a plait, the lengthy end strands tumbling in milky-way formlessness against the forest floor. Whispers from nowhere override his common sense, and his bloody hand leaves his shoulder wound and lunges for her black cloak instead, dragging her close.

Blood flows freely, and it’s the least of his worries. The voices go quiet.

She looks stricken by his sudden movements, and there seems to be words on the apex of her lips that she swallows deeply, down, locking a secret and eating the key. Instead, with a little shake of her head, she says firmly, “We’ll have to put him out.”

Neji frowns; the tracker shows pointed teeth.

“Are you sure?”

“If you’d shot an animal and it was hurt, half-alive, would you drag it all over creation, prolonging its suffering?”

Whereas Neji has the grace to deliberate it, or at least pretend to, the tracker shrugs and unearths his own rifle, flipping it around to brandish the gunstock end.

“Sorry pal. Doctor’s orders.”

A strange electricity and snapcrackle in the air. Sakura carefully loosens Sasuke’s fingers from her cloak.

“H-Help me!”

Something flickers in her expression at his outburst. The smile stretching her beautiful lips is strained, a mask that doesn’t quite fit.

“We will, don’t worry, sir.”

She leans in, closes the distance, and the seconds stretch to years. Her fingers lift his dark hair from his perspiring forehead, graze his ear, his chin, and she directs his face to hers, squinting into his dark eyes.

Is this dying, the harrowing second of every nerve and neuron misfiring while collapsing into every single, finespun memory he’s ever known? These fierce and forest eyes beholding his last gasps?

Sasuke feels faint; he feels beloved.

The doctor’s companions step forward as she retreats, fingers trailing off his bloodsoaked chin as she murmurs,

“You really don’t want to be awake for this part.”

Pain splits his face wide open, scattering stars in his vision only to be swiftly blotted out by blackest night.

.

.

.

Slivers of senses at first:  The muted tap of a pen on paper, lifted and placed down again with intention, dots of i’s and the scrape of t’s. A sigh into silence.

Groaning, heavy boots on thick wood floors, a comfortable call and response. The uncanny sensation of deja vu; routines for years.

Starchy sheets, clean-bleached and tugging the sensitive hairs on the skin of his arms, and finally,

the sunlight blooms with the shift of time, pulling him to full consciousness with a jolt as the midday beam falls across his eyes. He opens them.

It takes Sasuke a long minute to realize where he is, what’s happened. Ideally, it would have been a vivid dream. But, no, the heaviness of his head and stiffness in his limbs and the dry, acrid aftertaste of blood in his mouth cements his reality. He’s lying on a cot in a brick room of sorts. The floor is chilly, the atmosphere damp, air tasting of silt.

“I think he’s awake,” the woman — doctor? — says, more to herself than to her companion. She doesn’t stop writing, doesn’t break pace.

The latter has a rifle lying across his knees, wearing the same canine-sharp grin.

Sasuke’s vision finally adjusts, and he realizes he’s staring at this doctor and wild tracker from behind iron bars.

The doctor follows his gaze, which is warily fixed on the weapon, and continues. “Please understand, no one will be hurting you here. We’ve just . . . never had this happen before. Visitors, yes . . . in this circumstance, well.” She smiles gently, tilts her head; Sasuke’s stomach swoops for reasons unknown. “You’re certainly the most handsome stranger we’ve had in a long while.”

Sasuke muses on her quip of long while as he observes this doctor can’t be a day over twenty-eight.

“Don't let Hyuuga hear you say that,” the tracker quips, picking his teeth with a fingernail that looks more claw than human. “He styles himself the prettiest.”

The doctor sighs, shrugging her endless pink plait over a shoulder. Finally, she puts down the pen.

“Handsome, meet Inuzuka. Resident tracker of game and apparently, occasional humans. Inuzuka, meet—?”

Feeling on the spot, Sasuke remembers his born and bred manners and valiantly struggles to a sitting position despite his slinged left arm. Glowering at Inuzuka and his compensating weapon, he instead tries to meet the doctor’s eyes.

Wild and green, layered as the forest Sasuke’s quite sure they’re surrounded by. There’s curiosity there, a sharp intelligence, and —

something tugging under his ribs, there and then gone. Staring instead at her long pink braid, he inclines his head politely and clears the blood and phlegm out of his throat before answering.

“Sasuke. Uchiha Sasuke.”

Careful not to hang on her gaze too long, he sees a brightness flicker, her lips twisting. Hiding a smile, something. Even in this dank cell, miles from home, shot twice, in an objectively bad situation, he’s feeling a strange heat and it is certainly not a fever.

“I’m Doctor Haruno,” she offers, rising from her chair. “But my first name is Sakura.”

As she comes to a stop outside the cell, watching him through the bars, he wonders what she’s given him that he’s not feeling a bit of pain. Who knew they had great medicine this deep in the wildwood? Named after a flower — fitting, he thinks, but his eyes don’t miss a beat as she rifles through her white coat’s pockets and locates the jail keys.

“H-hey,” Inuzuka stammers, “you’re just letting him out?”

Sakura waves her hand over her shoulder, smiling kindly as she enters the key into the lock. “Go find Hyuuga and tell him it’s all right. Don’t let him sulk.”

Grumbling, Inuzuku leaves as she opens the cell door and comes inside without preamble, sitting next to Sasuke’s cot on the floor. Unearthing a small flashlight and stethoscope from nowhere, she begins to poke and prod him gently, checking his vision, feeling his forehead.

“I removed both bullets,” she begins, “and cleaned you up. Sleep and time are the true healers, and you’ve been out for, oh, a couple days.” Sasuke blanches, and Sakura pats his cheek gently. “You’ve missed nothing important, I promise. You have all the time in the world here.” She taps a slim finger on his sternum with questioning eyes. “May I?”

Anxious electricity in his hands, dancing with delight on the merry way down his spine. She’s hard to look too closely at — but then, he’s never been quite good at romanticism, at vulnerability, at being anything but a stubborn ass who ultimately couldn’t even hang on to the good woman his family had hoped he’d marry.

He’s sorry, but still relieved.

“Sorry, cold hands.” The ghost of a nervous laugh, more from the throat than her lips, as her hands steal beneath the hem of his shirt and the metal bell touches his chest. But it’s warm, all of it, all of her.

He’s acutely aware of how little he’s speaking, how a man in this situation should have more questions. How little he cares about where he is now that he’s here. Clearing his throat again to delay,

“Haruno — erm, Doctor —”

“You can call me Sakura.”

“Hmm. Ma’am?”

“Miss,” she corrects. “I’m only twenty-eight, sir.”

“Ah. Then can we dispense with ‘sir?’”

“I think that’s fair,” she says. Those green eyes gleam, playful, sinking him in unknown heat. She moves the bell to various places on his chest, as if searching for something.

“Where am I, exactly?”

“A small town outside the hiking woods. We’re a quiet place. Some people move through town for a day or two, simply needing a break. Others leave difficult things behind, like hard lives or tough circumstances, and decide they would like to stay.”

Sakura goes still for a moment, unblinking, as a game animal pauses and points in pursuit. The nod to herself is imperceptible, and she untangles herself from him and his shirt, folding the stethoscope tails over themselves.

That unexplained warmth flees, dissipates, as she retreats.

“What was it?” Sasuke asks. A long beat, and he watches as she slips a moment into a momentary sojourn to a painful past. Where he gets the familiarity, the notion to tap her arm, he doesn’t know, but when accompanied with an urgent, low, “Hey, Sakura,” she rejoins him on earth.

“Nothing,” she says, embarrassed. Indicating the stethoscope in her hand, she repeats, “nothing there. All good.”

Now bustling, woman on a mission, she’s on her feet, all business again. “This town can be prickly on the outside, a bit insular. Those who do stay, do so for a long time. Please don’t be surprised if people take a while to warm up to you. It’s not their fault.” Now it’s she who doesn’t seem to look him right in the eyes. “There’s . . . a lot of people trying to heal.”

Sasuke thinks on the last time he was in his family’s home, waiting in the main corridor outside his parents’ drawing room to break the news, that yet again he could not do this, could not marry, could not find it in himself to act halfway human, always spurning their carefully-laid plans and choices for him. Except he had been beaten to the punch, his fiancee’s crimson eyes eating him alive as she stalked past him on the way out, setting him on fire in the vile way, the devil-drag-me-down way, nothing left in them but venom.

She’d left the door cracked open, the red carpet rolled out to plead his case and confess his mess.

Several arguments later, he found himself crammed in a car on the way to his camping crisis adventure with nothing but a rucksack and his guilt, the unending sound of his best friend droning in his ear. Trying to shake off the old, cling to a new north star.

Finding himself lulled by the sea eyes of this stranger, he can’t shake the same sweet sensation of fire. Not in the way of resentment, in which one side aches and the other takes — this, here, is a precipice, a loving and mutually assured destruction.

“I’m assuming until you’re better,” Sakura says, “you’ll be needing a place to recuperate. There’s a room above the bar where most newcomers stop first, but I’ll be frank with you, they’re going to be wary of a strange man.”

Sasuke forces his feet underneath him, crouched, intent on standing, and Sakura kneels to assist, frowning. Irritated, he waves her off and she obliges his stubbornness with a shake of her head and an impatient tuh!, leaning against the iron bars and folding her arms. Typical patient behavior, and he’s made acutely aware of his weakness when he makes it to a standing position, sways, and catches his weight by throwing his good arm across the bars, bracing himself.

Looming over her, breathing heavy, unbearably close.

He doesn’t realize his eyes are closed until the serpentine voices return,

open your eyes open your eyes open your eyes,

and her beautiful mouth closes around the phrase at the exact same time in an echo,

“Sasuke, open your eyes.”

And he does.

With a gentle, steadying hand on his chest, her voice is a notch above a whisper when she says,

“I think it’s better . . . if you come with me.”

.

.

.

They move as a single unit, Sakura supporting the stranger’s unhurt flank as they walk through the main drag of town.

Stranger . . . more like prisoner, tone grim even in her own head. Until they know his motives, people will be skittish. Like she should be.

She’s hoping the sight of her personally escorting him will ease their fears. When a newcomer arrives in town it’s always an inevitable habit, birds returning to their same migration patterns, like instinct. They gather and hover and breathlessly whisper, conjuring up excuses to visit her home and pry for gossip, suddenly needing medicine for their ills, herbs and plants for cooking and warding off spirits, tea to replace the two month’s supply given only a fortnight ago.

She has a more personal, and arguably selfish, reason for keeping him close. The ethics, debatable. But there are voices in the winds and signs in her nightmares, and the unsettling swirl pattern etching itself into reality upon dropping her own tea leaves and dregs on the floor.

Truth is there, moaning in the shadows and tugging at her sleeves, reminding her not to overstep. His arrival brings premonition she can only taste the edges of.

His looks are an irrelevant bonus.

While she senses he would be perfectly comfortable in pensive silence, she tries to make a kind effort to play tour guide.

“There’s a general store, a tailor . . . a library, of course. Across the street and down a bit further, you’ll see the town seat — you know, records and things.”

“Sakura?”

She doesn’t like the way he says her name — by which she means she’s obsessed with the low baritone in which he does. Looking away, she pretends to observe the world with intent under the scrutiny of his dark, intense eyes: Bluegreen leaves on the cusp of autumn turning, wind fluting through trees, seeking chainless escape. There’s been a steady hum since he’s crossed the boundary, forty-eight hours of seeking meaning.

And, the solstice is late.

“Yes, Sasuke?”

He pauses. There’s nothing in the intervening silence but the scraping sounds of their shoes.

“Where would I find a phone? The one I had with me on the hike is gone. I can see it’s a small town; still, I’m sure there’s one somewhere, for emergencies.”

“Sure.”

She doesn’t elaborate, and Sasuke waits.

“We’re coming up on my place,” she continues. “I’m so sorry, it’s on the edge of town. Once you’re settled in and have a chance to heal properly, we can discuss hiking to the next village over to use the phone.” Heading off further inquiries, she laughs, though it sounds strained. “I know, we’re really rural bumpkins out here.”

Sasuke doesn’t mention how little pain he’s in. Aside from a few attacks of dizziness and weakness, he has the distinct feeling that this lightness and lack isn’t quite right. Though, what would he know? Prior to this, he’s never been seriously injured, much less shot.

“Sure. I understand.”

Tension releases, unlocks and smooths her stiff shoulders. She notices he notices. They are dancing much too close.

Her cabin is set back from the road, a winding path leading any visitor through a lush front lawn and rippling, thick trees. Summer’s finale hanging on, refusing to let the season turn. By the crisp scent of molding foliage, autumn is merely seconds away. Dark windows, telling Sasuke that she hasn’t been home since their encounter; wind chimes, wood and metal brushing against one another and separating again, softly, as fingers plucking at instrument strings; bushels of produce, foodstuffs, and other goods, arranged to one side of the front door in a way that suggests someone else dropped it off, perhaps on a route.

Up the stairs, through the front door. Sakura can feel him handling his own weight with ease, but still finds herself rotating within arm’s length, excuses to touch.

“Let me bring these in,” she calls from the porch, “and I’ll give you the tour.”

Sasuke watches her maneuver the bushels with aplomb, looks around the entryway, taking in the cabin’s generous space. Sensing rooms in all directions, for the first time he wonders if anyone else lives here. With her. The lack of additional pairs of shoes or jackets on hooks, however, indicates otherwise.

Leaving the goods aside, Sakura shows him around. The front of the house is for receiving — exam room, a small area for waiting guests. Deeper in, a storeroom laden with strong smells of bundled herbs, containers of tea leaves, roots tied in bundles with ribbons, all hodgepodge amid more practical items like gloves and gauze. Here and there, an errant scalpel, functioning as a bookmark or knife or a potential accident depending on the task they’d been left in the middle of. Shelves and shelves of books, all looking much older than her.

“Messy, I know,” she says, blushing. “I’m classically trained — obviously,” and she indicates his slinged shoulder, “but there’s plenty to learn in the realm of herbs and tonics.”

“And teas, apparently.” Sasuke inclines his head to a particularly precarious stack of glass jars.

“Right.” She brings her hands together, fingers twisting in agitation. “Still, someone has to do it. And I certainly have the time.”

Sasuke doesn’t miss the focused intent in the way she shuts the door, or the way she makes a fleeting gesture before she brushes the tips of her fingers across the lock.

Superstitious, he thinks. Interesting.

He follows her through her home, lost in thought.

Abruptly and by magic, it seems, she’s gathered a pile of sheets and towels in her arms, and presents them to him.

“I’ll show you the guest bedroom. I’m sure a shower’s been on your mind as well. You’re welcome to stay as long as you like.” She starts down the hallway, and he follows. “There’s also a kitchen, a den — oh! A garden in the back, if you’re interested. My room, and also my study.” A pause. “Please understand I would prefer if you didn’t go in there, for privacy reasons. Patient records, you understand. The storeroom can be dangerous, so I’d rather you let me know if you need something.”

“Dangerous?”

“What if you trip?” It’s supposed to be a joke, but tension threads the attempt at humor. “Or poison yourself?”

“Hmm. And should I be worried about my safety, Doctor? Are you moonlighting as a mad scientist?”

The back of her neck burns so red, he can practically hear it sizzling. Tossing her pink plait over her shoulder with a huff, Sasuke smirks.

“No,” she says, honeyed but sarcastic. “Just your resident forest witch.”

An awkward laugh murmurs between them. Sasuke thinks back to when he was shot. Voices and lush scents. Eyes endless and layered green thickets beckoning him in. Maybe it was the adrenaline, maybe it was the fear of dying. All from the trauma, he’s sure he’s read it in a book. Maybe that explains why she’s so easy to lo—

“Here’s the shower, Sasuke.”

He finds himself staring through the doorway directly into a mirror, startling at his own reflection. With his tangled, mussed hair and dried blood accouterments, slouchy wrinkled clothes, and sling, he has the urge to apologize. Gods, does he reek? He hasn’t even thought about it. Steps forward as in a dream, nose nearly to the glass, the chaos of his last few weeks before he came here begins to settle into his shoulders, his neck. His mistakes. And here he was teasing this doctor, being flippant.

As if he has the right.

“I’ll leave you to it.” Sakura’s voice is quiet and she prepares to step away from the door.

“Doctor Haruno.”

“I said Sakura was fine.”

“Sakura, then.”

Her pink eyebrows arch upward, indicating her attention.

“ . . . Thank you.”

A tiny head tilt. She runs her fingers down the door frame, looking at anything but him, and eventually melts away and out of his sight, embarrassed, almost like vanishing.

Returning his attention to the mirror, he sighs at his haggard reflection. In his head it all plays on repeat, the engagements he’s fractured, the business endeavors failed, the drinking lapses, and all the people constantly picking him up again, the brother he shrugged off, lovers he didn’t love, well-meaning friends. He shakes it away, and removes his sling. Runs his fingers over the bandages, seeking the place where the edge meets tape.

Sasuke unravels himself bit by bit, gauze and tape and disintegrating tissue, soaked with dried bloodrust. His stomach lurches before he pulls away the last thin layers closest to the wounds, layers which slip through his numb fingertips and float, tumbling, to the tile.

Almost expecting it, the guileless and unmarked skin, smooth where the collarbone meets the shoulder meets the pectoral, that prized spot of yesteryear swordfighters where the armor never quite reaches, a fleshy target for near-certain death.

No evidence of bullets; no evidence of anything.

The dizziness sweeps at him hard, feeling like a real blow and making him unsteady on his feet. His own common sense takes him by the shoulders, gives him a hard shake.

Rubbing his thumb, hard, in repetitive motions where the bullets had nested in, tried to claim his life — and they were there, he had known, he had felt the pain, he had seen —

Behind him, Sakura passes by in the hallway, head tilted forward in thought. Pink, beautiful braid laddering down her back, swaying, flyaway tendrils escaping her tight-knit plait.

Sasuke grips the edge of the counter, holding his breath and trying to convince himself in vain that the good doctor did,

she did, she must?!