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He can't remember when the first nightmare became a dream. He still has enough of the former, enough nights where he wakes, sweaty and gasping, hands still grasping for something he can no longer reach. There are images that rarely stay with him as he blinks in the cool night, images of people and memories he can barely recall.
(And, this is something he will never admit, but he has already forgotten them, forgotten their faces and her smiles and the warmth of his hands.)
"Sasuke?" Sakura is drowsy, as she always is when he jolts awake, her fingers slowly reaching out to grasp his shoulders. "Y'ok?"
His mind is still racing, still chaotic--the edges of the present and the past blurr and he is lost. He is eight and he is twenty-one and the pieces of his mind do not quite match the body that he inhabits.
"Sasuke?" There is a startling clarity in her voice, in the urgent grip of her hands. Glancing at her, he closes his eyes, gathering himself. They disappear, his quiet mother and steady father and elusive brother, their mutterings and footsteps.
"It's nothing." He opens his eyes, his left hand covering her right, pulling it carefully off his shoulders. "Go back to sleep."
She eyes him for a moment, taking in his calm composure, the sheen of sweat that she can barely make out in the moonlight. Takes him in and says nothing because there is only so much she can do. She can heal him, comfort him, but she can't fight his demons for him. Those are something he has to face alone.
Instead, she wraps her arms around him, pulling him closer. "You have a lot of nothings," she murmurs quietly, her lips twitching into a smile, before burying her head into his chest. "I'd prefer a something next time."
Her breaths are warm on his skin, her own body almost scorching him. As she falls asleep, her body relaxing, he loosely drapes his own arms around her.
And when he closes his eyes, he can't say if it is a nightmare or a dream that starts.