Rated for blood and gore.

Lungs burning, he surfaces blindly. The transition is always disorienting to him. Light shifts, water drains like a hazy curtain over his face, and his mind is slow to catch up to what his body instinctively feels.

But today is made even worse by the fire of cannons and the blaze of boats overhead. The noise is unbearable, and the water is thick with the taste of blood, pitch, and gunpowder. A wave crashes over him, bringing with it a heavy wooden beam that smashes into the back of his head and makes him see stars. He gasps and for a moment, almost drops the quarry in his hand, but he regains himself—firms his grasp and grits his teeth through the pain as he presses Sakura's limp body closer to his chest.

He scans the surface as another wave passes—tries to ignore the pallor of her skin and the loll of her head. He needs to find her ship. Needs to get her out of the water, and he pulls her with desperate strokes towards the familiar silhouette of her boat until he feels like his arms will tear from their sockets.

He doesn't even get her onto the lifeboat before she starts seizing, body knocking wildly against the wood floor. He doesn't even think about it. He throws himself in after her, pins her as best he can with his chest and tail. Everything hurts. His lungs burn with smoke and the skin of both his bodies is rubbed raw and bloody by wood and rough metal. He doesn't know where to put his hands—knows he should protect her head, protect her tongue and stop her from biting off her tongue and choking on her own blood, and close the wound. It's what she taught him—what she would want him to do—but it's hard to keep his calm. The bodies of mortals are so odd, so fragile. No matter how much he learns, there is so much he doesn't understand…

He ends up hooking three fingers into her mouth and blindly shoves his hand against her as he tries to ignore the gaping hole in her side. She chokes, gagging and retching as his fingers try to still her tongue. He wants her to breathe; he wants her to live, but he's no expert in their anatomy. All he knows is that she isn't supposed to be like this and if she doesn't stop bleeding soon, she'll die.

The thought chills him like tundra cold. It's enough to make his body still for a second as he imagines a life without her, and his throat works hard against the sudden knot he is forced to swallow. It feels like tar going down, coating his insides in black resin and clings like poison chandeliers in his rib cage. He feels the urge welling up inside him and instinctively, he wants to fight it. His body was not made for this. Their kind does not shed tears easily, but his grief is uncaring of biology, and magic and salt collude to harden and tumble from his eyes, cutting his tear ducts like knives.

When they tumble out on the deck, he is instantly on her, arms aching and gills flaring as he fights the thrash of her legs under his tail. When an errant hand gives a vicious blow to his throat, he only chokes slightly, ignoring it as he pleads desperately with her crew with wet and shining eyes.

"Fix her. Please."

She wakes up to his face hovering over hers. Her head is spinning slightly—she's so, so very tired—she just wants to curl up and go back to sleep. There is an aching knot in her side and a strange tickling sensation she feels stretching from under her ribs. She feels something alight in her veins, feels it buzz and flit in her blood like a fairy's flight. It's heady in a strange way and she imagines blue wings wandering the streams to her heart.

She slowly opens her eyes. Her lids feel like anchors and she fights to keep them open under heavy, fluttering lashes. Moonlight shoots into her vision as if piercing through church windows, pure and blinding, and she begins to pick out details like the straight line of his nose and the firmness of his jaw. His eyes are dark, piercing, anxious, and beautiful, and just beyond is the ridge of one of his ear fins that she loves so much made tantalizing and white by the moon. She loves looking at them and can already feel the fragile smoothness under her fingertips, lovely as stained glass or spun sugar. The thought touches her soul in a way that makes her almost coo, and she wants to reach up to trace the fine, gossamer edge when she notices something.

"You're crying," she rasps. She wants to wince at her own voice—it sounds so much weaker than it should be—but she's more upset at his tears. He told her that tears for the merspecies were rare, exhausting, and dear for all parties involved-Merturtles were the ones who cried most easily and they were driven to ghosts and memory for their tears—and she strokes the curve of his jaw gently, wondering what could have possibly moved him in such a way.

He scoops her into his arms and she feels something warm and wet press into the skin of her cheek as his gill slits flutter with agitation, beating like bloody butterfly wings.

"I—I thought I lost you," he gasps with deep, heaving breaths. It hurts to hear his voice this way—scared, anxious, and infinitely relieved—but it hurts more to be crushed against him like this, wrapped so tightly in his grasp she feels like she will break under the weight of his touch as he trembles and quakes endlessly against her skin. His touch burns against the chill on her skin—she thinks he will shatter at any moment and holds her as if afraid of losing her—when her elbow brushes against a tear in her shirt.

Gingerly, she brushes against the tender, raw skin of the new scar in her side and feels him clutch her tighter with desperate burning hands. She tries to soothe him with her own, tries to pull away to reassure him, but instead she catches sight of all the bruises and burns, the scars that cross-cross his chest and arms. He doesn't seem conscious of his wounds—of the raw, burning welts and fading tracks on his flesh—but she is because she can't remember him having all of these when they first met. When her eyes focus on the long, pale line that cleaves his shoulder, she feels the line go straight through her heart, and his haunted gaze hangs between them.

I can't keep doing this to you.

The realization drops like a lead weight beneath the water. It sinks slowly and without sound to settle in the pit of her stomach. She doesn't fight him this time as he clings to her, and she rubs long, slow strokes into his back as she helps him weather his tears.

She knows what she must do.

14 months later…

"Are you sure you want to do this?"

The glare Sakura levels at him is incredulous and withering. Both think he should shrink under it, but the look has lost its potency just as the question becomes more annoying with each time he asks. At first, Sakura was touched—endeared even—but it's the eighth time he's asked, and his willful denial is grating.

But it's not enough to erase over a decade of friendship, and her gaze softens despite herself.

"I'm sure," she replies softly as she scans the landscape around them. He follows her gaze over the wide beach, the palm trees, the mountain in the distance. On the other side of the island is a village, he knows, but here, there is a singular house with a garden at the edge of the thick jungle, her retirement home a year in the making—the same amount of time she has been preparing him to take over as captain. She told him as soon as she made up her mind and he knows he should be excited—and he is—he'd always dreamed of being a pirate captain and the day was finally here. He thought he'd be happy...

But half the old crew is gone, having left to go their separate ways. Neji left with Tenten to open her weapons shop; Lee joined Gai's crew; and Sakura is the last to leave when he thought she'd always be beside him.

"Are you sure you have to go? You don't have to do this," he blurts, knowing exactly how stupid and desperate he sounds. The entire crew had built that house for her. They moved back and forth out of here for a year carrying lumber, nails, and glass. All of her belongings were in that house now, and the captain's coat covers his shoulders in its thick weight.

And if that wasn't enough, Sakura absentmindedly traces a finger over the shiny white scar on her right side from when the grapeshot tore through her and stares out at the water. He turns to look over his shoulder and sees where Kakashi is waiting for her in the tide, both patient and anxious for her return.

"I'm sure," she says wistfully, and there's a note of finality in it that tells him he should've savored her last day on the boat more.

He pushes the thought aside and sweeps her into a hug. "If you ever need anything—anything. Money, supplies, someone murdered—if you need a boat—" he blathers helplessly. She wants to roll her eyes, but settles to pat him gently on his arm. Over his shoulder, she can see Konohamaru staring down at them from the deck, trying to be polite as he paces with thinning patience for his overemotional captain. She can't believe how much he's grown since they picked him up a year ago, a young sprout turned into a wild and unruly weed. But he's energetic and tenacious, and she thinks to herself that if the two don't kill each other, he'll be a fine first mate for Naruto.

But those are a captain's thoughts and she's retired now, and she steps out of that thinking just as she stepped out of that coat.

"I'll be fine," she reassures and claps a hand on his arm with a squeeze before pushing him back towards his boat. "Visit me anytime. I had Neji mark this spot on your maps before he left. Shikamaru should be able to help you find it."

And then he is gone. The ship that she spent most of her life is gone, and she watches it become a speck on the horizon. As it disappears into the distance, she wonders to herself if she made the right decision after all—a life without cannonfire or adventure. A life of obscurity and domesticity that she fought to escape all those years ago-but then she hears the low scrape of sand. Kakashi threads himself amongst her limbs as the tide rushes to meet them. Her pants become heavy and cold with sea water, but the places where she feels him are warm and light as her feet sink into the sand.

She drapes her arms over his chest and he purrs against her. His thumbs stroke the soft skin of her forearms and he leans to press a soft kiss into the crook of her elbow. His dorsal fin is squashed in an awkward position as he lays on his back, but he doesn't complain and seems to be content as she holds him against her as they watch the sunset from her new home for the first time.

She decides she wouldn't give this up for the world.