Desert Coffin:

Chapter Four

Disclaimer: Are you trying to depress me?

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Temari was pissed, how dare Gaara make her search for TWO hours for him, then interrogate Kankuro for ONE HOUR so she could just find out he was out screwing around.

How dare he!

Had she not been so pissed she might have rationalized that everyone was entitled to their personal lives and Gaara was well past old enough to take care of himself, but guilt from not accepting her little brother from years and years ago came back at her and instead of admitting that this was the reason she was so upset about Gaara disappearing and being untraceable… she decided she’d just take out whatever little floozy was trying to distract the Kazekage from his work.

Yep, that was a much healthier way for her rather than going on a semi-breakdown, she’d just break someone.

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Gaara watched from across the room as Sakura’s chest rose and fell in a peaceful rhythm, no matter how long he had the Shukaku removed, no matter how long he’d been able to sleep again, he never got tired of watching others sleep.

For some strange indefinable reason, Gaara was pleased to see that Sakura was actually sleeping, the exhausted spells she had been falling into had seemed to be passing and she was beginning to fall into a much more replenishing REM sleep.

The way she was slightly curled in on herself, the way her head tilted towards the ceiling while her lower half curled…

One hand loosely curled by her head while the other rested curled on her stomach. He’d watched many people sleep before and it never amazed him the ways people slept to get comfortable.

He had also not failed to notice the difference in the way some people slept alone and then with someone.

When they where with someone they tended to press up to them, hoping to get their warmth, maybe subconsciously fearful of being left alone.

When they were sleeping alone, most often children and young adults, curled in on themselves, maybe it was away to keep from feeling to alone in their beds. Some hugged their pillows, some even slept with stuffed animals.

He had always been curious to watch the people who slept like you’d sleep when you were in a coffin, with your hands intertwined on your chest.

A coffin.

His muscles clenched and unclenched, the last person who should sleep in a coffin was Sakura, he couldn’t see her laid out like that, he tried to brush the image from his eyes, the heartbroken faces of people around her.

She wouldn’t like it either, he realized, but then, if she were buried in a coffin, dead… then would she know she was in one?

The thoughts disturbed him slightly, which was quite a fete, the bubbly pink haired girl who was never short a smile, who liked to hit Naruto to keep him in line, the girl that was never short on compassion for others.

She certainly shouldn’t be in a coffin; he didn’t think her spirit would allow it.

He glanced at the missive he had yet to send, he didn’t want to leave the kunoichi alone, while yes, she was a kunoichi and by all rights should be able to handle five minutes alone, he most certainly didn’t forget that she very much injured.

Wither it be dehydrated or frayed mentally he couldn’t leave her, while she wouldn’t know if she didn’t wake up he couldn’t bring himself to do so.

It almost seemed cruel; it was that damn conscious he had been building up since he’d been able to hear his own thoughts. When Shukaku’s voice had left his head he had begun to pick up on things that most people grew up with, it was the things that kept people ‘moral.’

His conscious may have been twisted but he was a strong person with strong opinions.

He didn’t need the years and years of defining what was right or wrong or fighting with right vs. want, it was simple to be honest, it was what was right.

He sighed and leaned back in his chair shutting his eyes, he wondered what it would be like to sleep in a coffin. Cramped he was sure.

Suddenly he felt the subject he had been very much trying to avoid pop into his head.

His mother… Yashumaru...

Damn, immediately he felt his mood drop down drastically south.

It wasn’t even a moment into these thoughts and this darker mood that he sensed a presence, he realized just slightly belatedly that the reason he didn’t sense them earlier was because it wasn’t a threatening presence, to him at least.

Assassins stuck out like a sore thumb because of the aura of death around them.

This aura had death around it, but it was obvious who it was, very simply, it was a pissed off Temari.

When the door slammed open he had no qualms about sending his sand across the room to keep the door from slamming into the wood and causing any damage.

Belatedly he realized his mistake as Sakura had jerked wide awake panicked the moment Temari had burst in.

“Subaku no Gaara-“

Gaara had already stood up from his seat but it seemed too late as Sakura had seen the sand swarming in middle of the room, and to her weary brain it was just as likely to bury her as it was to be lifted with the wind in a sandstorm.

Gaara didn’t think he had ever seen anyone flinch so hard before; it hurt him physically to see that much recoil in what had to be a very sore kunoichi.

Momentarily distracted Temari’s head had snapped to follow the direction of Gaara’s hasty head turn, what she saw, shocked her.

“Sakura!?”

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It had been nice to sleep, to really sleep, to be in a land where all that hurt her was far gone and she was comfortable and warm. Nothing could hurt her here, she knew she was dreaming, mostly because she had had this dream before. Many times, the first time she had it, it had been a nightmare, the second time she had it she was aware of everything going on, she knew what was going to happen.

The third time she had the dream she’d gone through curiously, walking through everything that she knew would happen, keeping bad things at bay, it had been interesting, to wake up and know exactly what happened in your dream, exactly what you did. What you wanted do next time you had that dream.

She was having it again, she was running through the dark, but she could see, because she knew it was dream, because she knew where she wanted to go, she knew the eyes watching her in the dark would never hurt her, they just followed her.

She had come to accept them; she knew they would never come out.

When she had reached the part of the dream where she was stopped by a gate she knew she had to climb over it, but this time the gate was open.

She walked through gate a little curious as to why it was open, but not consciously able to think on it.

The first time she realized she could control her dreams was when she realized she was dreaming, she made the scary black gate with pointed spikes along the top bars turn to brightly colored balloons, she had done that for the whole dream.

This time an event that had never happened before began to form around her, and belatedly Sakura realized her control of the dream was slipping. She had paused in the dream, not herself anymore; she was looking down at someone she didn’t recognize standing in the middle of a path, to a place she didn’t quite remember.

She couldn’t see herself anymore, she wasn’t quite sure she was there; expect she knew that the person on the path was her, even if it didn’t look like her.

She couldn’t have explained it right then if she wanted too, but it didn’t matter, there was a loud bang and the ground burst flinging around the girl in the path. She yelled something but Sakura didn’t understand it.

The ground turned to hands and pulled the girl down, screaming silently, drowned out by the breaking earth Sakura suddenly jerked awake.

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Haruno Sakura…

HARUNO Sakura!

Konoha’s top medic jounin, star pupil of the 5th Hokage, someone she had always respected for turning her life so drastically around.

She was the one?

She couldn’t be the one!

She couldn’t!

Temari barely registered that the girl was obviously hurt, she flinched at her flinch as the pink haired medic curled in on herself gripping herself like she was trying to keep everything inside, keep everything from spilling out, she realized then that Gaara’s sand had fallen to the ground.

She had barely realized he had sent it out since he did it so often, but letting the sand down meant the door slammed into the wall behind her.

With a bang that made Temari flinch…

Gaara was across the room reaching out to grab onto Sakura’s hands, it was then Temari realized how hard the poor girl was gripping her arms.

“What happened?”

“Temari take the missive on my desk and send it to Konoha immediately.”

Temari took a step foreword, towards her brother before he did something that he might regret to the shivering girl, trembling from fighting something that Temari could only guess was psychological, she had seen it with shinobi facing her brother before many a times.

But Gaara was reformed he would never- “Now.”

The look in his eyes made her second guess herself, “Right…”

But she trusted him, right? So she should do what her Kazekage said, she’d do it fast, she’d trust him. He was her brother after all, she just had to keep repeating this to herself as she grabbed the missive and hurried out of the room. Feeling horribly guilty at the doubt in her mind, Temari would trust her life to Gaara, but they where siblings, she quickened her step.

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It had hurt a bit when he saw the uncertainty flash across Temari’s features. She had always tried so hard to be normal around him, to act how she would normally act if he had never killed their mother. Killed countless, but then maybe he hadn’t, maybe all those years of unfounded guilt and self loathing where for naught- Gaara banished the thoughts from his head, that didn’t matter at the moment though.

“Sakura?”

He loosened his grip on her hands so he could pull her over by her wrists, she easily leaned into him, shivering and crying softly, he wrapped his arms around her and it wasn’t long before she returned the gesture clenching her hands into his shirt to keep a life line present.

Something in her was frustrated, he could feel it, it was the part that wanted to break past this, but everything else told her it was bad, this part made her hold onto Gaara, someone she knew, something she could recognize and calm herself with, use as a life line.

Gaara shut his eyes to the Kazekage office, the sand colored walls and wood desk. Sakura’s soft cries lulled him into a state he hadn’t been in sense he had first hurt the little girl in playground, when Yashumaru had interfered, guilt.

He felt guilty, and logically it made no sense, maybe it was that he was connecting his mother’s possible murder to Sakura now, it would make sense that if he had never taken care of the actual cause of her death that he still felt guilty for from a long time ago… now that it had hurt another, maybe this was where the guilt was stemming from, building on something that had already been present.

Swallowing away the sudden dryness in his throat, Gaara opened his jade eyes to the softly lit room.

He was a killer, he had killed countless, but wasn’t this what a shinobi was? He felt all the emotions every one else did, he was human after all. So this feeling of guilt, felt so rarely was powerful. Softly Gaara pulled the shaking girl from him,

Wild emerald met cooling jade, “I’m sorry Sakura.” He was only human after all, and when the fear and anxiousness in her eyes calmed a notch the very human feeling of guilt began to subside. And slowly Sakura’s hands uncurled from his clothing, “G-gaara?”

“Yes.” He answered softly, the recognition that filtered in her eyes gave Gaara a moment of relief from his emotions. Emotions that quite frankly he hadn’t dealt with in a very, very long time.

“T-thanks.”

And with that the pinked haired kunoichi proceeded to faint dead away in his arms, the dehydration and exhaustion once more zapping whatever strength she had regained from her short sleep.

Gaara sat on the couch, frozen in his spot, the form of the pink-haired kunoichi slumped against him. Carefully, slowly he reached out to pick her up.

“Your welcome.”

;) Sammy, where’s my story girl? I’m looking foreword to reading it :D