Hey guess what, I got married. :P

After only a few moments of retrospect, Sakura decided this entire adventure had been a terrible idea. She couldn't fix the window with what she had in the house. She couldn't go out with Gaara to pick up the things she needed for the repair without leaving a big wide hole for anyone to clamber through—and she'd be damned if she left Gaara to his own devices there while she was gone.

But if she sent him out alone, she'd have to deal with the little matter of the giant hickey he didn't know he had.

“I only have a short meeting this afternoon,” he said, as she glared at the window opening. “I'll get the supplies on my way back.”

She could see him leaving the meeting now: Yes, Hokage, I’m helping Sakura with some repairs. What do you mean, you can tell how she’s paying me?

Next time, she told herself, she'd think before she chomped.

It took monumental mental effort to force the words out. “Before you go . . . You might want . . . to put a genjutsu on your neck.”

He blinked at her, his forehead wrinkling—then turned on his heel and marched towards her bathroom. She followed to find him at the mirror, his eyes gone wide with astonishment and . . . glee? “You did that.”

“Yeah,” she muttered.

He touched the blotch on his throat; then, when it didn’t disappear, he poked it. “I didn’t know I could get them.” And with that he turned and stepped past her. “Kankurou'll be proud of me.”

“Kankurou,” she repeated blankly.

“Yeah. I think he thought I was holding out for Naruto.”

“Na—” Sakura stopped and shook her head—there were some things she really didn't need to consider. Far better to herd him out the door, turn her face up for a goodbye kiss as dutifully as if she'd done it for years—and hope he didn't get into too much trouble on his own.

Him being around and helping clean was okay. Him liking kisses and hickeys and her threatening her fellow Leaf-nin—well, if she thought about it for long enough, that was okay too. Sort of. And if he tried anything stupid she’d boot him into next week.

Which he’d probably enjoy. Either way, it looked like he had a win-win situation. Sakura, though . . . just had a headache.

Whose brilliant idea was it to make out with the full-fledged crazy person, again? Really now.

She sighed and looked at the wreckage still scattered across the floor. After the initial clean-up would come the fun part—the wait.

Hold on—had he gone out with the genjutsu, or not?

ooo

“Something's not right with this,” Naruto scowled.

“Not right at all,” Lee agreed.

“It's perfectly all right for me,” Gaara said. He'd tracked the pair to where they were fortifying Naruto's apartment and, after destroying their defenses for the sheer joy of watching them scramble, sat on the cleanest-looking section of Naruto's couch and tried to look knowledgeable. But Naruto wasn't having it.

“How would you know?”

“He is the one with the mating mark,” Lee reminded him, which just made the blond scowl harder.

“I wonder if it's something wrong with her.”

Gaara thought about that for a second, then shook his head. “No. I don't think so.”

“What? Don't you remember a few minutes ago, when she went after us like she wanted to kill—”

Naruto cut off mid-diatribe. Lee's mouth dropped open into a silent o. “So that's it.”

Gaara examined his nails—while nonchalantly cocking his head in order to draw attention to his neck.

Naruto was the first to say it. “You're insane. Still.”

“Maybe,” Gaara replied gloatingly. “But she wants me to come back.”

As he walked out the door he heard Naruto whispering, “Man. This isn't good. Both of them . . . Imagine what'd happen if they had kids!”

“I know what'd happen,” Lee said solemnly. “They'd destroy the world.”

ooo

By the time he came back she'd changed clothes twice, strapped four more kunai to her person, and given up pacing for sitting on her counter, wondering if being a bundle of nerves would make her more or less attractive to him. She nibbled her lip as Gaara came back through the door, trying to think of any kind of conversation-starter, and finally went with the idea that’d been occupying her mind since he left.

“So . . .” she said, as he set down a box of materials. “You’re back to learn something else?”

“I thought we were supposed to be fixing the window.” The corners of his mouth turned up with a smile that sent a little thrill down her spine as he stalked closer. “But if you insist . . .”

Her palm against his chest stopped him in his tracks and she looked him in the eye, concentrating on sounding appropriately threatening. “One thing—if you don't watch where you put your hands, I'll break them off.”

Gaara set his hands against her waist, his appreciative smile finally reaching his eyes as he pulled her closer. “All right.”

This was certainly the least sensible thing she'd done in years . . . and she couldn't care less.

Eventually they untangled themselves from each other in order to start the repair—and ended up starting mock squabbles over anything in order to go back to rolling around. Gaara pinned her to the wall, cupping her face firmly in his hands as he kissed her so ferociously her lips felt tender and swollen afterwards. She retaliated by pinning him to the floor, holding him still with one hand in his hair and brushing tiny, light kisses against his lips and cheeks until he squirmed and snarled with frustration. Sakura shrieked and coiled around him when he inevitably broke free and flipped their positions . . . and when he began bending her only rule by snugging her thigh closer to his side, she decided she didn't feel like hurting him too badly just yet.

“Careful,” she told him, but the warning came out a whisper.

“Yeah,” he replied from just over her face, and she laughed.

“No, really. You can't fix things without hands.”

“I can do anything,” he said, gloriously arrogant—and as he bent back down to her, she realized she might just believe him.

The day was turning out to be strangely educational. Thus far she'd learned lots of things about Gaara: that his brother thought he liked Naruto, that he got turned on by violence, that he knew what was necessary to fix a broken window . . . and that he really, really liked kisses.

And—well, she really, really liked kisses too. His kisses. Between the two of them, she decided, they might need to start planning weekend adventures.

Two and a half hours into what should’ve been less than a one-hour repair, Naruto and Lee knocked on her door. She opened it to find them shoulder to shoulder, scowling about as ferociously as kicked puppies.

“You’re doing it wrong,” Naruto told her sullenly. Beside him, Lee's “scowl” shifted to an outright pout.

“Doing what wrong?”

“Everything,” he said. “He’s even wrong.”

She shot a quizzical look over her shoulder at Gaara, who blinked back at her with something frighteningly close to wide-eyed innocence. “There’s nothing wrong with him.”

“Sure there is!” Naruto returned. “First, he’s too short.”

“He’s a good height,” she said. Being eye to eye with him made for much easier kissing, which was a huge plus in her book.

“No way! He’s supposed to be, like, head and shoulders taller than you! See?”

He made as if to turn the book towards her, she made a move to the kunai at her hip, and he snatched his hands away.

“And he’s too skinny,” Lee said. “The guys are supposed to be built, and huge. I don't think he's huge.”

“He’s a good size,” she said dismissively, then took another second to glance over at Gaara again and congratulate herself on her choices. But in the meantime Naruto and Lee froze, faces crumpling in dismay.

“What?” Sakura glared, for about the fiftieth time that day. Just because short, pale, and skinny wasn’t the popular ideal didn’t mean Naruto and Lee had any more of a clue about their topic than they had a few hours before. “He doesn't have to be huge. He's fine just the size he is. I don't get why you guys even care!”

Naruto finally closed his mouth. Then he opened it again and scarred her for life. “All that measuring, for nothing . . .”

And suddenly Gaara was at their sides, shoving them back out the door. “You should go.”

Sakura paused, confused, as part of her brain tried to insist she hadn't really heard what she thought she'd heard. “Measuring what?”

“But I thought girls always said that bigger is better,” Lee whimpered, his eyes teary-bright.

“Maybe,” Gaara told him. “As long as the corollary is that I'm better.”

Everything clicked in her brain as all the horrible pieces fell into place, and her volume rose exponentially. “Measuring what?”

“Right now it's not in your best interests to stick around,” Gaara said, and gave his comrades one final, not unkind shove.

“Wait!” she shouted. “I—”

But the door'd been closed, and Gaara leaned back against it, grinning in a wholeheartedly creepy manner.

“But . . .” Sakura trailed off, then shook her head. She knew where Tsunade’s sake stash was, and she might now be obligated to raid it. “You . . . you what?”

He grinned wider. “I like you.”

“Because I'm violent,” she growled.

“You just figured that out?”

Tsunade'd also taught her to worry most about the closest target instead of the ones running away. “If you don’t watch it,” she said, “you’re going back out the window.”

He smirked.

Sakura rubbed her temples and hoped upon hope that his answer wouldn't alter her worldview too, too terribly. “One more time . . . Measuring what?”

“Shoulders.” Gaara glanced at her out of the corners of his eyes, lips quirking mischievously. “And hands, and feet, and noses . . .”

She leaned back against the counter, covering her face with her hands. “I knew I shouldn't have asked.”

“Yet you did.” He took a couple steps towards the finished window, made a neat pile of their tools, and headed back towards her. “I didn't tell them, anyway.”

And she needed to stop thinking about his anatomy. Right now.

Okay, maybe later.

Gaara stopped in front of her, considering. “I did always get the impression that I’m supposed to buy you dinner sometime before . . . all this, as well.”

“You can still do that,” she smiled, and felt her shoulders relax a little at the normalcy of his suggestion.

He didn't back away. She shifted, only a little nervously. “So, um . . .”

“Um,” he repeated, and leaned a little closer.

The tools and her remaining dishes were safely to the side, the floor was clear if that's where they ended up again, and . . . “I think I'm hungry.”

“Me too,” he said—and that easily, they had a new direction.

ooo

Twin studies of misery, Naruto and Lee leaned against the stone ledge of the bridge and stared into the water below. “This isn't good,” Lee said.

“Not at all.” Naruto gestured jerkily. “They can't be doing it right. All our sources say practically the same thing, and they’re not matching up . . . So it has to be wrong somehow!”

“But if they just messed up a step,” Lee said, “and everything else goes like normal . . . Imagine their kids.”

Naruto imagined a mushroom cloud. A sandy one.

He cringed. “What are we supposed to do?”

“I know.” Lee turned to him, his round eyes glinting with determination. “We've got to save the world.”