.

.

The fan glinted, the metal flashing as it arced across the sky.

Gaara ducked and dodged the gale force winds; Temari leaned back. Another blast: kunai came shooting out from behind her. The sand pushed up and up and up, but an errant kunai managed to pass through; it slammed into Gaara's arm.

"Gaara!" Temari dropped her fan and rushed toward him. Gaara winced. There was a rip in his sleeve; blood trickled down the side of his arm.

"You're hurt," Temari said.

"It's nothing," Gaara said.

"But Gaara-"

"I'm still not fast enough."

Gaara stood, wincing. Temari was stricken. "Gaara, you can't keep pushing yourself like this," Temari said. "You're still healing-"

"Again," Gaara said. He hiked up his gourd and resumed position.

Temari frowned. Reluctantly, she opened her fan.

xXx
.

For the first twenty days after being brought back to life, Gaara had a headache he couldn't shake.

It was a strange lightheadedness, as if his head had been scooped out of its insides and everything else had been replaced by cotton.

xXx
.

There were other things too, other things that made him feel a little off. His chakra was uneven. A little bit of Chiyo-baba, a little bit of Naruto-kun, it swirled and crashed like a tempest at his core, and it gave Gaara a nauseating sense of vertigo. It wasn't until Temari found him throwing up into one of his potted cacti that he finally admitted something was wrong. "You're pushing yourself too hard," Temari said. "Gaara. It hasn't been more than a few weeks, your body is still trying to adjust. You can't keep going on like this."

"I'm fine," Gaara said.

"You're not fine! You just threw up all over that cactus!"

Gaara's eyes narrowed. Wordlessly he flicked his wrist, separating the emesis from the sand.

"Oh, that's good," Temari said, sarcastically. "Next time you puke your guts out, I'll just think to myself, 'hey, that's okay, Gaara can still clean up after himself!' Tch. And here I thought Kankuro was the moron."

"Is there something you want?" Gaara said.

"I want you to start resting. I want you to start feeling better."

Gaara glared.

"Fine. Don't listen to me. Stay up all night if you want," Temari said. "Just don't come crying to me when the guards find you passed out in the middle of the hallway."

"Goodnight, Temari," Gaara said.

"Idiot," Temari said.

Gaara pretended to ignore her when she slammed the door.

xXx
.

Nighttime. The lights were off in the compound, and the only light in the hallway was from the occasional torch that flickered above him. With effort, Gaara climbed the steps to his room and opened the door, shrugging off his gourd and leaning it against the wall.

Gaara tried lying down, but the sheets felt strange and the bed felt strange, and everything about it just felt wrong.

Gaara sat up and pushed the bedsheets away, suddenly feeling suffocated by them. Quietly, he opened the balcony doors and stepped outside, standing in the cool night air. Gaara didn't mind not sleeping; what he minded was the overwhelming sense of exhaustion that came with it. The shukaku may have kept him awake all these years, but never once did he feel so tired.

He woke up curled up against the railing of the balcony, late for his morning meetings and his face pressed up against one of the metal bars.

xXx
.

Gaara was poised at his desk, in the middle of a correspondence with the Hokage, when he accidentally gave himself a papercut. He jerked his hand away, stunned by the suddenness of the pain and the unexpected tinge of red at his fingertip, when he realized, I've never gotten a papercut before. He stared at his hand, rubbing the blood between his thumb and his index finger, fearful of what the implications would be.

Setting his pen down, he leaned over and opened the desk drawer where he kept a small parring knife hidden underneath the piles of paperclips and rubber bands. He flicked the blade open, then cut into his hand.

Gaara dropped the knife. He was bleeding. He cut himself and he was bleeding.

His heart was thudding in his chest when he lurched toward Temari's door.

xXx
.

That night, he overheard his siblings talking.

"I've never seen him so weak before," Temari said. "I understand that he's still recovering, but still..."

A pause. Gaara stood by the doorway, listening intently.

"His chakra has weakened," Temari said, softly. "Ever since the shukaku was ripped out of him, even his shield of sand doesn't work anymore."

There was a pause before Kankuro spoke. "That bad, huh?"

"You wouldn't believe how much chakra he uses up just trying to defend himself," Temari said. "It was something he took for granted-that the sand would always protect him. And now..."

Her voice dropped. "I'm not even going full force at him, yet. His other abilities right now are negligible. He can still control the sand, of course he can still control the sand, but his stamina isn't what it was, and at this rate, he's more likely to pass out than defeat an enemy in combat. He's barely genin-level," Temari said. "I don't know what to do."

There it was, that feeling again. Something like shame and indignation gnawing at his chest.

No one noticed when Gaara quietly shut the door.

xXx
.

There was a fresh bandage around Gaara's hand when one of his subordinates knocked on his door. "Kazekage-sama," the captain said. "The council wishes to see you. It's about..." and he hesitated, clearly unsure of where to go. "It's about your ability to serve us as Kage," he said. A little bead of sweat formed at his forehead.

Gaara's face was a perfect mask. "When?"

"Tomorrow afternoon." The captain fiddled with his hands. Gaara turned his back toward him, turning his pen over in his hands. The captain still didn't leave. "Sir?"

Gaara glanced back. The captain cleared his throat, nervously. "Kazekage-sama," the captain said. "I just wanted to say...everything you've done for us..."

"It's fine," Gaara said. "You may return to your post."

"Y-yes, sir." The captain started to leave, then turned. "I hope you're feeling well, Kazekage-sama," he said, and he skittered away.

Gaara sat back and stared at the bandage around his hand.

xXx
.

There was a reason why Gaara didn't sleep: sleep meant physical vulnerability, and every time he closed his eyes he'd jolt upright, half expecting to be suspended in mid-air with his guts being ripped outside of him.

Gaara hated having to close his eyes.

xXx
.

Gaara was standing at the balcony again when Temari came. The night was quiet and there was a slight breeze outside. "It's beautiful tonight," Temari said. "Even when I was a child, I always found the nights to be soothing. I can only imagine how you felt about it. I think you liked the nights more than I did."

The wind stirred. Slowly, Temari pulled out a kunai and turned it over in her hands.

"Gaara," Temari said. "You still haven't fully recovered. You were rescued just days ago, you're expecting too much of yourself. You're not a jinchuuriki anymore. It'll take longer to heal."

"I know."

Silence. Then.

"I started training again." Gaara kept his eyes trained on the horizon, sand swirling like dervishes around his feet. "Baki-sensei thought it best I start working on my taijutsu, if for no other reason than I am a Kage and I ought to be more well-rounded. We both know the truth, however."

Gaara watched, his face a careful mask, as his sister gripped the railings to the balcony, tight.

"You can barely stand up, and yet you're out there training? Tch." Temari rolled eyes. "Arrogant. That's what it is. Arrogant and fucking idiotic, instead of resting, you're out here whining because you can cut yourself. Idiot. And you call yourself the Kazekage." Temari turned. "Our Kazekage would never sit there and feel sorry for himself. Our Kazekage wouldn't have the luxury. Tch. I'm going to bed."

Temari turned and stalked out of the room. Gaara raised his eyes.

"They called a special council tomorrow," Gaara said. Temari stopped. "It's about my ability to serve as Kazekage."

Temari stared. "What?"

"The council is worried about my progress," Gaara said. "If they come to question my abilities, I just wanted you to know...I'm nominating you to be the next Kazekage."

Temari stared. "You can't be serious," she said.

"My abilities have weakened," Gaara said, evenly. "It's not about pride, it's about what best serves our village. And if that means I should step down-"

"I can't believe I'm hearing this," Temari said.

"We both know Kankuro doesn't have the head for these kinds of things," Gaara said.

Temari stared, and Gaara noticed the artery in her temple begin to throb.

The sand, like the rest of him, couldn't keep up when Temari smacked him squarely in the jaw.

Gaara stepped back, his cheek stinging. He stared up at Temari with wounded eyes. "Temari..."

"Stupid!" Temari said. "Fucking idiot!"

She smacked Gaara again, this time punching him in the arm. "Defend yourself!" Temari said.

"Temari..."

"Do it!" Temari said, and her kunai flashed in the darkened sky.

Gaara didn't even blink when the sand wrapped around his sister, blocking the kunai from stabbing through Temari's throat.

They breathed heavily, the sand dropping and the kunai falling to the ground.

"You were going to stab yourself," Gaara said.

Temari's eyes flashed. A slow grin spread across her cheeks.

"Temari!" Gaara said. "What if I wasn't able to stop you?"

"Then I guess I would have been in deep shit, wouldn't I?" Temari said. Gaara stared at his sister, horrified. "Gaara," Temari said. "Your abilities will come back in time. Look at what happened just now-you reacted without even thinking. And it was as if your abilities had never weakened at all."

"Temari." The color drained completely from Gaara's face.

"Have a little more faith, little brother," Temari said, and she tapped the blunt end of her kunai against the metal plate around her neck. "You didn't think I was that idiotic, did you?"

Gaara watched, dumbstruck, as Temari turned on her heels and walked away.

A/N: Even though in the manga Gaara clearly never lost his badass sand powers, I like to think it's not automatic anymore like it was back when he was a jinchuuriki. I like to think he had to go through a long rehabilitation to retain his badass status :) Anyway...yeah. We'll see where this goes.