Author's Note: Okay, this is my first story ever on ff. net. I haven't published any fanfic since high school (which was quite a while ago) so I hope this doesn't completely suck. This is just the first chapter. I have more written in my notebook and will put it up soon. Review please and let me know what you think and where you think this story should go. Not beta-ed but I have checked it for errors repeatedly. If you like this story and want to put it up somewhere else, please ask me first. I like to know where my stories are going. Thanks and enjoy (I hope).

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. *sigh* My husband probably wouldn't let me keep him anyway. No profit is made on this work. It is just for fun. Here we go then...

Desert Flower

Chapter 1: The leaf ninja's question.

Gaara heard the leaf ninja coming well before the blond boy burst into the office.

"Ano...you can't just go in there without an appointment!" The, recently back from the dead, ex-jinchuriki recognized the voice of Shinta.

Shinta was the young Kazekage's new personal assistant. Having an assistant was one of Temari and Kankuro's conditions for the redhead's return to work just a few days after being rescued from the Akatsuki.

"But, I have to talk to him right away!" Naruto's voice rang out in protest.

"Temari-san left strict orders that Gaara-sama was not to have unauthorized visitors. He is still recovering from his ordeal." Shinta explained.

Gaara's eyes narrowed and the Kazekage briefly contemplated causing Temari to have sand in some very uncomfortable places. No, that would be wrong. After all, she was only trying to protect her "little brother". Since the youngest sand sibling's abduction (and subsequent untimely death), the older two siblings had become a little bit overprotective, and while it was nice to know they cared, their concern and constant mothering had quickly begun to feel smothering to the fiercely independent ex-jinchuriki.

"I need to ask Gaara something important." Naruto's voice rose in volume. He was obviously getting quite frustrated.

"I'm sorry, if you could just..."

The confrontation outside was escalating. The Kazekage stood and headed for the door to put a stop to it.

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"

Gaara reached for the door, but had to leap back as it burst open and Naruto dashed into the large office. There was just time for a brief glimpse of Shinta, struggling against a hoard of orange-clad ninja, before the leaf shinobi slammed and locked the office door, leaning against it for good measure.

"Oy, Gaara." Naruto grinned, "How are you feeling?"

The young Kazekage's arms crossed and the pale face cleared of expression, "I was recently dead for a few hours," A hint of a wry smile appeared as Gaara continued, "Otherwise, I suppose I am well."

"Ah, good." Naruto seemed to not really be listening to the answer.

Instead he was staring at his friend in a way that was making the redhead a little uncomfortable.

A sudden sharp impact on the closed door broke the tension.

"Kazekage-sama!" Shinta yelled in a panic as the door once again shuddered.

Gaara gestured for Naruto to move out of the way and calmly opened the door. Shinta rushed in looking flustered but unharmed.

"Kazekage-sama, are you alright?" He asked, glaring at Naruto who was leaning against the door frame smiling sheepishly.

Gaara nodded, "Why wouldn't I be?"

Shinta frowned, "I'm sorry, Gaara-sama. I was not expecting him to summon so many shadow clones. The real one was able to slip by while they had me occupied. Shall I remove him from the premises?"

Gaara's eyes grew hard, "No." that tone of voice left no room for argument. "Now, if you'll excuse us. My friend was trying to speak to me privately."

Shinta looked slightly nervous as he realized the extent of his error. Apparently this Uzumaki kid wasn't just Konoha's answer to their request for aid. The Kazekage called this leaf ninja his friend; a title not lightly granted by the suspicious and isolated jinchuriki. Obviously his suggestion had upset the sand-wielder and it had been drilled into sand ninja for years not to piss off Gaara. Though much had changed about the Fourth Kazekage's youngest child in the past few years and even more in the past week, it was better not to tempt fate.

"I'm terribly sorry, Kazekage-sama. I did not realize this young man was a friend of yours. I will ensure you are not disturbed." He bowed deeply to both of them and backed out the door looking decidedly nervous.

Gaara frowned at the fear in Shinta's eyes and tried to relax and look less threatening. It seemed to work because the young man shot his leader a shy smile as he shut the door.

"I assume you did not attack my assistant and force your way into my office to inquire about my health." The redhead turned curious aqua eyes on the suddenly nervous-looking jinchuriki.

"Um, no. I needed to ask you something else." The usually brash ninja seemed oddly flustered, refusing to meet the other's eyes.

"What?"

"Well, when we found you, that is...when I pulled you out...um...while you were...uh..."

"While I was dead." Gaara supplied flatly, hoping to help the stammering ninja along.

Naruto flinched at the memory but pushed on, "Yeah. Um...well, I was too busy to really think much of it at the time...er well, it wasn't even actually me but...er..one of my clones, ne."

The sand-ninja nodded slowly, unsure where this conversation was leading.

"Anyway, well...I was er...holding you, up in a tree, and there was some fighting and um...an explosion...and I had to grab you, ya know, to move you."

Gaara frowned, but waited for the orange-clad boy to get to the point.

"And when I...er...grabbed your uh..chest, I noticed something strange."

The redhead's mind stuttered to a halt, 'Damn. He knows.'

"So, um...Gaara...I need to ask you. Do you..." Naruto's face was as red as Gaara's hair, as he finished the question in a rush, "Do you have boobs?"

Now it was the young sand ninja who would not meet the leaf ninja's eyes. Arms once again came up across the chest in question, the redhead's unconscious way of creating a barrier between the two of them.

'Well, there is nothing left but to explain I guess...' Gaara thought ruefully. 'It was stupid of me to think I could continue to hide it without Shukaku.'

"Um...Gaara?" Naruto's nervous voice broke into the young Kazekage's thoughts.

"Yes."

"Um...Yes as in you heard me, or yes as in..." The blond trailed off, unable to voice the question a second time.

"Yes, I have breasts, Naruto."

"WHAT! Why! HOW! Did the Akatsuki do that somehow?" The leaf ninja practically exploded.

A thin, pale hand shot up to stop the flow of questions. Naruto's mouth snapped shut and a sweat drop formed on his brow. Gaara belatedly realized that the same hand motion usually preceded the Sand Coffin Jutsu. The hand dropped immediately and a flash of hurt crossed the reformed ninja's face for the briefest of moments.

"No, Naruto. No one did this to me. I have breasts because I am a woman."

"A woman?" the blonde echoed incredulously. "No way! When I fought you during the Chunin exams you weren't a girl!"

Gaara covered the hyperactive ninja's mouth with her hand. "Please don't shout. No one else knows."

Naruto nodded and continued at a more reasonable volume once the blocking hand was removed. "How is this possible?"

The redhaired ninja went back to her desk and sat down before she answered, "You're wrong. I didn't know it at the time but I was a girl then too."

"What the hell? What do you mean, you didn't know it?" Naruto gaped, "How could you not know?"

Gaara sighed, "That is complicated."

Naruto crossed his arms stubbornly, "I have time. Explain."

The kage thought for a minute before she stood again and nodded firmly, "Fine, but not here. Come."

With that she headed for the door. Naruto trailed after her silently.

"Shinta."

"Yes, Kazekage-sama." The young man snapped to attention at his leader's appearance.

"I am going home for the day. Please reschedule my appointments." She was careful to keep her tone formal and polite.

"Of course, Gaara-sama" Shinta bowed sharply.

Gaara swiftly left the office and made her way through a maze of corridors. Finally she stopped at an empty stretch of wall, deep inside the Kazekage's Tower. She pressed a hidden switch and a slab of the wall slid smoothly up into the ceiling. She waited for Naruto to go in ahead of her.

Trying to ignore the nervousness she felt at having someone other than her siblings in her private rooms, she followed him in and closed the wall behind them. With the ease of familiarity, she found the light switch in the dark and flipped on the overhead lights. Her windowless sitting area held only a couch, two armchairs, a large bookshelf, and a couple of potted cacti. There was a door at each end of the space, one leading to the kitchen and the other opening onto a small hallway where the toilet, bath, and her bedroom were located. Both doors were closed, as she always left them.

"Sit." She pointed at the couch in the center of the room. "I'll make us some tea."

"Arigatou." Naruto said automatically as she vanished through the kitchen door.

He flopped down on the couch, but was soon back up on his feet, too agitated to remain still.

'Gaara is a girl.' he mulled over this new information, 'How did she hide it? Why didn't I see it sooner? I mean, her face is kind of too pretty for a guy. I wonder what the rest of her looks like.' Naruto felt his nose start to bleed and he quickly shut down that train of thought and attempted to rip up the tracks. 'Whoa! What the heck! I did not just try to picture her naked. It's Gaara for heavens sake! Fifteen minutes ago I thought he...er...she was a guy!' He mentally kicked himself and tried studiously to stop thinking.

It seemed like hours before the kunoichi returned with a small tray of refreshments, though it couldn't have been more than ten minutes.

"Okay." Naruto flopped back down on the couch, "Explain...please."

Gaara took a moment to settle herself in one of the room's two chairs before she began.

"As I said, it is very complicated." She frowned, "I'll start at the beginning."

Naruto nodded and leaned forward in his seat.

"Sand village is not like the leaf village. Men have always held the power in this village and every Kazekage has been a son chosen from my family line. Kankuro showed no aptitude for leadership and it seemed unlikely he would be a strong Kazekage. My father wanted another son, so when my mother got pregnant with me he was very excited. He was determined that I would be a boy and I would be the strongest Kazekage ever. When my mother was far enough along, he had Chiyo-sama ascertain my gender. When she told him I was a girl, he flew into a rage. Then he ordered her to tell no one else, not even my mother."

"Why?" Naruto blurted.

"Because he had a plan. I warned you it was a long story, now shut up." Gaara took a deep breath before continuing her story, "My father had heard that shukaku was always a male jinchuriki. So, he approached Chiyo-sama and told her he wanted her to implant the demon in me while I was still in the womb. I believe he thought it might change my gender but he convinced her by saying I would be a great asset to the village."

"You are." Naruto put in quickly.

Gaara smiled very slightly, "Anyway, as you are aware, they did seal Shukaku in me and I was born appearing to be male." Gaara did not mention her mother's death, it was still a painful subject.

"Appearing to be?"

"Yes, the demon didn't actually change me, it just created a false appearance, a sort of shell around my body."

"Your sand armor?"

"Exactly, I was never without it, even at birth. Medical scans couldn't penetrate the chakra infused sand, anyone seeing me naked would see a young boy's body, it lowered my voice, and it even..." Gaara trailed off slightly blushing.

"It even what?" Naruto asked curiously, having never seen the redhead blush before.

"I learned to pee standing up." She said quietly.

Naruto blushed also, this was too weird. "Oh."

"Yeah, so I thought I was a boy." She hurried on, eager to be finished with this somewhat painful and embarrassing story, "I didn't find out otherwise until last year."

"What happened? How did you find out?"

"I hit puberty." She said calmly, her expression carefully neutral.

"Huh? How would that..." Naruto stopped and you could practically hear the gears grinding in his head.

"I began experiencing stomach pains that I couldn't explain. They were reoccurring on a monthly basis." She frowned, "My figure was changing too, I guess, but the sand covered that up completely. After a couple of months of that, Temari noticed me one day holding my stomach. She insisted I go see a medic but they couldn't find anything wrong with me. Finally, I ended up seeing Chiyo-sama. She figured out what was happening and told me the truth. That's the only reason I know any of this."

"So, you...er...you mean..." Naruto was beet red as his brain finally allowed him to deduce where she was going with this story.

"I was having my period." Gaara confirmed. "The sand took care of the blood, but it couldn't do a damn thing for the cramps. It took Chiyo-sama hours to convince me that what she said was true. She finally had to convince me to remove my armor. It was very difficult, Shukaku did not want me to know, but when I finally manage to banish the sand..." she trailed off, lost in the memory of that first look at her real body.

"Why didn't you tell someone?"

"Because I had just become Kazekage. I had worked for so long to overcome what I was and earn the acknowledgement of this village. I was, at the time, barely tolerated by some of the council members and still greatly feared by many people. To have to announce that I was female and therefore not actually in line for the title of Kazekage...it would have destroyed all of that. I felt I had no choice but to keep pretending." She leaned her head back and looked at the ceiling. "Except now I don't think I can. Shukaku maintained the disguise without any effort on my part. It took me twenty-four hours after my return just to replace the vocal disguise."

Naruto was quiet for a minute, "Maybe you don't need to." He suggested softly, "These villagers love you as their leader, Gaara. I don't think they will really care if you are a woman."

"It isn't that. I've been lying to them, Naruto. I don't deserve their trust, I've already broken it." She glared at her feet and crossed her arms across her chest. She could feel the rise and fall of her breasts through the thick layers of her kage robes.

"But you said yourself you didn't know. I mean...you've basically been a guy all your life except for the last three days, right?" He asked thoughtfully.

"Sort of." She frowned.

"So tell them the truth. It would be better if you announce it rather than having it leak out like some big secret."

"I suppose." She stared up at the ceiling, imagining the reactions of the people she had come to care for in the last few years. Temari, Kankuro, Matsuri, all the villagers...how would they react when they found out her secret. She decided to shove that thought away as another thought struck her.

"In some ways it was a relief to find out I was a woman." She said softly.

"Hmm? How so?"

"Well, I had begun to think I might be gay." She smirked at him.

"You, uh...OH!" He blushed fiercely. "You like guys then."

"Yeah...well, some of them. I definitely don't like women." She wrinkled her nose in disgust, which Naruto suddenly thought was kind of cute.

He shook the thought away, 'Idiot, this is GAARA! Girl or not, Gaara and cute do not belong in the same universe much less the same thought!' and yet his thoughts began to wander towards what the young woman looked like under those heavy robes...a body no man had ever seen.

"So, Naruto, what are you going to do now?"

'Have a nosebleed' he thought, scrambling to find an appropriate response and reel in his overactive imagination. 'That's what two years traveling around with the Pervy-sage will do to you.' He thought ruefully.

"Um...Well, I guess that depends on what you are going to do." He said carefully, not looking at her as he forced the vivid images his mind had created out of his thoughts.

"I..." Gaara frowned, "I should tell my family first."

Naruto nodded, "Yeah, they can stand with you when you tell the others."

Gaara wasn't so sure they would, her family was more than a little dysfunctional. She hadn't even met her siblings until she was ten and they had been terrified by the stories of her for years before that. Then she had tormented them for a couple of years before the fight with Naruto. 'Are the past few years really enough to have washed all that away?' She thought doubtfully.

"Hn," She stood and stretched, "I guess it is time to find out."

Naruto stood as well, "Ano, Gaara. I could go with you...when you tell them. That way you'll know you have someone on your side, no matter what."

Gaara looked at Naruto with wide eyes, 'No matter what? He couldn't possibly know how much that means to me...then again,' she thought eying the leaf ninja, 'he just might be the only one who would know something like that about me.'

"A-arigatou, Naruto." She stammered, the common courtesy still strange on her tongue even after several years of careful social interaction. "I would be grateful."

"Okay, when do you want to do this?"

Gaara hesitated for just second before her usual impatience asserted itself, "No time like the present."

"Yosh," Naruto thrust his fist into the air, obviously fired up to be helping, "Let's go!"

To be continued...

AN: So, what do you think? Does anyone care to see more? Did I miss any grammar or spelling errors? A review a day keeps the writer's block away! Any ideas for this story are welcome. I won't promise to use them, but I will credit you if I do. I have so many possibilities for this plot bunny, I can't decide where it will go. Maybe, NarutoxGaara? Wow, weird for that to not be yaoi. *giggles* Next Chapter will definitely be the big reveal to the older two sand sibs. Coming Soon.