I don't own Gaara or Kankuro or Temari, but Lu is mine.

Sand siblings in modern time, they move to Texas because Temari wants to go to college in the US. Kankuro and Gaara are left going to a normal high school in which they don't really fit in, being from a foreign desert. Story switches perspective of three different third-person limited viewpoints: Kankuro, Gaara, and Lucretia. Temari is in existence, but not in the story, as she is in college and has left Kankuro and Gaara by themselves for now. Kankuro and Gaara have similar attitudes for the most part, except for Gaara's past, which is given a little bit of a more normal explanation revealed in the story itself. Lucretia and her friends are very loosely modeled after my friends and me.

Chapter 1: Introductions

Kankuro sighed heavily. He was on the phone with Temari, who by now had already moved into the dorms of the college. She wasn't going to stay with them.

"I can't stay there! The commute would cost too much money. If I stay in the dorms, I can just walk. I'm sorry Kankuro, but you and Gaara will just have to deal with living by yourselves."

He didn't like this; the three of them had always been together in everything. They had all become very close since then. At first it was just him and Temari, but eventually Gaara came around and realized that they were always there for him. The sand siblings were probably much closer to each other than most brothers and sisters.

"Fine then. Work hard so you can get college over with as soon as possible. I'm not going to go. Gaara probably won't either. I don't know why we had to leave the desert to begin with."

"You may not think it's important, but I do."

To Kankuro, she sounded like she was trying to be a mother again. It annoyed him deeply. She was not much older than him. But he remembered that it was the same thing when he tried to be like a father to Gaara.

"And telling me to work hard," she chuckled, "you apparently don't know who you're talking to, huh?"

"Oh, shut up," Kankuro snapped back. "Just…you better do well."

"Okay, okay…I get it. Don't worry. If I were you I'd be more worried about Gaara and myself going to a public high school. Neither of you have any idea what to expect. I hope that the kids aren't to mean to you two."

"We'll be fine. Worry about yourself," he replied. He was worried though. Especially about Gaara. He could ignore people when they were being annoying and rude, but Gaara…Gaara could get violent sometimes. And as small and weak he looked, he was pretty scary to get into a fight with. Kankuro would never attempt to fight him. He knew his brother's combat ability.

"Whatever. Well, I'm going to go now; I'm meeting up with some friends later, so I need to get ready. Bye."

"Bye."

Gaara just silently watched his brother on the phone. From his expression after hanging up and seeing Gaara standing there, he apparently had no idea that Gaara had been standing there the whole time. Kankuro started to speak, but before he could, Gaara turned and walked out of the room. He didn't care what his brother had to say. He was concentrating on the thought of high school. Gaara wasn't very pleased with the idea of being in a large building with hundreds of other people. And adults. He shuddered. Gaara had never had any pleasant experiences with adults. His mother dieing in childbirth because of him, his father always resented him. Then when his father attempted to murder him…just icing on top of the cake. Kankuro and Temari might have felt sorrow when their father turned up dead, killed by his own "ally," but Gaara felt nothing. Well, maybe not "nothing." He felt something, but it was definitely not sorrow. It was more like happiness. Not quite, but a similar feeling.

"You know, your silence is disturbing. I never know what you're thinking. And with the look in your eyes, I feel like you're going to kill me if I turn my back on you."

Gaara's aquamarine eyes shot Kankuro an icy cold glare, but quickly changed to staring at his feet when he saw the smirk on his brother's face. Kankuro did know what he was thinking, he always did. He knew Gaara better than anyone.

"Sorry, I'm just…I'm worried about going to school. I don't want to be around all those people. I don't think anything good will come out of it."

His brother chuckled, "You worry to much. I'm more worried that someone will say something and either of us will react in a way that will get us in trouble. I don't know exactly their policy on things like that, but I'm sure neither of us can react the same way we usually do when certain things are said."

"Yeah…I guess," Gaara sighed. He didn't really know why he was so worried about this. He'd been through much worse. Kankuro too. Not quite as much as himself, but they both knew some of the same pains.

Gaara turned and walked to his room, he needed to get a lot of sleep for the next day. He'd been staying up so much lately thinking and worrying. He wanted to be refreshed before attempting school.

Kankuro awoke to what he considered the most annoying sound, the beeping of his alarm clock. Wiping the sleep from his eyes, he slowly sat up and then pounded on the wall to make sure Gaara woke up on time. The grunt and the kick to the wall from the other side told him that he hadn't woken up yet. 'Great,' he thought, 'now he'll get mad or something because I woke him up.'

He sighed and got out of bed, tripping a little on the sheets, which seemed to have wrapped around his legs during his uneasy sleep. He cursed quietly, and then stumbled over towards his closet to get dressed. He grabbed a pair of worn jeans, a t-shirt, and his crimson cat-eared jacket and quickly dressed himself so he could go and make breakfast.

Mussing up his hair, he made his way to the kitchen, in which, to his surprise, Gaara was up and dressed and making breakfast. Gaara was wearing his usual eyeliner and mesh top with jeans and skate shoes. Kankuro looked him up and down and sighed again.

"I think you should put another shirt on for school, or at least one over the mesh."

"Fine," Gaara replied without looking up from the skillet. He was making scrambled eggs.

"Well, if you're making breakfast, I'm going to fix myself a little more. You seem to have already done so yourself, seeing as you already have the eyeliner on."

"Whatever," he remarked, again without looking up from the pan.

Kankuro walked back to his room and got his face paint out, but paused before putting it on in his usual fashion. 'Do people here use face paint?' he asked himself. He had no idea. In the desert, it was common, but he had no idea about in Texas. He decided to tone it down a lot today, just a small amount around his eyes, a little moving towards his temples, and just a bit on his forehead. He hoped it wouldn't be to out of place.

Lucretia pulled the heavy classroom door open and walked inside the Physics room.

"Damn, I swear that thing gets heavier every day," she said to herself. "First person in here again…jeez, I have no life or something." She sat down in her usual seat: in the back where no one ever sat with her. She wished at least one of her friends were in the class with her, but they didn't ever take the kinds of classes she did. They were all in the technology type classes, not art and science type classes. She hoped that the new kids that she heard were coming that day would be interesting enough and maybe she'd be able to make friends with them.

The five-minute bell rang, and the rest of her class started filing into the room. She watched everyone come in, but she didn't see any new faces. Maybe the new kids would come in later, the guessed. Her teacher finally came in the room, right before the late bell rang. Like usual, almost all the desks were full, since her class was almost full itself, and the only desks with no one in them were the ones right around her. Lucretia really didn't care if the people shunned her, she just wished she had someone to talk to or work with when they could work together, which was almost all the time. The class was a tough class, but the teacher was very laid back and after notes, they spent the rest of the time socializing and/or doing the homework.

"Apparently, by the talk I've heard from you guys, you all know that we are getting two new students today. I expect you to be decent towards them. They aren't from anywhere around here, so they are already going to be out of place. I don't want to hear any trash talking."

She couldn't see it, but she knew that almost the whole class rolled their eyes at this. This class wasn't the best for new students. It was full of rich kids and stuck up kids. At least Lucretia had the ability to make friends with new kids easily. But the rest of the self-centered teenagers in the class, they were the same ones who shunned her ever since she changed schools in elementary school. None of them had grown up. Still, she didn't care. She was only thinking about the new kids and if they were boys or girls or what. She hoped they were boys. At least one of them. Lucretia got along with boys better anyways. They were usually immature, but boys were never as catty as girls could be.

Lucretia was so lost in thought, she almost didn't notice when the door opened and the principal came in with two people she didn't recognize. At first she was a little confused, because the taller or the two was wearing purple makeup, and the shorter one, she couldn't tell if it was a slightly effeminate boy or a boyish looking girl, since that kid was wearing makeup too.

"Class, these are the new students, Kankuro and Gaara."

"What the hell kind of names are those?" an especially stupid jock named Rick yelled out.

"Watch your language, young man," Mr. Kevin, her teacher, replied, "and that is an impolite question." He cleared his throat and continued, "As I was saying, these two are your new classmates, and you should treat them like you would treat anyone else in this classroom."

'More like they'll treat them like they treat me,' thought Lucretia. She looked closely at the smaller teen, which she realized now was a boy, and thought, 'He's kind of cute. A little pale, but still cute.' He looked to be even shorter than she herself was, which was a little strange to her because she was fairly short herself. The boy had deep red colored hair, the color she wished she had, and beautiful aquamarine eyes. The dark eyeliner drew her attention to them more. Then she noticed the small tattoo on the left side of his forehead, a small red heart. 'How cute,' she thought. His clothes were in a similar style to her own, as he was wearing a dark red, almost black, colored t-shirt with a dark pair of jeans and finished it off with a pair of black skating shoes. What was odd, yet interesting, though, was the black mesh undershirt he was wearing.

Lucretia then turned her attention to the taller boy, ignoring Mr. Kevin's lecturing, and looked him over. He was definitely larger in frame then the other boy. He was probably about average in his height and build, not too big, but not scrawny. His hair was a normal brownish-dark blond color, a little bit longer in length than the boy standing next to him. It was messy looking, but the look suited him. The next thing she noticed was the purple makeup on his face. His eyes were outlined in purple, and the line of color was drawn out from the corner of his eyes towards his temples, giving the same look as to the eyes on Egyptian drawings. He also had a triangular shape on his forehead coming out from under his hair and stopping in between his eyebrows. It was then she noticed his eyes themselves. They were the truest royal blue she had ever seen. They were so blue, it was unnatural looking. His attire was, like the other boy, darker colors, but it had a more comical and laid-back feel with the cat ears on the crimson colored zip up jacket. He also wore jeans, but they were very worn and broken-in looking, like they were worn many times. His shoes were a very worn pair of red and black skate shoes, which matched the rest of his outfit quite well.

Despite the worried look in his eyes and on the other's face, he was smirking. Hand on one hip, he was attempting to give the impression that he was unfazed by coming into a new school and having approximately 25 pairs of eyes on him at one time. 'He's pretty good looking,' Lucretia thought to herself. Now she was kind of glad that the only seats open were the ones near her. Those two didn't really have a choice but to sit with her.

Kankuro nervously stood at the front of the classroom. He was able to hide his fear and the fact that he was uncomfortable, but he knew Gaara wouldn't be able to. The outburst from one of the boys about their names just made things worse. He could sense the uneasiness leaking from his little brother. 'Please just let us sit down!' he screamed in his head. The man wouldn't stop talking. Kankuro assumed that he had to be the teacher of the class. He sighed inwardly and looked around the classroom. He noticed how there were few empty seats, and all of them were around one solitary girl sitting in the back. Despite her lack of companionship, he didn't sense any unhappiness. In fact, she seemed happy about sitting with a bunch of empty desks. She was a strange looking girl, or at least, she had a different overall appearance than most of the other girls. Unlike the other fair-haired girls that had more stuff on their faces then he ever did, this girl had a normal hair color similar to his own, and the only makeup she wore was dark eyeliner, similar to Gaara's, along with a pair of small, but thick black plastic framed glasses. Also, her clothing was different. While most of the girls wore sandals and short skirts with skimpy little tops, this girl wore jeans and a dark t-shirt, with several rings and bracelets.

Unlike the other girls' long, straight perfect hair, her hair was relatively short and pulled back into perfectly placed pigtails, but the hair itself was messy looking, and she had bangs pulled down, cut straight across along her eyebrows. The overall look made her appear somewhat like a puppy in a way. He smirked a little at that thought.

Kankuro looked around the room again, noticing that all the other girls in the class looked like clones almost, all with the same expression, the same makeup, the same types of clothes, the same hair…it all made the one girl in the back stand out even more. He looked back at her. Their eyes met, and he quickly looked away. He didn't know why. Maybe it was just the uncomfortable atmosphere.

After a long-winded lecture from the teacher, Kankuro and his brother made their way towards the empty seats in the back of the class. Kankuro could feel everyone's eyes burning into him and Gaara. He wanted to get to a seat and get their attention off of him as soon as possible.

He sat down in the seat next to the girl, and Gaara took the seat behind him. Kankuro turned to the girl and asked her what her name was.

"Lucretia," she said. "My friends usually just call me Lu."

"Oh, hi then. I'm Kankuro, and this is my little brother Gaara," he replied, pointing towards Gaara sitting behind him.

"I thought you two looked related," she said, smirking. "Don't mind the idiots in this class. They still bug me about my name, and I've known most of them for several years. I think your names are pretty neat."

"Thanks," Kankuro replied, "the others seem very…stiff, if you know what I mean."

"Yeah," she sighed, "they're always like that to people who aren't another one of their clones. That and you both do have makeup on. Boys don't usually wear makeup in Texas."

"Oh…" he said, cursing himself for putting on any paint at all.

"But don't worry. Their opinion doesn't matter. I never listen to them. Besides, I think it looks cool. I love the color purple. And eyeliner on guys is pretty neat," the latter she said to Gaara. Gaara looked up and nodded his thanks and quickly went back to staring uncomfortably at the floor. Kankuro felt bad for him. Not only did he never seem to fit in anywhere, but here it was exaggerated even more.

"Don't mind him," Kankuro assured the girl after seeing the hurt look on her face. "He's a very…closed person. He'll open up eventually, most likely."

"Oh, okay. Well, we better pay attention to notes. Mr. Kevin doesn't like it when people don't listen to him. We can talk later, during work time. Here, take my notes from yesterday. We were in the middle of a section. If you get lost, I'll try to help. I'm fairly smart. I make a better grade than anyone else in the class, at any rate."

With that last bit, Lucretia laughed and handed Kankuro some papers. He nodded his thanks and quickly started to copy what was on her paper, and then what was on the board.

Gaara just silently glared at the back of his older brother's head. He was already making friends, and with this strange girl, too; the only other person in the class besides the two of them that didn't really look like they belonged. Between the makeup, his mesh undershirt, Kankuro's cat-eared jacket, this girl's boyish clothing, and all of her rings and bracelets, the three of them stuck out from the rest of the class like white and black.

But it wasn't whom Kankuro was making friends with that bothered him. It was the fact that he immediately was able to just talk to her and make a friend, while everyone else just glared at them and whispered to each other, and all he concentrated on was trying to ignore and avoid all the stares and whispers. He knew eventually his brother would make him be more sociable, but thankfully, that time was not now, since he seemed to be occupied with copying the girl's notes that she handed him. Gaara didn't really know what to do, so he just sat there and listened to the man at the front of the room. He had an extraordinary memory anyways. He could remember something after hearing or reading it just once. Gaara had no need to write anything down, and the teacher didn't seem to notice, so he just sat there in silence and soaked it all in.

Gaara sighed silently when the man had stopped the lecture. The students all started talking at once. He caught bits and pieces of their meaningless conversations, most of them about boyfriends, girlfriends, and the next big party at their friend's house. None of that meant much to Gaara, nor did it interest him any at all.

"So, where are you from?"

Gaara looked up at the girl's voice, and realized that she was talking to him.

"A desert," he replied coldly.

"Uh, o-okay…" The girl looked uneasy and surprised by his detachment from conversation.

"C'mon Gaara, you can be a little nicer than that. She is the only hospitable person in the room, you know?"

Gaara just glared at his older brother, pleading in his eyes to let him be and not make him join into a conversation. Kankuro seemed to get the hint, and he just sighed heavily and turned back to the girl as the started to work together on the work that had been assigned.

'That's odd,' thought Gaara. 'He isn't as reserved as me, but he usually isn't this quick to make friends either.' A little confused at the situation, Gaara shook it off and started to work on the homework by himself, not wanting to ask for any aid from his brother, and definitely not that girl.

"Lucretia," he said to himself. He realized he said it out loud, but thankfully he was quiet enough that she didn't hear him. 'It's a strange name…but, she probably is thinking the same thing about us. But, she did remark about how the other students thought her name was strange, so it must be an unusual name even here,' Gaara thought as he started to work. The work was incredibly easy, though it was only his first day in a public high school. Temari had taught him and his brother quite well at their old home though. She thought it was important to have knowledge and learn and things like that. Which was why the three of them had moved in the first place. She finally was old enough to attend a US college, and was definitely smart enough.

Gaara sighed inwardly and finished up the last of the work. He looked at the clock. 'Great,' he thought. 'Still have 45 minutes in here…'

Lucretia enjoyed herself while working in class. She finally had someone to talk to. And not only that, but he was someone interesting, someone that she didn't already know. She did have plenty of fun with her friends, but it sometimes got a little too predictable. They all knew each other very well. It was hard to hide anything from or lie to each other. But this kid, he was someone new. Which made everything much more interesting than if she was talking to one of her close friends. They knew nothing about each other, so they had plenty to talk about.

She asked him at least a hundred questions. Lucretia was interested in finding out whatever she could. Of course, she answered similar questions he directed back towards her. 'Finally an interesting day in this class,' she thought. Three weeks into school and it was all one boring day after another. But now she had someone to talk to, so she was a lot happier about the rest of the school year. She asked Kankuro what other classes he and his brother were taking.

"Well, both of us are in all the same classes, which is what I requested," He leaned closer to her and whispered, "He doesn't deal to well on his own. I'm afraid to leave him alone for such a long time, because I don't know what might happen."

"I heard that," interrupted Gaara, followed by an icy stare.

Kankuro met his glare with an apologetic look, and then turned back towards Lucretia.

"Well, anyways, after this one we have a drawing class, and then after that we have a free lunch period, and then we have a US Literature class."

Lucretia's face lit up as she exclaimed, "Really?! I have the same schedule! I can show you around then."

"Great!" Kankuro smiled back at her. Lucretia looked back at the younger brother '…Gaara, yeah, that's his name,' she thought. 'I'm glad he's in my classes too. I want to get to know him. He's so mysterious, I love it! I can't wait to get to know him.'

Lucretia wasn't sure why, but whenever she looked at the small framed boy, she felt a light twinge in her heart. She was really hoping to eventually get him to open up. Just then, the bell rang and all the students quickly got up and ran out the door. Lucretia took her time though; she wasn't in a hurry. She didn't want to lose the two brothers in the mess of students. She and Kankuro talked excitedly the whole way to their next class as Gaara silently and obediently followed, a look of uncertainty on his face.