The girl came on the night of the full moon.

There were no windows in Gaara's cell, but he could feel it. Before he would have been roaming the desert. At this time of night the sands would doubtlessly have been colored red many times over.

Now Gaara settled for leaning against the wooden wall, legs crossed in front of him. His bound hands lay in his lap and he ached to crack his knuckles to get rid of the fervent restlessness in his bones. This was the hardest part, he decided.

For one week he had sat in a dark and quiet cell. He was bereft of sand and the leaf shinobi had been careful to remove even the smallest speck of dirt they could find. Shukaku slept, unwilling and unamused, and not long after Gaara thought that he'd probably be able to sleep too.

He did not.

But he wondered if this was not unlike being inside a tea kettle. Waiting in the dark for someone to open the lid, every thought and action building up to only one objective. Shukaku had wanted him to escape, had roared at him as the wood wrapped around his falling body when they were captured.

Escape had never been the objective.

Gaara just had to be patient. He had to bite his tongue and still his hands. He rested and watched out for the perfect opportunity.

And listened to the faint footsteps drawing towards his door.

An assassin? It was probable with the state he'd left Sunagakure in. If they wanted to kill him they'd have to open the door and if they opened the door they would ruin everything.

Gaara rose to his feet, chains clinking softly against each other. Weaponless, vulnerable, and calm, he stood.

The intruder stopped in front of his cell.

Gaara strained his ears to catch the faintest sound of them breathing. The chains around his wrists could be used as a makeshift garrote. He still had his trump card.

It would be over in less than a second.

"Hey, are you awake?"

The voice belonged to a girl, or maybe a young woman. Someone stupid enough to not read his files and ask him that of all things. Decidedly not an assassin.

"You're Sabaku no Gaara." she said. It was strange to hear his name spoken without fear or wariness. Weightless, another name among many. He shivered.

"I mean of course you are. If you weren't you wouldn't be here. You know everybody's talking about you and what you did." The door groaned as the girl leant against it. "Talking about why you did it."

The news of his infamy was a salve for the week of monotony. He was not forgotten. He was not forgotten.

"I couldn't care less," Gaara said.

"Yeah well I do." Then much quieter, "It wasn't supposed to be like this."

It was always going to be like this. A road paved with the blood of his mother, Yashamaru, and all those who dared stand in his way. A road Gaara would have ended up walking down regardless of Temari's situation and Kankuro's cowardice. Because he was alive and his father had drilled into him that all things had value. His life was worth nothing if he had not ended up in this cell.

The scar on his forehead, the new mark that burned on his forearm, and the howling in his blood, relentless and eager- they all led here, to a monster listening to a girl on the other side of the door.

It was always going to be like this.

"Hey. Do you-" she paused, considered her words. The girl almost sounded nervous. Too nervous to ask him a question but not nervous enough to consider against traipsing around in Konoha's underground starting up conversations with prisoners.

"Do I what?" Gaara asked, curiosity getting the better of him.

"Do you remember me?"

There was hope now, and an accusation ringing in her words. Gaara closed his eyes and thought back to two weeks ago. He remembered the blood, the outrage and a smile like war. He remembered further back to his father's hand on his shoulder and anticipation in his eyes. He remembered what it meant to be the strongest.

Determined, she continued, every word growing louder until she was shouting. "It was a long time ago. And I didn't know your name then but you knew me. You knew about me. You knew more about me than I knew about myself. I know it was you. It had to be you."

Like Gaara owed her a response, an affirmative. The more she spoke, the greater his head throbbed. Before his fingers would have been wound up in his hair, pulling and tearing. Instead he imagined them around her neck.

" 'Cause if it's not you, then none of it makes sense. You're the only one who could- I don't know. I just need to know that I didn't make it up."

The girl stood at his door waiting for an answer he could not give.

"I don't know you."

She laughed then, loud and terrible. A harsh broken noise more akin to crying. A sound so familiar it set his teeth on edge.

Gaara bit down on the urge to snarl back at her and demand answers. The girl was a trap. An interrogator sent to lower his guard. Or maybe he had fallen asleep and this was nothing but a dream.

Because no one would willingly seek him for something as simple as this.

And no one would sound so sad when he failed to remember them.

"Yes," she said finally, "you do."

Anger mixed with incomprehension in his gut. She was wrong, she had to be. But Gaara didn't say that. He didn't say anything else at all even when she walked away, footsteps disappearing into silence.

xXx

That should have been it. The story should have ended right there with Gaara in an isolation so familiar it had grown comfortable. He expected nothing less.

But the next night, the girl came back.

"It's pouring out there. I bet you haven't even seen rain have you?"

As if she had every right to be there.

He glared at the door between them. "Don't you have anything better to do?"

The girl laughed. She laughed loud, vibrant and completely unlike herself from the night before. There was no doubt in his mind that she smiled when she said, "No, I don't."

A switch had been flipped in their hours apart. Whatever memory haunted her had fled and in its place left a strange annoying girl who didn't know when enough was enough.

Every night afterward, she came again and again.

She never stopped talking. Whether it was to tell him tall tales of her missions or badgering him with nonsensical questions ranging anywhere from whether he'd ever seen rain to his opinion on ramen, it didn't matter to her.

"What are you hoping to achieve?" he asked one night, interrupting an exuberant retelling of how she had rescued a princess.

"What d'ya mean?"

"Do you think I'll remember you if you keep coming here?"

"Dunno, but it can't hurt can it?" she said, "Maybe I just like talking to you."

Gaara refused to say another word to her for the next three nights.

Nevertheless, she persisted.

The girl was a dream he did not know how to wake up from.

Gaara could not remember her.

He didn't want to.

Sometimes things were meant to be forgotten. Memories were wounds that refused to be left alone. Recalling the past was like peeling off a scab and watching the blood drip. Sometimes wounds never heal.

So perhaps she was a relative of one of his victims or someone who'd witnessed his carnage. An assassin trying to earn his trust before unzipping a jacket full of explosive tags. Maybe she wasn't even real at all.

It didn't matter that she was different than the ones who came before. That she still hadn't asked him the one question she should have. The question that had Sunagakure and Konohagakure running around in circles, eyeing each other distrustfully.

She would ask and then she would be like everyone else. It was just a matter of time. All he had was time.

If the girl wanted to come night after night, she could. If Gaara leaned against the door and listened to her, it wouldn't matter. If he thought about it, it was probably the closest he'd been to another person in years.

It still didn't mean anything at all.

It only became dangerous when he grew curious. The way her footsteps woke up the unfettered version of himself. The silent stalk toward her when she called his name. Control, control, control, he repeated in his head, while his blood churned.

The full moon had longed passed, but the girl was bright and it was so dark in his cell.

There was a thousand reasons, a hundred warnings and one ultimate goal that should have kept him quiet.

Trouble, Shukaku muttered in a rare moment of consciousness, She's trouble.

Another night. Another moment where a boy and a girl sit back to back. Another headache blooming underneath his scar as he struggled to understand. Another one sided conversation where the girl rambled on and on about everything that didn't matter.

Only she didn't. She hadn't said a single word.

Somehow the silence was so much more unbearable than the noise. It knotted and twisted his insides. The jaws of a trap snapped shut.

It didn't mean anything.

"Why are you doing this?" Gaara asked.

She mumbled,"I told you-"

"No you didn't." He should have stopped there, should never have started. He didn't shout. He kept his voice low and cold, words sharp enough to cut. "You come here with stories and distractions. What are you running away from?"

The girl roared to her feet, snarling. "I'm not running away from anything!"

"You haven't told me your name."

"What?"

"You want me to remember you, but you never said who you were. You're a coward and a liar. A pathetic little girl who's so lonely she seeks out a monster for company."

Belatedly he realized he was angry and that made him furious. He shouldn't have felt anything. She didn't matter. It didn't matter. None of it mattered.

Namikaze Minato mattered.

"Do you want me to leave?" the girl asked.

And Gaara stopped. Unclenched his fists. Breathed.

"I want the truth."

She was quiet for a moment. "I don't know how to explain it. I just can't leave you alone. I mean, you're here in this cage meant for- meant for someone else. I don't understand it anymore than you do."

A cage meant for a jinchuuriki. There it was, just a slight spark of memory within reach. A different girl, a different time. He let it go.

"I told you before that you knew me," she said, "But I don't know you Gaara.

"I don't know why you killed your dad or why it had to be here. The only thing I know is that you're here because you want to be. I don't understand why. I need to know why."

Gaara leaned back to stare at the dark ceiling. If the door behind him was transparent, he wondered if it would be a window or a mirror.

"How would that change anything?"

But the girl was relentless, so ridiculously stubborn. "What do you have to lose?"

In the end wasn't he just trying to do the same thing? He had the same fervent desire to simply know why. A boy asking questions upon questions. Yashamaru why is the sky blue? What does it hurt right here? Why don't I have a mother? What is love? How do I get it?

Why do I exist?

Here, there was a connection between them, thin as a thread but undeniable. A soft whisper of maybe, maybe. An echo of something forgotten.

Here, the Yondaime's mark inked across his forearm. All the little and big lines spelling out death.

Here, at the beginning and end of everything, there was nothing left to lose.

"Who are you?" he asked finally.

"Uzumaki Naruto."