This is my first fic. so please be nice!! it's basically a Gaara-TenTen fic. i honestly think there is no better pairing than that. anyways, it's rated m for later chapters. enjoy!

for.the.love.of.cheese

Chapter 1: Awakening

She awoke, screaming for air. Why couldn't she breathe? She threw a kunai as she got up suddenly and realized it was all a dream. The kunai was imbedded in the wall next to her door. 'Relax,' thought the weapons' mistress, 'it was only a dream.'

She always fell asleep like that and woke up the same way: sleeping with a kunai or shuriken in hand, only to be thrown in a blind rage at a wall the next morning. She woke up either gasping for air or screaming. This was how it had been since that Tuesday, 2 weeks ago, outside the forest.

Flashback:

"Neji, watch out!" TenTen screamed. Why was this guy attacking them? That boy, he was a ninja from some country in the fire territory, so they were supposed to be allies, right? Neji was hit with a sharp needle and fell to the ground, his vision growing blurry. "Shino, behind you," she shouted. Shino quickly dodged three needles, but landed in a heavily set trap.

'Who is this guy?' TenTen thought as she pulled out a couple of kunai. "Why are you doing this," she screamed at the boy. He had dark hair, a wicked smile, and bluish eyes. He didn't even look like a ninja, and he wasn't a ninja any of them had seen before. He didn't reply, but instead smirked and disappeared. TenTen blinked and held up her kunai, waiting for the attack. Then, she felt two needles hit her pressure points on her neck. She fell to the ground.

The boy lifted her up and carried her to a river a few yards away, where he dropped her into the swirling currents. "No," she cried unable to move as she felt the water surround her. She started to feel her body again and tried to swim to the surface, but she couldn't. In fact, TenTen never really learned to swim, for that matter. She felt the water close in, tighter. Tears pouring out of her eyes into the river, she screamed and went unconscious...

TenTen woke up to see aqua-green eyes staring at her. She began to cough up water. The boy released the sand that was pushing down on her chest. He had reddish hair, black circles around his eyes and a "love" tattoo on his head. TenTen recognized his face immediately, and quickly jumped away from him. Trembling, she threw a shuriken at him. He merely blinked as his sand shot up and deflected the shuriken before sliding its way over to her. She got up and started to run, which wasn't very easy to do on the count of her twisted ankle. She fell a few yards away from him.

Gaara sighed, stood up and formed his hands into a Jutsu symbol before closing his eyes. In a matter of ten seconds, TenTen was being lifted up by a bed of sand that encased her like a blanket up to her nose. The bed of sand carried her over to Gaara, who opened his eyes. His sand moved off of her mouth to allow her to speak.

"Well," she trembled, "What are you waiting for? Crush me," she said, with fear at her own words. Gaara merely knelt down as the sand disappeared up to her ankles. It moved up her back and eased her down in front of him on the grass. He grabbed her ankle, gently and twisted it around a couple times. TenTen winced in pain then felt nothing. He got up and she closed her eyes. After nothing happened, she opened her eyes to see him walking away.

Getting up, she realized her ankle felt a lot better. In fact, it wasn't twisted anymore. "Hey, wait," she called after the strange sand prince. She walked up to him and he didn't turn around. 'Please, let her not think I'm still the monster I used to be,' Gaara thought quietly. "Sorry, you know, for throwing a shuriken at you and all. It's just that last time someone tried to help me, they were really trying to kill me," she said meekly. "Thanks. Names' TenTen," she continued. This actually caught him off guard. Usually people just run away, and usually people didn't really say sorry or thank you to him, on account of the fact that he's never done anything worth saying thank you for.

"So what's your name anyways?" she asked, not really terrified of him anymore. TenTen had never really learned his true name actually. She knew that he was the one everyone feared but she never really paid much attention to other people besides her team mates and sensei. He was, from her knowledge, the sand prince, the red demon, the raccoon, who would kill for no reason. Some thought he killed for fun, others thought he was just crazy. He didn't reply, but merely walked off, disappearing in his sand.

"TenTen," Neji said coming out of a nearby bush with Shino following behind. "What are you staring at? Anyways, you had us worried," he said, "well, Shino at least." "You were worried about me," she asked, still thinking of her encounter with the sand prince. "Yeah. Of course we were," Neji replied. "We need to borrow some of your kunai," he continued in his (now usual) playful tone. TenTen rolled her eyes in frustration, and then finally just gave in to a smirk. She gave Neji a light punch on the arm, but considering how coughcough violent she is, the punch wasn't really that light. "Hey," Neji exclaimed, grabbing his arm.

"What happened to that guy," she asked. "Shino let his bugs have him," Neji started, "We delivered him to a couple of Konoha scouts. They shouldn't have much trouble taking him to Hokage Tsunade. "Let's go home," said Shino lazily, "I'm tired." "Yeah" added TenTen. "So can we stop standing around here and go?" Neji asked quite irritated, and gripping his arm tighter.

End of Flashback

TenTen had been having nightmares about the river for quite some time. She remembered the first time she almost drowned. Her friend, Mikoni had pushed her into the river as a joke, and she was only nine. After a nearby leaf-nin rescued her, TenTen grabbed the kunai on the leaf-nin's belt and threw it at her. That was actually how TenTen became interested in weapons. After the incident, she hadn't talked to her former friend and never would.

She kept on having that reoccurring dream since her mission 2 weeks ago. That dream where she was still underwater and the more she tried to swim to the top, the farther the surface became. It was like dying over and over again. "Shit," she said. TenTen got out of bed and lazily walked over to her mirror and combed her hair before putting it into her signature two buns and getting dressed. She grabbed the kunai out of the wall and padded barefoot down the stairs into the kitchen. Flipping the switch on her iPod player, she started to make breakfast, her favorite song almost blasting out of the speakers. She cooked her eggs singing along to the tune. "Gimme a shot to remember and you can take all this pain away from me..."