WARNING: Spoilers concerning a few characters: For anyone who is caught up with both the anime and manga, this will be no problem.
I mix what happens in the anime and the manga, seeing as how the manga is farther along than the anime and the anime had many filler arcs that I will be referring to.
(oh and hey, anyone who is like "the manga? Is this girl nuts? I don't read Japanese!" hahaa I can't read Japanese either, so go to they have free translated versions of the manga, high quality too! I am not affiliated with these guys in anyway; I just think their site is perfect!)

Setting: Right after the Shiitenshounin arc in the anime, where Gaara gets hurt fighting Seimei, he comes back to Konoha in order to be healed.


Gaara sat up from his hospital bed and scratched a hand at his scalp, ruffling up his hair a bit.

He glances around the room, smelling that terrible cleanser smell.

I hate hospitals.

Gaara inwardly thanked Shukaku for making him nearly untouchable, or else he probably would have had to attend hospitals stays more often.

He stood up and realized that he was wearing white pajamas. He fingered the front buttons of the top as he opened the closet and the drawers in the room.

Gaara only found a white robe in the closet and each drawer was full of medical bandages and other supplies.

Where are my clothes?

He opened his room door; the hallway was quiet and empty. Gaara looked down at his feet and wiggled his socked toes, before glancing around the hall again.

He couldn't help a slightly aggravated sigh at his predicament.

Gaara took a step back into his room and faced the bed; he knew he didn't want to stay in here longer than he had to. The only option was to find a nurse.

Stepping out into the cold hallway tile, he didn't know which way to head first. So he stood there waiting for himself to decide,

Right or left? Everything looks exactly the same.

He didn't have to think long though, because he heard something metal fall against the floor down the left hallway. Gaara made his way closer to the sound, each footstep allowed him to hear more of something.

He was pretty sure someone was talking, mumbling was more like it.

Other things were being moved around, some stuff hit the floor with a soft plop others with loud clanking.

Gaara was standing against the wall to the right of the open door.

He heard a female voice huffing around and mumbling to herself, Gaara peeked his head in.

He saw inside what looked to be an inventory room for the hospital. There was a girl with short dark indigo hair standing with her back turned away from the door, she was moving things on the shelves around and hastily throwing stuff on the floor that didn't belong. Her movements were rough and jerky, she seemed angry.

Gaara flattened himself against the wall again when her body was about to turn to look towards him.

"Sakura, sakura sakura…! Grrr." The girl grumbled continuing on with her work, "She isn't even pretty." The girl sighed in a frustrated manner.

Gaara smirked at her complaints, this girl was pretty funny.

"Oh can I help you?" Her voice seemed forced with squeaky niceness, Gaara thought he was caught for a second, but he let out a breath when she continued in the voice, "I'm Sakura, I'm ugly and I have a huge forehead. But everyone loves me!" the girl sarcastically joked.

Gaara was used to eavesdropping on people, but this girl was definitely much more fun to listen in on than even his own angry sister.

"Yes, I'm thee Sakura who is really awesome at medical ninjutsu." The girl put an emphasis on the word thee, "but what no one realizes is that I suck at everything else. I can't fight, I can't protect anyone." The girl's voice was slowly returning to her normal voice.

"Grrrr, she never even gets sent on missions. No, instead of sending the godsend Sakura, they send me. They send me to do their dirty work." Gaara's interests were peaked at her comment, the girl continued,

"Oh no, can't let lovely Sakura get her hands stained with blood, let's send Hinata. Yea let's send that shy girl who everyone always overlooks to do the missions everyone else doesn't want."

Gaara couldn't help but want to speak with this girl now, he turned his body into the doorway at the instant she mentioned getting her hands stained with blood.

For a moment she had her back turned to the door, like he had seen her doing earlier. This girl did turn though, to pick up the last of the towels off of the floor.

She didn't pay any attention to him until she started to stand up straight, towels loosely clutched in her hands.

He smirked at her; he has seen this girl before, a Hyuuga girl.

He watched as a shiver ran through her, she dropped her towels and took an unconscious step back, not taking her eyes off of him.

Typical.

Gaara's smirk faded and he reached down to pick up the discarded towels, he stuck his arm out trying to hand them to the girl who was now backed up to the shelves.

"I need my clothes." He demanded in a bored way.

"G..Gomen nasai, Gaa…" She tried to loosely grabbing at the towels, but since she was focused on Gaara, her hand missed a couple times before feeling the cloth between her fingers, "Gaara-sama."

He felt odd around this girl, she was completely different now. When she was talking to herself she seemed angry, powerful even. And now she was this frightened little mouse of a thing.

Hinata shoved the towels behind her, leaving them looking disheveled and on the wrong shelf. Shaking, she pointed her arm out, for him to leave the room first.

Gaara's smirk came back; obviously she didn't want him behind her.

Funny that I can still be intimidating in these foolish white pajamas.

He walked out, and waited for her in the hall. Hinata was wearing her normal ninja clothes, not a nurse's uniform, but she pulled a set of keys from her pocket and locked the inventory room with very unsteady hands.

"Are you a nurse?" Gaara asked.

Hinata quickly faced him as she leaned against the door she had just finished locking, her eyes were wide and her face was flushed, "Uh…I'mm uh…" She stuttered over her words, Gaara waited, "I'm just an intern…" She finished lamely.

He quirked his eyebrow at her questioningly, "Oh," He paused, "So your not like Sakura."

Gaara you're so mean. Yea I know, He kidded with himself.

He watched as the Hyuuga's face shamelessly went through a few emotional transformations, anger to sadness to embarrassment. Her face blushed even more; she must have realized that he had heard her speaking badly about the pink haired shinobi.

"Y…Your clothes? T..They aren't in…in your r…room?"

That was smooth. Gaara thought as his smirk got more noticeable. He decided to play along with her subject change.

"No. They aren't."

Hinata's face scrunched up a little, Gaara couldn't help but enjoy her pouty confused look.

"I..I.. will find them for you." She said so softly he almost couldn't hear it. Hinata started walking away down the hall. She glanced behind her a few times, seeing as how Gaara was following her. "You..uh…You can…wait?" She questioned him, almost in a way like she was giving him permission to stay.

"No, I'd like to leave here as soon as possible, so I'm coming along."

Hinata nodded, but was completely uncertain of herself. She felt herself concentrating on the way she was walking, the way she breathed. She was so terrified of this guy that she couldn't be at all comfortable.

Gaara noticed how she was tensed up, especially since now she was leading him around the hospital. Her back to him, totally vulnerable and unguarded.

Soon they stopped at a nurse's station, which had two older nurse's in complete uniform sitting behind it filling out papers.

"Ex…Excuse me." Hinata mumbled folding her hands onto the high counter top.

The nurse looked up at her and smiled, "Oh, Hinata dear. What can I do for you?"

Hinata smiled shyly back at her, "Do you know where Gaara-sama's…" She gestured loosely to him standing to the side of her, "clo…" Hinata didn't get to finish her sentence though, because a loud voice interrupted her.

"Gaara! Gaara-kun!" A girl's voice ran towards them, it was Sakura.

Gaara looked over at the pink haired girl who had just stopped in front of him; she bowed slightly and held up a pile of black. "I washed your clothes for you, they were full of blood."

Gaara took his clothes out of her hands and looked down at them,

Full of blood, huh. Of course they were.

"Oh Hinata! How are you?!" Sakura turned her attention to the petite indigo haired girl next to him.

"F…fine. Th..Thaan..Thank you, Sakura-san." Hinata was not looking at either of them; her face was leaned towards the floor.

Sakura grinned, at the both of them. "That's good." She dismissively replied to Hinata's answer, her focus regained on Gaara. "Sorry about not having your clothes when you woke up, I was going to bring them to your room so you could find them easily. But when I finished washing them, a team of ninja were admitted that were in critical condition, I had to help them."

Gaara didn't really care about her excuse or her unabashed flaunting of how she spent her day, "Why didn't you send them with another nurse?" He demanded, kind of pissed that she took his clothes to wash without his permission.

"Oh! I wanted to deliver them personally." Sakura grinned at him.

Gaara noticed Hinata roll her eyes discreetly at this statement.

"Okay." Gaara said, and turned to the direction he had come from.

"Your welcome!" Sakura yelled down the hallway happily, as if he had thanked her for washing his clothes.

Gaara just grunted, Yeah, thanks for wasting my time he thought,

He was already half way back to his room, Sakura couldn't hear him, but a giggle made him turn his head.

There was Hinata walking a few feet behind him, she was so close to the wall she was almost dragging her shoulder across it.

He slowed his pace so she could catch up with him, and looked towards her with questioning eyes.

Hinata blushed and looked to the floor, "I..I th..thought you liked her." She mumbled.

Gaara stopped walking all together, "What?" He had to make sure he heard this girl correctly.

"I…I…waass there…when you…beat S…Seimei" She whispered looking at his feet, "I..I saw the way you," She took a breath, "the way..y..you looked at her when she was healing you."

Gaara was practically breathing in the same air as her, he got so close in an instant, "And in what way did I look at her?" he questioned in a soft menacing voice.

Hinata was caught now, she couldn't move her head, and she was being forced to look into his bright blue green eyes.

After a second of the staring contest, Gaara backed away from her and turned to continue walking, "Come on." He said without looking back when he realized she was no longer following him.

He heard her take two or three steps toward him and then she stopped again.

Gaara was already standing in front of his room door, he looked at her from far away,

"I wish to continue talking with you, so come on." He demanded.

Hinata started shaking again, she was thinking about the trouble she has gotten herself into.

She followed him, terrified; she figured if she disobeyed him he would kill her. She entered his room, He was standing at the side of his bed unfolding all his clothes and inspecting them.

Hinata watched on, not sure what to do.

"You hate Sakura." He stated his focus occupied with his clothes.

"I don't..I don't hate her." Hinata tried to say quickly.

Gaara looked up at her skeptically,

"I heard you talking to yourself, don't lie. You hate her." His attention returned to his clothing, "Why?"

"W..w..why?" Hinata mumbled as she turned bright red. She was so embarrassed; he had heard her entire conversation in the inventory closet and was now asking her why?

Gaara seemed to be finished picking at his clothing, which were now laid out neatly on the bed.

"Yes. Why? Answer me." He demanded again, she was flabbergasted at what he was doing. His fingers were quickly unbuttoning the pajama top, and soon he was shrugging the garment off of his shoulders and tossing it on the bed. Hinata saw him going for the pajama pants next, she didn't loose any of her previous blush and quickly turned around, she was now staring into the small shower.

"Uhh.. uh." Hinata mumbled, "W..what are you doing?" She was completely in shock. Why was he disrobing in front of her?

"Taking a shower." He answered as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, "now turn on the water."

She obeyed; anything to get her mind off him being nude behind her and the multiple ways he could kill her if she tried to run away. She unconsciously ran her fingers under the steady flow of water, checking the temperature and adjusting it. Once finished she stepped away, trying to focus on the sound the shower head was making, pretending she was somewhere else, like outside, near a waterfall. Too bad it wasn't true.

Hinata turned to the door when she saw Gaara slip into the shower and close the curtain. She could have sworn she saw his naked butt, she thought about how he had no shame.

His voice came echolike from behind the curtain, "I answered your question, now answer mine. Why do you hate Sakura?"

Hinata turned rudely to the curtain. This was better, him behind there, he couldn't see her and make her feel uncomfortable.

She said something, but Gaara couldn't hear her soft voice from inside the shower,

"Speak up! The water is loud." He commanded splashing water on his face.

"I said!," She paused, "I don't like Sakura because everyone loves her!" Hinata felt a little shocked that she said that so loud, and without stuttering.

Gaara was quite pleased with her response as well, he couldn't stand all that mumbling.

"Who is everyone?" Gaara asked, in wonder of who would love Sakura.

"Naruto!" She took a breath, admitting that Naruto was in love with Sakura hurt her, but she continued; finding a weight lifted from her shoulders as she vented to the shower curtain.

Gaara noticed her anger at saying Naruto liked Sakura.

"Especially Lee, he is in love with her, Tsunade, Shikamaru, Choji, and Kiba. Everyone loves her! I bet you even my mean cousin Neji likes her! And my teammate Shino, he doesn't talk much but I have seen him smile at her behind his collar!" Hinata continued, thinking about how her byakugan was sometimes a curse.

Gaara popped his soapy head out of the curtain, "So what, what does it matter that all those guys like her?" He asked and pointed to the towels on the counter.

Without thinking about how weird it was that the psychotic Gaara of the Desert was in the shower talking to her about her feelings, she grabbed the towel and pushed it into his wet hand.

After his head went back in she started pacing and explaining, "It wouldn't bother me so much if she was actually worthy of everyone's praise. I mean, yeah she is really good at chakra formation, but so am I! Ino is pretty good too," She mentioned Ino just to take away the selfishness, "but you never hear any courageous stories of Ino saving people's lives or people whispering about how she is following in the footsteps of our Legendary Sanin Hokage, even though both Sakura and Ino are both apprentices for Tsunade! Sakura has never even been part of real battle! She lucked out during the chuunin exam, getting matched up with Ino. While I get stuck with the most deadly match of my own cousin, everything is easy for her."

Hinata heard the water shut off, her blush came back, what had gotten into her. Who was she to bad mouth her comrades to this shinobi from the sand?

She turned towards the window as he came out and wrapped the towel around his waist.

After some sound of movement, "You can turn around."

Hinata wasn't so sure she could trust him, so she slowly peeked behind her. She let out a sigh of relief when she saw him sitting on the bed fully clothed in his usual attire, putting on his sandals.

Hinata leaned against the low window sill and waited for him to interrogate her more or hopefully dismiss her.

"You mentioned in the closet that they sent you on more missions than her."

Hinata looked up from the tiles on the floor that seemed to interest her and looked at Gaara with wide eyes.

"Yes." She squeaked out, "They do."

Ahh. Yes, girl. Explain to me about your blood stained hands.

"Why would they send you instead of her?"

She looked out the window, "M..My father is a proud man; he requested that the Hokage send me on as many missions as possible, no matter the ranking." She sighed audibly but her stuttering was gone, "He wants me out of the house, he wants me to die on those missions, so that he can make my little sister the heir of the Hyuuga clan in my stead." Gaara listened and watched her intently,

Sounds familiar. He thought; comparing what she had just said with the many times his own father had sent assassins after him.

Hinata felt as light as a feather, no one had ever put her in a situation like this, where she felt obligated to tell the truth and she overall felt as if it was what she had been waiting for. She wanted to get this pain out; she had held it in all her life.

Gaara was still waiting for her to finish her answer.
Her eyes were focused on the birds that were playing in the tree near the window, "So the Hokage complies and sends me on many missions, she even has made me intern here to learn some medical ninjutsu. I am no where near as far in my training as Sakura, so you would think that she would get sent out alone to the aftermaths of battles," Hinata's voice took on a deeper tone as she described what she has been doing on her own missions, "You think they would send her to kneel in the mud beside horribly beaten bodies and judge if there is any hope for them. But they send me." She looked back at Gaara who had never taken his eyes off of her.

Gaara couldn't help by look into her saddened eyes, watching them change to ice, cold and distant.

"Shinobi should dread the sight of me." She breathed out, "You know what they call it, on my mission slips? Mercy killing."

Gaara raised his eyebrow at this, she continued, "I'm the angel of death to those that are injured in the line of duty." Hinata's face seemed hard as stone with her statement that was equally as cold.

She has killed many people, albeit not in pure jest as I do, but kills them nonetheless.

Gaara let the moment sit in silence for a while, until Hinata turned her head to look out the window again, just in time to see those birds fly away.

"And you thought I would like the pink haired girl?" He didn't use Sakura's name as he asked this. Hinata didn't turn or make any initiative to answer him.

This girl must not know a lot about me, thinking I would like that goodie two shoes.

"You were part of the reconnaissance missionas I fought Seimei?"

Hinata huffed out a short dark laugh, "Yeah, you could call it that. But really, they didn't need me, seeing as how Neji was available to use the Byakugan."

Gaara took in her meaning with this statement about how she wasn't needed for that part of the mission. He understood,

She was there purely because the chance of a ninja being injured almost to the point of death was great.

She heard him stand and felt his presence a couple feet behind her. She saw his soft reflection in the window pane as dusk was taking over Konoha.

"Naruto had mentioned that you saved him from an enemy nin that used magnetic jutsu." Hinata turned her body half way, indicating that she was listening, "He said that he was impressed you won, he seems to think highly of you."

What am I doing? Comforting her?

She softly smiled down at her hands, "It doesn't matter. Naruto loves Sakura, he is too caught up in her to realize…" She couldn't bring herself to finish that sentence; somehow she knew that Gaara understood she had a thing for Naruto.

A moment of silence passed.

"I hate Sakura." Gaara ground out bluntly.

Hinata looked up quickly to his face, confusion in her eyes for less than a second. Gaara stood with his arms crossed in front of his chest, his face as cold as ice.

Hinata nodded, "Thank you, Gaara-sama." She stood up and smiled a sad smile at him. She walked to the door of the room with her head bowed and waited, probably waiting to see if he would allow her to leave.

After the second of frozen silence had passed, she left silently.

Gaara had watched her go, even sat at the window waiting for her to leave the lower level of hospital.

I like that girl.


AN: yay for finishing my second GaarHina fic! Well I actually already have two others in the works, but this one. Well this one wasn't even planned. I was at first just seeing if I could lighten the mood and have a sort of funny fic, but as always my imagination turns everything into some dark deeper meaning type thing. I am pleasantly surprised at how good this story turned out, seeing as how I didn't even plan to have Hinata be in the "angel of death" position. The idea just seemed to flow out of me. And wow, re-reading it is great. Of course shinobi would have to decide whether or not their comrades would live or die, it's nature.
Anyway, before I go and become all theoretical about this,

Please review and tell me what you thought!