Author's Note: This story closely follows where the manga currently is, not the anime (which is Chapter 568). If you are particularly against spoilers concerning the storyline, I would advise catching up on your manga before reading this fan fiction.

"I am an important man... needed..."

My eyes scanned the heading of the letter multiple times, both with increasing degrees of curiosity and confusion.

"Invited..." I mused aloud.

Invited... to Yaoki's wedding?

I'd never attended a wedding in my life. I'd never seen a couple married. How did one go about...?

I continued, my eyes scanning the rest of the message. The letters at the bottom of the page caught my eye and I frowned at them, dismayed in my perplexed state.

RSVP.

Whatever that meant.

I would consult Yaoki about the matter the next time I saw him.

Shuffling the invitation in with other papers of varying degrees of importance, I pushed the stack of documents to the corner of my desk, unable to concentrate.

In times past, I would have considered the subject a troublesome one, and would have tortured myself trying to erase it from my mind, as if some perverse, unwelcome thought.

Now, however, I found pleasure in dwelling on the subject, and allowed my mind to wander. There were people that I held dear to me, too.

I loved… my father.

I love my mother, and Yashamaru.

I love Temari, Kankuro, and Naruto, the boy who initially taught me what love was, not just as an empty shell of a word but as a meaning, manifested outwardly in a singular human being. Unrefined. Often unrequited. Yet, still beautiful all the same.

A smile crossed my lips, warmth spreading throughout my chest.

I was—no—am loved. I always have been.

I closed my eyes, exhaling a steady breath. In a moment's notice, I was in another place, in another time…

My father stood before me, encased in a casket of my own sand. I had fully intended to kill him; I wanted to kill him. To put him back out of his misery, and out of mine. His name was at the top of a long list of people who I had considered to have effectively stolen my childhood, and ruined my life. I had fought tooth and nail to where I had gotten, no thanks to him. Hell, I was still fighting.

In his eyes, however, there was a look that spoke volumes of remorse, of a painful need to explain himself, like a misunderstood child yearning to speak his peace. Despite my better judgment, I decided to quiet my rage for the time being, and allow him to say the words he so clearing ached to speak.

And they were words I would never forget, for as long as I lived.

"I ordered Yashamaru to lie to you… It was never you he hated. It was me. Because I was the one who placed Shukaku of the sand into you while you were still inside of his sister's womb… But it was a mistake. It seems everything I did was a mistake. You had to carry so many burdens. I decided on my own what mattered to you, and what didn't. And now, there's only one thing you associate with your parents—the wounds in your heart."

I slowly reopened my eyes, focusing my gaze on a cactus plant in the far corner of my office. Though I registered sight of my current surroundings, my mind remained with my father, clearly seeing him, hearing his voice as vividly as I had all those years ago. I saw the pained look on his face as he gazed at me, first in wonder, slowly melting away into a man filled with regret and shame. Even as I sat in my chair, the nostalgic wave of emotion I experienced then once again washed over my body, cleansing what seemed to be my very soul; a lifetime of pain alleviated, replaced by the relief of a revelation of a mother's undying life for her child. For me.

"Now you've become the Kazekage… You've made friends, real connections with other people… Those are all the things I stole. But I, your father, never did a thing for you. No… I couldn't even call myself your father."

"Mother was amazing… But you… This is the first time you've given me "medicine", father…"

I sighed again, a gesture of pleasure at the memory. My breath, however, hitched in my throat, and my breathing shuddered.

"This is…"

Absorbed in my thoughts, it wasn't until I felt the cool chill of tears on my neck that I realized I had begun to cry. I smiled, a genuine gesture, laughing softly to myself as I allowed my body to grow slack in my chair. My head lolled softly against the headrest, my hands softly resting upon my chest, the warmth of my hands fueling the comfortable burning feeling in my heart.

"I feel no pain, no shame in this… I do not…"

My tears were no longer ones of pain, anguish or frustration. Tears were an outward expression of one's heart's condition, I believed—and I had been a bitter, injured boy who had lost everything, and then gained so much more than he'd ever lost to begin with. I'd become a man who knew love, both how to give and to receive.

And one thought gave birth to another like it—when was the last time I had felt that terrible kind of pain?

I couldn't remember anymore.

Perhaps that was why my unconscious reaction was to shed tears. Because I was… overwhelmed with emotion, maybe? Not with sorrow. But of joy. Of relief.

There was a short series of rhythmic knocks on my office door before it swung open. I had no time to compose myself, my shoulders instinctively stiffening being my only defense.

"Gaara, bad news, encampments out in the wastes are reporting in on—"

My brother froze in his steps, his eyes sweeping over my face with rapidly increasing degrees of horror.

I saw the silent inquisition in his eyes that he dared not ask. His train of thought, however, had clearly crashed.

I took the opportunity to pull myself back into a presentable fashion for my elder brother. It was far too late for his sake, however, as he failed to tear his eyes away from my undoubtedly reddened face, flushed by my recent tears.

"You were saying, Kankuro?"

The Jounin blinked rapidly, knitting his brow together in confusion, as if I'd asked him some asinine riddle.

"… What?"

"You mentioned the encampments stationed in the desert," I reminded him patiently. "You said they have bad news. What is the report?"

He was silent a moment more, his thumbs brushing the cord binding the scroll in his hands. His voice lowered to a whisper, as if he were afraid someone might overhear us.

"Gaara, look. You know I'm here for you, so if you need to talk—"

I shook my head, biting back a smile. My gesture effectively silenced him, his sentence promptly trailing off into the air.

"I know you're here for me…"

Kankuro. My… big brother. Trustworthy confidante. He'd grown to adopt many titles that no one else in the world could lay claim to over the few short years I'd begun to place my trust in him.

"It's nothing you need to worry about, Kankuro. I'd rather you give me that report now."

And yet, I wanted to keep the only fond memory that I had ever possessed of our father exclusively to myself.

"There's a sandstorm coming in, and at the angle it's blowing, it'll pass right through the front gates of the village. It took out several encampments in the desert wastes, and though they have yet to report any casualties, the damage is nothing to scoff at. Half the elders think you should just issue a warning to the villagers to stay inside tonight, and have a few medics on standby in case something does happen, which I have to say, I agree with them. The others insist that you take the initiative and protect the village yourself with the sand. But you know you can't do that, Gaara! Not with you going to the Temujin shores tonight to intercept that army of Kabuto's undead freaks! You're going to need chakra to fight and seal them, which you're not going to have if you spend the whole day maintaining a shield around the village!"

"A sandstorm hardly scares me. I'll take care of it."

Kankuro's hands tightened their grasp on the scroll. I watched as his knuckles turned white.

"But Gaara, you can't push yourself before the sealing—!"

"I'll find a squad," I informed him quickly, an attempt at quelling his blatant anger. "Don't worry, I have no intention of exhausting myself on purpose before this battle."

He nodded stiffly, apparently satisfied with my response. His fingers loosened their hold on the scroll.

"... While you work on hand-picking the village's defense squad, I'll round up the guys Temari and I selected before she headed off to the Land of Rain. We'll set out tonight as planned, since both the squad from the Leaf village arrived earlier as well as the envoy from Ishuikon Outpost."

I nodded, reclining in my chair.

"Alright. If that's all, I have a few more things to finish here before I gather a squad of shinobi to stay on standby. I am, after all, a very important man. This village needs me more now than ever."

Kankuro paid my words no mind in the manner that I did in that moment, accepting them as he always had. He laid the scroll on my desk, before casting me one final, wary glance. As if he were afraid I might crumble into hysterics where I sat, and silently hoping I wouldn't. I offered him a smile, partially out of a need to reassure him, half out of my own amusement at his expense.

I couldn't tell if he was buying into anything I'd said or done since he'd so carelessly walked in on me and seen my tears. Was it really that traumatizing to him? From what I understood, it was not 'manly' to cry. It was a show of weakness. Definitely not something a shinobi should ever show. But if possessing emotion is weakness, what, then, kind of cruel fate had we as men been dealt, having to constantly bury feelings underneath layers of denial and apathy?

I don't think I understand.

"Well… I've leave you to it, then," He spoke gruffly, nodding as he took his leave of me.

"I am an important man… needed…"

I liked saying that.