Disclaimer: Naruto is very much... not mine.

Chapter I:

Chicken Soup, Mom's a Bitch

"Kankuro…"

"Kankuro…"

Temari stirred. She hadn't even realized she fell asleep until she felt the world fade into the warm color of the lamp light. Beside her, Gaara shifted restlessly, feverishly. Gently parting his bangs, she felt the heated skin of her younger brother's forehead. Her hand became slick; Gaara was sweating beneath the blankets.

Out of the bed and on came the bathroom light. Temari rinsed a towel with cold water before returning to the bedroom and wiping Gaara's neck and face. She sat on the soft mattress listening to him mumble.

"Shhh. Shhhhhh," Temari hushed, stroking her brother's damp red hair. She tossed the towel onto the night stand, crawled back into bed, and turned off the light.

"Kankuro, Kankuro," repeated Gaara, like a half-conscious mantra.

"Hushhh, he's not here right now," said Temari, placing a tired kiss on the back of his neck. "Kankuro's not here right now."

"Kankuro, Kankuro…"

The whole village was sick. After days of searching the medics finally found the hollow bamboo tubes tossed into each of the major underground wells of Sunagakure.

The wells were diseased and people were dying.

Immediately, Suna called for aid from their most reliable doctor who, unfortunately, wasn't even a citizen of their country. Konoha's Hokage, Tsunade, sent her assistant Shizune with a team of medical ninja to Suna to treat the ill. They examined each patient and compiled a list of ailments the villagers had in common. Most disturbing was the black bile that was coughed up by the infected when their lives were near their end. Two weeks later, one of the guests began to show symptoms of the virus and Gaara sent them home.

A month later, it was determined that everyone in the village was infected or immune. Trade seemed to halt at the border. The village didn't think it could get much worse.

Then the Kazekage, whose whole family was believed to be immune, collapsed suddenly over the tombstone of his mother's grave.

Now, even the rain clouds seemed to avoid the desert.

He never told anyone he was sick simply because he never considered telling anyone.

Never in his life had he felt so much pain – okay, maybe once or twice - and he was damn well going to savor it. It was his top secret hell and no one was going to know. The masochistic fairy floating above his head swung joyfully asphyxiated by its neck doing twirls upon a dangling noose.

In all sense, he was being quite irresponsible. Gaara knew this but he knew Temari was going to worry her pretty head even while there was nothing that could be done, except maybe taking him out of the country.

Pfffftt! As if he was going to let that happen, although the council was sure to shit bricks if they every found out. Hehehe.

And so Gaara continued to let himself pocket his tissues and wait it out, all the while doing his best in keeping the situation under control. It was not under control – but he was doing his best. He surprised even himself for lasting this long and was very well prepared for whatever he had in store. Dying before just had that effect, you know? Gaara was feeling like a prophet reaching out to shake hands with a shadow that finally decided to catch up.

That is, until he woke up the night after he collapsed to find his sister in tears.

"Stupid," she whimpered to her knees. "Stupid, stupid, stupid."

Suddenly, dying didn't feel so good.

He tried to find that acceptance he had the night before. It wasn't working, not when there were people waiting for him to tell them what to do. Not when there were friends in far away places he wanted to see. Not when… the look of his siblings told him they weren't ready to let him go.

Gaara fumbled around in the dark for hours replaying the sad noises his sister made over and over in his head before reaching his well-drafted mental statement:

Fuck it! Why now?

What was he thinking this whole time? Being a fatalist was making him lazy, not to mention a selfish pig. Gaara, you ass.

It just wasn't fair though, that he woke up nearly paralyzed in pain just after he realized his village desperately needed him.

Something in him told him it was just bad karma. For all the people he killed for fun as a child, he knew he damn well deserved it. Another part of him, his inner whiny child, pleaded that this wasn't fair, this wasn't fair. He actually cried then; there wasn't much else he could do besides that.

"Not fair," Gaara said, his tears soaking into Kankuro's shoulder. They seemed to hug a lot now. The three siblings had even taken to sleeping next to each other for comfort. Since both Kankuro and Temari were immune to the disease, it didn't matter. It was the only way they could all sleep and not wake up crying in a very un-ninja-like position.

A few weeks later, Gaara could hardly lift his arm to reach for his chicken soup when Baki came in to announce the council had decided to call it quits. He wasn't trying to be mean. Baki was just the kind of guy that tells a dying man when he was going to be a dead man. Kankuro was yelling again and Baki was watching the dying Kazekage with a sort of gaze reflecting sadness and maybe respect. But Gaara didn't care.

He just wanted to have his damn chicken soup.

Now Gaara lay limply under his blankets watching the ceiling above him slowly fade into black and decided that his karma –and maybe his mom- was a real bitch.

A week later, Gaara woke up.

His sister was sleeping sideways next to him, her forehead touching the base of his neck. She held him tighter and his throat started to feel warm and damp. Everywhere on his body was damp... from the sweat.

"Temari?" He rasps. "Are you crying?"

She doesn't stir. Maybe it was just the sweat.

He weakly shook her body and her eyes fluttered a little before she pushed herself up staring at him like he was a ghost.

"G-Gaara... you're okay."

"How long was I out?"

"A week at least. Gaara, I was so worried. I thought you..." She couldn't finish her sentence. Because when your lip trembles like that it makes things kind of hard. Gaara hated seeing Temari cry simply because she almost never did. She was a strong woman who was supposed to make fun of boys that turned out to be wimps. Her brothers hated seeing her down, not to mention they hated how cranky she got when they witnessed her give into the sniffles.

She was on the verge of tears again. Gaara didn't want to deal with it so he changed the subject.

"Where's Kankuro?" he asked.

And then, Temari broke.

"I don't know! I don't know! He left, Gaara! He went nuts seeing you like this so he went out to find something; anything! He's a damn fool. Stupid, stupid, stupid!" And down she went, into a spiral of misery with lots of hurt to follow.

Gaara wanted to go back to sleep. It was all too much.

A/N: Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think.

This story was meant to be very deep and emotional but I find writing Gaara's point of view for humor makes things a little more interesting.