Title: I let you live

Title: Promise to a dream

Rating: Angst

Pairing / characters: Gaara

Word count: 502 words

Warnings: Character death, generally spoilerish for Gaara's life

Summary: Gaara is dying, and wonders if he fulfilled his promise to himself

A/N: Why do I seem to only write angst these days? I promise, Naruto comedy coming up… think of it… a hundred and one ways to use oiroke no jutsu… (and more, coming soon…)

I think I'm dying.

I don't mean mentally, I've been dying a little inside every day since I was old enough to know what pain meant. No… I think I've been hurt. Really hurt.

It saddens me.

All my life, I've wanted to be acknowledged by the people of my village, to be recognized as someone, a real person with real feelings, someone who was brought into the world through a horrific experiment – but people never saw me that way. When I was younger, I truly believed that I was hated because I lacked the words to express myself, and the power to control the monster within me. My uncle, Yashamaru, once told me he believed my mother had truly loved me – and I was so filled with hope, so filled with joy, that I could barely stand it. Everyone wants to be told they are loved…

Days later, he tried to kill me. I was sure that I was bleeding from every pore when he told me that in truth, he hated me – that my mother hated me, that I was a bane to the village. He killed himself, but I survived – and from that moment, I vowed that I would become so feared, so hated, that every one would know my name. It was the only way I could recognize my own existence – as a killer.

I even hated my own siblings, because I knew they were afraid of me.

Everything changed the day I met Uzumaki Naruto. How was I to know how similar we are? He too, has a monster inside him – but he's fought for his village, for his friends, and they acknowledge him. I thought, at first, that I could make him acknowledge me, but he would not – he told me that he would have killed me to keep his friends safe.

Friends… how I longed to have them.

When Temari and Kankuro helped me back to Sunagakure, I vowed that I too, would become loved.

It's all I ever wanted.

I learned that I was capable of love, and to my surprise, Temari and Kankuro responded to my first weak efforts to demonstrate that love to them. In time, I like to think we became very close. I hope we did. Together, they helped me achieve a goal – in my father's stead, I became Kazekage. I hoped to use my new position to protect my village, and to show them that I was not the demon they feared, but I do not think I succeeded. I protected them, yes, but it seems that the cost is my life.

I am dying. I can feel my heart slowing, feel my lungs emptying of air. I am not afraid of death, but I am saddened that I have lost the chance to show my people – to show Naruto – that I have changed.

Most of all, it hurts me to know that I am dying alone.

Alone at the beginning of my life, alone at the very end.

From as long as I could remember I knew that I would never linger

Long in the minds of those that I could call my own –

Others were more important than one who always stood alone.

In the mirror there's an image of faces that were never mine

Reflecting other thoughts and feelings, other places, other times

I never knew the joy of living, sometimes I would prefer to die

To those who knew, but forgot me,

I whisper to the wind

Goodbye…