Congregation, a naruto fanfic

A/N: Another Suna Sib's bonding fic. This time, I intend on making it a multi chapter story, starting from right after Gaara gets the crap beaten out of him by Naruto, and ending after the whole incident with the Akatsuki, and I intend on actually finishing it (for those who read my Draco/Hermione story Amortentia, I'll update…eventually. I'm just not on that Harry Potter obsession anymore.) happily. I tried to make this fic long, but I'm afraid I couldn't do it well enough. D: I was actually planning on doing a long bit on Gaara's messed up emotions, but that just seemed like a nice place to end it. Review please! -

Disclaimer: I do not own anything in this fic.

My inspiration for this chapter came from the awesome Sand Sibs oneshot Firelight by Serenphoria. If you haven't read it…Go read it! NOW. It's a lovely story…

This chapter is an introspective with Temari, Kankuro, and Gaara.

Congregation

Chapter One: They Know

"Go ahead and sleep," Temari told her brother in a hushed tone. "I'll wake you up if anything happens."

"Are you…sure?" He asked, sounding as stiff as his sister.

"Positive." She assured. He nodded once before crawling under the thin blanket. Temari listened as his breathing became even and slow, and the tense look on his face fading away. She attempted to smile, but it didn't work. It was impossible with him around. Her littlest brother was sitting across from her, the warm firelight flickering across his face in an eerie dance. His light blue-green eyes flicked up to meet her darker ones. Temari shivered and shifted her gaze away from the monstrosity and to her favored brother, Kankuro. Even looking in the opposite direction, she could still feel his icy glare burning holes in her back.

The common phrase, If looks could kill… came to mind, and Temari shivered again. She felt tense, in a way that was only when around someone like him…

Needless to say, it was impossible to relax when around Gaara. Being in the same room with him…It was like having a ticking time bomb stuck with her, and knowing, This is how I'm going to die, and there isn't anything I can do about it. I don't even know when it's going to happen; all I know is that it will. Only worse; a time bomb couldn't repeatedly scare a person out of her mind. Gaara could.

Temari felt his steely glare leave her, and she let out the breath she realized she was holding. She kept sitting in that position for a while, with her back turned to the warm, dry, welcoming fire, until she heard the slight crack of a twig behind her. She froze, with her eyes wide open in fear. After a few moments, Temari summoned enough confidence to look, to find what caused the sound.

Gaara was gone.

Of that, Temari was glad. At the moment, she didn't care what he was doing; whether he was off on a killing spree or just taking a moonlight walk. She just wanted the monster away from her. It seemed that Kami had answered her prayers…She turned to the more comfortable position facing the flames.

Temari also wanted more than ever for Kankuro to be awake, sitting next to her watching the fire. Even if they weren't talking, they would be together. They were them, and Gaara was it. They were a united force. Things always felt better when you weren't alone…

Throughout her life, Temari had missed out on many things. At first glance, she seemed to be the girl with a perfect life; she had money, friends, and belonged to an extremely influential family. But that wasn't the case. All her life, she never had a father figure. Her own biological father was a power hungry bastard that cared only about himself. He trained and used his own child, honing her powers until they were extraordinary, at least for her age. When Kankuro turned one and Temari two, most of the little attention she got before was diverted to him. He was, after all, the heir to the title of Kazekage.

Most of her life, Temari lacked a mother figure as well. She remembered distinctly her mothers loving smile-although, that could be due to the pictures she had. She could never forget that…But at the same time, many of the finer details were slipping away from her. It was like trying to hold water in her hands; no matter how tightly she held on, the water, so precious in the desert, kept finding places to trickle away…Things such as the exact smell of her mothers hair were being washed away by the sands of time. Lavender, she kept telling herself. Mother's hair smelled like lavender. But they were empty words. Temari knew, she would never remember the exact scent.

Temari lacked the person that was caring, and that she could confide in and complain to. It's ironic, she thought, that person was probably Gaara…Very ironic indeed, but in her opinion, her baby brother Gaara died the moment he was born, and a demon, the 'it' Gaara came to life. In her eyes, the two weren't the same person; there was no way that that thing was her baby brother…It just wasn't possible.

Temari lacked friends; those people that she played with as a child-they weren't real friends. Real friends would stick with her, but the moment they found out that Gaara was her 'brother', they turned heel and ran. The few friends that had stayed with her through the years also scattered when they found out she was going to be on the same team as it, doing the same missions as it, and being within one mile proximity of it.

The only good thing about her life was that she always got what she wanted, if it was a material possession. It was one of the quirks of being the daughter of the most influential ninja in the Land of Wind…But for someone whom wasn't satisfied with material possessions and money, Temari found little joy through those small trinkets.

Temari hated her predicament. She blamed it all on him, her so called 'father', but at the same time, she blamed Gaara an equal amount…It was his fault she lost her mother, his fault that she had no friends, his fault that she was spending every waking moment in fear…

Why did he have to be such a freak, anyway? Temari didn't know.

Temari knew it wasn't really his fault. He was born with that curse; only a mere infant when he became intertwined with the Shukaku. He never did anything to bring it onto himself, he never did anything wrong to deserve getting the one-tailed tanuki. He couldn't have; he was only alive in the outside world for a few seconds before he received the mark that would separate himself from the rest of humanity.

Temari knew somewhere deep down inside, she did care for it, even if it was just slightly. Perhaps she didn't care for it as her brother, but as another living thing…

But yet at the same time, Temari knew that something had changed in the short time from before the Chunin Examinations and the current…But she couldn't figure out what it was. Gaara apologized, and Kankuro assured him that 'it was okay,' but she was a bit unsure of things.

Temari knew.

He was gone somewhere, probably sitting on the limb of a tall tree, moon gazing. It was funny, in the ironic way, that something so violent could look so serene when it wasn't doing anything...

Temari yawned—it was 2 a.m. in the morning—a good three hours since she told Kankuro to sleep. She decided that it was high time she got some rest, seeing as they would probably be leaving at dawn around 5. Temari got up slowly, feeling her tired shoulders groan in protest. The weight of her iron fan was definitely taking its toll. Gently, she shook Kankuro's sleeping form. He mumbled something in his sleep, before, falling in slumber again. Temari shook him again, slightly harder that time. Kankuro sat up with a slurred cry. After realizing that they weren't being attacked, he took the spot next to the fire where Temari was sitting before. Temari crawled under the blanket next to Kankuro's, and laid her head on the soft pillow. Within seconds, she succumbed to sleep.

Kankuro sat still, watching the flickering light display before him. Fire is beautiful, he thought fervently. Anything to get his mind off of his crap excuse for a life—that was liable to be ended at any time—was welcome to him. He watched intently as yellow and orange melded with red hot embers at the bottom.

Kankuro wasn't the type of person who enjoyed little details like these; unlike his sister, he loved the possessions and favors money could buy. You could say that he was the more flamboyant of the two siblings. However, he taught himself from a young age to enjoy the little interesting bits of life while Gaara wasn't around—because it was obvious that when he was there, Kankuro wouldn't be enjoying much of anything.

Kankuro knew Temari loved Gaara. Perhaps 'loved' was a serious overstatement, but he could say that she cared. Although she always told herself that she hated Gaara and blamed him for their mother's death, Kankuro knew better. She loved him, but she had no idea how to deal with the foreign emotion; therefore, she banished it from her mind. It seemed, the way things were currently, that it would stay just like that; one-sided, twisted love, because it was blatantly obvious that Gaara didn't care about them in the least.

Kankuro knew that unless miracle struck, he could never love or care about the thing. It was vile, sick, insane, and disturbed. He could never forgive it for stealing the life of his mother.

But Kankuro knew something was different. The self-centered brat apologized…And Kankuro wasn't on the verge of truly forgiving him yet. Still…He knew something was different…

Kankuro knew.

The pale blue-white starlight reflected off of the porcelain white skin of the sand wielding jinchuuriki as he sat on the branch. He was about as high up as he could've gotten in that forest; on the tallest stable branch of the tallest stable tree. Since he perfected the tree climbing and water walking techniques as a small child, it wasn't a problem.

Gaara hated the Land of Fire. Even in the middle of the forest, light pollution still invaded the skies. There were so many less stars high up in the heavens in the Land of Fire than in the Land of Wind.

The stars, moon, and other celestial bodies up in the heavens intrigued Gaara. As a child, he always wondered what it'd be like to hold a star in his hands. He wondered if it would glow in the same soft, pale, powder white, shining way it did in the skies. He hoped it did.

Of course, Gaara was no idiot; in fact, he always had a very high IQ that, if ever tested, would have marked him as a genius. He knew it wasn't possible for one to hold a star. He knew that stars were huge, and vast in the way that was practically incomprehensible to human kind—the way that could only be described as majestic…

But a child could dream, couldn't he?

Dreams were meant to be beyond reality and the rational. That's what they were supposed to be.

Gaara loved clear, chilly, crisp nights like the current one. He would always go to the tallest roof or tree on nights like those, and spend the entire time star gazing and pondering on the mysteries of life. Those things would get him into a content and 'cheerful' mood (by Gaara's standards).

When looking up in the sky, Gaara felt that the wide expanse of velvety black and navy would swallow him whole…But it was nice sensation, anyway. Thinking about the mysteries of space and what else could possibly be out there always left him dazed, high IQ or not. When he extended his arm, he felt as if he could touch the stars.

But he was never able to…

He always thought, perhaps if he was just a little bit higher up, he could finally be able to cradle a star in his hand…

Thinking like that was a rather insane way of viewing the celestial bodies up in the heavens…but Gaara was a rather insane person, and thinking in a rather insane way was definitely his forte.

He gave a half-hearted flick of his index finger, but he knew better than to actually bring up any sand. Had it been another case, he might have used his Sabaku Fuyū (Desert Suspension. It creates a floating platform of sand on which he or others may stand/sit on.) to get himself up higher. But it wasn't another case…He was exhausted beyond belief-although his battle with the Uzumaki genin was about three days before, his chakra was still not restored. If he used any for a stupid, useless purpose like that, he wouldn't have enough for the journey back to his village.

Gaara knew his siblings hated him, but he didn't care in the least. As far as he was concerned, there wasn't a difference between family and the random unfortunate passerby that he would murder. Or at least, that was what he thought before the Uzumaki brat beat him in battle…

Given, Gaara still strongly disliked his siblings—no matter how many blonde, hyperactive, knuckleheaded ninja were sent blundering his way, he doubted they could ever completely change his opinion on his siblings—to the point where if they got in his way, he would kill them…But somehow, the battle he lost definitely taught him something…he just wasn't sure what.

Frustrated, Gaara gouged out a piece of bark from the tree trunk he was leaning against and hurled it and as far as he could into the night sky.

He never heard it hit the ground.

Frankly, he wasn't sure what to think of his siblings now. He had apologized for his actions in the past, but he was on the verge of passing out at that point; he could always blame his words on delirium…

But did he want to?

Some weird, distant part of Gaara was screaming out to apologize to his siblings again and again, until he was absolutely sure that he had their forgiveness. On the other hand, there was Shukaku's annoying voice, echoing his typical Shukaku speech, 'Kill them!'

Gaara had never felt more insane in his life.

He wasn't sure…Did he want to? Did he really want his siblings' forgiveness? Why did he feel this foreign emotion in his head and what in the seven hells (and one inferno) was it?

Gaara didn't know.

A/N:

I'm pretty sure that he gets his awesome Desert Suspension technique after the Exams, but whatever. Just ignore that part…

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