Title: SecretLife
Chapter Two: Garra's Secret Life
Kankuro chose to pace the floor of the kitchen rather than eat lunch with everyone else; not that anyone sitting was really eating.
Baki, being present more for moral support than anything else, declined a bowl of Kiyoko's homemade Ramen and sat silently watching at one end of the small family table.
Naruto—the child, not the Konoha leader—was still out cold due to the medication running heavily through the small boy's veins. Temari had been hit with a dose of the sleeping agent once and knew that he would most likely be out until well after dinnertime. Kankuro had put the boy on a beige sofa in the living room upon their arrival, but when she spotted a glimpse of his vivid red hair and mistook him once again for her brother, Temari couldn't resist stepping into the room to get a better look at him.
It started with her pressing back the long strands of hair—long enough that he could tie it back if he chose to—from his face and ended with her counting the tiny scattered freckles covering his forehead, nose, and chubby baby cheeks. She was disturbed by the fact that she couldn't remember whether or not Gaara had freckles. He must have since Kiyoko didn't have any visible that she could see, and little Naruto had to have inherited them from somewhere; but she didn't want to believe that she had forgotten anything about Gaara.
Before she knew it she was pulling the boy close, his head on her shoulder, and carrying him with her to the kitchen. Kankuro had given her a funny look but said nothing as she sat and placed the child in her lap. Her own portion of Ramen remained untouched as she looked for more traces of Gaara in the boy as he slept peacefully unaware.
The Sand Kunoichi looked up as light sipping sounds, coming from the child's mother across the table, caught her attention. Kiyoko was attempting to drink the broth, but Temari knew that the young woman's mind was obviously elsewhere. The poor girl had been trying not to stare at a picture on the wall since everyone had entered into the kitchen, the same picture that Temari herself had been trying to ignore.
It was a picture of Gaara and a much younger looking Kiyoko on what Temari assumed was their wedding day. Kiyoko was beautiful; but Temari had thought that when she first met the young woman in her office. A small transparent veil covered the bride's face as long silky hair, braided with what seemed to be pearls, flowed down the girls back. Her dress was old fashioned looking and a bit too big at the shoulders—one strap had slid off when the photo had been taken—but Kiyoko was confidently wearing it as if it were perfect; and for the red headed girl it was.
Gaara was dressed in dark blue robes that emphasized his aqua blue eyes and had his arm wrapped tightly around Kiyoko's waist, her hands around his neck. They must have been dancing, Temari thought as she noticed that others in the faded background were in similar positions. The couple had their foreheads pressed together and were smiling to each other, lips almost touching, as if they were the only people in the room. There was no doubt as Temari noticed the small tell-tale kanji on his left temple that the man in the picture was her brother. She felt hurt as it hit her that she hadn't been at one of the most important days of her brother's life. Gaara had been a groomsman in her wedding to Shikamaru eight years ago.
The room was too quiet, Temari thought as she realized that even Naruto—the Hokage—hadn't touched his meal. That might have been the most disturbing thing about the whole situation. She never would have thought that the sounds of wet noodles being inhaled at dangerous amounts, and the insanely fast disappearance of numerous bowls of Ramen would have been a normal sight, but Temari couldn't help but find the sight that was before her wrong. The Hokage was staring at the bowl in front of him, playing with the noodles as if it were something uneatable and not his absolute favorite dish. She noticed for the first time that his normally bright and jubilant sky blue eyes held dark depressing shadows underneath them and hinted at a lack of sleep.
He knew, she thought as she watched the young leader put his chopsticks neatly next to his bowl and focus on the woman seated next to him. He must have already known how she and Kankuro were going to react when he stepped foot into Suna.
It was a clear sign that Temari wasn't going to like how this conversation was going to turn out.
"How did he…" The words were spilling out before Temari could stop them. Once she realized that the next word she was going to say was 'Die?' she came to her senses enough to ask something else. She wasn't ready to know the answer to that question. Not yet. "…propose to you?"
The sound of Kankuro's footsteps stopped and the hooded ninja took a seat at the square table next to his former teacher. The sixth Kazekage had shed his dignitary robes before they left the Kazekage tower and was now dressed in his normal puppet master regalia. Just in case things don't go well, he had told her when they had been alone before coming to the widow's small apartment on the rough side of the village.
In front of her Temari watched as a slow smirk grew on Kiyoko's face. The younger woman looked away from the picture for the first time in five minutes and found Temari. The Kunoichi detected the tiniest amount of playfulness in Kiyoko's apple-green eyes as she answered the question.
"You assume that Sh—" Kiyoko corrected her mistake when Kankuro coughed loudly. The two had argued briefly while in the Kazekage's office over what to call the former Kazekage—Kiyoko insisting to call him by the name she knew him as "Shukaku" and Kankuro insisting that he should be called by his rightful name. It wasn't until Naruto stepped in and explained to her that Shukaku was the demon that had been sealed inside of Gaara, and that her husband had hated that part of himself, that she agreed to make an effort to call him by the name that Suna knew him by. "Gaara was the type to propose."
Temari smiled. She had to admit that she had a hard time imagining Gaara ever proposing to a girl.
When they were children he had wanted to make friends, she knew, but had been too shy to even talk to anyone his age. After the incident with their uncle he no longer cared about anything but killing and she had believed that the blood lust would consume him—Gaara finding someone he wanted to spend the rest of his life with hadn't even been a thought. Then, after they met Naruto for the first time, he suddenly changed back into the boy she had read bedtime stories to when their father wasn't around.
She remembered her and Kankuro not knowing what to make of the sudden kindness coming from their normally twisted younger brother. They loved him—they had always loved him—but the change was so drastic it was hard for the two to forget what he had been; it had seemed more likely that it was a practical joke. But then suddenly Gaara was the Kazekage of Suna and loved by everyone in the village.
Girls started to throw themselves at her brother and Temari took the place of protecting him from the power-hungry gold-diggers. They only wanted Gaara for his Kazekage status and not the person he really was. Not that he had ever shown any interest in any of them, but even then Temari couldn't see her brother proposing; she had always predicted the council forcing him into an arranged marriage. It always amused her that the council thought they could force Gaara to do anything. Even after he changed he still did whatever he wanted; he just had a different perspective for living than he did before.
"So you proposed first?" Kankuro inquired further while playing with a cup of hot tea.
Kiyoko nodded. Her smile beamed as she talked about the man she married in a rush. "Yes. I knew he wanted to—I had found the ring months ago—but he was always very shy about things like that—I'm sure you know that though—so I told him one day that if he didn't hurry up and give me the ring I was going to marry one of the men my father kept trying to set me up with. He didn't like that very much." She was nervous and talking fast and Temari tried to keep up with what the red head was saying through her dialect. "I was also the one to kiss him first though I wasn't as sure of his response that time. I think I caught him off guard."
Something suddenly didn't seem right with Kiyoko's story. Temari thought for a moment about what she had just heard before questioning. "You found the engagement ring months before you propose? How is that possible when you only knew him for a short time?"
She had done the math in her head before they had left the Kazekage office earlier. Gaara had left Suna about six years ago; Kiyoko had said their son was nearly five. Add nine months for pregnancy and the two couldn't have known each other for more than a couple of months before they were married. Temari had figured the two were married before Kiyoko had become pregnant since in the photo the young woman hadn't been sporting any bulges around her belly.
Kiyoko looked confused so Temari explained what she had figured on her own but it only seemed to add to the woman's confusion.
"I married Gaara six and a half years ago." The widow finally said with a frown when Temari finished. "We were only engaged for a month but I had known him for almost a year before that. My father always gave him a hard time because he thought Gaara was too old for me. I was only sixteen when we were married."
Temari quickly did the math in her head. Roughly seven and a half years ago Gaara would have barely been eighteen—he wouldn't even have had Shukaku resealed yet. What was more important was that he had married Kiyoko before he had left Suna.
Baki had apparently picked up on that as well. "You're claiming that you and Gaara were married while he was still Kazekage?"
"If he was Kazekage six and a half years ago, then yes." Kiyoko answered calmly but in her eyes there was a trace of fear. "I never knew him as Sabaku no Gaara—never dreamed that he was the Kazekage. I only ever knew him as Shukaku." She turned to face the blond Hokage before adding, "Which is why I don't understand why—"
It was small and unnoticed by the other two but Temari saw Naruto shake his head quickly stopping Kiyoko from finishing what she was going to say. Kankuro seemed to understand and finished for her. "You don't understand why he would choose to use a name that represented something he hated about himself."
"Exactly."
Temari decided not to press the issue and listened to her brother's insight as to what Gaara might have been thinking. "Do you remember Temari—before Yashumaru—when Gaara had broken the necklace mom had given you?"
A light bulb turned on above Temari's head as she realized where Kankuro was going with this. "He said Shukaku did it."
"And when he got angry?"
"Shukaku."
"And when he hurt or killed someone?"
"Shukaku!" exclaimed Temari again.
The purple painted Kazekage removed his hood so he could rub his brown hair as he explained to the others sitting in the room. "When Gaara was younger he used to blame anything he did that he felt was wrong on the demon. Even things that we knew had nothing to do with the demon would sometimes be blamed on Shukaku. He thought that being with you was wrong—"
Temari wasn't the only one to jump when the cold angry voice interrupted the Kazekage. She hadn't seen so much rage come from the Kyuubi container since Sakura had almost died a year ago. "Being with Kiyoko was not something wrong!"
For a second the two Kage's stared at each other in a silent match, each one with their own glare. Kankuro broke off first, spun his cup in a circle, and then responded to Naruto's outburst. "I never meant for it to sound the way it did." The twenty-eight year old leader sighed before pulling back his hair again and sitting back in the chair. "Being with Kiyoko wasn't wrong. What was wrong was hiding the fact that he was seeing someone from the council and sneaking away to do it. As Kazekage he had a responsibility to the village to protect it from harm—something he wouldn't have been able to do from your village—and he LIED to us! He lied to Kiyoko! He lied to the council! He lied to ME!"
Kankuro's voice had steadily risen louder and louder and he had stood as he spoke. When he finished his rant he took a deep breath and sat back down and rested his head in his hands; rubbing his temples with his fingertips. Kiyoko reached out one of her tiny manicured hands and touched her brother's arm. "I know it's hard to understand why your brother did what he did—I don't even understand it myself—but everyone has secrets. Gaara," she still hesitated on calling him that. "just had a bigger one than most."
"You're really taking this well." Kankuro said as she pulled away. "Doesn't to hurt to know that there was a whole side to your husband that he didn't tell you about?"
She began to stare quietly at the photo of her and Gaara on the wall again and Temari watched as a tear rolled slowly down her cheek. Naruto turned to look at the photo and when he turned back the two shared a look before Kiyoko turned her attention back to Kankuro and answered his question. "Yes, it does. More than you know."
She stood from the table, pushed the chair back in, and then walked over to Temari's side holding her hands out for her son. "If you don't mind I'd like to put him in his room."
Temari wasn't ready to give up holding the boy but Kiyoko looked like she was ready to break down at any moment and handed him over. The Sand woman was betting that her brother's widow was really just looking for an excuse to leave the room so she could recompose herself and could care less about tucking her son in bed.
As she suspected Kiyoko returned moments later with a freshly washed face and newly planted smiled.
She cleaned up the table of uneaten Ramen and topped off everyone's tea before sitting back down next to the Hokage leader and folding her hands in her lap. This time Temari knew she wasn't imagining things when Naruto put his hand over hers and brought it to his lips. The look that Kiyoko gave him was a mixture of shock and pure love. Temari thought the two were moving rather fast and was surprised at Naruto's smooth gesture, but had predicted that sparks would fly between the two. She found that a part of her was pleased to know that the woman Gaara had loved—no matter how messed up the situation was—would be taken care of by someone he trusted.
"I think you need to start at the beginning." Baki said interrupting the blossoming lovebirds' moment. "When did you first meet Gaara?"
Kiyoko broke eye contact with the Hokage and laughed a bit. "In the middle of the desert, believe it or not." She laughed again before continuing with her story. "I think I told you that I was fifteen when I met your brother."
Temari nodded remembering an earlier conversation.
"Well, I had been trying to run away."
"Trying?" asked Kankuro.
"Yes. My father had been talking about marrying me off to one of his friend's sons and I wanted nothing to do with it so I left." Kiyoko smiled and began to braid the ends of her hair. "I wasn't aware of the amount of water you needed to travel with in the desert and ran out in the second day because I was too stubborn to go back. Shu-Gaara spotted me as I collapsed from dehydration.
"He let me travel with him a few days before he told me that I had to go back home. I had told him about my father and he said that running away from my problems would do more harm than good. I didn't want to go back but he said he would drag me by force if he had to. I made him promise to visit and make sure my father never married me off to the highest bidder. I never expected him to agree, but he did, so I let him take me home."
Kiyoko stopped and after several minutes Kankuro asked if that was the end of the story. She shook her head. "No, I was just wondering…I didn't think much of it when it was happening but I remember now when I introduced Gaara as Shukaku that my father had responded oddly. I thought it was just because he was a boy and my father was a bit protective of my sisters and me, but Papa was smart and dealt with Shinobi on occasion. I think he might have known who Gaara was, or at least suspected.
"I never questioned that he might be someone else. I never expected him to keep his word either, but my father sat me down and told me that I could marry whomever I wanted as long as I was happy. He only brought over people because he knew they would take care of me and he had hoped that I would like one of them. He never planned on forcing me into an arranged marriage.
"A few weeks later the other half of Gaara's promise was completed when one of my older brothers Kyo dragged me out of bed saying I had a visitor. I thought it was another one of papa's setups so when I saw it was him I was so happy I jumped in his arms and kissed his cheek."
Temari tried to imagine what Gaara's reaction to that might have been. As far as she knew Gaara had never kissed anyone—but then again she hadn't known that he had been married with a son either.
"He spent a week in our village, helping out papa and my brothers with the fishing boats when I had to help my mother and sisters with the restaurant. He and Kyo became really good friends in that time I was told. They would come and visit me while I was working and give me a hard time while I waited on them. They pissed me off once and I dumped water over their heads but they both just laughed and sandwiched me between them getting me wet as well.
"When I wasn't working I showed Gaara around the village or explored one of the caves by the water's edge with him. Most of the time we just talked about what we liked or whatever came to mind. I found out that it was his eighteenth birthday that week and my family insisted on throwing him a small party even though he said he didn't need one. I think his face was as red as his hair when Kyo joked about giving him his girlfriend for the night." She laughed before adding, "He declined. When he went home he told me he would visit again soon and he kept his word."
"How often did he visit?" Kankuro asked when Kiyoko took a break from speaking to sip on her cooling tea.
She put the cup back down and refolded her hands in her lap. "At least once a month, and he usually stayed for a few days."
Baki looked unsettled. "How did Gaara manage to disappear regularly for days and no one notice?"
No one seemed to have an answer for this so Kiyoko continued her story.
"It was my sixteenth birthday when I realized that Gaara might have feelings for me. He gave me this." Kiyoko touched the gold chain around her neck and pulled it up out of her shirt. The piece was made of clear glass and encased a single white rose petal. "It seemed like such an elaborate gift to give to someone you had only known a few months that you didn't see that often. I knew that he was a good friend but he always treated me the same as he did Kyo so I never thought that I might mean more to him.
"I decided that I needed to know for sure before he left and walked with him to the edge of the forest that lined the coast as he started home. I would usually give him a hug and a kiss on the cheek but this time I turned my head to steal a real kiss. I thought he was mad at me when he didn't react and I started to pull away, but he stopped me and kissed me again. He admitted then that he cared for me but that he wasn't planning on coming back after this visit." Kiyoko rubbed the stone between her thumb and forefinger before tucking it back into her shirt. "He said that it wasn't safe for him to keep visiting me and that things were happening back home that could make it dangerous for him to see me. He broke up with me before we were even dating!" Kiyoko laughed dryly as everyone else listened intently. "I remember getting mad and telling him that if he really did leave and not come back he would be breaking his promise. I told him that I would follow him but he ignored me.
"After three months and no word I had given up on ever seeing him again. I started seeing a friend of my brother who I knew was interested in me but I still thought about Gaara. Then, almost four months after he left claiming that he would never return he showed up at the restaurant.
"I knew right off the bat that something was off about him, different. He looked exhausted and tense but I thought it was guilt and refused to talk or visit him. Papa and Kyo still liked him even though I told them what happened and decided that they would spend time with him so I didn't have to. They also wanted to know why he wasn't acting like himself. Later, when he was leaving again, Papa made me see him off and walk up the coast with him. I was still angry and refused to speak to him the entire time, but I listened when he told me that he was trying to protect me. When he said that he would be back I couldn't help but look for him every day as I waited.
"The next time he visited he kidnapped me from my bedroom while I was sleeping. He took me to one of the caves that we had previously explored and kissed me. He said that he was sorry he had left but that he had to. He then told me some strange things that night—he said that he was forgetting who he was and that he would have flashes of events that he couldn't remember whether they were memories or nightmares. He told me that he had thought I might be a dream and that he had come back to be sure I wasn't. I asked him if he was going to leave again now that he knew that I was real and he promised me that he would be back every chance he could. That was when he started visiting every other week.
"Not long after, I found this ring in his coat pocket." Kiyoko smiled as she twisted the ring around her finger and Temari noticed that it had been their mother's engagement ring. "I had borrowed it to keep warm one night when my siblings had decided to build a bonfire on the beach. He must have forgotten it was in there when he put it over my shoulders."
Kiyoko frowned and stirred her tea. "Actually that was when he started to forget a lot. He started to keep a journal to remember important events but it wasn't the same. He would leave to come back to Suna, I suppose, but when he would come back to visit me it was like I had to remind him who everyone else was again.
"That was why I asked him to marry me. I wasn't sure if he was hesitating or if he just kept forgetting but either way I wanted him with me for as long as I could. I was afraid that he would forget me all together. He told me I was crazy for wanting to marry him but said that he couldn't imagine being with anyone else. My father approved even though he thought we were young and Gaara bought a house for me to live in until I could travel back with him."
"He planned on bringing you to Suna?" Baki asked barely containing his shock.
Kiyoko nodded. "I didn't know for sure it was Suna, but the plan had been for me to go home with him, at least at first. When I became pregnant he didn't want me traveling and I wound up staying instead."
"Wait," Temari added up Naruto's age again. "I thought you said Naruto wasn't five yet?"
"Naruto was the second pregnancy; I became ill and the first one miscarried. That was why he moved to Kanagakure. We were still going to move after I gave birth but the longer he stayed with me the more he forgot about his life here; at least that was what he told me." She shook her head back and forth and the braid that she had been working on fell back into perfectly straight hair. "I feel like an idiot sitting here telling you all this. I feel like I should have known, should have been suspicious of the fact that he left and came sporadically; but I didn't. I knew there were things that he didn't tell me but I never thought they were of any great importance."
"How did he die?" Temari knew that the question would be coming soon but still felt unprepared as her brother asked.
The young widow aimlessly stirred her tea once more before going into the final story about her husband. This time when she spoke her voice was only a little above a whisper as if the quieter she spoke the less likely it would be true. "It was about eight weeks from my due date when he woke me up in the middle of the night with a fever. He said it was nothing, but by the end of the week he was delirious and bed ridden. The doctor tried everything he could but a few days later Gaara closed his eyes for good. It seemed so fast; one day my husband was with me planning the birth of our son, the next he was gone—replaced with an empty shell. Kyo buried Gaara in the same cave he had apologized and kissed me in. I would have sent you news but he never told me your names so I didn't know how to contact you."
Temari closed her eyes and sucked in a deep breath. So this was the mystery of Gaara's disappearance? A secret life and a sad ending; she almost wished that she hadn't known, yet a part of her still couldn't believe it.
A part of her wanted to slap, shake, and scream at the girl in front of her. She wanted to make the girl admit that she was lying; that everything she had just told them was a big lie. Gaara couldn't have kept all this from them. He couldn't have had a family without her and Kankuro knowing. He couldn't have died. Yet, she thought of the boy sleeping upstairs with the same sea foam eyes as her brother and she knew that she couldn't deny the girl's claim.
Gaara really, truly had a second life.
It still did nothing to keep back the pain of his death.
Temari stood abruptly from the table. "I can't listen to any more of this. I need to go."
