Title: Dark Soul

Series: Story #2. Sequel to 'Sand Walker'

Fandom: Naruto / SG-1

Author: Shi-koi

Warnings: Gaara-centric, violence, blood. Normal Naruto-verse stuff. Alternate timeline – Gaara isn't the Kazekage yet. Note the 'yet'. The writing style changes from present to past tense in places, usually when Gaara has to interact directly to another person during a scene, so be prepared for that. Eventually it will have chunks from Naruto's perspective as well, but not for a long time.

Genre: Crossover, action/adventure, mild angst.

Pairings: None

Summary: (Crossover) (Naruto – SG-1) Sequel to 'Sand Walker'. Set after the fight at the Valley of the End, and before the beginning of Naruto Shippuuden. This is one vision of Gaara's journey to be human.


Notes 1: Sorry it's taken me so long to update. On the good side, however, this is where Stargate really comes into play. On the bad side, it may not be what most of you are expecting.

Notes 2: The style changes a bit during this. This story was primarily an exercise in style application, so forgive me if it seems a bit odd. I hope you enjoy it anyway.

Notes 3: This story isn't yaoi or slash. In fact, it has no pairings at all. No het, no slash, nothing. Okay? It's a gen friendship fic, no more, no less. I've been writing some yaoi out-takes, but they are just to fufill my own desire to explore character alternatives, and have no bearing on this story. I don't think I'll even be posting them.

Notes 4: Red Moon versus Red Dawn (and variations thereof). When I started writing this, Yondaime-sama had no name, and the Akatsuki were translated as the Red Moon... I'm sticking to that for now, because this fic is an AU anyway, now that we know so much more about everything in the Naruto-verse.


::
Gaara can feel something...alien in the sands dunes calling him. Alien even to this world.

The people of this world call it 'Earth', which is quite unimaginative, naming a planet after it's dirt. Then again, to Gaara, nothing will compare to the elegant beauty of his sands, but calling a world 'Sand' just wouldn't be appropriate.

This desert is full of lush oasis and long dry plains. The Northern-most end has rivers and fields which are a delight to sense. The sands beneath them thick and heavy with nutrients from the largest body of flowing water Gaara's seen in a long time inside a desert.

The Southern-most end is harsher, with mountains, valleys and even prairies.

Gaara prefers the North side.

The sand sets Gaara down gently and the blue of his chakra softly settles. He feels as though he's coming down from a mission high, and it's been so long since he needed stimulants to enhance his performance that he has to take a few seconds to adjust to the similar sensations.

There's a reason why he makes his own Hyourougan, soldier pills.

There are loud jarring noises drifting down over the dunes, and Gaara cautiously edges closer. The night darkness is helping to conceal him, but it won't be hard for him to be spotted by an industrious sentry, his skin is just too pale and his hair too bright.

Then again, Gaara thinks as he wraps a genjutsu around himself to hide him from prying eyes, as long as he's not up against another ninja, he could probably walk right in unseen.

Gaara's never been the best person at genjutsu, but all shinobi are taught how to cover themselves in illusions to hide themselves, and Gaara is nothing if not thorough. He has the usual basic ninja arsenal of genjutsu, but not much more than those he uses for stealth. He can't attack with them, or use them productively in a battle.

Not like the elder Uchiha can, his genjutsu are legendary. Gaara knows the elder Uchiha, Itachi, has an attack which, when used, is so traumatic and torturous it places the victim in a coma. Most victims of which end up never waking from, their mind simply unrecoverable.

Gaara knows because the elder Uchiha is a part of the Akatsuki, the Red Moon, and the Akatsuki are after his and Naruto's demons, or more specifically, after Naruto himself. Uchiha Itachi has been after Naruto since the blonde was twelve.

Itachi was so ruthless in his pursuit of Naruto that he used the Mangekyou Sharingan and tortured his own little brother, who was only twelve at the time – after breaking both his wrists and beating him almost to the point of unconsciousness in front of Naruto's eyes, with Naruto unable to do anything to help – when Sasuke crossed Itachi's path and tried to stop him, to avenge the murder of his family and clan.

Uchiha Itachi, the same Uchiha Itachi who murdered his entire clan when he was barely fourteen years old. Hundreds of people carrying the Uchiha blood, so many of them they had an entire district of Konoha to themselves and policed the whole of Konoha were killed in the space of a single afternoon.

The Uchiha, who were spoken of in hushed tones they were so powerful, annihilated by the son of the head of their clan.

Gaara likes to know his enemies beforehand, and likes to plan a counter-offensive to keep in reserve. Hearing that Uchiha Itachi is after you is a disturbingly scary thing.

Hence his recent study of genjutsu.

Gaara knows enough to protect his mind against another shinobi, and that small amount of knowledge is more than enough to pass undetected on this planet.

When Gaara clears the rise of the sand dune, he can see the light from many harshly-bright torches dotting the lower levels of sand below him. There are large trucks, crates, tents and people in military garb.

Gaara doesn't like the look of them.

The majority of the people below are not dark, or large, or swarthy...and they don't look anything like the native of this desert. There are mostly white people mixed in with all the rest, and their mannerisms are those of foreigners.

The sands hum their worry. Not because of this strange military – the sands have existed too long to be concerned by mortals – but because of whatever it is that they are unearthing from the stone structures which must have been revealed in a recent sandstorm.

Whatever is in those chambers that has the sands of this world worried, also worries Gaara. He sits down and allows himself to sink deep into the sand, beginning his meditations to allow his mind to freely contact the living spirit of the sands.

The sands are worried, the last time creatures like the one still in the stone chamber were allowed to roam freely they stole many of the sand's children. The desert dwellers who lived and died on her surface were stolen away and never returned.

They know Gaara. Gaara is one of her special children, even if he wasn't born on her plains. Gaara belongs to all sands on all plains and is bonded to every single grain in existence.

And, Gaara understands fear.

Gaara rises to the surface and stares into the gently sloping valley below, much of the lower level caused by the diggers still working to remove the sand from the structures.

Gaara estimates that dawn is less than an hour away, and he knows that the workers will increase in the daylight. He hasn't got time for a complicated plan, so he makes himself comfortable on a cloud of sand and hovers above the stone buildings. He uses his third eye jutsu to take a look inside the building and around the camp.

It would be odd to see an eyeball floating around the camp, so Gaara wraps it inside a minor genjutsu, something which is quite difficult to do to an object that is half summon, half ninjutsu. Gaara can do it with a little bit of concentration, immensely glad for his extremely large chakra reserve.

There's nothing particularly strange about these people, other than the fact that as military types, they seem a bit too weak for Gaara's liking. They have machines, guns and lots and lots of men, but they don't seem any stronger than the worst placed Genin ninja.

Gaara's own world has plenty of technology, but not quite to the same standards shown here. They got rid of guns a long, long time ago, after all, what was the point of a projectile weapon who's ammunition couldn't follow the enemy if you wanted it to, or was used against foes who could easily and regularly move faster than a whole slew of bullets?

Most of the technology left was mainly used for communication, and even then, mostly by lower lever ninja and ordinary people with no ninja training, or by teams working together in situations where any use of chakra would be discovered.

Gaara's world was virtually unpolluted, since fossil fuels were very rarely used and even then, only in small quantities. Even the large cities and towns ran on electricity. There were no cars, like on this world, although Gaara did quite like one method of transportation he'd seen on a different world, here they ran on terrible, smelly, thick and usually damaging (to the environment around them) fuels.

On the plus side, the fuel they used in their trucks would be perfect for a diversion as it was so wonderfully flammable.

There are eight trucks on-site. Three are empty, two have food and one has crates stacked up in it. The last two have people inside them. Gaara creates five sand clones inside the three empty trucks and the two with food in them. At his signal they start driving away into the desert. Gaara doesn't know enough to really control them, although figuring them out is easy, the experience needed to really drive them has never interested Gaara.

The camp is in uproar as the military presence in the camp realise what's happening and go on alert. Gaara simply walks straight through them until he safely enters the rapidly clearing stone buildings. It's easy for him to walk along the ceilings to avoid detection, since the workers are pouring down the tunnels and corridors at the sounds of shouting and yelling going on outside.

After a half dozen minutes the structures are completely clear, leaving Gaara to his own devices inside them. There's a pulse in the sand that only Gaara can feel, directing Gaara to one seemingly bare wall. Gaara spreads his chakra thinly across the surface until he can sense the different areas of the stone.

It takes a small amount of chakra applied in exactly the right places for the door to open when Gaara presses against it. The room before him is dark and musty, and a flood of dusty sand and stale air rushes out when the heavy stone door swings open on concealed hinges. Gaara removes a torch from the main room and takes it with him when he steps inside the hidden room. He lights the few torches still in their places with it before placing it in an empty holder.

The genjutsu Gaara has activated is released. Gaara has a feeling he's going to need his chakra, and it could be slightly awkward maintaining his genjutsu when he gets to where the sand wants him to go.

Gaara doesn't need the sand to tell him where he needs to go. There's a large display shelf type thing built into the wall, lit by a golden light. There is a lot of gold in this room, excessively so.

Choosing one of his larger scrolls from his bag, Gaara spreads it out and inks new sealing instructions on it using his travel pot of ink and usual brush. The sand carries everything from the shelves to the scroll, although the scroll is lost beneath the sheer amount of items. Palms together, Gaara summons the right amount of chakra and then thrusts his hands down onto the only clear portion of the scroll, the circle inked out for his palm.

The chakra hisses and envelops the items, turning them into small characters on the scroll, completely flat, ready to be summoned.

There's only one item remaining in the room. It looks like a long carved coffin made out of gold with the relief of a person in ceremonial finery across the top. Gaara transcribes another scroll ready for this item, it was simply too large to be placed in the other scroll, then he steps forward and examines the coffin.

When his hand brushes against the side of the item, it starts to hum, and when it opens, the soft golden glow insides reveals a woman sleeping. She's wearing an outfit that gleams with thousands of woven gems and long strands of gold. Her skin is lightly tanned and her eyes are lined in black Kohl.

Gaara stares at her. The sand is swirling in agitation around his feet, partially drifting up the side of the now open coffin, but not really wanting to get any nearer to the creature with the human face. Gaara steps back when she sits up and starts to rise. She steps gracefully out of the coffin and stands on the sandy floor before Gaara. She's at least a head taller than him, which Gaara's used to. Naruto and children are the only ones the same height as him.

When she smiles her eyes glow gold and her voice when she speaks is deep and multi-tonal. Her face twists in anger when Gaara doesn't answer, but to be honest, he only understood maybe one word out of a dozen.

He knows what she is now. Creatures of her kind have been on other places he's been to, although he's never been as close to one as he is now.

When she snarls and lifts one hand up with a device he recognises as a weapon the sand lashes out and slams into her, throwing her against the stone wall.

Her look of shock is almost comical, and Gaara can't help but smirk, although it's so small only someone who knows him well would be able to see it.

The woman has now beencategorised as a threat and Gaara's in no mood to mess around, so his sand just holds her still and twists off her head at the neck, ripping her apart. The two halves are thrown to one corner of the room and discarded. There is something...distasteful...about her blood, and Gaara doesn't know whether he should be surprised or not at the blue blood spilling out onto the sand and mixing with the red blood still being poured onto the sand from the gaping hole that was her neck.

Gaara traces his hand across the same area that he touched to make the coffin open, and is rewarded for his efforts when the lid swings shut again, leaving the room lit by torchlight again. Gaara seals the coffin away and stows the scroll beside the first one in his bag.

There's nothing else worth taking in the room, and the only signs Gaara leaves of his passing are the empty, dustless spaces left from the items Gaara has taken with him.

Gaara recalls the sand clones back to him, and he knows they'll be waiting as shapeless sand when he gets outside. The sand is happy, and Gaara can sense it's relief.

The empty chamber with the now cooling corpse is left as it is, and Gaara doesn't bother to close the door again, or to extinguish the torches. He's done what he needs to do, and he has no intention of hanging around longer than he must.

The sand from his clones rejoins him when Gaara gets back outside. The sun has risen and the panicked cries have lessened somewhat. Gaara realises he hasn't reactivated his genjutsu when a few startled shouts are aimed his way and he realises that they can see him.

A few guns are raised and their muzzles are pointed at him in warning. Further back, Gaara can see some of the diggers and other native workers staring at him in undisguised awe. Gaara knows that they've probably heard stories about who he is.

One of the soldiers calls out a warning, and a few soldiers are dispatched to his position. Gaara re-calls his third eye summon and releases it, bringing back all traces of excess chakra. When the soldiers surround Gaara, he lifts his head and stares unblinkingly at the closest one.

The soldiers are wary of him, and Gaara wonders for a moment if they believe him to be the creature that he killed inside the structures. One at a time the men close in, lessening any normal person's ability to escape.

Gaara doesn't care.

Before the soldiers get any closer, Gaara calls up the sand, and it whirls around him in a rapid flurry of grit, dirt and his own sand, transporting him in the blink of an eye.

He wonders what the soldiers will do when the sand falls to the ground and there's no-one left there any more.

The thought makes his lips twitch.


::
Gaara spends the next few weeks traveling from market to market. He paces them out to prevent the gossip reaching the places he goes to before he has a chance to visit. There are many places on this particular world with sand, hundreds of them are beaches.

One place has sand so white each grain glitters like a single diamond. The ocean laps gently in shimmering waves. In the dawn the sands seem to glow in an unearthly light, and in the dusk it burns brightly in a beautifully fiery array.

In this place, Gaara sealed twelve gourd-fulls of the pale sand to take home with him.

The beach Gaara is staying at now has delightful little beach huts directly opening onto the beach and they offer greatly coveted privacy. Gaara has long since changed a good few handfuls of his gems for the local currency, and as a result, has gained a bit of a reputation for paying well for excellent service.

There are lots of small shops selling items made on the island, and many places will actually make what you want from their selections. Gaara found himself buying even more on this island than on his previous four trips.

He can't help it. This island specialises in many kinds of hand-crafted puzzles, and they sell games by the truckload. Their selection of mind-bendingly difficult puzzles and brainteasers are impossible for Gaara to ignore. He knows he now has enough to keep him occupied for years.

Gaara has been trying hard not to stand out in any extraordinary way. He doesn't carry his sand gourd with him, and he has done his best to actually restrain the sand that travels around him physically with his chakra.

So far, he hasn't had any problems.

He's learnt the language of the islands, and each day he goes out for a walk and listens to people when they talk. Some of them try to cajole him into a game or two, whether it's something simple like a board game, or rather more difficult and involving more people, like tag.

Even the adults of this place don't seem to have grown up.

Everyone is pleasant, or at least so relaxed they can't put forth the effort needed to be rude. Jokes, stories and games are a part of everyone's days, even the workers have fun at night when they're off-duty. Fires light up a long stretch of the beach away from the huts ready for the regular evening entertainment.

It's the sort of place Gaara can lose himself in. It doesn't take him any effort to enjoy himself, and the islanders doesn't take offence with him when he goes for hours without talking.

Gaara's used to a blindingly hot sun, so during the day he has no problems watching as a gaggle of women with younger children flock down to the beach, the elder ones with baskets full of what Gaara knows to weaving necessities, the younger girls watching over their much younger siblings and charges.

Every day they work, and Gaara finds it fascinating to watch as mats, baskets, dolls, blinds, wall decorations and even strange grass skirts and small accessories are constructed amidst the laughter and chatter.

Gaara's already bought enough to furnish an entire house.

Gaara likes this world, more than he thinks he should. There are enough similarities with the places he visits not to throw him off, but it's different and diverse enough to keep his attention.

Gaara finds himself surprised when he realises he doesn't want to return back to Sunagakure yet. But it's Kankurou's birthday in two days, and Gaara wants to see his older brother's face when he finds Gaara's presents.

Sometimes, Gaara feels like he's stepped into someone else's shoes, and is living their life. The moment usually passes quickly though, and Gaara finds himself wondering if those flashes are shades of the person he would have been without the influence of Shukaku within him.

Gaara spends the last night on the beach until dawn starts to glow faintly on the horizon, enjoying the gentle transition from the balmy night to the crisp morning air and the lightening of the sky above the ocean. There's nothing quite like his desert for beauty, but Gaara's beginning to think this beach retreat comes pretty damn near close.

His beach accommodation is prepaid for, and the housekeeping unit will be along sometime mid-morning so there is really no need for Gaara to hang around...but he does so anyway, until the day has a firm hold overhead.

The beach starts to fill up, and Gaara decides it's finally time. He waits though, until he's hidden behind a copse of trees which pepper the beach before calling up his sand and disappearing. No matter how many times he travels, there's still something terribly sad, and greatly invigorating aboutfeeling and hearing the sands around him change. The island sands had a jangly musical sound to them. Sunagakure's sand was delicate almost...but with an intensity which would haunt Gaara if he chose to never return.

Sunagakure is in the distance when Gaara reappears on his homeland's sands. There's recognition and a note of welcome humming through them and the grains swirl playfully around his legs as he walks.

Gaara's first stop is to his small treasure room, and he selects a few of the best crafted dolls he's bought from around the worlds on his travels and wraps them in sand, hardening the sand around each present until they look like a stack of eggs with toughened shells. Small patterns of precious gems gleam in the sand in delicate interweaving patterns made from rich dark amethysts, a dark sapphires, fiery orange-red rubies or clear diamonds, lying beside a few of eggs veined with black ebony. His favourite one is threaded with the pale sand he found on a far off beach creating subtle shapes and patterns that drew the eye. There's no sand like that here.

The finished presents are placed carefully in Gaara's room, one of the few places in the village that he knows no-one will willingly enter without his express permission. Not that anyone would request it. His bag is emptied and his remaining supplies, scrolls and his bandages are put away, his clothes changed into his reddish-brown trousers and matching long-sleeved-high-necked top. A small silvery button gleams at his neck beside the white sash draped over his right shoulder, partially covering the leather harness he uses for his gourd. The excess material that he wraps around the sand gourd is tied around his waist.

Inside Sunagakure the ground itself is his weapon.

Gaara stops long enough to throw his dirty clothes in the laundry basket downstairs and to get something to eat. When he's finished he walks to the Kazekage's hall and drops off his now redundant pass. There's a surprising amount of commotion going on and a lot of hushed, but still frantic whispering going on. A handful of passing shinobi give Gaara looks which he doesn't know how to decipher. The glances aren't hostile, but they are appraising and a bit...worried?

Gaara heard Naruto before he saw him. Loud shouting drifted out through the thick wooden doors to the hall, and the on-duty shinobi at the doors looked extremely uncomfortable to Gaara's experienced eyes.

The shinobi inclined their heads respectfully to Gaara and one of them opened the door for him, allowing the noise to intensify.

"..hell you guys are thinking!"

A few seconds later a familiar blonde came barreling out through the open door, skidding to a stop with wide blue eyes staring at Gaara with something akin to embarrassed surprise. There was still a high level of noise coming from the hall, so Gaara roughly grabbed Naruto's sleeve – noting happily as he did so that the blonde was in a typical chuunin uniform and not in his usual garish orange outfit – and tugged his quarry down the corridor, ignoring the startled yelp from the blonde and quelling the looks that the shinobi guards gave them.

Gaara pushed Naruto into an empty room and leant against the wall, crossing his arms and wondering to himself what the hell was going on. Naruto being here was the last thing he'd ever expected, especially in light of their last conversation, not to mention the look on Naruto's face when he'd seen Gaara.

"Oi, oi," Naruto squawked as he regained his balance, "what the hell was that for, Gaara?"

Gaara stared at him until Naruto chuckled nervously.

"Ah!" Naruto's face lightened up suddenly and he smiled warmly, bounding over in such as way that Gaara was reminded of a playful puppy. "I never got to say thanks!"

Gaara blinked and fought not to look confused. "Eh?"

"I don't know what you did," Naruto said dryly, shaking his head, "but it worked, whatever it was."

"Oh."

Naruto smiled at him happily. "Yeah. I haven't been able to get a good mission like this for nearly half a year, and the ones before that were pretty crappy."

"What are you doing here anyway, Naruto?" Gaara kept his arms crossed as he leant against the wall. He studied Naruto intently, happy, and quite a bit relieved that traces of the old Naruto he had seen before were starting to show.

"You don't know?" Naruto looked incredulous. "I mean, what with all the negotiations, I'd've thought you'd've been right there in the thick of things."

"Naruto." Gaara's voice held a warning.

Naruto gave him a sheepish grin. "Ah, I'm here as part of a three-part liaison. Three chuunin from Leaf exchanged for three chuunin from Sand. I'm here to shadow you."

Gaara frowned. "Why you?"

"Aa." Naruto shrugged. "That's the weird part. I wasn't supposed to be here, but no-one else wanted to come and Tsunade-baa-chan said that there wasn't any reason for me not to come, after all," he stated bitterly, "it's not as though I have an overflowing calender full of unavoidable missions lined up."

"That still doesn't explain why you were paired with me." Gaara pointed out.

Naruto snorted and rolled his eyes. "Do you really think Konoha would have sent me here without making sure that my 'keeper'," Naruto made the small sarcastic hand movements as he spoke, "is someone well equipped to keep me in line."

"They chose me?!" Gaara couldn't keep the surprise and shock out of his voice. "Do they have any idea of who I am...what I am?" Gaara rubbed his forehead, a move Naruto recognised from his last visit as a nervous habit.

"Well, they do have all the mission reports which involve you, and they probably have a lot more as rumors, so, yeah, they probably know about you. Maybe that's why they stuck you with me." Naruto shrugged unconcernedly. "Honestly speaking, I'm glad I got assigned to you. At least with you I know where I stand."

Gaara felt a niggling spear of doubt in his stomach. "Do you have to accompany me on my missions?"

"Yep!" Naruto gave him a thumbs up. "But don't worry, I shouldn't slow you down, ne?"

Doubt hardened into certainly. "Naruto," Gaara started slowly, "I only take 'S' class missions."

Naruto froze, his eyes going impossibly wide. "W-what?!"

"I haven't taken a lower classed mission in nearly two years. The last 'S' class mission I went on, only my siblings and I survived. There were originally five of us." Gaara said, his voice lowering until Naruto had to lean in close to hear him.

"If you went with me, there would be a very good chance that you would die." Gaara felt like flinching at the slowly growing look of comprehension in Naruto's expressive blue eyes.

"But I'm strong." Naruto whispered. "I am. I know I am. Maybe they just have faith in me."

Gaara shook his head. "Maybe they're trying to kill you."

Naruto's eyes shuttered and dulled. "Tsunade-baa-chan wouldn't do that to me."

"Naruto, tell me honestly. If we were given an 'S' class stealth mission, would you be able to carry it out without drawing notice to yourself? Would you be able to distance yourself from all distractions to the target? I don't mean just assassinations, some missions are 'S' classed because of their content, because of the high risk of mental breakdown." Gaara stared at Naruto, catching his eyes and forcing him to keep his gaze steady.

There were things Gaara had done in the name of the mission which he knew Naruto would not be capable of doing. Things like turning a blind eye when innocents were being killed or simply tortured for fun, cases where Gaara had had to kill the enemy's hostage alongside with the target simply to ensure there would be no escape.

Naruto was virtually undefeatable when he set his mind to something, and he'd carried out assassinations just like Gaara had, but not at 'S' class level. He'd fought foes which could have killed Gaara and walked away...but when it came to matters of conscience Naruto was incapable of acting strictly to the letter of the mission without severe mental repercussions.

Knowing Naruto, he would still do his best to carry out his mission, but Gaara had seen what happened to shinobi who did that, most of them went mad. That wasn't an option when it came to Naruto. Not only because he was precious to Gaara, but because of the Kyuubi inside him.

"How stable are you, mentally, right now? How is your health? How stable is your chakra?" Gaara continued relentlessly. "In a flat out fight to the death, you'd be even better than me at overwhelming the opponents. You're best suited for the majority of 'B' and 'A' ranked missions, missions which need sheer power and a good, solid base for intimidation."

Naruto took the chance to look away, wrapping his arms protectively around his chest.

"Naruto, I saw your seal the last time I was in Konoha. You can't tell me there haven't been problems?" Gaara pressed.

Naruto shook his head. "Just a few fluctuations when my chakra tries to merge with the Kyuubi's." He shrugged again, hunching his shoulders inward. "I made money, not from missions, but I made it, and I've been able to eat properly and go around and exercise. I've managed to up my training and I've even learnt a few more techniques from Ero-sennin and Tsunade-baa-chan and Shizune-nee-chan."

"But...? That's not all, is it?" Gaara asked quietly.

"No..well, the Council wanted to keep an eye on the seal, and they were worried about the Kyuubi breaking out..." Naruto trailed off.

"Naruto." Gaara's voice hardened. "What did they do, Naruto?"

Naruto flinched. "I'm on an experimental medication to suppress my chakra usage. They said that it would make sure the Kyuubi couldn't break free, but I still have enough chakra to mold. Just...not as much."

"Enough to survive and complete a gamut of extremely difficult and life-threatening 'S' class missions with a partner who leans towards bloody rampages?" Gaara clenched his fists. Even if Naruto was playing dumb, he could still see what was happening. "How much of this medication have you taken?"

"I don't know, maybe a month's worth?"

"Stop taking it." Gaara commanded harshly. "I'll refuse any missions which come up in that time."

"Gaara! You can't! They'll only go and place me with someone else!" Naruto hissed worriedly.

"Then I'll complete them by myself!" Gaara snarled back. "I'm not fucking watching you die because those snobbish short-sighted little peons have no idea of what you are really like and want to destroy one of Konoha's darker secrets."

Gaara hit the wall beside him with one fist, hard enough to crack the stone. "Dammit Naruto, you can't be this naïve! I'll take you on the missions with me, and leave you somewhere safe while I complete them by myself. We'll match stories up on the journeys back and we'll make sure you don't die."

Naruto stood up straighter. "I can't do that, Gaara. I'm not letting you take the damage for me. I just can't believe that Tsunade-baa-chan would send me here with the intent of killing me. I can't!"

Gaara shook his head, a small smile starting to twitch at the corner of his lips. Had he been anyone else he might've sighed. Naruto was Naruto was Naruto, and for some reason this knowledge reassured him.

"Naruto, Naruto, Naruto. Don't ever change." Gaara clapped a hand on Naruto's shoulders, gripping him tightly. He drew Naruto forward close enough to whisper in the blonde's ear. "I missed you."

When he walked away, Naruto followed, a smile starting to form on his own face.


tbc...