Authors note: So fast! I barely update and I've got like reviews and even a cookie! hugs cookie then eats it talk about taking me by happy surprise you all rule, seriously and in my uber happy mood I wrote the next chapter Tada!

----Family Time----

"I want you to watch over them for awhile, there's something I need to get quickly." Baki looked at Yashamaru as if he were nuts.

"You expect me to be fine here by myself with the three of them?" True Gaara was usually fine on his own as long as he could keep an eye on him; the same could be said for Temari. He needed a sharp eye for Kankuro to catch him before he did something that would make Temari mad that he would end up regretting for a few days before trying again. But all three of them at the same time? He wasn't sure it was possible to watch them all at once; at least nothing had happened… yet.

"I will be gone and back before you or they know it. And the sooner I leave the sooner I can get back." Baki frowned looking at the door that led to the backyard not sure about the others or what he should do if they did find out or Kankuro did something to make Gaara mad. Before Baki could say any more Yashamaru nodded to him and left.

Baki sighed and wondered if maybe he should bring them inside to do something instead of being outside. Opening the backdoor slightly he saw them kicking the ball back and forth with one another. He shut the door partly but not completely, he wanted to hear what was going on outside just in case.

He was about to go to the kitchen to get something ready for them for lunch when Gaara ran through the back door at top speed screaming Kankuro not far behind him demanding him to stop with Temari right behind him telling him to stop chasing their little brother. Before Baki could blink Gaara, not knowing where he was going ran down one corridor, through a door Baki heard bang open three times before he heard them running through another door and back through the living room Gaara still screaming, Kankuro yelling with his arms reached out in front of him ready to strangle the moment he caught Gaara and Temari doing her best to gain on Kankuro. Baki tried calling out to Kankuro to get him to stop chasing Gaara but he didn't have enough time before Gaara was off back through the same doors back in the living room then out again. There was no way he could grapple all three of them at once like that, they'd just be in range of each other and he'd end up in the middle of it.

As they were making their second journey through the living room Temari reached and grabbed something off the table as she ran past it hoping whatever she had grabbed could be used as a weapon to deter Kankuro from his quest to pummel their younger brother.

"Kankuro! Stop right now or I'll-" Temari stopped short when she looked at what she had grabbed. It was a hand fan she had wanted that Yashamaru had gotten for her, not what one would call a weapon… but it's what she had for the moment. Lunging forward just barely enough to close the gap between her and Kankuro; bringing fan up she brought it down as fast and hard as she could manage. With a loud smack it connected with Kankuro's head causing him to yelp in surprise and pain.

"What did you do that for?!" he asked stopping, holding onto his head.

"You were going to hurt Gaara!" Gaara has taken refuge under the kitchen table which was where the runaround had stopped when Temari had whapped Kankuro.

"I wasn't going to hurt him much…"

"That's beside the point!" Temari shouted bringing the fan down again to smack him hard on his hand.

"Ak! Temari quit it!" Kankuro whined shaking his hand while still keeping the other on his hand.

"He didn't mean it so you shouldn't hold it against him." She said shaking the fan at him.

"I think that's quite enough you three." Baki said glad the three had stopped running through the house. "You must learn to get along."

"But Baki!" Kankuro whined pointing back and forth to Temari and Gaara. "They started it!"

"We did not! You told Gaara to kick it too you hard as he could and he did!" Gaara continued to stay hunkered down under the table out of range of his older brother.

"I didn't tell him to kick the ball into my face!"

"It's your own fault for not catching it!"

"The two of you need to stop this-"

"He shouldn't have kicked it that hard!" Kankuro continued to shout ignoring Baki.

"That's enough!" he shouted causing Kankuro and Temari to stop and look at him.

"I expect better from both of you, don't act so childish." He said glaring down at both of them.

"Yes Baki." They both said hanging their heads slightly.

"Good." Before Baki could say more he heard a knock at the door. "I'll be right back, you three behave yourselves." As he left Gaara crawled out from under the table and timidly walked up to Kankuro.

"Um, Kankuro? I'm sorry I-"

"You little brat you got me in trouble!" He shouted whirling around just as Gaara immediately turned and fled.

"Kankuro he was trying to apologize! Kankuro get back here!" The race through the house began anew Kankuro after Gaara for a completely different reason, though Temari still chased Kankuro for the same reason.

"Well I thought they had settled down." Baki explained to Yashamaru as he watched the three of them run past screaming and shouting.

"It's alright; it's only to be expected with them growing up apart and all." Yashamaru said with a sigh.

"So is this her?" Baki asked looking next to Yashamaru. Yashamaru nodded.

"This is Yoshiko, Yoshiko this is Baki."

"Pleased to meet you."

"Well I don't know what good adding another one to the train will do…" Baki commented as they ran past again the three completely unaware that anything else was going on.

"I know lemme try." Yoshiko ran over and jumped on the couch and grabbed one of the pillows and waited poised on the couch ready to strike. She raised the pillow high above her head and just as Gaara was running past her she brought the pillow down swiftly to connect with Kankuro's crown throwing him off balance causing him to crash into the floor.

"Yoshiko!" Gaara had turned around when he heard Kankuro hit the floor and had been surprised as well as elated to see Yoshiko.

"Nice hit." Temari said smiling up at Yoshiko. "I'm Temari, this is Kankuro." She said nudging him with her foot. He simply groaned and wondered why everyone was picking on him; he only wanted to enact revenge on his little brother.

"This is Yoshiko." Gaara said quickly wanting to introduce his friend like he had seen other children do.

"Nice to meet you." They both said grinning at each other.

"I'm gonna kill the lot of you…" Kankuro mumbled into the floor.

"Gaara catch." Gaara managed to catch the pillow Yoshiko had tossed him. She grabbed another pillow from the couch as Temari grabbed one from the armchair. As Kankuro got up he was fast to notice he was outnumbered and unarmed. He quickly turned and ran as the two girls ran after him yelling while Gaara kept behind them just incase. Kankuro quickly ran into his room and grabbed both the pillows off of his bed.

"Ah hah!" he declared, just before he got hit square in the face by the pillow Yoshiko threw.

"Your reflexes suck Kankuro." Temari commented teasingly.

"Gaaah!" Kankuro lunged for Yoshiko who was now unarmed.

"Here!" Gaara quickly passed his pillow to Yoshiko who took it and swung it up just in time to block one of Kankuro's pillows. Gaara quickly moved around to grab the pillow Yoshiko threw. In short order they'd run out of his room and back downstairs again feathers flying everywhere. It didn't take long for the living room to be turned into a fluffy winter wonderland. Yashamaru and Baki had decided to stay out of the whole affair deciding to just be happy about the fact they were using soft fluffy pillows instead of something hard or fists like Kankuro had first seemed keen on.

Once the pillows had been reduced to relatively flat pillowcases the four children lay stretched out on the floor exhausted some hours later.

"Are you all done now?" Baki asked looking down at them. The four didn't even manage more than a noise as a response.

"Maybe you're not so bad after all runt." Kankuro managed to gasp as he still tried to get his breath back as he reached over and ruffled Gaara's hair. Gaara smiled at his older brother glad he wasn't mad anymore.

"I bet you all worked up an appetite didn't you?" Yashamaru asked. Kankuro was the only one able to moan 'food' while the others just made 'uh huh' sounds. Yashamaru chuckled as the four of them tried to pull themselves to their feet to follow Yashamaru into the kitchen. Who knew pillows could be such effective weapons? They all felt thoroughly beaten upon. At least as far as kids could consider. Yashamaru set a large plate of cookies and glasses of milk in front of everyone for an afternoon snack. The four of them ate, talked, and laughed getting to know each other better especially Gaara, Temari, and Kankuro. Yoshiko mainly stayed quiet unless directly spoken to. She may have been little but Gaara had told her how little he knew of his brother and sister and didn't want to take away the chance he had to talk to him.

Yashamaru had left after they had sat down to eat their snack despite Baki's great protest in his leaving again but she promised he would again be swift. True to his word shortly after he returned camera in hand. Baki gave a grin.

"Not a bad idea."

"Gaara always keeps a picture of his father, brother and sister by his bed; I thought perhaps it would be nice to add one of the three of them." Baki nodded. It took awhile, but since they had eaten all the cookies and drank their milk there was nothing to keep them at the table. Outside the four of them couldn't help but act accordingly to all the sugar they had just taken in.

"You just need to stand still for five seconds!" Baki nearly shouted starting to get frustrated as the three sand siblings mock wrestled each other. This time Kankuro had Gaara in a head lock and was giving him a noggie while Temari tried to pull his hand away from Gaara's head. Yoshiko stood beside Yashamaru who stood behind Baki doing her best not to laugh. Finally they stood in somewhat order that didn't look like they were about to fall over each other. With Temari's arms slung around their necks almost like she was about to put them in a head lock and they each had an arm slung around her the three of them grinned up at the camera. Baki quickly took the picture not wanting to loose this brief opportunity to take the picture. There was a quick flash and the standstill of siblings was immediately lost as Temari purposefully shifted her weight forward causing the other two to fall forward with her into the dirt. Yoshiko quickly ran over to join them again. Before Baki could put the camera away Gaara called out to him quickly.

"Baki! Can you take a picture of me and Yoshiko?" he asked wanting a picture of his only friend. Although now it almost seemed like his brother and sister were also something he might consider a friend. Baki nodded and Kankuro and Temari stepped back as Yoshiko and Gaara stood grinning up at the camera arms slung around each others shoulders making peace signs with both hands. Another flash and Kankuro was quick to tackle his little bother Temari not far behind coming to his rescue.

---

It was late when Yoshiko finally had to go home; Gaara hugged her tight and thanked her for coming. Yoshiko laughed and told him to have fun with his brother and sister. She waved widely to the three of them as she left with Yashamaru. The three of them slipped into their pajamas and snuggled into the sleeping bags that Baki had set out on the living room floor, once it had been cleared of all the feathers, so they could all sleep in the same room. Gaara didn't normally like lying down in bed or something that was like a bed, it usually prompted sleep which was something he made sure not to do. But this time it didn't seem so bad as that even with the lights turned off and Baki's orders to go to sleep both Temari and Kankuro stayed awake and kept talking. The three of them stayed up talking and laughing long into the night and nearly into the morning. Kankuro was the first to randomly fall asleep. It was random because he had been in the middle of a sentence, a joke in fact. Temari thought he had been pausing for effect before telling the punch line of a joke and got annoyed when he hadn't continued. After getting up and poking him a few times before declaring him dead, then having to reassure Gaara ten times over she had only meant dead asleep before he calmed down and stopped trying to shake Kankuro awake. She knew if he woke him up he'd get annoyed again. Whether or not he'd be awake to do anything was another matter but she didn't want to find out, she was getting too tired to want to do anything about it. In the end both of them were asleep, not that Gaara minded much. Though it was hard for him to stay quiet and contain the feeling he felt rising in his chest. The more he thought about it, the more it seemed like his brother and sister were now also his friends, so did that mean he now had three friends? He wasn't sure if family could be friends or not but the concept of having more than one friend seemed to be beyond his comprehension. He smiled as he looked at his sleeping siblings. Yashamaru had told him he would be a great ninja one day, a great asset to the village. He had no idea what an 'asset' was, but he had a pretty good idea of what a great ninja was. A great ninja was someone who protected people. Gaara nodded to himself and decided that if he was ever a great ninja, he would be sure to protect his brother and sister, and his best friend Yoshiko.

---

Back at her house Yoshiko was also still awake, but for a completely different reason. She tried to drown out the shouting and the yelling downstairs by curling up under her bed sheets and covering her head with her pillow pressing it down around her ears but it did little good. The only thing she hated worse than the shouting was the silence that came after it. She hated the eerie silence that followed it; the shouting would just stop suddenly and there would only be quiet. Something always happened in that silence or before to cause that silence. There was very little that ended the ongoing rage that her father got in sometimes, and it was never anything good. When her sisters had been on the receiving end of it one time after failing an important mission he had beaten them each severely. Neither of them could throw a kunai straight for a week nor even walk for three days since they had been so badly beaten. She knew her sisters were safe in bed, but this time it meant her mother was most likely on the receiving end of her fathers rage. Also no one ever knew if his rage would stop at the one causing it or if he ever simply thought they all were the cause of it he would simply take them one by one and repeat the process.

She stopped breathing the moment she heard his footsteps coming up the stairs. She froze rigid with fear eyes shut tight not daring to move. It seemed like an eternity but his footsteps finally passed her door and continued to his parent's bedroom. It wasn't until a few moments after he shut the door behind him that she finally released the air in her lungs and breathed again. She wanted desperately to go and see if her mother was alright, if she needed any help but at first she dared not move incase she invoked the wrath of her father when it was clear he was already in a bad mood.

Gathering up what little courage she had she dug out the ointment jar Gaara had given her that she kept under her mattress; probably the only thing she dared keep in her room rather than in her hideout. Grasping the jar in both hands she carefully snuck out of her room and crept down the stairs.

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Authors note: hey all! Sorry I didn't update as fast as I thought I would, this fic's getting tricky but I'm not going to abandon it! So please send me smiles and I'll update ASAP! Till next time :).