Hey, didn't that bitch promise she would update faster? Where is she?

God, I love you people. You are SO patient. Anyway, that bitch was busy doing a super huge re-edit. My stories all tend to start out embarrassingly weak and then gradually climb the Quality Writing scale, so I figured that before moving forward I should go back and fix the not-so-great parts.

And I'm still not done. :(

But I'm getting there!

I was also helplessly distracted by that shiny Yugioh fandom once again. (This time it was Kaibacest. #&#!)

(...AND I was going crazy with finals. geometrywtf.)


How did you write an honest psychoanalysis while trying not to incriminate the subject?

There were laws against this. If pushed, it could be considered treason. And treason had some of the worst repercussions imaginable. It ranked right up there with genocide.

Sakura had, in general, always considered herself a good shinobi, even when she really wasn't. She obeyed orders. She carried her weight. She stuck to the mission plan.

She did not lie to the Hokage.

Shinobi did not lie to the Hokage.

Yet here she was, attempting to stretch the truth to the breaking point while convincing herself she wasn't. She hesitantly brought her pen to her paper.

We left Thursday morning, and traveled until nightfall. We set up camp right behind the border, then continued on in the morning. We took a short break in the afternoon. After more traveling, we camped again. The next day we arrived in Suna as scheduled, but left a day late due to Gaara's prompting. We then...

Stayed up all night using euphemisms for death?

...camped the night, and left early the next morning. I realized that Gaara was having trouble sleeping, so I –

Almost died?

She threw her pen to the ground in frustration. How was she going to get around the seal?

She thought for a few moments, tapping her fingers impatiently against her arms, then hesitantly picked her pen back up.

used pressure points to knock him out.

She stared at her neat, precise handwriting. That was a lie.

Well, not entirely, but she had just deliberately skipped a good chunk of what was most likely a defining backbone to Gaara's current state of mind.

Shit, what was she going to do?

She couldn't incriminate Gaara, not when he was obviously struggling so hard for control. It went against her entire nature. Because when it came down to it, she would never be the World's Perfect Shinobi. She would always choose human nature over shinobi rule one-oh-one, no matter who the person was. It was just the way she was.

But. She was a shinobi, one way or another, and she had a duty to fulfill.

It was just severely unfortunate that her duty and her human nature had to contradict each other like this.

She had chewed four of her fingernails to the quick and was halfway down her fifth when Naruto plopped down beside her onto her sparse grass patch.

"Still not done?" He asked. "I finished mine half an hour ago."

"What did you put for the seal?"

"Oh, I just skipped that part."

Sakura's hopes died as quickly as they had come, and she sighed. "We can't do this, you know."

"Why not?" He shrugged. "I trust Gaara, and I know Tsunade does. It's his own country that's the problem."

"I know," she said wearily. "I trust him too. But that doesn't change the fact that he is in trouble, whether we like it or not. That puts Suna in danger."

Naruto gave her a sideways look. "Yeah, but what do you think?"

"I..." She trailed off, then sighed. "I think he would rather die than hurt Suna. But that's just my point. He may not have a choice."

"That makes sense, I guess," Naruto said tiredly. "...I don't know what to do, Sakura-chan."

She closed her eyes and shifted until she was close enough to rest her head on his shoulder. He obligingly wrapped an arm around her. "Neither do I," she whispered.

They sat in silence a few moments, Sakura's mission report lying open and unfinished in front of them.

"By the way, have you seen Gaara?"

Her eyes opened. "What do you mean?"

"Well, he wandered off a while ago, and I haven't really seen him all morning."

"What?"

Naruto blinked in surprise. "He's not going to run away or anything."

"Naruto, it's our job to guard him!" She said, scrabbling to her feet. Naruto's arm dropped from the empty space where she had been to the ground. "We can't just let him drift off."

Naruto didn't look convinced. "I doubt he needs our protection..."

Privately, she agreed, but she quelled that train of thought and brought her focus back to the current situation. It didn't matter if he needed them or not, they had done enough fucking around with the rules already. And there was the off-chance that Gaara might encounter something beyond his ability to handle – in which case she and Naruto probably weren't going to be much help, but that was irrelevant.

She also didn't like the idea of Gaara skulking around the forest, stewing in his own self-hatred. In truth, he was probably going to stew whether she was with him or not, but the idea of him doing it alone still grated on her. She needed to find him.

Although, he was probably masking his chakra if he had any common sense at all..."Which way did he go?" She asked.

Naruto screwed up his face in thought, then pointed vaguely. "That way, I think."

Well, this probably meant she was going to spend most of her morning stumbling around looking for him, but she didn't mind. It wasn't like they were in a hurry...due to them high-tailing it out of their destination a day early.

"Watch camp, okay?" She said over her shoulder, turning to leave.

"Sure..."

She took to the trees, figuring she should probably enjoy them before they hit desert again. Maybe, while she was darting among the foliage and not wracking her brain for an answer, inspiration would hit her.

Or maybe not. Maybe she would just go ahead and do her job, and tell the truth. It was certainly what she had been trained to do.

Then she remembered Gaara, and his heartbreaking expression as he abruptly realized what he had been on the very verge of doing, and felt a lump rise in her own throat. She swallowed it down angrily. Betrayal. That's what she would be doing.

Betraying Gaara would be like...well, betraying Naruto. Tsunade, Kakashi. Sasuke. She wasn't quite sure when that had happened – when she had come to associate Gaara with her own precious people, her life. Not on the hotel roof. All she could collect from that memory was a general sense of curiosity sparked with irritation.

Maybe the moment she felt the compulsory need to embrace him, try to channel some of his hurt into her own, less full being? The moment he lost all pretense and clung to her with the desperation of a starving child?

Or perhaps earlier than that. Perhaps her connection to him stretched even further back, to the moment she jumped in front of him armed with a kunai, of all things, and even underneath all the terror and mad desire to protect had locked eyes with him, and suddenly comprehended the loneliness, the hopeless fight against himself...

She didn't know. She did know one thing.

She could not do this to him.

And as she thought that, not really at all paying attention to what she was doing, she was suddenly struck down from the air.

It took her a shocked second, distracted as she was, to realize that she had been attacked, and by that time she was already pinned to a nearby tree trunk – when on earth had she gotten so close to the ground? – and frustratingly helpless.

Then it occurred to her that whatever was pinning her had a quite sandy texture, and the nearby presence was quite achingly familiar.

"It's just me," she called, pleased at how even her voice came out. It was a very direct contradiction to her pounding heart and rushing adrenaline.

Gaara suddenly appeared beside her, looking more surprised than anything. His eyes were wide, nostrils flared. One arm was half-raised in her direction, fingers curled. He stared at her wordlessly for a few seconds, and she let him, waiting. Then he let all his breath out in one long whoosh of air and dropped his stance. The sand slithered down with it.

"I'm sorry," he muttered, looking away.

"It's okay," she said quickly. "I surprised you; it was a natural reaction."

He seemed to think this was a strange thing for her to say, and she was once again reminded of the stark difference between their definitions of natural, but he didn't comment. She hadn't really expected him to.

"What are you doing out here?" She asked, hurriedly changing the subject. "I've been worried about you."

"I told Naruto where I was going."

"Yeah, but that doesn't make it any safer," she said. "What if you were attacked? Or you...you injured yourself?"

He didn't deem her an answer to that last one, so she decided to just drop it. Obviously Gaara was just as worried about his well-being as he was about what colors went well with his skin tone.

Although, he did seem to be worried about something, with his tense posture and averted eyes. She watched him, oblivious to how awkward it might have looked to an outsider – them just standing there, not saying anything – and finally just gave up. He wasn't going to vent his problems to her of his own free will. He just wasn't that kind of person.

So instead, she told the truth. "We have to write a report," she said quietly. "About you."

He still wouldn't meet her gaze. "I know."

"It has to be honest."

Again, "I know."

"I haven't written mine yet."

He didn't say anything, which she had anticipated. Gaara had always been of few words, and unless someone said something that outright obliged a reply, he wasn't likely to. It was more like him to just silently mull over what someone was saying to him than poke and prod them for their direct point. And he was doing just this now, squinting off into the distance as he picked over her implications.

Frankly, it wasn't the silence that irritated her. She was used to that. It was his unwillingness to look at her. He usually stared straight at her when they talked...or even if they weren't. This felt like he was brushing her off, ignoring her.

Closing her out.

She felt a ripple of anger course through her and clenched her jaw, stalking forward. Bull shit. They had been through too much for him to go back to the way they were before, pretending they were just faint acquaintances. It was too late for that now.

He doubtless sensed her coming – he definitely heard her – but he still didn't acknowledge her presence until she reached out and grabbed his chin with her bare fingers, jerking his face towards her. She pulled him down until she was way beyond the borders of personal space and could feel his breath puffing across her nose, and scowled.

"I am not screwing you over," she growled. "I don't give a damn about being honest. Honestly can go fuck itself."

He stared down at her (finally) and furrowed his brow. "You have to," he said simply, working to talk around her fingers.

"No I don't," she insisted fiercly. Honestly, most people would be cowering by now. He didn't look remotely intimidated. (Although their proximity seemed to have him a little stupefied.)

He slowly enclosed her hand in both of his own, gently prying her fingers from around his jaw. She expected him to drop it, but he didn't, just stood there touching her. Looking down at her. Still bent towards her. Suddenly she was the one overly aware of how close they were. "Yes, you do," he said quietly.

She felt the lump in her throat rise again, and didn't bother this time to try and get rid of it. She looked up into his quiet, resigned eyes and felt all the anger leave her in a rush. "Why?" She asked brokenly.

"I'm not safe. For Suna. For anyone."

"But you are!" She argued, shaking her head. "Gaara, you're the best leader Suna's had in years. Why can't you realize that?"

"That doesn't matter. There are plenty of other leaders." He paused to close his eyes and breath slowly in and out. "Say whatever you have to."

"Well, what are you going to do when you're not Kazekage?" She demanded. "You'll still be in Suna one way or another, so does it really matter what rank you have?"

"Sakura," he said flatly. "I'm going to leave."

The finality of his voice was stifling. She sucked in a surprised gasp. She couldn't comprehend it. He was giving in – he was going to give up everything because other people thought he was dangerous. He was damning himself to isolation. How could he...?

"You can't," she whispered.

"I can."

"Dammit, Gaara!" She jerked her hand back away from him to clench it into a fist. Seeing his just-got-slapped expression she immediately regretted it, but continued on anyways. "You can't do this. What about your siblings? They love you. What about Naruto? He...he loves you too! What about – what about – "

She broke off, because it had only occurred to her as she almost said it.

What about her?

She was still marveling, stunned, at this borderline revelation when he spoke, drawing her attention back outward.

"Did you notice," he said blackly. "The way I attacked you ten minutes ago?"

"Yeah, because I startled you," she said impatiently. "It was my fault."

"I wouldn't have done that a month ago."

"I don't care – "

"I'm sorry."

She was shocked into silence. He straightened, no doubt because his back was starting to hurt from hunching over so long. She watched him with wide eyes, desperately searching for something to say, some earth-shattering logic that would change his mind.

There was nothing.

"Gaara, please," she pleaded.

His breath caught, and when he spoke his voice sounded almost halting, as if he was losing some of his resolve. "Sakura – "

He was interrupted by an ear-splitting bang, and they instinctively grabbed each other to steady themselves as the earth rippled and shook underneath them. She let out a small cry of surprise, then whipped her head around frantically, trying to ascertain what had happened. She glimpsed something out of the corner of her eye and focused.

Far in the distance, where she had just come from, thick black smoke curled into the air.

She screamed.