Aiynuur wished she had taken the stairs. Now that she was standing still during even the short ride on the elevator she was losing her steam. She looked ridiculous, she felt ridiculous, and besides, what was he thinking giving this to her?

It was all really confusing. Leave someone buried in a hole in the ground for four weeks, then shower them with gifts and dig them up again. That sounded like the play script of a sadist, and Aiynuur was well acquainted with sadists, or at least a certain very specific genre of them. A little voice in the back of her head reminded her that she had detonated his entire office and then kissed his clone on the cheek a few days later. Right. Contradictions. They both maybe had a problem with contradictions.

She took a deep breath, stretching out with her senses as the doors to the landing opened and she exited. Aiynuur paused - was he there? He was, but somehow he seemed far off or muted. She also felt the glimmer of someone else even further away - a lurker, or a sort of chaperon perhaps? She hoped he didn't expect her to take a hike of any distance in this outfit. Damn, she thought, thinking of her bare arms for the first time. This is going to be cold. Her mood was darkening by the second.

Wait, she thought to herself as she stood on the landing. Wasn't this what she wanted? To see him. To feel something like freedom. To talk to someone like a friend. Or was she so twisted and choleric that she couldn't let herself have even that? That she'd prefer to tuck tail and hide in her hole in the ground. No, she thought. Try again. You're afraid girl, you're just afraid. Aiynuur laughed at herself, and stepped forward into the night.

The setting sun's last ring of gold clung to the canyon's spires as she walked forward into the air to meet him. He had built a large brush and cactus wood fire this time to light their meeting and the the flutter of the fire's light coupled with the wind stirring her dress and hair gave her an ethereal appearance, like a mal'ak or djin. The thought of other worldly beings might have seemed strange applied to anyone else he knew but on her it fit. She didn't belong to his world. She couldn't belong to his world. Yet here she was in it. He wondered if she would grant him even one wish.

Gaara thought not for the first time about his regret that he couldn't be present in the flesh with her this evening. In this clone body, he found himself thinking that his breath should catch in his throat right now. His pulse should race as she walked towards him. But as always when his imprint was stamped on the sand, his emotions were fictions, intellectual facsimiles of real visceral response.

On the one hand he knew factually that he'd been cheated of something, not seeing her in the flesh - but, at the same time he knew logically that he was able to present her with the collected persona he liked to project to the world, as well as the illusion that he was still whole, at least one last time.

"Osashiburi, Gaara-sama," she said to him, her dark hair stirring as if animated with its own life.

His clone bowed to her deeply before standing. His half-man - no, she thought, merely a quarter-man tonight by the feel of it - didn't have the sort of vitality she had felt before in his clones, and yet it still appeared to her in a pressed black jacket and pants, the stiff mock turtle neck at his collar bending naturally as he tucked his head and leaned forward. The wind even played through his hair. How remarkable his control was, she marvelled, how skilled a sculptor he must be, to make so perfect a copy for her. To make one that appeared so real. The feeling that he was not truly there twisted in her as she wondered ruefully if he ever cheated, and made himself even just a little bit taller.

"Good evening, Aiynuur-san," the clone said, quietly, evenly, perfectly.

No, this was not the man on the microphone only a few minutes before. Gaara, where are you? Aiynuur wondered, sadness constricting her chest as she closed the distance between them. Feeling wooden, she bowed in turn to him, and watched as he gestured to a large velvet carpet that had been laid out on the sand. She sat on one of the tufted pillows he had set there and watched as he sat down a short distance from her.

"It's good to see you," he said. "I'm sorry for the last few weeks. You must have felt like you'd been forgotten. For what it's worth there were three people checking in on you remotely, although I'm guessing that probably doesn't feel terribly comforting all the same."

She sat there in silence, her tongue a cold stone. If the real man were in front her she would have stayed silent to make him sweat. Or at least in the hopes that she could, just a little. Choosing to ignore her silence, or perhaps not even registering it, his clone reached over to the side and grabbed a large covered silver serving tray with both hands. He picked it up and placed it in front of her.

"I have one other gift for you," he said. "I hope you enjoyed the others, but this I think you'll like this best. Please, open it," he instructed.

Aiynuur nodded and knelt forward, grabbing the knob of the heavy plated metal lid, lifting it ponderously and setting it aside. She couldn't help the gasp that escaped her as she saw what was inside. There, laying on a bed of leaves like uncut jewels were dozens of fruit. She realized with delight that she did not recognize any of them.

"All your sins are forgiven," Aiynuur said in an awed whisper, eyes wide.

Hearing that, he knew that Gaara would have probably chuckled, and so he offered her a smile. But she was too focused on his gift to see it anyway.

"What's this one?" she asked. "Oh, it's fuzzy!" she laughed, picking up a small brown fruit from the plate.

"They call it a gooseberry," the clone said.

"Wow! Do you peel it?"

"Yes, you can," he explained, as he watched her face he realized curiously that she seemed to be speaking, but he couldn't hear her.

"Sorry, what was that?" he asked as the sound of the fire and the night came back to him. Something must be happening with his body he mused in a detached way. Emotionless as it was, the clone observed this fact but was able to stay distant from it.

"Let's eat together," Aiynuur said. "Let's share this." Picking up a silver knife from the tray and gently trying to peel the outside off of the fruit. He had anticipated this would happen, that she would want him to eat, too, but he had never quite decided in the flesh what he would do about it.

She had peeled the fuzzy skin somewhat clumsily off of the small fruit, revealing the delicate green flesh inside. She did her best to cut the slippery fruit evenly in half.

He offered her another smile shape as she made to hand him half of the fruit. "You first," he said.

Aiynuur frowned, but said nothing, bringing the fruit up to her mouth and taking a bite.

"Is it good?" he asked. "Do you like it?"

Aiynuur was still frowning, but she nodded at him in response.

"It so sweet...I've never had anything like it," she paused for a moment, looking down. "So you can't even eat with me then?" she asked - finally acknowledging his artificial presence.

"No, I'm sorry," the clone said. "I cannot. I'm afraid there are...circumstances that kept me away tonight. It seemed unfair not to meet with you though. You've waited so long. But, anything you say or do with me, I will know later. That is still true," he said.

"You can't eat and you can't smell then..." Aiynuur reflected aloud. "Tell me, have you ever...seen the flower that made this fruit?" she asked.

"No," he responded. "I'm afraid I haven't."

"Then...would you like to?" Aiynuur asked.

"Yes," the clone said. "Yes, I would - very much," he said, curious to see another demonstration of her strange power.

"Alright then," she said, smiling again. The clone watched her as she picked up one of orange oblong fruit from the tray. This time Gaara's clone did not notice when the world went silent for him once again, his attention was fixed so firmly on the little sphere she held in her hands.

Aiynuur tucked the fruit in her hands covering it completely. She concentrated, feeling the small plant's nascent life force shivering in her hands. She felt the connection points, prickling at her palm, and she removed the barrier that separated her life force from its, feeling the acceleration as it crumbled and reshaped in her hand.

"Now let's see what we have," Aiynuur said, sweat tingling at her brow, her excitement growing as felt the strangeness of the fruit's bloom already in her hand.

She uncoupled her hands revealing what was surely the strangest bloom she'd ever seen. It took her breath away. Lying in her outstretched hand was a pure white blossom at the base of it. Above it a crown of purple needle-like petals was pierced at their center by what looked like a green shoot with vivid maroon antennae at the top.

"Oh my god," Aiynuur laughed. "I never could have imagined! Gaara, have you ever seen anything so..."

Her tongue stumbled. He was so still. He was so still, as she looked at him, his gaze locked on where her hand had been just a moment before. Gaara's form was frozen. Lifting her free hand, Aiynuur stepped forward to cup the cheek of his unmoving face. Though she touched it gently it lost its colour and crumbled beneath her fingers. She sank heavily to her knees as the she watched the evening wind begin to steal his image away.

"You stupid man," was all she could say as the wetness sprang to her eyes. Aiynuur leaned forward and put the white flower on what had been his knee. She let herself stay there, feeling that bereavement, feeling foolish that she had resented the clone only to miss it savagely as soon as it was gone. She let herself have that sadness, but only for a moment. Something was wrong. Something was obviously very wrong. She needed to figure it out. She would figure it out.

Standing, she brushed the sand from her hands and dress. Aiynuur turned, seeing the bowl of fruit laying on the carpet, now gathering his sand as the clone unravelled. If he couldn't come to her, then she would find him. She would find him and maybe she would be able to help.

Taking up the uppermost gossamer layer of her dress, she tore a strip from it and began collecting some of the fruit from the tray. That was when she felt again the other man - the one she had thought of as the chaperon, approach from about 100 meters away. She already knew what he was up to. This man must be the back up plan. He was going to try to put her away.

Aiynuur had collected about six of the different fruits in the strip from her dress. She wrapped the uneven gossamer fabric around her lumpy cargo. Her package created, she chose to ignore the approaching man completely. Instead Aiynuur closed her eyes and felt the heat of the energy of the city. It was close, perhaps a mile away - to the west. She opened her eyes and began to walk in that direction. He would be there. She couldn't feel him yet, but she would - if he wasn't too weak. She hoped fiercely that he wasn't too weak.

"Hey," the other man's voice said behind her.

"Hey, yourself," Aiynuur said petulantly as she walked on, not stopping.

Kankuro was within twenty feet of her. He stopped, weighing what to do next and how to process what he had just seen.

"You've got to understand that I can't let you leave," Kankuro said.

With that the woman stopped and looked over her shoulder at him, he could see the sadness in her eyes even there in the firelight.

"Why would I walk towards your city if I wanted to escape?" she asked.

"Okay...then what are you doing?" Kankuro asked.

She sighed and turned fully towards him, clutching her makeshift package to her chest.

"I know a last supper when I see one," Aiynuur said almost to herself, and then to him she said, "He's hurt isn't he?"

Kankuro didn't respond to her, surprised that she had intuited this much.

"He is then...your silence says he is." The woman said, looking into his eyes. Kankuro looked away.

"I want to see his face, his real face," she said. "And I want to bring him these," Aiynuur said, gesturing to the package she held. "And then I want to slap him in that smart face for doing something so...exhausting. If he truly is hurt, he shouldn't have expend so much energy playing at a damn picnic."

"Heh," Kankuro laughed. If only the woman knew the task of knocking sense into Gaara for overdoing it was already readily fulfilled by their older sister. Well, figuratively at least.

"Please?" Aiynuur asked, more moisture gathering at her eyes. "Please, can I do this?" she asked, her eyes pleading.

A silent moment passed as Kankuro considered the consequences, but the truth was, he was concerned too. It was not like Gaara to let one of his clones dissipate like that.

"Let's go," Kankuro said, walking forward.

"Thank you," she said quietly as she fell in stride next to him.

"You wouldn't have gotten far without me," Kankuro explained.

"Yes, maybe," Aiynuur laughed. "A strange woman in a ripped dress carrying around a bunch of fruit and saying she'd like to see the Kazekage now please probably wouldn't have gotten a free pass, I guess..."

There was a knock at the door.

Sari and Temari both stood at once but it was Temari who reached the door first. She opened the it to reveal the face of her errant middle brother and she launched immediately into admonishment.

"Kankuro where were you? I was just trying to..." Temari's words stopped dead as Kankuro shifted slightly aside to reveal - a short dark haired woman she didn't recognize wearing a dress that she very much did recognize. It was one of the three Temari had picked out, after all - for who she thought was surely Matsuri-san. Perhaps it was her own sense of shock, seeing that dress on an alien body, or perhaps it was the feeling of the woman's atmosphere, but Temari felt herself swept back as she stepped forward and into the room - the woman's direction and intention were palpable.

The strange woman quickly fixated on the one door that led to Gaara's bed chamber beyond.

"There," the woman said, as if to herself. A long sigh escaped her small frame as if she had been holding it.

"What..." Temari began, regaining her composure. Sari had drawn up next to her, ready to ward off this new intruder.

"You're his sister. It's nice to meet you," the woman said. Temari looked at the woman's striking eyes - in the dim light of the room their brown seemed almost a dark red.

"Sorry, who the hell are you?" Temari asked, and then to Kankuro. "Why have you brought someone here right now, Kankuro? You weren't there when I tried to reach you - I was reading Gaara a report when he passed out. He's developed a fever. He's still out of it right now. Uta-sensei is checking him out as we speak."

"Arrhythmia..." Aiynuur said, but no one in the room seemed to notice. She began to walk towards the door to his bedroom.

"Aiynuur-san, wait," Kankuro said, grabbing her arm to stop her.

"The Kazekage is asleep, and very much not seeing anyone right now," Sari said, inserting herself before the woman and the door. She paused for a moment, finally recognizing who was standing in front of her.

"It's you!" Sari said, accusingly.

Kankuro pulled Aiynuur back from Gaara's assistant, realizing that Sari had been there at the office incident almost two months ago and was totally unaware that the woman who perpetrated that mayhem had not actually been dispatched after her so-called attack on the Kage's tower.

"Sari-san," Kankuro said. "It's not what you think..."

"Not what I think?" Sari said, her volume rising. "I was there. This woman tried to kill..."

"Excuse me. EXCUSE ME." Uta-sensei's voice rang out, loud enough to interrupt what was likely about to be a brawl in the Kazekage's living room.

Everyone turned to the stocky gray-haired woman standing at the door.

"Is...the woman called Aiynuur-san here?" Uta asked, as if she didn't quite believe that the answer could be yes.

Aiynuur brushed aside Kankuro's hold on her arm and stepped forward.

"Yes, I'm here," Aiynuur said, feeling uncomfortable knowing all eyes were on her now that she was no longer trying to hone in on his energy.

Uta looked her over once and said, "Well, you're looking a lot better, Aiynuur-san. The Kazekage would like to see you now."

Aiynuur exhaled and nodded, normally she would have fixated on the fact that this woman seemed to know her, but she was too busy thinking now of Gaara and her nerves. Was she being disruptive coming here to see him? Sure she could likely help, but would he let her? Would they let her? Wasn't this invasive? Would she be turned away? But, then again, he had sensed that she was there. He had been well enough to do that, and he had asked for her. She stepped forward hugging her home made package close to her as she walked towards where Uta-sensei stood next to the door.

Aiynuur took a deep breath - seeing him injured would be difficult. Seeing him injured might bring back memories that were hard for her to deal with. But, all of that could not be helped, at least if she wanted to help him. She had to take the risk. She had to step forward knowing how this could hurt her. Uta stepped aside to let the woman pass, but stayed in the open door way, leaning against the side. Perhaps the Kazekage trusted her, but Uta, even more than Sari, was aware of the things that this woman could do.

His room was full of books and plants. Of course it would be, she thought. A telescope stood next to a large window, bathed in moonlight. Aiynuur stepped forward, her feet charting a path that felt too long to where he lay on a narrow bed on the far side of the room. His bed was set in a windowless nook atop a wooden platform. Next to the nook was a writing desk with a microphone and a lamp on it, and the desk's companion chair, which had been set next to the bed as if someone had recently been sitting there with him.

Aiynuur finally let her eyes stray to him. Gaara was lying down, his eyes shut, the mask of a ventilating machine attached to his face. His chest rose and fell with an unnatural sort of labour. Even from a few feet away she could hear the phlegmatic sound of a pair of damaged lungs. Down the his left side, the side the faced the wall, starting at the base of his neck and disappearing below a thin sheet that covered him were bandages that concealed what Aiynuur guessed were likely terrible burns. He had been in a fire - or perhaps some kind of explosion. How was that possible? His gifts made him seem so untouchable.

As his eyes were closed she thought it polite to pause a few feet away from the bed where he lay. She sighed and released the tight guard she'd been holding on her energy, as her energy dropped out and expanded she could feel his more fully - it felt sluggish, as if it were in a torpor from utter exhaustion. She would have been angry again at him for spending it if she weren't so shaken. So this was why a week and become a month.

Finally, he opened his eyes and turned to her, sitting up with a sort of glacial effort. Aiynuur wanted to assist him but knew he would likely find such a gesture offensive and so she stood mutely. He leaned up against the wall of the nook, his chest heaving again from the effort and he began to fumble with his ventilator mask, as if to remove it.

"Don't..." Aiynuur said forcefully, alarmed. He didn't have the energy or the lung power to speak with her right now, and she would be damned if she let him try out of simple pride. She set her package of fruit down on top of some papers on his desk, and set the chair next to the bed. She sat and then looked up at him shyly.

"Can you believe I thought it would be much worse?" Aiynuur asked.

Gaara chuckled behind his mask, but his breath caught in his chest, and quickly transforming into a spasmodic cough. Aiynuur hissed in fear and without thinking she leaned forward and set her naked palm on his chest. Gaara felt her energy like a surge of heat flowing into him, easing the spasm in his lungs almost immediately.

Surprised by the sudden gesture and its soothing effect, he looked at Aiynuur, whose eyes were shut tightly in concentration, and then noticed over her shoulder that Uta and Temari had entered the room through the still open door, as if to remove her from him. He shook his head. Breathing calmly now he reached up and touched Aiynuur's hand on his chest. She opened her eyes, recovering her hand quickly, as if she'd done something wrong.

"I'm sorry," she said, nervously gathering up her black hair and putting over one shoulder, as he had seen her do in person during their first interview in the desert.

"Aiynuur..." he began to whisper, muffled by the plastic mask and fettered by his aching throat and chest.

"No, please," she said, smiling at him. "Please, let's...play a game...a game where neither of us can speak or even make a sound. The first one to say something loses, okay?" Aiynuur asked, her eyes shining with fresh mischief. Gaara smiled beneath his mask and nodded, leaning back against the wall, tired but curious to see what this unpredictable woman would do next.

His last memory of her with the clone had been muddled - something about her being upset that he was not there in person, that he could not eat with her. Truthfully in his current condition he would have found it hard, painful even to try but he had a feeling that she realized that, and had come up with some new tactic to engage him. Gaara watched as she stood gracefully and stepped over to his desk where she had left something.

Gaara allowed himself to admire her as he watched her unravel what looked like a strip torn from the gossamer cloth of the dress that Temari had picked out. He was prepared to admit that she looked more lovely in it in the flesh than she had even in his mind's eye - the memories that the clone had released to him.

But here in his room - she no longer looked ethereal, but all too real. Her reality - the look and touch of her which he found he cherished, made it all the harder to know that he sat before her, his body broken up, feeling like a shard of who he was. Gaara was not prepared to think on what she must think of him right now, but he supposed it must be pity. She hid it well, he thought, as he watched her retrieve a small orange fruit and sat back down next to the bed upon the chair.

She scooted her chair even closer to where he was so that they could both peer into her cupped hands at the smallish fruit. Deja vu niggled at him - he remembered her words strained through the perceptions of the clone. "Have you ever seen the flower that made this fruit? Would you like to?" she had asked him. He could not remember what had happened next - but he felt the goose flesh begin to rise on his un-bandaged skin as he felt her start to shape her energy right in front of him. He watched as she breathed deeply over the fruit. She then covered it with her hands and closed her eyes.

Aiynuur felt the prickle of the small fruit's life even more powerfully than before. She wasn't sure if it was her familiarity with its form now, or the fact that she was, well, showing off for him, but her own chakra felt bright and eager to play. She thought of the little game that she had devised, and what would truly dazzle him. This time, in the flesh, she would show him unvarnished and openly a part of what she could do. She hoped it wouldn't frighten or disturb him.

He watched as she opened her hands again, still cupping the fruit and locking eyes with him, a smirk played over her face. Gaara felt the charge in the air around him and thought he saw her wink quickly before turning her attention back to the oblong shape in her hand.

Incredibly, the fruit began to wither in her hands - its skin becoming mottled and brown, then slack with decay before collapsing into a sort of sludge and then finally earth into her hand. Alarmed, he looked back at her face, still she smiled calmly, contemplating the earth now that she held.

A green shoot snaked its way out of the dirt. It spun up as he watched, awed, as a bud grew out of that slender tendril, swelling in size until it broke open in her hand - erupting into a bloom that was a riot of white, purple, green and maroon. Compelled, he found the word drawn from him automatically by the sight of it.

"Subarashii..." Gaara whispered, unthinking of her challenge or his condition. As if to punish him for his emotion his chest threatened to seize up again, but her hand was back upon him, arresting the spasm even as it began. She grinned at him, triumphant, holding that beautiful, alien white bloom in her left hand, her right hand still on his chest over his heart.

"I win," Aiynuur said.

Gaara smiled beneath his mask, breathing more deeply underneath her hand than he had in weeks. They stayed like that for a long moment. He realized suddenly that his injured left hand was resting atop hers on his chest. That energy had taken the edge from his pain.

Was this a part of her gift too? He felt his heart pounding beneath her hand, and knew that she could feel it. He locked eyes with her and saw her looking back at him, her eyes lidded, her lips parted. Aiynuur gave him a shy smile before gently removing her hand from his chest. She cupped the flower with both hands and got up and sat next to him on the very edge of his bed, offering him a closer look. He looked down at what Gaara knew now to be the flower of what the waterland people called the passion fruit. With the fingers of his uninjured hand, he traced the petals of the flower she held.

"The needle-like little purple petals, I've never seen anything like them," she said. "Shall we find out what these other ones look like?" she asked, conspiratorially.

He nodded.

The last efflorescence that she shared with him was just as incredible as the first. Its petals, white underneath, were laced with deep pink veins on the top. The anther of the flower were like the blast of a firework, crowned with yellow filaments, like tracers of red fire following yellow incendiaries through the night's sky. It had been the flower of the guava fruit. He would have to write them all down for her, so she would know their names as he did. Gaara felt that twinge of loss knowing that he was utterly exhausted, and that she understood that, and that their short audience would be ending now.

Before she left the room, Aiynuur took the large bowl and pitcher that had been set by the bed for him to bathe with. She set the basin atop his desk chair and poured the water from the jug into it. Then she took the exotic flowers, six in number, and placed them each gently on the top of the water so that they would float there, where he could enjoy them. She stood and her eyes strayed to his desk, where she saw something there. Aiynuur picked up a book that Gaara had left face down, still open to the last page he had read - the same book of Rumi's poems he'd read from to her.

"May I borrow this for a short while?" she asked.

Gaara nodded, pleased that she would ask, perhaps a little nervous of what she would find there.

"Thank you," Aiynuur said. "For letting me see you. If I can visit again, I would like that. As you know, I'm pretty easy to find. Please take care of yourself. Don't tire yourself out with any more those stupid clones, okay?"

Not waiting for him to respond, she reached down and held his hand briefly. Gaara felt one last languid wave of her energy wash down his arm and sweep over him, suffusing him with a heat so inviting that his eyes shut almost immediately. Instead of accepting her invitation to sleep he held on to her yet for a brief moment, squeezing her hand once before finally letting her go.

"Who the hell is she?" Temari asked Kankuro in a whisper after Aiynuur had entered Gaara's room.

"Well," Kankuro hesitated. Starting with Sari's frame of reference - the woman who supposedly had bombed Gaara's office and then attempted a dramatic escape - was likely not the right place to start. "You could say she's a sort of friend...or a hobby of Gaara's."

"Hobby?" Temari asked, frustrated with Kankuro's obtuse answer. "You're stonewalling me. You're both stonewalling me and I will get to the bottom of this." At the moment she was more concerned with keeping a protective eye on Gaara and the woman's interaction, ready to intervene on this unknown quantity as needed.

Temari was...surprised to see so plainly a sort of tenderness between them, after Gaara sent her and Uta back with a glance the first time Aiynuur laid her hand on his chest to apparently sooth him. Who the hell is this woman and where did she come from? Temari thought again.

Had she been so wrapped up in her own impending wedding with Shikamaru that she had failed to notice this new change in her brother's life? Somehow she had. But if it escaped her, it had escaped the whole town. Gaara's celibacy had been the source of both speculation and frustration for many years among the village. The popularity of the topic made the woman's anonymity all the more mysterious.

The three of them - Uta, Temari, and Kankuro then watched as the woman created that first, perfect white flower for him. Perhaps it was her bone weariness, or the stress of her brother's illness, maybe it was just the simple wonder of it, but - she felt a great emotion as as she watched someone create and then offer to her brother that small perfect thing.

Suddenly the question was no longer just who she was but also what she was. What kind of nindo was this? It didn't seem to be Genjutsu - if it were an illusion it was one so subtle that none of them could shake it. If it were not an illusion - then what was this woman shaping? Not only her power, but the life of that plant itself. There were the healing arts of course, which involved using your own chakra to manipulate another's form, but not their energy.

In Konoha Temari knew thanks to Nara that there were high level techniques that people like past Kages had used to shape the life force entire forests to use them in battle - similar to summoning magic. Was that this magic? Was this woman from Konoha then?

Finally, her audience over, the woman stood, and began walking towards them. She held a book that Temari couldn't recognize against her chest. Kankuro moved out of the doorway to let the woman pass between them as Uta-sensei and Temari hung back to check that Gaara was okay. Temari stepped into the room, confirming the motion of even breath in his body, before turning the light off on Gaara's desk. She exited and slid the pocket door shut behind her.

The woman walked up to one of the two large windows in the room as if to gaze casually at the night scene there. Her gaze was not restful though. Silent tears fell from her eyes. From where she sat on the couch Sari stood to confront the alien.

"Who are you to cry?" Sari asked Aiynuur, bitterly. "How can you dare to cry like you know him?"

"I am no one," was Aiynuur's hollow reply.

"May I see that book you're holding, Aiynuur-san?" Uta-sensei asked calmly.

Temari was relieved that one of them seemed to be thinking like a Shinobi. If the woman walked out with a state secret from Gaara's desk right under their noses the lapse would have been inexcusable. Aiynuur nodded with a sad, distant expression and handed the book to the doctor. As she did the gray-haired woman touched Aiynuur's forehead with her hand. Uta felt the fever there.

"You told him not to over do it," Uta-sensei said as she flipped through the pages of what proved to be merely a book of old poetry. She handed it back to the young woman. "You should follow your own advice."

Aiynuur shrugged and gave the woman a weak smile. "I have a feeling you know that I heal quickly," she remarked ruefully.

"So, let me see," Aiynuur said, sighing, turning more fully towards Uta-sensei and the rest of them in the room. "From what I saw, and felt - I would say primary blast injuries, caused by an explosive at close range. Injuries include third and second degree burns primarily on the left side of his body. Traumatic amputation of his left foot below the ankle, but most concerning - pulmonary contusions to the lungs, caused by the wave of over-pressurization that struck him just after the blast. Is that about right?" Aiynuur asked the doctor.

Dumbfound for a moment, Uta quickly regained her composure and nodded, stiffly. Uncomfortable by the words "what I felt", and the sudden revelation of the woman's medical knowledge. How dangerous was this woman? They had let her get so close to the Kazekage, to touch him, and that was enough for her to know all this?

"I would like to see his chart," Aiynuur said.

"No," was Uta's blunt response.

"I would understand it, of course," Aiynuur explained.

"That's not what I'm concerned about," Uta replied. "My concern is why - why would you like to see it?"

Aiynuur sighed. "Because he read to me...Because I want my freedom back," she said. "But most importantly because I think I can help. I know I can help, if you let me."

With that Aiynuur stepped forward to the low glossy lacquer table set before the seating area in the living room. Gaara was always collecting odd things that caught his eye from his walks in nature. On it currently were a number of quartz crystals, and weathered saguaro roots. The smallest among his strange treasures was the shiny black shell of an insect's pupa. She picked it up and held it in her hand - there was still some life there, she could feel it.

"What do you want with that old thing?" Sari asked with disgust.

"A demonstration," Aiynuur said.

They watched as the woman held out her left hand with the pupa in her palm. Sari moaned as blood seeped from the woman's palm from no apparent wound and spread across it. Then a layer of skin grew over the pupa. Below the freshly formed skin the the pupa seemed to shudder and struggle. They all watched in mute shock as the skin of her palm tore open again and the wet body of a small moth, dark with blood crawled out from beneath the pale membrane of her skin. Sari's sudden retching was the only sound that broke the silence in the room.

The woman brought her palms to her lips and blew on the newly born insect. As they watched its wings dried and unfurled, shaking the dust of her blood from its wings. Temari suddenly recognized it as the desert marigold moth. The tiny moth's blush and roan coloured wings began to flap and it took flight, heading upwards towards the nearest source of light.

"It thinks that electric bulb is the moon, poor thing," Aiynuur said.

"Monster," it was Sari that broke the awful silence. "You're a monster," she spat, taking another step towards the woman.

"Yes!" Aiynuur said passionately, sadly. "Yes, I am a monster - you're right. That's what they made me to be. But it's not what you are. It's who you are. I believe that. I have to believe that," she said.

"And just who are you then, anyway?" Temari asked.

Aiynuur looked up, meeting the woman's sea-dark eyes.

"Someone who can help," Aiynuur said, more calmly now. "I can make more than flowers grow. I can do more than stupid parlour tricks. I can heal people, I can heal myself, just ask the Doctor here. I may be able to heal him, if you'll let me."

"If we let you? Shouldn't you be asking Gaara that?" Temari asked.

"He was too tired tonight to ask," Aiynuur replied. "And the truth is, I didn't want to...couldn't really bare to hear him say no. It's true I don't know this man," she said, glancing at Sari. "But it seems to me," she continued, "...like he would be just stubborn enough to let himself die, as if it were...the easy option for everyone. But I think, I think he might listen to you - all of you. If you talk to him together. You will need more demonstration to trust me, I understand that. As it happens I would want more practice, and those two needs align."

"Please," Aiynuur said, sweeping the room to look at all of them. "Please, think about it - if his health is as poor as it seems to be, please give me just one chance."

"Why?" It was Kankuro asked this time. "Why would you do this for him?"

"Because, he read to me," Aiynuur responded again, as if that explained everything. "I should go - he's still awake. He won't go to sleep until I go - I think, my presence is too disturbing. Will you help me find the way back?"

Kankuro nodded, relieved that it sounded as if he would not have to convince her - verbally or otherwise - to return to the place where they held her.

"Thank you."

And with that the woman retrieved her book and left, Kankuro leading the way.

Temari let out her breath and sat - trying to process all that she had just seen and heard. Could this woman really do all that? She wondered. Her original questions about the woman's identity and her origin remained unanswered. Kankuro would get an earful as soon as he returned. Could she dare to hope that this woman could help Gaara? Help them?

Meanwhile Sari had found a broom from the cupboard and was trying to swat at the marigold moth that was buzzing around the light fixture.

"Stop," Uta-sensei said, grabbing the broom from the young woman's hand. "Let it be."