Disclaimer: no ownage of Naruto here. Boo. Razz.

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Morning Musings

Sakura awoke snuggled against a rock. Sitting up, she saw that she was lying alone in a small clearing. There was no sign of Gaara anywhere.

Right. So now what should I do? I hope he didn't go far.

And he hadn't. In fact, upon looking around a bit more carefully, Sakura noticed her protector resting in the shadow of a tree to her left.

"And here I thought he didn't sleep." Sakura beamed at the morning sky. She felt oddly refreshed and alive.

"I don't. I was simply resting my eyes. Need anything?"

Sakura blinked and looked around. Gaara was right beside her, a tiny grin on those well-sculpted lips of his.

Wait, what? Well-sculpted? Okay… No idea where that came from.

…Well, actually, she knew exactly where that idea came from. A light blush found its way across her face as she examined the ground, trying to stop thinking about how cutely his blood-red hair (the perfect color for him!) fell down the middle of his forehead, or how quickly those opaque eyes were able to suck her in (perfect reason to not look at him; that tractor beam was dangerous!)…

Of course, she found her eyes sneaking their way back up to his face after a minute. But a quick look couldn't hurt, right? A quick peek wouldn't turn her into a babbling, incomprehensible pile of mush, would it?

It wasn't like she could help it if romantic thoughts wormed their way into her head; the moment was too golden to inspire any other sort of feeling, and she had actually been wanting love for so long, had yearned for gentle contact, and Gaara's hand was oh so close to hers, and here they were, early morning in some sunrise-lit glade, and there he was, smiling like a dream…

Too bad that it was simply that.

Sakura awoke cramped against a rock, which inevitably pushed her mood the wrong way. She made her way to her feet and stretched painfully, discovering an awful crick in her neck.

Yep. It was going to be a bad day.

"Took you long enough to wake up. You must have really needed the rest. Anyway, I had you set up in that patch of grass over there, but you were awfully insistent about sleeping with that rock… I quit caring about your comfort factor after the third time you moved. Your persistence really is striking."

Sakura made a face, pushing her all-too-real dream to the back of her mind. "Whatever. Is there any possibility of getting a bath or some breakfast?"

"No bath. You can find some breakfast in there." A pack was tossed her direction, containing various foodstuffs, none of them really all that appetizing.

Gaara watched her frown over the contents of the bag, eyes drooping unhappily. She was obviously in a crappy mood this morning. He sort of wanted to ask what was wrong, but thought better of it; after all, he didn't really care. Even deep down, he didn't feel any sort of indication to contradict this conclusion. But… was he supposed to care?

He decided he might care if it had something to do with him. And surely normal people at least asked, even if they didn't really give a damn about the other person's mood. So he forced it.

"Um, is something wrong?"

Sakura looked at him with dull eyes. They momentarily flickered with some foreign emotion… worry? Nervousness? Distrust? He couldn't tell. This was vaguely infuriating.

"Eh, nothing you could fix. Don't worry about it."

Oh, so she automatically believed him to be incompetent with feelings?

She'd be right.

He glared in annoyance as his inner self chimed in. Falling easily back into his old game face (completely by accident), he mistakenly directed it at her.

And she laughed. This puzzled him right back to a neutral expression.

"Seriously. I just woke up on the wrong side of the be… ro… ah, forget it. Point is, you shouldn't lose any sleep over it…" She blinked. "…Except you don't sleep. Okay, you know what? How about I shut up and eat, and then we can get going, hmm? Sound good? I think it's still too early for any sensible conversation."

And with this small outburst, she stuck to her words and ate quietly. Gaara sat in silence also, wondering at her.

How was it that one giggle from her was enough to break his wrath?