11. Friends and not-so-friends..

The morning after…..

We were all in the living room after staying up all night treating injuries and grumpy patients. I was yet again changing Gaara's bandages because Kankuro swore he saw it bleeding through. Duh you fricken idiot the bandage is going to get bloody, he's bleeding for holy sake.

Gaara glared at Kankuro.

Mika stared at us all. Oh look she reappeared from the shadows!

No one had actually said anything about what happened. Whatever it was it seemed like my murderous trio were ashamed of it, so I didn't ask.

A few days later….

"soup?" Kankuro gave me a pitiful look.

"your pathetic." Temari.

I grinned. Same old, same old.

I walked in the kitchen and Mika was sitting on the counter eating MY cookie. I shook my head in defeat.

"I'll never win…" I said wistfully. "I'll never have my cookie goodness."

Soup.

Five people eating soup should not be this quiet. Ever.

I'm still not quite sure how Mika ate because the mask never came off but the food disappeared.

BAM!BAM!BAM!

I jumped…and spilled my soup…..in Kankuro's lap.

He whimpered and ran upstairs.

I answered the door.

Correction: I opened the door and a ninja barged in.

"where's Gaara?" ninja.

I stood my ground in front of him. he are getting nowhere near my still injured trio!

"who are you?" me.

"where's Gaara?" ninja.

"I wont let you any further into this house till you tell me who you are." me!

"….." silence.

he pushed me aside and went into the living room.

"HEY!" indignant me!

I ran after him and found him standing in front of Gaara with his normal look on his face, commanding and murderous. that's my Gaara!

The ninja bowed his head and whispered something to Gaara. Gaara nodded and informed us we were heading out to fix a mistake.

So we headed out in double time heading for konoha, Gaara helped me along with his magic sand, as a matter of fact we were using a lot of chakra to go fast as we could.

I still didn't know what was going on. We traveled like that for and entire day then rested a bit while it was dark. In the morning we continued are journey and sped through the tree's like it was nothing.

I sensed people fighting up ahead and our group split up. Temari and Kankuro headed off in different directions and I stuck with Gaara. Mika wasn't with us because Gaara had sent her to konoha so they would know we were on their side.

We came across a clearing were Sprout and some guy with a bone Kekkai Genkai were fighting. Gaara and me landed and sprout was shocked.

"what are you doing here?" sprout.

"we owe a debt to Konoha." Gaara.

Fighting ensued.

Eventually Gaara went all out and the entire clearing ended up in sand and the enemy had turned into some freakish thing.

More fighting ensued.

Bone guy grabbed me as a hostage.

Why didn't I see that coming?

He's poking me.

"make one move and I'll kill her." bone guy.

I snorted.

Gaara narrowed his eyes.

Sprout was being sneaky.

Bone guy saw him being sneaky and shot a bone at him.

Gaara looked at me, thinking. He shrugged.

"like I care?" his voice was blank, as was his face.

I smiled.

That's my Gaara!

A bone went through my shoulder and I screamed.

Gaara shot sand, bone guy dodged and I went with him.

Bone through my ribs. I screamed louder and gasped.

Then I realized the guy behind me was a man.

I brought my foot up real hard and gave him a good kick right wee it hurts the most.

He dropped me and stepped away, however he also shot another bone through my leg.

Then repetitive ones at Gaara. That didn't work. So he shot another one, meant to kill, at me.

It never landed.

Gaara had covered my body with his own and put up his defense bubble of sand.

It's very dark in the bubble of sand.

I can hear Gaara's breathing and my own painful gasps as the bone in my shoulder was nudged.

Gaara and his bubble disappeared as he went to fight bone guy.

Him and Sprout double teamed and the battle met its finish.

We won.

I passed out.

I woke up in a hospital.

I don't like hospitals.

The people in white coats look to much like the ones that take crazy people away.

Gaara was sitting in the corner staring at me.

Temari was in the doorway and Kankuro was eating at the foot of my bed.

"were are we."

"konoha hospital. Glad to see you awake."

some guy in a white coat answered me as he walked in.

He looked at my trio and Mika as she appeared from the shadows.

"if you would please leave her bandages need changed and her wounds checked on."

Gaara glared at him but left with the others.

Two hours later I'm sitting there bored because none of my people are here, so I'm staring at the ceiling.

"sweetie!" two familiar faces burst into the room and I winced.

Kakashi and Gai came bearing gifts.

Gai gave me flowers

" to compliment your youthfulness!" Gai shouted.

Kakashi gave me candy and eye smiled at me. I read the note stuck to it.

'sweets for our sweetie'

I shook my head. then smiled.

"stick around, Gaara will be here in a few minutes…"

They disappeared. I laughed.

It hurt my side.

Kiba and Shikamaru visited me next and Kiba let me hold his puppy while Shikamaru looked at my wounds and told me I was troublesome, I grinned at them both.

After they left I got a visit from Iruka, he walked in, told me I was a troublemaker, he gave me some Ramen, then walked out. Gaara came to check up on me, he said nothing.

No one visited for awhile after that.

A few days later they allowed me to get up and walk around and I was stalked by freaky-green jumpsuit and weirdo-pervy-silver-ninja.

Temari made me change into an outfit she bought for me and she walked with me for awhile till she got bored of the blank hallways of the hospital, then she left.

The next day I was allowed to leave and me, Mika, and the murderous trio went back to Suna.

After awhile things got back to normal in Suna. Gaara tried to seem less murderous but his approaching people made them and the council nervous. The council stalked Gaara cas their creepy like that.

I was walking with him one day when some ninja student kid thought he was brave and threw a stone at Gaara.

That pissed Gaara off.

That pissed me off.

Gaara has him wrapped in the sand that causes people to go squish and I realized this was bad. I didn't want to see this again.

"Gaara put him down!!! This is not going to help your issue!"

Gaara glared at me and curled his hand slightly, tightening the sand around the boy.

I winced and whimpered a little.

I've seen him kill for reasons less than this. I've gotten used to hearing about him killing someone. I've been inside that sand, I've felt it crush me till I passed out.

But for some reason seeing this happen to a child, even if it's a very moronic, rude, brat of a child, its still a young boy. He looked barely old enough to have made it into the ninja academy, witch means this is probably his first year. He's arrogant and an idiot but he didn't deserve to die.

"Gaara please…I'm not saying were going to let him off but please…don't" I pleaded.

Gaara's face grew frustrated but he let the kid drop.

I grabbed the child before he could run away and threw him to the ground. My knee pressed on his chest and I had hold of him by his hair.

He glared at me "lemme go!"

"no, your going to shut up and listen, you ignorant brat!" I hissed.

"Gaara did nothing to you, you have no cause to do anything to him! Your going to get up and apologize and then I am going to have you train for three hours till your sore, tired, and damned well sorry. Got it? And if you even think about running away I'm going to your ninja master to inform him your not fit to be a shin obi. End of story."

I dragged him to his feet and made him face Gaara.

He glared at us and I smacked him upside his head.

He blanked his face and turned back to Gaara.

"I..sry.." he mumbled.

"what?" I prompted.

"m sorr.."

"louder."

"I'm sorry!" he shouted and glared at me because he was too chicken to face Gaara return glare.

"that's better!" I smiled.

I kept my word. I made him run through every practice he's learned so far and taught him the basics of a few others for a few hours. Finally he wouldn't get up any more and instead just lay there gasping.

"what on earth were you thinking when you threw that stone?" I asked.

"he's evil. He should just die or disappear. He's a monster."

"really? How do you know? I had no clue you knew Gaara on a personal level and were fit to judge him."

He looked away, ashamed.

"what's your name?"

"Ryou."

"well, Ryou, do you honestly think Gaara wanted to be what he is?"

He looked back at me, startled.

I shook my head and walked away.

After that I'm pretty sure people finally realized that I was part of Gaara's 'group'. because they started avoiding me like they would Temari and Kankuro and of course Gaara himself. Gaara also stopped trying to get the people of Suna to like him and settled for their fearful tolerance.

People can be so cruel….