Temari found me slamming my head into a handily placed wall.

"You're not supposed to go running off out of my sight, you know." She told me, and walked past me into my room, "That sucks about Mickey." I stopped what I was doing for a second to stare at her in amazement at how obvious that statement was, then returned to the aforementioned quest to kill braincells. She just shook her head at me and sprawled back onto my bed. "So. You and Gaara, huh?"

This time I did stop what I was doing, leaning back with my arms above my head onto the door frame,

"There is no 'me and Gaara'. There's just me." I said quietly, and Temari sighed,

"And you appear to have some baggage, correct?"

I groaned,

"Liam isn't even baggage! He's just-"

"-Just what?" Speak of the devil, he appeared at my elbow and I yelped, falling backwards into the room. Recovering quickly, I glared at the guy,

"Just a pain in the backside." I replied, and waited for him to follow me into the room before I pinned him to the wall by the neck. Temari leapt up but I shook my head at her,

"This is a private thing, Temari. You don't need to be involved." She looked like she might try to speak, but then closed her mouth again and sat back down on the corner of the bed to watch.

"You were the only one who could have known where I'd go. How does Kazuhiko know I'm here?" I asked, my voice betraying my desperation slightly, and Liam rolled his eyes,

"Please! It was obvious you'd come here! Surely you can see that."

"So if it's all that obvious, why did you let Mickey get that far? Or was that not obvious too?"

"I had to let Kazuhiko-sensei put his plan into action. Otherwise how else would you believe me? Much as you like me, Youko, I know you'd put Mickey over me."

"Stop saying 'you like me', 'you love me', okay? Quit it!" I emphasised my point by ramming him harder into the wall. He chokes a little and I relented, turning around and sitting in my chair. Temari looked at me, as if she might intervene, but thought better of it. I sighed, suddenly very tired, "Liam. It's ok. I trust you. I think."

"About freaking time!" He slumped down onto the floor by the wall, stretching his arms above his head, "It's ok, though. I didn't expect anything less from you. I know you, darling."

"Mm!" I said warningly, looking between him and Temari, who just leaned back to look interestedly between us,

"So what exactly is going on with you two?"

I groaned,

"He's like my brother, okay?"

"No I'm not!"

"Liam!"

"I'm more like... her keeper. Her partner. Her best friend, in other words."

"He was my best friend. Dear, you were." I said super-sweetly, and he looked down,

"You know I said I couldn't tell you."

"So you were working for him, then?"

"No!" He suddenly shouted, fire in his eyes, "I never would!"

Temari took this perfect moment to interject (her timing as impeccable as always),

"Just tell me what happened. You guys need to communicate more than with your fists," This she directed straight at me, "Jeez!"

I glared at Liam,

"Basically. 'Cause we were close age-wise, we stuck together. But, about a year ago Liam started acting all weird, especially if I mentioned how much I was getting sick of Kazuhiko. I mean," I shrugged to Temari, "You might think we would get brainwashed by him, but for us it wasn't really like that. It was our whole life, but we knew there was more to see, more to do than just blindly follow that frankly evil man. So. I came to the obvious conclusion that Liam was his spy. He didn't deny it. Ergo, here we are."

I refused to meet Liam's eyes as he stood up, and walked towards me, only stopping when Temari shook her head at him,

"I didn't know you would actually think that, Youko. I'm- I'm sorry. Really sorry." I didn't look up, but he could tell that I was listening, "It wasn't like that. At all. Look, maybe I was protecting myself too much, or something, but if I'd told you, someone would have overheard. I mean think about all the times someone told on you and-"

"Don't." I looked at him this time, "Just don't."

He looked away so that he wouldn't see the pain in my eyes,

"Well. I didn't want that to happen."

"Quite right! You wouldn't have lasted, anyway, you weakling." I taunted, and he recognised my need to get away from the subject. Temari was just taking it all in wordlessly, so I took a moment to shrug to her,

"Don't worry. It was nothing. Right! Liam. More talking now please."

"Yeah, sure. I was a spy, okay?"

"What?!" I sprang up from my seat, but he pushed me back into it again,

"For the other side, Youko! The demons!"

I paused, not quite breathing, not quite soaking it in,

"The... demons?"

"Do you not think that they would mind their brothers, sisters, children going missing? Oh, it was fine with the humans, Kazuhiko-sensei made sure that we were all either orphans, or that he'd killed the parents-"

"What?!" This time it was Temari who spoke.

"Evil guy, remember, Temari. Obviously." I motioned for Liam to continue.

"But he didn't do the same thing for the demons. After all of his lectures on how he had created such a perfect bridge between demons and humans, it turns out he's just another prejudiced bastard. Oh, don't get me wrong, there are loads in the demon world as well. But they're the ones who have been enslaved for generations. Honestly, they leaped on the chance to get back at a human a bit too eagerly, but help they will."

"So why didn't something happen a year ago, when you first made contact with them?"

"It takes a long time to plan such an attack, Youko. Especially when demons are at such a disadvantage in this world. And it's hard to get those who haven't been affected to help."

"So who knows? Apart from you, I mean, out of the Mergers, who knows?"

"Just me. They couldn't risk getting one of Kazuhiko-sensei's faithfuls involved."

"And you didn't tell me." I said quietly, "Who's the one with the trust issues, Liam?"

He knelt down next to me, I looked straight into my eyes. If this had been Gaara, I might have been a pool on the floor by then, but Liam is like family.

"Youko. I love you."

Oh dear.

"What?" I could hardly ask anything else,

"I mean, I loved you."

"What?!" I was honestly flummoxed this time.

He sighed, obviously trying to find the exact way to phrase it, as he was doing a pretty bad job right then,

"The demons inside of us. They were...well, in the demon world you don't get married, but it's something like that. Actually, more like engaged. So when I disappeared, you, or rather, the demon that you were, came looking for me, and fell into the same trap. I'm sorry. I was just... embarrassed. I didn't want you to find out about the demons because then you'd find out about... that."

I didn't say anything for a moment, letting that information digest.

"Are you a freaking idiot?!" I shouted, and shoved him away, before getting out of my seat and pacing the room, "What's with this embarrassment crap? You didn't think I needed to know something as important as a way out of that place?"

"I felt responsible for you getting caught, Youko!"

"Well too bad for you. Look. Liam." I turned to face him, "We may have been in love like that once upon a time. But what's the point of a fiance if he can't even talk to you about things that actually matter? Like knowing who you were. Like knowing that we weren't going to be shut in that hell for eternity."

"I know!" He suddenly hit back, " I know, I've been an awful friend. It was just plain wrong not to tell you. I don't blame you for thinking that I was Kazuhiko-sensei's spy. I would have done too."

We sat in silence, then I groaned,

"Man, I don't like all this fighting."

"You asked for it." Liam said slowly, the twinkle in his eye returning.

"So what was the big plan, then? What were you up to, that was so important you had to make me hate you and all?"

"Well, that plan's void now, anyway."

"How come?"

"When you escaped. Um." Suddenly a dark look spread across his face, "Some of the younger idiots in that world decided that the chaos would be a perfect moment to strike. I told them no, but they went anyway. Now Kazuhiko-sensei knows about the movement over there. It'll be near impossible to get in as a demon again."

"Shucks, that's not too good. Man, I wouldn't have even run away if I'd known."

He ignored my pointed comment.

"So I decided I might as well follow you out. My cover was blown. I think our last hope was smashed."

"Don't say that too soon." Temari smiled, "So they know about demons trying to get in, do they?" Liam and I nodded miserably, "Well, we'll just have to get humans in, then, won't we?"

"... Is that even allowed?" I asked slowly.

"I'll talk to the Council."

"Oh, we're screwed, then."

"Not so fast! It depends how you put it to them. Despite their looks, they're brilliant tacticians, and they'll do anything to help the Village. If we tell them that this is a very close, present danger that we need to attack at its source, they'll listen. Mickey was an illustration of what will happen if they don't."

"...It might work." Liam muttered, "But. There's a but."

"There always is." I sighed.

"Don't let excitement run away from you. There's a reason that Kazuhiko-sensei could fend off a demon attack. He's strong. As in, really strong."

"Oh dear..." I murmured under my breath as Temari bristled,

"And you think that the Village Hidden in the Sand isn't?! We created that man, we can destroy him."

"Don't forget about the Mergers. Not all of them want to escape. Not all of them hate Kazuhiko-sensei like us."

"But some do, right? We can use that. There's always a way. Let me just get something straight," She paused to wait for nods from the two of us, "If this Center gets the better of our village, he'll turn his attention on the other Great Shinobi Nations, am I right?"

"Well, I assume he wants the same as most evil geniuses, you know, world domination, with him at the top, probably."

"So the other nations will help. I'm sure of it."

She smiled, and drew answering smiled from Liam and me,

"This could actually work." I said wonderingly.

"I'll go ask Gaara."

"Oh." I stopped, the excitement dying down, "He'll probably say no."

"Why?" Temari raised her eyebrow at me, "He loves the village too."

"Yeah, but not us so much right now." I sat back down, the very picture of melancholy,

"Man, Youko, you really like that guy, don't you?" Liam teased me, and I blushed violently,

"Shut up! You're so annoying! You're still very much in the dog house because of just about the entire of last year, mister."

It couldn't be helped, the seed had been firmly planted in Temari's brain,

"You know, it might be good for him, to have someone tell him they like him." She mused.

"And it's good for Youko to get out of the house a bit, see the world, get her heart broken, that kind of thing."

"I think quite a few of the girls form the village have crushes on him, but they quake in their shoes at the thought of even talking to him."

"It's good for a guy's self-esteem for a pretty girl to confess to him."

"He needs to realise that he's become a normal person now."

"Yup, those things are totally possible for him."

"Now he doesn't have the whole killing addiction..."

Both Temari and Liam looked at each other, before breaking into large smiles and turning to me,

"We're behind you a hundred percent of the way!"

"Go get him!"

I wondered what had been born. Surely a very horrible thing indeed. It almost made me shudder.

Somehow what Liam said was a surprise to me to- sometimes these characters just go and say what they want to, and leave me scrabbling to pick up my plan of the story from around their feet. Really, they're so inconsiderate! Anyhoo, you know what I like the most? Reviews.