Oh wow, I got the full roll call this time. Hello everyone! And hello to Caco222, I guess you read English (or have a real good translating tool and this actually translates well, for wonder of wonders). I had to use google translate to read your review, because I only know English. This chapter has fewer words but more dialogue than most of the other chapters. After this, there is one more chapter left, plus an epilogue.

Chapter 13 – If you're going to drop a bombshell, always make sure the fallout is spectacular

The two brothers from Suna's ruling family camped by a stream that night, fish roasting on sticks, beds unrolled under the starry sky. At Kankurō's insistence, Gaara related a highly edited version of his adventures to his brother, carefully omitting anything involving his relationship with Karin. Thankfully, Kankurō hadn't probed further. Gaara realized he was probably going to have to repeat the account several more times once he got back home, and hoped his astute big sister wouldn't figure it out and react like Naruto had.

They ate their fish and sat across the fire from each other, enjoying the silence. Kankurō was whittling on a piece of wood, creating something no doubt destined for one of his puppets. Gaara was thinking in silence. Evening had come and he had already begun to miss having Karin in his bed. He missed the softness of her hair, and the feel of her body underneath him, her heat and slick wetness, the sound of her voice in passion, her scent, her taste… Not having her there at all was somewhat easier to endure than the ship, where she had been there but he'd been unable to do anything about it. That had been pure torture. But he could still smell traces of her in his bedroll, and this was slowly aggravating him.

Kankurō looked up at his little brother's frustrated sigh, but Gaara stared off into the flames and ignored him. He turned back to his whittling. This was going to form the basis for delicate wooden 'wristbones' in a fully articulated puppet hand.

"Kankurō…"

The elder sand brother looked up again at the hint of hurt accusation in his brother's tone. Gaara was still staring into the fire.

"You didn't tell me how good a woman could smell. Or taste."

Kankurō choked, goggling at his younger brother, realizing what such a question probably indicated.

Almost all people have a sense that they favour above others. Sure, Kankurō liked how girls smelled, of course he loved the feel of making love to them, and yeah, he'd gone down on his share of women. But the sense that got Kankurō started – the beginning of all his attractions, was sight. As such, he'd favoured that sense when talking about girls to his little brother, focusing on their looks more than anything else.

Gaara, however, was cut from a different cloth. Looks were of only peripheral importance to him. Which may have been part of the reason why it had taken until this point for the fire of interest to finally wake up in him.

"Gaara," Kankurō sniggered, grinning. "Who was it? No, wait… was it that kunoichi girl you got stranded with?" Silence greeted him, but Kankurō was used to his brother's silences and was fairly adept at reading them. The older Sand brother started laughing, enjoying his little brother's discomfiture. "So the redheaded spitfire finally deflowered the great Kazekage? How was it, Gaara?"

Gaara burned with mortified fury, tight lipped and resolutely glaring at the fire. Kankurō howled with laughter, almost falling off the log he was sitting on. It was a testament to the humanizing process that Gaara had undergone since the botched invasion of Konoha seven years ago that he endured his brother's mirth in embarrassed silence rather than homicidal rage. Their familial love for each other had grown to the point where he never even thought of killing his siblings anymore.

"Oh, otōto," his brother gasped, recovering. "I'm glad you finally took my advice and got laid."

"… You still haven't answered my questions!" Gaara muttered.

"Ha," Kankurō barked. "That's because I never even thought of it. Don't worry, little brother, I wasn't intentionally holding back vital operational details from you."

In response, Gaara glowered at the campfire, and Kankurō tried not to laugh again. Oh man, when he got back to Suna, he was going to be rich.

One afternoon later, across from Karin at her chabu-dai, Genma sprawled, sipping the tea she'd given him, idly chewing on the senbon that was never far from his mouth as they gossiped. He was ostensibly assigned as her guard today, but that hadn't stopped him from coming in for a visit, bringing okonomiyaki for lunch.

Despite, or maybe because of their brief fling two years ago, he had remained a friend. Somehow, Genma was friends with almost all his former flings. They never lasted long, and the women involved always remained on good terms with him afterwards. He was incredibly unpossessive, and rarely stuck with the same girl (or guy, for that matter – it had happened once or twice) for more than a week or two. Genma's modus operandi was zero-strings-attached, lightning-strike-affairs followed by easy, relaxed friendships.

The older jōnin had already begged her to tell him the story of her inadvertent adventure with the Kazekage. She'd given him the pared-down version. He'd clearly found the whole situation amusing.

"Sounds like you had a real wild time of it, Karin-chan," he commented. He grinned, impish, and met her eyes. "So, is there any truth to the rumours?"

"What rumours?" she replied, confused. There were always rumours in Konoha, but she'd like to know what the ones concerning her were.

"Oh, you know," he smirked, transferring the senbon to the other side of his mouth. "The ones about you… and the Kazekage."

Karin felt the blood drain from her face, before flooding back with a fiery vengeance. Who the hell told Genma? Was it Ino? Sakura? Probably not Hinata…

Genma was laughing at her reaction. "Ahaha, I see it's true," he laughed. "Kakashi-san was right."

"Kakashi?" Karin echoed, stumped. How the hell had he known?!

Genma snorted. "I'm never betting against that man," he laughed. "He knows everything that goes on here." He didn't mention the high-stakes betting pool Kakashi had started on the sly. He had already decided it was probably not wise to participate.

Karin grit her teeth, vexed. Genma saw her face and laughed again.

When Kankurō and Gaara returned Sunagakure, the elder sand brother quietly went about the business of collecting on the very secretive, but lucrative pot that had been furtively running, speculating on the Kazekage's sexual orientation. As his little brother returned to his duties, ensuring that the village had indeed been safe, sound and secure in his absence, Kankurō was grinning ear to ear, counting his ryo.

Temari knocked on his door, and he opened it with a chakra string, recognizing his sister's chakra outside the door. She was grinning wickedly. The grin widened when she spotted the wad of cash in his hands.

"Bet on heterosexual too, did you?" she asked.

"Yup," Kankurō smirked. Word travelled fast. He knew Temari hadn't even had a chance to meet with Gaara yet. The bookie must have tracked her down and paid her immediately after Kankurō had collected.

"There's gonna be a lot of sore pockets in Suna tonight."

He snorted in response.

"How's he doing?" Temari asked.

"Why don't you go check on him yourself?"

"Well, I wanted to see how much you lost, first, but I see you won too," Temari admitted. She couldn't wait to get to Konoha and make Shikamaru pay up.

Kankurō laughed. "Go talk to our little brother. I'm going to start another pool. Don't bet against me."

"Another?" Temari asked. Kankurō just grinned.

He sat at the familiar desk, looking over the familiar surface of precious, imported hardwood. It was fairly clean – the ink tightly capped, the pen cleaned and positioned carefully, the stacks of papers neatly separated into in/out/hold, no dust or crumbs or debris anywhere. Temari had done a good job in his absence, which was why she was his heir designate if something should happen to him. At least, until he gave her away to the Nara.

Or, could make one of his own.

He sighed, lifting a cup of tea to his lips.

There was a knock at his door. His sister. "Come in, Temari," he answered, tea still in hand.

His sister waltzed in with a big grin that spelled trouble. "So glad you have you home safe, otōto. We've missed you." That part was genuine – she was seriously relieved to have him back. The grin widened. "So, who's the girl?"

He dropped the tea, spilling it over by accident and scrambled frantically to save everything and mop up the mess. Temari snickered and helped, rescuing the paper stacks before they could come to harm. She pulled open a drawer he had thought he'd left empty, yanked out a stack of take-out napkins and started wiping up the spill. He would deal with the question of why Temari had filled his drawer with take-out napkins later. She shouldn't be eating so much take-out, it was unhealthy.

"What did Kankurō tell you?" he seethed, once they had gotten it under control.

She laughed. "You're dodging the question, otōto."

So was she, but he knew damn well he'd never get it out of her when she was in that kind of mood.

"You know I need to know these things, little brother. I need to know who to go after if she breaks your heart," she grinned, predatorily.

Gaara sighed, rubbing the spot between his eyebrows. Temari was like a dog on a bone with things like this. He had no hope. She was eventually going to force him to tell it all, anyway. So he told her the whole story as Temari poured them both new tea and sat on the corner of his desk. He left out some stuff, of course – there were things he wasn't willing to share, even with his own siblings. The cave, for one. He did not want to admit that he'd lost control.

"Seems like you like her," Temari commented when he finished relating the happenings. He sighed again, and gave a short nod. Like Kankurō, she was adept at reading Gaara's unspoken signals. The elder siblings' survival had depended on it at first, but as the years went on and Gaara opened up to his family, it was their love and concern for him that kept the sense honed. "You're pretty serious about this."

Again, another curt nod, avoiding her gaze.

"If she hurts you, otōto, I will kill her."

He met his sister's eyes briefly. She was dead serious. He paused again and nodded. She reached out and ruffled his hair affectionately.

"What are you going to do now?" Temari asked.

"I don't know," he said, quietly.

"Well, you know Kankurō and I have your back, no matter what, right?" she asked.

He nodded. She gave him a pat on the shoulder and rose to leave.

"Temari?" he said, again not looking at her. She stopped and turned to him, acknowledging his questioning voice. "Thanks for taking care of my cacti, and holding things down while I was gone."

"No problem, otōto," she smiled at him. "Talk to you in the morning."

He nodded, and she left.

"You're right," Temari snorted, leaning on Kankurō's wall. "He's completely head-over-heels. There's no way I'm betting against you on this one."

Kankurō grinned.

"I will take you on how long it's going to take before he tries to push this one on the council," she said. "I won't take you on whether or not he'll succeed."

"You're on," laughed the middle sibling.

In the days that followed, Gaara, who was normally taciturn at the best of times, grew more and more grumpy as his frustration mounted. At night, he was tormented by dreams of her. During the day, he missed her more and more. Seeing his little brother's foul mood, Kankurō teased him about needing to get laid, and offered to send for the Konoha kunoichi on diplomatic dispatch.

"She's under house arrest," Gaara grumped, giving his brother a glare that could stop a charging rhino. Kankurō laughed.

However, Gaara was not the Kazekage for no reason. He was cuttingly intelligent and a master of both strategy and tactics, and employed the use of both in formulating his plan. As he went about his daily business, he silently planned, mapping out the potential obstacles to his will and methodically decided how to best overcome them. He wondered what Shukaku would have said about any of this, and decided the answer would have probably been 'go for it, brat'.

After he had been back for two weeks, he judged himself ready. He called for his council. He sat at the head of the huge table, Temari and Kankurō flanking him, his old sensei Baki a comforting presence nearby, and clasped his hands in front of him.

"I wish to marry," he stated, bluntly.

The atmosphere in the council room instantly turned avid, as most of the councillors – all powerful members of Suna's shinobi community and mostly the heads of major shinobi houses – all considered how they could best leverage their own candidates for the Kazekage's hand.

"This is very good news, Kazekage-sama," one of the more ambitious ones said. "We are very glad to hear that you've finally seen reason. There are many fine candidates in the village, including my—,"

"No," Gaara interrupted him, ruthlessly suppressing the vicious grin that was threatening to show up on his face. "I've already made my mind." And he told them.

Sunagakure's council lost its collective shit.

Kankurō and Temari smirked at each other behind their brother's back. The middle sand sibling might owe his big sister a little cash after the meeting, but both of them were more than pleased.

Hours later, Gaara walked back to his desk with a light step, an easy heart, and a smirk of triumph, to pen a letter to Naruto. To quell the inevitable rumour mill, he had bound the council to silence until the negotiations were complete.

It had taken all of his careful plans and strategies, but he'd finally gotten his way.

A day later, Naruto tapped the scroll out of the message tube from Sunagakure and read the missive.

"I don't believe it," the Hokage said. Though, in actuality, he did indeed believe it. He had been wondering if something like this would arrive at some point. He looked up, called for Kakashi. "Call the council," Naruto said. "We've got something important here."

When the council had gathered, Naruto faced them, rising, hands clasped behind his back, cheerful grin on his Kurama-marked face, and told them of Gaara's proposal.

Uproar.

Kakashi leaned back in his chair and smirked behind his mask, humming tunelessly, and mentally counting the ryo, glad he'd already closed the books. He had been Naruto's aide since the accession of the young man to the position of Hokage. During the chaos of three years ago, Kakashi had even briefly been stuck with the job himself, until he managed to have Tsunade tracked down and shoved back into the position. He was more than happy to let Naruto be Hokage. He'd hated every fucking minute of the job. However, being Naruto's aide suited him just fine. If the occasional 'Kakashi-sensei' slipped from his former student, he didn't really mind. As an aide to the Hokage, he got all the fun, and none of the headaches. Like right now.

Some time later, Naruto stalked back to his desk with a huge grin, ready to pen a response to his friend. He, too, had shackled the rumour mill, for much the same reasons.

In the last two years, Naruto had become quite adept at ramming all kinds of shit down the throats of the recalcitrant hidebound reprobates he called a council.

In the meantime, Karin served out her sentence peaceably, passing boring day after grinding, boring day and night after night tormented by dreams of him, completely unaware of the furor storming over her.

The sand siblings rolled into town the morning before Naruto and Hinata's upcoming nuptials. Gaara headed straight for Naruto's office. Temari wasted no time in hunting for her quarry. Kankurō, the odd man out, shrugged and went to see if he could find a 'friend' he'd been banging on and off for the last year.

Together, the two Kage reviewed the contract that had been painstakingly negotiated over the last month and a half. Seeing that everything was in order, they stamped both copies. They stood up and shook each other's hands.

"Yosh!" Naruto declared. Gaara grinned. They sat back down.

They sat in silence for a moment. Then Naruto looked up at his friend, eyes suddenly serious. "Gaara," he said. "Take care of her, will you? She's an Uzumaki."

"Uzu—maki?" Gaara repeated, surprised. "That's your clan, isn't it?"

"My mother's," Naruto confirmed. "Someone did some digging through musty old genealogies when your proposal came in, and found something tracing her mother back to the Uzushiogakure massacre. She's an Uzumaki, just like me. The council nearly had a fit when it came out, and I basically had to put my foot down and ram this through. They wanted to keep the bloodline in Konoha, of course. They are exceptionally diligent when it comes to finding reasons to ruin other people's lives."

Gaara wished he'd known she was an Uzumaki when he'd first told his own council. It would have given him a bit more ammunition. "I'll take care of her," he promised. He meant it. This might just make her Naruto's only living relative.

"So, when will the wedding be?" Now that all the agreements were in place, they could talk dates.

"Probably right after the chūnin exams," Gaara mused. It would give her enough time to settle a little bit in Suna, first.

"Then I'll definitely be there!" Naruto grinned. They moved on to other Kage business, now that the important matters had been cleared up.

The day before Naruto and Hinata's wedding, Karin received a pleasant surprise. Somehow, her sentence had been judged complete a full day early, and she had been released. She gleefully handed over the bracelets and ecstatically endured the removal of the curse seal (not as painful going out as it was getting it), and then went straight to her favourite okonomiyaki spot. She was nursing a huge mug of something hot, caffeinated, and alcohol-filled when another body slid into the seat across the table from her.

"So, I heard you're the one who popped my little brother's cherry," the other woman said, her tone somehow both cheerful and deadly.

Karin started, somehow managing not to drop her drink. She put the mug on the table with a thump, giving the Suna kunoichi a startled look. Karin had been aware the moment Gaara had gotten within a certain range of the village, of course. And wherever Gaara went, Kankurō and Temari weren't far behind. So Temari's presence in Konoha wasn't a surprise. Just her presence in Karin's booth.

"What?" asked the redhead, confused.

Temari grinned at her, the smile predatory. So this was the kunoichi that had gotten Gaara all tied up in knots. Her teal eyes sparkled with mischief and menace. "We heard alllll about it," she purred, and then continued in a low, menacing tone, "if you hurt my brother, I'm going to hang you with your own intestines."

Temari had not been surprised in the least when Gaara had steamrolled his will through the council on this matter. She had always known that when her intense baby brother finally fell, he would fall hard. Her little brother was a late bloomer, and she had long suspected that when he discovered the great mystery of life, it would be spectacular. She just hoped this kunoichi was worthy. Because if Karin wasn't… Temari never wanted to see the fallout of Gaara getting his heart broken.

Karin blinked at her, trying to process. This was Temari… Gaara's big sister. Ok. Got that part. Temari had just claimed that she'd … popped…

"What?!" Karin gaped at the other woman.

Temari scowled. Was Karin fucking with her? "You heard me."

"No, not that," Karin said, "you said I popped…" she sniggered. "You have got to be joking." Oh man, that explained so many things. Like his little freak out in the cave – no wonder Gaara had gotten weird, if that was his first crack at sex. She busted out laughing, covering her mouth with her hands.

Temari blinked. "He didn't tell you, huh? Hmph, men." Her voice had softened somewhat. "But I'm still going to kill you if you hurt him."

"I don't think you'll have to worry," the red-haired Kunoichi promised. Why would Temari be worried about that? She hadn't heard a thing from Gaara in the two months since she'd been home and honestly hadn't expected to – hawkmail wasn't exactly there for personal correspondence. Whatever they'd shared on the road, he was the Kazekage of Suna, and she was just a barely-tolerated reformed criminal transplant – literally Konoha's redheaded stepchild. Yeah, she missed him, dreamed of him even… but she was under no illusions.

"Ever been to the desert?" Temari asked, changing the subject.

"No," Karin said. Was the other woman just making small talk?

"Sunburn easily?"

"Despite the hair, nope."

"Great, you'll do fine," Temari said, cryptically. "It's actually a very beautiful place, you know."

"Why are you asking?" Karin asked, confused. What did Temari mean, 'you'll do fine'? None of this was making any sense.

"Wait, have you talked to Gaara lately?" Temari asked, smirking. Oh Kami, please don't tell her that her ridiculous little brother had neglected to inform Karin. What a hilarious idea. Temari's eyes lit up mischievously.

"What are you talking about? I haven't seen him since we got back to Konoha two months ago."

Temari covered her mouth to stifle the snigger. "Nothing. You should probably talk to my foolish little brother about that." She slid from the seat, deciding to leave Gaara to his own fate. "Well, it was nice meeting you, Karin. See ya 'round, I've got a deer to hunt down. He owes me for a bet." Time to go find Shikamaru and collect.

Karin blinked, watching the retreating form of the other kunoichi. What the hell was that all about? She sighed. Thinking of Gaara had killed her mood. It was high time to get in a little retail therapy to raise that mood again. She needed an outfit for tomorrow, something formal. She had enough money – she still had plenty left after returning from the empire. Can't spend much money when you can't get out of the house, after all.

At least that fucking curse seal was finally gone. Now she could attempt to go back to a normal life. Whatever that was.