When the morning broke over Sasuke, it left him with a feeling of undeniable cold. The black spot in his aura was growing, eating away at him, and he hated it. This is not right! His head was screaming at him, begging him to look at things logically. Don't let yourself be fooled! This is not the reality you strive to live in!

And yet, in spite of his head's helpless ranting, the dark seed the Akatsuki had planted in his heart kept growing, feeding off his own selfishness and uncertainty and tainting his mind. The morals ingrained so deeply within him should be fighting off the dark influence, but for some reason, they were powerless in the face of that one idea the homicidal draugrs had planted. The Akatsuki were manipulating Sasuke as easily as a child, and however much he tried to deny it, he was allowing them to.

Sitting up in his bed, Sasuke looked down at himself and realized that, once again, he had slept in his clothes without meaning to. That was a habit that had to stop, he thought to himself dourly. Even though it was really mostly Naruto's fault for literally pushing him to sleep. Yeah. Just keep telling yourself that.

Speaking of Naruto, where was the erant phantom? Casting his gaze around the room, Sasuke finally located him standing at the window. The sun washed through his wispy body and landed on Sasuke's face, partially blinding him, which was probably why he hadn't noticed him standing there before.

Even when fully corporeal, ghosts still didn't exist in the same plane as humans. That lead to certain anomalies one had to get used to when one regularly dealt with ghosts, like the fact that they never cast shadows, so looking at the sun through one was more like looking through a stained glass window than through an actual person.

With a smart salute and a silly grin, Naruto snapped around in a mockery of rigid military discipline. "No dangers sighted on the night watch, Sir!"

Sasuke gave a delicate snort and pushed to covers away, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. "You don't want to play that game with me. I'm far too good at it."

A challenge shining in his eyes, Naruto switched his normal button down shirt and soft khaki pants for a green uniform that looked vaguely militaristic in origin. "Really, Officer? Could you really dress me down?"

Pausing in his post bed-leaving stretch, Sasuke narrowed his eyes at the saluting ghost before him. "Of course I could. The real question is, would you still be standing after I'm done?"

"Come now, give me a little credit," Naruto said with a grin.

"No." Sasuke moved forward until he was standing almost nose to nose with Naruto. "Give me a little credit."

"So you think you can do it?" Naruto challenged.

"Whoever breaks character first wins," Sasuke said simply, feeling the smirk of a challenge dart briefly across his face.

"Very well, then. But just so you know, I've had plenty of practice ignoring all the things I never wanted to hear."

"And I've had practice making people listen, so we should be about evenly matched."

Sasuke turned away from Naruto and immediately felt a solid warmth press against his back and a light tickling at the base of his neck where a mop of unruly blond hair was brushing against him.

"Ten paces?" He suggested half jokingly, and was surprised when Naruto answered him seriously.

"Five; the room's too short for ten."

"Alright, then."

As one, they moved five paces apart, then Sasuke called out, "Ready?"

"Ready," came the reply from across the room.

"Then in five… four… three… two…"

"One!" Naruto cut in from the other side of the room, and Sasuke spun around to see him doing the same, snapping into a smart salute with vacant eyes.

Drawing himself up, Sasuke also assumed his character. "What are you doing here, soldier?" He barked, surprising even himself with the intensity of his acting.

"Sir, yes, sir!" Naruto replied, his eyes staring blankly off into space.

"That's not what I asked you, soldier," Sasuke spat out while marching towards Naruto, who's eyes turned a little less vacant. "I asked you what you were doing here."

"Saluting, sir!" Naruto exclaimed, trying not let his eyes focus on Sasuke's face, but the Uchiha wasn't going to let him get away with that.

Getting right up in his face, Sasuke snapped, "No, you're not, soldier! What you're doing is a disgrace to our military heritage and to those who have served before you! Dress up that posture, and wipe that silly ass grin off your face!"

Straightening his back as stiff as a broom handle, Naruto lost his grin and set his mouth in a determined line. It was then that Sasuke noticed that his salute angle was slightly off, and he reached up to correct it, but stopped himself just in time upon remembering what the correct protocol was.

"Permission to touch you, soldier?" He barked, letting his hand float an inch away from Naruto's arm.

"Perm-?" Naruto started to ask, almost breaking character, but he caught himself just in time. "Permission granted, sir!"

Roughly, Sasuke grabbed Naruto's arm and corrected the angle of his salute. "A salute is a gesture of respect to your superior officers, soldier! Make sure you perform it correctly!"

"Sir, yes, sir!" Naruto barked right back, and the two of them stood nose to nose with hard expressions for a few more seconds before they both dissolved into childish giggles at the same time.

"Oh, God, Naruto what are we doing?" Sasuke asked, breathless from laughter, as he sat down hard on the floor. "Akatsuki at large, a spy in the Hokage, too-high levels of spectral energy still a mystery - and here we are, playing at dress up like little kids."

Returning to his normal clothing and turning a somersault in the air, Naruto asked, "But do you feel better?"

"Yes," Sasuke admitted lightly, tilting his face up to look at the ghost floating above him.

"Then my plan has reached its goal!" Naruto exclaimed, shooting a fist into the air above his head. "By using my innate charm and fabulous sense of comedic timing, I have succeeded in distracting you from your obligations! Therefore, your mind has been lightened, and in lightening your mind, you have gained the ability to look at the situation with a fresh perspective! Very illuminating, no?"

Slightlys stunned, Sasuke leaned back on the floor, catching his upper body on his elbows and stretching his feet out in front of him. "You never cease to amaze me, Naruto," he said with a slight shake of his head.

"That's because I'm amazing," Naruto quipped, a silly grin on his face and floated down to sit next to Sasuke and leaned his head against his shoulder.

"Humble, too."

This drew a laugh from the phantom, and he curled up a little tighter at Sasuke's side. Quieter, he traced a hand down Sasuke's arm and asked, "You sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine, Naruto." Sasuke pressed a quick kiss down on the top of his little phantom's head, and it no longer felt like a lie. "You're better than any dose of sunshine."

"Glad to hear it."

Strangely, just being near to the sweet innocence that was Naruto was warming Sasuke like a ray of sunlight, like the sun that morning should have but was instead cold. He could feel the darkness that had been encroaching threateningly upon him slip away as easily as a morning mist evaporates in the harsh light of dawn. It was still there, of course, but now it held less sway over his heart and decision making.

Eventually, Sasuke sighed and pushed at the comforting weight on his shoulder. "Come on, get up. I gotta get dressed."

"Let me watch?" Naruto grinned cheekily, floating upside down in front of Sasuke.

"You wish," Sasuke snorted.

"Oh, come on," Naruto complained. "It's not like I haven't seen you shirtless before."

"Get out," Sasuke ordered playfully, pulling off his dirty shirt. When Naruto stuck his tongue out at him, he balled the shirt up and threw it at the phantom, who deftly avoided it. "I'm serious, Naruto. Go find Kiba and Shino and ask them how the watch went."

"Fine. See you in a bit." With a sigh and a final pout, Naruto sank through the floorboards, leaving Sasuke alone.

Taking advantage of the rare moments completely alone, Sasuke quickly changed his clothes and ran a brush through his sleep tousled hair. He didn't know what the day would entail, but it was always best to be prepared, so he checked the contents of his satchel. Silver knives, silver cross, salt, and the scrapbook. Damn, he had forgotten to get the holy water from Neji yesterday in the aftermath of his announcement. Sasuke made a mental note to get that before they went anywhere today. After a moment of deliberation, he kept the scrapbook in the bag. If whoever was the spy thought it was a strong enough indicator to get them interested in looking up the Kyuubi on their own, it might hold a clue.

Sasuke's gaze fell on his phone, and he was suddenly struck with a sense of guilt. It had been quite a while since he had last called or texted his parents, for obvious reasons, but it was something he couldn't avoid forever. With a sigh, the sense of duty Sasuke prided himself on took over him and he picked up the phone and dialed his father's number.

It rang once, twice, three times, four times, then cut to voicemail. Frowning, Sasuke hung up without leaving a message. It wasn't that early - only about 6:30 in the morning - and his father usually got up around six.

Then it hit him: he was in Maine. His parents were still in Chicago, which meant that it was only 5:30 in the morning there. With a sigh, Sasuke started to compose a text message instead. It was probably better that he didn't speak directly to his father anyway.

Sorry I haven't kept in touch the past few days. I've had a couple of late nights out; there's been some events Sakura and Ino dragged me to. I don't know if I've mentioned them to you before, but they're about my age and they, along with Choji and some other people I've made the acquaintance of, have taken it as their own personal mission to expose me to the most this town has to offer. You should be proud of me, Father: I've finally managed to make some friends. Anyway, good morning and have a nice day. Tell Mom I said hi.

The last two sentences he included solely for his mother; his father wouldn't care either way if Sasuke wished him a good morning. With a dour expression, he hit send, and his phone gave a pleasant sending tone that contrasted darkly with his mood.

Spectral shouting loud enough to bleed through a floor and the door to his bedroom assaulted Sasuke's ears, and he gritted his teeth in annoyance. Yes, no one else could hear them, but that didn't mean they could just run around wreaking havoc as they pleased! Stalking to the door, Sasuke threw it upon in time to see Naruto pelt up the stairs, dragging Shino and Kiba behind him and leading Tsunade.

Immediately, alarm bells started ringing in Sasuke's head. Tsunade had said that she would stay with Lee until he got better, and judging by the worried expression on her face, she hadn't separated herself from him by choice. Quickly, he opened his door wider and beckoned them inside.

Once they were all standing in his room and Sasuke had shut the door, he turned around to face the four ghosts, and they all started talking at once.

"I swear we were watching-"

"He's… He's…"

"He was awake, but-"

"-we were, I swear-"

"...but why? He was still weak-"

"He shouldn't be moving! Of all the dumb things to pull-"

"-never left the building the whole night, and we took turns patrolling-"

"I only turned my back for a second-"

"-definitely isn't like him, he always follows the rules-"

"Enough!" Sasuke finally shouted, throwing his hands up into the air. "Shut up, all of you!"

Immediate silence followed his angry yell, and Sasuke slowly lowered his hands. "Now," he said, very quietly and deliberately, "someone tell me what's going on, slowly and clearly, please!"

"Lee's gone," Naruto blurted out, and Tsunade burst out crying.

Of all the stupid, irritating, non-Akatsuki-related problems that could pop up, of course it had to be this! Sasuke almost facepalmed in disgust. Why, oh, why, couldn't Lee have just stayed put and kept out of the way like any sane injured person would do? Even members of the Uchiha family were required to stay far away from any conflict if they were physically unfit in any way.

But Lee wasn't an Uchiha, and he certainly didn't have the training or discipline of one. Lee was a young phantom, almost self-alienated from his peers by his inability to control his latent powers, and forced to watch as one by one, his fellow phantoms bonded with each other and the humans who could see them, all the while remaining largely alone. It would be enough to drive any sane man crazy. And as for insane men… well, they were already crazy.

Kiba was patting Tsunade awkwardly on the back as she cried, being the one stuck closest to her, but he kept shooting "save me!" glances over his shoulder that were ignored by both Naruto and Shino.

"I don't know how he got out!" Tsunade wailed, her spectral tears not strong enough to drip off her chin before disappearing. "He asked for a glass of water so I tried to get him one, but I couldn't and when I went back, he was gone! Disappeared, like he'd been stolen away by a spirit! God in heaven, save us all! There's demons on the loose!"

Kiba stopped awkwardly patting Tsunade's back and the three phantoms took several paces back from her as she dropped to her knees on the ground and started praying with delirious fervor under her breath. Biting his lip uncertainly, Naruto cast a troubled gaze at Sasuke.

"What's going on? Is she okay?"

"She's fine; she's just lost her sense of self for a moment and forgotten that she's dead. It happens every so often to specters." Sasuke kneeled down in front of Tsunade and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. She wasn't powerful enough to become corporeal, but even the illusion of a touch was often enough to comfort a distraught and disoriented specter.

Looking up at his with a tearstained face, Tsunade asked fearfully, "Are you here to exorcise the demons? Will you help us, young man?"

Very deliberately, Sasuke kept his gaze steady and locked with hers. "There's do demons here, Ms. Tsunade. You're safe. There's no need to be carrying on like this."

"There isn't?" Tsunade's tears dried up, but a confused expression took their place. "Then why couldn't I bring Lee his water? And who spirited him away? It's witchcraft, I tell you! It's the only explanation!"

"No, it's not." Sasuke carefully pulled his hand away from Tsunade's shoulder and held it up in the air. "Try to touch my hand."

"Why?" Fear took over Tsunade's face. "What's going to happen? I don't want to!"

"It's be alright," Sasuke assured her.

With trembling fingers, Tsunade reached her hand out to try and grasp Sasuke's, but she passed right through his body. With a soft gasp, she hastily pulled her fingers back and pressed them against her trembling lips.

"You're a ghost, Tsunade," Sasuke said with as much gentleness as he could. "You've been dead for a while. Do you remember now?"

"Yes…" She said, her eyes starting to face in and out of focus. "I remember now… I died a long time ago…" Her gaze abruptly snapped into focus on Naruto and his fellow phantoms' faces. "And you're all dead too, right?"

After casting an unsure look amongst themselves, the group disgorged Naruto forward to speak. "We're all ghosts, just like you, Granny. We've known each other for a long time."

"That's right…" Tsunade muttered to herself again, then snapped her attention to Sasuke. "And you're not dead? You're still alive? But you can see us? Who are you again?"

"I'm Sasuke Uchiha," Sasuke reminded her gently. "Yes, I'm still alive, and I helped you when Lee got hurt. Do you remember that?"

All of a sudden, Tsunade's eyes cleared of all confusion and she stood up quickly. "Of course," she said briskly, straightening her clothes and returning to her normal businesslike mannerisms. "I remember it all know; I don't know how I could have forgotten it. Well, I must give an apology for my appealing behavior. Now, if you please, I have to track down my missing patient."

"Why don't you go back home, Granny?" a voice spoke out from beside the door, and when Sasuke turned, he saw Shikamaru leaning casually against the doorframe. "Kiba and Shino can take you there. We'll take care of Lee from now on."

Drawing herself up even further, Tsunade spoke with emphasis. "I said before that I never leave a patient until they're healed, and I don't intend to start with Lee."

"If he's healthy enough to be sneaking out, he's healthy enough to not need constant attention from a doctor," Shikamaru countered unsympathetically. "We can find him, so go home, Granny. Get some rest. How can you treat your patients if you don't have any rest?"

Tsunade gave a few disgruntled sniffs before sighing and conceding. "I guess you're right. I do have other patients to attend to besides poor Lee. Come, Shino, Kiba. Escort an old lady home."

And without another word, she floated through the door, clearly expecting her entourage to follow behind her. Kiba darted out through the door right after her, but Shino paused before leaving the room.

"You'll be okay, finding Lee with just the three of you?" He asked with concern.

"We'll be fine," Shikamaru assured him. "Now go with Tsunade before she gets lost, and keep Kiba in check while you're at it. You know how he gets around her."

Through the door, they heard Kiba yell, "Granny! Not that way! Don't you know where you're going?"

"Of course I do! Get out of the way, whippersnapper!"

"Then why are you going the wrong way?!"

"Point taken," Shino sighed. "Well, good luck finding him."

After Shino, too, had floated out of the room, Sasuke turned to Shikamaru with a reproachful gaze. "That was a little cruel, you know. Telling her she has patients to look after."

Shikamaru only shrugged. "She's happier believing that. Besides, some of the old duffer ghosts sometimes come and visit her and she gives them checkups, so it's not entirely a lie."

Once again, Sasuke was struck by how much he didn't like Shikamaru's methods. Yes, he had gotten Tsunade off their backs, but he hadn't used the delicacy that the condition of such a fragile ghost required. Though maybe the Kyuubi or whatever spectral surge was causing the ghosts in Konoha to have abnormally long lifespans also gave them extra mental resilience. Or maybe Shikamaru was just an ass. It was impossible to tell.

"But why did you send both Kiba and Shino with her?" Naruto asked exasperatedly. "Now that we have less people, it's going to be even harder to search for Lee!"

"We don't have to search for him," Shikamaru intoned lazily. "I already know where he is. And Sasuke does too, don't you." It wasn't a question.

Naruto turned plaintive eyes on Sasuke. "You know? How?"

"Lee asked for a glass of water," Sasuke quietly. "Water he couldn't drink, meaning he specifically distracted Tsunade so he could sneak out when she wasn't paying attention because he knew it wasn't a place we'd approve of him going. The one question I have is, why? What could possibly possess him to go back there? What's waiting there for him?"

Shikamaru nodded at him approvingly. "Good train of logic."

Casting a withering glance his way, Sasuke snapped, "I don't need your approval!"

Naruto slammed his hand down angrily on the desk. "Would you two please stop bickering like indulged hens and explain to me where Lee is already?!"

The abrupt shout caught both Sasuke and Shikamaru off guard, and Sasuke winced apologetically at the pissed off phantom. Even Shikamaru had the decency to look a little guilty.

"He's at the beach." Shikamaru shoved both hands into his pockets in a gesture of unconcern that belayed the tightness in his voice.

"The beach? You mean… Gaara's beach?" Confusion took over Naruto's expression. "Why would he be there?"

"Why was he there in the first place?" Sasuke countered.

"Lee's got a heart of gold," Shikamaru said with authority. "He can't stand to see any creature in pain. When he heard about the fight you two had with Gaara and the circumstances of his death, he probably set out to try and fix him."

"That's insane; you can't just 'fix' a draugr!" Sasuke spat out. "Draugrs are defined by the circumstances of their death and their inability to forget. Even if you could somehow manage to get them past it, their hatred is the only thing holding them here, so they'd just fade."

"But you're forgetting where you are," Naruto said slowly. "This is the town where no ghost ever fades. Don't you think that, if it could be done, Konoha would be the place it would happen?"

"I don't even know anymore." Sasuke sighed and sat down on the edge of his bed. "But that still leaves us with one important question: do we follow him or not?"

"No."

The sudden reply startled both Sasuke and Naruto, and they looked up at Shikamaru, who was gazing out the window with a slack expression on his face.

"Why?!" Naruto demanded angrily, drawing himself up so he floated higher off the floor than before. "Why wouldn't we go after our friend who may need our help?"

"For the same reason why Neji couldn't go with Sasuke to confront the Akatsuki," Shikamaru answered calmly. "He is most definitely confronting Gaara as we speak, and who was it that hurt him rescuing Lee from him the other day? Us. He won't be too happy to see us, but he might be willing to talk to Lee, even if just for the sake of some twisted sadistic pleasure. Lee has a much better chance if he goes alone."

"But we can't just leave him," Naruto argued.

"I agree- which is why we'll give him an hour, then if he doesn't show back up, we can march in there with all guns blazing." Sasuke looked back and forth between the two phantoms. "Sound like a plan?"

"I'll wake up Neji," was Shikamaru's only comment as he regressed through the wall, leaving Naruto and Sasuke alone once more.

Turning to the ghost, Sasuke asked uncertainly, "Naruto? Are you okay with this?" He knew how much Naruto's friends meant to him, and how much it had to be killing him to be kept on the sidelines.

Naruto's head was tipped forward, his blond hair suddenly grown long enough to hide his face without Sasuke noticing. As he brought head upright, Sasuke was struck by how much older he looked; about twenty three, compared to the seventeen or eighteen he usually looked around the other phantoms. With a sudden bolt of clarity, Sasuke realized that this must have been how Naruto had looked when he died.

Quietly, Naruto said, "I don't like it, but then again, I don't have to like it. I just have to deal with it. It's just an hour, right?"

"Just an hour," Sasuke confirmed.

Moving to look out of the window, Naruto let one hand rest against the wooden frame of the portal to the outside world. "It's going to be a long hour."

The sand under Lee's feet was wet and softly white, fine grains interspersed with hard pebbles worn down by the sea and time and sharp shards of shells broken apart by seagulls in search of a meal and not quite yet blunted by the relentless rush of salt water. The rough ground felt like an indulgent sin of sensations to Lee, and he eagerly pressed his toes into the grit, closing his eyes almost reverently. He had died barefoot over twenty years before, and so this sand, which existed in both planes of existence thanks to the breadth of spectral power that resided there, was the first thing to touch the skin of his feet in decades.

As he was digging his toes into the sand, Lee suddenly realized that its sun kissed warmth was diminishing and being replaced with a subtle ominous chill. And not only that, but the grains shifting across the ground seemed to be encroaching menacingly upon his feet like a guerrilla army sneaking up on their target, disguised by the errant grains of sand blowing peacefully across the beach all around them.

Opening his eyes, Lee found a pair of dangerous sea-green eyes staring back at him with jewel-like clarity and alarming closeness. Instinctively, Lee tried to jerk away from that dangerously beautiful omnipresent gaze, but the sand held his feet fast in place, causing him to lose his balance and fell backwards to the ground. As soon as his hands touched the sand, the ground opened up underneath them and swallowed them whole, and tendrils of sand came up to wrap around his middle, effectively trapping him.

Lee struggled against the bonds that held him, but not in fear. He had been trapped before, but it hadn't been like this. Last time, the sand had been filled with a sense of murderous rage and inexplicable sadness, but this time the grains held only a feeling of loneliness that permeated the whole beach and seeped into Lee's mind through contact with his limbs.

"Don't bother," the harsh voice, gritty like the sand of the beach, spoke from above him. "You won't get free."

Craning his head back, Lee finally got a good look at Gaara's face. The word he had clawed into his forehead, love, was still there, a healing shade of pink now rather than a fresh bloody red, but the circles around his eyes had darkened to an almost kohl-like black. The look on his face was haunted, but hard, like it had frozen itself off from the world.

"I know," Lee said quietly. "I wasn't trying to get free."

A frown drew the corners of Gaara's eyebrows together, but that was the only outward sign on his conusion. "Then why struggle?"

"Because I can't use my hands like this. And I'd like to be able to touch you."

Anger reared its ugly head in Gaara's expression. "Do not mock me, little ghost. You have no desire to touch me. No one ever has."

"But I do," Lee insisted, trying to twist his arms free.

"Enough!" Gaara reached out his hand and sand swirled around it, forming into a long, claw-like arm. "You've escaped me once, but you won't do so again. Your life is mine to claim!"

"Then claim it!" Lee shouted, twisting his face into a defiant snarl as the claw drew closer and closer to his neck. "I'm already dead anyway!"

A hairsbreadth away from Lee's throat, the claw of sand froze, and a tortured look came over Gaara's face. "You think that makes any difference to me?" He snarled, but his hand started trembling.

"Yes, I do think it makes a difference," Lee said gently, and slowly leaned forward so that his neck touched the sandy claw stretched toward him. As soon as it made contact with his skin, it started dissolving into nothingness, the sand getting caught on the sea breeze and washing away like the colors of a picture drawn in chalk on the sidewalk in a rainstorm. The sand around his hands loosened as well, whether by accident or design, and he reached up with both hands and grabbed the arm outstretched toward him and brought it forward, forcing Gaara's hand to close around his own throat.

"Wh- what are you… what are you doing?" Gaara asked on a trembling breath, and for the first time, Lee heard fear and horror in his tone.

"You wanted me like this, didn't you?" He challenged, drilling his gaze directly into the sea foam eyes above him. "I'm afraid you can't claim my life - the sea already took care of that - but you're free to claim my existence. If you can."

"I… I…" Gaara stuttered, and Lee felt a surge of pride in himself that he had struck the draugr dumb.

"Do it!" He ordered, the words sounding like the crack of a whip even to his own ears, and Gaara flinched upon hearing them. "A threat is like a promise; you have to keep them, so do it!"

Gaara's hand tightened around Lee's throat, and for a second, real fear flashed through him. What if Gaara really did hurt him? There was no one here to help him this time.

Then, miraculously, the hand around his throat loosened and fell away, a Gaara took a few stumbling steps away Lee. The sand trapping his legs and middle slackened as well, leaving Lee able to stand and brush himself off.

Gaara abruptly turned his back to Lee, his hands clenching and unclenching repeatedly. "Just get out," he said in his quiet, gritty voice. "Leave me alone."

"No."

Spinning back around to face him, Gaara spat out, "What?"

"I said, I'm not leaving," Lee said clearly, folding his arms across his chest and thrusting out his chin in stubbornness. "Not until I have what I came here for."

"And what is that?" Gaara asked bitterly with a humorless laugh. "An apology? Don't expect one from me. Just count yourself lucky you escaped me a second time. No one else has ever gotten that chance."

"I don't want an apology." Lee took a step forward, shortening the distance between himself and Gaara. "I know you're incapable of giving one, anyway."

"Then what?"

"Forgiveness," Lee said simply, and closed the remaining distance between the draugr and himself by seizing him in a hug.

Immediately, Gaara's entire body went rigid his arms almost stuck straight out by his sides, but Lee didn't let go. If anything, he gripped tighter, resting his head trustingly on the draugr's chest. How a ghost of someone who had died as a child could grow this tall and solid, Lee didn't know, but Gaara's size absolutely dwarfed him, even though he had been twelve years older than Gaara had been when he had died.

Gaara remained immobile for so long, Lee wondered if something was wrong, but eventually he allowed his arms to drop down, brushing against Lee's back. If not exactly hugging him back, he was at least allowing the contact, so Lee counted it as a win.

The sound of the crashing waves and lazy gulls overhead were the only thing peeking through the veil of silence until Gaara tore it away. "You wish for… forgiveness?" He asked with genuine confusion in his voice.

"No," Lee said gently, his voice slightly muffled by Gaara's chest. "I want to forgive you."

There was a discernible hitch in Gaara's breathing. "You want to give me forgiveness?" The words started quietly, but they quickly crescendoed into shouting. "Me, the scourge of the town? The demon of every local fairy tale? The monster so despicable, even my own mother abandoned me here on this very beach?! Don't mock me!"

With these last words, he shoved Lee away from him, putting a little bit of power behind it and blasting him with a small shower of sand. The blast knocked Lee over again and he ended up on all fours, coughing as his lungs tried to get rid of the sand he had inadvertently inhaled. When the sand all settled back on the ground, he looked up and beheld Gaara stalking slowly towards him. The aura that permeated the sand was of real hatred and rage now, not the loneliness of before.

"You presume to think that you can forgive me?" Gaara fumed. "This audacity will not go unpunished! I was going to let you go, but you have pushed my patience past its breaking point! Prepare yourself, little puny phantom!"

Sand starting whipping around the two of them in a fast frenzy, stinging when it pelted against Lee's skin. Gaara was advancing on him, his sand claw reforming, but with sharper claws this time, so Lee did the only thing he could think of: he tore off his shirt and turned so he was facing away from the draugr, giving him a good view of his back and the mostly healed scar on it.

Almost immediately, the sand swirling around them in a tornado-like formation fell to the ground with a wet plop, and Lee looked over his shoulder to see Gaara's reaction. The draugr was standing frozen in shock, his claw once again melting away, leaving his hand a scarce few inches away from Lee's bare back. While he wasn't able to see it very well himself because he couldn't find his reflection in a mirror, Lee did know that it took the form of a blot of discolored and lumpy scar tissue at the base of his spine where the pieces of silver had taken root in his body, with several spidery threads of red tracing out from it, including the one that traveled up his spine. The red marks he knew might eventually go away, but he would live out the rest of his existence as a ghost with the scar marring his flesh.

"What… What is it?" Gaara asked with a kind of morbid fascination mixed with the beginnings of self-doubt.

"This is what you did to me," Lee said quietly, his skin almost twitching at the feeling of Gaara's closeness.

"I… I did this?" Gaara asked, his eyes going rapidly in and out of focus. "I caused this to happen?"

"Mm-hmm," Lee merely grunted, not knowing what else he could say.

Almost tentatively, Gaara reached a hand out, almost pressing it against Lee's back. "May I…

touch it?"

"Sure, I guess," Lee agreed hesitantly, nervousness starting to flutter in the hollow of his stomach.

Lee wasn't looking over his shoulder when Gaara moved up closer behind him, so the hand that roughly pressed against the skin of his back took him by surprise enough for him to let out a small, almost imperceptible gasp. The pads of Gaara's fingers were rough, like the sand he had spent all his time living in, but his palm was exceedingly soft, and together the contrast between the two different parts of his hand served as a relaxation agent almost as good as the massage-like pressure of the touch itself.

Gaara traced a fingertip up the red thread that ran up Lee's spine, stopping where it ended just below his atlas vertebra. "And this? I… I did this, too?"

"Yes," Lee managed, trying to hold himself steady and not either rock back into or away from that hand. "It's silver burn, the aftermath of silver poisoning."

"Silver?"

"The bracelet," Lee explained, rubbing the wrist where, up until Gaara had torn it off, the bracelet had resided. "The clasp was pure silver, and when you blasted it at me, the silver got embedded in my back. They had to be dug out before I could heal."

"I… I didn't know."

Lee supposed it was the closest thing he could expect to an apology from the draugr. Pulling away from Gaara's still hand, he conjured up another shirt, this one darker and more blue, like the depths of the ocean. A slight frown graced Lee's face. He hadn't meant to do that; it had just happened. With a shrug, he put it out of him mind and turned around.

There was something in Gaara's eyes now that hadn't been there before, something as deep and dark as the deepest parts of the abyss, but lighter in the sense that some great weight had been lifted from them. Rubbing his wrist again to avoid looking at that knowing gaze, Lee said quietly, "It doesn't matter. I already said that I'd forgiven you."

"But how?!" Gaara spat, his expression torn between anger at Lee and anger at his own ineptitude and inability to comprehend what was going on. "How can you so frivolously spend your forgiveness on someone as undeserving as me? You should give it to someone who has more want of it."

"That's not how forgiveness works. It's an awful lot like love; it goes where it goes, picking its targets without much thought for worthiness. Sometimes, people can waste away from starvation when their only want was a forgiveness they could ever receive, and other times, people can be destroyed by expecting hate and receiving forgiveness. It's a powerful tool, and not one I choose to wield lightly." Lee bowed his head a little further, refusing to meet Gaara's gaze, seeking answers. "Besides, I can't give it to someone who wants it, because I already gave it to the person who has most need of it."

"You think I have need of forgiveness?" Gaara scoffed.

"Don't you?" Lee asked quietly.

Gaara was struck dumb for a few seconds, his mouth opening and shutting like a fish out of water before he regained his composure and folded his arms across his chest, jutting out his chin in arrogance and stubbornness. "Then, I forgive you too!"

Lee couldn't help it; a small, stifled giggle snuck past the hand he had hastily clapped over his mouth. Even in the face of Gaara's dark glare, the moment of humor was worth it. "What for? What did I do to you?"

"For confusing me!" Gaara snapped back, turning his back to Lee in what the phantom guessed was embarrassment. "For making me think about people again, and … and … and making me want to talk to people."

"Do you usually not want to talk to people?" Lee asked, coming up to stand next to Gaara and slightly behind him, close enough to reach out and touch his shoulder, but he didn't dare to yet.

"Never," Gaara growled, turning his body just the slightest so that he could look at Lee out of the corner of his eye.

With trepidation in his stomach, Lee finally screwed up the courage to lay a comforting hand on Gaara's shoulder, who stiffened slightly but didn't pull away. "Do you… maybe… want to talk to me?"

Gaara didn't answer for a long time, instead looking out across the sea and the white crests that crowned the majestic waves as they rolled in toward the tiny beach the two ghosts were both standing on. With the breaking of each wave, a surging surf came hissing up the beach like an angry animal, retreating in fear when it got too close to its adversary but always circling back to look for an opening.

"What do you think of the sea?"

It took Lee a few seconds to register that Gaara had spoken at all, so quiet and unexpected had the words been. Looking out at the ocean, Lee wondered what Gaara saw in it that he couldn't see.

"Not really sure. It's pretty enough, but dangerous. I try to avoid the sea."

Gaara cocked his head to the side enough to get a good look at Lee. "Why?"

"Lots of reasons, I suppose." Lee shrugged. "It's cold and dark. I died in the ocean."

The look that Gaara cast Lee this time was sharp. "You drowned?"

"Yeah." Lee took a step forward, toward the ocean, his hand slipping off Gaara's shoulder in the process. "I loved to swim, and I was always trying to push myself to be a better swimmer. One day, I set out early and didn't tell my father where I was going, and I swam somewhere I shouldn't have. The current was stronger than I thought it would be, and the riptide pulled me out faster that I could think. I never made it back to shore, and they never found my body."

A hand suddenly settled on Lee's shoulder, and he looked back in surprise at Gaara, who was still looking out at the ocean. "I drowned, too," he announced suddenly. "But not like you. My par- I was buried here in the sand when I was very young and left until the tide came in. I don't know if it was the water or the weight of the sand that finally did me in. After I died, I made sure my body was found."

"Do you remember much about it?" Lee said hesitantly, almost too afraid to ask.

"Not much," Gaara said with a wry smile. "I was asleep for most of it, I think. I don't know for certain, but I always suspected that they drugged me first, before they buried me, so I wouldn't struggle. It was only when my lungs really stopped working that I woke up, and by then, it was already too late for me to do anything."

"Do you know why your- why you were abandoned?" Lee amended as he spoke.

A coarse laugh cut from Gaara's throat. "They were both immigrants who had come from Ireland - as you can probably tell from my hair - and had lived their whole lives steeped in old legends and superstitions. They abandoned me because they thought I was a changeling."

"A changeling?" Lee asked with a frown.

"A baby of the mischievous and malevolent fey folk, switched with your own at birth or shortly after," Gaara explained. "I was a strange baby - I never cried, but I wasn't mute, and I developed a passion for sharp things at an early age. Eventually, they couldn't take it anymore, believing that they were raising a child who wasn't theirs, so they took matters into their own hands."

"That's… That's horrible!" Lee gasped, turning away from the ocean to look directly at Gaara.

But the draugr didn't move his body, only turning his head slightly towards Lee. The expression on his face was one of sullen acceptance and a little confusion. "It was my life."

Then Lee understood. All other interactions so far, everything Gaara had said, his reaction when he had whispered to Gaara the last time he had been trapped in the sand, suddenly clicked into place, and he understood with alarming clarity. Gaara had never been loved, not once his whole life or after. Therefore, he had no concept of love, and was suffering watching people love when he didn't understand its purpose. Well, that was something Lee was going to fix, if he was able to.

Moving quickly so Gaara didn't have a chance to pull away, Lee wrapped one arm about his waist and brought the other up to touch his chest, leaning his head against his shoulder. While Gaara seemed surprised, he didn't try to avoid the embrace, but his arms dangled off to the sides uselessly and he swung them uncomfortably.

"What is the point of this?" He asked, but it wasn't scathing. It was asked with genuine curiosity brought out of a desire to know, to experience, what had been denied him.

"There's no point, really. It's just a nice thing to do. It makes you feel good."

"Why?"

"Because when two people hug each other, it means that they love each other. There's many kinds of love - the love in families, the love between siblings, the love between boyfriends and girlfriends - but there's really nothing like the love between two good friends." Lee gave Gaara's shoulders a light squeeze. "And do you know why?"

"Why?" Mimicking Lee, Gaara also tried to lightly squeeze Lee's shoulders, but it felt more like giant boa constrictor was trying to crush him to eat him whole. Blinking back the beginnings of tears from his eyes, Lee resolved not to say anything about it, since he was at least trying.

"Because really good friends trust each other. When a couple or a pair of brothers or sisters really care for each other, they often say that those people, in addition to being their spouse or sibling, are their best friends. Don't you think that sounds wonderful?"

"I wouldn't know," Gaara said with a hint of sadness trapped in his gruff tone. "I've never had a friend before."

"Then, would you allow me to be your friend?"

Gaara's head snapped to the side to look down at Lee, who tilted his face slightly upwards so Gaara could see his earnestly honest expression. All of a sudden, his face hardened again, and he pushed Lee away from him. "What's the point? I've done terrible things, things I don't regret doing. I can never atone for my sins."

He turned his back abruptly and started walking away, sinking deeper into the sand with each step, but Lee darted after him and grabbed him from behind, refusing to let him get away.

"Then let me forgive you!"

"You?" Gaara hunched his shoulders against the touch, but couldn't hide the incredulity in his voice. "You already forgave me for the wrong I caused you. I've done much more than that. I've killed people."

Lee shivered when he heard that, but he still didn't let go. He had known that Gaara had ended lives during his time haunting the beach, of course, but it was different hearing him admit it out loud. "I still forgive you."

"How can you?" The sound in Gaara's voice now was almost a sorrow of the kind found only after betrayal. "I've done so much wrong, before you even died. Hell, probably before you even were born. You can't just… forgive me… for what I've done."

"I can," Lee insisted. "I can and I will. Because you deserve to be forgiven."

Gaara gave a delicate, miserable snort. "I don't deserve anything except what's coming for me. Now let me go!" He started twisting back and forth, trying to throw off the phantom glued to his back.

"No! That's not true!" Lee grappled with Gaara as he tried to pull free, managing to keep him still long enough to shout in his ear. "Everyone deserves happiness, and even more so the people who've been denied it! It's there for you, Gaara! You just have to reach out and grab it!"

That stilled Gaara's wilds trashing, but his shoulders slumped in despair. "I can't."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't know what I'm reaching for."

The sad words broke Lee's heart, but he didn't let it show. When you helped someone else, you couldn't let your own problems get in the way. Gently, he tugged on Gaara's shoulders again, and this time, the draugr consented to let himself be dragged from the sand.

"If you don't know what to reach for," Lee said in a quiet, trembling voice, "let me reach out to you."

He held one hand out to Gaara, waiting for him to take it. Gaara stared at the proffered hand for a long time as if not understanding it's purpose, and Lee's heart jumped up in his throat. Then, slowly, he extended his own hand and took Lee's, entwining their fingers together. Immediately, Lee extended his other hand as well, and this time, Gaara took it without hesitation, twining their fingers together like they belonged that way. Not letting go of either hand, Lee took a step toward Gaara so that their chests almost brushed together.

"I forgive you, Gaara. For all your faults. Can't you accept yourself the way you are, as I have?"

Almost before the last word was out, Gaara had let go of both of Lee's hands and crushed him against his chest, his arms wrapping around him like strong bands of iron. Lee was surprised at first, but melted into the embrace after the initial shock wore off. It was warm, much warmer than the dark embrace of the ocean, and comfortable, albeit a little tight.

Gaara was shaking a little as he hugged Lee, and when he gave a choking sob, the phantom suddenly realized that he was crying. The tears were strong enough to drip off Gaara's chin and onto Lee's shirt, dampening it with his sorrow.

Lee didn't say anything, just rubbed Gaara's back soothingly and let him sob like a child while hanging off him. What else could he do? It wasn't every day that he forced a murderous draugr through an existential crisis. He was just counting himself lucky that he had managed to pull this one off without getting himself hurt. Again.

After a while, Gaara's tears slowed until they stopped and he pulled back, rubbing his tearstained cheeks clean with the back of his sleeve. "I'm not usually like that," he said, still a little brokenly, and Lee understood it for what it really was: an apology.

"It's okay." Lee gave Gaara the brightest smile he could. "That's what friends are for, right? The proverbial 'shoulder to cry on'?"

"I wouldn't know." A light blush crept over the top part of Gaara's cheekbones. "I've never had a friend before."

"Well, you have one now." Lee grabbed Gaara's hand, then sat down, pulling the draugr down next to him. "A shoulder to cry on, and a laugh to make the pain go away. That's what a friend is. So, now that you've had a good cry, let's hear that laugh."

"I can't just laugh on command, you know," Gaara said tersely.

"No, but you can laugh. You just admitted it!" Lee giggled. "And I'll spend all day coaxing it out of you if I need to!"

Lee's large smile and gay laughter was infectious, and he soon pulled Gaara into conversations about himself he doubted he had ever told anyone else. It took a long time, but eventually the curl of lip at the edge of his mouth spread into a small smile, which turned into a grin, which opened up into a laugh that was hoarse from disuse but rich in character. And as the conversation kept rolling without a stop, neither one of them noticed the sun climbing higher in the sky.

Naruto knew it was wrong, but he couldn't stop himself. He had snuck out of the Hokage when Sasuke was distracted getting the holy water from Neji, and he was now standing just under the last branches of the trees next to the beach, hidden in their shadows. Shikamaru, of course, had known he was leaving - nothing got past his all-seeing gaze - but he had been the only one privy to this staunch disobedience.

Why was he here? Hadn't he agreed to wait the hour with Sasuke? Naruto was disgusted with himself for coming and breaking that agreement, but he still couldn't keep himself away. He was like the child who couldn't stop himself from reading a forbidden book, except that there was a chance the book might spontaneously catch on fire if he wasn't there to read it.

The hand that was gripping a branch next to Naruto tightened almost imperceptibly and his teeth clenched. He knew Lee often felt like an outsider to their group because of the large gap in their ages and powers, but dammit! He didn't have to off and do something like this!

Fuck it, Lee! You don't have to prove yourself like this! You're one of us, whether you have powers or not! Naruto cursed mentally, forcing his hand to open violently and release the branch it had been holding in a death grip. When he looked down at his hand, Naruto saw that there was a red pattern imprinted on his palm in the shape of the bark of the branch he had just let go.

Cursing under his breath, Naruto looked out at the beach, his eyes scanning back and forth for any sign of Lee or the draugr that made this beach his haunting grounds. For several seconds, he couldn't find anything, and a sudden jolt of fear went through him. Had Lee already been taken away from them by that monster? Was he already buried under the sand?

No, Naruto tried to reassure himself. It was much more likely that Sasuke and Shikamaru had been wrong and Lee hadn't gone here at all. He probably went to see the place that he had died - not that Naruto knew where that was, since Lee had refused to tell them - or anywhere else connected to his, actually. He had probably gone there instead.

More likely that Shikamaru had been wrong. God, that sentence sounded bad even inside Naruto's head.

Just as he was about to give up and turn away, Naruto heard something that sounded suspiciously like laughter. Peering hard into the distance, almost leaning out of his shaded hiding spot doing so, Naruto finally made out two figures sitting down on the beach close to the water, far enough away from the treeline where Naruto stood that they would be underwater once the tide came back in.

One of the people Naruto recognized as Lee - that laugh would be recognizable anywhere - but the other one wasn't so easy. His hair was a brilliant shade of red that caught the sunlight and gleamed gold when he moved, and his laugh was quiet but strong, and carried over the sound of crashing waves.

Who was he? Naruto craned his head to get a better look, and as he did so, the ghost lifted up his hand and twirled his finger around in a spiral, creating a small dust devil of sand seemingly for Lee's enjoyment.

"Holy shit!" Naruto yelped aloud, then clapped a hand over his mouth, afraid of being caught. The other ghost was Gaara? How the fuck did Lee manage that? Sitting down, showing off, laughing- the world had gone mad! Since when did draugrs behave kindly just because they were shown some real human emotion?

Shaking his head, Naruto slipped away quietly, neither of the two ghosts ever having realized he had been there in the first place. Perhaps the spontaneous combustion of books was, after all, a rarer occurrence than Naruto had once thought.