38
What had felt like time passing in a brownish sludge during their week of recovery in the small house in the land of waves; suddenly snapped to its usual speed with all the elasticity of a released band. Fuu had watched minutes trickle into hours at an agonising pace, while her mind wandered directionless from doubt to doubt. When Ren woke it felt as if this was what the Jinchuriki had been waiting for.
Sandals were not removed as Fuu pummelled upstairs, all social decorum and any concern for the outside being trudged inside was lost in Fuu's haste. She almost bulldozed past Gaara, the red-head taking the stairs at his own sedate pace. Gaara always did things in his own way at his own pace; heedless to the commotion at the top of the stairs muffled through wood and sliding doors. Both Jinchuriki glanced at each other as their feet edged onto the landing, Gaara's gaze sure and steady while Fuu's was an erratic mess of hope and fear. Ragged breath and muffled rasps followed by thumps and bumps heralded the presence of the final third in their trio.
The sliding door opposite their impromptu staring match slid open as Tsunami and a rotund Suzuki Hikari were bustled out by a harassed Tazuna.
"Bloody kid's gone crazy," Tazuna muttered, still shoving the two women from the room.
The exclamation was followed by a blistered, throaty cry of frustration from inside the room.
"What's wrong with her?" Fuu breathed that kernel of fear from before growing in her gut.
Tazuna whipped his head round and blinked at the pair, obviously unaware that they had been standing behind him.
"No idea, kid," he frowned, "she suddenly woke up and started clawing to get up. She'd pull her stitches that way though so we tried to ease her down when she went…" he trailed off as another snarl leaked through the partially open door, "well, you can see how she got! What's wrong with her?"
Three pairs of eyes looked to the two younger members of the scene. Gaara nodded once in understanding, ambling past a still-shaking Tazuna on his way to the door.
"Leave it to us," he rasped as he eased past, the only indication that he had acknowledged the adults as his eyes never left the doorway.
Fuu taking that as her cue to follow his lead bounded after him, flashing the three startled adults an apologetic smile as she went. Inside the room was murky despite the fact every window had been opened to allow as much sunlight as possibly. The stale scent of sickness pervaded the Jinchuriki's nostrils, as did the acidic tang of medical herbs and the heavy undercurrent of broth. The immediate area was kept in pristine conditions but as they drew closer to the bed the trial of destruction grew more and more apparent. Overturned soup bowls, smashed flower vases and torn sheets littered the floor. A photograph of a gruffly smiling Tazuna and his beaming grandson smiled up at Gaara beneath shards of broken glass. The perpetrator however, seemed to have exhausted herself.
Ren's skinny ribcage rose and fell in sharp, stuttering patterns. She was pale instead of that strange half-tanned tone he had come to associate with her, wide-eyed and gasping like a fish caught on a line. The intimate juxtaposition of vengeful rage and fear carved into the child-like features of her face, as Ren stared blankly up at the ceiling above her.
"…Ren," Gaara voiced, only now realising that this was the first time he'd directly addressed her using her name and finding that it felt stunted on the tip of his tongue.
Ren's eyes snapped to them both and immediately something in her poise or her face or maybe even the palpable distress surrounding her, seemed to ease.
Fuu rushed past Gaara, crushing scattered sheets beneath her feet as she slid to a stop at Ren's bedside. The older Jinchuriki reigned herself in at the last second, hovering self-consciously above Ren.
"You look like shit," Fuu began without preamble, "what the hell you doing causing a fuss, huh? Tazuna-san said you could have ripped your stitches open, you gonna wake up only to bleed out ten minutes later. God, sometimes I feel like you just want me to worry about you."
Ren's eyes trailed over every inch of Fuu's face before darting to Gaara's, bypassing everything else in the room as if it was of little to no importance compared with actually seeing their faces.
Gaara knew that look; knew it had decorated his own features when the moon had been full and he'd pulled back the mask of his attacker to find the face of a loved one underneath.
He knew the shakes were coming even before Ren's body did. And shake it did, Ren's slim shoulders suddenly convulsing as if trying desperately to wash some foul presence from her back. Her fingers twitched in sporadic bursts. Ren's eyes began wheeling between rapid blinks and moments of wide-eyed staring. But despite the erratic movements of the rest of her body, Ren's breath eased in and out of her mouth in long, sweeping waves.
"Ren-chan?" Fuu muttered, confused.
She lifted an arm as if to check Ren's temperature but visibly jumped when Ren's small fingers latched onto her bicep with bruising strength. Fuu held her breath and kept still. Gaara remained standing at the foot of the bed, retaining his unblinking focus as Ren stared back. The Kiri Jinchuriki moved in intervals with her breathe.
In.
She relaxed her grip on Fuu's arm until it was no longer bordering on painful.
Out.
She slowly began leaning forward.
In.
Her other arm shakily reached up to take hold of Fuu's other bicep, and lock her in place.
Out.
Slowly, as if a weight was being eased down by a rope pulley, Ren's forehead finally came to rest at the hollow of Fuu's throat; finally breaking her study of Gaara's face.
Ren just breathed, eyes slipping closed as she attempted to flesh out what little of herself hadn't been scrapped away by that living nightmare. Each breath was punctuated by the steady pulse of Fuu's heart and she clung onto that, an anchor to keep her here in the world of the living. Fuu kept absolutely still, both shocked by the uncharacteristic clinginess and concerned at what it might mean. Ren's skin was clammy where it rested against the pulse at the base of her throat, but her fingers were like hooks terrified of losing their grasp on human contact.
"Er, Ren-chan, you feeling okay?" Fuu finally asked.
Ren's voice, when she answered, sounded as if the girl had been gargling razor blades, "I'm…perfectly fine."
"Okay," Fuu replied dubiously, keeping her gaze on the broken hitching in Ren's shoulders.
It was quiet a moment more, the very house seeming to draw its breath as Ren fought to plant her feet back into reality. Fuu had managed to make herself more comfortable in that time and was feeling somewhat guilty about enjoying the way Ren was clinging onto her like the older Jinchuriki was a shield or something; if only because there was a niggling sense that the act was committed in a moment of Ren's instability and Fuu was benefitting from it. Gaara had not made a move, said a word or even blinked to Fuu's knowledge. But there was something different about his presence now. Maybe it was the way he was carefully watching the pair rather than passing over Fuu's existence, or maybe it was simply because he hadn't abandoned his post at the foot of the bed. It wasn't a huge change (their confrontation on the bridge being only ten to twenty minutes ago) but there was at least some thought to his actions that weren't entirely selfish. Whatever it was Fuu felt more reassured, as if he had the situation under control when Fuu clearly wasn't prepared for it. She couldn't even control her own conduct; never mind whatever emptiness was reflecting back from Ren's eyes.
"Are you two alive?" Ren's voice was so small at that moment that it took Fuu awhile to realise she'd even spoken.
"Huh?" Fuu murmured, trying to pull Ren back to check her face. The younger Jinchuriki's features were shadowed beneath her fringe and the downwards tilt of her head.
"I said are you two alright?" Ren repeated.
Fuu chuckled nervously, feeling her own anxiety trebling with Ren's uncharacteristic concern, "Hey, Ren-chan, you worrying about us now? That's not like you, where's the whole 'get away from peasants' spiel? Are you sure you're feeling okay?"
Fuu waited for the sharp reply but only tensed when Ren's head lowered further. When her shoulders started shaking more violently than before, Fuu looked about herself in panic. There was something wrong; there was definitely something terribly wrong. A cool hand (a startling contrast to the sickly heat of Ren) pressed against Fuu's shoulder.
Fuu blinked up at Gaara as the boy eased her away from Ren's trembling body. His actions weren't gentle (not that Fuu had expected Gaara to be in any way gentle to begin with) but measured and somewhat authoritative. To be honest, in this situation, Fuu was more than happy to let him take control. She had no idea what to do with this Ren. To be honest Ren's defeated, hollow attitude was scaring her and that was upsetting.
Only when Fuu was finally pulled back from Ren's grip, did Gaara glance at her.
"Go," he said curtly, "…she'll need water."
Fuu cast one more glance at Ren's trembling body before making her way towards the door. As soon as the door slid closed, Ren vomited. Her fingers were like wire cords around Gaara's wrist, locking him at her side (thankfully away from the mess she was making of the bed sheets) and he allowed it (just barely) for reasons beyond himself. When she had emptied her stomach, she heaved at dry air for what felt like hours before shoving the sheets away from her with distracted disgust. Gaara watched as she laid herself back, breathing heavy and her little fingers still wrapped around his pulse. Her head was turned away from him but Gaara didn't need to look at her to see.
In a vague, disconnected manner it was as if he was watching himself. Not the exact scene, not the exact circumstances and most importantly not the exact same person. But still…this lingering sense of faint familiarity remained, like Gaara was experiencing an outer body experience where he watched a different version of himself in a different time and a different life. In his own need to identify and explain his own situation (much as the demon had become mother, much as the irrational hatred of those around him had become his reason for living) Gaara searched for what exactly it was that frayed his edges like moths on curtains.
Empathy.
It was unexpected, and Gaara couldn't remember feeling the emotion in such a quiet way compared to those sudden shocks when Naruto or Ren had thrust it at him. If those previous accounts of empathy were thunderclaps, moments of stark violence here and gone again in a burst of brilliance, then what he felt now was more the gentle rumble of storm clouds. He debated calling Fuu back in, if only because he was suddenly placidly unsure of himself. Fuu would not understand why Ren needed company but she would at least knowhow to give it. Something Gaara had no notion of doing himself. The thought was cut short however as Ren's fingers tightened around his wrist for a moment before softening again.
Gaara glanced down at her from his post, standing rigid and blank-faced at her bedside. Her head remained turned away from him, watching the winter rain beginning to curtain down from the lip of the roof. Gaara followed her gaze.
For all her shaking, she hadn't cried once.
….
Ren's re-emergence into the waking world was not an easy one. She waited and waited and waited for the scenery to rip and slip away at the seams to reveal the cave waiting, smug and triumphant, for her underneath.
It didn't.
She made a habit of touching nearly every surface she could, just to ingrain that this was reality for a good few days before the hysteria finally passed. It was muted, prone to surging up again at the worst of times, at night when she was on her own in the dark, in the day when the fisherman from her window passed under the arches of their bridge and worst of all whenever someone she wasn't familiar with wandered too close to Fuu or Gaara.
In the slimmest of senses it wasn't the torture itself that had left its oily fingerprint on her. No-one could say they were immune to torture, even the suicidal were fearful of pain. But Ren had grown up with mind games and cold treatment, the punishments or training her Uncle assigned to her hardening Ren's own capacity for pain.
What Ren was not accustomed to is receiving that pain from someone she had previously thought lower than herself.
What Ren was not accustomed to is watching others feel that pain and feeling it with them as if it were your own.
What Ren is not accustomed to is caring about the pain of others besides her Uncle and Isobu-sama.
"You should talk to them Ren…the other cages are worried about you."
But she didn't want to, couldn't even if she had. Shame burned away at Ren's arrogance. Shame that she had allowed herself to be captured by a mere human. Shame that in that capture she had screamed Gaara and Fuu's names as if they were her own. Only humans did that; crying and whimpering and making a mess of themselves. Only humans were weak enough to find themselves in that position in the first place.
Ren locked her jaw and tightened her fingers in her quilts. She'd not left the bed, and it suited her for a moment. Let her wallow and fume and stagnate on her own. She was more than in the mood for flagellation and self-pity. Attempts had been made, of course, to coax her out (the majority by Fuu). But Ren had paid as much attention to them as she had to anything in the outside world the past few days; which is to say none to very little.
Despite her unresponsive exterior, the interior of Ren was undergoing massive decorations. Those truths she had set herself had been sliced open and every little thing she had tried so painstakingly to ignore were flooding out. They came in sets of facts; each one emphasised and simplified to such an extent that even Ren could not outdo herself.
She had been beaten ergo she was not invincible or superior.
She had been upset when she believed that Gaara and Fuu were in painergo she cared about their well-being.
It had been her Uncle who had been the incarnation of her fear in those nightmares ergo Ren's own esteem for him was not as absolute as she or he had previously assumed.
Each of these points compounded dully into Ren's chest and stuck there, waiting and watching for her to finally look down and acknowledge its existence. This was the time for change. Ren could almost physically feel it, like it was window slipping closed or had a visible time limit. Ren had not realised that there was only a moment of opportunity for change, but then again she had never been inclined or even remotely interested in changing herself.
Perhaps this sense of urgency was born from the same source as her need for change. She felt that she could have died in that confrontation…for a moment had even believed that she had died. And if she would have…what then? Would her life have been culminated in her fear of harm coming to people that in life she had thought below her and in life she had never displayed her affection to? Would it have been a list of orders, cut short by her own bad choices and blinding self-confidence? Would that be the way things would end if she did not choose to re-evaluate herself?
It wasn't good enough. Even with the shame burning at her, the remnants of her battered pride would not allow that ending.
But it was far easier said than done. Ren had become so accustomed to glossing over anything she viewed as unpleasant that the old words were already sinking back in to cover her wounds. There was safety in those lies Ren had sustained herself off for years. And honestly she was terrified of tearing them down. The damages to her had still been done, but who knew what else was hiding beneath the patchwork.
But…she couldn't keep going like this.
What had lies done but waste away at her time and waste away at her? Lies ate away at things until there was nothing tangible or real about it anymore. Was she so scared of the real world and her own short-comings that she had simply willed her own reality about her?
Did anything she had done or hadfelt or had said mean a damn thing if it was all built on her lies?
No, that wasn't true. There had been moments of honesty, things she had said to Gaara or Fuu that actually meant something. And when she had said that she wanted to free the Jinchuriki, she'd meant that whole-heartedly too. The only times that she had actually meant something. When did that happen? Was there a certain point when Fuu and Gaara stopped being smelly luggage she was reluctantly forced to put up with, and became people in their own rights? Fond to her for their own quirks and dispositions and the things they said and the way they said them; people who meant something to her other than fear or disgust (and that was just as terrifying as the prospect of being honest with herself). Did that mean that the presence of the others (in thought or in body) gave those moments meaning? The notion only emboldened her cause, free all the Jinchuriki, not just herself, all of them.
But she had to make a choice.
Truth or Lies? Trust them or don't? Change or stay as she was? Let them in now they meant something or keep them as far away as she possibly could for that very same reason?
Both scenarios seemed just as likely.
….
"Oi Ren-chan, you awake?" Fuu bustled in, her voice purposefully loud to overcompensate the stillness of the room. She had been amusing herself with playing nurse to Ren over the past few days, but Ren had noticed that the usually laid-back teen was hesitant to enter the room without Gaara while she was in her present state.
Ren turned her eyes away from where she'd been staring into the middle-distance, and gave Fuu a distracted nod.
Fuu's grin faltered slightly at the weak reception.
"Breakfast!" Fuu announced slamming the tray into Ren's lap.
When Ren didn't react Fuu continued to hover over her, a pensive frown breaking over her features. It was coming up to eight days now that Ren had been acting this way and Fuu was growing impatient. Gaara had managed to come to some sort of agreement or peace with his priorities, so why wasn't Ren snapping out of it? The memory of the almost inhuman men who'd attacked them was fresh in Fuu's mind and at a time like this shouldn't they all be running and hiding? They couldn't exactly do that when Ren was constantly a million miles away.
Fuu couldn't say patience had ever been a virtue of hers. She'd never really needed it to be; if she didn't like something or it required too much work, she could always just shrug it off and fight for something else another day. However she had been exercising what little patience she had with both of the younger Jinchuriki. Then again she'd neverwanted something as much as she did the freedom Ren had promoted to her when they met.
But even Fuu's tolerance had limits.
"Hey!" Ren jumped a little at Fuu's outburst, Gaara even jolting slightly and narrowing his eyes at the offender, "when you gonna snap out of this?"
Ren blinked at Fuu as if she'd only just realised there were others in the room. Fuu's eyebrows knitted in a scowl and she tapped her foot impatiently.
"…What?" Ren finally asked.
"This!" Fuu gestured to the room as a whole, "This whole 'oh woe is me' Ren Pity Party! It's getting old now, yeah!"
Ren merely frowned dully at her before turning her head away again; an action that only incensed Fuu further. She was just about to lash out with the truth about Gaara's earlier statement about leaving and how it might actually come true if Ren kept it up, when Fuu bit her tongue. Telling Ren that the first Jinchruriki she met (and was closest to, Fuu could grudgingly admit) had felt no earlier qualms about abandoning them was…cruel. To be honest she wasn't entirely sure why he'd stayed, but he had and Fuu felt some measure of loyalty towards him for that. Besides it wouldn't really help matters either. So howdid you help matters? Fuu settled for making a frustrated sound and snatching Ren's tray away from her.
"Look, we'veall got problems. The world doesn't just stop because you want it to," Fuu ranted, jiggling the tray for emphasis, "I don't know what's going on in that head of yours and we aren't going to know if you don't talk to us about it! That's what friends do, right? And I don't know if I'd call us all that, but I'd say it's the closest all three of us have ever got to having any friends, right?"
Ren licked her cracked lips, "Oji-sama said that weapons do not have friends and shinobi do not get upset."
"Then he's a sick asshole!" Fuu instantly shot back, "what kind of bastard tells that to a kid never mind one who's his niece!"
Ren's jaw locked and her eyes hardened, that instinctive urge to destroy whatever threatened or insulted her uncle so ingrained that she could feel it rise up her gullet. Gaara interrupted just as Ren's eyes flashed murder at Fuu.
"…She's right."
"Huh?" Fuu whirled on him, furious, "don't tell me you agree with what this 'Oji-sama' guy was telling her! We're as human as everyone else, no matter how hard they try to ignore it because it makes them feel better about what they did to us!"
Gaara just gave her dry look, completely unintimidated as he waited for to register the 'She' in 'She's right'.
Fuu blinked, "I…am?"
"Yes," Gaara intoned curtly, "we don't know if we're being followed still…if they came here and attacked as we are now…they'd kill us all."
Fuu paled, Ren's jaw locked and Gaara bore his eyes into the side of her face.
"Whatever it is, get over it," Gaara spoke bluntly, causing even Fuu to flinch at the frankness, "Ren…for once in your life tell the truth."
At that Ren's eyes snapped up to his, an echo of the challenge declared all those months ago when it had been Gaara hesitating beside Isaka-san's cart and Ren goading him into pushing on. Their gaze held for a long moment before Ren was suddenly up and out.
Fuu began to grin, "yeah! That's what I'm-"
She cut herself off when she registered the absolute fury in Ren's eyes.
"Hey! Where're you going?" Fuu scrambled to follow.
The former Kiri Jinchuriki passed them both, thundering to the door. It cried out when Ren practically torn it from the frame, stairs groaned as her little feet pounded down their spines and finally she came to the modest garden Tsunami kept, the chilled wind biting her back as if to ward off her destructive mood.
A small ring of blackened wood commandeered the main space of the garden, left over from marshmallows over the fire that Tsunami had organised for her son and his friends last night. Ren didn't even pause as she turned, knocking into Fuu as she rounded into the kitchen again and snagged one of the backpacks from the kitchen surface. Out she marched again, Fuu close on her heels and Gaara bringing up the rear. Ren set the wood alight again, breathing heavily down at it before abruptly gripping the bottom of her returned jacket.
"Whoa!" Fuu rushed forward, trying to tug the article of clothing over Ren's head again, "what're you doing?! Don't start stripping, it's freezing out here!"
Ren shoved her off with surprising strength. Fuu released a small 'omph' as she hit the cool grass but Ren was hardly in the state to show concern for the older Jinchuriki now.
"You want the truth," Ren snarled as she struggled free of the clothing, "alright I'll give you the truth. And remember it's your fault too, both of you, if I didn't give a shit then it wouldn't matter."
Ren flung the jacket onto the growing fire, the camouflage material buckling before flames began to crawl up from underneath its edges. It hissed and shrivelled and curled up in on itself. But it wasn't enough for Ren.
"Truth is I'm scared," off came her gloves and into the fire, "I'm scared that I'm not strong enough all the damn time. I'm scared of everyone else all the damn time. And I'm scared of myself sometimes too."
"I'm scared of the way you two actually matter to me," the apron came next, flung into the flames with relish, "I don't know what to do with it and that scares me! I'm scared that I'll be this fucking lonely for the whole of my life!"
Ren didn't seem to register that she was shouting by this point or the fact that her face was wet. Fuu could only watch with muted horror and a terrible ripping sensation in her chest.
"But most of all I'm scared that I'll always be this damnterrified!" she didn't realise she was beginning to sob even as the words clung thickly in her throat, "so was this what you wanted, huh?!"
It wasn't them anymore. It wasn't them that she was addressing. It was that presence, that cold, controlled guardian who had orchestrated her every movement and emotion and the entirety of her attention up to this point.
Yagura.
The dam had broken, there was no going back. Not now.
"Is this what you wanted from me!?" Ren chocked, tearing at her clothes now as if by burning them she could burn away that terrible, terrible ache in her chest, "I did everything you asked, everything you wanted! I became what you asked of me! Why wasn't that enough!? Why couldn't you love me!?"
She was scrabbling now, the fury and pain of her released emotions over tipping her balance and sending her scrambling in the grass. Ren dug her nails in, chest heaving with sobs and no outlet for the full force of that feeling building and building inside her.
"What did you want from me!? I'm so tired of being scared!" Ren cried, her eyes squeezed tight, her throat hoarse and her chest ripping over and over and over.
Suddenly something latched around her, locking her there. Fuu clung to her shaking body, holding her being the only way she knew how to stop her from falling apart. Fuu's own cheeks were wet as she clung and rocked the smaller body, uttering smoothing words through her own tears. It took Ren a moment before she was clinging back, crying into Fuu's shoulder as she'd never cried before.
She could feel it bleeding out. All that hate. All that fear. All that pain. She wanted to be empty of it. She didn't want to be Ren anymore. She just wanted….she wanted…she wanted to be warm for once in her life so much it physically hurt.
It echoed, deep and sharp-edged, through all three there; ricocheting from Ren to Fuu to Gaara and back again.
Soft footsteps before something course and woollen was thrown over the heads of the two sobbing teens. Gaara couldn't do anything besides ensure they wouldn't die of hypothermia. So he stood and watched silently until they had both exhausted themselves.
….
No one drew attention to the redness of Ren or Fuu's eyes at dinner. Nor did they draw attention to the presence of the shortest Jinchuriki at the dining table. As for the Jinchuriki, it had become something of an unspoken rule that what had occurred would not be mentioned again.
"You want some more radishes Ren-chan?" Fuu asked through a mouthful of her own meal, leaning across Inari (who huffed at the separation of him from his bowl) as she brandished the small bowl full of vegetables.
"No, that's quite alright," Ren eyed the root with a mix of disgust and trepidation.
"Oh, right," Fuu grinned, flopping back into her seat and wiping at her nose with the hand not occupied with food, "you only eat sweet stuff."
"You enjoy sweets, Ren-san?" Tsunami asked with a kind smile.
Ren glanced at her, "Enjoy is likely an understatement."
"I know someone else who enjoys sweets," Tsunami sent a smile at her son who flushed.
"Kaa-san," Inari huffed, "don't embarrass me."
Fuu laughed, "Ha, you hear that Ren-chan? You've got the taste buds of a kid!"
"I'm not a kid!" Inari protested ineffectively.
Ren shot Fuu a scowl, "it's just coincidence that we both have excellent taste."
"Well," Tazuna began roughly before Inari and Ren could really get into the sweet debate, "I think we've got some mochi left over in the fridge from the last time the traders were in town."
"Oh, that's right," Tsunami smiled, "Would you all like some?"
Some replies were more enthusiastic than others (Fuu grinning lazily with a 'hell yeah' while Gaara merely nodded). The three Jinchuriki had decided that this would be their last night in the Land of Waves; they couldn't afford to waste any more time. Plans were made this time and training regimes set while they were travelling. Supplies collected and a definite path to their goal rather than their bumbling from before born from their own self-confidence. If the Akatsuki (as Ren had debriefed, telling Fuu and Gaara every little detail she could recall from Hitoshi's confession from what felt like years ago now) had achieved anything positive it was this. They were at least aware of their boundaries now or aware that they did indeed exist. They were also aware of how much they would need to trust and rely on each other (whether they could do so in reality or not was still to be seen) if they ever wanted to achieve their goal. And all three were aware of how much that goal mattered to them personally. Their first confrontation with the Akatsuki had both broke them and made them in the same moment.
"Whatever we eat, at least it's got to be better than Fuu's cooking skills," Ren sent a smirk at the elder Jinchuriki.
"Ungrateful brat!" Fuu laughed half amusement and half disbelief, "I didn't see you disagreeing with my cooking when you were wolfing it down."
"Well, my bowels certainly disagreed," Ren's smooth smirk grew, but at the same time she looked almost shy. Fuu couldn't help but feel as if Ren was attempting to laugh with them all rather than at them. The fact the girl was self-conscious about actually getting on with people was somewhat endearing to Fuu.
"…I agree," Gaara added in an indifferent tone (though he'd joined in and that to Fuu said more than his tone of voice did) as he sipped at his soup.
"Oi!" Fuu shook her head, really laughing at this point.
She was still laughing to herself even as the conversation moved on. It was such a small thing, them talking and eating together without the strained tension and undercurrents of apathy, but to Fuu it seemed so much more.
For the first time it truly felt like they were moving together. A group. A team.
And if she couldn't stop smiling at that thought, who could honestly blame her?
A/N:
YAY! Fuu kinda gets her happy ending (though with my sadistic tendencies towards characters, I doubt it'll last). All it took were two emotional breakthroughs and an emotional breakdown. Hopefully that was realistic and didn't all come across as Ren having a paddy, that it was at least understandable considering everything :S On that note Ren will still be Ren (in some senses) I'm not completely scrapping her character I just really want her to realistically develop, something I've noticed I tend to avoid when writing OCs.
Anyway I hoped you enjoyed this chapter. It was really uplifting to see the amount of happy comments about Gaara staying last chap because it means that you are actually involved in these characters and what's happening to them. The stories I tend to write and enjoy reading are mostly character driven so there's honestly no higher praise you could have given me, thank you :D
THANKS FOR READING!