That was way more intense than I thought that would be. Sheesh. This isn't going to be particularly long, I think, but I need to bring up the mood a bit before I get drama-ed out. As a side note a lot of this is very deliberate but much of it is twisted a bit to fit the story I want to tell. Cavalry classes in the Roman empire were one of the few that allowed non-Roman born men to participate in elite warfare. They were also paid more highly and had more freedom. Gaara as a member of the cavalry, or ala, is probably as close as I could find to a Roman ninja which is such a weird thought I don't think I'll ever be able to put those word together in a sentence again.
Disclaimer: see part I
As Spring turned to late Spring, life was a blur of routine to Sakura. When she had mourned her mother she had had all the touchstones of her life in Rome to bring her outside of herself. Losing her father without that support structure left her with nothing but her mind to collapse in on and she found herself mute with grief for some time, followed by disinclined the speak as it became clear few people in the camp spoke Latin fluently.
The tent she occupied seemed to be the sole property of the red warrior, as she continued to call him in light of the fact that he did not speak to her, and it was as spacious and well appointed as she expected for an officer in a legion's base camp. Food was brought to her, baths as well, chamber pots were taken away, and she would take walks around outside unmolested as she observed life in the camp. She spent her days pouring over the two small medical texts she had hauled with her in her bag, and spinning when someone had the forethought to bring a wheel to the tent a few days in. The cramped writing gave her comfort, as if her father was speaking to her, and she processed her shock at the attack in general and at her accidental murder of the bandit with a surgical tool. The spinning was soothing if monotonous, and it took her back to her days practicing the skill with Ino. Her mother's voice droned in her memory about what good wives they would make someday. That someday should have been now, but somehow she had arrived to this place which while she occupied a strange role in a man's life she was certainly no wife to him. This cloistering slowly healed her shock, and recently she had been able to smile and wave at people on her walks even if she wasn't ready to talk to them. They barely made eye contact with her.
Some days the red warrior was with her, but most he was not. He would appear tired, bloodstained, and collapse onto couches or cushions but she never saw him sleep. When he appeared at first she would spend as much time ignoring him as she could, but one day after several weeks of this he was clutching a wound that was oozing something nasty looking and she recognized what needed to be done right away. Grasping her father's bag she moved over to him purposefully, and with a voice slightly scratchy from disuse told him to hold still.
Sakura took the pitcher of clean water that always sat waiting for her and brought it over to him. She heated and cleaned the tools she knew she would need and then proceeded to clean the wound of its infection and sew it closed. The man just watched her, flinching only occasionally, and while it didn't have the neat look she had hoped she knew at least he wouldn't lose the arm to a blood disease or ill humors.
He never made any improper gestures towards her, but after that day she found new black clothes and a small vial of oil to replace the one she had run out of from the daily practice of scraping her skin. Often she would check to make sure various wounds were healing correctly, but she always murmured her findings to him with the stiff clinical language she knew from her books. He watched her all the while, warily at first as if he were waiting for her to produce a knife from the folds of her robes, and then languidly as if he were tolerating her fussing as a favor to her. The intensity of his gaze never wavered.
She noted during this time that his hair was rust colored naturally, though it looked much darker when it was wet, as it often was when late Spring became relentlessly wet in a way she was unfamiliar with in this cooler climate. He smelled less of blood now that most of it was washing off in the torrential storms on the way back home, unfortunately he did smell more like wet horse.
Things probably would have progressed as they had for longer but for one day when Sakura heard bickering outside of the tent that, unusually, made its way inside the tent. It contained snatches of her native Latin but much of it seemed to be in the local language which she still did not speak.
A man, tall, who looked so much like her red warrior he must have been family, stepped purposefully into the tent followed by a man she had seen around the camp frequently. The smaller man appeared to be pleading with the taller man, but upon seeing her they both stopped in their tracks and she stood up from her spinning wheel slowly. If she needed to fight, which she didn't discount, her medical tools were across the tent. She carefully moved to a central position, eyes darting around like a trapped animal.
Her anticipation of aggression wasn't lost on the men, and the taller one seemed to visibly think a moment before speaking to her in passible but thickly accented Latin.
"I am here to meet my brother's concubine."
Sakura inflated in anger like an empty water bladder suddenly blown into. "Then you'll have to look in a different tent, you rude ass!"
Both men were visibly taken aback. "You enjoy the protection of my brother, yes?"
"Until you can treat me like a Roman citizen and a lady I see no reason why I should talk to you at all, you barbarian."
She was aware of the irony. Any other woman taken to a soldier's tent and residing in it probably was indeed providing the services they assumed she was giving. However, other than making a whole heck of a lot of thread for the camp and doing private medical consulting there wasn't anything else going on and it was about time to set things straight.
The two men exchanged a look and then the taller man saluted as if she were an officer, done for (she assumed) a mocking effect, and replied to her challenge. "I am Kankuro, cavalryman of the Imperial Roman Army, and who are you?"
"I'm Sakura Haruno, daughter of Seiji Haruno. Welcome to my tent. Please have a seat." All those years of training, and she couldn't kick it even when she was angry. She poured some water and brought over the tray of dried fruit that sat in the corner. Despite not liking this man, hospitality was the watchword of every Roman with guests.
"How is it that you found yourself acquainted with my brother, Sakura Haruno?" He looked at the food in front of him but did not touch it.
It was a raw scar, but she found she could actually speak of the time before her complete shutdown. "I was travelling with my father to his post as the governor's physician when we were attacked by bandits. Your brother saved me by fighting off a dozen men."
The two men looked at one another, Kankuro said something in their native tongue to the other man and mild shock flashed between them. Kankuro faced Sakura again this time seemingly taking her seriously at last.
"What is your opinion of my brother?"
"I don't see that as any of your business. What I will tell you is that I am well trained in my father's medical practices and I have recently been treating your brother's battle injuries."
His mouth dropped open entirely, disbelief coloring his face white and red in turns. The other man asked him a question and Kankuro just shook his head.
"Sakura Haruno, every day you face the wild boar tusk first and you don't even know it. If you live through the summer, the gods favor you. Gaara knows only how to destroy."
Saluting her again, this time without the twinkle in his eye, Kankuro took his leave all the while talking seriously with the man he had entered with. Rude bastard, he hadn't even touched the food.
Her warrior had a brother, and a presumptuous and annoying one at that. More importantly, he had a name. Sakura rolled it around her mouth, trying it out. Gaara. It sounded as barbaric as he was. Imagining the exhausted and tense man that dropped his body into the tent on random days as a raging bull didn't match her experience of him, but when she thought back to how they met and that look she had seen in his eyes she suddenly felt like perhaps the danger was much more real than she was assuming.