Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any characters associated with it

TRIGGER WARNING: This chapter contains brief descriptions of bodily injury, pain, and death. Please read at your own discretion.

A One Month Bet

Sakura had barely slept for the rest of that night, and as morning crept through her window, she sullenly pulled herself from the warm reprieve of her blankets and Gaara's robe. It was just the one time... I won't sleep with it again...Carefully, she folded the robe into a neat bundle. If anyone came into her room looking for it, she surely didn't want to leave it in a messy, wrinkled state among her bedsheets. That would certainly paint a very wrong picture. She placed the bundle on her small desk, taking one last moment to gently the caress the fine embroidery, and then stepped to her shower room.

Instead of her usual warm, relaxing shower, Sakura opted for the crisp but invigorating splash of a cool one. Sleep deprived and emotional as she felt, the cold water helped to bring her back to herself. Her body reacted instinctively to the chill, lighting up her nervous system and all at once making her feel very awake. Yes, this was what she needed—to abruptly wake herself to the reality of the situation. Last night was… a dream. A good dream quickly turned nightmare. She had to reacquaint herself with reality, finish her mission, and move on with her life. Starting with her medical nin unit. The Kazekage had wanted to see "swift and substantial" improvement at the end of thirty days. By her calculations, she had just under half that time left. I'm going to push them even harder, she thought bitterly. No more simple sutures and bloodless cadavers. They need to work under pressure. Sakura knew this medical team had little, if any, field experience when it came to healing in the heat of battle. Mending severed muscle tissue was quite easy when the subject was still, quiet, and calm because they were dead. Mending a wound when your patient is thrashing, crying, screaming in pain, splashing blood all over themselves and their healer while the threat of more attacks could happen any moment was an entirely different story. She knew the team's experience with this sort of situation was limited at best, which is why Gaar—ugh, the Kazekage contacted Tsunade in the first place.

As she finished her shower and gently toweled herself dry, Sakura took mental notes on a new lesson strategy. Her students needed to practice healing living injuries. Though she could potentially instruct the medical unit members to injure themselves, that might feel counterproductive, and they would definitely not be happy with that suggestion. No, instead she wondered if she might contact the local Chunin and Jonin units and encourage that, during their training, they take measures a little harder than usual. Then she could position her unit near the training grounds and accept in the ninja coming in with various wounds. Perhaps Temari could help her organize this, though it would take probably a couple of days to realign multiple schedules of chunin teams and off-duty jonin. In the meantime, she would work with her unit in giving timed-measured tasks so they felt the beginnings of pressure pushing at their skills. She could also divide them into small teams and give each group a different injury to mend, so that they could not all cheat and work off other students' methods.

Yes, that would probably work, Inner Sakura mulled. I just need to find Temari and run the plan by her. She would know what steps need to be followed to make that happen. She pulled on her uniform, tightened her strap-on shuriken, and took a deep, resolute breath before she opened her door and stepped into the hallway. It was still dark in the mansion, still early. She hoped if she moved quickly, she might be able to escape the building without encountering any…problems. Ugh. You're the "problem" in this situation, her inner self snapped, You're the one who lost control last night.

She could already feel the tension of a headache brewing in the middle of her brow. She wondered where she might find Temari sometime that day, but she needn't have looked very far. Sounds from the kitchen alerted Sakura to another presence in the house, and she heard a distinctive female voice chime out, "What happened to all of our glasses?"

Sakura rounded the corner to find Temari leaned into the refrigerator, searching for something in its cool air while holding a singular, chilled glass in one hand. "Oh, hey," she said upon seeing Sakura. "You're up early. I'd offer you a drink, but it looks like Kankuro may have squirrelled away all of our cups." She poured herself a helping of ripe, bright orange juice, then returned the bottle and closed the door, "We don't have very many, and if he takes them to his room and forgets to bring them back, then we run out!"

Sakura shifted uncomfortably, knowing exactly where two of those glasses had disappeared to last night. She remembered the tinkle of glass moving as she made her escape, but it appeared someone else had not taken the responsibility of returning the other glass. Forcing herself to return to the moment, she said, "It's fine. I'm not thirsty."

Her ponytailed friend shrugged. "Alright. Well while you're here you know anything in the mansion is fair game. Take whatever you want."

This hit Sakura in a different way than Temari probably meant it to. There's only one thing you know you want… Inner Sakura purred. Enough! Her rational side interjected. We're through with that!

"Actually," Sakura began, "I have a favor to ask you." She explained her proposition while Temari gnawed on a bean bun. She patiently listened until Sakura had concluded, and she weighed the options in her mind before answering.

"I don't think that's a bad idea. We may need to frame it in a different way for our teams though." She swallowed thickly as the bean paste stuck in her mouth. "The chunin teams are used to sparring with each other, so they will already know their teammates weaknesses and attack strategies. They're not going to go as far as actually injuring their team members, even if they know medical nin are waiting at the ready to heal them. You'd be better off pairing off opposing teams, maybe even throwing in some sort of incentive to fight hard."

"Do you have something in mind?"

Temari shrugged again, "My guess is to frame it as a preparation task for jonin commendations. Our chunin will be looking for an excuse to prove themselves and possibly receive a recommendation to be promoted to Jonin. We could give the winning ninja some small money prize and vote of approval if the Elder Council would consider their promotion. I suppose Jonin can elect to join just for bragging rights. Kankuro and I could probably sign up, presuming we're still off-mission for the next week. There's a few idiot nin I'd love a free chance to beat up, Kankuro included."

Sakura lit up. She knew Temari was just the person to bring this idea to life. She could already imagine the progress her students would make when they were under pressure to heal quickly and efficiently in the context of a sparring competition. "You'd really do that? That would be amazing!"

Temari gifted her a rare, but genuine sort of grin. "Sure. It sounds fun."

"That's great! So, you think we can have this organized and ready to work in a few days? It's Thursday today, do you think we could pull everything together by Monday?"

The sand kunoichi rolled her neck experimentally, and then said, "I'm not sure. It's small scale, so maybe? We'll make sure the teams know in advance and I can write up a competitive framework. We just need to run it by Gaara."

"Gaara?" Sakura froze. How could she be so stupid?

Temari's eyes flicked mischievously towards her friend, but she maintained an air of casual nonchalance. "Sure. He's the Kage. If we're going to be moving large groups of ninja around then he's going to have to approve it."

Obviously! Sakura berated herself. What a stupid, stupid idea. How could you have possibly thought Temari could arrange all this on her own. Of course, she has to ask the Kazekage! While Sakura continued to internally scold herself, Temari sensed her unease and continued, "It's probably no big deal. Gaara likes to weigh pros and cons. Holding a little competition over a day or two both helps your medical nin work on their healing skills and it gives our younger nin teams a chance to fight outside their comfort zone and strengthen their own abilities. It's a win-win."

Oh sure… he likes to calculate pros and cons? Thought Sakura. She wondered what he had measured as the "pros and cons" of last night when he had aggressively insisted on taking their "lesson" further and further until… until…

Sakura's face flushed, at which Temari grinned. Unaware of what had conspired between her brother and the kunoichi, she only felt her suspicions about Sakura's feelings were being confirmed. She speculated that Sakura must have some level of attraction to her brother. Otherwise, she wouldn't have consented to their little plan last weekend. Not realizing Sakura's flush was for an entirely different reason, she shot her a wink. "Come on, let's go run the idea by him before he gets swamped with other paperwork." She strode briskly by her pink-haired guest in the direction of the Kage office.

"N-now?" Sakura squeaked.

"Yeah, sure. The sooner we do, the better. That way we can jump into the planning process."

Sakura was torn… her initial excitement at the prospect of giving her students this opportunity, as well as Temari's promising endorsement, was now being quickly replaced with terror and dread at revisiting the thing that she wanted most to avoid after last night.

"Why don't you just ask him… I have to get to the hospital and –"

Temari wheeled around and crossed her arms over her chest. "This was your idea," she countered dryly.

Sakura felt like a child being scolded by her teacher in class. "You're right," she agreed quietly. "Sorry." You coward… She whined internally, How low would you stoop? How could you insult Temari's pride like that after she's going out of her way to help you? They had not been friends for very long… and even so, it's not like they were very close friends. She had momentarily forgotten that Temari was her proud Shinobi counterpart, deserving of her respect.

Something's off, Temari wondered, as she watched Sakura avoiding her eyes. She thought the woman would be excited at the chance to see Gaara, but maybe she was still dealing with residual concerns from their night of drinking several days ago. Temari, being a bold and outspoken sort of person, was not familiar with the embarrassment that accompanied poorly executed romantic encounters. If she found someone attractive, man or woman, she went for it with confidence. She was hot, she was proud, she was a badass fighter, and she knew it. If anyone turned down her advances (which was rare), she just let it roll off her shoulders without a second thought. She felt assured that they were the ones missing out on a good time, and there was never a shortage of someone else that would gladly take their place. Again, she reassured herself that Sakura would not have done what she did if she hadn't secretly wanted to get closer to Gaara. Gaara very clearly wanted more of her, so Sakura just needed a gentle shove in the right direction and their attraction to each other would progress organically. It's only been a few days, she considered. Maybe it's just not progressing as quickly as I expected.

She had no way of knowing the situation had, in fact, progressed alarmingly fast last night. It was not the time it had taken to reach that point, but rather the intensity of it that now had Sakura clutching herself like a frightened child instead of standing tall like the self-assured, sexy warrior Temari took her to be. Well, let this serve as another gentle shove, the Sand Kunoichi thought. Meekness was not a good look for Sakura and Temari did not like seeing it on her.

"Alright," she said quickly, moving to position her hands on her hips. "Enough of that. Now do you want this opportunity for your medical team or don't you?"

Temari addressed her with a fierceness that Sakura recognized from her large-breasted, blonde-ponytailed sensei back home. "Yes," she said hesitantly.

"Well then you've got to prove it," Temari said sternly.

Tsunade's voice echoed in Sakura's subconscious.

"Are you weak?"

"No."

"Then prove it."

The memory steeled Sakura's emotions and she stood a little taller. She still said nothing, but she stretched to her full height (still slightly shorter than Temari) and brought her arms to mirror Temari's stance.

Temari smirked, liking the change she suddenly saw in Sakura's posture and demeanor. "You're the expert in your field, right?"

"Yes," Sakura said again, though a little stronger. Her embarrassment was slowly transitioning to irritation. She felt like she was being talked down to, and she didn't like it.

"Well then, you've got to advocate for your team. You're the one who knows what's best for them and what they need, so go in and fight for it on their behalf. I'll be there to support the opposing side, advocating for my village's shinobi. But we've got to do it together, alright?"

In spite of herself, Sakura released a small smile. She hadn't realized it at first, but she had needed this pep talk. Temari was right. If she was going to produce the best possible results with her students, then she needed to stop being so shy and self-conscious about approaching the Kaze— Gaara. This was his village, his ninja she was working with… interacting with him was an unfortunate but necessary evil. She couldn't very well avoid forever the man who was literally managing her mission in his workforce. The only chance she had at redeeming herself after last night's events was to complete her mission with dignity and efficiency, and that would include interacting with the Kazekage on business matters as they arose. When it boiled down to it, Gaara was just a man. A man that she had experienced a momentary lapse in judgement with, but still just a man. She would no longer allow him to distract her from her mission.

Fueled with newfound confidence, Sakura nodded. "Got it."

Temari shot her a wink and a cheeky grin. "Well then let's do it, girl!" And she strode once again in the direction of Gaara's office.

X

Gaara stood behind his desk, carefully stroking the top of his gourd with his freshly bandaged hand. It made no movement, not even a hum or a shudder. It was as though it was somehow angry with Gaara for leaving it alone is his room last night and allowing himself to get injured. It would not even acknowledge him now, as the cuts in his wounded hand throbbed angrily.

A knock sounded on his office door, but before he could turn the visitor away, his sister's voice came buzzing through the door. "Good morning, Kazekage-sama! We'd like to speak with you for a moment." His curiosity was piqued by her formal introduction, and his eyes narrowed at the door. She must be here on some kind of official business.

"Come in."

To his surprise, it was not his sister that entered the office first, but the scent of warm vanilla and fresh water, followed by the form of his obsession: Haruno Sakura, herself. The tips of her lovely pink hair were still slightly clumped with moisture from a tell-tale shower he'd heard through pipes this morning. His shoulders straightened and his chest tightened with a dull ache that he couldn't identify clearly. She seemed an entirely different woman than the one he had been so intimate with only hours ago. The last image he had of her was of her form, laying below him, panting and flushed despite the chill of the evening air. Her eyes had sparkled with tears before she shoved him away. Now, she stood tall and confidently, just as she had when she arrived in Suna almost three weeks ago… He was glad to see she was no longer crying, but now she was avoiding his eyes entirely. She looked stern and withdrawn. This change in her demeanor made him feel uneasy, and his suspicions that he had somehow greatly insulted her last night felt more and more confirmed. The tightness in his chest sank low, low into his stomach.

Temari entered closely behind Sakura. Both kunoichi stood, patiently waiting to be addressed by their superior. Gaara, not quite understanding the formality of the situation, assumed it was best that he slip into his Kage persona. He could not think about last night right now… there was apparently business that needed his official attention. Tearing his gaze from Sakura, Gaara eyed his sister cautiously. "Proceed."

"We have a proposal to make," Temari began, "That we believe will benefit not only Suna's medical unit but also to our combative ninja teams at the chunin and jonin levels."

Gaara quietly assumed a seated position at his desk, his Kazekage hat laying patiently at his side like the crown of a king. He preferred only to wear it when decorum required, but he kept it close as a symbol of authority. It was a clear indicator of his rank, but he assumed an air of casual familiarity if he addressed his guests without it. So this is about Sakura's mission, somehow, he thought. He was curious as to how Temari had somehow gotten involved. "I'm listening."

He placed his elbows on the desk and folded his hands in front of his mouth in a position of quiet intrigue. Sakura took notice of the bandages on his hand… he hadn't been wearing bandages only a few hours before when they…

"Ahem," Temari shot a quick, furtive glance at Sakura. The Leaf ninja took a breath to steady herself, brought her mind back into focus, and then locked eyes with Gaara. "The medical team is progressing well under the circumstances they have, but it is my professional recommendation that they have an opportunity to experience healing techniques under pressure… that is to say, that they have an opportunity to heal real injuries instead of simply practicing with cadavers." With a barely audible sigh, Sakura released the remaining breath she was holding and internally congratulated herself for not faltering during her opportunity to talk. His eyes were so dark and calculating, she felt like the words she was saying were only an illusion in the moment. Their eye contact was communicating an entirely different conversation, each of them silently reliving the events of the night before. Sakura could feel heat rushing to her ears, praying that the shadows carved by the low morning sun outside might conceal her blood rush.

Gaara stared at her for a moment longer, wondering how she could seem so impossibly calm, when his insides were literally tearing at him to burst forth. Her words circulated in his mind slowly, before he finally responded, "Suna is proud of our low-risk population in recent years. We are fortunate to not have a high record of injury and incident in the village. We specifically provided your students the use of recently passed cadavers for this reason."

Sakura scowled. He was deflecting her entire point. "They need to have a chance to work with real, breathing patients and witness the kinds of injuries that one expects to see from ninjutsu and taijutsu attacks."

"The hospital in which you are working is still under operation. Are the day-to-day injuries that come through there somehow insufficient?"

"Delivering babies and market carts rolling over toes is not exactly the same caliber as real-life battle injuries."

"And how are you expecting these sorts of – as you put it— real life battle injuries to occur?"

"Well… We would need the nin to fight each other and—"

"Are you suggesting I allow for my own nin to be injured on purpose so that your team can practice healing them?"

There was an air of accusation in his tone, and Sakura resented it. Temari, who had been watching this exchange like a back-and-forth punching match, finally sensed her moment to interject. "Not exactly," she said. "We don't plan on purposely marring or injuring anybody. We would like to propose a competitive sparring event for our shinobi to participate in. Injury is a natural consequence to sparring, and so the medical team will be on hand to patch up the participants."

Gaara tilted his head in Temari's direction. "I still see only a feeble excuse to physically damage our ninja fighting force all for the sake of giving this one medical team a free handout. I will not condone for them to practice healing injuries that are acquired needlessly and for selfish purposes."

As a leader of his village, Gaara felt obligated to protect the well-being of all his citizens, including his ninja. He did not see this proposal as a viable or even realistic expectation. Allow his nin to purposely injure themselves? How was that possibly conducive to bettering their fighting force?

"Selfish?!"

Gaara's focus once again snapped back to Sakura, who he hadn't realized was suddenly several steps closer to his desk now. Her eyes were alight with a dark energy, and something inside him did a backflip.

"Who do you think is being selfish here, exactly?" she spat.

Temari cautiously tried to intervene, "Sakura—"

"No!" Sakura reeled. "You told me to advocate for my team, and I am." She turned back to Gaara, the baby hairs on her body standing on end for the chakra that was electrified with her anger. "I am the expert in this field, I am the one Tsunade sent to fix your problem, and if I say I need something to make your ninja better, then I expect you to listen!"

Temari's jaw dropped open in shock, but Gaara made no outward movement. He felt a prickling sensation on the back of his neck, and his gourd hummed a warning pitch. Sakura didn't seem to notice.

"When your nin are in the heat of battle, being attacked by foreign threats, and they get injured in action, let me tell you something about your healers: those fighters that do get injured, who have to watch with their own eyes as their arm gets severed off, or as their own intestines fall out of their stomach – they are not going to lie down quietly and let their healer come and patch them up. They are going to be in shock, they are going to be in terror, and they may even try to attack the teammate that is trying to help them. And from the perspective of a healer, if you've never witnessed a human body falling apart and seen the fear in that person's eyes as they are literally dying in front of you, then you don't know how to react. I have…"

She swallowed hard, "I have watched someone die in my arms. I have also watched someone on the brink of death come back to me as I was healing them, with my arms elbow deep in their guts. I can do that… I know how to do that, but it's because I had practice, and I learned from the best teacher that there is."

"Now I'm not asking to permanently maim any of your fighters. At most I expect these kids to fight each other and get a little banged up: epidermal abrasions, broken bones, at most some internal bleeding from someone that accidentally gets hit a little too hard. The medical team knows how to mend these kinds of injuries, and much more, but they've never had to do it on a living, breathing patient that is in real pain and relying on them to fix them. The last thing you want for your shinobi is to send them into a real battle, only to have your medical nin freeze in shock the first time they have to heal a real, true injury. You'll lose a lot more good ninja that way."

"The only way they are going to get better is with practice, and it's your job as their Kage to facilitate that practice, right?" Sakura was so fired up; she couldn't help the surge of confidence that was enveloping her in that moment. She was expelling every component of her rage at him: rage at his disbelief in her abilities when she arrived, rage at his insistence of monitoring her every move as though she was his puppet, rage that she somehow felt physical feelings for a man who continually insulted her, and now the fresh rage that he would be so insolent as to think she wanted this because she was being selfish. "As the sensei in this situation, I get to decide when my students are ready to graduate, right?" It was a sick call-back to their moment together last night. If Gaara was sly enough to use it against her for his own personal agenda, then she had every right to turn it around on him. "They will never be ready if you continue to deny them the opportunity to improve."

Gaara stood abruptly, causing Temari to gasp and tense as sand erupted from the gourd in the corner and swirled menacingly around the Kazekage. His eyes were dark and fixed on Sakura, and he burned inside from his own sort of fury. How dare she address a foreign Kage with such disrespect. This was his village, his people. How dare she come in and assume she could accuse him of knee-capping his ninja force. Denying them opportunities? It was his insistence that had brought her here in the first place when he sensed the weakness in his own machine! He knew the medical unit needed improvement, and it was his decision to allow her to stay and work with them, even after his ally the Hokage had insulted him by sending one single kunoichi when he has requested an entire team of teachers. How dare she insinuate something so callous, when he had been working tirelessly for the last five years to build Suna into a thriving community with one of the strongest ninja forces of any of the hidden villages.

However, as his anger fumed from his very pores, he felt another familiar feeling erupting from within. It was the hungry beast again, growling greedily at seeing Sakura in this way: heated, confident, impassioned. He was reminded once again that he had never experienced someone that would speak to him this way. The only other person who ever had was Naruto… he wondered if the idiot had somehow rubbed off on Sakura – the better parts of him, anyways. Or perhaps not, because there was an air to Sakura's presence that was entirely her own. Her speech was not intentionally directed at insulting him personally. She was speaking in defense of her students, students that she cared about. She would not back down… these students were her mission, and she would not fail that mission. She was even willing to possibly sacrifice her own position by talking back to a Kage if it was in the defense of her students and her beliefs. It was admirable. It was impressive.

The beast snarled in agreement, and Gaara chanced the opportunity to watch the steady rise and fall Sakura's chest as she took quick and measured breaths. If he looked closely, he could barely see the gentle pulsations of her elevated heartrate beneath the almost translucent skin on her neck, that beautiful neck that he had so recently grasped in his own hands. He expelled a breath he didn't know he had been holding. His hands, which had been clenched when his anger erupted, slowly relaxed and he felt the throb of fresh wounds reopening under his bandages.

"Stand down," he said quietly. It was not so much a threat to harm her as it was a warning to remind himself of his situation. If he allowed her to stay as close as she already was, he might just leap over the desk and grab her then and there.

Sakura hesitated. Without relaxing her angry glare, she carefully stepped backward. He was still the Kage, after all. She was wildly out of line. The rage which had just moments ago pushed her to the brink of literally insulting him now dissipated and she remembered her rank and place. It was Temari, thank the heavens, that finally stepped in to alleviate the tension. Eyeing Gaara's sand cautiously, she said, "I believe the chance to allow opposing chunin teams to spar each other instead of their own teammates will also be beneficial to their fighting skills, as they will get to spar with opponents that they are less familiar with. We can isolate the event to a single day or two, and any participants can obviously be vetted by Jonin trainers and yourself, naturally. You have the final word, Kazekage-Sama, but I hope you will consider the proposal."

Gaara turned away from both of them, and he took deep steadying breaths to calm himself. The sand shuddered questionably above him before slowly slinking back into the gourd. While he considered Temari's justification, he knew she made some valid points. As the village leader, however, he knew there was much more to consider in this situation than the kunoichi were giving credit for. He would have to cross-reference all teams that were currently not on missions and those that may be returning before the event. He would not want them participating if they had important reports to complete upon their returns, nor would he want it to interfere with any teams preparing for a mission departure soon. Additionally, many nin served local protective services when they were not completing missions beyond their village. He would have to ensure that not all nin were removed from duty at the same time to participate in a sparring competition, otherwise petty crime might erupt in the sudden absence of on-ground policing. What sorts of accommodation services would be needed to relocate the medical team to the training grounds? What supplies would they need? How much money would this require to run smoothly? People rarely considered these types of things every time he was presented with a similar proposal, and he was left doing all the grunt work himself.

Without looking at his sister and Sakura, Gaara casually reached for his Kage hat and put it on. Sakura felt a shift in the air in the room. "Temari," he addressed his sister with the tone of authority. "You know there are protocols that are expected to be followed when you want to present a proposal such as this one. You are asking quite a lot in a short amount of time."

"Yes sir," she responded formally. Sakura marveled at their seamless ability to transition from siblings to colleagues. "We only wished to address you directly this morning because we wished to share the idea as soon as possible. The timeline we are wishing for is short, considering Haruno-san's brief time remaining in Suna."

Sakura stole a careful glance at Gaara when Temari mentioned this. She was hoping he might give some hint of a reaction, but there was none. Inner Sakura sighed in disappointment, but she wasn't exactly surprised. He would probably be glad to be rid of her.

After a long pause, Gaara said, "Complete the necessary paperwork and have it brought to me as soon as possible this morning. I have a meeting this afternoon with the elder council, and I will need ample time to consider all facets of the proposal before I bring it to them."

Temari stifled a quick grin and glanced at Sakura. "We'll start working on it now. Come on, Sakura."

Sakura followed, feeling unsure of the end result of that interaction. Did he turn them down? Surely not, if he wanted the paperwork in writing? But Tsunade sometimes said that just to get people she didn't like to leave her office. When the papers eventually crossed her desk, she simply shuffled them to the bottom of stack until it had been long enough to "accidentally" miss the deadline. If she was hoping for any indication from Gaara, he gave none. He only continued to stare out the window at Sunagakure. Sakura saw red spots seeping through the white bandages on his hand as the heavy door slowly closed behind her.

Thank you for reading. If you are enjoying our story so far, a review would be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

Olly