Disclaimer: Not mine!

                                                                       Sand and Wind

                                                                           Chapter 6

       Temari did not know how long she had been lying on the sand. The sun had seemed to pass more than a couple times. At some point during the first night Sasuke had left her. He had broken her a couple times. Her mind had slipped into a wonderful world where she could not feel her body.

       If she could not feel it then it obviously did not matter. The sun baked her exposed skin, blistering the abused body exactly as it had done the day before that, and the day before that. Her eyes stared into the blue sky barely blinking when the wind blew sand over the delicate face.

       Shadows from the clouds came and went bringing blessed relief to the body as the mind continued to hide. Once or twice during the dark of night a small rain dampened the sand covering her with a slight shield. The burning light rose once again to torment her skin. A shadow blocked the sun once again. It was too dark to be a cloud. Her eyes focused slightly and she became aware of a face leaning over her.

       'Do I know him?' Confusion held sway over any other emotion. She felt herself being lifted from her bed of sand and the sound of wind filled her ears as the one who found her sprinted away. He smelled good. Warm like the desert and tangy like spices. She turned her head slightly and nestled her sunburned face into his shoulder.

       Her dry eyes closed and finally rested after their ordeal. The darkness was welcome and her body relaxed. Suddenly the air felt slightly cooler and she heard a door click behind them. She was lowered onto a soft surface and was then left alone as her carrier went to another room.

       She could hear the sounds of jars clicking against each other and water hitting porcelain. Before he reentered the room she concentrated on covering her exposed body. Her hand encountered cloth instead of the bare flesh she had been expecting. Her clothes had been wrapped around her as if she was a baby.

       The dress was unsalvageable and her fishnet shirt was gone. The boy came back and she felt a cool cream being rubbed into her feet. He spread the soothing balm upwards until he had covered her whole body. She felt slight tugs at her head as he released her hair and brushed it out with his fingers.

      "Why did you let him do this Temari?" The boy had a deep voice and it soothed her just like the balm. It never occurred to her that she should cover her body while he was there. It was just too comfortable where she was.

       "Answer me." Temari lifted her heavy eyelids and looked at her brother's face. She opened her mouth to speak but a callused finger was placed on her lips.

       "Wait." Her brother stared at his finger lying innocently on her lips. "Will your answer make me want to kill him more?" Temari nodded as best she could without dislodging the digit on her mouth. Her rescuer shook his head and the finger started to slip off.

       So she did the only natural thing. She opened her mouth and caught the tip in her teeth. Gaara looked shocked and his whole body froze. Her tongue traced his fingernail and her teeth loosened just enough for her to suck his finger farther in. She licked on the pad of his finger before she became aware of his trembling.

       Luckily for her the trembling had her teeth retract from around the finger just before it was yanked out of her mouth. Gaara stared at her for a second longer before he spun on his heel and disappeared out the door. She wanted to follow him, but the taste of his skin on her tongue and the comfort of the futon lulled her into a deep nurturing sleep.

       The sun danced over Temari's closed eyelids and she flinched as the remembered damage flared back into painful reality. Her limbs burned as she tried to coax movement out of them. Slowly she rose into a sitting position wincing as the cloth covering the futon dragged against her newly formed bruises.

     Quick pictures of what happened before she blacked out flashed in her mind's eye. There were many close up shots of Sasuke. There he was making seals for his fire jutsu. Another showed him slinging kunai in her direction.

       The last comprehendible one showed his face about five inches from her own visage. This particular image burned into her retinas. A slow stream of blood coursed out of his broken nose and his eyes burned red. Little black dots whirled so fast that they blurred into a stripe of black.

'So I finally saw the Sharingan up close.' She could not say that she enjoyed the experience and she defiantly did not want to again. Now all there was left to do would be to wonder what happened after she blacked out.

A/N: Sorry about the long update times...you can start cursing my English teacher now since for the past week or so she has been making me fill my time with writing essays about metal detectors and the me if you wish to send her hate mail.