Author's Note: Here is where the plot changes begin. Just to let everyone know…
The woman worked silently, slowly circling Gaara as he sat up on the small table, his arms raised and letting her wrap around the gauze. A thick patch of cloth, resembling an almost comical sized band-aid was resting over his chest, working to stop the blood. He heard her stop as she looked over the cuts on his back, uttering a small gasp. Apparently the marks from his father's belt were much more visible then he thought and a lot worse.
Gaara frowned and lowered his arms, trying to catch her attention and get her to stop staring. He hated it when people stared at him with pity in their eyes.
"You've got quite a few nasty cuts."
Gaara looked up to see the cop standing in front of him, leaning against the doorframe. He looked almost exactly the same as the day before, and Gaara would have even considered the thought that he'd stayed the night, were it not for the fact that his shirt was now a slightly different color and not quite as wrinkled as it had been yesterday. This had to be one of those men who had a closet full of the same shirts, which only became different through time and wear and the occasional spaghetti dinner that decided not to stay on the plate.
Gaara shrugged. He felt the lady fasten off the bandage and pull her hands back, and he took that as a signal that she was done. Ignoring her he jumped off the table and grabbed his fishnet shirt, pulling it on with the other black over shirt. There was now a large stain from the blood on both sides, but it was clothes and it was all he had. His only other option was the white t-shirt that was two sizes too big that she was pulling out of a drawer. Funny, but she seemed almost offended that Gaara didn't accept it. She should have known better.
"Found you a home to stay in, until things get ironed out. And I took the liberty of stopping at your house and getting a plastic bag full of clothes for you from your closet. Was there anything else of importance you needed?"
Gaara shook his head. "Nothing important." He walked toward the door, not completely looking at the cop.
He actually wanted to go to the home. He needed to be around people right now, anything to lessen the thick lonely feeling which was festering in his stomach. She was gone. He couldn't get over that fact and part of him was just waiting for the sun to set again that night so he could run outside and call her name, waiting for her to appear… Even if she never would.
Gaara shivered slightly.
"Cold?" The cop asked, following him out to the car.
Gaara shook his head. He waited for the older man to unlock the doors then slid into the passenger side seat and looked out the window, waiting for him to drive. His eyes wandered to the police station, constantly scanning the shadows in the area, even if he knew by now she wouldn't appear. She was gone and the only thing left of her…
"It's her birthday." He said softly, still watching out the window. But his eyes weren't on the shadows now, instead they were watching the cop's reflection in his window.
"Who's?" He asked.
"My mother. I always visit her on her birthday."
The cop frowned, his eyes concentrating carefully on the road. Even in the blurred reflection Gaara could see the small amount of stress that crossed his forehead. The car actually seemed to slow a bit and he seemed to be driving just a bit slower down the streets. "You want to visit her."
Gaara nodded. He'd lucked out. He could tell this cop had had at least one important person in his life die, if not more then that. The speed of the car and the look on his face was easily an indication of that. As heartless as it sounded, it only helped the situation.
"She's at the local graveyard. It isn't far."
The cop frowned a bit more. "And then we take you to the home to stay there."
Gaara nodded again. "I won't be long."
They drove slower for a moment as the cop seemed to consider his position. Then the car turned and sped up to normal speed and Gaara watched as the scenery outside changed to familiar fields which lined the outskirts of town. He resisted the urge to smile at how easily the cop had agreed and turned his attention to the new current situation: what he would do when he got there.
The graveyard was very simple, boasting only a small handful of large and expensive stones. The majority of the graves were marked with simple engraved marble stones, with a name and a date and the occasional quote. There weren't large angels or statues, but the effect was still there, even in daylight. The sky seemed just that much darker as clouds moved teasingly close to covering the sun. Shadows were cast over the graves in fancy leaf shapes, making them seem alive, like stony gargoyles waiting to go back to flying and playing as soon as Gaara turned his back.
Gaara slid out of the car and stepped through the gate, heading toward his mother's grave. The cop stayed behind, stopping at the gate to just lean against the iron and give him his privacy, which he was thankful for. It was easier to think when someone wasn't hovering around you, trying to figure you out or at least understand what was going on in your head.
The grass was wet with hints of morning dew, and Gaara followed the path by memory, picking out his way to her grave and careful not to step on the others. When he reached hers he came to a stop and just stood there, looking down.
Her grave stone was uniform and not too remarkable at all. Somewhere along the line someone had decided it wasn't worth the money to add on a little motto or quote on the bottom that usually said 'loving other' or something to that affect. So her gravestone sat alone, with simply a name and a date, hardly seeming to mark the body beneath which hadn't been seen for almost twenty years.
And now that Gaara was here, looking at her stone, the lonely feeling in his mind only seemed to multiply.
What had he expected? Her to be sitting here waiting for him? He certainly hadn't expected her to come out of the grave like some cheap apparition and return to following him again, had he? So what good was it doing to sit here at her grave staring down at the stone? What good would it do? What could he do about anything now?
Life hit him smack hard in the stomach and Gaara crumbled to his knees, catching himself on the edge of her grave. Everything was gone. Everything he'd grown up with, no matter how horrible or torturous it was, was now gone. And proving the current pattern in his life such things didn't disappear so much as they were ripped away violently and shredded to bits. Now everything he knew was gone.
He wouldn't be returning home, not now that his father was dead and the house and belongings had probably been seized by the state in an attempt to help pay for his own future care. His mother, what little of a spirit had been left of her, was now burned out of existence leaving a cold stone behind in an empty yard. He had no doubt he'd never see his school again, thanks to being moved to a new city. And even his small amount of belongings were left to some police lab to try and solve a murder that could never be solved with worldly means.
He had nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Gaara closed his eyes and winced as the deep cut in his chest from the night before ached. He was breathing too hard and the would decided to tell him that in a painfully sharp yell through his brain. Gaara, for his credit, did the only thing he'd ever learned to do best in his life.In his mind he grabbed the pain, latching onto it, and focused it, using it to focus his mind toward a goal. He had to think of something. His time was limited, but he had to think of something to do.
Moments before he'd welcomed the idea of a boarding house and being surrounded by new faces and expressions. Any other time in his life the looks oif pity and possible fear would have annoyed him, but only second ago he'd been willing to accept them with open arms, if only it would help him forget. But he realized now, as he crouched next to her grave, that nothing would ever help him forget this. No matter what happened in the future he knew his nights would be filled with the memory of her disappearing, of Haku's murder and of his father's belt, all bent of torturing him until there was nothing left of his mind and he ended up as some nameless entity sitting in the back of a padded cell, no longer able to even touch the real world around him.
Gaara latched onto the pain to calm his mind and force his thoughts into a coherent path. He needed to think, he needed to do something… and he knew that home wasn't an option. This wasn't going to go away. This wasn't simply a case of a dead man's body found on the floor with just his son left behind in the state's care. There was more going on here and Gaara knew that no one could ever help him with it because none of them had seen what he had and none of them would ever understand. The home wasn't an option. He'd never let himself be completely beaten down before and going to the home would only be just that. He had no doubt that Haku's tortured form would follow him and would never give him a moment's peace. He couldn't run away.
There was only one option when one couldn't run away.
Gaara stood up and his eyes crossed the graveyard. He ignored the cop who was still leaning against the fence, and instead found himself looking for something else. He knew it would appear, it always did. And she'd always appeared near the willow trees so maybe…
The breeze around him stepped up, gaining a small chill and he waited as the familiar signs filled in around him. He didn't have to wait long, just staring at the shadows beneath the swaying vine-like branches. He blinked and then the shape was there, the pooled black eyes looking almost white from the sunlight's reflection. Gaara watched it for a moment, then did something that he'd never ever in his life expected to do.
He walked toward it.
