"Gaara. Gaara."
He opened his eyes to glare at the girl, standing sopping wet in front of him, dripping on his foot. When she saw he was paying attention she seemed to smile, but Gaara doubted it was really a smile. "I need to be stronger," she said.
He tried to decide if he could count that as a complaint as he said, "That much is obvious," expecting her to clamp up and leave him alone, as she had done before. Hoping. Instead she seemed to take that as his way of saying he would help her achieve this strength she wanted.
"Great!" she clapped her hands together, "Do you have any kunai I can use?"
"No." Gaara shut his eyes to her and tried to find that peace she had disrupted, but she was having none of it.
His fingers twitched involuntarily as she spoke in his ear, "Please help me. Just until we're out of the desert. Then you'll never have to see me ever again." Didn't she realize how close she was, and how it made his blood boil? It would be so easy to just reach out now and snap her neck.
Too easy. Gaara wanted some excitement. He wanted something that could last, at least longer than a few seconds. It seemed that for now she was worth more alive than dead. Maybe training the girl would clear away the boredom, if only for a little while.
Gaara stood and faced the girl, "No weapons."
"So you'll help me!" She cheered and smiled for real this time. It was a strange thing, her smile. All lopsided and bloody and on top of that it was meant for him. No one smiled for him.
"It will take us longer to reach the village," he warned and started out of the oasis into a sandstorm that had started during the night. It took him a few paces to notice the girl was not following. He returned to the oasis to find her sitting by the water's edge, looking absolutely miserable. She didn't seem to notice him until he stood right above her. Then she looked up and smiled.
"You came back!"
Gaara glared at her. She was acting like a child. She stopped smiling and looked to the edge of the oasis.
"I can't go out in that." She said blandly, then stared at him intently, "What does it feel like?"
"I wouldn't know."
Her shoulders slumped slightly. "Of course," she muttered, "you just protect yourself behind your own barrier of sand. No one can touch you." She shuddered. Gaara narrowed his eyes.
"If you can't go anywhere, we could at least get started with your training."
Sakura sighed as Gaara reached a hand of sand past her defense and tapped her shoulder. She hadn't been able to stop one attack of his, despite the surprisingly gentle nature of them. She had half expected him to just throw her around and throttle her as training, but she had been willing to put up with that.
In a way, this was more embarrassing, but she was beyond caring. She just wanted to be stronger and for now, Gaara was helping her get there.
Gaara's eyes narrowed slightly just before he reached a foot behind her knee and toppled her. Sakura winced and glared up at him from her spot in the sand.
"You'll never be any good if you don't concentrate." He said and moved to sit where he had been sitting earlier that morning.
'I have been concentrating,' Sakura thought angrily and watched him, rubbing her sore arms. Apparently training was over. Making up her mind she got up then sat cross legged in front of him. He didn't seem to notice her, or more likely, he ignored her. She took this chance to really study him.
She remembered the short spiky haired psychopath he had been when she first met him and saw how little he had changed on the outside. His hair had grown a little and he was still short, but he had more defined features and muscles. If possible, he looked even more threatening, especially with the circles around his eyes expanding. 'He's probably still homicidal too.'
'But he hasn't killed me yet,' she countered, arguing with herself in her head. She wondered then why he hadn't. There was nothing she could offer him, and there was no way he was just being nice to her, so why was he helping her?
Pushing aside those thoughts she found herself tuning into his breathing. It seemed strange to hear something so normal coming from a man like Gaara. His breathing was deep and calming and she soon began to breathe with him, drifting into a half waking, half sleeping state.
Gaara opened his eyes when he no longer heard the girls breathing and noticed immediately that it was because she was breathing at exactly the same time as he was. She had gone into the same meditative state he went into instead of sleep.
He felt a muscle in his cheek spasm a little as he closed his eyes and returned to that peace.
Sakura scrambled back when she realized Gaara's face wasn't more than an inch away from hers. Noticing a sore spot on her forehead she rubbed it while glaring at him.
"You meditate too deeply," he said with a half smirk, as though his muscles couldn't quite form the expression. "Anyone could have just walked up and killed you."
Sakura shuddered, knowing who that 'anyone' would have been. And here she was depending on him to bring her to safety.
Gaara stretched up from his crouch in a catlike manner and walked to the edge of the oasis' shelter. "The storm has passed." He announced and kept walking, leaving Sakura to scramble after him. 'Inconsiderate little turd!'
As they walked Sakura imagined Gaara with facial expressions. None seemed to fit him so well. She tried not to laugh, imagining him surprised, with that lovesick look she knew was so often on her own face. She imagined him as a child, caught with his hand in a cookie jar. 'But if Gaara was caught doing anything wrong it wouldn't be that, it would be…'
Sakura stopped thinking before she could imagine a four year old Gaara with blood all over his shirt.
Gaara noticed her breathing deepen as they walked. Soon it was as deep as their breathing had been during meditation. He almost turned to tell her to keep up, but then he realized she hadn't slowed down. She was meditating while walking.
'How impractical,' he thought, 'If she wasn't led in the right direction.' But in this situation, it was good. She would be able to keep walking without needing to sleep, and she wouldn't talk. How very perfect.
He walked on surrounded by blissful silence. If they could just keep moving they would reach the village by tomorrow.
Unfortunately she did eventually wake up. A sharp intake of breath was the only warning he had, then her breathing returned to normal and she spoke.
"Wow," she said. Gaara paused for a moment to wait. Her movements were much smoother than before and he could see that her body was healing much faster, as it does in a meditative state.
"I feel great!" she smiled, and the sun glared off her teeth. She walked alongside Gaara, "So, much farther to go?"
It might have been considered a complaint, but the idiot girl sounded so cheerful it really couldn't. So Gaara chose to ignore her.
Sakura would normally have hated the way he ignored her, but she just felt so calm. She grinned, thinking it was also probably because it was Gaara doing the ignoring and it would not be a good idea to go off on him.
She stretched and rolled her shoulders, trying to dispel that dull aching feeling in between her shoulder blades. She noticed Gaara glaring at her, but continued her movements, deciding she didn't care.
Unconsciously she started humming quietly, a song had taught her years ago, 'When she was still around.'
Sakura shook away those negative thoughts and turned to something positive. She would soon be out of the desert. She could almost feel the cool air of Konoha village, just thinking about it. Away from this hot dry air, this damned sand, Gaara and her unbelievable sunburn.
She snuck a look at him as she thought of him, as though afraid he had learned to read minds since their last encounter. Seeing no change of expression in his raccoon eyes she turned back to watching for any sign of civilization.
"Would you stop that?" Gaara burst out suddenly.
Sakura was so surprised by the sound of his voice she stopped dead in her tracks. Suddenly she was afraid of him, sure he would kill her now. She shut her eyes tightly against the sight of him, waiting for that horrible feeling of sand wrapping itself around her. But on the insides of her eyelids she saw images even worse than Gaara. Before she could make a noise she bit her lip and opened her good eye.
Gaara saw her shaking and closing her eyes. 'Finally,' he thought, she realized how much she should fear him, but the thought came with annoyance. The stupid girl; he had just wanted her to stop her infernal humming but she had to go off and throw a fit. This wasn't how it should have happened.
The smell of blood filled his nostrils as she bit her lip open. 'Why was she always doing that?' He breathed through his nose, forcing the smell out. When she opened her eye he was forcing away thoughts of her death. He wasn't having much success so he walked away. He knew that killing her now wouldn't happen anything like it did in his mind.
He had walked a fair distance before she caught up to him. Soon she was walking next to him, her smell permeating the air. The images in his mind became more vivid, bloodier, more violent.
He reached out suddenly and tapped her temple. She froze. Gaara stopped and told her they would stop here and train.
Sakura lay awake, staring at the stars. They looked different here somehow. She felt tears well in her eyes thinking about home, but she refused to let them fall. She would not cry for anyone anymore; she had to be stronger.
She reached her arms above her head and stretched out her legs. Her muscles were so sore from Gaara's training, but she was glad for it. Once she got back to Konoha she would train harder ever. She would never let this happen again.
An annoyed sigh escaped her lips. She couldn't sleep, as hard as she tried. She had suggested to Gaara that they should keep going; she was up for it and she knew he was too. He still would not continue, said she was already too slow with overexerting herself.
'What a dickhead,' she thought, 'But he has been helping you , so cut him a little slack. Besides, he's not emotionally mature enough to know what a dick he is.'
Sakura cackled mentally and felt herself finally drifting into sleep.
Gaara sat miles away, snapping the necks of small lizards. He loved setting them on the ground and holding them by their tails, watching their tails fall off and the lizards then scurry away, thinking they would make it to safety.
They never did.
His sand plucked a rather large bird out of the sky. It must have come from the village; they were close. The bird struggled uselessly as Gaara's hands tightened around it's neck. It's wings flapped in his face, but this succeeded only in increasing his pleasure. He found if he closed his eyes he could feel like it was another neck he was wringing, not wings, but pale broken hands fluttering against his face.
As the bird went limp Gaara relaxed with it, no longer feeling such a strong need to kill the girl. He didn't really understand why he refused to do such a thing. It would be a disappointment he knew. It was better to imagine how she would fight back; he even allowed himself to imagine she would last a few minutes against him, struggling to the last.
When he got back to the sleeping figure he felt even more sure he wouldn't enjoy killing her.
"Too easy…" Hands of sand rose from under her to wrap around her neck as she slept on. Gaara frowned slightly and the hands grew stronger. She didn't even try to fight back, didn't even react to this threat.
He could see the marks on her neck, hear how as her windpipe was constricted she had more trouble breathing. But aside from her breath no sound came from the girl. 'She won't even give me the satisfaction of begging for mercy,' he thought and the sand dropped away.
Gaara listened to her breath coming more regularly and sat down to meditate. 'It has been far too long since I've allowed myself to kill anyone.'