After practice Benji ran after his team mate and stopped her. "Hey wait up!"
She stopped and turned slowly, watching him with her wide black eyes. Her eyes were the creepiest part of her.
"Um… Would you like to come to my house for dinner next week?" he asked nervously, twisting his fingers around each other. She was silent for a long time, and, afraid she would say no and Sakura would beat him again he went on, "Since we don't really know each other that well even though we're in a cell together… Please don't say no. Sakura will call me a liar and beat me."
She smiled then, a small childlike smile. "If it will prevent you from receiving a beating, then I will come."
"Thanks!" he said and bowed, and she walked away without saying goodbye.
"Hey Gin!" he yelled after his other team mate, "Do you want to come to my place for supper next week?"
"Sure!" Gin yelled back. Benji didn't really like the obnoxious boy that much, but he would make the night easier. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad… Benji sighed and slumped over; who was he kidding? Some days he hated Sakura.
"I mean, for crying out loud! How long has he lived with you now?"
"I don't know, eight years?"
Ino slammed her hand on the bar loudly. Sakura watched the liquid in her glass tremble from the impact. She could have broken the bar if she had wanted to… sometimes thinking about how strong they were scared Sakura.
"Eight years is way too long to live with someone and not get any action!" Ino declared loudly. Men turned in their seats to stare at her and she calmly flipped them off while never looking away from Sakura. "Have you even kissed?"
"No."
"Well why the hell not? What are you waiting for?"
"I don't know!" Sakura argued, downing the rest of her drink. When the bartender offered her another she turned him down. "I just… don't know."
"Look, its simple. You love him don't you?"
Sakura drooped over her empty glass. She hated talking about this with Ino; she hated talking about it with herself even. "I don't know." She answered weakly, the same weak answer she gave herself whenever it came up.
"You know what I think? You're chicken. Just kiss him already, I mean, what do you have to lose?"
"What if it's wrong?" Sakura asked. Maybe if she was as drunk as Ino it wouldn't be so hard, but at her current state it was terrifying.
"Then don't do it again."
"What if it ruins everything?"
"Then it's because you're both idiots. Come on Sakura, you're both adults, why don't you act like one?"
"Because it's no fun!" Sakura laughed. She could easily tell Ino why she acted so childish.
"You've got me there." Ino said with a grin and raised her glass to Sakura. "But I still can't believe you two."
Sakura smiled. Ino was a very different person, but that was why she loved her. "Oh hey, do you want to come to supper next week?"
When Sakura got home Benji was in bed already and Gaara was nowhere to be found. It was usually like this when she went out with Ino. Sometimes Gaara would be watching some late night TV show, and she might sit and watch with him for an hour. But late night TV wasn't very good, and last month their cable had expired and she didn't have enough money to pay for it this month, so the TV was gathering dust.
She checked to see if Benji was really in bed before heading up to the roof. Sometimes Benji would stay up all night and sit with Gaara. He had some sort of insomnia that kid did. But he was asleep and Sakura ended up sitting all alone on the roof.
"Hey."
"Hey." Sakura didn't move as Gaara appeared on the roof beside her. This was just part of their daily routine, or rather, their nightly routine. Every night they sat on the roof and watched the sky. Sometimes they talked, and sometimes they didn't. Tonight was a quiet night.
Sakura spent the whole next day working up the nerve to kiss Gaara, but when she did see him she chickened out. When they sat on the roof that night she was sure she could do it, but Benji wasn't sleeping so he sat with them and she lost her chance. And she felt sort of relieved.
'Why should you feel so relieved? You want to do this right? If you really don't want to do it then Ino is wrong and you must not love him. Right?'
But when she looked at Gaara she felt different. It wasn't the same feeling she used to feel when she was with Sasuke, it was… worse. It was right in the pit of her stomach, and it refused to go away.
"Do you ever wish for something more?"
Gaara looked over at Sakura, at her profile, outlined by the lights of the night. They suited her, the moon and the stars and all the fake light produced by the city.
Sakura watched Gaara nervously, almost fearing his answer.
"More than this?" he grinned suddenly, making her even more nervous, "Maybe I already have more and you don't know. Maybe I lead a second life."
Sakura snorted to push away the insecurity his comment gave rise to in her, "Yeah right. Who else would take you in?"
That shut him up quickly enough. She looked at him apologetically, "You know, I just meant…"
"There is no one else." Gaara said quietly, and then he smiled at her, a smile she doubted anyone else ever saw on his face. A calm smile, free of malice or insanity.
She turned her back on that smile, "Sure there's others. Or at least, one other. Temari would still put up with you. Though, if I were your sister, I wouldn't want to see your face again, after the way you've avoided her." She smiled a little, "Of course, if I was your sister, I'd kill myself…"
"If you were my sister, I would have killed you first." Gaara said, and he made the idea of death at his hands sound so intimate, she almost wanted him to kill her. "But you are not my sister."
"No, I'm not." Sakura repeated and breathed deeply, this was it. "I'm really not."
Gaara looked at her strangely, as though she had just said something completely unusual.
"I've been trying to get at something here Gaara." She said.
"And what is that?"
"Well, when I said something more, I meant more than this." She gestured, waving her hand in the space between them.
"This?"
"I mean… this." Taking a quick breath she leaned forward and kissed him before she had a chance to think about it too much.
It wasn't much of a kiss. Really nothing more than a quick peck on the lips, but it was more than that somehow, or it felt like more to her.
"Oh, this." Gaara said when she sat back.
And then he didn't say anything more. Sakura watched his face, but she still couldn't read him after all these years.
"Well crap…" she whispered to herself, turned away from him. She was wrong about this then; Ino was wrong and he really did feel nothing. If only he had killed her, at any time in the past, all this time they had known each other, if he had just killed her, or left her to die, that would be better.
"Hey." He said, scooting over to sit right next to her. His shoulder pressed against her back. "Is that all this is?"
Sakura tried not to cry, but her swinging emotions made it hard not to. "That's what I'm asking. Do you want more than this?"
"Yes."
Just one little word and everything was broken. With that word Gaara lit the stick of dynamite.
And when he kissed her it was fire. It didn't feel like lightning, or being in someone else's body, and it wasn't just a kiss. It was Gaara.
And then, it wasn't. That part of her, that memory that she had locked away and starved until it was the smallest part of her inner mind fought and bit and scratched it's way back to the surface of her mind and beat down everything else in her. It killed all her reason, kicked the crap out of her love, it ripped her sanity apart at last.
And she was sure that even if she asked him to stop now he wouldn't. She knew that no matter how gently he might be touching her now he would become violent, he would hold her down by her neck and laugh at her. She knew he would rape her now.
"No! You can't do this to me again!" she screamed, clawing at his face, which was no longer Gaara's face, it was that other man's face. It was HIS face. "You're dead! He killed you, you can't touch me anymore! Get away get away get away get away get away get away get away get away get away get away get away…" Her words went on and on, forming a chant, twisting her tongue as she repeated the words again and again to make him go away, but he had already left long ago.
She started to sob, breathing raggedly and rocking back and forth, but she couldn't give up her chant. "Away, get away from me, get away…"
And then there was another touch on her back, someone gentle. 'Gaara's come for me, he's come to save me again.' She looked up happily, but it wasn't Gaara.
"Are you ok?" Benji asked worriedly. "I thought I heard you scream?"
"Oh…" Sakura reached up and cupped his face in her hands. "I'm ok now. I'm going to…" She shook her head, shaking up her memories, tossing away the ones she didn't want.
"Where's Gaara?"
"I don't know." Sakura replied, following Benji's gaze out over the city. "I guess he hasn't come home yet."
"I guess." Benji agreed and helped her into bed, tucking her in and kissing her big forehead good night. "See you in the morning."