Author notes: This story is probably 6 months old…; I had planned to post it on a lot earlier but I was too lazy to do so…Either way, a big "thank you" goes out to my dear friend nephilim who was the beta-reader for this fic (and has found all of my embarassing mistakes ;)…My fic would be worse without you ; A second "thank you" goes out to firefly, who inspires me to write a lot more Sand-siblings stuff. This one´s for you, honey! . And last but not least I thank all the people who discussed the topic of Gaara not being Temaris and Kankurous real brother in several forums…You inspired me to write this fic. XD
Disclaimer: I do not own Gaara, Temari and Kankurou or any other Naruto character. They all belong to Masashi Kishimoto…because he´s god and draws like one So please don´t sue me XD
Sabakuno Temari sat at the large table inside the big house of Sunagakure that she inhabited with her two brothers Gaara and Kankurou, and drank a cup of coffee. Kankurou, the 14 year old brother, was on a mission and Gaara, her youngest brother, was upstairs in his room. From time to time she took a quick glance at the closed door of his room, which she could see clearly from her seat.
Three months had gone by since the Chuunin exam in Konoha and Gaara was upstairs in his room, sleeping, most of the time. The easiest thing for every human being on earth, sleep, was something Gaara failed to do because of the demon sealed inside him. But ever since Uzumaki Naruto had defeated him in a fierce battle, Gaara had started to change and now tried to gain control over the demon named Shukaku.
You could say it was some kind of "homework" he had to do. At first he only slept for one hour, for the demons power was still too strong. But after a week he started to sleep longer and now he already managed to sleep for five hours.
Temari just never knew when he would wake up or go to sleep. He slept on an irregular basis. Sometimes he slept during night, sometimes during the day. He never told his siblings "I'm going to bed," or said " goodnight". Gaara wasn't used to such customs and therefore didn't do it. Temari and Kankurou weren't offended by it though as they were still a bit uneasy around him, and after all, it was Gaara. He was never really introduced to customs, or any other things that had to do with family.
Temari took another sip from her cup and swallowed when she heard footsteps behind her. Kankurou couldn't be home that early so there was only one other option: Gaara.
The 15 year old girl slowly turned around after placing her cup on the table and although she was a bit uneasy, she smiled lightly.
"Good morning, Gaara. Do you need something?" she asked him when he frowned she could feel her heart palpitate in her chest. He didn't answer, but came closer and bent down a bit. Temari flinched and prayed that he wouldn't do anything to her.
"Temari-chan, can I ask you a question?"
Whoa, wait a second- "Temari-chan"? Gaara had never called her Temari-chan´, let alone any term of endearment. Temari was even more irritated now. But she shook off the doubts and answered him.
"Of course you can."
She offered him a seat across from her and he sat down. He was silent for some time and Temari looked at him with anticipation. Finally, he spoke.
"Temari, there really aren't any similarities between us, are they? I mean... are we really siblings?" he asked and frowned again.
So that's what it was. Temari sighed. There had been many rumours floating around in Sunagakure whether Gaara was really born from the same woman who had given birth to Temari and Kankurou. Of course, those rumours were stupid and unfounded, but people had whispered it to each other while Gaara still had been young. And children hear everything, even if they don't want to...
Temari smiled gently at Gaara and cleared her throat before she answered.
"Gaara, why are you suddenly questioning our blood-relationship?" she asked him. Gaara looked on the table top and closed his eyes for a moment.
"Admit it, Temari, we don't look like siblings. Just look at us; I've got red hair, you got blonde hair. If we really were siblings you would at least be sandy-haired," Gaara shook his head.
"Gaara..." Temari answered, "that's completely wrong. Just because our father had red hair doesn't mean that everyone in the family has to have red hair!"
Gaara raised an eyebrow and looked at Temari as if he didn't believe her.
"Look," she continued, "what you're trying to say is, we're not sibling because we have different hair colours?"
Gaara nodded slowly. "It's genetics, Temari. Normally, this wouldn't make any sense. Red is a dominant hair colour- if we really were siblings, we all would have red hair, not only me."
Temari shook her head slowly and continued to look at him. "No, it doesn't have to be that way. Blonde might be a recessive hair colour, but there are many genetic factors which could have influenced our final hair colour. Just imagine that in the past generations they all maybe had blonde hair, and then finally, there's our father with red hair and because of that we have someone who has red hair, someone who still has the blonde hair, because those genes just didn't want to go down and one person who's got a mixture of both."
Temari grinned uneasily and Gaara looked at her as if she had completely lost her mind.
"Or something like it. Well, I've never really been good at explaining human genetics, so…"
Her brother just wouldn't believe her; Temari could see that clearly in his face. The way he looked down and sighed from time to time, that Gaara had the feeling of not belonging to that family. Temari wanted to prove him that he really was her brother, and not a "cuckoo's child".
"See Gaara, if we're not siblings, why do we all have green eyes?" she asked him.
Gaara looked at her with a surprised look on his face.
"We do?" he asked.
Temari couldn't believe it. Gaara had never noticed this before? Temari nodded boisterously, pulled her left eyelid down a bit, and leaned over the table so that Gaara could see her eye colour clearly. He inspected her eye and Temari smiled at him gently. When she finally leaned back and looked at him with her face cupped in her hands, he answered with a quiet "you're right."
"And Kankurou has the same eye colour. I know, it's pretty difficult to perceive with all the make-up on his face, but yes, his eyes are the same colour as our eyes," she said, and realised that Gaara chuckled at her remark.
"What about mother and father? Did they also have green eyes?" he asked ,and Temari nodded instantly, jumped up from her seat and rushed to the bookshelf, as this was the place where they had stored the photo albums. She pulled a big leather album out of the shelf and went back to the coffee table.
With a loud "thump" she put the album on the table and sat down again. Temari opened it and turned the pages, until she found what she was searching for. She pulled a photo out and put it on the table right in front of Gaara. It was a photo of their parent's wedding. Gaara had never seen one of these before, so he was quite taken aback. There was a look on his face Temari couldn´t quite place, but it was somehow a mixture of sadness, longing and amazement. Amazement because of the distinct resemblance to both his father and mother, longing because of the picture perfect "family" that was portrayed on the wedding photo, and sadness, because Gaara had never experienced this kind of love and safety.
Temari looked worried at him and watched him closely. He put his hand on the photograph and passed it slowly over the faces of his mother and father. Temari decided that she had to say something to take her brother's mind off of his pain.
"You see? They both have green eyes. Isn't that proof enough?" she asked him and realised that her voice was shaking a little bit. Gaara simply nodded and continued to stare at the photograph.
"I'm... I'm sorry, Gaara. I shouldn't have shown you this photo," she said softly, but Gaara shook his head.
"No, Temari, its okay... it's just that I've never seen it before," Temari sighed and leafed through the photo album.
"Of course you haven't seen it before; I had to hide it away from father," she said and Gaara looked at her with bewilderment.
"You hid it? Why?" he asked.
"Well, after our mother's death, father wanted everything to disappear that reminded him of her. He burnt clothes and letters and pictures, but I loved this photo so much because mother has shown it to me so often when I was younger, so I didn't want it to be burned by him. I put it in a box and hid it under my bed. Father never found it again and apparently forgot that it existed. Well, some years later I put it in this album right behind a photograph of me as a baby," she explained.
"So that's why..." Gaara mumbled. Then he looked up again and frowned again. "And what about our blood types? We have different kinds of blood types, the three of us."
Temari was caught off-guard and looked at him with a surprised look on her face. "Our blood types?" she asked.
"Yes, I've got the blood type 'AB', you've got 'O' and Kankurou has 'B'. Isn't that a little bit too different for siblings?" he explained.
Temari jumped up again and went to the same bookshelf, from which she had fetched the photo album, and pulled a book about biology out. She searched for the right page and went back to the table to put the book down in front of Gaara. Then she sat down right next to him.
"Look, I know it sounds strange that we have different blood types, but that's pretty normal. It rarely happens that siblings have the same blood type. This only happens for sure if the parents have both blood type 'O'. Otherwise there are many probabilities,"
Her index finger rested on the column which said "Parent's blood type" and passed over to the line 'A' and 'B'.
"Mother had the blood type 'A' and father had 'B', just like Kankurou. Now look, it says here: 'If the parents have the blood type 'A' and 'B' the only possible blood types of the children are 'A', 'B', 'AB' and 'O'. You see? We are siblings! Do you still have doubts about it?"
Gaara didn't reply and remained silent. When he finally answered, Temari winced, because his voice was full of pain, sorrow and fear.
"If we really are siblings, and even the genetics say, that we are, why...why do I somehow have the feeling that I don't belong to this family?"
Never before had Temari seen her younger brother in such a state of despair, and suddenly she felt an even greater urge to soothe Gaara and show him that she truly cared for him.
"Gaara., I know that what you experienced within this family hurt your feelings deeply and shattered your trust in other people. I admit that I've never truly been like a sister to you but, that was because I was afraid of you… or rather afraid of Shukaku inside you," she answered and the guilt was clearly shown in her eyes.
"I understand that you must have some big doubts about our blood-relationship because you were never really treated as a brother or son or anything like it. But tell me, Gaara, if you're not my real little brother then how..." she paused, inhaled and sighed deeply before she continued.
"How come that I constantly worry about you when you're fighting? How come that I sometimes at night, when I can't sleep, take out some of your baby photos, look at them and go crazy because you were such a cute baby? And how come, if you're not my brother... that I'm so damn proud of you?" she asked Gaara and smiled at him softly.
"You´re…you're proud... of me?" he asked, pronouncing each word carefully, as if to force them out. Temari nodded.
"Yes, I'm proud of you. I'm also proud of Kankurou, and that I'm a member of this family but... I'm especially proud of you, Gaara," she answered.
"But why?" Gaara asked. There was no reason for Temari to be proud of him. Especially when he thought of all the things he's said and done to her.
"I never once thought of you guys as siblings."
"Get out of my way, Temari!"
"Get in my way and I'll kill you!"
He had said horrible things and hurt his sister shortly before his fight against Uzumaki Naruto, but still she was still proud of him? Gaara couldn't believe it.
Temari smiled and nodded again. "Yes, I am Gaara. You're my brother and a Shinobi of Sunagakure. I'm really proud of you." she answered, meaning it as a final statement.
She got up from her seat, put her cup in the sink and started to wash it up. Gaara also got up from his seat and followed her but didn't say anything. He still was too bewildered by the fact that his older sister was proud of him.
Finally, he decided to go upstairs into his room and try to sleep a little bit more; to try and supress Shukaku´s rage even longer. But before he left, he turned around for the last time.
"Temari, thank you." he said and smiled for the first time of the whole day. Temari turned off the tap and looked at him with another smile forming on her lips. Then she came closer and hugged Gaara gently; it was Gaara's first hug in his life.
"I love you, little brother," she said and was completely astonished when Gaara hugged her back hesitantly and answered "I love you too, Temari."
Temari let go of him and softly caressed his left cheek before he turned around and went back to his room.
And while Temari continued to look at the door of Gaara's room, she thought that her brother had definitely started to change for the better. Finally they could start being the family Gaara, Temari and of course Kankurou had always dreamed of.