There's still an epilogue so no worries!

CHAPTER 9

Kiba, Shino and Hinata led them towards a narrowing tunnel. They paused when they heard echoing voices, most of them yelling and excited. The hair on the back of Shikamaru's neck stood up at two piercing screams.

The room beyond the tunnel was lit so the path was covered in shadows. Shikamaru was more then happy to stop and wait there. Whoever it was talking couldn't be seen and he had learned the hard way to never leap into a situation he couldn't see. That was, of course, what made him prefer deskwork to fieldwork most days.

"Naruto and Gaara are through there," Kiba said, no longer trying to be quiet. His nose twitched. "There are more people but no scent I recognize."

They were crowded in the tunnel, a ball of energy that stood eerily still in waiting. Shikamaru found himself leaning on the stonewall but whether it was to hold himself back or to hold himself up he wasn't sure.

"None of them are a threat," Hinata added, her usually plain face bugling with the ugly veins of the Byakugan.

"Then why is Naruto still in there?" Sasuke looked frustrated. Suddenly Hinata stiffened.

"There's a large juutsu in progress," she said urgently. "We need to get in there now!" Her voice had a sense of urgency and forcefulness that was out of place but no one was going to question her on it.

"We need a plan," Shikamaru countered. He thought for moment, knowing full well that the rest of the team was strung too tight to be waiting. "Kakashi, Sasuke first. Hinata and Kiba second, find the kids. In and out. Shino start mapping the fastest way back."

They all moved before he finished speaking and he found himself moving with them. It would have been frightening how quickly his body adapted to the change in pace if his blood wasn't pounding so loud in his ears.

There were maybe a dozen people in the room, Shikamaru counted as he hung by the wall and the others moved ahead of him. The light was coming from two fading seals drawing on the ground and a few thin lights strung around the room. The rest was hidden in the dark but there was enough to see the shocked looks, identical on every washed out face.

Kakashi and Sasuke moved with the grace of a well-practiced team and quickly rounded up the white coated people along a wall. The civilians were obviously surprised that anyone would interrupt them and ran with little screams away from Sasuke and his narrowed red eyes. Shikamaru glanced at Hinata and Kiba as they paused then moved to jump to the second story balcony winding around the room. For split second Shikamaru felt out of place with nothing for him to do. Then Kakashi knelt by two prone bodies on the floor and he forgot about himself.

Naruto and Gaara didn't respond when Shikamaru and Kakashi hoisted them up off the ground and onto their backs. Shikamaru had never seen Naruto so pale. The group of civilians was babbling as Sasuke held them in place with a look that promised pain to the first that moved.

Kakashi lifted his eye cover for a second and looked intently at the seals.

"Anything you recognize?" Sasuke asked, his voice echoing too loudly.

Kakashi covered his eye again. He stared hard at the ground with his natural eye and didn't say anything.

"What is the meaning of this?" it was the balding greasy man Shikamaru recognized from so long ago. "Who are you people?"

"We are Konoha ninja," Sasuke said without any hesitation and with a hard edge. "We are on a rescue mission. Stay along the wall."

"Konoha ninja?" the man stepped away from the cowering group and Sasuke's fingers twitched. "A rescue mission? I don't understand. We submitted our report on time and funding was approved."

At that Kakashi and Sasuke glanced over at Shikamaru. The whimpering of the other people quieted and it was like someone had turned a spotlight on him. Shikamaru hated spotlights.

"We didn't approve the capture and detainment of our citizens," Shikamaru pointed out and adjusted his grip on Naruto. "We will send a full copy of our mission statement and outcome to you and expect our funding to be cut."

"I don't understand," the man repeated. His watery eyes were open wide and he gaped, stepping towards Shikamaru until Sasuke shoved him hard back to the wall. His students moved away from him but the man was staring too hard at Shikamaru to really notice. "We were trying to fix them. They were sick!"

Shikamaru paled a little. "If you approach them again the orders will be to treat you and your people like enemies. We will be pulling our supporting troops out. Await the Hokage's messenger."

The lock was nothing next to Kiba who cut through it like butter with his claw. The chains met the same fate but the shackles would have to be removed later. Hinata healed the cut to Hanako's face without a word and she muttered her thanks.

Once united, they turned to leave when Kaida and Musad suddenly dashed to pick up two objects lying in the middle of the seals.

No one spoke until Shino led them safely out of the facility and they joined Sakura, Chouji and Ino. The rain had grown heavier and thunder rumbled almost constantly overhead.

"Are they okay?" Sakura's hands hovered a few inches away from Naruto shoulder, unsure whether to touch him or not. Shikamaru grunted and shifted him.

"Back to the village first," Shikamaru said. As they took to the trees Hanako fell behind to grab a sack dangling from a branch. She pulled two oiled blankets out and the kids forcibly wrapped Naruto and Gaara in them. Finally, they were on their way, leaving no tracks behind as they jumped lightly from branch to branch.

………………………………………………………….

Naruto slid open the door, tired, and pocketed his key. It had been a long day of talking to the elders, filling out reports for the mission, being lectured by Tsunade, filling out more reports on passing the genin, filling out even more reports for his health insurance, now with Gaara added on, before finally someone told him to go home.

Gaara wasn't in the room but that didn't worry Naruto; the window was open and that was a sure sign the other boy was on the roof. He didn't blame him. He might not personally remember the time they spent captive but he certainly hated walls right now. Still, it had only been a few short days ago that Naruto had come home to discover him missing. If Gaara was allowed to be weary of walls then Naruto was allowed to be nervous about him being out of his sight.

He climbed to the roof and Gaara was lying there on his back with his eyes closed. He opened them when Naruto approached but didn't attempt to move as Naruto settled down next to him.

The storm from before had dissipated when they arrived back at the village those few days ago. Sakura had filled Naruto in when he had finally woken up that the rain stopped the moment they crossed the doorway into the hospital.

Naruto and the kids checked out fine, but Gaara remained in the hospital, in a private room, for two days before regaining consciousness. Temari, Kankurou and a bored looking chuunin named Kusai had arrived the next day. Worried about their brother, the two siblings were in and out of the room constantly. Naruto managed to put off answering to the bureaucratic duty but they had to work quickly to compile a realistic but fake mission report. Sand's presence at the mission was crucial. On paper it had been a mission to rescue a captured ally shinobi, Gaara, with Naruto's presence a supporting team member. Without Sand along for the mission the reasoning for the full compliment of chuunin and jounin would have never held up against the conservative members.

The day after the mission Ino and Shino left for the jounin tests taking place on the far border of Sand, a three week journey away from Konoha. Shikamaru went with them, citing a need for personal time before a breakdown. It was sudden but no one objected. For the moment Temari, Kankurou and Kusai were staying in Shikamaru and Ino's empty apartment.

Before he left Shikamaru stopped by Gaara's room where Naruto was sitting in a vigil.

"I just came to say," Shikamaru's arms were crossed and he couldn't seem to look at Naruto in the eye. "I guess I came to apologize."

"For what?" Naruto asked confused.

Shikamaru looked at the ceiling then to the ground. "For not realising what the facility was doing sooner. I should have caught that. Especially after Gaara was captured."

"Oh," Naruto shrugged. "That. Don't both yourself over it."

Shikamaru sighed. "You don't get it."

"Get what?"

"I'm trying to set things right before I leave."

"Leave?" Naruto jumped up and looked alarmed. "To where? Why? You can't leave! No matter how bad you feel that's no reason to run away!"

Shikamaru was a little taken back that Naruto was so angry. He sighed; this whole thing was getting too troublesome. He should have just written a note.

"I just need some time off," he replied. "This mistake just made it clear I look at papers too long."

"Oh," Naruto sat back down with his arms crossed and his contemplating look. Shikamaru hated that look. It normally meant that Naruto would either say something very insightful or very stupid. Shikamaru wasn't sure he was up for either right now.

"Have fun then," he finally settled on. Surprised, Shikamaru just nodded and turned to leave.

"Oh, and Shikamaru?"

Shikamaru's shoulders tensed as he waited for whatever Naruto was going to say, good or bad.

"Thanks," it was quiet and had a hint of a smile behind it. Shikamaru looked cautiously over his shoulder but Naruto just grinned and leaned back to prop his feet on Gaara's bed. Shikamaru thought back to the night Naruto had run away from his apartment, bent on rescuing Gaara that night on his own if need be. He smiled a bit.

Naruto tended to care for everyone around him whether or not they wanted it. All of that caring for others was a bit of a make up for the lack of support he had when he was little. Naruto had done all of that for other people, because he knew they needed it. But that night Shikamaru saw that this time it was Naruto who needed someone else. All his life Naruto had seemed content just to have people acknowledge him. He had never expressed any need for one special person, one person he needed just as much as they needed him. Shikamaru was glad that despite all the trouble, all the paperwork and all the guilt he had a part, a physical part, in giving back to the boy that had changed so many lives.

"You're welcome," Shikamaru smiled back.

"And don't worry, if you knock up Ino while you're gone I can baby sit now!"

When Gaara had woken up he was adamant in recovering in the apartment and not the hospital. The staff was all too happy to have him leave so a reluctant Tsunade released him and Naruto hovered over like him a mother hen as they walked home. Gaara had taken one look around the apartment and sighed. He relaxed in a way Naruto didn't know he could, then he took off his sandals and stumbled to the bedroom.

Naruto had been on edge as he followed him. Was he supposed to kiss Gaara goodnight? Should they hug or something? But Gaara, surprisingly, was asleep almost before he crawled into the futon and Naruto just left the issue alone.

Even now, this was the first real chance they had together and Naruto was starting to feel very uncomfortable.

What was he supposed to do with his hands? Gaara had his tucked under his head like a pillow so Naruto tried to do that as he stiffly laid back but knocked elbows with Gaara. So he tried to use them to prop himself up. Then his palms slid on the tiles and he sat up again, twirling his thumbs in his lap. Should be start or should Gaara? Should they talk? Or should he just ignore it for now? Did Gaara regret it? What was it?

He opened his mouth then shut it again half a dozen times before Gaara got annoyed.

"Stop thinking so loud."

"Sorry," Naruto muttered. It made the silence more awkward. Finally, Naruto couldn't take it. "Do you want something to eat?"

Gaara shrugged but he took that as a yes and they climbed back into the apartment. Gaara sat on a stool to stay out of the way while Naruto poked around the fridge trying to find a meal. The vegetables were still fresh from when Kaida had brought them back but there was no meat in the house and Naruto didn't want to leave now. The past few days had been so busy that he didn't have a chance to do any sort of the work needed to maintain a kitchen so with a grin he reached into one of the cupboards and pulled out the last two bowls of instant ramen. A few minutes later they were sitting side by side with Naruto eagerly watching the clock for the three minutes to be over.

"Naruto," Gaara said then stopped. It was enough for Naruto to drag his eyes away from the clock and putting Gaara on the spot until he continued. He squirmed for a moment. "What-"

"-do I think of you?" Naruto finished for him and Gaara scowled. Naruto laughed and shrugged. "Hey, I've been asked that a lot lately."

Gaara shot him a look that Naruto chose to interpret as I'm-glad-you-have-put-so-much-time-and-thought-into-it then what it probably meant which was who-the-hell-else-has-been-asking-you-that!

"And your answer is?"

This conversation felt like it had been a long time in the making but for once Naruto was ready for it.

"That I like you," Naruto said with all the confidence he usually had. "And that I like you being here. I missed you."

"Missed me?" it was like Gaara had never heard someone say that about him before. His eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Why?"

The question didn't faze Naruto at all. He opened his ramen and started to stir. "Because I like you," he repeated. "I just do."

Gaara looked at him with a haunted look. Naruto wasn't so sure that the ghosts of their pasts weren't hovering around the room.

"But you don't remember what I was like."

Naruto couldn't help but laugh and it was like the darkness shrouding their conversation disappeared. A burst of light in the dark and it made Gaara lose his desperation and scowl.

"I didn't mean to be funny."

"I know, I know," Naruto hooked his ankles on his stool legs and leaned towards Gaara. Gaara dropped his chopsticks in surprise and one rolled onto the floor. "But I did and I want to again," Naruto didn't stop grinning and he reached up and cupped Gaara's cheek with one hand. The other rested on the edge of the counter as he leaned beyond his stool and solidly pressed his lips to Gaara's.

The hesitation and the questions that had hovered over him were gone like the ghosts and after a moment Gaara relaxed into him.

When he finally pulled away Gaara reached up with a flash and grabbed his shirt to keep him off balance. The scowl was gone and a smirk took it's place. Naruto knew he was grinning like a moron but he knew deep down that it had been a long time since he had seen that smirk and it made him happy in a way he had forgotten he could be.

"So?" Naruto wagged his eyebrows comically. "What do you think of me?"

There was a brief pause before Gaara pulled him close again and breathed against his lips, "Moron."

Over the next few days Gaara was hit with the same bureaucracy and paperwork Naruto had, plus several extra departments and forms he had never heard of before. The Department of Immigration. A form to accept a co-allegiance position between Sand and Konoha. An application to the Konoha Ninja union. A co-lease for Naruto's apartment. A job application for Tsunade. Several scrolls and books on 'Life of the Konoha Ninja', 'Culture Shock and You' and finally, the most inevitable one 'Life Beyond Juutsu'.

"We still aren't sure what to do with those teapots," Tsunade announced when they sat with her in her office. The empty one across the hall had been occupied by two chuunin who had taken over Shikamaru's old job of correcting and filing mission reports. Tsunade was now forced to handle a lot of the incoming letters but had delegated lower mission assignments and such to other people. "Kakashi determined that they were part of a extraction and binding seal but the ninja who wrote it was killed during your escapade," she looked pointedly at Naruto. "This is where I have to ask two a very important question."

"Yeah, yeah," Naruto rolled his eyes theatrically.

"Did the seal work? Are the demons," she paused. "Gone?"

Gaara and Naruto exchanged a glance before Gaara answered. "We can't tell."

"What do you mean you can't tell?" she said in a disbelieving voice.

"I mean we can't tell," Naruto grumbled. "Kyuubi and I don't exactly have regular heart to hearts! I think they did something screwy with it even before they tried to take it out. Something like Gaara's new seal. When I tried to use the demon to help me to get Gaara out I couldn't reach it. It was like something new had blocked it and I can't see past that."

Gaara nodded. "What ever they did to us before is still affecting us now."

Tsunade sighed and rubbed her temples. "So they are no longer a threat either way?"

"Well it might happen one day that the walls will break down," Naruto said. "Or if we opened the teapots and checked."

"I'm not going to release a demon into the world just to check," she pulled a face. "Either way this mission is highly classified. No one needs to know." Leaning back and predicting a very big headache she waved them out of her office.

So the teapots sat ominously on the top shelf of their cupboard surrounded by the strongest seals they could get.

The new teacher jounin for the genin, one Akai Hiiro, had arrived back from a deep mission in the Tea Country. He was old, older then Naruto at any rate, and listened gravely over tea as Naruto explained the genin's unofficial experience.

"Good, good," he stroked the thin, peppering beard. He had a long scar over his eye and squinted in that one more then the other. Naruto found it a little distracting. "Loyalty at an early age."

"Uh yeah," Naruto tore his eyes away from the scar. "Kaida – the blonde one- she's a little complicated but," he grinned, "she's there when you need her."

"And Hanako, the leader," Hiiro took another sip from his bowl. He was using the red one with the delicate painted flower. "It will be odd having two females on the team. Every one I have worked with before they've balanced two males with a female."

"It works well," Naruto insisted. "Hanako and Musad compliment each other well, and he and Blondie have lived together for a while now. They all know each other. It's not like a regular genin team."

"I can see that," he replied thoughtfully and drained the last of the green tea powder. He left shortly after that and Naruto couldn't help but feel a bit regretful as he shut the door. One day it would be nice to have a team of his own. A team like he, Sasuke, Sakura and Kakashi had been. But first that meant becoming a jounin and the next test wasn't for another six months.

Gaara was out so he had the apartment to himself. He put the tea in the sink and left it there. Gaara would be annoyed later but he just couldn't work up the enthusiasm to wash dishes now.

Without kyuubi on hand it would be different now to succeed where he wanted too. He had seen the world. He had fallen in love with other villages, other ways of life. Even the person he wanted to spend the rest of his life with was alien to the place he called home. He felt loyal to Konoha but he wasn't sure he felt the same need to embrace every aspect of the life as he had before.

Suddenly a thought struck him. He had first wanted to become Hokage to force people to acknowledge him. He had wanted to change the village. Just because he had gotten used to sliding in and out of cultures and customs and found his own a bit more odd then others now didn't mean that the Hokage was a job just to maintain the village. It was a job to guide it and change it and make it better.

It would be harder with Kyuubi to get him out of tight corner but he wasn't Uzumaki Naruto for nothing. It would just be a little harder now. He snorted. It was ironic. All that time he had spent soul searching and he ended up at the same damn conclusion. Still, he had seen the world and he wanted to be a major part of that. Hokage was the first step.

The door opened and Gaara kicked his sandals off with a bit of venom.

"Temari and Kakurou finally left," Gaara was getting better at the small talk. Months of living in extreme close quarters with another person had forced his people skills to radically change but he was still only good at them with Naruto. It was a relief to have his brother and sister gone.

"Hey Gaara," Naruto sat on a stool as Gaara stepped into the apartment. "Guess what?"

Gaara looked at him and sensed something was different. He stopped wearily, unsure if Naruto was going to pull a prank on him or tell him a very important piece of news he wasn't going to like. He glanced subtly around for trap wires. "What?"

"I'm going to become Hokage."

"Is that all?"

"Is that all? Gaara, I just decided what I wanted to do with my life!"

"You've been saying that since you were twelve."

"But I'm serious now!"

"… you seemed pretty serious then too."

"I'm being practical now!"

"…"

And Naruto finally saw just what had gone on between then for the months they must have been locked up and he grinned when he realised that it was exactly what he had searched the world for.