DISCLAIMER: I own none of the characters except for Ai, the little dog. she's so cute in my mind...

Gaara sighed and watched Kankuro as he ran around the house chasing Ai and yelling at Gaara when he passed. Temari was sitting on a chair watching them and found their antics hilarious. She knew Gaara probably found this funny too and wished he would just laugh...but of course he wouldn't. There was no use in wishing it, ne?

"You damn dog get back here! Gaara I'm going to get you for this!" Kankuro shouted as he ran by. Ai was bounding ahead looking very happy, she almost seemed to be smiling, similar to Akamaru.

"You can try," Gaara muttered to his brother.

Temari smiled at her 'family' and the new addition. 'I'm glad I found little Ai,' she thought.

"Pretty soon this giant rat is going to do something to piss you off, Gaara," Kankuro said as he ran by this time in the opposite direction. "You watch! And then Temari is going to have to fight for her aiko inu here!"

Temari sighed and closed her eyes. "Kankuro..." she started. But her brother ignored her and kept chasing after the little dog. Finally Kankuro grabbed the dog and held it by the scruff of it's neck. Looking around, he noticed Gaara wasn't anywhere to be found. When he finally did find him, he was sitting on the floor and staring at the wall, not paying any attention to his siblings. So Kankuro snuck up to Gaara's room, and put Ai in it. He shut the door and took off.

After about a minute, the poor dog got bored. She walked around, sniffing, and rolling at times on the sandy floor, and chased her tail but got bored of that so moved on to exploring.

Gaara noticed the dog hadn't made a sound in about two hours. "Temari," he called. "Where is that dog you found?"

Temari stuck her head into the room Gaara was in and said, "I don't know. But I noticed she's been pretty quiet..." She shrugged and pulled her head back into the room.

However, Gaara was still fairly suspicous. That dog had to be up to no good. He didn't know what that little rat was capable of, but it had to be capable of a lot. So he stood up and walked around slowly, looking carefully. He saw Kankuro sitting on his bed in his room and asked, "What did you do with that dog?""Nothing," Kankuro said innocently. "Why?"

"Because I can't find her," Gaara told him. "And you were the last to have her. That's why." He walked off again, searching around some more. As he passed his room, he picked up some faint scratching and whining noises. Noises that a dog would make.

"Oh Kami,"Gaara thought. He pushed the door open and looked around. The dog was buried in his closet, clothes on the ground, the dog's tail stuck high up in the air and it's head down. Gaara walked inside and found that his foot fell through a hole and he looked down: the dog had dug a three feet deep hole in his room.

"Temari," Gaara muttered. "TE-MA-RI!" he was shouting at that point. "YOUR DOG IS DEAD!" His sand roared up out of his gourd and rose in a half circle around Gaara. Ai looked up at the boy and it's eyes widened. It yelped loudly and took off out of the room just as the sand attacked the spot it had been sitting. The sand changed pace and followed after the dog. It was like water, smashing into walls and then falling to the ground and rushing forward in a great, powerful current. Ai was running for her life. Kankuro had come out of his room and saw Gaara attempting to kill the dog. He looked shocked for a moment, then guilty. Seeing his brother's face, Gaara knew it was Kankuro who had locked the dog in his room in the first place. Temari was standing in the middle of the living room, wondering what the noise was. Ai went racing past her and her head followed her, but when she turned back to face front, she saw Gaara's sand roaring by.

"GAARA!" she shrieked. "ONEGAI! DON'T!"

But the sand didn't stop. It just rushed forward with greater power. And Gaara came walking forward slowly after his sand, looking angry.

"Your dog," he muttered. "Your dog...go see what it did to my room..."

Temari blinked and ran forward. Gaara called after her warning her about the hole in his room. Her foot got trapped in it anyway. She was looking around his room and said, "Kami..." She pulled her foot out and ran out, found Ai cornered, and ran to her. Temari embraced the dog and closed her eyes, and the sand stopped.

"Please don't," she said again to Gaara, who was standing at the threshold of the kitchen where Ai had been cornered.

"Why?" Gaara asked. "The inu destroyed my room."

"Because, I found her, I don't even know if she's mind. Do it as a favor to your sister!"

Gaara sighed. "Fine. This time. But if she does it again...she's dead."

Temari nodded and said, "Okay. Arigatou."

Her brother walked away and she sighed and slumped against the wall, Ai quivering in her arms.