…
Sakura curled up on the futon in Temari's guest room, exhausted from her trip and her endless internal debates. Temari'd assured her that she could stay there until she felt better able to decide what she wanted. And her stay didn't have to be something as dramatic as political asylum—at least, not if breathing room would do.
Temari hadn't told her how nothing escaped the Sand siblings' trap once Gaara got a hold of it. She didn't believe Sakura needed to hear that.
So Sakura waited, concentrating on her breathing rather than the threat of a loveless marriage for the sake of breeding, the possibility of a string of too-close pregnancies in order to better preserve the Uchiha line, or the strong likelihood that Leaf's authority figures would spend all their waking moments pressuring her to accept Sasuke's offer. She tossed and turned, finally dozing off—and slept for less than three hours before the nightmares caught up with her.
She dreamed of herself, there: empty-eyed and wandering the streets of Sand, one hand on her gravid belly, knowing that what she carried would soon kill her. Knowing she was being shadowed by her husband's hired shinobi; that they would appear and stop her should she try to do anything, anything to change her situation. Knowing she fed her own hate and fear and desperation into her unborn child, and that their influx via her bloodstream would alter it forever.
In her dream, she knew the baby already, knew his face, his eyes, his red hair and strangely unblemished forehead. She looked and saw and knew the mark would come. And the promised result of her own inability to deny her husband, to deny Sand's leaders' talk of the greater good, and even to deny this pregnancy . . . would be a little unloved child who would go on to tattoo himself with that which he craved most—and then unleash hell upon everyone who would deny him this craving.
Sakura woke suddenly, sweat-damp clothing clinging to her skin, her heartbeat pounding in her throat—and rather than brave a return to her dreams, opened a window to brave the desert night's chill instead.
She found Gaara waiting there, standing on a rooftop's corner, close enough to watch her building yet far enough away that it seemed unobtrusive. She found herself unsurprised . . . then grateful.
Gaara said nothing when she approached him; he didn't offer an explanation for his proximity or let her know the number of times his nocturnal travels had led him in circles around her building. He only offered a shoulder, for when her worries and fears caught up with her and she started to tremble. He didn't know how she felt; he couldn't begin to understand. But he could be there, be strong, be her shield—and if later she chose to talk, he told himself, he could listen. This, at least, was something he knew how to do.
If she left his shoulder damp, he said nothing—nor would he.
As time wore on and she found herself against him for the warmth as much as the support, Sakura pulled herself from the endless circle of "But if I, but if I, but if I—" to look more closely at her company. She could tell him everything—or apologize profusely for taking up his watch by crying all over him. But she froze up, worried and ashamed; she didn't know him that well . . .
"It'll be okay," he told her, his first words of the evening. And strengthened by his confidence, she let herself relax and her mind go blank.
Everything would prove a colossal order, one she doubted Sand as a whole could fill—but for now, this was what she needed: someone to hold her and tell her things would be all right.
Gaara found relief in her tears, though, and breathing room with her hands gripping his clothing and her cheek against his shoulder. A woman that upset about a choice to be made wouldn't choose lightly, one with this many worries had to recognize the wrongness of her situation, and one who'd seen the consequences of this type of union couldn't possibly want to enter it herself. He'd reviewed her mission papers; she'd have two more days to decide before her team returned to Leaf. He had two days, then, to find a way to convince her away from her childhood dream and what might or might not be a truncated life of anguish.
He'd done more impossible things, at least.