.

Kankurou wasn't one to stand on a street corner and shout his message. He'd never handed out fliers; he'd never felt the need to put up posters. He had a better method.

He found a restaurant with a reasonable amount of people. Too few and word wouldn't spread fast enough; too many and his tale would be drowned out by the background noise. He sat; he made small talk with his waitress. He kept from smiling when she asked him how his family was doing—being known had its advantages.

Temari was doing fine, he told her, but Gaara . . . Well, Gaara might have an actual girlfriend. But the situation was a little complicated, and he wasn't sure that any of them knew what to make of it . . .

The people to either side of his table were listening now, their curiosity piqued.

His waitress, a young woman of about his age, shot a calculating look at the rest of the tables and then sat down across from him. "Try me."

Well, he told her, Gaara'd been spending a lot of time with the kunoichi from Leaf. Yes, that one, with the pink hair; the one that'd saved Kankurou's life a couple years before. And she was a refugee.

The next row of tables had started to listen; the closest ring's people were starting to surreptitiously turn in his direction. Kankurou took note and pitched his voice to carry.

He asked his waitress if she remembered that drawn-out, awful mess Leaf'd had with the last Uchiha. Yeah, that one. Sasuke and Leaf both wanted a bevy of little Uchiha children—and they wanted Sakura to come back to Leaf and get started bearing them. Needless to say, Sakura wasn't taking this well. And since everyone here knew what could happen in that kind of situation . . .

There was some shifting and murmuring from a nearby table; the Fourth Kazekage's decisions regarding his wife's body hadn't been especially popular even before Gaara was old enough to start maiming people.

So yeah, Kankurou told them, Gaara'd taken it personally, and made a point of putting Sakura under his personal protection. Not that Kankurou could blame him, after what'd been done to their mother . . .

Kankurou trailed off, the connection that'd previously only been drifting around in the back of his mind suddenly making its way to the forefront. Gaara's hatred for their father, for Sasuke; how, deep in psychosis, Gaara'd shown a vast and terrible attachment to the mother he'd never known.

He shook it away just as quickly, telling himself that Gaara finding someone he got along with didn't necessarily have to have some awful hidden implications.

"And they seem to like each other," he finished, having lost his momentum.

"The Kazekage's human," said the guy at the table behind him, and returned to his meal. "Nothing unduly complicated about that."

Another patron cut his eyes at the people paying attention, then voiced his opinion. "Every ninja at Sand has had someone we care about die—and too many of us have been there to see it. Every one of us has spent hours, even days thinking of how we'd save them, how we'd fix things so they'd make it out alive. Gaara's getting a chance to actually do that. I don't think anyone here could fault him for it."

"And if they're making each other happy," his waitress smiled, "then let them be happy."

Kankurou nodded, satisfied yet still unsettled. He thanked the people there for helping him, paid, and headed out. In an hour or so he'd have a loud and public discussion with some friends in another part of Sand; after that, he'd have lunch out with his old instructor Baki; after that, he'd find a way to work the story into conversation in the marketplace. Somewhere along the line he'd find time to talk to Temari, too.

But rumor set loose to run its own way has a colorful habit of mutating. A good number of people got Kankurou's original message; a sizable number also believed Gaara was shielding the Leaf-nin from a proverbial and certain fate worse than death. Another sprouted and went creeping off on its own, spawned by the hug and their early morning walks: Despite any of Kankurou's efforts, word soon had it that Gaara'd seduced the Hokage's apprentice in order to bring her medical knowledge to Sand. People on the street that afternoon patted Gaara on the shoulder, congratulatory. He did his best to not look bewildered. A maybe-possibly relationship was one thing—but he hadn't intended any of it to be a seduction.

Now he wondered if he should.

He'd already known if he kept Sakura, if he gave her a place in Sand, then she wouldn't go back. It was really the only way to be certain she wouldn't be forced or tricked or pressured into doing anything with the Uchiha. But if she was there as more than just one of his ninjas . . . The more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea. It positively bubbled, gleeful: him stealing and sheltering Sasuke's chosen; Sakura turning to face him and not turning back; her presence in his city, in his hospital, at his side as they faced the morning sunrise. His, his, his.

There was only one problem. He had no idea how to properly seduce anyone.

One of the street merchants helped, sidling up to him and casually, offhandedly saying, "They like when you give them flowers."

Gaara purchased a fistful of flowers, chosen by scent and color; he put the small bouquet in one of Temari's water glasses and left them at Sakura's door. On his way out of Temari's place he mentally praised himself for this display of normalcy. Maybe seduction wouldn't be so hard after all.

ooo

Sakura found the flowers on the floor by her room, their stems tied together with a red ribbon. Though they had no note, she knew who'd brought them. She also guessed Gaara wasn't like her and had never learned to create messages from flowers' meanings—because otherwise the bundle in her hands said he was a shy young girl, he thought of her like a sibling, he had impure thoughts about his siblings, and he was very sorry for the death in her family.

Temari'd seen a lot of kunoichi get presents from their significant others; she'd seen dozens of reactions. But she'd never seen someone cover their mouth with their hand to muffle an outright guffaw.

"You okay?" she asked.

"Yeah, it's just . . ." Sakura's shoulders shook with repressed mirth. "He really is new at this, isn't he?"

"Yeah. About that . . . You're both okay with this?"

"We are. We're . . . trying to not let it really affect things between us." The Leaf-nin looked at the flowers again and added, "Much." It was confusing, she told Temari: No matter what she and Gaara had agreed, it seemed like everyone around them wanted to blow things out of proportion. Sakura couldn't figure out what the big deal was. They liked each other and might go out sometime. It wasn't like they were eloping. But a half a dozen fellow medics had asked her if she'd be seeing the Kazekage that night—and she hadn't gotten the gist of their queries until after she'd gone on about how Gaara was interesting, and intelligent, and compassionate, and had even helped her with a medical technique she'd been working on.

And endearing, she silently added. She wasn't sure if it was quite right to call the Kazekage endearing, but the blooming and mangled messages in her hands almost mandated it.

Temari tried to clarify Sand's interest: The Kazekage behaving strangely wasn't particularly noteworthy. The Kazekage's first (and very public) attempt at courting, though, most certainly was.

"But . . . It can't just be simple, can it?"

Her worries mostly alleviated, Temari laughed. "I think this is as simple as it gets."

"Maybe." Sakura smiled as she brushed her fingertips over the flowers' petals, wondering.

If you hurt him, Temari thought, there is no place on this earth you can hide from us. But she didn't say it. She didn't want to mar the pair's interaction with any more threats.