One more after this.
..
It wasn't until early the next afternoon that Naruto, with his shoulders slouched and hands stuffed in his pockets, fell into step at Gaara's side. "My ramen team found me this morning," he said. Gaara didn't voice protest; after a few seconds' pause, the blond continued. "They figured since I know about them that it'd be okay to talk to me. They talked about you, and maybe going back into the field, and about why they're not in the field now, and I . . ." And for the first time he saw them not as Sand-nin or even as ninjas, but as children. "And I realized what it would've meant—to all of them, and to you too—if Sasuke'd actually made you attack them."
Gaara stopped walking, faced his friend, and let himself drop the mask of seamless calm. He'd told what'd happened before, and he couldn't give Naruto any more words—not yet—so instead he gave the edges of what the ordeal had managed to take from him.
The Leaf-nin took in Gaara's expression, the Sand-nin's utter weariness and the scope of what it entailed, and sighed. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have tried to tell you how to handle him."
Gaara closed his eyes and nodded. Even the thought of apologizing for killing Sasuke turned his stomach—especially this soon after his own mental violation, and not while Sakura's renewed nightmares still kept her from a restful sleep. But he still knew how deeply Naruto'd cared for the man . . . so with effort, he offered the best he could. "Sakura said there were good times."
"Yeah. That's what makes it so hard." The blond grimaced. "I feel like I failed him—and after that, like I failed all of you. I should've seen it coming and could've stopped him—but if I'd given up on him, everything we went through for him would've all been for nothing, you know?"
Naruto knew most people would reassure him; part of him craved that reassurance. Instead Gaara said, "Remember what it feels like, for the next time—because there'll be a next time. People like us will always have to make hard calls. Sometimes we have to put the people we're responsible for ahead of people we care for, as well as ourselves. Sometimes we get to live with the consequences . . . Sometimes we die from them." He smiled sadly, without reproach. "The latter's the easier way out."
"It still sucks," Naruto grumbled.
"Yeah," the redhead agreed. "It does. But neither of us wanted the easy job."
Gaara'd accepted that Naruto'd become Hokage when they were twelve, with the same degree of certainty he ascribed to knowing the sun was bright and the sky was blue. At some point over the following years Naruto had realized Gaara talked to him like he was already there—though he remained unsure if it was more for Gaara's guidance or his own.
Naruto shot him an uncertain grin, then offered his hand; Gaara accepted and shook it without hesitation. There were some things Gaara'd experienced that he found too intolerable or hurtful to possibly ever deserve forgiveness . . . But something he could forgive was his friend saying something unintentionally cruel while upset.
The blond released him, stepped back, and looked around. "So, uh . . . Now what? Is all this over, then?"
"Not yet." And probably not for years. Gaara took a breath; Naruto, reading the tension in his posture, braced. "Leaf needs you, and soon. Shizune said the council members are circling the idea of deposing Tsunade—quietly, and not in a way that's easily proven, but enough to start trouble. You should be there before things come to a head. She said they're okay for now, but I think it's only because Leaf's waiting to find out if you and I killed each other. I haven't sent them anything since that afternoon."
Naruto imagined three more days of travel and swore to himself. "Can we stall them from here? I can . . ." He paused. "Do I have to write letters like you two? All stilted?"
"If you do, they'll think it's really me pretending to be you." Gaara cocked his head and looked at Naruto sidelong. "Unless that's how you want to play it."
"I write a handful of letters, you send them in no particular order?"
"Make at least one look like some kind of code."
The two grinned at each other with matched understanding.
"So, uh . . ." Naruto started to ask—then decided against it. "How's Sakura? You two seemed okay yesterday morning . . ."
Gaara scowled. "We need time. She's still having trouble sleeping, and . . ." And despite her determined physical presence, he could hardly think of having her in his bed without the images blending with those of her fighting for her life against him or trying to push him away.
But there were still some things Naruto didn't need to know.
Instead Gaara pointed. "A few streets that way was the first place my father sent a full team to try to kill me. I'd blocked most of it out—now I can't forget any of it."
The blond reached towards him; his hand hovered near Gaara's shoulder for a second, then landed and squeezed. "You've come back from worse, though," he said, with confidence.
"Yeah. Sakura's . . . She's helping." The words seemed hollow compared with what she was doing: Stalwartly refusing to flinch away or let him despair, while being strong and smart and stubborn enough to help prop him up when he needed it—even if he didn't understand some of her methods. Concern wrinkled his forehead as he turned to his friend again. "This morning she threatened to make me try to rationalize with a sleepy six-year-old."
The Leaf-nin frowned back. "Is that bad? It sounds bad."
"I don't know. I think so."
"You're in—" Naruto shook his head. "No, look at you, you don't even understand that you're in trouble. You're too happy about it for that."
Gaara smiled easier this time. "Maybe." But before, he'd been terrified telling Sakura he feared losing her would be guilting her into staying . . . Only to have her tell him she was still willing to work through this, as long as he was as well.
Naruto looked eastward, imagining the coming trip and what still needed finished. "I'll get my stuff together then, so I can . . ." He trailed off, thinking of what else he needed to bring back to Leaf; try as he might, he couldn't make himself directly ask if Gaara'd followed through on his promise to take care of Sasuke's body. "Is it done?"
Gaara understood anyway. "Yeah. Whenever you're ready."
They were silent for a few moments, each aware of how even in death, Sasuke managed to be a nearly tangible presence. Gaara caught himself wondering yet again if Naruto would try to fight him before accepting the box of ashes, or immediately after.
"I just . . ." Naruto's shoulders slumped again. "What else is gonna go wrong in the meantime? Y'know?"
Gaara nodded. The external variables left were smaller and less dire ones, but still sticky: Naruto needed returned in order to help with Leaf's stabilization, Leaf's council needed dealt with before they could do any more damage, Gaara needed to discuss what'd happened with the Hokage (as well as find the time and place to explain to her that he was doing right by Sakura), Sakura still needed to deal with her remaining business in Leaf—
All the little problems lined themselves up neatly, and he turned back to Naruto. "I have an idea. I've got a message to send—you get some rest. You look like you need it."
Naruto insisted he was fine; Gaara noted that he knew a little about looking tired. His friend slouched and scowled petulantly. "Is it that bad?"
The blond still certainly knew how to kick him right in the ego. Gaara shrugged it off, then jabbed back. "It's not good."
"I can keep up."
Gaara sighed heavily, dramatically. "People always say that . . . until they start to lose their eyebrows."
"Hey!" Naruto jerked to attention. "You told me last year it was from not eating right!"
"Did I?" The redhead smiled and looked skyward, as if trying to remember. "I must've been mistaken."
His friend's voice rose with pained betrayal. "I bought vegetables because of you!"
"You're welcome."
"Can't wait to get home," the Leaf-nin grumbled, mostly to himself.
"I'll see what I can do."
ooo
The letter arrived that afternoon, and sent Tsunade's council into a flurry of near-hysterical panic.
Two days ago Uchiha Sasuke made an attempt on my life, as well as on the lives of everyone in Sand. I killed him for it. Your village still has not denied sending him or directing his actions. We must meet at Leaf at the soonest possible time to discuss the future of our alliance.
The council circled through her office for the rest of the day, in pairs and trios and small groups. They hadn't expressly disavowed Sasuke's attack as that of a rogue missing-nin because they'd hoped to recover him (in one state or another) . . . but now that decision had come back to scourge them all. Leaf may have been slowly, comfortably outstripping Sand for years, but hadn't had to face off against the new Kazekage before—a man who, by all reports, was very likely the strongest ninja Sand had ever produced. And if Gaara had managed to eliminate one of Leaf's strongest ninjas and at very least nullified another? As well as stolen the Hokage's own student, and destroyed one of Leaf's oldest bloodlines? To say it didn't bode well was a hyperbolic understatement. And then there was how he hadn't wanted to meet on neutral ground; at this point Gaara had to know he could demand almost anything as compensation . . . But what if he just wanted the excuse to close distance? What if Gaara had taken Sasuke's attack as an excuse to finish what his father had started—
Tsunade, already sick of feeling old and unsteady and stretched far too thin, wanted nothing to do with any of her council or their worries. They insisted, and with no small sense of irony she watched them address her with the title they'd so recently been determined to strip from her. When they continued to fret—at her rather than to her, she realized—she informed them she'd already sent Sand an acceptance, and let herself feel bitter amusement when their anxiety spiked to a fever pitch.
She thanked them for their input and tried to send them, one by one, on their way. They came back en masse as night fell and followed her to her office with new concerns: what could Sakura have told Gaara about weaknesses in Leaf's defenses? And what would happen if the two of them coordinated his shields and her fists? The Sand siblings had made remarkable time over distance even when they were children; if they decided to strike, how much warning would Leaf get? And with Naruto's silence . . . It was one thing if Gaara'd beaten him, but if he'd flipped the blond's allegiance as well and brought him to fight against them all, Leaf would be well and truly—
Tsunade stood behind her desk and scanned the group—and facing them, was the only one to notice Naruto'd also entered the room. Silently, without looking at anyone else, the blond stepped through their ranks and gently set a small black box on Tsunade's desk.
The voices around him faded to silence, and Tsunade's lips pursed involuntarily. Either Naruto'd just made impossible time on his way back from Sand, or—
"It's over," he said, his voice rough and weary. "All of it." Naruto turned, his volume rising as he addressed the council. "All of it. No more pushing marriage on people, no more human breeding programs, no more going on about tradition and duty like that makes this shit any better." He looked over his shoulder at the box, then back at his audience. "This is your fault as much as it was his. All of you acted like he had some kind of right to her."
"We had no reason to think the Kazekage wasn't just—" started an elder, but Naruto cut him off.
"That doesn't matter. Gaara knew what you all wanted. They both knew." He moved as if to touch the box, but didn't. "Just because none of you got to actually follow through doesn't mean the intent wasn't there."
Naruto looked askance at Tsunade; she nodded as, not for the first time, she saw the potential in him beyond simple brute strength. Visibly grief-stricken and exhausted, neither shouting nor hitting anyone and somehow all the more terrible for it, he turned to the group next. "All of you will make amends."
And faced with how he intended to use their own machinations and failings like a hammer against them, half of the council knelt and resigned on the spot. And as she looked over their remaining faces, Tsunade knew more would soon follow.
She wondered if it'd be enough.
After the council and ex-council members had all been moved on (and out of her office), Naruto faced her again. "The Kazekage's ready for your meeting."
Part of her had suspected something of the sort when he hadn't sat down—but she'd still just sent her acceptance to Sand hours before. "Now?"
"Yeah. He flew us in. I guess he's been racing his messenger birds."
Of course he has, she thought to herself. "'Us'?"
"Yeah." Naruto nodded at her like she was having trouble keeping up. "Sakura came along. They're waiting at the west gate."
"Of course they are," she grumbled. And like that, Gaara'd shown her he was capable of dropping a fighting force on her doorstep far more quickly than she'd previously imagined; and like that, he'd put an edge on what already promised to be a tense visit.
Or maybe he'd just saved her three days of dealing with a vocally panicking council.
Tsunade shook her head as she followed Naruto out of her office. This next generation would be the death of her.
They found the pair of Sand-nins waiting just shy of Leaf's walls, standing close to each other and intensely conferring. Gaara looked up first; Sakura nodded at him, then turned and approached Tsunade cautiously, with an entreating smile. "Don't be angry."
"I'm not angry," Tsunade said. "I'm . . ." Disappointed. A bit hurt. Still concerned about Gaara's current motives, as well as how he'd come without any retainers and dressed more for battle than politicking. Acutely aware of how this should have been Sakura's homecoming; instead she knew her student would be leaving as abruptly as she'd arrived.
She held on to her worries and instead gestured towards Sakura's new forehead protector. "This wasn't how I expected things to turn out."
The pink-haired kunoichi smiled. "Me either. You gave me a chance, though—both of you did—and the space and time I needed to make a decision."
"Which resulted in you choosing him," Tsunade quipped. She met Gaara's eyes; he stared back silently, his expression deliberately neutral. Sasuke's words cycled in the back of her mind: She's soft-hearted. He could've told her anything. Naruto'd said differently—but he'd also been drastically wrong about Sasuke. Tsunade'd sent her student to Gaara knowing he'd shelter her—but was the man cold enough, calculating enough to deliberately seduce Sakura into desertion?
Sakura picked up on her instructor's suspicions and shook her head in denial. "I didn't do this because of him, though. Like I told you: I did it for myself." She turned towards the redhead, her affection clearly showing in her smile. "Gaara . . . He grew on me."
When Tsunade glanced back at Gaara she noted how he watched Sakura in turn, how the set of his mouth and the tension of tiny muscles around his eyes had visibly softened—an effect at odds with how her mental image of him consistently held at either angry or worried. But not cold, then; no, this time Naruto'd been right.
Well, she thought, if Gaara'd actually fallen in love with her student and Sakura'd fallen for both him and Sand, then she'd have that much less to worry about from the lot of them.
Sakura hedged, unsure if this was too abrupt an exit or if she needed to give more reassurances before leaving these two alone. "Would it be okay if I go pick up some of my things while you have your meeting? Since I'm here?"
Naruto offered to be Sakura's escort so quickly Tsunade knew this had all been planned. She nodded acquiescence and the pair headed off, leaving her and the Kazekage staring each other down: coolly, calmly, like both of her students hadn't spent the past few days bitching back and forth over their heads about their status as patients.
Well, Tsunade thought, Naruto'd stepped up and put his foot down in her office. Sakura immediately saying she'd chosen Sand for herself was much the same gesture. And if these three were still working as a team . . .
Gaara spoke first. "How well'd it work?"
The council had been so sure this meeting was a precursor to war they'd stopped hinting at removing her and instead started pleading for her to deal with him. "Well enough, thank you. How was the trip?"
Gaara'd spent hours pushing for speed—and trying to make it look as casual as possible—while his best friend sat on the sandy platform beside him, silently clutching a box of the ashes of his best friend. That, plus the past few days, had left him feeling drained on multiple levels.
"Uneventful," he said.
"I was about to make tea, if you'd like some."
"I would, thank you." And at her gesture, he stepped through the gates and into Leaf.
In the Hokage's office, Gaara took a seat in front of her desk, accepted his tea, and prodded Tsunade to address what he guessed she'd already realized. "Go on. Say it."
"You've got some nerve, bringing her here this soon after."
That . . . hadn't been what he expected.
"I needed a bodyguard, and she's . . ." He had the audacity to crack a smile. "Uniquely motivated."
"I heard," Tsunade replied dryly. Knowing about their relationship—and suspecting Gaara was already her student's lover—made their meeting significantly more awkward. "How long did you plan on waiting before telling me about it?"
The redhead looked pointedly at the box still on her desk. "Once we were sure he was under control. We tried to space it all out, so it wouldn't be too much for him at once. It seems we didn't space it out enough."
Tsunade made a noncommittal sound but didn't say anything to accept or direct blame. She felt herself tense; she knew the Sand-nin across from her had noticed her tension. Maybe, she thought, she'd be less uneasy if she hadn't just gotten her ass handed to her by a ninja a fraction of her age—or maybe if the one in front of her hadn't just turned up with such a casual display of political maneuvering and power, ostensibly wanting to hold parley . . . Or maybe she'd have less trouble with the situation if she wasn't so aware of the kind of mess Gaara left behind when he killed.
But just days before, Tsunade reminded herself, Sakura'd asked her to trust them all.
Well, she thought, better to not draw things out any more than they had to. "Shall we get this over with?"
Gaara nodded and clasped his hands. "I believe Uchiha Sasuke mentally built a future for himself, then saw that future taken away by people he felt were beneath him. I believe that Sakura choosing to stay with me—and you and Naruto supporting us both—registered to him as insults and betrayal, and all of it that in quick succession was too much, and drove him to attack us. As such, I do not believe he acted on orders from or with the blessing of Leaf, and I am prepared to release Leaf from any obligation of recompense."
It was better than she'd hoped for—but she still couldn't relax yet. "The box . . . That's all that's left?"
"Ashes. Naruto said we should let the bloodline die. I agree. I assure you that this is every last bit of him."
Tsunade let herself feel a tiny bit of relief: in that case, there at least wasn't the threat of Sand turning out a batch of red-eyed ninjas in the next few years. "You said you think it was all too much for him."
"Yeah." Gaara closed his eyes and elaborated, his voice low. "And that's why he came after me in the way he did: trying to push me too far as well, make me break from it, and make me eradicate Sand for it. Maybe it would've made him feel like I was worse than him; maybe that would've made him feel better. Or maybe what he needed most was the total absence of those people who'd hurt him."
"It sounds almost like you sympathize," she noted.
"In the end I did. I know what it's like to be where he was—but I know you and I have both seen any number of people justify atrocities by believing they were better, smarter, or stronger than someone else. I also learned years ago that taking your hurt out on the people around you is reprehensible . . . and that surviving what's inflicted on you is only the first step." He paused, studying her. "I think you understand what that can be like, too: making yourself move forward, making amends where you need to, and learning how to keep your past or present struggles from dragging you back down—or spilling onto the people around you. I'm similarly certain these are things he didn't learn."
She nodded. Gaara settled back into his chair, then glanced into his cup, then drained it.
"Do you have any requests from us?" Tsunade asked. "I understand there was some damage."
He almost demanded Leaf rebuild his building, but pushed the impulse aside; he'd already decided Leaf should see Sand as more than capable of dealing with its problems. "No."
She let a little of the suspicion she still felt come through on her voice. "We both know you didn't need to come here for any of this."
Gaara nodded again; if he recognized the accusation, he didn't address it. "You've sent Naruto to me when I needed him, so I brought him back when you needed him. It's a matter of maintaining relations . . . Even though it was a gamble." He sighed aggrievedly. "Now that Naruto knows I can cut days off the trip, he'll want me to pick him up the next time he wants to visit."
"Probably." She smiled despite herself and wondered if this display of humanity and strange humor was how he'd won Sakura over. Tsunade also recognized the stack of reassurances in his words, as he set their mutual friend up as the linchpin holding the past and present and future aspects of their alliance together.
"I know this was sudden," he said. "My idea was to bring him in and let him make the biggest impact possible, without giving your council time to brace or otherwise organize themselves. Any waves Sakura and I make will be negligible if we come and go in the meantime, especially without an official procession." Plus it'd not give anyone at Leaf much time to build a plot against them, or to plan any strikes against Sand during a scheduled absence. "He's been running for almost two weeks straight, as well; he deserved a break." Gaara's smile faded. "And it didn't go well the last time we let him go in alone."
Tsunade sat back in her chair. "And if you two had brought Naruto here and things had gone poorly?"
His eyes narrowed and demeanor cooled further, though his response was measured and without concern. "You and I would be having a much different discussion."
"I'm sure." One probably held over a pile of rubble, or carnage, or both. For a second she imagined the wreckage, the wounded, the blood—then exhaled hard and forced the image away before it could send her spiraling back into her own recently-renewed memories.
Gaara recognized her hitch for what it was and closed his eyes for the span of a few breaths so she could pretend he hadn't seen. "Plus," he said, "it's an opportunity to let Sakura collect some things, and make arrangements for the rest. She's been living out of a travel pack for a month. You and I didn't need to go back and forth for weeks over whatever's left." He paused and looked up again, watching her desktop, following the lines of wood grain. "Also, it gives them time to mourn. They won't do it in front of me, and I'm . . . Grateful for that. But just because he did unconscionable things to all of us doesn't mean they didn't care for him."
"In that case," Tsunade said, and refilled his tea. She understood what it meant to lose a teammate she'd cared for to his own worst impulses—and also understood the man before her was stung by how the people he cared for still valued a dead deserter.
Gaara nodded thanks before continuing. "I should also give her friends enough time to get used to the idea of her leaving here with me, without having them immediately try to fight me over her. It's not a goodbye but it'll still be messy."
"They'll certainly have questions."
He saw the opportunity to change the topic and immediately leaped on it. "You have questions."
Her eyes narrowed.
"Go on," he encouraged. "Ask."
Why? was the most immediate one. Tsunade avoided it. "Is it more brave or more foolhardy for you to have let her face her friends and fellow—ex-fellow Leaf-nin here on her own?"
"Maybe both; maybe neither. I wasn't taking chances. That's why Naruto's with her. I know some people will see her as a deserter, no matter what either of us says."
She steepled her fingers. "That's not what I meant. Sakura's known the people here her whole life; she's fought and bled at their sides for years—and even knowing that, you seem very certain they won't coax her back."
"At least one of you will try," he replied. "And I won't fault you. But I want to try building a life with her, and I can't do that if I'm afraid she'll leave the second she misses one of you or feels nostalgic."
Tsunade blinked. "You're that serious?"
"Yeah," he said, as if realizing it for himself for the first time. "I guess we are."
Again, she noted his relaxation, his small smile, and realized he was actually, genuinely happy—and he felt she was safe enough to let her know about it. Gaara might not be directly seeking her blessings, but—in his own way—at least seemed to be trying to reassure her.
"Well," she said resignedly, "You have known each other for years."
Rather than ask how years of loose association factored into appropriate relationship timelines—which would almost certainly let on that he still barely knew what he was doing—Gaara chose to remain quiet.
Tsunade noted his silence and took a guess: "How much did she do to prepare you for this part, though?"
Another smile, albeit a crooked one. "She quizzed me outside the gate while we waited."
"Neither of you thought you could just tell me about it?"
He leaned forward, set his elbows on his knees, and watched her owlishly. "Imagine I approached you here and told you I'd started dating your student almost by accident, that our getting to know each other—and in time, learning to trust and love each other—was probably the only reason we're both still alive, that she didn't want to get married yet but had essentially moved in with me, and that you shouldn't worry about any of it." He paused to let her process it all. "How much of that would you have believed—and how much would you have worried?"
She conceded that he had a point; Gaara's shoulders shook once with a silent chuckle, and he refilled her cup in turn.
"I'd wanted to let you watch us and figure it out on your own"—like everyone else did, he thought—"but Sakura asked what would happen if either of my siblings got involved with someone with my reputation. I know I'd have concerns, and that person would need to answer some questions."
He was still definitely an odd creature, she decided—but not an unreasonable or unpleasant one. And at least it seemed like he wasn't there to gloat, to threaten, or to make demands—but was legitimately there to try to help mend fences . . . Even if by doing so he helped upend Leaf's political system.
Maybe especially if he got to help upend Leaf's political system.
Or maybe she just needed to relax. Maybe Gaara was just happy to continue throwing his weight around in support of the people he considered friends.
. . . Which meant she might officially have been claimed as the friend of an overpowered teenage killing machine—one with a storied history of mass murder and a taste for political stunts.
Lovely.
Maybe she was getting too old for this.
In the spirit of this new friendship—however strange it may feel—Tsunade offered a thought that'd been weighing on her. "I knew my council would try to push Sakura if she came back and said no. I figured they'd just be an obstacle for us to work around. But you all . . ." She gestured and sighed. "You saw them as an obstacle to be removed."
"They weren't going to change, and Naruto told me you expected repercussions for going against them. We all rubbed their noses in what they did wrong and they still refused to learn. You, though—you learned, and you helped make changes. And you didn't have to learn over the body of someone you cared for. That's worth something."
She eyed him. "I'm not sure if you're good at being encouraging or really bad at it."
It was still strange to watch him smile so readily—not gloatingly, but familiarly, as if they'd shared a secret. "My siblings have told me as much."
They were quiet for long enough that she started to think he did intend to just kill a few hours drinking tea, waiting for Sakura to finish packing away the remains of her life at Leaf and for the people he cared for to finish mourning the person who'd deliberately hurt them, all while staring off into space—
Wait. Not quite into space. She'd been so concerned with the living that she'd almost forgotten the box of human remains on her desk.
"Naruto blames himself," Gaara said abruptly, without looking away from the box—almost as if he expected Sasuke to resurrect and pull one last trick on them. "I understand. I've done the same. I know he wants to do the right thing and to protect people—and he needs that to be a good Hokage. But I don't know that he's ready yet." He heard the bitterness in his own voice, tried to control it, failed . . . And pressed on anyway. "He wanted to believe he could love someone into doing the right thing or, failing that, beat them into it. He wanted to believe Sasuke flipped sides again and stayed because it was right, and not because it was convenient. I don't think he tried to differentiate between the two, or that he even knows how. He believes and he forgives at face value—and he doesn't seem to understand that being able to beat someone and being stronger than the person he forgives sometimes just isn't enough." Gaara's chin lowered and he scowled. "Someone else shouldn't have to suffer or even be put in danger because one of us thought forgiving a person was . . . obligatory, or somehow made us morally superior, or because we thought we could control them. You and I both know it—and what it's like to try to mitigate damage or do triage when someone who should've been stopped long before finds a way around us. I don't think he knows it yet."
On the surface Tsunade heard concerns she knew Gaara couldn't voice to anyone else—and under that, the plaint of someone who couldn't figure out how to stop his friend from doing something disastrously stupid.
And beyond that, a note of despair. Whatever had happened between Sasuke and Sasuke's aftermath had made Gaara lose his faith in Naruto's doing the right thing. The man before her was flying without his most constant moral compass.
Well, Tsunade thought, she hadn't been leading and essentially raising dozens of damaged ninjas for this many years to not be able to give advice.
"You know how well it goes," she said, "when we try to save a person from themselves—especially when they actively resist us, or don't think they're doing anything that warrants them needing saved."
She knew he'd caught on when his mouth tightened and forehead furrowed. After a second, Gaara closed his eyes and nodded with self-awareness. Despite all his feelings about the fruitlessness of Naruto trying to fix a recalcitrant friend before someone got hurt or killed, he'd marched directly into the same rut of the same track.
"Learning we can't save everyone is an unpleasant lesson," Tsunade told him. "Medics learn it just as quickly as leaders, and frequently the same way: in blood and in someone else's pain. It's a lesson he shouldn't have had to learn over someone's body—but hopefully he'll only have to learn it once."
"I know—logically, I know it." He touched his temple. "But we both know what can happen if he doesn't realize that good deeds and good times don't necessarily make a good person."
And there was the root, she realized: Gaara facing his own misdeeds, lining them up against those of a genocidal missing-nin, and still being unsure of how the scales settled.
"Yeah," she sighed. "It's hard to face someone you care for and tell them when—or why—you've given up on them. But I think that whatever you've done or whatever you said to Naruto reached him. I'm sorry that this is what it took—for both of us to have to go through what we did in order for him to learn. But he didn't come in here and try to make excuses, or try to minimize what'd happened. He's actually faced it. It's . . . More than I've ever seen from him, in this respect. Some people never manage to admit when a person they love has done wrong."
She'd meant the last bit as a compliment; Gaara heard it, closed his eyes again, and inclined his head graciously.
"I think," she said, "that you two have a tendency to mirror each other—and I still haven't figured out how much of it's intentional. You got there; he'll get there as well, in his own time. Have faith in him."
The redhead nodded with resignation, and Tsunade smiled. "Also, once he does? I hope he's just as much of a pain in your ass as you've been for me."
"To years of it," Gaara agreed, and raised his cup.
ooo
Sakura met them both at the door of her apartment. It relieved her that the two leaders seemed to have come out of their meeting magnanimously—but as she'd suspected, there were more problems they all needed to address. "I know we have to get back," she said to Gaara, "but come sit—just for a little while. Ino's here, and a couple other people. I'd like them to see you as more than the guy taking me away."
"Okay." He wanted to find out how her place looked, smelled, and felt, too; he wanted to try to glean a better understanding of her from the space she'd called home.
"She asked what you were like," Sakura continued. "I might've bragged." About watching him change himself; about how he found ways to help people on a number of fronts; about how determined he'd been to not let his hurt genin fall to the wayside—or turn out like him. She'd ended up talking about what it felt like to know Gaara looked at her as a valued companion rather than an annoyance, what it meant for her to be shown interest and encouragement rather than indifference—or barely-hidden scorn directed at her strength. He wants me to be a partner, she'd said. Not a decoration, not a housewife, not just someone who'll have his children—a partner.
She grinned abashedly. "I might've bragged a lot."
"So she's got high expectations." And that quickly, Gaara found yet another strange battlefield laid out ahead of him.
"Maybe."
Something seemed to be weighing on her. He hoped it wasn't him, that Sakura wasn't worried about officially introducing her friends to a man they might remember most vividly as a screaming, possessed child on an arena floor.
"So . . ." he mused—then, straight-faced, opted for teasing her. "Jokes."
"No," Sakura fired back, forced down a giggle, and tapped her fingertips to his sternum, and he smiled at her like an entire conversation had passed. "He's got an awful sense of humor," she said to Tsunade, by way of explanation.
"You still laugh," he reminded her.
"I know," she sighed. "And what's that make me?"
Tsunade simply smiled and nodded agreement. Because she was watching, she saw how the pair reached for each other's hands with the unconscious ease of habit, saw how much of Sakura's tension bled away with the touch.
"And Ino . . ." Sakura glanced at her teacher, colored, and looked down self-consciously. "Okay, Ino's scandalized. Beyond scandalized. Trust me—and I'm not complaining—it didn't escape either of us that I basically traded 'married and pregnant' for 'practically married and with an entire adopted hidden village.' But Leaf doesn't know that. They . . ." She looked at Tsunade again and clenched her teeth. "The council's apparently been talking shop in public, about possibilities. One theory was that you decided Sasuke was too dangerous to be kept in Leaf—so you sent me to Gaara as payment, in order to bait Sasuke into a confrontation he couldn't win. Another was that I didn't want to get married to an ex-missing-nin, so I flung myself at Gaara instead—and that you were either too sentimental or too weak to make an issue of it. And another—"
"We get the picture," Tsunade grated. She had her work cut out for her still.
Gaara's expression flattened as he faced her, but his tone remained casual. "My offer still stands, Hokage."
"Did—" Sakura stiffened—then relaxed, exhaled hard, and shook her head. "Of course he did."
But, her mentor noted, without a trace of embarrassment or a hint of an attempt to excuse the offer as anything other than that of wholesale execution.
"It's not your problem," Tsunade told him. "It's ours. I'll assign Naruto to keep an eye on them. He's invested in all of us—he won't let bad acts stand." He'll learn, she thought, or he won't—and if that's the case, it'll become both of our problems again.
Gaara nodded, understanding her intent. Then Sakura's hand tightened in his, drawing his attention back to her.
"I knew it would come back on me when I left," she said, "the same way I knew it'd come back on me if I said no. I knew there'd be stories; I knew they'd be bad, and I'd get faulted and blamed. I knew it'd end up hitting my friends here, too: 'Why didn't you see it coming, why didn't you stop it, why couldn't you change things?' And I know what it's like to not have answers." The pink-haired kunoichi closed her eyes and loosened her grip on Gaara's fingers, then squared her shoulders as she looked up at him—and as she smiled he saw she'd also recognized the battlefield before them. "You and I can fix that. Come sit with us. Let's give them a better story."
ooo
It wasn't until they'd said all their goodbyes, collected three boxes and one overstuffed pack of clothes, and lifted off for Sand that Sakura told him part of what he'd missed.
As he'd expected, Ino'd asked if she'd come back to Leaf now that Sasuke was dead. Tsunade and Naruto can control what's left of the council, she'd said. You said Gaara's understanding—you don't need to live there to see him.
Under the plea Sakura'd heard the faint accusation: Are you sure you aren't just doing this because it was easier to run than to deal with Leaf, or because you let go of one guy and grabbed onto another? Under the plea, Sakura'd heard one more person doubting her ability to make choices for herself.
"I explained it as best I could," Sakura told him. "It's not just about having a relationship in Sand; it's a life. It's about not slinking back after someone else's taken care of my problems for me. It's about being more than the playing piece in someone else's story. Maybe that could be someone else's thing, but . . . Even after you take the threats away, after everything I've seen and been through it just seems limiting." She shrugged. "And how could I now? Leaf even felt weird—close, and humid, and the sky was too small. It could never be the same there."
Gaara didn't look away from the indistinct, shadowy landscape before them. "We won't be the same either, will we?"
Knowing he still needed her reassurances, Sakura leaned against him. "We can be better." She reached for his hand and continued: "And short of someone else finding a way to wipe your memory of us, I don't have a reason to think you'd do that again."
He hesitated, then let a worry free. "But there's always that possibility."
"There's the possibility you'd have to fight me, instead"—she mock-swung at him for emphasis; her knuckles brushed his arm, almost a caress—"and you'd be in trouble if I could actually see you." She sighed. "So I guess that means we've gotta be able to beat each other up."
He gave a cautious half-smile, and she returned with a self-conscious grin. "Besides," she said, "I want a real office."
"In time, I'm sure."
She linked her arm through his and squeezed. "We've got time now."
Some of it she kept to herself.
She didn't tell him about how she'd almost defected when she was twelve; how, driven by desperation and the intensity of a child's obsession, she'd tried to follow Sasuke into desertion. She didn't tell Gaara about the dragging, swallowing shame she still felt, or the hours she'd spent mentally picking away at the two situations, afraid she'd only justified repeating the same mistake of throwing her life away for a man . . . Or how the only way she'd been able to face Tsunade and Ino with any degree of certainty was because this time her eyes had been towards the future rather than fixated on one incredibly fallible person.
She didn't tell him about the part of her conversation with Ino where she'd realized she'd been so unused to being treated with respect let alone treated well: how strange it'd been to be able to speak her mind without hesitation; how she'd not recognized the extent to which she'd gotten used to making excuses and stamping down her own sense of hurt or distrust until she'd had to do neither; how she'd conflated her own willingness to endure abuse with loyalty. She'd found herself suddenly, overwhelmingly angry: she'd almost spent her life trying to maintain a relationship where the other party refused to meet her efforts with anything but grudging acceptance; she'd almost let Sasuke treat her like the most important thing she could accomplish was having his children. How dare he expect her to put everything she'd worked for on hold or aside for him? How dare he expect her to be so pitifully complacent, to just accept whatever he wanted for her as her future? How dare he try to hurt and kill however many people because she'd turned him down—as if that would prove anything, anyway? How could he actually think she'd want to spend her life with someone who acted remotely like him, who looked down on and treated her and the people around her like—
She'd found herself standing, pointing, shouting, as Ino watched with equal parts shock and alarm. She'd toned down her emotions—Ino, she realized, didn't deserve her anger . . . But in her outburst she'd found catharsis, and something close to closure.
Remove the source of the sickness, she told herself. Debride the wound if necessary—pick away all the parts that want you to blame yourself for someone else's choices; silence the part that tells you the cost of your happiness is someone's discomfort or pain or life, and that your life would've been a more appropriate sacrifice. Then be honest with yourself about what's left behind.
So she'd peeled what she'd expected from her life away and, underneath that short-sighted husk, found something mostly but not entirely different. And while she wasn't sure of exactly how she'd proceed from here—there were so many things that needed to be done and so many places where she could make an impact—she now had time to figure it out.
Eventually she dozed, with cool sand under her and the wind rushing past. And when the nightmare woke her—Sasuke, blaming her, reaching for her in the dark—she shook it away and replaced it with awareness of the man at her side.