I apologize for the wait!

Here we go! Enjoy! :)

When they left the supermarket, Sakura silently fell in step behind Gaara. Her cooled skin quickly grew sticky under the heavy glare of the sun. She felt drowsy, numb, as she watched the gentle sway of the bags he carried, and the stiffness of his back.

The gawking and whispered words followed them in the parking lot, carrying their weight on the tension in her. They jumbled, insistent, incoherent, with his words.

"I'm trying to get your things back."

Sakura almost laughed, hysterical and furious.

She didn't believe him.

"I'm trying to get your things back."

The insistent look Gaara gave her when he said it was the same he gave the reporter: "She's one of a kind." Sakura had read somewhere that an unblinking gaze was a definite tell. It was meant to reassure. It was meant to offer the appearance of no alternative. I can't look away. Here's the truth. You need to believe me.

She smiled sardonically and stared back at a young man's gaping at them. The man almost tripped over himself, the cart ringing loudly.

Unfazed, Gaara stopped to unlock the trunk of the car and gently put the bags there.

Still further back, Sakura waited for him to unlock the doors. She kicked at the dust. He hesitated, glanced at his watch in a movement of impatience. Sakura clenched her jaw, looking down at her feet, the moment tensed, suffocating.

"Let's go," Gaara said flatly, but he didn't look at her.

Sakura felt herself nod and mechanically walked around the car to the passenger's side. As she grabbed the handle, her gaze locked with the one of a woman rising a camera to take a picture. She froze momentarily. Swiftly, Sakura slid in the passenger seat. She wetted her lips, her head throbbing.

Sakura knew he was constantly lying to the world, to her, but she wished he wasn't.

She wished some part of it was real. Otherwise, she couldn't imagine how, one day, she would find that it was worth it, playing the doll, ignoring the gawking, the vicious comments. Living with his coldness and her loneliness.

She wished she was strong enough to lie down fact after fact: Here's why I deserve your attention. And here. And here. I am one of a kind.

Sakura tried to say something, anything, as they drove away from the supermarket. She piled up careless, senseless sentences in her mind about the weather or the cases she had seen during the day.

She couldn't bring herself to say any of them.

They drove on in silence.

His presence felt artificial, static. He didn't choose silence the way others chose nervous laughter or babbling. He didn't look at her, he didn't touch her, his gaze alternating between the road and his mirrors, and Sakura had the painful impression that she didn't exist. Even in close proximity, she didn't exist.

There were the watch and the phone, and in-between? Nothing.

Later, at home, Sakura watched him put away the grocery, fists curling and uncurling at her sides. She felt like a ghost.

She hated, hated it. Hated him.

Her heart squeezed in her chest.

"I need to study," she announced lamely and went upstairs to find her textbooks.

Gaara didn't answer.

Upstairs, Sakura stopped in the doorway of her study. She considered the room, the empty desk and the new office chair folded on one another. Past a mural light pink bookcase, there was a grey armchair oriented toward the window. She took a step in the room, imagining herself working here, filling the bookcase, curling up on the armchair to read.

Sakura gulped, approaching the window. It was too easy to imagine she could be happy, surrounded by the right beautiful things. Too dangerous to think she would always have all of this.

With stiff hesitant fingers, Sakura moved the curtains aside. She had a view over the garden like from the bedroom. Plants and flowers and vegetables snaked across the yard, some organized in thigh lines and others, in swirling ones. Her insides turning to ice, boiling with acid, she involuntarily thought: 'This is another one of her indelible marks.'

The mystery woman was everywhere, and where she wasn't, Sakura was a misfit.

"Or he could be a gardener," she muttered and laughed dryly.

Sakura released the curtains, shaking her head, as she walked back to grab her backpack from the bedroom.

She needed to carve her own room here. It was her house.

She retraced her steps down the hallway, her mind coiling, thick and angrier.

"Squared shoulders, straight back, chin up," Sakura mumbled to herself as if it could erase everything, reset the clock. Reset her.

She stomped and stomped until the last stair.

Lips pinched, Sakura settled on the kitchen table, and she felt Gaara briefly stilled. Behind him, the oven's on light flashed, its temperature rising. She dropped her textbooks on the kitchen. She made as much noise as she dared taking out her textbook, her notebook and highlighters from her bag.

'This is me, I'm here, here, and here,' the noise said. She breathed out, when there was nothing else except to start reading. It didn't feel like enough.

Gaara started moving again, like he was never interrupted.

Intermittently, Sakura glanced at him through her eyelashes. Every time she did, her hands tightened around her textbook, and she flushed.

She wanted this to work.

She didn't want this to work.

She was split between two alternatives, as always, one part of her hopeful, meek, craving praise, while the other part was raging, terrible, and angry.

She didn't want any of this mystery woman's crumbs. She wanted her house, and her husband. Her own future.

She just wasn't sure, it was him.

Gaara bent over the kitchen island, his reddish hair paler under the kitchen's lighting. As he cooked, the sound of him chopping was faint, yet precise, lulling her. He didn't loom. He didn't suffocate her as he normally did with his few words, piercing gaze or emotionless response.

Nervousness rising, Sakura pressed a hand to her mouth to keep from giggling at how domestic the scene was. He cooked, and she studied. Was that really meant to be them, until death did them part?

Sakura glanced up at him, but he was already staring at her. Sakura hiccuped, gripping her textbook closer to her.

Her heart pounded at her temples.

She blushed deeply.

"When I get your desk back, are you going to keep working in the kitchen?" Gaara asked quietly.

Sakura smiled sheepishly in response. He said "when". His gaze cutting through her, insistent. Her mind vehemently shouted: 'Liar!' She forced her hands to let go of her textbook.

"Yes, I like how open it is," she lied.

She glanced down at her notes once more, letting her hair hide her face. She forced herself not to be nervous, her mind nagging back at her.

"Hn."

Sakura couldn't tell whether he groaned from the task at hand or if he was answering her.

She squeezed her eyes shut. When they fluttered back open, nothing had changed. He was as out of reach, and her, as out of place.

"Gaara-sama…"

Gaara briefly looked up at her in an acknowledgement, his brows furrowed as he tried to pry open an oyster.

"Do you need help?" Sakura asked and winced at the fake cheeriness of her voice.

'Shouldn't we try to make it work?' she was too cowardly to ask. Unblinking, she watched him, expectant, hating herself for it.

"No," Gaara answered curtly and set another open oyster in a plate. It clicked softly.

Sakura cleared her throat, glancing away. Her fingers mechanically folded the corner of the page she was holding. All she could feel was the iciness leaking off him crawling under her skin. No. No.

"Shouldn't we divide domestic tasks?" she asked, her voice taut, high-pitched.

No. No. She expected it again, that word that kept her out of his life, and claimed her in a borrowed role.

"You're studying, and you hate schedules," Gaara said tonelessly and opened another oyster with a flick of the wrist. "I didn't expect you would want to establish a clear division of domestic tasks." Once more, his gaze met hers, unblinking and cold. "Unless it's only my schedule you hate."

Sakura smiled tightly, drumming her fingers on the table.

"I feel like I'm taking advantage of you," she paused, and her fingers stilled, her mind at once blank and full. Could she really count on this stranger? She was fine on her own. Fine. Fine. Alone. She had always been alone. She resumed talking, her voice high-pitched and cheerful, drowning her thoughts, "You put away the grocery and now, you're cooking."

Gaara frowned.

"You said, you needed to study."

"I do but-"

"Then, I see no problem."

Sakura opened her mouth to argue, but Gaara turned away from her to open the refrigerator. He took out a lemon, and soon began cutting it in quarters.

She turned the page of the textbook, the back of her eyes burning as she scanned the techniques of spider bite diagnostics.

The silence buzzed, electrifying. She wondered how he could look so calm, unaffected, regardless of the situation. She looked down at her hands, smoothing down the glossy pages of her textbook.

Gaara set a plate of open oysters in front of her. She blinked up at him, distracted, surprised she hadn't felt him approach her. He cocked his head to the side, reading over her shoulder. He grimaced faintly and his hands released the back of the chair he had leaned on.

His presence flickered, near and away from her. Sakura blinked before she understood he was waiting for her to try the oyster.

"I've never had these before..." Sakura admitted reluctantly and bowed her head in thanks. "They look fancy."

"I cut the muscle from the shell for you," he answered as if he was choosing his words carefully. "You can just eat it as if you are downing a shot."

Sakura looked at the plate then at him, her face burning. She didn't move.

"Here," Gaara sighed and demonstrated with slow gestures. He let the empty shell fall in an empty plate.

"Oh... okay."

Sakura tried mimicking him, tilting back her head as she brought the shell close to her lips. She pressed a hand to her mouth, a cool salty sensation in her mouth as she struggled to swallow.

"Oh dear God, the texture..." Sakura coughed and wiped her mouth with a napkin.

"You don't like it?" Gaara asked, and her head whipped toward him. She could have sworn she heard laughter in his voice.

He was back behind the counter, his face expressionless, as he cut onions. She shook her head. She couldn't imagine him laughing.

"I'm not sure," Sakura answered carefully and glanced at the plate still on her left. "It tastes like the sea. I'm not sure how this is supposed to be an aphrodisiac though."

The knife stilled once more.

Gaara raised an eyebrow at her, his eyes glittering with something she couldn't place.

Sakura gaped, flushing furiously. She tried to catch herself, shifting in her seat, clearing her throat. She rubbed her neck.

"You know... there is no real science behind aphrodisiacs," she spoke fast and bit her tongue not to ramble on.

Gaara returned his attention to the onions and the other vegetables he was cutting.

"I took them because I find it easier not to argue with people, especially elders."

Sakura smiled thinly.

"I'm trying to get your things back."

"She's one of a kind."

He did and said all that was expected of him, she could see it now. Even their marriage had been expected of him.

Her cellphone pinged, interrupting her trail of thoughts. After wiping her hands, Sakura took her cellphone from her pocket. She frowned, then blanched when she read the email from the hospital.

"What is it?" Gaara asked even if his eyes were still focused on the vegetables he was cutting.

"I'm sorry, Gaara-sama, I need to go soon," Sakura said struggling to keep her voice even. She carefully pushed back her chair. "They changed my shift at the hospital, and I need to leave in one hour."

Gaara frowned, slowly setting the knife down. His face grew harder.

"They put you on the night shift? You worked this morning."

"Someone must have cancelled at the last minute," Sakura smiled until her face ached. He didn't reply. Uneasily, she waved toward the stairs. "I'll go shower."

'I'm a liar too now, I guess.'

Sakura felt his stare on her as she climbed up the stairs to the bathroom. Once she closed the door behind her, she leaned back against it and re-read the email. Her rotation in surgery at been pulled. She had been reassigned to pathology. The email didn't explain why, but Sakura saw in her mind's eyes the gawking of the man, the snickering comment of a woman at the supermarket.

Sakura glanced up, meeting her frightened stare in the mirror.

'Was it worth it now?' her mind demanded and Sakura tasted scorching bile in her mouth.

Gaara barely saw her in the last three days.

Pacing faster than usual in the living room, he obsessed over the oysters she didn't finish. (Of course, she wouldn't be duped about his intentions.) He obsessed over the schedule she hadn't replaced. (How could she hate schedules?) He obsessed over why she wasn't here. (Did she already know what he used to do 'for fun'? Did she somehow sense what kind of monster he was?)

He was haunted by the parentheses of his life, the careful limits that surrounded his life. The pieces missing, the pieces his grandmother and later, Kankuro buried. His mother, his uncle, the arena, his boxing gloves, Rock Lee, Kin. Kin. Kin.

Gaara stopped pacing, his fingers twitching by his sides. It was 5 am, and, for the first time in a long time, he was terrified.

Sakura hadn't come home.

They were too many ticks, too any lost hours and the cycle that never ended for him because he didn't sleep.

Gaara grabbed his cellphone off the coffee table. The lock screen revealed no new texts or missed calls. There was a hand-written note and nothing else. He let his phone drop on the couch, pines and needles covering his entire body.

Gaara walked to the kitchen and started the coffee machine mechanically. It whirred, noisily grinding the coffee beans.

Arms crossed, Gaara leaned back against the kitchen island waiting for his coffee.

There was still her note on the refrigerator, a ripped page from a notebook, with scribbles and crossed out words he couldn't make out anymore. He mouthed her words again, his lips twisted in a snarl.

'Working late! Will sleep in the on-call room,' Sakura wrote when he was at work.

Anger and terror drew him in too easily, edged between each passing second. How many punches he could throw in this time before it all turned into terror? Tick tock. He knew how long it took to turn into a monster when all lights were out. Tick tock.

That was why Gaara liked constants, things he could plan and expect. With constants, with planned, listed and scheduled activities, there was no time to revert to the angry boy he had been. No time for the past.

And she was supposed to be here regardless.

She was supposed to be his wife, but she was nothing like she was supposed to be. She was nowhere where she was supposed to be.

Gaara expected her working on the kitchen table. He expected the door of the bedroom close at night. He expected her alarm clock ringing at least thrice at 5 when she had the morning shift, and not to hear it at all when she worked in the afternoon.

He never expected her to sleep at the hospital and come back for few hours at the time to change clothes and nap.

'When are you coming home?' Gaara started each message, but he always balled the note to throw it in the recycling bin. It sounded grotesque. Needy. He didn't care whether she was here or not, he tried to convince himself. It was the unpredictability of her presence, he dreaded.

Gaara drummed his fingers on the counter waiting, always waiting. It was 7 am. His cup of coffee steamed, the bitter scent rising thick, the ping of Matsuri's emailing him today's up-to-date schedule. All constants. Unlike Sakura.

He hated waiting.

'What do you need from the grocery store?' Gaara wrote neatly in a new note. 'Can you take care of the garbage? I'm working late tonight.' He lifted the tip of the pen off the paper, considering his words for a moment, then tossed the pen to the side.

Gaara ran a hand through his hair, thought better of it and balled the note. It landed in the recycling bin along with hers.

He then took his coffee mug upstairs to his study.

He felt lonely without the chaos of the kitchen, or her shoes kicked off. Now, she didn't leave her textbooks everywhere or her dishes piled up in the sink.

It was as if she had never existed.

And it was terrifying.

"Wake up!"

The file slapped the table by her elbow and Sakura startled, awake, blushing furiously, her ears ringing.

The white room momentarily blinded her.

Quickly, Sakura pulled the microscope back toward her, her vision still unfocused. She touched her stiff neck, and the quiet ruffle of pages turning from the lab technicians pierced through her torpor.

Sakura blinked, grimacing in her chair. She could barely feel her butt on the high stool.

The curious stares of the technicians weighed on her like every morning, but they didn't interfere.

"Awake yet?" Dr Namiyo Kirino said coldly.

Sakura pasted a smile on her face and looked up at the doctor.

"I apologize," she said quickly and bowed her head.

"Yes, I'm sure you do."

Namiyo still spoke Windian with the thick accent of the Water country, his native country. His eyes were deep blue, almost black, never smiling. He perpetually looked startled, his greyish hair spiking out in all direction, his round face disproportionate relative to his frail body. He was the chief pathologist, her attending. Sakura used to admire him. They came from similar backgrounds, foreigners admitted in Med school in Suna.

Now, she wished they had never crossed path.

It wasn't enough that she thought she had sold her soul for money, everyone else was thinking it. And everything she had accomplished was attributed to Gaara. Her past scholarships, her grades, her admission to the University of Suna in one of the most prestigious medicine program world-wide.

"Move this one up the priority list," Namiyo said tapping a bony finger on the file he had added to her pile. "This is urgent."

"All of those files are urgent, Namiyo-sensei," Sakura said, refusing to look away first.

He straightened his posture, slow, as a building wave. He glared at her, looking dryer and frailer, despite his gaze darkening.

"Are you talking back to me?" he asked softly.

'Learn your place,' people had repeated in various ways over the last few days. Sakura had half-expected this attitude from Windians as their customs followed a stiff set of rules and an even stiffer hierarchy. 'Stay within your lane.'

'This is my place!' Sakura wanted to scream back, but she meant the hospital. She thought like everyone else that Gaara's lifestyle shouldn't be her own. She didn't deserve it. She hadn't worked for it.

"No, Namiyo-sensei," Sakura said quietly.

She dropped her gaze to the file, her heart sinking. She hadn't interacted with patients in days.

"Stop sleeping on the job, or I'll write you up."

"I apologize, Namiyo-sensei. It won't happen again."

"I'm picking this up in an hour. The surgery team is waiting for these results. Understood?"

Her heart sank. It hardened. This was meant to be for her team.

"Hai."

Sakura turned back toward her microscope and pressed her eyes to the binoculars to look at the new samples.

She imagined punching the microscope.

Then, she imagined punching him.

She didn't feel better.

She felt exhausted.

Later, Namyio Kirino looked over her report. Surrounded by harsh light, he loomed greyer, dryer, in front of the wide windows. Paper rustled and Sakura tried to focus on the framed pictures of his family around his keyboard. His children were caught smiling, his wife part or not of the frame.

Sakura shifted on her feet.

Finally, Namyio lowered the report on his desk, tapping one finger on it, his head tilted to the side. Sakura's palms grew cold.

"Is there a problem, Namyio-sensei?"

"Not at all..." he breathed out.

His brows knitted together, he searched her face for a while.

Sakura steeled herself.

After what seemed an eternity, Namyio handed her the paperwork, his face pensive. He turned back to his computer monitor, leaning back against his chair.

"Give this to Shi-sensei directly. He's the resident on the case."

Relieved, Sakura bowed and took the file. She slid the door of his office open and closed it hurriedly behind her.

The light was less sharp in the hallways of the pathology and public health labs, more yellowish than bright white. Sakura walked swiftly and passed through the secured doors to the hallways of the family clinic. With each step, she slowed, weighed down by the stares and the whispers. Tilting her head, so her hair would hide her face, Sakura tried to duck out of sight as she pushed the door of the stair case.

The surgery ward was one floor up.

"Sakura."

Sakura startled and whirled around, her heart at the back of her throat. The door slammed back shut.

"Gaara-sama," she stammered and bowed. "What are you doing here?"

Nervously, Sakura glanced around them, scratching her arm.

Gaara didn't move, pale eyes focused on her. He sat on a bench, his arms crossed over his chest, his head tilted back against the wall.

How could he not mind the constant, pressing buzzing of voices and stares? Sakura wondered.

Sakura pinched her lips and drew closer to him.

"Are you okay?" she asked and her eyes quickly scanned his body.

"You asked me to come here and do this," Gaara replied monotonously and his eyes fluttered shut.

"What?" Sakura screeched, and she pinched her lips at her informal tone.

Unabashed, Gaara shifted in his seat until he sat up, his eyes locking with hers. Sakura almost staggered back at the intensity of his stare. His whole face seemed to shift as he momentarily snarled, then his lips drew a hard unwavering line.

"The STD screening."

"Oh," Sakura breathed out and blushed furiously.

"It's very uncomfortable," he added quietly, and his eyebrow twitched briefly.

Sakura grimaced at the mental images, her cheeks burning hotter.

"I-I... Yes."

Awkward silence stretched. Gaara eventually leaned back against the chair, his head thudding softly against the wall.

"I apologize, Gaara-sama, but I need to go back... Shi-sensei is waiting for these results," Sakura gestured with the file in her hand.

"Hn."

Gaara glanced at his watch. His eyes drifted shut.

Sakura pinched her lips and bowed before pushing open the door leading to the staircase. She sprinted up the stairs to the next floor, the surgery ward. Still agitated by her run-in with Gaara, she approached the nurse station, her movements jerky.

She leaned over the counter.

Two of her classmates were looking through files.

"Hey!" Sakura managed through her dry mouth, her heart squeezed in a fist. She should have been there, with them. "Has any of you seen Shi-sensei?"

Yu looked at her over her glasses, smiling coldly.

"Oh, isn't the newly appointed princess."

"I'm always here, Yu-chan," Sakura snapped. "You shouldn't be surprised. Now, have you seen-"

"What I'm surprised at is how thick your husband's file is," Yu said and sat on the edge of the desk. She pretended to fan herself with a thick file.

Sakura froze.

The sheets of paper rustled, radiography sticking together and parting. Sakura forced herself to glance away.

"I mean, there were rumours, but..." Yu shook her head and shrugged. "I guess you've a taste for bad boys, right, Sakura-sama?"

"Put it back," Sakura breathed out.

"I'm waiting for a counsel," Yu replied with pout. "What does it mean when a husband does a screening, but the wife is too uptight to think she needs one?"

"Just put the file back."

"Sakura."

His voice dropped like a bomb, and she saw the sarcasm turned to wild terror in her classmates' face. The nurse sprung to her feet.

"Gaara-sama," they bowed.

Slowly, Sakura turned around and bowed her head.

His eyes drifted to the file. Gaara didn't react, but his gaze remained long enough for Yu to blanch and attempt to hide the file in a nearby pile.

"Let's talk for a moment," he told her and walked away.

Sakura followed him.

"I've a lot of work..." she attempted weakly.

Her neck prickled from the stares of Yu and the others.

His face quivered, shifted, then it was once more blank. Sakura beat the file on her thigh, unable to suppress her nervous energy.

They stood over a meter apart, in front of the vending machines.

"I'll make this brief," Gaara replied icily. "Why were you in pathology instead of surgery?"

"Sometimes, we need pathology results for surgery," she replied, unblinking.

"Your access card has the colour code of the pathology ward," he hissed.

Sakura's hand fell on her access card, and her cheeks burnt.

"Are you handling this or do you want me to step in?"

Her heart pumped wildly, and squeezed, loaded with too much anger, too much loneliness. She moved, ticked, like a bomb, and his head turned away from her. She could, she would fight for herself. She didn't need a champion. She just needed to square her shoulders, straighten her back, and lift her chin up.

She didn't need him.

He had told her 'no' too many times.

"I'm handling it, Gaara-sama," Sakura replied coolly.

He grimaced, his hands on his hips, his gaze away from hers. His jaw worked, his neck corded. His eyes darted back to her, locking with her startled eyes. He approached her swiftly.

She felt cornered, the people around them slowing to a blur.

"Don't call me Gaara-sama," he spoke low and slow.

Sakura didn't answer, all of her hardening.

"Will you promise me you'll let me know if it becomes too much for you alone?" his voice was softer now, barely a whisper.

Sakura nodded reluctantly, not trusting her voice. Gaara was so close, she could see the deepening lines around his eyes. He smelled of aftershave and strong coffee. The scars were everywhere, jittery. Absentmindedly, her head throbbing with her hammering heart, she reached up as if to touch him.

Gaara moved closer.

Her arm dropped back to her side, petrified.

They were uncoordinated.

"I rescheduled both visiting the elders and our meeting at the bank because of your schedule."

She clenched her jaw.

"I'll pick you up tonight," he added and straightened his suit jacket.

"I can't tonight... I'm working."

Gaara drew his face closer, searching her face. Sakura held her breath, both her hands pressed to her chest, the file between them, her only shield.

"Another time, then," he said finally and his gaze finally released hers.

Gaara moved around her to head back toward the nurse station. She grabbed his wrist, her heart, her breath, deafening in her ears. She was ready to be burned away, erased, as long as there was the tiniest chance they would see her as she has once been: a talented student. Dry-mouthed, this close to him, skin-to-skin, she didn't know how to voice it.

She wanted to be whole.

So, she shook her head, her whole body quivering, emotion rippling on every surface.

He turned his head toward her, his face hardening. For the first time, she felt like he truly saw her.

"You said you'll let me handle this," Sakura pleaded softly and tugged lightly at his wrist.

"My medical file is my business," he said acidly.

"They'll think it's me. Please."

"Hn. Did you eat lots of spinach in your life?"

"What?" Sakura stammered.

"You've the strength of a bull."

Sakura looked down at her hand still circling his wrist.

"Oh."

She released him immediately and apologized quietly. She glanced down at her feet. Gaara looked at her. So different now. Meek.

"Did you look inside?"

Startled by his tone, Sakura glanced up at him.

"No."

"Do you..." Gaara paused and tilted his head to the side. "Do you have something you wish to ask me?"

He looked at her hard. She licked her lips uselessly. She thought of the countless scars, the radiography she could surmise from the thickness of his file when Yu fanned herself. She gulped, breathless, mindless.

"No," Sakura breathed out. Her word dropped like a weight between them, and they moved away from each other, involuntarily mirroring each other.

With renewed composure, Gaara stared at her a little longer, before he walked away.

Sakura bowed stiffly after him, at once relieved and terrified.

She didn't want to know, Sakura convinced herself. She didn't want to care, the part of her that was always contradicting her whispered back.

On numb legs, Sakura walked back to the nurse station.

"I persuaded him not to get you fired," Sakura said and took the file back from the pile. "Now, leave us alone."

"Or what?" Yu challenged.

"Or you'll get kicked out of the program. Wasn't that clear? Want an ethics committee to weigh it on it?"

Yu smirked and shrugged before she turned away from her.

What good was it to square her shoulders, straighten her back and lift her chin when no one was looking? When no one was listening? When she was viewed as someone else's doll?

Sakura passed a shaking hand over her face, her skin moist and hot, while her core was shattered ice. Her gaze cast down, she asked one of the nurses where Shi was.

The response was a frightened, clipped mutter: "Room 18."

Gaara did that.

Sakura walked the hallway toward Shi, the file in her shaking grasp. Her mind floated, cutting slivers, at odds.

She wanted brutal retaliation.

She wanted to disappear.

She was angry.

She was desperate.

She couldn't win.

Meanwhile, kilometres away, Director Orochimaru sat in front of Sasuke Uchiha at one of his private estates, his insides twisted in anticipation.

He gained power through others, through others' bodies, others' will and dreams. He liked using shells like Kin, pulling at strings until her movements bent to his gain. He coveted Sasuke Uchiha now. The youngest of the Uchiha brother was a man desperate to re-establish his family crest and company.

A shell to be.

Orochimaru's nostrils flared as Kin served them tea. The steaming liquid dripped unstable, droplets flooding the tray.

Orochimaru raised a hand and Kin released the teapot, taking her place behind him.

She had grown frail and thin, more bones and edges than Orochimaru remembered. Used to the marrow. Instinctively, he knew he would need to get rid of her soon. For now, she still served her purpose, like her brothers acting as hi bodyguards.

Orochimaru reached for his cup, his large sleeve sliding up his slender wrist. The tea's aroma unwrapped, sweet and burned bitterness, its colour rich brown swirling.

"Do you know what a sand burial is, Sasuke-kun?" Orochimaru asked softly in the dialect of Konoha.

Delicately, he hummed over his cup, watching Sasuke through his eyelashes. His dark hair hung low on his forehead, his pale face frozen in disgust. He tore his gaze from Kin to focus on Orochimaru. He smiled privately, soon Sasuke would be as useless, bony, carved out, like Kin.

"I don't care about Windian traditions," Sasuke answered coldly and moved to the edge of his seat to reach for his cup.

He wore a modern suit, but he was trapped in the past. He dreamed of a Uchiha glory that was long gone. He dreamed of parents long gone, a brother also long gone. He dreamed and dreamed, and never saw the present for what it was.

Orochimaru tilted his head to the side, his lips curling up in a patient smile.

"Oh, but I think you'll like this story," he began in his thin voice. "It's a burial of kings. The body of kings is dragged to the desert and left there to feed the gods and keep the demon Shikaku at bay. It is said a sand burial is a king's final protection to his kingdom."

His spoon clicked on the porcelain as Orochimaru swirled his tea. He tasted the tea and smacked his lips together. Sasuke scowled impatiently.

"Gaara stepping down will benefit us both," Orochimaru concluded and leaned back in his seat.

"Why did you bring a guest?" Sasuke snapped. "I don't know her. I don't trust her."

Orochimaru chuckled and waved Kin away. She bowed, her cheeks pale in fury. A few minutes later, the door clicked shut, and she was gone.

"Better?" Orochimaru smiled indulgently. "Kin was very dear to Gaara, you see? I never come empty-handed."

"Hn. Isn't he married?"

"Oh, yes. Look at that headline: "Cinderella travels in rags"," Orochimaru read and slapped the newspaper, showing a picture of a woman sitting on a bus. "She's just a decoy. Unimportant."

"Kin also looks like a decoy to me," Sasuke replied with disdain.

Orochimaru would need to thread carefully. He knew Sasuke disdained him for the way he reached for power through others. They neede each other now, but later... Later, they would turn to each other.

He licked his lips.

"You're so rude, Sasuke-kun," Orochimaru chuckled. "I just want Gaara to be told she's here with us. Then, I want you to take her to Suna when you visit for the upcoming charity gala. You received my invitation, yes?"

"Why would I do that?"

'Because Gaara took the company back from me, and he has to pay for his insolence,' Orochimaru's face wrinkled in a flash anger.

"Because we want the same thing. With Uchiha Inc buying Sabaku Inc off, you widen your market and I finally become director."

Sasuke looked at him, mistrust blatant in his darkening face.

'Smart boy,' Orochimaru thought and his heartbeat quickened.

"The board of directors is meeting next month," Orochimaru continued with a honeyed voice. "I want Gaara to be dismissed then. A proper sand burial. The family business he purchased... I was the one to make sure he would find it. He's weak of heart."

He took another sip from his tea, his yellowish eyes burning through Sasuke.

"Is this why you told me not to buy it out?"

"Why yes, my dear Sasuke, I want you to sink it further. Stop the supplies for their new product." he smiled, his pointy teeth gleaming. "Let's bury a king."

Hope you liked it!

Next update is two weeks from now, on March 7th. This is partly why this chapter is so late. I wrote a lot of scenes ahead, so we can go back to regular updates. :)