Gaara sat alone in a destroyed office. He sat on the only piece of intact furniture, the small couch his wife worked and napped on. He hung his head, and abusively ruffled his hair as the sand particles crushed another piece of his already destroyed desk into the wall.
He had failed. He had failed the one person who he could depend on to care.
Hinata stood tall in her stance, eyes activated, hand glowing dangerously. Kankuro coughed behind her, trying to stand after his hit. His hand clenched to his chest. It wouldn't move. He couldn't effectively move his puppet with one hand. The missing-nin that she had missed with her Byakugan during her break had surprised them.
She was ashamed that she had let herself get so drained that she hadn't noticed them, but she was tired, and she had to rest between long sessions. They had been doing wall examinations for days preparing for the storm season. Prolonged use of her Byakugan had drained her chakra considerably. It shortened her range and use times.
Low on chakra and stamina, she knew she wasn't going to hold out for long. She held her ground and ordered Kankuro to get up and find help while she kept them from entering the wall.
Kankuro had watched his little brother grow from the worst monster he could have imagined to the leader he was today, and in a few seconds, he had watched him revert.
He had returned in the ball of sand faster than he had ever seen it travel to the medical center. His limp wife in his arms, his eyes murderous, the medics didn't even try to touch Hinata as he barked at them to take her.
Hinata was battered and bloody. Her clothes soaked in what he hoped to be enemies' blood rather than her own. She barely moved on her own as medics tried to have her respond to them. Gaara stood in the corner of the emergency room shaking furiously. Then Gaara caught sight of him. His face scrunched in anger, and before Kankuro could react or run, he was ripped from the medic attempting to heal his arm. He was slammed to a wall with the crushing weight of the blood-soaked sand.
"Where were you!" His brother barked in a voice that wasn't his own. "You shouldn't have left her to fight on her own! She was drained!"
"I'm sorry! She.. sent me to get help!" He coughed, desperately trying to breathe. He kicked his feet, but there was no finding the floor. "I was hit before the fight even started." He tried to explain, though if his brother wanted him dead, no explanation was going to stop him.
"Gaara!" Temari snapped, laying her hand on her fan in an empty threat. "You need to leave the medical center!" She demanded. "You are scaring the staff, and they can't help her like this!" She waved her arm to the frightened medics. "Hurting Kankuro will not change what has happened."
Gaara turned to glare, his eyes flaring with rage.
"You can blame me later. Right now, Hinata needs you to go calm down," Kankuro coughed.
Gaara looked back at his wife, and the sand swirls calmed for a moment. Then he and his sand was gone, leaving Kankuro to drop to the floor in a heap.
Temari knocked on her brother's office door, surprised it was still attached to the frame. No one dared come toward it in days, but the yelling and crashing from down the hall was near-constant until it today.
"What do you want?" Gaara growled from the other side.
"She's awake. She's asked if you were alright. She's not happy you haven't been eating." She explained with a frown. "Will you come to see her?"
"I should stay away from the staff." His voice sounded wounded in a way she had never really heard.
"She asked for you. A visit won't hurt if you don't threaten anyone again." It had been four days. When Hinata had woken up, her first words were asking for the brothers.
Those days of uncertainty had destroyed him. He was completely attached to her. This was not a healthy relationship, but then again, when had his life ever had a healthy relationship. To be honest, a dependent one was healthier than his lack of empathy for anything like he had had before Naruto.
There was a silence before he opened the door slowly. He looked miserable. The permanent rings under his eyes were darkened, he was paler than usual, his hair was tangled and wild, shoulders dropped with his eyes. Temari had never seen him look so… weak?
Temari's heart dropped, and she opened her mouth to say something in reassurance, but she wasn't sure she had the words. She moved forward for the first time since before he was able to walk on his own to hug him.
He tensed, but his face soon just dropped limply to her shoulder in his misery and lack of energy to push her way.
Gaara was not interested in complaining about the new physical contact from his sister as she dug him slowly to the hospital by his elbow. It was odd to think she was trying to comfort him, even more so that this was his fault. He hadn't protected his wife. He didn't give her a detail. He had been too busy to think that she might be attacked, that his brother wasn't enough, that the wall guard was near enough, that she would have enough energy to protect herself.
Kankuro looked at him, warily from outside her door. He glanced at him and then back to the floor. He felt his sibling exchange a look, and Temari lay a hand on his back, pushing him in.
"She's waiting for you." She prompted, making him go in the door.
Gaara's eyes wandered to the bed where Hinata laid, eyes closed. "She's been napping a lot, still low on chakra. They might keep her another day before ordering bed rest," Kankuro mumbled.
"It's okay to wake her." Temari pushed him a little further toward the bed before closing the door behind him.
He stared at his sleeping wife silently. She was pale, sickly, hair braid messily by someone else. She looked weak, so unlike her. He silently sat next to the bed and laid his hand over hers. It was cold from being out of the blanket.
Hinata jumped, blinking at the room to look at him. "Gaara."
"I didn't mean to wake you." He mumbled, looking at her with his full regrets. He didn't have the energy or drive to hide his misery from her.
"Gaara, what's wrong?" She turned her hand over to grip his. "I'm okay, onii-san is okay. You should be glad." She tried to smile at him. "We're nin we were protecting the village."
"You shouldn't have been alone outside the wall, especially in your condition. You said how draining the sessions were. I should have known you were vulnerable." He laid his face down to press his forehead to the back of her hand. "Don't forgive me for being careless."
"Gaara, this isn't your fault." She whispered, laying her other hand to run her finger back, untangling his abused hair.
Shukaku was screaming differently.
"I knew how tired I was. I knew more than anyone the effects of using the Byakugan that frequently and long. If anyone was to blame for the carelessness, it would be me." She started to explain the moments before they were attacked. She tried to pin the blame on herself for not being observant, but he wasn't letting her blame herself. She was the victim.
"Stop." He mumbled. She obliged and focused on his head, sliding her fingers through until there was no more resistance or knots.
"You haven't been taking care of yourself." She mumbled.
Gaara sat up, snatching her hand from his head to keep her from trying to put him to sleep. She giggled. "Catch me?"
"You have used enough chakra." He accused.
"Then lay with me." She slid over. "There is nothing more they can do, but let me recover and rewrap me. You won't be interrupting." She tugged on their clasped hand.
Hinata smiled reassuringly like it was going to be okay. She forgave him. He didn't deserve it. He didn't want it. Shukaku damned him for refusing her. He was outnumbered.
He removed his outer robe laying it over her and her blanket, and she opened them both to let him in.
Gaara curled into her and buried his face into what he may not have had any more. She whispered assurance into his hair, laying a kiss to the top of his head he didn't deserve.
Temari and Kankuro looked at each other solemnly. "Well, I don't think you're at risk anymore."
"I don't see this as better." Kankuro frowned, siding down the wall, sighing.
"He let me hug him." She mumbled, sitting beside him. "He just looked so broken I didn't know what else to do."
"I don't think I have ever hugged him," Kankuro mumbled, laying his head on his knees.
"You held him when he was a baby." She mumbled with a sigh. What was that? Twenty-some years ago?
He shrugged. "I don't remember that."
"You were pretty young too." She nodded. "I barely remember him being a baby, or even without the mark on his forehead." She motioned to her forehead as Gaara had his kanji scar.
"If anything ever did happen to her, do you think he would recover?" Kankuro wondered grimly. They were nin. They knew the facts. They would likely die young, though Gaara would likely outlive them all. The likelihood of death was part of the job description, but it didn't make this incident scare any of them any less.
"I think he wouldn't be the same. Maybe he would be like he was before, closed off. He let her in, and then she would be gone like everyone before. It would undo everything. He wouldn't let anyone in again. He would see it as too much of a risk because he might lose them." Temari felt tears and sniffed, annoyed with them. "It's never fair for him, is it." She wiped her eyes before the tear fell.
"Almost rather he'd be angry with me. Not, kill me, but toss me into something so he wouldn't look so broken." Kankuro mumbled. "I've never seen him look so… young, but like old?" Kankuro malled.
"Yeah," Temari whispers, leaning on her brother. "We never were the ones who needed to protect him, but he's never had weakness before her."