**Note this will not line up entirely with the cannon on Gaara's death.
He knew what he was feeling was not real. The memories he looked at were far too happy to be his own. His mind reflected defensively, giving him something to focus on while his beast was ripped out. It imagined his life as it might have been, but after watching himself with a full family, mother alive, father who had not made an attempt on his life, brother, and sister who never feared him, himself, beastless, he found it didn't feel right as he watched himself age.
He would never wish for Shukaku to be there, but after all this time, it was hard to feel right without the voice in his head. The constant presence was all he knew. How would it feel to just have… silence. No growling, no mumbling, just silence in his head. Only his own thoughts and feelings. The person his imagination showed him didn't look happy with his much better life, just emotionless. Did he have emotions as a child other than anger and betrayal? He couldn't remember anything else.
As he aged, he began to notice changes that would have resulted from his father not trying to kill him and his mother being at his side. But what was missing? He watched the reels of the false happy scenarios and the still flat-faced other Gaara as there were flashes of achievements and rather than tragedies. He grew to Kage, not of fear and brutality, but respect and fairness.
This wasn't him at all. Had he deserved his respect without his growth from tyrant to leader?
When shown the next scene, he could instantly tell what he was looking for that was wrong. His office, with his father's original furniture. Pictures he destroyed long ago hanging on the walls and his mother sitting on a chair on the side of the room reading book.
She shouldn't be there, but she could stay for now.
A couch replaced her seating, and the furniture formed to be his once more. The pictures stayed. It was still wrong. He looked at the door and back at the couch. It was missing…
The door opened, and he stopped wondering. His mind showed him just what he was looking for.
Hinata, dressed as she would have before they met, the Konoha band still hung around her neck. She bowed, set a scroll on his desk before bowing again, and headed back for the door giving his mother a shy smile and another bow of her head. He stared at his other self, looked at her for a mere moment, then looked down. He frowned. No, he didn't want that.
The room melted. Annoyed with his mind, he forced it to show him where they had met. During the meetings, her father made his offer, and his other self looked over and frowned at her. The day went on with his lowered temper. He stayed quiet, never confronting her, his father warning to keep his distance.
He remembered Kankuro sitting with her and the change of expression suddenly when she had looked at him. Kankuro had later told him that she had expressed her compassion for his situation, but he had no demon here, so she simply glanced at him with respect. During the tour, he stayed silent rather than outburst and accusing her of attempting to seduce him, but how would he know who she was?
He was never forced to apologize. He never went on a second tour. He never heard her story, was never offered her directly, never asked her to marry him.
Instead, Kankuro took his second tour as she had promised due to his slightly sour mood. He gave away, and she awkwardly bowed, apologizing.
Would Kankuro have married her? Her father would have offered her.
He looked toward his imaginary father, who gazed on with interest.
Possibly.
Would he have learned all he had as her brother-in-law rather than her husband?
He didn't like this reality.
Before he could force himself to change it, the imaginary world went black like a light had been turned out. Was he waking up?
Her ring disintegrated. She hadn't thought about it, but it hadn't left her hand until just now.
She stared at the loose sand on her desk and started to shake. She couldn't breathe. She felt tears running down her face as she touched it with her fingertips.
It was lifeless, void of chakra.
He was gone.
She choked and covered her mouth as she began to sob. It was violent and painful to cry. She shivered and gasped as days of numbed pain crashed down on her. He was dead.
He was dead.
She heard herself scream in pain as she doubled over, unable to breathe through her violent sobs. The door crashed open moments later, and she could hear her name but couldn't answer. Her chest burned with the sharp pain of loss and lack of oxygen, but she couldn't take a proper breath. She couldn't handle it. It was finally all right in front of her.
He was dead.
She screamed into her knees as her shoulders were grabbed by someone trying to stable her. Her headache made the bile that came up her thought hard to keep down. She turned to the trash and was sick. Her hair was pulled away from her face. Tears dripped off her face in rivers as she coughed.
She felt like she was torn in half, and she wasn't sure if the pain was going to stop.
Masturi restrained her the best she could, kept her hair back as she was sick, dabbed her forehead as she wilted with nothing left to cough up. She wailed violently for what felt like hours but was likely only minutes until she dissolved into shivers and with a few more episodes of gags. She eventually came off the chair to bow on her knees on the floor, leaning against the desk drawer's head over the trash. She stared at the floor, blindly gasping, holding her upset stomach like it was hurting.
"What's happening? Are you alright?" Matsuri asked again. Thus far, she was either unable to answer or just didn't.
"He… He's dead." She gasped harshly, letting out another sob. "He's gone." She coughed painfully, her face shivingling painfully as she covered it with her sleeves.
"How..." Masturi looked around for an open message or a seal but found nothing but a pile of sand that didn't even make up a few ounces. She looked back at Hinata's shivering form. She held her clasped hands to her lips, looking up with red-rimmed bloodshot ghostly eyes. "I..." She felt the hit, and she too started to tear. "I'll get Temari." She released Hinata slowly, unsure if she was safe to leave on her own.
Hinata curled around herself and buried her face while she went to get help.
Temari held her. She cried herself once she had understood how she had known. She scooped her up and led her to the couch, where she dissolved limply, shivering. She had completely exhausted herself, physically and mentally. It seemed all she could do. She refused water until it was shoved in her face.
Hinata had completely shattered.
When Temari had seen her in the hospital, she hadn't thought of what she had wanted her to be when she accused her of being unfazed. Was this what she had wanted? It wasn't what she had expected.
She expected cracking and falling to pieces slowly, not a full shatter and the piece on the floor being broken further as they landed.
She mourned her brother, but she was distracted by the care Hinata needed. Completely depleted, Hinata simply whimpered until she had cried herself to sleep. Kankuro was informed when he came in from the restorations. He paused, looking at them, and rubbed his face pulling off his puppeteer hood to ruffle his hair. He said he would be back and did so with his paints removed and his eyes rimmed with a natural red. He lifted Hinata's legs and sat under them, fixing the edges of the blanket they had haphazardly tossed over her to fit around her legs. Matsuri came back after informing the council. She frowned at the three turning to order someone to bring back a tray of Hinata's tea's and some snacks that they could stomach. She pulled a table and chair up, and they nibbled in silence for a while.
"Will she be okay," Matsuri asked after an hour of deadly silence.
Hinata's head and shoulders laid securely in Temari's lap. Her mouth pressed to her curled hands, hiding her lower face. Her face was still flushed red and streaked from crying so violently.
"No," Kankuro answered flatly. "But she will cope."
Temari looked to the side, scrunching her face. "I don't know that it will be okay."
"Wh...What happens to her? Will she have to go back to the Hyuga. She's the Kazekage. Surely they can't?" She stared in panic at the thought.
Temari waved her freed hand that wasn't laid on Hinata's hair. "No, she is a Suna citizen. They can do nothing. Her status as Kage only further solidifies that."
They went silent again before Kankuro spoke a few minutes later. "I don't even think it thought it was possible."
"He was so… indestructible." Temari mumbled in agreement.
Masturi nodded and sucked in a sob she tried to force down.
"We can't dwell, his spirit will fester, we must honor him properly." Kankuro reminded them.
"Wait until she can do it. I'm sure she doesn't know, and maybe it will bring her some peace." Temari added.
Hinata was stiff and sore, her head hurt, her empty stomach burned with the acid that went unused. Her face was crusted with tears, she coughed, her throat was dry and in pain. She was offered water, and she drank it. She looked up at Temari, who gave her a weak smile. She looked around. Kankuro was asleep, leaning against the arm with his arm folded over her legs. Matsuri had fallen asleep upright in a nearby chair.
"Etsu-chan is she...?" Hinata started.
"She was sent word that there had been a tragedy. She stayed the night with Baba. Matsuri doesn't want her to see her cry." Temari pushed her hair back. "Didn't think that would be your first question."
She laid her head back down. Her head throbbed.
Temari tapped her and held something out. A tiny bottle. "We thought you might want this protected."
The sand that had encased her finger laid motionless in the jar she titled it one way. It moved lifelessly. She held it to her chest tightly and curled around it as the pain returned full force.
Her finger felt empty. She hadn't taken that ring off since their wedding, it had naturally dented her finger where it should lay, and now it was gone. Just like him, gone.
The hole in her chest felt hollow. Somehow, she felt sick, but she was sure she couldn't throw up because her stomach was empty.
"There's been no word on if he was found," Temari added. The subtext made her flinch. 'He likely died alone.'
After all, he had been through his miserable life, and he died alone for his village.
"I… He..." She squeaked as she started to cry again, bringing her face into Temari's legs. She felt her hair pet gently, keeping it out of her face.
"We'll… get through it." Temari mumbled.
She held the bottle tightly to her chest. "Do you think this could only mean the Shukaku-san has been pulled from him." She could be wrong. She hoped she was wrong.
"The beast lost control of the sand when he was hit. I think if it was sand, he was controlling, the ring would have fallen off then, but I guess..."
She couldn't hope for that. Neither of them deserved death. Neither of them deserved the hand they were dealt. It wasn't fair.
Hinata stared at the figure made in Gaara's image. Not quite a puppet, more like a doll, it was simplistic in his features, yet still detailed. It was handed to her, wrapped in a white cloth circled in string beads. She did as Kankuro instructed from her left, wrapping it like you would a dead body, and she placed it on the traditional home shrine-like she was told.
Temari on her right reached forward and lowered the white cloth vail she was wearing over her face symbolizing her mourning. They explained that this was traditional, but it was always private. Public mourning was more cheerful in an attempt to celebrate the person's life rather than dwell on death.
"If you dwell on his death rather than remember their life, you will stop their soul from passing on. It will fester and become dark and disturbed." Matsuri had explained. "They used to believe souls that became disturbed would enter puppets that looked like them and kill."
She understood the superstitions through extreme, but they were well placed and focused on trying to keep the living from focusing on the dead.
She stood when Temari touched her arm, and they all bowed to the shrine. She looked at his painting through the veil, and her lip quivered.
She was now a widow.