The meeting.

The sun was barely up when Sasuke woke up Saturday morning. It was 5:30 and he was feeling inspired after sleeping on it.

He slowly went down the stairs, still wearing his pajamas and careful not to make too much noise. He started the coffee maker and went to his office to pick up his notebook and pen. He wanted a change in environment today, so he took all of his writing tool, the carafe of freshly made coffee, and a mug then he went outside to get settled on the terrace.

He had wake up with a somewhat clear idea of what he wanted to do. It was a little different from all his other books, but it was still definitely not something romantic and soppy. He was going to write the story of a criminal, and most of the plot would occur inside a prison. It could work, he just had to make sure that his main protagonist did not end up in a bloody or a desperate state.

He slowly started writing a draft. Writing pages after pages of ideas as the sun got higher in the sky and as the level of coffee left got low. He had lay out the basis when Itachi joined him on the terrace almost 4 hours later.

Itachi sat down next to Sasuke, a cup of tea in hands, as if nothing had happened the night before.

"What are you writing?" He asked, taking a sip of his raspberry meringue tea.

"I woke up with an idea for my next book. I'll have a lot of research to make it good though." Sasuke did not even look at Itachi while answering. He just kept scribbling in his notebook, a look of concentration on his face.

"What is it about?"

Sasuke putted the final dot on his work and handed it to his brother. "It's going to be inside a prison. I'll need to find one to visit soon if I want this to be as realistic as possible."

Itachi crossed his legs and started reading the pages. The idea seemed good to him and he could even help Sasuke if he needed some legal information. There was also something that he could do to make his brother forgets about his mishaps of yesterday. He had new right away that Sasuke would not be open to consulting a psychologist, thus his indignation was no surprise. It was not their style to apologize for such things but this would definitely make them even.

"This seems to have a lot of potential." Itachi started. "I know the warden of a nearby prison pretty well. Maybe I could give him a call and ask him for a visit."

"Yeah?" Sasuke asked a little dumbfound.

"Of course, I'll call him right away. When would be a good time?"

"As soon as possible."

Sasuke smirked and gulped down the rest of his coffee. This day would be better than the last.

Naruto woke up early, but still late, on Saturday morning. He had to be at the prison for works before 9 and it took almost an hour to get there from his condo. He jumped out of his bed and quickly putted the clothes he had lay out the day before. He hurriedly took his messenger bag and ran out with an apple and his keys in hands.

Naruto was still not used of working on Saturdays. His schedule had changed a couple months ago and since then what was his Friday afternoon at Millhaven Institution became his Saturday morning at the jail. Luckily, Naruto loved his job enough to work six days a week. He spent his entire Wednesdays and his Saturday mornings doing consultation at the maximum security prison and the rest of his weeks were spent between court and personal consultation.

When Naruto got to the prison, he was surprised to see that it was not Gaara waiting for him at the entrance but another correctional officer he had never seen before. The other seemed to know him but Naruto still introduced himself politely. Pretty much everyone knew him around here, he had been coming around two times per week for years.

The C.O. quickly walked him outside towards his first appointment. "The prisoner has already been moved to your meeting place."

Naruto subtly rolled his eyes. The man sounded so formal with him, he was probably new around here. Naruto was friend with pretty much everyone in the prison.

"Alright. Sorry, I am a little late I guess." Naruto tittered, scratching his head with his right hand.

The C.O looked at him out of the corner of his eyes and stopped in front of a door before nodding and opening it. Naruto stepped through the door first, followed by his escort.

He walked toward the steel table in the middle of the room where a young man with long blond hair already sat, cuffed to the table.

"Naruto, my man, I thought you wouldn't come." The cuffed man said, a huge smile on his face.

Naruto putted his messenger bag next to the table and sat across the man. "I would not miss our date for anything in the world, Deidara!"

Deidara's eyes sparkled with amusement as he laughed softly. When he calmed down, he looked at the third man in the room and indicated his wrists.

"You're gonna remove them or not?"

The man shook his head negatively and finally closed the door behind him, standing guard right in front of it. Deidara frown and Naruto stood up, quickly walking toward the guard.

"What the hell are you doing?" He whispered.

"Following procedures." The man answered loudly.

Naruto grabbed his arm and turned him away, both their back now facing Deidara.

"You're not supposed to stay in the room when I'm with a patient, especially not with this one."

The man lowered his voice. "I can't leave a civilian alone with a prisoner. It's standard procedure and this one is dangerous."

Naruto sighed. "Look, Deidara and I, we have an arrangement. He talks as long as he is not cuff and that we are alone in the room. You'll need to uncuff him and step outside."

"I can't." The man did not budged.

Naruto was getting angry and he let it show. He answered the man with his most intimidating voice. "I can see that Gaara did not brief you on how I work, but believe me, if you don't do as I say I'm gonna kick you out of this room myself. You're not going to break the trust I established after long hours of work, understood?"

The man gulped and nodded. Naruto extended his hand to him and the guard quickly gave him the key to the cuff.

"Now wait outside, I'll knock when I'm done." Naruto turned back to Deidara and as he started walking back to the center of the room, he heard the final click of the door shutting.

"That was impressive." Deidara said.

Naruto smiled. He had not been as quiet at the end of the conversation, it was no surprise that Deidara had heard pretty much everything he had said. He threw the key to Deidara and sat back in front of him.

"I'm touched to see that you care enough to threaten the younglings around here."

Naruto laughed. "Of course, I care."

Naruto did care about Deidara, he cared about all of his patients. He usually did not show it much, but with Deidara he had too. Deidara had been Naruto's first real case and Naruto had diagnosed him with Histrionic Personality Disorder with a touch of narcissism after thoroughly reading his case and after long discussions.

It took a really long time to bring them both where they were but it had been worth it. Deidara still sought attention and tended to behave dramatically but he was less prone to violence when things did not get his way. Five years ago, he had set up a bomb inside a hospital because his girlfriend of the moment was too busy with her work to pay attention to him. The detonation had killed 23 persons and had gravely injured 40 others.

Deidara was still dangerous to other, but by now Naruto knew how to handle his need. He was always alone in the room with Deidara, because the latter needed all the attention focused on him. Naruto was not even able to take notes without profoundly annoying Deidara.

Naruto lightly tapped the tips of his finger together. "Anything exciting since the last time we saw each other?"

"I'm sure you already know, because you seem to know everything about me," Deidara winked at him. " I have been assigned to a new cellmate."

Naruto smiled lightly. "Yes, I've heard. How is he?"

Deidara sighed noisily and raised his hands in the air. "He is horrible! He is some kind of French Canadian and he only speak in French. I've had enough of him calling for 'Dieu' and saying shit about not being guilty. Why did you have to send Sasori away? At least this one had half a brain!"

Naruto putted his elbows on the table and leant toward Deidara. "You know Sasori was not doing well here. He approved his transfer to the regional psychiatric centre in Saskatoon."

Deidara stomped his foot on the ground and screamed. "But I liked him! He wasn't annoying and he thought I was interesting!"

It was rare for people with the same personality disorder as Deidare to care about someone else like Deidara had come to care for his old cellmate. The transfer had been a really hard decision to make for several reasons. First, he had form a link with Sasori and he thought that he could have help him on the long term. Second, Sasori was good for Deidara. His presence calmed him and helped him re modulated his comportment. However, the environment of the prison was no good for someone with Dissociative Identity Disorder like Sasori. In the two years that Sasori had been in Millhaven, Naruto had seen 2 other distinct personality states appeared in Sasori. Sending him in a place where he could receive better treatment and live in a specific environment had been the best move to make.

Deidara violently stood up from his chair and started pacing on his side of the table. "And after that you dare come in here and say you care about us!" He came in front of Naruto's chair and putted his hands on the armrests of Naruto's chair.

"YOU DON'T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT US!" He sputtered in Naruto's face.

Naruto had not thought that this would degenerate so quickly. He was not sure what to say and Deidara seemed too far gone to be rationalized with words. Surprisingly Naruto was still not scared of him.

Naruto looked Deidara in the eyes and slowly raised his hands to put them on his forearms. Touching patients, especially when they were considered dangerous, was only for desperate situation and this definitely seemed like one in Naruto's eyes. He could throw professionalism to the wind for now.

"I DO care." Naruto said softly, putting more emphasis on the verb. "I knew that sending Sasori away would be hard on you at first, but it was the best thing I could do for him. You're a great person, you'll easily find someone else that thinks you are interesting, just like Sasori and I do." Naruto did thought that Deidara had the potential to be a wonderful person, but he also knew for certain that the narcissistic side of him would like what he said.

Deidara smiled and went back to his seat, satisfied.

Naruto sighed internally. "Would you like to talk about something else now?"

"Let's talk about the bitch." Deidara said, a psychotic smile on his face.

Ah yes, Naruto thought. The ex-girlfriend is always a good subject.

It turned out that as soon as possible was this afternoon. Itachi's contact had told him that it was calm at the prison these days because they just had a riot the week prior, thus there was less risk of anything bad happening during the visit. Sasuke was a little bit nervous for his safety while being there, especially after the mention of the riot, but Itachi's friend had told him that he would be perfectly safe and that his best correctional officer would be touring him.

This is how Sasuke ended up parking his car in the small parking lots of Millhaven institution, after a 40 minutes ride. He had a little Walking Dead feeling when he saw the huge fences, but he putted his nervousness behind him and calmly walked the short distance to the gatehouse.

Two correctional officers were stationed inside and they were both heavily armed. One of them got closer to the window as Sasuke approached.

"Hi, I'm Sasuke Uchiha. I'm here for a visit."

"Sorry sir but there is no visiting hours on Saturday, you'll need to come back on Wednesday." The C.O said.

"It's fine, Shigezane. He has special authorization." The newcomer had come from the back and Sasuke had to refrain himself from jumping when he first heard the hoarse voice.

Looking at him, Sasuke did not really understand why he was surprise. The man was probably not trying to be subtle. He was wearing the usual black uniform, a polo shirt with the establishment patches on both sleeves, cargo style BDU pants and a cap covering his bright red hair. On his right shoulder, just above what seemed to be an identification insignia, was a black radio. He also had a belt with a holster on the left side containing a 9mm Smith & Wesson and a badge on the right side.

The guy walked out and came to him with his right hand extended. "My name is Gaara No Sabaku and I'm the captain around here."

Sasuke shook his hand firmly. "Sasuke Uchiha."

Gaara nodded. "I'll need to search you before we go in. The process is usually more complicated but the big boss vouched for you so just empty your pockets and a simple pat down should be fine."

Sasuke knew this was going to happen, thus he only had his driver license for identification, his car remote, and his pen and notebook on him.

Gaara handed him everything back except for the pen. "I can't let you go in with this pen. You might try to stab me."

Sasuke looked at him blankly.

Gaara sighed, shook his head, and handed the pen to Sasuke. "That was a joke." Sasuke didn't even smile. "Alright, at least I can say I tried. Let's go in."

Gaara walked back inside the gatehouse with Sasuke on his trail. "I'm not a big talker so I'll tell you the basis and if you have any questions feel free to ask and I'll decide if I answer them."

Sasuke looked around the small room. The two correctional officer seemed to be ignoring them. One of them was sitting in front of a small control panel and was looking in the direction of the parking lot and the other seemed to be on the lookout near the large window that show the inside court of the prison.

"You mentioned a more thorough search for visitor, how does it work?" Sasuke asked, his pen and notebook ready.

Gaara motioned him to follow and went to the door from where he had first arrived. It was another small room with seats near the wall on the left. There was a small desk on the right and there were two other doors on the opposite wall.

"The door on the left leads outside. Visitors are ask to come here after presenting themselves to the front entrance. On visiting days there is one officer inside and one outside next to this door. Visitors then need to show their identification card to the receptionist at the desk and then are asked to wait here before they are searched." Gaara opened the second door and walked in. "We conclude a personal search in here and we used an ION scanner to detect if anyone has drugs on them. I won't explain the mechanism, you can look it up online."

Sasuke frowned but did not say a word as the rude man walked through the next door. They entered a large grey corridor. In front of them was a large open space with several tables and chairs screwed to the floor and small boots with a large glass window separating both occupants.

Gaara turned back to him. "This is the visiting area. It is equipped with several cameras and there are listening device embedded inside each tables."

Gaara waited to let him time to ask question but Sasuke did not have any for now. He just walked into the area and crouched near one of the table to look under. Sasuke did not have a habit of looking under furniture but this was probably the cleanest place he had ever seen. He could not have told that there was anything to record the conversation of inmates to their relatives under there.

He stood up and after a small walk around the place went back to Gaara. "Are conjugal visits permitted?" He asked as they started walking in the corridor.

"Yes. However, it is really strict. We have a small room with a bed inside and the whole visit is recorded with microphones. There is no live cameras in but we have infrared devices to supervise everything."

"There's not a lot of...privacy."

Gaara looked at him blatantly. "This is not a motel, it's a maximum security prison."

They were walking toward the next door when someone came around the corner at the end of the corridor. It was a tall blond man, rather handsome from afar, and he did not appeared to be a C.O. since he was wearing navy dress pants with an orange long sleeve shirt and carrying a messenger bag. He casually walked towards them and when he was close enough to see their faces, he waved enthusiastically.

"Hey, Gaara! I almost thought that you were avoiding me." The man said with a huge smile on his face. Sasuke had to change his thoughts, the man was definitely handsome, especially with that stupid smile on his face.

"If only it was possible." Gaara muttered.

At Sasuke's surprise, the man guffawed at the remark and hugged the correctional officer briefly before patting him twice on the shoulder. "Mate, next time you're busy, tell your men the proper etiquette. I was with Deidara this morning and I had to kick your man out of the room. It could have been really bad if Dei had not been in a good mood."

"Sorry about that. I had last minute instruction and didn't have time to brief him." Gaara said, indicating Sasuke with his thumb.

At that, the blond man finally looked at Sasuke. Looking as if he had not even noticed his presence before. Sasuke felt a bit exposed under the blue gaze scrutiny but kept his back straight and his head up, staring back. A short moment later, the man extended his hand to him, smiling again.

"You must be one of the newbies." He started excitedly. "Don't worry if Gaara is mean, it's just a façade and he promised me he'd work on his people skills." He looked at Gaara's frowning face and winked at Sasuke.

Sasuke shook his hand and opened his mouth to answer. However, Gaara interrupted him before he could utter a single word. "No, Jiraiya asked me to give him a tour for some kind of research he's doing. He won't be working for me."

A loud ringtone interrupted what the man was about to say. He pulled out his cell phone and seemed surprise to see what was on the screen.

"It seems like I have to go. Have fun, guys." He looked pointedly at Gaara. "Be nice."

"I'll try."

The man gave another smile to Sasuke and answer his phone as he was leaving. Sasuke looked at his back until he disappeared inside the door they had come from, talking about being surprised that the other person on the phone had called him so quickly.

Sasuke turned back to Gaara. "Who was that? I though cell phones were not allowed inside the prison."

Gaara smiled lightly. "Naruto Uzumaki. He's a special case."

Sasuke frowned and wondered what type of business a man like Naruto had to do in a prison. The man was clearly here often; he had been walking around on his own, without any correctional officer. He was either well trust, or the guards around here were stupids. Sasuke could probably write one of his character based on Naruto. Smiling and waving stupidly on the outside, but a criminal mastermind meeting his pawns in jail and fouling everyone around him. Not that Naruto was suspicious, just that nobody could be that nice and exaggerating his case could be good for his story.

Naruto had found it very difficult to not stare at the beautiful man standing next to Gaara during the entire conversation. He had tried to ignore him as much as possible to not be too obvious with his attraction. That's why he had been thankful, although surprise, when his phone had ring and the name of Itachi Uchiha had been written on the screen. The man had never called him before thus his secretary, Konohamaru, had probably forwarded the call to him with the information.

Naruto started walking toward the exit and answered his phone. "Hey! I'm surprised to hear from you so quickly."

Itachi cleared his throat before answering. "I was going to leave a voicemail on your phone office but someone pick it up."

Naruto shot a last look in direction of Gaara and the attractive man and exited the corridor, answering to Itachi. " Yeah, Konohamaru was doing some cleaning in my files. Usually, there isn't anyone at the office on the weekend."

"Lucky me then."

Naruto chuckled and waved at the two guards in the gatehouse as he went out. "So what can I do for you?"

"I spoke with my brother about consulting…" Itachi started. "And let's say that it did not go well."

Naruto hummed. "Did he appeared hurt or mad?"

"Definitely mad. Probably a little disbelieving? Like I said, we don't usually talk about our feelings. I think I took him by surprise."

"That's possible. At least you put the idea there, that will give him the chance to consider it on his own. Did you want to meet sometimes soon?" Naruto asked.

"Yes. If you have some free time, I wanted to talk a bit about family business. I'm putting this all on my brother but I think this could help me too."

"Just give me a sec." Naruto jogged the rest of the way to his car and opened the door. He took his agenda on the seat and opened it to this week, holding his phone between his shoulder and ear. "I only have a 2 hours spot on Monday morning or on Thursday afternoon. I'm out of town or on trial the rest of the week."

"Monday morning is fine for me."

"Perfect, I'll see you at 10 in my office." Naruto noted the appointment in the free space as he sat in his car and left the prison parking lot, shooting an appreciative look at the blue Mercedes parked nearby.