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Chapter Seventeen:

Dreams Blurred To Nightmares

Happiness.

Its a strange word thats meaning is so simple that it becomes complicated.

Even in times of pain and hurt we can experience these small rays of sunshine that we believe we don't deserve due to some error or mistake we have committed.

But maybe thats not the case.

Maybe its okay for us to experience joy in times like that because it saves us.

Maybe if we didn't experience happiness in those times we would die inside.

Or maybe I'm wrong and we aren't supppose to feel happy that we're alive, when others that we have lead and others that look up to us have died because of our own actions.

I wish I knew.

The truth is that I don't.

So when Temari and Kankuro are in their slumber and I was feeling happiness- I felt it.

I felt the guilt.

I didn't mean to become happy while we were in search of Itachi and Sasuke- it just happened.

I couldn't control my emotions-

Again.

I didn't sleep to well because of my nightmare.

I didn't really dream after I had gone back to sleep.

It was just this black void inside my mind that I couldn't shake.

So when I opened my eyes to find a pair of amber ones, I screamed.

I didn't mean to, it just happened before I could stop myself.

I hadn't expected to see Jiyrah on my stomach, her claws digging into the soft flesh of my stomach.

I didn't mean to frieghten Gaara and Naruto from the shivering howl that escaped my lips.

Jiyrah cocked her head to the side, her eyes piercing through my own, she made me wander if maybe you could really see people's souls through their eyes.

If she was able to see my soul I have often wander what she thought.

Was it beautiful?

Was it hidous?

Anyways, a whirled wind of sand made itself apparent next to my bed just as Naruto came storming out of the bathroom, where he had been taking a shower, with a towel wrapped around his waist and even in his nudity, with the expection of the towel, he almost looked serious enough to fight.

Gaara appeared out of his sand with the same look plastered on his face.

"Whats wrong?" the sand whispered questioned me glancing around the room for any signs of an enemy.

"N-n-nothing," I stuttered, "Jiyrah was sitting on me so when I opened my eyes she startled me."

"Is that all?" Naruto demanded, as if he was always the serious one and I was the one who goofed off.

"Shut up, Naruto," I growled at him as Gaara stared at me with his green eyes amused at me.

With in an instance flash Jiyrah took flight sailing toward Naruto who instantly held his hands up as a shield, dropping his towel to the ground.

I turned as quick as I could, buring my face as far into my pillow as I could; I heard him take off to the bathroom without a sound, slamming the door shut and yelled through the wood, "I can't believe that happened! Of all the people in the world why me?"

Then, I thought my mind was playing tricks on me because I heard Gaara chuckle, "Its safe now."

I couldn't bring myself to look up at him, even though he wasn't the one who had been exposed.

I felt him place his hands on each side of my pillow, that I had shoved over my head.

He said nothing as he leaned over me- I knew that his head was very close to touching my ivory pillow, and some of his hair had been possibly brushed against the pillow.

Feeling the need to break the silence I said in a rather loud voice, "That was-"

"SHUT UP!" Naruto yelled from the bathroom at the top of his lungs, "I BLAME THE BIRD!"

"YOU'RE THE ONE THAT DROPPED THE TOWEL!" I yelled back jerking the pillow off my head without even thinking about the boy leaning over me.

Gaara must not of had expected me to do this because he didn't move; our lips were inches apart- mine flushed red and his without any emotion. He blinked, and I- well I couldn't seem to make my body move. It felt so nice to be so close to him, to feel his breath, to be able to examine all his features down to his eyelashes. I wanted to embrance him, and I desperately wanted him to embrace me.

He leaned down a little closer to me, creating a feather light pressure on body, at that moment our lips were hardly a centimeter apart.

I wanted him to move closer to me but he didn't.

Something in his eyes told me that his mistrust for other people was not going to allow him to get close to me in those ways yet.

I wont lie to you- I was disappointed, but at the same time I was relieved.

The truth was I was scared of getting close to him, after all we had very different ideas on how to handle the situation with Sasuke- at the time I still cared for him even though he betrayed us. It wasn't the same emotion that I felt before-

No, it was different.

For the sake of old times and for the sake of Naruto I wanted him to come back with us alive and Gaara had already threatened to kill him and us if we stood in his way.

My heart, back then, was beginning to break like the glass rose music box that shattered on the night of Sasuke's betrayal.

The tiny cracks had already started to form, and would evenually break lose with the pressure.

Our eyes were locked on each other for what felt like days, but was really about three to four seconds, before he pushed himself up off the bed just as soon as Naruto exited the bathroom, not looking in my direction at all, and pretended to be studing his jack that he had picked up off the ground.

I glanced up at him to see that his face was crimson.

I giggled.

I didn't mean to, but I did.

"WHAT ARE YOU LAUGHING AT?" he yelled at me dropping his jacket to the ground.

I looked over at Gaara who was taking two messanger tubes off the falcon's tiny limbs, then said, "Nothing."

"SAKURA IT ISN'T FUNNY!" he pointed at me, "NO MATTER WHAT YOU CAN'T TELL HINITA, GOT IT?"

Naruto and Hinita had been seeing each other ever since he had returned to Konoha, after all it took us nearly six to eight months to get the information on Itachi and Sasuke.

They were actually a really cute pair.

"OH RIGHT LIKE I PLANNED IT!" I yelled back at him throwing my pillow into his face, "LIKE I'D WANT TO SEE THAT!"

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN THAT?" he screamed back at me.

"LIKE-"

Gaara cut us off holding the tubes up for us to see, "We have news from Konoha."