Chapter 5

"You lazy bastard, we need to find Gaara!" shouted the fan wielding woman.

Shikamaru rolled his eyes, mumbling. "Yeah, yeah, I'll get to it."

"Shikamaru, we need to find him! I'm sure that wonderful," queue sarcasm "mind of yours has already figured out what would happen if he were to be found out by the wrong people!" Temari seethed.

Shikamaru sighed. He did know. Temari's hands were clenched in fists at her sides, the knuckles becoming mottled with the pressure. He stood up and drew her into his arms. Slowly, her fists relaxed and the tension seeped out of her shoulders as she wrapped her arms around her lover.

Shikamaru wished he could tell her it would be alright, and that they would find Gaara unharmed and unseen and they'd be able to go back to the way it was before. But it'd all be a lie, so he just held her close, his beautiful desert flower.

"We can go out right now, okay? We'll find him." He said to her, kissing her forehead. A little lie was okay. Sometimes you need something other than the truth. Temari lifted her head from his shoulder, and gently placed a kiss upon his lips.

He ignored the tears on her face and so did she, their presence expressing the truth more than words ever could.

Gaara, at that moment, was eating waffles.

Chocolate-chip waffles to be exact. He still had on the blue Pajamas from before, making him look so pet-able (though Neji's arm hurt a little too much for him to even think about attempting it). Well, pet-able if you ignored the Death Glare of Doom he was giving Naruto, who was attempting to start a conversation with the red-head.

"Soo, Gaara, why were you in that house in the middle of the woods?"

//The four people walked in silence through the forest, tension permeating every breath of air. Temari was walking to the right of Gaara, Shikamaru to his left. Kankuro was lagging behind as usual. Pausing for a moment, Gaara looked to the hidden horizon. He then continued walking, this time at a quicker pace. Exchanging glances, the others followed suit.

Behind the trees, the moon was preparing to rise. //

"…" it was amazing how venomous a glare could be while the glare-er was eating waffles.

Naruto persevered. "O…Kay, so why do you have a tail? And dog ears?"

Slowly the world went dark around the edges but I could still see and pain laced throughout my entire body. I could feel my body changing, my bones and flesh reforming. I distantly realized that I had broken out of the restraints.//

"…" again, no response, though the red head's waffle seemed to have done something to anger Gaara, the way he was mutilating it.

Naruto tried again, desperately wanting some information. "Will you at least tell me where you got that tattoo on your head?"

//Gaara was tied down… the man… he was hurting Gaara… Gaara couldn't scream… no one… the knife… the pain… the man was punishing Gaara… what did Gaara do?… why?... the man… he started to hurt Gaara even more… Gaara was scared… then… the voice… it yelled at the man… it threw the man away from Gaara… it crushed the man… then… the blood… it liked the blood… it told Gaara he was safe now… but Gaara was tired, so tired… Gaara slept… then she came… the girl… she smelled familiar… Gaara trusted her… she saved Gaara… no, it did… the… sand…//

Gaara then glared at Naruto, pausing in his mutilation of his waffle to do so. If looks could kill, Naruto would have been a small pile of ash, had he not had a partial immunity to death glares.

He finally got the hint though and went back to his waffle, pouting slightly.

What Naruto had seemed to miss were the brief flashes of pain in Gaara's eyes at each question, the worst one being when Naruto had asked about the symbol on Gaara's forehead. What had happened to Gaara to put that pain in his eyes? Neji intended to find out, one way or another.

By then, Shikamaru had talked to the friends he could reach. Apparently, Shino heard from Ino, who was dating Chouji, who had heard from Sakura, who had heard from Kiba, who was married to Hinata, who had spoken to Tsunade about her child, that Neji was currently housing Naruto and some nameless redhead with green eyes (and was apparently VERY good-looking, says Sakura from what she had heard) because he had been found unconscious on some road.

Obviously, his interest had been piqued.