Sorry this took so long…my great-aunt just died, so that threw off my schedule a bit. And school sucks. This chapter is very strange. I don't like it.

And also, thanks again to reviewers…killerbunnie, you make me blush :) I won't ask you to review, just read.

Notes: This chapter is basically about getting to know Kimiko. And starting to hint at the promised attraction ;)

Diclaimer: If I owned Naruto, it would not be centered on Naruto.

Gaara sighed and breathed in the heavy desert air. Even if Konoha had such beautiful vegetation, there was nothing like coming home. Temari seemed of the opposite mind. She never liked leaving Konoha, but Gaara had no idea why. Most of the time she would disappear, anyway.

As the sky glowed with the promise of sun over the cracked, parched ground, Gaara entered the Kazekage mansion, treading lightly so as not to disturb those who slept still. Temari slipped away, sure to be watching him anxiously from afar.

Gaara opened the door to his room and let his bag fall to the ground. The resounding thump seemed to kindle movement in the room, the curtains swelling as they caught air. Gaara frowned as wind touched his face. He never left the window open. In fact, he locked it when he left the room.

Another shadow of movement flickered in the corner of his eye. Caught off guard, Gaara spun a trail of sand from his gourd, ready to attack the intruder. But the trespasser was not so defensive.

Kimiko stirred in his bed, eyes fluttering as she woke. For one moment of shock, the young Kazekage was paralysed. Of all people…in all places…this was absolutely not what he'd expected. The ex-Cloud-nin sat up in the bed, thankfully wearing a modest nightshirt instead of a flimsy pyjama top.

"Kazekage-sama?" she asked, blinking in confusion. "Oh!" She jumped out of the bed, and Gaara realized the over-size nightshirt was her only covering, leaving her lower thighs and legs exposed. He would've blushed, but as it was, he only stared, the sand retreating into his gourd.

Her legs were covered with scars, slashes and stab wounds and discolorations, like bruises that never healed. No wonder she always wrapped them in white bandages. He wondered who had inflicted such damage.

"I'm sorry, Kazekage-sama. Kankurou said it would be okay if I stayed here." Finding his voice, Gaara finally spoke.

"Where did those scars come from?" Kimiko looked down, blushed, and pulled her shirt a bit lower. She bit her lip in thought, and Gaara waited. He had learned to be patient.

"Me," she stated quietly. "Once, I was…I had been paralysed from the waist down…I just wanted to…to wake up. I though pain would work if anything." She seemed to think he'd be horrified. He gave her no such reaction.

"Um, anyway, I need you to sign my citizenship forms. And there's a ceremony of some sort after four months and four days of living in Suna."

"Right…I'll leave now…so you can change…" What else was there to say?

…

That night, Gaara had told her to stay in his room, and that Temari would help her find a place to stay the next day. She had no problem with this, but she wondered where he would go.

This night Kimiko wore long pyjama pants, not wanting a repeat of that morning. Remembering, she felt heat rise to her cheeks, an involuntary action that was still foreign to her. Glancing out the window, she was startled to see none other than the Kazekage himself, sitting on the balcony, his back to the wall and her. The moon was a pearl of luminescence, blurring the edges of his profile.

"Kazekage-sama?" she said softly. "Aren't you going to sleep? I thought the demon had been removed." She had, after all, been fully briefed, before the plan to ambush Konoha had gone astray. Gaara barely moved his head, but looked at her from the corners of his eyes.

"I didn't need sleep before, and I don't need it now," he explained. It seemed like he was growling. Kimiko felt as though going back inside to sleep would be uncomfortable, so instead she sat down a foot or so away from him.

As clouds veiled the moon in a mock masquerade, Kimiko was thrown into a memory of another cloudy night - but then again, when was it not cloudy in Kumogakure, the Village Hidden in Clouds?

"Your newest mission. We are preparing to attack Konoha, who has long barricaded our path to power in this world. The village is weak, and when they host the upcoming Chuunin Exams, many of their chuunin and jounin will oversee the exams, leaving patrols weak. You four squads will pose as genin taking the tests, and hit them from the inside while we force through their barriers."

Kimiko tuned out. Her task was easy. In theory, at least. But could she bring herself to set up this ambush on Konoha, her mother's indigenous village? Could she lower her mother's already low respect for her?

Then again, how could she act any other way?

The curse seal was itchy, a sensation not seen for the last five years, or rather four years and eleven months. The first month was worse than chicken pox. Or maybe it was always irritating her, but she had grown accustomed to it? Something had happened to make her aware of the terrible influence she was under.

The night was bitter. It seemed to harbour a grudge against Kimiko, for it blasted her with icy winds and left Gaara unruffled. Her bare arms prickled with goose bumps, her naked toes curling to conserve heat. Though she clamped her chattering teeth, Gaara noticed her spasmodic shivers.

"You're cold." It was a statement that offered no room for denial, that hinted at surprise.

"Who knew the d-desert was s-so c-c-cold at night?" Kimiko forced through teeth fastened with strength enough to chew through metal. She had remained inside, warm inside, for the past seven nights. She blew on her frozen fingers and tucked herself up small.

Suddenly, a source of heat leaned towards her. Startled, Kimiko glanced at Gaara, who had shifted to the left, closer to her. She snapped her head away, flushing despite the chill and becoming very interested in her fingernails.

They didn't speak after that, but it wasn't an awkward silence. There was something comforting in his stony, tranquil presence. The two waited out the night until Kimiko fell asleep, not even aware until morning that she had nodded off.

…

There was light burning into her closed eyelids, which she assumed meant it was morning. Opening her eyes just a crack, the sun assaulted her unsuspecting pupils, and she blinked hard.

The kunoichi registered her surroundings - she was still on the balcony, but her head rested on Gaara's shoulder, his arm holding her up. She felt his chin on her head.

With a gasp, she leapt up, knocking him away, but instead of surprise or shame, he looked at her with an apology written in his face.

"Good morning," she stammered before rushing inside to regroup.

…

Temari seemed to be her permanent shopping partner. She wasn't a particularly gentle person, but she was solid and strong, and Kimiko envied her sense of self.

"This is the last apartment before lunch," her blonde companion promised. For the third time. Dragging her up eight flights of stairs, she pushed the brunette kunoichi into a spacious, very empty room. The apartment looked lonely. It was kind of sad. It tweaked her.

Temari flew about the room, checking the walls, floors, windows, doors, anything and everything. Kimiko had to do little more than stand in the centre of the apartment and stare out the window at the amazing view presented to her. The desert was not such a lifeless place.

Overlooking the crowded downtown of Suna, people mingled and socialized, each with their own lives and problems and stories, lives that she may never know or affect. Buildings rose, towers shooting out of the flat landscape of the desert. Past sandstorms had blasted away at the stone and brick and clay, giving them a rounded, polished, ancient look. And past the skyline, the sands reached away to forever, fading in a haze of heat near the horizon.

"I like this one," Kimiko said softly, as she had about every other one, but this time with conviction. Apparently Temari heard it, for she smiled and left to get the landlord. The ex-Cloud-nin (future-Sand-nin?) waited in the small residence, not thinking about rent, or what she would do until she was an official shinobi of the Sand and could take missions to pay her way. She just thought of a different kind of future.

What would she do now that she was free? What would she do to prove that Gaara was right to trust her? What future lay ahead with her slightly jarring past? These things were more important than currency changing hands. Her destiny hung in the balance.

…

Sitting in her new apartment, looking just as empty as it had been (except for the unrolled sleeping bag and backpack full of clothes in the corner), Kimiko watched the lights in the shopping district shut off, one by one. The crowds thinned and vanished with the sun. The sky was refreshingly clear, a phenomenon rarely seen in her old home. She could count every star.

It was quiet, but not the way it was last night. It was lonely. Standing, the kunoichi employed her concealment training to steal softly through the night, to find the young man who watched the same sky peacefully. He had reappeared on the balcony. She stood far below him, on the streets, and he hadn't looked down yet.

Opening her mouth to say something, anything, Kimiko found herself unable to make a sound. She didn't want to interrupt his night. She didn't want to impose. Feeling even lonelier, she retreated into the shadows to wait the night out alone.

…

Of course he'd seen her crawl up. He didn't acknowledge her, mainly because he was curious as to what she was planning. When she returned to the night which she had come forth from, his curiosity was officially piqued. Why had she come? Where was she going?

Unaware of himself, Gaara slipped from the balcony and traced her steps in the dusty streets. She was living in an apartment, it seemed, as she climbed up to a window and slithered in. He didn't want to risk her seeing him, so he started to form a third eye.

It was always interesting having another viewpoint. As he watched the side of the wall fly by, he also saw the street stretching before him. Finally, he saw the elusive window, open just a crack.

It wasn't hard to infiltrate her room, but it was hard to see her in the shadows. Finally he noticed the interruption of light in the far corner. Floating closer, the third eye displayed these images to him - Kimiko lying down on her back, eyes closed. Was she sleeping? She flinched. Then Gaara saw something that remained etched in his memory forever.

Tears poured from her still-shut eyes, her mouth trembling slightly. The moonlight bounced off the crystalline drop descending down her face, glinting and winking at Gaara - or at his third eye. He had never seen anything so beautifully saddening.

What was she thinking of?

"I'm sorry to be the one to inform you, Mrs. Uwenaka."

Six-year-old Kimiko peeked around the corner, her mother's silhouette in the doorframe. The shinobi bowing to her had a mask on. Maybe it was her father's friend from ANBU. She hoped, naively, that he brought news of her father's homecoming, for he had been on a mission for far longer than his daughter enjoyed. She wanted to show him her report card from the Ninja Academy.

"Isamu Uwenaka passed away on this mission. We have brought his body back for the funeral." Kimiko froze. Minutes passed, her heart pounding so loudly she was sure her mother heard her eavesdropping. There was sudden pain in her chest, like someone had taken a kunai and was gouging out her heart.

Tears blurred her vision, and a tiny sob escaped her mouth. Her mother's head snapped around sharply, and Kimiko saw her eyes were shining with moisture.

Suzuku Uwenaka slammed the door in the ANBU man's face, and strode briskly past her young daughter to the bedroom, the tears finally overflowing down her cheeks.

In shock, Kimiko slipped down to land roughly on the ground, her hands gripping the wall so hard it squeaked as they slid. Shaking uncontrollably, she cried for hours.

…

The funeral was devastating. It went beyond words to see her father's motionless body lying in the casket. He looked like his skin was fading, and a shadow hung over his eyes. They had cleaned up the wound that had killed him, so the blood didn't show. But she knew it was there.

The minister droned on. He didn't even know her father! Isamu Uwenaka deserved better than a half-hearted eulogy from a man who never knew him. Risking a glance at her mother, she noted her mouth was pulled thin, which meant she was either angry or about to cry. Suzuku had tried so hard to keep herself from showing any emotion. Especially when Kimiko's paternal grandparents came around.

At the cemetery, the young girl felt her fancy new shoes sink into the mud, the rain a gentle mist over the sad scene. The minister didn't mention her father's last mission. Apparently it had been top-secret. She would never know why her father had died, or where, or by whose hands. She balled her fists, anger and sorrow colliding.

As the minister finished his speech, someone started passing out roses. Kimiko took one, and followed her mother to the grave. She stopped there and stared at the coffin. What could she say to him?

"I love you, daddy," she whispered, placing the rose with trembling fingers.

INSERTLINEBREAKHERE

"Your newest mission. We are preparing to attack Konoha, who has long barricaded..." Kimiko tuned out. Her task was easy. In theory, at least. But could she bring herself to set up this ambush on Konoha, her mother's indigenous village? Could she lower her mother's already low respect for her?

Then again, how could she act any other way? And didn't she want to fight for the village her father died defending? She wouldn't let his sacrifice go unheeded.

But now her mother had left, would she care more about where she had come from?

INSERTLINEBREAKHERE

"I hope you become as a great a shinobi as your father was," Uncle Hifumi said somberly. If he was so great, why had he died on the mission? "Train hard."

After the funeral, they had all come to a restaurant for lunch. Kimiko was quiet, and everyone else chatted nonstop to take their minds off the sudden death of Isamu. Now her uncle was addressing her in his infuriatingly solemn way.

"You shouldn't be sad. Shinobi must leave their emotions behind to complete the mission. You must take your mind away from your sadness by working to follow in his footsteps." Young Kimiko excused herself to go to the bathroom.

As she pushed open the door, she saw her mother glance up, startled, her puffy eyes red from crying, the handkerchief halfway to her cheek.

Kimiko opened her eyes. She could remember each detail excruciatingly. And her mother's face as she cried for the second time her daughter could remember. She didn't want to wake up yet, so she closed her eyes again. Just a few more minutes to gather herself to face the day and hide behind her mask once more.

…

They hid from destiny, all humans ran from the fate that Time would bring. In the end, their time was limited, the sand in the hourglass restricted to a human's short lifeline. And if they could choose another way, it would be better, but their paths were laid before them already. If only humans could see the errors of their ways, but they staunchly stuck with their beliefs of love, of courage and altruism, of power and hatred and revenge, and that led to their downfall.