Chapter Four
Gaara stood staring down at the young girl sleeping in the bed. Shortly after he had killed the man and her tears had all dried out she fell asleep, slumping towards the floor. His sand caught her and gently placed her back into her bed. He now stood motionless at the edge of her bed trying to sort out and understand her strange behavior.
Gaara was by no means an expert on human behavior, the only emotions and reactions he had seen usually involved anger and fear. The only person to ever show him compassion or understanding had been Uzumaki Naruto. He hadn't been expecting anyone to show him anything like that for a long time. That's why he had decided to work hard and change himself. But it seems that without even trying the universe had delivered into his lap someone who didn't look at him with contempt.
He didn't understand though, why had she defended him, chosen to take his side? Why had he saved her life?
His puzzled contemplation was interrupted by Temari entering the room. Gaara only looked up long enough to notice that it was already morning.
Temari stopped dead in her tracks. She had told Gaara she would stop by after her mission so she had dutifully stopped by the hospital on her way home. Truthfully all she wanted to do was skip this visit and go take a much needed shower, but she had promised Gaara. And she didn't want to mess up whatever kind of 'change my attitude' trip he was on.
She had been expecting to find Gaara sitting stoically in his bed staring at the window. That was not what she found. Instead she found Gaara standing by the bed of the sleeping girl Temari had forgotten existed, in a room with a dead doctor and the flood covered in blood.
She sighed internally, "Oh Kami, this is exactly what I wanted to deal with right after that shit mission!"
On the outside she just frowned and asked, "What happened?"
"Hn" replied her youngest brother who continued to stare at the prone form on the bed.
It was then that Temari noticed that the girl was covered in blood as well.
"Gaara. What did you do?" She asked again with more force. If he killed the girl and the doctor the council was going to have a field day.
"I didn't do anything." Gaara rasped irritably, finally looking at her. She almost flinched.
Gaara would have sighed if he had been the type. Instead of humoring Temari's incessant questions Gaara chose to walk over to the window and stare down at the street, ignoring his sister. He saw her barely concealed fear; she had seen the dead doctor. She was scared of him.
Temari walked over the prone body on the bed and checked for any signs of life. To her relief the girl was breathing and seemed to only have bruises as far as she could tell. After realizing that the girl was unharmed Temari decided answers were more important than sleep. As much as she didn't want to wake the girl she need information and Gaara was clearly not in the mood to talk.
"Hey, wake up!" she said, gruffly shaking the girl by the shoulder. when she didn't respond shook her a little harder and spoke a few decibels louder.
Finally the girl started to stir. When she finally regained consciousness she shot upright in the bed, startling Temari in the process. She was clearly terrified by the way she gasped and looked around the room. What wasn't clear to the fan wielder however was why the girl seemed to calm down when she spotted Gaara over by the window?
Deciding to put that aside for later Temari began with the most important question, "What the hell happened?"
The girl then spotted the dead body and shuddered.
Isakso cringed at the memory. It was still to fresh, still to terrifying. The only thoughts that stopped the nervous tremors was that the young man who had saved her was standing on the other side of the room, and that the man who assaulted her was dead on the floor.
She was still staring at the dead body when she was roughly grabbed by the shoulder. Isakso hissed in pain, her shoulder had taken a beating last night and protested to the abuse.
"What happened?!" Temari was losing her patience. There was a dead body on the floor, possibly put there by Gaara and the only person who would talk was this girl.
The young blond in the bed slowly recognized this fierce young woman as Temari, daughter of the late Kazekage and Gaara's sister. It was probably safe to talk to her.
"That...that man," she couldn't say it, "Gaara-sama saved me." she said instead.
That hit Temari like a barrage of kunai. Totally not what she had been expecting. "why?," she asked shortly, glancing over at her youngest brother who still stood like a statue.
"He...he was...he was one of them," she said, feeling a little out of breath from the effort of the statement.
Temari straightened to her full height. She could see that this girl was going to be difficult to get any lengthy answers from. But she had the crucial bit of information she wanted. Gaara hadn't killed that man for no reason. In fact he had done it for a reason so out of character it was almost hard to believe.
"Gaara, can I talk to you out in the hall?" she asked hesitantly. Luckily he complied with only a small glare.
Gaara followed his sister without complaint seeing as she didn't look like she would let this one go. Only a week ago he could have threatened her with death and she wouldn't of even looked twice at the dead doctor on the floor. This trying to form bond was troublesome.
As soon as Temari had closed the door behind them she turned toward her brother. "What happened? And I swear that's that last time I wanna ask that question so you better give me full details." She was not the least bit intimidated by her brother's glare. "Gaara if you don't tell me the council is going to have a field day with this."
The council. After the Kazekage's death and Gaara's return to Suna they had been determined to tighten the reins on him. They wanted to keep him under control and had been the ones to order that he stay in the hospital for such a long period of time.
"That man came into the room last night," he started to explain in a voice raspy from under use, "I believe he was one of the men who assaulted Isakso."
"That's her name?" question Temari with a raised eyebrow.
Gaara nodded shortly before resuming his story. "He tried to kill her, but I killed him first."
Gaara was about done with talking and Temari could tell that he wasn't going to say anymore.
An hour later ANBU had shown up to the scene and cleaned up the body. They had also talked to Isakso. True to what she had said the night before, she told the masked men that Gaara had saved her. At first they didn't believe her but she was a law abiding citizen of Suna who identified the dead man as one of her attackers. Luckily their hands were tied on the matter since she wholeheartedly defended the murderous red head.
After the Anbu had been disbursed and Isakso had been moved to another room a nurse came by and told her that after a cursory examination she could go home.
"Where is Gaara-sama?" She asked the nurse curiously.
The nurse gave Isakso a look full of contempt, "That monster is in the process of getting released as well." Isakso could clearly see what the woman thought of Gaara, and what she thought of her for association.
The examination was over quick, and thankfully done by a different nurse who seemed to not hold such an extreme opinions of Isakso. Since her original clothing had been in such bad condition she was given a standard issue hospital shirt and pants. As Isakso examined herself in the mirror she couldn't help but appreciate how baggy and unflattering they were. Nothing about the outfit called attention to her shapely form, and that was exactly what she wanted after the incident.
As she was walking up to the reception desk Isakso spotted a familiar shock of red hair.
"Gaara-sama!" she called out as she approached. When she was close enough she bowed lowly to the emotionless young man. As she straightened up she noticed that he was dressed in normal cloths and carried a large gourd on his back. It was an interesting sight to say the least.
Gaara had sensed her approach before she even called out his name. Temari had been filling out forms to get him released from the hospital when Gaara turned at the sound of his name. He of course noticed the many looks that turned his way when the girl called out. She on the other hand was oblivious.
Gaara nodded to her impassively as she bowed lowly to him and waited to see what she wanted. He couldn't imagine why she would be talking and smiling at him, instead of running the opposite direction. She should be afraid of him yet in the one conversation they had, told him that she wasn't afraid. That seemed to be consistent with her behavior now but he still didn't understand why.
"I just wanted to say thank you." she stated simply, smiling and looking him in the eye.
"Why?" Isakso tilted her head to the side in slight confusion.
"For...for saving my life. For killing a man for me." A few days ago she wouldn't have even thought that killing a man was an acceptable deed but here she stood thanking the most dangerous person in the village for doing just that.
"Hn, it was nothing." For Gaara, killing was easy, natural, felt good. That man had been nothing to him. But that wasn't the reason he was dead. Even Gaara himself didn't understand the implications of his actions or Isakso's words.
Temari on the other hand narrowed her eyes in contemplation. Unlike her brother she wasn't ignorant to human emotions or actions. Her brother had been acting strange, even stranger still when he apparently saved the life of this girl.
"Are you checking out?" Isakso turned startled by Temari's voice. She hadn't even noticed that the oldest Subaku sibling was there.
"Oh, um, yes." She cleared her throat nervously.
"Well good, so are we. We can walk out together." Termari left no room for argument or compromise. She wanted to talk to this young woman and get some answers and insight and she wasn't taking no for an answer.
As they waited for Isakso to fill out all her paper work Gaara, indifferent to his sisters offer of walking with the young woman, examined the object of his confusion. She was odd yet completely ordinary. Although Gaara wasn't well versed in the area he wouldn't mark her as a great beauty or even unusual looking. Her complexion was slightly tanned, as was normal in Suna, her short blond hair and hazel eyes, although more uncommon, were nothing to get excited about. It was her personality he concluded finally. This however was another subject he wasn't well educated in, other peoples personalities. Before the chunnin exams the only thing that interested him about other people was their blood.
"I'm all done!" exclaimed Isakso excited to finally be leaving the hospital.
Gaara watched as they stepped outside, there was a slight breeze, and Isakso ran her hand through her short hair expressing what looked to be displeasure.
"So where do you live?" asked Temari staring down the younger girl who only smiled back.
"On the other side of town near the outskirts." she replied extending a dainty finger in some general direction.
Temari followed the finger with her eyes, "Outskirts, isn't that near the bar district?" She asked, knowing that was a shadier part of town.
"Well, um, yes but it was all i could ...afford." Mumbled Isakso visibly downed at the mention of the bar district.
Temari, not being stupid, connected the dots, "Isn't that whe-"
She was cut off by Gaara, "Temari"
Who knew that at this point Gaara would have more tact than his older sister? Isakso just brushed it off and smiled thankfully in the direction of her savior. The finally left the hospital grounds walking together since the Kazekage's residence was also in that direction, just not so far out. As they walked Temari chatted with Isakso trying to get to know the mysterious younger woman, who turned out to not be that mysterious. Other than a surprisingly cheerful disposition Temari learned that she worked at a small dango shop and had absolutely no ties to the ninja of the village.
When they reached the kage residence Isakso bowed lowly, "Thank you again Gaara-sama."
Gaara was slightly stunned, "Hn"
Isakso didn't take his characteristic muteness to heart and waved goodbye to Temari before continuing on her way.
Temari turned to enter their home, opening the door to the blessed coolness within. Sensing that he wasn't following her she turned to look at her youngest brother.
"You comin'?" she asked.
"No" was the only answer she received before Gaara left onto the rooftop and out of her vision. She sighed, just because Gaara seemed to be making and effort to change didn't mean that he was going to become all warm and fuzzy overnight.
"Kankuro!" she shouted closing the door to the outside world behind her.
Unknown to Temari the reason Gaara didn't come inside was because he was now stalking the interesting young woman. He followed behind her keeping to the rooftops to avoid being seen. It wasn't that he was stalking her; he just felt an unidentifiable feeling that urged him to make sure she got home ok.
Isakso walked through a busier part of town slowly. The sun was still high in the sky so she felt no hurry to get home. Truthfully she was avoiding having to pass through the drunk district again and trying to think of an alternative rout in her mind. After finally giving up in exasperation she decided to just travel through some smaller alleys that connected to her house and relatively safe during the day.
"The first thing I'm doing when I get home is talking a shower." she thought, feeling dirty just thinking about the event of the past few days.
She instead turned her thoughts towards he psychotic young man who she now considered her own personal savior. He really wasn't all that bad. From all the stories she had heard over the years she expected him to be more...intimidating. But from what she could tell he just looked sad. She had observed him the first night there, he hadn't known she was watching but she saw his expression as he gazed out into the night. He looked extremely sad and lonely. It reminded Isakso a lot of herself after she had lost her mother.
Shaking herself out of her depressive thoughts Isakso quickly sucked into a small back alley and headed towards home.
"I need to move." she decided, talking out loud to herself. "And get Gaara-sama a thank you present." She added silently as an afterthought.