Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, nor do I claim to, so please don't sue.

Chapter Two

Rai wondered how pitiful she looked right now but she was sure she looked pretty pitiful. Of course, even if there were someone around to ask, she was sure she wouldn't get a straight answer out of them. No one had yet to actually speak a word to truth towards her, except maybe Kankuro, and those honest moments were few and far between. She was hobbling around, barely grasping the concept of crutches. She was a ninja for god's sake, a decent one at that, and she couldn't even use crutches to save her life. The pad (which reminded her of a hot dog bun) felt stiff and uncomfortable under her arm and she didn't trust the skinny wooden objects to support her weight while she tried to move forward. It didn't seem like a logical thing; yet here she was, trying to navigate her way through the large city of sand she'd spent the last week in on these horrible crutches.

Kankuro thought it was downright hilarious to see the girl struggle with such a simple concept and every time he passed her in the street, or came to see her at her hotel, he couldn't resist cracking smile or outright laughing. She really wanted to punch him or something, but her range of movement was pretty limited as of late, as he kept reminding her.

That's another thing that made her nervous about using crutches: the lack of control over her general movement. The bandages that were wrapped tightly around her arms, legs, and abdomen where quite constricting, so even if she were to finally get the hang of the crutches when she got her bandages off she'd have to re-learn how to use the damned things. In her opinion, this was too pointless an act for her to bother with. Let her hobble around without the things, but the doctors here made her swear to use them until they deemed her fit enough to walk and Kankuro was not about to pass up a chance to torture the girl.

Rai turned town a dark alley between two tall, beige buildings and hoped there wasn't anything she could trip over lying in her path, and continued on.

Sunagakure was an all-around odd town, she noted. She had seen her fair share of crazy cities, towns, and even little villages in out of the way locations, but none of them compared to this. The ninja's here were dressed in heavy clothes when she was about to parade around the town completely naked because she was convinced it would be more comfortable that way. Kankuro wore all black and bloody hat for god's sake! How could he stand it. The people here were gossip mongrels with no common decency. They could be talking about the person standing behind them for all they cared, as long as the gossip was good enough. Granted, most towns gossiped, but there seemed to be a designated time for everyone to gather and talk. It made people like her, strangers, feel out of the loop and un-welcome. Kankuro and Temari helped a lot with that. She didn't understand how just knowing them made people welcome her, but it did.

Then there were the buildings. From the outside they were spectacular, even if they were slightly drab colour-wise, but inside was another story. Rai wasn't even sure there was a word invented that could properly describe them. Most of the windows didn't have glass panes in them, which gave her loads of opportunities to just sit around and feel the wind blowing. The rooms were scarcely furnished, expect for in her hotel room, but it seemed to work. They were beautiful and cosy and all those other things you wanted from a room without much help.

Rai lifted the crutches up and set them down at a safe distance in front of her and went to put all of her weight on them to hop forward when she heard a sort of crunching noise and felt one of the crutches - the right one she thought - slip. She fell forward and tired to move her arms out in front of her fast enough to catch her fall but it turned out she didn't need to.

Someone's hands were on her elbows, lifting her up and steadying her. A faint blush creeped onto her face as she looked up at the stranger. She couldn't see much due to the dark night sky overhead and the lack of a moon, but she could make out enough features to know she had never seen this person in her life.

He didn't say anything and she was afraid to say anything. He had this air about him that intrigued her and scared her simultaneously. His deep red hair was the first thing she noticed about him, and the second thing was his clothing. They looked like robes but she couldn't be quite sure in this light. She could tell they were mostly white though.

"Thanks for… um, catching me." She whispered timidly. "That was a close one."

The man just nodded and kept his mouth shut. Rai couldn't tell if he was about to say something, or if she should just walk away. She glanced to his face again and inwardly sighed in frustration. The expressionless void that was his face gave her no clues to what he was thinking, although it did tell her that he was quite attractive…

That wasn't that point.

Rai bit her bottom lip and decided that if she didn't speak in the next minute she'd move around him and head back to her hotel, if she could find it.

After what felt like almost ten minutes (she felt bad at giving him only a minute, so she waited around longer) the kunoichi gave up and started to move to bend down and get her crutched to leave when he bent down much quicker than her, grabbing her elbow on the way back up, handing her crutches back.

Rai felt an annoyingly familiar heat creep onto her face again and hoped that he couldn't see it in the dark and mumbled a quiet "thank you" before turning on her heel to move past him. His arm shot out and stopped her. She turned to him and gave him a confused look.

"You're going to trip again." He gestured to another rock beneath her crutches, his face still lacking any emotion at all.

"I'm a walking hazard, I supposed. I'm bound to trip sooner or later. I'll just be going now. See you…"

"I'll walk with you. Just in case you trip." He said.

He spoke in such a quick and quiet manner she had to strain her ears to hear it. She wasn't even sure he'd said anything until his hand was back on her elbow, turning her back in the direction in which she was originally headed, and he had planted himself at her side, waiting for her to make the first move.

"You don't have to you know. I'm really quite capable of walking the rest--"

"I know." He said, just as quietly before and considerably slower..

She wondered what he must think of her and settled on the conclusion that he thought her a bumbling idiot who couldn't even walk properly without making a fool of herself. Although at the present moment she couldn't deny that she did come off as exactly that but it still didn't make her feel any better.

She took a deep breath and started her slow and awkward walk back to her hotel, a complete stranger in tow. Even so often she slipped on another rock again and he was there, as silent as ever, to catch her and put her right without missing a beat. It irked her how it didn't seem to faze him that right next to him a girl was tripped over rocks and everything else it seemed, he didn't even seem to skip a beat. She was sort of jealous and she mentally beat herself up over being jealous of a stranger for no good reason.

"Thanks for walking with me, although I think I would've been just fine on my own." She said trying to make a joke out of it as they stopped in front of the hotel.

"I'm sure you would have." He whispered his voice lacking emotion.

She was sure if someone else had been in his place, that comment might have had a sarcastic and humorous intonation, but not with him. With him it sounded indifferent to the point of being a little cold.

"Okay well, I'm going to go in now. Thanks again, uh…?"

"Gaara."

"Right… Gaara."

She turned around slowly and walked through the open door way, stopping to turn around. He was still standing there, his face starting quiet intently at her own. She felt another blush rise to her cheeks but she didn't look away, she couldn't look away. The man behind the desk mumbled something and she turned to answer him and look back quickly but Gaara was already walking away and she could have sworn he had a smile on his lips.