A/N: Gaara and Kankurou are 6 and 8 in the beginning, respectively.

Dreamscape

Daughter to Father

Temari watched her brothers playing, a small, almost motherly smile gracing her face. Her eyes followed Kankurou as he chased Gaara around for a little while and eventually tackled him, resulting in a prolonged wrestling match in the sand.

Her smile grew slightly as a content sigh escaped her lips. 'This is the way things should have been,' she thought, her gaze locked on them still. The sight was enough to make her cry. She didn't, of course - Temari hadn't cried in years and she certainly didn't intend to start again now. But if she did cry, now would definitely be one of those times.

Suddenly they stopped - just for a second, in the middle of their roughhousing. Then just as abruptly they resumed playing as though nothing had happened. But Temari noticed.

She frowned and looked around, wondering what could have caused them to stop so suddenly. She didn't have to wonder long though because she saw him as soon as she turned around. He was advancing to wards them swiftly, his eyes locked on her brothers' figures in much the same way that hers had been just moments prior. It was the person who had destroyed all chances of the scene before her from actually happening - the Fourth Kazekage.

She couldn't even bring herself to call him Father (which was unsurprising considering that it had been years since she had thought of him as such). He had always treated them as shinobi first, children second. And that was just her and Kankurou. As for Gaara, she would never forgive him for what he'd done to him, for what he'd forced him to endure. In her mind, her real father had died a long time ago, leaving in his place, a cold, merciless man known to her only as the Kazekage.

He was coming ever closer, walking purposefully, his eyes riveted to her brothers who were still playing, seemingly oblivious to his approach. As she watched him draw nearer, an idea came to her. Her fan appeared on the ground next to her and she grabbed it firmly, then dug it into the ground in front of her. Swiftly she started drawing a circle in the sand, enclosing herself with Gaara and Kankurou.

"Temari," Kankurou called out, "what are you doing over there?"

"Nothing!" she called back in a faux cheerful tone, "nothing at all. But I want you two to promise me that you won't step out of this circle, okay? Both of you, I mean it!"

They exchanged a puzzled look and then voiced their assent before returning to their previous activity. As soon as the circle was complete, Temari's fan disappeared. She looked back at her father - he had stopped just outside the line of the circle and his critical gaze had shifted now to her, the slightest air of confusion about him.

Slowly, she walked forward until she was directly in front of him. Then she spoke, each word painfully honest and carefully chosen, "Get away from us. I don't want to have anything to do with you and neither do they. You destroyed this once. I won't let you take it away from us again."

She moved back and when she spoke again, her voice was much louder, now she was speaking to the world, "In fact, this is for everyone. Those boys - they are my family - they are everything to me so if you dare TOUCH them, there will be hell to pay." She finished, her eyes blazing, the venom in her words surprising even to her.

"Temari - nee - chan," Gaara called out, "come play with us!"

"I'll be right there."

She had looked back to answer him and in the second that she had looked away, her father disappeared. Still she scanned the area to make sure that he wasn't lurking somewhere in the shadows but no, he had really gone.

"You know what Gaara, just forget her. She's no fun anyway," she heard Kankurou say.

She grinned, "Oh Kankurou, NOW YOU'RE GOING TO GET IT!" she yelled as she turned and started running toward them. Her actions mirrored Kankurou's from earlier as she chased him around before eventually jumping on him. They fell to the ground in a mass of entangled limbs, laughing wildly and, not wanting to be left out, Gaara jumped in as well.

Temari awoke with a smile on her face. She looked around - it was still night but after that dream, there was no way she'd get back to sleep. She sighed as she got out of bed and started to make her way out of her room - truth be told, she hated dreams like that - they were so bittersweet.

She moved down the stairs and entered the living room. Just as she'd suspected, Gaara and Kankurou were right where she'd left them - both seated on the couch, only now fast asleep. Seeing Gaara asleep still gave her a bit of a shock but at the same time, she felt pleased - he was becoming more and more like a normal person.

She walked over to the couch as quietly as possible, then stopped behind it, gazing down at her brothers' sleeping faces. She sighed again. To think, she'd almost lost them both in one fell swoop. If she had lost them, she didn't know what she would have done. She reached out and ran her hands through Gaara's hair, 'If only protecting them was as easy as drawing a circle in the sand...'