So I've basically come to the realization that the Sakura in this fic is probably a bit more damaged than I expected her to be. But then you'd have to be to be emotionally attached to a mentally ill Sasuke for so long. I guess I wanted this to be somewhat redemptive for Sakura and Gaara both. She can find a way to move on from Sasuke, and Gaara can find a reason to stop his retreat from humanity. I don't know if I got where I wanted to get, but I do know that I only have one more chappie after this which is an epilogue. I have seen a number of the "Gaara and Sakura meet in a loony bin" premise but I wanted one where it didn't feel so overtly creepy. Maybe it's a premise that will have to be tackled by someone more methodical than I.
TL;DR right? Enjoy the chappie before the last chappie!
"Did you brush your hair?" It was a stupid question. What does one say to someone you haven't seen in nearly six months?
The look in Gaara's eyes, the sudden narrowing as if she had lobotomized herself before stepping foot near him, just made her feel clumsier about this whole misadventure.
"Because it looks like you brushed it down and it doesn't look right somehow." Sakura finished lamely. "Did you have a good Christmas?"
The other eyebrow arched up to join the first on Gaara's face.
"Do you even celebrate Christmas? I dunno, did you have a good Hanukkah?" She huffed a little sigh. "C'mon help me out a little bit. I feel like an idiot here."
He looked deceptively normal, in a charcoal sweater and baggy beige pants that most definitely didn't look like the standard clothes issued to the patients. Nothing about this felt like it was normal or familiar, he didn't radiate that tension she had become used to and she felt herself filling it in in its absence. Her fingers tapped and jerked on the table between them, she couldn't meet his level stare.
"Took you long enough." He finally relented, sitting back into the narrow chair. The relaxed pose looked rehearsed, as if he had had to practice slouching.
Sakura's eyes darted to the side where orderlies were watching them like hawks. They were six feet apart and she felt no safer for the precautions. "So I hear you might even get out of here soon?" She wouldn't probably have come to visit, but Dr. Iruka had given her a courtesy message on her voicemail that Gaara had started evaluation process with the stated goal being reintegration with the outside world. "What brought all that on?"
His mouth quirked to the side more like a spasm than a smile. "Subtlety isn't your strong suit. If you want to be a doctor you might want to work on that bedside manner."
"I'm not here to talk about me." She tried to shut down that line of questioning before it got her in trouble.
"Then you're here to talk about me?"
"I'm not here to talk about anything."
It was just the end of winter break, mid-January, and she was feeling like she needed to get back on track for this semester. She had gotten B's last term. Her. That was not the Sakura she wanted to be, or the kind of results she wanted to show people she could achieve. Gaara was a thorn in her side, a lingering thought through Christmas with the family, a steady pressure during the New Year's party at Ino's, and now she was going to cauterize this and move on. His uncompromising, unblinking stare made her wonder: what would happen if he got out, or rather… when.
"Finally get bored watching TV in here?"
"Did you think that's all I did?" Gaara didn't give away a hint of emotion. "Board games and bad television?"
Sakura felt like he was baiting her, somehow. "I don't know what you like to do."
"You should have some idea at this point." He said it in such a matter of fact way, looking her in the eyes, and she felt a chill run up then down her spine. It should have been revulsion, but she couldn't say for sure what it was. Gaara moved on quickly. "College seems to be where people our age are, especially when they have little to no work experience. It seemed logical. My enrollment and my release will probably be well timed together."
School was safe, she liked school and she could discuss that all day long without losing interest so she went for the opening. "What major are you thinking of? If you're thinking pre-med I can definitely tell you which professors you want to avoid."
Gaara pulled something tan out of his pocket and began to squeeze it slowly. It looked like a stress ball, but it had an irregular shape. Maybe this conversation was just as hard on him as it was on her. That thought actually relaxed her a bit as she took some pleasure in this crack in his solid exterior.
"I don't think anything that involves a cadaver is… recommended." She realized she had said something needlessly insensitive in her zeal and blushed from her neck to the roots of her hair. "I was thinking more along the lines of pre-law, perhaps business."
"It's hard to imagine you in a suit."
"How do you imagine me then?" It took her a moment as she sputtered angrily to realize he was teasing her. She took a deep breath and counted to ten. This was not how this was supposed to go today. Today was a day for burning bridges and walking away. This was companionable, even flirtatious, and she didn't want it for what it was, which was more complications in her already busy life.
She tried to put up a defense as total as his, to reveal nothing as she finally said what she had come here to say.
"I can't come see you anymore. This is unhealthy, for both of us, and I can't have you in my life right now."
She was ready for the rage, she had steeled herself for it. Saying the words had felt liberating but right after she finished and she saw that flash of hurt before he locked everything back down on his side, there was an ache. Sakura had meant what she said. There was no room for the regret that was boring into a tiny corner of her mind, the part that told her this was the only person who she never compared to Sasuke in some form.
"…" He opened his mouth and closed it again, squeezing that little tan object so hard she wondered if there was any stuffing that could possibly pop out of it.
All she ever had to deal with awkward situations were words, and then began to fall out on their own. "I read all your letters, all of them, a couple times over and I thought about ripping them all up but I just couldn't. And the more I thought about it the more I realized this was stopping me from moving on to something else, and then I realized that it was actually because I had moved on and you had inspired me to move past something and now I had to move past the thing that helped me move past the other thing."
"You're babbling."
"Yes I'm babbling because even though I can be bitchy I'm also regrettably responsible and I actually care if I just hurt your feelings dammit, so say something!" She wanted him to cuss her out, get up and leave, do something that made her feel like her decision was justified and correct.
His silence and calm acceptance was ruining everything somehow. What had she expected? Crying wouldn't have been his style. Violence, although anticipated, didn't seem to be imminent (although it was still possible). Yelling was a little atypical, maybe low threats or some kind of threat to her person that she could have spun into a restraining order if needed would have been more his style.
"Hm." He stood up slowly, and she did the same.
He extended a hand to her. It was pale, just like the rest of him, and deceptively strong so she was wary as she extended her own. When he pulled her into an embrace it was slow enough that she could have reacted to avoid it. Her brain screamed at her to run but instead she folded into his arms as if it were an inevitability.
"For now," his voice was a whisper against her ear, blowing back her hair gently. "you get your wish and you won't see or hear from me. I'll acknowledge that you're busy and you have a life to live, but once I'm out I guarantee I will contact you. I think you'll find my attention once gained is persistent. You would probably prefer the word loyal, but then you always like to emotionally spin things you can't handle."
It was that same chill but it ran down the length of her body this time, and he must have felt it because he tightened his grip just a little before releasing her. Cold air and the feeling of absence engulfed her and her mind for once had no snippy side commentary.
"Sakura." Her name was a dismissal, but he said it like a caress. And with one more searching look into her eyes, like he was memorizing her face, he stood up and left her there. It was stupid but she felt like she had just been dumped instead of the other way around.
She sat there so long in the chair after he had left that before she knew it the kind face of Dr. Iruka was peering at her out the corner of her vision. She dropped the hand that had been propping up her face as she had been staring into nothing and thinking, and gave him a little wave so he would come over.
"So a little birdy told me you might be rather busy in the coming months."
Sakura laughed shortly, sardonically. "A little birdy huh?"
"Is there anything you'd like to talk about, any issue you think I should be aware of? Remember, I want you to feel safe. If Gaara said anything that makes you feel unsafe you should report it."
He basically said he was going to stalk you. Said one voice in her mind. You did the same thing to Sasuke. Said another. He looked pretty tasty in that sweater. The third was always the least helpful.
"He didn't do or say anything that upset me."
The most surprising part for her, was it was only after she said it that she realized it was a true statement.