She hadn't gotten far when she heard someone yelling her name. She sighed and turned back towards the office, expecting someone to run out and tell her she couldn't actually leave at this time, but there was no one there for her. "Who then...?"

She turned back and was nearly toppled by Aki running into her. "Sakura!" She yelled.

"No need to yell, my ear is three inches from your mouth." Sakura snapped. What could Aki possibly want with her?

"It's Gaara! I don't know what happened – he's not getting up!" Aki cried. She went on, blathering about his condition, how terrible it was, but Sakura was already gone. She had stopped listening after the first two words, rushing back to the apartment.

When she got there she found Gaara lying on the floor, pale as a sheet. When she slammed the door open he didn't react and for a second she was afraid he was dead, but when she rushed over to him and held his face in her hands his eyes fluttered open.

"Ah Sakura..." He murmured. "I'm glad to see you once again."

"What are you talking about?" Sakura asked, trying to keep calm. It was something she was good at after all; keeping calm in impossible situations and doing her job.

It wasn't easy this time.

"I was just talking with Aki, and I thought... I've never thanked you."

"Be quiet." Sakura told him. "You're embarrassing yourself." What was wrong now? Where was Aki? What had happened? "What happened to you?"

"You disrespected me."

Aki burst in the door, slamming it against the wall just as Sakura did.

"What happened?" Sakura yelled.

"I don't – I tried to remove the seal. I thought-"

Sakura cursed the girl, at the same time blessing her for explaining. It was something simple then. "You fools." She muttered. She leaned over Gaara and concentrated on the lines of his chakra, looking for the seal that had been prematurely removed.

Gaara wasn't making it easy, trying to confess to her all his secrets, thinking he was dying while she was trying to save his life. "I like living with you. You talk in your sleep every night you know."

Sakura frowned at Gaara. Why the hell would dying make him so damn chatty? "Would you shut up so I can save you?" She growled at him. Gaara obeyed, giving her a strange smile she had never seen before. She had no time to wonder at its meaning – she could feel his life energy being sucked into the vacuum created by the removed seal. He was fading fast.

She worked just as fast, pulling from her memory the shape of the missing seal and recreating it to fill the void. It was a relatively simple thing, made unusually hard by her heart beating fast in her chest, and the blood rushing in her ears.

But it was done, and Gaara was saved from death, and returned to his previous state of powerlessness. Sakura sighed in relief when she saw that he had fallen asleep, but wasn't in danger anymore.

Aki stepped forward. "I'm sorry." She said quietly. "I only wanted to help. I thought you were..."

Sakura stood up to look at Aki at eye level. She thought of all the things she could say to this girl, how stupid she had been, how careless, but she didn't feel like berating her. She felt too tired. "Don't worry, he'll be fine. Come here; help me lift him to the bed."

Aki stared at Sakura for a moment, and then burst into tears. "Thank you!" She sobbed. "Thank you."