Chapter 27

Sakura arrived at the hospital an hour later, having to turn back at the last minute after realizing she left her insurance card that would undoubtedly be needed to pay for Gaara's bills. Now that he was gone, even though she desperately wanted to be at his side, the rational part of her mind was coaching her through it.

Once in the blindingly white walls of the hospital, she was directed into room 306 where Gaara lay resting on one of the stiff, uncomfortable beds. He wore a mask over his face that helped him breathe and an IV inserted into the crook of his left elbow. His eyes were half lidded, and Sakura's pulse raced. He didn't look like himself and it scared her.

Her steps were light and quick as she went to his side and sat in the one chair in the room.

"Gaara," she said quietly, her eyes searching his face for any sign that he could hear her. "Gaara what happened? Why did you do this to yourself?"

He didn't answer.

"Please! Please just talk to me, I want to help you!"

Nothing changed. The heart monitor beeped in sync with his pulse, slow and easy. Relaxed. His chest rose and fell quietly and his blank eyes stared forward at the bare wall. Sakura's hands tangled into her pink locks and she curled them into tight fists, jerking at the strands gently. Her eyes closed tightly in anger and frustration, worry and sadness unleashing inside her in an unbearable tidal wave of emotion.

The silence rang loudly in her ears.

"Were you so miserable with me? Am I so disgusting that you wanted to kill yourself to get away from me? Is that it?" she demanded, hard eyes fixing on him. "I thought that...." she dropped her gaze and her shoulders slumped. "I thought that maybe you wanted to be with me. You acted almost happy around me, so why...? Is it something I did?"

Her words were nothing but whispers now.

"What do you want me to do? Tsunade is going to be angry, but I will keep you out of trouble. I won't let her punish you. I'll take the heat for it, just tell me what I did, Gaara. Please? I'll do whatever it takes. Just tell me why you did this. Please!"

Gaara didn't move while she pleaded and begged at his side, his gut twisted and knotted and his hands flinched at his sides. She wouldn't go away, no matter how badly he wished she would, she wouldn't. He had had enough.

Sakura froze as cold glittering eyes locked on her. Her blood rushed through her veins like ice at his hard look and Sakura wanted to cry. He had never looked at her with so much hate, so much malice and disgust since she had first met him. She wanted to flinch away from him and run, turn around and flee from that look because it was the same look Sasuke had worn when he turned his eyes upon her.

Sakura felt small and gross beside him.

His hand came up slowly and wrenched the mask from his face and threw it across the room. The heart monitor did not change pace.

"Please, what? What do you want, Sakura? Do you want me to tell you why I took the pills? Or why I let you believe you were 'helping' me up to this point? I'll let you in on a little secret, love. I was using you."

Sakura stood abruptly from her seat and trembled before him. His voice was so cruel and mocking it shook her to her core and had tears leaking down her flushed cheeks.

He rolled his eyes as a taunting smile lifted his lips. "Crying. That's all you ever do. You can't do anything right because you always cry and act so pathetic. It's humiliating."

"I don't-" she started.

"Don't deny it, Sakura. You know you do. One offending word to you and you break down into tears. Quite amusing, actually, to see how easy it is to bring you down. Saves me the trouble of wasting even more of my time with you to figure it out."

"Why are you doing this?" she demanded, her hands fisting at her sides.

The burning in his stomach intensified. "Why? Why not? I was bored and guess who decided to show up and try to 'fix' me?" He barked a harsh laugh, making her flinch. "I'll give you credit, though, Sakura. You made this one of the most interesting games I have ever played. More than once I thought that maybe you had won."

She stared. "Game?"

His eyes narrowed in amusement. "Did you honestly think that I had feelings for you?" He laughed at her. "Fuck, Sakura. Get your childish head out of the clouds and come back to reality. Do you know what I am? Who I am?"

She remained silent, her heart pounding in her chest as the room began to slowly rotate around her. His voice was like a thousand knives plowing into her over and over again.

"Ever wonder why it was that the night my uncle was found dead, I came back stained with blood? That I had broken out at precisely the same time the even could have been transpiring?"

Sakura's mouth was bone dry. The heart monitor be-beeped quickly, signifying a rise in pulse. Neither noticed.

Gaara's eyes reflected an intense and burning hate so strong it could have knocked Sakura off her feet had she not been focusing so hard on trying to stay upright.

"I killed him, Sakura," he snarled, mouth twisting with disgust. "I broke out solely for the reason of killing my uncle, understand? I am a murderer."

Her vision blurred as more tears poured down her face and her body remained petrified before the man before her. His eyes locked her in place, glinting and shining like bullets as he stared at her and lips lifted into a disgusted sneer. His entire body was tense and taught, straining in the bed viciously.

It was then Sakura noticed that he was manacled to the bed. Leather straps encircled his wrists and tied down his waist to the bars outlining the mattress. He was like a caged animal.

She stumbled back a few paces away from him, one hand coming to cover her mouth as a shocked gasp of horror clawed its' way from her raw throat. Her eyes stared wide and fearful at him as he squirmed in his restraints.

"What? Shocked to see me for what I am?" he scoffed. "I told you before, you can't fix me, Haruno."

She felt herself beginning to crack under all the lies and untold truths that had been weighing down on her until that point, her mind screaming in anguish as everything became so clear. Had Tsunade been a part of it? Had she shielded him? Why was this happening? The betrayl stung, hearing the words fall from his lips, the same flawless and tourtous mouth that she had been so deeply and truly in love with just a few hours ago.

He was made of hate.

"Weak," he spat. "Pathetically and disgustingly weak. How you managed to survive this long is beyond me."

Don't, she begged. Don't say it. Please, don't say it. I can't take it. Anyone but you. Please. She was sobbing so hard, her heart thrashing painfully in her chest. Her head pounding with the overwhelming thoughts and memories of such a similiar situation. Except this time instead of a raven haired man with soulless, dark eyes, there was a strong willed, commanding person with eyes reflecting emotions she knew where killing her and making her want to crumble to the floor in a sobbing heap. Still, even though he was doing this to her, even though she felt like she should hate him, she couldn't.

"You're so..." Her heart stopped in her chest and her knees quaked dangerously as he glared at her with his too bright eyes. "...Annoying."

Her heart shattered in her chest, and Sakura bolted from the room without a sound.

The heart monitor sped up to cautious levels and Gaara remained chained to the bed like a cold, unmoving stone.

XXXXXX

Tsunade paced back and forth in the small office she had claimed, her arms crossed over her busty chest and the pointer finger on her right hand 'tap-tap'ing away on her forearm silently. It was clear she was agitated and stressed to the breaking point, having not heard a word from Sakura nor Gaara since they had departed a day ago. But she had had a phone call, one that had her so on edge it was a wonder her desk was still intact.

Gaara Sabaku was in the hospital.

According to the doctor that had rang her, he had had his stomach pumped and had been put under close watch because of a slightly bruised blood vessel. There was scarring in his stomach, something to do with an overflow of toxins and acids eating away at the soft tissue. They had been take the precaution of strapping him to a bed due to the fact that he was now under suicide watch and, thanks to her, were now aware of the fact that he was a patient in her asylum.

The doctor had informed her that he had overdosed on benadryl. Normally, it wouldn't be too worrisome - though still taken very seriously - but in Gaara's case, he had consumed more than an average person should be capable of doing. In other words, he should be dead.

He assured her that he would recover quickly, with care and watchful eyes. The bruised blood vessel would heal on its' own, he had told her, quickly listing off the data they had gathered about him through tests and observations.

She had stopped him mid-sentence, demanding to know where the woman was that had been with him at the house the 911 call had been dialed. He didn't know.

"She left pretty quickly, and in quite a state, I must say. He did a number on her, he did." he had said.

Tsunade had ended the phone call soon after, and had spent the next twenty minutes pacing in the small enclosure, switching from seething and fuming to worrying and anxiously awaiting news about Sakura. If she didn't call or show up in the next two minutes, Tsunade would have to give up on her for the moment so that she could go to Gaara and find out what had happened. Something told her she would get nothing out of him, though.

Still, it was her duty to at least try.

A knock broke her from her thoughts, and turning to her door, she found Daichi poking his head in and peering questioningly at her. "Haruno is here to see you, Tsunade."

Setting her jaw, she nodded tersely to him. Not three seconds later, Sakura was walking through the door and staring at something above Tsunade's left ear, pointedly avoiding her gaze.

"Well?" Tsunade snapped, hands tightening their grip on her forearms. "Would you care to explain to me why Gaara is in the hospital and you look like you have been told your grandmother has died?"

Sakura swallowed hard and bit her lip, shaking her head. "I...I..." she cleared her throat and fixed her eyes steadily on Tsunade's sharp hazel orbs. "I want to resign."

The silence rang in their ears.

"There must be a reason for your descision," Tsunade said.

"I feel like I've had enough experience here. I need to move on."

The words only succeeded in scattering the pieces of Sakura's heart into small, broken shards.

Tsunade's lips formed a thin line, but she nodded slowly. "I can't stop you, as much as I want to. You choose your own path and I can't prevent it."

Sakura averted her eyes to the floor.

"Sakura," the older woman sighed. "Fate has cards that it doesn't want to show. I know things might be difficult, but please think this over."

"I have," she answered. "I can't work here anymore." her eyes teared up again and she swiped the away with a shaky hand. "I can't bear it any longer."

Tsunade grimaced at her broken and painful tone as she voiced her reason. It was a shame to lose her, but if Tsunade was in her place, she would choose the same thing. If things between Gaara and Sakura had gotten so bad that he had tried to kill himself, maybe it was better this way.

"Alright. I'll have the papers filed by this evening." she took a deep breath. "You can leave." she said slowly, wanting to swallow the words back.

Sakura nodded and turned to the door. "I'm sorry, Tsunade. It's all that I can say."

The door closed as she walked out, leaving Tsunade staring hard at the floor fighting back her own sadness at losing someone who had so much potentional and promising future. Someone strong and powerful that could have taken on the world if she chose.

She just didn't recognize her own strengths, and what a sad loss it was.