Oh my GOSH that took so long! Excuses? Well, I had three REALLY hard classes (including an online art class i dropped). The two i still have are considered across the country to be the hardest in their respective departments. Yay me. Because of that, I have had little time to write. Fortunatly, i DO have a significant portion of the next two chapters written already as I was working on them all at the same time.

Regardless, I apologize to those of you that i promised an update to last week...I was a bit off. I got a sudden dump of work from said classes. Tax calss is hard, too, even if it's not one of my hardest two classes.

All that aside, here it is! The first of the sand sib chapters! I was going to take this chapter further, but as i was catching it up to some of the other things i wrote, i decided that this was a better stopping point, even if it shortened the chapter. On the bright side, there will be an extra sand sib chapter before getting back to Konoha!

Also, on my poll, it looks like people want longer chapter even if it takes longer, and I will try to go with it, but I can't promise since I choose to do some shorter chapter (like this one) to keep the story updated more often despite my schedule.

Alight, time to RR&E! Read review and enjoy

disclaimer- don't own Naruto, just having fun and practicing my writing for future personal endeavors.

Temari and Kankurō promised to never speak of their mother again, and they took turns watching Gaara at night. It wasn't long before they realized that he would never do his eye thing again…at least, not for a long time.

They did manage to see their sister once more, when Temari spoke softly to Gaara the night they arrived home. All the attendants had immediately dissipated and gone to bed, so in the dark of the night, the three siblings gathered together, urging Gaara to show them their sister, and a view came up showing the small blond girl, lying peacefully in a cradle, but now there were six whisker looking marks on her cheeks. There was no one else in the room with her, but Temari could tell that there had been something horrible that had happened; the room looked half destroyed. Was Naruto okay? She didn't get to find out because Kankurō heard someone coming and they had to make Gaara stop. It was the last time they would successfully use the sand eye technique to watch over her, and so they assumed her dead.

It was Temari who was watching him then. Gaara was lying down, resting, when he put his hand to his eye. The sand rose into the air, like it always had before, but there was no image being shown, as if there was nothing to find. Gaara made an annoyed sound, and the sand began to swirl, but again, there was no image. He began to cry in frustration, wanting to see his mom and little sister, but all that happened, in the end, was vague glimpses of trees, houses, and people, though never enough to see clearly. The sand fell as Gaara began to wail and Temari rushed over, trying to calm him. His sand hit it, rotating quickly around his body, almost like a dust devil.

"Gaara! Stop it! Momma's gone, she'd not coming back! Stop it now!" Gaara only wailed louder, the sand beginning to attack the things around him, destroying furniture and toys alike. "Gaara!" Temari tried to get close to her brother, but even she was not spared to destruction of the room. She was hit into a wall and went unconscious.

She awoke sometime later, head spinning and in pain, and she felt like vomiting. The light hurt her eyes, so she squinted as her eyelids slowly opened. She squeezed them tight again, waited, then opened first one eye, then the next. She was becoming accustomed to the light again, thought at first it was all a big blur. She tried to sit up, almost gagging in the process.

"Temari! Sis, I was so worried."

"Kankurō? What's going on? Where am I?" She could feel the hesitation, and the concern, in her brother's voice.

"Well, there was a lot of screaming, but, but I think Gaara was mad…he destroyed his bedroom," he told her. Her sight was clearing now, and she could see that she was in the infirmary…as Kankurō proceeded to tell her next.

"A bunch of people ran up when they heard everything breaking, and they found you up against the wall." She shuddered. "They took you here when they saw your head…it was…" He shuddered, and she actually ventured to slowly sit up, mostly using her arms. There was another wave of nausea, but she fought it down as she took up more of a reclining position than a laying one, and reached up to touch her head. It was covered in bandages, and she could feel a small depression that made her tear up and almost scream in pain when she touched it, even lightly. Kankurō shuffled his feet.

"Oba san said that it would heal, not even a scar," he said. "But...what happened," he whispered, looking around to make sure no one was near. Temari felt a small tear.

"It, it wasn't his fault. He's a baby, he couldn't understand."

"Understand what?"

"That momma's gone, and he can't see her anymore and…" She bit her lip. "And I think Naruto's gone, too," she whispered. Kankurō stared at her.

"What do you mean sis is gone?" Temari looked down.

"When, when we looked at Naruto the other day, the last time, remember? The room she was in was half destroyed, and there was no one there, right? Well, today, when Gaara was looking for them, the sand wouldn't focus… I think that wherever she was, was destroyed." Kankurō clenched his fists.

"Darn it; darn it!"

"Shhh!" Temari told him, looking around to make sure no one was paying them any attention. "Shh, not so loud."

"I'm sorry, but I, but I wanted to, to find her and to, to be a good brother…"

"Yeah, I know," she said. "But, we can't now; now we can only try and help Gaara. Mom would want us to…"

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The Kazekage was looking at the bodies of those that had tried to get too close to his son. He smiled. He didn't know what had brought it on, but his son had been…beautiful. He really was a weapon after all. All that mollycoddling hadn't destroyed his plan. True, he may now only have one jinchuuriki, but this one was powerful, and if trained him right, he could rule to world. He smiled again, little sanity showing in his features. The man was surely mad.

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Soon after, it was only family that was brave enough to tend to young Gaara. The Kazekage was constantly hinting at his son's power, and the danger he could be to their enemies once they trained him right…but most were too afraid to approach him having heard of the destruction of the nursery, and Temari's head wound.

It wasn't long after that incident that Yashamaru was ordered to take a break from his hospital duties to take care of Gaara. Temari and Kankurō were going to start having tutors to prepare them for the academy. The reason for this was because the Kazekage had seen that they were still willingly to be around the boy, though they always looked apprehensive, so he interpreted it as bravery. He felt pleasantly surprised that all his children seemed to show more promise than he had anticipated. Perhaps destiny was being kinder to him after all.

Besides, if his wife had remained alive someone, like Yashamaru, might have discovered that she had survived, especially with the appearance of his fourth child. Only a few had been privileged to know that she had indeed not died with Gaara's birth. His fourth child was a well kept secret. It was too bad that all that effort appeared wasted. Still, everyone had their used.

Yashamaru, for his part, saw his sister's face in Gaara, and it pained him to look at him, but he forced himself to push those thoughts down. Soon, he repressed them enough that he forgot his resentment of the child he believed caused his sister's death. He tried to show the boy kindness, patiently taking his time to calm the boy, ignoring the occasional sting of the sand that would lightly hit him when Gaara was upset. At first it was fairly frequent that this happened, but it wasn't too long before Gaara became familiar with his presence and began to identify him almost as a maternal figure. This person did look so much like his mother, after all.

Meanwhile, Gaara's siblings were kept away from him as often as possible. The Kazekage said that it was to keep them safe, but with such an incident occurring, he had decided that keeping them from each other would be the best way to make sure that they kept a negative opinion of their youngest brother. He was disgusted that the two of them seemed close, and if that spread over to Gaara, that would destroy his usefulness as the weapon he was needed to be. Temari, being the smart girl she was, eventually figured this out, while she was doodling after finishing an assignment from her private tutor earlier.

So, is tou-san wants to keep us away, and we make it look like we are staying away, that we don't like Gaara…maybe I can at least watch over him. Kaa-san wanted us to look after Naruto, if we ever saw her, so since she's gone, I think she'd want us to look after Gaara, instead. She bit the end of her pencil in thought.

But tou-san always has people watching us, though perhaps he'll lay off if we do that acting really well. Maybe he'll stop watching, if he thinks we hate Gaara…

It was then that he tutor returned, looking over her work and scowling at her doodles.

"Lady Temari, if you have time to doodle, you have time to work harder. I will not have the Kazekage's daughter wasting her time and talent." She pretended to listen to the lecture, ignoring most of it as she thought of what to tell Kankurō. She knew that it wouldn't be as hard for him. He was showing that he was plenty brave, but being hit by Gaara's sand as much as he had made him wary, and he was younger than and not as smart as her. Still, she knew that he really did care about their brother. Their time with him had made his fear go down, and he was almost protective of him, but he didn't show it so well.

Later that night, she snuck into Kankurō's room to tell him what she thought was going on. He didn't like being woken up (but then again, what four year old does?) but he agreed with her and promised he'd start acting, but tomorrow when he was awake.

So it was that Gaara had only Yashamaru to look after him, or so it seemed. The Kazekage fell for the act, and the two sand siblings began to keep watch over Gaara at a distance, never showing their care for their younger brother. The small boy came to miss the other two that had been with him so much. They felt…familiar. Of course, that was about the extent that the young mind of Gaara could conceive. Over the next couple of years, he began to walk and speak, and he began to think, as well.

Why does everyone avoid me, he wondered. Why is there more sand on me than uncle or tou-san? And brother and sister don't seem to like me much either?

However, the thing he thought about most was a vague memory that he wasn't even sure was real. It was of his mother, holding a little blond baby girl. He knew it wasn't Temari. She might be a little blond, but nowhere close to this other girl. Besides, she was too much older than him. He thought that Temari had been with him, though, and Kankurō, too. And there was a promise…to protect his sister… Yes, to protect that little girl who was his sister. But how could he have a sister? His mother had died when he was born, hadn't she? That's what everyone told him. Well, that is, anyone who would talk to him, which really only left Yashamaru. It seemed to hurt whenever he talked about his mother to him, though, so he tried not to bring it up.

That was the other thing he thought about. Hurt and pain. He never seemed to feel it. He'd heard some of the shinobi talk about getting hurt, or the pain from a stubbed toe, but he never hurt…ever.

"Yashamaru? Why does everyone else get hurt, but not me?" He was sitting in the hospital, his short legs dangling over the edge of the bed, kicking back and forth. His father had told him to go away, to go to Yashamaru. He didn't think his dad liked him much.

Yashamaru looked up from the papers he was working on, thoughtful as he considered Gaara's question.

"You've never felt pain?" Gaara shook his head.

"MMmm. No. Why? Is it bad?" Maybe that was why people didn't like him. The adults always moved away from him when he walked by, and they told their children not to play with him.

"Well, it looks like your sand is more special than I thought," he said, continuing to explain when Gaara looked at him in confusion. "Gaara, if you jumped down from there, what would happen?" Gaara smiled.

"My sand catches me!" His uncle nodded.

"Yes, exactly. When I was your age, I had to catch myself. I didn't have sand to protect me, so sometimes I'd slip, and I'd get hurt. Your sand, it protects you from being hurt."

"Oooohh." He thought for another moment, his uncle waiting patiently for the next question.

"Uncle Yashamaru…is it bad to not feel pain?" This question made the man blink in surprise.

"Bad? I don't think so…Certainly most people would like to live without pain, but I've never thought about it before."

"It's just, I look like everyone else, but I don't sleep, and I don't feel pain. Is that why people don't like me?" There was a cloud cast over his uncle's eyes and he looked back down at his papers.

"I'll tell you later, Gaara."

"Okay!" Gaara grabbed his stuffed bear and jumped down from the hospital bed, his sand catching him as always and he started playing with his bear. Unnoticed by either of them, Temari slowly closed the door she had opened. A tear fell. Gaara…I like you… She walked away, frustrated that she couldn't show her brother that she cared for him openly. At least she'd been able to get him that bear last month, but he needed a real friend. Why did father keep everyone away from him so much? Was it so bad, for him to have friends?

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Over time, Gaara's mind continued to develop. Here there was no law to keep people from talking about the 'demon Gaara', so he realized what was inside him, and what made the sand move. He had cried all night when he'd found it out. The fact that there was always the sand around him, that he never slept and the he couldn't hurt…it just reinforced what people thought about it. He began to resent the fact that he couldn't hurt, and he found himself trying to find ways to learn what pain was by hurting himself. His sand, however, always seemed to keep him from this.

At first he just tried to punch something. He'd seen his dad do it once, and then he kept yelling 'ow' over and over and yelled for Gaara to leave him alone. When he tried it, though, the sand moved with his arm, almost as if it sensed his intention, and cushioned the blow before his hand even reached the wall. In the end, he learned nothing and put a hole in the wall. His father had patted him on the head later that day, but everyone else just avoided him more. He tried to be more subtle after that.

He took to trying not to be careless. If he made it a habit, maybe his sand would forget and he could stub his toe like other people, or fall and cut his lip like Kankurō did when he came home from his first day at the shinobi academy. That still wasn't working, so he tried, one time, to cut himself with one of Yashamaru's scalpels, but that had lead to something surprising.

He'd been holding it above his hand, placed on the floor, when he heard a scream, and then felt the medical tool get knocked out of his hand. He'd looked up in surprise to see Temari staring at him with a mix of what he thought was fear and anger.

"Gaara! Don't you DARE try to do that again!" That she was talking to him was odd enough…but did she actually want him to not be hurt? And why?

"Te-Temari-chan. I, I just, I want to know-" She cut him off.

"I don't care what you were trying to do, it would have hurt you, and you better not go trying to hurt yourself! Mom wouldn't like it and neither-" She cringed as she cut herself off. "The point is hurting yourself is bad, so don't do it!"

"But, but I want to know what it feels like…" Temari looked at him odd.

"What?"

"My sand, it stops me. I, I don't know what pain is, and because of that, everyone hates me…" if he hadn't lowered his head he would have seen Temari reach out a hand to him, and a tear fall down her cheek, but just then she sensed one of her care takers coming. Right when he needs me… She mentally screamed in frustration, but contented herself to a final comment.

"Maybe not physical, but I think you've still felt pain." And she walked out, leaving a thoughtful Gaara.

Over the next few weeks, he wondered at the strange encounter, but because Temari never talked to him, really. She always seemed to avoid him, but now he wondered. And then she said that he'd felt pain, but not physical.

"Yashamaru?"

"Hmmm?"

"Is there more than one kind of pain?" Yashamaru looked up from what he was working on again. He never had patients come in when Gaara was around, but at least that meant he could catch up on his work, and Gaara really was a smart kid. He was thinking that he might start to tutor him about medical things. After all, Karura had always wanted one of her children to become a medic, and Temari, while smart, wasn't heading that direction. Her smarts were more geared towards strategy, anyway, and Kankurō was crafty. That was different than smart. Gaara though…he had the most interesting questions. Karura, you'd like him. That train of thought was stopped, along with his smile, as a sudden headache came on.

"Yashamaru?"

"S, sorry Gaara. I, I had a headache. What was it you wanted?"

"A head ache? Your head hurt? But why? I didn't look like it hit anything. Doesn't something have to hit you to make you hurt?" Yashamaru chuckled a little.

"Well, most of the time, yes, but not always. Sometimes, hurts aren't physical. They can be mental, that is, in your head, that is to say your brain, like my headache just now, or they can be emotional, in your heart."

"Do they feel the same?"

"Well…in a way. In all cases they're unpleasant, and you wish it would go away."

"Oh…I think…maybe I have felt pain then." He clutched his chest with one hand a tear began to form. Yashamaru began to reach out to him to provide comfort in the form of hug only to retract his hand and place it on his head as he had another headache.

Gaara continued to contemplate pain. He recognized that it must be the loneliness he felt which caused his pain. He began to wander the village more often. Surely someone else would be kind. Someone his own age had to be as nice as his uncle. He didn't want to be alone…

Time and time again, he would approach kids as they played and try to join then. Time and again they would refuse and run away from him. The first 'incident' didn't help him in his endeavors…

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The Kazekage stood in his office, massaging the bridge of his nose in annoyance. It seemed like his son existed to be a bane to him. He did all he could to try and turn him into a weapon, and all the boy did was try and make nice. He had shown promise once, when he had destroyed a wall about a year back. He had been happy that his weapon was developing. It had been the first time since he was a baby that he had really used his powers. And what did he do? He went around trying to make friends with the villagers, and Yashamaru, despite his precautions, seemed to encourage it.

The man growled in annoyance and looked back down at the paper on his desk. Picking it up, he considered again. Was his plan a failure, or did he still have potential. No, Temari and Kankurō, they had potential. This one, he just wanted to be a cuddly little child. Well, that would change now.

He sat down, signed and sealed the paper, and waited for the man he had called for. There would be other chances to forge his weapon.

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This day Gaara was walking down by the soccer field. He had decided to try a new approach. He had seen some children just jump into a game that was already in progress when they arrived. If they were bad, they would be kicked out, but the good players would be kept. He was going to try to same thing. He had been practicing, using his sand to emulate opponents. It was crude work, but he was sure that it would pay off today as he joined their game. They would like him so much for being good that they would forget that he was a monster. They would be his friends…

The game started. Gaara stayed hidden behind a pole. He was small enough that, even with his red hair, he didn't stand out much. It was next to an alley anyways. A few minutes into the game, he had identified the better side, and he was ready to jump in and help them win. They would like that. He took a step and then jumped in shock as his sand suddenly surrounded him at various points. He heard a scream of frustration.

"Arg! That stupid sand. Just die!" He turned to see a shinobi leaping at him, ninja to in hand and already swinging.

"No!" Gaara lifted his arms to cover himself instinctively, falling backwards as he went. Another scream rent the air, but this time it was one of pain. As Gaara peeked his eyes open, he saw his sand settling around him, and the bloody body of his attacker spread across the alley and the street around him. His breath came short and his gaze drifted to his surroundings. A few looked on in fear and horror, but others, including the children that would have been his friends, were running away, some screaming.

"No…no! Come back, it was an accident! Please!" But no one came back. Instead, everyone else fled as well. "No!" Gaara broke down crying. In a few minutes his father would receive the report and bang his head in frustration at how that boy continually upsets his plans. In his stubborn anger, he would continue to try and assassinate Gaara, and the boy would fall deeper and deeper into depression as loneliness consumed him. Was there no one besides his uncle who cared? Was there anyone?

First off, were there any spelling/grammar mistakes that i missed? I DID go over it, but I've noticed that cut and paste will insert some errors even after you fixed them in word...

More importantly, how was the chapter? U like? Sand sibs good? Sorry not too much Kankuro in here, but I always felt that, early on, Temari had more influence on him and Kankuro's influence/closeness increased as they got older (and less crazy on Gaara's part).

Oh, and Yashamaru! What do you think? I already instituted some changes from canon on his character. Think you figured it out? Review and tell me what you think it was!

That's it for now. Next update will be within a month. I wish i could promise better than that, but I don't want to make false promises and fail to fulfill them. Ya'll take care and wish me luck on my tests this week!