Author's Note; I'm so sorry for the late update! I lost my new flash drive in the black hole called the bedroom and I just found it between my bed and the wall -how it got there I have no clue- But anyway! Here is the next installment and I'll update again tomorrow night :)

Chapter 39

Naruto

I couldn't believe my eyes when Temari drove Gaara and I to the Greene again and this time, we not only ate out at the Mongolian Grill, but we went to the movie theater across the street and just left us there. I mean, I thought she was going to join us, but Gaara assured me that it was just going to be the two of us for dinner and at least two movies.

I felt bad that Gaara paid for everything. Yea, it was part of my birthday present from him, but the guilt wouldn't leave. And I think he knew it, but he never said anything about it all through the last movie.

"Hey, Naruto, may I ask you something" Gaara asked while we worked our way outside from finishing up the last movie to wait for Temari.

"Ask away." I smiled, and it wasn't fake, I truly had a great time.

"How about we tell everyone? Your father won't find out." He asked, and once we sat down on a bench, me on his lap, I crossed my arms and thought.

It'd be a huge burden off both of our shoulders if our friends knew, but Ino loves gossip, Kiba has a loud mouth and so does Lee. Sakura was trust worthy, and besides, I have stuff for blackmail if she doesn't get it.

"Okay." I smiled after what seemed like forever, just as Temari drove up in front of us. And Gaara looked shocked that I agreed, but was also happy when he smiled and kissed me before we got up and went to the car.

Yes, I could say this was the best day of my life.

"So, did you two enjoy our date?" Temari asked as Gaara helped me get into the car and handed me the crutches before climbing into the back with me.

"Best day of my life." I said happily when Gaara wrapped his arms around me when he buckled my seatbelt for me, I blushed though when he nipped my ear.

"I can see … wait, you two didn't do it during the movies did you?" She asked in a mock shocked voice and I think Gaara and I were the same shade of red two seconds later.

"We did not!" Gaara and I squealed at the same time and Temari burst out laughing at her cruel joke.

"I know, it's just too much fun messing with y ou to." She laughed as we finally got onto the highway.

"You are so mean." I whimpered and crossed my arms in a pout when Gaara adjusted his arms and let me use him as a pillow. I was cold, and I was ready for bed. To be honest, I didn't think using crutches was going to be this hard after a month of not walking.

"Hey, don't fall asleep on me yet." Gaara whispered in my ear when I closed my eyes and sighed.

"I'm cold." I mumbled, and felt something warm suddenly wrap around me. When I opened my eyes, I noticed I was a blanket.

"We keep a blanket in the car for emergencies." Gaara explained when I looked up at him, mouth open to ask him about it.

I only shrugged and cuddled up to him some more, but frowned when the car stopped and I realized Temari turned the car off.

And I was starting to get warm too.

"Lets go inside. Dad is letting me visit for a little bit." Gaara said, reaching over an unbuckling my seat belt for me.

"Awesome … what about you staying the night?" I asked, smirking as I looked at him when Temari and him opened their doors.

"I'll think about it." Gaara smirked back, both of us glad that Temari was already out of the car and up to the house.

When I looked up at the house, I saw that all the lights were off, and I frowned. Aren't Sasuke and Itachi even home?

"Come on." Gaara said, and he pulled me out of the car. Gently of course.

"Why are you in such a hurry?" I whined.

"I want to get out of the cold." He said and I couldn't blame him, so when he gave me my crutches, I went as fast as I could to the door when I saw Temari knock on the door, which was weird in my opinion, because there was a perfectly good working doorbell by the door.

"You two are so weird." I said, shaking my head when I realized that Gaara's family never used a doorbell.

"Well, you're weird." Temari pouted and opened the door and walked in.

I sighed and hobbled my way into the house and kicked off my shoes before Gaara stood up behind me, hands on my shoulders and I think he could sense my confusion radiating off of me as he closed the door.

"Why in the hell are all the lights off?" I asked in a whisper, mostly because I thought Sasuke and Itachi were in bed. "I can't see where I'm going." And I wanted to sit on the couch before I fell over our shoes until the lights suddenly turned on, blinding me and I felt Gaara holding me steady as I heard a group of people suddenly shout.

"Happy Birthday Naruto!"

Those words echoed in my head like a broken record as I watched everyone jump out of their hiding spots. I only stood where I was like a deer stuck in headlights, until my breath caught in my throat and something wet falling from my eyes.

I bit my bottom lip and lowered my head so no one knew about the tears, but I think I was too late … because Ino opened her big mouth.

"Is everything okay Naruto?" She asked, and Gaara walked around and tried to look me in the eye.

"I'm fine, I … I'm just too happy is all." I said, which wasn't a lie. I was beyond happy.

"Well come on! Lets get this party started!" Kiba's loud voice boomed into the room to bring up the mood, and I'm glad he did too, because everyone looked away from me - besides Gaara - and I dried my eyes and face with my sleeve.

"Come Naruto, sit! You'd probably feel better if you sat down." Sakura offered, and I smiled, hobbling my way over with my crutches and sat down with Gaara's help. I didn't realize my back was hurting a little bit.

"What do you want to do first?" Ino asked.

"First, Naruto, how are the crutches?" Tsunade asked as she sat down on the other side of Gaara.

"It's going to take some getting used to, but I'm just glad to be out of that damn wheelchair." I said as I smiled when Ino took them and gave them to Sasuke … who in my opinion looked slightly upset that there were so many people here.

"That's good to hear." She smiled, then something huge, white and hairy jumped in front of my face, half on my lap and its large paws pushing my back onto the couch and I was suddenly licked all over.

"Hey, come on Akamaru, get off of Naruto." Kiba said as I managed to get the giant off of me with Gaara's help.

"You can't be serious. That's Akamaru?" I gawked. Last time I saw this mutt, he was able to sit on Kiba's head.

"Sure is." Kiba said proudly, and Akamaru barked.

"He's huge!" I yelled as I pointed at the dog, who just wagged his tail happily.

"Hey, Kiba, I said the dog wasn't allowed to come inside remember?" I heard Sasuke complain when he came back from the hallway.

"He's a trained dog Uchiha." Kiba scoffed while Akamaru laid down in the corner of the room where Kiba was sitting.

"I want Akamaru inside, it's freezing out there!" I told Sasuke.

"Whatever." Sasuke sighed, just as the door bell rang.

"Who's that?" I asked, curious as to who else was going to be here.

"That … will be dinner." Sasuke said as he walked past the couch with his wallet , pulling out a couple bills - I couldn't see what they were - before he opened the door and a pizza man stood in the door way with four bags of pizza sitting on the ground by his feet.

"Hey, Kiba, wanna help me get these to the kitchen?" Sasuke asked as he looked over at the dog owner, and surprisingly Kiba got up and helped him carry the bags to the kitchen as Sasuke paid.

"I want dinner first." I said, answering Kiba's question from a few minutes ago as my mouth drooled a little bit at the smell of the pizza. Yes, I might have just ate four or five hours ago, but I was starving right now.

"We got vegetarian pizza, meat lovers, cheese and pepperoni, two of each." Sasuke said when he closed the door and Kiba was sitting back down. I didn't even see them give the pizza guy the bags back. I guess I was focused on getting food more than anything else.

"I'll go and get your plate, what would you like me to pick up for you?" Gaara said as Sasuke disappeared into the kitchen. It wasn't until now that I haven't seen Itachi … where's Itachi?

"I want meat lovers' and pepperoni, two of each." I begged. Gaara only smiled and shook his head before he got up and went to the kitchen. Why no one else was getting their food, I have no idea. They must be waiting for me to get mine first I guess.

"Where's Itachi?" I asked, looking around the room only to see that I was right; he probably wasn't here.

"He's out getting a few things, he'll be a little late is all." I heard Sasuke say from the kitchen and Gaara sat back down next to me with a plate of pizza for me and himself and I frowned. I honestly didn't want to eat without everyone being here to get something to eat. I even felt guilty for getting this much pizza now.

"Itachi's almost here, he just called while I was in the kitchen and Sasuke said he was about a ten minute drive out." Gaara told me, like he could read my mind, and I nodded, but I still refused to take a bite of it.

"I'll eat it when he gets here." I said, hell, I wanted to be stubborn. It is my birthday.

"You are so stubborn." Gaara chuckled when I noticed others were getting pizza, and I frowned even more.

"Hey everyone! Make sure Itachi can have some when he gets home." I said.

"I put his serving in the microwave." Sasuke's voice said behind me, startling me enough to almost drop my plate and I looked up at him with a scowl. He was already eating his pizza and I glared at him.

"Can't you wait for your own brother?" I asked.

"He said to go on ahead and eat. It'll be cold by the time he walks through that door. It's cold in the kitchen." Sasuke said, and I sighed heavily, dropping my head and looked down at my plate. Honestly, I loved cold pizza just as much.

"Well, I'm still going to wait." I pouted.

"That's your choice, Naruto." Sasuke shrugged and took his food back to the kitchen when I looked back up at him to scowl.

"So, Naruto, how are you feeling?" Sakura's voice said happily on my right. When I looked over at her, she was sitting in the recliner with Ino. When in the hell did they get there?

"It's going great." I smiled. "And how's everything at school?"

"It's boring as always. You're not missing much." Sakura told me.

"You only missed Neji and Lee kick ass during the tournament." Ino said with a smirk.

"I missed the tournament?" I yelled, great, now I felt horrible.

"No, you didn't." Neji said as he moved the table between the couch and the recliner and sat a chair there before he sat down and started eating. "The tournament is after Christmas break."

"Oh, that's a relief." I sighed heavily. "I really don't want to miss it."

"I'm glad that you want to see the two of us kick butt, Naruto." Lee's voice said loudly where Tsunade used to sit. I didn't even realize she had gotten up until now.

"I wouldn't miss it for the world Lee." I said happily.

"Well what about reading what I wrote for a writing contest Naruto?" Ino asked. She was a writer, kind of like Sasuke, but she wrote fantasy. She loved dragons, magic, faeries and elves. Hell, I did too, sort of. Sasuke wrote depressing crap that made me get angry each time I read it.

"Email it to me and I will." I smirked, just as I felt a cold draft coming in from the kitchen, and that signaled to me that Itachi was home so I picked up my cold pizza and started eating it. I couldn't help but shudder when I swallowed. God, meat lovers' pizza from Dominoes was the best pizza ever!

"I'm going to need your email again, Naruto. My old one got deleted and I had to create a new one. I'm giving up on MSN, so I'm going with Yahoo! and I'm hoping that it's better than the MSN bullshit." Ino said in between bites of her vegetarian pizza and I nodded. I gave up with that email service too. I couldn't get into a brand new email after I set it up … said it didn't exist and it pissed me the fuck off.

"I'll give it to you before we leave. Just make sure I know who you are when you email me." I said before I took another bite of pizza.

"Hey, Naruto, before I forget, Shino couldn't come. He's going out of town for the weekend with his father." Kiba said from the other side of the room, and I wished he was closer to our little circle we started putting together.

"Okay." I said. "Now get your ass over into this circle, you too Hinata." I said when I noticed Hinata was sitting next to Kiba. Wait, when did she ever sit that close to him? "Hold on, are you two a couple?"

"Yes, they are, Naruto." Ino said, and I could tell she had a wide smirk on her face, because Hinata blushed a tomato red and Kiba did the same. God, I missed too much at school.

"I need to get back to school … I'm missing too much." I said, well, pouted, actually.

"You are so mean Ino." Kiba whined, but the two grabbed their chairs as they stood up and squeezed their way into our circle. We were just missing Sasuke, Shino, Temari and Kankuro … I think.

"Wait, where's Shikamaru?" I asked, looking around in our circle and noticed that the brain of our group - besides Neji, and a couple others - wasn't sitting with us.

"He's out back with Temari and her brother. I couldn't stand out there listening to them talk about the debate team and the chess club." Neji said, and he looked disgusted for some reason.

"I thought you were on those teams." I asked as I looked at him.

"I gave those two up when I made Kung Foo my every day ritual." He admitted.

"So you're going into that profession then?" I asked, knowing Neji, he'll do anything to get out of the Hyuuga family line of running the family business with the Uchiha's.

"I am, and my uncle is okay with it." He shrugged.

"M-My fath-ther is letting me do someth-thing else as well." Hinata said softly, and I was shocked. Surely he wanted her to continue the family business. I guess he's having someone else in the family run it when he's done. "I'm g-going to be Journalist for the news p-paper."

"That's great Hinata." I smiled.

"I think when my uncle saw how much you were admired by the two of us, he reconsidered letting us control our own lives and so on." Neji said. "He saw that when you became friends with Hinata, she became more confident in herself and he noticed that I wasn't so much of a stuck up ass as I used to be when we were finally friends."

"You just called yourself an ass." I laughed and pointed at him, only to have Gaara reach behind me and lower my hand. Which was a sign that I should stop laughing, so I did, but I couldn't help but keep smirking about it.

"Want me to keep helping you with math … Naruto?" Neji asked, and he sounded slightly annoyed, but I know he was joking.

"Yes, yes, I'm sorry." I said quickly, but chuckled a little bit as I said those words. He only sighed and smiled while shaking his head.

"So, Naruto, when do you think you'll come back to school?" Ino asked, and I know all of them wanted to know.

"I don't know, it depends on baa-chan." I answered with a shrug. "But I'm hoping it's soon, I don't know how much longer I can stand being locked up inside this house."

"You shouldn't complain, you've been in and out of here a lot more times than you think." Gaara said as he handed me his empty plate and crossed his arms.

"You know what I mean Gaara." I pouted, putting his empty plate under mine and finished off my third piece of pizza, now wondering if I should eat the last pepperoni slice on my plate or not.

"Happy birthday Naruto." I heard Itachi's voice say behind me, and I looked up smiling that he finally came out here.

"Thanks Itachi." I smiled. "Took you long enough." I added with a smirk.

"Well I had a couple things I needed to pick up, and is everyone done eating?" Itachi said before he looked up at everyone. I guess he ate before coming out to the living room.

"Yea, I think so." A couple people said and I chomped down on the last slice I had before Gaara took my plate.

"You done?" He asked, though I know when he took the plate, it was his way to tell me to slow down on my eating or I'd choke. It has happened before … way too many times.

I nodded, since I still had food in my mouth, and apparently Itachi went back to the kitchen and came out with a trash bag and gathered everyone's trash when I noticed that they all had something to drink and I didn't.

"What's to drink?" I asked, looking up at Itachi and I heard Gaara next to me hiss in frustration that he forgot our drinks.

"We have soda, and lots of it." Itachi said, now carrying the half full trash bag to the kitchen as Gaara got up.

"I'll take any soda you bring me Gaara." I said as he walked off and he nodded. Seriously, I wonder what goes through his mind sometimes.

"So, Naruto, you ready for cake and ice cream?" Sakura asked as she too stood up with Ino while Neji stood up as well.

"If everyone else is." I said as I nodded. I had never had cake before, never could afford to buy myself a small one at the grocery store even with my job. So I was so looking forward to having a piece of cake tonight. Ice cream I've had, it's too cheap … though it was always from McDonalds, so technically, it's not even real ice cream I've had. But it's sweet and I love sweet things.

"Then we'll be right back." Sakura smiled and dragged Ino and Neji with her to the kitchen and I sat there waiting for Gaara to come back with our drinks.

"Hey, Naruto, when you get better, you're coming to my house for a sleep over." I heard Kiba say after Hinata stood up and excused herself as she went down the hall.

"Sure thing, and we're playing Super Mario when I get there." I said. "I have a record to beat."

"I already beat you." Kiba smirked.

"You weren't supposed to play that game without me!" I whined as Gaara came around the couch and sat next to me, handing me my soda which was already opened and I took a sip, completely ignoring Kiba for a few moments.