It had been years now, that crying boy never did come back to her in her dreams. Now she had long forgotten him. Her mother must have been right. It was only a dream, no matter how real it felt.

Sakura played with her long pink hair, walking the village after parting ways with her team. They had completed a high ranked mission, their first big victory. She had become a ninja, a Genin to be exact. Now she wondered the village in thought.

Naruto was up ahead talking to the grandson of the Third. Suddenly she was aware of his perversions. Sakura ran over to them both and knocked on their skulls. "Idiots!"

They ran from her when she threatened them again, hearing their insults toward her. She ran after them, but skidded to a halt when Konohamaru ran into someone. A stranger.

Things escalated quickly, from the stranger nearly strangling the boy, to a rock being thrown hard enough to cause Konohamaru to drop out of his grip.

Sasuke sat in a tree nearby. Sakura blushed. He was a part of her team and the most sought after boy among her peers. Although she didn't know it, it was his eyes that drew her in. All the girls liked him, and she was no different.

And then someone else appeared not far from him. Hanging down from the same tree, another boy she had never meet. He stood upside. His hair was red, his eye lids were black. His eye color was a radiant green. She didn't know him, but for some reason, she felt she recognized him from somewhere.

How could she? He was from another village. And his eyes. She would remember eyes that coldness.

He disappeared from where he stood, appearing on the ground in a flurry of sand. Few words were exchanged and he was walking away with his own team. Sasuke stopped him and asked for his name.

"Gaara of the Desert." He said.

Sakura saw him several times while they prepared for the Chunin exams, saw him taking the same test she took. She saw him enter the woods for the second part of the exam. She saw him now as they waited for there respective battles. Her's had already ended. She and her opponent both knocked each other out.

Gaara was scrawny and shorter than her. His posture was bad, always hunched over slightly. Something was off about him. He was a little scary. But, there was something she couldn't shake about him. She once knew someone who look like him, didn't she?

His eyes locked on hers and she froze. She was a little frightened, but she couldn't look away. Was there more to this boy than just his fearsome presence? She wanted to know. Something told her there was.

Sakura tore her gaze from his slowly, focusing on the grounds below. A crew was cleaning the ground after Neji and Hinata's match, preparing for the next one. So far, a few of the battles were intense. Sasuke was in the hospital, now Hinata. Only a handful of fights remained.

Suddenly Gaara appeared in the arena, looking up just past her.

Gaara
Vs
Rock Lee

The next contenders names flashed on the screen. Sakura turned to see Rock Lee jumping up and down, excited for his match up.

She would finally see what this Gaara kid was all about.

The village was under attack. The Sand village had an elaborate plan from the beginning. Gaara seemed unstable, psychotic. He ran off into the woods and they chased after him. When Naruto and herself caught up, Sasuke was already down, hurt severely. Just up ahead, a creature with half of Gaara's features snarled in their direction.

He had changed, but surely it was him. Sakura recalled her thoughts on him during his match with Lee. A few time, he actually looked scared as impossibly fast kicks and punches peeled away his armor. He looked like a cornered animal. When Guy stepped in, he could hardly understand why someone could care for another .

He smile wickedly before leaping out for Sasuke. There was nothing Sakura could think of to do. She was conflicted somehow. Why didn't she want to fight him? He was evil and after the boy she loved. Forcing herself to act, Sakura jumped in front of Sasuke, poised to defend with a kunai.

And he stopped, wide eyed and familiar. Gaara didn't kill her.

Shock and awe, Sakura saw real emotion replaced his cold eyes. It did something to her. Her heart dropped and she felt a connection to this boy. When his eyes squeezed shut and he grabbed his head, a fleeting image of a boy long forgotten flashed over him, matching him. A memory of a sad, crying red haired child.

This kid was him, there was no doubt. How could this be?

Sand lashed out at her, pinning her to a tree out of the way. He did not kill her, although he could. Gaara seemed to snap back to his previous malicious state, shouting to her teammates, but she couldn't make it out. She felt pain, his pain. In her dreams, she always felt it as if it was her own.

Agony. It was the last emotion she had felt through her dreams of him. Just before she woke up, she was filled with incomprehensible agony, pain beyond anything she had known up to that point and more still than anything she had experienced to date.

Sakura felt the sand crush her, breaking a few ribs with a sickening crack. She cried out in pain, but found that she accepted it. Wanted it, this pain he shared with her.

The world went black, and as she lost consciousness, she prayed that it gave Gaara some satisfaction.

Sakura paced around anxiously while Naruto and some of her peers went after Sasuke. He had run off to seek power from Orochimaru, but surely he would return. It was just a lapse in judgement. That cursed mark couldn't change him that much, could it?

They had been gone a long time. Tsunade had told her that she had asked for the aid of an allied nation, and now even Kakashi was being sent.

Maybe she shouldn't be watching the gate, but it was hard to focus on anything else. Sakura jumped from the build she had been looking from to a spot closer to the village's main entrance. She could feel someone drawing near.

Squinting, she saw green and red coming closer from off in the distance. The green had to be Lee, but he had been dispatched later than the rest. Was it over? Did they succeed?

To her disappointment, she realized he wasn't walking, but being supported by the another person. He was injured.

A rush of emotion accompanied her recognition of the other ninja. It was none other than Gaara of the Desert. Lee's arm was over his shoulder and he was assisting him back to the Leaf.

When had Gaara become an ally to the Leaf? Sakura recalled all the stories Naruto had told her about him. The battle between them and the story of his childhood as he told it. He was born with a demon put into his body. They shared that in common. Gaara with Shakaku, Naruto with the Nine Tails. And Naruto truly seemed to empathize, humbled by what he had and sad for what Gaara had not.

Tsunade had said that Konoha and another Nation had become allies. She had never thought, especially after the attack on the Leaf Village, that it would be with the Sand. As Gaara came closer, she looked to his eyes. The hateful, cold look was gone, replaced with a blank expression she couldn't read.

Gai yelled out to Lee and Gaara hung his head, closing his eyes. Lee broke away to greet his sensei, hugging him dramatically. It was an emotional moment the Gaara couldn't watch, standing to the side and looking away.

He saw her then, his head turned to follow his eyes. Sakura took a step forward without thinking. His eyes were unreadable, but his posture was different. He stood up more. This transformation was unlike him, he was going through some sort of change. Naruto had thought he had seen it in him before he was joined by his siblings and taken away, mentioning that he didn't believe Gaara was all bad. He said it wasn't his fault that he was the way he was.

Did he cry anymore? Did he still feel that pain?

Gaara lay on the ground, looking up at her in surprise. Even she had come to aid in his student's recovery. He had broken her bones, and yet, here she was healing him.

Sakura's pink hair moved in the breeze, swaying to the side of her face as the wind picked up briefly. It was like a tree, splaying out like branches, colored like a flower. Sakura was her name. It was like a sakura tree.

Her healing chakra ran through his system and he felt himself relax as she treated his condition. He couldn't tear his gaze away from her until a message appeared in the sky.

"Contact from your friends?" He questioned. The mesage told of an injuried ninja. So she was in charge of the medical care for there group.

"Ino's hurt?!" She replied, reading the formation of insects.

Gaara stood up, breaking connection with her jutsu. It's absence from him was felt on a level oddly personal. The feeling she caused him was blissful, he decided, so different from the turmoil he felt from the demon inside. He could not be so selfish, however.

"Go." He ordered, but she didn't move immediately.

Sakura looked at him with concern, it was a rare thing to see directed towards him. "Wha-...? But in your condition..." She left her sentence unsaid. She seemed to see the sureness in his face.

"I'm okay now. Help your friend." He responded.

She held her hand close to her near her heart and nodded. "Okay. Don't push yourself." The medic replied, awaiting his compliance.

"Yeah..." He assured. It seemed to be enough, as she turned and ran of in another direction.

Gaara turned his body to fully square off with her retreat. He watched her until she was out of sight, though he didn't know why.

When he turned back to his opponent, he couldn't guarantee he wouldn't overdo it, as Sakura had wished for him.