Author's Note: This story is not dead and neither am I. I've been without internet for ages, I started a new job, hubby started a new job as well, my hubby and I are in the process of finding a new place to live (so much packing and such is occurring), and we are also becoming pretty involved in our church. So things are mostly good but very busy and before all of that I had a bout of writer's block that could have rivaled the Great Wall of China. That seems to have passed and I've been back working on fics in my spare time for a little while now. I finally have a chance to post the couple of chapters I've finished. I hope someone is still willing to read this after all this time. Drop me a review please, just so I know somebody is still interested. Thanks very much. The next chapter is already finished. I'm just proofreading it...I wonder if I should hold it hostage for reviews? Hmm...five reviews or five days, whichever comes first. Yes that sounds good. ^_^

Disclaimer: Naruto is not mine. Not sure what I'd do with him if he was. lol. He's way too young for me and I don't feel like raising such a rambunctious teenager. I make no money from this story.

Sandstorms and Falling Leaves

Chapter 7: Two's Company, Three's a Squad.

Naruto woke up, as he had for the past several days, to find red hair tickling his chin and a warm body curled up beside him in his small bed. He smiled and nuzzled his face against the crimson strands to wake the young woman in his arms as gently as possible.

Gaara came to awareness with reflexes honed in a childhood plagued by assassins. Aqua colored eyes flew open and she took an instant to survey her surroundings before the tension in her muscles drained away and she leaned into the blonde's embrace.

"Good morning." Naruto said, smiling as he pulled away to look at her. He had learned quickly to be careful not to startle her when he woke her. One experience with the Sand ninja's reflexes was plenty. He was just lucky she had caught herself in time to keep from doing any real damage.

Gaara looked up at him with a small yawn. "Morning." She said quietly.

Naruto was about to suggest she go when his attention wandered to the calendar on the wall. His brow furrowed as he eyed it.

"What is it?" The redhead asked, catching the shift in his mood.

"The chunin exam starts tomorrow." The blonde pointed out, his voice unusually serious. "And we still haven't even met our third squad member. I mean...what if Tsunade-baachan can't find someone in time?" He trailed off nervously.

"She will." Gaara assured him, sitting up and grabbing her coat from the floor beside the bed. The sun was just beginning to rise and she didn't have much time to get back across the village before the day began in earnest and sneaking back became much more difficult. "I have to go."

Naruto nodded, his eyes still on the distressing evidence of the date. Self doubt was eating away at him; what if he still wasn't good enough to make chunin? Would Tsunade really make him quit being a ninja or would he have to take the exam over and over until he passed?

Gaara frowned, standing by the bed and watching him for a long moment before leaning down and taking his face between her hands. Her not-quite green eyes stared into startled blue ones, demanding the young man's attention.

"Tsunade will find a suitable genin for your team and you will pass the exam." She told him firmly. "I know it."

"How do you know?" The Leaf ninja asked tiredly.

"Because you are Naruto Uzumaki and you are going to be Hokage someday." With that declaration she nervously leaned in and pressed her lips to his.

The kiss was chaste at first, as their few previous encounters had been, but Gaara found herself longing for something more. Naruto's eyes shot open as he felt a warm wetness hesitantly touch his lips. His mouth opened in shock and the redhead's quick tongue took advantage to probe into the moist pink cavern. He froze, never having experienced a French kiss before. Sure, he knew the basic idea; how could he not after two years wandering the world with a master pervert like Jiraiya; but he'd never actually gone so far as to use that knowledge.

Gaara noticed how Naruto tensed and reluctantly ceased her activities, pulling back slowly and releasing him. She lowered her eyes to the floor, berating herself for being foolish. She had never tried kissing anyone like that and she was certain she had done it all wrong. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have..."

Her apology was cut off as the blonde grabbed her and pulled her back into his arms, covering her lips with his own and nervously requesting entry to her mouth with his tongue. Startled but pleased, the young woman responded immediately and the hesitancy left them both as the kiss quickly grew heated. Their tongues battled for dominance and the ensuing minutes left them both breathless and flushed when they finally separated.

"That was..." Naruto breathed, looking dazedly at her, his hand tangled in the crimson hair at the base of her skull.

"Yes." She agreed, not needing words at the moment.

"I've never..." The blonde blushed but pressed on, needing her to know she'd been his first real kiss. "I've never kissed anyone like that before."

"Me either." Suddenly feeling shy about what she had just done, she found herself unable to meet his eyes. Her glance drifted to the window and the redhead stiffened in dismay. "The sun is up. I have to go."

"Oh...okay." Naruto nodded but as she tried to move past him towards the window, he caught her hand. "Gaara." He waited until he was sure he had her full attention. "I love you."

Gaara stood, dumbfounded at his words for a moment. Finally, she managed to find her voice. "I...Naruto, I..." She wasn't sure if what she felt was love. Naruto made her feel safe; wanted; at peace...but did she love him? Her experience with love was so limited. She loved her siblings, but that was different from the love she felt for her village, and she was told romantic love was different from either of those. "I don't know." She said honestly. "I care for you, Naruto. I just...I don't know that I'm sure what love feels like." She looked him in the eyes, trying to show him the feelings she held for him, feelings she wasn't sure how to define. "Please, give me time to find out."

Naruto nodded slowly, trying to keep his disappointment off his face. She hadn't rejected him outright but his heart ached to hear her return his sentiment. Her eyes told him what she would say but there was conflict and insecurity in her features. He couldn't begrudge her cautiousness; if he had been betrayed as badly as she had...by people who claimed to love her, he might have had trouble trusting his emotions as well. "Take all the time you need." He said with a weak smile. "I'll be right here when you're ready to give me your answer."

The redhead smiled sadly. She didn't want to hurt him but she wouldn't lie either, and she just wasn't sure if her feelings for the blonde ninja went that deep. "Thank you." She leaned in and kissed his cheek softly before leaving to make her way back to her own apartment.

It was several long minutes before the leaf ninja managed to prod his body into moving from where he stood. The more he thought it over, the more he was sure Gaara loved him, even if she couldn't say it just yet. He wasn't known for his patience but he decided that in this case it would be worth the wait.

His hand drifted to his slightly swollen lips, and he grinned. "Yeah, definitely worth it." He mumbled, before finally getting ready to start the day.

Gaara slipped into her apartment and found her sister already awake and waiting for her with breakfast.

Temari took one look at her little sister's flushed cheeks and slightly too red lips and her eyes narrowed. "Morning." She greeted the redhead, eying her suspiciously.

"Yes." Gaara replied, growing redder under her older sister's scrutiny.

"Anything you want to tell me, Sis?" The blonde woman asked, keeping her voice carefully even.

Gaara looked away, turning positively crimson. "I...I kissed Naruto." She admitted, feeling ashamed of herself.

Temari breathed a sigh of relief, it wasn't as serious as she had feared. "Oh." She smiled and laid a hand on the shorter girl's shoulder. "Is he a good kisser?" She asked wickedly.

"Temari!" Gaara gasped, mortified at her sister's boldness.

The blonde just laughed. "Lighten up, Sis. It was just a kiss, ne? No harm done."

Gaara frowned slightly, it was more than just one kiss but she wasn't going to correct her sister's assumption. However, she did need to talk to someone. "There's more..."

The eldest sand sibling felt her blood freeze. 'I'll kill him...'

"Naruto...he...he told me he loves me."

The quiet words distracted the blonde from plotting various ways to annihilate one hyperactive jinchuriki. "Oh...and what did you say to that?" She asked cautiously.

"I...told him I wasn't sure." Aqua eyes closed in confusion as the flood gates holding her emotions in check broke. "How am I supposed to know if I love him? I care about him...I know he'd do anything for me...How do you know that you love someone?"

The blonde woman ran a hand through her bangs and closed her eyes, trying to think of how to answer that question. Romantic love was firmly on the list of topics their family did not discuss, but for Gaara's sake she would have to try. "It's a little different for everyone, I think." She hedged, opening her eyes and smiling hopefully, but Gaara's expression told her that it was not enough of an answer. Sighing, the elder Suna sibling pressed on, only slightly surprised to find a certain lazy leaf ninja's face rose to her mind as she spoke.

"Well, when you love someone you, uh...you want to be near them, you look for them even when you don't have any reason to see them. You might even volunteer to do jobs you don't like in order to be near them." The blonde thought for a few seconds. "You do things they like in order to make them happy, even if you'd rather be doing something else or don't like what they want to do." Her mind drifted to hours spent cloud watching and playing shogi. "And you think about them a lot, you wonder what they're doing when you aren't with them." She wracked her brain. "You care about their safety more than your own. You want them to be happy...but you also want them to succeed, so sometimes you might push them when they're being lazy..." Temari trailed off at her sister's thoughtful look. "Any questions?"

Gaara nodded. "How does love feel? The emotion itself..." She asked flatly.

"I don't know...It feels warm, sort of...in your guts...and kind of fluttery when you look at the person." Temari knew she was screwing the explanation up and she struggled to think of a better description. "It makes your heart beat faster...uh..."

Gaara nodded, taking in all of the information passively.

Temari stopped and took a deep breath, finally having come up with an explanation that seemed to fit. "Being in love means that being with the person makes you really happy, and it almost physically hurts to be separated from them. It means their happiness and safety is more important to you than your own." The tall blonde was more than a little uncomfortable with how her own words echoed her relationship with Shikamaru but she had one last important point to add. "Most importantly, love isn't something you can figure out with your head, no matter how smart you are. It isn't an exact science, Sis. You just have to trust your feelings and hope."

The younger woman considered her sister's words thoughtfully before nodding. "Thank you." She said slowly. "Oh." A small smile lifted one corner of her mouth. "I saw Nara the other day. He says hello."

Temari blushed as her sister brought up the very person she had been thinking about.

The redhead swiftly moved past her sputtering sibling and darted into her room to get ready to meet Hinata.

Naruto and Matsuri were sparring in the treetops over their assigned training area. Matsuri's taijutsu was not her strong point and the pair had spent a great deal of time improving her hand to hand skills, even going so far as to request assistance from Rock Lee for a couple of back-breaking days. Naruto was throwing clones at her and she was holding her own admirably when a shout from below brought them both to a sweaty halt.

"Oi! Naruto-niisan!"

Naruto looked down and smiled, recognizing the familiar form of Konohamaru along with another person that he didn't know. "Konohamaru!" He hopped down from his perch, landing in front of the younger boy. "What brings you out here?"

The younger genin puffed himself up. "My mission is to deliver the third member of the Leaf/Sand chunin exam squad and make introductions." He said, obviously proud to have been given such an important assignment.

"Oh." Naruto looked at the man accompanying his young friend for the first time and his eyes widened in disbelief.

Before him stood the oldest genin he'd ever seen. The guy had to be at least forty years old, with dark brown hair that was beginning to gray at the temples, and a bushy mustache over smiling lips. Gray eyes peered back at the hyperactive ninja from behind small round glasses and his hitae-ate was tied around his head with the knot resting over his right ear. He was dressed in a dark green sweater vest with a white dress shirt, a brown necktie and khaki slacks.

"Naruto-niisan Matsuri-san, this is Manabu Akado-san." Konohamaru continued. "Akado-san, this is Naruto Uzumaki-san and Matsuri-san of Sunagakure."

Altogether, the guy didn't look much like a ninja at all.

"Are you really a genin?" Naruto blurted.

"Indeed I am." The man bowed politely. "A pleasure to meet you, Uzumaki-san."

Konohamaru grinned, his duty successfully completed. "Ja ne, Naruto-niisan." He made a hasty exit.

The three genin stood in uncomfortable silence for a few moments until Matsuri stepped forward nervously. "Nice to meet you, Akado-san. I am Matsuri." She bowed politely. "I hope we work well together."

"As do I, Matsuri-san." The older genin smiled and scratched his neck sheepishly. "This will be my fourth attempt at the exam and if I don't pass this time I'm afraid I may have to give up."

Naruto blinked. "You've taken the exam three times already? How far did you get?"

"I've never passed the preliminary written portion."

Naruto and Matsuri sweatdropped and looked at each other. This was going to be harder than they had hoped. However Naruto was nothing if not resilient.

"Okay...well we better start training then. We have to be sure we can all pass that test tomorrow." He announced with determination.

The older genin had worked as the Hokage's accountant for nearly twenty years. He was happy with his position but wanted to make chunin so he could teach at the academy as well. He also rattled off a bunch of information about improved retirement benefits that meant very little to either of the young ninjas.

Naruto and Matsuri soon found their new teammate to be a wealth of information about the first stage of the chunin exam.

"The first part of the exam is mostly about working together. We either all pass or we all fail." The older man explained. "The trick is figuring out which actions will be best for your team. That is what you have to do to pass."

Naruto frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Well, once they told us if any of us walked out on the exam or got caught cheating we would all fail. If we stayed to the end we would pass or fail individually but if we failed, we would never be allowed to take the exam again. So that time staying was what was best for the team. Unfortunately, one of my teammates got caught cheating."

Naruto nodded. He had experienced that version of the test.

Manabu continued. "Another time we were told that if any of us failed the test the entire squad would be disqualified from ever taking the test again, but if we walked out we could try to qualify in the next exam. To pass that exam all three members of the team needed to walk out. My team had one member that refused to come with us so we all failed and he was disqualified from becoming a chunin."

The two younger genin frowned at that.

Manabu pressed on. "Since the exam is presented differently each time, we won't be able to know for certain what will allow us to pass but as long as we all keep the good of the squad ahead of our own interests I think we have an excellent chance of passing tomorrow."

Naruto grinned. "Right. No problem. We can do this, ne?"

Matsuri nodded grimly. "Sure."

The orange clad ninja stood and stretched. "So, Akado-san, assuming we pass the first test, what can you do in the rest of the exam?"

"I know the basics of course, though I may be a bit rusty. I specialize in a genjutsu that I invented myself. The targets experience a sort of warped probability environment in which any offensive action they take will appear to result in a critical failure of some sort."

Naruto stared blankly but Matsuri nodded thoughtfully.

"So it's sort of a bad luck jutsu?"

Manabu nodded and grinned. "That is an excellent way of explaining it."

Naruto grinned. "Well, that could be pretty helpful. You two ready to get in some practice?"

Matsuri nodded, smiling.

Manabu stood and brushed off his slacks. "Ready."

The odd trio of genins spent the rest of the day sparring and testing out each others' jutsus and Manabu treated them all to ramen for dinner. By the time Naruto headed home, he was feeling much better about the upcoming exam.

'I'm Naruto Uzumaki. Of course I'll pass.' He thought to himself as he unlocked his door and entered his living room.

His senses gave him only a moment of warning before a gust of wind slammed the door behind him and the jinchuriki found himself trapped in his own living room.

Gaara's sister was sitting on his couch, eying him in a manner that wasn't entirely friendly.

"Uh, hello Temari." The leaf ninja greeted nervously, remembering the last time he had been alone in the company of one of Gaara's siblings.

"Hello foxboy." The sand jonin smiled coldly. "We need to talk."

Naruto gulped at her tone but smiled. "About what?"

"About you kissing my baby sister."

He blushed and scratched his neck. "Oh..that..." He said weakly.

" Yeah that. I just wanted to tell you to make sure that is as far as it goes." Temari ordered, rising and approaching the suddenly confused leaf ninja. "I don't know if Gaara has told you anything about Suna customs or laws. However, in case it slipped her mind, I feel you ought to know that anyone else from home finding out about the sleeping arrangement you two have, could not only cost her the title of kazekage, it could get her exiled from Suna permanently."

Blue eyes widened. "But we're only sleeping..."

"No one else is going to believe this is as innocent as it better be..." The pigtailed woman interrupted with a glare. "So you make sure it stays a secret, and if you ever feel like doing something less innocent with my baby sister, you're damn well gonna marry her first if you ever want to see dawn again."

Naruto swallowed hard and nodded his understanding.

"Good." Temari seemed to relax a bit. "Now that that's out of the way, good luck with the chunin exam tomorrow." She grinned and slapped him on the back amiably as she brushed past him and headed for the door.

"Umm...Thanks." The bemused leaf ninja replied, turning to watch his unexpected guest leave. "Oh, and Temari...I'm glad Gaara has a big brother and sister to look out for her like this. I don't think she could have come so far so fast without you two supporting her."

"Hn." The blonde woman replied, blushing slightly at the leaf genin's words. Temari was careful to keep her back to him as she hurried out. 'Well, it's pretty easy to see why Gaara's fallen for him. I come into his home and threaten him and he compliments my family loyalty.' She shook her head as she walked along the streets back to her apartment.

Gaara was waiting for her when she arrived with a simple meal of rice, pickles and broiled fish.

"Looks great, Sis. You've been practicing." She grinned. "You're gonna make Naruto a great wife someday, ne?"

"Temari!" The younger girl's face flamed and she threw a potholder at her sister's head.

Dodging the harmless missile with ease, the blonde chuckled and dug into her meal with gusto.

To be continued...