Author's Note: Here you go! Shiny chapter for all my lovely reviewers.

Sandstorms and Falling Leaves

Chapter Fourteen: Spying and Sand Sculptures

If Temari was surprised to see the leaf ninja sitting in her kitchen the next morning, she hid it well. Either that or she was too tired to question it.

"Morning." The hyperactive teen greeted her a little sheepishly.

"Uh huh." The older girl nodded and eyed him thoughtfully until he started to match her sister's flaming hair. "So you slept over last night, ne?"

"I...uh...I mean..." The flustered teen sputtered, not sure what the correct answer was in the situation.

"Yes. He did." Her sister put in evenly. "Now quit torturing him or I won't make you any pancakes."

Temari shut up. Gaara's pancakes were good.

Silence reigned in the small apartment until they were nearly done eating. With the threat of being left without breakfast neutralized, Temari grinned and decided to have a little fun.

"So when's the big day?" She asked with feigned nonchalance.

Naruto choked on his mouthful of syrup soaked breakfast treat and Gaara's eyes widened as she rounded on her sister.

"That's not funny." The pair blurted at the same moment.

"What...I wasn't kidding." Temari's grin belied her words. "You sleep in the same bed every night, you make out when you think no one's looking..."

Gaara managed an indignant noise and stormed out of the apartment, now doing her best impression of a tomato. Naruto was blushing as well but he also looked just a little bit thoughtful as he washed his food down without meeting the older blonde's eyes and hurried after the redhead to try and calm her down.

"Gaara! Wait up!"

Temari grinned. "That went well." She announced to the empty apartment. With a bounce in her step she set about gathering the dishes and taking them to the sink.

Naruto caught up to Gaara just as the redhead reached the ground floor. "Hey, don't let her get to you. You know she likes to push people's buttons." He caught her arm and pulled her to a stop. "What's wrong?"

"She said we...make out..." At his blank look she shook her head. "Naruto, my sister's been watching us...probably following us." She explained with a sigh. "And if she's watching us, you can be sure my brother is too. They don't trust me." She crossed her arms and glared at the ground in front of her feet as if it was the source of all her frustration.

"Gaara..." The blonde shook his head. "You don't get it at all, do you?" He asked slowly, her glare shifted to him and he hastened to explain. "It isn't you they don't trust. It's me." He laughed sharply. "They're just trying to look out for you. You...you're lucky you have people to worry about you like that." He finished softly.

The redhead's stormy expression smoothed out and her mouth opened in a soundless little 'o' as his words registered. Still, she didn't want her siblings treating her like a helpless china doll either.

"Well...they still shouldn't be spying on us." She let it go though. Her siblings had been overprotective of her for years and she didn't know why she thought things should be different now.

"I know but they mean well." The leaf genin relaxed as he saw her demeanor change. "So, can I walk you to meet Hinata?"

She hesitated, not sure the blue haired girl would even show up after the near disaster the previous morning. Still, she didn't want to be apart from Naruto yet so she found herself nodding.

"Let's go then." The blonde bounced along, starting into an account of his training with Kakashi and some guy she had never heard of whose job was apparently to make sure the nine tailed fox didn't take over his body and terrorize the village.

Gaara followed more calmly but he never strayed more than a step or two from her side as they walked, despite his faster pace. He stopped frequently to animate his story with gestures and imitations. The redhead found herself smiling slightly at his antics, all her worry pushed aside for the moment.

Gaara was pleasantly surprised to find Hinata already waiting at the new training ground they had agreed upon the day before. It was a larger clearing than the previous one and it was a good mile outside the village proper. No danger of a poorly aimed jutsu knocking a hole in Konoha's wall.

The quiet girl greeted her with a smile and jumped up from the rock she had been using for a seat while she waited.

"Gaara...and...um...hey Naruto." The Hyuuga heiress wasn't entirely comfortable around the jinchuriki. She had let go of her crush, but knowing that he now knew she had had one made her feel very self-conscious around him.

"Hey Hinata." The blonde greeted the Hyuuga heiress warmly, oblivious to her discomfort.

Gaara wasn't so oblivious. "I'll see you tonight, Naruto." She told him as she turned him back the way they had come.

"Yeah, okay." He leaned in and gently kissed her cheek before blushing and darting away.

Hinata seemed oddly amused as the redhead turned back to her, a soft look on Gaara's face that only the blonde jinchuriki seemed able to cause.

"What?" Gaara snapped defensively, a blush staining her pale skin.

"Nothing." The violet eyed teen said quickly, though her smile grew wider. "Okay, did you come up with any ideas?"

"Not really." The sand ninja hedged, not about to admit she had been distracted by Naruto's arrival in her room when she failed to show up at his.

"Well...maybe we can work on figuring out why being angry let you reach that second chakra network."

'If you'd ever had a voice in your head telling you to kill everything in sight, you wouldn't need to ask that question.' The redhead thought sourly. Out loud she merely acknowledged flatly. "I used to be an angry person."

"Yeah, I remember...but you got control of that without losing access to your chakra." The leaf chunin pointed out.

"True."

"Why don't we see if what happened yesterday left any lasting effects?" Hinata suggested.

The redhead raised an eyebrow.

"I mean...try doing something and I'll see if there are any changes in your chakra systems." The blue haired teen clarified.

"Ah...okay."

She started small, grinding stones into sand and building a pile at her feet, then she moved on to actively manipulating the sand making the ball bigger as she went. She molded it into increasingly complex shapes and patterns in the air and Hinata actually got so distracted watching the sand dancing around the redhead, she didn't notice the wielder's chakra levels dipping dangerously low until it was too late.

It felt good to simply play with the sand the way she used to and Gaara ignored the warning signs of chakra exhaustion, pushing herself to reach the rest of the stored chakra within her. By the time she realized it wasn't going to work, the sand was already raining down around her as blackness encroached on her vision. She was unconscious before she hit the ground.

Gaara came to with Hinata leaning over her, concern clearly written on the leaf girl's features.

"That might not have been a good idea." The exiled Kazekage admitted as she sat up slowly.

"No...well, it did show you are a lot stronger than you were when you got to Konoha." The blue haired girl tried to be encouraging.

"Not enough."

They sat in silence for a few minutes, letting the redhead recover.

"Hmm...you know...it's kind of strange." Hinata started hesitantly. "The way the sand reacts to you...it isn't like most ninja jutsus. You don't even use traditional hand signs most of the time." Violet eyes were watching to see if she had offended her friend. "I would have thought that your ability to control sand that way...basically with just your thoughts...would be gone with the one tail." She finished softly, not sure how touchy a subject she might be stepping into.

"I know." Gaara said simply. "I can't explain it. I can just...feel it...the sand...and most types of earth in general actually. I'm just more comfortable with sand than with rocks or other dirt." She reached out and scooped up a handful of the fine grains she had been using before she passed out, letting them sift through her fingers. "Even as weak as my chakra is now, I could still feel into the earth below us for hundreds of feet with a little bit of effort, I could tell you where every stone in this clearing is with my eyes closed, and I know you have sand in your hair from when you tried to catch me a minute ago." She finished quietly, not sure why she was telling Hinata so much.

She did not discuss these things with anyone, not even her siblings, not even Naruto. Her relationship with the sand, it was personal, it was just hers...and she knew it was unusual. The desert sand was her only playmate as a child and she had grown to view it as a living thing all its own. It was only as she got older that she realized that it wasn't a view shared by most other people. That she was alone in the way her skin tingled when there was a rockslide in the pass to Sunagakure, the way she knew whenever a sandstorm was brewing well before the alarms sounded.

The blue haired ninja listened curiously. She had never heard of anyone that in tune with one of the elements.

"I guess Shukaku did more than remodel my chakra system when he moved in." The redhead shrugged one shoulder dismissively.

"That's amazing, Gaara." Hinata blurted. "I've never heard of anything quite like it.

"Hn...maybe, but I'm still not sure it's worth the price."

"Oh...no, I guess maybe not." The blue haired ninja looked sheepishly down at her hands.

"Don't tell anyone what I just told you. Please." She tacked on the politeness, remembering belatedly that she couldn't actually order the leaf ninja to do anything.

"Of course not." The girl looked shocked at the idea.

"Thanks." The redhead pushed herself to her feet, feeling better now that she had taken a few minutes to rest. "Let's try again."

"Are you sure?" The blue haired chunin eyed her friend, uncertainty clear on her expressive features. At the redhead's mildly exasperated glare she relented. "Okay but let's keep things on a smaller scale this time okay?"

The redhead nodded and scooped up a handful of sand. She let it sift through her fingers but caught it in her jutsu before it could reach the ground and began to trace simple shapes in front of her. Details emerged as she got bored, until she was sculpting faces in the air. Temari, Kankuro, Naruto, Matsuri, the Nara boy with a pineapple stuck to the top of his head instead of hair.

Hinata giggled at that, though she covered her mouth to stifle it. Shikamaru was her friend after all.

The heavyset boy, Choji, came next, a sand potato chip shoved halfway into his mouth. Shino followed, then his mother, before the sand face went blank and new features emerged many of which were unfamiliar to the Konoha native. Chiho, Baki, Shinta, Sena, a slew of council members, the previous Kazekage's, even including her father though she banished his image quicker than the others.

Finally she could feel herself growing dizzy and she let the sand fall before she overdid it again. She looked to the dark haired teen for confirmation of what she already knew.

"I didn't see any reaction from Shukaku's chakra system." Hinata told her, disappointed.

Gaara nodded. She hadn't felt anything like the rush of energy she'd gotten the previous morning.

"We'll figure this out." The leaf chunin told her friend firmly.

"I hope so." The redhead agreed tiredly before turning to walk home. It was nearly nightfall and her sister would be expecting her for dinner.

"See you tomorrow?"

"Yes." It wasn't like she had a village to run or anything, and at this rate it was looking less than likely that she ever would again.

Gaara arrived at her apartment still stewing over the day's failure. She had her hand on the door to enter when a leaf ninja poofed into view beside her and knelt.

"Kazekage Gaara. The honorable fifth Hokage Tsunade-sama requests your presence this evening for a meeting." The messenger announced professionally.

Gaara nodded perfunctorily.

"Temari and Kankuro of Suna are also welcome though their presence is not required."

"When?"

"Two hours from now."

"Very well." She dismissed the messenger with a wave of her hand and he vanished back into the shadows from which he had appeared.

The weary redhead moved into her apartment and greeted her sister with a nod. "We've been asked to meet with the Hokage this evening. Kankuro too, if he can be found." She announced flatly.

"He should be in his apartment. He said something about working on a new puppet." The blonde gestured vaguely, taking the news in stride.

"I'll go let him know."

"Sure and tell him he can join us for dinner if he keeps his trap shut about my cooking."

The redhead nodded and wandered down the corridor to the apartment shared by Kankuro and Shinta. She knocked twice and then stepped back to wait.

Shinta opened the door a minute later, looking harried. He bowed hastily when he saw who was waiting. "Kazekage-sama. What can I do for you?"

"Is my brother here?"

"Yes Gaara-sama. I'll get him for you."

The Sand chunin darted towards the back of the apartment and the ex-jinchuriki heard him knocking loudly on one of the interior doors. A whispered conversation followed and then her brother emerged, pulling up his hood as he wandered towards her.

"Hey, Little Sis. What do you need?" The black clad teen asked curiously.

"We've been invited to meet with the Hokage tonight." She informed him evenly. "Also, you are invited to share dinner with Temari and I, provided you can suffer through our sister's cooking in silence."

He laughed. "So, you at least admit it is suffering."

The younger teen shrugged but the tiniest hint of a smile played at the edges of her mouth.

"Sure, let me just put some things away." He turned away before seeming to remember his manners. "You want to come in?"

Gaara stepped inside, looking around at the apartment. It was much like her own, but as she followed her brother to the back bedroom and looked inside, there was no doubt who lived there. He had brought his puppet workshop with him, she knew that. The tools of his trade had made up over half of the supplies they'd brought with them from Sunagakure. She just didn't expect him to have let his work take over his entire bedroom. There was a bed shoved into the corner, half buried in disconnected puppet limbs, but the rest of the room showed no sign that anyone actually slept there.

Her brother was efficiently packing away a half completed puppet and sorting his tools back into the correct slots in the cases he used to store them. Finally, he turned to her, seeming surprised that she had actually followed him further than the living room but shrugging it off and smiling toothily.

"Okay, I'm ready to face whatever horror Ri is trying to pass off as food tonight."

"It didn't look bad when I left." The redhead offered with a touch of hope.

"Yeah, well she can do a lot of damage in just a few minutes."

The meal wasn't bad, for Temari. The noodles were only a little overcooked and the vegetables were okay with a little salt. The meat was chewy and charred but they'd all eaten worse, so it passed with only one small comment from Kankuro. A comment he hastily took back when his older sister reached for the frying pan.

The three Suna ninjas arrived at the Hokage's offices a few minutes early but Shizune showed them right in.

"Gaara." The buxom blonde greeted the petite redhead warmly. "Good to see you. How are things going?"

"Fine."

The older woman sighed, she should have known this would be like pulling teeth...from a dragon. "Right, skip the small talk. I get it." She leaned forward and gestured for the trio to sit. "As I'm sure you know, your presence here is an open secret. We thought the village's heavy security would be enough to keep your enemies at bay but obviously that isn't going to work."

The exiled Kazekage nodded. "The assassin."

"Exactly. He may have been just the first of many." She leaned back in her chair and stretched before continuing. "The way I see it, we have two choices." She held up her hand and ticked the options off on her fingers. "Either you hide better, which it may be too late for, or you make a show of strength that will make them think twice about coming after you for a while."

"Hiding has never been my way. What sort of demonstration did you have in mind?" The redhead asked curiously, though her face betrayed little of what she was thinking.

"The chunin exam finals are just a few weeks away. It would make quite a statement for you to join me in your rightful place as a Kage."

"But at the moment I hold no actual power."

"That's debatable. Regardless, it would show the world you aren't afraid, and that would lead them to question why you might be so confident." The older woman let the redhead ponder the idea for a moment. "It might make them hesitate to come after you so blatantly."

Gaara thought it over. "It could also be a perfect opportunity for someone to make an attempt on my life." She pointed out slowly.

"True, it isn't without risk, but you'll be guarded by the same security that has been arranged for me and I can assure you I feel perfectly safe."

"It would be sort of symbolic too." Temari put in suddenly. "As a sign of the strength of the alliance between our villages, it would serve very well."

The redhead conceded her sister's point with a nod. "The question then, is how will the council take it?"

"Forget them." Her brother growled. "They won't raise a hand against you, they don't dare."

This was news to the sand user. "Why?"

The hooded boy looked exasperated for a moment, like she was missing something obvious. "You're a freaking hero, Sis. You saved the village, you nearly died doing so." He glossed over the fact that she had actually been dead, preferring not to think about it. "Not only that, Sunagakure has never been as prosperous or as secure as it is since you took office. The people of Suna love you."

Temari was nodding in agreement. "That's why the council couldn't depose you outright, and I'm sure they wanted to. The only real chance they might have at replacing you, without causing an uprising, would be if they could convince Kuro to take your place." She jerked a thumb in their brother's direction. "At least then they'd have the laws to fall back on."

"Never happening." The hooded teen snorted, looking rather nauseous at the thought. He'd make a lousy Kazekage and he knew it. He didn't want that kind of responsibility and he'd eat Crow before he'd let himself be the council's puppet.

"See?" The ponytailed blonde shrugged. "Things have changed a lot in the last few years. You've just been working too hard to notice." She grinned and patted the smaller girl's shoulder.

"I...oh." The redhead absorbed all the information slowly. "I need time to decide." She said finally, turning her attention to the bemused Hokage, who had been watching them with a small smirk.

"Sure. Just let me know what you want to do." Tsunade stood and came around her desk. "On a more personal note, I thought you should know that word has gotten back to Sunagakure about your relationship with Naruto. Don't ask me how I know. I don't think your council has all the details but...be careful, okay kid?"

Gaara nodded slowly. It was unsettling news. She wondered if Tsunade herself knew all the details of her relationship with the hyperactive blonde jinchuriki. 'Hopefully not.'

With that small warning, the older woman showed her guests out and went back to her desk. "I'm getting too old for politics." She mumbled sourly, before reaching for the bottle of sake she kept hidden in her bottom drawer for emergencies.

Naruto lay sprawled on the training field, exhausted from attempting to master his wind chakra. He seriously considered sleeping right there, but the thought of Gaara snuggled in his arms had him lurching unsteadily to his feet. He swayed for a minute but managed to maintain his footing.

Kakashi eyed his most unusual student curiously. He had been expecting the teen to sleep where he fell, but the blonde seemed to have other ideas. "Going somewhere?" He asked dryly as the boy took a few steps before stumbling to his knees.

"I have to go home." The stubborn teen insisted, pushing himself to his feet again. This time he made it to a tree, which he leaned on heavily as he pondered how far away his apartment seemed at that moment.

"Why? Is the ground not comfortable enough? You'll be back first thing in the morning anyway."

"I have to sleep at home." Blue eyes bored into an amused dark one.

Kakashi sighed and pushed away from the tree he had been holding up for the better part of the day. "Okay, come on." He grabbed the tired teen and began to more or less drag him towards the village.

Naruto protested loudly at first, but gave it up when the jonin threatened to drop him and let him see how long it took him to get back on his own. The blonde simply hoped Gaara wouldn't be at his apartment yet.

Kakashi dropped the exhausted jinchuriki off at his door and walked away, but his interest was piqued. He doubled back as soon he was out of sight and watched to see what was so important that the knucklehead had actually let himself be dragged home like a ragdoll.

The nosy man wasn't disappointed. About ten minutes after he set up his surveillance, he watched a cloaked figure duck in through the leaf genin's newly opened window. 'That's his bedroom.' Kakashi hadn't seen the visitor's face but he didn't need to. Just for an instant, as the wary person had looked around before entering the dark bedroom, the jonin had caught a glimpse of unmistakable crimson hair.

'What is Gaara doing sneaking into Naruto's bedroom at this hour of night?' The silver haired man pondered, having several ideas that would have made Jiraiya proud. 'Huh...didn't know the kid had it in him.' The jonin stuck his hands in his pockets and headed towards his own home, curiosity satisfied for the time being.

To Be Continued...

Author's Note: Uh oh! What is Suna's council going to do? What is Kakashi going to do with his (mis)information? Will Gaara make a stand at the chunin exam finals? All these are questions that will be answered in the chapters to come. Please review!