Hinata knew something was off as the days drew closer to his siblings' arrival. Gaara became quieter. His snapped outbursts at Shukaku became more frequent, and he refused to tell her what they were about. The one that sat on her heart the most was when she found, more often than not, when she fell asleep with him nearby, he wouldn't be there in the morning. She wondered if he ever even went to sleep or if he just waited until she did so that he could disappear to his room.
She didn't know what was causing his distance, and all attempts to have him open up only seemed to make him close his walls to her, so she stopped trying.
It was possible he was worried about the arrival of more letters or maybe what she would say in the letters she wrote to send back. His violent reaction to them when they arrived, made it strange that he kept asking about them and those who sent them, but Hinata didn't want to close off his curiosity.
Would this be a cycle every month? If that was the case. Maybe she should just make sure he never saw the letters again.
It hit her heart when Temari and Kankuro arrived, and she turned to find him gone and his door closed. He didn't respond to her knocking, but she was worried about him locking himself up when he was upset.
"Has he been causing problems?" Temari dusted her hands off as she finished unloading.
"He's been a bit strange this week, but nothing…" Hinata sighed.
"I'll keep trying. Kankuro has more letters for you." Temari shooed her.
Hinata walked down the hall and heard the door open. Maybe he just didn't want to talk to her.
"What?" Temari asked in disbelief.
"Take her home," Gaara repeated, curling tighter around himself behind his sand thrown, fighting his own wishes.
"Gaara?" Temari crouched down to get down to his level.
"Take her home!" Gaara barked as a wall shot up between him and his sister.
Temari flinched. "You're worrying her." She flattened her hand on the wall. "You're worrying me."
"That won't matter after she is gone." Gaara covered his head, though it did little to drown out the screaming he was ignoring. "Just get her out of here."
"Are you sure?" Temari whispered. "You may never see her again."
He knew that. That's what he wanted. Well, half of what he wanted, but it was the half he cared more about. He wanted her happy. Her being happy was more important than keeping her like he wanted.
'You can make her happy!' Shukaku screamed.
"She's not safe from you." Gaara bit back.
Shukaku growled. 'It was an accident. I didn't attack her.'
Shukaku attacking her wasn't even what he was worried about. The cuts were small and probably hurt less than the burns she was constantly giving herself. But they made him realize that she was forgiving all the pain he was putting her through, and no amount of plants and food from home was going to make her happy here.
Hinata quietly took on all the pain he was putting her through, and once he saw it, he couldn't stop seeing it.
'If you let her go, you are going to never feel love again.' Love? Shukaku kept saying things like that, but it wouldn't make any more sense to him now than it did before. 'You are an idiot. You are going to make yourself alone and miserable forever.'
"Her being happy is better than me being happy she is here," Gaara told him.
Temari's hand slid down the wall as she sighed. "I'll… tell her to pack."
Hinata sat on the opposite side of the sand wall where Gaara's door used to be. She wiped another tear from her face and sniffed. She yelled for him, but he wouldn't answer. He knew she was here. He was ignoring her on purpose. How could he send her home without saying a word to her?
Her chest hurt more than she thought it would. Did she still want to go home? Of course, she didn't want to be stuck in this miserable, lonely sand castle forever, but she didn't want to leave him here alone, and she couldn't just take him with her.
"He might be too stubborn this time." Temari slid down the wall next to her.
"This is…" Hinata hiccuped and whipped her face. "I hate this. He's been planning this for weeks, and I didn't notice."
"But you want to go home?" Temari concluded.
Hinata's face twisted. Yes. She wanted to go home, but she also didn't want to leave.
Temari pulled her into her shoulder as she continued to cry. "He's setting you free because he can't stand to keep you locked in here with him."
Hinata took a final look around the greenhouse. Would Gaara keep caring for her plants, or would he toss them out so he didn't have to think about her? Knowing him, he would stare at them for hours and torture himself with them.
She took longer than she probably should have. Temari and Kankuro were waiting, but she wanted to take one last look at all the little pots that showed so much of his gentle care. Why did they have to treat him like a monster to the point he believed it?
Hinata turned to leave and found a sand pillar standing in the way of the door with a single aloe plant sitting on top. She picked it up, and the sand melted away. She held the pot to her chest.
Was this her going away gift? A final touch of care to make her heart bleed.
She didn't need it to remember him. He was already going to follow her heart home.
Hinata didn't get the welcome home she expected, but it was her mistake to think her father would have ever wanted to see her again.
"I had a deal." Hiashi frowned at her.
"He sent me back willingly." Why was she defending coming home?
"He didn't find you useful anymore?" The subtext was clear. What did she do? Because Hiashi didn't want her either.
"I can't speak for him, but I think he didn't want to keep me from home anymore." Hinata tried to explain, but she didn't really understand either.
"Well," Hiashi eyed her up and down. "You can move to the branch housing. Your damaged goods."
Hinata gapped at him. She knew it was something he could have thought, but she couldn't believe for a single moment it was something he would say out loud. How dare he!?
Hinata flinched back and balled her hands up her chest as she realized her first instinct was… to slap him. Had she been away from home that long that something anywhere near that had even crossed her mind? She had never in her life so much as spoken back to her father. How did she even form the thought that she would hit him? "He didn't touch me."
"I can't know that." Hiashi doubled down.
If that was where his mind went now, what did he think he was doing sending her there? What kind of father sent his daughter into that situation?
Hinata did the unthinkable. She looked up at her father with a look of disgust on her face that actually made him raise his eyebrows a hair in surprise before she turned away and walked away from her father.
It wasn't hitting him, but she knew what walking away from him before he dismissed her meant.
"He was… sheltered, lonely, curious." Hinata found it hard to explain Gaara. Everyone expected her to come home with a horror story, but all she had was… a broken heart for the man still trapped in that sand castle.
Kiba rested back on his chair, abandoning his food. "I guess I was expecting a bit more of a tyrant. I was worried about you, especially when it took so long to get a letter back."
"He is no more a monster than Naruto-kun is." Hinata reminded him. "But the difference is that while Naruto-kun fought for people to see the man, all Gaara can see is the monster." That was how he justified trapping her there, and it was probably the same reason he let her go. With no one there, he was just going to keep believing it.
Kiba kicked at her and her solemn face. "Hey, cheer up. You're home now. If you're worried about him, you can send him a letter."
"I'm not sure if he would take it." Hinata wasn't entirely sure he had ever written. He could read, but who would have taught him to write? Would Shukaku help him send a letter back?
Was Shukaku torturing him right now because she was gone? With all the fighting they were doing before she left, she could only assume that he was against her leaving. Gaara might have walled himself away to protect her from Shukaku, but Hinata felt like it was far more likely that he was shielding himself from having to say goodbye, which hurt all the more to know that she wasn't able to.
"What are you going to do now?" Kiba broke her thoughts.
"What do you mean?" Hinata picked at her plate. It wasn't like she had an option to go back and visit or to bring him out of his banishment.
"You could get back into training. Maybe warm up on a few smaller missions before getting back to tracking or go into teaching." Oh, he meant, what would she do as a nin?
"I… don't know." Hinata wasn't even sure she wanted to do it anymore. She spent years pushing herself past her limit, not because she wanted to be the best she could be but so that she could meet all the expectations put on her by her father and some she put on herself because of her crush on Naruto.
All of those reasons were gone now.
What was she left with at the end?
What did it all amount to?
Was it even worth it?
"Not everyone stays in it forever. Ino is quitting now that she has her baby. I think she is just going to run the flower shop with her parents." Kiba shrugged. "Though I think it's going to be harder to do with them getting older and her having an infant."
Plants. "Are they hiring?"
The sand walls were quiet, but that didn't mean Gaara knew peace.
Shukaku's rampage was not short-lived, but Gaara spent too many years waiting out his tantrums. He wasn't giving in. It didn't matter what he destroyed. He could destroy all his planting pots, but he knew that he wasn't going to touch hers.
Gaara was glad when Shukaku's rage extended to the greenhouse because it gave him something to do. To clean up dozens of cacti sprouts scattered about. He could take his time picking up each one, reforming their pots, and replanting them.
Some of them would die, but that would give him more work to refill the pots they left empty.
Gaara found an aloe plant in the wreckage, and it gave him a thought. He dissolved the wall standing over his head as he repotted it. He couldn't remember the last time he had a sunburn. What did it even feel like?
He brought the pot into the kitchen and sat it on the counter before starting the kettle and pulling out Hinata's tea. Should he let it run out, or could he ask Temari to keep bringing it to him?
The scream of the kettle stopped the questions for now.
**Lavender Long Stories**
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