Water splashed into dry soil, settling on top before it seeped down into the pot. Hinata put aside her water and folded her arms to look at the aloe plant sitting alone on the windowsill. It wasn't like the change in humidity, and neither was she.
She was so used to the dry heat that it was almost exhausting to breathe in the damp air. Maybe that's why the spines were slowly turning yellow. Even Ino didn't know what was happening to it but suggested she wait until the soil was dry to water it in case the extra dampness was rotting the roots, but it still didn't seem happy.
It was like looking into a reflection.
Hinata brushed her bandaged finger over the soft spines. Rose thorns kept snagging her.
The flower shop wasn't really as fulfilling as she had hoped, but it gave her something to do and got her out of the compound.
The branch house looked at her like she couldn't be trusted. Her father didn't look at her at all. It was suffocating.
And Hanabi.
Hanabi was conflicted. Upset that Hinata was sent away in the first place but unhappy that the deal was not upheld. Happy to see her sister but furious that Hinata wasn't returning to training.
It was hard not to see it as Hanabi being upset that she was losing her competition, but could she be blamed for that? It's how they were raised.
Luckily, with Hanabi in active rotation, she wasn't home enough to make more fuss about it. Should Hinata be happy about that? She should want to see more of her sister, shouldn't she?
Hinata couldn't escape the pressure outside the compound because out in the village were the numerous pitying eyes of everyone who meant well but didn't understand that when she told them that she actually missed Gaara, so she stopped saying it.
Gaara was hard to explain. He was quiet and sheltered, naive but thoughtful. He was curious but guarded. He wanted someone to be close to but didn't realize that once he was close, he would sympathize with their pain of being trapped just like him.
The only person who seemed to understand her struggle was Shino. "He didn't know what he was sending you back to. He didn't understand the damage had already been done."
Hinata nodded, resting on the trunk of a Sakura tree and looking up at the branches. No blossoms this time of year, but she could almost see them forming in little clumps of sand that would fall and turn to dust in the wind. Would he wash all the murals off the walls and try to forget her? Or would he torture himself, staring at them like she was with her parting gift?
"Would you go back?" Shino wondered.
Would she? Everything she thought that she was missing didn't miss her. Her team and friends had moved on with their lives like they should. Her family's hostility hit so much harder now that she was no longer numb to it. There wasn't a lot of reason to want to stay. There was every reason to want to leave. "I don't know."
"I think you do." It was always annoying that he could see through her. "Why are you staying here then?" Shino reached out to her, and Hinata closed her hand around his fingers. It felt like they were kids all over again.
"Because he sent me home." It hurt the more she thought about it. Another rejection to add to the pile. Did it hurt more because he was the only person she had a relationship with for so long, or did it hurt because the urge to throw her out was stronger than the wish to keep her around?
She needed to stop thinking about it like that. Gaara sent her away because he didn't want to trap her with him, but it was hard not to feel discarded.
"He sent you home because he wanted you to be happy." Shino rubbed his thumb over her knuckles. "Are you happy?"
"No." It was too quick of an answer. It was what was on the very edge of her heart. She was miserable.
The flower shop wasn't fulfilling. It was just something to do, something to pass the days with. Her family was suffocating, even her sister. The village felt like its own prison waiting to judge her because she wasn't moving on with her life like the rest of them.
She left her heart back in the desert.
Hinata blinked as she realized her metaphor was deeper than she meant it to be. Did she… She loved him. That's what made this hurt so much.
"Go back." Shino broke her thoughts.
"I can't…"
"Why not?" Shino pressed. "Who is going to stop you?"
Who would stop her? Her father didn't care. Her sister might fuss, but she wasn't even home right now. "Gaara… doesn't want me there."
"Because he thought he was keeping you from being happy," Shino repeated. "But you aren't happy."
"You know, Kiba-kun is going to be upset that you are taking me into going back." Hinata huffed at him.
Shino shrugged. "He'll get over it."
Hinata didn't know if it should hurt that her father didn't look up at her when she told him that she was going back. He didn't even ask how she planned to get there. He gave a single wave of his hand to dismiss her.
That was all the permission she needed.
With her suffering aloe pot in hand, she went with the next trade cart to Suna. As the sun got hotter and the air got drier, it felt like there was a weight lifted off her chest as the endless trees disappeared from view.
She never realized just how much stress her home village gave her. How much it crushed her soul under the weight of expectations she never met.
This time, she may never return.
Hinata was a lot more prepared this time, but maybe not prepared for what she was going to see. "What happened?"
Temari frowned at the shrunken sand palace. It was back to being a clay house with a glass building on the back that she remembered back when they first brought Gaara here. He was so small and scared, and they just left him there. She was too young to say it was too much of a punishment.
After a few years of Gaara building his empty sand palace, a sand storm destroyed Gaara's cacti collection, and Kankuro built the greenhouse.
Should she have warned Hinata that he had gotten this bad? Would it have deterred her from coming back? "Let's see if he will let us in."
"He didn't last time," Kankuro explained.
Hinata curled around her little pot, and Temari could see it on her face. She regretted leaving, but from what she told her. It was probably best that she went home because otherwise, she would always wonder.
Temari patted her hand on the sand covering the door. "Gaara, you have a visitor." When there was no answer, she sighed.
Hinata handed her planting pot to Kankuro and came to bring her hand up to the door. The sand shifted under hand immediately. He could recognize her just but her hand?
The door only got more solid, but the sand jittered as it found to keep form. Gaara and Shukaku were fighting.
Hinata huffed in frustration and set back into a stance. Temari blinked as Hinata's hand flew forward at blinding speed, and the sand wall crumbled.
Temari's mouth fell open as Hinata opened the wooden door underneath. She didn't know she could do that.
Hinata squeaked as she fell forward, and the door slammed behind her.
"Uh…" Kankuro paused. "What did she just do?"
"I guess gentle fist works on the sand," Temari mumbled.
Kankuro gestured with her planting pot. "Is she going to be okay in there?"
"Well, she just proved she can break the sand." Temari honestly wasn't sure.
Hinata stumbled through the other side of the door. When she stopped, she realized she had caught herself on Gaara, staring at her manic and confused. "What are you doing here?"
"I… came back." Hinata breathed.
"Why?" Gaara's hands tightened on her forearms, holding on to her desperately. He was scared, looking at her almost like she wasn't real.
Because home is suffocating. Because my family hates me. Because I love you. "I missed you."
Gaara's hands released, like she burned him. "You shouldn't be here."
Hinata didn't let him get away. Once he let go, she tossed her arms around his shoulder and held on with all her strength in case he tried to run.
Gaara hesitated, but his hands twisted into the back of her shirt. His face fell onto her shoulder. She could feel him shiver. He was a mess. She shouldn't have let him send her home.
They stayed there for what felt like forever, but not long enough after not seeing him for weeks. His hand slacked, and she pulled back to look at his face. She brushed his cheeks. "Did you get sun?" His face wasn't nearly as pale, and his face was littered with freckles that weren't there before.
"I… wanted to use the aloe," Gaara admitted, looking away.
Hinata sighed, pulling him back into the hug.
Was this a dream? Would he wake up alone again? Gaara held on to her, but he was afraid she would crumble away like the sand walls had.
She was warm. She was solid. She back.
'You can't let her leave again.' Shukaku growled possessively.
He was right this time.
Temari was surprised to see him looking a lot more like her with the tan than he ever had. His hair was too long, and he was thinner than he usually was, but his nervous hovering around Hinata as they unpacked made her hope that he was at least on an emotional upswing and wouldn't crash as soon as they left.
She gathered a few items to go into his bathroom and found the only thing left in his bedroom was the sand thrown. Should she be surprised that he kept it?
Did he even remember why he did that?
She could almost see Gaara sitting behind their father's chair, hiding from the world. Little did he know he should have been hiding from their father.
With supplies in their place, she set her hand on her hips. The only other thing in the room was a collection of papers and notebooks. She crouched down and shifted them around to see. Without the sand on every surface, Gaara couldn't tell what she was doing this time.
This must all be Hinata's drawings.
Temari sighed, crossing her arms over her knees. All the world Gaara never got to see. She was bringing it to him.
Hopefully, this time, he wouldn't shut her out.
Laying on half of Hinata's futon, Gaara watched her chest rise and fall. He reached out to push the tips of her bangs from her eyes, revealing the seal on her forehead. He ghosted his fingertips over it. Was she just trading one prison for another?
'Got to sleep.' Shukaku snapped at him.
Gaara frowned but closed his eyes.
Hinata watered her discolored aloe plan next to Gaara's on the kitchen counter, which was missing a few spines. Hers was looking better already now that it was home.
Gaara slowly started to recover the walls. Every surface was a mural of trees and flowers, which might be why it was taking longer to rebuild.
The greenhouse was now almost as full of cacti as it was the large pots. Was propagating her plants all he did for all the weeks she was gone?
He was gaining weight back now that she had a Suna cookbook she picked up while waiting for the few days it took for Temari and Kankuro to show up.
Hinata finished serving their bowls and brought them to the new sand couch that softened as she sat down. She sat his bowl in front of him and sat back with her own as she looked at what he was doing.
On the table, an odd structure of beehive buildings and boxes formed.
"It's Suna." Hinata realized. Gaara broke focus and nodded, and the stand stopped moving as he took his bowl. "Maybe you'll see it again one day."
"I doubt it." Gaara took a bite.
"Or maybe Konoha," Hinata added. "Before I left, I told Naruto-kun about you. One day, when he's Hokage, he wants to meet you, but he wants you to come to him."
Gaara's eyebrows knit together. "Is that possible?"
Hinata smiled. "If there is someone who could make the impossible possible, it would be him." Naruto was nothing if not persistent and reliable.
"The beast you're in love with." She could almost see what he was thinking written on his face as his eyes turned down to his food.
"No. Not the beast I'm in love with." Hinata replied.
Gaara paused and looked back up at her. She wasn't sure he knew what she meant, but they had all the time in the world.
Because she wasn't going anywhere.
**Lavender Long Stories**
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