Did he tell her tonight?

Gaara watched her flip through the book of plant identification that he requested. Hinata pointed to the trees she drew and matched them to her drawings. "I got the leaf shape wrong on this one."

'I didn't.' Shukaku commented.

"Stop correcting her," Gaara told him.

Hinata pouted at the page. "Is he making fun of me? I was trying my best. I haven't seen them in a while."

Gaara was satisfied with the grumble from Shukaku as he felt the repercussions of his comments. Maybe he would be less inclined to say things like that if Gaara replied for her to know about it.

Hinata turned the book. "These have waxy leaves. We used to have one in a plant pot in the front hallway."

'Show her now.' Shukaku prodded.

Gaara ignored him.

The book was jerked from her hands and slid across the floor toward the hallway. Hinata's hand curled into herself, and she blinked at it where it landed. "Does… Shukaku-san not like the book?"

Gaara glared as he was forced to explain. "No. He wants me to show you something."

"That bad?" Hinata got up but kept her hand clenched into her chest as she followed the book.

Gaara reluctantly got up to pick up the book and pointed it toward the other end of the hall. "In the greenhouse."

Hinata followed him down the hallway. "Did you get a new flower bud?"

"No. I had Temari collect me so more specimens." Gaara admitted.

'You sound clinical.' Shukaku teased.

Gaara let Hinata through the door. Hinata immediately caught sight of the much larger pots with leafy plants. She gasped and crouched herself in front of them with a big smile on her face. "Oh, they're lovely."

"With enough shade and water. I should be able to keep them alive for you." Gaara crouched down beside her.

Once down to her height, she tossed her arms around his shoulder. He was used to this now. He knew to not stiffen up and just put his hand around her back. This was the reward he wanted: her happiness.

Hinata pulled back, but he noticed her hands were still oddly in fists. He caught her wrist to examine it. "Oh, sorry. Paper cuts. I should take care of them." She opened both of her palms to show thin slices leaking blood.

Gaara's hand tightened as he was filled with rage. This was because Shukaku was impatient.

Hinata curled her hands back up. "It's okay." She told him, reaching out with her knuckles. "It wasn't on purpose."

Shukaku was silent in his head. The one time he decided to shut up was when his stupid, impulsive actions finally had consequences he didn't like.

"Gaara." Hinata broke his thoughts, shaking the hand he had a hold of to get his attention. He quickly dropped his grip. He could be hurting her, too. "I'm okay, really. It's just a paper cut. I'll be right back."

She got up and disappeared.

"This is your fault," Gaara told Shukaku once Hinata was down the hall.

Shukaku, for once, didn't argue.

Hinata settled back down with Gaara. He was upset, and there was really nothing she could do about it. He curled into himself while he watched her draw a squirrel after finding one crawling up one of the trees in the illustrations.

It was hard not to find his pouting cute, with him tucking most of his face into his folded arms. He was just a tuft of red grass sticking out of sand-colored robes.

Hinata stopped her drawing to brush her hand across his forehead to pull the hair away from his face. Maybe she should trim his hair shorter next time. She fought the urge to just run her hand back through his hair. "You look like Akamaru-san."

"I don't know who that is," Gaara told her.

Hinata giggled. "He's Kiba-kun's dog."

Gaara's face twisted up. "I remind you of a pet?"

"When you do that, yes." Hinata rested her hand on his arm. Gaara lifted his head slightly to give her a look. "Have you ever seen a dog?"

"I think… when I was in the village." That would have been so long ago.

Hinata set the sketch aside and got up. "Give me just a minute." She ran back to her room, collected her letters, and brought them back out. "Kiba-kun sent be a picture with Akamaru-san in it."

Gaara looked down at her box of letters and ducked his face back down. Maybe he would feel better about them if he saw them.

Hinata found the picture she was looking for and held it up. It was an old picture of her team. "This is Akamaru-san."

Gaara looked confused. "I don't remember them being that big."

"Oh, he's a special breed. Most dogs are only not nearly this big." Hinata explained, smiling at the picture.

"I look nothing like that." Gaara shook his head.

"I didn't mean literally." Hinata laughed. "I mean, when you put your head down like that, it looks like what Akamaru does when he is begging for attention." Gaara shifted his face lower. Was she embarrassing him? "He would hate this heat. He has so much fur." She could remember midday breaks curled up on his mountain of fur.

"Who are the rest?" Gaara followed her eyes to the picture.

"This is Kiba-kun and Shino-kun." Hinata pointed. "They were part of my team and my best friends." She tilted her head to the side. Maybe talking about them would make them feel less far away. "They probably know me better than…" She trailed off as she realized who she would mention, and her heart tore. No, maybe they didn't know him better than Neji.

One of Gaara's arms untangled to pull the edge of another picture out.

"Oh, that's…" Hinata sighed. "That's Naruto-kun."

"The other beast?" Gaara wondered. "The one you were in love with."

Hinata flushed. He didn't forget anything. She knew she never put those two pieces of information together in the same conversation. "Yeah."

Gaara stared at the picture of Naruto and his bright smile. That smile didn't put the flutter in her heart like it used to. After all this time away, maybe her heart had fully let him go.

The pictures made all kinds of emotions flash across Hinata's face. Some he couldn't identify, but what consistently came back was the sadness in her eyes despite her soft smile. These happy memories were painful now. He made them painful by bringing her here. He kept them painful by keeping her here.

'Stop.' Shukaku growled at him. 'Make her put them away.'

"Who is this?" Gaara defied him, pulling another picture out. This was her life. This was what he took her from, and he wanted to know more.

Hinata picked up a few pictures and rested back in her spot to flip through them. "This is an old picture of my sister and my cousin, Neji-san." The one who died in battle. He remembered him, but three people were in the picture, and she only named two.

"Who is this." Gaara pointed.

Hinata blinked at him. "My sister."

Gaara pointed at the girl, who looked much more like her. "Then who is that."

Hinata giggled. "Me."

Gaara leaned closer. "Oh." To be fair, he didn't look much like his siblings. They took after his mother.

Hinata tucked her hair behind her ear and leaned on her shoulder to his so he could see better. "I had short hair back then." She thumbed over the boy in the picture. "Neji-san helped me with my hair when I grew it out." Her face got solemn before she blinked a few times, correcting her features, and moved on to the next picture. Another of her team, this time with the dog boy with a purple bruise healing across his nose despite his smile. "Kiba-kun nose is broken in this one. It was embarrassing, but he was so proud of me."

"He was happy you broke his nose?" Gaara wondered.

'The more she thinks about this, the more she will want to go home.' Shukaku growled.

"He was happy I was getting stronger. I worked so hard and rarely improved. So even a lucky shot made them cheer for me." Hinata rested her head down on his shoulder. "I guess that doesn't matter now."

Gaara tightened his arms around himself. He pulled her away from what she had spent her entire life working towards. All the scars on her hands that made them rough were a road map of the years she spent trying to perfect a skill she couldn't even use here.

'Why are you doing this?' Shukaku prodded at him, but Gaara didn't respond.

Gaara looked to the side of the image at the thin lines still visible on her hands. He was doing this because he wanted to make his decision easier.

Hinata attached the last picture to the wall. Maybe if she put them up and looked at them more, the homesick feeling they gave her would slowly wash away with time. She didn't want to look back on those times and feel heartache. The past would be the past.

Just like she knew Neji wouldn't be happy with her looking back on him with only mourning in her heart.

She sat back on her bed and smiled at them.

Gaara was opening up to her world, but she worried he was only hurting himself, reminding himself that there was a world outside this prison he made himself. He wanted to know about the plants and animals he never got to see and the people he would never meet.

The walls in his room told her how important it was to him. She felt like she couldn't deny him that world he asked for, but she couldn't return his curiosity and ask him what Suna was like because he was so young. There wasn't much of it that he would remember, and what he did was probably attached to the pain of being betrayed by those who should have protected him.

She didn't even want to ask his siblings and spotlight their freedom over him.

His known world was so small. Sand on sand for miles.

It was hard to fully grasp when she thought about all the places she had traveled on missions. All the world she had seen, all the faces she saw along the way, all the people she knew still cared for her back home. He didn't have a fraction of those experiences. She had gone through Suna herself a few times. She might know more about what Suna looks like than he did.

At least she could share all those experiences. It wasn't getting him out of his box, but maybe it made the world look less like a blank box outside his walls.

Hinata sat down on her knees to look at the thick green leaves of her plants. "You're doing well despite the heat." She did that now. Speaking to the plants.

Gaara didn't understand why. It couldn't hear her. Should he speak to them when she was gone?

"You're taking very good care of them." Hinata brought him out of his thoughts as she smiled up at him. Gaara joined her, sitting amongst the larger pots, slowly multiplying like his cacti. Propagating her native plants was a different process, but it was the same idea. Snip a portion, wait for roots, and repot. "I was looking at some of your collection, and I realized you have aloe. If I had realized, I wouldn't have requested more burn cream." She turned her head to look for it.

"Why?" Gaara wondered.

"Aloe is the base of most burn creams," Hinata explained. "Some people keep them in their kitchens. You break off a spine of it and use the fleshy part inside on burns."

He didn't know any of his plants were medical. "Oh. You are welcome to them."

"Thank you. I am sure I will need it again." Hinata turned her hand to show the last burn she had given herself, which was mostly healed.

Gaara ghosted his finger over the discoloration. So accident-prone. Hinata closed her hand over hers and smiled. His chest filled with a mixture of warmth and pain.

**Lavender Long Stories**

Hey, with how many issues has been having I would like everyone to know I cross post to AO3 under Lavender_Long_Stories and I have an active tumblr lavender-long-stories