Standard disclaimers apply. I'm just borrowing these characters for a little while.

Author's note: Kishimoto-sensei's plan is to fit the entire 4th Shinobi War Arc into a matter of days in the Naruto timeline, but I'm taking the liberty of extending it since war is never so quick and clean-cut. Events from the manga will be added, removed or shifted around. Please pardon my impudence.

Happy birthday, Gaara.

Sakura was not surprised to find herself alone when she woke up to the sound of campground activities. It was a combination of dragging footsteps, gripes about headaches and nausea, and at least two incidents of shinobi bumping right up against the Regimental Commander's tent; Normally, most shinobi had enough wits (and self-preservation instincts) to steer clear of the tent due to the multitude of defence mechanisms rigged into it. On the first day of deployment, more than a few had bore witness to an unwitting shinobi's accidental brush of the tent that led to him being jumped by several ANBU. Word got around very quickly after that to leave the Regimental Commander's tent alone.

Secretly, Sakura was shocked that the camp was still standing, and not left as an obliterated crater by enterprising enemies.

The warm, slightly slippery sensation of Katsuyu on her shoulder made her turn her head towards the slug, and she greeted it with a smile and "good morning".

Katsuyu squelched, and replied, "It's good to see you're still in one piece, Sakura."

And honestly, that simple statement should not make her mind topple headlong into her fevered memories of yesterday that involved great intimacy with a certain male body part she didn't think she'd be seeing up close anytime soon; Clearly, the mere presence of her boyfriend was enough to send her hormones into overdrive and practically convinced her that it would be A Most Excellent Idea to drop her panties and…

Stop it, Sakura. You're a medic-nin! You've seen enough naked male bodies in the hospital and on the field. Gaara's is no different from them! Stop acting like a stupid, horny teenager! She chided herself mentally.

On the other hand, she had never once entertained the thought of doing indecent things to another male's anatomy until last night, either.

"I'm going to take a shower, Katsuyu-sama," she blurted out, throwing Gaara's robe off - he really needed to stop wrapping her up in his scent like a possessive lover - and started gathering a fresh set of garments to change into.

Katsuyu wisely refrained from making any further comments about her need to rinse herself of the Kazekage's presence on her skin; Sakura already looked about to burst from bashfulness.

"Want to come with me, Mr. Fluffy-kins?" she asked, more as a joke than an actual question.

The sand-cat puffed itself up once, then resettled into the warm spot on the bed that she just vacated. Gaara's sand might be close to unstoppable, but bogged down by water, his defence literally crumbles. It would have satisfied the scientist in her to witness the effect of water on the cat, but the humane part of Sakura decided it was a question to leave for another day.

Toiletries in one arm and her clothes in the other, Sakura made for one of the several shower facilities in the Fourth Division. The shower facilities were segregated by sex, and unlike the officers' showers, did not come with the privacy of individual shower stalls. Communal was the keyword when they erected those buildings, and after months of using them, anyone who cared about personal hygiene had lost all traces of modesty.

That didn't stop Sakura from nervously peering into the changing area to count the number of occupied storage cubicles, anyway. She knew it was an irrational fear, but having less impressive assets than most of her fellow kunoichi always made her feel inadequate and shy at public bathhouses; communal showers were a hundred times worse.

Most of the camp must still be hungover and sleeping, because only three cubicles were occupied in a shower facility that would normally accommodate a hundred. She quickly stripped down to her skivvies, and made sure to wrap herself in a towel before she took off the last scrap of fabric on her person.

As she peeled her underwear off, there was a sticky, cold wetness that she did not need to be reminded about that made her wince in self-consciousness. She tucked that incriminating piece of garment deep into her cubicle before she could give it further thought.

Stepping into the shower area, Sakura noted that the three kunoichi she was expecting were showering practically side-by-side, indicating that they were probably familiar with each other. That gave her a lot more space to choose from, so she went clear across from them and turned the faucet. The squeak was embarrassingly loud to her ears, and out of the corner of her eyes, she saw the trio of kunoichi turn to peek at her.

She made out a few phrases as she stepped under the icy-cold blast of water: "pink hair", "Kazekage-sama's personal medic", "sleeping together" and of course, the expected but still unwelcomed "flat-chested".

Sakura knew she was no great beauty; and she would never be a head-turner like Ino, or brim with aristocracy like Hinata, or smile with confidence like Ten Ten. In terms of intellect and devotion to her studies, she was confident that she was miles ahead of most shinobi. But that was something not so easily observed or measured in a chance encounter. And chance encounters were the ones where she found herself being scrutinised by Gaara's female fanbase. They picked on her observable physical traits, calling her inadequacies out to make her feel undeserving of the Regimental Commander's affections.

Sakura was sorry to admit that this tactic worked very well, and she quickly brought her hands up to her breasts to hide them from the kunoichi's gazes.

Her eyes came to rest on her forearms, and it took Sakura several seconds before she promptly realised that the circumference of her wrist matched that of a certain redheaded shinobi's anatomy; she immediately bit her lips to swallow her yelp of mortification.

Yes, she had been looking very hard last night. There was no denying that.

Speaking of hard - she fought down the rush of blood to her cheeks that had absolutely nothing to do with the cold blast of water, encircled one wrist with her fingers, and found that her fingertips just barely grazed her thumb.

Well. When that day came (came, ha), it was going to be somewhat painful. That much she was certain of.

Of course, she could just be entertaining ridiculous ideas about the whole act. The female vagina was a wonderful thing that could stretch to amazing limits to allow the birthing process. Sakura knew that for a fact: she had assisted a few natural births and two Caesarean sections. She thought of childbirth as one of the most primal but powerful acts that the human body was capable of, punctuated by the unholy screams of the soon-to-be mothers and the rapid changes their bodies underwent from carrying a human being in one moment, and nursing it the next.

The new fathers, she could care less for. Especially that one pig of a man who had discreetly asked her for a "husband stitch" as she was cleaning away the blood dripping out of the new mother's torn opening. Shizune had overheard, and quietly nodded her agreement to Sakura.

Five minutes later, another medical team was carrying out the unconscious, black-eyed new father to his own hospital bed while both Shizune and Sakura stood at the doorway wearing matching, righteous grins.

… She really didn't need to be thinking of body parts tearing open right now. Especially from an act that is supposed to be pleasurable enough to inspire legends and spark wars, if Jiraiya's books were any indication.

Also, she was certain that she would never be able to look Gaara in the eyes again without him being able to see the lustful thoughts in her head through her blushes.

Sakura briefly entertained the idea that maybe she could find an abandoned White Zetsu camp to hide out the rest of the war in, then quickly discarded it when she remembered that Gaara had ordered those camps conquered and claimed.

Very domineering, her brain supplied helpfully.

Resigning herself to the fact that she would inevitably be thinking about physical acts of intimacy with the Kazekage for the next few hours at the very least, Sakura decided that the best thing she could do was to distract herself by reporting to the medic corps for duties. Being a medic-nin required undivided attention to her patients, and she had always been able to shelf her non-work self for those shifts. There was no reason for today to be any different.

Except for one orange-clad blond shinobi appearing in the changing area of the shower facilities, of course. That was different.

One enraged shout of indignation and a chakra-infused punch later, Naruto found himself flying out of the changing area and into the wall next to the entrance.

"Dammit, Naruto! How much more of Jiraiya's perversions are you going to carry out?!" Sakura came stomping out, shinobi shirt and pants already pulled on and her flak jacket being dragged in her left hand.

"Wait, wait! I didn't mean it!" Naruto held one hand up as he covered his bruised cheek with the other, "I was just tryin' to find you, Sakura-chan!"

Belatedly remembering that they were in the middle of a war, Sakura realised that Naruto's attempt at finding her might have something to do with the welfare of her village or her friends, and she quickly ran over to help him up.

"Geez, Naruto, you could have called for me from outside," she admonished as she hoisted him up by his shoulder, "Is someone hurt? Where do I need to go?"

Naruto cocked his head as he studied her attitude change, then said, "Oh, it's nothin' to worry about. I was just going to tell you that I'm leaving."

The charismatic grin that was on his lips did not make her feel any better; in fact, she was seized by a sudden sense of panic.

"You're leaving?"

Naruto glanced around, then jabbed his thumb backwards. "Yeah, but not here."

Understanding lit up in her eyes, and she nodded to the blond shinobi. She hastily grabbed her soiled garments and took the lead in taking him back to her tent - the privacy that the Regimental Commander's tent afforded would be the proper place to speak of sensitive matters.

Once inside the tent, she tossed down the items in her arms and turned to face Naruto, hands on her hips as she asked, "What is happening now? Where are you going?"

"Top secret mission," he grinned as he held up a finger to his lip, then quickly waved his hand at the scowl on Sakura's face, "Nah, you were there too, Sakura-chan. We found the new hideout for the Jinchuuriki's and their Bijuu's. I'm going out with Killer Bee to handle them for good this time."

Guilt. That was the first emotion that struck her. Their confrontation with the White Zetsu clones cloaked in Naruto's chakra and her subsequent injuries suffered had caused Naruto to call off their plan in order to carry her back to the medic corps. In the chaos, Akatsuki was able to hide the Jinchuuriki's chakra signatures once more, and Naruto had been left wandering around the camp for days afterwards with nothing to do; Except plan for Gaara's birthday party, of course.

Her injuries had cost them weeks, effectively stalling the war in that timeframe as well.

"I'm sor…"

"It's not your fault," Naruto quickly blurted out, his hands coming to clasp around her upper arms, "I made the decision to bring you back, and I'll always pick you over some stupid Akatsuki plot. Ok?"

Sakura could only nod at the earnestness in his expression. There was no use in considering the other scenarios had she not succumbed to her injuries: the war was full of sudden and strange manoeuvrings that was driving the Allied Shinobi Forces mad with a mixture of frustration and anxiousness.

"Promise me that you'll be safe?" That was all she could ask of her teammate and dear friend.

Naruto nodded, beaming as he promised, "You bet! I'm going to get those guys back on the side of the Kyuubi and Hachibi, and we're gonna team up against that asshole Madara! See how he carries out his grand plans to hypnotise the entire world with all the Bijuu on our side!"

Then his expression shifted to one of coyness, as he cheekily added, "You continue taking good care of Gaara too, ok?"

What?

At the wide-eyed look from Sakura and the way her lips were parted in question, Naruto cheerfully explained, "His sacral chakra has been unblocked, and I must say, 'good job', Sakura-chan!"

Sacral chakra… sacral chakra…

Oh.

Firstly: how did Naruto know what that chakra point was called?

Secondly: how advanced had Naruto's chakra-detection abilities evolved?

Lastly: "We did not do what you think we did, Naruto you idiot!" Sakura screamed as she readied chakra in her right fist.

"I believe you!" Naruto started backing up as he held up both hands in a warding gesture, smiling audaciously as he enlightened her, "Your sacral chakra? Still pretty jammed up."

Sakura quickly grabbed Gaara's robe off her bed (the sand-cat went flying in the air from having it snatched out from under it) and bundled it up in front of her stomach; as if that would do anything against Naruto's ability to read chakra now. The sand-cat, rudely jolted awake from its nap on said robe, was starting to eye Naruto with clear malice.

Taking advantage of Sakura's stunned silence, Naruto gave her a quick wave before forming a series of hand seals to transport himself away.

Even with no one around to witness her embarrassment, Sakura could feel the tips of her ears burning red anyway. Well, no human witness at least; Mr. Fluffy-kins was pressing the top of his head against her now-relaxed hand to ask for head rubs, and she absentmindedly indulged him.

Briefly, she wondered who would be the new medic assigned to the tagalong team for Naruto's mission, or if there would even be a support team sent with the two Jinchuuriki as they moved out. Naruto's powers had grown immensely since before the war, and he seemed to be unveiling surprising new developments in his abilities every day.

There was a small part of her that wondered if she was always doomed to be the member of Team Seven to be left behind.

Where is Sasuke now? She found herself thinking. With Edo Tensei broken, Itachi would no doubt be gone for good this time, leaving her former teammate as the true final Uchiha (stupid Madara did not count for her). What part in this war was he currently playing, if at all? Between her, Naruto and Kakashi, would the three of them be strong enough to confront Sasuke if it came to that?

A rumbling purr from the sand-cat snapped her attention back to the present. She peered down at it, seeing her own sombre expression reflected in the bottle-green eyes; it would do her no good to waste time considering the unknown factors in the war - better to focus on the now and what she could control.

"Right," she plucked the cat up and hoisted it onto her shoulders, then settled Katsuyu inside her pouch, "Let's get to work, guys."

If Shizune detected anything different about Sakura today, she did not mention it. When Sakura arrived at the camp on foot and strode into Yamato's tent to check on him, her fellow apprentice was there, scribbling into one of his many medical files his unchanging condition. There was a slightly pinched look on Shizune's face when the sand-cat jumped off Sakura's shoulder to roam around the tent, but with her authority overridden by Tsunade, she had little choice but to accept its presence.

"I'll keep Mr. Fluffy-kins busy, Shizune nee-san," she promised as she pulled on her medic-nin outfit.

So for the rest of the day, Tonton found herself in the company of one very silent feline, both busy transporting supplies back and forth to wherever it was needed. It was a helpful task certainly, as it freed up some of the medic-nin to focus on their patients instead. The renewed presence of the sand-cat created by their much-beloved Kazekage made more than a few Suna kunoichi coo and call out to it, but to Mr. Fluffy-kin's credit, it paid them absolutely no attention since it was basically a typical holier-than-thou cat.

Sakura herself was having a reasonably pleasant day - the steady stream of patients she had to attend to kept her mind focused on her tasks, and left little time for the more salacious thoughts that had flooded her mind earlier. In fact, she had quite forgotten about her redheaded charge until Shizune poked her head into her tent to chide her for working so late once more.

Eleven o'clock, she realised with a start.

Gaara did not come for her at ten o'clock as he always did. And now that she realised how odd that was, her mind snapped right back to him. Did something happen to Gaara that delayed him, or worse, incapacitate him?

"Mr. Fluffy-kins?" she turned to the cat dozing on a stool behind her, "Can you still sense Kazekage-sama?"

The sand-cat twitched one ear lethargically, and Sakura took that as a sign that Gaara was not in any danger; Mr. Fluffy-kins may not care as much for its maker as it did for its mistress, but it was still linked to Gaara by his chakra, and if anything did happen to Gaara, the cat would have been affected as well.

Deciding that this mystery was not going to be solved by her staying in the medic corps' camp, Sakura tidied up her workstation and made her way back to the Fourth Division camp on foot. She arrived there a little sooner than she usually would: the slight burst of chakra she used to travel with probably helped.

"Is Kazekage-sama back?" she asked in as normal a tone as she could muster to the sensor shinobi at the gates.

"Kazekage-sama hardly uses the gates," laughed one shinobi, "He's lucky his chakra is keyed to allow him to travel between the camps and headquarters without getting a kickback!"

Well, that was no help whatsoever.

Once cleared for entry, she jogged straight for their tent; anxiety was taking painful bites out of her nerves right now, and if Gaara was not in the tent either, she would not know where to look next. He had never missed a tea session with her, and the one time he was late, he had sent a missive to her through a messenger shinobi.

In short, his absence today was nerve-rattling.

Did it have anything to do with last night? Her misgivings threw out suddenly. Was he offended that I didn't let him have me?

Gaara was a patient man; as a Kage, he had to be, what with all the politicking and meandering nonsense his council no doubt threw at him daily. But was he as tolerant in other aspects of his life, especially in one as new and uncharted as their relationship? She had teased him, both knowingly and unknowingly, driving him to the point of seeking sexual relief last night. Perhaps he was resentful that she did not give herself to him?

In her next breath, Sakura scoffed at her own silliness: Gaara was an adult, and if he was bothered by her actions, he should bring it up to her instead of hiding from her.

Except that when she pushed her way into their tent, Gaara was doing anything but hiding; he was seated calmly behind his desk, a scattering of scrolls laid out before him. He was obviously catching up on paperwork, if the crease of concentration on his forehead was anything to go by.

That was a moment before she had rudely burst in; he was now looking at her, his eyes widening slightly at her intrusion.

"Sakura?"

"Gaara?" she called out breathlessly.

He took in the quick rising and falling of her chest as she walked further into the tent, not quite certain as to the reason for her current appearance. Her hair was wind-swept from her jog back, and her cheeks pleasingly flushed from her exertions; it made him unconsciously bite his lower lip.

"It's past eleven," she offered up to the silent question in his eyes.

Gaara whipped his head towards the small clock near his bed, and realised that she was telling the truth. Closing his eyes, he heaved a soft sigh and promptly rose to his feet. He rounded the table and stopped a hair's breadth away from her, an explanation ready, "I apologise, I didn't realise the hour. I should have been at the medic corps to bring you back."

In reply, Sakura cocked an eyebrow, and the frown suddenly tugging on her lips made Gaara tilt his head in surprise.

"I was worried about you! You always came for me at ten o'clock on the dot! When you didn't show up today, I thought the worst, especially after what we…" Sakura quickly lost both her nerve and tongue, and looked down at her feet instead.

He inhaled sharply at her words; in his attempts to not get caught up with his raging ardour for Sakura, he had buried himself in other distractions - and there were plenty to be found despite the war stalemate, whether it be troops review, paperwork, meetings, or more paperwork. Only to now end up confusing and worrying his girlfriend that he was no longer interested in her when he was anything but.

"Sakura," he reached out to touch her chin, drawing her face to turn up to his, "Forgive me. I didn't think of how you would have reacted. I was…"

His brain decided to quit on him there and then.

She reached up to his hand cupping her face, pressing him close as she uttered his name as a question, "Gaara?"

The noise that left his throat next came out as a self-deprecating bark of laughter - a sound that was completely foreign to Sakura's ears, and she furrowed her brows at it.

"I was trying, desperately, to not think about broaching further boundaries of intimacies with you," he finally confessed, jade-green eyes bright and earnest even as his cheeks burnt.

He expected her to bolt and run, or perhaps to give him a sound slap for thinking such ungentlemanly thoughts about her. What he was not ready for was for Sakura to double over giggling like a bashful schoolgirl.

"You're not alone in this," Sakura wished for the eloquence of words that he always seemed to possess as she brushed away a tear of mirth.

At her mirroring admission, Gaara exhaled the knot of tightness in his chest that he was not even aware of until now. He released the deathgrip that he had unknowingly placed on the lip of his desk, and turned to bestow a look that was pure longing on Sakura.

"Is this normal for us? People our age?" he asked as he slid the hand that was on her cheek down to the back of her neck, curling down her spine in a loving caress, "Because if it isn't, I am going to ask to be locked away in case I am going crazy."

Gaara's relationship with his siblings had improved since his encounter with Naruto, but their relationship never quite reached the stage where he was ever going to talk about puberty-related issues to them. Each sibling took a "live and let live" approach to each others' love lives or lack of, and on his end, Gaara tacked on the extra stipulation of "as long as you don't bring disgrace upon the family name or the village". Hormones he learnt to deal with the best he could from books, and unfortunately, no academic material ever covered the extent of how lust could dominate a person's brain. So all this craving and wanting… Was it even normal?

There was unmistakable heat in Sakura's emerald-green eyes as she looked up at him and nodded, explaining, "For men, hormone levels peak around the age of eighteen to twenty. Women start a little later by a couple of years. So yes, it is perfectly normal."

"I just turned eighteen."

"Congratulations?" Sakura offered up a sympathetic smile.

Gaara sighed as he leaned down to press his forehead against her, his breath fanning her face as he whispered, "I am going to die from these needs before I get to have you, if the war doesn't end soon."

Instead of trying to find something intelligent to say to cover up the spike of elation she felt, Sakura laced her fingers into his hair, looking up at him with tenderness in her eyes. Gaara felt the welcome in her touch, and took it as a cue to lean down to press his lips to her. It was supposed to be a chaste kiss of promises to come, but when Gaara then tugged her a little closer and angled his head to catch her lower lip gently with his own, she found she didn't quite have the heart to stop him. Not when his other hand was trailing down her side to clasp at her hip, drawing her closer as his mouth and tongue probed and rubbed against her in an unsteady rhythm; Not when she was in turn making an absolute mess of his hair with her fingers as he moved to tease the fleshy softness of her ear with a questing tongue.

Good thing Katsuyu was there to be the voice of reason and virtue-preservation.

"Good evening, Kazekage," the slug greeted sourly from the space between Sakura's collar and her neck.

The kiss broke the instant Gaara felt the slug's tentacles twitch against the back of his hand, though he refrained from pulling back completely from Sakura. With a hand still on her hip, he tilted his head to meet Katsuyu's gaze (how did a slug even manage to look smug?) and returned the greeting, "Good evening to you as well, Katsuyu-san."

"Katsuyu-sama!" Sakura startled at the slug's sudden appearance, only having caught on after Gaara's reply.

"Time for paperwork! A Kage's work is never done. Chop chop!" Katsuyu chimed purposefully as she slithered down to Sakura's shoulder.

As if to remind the two lovers that privacy was not theirs to command, the sand-cat chose that moment to wind itself between Gaara's legs, purring obnoxiously loud as it did so.

Gaara could only heave a quiet sigh before reluctantly withdrawing completely from Sakura's now-slackened hold.

After his antics of escaping his ANBU not once but twice yesterday, he had been subjected to a tongue-lashing session from the Supreme Leader Raikage A, who threatened several times to strip him of his title as the Regimental Commander for what he deemed as acts of abandoning his post. The other Kage's had argued against that, trying to play up the angle that the Kazekage was entitled to some time off after their victories, especially since it was his birthday.

Those arguments fell flat in the face of their hungover states (Tsunade's wits were not entirely at her command, despite being sober by then), which only triggered A further.

Eventually, it was Shikaku whom the Raikage respected the most in the War Council that placated the man: there was no harm done at the end of the day, and the Kazekage would not be pulling off such a stunt again, would he?

Gaara had nodded his agreement to Shikaku's words as the older man levelled him with a stern look, and then bowed in respect to the Raikage as he apologised for any concerns his disappearances had raised.

"You want to fuck your medic, do it in your tent like everyone else!" were A's parting words as he stormed off.

It was a good thing that the Raikage had left the room before the statement registered in everyone else's minds. Aside from the utter crassness of his chosen words, he had insulted not only the Kazekage, but the Hokage as well.

However, Tsunade's response to that was a simple shrugging of her shoulders as she said, "Well, Katsuyu did get left behind when you vanished with Sakura."

So he had lost the Hokage's belief in his vow of good intentions with Sakura in those moments as well.

Gaara would have challenged the Raikage for what he had said, if he was not duty-bound to keep the peace between the Five Shinobi Nations. As the youngest and by default the most inexperienced of the Kage's, he was expected to defer to the other Kage's as a sign of respect for his elders; To talk back to the Raikage after his explosive bout would no doubt be construed as a challenge against the other man.

That, and it was not as if he would eventually want to do what was said, anyway. Just… not as vulgar as A had implied. However, his tent was a magnet for a constant stream of unanticipated visitors and was also currently shared with not one but two animal companions. Privacy, as far as Gaara was concerned, was pure fantasy at this point.

Case in point.

Picking up where he had left off his work, Gaara resumed his position behind his desk while Sakura blinked at his sudden change in attitude. Yet she could not deny that the mood was ruined, and the only thing left to do was to salvage whatever shreds of dignity they had left in front of Katsuyu. So she went to fetch the teapot and herbs, and started brewing the chakra tea.

Sakura continued to steal small glances at Gaara, anyway; he did the same as well. If Katsuyu noticed that, she said nothing as she nestled against Sakura's neck once more.

"Tomorrow," Gaara said suddenly, "We will be meeting with the Daimyo's through a teleconference."

"Oh?"

"Yes. I believe their patience, and funds, have worn thin with the lack of progress we have made."

Sakura snorted in disbelief, "I guess Edo Tensei being broken and the White Zetsu army being defeated don't count as victories?"

Gaara allowed a bitter chuckle to escape him as he said, "Not when you are funding a war, no. Individual triumphs mean nothing to them if we do not give them the result they want, which is the complete annihilation of Akatsuki and Madara."

It was a pointed reminder that though the Kage's held absolute military power in their respective nations, they were still the subjects of their Daimyo whose funding made their authority possible. With budgets at the whim of individuals far removed from the realities of war, it was no wonder that Sunagakure had resorted to turning a Kage's son into a Jinchuuriki to improve their military prowess.

None of these could ever be spoken aloud, of course. To question a Daimyo was a mark of treason, and fellow shinobi would have no qualms with turning in such individuals to seek favour with their lords. Even a Kage would not be spared their scrutiny if they dared to challenge their own Daimyo.

"Then you will need an early night's rest," Sakura set one hot cup of tea on his desk, taking another for herself, "Shishou always hated dealing with the Daimyo's, but she was adamant that they needed to be approached with undivided attention. You can't let yourself be distracted by anything right now."

He nodded in agreement, and blew lightly on his tea before taking a small sip.

"Sakura?"

"Hmm?"

"You forgot the honey."