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Love Me When I'm Gone	By : KittenCobra Category: Naruto > Het - Male/Female Views: 1971 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto (the manga or anime) or any of the characters included within it. I only own the original characters in this story including the main character Utako Mizuke. I do not make any form of profit off of this story.

Chapter List
- 7
- 8
- 9
8. Found
My mind begins to lift slowly, as if out from under a heavy fog. Ahhhh….pain. Pain is everywhere. My skin feels too tight, and it burns when I try to move. I feel warm everywhere, but it is dark in front of my eyelids. Where am I?! I start to panic, and struggle to open them, to sit up and survey my surroundings.
“Hey there. Whoa… Shh…,” a familiar voice calls to me. Small but firm hands press me gently back again, down onto… Pillows? It burns where their hands touch. I feel a wet, cool cloth being applied to my forehead, and it soothes the raging headache I had not yet realized I had. I am thankful they apparently did. Wait… who are THEY? I open my eyes, and find myself staring directly at Temari. She smiles at my dumbstruck expression.
“Where am I?” I am shocked at how raspy my voice sounds, and my lips feel cracked. “How did I get here?”
“My little brother found you out in the desert.” She smiles warmly again. “You’re lucky. People can die that way.” I look down at my skin, and I can see why I feel like I’m burning with every movement. I am mostly naked. My skin is indeed burned badly, but mainly on my back side. I must have fallen face first into the sand. There is also a slight purple bruise marring the majority of my pale skin; a remnant of being crushed by Gaara’s sand. I shudder.
“The desert can suck all the moisture from your body in only a few hours,” she continues, “but from the looks of you – I’d say you started out dehydrated. You’re not from around here are you?”
“No.” I begin to look around the small dark room. The shades are pulled closed, to keep out the harsh desert sun. It looks like I am in a bedroom, in a large plush queen-sized bed. I can’t remember the last time I’ve laid against something so soft. “Where am I?”
“Oh forgive me! I can be such an air head,” she says with a laugh. “My name is Temari. When I said my little brother found you, it would probably have been wiser to explain that the Kazekage, Sabaku no Gaara, found you. He is my little brother. We thought it would be best to bring you here – to our home – and care for you.” I can feel a sense of fear in her thoughts, but not read it on her face.
She is good. I probe her memories for the answers to questions I don’t want to bother asking.
I see Gaara running up to her, with fear plainly written all over his normally composed face. I am hanging lifelessly in his arms, badly burned and bruised.
“Tamari! Help me!” His voice sounds slightly anguished, so out of character. I must have scared him pretty badly. “I found her in the desert. She ran from me hours ago. God… Temari I’ve hurt her! Please help her. I don’t know what to do!” I can feel the icy terror that settled in Temari’s stomach as she reached to feel for my pulse and her relief when she found it.
“Bring her home,” she urged him. “We’ll have to look her over there. And then YOU have to explain what the HELL is going on!” she screamed at him, her fear for him making her anger worse.
Her voice brings me out of my survey of her memories. “Would you rather go to a hospital?” I wouldn’t have to be able to read minds to know she is afraid that I do. I, however, most certainly do not.
“No. Where is Gaara?” I need to see him, to find out if he is still angry with me. I need to see his face without that terrible look of fear on it – fear because of my own stupidity.
Her face instantly becomes the guarded mask he normally wears. “He is… working.” She lies. He is actually downstairs pacing the floor. “Why? Do you wish to see him?”
“Yes, please. I need to speak with him.”
“First,” she says hesitantly. “Gaara told me your name is Mizuki. Is that correct?”
I nod an affirmation.
“Mizuki…” she hesitates again, and I can see pain in her eyes, but she is looking away – past me instead of at me. “I need to ask you how you got those bruises. Can you tell me what happened?” I look into her memory to find what Gaara told her. I don’t want to contradict him, if possible.
He is sitting in what appears to be a kitchen with his head in his hands. His shoulders are hunched, and his hands are fisted tightly in his hair as if pulling on it. Temari’s hands are trembling as she approaches him, but she works to make her voice steady. She had just finished settling me into the bed upstairs. She had removed my clothes to better attend to my burns. She was shocked to find that the bruises spanned the complete surface of my skin from the shoulders down, bruises that would have been formed by being crushed.
“Gaara,” she spoke hesitantly, not wanting to send him into a rage. “There are bruises all over her body. What happened to her Gaara? I need you to tell me… so that I can care for her properly.”
His fists tighten in his hair, and his breath catches. When he speaks, his voice is gutturally low and rough as if with extreme emotion. “I hurt her, Temari. I crushed her with my sand.” Temari has seen him like this many times before, and her hands begin to shake harder.
He had been doing so well with Shukaku gone… she thought to herself. Who is this girl, and what on Earth happened?
“How do you know this girl, Gaara? What happened?” she speaks slowly and calmly, as one would to a large and deadly wounded animal.
“I cannot tell you.” He pulls at his hair again, hard. “I promised her I wouldn’t. I’m… I’m so sorry Temari. I didn’t mean to hurt her. She told me something… difficult. I was shocked and angry. I thought she meant to harm me, to use me to harm the people of the village. But I was so wrong… she’s just a frightened girl, and I nearly killed her for her mistake. Oh God… if she dies, I’ll never forgive myself. There’s so much blood on my hands…” He pulls vainly at his hair again, but one hand descends to grip equally hard at the material on the front of his shirt.
Great… I think, pulling myself back to the present. Well… I’m not going to give them more ammunition against him. Not after this mess.
“Oh these…” I look down to the bruises on my skin again. “I’m such a klutz. I felt so dizzy wandering around… it must have been that… what did you call it? Dehydration. Yes, that. I kept stumbling into things, and falling down and hurting myself. I’m pretty sure I even fell down some stairs too. Eventually I must have wandered out into the desert itself. I was just so disoriented. Like you said… I’m very lucky your brother found me.” I know my voice is sickly sweet with feigned innocence. I look her pointedly in the eyes now. “I would like to see him if you don’t mind. Could you send word? I would like to thank him for finding me and bringing me back here.” At least the last part wasn’t an outright lie.
She is staring at me through narrowed eyes. She knows I am lying, and I know that she knows. We are at a stand-off. “You can tell me the truth you know. If you do, I won’t repeat anything you say outside of this room. I swear it.” Her eyes look hopeful. I hate to dash that hope, but I must. I need to protect him from this.
“Oh, don’t worry,” I say to her, patting her arm gently like I would a child. “I’m not worried if you tell people about what happened. It’s really my own fault anyway.” I am surprised to realize I found a way to answer her by being completely truthful. “Now, I apologize for being so insistent, but would you please send for Gaara? I know it may take him some time to get away from his responsibilities, being the Kazekage and all.” I give her my most dazzling smile. At least my face doesn’t hurt…
“Very well.” She shoves off the bed with a huff, but then spins back to me and points an aggravated finger in my face. “But if you think you’re going to just walk out of here after you see him, you’ve got another thing coming! You’re in no shape to go anywhere. Not until your burns and bruises heal, and you’ve got some real nutrition in your stomach. We wouldn’t want you to wind up dehydrated again after all. You’ll be seeing a lot of me in the coming days.” She chuckles darkly as she walks out the door, closing it tightly behind her.
Great… I flop back down against my mass of pillows, wincing because I’ve forgotten my burns. What the hell have I gotten myself into now? This is the worst possible thing that could have happened! Dying would have been better! At least then, no one else would be in danger. I suddenly thought of the woman who had been providing me my small meals. Will she worry that I have stopped coming? The guilt claws at my heart.
I can feel Temari reaching the downstairs living room now. I follow her using her mind. I may as well use my curse freely now, since I can’t seem to keep it hidden worth a damn.
Kankuro is sitting on the couch in the living area, looking nearly beside himself with panic. He keeps glancing from Gaara to the upstairs and back, over and over again. He meets Temari’s eyes, as soon as she is in full view, questioning her silently. He then makes a pointed gesture with his eyes towards where Gaara is pacing. If he keeps doing that much longer, he’s going to wear a hole straight through the floor.
Temari, feeling exasperated, raises her hands in the air and thinks, How the hell should I know?
Suddenly, Gaara realizes she has returned from my room. “How is she?” he demands, then backs down slightly. “Has she woken up yet? It’s been nearly two days. Is she… in pain?” He drops his gaze to the floor, and squeezes his eyes tightly shut.
TWO DAYS!! I’ve been out for two days?! No wonder they’re all in a panic.
“She is awake,” Temari begins taking a deep sigh. “She explained to me what happened.” She emphasizes my lie with air quotes. “She was so dehydrated, that she must have stumbled around endlessly bumping into things, apparently even falling down some stairs, before stumbling blindly out into the desert to bake to death.” She gave Gaara a pointed angry look. He is starting back at her impassively now, while Kankuro’s mouth is hanging open in shock. “That’s her story… and she’s apparently sticking to it. Oh… and she’s asking for you. I told her you were at work, so you should take your time getting here.”
“She’s lying for him?!” Kankuro blurts out. “How do you know this girl?... Wait…” A look of recognition begins to dawn on his face.
OH NO! Oh come on! Of all people… Kankuro’s going to ferret me out?! This is so embarrassing…
“She’s the one who attacked us in the courtyard!” he shouts while rising to his feet. “The one who KISSED you! I knew I’d seen her face before, I just didn’t recognize it because she was so beautiful before… not all shriveled up and dried out.” He shuddered, and I feel both Temari and myself getting angry at him. “You’re DATING the LUNATIC?!!”
“She’s not a lunatic,” Gaara says in a flat and deadly tone, “and I said no such thing about our relationship.”
“No wait…” Temari feels emboldened by this revelation. “He’s right isn’t he? This woman is why you’ve been acting so strange. She’s the reason you’ve been acting like a cat with its tail caught in a mouse trap… You’ve been antsy since that day! How could you do something like this and not tell us!?” She is working herself into a true rage. In her mind she is racing through memories of danger. Memories of Gaara out of control, memories of the people lashing out at the family because of his actions.
“It does not concern either of you!” Gaara shouts, and his own anger is rising, the sand around him beginning to swirl and tremble beneath his anger.
Oh no… I have to stop them before someone gets hurt. This is all my fault.
I begin to pull myself painfully out of the bed. How they think I cannot hear them without eavesdropping is beyond me. I slip on the fluffy robe thrown carelessly in the corner as carefully as I can over my burned skin, and begin to painfully make my way down the stairs. Just then, Kankuro decides to make everything infinitely worse. I can hear them now, without having to read anyone’s mind.
“Oh come on, Temari,” Kankuro chides her sarcastically. “You think he’s going to see a woman that beautiful throw herself on him, and not take her up on the offer? It’s about time he got some tail. He is a man after all, not a puppet.”
“Why you…” Temari starts, but Kankuro has drawn Gaara’s anger now without realizing his mistake.
“YOU,” Gaara screams at him, “should learn to hold your tongue! I will not allow you to disrespect her that way!” Just as I’m rounding the corner at the bottom of the stairs, I see Gaara launch his sand at Kankuro’s surprised face.
“ENOUGH!!!” I scream at all three of them.
Everyone in the room freezes, and they slowly turn to look at me in dread. They know I have heard… if not all… at least the end of their conversation plainly. Looking into Gaara’s bright jade eyes, I know he suspects the real truth… I don’t even have to be in the same room to have heard everything.
“Now…” I start a little breathless, “since we’re all here… why don’t we sit down and all have a conversation like civilized people.”
I wince as I try to move forward to the nearby easy chair. Gaara begins to move his sand to assist me, and I can’t help but flinch away from it, remembering the pain. His eyes look pained for the briefest moment, and he instead pulls the sand back and rushes over to my side. He picks me up cautiously in his arms, and I bite back a cry of pain. He sets me down tenderly in the chair, and even I am surprised to feel his lips brush against my forehead.
Well… there goes claiming a platonic relationship… I think sarcastically.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispers in my ear before pulling away. He gingerly walks around to sit at the other end of the living room from me. His blank mask is once again in its proper place on his face.
Both Temari and Kankuro have their mouths hanging wide open again in shock. I know without scanning them that they have never seen Gaara touch someone so casually, or so tenderly before. They both turn, and say at the same time, “WHO ARE YOU?!”
- 7
- 8
- 9
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Love Me When I'm Gone

8. Found