Months passed like that.
Sakura would never admit it to him, but in a way, Gaara was right. Thanks to their now nightly 'exercises', she was a lot less stressed about everything.
Their nights together became more routine as their nightly rounds and time together became like clock work.
Sometimes, Gaara would read her medical texts while she scanned the television channels. Only to have him ask her really complicated questions about the human anatomy that she herself had trouble answering.
"Have you ever taken medical classes before?" she asked one night after a very intense debate on the human mind and what it could or could not overcome.
"No."
"Seriously? Where did you learn all of this then?"
Gaara simply pointed to her text book.
"You learned everything you just argued with me about by skimming my text book?" Sakura stated disbelievingly.
Shrugging his response, he turned his body to the television.
And thus was their relationship.
Gaara was slowly starting to open up with her. It was rare, but every once in a while, she would catch a glimpse of his inner workings only to have him slam that door close as soon as he realized what was happening.

Sakura looked around the decrepit house and smiled. In a way, the house represented their relationship.
It was falling apart around them, but it still supplied them with comfort and shelter.
Moving her gaze to Gaara who was sitting on the floor next to her, using her leg as a pillow, she wondered if he felt the same way.

Slowly, she reached her hand out for his head. She watched as he eyed her hand with suspicion, then relaxed as her fingers started to rub his scalp.

She hadn't kept her end of their bargain.
It took a lot of pushing from Ino and a lot of digging for Sakura to realize that she had developed feelings for him. How she had fallen in love with a self-absorbed, egocentric asshole, she would never know. But every time he opened up, she got the impression that all of that was just a front. A wall he had put up to keep everyone out.
A giant, brick wall with razor wire at the top of it...

She knew that she couldn't tell Gaara, because then what they had would all end.
After nightly soul searching, she decided that she would rather have things stay the way they are then damage things in a way where they would never be the same again.

"What?"
Breaking out of her reverie and back to reality, she looked down and noticed that he was staring up at her.
"What?" she asked back defensively.
"You stopped."
"Oh...I'm sorry. I was just thinking."
Moving his head against her hand, she stifled a laugh and continued rubbing his head.
"Are you happy here?"
She stopped rubbing once more.
In the entire time she had been working with him, not once had he ever asked her how she felt about being there. Or really showed any care for her feelings at all.
"What?" He asked as he sat up.
"That's the first time you've ever asked me that."
"Is it?"
She nodded her head and smiled at him.
"You still didn't answer my question."
"Yeah. I really am. I didn't think I could ever be happy in a profession other than the medical one. But I am very happy here."
"Good."

She knew him well enough to know the real meaning behind his question. Are you happy here with me?
"Are you?" She asked as she started to rub his head again to take the edge off the question.
"Eh, I guess."
"You guess? What else would you want to do?"
"It doesn't matter."
"It does too! What did you want to be when you were growing up?"
"Nothing."
"Oh, come on! There had to be one thing that you dreamed of!" She felt him tense under her hands once again and she knew that she had pushed too far.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pry. I just wanted to know is all."
"It's fine. Just don't worry about it."
"How about this, if you couldn't work here anymore, what would you do?"
"Why would I not work here anymore?"
"Because you got fired." she threw out there.
"Baki wouldn't fire me."
"For any reason then, you just can't work here anymore."
"Hmm, I've never thought about it before...I guess I would go back to selling drugs."

Pushing back and stopping her massage, she hit his shoulder.
"What?'
"That's not an option."
"Says who? I was very good at it!"
"I don't care if you were good at it or not. That's not a job."
"That's a matter of opinion."
Sighing and shaking her head at his stubbornness, she rephrased her question, "What profession would you want to go in to?"
"I always thought being a tattoo artist would be cool." he shrugged.
Much better. she thought as she continued her rubbing down his neck and to his shoulders.
"But that will never happen."
"And why's that?"
"Because."

She dropped the subject. She could tell by his unwillingness to answer her questions that she wasn't going to get much more out of him. But he was talking...
Maybe she could keep this going.

"When did you start doing drugs?" she asked as she moved his massage to his stiff shoulders. She knew it was his weak spot and his body immediately melted into putty in her hands.
"I was young. Maybe 16? I'm not sure."
"Why?"
To her surprise, he stiffened again.
"To keep ghosts at bay."
It was Sakura's turn to stiffen.
Had she not seen first hand which ghost he was speaking of directly, she would have thought he was using a metaphor for something else.
"Which ones?" she asked, her gaze unfocusing as her nightmares came rushing back to her.
Shrugging his shoulders so she would start massaging them again. He leaned forward and put his head in his hands.
"It does't matter."

This was the most open he had ever been. Normally, Sakura found that a lot of her nights were filled with one-sided conversations with herself. But he never complained about it. Never told her to shut up or that she was annoying. He would simply sit and smoke cigarettes while she talked.
She found that she couldn't help but tell him everything. From her dream of being a doctor to her breakup with Sasuke, she couldn't stop everything from pouring out.

"His loss." Gaara said from the floor as he sipped his beer.
Sakura blinked in surprise and stopped rubbing once again. "What do you mean?"
"If he hadn't cheated on you, then you would be stuck in a boring life full of nothing but happiness."
"Most people aspire for that, you know." she said as she rolled her eyes.
"Happiness is boring. People become robotic in their lives. Sadness and anger are interesting. They let you know you're still alive. They force people to fight for their existences."
Sakura rolled her eyes at him, "You are so backwards."
"You would have been happy with him?" he countered.
"I was happy with him. He's the one that threw it all away."
"And if he hadn't?"
"Then, I don't know. I'm sure we would have gotten married, bought a nice house..."
"Had 2.5 kids and lived happily ever after." Gaara mimicked. "You would have been boring and atrophied until there was nothing left of you."
"And yet, here I sit in a dead end job having sex with my only coworker night after night. Not moving forward, and not moving back."
"Having interesting conversations with your coworker and having amazing sex every night." he corrected. "You wouldn't have gotten that with him."
"How would you know? You've never even met him!"
"Here, you're challenged. You're forced to think. You're forced to grow. With him you would have been a Stepford Wife."

Suddenly the floor creaked above their heads and they both froze.
"Someone's up there." she whispered as she slowly stood up.
Gaara looked out the window at the full moon and shook his head. "It's nothing."
"The floor didn't creak on it's own!" she whisper shouted at him.
"Old house, old structure. It was settling."
"I'm going up there."
"Leave it alone, Sakura." Gaara said, suddenly appearing exhausted.
Sakura's mind flashed to all of her nightmares and considered what he had just told her.
"If there's someone up there..." she started.
"There's not, trust me. Just forget about it."

Getting up, he walked toward the kitchen and grabbed another beer. Soft sobs filtered through the floorboards and she watched as his back stiffened.
She watched as he took a deep breath and pretended to not hear anything as he tried to continue their conversation.
"I hear it too." she said softly, cutting him off.
She watched as his eyes widened slightly and watched as his grip tightened on his bottle.
"Hear what?"
"It's a woman sobbing..." Sakura pushed gently.
"I don't hear anything."
"It's your mother, isn't it?"
His face went to stone.
"You don't know what you're talking about."
"I see her too. She haunts my dreams every night. She wants help with something and I think that if we figure it out she might leave us alone and..."
"ENOUGH!"

Gaara's yell echoed off the walls breaking Sakura from her train of thought.
"You don't know what you're talking about." he repeated.
"She wants help!" Sakura urged. Images of the dead woman flooding her mind. Her hand reaching out asking for help over and over again in countless dreams.
"And?"
"And? She's your mother! Don't you care?"
"No."
"How can you be so cold?" Sakura asked as she stood up from the couch. "She's your mother!"
His flat stare was his only response.
"I know you care about her!" she shouted at him. "If you didn't, you wouldn't sleep on her grave!"
His look transitioned to dangerous and angry as his glare intensified.
"I saw you!" she all but sobbed. "Don't run from this! I can help you..."
"She's DEAD!" Gaara shouted again. "And if she wanted help, or to be a part of my life, she should have thought about that before she killed herself!" Throwing his beer bottle against the wall, it shattered and splashed beer everywhere.
He moved to leave the house, but Sakura stopped him.
"Please stay." she pleaded.
Pushing her aside, he slammed the door behind him.

Sakura slumped to the ground, hot tears running down her face.
"You always run..." she said sadly as her sobs mixed in with the ghost's upstairs.

Gaara avoided her for a few days after that.
She considered calling Baki but thought better of it. There was really nothing anyone could do if Gaara didn't want to be found...

Walking back to her car one morning after her shift, she was surprised to see him leaning against the hood.
She froze.
"I need a favor."
Trying to hide the surprise from her face as she fumbled with her keys, she slowly nodded her head.
"I need a ride to the hospital. Temari had to go into work early and Kankurou's car is in the shop."
"Are you alright?" she asked as she opened her car door.
"Yeah, Tsunade just wants to check up on me is all. I promised her I would stop by sometime this week. Besides, she wants to meet you."
"Me? But she already knows who I am."
"Well, she doesn't know who you are exactly. I told her that I've been sleeping and, well...you know how pushy she is. So, do you mind?"
"Not at all!" Sakura said lightly. She was pushing back the urge to jump on him and demand to know where he had been these past few nights. She was also trying her hardest to ignore the awkwardness between them now.

Gaara surfed through the radio stations as she drove to the hospital.
"We should get some food first." he offered, switching off a country station as quickly as possible.
"Sure..." she said hesitantly. "Where?"
"Where Temari works. It's free and quick."
Switching off the radio completely and slumping back in his seat, he pulled out his pack of cigarettes from his jeans. "Mind if I smoke?"
"No. If you're gong to see Tsunade, I might actually endorse that right now."
"So you do know her." Gaara chuckled.

Temari was waiting for him at the receptionist desk when they walked in.
Sakura slumped behind him, the last time she saw Temari, it hadn't ended well.
"It's about time." Temari said as she pushed herself off her elbows, "the usual?"
"No, I think we'll eat here today. Is that alright?"
Sakura shyly poked her head out at his question. "No, I don't mind."
Temari's eyebrows raised in surprise, "The two of you?"
"Did you grow deaf over night?"
Smacking his arm with the menu, Temari walked them over to the back corner booth.
"Coffee and what do you want Sakura?"
"Coffee is fine."

After Temari walked away, Gaara leaned back in his seat and let out a sigh.
"Tired?"
"Yeah."
Silence hung heavy between them.
Taking a deep breath, she decided to bite the bullet. "About the other night..."
"Can we not talk about it?"
"Can we not talk about what happened or the fact that you've been gone for the last few days?"
"Both. I consider that matter closed."
"You left!" she exclaimed. The only other customer in the restaurant turned to look at them.
"You left." she said softer. "Without any explanation on why or where you went."
"Why do you care?"

"Here's your coffee, do you still need a minute?"
"Sakura does."
Staring daggers at him, she grabbed a menu from the side of the table and flipped it open.
"I'll be back then."

Silence engulfed them once again and continued until Temari returned to the table for their orders.
"So what did we decide on?" Temari asked breaking out her notepad.
"I'll have the french toast."
"The country skillet."
"Gravy on it this time?"
"Yeah."
"That'll be right up you two."

Gaara sipped his coffee, avoiding eye contact with her.
"So if you don't want to talk about what happened, why are we here?"
"I needed a ride to the hospital and I figured you might be hungry."
"We could have gotten it to go." she offered. "But instead, here we sit."
"I thought you'd like to..." Gaara muttered behind his mug.
"What was that?"
The glare he pinned her with from behind his mug would have stopped her pushing any other time, but not today. She felt betrayed, and nothing could hold her back now.
Clearing his throat, he mumbled something under his breath.
"I didn't hear you."
"I thought you'd like to!" He yelled. The customer at the front of the restaurant stopped eating and stared in their direction once again.
"Is this supposed to be some kind of apology?"
Gaara practically choked on his coffee.
"Why would you think that?"
"Because this isn't like you. This is way beyond your comfort zone."
"Everything with you is beyond my comfort zone." he said matter of factly, placing his coffee back down on the table. "For starters, you wouldn't leave. No matter what I did, you kept coming back every night."
"I need my job. I have bills you know..."
"Secondly, you fought back. Outside of my brother and sister, you are the only other person that has ever pushed back."
"I wasn't going to let you walk all over me." she mumbled.
"You took care of me after that fight with my uncle."
Sakura bit her lip on that one.
"You're the only girl I've slept with on a nightly basis...and I'm still not bored of you yet."
"You're such a romantic." she said as she rolled her eyes.
"And lastly, you know about my mother."
He said it. she thought as she tried to casually sip at her coffee.
"I guess it won't be comforting to know that I was almost institutionalized for that when I was younger. No one believed me. So I just stopped talking about it. Everyone assumed I had grown out of it."
"But it's not a dream..." she started.
"I guess I always thought it was. No one else seemed to see or hear her...until you came around that is."
"I don't know if I should be scared or flattered..."
"Probably neither. She's never actually done anything to me besides follow me around."

Temari brought their food and they ate in silence for a while.

"Why does she follow you around?" Sakura asked in between bites.
"I don't know."
"Do you talk to her?"
"Sometimes." he shrugged, shoveling more food into his mouth.

One word answers meant that he was closing the door once again. Wanting to keep the conversation going, she quickly changed the subject.

"So why do you see Tsunade? As far as I'm aware, she's strictly a pediatrician."
"Baki took me to see her when he took us. I didn't trust her at first but, eventually, she was the only doctor I would let near me. Still is I guess. She hasn't passed me on yet at least." he shrugged.
"What do you mean by Baki took you?" she winced, knowing he would immediately dodge the question.
"He took us." he looked at her like she had asked a very stupid question. "One night, he showed up at my father's house, and grabbed us."
"Why would he do that? Isn't your father looking for you?"
"I doubt it."
"Why's that?"
"Let's just say, I know. He never really had much use for us other than to abuse us."
Sakura's mouth formed a silent 'oh'. Maybe she didn't want to know after all.
"He didn't have any issues getting our birth certificates or anything, so I'm sure our father was happy to get rid of us. We've been living with Baki ever since. I thought for sure he was going to throw me out at one point."
Throwing his fork down onto his empty plate, he stretched, "But Temari convinced him to let me work at the cemetery, and I've been there ever since."

"And I've regretted it ever since." Temari said from behind him, ruffling his hair playfully.
She looked up at Sakura who could only throw her a sympathetic smile back.
"But I guess he's your problem now. Ever since you came along, he's been on his best behavior."
Gaara was flattening his unruly hair back to its original form when she sighed, "Are you going back to the cemetery anytime soon? Or will Kankurou be dropping by later?"
"He'll have to come here, I promised Tsunade I would see her."
"Fine. See you later maybe?"
"Maybe."
She nodded at Sakura and ruffled Gaara's hair one more time before walking away.

Gaara tsked in annoyance and shot Sakura a glare as she stifled a chuckle.
Once his sister disappeared behind the kitchen doors, he asked quietly, "Are you going to stay?" The sudden switch in emotions caught her completely off guard.
"What do you mean?"
"Knowing what you know now. Are you going to stay?"
The 'with me' was left unsaid, but she still knew what he was asking. It was probably why he had left to begin with, he wanted to give her time to think, time to run away if she wanted to.
"Of course." she said, flashing him a smile. "But next time, you don't get to disappear."
"Fine."
He quickly downed the rest of his coffee, "Ready to get going?"
"Gaara..." she started. Since he's being so open right now, I may as well ask... "Why did your mother kill herself?"
Standing as he zipped up his hoodie, he flipped his hood over his head and said over his shoulder, "Another time."

The hospital was exactly how she remembered it.
The smells, the sounds, the way their footsteps echoed off the walls...she didn't realize how much she had missed it until she walked down its halls again.
Tsunade's personal office was at the end of the south hall and Gaara seemed to have the maze memorized like the back of his hand.

Sakura began to protest when he just pushed open Tsunade's office door, but he was quicker than her reaction.
"I was expecting you an hour ago..." she heard her old teacher's voice say. "And I see, after all these years, you still haven't learned to knock."
"Never saw the need for it if you're expecting me anyway."
Tsunade sighed and looked up for the first time. Disbelief replaced her annoyance as soon as she saw Sakura.
"Sakura!" she exclaimed, practically jumping up from her chair. "What are you doing here?"
"He brought me," a smile plastered on her face.
"So you're the one that's been keeping him in line! I should have known..." she muttered. "Gaara, why are you still standing here? You know the routine, go get your gown on!"
Gaara left the room mumbling, but it wasn't until the door closed behind him to the adjacent room when Sakura found herself in a crushing hug.
"Where have you been? They told me you left!"
"I did. Things...happened and I couldn't do this and keep a roof over my head anymore."
"A pity, you were my top student!"
"I miss it so much..."Sakura mumbled. Looking around Tsunade's office. "I miss it more than you'll ever know."
"Gaara tells me that you two have been getting along rather well..." Tsunade led.
"He said that?"
"In his own way, yes."
"Well, there you go then."
Throwing Sakura a smile as she threw her doctor's coat on, Tsunade said, "Come on, you can help me hold him down."

Gaara kept rolling his eyes at her as she took his blood pressure and listened to his heart. It felt good to be doing what she loved again, but the awkwardness between them as their relationship transformed into doctor and patient did not escape her.
Tsunade threw his clothes at him. "I would take your blood, but I know there's no point since you haven't fasted, am I right?"
Gaara flashed her a ruthless smile.
"Another clean bill of health. You're the luckiest man alive." Tsunade smiled.
"This won't happen again." he said threateningly to the both of them.
"I'm surprised you let it happen to begin with." Tsunade said as she placed her hands on her hips. "This was the most behaved you've been since you became my patient. He's usually a squirmer." She threw a wink at Sakura.

"Sakura, I can see that you haven't lost your touch."
"It just came flooding back!" she exclaimed. "I'm finding it hard to believe myself."
Nodding and rubbing her chin, Tsunade stared at her. "If you're still interested in being a doctor one day, there's a program available that I would like you to apply for. It's directly under me, but I think you would be a great candidate for it. If you get it, the hospital will pay for your housing while you intern under me directly. Are you interested?"
Sakura stuttered. "You can't be serious..."
"Have you ever known me to joke around about things like this? It will take a lot of catching up, but I think you can do it. The paperwork you'll need to fill out is in my office, make sure to grab it on your way out."
Tsunade ruffled Gaara's hair before she left the exam room, leaving the two of them alone.
Letting out an exasperated sigh as he fixed his hair once again, he shot her an accusing glare.
The look in his eyes immediately deflated her excitement.
"What?" she asked.
"I have to get dressed."
"So get dressed. It's not like I haven't seen you naked before."
"Get out."
His sudden coldness caught her off guard. He wasn't one to be shy about being naked.
"Gaara, what's wrong?"
"I said, get out."
"But..."
"Leave!"
Sakura stared at him confused until she gave in.
It wasn't until the door closed behind her until he said, "You're going to anyway..."