Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Fall brought a chill to all places, even the dry, barren, and above all hot desert. During the day, this change was barely noticeable; the weather was just as unforgiving as always, if slightly less boiling. The sands, when they whipped across the faces of travelers, did not burn and blister as they would a few months past. But at night, the temperature dropped even lower than normal, and the wind possessed no longer a gentle nip, but a savage bite.

It was Halloween. Or, at least, it had been Halloween until four hours ago. Downtown, parties in the streets were still going full-swing, but further out, especially at the outskirts and in the poorer districts, those same streets were deserted, casting an eerie pall over those parts of Suna. All that could be heard was the howling wind and the raucous screams of partiers off in the distance.

Gaara personally didn't really go for the concept of "holidays". To him, it was just a great deal of unnecessary noise. He could certainly well understand the concept of letting off steam, and he appreciated the complex and fascinating world history behind this particular holiday. But he still thought that the black and orange paper lanterns swinging gently from hooks below awnings were a bit much.

None of the Sand siblings usually spent much time outside of home; they were basically hermits in the middle of a bustling village. But this year, Temari and Kankuro had decided to observe the perennial celebration of Halloween.

Or rather, Kankuro had decided to observe the holiday of Halloween.

That caused no serious shock to Gaara. He'd known all the long that his brother was the one among them who came closest to actually having a social life, albeit one limited to socializing with other puppeteers. He had set out at sundown, in civilian clothing, his pockets stuffed full of cash, with a puppet master's slightly crazed grin on his face.

Nor did the knowledge that he was still out at midnight faze Gaara in any form, though it certainly left Temari reaching for words out of discontent and worry. Gaara tried to tell her that Kankuro was probably just drinking and carousing (though Kankuro did not meet Suna's drinking age, he could easily pass himself off as being old enough), and would be back in a few hours.

But for reasons Gaara could not comprehend, Temari was not content with this answer. Baki, who was asleep on their couch (Baki's wife of several years, Reiko, was calling for a divorce and had kicked him out of the house; the Sand siblings had promptly importuned him to stay with them), was roughly shoved awake and informed of Temari's plan; though Baki rarely openly asked them where they were going on any give day, all three knew that he preferred to be kept informed of their comings and goings; it was almost like having a father. The moment the blonde kunoichi disappeared behind the front door, Baki flopped right back over and went back to sleep; their sensei had drank a sizeable amount of sake earlier in the evening, and was trying to sleep it off.

So Temari had set out to track down her erstwhile puppeteer brother/teammate. And had not returned in a little over four hours.

Then, Gaara started feeling a strange sensation in the pit of his stomach, like it was growing cold. He supposed it was anxiety.

The youngest of the Sand siblings took to the streets, but unlike Temari, didn't bother to kick Baki awake. He doubted that Baki really cared about he was going, since Gaara really didn't go out on random killing sprees, whatever the villagers thought.

Since he searched through downtown first, Gaara had thought it prudent to don a hooded cloak. There had been no incidents with his sand, except for one, and that had been, in his view—and Temari's and Kankuro's if they ever found out about it—perfectly justified (He'd seen Reiko out partying without a care in the world, and used his sand to dump a glass of sake on her head).

Kankuro and Temari's voices were very distinctive; Gaara was counting on that to locate them. He could have used the third eye, but that was a horrible waste of charka, and there was no telling when Gaara would have need of all the charka he could muster.

So downtown was a bust. Now he was wandering the empty outskirts of town, beginning to think that he would never find his older siblings.

There were so many places where they could be. Temari may have found it necessary to take Kankuro to a hotel for the night. They might even have made it back home.

He'd felt, well, on edge ever since entering that part of Suna. It wasn't well-populated, but he had the feeling that there were people everywhere, just beyond his senses' discernment.

Gaara felt and heard his stomach growl in discontent and emptiness, and realized that the last time he had eaten had been noon of the day before.

As he chewed slowly on a light meal, leaning against a pillar in the shade of a large building, Gaara tried to think of all the places they could be. Temari wasn't one of those girls who went on random and costly shopping sprees, so the bazaar was almost certainly out. He could do another sweep of Suna's bars, just to be sure Kankuro wasn't in there.

While he was pondering his options, the proprietor of the shop where he had bought his food walked up to him. "That lady over there says she's been waiting for you," the man murmured quietly.

Gaara looked to where the proprietor was pointing. Sitting at a circular table, illuminated by dim yellow light, sat a woman who was, surprisingly, waving at him. There was something, long, thin, black and rectangular sitting on the far side of her chair. He could see a head of sandy blonde hair. Temari? No, this woman was not Temari; the clothing was different.

Nodding jerkily, as though it was a forced action (which it was), the Sand genin made his way over to where the woman was sitting lazily, leaning far back in her chair. Gaara could see now that the woman, though quite young, was too old to be his sister.

"Isn't it a little late for someone so young to be out?" she asked in a low voice full of secret of amusement.

Gaara peered at her, again feeling the strange tug of recognition, though when he racked his memory he was sure he'd never met her before. The woman was a shinobi; she wore her headband at her brow, with a few strands of dark honey blonde hair escaping over it. Her heavy flak jacket was left open at the front, and almost ludicrously, she wore a white sequined masquerade mask framing her eyes, sparkling with silver glitter. Though her dark green eyes (again, just like Temari's) gleamed with wry humor, there lay beneath them a strange, shifting sadness.

"Don't you mean a little early?" he asked quietly, unblinkingly.

She shot a "don't use semantics on me" look Gaara's way. "Alright," she conceded, "a little early. What are you doing out here so early in the morning?"

He shrugged. There was a time when Shukaku didn't deem him powerful enough yet to try to take him over when he slept, but that time was long past. So it wasn't like he slept, anyway. "My teammates," Gaara gave as way of an explanation, starting to grow irritated, all the while trying to figure out where he knew this woman from.

"Ah," she replied, with something like distaste, or maybe just discomfort. "Genin!"

"Yes?" Gaara prompted, a dangerous tone starting to invade his voice. "And?"

"Nothing," the blonde kunoichi assured him with the wave of a hand, her face becoming somewhat closed off. "I just don't like working with genin anymore." Her eyes clouded as she shifted he legs so that her left foot was well visible.

Gaara wasn't going to ask why (he wasn't keen inquiring too closely into people's pasts), but while he was floundering for something to stay, his eyes were drawn incredulously to the kunoichi's left foot. Dark metallic green nail polish.

The blonde saw where his gray green eyes fell, and laughed self-consciously. "So you've seen the polish then? Unprofessional, I know, but I only paint my nails on Halloween. Sometimes I strong arm my brother into helping me."

Gaara nodded, murmuring something that even he couldn't hear. In that answer he left a lot of things out, as he always tended to do. He didn't tell her that Temari did the exact same thing, except her toenail polish was metallic purple, or that when she was younger she'd made a recalcitrant Kankuro do it for her.

What is going on here?

"I know who you are," she revealed, all the mischief dying out of her face, "so you might as well lower that hood."

Gaara blinked in shock, amazing himself by doing what she said. "I fear very little, so you don't have to worry about me making a scene." It wasn't half bad, he admitted to himself, talking to someone who wasn't fighting the urge to get up and run away whenever he came into the general vicinity.

His eyes fell on the woman again. The yellow light spilt on her face, illuminating it in an almost unearthly glow. The look she was giving him was almost one of longing; Gaara could feel himself growing, against his will, uncomfortable and disconcerted.

"Who are you?" he asked finally.

She looked up, unpleasant surprise making her lips twist. "You don't know?" she asked softly. "I shouldn't be surprised," she reproved herself bitterly in an undertone. "It's not like we had much time to get to know each other." She looked up and removed the masquerade mask.

Gaara was sure the blood had just drained out of his face. "Who are you?!" he half-shouted, abruptly standing up from the table, his chair going spinning.

"I'm your mother."

"You're dead." His voice shook.

"I know."

He sat back down, refusing to look at her, instead staring down at his hands. When he looked back up, his eyes were like chips of ice, and his voice was as chilling as any winter frost. "You are not my mother."

The woman who looked so like Karura answered in her own defense. "I can see why you might think that, but—"

"YOU CAN'T BE!" he roared, feeling tendrils of sand stretching out from him towards the kunoichi sitting across from him.

"Gaara, that's enough," she snapped sternly, her eyes matching his for cold glitter. "You're going to have to take me at my word."

"It's just a trick," Gaara muttered, "some makeup, or a jutsu. Who are you? Why are you doing this?"

"I can see I'm going to have to convince you," the fair-headed woman murmured, moving the object leaning at her hip into plain view. It was an iron fan. Gaara's eyes flicked from the fan to the person whose hand laid on top of it, then back to the fan itself. Iron fans, especially ones of that size, were a rarity; even in Suna, there were only three in existence that Gaara knew of, and Temari was the only shinobi currently using one. They were typically passed down through clans, though Gaara's mother's family—where Temari had gotten her fan from—was not one of the clans.

"Does Kankuro still have that lisp?" she asked suddenly, her voice falsely casual.

Gaara's head snapped up. "How do you know about that?" he demanded, more brusquely than he'd originally intended.

She pursed her lips in amusement. "I'm his mother, silly, of course I know." Her face took on a look of intense interest. "The better question is how do you know? You're far too young to remember that…"

"Temari used to tease him about it." The words were out of his mouth before he realized it. His eyes widened.

The jinchūriki of the Sand stared at his mother, dead well over a decade past.

"Why did you? How did you?—"

Karura laughed under her breath. "Why? Well, my dear, I thought it would be obvious. As for the how…" her face changed for a second. "Well, that's much more complicated. Let's just say that it's Halloween, and things like this tend to happen on Halloween."

It was then that they noticed the proprietor standing nearby, listening intently to everything they said, as if enraptured. Gaara and Karura both shot glares that sent him scurrying away with all the grace and dignity of a burned rat. Karura stood up, strapping her fan to her back. "Maybe we should talk somewhere else?"

Gaara nodded silent assent. Though he was usually all but mute, the genin discovered that all he really wanted to do right now was talk.

Karura walked over to a garbage bin, betraying a noticeable limp in her left leg, and discarded the mask in the bin. "I'm an ANBU reject," she revealed. "They said I have all the subtlety of a sandstorm and it's true. But the main reason I couldn't join ANBU is that I really. don't. like. masks."

---

"…and the first thing the S.O.B. does is look at me and say, 'I expected it to be one of our children.'"

Gaara almost smiled. He could hardly see his mother's face in the gloom, but he could guess that it was intense and excited, the way Kankuro was when he bragged about the latest modifications he'd made to his puppets, Karasu especially.

"Have you still not discerned the reason for my coming here?" she asked suddenly, her voice going strangely hushed.

His pale eyes met hers, and he was shocked by how soft they had become when all the glint went out of them. And suddenly he was remembering Temari telling him and Kankuro what she remembered best about their mother. "It was like she had these two modes. There was the kick-butt, take-no-prisoners shinobi mode, and there was the patient, loving mother mode. She balanced them really well, but sometimes the first bled into the second."

Gaara shook his head noiselessly, giving her a mute stare.

"I came here to see you," she said, her eyes glittering, but not with coldness.

He stared up at her, gaping. You came here. To see me. In another day and age, he might have burst into grateful tears. "But, I thought—"

Karura peered closely at him, before placing a hand on his head so her eyes were level with his. "Gaara," she said slowly. "I want you to listen to me. Yashamaru's my brother; I do love him. But he tried to kill you. He said he hated you." Gaara's eye twitched when she said this; all the muscles in his face went taut. "Why do you take anything he says seriously?"(1)

Gaara really didn't have anything to say to that.

"Besides," she went on, those glittering eyes now sparkling, "would I have come to see you if I hated you? Where are your brother and sister, anyway?"

"They were who I was out looking for."

She gave him an odd look. "Temari and Kankuro are your teammates?"

"Yes," Gaara started, not sure where she was going with this. "What's wrong?"

She shook her head. "Nothing, it's just that…"

Footsteps could be heard nearby. "Listen," Karura said urgently. "I haven't got much time—"

"But Kankuro and Temari—"

"No, Gaara. I'm sorry, I wish I could see them, but I can't." It's probably just as well. Kankuro's probably so wasted by now that if she visited him he wouldn't remember later.

"I just wanted to tell you that it's a long road you're walking, and it's not going to get shorter any time soon, but I'm proud of you. You've changed."

Gaara thought a loudmouthed boy with eyes as blue as the sky on a clear day, and this time, the faintest hint of a smile did escape his lips.

"It will be alright, Gaara, whatever happens, and—"

"Gaara!" Temari's voice cut the night. Gaara looked her way once, then looked back to the empty seat of a bench where Sabaku no Karura had once been. He swallowed his disappointment, though to do so felt like he was shoving sandpaper down his throat. He stood up and moved out of the shadows into the light of a yellow-emitting streetlamp.

"Gaara! Thank God." Temari shifted the black-clad, apparently passed out boy she was supporting on one shoulder. "Kankuro's drunk," she said in disgust, though a brief flash of pity flickered through her eyes, "and he's passed out."

The brown head stirred, and looked at Gaara with bloodshot eyes, and Gaara realized, with an uncomfortable feeling deep in the pit of his stomach, a tearstained face, before falling unconscious again.

"Will you help me with him?" Temari asked quietly, much more politely than usual.

"Sure." As Gaara moved to take Kankuro's right arm, a memory made him smile minutely.

Temari caught this. "You're oddly cheerful tonight," she mentioned suspiciously.

"This morning. And no Temari, I didn't kill anyone." The slight smile became a grin that could rival Kankuro's; his voice stayed even. "I just dumped a glass of sake on Reiko's head."

It was a miracle that Temari's howls of laughter didn't wake up the whole neighborhood, or Kankuro for that matter.

Though Gaara didn't laugh with her, he still smiled. He smiled at the shade that appeared when the lights flickered, and she smiled back, before vanishing again.

Ok, I hope Gaara wasn't totally ooc. There's really no precedent for how he'd behave in this sort of situation, so I had to be careful.

(1) That was Karura channeling me. Directly.

So, how was that for Karura characterization. I tried to incorporate personality aspects from all of her children into her, though I think I mainly got her to channel Temari.

Please contact me. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I did writing it.