Kankuro stared at Gaara, his eyes blinking stupidly.

"Uh-?"

Temari too was shocked, but not nearly as much as Kankuro, having walked in on them earlier. She bit her lip. The idea of Gaara being gay was so utterly bizarre. She wasn't sure how to take it. She was definitely weirded out, but how she reacted to the awkward, new thing she'd learned about her little brother was what she would have to decide. Later. Now she had more pressing news to attend to, more important news that Gaara needed to know. Good news, for once. God, she hated it when their father made her give bad news. But then, most news from him, anything from him at all was bad. Well, in her eyes. In her eyes, she could never see a father. Just a monster. Kankuro might've seen something, anything good in him, but she couldn't, not after seeing only his bad side and completely rejecting that fake good side. She hated the man and everything about him and everything he represented.

Naruto got off Gaara, slowly, not a hint of a blush on his face, just defiance. It was like he was taunting them, daring them to say something.

Well Kankuro took that dare.

"Gaa-" he started to shout something, but Temari grabbed him, pulling him into a headlock and covering his mouth with her hand. They all froze, waiting for some indication that Kaze Sabaku had heard them. After nearly ten minutes of anxious waiting they relaxed. Gaara stood up and sat on his bed. Naruto sat next to him and Kankuro sat on the floor while his sister remained standing. "I have good news," she whispered. "Really good news." Her eyes were bright and she was smiling. Gaara had never seen this kind of smile on his sister's face and he was momentarily surprised. Once, their father, in one of the worst beatings of his life, had shown him a picture of their mother. He'd been screaming something about him being a murderer and showing his son just who he'd killed. To make him feel lower than he already did.

And right now, Temari looked just like her. Happy and smiling.

It was quite a change from the icy-faced, bitter edged girl who'd watched her father beat his son almost to the point of death several times.

Yes. His son. Because now, Gaara could admit to himself that he might possibly be a human being and that he was Kaze Sabaku's son.

Because he didn't believe Naruto was an idiot.

But right now, seeing her happy, beautiful face, he wondered, not for the first time, who exactly he killed when he was born.

What kind of life, what kind of happy light he might've destroyed.

It didn't help that his mother had been blond, like Naruto and had a smile like sunshine, also like his blond friend. He felt guilty about that. Existing when she didn't, because of him. He shuddered and pitied his father for a moment. If his mother was anything like Naruto, then he felt he deserved the pain he received for killing her. Especially when all his life had been a complete black hole of an existence. And his life was nothing but suffering and misery while hers must've been loving and bright with a happy family and friends.

Gaara shook his head. He brought himself back to the present and away from his musings. He stared idly down at Naruto's hand, which was tightly grasping his own. He looked up, his eyes meeting the blond's bright blue eyes. Naruto grinned at him joyfully, his eyes sparkling and he squeezed his hand happily, though anger and hatred still burned in those eyes. Gaara wondered what had made him so happy. Which prompted him to pay attention to what Kankuro was exclaiming. "Don't you know what this means? He'll be gone! Gone from our lives for who knows how long on his business thing! We can call the cops now!" Kankuro said excitedly, though his voice dropped slightly when Temari threw him a panicked, irritated look.

"Are you crazy?" Temari hissed.

"Crazy? Why is it crazy?" Naruto whispered. "It's a good idea!"

"He just took Gaara to the hospital," Temari whispered back.

"Yeah! Proof Gaara was hurt recently! And I'm sure if they looked closely, they could-"

"His lies are impossible to see through. He's good at it! You think we haven't taken him to the hospital before? Kankuro, remember when Dad said Gaara was hit by a car while he was riding his bike? That's one incident," Temari said, watching Kankuro's mouth drop in shock before continuing. "He-he blackened every-e-every inch of skin to make sure his tracks were obliterated completely. No fist prints, hand prints, nothing that might indicate intentional physical abuse of any kind."

"But-but there must be something, some evidence-"

"Naruto! Please! Drop it! This is none of your business and you shouldn't even be-"

The floorboards creaked.

Immediately, they were silent. Each of them held their breaths. "Temari?" they heard Kaze whisper.

The blond girl held her breath, wondering if she should answer, but Gaara caught her eye and put a finger to his lips.

After a moment, Kaze moved away.

Gaara knew his "father" would and had assumed Temari was shunning him, as she always did. He'd just prayed that their father wouldn't check the room. It was safer to hope he wouldn't than to risk his father hearing Temari calling from his room. Not that she wasn't often in his room, just that he might come in and there weren't enough hiding places for Kankuro and Naruto and he might be a little suspicious if there was a family gathering in the redhead's room. That and, well Gaara didn't want his father in the same room as he was. It was just too awful. He had so many bad memories in this room involving him and his father. Having his father in this very room... fear spiked through him just at the thought and he felt old wounds aching. He knew it was all in his head, just bad memories haunting him, though right now he did feel pretty beaten up from the most recent beating.

They heard the door slam.

And continued their heated debate.

"Listen, he's my friend-"

"He's our brother-"

"Exactly! We should report him!"

"You're so stupid!"

"You're one to talk, Kankuro!"

"Shut up, Naruto, that's not helping!"

"You don't know anything-"

"I know more than you, I know my father-"

"Ha! You didn't know. If you knew, than you're a complete asshole for not doing anything about it-"

"No! I mean, I know him, my dad, our dad, Gaara's dad."

"You know him? No you don't, I do. He made us move every time someone came close to figuring it out. Which is precisely why you can't tell anyone. You hear me, little blond moron?"

Naruto gritted his teeth. He was really pissed. Pissed that he could do nothing about the situation he was in. He hated that someone was hurting his redhead and getting away with it. There was a shred of relief mixed in with his outraged feelings, but mostly he was feeling angry and pumped, ready to do something, to kick some ass. Unfortunately, Temari had a few good points. The cards were stacked against him. As much as he wanted to go into Kaze's room with guns blazing, he knew that was a pointless course of action and certainly wouldn't get him anywhere.

He wanted justice. He wanted Gaara to be safe, permanently not temporarily. He wanted everything to be right.

But he didn't know how to achieve any of these goals. All he could do was... grrrr, nothing.

Gaara squeezed his hand tightly and the blond grinned at him. No. There was something he could do. Take care of Gaara. That was something. Something important. The redhead leaned against him, his eyes tired as he closed them and Naruto smiled. If he and Gaara were together, everything was right. As long as Gaara was with him, as long as Naruto was with him, then everything would be alright. He would figure something out. Then he could do something good for Gaara. He could save Gaara, for real, then and maybe kick Kaze's ass. If he couldn't, then maybe the Law could. He really wanted Kaze behind bars, if not beaten to a pulp.

"Gaara can crash at my place," Naruto said automatically. "No, screw it, he will crash at my place." The blond stared at Temari, giving her the same intense stare he gave a teacher when he didn't know the answer to a question or Jiraiya when Naruto really wanted something. He turned his gaze to Kankuro, daring him to say anything. "Well," Kankuro started to say. Naruto glared at him. "I-it's just-just that- a second ago, you two were getting freaky," Kankuro murmured. Naruto kicked him in the side. Not too hard, just hard enough to know his displeasure. "It's not because I-" the blond blushed furiously now.

"Naruto, I don't want to burden you. He's going to be sending support checks for us through the mail and I don't want to live off your money," Gaara murmured. He wasn't too keen on the thought that his father was sending money to support them. All his life he'd been told he wasn't worth time, effort or money. Just knowing his father was doing his job somewhere sending them money made him feel like dead weight. A feeling that would no doubt be worse if he lived with Naruto, leeching off his money. Dead weight. Awful dead weight. He hated feeling useless.

And leeching off Naruto-

"Are you kidding me? I've got money to burn. Jiraiya won't care! He's cool with you! Come on, it'll be fun," Naruto said.

"Not too much fun, I hope," Kankuro murmured darkly, not forgetting that uncomfortable little freak show he'd walked into. The blond threw him a dirty look.

"Do we have a problem?" he demanded. Kankuro held his hands up in surrender.

"Naruto-" Gaara said pleadingly.

"No!"

"Naruto-" Gaara said, slightly exasperated with his blond's obstinacy.

"No!" the blond crossed his tanned arms and wore a stubborn face that ought to have been fined.

"Naruto!"

"Gaara! I know my name, thanks!"

They both glared at each other, the redhead with some annoyance, the amused blond with a pleading determination. As much as Gaara hated to admit it, the thought of living with Naruto knowing he didn't have to come back to this hellhole was very appealing...

The redhead nodded. And smiled. Just a little.

He didn't know how long his father would be gone. He just knew, that in that time period, Naruto would be with him.

For better of for worse.

But this time, Gaara knew it was for the better. He could say it without a shred of doubt.

Another horrible ending. So sorry.

And on with the next story. Sigh. So I know I'm going to lose a lot of readers and reviewers when I jump to the next sequel and as a pathetice, lifeless writer, I suggest you look for it if you have any interest or if you care at all.

This last sequel will cover what I'm going to do with Sasuke, Suigetsu, Karin, Kaze, every loose end I left in this story. And angsty fluffy moments. Oh and yaoi. That should be something to look forward to, right? Unless you find my yaoi scenes really bad.

See You Later, I hope.