A/N DOS centric. Based on chapter 70 (or 71 according to the site. That prologue makes the numbers confusing!) and chapter 10 from Sunshine Sidestories. This is Gaara's POV during the Gelel freakout that happened. Answers the question "If GODShikako could touch both Naruto and Gaara's demon, and she was in Naruto's head, then maybe she was in Gaara's mind too?" The image of someone booping Shukaku on the nose is amusing to me. I went with the same idea that the tailed demon is kind of subdued by GODShikako's presence. Gaara does a lot of staring and musing in this. The little '. ' technique for line breaks is also Silver Queens thing. It grants more breathing space, it's awesome. I immensely LOVED this part of DOS.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, that's Kishi's stuff. I don't own DOS, that's Silver Queens awesome stuff. Some of parts and the words said by GODShikako is taken from DOS itself. I don't own these parts AT ALL. You can easily pick 'em out.

There are no words for the love I have for DOS. I can't even express myself in the comments on DOS. And then I wrote this, go figure.

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"If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world."
- C.S. Lewis

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"Shikako!"

Everything went quite fast from then on, really. One instance slipped into the next.

First, Gaara saw stones crashing around them, the familiar swish swish of his sand in his ears as it flung chunks of rock away from them. The colourful mosaic lay broken, patterns now impossible to make out. He saw the fallen forms of the Nara siblings, the boy draped over the girl, pleading for her lifeless body to move. He saw the first friend he had ever made, cloaked in fire and he could taste the terribly devastating chakra in the air that was oh so familiar to his own. And he could smell the blood. He could always smell the blood.

And then he's landing in water, lukewarm to the touch. Again a familiar sight -one that fills him with dread- and he's preparing himself for the onslaught of loud demands that he knows will come, when he notices the quiet.

His mind is never quiet.

Usually, when Gaara is pulled inside his own mind by the demon that housed it, he lands in scalding water. It would soak through his pants and blister his skin from his feet up to his knees. This is generally followed by a torrent of eerie screams, laughter or rapid-fire demands of blood and carcasses, laced with barbs of vicious killing intent that tore through him. Whichever the demon felt was fitting for that particular moment. Lately though, he had become an expert at ignoring his unwanted roommate. Naruto had seen to that.

The smell of blood should be overwhelming, it had coated the scalding water like oil on water, but now it was strangely missing. Even the darkness that resided in this wretched place was surprisingly absent. After he shook the perpetual fear that this hole caused in him, he looked up to find what it was that made it seem so peaceful.

A light was coming from the cage. It pierced through the gloom that should hang like an oppressive weight on his shoulders. It was the only discernable light source in the room. A tendril of the light was actually inside of the cage. Unable to suppress it, a burst of panic rushed forth, one he wasn't really acquainted with.

What if it removed the seal?

It was unlikely that it could (or would), but not impossible. Gaara knew he was strong, but he was also aware that he had but scratched the surface of shinobi techniques. Maybe this was something that was capable of removing the seal. Or break it, with force.

Cautiously but steadily, Gaara approached the bars of the massive prison he had only seen –and frantically avoided- a handful of times in his life, and stopped a few paces from it. In the end, as it were, the light wasn't as shapeless as he thought at first. It also did not nearly feel as malevolent as he had suspected.

It looked human. It had hands and hair and curves that, no doubt, belonged to a human girl.

Although human-shaped, Gaara had to conclude after a second glance that the being looked nothing like an actual human. Not only was it floating on top of the water, its skin was glowing.

Not just glowing, he mused, it was the glow. Like it was made from the purest light. A long twirl of what looked like hair was waving above its (her?) head, defying gravity in a way that reminded him of a candle alit, swaying in an non-existent breeze. Its form seemed to struggle to remain humanoid, the arms and legs frequently broadened and shrunk to impossible shapes.

Gaara frowned when he saw the hand of the… being… rub back and forth inside the cage. With a start, he realized the being was caressing the nose of Shukaku. The large demon that normally towered over him, that had always squealed and screamed for bloodshed, that had mocked and taunted him for as long as he could remember, was now silent and still. And lying down on its stomach.

Was Shukaku actually lying down and bowing its head in front of the being? As incredulous as it sounded, it seemed to be the truth.

Gaara could only hear the puffs of breath from the beast, as well as his own harsh breathing. He couldn't believe this. For a moment, he could only stare at the both of them, utterly astonished at the behavior of the demon. He was tempted to ask the ichibi for answers. But engaging Shukaku was hardly a wise idea even on a good day.

Instead he reached out towards the form of the girl, hesitated, then put his hand on her shoulder.

Strange, she looks like-

A stream of babbling and images assaulted him. The images were scenes of… a life. There was no other way to describe it. There were people he recognized and people he did not. Scenes of feet shoved contently under a kotatsu, of running and flying over rooftops, of feeding and stroking deer in the sunshine, of kicking and slamming fists on flesh. There were hundreds of images rushing past him. But what overwhelmed him the most were the voices. Endless babbling and murmuring surrounded him, he could only understand snatches of it.

"I will lose it. I will lose everything -time passes- just let me - don't leave us! - we are- this too shall pass (time, after all, moves on) -please- we exist we have always existed we will always exist - it goes on -alive and eternal, like us - I don't want to go-

Shika, please- "

He quickly lifted and pulled back his hand, as if burned. He stared. He could feel sweat building on his back. It had hurt.

"… Shikako?"

(And Gaara did not realize that this might have been the first time he has ever called her by her name)

"That is not the girl, anymore." A lilting voice drawled, familiar high screechy tones lowered to a murmur. An involuntary shiver went up his spine. Gaara knew that voice.
His eyes flit from the girl to the space behind her, only to be met by a large yellow eye. The pupil pinpricked and focused on him, if only for a moment, then it switched towards the-thing-that-was-not-Shikako. He frowned. Gaara was not used to being simply brushed off by the demon.

"Not…?" Gaara did not understand.

"That girl is gone. She merged with it." The creature sighed deeply, hot air brushing his crimson locks back briefly. Gaara had never seen the ichibi look doleful before.

Gaara focused his sight back on the girl and was startled to find her own gaze locked on him. In the seconds it took him to converse with Shukaku she had turned her head to look at him, while still absently petting Shukaku's nose. The shape of her face, the eyes, that look. Gaara has not known her for long, but long enough to recognize that yes this is Shikako, even in this shape. Even with her glowing skin, her body slipping in and out of the correct form it should be. The expression on her face was inscrutable.

What was she doing here? If she was gone, then why had she appeared in here of all places? The last thing he remembered was… the ceiling coming down, a sword, the Nara reaching for his sister and screaming. And why was he here? The switch to his inner mind had been abrupt, without warning. Events like what had happened just moments before did not look like other instances that usually triggered it. Gaara frowned again and tried to look for his answer in her. Her illuminated face gave him nothing. His eyes softened.

It was strange to think of her being gone. Death was something he had excessively come into contact with and a thing he had known for most of his life, but not really understood. Taking a life had been mundane, once. He had not given it a lot of thought. But he changed. And now seeing someone he knows, someone he thought he could see becoming friends with, dying in front of him, was… strange. Seeing someone he knows becoming someone he knew had suddenly become something appalling, something that he wanted to rectify immediately.

A shudder ripped through him; right from his head, through his gut, to his toes. A desperate need to do something fell over him. Because he couldn't let her die. Not without doing nothing. Not without trying something, anything, to fix this.

He knew she was close with Naruto. He convinced himself that he couldn't let her go, because Naruto would be gutted if she was, in all its meaning, gone. He couldn't let her go without knowing –what if? What if she lived? Would they have become friends? Or would they simply continue to be acquaintances to another? What if, what if, what if?

But the sword that had punched through her sternum, the words that Shukaku had uttered, the glowing being before him and the general feeling of other that rolled of her in tangible waves confirmed his fears of her being truly gone. He raised both his hands, grasping at air, desperate for- for something that would fix this. To just give him something to work with damnit.

"What, exactly, is she?" Shukaku rumbled, making him flinch harshly as he was pulled from his floundering brain, frantically looking for a solution.

"What do you mean?" Gaara questioned, still severely startled and unnerved by this whole thing.

"I mean it like I'm saying it, brat. What. Is. She. That what she used to be, was different from other humans. And now, even more so."

If he had eyebrows, they would be raised very highly indeed. Gaara had never heard the ichibi string so many rational sentences together –which in itself already left him dumbstruck- until the words it said struck home. Shikako can only be Shikako, no?

But before he could even utter a huh? in confusion, particles of her started to peel off and rise up towards the ceiling. As if a vacuum had opened up above her, sucking her up and away from this place.

With a lurch he propelled forward, he tried to grab her, in a desperate attempt to keep her here; to keep her as something that was still alive. His hands went right through her. His heart grew heavy as he watched her disintegrate before him. Frustrated that he could do nothing to stop it, he tried to grab the hand that hung limply, that was losing its form again as he heard-

"You would fight a god?"
"Yes. Give me back my sister."

Then a black tendril came, an outstretched hand from the void above and the girl outstretched hers and caught it and it pulled her up and it no longer felt as if she would just disappear and Shukaku's question of what is she stuck in his mind and there were stars everywhere and-

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A bright flash of light and he was hurled back in his physical body.
The sword was gone. And so was the cage and the Not-Shikako, the oddly comforting lukewarm water and the uncharacteristically placid demon. And she was alive and weeping.

Quite dumbfounded, he stared at the girl that caught his eye as her face flushed ( looking abashed of all things) while her brother held her like she would slip away again at any moment.

What indeed, he thought to himself.

And, for a while, his head was completely silent.

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A/N
Okay this may have turned out to be more cheesy and weird than I originally intended… Was it too cheesy? I hope not.
Gaara is difficult to write. I hope it's not too OOC. It's kind of the way I write but I have no idea if it's actually any good and it's hard to write a character like Gaara. It's been a long, long while since I've written anything. It took a while to pick up the courage to write this.

I am kind of a GaaKako supporter, but I will wait and see what SilverQueen will do. I just can't help picking up on some moments between them and my mind went all kinds of ways. Gaara is also one of my favourite characters, as you can see.
I hope this was flattering, instead of ridiculous. If I can come up with other little tidbits or other POV's, I'll write em up, if people'll have them.