The mission has ended.

The battle is won.

After he was saved the Kazekage and the pink haired medic share a quick goodbye that leaves a lasting impression on the man that, in reality, is nothing more than a growing child.

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Hands

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He shook at the touch.

"Gaara san?"

He looked away in shame.

He was ashamed to be acting in such a way, let alone in front of her. Her of all people. Why did it have to be her?

Sakura looked down at the un-gloved hand she had wrapped around his own. it was not tossed away, nor was it embraced. Did he not know what a handshake was? She was sure he knew what it was, but that still left his odd behavior unexplained.

"Is there something bothering you Gaara san?"

He looked up at her. Her wide emerald eyes, her rose tinted locks, whipping around her baby like face, her pretty pink colored bowtie lips turned down in a frown as she looked up at him. Her eyes locked onto his own. Faded jade met with emerald green as he took her in with his sight.

He looked at her.

He looked at Sakura and still couldn't see.

"Why...?"

Sakura frowned, at his words, not grasping their meaning. "What was that?"

"Why...?" he repeated. Sakura could hear the the tone of needing and desperation in his voice. Something was bothering him and he wanted-no, needed the answer.

"Why what, Gaara san?"

"...Why do you...do that...?" he asked tilting his head down at their hands. Sakura looked down at remembered that she was still holding his hand in the form of a goodbye. Was he afraid of human contact, Naruto had mentioned something like that, but she touched him before when she healed his leg during their rescue operation of the one student from Suna.

"This? It's called a handshake. It's something you do when you want to say hello or goodbye to someone you know. Don't you know what a handshake is, Gaara san?"

Gaara looked over to the side with a faint blush staining his face ever so slightly. If anyone saw and asked him about it, he planned on telling them it was all the heat's fault. "I know what it is... "

"Then what did you need to know?"

"...Just why?"

Her thin eyebrows scrunched up as small wrinkles formed on her normally sized forehead. "Why what?" Sakura asked again, not understanding anything of what the red head was trying to tell her.

"...These hands of mine...they've killed...they've taken lives by the hundreds. They are covered in blood, lots and lots of blood. They are cold and tainted. Stained and sinful. They're the hands of a killer, a monster."

Sakura parted her lips to rebuke his words but he continued.

"Your hands heal, they give life and health to the wounded. They're warm, and calming. They help people and restore the breaking lives of others, like my brother. They're not like mine. Mine are the hands of a demon, yours are the hands of an angel...they...they are so different...why? Why would you let what is pure mix with what is not?"

"Really? I guess you do have a point, you're right." Sakura smiled at him, coxing her head to the side in a cute manner. She suddenly understood what he was getting at. Her eyes twinkled in a knowing way as she pulled her hand out of his own. "I guess you don't need this then."

Gaara almost whimpered when the warm tingling of her hand in his, left him. She had dropped his handshake. Not that he didn't blame her. she wouldn't hold the hand of a monster.

Though he was the Kazekage, not many had dared to touch him, even if it was a simple handshake. Naruto would hug and shake his hands, but Naruto was a monster as well. He didn't count and neither did his siblings. Family were born together. They had a reason to be afraid of him, and a reason not to be. So that eavens them out.

Sakura was a whole different person, on a whole other level. In his eyes, Sakura was as close to a holy angel as any human could possibly hope to ever become. She did so much to help. She risked so much for the lives of total strangers. Sometimes he though she didn't even care for her own well being as she tended to the sick and dying, not caring if their disease was contagious or ugly.

She wasn't that kind of person.

There was a soft breeze in the air that tossed his grown, red bangs and played with Sakura's pink colored hair. She raised her empty hand to push a few of those locks behind her ear as she continued to keep her eyes trained on his.

It was a beautiful gaze in his opinion.

One that should have been on him, a person that almost took her life two times now. Once by deliberately attacking her (not a day goes by that he doesn't wish he could take that back) and the second when she had to come out here and fight Sasori of the red sand to save him.

"Gaara san...you need something more than just some old handshake."

He looked up surprised when he felt a pair of arms encircle his body in a tight hug he had seen given but never received. The action surprised him more than anything else.Though, he couldn't say he didn't like it.The bright red blush that had evolved from a light pink was enough proof of that.

"W-what? S-Sakura san?"

"Handshakes are okay, but when you're lonely and depressed like this, you need a hug Gaara san."

His eyes widened for a minuet at her words, but soon returned to their normal size. He only dreamed of things like this. Of being hugged like a child from his mother. It was something he never would receive, he knew. Still, he still dreamed.

The male with jade colored eyes smiled, ever so slightly.

She was hugging him.

Him!

Sakura was hugging him!

Sakura, of all people.

Sakura from the hidden village in the leaves.

That Sakura.

This was only something he dreamed about.

"Thank you Sakura," he replied, wrapping his arms around her small body in a hug. His hands rested silently against her back, a little less bloodied than before.

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I need to start doing some more Gaara Sakura...

Please review!