When Gaara looks in the mirror sometimes he can see the reflection of someone that isn't really there.

Once, he had reached out to touch the face of the person who wasn't really there, expecting to touch the cool glass of the reflecting surface. Surprisingly, a shock of warm ran up his arm. From behind himself, where the person who wasn't really there stood, the boy smiled joyously. As if he had just given him something invaluable.

He had once stood in his boxers before the full length mirror, waiting with his arms crossed over his chest. He hadn't thought it would matter to get fully dressed for this, seeing as how he was about to go to sleep. The person who wasn't really there seemed to think differently, his face going cherry red before he spun around and disappeared.

He had once stood before the mirror, able to see this boy who was not really there, with his blonde friend by his side, staring at the mirror into Gaara's gaze with annoyance.

"So?"

He had asked as if a boy who did not stand with them could not be seen in the mirror either.

"What the hell are we supposed to be looking at? Ourselves?"

The boy had smiled at Naruto, though his expressive eyebrows had been drawn slightly together in what could be concern or slightly strained patience. As always, he stood behind Gaara.

He had once stood before the mirror, another mirror in hand as he waited. He had had to repeat the attempt for nine nights in a row before the boy finally returned, blinking curiously from behind Gaara. Gaara had faced the mirror straight at the boy's face, seeing if he could see the other's reflection through that frame as well. In the full length mirror, the boy's eyebrows drew together in confusion. In the hand held mirror, he could see that his bed needed the sheets put back on right. No boy.

He told no one. Every one thought he was crazy already, there was no point in talking about something that no one would listen to. He simply sat cross legged before the mirror, watching in the reflection as the boy would pet his hair and comb his fingers through each red lock. He felt every caress as well as, when the boy finally disappeared, the new disarray of his hair.

He never stayed longer than a minute. Gaara knew because he had timed it. The boy never acted as if he was aware of anything the redhead was doing, only seeming aware of Gaara himself and sometimes other people who were in the room, such as the one time he had tried to show his only friend the boy. He had been witness to the boy staring up as he sat Indian style on the floor even as his brother mocked him having a 'ladies' mirror' in his room. No one but him seemed to take notice of the raven haired child in the mirror.

And he was just a child. Possibly 13 at the oldest while he himself had first been 12 when having found the antique mirror in the attic during one of his escapades. Now he was 16, watching the boy with the bowl cut smile though he wasn't really there. He watched obsidian eyes sparkle and weep, but never heard a sound. He felt it as one tear fell onto his own cheek during one session where he had been sitting and the boy leaning over him, but he never heard a thing. He never understood what the boy smiled or cried over.

When he moved out at the age of 18, the mirror came with him. For three months, he saw no boy. The beginning of the fourth, he had awaken to a apprehended boy staring at him from across the room. He swore he could almost read the boy's lips.

'This is not my home.'

He sat down in front of the boy, allowing the raven haired child to play and tangle his short red hair as he calmly explained to the boy who seemed to have just as much difficulty hearing him as he had difficulty hearing the boy that they had moved. He was starting a new life, and this boy who didn't truly exist would start it with him. As he had suspected, the boy gave no reaction to his words, only relaxing as he stroked and petted his hair.

It was the longest the boy had ever stayed by 53 seconds, and then he was gone with one last look of confusion about the new surroundings.

That record was broken when he stepped into his room and the boy laid unconscious in the mirror, bruises and blood covering his usually pale sienna skin. Gaara had slammed a hand to the glass, alarmed, if he were to admit it to himself, that the boy could actually be hurt. The boy's body flinched, as if that one sound of flesh meeting glass was the only one that could reach him, and then twisted his body around to look up at him, his eyes filled to the brim with pain and tears still wet on his cheeks.

Sometimes -No, quite often, he saw a boy in the mirror. A mirror that had belonged to a small poor family in the country side of Konoha, a city that was a three days drive from his home, Suna. The day his family had bought the mirror decades ago, the only child in the family disappeared. The boy had been a mute; some badly written reports suggested it was because his family had beat it out of him. Some random guesses pointed to that being the reason why his parents beat him. All reports were sure of one thing: The boy had been constantly beaten. Possibly even had worse treatment, seeing as how some said to have seen men walk to the family's home and leave looking like they had just had sex, yet the wife and husband denied having sold themselves with near hostility. The boy was often seen limping.

He looked at the broken boy, and reached out again. His fingers touched the warm glass, felt the flat solid surface of it, and then slipped through it as if it were water. His fingers touched greasy black hair and whispered across a bruised cheek. The boy flinched, looking at him with fear and possibly hope.

Gaara laid his palm out flat, waiting for what, he did not know. The boy looked from him to his hand, and then shakily reached out to it with his own. Right as he felt the bleeding fingertips touch his hand, the boy's body jerked as if his body had suddenly been pulled sharply back. Gaara saw his look of horror, and then the boy disappeared.

He didn't sleep for two weeks.

The boy appeared again, looking as if he were on the verge of death with his skin ashen pale and his body trembling, blood and bruises littering what he could see of his body… and he could see a lot.

He didn't wait, he didn't think about it. He pushed his hand through the glass once more, this time, the surface surprisingly cold, waiting almost on baited breath for the boy to reach out once more. With just as little hesitation, he did so. His hand was almost freezing, as if death were even closer than it appeared. He pulled, bringing their joined hands towards himself. The glass went tense around his wrist as the boy's fingertips touched the surface, and then gave. His heart quickened as he brought the boy out of his hell and into his life.

There was no person in the mirror. Now, there was a boy in a hospital bed, trying to look brave as he was surrounded by technology he didn't know existed and people he couldn't trust touching him. His hand, now warm once more, continued to clench his own.

There was no beaten boy in the reflective surface that was now placed back into it's former home, the attic. There was now an eager boy in his bed, too afraid to sleep in one of his own, who wants to learn everything about this new place, his new home.

There was no time for Gaara to sit before an antique mirror and try to interpret a silent creature. In his spacious apartment, the same silent creature kept him busy enough by asking thousands of questions with a voice doctors had been able to easily restore and getting into hundreds of things he shouldn't.

Sometimes, he had seen a person in the mirror. Now, he saw that person every living moment of his life… Without the mirror.

Jekr-Dementor2 had to go to bed, but she gave me a challenge before doing so: 'When Gaara looks in the mirror sometimes he can see the reflection of someone that isn't really there.' "The Boy in the Mirror". I said it sounded like a riddle, she told me I'd figure it out. Apparently, I figured it out… Just possibly not in the sense she thought I would… I'm actually pretty proud, if I do say so myself (and I do).