AN: Please, oh please, flame this couple/my work/this anime. PLEASE do it, so I can ramble about the nature of canon-ity/my life/Masashi Kishimoto's brilliance. And then I'll keep writing GaaMatsu fics, just to piss you off.

Gaara needs a girl, period- and if Matsuri can be everything that he needs, more power to her. Plus they're so cute...

The sand feels and carries sound long before ears can begin perceiving it.

When his feet are on the ground, there's nothing Gaara can't feel the presence of; the things above the ground and the secret cities beneath them all, like an upside-down universe. To know the sand is to know things that even the most skilled tracking-nin cannot. The shifting earth of this barren desert has always been, and always knows: it feels the swelling of a disaster before it implodes, recognizes intruders who do not respect it's potential to dessicate, erode, and weather a thing down to bare particles. You cannot get rid of the sand; you cannot unknow it, or even get it out of your shoes when you want to. Gaara could be buried here, completely, and be at peace. He is one with this place, a divining rod with hair like blood and cheeks chapped from the relentless sun and the hail of sandstorms.

So they do each other favors, Gaara and his symbiote: he protects this parched, ageless land by wearing a badge of responsibility for the people who live in it's midst, and the sand always tells him when the people he loves return to safety in their embrace.