He found her while on a routine patrol around the village. Laying face down in the sand. The pale exposed skin of her shoulders and mid back were covered in bruises and little bloody cuts. Her clothes torn. Her mid back length jet black hair tangled and matted against her scalp.

"Kazakage-sama?" One of his shinobi said in a shocked tone as they stared at the young female body partially buried under the sand dunes. Gaara frowned and moved started to move forward when a hand reached out and grasped his arm just above his wrist, pulling him to a stop.

Pale aqua eyes swung around to stare at the one holding onto him and frowned again when he saw his older brother's worried face. "Not too close little bro. This could be a trap of some kind." Kankuro pointed out gently.

The red headed male nodded his head sagely. He was well aware of the risks. Especially since this was a ploy often used by his enemies to assassinate him.

They would drag some hapless woman or girl or child from the village, often times right from her home. They then tortured her and left her to die of exposure out in the dessert after attaching a paper bomb and several other very unpleasant things to the body.

But Kankuro needed to understand. That if there was even the slightest chance that the woman may still be alive, he had to risk it. He had to at least try to save her so that when her family and friends were told of her demise he could tell them that he did everything that he could, that her death had been quick and as painless as possible.

It wouldn't really matter if it was a lie as long as there was some grain of truth in it and he could stand over the woman's grave and say a prayer for her without feeling as if he had done some terrible thing that had caused her death.

Like abandoning her to her fate. To die alone and scared, if she wasn't already dead that is.

He gently pulled his arm from his older brother's grasp and motioned for the Anbu and his brother to move back so that he wouldn't have to worry about them getting caught in the cross fire if there was a trap set. The group all moved back away from him a good twenty nine feet or so as he used a small jutsu to clear away some of the sand close to the woman's body so that he could first determine if there was a land mine under the unknown females body.

After determining that there wasn't a land mine hidden under the young woman's body, he moved in closer and cautiously-

Very cautiously, laid a hand on her shoulder and carefully turned her over onto her back and blinked when he noted how relaxed her body was. Her limbs and her head moving a little bit as her body settled onto it's back.

The entire left side of her face was covered in sand, partially hiding her features from him.

His heart thudding in his chest, he reached out and gently brushed some of the sand from the woman's face and sucked in a breath at how warm her skin felt to the touch. Of course they were in the middle of a dessert, and heat was one of the few things that was never lacking here, but he knew the difference between a corpse's over heated body and an alive person's over heated body.

She was alive.

He was sure of it even though he couldn't really see the rise and fall of her breasts. Leaning over her still form a little bit he laid his ear against her chest and jerked upright again as soon as he confirmed the slow soft thud of her heart.

"Kankuro! Summon a medic! She's alive!"

(********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************)

Okay...

Some of you are probably going 'Oh god not another one' and some of you are probably going 'Yay a new story!'

I can sympathize with some of you. But I can't seem to get an really interesting ideas to click right now so I thought I'd try something new. I'm not sure if any of you are aware of this, but when I first started writing fanfic 5 years ago I started with Gaara/fem Naru stories.

Because as a couple they just seemed so damn fascinating.

Those old stories are gone now. Because they sucked and my computer crashed and they were deleted.

But Gaara has been and probably always will be one of my favorite characters aside from Kakashi-rank 1

And Naruto-who ranks 2.

I think that like Kakashi and Naruto, Gaara is one of the most beloved characters because he years to be loved for who he is. He longs for a special bond and I'm glad that he has some of those things in the Shippuden series. But there is always something missing and that's part of the reason why I thought I would try my hand at this (Gaara) again.

I think he's cool under pressure. Calm natured. His quietness is often mistaken for intimidation tactics, but I think he's merely shy and maybe a little more content to sit back and watch everyone else get what they need before he bothers to look to himself.

So anyone who is a Gaara fan...might like this story.

And anyone who doesn't-

Well, you don't want me to really say the words because they really are rude.

So just bear with me and lets see what happens in this story while I try to think of what to write next in my others.