Mmkay then, not as long of a delay between chapter this time but still long enough to warrant an apology. So sorry for taking so long, i seriously wrote the last half of this in like two days cuz i felt so bad.

I hope you like it! Enjoy and make sure to read the author's note at the bottom!

Chapter Eleven

Gaara could not stay still. Meditating was becoming a nightly practice for him, but he was unable to achieve it that particular night. He had read in a book, a few weeks ago, that it helped calm one's mind and put them in a trance. Before the chunnin exams, Gaara never bothered to try and calm himself, all of his energy coiling up inside until it was released upon an convenient and unsuspecting victim. Shortly after being released from the hospital, Gaara had gone to the family's library a combed through the books out of curiosity, there he had found a book on meditation, and spent his nights practicing the art. It was hard work at first, and he gave up many times in frustration, returning to his old practice of prowling the streets. But, it was easier to calm him-self after time, and he could almost go into the thoughtless trance. Sometimes he wondered if that was what sleep felt like.

This night, and the night before, Gaara did not seem to be able to sit still. He didn't go out on the streets of Suna, confining himself to pace the rooftop, sure that the nervous drunks would only agitate him further. Just pacing the roof was doing nothing to help alleviate his anxious energy and he constantly felt the need to move. He was on the rooftop, overlooking the village, it was peaceful, quite, and the exact opposite of what he felt. If he were to go down there, amongst the houses, he felt like the peaceful blanket would shatter. He felt almost bitter about it, why should everyone else be able to sleep so peacefully when he couldn't?

He gave up pacing, and looking at the village was doing him no good. He had to be moving. He did not particularly care if he ruined the pleasant dreams of civilians.

Using his sand Gaara transported him-self to ground level and set off towards the edge of town. There would be no one out there at this time of night, everyone not on guard duty or missions would be asleep. His previous worries about running into drunks were put to the side. Walking would hopefully relive some of his nervous energy, and the training field he was heading towards would have to do for the rest.

The training ground was empty as always, not just because it was night, but everyone in Suna knew that that was where Gaara the monster came to train, and avoided it like the plague. Even the fields nearby were seldom used.

Shaking off those thoughts Gaara began to train, his sand molding easily to his will, slowly gathering force, contracting into itself then lashing out against the pillars of stone. He trained, wearing out his body while his mind thought of other things. A pillar broke under the strain of his onslaught.

Iskaso had brought him water one time after he had trained, caring about his hard work. It had been nice. But there would be no Isakso this time, it was too late and he was all alone. Gaara switched to sand bullets, raining them from the sky with utmost precision, creating sharp, exact patterns on the ground. If it was with his sand he could hit anything.

Isakso did not seem well. It seemed to be a commonly reoccurring thought, but Gaara once again mused over the fact that he was not good at understand most human expressions.

Even so, Gaara could tell that Isakso had not looked well. He had stopped by her house once he got back from his mission and saw her tossing and turning in her sleep. She had seemed like her usual cheerful self later though, so maybe he was wrong. If anything she had seemed more pleased to see him than usual, which was beginning to be less odd, and more normal for Gaara to accept.

If he had been anyone else, Gaara would talk to her and ask if there was anything wrong. At the thought of something being wrong with the petite blond Gaara attacked the landscape before him with greater ferocity. If someone had done anything to her, they would be dead, crushed under all the fury of his sand.

Gaara stopped, taking a break and allowing himself to catch his breath, he was trying not to use Shukaku's chakra while training and, as a result, tired more quickly. In order to get faster, stronger, and more capable of protecting those important to him, Gaara had to be able to rely on himself, and not the tailed beast within. His breath came in deep ragged inhalations; it was even more exerting to maneuver the sand with only his will, and to not use any hand movement. If he avoided hand movement in battle, it made it less likely for enemies to predict his attacks.

How was he supposed to protect Isakso if he did not know what was wrong or who had hurt her? As he had thought before, asking her was almost out of the question. The sand ninja could easily protect her from a physical threat but emotional, personal stuff was unthinkable. How would someone with his past, who was emotionally stunted, help someone with that?

Uzumaki Naruto would know, he had been able to help Gaara despite going through almost the exact same experiences. No, that was why he had been able to help him. Gaara had no experience with what Isakso had gone through, all he knew about it was that humans were trash in general, trampling on everyone to get what they wanted. Thinking about all the scum and trash that lived inside his village, purposeless, wastes of space with no meaning of existence, made Gaara's previously worked off agitation come back to him.

Would be better if they all disappeared. Dead. Would not hurt anyone anymore.

As the redhead thoughts drifted towards violence, he stopped abruptly. Violence was not his answer anymore, no matter how tempting.

Despite the fact that his short break did very little to calm his breathing, Gaara got back to his feet. Throughout the night the landscape endured a violence of sand attacks, either the landscape took the beating or it would have been the unsuspecting village behind him.

It was always her mother that visited in the dreams, her sister and father never appeared, and Isakso always wondered why. Before the incident, her mother was always comforting, a messenger of good news in her dreams. Whenever Isakso dreamed of her mother she woke up feeling relieved. Now, her mother was always telling her to run.

Iskaos had forced herself out of the house, something she rarely did on her day off, to buy laundry detergent. All of the clothing she was willing to wear had not been washed in a good while, and was starting to pile up. She refused to acknowledge what a massive understatement that was.

She had purposefully gotten up early, not that she had slept much, to avoid the crowds that would gather around midday. Even thought it was early it was still especially bright out, as expected of Suna, and she just wanted to retreat back into her home where she had all of her blinds drawn tightly shut.

For some reason, venturing out into the early Suna sun had sparked a dark place in her mind and she thought of her dreams.

"Run, Iskaso. Run!" Unsuspected, the latest dream came unbidden, and it took all of Isakso's willpower to keep from bolting home. Thankfully she was able to resist causing a commotion in the middle of the street.

Where was she supposed to run too? She was always running from something different in the dreams and there was never a clear destination.

While her mother was still alive Iskakso had tried very hard to listen to all her advice, live up to her expectations. Not listening to the voice, however imaginary, was harder than hard. By the time she had been thirteen her mother had been all Isakso had left, her father had died and her sister as well, they had been alone. So she had held on to the memory of her mother's voice the hardest.

Everyone was dead.

Isakso thought she was dying. She couldn't breathe and the entire road was spinning. What was happening? Nothing was wrong but everything was wrong. The sudden panic had come from nowhere. One minute she had been walking along calmly, the next she couldn't take another step.

"Run! Why do you not listen, run!"

She wanted to. She wanted to get back home. But she couldn't move an inch.

Isakso's feet stumbled forward and bit and her hands reached out towards the nearest building. They were numb, and slipped off the wall, sending her knees to connect sharply with the ground.

She pitched forward and gagged sharply, trying to empty the nauseating feeling from inside herself, but there was nothing to throw up.

Everyone was dead, she was going to be dead, she should run. Run and run and run. It wouldn't save her, it hadn't saved her, her legs couldn't move, she couldn't run anymore. She couldn't even breath, she couldn't barely feel the air forcing itself into her lungs through the pains.

She gagged again before painfully sucking in a breath. It hurt and she didn't know why. She couldn't even think clearly, all of her thoughts coming in a disjointed incoherent mess.

Everything was dark. Were her eyes even open? She didn't know but it felt like the darkness was constricting her throat, her stomach, her brain.

Oh god, oh god, oh god. Someone help! Was she talking? Were there people? Isakso felt like she couldn't open her eyes to check or she would lose whatever control curling in on herself had afforded her.

She couldn't even guess how long she felt the way she did. All she knew was that it felt like it was never going to end.

She wanted to die, and felt like she was dying, until a familiar voice sounded out.

"Breath," The voice was commanding and her body obeyed without conscious thought.. "again" she let it out and took another lung-full of air in. It hurt less this time. The voice repeated the instructions over and over, soothing reputations reminding her to continue her inhalations.

Gaara had been walking back into town after a long night of training. He had exerted most of his frustrations, and felt confident that he would be able to keep a handle on himself should anything aggravate him. It was fairly early when he returned to the village, there were a couple stall open, and a few early morning shoppers trying to get in before the rush. Gaara vaguely remembered Iskaso saying that she had the day off.

He was secretly pleased, in the few short months that he had known her; she had had only a few days off. Gaara was a shinobi and had taken more time off than her. He decided to stop by her house before going home, it was a bit out of the way, but it was becoming a habit of his to sneak a glance, to make sure she was doing ok. He especially felt the need today, he could tell something wasn't right with her, and after the long night of uneasiness, it felt more important than usual to complete his stalker like ritual.

He was tired, all he wanted to do was go home, try to relax and meditate. Seeing Isakso sleeping was likely to make him jealous of the very human condition that required sleep, but he shook of those thoughts and took to the rooftops to get to her apartment as quickly as possible. Gaara stopped on the roof right across the street from her apartment; luckily it was on the second story and in full viewf.

Her bedroom was dark, not unusual for this time of day. Her bed was empty. His usual expressionless face twisted into a small frown of irritation, where was she? Without a second thought, Gaara was on her windowsill and climbing through her unlocked window.

"Careless," he thought dismissively, not even considering that she was a civilian, and therefore did not usually expect intruders through a second story window.

As his feet touched down on the hardwood floor, he realized that he had never been in this part of her house. He looked around, there was a large pile of dirty clothing spilling out of the closet and everything was very messy. It seemed the opposite of what he would expect from Isakso, he himself was very tidy, and felt something close to disgust that they didn't share the same level of cleanliness. When his father was alive, there had been servants living in the household and kept everything perfectly clean. Of course they never dared venture into his room for fear that he might kill them. Before he had given into the Shukaku, he had had the idea of being perfect and cleanly ingrained into his mind, he supposed only one of those had stuck. Feeling uncomfortable in her room he quickly exited to see if the blond slob was in some other part of her home.

He found the kitchen and living room in an even worse state than the bedroom. There were dishes everywhere, and the living room looked like it hadn't been cleaned in weeks. For a moment he considered that maybe someone had been in the house, it was certainly messy enough to look like a struggle. But there was no blood, and the furniture was all right sides up and intact. The only thing wrong was the lingering feeling that something wasn't right, and that his blond haired friend was missing.

The anxious energy that had plagued him all night returned in force. What the hell had happened? Where was Isakso? Not wasting a second Gaara used his sand to teleport himself to the ground and took off in a brisk pace. He was trying his best not to become overly agitated, she may have just gone to the market. He hadn't seen her when he passed through, but it was possible he had missed her.

Willing himself to calm down he set off in the direction he had came, sticking to the streets, Isakso wasn't a shinobi, and would be walking at a slow pace on the ground, so it made more sense to travel the same way, although a bit faster.

Even though he was trying to keep calm, Gaara couldn't help but rationalize sending a couple clones down the adjacent streets and rooftops, just to make sure he didn't miss her. Even though there were only a few people on the street, those who saw him scurried out of the way faster than usual, probably due to his more agitated state, people much like animals seemed to be able to sense those types of things. Lucky for them, if they had gotten in his way, violence would be the only option to remove them.

Since so many people were trying hard to get out of his way it was especially odd to see a large group of shoppers that did not even notice his pretense. It looked as if they were looking down at something, and whatever it was seemed to be huddled by a building. Instantly a cold unfamiliar feeling settled in his stomach and he knew what they were looking at.

"Move" As soon at the onlookers heard the cold monotone, they recognized it. The crowd instantly stopped their yammering whispers a cleared a path for the redhead, giving him a view of Iskaso.

His throat constricted at the sight, as his earlier feeling was confirmed. There was definitely something wrong with Isakso. That huddle mass of a person could not be hi friend, or at least not the friend that he though he knew.

The couple people who were down by her side, jumped up and moved away instantly at the sight of him. They all knew that she and Gaara had some kind of relationship, and the possibility of death for touching her seemed to be imminent. They were right on that deduction. As soon as Gaara saw her he felt the edges of his vision go red with rage.

"What happened?" He questioned the nearest person. Unfortunately he did not receive any answers as the person shrunk back in fear. It was silent. He was tempted to start choking the life out of everyone there, one by one until they gave him answers, but there was a more pressing matter.

He quickly went to Isakso side and examined her. He was by no means a medical shinobi but he had been on the field enough to know when someone was injured. She had no sign of injury; the only thing wrong with her was her breathing. She was hunched into a little ball and hyperventilating, not seeming to notice what was going on around her. Gaara recognized her state; he had caused the exact same thing in several grown men during many of his rampages. The sight usually filled him with an equal amount of disgust and pleasure. Now, seeing Isakso, it only filled him with what he would identify as concern.

He knelt down next to her, she was having serious issues breath and would most likely hurt herself if she continued.

"Breath" he commanded. It seemed to work, a few second later she sucked in a shaky breath and let it out quickly. He repeated the command again and again until her body had received enough oxygen and seemed to stop shaking.

She still didn't open her eyes though. Gaara grabbed her face in both hands, forcing it towards him. She was startled into opening her eyes, and Gaara immediately felt guilt at the fear he saw there.

He growled under his breath as he noticed that the whispers had started up again. His sand whipped out behind him in warning, there were a few startled gasps, but no one moved away.

Wanting to get away from the civilians Gaara made the decision to pick up the petite blond. He was very careful with her. Under normal circumstances she looked liable to break at any moment, but now it seemed like an actual possibility and Gaara regretted his earlier roughness. As he slipped his arm under her knees and felt her weight settle against his chest he realized how small she actually was. You could ever tell under all her baggy clothes, but it felt unhealthy.

As he made his was out of the circle of people, he knew he couldn't take her back to her home. Now it seemed like a testament to her unhealthy state that he had not even noticed.

"Wh-where are you taking her monster!?" Gaara didn't even have to look back at the crowed of people to know who was talking. Unable to contain it, his sand whipped out unmercifully and smashed the civilian into the side of the building.

Not bothering to take the slow way, Gaara used his sand to teleport himself and Isakso to the only place he could actually think of, his residence. More specifically, his room, he didn't want Termari or Kunkuro asking questions.

Gaara laid her gently on his bed, he had never slept on it, and so it was pristinely made and cleaned. He didn't know if it was comfortable or not, but it would have to do for now. She seemed to have fallen asleep, and looked at lease mildly peaceful. The sandmaster didn't know how to feel as he looked down on her, in the town he had been angry and concerned. Now he felt a weird mix of feelings, he knew that he was still angry, but he didn't know who he was angry at. All he knew for sure was that he should have noticed.

Okkie dokkie then, this despite the drama and sad stuff, was a fun chapter to write. I have been waiting to get to this part for like 5 chapters. We finally get to see that there is really something wrong with Isakso and we get to see Gaara realize that as well.

Just a warning, this it definitely not the climax. More shit is going to go down within the next couple chapters so be prepared!

Tell me what you think is going to happen to what you would like to see, im always open to suggestions!

Thanks for the support guys, otherwise this would have never gotten out!

Review keep me going!

Happy Early Christmas!