A/N EDIT: To those who are coming here because they got an alert saying this story has a new chapter, the new chapter is in the middle. Please see chapter 9. Thanks, and sorry for the confusion!

A/N: Recieved a few comments that said my last chapter left the reader feeling a little incomplete. So, for your enjoyment, I present this wee blurb. Not entirely sure I like it. Come to think of it, not entirely sure I like this entire story too much at all. It may undergo some serious editing eventually - when life slows down enough to allow the proper amount of time a total overhaul requires. At any rate, for now, this is it. The final huzzah.

"Next time you see me, I'll be more than just an obstacle."
-Haruno Sakura

Epilogue

Sakura stared at her mirror. What the hell is that? She rubbed her forehead stiffly, but it didn't come off. I swear I washed my face. How did I miss…?

"I doubt that will work," a low voice growled behind her, hot breath tickling the little hairs on the back of her neck. She leaned back, letting her finger drop away from her face as he slid his hands around her waist, holding her against him. His arms were still tense, hesitant. He wasn't sure if she would try to pull away; he wasn't sure he would let her if she did. She swallowed the tiny thrill of nerves in her gut and leaned back slightly, waiting patiently for him to relax.

"I thought I'd gotten something stuck on my face," she told him, frowning at the mirror. "But it looks like it's in the epidermis."

"It was there when you woke me," Gaara answered, and in the mirror she saw that he was strangely preoccupied with staring at the curve of her shoulder where the shirt pulled away to reveal skin.

"Why didn't you tell me?" she asked quickly, to cover the heat that rushed into her face.

He shrugged against her back. "It didn't seem important at the time."

She sighed and turned in his arms, away from the mirror. He almost flinched in surprise, but managed to stop the motion. She smiled sweetly, but her eyebrow quirked up just a fraction. Gaara scowled. "It looks like the Hokage's mark," he said, managing to keep the grumpy note in his voice to a minimum.

Sakura furrowed her brow experimentally, but she couldn't feel the tiny green mark that had somehow surfaced on her skin. It was miniscule, but very distinct. He was right; it was similar to the mark on Tsunade-sensei's forehead. "Rejuvenation Jutsu," she murmured, reaching to rub it with a fingertip again. "Guess that's a side effect of focusing that much chakra in one place."

Gaara wrapped a hand around her wrist. "You can't rub it off, then. Stop that."

She laughed softly. "Oh well," she muttered as he dropped her wrist. She let her newly freed hand come to rest, tentatively, on his shoulder, secretly marveling that he was allowing her the liberty of touching him so familiarly. She traced her fingers along the leather strap that held his gourd of sand to his back experimentally. "I'm not really into tattoos, but it was worth it this time."

Without warning, Gaara's arms suddenly tightened. His hands dug into her back, his elbows locked down on her rib cage, restricting her breathing a little. "That was stupid," he said, and a dangerous edge sharpened his voice. She forced her breathing to shallow out, to stay slow. I'm never going to get used to the mood swings, Sakura lamented inwardly as she fought to keep her face and voice calm. Like walking on a narrow ledge, she thought sardonically. And this is just another change in the wind.

But she was learning to be an excellent balancer.

"I've done plenty of stupid things lately, I'm sure." Sakura smiled cheerfully. "Which one specifically do you mean?"

"I was planning on using the sand to catch him," he told her in a monotone, but his face was edgy, his body tense. "The impenetrable shield. I was going to wrap it around him just before he hit me."

She considered this. "You can do that?"

He nodded once, curtly.

"That killing-chakra came from a human blood sacrifice," she frowned back at him. "It probably could have cut through."

"But it would have held him long enough for me to dodge the blow, and then I might have been able to crush him."

Sakura lifted her eyebrows. "Might?"

"It was a better plan than yours." Gaara snarled, lowering his chin and causing locks of red hair to fall forward over his forehead. "You had nothing." His hand pushed roughly from the small of her back to the nape of her neck. His fingers tightened but didn't quite clench in her hair; just enough pressure to pull her head back, expose her throat. "You're too easy to kill." The words were almost accusatory, as if she were somehow trying to cheat him out of something.

He'll rip you apart, Kenji murmured in the echoes of her memory, and laughed. Inner Sakura stamped on the twisted memory viciously. You keep out of this, asshole.

"Not that easy," she shot back, glancing upwards to emphasize her point. His eyes flicked to the new mark on her forehead, and the fingers at her neck loosened, became gentle, caressing.

Sakura purred inwardly as they combed deftly over the back of her scalp, down the soft skin to the base of her neck. "No," he agreed, attention sliding lower. He bent his head to press his lips softly over the skin at the hollow of her still-exposed throat. There was a kind of uncertainty in the movement, as if he didn't really know what he was doing. But he knew what he wanted, and if Gaara of the Desert had learned anything in his life, it was to never balk at getting what he wanted.

She held very still as his lips moved on, growing more confident as he felt her heart speed up, her stomach tighten with something that was not entirely fear. She held still, reminding herself to breath, and feeling the shivery rush of heat race down her spine and into the pit of her belly. Through the material of his shirt, she could feel his own heart speed up to match hers, and the heat on her neck became more demanding, more urgent. She was caught in the circle of his arms, caught in the snare that she had willfully made for herself.

"I warned you," he said quietly against her ear.

"Warned me?" she breathed, brushing her thigh against his leg lightly, daring to tease him.

Gaara reached down and caught her knee, pulling the leg back up over his thigh and pinning it there effortlessly. "The first night. I told you it's impossible to know what you were getting into." He looked down at her, smirking. "Until you were trapped."

Sakura thought back to that encounter…how long ago? Lifetimes. "That isn't exactly what you said," she replied. "You just said that you had to experience something to understand it."

"I said," he retorted, hand sliding up her thigh in a very distracting way. "That you couldn't know what something was like until it was too late to back away from it."

"I don't see the difference," she muttered, looking at her hand resting on his chest. And then his underlying meaning finally hit her. "Wait…you were warning me? About you?"

He caught her chin with his free hand and forced her to look him in the eye. "What do you think I was talking about?"

"I thought you were just. . .talking, that night," she fumbled. "I thought I annoyed you."

"You did," he told her calmly, ignoring the frown she shot him. "That's why I wanted to warn you. No one talks to me like that, because no one wishes to create an association with me beyond anonymous business aquaintance. No one annoys me, because no one dares." He leaned his head down to look her right in the eye. "You dared. It got my attention. My attention can be a bad thing."

The warning again, she realized. He's repeating it now. He hadn't changed, and in a variety of ways he never would. She saw wild green eyes, blood smeared on one cheek. She saw a bloody lump that had once been a man. She saw a wall of sand rising to crush his terrified enemies. She saw the pain of betrayal, and heard the choked cry – "You" - as the demon body vanished out from under her. He was so alien to everything she had ever known, so completely different from everything she had ever wanted – and somehow, the embodiment of all those same things.

Choices, and change, she thought with a touch of humor that felt very out of place with the rest of her emotions. Since the day she had left Konoha, her life had been all about choices, and the changes that resulted. "I have to go back to Konoha," she said quietly. "I have to request permission to leave the village."

"You have to apply to take the trials in Suna," he replied matter-of-factly, sounding for the moment more like an administrator than a shinobi. "You have to prove to the council that you are capable and trustworthy."

"I want to be able to go back sometimes," she told him seriously. "I still have family, and friends."

He nodded. "Will you miss them?"

"So much," she whispered, and felt a little surge of fear at the thought of leaving them behind. His face tightened into an uncomfortable – and possibly angry – frown, and he pulled back from her a little. She sighed, and clasped her hands behind him to prevent him from pulling further away. "But it's not like I'm cutting myself off from them. Nor they from me. You'll be getting a lot more diplomatic visits, I bet." She flashed him a grin. "The future Sixth Hokage will probably be around a lot more than you might be ready to handle, for one thing."

He stared at her, not smiling. She felt the edges of her own grin fade a bit in the face of his frown. Had she said something wrong? Just as she was about to apologize, he leaned forward and kissed her very hard.

"Wha…?" She took a deep breath to get air back into her lungs and brain. "What was that?"

Gaara raised an eyebrow at her. "I did that right," he stated.

She considered telling him he hadn't, just to wipe that calm, self-confident look off his face, but she really wasn't much of a liar. She nodded instead.

He nodded in return. "I thought so."

Infuriating man. Strange man. Difficult, dangerous man. He would make her life confusing, unstable, perpetually off-kilter, and possibly a whole lot shorter than it might have been otherwise.

But it would certainly be interesting, no matter how long it lasted.

Sakura put her arm resolutely around his back, the other hand sliding down the muscles of his torso to slip under the edge of the shirt. She traced his ribs with her fingertips, kissing the skin just under his ear. He froze, a slight shudder running through him. Hmm, she mused at the reaction, eyeing the spot. Duly noted.

"Do that," he rasped suddenly against her cheek, "and the desert will never get another chance at you again." It was a form of endearment, but it was a threat too, and she knew it. And under the promise and the threat, it was a plea, an offer to give her one last chance. She could push away now, run from him now and he might not chase her. She could brush herself off, go back to the familiarity of her life before she had thrown herself into the ever-shifting sandstorm of his world.

Sakura took a deep breath, letting her lungs push against the vise of his arms. He loosened them slightly in response, letting her breathe. When she opened her eyes again, there was no hesitation, no doubt, and no fear in the green depths.

She smiled. "I know."