The white light was blinding. Even cracking his eyelids was excruciating, and he longed for darkness. If it was dark, he wouldn't be in pain. It hadn't hurt until he'd tried to open his eyes.

He shut his eyes, and the light disappeared. The pain, however, lingered. An incessant beeping came from behind his left side, like an alarm clock that he couldn't reach.

The only way to make it stop was to open his eyes. He couldn't do anything about it unless he could see.

His lips contorted into a grimace as he gave in, slowly lifting his eyelids. He attempted to give himself enough time to adjust to the light, but it remained intense over several seconds. Only when his eyes were fully open did they focus.

The horrible light shone down from above, refracting off the white walls, the white floor, the white curtains, the white sheets. God, it burned. He shifted, and a deep pain echoed throughout his body. The alarm clock beeped faster.

It hurt to move. He ground his teeth as he placed his hands on either side of his hips, pressing down into the mattress as he fought to lift himself up. The pain made it unbearable. Momentarily, he accepted defeat. His head fell back onto the pillow, and he stared up at the ceiling.

Slowly, his awareness came trickling back to him. He was in the hospital. Why? He was seriously injured. How? Those men… dressed in black and wearing red clouds like the painted sky. Who were they? He couldn't quite remember. What did they do? They had taken him, carted him through the air like cargo. And then? They ripped out his soul.

The beeping intensified, and he let out a wordless, frustrated growl at his inability to reach it. A woman burst into the room, calling something out into the hallway. She wasn't a doctor. No, he was almost sure that she was.

The woman pulled out a flashlight and shone it into his eyes. "What's your name?" Her voice demanded an urgent response.

"Gaara…" his voice came out like sandpaper, like grit rising from his throat, "of the Desert."

"What season is it?"

"Spring."

The woman turned her attention to something behind his head, writing on a clip board she held in her arm.

"Your birthday?"

"January 19th."

When she turned back around, he studied her facial features before coming to the realization that he knew this woman. "Sakura… help me sit up."

Sakura gently guided his shoulders back down onto the mattress. "None of that, yet. You've been through a lot. I don't even know how you managed to walk back."

"What do you mean?"

"You've sustained some pretty serious injuries. We brought you to the hospital to treat you, but you started to experience some sort of mental trauma. We had to sedate you. That'd be why you're feeling a little groggy." She checked his IV carefully. "You need more fluids. Just try to relax."

She left him in the room.

His body felt heavy. In his mind, there was nothing but silence.

The lingering effects of the tranquilizers carried him back to sleep.

The heart monitor beeped steadily on at 60 beats per minute, a number higher than Gaara's usual 45. He supposed that was to be expected; coming back from the dead probably did a number on his cardiovascular system. It was on the high-end for a shinobi in his condition, but it was nowhere near dangerous.

He looked down at his left hand and curled his fingers into his palm and back out, careful not to jostle the wire connecting the sensor to the monitor. The number dropped to 58.

He had died.

It was easy to think about in a medical sense. Sakura informed him that there may be some irreparable damage stemming from rigor mortis of his wounds. In an effort to stave off any ill effects, the nurses had been ordered to begin physical therapy even as he recovered.

He was in more pain than he had ever experienced. His shield protected him for so many years, as it certainly would again. Yet, a dead man can't wield jutsu.

The post-mortem injuries he sustained, especially in his extremities, were gruesome. Of course, as the Kazekage, he had the best medical staff his village had to offer, but his case was unprecedented.

He felt a sense of overwhelming loneliness as he became lost in his thoughts. His entire life, there had been a second voice inside his head. The One-tail had been abusive, cruel, and temperamental; yet it was a part of him.

When Shukaku was torn from his body, it killed him in the most literal sense. It was like they'd torn out his own soul.

The emptiness he felt now… who was he?

Gaara. The self-loving demon. Even his name seemed to have no meaning without the beast.

The number on the monitor dropped to 55.

His pale, green eyes watched the drip of his IV, enraptured in each steady drop. His hand crept across the sheet to touch where the needle had entered his arm.

How did they get it there?

Perhaps the drugs they had sedated him with also affected his sand. There was no other way they could have come close to piercing his skin without his permission. Strange.

His attending nurse had been kind enough to lift the bed into an upright position for him. It took him until the shift change, when Sakura left for the night, to find someone to do so. The hospital, deceptively, bent itself to the will of Lady Tsunade's apprentice. This annoyed him; as kazekage, his word was law.

Apparently, even he had no power over doctors.

His body was enveloped in a dull, persistent ache. The nurse had already refused him more painkillers. His body weight was approximately 110 pounds, rendering him medically underweight for his height and age. The nurse claimed that they had to be careful of how many drugs they put into his body at once due to his size. He'd tried to argue, but it was no use.

Where he'd been… before, when it was dark… it was so peaceful. Before he'd opened his eyes to the afternoon sun, before he'd been pulled back to the realm of the living, he felt no pain. I want to go back to that place.

"No, sir, you aren't allowed here-" Gaara heard a female voice, most likely his nurse, shout, muffled on the other side of the wall.

His heart rate jumped back to 60.

If the Akatsuki had come for him again, he swore he would take at least one of them with him.

To his right sat a tray of surgical implements that had been used to remove bone fragments from the surrounding tissue in his leg. He wrapped his fingers around the scalpel and hid it by placing his hand underneath the sheet.

The door to his room burst forcefully open, and Gaara's muscles tensed as he moved to throw the scalpel as a shuriken. His right arm couldn't complete the motion, and a piercing pain shot down his shoulder and into his fingertips. He scowled and groaned in pain, frustrated as the beeping on the monitor increased, publicly declaring that he was suffering.

"Gaara!"

That voice. The Kazekage opened his eyes to see Rock Lee leaning over him, his hands hovering inches away from Gaara's shoulders. His eyes were wide with concern. "Nurse!"

"No," Gaara rasped, raising his left hand. "I'm fine," he assured the nurse, who had hurried into his room. "I just pulled my shoulder."

"Please, Lord Kazekage, don't overexert yourself."

"I know, but I'm alright."

The nurse clearly didn't believe him, but she exited the room nonetheless.

He had slipped down the reclined mattress, leaving him in an uncomfortable contortion. Gaara clenched his teeth and fought against the pain, straining to pull himself further up into a sitting position. The white sheet fell down to his waist, exposing the scalpel in his right hand. The blood that was coagulated on the blade spread onto the bed, staining the sheet.

He could count on one hand the number of times he'd seen his own blood spilled.

"Gaara, what are you doing with this?" Lee chided, removing the scalpel from his fingers. He reached out and took Gaara's wrist, turning his hand over to make sure he hadn't cut himself with the dirty implement.

"I thought you were the Akatsuki, coming to kill me," Gaara admitted.

"And you planned to kill them with this? Where is your security?"

"Temari and Kankuro are the only ones I trust, right now. I sent them to get some sleep when the hospital staff changed shifts."

"You should not be here alone." Trying to be helpful, Lee placed a hand on Gaara's back and lifted him forward, tucking another pillow near the small of his back.

Finding it much easier to sit up, Gaara murmured "Thank you." He hesitated before asking, "Would you ask for a glass of water?"

Lee was on his feet in an instant. Unintentionally, Gaara realized he had started counting the number of seconds he was away. Twenty-eight seconds later, his companion reappeared, a plastic cup in his hand.

"The nurse says that you have not been cleared for food or drink, but I was able to convince her to give you some ice." Lee frowned, clearly unhappy that he wasn't able to get Gaara exactly what he wanted.

"Ice is fine," Gaara assured him. It was a white lie; he was grateful for anything, at this point. He reached his fingers into the cup as Lee offered it, and his fingertips grabbed ahold of the frozen water. After placing the ice into his mouth, he was stunned to realize that nothing had ever tasted this wonderful.

Finding it strange that Lee was standing beside him, he gestured to the foot of his bed, inviting him to take a seat. It hurt to shift his legs out of the way, but he did his best not to let it show. His monitor betrayed him, however, loudly declaring a two-beat increase. He tucked the ice cube inside his cheek as he mumbled, "I can't stand that thing." He moved his right hand to take the monitor off of the tip of his left index finger.

Lee's hand caught his before he could do so. "You need to leave that on for your health."

"My heart rate's normal. It has been since I was brought here. I don't need this machine beeping in my ear to tell me that." His words were severe, but the sound of ice clicking against his teeth made them almost humorous.

"You should be happy that it is beeping at all!" Lee snapped, his eyes suddenly strict.

Gaara was caught off guard by the sudden outburst. Lee's grip tightened on his hand. The kazekage's pale eyes were wide, and his lips were parted as though he was about to say something.

The beeping increased.

"I am sorry," Lee began, although his tone of voice was far from apologetic, "but you must understand." His shoulders shook. "To see your body… to know that you had died, that there was no way we could save you…" He sniffed and turned his head away, using his forearm to wipe his eyes. "I am just glad you are safe. I would not know what to do if I lost you."

He had stunned Gaara into silence. Up until this point, he was thinking about his own existence. How his body ached, how it felt to be pulled from that realm of peace. It was all so overwhelming that he hadn't realized how deep the pain he caused ran.

"I've been selfish," he admitted, looking past Lee and out the open window.

"Where I was, there wasn't pain. I wasn't suffering. I… saw my mother." Gaara frowned, his brow furrowing. "It was easy to forget why I needed to come back. In this place, I've been broken. I'm hollow now, with the demon missing. I don't know who I am if not the junchuuriki of the sand demon. Here, I'm lost, like I was when I was young."

"Do not say that!"

To his shame, Gaara jumped at the sudden increase in volume.

"If you think you are hollow without the One-tail, we shall fill that void!" Lee swore, leaning toward Gaara with his right hand clasped in a fist. "If you are in pain, we will work to heal you! And if you are lost, you have friends to guide you!"

It was uncanny how, no matter what he said, Lee was always able to turn it into something positive.

"You are Gaara of the Desert; that has not changed. You will see that coming back from that place is your destiny, and I will be with you every step of the way!"

For the second time that day, Gaara smiled. "Thank you."

"Do not thank me. Please, just stay here with me a while longer and forget that place."

Dawn had just begun to color the sky when Sakura returned to the hospital to check on her patient. To the dismay of her teammates, she had refused to leave until the kazekage was well enough to walk on his own. She'd insisted that they go on ahead several days ago, but Naruto was having none of it.

She refused to budge on the matter. She owed it to Lady Chiyo, after all. It would be her biggest disgrace if the Honored Grandmother had given her life in vain, all because Sakura wanted to return home just a little sooner.

She greeted the nurses on Gaara's floor before sanitizing her hands. Even though the kazekage had this particular wing to himself, one could never be too careful in a hospital environment. She grabbed Gaara's chart from the hook beside his door and let herself into the room. Her patient, to her surprise, was being more than a little unorthodox.

Gaara had placed himself as far to the right of the small hospital mattress as he possibly could. He lay on his back, his body still half-reclined. His head lolled to the left, his messy red hair covering his dark-rimmed eyes. It didn't look like he was awake.

Thankfully, he had managed to fall asleep while obediently following the instructions for his arm placement with the IV, keeping it palm-up and at rest by his side. His left arm, however, was stretched over his head and bent at the elbow. His forearm fell back over the top of the mattress, his hand with the heart rate monitor hanging limply. The increase shown in his range of motion was reassuring.

To his left, Lee slept like the dead. He lay on his right side, all arms and legs as he found just enough room for himself in the bed. His lanky frame had slid down the elevated section of the mattress, and his head rested against Gaara's chest, just below his heart. He was snoring, his mouth barely open. He'd managed to drool on the kazekage's hospital gown, a fact which he was sure to regret in embarrassment.

His feet stuck out off the bottom of the bed, extending out from his mid-calf. It was a wonder that he hadn't been dragged to the floor by his leg weights.

Making as little noise as she possibly could, Sakura examined the machines in the hospital room and wrote down Gaara's vitals. Everything seemed to be much more balanced. She was careful not to make the door click as she slipped out of the room. As she returned Gaara's chart to its hook, she decided that there wouldn't be any harm in delaying the kazekage's discharge by another day or so.