Pasts Revealed

"Ex... excuse me?" Rin stammered, not quite sure she understood what he was asking.

Gaara hadn't moved, his expression fixed on her. "I want you to stay here with me tonight, away from the eyes of the council. I'm sure you've heard they aren't pleased with the time it's taking for the jutsu to work."

She felt the familiar rebellion rise in her throat. "Yes, I was made painfully aware of that."

He gestured around the room. "So, let's stay here for the night. I already rearranged all my meetings and responsibilities to swing it."

"Well, that explains why Temari was so cross." Rin thought to herself.

She scanned her surroundings.

This was an area of true beauty and as far as relaxation went, she couldn't have thought of a better place to do so.

However, she got the distinct feeling Gaara was trying to distract her from something.

Placing her hand on his, she caught his eyes, so he couldn't hide from her. "Is that really why you brought me out here? So, I wouldn't feel pressured by the council about our work?"

He felt trapped in her gaze.

Even though it was a simple question, his heart pounded in his head. "Yes."

She narrowed her eyes, studying him.

He wanted to escape, wanted to run away from the inquisitive stare she held.

He was the Kazekage of the Sand; a man who fought legions of enemy ninja, his own reincarnated father, faced off with the Akatsuki and managed to rise to his rank, all on his own.

He felt comfortable saying he proved himself more than capable, yet when Rin Ito stared at him like that, it felt as if his knees would give out.

After a moment, she conceded and took a step back. "All right then, why don't you show me around this paradise of yours?"

He let out his held breath in one long exhale, watching her walk through the side door, a small flash of guilt gnawing at his insides.

He was hiding something from her, something vastly important, but he couldn't tell her quite yet.

Maybe after a while, but in that moment, he just wanted to enjoy what time he had left with her, as limited as it may be.

The unpleasant news could wait until tomorrow.

Rin stepped out onto the white sand of the oasis waters and inhaled the scent of palm trees. She didn't realize how much she missed the color green until it was stripped from her.

Removing her shoes, she carried them in one hand and wiggled her toes on the edge of lake. The water felt warm and the sand caressed her feet like a cozy blanket. If the rest of the desert was like this, she could maybe find herself enjoying it there.

Maybe.

Gaara came to the doorway, watching her step into the water and giggle at the fish sucking on her toe. He had them brought in a long time ago, trying to make this place sustainable, in case he ever needed to escape.

Rin held a childlike wonder that called to him.

She turned back and waved. "Come on! The water feels great!'

He stepped closer to the shoreline. "I'm glad you think so."

Rin tossed her shoes up on the bank and removed her overcoat, wearing a white undershirt, that made Gaara feel like he should look away.

She rolled up her pant legs and turned to him. "Aren't you coming in?"

"I um... I don't think so. You go ahead."

Rin put her hands on her hips, her voice taking on that clinical edge he came to know well. "Gaara, relaxation is equal parts fun as it is focus. Come on, now. Let yourself have a good time."

To his surprise, she completely gave up wading and dove in, head first.

It wasn't a very deep lake, probably no more than six feet, but she stayed under the water longer than he liked.

Gaara started to feel uneasy when she didn't automatically pop back up.

"Rin?"

Silence.

He took a step closer to the water and waited there. "Rin!"

Just as he was about to enter, she surfaced about five feet away from where she dove.

Waving an arm above her head, she exclaimed. "I touched the bottom! There are little shells down there! How did shells get here when the ocean is leagues away?"

Gaara sighed his relief. "I brought them in, last time I visited the Mist."

She made a motion like she couldn't hear him and he hesitated, looking down at the water.

He wanted to join her, but he hadn't been swimming since Yashamaru took him as a child. What if he didn't remember how?

As if sensing his hesitation, Rin swam back to the shoreline. "Are you coming in?"

His mind flittered through his options.

It's not as if he could drown, the sand would save him, but what if he looked foolish? This seemed like the opposite of relaxing to him.

"When was the last time you had fun? Real, honest fun?" Rin asked, still splashing in the shallows.

He couldn't remember.

Since he'd become Kazekage, every single day was filled with meetings, documents, inspections, battle plans, but the schedule never allowed "fun" to come into it.

While he was busy having an existential crisis, Rin stood up from the water and approached him.

Her hand came into his and, before he realized what was happening, her wet form was in front of him.

It took every scrap of his discipline not to look down. "What are you doing?"

She smiled her knowing smile, and gently led him into the water. "Just like our sessions at night, I'll be your guide to fun in the day."

When they were to their knees, she reached up to his red overcoat and started unbuttoning it.

"Rin..."

"You can't go swimming with all of this on. You'll sink right to the bottom."

"That's not what concerns me."

She shed his coat off and tossed it to the shore. "Then what is? Do you not know how to swim?"

Gaara shrugged. "I think I do."

"Then there's no problem. What? Afraid of taking your shirt off in front of me? I already gave you a massage, remember?"

"It's not that either."

"Then what is it?"

"I'm not sure. I just feel, strange."

Rin tilted her head, her hair wet and sticking to her shoulders.

After a moment, she closed the gap between them, her voice a low whisper. "Like with everything else in our friendship, what you want me to see, is what I will see. If you don't want to do this, that's fine, but if you can trust me, I won't fail you. Let me show you how good life can be."

He felt hypnotized by her voice.

She held such confidence in her words, so much more than anything he knew.

With no knowledge that he was moving; Rin held his hand in hers and slowly led him into the water.

It felt great.

The warm breeze trickled over the lake, making small ripples in the otherwise smooth surface. Tiny fish explored each step they took and nibbled at whatever they unearthed in the sand.

Gaara felt the weightlessness of the lake over take him and before he knew it, he was swimming alongside Rin, with long, graceful strokes.

She let go of his hand and started to swim circles around him. "There we go. Nice, right?"

"Yes."

With a big kick, she shot away and spun a few times. "I love the water so much."

He struggled to keep up with her, but managed, his muscles remembering how to move with the flow of the water. "Why is that?"

Rin floated on her back, the afternoon sun beaming down on her form. "It was one of my favorite things from home."

Gaara treaded beside her. "I know very little about the Sound. Even as a Kage, its unforged territory. Tell me about where you grew up."

She glanced in his direction, but remained silent.

Gaara waited. "It's only fair. You've had a front row seat to my past every night."

Rin sighed and drew her arms up and down like butterfly wings, gliding through the water. "It's not that I mind you knowing, it's just different than most people's childhoods."

He scoffed. "Like I wouldn't understand that?"

She stopped stroking and laughed. "You're right. I forgot who I was talking to. This way."

Rin led him over to one of the pillars that held up the walkway and clung onto it.

"Well, the strangest thing for people to understand, is that I grew up in a laboratory setting. My family and I, well, we aren't traditional, to say the least. None of us were born the normal way."

Gaara held onto the other side of the pole, memorizing her features, as he processed what she was implying. "You don't have a mother or father?"

"No, I do, just not in the same way you do."

"That doesn't make any sense."

Rin sighed. "I know it doesn't. I have DNA from a male and a female, but I wasn't birthed like a normal baby. In fact, I wasn't a baby at all."

Gaara's mouth dropped. "You were made as an adult?"

"A teenager, but close enough."

"How old are you?"

Rin giggled, her face turning bright red. "Well that's a rude question to ask a lady."

"I'm sorry."

She brushed him off. "Don't be, it's fine. There was a time, before the Great War, that the Sound was interested in producing superior ninja through experimentation. One of the reasons why Orochimaru was considered so taboo, was because of his fascination with playing God and creating stronger, more advanced bodies. I'm one of those experiments."

Gaara remained silent, so she proceeded. "But that's all in the past. Now, the Sound is just as interested in growing like any normal village. Not all of us were born in a lab and we're having regular families popping up right and left. I live with a few of the other lab-born and we have a home, our own jobs, our favorite things to do and eat. We're a family."

The Kazekage considered this, seeing her in a new light. "Is that why you're able to perform the Sleepwalker Jutsu and no one else can?"

"No one, besides my mother, yes."

"And, where is she?"

Rin swished her legs back and forth in the water. "On a research mission right now. Left right around the same time I did, so no one is manning the shop right now."

"What's she like?"

"Pretty much a slightly older version of me. I was made from her DNA, so have her jutsu and my own personality. She's more like a mentor to me."

"Will you age normally?"

"I think so."

Gaara thought for a moment. "Will you die someday?"

"Obviously. I'm not immortal."

He nodded to himself.

Rin studied his face. "Is this all too weird for you? I figured if anyone could understand being born different..."

"No, it's not too weird. It's just interesting. You're interesting."

Rin smiled. "I'll take interesting. Ready to head back in? The sun is setting."

Gaara looked up at the sky and sighed. "Yes, I suppose it is."

She curled around the post and closed the distance between them. "I want you to know, you handled that really well. It's a lot to take in and I appreciate your calmness about it. It feels nice to share with a friend."

He was just about to comment, when she placed her hand on his shoulder and brought her lips to his cheek.

The sensation spread through him like electricity, jolting up and down his limbs and making his fingertips feel tingly.

He raised a hand to his cheek and brushed it where her kiss had been. "Interesting."

Rin kicked off the pole and started swimming back to shore.

He followed, trying to regain his voice. "You didn't explain why you like water so much."

She turned over and swam on her back. "Oh, right. So, there's this river outside my home. It's not all that fast moving and it stretches from one end of the village, all the way to the other side. I used to practice my jutsu all night, but then be exhausted for days afterwards. It's difficult to walk into the mind of others, your chakra control has to be superior at all times. In the beginning, whenever I so much as passed one of my clients, I'd have flashes of their past assaulting me, no matter where I was."

Gaara stopped stroking and stared at her. "You could read minds?"

She laughed and splashed him with her foot. "No, silly, no one can do that just by passing someone. It was my own chakra fighting with theirs. When I mind-meld with someone, a little piece of myself stays with them. It was scary and noisy all the time. Then, I found the river was the only quiet place in the entire village. I'd dive deep down in the water and float away in the silence."

He thought about what she said and the image of a younger Rin escaping into the river every night, made his heart ache.

He knew a little about hiding away from his village, as well.

When they made it to the shoreline, Rin rose out of the water, her white shirt tight and see-through around her.

Gaara remained in the shallows, transfixed on how the now setting sun casted orange on her feminine frame, like firelight.

She stretched her arms above her head and smiled at him. "Ready to go inside and start our session?"

"Yes."

She bent down and retrieved her overcoat. "Another good thing about the water, is it wears you out when you've been swimming a while. I think we'll have a very successful casting. Hope you aren't too tired for me?"

Gaara swallowed, trying hard not to stare at the way she moved. "Never."