Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or any of its characters, merchandise, TV rights, ect… (I think you get the point.)

Summery

ONE SHOT – Sometimes our feelings aren't real, they're just the old habit we never learned to shake off. (Sasuke/Ino)

Like all of my work this is just something that happened to float through the empty void inside my head. Like it or hate it please R and R as honest opinions are always welcomed, as are random acts of worship.

Lamb: This is just a little thing that came to me, partly inspired by how much people, both pro and anti Ino, go on about her hugging Sasuke.

Muse: It was mostly down to the anti Ino crew though, we do love taking what they say and using it to write SasuIno fics.

Dedi: It our way of taking a little revenge on them. This fic is dedicated to kljjlkjlkj, because Lamb has been thinking a lot about her the past few days. So, kljjlkjlkj, this is for you.

Lamb: As always sorry for any bad spelling and if you feel the need to throw things at me please wait until I've hidden behind the sofa kay!

Muse: On with the fic!

Cause I know how it hurts,
When you lose the one you wanted,
Cause he's taken you for granted,
And everything you had got destroyed,

It's a little too late for you to come back,
Say its just a mistake,
Think I'd forgive you like that,
If you thought I would wait for you,
You thought wrong,

To Hold You

She had been a child the first time. Clumsy and a little awkward, and never really sure what to make of the strange warm feeling that bubbled within whenever he chanced to look her way. Her stomach would perform a series of little back flips and she would have to fight the compulsion to fidget under his gaze.

He was so pretty, the prettiest thing that she had ever seen. Perfect in every way, that was what both her heart and mind told her. And in that same childish mind he was already taking the staring roll in her every dream and fantasy. A white knight that could slay any and every dragon that tried to hold her captive.

And the first time she had hugged him, he had stiffened and firmly, yet gently, pushed her away. But he had smiled shyly at her action. An odd expression that mixed irritation, confusion and also a hint of happiness. It was the first time anyone who was not family had dared to invade his personal space, but he found he rather liked the intrusion.

He had smiled for the rest of the day, she for at lest the rest of the week. If not longer.

XXXXX

She didn't know what to do. In one night the whole world as she had known it had been irrefutable and irrevocably changed. All that she had known and believed in had been destroyed by the actions of one person. A person she had looked up to and admired. Someone who had been held up as a shining example of everything a shinobi should ever be.

He was still pretty when she looked at him, a strangely compelling contrast of dark and pale, and only made more beautiful by the sadness that surrounded him like a cloak. The pain he felt was so obvious even though it was evident he was already suppressing what he really felt. And though still too young to really know what he was doing his actions scared her because it felt as if she were loosing something.

The tears where there in his eyes, a telltale shimmer, but he refused to let them fall. Already so proud, so arrogant and so determined to prove that he didn't need anyone else. She didn't know what to do to help or even if there was anything she could do to help. All she knew was that even if only for a moment, she wanted to relieve a little of his pain if she possibly could.

Tentatively she wound her arms around him, but no sooner had she initiated the hug than he was roughly shoving her off.

XXXXX

They were the actions of a petty child, an act of vindictive spite, this she knew and yet she didn't hesitate. She knew that he didn't care for her and that he never would but that didn't stop her from leaping monkey like onto his back every time the opportunity presented its self.

His blond haired team-mate would laugh while he huffed and growled like a bad tempered bear and the kunoichi of their team hissed and spat like and ally cat. But she never cared, it was fun for her to entertain the one and infuriate the other.

And always in the scant moments before he pushed her off she could make believe that things hadn't really changed and that he hadn't changed into a stranger who was cold and distant. Someone who looked on her with little more than contempt.

She could pretend that he was still her knight in shining armour ready and willing to take on any monster that looked at his princess. It was a brief and fleeting dream, but it was hers while it lasted.

XXXXX

Looking back she would never no what it was that had called her out on that night. Or why it was that she had listened to the urgent and pleading voice that told her that no matter what she had to go. She had to be there at that spot and that nothing else mattered. And so she had gone, running through the dark streets with only the light of a quarter moon to light her path.

She had seen him as he sent her friend/rival tumbling headfirst into the deep darkness of unconsciousness. Her breath had been coming in harsh pants and had sounded rough and ragged in her ears as she had stumbled blindly out onto the road. He had turned dark eyes on her and she had quailed under a gaze that said she was little more than an insect.

Part of her had wanted to run and hide, ashamed of appearing before him looking like such a mess, with a flushed faced and sweat soaked skin. But it was over ruled be the part of her that still saw him as the young boy he had been all those years go. He gave her one last disgusted look before turning on his heel and starting off down the road. Panic filled her as she leapt after him, flinging her arms around him and she clung to him in desperation.

He didn't exactly push her away but he continued to walk off and it was a case of either let go or end up falling to the ground. She had no real choice, she let him go.

XXXXX

She didn't know how long she waited for him. But slowly, day by day, the idealistic child who had been obsessed with a boy who was too perfect to be real started to fade away. Impossible dreams morphed into attainable goals. She no longer worried about being prettier or thinner, now she was more focused of becoming stronger and faster. Becoming the best kunoichi she could be.

And there was no way to describe how it made her feel that first time when she once again dared to wrap her arms around a boy. When instead of pushing her away he had pulled her closer. It had been when the happy go lucky dobe had been about to leave on his three-year training trip but she hadn't wanted to let him go without saying goodbye first. He had laughed and told her not to be so silly, but he had hugged her back.

That had been the first time in so long that anyone apart from her father had held her, but by no means had it been the last. It had been wondrous almost as if she been finding herself all over again. She had missed so much because of the fear that he had instilled in her; the fear that no matter who it was that she tried to get close to they would always push her away. But they didn't.

Once again she learned how happy she could be just walking through the market square arm in arm with the rosette. The pleasure it gave her to hug in exuberant greeting friends who lived so far away and even if such welcomes made some of them feel uncomfortable they never pushed her away or told her to stop. It was the joy of human contact that she had been without for so long that she hadn't even noticed how much she had missed it.

She had given up so much for a boy who never cared, wasted so much of herself on someone who was undeserving. But now at last she had learned that it was far better to care for those who cared for her.

XXXXX

He couldn't understand what had gone wrong, could not fathom the reason behind her actions. It had been one of the few things that had sustained him during the long and lonely years. The memory of her. The silken brush of her hair against his cheek. The sweet, icy scent of her skin that was uniquely hers. And the warmth of her body press close to his as her arms wrapped almost possessively around him.

All those times he had allowed her to linger a while simply to save on the headache she would cause if he didn't before seeming to callously crush her dreams underfoot as he pushed her away. But it had never mattered because she always came back and he had never envisioned a time when she wouldn't. Years could pass and he had been so sure that she would run to him without hesitation.

But when his arms had encircled her she had violently shoved him away, her expression one of disgust as if his touch was some sort of violation.

"I love you, do you understand what this means?" The air between them felt heavy and thick as if some invisible, yet malevolent entity occupied the space. "Yamanaka Ino, I'm in love with you."

"No, no you're not." Her eyes were dull and empty as if she were already board with him and what he was saying.

"Don't try and tell me what I feel." He snapped a hint of fear beginning to tingle in the back of his mind because this was not how he had pictured her reaction. "If I say I love you then I do."

"Sasuke, you don't even know what love is." The tone of her voce was condescending and her look told him clearly how little she thought of him. How little she had thought of him?

"I came back for you, doesn't that mean anything to you?" He wanted it to mean something to her; it had to mean something to her because if it didn't then it would prove that nothing was how he had thought it to be.

"No. And that's the whole point isn't it." Her look called him pathetic and ignorant, mocked him for his lack of understanding. "It doesn't matter why you came back or who you came back for."

And the thing was it really didn't matter to her why he had come back. For a long time she had thought that it would, that when he did return he would change her world forever. But then she had grown up and put away her fairytale dreams of knights on white horses. She had learned that the world was often a cold and cruel place and that she didn't have time to squander her affections on those who were unworthy.

And when he had made to hug her she had realized that she really hadn't cared for a long time, she had just been going through the motions out of habit.

"Then what does matter?" He couldn't keep the desperation out of his voice. She was bringing the future that he had planed down around him and she was doing it with nothing more than a few simple words.

"You left." Though laughter lent a melodious lilt to her words he could tell she found little about the situation funny.

"But… but you love me." He said the words more to try and convince himself than her because it was already so obvious she would never again believe anything he told her.

"I loved the boy who left the village, but you?" She sighed softly and shook her head as if in sorrow, an action that set her hair dancing. "I don't even know who or what you even are."

She turned than and began slowly, yet surly to walk away from him and some sixth sense told him that it was a different type of departure to the one he had made. When he had left some part of him had remained and he had always known that one day he would come back. But there was finality to her steps the like of which he had never known and they told him in ways that defied explanation that she would not be coming back.

Not to him. Never again to him.

Lamb: I know it wasn't very SasuInoish but I've always wanted to write something like this because as much as I love the pairing I'm not sure Ino could ever forgive Sasuke for what he's done.

Muse: For all her bad points and character flaws the Yamanaka really does love The Leaf.

Dedi: That she does. And though she may care for him she isn't stupid enough to waste her life on a dream.

Please R and R I'd love to know what you thought.

Big love and inspiration

Lamanth