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

Summery

Drabble Collection – For better or for worse, no matter what, my girl will always come first. (Ino/Temari) (Friendship)

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.

"Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished and persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot."

Lean on me, when you're not strong,
And I'll be your friend,
I'll help you carry on,
For it won't be long,
'Til I'm gonna need,
Somebody to lean on,

Friends: Have never seen you cry.

Best Friends: Won't tell everyone else you cried... just laugh about it with you in private when you're not down any more.

Ino sat on the bed next to her friend and handed her another tissue from the box on her bedside table.

Snuffling and trying vainly to blink back the tears that continued to fall, Temari lent her head on the leaf shinobi's shoulder. She felt pathetic for letting her emotions get the better of her like this. Stupid for the way she could not stop the hiccuping sobs that were shaking her from her head to her toes. She was meant to be better than this, independent and strong willed and yet here she was weeping like a silly little girl.

If you were to ask just about anyone about the sand kunoichi, Sabaku no Temari, you would be told about a tough kick ass female who could hold her own in any fight and would never back down no matter how much the odds were stacked against her. They would talk about the quick thinking, quick-tempered and quick-witted sister of the Kazekage. Suna's mistress of wind was always in control of whatever situation she found herself in. She was ruthless, vicious and had a heart of stone.

Qualities that all added up to make the perfect kunoichi.

But Yamanaka Ino knew better. She knew that Temari wasn't as tough as she liked to make people think. Ino had seen first hand how the navy-eyed female had almost ripped herself apart from the inside out trying to keep her family together. How the pressure to always be the strong one, the one in charge, the older sibling was slowly but surely taking its toll. People always saw Temari as the girl who would always be standing tall, but Ino knew that if those same people didn't let the sand shinobi bend than one day she would eventually brake.

And now she had.

Her beautiful, brave wind princess was seated beside her, tears streaking her face as she buried her head in Ino's shoulder. But the leaf kunoichi didn't mind in the least. It was what she had signed up for, they were best friends and that meant that they would support each other no matter what. Be best friends, soul mates, sisters in every way except blood meant that they would always be there for each other. It didn't mean being just being around when the going was good and heading for the hills when things started to fall apart.

Though it all, there for the best times and there for the worst ones as well. When it had been she on the verge of a breakdown it had been Temari who had come to her rescue so she would be damned if she would let anyone else save her friend. People had been so impressed by how well she had dealt with the betrayal of Uchiha Sasuke, how strong an in-control she had remained. But they had all been wrong. The only reason she hadn't fallen apart was because Temari had been there to hold her up. Only the Suna blonde knew how dark that time had really been for her.

It had only been Temari who had been able to see behind the mask that she wore, to look past the confident smile and see the truth. That Ino was braking apart from the inside out. To the whole of The Hidden Leaf Village the Yamanaka had seemed to be one of the Rookie Nine who coped best with the betrayal of the Uchiha and she became a support for those of her friends who didn't know how to deal with Sasuke's actions. But the Suna kunoichi had seen past the façade of the confident young woman and seen the broken child underneath.

It seemed fitting in a strange way to Ino that as it was Temari who had supported through her darkest time it was only right that it was she who should be there when the rolls were reversed. So many times they had laughed and joked about the fact that there never would be a fairytale prince for either of them. No handsome boy on a great white horse was going to charge in and rescue them. But it was all right because they would always be there to rescue one another.

It was why Yamanaka Ino was probably the only person alive who had ever seen the proud and beautiful Sabaku no Temari brake down and cry. But that was a secret the mind walking kunoichi would take to the grave. Her own and other peoples too if she had to.

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

Big love and inspiration

Lamanth