Summary: Because Shikamaru would do it a million times over, just for her.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Note: I lost my entire Oblivion game. Thirty eight to six. This damn well sucks. On the other hand, it means I have finally managed to concentrate on something rather than being distracted a whole lot. Catch 22, or something like that I suppose. Also, I figured we never really see much of a very child-like child Shikamaru because we assume that he's always acted middle-aged. But really, with Chouji in the flashbacks he seems quite childish. Hence this came out of my brain when I saw the prompt.

Now exploding out Theme Twenty-Five: Fence.

Honey

The Child

At five years old, Shikamaru didn't find girls pretty.

They had all kinds of nasty germs, even if his brain couldn't explain their lack of physical manifestation. They had too, because Chouji said that Naruto and Kiba told him so, and Shikamaru could never find it in his young heart to not believe his best friend. But even so, there was a nagging doubt. The boys were the unclean ones who were rough and crude, apart from him really. His mother made sure he washed more than slept, and was certainly the one to nearly half frighten him to death over picking scabs from cuts. The girls always smelled like flowers and were really gentle, apart from one he'd seen in his class. But he didn't even know her name, really, and he'd decided he didn't want to.

But then it happened. That little girl who he found icky and thought must have had the nastiest germs was just sitting behind the fence of the house down the road from his, and she was fixing something. He didn't really understand how she was doing it, because he didn't know about how medics healed things then. But there was a soft green glow coming from her hands, and her face was forced into concentration. To no avail. But even so, that was the girl from his class and she wasn't using chakra in a way he knew about then. She was doing something strange, and he didn't understand it at all. He didn't like it. But it didn't stop him.

"Magic." He whispered. He knelt down by the fence, and saw that her eyes were beginning to fill with tears. He'd seen her friend like that the other week, the one with the pink hair who wasn't as popular as her. He found it funny, how even though everyone loved her he didn't even care about her. He didn't understand why she was so good. She was always playing rough with the guys when they played rough with her, and her thin pale knees were always covered in dirt or blood and torn skin where she had scraped them. Her short blonde hair was always in an unruly mess and flicked back in the wind, and she had slender limbs that stuck out like gangly sticks. Then her eyes. They were always too blue, too sharp, too knowing for what they should have been. He didn't trust her at all. Just like he didn't trust fairytales, because they were full of rubbish and weren't true. But she was doing magic right then.

"Daddy said I can fix this if I try, but it's not magic. He said if I can, then he'll teach me how to read people's minds after my birthday." She replied blankly, not even looking up. She didn't even seem to care who he was, but that was fine. Even so, she was lying, because it had to be magic and he didn't know what else it could be. Fairytales weren't supposed to lie.

"Are you a fairy?" He asked breathlessly. It was only then that she stopped and looked up, staring at him as if he truly were insane. A grin lit up her face, and although he didn't think girls were pretty (because they were nasty, especially this one) he had to admit being kept apart by a few planks of wood was something he didn't like. He wanted to be closer to her, and he wanted to see her smile again because it made him feel really happy too. It was then that she laughed straight in his face, as if it was the funniest thing she had ever heard.

"No. You go to the academy, right? You can do it too." She told him, and suddenly snaked her small thin hand through the gaps of the picket fence. He looked at it, and hesitated. Girls were germy. But she wasn't just a girl, even if he didn't know her. She was something else entirely, if she knew how to do magic. If she could help him do it too. He reached out his hand warily, and took her outstretched one. She moved it over the bird. Then Shikamaru had to stop himself from gasping. Out of his hand poured the same green magic, and a feeling of warmth and tiredness began to surge through his body.

"Make it stop." He pleaded. She released his hand and the animal sprung to life as he moved it quickly away, retreating back though the hole where the space between them seemed empty and like nothing. He didn't like the magic. It felt like chakra, and chakra was supposed to be blue. It said that on his diagrams in his books. Unless it was chakra, and it was just something he didn't understand? He doubted it. In his five year old mind, he knew everything and that wasn't chakra. It was bad magic; she had to be a witch. He swallowed.

"Have you never used chakra before, Shikamaru?" She asked, seeming amused. He almost choked. She knew his name, and he'd never told her it. Why would she know him? He wasn't one of the really almost-famous kids like she was. He was the underdog, the guy nobody knew, the unpopular lazy guy who hung out with a dog boy, a loser of a prankster and a chubby kid. He didn't like it at all when she said that, with that sparkle in her eyes.

"Witch." He summarised, before turning on heel and running from the laughing girl. What was he to know about medical ninjutsu then, and the way his father had a library of ingredients preserved for use in that exact field that had been passed down for generations? He'd never of guessed that their fathers were best friends either, or that her father had learnt the basics from his own old man and tried to get his princess ahead of everybody else in their class. He hadn't even known her name. Her name, who she was, the thing that gave her a label of life when the hospital had delivered her. Her silly name, of all things. But for a witch, she was pretty. It was then he decided he was going to stay away from pretty girls, and marry an average one because she was scary and could do things he didn't understand. That, and just maybe, all pretty girls were witches.

Children always think that they know best.

At twelve years old, Nara Shikamaru learnt her name.

He'd long forgotten the incident where they finally talked to one another and he'd embarrassed himself, but even then if he had remembered it he doubted it would have stopped fate. Some things, no matter what Neji's changed mantra proclaimed, were meant to happen. Otherwise she wouldn't have seated herself next to him on their final day before thinking it though after her fight with her ex-best friend, she wouldn't have been put on his team and he would never even know her.

In many ways, he still didn't. He knew that she was pretty and that for that reason he didn't like her at all. He couldn't remember why, but something at the back of his mind told him that he had decided he liked average girls a long time ago for some reason or the other. Because just as he liked to think, pretty girls were never nice he supposed. That golden rule of his was exceptionally true for her, seeing as she supported mean like it was the new pink of girl fashion. It was obvious enough that she would still fight for Sasuke with that other girl so she liked him clearly; she liked cherry tomatoes, and that she most definitely didn't care for him as anything other than a team mate.

Her name was Yamanaka Ino. That was what he knew. Because he was sure he was even wrong about those little things. Sure, she was pretty. But she rarely mentioned Sasuke anymore, she accepted Chouji's offer of a few chips from the rarely-shared packets he kept on him although she whined about it ruining her diet and she cared about them really. She was mean for that very reason. Her father had told Shikaku that in her own strange way, being critical was the way she helped people. It had been for a long time, since the day her only real friend chose a boy over her – not that Inoichi said that. He couldn't have known like Shikamaru did. The thing about knowing those little things about her was that they amounted to a lot, but even so they never really explained everything about her.

"Shikamaru, what's your favourite thing?" She asked sitting on her garden fence that year, when they were celebrating his passing of the chunin exams. Although he found it hard to like her at times and her questions were often cryptic or blunt (as well as loud and shouted, troublesomely) he couldn't stop himself from answering. Something seemed to have changed about her, in the way she wanted to know more about him. She rarely enquired. She was always there to listen and to soothe and sort, but she never asked to know more. In a way, he supposed it was her version of whatever quiet preservation she possessed. In another way, he didn't think it was that at all and it was just that she was scared to find out what they were really like in case they turned on her like other people had in the past.

"Sleep." He answered without much emotion. Asuma laughed, clapping him on the back, the same as ever. Chouji seemed to expect the answer. Ino nodded. He could normally not deny her a thing, but he supposed the real answer wasn't really one he could say. Because as much as he told himself that he didn't really like her, despite being on the same team and the same with their fathers' fathers and so on and so forth, he couldn't really ever bring himself to mean it at all. His honest answer said that.

You. It should have been you, Ino. If Asuma or Chouji noticed his lie, they said nothing and just continued their walk home whilst he said he wanted to say hello to her father for a little while and pass on a message from his own. It wasn't at all truthful because he knew their fathers were out drinking together (Chouji and Ino probably knew it too) but still, nobody said a word. Especially not him. Because she was, and he doubted he would ever be able to put that into words. She was just too pretty for him to get them out. He came back to thought when she slid over the other side of the picket fence, then gave him a smile that almost stunned him with it's sheer beauty of simplicity. No gloss that day, he had noticed. She'd finally listened to what he said about her makeup overdoses. It made her even prettier though, so it made him wonder why he'd mentioned it and her dieting in the first place.

"Shikamaru, when you finally grow up, come back to this fence." She told him, and turned her back to him before charging towards her house. Yet she apparently thought he was the childish one. Well, he felt old if that counted for anything. His first kill was a guy more than twice his age. He had plunged a knife she had bought him (because he was too lazy to buy anything for himself) straight through his eye socket, and whilst the man had writhed in pain he'd pinned him with his shadows and watched him bleed to death. It hadn't remotely haunted him afterwards, because he'd never seen it as murder. The guy was going to kill his best friend. The guy was going to kill his teacher. The guy was going to kill Ino. He'd made sure that he never had a chance, and Ino was safe. That was all that mattered.

On top of that he liked fermented soy beans, soft fruits like dried out apricots and spent a lot of his life sleeping. He didn't see how that didn't make him old. But Ino clearly did. It wasn't about his actions, he'd thought then. It was about his mentality. He had to be correct, seeing as he couldn't even say a few words to her. So he sat down next to the fence he had a feeling he should start calling 'The Great Gulf' because it was keeping them apart, leant his back against it and smacked his hand into his forehead. Idiot, he told himself. You absolute idiotic child, being able to die for your country and not tell a girl you just might like her a little bit.

Because over the other side of the fence where they had first spoken, she was probably sitting in her room and thinking of a hundred more guys who would take her. Ones that weren't him. Ones that didn't act like children and hold their tongues and hide behind shadows and lies. With that in mind, he stood up and kicked one of the fence pegs down in a swift, well-aimed and powerful kick. The wood of the picket fence snapped beneath the force, and he knew he'd have to pay Inoichi for it later but he didn't really care right then. It was all down to that thing, he told himself. A simple wooden fence stopping him from getting near her. Like a child sitting outside an impenetrable fort. But forts were supposed to be fought against. The walls were built in order to protect, they were made to be crumbled down. By men, that was.

The overgrown child sat down again, and mourned. He knew her name. He knew what she liked, what she wanted. It was like the unrequited love of a stubborn eight year old that he was going to make her suffer for by stealing the odd kunai or pinching her as she sat on the swings with her supposed friends grinning like a lunatic. But still, it eluded him. Whatever Yamanaka Ino quite essentially was and why she made him act so childish. He kidded himself by whispering monster over and over until the word rung in his ears.

Children are always stubborn.

At sixteen years old, Shikamaru fell in love with her.

Sure, it wasn't love in the conventional sense. He still couldn't say a word to her, and neither of them brought up the incident four years previously where his crush of sorts had been shot down by his own childishness but he told himself she had to know. Everyone loved her, just as they always had. It was hard not to. The previous year she had started to wear clothing that was a little too showy, and it revealed what she had hidden under bandages all those years and made his mouth dry up on thought, let alone sight. Their first training session where she was wearing that, it had to be said, was a little too distracting.

She had to notice it. Because he saw Chouji staring when she wasn't looking and he thought Shikamaru wasn't either. He saw Naruto look at his team mate's friend with some sort of face-smacked stare as though he had just read one of the novels Kakashi left to him. He saw Kiba staring at the creamy skin of her exposed stomach, and then have the decency to turn bright red when she raised an eyebrow and winked jokingly at him. She knew what she did, and she knew that she did it damn well. She had to know she was doing it to him on top of everyone else; because he was only human and just as male as the rest of the guys she seduced with that daring ensemble, her bright smile and her big blue eyes which she batted the lashes of very slowly and deliberately to catch even more attention. She knew she was a heartbreaker.

"Ino, grow up!" His words spilled out in a shout, hot and red with anger as he stared at her with charcoal dark eyes. The brown warmth was gone, and it was wrong. She looked upset. But Ino was good at masking things. It was her job. She hid all her lies and ugliness under a pretty face, all for the sake of her country supposedly. Sometimes, he just thought that it was that she found it easier that way instead. Because lying to yourself was better than telling the truth you didn't want to exist if it kept you remotely sane.

"Oh, so it's me who needs to grow up?" She screamed back, the natural heat she emitted gone. It was her job, he told himself. It was her job and he was getting way out of line. But he couldn't do it. He couldn't sit and watch her trick the entire vincity, not even once more. She was being used for her face. None of them treated her tenderly, whispered soft words to her or caressed her cheek as she slept. None of them listened to her breathing; none of them could take her at her worst. All they saw was the pretty face, and the weapon before they realised it was too late. Neither did he. But he loved her, he reasoned. That was enough.

"I hate these missions! I hate it when you do this! I hate that you won't give them up!" He shouted back furiously, and kicked the table next to him. The shouji pieces fell to the floor, scattering madly as though they were trying to run away from the thunder of their argument. He saw a flicker of change in her face before it contorted with rage once more, overtaking her softer compassionate emotions with the pure white fire of her fury.

"Well, what else can I do? You know I can't use long-range techniques most of the time, so I'm pretty much useless otherwise. Tell me, Shikamaru, how I can possibly do anything else?" She asked fiercely, her cheeks shining a bright red as she flicked back her fringe in agitation. Shikamaru blinked, shocked a moment. He'd never really thought of it like that. Her long-range techniques were the powerful ones that did damage. Close-range, what else could she use but mess-creating knives and fast-acting poisons? Her face. Or she could have relied on him, not that she'd want to. But he fought to find an answer anyway, anything that said otherwise. He shook his head at her with a sarcastic grin on his lips.

"You find a way. Summoning, swords, anything. Just not this." He replied, bending down to quietly pick up the pieces. His voice was lowered once more, but he doubted it would stay that way. Ino had fits when he was angry and she actually had (for once) done nothing wrong, and he couldn't say he blamed her but even so he couldn't help but be annoyed. If she spent more time on finding an animal or something like that then she wouldn't need to spend so much time in front of the mirror. But even so, Ino was vain beyond reasonable belief at times.

"That's rubbish, and you know it is." She snorted, turning her back on him. He could see from that little noise why Sakura still called her pig. Unless it was referring to her pig-headedness. He smiled at his own silent joke, trying not to laugh as she made her way towards the bathroom. She didn't close the door behind herself, as all she went in there for was to look in the mirror. He saw her examine herself, noticing the miniscule flaws of a too-thick eyelash and a lack of glossy lips which she quickly rectified.

"You know, your reflection is awfully pretty. It's a shame the same thing can't be said about a childish idiot like you." He snapped. She turned and threw the mascara tube at him, and it hit him square in the forehead. It was only then he saw her blinking back tears. Before he could say anything, she had already stormed out. He guessed he was going back to Konoha alone, and he could guess where he would find her when he got there. In a bar, drowning her sorrows. Or down some back-alley with Kiba or someone like that. Anywhere she received some cheap gift of joy.

Instead, when he returned home, he didn't find her anywhere like that. He searched the numerous stints in the slums where she could buy her cheapest drinks, found Kiba and Naruto without her and Kiba suspiciously still wearing his jacket, and she wasn't anywhere else hw could think of. It was only when he gave up that he actually unintentionally found her, back against the picket fence of her garden and curled into a ball as he walked past.

"Ino." He said her name softly. She didn't react, except pushing her head further into her knees. A pool of pale blonde hair shimmered under the moonlight as she moved, betraying the fact that she wanted to hide from him even more. Her hands were tightened curtly around her knees. She was shaking. The most terrifying thing was that he had been the person to do that to her. Reduce her to a quivering mess of used-up smiles and prettiness.

"I met you here once, Shikamaru. You called me a witch." She whispered. Her voice was cracking. He sat down with his back leaned against the other side of the fence, so their covered skin touched with a rustle of fabric. He didn't know what she was talking about at all. Even if he had, he wasn't sure he wanted to know. Sure, there was that mess when they were twelve but she never mentioned that. Neither of them did. Then, it was just a stupid crush. Now it was more, and he was scared. But he'd never said that to her. Not then.

"I didn't." He replied dryly. He felt her shake her head in defiance, to tell him he was wrong. But he couldn't be. Because he was never wrong, he was always right and always making sure that she didn't do anything bad. He always protected her. When he upset her, it was by mistake. Never intentional. But even so, things never went according to plan and she was right once in a while about the little things. A lump caught in his throat at the thought.

"We were young. Do you still think I'm that ugly now?" Neither of them would ever know the answer, really. He hadn't said it because he thought she was ugly, but neither of them knew that. Shikamaru didn't even remember in the slightest, what had happened all that time ago. The Yamanaka memory had a tendency to remember more than average. Sometimes, that was what led to their downfall. He stood up quickly, and looked at the gulf between them. Really, that fence wasn't all that big. It never had been. With that thought, he stepped over it and sat next to her without a single complaint coming to mind.

"You've never been ugly. I've just always been childish." He said. She looked up, fresh tears leaving silvery trails on her cheeks. Ino didn't even seem to think about her next words.

"Yeah, I don't know why I love you." The words hung in the air quietly. She noticed what had slipped from her mouth with dawning horror. Her eyes expanded into a look of shock, her mouth slid open slightly and she raised a hand quickly as though if she covered her lips the words would crawl back in or possibly that way it would be like they never escaped. She stood up, her legs touching the back of the fence and stared. He looked at her, equally as spellbound by something she had never meant to say. She'd fallen in love with a man who acted like a child, who upset her because his love was thought to be unrequited.

But those words weren't skinned knees or cuts from prickly bushes they had hidden in whilst playing games. They were far more painful, far more adult, and far more forcing of that idea that he needed to grow up and take control of his life. He raised himself from the ground, and looked down at her. She was so little. So flimsy. So child-like. He was like that too, metaphorically speaking. He was the one hiding behind others and using childish words. But it was time to give that up. It was time to let go of childhood.

"I love you too." He grabbed her arms, and then kissed her. Children learn to grow up, sometimes. They do it for many reasons. For family, to protect others, to show that they can do just what anybody older than them can. Sometimes it is forced. In his case, it wasn't. Because Shikamaru would do it a million times over, just for her.

His reason was love.

Look, look! It isn't angst-filled! I do not want to grow up, though. I want to live in the pokemon world. It would make things that much easier. Also, not a lot of Chouji in this one. Any recommendations for stories about the big sexy will be much loved, he puts the awesome in threesome.

Reviews are loved. :)