Okay, so I finally get around to updating. I'm really sorry about the wait. As I stated before in the header of the last chapter, the fic was going off in directions that the manga wasn't going in and I had to sit down and sort of plan things out slightly. That and I sort of got lazy in the 'grumble, stupid manga grumble' sort of way. Anyway, I hope this is a decent read for you all. There might be a bit of a wait between this and the next chapter, as we're going to be going into a whole new stage of life for the girls and… I didn't plan as much as I was hoping. :P

Enjoy.

You Live, You Learn

"Come on, Shikamaru. Just a little bit?"

She'd been sitting there for at least an hour trying to get her friend to just eat something. They were in his room with her on his floor, and him lying on his bed, his back to her. This was the third day in a row that she had visited, and she was getting the same results. All she was trying to do was get him to stir, to do something other than just lie there. But no matter what she did, it wasn't working.

Today, though, his habit of ignoring her presence was hurting more than the previous days. She had taken the time to make him lunch and took care to make sure it was edible. It meant a lot of patience she didn't have, but she did it for him. And he was ignoring it. She was really beginning to get upset. She was certain that if this was happening under any other circumstance, she would've thrown the food at him and stormed off by now. But she was still too emotionally exhausted to do much of anything but scowl sourly at his back.

Setting the bowl back down, she sighed and shook her head. The food was likely cold by now, and wouldn't be very good eating. She had to ask for help on cooking the meat… hell, she had to ask for help in cooking it all. And now, it was going to go to waste. She sighed again before she stood up, moving to sit on the edge of her friend's bed. Leaning her head back, she looked to see if he was awake. His eyes were open, and staring at the wall, but she was pretty sure he wasn't really looking at much of anything.

"Shikamaru." She half wondered if she actually needed to get cross. Maybe she had to get reinforcements. Kiba didn't live too far away, so she had heard, so she could go get him, and he could sit on the boy and she can stuff food down his throat. But the plan sounded so tiring that she gave it up before she even found the inclination to get up.

"Please Shikamaru, just a little bit of food?" She reached down, picking up the discarded bowl and chopsticks. "Your mom says you haven't eaten in a couple of days." She was getting worried.

A grunt finally came from the boy, and Ino was positively elated. It was the first real reaction she had gotten from him since she started, and she waited on baited breath for something to follow. It wasn't what she had hoped, which was for him to sit up and grudgingly take the bowl from her and eat, but it was something. He rolled over onto his back, and peered down at her. For a long time he stayed like that and Ino got the suspicion that this was the first time he had really realized she'd been sitting there all of this time.

"Go away," he finally said at length, letting out a suffering sigh and rolling back onto his side.

Ino was beside herself at that. Of all the things… but then, she shouldn't have been too surprised. She tilted her head up slightly, as she often did when she was being told to do something she didn't like, and calmly said, "No." While she didn't leave as he ordered, she did set the food down, figuring it'd be a lost cause to get him to eat. Glancing his way again, her lips pulled thin while she tried to figure out what to do with him. She half expected him to argue with her, but he just gave another one of those sighs and apparently went back to pretending she didn't exist.

"You know, Shikamaru," Ino began quietly, looking at her hands. "Running yourself down like this isn't going to do anyone any good." Of course, she wasn't sure if preaching at him was entirely the best answer either, but she had to try something at this point. She was just feeling so helpless. Nobody was able to get through to the boy, apparently. Not Asuma-sensei, Godaime-sama, his own mother… She glanced over to him to see if he was giving any indication that he was listening to her. For the most part, he didn't seem to be displaying any evidence that he was aware of her talking, but she thought she had noticed the way his eyes were closed tightly, as if he was trying to will her to go away.

Tilting her head, she frowned a bit. "I mean, I really don't think Chouji would want you beating yourself up like this," she continued, and there was a sound from the boy next to her. Good, he's listening. Ino thought for a moment, trying to figure out if she should continue. The fact that this was the most response she had gotten from him in a long while was encouraging, but she couldn't help but think about his feelings. He was already in enough of a depression as it was. Would she be helping, or just making things worse?

"Chouji would probably be upset you're letting good food go to waste," Ino commented with feigned casualness. She hoped it would hide the cautious tone in her voice.

Shikamaru finally rolled onto his back, and then sat up. His hair-tie was somehow still in his hair, but only hanging from a small portion of it. The rest of it was tossed about in every which direction giving him a slightly wild cast to his worn and weary appearance. "Chouji is dead." He said after staring at Ino for a long moment. Ino interpreted it as 'I don't care'.

Pulling her lips thin, she gave a slight nod. "I know he is, Shikamaru." She took a deep breath, finding she couldn't look him in the eyes while she talked. "B-but that doesn't mean that he wouldn't be upset at wasted food." She inwardly winced at how pathetic she was sounding. She could pull this off if he wasn't looking at her so intently. As if he was trying to pull her apart while she sat there fidgeting and fumbling over the words that needed to be said.

She waited a moment or two, but was thankful when he didn't lay back down. He was still staring at her, brows pulled down in a sharp angle over his eyes. Her fingers pulled at the wrinkles in her pants, and she finally found the courage to look at him. "You're not doing anyone any good by sitting here like this."

For a moment, Ino thought he wasn't going to reply to her, but then finally, he gave a sound in the back of the throat, and retorted, "So?"

She blinked and was taken aback. "What do you mean 'so'?"

His fingers curled against his blanket, and in the back of her mind, Ino thought that was a good response, even if she might not like what was going to be said. Angry was better than moping and doing nothing, in her opinion.

"I mean, it doesn't matter," he spat back at her as an answer. He turned, as if to lay back down, but he stopped mid twist. His eyes lifted to look at her again. "It doesn't matter. Chouji's dead. He died on my mission… my order…"

At hearing something being mumbled about how he shouldn't have left him, Ino huffed slightly. "Should've, could've, would've." It was said with a strength she didn't know she was feeling. He was looking at her oddly. The expression would be considered blank if it wasn't coming from Shikamaru. As lazy as he was, Ino knew he was always thinking.

"All our lives, we go about second-guessing what we've done. Hindsight is twenty-twenty." She continued to regard Shikamaru, trying so hard not to flinch. "You couldn't have known, exactly, how things would turn out."

He went to protest, but Ino cut him off. "I heard what happened. Kiba was probably the most conscious out of all of you, outside of you. He told me the circumstances. You had a mission to accomplish. In order for that mission to have a chance at succeeding, decisions had to be made." Her hands folded in her lap, and she continued, "If all five of you remained with Chouji, to deal with his opponent, then you wouldn't have been able to pursue the rest. Chouji realized this, and so did the others. Even you realized this and you agreed with him. By his staying there he gave you the time you needed to catch up with Sasuke. It wasn't just your decision. You didn't make Chouji stay."

For a moment, it looked as if Shikamaru was going to bark at her, to shoot down what she was saying, but he was simply quietly. His posture and expression relaxed into something more thoughtful, then it became regretful. "But it didn't matter in the long run. Sasuke still got away, and Chouji is…"

"But it does matter. You fulfilled the mission to the best of your capabilities. Yes, it was a failure, but only because the objective itself wasn't completed." Ino stood then, and sighed quietly. "You're a shinobi, Shikamaru. These things are going to happen. You're going to have failed missions, and you're going to lose the people you care about on them." She looked over her shoulder and gave him a stern look. "You're completely disrespecting the sacrifices Chouji and Neji made."

Sighing, she reached down to begin picking up the food. She regarded it for a moment before she sat it on the desk. If he wanted it out of his room, he was going to have to do something with it himself.

He gave a grunt to get her attention, and when she turned around, he was giving her an odd expression. "You never had a mission like this, never lost anyone… why…"

"Why do I think I can give this sort of advice?" When Shikamaru nodded, she simply chuckled. "That's where your failure to understand women comes in." She could have laughed at the puzzled look he gave her, but she didn't.

"Being women, we're expected to be wives and mothers. If you're old fashioned, that means you stay at home and you tend to the family. Your husband is who goes out to earn the money." She frowns slightly here. "In a shinobi village, the fact that he might not come home alive is always the possibility. I learned a long time ago not to expect my Papa to always be able to come home. I'll have to do the same with my husband. And then with my children as they'll likely become shinobi too."

She reached out to pull the hair tie out of his hair, using that to ignore the almost constipated look of thoughtfulness Shikamaru was giving her. "Knowing that, you can accept the fact that people are going to die sooner than you'd like easier. It doesn't make it hurt any less, but you can at least accept it." Sitting on the edge of the bed, she reached out to pull him into a hug, "and you learn to appreciate those things while you have them."

"What?" He was confused by her last words, and by her actions, and when he turned his head to look at her, she was misty eyed.

"I miss him, I miss him a lot." She gave a small smile here, "But I'm thankful that I didn't lose both of you."

She stood up and moved towards the door. She turned to look at him and she could tell that somehow, her words were sinking in, but slowly. It was as if he heard them, but wasn't quite digesting him. At least he was back to sulking at her as he usually did. "You should probably try to get some fresh air, too," she said before she gave him a smile, and left.

She hadn't heard from Shikamaru since her last visit, and she didn't check up on him. When she had left, she felt she had done all that she could, and it was up to him to make the next step. Life went on, and she wanted to be a part of it, instead of sitting outside of it.

She took up working in the shop again, and checked up frequently on Chouji's parents. They were coping, which made Ino thankful. Tenten, Sakura and Hinata made it a point to check up on her at all hours (well, not all. Hinata wouldn't permit them dropping in after a 'decent' hour had passed), and while they tended to keep to safe topics, Shikamaru inevitably popped up. Since Ino had no answer, it was often left alone when she failed to give one.

She was tying a yellow smock on when her father peeked his head into the shop. "Princess, you got a gift."

Ino blinked, and with a frown, she followed her father into her house. She was directed towards a small, obviously handmade bouquet of wildflowers. Her father made mention that he found that on the front doorstep, and there was a tag with her name on it. Nothing gave away who it was from, though.

She picked it up and inspected it, noticing a small piece of paper carefully tucked into the center.

You're still a lousy cook. Make it warmer next time.

But it's getting better.

She knew immediately who it was from, and she couldn't help herself from laughing. She laughed so hard and loud that her father gave her a look that suggested she had just lost her mind. But she didn't care. She couldn't.

This was the first sign that she'd had since this entire mess happened that things were truly going to be alright.