A/N: "Okaeri" is the response giving to someone who says "Tadaima". It means welcome back or welcome home. Again, it doesn't necessarily mean welcoming someone back to an actual place, rather it can mean welcoming them back after a long time of not meeting :)

Rating: M for language, violence (of the Torture and Interrogation kind), and adult situations.
Disclaimer: Nope nope nope, still not mine.

And So

Chapter 6: "Okaeri"

When Ino woke a second time, she was surrounded by darkness.

Her first thought: she was dead.

Her second thought: was she at least wearing nice underwear when they found her corpse? She didn't want her legacy to be, "Talented kunoichi, devastatingly beautiful, wore boring cotton panties."

Ino blinked rapidly and the darkness began to clear. She recognized the bland colors and shapes of a typical hospital room in Konoha. Asuma and the bar were nowhere in sight. It looked like she had once again cheated death.

Luck of the devil. She could almost hear her sensei chuckling around a mouthful of smoke. No one would know it by looking at you, but you Yamanakas are a resilient bunch.

She turned her head (the only part of her body that could actually move — she would have to report to Shizune-san that whatever drugs they were dripping via IV into her system were A++ would try again, because she felt nothing) and spotted her best friend curled up in a chair next to her bed. How long had she been here?

More importantly: How long had Ino been here?

"Ino?" the medic croaked. She looked as terrible as Ino felt. The urge to tease her about her messy hair and dark circles under her eyes was strong, but frankly she was too tired to even open her mouth to talk. Her uninjured right hand twitched in an attempt to prove that she was no longer comatose and Sakura immediately grasped it. "You're finally awake. You've been out for almost three days."

Oh.

Well that answered that question.

"Shino is fine. You saved his life." Sakura rubbed Ino's hand as if it was cold and she was trying to warm it up. It felt so nice to be spoiled by her friend who, by the looks of her unwashed hair and rumpled clothes, had not left her bedside in those missing three days. Ino decided to revel in the love fest now because it wouldn't be long before —

"You are so stupid!"

And there it was.

"What were you thinking? You were seriously injured! And you used even more chakra to heal Shino and then carry him home on your back! That goes against every medic regulation in the book!"

Ino wished she could find the strength to roll her eyes. What was Sakura going to do, throw her into medic jail? Seriously. And speaking of rules, wasn't this a hospital? Weren't they supposed to be quiet?

"You almost bled out in front of the gates to the village —in front of Iruka-sensei's kindergarten class no less, do you know how traumatizing that is ?— and then you had the nerve to yell at Kotetsu-san not to touch Shino's sunglasses before passing out! You're unbelievable! You're just so — so reckless with your own life! Do you know that I had to do emergency surgery on you? Do you know that your heart actually stopped for a few moments?" Sakura paused to take a breath, dropping Ino's hand. "And you had the gall to almost die when I'm still angry with you! How dare you!"

Ino licked her chapped lips and employed the Nara Shikamaru Method of Appeasing Women: apology profusely. "I'm sorry?"

"You're sorry? You're sorry?!" Tears rolled down Sakura's cheeks at an alarming rate. "I was so scared that our last conversation might have been a stupid fight in a shoe store! You're so —you're so inconsiderate! I hate you sometimes!"

Sakura's tears turned into full blown unattractive, relieved sobbing. She may have lectured and complained about Ino's (alarmingly increasing) questionable life choices but it was all born of love. Shinobi were supposed to be detached enough from death that they didn't fear it, but were also encouraged to care about the lives of their comrades. It wasn't easy to find a balance.

It was impossible for Sakura.

Ino held out her good arm. "You're such a crybaby, Sakura."

Sakura crawled next to her on the bed, careful not to disturb any of the wires attached to her friend. She cried into Ino's shoulder, days of pent up worry finally being released. "I'm so glad you're okay. I'm just—so glad."

Ino wanted to tell Sakura that she was glad, too. That she was genuinely sorry for worrying her. Most importantly, she wanted to thank her for saving her life. She wanted to tell her about the mission and how she was pretty sure it wasn't some random encounter. She wanted to tell her about meeting Asuma and the things they spoke about because Ino was scared she would forget the encounter entirely. Did it even really happen or was Ino just certifiably insane? Being in T&I could do strange things to a person.

"Sakura—"

Soft snores muffled against Ino's shoulders were her only reply. Sakura had passed out in what was likely a combination of both physical and emotional exhaustion. Well. What could you do? Ino rested her head against Sakura's and closed her eyes.

I guess it can wait until tomorrow.

When Sakura stepped into Ino's room to check on her, she'd been expecting visitors. Ino was, after all, one of the most popular girls in the entire village. Her family, teammates, friends, admirers and co-workers had all been talking about coming to visit. Maybe she was a little strict about Ino's visitor policy, but really. She almost died. It wasn't unreasonable to ask for only two people at a time to be at the bedside. Sakura thought that most of her fellow shinobi respected her enough to do what she asked.

Then again, this was Ino, and to Ino rules were merely suggestions. Sakura was therefore prepared for maybe five people in the tiny room with her friend. Six at the most.

What she hadn't been expecting was a fucking party in the hospital.

Ino was propped up in bed with Kurenai's daughter tucked under her good arm. Chouji was alternating between feeding her pudding and crying in relief. Shikamaru and Neji were also on the bed, currently engaged in a very serious shougi battle. Inoichi, Shikaku, Chouza, Kiba, Naruto, and Shino were playing cards (was that a sake bottle and karaoke machine Sakura spotted? For fuck's sake!). Tenten and Hinata were drinking tea and eating cookies with Kurenai. Lee was doing chin ups using the metal bar in the closet. Sai had Ino's medical chart and seemed to be doodling absently on it (in flagrant disregard for patient privacy regulations)!

Even Sasuke was there, sitting in the corner, eating cake (really?) and looking towards the window every so often as if contemplating his escape.

Sakura stared in shock, mouth opening and closing uselessly.

"'scuse me," Genma and Aoba stepped around Sakura—because of course, even more people were trying to squeeze in here even though Sakura specifically said Ino needed to rest!—to get to Ino's side. Genma put a beautiful bouquet of red roses into a nearby vase. Kiba, Naruto, and Inoichi eyed him with obvious disdain.

"'jichan, roses are super common and kind of tacky, right?" Naruto faux whispered.

"That's right, Naruto-kun. Very common. Not creative at all," Inoichi folded his arms over his chest. "Not creative at all," he repeated, just in case Genma hadn't heard him the first time.

"So, you're, like, what? Fifty now?" Kiba asked Genma loudly. Sakura couldn't be certain since her view was obscured, but she was pretty sure Kiba, Naruto, and Inoichi had high-fived when they thought no one was looking.

Sasuke moved his chair a couple of inches over to avoid any bloodshed.

Genma gave Kiba a rakish smirk. "Old enough to know better, young enough to do it anyway."

Were they all kidding? Ino had almost died and they were eating cookies, playing, and starting fights in her hospital room? Did they not understand how close they had come to losing her? It had only been a couple of days since she had woken up and everyone was being completely ridiculous! Sakura was the medic. Her word was the word.

"EVERYONE. GET. OUT. RIGHT. NOW," Sakura seethed. "I SAID TWO VISITORS AT ANY GIVEN TIME. DOES THIS LOOK LIKE TWO VISITORS?" Shikamaru moved the shougi board out of Sakura's reach, just in case there was a repeat of the earlier Shougi Incident. "LEE-SAN, THIS IS A HOSPITAL. STOP TRAINING IN THE CLOSET THIS INSTANT."

"Yes ma'am!"

"KIBA, NARUTO, STOP FIGHTING WITH GENMA-SAN. INOICHI-SAN, STOP ENCOURAGING THEIR BAD BEHAVIOR."

"Yes ma'am!"

"AND FOR GOD'S SAKE, SOMEONE GET THAT KARAOKE MACHINE OUT OF HERE!"

"Yes ma'am!"

The shinobi shuffled out of the room slowly, karaoke machine and sake in tow. It was disappointing, but Kiba, Naruto, and Tenten were already devising a secret plan to sneak back in for shenanigans when Sakura wasn't looking. They had an obligation to their injured friend to keep her entertained, after all.

"TWO. PEOPLE. TWO PEOPLE, INO-PIG," Sakura glared at her friend, who attempted to look adorable, angelic, and oh so frail so as not to incite Sakura's wrath. "MAKE YOUR CHOICE."

Ino smiled and put her hand to her wounded chest to remind Sakura that she had almost just died so Sakura couldn't actually hit her. "Just Sasuke is fine."

Sasuke and Sakura wore eerily similar looks of astonishment on their faces. Sakura opened her mouth as if to argue but snapped it shut with a scowl. She didn't know what Ino was planning but she didn't like it. Ino had three days of lying around in a hospital to scheme. Sakura narrowed her eyes. Sasuke's left eyebrow quirked up. "Five minutes."

Ino waited until Sakura closed the door behind her and was a good distance away before addressing Sasuke. "Hey, bro, come over here for a second." She sounded suspiciously like one of those gangsters that had been popping up across Fire Country extorting money from people.

Sasuke sighed and walked over to her bedside. He didn't know what compelled him to do so. Maybe because Ino signed his mental health papers. "What?"

"You're busting me out of here. I'm bored and I can't stay here another minute longer," Ino said simply. "Sakura's busy chasing everyone out of the hospital. Now's our chance."

"…No."

"No? Just like that!?"

Sasuke turned his head, bangs falling over his eyes so his face was obscured. If Ino had to guess, his voice was laced with – what? Sadness? Regret? "It's in my best interest to stay on Sakura's good side."

"You legit tried to kill her once. I think that ship has sailed."

"I apologized for that."

Ino snorted. "You grabbed her on her way home from work, threw her into an alley, shouted I'm sorry! in her face, and ran away. That isn't a proper apology by any definition of the word, Sasuke-kun."

"I didn't shout." It was clear that this was a line of conversation he wanted to avoid. "… and if I refuse to help you?"

She inspected her nails. "You know those little boxes next to 'hears voices that aren't there' and 'neglect of personal hygiene' on your mental health forms? I might feel inclined to, maybe… check them."

"Are you blackmailing me?"

"Yep." Ino started detaching herself from the various machines she was hooked up to, "I suggest we get this done before Sakura realizes I'm gone. You wouldn't want to have to awkwardly apologize twice, now would you?"

Sasuke watched Ino get herself ready to leave, somewhat awed that she had just effectively gotten him, Uchiha Sasuke, ex-S-class criminal, to do exactly what she wanted. Without the use of actual physical force. In about five seconds.

Not for the first time, he thought to himself that if the Akatsuki really wanted to accomplish their goal of world domination, they should have just recruited Yamanaka Ino.

"A thirteen letter word starting with an 'a' that means 'murder'," Ino chewed on the end of her pencil. She had made herself very comfortable at Sasuke's house. Well, she had forced Sasuke to make her very comfortable in his own house. She demanded his help, his clothes, and finally, his couch. Somehow she had gathered every pillow he owned and lounged on them like a queen. He still didn't think this was the best place to take her after scooping her up (!), escaping through the window (!) and kidnapping her (!), but Ino assured him that this was the safest place for them because Sakura would never step foot there.

He wasn't sure whether to be relieved or offended.

"'Assassination." Appropriate, because this is what Sakura was going to do to him if she ever found out Sasuke helped Ino defy her.

She scrawled the answer and paused thoughtfully. "An eight letter word that means 'deception'."

"'Betrayal'."

"You're really good at this. Eight letters: outlaw."

"… 'criminal'."

Before Sasuke could decide if Ino was just making up those questions to bug him, Naruto burst through the door, uninvited as per usual. He carried bags of groceries in each hand. Sasuke had enough insight to know that he was (a bit) socially stunted but, really. He knew how to buy his own food. Usually he welcomed the pretense (Naruto was always looking for excuses to come hang out with him, and he did sometimes secretly appreciate it), but Naruto could be so loud and annoying —

"INO?!" Naruto screeched, dropping a bag of oranges on the floor. One slowly rolled under the couch, coming to rest a few inches from Ino. She ignored it. "You're supposed to be at the hospital!" His eyes darted to her shirt—Sasuke's shirt—and widened. A sea of panicked blue flooded the room. Sasuke prepared himself for higher pitched screaming. "Why are you here?! Wearing Sasuke's clothes?!"

— like now.

Ino put her finger to her lips thoughtfully. "It's actually not what it looks like for once."

"IT LOOKS LIKE YOU RAN AWAY FROM THE HOSPITAL WITH SASUKE. AND NOW YOU'RE WEARING HIS CLOTHES!"

"Okay," she conceded. "That actually happened. But that's the only thing that happened. Surgery, remember? My heart would probably explode if I did more than even think about it—"

"BUT YOU THOUGHT ABOUT IT?!" Naruto's voice had gone so high that Akamaru could probably hear him from across the village.

Sasuke knew he should have gone with his first instinct and let Ino declare him legally insane years ago. It would have been so much simpler. "If you keep carrying on like an idiot, someone is going to hear you."

Translation: Sakura is going to hear you.

And then there will be blood.

Naruto clasped his hands in front of his mouth, voice dropping to a whisper. "You're sure nothing happened?" He looked at Sasuke, back to Ino (who went back to her crossword), and then back to Sasuke. Ino understood Naruto's neurosis. He was still suffering from what Sakura called "Sasuke-complex-itis." This, in Ino's honest opinion, was completely ridiculous. Although Sasuke was an attractive "tortured soul" or whatever, he was pretty much under house arrest, and outside their group of friends, most people had been very slow to forgive him.

On the other hand, puberty had been very kind to Naruto (she knew this first hand). He was strong, and sweet, and had saved them many times over. He was going to be Hokage. No contest. "So Sasuke just took you from the hospital to be nice?"

"Um," Ino said delicately, because blackmail wasn't exactly nice, "sort of."

The blond finally grinned widely. "Sasuke did something nice! That's great!"

Ino couldn't bear to destroy Naruto's delusions. He had such a kind heart and looked so happy for Sasuke, who was always so lonely. Also, it didn't exactly reflect well on her that she had abused her power to get Sasuke to do her bidding. "Super nice," Ino intoned with a straight face.

"That's seriously great," Naruto told Sasuke, "but I still have to get Ino out of here before Sakura-chan finds out." He looked genuinely apologetic that he was interrupting their friendship bonding. "Besides, shouldn't you be resting in bed?"

"I feel fine. I'm just a bit sore," Ino absently touched her bandaged chest. "I hate lying around doing nothing. I don't want to go back to the hospital so I'm not going!"

Naruto panicked at Ino's impending hissy fit. "Eh? EH?!" He flailed his arms. "But Sakura-chan—"

"If you're so worried about Sakura, why don't you go?" She had gone into full blown doped up and bratty mode. Naruto still had a Sakura-chan-complex, too. And if Naruto cared more about getting in trouble with Sakura than Ino's (albeit selfish) happiness, then Ino couldn't care less what he did. In fact, he could just marry Sakura if he loved her so much! He'd wanted to do that since they were kids, right? They could have adorable blond babies with giant foreheads and what-the-hell-ever.

"Inooooooo!" Naruto whined.

"Forty eight hours out of a coma and you're already causing controversy," a new voice at the door deadpanned. "This has to be some sort of record."

Ino glowered darkly. She clutched the crossword puzzles to her chest protectively, as if he was threatening to take them away. "Stay out of it, Shikamaru! How did you even know where I was?"

Her teammate shrugged. "As soon as you said you only wanted to talk to Sasuke, I knew you were up to something. I assumed it involved abuse of your power. I just put two and two together."

"Oh, crap, then Sakura definitely knows where she is!" Naruto clutched his hair. "We're screwed!" He could almost feel his ribs breaking under her angry fists. He whimpered and wondered if he could take an S-rank mission until this blew over.

"I don't care," Ino turned her head stubbornly. "I'm not going back to the hospital."

Sasuke watched the drama unfold in his living room with mild interest. Naruto was close to tears, Ino was throwing a tantrum, and Shikamaru had a pinched expression on his face. It almost felt like he was a part of things in the village again and it felt… nice. Not, he thought, that he would ever tell them that.

"I'm not taking you back to the hospital." Shikamaru was clearly trying to muster patience that he didn't usually have. "I'll take you back to my house." He turned to Naruto, who was still battling with himself over what to do. "I'll take the heat for it."

Everyone stared at him. Ino couldn't believe that he had actually just said that… or even showed up at Sasuke's at all. Shikamaru was willingly going to leave himself vulnerable to the Wrath of Sakura? Even after the Shougi Incident?

"… fine, but I'm taking my crossword puzzle," Ino finally conceded, to everyone's (including Shikamaru's) surprise. Naruto sighed in relief. "I'm not drinking any more of the gross Nara Cure All juice, though!"

"You can take it up with Ma," Shikamaru put his arm around her shoulder to support her. "But you know that's not a battle you'll win."

The conversation between the two of them went on like this until Ino was ready to leave—Ino making outrageous demands and Shikamaru easily giving in because to do otherwise was troublesome. Ino waved goodbye, kissed Naruto on the cheek, and thanked Sasuke with a wink for his help.

Somehow, Sasuke knew that this would not be the last time he was embroiled in one of Ino's schemes.

Now that the Ino situation had been taken care of, Naruto went about cheerfully putting away the groceries that he brought over. "It's a good thing that all worked out," Naruto examined the milk in Sasuke's fridge. "Shikamaru's mom will look after Ino so Sakura won't have to worry! Ino probably won't be bored, either, and we can go visit her over there whenever we want."

"Sakura is the least of your problems," Sasuke commented dryly, still able to hear Ino and Shikamaru's conversation outside. She had just demanded that he carry her home on his back and by the sound of his pause and deep sigh, Shikamaru was actually crouching down to do it. Didn't Naruto feel threatened at all by the sacred InoShikaChou bond? Especially the InoShika part? Especially because they acted like a married couple half the time and were the poster children for Unresolved Sexual Tension the other half?

Naruto opened the milk and drank straight from the carton, even though it was Sasuke's milk, in Sasuke's fridge, and it was absolutely disgusting. Sasuke made a mental reminder to burn the carton when Naruto was done. "What do you mean?" It was very hard to take him seriously with a milk mustache. Sasuke wondered why he had even tried to reason with him at all. Besides, why should he care if Naruto got dumped because of his own stupidity?

Sasuke went back to his crossword puzzle and imparted one last piece of wisdom to his friend: "An idiot will always stay an idiot."

"Hey! What does that mean?! Oi! I'm the future Hokage! I'll have you executed!"

Unsurprisingly, Yoshino had a field day berating Ino for leaving the hospital when she was still recovering. Shikamaru had conveniently left out that he had found her at Sasuke's house, mostly for his own benefit. No doubt Yoshino would yell herself hoarse at Ino's carelessness and somehow Shikamaru would get blamed for the whole thing. It would be their little secret.

"You're really much too reckless." Yoshino's words were harsh but her actions were gentle; she tucked the covers around Ino neatly after applying Super Secret Nara Deer Ointment and redressing her wound. "We can't keep our eyes off you for a moment!"

"I'm sorry," Ino said obediently. From his position in the corner, Shikamaru nodded slightly in approval. Apologizing was the only way to appease his mother. "I'll be more careful."

Yoshino smoothed out the covers twice more and yelled at Shikamaru for having books out of place on his shelf before leaving. Ino could hear Yoshino start in on Shikaku in the hallway for being so lax about Ino's disappearing act. The Nara men were completely whipped. It was a beautiful, satisfying thing to watch.

Shikamaru sat on the edge of the bed, petting the fat, white, stray cat who often visited his room through his window. Comfortable silence filled the room as Ino drifted in and out, calmed by the warm breeze and familiar smells of the Nara house. She, Shikamaru, and Chouji had spent a lot of time in this room when they were genin, talking about missions and goofing off. She missed the days when everything was much simpler.

"Can you remember anything about the attack?" Shikamaru asked suddenly. "Shino told Godaime as much as he could remember but it wasn't much to go on."

Ino stared up at the ceiling. "There's not much to tell. We just ran into a couple of rogue shinobi." Not quite true. The shinobi seemed to have run into them deliberately. Their defense against Ino and Shino was iron clad—they knew too much about Yamanaka and Aburame jutsus for random rogue ninja. Their intent was to kill; Ino had no doubt they had a grudge again her, Shino, or even Leaf as a whole. "They outnumbered us. We fought and escaped."

Shikamaru turned his head slightly to look at her from the corner of his eye. "Did you recognize what village they were from?"

Her heart pounded uncomfortably in her chest. Confidentiality never applied to Shikamaru and Chouji. Everything she knew, they knew. Everything they knew, she knew. They never kept (professional) secrets from each other. It was part of the reason their teamwork was legendary. This was a special case, though. She couldn't just run her mouth and make accusations when the livelihood of a village—an allied village— hung precariously in the balance. "I don't know. It was hard to tell."

"What kind of jutsus did they use?"

"I don't remember."

Shikamaru put the cat down on the floor and faced her fully. "So you're telling me that you didn't use your jutsu to gather intel?" It just didn't sound like the Ino he knew. She was made for gathering information. Even if the battle had taken ten minutes, even if she was moments from death, she would have found a way to do her job.

"Stop interrogating me!" Ino snapped defensively. "We were ambushed and there wasn't enough time!"

He pursed his lips together but stayed silent. She wondered if Shikamaru knew more than he was letting on. She wondered if he knew that she was holding something back from him. She wondered if he was hurt by it. Ino felt horrendously guilty, but it was for his own good that he was left in the dark. Before this became a village-wide problem, before a potential war broke out, Ino had to be sure that her hunch was right. There was too much at stake for her to make rookie mistakes.

"When I was going through surgery, I saw Asuma-sensei," Ino said, seemingly out of nowhere. "In a bar. He looked good."

"For a dead guy," Shikamaru said dryly. "Did he have anything inspiring to say?"

"Not really."

"Didn't think so," he chuckled.

Ino burrowed deeper under the blankets. "I apologized for not living up to my end of the bargain responsibility-wise. I haven't been responsible. I haven't been taking very good care of you and Chouji, either."

"And what did he say to that?"

"He said that I should just live however I want and be happy," Ino frowned. "Why did he even bother with those dying words about beating Sakura and looking after you two if he was just going to shrug it off afterwards? That irresponsible jerk, trying to look cool..."

Shikamaru rested his head against the headboard, looking out his bedroom window. "He probably just doesn't want you to live with regrets."

They both knew that Asuma had probably died with a mountain full of regrets—his relationship with his father, his unborn child, abandoning his team—even though he had died a hero. He spoke to her the way a big brother would a younger sister, rather than a teacher to a student. He told her to put her happiness first. He knew her job was tough and that she was capable but he didn't want the dark underbelly of the ninja world to consume her. That being a good ninja was important but there was more to life than just the job. That there was no one right answer to the "obligation versus personal desire" struggle that shinobi dealt with; he was confident that she would find her own way in time. That she would never be second place to Sakura and that she would follow Shikamaru and Chouji to the ends of the earth and support them with everything she had.

So irresponsible and ambiguous, yet so like Asuma.

"It's his fault I turned out this way, you know," Ino said tearfully. "He always let me do whatever I wanted."

Shikamaru smirked and turned off the lamp, signifying that the time for talking was over and she needed to rest. "Don't I know it."