One: Return

Warnings: Ino has a temper, and quite the mouth on her, to boot.

Author's Note: I really should be studying for my international relations exam that's on friday. But, when InoSaku calls...

Ino trudged up the stairs, weary and sore and suffering from a mild headache that jolted through her skull with every step. She had worked at the flower shop all day, normally not a very taxing activity, but she hadn't gotten much sleep the night before and hadn't come home at all. She was looking forward to locking herself away in her apartment, briefly considered taking a bath to relax before heading to bed, but at this point simply collapsing face-first on her couch, fully clothed and still in her shoes, sounded just as good.

She reached the top of the staircase, the last step particularly laborious. She sighed heavily, hauling open the door that led to the third floor of the apartment complex. As she stepped through, Ino caught a glimpse of a dark shape leaning up against the corridor wall; at first she thought nothing of it, but as her hand trailed behind her to let the door close, she suddenly realized that the shadowed visitor was standing outside her door. Her mouth set itself in a grim line, preparing to turn away whoever it was – she often had visitors this time of night – and she set off towards the figure, purposeful, scathing words of dismissal already building in her mind.

The door pulled itself shut behind her, louder than Ino had expected it to be. The shadowed figure looked up sharply, startled green eyes catching Ino's gaze with eerie precision. Ino nearly tripped over her own feet.

Sakura?

Ino gave her old friend and rival a once over as she headed for her apartment door, her hands fumbling for her keys, her mind racing. What the hell does she want from me now? Sakura looked awful; gaunt, disheveled, her eye sockets so darkly shadowed that they looked bruised. She had her arms crossed tightly across her chest, defensive, though her shoulders were stooped in exhausted defeat. Her clothes were filthy under the jacket she was wearing, which was far too big for her, and where the sleeves fell back from her wrists Ino could see that there was old blood on her arms – not hers, as far as Ino could tell – and it looked like the wall behind her was the only thing keeping her upright.

Who knows what she got herself into this time around, Ino shook her head imperceptibly, tearing her gaze from Sakura's as she reached the door. She said nothing to the other girl, apparently ignoring her as she slid her keys into the lock and turned them harshly. She gave Sakura a sidelong glance as she turned the doorknob and pushed the door open, letting her keys hang, softly jangling in the silence broken only by the soft hum of the electric lights and Sakura's harsh breathing.

Sakura didn't move. As Ino stared back, she seemed to lose her nerve, her eyes shifting away from Ino's, back again, then down to the floor. She bit her lip, her arms tightening across her chest.

Ino felt her heart soften out of pity for the other girl, albeit only briefly before she reset her resolve. As coldly confident as always, she rested one hand on her hip and broke the silence. "Well? Are you going to come in or not?"

Sakura bit her lip even harder, her eyes glistening in the poor light, and nodded silently. Ino stepped aside, letting the other girl enter her apartment. The blonde turned to remove her keys from the lock and shut the door, taking care to set each of the three locks in turn – an automatic habit - giving them an unusual amount of attention. She stalled for precious seconds, thinking about what she would say to Sakura. She was tempted to fall into old habits, harsh and dejecting, bitterly ask the girl what she wanted, avoid eye contact, do her best to make Sakura uncomfortable. The pink-haired medic deserved little better; when she had left Konoha some two years ago – just over two years, in fact; the events of that bitter autumn month were burned into her memories – the two girls hadn't exactly been on good terms with each other.

Sakura had said some awful things, and Ino had retaliated in turn. Their relationship, rebuilt from scratch and much deeper than its childhood precedent, had dissolved in a bitter exchange of words: threats, insults, accusations and, worst of all, regrets. The two of them had apparently had vastly differing ideas of exactly what their relationship meant to them, and to each other, and though Ino hadn't thought their differences irreconcilable, Sakura had clearly thought otherwise. In a blaze of indignation and self-deprecating disgust, Sakura had cut their ties – a cut much deeper than its childhood precedent – and then, as it appeared to Ino, simply fled the village rather than deal with the consequences of her words, hiding herself in her work.

Ino found it ironic that the medic would devote herself so entirely to the healing of the injured and, in the process, leave Ino with a wound so raw. Ino had fled from her memories of Sakura, indulging in all the vices that Sakura had accused her of, as if proving the other girl right could somehow give Ino the emotional upper hand in the entire affair.

And now, it appeared, the tables had turned. Sakura had come crawling back, looking as bad as Ino had after she had been abandoned. The shocking confidence, the offensive sneer, the harsh words – everything that Ino had seen in the other girl on that last day in Konoha – had all deserted her. Sakura looked desperate, vulnerable, afraid.

And Ino wasn't feeling very merciful.

The blonde turned away from her door, her milky azure eyes raking across Sakura's crumbling psyche. Sakura kept her own eyes on the floor, her faintly trembling lips silent.

Ino lost patience. She dropped her keys on the low shelf beside the front door – the sound making Sakura flinch, Ino feeling a surge of contempt rising within her at the other girl's glaring weakness – and simply brushed past her, kicking off her shoes and then making her way into the kitchen, her bare feet silent on the hardwood floor.

"Ino." Sakura's voice was just as ragged as the rest of her appearance.

Ino turned only partly towards Sakura, her lips set in an unforgiving line, casting a brutally disinterested glare over her left shoulder. She waited.

"Ino, I…" Sakura's eyes darted back and forth between nothing in particular, as if she were searching desperately for the words that had abandoned her.

Abandoned her. Ino smirked at the tragic justice of the entire situation.

"I…"

Ino raised one elegantly arched brow, expectant.

"I just…"

"Do you have something to say or not?" Ino hissed at her coldly.

Sakura broke down. She uncrossed her arms, letting her hands drop to clasp white-knuckled fistfuls of the dark jacket she wore. She let out a strangled, suppressed sob, the tears that had glittered in her eyes making their way down her dirty cheeks, carving crystalline swaths through old splattered blood and dark scuffs. "Ino, please, I…"

Impatient, Ino rolled her eyes, pivoting on her heel, and walked away. She had scarcely taken two steps when Sakura's full (albeit shockingly deficient) weight crashed into her back. The pink-haired kunoichi buried her face between Ino's shoulder blades, one arm coming around her waist while her other hand caught hold of Ino's shirt at her side and held tight. Ino froze, her eyes closing tightly when Sakura's agonized sobs reached her ears.

"I'm sorry," Sakura kept saying. "Please, Ino. I'm sorry." Over and over again, a broken mantra.

Ino's throat tightened, tears threatening to well in her own eyes. "Let go of me, Sakura," she whispered.

"Ino, please."

Confused emotion suddenly rose within Ino's heart, a torrent of rage, of pity, of shame, unrestrained, unprecedented. She closed one hand around Sakura's wrist, pried it off of her body, a fierce, brutal act, and whirled around to face the other girl. Sakura was too close, far too close for comfort, so Ino caught her by one shoulder, shoved hard, half-spinning Sakura around. She staggered, her back striking the door hard, her sobs hiccupping on impact. "Don't fucking touch me," Ino snarled at her.

"Please," Sakura sobbed. Her voice caught hold of Ino's heart, a crushing revival of old emotions, an awful familiarity that Ino had wanted so desperately to forget.

"Shut up!" Ino screamed at her. "Don't you fucking dare!"

"I'm sorry!" Sakura screamed back, her voice so broken it was almost unrecognizable.

Ino lashed out brutally, a wicked back-handed slap that caught Sakura full across the eyes, an impact that sent her reeling, an impact that jolted Ino's arm hard. Sakura looked as if she were going to collapse, so Ino dove at her, her fists catching hold of that damn jacket, hauling Sakura back upright and slamming her back into the door hard. She simply wanted to throw the other girl out but found, much to her dismay, that in her distracted state she had automatically locked the door, trapping Sakura inside with her. Unable to throw her out of her sight, Ino did the next best thing, jerking Sakura forward and slamming her back into the door again, twice. "Why makes you think you have any fucking right to come back here?" Ino screamed. "What makes you think you have any right to ask for my forgiveness?"

Sakura simply cried.

"You turned your back on me, Sakura! What makes you think you deserve any better?"

Sakura could say nothing.

"You promised me –!" Ino shouted, her voice breaking involuntarily. "—You fucking promised me that you would never leave and then you betrayed me! You abandoned me!"

Tears washed unbidden down Ino's cheeks, and she hurled herself away from Sakura, letting the other girl simply collapse in a pathetic heap. Ino turned away, gritting her teeth so hard her jaw ached, her hands rising to dash the tears away with a swipe of her palms. She was shaking and crying and she just wanted Sakura out of her home and out of her life again – a mindlessly defensive reaction to the cracking of her bitter heart's veneer. Ino wanted to run from Sakura, to hide from everything she represented and everything she still made her feel.

Sakura was coughing, choking on her sobs, and Ino whirled around, half tempted to get a running start and kick the other girl, but she froze when she saw Sakura's hands covering her mouth, blood oozing out from between her fingers, pattering on the hardwood floor with every suffocating heave. Ino froze, her heart seizing painfully in her chest, her eyes widening in horror. She staggered back a step, her traitorous heart twisting itself in two, sending her into an abrupt emotional about-face that threw her mind reeling. Oh god, she came back here to die, Ino's panic-stricken mind raced, her breath trapped in her lungs, strangling her.

Torn, shocked, Ino didn't know how to react. Sakura took advantage of her indecision, her voice so raw and painful that she winced with every word. "Ino," she rasped. "Ino, I was wrong. I'm so sorry. Please." She paused, draw a ragged breath, repeated herself. "I'm so sorry. I was wrong. I was wrong."

Sakura's voice failed her.

Ino's heart betrayed her.

The blonde's knees hit the hardwood floor, her hands reaching out to grasp Sakura – her skin hot with fever – and hauled her into her arms. Sakura clung to her helplessly, still sobbing, her mouth leaving bloody stains on Ino's shirt as she pressed her face into Ino's shoulder. "I'm sorry, Ino," she kept saying, her voice barely audible, breathy and bubbling. "I was wrong."

"Stop it," Ino grated, crushing Sakura's head into her collar bone, holding her so tightly. "Stop it, stop saying that."

"I'm sorry."

"Shut up," Ino shouted through her clenched teeth. "Stop talking. Stop crying." Her voice broke, and she hid her face to smother her own sobs. "Please stop crying."

"Ino…"

Ino kissed Sakura roughly on the ear, held her even tighter. "Don't say anything, Sakura. Please. Not yet."

Sakura fell silent except for her rasping sobs, fumbling hands wrapping Ino in a crushing embrace.

Ino's heart was pounding in her chest so hard that it hurt, her throat constricted by the flow of tears, her mind spinning. Emotion ravaged her thoughts, tearing through the walls she had built up in Sakura's absence – walls destroyed so swiftly, so effortlessly, that Ino had to wonder if she had ever succeeded in shutting Sakura out, or if she had merely deceived herself this whole time.

Ino just didn't want to hurt Sakura anymore.

And she could only pray that Sakura didn't want to hurt her, either.