from here to there, now till always

Summary: Because time passes like water. OneShot– Ino and Shikamaru and a bunch of what might or might not be reasons.

Warning: Feels somewhat unfinished. I think it was supposed to be like that.

Set: Now till then including the yesterdays. Story-unrelated.

Disclaimer: Standards apply.

A/N: For those who have noticed, I haven't been able to reply as usual to the reviews you've left me lately (Besonders du, Sepsis…). I'm in the midst of writing my Bachelor Thesis. Hopefully, in August, it will be all over... Thanks to everyone who commented, selected my stories as a favorite or put me on author's alert. You're making me survive this.

There is no special reason why Ino loves him. Or there are many reasons, little ones, big ones, reasons of every color, form and texture. There is no special reason why Shikamaru loves her, either, except for the passing of time that floats by like water, changing her and changing him. Smoothing out wrinkles, odds and contrasts. Polishing edges. Lending new depths to old habits, old words, even to old arguments. Giving new colors. Changing them with every day and every night and with each passing second.

i.

Shikamaru is thirty-two and Ino thirty-one when he returns home one afternoon and finds her on the living-room floor, her entire body being wracked by spasms.

"What's the matter?" He asks her, rushes over to her side, panicking at first and only then realizing what is happening: She is laughing. Laughing so hard she actually needs a minute to calm down again. The telephone lies abandoned by her side. In the next room, Shikaru is silently playing a memory game with himself.

"Sorry, love. I'm fine. Welcome home. Imayama-San just called," Ino tells him in one breath, wiping tears from her eyes.

"Shikaru's teacher?"

"Yeah. You know they're learning the alphabet."

Shikaru is six years old and already capable of reading, has been so since his fourth year. He is a clever child, quiet and sharp as his father, quick-witted and imaginative like his mother. His hair is dark, as are his eyes, but Ino's mother swears there is a streak of blue in them. As it is, Ino sometimes thinks she is looking at a mini-copy of Shikamaru, sitting there and gazing at the pictures next to the texts of the children's book he is holding.

"So?" He prompts her and she starts laughing again.

"Well, today, it seems, they learned the letter x. And Imayama-San, as usual, asked the children what words they knew that started with x or contained it…"

She leans against him, her shoulders still shaking with mirth.

"So when the turn came to Shikaru, she asked him, too. And guess what our brilliant son said?"

"Tell me."

"Bordeaux."

Shikamaru feels a grin tug at his lips while Ino starts laughing again. He loves her laugh – high and clear, like a bell.

"So now teacher-san wonders how he got to know that word?"

"It's probably more the fact that she was at a loss about how to explain it to the other children. It's your fault our son is a genius," she accuses him. "He definitely didn't get that from my side."

"But he got your humor."

"Hey!"

"A compliment, Ino. That was a compliment."

"Not so sure about that."

ii.

"Hey Shikamaru."

It is his twenty-second birthday and a soaking-wet Ino stands in front of his door, her dark ANBU-cloak wrapped around her so tightly she looks like a two-dimensional, albeit wet, paper cutting. The few strands of her short, blonde hair that peak out of her coat are the only color that seems to exist in her immediate surroundings – her hair and her vibrantly-blue eyes – as she steps into the light of his small corridor.

It is nine o'clock in the evening.

"I just came back and dropped by to give you your present."

Wordless, he stares down onto the small wrapped package she drops in his hands. Then his gaze travels up again, from her feet to her head. Takes her in: just back from an S-class mission, he knows since he handed it to her personally two weeks ago. She looks exhausted and worn. There is a scar on her right hand he does not know of and lines around her eyes that are not due to laughter and she so thin it appears the next gust of wind would be able to grab her and carry her away like a leaf.

"You could have given it to me tomorrow."

She smiles. "I wanted you to have it on your birthday."

"Umm. Thanks."

"You're welcome. It's only something small." She turns on her heels. "Anyway, I'm off again. See you."

"Come in."

Shikamaru is as surprised at the offer that leaves his mouth without thinking as she is. She cannot say how it happened that she suddenly sits at his little table, her cloak drying by the heating, a warm cup of hot chocolate in her hands, and watches him work. Ino chuckles.

"What?" Shikamaru demands.

"Nothing."

It does not sound like it actually is nothing. Not that Shikamaru ever would ask for more information if he doesn't need it, but Ino clarifies because nobody knows him better than her.

"I just thought it was odd to see you cook."

Shikamaru only spares her a suffering look. "I never said I couldn't."

"You never said you could and I know you can."

In fact, he is a good cook. Not elaborately creative but good in his own rights. Ino watches him move from one side of the kitchen to the other. His slow, precise movements, his calm exterior – everything, suddenly, seems beautiful to her. Late in the evening after a particularly dangerous and stressful mission, Ino finds herself in Shikamaru's kitchen, watching him prepare a meal, and it feels oddly domestic. Like she could get used to it.

Maybe.

iii.

"You are not going to do that!"

They both are sixteen and Shikamaru is glaring at her icily. Ino is glaring, too, but in her eyes there is no ice, only fire. Hot meets cold as they face each other from the opposite sides of the little porch that runs around the Nara main house. Chouji, wisely, keeps to himself and melts into the background.

Ino just told them she would join ANBU.

"What, Nara Shikamaru," she says coldly, "Makes you think you have a say in the way I choose to live my life?"

There is an almost seductive contrast in the way her eyes burn hot and her voice is cold and Shikamaru's thoughts linger there longer than they should. Tearing his mind back with force, he balls his fists. They are still sitting, Ino with her knees drawn up, him with dangling legs, but in a future not too far away they both will be standing, screaming at each other.

"You can't join ANBU. That's ridiculous."

"I can't? When did you decide that?"

"It's utterly ridiculous!"

"It's not. What's wrong with you, Shikamaru?"

"Nothing is wrong with me, Ino," he snaps back. "I am not making a stupid decision that will have me killed either in training or at maximum three weeks later."

"So you are saying," she asks, "That I am not able to join ANBU because I'm weak."

She is daring him to contradict her and he knows he has lost. Forbidding Ino to do something is the guaranteed way to get her to do it, always has been. But he has to fix this. He can't let her go and throw away her life. She is too important to the village – too precious to their team. Too precious to him.

"You're not weak." His hand moves through his hair in a desperate gesture and now they're really standing, as he has predicted they would. "Don't you get it? You're going to be killed! Joining ANBU is the easiest way to lose yourself! Look at Rin-San, her mind is completely shattered! Or Kakashi – he's only a shadow of what he once was! Why do you have to join, too? Leave that to Neji and Tenten, or even to Naruto if he believes he has to in order to bring Sasuke back. There's no need for you to sign up for an early death as well!"

"It's not that." She speaks quietly now, her eyes begging him to understand. She needs to do this. There is nothing she excels in, except for ikebana, perhaps, and she wants to protect the village in the only way left to her. Ino wants to protect everyone who is important to her. Shikamaru is one of them.

"I have to do this, Shikamaru. Please – can't you accept that?"

"I can't! Your father is dead, Ino – nothing will bring him back!"

Blow to the gut. At least it feels like one. Like someone is yanking at the knife that already resides in her heart, twisting it deeper and deeper. For a second, she cannot breathe. Then everything explodes.

"Don't you dare bring my father into this!"

And the rest of their argument is lost in his angry voice and her furious gaze and ends when Shikamaru storms from the room. Ino, close to tears, glares at Chouji who just looks at her sadly. She walks away then, too, only she takes the other direction and turns towards the vast forests of the Nara compounds. Shikamaru knows she has made up her mind and Ino knows he knows. Their argument, though, remains unresolved until Ino is officially integrated into her rank of an ANBU, even more, until she returns for the first time. Shikamaru never talks about it again. In return, she sends him a bouquet of flowers. They say: I won't apologize.

For what, remains open.

iv.

Ino is eight years old and Shikamaru nine. It is raining outside, dark, heavy curtains of water running down the front window of the Yamanaka flower shop. The heavy scent of green hangs in the air, mixed with the sweet, sugary smell of hot chocolate and cookies Ino's Mum made for them, and the warmth makes Shikamaru sleepy. He is dozing off in his chair, his head on the counter, and barely keeps his eyes open. Ino hums softly, a sound broken only by the soft clip of the scissors, and by the rustling of the leaves and flowers she is sorting through on next to the backdoor.

"Carnations, roses, gerbera…"

She has a hand for flowers, Shikamaru thinks as he watches her carefully cut the stems and pluck the dried, brown leaves. Of course she has, she grew up in a flower shop. Ino touches flowers like they are porcelain: utterly breakable. Like they are the most beautiful things in the world. She touches many things like that.

"Lilies, chrysanthemum, lupines…"

The soft pat-pat-pat of the rain on the roof is relaxing. The street outside the front window is bare of passing people. The summer storm has cleared the streets from every afternoon outdoor business. Ino's and Shikamaru's mother are in the backroom, their silent words and occasional laughter almost drowned out by the rain. Tea-cups resound. Time stretches into eternity: seconds to minutes, minutes to hours. Hours to days. Shikamaru does not care, because in the peace and calmness and alive-ness of the Yamanaka Flower Shop, he feels content.

"Shikamaru," a voice says at his elbow and Ino's bright, blue eyes look at him.

"Hm?"

"I made this for you."

She hands him a tiny bouquet, consisting of a red carnation and some greenery he feels like he knows but has no inclination to place just now. The stems are short. She has cut them from the ones that were no longer pretty enough to sell but like every arrangement Ino attempts, it looks beautiful. She has an eye for colors and combination and, what is even more important; she loves every plant she uses for her arrangements. Daisies on the field, dandelions, buttercups – she creates the simplest yet beautiful creations with them and is not even aware of her talent. Shikamaru sees the effortless symmetry she introduces without even noticing it, the perfect combinations. Sometimes it scares him.

"Um," he says as he accepts it awkwardly. "Thanks?"

Ino smiles a beatific smile and returns to her task. "Put it into the vase on the table," she instructs him from over her shoulder. "If you want to keep it fresh."

His drowsiness is gone. For a while, he just watches her move: her little hands, her blond ponytail. She is the one to break the silence again, many minutes later. She does not even look at him.

"Daddy said whenever you create something with your own hands you put a piece of yourself into it."

"Hn," Shikamaru says.

Ino will give him many presents in the years to come, but this little bouquet is what he remembers when he thinks of symbolism.

v.

These might nor might not be reasons.

Not that it matters.