A/N: Back in the game after ten years. Still think Ino's development as a character gets overshadowed. In fact, I used to hate her as I think many people did, but now I've come to realize that the things I disliked about her were the same things I disliked about myself as a girl. I am hoping now to do us both some justice.

If for some reason you like this and want to read my other stuff, don't expect my old crap to be anything more than crap. Thanks for reading.

Little girls are kind, gentle, and pretty.

Ino is the perfect little girl. She wears the right clothes, says the right words, picks the right flowers for every occasion, serves tea at the right temperature, and always smiles.

The other girls look up to her. They ask her for advice and they listen to her. And Ino knows that she is perfect. It isn't hard to be, she thinks. All she has to do is pay attention to what people like, what people want her to do, and then she does it.

Her Academy teachers want her to be smart. Her friends want her to be cooperative. Her kunoichi instructors want her to be graceful. Her mother wants her to be hardworking. Her father wants her to be confident.

She is all of these things.

But the truest test of worth is to see if boys will like you. This is what Ino believes because this is what all little girls believe. That's just how it is.

She, the perfect little girl, must make the perfect little boy fall in love with her. And that boy is Uchiha Sasuke, whose top-of-the-class grades and striking good looks are only matched by her own. She cleans his desk, lends him school supplies, sharpens his shuriken, makes his lunch, gives him compliments, quells his critics, and always smiles.

And he still leaves.

She loses her best friend over him, and he still leaves.

Maybe she isn't perfect enough.

…

Little ninja girls grow into big ninja girls and suddenly no one seems to care that Ino's hair always falls just right or that her accessories always match her outfit or that her nails are always clean.

Little lazy Shikamaru is now big genius Shikamaru. Little cowardly Chouji is now big courageous Chouji. Little weak Sakura is now big strong Sakura.

Ino is still Ino. She can be tender or funny or caustic or assertive or accommodating.

But right now she just feels useless.

One mission in Suna is all it takes. Ino stays back and waits her turn just as she always does only to find out that she does not figure into Shikamaru's plans anymore. His shrewd signaling look is given to Temari, not to her, and she watches as the sand-nin's attacks blend seamlessly with her teammate's as if they hadn't just been mere acquaintances.

Ino watches and does nothing, because there's nothing left for her to do.

…

Ino knows what everyone is thinking even without having to enter their minds. If she just spent as much time on her training as she did on her appearance then she wouldn't be so useless.

But all she was doing was just what everyone told her to do. Get good marks but don't outshine the others, land your attacks but wait your turn, speak your mind but not too loud, and always smile. What more do they want of her?

Little girls don't need to be clever or strong because little boys will always save them, that's what she always learned. But Ino is clever and she is strong, she thinks. But maybe now she's not so sure.

And yeah, maybe sometimes she doesn't want to train. Maybe sometimes she wants to spend time with her father without him uncovering all her deepest and darkest secrets. Maybe sometimes she wants to spend time mending her broken relationship with her best friend. Maybe sometimes she wants to spend time helping her sensei pick out flowers for his girlfriend because it's so hard and so rare for shinobi to have a relationship as honest and as healthy as theirs.

And if she's just going to stand in the background anyway then she's going to make sure she looks damn good doing it.

…

Her teammates say she wears her heart on her sleeve but that isn't always true.

When Ino finds that she is not talented enough to surpass Sakura in medical ninjutsu, she does not complain.

She is not refined enough to attend clan leadership meetings, the elders say. She needs to learn a few more rituals, learn to manage her temper. She does not protest.

She is not judicious enough to lead her own mission team yet, even though she is now a chuunin, even though passing the exam itself qualifies you for leadership. Even though Shikamaru has been doing it for years, but then again, Shikamaru is a genius. Then again, maybe they are right. She does not object.

She is not agreeable enough to find a good husband, many people say. She can attract any guy in the village, of course, but not the kind who will stay. She is too loud or too superficial or too something so they don't take her seriously and they always leave. She does not whine; she starts leaving too.

She is not strong enough to save her sensei. She cries then, surrounded by the people she trusts most. But she does not cry when she is still not strong enough, not fast enough, not brave enough, not quick-thinking enough to avenge his death. She watches others do that for her, and when all is done, she thanks them and she smiles.

…

War takes many things from Ino. It takes her innocence. It takes her optimism. It takes her sensei again. It takes her father.

But it also takes her hesitance, her self-doubt, her uncertainty. Everyone expects her to take the place of her father and she does, because she is good at doing what other people want.

After the war, Ino knows what everyone is thinking even without having to enter their minds. They are thinking that Shikamaru is brilliant, that his clear-headed strategizing helped them finish strong, that his voice is so much like his father's. They forget that she is the one who helped them hear that voice. Shikamaru becomes the Hokage's aid and Ino minds the flower shop.

And it's ok, it's fine, because everyone is at peace now. She brushes her hair and paints her nails and puts on a smile so that everyone knows she is ok. If she keeps smiling then her mom can get up in the morning without being plagued by the empty spot in her bed. If she keeps smiling then her best friend can rest easily after healing the entire village with her own two hands. If she keeps smiling then she can knock sense into her two teammates and make sure they fulfill all of their potential. If she keeps smiling then it won't hurt so much.

And she's happy, really, she's fine, she's ok, as much as any shinobi can be.

…

Sakura clings to love like it's a mission. Ino figures there's something admirable in that, but also a little sad. Her best friend has chosen to love a man who may never return her feelings, who may never even return to the village, but her best friend is stubborn.

"I don't have your confidence," Sakura tells her after Ino asks why she doesn't just go after him. "All I can do is wait." Ino knows there is more to this than her friend will reveal but she doesn't pester.

It is true that Ino can have her pick of any guy in the village, and she pursues a few of them too, has her fun, but ultimately nothing ever comes of it. She doesn't wait around long enough to find out if anything ever could.

Ino doesn't have Sakura's patience, and she tells her this and they smile and are reminded of why they are friends. They are each other's opposite, greatest rival, and strongest supporter.

Forward or patient. Ino isn't sure if it is better to be one or the other, if she is supposed to be one or the other. Thinking about it gives her a headache.

…

Sai's mind is deep and has many hiding spots, more than Ino has ever seen.

She never expected to be crashing a mission in the Land of Silence and she never expected to be using her mind transfer technique on a comrade and yet here she is, rescuing a man she still barely knows from a genjutsu so strong even his own mind is resisting its release.

But upon entering his mind Ino suddenly knows everything about him. Not because she can access his memories but because she can see where he is hiding, and she knows that place all too well. He is hiding because he is crying, and he doesn't want anyone else to see.

It is the same place, she realizes, where her mind always goes when she needs to hide her pain or her confusion or her sadness, because the world does not need any more of that in it. And each time she hides she goes a little deeper, and she stays a little longer, and she tells herself it's ok.

But she doesn't want one of her comrades to be there. And Sai has been there for so so long. And she needs to rescue him, she needs to, because if she can get him out then maybe she can get herself out as well.

When he finally wakes up he apologizes, and he thanks her, and she holds him as he cries because in reality she should be the one thanking him.

…

Ino knows what everyone is thinking even without having to enter their minds. She's moving too fast, she's pushing too hard, she only likes him for his looks.

It is true that she and Sai make an attractive couple. She has everything she is told she ever wanted: the perfect little boy to love the perfect little girl. But Ino also knows that perfect little boys don't always stay.

Sai needs patience, and that Ino does not have. So she tries to give him everything else she thinks he needs. She buys him inks and cooks him meals and mends his clothes and holds his hand. He is always polite and always grateful but he is so new at communicating his emotions that sometimes Ino almost considers using her mind transfer technique on him when he is sleeping.

Until finally, one day, in exasperation she half-cries, "What do you want from me?"

And without missing a beat he answers, "Just you."

She feels mountains lift off her back. She feels ropes loosen from her chest. She feels clouds part and dams break because he is the first person who doesn't expect her to be anything. He could ask her for anything in the world and she would give it to him but he doesn't.

And for once she doesn't question if she is enough.

She is enough.

…

Ino has a new life growing inside of her.

She finds it funny or maybe a coincidence or maybe fate that all her friends have children the same year. Her child is the last to be born and even though it is the middle of winter she does not feel the cold.

Her child is sunshine and ink. Her child does not cry, not at first. Her child does not smile for a long time, and that's ok. Her child looks out at a rapidly changing world with big blue eyes and does not think to hide.

Ino is secretly relieved that her child is a boy, because she is not sure if she has the strength or the wisdom to raise a little girl.

Her little boy will be perfect. Her little boy will get to decide what that means.

She holds her little boy in her arms in her little home with her messy hair and her unwashed face and her ill-fitting clothes, which she will let slide, just for today (and maybe on other days too, who knows) and Sai calls her beautiful. He kisses her forehead and holds her in his arms along with their child – their child – and it is probably the only time all three of them cry and laugh at the same time.

Ino is a new mother and she gets tired and flustered and makes mistakes, but (most of the time) she looks damn good doing it.

…

Ino still minds the flower shop. She picks the right flowers for every occasion and sells them with a smile.

She works part-time at the hospital, helps Sakura manage the child therapy center, oversees the village's barrier team, shares child-raising duties with Temari and Karui, makes dinner whenever she can, and occasionally takes on missions.

Ino can do all these things and she wants to do all these things.

Ino knows what everyone is thinking even without having to enter their minds, and honestly, she doesn't really care.

...