Title: Homeless Ino

Genre: Family

Pairing: Ino Yamanaka Sasuke Uchiha

World: Alternative Universe

Summary: Ino was shunned out by Sasuke and was now homeless or was she?

Disclaimer: I only play in this sandbox. Characters are not mine.

Ino and Sakura were at a random bar after a very busy shift at the hospital. There had been a vehicular accident at the start of their shift followed by gunshot victims and if that wasn't keeping all the staff on their toes, a freak parade accident finished it off. Patients kept on pouring in; police kept on asking for medical report; people were walking everywhere and nowhere.

Dr. Sakura Haruno-Uzumaki, an emergency medical specialist and Konoha General Hospital Chief ordered all available medical staff to lend a hand at the growing pile of patients. The hospital waiting room was instantly turned an extension of ER and a medical tent was immediately erected at the open parking space to accommodate the growing number of patients.

A blond woman was scrubbing down at the OR theater after her 7 hour surgery stint. She was a surgeon and the head of the Intensive Care. She heard the PA system and headed down to lend a hand. She had been sucked in juggling between questions from the police and attending to the patients and consults not to mention her daily rounds. Her stomach was growling in anger for being ignored after emerging from the 'hell hole' sometime after dark. She dragged her chief after everything was calm to a bar.

"That was one hell of a shift! Don't know about you but I'm just glad to be out of there. Cheers!" she declared in exhausted joy. She had eaten her heart out before indulging to the alcohol. She had sidestepped her healthy living diet and just went straight to her 'see food' binging. It was her reward for a job well done in a chaotic day. So far, no one died at her table.

"Woohoo! We worked hard, Pig and now we'll party harder!" the pink haired doctor gulped her drink straight up and yelled at the bartender to keep it coming. It just occurred to her that she had no life outside the hospital and her home. Her once very colorful social life diminished and this was the first time in a very long time that she had stepped inside a bar. She can't even remember the last time she had been in it.

She was suddenly envious of her blond friend.

She was the wife of a multi-decorated army general and a mother to three amazing, sometimes unruly, kids whereas Ino maybe married longer but she had no kids to tend to after work and her husband was almost always out of the country doing covert spy stuff that she did not want to think about. She was glad that her husband was mostly at home with her. On second thought, being alone all the time must be lonely add to that that the tension of knowing one's significant other was coming home alive or not.

She can't think of a life without her husband and kids.

"I feel old," Ino whined. Her head was slumped at the bar counter and her hand was clutching her shot glass. "I don't know how you do it. Managing three very, very energetic kids and a much more energetic husband and then the hospital and still terrify everyone that crosses you…"

"Pig, you know nothing of feeling old. Come back to me after experiencing it and let's compare notes," Sakura said before downing her mimosa.

The blond's phone was loudly trilling but she was doing nothing to answer it.

"Don't you want to get that?" Sakura was answered by an absent 'huh?' "You must be drunker that I thought, Pig."

"Shutup!" Ino fumbled just to get her phone. It was a funny thing to see a gorgeous woman clumsily answering her phone. She dropped it a couple of times before she had successfully answered it. "If this is work I'm drunk." She drunkenly said as a greeting.

Sakura watched her friend changed emotions in a snap. She had lost track on the different emotions that played on the blonds face. She assumed that she was talking to her husband. Thinking about husbands made her want to call hers. She was inebriated and she needs him to pick her up anyway. She can't drink and drive. She treated too many victims of it and did not want to be counted as one.

"Stop sweet talking your way out of this, Missy. Do you have any idea what time it is?"

Ino apparently hit the loudspeak button on her phone. The blond clearly had no idea because she had the device pressed in her left ear. How she didn't burst her ears was beyond her. Sakura and most of the bar patrons can hear the irritated silky bass voice on the end of the line. It was just so mesmerizing to listen to his voice—even if it was berating you or in this case, the intoxicated blond.

Ino glanced at her wrist watch and sheepishly answered that the numbers were blurry. Oh boy. Her friend was releasing Mr. Gloom and Doom.

"Are you still planning on coming home?"

"Uhuh."

"Don't bother. See if I care," and the call ended.

Ino was staring at her phone as if it would give her answers of the mysteries of the universe. "Did I just lose a home?"

"Okay, Pig. Let's get you sobered up. Naruto will be here any minute now," she mentally patted herself for calling him to pick her up. She can't even use her legs to stand. She was really, really getting old.

…

Naruto herded the two drunken woman to the car. One was clingy and the other was whiny. "The things I do for you, Sakura," He said fondly to his wife after settling her first to the back seat of the car. They were dropping the other blond first and he wanted his wife to be comfortable for the long ride home.

"Hmm… I love you too," Sakura answered absently. She was drunker now, her sobering up lead her to four screaming orgasms and five blowjobs. Her companion was no better than her. Ino had downed for bottles of sake after realizing that she has no home for the night and the next shots were foggy.

"Good for you two. I'm getting divorced."

"What? The Bastard loves you don't be silly," Naruto tended to the blond woman. He had to drag her from the gutter where he sat her while tending to his wife first. "Okay. Up you go."

"But it's true. He said I no have a home," the blond woman whined and let her body be moved.

"What? That's stupid and I gotta say you're damn heavy woman. All those stupid diet you were on weren't working huh?"

"Yeah, Sasuke is stupid." Ino answered smiling like a Cheshire cat. If she was on the right sound of mind she might have registered that she was called fat and do something about it.

Naruto turned around to make sure there was nothing they had left behind before strapping the blond to the front seat but as soon as he turned back the car was driving away from him. "Damn it!"

…

Sakura was shouting profanities at the back seat. She was jostling and swinging over the back seat when she came to. It took a while for her to unstrap herself from the seat belts and when she did what she saw she did not like.

"Shut up, Forehead. Where are the brakes on this thing?" Ino was looking down at the floor.

"WHAT?!"

"Oh here they are. Good. Just stay there until I need you."

"STOP THE CAR INO!"

"Hmm? No, we have places to be, Forehead dear." Ino turned her head to look sweetly at the fuming woman holding for stability at the backseat.

"EYES ON THE ROAD!"

"What? Oh, yeah, you're right. We don't want to end up dead."

Sakura had sobered instantly. She was happily succumbing to sleep and the smell of her husband when she almost rolled to the floor of the car. "Damn right! Where the hell are we going? Slow down will you. You drive like were being chased. Wait. Are we being chased?"

Ino would've turned to look at her but Sakura had shouted to keep her eyes on the road. "Dunno. I feel like going to the mountains."

"WHAT THE F—"

"Please stop shouting, Forehead. My ears are ringing with your voice. Ooh, is that a cliff? Ha! You got nothin' on me cliff." Ino swerved and drove like a madman racing on asphalt road. She seemed to forget that she was off road in a sports car.

…

"Let me get this straight, you, a Military official, got jacked by a drunk woman who happens to be my wife? Is that it, Naruto?" Sasuke was bristling in anger. His soon-to-be-dead best friend was about to die if his soon-to-be-strangled-by-her-dainty-neck-for-making-him-worry wife was hurt.

It was a good thing that he had put trackers around his wife. Following her trail was not a problem but the trail that they were tracking was. There were trees and shrubberies and plants. They were going to the top of the Hokage mountains. It was a private mountain, hence, seldom travelled especially by a lowered sports car.

"I'm telling you man, you're wife's one sneaky woman."

"I know how sneaky she is."

"Seriously, you should use her services in your agency instead of letting her be a doctor. Does she know about these trackers? Genius. I should put one on Sakura but she was always home or at the hospital. Boring. Plus, she calls whenever she goes out of routine." Naruto continued to babble on.

"Dobe."

"Yup?"

"Shut up."

Sasuke was hoping for a quiet night with his wife but obviously this wasn't quiet. He just came home earlier than expected from a month long assignment only to find out that his wife was not in her supposed location. He had called the hospital but she wasn't there. Her tracker signal was blinking somewhere at the red light district. He was admittedly a paranoid for her safety. Being a covert agent who takes down criminal syndicate on a daily basis does that.

He was offered to lead the agency but he refused because he wanted to be in the middle of the mission not handing it. Now, he thinks he should have taken it to be closer to his wife.

…

"What is this place? It's gorgeous. I can see the whole city and beyond." Sakura stared in awe at the whole of Konoha.

"We're at the top of the Hokage Mountain."

"Seriously? Isn't this like a privately owned land? Pig, I don't want to be in jail. My kids will loose a very important parental figure and Naruto's okay but not enough for them. He's as mature as my eldest sometimes."

Ino plopped down on the trunk of the car and was staring at the stars. "We're not trespassing. Your husband's clan owns a part of this land so technically it's yours too unless you had that whole prenuptial agreement on assets and liabilities and shit."

"Seriously? That's," Sakura took a moment to think of the right word but end up empty.

Both girls had kept a companionable silence alternating between watching the stars and the city lights when a vehicle stopped next to their parked car. Ino glared at her friend when she noticed her soon-to-be-ex-husband emerged from the dark vehicle. She can't make out the make of the car. It was too dark. There was no moonshine to aid her but she knows that you're dead aura anytime.

"Hey don't look at me. I was busy saving my life from the maniac driver who stole my husband's car." Sakura defended as she ran to her husband's arms. "I'm so glad you're here to take me home. Now."

The Uzumaki couple had left after making sure everyone's alive leaving the Uchiha's to make up.

Ino was waiting for the lion to pounce. She had leveled out sometime after smelling the fresh mountain air. Had she known that Sasuke would be back early she would have raced home and unwind with him but she wasn't apologizing for going to the bar. It had been a very long time since alcohol passed through her throat and she came from family of sake enthusiast.

Never one to wait for the tension to go down she had broken the silence. "I thought you won't be tracking me when I'm in town."

"You were headed to the mountains and the Idiot needs the car and his wife back," Sasuke coolly deflected while still glaring daggers at the woman.

Silence reigned but this time it wasn't as tense as the one preceding it. Sasuke grabbed the blond to sit her next to him at the hood of the SUV.

"I missed you."

"Back at you, Babe. Had I known you'd be home I'd have you release the tension away from me." Ino snuggled next to her long absent husband. She was honest when she said that not that she lies to her secret agent husband. "For the record, I'm sorry for not informing you of the change in my plans other than that I'm not sorry. I was alcohol free for years and I'm thinking why the hell did I stop?"

They had an erratic work schedule so they had agreed a long time ago that they would inform the other of its changes regardless of the situation. Sasuke suddenly appearing in your theater while performing a delicate by-pass procedure was not an experience she wanted to relive again or the time that he was days delayed and she stormed his office making a scene demanding for his status.

"We're together now it's all that matters and you stopped drinking when you thought you were pregnant."

"Oh yeah," Ino looked up at him. "Mouthy aren't we? I kinda missed your hn's."

Sasuke had hugged her tightly. Knowing her she would go on and on. "Hn. I'm afraid to loose you, you know that. Now, shut up and let me savor this."

Ino was an obedient wife sometimes and obliged.

"Sasuke?"

"Hn?"

"I still don't want to have kids," Ino mused while burying her face in his armpit. It was one of her weird quirks and he had long ago made peace with it. As long as his was the only armpit she'd be buried into anyway.

"That's alright. I'm not yet ready to."

"But I thought you wanted to have heirs."

"Not when my life was always on the line, I don't want you to be widowed with children."

The couple went silent after that staring at the stars and the city lights wrapped in each others arms.

Thanks for reading.