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Wellspring Arms & Meditation Centre, Wednesday

Ino was… so not in the mood for her regular schedule of work work work and then nothing and that, well, showed in her lackluster enthusiasm in even watering the plants. The only reason she'd even made it in to work was because, after yesterday's abject failure, she hadn't wanted to…

It had seemed like a bad idea to not keep to her schedule. Especially since she didn't want to be here.

Blah. Ino settled in her usual spot in Cable-san's chair and brooded. She had a lot of things to brood about, lately.

Wellspring Arms is Open.

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If you want.

Chloe hadn't seen Ino much lately, so she figured she would be forgiven for bothering her at work. Especially since they weren't in Reno's class to compare notes and talk like they did before.

"Hi, Ino."

What was there to forgive? Visitations were amazing things.

... Even if Ino, on her Rookie's entrance had a panicked moment of wishing that she, you know, looked less like she was dead tired. The lost weight didn't help much either, but what could she do about that?

"Rookie," she said, offering a smile that was--mostly genuine, even. That was nice. "What's up with you?"

Chloe did notice the changes and she wasn't sure how to express her concern without making Ino think she looked bad or showing how worried she was.

"Things are all right," she said with a faint smile. "Reno's class is going to be... interesting. Rikku's class is fun, though. How are you?"

"Peachy," Ino said, in a dry tone that implied she was anything but. "Come sit, Rookie. What's wrong with--his, class?"

And she sounded faintly--off--asking about Reno.

Yeah, all of this was adding up to a great deal of no good in Chloe's mind. She went and sat down and looked at Ino. "I don't think he was expecting to be teaching his class with a partner. I don't think they like each other very much."

She shook her head. "What's wrong, Ino?" This was what she was much more concerned about.

Ino smiled faintly at the bluntness--she did appreciate it.

Even if it was tempting to try and derail the conversation into 'who was his partner...?'

"Honestly?" She shook her head. "Mostly everything--but it's all... off-island stuff."

Except for Zack, who was a man on a countdown. And Reno, who'd kept that from her.

Bluntness was a new thing she was trying out.

"It may be off-island stuff, but that doesn't change that something has you upset; and that you need a good rest." She gave her a steady smile. "Talk to me, Ino. I'm your Rookie, but I'm also your friend and I care."

"Don't say that," she said, blinking a bit. "I'm going to cry on you at this rate."

Which would... probably do her good, Ino acknowledged, but at the same time... Crying meant weakness to her. Decisions.

"I..." Where to start?

"You know me, I have that honesty thing that keeps coming out." She smiled gently. "Let me make some tea for you this time and you can talk."

"There's--a kettle and things," she said, because tea was easy to focus on. "Mostly green and herbal teas."

Because, well, that was what Ino liked.

"Would you prefer the green tea or the herbal tea?" Then Chloe thought about that for a moment. "Let's go with the herbal tea."

Since knowing Ino, Chloe had studied her teas and had read that the herbal ones were good for relaxing and things like that. Ino could probably use some of that.

"Sure," she said, pulling her legs up under her in the seat and wondering if she ought to get the blanket that Cable-san kept around here. "That... works for me."

Chloe nodded and was quiet as she made the tea for Ino. Once it was ready and it had brewed long enough -- but not too long -- she brought the cups back to Ino. She sat down next to her and handed hers to her.

"Talk to me."

Ino studied her tea for a bit, not really seeing it, but taking comfort from the warmth of it.

"Thanks, you," she said softly. It seemed like the sort of thing she ought to say, really. "I..."

A breath and then starting again.

"I guess it all... started before break?" she admitted, fingers clenched tight around the tea cup. "I got in some--real deep trouble, got banged up real bad, and weren't doing so hot here when I got back. Jumpy, you know?"

But that was kinda... embarrassing to admit. Even if it left out the fact that she'd attacked Max and that she'd poisoned Reno (and then fixed him!) about it. And skipped a lot of the details like 'kidnapped and tortured and hospitalized for three days in a world where most injuries are healed nearly instantaneously'.

Ino was talking, but she was sparing her Rookie the... unnecessary details. Not so much because she thought Chloe couldn't handle it, but because she wasn't... sure that talking about that would help anything.

Chloe nodded, but was silent as Ino talked. She didn't think that Ino was telling her everything, but the point right now wasn't about that. The point was in getting Ino to talk about any of it.

And for Chloe to be the one there to offer her support and her shoulder like Ino had done so many times before. Although, the way Chloe had been thinking and feeling lately, if she did find out about the torture, she'd want to go after someone over it.

She may be a Rookie, but you didn't hurt Chloe's friends.

The silence, really, only served to make her want to babble but these topics weren't really the sort to... babble about.

"Reno told me to go take a vacation. Somewhere that I'd feel safe--I went back to Konoha. Zack came with me," she added, almost like an afterthought. Of course Zack had gone with her. "And time went funny there--it was only, like, two days or something here and we'd been gone a month and a half..."

She shook her head.

"It helped," and this was where it got--complicated again. "I've told you, right, that Konoha is a military village? They... got attacked," she said it rapidly, very flatly. "Konoha don't exist no more."

And her vacation had just gotten worse from there.

Chloe's eyes widened at that information. She wasn't even sure she wanted to think about what kind of power or group of people it would take to wipe out a village like what Ino was telling her about.

"Holy shit," she breathed. She really couldn't think of something better than that right now. "Ino..."

What? 'Sorry you had your home wiped out by assholes?'

She took a drink of her tea. "You and Zack were caught in that?"

Tea. Right. Chloe sipping it reminded Ino that she ought to drink some of hers.

"Yeah," she said, because what was there to say? The world had fallen apart around them. "Zack got hurt pretty bad, I wasn't--in the same spot as him so I got out easier."

Easier, not easily.

Chloe noted the difference.

"Were you able to get to him, or did something else happen?"

Because Chloe had no doubt that there was more to the story.

"Zack was--helping my mom at the shop," she explained, "I was with my dad on the opposite end of the city. When... the invasion started, I helped my dad in locating and giving orders. Zack, as a civilian, helped with the evacuation."

Ino stared at her cup.

"Dad and I moved to the edge of the village while working, Zack was--in the middle when everything... went."

And Konoha had been reduced to a crater in an instant.

"Your mom?" Because it was important that she knew who close to Ino was harmed so that she could know how to best proceed with the comfort and shoulder thing.

That got a faint, twitchy smile. "Okay. She's--fine. Dad, too. At least, they were when I... left."

Fled like a fleeing thing.

Chloe nodded. That was good. She wouldn't have wanted Ino to have to deal with that on top of everything else.

"I take it that you didn't come back right away."

If Ino had had to deal with that she'd have been curled up in a ball in her room and never coming out.

Ever.

"Noooo," she said, hunching her shoulders. "We, um, went to... Reno's world."

Chloe blinked and then looked at Ino. She didn't say anything, she was just waiting for her friend to continue.

Right! Explanations.

She was... bad at those at the moment.

"Zack... comes from the same world," she said, trying not to wibble. "But Zack is from the past--Reno's world is something like, ten years in the future? And a lot of... really awful things happen in those ten years that he didn't want Zack in particular to know. So we--we weren't thinkin' right, I guess, 'cause I'd been hurt in Zack's world and then my world was... so Reno's seemed safe?"

Her lips trembled. Ino silently told them to cut it out.

"We found... an entire world, almost, like Konoha. Destroyed villages, cities... we found Zack's parents and made sure they were doing okay but they didn't know it was--Zack. This one is too young."

And now she was rambling. Anything to avoid that last, final, horror.

It took Chloe a few extra moments to understand why --

Oh no. Oh no.

She had seen enough with Fandom and seen enough with other things to know what that kind of reaction with time stuff had to mean. Because, with what Ino was describing, there was no way it could have been anything else.

She reached out one arm and hugged Ino close.

Ino leaned into that hug, needing it.

"I'm not going to cry," she babbled, because if she didn't babble she would end up crying. "Because it's not going to happen and I'm going to fix it and it's not allowed to happen."

But it had, in one world.

"Of course not, and if you do, nothing like that ever happened and I just happened to knock some water from the tea on myself."

Chloe kept her arm around her.

"You're half right, Ino," she said firmly, but calmly. "It won't happen because we won't let it happen. You are not alone in this, I promise you that." She nodded. "Friends do that. They stick by each other and help out when things are both easy and hard."

See, and now she was sniffling and that was totally tea that had gotten on Chloe and not a few tears that were sneaking out despite Ino's stubborn reluctance about crying.

"I don't know how," she said, wibbly. "I don't got a time frame or, or nothing. Just that it happens. In the next few years."

Chloe was clumsy with regards to her tea, oh yes.

It just about broke her heart to hear the wibbling in Ino's voice.

"We'll find out, Ino," she said softly. "We'll figure it out and there will be nothing like that allowed to happen."

She nodded, helplessly. There wasn't a whole lot--they could do, really, not now, but it was amazing to hear that someone else was going to help.

"D-Don't spread it around," she said, quietly. "He wouldn't want that. I shouldn't have even... you..."

"Never. This is just between you and I, Ino."

Mod your zen, or ask Ino to help.

Only with permission.

SP is hugely likely. Oh, January. Be over already.

SP because work is not cooperating. :D

Hurrah for SP! \o/

Off to bed so SP continued?

Absolutely!

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Wellspring Arms & Meditation Centre, Wednesday

Talk to Ino

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Meditation Room

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