Disclaimer: I do not own the Pokemon series
Call Log
She has come to loathe the question.
People sometimes venture to Nuvema Town to see the house. Others see her walking around the streets or in the shops. It's always the same. A hint of shy admiration mixed with awe that they're actually meeting the mother of the hero, and one-time champion, of Unova.
They'll tell her a bit about themselves. They'll show her their Pokémon. They might even ask for a photo with her. Then they'll hesitate before asking her quietly what the hero is doing now.
She always says, "Searching for a friend." It satisfies most people.
And who knows? It may even be true.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Her main phone line is different now but she keeps the old Xtransceiver charged and on the table. She used to check it every day. Then every other day. Now she checks it once a week. No one has called it for over a year.
She never looks at the call log. It tells a story she doesn't want to see. First, there were daily phone calls. There were pictures sent from Pokémon Centres, visits home and updates from Professor Juniper. Then the phone calls lessened. What few visits home had existed stopped. She began to rely on Professor Juniper and the news more and more.
She has never received a satisfactory answer for why a couple of teenagers had been sent to fight a national crime organisation. When she was a Pokémon trainer, the closest she came to anything like it was fighting off muggers. She has also never received a satisfactory answer as to why she had to rely on her teenaged child and the news to keep her updated.
Three phone calls stick out in her mind. The first was the one before the first time against the Elite Four. After the excited, nervous chatter, she had managed to shout out Good luck before an irritable background voice shouted "Hurry up!"
The next thing she knew, the news was playing out a blow-by-blow account of a castle appearing and stories followed of the legendary dragons and of heroes and fools. Two days later, there was a knock on the door. She opened it.
"I'm home."
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Sometimes, she wishes she had logged that secret agent's number on the Xtransceiver. She knew her child was the best placed to help look for the remainders of Team Plasma. She knew trainers grew up quickly in Unova. Yet they'd been a family for perhaps three weeks before they were saying farewell again. This time, she knew not to expect daily phone calls or detailed conversations (if she phoned instead).
The fame had already seeped through to her by then. She knows how to handle it better now but back then, it is safe to say that she floundered, slightly. She wasn't the hero. She had contributed nothing but advice and occasional presents. It didn't matter. People took her word as gospel anyway.
She saw Cheren and Bianca a few times. Sometimes, they visited her at home. Once, just once, she let Bianca sit upstairs with her. Bianca commented, "Huh. It's so clean. It's like no one's here." It struck a nerve and while she tried to laugh it off, Bianca obviously noticed. No visits have taken place upstairs since.
The second memorable phone call was about the new champion of Unova and it remains dear to her heart because it happened so quickly after Alder's defeat. She thinks that had it been her, she might not have called her mother first. But she knew before anyone else. Before the news, before Cheren and Bianca, before Professor Juniper.
The familiar knock on the door was the icing on the cake.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
She knows all of the stories from that journey. She knows about Ghestis and N and Reshiram and Zekrom. She knows how quickly Alder went down. She knows about small parts of the journey that the public don't care about. How Samurott was unofficial arbitrator for the team's arguments. How Lilligant liked to dance and Unfezant liked to sing. How Beartic was always the baby of the team despite being bigger than everyone else. How Conkeldurr and Darmanitan constantly sparred. How soup in the rain tasted better than fancy meals fit for a hero. How bikes cannot be ridden through sand. How treading slowly up snow piles on a winter's day was one of the most depressing journeys made. These are thing she knows and cherishes because they are small moments that make the silence worth it.
She knows why Iris became champion. The third memorable call – the last call – took place at three in the morning, in winter. She remembers answering it; panicked, thinking something was terribly wrong.
"I lost. Iris beat me."
"I'm so sorry, dear," she had said. "Are you OK?"
"It's fine." That voice, always so upbeat and cheery. "Actually ... I ... might not have put my all in."
She was so shocked, she simply said, "Why?"
"When you're the Champion, you're supposed to fight newcomers. I need to be free. To search for N."
"But you worked so hard."
"I know. One day, I might go and regain my title." Still a smile in that voice. "Don't worry, Mom. I know what I'm doing."
"I know, dear," she'd said. "I trust you. And I'm proud of you."
"Thanks, Mom. I'd better go. They're going to want to interview me about losing and I want to disappear. I love you."
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
There is nothing but rumour left, she thinks. Some nights, she wakes up in a cold sweat, imagining her baby (not a baby anymore – nineteen hardly qualifies as a baby) dead on some unknown mountain or being eaten by a wild Pokémon. Other days, she thinks that there's nothing to worry about. There will be a knock on the door as an Unfezant coos outside her window. She just has to wait.
The Xtransceiver is cold but she changes the sheets in that bedroom religiously. She stocks food she doesn't like because it may one day be eaten. She doesn't ask anyone for updates because they know less than she does.
She wonders whether she should search herself. She doesn't know N at all but she knows her own child. She could force a reunion. But then she thinks: what will happen if the knock on the door happens and she's walking northern Unova?
So she waits. She fills her days with endless chores and tries to avoid meeting people who only want to know about the hero and one-time champion of Unova. She makes herself remain upbeat.
Then one day, she hears a familiar knock on the door. She opens it and turns away to pick something up. She recognises the footsteps as they enter the house.
"Welcome home, dear," she says, still turned away. "Did you find the friend you were looking for? Wasn't his name something like N?" She turns back except a stranger is looking at her with some concern. "Huh?" The same expression but a stranger nonetheless. She thinks it might be the new champion of Unova. "Excuse me! How embarrassing! Mistaking a visitor for my own child!" She walks forward, trying to think of a way to salvage the situation. Then she realises that she knows this child. Their mom used to work in a Pokémon Centre.
She lets the stranger stay the night and tells them they can always return to rest their Pokémon. She enjoys the sound of that room being used and the eerily similar tone and expression makes her ache. So when the familiar footsteps fade away, she goes to the Xtransceiver, picks it up and types in the number she memorised three years ago on faded buttons.
There is no answer. She sighs and puts it back on the table. Another dialled call with length of zero seconds to add to the call log. Another call that pushes the final conversation closer to automatic deletion.
If it hasn't been deleted already.
Fin