Disclaimer to serve for entire story: I do not own Pokémon in any way, nor do I claim to.

I wrote this story and had it posted for four years on this site and then my account was removed, so I'm just putting it back put by popular request. I was little over half way done with it when I hit writer's block, but plan to finish it very soon. Some of the chapter's had to be re-written anyway, because I lost a couple (I wrote it long ago and my computer's crashed twice since then…) so I plan to continue it.

Painful Secrets

Chapter 1 --- Breaking News

It was a beautiful day in the world of Pokémon. Ash, Misty and Brock were heading home to take a break from the Johto league to enjoy the 4th of July. Actually, Ash's mom had insisted on it. It had been so long since she had seen "her little boy". Ash now had his 4th badge, and was feeling pretty good about the world and himself.

As they came out of the trees and Pallet came onto view, Ash turned to Misty.

"See?! I told you I could get us here! I know my way home!" He said triumphantly.

"Pika!!!" said Pikachu, agreeing with his trainer.

"yeah, right, Ash. It only took us how long to get here form Viridian City? Three days??? If it weren't for you lacking all sense of direction, we could have been here the day before yesterday!!!" Misty argued back.

"You tried to lead, too!!! If you're so smart, how come you couldn't get us here faster?" He shot back.

"You live here!!! You shouldn't have to need help, and the reason that we're here today instead of tomorrow is because I found the main path again after you decided to try a shortcut!" She fired at him.

Togepi started crying from all the yelling and Misty immediately tried rocking it back to sleep, but Togepi cried on.

"All right, break it up!!!!" Said Brock, who was searching through his bag for some Aspirin. "I've heard nothing but fighting from you two since we got lost, and now that we're not lost, it's still going on! I'm sick of playing referee, so let's go start our argument-free vacation, ok? It's getting late."

"You're right!" said Ash, eager to get home. "C'mon, Pikachu!" he broke out into a run towards his street, his friends in tow, calling after him to slow down. He reached his house and ran inside, where his mom ran up and greeted Pikachu enthusiastically, before turning and giving Ash a hug.

Misty and Brock ran in behind him.

"Hi, Mrs. Ketchum! It's great to see you again!" Misty smiled sweetly.

"Why thank you, Misty!" She said happily, then saw the baby Pokémon in Misty's arms. "Hello, Togepi!"

"Priiiiiii!" It trilled back at her.

"I was just getting dinner ready, why don't you kids get settled in and I'll call you when it's ready?"

"Great mom, thanks!" Said Ash.

The kids ran upstairs and dumped their backpacks in the floor of Ash's room. Ash felt great. He had his fourth badge, was on his way to being a Pokémon master, and was taking a vacation at home for the holiday. He decided that nothing could ruin his good mood. Not even Misty's fighting.

Misty watched Ash pull out the roll out mattress as he told her to take the bed. 'He always let me have the bed while he takes the floor. Maybe he's not perfect, but he can be so sweet sometimes.' "Are you sure, Ash?"

"Of course." He answered, pulling out a blanket. It wasn't time for bed, but he wanted to get the room ready anyway. Brock went and got into the shower and misty went downstairs to see if she could help Ash's mom with dinner while Ash unpacked.

Soon it was ready and the kids found themselves sitting around the table with a great meal in front of them. "Score!!!" Cheered Ash. "You're the best cook ever, mom!"

Mrs. Ketchum just smiled and put the ketchup on the table…. Right in front of Pikachu.

"Pikachu!" He said happily as he attempted to pour the whole bottle on his tiny plate. It didn't work, however, as Ash reached over almost immediately and took it away from him.

"You'll get the ketchup last, Pikachu. Remember it has to go around the whole table first." Laughed Ash as he put some on his own tater-tots and passed it to Brock.

"Chuuuu…" He said sadly.

"So how many badges have you gotten, Ash?" Delia passed the bottle to Misty, opting for salt instead.

"Four right now in Johto, and I'm still fired up. When that championship comes I'll be ready, and I'll win! Just watch me!"

"Yeah, he should be catching up to Gary any time now." Misty's words had Ash falling out of his own little world and into his own personal gloom bubble in the blink of an eye.

"That's nice dear." Ms. Ketchum was as oblivious to her son's plight as ever and it was by sheer coincidence that she happened to choose that very moment to change the subject into something out of left field as she brought up a topic that Ash had never talked about with his friends. In fact, this particular topic had been avoided by him like the Bubonic Plague.

"By the way, Ash," she started "Your dad's going to be coming down for the fourth, too." Ash dropped his fork and stared at his mom, who continued, "He can only stay on Saturday night, though. He'll have to leave Sunday morning, he has work the afternoon, and Vermillion City is a long drive from here. 3 hours at least."

Misty and Brock thought it was great and listened intently, getting ready to ask questions about his dad. No one, not even Pikachu, noticed that Ash was starting to look kind of pale, though he had no expression on his face. His mom went on, "I told him to come anyway. I mean, even though he and I are separated, you still haven't seen him in a long time, and there's no excuse to keep him from you, right? You are his son, after all. He says he can't wait to see you and has missed you terribly."

Ash merely nodded slowly as the words continued to sink in. his eyes couldn't focus on anything, his vision blurred. He felt dizzy. Then tried to gain his composure. 'Mom still doesn't know about him, and I don't want her to find out. I have to get a grip or they'll know something's wrong.' He thought to himself in a panic.

He looked up and forced a smile. That sounds great, mom. When will he be here on Saturday?"

"In the morning" she answered. "He's waking up early to see you! Isn't that nice, sweetheart?"

Misty decided now was a good time to fire the questions. "What's Ash's dad like? Ash never talks about him."

"He's a very nice man, we had a wonderful marriage. But he started drinking and acting strange when he did. I put up with it at first, but it started to get out of control and with ash only being six, we decided to split up for a while. Spend some time apart. It was hard on Ash at first." She said sadly and looked at Ash for a moment, then turned back to Misty. "He moved to Vermillion and has a nice job there, and he still financially supports us when we need help."

"I'm sorry. But I'm glad it worked out for both of you in the end." Said Misty.

"Yes, it did. I think we're both happier this way. For the first year after we split up, Ash would go there every other weekend to visit him, under the terms we set for our separation. But after that, he just didn't seem to make it anymore. He'd get sick or get hurt and wouldn't want to leave. His dad still insisted on seeing Ash anyway, cuz those were the terms. So Ash would go spend time with his dad. They had fun, too, Ash told me, though I think all those rough sports could have stopped." She glanced at Ash.

Ash thought fast "we just played games, sports and such. It was no big deal, really." Inside, he was thinking 'why do we have to be talking about this? Why did that have to come up?'

Delia smiled at him. They were still rough." She turned to Misty "he always seemed to get hurt or something playing football with his dad." She looked back at Ash. "Well, I don't mind if you do it when he comes, as long as it's not in the house!" she said sternly.

"Ok, mom." Ash said.

Misty looked at his plate. "Ash, you haven't eaten hardly anything! Are you ok?" She asked.

Yeah, just kinda tired from the walk here. I'm gonna go to bed, ok?" he got up and walked from the table.

"But Ash," Misty started.

"Good night, guys" said Ash, interrupting. Pikachu finished his dinner in two bites and ran upstairs with him.

"That was strange…" said Brock. "Ash is never in bed this early. It's only eight thirty."

"And he didn't eat anything…" finished Misty.

"Do you think he's sick???" asked his mom, starting to panic.

"No No No, I'm sure he's just tired like he said. And excited about his dad." Said Brock, trying to calm Delia down again.

That night when Misty came to bed (Brock slept on the couch downstairs), Ash pretended to be asleep. He listened to her put Togepi to bed and then get in herself. Pikachu was curled up in a little yellow ball, hugging his tail, asleep next to ash's feet.

Ash waited for what seemed like a long time till he thought she must be sleeping. Then he turned on his back and laid awake for a long time.

In the bed above him, Misty watched him for a while thinking 'for someone who was so tired at dinner, he sure is having a hard time getting to sleep. He started acting strange when his dad was mentioned. I wonder what's wrong? I could ask him, but he probably wouldn't tell me anything, like at dinner. And we'd probably get into a fight and wake the Pokémon. He's so stubborn sometimes! He's probably just trying to get attention. Well, he won't get it from me!' She decided this was the case, rolled over, and went to sleep.

Ash, however, stayed awake all night thinking about what happened earlier at dinner, and earlier in his life…

AN: What do you guys think? Is it any good at all? It's just the opening so it's hardly easy to tell from that little bit of prologue, but let me know about grammar errors, OOCness, and anything else that you found out of place. Ash's past will start to develop more to you in each chapter, I hope.