She slid the door close, sighed and turned around to find just the person she was looking for sidling up towards her with eyes downward and downcast, running shoes squeaking against the polished floor of the Pokemon Centre. "Lucy."
"Nurse Joy." The trainer snatched a glance at the door, wringing her gloved hands together nervously as she shifted from foot to foot, before letting her fears spill out lest her tears do first. "Is he breathing? How bad is it? What did the doctors say?"
Nurse Joy held up her hands in placation. "His condition is stable now. At this point, they said the worst has passed, and time and rest are all he needs."
Lucy bit her lip. "Will he make a full recovery?" She asked, brushing away stray chocolate bangs from her eyes.
Joy hesitated and Lucy stiffened in response. "His body will," the nurse said eventually. "His pride…" She sighed. "I'm not so sure. Only time will tell."
The pair of them stood there in the hallway in silence as the trainer digested this. In the background, they could hear a wheelchair squeaking and a Clefairy humming a lullaby.
The trainer lifted her head. "I want to see him."
"I'm not sure…" Joy met Lucy's gaze, before averting her eyes, weighing up the pros and cons as she remembered what and who she was dealing with. "I suppose you can, considering that he's still awake," she said with a smile, opening the door again.
"Thank you." Lucy stepped past the nurse.
"It's no trouble. I'll wait outside."
Truth be told, it was one of the worst incidents Nurse Joy had ever seen, and though what she said was no lie, she herself knew she'd remember this one.
The door closed. Lucy stood with her back to it, alone with him in his recovery room, with nothing but the low, constant beeping of the heart monitor. "Hi," she blurted out, half-lifting a tentative hand in greeting at the sight before her. "How are you doing?"
With the extensive layers of plaster wrapped around his limbs and torso for body casts and the bindings holding one of his legs up, he looked like a mummy making a very stiff attempt at posing for a beach photoshoot, and the sight would have been comical if Lucy hadn't been there when it all happened. The Lucario looked at her, rolled his eyes towards the ceiling, and loudly groaned through the material covering his mouth and nose. Don't look at me like that.
"Sorry." Lucy came up closer to him and leaned down till she was on her knees before him. "Does it hurt?" She placed her arms on the bed, careful not to rest her weight on them.
A groan. Yes.
"A lot? Should I call for Nurse Joy?"
A whimper. No.
"Do you want to talk about what happened?"
Another whimper. The heart monitor's beeping picked up speed.
"You sure?"
A groan, and a loud one this time.
"Okay. I won't push it then." Lucy turned her attention his casts. Slowly but surely, the beeping slowed back to normal. "How long do you think before they let you out?" She was given a grimace. "That long, huh? The doctors tell you that?" An all but imperceptible nod. "Wow, that is quite a while. That's alright, you know I'll wait no matter how long it takes. You know that, don't you?" She got a snort for that. "Well now you do, and don't you forget it, you hear?" She reached out and patted the Lucario on the head. "Good boy. You know you've cost me a Gym Badge with this little stunt you pulled. Guess I'm going to have to postpone my appointment with the Elite Four this time, no thanks to you."
The Lucario rolled his eyes again. He was quite good at it.
Lucy smiled. "We'll get there one day, you'll see. Maybe we didn't last year, and now this year too, but that's fine. I don't have any other plans at the moment." She took the Lucario's hand and gave it a squeeze, and was rewarded with the heart monitor beeping faster again, the curves on the screen rising and falling with greater amplitudes and frequency. "Trust me, I'll wait. I won't be Champion unless you're there with me. That's the only way I want it to be."
The Lucario met her gaze, her earnest gaze, and his eyes began to water. Even with the plaster over him she could see him making a visible effort to swallow.
"I'll come by tomorrow," she promised, standing up and slowly backing away. "Take it easy now." She shook her fingers in farewell before turning to the door.
Nurse Joy watched as Lucy walked past her, and while she was holding the door she noticed the Lucario raising a hand despite the cast around it to say goodbye. She nodded to the Pokemon and closed the door once more. "You said everything you wanted to say?"
Lucy nodded, looking more composed now, even cheery. The trainer made as if to walk away, before turning back. "Do you…do you think he's learned his lesson?"
Nurse Joy hesitated for the second time that afternoon. In her time working at Pokemon Centre, she's seen a lot of cases where the injuries were so severe that the patients had to be taken out of their Pokeballs for a proper recovery. She had seen what happens when a Snorlax decided to take a nap in the middle of a match and fall asleep on top of the opponent. She had seen what happens when a Pokemon tried to remove a Shellder from a Slowbro's tail without both their consent. There was even this one time where she had seen what happens when a hungry Charizard tried to swallow down a Magikarp and have that Magikarp begin evolution while it was still somewhere in the Charizard's throat.
But this, this was the first time she's received a patient who had received injuries while trying to peek up a Gardevoir's skirt.
"No I don't think so."
Lucy sighed and rubbed her eyes wearily. "Me neither."
Didn't expect that plot twist now did ya :D