He's just a child, she had told herself. Too young to be in love with me, and far too young for me to love him.
He wasn't, though. He wasn't and she knew it. His soft voice, his dark grey brown eyes, his utterly solemn expression. What was it about that heart shaped face that made her want to see him smile? In all the times she'd met him, he never smiled. He never frowned. He simply threw himself into his work with a silent passion she'd never seen before in anyone, let alone in a 'child'. There was something silencing about him. There was something off about him, something gone awry in his life, and all she wanted to do was to crack him open and find out what.
He fought against Team Galactic. Grown men and women shrank back from the TG, afraid to stand up for what was right. He raced to do so without being asked. He stood his ground with Pokemon more powerful than her own. He fought with a silent fear in his eyes for the legendary Pokemon he failed to rescue. He took victory gracefully because he didn't consider it victory. Victory would've meant saving the lake spirits from being kidnapped. He took it harshly, with a fallen face and no response to anyone's praise. Face hidden by his hat and downturned head, he simply left to train more. He wasn't satisfied with being braver than everyone else around him. He wanted to be the hero of everyone. He wanted to do something important. He didn't want to fight crime. He wanted to eliminate it from Sinnoh single handedly.
And he couldn't. It was impossible. It was too much for one person. As his friends fought onwards, he cursed himself for everything he did. In monotone, eyes far away, he spoke with no hope about how he'd failed them. He should have been there, done that, acted sooner, done this later. Every single second was a failure to him. Every single second he fought onward, he was pushing himself. His physical body didn't matter. His parent's worry didn't matter. All he wanted was perfection.
She wanted to scream. She wanted to tell him that she thought he was perfect. She wanted to tell him he was a gentleman, the last truly polite young man of his generation. She wanted to him his quiet voice was the perfect melody to her ears after the insane screaming of a hundred fans. He could keep his mouth shut. He could speak when it was needed. He ran into danger without giving a thought to himself. He ran errands for her without blinking an eye. In a sea of identical, over enthusiastic fangirls and fanboys saying how good they were going to be, he was the solemn face of a self defeating champion. She wanted desperately to tell him how wonderful and unique he was, but she couldn't.
Her voice died in her throat when she thought of his age. No, she couldn't say these things to someone so much younger than her. She couldn't admit, even to herself, that he was beautiful and a perfect match for her. She couldn't let herself get so close to someone who was so closed himself. He was frigid, dead inside, locked up to the world. The mental barriers he put up were too strong. If she got close to him, between that and the age difference, would he feel the same? Of course not. He would surely think her insane. It had taken months of his Pokemon journey for her to get close enough to be considered his friend. She couldn't throw it all away.
Until, that is, he threw it all away for her.
She'd been fighting Team Galactic. They all had, he and his two friends, while the quiet inner sanctum of Sinnoh's church was ripped apart. In defending the building, she got so wrapped up she didn't even see it coming. She wouldn't have ever known she was in danger until he screamed. Her body tensed instantly as she twirled around. He never screamed. His voice was always so soft and calm that the very idea of his panic filled scream startled her. She barely felt it as he shoved her out of the way, his small body taking the brunt of the attack.
The Tri Attack was horrific when used upon a human. Fire exploded along his body, and he started to scream when ice swirled around him, his frozen body defying gravity for a moment before electricity shattered the ice. His lithe body convulsed violently for a moment before he went utterly still. For a split second, all was calm.
Then she found her voice, and screamed. All six of her Pokemon hit that Galactic Dodrio, and it went flying. Her frantic commands went out almost too fast for her Pokemon to follow them. In mere seconds, the raging battle was over. Every single Grunt and Commander was defeated and knocked out cold. Her fists shook as she glared them down, as if daring any one of them to rise. Without even hearing one of his friends congratulations, she coldly snapped for them to call an ambulance. She commanded her Pokemon to return. The friends rushed off. She was the last person standing.
Her knees went out, and her arms wrapped around him. No. No. She couldn't shake him, because her own hands were shaking too bad to do much more than hold him. His icy cheek rested on her shoulder; his scalding hot forehead radiated heat so intense she merely had to be near him to feel. His soft, faint breathing struck a note of terror in her she'd never felt before. She was the Champion. She was supposed to be able to stay calm no matter what. She wasn't calm right then. She was scared. She was terrified, in fact, and she was in love. Her arms held him close as his breathing slowly grew more steady.
It seemed like a nightmarish enternity before he opened his grey-brown eyes and stared at her with a total lack of composure that caught her off guard. For a few brief seconds, he was open to her, totally so, as a child would be. Open to her utter rejection or love. She could lie and say it was all friendship. She could lie and say it was all because she was a Champion. She should have. She wanted to. But that was the old her, the one who deluded herself into pretending he was just a little kid. Now she saw him brush with death to protect her. For what? Why? She'd never asked him to, and yet he gladly threw himself before her, a human shield. She couldn't lie to him. She couldn't, no matter what their age difference was or how Sinnoh would see her now. It was time for her to act like an adult. After a few seconds, she found her voice.
"Lucas, I love you," her stormy gray eyes blinked furiously to hold back tears. "I love you so much."
He was about to throw up his walls and block her out. He struggled visibly with his answer, but finally he sagged against her, leaning into her embrace and closing his eyes. "I love you, too, Cynthia." The words were so deadly solemn, so fitting for the dark church in which they sat. "I just wish I were older, so I could be perfect for you."
"To me, you're flawless," she whispered back, feeling his arms weakly wrap around her waist. "Absolutely flawless."
"You really mean that?" he whispered, the words barely audible as the siren of the ambulance came nearer.
"I do," she told him firmly, "You are the most wonderful man I've ever met."
The paramedics swarmed in. Chanseys lifted him from her grasp, his body delicately placed upon a stretcher. His eyes grew cold and distant as strangers surrounded him. His life had been spent building up walls of perfectionism as a professor's assisstant. His walls were too thick for any of these people to penetrate, because he wasn't just anyone. He was Lucas, young upcoming star Trainer, and he could not afford to be anything other than composed, pristine and untouchable. Cynthia watched with pangs of familiarity. How often she had done the same thing, she pondered vaguely as the nurse said something that went in the champion's one ear and out there other. She wanted to look away, play happy unshakable champion and act like this was all over. Like this meant nothing to her. Instead she watched him with utmost concern, not glancing away for a second even as Grunts and Commanders were piled into other ambulances all around her. She only had eyes for Lucas.
"I'm not a man," he muttered as they shut the ambulance doors, thinking she couldn't hear.
But alone, standing in the cold, empty, darkened church, she disagreed, both verbally and in her heart.
"Well, you're certainly no child..."