WARNING: This story is DARK. I didn't want to write it in the first place, but I dreamed that James sacrificed himself for Jessie, and the story insisted on being written. So here it is, the tragic tale that wouldn't get out of my head until I let it flow onto paper (or at least digital media). Get out the tissues and start reading... if you dare.

The Officer Jenny looked at Jessie as if she were crazy. "She" could have been Jessie OR the officer herself, since most perpetrators, no matter how incompetent, still don't just hand themselves over for no apparent reason. Yes somehow, Jenny was inclined to believe that this time, the Pokemon thief was on the level. Something in the hardened criminal's eyes told her that, yes, she was seriously giving up this time. (Team Rocket had tried to pull a fast one on the Jennies before, resulting in the near theft of every single Growlithe on the squad – but it had literally backfired when James had rediscovered what happens when Grass-types try to fight Fire-types.)

Strangely enough, James wasn't there with Jessie, and neither was Meowth. Jenny simply had to ask. "Where's your partner with the lavender hair? Did he not want to-"

Jessie's reply was swift and blunt. "He's dead."

"What?"

"He's dead," Jessie repeated. "Dead and buried. You'll find him on the northern side of Mt. Coronet under about a thousand tons of rubble. Not that YOU'D care if he lived or died."

Jenny was shocked to hear this. Sure, she'd known that there'd been a recent avalanche in Sinnoh, and rescue workers were still rescuing survivors and digging up casualties, but she certainly hadn't known that Team Rocket had been there, yet alone that one of their members has been lost. "An Officer Jenny's job is to preserve life," she replied icily, meeting Jessie's bitter gaze. "I'm very sorry for your loss." She paused. "I'm almost afraid to ask this, but what about your Meowth?"

"Oh, HE'S fine. HE didn't have the nerve to stick with me after James bit it – headed over to join the Twerps again, the spineless coward. Said that life in the big house wasn't for him." Jessie sulked. "Well, it's certainly not MY first choice either, but what else can I do? I can't go back to Team Rocket and tell them I let my partner die like that." Jessie was silent a while, and the Jenny could tell that she was trying very hard not to cry. Her efforts failed, and Jessie exploded in a fountain of tears, actually burying her face in the Jenny's uniform as she sobbed.

"It's all my fault..."

Jenny felt horrible. "Calm down, please. Can you tell me what happened?"

Jessie told her everything – almost everything. "We were on a mission to capture Arceus. We almost succeeded, too, except that Arceus woke up after I caught it with an Ultra Ball Meowth had found in the ruins. It burst free and..." Jessie couldn't go on. "...and..."

The Jenny put a comforting hand on Jessie's shoulder, and the criminal didn't even brush it away. "Go on," said Jenny.

"Arceus caused the landslide. Me and Meowth were about to get buried, but James pushed us..." She dissolved into heavy sobs again. "He pushed us off the cliff edge, to safety. He could have just jumped to safety himself and left us, but..."

"Since when is pushing someone off a cliff in any way safe?"

Jessie shot the Jenny a frosty glare. "We've survived worse falls than THAT before, thank-you-very-much. Just ask the Twerps – they're the ones who launched us." Jenny instantly realized that this was a touchy subject for Jessie, so she let the matter drop. No pun intended. Now was hardly the time for humor.

"So, are you certain that your partner was... lost?"

Jessie nodded, unable to speak. She remembered the moment she'd found him, crushed to death beneath the heavy boulders. All the way back up the mountain, she'd been griping about what she was going to do to James once she caught up with him – neuter him with her bare hands, then snap his neck. But when she'd suddenly found him lying dead with his skull caved in and his neck already snapped, she would have given up her own life, without a moment's hesitation, to bring him back alive.

She couldn't tell the officer any more, not one single word. She just allowed Jenny to lead her to the holding cell where she would await trial.

Except there wasn't a trial, not really. Jessie pleaded guilty to everything, including some things that even James had never heard about. He would have been scandalized if he'd ever found out about the prostitution ring.

Not that he ever would.

The judge's sentence was ten years, maximum security. Jessie found it a joke that they'd bother to chuck her in maximum after how most of her missions had ended, but apparently she was considered that dangerous.

Either that, or they just wanted to be rid of her forever.

The Big House was every bit as horrible as Jessie had imagined it. Bad food, lousy atmosphere. And don't even get her started on the other "customers." For the first four months, Jessie had been rooming with an abusive cellmate who didn't seem to care that Jessie was dying inside from the loss of James. A few hundred bruises later, Jessie had finally snapped, and then SHE was the abusive cellmate. The perpetrator had finally been transferred to another cell, and now Jessie was in solitary confinement, which was all the better for her to brood in silence, wishing that she was dead and James was alive.

She still had James' rose with her, although it was smashed, bloodstained, and missing most of its petals. Many times, she took it out just to look at it and remember the times before the rockslide, the times when James was alive, well, and perpetually at her side. Even when she'd abused him – verbally and physically – he was always there, serving as a combination moral conscience and punching bag (often the first led to the second).

James, why did you have to die?

It was a bitter irony that it had been an avalanche that had done James in; Jessie's own mother had vanished after a similar incident on Mew Mountain, chasing after another legendary Pokemon. Jessie had only been three years old when she'd heard the news, and at first she hadn't understood that Mommy was never coming back. Eventually, after so many months of waiting, the realization came, and her then-innocent heart was forever broken. In fact, Jessie had only joined Team Rocket in hopes of finding her mother alive, a dream which had never materialized, but had led her to the very best friend she could have ever had.

And now her friend was dead.

Jessies collapsed on her prison cot, sobbing into a lumpy pillow. WHY?

"Oh, Jessie..."

James' spirit stood at the crossroad between the mortal plane and the ghost world, wishing with all his heart that events had somehow gone differently. If he had been a Celebi, he would have gladly turned back time, perhaps even using force to keep Jessie from angering Arceus (not that Jessie wouldn't have totally kicked James' butt). Anything but this.

"I wanted you to be happy, Jessie. To live and be happy. Is that too much to ask as a dying wish?"

A Dusknoir stood next to James, watching carefully to ensure that the poltergeist wouldn't try to make a mistake. On James' other side hovered Yamask, James' own Yamask, the only one of his Pokemon able to rejoin him in the ghost world. It was strange that James could now understand Yamask's Poke-speak chatter, but understandable; they had both been human in life, after all. James wished he could become a Yamask, if only to comfort Jessie in some small way, but that was denied him forever. He was doomed to pay for his crimes, and all his chances of redemption had died when he had.

But if he could somehow save Jessie from a similar fate – perhaps then he could be happy, if but for a moment.

"If there's any way to save you, Jess, I promise I'll do it, even if it costs me what's left of my soul. I..."

He puased, wondering if Jessie could even hear him. What he was about to say was something that he'd never had dared to speak aloud in life, but now, there wasn't much risk of things getting any worse than they already were for him. After all, what could Jessie do to him now that he was dead? Kill him?

"...I love you..."

With a final sigh, James turned his back to the rift between dimensions, allowing the Dusknoir to lead him to his final, eternal destiny.

"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 6:23