The call came in the middle of the day, at least, and while he was taking a break – and so, making him in out of office hours. Which was probably a good thing, although when he'd seen who was calling him, he'd had to quickly find somewhere somewhat more discreet to answer the call than the populated plaza he'd been in.

He was supposed to be meeting one of the Commanders he'd promoted in the past several months, but a call from Cyrus would always, regardless how inappropriate some might see it, take priority.

Not to beat about the bush, the first thing he heard at putting the pokegear to his ear was… troubling.

"Saturn," Cyrus' voice said in a highly strung way that was only now, only since his return, becoming more common. The emotion was being released, diffused, if slowly.

In some ways it was a relieving thing, to know that the man was just as human as the rest of them and that his emotions were no longer being bottled up for later explosion. On the other, it was odd, strange, to hear at all. Especially when it was worry or fear.

"I understand that this might be difficult for you to pull off, but I require your complete co-operation with me on this one request."

He couldn't help but let out a long breath. In the beginning of Cyrus' stay with the region's new Champion, he'd had several such requests. Some, he'd been able to honour. Others, he had not – and it had been more than unsettling to have the man's temper thrown at him, when there was both nothing he could do, and such a thing was, up to now, an unknown.

Still. If he could do anything…

He sighed, and massaged his forehead with his free hand.

"If it's within my power to do so, I'll at least try – what is it? I'm assuming it isn't anything that you could have told Dawn, or…"

Or the man wouldn't have needed to go straight to his old Commander, and phrased it in such a way.

"No! Not a word to her. Saturn, I need out."

He blinked. He couldn't help it. The words were entirely unexpected.

"You know very well that the League would have a fit if it happened to be known that Team Galactic were trying to help you out of this in any way. If it's cabin fever, we can sort something out, if it's-"

"You misunderstand." Cyrus' voice sounded suddenly flat, in much the same way that he remembered happening on more than one occasion. It was a dangerous ability – and one, as he had long since learned, that meant that he was hiding something, and pushing something down. "It does not matter if you find me a replacement jailor. It does not matter if I am detained in some other way for the duration of my punishment. It does not matter if I am exiled to some other region entirely – I need… to be away from her."

…Ah.

"That's still a pretty hefty thing to ask. You know that. People trust her in this. It won't just be the league you're fighting. And if people think you aren't a threat, they aren't going to try targeting you."

The Galactic Eterna building had been subjected to vandalism before he'd been able to rescue it and repurpose it for alternate use. Arceus knew that the Veilstone HQ had stones thrown at windows nearly every other day, hate mail sent in via the post and Pokémon that they had to sort through all the time.

Sometimes, he wondered if Cyrus knew how much danger he was in.

"She can't be the only one strong enough for people to trust. But it can't be her. Saturn, this is important!"

"Maybe if you'd tell me what's happened, then I could help, then! I can't just do things for no reason, you know that – especially a favour as big as this one!"

There was a pause. A long, pregnant silence in which Saturn worried if perhaps he'd pushed too far.

But the entire situation, the entire request, was confusing. Things had been going so well, so smoothly. Cyrus had been showing marked improvements from when he had first been seen after emerging from the Distortion world.

Then again, almost anything had been an improvement from that time.

He hadn't thought that Cyrus had anything truly against Dawn any more – he had made it had been clear from the outset that he himself had nothing against the girl, and he'd sometimes wondered if that had influenced matters at all – in fact, he'd started remarking on how the two were rarely seen apart any more. Even aside from how Dawn was supposed to be watching over the old leader of the team he now ran.

It was only the lack of tone in his ear that made him sure that the line hadn't been disconnected. And then, there was a crackle of white noise as the speaker was, he could only assume, breathed on.

"I believe that I am developing Stockholm syndrome. I know the symptoms. I suppose that perhaps, it was only to be expected, yet I find this state of affairs to be deplorable. I cannot let this continue. I must be transferred elsewhere, to someone else, if not another region entirely – surely you can understand this?"

Saturn stared. He took the pokegear away from his ear, and then stared at that, his former boss' voice still coming out from it as he did so.

This was not happening.

No, this could not be happening.

He looked around. People were talking, Pokémon were acting normally, the sky was blue. There were no signs that the world was being messed with. And he would have heard from Dawn herself if Cyrus had been meddling in the matters of creation all over again. Unless this was something new.

By all accounts, it made no sense.

"Saturn. Saturn, are you listening to me?!"

Slowly, he set the pokegear back against his ear.

"Sir… are you trying to tell me that your main issue here is that you don't hate her? Because if that's it, then I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I can't help you. Most people would see that as a good thing. She doesn't hate you, she isn't a bad person. And if that's Stockholm, then," Saturn huffed, and shrugged. "There's not much I can do, and if it meant you making a friend out of this-"

"I don't think that you quite understand the severity of the situation."

"I think you're over-reacting and self-diagnosing."

"Then tell me. How do I get her out of my head? If there is nothing mentally wrong with me in such a way, then it should be simple. But staying in her presence merely makes things worse. I can't think – I need to distance myself, so that my mind can function properly. How… how is this 'over-reacting'?"

Saturn was relieved that he had found an area that was both devoid of too many people, but also not completely chair-free. Because he was now wishing that he'd had the forethought to sit down before hearing that. He absently made his way over to the nearest and sat, hard.

Oh. Oh, Arceus.

Nothing could have prepared him. How could it? Maybe there had been jokes, rumours, suggestions that putting Cyrus permanently with Dawn would be an inappropriate thing, a man and a woman in such a close space, of course people were going to talk.

And of course, most people would talk of Dawn, and how likely it would be that Cyrus would take advantage of the girl, or that she would be corrupted in some way.

All such suggestions had routinely been dismissed on each occasion that they had been brought up. They were ludicrous. Not that most people would know just how kind and honest and compassionate a person Dawn truly was, or how uninterested in intimacy – or even a relationship in general, even to go as far as a platonic friendship, given Saturn's own past with the man – Cyrus was.

No one had ever suggested that it might be the other way around. No one had thought that Cyrus, the one who had nearly destroyed creation itself with the intent to become a god, used and manipulated countless people for his own ends, would possibly ever fall victim to softer emotions.

But there it was. Anyone else would have known what it was the moment they recognised feeling something for another human being in such a way. Saturn knew what he meant.

It seemed that Cyrus was the first one to see it, but also, despite being a mechanical genius, was about as smart with emotions as people had often accused the original Galactic grunts of being in general.

Saturn sighed, and covered his face with his hands.

Cyrus' voice, when he picked the pokegear up again, seemed to be more resigned, if anything.

"You see the problem?"

"I see that something is going on," he said carefully. "Have you considered that maybe it isn't something like Stockholm, though? Cyrus, it has been several months Nearly half a year since you came back to us."

"And what else would it be? And is there anything that you can do?"

"I…" Oh, Arceus help him. He wasn't paid for this. His job was to be the leader of an organisation returning from the brink, one that researched new energy sources and sciences. He was still getting used to seeing Cyrus as a normal human being, instead of the revered leader on a pillar of perfection. "I don't know. And," he winced, "I don't think so. But I will help in any other way that I can."

He heard Cyrus huff on the other end of the call.

"You aren't much help here, I see."

"…aside from anything else," Saturn said slowly, momentarily not caring about the impact of his words outside of the moment, "maybe you should think of how she would feel if you just up and left like that."

He cut the call before he could hear any sort of response. Perhaps it was cruel, adding fuel to the fire, but perhaps if the man had that to think about as well, he wouldn't chase the matter up again.

He was now fifteen minutes late for his appointment with the still probationary Commander. He was soon going to be nursing a strong headache.

And more than anything else, more even than knowing how important it was to be in his right mind to present himself to the public and the team's newer employees, he really, really felt the need for a drink.

...

AN: This is part of a loose timeline I've got for the Sinnoh games, under the assumption that Cyrus spends several months (at least) in the Distortion world, at the end of which Dawn - who has by this point become Champion - goes back and hauls his sorry ass home. It just so happens that something Cyrus hadn't expected was to get traumatised by isolating himself for that long, and... other things.

Other fics in this timeline are found on my tumblr account, and if I get interest here, I'll see about putting some more of them up to go with this one.