Author's Note: I've been working on this for several months now, and I finally got it finished. I'm not sure if this is the saddest thing I've ever written, but it's up there. It's ScarfShipping (Barry/Dawn/Lucas), but the friendship aspects are also very strong. The story was heavily inspired by Vienna Teng's Recessional, which is a lovely song.
It was a request from Kuruk, who has a story with the same title. Oops, I didn't know that.
Enjoy.
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Dreaming through the Noise
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Her hair is a waterfall on her pillow, satin on the cotton fabric. The clips have been taken out of her fringe and laid upon the bedside table, next to the cracked Poketch and a photograph with three smiles.
It's gotten cold. She stirs, rising from the bed and finding a flannel nightgown to curl up in. Everything is oversized. She's never been a large girl, but she's lost a lot of weight recently. Barry tells her she looks like an old lady, with her knitting and tea. Lucas just worries about her.
Actually, they both worry about her. Barry's all smiles and laughter when he's in the room, but she can hear him argue with Lucas, see the uncertainty in his eyes when he watches her from the doorway, feel his shaking hands when they fall asleep in a pile. He's the one that curls around her, head near enough to her shoulder that she can feel his breathing. Lucas is a much calmer sleeper than either of them, with an arm thrown across her stomach and a hand on Barry's waist. He is the one that made both of them feel a lot safer.
After all, they're all so afraid.
She rarely leaves the room, usually when the house is empty or her companions are asleep. If she wakes at daybreak, she can slip out of the room and dart to the kitchen, where she makes herself toast or eggs. She always tries to make enough for all three of them, but she always guesses wrong about how much any of them are capable of eating. The portions she makes are barely big enough for herself.
When the other two wake to find the bedroom empty apart from themselves, they always panic a little, checking the bathroom, the closet, the front porch... It is a joyous sight to see her in the kitchen, eating calmly. Even if she instinctively tenses upon seeing them.
Even if things can't be the way they should be.
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They each remember their first meeting a little differently.
Dawn had known Barry forever; she couldn't remember a time without him by her side. Most of her childhood was spent splashing happily in the shallows of the lake, playing at pokemon. Many times, the little girl would return home muddy, wet, and with a new set of ruined clothes. Eventually, her mother gave up buying her new clothing and only brought out the dresses and skirts for special occasions. After all, Jubilife was too far to buy new clothing every week.
The days were warmer then, as they ran along the bank of Lake Verity, hunting kricketots. They were always doing something, always going somewhere. And while they don't remember the details anymore, they still recognize the flavor of the days.
They swam in the summer; Barry's dad came to visit, and he would tie an old tire to one of the trees, so they could swing into the lake. Barry spent long hours climbing the muddy hill, swinging back and forth, letting himself fall into the cool waters, repeating. Dawn preferred swimming, trying to go as far as she could toward the center. They would return each day, sunburnt and giggling.
They started school together each fall. They would have to be taken to Sandgem Town, turned over to the school mistress. After the day ended, however, they'd run through the bronzing leaves and make little piles, fortresses of their own.
Winter brought heavy snowfall from the north. Some days, they would have to stay inside, because it was too cold for youngsters to run around in the chilly weather. Other times, they'd be let out to explore the monochrome landscape. Dawn marveled at the fact that each snowfall brought new shapes to the hills; they could only see the banks once or twice before they would vanish for good.
And spring… spring was the season of flowers, of waking up to fields full of dewdrops and lilies. It was the season of kisses given shyly in the darkness underneath the playground slide. The season of green and yellow. And spring is the season they enjoyed the most.
Lucas favored autumn. But they didn't know Lucas back then. Not yet.
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Her eyes are wide, shockingly blue in the shadows, but she doesn't respond to Lucas' gentle hands on her back as he lifts her from the pokemon who had carried her. Barry's offerings of soup and berries go untouched for days at a time. She won't eat, won't sleep, will only move to sip at her glass of water with lips like parchment.
They watch from the door at this girl frozen in time, helpless. They can do nothing. They know they can do nothing. And it is unbearable, watching her deteriorate into a lifeless, loveless statue.
Eventually, Cynthia returns, but the former Champion can only offer consolation. Even she seems tired, dark circles under her eyes, lines of grey in her peerless cheeks. She reassures them that she won't die, but this brings them little comfort, since they see her dying every day.
After nearly a week, Lucas pulls up a chair and holds her hand, just holds it against his chest and watches her. She won't look at him, but after twenty minutes or so, she accepts the spoonful of noodles that he offers. He feeds her, Barry watching from the doorway as she swallows the food.
And then she sleeps, still clinging to Lucas's hand.
That is the first time Barry kisses Lucas, grateful that his friend's patience could do what he couldn't. The blonde leans over the back of the chair and presses his lips lightly against the other's temple. Still holding her hand, Lucas leans back and returns the favor.
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They met Lucas at the lake on a cloudless day in late summer, when their bathing suits left marks of white and red and brown at the edges. His good-natured chuckles blended with the raucous laughter of Barry and the quiet giggling from Dawn.
Soon, the three returned to school, and they brought with them a new game. One of them would swing back and forth, higher and higher into the air, hands clutching the metal chains that held the swing to the bar. Another would stand a certain distance away. Usually Dawn was the one for this task, since she was the shortest of the three.
And the person on the swing would release, launching themselves outward, and if they were lucky, they'd land on their feet beyond the other child.
Luck kept anyone from getting kicked in the face, and luck only lasts for so long.
It was Lucas on the swings and Dawn on the ground, with Barry leaning against a metal post nearby. Unlike his companions, Lucas lacked the agility with which Barry and Dawn flew off the swing; where Dawn had grace and Barry had energy, Lucas possessed a stoutness of heart and of legs that kept him grounded.
And so, this time, Lucas's jacket caught in the wind and dragged him backwards, and before too much time had passed, blood from Dawn's broken nose covered the gravel and Barry alternated between anger and worry. Lucas waited like a prisoner on trial, so afraid that he had ruined his newest friendship.
It was Dawn that held the group together. As they waited in the doctor's office to get her nose all patched up, she glanced pointedly at Barry. Even though she couldn't speak with all that fluid in her sinuses, Barry understood exactly what she meant.
That was the day that Lucas realized that everything Barry did, he did for her.
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They've made up her bedroom all cozy and comfy for her return, filling it with plush dolls and rugs and anything soft they can find. They add a vanity and have her mother send her hair supplies and other things she likes. Barry wanted to knock out the eastern wall entirely so that she'll be able to see the sunrise, but Lucas convinced him that a large window would suffice.
They're bored, if they're honest with themselves. Without her, their world is empty, lifeless. They battle, they run and explore the island, they even try to learn how to play the grand piano in the main room, but nothing cures the insufferable boredom.
Lucas is reading a reference book about regional adaptions in pokemon species while Barry naps lightly on the couch. As the sitting room grows dark, Lucas gets up to draw the blinds, but the other boy grabs his wrist as he passes. Eyes still closed, he asks, "What if she never comes back? What will we do then?"
Lucas is silent for a minute, before finally saying, "She'll come back. She has to."
They curl up in the same bed that night, and all the nights after that, as though somehow their little shell of sheets and pillows will keep the demons out and bring her back to them.
And finally, one day, the doorbell rings.
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They traveled the world alone, each following their own path, each going at their own pace. They saw each other every so often, meeting for coffee in Hearthome or pizza in Jubilife.
News of Dawn's prowess as a trainer spreads far and wide, further than Barry's skills and certainly more than Lucas's. Barry couldn't decide at first whether he was jealous or proud. He ultimately settled on pride. After all, if he couldn't become the Champion, then it should go to the one person who'd ever defeated him.
He was in Veilstone City when it happened. The television show switched off and a reporter appeared onscreen, a green heading of 'Breaking News' flashing across the bottom of the screen. "We have received reports that Champion Cynthia has been defeated for the first time in seven years! Stay tuned for…"
Barry didn't stay to hear the rest. By the time he got to the Pokemon League, they'd already set up a stage for the ceremony, and there she was, wreathed in garlands of white and blue chrysanthemums and wearing the dress her mother had intended for contests. Dark hair gleaming, she smiled once, shyly, before letting a confident mask fill her delicate features.
Dawn saw him as she walked down the stairs. He ran to her, lifting her up in his arms as they embraced, and he kissed her forehead. She smelled like jasmine and rosemary, spicy in her familiar grin, and she kissed him back, a quick peck on the lips.
"C'mon," he said, knowing that Lucas would be waiting for them. "Let's go home."
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The peace doesn't last. The sunlit days of laying in a pile in a hammock and giggling under pillow forts until long past bedtime are consumed by war. A man named Cyrus, an organization named Galactic, and everything nearly crumbles. She frequently is called away to fight them off – in Veilstone, in Snowpoint, at Lake Verity, and finally at Mount Coronet.
And by the time she comes back home, she is tired, so very tired; that night, Barry and Lucas tuck her in and decide to sleep on the couch, so as to not disturb her, but she grabs their wrists as they make to leave, and the words in her eyes say more than enough.
After a few months of the push and pull, Lucas suggests that they start looking for a place to live together, mostly so that her and Barry's mothers can finally have the peaceful empty nests all mothers eventually hope for.
They spend a long time looking for apartments in Hearthome and Sunyshore, before she finds the advertisement in a newspaper clipping. "Resort Area?" Lucas says. "I've heard it's nice there." And the house in the Resort Area certainly is nice, but it becomes theirs when she notices the grand piano and smiles broadly, content for the first time in weeks.
The newspapers say that he's gone, that Cyrus has gone, and the newscasters herald praise for the young Champion. The Champion, of course, doesn't read the newspapers; she simply doesn't care about deeds that are finished. She stays alert, almost never going outside, and she kisses both Barry and Lucas on the cheek before bedtime.
It lasts half a season before a dark figure arrives on their doorstep, face grim. Cynthia doesn't wait for an invitation into the front room before she strides across the wooden floor, briefly examines the piano, and then sits down at the kitchen table next to the porcelain girl, so pale, like winter, hair falling down her back like a silken scarf.
Barry and Lucas exchange glances, but say nothing. Each knows that whatever Cynthia is sharing with their forever girl can't be good news.
Cynthia leaves soon after. The boys walk into the kitchen and sit next to the collapsed figure, wrapping their arms around her shoulders, and unconsciously she sinks into the embrace, quivering within the strain of existing.
"I'm so tired," she whispers, and she is a ghost, her ethereal form threatening to float away on the wind. They cling tighter to her, because it's too soon to lose her, and they cry together. And then she tells them what she must do.
The two weeks of waiting feel like decades, tension so thick in the air you could cut with a butter knife. Barry tried to talk her out of it, but to no avail. ('You can't just leave us like this.' 'I have to, the world needs me!' 'Don't you know that we need you, too?')
And when the day comes, they're still not ready. But still the day comes, and so together they take her to the ferry, where she's supposed to meet Cynthia.
Lucas decides that he hates Cynthia that day. He is the quiet one, the one who never says what he feels, but he nearly shouts it out that day, nearly raises his voice above the din of the station, hating the hardness in his lungs. Today he would lose a family.
His expression softens when he looks over at her to see her asleep, head lolling to the side onto Barry's shoulder. Lucas takes off his jacket and drapes it over her shoulders. Out of all of them, she was the most innocent, the most pure, and yet that would all change. The world ruins the softest ones, they say.
Not if they could help it. Not if they could help it.
He looks up to see Cynthia, her steely eyes sympathetic. She knew what she had asked. She knew what they would all have to give up.
"It's time."