Misty fell for Ash when she was fourteen years old because - because she was supposed to. Ash was the one with the destiny and Ash was the one who would save the day and Ash was the one who was going to get the girl. But Misty wasn't the girl who could steal Ash's heart, though, because that was May – or Dawn, these days. Ash was the boy hero who was meant to fall for the plucky heroine who'd run away on all kinds of adventures with him.
But plucky heroines don't leave to do the responsible thing back home, and plucky heroines don't get tired of being on the road and sleeping under the stars and moving from city to city.
Ash had a destiny and Misty didn't. It was as simple as that.
But she had spent so long on that boy swimming upstream, always swimming upstream in every river he dives into, all so he could climb out and into the next one, that the stone thrown out into the middle of her waters was lying forgotten in the sand. It'd broken the surface at the lighthouse when he asked her to dance - he hadn't really asked - she was standing right beside him and there weren't any other girls around but - but he had still turned to her and did that funny little formal bow, and her heart had pounded just the tiniest bit harder.
The firm pressure on her waist and his small smile and the feeling of her hand in his created ripples, and for a long time she got flustered when he touched her (even if it was by accident) and felt inexplicable pangs of jealousy when he hit on other girls.
(Ripples get smaller and slower and fade away and journeys end - )
- so it isn't until she is in her twenties and he is closing in on thirty that they see each other again.
She had been a satellite for a long time after leaving Ash to his adventure and heading home - her sisters left Cerulean soon after she arrived in it leaving the gym and their responsibilities and Misty behind with it. With them gone and Ash on a far away continent and most of the trainers off on their own adventures, she lapsed into a routine.
Her mornings were spent training her pokemon and her afternoons were spent fighting any fledgling trainers in search of their very own cascade badge that showed up. In her down time she swam laps, or read books. It was simple. It was easy. She was able to tune out.
It was a queer moment when she remembered that Brock, still lying quietly at the bottom of her ocean, was just a day's walk through Mount Moon. A trainer had shown up with only a young bulbasaur that she must've only gotten recently. The girl is bright and fresh-eyed and fiery and there was something about her that reminded Misty of herself when she'd met Ash long, long ago.
Watching her defeat the one trainer she'd hired to work in the gym (a soft-spoken boy named Parker who was distracted by her mess of long brown hair and the awkward swing of her narrow hips) only served to endear the girl to Misty more.
She takes it easy and lets the girl win – though she might've lost had she gone her hardest as she'd lost the passion that this trainer was full of. It's when she hands the cascade badge over with a smile that she doesn't have to force that Misty notices the girl only has one other badge – the boulder badge.
(This was the moment when Brock and his big, calloused hands and the small grin he'd give her and his low, rambling voice rushes through her in one slow wave.)
"You beat Brock?" Her voice cracks when the words spill out of her mouth.
The girl beams and launches herself into recounting their battle, which she only finishes over dinner at with Parker and Misty in the little restaurant situated at the base of the bridge leading up to the cape (which the girl asks about not long after she finishes her story - Parker tentatively explains the legend surrounding it and blushes furiously when she coos and asks him to take her up there).
Misty pays the bill and with a knowing smile tells her trainer that if he doesn't escort her, he'll be fired, leaving the two teenagers alone.
She wanders down route four – it's a quiet walk as there are rarely pokemon on the route besides the occasional rattata or ekans, both of which stay in the grass – and stands in front of the entrance to Mount Moon.
It'd only be some hours walk if she followed the lights that had been hung to guide people through quickly after a trainer had nearly died of hypothermia after getting lost last winter. She wondered how long it would take if she ran.
Misty walked home, to the gym, and started swimming laps. She tries to erase him with every stroke.
(She isn't sure why – he never broke her heart or let her down or replaced her or forgotten her -)
- she thinks.
In an instant she's pulling herself out of the pool and running to the phone and calling the Pewter City Gym at one in the morning and crying into the receiver as she talks disjointedly about how much she misses him.
There's a sharp rap at the locked door that wakes her up four hours later at the break of very dawn – she thinks idly that it is Parker, locked out and finally coming home. She opens the door, ready to tease the shy boy and she's enveloped by the musky smell she knows so well. Brock's through the door before it's all the way open and he's hugging her so tightly that he's lifted her off the ground.
He breathes her name into her neck, pulling at her messy, faintly damp hair and she's got her arms wrapped tight around his neck, pulling her as close to him as she possibly can.
It's a long moment before Brock loosens his grip and sets Misty back down on the cool floor of the gym. She holds his shoulders and he grips her upper arms and they just stare at each other, smiles creeping through them, filling their whole bodies for the first time in years.
"I left after you hung up."
His hands move up to the sides of her face and he leans down and gently, slowly, quietly kisses her in the most intimate way, like she's the only person left who knows him, who understands him, and she -
- she wades out into the middle of the river, picks up the stone that had sat unmoved by the current for many years, and dries it off. It's smoother and softer and older, but it fits in the palm of her hand.