A/N: So not gonna lie this was almost entirely inspired by the anime Usagi Drop (but not the manga... this fic is NOT going to have that kind of ending). I mean, it had small elements of Clannad Afterstory, Steven Universe and Kramer vs Kramer in it, that sort of thing, but yeah, mostly Usagi Drop, except with the slight palletshipping subplot. This chapter ended up more sad than cute but it'll get there. Anyway, if you like it, review? There are quite a few plot points I need to sort out with this fic so I'd be happy to take any suggestions. (Title might change later depending on how the story develops.)
Summary: Following Ash Ketchum's untimely demise, Gary is forced to let go of old feelings when he is entrusted with his late rival's six-year-old daughter.
The Bed-Wetting Chronicles
Pallet Town had always tended to reflect the mood of the people in the form of its weather conditions, for as long as Gary could remember. The day he started his journey the sky was blue and the sun was shining, and everything from the fresh country air to the warm spring breeze was emitting hope. The day he vowed to become stronger, as a researcher rather than a trainer, and made his final departure from Pallet Town to Sinnoh, there was a nervousness about the way the grass swayed and the stars twinkled. Which was why it came as no surprise to him when, twenty years later, the day Ash Ketchum's ashes were scattered was filled with grey skies and threats of a harsh downpour.
Gary supposed it was inevitable that one of Ash's crazy stunts as a trainer would get him killed one day, he just didn't think it would happen quite as soon as it did, and the thought that Ash had been irresponsible enough to die so suddenly should have angered him immensely. Instead, he just felt tired.
Despite the number of times Ash's near-death feats had almost caused him to go into cardiac arrest, something had always seemed timeless about the dark-haired trainer hailing from Pallet Town, something that had made him seem invincible, immortal. Gary never thought something like a seviper bite could prove fatal to someone like Ash. Something about Ash had just seemed so indestructible.
The past thirty-odd years of his life had been filled with anecdotes revolving around his childhood friend, most of which were ones Gary could look back upon fondly, such as the fishing trips in the river, pretending to be shipwrecked on the small island rearing towards the mouth, baking berry tarts in Ash's kitchen, playing with some of Daisy's pokemon in his grandfather's corral, falling asleep lying in the same bed at night with their tiny fingers entwined, arguing over battle strategies and breaking pokeballs in half and engaging in fierce battles.
If Gary could just go back to those days, slip back in time...
Maybe if he'd just told him how he felt from the start Ash wouldn't be dead.
Gary wasn't entirely sure how he managed to get through Ash's send off without screaming or breaking down on the spot; he vaguely recalled taking some pills with his coffee which he supposed had probably slowed down his movements somewhat. Still, a sluggish thought process was easier to deal with than the harsh reality that his best friend's ashes had been thrown around freely, scattered all over the surrounding fields. It would be impossible to put Ash back together again now, couldn't they see? How was Gary supposed to revive him? He had the theory, the machines... if he could bring back an aerodactyl with no problems, why not a human being? Why couldn't he save the people who needed him?
The turnout was incredible, though, he had to admit; Ash had certainly made a lot of friends along the way. There were people he recognised and people he was clueless in regards to. A lot were crying, especially the younger ones. He was surprised Serena hadn't shown up, but maybe that was for the best, since no doubt she'd be hysterical. And then, planted between Delia and May, he saw her: a small and dark-haired girl, holding onto a small red cap, tears leaking from twin brown eyes, the eyes of his best friend, the eyes of the man he had fought with and talked to and loved.
Yes, somehow, seemingly out of the blue, the daughter of Ash Ketchum had appeared.
When the discovery of Noah Ketchum was made, Gary wasn't sure he believed his own ears. He had known Ash for many years, and if one thing was for certain, it was that he had to be the most asexual person Gary had ever met. No, perhaps that wasn't the right way to put it. Frankly, he'd never heard of Ash liking anyone, had never even considered the possibility that Ash would want to fall in love... his whole life had been dedicated to training pokemon, so where had he found the time to settle down and have a child? How had he failed to mention this daughter of his in the past six years? Who was her mother? There were no answers.
In all his life, Gary had never been so angry. Where was the responsible Ash he had always known? How could he simply bring a child into the world and not tell anyone? How could he justify doing something so selfish?
He recalled the memory of first meeting the daughter of his best friend, on a sunny day four weeks prior. Ash had been working in Brandon's battle pyramid, which meant there must have been weeks on end wherein he and his daughter hadn't returned home at all, but there seemed to be a small apartment building up in Goldenrod where the two had settled down. Gary had always remembered the idea of Ash living in an apartment to be bizarre – his friend had always seemed like the type to want a quaint little house in a small place like Pallet Town, where he'd have plenty of yard space to train with his pokemon. Still, given Ash had somehow managed to stash away a daughter without anybody knowing, it was impossible to say what other things in his friend's life had been a lie.
When Gary had first heard that they had found a child in Ash's apartment his initial reaction was disbelief ("A child? Ash's child? With all due respect, Mrs Ketchum, that's just..."). Apparently, when clearing out his belongings, the bedroom door had unlocked and a little girl had poked her head out, asking fiercely why these strange people were touching her daddy's stuff, before being moved into an emergency foster home while they contacted Ash's immediate family. In the midst of his grief, Gary had been awoken in the middle of the night by a phone call from Ash's mother, who was frantically trying to make sense of what was going on. They'd ended up sitting up until sunrise, cups of coffee in hands, trying to piece together what was happening to them.
The next day, they had been called to pick up Ash's daughter from the foster home in Goldenrod and set out towards the Vermilion City docks, Gary driving, both tight-lipped and anxious.
"What will I do, Gary?" Delia asked quietly, tears still swimming in her eyes. "What can I do now?"
He had told her things would work out, feeling pretty numb himself, and tried not to think about Ash lying beside another woman, breathing in her scent...
No. No, there was no proof there was ever any woman. This little girl could be adopted. She might not even be his, she could be the daughter of a friend, or a friend of a friend, or a complete stranger who had abandoned a baby at his doorstep. Ash was the type of person who would do something like taking in a child out of sentiment or pure pity. In fact, that might've been the reason he never told anyone, right?
When he had first laid eyes on the child, sitting quietly with her head in a book on methods of grooming, he had almost started crying in the doorway. From a distance she could easily be someone else's child, since the notion of sitting quietly and reading was never something Ash had been capable of, but when she looked up she had his small upturned nose, his brown eyes, his full lips, his bristling intensity. Her likeness to him was overwhelming. There was no doubt in his mind that she was a Ketchum by blood.
She had run to Delia Ketchum first of all, held onto her hand, curling her tiny fingers around. Even if she had never met the woman before Gary's instincts told him that Ash had recalled many stories about his mother, as there seemed to be a sense of unspoken trust in there from the moment they first met. Delia, for all the life in her, was struggling to keep composed, which Gary supposed made perfect sense; after all, Ash was her whole world... first having to accept he was gone, and then to learn that a piece of him still lived on must've been difficult. It was hardly easy for anybody. The very idea that Ash could do such a thing to them was hurtful, to say the least.
"What's your name, sweetie?" Delia asked softly, lips trembling. The small girl looked up, eyes still filled with that more-than-human curiosity, that look that had always reminded Gary of an untamed pokemon – the wild streak – that had always been visible in Ash's eyes.
"Noah," she said in a small voice, tucking her book carefully under her arm. Her wispy hair was tied back into a small ponytail on the top of her head, secured with a piece of string, and it swayed a little as she took a step forward. Noah stared at Gary as she did so, her dark eyes bearing into his. Her face held no trace of anybody else but Ash, and Gary had to turn away quickly, wounded.
On their way out Gary was handed a small green suitcase with her belongings in, which felt much too light, while Delia signed the necessary forms and was handed several journals weighted down with information on Noah's birth records and other legal documents found in Ash's home. Noah had trailed behind a little forlornly, fidgety and bursting with unanswered questions, and Gary found himself unable to look at her as he put her suitcase on the back seat beside her and started up the car.
Noah's likeness to the person he had befriended, rivalled, loved, had Gary choking up.
Noah stood in a small black dress, hair neatly combed and straightened out, red-eyed and wavering. It was difficult talking to any grown-ups, that was for sure. Her daddy had often spoken of this nirvana, the quiet and comfortable confines of Pallet Town, but compared to the bustling city she had always lived above it seemed almost too silent. The town reeked of death, and sadness.
There were no children around, besides a baby resting on the hip of the squinty-eyed man helping her grandma in the kitchen, and Noah supposed that was the reason why everyone was avoiding her. She didn't recognise any of these people. How did they know her daddy? Why were they staring at her like this?
"Your name is Noah, right?" A low yet oddly gentle voice cut through the noise of hushed conversation and the small girl spun on her heels, only to find she was looking into the face of someone with an odd likeness to her father. The man, with a similar haircut and the same dimples, had auburn hair and blue eyes, a lot like the scary man that grandma had been with when they'd first left Goldenrod. Unlike the other grown-ups, he gave her a wan smile, looked her straight in the eyes, acknowledged her.
"Yeah," she said, nodding. As he patted the empty seat beside him, motioning for her to sit down, she gripped her plastic cup filled with pecha berry juice and wondered if this grown-up was going to ask about her daddy as well. Everyone had been asking strange questions. It was annoying.
"How are you feeling?" the man asked as she took a seat beside him, still eyeing him warily. "It can't be easy for you right now... I can't begin to imagine."
"Well, Daddy's gone... I don't want to go with that other man. I want to go back to Goldenrod." Noah took a sip of her juice, frowning as the man patted her shoulder a little, offering a lopsided smile.
"Change is never easy, Noah. I lost my dad when I was just a little older than you, so I get that it's a difficult change to deal with. But things will get better. And Gary's not a bad person. If he seems that way right now... it's because he liked your dad very much. He's going to be sad because he misses him. If he's angry, it's his way of coping..."
"Who was he, mister?" Noah asked, curiosity piqued by the mention of a man her daddy had scarcely spoken of. "Was he Daddy's friend?"
"You can call me Ritchie, you know," the man offered softly. He nodded, eyes glazed. "Yeah, Gary and Ash were close. They... were friends since they were even younger than you are, Noah. They grew up together."
Daddy, younger than her? Noah found it difficult to picture, even more so to imagine the angry man the same age. What exactly had her daddy seen in him?
"And who are you to him, mister?" Noah enquired, pulling on the ends of her hair absently. Ritchie was silent for a few moments.
"I was also friends with him from a young age, Noah. We got on really well... we both loved battling and were into the same sort of pokemon..."
Noah finished her juice, contemplating what would become of her daddy's pokemon now he was gone. Would they be distributed out between the faces she didn't recognise? Would they be handed down to her when she was a lady like the possessions in her daddy's box of Things-For-Noah that he kept on top of the closet? Would they be sent away to a shelter or released into the wild?
"Daddy's gone forever now, isn't he?" she asked in a small voice. "An' Pikachu's going to be sent away and all Daddy's pokemon are going to be sent away and I'm going to have to go with that scary man an' I'll never see Daddy again, will I?"
She began to snivel as she talked, walls of self-defence she had built around her falling down at the thought. Her daddy's love was all she had ever known. Without him, where would she go from here?
"Now don't you cry, Noah," said Ritchie softly, putting his hands on her small shoulders. "You're going to be okay... Daddy's up there with the gods now, you know, with Arceus, with Ho-Oh. He's still watching over you, sweetie. And as for Pikachu, well, he'll be fine! I promise you that. He'll be sad for a while, but it'll get better. So don't cry, okay? Don't cry..."
"I don' see why he picked me," Gary slurred as he pushed his can across the table irritably. The sun was long gone, but he and several others were in no mood to sober up and face the memory of saying their final farewells to the man they'd befriended so many years ago, thus continued to drink themselves blind. "He coulda picked anyone, y'know?"
Part of him was relieved Delia was seeing to it that Ash's daughter was sleeping, for he was sure she'd be disappointed to witness his method of coping.
"Well he trusts you, I suppose," Misty said grimly, rubbing at her eyes, which were already smudged and dark with damp make-up. "Ash trusted you, Gary. I guess he wanted to... you know, give something back to you..."
"If it was anyone's baby I thought idda be yours," he snorted, coughing a little as he opened another can. "I mean you an' Ash w'like... star-crossed lovers or something... y'know?" He took a few gulps, the carbonation making his throat sting. "Not that thadda make any sense. Where'd you even tuck a baby away, huh? Yerra twig!"
"You're an ass," Misty growled, kicking his shin from under the table. "Me and Ash? Please. That was years ago! I'm married now... do you even hear yourself?"
Gary glanced over at where Max and Bonnie were sat, talking quietly between themselves with somewhat guilty expressions, as though they would be punished for enjoying themselves on a day of celebration of Ash's short life. He belched into the back of his hand, blinking a few times.
"I can't do it, Misty," he said with a hiccup, stomach turning nauseatingly. "If his daughter an' I... if I have to look at her every single day..."
"But Ash left her in your care," she replied with a heavy sigh. "I don't understand why he did these things without telling any of us... but I think whatever was going through Ash's mind when he entrusted his daughter with you, he had his reasons. Turning her away at this point would be unfair on her part, right? After having a father like Ash, she deserves someone responsible in her life, don't you think?"
"Like hell I'm what she needs! What do I know 'bout taking care o' children, anyway? They cry and shout an' piss themselves, an' what am I meant to do abouddit? Huh?" He hiccuped again and Misty exhaled.
"Okay, I think we should put a lid on drinking for tonight, don't you?" She prised the can out of Gary's slackened grip and his head fell forward, resting on the table.
"...Misty, I can't do it." His voice was slightly muffled by the table, slightly slurred from the drink, but she could hear the grief in his words. "I love him, Misty. He never knew. He hadda child... she has th'same eyes as Ash..."
Watching his hunched figure, Misty smiled until her eyes stung and squeezed his shoulders.
"She does."
"I love him, Misty..."
"I know."
Gary had no recollection of making it back to his old room in his grandfather's house, so he assumed it was Misty who had hauled his drunk ass back following the wake. Just as well. He didn't feel he could face Delia or the kid in this state. As he stared up at the blue ceiling, his thoughts wandered to the sleepovers he and Ash used to have when they were her age, where they would play on their gameboys until dawn, battling it out, anticipating the day their dreams became reality. All those years ago, had Ash ever considered what it would mean to raise a child alone? Gary highly doubted that. So how had he even ended up with his daughter in the first place?
As he padded downstairs sluggishly, white coat on despite having no intentions of working that day, he overheard voices in the kitchen and decided to investigate. The kitchen had always felt more homely to him than the one in his actual house, since Daisy was rarely around to cook during his childhood and both of them had long since moved out, finding their own ways. This kitchen, at least, brought back pleasant memories of a time where the remaining Oak family and Tracey would gather around the small wooden table and feast on his grandfather's famous stew.
Whether it was pancakes and syrup or salad and barley tea or late night coffee binges while pouring over research materials together, Gary's memories belonged there. As he walked into the room he could almost smell the smoke and vanilla frosting from his birthday cake as Ash had leaned forward to blow out the candles himself, being scolded by his mother immediately but still carrying a triumphant grin at the satisfaction of having stolen Gary's birthday wish. His throat stung at the memory which still felt so vivid.
How did people simply leave the world with no regrets? It should have angered him immensely that Ash hadn't put up any sort of a fight. It was his job after all, wasn't it? He was the determined one, the one who was always the last to give up. Especially while raising a child... what had happened to the Ash he grew up with, the Ash he remembered?
Upon entering the kitchen he watched in dismay as Ash's daughter reached over to grab the pitcher of orange juice in the centre of the table. His grandfather and Delia were sat at the table with her, watching her with fascination, Delia even steadying her hand as her granddaughter's arm trembled under the strain of hoisting up the jug. In the corner of the room Tracey was rummaging through the cupboards, presumably to refill the sugar bowl, which stood empty beside him.
"You're a lot stronger than our Ash was at your age," Delia said softly, though Gary couldn't tell if this was being remembered fondly or sadly. At that moment the small girl noticed Gary standing in the doorway and stared at him, caught out. A little embarrassed at the attention, he rubbed the back of his head sheepishly with one hand and sat down at the table.
"Good morning, Gary," Professor Oak uttered with a wan smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "I trust you slept well, given the state you were in last night..."
"Yeah. Slept like a log." Gary continued to watch the dark-haired child numbly as she picked up her glass and drank from it, clutching it with both of her tiny hands. Her eyes, dark and curious, flickered between Delia and Professor Oak uncertainly.
"Want some coffee, Gary?" Tracey asked helpfully. Gary nodded, head pounding. From over the table, the girl sat staring at him, only turning her attention away when Delia brushed her hair away from her face and said quietly, "You're very pretty, Noah."
"Thank you," Noah said quietly. Gary briefly noted her hair wasn't tied up as it had been every other time he'd seen her. Instead it framed her face, a perfect replica of Ash's, and for a brief moment Gary was overwhelmed by the pure resemblance. Who was her mother? Where was she in this child's face?
As Tracey handed Gary a mug of steaming coffee, bitter to taste, he drank it greedily while searching for a distraction. It was difficult to ignore the child sat opposite but he decided to address another pressing issue at hand.
"What will become of Ash's pokemon, Gramps?"
Professor Oak frowned deeply, resting his chin on his hands. Noah also glanced up, curiosity piqued by the mention of her father's pokemon.
"Well, they're in the corral right now, so... I'm not quite sure. I had a lawyer from the battle frontier visit last week to discuss options with me... ultimately the pokemon should be claimed by a spouse but since we have no idea who she is, it's a little difficult. There are no records of Ash ever marrying, no certificates or anything, so the pokemon should go to Noah since she is his daughter. But the responsibility of owning so many pokemon at such a powerful level is unthinkable for a child her age."
"I can do it!" Noah piped up, pleading eyes flitting to the old man sat to her right. "I can take Daddy's pokemon, I can. You gotta let me!"
The adults exchanged troubled looks, silent, until Tracey piped up, "Well, Noah, some of your, er, your father's pokemon are in the corral out back, so, we could take a look at them if you want."
She dipped her head forward and nodded, still frowning pointedly at Professor Oak as Tracey led her away. The moment she left the room, Delia exhaled.
"She really is a strong-willed little girl," she said softly, staring at her clasped hands. Professor Oak cleared his throat.
"As I was saying before, we have to take Ash's pokemon into consideration. I don't think it would be a good idea to leave such a huge responsibility to that poor girl. But since Ash will no longer be using these pokemon, it seems logical to... release them..."
"But Gramps!" Gary wanted to protest further, but what could he even say? He was hardly ready to take on that kind of responsibility. He had his own pokemon to worry about.
"I don't want to do this either, but... we don't have much choice. We could try and find other trainers for them, but there's just no guarantee that the pokemon would be happy with another trainer. Not to mention a lot of them are much too old now to battle..."
"It's always hard having to let go of pokemon. But you have to remember, Gary, the most important thing for them is making sure they're happy. Whether releasing them into the wild or entrusting them to friends..." Delia sighed. "I just wish that things hadn't turned out this way..."
"I suppose we're going to have to get used to life without Ash, huh?" Gary murmured quietly, gripping his mug tightly. "And that means having to live with his daughter, doesn't it?"
Delia spoke up, her voice wavering. "We've all lost a very important man, Gary. But Noah's world is very small right now. We don't know how to find her mother and we're the closest thing she has to family. I would be more than willing to take her into my home." She offered Gary a sad smile. "But Ash left her to you, didn't he?"
"People keep saying this but it doesn't mean anything!" Gary stood up abruptly, having downed the rest of his coffee. His appetite was gone. "There's so much more to it than that! I have a life and a career and – and if Ash had already decided this, why not find the girl's mother instead? Why would he pick me and not you, Mrs Ketchum? Why me?"
He knew it was pathetic, putting up this fight, denying Ash's wishes as a parent, pushing Noah away for the sake of his own selfishness, but somehow these words kept pouring from his mouth. All of the anger from the wake that had been buried deep within him was beginning to resurface.
He put a hand to his mouth, his chest aching as he watched the stunned faces of the people around him. All of a sudden he needed to take off, to be far away from them and the very principle they were forcing upon him.
"I'm going out for some air," he lied, before turning abruptly and leaving, clutching his head as it began to pound. The combination of the hangover and the responsibility left a sense of dread eating away at him, clouding his mind. He trudged up to his room, ignoring the muffled voices from the kitchen. It was when he threw himself onto his bed that he noticed it sitting there on the bedside table: the small envelope, containing the letter that he'd been too afraid to read.
Why me?
Gingerly he reached over and gently pulled out the letter, unfolding it slowly, running his fingers over the grooves of Ash's unmistakable handwriting.
To Gary,
the other day one of my pokemon passed away – my bulbasaur. It lived to a ripe old age and I was glad that it had lived so happily with me. But it really shook me up. It occurred to me suddenly that all this time I've been taking my life for granted and I don't think I can live like that now. Maybe when I was younger I could have ignored the idea that I might die one day but I can't do that anymore. If you read this letter you'll already know, so I might as well say now that I have more than my pokemon to worry about these days.
I have a daughter now, Gary. Her name is Noah and she is four years old. I can't talk about the circumstances of her birth right now, and I'd really like to keep it that way, but I want you to know now that she reminds me so much of you. She's got a good head on her shoulders, she's brighter than me, and I trust you more than anyone else in the world. It might hurt my mom to say this, but when I thought about who she would go to if I died I saw you in my mind, and I know that it might seem crazy to say that but I honestly think it HAS to be you. So I don't want to jinx this, but if I die at any time and they find this letter, I choose YOU to be Noah's guardian. It's selfish of me but I don't want my dying wishes to be for her to end up in one of those orphanages, where all the murkrow hang around and the children follow drowzees into the woods and never come back. I want her to be safe and if that's with you, that's where I want her to be. Please.
She has my natural charm and wit, so you wouldn't refuse, would you?
"Why would you do this to me, Ash?" Gary groaned quietly, eyes blurring a little as he lost focus of the words and instead stared at the smudges where Ash's hand had dragged across the paper, the ink splotches and the crossings out that felt so childish.
He wondered what Ash had been thinking as he had been writing that letter two years ago. The tiredness in his words were obvious, even if Ash had never been much of an articulate person – did that mean Noah had been restless that day or night, running around with boundless energy or tossing and turning in her bed? Even for Ash, taking care of a little kid would be difficult. Though even his sluggish words couldn't suppress the pride in his words as he talked about his daughter.
Ash really loved his daughter a lot, didn't he?
Gary's chest felt uncomfortably tight, his throat aching. Why had Ash never revealed her existence to anyone if he was so proud of her? Sure, there would have been Delia scolding Ash's irresponsibility, but... didn't he trust the people closest to him with such a huge thing? His whole life had been filled with people who loved him.
But now he was gone, who was left to love Noah?
Gary rose to his feet and set the letter down carefully, moving over to the window overlooking the corral. Down below, Noah had her face buried in the fur of one of her father's tauros. She was petting its thicker fur gently, absorbed.
A stabbing pain twisted in Gary's chest and he pressed his lips firmly together, amazed that Ash could have been stupid enough to leave his daughter alone in the world.
Even if you were afraid, how could you have robbed Noah of a grandmother's love? How could you have done such a thing to her?
"Noah!"
This singular name, sounding much harsher than he'd intended, reached her ears quickly, and both her and Tracey glanced up in dual confusion. Noah's eyes narrowed a little, as though daring him to challenge her.
"..." Gary couldn't find his next words at first, so left the window, quickly shutting it and thundering down the spiralling staircase. Both his grandfather and Delia peered worriedly through the kitchen window as he marched over to where Ash's daughter stood, on guard, waiting for him to shout.
"Noah Ketchum..." The words were painful, but Gary fought on. "Noah Ketchum, your father was a total idiot."
Her face contorted in confusion, but she countered like a true Ketchum naturally would.
"No he wasn't! Daddy was kind and funny and he could battle, probably better than you do! He wasn't an idiot!"
"Yes he was," Gary argued, disappointment flooding through him. "He was a real fool, Noah. He had so many people in the world who loved him and would do anything for him, but instead of just relying on them and letting them in, he himself away, kept his secrets from us, never told us you existed, Noah... what the hell was going through his mind?"
Tracey, alarmed, moved to clap his hands over Noah's ears, eyes wide and flashing urgently in silent warning for Gary to stop while he could. Gary, of course, paid no attention to it.
"What kind of father does that to his child, Noah? What kind of father keeps his own daughter a secret from his family, his friends...? If he had just explained things to us we could have helped him and we could have met you so much sooner. If Ash had just talked to us..."
Tears were beginning to burn his eyes and he blinked numbly as they began to fall. Noah watched him silently, those dark eyes big and unreadable. Her tiny hands were flexing nervously, a habit so true to Ash that it made him cry harder.
"If he had just talked to us and told us about you we could have been ready to take you in when he decided to fucking die-"
"Gary-" Tracey started, shocked.
"How could he give up on his life so easily, Tracey?" Gary spun to face him wildly, shaking as sobs continued to fall from his mouth, seizing his body. "How could he give in to dying while knowing that his daughter was at home, and he was the only person she knew, and he'd be thrusting her into a sea of people she doesn't know, how the fuck could he do that to her?!" He buried his head in his hands. "Screw him!"
Delia was hugging him from behind now, stroking his hair softly as he cried and cried, in a way that he hadn't been able to since he was small, probably not much older than Noah was now, and he could sense her confusion and fright at seeing a grown man break down in front of her like glass.
"Shh," Delia murmured, her head resting on his shoulder, her hand still reaching up to pat his head slowly. Trembling, he tried to steady his breathing but found his overwhelming grief couldn't simply be stopped by being bottled up this way. "Shh, now, Gary, come on now..."
What had he come out here to say? He couldn't even remember anymore. He was sure he was going to say something stupid, like how they would work out the problem and how they would start living in a dumb little house with dumb little apple pies and dumb little macaroni paintings pinned onto the walls. It wouldn't work as easily as that, he knew from the experience of also having lost his parents at a young age. But when that happened, he had had Grandpa, Daisy, Mrs Ketchum, responsible people to watch over him and help him grieve and help him piece his little life back together again. Most importantly, whether he was teasing him or crying on him or shouting at him or playing with him, Gary had always had Ash.
But this time, there was no Ash, for him or for Noah.
Maybe that was why he was crying so hard.
Noah assumed at the time the scary man who had picked her up from the foster home, had been glaring all through the funeral and had yelled at her about how rubbish her daddy was before proceeding to break down in her grandma's arms was a bad person. Somebody who had the audacity to shout and insult her daddy so soon after he had gone to roam the skies with Ho-Oh was surely not to be trusted, especially since he had been casting her dirty looks since picking her up. It wasn't until later that her grandma had sat her down with some juice and a cookie and revealed that actually, the angry man, Gary, was acting out badly because of just how important her daddy truly was to him.
At first it didn't seem plausible; Gary Oak had done nothing but insult her father in the time she had known him for, and if anything it seemed unlikely that there was any compassion there at all, but then he had entered the room, looking pale and tired, and had ducked his head, too embarrassed to say anything. As he walked past, still looking a little peaky, he reached over and patted her head with an attempt of detached affection that did little more than confuse her further. Her grandma had handed her an old photo album to look through as she went to tend to the angry man and Noah had started to flick through it, admiring the fine gold boarders to each photograph, reaching to ghost her fingers on the glossy inside pages. When she spotted two little boys standing side by side, gap-toothed and holding a magikarp together in triumph, she stopped in her tracks as she sounded out the writing underneath slowly.
A-sh-and-Ga-ry-a-ge-se-ven.
One of these boys was her daddy? Noah scrutinised the picture, soon spotting the familiar freckles and bright eyes belonging to her father. And the other kid, Gary... wasn't that the name of the scary man who had just stumbled past, awkwardly reaching down to pat her hair? While he did look familiar...
Flicking further through the album, she could see it more; as the boys in the photos grew, Noah could see them, could see her daddy and the angry man ageing alongside each other. Then they hit age ten and stopped appearing in photos together. For a while there were a combination of solo pictures, with one or the other stood beside their pokemon proudly, or the odd photo from a Christmas party that included two of the people at the funeral yesterday, alongside her grandma, Tracey and Professor Oak. In those rare group photos the two boys would be sat opposite one another, glaring or sticking their tongues out or shoving, caught in motion as the picture had been taken.
Before long, the photos of them sulking together evaporated. More familiar faces from the funeral joined her father, sometimes pictures of the grumpy man poked out in between pages, and then finally, at age twelve, there was an entire four page spread featuring the two of them in battle, at what looked to be a pokemon league. Noah squinted, trying to make out the shape of the field, the colour of the stands, any sort of indication to which region the league was set in. Then it clicked.
Could it be...? The Silver Conference! How could she forget? It was only one of her favourite bedtime stories. Daddy always used to recount his travelling adventures to her before she slept. The Silver Conference was one of his favourite stories to tell. He always spoke with such passion, such conviction, that she could place herself at the scene, standing with his pikachu and his travelling companions (whose names he had always left out, so she had named them in her head Kate and Wyatt). His rival (whom he also refused to name, so she'd always called him Sammy) was a tough opponent, ruthless and aggressive in the best way possible, and the stakes were high in that battle. He had a reputation to uphold, see, it was his duty to make the people cheering him on proud, and he wanted to prove his worth, not just to Sammy but to himself. And he had. It had been close, he had only scraped victory by his teeth, but a victory it was, and she could still hear the pride in his voice as he spoke of that battle.
After all that time... she still had the memento, packed away in her tiny green suitcase, shoved in a tiny box. They'd been spring cleaning when she was five, and she'd spotted it in her daddy's bedside drawer. It was his source of luck, but he'd wanted her to have it.
Noah shivered. Maybe, just maybe, if she hadn't been so keen to take it from him...
"Noah, sweetie? Are you all right?"
Noah glanced up. Her grandma was stood in the doorway, peering at her worriedly. She could see the grouchy man (Gary, that was his name, she'd have to write it on her hand so she remembered later) standing further back, behind her grandmother, trying to avoid her quizzical gaze.
"Yeah," she said in a small voice. "I'm fine."
She turned the page, staring at the photographs. They stood together now, older than the Silver Conference, arms wrapped round each other's shoulders, laughing and poking fun at one another, making slight comments but in good humour. In the photographs, Gary would always be looking at her father. No matter what.
"I have the pokeball," she uttered, and both Gary and her grandma turned to stare at her. "In my bag. Daddy's pokeball, I mean. The half."
"You... you have it?" Gary began striding towards her, but he didn't look angry; instead, he looked so lost, sad and old and yet hopeful. She nodded.
"Yeah. I can get it for you, if you want."
Turning before he had a chance to reply, she left the grown-ups to their own means and charged up the large staircase to the guest bedroom she was currently staying in. Noah began to rummage through her case, moving the underwear, socks and tights and skirts, moving the jeans and the t-shirts and sweaters out of the way until she finally latched onto the small box at the bottom of the case and yanked the lid off eagerly. It still sat there, nestled in tissue paper, alongside three of her baby teeth and a photograph of her father and a young girl in a baseball cap (he'd explained at the time that he treasured it because it was his first time going to a game and rooting for the underdog). Hurriedly, she took out the pokeball half, put back the box and raced downstairs again. Thundering into the room, she called out loudly, "Here!"
Delia chuckled as Gary flinched at the sudden increase in volume.
"Just like our Ash," she murmured.
Noah held out the half to Gary, flaunting it in her outstretched palm, and he reached for it with a sudden tenderness, hesitating before picking it up. He turned it over, examining the rust on the hinges and the chips on the outside that Noah had spent countless hours memorising.
"He's kept it well," Gary marvelled. "There's hardly a nick on here that wasn't there when we caught it together! I can't believe it..." He searched her face for a few moments, before testing the waters. "I take it you're the one who prevented him from breaking it all these years, huh?"
"That's right." Noah puffed her chest out. "Daddy's hopeless about taking care of things, so he gave it to me! Oh... but he looked after it before giving it to me. So... he was careful, I think..."
For the first time, she saw his face break out into a smile. It was small, but there, and for a moment she was caught off guard. But then a voice rang out in her head. If somebody smiles at you, always smile back, okay? her father's voice encouraged. Hesitantly, Noah smiled in return.
She understood now, maybe for the first time since meeting the man, why everyone was saying he was close to her daddy. When he smiled, she could almost see it; the look her daddy had in his eyes when he spoke of that battle, the way his eyes softened when he spoke of his old rival, the rival he had always been so fond of. Gary had to be that person.
"Well, I'm glad you have it." Gary cleared his throat, avoiding her curious gaze. "It was... really important to him, you know?"
"Yeah. Daddy told me to look after it."
She turned a page in the album and Gary glanced down, eyes widening.
"Why are you looking at this?" he murmured. Gingerly he sat down beside her, peering at the photos, occasionally smiling as her finger ghosted a photograph of him and her daddy. "You see, that was this time he came to visit me at my research lab when we were thirteen... I was working with prehistoric pokemon, you know what they are?"
Their conversation seemed to flow easily after that; she was an inquisitive child, always asking what a word meant or what the context behind each picture was, and he would always answer with honesty, surprisingly comforted being able to share these memories with somebody new. Delia decided to leave them to it, the small laughter coming from the room bringing a smile to her face.
"I know you've had a change of heart, Gary, but I do think it'd be best if you and Noah stayed at the lab for a few months," Professor Oak announced. Noah had been tucked up in bed for a few hours now, and the kitchen was filled with the smell of rose hip tea, one of his grandfather's favourites. Gary had been starting on risk assessment sheets for an experiment his research group were planning for the next month. He paused mid sentence to stare at his grandfather.
"Stay here? Are you sure that's not going to be an inconvenience?" Gary asked uncertainly. Even though Professor Oak tended to carry out less research experiments now that he was getting older, Gary didn't like the idea of causing more strain for him when he and Noah could very easily move into his old house in Pallet Town. He'd currently been flitting back and forth from the small room with the camp bed set up in his research lab on Sayda Island and his childhood home in Pallet Town. Though he mostly used the latter for storage he was certain he could make some room for her.
"I'd prefer it if you stayed here, actually," his grandfather replied, stirring his tea thoughtfully. "I wouldn't want her to get lonely during the times you disappear to do your experiments, especially since you're usually gone for days at a time. Also... I know you're agreeing to take care of her now, but becoming a guardian to somebody is difficult. There's a lot you're going to have to learn, and I want both myself, Delia and Tracey here to assist you – if only for a few months – so that it isn't too overwhelming."
"You think I'm going to lose my temper again, don't you?" Gary muttered tiredly, folding his arms. "You think I'm going to yell at her again, or ignore her, or neglect her. Right? I'm not going to let that happen again. I was in a bad place. I won't do it again."
"I believe you," Professor Oak said gently, putting a hand on his grandson's shoulder and squeezing. "I do. But I wasn't lying. Becoming a parent is going to be tough work, especially since we're all grieving. If it becomes too tough, Delia and I will be more than happy to take her in, and we won't fault you for it. We just want you to know that we're here, for both Noah and yourself."
Gary shook his head. "I really appreciate it, but I'm not giving up on that child, Gramps. She deserves better than another adult deserting her."
Professor Oak smiled. "I'm glad to hear that. I know I can't force you, but... would you stay? To give us peace of mind?"
With a sigh, Gary nodded in resign. "I guess so. I don't like the thought of her having to move around with me right now, anyway. If Ash took her along with him to the Battle Pyramid, they must have been moving around a lot. I think settling somewhere for a couple of months would be good for her." He stretched, glancing up at the clock hanging over the stove. "It's getting late. I'm heading up. Night, Gramps."
"Goodnight, Gary," Professor Oak replied with a slight smile. Slotting his papers back into his case, Gary headed up, stopping outside of the guest bedroom. Peeking in through the crack, he laid his eyes on Noah, small body curled up in her bed, stirring slightly as the door creaked under the weight of his body pressed against it. Turning over, she huddled further under the blankets.
"She even sleeps like you, Ashy-boy," Gary whispered aloud, before turning and grabbing onto the handle of his own bedroom door.
A/N: So this is a lot longer than I thought it was going to be. I planned for it to be multi-chaptered so this isn't the end, trust me. However, I expected the opening chapter to be 6k at the most. Why did it end up so long? I guess I got carried away describing Gary's grief and trying to develop Noah's character without giving too much away regarding how their situation is going to turn out. I want more characters to appear later on too, but I'm still undecided about how to pull it off. I'm also undecided about Noah's other parent. Do I give her a mother who is dead? A mother who interferes later and demands custody but is a terrible parent? A mother who is grieving and unstable and wants nothing to do with her child? Or do I go for the mpreg route and give Ash another reason for never showing his child to the rest of his family? I have no idea, so if anyone has any suggestions, let me know? This fic is honestly writing itself – I'm just sort of making it up as I go along, which is terrible writing, I know, but that's how this fic has worked out for me so far.