AN: Wrote this for a friend for a long time ago. Might as well put it here, someone maybe like it :) I don't own Pokémon, or the glorious pair of Ash and Misty.

Peach Dreams

It's funny how she can't stop thinking about him. — AshMisty

—

When Misty first met Ash she loathed him. Loathed his naivety and inability to understand her feelings. She screamed at him, argued with him, threw him words that stung, drilled inside him and enhanced his anger and childishness and still, he didn't seem to care.

It was like he didn't see it.

But after a while it changed into something else. She argued, they argued but it was still different. She didn't hate him and it changed so fast she started to doubt that she hated him from the start.

Maybe she didn't. Maybe it was her way to creating a distance. Between them.

And after the hours got spilled from the hour-glass it merged into this. This.

It wasn't about loathing anymore.

It never had.

—

Sometimes Misty thinks Ash likes her. Sure, he acts oblivious and dumbfounded but that's the way he is—he is oblivious to girls' feelings, she knows that, and that's why she still wishes that he will see her. Actually see her. Not as a friend, because he isn't a friend, he is… he is…

Dear Mew, what's with this blushing that heats in her cheeks?

She moves in the chair, trying to find a more convenient position, as she gazes at the telephone on the wall. Telephone. It's not enough but it is something. Because while he's out there traveling with girls cuter (no, she's not jealous!) than her she remains here guarding the gym from non-existent bandits, sitting, thinking, dreaming. Dreaming about what she wants, dreaming about what he can't seem to give to her. He doesn't want.

She wants. She wants many things.

Misty shuts her eyes and remembers his brown eyes, how big they are, big and open, searching for the world's hidden treasures. He's cute. For her. Maybe not for anybody else. But even though he's stupid, foolish and sometimes dumber than a brainless Psyduck, he's always there for her. Is like a ghost, vanishing but still there. She knows he is.

Or was.

Misty opens her eyes again when the signal cuts through her ears, fumbling with her fingers before she lifts up the phone from the jack. His voice is like a warm sheet, suddenly she remember the times traveling with him—so long ago but still so close.

"Hi, Ash," she greets with a wide smile as she notices his image on the monitor. He grins and corrects his cap. "Where are you? How many badges have you earned? No one?"

Melodramatic he coughs and points a finger at her. She smiles. "No one? Aren't you supposed to support me? I'm in Hearthome and I've beaten Fantina."

She rolls her eyes. "Finally. Mew knows you had problem with her."

"Why are you so mean?"

"Don't you remember," she smiles and leans closer to the screen, fingers on the monitor, "that my sisters gave you the badge? You didn't deserve it."

He gives her a look. "Haven't you forgotten about that by now?"

"I guess but that look of yours when I bring that up is priceless."

"Thanks."

She now inhales, ready for a dramatic change of the subject. This side of Ash is funny and familiar but she understands that it's not the whole reality. And since he will never bring that up—he plays in the safe-league forever, since that's the way he is—she has to do it. But she's scared. She feels more for Ash that words can explain; it's bigger than Mt. Moon, it always has.

"Ash, how are you?" Misty now asks with a more soft tone in her voice, the voice she only uses when she talks to him.

"Why the sudden change of topic?"

She bits her lips and looks down at her pale knees, fingers entwined and a bright blush on her cheeks. "Can you just answer?" She hates that he can't appreciate normal kindness, that he ignores the obvious and runs away when she wants to catch him. Why does he do that?

She doesn't know. It's impossible.

He looks away from the screen and a crackled sound fills the phone. When she looks more closely she sees bright snippets of color, probably Brock or Dawn who are running around and the crying sound of a disgruntled Piplup. Misty thinks that's the right name.) What the hell is going on?

"I swear, can't you guys leave me alone for one minute?" he snarls and waves with his hands like an angered Pidgey. "Where were we, Misty?"

She doesn't understand why she suddenly feels the urge to cry. "Ash, I miss you so much… Please…"

The crackled sound becomes more intense. "What did you say, Misty, I…"

"I miss you!" she screams and regrets that she'd answer in the first place. Why is it always like this? She wants, wants, wants but he never gives it back. She builds expectations that always, always, fall over her and crash into pieces.

Pieces she can't do anything about.

"Oh. Really Misty," Ash murmurs and feels so far away, so far away his words disappear and she starts to wonder if he said something in the first place, "I have to go."

This doesn't work. This will never work.

He hangs up. And she's left. With the phone in hand. And her fairytale in one million pieces.

—

Ash understands nothing. It's like that day when they parted; Misty has been with him for two years, trying the fullest to make him understand that he's her best friend and she will do anything to make him happy, make him smile. And he doesn't even understand it.

Tracey says that he likes her, doesn't he?

But Tracey is Tracey and it doesn't matter if he thinks Misty and Ash is a good couple when Ash doesn't think that way. He shoves her down the hole and moves on with new girls and who can tell if he hasn't fallen in love with one of them?

She's jealous.

Because she l-l-loves him. And she has known this ever since they left to the Orange Islands. It has been nearly four years. And there is no point denying this anymore.

But when he does this, when he ignores instead of realizes, when he moves the flashlight and enhances her personal secrets and plays with them like it doesn't mean anything, then she starts to doubt that he's good for her. He quenches the candles and she cries because he takes away the only thing she wants.

Why does Ash have to be this way? Why can't he change? Just why?

Misty lays her face in her hands.

That's the question.

Why?

Why does she want him to change? When it's him she's in love with?

—

Misty sees the snow dancing down the sky, falling on the windowpane, creating thin, transparent snakes. Wonders how it's possible for the weather to be so stunning, wonderful and beautiful when it's storming inside her—thick edged of the burning metal cutting through her. She wonders when she will stop wishing, wishing to be able to soar up and down among the clouds. Probably never. Since Misty will always like him. She will always love him. He's the one she wants. He's the one that doesn't only passes through her live and never comes back. Therefore he's there, no matter that he lacks the ability to resolve 'feelings', understand what they are and when it's prohibited to say some things but it doesn't matter if you look at his downsides because his good sides overweight them, diminish them.

And that's why she can't move on (without him.)

Because she doesn't want to.

He isn't the most good-looking guy out there but he's perfect for her. Misty doesn't seek perfection in appearance, that looks like a plain prochain figure without any flaws, she wants someone that doesn't care about his looks and cares about other things. Like Pokémon.

It's their Pokémon that bound them. She's sure of it.

Misty signs and rubs her eyes. Why do some things have to be so complicated? Why can't there be a solution to everything? Really, why?

Misty opens her bag and digs through the pile of medicine and other Pokémon-related material until she finds Staryu's Pokéball. Even though she has caught many different kinds of Pokémon during her travels with Ash and Brook, this one will always be the number one for her. It doesn't fit letters together to words but it's silence is often more suiting than any words can seem to create. She likes silence. Not always, but in certain, specific situations where words only smuts the white paintings.

Misty lifts the Pokéball and is just ready to open it and let Staryu free when she hears another ball open and a flash of light shine through the fabric of the red bag and cluster to one specific—all too familiar—figure. In frustration she slaps her forehead and accidentally drops the Pokéball on the ground, a faint clunk appears and the ball remains shut.

The yellow duck wobbles around in a… well, if you don't look too closely, circle.

She yells. "Psyduck! I didn't want to send you out, your idiot!"

Psyduck stops walking and looks at her, clueless, with those dumb eyes transparent as glasses with water. It probably doesn't even understand what she's saying.

"Go back to your Pokéball, now!" Misty exclaims, with tears running down her cheeks, because she can't take this anymore. She can't take Ash's ignorance anymore, Psyduck's ignorance anymore, she can't take anything anymore.

She wants to dig under the ground and hide, the problem is that it doesn't solve anything. It doesn't solve anything.

She wipes away the cold, cold tears and tries to smile but it doesn't work. It doesn't work. Why can't it work?

Why can't she be happy? Why it is so hard?

SlowlyMisty lays a hand on Psyduck's face and starts rubbing it. She can't blame the pokémon for this. She can't. This is about Ash and nothing changes if she pushes the blame over to someone else.

Nothing changes. Nothing at all.

Then something cuts through the thick silence like a knife, hasty, without forewarning and she almost falls of the chair.

It's the telephone.

With shaking fingers she picks up the phone and holds in against her ear, soon finding herself losing the sadness and teleporting back to the start line again.

Which she always does when it comes to him.

—

"I'm sorry, Misty."

"It's okay."

"No, it isn't okay and you've rights to be angry."

"I'm not angry."

"That's unusual."

And he sounds like usual.

"That destroyed the moment drastically."

"Are you in Cerulian next week?"

"Yes? Why?"

"I'm going to visit you."

—

And when Misty later hangs up she feels the butterflies longing in her stomach, not because this is going to change anything but because he doesn't need to apologize, not with words, he only needs to be there.

With her.

—

A week later Misty finds herself sitting around a square-shaped table filled with playing candles and shining plates. Comforting music. There isn't anything drastic about this restaurant; everything fits under the title 'nice and anonymous' and it's perfect for this situation. She smiles a little as she's turning page in the menu. It will be a lie if she says that she isn't used to going out and eat by now but not like this, not on a nice restaurant where you shall not order hamburgers and when she's more nervous than before a Gym-match. It's a rather common feeling when it comes to him. At least now. Because it has to mean something that he brings her out for dinner and actually pays for both his and her food. It just isn't Ash. And when something isn't Ash she wonders (and probably builds expectations up to the sky again) if he understands what she wants.

"What do you want to order?" he asks her, giving her a look from above the frame of the menu, sounding so professional and sure of himself that she finds herself blushing and nervosa rising. He isn't supposed to ask her that, he should just order and eat and forget that she's there.

But inside she doesn't want him to do that.

She clips with her eyes and bits on her under-lip. "Er, I don't know."

"Something you can't spill on yourself?" he teases her and she can't prevent herself of cracking her mouth up. That is Ash.

"Are you implying that I'm clumsy?"

He rolls with his eyes. "Not as clumsy as you're angry."

"I think I was worse before."

He nods and fumbles with the fork as his eyes wander of the menu's offer. "Misty?"

The room feels silent. Like the music isn't there. It's only him (and her.) "Yes?"

"Can I tell you something?"

"Of course."

Ash blushes. He isn't good at these things.

"I've noticed that you're sad when I leave. I've noticed that you think I've fallen in love with either May or Dawn. But you know, that isn't true. They're friends, nothing more. But you're more than a friend. And, um, eh, I think you should know it."

And the pools run down her cheek again. But this time isn't different. She lifts up the napkin and dry her eyes, satisfied with that he doesn't seem to notice how much his words affect her.

It's like it always have been. And know she understands that she doesn't want it another way.

Ash is her best friend. Ash is more than a best friend.

"When, um, did you realize this?" Misty asks.

Ash shrugs. "Long. But I didn't know what it was. So I ignored it and continued on my journey."

Misty believes him.

And today, when he waves at the waiter and orders the first plate, she understands that he feels the same about her.

And it's enough.

It's more than enough.

—

fin