A/N: Just as a warning, this was the more difficult chapter to make sense out of, because quite frankly, I hate time travel. xD

Disclaimer: I still don't own Pokemon.

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Today was going to be a big day for little Pallet Town, so I was sure to wake early. I groaned at the early morning pain, and shrugged on my lab coat. As I waited for potential trainers to arrive, I tided up around my lab area,griping about 'needing some help around here.'

Throughout the morning, I served three hopefuls, and my own grandson. I saw him off with my best wishes. I was pretty sure I expected one more, but no one else had shown up. Where was that boy?

"Professor Oak! I'm sorry I'm late!" He blurted, running clumsily inside. That harsh, yet familiar voice was music to my ears considering my patience had reached it's wits-end.

"Ahh, Ash, I was beginning to think you weren't going to make it," I said as casually as the boy was dressed. He was in pajamas, but who was I to judge?

Ash seemed excited that I accepted his being 'fashionably' late, and asked,

"So what kind of Pokemon am I going to get?!"

I took some time to think about this. How was I going to break it to him that they were all gone? He seemed the most eager out of everyone I had seen this morning, and I hated to let somebody like that down, so I quickly divised a back-up plan.

"Well, I only have one left, and it's still extremely untamed, and while I don't recommend it, I'm prepared to give it to you anyway," I said. Even though It was only to make him feel better, I was still unsure. This was going to be his Pokemon partner for a long time, after all.

"All right!" He exclaimed. My warning only seemed to make him happier. That was the local Ash for you. Rash, thrill-seeking, and a bit slow-witted.

"Here you are," I said, rummaging, then handing Ash his very first Pokeball. He accepted it with a snatch, and instantly released the creature form inside. A vibrant yellow rodent appeared in his arms, and I told him that he now possessed a Pikachu. It took one look at him and sent electricity sizzling through the boy's body, and I figured it was a good time to remind him how wild it still thought it was. That must have hurt, I thought.

The next step was to assign the Pokedex to the trainer. I got this idea during my travels a long time ago before I even knew anything about Pokemon Professorship. Who was it that gave me the idea again? Ah well, I guess that's just a small price to pay for aging I suppose. It'll come back to me eventually.

After I gave Ash the basic lowdown, he went back home to change into more heroic attire, and I agreed that that was probably in his best interest, suppressing a laugh. Who wants to start their Pokemon adventure in pajamas, anyway? He and his family met outside my lab, and I decided to see him off as a friend of the family.

And it wasn't until I saw Ash walking side by side with Pikachu out of town that I recognized him. Not as the boy who I knew as he grew up down the road, but as the ten year old boy that I had already met... forty years ago. It had completely slipped my mind as I grew older and busier. But that sight is what jogged my memory. I want to be stuck here. I just know that I can't. Everything has it's place, and whatever time they just so happen to be in is considered a place for them too. If I don't go back to where I come from, things will go terribly wrong for you and the rest of the time you belong in. That's what I had said when I was brought to the present forty years ago. So as it turns out, the only person I had ever loved (who wasn't a woman) was actually born and raised in my community, and I never realized it. I heard Deliah sigh from next to me, and I turned to her, only intensifying my awkward situation.

"I'm going to miss him," was all she said.

"Me too," I choked out quietly.

I suddenly felt nauseous, and excused myself back inside. So I was right, I thought, leaning against a nearby door frame, If I had not returned to the past, I would still be Ash's age, but I would not know him. The journey he just began is because of the Professor that he knows today, not the child he will know later. I pulled myself together a but more and glanced out the window, watching Ash disappear into the outskirts of town. I smiled weakly and thought.

He's going to do great.