Something of a Tragedy

Seamus - Not Afraid

"I'm not afraid, to take a stand,
Everybody, come take my hand,
We'll walk this road together, through the storm
Whatever weather, cold or warm
Just lettin' you know that, you're not alone
Holla if you feel like you've been down the same road."
Not Afraid, Eminem

It was a vacation at Lake Valor, the day I saw her.

Sarah was splashing around in the lake's deep trenches. She was quite the swimmer for someone so young. Grandfather was talking to his Vaporeon and Hippowdon. Not unusual of him, considering his bond with those two to be as long as fifty years. While Sarah was swimming and Grandfather chatting with his pokemon, I sat beside my Sneasel. I was drawing the outline of the lake - a beautiful bounty of water that seemed to stretch across all of Sinnoh. It was a magnificent place to draw and sketch nature and pokemon and -

-Her. She had long, black - maybe a dark brown - hair. Her eyes were green - the color of the surrounding trees, to be exact - and had a pair of Plusle and Minun on her shoulders. The two were fidgeting and fighting each other - Minun was obviously dominant. The girl smiled at the two, then sat the two down. Minun was pouting, whilst Plusle was sticking it's tongue to it.

She was beautiful. Beside her was two pokéballs - I assumed they were for the two electric pokemon beside her. But, as usual, I was wrong. She took one of them and released a blue and yellow wolf-like pokemon - Manectric. The other one, though, she kept on her belt.

I started to draw the scene; The girl, the pokemon, the nature around them. And then, something dropped on my head.

An acorn. I looked above. Minun. I laughed at the innocent façade it attempted, but then it thundershocked me in embarrassment.

Ow. Sneasle growled at the Minun, then ran up the tree after it. He came back down after a good two minutes, obviously burned by the Minun's powerful thundershock. Double ow.

"Mini! What did I say about randomly shocking people?" The girl came dashing towards the Minun, the Plusle and Manectric not far behind. Minun - Mini, I assumed - giggled as it raced up the tree.

The girl stopped running - visibly out of breath - and peered at me. She smiled, then put out her hand. I took it and shook her hand firmly (but not too firm) and returned the smile.

Her skin, I noticed, could be compared to an olive tree.

"My name's Rebecca Shay," she pointed up to the hiding Minun, the explained, "And that's Mini the mischievous Minun."

I laughed and pointed to my Sneasel (who was still upset at the electric pokemon) and introduced him to Rebecca, "This is Sneasel, he's... an interesting pokemon. My name's Seamus St. Riley, by the way." Sneasel went ahead and slashed my face with his claws. Rebecca laughed and asked, "You don't seem to be from here. What are you doing here?"

"Visiting my grandfather and sister," I said while rubbing the painful scratches away.

"Ah, so," she paused to return her pokemon to their pokeballs, then continued, "I gotta go. Um, I live in Jubilife City. You can find me in the PokeMart, I work there. Come visit some time? I wanna get to know you."

"S-Sure," I said. She waved good-bye and left. I leaned against the tree as Sneasel nudged me. He winked.

"Oh shut up." I returned him back to his pokeball.

I woke from my dream-slash-flashback. It was as if I was reliving it. I wish I was, and not on this train trying to find Rebecca. It's been awhile since I saw her. She had dyed her hair red, that much, I knew. I wished I could hold her again, love her, and never let her go. I wanted to find her again,

I looked outside the window. It was night, and of course, I was awake. I was always awake at night. I looked beside me; Harley and Soledad were sleeping. The latter was leaning on Harley, who was leaning on his left arm. I smiled at the two and wondered if they were together. Probably.

Almost instantly, I felt a pang of jealousy run through me. They - Harley and Soledad - had what I lost. They had someone to talk to, someone to lean on, someone to love. I didn't have anyone anymore. Sarah and Grandfather? Dead. Sneasel? I released him so that he could have a better chance of surviving. Rebecca? I'm trying to look for her. It's terrible to continue on.

I toyed with the pillow that laid on my lap. I wanted to sink into the pillow and sleep - Arceus, I was so tired. But I didn't want to dream about Sarah's death again, I didn't want to see the face of my Sneasel again, the confused look it gave me when I released it. I didn't want to see Rebecca again; I didn't want to miss her and sink back into the depression I was just in. Sleep was dangerous for me. To sleep was to reminisce, to remember all the things that happened. And, let me tell you, most of things that happened to me so far weren't necessarily the most pleasant things I have experienced.

"Hey."

I looked to where the voice had come from. Soledad. "Um, hi," I replied back. She stretched and leaned into the chair, her pink hair messy from her nap. I gazed at her; she was pretty, with her pale blue eyes and her pale-rose hair. Soledad sighed loudly and caught my stare, and laughed.

"I don't like sleeping either," she said, with a little giggle.

"What?" I asked. That was random.

"I don't sleep at night. That's when the nightmares get worse." She sighed again, then looked to me, to Harley, then back to me.

"Nightmares?" I felt stupid repeating her.

"Bad dreams, dreams that make you shake with fear while your sleeping. The ones that make you wake up crying, screaming...nightmares, you know? They suck." Her stare was empty, lifeless. It was creepy, the way she looked at me. She pulled her legs to her chest.

"You have nightmares? Like what?" I probably shouldn't have said that. She looked up from her stare.

"I have one that always happens - its the worse one too. My brother, Sammy, you see, he's dying of that...devil of a disease. And Harley and I are the train right now to visit him before... Anyway, in my dream,we're getting closer to Johto, and a group of bandits in blue and black came and killed Harley. Right in front of me. And then they started to scream and started cursing Hoenn, and -" her voice broke and I could see she was trying to restrain from crying.

"You - you don't have to finish, it's okay -" I tried to comfort her. Which, I'm really, really bad at.

"No, no, I'm fine. And that's it. There are other nightmares...but that was the worse one," she lowered her voice to a whisper, then finished, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have plagued you with this rant of mine, I have a horrible habit of talking none stop about my problems. I'm sure you're -"

"Don't sweat it, Soledad. Seriously, I know how you feel. I was like that, too. And you know, sometimes people just need to talk. It's fine," I assured her. But she just shook her head.

"No, its not fine," she stated before waving off the subject, "Just forget it. Let's talk about something else."

"Okay," I said. If she didn't want to talk about it, fine by me. She's kind of scary when she's on the edge of tears. What happened to this girl to make her so... unstable?

"So... why not play a game of questions?" She asked, breaking the short silence.

"Okay. Want to start?"

"No, go ahead." She began to hold an empty stare again, but this time, to the sleeping Harley.

"Are you and, Harley, together? Like, a couple?" Awkward much? Arceus, I'm so bad at conversations. Her face flushed, her cheeks turning a rosy color. She shook her head and stuttered, "No - no, never. I mean, there's a chance but as of now... we're just best of friends. We're really close, that's all. I - yeah... So, um, I guess it's my turn."

"Oh, okay, so you and Harley, are just friends?" Interesting.

"Yeah. So what are you doing on this train? Like where are you going?" she flipped her bangs so that I could see her face. Beautiful - no, no Seamus, snap out of it! I love Rebecca, I should not be attracted to Soledad, a person I just met. I pondered for a moment - what was I doing on this train?

"I have no freaking idea. I'm looking for a girl - Rebecca Shay - that used to be my girlfriend the summer I visited Sinnoh. I have no idea where she is, though, but she's the last person I remember seeing in Sinnoh, aside from Sarah and Grandfather, that is," I laughed, "You know, that girl was the first person I loved with all my heart."

"Aw," Soledad said.

"Ha, ha. My turn," I laughed at Soledad's "hurt" expression, then asked, "So how did you meet Harley?"

"He's a childhood friend. He lived in Slateport City, though, while I lived in Pewter. Our families were close though, as we would always travel to Slateport every summer," she paused, then said with a more cheery tone, "But we weren't the best of friends until I started my journey. You see, I had this crazy dream of becoming a world-class pokemon trainer. But then...then I started watching Harley on TV competing in contests and just fell in love with the idea participating in contests. And so I did. I ended up winning the Kanto Contest Festival and seventeen other ribbons to match. And I met up with Harley when we were sixteen, and from then on we traveled together."

"Oh cool," I said. She nodded.

"Yeah. So tell me about Rebecca."

"That's not a question," I said in a sing-song voice.

"You know what I mean."

"She's the prettiest girl you would ever meet. She had long, waist-long, black hair. Her eyes were a dark green - haunting, yet beautiful at the same time - and skin with such a perfect complexion, even Aphrodite would be jealous. Of course, this is coming from a lover's perspective, so my opinion would be biased. I love her so much, though. Her snorting laugh, her terrible habit of cussing in every sentence, her so off-key singing voice - I miss her so much."

"Seems like you love her a whole lot."

"I do. So tell me about Harley."

"That's not a -"

"You know what I mean." I winked at her.

"He's... good to me. Harley's been there for me when I wake up from those wretched nightmares. He gives the best hugs, cooks the best cookies, makes the worse coffee, and makes me laugh. I love him because he's put up with me for the past six years of this war. We've been through a lot of shit. He almost got killed because of me. I almost killed him. I have terrible emotional breakdowns where I wold cry like there's no tomorrow. And he wouldn't tell me to shut-up and suck it up. He would hold me until I stopped crying. And I feel... lucky to have a friend like Harley." She clenched her fists tight as she said his name.

"Sounds like you two would be the perfect couple," I teased, pulling the conversation into something less serious.

"Shut up," she grinned, laughter breaking from her serious façade. I shook my head, then said, "No I'm serious! You guys must be crazy to not get together!"

"Fuck you!" She giggled and threw her pillow to me. I covered my face with my arms and laughed, throwing the pillow back to her. My aim was terrible, as it landed on...

...Harley, who grumbled in his sleep, barley opening his eyes. Soledad covered her mouth to stifle her laughter, but she failed, as she began to crack up, rolling onto Harley in the process. Harley blinked quite a few times before saying, "Well aren't you a little hyper today, honey." Soledad glanced at me, then said, "Yeah.."

"So what were you two doing while I was sleeping?" Harley raised his eyebrows and shifted his eyes to me, which scared me. His stare was as if he would kill me if I did anything to Soledad... creepy, much?

"Talking," Soledad winked at me when he wasn't looking. Harley nodded, then draped his arm protectively over Soledad, who scooted closer to him. I smiled at his jealousy. It was amusing, really.

A/n: I like the way this chapter turned out at the end. lol...oh Harley. I'm starting like Seamus/Soledad though... hm... :) Review telling me which is better: Seamus/Soledad or Harley/Soledad. Your opinion may matter :) Also... review. I love reading them. *important: Next chapter will not be posted until next week. I have 7th Grade registration coming up (yes, I'm twelve... shh..) and a lot of crap going on with friends and stuff :) School starts in a month :/

Up next: Jessie - dead, or alive? Song: I have no flippin' idea. I have to look at my iPod haha.