I was a bit worried about leaving Brianna home alone while I went to work on Monday. The previous night had made certainly frightened me about her safety and my own. Whoever those people are, they certainly meant business. I made a point to take the long way to work. However, AI wasn't worried for my own safety; it was Brianna I was worried about. Her demeanor had certainly changed after her night of crying on my couch, and I had a lot of concern as to wether she would ever cheer up. She was still sulking on the couch when I left, and I was worried that she still be there by the time I got home. Of course, she wasn't really alone. Ampharos would do his best to take care of her, and hopefully not burn the house down cooking lunch.

I spent the work day with my mind on Brianna and her predicament. Who wounded have this sort of thing on their mind? The sheer absurdity of it all was more than apparent, and that rainbow rock had to have something to do with it. I couldn't help but think of what exactly the rock is, or if it could do it again. As much as I wanted to see if it could change Brianna back, I wasn't exactly sure what would happen if I did. More importantly, I'm not sure what she would think. It may have been a very painful experience, so much so that her mind repressed it. Or maybe the two weren't related and I'm connecting the wrong dots.

It's also entirely possible that Brianna really is some batshit crazy woman using me for free housing. If anything is a possibility, that one is higher than psycho rock conspiracies. If that's the case, then why was I putting up with any of this? It was within my purview to kick her ass to the curb and leave her to her own devices. Despite cutting a large amount of recent stress out of my life, it wouldn't exactly help me sleep at night. I couldn't just abandon her to the streets, especially when she didn't understand human culture that well. Besides, our friendship goes back to before she was a human. I looked out for her even when she was just an Umbreon living in my bushes. She came to me because she knew she could trust me, and she was right. I see no issue in taking care of her. She's my friend, and I'd expect her to do the same if our roles were reversed.

Coming home from work, I expected to find her still on the couch. To my surprise, she had actually moved to a new position. Ampharos was waiting for me and pointed me towards my room. Curious, why was she in there? I found her curled up with her blanket at the foot of my bed. She was awake, but silent. With a sigh, I sat on the bed by her feet. I looked down at her and thought over my next words carefully. Clearly, she was still upset, and I didn't want to make things worse. I thought of what I could do or say, and realized I knew nothing about her really beyond her being an Umbreon. What would I say to not piss her off? It was like having an upset girlfriend all over again. If that's the case, I might as well try to fix the problem the same way, because I have such good fucking experience with that!

"Hey, I was thinking we could head out tonight." No response, go figure. "Maybe go somewhere nice and watch the sunset, get some dinner after."

The similarity between this and a date is not lost on me. Of course, it's all I could think of to take a girl I knew next than nothing about. All I know about her is that she was an Umbreon that lived in my bushes that liked my cooking. So behind her horrible taste in food, I knew nothing about her. Maybe while we were out we could talk and get to know each other. Anything was better than letting this half naked woman sulk on my bed all day. Speaking of which, why did she move to, my bedroom? I'll admit, my bed wasn't much comfier than my couch; which means I either have a good couch or a bad mattress. Was it because she thought that beds were a human place to sleep? I'd have to make a point to ask her later when she was feeling better. "Come on, lets go!" I insisted, shaking her. "It'll be fun! Just the two of us out on the town!"

The silence was deafening. "Alright, well, I'm going to get in the shower. Let me know what you want to do after."

Disheartened, I grabbed some clothes and made my way to the bathroom. Maybe in the shower I'd have some more time to think about everything. Hell, maybe I'd come up with a better plan than taking her in a walk like she was a pet or something. Brianna, of course, had other plans for me. While I was in the shower, the curtain slid open and she was standing there, with the same sad look on her face. "Fucking hell!" Was all I could say as she simply sat on the floor of the shower and returned to pouting. At least she had learned enough to take her clothes off before the shower.

For a minute, I was about as confused as I was scared. What the hell was she doing? Then it dawned on me; she didn't want to be alone. She was scared of everything that had happened, and she was clinging to what was really the closest thing she had to a friend or family. That would explain why she was in my bed as well. As touched as I was to be her crutch, I'd really have preferred she wait until I was out if the shower. I wasn't sure what to do but just look at her as the shower water ran down over both of us. With a sigh, I sat down with her and awkwardly put an arm around her. A shower isn't exactly the best place to have a moment like this, after all.

Eventually, we got out of the shower, dressed, and left the house. I took Ampharos with us, he loved watching the sunset, and locked up. Somehow I felt my home was safer now with him outside with us. With plenty of daylight to burn, we walked to the nearest hiking trail to find a good spot. Of course, most of the walk was simply to reach the hiking trail in the first place. The sun was getting lower in the sky once we reached the trail, but I've hiked it enough times to know it can be done in about an hour. Brianna didn't say a word the whole time, and remained silent until we finally reached the lookout to watch the sunset. We sat on a rickety park bench set up to watch the sunset in the distance. It was almost perfect in a way. The sun fledged off the clouds, painting the sky with hues of pink and orange, accompanied with splashes of red. As we watched in silence, Brianna finally spoke. "Is this fun?"

I chose my words carefully. "It's more about the moment. Anyone can watch the sunset, it's about what you're doing and who you're with that makes it fun and memorable."

"Is this sunset memorable then?" She looked to me, the empty look she had fading away.

"I think this is a special enough moment, yeah."

Brianna smiled. It started wholesome and happy, then turned into something else. "Cassandra was right, you are a pussy."

Just like that, Brianna was back to her old self. Eventually, we dropped Ampharos back off at home and I drove Brianna and myself out to a restaurant as promised. I chose a place where I was less like to have an awkward run in with my friends, which coincidentally didn't have cheap beer on tap. A little pricier than I was use to, man I miss free food from Jose and Cassie, the atmosphere was nice enough. The menu was a litany of strange words for Brianna, so I was forced to order order for her. Man I really wish she could read. All things aside, I took this moment to get to know her. She had quite a lot of interesting stories to tell. Hearing about Pokémon moves and battles from the personal experience of an actual Pokémon was fascinating to me. Crunch might be mundane and boring to her, but to bite something with greater force than a normal Bite while trying not to get roasted by some asshole kids Charmeleon is an alien concept to me. I could tell she was enjoying talking about it as well, simply for my reactions. She almost enjoyed how enameled I was with her everyday life as she was with mine.

The drive home was a quiet one, but not in a bad way. We were simply tired, having enjoyed our night. No doubt we were going to fall asleep the minute we got back. Brianna was the first to speak up when we got home. "That was fun."

"It was."

"Can we do this again?"

"Maybe not every night," I'm not made of money, "but we can do it again soon."

She actually looked a tad upset we couldn't go out again tomorrow. We were both silent for a moment, then we got out of the car. Heading inside, she let me know she didn't want to sleep alone again. Of course, that meant she wanted to sleep in my bed. At this point, my body was screaming me. Well, various parts of me were anyway. I had followed just about every step of dating 101, even down to the mildly flirty compliments. No she was trying to sleep in the same bed as me. Next thing I knew we'd end up connected at the waist. Oddly enough, I wasn't opposed to it either. However, I still didn't think it would be right to take advantage of her considering she still doesn't understand humans.

We laid in bed, each of us back to back. It was just as awkward as I imagined it would be. For me anyway, she seemed fine with it. I think she was happy to not be alone. "I was just thinking," she broke the silence again, "why are we wearing clothes?"

What the fuck. Is she doing this on purpose? "Why do you ask?" It should be of note we were more or less in underwear bottoms and a T-shirts.

"It's not like we have to hide anything from each other." She said that so matter of factly. Little does she know, I do in fact have something to hide from her. If I have things my way, it'll stay hidden from her too. I don't need boners getting in the way of our oddly close relationship.