A/N: OK, here's chapter 4. turns out there was less that I needed to add than I thought. See earlier chapters for the disclaimer.

Chapter 4

Ruko woke up, blinking several times as expected sunlight streaming in from the window invaded her vision. After the sunlight, Ruko noticed two other things: one, she was on one side of her bed, rather than the middle; two, she was fairly sure she could a feel a small hangover poking at her brain.

Brushing the blue forelock out of her eyes, she got out of bed and stretched. She thought of cats for no reason currently explicable. Looking at her bed, it was cleared she'd shared with someone, but who and why? There was a spare room for whenever she had guests, which was rather regularly.

Ruko stood trying to remember the answers, which, in a tired, hung-over brain was quite a challenge. She recalled meeting Dug, spending time with him and going to the Saviour. They'd been chatting, and she met Haku. Everything was blurry from there onwards...

Hang on – I slept with Dug?

The realisation was like a mental slap, but without the wake-up. The hangover hurt a little more instead. That was something she might need to keep quiet. If certain people (such as Touko) heard about it, she'd never hear the end of it and possibly die of shame or embarrassment depending on the person.

There were worse people to sleep with, she supposed. Much worse.

Dug poked his head around the doorway. He smiled when he saw her awake.

"Morning, sleepy. Get dressed and get over to the kitchen: I'm cooking something that I know kills hangovers of all shapes and sizes."

"How're you here... and cooking... at the same time?" Ruko mumbled, yawning and rubbing her lower back. The realisation's impact seemed to have faded away.

"Blaziken's in charge of overseeing the cooking for now, better at it than Porygon – Boy, I do not want to trust it with something like that, especially here..." Dug seemed to be fading into his own little thought bubble. Realising this, he slipped back towards the kitchen, humming some familiar song.

Ruko made a move to get fresh clothes (something that actually fit would be a bonus) when she spotted her reflection in a mirror leaning against the wall. Her hair was a crazed mess in places. That will need washing, she noted. Breakfast first though. She made another move for clothes, but ground to another halt. This time, by a single thought: wait, who is Touko?

Ruko guessed it was a name she remembered from the night before, and little else. Brushing that aside too, she finally found some clothes. Pretty much the same yesterday's, except the shirt fit better (especially around her bust – there was the bonus), and her underwear was black. More appropriately dressed, she dragged herself towards the kitchen, following the smells and sounds emanating from Dug and his cooking. The first thing Ruko noticed was Dug's Gardevoir – an elegant, humanoid Pokémon that had green hair, white skin, red eyes, a red horn sticking out of its chest and appeared to be wearing a long green and white dress – sitting at the small, round table staring fixedly and focusing deeply on the task before her: solving a suspended Rubik's Cube. The cube clicked a couple of times each second. That Gardevoir and Dug had a very strong companionship, Ruko noted, probably the strongest of any between him and any of his team. Ruko thought the psychic Pokémon also help the shared position of best inter-Pokémon with Gothitelle, another psychic type, but Gothitelle had a more gothic Lolita look to her – a layered black dress, in particular. Ruko was brought back to the present by a sudden whoosh and jet from flame coming from the direction of the hob. Ruko appeared to be the only occupant of the room to be fazed by the event: Gardevoir was still staring at the cube, which continued to click away, and Blaziken was flapping his hand to rid it of any excess fire, and Dug said "Thank you. And I'd say that's done! Lovely!" He had a great amount of cheer in his voice.

"I take it you haven't made a mess, have you?" Ruko asked as she took her place at the table. She was still a little groggy.

Dug took a moment to look at her, and smiled. "Nothing Altaria won't be willing to clear up while you're making yourself presentable. He love cleaning," Dug replied, shovelling food onto a pair of plates. There was a crash from the direction of the front door, which made Ruko jump. Dug sighed and yelled down the hall "Porygon! I said mail, not picture rail! Sort that out and bring us the mail!" Ruko looked at him, a very confused look on her face. Dug spotted this, and explained: "I told it to see if there's anything in the mail. He must've gotten confused and thought I said something seeing if there was anything on the picture rail and bring it here," There was another crash. "I'll cover the damage," He added quickly.

After a few moment silence (broken only by the clicking of the Rubik's Cube), the Gardevoir slammed her fists on the table in frustration, shaking the two cups of coffee Dug had put there earlier. She groaned and proceeded to glare at the sill-floating Rubik's Cube. Apparently she was going in circles. Dug noticed this, and plucked the cube from the air. He took a moment to analyse it, made a few twists, and returned it to its original floating position. Gardevoir looked at it, not expecting anything amazing, but then suddenly perked back up, eyes wide with surprise and sudden realisation. She continued solving the cube at a noticeably faster rate.

Dug returned to the table quickly, wielding two plates loaded with breakfast, one he passed to Ruko. They were mountainous. She wouldn't have been surprised if he could figure out how to get more onto the plates. The sight alone was enough to start offsetting the hangover (which had started creeping back up). "It's a little something I picked up at the Deino Cafe in Striaton. You'll love it!" Dug said. That winning smile returned. He could almost be a respected politician with that smile, Ruko mused. If he wanted to.

Ruko was about to take of sausage when an angular pink and blue Pokémon whizzed past (with an audible whizz), chirping and dropping a group of letters next to Ruko's plate, a couple spilled onto the floor due to the lack of space. As it flew around the table, it clipped the Rubik's Cube, sending it spinning about its centre of mass. This confused Gardevoir for a moment. Once the cube had slowed down enough, she continued as normal. Ruko looked at the Pokémon now 'perching' on Dug's shoulder.

"So that's a Porygon... the Pokémon that's brought disorder to my house."

"Just a few cyberspace-to-realspace glitches. Porygon don't actually have a physical form, but I have certain items that allowed the contrary to happen. I really need to fix its attitude. Compared to what happened two months ago, this is nothing."

"And what was that? Really."

Dug sighed. "Oh boy. He single-handedly trashed Henry's kitchen. Twice."

"OK, I see what you mean."

When they'd finished the enormous breakfast (Ruko's hangover was long gone, but the memories were still missing), Dug opted to do washing – and cleaning – up while Ruko had a quick spar with Sawk and do something about her hair. Ruko regularly sparred with Sawk as physical and mental training, keeping her instincts and reaction times to a good level. She'd had to fight off some thugs a year ago, but at that point she had a Hariyama. She had Sawk now as it fit her style better. The hangover had put a dent in her reactions, but after about quarter of an hour later she back on form.

With sparring done, Ruko took a quick shower, mostly to sort her messy hair. While this was drying, she flipped through the post: Bills, junk, postcard, mystery letter, junk, junk, leaflet, free newspaper. The junk and leaflet went straight in the bin, the mystery letter turned out to be a instructions and a ticket to an upcoming film from (Ruko guessed) her friend who went by the nick-name FL_Chan. Ruko always found it hard remembering her real name. The postcard was from Miku, who was staying in Undella Bay, Unova ("You wanna visit her while we're there?" asked Dug while helping Altaria finish the cleaning), and the free paper, the Hoenn Times, Ruko decided to keep for later. Whilst sorting the mail, Gardevoir finished the Rubik's Cube.

Before much longer, the house was back to its original condition, Ruko had left a note in the window saying she was in Unova, and to leave packages with the couple who lived next door, and the pair got ready to head for the port.

A/N: And that's it. The next chapter'll be voyage, maybe first half if not all of it. I'm looking at around 1.5k words per chapter at the moment, so we'll see how far that goes. I have plans for a lot of other characters, I'll be adding them in ASAP - It's not all gonna be Ruko and Dug, might follow another few characters for a while.