A/N: Wow, hey guys! This is the last chapter! And I actually stuck to my word and finished all ten chapters before Christmas. I wrote an entire chaptered fic within a month and I didn't give up on it or abandon it for months. That might not seem like a big deal to you, but it makes me really proud of myself.
I hope you enjoy this chapter! There will be more notes at the end.
"Hey, dear, I'm heading out."
May sets the eyeliner down next to the sink and glances up at her boyfriend, hanging in the doorway. He's wearing a black three-piece suit and shiny shoes. Though he wears dress clothes most of the time, the suit still makes him look great. May, though she's not anywhere near being ready to go yet, still feels as though she'll pale in comparison.
"You look great," she says softly, coming up and putting her hands on his chest. He wraps his arms around her lightly; though it's been over a year, sudden touches, especially rough ones, still scare her. She still feels the haunting touches of the man who recently went to court and was sentenced with twelve to twenty years in prison.
Steven kisses her head and pulls away, smiling. "All the eyes will be on you, anyways," he says.
May rolls her eyes and turns back to the mirror. "You're the superstar here tonight."
"For once," Steven mutters.
After many years of donating to charities and small businesses, Steven had been asked to come and speak at a charity auction. The people running the event also wanted him to accept a reward for all of his generosity over the years. Steven refused at first, but May eventually convinced him by reminding him that the two former Champions of the Hoenn region being at the event would probably draw a larger crowd. Steven knew that May was right and that having more people at the event would raise more money for whatever the charity was, so he reluctantly agreed. The event didn't start until five, but as May and Steven had only just flown into Hearthome and arrived at their hotel this morning, Steven needed to get to the venue early to prepare for his speech and be prepped on how to present himself.
Meaning May would have to go to the venue by herself later.
Steven seems to see the look in her eyes and realize what she's thinking about, for he swoops down and brushes his lips against hers gently before lifting her chin and forcing her to make eye contact with him. "Are you sure you'll be okay taking the subway yourself? I can always come back and get you, if you want."
May shakes her head and tries to smile reassuringly. "I can do this by myself," she says. "I need to."
Steven smiles back. "That's my girl." He kisses her one more time before leaving the hotel room and leaving May alone with only the soft sounds of the TV turned on as background noise and Skitty snoring quietly on the bed.
May takes a deep breath and returns to the mirror, picking up her eyeliner again. Now for the actual challenge: making herself look sophisticated enough to stand up next to Steven Stone and actually have a shadow of a chance of looking on-par with him.
May wakes up to a paw on her face. She grumbles sleepily. "Five more minutes," she mumbles. The paw continues to hit her cheek lightly before she feels claws and her eyes fly open.
"What the hell, Skitty?" May exclaims, blinking a few times to clear her eyes and fully see the cat Pokemon sitting on her chest.
"Skiiiiiii!" the Pokemon cries. May stares at it for a few seconds before gasping loudly.
"Shit, what time is it?" she exclaims, rolling over on the bed and jostling the cat Pokemon, who tumbles a few feet away. May jumps out of bed and runs to her PokeNav, which is sitting on the cabinet next to the TV on a charger.
4:40.
Shit. She still has time, but not much. She hurries into the bathroom to check her hair and makeup, which she did before she accidentally fell asleep. Her eyeliner looks mostly un-smudged, but she runs a fingertip under one eye to fix it just slightly. Her hair, which was curled earlier and fell halfway to her back in beautiful ringlets, is now more than a bit tangled. May swears and digs through her makeup bag until she finds a hairtie. She pulls her hair up into a high ponytail, fluffing it with her fingers and not daring to risk touching it with a brush. She fluffs it up until her curls look okay, then she hastily sprays it with hairspray.
She leaves the bathroom hastily and examines her outfit in the full-length mirror hanging near the room door. She's wearing a short, strapless black dress that she bought just for this occasion, and it looks mostly fine. She smooths out a few wrinkles in the fabric and adjusts the liquid silver necklace around her neck so that the clasp is in the back. Then, she lobs on her heels (nearing five-inches, so that she wouldn't look too tiny next to Steven) and calls Skitty back before tucking her PokeNav and Pokeballs into her purse and rushing out the door.
"I'm sorry, ma'am, but the Blue Route train is currently shut down."
May's eyes bug out at the woman in the glass box behind the counter. She has short black hair, a snaggletooth, and her name tag reads 'Barb.' She laughs nervously and tries to ignore how hysterical she must look. "No, no, you must be thinking of something else. I need the Blue Route train that stops near the convention center." May flashes her Champion-smile at the woman. A year back out in the real world hadn't taken away the skills that May had learned for interviews.
Barb loses her fake smile. "Sorry, hon. That train is closed for maintenance. It'll be back up in about an hour, though, so if you still want to buy a ticket..."
"An hour? I don't have an hour!" May exclaims angrily. The woman looks a little taken back, so May mutters, "Sorry." She knows it's not Barb's fault. There's no point in shooting the messenger.
"So, the ticket...?"
"No, I'll just walk," May mutters, turning her back to the ticket counter and allowing the annoyed-looking man in line behind her go on.
More like run, she thinks, but by the time she makes it up the stairs and back out into the above-ground light, her feet are starting to ache from the heels. If she's going to run, she'll have to take them off...
May stares wearily at the sidewalk and the many areas that are covered in gravel or broken glass. That's not going to happen. She'll just have to deal with the heels.
She shuffles along the best she can, trying to take long strides but eventually having to resort to many small steps instead. She curses the heels and the decision to buy them. She shouldn't have trusted Steven's judgement. Why did she even ask for his opinion, anyways? She swears under her breath and tries to ignore the confused-looking pedestrians staring at her.
From somewhere behind her, somebody whistles. May's hand immediately flies inside of her purse and lands on a Pokeball. She keeps it there, even though there are no following sounds.
At some point, she stops mid-step and just halts. A man walking behind her swears as he almost runs into her and gives her a dirty look when he walks past. Is she even going the right way? She just sort of took off after leaving the subway station, but she isn't even entirely sure where the convention center is. She pulls out her PokeNav to call Steven, but then sees the time. 4:55. Shit. If she called him now and told him that she wasn't on the subway and instead was lost in an unfamiliar city, he'd freak out and worry and probably leave to come looking for her.
She'd have to ask someone for directions. She bites her lip and continues walking, trying to stride confidently but feeling clumsy in the heels so probably just ends up looking extremely uncoordinated and foolish. She tucks her PokeNav back into her purse with the hand that's not still holding onto a concealed Pokeball, and approaches a kind-looking older man who's selling fruit.
"Excuse me, Sir, but do you know how to get to the convention center from here?" she asks, waving a bit to get his attention.
The elderly man looks at her and looks her up and down. Even though he's probably just looking at her outfit and wondering why she's dressed so fancy, May is still so used to feeling like she's being eyed up like a piece of meat that the gaze unsettles her and she stiffens. The old man smiles kindly at her. "Why, dear, you look nice," he says in a kind, gravelly voice. Once again, the compliment sets off a cautious nerve in her and she takes a small step back.
"Thank you. So, the convention center...?"
"Oh, yes. It's right over there," he says, turning and pointing at a tall building that's back behind what looks to be apartment complexes. "That tall building right there." It still looks horribly far away.
"And how would I go about getting there?" she asks, biting her lip again. Her head swims. She'll never make it in time.
"Just continue on this street and go left when you reach the Pokemon Center," he says kindly.
"Thanks," May mutters, going to hurry on past him. It's going to take ages.
"Oh, wait! Young lady? If you're in a hurry, you can cut down that street right there, and it'll get you there much faster. I'm not sure if I would want to go down there alone, though, especially dressed the way you are. Be careful, please!"
The last sentence sounds far away because May has already taken off, ignoring the aching in her feet and the unsteady warning feeling coming from her heels. She hopes and prays to Arceus that the heels won't break, at least not before she reaches the convention center.
The man's words replay over and over again in her head, even as she's turning onto the street and understanding why he warned her. The voice in the back of her head is screaming at her that she's an idiot and asking why she would ever do this. She knew from experience what happened to girls who walked alone on dark, abandoned streets. She knew better than this.
But she had to get to Steven in time. She had to prove to him that she was able to do things like this on her own; she could be independent again. She couldn't let being raped control the rest of her life forever. If she had to live every day in the shadows, hiding and letting her fear control her, then why was she even living? She had to show Steven that she was growing out of this, and that although she may never heal completely, she was getting there.
Most of all, she had to prove it to herself.
Her hand had healed, and though sometimes it hurt to curl her fingers and May wasn't sure if she still had aching bones or if her mind was trying to remind her of the ghost of pain, she knew that she would someday forget about the broken bone altogether. The scar on her forehead would be there for many more years, but she continued to let her hair fall over it and no longer protested when Steven swept the hair aside and pressed his lips lightly onto the scar. It would be gone, eventually. It would heal.
Some scars would never go away, though.
May knew that she would never fully recover from the incident. She would always be nervous to be out by herself at night. She would always jump at small touches. She would always have an aching in her stomach when around a drunk person and she would always feel sick whenever she sees blood. But even though it would always be there, May decides that it needs to be background noise. It can't be the main focal point in her life.
She's spent the last year recovering. She's learned again what it means to have a Pokemon battle, and how amazing it can be. She's learned that her Pokemon will always be there for her. In the heat of battle, there's nowhere that they'd rather be.
She's learned that her Championship wasn't the ending of her life. Although it was hard to dodge the reporters of Hoenn who wanted to know where she had disappeared to for weeks, confirming for them that she and Steven were officially an item was enough for them to leave her alone and instead fill theirs news reports with more gossip than fact. And when they got to Sinnoh, hardly anybody recognized her. In fact, more people knew Steven Stone, the dreamboat rock collector.
She's also learned that it's hard for people to love you until you let them. Steven admitted to her that he had had feelings for her for years, but that it took a lot for him to come to terms with them. May realizes that that was the case for her, too. She realizes why it felt like such a personal injury when Steven had left her to go travel in Kanto without saying goodbye. She knew why she turned to Steven when she was vulnerable and weak. She knew why being with Steven was always going to be the one place she felt at home.
May hurries down the street. The sun is setting, and May curses winter for its short daylight hours. The flickering streetlights start to come to life. May can see the convention center getting closer. She can start to see the crowd of people and news reporters stationed outside in line, and May is thankful that she's on the VIP list and will get to skip that stage of waiting. Crowds are still a terrifying challenge for her.
Behind her, she hears footsteps. She forces herself to keep sprinting and not to look back, despite the feeling of her heart stopping in her chest.
"Wow! Hey, beautiful! Don't you look gorgeous tonight?"
The catcalling makes her fumble a bit, and she just barely catches herself without falling. She stops for half a second, then continues on, walking as fast as she can.
"Oh, don't be like that, gorgeous! Hey, why don't you come with me? Let me buy you a drink!"
May continues walking. She isn't sure how close the man is behind her. The convention center is so close...
"Hey! I'm talking to you! Why don't you smile?"
May stops in her tracks and whirls around, seeming to shock the boy standing just a few feet behind her. She calls him a boy because he doesn't look old enough to be called a "man." He can't be much older than May herself; he's probably a college student at the nearby university.
May takes a deep breath.
"My name is not, 'Hey,' and my name is not, 'Beautiful,' and my name is not, 'Gorgeous.' So you don't get to call me that," May hisses out between clenched teeth. Her hand tightens around the Pokeball in her purse.
The boy laughs, shrugging. "Wow, you're a feisty one, aren't you? Come on, come with me, let's go get drinks!"
May grinds her teeth so hard it hurts. "I don't get drinks with immature kids who think it's cool to catcall women on the street."
The boy's lighthearted mood disappears and he seems to be starting to get angry. He takes a step forward, and that's his third strike. May whips the Pokeball out of her purse and in a second, Mightyena has materialized and is at her feet, growling viciously.
The boy's eyes widen and he raises his hands slowly. "Alright, I don't want any trouble..."
"You asked for trouble the second you opened your mouth. Mightyena, get him."
What follows is a few seconds of the boy running for his life and Mightyena snapping at his heels, snarling. When the boy is out of eyeshot, Mightyena returns to May. Alone with May and content that the threat is gone, the dog Pokemon returns to a puppy-like state, wagging its tail and looking up at May with its tongue hanging out. She smiles at it, and it tilts its head and gets a look of worry in its eyes, as if to ask, Are you going to be okay?
May smiles again and scratches Mightyena's head. She sighs happily when the dog Pokemon leans its face into her leg. She looks out at the convention center, then out at the setting sun. This didn't turn out too badly.
"Yeah, I think I'm going to be okay."
A/N: Alright, well, I really hope that you enjoyed it! It's been a wild journey from start to finish. Thank you all for your continued support. I love everybody who's reviewed, favorited, and subscribed to this story. Extra love to the reviewers, though, because it is an amazing feeling to know that somebody has read and enjoyed your writing enough to take the time to tell you what they thought of it. So, if you've been silently reading this whole time, I'd really appreciate knowing what you thought of the fic! Even if it's just one sentence or one word, every bit of feedback means so much to me and is really what keeps me going.
Let me know what you guys want to see from me in the future! I'm working on another chaptered Steven/May fic and also a oneshot Steven/May fic, which you can find more information about on my profile. There will also be a Christmas fic for them up on Thursday! Check that out, if you're interested. I'm also contemplating writing some more N/White. Tell me in the comments what you guys would like to see! Pairings, fic ideas, whatever. If you want to read any of my future writing, add me to your author alerts or check back on my profile soon!
And again, thank you all for reading!