Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon or any of its characters, but if I did, Misty's design in HGSS would not have been so massively altered from its original form.

Under the shadow of Mt. Silver, Lyra slept fitfully in her bed at the Pokémon Center, rolling to and fro on the mattress, frowning and mumbling in her sleep at the mixture of nightmares and strange, warm dreams that she would likely not remember in the morning. In spite of this chaotic sort of sleep where nothing felt particularly deep, Lyra missed it as her Pokegear jangled quietly on the nightstand, since Lyra had forgotten to turn it off before she went to bed that night, alerting her to Kuni's attempt to call her. When it went to voicemail, the phone did the same thing again, but Lyra was out of it. Kuni was not going to get through to her friend that night.

When things went awry three years ago, it had been late February and unseasonably warm for the Kanto region. During the day it had been sunny and close to fifty degrees, although it wasn't enough to melt the heavy cover of snow that blanketed the ground. In spite of the snow, it had been perfect travelling weather before it started raining.

Silver had been impatiently waiting for Lyra quite a while. She'd received notice of a swarm of the Pokémon Relicanth, a rocky-looking bottom dweller normally found in the Hoenn, and she was desperately trying to reel one in with a Super Rod. Silver, of course, had absolutely no patience for this and tried hurrying her off of Silence Bridge for the past hour and a half. It was to no avail. After all, Silver felt mortified at the Gyarados and Seaking that she tossed back in favor of some grimy swimmer."Oh for f***'s sake, Lyra!" he snapped. "Why do you want one of those ugly dumbasses so much anyway?"

Lyra glanced back at Silver and beamed at him. "It's such a cool Pokémon! Did you know it hasn't changed in over 100 million years?" Before Silver could hurl further abuse at the Pokémon, she gasped. "Wait! I have something on the line!"

After a minute-long fight, Lyra reeled in the ugliest Pokémon Silver had ever observed. Yes, it was definitely a Relicanth, but it seemed so much uglier in person than it had when Lyra had showed him an image of it in a book of prehistoric Pokémon that she carried with her. Before Silver could remark on it, Lyra knelt by it and tapped it with a Lure Ball that Kurt had made for her. Without much struggled, it was captured. "Yes! I got one! It's a male!" Lyra squealed, standing up so quickly that her trademark marshmallow cap fell off her head. She took her Pokedex from her bag and set the Lure Ball on it. It turned into streams of data as the Relicanth was transferred to the PC system. "I've officially owned 100 different species Pokémon now," Lyra murmured.

Silver didn't have the time to be impressed. He started to roll his eyes at her…and noticed dark, heavy clouds overhead. How had he not noticed those when he had all of that time to stand around doing nothing? "Now we're going to get rained on," Silver complained as Lyra seemed to notice the same issue.

She shrugged. "Lavender Town is nearby. Let's hurry."

They took off, running north. The bridge swayed and creaked under their feet. Within five minutes of leaving Lyra's fishing spot, the temperature began to drop while the wind moaned eerily in their ears. Silver noticed that Lyra watched the sky with the wonder of a child. Yes, he'd known her for three years now, but sometimes the things she did really caught him off guard. "That's gonna be some storm in a bit, huh?" Lyra asked, shooting Silver the full wattage of her grin.

Silver gave her a death glare. "If we get caught in it, I will grill your Relicanth for lunch."

"Hey! I just spent over an hour fishing for him!"

"Hey! I just spent over an hour waiting for you while you were fishing for him!"

The two ran in silence after this. Silver felt exhausted and wanted to call out his Crobat for a ride; he knew that Lyra would never let him. His Crobat was a nocturnal Pokémon, after all, and there was also a storm brewing. Lyra wouldn't want anyone to get struck by lightning, after all.

Lavender Town was in sight when the first raindrops began to fall.

"Dammit!" Silver growled. "I'm frying your Relicanth and making a sandwich out of it now!" The gentle pit-pat of raindrops turned into a roaring downpour as he spoke. Lyra whacked him in the arm, hard. Silver felt his foul mood spiral out of control as his clothes became drenched with rain. Bitterly cold against his wet clothing, Silver wrapped his arms around himself to maintain body heat.

When they got into town not long after this, the glorious afternoon they had just experienced was clearly just a faint memory. The rain was falling so hard that it left tiny craters in the snow. "House of Memories!" Lyra called over the roar of the rain. "It's closer than the Pokémon Center!"

They sprinted the final distance to the house that had replaced the Pokémon Tower as a graveyard. The windows glowed with warmth in the darkness presented by the rain. Lyra and Silver slid through the doorway.

The House of Memories felt warm and inviting compared to the chill of the rain outside, in spite of it being a mausoleum. Supposedly every single grave that sat in the Pokémon Tower (which had been converted into the Kanto Radio Tower) had been transferred here, but it seemed like it was a building with only one floor. "This was a great idea, Lyra. Now we're surrounded by dead Pokémon," Silver hissed.

As soon as they entered the house, an old man began weaving through the graves toward them. He held a sleeping Cubone in his arms. "Mr. Fuji! Sorry to bother you like this, but it's pouring outside," Lyra greeted and informed him with a bright smile. Silver noticed she kept her voice low and stood as far away from the tombstones as she could manage.

"Lyra, hello," the kind old man responded with a smile of his own. He seemed like the kind grandfather archetype seen in movies and read about in stories. "It's nice to see you on this rainy afternoon. You haven't been around in a while. Who's your friend?"

"This is Silver," she said, tugging Silver closer by his sleeve. "He hasn't been here before, so he doesn't understand the rules here."

Mr. Fuji studied Silver with eyes that were surprisingly hard for his friendly, wrinkly face. The old man might have been kind, but Silver knew that he wouldn't stand for any crap in this glorified mausoleum. "Young man, you must be quiet in here. This is a place where the deceased allies of Trainers from all over the Kanto and Sinnoh rest. For example, the Raticate of the Gym Leader Blue lays here. They all deserve respect, since they have been good friends and fighters over the years."

"They're dead," Silver said flatly, "what does it matter?"

Lyra gasped and glared at him with eyes that seemed to burn with gold in the lantern light. "I thought you were beyond this, Silver."

Mr. Fuji frowned. "Young man, if you cannot show some decency for the Pokémon that lay here in eternal rest, I will have to kick you out." The Cubone stirred, opening his eyes sleepily to look at Lyra and Silver curiously.

Lyra gazed at the Cubone. "Is that the Cubone you were telling me about? The one whose mother died because of Team Rocket?"
"No, this is his son, actually. That Cubone is a Marowak now and travels with my granddaughter. He flourishes under her love and training in ways that he never did. My wife, bless her soul, would've been so proud of her," Mr. Fuji said. Silver felt his mood hit rock-bottom at the mention of Team Rocket murdering a Pokémon and how casually the two spoke of it, even as Lyra smiled and leaned forward to scratch the little Pokémon under his chin. How could she be happy when she was dripped water onto the floor and found herself surrounded by dead Pokémon?

Silver sighed as they talked. He glanced around, noticing names and dates on the tombstones around him. Rest in peace, Nova. You were the best Butterfree to ever fly the earth, read one. The stone itself was dated from at least six years ago and appeared to have been commissioned by a Teresa Wilson from Viridian City. She seemingly had quite a bit of money, considering that the tombstone was carved from marble and carved with detailed blossoms. Another one nearby stated, Rest in peace, my beloved Jolteon. You gave me some of the best years of my life. An inscrutable name of a person from Ecruteak City in the Johto made Silver wonder if the Jolteon had belonged to a former kimono girl ages ago. Unlike Nova the Butterfree's tombstone, this one was constructed from a humble sort of stone, something brown flecked with gray and tawny. He felt a sick twist in his stomach as he noticed an even more modest grave that read: Here lies a Marowak who fought for her son to the bitter end like a true hero. May she rest in peace, and may her tormentors repent for their crime. Silver wiped a hand across his brow, feeling sick at the inscription. His father had ordered that on the Pokémon. His father had caused this. His own flesh and blood. This sickness spiraled through him and burned painfully in his gut, burned in his heart and his head…it was hatred he hadn't felt in a long time. Hatred for his father and the organization he was supposed to lead one day and then ran from.

"…if she ever breeds another Cubone from that Marowak, can you convince her to give me the Egg? I love raising Pokémon from Eggs," Lyra was saying.

Silver noticed a lull in the conversation and asked in a low voice, "Who chose the inscription for that Marowak's grave?"

"I did," Mr. Fuji said, raising one eyebrow. "She was a wild Pokémon, but the fight she put up was worth of immortalization on this stone. Do you have a problem with it?"
"Why did you mention Team Rocket there?" Silver asked, feeling a harsh note enter his voice. He wasn't angry that Mr. Fuji had, but he was pissed that there was any reminder of the past he'd escaped on this day.

Mr. Fuji carefully answered, "I did not mention them by name, as you can see, but should a person come by who was involved in killing her, they will feel remorse and understand that they have affected more than a single Marowak when they committed their act." Gazing at Silver steadily, he added, "Do you feel that it dishonors Marowak?"
"It's making that f***ing grave into a political statement!" Silver found himself improvising. His voice was loud, earning a whimper from the Cubone. He didn't care about the little Pokémon's complaints as he snapped, "If this is a graveyard meant for respecting dead Pokémon, you failed that Marowak right there! So much for caring about Pokémon, huh?"

"Silver!" Lyra gasped, her volume and pitch rising to inappropriate levels for the House of Memories. Mr. Fuji blanched at Silver's words, and a look of fury rose onto his features that Silver didn't know was possible for the man who'd just smiled at two dripping-wet, grumpy kids that walked in.

He pointed to the door. "Young man. I'm going to ask you to leave. You obviously have little respect for anything living or dead."

Silver felt a sense of victory when he realized he didn't have to stay in this house of insidious reminders. Waving over his shoulder, he said, "No problem. See ya."

"Let me talk some sense into him," he heard Lyra plead with Mr. Fuji as he headed toward the door.

Mr. Fuji sighed. "If you must."

Silver hurried out the door. He didn't want to talk to Lyra about this. She knew he couldn't stand reminders of Team Rocket; he would've bet his latest earnings from the battles he'd won on Route Twelve and Silence Bridge earlier that morning that she would once again tell him that he couldn't let his past get to him like that and spout a ton of crap about how his future wasn't set in stone. However, she burst out the door before he got all of five feet away and cried, "Silver! Wait up! What's wrong?"
Silver whirled on his heel, roaring, "Go back inside, why don't you? Go stay where it's warm with that stupid old man!"

"Not until you tell me what's wrong!" she demanded, marching up to Silver until she stood all of a foot away from him. Lately he had grown until he was half a head taller than her, and he was going to use all of that height to menace her.

Silver loomed on her, glaring at her with crimson eyes. "You heard what's wrong. Go the f*** away." He started to turn away, but he felt Lyra's hand latch onto his sleeve with an impressive grip, holding him in place.

"I thought you'd outgrown this," Lyra said quietly, her expression bewildered and a little sad. "Sure, you're still really grumpy a lot, but I thought you kind of respected things now."

"Pfft! As if, Lyra! Don't give me qualities I don't even have!" Silver snarled, ripping out of her grip.

Anger leaked into Lyra's features. She rarely became angry herself, even if she did raise her voice quite a bit when she was younger in particular, but now it was apparent. He wondered what might spill from lips that seemed more innocent than wrathful. "Silver," she started, and the way she said his name was absolutely poisonous, so poisonous that it could've contended with his Crobat's Poison Fang attack. "You're making yourself look like a giant idiot right now. We were out of the rain. You could've been warm and dry. Mr. Fuji would've offered us towels eventually."

"Shut up!" Silver snapped. He stepped toward her, and she edged back nervously. "Go back in there with that idiot. You didn't get kicked out."

"But Silver—" she started, but Silver felt this urge to be alone and be angry for a while. He needed to infuriate her to a point that she'd leave him alone for a little while and purge himself of this feeling.

He gave her an intense look. "Stop following me and go back inside like the good girl you are."

Silver suddenly realized he went too far when he could see the fury snap in Lyra's eyes. She pulled her hat down low over her eyes, as if she meant to disguise this look, but there was no disguising the insolent tone in her voice as she said, "How about you stop acting like your father and come back inside with this good girl?"
Anger didn't burn anymore. It had solidified into a ball of ice, dragging heavily on him. He felt nothing; not the cold of the rain, the way that his own breath felt hot and smoky in his nose with rage. All he felt was the chill of this anger that weighed like a thousand Wailord in his chest. Yet it felt weightless and uncontrolled as he advanced on Lyra, pushing her back against the wall of the House of Memories behind her. "I am NOT Giovanni," he snarled at her, forcing her against the wall with the full weight of his body. Grabbing her shoulders, he shook her. "I AM NOT THAT BASTARD!"

Lyra stared up at him, horror and shame in her expression. In that moment he felt her heart fluttering like a trapped Rattata beneath him…and that was when his senses seemed to return to him. Her soaking clothes clung to her body, cold like Mt. Silver snow against him. Her breathing was ragged, and though Silver wasn't bleeding, he tasted the rot of iron that often came with blood in his mouth.

The hazel of Lyra's eyes, the hazel that was normally lit with warmth, the eyes he could see both tawny and chocolate in, seemed dark and flat with a new concoction of emotions that he could no longer comprehend."I'm sorry," she whispered, her voice choked. Pushing out from under him, she darted back into the House of Memories.

Silver stood there, staring at the wall where Lyra had just been pressed there. By him. He'd shaken her like she was an unwieldy Growlithe pup. Like he wanted her to hurt. I…what did I just do? Why did I do that to her? He thought. What have I done? Turning away from the wall, he ran far from the House of Memories, shooting past the Pokémon Center. At the northern entrance to the town, it struck him so hard that he fell to all fours, breathing hard. "Lyra…I…I didn't mean that…I…that wasn't…my plan." Taking his head in his hands as he sat up, he screamed to the unrelenting, clouded sky. It wasn't just a cold, tasteless rain dripping down his face anymore. There was hot, salty rain, too. He knew it wasn't rain, but he needed to hold on to anything he could since he'd just thrown away everything he had with Lyra all in one argument.

Arceus, was he ever stupid.

"Silver…"

The feminine voice of his rival and his once-again travelling companion ripped Silver from his nightmare, the same detailed one that had once been a living nightmare, and he sat bolt-upright. The room was dusky with early morning, cloaking Lyra, who peered in through the doorway, in an ashen gray that washed out her hair and deadened her skin tone. "Silver. Are you all right?" she asked.

Silver suddenly felt self-conscious. Last night he'd stripped off his outer layers, leaving him in his boxers when he went to bed. She probably thinks I'm seeking some sort of attention. More like pajamas are a waste of packing space, he thought, trying to look irritated that Lyra woke him up while most likely failing miserably. "So is it national 'bother your sleeping redheaded rival with a crappy attitude' day?" he asked.

"I thought I heard crying. Aside from Nurse Joy, who sleeps on the other side of the Pokémon Center, it's just you and me here. So…I wondered…are you all right?" she asked, pushing the door further closed behind her with one bare foot. Silver noticed that she had one of those cutesy matching pajama sets on that was just a little too big for her; the top and pants were Snubbull pink and printed all over with Mareep. With her hair loose and in her face, she looked young, easily as young as the snotty waitress in the café. It was cute on her. As Champion, she'd taken on a fairly fierce sort of look in the past few years; it seemed as though she knew every possible way to defend herself and inflict damage. However, like this…she seemed vulnerable. Attractively so. Silver wanted to slap himself for thinking that, especially when she was already in here because she had heard him crying in his sleep.

Pulling a puzzled look, Silver raised his eyebrows slightly. "Crying, huh? You think I was crying?" he asked, not being able to help the smirk that came across his features.

Lyra gazed up at the ceiling, as if it offered her an answer to the question she'd just asked. After a moment, she settled for, "Are you certain you weren't? You know, guys can cry, too. Ethan cries all the time."
"He's a pansy."

"…well, okay. Yeah, he is, but he's a guy."

"He barely fits on the male spectrum, Lyra," Silver responded, unable to help himself to such a remark. Her Marill-loving friend was enough to make Silver want to punch forty boulders and call the Legendary Pokémon Entei a girly little Skitty in order to feel tough again.

Lyra chuckled a little, scratching the back of her head. "I suppose. There was a reason he and Kris didn't last, I suppose. She's always seemed to have more testosterone than him." Looking a little more serious, she walked over to Silver's bed and plopped down on the end. She was all of four inches away from the ends of his toes. "But, hey, unlike Ethan, you're…you're pretty tough. It's not going to ruin you to tell me if something's up, okay? I still consider you my friend," Lyra murmured.

Silver said nothing. Friends. But…then…why is it that I feel like there's still something hanging between us? He thought. "You're kind of the only person I've ever really thought of as a friend, aside from Pryce, I suppose," he confessed, feeling like he was spitting the words out through gritted teeth.

Lyra studied him closely. There was a lock of hair hanging smack down the center of her forehead that he wanted to tuck behind her ear. Without warning, she crawled toward him and wiped her thumb under his left eye. Silver flinched away, wondering what the hell she as up to. He didn't get to voice this before Lyra smirked. "I knew I saw a wet spot under your eye," Lyra said victoriously.

Growling, Silver tossed a pillow lightly at her, smacking her in the shoulder. "Tell no one, or I'll aim for your face next time." Here Lyra gave a smile, and she looked down in a way that was absolutely devastating in all the best ways. Silver had loved her during their time apart for the past three years, but it was like falling for her all over again. Everything she did filled him with a new pain—some hormonal, some emotional. He hoped he still had his best poker face on as he realized this. "Yeah…I just…I dreamed about the House of Memories," he told her. Wait. What. The. Ever-loving. F***. BRAIN. Arceus damn you and your stupid-ass pranks at the crack of dawn! You've been taking lessons from Gengar, haven't you, brain? Silver thought, enraged. There was no way Lyra didn't see his frustration with himself on his face.

Lyra's smile faded. After a few moments of silence, she breathed, "It was a bad day."
Silver jammed his palms against his face, sighing heavily. "Lyra. You're really stupid for forgiving me and accepting my apology, you know that?" he slowly murmured. Everything was rushing out of him now. He needed to keep a rein on it if he didn't want Lyra to know just everything that he was thinking. "I just…I keep seeing your face that day. And there was this mix of emotions there that made me so ashamed of myself. Because you looked so hurt, you know that?" Silver grumbled into his hands.

He felt Lyra's surprised gaze on him, so he decided to might as well get this over with. "I forced you around like my father would've. I didn't have a good reason to. Hell, I just proved your point right, honestly. But…what I'm trying to say is that…" Silver figured that he might as well keep eye contact with Lyra as he said this. It was important. Lyra might otherwise start blaming herself for his actions again. "Lyra, if you knew what was good for you, you would've left without my help. You could be doing this all on your own. I'm useless. In fact, I'm worse than useless. I'm just a bitchy guy. You deserve much better help than me if you really want help." As he finished, he felt his gaze drop once more. It wasn't even a conscious thing; his eyes didn't belong on her, anyway. Someone like him didn't deserve to look at her.

He waited for her to tell him that he was wrong or attempt to pep-talk him, but she didn't speak a single word. Instead, he felt the gentle warmth of her hands sliding over his shoulders before her arms linked around his next. She was hugging him? But why? After she'd received her seventh Johto Badge or so, Lyra realized that Silver wasn't the sort who liked to be touched very often and quit her attempts at hugging him. So what was this? Silver sat there, unsure of whether to return the hug or push her away, but he got caught somewhere in between the warmth of her body and the tickle of her breath over his left shoulder. It was now that she spoke. "Silver, it's like you're forgetting that you saved me. You're the only person in the world right now who has the right to say that, you know. I can't hate you for something you did three years ago, anyway. That boy that night…that wasn't you. I can be angry at him, but I can't be angry at you."

"I don't have a case of Jekyll and Hyde—"

Lyra sighed heavily, cutting off the statement he was about to make. "I'm aware of that. But Silver…I was so afraid that you hated me for comparing you to your dad. You were miserable that day. I had made you wait for a long time on Silence Bridge. You hadn't really slept the night before. We got rained on, too. Of course you were angry." She released him from her embrace and sat back, studying him. "And the House of Memories must have reminded you of Team Rocket, which would've made you even angrier. Now I can mention them without a frown from you, but back then it was total taboo."

Silver scratched at the back of his head, unsure of what to say now. Lyra had caught onto it. The House of Memories had done him in, setting him on edge with memories of Team Rocket. "Look, Lyra, we haven't really slept for that long. It'd be stupid to not try to go back to bed for a while. Besides, we're somehow travelling to Hoenn tomorrow."

"Oh. I have a plan already," Lyra said.

Silver leaned forward, one eyebrow raised. "Which is…?"

"Gengar might have told us that Lugia might have disappeared, but I don't think it'd kill us to go to the Whirl Islands and try to chat with him. He flies and swims really well; he'd get us there faster than any boat ride could," she explained, slipping off the bed. As she headed toward the door, she asked, "Is that okay with you?"

"We don't have a better option," Silver responded.

Lyra waved at him. "Go back to bed for a bit. Set your alarm for eight-thirty. Tomorrow we need to try and coax Lugia out of hiding. Arceus save us all," she added with an odd little laugh. Silver watched her leave, closing the door behind her. He was left reeling with her words, with forgiveness and grace that he still did not deserve, with the way her hands had trailed over his shoulders. He wondered at how she had mentioned that she was the one person who'd ever managed to rescue her from something. Feel honored, Silver thought. You're not some Prince Charming or whatever, but it looks like you're the one person who's ever really come through for her like that.

Yet, in spite of this, he wondered, more than anything, what the Hoenn was like outside of too-colorful photographs and travel brochures, and whether or not he and Lyra were going to have any success when they set foot there.

A/N: Hello there! Here is the first of my "Well, oh crap, I posted everything I'd written and now I have to start from scratch and attempt to write quality stuff while still updating every few days!" updates. I'm sorry if this seems really scattered or like it's extraneous. My thoughts haven't been entirely with this at the moment, as my little brother is currently in the hospital after an emergency procedure and his recovery hasn't been going as well as it should. ((You can always tell if I'm emotionally defunct at the moment by how bad or disorganized my conventions and content get))

So this is the chapter where Lavender Town/House of Memories is explained. Unlike Budapest in the Avengers, this is something I've always planned on filling you guys in about, although I'm pretty sure Budapest for the Black Widow and Hawkeye was much more fun than Lyra and Silver's argument in Lavender Town. Also, I realized that if I referred to the House of Memories at all in past chapters, I might've called it the Hall of Memories. This is a typo and I apologize, but I think Hall of Memories sounds a little more graveyard-esque than House of Memories. That sounds like the title of a Nicholas Sparks book, in my opinion.

I've also had some complaints in PMs about how things are moving slowly between Lyra and Silver. Technically they aren't. They've been reunited for only a day or so at this point. So part of Lyra coming in and talking with Silver was to have just a touch of fluff, and it's also her admitting that she understands what was going through his head that night in Lavender Town. But anyway, there, fluff-lovers. There was a freaking hug this chapter. I promise you, there will be some pretty ship-happy things coming up. But honestly, I'm more concerned with having a worthwhile plot at this point.

So Silver was a bit OOC when Lyra came into his room this chapter. But she also caught him at around 4:30 am or so. It's hard to keep up whatever personality everyone thinks you have that early in the morning.

Back on the subject of PMs, I've also received a few wondering when there will be action and battles. Soon, my friends. Wait for them to reach the Hoenn and head toward Mt. Pyre.

Thanks to my constant reviewers (I've mentioned you guys so many times that I won't wear your names out with this author's note) and also to the people who favorite and follow this story. It makes me happy to see that you all have a little something invested in this and enjoy reading it.

Keep reviewing, guys! I appreciate the reviews a lot. They keep my morale up.