Author's Note: This is no April Fool's joke! Here is an extra update to get you through the day in case you have any bad jokes thrown your way! (I'm secretly a poet. Can you tell?) Be sure to read the previous chapter if you haven't already and enjoy this one!

Chapter Thirteen – Golden Noon

-One year prior to disappearance-

I slept the longest I had in years. At a quiet Pokémon Center in Viridian City, I curled up on a bench and closed my eyes while the sun was only starting to set. But by the time I awoke, dawn had long since passed, instead giving way to the bright morning hours right before noon.

And I didn't usually dream, but last night I saw visions in my head of my parents and my Pokémon. I was just an observer, watching the simple scene play out, but it all seemed so perfect that having me there would've ruined it. My dad trained my Pokémon, and my mom kept them happy—and I was out of the picture.

When I finally did wake up, I was covered in sweat despite not having a blanket and finding the air conditioning blasting above me. I was just coming down with a cold. That was the only explanation. I wouldn't have been surprised if my immune system had become compromised with all of this traveling, and the stress certainly didn't help.

But I was excited to get to Goldenrod. It had been a long time since I last saw my old home. There was something nostalgic about going back after being away for so long, all in a good way. The memories I thought I left behind kept creeping forward in my mind, but it gave me something to look forward to when they all returned.

First… a shower.

The bathrooms at the Kanto Pokémon Centers differed a little from the ones in the other regions. It resembled more of a gym-style restroom with the showers in the same room as the sinks and the toilets on the other side of the wall. In Hoenn, there was a single shower in one room, and a toilet and sink in another.

I didn't like this design particularly, but I needed a shower and would take what I could get. But every time someone entered the room to use the sink, the water coming from my showerhead burned my skin, and I dove into the small changing area attached to the shower just to avoid it.

A benefit of this arrangement—and there weren't many—became immediately aware to me not long into my shower, however. The sink had been turned on, and I jumped into the changing area to wait for the water too cool down. But this wasn't before whoever used the sink began talking to someone else, and the acoustics of this bathroom amplified their voice to ten times louder than it probably was.

"Did you hear?" a woman—young, I thought, based on her voice—asked, and someone else hummed in response. "Apparently Kanto's become a hot vacation spot for the Champions."

The other woman with her, this one with a more high-pitched voice, laughed. "What?"

"Someone saw Hoenn's Champion here. Like, in this town. In this Pokémon Center," the first woman commented, and my breath caught. I covered my mouth with my hands and stepped back into the steaming water pouring from the showerhead. The girl must have turned off the sink because it didn't burn my back anymore.

"Ah, really? That's so cool."

"It's the girl, though. Someone else told me just the other day that she saw the guy Champ from Hoenn in Pewter City. Said he was gorgeous." The first woman laughed, too, but hers sounded a bit more like a cackle than the second girl's. "I'm more interested in him than the girl Champion, to be honest. I was hoping I'd catch him on the train when I went to Goldenrod the other day since apparently he's staying there and commuting to Pewter, but… no such luck."

The second girl sighed, like a teenager in love or something, and I could practically picture her eyelashes fluttering. "One can only hope."

I wasn't so surprised by this conversation, but I still stood in the shower with my hands covering my face. There had been plenty of girls who couldn't care less that I was Hoenn's Champion, and I certainly didn't blame them. Hell, there were plenty of guys, too, and others besides. Steven was less known than I was, but those who did know of him admired him partly because of his looks. Not that I disagreed.

"Sucks, though. That there'd be two Champions so close to us, and we'd miss both of them," the first woman grumbled, and she huffed loudly. "Guess it wasn't meant to be."

"Guess not."

And then the room went silent. I couldn't hear if the door opened and shut, so I lingered in the shower for a few extra minutes just to make sure they had gone.

So, Steven was in Pewter… I needed to go to Goldenrod first, anyway, so it made more sense for me to just try to find him there tonight or on the train. But there were dozens of hotels in Goldenrod, and there was no guarantee that the front desk would tell me he was there. It would almost be easier, if not more expensive, to try to track him down on the train.

Train it was, then. If I could just find him tonight, that would be…

I took a deep breath and turned the shower off. I planned a whole speech out in my head to say to Steven, but I had a feeling that the second I saw him, it would just vanish altogether. And who knew what he would say to make me all tongue-tied? I considered myself pretty eloquent in front of him, but it had been so long since I last saw him that I didn't know what I would do.

I put my clothes on slowly and rehearsed my speech. When I stepped out from behind the curtain, I found the entire bathroom pleasantly empty, which made me feel the slightest bit better about talking to myself.

The Pokémon Center was still quiet this morning, but I noticed two woman talking to the nurse at the counter as I passed by. It had to be the girls from the bathroom, but I kept my eyes turned forward and tried to move as stealthily as possible past them. But they didn't even look up as I hurried forward and out the door.

If I planned on riding the train all night, because that would probably be how long it would take me to find Steven with my luck, then I didn't need to take it right now. Instead, I hopped on my Salamence's back yet again, much to its chagrin, and flew around Mt. Silver to my old hometown.

There were a lot of things I loved about Goldenrod. During sunny days like this one, the city practically sparkled in the sunlight. None of the houses had front yards or backyards like they did in Little Root, but I used to play in the streets with all of the neighborhood kids, who were many greater in number than Little Root.

But if I did want to smell air that was a little fresher, I could just go north or south of town. There was a daycare center not too far from my house in the southern route, and I liked to watch the Pokémon there.

It was the people of the city that I loved the most, though. As I remembered them, they would go out of their way to greet each other. But I hated to think that a lot of that had probably changed in the recent years. Or maybe adults were just a little bit nicer to the kids who didn't know of the miserable life that awaited us.

Yet the moment I landed in Goldenrod, in the center of the town just because I wanted to take the walk back to my house, there were smiles thrown my way from every direction.

"Wait!" one person called as I began to make my way towards my old house. "You're back! You're May, aren't ya?"

Taken aback, I didn't have an immediate response. But my auto-pilot kicked in quickly, and I nodded. "I am. How do you know me?" I asked, not because I didn't already know the answer. I just wanted to hear what she had to say.

The response I got threw me off. "All the Goldenrod natives know ya. You were born an' raised here!" the middle-aged woman, tall and thin with bright blond pigtails that didn't suit her considering her age, announced. "We take partial credit here for ya, I admit. You're as much Hoenn's Champion as ya are ours."

I smiled, and that seemed to satisfy her. I couldn't come up with a response beyond that. I hardly thought that I could give any of the credit to Goldenrod. I was a different person entirely here, those many years ago, than I was in Johto.

Either way, it didn't matter. All I needed to do was drop off the final letter, which would fit nicely underneath the loose brick behind my house, assuming it was still there. No one ever cared about that dumb brick, in spite of how many kids had lost their front teeth tripping over it—myself included.

Nothing about this place had changed, though. The route to my house was the same one I took as a child, and it came back to me as simply as riding a bike. Turn right here, straight there, left there…

My little golden house in my little golden town stood right where I left it. I nearly burst into tears at the sight of it, but I bit my lip and swallowed whatever rose within me. Really, truly, nothing had changed.

But at the same time, everything had.

I walked right up to that front door and reached for the handle, realizing only after I grasped it that this wasn't my house anymore. I let go, instead curling my hand into a fist and banging on the door. For a moment, I was met with silence—uncomfortable, angry silence. But that moment ended, and a man carrying a baby opened the door.

He looked tired. I didn't remember him that way. When my parents first introduced him to me, he had been younger and more vital. Now, he only appeared exhausted.

A second later, a woman showed up behind him, and she clasped her hands together and squealed. The baby in the man's arms began to cry.

"It's May! Oh, my gosh, you're so grown-up!" the woman cried, and she nearly pushed the man with the baby out of the way. He sighed and smiled weakly at me before turning and leaving the doorway. The woman filled the space he emptied and gestured to my house, swinging her arm back and forth to usher me inside.

This couple had been just the two of them when they bought our house, no child then. Arturo and Carla. I liked them, or so I remembered, but something bothered me now.

"When did you get so old? My goodness, you must be… in your twenties? You were a teenager when we bought the house," Carla said while I glanced around the room. Everything was so different… smaller. Our house in Little Root was certainly an upgrade. "Right, Arturo, wasn't she just a teenager?"

Arturo returned without the baby, and he sighed again. "Probably."

"You have a kid," I commented, and Carla laughed. I didn't see anything particularly funny about my observation.

"We do! A little girl. Living in this house, she has some big shoes to fill. I mean, we follow everything that you're doing. Well, not everything. That sounded creepy," Carla corrected, and she patted Arturo's arm when he sat down at the table. "But when we found out that the little girl who lived here before us stopped the flood… I mean, we were amazed. Weren't we, Arturo?"

He nodded, and then he smiled at me again. No matter what, he still seemed tired. "You're really wonderful, May."

I glanced down at my hands and shook my head. "I did what anyone would've done," I assured them, like I always assured everyone, and then I looked back up at them. "I'm happy to see the two of you are still living here. You've taken great care of this house. It looks… great. Really great."

Carla sat down beside Arturo and gestured to the chair on the other side of the table for me. "That's sweet of you."

It was quiet for a moment, and then the cries of the baby broke the silence. Arturo rose again, and Carla sent him a reassuring smile as he walked back down the hall.

"It's been a long day for him. Forgive him if he's a little… unenthusiastic."

"I must've caught you at a bad time," I said. "I'm sorry."

But Carla shook her head and patted my hands. "Not at all. It's been a long time since you've been here. I can't blame you from wanting to see the house you grew up in. But what brings you to Goldenrod, anyway? Are you doing some traveling?"

They wouldn't understand the honest answer. The me who they knew was the teenage girl who had been courteous when they visited the house to buy it. And, apparently, she was also the one who they saw on the television and read about in magazines. If they noticed anything off, then neither Carla nor Arturo reacted to it.

"A bit, yeah. I'm preparing for a trip one of my friends is going to be taking in a little while. It's sort of a game—so I was wondering if you would do me a favor," I began quietly, and Carla nodded. "I'm going to put something for them under that wobbly brick in the back. I just wanted to make sure that was okay with you."

"Oh." Carla glanced up at her husband as he walked into the room again with the baby back in his arms, and then she frowned at me. "I don't have a problem with that. You don't want us to hang onto it for you? I don't mind."

I shook my head but smiled, knowing well that Carla and Arturo would protect the letter. But the Adventurer needn't bother them.

"It's okay. I don't know when they plan on taking their trip, so… I don't want them to have to bother you."

"All right, well…" Carla rose from her seat and rushed over to the refrigerator where she ripped off a piece of paper hanging from a magnet. "Listen, if you ever need anything… anything at all—you just call us, okay?"

She passed me the piece of paper, one side with a grocery list on it and one side with their phone number, and elbowed Arturo. He nodded and added, "Absolutely. You just call if you need us. Preferably not too late."

I laughed and stood up, taking a few backwards steps towards the door. "Your family is beautiful. Thank you for letting me visit."

"Thank you. It's nice to see you're still in one piece after all these years dealing with crazy criminals. You had me worried," Carla joked. She had no idea that I was barely holding together, but I didn't correct her. "Tell your parents we said hi."

They stood at the door when I left, and I didn't hear the door shut until I turned the corner into the alleyway between my old house and the next. But when I placed the letter until that loose old brick in the back, I heard their baby crying inside the house. I couldn't help but wonder if that little girl would turn out any better than me living in that home.

I rode the train back and forth from Goldenrod to Saffron all afternoon into twilight. When I first got on, there were plenty of open seats, and people sat away from each other and didn't mingle. The men in suits would open up a newspaper that they had probably already read just to separate themselves from everyone else. Younger men and women would put in ear buds and shut the world out.

But I didn't need any of that. This was the most alive I had felt in a long time, if only because the frantic pounding of my heart reminded me it was still beating. Steven could be anywhere on this train, and I might never be able to find him. If I could, though, then I knew exactly what I would say to him.

All the same, my heart beat louder than ever and my stomach swirled nauseously. Finding Steven seemed so much simpler than it actually was.

Each time the train set back in motion, I waited for the conductor to come and check my ticket before I got up and walked down the long narrow aisle car to car. After the fourth time checking my ticket, the conductor just smiled at me and shook his head.

"You do realize that this train only goes back and forth, right?" he asked with a light chuckle.

"I do. I just like the view," I joked, and the conductor laughed a little louder before walking away to clip more tickets. After that, he never checked my ticket again—he just nodded at me and smiled like we had an inside joke going on. We kind of did.

I didn't mind so much being stuck on this train. There was no saying that Steven went to Pewter today, and there was even less saying that he'd be on this train this evening. I was going by the word of a woman in a bathroom who didn't know I was listening, based on something she heard from someone else days ago.

So, really, there was barely any evidence that supported my being here on this train. But I kept riding back and forth, back and forth, and passed through the aisles in search of a silver-haired man.

I finished what I set out to do, anyway. It almost broke my heart. I wished that I spent more time wandering around like I used to do, but the sooner I got home, the sooner I could leave. And I couldn't wait to see what the Adventurer did.

Even if I wouldn't really see it.

That probably accounted for some of my nervousness sitting on the train—that pounding heart and aching stomach. I thought I might throw up.

But I didn't. I sat quietly on the train for the short journey each way once I made my way through the cars on one end or the other.

It was as the sun was setting—resting perfectly over the tops of the trees so its ray poured right in through the glass windows—on my seventh or eighth trip from Kanto to Johto that I saw the familiar mop of hair belonging to my predecessor. The sun hit him just right so his hair kind of glowed until it was almost translucent, and I stared for a moment without moving.

I found him. I actually found him. How? Why? What was I supposed to say? I knew the speech I prepared would be long gone.

There was no choice. I couldn't turn around now, not when I spent so many hours on this train looking for him. Not when I had so many things left to say to him. There was just… no choice. None.

He was nodding off in his seat and didn't notice me approach. I smiled—only briefly—and then lowered myself into the seat right across from him. He still didn't stir, and I was tempted to reach a hand out and ruffle his hair. Or just touch him. I really wanted to touch him.

But he hurt me. And the moment I remembered that, everything I wanted to say came rushing back, and the smile I reserved for him faded. And when I finally spoke, his eyes opened wide and met mine, only to go even wider.

"I loved your letter, Steven."

Author's Note #2: ORAS canon apparently says that May/Brendan is from Olivine, which made me a little sad. Curse you, updated canon! You've crushed my hopes and dreams and ruined the legitimacy of my fanfiction! (Ha.)