(A/N: The lyrics at the end are from "Eric's Song" by Vienna Teng.
I can't believe I finally got to write scenes I'd been mulling over for nearly a year. Thank you for sticking with this story until now! I hope this won't disappoint. Or not too much, at least.
Remember that there's still an epilogue left! Some things will be wrapped up there.)
RETURNING HOME
CHAPTER 13
Ash stares down at the pictures with ice in his veins. At the one Giovanni touched his fingertips to: the Meowth-shaped balloon rising into the night sky, the blurry silhouette of two people visible aboard the basket. The roof of the Cerulean City gym in the background. The man's words spin furiously in his head.
Accompanied by one of my agents no less. ... Stubborn, isn't she? Someone is going to have to take care of that.
He takes a half-step back. "You want me to—what, kill her? No. No, you can't—you can't ask me this. I won't."
"Well, that's a bit disappointing. But I did expect some resistance," says Giovanni. His fingers drum once along the edge of the folder, slowly. "I understand it's still early for you to see with clarity how friends, or even family,"—from his lips they sound like mud—"cannot hold any absolute value to people like you and me. Ideally it would have taken a longer process for you to realize it. But I'm afraid the chain of events you've set in motion with your little act of rebellion needs to be stopped now."
"I won't do it," Ash insists. There's not a drop of air in the room. Not one that'll reach his chest, at least. "Anything else. But not this. Please."
His heart is a roar in his ears. Anything, is all he can think, anything but this, this: this was the exact thing he came back to avoid. "Begging's never gotten you anything," the man reminds him. His hand leaves the folder, lacing back with the other atop the polished wood of his desk. "Not to mention, it's quite pointless in our case. The situation unfortunately needs to be taken care of."
"Please," he says again anyway. It tears out of him almost like a sob. "Maybe she's not looking for me, maybe she's just—what can she do anyway? It's not like she could find me here."
"Another thing you'll need to learn: don't leave any variables to chance if it can be avoided. I was not expecting you and your friends to be able to elude my surveillance for a while after your escape, yet you did. It's quite an easy mistake to make when you think in terms of 'well, what could happen, anyway?', something I myself have had to take note of on occasions. She could be planning to expose us for all we know. Or she could involve others. Ultimately I find that the best way to deal with a problem is to do so before it gets the chance to become a much bigger one."
He forces himself to take his eyes off the photos and look up. The man tilts his head a little in consideration.
"Perhaps I'll even let you spare her any pain."
Bile crawls up Ash's throat. He looks back to the folder, the panicked grip on his insides twisting, twisting: time. Time. That's what he needs, more time, enough for Giovanni to trust him; that's what he came back for. "I know it might seem quite a brutal solution at first glance," the man's voice cuts through the droning of his thoughts. "But trust me when I tell you it's the best one. It'll help you detach yourself from the affections you're still holding onto. And it'll serve as a warning for the rest of the people you've involved in this, hopefully keeping them in check. Quite a small sacrifice all things considered, you'll surely concur. Unless you haven't been sincere to me, but that's not the case, no?"
Ash's mind and pulse pound a desperate race. In one of the pictures clipped to the page Misty is walking towards the gym with Brock at her side, her shoulders wrapped into his jacket. He can see a bit of her face, the lines of her profile. The leather of Giovanni's chair gives a slight sighing creak.
"So," he wants to know. "Your answer? Are you up to the task?"
He has to do it. He has to do it now, no matter what'll happen to him next. His eyes frantically scan the surface of the desk, looking for something that could make a weapon; but there's nothing, not even the paper knife. He should have tried when he had the chance, Arceus, why was he so stupid? The man's glance presses down on him, stifling, expectant.
"You won't save her life by refusing," he reminds him. "Someone else will take care of it if you don't. Besides, you sealed her fate when you let her know about all this. Might as well finish what you started."
Ash's stomach sinks: a stone. Time. He needs time. He needs—
"Can I—" He swallows. His voice is a raspy squeezed out sound. "At least—think about it? I'll never question any of your orders again, I swear it. Just this once. Please."
There's silence for a few seconds. Then a "hm", and the man reaches for the folder and closes it. "I suppose I can grant you this one," he says setting it aside. "After all it is still a little early to ask something of this caliber of you. You have one hour to get used to the idea. After that I'll be expecting an answer."
Ash staggers backwards another shaky half-step, feeling his insides turn to water. One hour. One hour, that's it, that's all he's got. "You're dismissed now," Giovanni adds, and the two men waiting by the door readily step towards him at a nod of his head. Gloved fingers lock around his elbow.
"Did I ever tell you how I came to be the head of Team Rocket?" Giovanni's voice yet comes again as they're about to leave the room, like an afterthought. Ash turns: the man isn't looking at him, his glance lowered back to his papers. His Persian is, though, he can see its eyes like pin pricks in the shadow under his desk. He musters a shrug.
"You told me you were promoted to executive and eventually took command."
Giovanni scribbles a signature on the page. "Yes, yes, that I recall. But did I ever tell you how?"
He shakes his head. The corners of the man's lips curl into an almost imperceptible smirk.
"My mother was a great head to the organization in her time. Without her Team Rocket wouldn't be what it is today, nor would I be the man I am. And I did have love for her, no doubt. But there are sacrifices to be made if you truly want to sit at the top of the world." A pause. "You see, my mother, she was getting old. She was beginning to lack a certain... boldness, we might say. Caution is good when you're threading certain waters, but there's such a thing as too much of it, and her excessive yearn to preserve her stability and fortune was starting to hamper the team's potentialities. I couldn't bear to watch that."
"Did you kill her?" Ash asks. Giovanni doesn't answer. Just nods again for the men to escort him outside.
—-
(Minutes later, behind the latched door of his room-cell, Ash staggers to the toilet and empties the contents of his stomach in the bowl. You sealed her fate when you let her know about all this, Giovanni's voice echoes through his head: might as well finish what you started. He presses his face into his fists hard enough to hurt, to feel the bruises flare up into silver needles. One hour. There has to be something he can do with it. Something. Something.)
—-
James show his palms to the man, all of his ten fingers spread. "...Hey, hey," he says, backing off ever so slightly. "Let's all calm down a bit, okay? I'm sure this is all a big misunderstanding. Did I say question a prisoner? Must have been a slip of the tongue, what I meant was, huh—check! We got orders to check if a prisoner was in condition to speak, you see, so that someone else could come and question him later."
"Right." The man takes another step, his hand still around the radio: Misty's fingers brush the gun through the fabric of her uniform. She hooks her thumb under the hem of her shirt, slower still. Her heart is in her throat. "I'm going to need your IDs. Now."
"Sure, sure, our IDs." James reaches into his pocket. He makes a big show of rummaging through it, too. "Just a sec. I'm sure I have mine here somewhere—"
Another step. The weapon half-slips from her grasp, crooked at the wrong angle. "Hey," James tells her right as she finally manages to close her fingers around it. She jumps. "Can you take a look at your feet? I think I might have dropped it right there."
"Don't move," warns the man, darting his eyes in her direction. James is quick.
"Weezing, go!" he shouts grabbing the pokéball from his belt. "Use smokescreen!"
Red flashes and moments later a cloud of thick black smoke is pouring into the corridor. Before she's even had the time to fully realize what's happening James' hand's seized her arm: "Hold your breath and run." He shoves her in the direction of the elevator. "Go, go!"
They run. Towards the cloud and through it, and the smoke slips down her throat even as she presses her face into the crook of her elbow, dense and rancid. Her eyes fill with tears. The man's a vague hunched shape ahead of them, the sound of his hacking bouncing between the walls; and James is careful to slam his shoulder right into his as they pass him—careful to step right onto the radio as it thuds to the ground. It gives way with a crunch. Then they're out of the cloud and James scrambles to the elevator's call button, repeatedly hitting his palm against it until the door opens.
She half-collapses inside, her chest on fire. "Weezing, return!" she hears him call before slamming the buttons again. She squints through her tears at the lingering smoke and amongst it something stirs—something moves. A silhouette, staggering, closer. Closer—
The door shuts. The elevator starts moving, and "...Bet you're glad you brought me along now," James says breathlessly after a second. He coughs. "Man, I feel bad for the prisoners. Hey, what were you going to do with that?"
She follows his glance to the gun still in her grasp. "I don't know," is all that comes out of her, along with a hint of nervous not-quite-laughter. "What do you think?"
She tucks it back in place with shaky hands. They reach the floor as she smooths her shirt down over it, and the elevator opens again on the stretch of corridor flanked by screens and its flickery neon lights. "Wait," James tells her. "Hold the door. It'll buy us another few seconds before our friend can catch up."
He hurries to hit the call button at the other end. The numbers at the top light up: he nods for her to follow. On the screens the man's pounding against the elevator, tendrils of dark smoke still hanging in the air around him. "Now what?" she urges as the door closes. Her heart is a throb in her temples, loud, loud. "They got all that on the cameras. They'll know we did it!"
"Yeah, but hopefully no one else's watched them yet. And our friend down there's the only one who got a good look at our faces. So," James tugs the brim of his beret over his eyes, "keep your head down and walk fast. Let's try to blend in and put some distance between him and us before he gets the chance to fill everyone in."
"Where are we going?"
He purses his lips for a moment. "Back to the storage room," he decides. The elevator comes to a halt. "I didn't see cameras. Hopefully it'll give us some time to plan our next move."
—-
A few hurried twists and turns later they're back in front of the wide metal door they came in through. James lets it swing closed behind them; and back between the tall rows of shelves stacked full with stuff of all sorts slows his pace some, carefully studying the ceiling for cameras. He seems not to spot any, and he pauses at the intersection of two rows and breathes out a bit:
"Alright," he exhales. "Here we are. So, just to recap: your friend might be in here somewhere but you're not sure and we have no idea where, and after that stunt someone's probably gonna be looking for us very soon if they aren't already. Did I miss anything?"
"...I don't think."
"Great. Fantastic. Everything is perfectly under control. Keep calm."
"I'm calm."
"Yeah, I meant myself." He lets his shoulders fall; then turns on his heels to look at her and continues to walk backwards, lacing his fingers tightly behind the nape of his neck. "We better think fast, kid."
Misty breathes. The adrenaline of their narrow escape is slipping off and with it gone all they saw down in the cells comes rushing back in waves: the darkness and the prisoners' bodies like scatters of ribs and elbows and most of all the smell, that terrible gut-twisting smell. Her knees feel weak all of a sudden. "Did you see that place?"
"The cells? Yeah. Kinda hard not to."
She shakes her head a little. The echo of their footsteps bounces softly between the shelves. "Can you even imagine—being locked down there for days? Weeks?" A lump fills her throat. "A month?"
"Yeah, I'd rather not," James sighs. "And you shouldn't either. It's not helping right now, nuh-uh, it's the opposite of helping. Besides, if we don't come up with something quick I'm afraid we won't need to imagine."
He bumps into a shelf and stops, leaning back against it. It gives a metallic groan. She shuts her eyes for a moment, trying to force those images back down at the bottom of her mind: "You're right. So—what do we do? Where else could they be keeping him?"
"What do you think I've been doing until now? I'm trying to think about it."
"This place is huge. There has to be somewhere else."
He pulls his lower lip between his teeth. Behind him are glass containers packed with pokéballs and he drops his head back onto one of them, running his eyes over the beams on the ceiling as if hoping to find some inspiration up there. "What else is in here?" she presses. "Other than the cells and this storage? What else do you know?"
"Umm, there's Giovanni's office upstairs. A buncha more offices for the other big fishes in here. Living quarters, both Giovanni's personal ones and the ones for his officers and henchmen. Kitchens. Probably more storages." He shrugs. "I dunno what else. Training rooms. Maybe some labs, I know Giovanni's got some scientists working for him on who knows what sort of secret projects."
"Nothing like—I don't know, some extra safe cell where he'd keep important prisoners, or something?"
"Oh, yeah! How could I forget!" James rolls his eyes at the ceiling. "If I knew of something like that don't you think maybe I'd have mentioned it?"
Misty closes her hands into fists. Tight, tighter still. "What about Mrs. R's contact? We could—find him and convince him to help us again somehow—"
She realizes how unlikely that sounds before it's even left her lips entirely. James seems to be of the same opinion. "We don't even have a name to go off, no way we'd find him before someone finds us. Not to mention he didn't seem all that keen on wanting to see us ever again."
Her fingers tingle. Maybe he's not even here, the voice nags again; but she swallows and shoves it back down. "Giovanni—he'd want to keep him close, wouldn't he? What better way to keep him completely under his control?"
"I guess?"
"So he could be somewhere around his office or his quarters?"
James ponders over it for a moment. "I suppose. But it's gonna be hard to get there unnoticed. Our friend's likely reported us by now. Chances are there's a squad searching the building for us or something."
"But we could try, right?"
He hesitates for another couple seconds. Then sighs again, loudly: "Mew, this is so going to end bad. But yeah, guess at this point that's just as risky as anything else, including staying here." He rights himself. "So might as well—"
The sudden rumbling sound of the shutter door opening stops him. The splutter of an engine next: they both freeze in place. The rumble comes again, cutting away the sudden bright wash of sunlight that had just poured in, and the engine slows and stops with a cough. Silence; then doors sliding open and slamming. The thuds and grunts of something heavy being unloaded, punctuated halfway through by an "ow, my foot".
"...be satisfied this time, I hope," comes a voice, muffled through the rows of shelves. A man's voice. He's met with a sneer:
"Satisfied? The boss? Surely you don't know him very well."
Footsteps. James brings a finger to his lips, the lines of his jaw hard. Misty's palms clam under the gloves. The steps grow closer. Reach their level—
—move past.
The door creaks. "Wait," says the second voice. A woman's, tired and young sounding. "Let me drop these off. That damn Rhydon knocked them out in one hit. I'm going to need new ones, these are crap." A short pause. "I'll meet you upstairs."
Footsteps again. Closer, closer. Her breath stuck in her chest, Misty slides again her hand under her shirt and closes it on the gun. Closer. From around the corner a shadow stretches on the tiled floor. A shoulder comes into sight next, and with another stride the rest of the person attached to it, black uniform and a head of brown hair lowered towards something at her hip. Misty pulls the gun out.
"Don't move."
The woman looks up. She is young, maybe as young as her teens. She blinks at the weapon aimed at her face and her brow draws into a frown.
"...The hell?"
"Don't move," Misty says again. The words scrape along her throat, dry as dust. She remembers the safety and fumbles to flip it off, her fingers slippery through fabric and sweat. "Put your hands up."
She complies, frowning still. The right one spread; the left closed around two pokéballs. "The hell is your problem?" she questions. Misty points at the floor with the barrel.
"Drop them. Now."
"What, these?" The woman—no, the girl—glances at the two spheres in her palm. She tips her chin to the shelf behind them and its glass containers. "That's exactly what I was going to do, you know. Now if you'll stop waving that thing in my face and just let me—"
"I said drop them!"
The girl raises one eyebrow. Her eyes are blue. She opens her fingers and lets them rattle to the floor: "Happy now?"
"Yes," Misty stammers. Her breath comes in hitches. She swallows hard and looks the girl up and down: she's got a radio hooked to her belt, like the man down by the cells, and next to it two empty pokéball holders, but no weapons as far as she can see. James elbows her a little.
"What are you doing?" he whispers through his teeth. Not quietly enough to keep the girl from hearing, it seems, and her quirked eyebrow arches further.
"Yep, just what I was wondering myself. Glad to know at least two of us are on the same page. Now care to tell me what's your problem exactly?"
"Shut up," Misty cuts her off. An idea spins into shape in her racing mind and she seizes it, holds tight. "Do you know about the boss's son?"
"...What, that kid they say the boss brought in?" The girl shrugs. "I've heard about it, nothing more. Why?"
She swallows again. The gun shakes slightly in her grasp. "Do you know where he is?"
Another shrug. "Think," Misty urges her, and the girl does so half-heartedly, tossing her eyes towards the ceiling.
"What do I know? Maybe in the trainees' quarters if you want me to take a guess. I heard the boss was grooming him to inherit the keys to the kingdom or something."
Misty presses her lips together. She glances back at James, who throws his hands up in a helpless maybe. Before she can ask more a crackle of static rises from the radio at the girl's belt.
"All available units," a voice comes through, spreading in a metallic echo across the room. "Two suspects on the loose within the base after resisting arrest. Male in his late twenties, early thirties; female in her teens. Repeat, male in his late twenties, early thirties, female in her teens. Over."
The silence that closes back around them is colder than a blade. The girl tilts her head a bit; frowns deeper. Looks her head to toe and does the same with James, and a spark of something resembling amusement glints at the corners of her eyes.
"That's you two, isn't it?" she says. "You're the two suspects they're looking for."
"Don't move," Misty repeats a third time, almost desperately. "Don't touch the radio. Try and I'll shoot. I'm not kidding."
"Mew, relax! I couldn't care less what you did or even what's your business with the boss's son. The only thing I want right now is to get upstairs and take a really long shower, fine?"
She forces herself to breathe. Her heart pounds frantically in her temples, her throat, a roll of thunder. She looks again to James: "Could you get us there? To the trainees' quarters?"
"Yeah, maybe, but I dunno if going off some stranger girl's guess is worth the candle with all available units on the lookout for us!" He shakes his head and runs a hand through his hair. "This is it, we're done. Yep, we're screwed."
Think. Think. She shuts her eyes for a second, the lines of the shelves etched into her eyelids. Looks at their few options like at a scatter of puzzle pieces. "Those pokéballs," she blurts out suddenly, nodding her head to the containers and to the maybe-hundreds of spheres inside. "Do they all have pokémon in them?"
The girl's eyebrow shoots up slightly again. "If you want worthless ones, sure."
"Why worthless?"
"Weak ones, disobeying ones, your pick. What are you, new or something?"
Ash's voice briefly bubbles up in her memory: it's like they make them into things you can replace. "Ones that get handed to recruits for training and throwaway missions, I guess," whispers James at her side, grim. "They catch and train 'em in bulks and if they prove below standards well, it's faster to just dispose of them and get new ones."
Her stomach turns. Still she tries to push back against the fist of nausea rising up her throat and digs her nails hard into the idea shaping up in her mind: "Do you think—you could draw me a map of how to get to the trainees' quarters?" she asks him. He blinks.
"...Maybe, but hello?" He gestures to himself. "I'm right here in case you forgot. What do you need a map for?"
She breathes. Tries to. Her lips are dry, prickling. "I need you to stay here," she says. "And I need you to give me a little time to get there. Then I need you to release all of those pokémon and cause as much chaos as you can, set something on fire, anything you can do. Use the confusion to get out and wait by the balloon. I'll find Ash and do the same."
Her words are met with a cramped silence. "...Come on, kid," James' voice comes faintly after a couple moments. "You can't be serious. Use your head, will you? You don't even know if he's really there. That's... hardly a chance in a million you'll actually find him and get out alive."
"I'm with him," the girl agrees. Misty darts her eyes back to her.
"No one asked you," she snaps. And to him: "What alternative do we have? They're looking for us. You heard that. We're out of time, how long do you think it'll be before someone thinks to check in here?!"
"Yeah, and how are you planning to get there while they're looking for us?!"
She breathes in again, slowly. "They're looking for two people. If I go alone—I'll raise less suspicions than if we move together."
Her voice falters a bit. James presses his face into his palm, his fingers curling around a fistful of his hair. "Come on, there's got to be an alternative. There's always some alternative. We can try to find a way to get out and—I don't know, come back with a better plan or—"
"I'm not leaving," she cuts him short. It comes out like a sob, a thing all thorns tearing out of her chest. "I came all the way here, I'm not leaving until I find him. And you're not changing my mind, so can we stop wasting time?!"
He's silent again. The gun shakes harder and she clamps her hands around it, trying to still it. She keeps staring at it, at the shiny end of the barrel: not at him, not at the girl. She can hear him draw a long, long breath.
"Okay, say—you get there and don't find him. What do you do then?"
"I'll figure it out."
He paces back and forth between the shelves, his hand still wrung into his hair. "What about—her?" He waves his other hand towards the girl. "Are you forgetting you just revealed your whole masterplan in front of someone who'll definitely report to the boss the second you look away?"
"Hey, I told you, I don't give a crap," she insists. "You could be planning his assassination for all I care. Whatever, man."
Misty closes her eyes. Keeps them like that for a moment. "Find something to tie her up."
"The hell? I told you I don't care!"
"Do it!"
James wails, but actually turns to inspect the shelves' contents. The girl glares at her. Her eyes are blue, she registers again; so blue and so hard, like stone under shallow water. She has to take hers off.
"I'm sorry. I have to do it. I can't risk."
"Yeah, fuck you."
James comes back with a length of electrical wire. "Alright, this should do," he sighs, stretching it around his palm to test it. "Sorry miss, I'm going to need your wrists."
She forces herself to look back up while he ties the girl's hands behind her back and to the side of the shelf because not looking would be easy. Her stomach is upside down still, a tight knot in her belly. Once he's done he pauses and sighs again, staring at the floor for a couple moments. "Are you really," he says, stressing the word as much as he can, "really, really sure it's worth it, kid?"
Misty thinks again of the light she saw in Ash's eyes. Of that spark still not gone, not faded, still there for her to hold onto despite all the darkness and hurt he'd been through. I won't let anything happen to him this time, she promised.
She lowers the gun and flips the safety back in place.
"I am."
—-
He scribbles a map on a scrap torn from a bag of flour. Tosses it and starts over a couple times before getting something that looks sort of right: "...Okay, this should be it," he says, sliding it in her direction. He taps the pen to a spot on the page, next to where he drew a straight line. "You're gonna have to get past Giovanni's office to get there. No idea if he'll be in there or not, but be careful, 'kay?"
"Okay." She takes a slightly wavery breath. "What else?"
He explains the path in detail before handing her the map. She stares at it for a bit, trying to memorize every ink squiggle; then folds it in half and tucks it into her pocket. James gathers himself up from the floor and dusts off his knees. He walks to the pokéball containers and lays a hand against the glass.
"Just to make sure—you know half of these are going to end up killed, right?"
Misty swallows. "Why, what's going to happen to them if we leave them here?"
"...Fair point."
"At least maybe—this way some of them will manage to escape."
She stands as well. James lets out another sigh. "I'm giving you twenty minutes before I set about releasing them. That should be more than enough to get there."
"Okay." She bites the inside of her cheek, hard; her nails press through the gloves into her palms. "James?"
"Yeah?"
She breathes in again. "If—you get out and don't see me coming back, you—leave, okay? Don't come back to look for me. Get Jessie and Meowth and get very far from here. As far as you can."
He says nothing. She feels her eyes sting and doesn't dare to pick her glance from the floor. A moment, two, stretched heavy and full in the air between them.
"You got the gun, yeah?" His voice is hoarse. She nods. "Keep it at hand. And remember all I told you. If you need to shoot, wait till you have it up to your eye or you'll miss."
She swallows again and looks up. "Thank you. For—everything."
James shrugs her words off. She brushes the map in her pocket, checking that it's still there. She doesn't need to do the same for the gun, she can feel the weight of it against her back, but she does it anyway, her heart still a thunder in her ears. The girl watches them with contempt.
"You're totally going to get busted, whatever it is you're trying to do," she says. "I hope you realize it."
Misty ignores her. She turns one last time to James, who raises his eyebrows a little.
"Well. Hope the next time I see your face it's not on the news," he sighs. His face softens then. "Good luck, kid."
—-
The wild pounding of her heart follows her along the hallways. She keeps her head down and focuses on her breath, trying to keep it from hitching in her chest: in her mind she repeats James' instruction over and over. The walls around her all look the same. She turns the corner and the collar of Jessie's uniform feels tight, so tight. She resists the impulse to tug at it; keeps her arms down at her sides. Listens.
Footsteps. They come from the opposite end of the corridor and for a second she nearly freezes, her insides a chunk of ice. But she balls her fists and forces herself to go on. From around the corner come two women, both dressed in black, and she feels their glances brush over her even with hers glued to the floor and a tremble sets its claws at the base of her spine. She holds her breath.
(Two suspects on the loose within the base. Female in her teens.)
Keep walking. Just keep walking. The two women pass her. Go on.
The cameras' watchful eyes follow her around. A couple more turns: ahead of her is the elevator door.
She presses the call button and waits, the hair at the back of her neck standing on end. It's empty. As soon ad the door closes behind her she staggers and leans her palm against the wall, feeling her knees suddenly about to buckle. A second; then she rights herself and pulls James' map from her pocket, and with fumbling fingers unfolds it and stares at the ink scribbles for another few seconds, making sure they're still impressed into her mind. Shoves it back in place as she hears the ding of the elevator hitting the floor.
She looks up. The door opens.
—-
When he hears the footsteps outside his door Ash's stomach turns into a stone. He presses his fists to his temples, a tremble of nausea rattling up his throat. The footsteps halt. The latch slides free.
The starker light from the corridor makes a rectangle on the floor. Two pairs of feet stop at its center, clad in black boots.
"The boss is expecting you."
He forces himself to stand.
—-
The corridor she finds herself staring at looks different from the ones below. A few paintings dot the walls, and at the corner she spots the bright green splash of a potted plant. When she walks out of the elevator a carpet swallows the sound of her steps.
The upper floor is where Giovanni's office is, James told her, tapping again his pen to the same spot on the page. She swallows and walks on.
Closed doors flank the corridor at both sides. Her eyes hitch for a second on a painting at her left, a view of a sumptuous villa in a sunny countryside, registering thick yellow brushstrokes and the wooden curls of the frame. She turns the corner.
"Watch your steps."
Her heart nearly jumps out of her chest. She stares at the R on the silver uniform of the man she nearly slammed into and for a second time stretches on thin and colorless, frozen. She doesn't know how she manages to swallow down the panic blocking her throat. How she remembers the way James addressed the woman in an uniform of the same color and brings herself to bow her head, forcing her voice out:
"Y-yes sir."
An officer, judging by the uniform, James' voice echoes through her head. You don't wanna mess with—
"And speak up when you're addressing your superiors," the man says, gruff. Misty breathes.
"Yes sir." Louder this time. For another terrible moment the man's glance still doesn't let go. But he lifts it then and walks on, leaving her in the empty corridor with gelatin in place of her bones.
The camera above her head whirs. She picks her chin up. She can't falter, not now.
Giovanni's office should be after the next turn.
—-
The door to Giovanni's office stands ahead of them. Ash's hands twitch again into fists, tight, tight enough to shake.
The muffled echo of their footsteps follows them.
—-
When she reaches the corner her heart misses a beat.
She only sees him for a moment. Walking between two men three times as big as he is, one of them with his hand closed around his elbow. His head lowered; his shoulders stiff under the black uniform. A moment: then he's gone, swallowed by the only door along that stretch of corridor. Right where James pointed his pen to.
He doesn't look in her direction.
She presses her back to the wall, her heart so loud it drowns out any other sound.
—-
The four walls of Giovanni's office close around him as the door shuts, suffocating like a cloud of smoke. The man glances up at him: sets aside the open envelope he's holding and with it Ash catches a silvery glint—the paper knife. His stomach lurches. Giovanni crosses his fingers on his desk, looking at him with expectation.
"So," he wants to know. "Did you make good use of your time?"
Ash swallows. His throat is raw. The walls keep pressing down on him, squeezing his chest shut. "I—think I did."
The man arches his eyebrows. "Speak then. I'm all ears."
(Someone else will take care of it if you don't.)
"I'll do it," he says. It scrapes its way out of him like a cluster of claws. Giovanni's eyes widen slightly. For a second he just looks him up and down, like the readiness of his answer caught him somewhat off guard; then slowly the edges of his mouth fold into something that's not quite a grin, nor a smirk either. It spreads to his eyes in small wrinkles and it's not a grin, no—a smile. Or a grotesque, revolting imitation. He flicks a hand in the air. The stones of his rings catch the light.
"Come closer," he tells him. "I want to look at you."
The fingers around his elbow let go and he complies, his pulse a low crackling rumble in his ears. His glance falls on the paper knife at the corner of the desk and he steers it away and forces himself to look the man straight in the eyes. His eyes: they run over him again, gloatingly taking him in from head to toe. Ash's hands shake. He stops by the desk, close, close.
"I'm very glad to see you finally understand what's best for you," Giovanni says. Persian curls with a purr at his feet. "I knew you would eventually. Trust me, it won't always be as hard as you're finding it now. Now that you've stopped fighting me it will only get easier, you'll see. All you needed to do was stop opposing your true nature."
He reaches for the folder he showed him earlier and sets it in front of him. Ash swallows again and considers his chances: he'll die if he attempts now, no question. Persian will be on him in a second and if not it then the two men behind his back. But he has to. There's no alternative, he's out of time. Maybe a second will be enough, it has to be. Maybe his hand will be on the knife and at Giovanni's throat before Persian's claw slash his own. Doesn't matter what'll happen to him then.
"As for your friend, she has yet to be located," the man is saying. "We do have a rather solid lead, though. The balloon was last sighted flying over Celadon City, heading north. Not quite the smartest choice for a mean of transportation, don't you agree? She'll no doubt be tracked down within hours, days at most. Then she'll be brought here, and you'll do what needs to be done. Any questions?"
Do it. Do it. Yet his arms remain frozen at his sides, his hands closed into fists still. Tingling; numb. He shakes his head.
"Got it."
His heart pounds. Do it, it repeats with every throb, do it do it DO IT. He looks at the knife. At the light that glimmers along the blade.
The radio at the belt of one of the men gives a crackle. Ash's breath stops. "All available units," a voice croaks metallic from the speaker. "Requesting immediate backup on floor one. We have... a situation. Over."
Silence falls back. Giovanni frowns. "Answer it," he commands. "I want to know what this situation is about."
The man unhooks the radio from his hip. "Unit 202. What situation? Over."
"It appears that a number of pokémon set for disposal have somehow been released into the building. Repeat, requesting immediate backup. Over."
A muscle twitches in Giovanni's jaw. He takes a breath and forcefully blows it out: "Go," he says through his teeth. "And find whoever is responsible. I want them brought to me."
The men both hesitate. "...What about the boy, boss?"
He considers for a moment. "Leave him here. We still have some talking to do," he answers then. He looks at him, his lips curling back into a hint of that awful, sickening smile. "I believe we can finally trust each other. No?"
Ash only manages a slight nod. "Go," Giovanni says again and the two men turn to leave. Footsteps on the carpet. The hiss of the door closing. Silence.
A whistle fills Ash's ears. Giovanni's mouth moves; he can't make out the words. He won't have another occasion like this one. There's still Persian, but it'll have to be enough. Have to.
Doesn't matter what happens to him.
(do it do it DO IT NOW DO IT)
He's fast.
(He taught him that, after all.)
He lunges for the paper knife—closes his fingers around the handle. For a second he sees everything with bright slo-mo quality: sees the man's pupils contracting against the brown of his irises, the same color as his own. Smells the stingy sweet scent of his cologne.
(what if I miss Arceus what if it doesn't work what if it's not sharp enough)
He plunges the blade.
—-
(I didn't make you capable of this, he told him once.)
—-
The two men she saw disappear beyond the door with Ash rush back out and past her. More footsteps follow, and another two people in black dash in the same direction, barely giving her a glance despite that she's still standing aimlessly at the corner. She takes it as a signal that James did what she asked from him, and for a second she closes her eyes, silently thanking him and hoping that he'll actually manage to get out.
More grunts hurry from the other end of the corridor towards the elevator. No one else comes out of the door, though, and she stares at it with her insides in a knot, not knowing what to do. She wonders how long she might have before the confusion James created is brought back under control: ten minutes, twenty? Maybe even less? If she can't get to him before then it'll all be for nothing.
Another group of grunts rushes past her. One of them shoves her aside with a hasty "don't stand there". Her shoulder bumps against the wall; then they're gone, their footsteps swallowed by the carpet and by the corridor's turns. She turns back to the door: closed still. Her heart throbs.
—-
He doesn't have the time to register whether the blow was successful. Seconds after the blade encounters the resistance of Giovanni's throat there's a furious hiss and Persian jumps at him, a projectile of claws and weight and anger. He loses the grasp on the knife and his back slams to the floor, squeezing all air out of his lungs in a strangled yelp. He sees the pokémon's fangs inches from his face and as he shuts his eyes and waits for the claws at his throat he only formulates one thought: please let it have worked. Please please please let it—
"Persian," comes Giovanni's voice. A gargling, chocking sound. "A—a cuccia. Down."
The pokémon's weight lifts from his chest. Ash snaps his eyes open and sits up, propping himself on his elbows: Giovanni is still sitting at the desk, the paper knife sticking out the side of his neck. His hand tries to reach for it, misses; his fingers claw at the air. Ash's heart slams against his ribs. The hand aims again for the knife and this time closes around it. "Y—you," the man's mouth articulates. Blood trickles down his collar. "You little—"
Ash recoils a little. Persian is still hissing at him, claws and fangs bared. "I'm not you," he manages to say, through the bellow whiff of his breath. "I'm not like you. My friends never doubted it for a second. I'll never be like you."
Giovanni stares at him. For a moment, two. Then a low hoarse laugh erupts from his throat, a sound like broken glass, like the screeching of nails. "And yet—look at what you just did," he says. "You couldn't have followed—in my—footsteps—more—accurately than this..."
He pries the knife out of his throat. Blood gushes out and he tries to stop it: the knife clatters against the desk and to the ground. "Ah, d-dannazione," he curses, more gurgle than word. Red runs down his hand, his rings; stains the cuff of his shirt. Trickles out of the corner of his mouth, too. He tries to say something else and fails to. His other hand reaches for Persian and he mouths the pokémon's name, almost desperately, almost like pleading.
"Per—"
Persian springs by his side. Giovanni's fingers close into his fur, hold onto it like to an anchor. He turns his glance back to him then, and for a few seconds still manages to look straight into his eyes, even as his chest heaves and more blood falls from his mouth and his nostrils. Ash's whole body feels like water. Giovanni looks at him, looks at him still. Then his breath dissolves into a heap of gargling, strangled noises and his head finally falls down on his neck, and the hand still trying to compress the wound with it, while the other contracts on the pokémon's fur. A tremble rattles it.
Silence. Only Persian's soft cries as he nuzzles the leg of its master, his hand limp now at his side. Ash's breath hitches. Something deep inside him trembles, clatters into a million pieces. His head rings.
He looks at Giovanni. Looks at Giovanni still sat on his chair, his head hanging like a broken mannequin's. Blood stains the front of his shirt and it's red, bright, real, not at all different from that of so many wounds of his own. He looks at it and his mind refuses to process it.
He blinks. He's gone. The man who tore him to pieces and crushed what was left under his heel is gone. He should feel—feel—happy, shouldn't he?
And yet look at what you just did.
He gathers his knees up to his chest. Curls up tight around them.
He can't move anymore.
—-
She can hear the chaos coming from downstairs even from there. She sinks her teeth into her lip. For a few moments she lingers on her feet still. Then slides a hand to the handle of her gun, and with her stomach in a twist heads towards the door. She stops in front of it and listens, listens hard, trying to catch a glimpse of what's going on inside. She hears nothing.
The corridor is empty. You'll find him, her sister told her. I know you.
She gulps down a lump in her throat. Holding her breath, she presses her free hand to the button on the wall.
The door slides open quietly. She sees the man sitting at the desk first thing and nearly jumps: only after a second she notices the blood on his shirt, and the way his head hangs limp and lifeless.
She takes an uncertain step in, blinking. An angered hiss rises from behind the desk as the door closes and this time she does jump, her hand already about to pull out the gun; but the Persian curled at the man's feet only bares its teeth at her and doesn't leave his side. Misty's eyes scan the room. It's a moment before they fall on the crumpled heap on the floor.
Her chest gives a flutter.
"...Ash."
His shoulders go stiff. He turns slowly, like he's questioning if he really heard her voice, his eyes huge. There's bruises on his face—the yellowing one on his jaw that was already there when she saw him last and darker, fresher ones. For a handful of seconds he just stares at her, parting his lips to speak but not managing a sound.
"What are you doing here?" he asks finally. She lets lets her hand fall.
"What do you think? Looking for you!"
He shakes his head. Almost frantically, the rest of him still wound around his knees. "You need—you need to leave. You need to go. Now. You—"
"Not without you, for sure," she stops him. He turns away and shrinks from her, shaking his head still, his breath short almost-gasps. All of him is shaking, really. She takes a step; then another. Her eyes fall back on the man at the desk. A waxy hand dangles from the chair's armrest, garish rings on each bloodstained finger.
"Is that...?"
"Yes." A hoarse whisper. Misty's own breath catches in her throat a little.
"Did you—?"
Ash pulls his knees closer still. "Yes."
She swallows. Then balls her fists and decidedly steps another couple steps forward: "We need to go. Come on, we need to go now. I told James to release a bunch of pokémon downstairs, we can use the confusion to get out."
"You go. I can't."
"What are you talking about?!"
He says nothing. He's curled so tight that she can see his spine sticking out from his back, like a length of rope. She stares at him.
"Come on! What are you talking about? You've already been stupid enough to let them find you, now don't—"
"They didn't," he cuts her off. Talking to his kneecaps, mostly. She frowns.
"They didn't what?"
"They didn't find me. I came back here."
It takes a second for it to actually sink in.
"...You what?!"
She spits the words at him like darts. She wants to hurt him: for the very first time since she found him at her door she actually wants to hurt him. She manages to, apparently, because his shoulders sink down another notch—she wouldn't have thought it physically possible. She forces herself to breathe. To still the furious, scalding white tremble rising from her middle.
"...Okay. I'll insult you later. It doesn't matter right now. We need to go, get up."
He still doesn't speak. Her fists clench tighter.
"Get up! What do you think is going to happen when someone comes in here and sees what you did?! They'll kill you!"
"Let 'em."
Less than a whisper now. She shakes her head. "...What the hell are you saying?"
A shrug. Almost imperceptible. "I deserve it."
Her turn now not to find any words. He draws a breath, hitching and unsteady: "Go away! They'll kill you too if they find you here."
The tremble stirs. She stomps to him and grabs him by the arm, trying to pull him to his feet. In her grasp he's all nerves, all sharp edges and tension. "I came here to look for you. And you're coming with me, like it or not! I don't care whatever bullshit you've gotten into that stupid head of y—"
"Let go!" He pulls back. For a second he glares at her with something akin to fury; then wraps his arm back around himself and lowers his head. "Go away," he says again, almost desperately. "Please."
"Why?!" Her eyes burn. "Why on earth would I do that?!"
"I deserve it!" he says one more time. His fingers claw at his arm, digging deep. "He was—he was right. He was always right. Even as I did—" His eyes venture towards the man at the desk to skitter away immediately. "...this. Even as I did— I'm just like him. He was right after all."
She gives up trying to follow. "...I don't even care what you're talking about right now. Come on, get up."
Silence. She waits, for a moment, another. Then lets out a harsh breath.
"Okay. You know what? Fine." She sits down on the floor next to him and crosses her arms. "As you want."
Ash shoots her a panicking look. "What are you doing?!"
She shrugs. "You're staying? I'm staying too. So we'll both be here when someone comes from that door. Is that what you want?"
He stares in near-disbelief, his eyes wide. He shakes his head again: "No, you need—you need to go. They'll kill you. They'll kill you too if they find you here!"
She shrugs one more time. Her stomach is squeezed shut. Ash clamps his lips together and for a handful of cold, heavy seconds she wonders if he could really do that, if whatever Giovanni did to him could really have changed him enough that he would willingly let both of them die. His eyes run back to the desk; turn towards the door. She can almost see the thoughts colliding into his head.
He slams a frustrated fist against the floor and stands. Grabs her arm and yanks her to her feet too: "Fine—get up, stupid."
He pulls her towards the door. Persian accompanies them with another angry hiss, but still refuses to leave its dead master's side. There's a small puddle of blood on the floor, tricked from the man's finger. Ash presses his palm to the wall. The door slides open, the corridor still empty on the other side.
He tugs her out of the room and looks around, his hand tight around her wrist. For a moment he hesitates, nearly frozen on the spot, then swallows visibly and heads fast in the direction of the elevator. They make it to the corner. Past it.
The lights go off. She stumbles and nearly slams into him and for a second they're in the dark. Then there's a buzz and a dimmer light comes on, washed out and reddish.
"What happened?"
"The power went off." He turns. His face is stretched taut in the red glow. "We can't use the elevator. This way. Quick!"
He pulls her to the other side. Back towards Giovanni's office and past it, and around a corner and another after that. Footsteps: he pushes her into a narrow turn and holds her there, hushing her. She can feel the wild run of his heart. Black silhouettes rush in and out of view in the corridor. He grabs her arm again as the steps fade and again starts walking, quick, head down.
He leads her to a twisting metal staircase and urges her along it. The steps rattle under their feet. She can hear the chaos louder now, a clutter of noises and voices and something else, a crackling roaring background sound under all else. At the bottom Ash stops, listens; yanks her wrist once more.
There's a different kind of light down here, oblique and flickering, but it's only after another turn puts them face to face with its source that she really takes it in.
Something is burning. James did his part well. There's smoke clogging the hall before them and beyond it the orange, sputtering flash of flames. Ash curses under his breath and turns around, his fingers still holding her arm tight, tight. From somewhere comes the thunder of gunshot. She cringes at the screeching that follows, squeezing her eyes shut for a second.
I'm sorry.
More turns. More corridors, and more sudden u-turns at the sound of steps. The air is dense and heavy. A door, finally, and he lets her go just long enough to grab the push bar, leaning his entire weight against it. It swings free on another short corridor stretch and another door at its end. He rushes to open that one as well.
A shrill alarm sound pierces her ears the moment it clicks. She can see a blue slice of sky beyond. The rocky landscape surrounding the—
"It's him!"
She turns back to see two men in black coming towards them. Ash curses again and tries to sprint away, but one more is waiting on the other side and stops him in his tracks, ripping his grasp from her arm. Ash struggles, kicks; the man hits back. She tries to reach him and arms close around her waist.
She tries to pry them off. She manages to, almost—but as she tries to step away a hand claws at her shoulder and turns her around and a fist collides with her face, hard enough to throw her off balance. She hits the dusty ground harsh, the taste of blood in her mouth, her hair falling out of her beret. The man is on her in a second. She tries to roll onto her back and a gloved arm presses down on her throat.
Her right arm is trapped against her side. Gasping, she manages to twist it behind her back and grope for the gun in her belt. She grasps the handle. Finds the safety under her thumb and fumbles to flip it off.
Silver sparks cloud her vision. A muffled cry of pain: Ash's voice. Her heart threatening to explode her skull, she wedges her arm free. The man grabs the gun by the barrel—tries to wrestle it out of her hand.
She pulls the trigger.
Blood sprays warm on her face. A second; then the man's weight crashes down on her chest, crushing her. She turns her head to the left: through the sparks she sees Ash on the ground, the other two men kicking, kicking. She finds the man's shoulder. Manages to roll him onto his back.
She pulls herself to her knees. One of them sees her and leaves Ash to come towards her, a swaying black shape. She extends her arm:
you need to wait till it's up to your eye
she shoots again. Again. The man staggers and falls to his knees, a hand raised to his chest. Again.
He makes a noise falling in the dust, a dull faint thud. She turns the gun towards the other.
"Step away from him." Her voice is a hoarse scratching sound. "Step away or I'll shoot you too!"
The man steps back. The fire growls, the air pouring from the door hot and flickery. She keeps her aim on him.
"Go. Now!"
He goes. Takes another few steps in the same way; turns to run. Ash groans faintly, curled around his stomach. He props an elbow on the ground and gathers himself up a little. Sits, trying to breathe.
His eyes find her.
She lowers the gun, slowly. She can feel the blood on her face. A bout of nausea crashes into her like a wave.
"Do I deserve to die too now?" she asks him, her voice coming from somewhere far away.
Ash blinks. "...What?"
"I just killed two people." It comes out of her chest almost hysterically, hitting her twice over as she hears it out loud. "I did something terrible as well. Does that make me a terrible person too? As bad as you? As bad as Giovanni?"
He stares. The fire roars, relentless. "Do I deserve to die too?" she asks again.
He hauls himself to his feet. His knees nearly buckle and he doubles over, pressing a hand to his ribs with a grunt. He looks back up after a moment.
She stands as well. "Answer me," she insists. The hand holding the gun shakes. "Do I deserve to die? Do I?"
"...You had to do that," he says. A whisper, barely. She shrugs.
"And so did you. So how is that different?"
He doesn't answer. Her voice rises, halfway between a sob and a growl: "How is that different? Come on, answer me! I deserve to die too now by your logic, don't I?"
He still says nothing. She closes in a step the distance between them and grabs his arm, forcing his hand on the gun. The barrel against her chest. "Go on, shoot me. If you deserve to die so do I. So shoot me and then shoot yourself if that's what you want."
He tries to pull back. "Stop it."
"Shoot me!" She digs her fingers into his wrist. "If you think you're as bad as Giovanni come on, prove it!"
"Stop it!"
"Shoot me! You can't, can you?"
Ash stares at her. There's tears in his eyes, she realizes suddenly: since he knocked on her door she hasn't seen him cry once. He doesn't do it now either. He just lowers his head, his hand falling limp in her grasp.
"Stop it. Please." A trembling breath. "I can't."
The gun clatters to the ground between them. She lets his arm go. She wipes blood off her lips, hers or the man's, she's not sure.
"Come on. We need to go, now."
He nods. But as he tries to take a step he staggers again, his hand running back to his ribs. Burning orange light washes over his small frame.
She sighs and takes his arm again. Gently this time—as gently as she manages considering she's not at all sure if she'd rather hold him or punch him straight in the face. She places it around her shoulders.
"Here. Come on."
—-
James' mouth falls open when he sees them come towards the balloon. He lowers the binoculars, rubbing his knuckles over his eyes.
"...Mew, it's actually you. And you found him! I can't believe it."
Ash sways a little, leaning against her. She glances back to the building. There's a column of smoke rising from one side, black against the open sky. She still doesn't see anyone following them, and for a second she just stares blinking, unable to believe it fully.
She helps Ash into the basket. James awkwardly offers a hand too, but he shrinks away from it, his eyes lowered still. He stumbles inside and curls up at the bottom, pulling his knees back to his chest. He doesn't look at either of them.
"Go," she tells James. "Quick."
He hurriedly turns the wheel on the burner. The flame flares up; the balloon starts rising. Soon the wind picks them up, sweeping them higher and away.
"Where am I taking you?" he asks after a few moments. "It's quite the trip back to Cerulean and you, um, both look pretty roughed up, no offense." He thinks for a moment. "Pewter City should be less than a day of flight from here. I can get you to the pokémon center there or—wait, your friend's in Pewter, right? Want me to take you to him?"
She looks at Ash, still carefully avoiding her glance. She shakes her head. "The pokémon center's fine."
She yanks the shirt of her uniform off herself and uses it to wipe the blood from her face. She tosses it in a ball at her feet then and looks back to the headquarters building once more, still there, still glaring in the lowering sun. As she watches something comes out of it with the smoke, something small and winged. She squints. They fly closer: Zubat. Her breath hitches for a second. At least some of them did manage to escape, after all.
—-
strange how you know inside me
It's the first hours of the morning when they land behind the Pewter City pokémon center. Misty steadies him by his elbow as he lifts one leg over the edge, even if the pain has faded a bit by now and he's able to step out without staggering too much. He hears her take a breath.
"...Maybe it's best if you take that off before anyone sees us," she tells him, looking at his shirt and its red R. They haven't really spoken since leaving the headquarters. He nods and tugs it over his head, letting it fall into the basket. The gloves, too, and the beret. James kicks them into a corner as he shivers in the remaining short-sleeved undershirt.
"Go," he tells them. "I'll reach you. Just the time to secure this thing."
Misty thanks him and they go. Her hand lingers for a second near the small of his back, but she lowers it without touching him once she's made sure he can walk on his own. Her eyes keep turning towards him as they walk, he can feel them. But she says nothing.
She talks to the nurse Joy at the counter to get the keys to one of the rooms while he waits a few steps back. He follows her into the hallway, his eyes still on his feet. The keys click in the lock; she flips the switch on the wall. For a few seconds he just stands on the door, looking in, his glance hitching on every smallest insignificant detail like when he first found himself inside a real home after a year of captivity. The edges of the red curtains brushing the floor. The slight creases on one of the sheets.
He never considered that there might be an after.
He walks to the nearest bed and sits, bringing a hand to his still-aching ribs. Misty closes the door and lets out a sigh.
"Let me see."
"I'm fine," he mumbles. She's not having it.
"Let me see." She reaches him and crouches, trying to lift the hem of his shirt. He stiffens. She sighs again. "Come on. I've already seen the scars."
He reluctantly lets her. Her fingers gently brush the bruises spreading on his skin, fading ones and fresher purple ones alike. "You should be seen by a doctor. There could be something broken." He flinches slightly at her touch. "We could ask nurse Joy to give you a look."
"They're not broken."
"You don't know that."
"I've had them broken before. They're not."
She says nothing. Her lip is split and swollen and she's got a bruise across her chin to go with it. He can't stand to see it, so he pulls his shirt from her hand and carefully lies down on the side that hurts less, facing the wall. There's silence for a few moments. Then he feels the mattress sink slightly as she sits.
"Why did you go back there?"
He swallows. His throat's tight. "To kill Giovanni," he says. She waits. "It was—the only thing I could do to try and keep you and the others safe from him."
She takes a long, long breath and lets it go. "And how does—how could that possibly make you just like him?"
He curls around himself a little. "He killed his own mother."
"Why?"
A shrug. "To take control of Team Rocket."
"How is that the same thing?"
"He said it was."
"Well that was some bullshit."
He doesn't retort. The back of his eyes burns. Misty is silent for a moment again. "What you did was stupid," she tells him then, and he sinks his head a bit further between his shoulders, awaiting the rest. "It was stupid because you thought I wouldn't come looking for you, and it was stupid and selfish because you didn't leave us with a choice. Did you even think about what it would be like for me, for Pikachu, for Brock, for your mother when we'd tell her, to wake up and find you gone again and have no idea what happened to you, again? It was—the stupidest thing I've ever seen you do and if you weren't already covered in bruises I'd punch you myself. But—" She breathes again, trying to still her voice. "It was also one of the most—stupidly selfless things I've ever seen you—no, anyone do. You went back to a place where you were... beaten and starved and Arceus knows what else all because you wanted to protect us. You were ready to let yourself die. If you're a bad person I don't think there's a single good person in this world, Ash."
A sob rises from his chest. Dry, sudden, like a rip. Misty's hand hovers over his shoulder. Stays there for a second like she's wondering if he'll flinch away from her touch once again. Then closes around it, slowly. He tenses a little at first, he can't help it, but his muscles relax then and another sob tumbles out of him, and another after that.
"I'm sorry," he whispers. Her hand stays. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
The mattress wobbles as she lies down. He stares at the wall for a bit, tears filling his vision. Then reaches for her wrist and pulls her arm around himself. He half-expects her to pull back, but she doesn't. She just holds him, her body warm against his.
He hasn't cried in so long. It's painful; he'd forgotten how much. It comes out of him like a flood and she holds him all the while, her hand stroking his arm. He sobs until he can't breathe and then some more, his chest all a twisted cramp. Behind his eyelids he sees the paper knife sticking out of Giovanni's neck.
"He made me—" He forces himself to suck in a breath, all squeezed and hitching. "—hurt people. Steal from them. And—and—punish them the way—the way they'd punish me if I didn't do what he wanted."
She waits.
He tells her everything. About all the people he took from, all the ones he hurt in the process. About the times he was the one to hold the whip, too, and he keeps expecting her to let go and turn away from him, to be disgusted just like Giovanni always said; but she doesn't do any of that. She takes her arm off once and his heart stops, but it's only to wipe her own eyes. By the time he's done talking there's pale rectangles of sunlight on the wall.
"I had to look at their faces as I hurt them," he adds. "He wouldn't—he wouldn't let me look away. I had to see—the way they looked at me. The same way I looked at him." He stops for a second, his chest overflowing with an old scabbed-over pain. "But if I refused they'd—they'd just beat me again. Over and over and over until I couldn't—sometimes it was until I passed out. But most of the time it was just—until I wished I could pass out but I just didn't, and I just—I had to lie there for days. And he'd keep me without food, sometimes water too. It was so dark all the time. And I couldn't—I just couldn't—"
His voice breaks into sobs again. Misty's hand follows the curve of his shoulder. "I've seen the cells," she says, her voice wavery as well.
"You have?"
"I was looking for you."
He sniffles. "I kept thinking—those men who'd do that to me. I did the same things to others so—what makes me any different? Maybe they were like me once."
She's silent for a bit. "Maybe," she whispers then. "Maybe some of them were forced to do awful things too once. But I don't know them. I don't care about them. It's not them I went to look for." Her fingers rub his arm. "I care about you. I came to look for you. And I'd do it again if I had to because—because I know you. I know you're not and you'll never be a bad person, even if you were forced to do bad things. You didn't deserve any of what he did to you. You never did."
He turns her words over and over in his mind, holds them, almost wanting to find that she's wrong. Almost trying to will her to be wrong. "Say it," she adds. "Please."
It's not your fault, he remembers telling her, deep down so desperately wanting it to be true for himself as well.
"I—" It catches in his throat in a heavy lump. He swallows; tries again. "I—I didn't deserve it."
It feels like tearing something out of himself, a piece of twisted rusty iron stuck deep into his stomach and left there to poison his flesh for so long he'd forgotten it was even there. It leaves behind a bleeding, gaping wound, at the same time immensely more painful and so, so relieving. "I'm sorry you had to do that," comes out of him next. He hears her let out another sigh.
"I know." Her arm stiffens slightly. "I'm sorry I had to do that too. And don't think I'm not mad at you, because I am." She doesn't sound very mad right now, though. "But you didn't make me do it. You were extremely stupid, but you didn't force me to do anything. And I think—I think I'll be okay eventually. Not right now. I don't even know how I feel about it right now and I don't want—I don't want to think about it. But I've survived worse. I'll try to survive this too."
Ash sniffles a bit again. She breathes. "But I need you to promise me something."
"What?"
"You need to try as well. Please. I need you to do this for me."
His vision clouds back up. "Do you really still think I can?"
"I don't think. I know." She pauses for a second, as if finding the right words. "And it's not just me. Pikachu, Brock, everyone else. They know it too."
He turns into her hug. She tucks her chin into his hair, and with his face against her chest he sobs some more, now mostly in exhausted, leftover hiccups. Her hand runs down his back, over his scars, trailing gently over the bits that were once so badly hurt.
"He's gone," she tells him. He can feel the vibration of her voice. "He can't hurt you anymore. He can never hurt you again." And only hearing her say it the realization hits him, leaving him breathless.
He's gone. He's gone.
Misty holds him tight. His bruised ribs protest some, but it doesn't matter. She keeps stroking his back; and maybe at one point she lays a kiss on his hair. He's not sure. He just wants her to never let go.
"Do you think—we can go home now?" he asks after a bit, the question mark at the end curling in a silent please on his lips.
He can feel her nod.
strange how I fit into you
there's a distance erased with the greatest of ease
strange how you fit into me
a gentle warmth filling the deepest of needs
...
and of course I forgive...