Chapter Fourteen – Calm

Because Hibiki called and talked to Silver and I for so long (he talked with Silver for a surprisingly long time), we were forced to make camp. The sun had completely set now, and there was no way that we would make it to the next town before midnight. We still had a few more kilometers to walk, and we were better off just camping on the side of the trail to get some rest. Silver kept muttering about it being Hibiki's fault as we set up the tent, and I couldn't stop myself from laughing.

"Well, if you wanted to hang up, why didn't you? You were talking to Hibiki for an awfully long time, you know. Even longer than me, probably!" I snickered, smirking at Silver as I pounded a stake into the ground. "You just can't get guys to stop socializing anymore. My gosh, guys are just so talkative, aren't they? And I thought girls were obnoxious about it. If you put two guys together, they'll go on forever!"

I snorted, but Silver didn't look amused by my joke. He just pouted, hitting his stake into the ground with such force that I couldn't help but wonder if he was pretending that was someone. "Hey, Silver, take it easy. We need to be able to take that stake out, remember?" He glanced over at me, rolled his eyes, and continued to pound his stake into the ground. I was very concerned.

"So, what did you and Hibiki talk about that you're so furious about, anyway?" I asked, moving onto the next stake. I couldn't see Silver anymore, but I imagined that he was probably rolling his eyes at me again for even brining the topic up. Well, hey, I was curious. Maybe Hibiki told him that he mentioned the whole 'calm before the storm' thing, and that made Silver really angry. I didn't think Silver would really want me to know.

That was Hibiki's problem; get him talking, and he'll keep going. He didn't really have a filter. I wouldn't be surprised if Hibiki had mentioned the whole thing to Silver; heck, I was beyond paranoid now. My stomach felt like it was all in knots, and I felt the beginnings of a fever. Paranoia was powerful stuff. I didn't think I was actually getting sick, but my mind was tricking me into thinking I was.

"Oh, just stuff," Silver replied, banging a stake into the ground on his last word. I jumped, missing my stake completely as I went to hit it.

I tried again, this time actually hitting the stake into the ground and securing my whole side of the tent. Silver had actually been done for a while, I thought, but it looked like he was getting some of his anger out. So, I just stood up, brushing my pants off and walking around the side of the tent to see Silver. Yep, all done. I reached down just as he was going to take another swing at the stake, grabbing his arm.

"Sounds like some really great stuff, Silver." I took the hammer away from him and helped pull him to his feet. The moon, glistening through the trees, was our only source of light at the moment. I should have sent out my Jolteon if I had thought of it sooner, but at this point, it seemed a little late. Besides, the moon lit up Silver's eyes, however narrowed they were, and I couldn't help but think them sort of beautiful.

"Do you want to talk about this stuff?" I took his hand, trying to pry some information out of him. I felt a little guilty for not mentioning what Hibiki and I talked about, especially since it included Silver, but it wasn't like he had asked about my conversation. I would have told him if he asked. Maybe.

He just gave me a hard look, and I sighed. I ought to have just backed off now; if he didn't want to tell me, that was his business. He wasn't about to tell me anything, so I didn't know why I was bothering. Though… perhaps I could get him to talk other ways. I glanced down at our hands, amazed that Silver hadn't pulled away yet, seeing how things had been going lately. Huh.

It wasn't just that I was worried about whatever he and Hibiki had talked about (and whatever that was, it had Silver very upset); we really hadn't moved on from our "just friends" state. Even though we'd been fighting earlier today, I supposed it was worth a shot. Besides… people in relationships were supposed to tell each other everything. I silently vowed to tell Silver what Hibiki and I discussed if I could get this to work.

"All right, Silver," I said, trying to sound overly exasperated (which, frankly, wasn't hard to feign—I was fairly discouraged after this enlightening conversation). "I guess I'm going to go to bed now, since you aren't being the best company in the world." I sighed again, this time louder. "Goodnight, Silver. I love you."

I stared at him with the same hard eyes that he had looked at me with earlier, willing a response out of him. It didn't come. He avoided my gaze so blatantly, choosing to look at the tent and pretending to admire our handy work instead—the same tent that we had put up so many time with our handy work. I crossed my arms, waiting… waiting… but nothing came of it.

"All right, this is ridiculous." I squeezed his hand, tugging it lightly, and he finally turned his gaze on mine. "Silver. You love me, and I love you. We both said it. So, why are we pretending that we didn't?" I smiled, searching those beautiful moonlit eyes for something, anything. "I'm not going to live forever. Why don't we make the most of the time we have left together, then?"

I reached my free hand up to his neck, pulling his mouth down to mine. He didn't pull away, like I half-expected. Instead, he kissed me back, wrapping a hand around my waist to pull me tighter against him. I let go of his other hand, moving it to his chest instead, and he moved his to my hair, twirling it around his fingers. Time seemed to stop, and I had no idea how long we stood there like that, mouth to mouth, body to body, until finally, Silver stopped.

And just like that, he escaped, backing away with a horrified expression. Had he pulled away before I kissed him, that would have been one thing. But to pull away like that mid-kiss… I was utterly confused. What was wrong? What had I done? I didn't understand anything, and I felt helpless again, like when I was bedridden… like I couldn't do anything, couldn't fix anything, couldn't help anyone else.

"Silver…"

"Goodnight, Kotone," he just said, sneaking into the tent. He tried to zip the tent closed after him, but I stopped him, pulling the zippers back up. Following him in, the entire tent pitch black without the moon's light, I reached out, trying to find him while my eyes adjusted. Then, finally able to see a little, I grabbed his arm before he could sneak into his newly unraveled sleeping bag.

"Silver! What's wrong? Why can't you tell me? Why won't you be with me?" I pleaded, begging for answers. He didn't even look at me; he just shoved my hand away and crawled into the sleeping bag, leaving me to guess at the answers alone.

Despite everything that happened, I managed to fall asleep—or at least, I thought I did, since I couldn't remember ever staying awake. I just didn't feel like I had ever fallen asleep. I awoke feeling incredibly tired, and I imagined I would have slept much longer if Silver hadn't started taking the tent down with me still inside of it.

I rolled my sleeping bag up and crawled out of the tent, staring as Silver took the tent down. Everything that had occurred the night previous seemed like a nightmare, but even I could tell the difference between dreams and reality—and that had most certainly happened. At this point, remaining friends seemed like the best option, since trying to move forward only forced us backwards instead.

I didn't want to talk about it. I wanted to call Hibiki back, tell him what I hadn't yesterday… that Silver and I were in love, but nothing was coming of it. It wasn't like Hibiki was really the best person to go to, though. He didn't have any more experience in this field than we did, and Hibiki's naturally joking attitude could easily make things worse.

We started walking again, determined to get to the next town before noon. Silver and I hadn't really spoken yet, other than the occasional grunt to agree or disagree—and I hadn't helped take the tent down at all. After feeling so good the past few days, I wasn't used to feeling so terribly. My whole body was aching, and I felt so tired that I could barely hold my head up.

Perhaps I was just being paranoid. Anyways, what I had before could be considered calm, sure, but this was hardly a storm. I had felt worse in my life—in fact, almost every day back when I was at home I felt worse. The storm I expected was more like a typhoon, and what I got was more like a thunderstorm. So, all things considered, this wasn't too bad. I felt worse before—I just wasn't used to feeling bad after feeling good.

Still, when Silver had offered me breakfast this morning, I grunted a no. Because I wasn't hungry at all. This was not unusual, but I really didn't feel hungry—and yet, Silver didn't try to make me eat it. He had just shrugged, eating the food himself, perhaps because he didn't want to have to speak to me. Either way, after that, I just felt even sicker.

But when we came to a fork in the road after walking awhile, we were forced to converse, much to Silver's chagrin, I guessed. I was just happy to stop walking for a minute, though. Even though I knew I wasn't anymore, walking all this way made me feel out of shape—my head hurt, my body hurt, my legs hurt. Even my throat hurt, and it felt really swollen. Taking a break was no problem with me.

"Which way?" I asked, leaning against a tree to catch my breath, which had started to enter one of my episodes. It wasn't like we were sprinting or anything—I just couldn't breathe. All right, so maybe the thunderstorm was getting worse. Maybe the typhoon was coming. Or maybe I was just being really paranoid and tricking myself into thinking I was getting worse.

Silver just shrugged. "You pick."

"Wow, thank you for being so helpful." I couldn't stop myself from putting a little bit of edge in my voice, but I regretted doing so right away. "Sorry. Let's go right. We can ask people in the town if they've seen Asa, and if they haven't, we can come back and take the left path. But can we just stop for a minute? I'm not feeling very well…"

This spiked Silver's interest. "You aren't?" He actually managed to look concerned, and I sighed, shaking my head. "But you seemed all right yesterday. You've seemed okay for a while."

"Yeah, well, I don't feel well today…" I put a hand to my face, rubbing my eyes. I could definitely just fall asleep against that tree right then and there. "I think I'm actually okay, I'm just being stupid. Hibiki told me about something you had been researching yesterday while we were talking, and I think it's just making me think I'm sick."

"He told me he mentioned that…" Silver said, walking closer to me. He had been specifically staying away from me all morning, so much so that this closed distance seemed odd. "That's why I was so angry at him. He can't keep his fat mouth shut." His fists were clenched, but when Silver noticed I was staring at them, he relaxed them. "It's true. I was researching that. But there's no reason for you to be paranoid about it—"

"You don't need to lie about it for me. I know you think the whole 'calm before the storm' thing is real. That's why you weren't so happy when I told you I felt better, and—" I stopped, a wave of realization sweeping through me. "That's why you've been rejecting me."

"I haven't been—"

"Like I said, you don't need to lie about it," I repeated, pushing myself off the tree and starting down the path. Silver followed, slowly, but he still did. "And I don't blame you. Just so you know."

That was it. The end of the conversation. We were done… so done. But I really didn't blame him. I was sure being in love with someone whose fate had already been decided was hard. Falling in love with someone who was going to die… I understood what he was doing completely… cutting himself off before we were in too deep.

And the fact that he didn't try to deny it anymore after that—that he didn't try to get the conversation going again—just further proved how serious he was about not loving me. He had never been pretending not to love me. He was trying to fall out of love.

We reached the next town faster than I had expected, but I was grateful. I was feeling even sicker than I had when we started walking that morning, but most of it was psychological, I was sure. Still, it wasn't like I could take a break and rest. We had to ask people if they had seen Asa—and splitting up seemed like a great idea at this point.

"Not if you're not feeling well," Silver just replied when I suggested the idea, looking completely indifferent despite my hoping he'd be vehemently against the idea of splitting up.

So, we walked through the town together, asking the random people on the streets if they had seen a teenage boy, about this tall, black hair, rude, probably just running through… the list went on and on but no luck. No one seemed to have seen him. Of course, I would pick the wrong path. Obviously this was the road more traveled.

"Excuse me, Miss Kotone?"

I turned around, surprised that someone knew my name before I remembered that I had one of the most known faces in Johto, sick or not—and then I also remembered that the woman calling my name couldn't have seen my face since I was facing the wrong way. But all the same, she did know who I was—maybe she knew who I was looking for, too.

It was an older woman, probably in her sixties or seventies at least, who had recognized me. This surprised me; I was usually approached by younger people and reporters, and it was rare to be approached by an elder. Even Silver seemed surprised by the woman, whose piercing blue eyes searched both of us as we faced her. I honestly didn't know whether to be afraid or not.

But then the old woman just smiled at us, curtseying so politely that I felt obligated to do the same. When she looked back up at me, her blue eyes flashed.

"Miss Kotone, are you searching for a young man named Asa? I'm his grandmother."

Author's Note: What? Asa has a grandmother? But of course!

We're getting down to the end, here, folks! I have finalized everything: 17 chapters. That's all. Not too much left of this fanfiction.

I would like to thank everyone now for following me through this whole thing. You all helped me get to this point. (I would just like to note that this is the fastest I have EVER finished a fanfiction of this length—hey, but I don't want to speak too soon!) Thank you! :D

Ha, and I threw in a Robert Frost allusion!

Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon.