Chapter 14: Recovery

Pain.

The first thing that came back was the pain.

A sharp pain that swelled with every breath I took then subsided to a dull ache when I exhaled.

I lowered my hand to my side, gently prodding the bruised flesh and feeling for the fracture that Gary left in my rib. The sudden pain scolded me for the applied pressure and I let my hand fall down onto the sheets.

Sheets?

I looked around. I wasn't on the Anne anymore; the room I was in now was definitely in a Pokémon Center. I looked out of the large windows and figured I was still in Vermillion City. The tall buildings and harbor were unmistakable, even in the late hours of the night. The bed beneath me was stark white and very soft.

"Wakey wakey, Snorlax". It was Caroline's voice, and nothing could've made the pain go away quite as effectively as her voice did just then. She was sitting at the foot of the bed, evidently just waking up herself. I didn't see her at first because, lying horizontally, my feet were covering the seat where she was sleeping.

I lifted my head from the pillow and parted my feet in order to look at her. Her hair had fallen flat and frizzy out of its usual wave, and her skin had lost its typical glow. There were dark circles under her reddened eyes, which were framed by heavy lids. She must not have slept at all since the Anne…I wasn't used to seeing her look so lifeless, and she must've noticed my gaze.

"No, don't look at me." She covered her face with her hands. Her voice sounded tired too. "I look awful."

"You look ten times better than I do, I bet." My voice was hoarse and I wondered how long it's been since I last used it, which prompted my next question. "How long have I been out?"

"Almost two days. You woke up a couple times already, slipping in and out of consciousness." She stood from the chair and pulled it over to the side of the bed, so we didn't have to talk through between my feet.

"So what did I miss?" She shook her head, demonstrating rather clearly that we weren't going to talk about it yet. "No no, eat first, talk later" she said, pulling a tray of food off the stand by the bed which I had somehow overlooked until just now. I didn't realize how hungry I am. The meal consisted of a slab of meat, some bread, and various berries presumably from around the nearby routes. It was cold, but I was grateful that there was any food at all.

"Here, eat with me, and then you can tell me what happened while I was out." She agreed, and we finished off the modest meal within minutes in almost complete silence. When the last bite was gone, Caroline felt apprehensive about where to start. I sat up a little straighter in the bed and waited for her to gather her bearings.

"Well…what exactly do you want to know?" I could tell there was something that she wanted to avoid mentioning, but I didn't want to press it. I needed a general idea first before collecting details.

"Everything. What happened to Gary? What happened to us after we got off the Anne? Where were you the whole time on board? Didn't you hear the captain inviting us to eat with him?"

"Me?" She seemed confused as to why I was asking about her whereabouts, but it was important to me. I was worried about her.

"I went to the dining hall first, and I got myself into a few battles, which weren't really bad. When the captain invited us, I was on the other side of the ship, and I was on my way over when…you know…" Her voice trailed away, nervously avoiding mention of the incident that put me in my current condition. I noticed her eyes fall to the ugly welt on my side, and I suddenly felt self-conscious of how the injury made me look.

"Did you see him? Gary, when he left?"

She shook her head. "No, he must've gone a different direction. I saw him later, on TV when they…" but she stopped midsentence. She had just mentioned what it was she was trying to avoid earlier.

"It was on TV!" I couldn't believe it. How? There was no one there with a camera!

Caroline suddenly looked sad again. "Not all of it!" She tried to rectify the situation, as if it was her fault somehow.

"But the worst of it, right?" I could feel the lump in my throat rising as I remembered the vicious struggle that unfolded between the two Raticate, and how both paid the ultimate price for it. Remy is gone.

And it's my fault. I closed my eyes to hold in the burning sensation forming behind them. I failed Remy as a trainer, I used him far too often for vengeance. When that Spearow killed Icarus, it was Remy who exacted my revenge, and he would've again when I met Gary in Cerulean if he hadn't run way. It was my fault Remy became so recklessly vicious. I failed him.

I felt the reassuring weight of Caroline's hand on my shoulder, and then, she hugged me. It was the first time I felt what it was like to be held by her, and by the slight trembling in her grip, I felt that she was resisting her sobs, just like me. Her body felt soft and warm and as I returned her hug, my head settled on her shoulder where, despite its frazzled appearance, the smell of her hair offered me comfort. Once again, I'd been reminded in the worst way possible what the stakes of my journey were, and the tender aching flesh at my side served to add my own mortality to the gamble.

As we waited for the sun to rise, Caroline told to me the important events after the battle with Gary, such as how she was the first to find me in my crumpled state on her way to the captain's quarters, and how an emergency medical team arrived minutes later in response to her calls. She had been fighting off reporters who were desperately trying to get to me in my bed for the last two days, minimizing what they would be able to convey about me. Remy's body had been given to the Pokémon Center just as Icarus had been before him, and I wondered if Gary would do the same with his fallen team member…and I still couldn't process the immense guilt and shame that his last words to me kept fresh in my head.

As for what was broadcast? Well, it wasn't good. Caroline (who continued to insist that I call her Leaf, as the reporters were really only one wall away from us) tried to give me some direct quotes of what was said. "Red seems to have brought some emotional baggage with him on his journey as well" she paraphrased, unable to remember the exact wording. "His old childhood drama has followed him to the S.S. Anne today, where he had an exciting showdown with a rival of his, who has given himself the moniker Blue, in order to contrast his opponent." Leaf ended her recitation there. That's all I needed to hear anyway.

"So my image is ruined, huh?" Not that I particularly cared. I realized I didn't need the support of the populace to succeed. To my surprise, she shook her head.

"Not at all, actually. It was really polarizing, but a lot of people understand that what happened was a freak accident, and they still subscribe to you. But Mike?" she was about to ask the question that had been pressing on her mind since she found me with a fractured rib: "What happened? You know…after?"

I knew she would ask sooner or later. I'd been wondering myself since I woke up.

"It's really weird, but…apparently, Gary isn't the bad guy." I could see the confusion distort her face, raising her eyebrows and dropping her jaw. "He said that we were friends, before. That everything I remembered about him was wrong." I couldn't quite understand why it was, but I knew it was true. Whenever I closed my eyes, I would be greeted with rapid flashes of my childhood where Gary and I would play and laugh and talk about becoming powerful trainers together. The good news was, part of my amnesia had been defeated. The bad news was, something else had caused me to view my friend as an antagonist.

"Mike, that…that doesn't make any sense."

I was afraid of that.

"I mean, you can't remember anything from before your journey started, but your memories since then have been altered? How is that even possible?"

I ignored her question, because it had brought up a very alarming thought. What if Gary isn't the only person I remember incorrectly.

I threw the blankets off my legs and swung them over the side and into my shoes in one swift motion. The pain in my side didn't stifle me, and Caroline jumped from the suddenness of my movement. "Where are you going? You're hurt, you need to rest!" She frantically tried to pull me back onto the bed but I shook her off.

"I need to get to the PC and call Oak. I need to know which things I remember that actually happened, and which are made up." I didn't like sounding so fierce with her, but the combination of my pain and confusion were agitating me. How can I be calm when I have no idea what's real in my own head?

With one hand covering the injury beneath my bruise, I stumbled out of the room towards the lobby. My gait was made awkward by the fracture, but it also served to make me more determined as I approached the PC. I could hear Caroline getting up to follow me, but I didn't slow down.

The lobby was dark and completely empty, so I continued undeterred toward the computer in the corner, booting it up with a quick strike to the power button. In seconds, the phone in Professor Oak's lab was ringing. The squeaking of Caroline's sneakers on the smooth floor grew louder as she entered the room shortly after me, making her way over to join me in front of the glowing monitor.

"You're calling his lab? Do you really think he'll be there so late at night?" She had a point.

Just as I was about to end the call and try again at his home, voices began to grow in the hall.

"The door is open. Maybe we can sneak over and listen in?"

"Hey, there's nobody in here! Red is awake, everyone!"

There were several voices, and twice as many feet now pounding down the hall towards us.

"Ah shit, it's them." A click later, Tank was on the floor between us but he looked…different, somehow. Most noticeably was a change in his size, a much larger and bushier tail, and two pointed ears, almost like wings, on the sides of his head.

"Tank evolved!" I felt stupid for pointing out the obvious in such a pressuring situation, and Caroline smacked her forehead at my outburst.

"I'm sorry, I forgot to mention it. It didn't seem so important at the time but…yeah, Tank is a Wartortle now!" Tank raised a paw to the back of his head and looked down at the floor modestly denying his obvious transformation.

"That's awesome! Good job, buddy." The Wartortle gave a big goofy grin before following his trainer back the way she came to stop the now-awake reporters from getting to me before I had a chance to speak to the professor. I was glad that evolving and become more powerful didn't change a Pokémon's personality; Tank was still the same clumsy lovable goofball he was as a Squirtle.

"Stop!" I heard her yell, and the stampede ceased almost immediately. I even heard a grumble of "Oh jeez, not her again".

"Yeah it's me" she continued. I had to admit, her dedication to 'protecting' me was immensely appreciated. "All of you are going to wait patiently for Red to finish up his personal phone call or nobody is getting a story. Anyone who has a problem with that better go get a towel." Tank gave a conclusive grunt to punctuate her statement.

Damn. She's good.

"Hello?" My head whipped around back to the monitor, and I saw Professor Oak, wide awake and in his starched lab coat. I guess he was still in the lab after all…

"Professor! Why are you at the lab so late? I was just about to call you at home."

Oak smiled. "Good to hear from you, Red! I was just getting started on a new research project. I can't sleep if I have a good idea rattling in this old head." He knocked his knuckles lightly on his balding scalp for emphasis. "What can I do for you?"

His warm reception to my call must've meant he didn't know about what happened between me and Gary on the S.S. Anne. Which made me curious…

"I have a few urgent questions, actually. First, has Gary called you at all since we left?" I don't know why I asked the least important question first. Maybe because I didn't want to scare off the professor with my story whose facts bordered on impossible.

Oak's smile flickered a little before he let it fall completely. "No, no he hasn't…That's alright, I'm not worried. Gary's a tough cookie, I'm sure he's perfectly fine right now. You of all people should know he's not really one to be concerned about. Although I would really appreciate it if he called once in a while…" There was just a small hint of sadness in his voice, and I mentally prepared myself for what I was about to tell him.

I took a deep breath, then swallowed. "Professor, did something happen to me the day before I got my first Pokémon from you?"

There was silence. A confused silence. "You mean you don't remember?"

Not a thing.

The professor shook his head to himself, as if explaining to me exactly what had happened was painful. "You had a fit. Something happened, I don't know what, and you fell unconscious in your room. Your mother found you flat on your back, by your bed, and she called me to take a look at you. There was absolutely no external damage, but you were completely unresponsive. We didn't even want to lift you off the ground in case it aggravated your condition. I stored a potion for you in the computer so you could use it when you woke up; there was an urgent news conference I had to attend. Something about a lab accident in…I hardly even remember, it wasn't important. The morning you woke up, your mother was still in shock, and you came out of your house seemingly dazed and confused. When you tried to go into the tall grass on your own, I pulled you back, and that's when you unwittingly revealed to me that you had amnesia. You didn't know who I was or where you were and I wish I knew what had happened to you."

Oak had reached the part of the story that I was beginning to remember on my own. Everything was coming together. My mom's solitary position at the dinner table, the potion in the PC, my encounter with the professor, everything.

"What about my bag? It was on the staircase when I woke up, with my ID on it and everything." By this point, I needed every detail. I needed to know exactly what happened and when and why.

"We put that there for you. You were supposed to start your journey as soon as you woke up, providing you were feeling healthy of course. I chose to keep you around a week or so to refresh you on everything you had forgotten…and my goodness, did you forget." The professor gave a deep sigh. "It was like you were a whole new person."

"What about Gary? What happened when we were in your office that morning?"

"Nothing particularly unusual. You came in, he stood up to greet you, ask you how you were feeling. You seemed to reject his question, which he understood to mean that you needed some space and weren't quite feeling yourself. After all, that's what friends do, right? They're there for you when you need them to be, and back up a little when you don't. Gary tried to be as calm as possible about it, but he was very worried about you. Why are you asking me all this anyway?" The confusion was still detectable in the professor's voice, and this time it was my turn to explain.

I told him everything. How I felt when I woke up, how all of the events he had just narrated to me were perceived and stored in my head, and most importantly, how from the very start, I thought that Gary was being an ass, when it was really me. Oak was troubled by the revelation.

"Professor, how do I know what's real at all anymore? How do I know that my memories of you are correct? How can I try to comprehend anything if I don't know that it isn't all in my head?" The crisis was becoming critical for me and I struggled to retain my composure in front of the monitor.

"Well, Mike, what did I have for breakfast this morning?"

The question seemed stupid.

"How am I supposed to know that? What does that even have to do with anything?" I was beginning to get frustrated with the professor's lack of understanding how important this was to me.

"You aren't supposed to know that, because it happened to me." Oak indicated to himself with his thumb. "If this was all in your head, then no one else would have experiences you wouldn't know about. If you were imagining this, you would know what you were imagining. If I can know something you don't that happened to me, doesn't that prove that I'm real?"

I wasn't in the mood for a philosophical debate, but Oak had a point, and it settled me down just enough to continue our conversation.

"Professor, I think I attacked Gary. I ran into him in Cerulean City and we had a battle and I thought it was him who attacked me but it seems now that maybe I was the one who attacked him, and then I ran into him again a couple days ago on the S.S. Anne and we had another battle and everybody saw it and…" I couldn't stop myself. Everything was coming out in one streaming sentence and I couldn't contain it. "…and our Raticates killed each other. He was crushed and he kicked me here" I indicated to my fractured rib "but I deserved it. I deserve the worst."

As perturbed as Oak was feeling right now, he tried not to show it. "You didn't know what you were doing, let alone what you were seeing. You can't be blamed for how things around you have been altered. I just hope that you can explain this…incident to him when you meet again. He's your best friend, you should try to keep it that way." There was strain in his voice as he tried to keep calm, and I realized he was right. Whatever bizarre circumstances had occurred before, they needed to be rectified. Next time Gary and I meet, I'm setting things straight.

"Professor, I just have one more question. How do you know that I'm not still being…you know, affected?"

It had been a while in our conversation since Oak smiled, but it happened again, as he said "I can tell because you're talking about Gary as if you had known him for more than just a few weeks. Good luck, Red." He gave a curt nod, then the call ended.

Several hours later, I was back in the bed where I woke up. Leaf had managed to fend off the reporters long enough for me to finish my conversation with the professor, but then they descended upon me like a swarm of Beedrill, each asking their own questions and trying to get my face into the shots of their camera. I was able to get away by answering the questions minimally and without interest, as most of them were about things I didn't want to comment on anyway, mostly my run-in with Gary on the Anne. One reporter, however, asked a question that reminded me of everything from before then.

"Mr. Red, when will you be commencing your challenge on Lt. Surge, the Vermillion Gym Leader?"

That's right I thought. The Gym Challenge.

"Tomorrow" I said. There was an impressed 'ooh' from the crowd, and most of the questions subsided there.

Now I was lying in my recovery bed, with Leaf lying next to me, fast asleep, evidently exhausted from all the weight she had to pull while I was unconscious. Her hair covered the pillow entirely, spilling over onto the bed itself, and her chest slowly swelled and depressed with every breath. To my surprise, I had my arm around her sleeping form. I tried to convince myself that it was a protective gesture, but I knew it wasn't. It was an affectionate one, and it was really the only one that felt right anymore…

I lay awake, my racing thoughts preventing me from sleep, mulling over the recent conversation with Oak to the gym challenge I set for myself the following morning. I'm an idiot. I should've waited until I recovered until going up against Surge. I gave a sigh. Too late now. I just hope I'm ready.

As I imagined what the battle would look like, I had to wonder where my interest and aptitude for Pokémon started in the first place. While I was definitely no longer suffering from my amnesia, there were things my memory still needed to be jogged with. Like Mom. I don't remember very much about what my life with her was like.

I decided I needed to make another call.

Gently, I removed my arm from around Leaf's shoulders and rose from the bed. With a slower pace, I was able to walk back to the PC in the lobby with a more regular stride. While it was still dark and empty, the lobby seemed more desolate without the excitement of Leaf, Tank and the reporters milling around. The PC was still booted up from my last call, so with the press of a few buttons, the computer sent another call, this time to my mother. It took several rings, but she finally answered.

"Hello? Who is this?" Her voice was groggy and slow, with lots of slurred words.

Oh no, I woke her up.

"Sorry!" I immediately felt embarrassed for calling at such a rude time, but I was still glad that she picked up.

"Honey, is that you? It's so good to hear you! How is everything?" Her voice brightened at the sound of mine, but there were still traces of her recently disturbed sleep.

How is everything. I didn't want to get into it now. Reliving the conversation with Oak didn't seem appealing to me at the moment. Instead I just went straight for my own question.

"Mom, do you think you could tell me about my…childhood?" The question sounded rather strange, I had to admit.

There was a brief pause followed by "Oh, is this about your amnesia, honey? How're you feeling?"

"I'm feeling fine" I said, ignoring the bruise on my side that suggested otherwise. "I just don't remember very much from when I was younger"

"I can tell you anything you want me to" she sounded rather excited to be taking the trip down memory lane with me, but it seems she didn't know where to start. "Um…is there anything…specific?"

I thought for a moment, and remembered the picture of the main in the suit from the cabinet in the brief time I remember being in my own house. "How about Dad?"

The prompt seemed to surprise her. "Oh! Well…he was around a lot when you were younger. He saw a lot of potential in you to be a trainer and he taught you the things you would need to know before going out on your own. He was a really great man, very smart and very fun. He left us with enough money so that I could take care of you after he left, and…"

As she spoke, I closed my eyes and allowed the flashes of memory to come back to me.

Dad and Oak talking about how good of a trainer I'll be while I was stumbling around the living room, trying to master the art of walking.

Helping Mom in the kitchen when I was just big enough for my nose to stick out over the sink, when Dad came home from work to greet both of us with a smile.

Dad showing me some basics about Pokémon, demonstrating with one of his own, a four-legged purple spiked creature which I repeatedly tried to pet. "Careful son" he'd say, grabbing my hand. "Nidorino is pretty poisonous. If you want to pet him, do it on his belly, don't touch his points."

Dad and I fishing on the docks at the south of town, only ever catching wildly flailing Magikarp which we would throw back.

Mom and I sitting at the dinner table, alone, after Dad unexpectedly left. She hugged me and said "I promise I won't ever leave you like he did"

The years of resentment for the father who abandoned me.

The assured safety of my mother, always around whenever I needed her.

Especially now.

I had stopped listening to her anecdotes, which had deviated rather far from my father and more about stupid things Gary and I did that got us into trouble, but I was still reveling in all my reacquired memories, and I felt a single tear building up at the corner of my eye. With a blink, I released it and let it fall to the floor before I interrupted my mom's story.

"Thank you, Mom. For everything."

She stopped and I saw her smile. "You're welcome, honey. I love you very much and don't you ever forget it."

This time it was her tear that I saw leave her eye, and I responded. "I love you too, Mom."

I am very sorry that I haven't been updating recently. I needed to take some time to focus on my school work/exams and on my new job. But now that I just finished my exams, I have more time to write, so I'll be updating regularly from here on out. Thanks for your patience, everyone!

Also, I finished the actual Nuzlocke on my game (and yes, it was successful) so I have a very good idea of the direction this story will be taking now. I hope you guys like the chapter. It's not my best, but it was a little rushed to get it up here.

Thanks again for your patience, and keep reading! Any feedback is greatly appreciated.