Hello, everyone! I'm sorry I haven't answered your reviews, but I've been too busy. I'm starting finals tomorrow, so I'm extra-busy. I somehow managed to get this done and uploaded right now, just because I don't feel like studying Math any longer :P I want you to know that even when I don't answer them, I really really appreciate your reviews. I couldn't be more grateful, seriously! I want to thank all of you for your encouragement :D THANK YOU, GUYS! You make my days!

So here goes another chapter, and this didn't take me that long! This one goes to all of you who enjoy this. Ash is alive in this one! But the last one was written because I think that Pikachu IS a part of AAML, you know? So the relationship between him and Misty is important. I wanted to give it a shot :)

Disclaimer: I wish.

No

"How dare you!" her voice screeched. Red strands of hair fell out of the fancy French twist she had gotten just a few hours before "How dare you show up drunk here!"

She had been careful to close the entrance door behind her, so the people inside wouldn't notice the commotion between the two that was taking place on the front porch, with only the night sky and a few hidden nocturnal pokémon as witnesses.

"You know how much I hate it when people get drunk. Especially you!" she punched his forearm at the accentuated word, making the raven-haired stumble.

"I'm not drunk!" his slurred words proved him wrong, causing her to groan and throw a fit of more punches aimed at his chest, ruining her French twist only further. She felt his hands trying to restrain her from hitting him, which she resisted with her eyes shut close until she realized that even drunk he was much stronger than her.

"How could you do this?" she pulled a step away from him, but her right elbow remained in his hand's grip "How could you show up drunk at my engagement party! Do you know how embarrassing that was? Do you realize how horrible you just made me feel?! I barely know half the people in there! You ruined everything, Ash! I never would've expected it from –"

But her rambling was cut off when he suddenly pulled her by the elbow he had still been gripping and pushed his lips fiercely on her own. They were rough and strong, but for a few seconds she was tempted to give in to them, until she remembered the additional weight that she now carried on her left hand finger and the connotations that it actually represented.

"No!" she forced his mouth away from hers, pushing him by the chest. A tingle was left lingering on her lips, reminding her of what her supposed friend had just done, and she raised her fingers to it, as if somehow she would be able to feel it with them too.

"No, Ash" she repeated, looking at him straight in his dazed eyes.

"No? No?" he asked with a bitter chuckle "Is that all you have to say to me now, Misty? No?"

"You can't do this, okay? Not now!" her voice was considerably lower compared to the high-pitched screeches she had emitted when they first exited the house, but it remained sharp.

"No, no, no. You should've said no to him," he gestured with his heavy arm towards the house, where the people were enjoying the party oblivious to the argument going on just outside. The slow music and cheerful chattering drifted through the windows, reaching faintly to their own ears. For a moment they both stared at the door silently, as if they could stare at the events on the other side of it. Misty pressed her lips together and Ash added in a smaller voice "not me."

Her eyes stuck to the creaks of the wooden door, and she felt him walk away from her, down the steps and the pathway that led to the street. She turned around to find him walking slowly, awkwardly, almost reaching the picket fence that surrounded the whole front yard.

"Where are you going?" she shouted, but he barely shrugged as he reached the fence.

"I don't know" he said calmly, attempting to open the fence door but failing at doing so "somewhere, I guess."

She stared at him struggle to open it, clenching and unclenching her fists at her sides. His drunken state wouldn't allow him to fulfill a task that was usually quite easy, and so, taking advantage of the fact that he couldn't leave the house just yet, she took a deep breath of cold air before speaking.

"You know what?" she shouted from the topmost step "I could've said no to him. I could've said no to him and none of this would be happening. But you know why I didn't?" she made a small pause, even though she knew she wouldn't get any answers from him. He had stopped struggling with the fence, and he now stood as still as the alcohol allowed him, his hands supporting him on the white wooden boards. She knew he was listening "Because I was tired! I was tired of waiting for you to stop being such a thickheaded idiot! And I can't believe you come with all of this crap now! Now, Ash, on my engagement party!"

He turned around on his heels and faced her from across the front yard, leaning back on the fence he hadn't been able to open yet. She waited for him to give her some sort of response, anything, but he only stared back at her through slightly narrowed eyes, his lips pressed together, the ones that had been pushed into her own just a few moments before. She could still feel them tingling.

"You had no right to do this, okay? You had years and years to do it and you didn't!" she continued shouting, pointing an accusing finger at him while her eyes started to sting "I was always there and you never plucked up enough courage to do a damned thing about it! I'm sorry it took you so long to do something, and I'm even sorrier it had to take alcohol and the fact that I'm actually marrying someone else. But it's too late! You can't do this, I won't take it!" she stomped her stiletto on the floor just like a small child, the needle-like heel almost puncturing the wooden plank below her with a cracking sound.

His expression had barely changed since he had turned to face her again and she had started shouting; his eyes had only widened slightly, and his breathing seemed a bit heavier. The lack of response would've infuriated her in any other situation, but the anger seemed to drown out of her as it was replaced by something that felt almost, most possibly, like sorrow. The muscles all over her body loosened with it, and a sigh escaped her.

"You should leave" she said, and if the night hadn't been so quiet she was sure no one would've heard her. It wasn't sharp, or angry. It was muttered almost like an advice, or as the last favor he could do to her.

And he remained unresponsive, to which she only reacted by turning her back to him slowly and walking over to the entrance door, the one that would lead her back to the party, the people, the chatter and the good mood.

"Is that what you want?" hearing his voice at all startled her, making her body freeze on the spot, her hand already over the doorknob. "Do you want me to leave? Because if I leave, Misty, I'm not coming back. I'll be out of your life, and you'll be free to live with him, with no one to bother you, and it'll be only you and him and you'll barely know of me again." His words were unnaturally slurred, but they pierced her as sharply as if they had been alcohol-free, because she knew he meant them.

She looked down and turned back around, to find him standing straighter, not leaning on the closed fence anymore. She could make out his brown eyes staring at her even from the distance and under the dim lighting, his face always so familiar to her. In some way or another, she had seen that face through most of her life, always. In person, or through the vidphones. All the time.

"So, is that what you want?" he asked again after a few seconds of silence, with only the slow music drifting from inside "Is it?"

She shook her head, and what remained of the French twist was completely ruined at last.

"No"

Thanks for reading. Hope you liked!