Wow. What is this? I have returned. With a new penname and everything. And let me explain my horribleness to you all. XD Originally I was just planning to never update this fic again. I had lost all inspiration and had basically ran into a huge writer's block. I couldn't churn anything out. So I took a break. I feel bad for not announcing a hiatus or anything, but I just couldn't do it. Dx Anyway, I'm back now, hopefully better than ever. If any of you are still interested in this fic and forgive me for being the horrible person I am, AWESOME. If not, hopefully I get some new readers. XD If I ever decide to go into hiatus again, I PROMISE to tell you wonderful people. –bows-

Anyway, I'll just be doing my thing, at my own pace. Reviews are mucho appreciated, as always. I'm always looking to improve my writing.

-Bubblebeam (formerly known as Pidgebot)

You can still call me Pidge or Pi or Pi-chan or whatever floats your boat. XD

If you can't remember what happened the last chapter, here's a recap: Dawn, Lucas and Taze met Cheryl in Eterna forest, and they ran into a man named Reynolds who was looking for something in the forest. Lucas caught a Budew, and the section ended when Dawn found a 'plate' in the ground and Gardenia approached the four of them.

Chapter Twenty-One: Reaching for a Dream

The three teens shrunk back as the woman stepped forward a few feet. Dawn stashed the rocky plate behind her back, smiling toothily.

Lucas, however, was speechless. Well, almost. "It's…GARDENIA! CanIhaveyourautogra—OWWW!!"

Dawn had hit him over the head before he got to finish his sentence. Gardenia sweatdropped, waving a hand.

"Heh. It's alright, I get that all the time. So…." She narrowed her eyes at Lucas and Dawn's necks, then looked over at Taze, who was speculating from afar. "I see you've met Maylene."

Taze perked up at the sound of her name. Maylene. He'd almost forgotten about her. But how could he? She was the speck of hope in his twisted situation…maybe he'd call her that night. Even if she was too busy to answer, he'd still be able to hear her voice on the answering machine…

Lucas finally stood up. "Oh. The scarves. Well, yeah, Maylene gave them to us."

"Yeah, she's been coercing the entire Sinnoh council into wearing them. I didn't want one though; they're soft as hell and Aaron has a fetish for fluffy things. Obviously, I wouldn't want to be wearing one with him running around. And then there's Flint, who used his as toilet paper in the woods—"

"How….lovely." Dawn interrupted, coughing discreetly as she slid the green plate into her bag when Gardenia wasn't looking.

"It sounds like something Dawn would do," came a bitter voice from behind them. Taze was standing there, his hands on his hips. He looked over at Gardenia, then back at Dawn, who was fuming.

"WHAT?! Yeah, even though I'd really love to strangle that Maylene girl, and this scarf is a hideous shade of pink, I would never WIPE MY ASS WITH IT! Taze Kidane, you take that BACK!!

"No way."

"Mm. Palmer's son." Gardenia's eyes flashed at Taze, and she smirked.

Taze blinked. Why did his father have to be a well-known trainer? It just made things harder for him, being compared to him and whatnot. He barely even knew his father; being associated with him so much sort of bothered him. "Yeah. So what?"

"So…you must have some sort of talent hidden away. Despite your scrawniness…" Gardenia trailed off, smiling. "I bet you could put up a pretty good fight."

"ACT-ually," Dawn announced, holding up a finger, "it's ME that can put on a kickass pokemon battle." Her hand hovered at her waist, where her two pokeballs were. "Shall we?"

Gardenia smirked. "Not quite yet, dear. I do appreciate your eagerness, though. It's….cute. But next time don't be so confident. You'll fall flat on your face."

"Cute?" She grimaced. "I am the very OPPOSITE of cute, thank you very much." Dawn sniffed indignantly, crossing her arms across her chest.

Gardenia rolled her eyes. "So. We obviously skipped the formal introductions. You are…?"

"Lucas Ekeio."

"And I'm Dawn Akine. And that's Taylor 'Taze' Damion Kidane." She pointed over to Taze, who flushed, looking at her angrily.

"Hey, I can say my own name! I don't need you doing everything for me. Jeez…"

"Oh, boo-hoo. Let's have a cow, shall we?"

"Your face is a cow."

Dawn and Taze then started to bicker quietly, while Gardenia and Lucas stood there, watching uncomfortably.

Gardenia raised an eyebrow, putting on a disgruntled face. "….charmed. And who is that…?" She pointed over to Cheryl, who was standing under a tree, looking straight up.

"Oh. That's Cheryl," Lucas said simply.

"Right then. Anywho, I couldn't help but wonder what you were doing when I came up. I heard shouting and it sounded like there was some sort of struggle…"

"Struggle? No ma'am, no struggle here." Lucas stood up straight, smiling nervously.

Gardenia said, "I'm sure. Anyway, my noble fanboy, could you possibly tell your friends to stop verbally abusing each other? It's sort of starting to piss me off."

Lucas shrugged, and managed to, several minutes later, tear Dawn away from Taze and sit her down on a mossy rock a good ten yards away from him. Cheryl had stumbled back their way by then, and was plucking the petals off of a flower.

"There was a building over there," she said almost robotically. "A mansion, more like it. It was old and abandoned. …and freaky."

Dawn blinked. "Cheryl, what's wrong with you? Don't tell me your sugar high has run out! Or is this just a mood swing?"

"It might be time for a nap. Yeah…nap…" Cheryl picked the last petal off of the flower, then let it fall out of her hands before closing her eyes. Her head then went limp and she began to snore quietly.

"She never fails to amaze me." Lucas took off his red hat and ran a hand through his hair. Taze snorted in agreement while Gardenia started walking toward the direction Cheryl had been.

"Hey, where are you going?" Lucas stepped over a mossy log as he called out to the Gym Leader.

"The mansion."

"What's over there that's so important?"

Gardenia stopped in her tracks and looked behind her shoulder at the boy, smirking. "Why don't you come along and you'll see?"

And she continued on her way while Lucas, Dawn and Taze, not to mention a sleepy Cheryl, followed closely.

Dawn kept looking at Taze from the corner of her eye, trying to meet his gaze. She couldn't help but feel a bit taken aback from his attitude toward her that day. What was his deal? She didn't know this person…this person he was acting like. It was so foreign, so different from the boy she had grown up with. He had always been quiet but kind, not quiet and waiting to make some snarky remark. He'd normally never say such discourteous things to her.

Perhaps this journey was changing him. Not just him, but her, too. And Lucas as well. Already, Dawn had noticed a slight change in herself despite only being on her journey for a month. Such a short amount of time, and they'd already seen and accomplished so much.

Maybe it was just a phase. Maybe the old Taze would break out of this mask he was wearing. Maybe it just needed some time.

"And that, class, is why Magikarp is the single most useless pokemon in the history of the earth. Any questions? No? Well, get in your groups and start working on your projects.."

Dawn stared at the chalkboard as she sat hunched in her desk, black eyeliner caked around her dark blue eyes. Her hair was choppy, only about five inches in length, tied up in short little pigtails at the back of her head.

Twelve-year-old Dawn looked down at the grimy desk she was sitting in and rubbed a few pencil scribbles off the top of it.

She stared at her navy skirt and her tights, her dress shoes and her white blouse, and realized how much she hated it. All of it. That stupid uniform, that stupid school, and all of the stupid people that were in it.

"Hey… Dawn? Right? You're in our group."

A pair of blondes sat down in desks next to Dawn, bringing out some colored pencils and a poster board.

"So. For the project, I was like, thinking of doing something about…"

Dawn zoned them out as she picked at her fingers until they bled dry. Until they were raw and hurt so bad that she couldn't move them. And then she moved onto her lip, biting all of the dry skin off until she could taste the iron in her mouth, suck the warm red liquid until it pricked her tongue.

The blondes looked up at Dawn, who was staring at the desk again.

She hadn't heard a word they'd been saying.

"Dawn? Um… we're talking to you."

She shook her head, looking up. "Oh. Sorry."

One of the blondes, the shorter one with green eyes, snapped her fingers. "Hey, aren't you the one that used to beat up people?"

Dawn gave her a warning look, but the blonde smiled.

"I don't mean it in a mean way. I actually sort of respect how you stick up for yourself like that." She looked over at her other friend, the short one with brown eyes.

"We could really use someone like you in our group. Right, Kait?"

Kait shrugged. "I guess so."

The green-eyed blonde turned to Dawn, smiling kindly. "So do you want to come over to my house after school today to work on the project? I have something really fun in mind…"

Dawn wanted to gag, but she agreed.

And that was a mistake.

The tall blonde, who Dawn had learned was called Krissy, had a huge house, even bigger than Dawn's. The girl was bubbly and actually seemed to like Dawn. The black haired girl timidly followed her and Kait around the house, saying tiny thank-yous when she was supposed to, and giggling politely when something 'funny' happened.

It was strange….being with these girls. Dawn had never exactly hung out with a lot of girly girls before, but for some reason, she was actually starting to like Krissy and Kait. It made her sick to her stomach to admit, but it was the truth.

Once they were finished with their project, Krissy drug Dawn and Kait into her large, warmly decorated bathroom and set her down on a plush red chair in front of a full-length mirror.

"Alrighty. We're going to give you a makeover, Dawn."

Dawn growled, staring at her reflection. She couldn't believe she was letting them do this, but if it would make her accepted… if it would allow her to get into Krissy and Kait's little clique of cutesy goody two shoes, she was willing to take the chances. It wasn't that she wanted to be like them, she just wanted them to like her. She wanted friends. Needed them. She needed people to talk to, to laugh about things with, to act like a normal kid with.

After all….she hadn't had real friends since Taze.

But by then he had stopped talking to her. After she treated him like crap and acted like an all around bitch to him for three years, he'd had enough.

And he had moved on.

Now Dawn was left with nobody. And sometimes she watched Taze out of the corner of her eye in classes as he talked to his running friends, laughing and overall having a good time.

And sometimes…they'd catch each other's glances, and Dawn would smile.

But Taze would quickly look away, as if he hadn't even seen.

"It's a shame you chopped all your hair off." Krissy sighed sadly as she ran her hands through Dawn's short hair. The black haired girl shivered as she felt Krissy's warm touch on her scalp.

"It only got in the way." Her voice was cold, void.

"Hm. Pity. Okay, Kait, get me the eye makeup remover."

Krissy dabbed at Dawn's eyes, washing all of the crusted, almost permanent layer of eyeliner off of her eyes. It was like Dawn was being born again, cracking out of a shell and seeing herself in a new light. She could almost feel a heavy weight being lifted from her scabbed heart.

She opened her eyes, staring at her reflection. She was plain.

But Krissy and Kait thought otherwise.

"Ooh, look at how pretty your eyes are! Now we'll add a bit of mascara…"

Krissy cooed over Dawn the entire time. When they were finished, Dawn resembled a demented Kewpie doll. Krissy had clipped her choppy hair up with a few turquoise clips and had given Dawn a spare pair of tights to replace her ripped ones.

"You look great. That wasn't so bad, was it?" Krissy grinned in Dawn's face, patting her on the shoulders.

Kait smiled vaguely. "Eat lunch with us tomorrow," she said, and walked out of the bathroom.

Dawn stood in front of the mirror for a long time when she got back home, staring at herself.

This wasn't her.

The next day at lunch, Dawn seated herself next to Krissy and Kait at their lunch table, which was overflowing with their bubbly friends.

"This is Dawn." Krissy motioned to her, smiling. "I'm sure you all know her."

The girls nodded quietly, some giving her a nervous half grin before going back to munching on their sandwiches.

Dawn listened in on the blondes' conversation, for the most part keeping to herself. She wanted to be accepted by them, and now she was finally getting the chance. Part of her wanted to contribute to the conversation, but she didn't really know what to say.

Until they got into the subject of the cross-country team, that is. At Twingem Middle School, they didn't have a good football team, and all of the soccer players were jerks, so they paid attention to the runners. Most of the good-looking guys joined cross-country, so it was the 'cool' sport to be involved with.

"When they run, like…their hair is so gorgeous!!" One of the girls said dreamily, leaning backwards and nearly falling out of her chair.

Dawn was going to puke at this rate. She thought of a reason to leave the table before they started talking about Taze, who was apparently the star runner of the team. Not like she kept up with that sort of stuff.

"I forgot a spoon." She stood up and made her way over to the lunch line, where the eating utensils were.

Not wanting to make eye contact with anyone, she kept her head down as she walked. Her new look was making her unsure of herself, even though she knew she should have been feeling more confident.

Dawn reached for a spoon but another hand got in her way. She tried to snake around it, but it went the other way. She looked up at the hand's owner and was surprised to see it belonged to Taze. He was looking down at her with interest; she could even see his lips forming a slight smile. Dawn quickly looked back at the spoons and snatched one, before he could say something to her. She spun around, but felt his hand touch her shoulder before she could flee.

"Dawn…"

She turned around to face him, trying very hard to keep a straight face and look unfazed. "Hi."

"I just wanted to say…uh, you look nice today."

Dawn bit her lip as she looked at him. His electric yellow hair was in need of a trim, but his bangs were framing his eyes in a kind of cute way. He had a few faint freckles on his cheeks, like usual. Usual Taze.

She wasn't going to respond at first, but she managed to spit out a thanks. Taze smiled at her as she walked quickly back to her lunch table and sat down again, trying not to acknowledge the ten pairs of eyes looking at her.

"You look pissed," Krissy said.

"Yeah, you should be happy as hell," another girl said, looking back over at Taze who was going back to his lunch table of runners.

"Whoa…wait, you know him?" a girl with green hair asked, eyes wide.

Dawn shrugged. "Kind of."

Kait narrowed her eyes at Dawn. "You friends with him?"

"Not really. Not anymore, at least." Dawn's voice was quiet; she was praying they'd change the subject, but that didn't seem likely now.

"What did he say to you? What did he say to you?" a few girls chorused in high-pitched voices, looking at Dawn eagerly.

She frowned, shrugging. "He just said…I looked nice, I guess."

Krissy smirked. "What'd I tell you, our makeovers do wonders! So, who else thinks that this new couple is superduper cute?!" She scanned the faces of the girls, who were nodding and laughing in agreement.

Dawn's face burned. "Shut up. It's not like that. He hasn't talked to me in…a really long time." Her voice sounded pained, aged. Krissy looked taken aback.

Kait smirked. "He only came up to you and talked to you because you look nice? That's… sort of sad."

Dawn scowled over at her, her dark blue eyes hard and dangerous.

A couple of the girls agreed, giggling uncontrollably. Dawn wanted to take Kait's lunch tray and throw it into her face, but that would have been ridiculous.

This is your chance. Don't blow it.

Dawn took a deep breath, trying to ignore what Kait had said, but she didn't stop with her mocking words.

"I mean, really. How many times have you been suspended? At least like, four times in the past two years, right? What's with you, anyway? And then -- and then, your 'friend' says hello because of what we did for you?!"

Kait laughed loudly, looking at the rest of the silent lunch crew, as if waiting for them to join her barrage of giggles. A couple of them gave a weak laugh.

"Shut up." Dawn pinched her sandwich, and the bread flattened beneath her fingers.

"Shut up? Shouldn't you be beating me up about now? You know…I think I know why you don't have any friends. Your personality itself must suck."

Dawn drew herself up abruptly as she clutched her carton of chocolate milk. It was so hard….so hard to hold back every ounce of anger that wanted to rip Kait apart at that moment. Her heart felt like it was dying…being ripped apart.

"Which do you prefer, hand or milk?" Dawn looked down at Kait sadistically, her lips twisting into a demented smile.

"…huh?" Kait looked up at her confusedly, right when a splash of chocolate milk made contact with her face. She gasped, spluttering and wiping her eyes. The brown liquid dribbled down her white blouse. The girls at the lunch table gasped, and the rest of the cafeteria had gone quiet and was staring at the scene. But by then Dawn had already run away.

Dawn locked herself in a bathroom stall. She felt the need to cry…she wanted to, but she knew the tears would never come. They never came, even when she needed them the most. But then she remembered her promise to herself…

I can't cry anymore. Crying is a sign of weakness…I can't let petty shit like this make me upset. It won't even matter in the future. It won't matter…it doesn't matter now.

Not now, not ever.

She was weak when she cried. Yet, she also felt weak when she didn't cry. She felt weak when she was angry. Angry was all she ever was anymore. She was angry at her pathetic excuse for a father, her clueless mother, and even Taze.

The idea of a simple, happy life seemed so far away now. A fleeting dream, something she once had, but was too far away to reach now.

She only had three more months until graduation. Until she was free from this hell and able to go out and become a trainer. If she could just hold on that long…

She opened the stall and went out into the hallway.

A boy was walking by, one with short brown hair. He smiled at her nervously, apparently noticing her less-than-happy state.

"Is something wrong?"

"…no."

"Oh, okay. Well, uhh…bye, then. See you in Algebra?"

Dawn stared at him as he walked toward the cafeteria. She had never even seen him before in her life. But she would later learn this boy's name to be Lucas…

…and he was yet another person floating along in her fleeting river of dreams…hopes…that fleeting river called life.

Dawn knew nobody would always be there for her. But the moments, the times she crossed paths with others, would be the ones she would remember, hold onto with hope for the future.

And she decided to pursue that fleeting dream that night, when she knocked on Taze's door with a soccer ball in hand.

And their spark of distant but still remembered friendship – the memories, the moments -- lit the path toward that faraway hope.