Summary: Charlotte and Brandon's in between moments.

Pairing: Charlotte(OC)/Brandon(OC); slight Ash/Misty

Disclaimer: I do not own, nor am I affiliated in any way with the Pokémon franchise. This story is merely for entertainment.

A/N: I introduced the idea of a Charlotte spinoff chapter while I was writing this story. It's been labeled as complete for a good nine months now, but I finally got around to writing this, so enjoy!

PS: This whole series was inspired by Isabelle's Time for Drabbles Gossip Girl story, and for that I thank her.

From Their Eyes

It started with her third birthday party. All of the Ketchum's family and neighbors were joined together at the Gym to celebrate the great milestone. Charlotte was toddling around the pool, occasionally leaning over to splash the water, only to be dragged back by a frazzled Pikachu who had been put on babysit duty so that the parents could enjoy a little adult conversation.

She had just leaned over for another good splash and as Pikachu scampered over to save her from impending disaster, someone beat it to her. Unfortunately, instead of pulling her back from the treacherous pool, he gave a strong poke right to her spine.

The guests all heard a loud splash and turned around to find a missing birthday girl and a small boy with shaggy brown hair, clapping his hand giddily.

Charlotte, already a talented swimmer, burst through the surface of the water and began treading water, glaring needles at the Oak boy, sputtering as she tried to spit the pool water out of her mouth.

Her parents ran over to lift her out of the pool and she vowed from that day forward to hate the brunette boy with the blue eyes that pierced right through her.

"Why are you avoiding me?" Brandon asked.

Charlotte was sitting at a table on the outside lunch patio at her school. None of her friends had gotten there to join her yet, so it was just her. And then Brandon had walked up. "You annoy me," Charlotte replied coolly.

"Are you sure that it doesn't have anything to do with that little boyfriend of yours?" Brandon spat back.

"Yes."

That wasn't the entire truth. In all honesty, Brandon wasn't her favorite person; the way that he looked at her with such intent always made shivers go down her spine. That wasn't enough to make her pointedly avoid him, though. Joshua, who was also not the biggest fan of the looks that Brandon gave his girl, may have mentioned something about her staying away from him. Since it wasn't a grand sacrifice on her part, Charlotte had made an effort to steer clear of him.

Always able to read her extraordinarily well, Brandon frowned and asked, "Is that so?"

"Yes," Charlotte said again, standing firm.

Giving up for the moment, Brandon began to turn away, only pausing for a moment to say, "It won't always be that way," leaving Charlotte shivering at the ominous promise.

"Charlotte, watch out!"

He dove on top of her, pushing her to the ground as a swarm of angry Beedrill buzzed over their heads.

When the swarm passed a few moments later, Brandon rolled over, off of Charlotte and moved to help her up. Glaring, she swatted his hand away. "I didn't need your help," she grit out, however, a slight waver was evident in her voice.

Brandon glared right back at her. "Sure you didn't. Like that scream you gave out when you saw them wasn't any hint that you might."

"It wasn't."

Her words were meaningless, though, as she noticeably flinched when a stray Beedrill buzzed over their heads. Once it passed she let out a shaky sigh of relief, glancing briefly at Brandon who was arching his eyebrow at her. Again, he went to help her up, and this time she acquiesced, reaching up toward his hand with her shaking one as she let him lift her off the ground. She ducked her head shyly, giving him a very small smile.

"Thank you."

Charlotte and Joshua were walking hands intertwined out of the Gym that they had both just challenged and defeated. Charlotte was nothing if not a good Trainer and wiped the floor with the Gym Leader using only two Pokémon even while facing a Type disadvantage. She thought it was one for the record books. While she felt Joshua wasn't nearly as good as she was, he did have a certain finesse to his battles that she always admired, and also rather easily defeated the Leader.

As they walked outside, they were met by familiar brown hair and blue eyes.

"Brandon," Joshua nearly growled.

"What do you want?" Charlotte quickly asked before the two guys could pounce on each other. The two had always seen each other as rivals. Even back in their school days, the two were at the top of their class and always ended up facing off.

It certainly didn't help that they were both interested in the same girl.

"I assume that you both just beat Casey?" Brandon asked, pointedly ignoring Charlotte's question.

"Easily," Joshua replied, looking smug.

"Me too." Proving his point, Brandon opened his jacket and flashed the newly acquired Badge at the pair in front of him. "Wanna see who actually deserved it?"

"Should be easy enough," Joshua said, stepping forward. "One on one?"

It only took a few turns for Brandon's Skarmory to defeat Joshua's Graveler.

A dejected Joshua returned the Rock Type back to its 'Ball and grumbled as he walked back to Charlotte, "If I had gotten the chance to heal him it would have been…"

But Charlotte tuned him out. She sought out his hand to hold in comfort but couldn't keep back the grin that crept onto her face as she watched Brandon congratulate his Pokémon. He caught her looking at him and gave her a small, secret smile she had never seen before. Somehow she knew it was just for her.

She sat in the Pokémon Center, her body wracking with silent sobs. Joshua had left just a couple days ago, saying that he was going home for Thanksgiving with his family.

And he wasn't coming back.

Asshole.

He had claimed that it had nothing to do with her, but that he didn't feel that the battling scene was for him anymore, and he needed to try some other things in life, and being tied down to the same girl since he was prepubescent wasn't going to help that. They had been something of a couple for what felt like her whole life. Five years was a long time. She loved him and now she felt like someone had threw her to the ground was kicking her in the gut over and over again and it didn't ever feel like it was going to stop.

Abruptly she bristled and stopped crying, stiffening at the distinct feel of eyes on her. "You've been following me," Charlotte said without a glance behind her.

"Not following so much as keeping tabs," Brandon replied offhandedly as he hopped over the back of the couch to land smoothly next to her. "And in doing so, I happen to know that you are in desperate need of a new traveling partner."

Charlotte rolled her red eyes, weakly attempting to push Brandon away from her. "Oh, screw off. It just so happens that traveling alone is exactly what I need right now. This is the perfect opportunity for me to go into the mountains for some real training. Traveling with a boy was just holding me back."

"Okay."

Charlotte arched her eyebrow, glancing at the boy next to her. It was not like him at all to give up so easily. "That's it?"

"Yeah. It just happens that I was thinking the exact same thing. I actually came this way just to take advantage of the extreme conditions of the mountains. I didn't assume that you would be able to take that. But I guess I'll see you there."

He winked at her and slung his bag over his shoulder, leapt over the back of the couch again and walked through the automatic doors. Charlotte seethed, glaring at him for a moment before grabbing her bag and racing after him.

She would show him.

"Don't come any closer!"

Brandon attempted to push Charlotte away, but she just grabbed both his arms and held them firmly to keep him still. It was dark. They were at the bottom of a ridge and it was late in the day, so hardly any light reached them. She called on her Pikachu, requesting it to spark its cheeks a little to light the area. She gasped at what she saw. The skin on Brandon's whole right side was all torn and bloodied and his leg was twisted at a horribly unnatural angle.

"Oh my goodness," she breathed. "Brandon we have to get you home."

"No," Brandon said immediately, wrenching out of Charlotte's grip. "It's fine." He tried to stand up, but his right leg crumbled under his weight and he fell back to the ground.

"Brandon!" she cried. "Stop being an idiot. You just fell down a mountain. You're really hurt and we have to get you home."

He turned away from her, and she saw a number of scrapes on his face she hadn't noticed before. "I can't go home," he confessed.

Charlotte tilted her head in confusion. "Why?"

Brandon sighed, wincing as he did so. "My dad will be upset. He had to give up on his dreams of being a Trainer when his grandfather got sick and he had to become the next 'Professor Oak'. I think that he resents that I'm able to live out the dream he never could. And if he sees something like this, he won't want me to keep doing it."

Her heart went out to him. She touched his jaw lightly with her hand and tilted it so that she could look into his eyes. "Then come to my home. It's closer anyway."

He looked at her with such intensity it made her tremble. "Why are you being so nice to me?" he whispered.

Charlotte smiled. "We've never been friends, Brandon, but we've always been there for each other. You saved me from those Beedrill, now it's my turn."

He smiled back at her.

She ran.

He had finally kissed her and she was running away as fast as humanly possible.

They had been more or less traveling together for nearly a year now with not so much as holding hands in the thick fog of the mountains or the absolute darkness of the densest forests. Sure, they had occasional moments that seemed like they meant something more, but they had had clear lines drawn. It was safe. For once in their lives, they were friends.

And then he had to go and kiss her.

"Charlotte!" he cried out behind her. "Charlotte Ketchum!"

She whipped around, a few stray tears streaming down her face. "Why? Why did you have to go and do that?"

"Charlotte," he started, "I've been wanting to do that since we were eight years old."

The tears stopped. She just blinked at the boy in front of her in wonderment. "Really?" she whispered.

"Really," he told her, moving in to cup her face in his hands. He kissed her soundly on the lips in a way that made her hair stand up on end and her heart swell with fiery warmth.

When they finally moved apart, Charlotte whispered. "Me too."

This time when they went home things were different. The year before they were friends. One friend helping out another friend. They saw it that way, and her parents saw it that way. No one even imagined it being anything else. Because it wasn't.

This time, no one was hurt, no one needed help, and no one was just friends. This time, it was Christmas, and it seemed like the right time to show up at home and have a nice evening.

Charlotte had gotten herself all dolled up; this was the first opportunity that she really had for her boyfriend to see her in something other than her training gear which while it served useful for its purpose, it was not exactly what one would call figure flattering. Now, was the perfect opportunity to show off her Sensational Sister lineage a little. She had bought a gorgeous, short gold dress with a metallic filigree design on it that was tight to her waist and then puffed at her hips. It was festive and cute and she knew Brandon would love it.*

They arrived at the party and Charlotte immediately went searching for her parents. It had been a year since she'd seen them and she missed them so much.

She managed to find them pretty quickly and made a grand effort to ignore all the death glares that her dad sent towards Brandon. After a while, they moved on to mingle with other people at the party. It was, after all, Brandon's house, so he had plenty of people to see as well. There was just one person that they weren't expecting to see. Gary Oak still had a number of connections to models and former models, one of whom was none other than Giselle. And her husband Joe. And their son Joshua.

The very same Joshua who was sending the happy couple stinging looks to rival Ash's. Brandon couldn't help but smirk a little as he caught Joshua's eye.

Later, Brandon and Charlotte were outside, chatting amicably in the yard with a couple of random acquaintances. As the other couple left, their lips met briefly for a fleeting moment before they were torn apart by a fist connecting with Brandon's face.

"What the hell?" Brandon exclaimed as he clutched his throbbing cheek.

"I always knew you were after her," Joshua growled as he made another move toward Brandon.

Before he got the chance, Brandon shoved him hard and before they knew it, the two of them were interlocked in a brawl, Charlotte beside them, trying desperately to tear them apart without getting hit by a flying fist.

The fight only lasted a few moments before Ash pulled the two boys off of each other, Misty by his side. Misty grabbed Joshua by his shoulder and roughly walked him over to Joe and Giselle, glaring spitefully at the woman in the process. She then returned to Charlotte, whom she walked inside.

That left Ash and Brandon. Gary must have been inside and not seen the battle. Ash took Brandon aside before he could catch wind of it. They stood in awkward silence for a few moments before Ash finally spoke. "I don't like you, you know."

Brandon's spine shot straight and he looked up to the man in front of him with a hint of fear in his eyes.

Ash brought his hand up to pacify him. "It's not personal. Clearly you care about my daughter. Enough to get your face punched in, at least. You need to make sure that she knows that it's not just a game and not just a way to flex your muscles at that other kid."

A look of confusion graced Brandon's face. "Why are you telling me this?

"It was years before Misty and I got together. Hell, we were practically dating since we were ten, but both of us were to chicken to actually say anything. So we didn't actually start dating until we were older than you. I really wish that hadn't lived in that limbo for all those years." He turned to look directly at Brandon. "I don't want the two of you to go through anything like that. So get back in there and apologize to her."

Brandon gulped and did just that.

"I miss hating you, you know? It was a simpler time."

Brandon turned sharply to look at Charlotte. "You never hated me."

Charlotte looked defiantly at him and nodded her head vehemently. "Oh, yes I did. From the day we met, I vowed to hate you. I was pretty good at it too, since you were such a jerk."

"I wasn't a jerk!" Brandon cried out. "I saved you from a Beedrill!"

"I saved you after you fell off a mountain," Charlotte retorted.

"It would have been nice if you could have saved me before I fell off the mountain."

"Well maybe—"

She was silenced has his lips crashed on her own, making her forget all words and what hating this boy even meant.

"Still hate me?"

She looked into those piercing blue eyes and found the words just tumbling out of her. "I love you."

Both their eyes widened for a moment before Brandon managed out, "I love you too," and brought his lips back down to hers.

Charlotte sat awkwardly in the hallway of the hospital, bouncing her leg anxiously up and down on the floor as she strainer her ears to hear the conversation going on in the room next to hear. She couldn't hear a word, but trying to listen gave her something to focus on instead of letting her thoughts go wild.

He wasn't badly hurt, just a little roughed up, as was she. They had been fighting, trying to take down a large branch of Team Rocket, and had been largely successful. However, it had been an extraordinarily difficult operation that had left both of them in need of medical care. Both their parents were contacted, but after seeing Charlotte, who by all appearances looked essentially fine, Ash and Misty were convinced that she was fine. Gary, on the other hand, flew out immediately to the hospital to have a chat with his son.

At just that moment, Gary stepped out of the room and walked right past Charlotte and down the hallway. Charlotte took this opportunity to slip into Brandon's room.

"What did your dad have to say?"

Brandon sighed, an immense sadness filling his eyes as he looked at Charlotte. "He thinks it would be best if I went on him on his next research assignment."

Face falling, Charlotte opened her mouth to speak, but Brandon beat her to it.

"I've been riding on thin ice since that fight with Josh, and this was the tipping point, I guess."

Charlotte nodded, swallowing the lump that was now forming in her throat and chocked out. "He just wants the best for you."

"I know." Brandon slipped his hand out from under the hospital sheets and grasped Charlottes, drawing light circles on it. "He says this is a very important project and that no one is supposed to know where it is."

Charlotte's eyes widened. "B-But that means—"

"That we won't be able to talk to each other for the whole time I'm there," Brandon finished.

Charlotte nodded. "How long?"

"At least six months."

A tear started trailing down Charlotte's cheek. "Six months," she murmured.

"Listen," Brandon started, "If you're travelling and you meet some other guy—"

Charlotte began shaking her head vigorously. "No, it won't—"

"—than it's okay." Brandon smiled sadly. "Just try not to kiss him too much."

Then the tears really began to fall. She leaned down and hugged him. "I love you, you idiot."

She left in the middle of the night. She had been staying with her parents on and off after Brandon left. Traveling just wasn't the same without him. She would try it, but would always come back after a little while and stay in the Gym. It was good for her. She was learning how to be a Gym Leader and soon enough she would be able to take care of the Gym on her own if need be.

Only that's not what she wanted. Not now.

What she wanted could be anywhere all over the world, but she needed to find him. These last few months she had been feeling like she was drowning and as she snuck out of the house, she was finally starting to feel as though she could breathe again.

Maybe she should have woken her parents to tell them she was leaving, but she knew if she didn't leave right that moment she would explode. So she left a note with the first place she was headed in case they wanted to call her, but that they shouldn't try and follow her. She knew her dad would try anyway, but she could count on her mom to stop him.

She stepped into the cool Cerulean night air and smiled as she breathed in. She would find him.

He was there. She arrived in the Pokémon Center of the place she had written in her note and there he was, sitting as though he had been waiting for her. Her mouth was opening and closing, trying to get out words, but not being able to figure out what to say.

"Surprised to see me?"

Charlotte shook her head to get her thoughts together. "What are you doing here?" she sputtered.

"I'm here to see you," he said softly, looking at her with that look.

"How?" she breathed.

"Your parents told me."

Before she could ask how that possibly happened, another question came to mind. "What about your dad?"

Brandon waved his hand, passing it off. "He'll get over it."

"So this means…"

"You're mine forever."

She ran over to lift her arms around his neck so he could kiss her like she was never kissed before and she vowed from that day forward to love the brunette boy with the blue eyes that pierced right through her.

FIN

A/N: Whew, now I can say that this story is finally closed. I've been wanting to do this for a while, but I just wasn't feeling particularly inspired. But, I really wanted to do this, so I finally got it out, albeit nine months late. I didn't do a final go over for this, so I'm not sure how it all exactly flows, and I would love feedback from you all. Thank you so much, this story was an amazingly fun ride; I never thought I'd be able to complete a multi-chap fic, even though this is a collection of drabbles more than an honest multi-chap.

That's enough rambling from me. Hope you had a great Christmas if you celebrate it, and if not, a great winter break and if you're in the southern hemisphere...I have nothing to say to you. Besides that I love you all. 3

*This is the idea of the dress and tights outfit from the Christmas scene in this and chapter 7pm, except the dress is gold on blackened filigree instead of yellow and black stripes. Just if you're interested. .

~anjumstar