Chapter 25

Paul opened his mouth to speak, but nothing happened. Johanna nodded to her daughter and left the room quickly with a huge smile on her face.

"You worked it out." Dawn attempted a beaming smile, but had to settle with a loose grin. He was still speechless; he had no idea how to start. He let his feeling do the talking, he knew she could hear them now, and so he practically leapt over to her and gripped her jaw bone with both hands, she reached up to take his neck too, and he leant down to her to receive what he had been longing for during a long week and a half. She was more than happy to cooperate, but her eyes spilled over with nearly two weeks worth of tears.

"What, what's wrong?" Paul panicked; she could feel the sudden rush flow through her. She smiled and closed her eyes; "No, I'm overwhelmingly happy, when we're both happy it's like I'm on a high!" She laughed and opened them to see his beautiful face, her smile stopped when she began to talk; "I thought I'd never see you again. I thought you'd died."

It clicked for him the same way it had for her when the final clue clicked into place; "Mesprit?" His eyes widened. She nodded; "I would have let myself go if I didn't feel your worry." That worry he knew was the best worry he could have ever felt now.

"So you can feel what I do?"

She nodded; "When you're happy, I am; literally. It'll take a lot of getting used to if it stays this way." She laughed feebly but genuinely. The smile wiped to a worried expression when she thought of a question; "That pain you felt."

"When I saw you," he said quickly, knowing exactly what she meant. She nodded, but turned her head guiltily; "You shouldn't feel that. I shouldn't have inflicted so much pain on you."

"I don't care, you're okay now." He said, trying to brighten the mood.

"Ash?"

"They're all fine." He assured her, then chuckled; "He gave me a little talk. He got very worried about you, but he won't push me when you're in this state."

"Was it him who came to save me?" She asked, Paul nodded; "his friend, Reggie and Maylene too." He said her name with no bitterness, just completely casually. Maybe her heroics had given him some respect for her.

"Where are they?"

"Maylene and Reggie went home; the other two are at the Pokémon center. You'll see them all soon enough." He chuckled, knowing they'd all planned on surprising her.

There was a pause until she smiled again; "You know what you're feeling right now?"

He frowned, this was going to get annoying, but at the moment it was fairly cute; "Yeah…" he rolled his eyes.

"I feel it too." She loosely grinned again. "I love you that much too. Please don't forget that ever."

He shook his head; "You don't need to apologise, it's not your fault you're too bloody gorgeous."

She rolled her eyes; "Not too bad yourself." Purple and blue never looked so great together. There was a silence as they stared at each other a while, he slid his fingers into her hand and she clutched onto him with all her strength.

"Oh, your friend came second in the Grand Festival, Ash told me to tell you. Henry, was it?"

"Kenny!?"

"Yeah, that's the one." He grinned mockingly at himself.

"That's so great! I can't believe he got so close!" She squealed, but her voice broke. He frowned at her; "Take it easy please."

She felt worried suddenly, and sighed; "Stop worrying, I'm fine. Everything's just a little exhausted."

"You're not fine, yet. You're in here for two months at a minimum."

"Two months!?" Dawn groaned, slumping into her pillow. Paul chuckled; "At least your attitude's in tip top shape."

"Yeah, shame the rest isn't." She muttered and a scowl wiped across her face as she looked longingly out the window.

He sighed and sat down; "You'll be out in no time, and I get to stay with you the whole time anyway."

"Hmm, I guess that sounds better."

He laughed and leant back into his chair, now she was awake and mentally as fine as ever, he could relax and get more sleep than he had in that horribly long week.

After a few hours, her mother couldn't hold herself from her daughter any longer. She knocked, then entered the room quietly to see Dawn smiling happily as she watched Paul sleep. She paid no attention to the nurse taking a blood sample from her left arm, and concentrated on her right hand clutching Paul's instead. She looked up at her mother; "Hey."

"Hello honey." Johanna welled up a little, and took a seat next to Paul. "Any better?"

"I'm getting there, Mom."

The mother smiled, then looked to Paul; "Hasn't left your side since he got here, you know. Hasn't ate much either, he's been completely distraught. He blames himself."

Dawn smiled at her information; "It's my fault, and I'm glad it happened. If I hadn't have left him behind he'd probably be in the same state as me."

Johanna frowned at the 'optimism,' this silver lining wasn't very pleasant. "Dawn, this isn't either of your fault. You are not to blame."

"It doesn't matter," Dawn sighed, "I'm going to recover and things will be better than before." She grinned; things were good enough before, now she'd be on cloud nine every day.

"Reggie told me about him, how you're doing a wonderful job making him healthier."

Dawn laughed; "I don't really see it as work." But she frowned after; "and he's healthy anyway."

Johanna sighed; "I've been told what he was like, Dawn, Ash wasn't-"

"-Ash knows nothing. He doesn't like me with Paul because they're rivals." Dawn snapped, this same old fight came around like a broken record. "I'm happy, and he is too. Why can't you all just leave us to it!?" She shouted, causing Paul to stir awake quickly; the amount of fury she was emitting affecting them all.

Her own pulse rate quickened, causing Paul to panic and he was too sleepy to react. The nurse had to quickly inject something into Dawn's wrist to calm her down.

"Paul, I'm fine, stop worrying please." Dawn breathed slowly, those anger management books were now coming in handy.

"Sorry." He mumbled, following her lead and taking deep breaths.

Johanna waited until they both looked fairly relaxed to talk; "I'm not against you two, you're beautifully in sync with each other. How could I be against someone who adores my daughter so much?"

Paul was looking extremely confused by this, but smiled at Dawn anyway; who had a scowl on her face again.

"Okay Mom, let's just drop it." Dawn complained, and her mother nodded in agreement; "Ash and Brock would like to see you." She muttered quietly, but Paul's grip tightened slightly around her hand.

"Okay, I want to thank them for saving me." She changed her facial expression to a smile quickly, and Paul's hand loosened and shook away from her quickly. "I'm going to get something to eat."

"Oh, okay." Dawn sighed; a little disappointed with this petty rivalry now. He walked out the room quickly, and Dawn looked to her mother; "See what I mean?"

"Makes me glad I had a little girl." She smiled at her daughter proudly, then kissed her forehead and went to fetch her two best friends.

She had about twenty minutes alone; she assumed her mother had gone to fetch them in her car. Ash peeped his head around the corner and stumbled into the room, Dawn had her eyes closed, but she could feel him beaming over her ecstatically as he shuffled to her side.

"For a hero you're not exactly coordinated on your feet." She opened one eye to look at his surprised face. Brock grinned behind him, and she opened her other eye; "Hey guys." She whispered quietly, because it was just about all she could manage. Her eyes brimmed with a wall of tears as they both fell over the bed to embrace her, one on either side and Pikachu on her stomach. Her waist was being squeezed to extremes and she was sure her heart monitor quickened in tempo.

"I'm so glad you're okay!" Brock muffled into her ear, and Ash hummed in agreement; clearly he was emotional too.

"What would I do without you guys?" She asked rhetorically, Ash laughed an answer anyway; "Dawn, what would we do without you though!?"

"Well you survived before." She mumbled as they pulled away, both of them frowning at her.

Brock shook his head; "But not now, Dawn, we love you like family."

That was enough; the amount of love being released by two brothers and a Pokémon was enough to make a slowpoke cry. She openly sobbed at them, and the embrace between the three restarted. It was a good job Paul wasn't here.

"I-love-you-too guys." She hiccupped a sob between each word, the feeling of their relief in the atmosphere may not have been as strong as Paul's which she felt simultaneously, but she wasn't exactly at her strongest both physically and mentally.

They settled down and allowed her to shut her eyes for a little while after emotionally exhausting herself; which the doctors had warned her against.

"Did you get your last badge?" Dawn looked over to Ash, who scratched his head quickly; "yeah, Pikachu wiped his Octillery out with relative ease and we struggled with Ambipom but it wasn't too different in style from yours."

Again, ouch. She grumbled to herself, she missed her own Ambipom dearly. Ash continued without noticing her flinch; "Gliscor was brilliant! He really pulled through for me, Luxray had an ice fang but we came up with some really great moves! It wore out his Raichu and Pikachu finished it with a twist of our new technique. You should see it in action! It'd win the grand festival for sure!"

She grumbled at the thought, how she wished she had been there. Ash noticed this time; "Did you hear about Kenny?"

"Yeah, that's great." She tried to sound enthusiastic, but both of the boys knew she wished she'd been the one to beat him.

Brock patted her arm; "You'll get there next year, and think of all the experience you'll have until then."

"But I've already competed in the Sinnoh contests around here except for Sunyshore. I'm not going back to Hoenn…"

The two looked to each other; "I think you should tell her now." Brock grinned.

"Tell me what?" She frowned, watching them beam as Pikachu hopped over to Ash's bag and began nosing around in it excitedly.

"Well…" Ash began; "We were supposed to wait until Maylene and Reggie were here, but seeing as you're getting closed to depressed," he winked at her jokingly; "we think you should know right away."

Dawn nodded; "So if I lie to Reggie and Maylene, pretending that I needed some serious way of cheering me up, I get my surprise!?"

"You got it." Brock laughed. Pikachu had found the present and hopped over to her with the envelope in its mouth.

She smiled and thanked the electric mouse, then faked a grimace for them as she ripped the top open. She pulled out two sheets of card and flipped them over to find plane tickets.

"Johto?" She raised an eyebrow sceptically, but didn't sound rude. Brock nodded; "Olivine city, to be exact."

"Yeah, it's right by the beach and there's a battle area…"

She let Ash trail on about his stories of being there himself, she looked at the tickets and slide them into a fan like a deck of cards; "Why is there only two?" She interrupted, was Brock not planning to come?

"For you and Paul." Brock raised an eyebrow, then laughed; "You thought we'd make him stay here?"

"No, I just thought… Thanks guys. That's a really sweet thought." She welled up again and sighed at herself.

Brock nodded; "It was Ash's idea."

She turned to look at him blushing completely red; "Well I saw the way he felt about you and it made me realise what you see in him."

Oh no… And then the tears began to flow again, even more happy than before; it was enough to radiate the whole hospital with glee.

Hahaa, Dawn can't handle her emotional overdose of happiness. =]

Bit of a space filler, but yay! Ikari-Holiday!