A/N: Hello! Sorry for the long delay. I'm busy IRL blah blah, but also I'm going through a bit of writer's block. This was surprisingly tough for me to write.

Thank you to queenfirst, Wolflyn, Rieth, Lorraine, Avy DiSartori, NoLife-Sama, ArtisticNerd64, Storm Skyress, and Cindy1315 for your reviews and holding it down for me while I was away. I hope you all are well!

18. bide

May had never stepped upon Southern Island without joy in her heart. Through the trepidation and anxiety, the warm sand and the yellow sun had a magical effect of clearing the weight from her heart with a single step. However, as she and Steven followed Latios down towards the island and slid off of their pokemon's backs, May could not release the fear that nestled in her very bones.

It was quiet. The water slapping against the shore was the only thing May could hear. Even the strange calls she had come to know from within the forest had gone silent as Latios released a snorting breath through his nostrils. After leading them farther in land, he turned to look May in the eye, completely ignoring Steven. Her mind was suddenly seized by his anger. She trembled at his power.

"You already know," she whispered. She felt his confirmation silently within her. She bowed her head. "I'm so sorry, Latios. I should have done better. I should have been more careful."

A silent question emerged in her mind from the dragon. Her lips shook.

"I don't know," she said with shame. "I don't know how this happened."

There was silence again. May jumped as she felt Steven's hand brush up against her arm. Startled, she looked up to see him looking at her insistently. She remembered why they had come and looked back to Latios.

"Latios, we need help finding her. Please, you're the only one who can," she said.

His eyes narrowed, and a hot flash pierced through her mind from his anger. Still, there was only that feeling of burning pressure in her mind, silent. She withstood the mental anger pushing upon her, holding Latios' gaze. Waiting, waiting, his voice did not come.

"Please," she begged. A gasp tore from her throat as she felt the pressure amplify.

Why should I?

May gaped. "Wh-What do you mean? Don't you want to-"

Why do you deserve my help?

"It's not for me!" she snapped. "It's for-"

With a whip of his power, the sand kicked up around them. May and Steven braced themselves as the sand stung and bit at their faces. Latios turned sharply and started marching away. May winced through the small sand storm, staggering after him.

"Latios! Latios, please wai-"

Her words dissolved into a shriek as she stumbled over a large piece of washed up debris. The sand stung her hands.

I do not need you to find her. Do not return here again.

The sand immediately settled as Latios took off into the air for the depths of the island. May knelt in the sand with Steven walking up behind her. Latios did not return. Staring out into the forest, she wished for a glimpse of Latias, imagined her high crooning voice. She wondering how the ocean could feel so silent. Even the voices from the forest remained still. She did not feel Latias' warm embrace in her mind. They were all alone.

The bright sky denied the silence around her. In the rolling clouds, May traced through her memories here. Hadn't Latias and Latios been happy here? Hadn't she told Latias to stay? Why hadn't she tried harder to convince her? How could she have let this happen?

She breathed in the salty air. This was the air that Latias had breathed in everyday for more years than May had been alive. This was the air that she should breathe again. She stared hard into the setting sun, silencing any of the questions in her head, knowing she would not hear any answers no matter how hard she listened.

Latios would find her, she told herself. Latios would surely hear her calling out for him. He didn't need May, and once he had Latias back safe and at home, she wouldn't need May either. They were better off this way.

May's eyes began to burn at the thought, but she held them back as she felt Steven's presence beside her once again. Sensing the question coming, she pushed a bitter smile to her face, eyes focused on nothing in particular. The sky was red, the sea turning dark, and she was stuck here without even the comfort of her own solitude.

"What do you want to do?" he asked softly. He seemed to know that the question was useless, but he stood there a moment longer, watching her silently. After a breath, he said, "I don't trust us to fly back in the dark alone. We should stay here for the night and leave in the morning."

He moved away to start collecting wood from the beach without waiting for a response. As the sky began to darken, he set up camp with the efficiency of a seasoned Trainer, leaving May to her thoughts with tact she didn't know he had. Still, she knelt in the same spot, even as the heat of Latios' anger slipped away into something cold. As the sun ducked beneath the horizon, the forest went dark, the waves a black abyss. The sounds of thudding wood turned to crackling fire, and eventually, the murmurs of pokemon from within the island began to hum again.

We were here before you, they whispered, and we will remain long after you're gone.

It should have been a comforting thought. Whatever strange powers that dwelled here would continue with or without May. That would go for Latias as well. Even beyond the cradle of this island's protections, Latias would live on, beyond the Pokemon League, beyond thieves and professors and May. Wasn't it entirely arrogant of her to think she had any role in this at all?

"May." She barely noticed Steven's soft call, and only slightly jumped as she felt his warm hand on her back. She smelled the smoke and wood on him before she turned to see him. She couldn't remember a time he felt so warm, couldn't even put the face to the fire he had built. His eyes were pained as she finally met them. His hand tugged gently at her arm.

"I'm fine," she said, a bit harder than she'd intended. She let his hand slip away before standing up on her own, brushing away the sand that had embedded itself into her legs. Turning, the brightness of the fire threw her off balance for a moment, and she felt that hand on her back again. The shock of it set her upright faster than he did.

He had set out their sleeping bags around the fire, and it did not slip her notice that he had arranged hers on the opposite side from his. She didn't even notice the sand that slipped in as she shuffled on top. Steven moved silently to his own, and for a moment, she wondered if they would just fall asleep like this, without saying anything else. Curling her knees into herself, she suddenly felt painfully awake, and as he sat down on his own bag to face her, she knew she would not be able to sleep much tonight.

The heavy sweaters and coats they had worn had been shed in the face of the island's heat. Steven had sweat through his white shirt while setting up the fire, and she wondered momentarily if he'd be more comfortable without it. The idea gave her a horrifying lurch of her stomach. There was no way she could accept that. It was bad enough that he was here to begin with.

Then his gaze went upward, and she instinctively followed it. Her breath caught as she saw the sky. Red and purple still leaked into the blackness, but in the expanse, she saw the waves of stars from the years she'd spent in the wild with only her pokemon as company. In her golden cage, she had been unable to look into the sky without the blinding lights of the city drowning out the stars and her thoughts, and as she saw the stars in the unfiltered night, May saw the dreams of her years struggling and knew with great despair that there was no happiness for her in Ever Grande City.

"What have I been doing?" she whispered. She nearly laughed at it all, for her stupidity was so clear she could nearly see it written out in the stars. Letting go and falling onto her back, she pressed her hands over her eyes to block out the sky, for it was nearly painfully bright. "I've wasted so much time. What was it all for?"

"What was what for?" asked Steven. She laughed.

"Everything!" She felt her eyes sting as her tears bubbled up beneath her hands. A little sputtering breath escaped her. "The League, the Championship - I trapped both Latias and myself in that stupid bubble for what, an empty title?" Understanding washed over her as she thought of the beloved dragon and saw the sky above her. How many years had Latias looked up from this same beach and longed for more? "That's not what she wanted. It's not what I wanted," she whispered.

Looking out into the night sky, May imagined that even an ancient being like Latios and Latias could look out into the cosmos and still feel small, still dream of adventures beyond what they knew. Latias had seen an opportunity for that in May, and May had lost sight of it.

"How stupid," she whispered with a bitter laugh.

"It's not stupid," came Steven's voice. May took a deep breath.

"Yes, it is," she said. "You realized it, too. That's why you left."

Steven's silence was all the confirmation May needed. Her eyes scanned slowly over the moving wisps of cloud and stardust. She replayed the memories again like a slowly flickering reel. They were still so clear that she imagined she could project them on the sky like a movie.

"It's one reason," he finally admitted.

"And I expect you want me to ask you what the other reasons are," she said dully. "I already know what they are."

"Is that so?"

"Mm-hmm."

"Tell me then."

"What does it matter at this point?" she said. Her arms were stretched out, fanning around her. She wondered if she could simply sink into the sand and never crawl out.

"It matters to me. And I think if you're honest with yourself, it still matters to you, too." May snorted, glaring out into the sky.

"It shouldn't matter to you," lied May, "and it stopped mattering to me a long time ago."

There was a rustle, and then May gasped as Steven's face loomed in her vision. Her arms jerked to guard herself instinctively, but Steven made no move to touch her, only stare down at her with that strange look he was so wont to give these days.

"Don't lie to me," he said, his voice low and near. May's chest ached at the closeness, the warmth.

"That seems like a double standard," she whispered, "seeing as how all you do is lie."

Steven's face flinched, as if she had reached out to strike him, but he did not look away. He seemed genuinely hurt, and for a moment, May's stomach curdled guiltily. His hand twitched, and she realized he meant to touch her, but he kept his hands to himself. He simply stared at her, searching for something, maybe within himself.

"You're right," he whispered. The admission somehow hurt more than if he had denied it as he usually did. "I've been a liar for a long time. I've spent so many years hiding behind words that I don't know what to do with myself when you're near."

May blinked and then blinked again. Still, he was there, and his words lingered in her gut. This was real. "I don't understand."

"No, someone like you wouldn't. You, who is so honest and genuine, would never understand that." His smile was bitter, angry, and she wondered if it were the first time she was truly seeing it. "You wouldn't understand how terrifying somehow like you is to someone like me, how disarming. How entirely disorienting."

May opened her mouth but then closed it. Her instinct was to argue against his self-deprecation, but she knew it would be dishonest. His bitter smile deepened, and she hated how right and yet completely blind he was.

"Don't you have that the opposite way around?" she asked. Her thoughts began to race again, her heart. She sat up. He leaned back quickly, and she saw that he really way afraid of her. She pressed forward. "You - worldly, handsome you; you push your way into my life and drag me along knowing what effect you have. You, the only man I know - the only man - and you show me kindness and dazzling things when I barely know anything, and then you disappear and leave me hanging, only to show up again whenever you want. Don't you see how terrifying you are?"

She knew that despite his misconceptions about her, she had finally shown herself, and her heart pounded knowing that he could finally see her. Her chest ached with the dull pain of years and years of longing, of disappointment, and he looked bewildered by what he saw. Good, she thought. She wanted him to be horrified - of her crudeness, of the magnitude of her foolishness. She wanted him to see all of her hurt and shame and know that it was because of him.

Scanning over his face, she still couldn't see what she wanted so desperately to know, and yet, she wasn't sure what that was anymore. She pulled back, the salty breeze filling the space between them, and saw the confused man before her. He wasn't the man at the top of the peak; he was just Steven.

The mysterious shadow in the cave - he wasn't, and she was a fool for still chasing after that. He was just a man as flawed and disappointed as the rest. Her eyes looked over his plain clothes and the silver strands of his hair glinting against the fire, and she realized that he was as mortal and vulnerable as she was. What was she doing?

"Sorry," she mumbled, turning away. She made a move to crawl back to her sleeping bag, but her wrist was caught. She gasped as she was turned back around, wobbling in the sand before two hands caught her shoulders. His face was all she could see.

"What am I supposed to do, May?" he whispered. The harshness of his voice made her tremble. Something deep in her gut tightened, something distant but familiar. "How do I reach you? Just tell me what to do."

Silently, May looked at this disheveled man. Alone on this island, there were no others to see the desperate, pathetic picture they painted. In Steven's expression, she saw the years they had known each other and wondered if she had ever really known him at all, for she had never seen this face. There were so many parts of him she didn't know. She pulled back slightly, holding him at arm's length. His brow furrowed as she looked up at him again. Did she really know him at all?

"I don't know how to answer your question," she said softly. Her chest ached. "I don't know if I can, and I don't know if you really want what you think you want."

"What-"

"Please," she said, stopping him. "We're both… emotional right now. I don't want… I don't want to say anything I don't mean, and I don't want you to say anything you might regret. When this is all over, then we can have this conversation. Please."

For a long moment, Steven's eyes scanned over her face, and for once, she did not feel the need to turn away. With that still-furrowed grimace, he nodded slowly.

"Okay," he whispered. "When this is over." She nodded and sank into the sand a bit with relief.

"Thank you."

She turned back towards her sleeping bag, putting the buffer between them again. After she settled safely inside it, she heard behind her, "I'm not running away from you this time." May's heart stilled for a moment, wondering if she misheard him.

But there was the sky again, and the breeze. She felt them both press in around her as he stood and moved away. May breathed in the cool air, seeing the world again. Had she forgotten it so easily? She turned her head and saw him also looking to the sky, longing. He took a deep, silent breath and turned away for his bag. There was the swish of his bag, and he laid on his side, away from her. May opened her mouth and then closed it. She saw his silhouette through the small fire, but he felt worlds away again. Sleep did not come for a while for either of them. May fixed her gaze upward and wondered if Latias was out there looking up at the same sky.