Note: Like I said, two chapters at once. Enjoy!

Special thanks to deviant art users Kamari-Akuma and jhealy14 for inspiring the names of Soul's mother and father (respectively)!

Warning: This chapter contains some moderate language and moderate depictions of violence.

Follow Me

A Pokémon Heart Gold/Soul Silver Story

Chapter Thirty-Six

Facade

"I'm serious, you don't have to do anything for my birthday."

"Oh, don't be silly! Making a cake is no problem at all!" Soul's mother replied, waving dismissively at Silver as she retrieved a mixing bowl from one of the upper cabinets.

He took a step further into the kitchen threshold. "But Mrs...uh, ma'am...umm..."

"Heart."

"Hm?"

"My name," she said. "My name is Heart. And it's just Ms.; I'm not married any more."

"Right," Silver said with a nod. "Soul told me about how you were divorced."

Heart paused as she placed the bowl lightly on the counter. "...Is that what she told you?" she asked in a quiet voice.

Silver's eyebrows furrowed, troubled by her sudden demeanor change. "Yeah...was that wrong?"

Heart hesitated in thought a second longer and then went to the fridge.

"Ms. Heart?" Silver asked, stepping properly into the kitchen.

"No," she said from behind the refrigerator door, "that was the truth." She retrieved the milk and eggs and closed the door, pondering. "That's what surprises me."

"Huh?"

Heart returned with her ingredients and placed them on the countertop with a sigh. "What I mean is, she's never told anyone that I'm simply, 'divorced.' Usually she tells people her father is deceased. She even said that to Gold, and I always thought they were close..." She turned to Silver. "The point is, you should consider yourself lucky, because it seems Soul trusts you very much if she told you the truth."

Silver stared at the counter, unsure of how to respond.

"Oh, darn it," Heart said suddenly. "I forgot the oil." She turned to Silver. "I hate to ask, but it's in a cabinet up high, and you're taller than I am..."

"Sure," Silver said with a nod. "Where is it?"

"The cabinet above the stove; it should be right in front," she said, pointing toward the back of the kitchen.

Silver crossed the room as she indicated and found the cupboard easily. "If you don't mind me asking," he said as he stood on his toes to reach the bottle, "why would Soul lie about something like that? I mean," he retrieved the bottle and closed the cabinet before continuing, "it's not like divorce is anything scandalous nowadays."

Heart paused as he returned with the cooking oil, and she took the bottle from him in silence. After a moment more's hesitation, she looked up at him and smiled. "Soul trusted you enough to tell you half of the story, so I think I'll honor that trust and give you the other half.

"Soul's father, Grey, was a little harsh at times, but he had his good points, as well," she began. "When we first met, he was a bit of a loner and very gruff. He wasn't exactly kind at first, but as we continued to bump into each other, we, 'grew,' on one another until a romance sparked. Grey had a temper, like most people, but I guess back then, that wasn't very important to me. I was in love, and that was all that mattered. In hindsight, I suppose I felt that because he seemed so lonely, I wanted to be the one to fill that void in his heart. Anyway, as time passed, we grew closer, and we decided to get married. Two years later, Soul was born.

"For a time, everything was happy. Grey got a good job in Rustboro City, Soul grew bigger and stronger each day, and I kept busy as the housewife I'd always wanted to be. Grey's job paid well, so we lived comfortably. That isn't to say we lived perfectly; Grey's job was also very stressful, so every so often, we'd clash due to his stress, but it was nothing out of the ordinary for a young couple."

Heart looked down at the cake batter she was mixing in her metal bowl, a melancholy expression on her face. "The first sign of what was to come happened when Soul was about four years old."

As if in slow motion, firm, masculine hand struck smooth, feminine cheek, an impulse, an accident. The sound echoed in her mind as she stood there, startled and bewildered. She turned to him, eyes glazed and glossy.

He returned her gaze with a look of shock, glancing between his wife and his own uplifted hand. "Heart..." he said, voice cracking, all pretense of anger from their previous debate gone. "Heart, babe...I...I didn't mean...I didn't mean to—"

"It's fine, Grey," she said swiftly, shaking her head. "I...I can tell it was an accident."

"Babe...Babe, I'm so, so sorr—"

"Mommy?"

The two adults turned to the small child who stood in the hallway, rubbing her eyes groggily due to the late hour.

"Mommy, why are you and Daddy yelling?"

"It's nothing, sweetie," Heart said as she crossed the room to comfort her child. "Mommy and Daddy were just talking."

"You were talking really loud, though..."

"I know, and we're sorry, baby," Heart said soothingly, cupping Soul's cheek with her hand. "We promise we'll stop, so go back to bed, please."

Nodding and yawning, the little girl retreated down the hallway.

"We should all get some rest," Heart added quietly as she stood. "It's late."

Grey took his wife's hand. "Heart, listen to me." He waited until she turned. "I swear, I will never hit you again." He held her cheek as a tear glided across it. "I promise."

Heart put the two circular cake pans in the oven and sighed as she set the timer. "Unfortunately," she said as she turned and joined Silver at the table in the dining room, "that ended up being a lie." She gazed at the smooth wood surface with a somber look in her eyes. "He did hit me again, and again he said it was an accident. It started out slowly, as most things do, but over the course of the following four years, it escalated to the point where he not only stopped apologizing for hitting me, he stopped holding back simply because Soul was around, too."

"...If things were so bad, why didn't you just leave?" Silver asked, still taking in the whole story.

Heart smiled sweetly at him, eyes slightly glassy. "I suppose there were a number of reasons. Part of it was I wasn't financially independent, at all, honestly. I knew that if I left, I'd have to support not only myself, but Soul as well. I never went to college, and I wasn't much of a Pokemon trainer, so I had no skill set I could fall back on once I left, or so I thought. To be honest, I made a lot of excuses to myself as to why I couldn't leave. Money, not wanting to uproot Soul, fear that Grey would follow us...I concocted several reasons. I learned later in counseling that this was a form of psychological damage. More than hurting my body or my heart, Grey had crushed my spirit. He made me feel like I was useless and worse, that I deserved what was happening, like I had failed in our marriage."

Heart laced her fingers near her mouth in contemplative silence before lowering them to continue. "I'll never forget the night it all changed. It was late-April and rainy, close to Soul's eighth birthday. In the weeks leading up to this event, Grey's temper had been flaring badly; the company he worked for was falling on hard times, and everyone involved was stressed and at risk of losing their jobs. As you can imagine, this lead to more and more incidents, to the point they happened almost daily...It was late that night, and Soul had already gone to bed, or so I thought."

Rain bore down heavily in thick curtains on the small house, an unusually fierce Spring rain. However, the intense gale paled in comparison to the storm brewing inside the home.

A vase shattered against the wall as the screaming man threw it at the woman who cowered in the corner, her arms hugging her head as a shield. He swore and crossed to her, grabbing her hair with his left arm and pulling her face to meet his as he knelt beside her.

"You look at me when I'm fucking talking to you, bitch!" Grey roared, gripping her hair tightly in his fist as the woman winced and whimpered. Her tear-filled eyes did not meet his, so in disgust, he slapped her, his hand stinging from the force of the blow. "I said look at me!" Slowly, her eyes journeyed to meet his, her bruised and bleeding face reflected in the flash of a streak of lightning outside the window. "See, now was that so difficult?" he mocked her as thunder rumbled in the distance.

"G...Grey..." she sobbed, hot tears cascading down her swollen cheeks. "P-Please...stop—"

"I'll stop when I fucking please!" Grey spat, smacking her again in the face. "You know damn well you don't tell me what to do, you stupid whore! Honestly, you're the biggest fucking waste of space I've ever seen!"

Heart sputtered and sobbed, blood dribbling from her lip. She closed her eyes, and more tears splashed out of the corners.

"I told you to look at me, you stupid bitch!" he bellowed, and he began beating her repeatedly, trying to break through her returned arm shield and ignoring her shrill cries of protest. His arms thrashed at her again and again, a hunger-lust to reach the more sensitive areas of her face in his eyes.

CRASH!

He felt the object collide sharply with the back of his head and heard the glass as it clattered on the floor. An intense warmth pooled in the back of his head, and he felt something dribble on the back of his neck before everything grew dark, and he fell forward, unconscious.

Heart looked up, shocked. The broken lamp still held aloft, seven-year-old Soul turned to her mother, panic-stricken and on the verge of tears.

"Of course Soul had heard us," Heart said, wringing her palms. "She'd gotten up and called the police before coming to my rescue. If she hadn't, well..." She straightened in her chair. "After that, Grey was arrested, and Soul and I went to live in a battered women's shelter, where I received hospital treatment. Grey actually broke my arm in the scuffle...but it could have been much worse..." She sighed slightly. "The shelter helped us get on our feet; they helped me get a job, gave us group and individual therapy, and most important of all, helped me file my divorce from Grey.

"Grey of course went for an insanity plea, which I don't doubt that he probably was, but the court overruled him and sentenced him to thirty years in prison for assault and attempted manslaughter. After several months of working and getting my affairs in order, I decided it was time for a fresh start, so I moved us here to Johto in January of the following year. That'll be four years ago next month." Heart brightened a little, more forced than natural. "With the money from the divorce, I was able to buy us this house, and I have a steady day job here in New Bark Town. It pays well enough, but Soul, she..." She smiled fondly. "She insisted that a portion of all her earnings as a trainer should come back here to me. I don't typically use it unless I'm buying things for her, though, so I've been depositing it in a savings account for her...Soul's always fussing about me, probably because she feels guilty about being too young to help me against Grey. She even sent me Pyro here to protect me after I had a run-in with a burglar. I don't know if you've noticed," Heart said with a little grin, "but Soul can be very meticulous about things."

"Yeah," Silver said with a snort, recalling Soul's constant need for super-organization, "I've definitely noticed."

Heart giggled. "She sadly owes that to me; I'm horrible with organizing. After we left Grey, Soul seemed to mature rapidly, and she learned how to cook and clean so she could take care of me, I suppose." Heart dabbed at her eyes with a napkin. "Even though things ended badly with Grey, I'm still grateful to him, because without him, I wouldn't have Soul. She's always been my rock through everything that's happened.

"Recently..." She paused for thought. "Recently, Grey has been trying to contact Soul via letter, I suppose to try to reconcile with her. He says he's been getting counseling and is filled with regret." She closed her eyes, thinking. "I know that I'll probably never forgive Grey, and I don't expect Soul to, either, but...she only has one father, and I'd at least rather her express to him how she feels than pretend he doesn't exist."

There was a loud bell chime from the adjacent room, and Heart rose. "Ah, cake's done!" she said cheerily; it was an eerie, stark contrast to her previous demeanor. She bustled around the corner to tend to the finished pastries, leaving Silver alone with his thoughts.

His mind whirred, processing all the information he'd been given. He'd never imagined Soul had come from a broken home just like him. Why, then, had she been so insistent upon him making peace with Giovanni, when she herself wouldn't do the same with her own father? But then again, he reasoned, Giovanni was never physically or even really emotionally abusive. No, he mused, you actually have to be around for stuff like that. Silver wondered, perhaps, if Soul wanted to vicariously experience that sort of reconciliation, that maybe she wanted him to do what she could not. Maybe she wanted better for him. Maybe that was the extent of how much she cared for him. A sharp pang of affection for the brunette washed over him, and he squirmed in his chair as he tried to quash it, his face matching his hair. That's how things used to be, he scolded, before you screwed things up. He settled into his typical self-loathing and brooding as Heart returned to the dining room.

"I'm sorry to bother you with our family's troubles," Heart said with a sigh. "I'm sure you weren't looking for so much personal information."

"No, it's fine," Silver said as politely as he could (he wasn't accustomed to being so cordial with anyone, least of all adults), shaking his head. "I didn't exactly have a great childhood, either, so I can understand." When she furrowed her eyebrows at him, he sighed, slightly weary. "Without going into extreme detail, let's just say I've been on my own for most of my life," he explained.

Her hand cupped his; it was warm and tender, and he flushed slightly as he met her comforting, motherly gaze. She smiled at him, and the corners of his mouth twitched into the faintest hint of the same expression in return.

"If you'd rather not tell Soul I told you all of this, I'll understand," Heart said. "I only felt impressed to tell you because I get the feeling that Soul trusts you, based on how much she's mentioned you in the past."

"She's mentioned me before?" he blurted unintentionally in hopeful, surprised tones.

"A few times, yes," she said with a nod. "With increasing frequency in the past year," she added with a smile.

Silver's ears pinkened.

"That's why I shared our story," she said, lacing her fingers in a businesslike manner. "I figured with how regularly she mentions you, you must hold some significant place in her life. And as someone who now understands her background, it's my hope that you'll always treat Soul with the respect she deserves."

She shot him a weighted stare, and for a moment, Silver wondered if Soul had spoken with her mother about his most recent interactions with the brunette trainer. Gulping, he nodded. "O-Of course," he said.

Her sudden iciness melted into a smile; it reminded him of Soul, as it was probably the same smile inherited. "You seem like a nice boy, Silver, so I'll rest easy knowing you're with her."

Yeah, that's me, he thought bitterly. Nice guy of the year, here.

"Oh!" she said, leaping to her feet, startling Silver. "Here I am gabbing when there's frosting to be made!" She hurried to the kitchen. "Feel free to make yourself comfortable on the sofa, Silver," she added from the adjacent room.

Silver glanced over his shoulder at the living room behind him, where Pyro still lay snoozing on the hearth. As if he were suddenly a Psychic type, the Typhlosion lifted his head and met eyes with the red-headed trainer. The Pokémon leered and growled at him, baring his fangs threateningly.

"...You know what, I think I'll just help you in the kitchen instead..."

Twilight fell on the little hamlet of New Bark Town, fresh snow falling and clumping in new heaps on the ground. Silver glanced out the window and sighed; it was getting dark, and there was still no sign of Soul. She'd been gone for hours, and he was certain most stores had closed by this time. Why did she have to be so irritating?

"Soul's a little late," Heart said as she laid out place settings for three. "Dinner will be ready soon...Perhaps I'll call her PokéGear..." She disappeared up the stairs in search of the house phone.

Silver sighed again. He'd spent the past several hours helping Soul's mother with various things around the house, ranging from decorating the house even more festively with ribbons and other assortments of holiday novelties to assisting her with dinner preparation and helping frost his cake. Admittedly, he'd only complied at first to avoid the wrath of Soul's Typhlosion, but the more he interacted with her, the more he found he rather liked Soul's mother. He'd been wondering how Soul could turn out so chipper with such a dark past, but conversation after conversation with her mother proved why: Heart's cheerfulness was infectious, and the two were incredibly similar as a result. Heart did most of the talking, with only an occasional remark from Silver, but he found that on the whole, he enjoyed her chatter and her bright temperament. He secretly admitted that perhaps it was this sort of interaction he'd been missing from Soul over the past few weeks.

A knock at the door roused him from his musing, and, since Heart was still upstairs, Silver crossed the short distance and answered it.

With a loud crack, confetti and small, squiggly streamers shot at his face, accompanied by small puffs of colored smoke. Silver, so shocked that he wasn't sure if he should be angry or confused, gaped at the trio on the other side of the threshold.

"Woo-hoo! Lucky us, he answered the door instead of your mom, Soul!"

"Nn, nn, lucky us is right, Crys. How's it going, Sil-Sil?"

Standing at the forefront with expended party poppers in their hands, both beaming toothily at Silver, were Crystal and Gold. Behind them, bogged down with several shopping bags, stood Chocobo and Soul.

Selected quote from the next chapter:

"Ooo, ooo, Sil-Sil, now I can send you dirty text messages!"