Yeah, I'm not even going to try and make excuses. I clearly cannot be trusted to stick to a schedule. Sorry about that. Thank you so much for all the reviews! I haven't replied individually to all of them due to life being insane and me being distracted by work and some ongoing health problems but I have read and appreciated them all and every single one honestly makes my day. Master Edge 2, your feedback had me smiling all day, so thank you for that and I will correct those errors as soon as I have a chance to go back through it.
James barely dared to breathe as he stood there listening to Olivia downstairs demanding to know why they were hammering on her door. She delivered the line of the husband working away remarkably calmly and for a second he wondered if they just might get away with this.
He was briefly distracted by the sound of Jessie apparently ransacking his closet.
"Shhh!" He hissed. "What are you even DOING?"
She threw the various items she had dug up at him. "Help me tie these together."
He stared at her in disbelief. "Tying together bedsheets and... what is this? Jeans! You cannot be serious!"
"Do you have a better idea? There's no other way out and as far as I know Meowth is the only one here who's supposed to land on his feet."
"Meowth thinks the two of you'se is whacko if you reckon that's gonna work!"
"Just help me you pessimistic little...!"
"Jess!" James begged. "Please shut up, they'll hear you!"
He pulled the rope of clothing out of her hands and tossed it aside.
"The bathroom window." He said, barely able to believe he was participating in this insane plot to escape. "We can jump out and the bushes underneath will break our fall."
"I'm all for breaking our fall!" Meowth chimed in.
"Better than our necks." Jessie muttered. "Come on then, quietly, Meowth, I'm looking at you. No running your stupid mouth."
Meowth looked up indignantly but subsided at a glare from James.
Sneaking across the landing without being heard by the Rockets standing guard in the hall while others searched the downstairs was the most difficult part and by the time they eased single file into the bathroom and softly closed the door, James' nerves were shot and he wasn't ashamed to admit that he nearly wet himself at the sound of Jessie shoving the window open.
"Shhh!" He hissed. Jessie rolled her eyes and climbed onto the sink to peer out.
"It's clear but that bush is going to hurt." She informed him, looking down at her skirt with apprehension.
"Jimmy!" Meowth whispered from the doorway.
"Meowth, come on, we have to go."
"Listen!" Meowth pleaded with a nod towards the door.
James lunged towards the cat Pokemon, ready to throw him out the window if that was what it took but something on Meowth's face made him stop and press his ear to the crack of the door.
"...know he lives here. You really think anyone gets away from us? We let him go."
"So what if he does?" Olivia's voice was defiant even though James knew she had to be scared stiff. "What do you want with him now? It's been years."
"We don't want him back, don't worry your pretty head about that. We've got bigger fish to fry. It's the woman we came for. His ex partner. We know she's here, there's nowhere else she would go."
"There is no woman here. You think I would let him bring a member of Team Rocket into this house? I have a baby on the way for goodness sake!" Olivia sounded just the right mix of confused and irritated and James swore he would have believed her himself had he not been looking right at the partner in question.
"They knew where you were all along." Jessie whispered, disbelievingly. "All those times they questioned us... the things we let them do... and they already knew? It was all a game. Their sick, twisted idea of a game, trying to get us to give you up and those sick, evil bastards knew the whole time."
Her voice cracked slightly in the middle and James nearly smacked his head on the doorknob he looked up so fast.
"What things?"
"What?"
"What things? You said 'those things we let them do.' What things?" James' voice was low and dangerously calm.
"Nothing, James, I didn't mean anything. I just can't believe they knew the whole time. It was just...mind games, you know?"
"You're lying to me."
"I'm..." She trailed off, frustrated. "We have to go."
"You tell me right now or I swear to you I will go down there and beat it out of them!" He had to fight to keep his voice from rising in anger. He knew what Team Rocket's version of 'questioning' was like and he was pretty sure he wasn't going to like this.
It was only when the flush rose on Jessie's cheeks and he remembered Meowth's earlier comments about Jessie earning her pay in other ways that it dawned on him exactly how much he wasn't going to like it.
His vision tunnelled in pure white fury and he turned, reaching for the door knob.
"No! Please, James, don't! Please don't! We have to go. Now."
He stood for several seconds breathing slowly as the overwhelming rage receded to a steady simmer in the pit of his stomach and vowed to himself that he would kill each and every one of them who had laid so much as a finger on his partner.
He looked at Meowth, wide eyed and terrified as he pressed back against the door clearly intending to try and stop him.
"Lets go." He grabbed Meowth by the paw and swung the cat Pokemon onto his shoulders. Meowth clung harder than ever but for once James didn't even notice his claws. He pushed the window wide and boosted Jessie up onto the sink.
"Try and land quietly." He told her. She rolled her eyes, swung her legs out and then glanced back.
"Promise you'll be right behind me."
"Jess, we don't have time for this!"
"Promise!" She snarled and he wondered, not for the first time, how she managed to express such a clear, explicit threat while speaking no louder than a whisper.
"You promise me, James Morgan, you will not go down there."
He heard footsteps on the stairs.
"I swear!" He hissed in desperation. "I'm right behind you, just JUMP!"
She shot him a suspicious look but pushed off and landed with relatively little fanfare in the shrubbery below.
James hesitated for a second as he heard the bedroom doors being opened. It would be so easy to just hide behind the door and jump them as they came in. Meowth's claws dug painfully into his neck and he could feel the Pokemon shaking.
"Please, Jimmy..." He pleaded.
James swore under his breath and lunged for the window, hoisting himself up and dropping over the sill. Jessie was right. The bush hurt. But neither of them had time to be picking twigs out of their particulars because the two Rockets guarding the house had seen them and raised the alarm before they could react.
"Shit." He cursed, casting about wildly for some means of escape. They were hopelessly outnumbered, 5 to 2. He felt Meowth slither down his back and across to Jessie and then a rustle as he disappeared into the bushes.
"He took a pokeball." Jessie muttered out the side of her mouth. "He's up to something."
James felt a flicker of hope. Right a distraction then. One thing for it. Shame he didn't have a flower really, for dramatic effect.
He struck the familiar pose, feeling only slightly like an idiot.
"Prepare for trouble!"
Jessie stared at him incredulously. "Are you serious?"
"Make it double!" He continued, giving her a look that basically begged her to play along as the Rockets stared at them in a mixture of amusement and disbelief.
"To protect the world from devastation." Jessie assumed her own stance beside him.
"To unite all peoples with our nation!"
"To denounce the evils of truth and love!" The ever familiar routine of the motto seemed to have given Jessie some of her old confidence back and she finished her line with an arrogant flip of her hair.
"To extend our reach to the stars above!" He could see Meowth out of the corner of his eye, edging round behind the Rockets.
"Jessie!"
"James!" A flash of red light.
"Team Rocket blasts off at the speed of light!"
Carnivine rose up behind them and it struck James for the first time just how imposing Carnivine could look when he wasn't playing the clown.
"Surrender now, or prepare to fight!"
The Rockets dropped as one, none of them having seen the assault coming.
Meowth felled the one remaining Rocket who was struggling onto his knees with a violent bout of fury swipes.
"Meeeeeowth, that's right!" The cat exclaimed with what James could only describe as satisfaction.
Olivia was staring in horror from the doorway, unable to believe that sweet, dopey Meowth and their hapless Carnivine had just killed 5 men. Even worse was the fact that James, her kind, gentle, wouldn't raise a hand to a cockroach, James hadn't blinked an eye. Had actually helped by distracting them with that insane song and dance so that the Pokemon could get behind them.
"The MOTTO, James, Seriously?! That was the only thing that came to mind?!" Jessie was demanding.
"I was under pressure, okay!" He snapped back.
"James?" Olivia said slowly.
He glanced back over at his wife, immediately hit with guilt for forgetting about her. She must have been so scared, witnessing that.
"Livvy, I'm so sorry you had to see that. Are you okay." And just like that, he was her James again; hurrying towards her with a look of concern.
"James...didn't you say that Rockets are always sent out in pairs?"
"Yeah, what's that got to do with..." He stopped, looking back at their attackers bodies. Their five attackers.
"Damn it!" He swore, spinning around and lunging for Jessie who had apparently come to the same conclusion. They reached each other just as a loud crack rang out and James felt something smack him in the back below the shoulder blade, knocking him forwards into Jessie.
Her arms wrapped around him and he heard Olivia scream. He looked from one to the other in confusion; turned towards the source of the noise and then he felt the pain. God, the pain. His legs went out from under him and he was only dimly aware of the scuffle as Meowth struggled with the Rocket. He flinched as the gun went off again and experienced a brief flare of fear until he realised that Meowth had been the one to do the shooting.
The cat appeared beside them and he struggled to focus on what they were saying. Jessie had him across her lap, frantically pressing on his wound and obviously panicking.
"...hang on. You have to hang in there, James, help is coming! Please just stay with me okay?"
He could see Olivia, sobbing on the phone to someone, her free hand in his hair, obviously trying to comfort him but he couldn't really feel it.
"James! Oh, God just stay with us, please. Don't close your eyes! James!"
"Jimmy!" Even Meowth sounded terrified. "Jimbo, wake up."
Was it him, or was it getting dark? It was too early to be getting dark. He must be passing out. Or maybe he was dying. Wasn't there supposed to be a light? Even their voices were muffled, like they were fading away.
"James!"
Next chapter is the last, guys! This is the first multi chapter fic I have finished and I am unreasonably proud of that fact!
