DISCLAIMER: Nope, me no own Pokemon.

A/N: I was inspired to write this after I had a dream about what Misty dreams in this story. Every hopeless romantic such as myself and Misty have this dream, or similar to it. *sigh* Just a cute little story anyways!


Ash Ketchum didn't notice the beauty in the night sky one particular evening. Usually the stars would be a magnet for his eyes as they lured him with their shimmering dance. But this night was different. He knew, as he stared intensly into the campfire, that tonight could change everything he and his best friend had shared for 5 solid years.

Misty. How one word could do so much to one's brain. It caused Ash more inner conflict than he had previously thought possible. Through thick and thin she had been with him, and they never hid anything from each other. They had both shared their hopes and dreams with the other, no matter how ridiculous or farfetched they seemed. Nothing, in Ash and Misty's eyes, seemed ridiculous when it concerned the other's happiness.

Except this. Ash had been planning to tell her this for weeks on end. Realisitically, he'd known for months...years? But he had announced it to Brock, his confidante and very good friend, a few weeks ago, who had strongly advised that Ash take the dive and tell her.

"But what if she doesn't feel the same?" Ash had asked.

"Look, what's the worst that could happen?" Brock shot back, getting exasperated at his friend's excuses.

"She could slap me in the face and vow never to speak to me again" Ash said miserably.

Brock paused at that remark. "You'll never know unless you tell her. You're best friends, you guys have become unbreakable these last few years. Believe me, something like this wouldn't destroy your friendship." An odd grin came over his face and he continued. "Until then, it'll keep eating away at you, haunting and taunting you to the very brink of your sanity..."

"Okay okay, I'll tell her in a few days" Ash promised. He had always planned to tell Misty - but Brock had been the catalyst. Without him, Ash could have delayed his actions for, possibly, even more months.

But tonight was it. One more day and his sanity's limits would have been breached. And just as Ash opened his mouth to start, with Brock there and all, Misty yawned and stretched her arms out.

"Geez, why do I let myself stay up so late? I'm hitting the sack, night guys." With that brief closing statement Misty snuggled into her sleeping bag and left Ash with a gaping hole where his mouth usually was.

"What the hell just happened?" he asked after hearing Misty's light snores.

Brock looked up from where he was also preparing to settle for the night. "What?"

"Another golden oppurtunity flies right in my face and I miss it because she stays up too late" Ash explained bitterly.

"Well, you did have all night, you know. All day too. You've also had the last week, the last month, the last five years..." Brock muttered, lying down.

"Oh shut up" Ash sighed. "Tomorrow" he decided.

"It's another day, dude. Start fresh, be confident and you'll be fine. Goodnight Ash" Brock said with a yawn and Ash muttered something equally closing back.

As he had expected to, Ash tossed and turned for two straight hours after he went to bed. Just metres away from him, there she slept, the dominance of his dreams and thoughts. And she didn't even know it...did she?

Nah, Ash told himself. How could she suspect it? In the beginning they had done nothing but argue about every subject under the sun and, despite their now close bond, they still occasionally took each other on in a head on head bickering match.

He finally felt his eyelids drooping around 1:45 in the morning, when he was suddenly aware of another presence around him. Jolted out of his half-conscious state by fear, he fully opened his eyes and looked around. He sighed with relief when he saw only Misty sitting beside him.

How could he have missed her? He had only had his eyes closed for a second. "Hey, how long have you been here? What are you doing here?" he asked suddenly.

"I've only been here about ten minutes. I didn't know whether to wake you or not, you kept on muttering to yourself. Couldn't tell if it was deep sleep talking or whatever" Misty explained.

"Oh, I see" Ash said, rubbing his eyes and sitting up to face her. "So why did you wanna wake me up?"

"I can't sleep" Misty informed him.

"So you decided to share your insomnia with me?" Ash asked with a grin. "How considerate of ya Mist. Why don't you wake Brock for a change?"

"It's funny when you don't sleep and you get up in the morning. You get all catty, it's a fun display" Misty laughed through the explanation.

"Hey, I most certainly do NOT get catty! Only girls get catty" Ash defended himself.

"Whatever" Misty lightly shrugged. "I just woke up from the most fantastic dream" she sighed.

"Oh no, she had a dream. This could take a while, folks" Ash moaned.

Misty laughed and playfully shoved him. "You wanna know what it was about?"

"Well, I suppose since I'm up I might as well. It's 2 in the morning, I've got heaps of time, babble away" Ash said, finally feeling more awake.

"Okay, well, it was exactly 8 days until my birthday at the start of the dream. I was living in my own house, having become the best Water Pokemon Master of all time and earning a ton of money in the process..."

"Hold it, stop stop stop!" Ash interrupted Misty's introduction, causing her to stare at him in confusion. "This sounds frightenly familiar. Isn't this how all your dreams start out?"

"I dunno" Misty said vaguely. "Just let me finish, okay? I've hardly started yet. Anyhoo, I woke up, knowing that it was 8 days to my birthday...although now that I think about it, I actually have no idea how old I was turning. I think it might have been 21, or something close to it, because I was..."

"Misty" Ash interrupted again. "At 2 in the morning I do not need specifics. Just gimme the outline of it."

"Fine, fine. So where was I? Oh yeah, I woke up and went to check the mail, and guess what was in the mailbox?" Misty squealed excitidly.

"I don't know, Misty" Ash said in a bored tone. "An engagement ring from the man of your dreams?"

"No, silly" Misty rolled her eyes. "But I s'pose you're kinda close. It was a long stemmed, red rose with a single piece of paper on it. The paper only had one letter on it though - 'I.' Just that one letter."

"Does this have a point?" Ash asked warily.

"That's what I thought in my dream! But I was just excited to get a rose in the first place. No sender or anything, totally anonymous. So I kept it, and the next day ANOTHER rose arrived! This time with 'L' written on the note!" Misty exclaimed, her eyes going wide with excitement.

"And this kept going on and on as the other letters arrived with the rose. It went like this, 'O' 'V' 'E' 'Y' 'O' 'U' and I got the 'U' one on the day of my birthday."

Ash was still trying to calculate what Misty had just spelt out and by his puzzled expression she could sense it, so she helped him out. "The roses spelt out 'I Love You.' Can you imagine?! It was so romantic!"

"I'll bet" Ash smiled. Misty was a hopeless romantic, there was no doubt. She held up a tomboy act most of the time, but even she herself had admitted that she was a sucker for red roses and chocolates and flowers with the three words that made her go gooey inside.

"But wait, there's more!" Misty tried to keep quiet, as not to wake Brock, but it was becoming difficult as she relived the dream through her words. "When it was my actual birthday, the last rose was delivered by my secret admirer himself. And, woah, I don't know him in real life but I fell in love with him pretty easily in the dream!"

Ash laughed, trying not to show his disappointment. Why couldn't the secret admirer have been him?

"And then we started going out, before he asked me to marry him in Paris, which of course I said yes to..." Misty started sort of swooning, sort of scaring Ash.

"So you went out once and got hitched afterwards? Sheesh, stylie" Ash remarked with a laugh.

"Nooo, of course not! He was my well established boyfriend before he was my fiancè!" Misty explained.

Ash burst out into hysterical giggles. "Well established boyfriend? You make it sound like a trusted company or something!"

"What's wrong with having a well established boyfriend?" Misty asked haughtily.

"Oh nothing" Ash sniggered. "Why couldn't you just say he's serious or something? Wouldn't it be easier? Sounds like you're talking in an infomercial." He continued in a phony announcers voice. "'He's the well established boyfriend, complete with red roses and romantic notions of all types...'"

Misty couldn't stop laughing at her friend's teasing. "You're an idiot, you know that?"

"I do what I can" Ash shrugged. They both laughed and grew silent with smiles still on both their faces.

"Ash..." Misty said quietly.

Ash felt his heartbeat rapidly growing at the way she said his name. "Yes?" he said, his voice calm but his whole system a tangle of nerves.

"Do you think it's possible that there are really guys out there who are that thoughtful and romantic?" Misty asked, hugging her knees to her chest.

"I know there are" Ash said confidently. Heck, if all it took to get her was a rose every day, he would send her roses for the rest of her life! "And I know that there's one out there for you somewhere."

"You know?" Misty asked skeptically. "Do you personally know this guy or something?"

Ash paused. This seemed like the perfect time, place, mood to tell her. Balmy air, a light conversation about fate's role in romance, and Misty sitting so close to him it made him inwardly quake. He slowly nodded his head and eyed her carefully. "I do know him."

"Well I'd be thrilled to find out who this person is. Otherwise I could be wandering the planet for the rest of my life trying to find him" Misty laughed. When Ash didn't laugh with her, she realised something serious was up. "Ash? Are you okay?" she asked worridly.

"No Mist, I'm not okay." Ash sighed. "I know this guy you've got in mind is romantic and charming and sweeps you off your feet at the drop of a hat. But in real life, the guy who is in love with you is nothing like that" he explained.

Misty's eyes went wide. "Ash, what are you..."

"I've known you for five years, and I have never lied to you about anything. Ever. I can't lie now. You asked me a question and I have to answer you, right?" Ash said.

Misty just nodded dumbfoundly. "If you know this guy who loves me, then that would be nice" she said meekly. "Unless you've sworn him to secrecy or something" she hastily added.

"He hasn't been sworn to secrecy. He's just been stalling for a while." Ash smiled and decided to stop playing her round. It wasn't fair. She had a right to know now. "Misty...he's me."

The three words sent currents of shock and happiness all through Misty and her face broke into a grin that Ash wasn't expecting. "Really?"

"I love you, Misty. Somewhere along the way I fell in love with you. Don't ask me when or how or why it happened, but it did, and I can't - " Ash was cut off from his rambling by Misty bringing her lips to his. The kiss that endured for the next 30 seconds gave the two teenagers what they had both secretly been dreaming about for years. They broke apart with Ash more than a little shock and Misty with an amused look on her face.

"That was to shut you up and let me speak my mind. I was wishing all along that you were the well established boyfriend in my dream" Misty smiled.

"R-really?" Ash asked, still overcome by the new feelings he had experienced through that kiss.

Misty nodded. "Because I love you. And I don't need you to spell that out in roses or anything. To hear you say it was more than enough."

"Well in that case...geez this sounds stupid...it would give me the greatest honour if I could be your well established boyfriend" Ash declared with a dramatic sweep of his arm.

Misty couldn't stop laughing, so she just nodded and wrapped her arms around the back of his neck. When her laughter finally died down she sighed in contentment and put her forehead to Ash's. "And I hope you always will be. Because to lose you would be like losing my other half" she said quietly.

The statement brought tears to Ash's eyes and he tenderly kissed her, feeling everything and more he had felt in their last kiss. "You won't lose me. I love you too much" he reassured her as they broke away.

"Good" Misty said firmly with a smile. She yawned and leaned her head on his shoulder. "What an awful time to feel sleepy" she commented.

Ash kissed the top of her head and noticed that already her eyes were closing peacefully and her breathing becoming rhythmatic as slumber overtook her. He gently laid her down to next to him in his sleeping bag and let her sleep. But not without his arms firmly around her waist and a smile on both their faces that spoke more than words ever could.

For Ash had been right. Tonight had changed everything between him and his best friend. But it had most definitley changed for the better, as two best friends moulded into one unit of love, and both dreamt of the other in a new, but better, light.


A/N: Alright, it's been a while so go easy on me! Flames I will take as constructive criticism (or maybe just downright criticism, whatever) and good reviews I will accept humbly! Thanks everyone! o^_^o