As James vocally plummeted to his death, he flailed his arms madly about him. His fate would be sealed in a few seconds. First he panicked, then he tried to figure out a plan. There were roots running up the cliffside.

"Maybe I can latch myself onto one of them," he quickly planned.

Jesse saw that James didn't want to die now, but it was hopeless. He was already falling down the cliff! She covered her eyes and cried. Meowth, having been trailing Jesse's group by a few minutes, arrived to see her this way. He sped over to her and attempted to find out what was wrong, with Weezing, Arbok, and Victreebell following. In a moment or two, Jesse managed to choke out between sobs that James had jumped off the cliff.

One arm just happened to latch onto a protruding root, the root of a gigantic juniper shrub growing its way up the hill. His arm had broken the fall, but he now was hanging by the root, still above the jagged rocks with a newly broken arm and shoulder. Sighing deeply for relief that he had not met his fate only a few feet below, James hoisted his other arm up onto the root, thus taking the burden off the already broken bones in the arm that caught his fall. The sharp little spines running up and down the root had made a huge rip in his skin, with blood now oozing out all along his arms and down his already-filthy uniform. He examined his condition. His arm was broken in many more than two places, intense pain had caused that arm to go completely numb, and the same arm had a horrible group of bloody slices down it. It looked as if his arm had been twisted the wrong way then painted red.

Jesse didn't want to look. Although she didn't hear the plunging of the body into the water or the scream of terror as he hit the sharp rocks, she still assumed that James was dead. Meowth, however, was curious as a cat (well, he was a cat!) and ventured over to the cliff's edge. Peering down with his slitted eyes, Meowth did not see a dead body floating amidst the tide. He saw a struggling James trying to pull his bloody body up onto the steady roots of a large shrub entwined into the cliffside dirt. Immediately he shuddered and ran back to Jesse as fast as his feline legs could carry him.

"Jess!" he yelled excitedly. Jesse's doubled over crying body immediately shot up at the exclamation and she looked inquisitively towards the joyous pokemon.

"What-what is it, Meowth?" she demanded.

"It's James!" Meowth cheered. "He's alive!"

"What are you talking about? James fell to his death hundreds of feet off that cliff!"

"No, Jesse. I know what I'm seeing here. Come look." With a paw, he aided Jesse off the ground and walked her over to the cliff's edge. "Now, look down," he instructed.

Jesse peered nervously over the edge. She saw her partner hanging onto a root for dear life.

"WE HAVE TO HELP HIM!" she yelled. She called James's Victreebell over. "Victreebell, see your master down there holding onto the cliff side?" Victreebell nodded.

"Alright, Victreebell, pull him up with your vine whip!"

Within seconds, Victreebell flew its vines down to where James was struggling to hold on to the root with his good arm. His bad arm was beginning to turn bluish and he had become dizzy from all the loss of blood. Victreebell aimed true, but, unfortunately, his vines were not long enough to pull James back up. Jesse, glancing down to oversee Victreebell's work, saw that James had to only thrust himself up a few more feet and he'd be within Victreebell's reach. She shouted down to him.

"JAMES! DO YOU HEAR ME?"

The drowsy blue-haired man looked up at the embankment, hearing Jesse's worried voice. He saw how high up he had fell from and where his partner was standing as she yelled for him. Taking his attention off her for a few split seconds, James saw that his Victreebell had extended its thin green vines down to him. Only a few feet remained between him and the vines that would pull him back up. He nodded as vigorously as he could to Jesse to let her know that he could hear her. His voice was worn out and he was much too weary to try to shout to her.

Jesse interpreted James's nod as a "yes" and continued with instructions.

"JAMES, CAN YOU PULL YOURSELF UP A BIT FURTHER SO VICTREEBELL CAN HOIST YOU BACK UP?" Again, James nodded, this time more weakly.

Mustering all the strength that he could for the upcoming shoves, James managed to pull the right side of his body up onto the root he was holding onto. The vine was still too short. Beginning to feel panic rising in his throat, James scanned around for another root to pull him up nearer to the vine. He somehow managed to get all of his body onto the root as he reached for the next.

Jesse watched in anticipation as James slowly made his way up towards the top of the cliff. In the passing of a few seconds, she had completely chewed off all her nails, formerly manicured to perfection. Right now she did not care about perfection. She just wanted her James to be okay.

Swallowing a lump in his throat, James heaved his good arm, his left arm, over the next root. This root was a bit smaller than the previous one, but he prayed that it would hold for him. He struggled for a foothold, tearing the knees of his pants to shreds.

"Oh well," he murmured. "I'm already bad enough looking now. It's my fault anyway."

Flexing the muscles in his biceps, he yanked his torso onto the frail root. He was in reach of Victreebell now. The root made a breaking sound...

As Victreebell began to wrap its vines around James's blood-soaked waistline, the root gave way. James tumbled off of the ripped root, falling once again, this time face-first towards the water...

Fortunately, Victreebell had somewhat of a grip around his master's waist and snapped him back up towards the top of the cliff, using his vines as a slingshot. James flew straight up into the air, thoroughly stunned by the whiplash he was going through, courtesy of his pokemon's vines. Once James had reached the highest peak of his slinging and began to fall headfirst towards the water again, Victreebell dexterously thrust out his vines once again and grabbed James around his legs. The pokemon took the next motions slowly, gently lifting James up above the top of the cliff and setting him down as softly as possible on the grass.

Once James was placed on the ground, he immediately lost consciousness. The intense physical strains he had just experienced were too much to bear.

Jesse ran over to his seemingly lifeless body, seeing how bad of shape James was in. His arm was covered in half-dry, half-wet blood seeping from massive scratches and was obviously broken. His elbow was bent slightly backwards and his shoulder was easily recognized to be out of its socket, most likely also broken. The uniform he so proudly and handsomely wore was now a tattered, bloody, filthy mess upon his stark white body. When she put an ear next to his lips she could hear his shallow breathing. Meowth had ran off towards the road near where they were, searching for help.

Within a half-hour, James began to regain consciousness. His glorious jade eyes began to open as his breathing patterns became normal once again and his skin regained some color. Once his eyes had opened fully they focused on the surroundings, and much to his surprise he found he was lying in Jesse's lap, his hair being stroked lovingly by her. He assumed that he had probably died and somehow was accepted into heaven, for he "was in heaven" right now. Suddenly he remembered Jesse kissing Butch, having a great time with Butch, as she completely ignored him. Why was she here with him now, being wonderful towards him and caring for him, when so shortly before she had forgotten him?

"H-how... did I get here?" he murmured weakly. It was all he could say to get an explanation of what had all happened.

"James, you're finally awake..." Jesse said, her voice cracking from the quiet excitement she felt. She wanted to jump up and shout joyfully at the top of her lungs, but she couldn't scare him back into the world of unconsciousness. "You don't know how worried I was that you weren't going to make it..."

James was confused. "Why were you worried about me?" he said softly, so as not to enrage her again.

"Because I care about you," was the simple reply. Oh, how Jesse wanted to just say the words, the words that she had kept hidden in her heart for so long. She was afraid. Afraid to open up any spots of vulnerability. She began to feel a deep sadness in her heart.

"Now let me ask you a question, James. Why did you try to commit suicide?" As she said this, the words shocked her and made her eyes well up with tears.

James looked into her quivering eyes for the appropriate response. She was oblivious to what she had done to him. How so? It was she that drove him to want to die! Cautiously he ventured, "Jesse, you know why..."

Jesse immediately referred back to her yelling at him and making upsetting remarks. She never thought that it would affect him so intensely.

A tear fell from her eye as she replied to his last remark. "I'm sorry, James, let's just put that behind us. I'll try not to do it again, it just happens sometimes, definitely way too often..."

She did not know that James was talking about something else. He was referring to the kissing that "she" and Butch did in the car as he approached. Her response was not what he wanted to hear, in association with the kissing.

James processed the information in the worst way possible.

"Her eyes look sincere in what she is saying, but she JUST wants to put that kissing thing behind us? She's going to TRY not to do it again? How often DOES she do it anyway with him? Obviously it must be more than I saw today." His mind raced with more suicidal churning. "Not only did Jesse kiss Butch that one time, but she did it LOTS of times! When did she find the time? Jesse was always around me, but apparently not as ALWAYS as I thought."

Jesse did not know what was going on inside James's mind at the moment, but saw a tear forming in the corner of his eye so she assumed that he understood. He was acting so oddly though. Comfortingly, she nestled his head in her arms as she attempted to calm him down with a rocking motion. As James thought silently, Jesse put Weezing and Victreebell back in their pokeballs and put them back on his belt loop. Suddenly, James jolted up out of her grasp, scaring her to the point where she jumped back a little. The tear that began to form in his eye came streaming down his dirty face, along with many more. As he cried the tears of frustration and anger, he yelled at the woman sitting frightened on the ground in front of him.

"I... JUST DIDN'T... THINK... THAT YOU... WOULD DO THAT... TO ME... TO US!" Jesse could see that he was overly upset, for he could barely choke his words out between sobs.

"What was all this about the 'us'?" she thought. "I don't think the fighting had to do that much with 'us'."

James then turned around and stomped off back into the glen. Jesse was left sitting on the ground, utterly confused. She began to cry again; now James was REALLY angry. She had to follow him.