The next morning Ash woke up with a pounding headache. He had never been drunk before, and he wasn't thrilled with the aftereffects. He slowly wandered downstairs to the kitchen where his mother was fixing breakfast. The smell of frying bacon didn't exactly do wonders for his appetite. Ash hoped he wouldn't throw up on the table when his mother sat a plate of eggs and bacon in front of him.
"Good morning, dear," his mother said nervously. "How do you feel?"
"Kinda wiped out," Ash replied as he fought the nausea rising in his throat. "Do we have any aspirin?"
Delia poured out two tablets from the bottle in the cupboard and sat them next to her son's plate along with a glass of water.
"Thanks, Mom," Ash said as he swallowed the pills.
"Your father wants to talk to you," Delia said quietly as she sat down across from her son.
"Which one?" Ash retorted.
Delia cringed. "Ash, I know it must seem as if I've been lying to you all these years…"
"Lying? Lying?" Ash winced. Raising his voice had made the pounding in his head worse. Ash continued in a quieter, yet still angry, tone. "All these years you've been telling me that Will Ketchum was my father…"
"Now wait a second, Ash," Delia interrupted. "If you recall, I never once told you that Will Ketchum was your father. Whenever you asked me about your father, I always told you the truth; I said that he used to be a Pokémon trainer and the reason that he couldn't be with us was because he was off studying and taking care of Pokémon. You know as well as I do that Professor Oak used to be a Pokémon trainer when he was younger. And yesterday I told you the reason why we couldn't be together."
Ash didn't say anything. He had to admit that his mother was right.
"And if you also recall, I always told you that even though your father couldn't be with us, he still loved you very much. And he does, Ash. Professor Oak loves both of us. He's a good man, Ash. Unlike Will."
Ash looked up in shock. "What?"
"Will and I got married right out of college. It was a whirlwind courtship, very romantic. I was crazy about him." She smiled at the memory. "We had been dating for only six weeks when he proposed. Being head over heels in love, I naturally accepted and we eloped a week later. Looking back now, I can't believe how naïve I was then." Her smile faded. "He married me when he was on the rebound from breaking up with his girlfriend. He did it just to get back at her. He never really loved me." Delia smiled sadly. "The sad part about it was that I loved him."
Ash felt sorry for his mother.
"We had been married for a little over a month when his ex showed up and wanted him back, so he left me a 'Dear Delia' letter and took off. I haven't seen or heard from him since."
Wait a minute. With a sinking feeling, Ash realized something.
"If you haven't seen him since then, then he doesn't…doesn't know about…" Ash didn't think he could finish the rest of the sentence.
Delia leaned over and took her son's hand.
"Yes, Ash," she said quietly, "Will Ketchum doesn't know about you. He never really was part of your life even though you may have thought that way."
The man that he had believed was his father, the man he had idolized as a daring Pokémon trainer away on a long, exciting journey and had later grown to resent when he realized that he had abandoned them, didn't know that Ash even existed. Ash felt utterly betrayed…even his last name was a lie.
"But Professor Oak, your real father," Delia continued, "was always a part of your life, even though under the circumstances he could never tell you that he was your father. He was with me when you were born, bought us this house…"
"This house? Our home? Professor Oak bought it?" Ash interrupted, surprised by this new piece of information.
"Yes, and who do you think sent you those presents every year on your birthday?"
"You said Dad did…ohhh," Ash suddenly realized now which 'Dad' she meant.
"Whenever you were sick, I'd always ask him to stop by and bring one of the Pokémon from his lab to cheer you up."
Ash remembered when he was four and had a nasty case of the chicken pox. Professor Oak had stopped by with a Bellsprout that Ash ended up playing with for days until he was better.
"I also believe you learned to ride your bike at his house, didn't you?"
When he and Gary were six, Professor Oak had mentioned that he was teaching Gary how to ride his bike and wanted to know if Ash was interested in learning along with his grandson. Ash ended up learning how to ride long before Gary did.
"And do you remember when you broke your arm at his place?"
When both boys were eight, Gary had dared him to get on the back of the Rhyhorn that lived in the rock Pokémon preserve at the Oak lab. Ash stayed on the wild Pokémon's back for three seconds before being thrown violently to the ground. Professor Oak showed up in time to recall the wild Rhyhorn and save Ash from being trampled. Professor Oak had stayed with him, holding him while he cried from the pain of the broken arm, and even went with him to the hospital.
"And what about the birds-and-the-bees talk?"
"Mom…" Ash cringed as his face turned red. When he was eleven, his mom had asked Professor Oak to talk to him about puberty. Ash wasn't thrilled with the idea at first, but Delia had insisted that this was something that was best handled man-to-man. Despite the initial awkwardness, they had actually had a rather meaningful conversation about "girls and stuff" as Ash had put it.
All along the guy that I thought was our neighbor, our friend, was really my father. And I never knew it.
"Go see him," Delia urged. "I think the two of you need to sit down and have a long talk."
After I get rid of this hangover, thought Ash. Between that and learning the truth about his dad, he still felt pretty lousy.