The next few hours were a blur. All he could remember were bits and pieces: Officer Jenny and her police detail taking pictures and filling out reports…the coroner covering her and taking her away…paramedics trying to examine him…Tracey's stunned, bewildered face…and then nothing.

When he awoke, he discovered that he was in his own bed and Tracey was hovering above him.

A dream! Oh, thank God. It was all a bad, bad dream! For once in his life he had been happy to have a nightmare.

"How do you feel, Professor?" an ashen Tracey asked.

"A little groggy. I must've had a nightmare. A pretty horrible one, at that."

Tracey bit his lip. "No, Professor. It wasn't a nightmare."

The faint smile of hope that had been forming on Professor Oak's lips faded. "What? What do you mean, Tracey?"

"It…it wasn't a nightmare. Mrs. Ketchum…she's dead and so is Mimie."

Oh no, oh no….it wasn't a dream. Professor Oak felt his head starting to swim.

"You found them. Someone killed them both," Tracey said in a quavering voice as he tried hard not to cry – he had already done enough of that this afternoon. "When I got there, the paramedics said you were in shock. You pushed them away and said that they needed to be helping Delia, not you. They had to sedate you in order to examine you."

Now he remembered…fighting with one of the paramedics as they tried to hold him down, screaming that they needed to be helping Delia, feeling a sharp prick, then sobbing as his world drifted away into black nothingness.

"They said you'll be all right," Tracey continued, even though he didn't believe it. He had never seen his boss cry before -- he had never seen anyone cry the way Professor Oak had done over Delia's body.

Professor Oak shook his head. "It won't be all right, Tracey."

Tracey was frightened by the look of utter desolation in his friend's eyes. "Professor, while you were asleep, Officer Jenny called. She said that the Officer Jenny in Ecruteak City found Ash, Misty, and Brock. They're on their way back to Pallet now."

"Ash?" In his own grief he had forgotten that there was someone else to consider. Delia's son.

At the sound of Ash's name, Tracey noticed that Professor Oak suddenly snapped alert. "Yes. They'll be here early tomorrow morning."

"How's Ash taking it?" Professor Oak asked as he attempted to get out of bed. As his legs began to wobble unsteadily, Tracey hastened to his side and helped him try to stand up.

"I don't know, Professor," Tracey replied. "Officer Jenny didn't say. Professor, maybe you'd better stay in bed. I'll tend to the Pokémon tonight."

"No…no…" Professor Oak mumbled as he tried to brush aside Tracey's arm. "I have things I need to do."

"Professor, please," Tracey pleaded. "I'll take care of everything. You need to get some rest. You've been through a lot today. We all have." When he realized that his shaky legs wouldn't support him, Professor Oak admitted defeat and let Tracey put him back to bed. "That's it, Professor," Tracey said soothingly as he tucked the blankets around his mentor's chin. "Just get some sleep."

"Thank you, Tracey," Professor Oak murmured as he closed his eyes. "Thank you…for everything."

Something about what Professor Oak had just said made the hair stand up on the back of Tracey's neck. The boy remained by his friend's bedside, listening as Professor Oak's breathing slowed until Tracey was certain that he was asleep. Before leaving the room, Tracey thoroughly searched through all the drawers and closets. Satisfied that Professor Oak didn't have a gun or knife hidden away, Tracey carefully shut the bedroom door, making certain that he had the container of Professor Oak's muscle relaxants (he had been taking them intermittently for his lower-back spasms) tucked away safely in his pocket. Even though he didn't think Professor Oak would try to overdose on the pills, something about the finality with which he had said 'thank you….for everything' made him a little less certain about that.

After tending to the Pokémon, Tracey checked on his friend once more before retiring to bed. It had been a long, horrible day, and all the boy wanted to do was get some sleep because tomorrow was going to be infinitely worse when Ash arrived. It had been hard enough to see what Professor Oak had gone through today, but Ash…poor Ash. Tracey silently opened the door to Professor Oak's room and saw that he was still asleep.

"Good night, Professor," Tracey whispered softly as he shut the door.

---

Professor Oak awoke with a start, drenched in sweat. The clock on his bedside read one forty-seven A.M. All evening he had been plagued with horrible nightmares, all of which involved Delia's ice-cold, blood-soaked body. Trembling, Professor Oak got out of bed and made his way downstairs to the kitchen. Even though he didn't normally drink, he needed something to help him forget everything that had happened in the past few hours. After downing two shots of bourbon, he heard a scuffling in the lab and decided to investigate. The noise turned out to be Muk, one of his favorite Pokémon, rattling about.

"Hello, Muk," Professor Oak said as he flicked on one of the lights, sat down at the computer, and turned it on. "Couldn't sleep either, huh?"

"Muk," the Pokémon said softly as it nuzzled Professor Oak's leg. It could tell that something was very wrong with its favorite human.

"Don't worry about a thing, Muk," Professor Oak slurred as he caressed the Pokémon's head. "I'll be all right. Everything will be fine. Now why don't you run along and get some sleep?"

"Muk," the Pokémon said sadly as it shuffled off, leaving a trail of purple slime.

As he logged onto the internet, Professor Oak was surprised that the alcohol had affected him so quickly. He was so relaxed that…that suddenly everything made sense now. After spending an hour gathering some information and tending to some business, Professor Oak closed the web browser and began to compose a letter detailing specific instructions for the care of each of the hundreds of Pokémon in the lab.

Not that Tracey needs it – he knows the workings of the lab as well as I do, he thought as he printed out the letter and re-read it. Picking up a pen, he wrote, "Forgive me, Tracey. I'm sorry," at the bottom of the letter then placed it in an envelope. After addressing the envelope with Tracey's name, he propped it up on the computer. Professor Oak stood up, swayed slightly, then staggered over to the cabinet that contained the potions and medicines for healing sick and injured Pokémon. Noticing that Tracey had locked the cabinet and hidden the key, Professor Oak smiled.

Tracey, my boy, you know me well, he thought as he tugged on the handle of the locked cabinet.

But not well enough. Professor Oak went over to his desk, opened the lower left-hand drawer, pulled out an old Poké Chow tin, and fished through several keys inside it until he located the one he was looking for.

Now let's see if you were clever enough to find it and remove it, Professor Oak wondered as he opened the medicine cabinet and moved aside several bottles.

"Oops, looks like you weren't," Professor Oak exclaimed softly as he located the small vial labeled "Highly Concentrated Arbok Venom, Poison," that was hidden in the back of the cabinet. He carefully removed the bottle and placed it on the nearby examination table. After locking the cabinet back and replacing the key in its hiding place, Professor Oak then rummaged around in the cabinet underneath the table until he found a syringe and a rubber tourniquet. After calculating the dose in his head, with a trembling hand he withdrew three cc's of the purple venom from the vial.

That'll be more than enough, he thought as he replaced the cap on the syringe and placed it, the tourniquet, and the bottle in his pocket. With one last look backwards, he turned out the light.

"Don't worry everyone," he whispered to his Pokémon as he staggered upstairs. "It'll be all right. Tracey will take good care of all of you."

He crept silently back to his room, locked the door, and turned on the light. As he turned around, he spotted something pink on the back of the chair on the opposite side of the room. Delia's sweater. She had left it there the other evening.

"It's such a warm night," she had told him after they had finished making love and she was getting ready to go home. "I'll leave it here and you can bring it back to me some other time."

Except now she didn't need it. She was in a place where you didn't need to worry about ever being hot or cold again.

He picked up the sweater and bunched it against his face. It still smelled like her. The jasmine perfume that she wore…the baby powder scent of her deodorant…there was even one of her hairs on it. As his tears started to flow again, he knew what he had to do. But first he had to calm down and regain his wits. No sense in screwing up what he had spent the last couple of hours carefully planning out.

But there was one last thing he had to do. He picked up a piece of paper and a pen, sat down at his small desk next to the window, and spent the next hour writing.

The first letter was to his grandchildren, Gary and May. In it, he told them how proud he was of them and expressed his regret that he wouldn't be able to see them grow up. He reassured them that they would be well-provided for and that it was his wish that May take care of her brother until he was an adult.

"Love always, Grandpa," Professor Oak said with a quavering voice as he signed the letter and placed it underneath the picture of his grandchildren that sat on his desk.

Then he wrote another letter, not quite as long as the first. When he had finished, he folded the letter, labeled it with the recipient's name, and placed it on the nightstand next to the bed.

Now he was ready.

He picked up Delia's sweater and sat down on the bed. He was surprised as how calm he was as he reached into his pocket, removed the items he had taken from the lab downstairs, and placed them on the nightstand next to the note he had just written. He slipped off his lab coat, picked up the rubber tourniquet and made a fumbling attempt to wrap it around his left arm. In frustration, he finally ended up using his teeth to tie it around his arm. Then he uncapped the needle and slowly picked up the syringe filled with the dark purple liquid. Placing the needle against the raised vein in his arm, he wavered for a moment. He took a deep breath to steady his shaking hand and plunged the needle in.

No wonder the Pokémon hated seeing me coming with a needle, he winced as he tried to position the wiggling syringe. I didn't realize I was so terrible at this.

He paused for a fraction of a second to re-steady the syringe, then closed his eyes and depressed the plunger as fast as he could. He swore as the poison burned its way into his veins. Opening his eyes, he yanked the needle out of his arm and flung the empty syringe onto the nightstand. He then tore off the tourniquet and threw it on the floor. He bent his arm to try to stop the blood oozing from the wound, but realized what he was doing and laughed at the irony of the situation. Instead, he picked up Delia's sweater, laid down on the pillow, and covered his face with her garment.

He had originally thought about drinking the poison, but after doing some research and discovering the nasty side effects – horrible nausea, violent stomach cramps, nonstop vomiting – not to mention that it could take up an hour to work, he had decided to go with injection instead. That way it would only be a matter of minutes. Even now he was starting to lose the sensation in his limbs. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply Delia's scent.

And then there she was, standing before him. At first he thought it was some sort of hallucination brought on by the effects of the poison, but he reached out and touched her. This wasn't a dream -- he could actually touch her! He could smell her perfume, her scent -- it really was her! She smiled, opened her arms, and he eagerly rushed into them.

"Oh, Delia," he whispered with his last breath.