Jason Creight awoke the morning after Ash Ketchum's welcome home party.

It took him a moment to realize where he was. After all, he'd not set foot in this place for half a year. But he soon recognized it as his old room in the dorm wing of Professor Oak's lab complex.

He glanced toward the window. It was dark outside, and the wind howled around the complex. Jason could see through his window to another area, where some Pokemon were being released, while others were being retrieved.

*I should be doing that*, he thought at first. Then, *No, I don't. I don't work here anymore.

But on the other hand, just because I don't live here doesn't mean I'm insensitive to the Pokemon who do.

Nah,* he finally decided, *they'll get in on time.*

He reflected on the events of the previous day. Amazing how lame it had all seemed. With one swift blow, Daniel's Pokemon had all been taken out. Just like that, with no one being the wiser. Jason suddenly realized he couldn't understand how no one else could have been so poorly armed with Pokemon--especially Misty, whom he'd only met during the party.

He'd not met her when traveling Kanto for gym badges; she'd been too young for the gym leader position. He'd battled her sisters, instead, who also had seemed rather young to him at the time.

In any event, he knew that she had, at one time or another, been the gym leader for Cerulean City, and he didn't know how, in the now-eliminated timeline, she couldn't have beaten Daniel with her own arsenal of water Pokemon.

*Maybe he knew who she was,* Jason thought, *and eliminated her first?*

It didn't really matter. The timeline set by that possibility had been destroyed when Jason defeated Daniel.

Jason shook his head. *It may be just as well that Creight didn't watch the battle. If it could even be called a battle. More like a massacre. He would have thought it even more lame than I do.*

Now was not the time to think about that, though.

Jason's thoughts flashed back to the night before last.

He thought about trying to find Creight in the lab complex, hoping he wasn't stirring trouble.

And he thought about how he had seen his future self.

With Kelly in his arms, he'd confessed his love to her.

And he'd almost kissed her.

Jason vividly remembered how furious he had been, furious at seeing Kelly in Creight's arms.

Furious that Creight was able to stand, so that they could embrace without impediment.

Furious that...

That...

*Oh, no.*

Jason had been jealous of Creight.

*How can that be?* Jason asked himself. *He was *me,* or at least a future version of me. What's going on with me? What's wrong with me? How can I be jealous of myself?*

And he began to realize that it stemmed not from the fact that Creight had been able to utilize his legs, but rather that he'd been more willing to express his feelings to the girl that both of them cared about so much.

*But why? I told him that I didn't want to tell her about whatever feelings I might have, because I don't know what they are!*

A knock on the door interrupted his reverie. He groaned. "Yeah?"

"It's me," said a voice Jason had no trouble recognizing as Tommy's.

"All right, come in," Jason answered.

Tommy did so, walked over to the bedside, and sat down in Jason's wheelchair.

Jason snorted. "Make yourself at home."

"Thanks, I'll do that."

The paralyzed teen shook his head. "To what do I owe the honor?"

Tommy squirmed. "I'm sort of acting as a courier."

"For Kelly?"

"Yeah. She wants to talk to you, but between her work detail and her own nerves, she can't seem to convince herself to visit you. She wants to know if you're going to stay, or if you're going to leave again."

Jason threw up his arms in a helpless gesture. "I can't answer her through you, Tommy. Middle men are not my preferred means of communication when it comes to personal messages."

"I know. But she wants to talk to you. She wants you to visit her in her room today, whenever you can."

"Doesn't she work today?"

"She asked Oak to let her take a day off. He said yes."

Jason sighed. "Truthfully, I don't even know if I want to visit her."

Tommy frowned. "Why not? She's your girlfriend, isn't she?"

"She *was* my girlfriend."

"Who broke it off, then?"

Jason snorted. "That's the weird thing. I don't know."

"So for all you know, the relationship could still be on, and you're completely unaware of it."

Jason paused. "I hadn't thought of that."

"Then maybe it's time you did." Tommy sighed. "At least talk to her. You owe her that much. You should tell her about all that's happened to you. And you need to reconcile whatever it is that's been keeping you apart."

Jason looked up. "I thought you said you weren't the expert on relationships."

"I'm not. But I *do* know that much. While I trained at Koga's gym, I learned the concepts of trust, honor, and loyalty to your friends and teammates. We didn't really get into a love fest, but Koga told us that trust, honor, and loyalty were three of the most sacred values a member of his clan could have. He taught us that if we're missing any of those values, then we'd better search for them, 'cause there was no way he was going to allow trainees to become full-fledged members until we had all three of them so deeply ingrained, there was no getting them out."

Jason sighed. "It's not that easy, Tommy. The urge to train your Pokemon to their full potential is hard to ignore when it's all you've got. You should know that, after all you've been through. You lost your parents at a younger age than I was when I rejected my own. Your only parental figure was Koga, and he was fiercely loyal to you and your brothers, his Pokemon, and his clan, probably in that order. Training was all he knew, and all he could pass on, so it seems rather inevitable that you would have followed in Koga's footsteps, however loosely followed those footsteps may be."

"Perhaps," Tommy admitted. "And you're right; the allure of training *is* hard to ignore when you don't have anything else. But my history isn't what's keeping you from talking to Kelly. *You* are."

Jason mumbled incoherently under his breath.

Tommy stared at Jason. "What's *wrong* with you? If you have feelings for her, you should let her know. It's what Creight did, isn't it?"

Jason looked back up at Tommy. "I'm not Creight."

"Maybe not, but whether you like it or not, he was you at some point, and he knew to take a chance when he could. Which means that part of you may develop, may already *be* developed. You're just not willing to admit it yet."

"I didn't ask your opinion!" Jason snapped. "I didn't ask you to analyze me! And I certainly didn't ask you to be a matchmaker for me and Kelly! We did that ourselves, thank you very much!"

"And then you left her," Tommy retorted. "You had it all, and you left it all behind so you could go train."

Jason glared at Tommy. "As if you'd do any differently in my place!"

"For everything that was handed to you on a silver platter, hell yeah, I'd do differently. I'd have stayed."

"It wasn't the life for me."

"What? Having a real-life, give-and-take relationship where sometimes your convenience has to take a backseat for the good of everyone else?"

"Look, I thought one of the goals of life was to be as happy as you could be, whatever you decide to do. And I wasn't happy living here. That's why I left. It wasn't because Kelly and I were having issues, and it wasn't because we were starting to drift apart or anything like that. I didn't want to be holed up in one place. I didn't want to be confined to the life of a Pokemon researcher. I wanted to be out there, free to do what I wanted to do."

Jason looked down at his useless legs. "And I really wouldn't have minded if Kelly had gone with me. I wanted to be with her. I'd even started to... to..."

Tommy tried not to smile. This was a serious situation Jason was talking about. But he couldn't help himself. Jason, though he'd not made a spoken confession, had just admitted to one of the hardest things he would ever be able to admit to.

Jason shook his head violently. "It doesn't matter. When I told her I wanted to leave, she got upset in her own way and began asking me the toughest questions."

Tommy nodded. "I know. You told me once. She asked if you'd go if you knew for a fact that you'd never see each other again."

"Yeah. And I couldn't answer her. So I let my actions speak for themselves."

Tommy stared at Jason. "You left her without saying goodbye?"

Jason nodded.

"There *is* something wrong with you. I can only imagine how many nights she spent crying herself to sleep."

Jason pointed a finger at Tommy. "Don't you dare try and put the guilt trip on me. I've gone over all of it in my mind already. I know it was a mistake."

"Oh, yeah. It was a *big* mistake." Tommy sat back in the wheelchair he'd borrowed. "Well, no wonder she wants you to come to her room, instead of the other way around. She wants you to come back to her. Not just to the lab, not just to Professor Oak, and not just to the Pokemon, but to *her*. She wants the relationship to keep going. And that tells me that if either of you broke it off, it sure wasn't her."

Jason grunted. "Since when did you become a counselor?"

"Just a little amateur deduction, that's all."

"Well, if you're right about all this, I'd say you've got some potential in that department."

"Me?" Tommy blew a raspberry. "I'm content to train, thank you."

"And so am I. But for now, I guess I'd better start thinking about other things. So get out of my wheelchair."

***

Kelly's eyes snapped open to the flash of lightning and the sound of thunder outside her window.

She moaned, then pushed herself off the bed. She'd decided to oversleep, since today was a selected "off" day. She'd only gotten up for breakfast, and had spoken with Tommy very briefly. But then she'd gone back to bed.

She felt something sharp stabbing into her stomach. When she got further off the bed, she saw why. She'd fallen asleep on the cover of her book again. Not only that, but her arm had ended up between the book and her stomach. It was completely numb, unresponsive to any messages she sent to it. She finally had to pick it up and fling it to the side.

She grunted. *Now I know how Jason feels.

Jason...*

She thought back to that moment that she'd seen two Jason Creights there in the lab with her. She remembered it vividly, but she still didn't know if it was a dream or not.

*But it couldn't possibly be real. I mean, two Jasons at once?*

She remembered how the bearded one had hugged her. So tightly, so needingly. Just like she had clung to him.

She remembered what he had said about missing her.

She remembered what he had said...

...about loving her.

Kelly had waited five years--five long years--for him to say that. She had dreamed it before, but those dreams had been more hazy than this. The elation hadn't lasted for more than a few seconds before she realized that it had all been in her mind.

But this...

This was so very different from anything else she'd ever dreamed or daydreamed.

This had been so... so *real.*

But it had to be a dream. It had to be.

Maybe something meant to be interpreted. One standing up, ready and willing to confess his undying love; the other one still wheelchair-bound, still closed up on the inside, still unwilling to make any sort of commitment to anything but training.

*Maybe... maybe the one that was standing was the Jason Creight I really want, and the other one was there to snap me back to reality...?

But that can't be right; I like Jason the way he is...!*

A knock on the door disrupted her musings.

Her heart skipped a beat.

Was it him?

*Only one way to find out.*

She approached the door. "Who is it?"

"I have an answer for you."

Kelly recognized the voice and opened the door.

It was Jason, in all his glory, seated in that titanium wheelchair that she had come to know so well.

Memories came flooding back to her.

Joys.

Sorrows.

Regrets.

Half a year became yesterday in an instant.

Neither of them said anything for a moment.

And then, Jason spoke.

"The answer is no. I wouldn't be able to leave you if I knew we'd never see each other again. And that's why I came back."

Tears of joy filled Kelly's eyes, and she beckoned Jason to come inside.

He did so.

She closed the door, turned, and stared at him for a moment. She was afraid to say anything; she knew her voice would break if she did.

"Come on over here," said Jason, patting the bed. "I'm not gonna bite."

She sat down and sniffed.

"Since you're not in the mood to talk, I'll start," said Jason. "I can't begin to apologize for leaving you the way I did. I should have said something to you, should have told you, should have said goodbye. I didn't. That was a mistake. I was wrong. And I'm sorry for hurting you."

"I hope so," she responded, her speech shaking and breathing ragged with the effort of trying to stop herself from crying. "Because I would hate to think that you left me because you didn't like me anymore. That you left because you didn't..."

She couldn't finish the sentence.

She didn't have to.

Jason watched the tears stream down her face. "Look at me, Kelly."

She looked up, and he saw the sadness in her eyes that could only provide a window to the suffering she had felt when he'd left.

He looked deeply into those eyes. "I would never, ever leave you because of that. I'm your friend, and you're my friend. I want that friendship to last. I'll never consider you anything less. And while I can't be the best friend you've got, you're the best one I've got. And that's all that matters to me right now."

She smiled sadly. "But you're going to leave again, aren't you?"

He sighed. "I'm pretty sure I don't want to stay here for long. I still haven't started competing for the Johto League. I haven't even registered." He pushed himself out of his wheelchair and next to Kelly on the bed. "But I'm not going to worry about it now."

She looked him up and down. He'd not grown much bigger, but he'd grown a bit more muscular.

But whatever else had happened to him, he was still the same old Jason Creight.

He looked at her. It seemed to him as if she'd grown even more beautiful than when he'd seen her only two nights before. To say nothing of more than six months ago.

And at that moment, both of them knew what they wanted, more than anything else.

They leaned in to each other. Hesitantly, at first.

But they knew what they wanted.

And they knew what the other wanted.

It was the same thing.

Their lips met.

***

Two days later, Kelly dropped in on Jason's room and found him doing what she'd feared he'd do.

He was packing his things again.

"You're leaving again." It wasn't a question.

Jason nodded reluctantly. "I'm sorry, but this is the way it has to be for me. I have to keep pushing. And I need to be free to do what I need to do."

"You don't have to explain," she said. "I understand."

He sighed with relief. "I'm glad. And like I said, I'm really sorry it has to be this way."

"Nothing to be sorry about."

He frowned. "I'm leaving again, and you don't care the slightest bit?"

She rocked her head from side to side. "I *am* somewhat disappointed, yes, but I can deal with it. And I'm going to deal with it."

"Well, glad to hear it." Jason turned back to packing.

She sat down on the bed. "I'm coming with you."

He'd been holding an extra shirt which he'd intended to insert into his backpack, but his hand stopped in midair upon hearing this. "You're what?"

"I said, I'm coming with you."

He turned his chair around to face her as he stuffed the shirt in. "You sure about this?"

"I'm positive about this, Jason. You have another secret up your sleeve. And it's something that you can't discuss right away, not even to someone who's been your girlfriend for more than four years. I can tell by looking in your eyes that you *want* to talk about it, but that you think I wouldn't understand. Well, fine. But you've had enough adventures out there without me. Besides," and she winked, "this'd be a good chance to get to know your friend Tommy."

Jason frowned at her incredulously. "You're gonna follow me around until I confess my secrets *again*? When will you quit?"

"Never," she answered playfully. "There's no way you're leaving me behind again. I'm already packed. Don't even try to discourage me. I've even changed my team for the occasion."

"Oh, really."

"Yes, really. I've still got Snorlax and Victreebel, and I added in some of my new Pokemon. They've been training against each other, so they're moderately strong."

"Good. Which ones did you pick?"

"Natu, Hoppip, Sunkern, and Totodile. Does that mean you want me to come along?"

Jason sighed and threw up an arm. "Of course I do. I wouldn't have minded you coming along before, but you didn't seem inclined to."

"Well, it just sounded like you were trying to dissuade me from it."

"I figured you were just as happy now as you were then."

"Not without you."

Jason didn't respond. There was nothing, he felt, that he could add to that simple, yet eloquent statement.

Kelly moved closer to him. "When you left, I was a total wreck. You have no idea how much I cried over that. I hated you for leaving, I hated Sam for trying to help, I hated myself for not saying what I really wanted to say."

Jason folded his hands in his lap. "And what was it that you really wanted to say?"

She shook her head. "That you were the most important thing in the world to me, beyond my own family. That I'd be devastated if you left."

"And why didn't you?"

"Because I thought I'd get one last chance to tell you before you left. Because I thought you were going to come and say goodbye."

Jason looked up from his interlaced fingers. "And if I had, would you have told me?"

"If I had told you, would you have gone?"

"I would have considered it more seriously. But let me ask you this." Jason leaned forward. "Let's say, for the sake of argument, that I *did* come to say goodbye, that you confessed that to me. Either that, or you told me when I first talked to you about the possibility. What if I had left anyway? Would confessing have made it any easier on you?"

She bounced on the bed and wrung her arms, frustrated. "It's not fair to ask me questions I don't know the answer to!"

"And now the tables have turned." Jason raised his eyebrows meaningfully.

Kelly sighed. "Point taken. But if I had to answer, I think it wouldn't have."

"Well..." Jason spread his hands. "There you are."

"Yeah. Here I am. And this time, I'm staying with you."

She kissed him. It was long, sweet, passionate.

Jason could feel his heart pounding in his chest when they pulled away. Kelly smiled innocently, almost shyly.

*Some people say that this isn't a perfect world,* Jason thought.

*What do they know?*

Jason Creight grinned on.

To Be Continued