"Well, I must say Brock and Misty did a fine job on these wounds."
"Thanks."
"Ash needs a lot of rest, to eat plenty and drink lots of fluids. These tablets will help the pain, Ms Ketchum, one tablet a day, but another from that, Ash is a strong lad."
"Thank-you Doctor."
Then many footsteps began to walk out of Ash's room and began to walk down stairs leaving the sleeping boy in peace.
Sunlight began to burst through the curtains and Ash slowly opened his chocolate brown eyes.
Ash gave a soft yawn and began to stretch, but started to get jolts of pain on his chest.
"Bloody hell, will this pain ever go away," moaned Ash, rubbing his hand against his new clean bandage.
Ash looked around his room for a minute and saw it was sparking clean so he knew his mum must be back home and hopefully fit and healthy just like his room was.
He was worried about his mum last night, his new found evil dad couldn't have done anything to his mum, but if he had, Ash knew he will get revenge on him.
Ash slowly and carefully sat up and began to make his way down stairs.
He was wobbly, swaying from side to side, but stopped to the top of stairs as a rush of dizziness hit him.
Luckily, Delia had notice her son's attempt and quickly rushed up the stairs, and said seriously, "I don't think that's a good idea, Minster."
"But…mum…I can't just lie in my bed all day," moaned Ash, weakly regaining his balance.
"I don't care, you are still weak, come on, let's get you back into bed," ordered Delia, grabbing Ash's hand and leading him back to his room.
Ash watched his mum fuss over him, she seemed alright to Ash except a few scratches on her left cheek, but she still smiled and ordered like mother hen.
Misty watched Pikachu and Togepi playing in Ms Ketchum's garden.
Pikachu seemed a bit happier ever since the doctor gave his result of Ash being fine and all he needs is rest.
Togepi was a bit too young to understand what was going on, which Misty took as a good thing.
"I don't care Ash, you need rest!"
Misty heard all the shouting and went to see what all the fuss was about.
"I bet Misty will agree with me!" Delia groaned, noticing Misty outside Ash's door.
"Agree to what, Ms Ketchum?" asked Misty, walking up to the pair.
"That Ash needs rest and that means sleep too," replied Delia, arms on her hips.
"Defiantly," agreed Misty.
Misty saw Ash in bed with his arms crossed in annoyance of his mum fussing over him; she kind of felt sorry for Ash as he could say nothing to stop his mum from fussing over him.
'It kind of makes me think of my mum fussing….no come let's not go there,' thought Misty, sadly and quickly snapped out of her horrible upsetting past.
"But….I don't need rest, I'm fine," pleaded Ash again.
Delia smiled to see her son arguing with her again, when he was on his pokemon journeys she really missed his stubbornness, seeing her boy get whipped in front of her own two eyes was just horrible.
She couldn't say she hated Giovanni because if it wasn't for Giovanni Ash wouldn't have been born.
Delia noticed the bottle of tablets and read the packet 'One tablet a day can cause drowsiness'.
'Perfect,' thought Delia.
"Well, we better give you this, doctor's orders," said Delia as she took one tablet out and closed the lid.
Ash refused to have it and turned away with his nose in the air from the offer his mum was making.
"Come one, Ash, it isn't going to kill you," joked Misty.
Delia was annoyed and quickly forced Ash's mouth open as she put the tablet in, then put her hand over his mouth to make sure he swallowed it.
Ash was frantically going about all over the place and tried to spit it out of the sour taste, but finally give up and swallowed it.
"There," smiled Delia, satisfied that Ash will soon drop off, like the tablets said they would.
"So can I go downstairs, now?" yawned Ash, rubbing his eyes.
"I don't think so, Ash," smirked Misty, sitting down on Ash's left side of the bed.
Delia sat on the right side when she drew the curtains shut again so there was no light in the room to make certain he would go off to dream land.
"Hey, what gives? I needed that light….Oh I see, you two are trying to get me to go back to sleep, well it won't work," groaned Ash, angrily.
Suddenly, Delia started to play with a strand of Ash's jet black hair and said, "When you were little, you used to come crying up to me, when Gary picked on you. I used to cuddle and play with your hair as you fell asleep in my arms."
"He still cries now when he gets pick on by Gary," laughed Misty.
"Hey, that's not true!" said Ash, in an annoyed tone.
Delia and Misty laughed quietly.
Ash and Gary always used to fight to achieve their dreams, but there was only one space to be a pokemon master and both of them were battling each other constantly to get it. For some reason Ash was always the one getting hurt or upset, and Gary well ….being Gary doesn't care about his pokemon just about his appearance and of course his girl fans.
'That's what makes Ash different from Gary, Ash cares about people and pokemon,' thought Misty.
"I don't cry when Gary picks on me," repeated Ash, but this time his eyes started to droop.
Ash quickly opened them again, not allowing himself to go to sleep.
"Come on sweetie, you're not going to miss anything," said Delia softly, stroking his forehead.
Ash finally gave in and slowly drifted off, and gently mumbled, "Love you, both."
Misty stared at Ash, seeing him cuddle up to his pillow and his chest slowly lifting and falling.
She loved him, no matter how many arguments they had in the past; they were both there for each other through thick and thin.
From the time in 'Pokemon Emergency', when she was clinging on to Ash because of her fear on bugs to 'No Big Woop' on the rope bridge, Ash telling her to hold on.
"I knew he would drop off, he's so stubborn," smiled Delia.
Misty didn't say anything expect gazed into Ash's face.
"Misty, are you alright?"
"Ummm...Oh yeah," blushed Misty.
"Come on, maybe you could help me get lunch started instead of watching my son sleep," laughed Delia.
"Sure," stuttered Misty, going bright red.
An hour flew by as Misty was enjoying herself spending time with Ms Ketchum from gardening, to cleaning to watching the television; she even helped with the cooking. Togepi rolled up into her egg shape on the couch to get some rest from playing with Pikachu all day.
Lunch was served and they thought they better leave Ash sleeping and make him up something later.
"This looks good," gasped Brock, seeing a plate full of pasta coated in a tomato and herb sauce.
"I hope you like it, Misty helped me as well," smiled Ms Ketchum, sitting down.
"Misty did cooking," stuttered Brock in shock.
Brock remembered Ash telling him about the dreadful cooking Misty did when he was ill.
"Yes, I did, and it's better than yours," giggled Misty, beginning to start lunch.
"I'm sure it is," replied Brock as he too started to dig in.
"Where's Pikachu?" asked Ms Ketchum.
"I took him to Professor Oak's lab, Professor Oak said he wanted to check up on Pikachu for some research his doing," replied Brock.
"Pikachu needs a break after seeing Ash like that," said Misty.
Everyone agreed, and soon after everyone was finishing up on their lunch.
"Well, thanks for my last lunch here, girls," smiled Brock.
"What!" gasped Misty.
"Sorry Misty, I forgot to tell you, I'm going home for a little while to catch up on my family. I know Ash will be staying here for a little bit until he recovers and I gather you will be going back to Cerulean soon. So I think we should have a little break now, I hope you don't mind?" reported Brock.
"Of course not," lied Misty.
The truth was Misty wasn't really planning to go back to Ceaurealen, she couldn't bear to lay flowers on her………
"You alright, Misty?" asked Delia, noticing a tear falling onto her empty plate.
"Yeah, sorry, it's just I like… when you know, when we are all together," replied Misty, quickly wiping her eye.
"Yeah, but when Ash has fully recovered, we can start our travels again," reassured Brock.
"Yeap, we sure can," fake smiled Misty.
