Summary: Despite his better judgment, Brock agrees to an illicit affair with the Saffron City Gym Leader. That was his first mistake. His second was falling in love with her. His third was buying her a sea breeze on her birthday. Mangashipping.
Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon.
13. The Forbidden Fruit: Citrus paradisi – Name in Vain
"Ok, just sign here, here and here," a woman in a dress suit, commanded him, pointing him to various lines in the contract. Brock did as she instructed, signing and initialling next to the necessary items. "And we're done," she proclaimed as Brock made his final signature.
"It's been a pleasure doing business with you," Suzie smiled as the lawyer packed up the signed pages and promised to send them both the notarised copies. "I couldn't have done this without you, Brock, but I know you'll be great without me."
"Thanks, Suz," he replied to his former business partner.
It was the last step in closing off his life in Viridian – selling his stake in the business he'd co-owned for a little over three years. His friends were scattered all over Kanto, so there had never been much of a tether to the city. His apartment on the city fringe had been eagerly scooped up almost the second that it went on the market. Unleashed, he could root himself firmly in Saffron City and Lavender Town, feeling confident that he would be forever bound to those places.
"I think I'm gonna miss this place," he added wistfully, taking a moment to survey the old building.
"It's pretty incredible," Suzie agreed. "It was a good three years. How long do you think it will take you to set out on your own?"
"I haven't thought about it too much yet. I looked around a bit, but nothing really serious," he admitted with a shrug of nonchalance. In truth, he wasn't sure if he wanted to add 'starting a new business' to the growing list of momentous life events that were starting to converge. He'd already gotten married, moved in with his new wife, bought a house with said wife, moved to a new city, and conceived a child all within the span of about 6 months. Adding anything else to that list seemed a bit like over-achieving.
Suzie must have spotted the slightly pensive look that briefly flashed across his features, as she didn't push for more details. "I really am proud of you, Brock," Suzie told him warmly, her smile widening as they moved from the back offices to the front of the shop. "You've always been like a little brother to me, and it's like – you're all grown up and setting out on your own.
"Starting a family," she added, her eyes lighting upon his wife.
Brock couldn't help the smile that cut his face in two as he spotted her, crouched down to play with a toddler that was accompanied by one of their clients. As the little boy was tugging happily on a strand of Sabrina's long straight hair, he watched his wife's blue eyes light up with glee and a soft giggle leave her lips. Pleasantly he thought that in a couple of years that would be their own son tugging at his mother's hair and making her laugh and smile like that.
Sabrina stood up and waved goodbye to the little boy as if she had sensed his eyes upon her. She met his loving gaze with a warm expression of her own, moving quickly to his side in order to fill his embrace.
"You are a very lucky woman," Suzie announced, a look of pride on her face as she observed the two. "But I bet you get that all the time."
"Not as much as I should," Sabrina replied, pouting playfully. "Do people not realize what a catch my husband is?" she asked, looking first at her husband, and then giving Suzie an imploring look.
The older woman laughed in agreement. "Total catch," she echoed. "You know, with Brock gone I'm actually going to have to hire a permanent cleaner."
"You should see the gym now," Sabrina offered. "It sparkles. Sparkles! Here I was going for a sort of mysterious, darkened, foreboding place, and he practically cleaned the whole thing from top to bottom in a matter of hours, which is no small task. What kind of foreboding place sparkles?"
"You know I'm right here," Brock cut in over their shared humour. "You keep talking like that and somebody might try to steal me away from you."
"Just let them try," she said darkly, followed by another round of giggles that did nothing to serve her threat. Brock smiled and kissed her forehead, happy to see her back to her old self after just a few days. Their talk had done them both some good it seemed – Sabrina was smiling again, and that in itself did a world of good for him.
"We should probably go if we don't want to get caught in traffic," Sabrina suggested a little pensively. He knew she was enjoying this chat with Suzie, especially as Suzie was a mother herself and could sympathise with the various aspects of pending motherhood.
Brock nodded, letting her lead him away as they bid farewell to Suzie, promising to have her around at the house for dinner at some point. Sabrina was looking forward to entertaining at their home in the near future.
As the two made themselves comfortable in the car, Brock paused for a moment as he tried to work out how to bring up the subject in his mind. Sabrina gave him a confused look, sensing his apprehension, and so he sighed and just resolved to spit it out.
"So I have a surprise," he finally managed to announce. "I don't know if it's a good surprise or a bad surprise.
"I had this idea," he began, trying – and failing – to explain himself, "because we had a lot of memories there. But then I thought, maybe, it wasn't – I don't know – I want them to be good memories and I think they're good memories. But I don't know if they're good for you or if I'm looking at everything – seeing it the way I want to see it . . . or maybe I'm just over thinking this."
Sabrina raised an incredulous eyebrow in his direction. Taking the only thing she could from his rambling sentences, she asked, "a surprise?"
"Yeah," he nodded, feeling a little defeated and deciding to just put it out there for her to judge. "I booked us a room at the Viridian Plaza on the top floor. I thought it might be nice to spend one last night here in Viridian for old time's sake."
Sabrina smiled, leaning over the gear stick so that she could kiss his cheek. "That's very sweet of you," she told him. "They're all good memories, by the way.
"Some of my best memories are of you and Viridian City," she added salacious, her smile wickedly coquettish.
He blushed, immediately chastising himself for acting like a schoolboy when he was twenty-three and married and had been a master of his hormones for the last few years at least. "We just need to check in, but after that the day is yours," he told her. "So, what would you like to do?"
She looked thoughtful for a moment. "Would you be mad at me if I told you I wanted to go baby shopping?" she asked him, giving him a hopeful look. Brock shook his head. "We still need a crib, and I haven't seen anything I like in Saffron or Cerulean."
"Of course that's fine," he told her with an understanding smile. "Suzie was just telling me about somewhere nearby that we should look at before we go."
"I can go check us in and meet you there," Sabrina suggested happily.
"No, you don't ha- ," he tried to say, but she was gone before he could even finish that sentence. He sighed a little to himself. It was one of the joys of being married to a psychic. And something that he was going to have start getting used to.
Afterall, in just a few months' time, she wouldn't be the only psychic in his life.
Sabrina arrived inconspicuously in the hotel lobby almost instantaneously. She always tried to make her arrival as discrete as possible, especially outside of Saffron, as civilians were prone to reacting badly to the like of her suddenly materializing before them.
The Viridian Plaza Hotel was a pretty nice hotel if their lobby was anything to go by. It was brightly lit with marble floors and pillars in a warm sort of apricot hue. She tried to remember when the last time she had stayed at the Plaza was and why something told her that it was significant.
Luckily, there was someone there to remind her.
"It's great to see you again, Mrs. Slate," the girl at the front desk greeted cheerfully. The badge she wore – something Sabrina had not attended to when she was last at the Plaza – told Sabrina that her name was 'Rosie'.
Sabrina smiled in spite of herself. No matter how many times she heard it, she always got a wonderful warm feeling whenever anyone referred to her by her married name. She doubted that the sound of her own name would ever stop having such an effect on her.
"Checking in?" Rosie asked, an ever-present smile on her face.
Sabrina nodded benevolently. "It should be under my husbands name." Now that was certainly fun to say – she wondered how many times she could drop it into a conversation without looking like she was bragging.
"Of course," Rosie replied, typing a few keys into the computer before reaching to collect a room key. "Here you go, Mrs. Slate. Is there anything else I can get you?"
"No thank you."
"I hope you don't mind me asking," Rosie said humbly, leaning forward almost covertly, "I was just wondering how far along you guys were."
A smile widened on Sabrina's lips. There was almost nothing she enjoyed more than talking to people about the baby, even random strangers. "No, it's fine," she answered warmly. "We're almost six months along."
"Boy or girl?" the girl pressed, excitement evident on her face.
"A little boy," Sabrina said happily, practically squealing as she replied. "Brock is so excited. He found this little tiny soccer uniform, and he's already looking into baby sports clubs."
"That's so sweet," Rosie cooed. "Have you picked a name?"
Sabrina started a little. "Not yet," she said with a frown. There was no need to mention that the only talk they had given to naming had been when she told Brock in no uncertain terms that they would not be calling their child Brock Junior regardless of gender.
She couldn't believe that she had forgotten the most obvious detail of her coming arrival, although she couldn't entirely be blamed for not getting around to that. Even though she was six months pregnant, it only really felt like two, and accordingly it felt like she had much more time to make these sorts of decisions than she really did.
"Well you've still got plenty of time to narrow down the list."
'Or start one,' Sabrina thought to herself. "Thank you," Sabrina said instead, offering a quick smile before getting on her way.
The thought consumed her and she desperately tried to come up with some sort of semblance of a list. She couldn't even begin to think of what she wanted to call her son, and all she could think of were your standard sort of names that came to mind – Ben, John, Tom, Harry – and none of them seemed appropriate. Her son did not seem the least bit like a John.
She was lucky that she even managed to get herself back to Brock given how distracted she was by her thoughts. If not for the baby and his uncanny ability to bring his mother to wherever his father was, she probably would have ended up on the Magnet Train to Goldenrod.
"Hey," Brock greeted as he spotted her, "I think I found the perfect crib." He pulled her through the store to a beautiful, dark hickory crib with the silhouette of a ponyta cut out of the headboard.
She forced a smile onto her face when she saw the excitement in his eyes. It was hard for her to be enthusiastic about a crib when she suddenly found herself aware of how behind she was. They still had so much they needed to do before the baby arrived, and at the top of the list was finding something else to call him other than 'the baby' or 'little man'.
"What's wrong?" Brock asked in concern, noticing her ingenuine smile.
"We're just so behind," she moaned sadly. "The baby's due in three months, and we haven't even picked a name. How are we going to be ready in time?"
Brock nodded thoughtfully. "You stay here. I'll be right back."
She silently agreed, focusing her attention on the crib so as to quell the urge to burst into tears. A smile tugged on her lips as she imagined her little boy smiling up at her with blue eyes and russet hair, a perfect little button nose and olive skin.
"Can I help you with anything?" the sale girl asked her, smiling warmly at Sabrina's watery expression.
"Do you have one of those hang-y mobile thingies to go with this?" she asked hopefully, her fingers tenderly stroking the soft cotton bedding. "I think it needs one of those."
"We do," the girl said with a smile. "And we also do free delivery to the Kanto and Johto regions." The girl knew an easy sale when she saw one, and years of experience had taught her exactly how to deal with pregnant women.
"The bedding is the wrong colour," the psychic said sadly. "The baby's room is green."
"We have it in green. It also comes in yellow, and cream."
"Could we get one of each?" Sabrina asked hopefully, her eyes still trained on the cot.
The girl nodded. "Did you want the mobile as well? I can throw that in at no extra charge." Sabrina nodded in response. "I'll just go ring up the whole thing at the counter, so come see me when you're ready." The sales girl couldn't help but smile – she had affected an $2100 sale with very little effort and the mobile was the least she cold do given the commission coming her way.
"I'm back," Brock said on his return, gently kissing his wife's cheek as he pulled her into his arms.
"I think I just bought this," she told him, the confusion evident in her voice.
"Did you get it with the bassinet?"
"Should I have?" she asked. To be honest, she was not entirely sure what she had just purchased other than the three sets of bedding. She hoped that she had just purchased the crib, as it would be unfortunate to have the bedding and not the bed.
"Probably not," he replied with a shrug, "although it's fine if you did. My mum wants us to use hers."
"So, what did you leave for?" Sabrina questioned, finally turning away from the furniture so she could look him in the eye. He smiled warmly and held up a book for her inspection: An A-Z of Baby Names.
"It's not much, but it's a start," he told her.
"I was planning to take you out dinner and dancing," he said, "but how about we stay in and brainstorm some names."
She nodded, liking the sound of that – a night curled up next to her husband as they made future plans.
"I'm sure you've got some ideas," he added, nudging his shoulder against hers as they headed towards the cash register. "Misty's had hers sinc-" He cut himself off, seeming to realize on his own that his best female friend was an unusual case. "I suppose not all girls have the names of their kids – last names included – picked out at twelve years old."
"No," she said, shaking her head a little but also not surprised that Misty had put that much thought into the matter. "I'm guessing there's a list of reserved names."
He nodded, his forehead creasing as he tried to recall the names. "I remember it was Selena for a girl, and the boy's name had something to do with water."
"Of course it did," she said with a laugh, her previous worries about their lack of preparedness forgotten. "Selena Ketchum has a nice ring to it."
"Can I get you two anything else?" the sales girl asked brightly as they approached the counter.
"Do you have any of those Pokémon stencils?" Brock asked, remembering Tracey's suggestion for decorating the baby's room. The artist wasn't particularly confident in his abilities to work on a wall, but he said Brock could get the outline he would fill in the details.
"Right over here," the girl answered delightedly as she brought them towards a nearby shelf. "You can buy them in packs of 10 for $80 or for $10 each. We only sell the original 150 though," the girl pointed out, "but we do have the name of a supplier if you were interested in something more exotic."
"No, that's fine," Brock smiled. She knew Brock had been hoping for an azurill or marril, but Tracey could probably manage that one no sweat given the very simplified shape. It was good enough for him that they sold them individually, as most of the stores he had visited had only sold the ten packs. He knew the 'value packs' would not suit his purpose as they were either type based or 'remarkable trainer' collections – the 'Ash Ketchum Collection' was known to be one of the more exotic collections.
Brock flicked through the stencils thoughtfully, both of them confused at first to find them organised by alphabet rather than 'dex number. This was probably handy for most customers, but threw off Brock somewhat who had always thought of Pokémon numerically. Regardless it didn't take him long to come across the ones he wanted: an abra for Sabrina, gyarados for Misty, a haunter (who Tracey promised to make look as friendly as possible), onix for his hometown, pikachu for Ash, and zubat for himself. He grabbed a psyduck for good measure in part to annoy Misty and in part because it was posed so adorably.
"Are there any others you think we should get?" he asked, looking to his wife for her input.
Sabrina paused thoughtfully. "Vulpix?" she suggested. "And maybe a meowth. That should round it off nicely." She laughed as she noted the uniformly sized stencils. "Our son is going to have a very distorted perception of the various Pokémon – he's going to grow up thinking that pikachu's and onix's are practically the same size."
"He'll soon learn," Brock replied with a smile, gently kissing the top of her head.
With the purchases completed, they headed to the hotel room and began their night of brainstorming.
The 'hell no' list, that had been initiated by 'Brock Jr' had been added to considerably. But so had the formally empty list of possible names. Brock was inclined towards names with aspirational meanings like 'strength' or 'wisdom', while she felt herself tending towards the more exotic names like 'Santiago' and 'Dracul'.
"How would you even pronounce that?" Brock asked as she added the name 'Llewellyn' to the list of possibilities.
"Exactly how it's written," she insisted, before carefully pronouncing it how she hoped it was pronounced. "Loo-well-en."
Brock snorted. "That's not how it's written," he said, disputing her claims but not removing it from the list.
"The baby likes it," she added, guiding his hand to her stomach so he could feel their son tumbling inside of her.
"Then it stays," he agreed. He pressed a kiss to her cheek while his fingers soothed small circles against her stomach.
"How about this one?" he suggested, pointing to the book of names.
She made a face and redirected his attention. "What about Merlin?"
~ to be continued ~
In the home stretch now. Just two chapters to go!