I can't think of a good way to open this chapter. Misty doesn't appear. Humerous scenes. Enjoy.

By the time Ash had returned to his room, May had begun taking a shower. Ash decided not to press any issue, so he gathered a towel, a clean set of clothes, some soap and Pikachu, and they went to the communal bath in the center. He undressed and placed his clothes in one of the tiny lockers in the room. He and Pikachu went into the bath. He lowered himself into the warm water and sighed. Pikachu followed suit.

"Hey, Pikachu, what do you think was up with May?" he opened the conversation with his partner.

"Pika pika…" the Pokémon wondered.

"What do you think she meant by, 'don't say things to get me to go with Drew'?" He asked Pikachu.

The mouse Pokémon blew some bubbles in the water. "Pika, pi pikachu pikapika pika pi chuu kachu, Pikapi."

"You really think that?" Ash asked him. Pikachu shrugged. "Well, it's something to think about."

Back in the room, May was crouched in the shower, crying. The water ran over her face and mixed with the tears. It's like he wants me to go with Drew… I thought he said he loved me! Many thoughts ran through her head at the same time. It felt as though a large part of her conscious yelled to her, Drew would never try to get rid of me like that! Another part chimed in, Ash is an idiot! He doesn't understand love! But from a small place, way in the back of her mind, a voice shot up. Ash showed me so much compassion over the last two days. He worried about me catching cold. He didn't complain when I slept with him last night. He didn't get offended when we wrestled in the Watmel berry grove. She listened to this upstart voice. She nodded in agreement with it. The food fight in the grove came to her mind again. She knew that she shouldn't have straddled him like she did, but at the same time, she wanted to do it, and on impulse, did what she wanted to do. She stopped crying and sat up. She thought about Ash. She wondered why he had given her the go ahead to pursue Drew if he loved her. And she remembered making the scene in the cafeteria. She felt bad about how she had acted. I've gotta tell him 'I'm sorry' and then I can ask him what he meant, she thought to herself while getting out of the shower. She put on the clothes she had been wearing, not having a set of clothes that didn't smell like pond water. The only exception was her hat. Ash's hat, she corrected herself; she left it outside, having tossed the symbol of the boy across the room in frustration. She went out of the bathroom and picked up the hat. She hugged it for a moment, and placed it on Ash's pack in the room. May turned back to one of the beds and sat on the bottom bunk, and waited for him to return.

Ash had finished bathing a while ago. Why did that guy look familiar? he kept thinking to himself. When he was getting out of the bath, he saw a man with long, purple hair getting in. Ash felt that he should have recognized him. I hope he didn't hear any of my conversation with Pikachu, he worried. He dismissed it seconds later. If I didn't recognize him, then he probably didn't recognise me. He probablyjust thought I was a weirdo hanging out with a Pokémon in the bath. His train of thought was interrupted by the DING of the dryer that Pikachu was leaning on, trying to derive some heat from it. He took one of the laundry baskets available, and tossed all of the clothes in the basket. He peered inside the dryer to make sure he had gotten all of the clothes. Staring back at him, defying his authority, was a pair of May's panties, sitting in the back of the drying chamber. I am not touching May's panties, he thought to himself. He turned to Pikachu. "Pikachu, get in there and pick…those up," he told his companion. The Pokémon nodded and began to climb in the dryer. He touched his hand to the hot metal, cried out, and leapt back. When Ash tried to tell him to try again, Pikachu shook his head no, showing him his hand. He wasn't wounded, but it was hot, as Ash felt when he put his head back inside the dryer. He slowly reached out and touched May's undergarment in his hand. They felt cottony and smooth. He grabbed them, pulled them out, and closed the dryer. But he felt himself unable to put them down. He had never held a pair of women's underwear before. They felt odd in his hands. They were stretchy and soft. I wonder what they smell like, he thought. He slowly brought them to his nose and took a quick sniff, tossing them into the laundry basket afterwards. Unsurprisingly, they smelt like the laundry detergent he used on all of the clothes. He blushed with embarrassment, hoping no one had seen him do something so weird. Pikachu leapt on to Ash's shoulder and felt his forehead. "I'm fine, Pikachu," Ash laughed it off, "It was a weird thought that went through my head, and I decided to see what they smelt like. They smelt like the detergent, anyway." Pikachu shrugged, and Ash picked up the clothes basket and carried it back to the room.

When he had entered, he saw May sitting on the bottom bunk of one of the beds. He placed the basket in front of her.

"You aren't serious, are you?" she looked at him, wondering where he got the audacity to make her fold both of their clothes by himself.

"I'll help you, don't worry," he smiled. He sat on the bed next to the basket, and began to take out his clothes and fold them, while May took out hers and did likewise. Pikachu sat on the top bunk of the opposite bed and curled up.

Continuing to fold clothes, May turned to Ash. "I want to apologize for something again…" she said.

"The blow up in the cafeteria?" he asked.

"Yeah," she meekly responded.

"What was that about?" he asked her, placing one of his shirts on the bed to start a stack. "I said something and you got all upset. I didn't know what I did wrong."

"I over-reacted, and I didn't mean to cause such a big scene." she admitted. "I'm sorry. But, why did you tell me that?"

"Tell you what?" Ash asked her. He had stopped folding clothes for a moment.

"You told me that you'd take care of Max if I choose Drew." She looked up at Ash. His face was filled with concern with a dash of confusion. "I felt like, by you saying that, that you wanted me to go with Drew," May said as she looked down t the pair of shorts in her hands.

Ash reached his hand over the basket and held hers. "I didn't mean it like that," he calmly told her, "what I meant…" he took a moment to gather his thoughts, his hand still holding May's. "What I meant to say was that I wanted to watch out for you. You love Max probably more than you like either me or Drew, and I know his happiness was something you cared about." He knew he wasn't doing a very good job at trying to make her feel better, but he had to try anyway. "I want to protect you, and things that are important to you." He told her. "And I know that Max is really important to you. I'm just not good at expressing my thoughts to other people, I guess." He smiled and looked at her eyes. He saw tears in them, and his heart sank. "I guess I'm not as good at cheering people up as I thought," he sighed, releasing her hand.

May broke down into tears, and leapt into Ash's arms, spilling the clothes basket on the ground and crying fitfully. She wrapped her arms around his body and held him tightly. Ash, trying to understand what was going on, wrapped his arms around May, holding her tightly. He felt a hidden strength in himself. He laid his face down into her hair, smelling the shampoo she had used recently.

May cried fitfully in Ash's chest. She felt safe with him holding her. Her crying began to slow down, but his strong arms remained there, tightly holding her, supporting her. She felt that she had no need to cry anymore. She calmed down and her breathing began to slow. She felt Ash run his fingers through her hair. She smiled into his chest where he couldn't see. She wiped her tears on his sweatshirt and looked up at him. Her eyes were bloodshot from all the crying she had done this evening.

"May," Ash whispered to her, "why were you crying?"

"I don't know, Ash," she smiled at him, "I miss Max, you got hurt recently, we've been fighting today, over that stupid berry, and ...and… and I guess all the stress caught up with me. I just needed a place to cry." She nuzzled her head against Ash's chest. "Thanks for being that place."

"Anytime, May," he responded, running his fingers through her hair again, "anytime."

May sat up from him and laughed, "I guess we need to pick up all of those clothes and fold 'em, huh?" They both looked over to see Pikachu folding May's last blouse. He quietly turned and sat it in the stack the rest of her clothes were in. Ash's stack sat next to hers.

"Pikachu!" May was startled. "Did you fold all of those?"

"Pika." He nodded.

"Did you see what just happened up here?" Ash asked.

"Pika." He nodded again.

Ash smiled. "C'mon, buddy." Pikachu enthusiastically leaped at Ash and placed himself between Ash and May, not forcing them apart, but becoming a part of their embrace. Ash broke it off and headed for the door. When May asked him where he was going, he turned to her and smiled, saying "I'm just hitting the light." He flicked off the switch, the moon now the only light source in the room. He walked back over to May and Pikachu and took them both into his arms. "I guess we can all sleep together again, tonight," he whispered to them. May wrapped her arms around the boy and his Pokémon. And in that embrace, the three of them – Ash, May and Pikachu – drifted off to sleep.

Pikachu for the win, please. In recent chapters, I often found myself wondering, "Okay, now where is Pikachu in this scene?" So I'm, glad he got to play a bigger role in this chapter he has in previous. I mean, Pikachu is basically the 5th human in the group. A small, yellow human, but human none the less. And the extra shippyness is nice, I think.

What did you all think? Wanna review? Go ahead! Got a question? Either PM me, E-Mail me, or put it as a review. Just a vague comment? Type it up as a review, I guess. Wanna bash Advanceshipping or Pokémon in general? GO THE CRAP AWAY! Everyone else, I hope you enjoyed this segment!Misty's first appearance should occur in the chapter 11, fans, so wait for the next instalment!