Chapter 37 – Until the Sun Rises

The Mansion – 60 Years Later

The sixty years I had spent with Aqua in that dimension, having fun, enjoying ourselves whenever we could, I cherished each moment together. I had noticed Aqua getting older, lacking in mobility and energy as the years passed. We stopped training after sixty years living in that dimension- I mean; Aqua had stopped training after sixty years. Old age had gotten the best of her, so she had to sit it out on all of the training I still did. She did however watch me train and kind of coached me on all the things I did, give me water if I was ever thirsty, and praised me on all of my workouts, at least ones I managed to finish; having her there with me made living in that dimension for almost half my life liveable.

Deep down the part inside me telling me over and over again, shouting, warning me what was about to happen soon to Aqua, I wanted to ignore it. I shook my head refusing to believe that Aqua was nearing death; she still had years left before it would happen, many more years of her eating ice cream, watching me train, and having fun being together.

Then one day Aqua had gotten sick, her health wasn't good, she had a chill and she became weaker and had to be bed ridden finding no strength left to move around as much, and shivering every so often. The sight of her like that had scared me, and so I often stayed outside trying to focus on something else, trying to tell myself over and over again that she would be all right and the sickness would be cured very soon and she would be back out of bed and she'll be back to her old self.

One day I was out training in the yard to keep in shape I thought about Aqua and her sickness at first, worrying about her condition and what I could do to help, what kind of potion or other medical item I could use to help her. "Everything I use doesn't seem to be doing a thing." I thought to myself as I slashed my Razor Shell at a cardboard box I used for a target. "Every day she gets sicker, she shivers so much now, I don't know if- damn it!" I slashed at the cardboard box cutting it in half, frustrated at feeling so helpless. "I need to give her better foods to help treat with her cold. Maybe another extra blanket from one of the spare rooms could help." I thought about the times when we had fun instead of her sickness for a change. She liked to swim in the swimming pool a lot, diving deep down to bottom just to charge right up to the surface to jump up out of the water over and over again. I then thought about going back to the library to check out some of the medical books remembering reading something about colds recently. "Maybe I could find a book that may help me in the library. Yeah, one of the medical books might have something that could help Aqua, a cure hopefully."

I heard the back door open and I turned to find Aqua slowly walking out towards me. I got up and ran towards her. "Aqua, you shouldn't be out here! It's too cold out, you're sick. C'mon, let's get you back into bed."

She shook her head. "N-no… Zack, please, I don't want to be alone in that room." She shivered. "I hate being in that room all by myself, I hate being in that."

"Aqua, you need to rest." I tried to take her back inside, but she refused to budge. "Let me take you back inside. I'm going to the library and I'll look for a book that may help with your sickness."

I expected her to argue with me, but I wasn't expecting what she was about to tell me. "I don't need rest… not anymore. I had a vision before… it happens tomorrow."

At first I wasn't sure what she meant by 'it happens tomorrow' judging from the look on her face, I slowly realized what she meant by that. A tear ran down her cheek. "No matter what happens now, we can't change what will happen tomorrow. I only want to spend my last day with you. I don't want to be in that bed any longer, I want to be with you, Zack."

"Aqua I… a-are you sure?"

"I'm sure of it." She nodded. "My visions have always been right. Tomorrow morning is when I'll die. We can't alter it." I held her paw and looked her in the eyes.

"I uh…." I didn't know what to say, I didn't want her to die, I wanted to her live. This news caught me off guard that I wasn't able to say anything. She lifted her other paw and touched my cheek.

"Zack, I was more than happy that you were my mate in this life." She smiled. "My vision called me to the beach where we first met, I was lost, I didn't know where I might have ended up and without my visions you and I would never have met. You gave me a great life. And for our last day together I want to be with you, doing all of the things we used to do before I had gotten old, before I had gotten sick."

I slowly nodded; we did have a lot fun together. When she had gotten sick, I had always tried to find ways to make her well again, forgetting about spending time with her and having fun like we used to do. I wanted to make things right. I held her closely. "I am happy you came into my life too, Aqua. So uh… w-what do you feel like-" She placed her finger over my mouth to shush me.

With a smile she dragged me back outside. "I want to walk outside again and just breathe in that nice fresh air mixed with the flowers. It's stronger in the fall in this dimension." She chuckled after breathing in that fresh air. Seeing her like this reminded me of how she usually acted when she was younger.

I walked holding her paw looking down, "Aqua, I'm sorry for leaving you in that room by yourself. I was… I wanted to help cure that sickness. But I was also afraid… of being alone soon. Seeing you in that bed like that… I was afraid…"

"Zack, you'll be all right. I'm sorry for leaving you like this. I would stay with you if I could." She hugged me. "I was wondering if tomorrow morning, you and I could watch the sunrise together." I smiled and told her I would. Aqua had two visions before she came to me out in the yard; one was a vision of the day she died. She told me she and I woke up early in the morning to watch the sunrise, and sometime during that was when Aqua died. It would be the last thing we would do together. Hearing that was tough, it had crushed my heart knowing that Aqua would be gone tomorrow morning. But I held her paw and for that night we spent every second being with each other, wanting to make the most of our last night together.

I remembered Aqua and I talking for a long time about the things we used to do, about the world we once lived in and the places we visited in amazing detail as if we were just there. How we once with our children went to a theme park, went on the rides that Pokemon could go on, ate food and enjoyed ourselves. We went over how each ride was; the haunted house was uh… kind of scary if you ignore the broken attractions and the terrible sound quality of most of the sudden screams playing. There was one terrifying moment in our lives when in the hedge maze that Light had separated from us almost towards the end of the maze. We searched the maze going back and trying to search every corner of the maze, forgetting that Midnight could levitate above and search for Light instead of searching the maze like we did.

Then there was a Ferris wheel we went on. Not much happened with that but we remembered how our children were amazed by how high up we were and the theme park below. That ride was the favorite out of the three, but for Aqua not so much since she wasn't much of a fan of heights.

And the second vision that came to her almost immediately after the last was of our children, one that had brought her to tears.

I had kind of hoped Arcues would appear to us in a vision or appeared itself to tell us some good news, we would be allowed to return to our world again to be with our family before Aqua died. A one last moment to be with them was something I wanted. But a vision never came to either of us. A portal never appeared for us to travel through to a world we hadn't seen in so many years. And Arceus never appeared within this dimension. We were on our own. I was told by Aqua that we were grandparents discovered through the second vision. Light had two children with the female Pikachu after travelling through the Kanto region. Kairi with the male Riolu had a daughter still living with Midnight who became the leader of the clan and had a son and daughter.

The vision had brought Aqua to tears; happy knowing each of them had a good life and that they were alright without us. Seeing our children again was her last vision she ever had. She didn't mind not having seen our children one last time before her time came, that vision was enough for her and for me.

Dinner was made by me that night, it was a simple salad and dressing for dinner, the first dinner we ever had in that dimension. And for dessert was an ice cream sundae for me and uh… a scoopful of every ice cream Aqua liked which were about forty-eight flavors. It was a nice night, a night that neither one of us had any difficulty on sleeping, we were happy.

The morning came after a dreamless night for me and Aqua, and thirty minutes until the sunrise we grabbed a blanket and wrapped ourselves in it while we sat out onto the balcony and watched and waited until the sun could be seen.

"Are you okay, Aqua?" I asked, noticing her eyes were falling. "We could go back inside if it is too cold for you."

She shook her head. "I'm okay… the blanket is keeping us warm." She cuddled closer. "Let's sit here for a while. The sun will be up soon, I want to see it out here." I nodded my head and watched the sky waiting for the sun to appear.

Minutes passed while we sat in silence did we finally see the sun rise in the distance. The warm light shined down on the gates, the yard, and on us as the sun was raising higher and higher in the sky.

"Zack…" She whispered, eyes still looking ahead towards the sun as she smiled. "The sun… it's so beautiful… after all this time I only realize… how could I have not seen this after so long?"

I nodded my head agreeing with her, holding her close to me and watching the sun in the distance. "It is a beautiful sight." I was about to tell her something like 'but not as beautiful as you.' or something stupid, but I felt that it was enough. I wrapped my arm around her and continued to watch the sunrise in silence. I wanted to say something, something that said 'I love you' 'I'll miss you' 'I'm happy that you were with me' but nothing escaped my lips to tell her that. I never got the chance to try, and I never did.

When the sun had risen high enough, I looked at Aqua to find her eyes closed, she wasn't breathing anymore, and she had died right beside me. For a while I sat there without a thought, I didn't do anything. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

I began to cry and hugged her, wishing she would come back so I wouldn't be alone in that dimension, praying for Arceus or anything to bring her back. But whatever I did, how much I prayed, begged, and cried, Aqua remained dead.

I dug a grave in the back yard on the spot where she and I often trained, a makeshift cross made from an old bookcase from the library. I wrapped Aqua's body in a bed sheet from toe to head wanting to see her face one last time before I set her body into the grave. When I had almost finished wrapping, I looked down at her for a while before kissing her forehead and taking off her pink ribbon and tied it around the makeshift cross. After burying her I sat in front of the grave for hours thinking about Aqua before I got up and into the mansion before the storm arrived.

Inside was… silent, it was a mansion filled only with memories now. Memories of a life I once had in the world I had called home, a place I would never return to. I sighed and continued to walk to the bedroom sitting on my bed for hours not knowing what to do next.

The first year was hard for me; it was difficult being alone without anyone there to talk to, I had to adapt to it finding something in or out of that mansion to do to pass the time; watching movies in the home theater, playing games, reading books in the library, and swimming in the pool. Oh and the video games and movies this mansion had somehow given me new ones that I might like every year so I wouldn't be watching and playing the same thing over and over again. I thank whatever was giving me new things to do otherwise I would've killed myself many years ago out of boredom.

I remember one day when I was inside my bedroom cleaning up when I noticed out of the window a bright light had appeared by the gate.

Outside the window emerging from a portal was my past self still a human, Espeon, Lisa, and Brent out in the front yard and looking up at the mansion just like I remembered when we first found ourselves in this place, unsure why the portal dropped us off here. We were travelling through time fighting Infinite and the anomalies he had placed within certain parts of time trying to capture that moment in time. We were getting close on finding Infinite's location when we found this mansion. I remembered we entered the mansion and searched the place finding most doors locked, so I quickly remembered to lock the doors of certain rooms that had information on their future so time would run smoothly. I locked myself in my room, keeping up a Psychic barrier around the room so the others couldn't enter or Espeon wouldn't be able to detect what was on the other side.

I remembered when we first entered this mansion; most of the rooms were locked and we couldn't get inside any of the locked rooms. So I acted quickly and ran out of the room and locked certain rooms of the mansion as fast as I could; making sure they wouldn't discover and read any documents, see photos and other things that revealed the future to them. Last thing I wanted was to mess up the timeline in anyway.

When I finished up, I ran back inside my bedroom and locked the door, listening as they had entered the mansion, listening to them move from room to room downstairs, examining Aqua's grave that only had the ribbon attached. Espeon could detect a body had been buried there but couldn't detect anything else. And they went upstairs, listening in as they talked, my voice, Lisa and Brent's questioning why the portal dropped them off there, calling out to whoever was in the mansion.

I heard Espeon talk; I heard her laugh and joke around with the others. The voices in my head although quiet tried to convince me on leaving the room.

"Save her! Warn her before they leave the portal!" The voices argued. "If you allow her to leave through the portal that will be the last you shall ever see her alive! Don't allow Shiny Latias to kill her! Warn her of the future! Let her live! You can prevent Latias from being captured by Shiny Latias. Team Annihilation Reborn will never come to be if you don't warn them!" Reluctantly, I chose to ignore the voices. As much as I wanted to change the past, I couldn't interfere. I stayed quiet in the room making sure the others wouldn't notice me in there. I knew very soon they would return to the portal and leave this dimension and return to their own time to fight Infinite just as I did.

Espeon did detect someone in the mansion shortly after we left; she detected me but could not figure out what it was that was inside the mansion. There were no Anomalies inside or outside the mansion, and so we left and into the portal to continue our fight against Infinite. I watched outside the bedroom window at my past self and friends walk towards the portal, wanting to get up and quickly run outside to them and talk to them, not to warn them of their futures, but I hadn't spoken to anyone in years. I watched as Espeon turn her head and looked right at the bedroom window and noticed me watching them from behind the curtain. My past self approached her and asked her what she had seen, I looked back at the window, but I had already backed up away from it not wanting to risk changing the timeline with my past self wanting to investigate what it was that was inside that room and who or what it was watching them. But in the end, my past self and the others left this dimension and through the portal just like I had done many years ago.

The portal had remained open long after my past self left the dimension, so for some unknown reason I walked up to it. What lied beyond this portal remained a mystery to me, thoughts of what was on the other side clouded my mind. "Perhaps I could return home if I enter." I spoke out loud; a common thing I did after Aqua had died not liking the silence one bit. "Or I could be sent back to ancient Kanto in the middle of a war. Or maybe sent forward in time, a time where everyone I know is long gone. At least I would be with others, make new friends and adapt to the new time…" I sighed. "But if I do get sent back in time, my presence there might alter the timeline."

The portal remained open while I remained standing in front of it making sure nothing enters. I didn't want someone to accidentally stumble upon the portal and enter it only to get stuck in that dimension with me for how much they had left to live. No one ever walked through the portal while I watched and waited if anything did enter that dimension, fading into nothingness not too long after my past self had departed the dimension.

I sighed and walked back to the mansion. "It is better this way… huh, never thought my life would be like this... So almost one-hundred and ten years to my two-hundredth birthday. I'm sure I'll be fine until then."

To be continued...

Trivia:

A cut part at the end would've changed the timeline if left in. In the Pokemon Dreams 02 – Till the End of Time side story Mansion had Zack and his friends explore the mansion only to find the present Zack in one of the rooms pretending he couldn't talk. Espeon would get close to him after detecting a familiar scent resulting in present Zack trying to scare his past self and friends back to the portal.

AN: Okay, chapter 37 is finished with three more to go of the main story. I should be done either early or mid august, a little late from my original plan to finish in July. So anyway, Thanks for reading the story and until next time.