Edited 2019-01-02

Locked Away, Chapter 5

To say that he handled the news rough was an understatement.

Ash handled it grievously.

It took nearly thirty minutes to get him back to his room, and once there, he fell into a depressed state for a few hours.

How could this happen to him? Worse yet, Ash's therapist demanded that security put a temporary restriction on this Misty's visiting permissions for one week. Apparently, no one thought that Ash was ready for the news. Perhaps he was not, but he wanted to know. No matter how horrible the truth was... wasn't that what he had told Misty? However, no part of Ash was prepared for that. Ten years. His whole life, every journey, every friend, everything.. it was... it was all a dream.

He exhaled and rolled over, tugging at his stiff hospital sheet. How in the world did this happen to him? Couldn't they have done something to wake him up sooner?

Vaguely, he recalled the incident when pikachu electrocuted him. He had just taken Misty's bike and was in a rush to get to the nearest pokemon center, and away from angry sparrows. That was the start of his journey. His first day out. Ash was comatose since his tenth birthday. He flipped back over onto his back, staring up at the dark ceiling. Ash couldn't believe it. His door was cracked, so that the light of the hallway wouldn't disturb his sleep. Hospitals never shut down, even at midnight.

Apparently, he did.

Apparently he shut down for ten years. Brock, May, Max, Dawn, Cilan, Iris, Clemont, Bonnie and Serena... Team Rocket... Everyone else... they couldn't all be a figment of his imagination, could they? How would someone even describe that? How would, no, how could he make all of that stuff up? Sure, he guessed he should have noticed that he traveled through six leagues at the age of ten, but time never seemed to be an issue in his world. It didn't matter. Maybe that should have been his first clue... but when it never really existed, how was he supposed to know the difference?

Being told the truth about his situation did nothing to solve his problem. Now, he only had more questions, but this time, they were... oh mew.

He curled up on his bed, looking towards the crack in the window. How much of his life was real? None of it, said the therapist when they got him back into the hospital after Misty's confession. None of it. Nothing that happened after that incident Misty described to him was real.

Oddly enough, that didn't feel right. None of this felt right. To make matters worse, Misty was escorted off the premise of the hospital for 'threatening' the therapist. What over? he had no idea. But it resulted in her visitation suspension. His stomach ached. Earlier that day, he wanted nothing more than to be left alone, to see Misty the way she was or not at all, but now, he would have just accepted her the way she is. The idea that she wouldn't be allowed back for an entire week terrified him. What if she didn't come back at all? Technically, she really didn't know him. Not really. She had no reason to help him anymore, especially now that he knew the truth. Ash's heart ached at the thought. To top it off, they couldn't reach his mother, either. And pikachu? Heaven knew where the mouse pokemon was, or if it would even remember Ash as anything more than the bad trainer that he was when he first started his journey. It pained him to imagine that he and pikachu never really bonded...that it was all...just... nothing.

Ash's nostrils flared, and he curled his pillow over his head. Listening beyond his room, he could hear the night shift nurses gossiping to one another, and the distant sound of a television. He swore that if he hadn't fallen earlier and possibly damaged his tailbone and hip from his impoverished landing, he would have stumbled out of his room, and demanded to watch the news, or really, anything that would verify that Misty wasn't lying to him. Or the nurses. Or the doctors. Or the therapist.

That he hadn't been asleep for ten years.

Now that the skitty was out of the bag, the therapist vouched for her, but then quickly tried to justify not telling Ash because "it wasn't for Ash's best interests". No, he thought, it wasn't for their best interests. They didn't want to deal with him. Not without his mother. What, did they think he would break? Ash grimaced lightly.

He just might, he couldn't lie. He had never felt this way before. The sudden head rush, adrenaline, shaking anger and depression that simply did not exist in his dream world. Not even when he lost a battle in his own mind had he felt like this. He groaned pitifully. Man, he was locked in his own mind for ten years and he still never made himself the champion. What kind of low blow was that to his self esteem? He pinched the bridge of his nose, and exhaled.

What was he supposed to do now? Restart? How could anyone expect him to restart. He had already obtained so much, yet...nothing at all.

Where was he supposed to go from here? He touched his head with his forearm and inhaled sharp, taking in the clean scent of the hospital. The darkness wrapped around his eyes, teasing him. In the shadows cast on the ceiling from the moon, he could see the shapes of everything left behind. His friends, his family, his life. Tears pooled at the corners of his eyes and he sniffled, knowing how pathetic he must have looked.

He fell asleep with these thoughts in his head. Falling further and faster into a depression. Ash withdrew himself from this new, darker world. He didn't want to be apart of it. Not like this, not if it meant that everything he knew was simply...gone.

XOX

By the third morning of her suspension, Misty was tired of waiting for a call from the hospital. She tapped her neatly manicured fingers against the wrist of the opposite arm. Earlier, she had all but lost her patience with Ash's therapist and with this whole situation.

How dare he accuse Misty of creating a road block for Ash. He was already in one! How was he supposed to get better if he didn't know what he was recovering from? Just telling him 'you can do it!' over and over wasn't going to increase motivation, and he looked so...sad. Any good therapist should have seen the sadness in Ash's eyes, so Misty didn't regret her decision to tell him.

Sure...Ash was handling it poorly right now, but he would get better. Right? He just needed time.

Soaking in the sun behind her curtains, she argued that she told Ash the truth of his accident for his sake. Or was it to appease her own guilt every time he looked at her? Sure, it wasn't the best situation to be in, but it was all that he had. The truth, no matter how bad, wasn't that what he said? Sitting up, the comforter fell to her waist and she pinched the bridge of her nose with an audible sigh escaping her lips. The therapist told her to go home after their spat, since the truth was out, the hospital didn't need her around anymore. Ash would be in full control of his treatment and handling. However, when the therapist started making some 'accusations', it took every bone in her body to deter from hitting the man. He was lucky he got away with just a scolding, because if security hadn't throw her out, she would have probably...

She exhaled, thumbing the blue and white comforter sprawled out over her legs. She would have probably lost her temper. So easy to rise to the challenge, sometimes, she forgot her place. Sometimes she went a little overboard. But how dare that shrink insinuate that she, Misty Waterflower, was after Ash's assets!

He didn't even own anything!

Groaning, she rubbed her temples. She hadn't slept at all since the confession three days ago. Apart from her head already aching from lack of sleep, she had a migraine forming from the impromptu intake of alcohol from the night prior. Possibly not her best course of action, but all she could see after leaving the hospital was his brown, tear soaked eyes staring up at her. She cared too much, that was Misty's curse. She couldn't be the bitch she tried to present herself as; no, she would always have that tiny conscience screaming at her.

Mew, it almost ripped her heart out the way he looked at her; and she was the reason it happened. How was she supposed to know he would react so horribly to the news? He seemed perfectly fine just working day by day to get better. Now he knew why he had to get better, that was something, right!

Misty threw herself backwards on the bed. She needed to go home, and yet she couldn't pull herself out of the hotel room, to the Viridian City train station for the three hour trip to Cerulean City. Before, she felt responsible for him, since no one else had come back to claim him. Now, she felt guilty. This was the exact reason she didn't want to be the one to tell him about his situation. That look. Oh man, she knew she messed up by telling him the second it happened. Those chocolate-brown eyes begging her for a different answer right before he exploded.

She knew it. Groaning, she rolled over, wrapping the blankets around her body, messing them up more. Her phone was somewhere on the ground, she had thrown it in frustration after last nights ordeals, patting around momentarily, the black rectangular object had fallen beneath the night stand. Scooping it up, she whipped her hair back, and then tapped the screen alive. At only ten percent battery, she leaned over to plug the phone in with an irritated expression.

Last night, since she couldn't leave the damn city, she had spent some time playing detective. Mostly trying to find Delia Ketchum. Since Misty had effectively managed to ruin Ash's recovery, state of mind, and all hope of reality, she thought that she could at least do this. Her last listed address was Road 467, Pallet Town; her last available phone number was the one Misty had listed, but after that.

Nothing. Misty even thought about calling the police to put in a missing persons report, but how would she go about explaining that?

"Hi, I'm looking for this grown adult's mother, who may or may not be alive, but you know, just pulled the plug on her son and skipped town." The cops would laugh at her.

Simply not showing up to the hospital was not grounds enough to make a case, and Misty didn't have the money to hire a private detective. Quite possibly, Delia didn't want to be found. Misty couldn't imagine why, so she thought that the news must not have reached the woman. Where ever she was, she must not have known that Ash woke up. That was the only way Misty justified the older woman's absence.

Misty thumbed through her messages and emails quickly while anxiously gnawing on her nails. Dark black rings hung under her eyes, and she was in the same blue tank-top from two weeks ago, in dire need of a wardrobe upgrade, but her mind was else where. The league sent her a few emails regarding her temporary hiatus from the gym, mostly asking when she would be back, and if she would be available to judge a contest being held in Pewter City. She rolled her eyes, no, she was on vacation, damn it. Her sisters were perfectly fine at the gym. Daisy messaged her once,

"So, like, did sleeping beauty like ever wake up?" Misty rolled her eyes at her sister's excessive use of the word 'like' even in text messages. She didn't bother to reply instead, she clicked back over to her internet search, and with a clear mind, she typed Delia's name into the search engine and pressed enter.

The same as last night, aside from a few articles from Ash's initial accident, a few short stories and interviews from three years ago; she mostly dropped off the face of the earth. Which couldn't be possible. She was around here somewhere, she was at the hospital on Ash's twentieth birthday to have his life support ended, so unless she ran off and... Oh... oh no.

Alarms rang in Misty's head and she snapped forward once again and retyped the entry: "Delia Ketchum, obituary". Only, before the screen had finished loading, the hospital rang her.

A bit confused and distracted, she swiped to answer and pressed the phone against her ear.

"Hello?" Misty echoed, to which a nurse responded quietly. Her gaze fell to the floor as she listened, and then after inhaling quickly, she licked her lips.

"I'll be right there." Misty murmured, ending the call and throwing the blankets off of her body as she sprang from the bed.

XOX

Ash only slept, and he wouldn't eat. He wouldn't speak, couldn't think. He didn't respond to nurse or doctor visits, and he wouldn't participate in either form of therapy. No, he had broken down, curled up in a ball on his bed.

It was on the third day of his depression that the nurses were hooking him back up to an IV drip and sedatives; the doctors had decided that he was not mentally capable of moving past such turmoil—like so many coma patients—so they were trying to prevent his body from shutting down without a will to live. Ash was okay with that, what was there to live for? Obviously nothing he could remember. Nothing made sense in this world, and quite possibly, he didn't believe it was the real world. No, he was sick, sleeping somewhere in Kalos. That must have been it.

That was his plan, to return to where he was. To leave this fake world.

At least, that was the design, until the flash of unadulterated rage in the form of red hair yanked him, quite literally, out of his depression.

"What the hell are you doing?!" She yelled, her voice booming down the hallways. Ash stared up at her with wide eyes as she wrapped her fingers around the collar of his hospital gown and pulled him into a sitting position where her fiery green eyes bore holes into his skulls. Terrifying. More so than he could ever remember.

"How did you get in here?" Ash squeaked, having not seen her enter... of course, he hadn't seen anyone, not really. One glance at the door answered his question; that same old, happy-faced nurse from the first day smiled weakly at him.

"You said you could handle it!" She yelped, and then dropped him. He slouched forward, feeling the IV in his arm tug uncomfortably. "The truth sucks so your solution is to just fucking die?!" She paced the room angrily around him, wearing the same boots as the first day, recreating the same taps that haunted his first moments of consciousness.

"I..." Ash started, but wasn't entirely sure what to say.

"Do you know what happens when you die? You don't wake back up. You don't get to visit a dreamland of wonderful adventures. You die." She muttered dangerously close to his face. Her rage was not lost on the older boy. He could feel his chest tighten nervously, and he swallowed, words stuck in his throat. No one had ever died around him before. Maybe it would pull him away from this nightmare, and back into the real world. He wasn't sure... it was the only thing that he... He looked away from her, ashamed to meet her gaze.

"If you were in any other condition, I would slap some sense into you." She grumbled while folding her arms and taking a step back so that she could look at the pitiful boy in front of her. Slowly, swallowing down his disgrace, he gazed up at her, his stupor lost for a moment. His mouth fell open slightly, and then closed before a horribly, sickly sweet smiled pulled at his lips. Mixed with his sad brown eyes, Misty exhaled

"You came back." it wasn't a question. It was a statement. An honest, simple statement that caught her entirely off guard. He sounded surprised.

A small blush crept up over her features, and she pursed her lips angrily to drown it out; "Of course I did. I wasn't just going to leave you here alone."

His face scrunched up disjointedly, replacing the smile.

"Why?"

Misty's eyebrows raised and she pressed her thumb to her chin and tapped her heel on the ground gently. Why in fact, was a wonderful question? She had already been told to go home, her services no longer needed. She was free from guilt. But it was more than just that. She shrugged her shoulders.

"It's just who I am." She assured him, watching a grateful twinkle form in his eye and a smile tug at his lips. She dismissed this, and removed a few magazines from her purse, as well as a local news paper and slammed them onto the foot of his bed.

"I'm also not supposed to be here right now. Luckily the hospital staff cares about you or they might not have called." she looked at her wrist watch quickly and then back at him, who thumbed the magazines nervously before looking back at her.

"Now, Ash Ketchum, if I get another phone call that you're trying to opt out early, I'll be back." She put two fingers to her eyes, and then pointed them at him. "And if the dream Misty you created is anything like I really am, you know that you'll be in a world of pain." She warned him, narrowing her eyes to slits.

He looked down at the magazines; they were not only battle magazines, they were world news magazines, as well as geography articles and he sniffled as his chin started to quiver slightly in response to the kind gesture. Her face twitched as he looked up at her with those shiny, tearful doe eyes and she had to flip her glasses on to peel her eyes away and keep her composure.

"I don't know what to say..." he whimpered quietly, but Misty put her hands on her hips and clicked her heels.

"That you'll try to get better." She watched him with a dutiful gaze, her voice demanding his attention, "You're not dead Ash, and if you keep at this, you will be. So don't give up. You can do this." Ash watched her as she spoke, even beneath dark glasses, her smile, Misty's authentic smile was the same as he remembered it. Even though he felt like death from his three day fast and ashamed of himself for how he was acting, his chest burst with heat, and he returned her smile genuinely.

"I'll try." He assured her but she didn't seem impressed as she shouldered her bag and moved towards the nurse who had been watching the door. She had to leave, of course, she was still under suspension.

"You better do more than try. I could go to jail for sneaking in here." She murmured before tossing him a quick wave, and stepping out of the room while keeping her head tucked low.

Ash sat back, blinking at the door where she left, and shivered. He must have been cold because he felt numb, yet fuzzy all at the same time. Whether she realized it or not, she was a lot like how he remembered her and it made his heart race as he placed a hand over his chest. If she was anything how he remembered her...maybe there was a small chance that he hadn't imagined everything; some part, some people, maybe, just maybe there was a small chance that they were real, too..

There was hope.

He turned his attention to the magazines in front of him, and opened the first page, realizing right away that he...if he didn't believe Misty before, he did now. He didn't know half of these words! He shuddered and ran his hand down his face, before digging into the trainer magazine, reading as many articles as he possibly could. He would just have to figure out how this world worked, and then determine where to go from there. He would figure out why this happened to him...after all, there must have been some reason, right?

Misty was right, this wasn't him. His world wasn't the same, but he was the same. Ash Ketchum didn't give up! He simply couldn't. Not with his mom, Professor Oak, pikachu, and even Gary out there. They were real, and that, Ash thought with a determined huff, was at least enough to live for until he could figure out the rest.

Author's Note:

You will have to find out next chapter. You all know what, rather, who I'm talking about. Again, thanks for all the amazing reviews -hearts- you guys are awesome.