STORY TIME FOR STEPHANIE
"Your turn."
Ash groaned as he rolled over, half asleep. If May's groggy words and the persistent crying from the other side of the room were anything to go by, their daughter Stephanie was awake again. Barely four months old at this point, she still had a bad habit of waking her parents up at all hours, leaving both bleary-eyed and exhausted by morning. Of course, she couldn't help it if she tried; she was, after all, only a baby.
"Isn't that 'hungry' crying?" Ash looked at the clock: 2:30 in the morning. Somehow, he knew what was coming.
"No. That is not 'hungry' crying, and it's not 'change' crying either. That's 'I'm a restless four-month-old, and I don't want to sleep' crying. It's your turn to put her back down."
"All right," Ash responded, conceding the point. "I'll try to get her back to sleep."
"Do more than try," May grumbled. Ash stretched briefly, stood up, and crossed the room to Stephanie's bassinet, pausing to look at her. She had his dark hair, and they'd confirmed that her eyes were as blue as her mother's. The baby squirmed as Ash picked her up, but he held her tightly and carried her out of the bedroom, carefully closing the door behind him.
It had been a strange, slow couple of weeks. According to various news reports, some weird illness had cropped up in their corner of the Johto region. Not wanting it to spread like wildfire before the medical types could get a handle on it, the regional authorities had imposed a quarantine in several cities, including their current home of Ecruteak City, and suspended all travel in the entire Johto region. Neither Ash nor May were sick, and Stephanie had been given a clean bill of health at her last checkup, but with no traveling allowed, they were stuck in Ecruteak until further notice. In some of her more frustrated moments, May had referred to the illness as a "stupid tropical flu" at least four times.
The quarantine had forced Ash and May to postpone their impending wedding, since outside of a very occasional walk, they were confined to their small, technically borrowed condo indefinitely. With nothing to do but sit around all day, Ash and May had been trying to find new ways to engage in old habits. Being cooped up for weeks was bad enough, but having an increasingly vocal and insistent Stephanie thrown into the mix was enough to drive any young couple mad, much less one used to being out and about all the time. After all, there were only so many TV reruns a person could handle before being tempted to throw the thing out a window.
Ash walked over to the condo's balcony, rocking Stephanie all the while. He looked out at the city and the Bellchime Trail, eerily silent this deep into the night. During a normal day, the trail was full of tourists walking back and forth between the Bell Tower annex and the tower itself. Ash had helped renovate the old relic when he'd set up here with May, back when they were still trying to hide her pregnancy from their families. Nowadays, though, it was empty, save for the odd night guard trudging to and from work. It wasn't right, it wasn't normal, but then again, nothing was normal right now.
Stephanie fussed in his arms, and he kept rocking her as he moved away from the balcony and towards the couch. His mind ran through possible ways to calm her and get her to go back to sleep. TV was out, since Stephanie was too young to have any screen time, and there was nothing on but infomercials anyway. It was too dark to read to her, and turning on the lights would just keep her up longer.
"I could tell you a story," Ash murmured, barely loud enough for the baby to hear, as he sat down. "But which one?" He ran through all the kids' stories he thought he could remember. The Torkoal and the Lopunny? May had read her that story the other night. The Three Little Spoink? Too many details. The user guide for the dishwasher? That would put him to sleep first. It then occurred to him that Stephanie was wearing her favourite Pikachu-print sleeper; with that in mind, Ash decided to improvise. He settled on the couch, made sure Stephanie was safely ensconced in his arms, and began.
"Once, there was a family of Pichu who lived at the edge of a wood. There was a mother, a father, a sister, and three brothers. The four young Pichu liked to play together in the wood, and all of them were very happy.
"Their mother always told her children to be very careful. 'Don't go too far into the wood', she would say, 'or you might get lost, and we might not be able to find you'. The sister and the two older brothers always listened, but the youngest brother, who was a naughty sort, wasn't so sure.
"'The wood can't be that deep.' he would say, 'and I would never get lost in there. We Pichu can always find a way out.' Whenever he was playing with his sister and brothers, he would try to go farther into the wood, but one of the others always stopped him. 'Mother told us not to go too far in,' they would tell him, 'and we don't want you getting lost.' So the naughty Pichu would come back to the others, planning a way to get to the deeper part of the wood.
"One afternoon, the naughty Pichu was playing with his brothers and sister when their old grandfather Pikachu came to visit. As the older three went to meet him, the naughty Pichu saw his chance. 'Now for it!' he said, and before any of the others could turn around and stop him, he dashed through the bushes into the deeper part of the wood.
"At first, the trees were thin and the clearings were wide. 'There's no danger here,' said the naughty Pichu, running through the thin grass excitedly. 'I can't get lost. I can find my way back easily.'
"But as he continued on, the sun began to sink, the grass got longer, and shadows began to cover the ground. The trees were much thicker here, making it even darker. It soon occurred to the naughty Pichu that his mother had been right. He was lost.
"'Oh, dear,' he said to himself. 'I can't remember which way I came. I was having so much fun that I forgot to pay attention to where I was going.' He started down a path that looked like it might lead home, and he eventually reached a tall tree, where he saw a Noctowl resting on a large branch.
"'Excuse me!' he called up the tree. 'Do you know how to get out of the wood?' The Noctowl leaned over his branch.
"'No, I do not.' the Noctowl said in a huffy tone. 'I am trying to sleep, and I do not like it when people wake me up before it's time. Go bother somebody else.' The naughty Pichu kept going down the path, and soon saw a large bush with a Paras facing inside.
"'Excuse me!' he called. 'Do you know how to get out of the wood?' The Paras poked herself out of the bush.
"'No, I do not." she said grumpily. 'I am arranging mushrooms under my bush, and I do not like to be interrupted. Go bother somebody else.' The naughty Pichu ran even further down the path, until he saw a Heracross drinking honey from a tree.
"'Excuse me!' he called. 'Do you know how to get out of the wood?' The Heracross did not answer, but instead turned and started flying towards the naughty Pichu. He had forgotten that Heracross got grumpy if they were interrupted while they were eating. Fortunately, the Heracross stopped chasing him after a short while, and went back to his tree. The naughty Pichu kept running until he reached a fork in the road. He was now so lost, he didn't know if it was worth trying another path.
"'Doesn't anybody know how to get out of the wood?' he cried. When nobody answered, he sat down and looked around. 'Well, if nobody knows how to get out of the wood, I guess I will have to sit here for always, and I will never see Mother or Father or my sister and brothers again.'
"'Don't be so sure,' said a voice nearby. The naughty Pichu jumped up, frightened.
"'Who's there?' he squeaked. In response, a figure emerged from the bushes. It was his grandfather, Pikachu. 'Grandfather! What are you doing here?'
"'I should ask you the same thing, young one,' Grandfather said with a smile. 'I wondered why I only saw three grandchildren at the edge of the wood today.'
"'I wanted to see the deeper part of the wood,' the naughty Pichu replied. 'Mother kept telling me not to go so deep into the wood, but I didn't listen, and I got lost.'
"'Well, have we learned a lesson, then?' asked Grandfather. When the naughty Pichu nodded, he smiled. 'I see. Shall we go home? Your parents, brothers and sister will be pleased to see you.' The naughty Pichu smiled too, and he followed Grandfather out of the wood.
"From then on, the naughty Pichu was careful never to go too deep into the wood again."
Ash yawned and looked down at Stephanie. She'd finally nodded off as he told her the story, and looked like she was ready to go back to bed. When he stood up, Ash noticed that the bedroom door was open again, and May was standing in the doorway.
"May!" he almost shouted, before remembering how late it was. "Were you standing there this whole time?"
"About two minutes. You made up that story off the top of your head, didn't you?" Ash smiled sheepishly as he approached her.
"Kind of. I just thought of the stories I remember from when I was little, and went from there."
"Well, it was a fine story, dad," May teased, before kissing Ash's cheek. "And it put our little one back to sleep, too." Ash grinned at this, then carefully set Stephanie back down in her bassinet. He gave his daughter a long look, then headed back to bed, dropping off to sleep almost before his head hit the pillow.
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