"What do you want?" Ash spoke slowly as the dark-blue haired Sinnoh native stopped a few steps away from him, her eyes wide in shock as she stared at the raven-haired boy and his Pikachu, "I-i...I'm sorry!" Dawn suddenly exclaimed after a few minutes, throwing herself at Ash and wrapping her arms around his waist as she began to sob, "I'm so so so SO sorry!" The blue-haired girl sobbed as she gripped onto the weathered and beaten clothes of Ash, burying her face into the faded clothes, her sobs muffled by the clothes.

Ash blinked slowly as he looked down at the blue-eyed girl, who continued to sob into his clothes, making him shiver as her salty tears soaked through his shirt, "I shall repeat myself. What do you want?" Ash spoke coldly as he pried the girls arms from around his waist and pushed her off him, making her stumble back and look at Ash sadly.

"I need to find you" Dawn sobbed out, hiccuping softly as she raised her hand to wipe away her tears, "Why?" Dawn hiccuped again as the tears began to slow down, giving her a chance to look over the boy she hadn't seen in seven years.

"I needed to explain what happened, and why it happened" Dawn spoke slowly as her eyes roamed over the dark-haired boy in front of her. The seven years had not been kind to Ash. His Kalos outfit was falling apart at the seam, and his body, although muscular, was beaten and covered in battle scars.

"What is there to say? You all betrayed me. There is nothing more that i need to know." Ash stated coldly, turning away from the distressed girl, "If that is all you came to do - then i am not interested. Just leave and never look for me again" Dawn hiccuped one last time as she shook her head, "No, i'm not going" Ash flung around at lightning speed, this time making Pikachu actually fall of his shoulder as he glared down at Dawn, "Listen to me. And listen carefully"

"I don't care what you have to say. Any of you. Max already tried to apologize, and there is no amount of apologizing that any of you can do to regain my trust and respect. You don't understand what you did to me. You didn't just try to take my dream away, or just accuse me of cheating. You all SHATTERED my heart into a thousand pieces, which i was never able to fix" Ash ranted loudly, his eyes beginning to brim with his own tears of anger and sadness.

"Not only that, but you in particular shattered my heart in a way i can't explain" Dawn blinked in confusion, her eyes widening when she caught on to what Ash was saying, "I felt the same way Ash! I was just scared! The others...they threatened me and some of the others! They were going to hurt us, we didn't have a choice!"

"Of course you had a choice! You could have come to me! I would have protected you, as i always did with my friends!" Ash roared back angrily, the tears of anger and betrayal now streaming down his face, "My heart has down nothing but hurt the past seven years and its yours and their fault that i hurt so bad! Your the reason i can't trust anyone but my pokemon anymore! So i hope your fucking proud of yourselves! I may have never given up on training pokemon, but you all destroyed the innocence inside of me!" Shaking his head, his tears flying of his face, Ash turned and ran as fast as he could away from the blue-haired girl.

"Ash! Wait!" "Pikapii!" Both Dawn and Pikachu shouted, but their desperate cries fell on def ears as Ash kept running, never once looking back.

"Oomph!" Ash gasped as he suddenly tripped, falling heavily on the ground, "Why?! Why won't they just leave me alone?!" Ash gasped out between sobs, slowly getting to his feet and continuing to run, this time a little slower until he came to the edge of the island. Staring out into the vastness of the ocean, Ash sighed as he looked down at his reflection.

Ash scrunched his eyes up as his reflection once again began to shift, the reflection turning into his older, younger and more naive self once more, "I'm going crazy, its official" Ash grumbled as he stared down at the younger version of himself, who 's normal smile was set into a deep frown, "You love Dawn" Ash heard a voice in his head say to him as the lips of the reflection moved to match the words he heard.

"Did." Ash stated, shaking his head whilst looking at the reflection still, "You still love her - it's not an easy thing to admit to yourself, but you do."

"How do you know?" "Because i'm your inner self. The innocent part of you that you claim you lost. But you haven't lost me. I'm still here, buried under all the paid and anguish, the denial and resentment you feel. But i am still here - and we both know you still love her" Ash just shook his head and sighed - if he was going to go crazy, then he might as well be honest with himself.

"So what if i still do? I can't trust her or anyone anymore" The reflections frown slowly began to turn into a smile, "Why not?" "The fuck do you mean, "why not?"! You know why not, you know what they did. How can i trust anyone, let alone any of THEM after what they did to me?!" "There are these things called second chances - Dawn and Max clearly didn't want to betray you, as they have explained - why can't you give them the benefit of the doubt? Is it so wrong to trust someone?"

"How do i know there not lying? I fell for the act that they were my friends in the past, why should i risk doing it again?" "Because deep down you still want friends. You want to be able to trust someone else once more. Why not start with the people who have apologized? You know what Dawn and Max are like. Both are bad liars. You would be able to sense if they were lying"

"Urg..." Ash grunted at the logic in his reflections words, dropping to his knees with a vulnerable look on his face, "What if they betray me again? I couldn't take that again..."

"They won't. And deep down you know they won't. Just take a leap of faith, whats the worst that can happen?" The reflection said with a smile as it began to shift, turning back into Ash's normal face. Ash just stared at his now normal reflection silently, "Maybe...maybe they do mean it..."