Thank you to everyone who has ever read or reviewed this story. I present to you, the final chapter of Endgame.
Endgame
Chapter Eight - In Which They Are Players No More
Gary wonders, not for the first time, what the world would look like through rose-coloured glasses.
Brock refuses to say anything, but when May leaves and Misty cries in the older male's arms for the third night in a row, it hits him-
May is the one told her.
Or maybe she didn't. Maybe, against all odds, Misty figured it out on her own, but how it happened does not matter for it does not change anything.
This Misty Waterflower, the one who listened and spent so many nights watching the stars with him is now one with the girl who gave her heart away at the tender age of twelve. This Misty isn't in love with Ash Ketchum, not yet. But she will be. She knows she had been and that she should be. There is only one direction left to go, a single road open to take at this point.
She is no longer his Misty.
And maybe she never has been, but that doesn't stop the voice in his head that scream he took her away from you.
Gary is tired of being the runner up.
He knows he'll never be anything more, but this time he came so, so close.
Ash took his dream (because becoming a Pokemon Master was his dream first).
Ash took the glory (because how can he ever even begin to compare to The Chosen One?).
It won't be long before Ash takes the heart of the girl he's fallen in love with (she had never been his, but Ash left her behind and it just isn't fair).
He'd never really lost her in the first place, but Gary can't help but feel that Misty Waterflower should not have been available to Ash Ketchum the second time around. Then again, he supposes she wasn't available to him, either. It is difficult to tell. He knows Misty has always belonged to Ash, always will, but Ash left and Misty forgot and damn it, they cannot blame him for feeling this way.
He wants to admit it isn't Ash's fault, but he isn't quite ready to give up the last shred of pride he has left to the boy who takes everything else.
He knows that Brock might as well be her brother, knows just how tight their bond is, and that he has no right to watch as she sheds tears for a girl that isn't her anymore. Even though it's his house and they're curled up on his couch he feels like he shouldn't stay. He hates himself for that too, and yet he cannot bring himself to leave. It feels like he's intruding on a moment reserved for only one other person.
It only serves as another reminder that it should be Ash here instead of him.
At first, she is confused. She's glad that Ash isn't here because if he was then she has no idea what she would do. The pieces are all in place, there's nothing left for her to learn, no more of Misty Waterflower to solve, but she simply cannot decide what to do with this information.
She was in love with Ash Ketchum.
At the very least, she is supposed to be in love with Ash Ketchum.
It explains so much.
The secrecy of everyone around them, why Gary always seemed uncomfortable, how easily she was able to fall into routine with Ash as if nothing had ever changed. But what now? What is she supposed to do now that she knows? The situation remains the same. The only difference is that she doesn't love him anymore and that he visits every month for one week.
Does she love him? It is all too confusing.
Misty certainly does not feel like it is love, but she also feels compelled to love him. She feels guilty because she is no longer driven by these emotions, the ones the girl in her diaries burned so bright for, but Ash never knew in the first place so why should she? Maybe on some level, she still did. It was so easy to feel comfortable around him, but that might just be because he was the first person who didn't lie to her.
Now that she reflects on it, everything came so naturally when she was with Ash.
Maybe that's because on some level, those feelings are still there. She just doesn't know it. She feels robbed. That is hard too, though, because can you really steal something that doesn't exist?
She decides that even if it doesn't anymore, it did once and that is good enough for her.
It is because of this revelation that she goes to Gary for help, because she really does love Brock but given what she's read and heard about, his experience in romance isn't the best. He understands her and he understands Ash, but he's too much of a brother to the both of them. He will understand why she cannot go to him.
"You want me to help you fall in love with Ash," Gary repeats, struggling not to choke on the words.
Misty thinks it's because it was so out of the blue, and so she doesn't question it. She takes the flash of anguish in his eyes as guilt for keeping it from her for so long. She nods her head vigorously, explains that she thinks that on some level, the feelings are still locked somewhere in the back of her mind. Even if they are not, she still needs to know.
Gary feels the last remnants of his heart shatter around the same time the words come out of her mouth.
It wasn't fair of her to ask, but then it isn't fair of him to hold expectations for the impossible.
He vows not to lie to her anymore.
"I don't think that I can help you with that, Misty," Gary tells her honestly, and can't bring himself to care when his voice trembles.
Misty's face falls and he feels the guilt come rushing back, because he also made a promise with himself to do everything he could to help her after lying for so long. But he stands his ground and remains strong, because he knows that it will only be worse if he says that he can do this. He can't.
He chooses his next words carefully.
"If you really do love him and if this was meant to be, then you won't need me," Gary continues. He is struggling to keep his voice from shaking but he knows he needs to get this out. He's telling her without telling her, and he accepts this is as close as he's ever going to get. If he doesn't say it now he never will. "If you can fall in love with him on your own, then there won't be a reason to keep thinking about what could be. My part in this will be finished."
It takes her several minutes and many repetitions of his words, but he thinks she gets it. She thinks that maybe she's always known. She was just too caught up in two world's, and in a boy who lived through the one she wants so badly to remember to acknowledge what he has been hinting at for just over two years now.
"We'll have nothing left to question, Misty. We can all move on, start moving forward. It'll be over. There won't be anything left to hold us back."
I'll be able to let you go.
When she goes to speak he holds up one hand, so instead, Misty gives him one of those sad smiles that seem to have become tradition between them. She leaves with the ghost of a 'thank you' and a light kiss on his cheek, and he knows she understands because she always understands. The words he can't tell her are clear, and even if he's falling apart inside Gary feels the weight lift.
He decides that this is good enough. It has to be.
She makes the mistake of looking back, but it changes nothing.
Gary realises that it isn't just the stars Ash is watching. It is the way the ocean glistens under the moonlight, the way those burning balls of fire sparkle and gleam and join the vast sea oh-so-perfectly on the horizon. An endless expanse across the land that nothing can come between. There is no room for him, no way he could possibly tear the waves from where they reach the sky.
It's almost laughable how he cannot escape reminders from even the universe itself. For Misty has always been the sea and Ash has always been her stars, and no matter where you are in the world the two will eventually meet.
Because he's always been watching her and she's always been watching him and he will always, always be watching the stars.
He lets out a bitter laugh and twirls the glass of bourbon his hands. "Yet again, Gary Oak steps aside to let Ash Ketchum have what he doesn't deserve."
"Just leave it, Gary," Brock warns him. "It's too late and it will only hurt the people you care about."
Brock is only looking out for him. He knows this, and he gets that the only way to get through to him at this point is to be harsh, but somewhere between the lines of alcohol and a broken heart he stops caring. He'll regret it in the morning. But for tonight, just one night, it's okay.
"And I don't matter," Gary sneers, resentment practically dripping from his tongue.
Brock sighs and runs a hand through his hair. "Of course you matter Gary, but this isn't just about that. You-"
"Yeah, yeah. I know," Gary mutters in interruption. "This is about them. Misty has always loved Ash. I don't have the right to interfere. I know."
He downs the rest of his drink. It burns as it goes down, but it's nothing compared to how it feels when the words leave his mouth. He knows the sour taste in his mouth isn't from the alcohol and he can't help but go back to that first time she insulted him. Funny how things in life tend to come around in full circles.
"You'll only make it harder for her," Brock reminds him, a gentleness in his tone.
How many times does he have to say it? He knows. It was wrong to keep the truth from her, even if it would have caused her confusion. They should have said something from the start. They should have called Ash as soon as it happened. But they didn't, so now instead of a confused amnesiac they're stuck with too much regret than is healthy for two people.
"Everything is way it should be. It's back to how it was," Brock goes on, leaving out what both of them already know. Because really, nothing is as it should be. Things aren't, and they never will be, back to the way they were. "They have a chance to be happy. We all do."
"If you think this has a happy ending then you haven't been paying attention," Gary bites back, and nothing more is said between them.
Sometimes Ash wonders whether she would be better off with Gary.
In another time, another place, he wonders if they would have worked. Gary is there when he is not. Gary is there right now even though he is not. Gary chooses to stay with the girl he repeatedly leaves to quell the call of nature that never stays silent for long.
He could have let her go. He could have let her be happy. He can still let her go so that they can be happy.
She'd lost her memory. She hadn't remembered him, she wouldn't have had to deal with the ache of him not being able to come back every single day. It would hurt him, sure, but the guilt would not longer eat him alive. He has the chance to give her a life without him. Gary would take care of her and they would be happy and she will never have to wonder when she'd see him again because Gary won't ever leave.
Except he can't, because she's Misty Waterflower, and to him there can be no Ash Ketchum without Misty Waterflower. It isn't right and it makes no sense. He'd been in countless situations in which his life had been on line, faced pokemon of legendary proportions that some people had only heard of in tales filled with the stuff of nightmares, but nothing scares him more than the thought of losing her.
Ash knows, doesn't even have to question that he would do it over again if it meant getting the chance to see her.
Ash is not a selfish person.
When it comes to her, however, everything that makes him Ash Ketchum might as well be non-existent. Even if he couldn't gather the courage to pay her one visit in six years, he couldn't stand the thought of a Misty who never knew him. A Misty who didn't push him so hard and didn't cry tears for him and didn't stay beside him for the first, most important part of his journey.
Another part of him still hates that she doesn't have those memories anymore. But he's learned to accept reality for what it is because all of those events still happened, and what matters is that she was still there through all of it even if she can't remember. He still does. He always will.
It stings, but he learns to be okay with being the only one who does.
And maybe he didn't love her before, but that's okay, too. Everything is different now. He's learned to open his eyes to more than just the next adventure, and he realised a long time ago that he wants her to be there for every part of it. His journey started with Misty. It's only right that it ends with her, too.
Ash makes his mind up and boards the next ferry to Kanto.
When Misty wakes up at six in the morning to train her pokemon, the ones she's learned to love all over again, she doesn't expect to see Ash Ketchum standing in the foyer of the Cerulean Gym.
It's been three months since his last visit. Seven more months have gone by since- Gary told her he loved her, but not really because neither of them had said the words -she moved permanently back home. Gary still stops by once in a while, but not very often. They don't talk about it when he does. It stays buried in the back of their minds behind a box of a million reasons why.
Brock calls three times a week and takes her out to lunch every fortnight.
Sometimes, when her mind is empty and it's too late to do anything but too early to train, she pulls out her old diaries and loses herself in the writings of a girl who she can't remember but still tries so hard to.
In the end, she never really does.
The little blue book is now kept in the top draw of her nightstand, right below her favourite picture of the original trio, and she reads that the most.
But she made up her mind the last time Ash left to make new memories with him. New ones with them all, even Gary Oak, but Ash is the one who matters the most. If she can't remember anything of their past then she wants to have twice as many special memories in their future. It's impossible to relive moments of a childhood lost to her own mind, but that doesn't mean they can't have new adventures right now.
And so when he reaches out his hand, a smile on his lips and love in his eyes, she takes it.
It isn't easy for Misty to accept the words of those whom she'd come to love and trust, but it is ever so simple to fall in love with him all over again.
Professor Oak Junior, logging in (6:31pm, 8/08/2017).
Case 014982, Misty Waterflower
Notes:
Amnesia is a move that increases a pokemon's special defence by 2+ stages.
Previous case studies on humans have determined that pokemon attacks have a more versatile effect when directed at a human than they do when directed at a pokemon. Research has proven that when executed by a pokemon in its normal state, it will lock a person's memories away temporarily. The specific events briefly inaccessible are completely random and unable to be predicted, nor can the length of time that must pass before those memories are restored.
When used on humans via a pokemon in its mega evolved state, it removes them completely. Such a case occurred with eighteen year old Misty Waterflower, Fourth and Eighth Gym Leader of Cerulean City. The subject's personality and nature remain largely similar, however all memories associated with her life prior to the incident have been erased. Cognitive functioning continues the same. Daily tasks are involuntary and pokemon battles are reflexive. The brain carries on in a normal state, but any personal connection to people, pokemon, objects and places alike is severed. Retrograde amnesia in a more complicated, unusual form has been confirmed.
Use of Amnesia under the influence of a Z-Crystal has yet to be discovered.
Professor Oak Junior, logging out (6:47pm, 8/08/2017).