A/N: I never liked the idea of Pokemon games having eleven year old kids run off into the world on their own, so despite what FireRed and LeafGreen said, Silver and Kotone are 15 and 14 respectively. It allows for far more freedom in fanfiction ratings as well.

She had fallen asleep.

And taken his shoulder with her, no less.

Silver groaned, eyeing the girl who less than an hour ago had been crying her eyes out to him and who now was sleeping peacefully on his shoulder. The truth was that he didn't really mind this position – on the contrary, but he doubted his thudding heart would let him get any sleep at all during the night and morning would be all too awkward. Silver had to somehow get her to her room. First things first though, he recalled Typhlosion back to his pokeball; the pokemon could wake up any minute and the boy did not trust him by himself in Kotone's house – anybody's house for that matter, with free roam to do whatever he wanted. "Useless bastard…" Resenting the afore mentioned pokemon, the redhead slipped one hand under Kotone's knees, and one on her back and took a deep breath before lifting the sleeping girl off the couch. Guh! The movies made it look so easy! Silver glanced to Meganium for help only to realize the grass type pokemon, along with his butterfree, had already fallen asleep. Great, not only was he by himself, the boy would have to maneuver around the large meganium before going up the stairs. How the heck did that pokemon manage to get inside the house anyway?

"Sil… ver…?"

Crap, had she woken up? Silver definitely didn't want Kotone to get any wrong ideas, and that would be easy to do so in this position. Yet, Kotone lay motionless, indicating to her carrier that she was still fast asleep. Was she… dreaming about him? Silver blushed a deep red and his heart once again began to beat noticeably. Somehow, the thought of her dreaming of him made Kotone feel a lot lighter, and the boy took a deep breath before wobbling over to the stairs.

Creak. Creak.

There was something that just felt… wrong about this place. Despite that Kotone could see enough light coming through the windows to indicate it was sunny outside, the mansion felt ridiculously cold, and each creaking sound caused by her footsteps synchronized with her heartbeat. The mansion looked old, and had clearly been abandoned for some time, and the smell of wood and mold was in the air. Kotone didn't know what it was, but she felt like she had to get out, the place wasn't safe and she could swear the shadows were moving. She didn't know where she could be, but it looked like a hallway with many doors, each one looking the same. The trainer took a deep breath, and walked the one two doors in front of her, to the right. It… seemed to be beckoning to be opened.

As she saw the television screen, she instantly regretted her choice. It was on and making static, something impossible for a long abandoned house. Kotone's eyes widened and an invisible force pushed her back. It was like slow-motion, and turning around she could see stairs. Stairs? Wasn't this how…? The frightened girl closed her eyes, and prepared for the impact which awaited her.

Craashh!

It wasn't the crash she was waiting for – not the sound of a person falling down the stairs and breaking her neck. No, it was the sound of waves crashing against a rocky cliff. Opening her eyes, Kotone looked below her and saw the blue ocean attacking the rocks beside her. She was dangling in mid-air and the only thing that was keeping her from plunging into the ocean forever was a hand grabbing her wrist. The girl looked up to see her savior.

"KOTONE!"

That voice…? What was Silver doing at route 25? The redheaded boy was gritting his teeth, clarly using all his strength to keep her from dropping into the depths below. With his spare hand, Silver grabbed at a rope and threw it down for her to catch. Kotone nodded, and grabbed at the rope, before her year-long rival let go of her wrist to get at the rope. Once the girl was grabbing at the rope with both her hands, Silver pulled her up to safety with unknown strength, before pulling her into a tight embrace.

"Silver…?"

"I'm sorry…" Kotone could feel the boy trembling. Was he… crying? "I shouldn't have brought you here… You shouldn't be here… not with me…"

The pigtailed girl opened her eyes slightly, only to tightly close them as a reaction to the seemingly blinding morning light. Thinking about her strange dream, Kotone hardly noticed her new location aloft on her bed. Wait… she didn't remember ever walking up the stairs to go to bed. Blushing at her realization that she had probably fell asleep on Silver, Kotone sat up on her bed and scrunched the soft bed sheets under her fingers. She wasn't a very heavy sleeper, so Silver putting her on Meganium would have woken her up; he must have carried her up the stairs himself. Kotone peered out the door and to the stairs as if to study the boy's possible methods. It wasn't like she was overweight or anything, but carrying her all the way up here must have been quite the daunting task. But if Silver put her in her bed then… Kotone glanced down – she was wearing the same clothes from yesterday! Sighing, the girl slipped off the furniture to her closet, wondering what (clean) clothes she could wear for that day. Her mother was probably arriving later that evening and while Kotone was dying to go back to pokemon training it wouldn't be right to take off after not seeing her mom for so long. Keeping this in mind, the girl pulled out a long white skirt which had been hidden out of plain sight. Kotone grinned at the sight of it, she couldn't remember the last time she had worn a skirt. Well, this was her last chance to do so before going back to her old lifestyle so might as well. The girl pulled out a generic pink turtleneck before tugging on the hair-bands holding her pigtails into place. Scratching the back of her head at the feeling of suddenly having her hair loose, Kotone grabbed the rest of her necessary clothing in a neat pile before heading out of her room and into the bathroom.

She definitely didn't expect to run into a half naked Silver drying his hair with a towel, however.

Silver looked at Kotone with bashful shock and confusion. Damn it, years of living by himself had made him forget that bathrooms had locks to be used in situations like this. Well, at least he wasn't stark naked or anything. It was only after what seemed to be his life's longest two seconds of awkward silence and staring, the boy finally got the courage to speak up.

"It's… it's called knocking, woman!"

Quickly realizing that she had been staring, at Silver's words she quickly backed out and closed to door before muttering an apology, leaving Silver alone in the bathroom and more red than he usually was. He… had never seen Kotone's hair down, had he?

"I-It's called locking the door!"

Kotone huffed, and then mentally groaned. The boy was right, she was still somewhat half asleep and hadn't even thought Silver would want to take a shower in the morning. The trainer quietly waited outside the door for her guest to finish up, leaning against the wall. Kotone then heard what seemed to be a familiar snicker, and looked to her right where she saw Silver's Typhlosion and her own Meganium with the strangest look of shock she had ever seen on his face. Said pokemon then regained his composure and promptly stomped on Typhlosion's toes, turning the fire pokemon's snickers into whimpers of pain. Sweet, sweet whimpers of pain. Why you little piece of…

Click!

"All yours."

This time fully clothed, the redhead stepped out of the bathroom. Silver then quickly glared at his riled up pokemon, warning Typhlosion not to do anything he wanted to do. Grumbling the pokemon equivalent of obscenities, the pokemon walked over to his waiting master's side. The redhead took one last look at Kotone before she quickly moved into the bathroom, hoping to dodge any more awkwardness headed her way, closing the door behind her. Almost as if Meganium had known what was up, the pokemon promptly squeezed himself between Silver and the bathroom door, and staring straight into the human's eyes with almost a hint of a glare, the boy could swear he did know. Either way, it seemed Kotone had herself a guard. Silver just glared back at the pokemon before heading downstairs, Typhlosion in tow. The boy sighed, and covered his face with his hands. Arceus, was that embarrassing! Kotone's house suddenly feeling confining, Silver had half a mind to just dash until reaching Goldenrod and never show up in this town again – this time for sure. Yet, it'd be impolite to just run off like that without properly thanking the girl who let him stay the night. He just hoped she didn't think he was some sort of pervert now. Sighing once more in frustration, Silver plopped on the couch and eyed his pokemon. Typhlosion was facing the stairs, looking anxious about Arceus knew what. He knew that his typhlosion had a habit of being aggressive around… pretty much what wasn't a female he could breed with, but the fire pokemon was particularly nasty towards Kotone's grass starter. His original pokemon was nothing but trouble, wasn't he? Silver didn't even know why he bothered letting him out of his pokeball, he must have gotten into the habit of it after his defeat at Kotone's hands at the pokemon league. Even so, Kotone's pokemon were well behaved and his… well, wasn't.

Ring! Ring!

The doorbell! Oh for Arceus's sake, like he didn't have a rough start to his day as it was. Silver grimaced; first, he wakes up to a rough start by falling off the couch (he had to admit that one of the few things he missed from Viridian was a decently sized bed), then he forgot to lock the door to the bathroom when he was staying as a guest over in the house of a girl he had an enormous crush on and now said girl was probably pissed off at him and thought he was some sort of pervert. And now that idiot Gold, or whatever his name was, was probably at the door and Silver would probably have to welcome him inside or… something. The point was that he did not want to deal with that moron. The hotheaded boy groaned, and stomped over to the door before flinging it open and giving the coldest, most evil glare he could muster at the person standing outside. Things could not get any worse.

"WHAT?"

"Um…" A middle aged woman with a gentle face stood where Silver was expecting an annoying kid to be. "Why are you in my house? Where's Kotone?"

They just did.

Before Silver could get over the shock of making quite possibly the worst mistake of his life and apologize, an angel quickly descended down the stairs to save him from Worst Scenario Possible. The redhead couldn't help but stare; he never thought Kotone could look so… feminine? Gah, it was only a change of clothes and hair style, what was the big deal? Stupid, stupid, stupid crush.

"Mom? I thought you wouldn't be back until late," Kotone jumped into her mother's arms, even as she asked that question. Her mother tenderly held her daughter. Silver felt awkward just standing there, feeling like an intruder where he was not supposed to belong.

"It's okay, grandma was feeling fine this morning and told me it was okay to go back home." The woman then faced Silver, who froze in place. "And who is this?"

"A-ah!" Now that she thought about it, Kotone should have called her mom telling her that someone would be staying over. Blushing in embarrassment, she had to come up with an explanation which wouldn't give her mom the wrong idea about the redhead boy.

"This is Silver, he was keeping me company since Gold had some errands to run at his grandparent's."

Silver frowned at Kotone's mentioning of Gold. Wait, did that mean that had the idiot not had to play little red riding hood he would have spent Arceus knows how many days alone with Kotone and with a house all to themselves? Trying to shake off his rage as he had already left quite the bad impression to Kotone's mother and he didn't want to come across like more of a criminal than he already had, Silver forced down his grimace.

"I'm sorry for being so rude earlier I… thought you were someone else."

"Oh, it's all right. Hm…" The woman turned to face her daughter, "It seems you have the same taste in boys your mom has…"

Wha-? What was mom talking about? Was she implying that…? Kotone's felt her face flush – she was doing that a lot lately, wasn't she?

"Silver? No, he's…" The girl turned over to look at her companion, who was probably sporting the same bashful expression she was. "He and I are just… friendly rivals." It wasn't exactly true on Silver's side of the equation, but not knowing how else to react the redheaded boy simply nodded in agreement.

"Really?" Kotone's mother looked slightly surprised, and she turned to look back at Silver, studying his face. The boy felt himself sweat at being the unwanted and awkwardly placed attention. Yet the older woman broke the moment with a smile for him, and then another one for her daughter.

"I'm sorry about that. Anyway I just came here to tell you I was back, Dr. Elm asked me to do a favor for him in Hoenn so I have to run to see him and I'll be back soon."

Dr. Elm? Kotone blinked. She had totally forgotten about Celebi! The professor certainly would want to do research on the time traveling pokemon, and she could only imagine the possibilities of what that research could do for the world.

"Hang on." Kotone chirped. "I need you to give something to Professor Elm on my part." Before Silver could blink, the girl quickly ran up the stairs for whatever item she needed, leaving him alone with her mother. The boy simply stayed silent, studying the stairs. Now that Kotone's mother was back, he should probably not overstay his welcome and leave soon. Kotone would likely do so as well, but judging by her choice in clothing and loose hair the Johto champion would leave the following day. Silver mentally sighed, despite the awkwardness and bad luck it was nice to spend some time with the girl he had feelings for, since it could be a long time before he saw her again…

"… She's more than a friendly rival to you, isn't she?"

Silver could feel his heart skip a beat. Kotone's mother could tell just by looking at him? Was that even possible? Or was it all just too obvious? The boy was speechless; all he could do was stare at the woman with his eyes wide in surprise.

"My husband was the kind of man who wasn't great with words, so I had to become good at reading emotions."

Kotone's mother only smiled gently back at him. It was really quite shocking how laid back this woman was, she wasn't upset at all regarding him staying over alone with her daughter or even him being immensely rude to her. Wouldn't she disapprove of a guy like him being interested in Kotone? Especially since Silver reminded her of her own missing husband? And she didn't even know he happened to be the son of the head of a large organized crime syndicate! No matter what way he looked at it, the redheaded boy had bad news written all over him. Clenching his hands into fists, Silver lowered his head in an all too familiar emotion: shame.

"It doesn't matter… she could never feel the same way about me anyway."

The truth was that with everything that had happened since he arrived in New Bark Town, Silver had gotten a smidgen of hope that maybe Kotone had become able to return his feelings, and was even planning on telling her about his own. Heck, they weren't something as simple a crush anymore, this time Silver really had fallen in love with Kotone, but now with her livelihood, the livelihood of this town and a reminder of his own past behavior… he really didn't belong here, did he? That's why everything felt awkward. It was… pointless.

Typhlosion, who had been unusually quiet since the older human entered the house, came to his trainer's side. Yes, he was every bit of a prick he was accused of, but he honestly had grown to care about his trainer, pitifully complicated as humans were. Sure, the fire pokemon didn't understand what was going in between the weed's trainer and his own, all he knew was that Silver changed emotions around her faster than a ditto churned out eggs and he was clearly attracted to her, but humans were ridiculously confusing and he couldn't make heads or tails out of them. Silver's behavior was really frustrating but all Typhlosion could do was be by his master's side.

"All right, here it is!" Kotone came down the stairs where her mother and Silver were waiting for her, an odd looking pokeball in her hand and her meganium following suit. Kotone paused to catch her breath at the bottom of the stairs, when she spotted something that she was not used to at all: Silver was smiling! She could hear her heart thud when she noticed, but… something wasn't quite right with his smile. It was genuine but… his eyes seemed so sad…

"It's a pokemon, Professor Elm should be able to recognize what it is." Kotone carefully placed the pokeball in her mother's hand, as if it was a treasure, but that was what pokemon were to her after all. Each one she did capture eventually gained a special spot in her heart, she did have a big enough one to fit them all in. The woman smiled, her daughter really had a heart of gold, didn't she?

"I'll take it to him then, I'm sure that whatever pokemon it is, it must be important if you need to take it directly there." The mother smiled, placing the pokeball in her purse, and opened to the door to leave. "I'll be back soon, so behave." With a click, Kotone and Silver were alone once again, and the girl sighed in relief. She was wondering just how early her former rival had woken up to offer him breakfast when she heard her own stomach protesting its emptiness.

"Oh, um… do you want some breakfast?"

The redhead's rare smile was gone, and crossing his arms with a tint of a glare in his eyes he was definitely back to being the old Silver.

"Just coffee, thanks."

Kotone blinked, before heading walking into the kitchen. Coffee? Wasn't he a bit too young to be drinking that? What more, didn't he want anything to actually eat? "Are you sure that's all you want?"

"Yeah." The boy said in response. "Since your mom's here I should leave soon anyway."

"I see…" The girl muttered as she felt strangely disappointed. Kotone was beginning to greatly enjoy her rival's company, but he was right. Both of them were rather busy trainers: Kotone was the Johto champion and did not want to lose her title and Silver was definitely still after it, and after what happened earlier in the morning and mom implying… that, the boy was probably itching to scram.

"Milk or cream?"

"None."

After a few minutes, Kotone then walked back to Silver, who once again found himself waiting on the couch. She was carefully carrying a small plate with a blue mug – the only mug which wasn't pink in the house. The girl carefully handed him the plate and sat down next to him, looking rather relaxed. She then petted Typhlosion on the head, and an offended Meganium growled, before stomping over and sitting between his trainer and the typhlosion. The two pokemon swapped grunts, but otherwise didn't seem to want to get into conflict as they usually did.

"Before I leave though… I need to ask you something."

Silver looked pensive, whatever he wanted to ask was something that must be important.

"What is it?"

Putting the mug down on the coffee table, Silver noticed the two plates from last night, and then turned to face Kotone. They had certainly gotten along better since he found her next to the Illex shrine late at night. That was when she told him she about his parenthood. Could her staying outside in such an abnormal location and time have something to do with her finding about who his father was?

"A week ago when we met at Illex shrine… you told me you knew I was Giovanni's son."

Silver was giving Kotone a piercing stare, making her gulp. This time it was obvious she couldn't just brush it off like she did a week ago; the boy was very determined to figure out how she had met the head of Team Rocket.

"I made sure to cover my tracks. What were you doing there so late at night of all places? How did you find out? Who told you?"

"I…" Kotone looked nervous, and Silver sighed. He was probably being too harsh on her. Whatever did happen for her to find out, she didn't seem to be very eager to talk about it. This, however, simply made him more curious. Kotone wasn't the probing type, so it was likely she came across the information simply by chance – the trainer did have a habit of stumbling into the strangest situations and Silver himself could attest to that.

"I'm sorry… I didn't mean to rush you into an answer."

Kotone sighed audibly. "It's all right. You have the right to know…" The trainer petted her meganium on the head and the pokemon emitted a noise comparable to a purr. Typhlosion stared expectantly at his trainer, wondering why he never got as much attention. Silver just ignored the fire type pokemon. "I can tell you but… it's kind of hard to believe."

"Hmph, everything that has happened in the last year is difficult to believe, and you believed me when I told you about my mother's death." Silver turned away and focused on the wall across the room. "With everything that's happened in the last year I could believe anything." The redheaded trainer took one last sip from the mug, before permanently putting it down. He had picked up the coffee habit from his sister, but he felt like he never needed it like he did now. What could have happened between Kotone and his father that would be difficult to believe? "He… didn't find you and threaten you or anything, did he?"

"No, it wasn't like that at all…" Kotone gripped at her skirt, scrunching it up. She was trying to relax at Silver's words – what he said it was true, at this point of their lives the two trainers probably thought anything was possible. That wasn't really the issue, the girl knew why Silver wanted to defeat Team Rocket and become a great the best trainer, and she had taken that away from him. She was surprised that the boy didn't seem to hate her as it was – on the contrary, he had become a lot nicer since their double battle against Lance and Claire. Still, from her experiences Kotone knew that Silver was always extra irritable whenever team rocket or his father was brought up. She was afraid that if he knew she had defeated his father, he would hate her. She didn't want all the progress they had made since Dragon's Den to go to waste. For some reason the idea of Silver hating her felt incredibly painful.

"The truth is…" Kotone took one single deep breath. "I caught the guardian of the forest, and… he can time travel."

Silver sighed, and rested his head in his hand. It was deep in his memories, but he did very vaguely remember two older teens watching his argument between himself and his father. It was an incredible story, no doubt about it, but it was no lie. He looked into Kotone's eyes the whole time and they were truthful – why would she pull such a ridiculous story like that anyway? It would explain why his father never appeared at the Goldenrod radio tower, Kotone's location when he met up with her a week ago, and why Gold was able to recognize him. However, there was one thing he simply didn't understand: Why would Celebi take such an interest with him and Giovanni? The pokemon was obviously far more intelligent than a regular rattata, so there must have been a reason behind showing Kotone the argument he had with his father.

"I think… you should find your father."

Silver glared at Kotone, and for a second she thought a pile of snow had fallen on top of her. Silver was fantastic at intimidating people with glares, but they had never really affected her until now.

"That's ridiculous, it would be great if the bastard stayed in that cave and rotted there."

"He's your dad, you should at least try to talk to him..."

"You don't know my father!"

Giovanni was a manipulative, evil man. It wouldn't have been out of the ordinary for him to fool a young girl into thinking there was even a tiny bit of good in him, the man had done the exact same to Silver's mother before they had gotten married, before he blackmailed her to live in that horrible mansion which eventually caused her and his sister's deaths. The redhead vividly remembered their funeral – the last time he had ever cried. Silver protested the burial of Marie, begging his father to go back into the house and look for her because she was still in there – he was still a child and didn't understand the difference between the living and those with perished bodies. Giovanni, however, thought otherwise, and slapped his son in front of the entire family. Silver was always a spoilt brat, and had been born with a silver spoon in his mouth; it was a total first for him to have received any punishment for his actions and an enormous shock to him. It disgusts me that my own son is so stupid and weak…

Kotone was wide-eyed and taken aback by the way he had shouted at her. It was clear he wasn't welcome in this house any more, and there was no way he could stay here anymore. Silver clenched his fists and stood up, he lightly kicked Typhlosion, motioning for him to get up and ready to leave as well. "Come on, bastard, we're leaving." The fire pokemon grumbled, but had no choice but to obey his trainer.

Kotone could only watch as Silver angrily walked out the door and did not look back.

He was gone.