Chapter Title: Unreasonable
"Sunshine all the time makes a desert." - Arab proverb
The voicemail had left her with more questions than answers, but before she even registered what she was doing, she found herself closing up the gym and booking a last minute, one-way ticket to the last area she heard he'd been spotted.
Luckily Delia had mentioned something about where Ash had been recently during tea a couple of days ago, which meant he couldn't have gotten far on foot.
As she headed out into the nautical dawn with her old drawstring hiking pack pitched over her shoulder, she placed a half explanatory phone call to her sisters to let them know they had obligations while she was away and reiterated that she had no idea how long she'd be gone, just that she'd fill them in when it all shook out.
Next she called in a favor to one of the local miltank farmers that she knew would be awake this early and had means of transportation to get her to the airport in Viridian by sunrise. During the scorching summer, she had reduced the gym's water usage to help redirect the utility towards the dying farmlands so she had the good faith of many of the local farm owners and knew her favor request would be met without hesitation.
She thought about calling Brock when she arrived at the airport gate, but decided against it in case he tried to give Ash a heads up on her intentions. Everyone had long since given up on the bickering duo's short lived romance and she didn't need to stoke any stray rumors back to fruition.
Besides, utter insanity was the only real way to describe this, because after all this time and this much heartbreak there's no way it could be love. Maybe it was just her loyal nature and a long ago promise…
Despite all the calls, favors, and airline miles she had pieced together in a few short hours, she found herself unable to mount the courage to call the trainer she was throwing herself into fire for until her feet finally touched ground in Kalos.
She had no idea what she was walking into. He'd implied that he'd found his dad, but he didn't specify dead or alive, or even if he needed her there. Still, deep within her, rang the cornerstone promise she wouldn't dare break so despite her better judgment, she showed up.
He did sound like he needed her, after all, and that had to count for something.
"Hey…" he answered the call reluctantly. He'd recognized her cell phone number from the Kanto area code, and he figured she would call him back after has frantic voicemail.
"Hi," she replied never really having the time for pleasantries. She'd always been no-nonsense, but something inside implored her to let him speak first.
"I'm sorry…about the out of the blue call…it's not a big –" Ash started hesitantly before she promptly interrupted.
"Where are you?"
Ash paused momentarily; it was too much to ask to implore her to be there for him after everything he'd done to hurt her, but the expectant silence always broke his resolve.
"The outskirts of Ambrette Town," he relented giving her his location.
"I'll be there in an hour; meet me at the pokemon center," she confidently instructed.
"An hour? Oh…."
"Azurill and I caught an early flight," Misty matter-of-factually answered his unasked question.
He could almost hear the sly grin in her tone, like a small nod to the sense of upper-handed confidence she enjoyed from their youth.
Finally the act he was pulling to try and prove to her that he was fine and didn't need her there crumbled away like sandy cliff faces fall into the rough ocean.
"Thanks, Myst."
"You should know by now that I'll always keep my promises to friends," she nonchalantly answered before hanging up the line. She didn't want him to delve into apologies or explanations now or she was certain she'd lose her nerve.
She'd see him soon and while she had time to process everything over the long flight, she couldn't say for sure how she would feel seeing him again after such an extended absence and little to no communication for a year.
Maybe they'd fall back into the same patterns and everything would be fine.
Or maybe time had left them changed to the point where they would be starting over as strangers once again.
Their alienation led her to believe the latter was the more likely outcome and it resonated painfully to know that at one point she knew everything about his hopes, dreams, and fears only to be potentially reduced to strangers once more.
She didn't blame him for changing; she had changed a lot as well with time and distance. The person he knew her to be no longer existed after all, instead she was replaced by cyansism and loneliness held together by a fragile bout of confidence.
All her thoughts succeeded in doing was growing the seed of anxiety that had been worming its way through the pit of her stomach all trip, so much so that when she finally placed her palm on the handle of the pokemon center door she found herself shaking like a leaf.
'Deep breath and just leap,' she mentally chided, calling on an old high-diving mantra to push her through. Inhaling sharply she eased up the tension she carried in her shoulder blades and pushed the door open with one fluid movement.
Just like going over the edge of the diving board, there was no turning back now. She'd have to maintain control amidst the freefall to find her way through uninjured.
She spotted him on the dated pink couch in the center of the lobby. Before he had a chance to spot her, Pikachu's ear's twitched and the small rodent leapt gleefully across the room into her ready arms.
At least this felt normal as she affectionately hugged the small mouse with an easy smile.
Pikachu and Misty had bonded early on in Ash's journey, at first over the fact that the trainer himself was hardly competent enough to find his way out of a pokemart, let alone find his way out of the woods. Pikachu had always been smarter than Ash, after all.
"I missed you too, Pikachu," she smiled, letting the pokemon maneuver himself to an affectionate perch on her shoulder while his trainer ambled hesitantly over.
"Hey..." Ash mumbled quietly, feeling the awkwardness that lingered between them.
"Hi," Misty shyly greeted and took the moment to try and walk toward the center reception desk before being quickly stopped by a hand clasped around her forearm which jarred Pikachu from his comfortable shoulder perch and left the pokemon clinging to the redhead's side ponytail in a desperate cry for balance.
"If it's alright with you...I kind of want to camp out tonight, so I wasn't really looking to stay at the center," Ash sheepishly admitted, finding interest in the tile flooring so he could avoid eye contact.
"I guess that's fine," Misty shrugged, moving so his hand limply dropped from her arm and together they walked out into the chilly spring air, "I have to be honest; I haven't camped much since the days when we traveled together."
"I guess that makes sense," Ash fumbled awkwardly trying to scrounge up anything to say, "was your flight okay?"
"It's air travel; it's pretty terrible even when it goes smoothly," Misty shrugged dismissing his efforts at polite platitudes.
"I forgot you hate flying," Ash replied with a sheepish grin.
She'd never been fond of flying. Heights, lack of control, the claustrophobia of being contained in a metal tube with no way out all added up to a maximum discomfort level.
"It's a perfectly reasonable fear when half the aircraft we've traveled on has crashed," Misty muttered darkly, "I'm still not entirely convinced that Jessie and James actually have their pilot's license for anything they've tried to fly."
Ash chuckled at the random memories that flooded his brain. It was humorous in retrospect, but only because they were alive to tell the tales. At the time he did remember some of those ventures were harrowing catastrophes.
"And how many boats have we traveled on that have sunk?" Ash teased, the awkwardness quelling in a small manner as their taunting brought with it a familiar comfort zone.
"Falling from thirty-thousand feet is certain death; a sinking boat just means we have to swim," Misty retorted snarkily, rolling her eyes at the disheveled dark-haired trainer.
"Unless we're trapped in a sunken ship...The St. Anne comes to mind..." Ash elbowed her with a sly grin.
"One time, that happened one time. How many blimps or hot air balloons have crashed with us on board?" Misty exasperated dramatically, "the answer to that is definitely more than one. We're lucky to be alive."
"It's skill more than luck when you're traveling with me," Ash boasted playfully.
"I should have let you drown on Shamouti," Misty muttered darkly.
"And I knew you wouldn't let me," Ash jovially volleyed before grabbing a pokemon from his belt, "now up we go."
"I did not agree to this," Misty grumbled, as an orange dragon who looked equally annoyed was released and commanded to fly them to the spot Ash had found per Brock's instructions.
"It'll take a day to hike, it'll take an hour to fly. Your choice, but the forest was pretty full of bugs the last time I went through it," Ash taunted holding out a hand for her to join him on Charizard's back.
Muttering some choice words under her breath the reluctant redhead took the gloved hand before her and was hoisted onto the equally irritable dragon. Ash moved to position her in front of him so he could help hold her in place as they flew, but she refused, instead moving to a seated position behind him.
"I don't trust you," she muttered, loosely wrapping her arms around his torso to steady herself as the dragon flapped his mighty wings and gently took off from the ground.
"That stings after all we've been through," Ash grinned teasingly, giving Charizard a command that let the dragon increase his speed and caused the redhead to forcibly tighten her grip on Ash's torso in an annoyed decree for balance.
"You did that on purpose," Misty muttered irritably trying to loosen her grip, but finding that the dragon seemed to anticipate her movements and would sporadically increase speed whenever she did.
Ash, enjoying the physical closeness of their situation, chose to ignore her muttering and pretend he couldn't hear her over the high winds.
They touched down in a small clearing by a sea-facing land stretch.
Charizard let out an annoyed burst of fire when the two humans dismounted his back with Pikachu in tow, to let Ash know if he reduced the fearsome fighter to mere transportation again there would be crispy consequences.
"I hear you," Ash mumbled, recalling the dragon and sheepishly placing the pokeball back on his belt.
"Where are we?" Misty asked in confusion.
As far as she could see there were no buildings or signs of human civilization.
"Your dad isn't…" Misty trailed off uncertainly, "is he?"
Maybe Ash had stumbled across a grave site. She'd always figured ending up in a shallow, early grave was a real possibility for the group when she traveled with him so maybe his chaotic recklessness was a trait inherited from his father…
"What?" Ash puzzled densely, unsure what was being asked of him.
"Dead," Misty flatly stated.
"Oh, no," Ash sheepishly answered, "he's running an underground battle ring a couple miles up the coastline. I'm planning on giving Charizard the night to rest and then facing the battle ring in the morning…So nothing to do now but wait."
Ash plopped haphazardly on a driftwood log he'd rolled up the beach the last time he was in the area when he came to scope out the situation, and Misty, unwilling to face the awkwardness of the situation any longer, released Azurill and dropped her bag by the sitting log.
Before Ash could ask what she was doing, she quickly discarded her crop top and shorts revealing a hidden swimsuit, before sprinting down the beach and cutting into the surf with a well practiced stroke.
"Myst, I think there's sharpedo here…" Ash called out after her, following a momentary stunned silence.
He hadn't meant to stare as she'd tossed her daywear to the side, but a primal part of him couldn't manage to look away. She was stunning, the chaos and energy he'd known her to be in youth had aged like a fine wine, serving only to embolden her.
Historically she would have slunk into the woods to adjust her outfit choice, but shyness about sense of self was something she'd long outgrown.
Her appearance, while matured, wasn't entirely unknown to the trainer as a month or so ago Serena had caught him staring at a "Gym Weekly" magazine that featured a certain bikini wearing redhead as the cover model for their Kanto edition.
He was embarrassed to say he'd snuck back to the coffee shop and bought the magazine later without his traveling companions knowledge.
'To read the articles' he mentally defended, 'since he was supposed to keep up on the gym circuit for his hometown region.'
He also wouldn't admit that he happened to have kept a folded up cutout from that magazine of the redhead sidled up to Psyduck with a chirping Azurill in her arms.
He didn't know how the photographer got that photo, he imagined it was a candid as Misty was looking slightly irked at the waterfowl at her left instead of directly at the camera, but it had been featured alongside the article about Cerulean City's gym story and captured the essence of his first traveling companion remarkably well.
He could see it in the compassion, annoyance, and concern all wrapped up in one faraway expression that graced the small rectangular portrait.
He watched her gracefully maneuver the strong coastal waves until she emerged back on the shoreline, panting and exhausted, from the laps she'd tread back and forth along the seaboard.
Finally caving from her exhaustion, she plopped down beside him and Pikachu on the driftwood seating arrangement noticing that he'd taken advantage of the daylight hours to set up a tent and gather some firewood during her swim.
"I couldn't tell if you heard me, but there's probably sharpedo in there," Ash explained gently with a tinge of concern to his tone.
"I heard you," Misty smirked, "I saw a couple too, but I wouldn't be a very good water pokemon master if I was scared of them, now would I?"
"Just do me a favor and don't die while we're out here…" Ash sighed, he too had faced fierce pokemon without a reasonable dose of fear, but he'd learned you don't charge into a den of sleeping ursaring unless you had to.
"What was it you used to say to me when I'd ask that of you. Oh yeah: no promises," Misty teased bumping Ash's shoulder playfully with her own.
"Myst," Ash whined placing his hands on her shoulders sternly and turning her to face towards him, "I mean it. At least stay alive until after my match tomorrow."
"So how'd you find him anyway," Misty asked curiously, changing the subject to ignore the intimate intensity of his actions.
"Brock heard about the underground battling ring so he mentioned where to find it. He knew I was looking for other adventures since I wasn't ready to head home yet," Ash admitted quietly.
Misty quirked a brow at the statement, but she knew why he'd been avoiding coming home. Still unwilling to speak to the matter she steered the conversation to other, easier to answer questions.
"How'd you know it was your dad?" she prompted shaking her shoulders free of the hands that still held on and shuffling her torso to the far edge of the log to reinstate some physical distance.
"Well, uh...I walked in to check out the battle ring, you know – to watch a few matches, scope out the competition, responsible trainer stuff, blah blah blah," Ash hesitantly explained.
"I've never known you to be the responsible trainer type," Misty chuckled dryly.
"Well I am...or at least I am when it comes to stuff not organized by the league," Ash defended, "you never really can know what you're walking into and I don't want to put my team in danger."
Misty nodded silently, she'd heard rumors of battling rings that were secretly a front for pokemon fighting and gambling.
"So this one is legitimate. They have referees, they won't let pokemon battle past the point of KO, and it really seems more like a battling dojo than anything," Ash explained quietly.
"While that's all fair...it doesn't answer my question: how'd you know it was your dad?" Misty prodded gently.
"You know how I don't look that much like my mom," Ash sighed shuffling his feet in the sand.
"Yeah..." Misty prompted, encouraging the guarded teen to elaborate further.
"This man entered the battle ring and...it was like looking in an aged up mirror," Ash sighed, "I checked the roster information after the match just to be sure, but it was him. On some level I already knew, but it was him."
"So did you confront him? Did you meet him?" Misty asked curiously, questions spilling forth as her mind raced.
"No...I just walked out, and then I kept walking until I was back at the pokemon center in Ambrette...And then I couldn't figure out what to do, so I called you…" Ash explained quietly.
"Why?" Misty meekly asked, unsure if she really wanted the answer.
"Because calling you was the only thing that made sense to me," Ash admitted softly.
*Chapter end.
I'm taking next week off of posting since the holiday's have been hitting me hard and I'm hosting New Year's things which means less time for writing.
I don't think I'm going to get this story wrapped up in the next chapter unless it's a beast of a chapter so I think we're going to just ride out the slow burn and see how it goes. My guess is probably three more chapters will be what's required to get to a proper conclusion, but we shall see. I promise I'm not going to rush it just to make it fit my initial plan.
Reviews, favs, and follows are always appreciated!
-FWFT