Author's note: Well, this is it. The end of the story. All of the work I've put in culminates in this. I still own nothing but the original characters.
After this, it's on to the crime story I've had in mind for about a month or two now. I'm planning to focus mainly on the actual detective work and not so much on the science part. Makes my job a bit easier without having to worry so much about embarrassing inaccuracies.
Thank you to anyone who has ever read this and/or commented.
Content warning:
Gardevoir and Karl talked into the evening hours, talked and cried. There were not as many memories for the two to share as they had hoped, but what they had they recalled with a sort of mournful fondness. It seemed like they could talked forever. She certainly wished that they could.
His parents stood by watching with tears in their eyes. It meant so much to them to see their son be happy for perhaps the last time. The ordeal had been so painful for the three of them, realizing that all of the dreams that he had were slowly but unavoidably swirling down the drain.
Outside, the sky had grown dark as night took the last tinges of twilight from the horizon. The only light in the hospital room now was provided by a fluorescent light positioned above the head of the bed. It did nothing to disguise his sickly tone.
It was late that night when a nurse walked in. "Sorry to cut this short, but visiting hours are over. You'll have to come back tomorrow."
Gardevoir stood up, wiping tears from her eyes. "I'm not leaving."
"I'm sorry," replied the nurse, understanding telepathy, "but rules are rules."
"Isn't there a way you can keep her here?" his mother pressed. "She came a long way to be here for my son and she's tired."
"Ma'am, I happen to like being employed. I bend the rules, that won't last long."
She sighed and rubbed her forehead. "The Gardevoir can stay. We can tell anyone who ask that she belongs to your son. They don't check tags all the time, so she might be safe."
"You have no idea how much this means to us," said Karl's mother gratefully.
"You have no idea how much of my neck is at risk," was the retort as the nurse left.
The parents turned to Gardevoir. "Do you want one of us to stay with you?"
"You both look like you need some rest. I'll be fine."
"Well, OK. We're going to see if we can find a place to stay so we can get here fast if something happens."
Karl's parents were able to get an unused room to sleep in for the night, while Gardevoir moved a chair as close as she could to Karl, who had fallen asleep. She had trouble trying to close her eyes and sleep as well, seeing his face every time she closed her eyes, hearing his tortured breathing in the silence. Instinctively, she reached out and took his hand in hers, silently rubbing it as the tears began to flow again. She would have given anything for him to be well again, even her own life. The fact that she could not do so hurt her even more, and she cried herself to sleep.
She suddenly felt a breeze, and felt the warmth of the sun on her skin.
Where am I? she wondered.
She opened her eyes and was stunned to see the ocean. She felt sand underneath her as she got to her feet.
I've never seen this place before in my life. So what am I doing here, and why am I walking away from the water, and why am I suddenly wearing a fairly skimpy bikini?
Her feet were taking her in a direction that she had never gone before, towards something she didn't know about. The wind blew her short hair around her face as the sand began to abruptly change into forest. The scent of leaves filled her lungs as she walked across the soft ground.
This feels so dreamlike, and yet… it feels so real….
She heard the sound of water crashing as the trees began to thin. Ahead, there was what seemed to be a series of cliffs, and the crashing got louder as she approached, yet it also seemed to grow softer.
Then she saw the waterfall, and she was instinctively led towards it. She walked right through the water and received the shock of her life.
It was Karl, just like the day she met him, his short hair soaked by the water, his soft gray eyes smiling at her. He was wearing a loose pair of shorts and nothing else, looking as healthy as she had remembered him.
"Thank you for coming. I've been waiting for you for a long time," he said.
She walked towards him and felt her top strangely melt away. He smiled and drew her close to him, oblivious of the horn situated between her soft breasts. They stood under the waterfall, not moving, feeling each other breathe. In this moment, she felt safer than she ever felt before.
He gently lifted her face towards him and kissed her. She kissed him back, then put one arm around his shoulder and one around his back and kept kissing him, rubbing his body as she did so. His own hands moved along her spine as well, traveling as low as he could reach, tenderly massaging her soft posterior.
His touch aroused her in ways that she never felt with him, even as a Kirlia. She let a moan escape from her lips as he continued to caress her. She let a hand run down his chest as the tingling of pleasure shook her. The arm around his back began to trace the lines in his back, and she opened her eyes to look at him and was stunned to see him begin to fade away.
"I wanted to be able to share one more special moment with you, since we never got to spend that much time together," his voice rang out as she began frantically groping around for what she knew she would not find there. "You were always the best that I wish I still had."
"No! P-please don't leave me!" she pleaded, tears coming to her eyes.
"Don't worry, Gardevoir. I'll be the angel on your shoulder whenever you're feeling alone, I'll make sure that you never fall when the going gets rough, and I will ALWAYS love you, even when I'm long gone."
Gardevoir began to cry, and there was a shrill noise.
Her eyes flew open to see doctors and nurses surrounding the bed even as she still held his hand, which had grown limp in her grasp. Horrified, she let go as one doctor, choked by emotion, gestured for the now useless life support machines to be shut down.
"Time of death, 2:36 A.M.," he said.
Karl's parents stood in the doorway, the mother in tears, the father trying to hold it in but losing his battle.
Gardevoir could stand it no longer. She ran sobbing from the room and did not stop running until she came to a waiting room, where she collapsed on the floor and let the tears fall from her broken heart.
A ghostly hand touched her shoulder, and she slowly turned her head. Through her clouded eyes, she could make out the form of a Dusknoir hovering next to her.
"Is something the matter?" he asked.
Gardevoir couldn't bring herself to speak, so she just nodded.
"Was it the young man who just died a few moments ago?"
She nodded again.
"You two were kinda close, weren't ya?"
"Yes."
"Aw, don't cry," he said, trying to be as soothing as a Ghost-type of his abilities could. "I know you miss him a lot, but at least he's not in pain anymore. You'd want him to be free from that, wouldn't ya?"
"But why did he have to die? He didn't do anything to deserve that!"
"Some things in life we just have no explanation for. Sometimes, sad things like these happen to people, whether they like it or not. They can't do much about it. But they do what they can with it and make things better for who they still can.
"Now he has no more pain to suffer through. Now all he has is peace and rest. I've been sent to make sure he goes somewhere where he can have those things all the time.
"He did tell me before I took him," the Dusknoir added, "that I was to tell you that he still loves you very much and that he'll never forget you or all the things you did together. They are memories that he'll keep in his heart forever, and he hopes that you will too."
Gardevoir began to cry again. "If you could, c-could you please tell him that I'll always remember him, and that I'll always love him too?"
"Of course I can. And as he said, he'll be watching you and cheering for you every step you take." He held a hand out. In it was an airship ticket. "He figured you might need this to get back to your master, so he told me to give this to you in case he never got the chance."
Gardevoir quietly took it as the Dusknoir glided away.
"Goodbye, Karl," she whispered. "I love you."
She sat in her seat, watching Karl's parents wave goodbye to her as the airship took off. The badges he gave her lay in the case in her lap.
Next to her, an old Alakazam was reading a newspaper, his pince-nez glasses shoved a good distance down his nose. He stopped reading for a moment, then turned to look at her.
"So, what brings you on this flight?" he asked.
"You want a long version or the abridged one?" she replied.
"We've got time. The long one."
She settled back and began to tell him the story from the very beginning, watching the landscape pass below as they flew, a distant waterfall gleaming like a familiar paradise.