I opened my eyes to the sunlight that bled through the half-shut blinds. According to the clock on the nightstand it was five thirty-five in the afternoon. I had slipped into a dreamless sleep for at least an hour and a half. My back and shoulders ached from being curled up with a pillow clutched to my chest for so long and my eyes stung. My tears had dried on the pillow leaving stains in their wake.
"Pika," the yellow mouse cooed.
It was concerned.
"Don't worry, Pikachu. I'm fine," I said not even believing myself.
Pikachu just stared at me, as if to say 'Yeah, right.'
I didn't deserve the concern; I had broken one of the most basic rules of being a Pokémon Trainer: never lose your Pokémon's trust. Why should anyone be concerned for me? I made promises I never kept. I hurt people and Pokémon who cared for and trusted me just to chase my dream. How many others had waited on me to return? How many thought that they had done something wrong or that I didn't want them?
And I had the gall to call myself a teacher? What could I possibly teach anyone about being a Trainer or Coordinator when I didn't even know that I'd been neglecting my own Pokémon until someone threw it in my face?
I didn't deserve pity or concern from anyone, and I defiantly didn't deserve it from Pikachu. I'd rather have it be angry with me or resent me, at least it'd be justified, but the fact that it still cared about me and my wellbeing was just another stab to the heart.
"Chu." The concerned look on Pikachu's face only grew deeper.
Pikachu was hurting. It hurt because it knew I was hurting, and it didn't know what it could do to help. And I hated myself for that; it shouldn't feel bad for someone who couldn't even keep a promise to one of his best friends.
"Really, I'm fine. Let's go see what May and Dawn and Brock are up to," I forced cheer into my voice.
Pikachu looked at me for a few seconds longer before deciding not to press the issue; it took its usual perch on my shoulder and sat quietly. Together we walked out the door and into the lobby of the Center.
"Hey, Ash," Dawn called me over to a table.
"Look, I was wrong to say what I said," she started as we sat down, "and I have no room to talk as far as broken promises and poor decisions go. I was trying to get you to see that everyone has done or had something done to them that they don't like to talk about. Did you see May's face when you asked her about Drew?"
I thought back to earlier that day, had been looking at me when I asked the question and her eyes had darted to the side when I mentioned Drew's name. She had been beaming a moment before, but then something in her smile was lost, it seemed to grow dull. Forced. Why hadn't I noticed that right away? I knew I was horrible at reading body language, but was I that bad?
"At the time; no, but looking back on it; yeah. She looked upset." Chalk up another friend that Ash Ketchum hurt though his own stupidity. What's the score at now?
"Everyone has a past, Ash. Drew's not safe territory with May right now, when she wants to talk about him, she will. What about you? I could tell you took what I said about Pidgeot hard, and you look like you're still upset."
I looked around the room, more to avoid eye-contact with Dawn than out of curiosity. A kid was pacing around nervously, two girls were taking inventory before they headed back out on the road, and a group of guys sat and watched some program on TV about six creatures that looked like Ponyta, minus the flaming mane. Two of them lacked horns and another two seemed to have wings rather than horns. The pink horn-less Ponyta was in the middle of an impromptu song and dance while her friends looked annoyed.
"I'm fine," I lied.
"Clearly you're not, you look like you lost a fight with an Ursaring," Dawn countered.
"I had a bad dream. Tossed and turned a little."
"I checked on you. You were curled up the entire time, didn't move for two hours. If you're gonna lie to me at least make it good, now seriously, how're you feeling?"
Where to begin? I was angry at myself for upsetting May, I was upset because May was upset about something that I couldn't help her with, I was upset with myself even more because I had hurt another close friend because I couldn't look outside myself, I was upset with Brock for not having set me straight back in Kanto, I was upset with May and Dawn for treating me like a teacher when I clearly wasn't teacher material, and I was upset with myself for allowing them to do so. Hell, I loved being praised and admired! I thrived off of it! I was irrational and I didn't care. I was the worst type of person, and I didn't deserve anyone feeling bad for me or trying to sympathize.
"I'm a complete failure. I'm a liar, and a glory hound. I don't even realize when I'm hurting someone until someone shows me."
Dawn looked taken aback, then her face softened, "Ash…" she started, and then trailed off. Dawn stood and I looked down.
Suddenly there were a pair of arms around me and Dawn pulled herself close against me in a tight hug.
"I'm so, so very sorry, Ash," she held me for a moment before continuing, "you're one of the best people I've ever met. You care about people and you don't take advantage of them. I've never heard you tell a lie, maybe you exaggerate a little, or on very rare occasions you embellish the truth, but never lie. You get caught up in yourself and forget about others, but you mean well. Pidgoet was an mistake. So was May. Mistakes can be fixed."
"Dawn, you don't under-"
"Ash, mistakes can be fixed," Dawn cut in, her voice becoming firm, "but not if you sit around feeling sorry for yourself. If you just keep moping around you'll end up hurting everyone around you. Friends don't like seeing other friends upset. You need to learn to read body language, but you're not a liar, and you are not a failure."
We sat in silence for a few minutes, she didn't let me go and I soaked in what she said. Maybe she was right. Maybe I could fix my mistake with Pidgeot if I found it again. Maybe May would forgive me for bringing up a sore subject. Maybe I wasn't as bad a guy as I thought I was. Maybe it was time to stop feeling sorry for myself. It was a lot of maybes, but Dawn was usually right as far as this stuff went.
"Thanks, Dawn. I needed that," I said softly and returned her embrace.
"You're welcome. I hate seeing you upset, it sucks. And I'm sorry for earlier today."
"Apology accepted."
The front door opened and Brock walked through looking weary but satisfied. Dawn waved him over and Brock announced that we now had enough supplies to get us through the week. We agreed that Dawn should participate in her Contest before I challenged the gym, and after that we'd be back on the road.
"By the way, you'll never guess who we ran into today," Dawn told Brock as we started to walk towards our rooms.
"Who?"
Dawn knocked on door number nine, which was opened a moment later.
"Yeah?" May asked as she poked her head out.
"May?" Brock asked in surprise, before May threw herself at Brock and drew him into a tight hug.
"It's so good to see you again!" May exclaimed after they parted.
"You too, I heard you did great in the Contests."
"Eh, they weren't as fun without you guys there," May shrugged it off, "how's the love life?"
Brock's shoulders immediately slumped and his head drooped.
"That bad?" May asked as she patted him on the shoulder.
"None of the beautiful women understand me," Brock muttered pitifully.
"There, there… I'm sure that there's someone out there who gets you," May reassured.
The scene went on for several minutes, with Brock whimpering about how unfair it was and how he must've been cursed, and May giving reassurance and reminding him that she hadn't seen him around any Ghost Pokémon back in Hoenn, so he could throw the cursed theory out the window. Eventually Brock seemed to believe it, and May happily invited us into her room.
We talked about our journeys since we'd last seen each other, and how impressed we were with each other. I asked about Max and May assured me that he was doing well and that she'd just heard from him a week ago, the conversation drifted to reminiscing about our time in Hoenn. We regaled Dawn with stories from our travels, all of which she loved, especially the ones where I got myself into embarrassing situations. Dawn asked if May wanted to share any stories she had from Johto and we swapped stories back and forth for upwards of an hour.
"And then," May tried to regain her breath after a very intense fit of giggles, "Harvey falls from the rafters right into Blaziken's Flamethrower! He springs back up and starts shouting at the judges about procedure and proper Contest etiquette and how I should be disqualified because my Pokémon's attack hit a spectator, even though he was trying to interfere with the match, and notices that his ridiculous hat's on fire! So he screams like a little girl and starts running around in circles screaming for someone to put it out!" May rolled onto her back, besieged by another fit of giggles. Dawn was already lying on her side, thrown into hysterics by the picture May was painting, and Brock and I were laughing heartily.
"But… but the best part…" May started as she tried to regain her composure, "was when my opponent's Mudkip soaked him with a Water Gun, then he starts shrieking about how his outfit was ruined and how we'll both be paying for a new one, then security finally shows up and hauls him out, still shrieking mind you. It must've taken at six guys to pick him up; he was thrashing around so much!" May finished, to a fresh round of laughter.
"Hey Ash, you haven't shared anything. You've got to have some good stories from Kanto, tell us one!" Dawn demanded with a grin.
I refused at first, only to have Brock and May support her.
"Okay, I give. There was this one time when I just started my career as a Trainer, and I had just met this redheaded girl named Misty, now she's upset with me because her bike was destroyed, through no fault of my own."
"The way I heard it was that Pikachu destroyed her bike," May cut in.
"Pika pi."
"I was a victim of circumstance," I said and held my hands up, fingers spread, "anyway, for whatever reason, she's following me and blaming me for her bike being destroyed. Totally not my fault, by the way. And we're walking through a forest, and a Caterpie drops on her shoulder. She's a tough girl though, right? Likes climbing mountains and crawling through caves instead of dressing up and gossiping? Has a mean right hook? You think she's just gonna brush it off, right? No, she screams bloody murder, almost deafens me, decks the poor Caterpie halfway through the forest, and starts freaking out about how she hates bugs. I laugh at her and then she punches me! Almost broke my jaw!"
By now Dawn was back into hysterics and May had tears in her eyes.
"You mean to tell me that the great Ash Ketchum got beat up by a girl?" May asked.
"Oh yeah, it happened all the time, you should've seen when she really got mad!" Brock replied.
"Okay, I've got one that tops that," May began, "for a very short period of time I traveled alone over in Johto, I wanted some company so I let Eevee out and we were just walking down the trail minding our own business, when this guy comes crashing down out of a tree…"
After another hour of stories we all promised to spend more time together tomorrow, said goodnight, and went to our separate rooms.
"It was good to see May again," Brock said from the other bed.
"Yeah, I was worried about her. Oh! By the way, I was told to give this to you earlier today," I said, and handed him the note that Samantha had given me.
"What's this? A phone number?" Brock asked as he looked at the paper.
"That's Suzi Yuki's number, she wants you to call her sometime," I explained, and could almost see Brock's face light up from the other side of the room.
"Really?" He exclaimed, "That's great! Thanks so much, Ash!"
"No problem."
As I laid in the darkness and tried to sleep I thought about the time that we had all spent together. Not once was Drew's name brought up, and May never mentioned anything that happened between the two of them while they were in Johto. She seemed to have really enjoyed herself, and I could tell that Dawn and Brock had fun. She was older now, more mature, it showed in the way she talked, and for as proud of her and happy for her as I was, I couldn't help but miss the old May a bit. She thought things through now, which was great and an important skill, especially for a Coordinator, but it also meant that she wouldn't be as likely to do something on the spur of the moment. Some of my best memories with her happened because we decided to be spontaneous; we wanted to check out that haunted house in the middle of the night, so we did. We wanted to go swimming even though it'd hurt our schedule, so we talked Max and Brock into it and we went swimming.
I thought about the time she fell off a cliff in the Valley of Steel. She was naive and reckless back then, walking too close to the edge and not keeping her balance, now she'd probably be the one pulling me out of the gorge. Now that she was more seasoned she probably had her own bag of tricks, which was good, because if she decided to tag along we might need to call upon those tricks. I really hoped she wanted to come with us, it was nice seeing her again and she was fun to travel with. Maybe I'd be able to ask her tomorrow?
Tomorrow. What did we have planned for tomorrow? Nothing that I knew of, the gym was closed for maintenance and the Contest didn't start until the next day. Maybe we could spend the day wandering around? Maybe could check out the area around the city, there were supposed to be some rare Pokémon, and it'd be good training for May and Dawn.
My thoughts drifted to Pidgeot, I still felt horrible about what happened, but was careful to not to wallow in self-pity. If I encountered it again in my travels I'd apologize and ask for forgiveness, I'd explain that I was wrong to make a promise I couldn't keep, and that I never would've made it if I knew I'd forget it, and I'd pray that it could forgive me. I thought about what I would do in its place, and came to the conclusion that I wouldn't be able to forgive me. Even if it didn't, I could at least put what I learned from this into practice and make sure that I never hurt anyone else like that again.
Maybe tomorrow I'd be able to talk with May privately, and maybe she'd want to talk about why she was so touchy about Drew. If she didn't want to I wouldn't pry, but I'd be sure to let her know that I was always open if she changed her mind.
For a while I pondered what could've happened, I thought about hundreds of scenarios, each less likely than the last before finally telling myself that if I was meant to know, I'd find out. Whatever it was, I just hoped that May hadn't been hurt. I wanted to protect her, to guard her from the injustices of the world, and I'd feel horrible if I hadn't been able to. It's a lesson that everyone has to learn, but when the world gets sharp and tries to cut you down to size, it's much easier to make it through when you have friends to help you up.
There's chapter three, I've been up for way too long working on this. I only proofread this once, and I don't really care if there're typos right now, but I probably will after I get some sleep. It's very possible that there'll be some major editing done in the future, but for now enjoy. There're some references to songs by Train, although I can't list all of them off the top of my head and I'm pretty sure that a few slipped in by accident, I was listening to them a lot while I wrote this. There'll also be a deleted scene below, so keep reading if you're interested in that.
Major thanks goes out to Sailor Fayth 09 for you and your review of my story. It reminded me that this was still sitting around on my PC and had people waiting on it.
Hope you all enjoyed it and that you'll stick around for the next installment, which'll be up sometime between next week and the end of time.
DELETED SCENE
I think I owe a bit of an explanation for this one. You see, whenever I write, I'm either well rested and can focus like a laser on what I'm doing… or I've been up for over twenty-four hours and have moved well into loopy territory. I wrote the entire chapter while I was in the latter condition. I'm still in the latter condition. I was sitting at my desk trying to squeeze out at least another two hundred words, but I had no idea what the hell I was going to type. And all of a sudden Rainbow Dash's and Pinkie Pie's lines from Over a Barrel came to mind. I figured, 'why not?' and ran wild with the idea. So here you are; I hope you enjoy the slightly loopy alternate ending.
Tomorrow. What did we have planned for tomorrow? Nothing that I knew of, the gym was closed for maintenance and the Contest didn't start until the next day. Maybe we could spend the day wandering around? Maybe could check out the area around the city, there were supposed to be some rare Pokémon, and it'd be good training for May and Dawn.
"Psst! Pinkie Pie, are you asleep yet?"
What in the world was that? Someone was in our room, or more specifically, to someones; Pinkie Pie and someone else.
"No, are you asleep yet?"
I laid in bed and held my breath, whoever these two were, they were close by, it almost sounded like they were between Brock's bed and mine. What where they doing here and why? Who could've even gotten into the room? We didn't search, but Brock and I would've noticed two other people.
"If I were sleeping, how could I have asked you if you were asleep?"
Team Rocket maybe? Maybe they fired Jessie and James and found people who're actually competent? If it was Team Rocket, I wasn't about to sit there and let them plot or chat or whatever they were doing any longer.
"Oh yeah!"
I flung my hand towards the nightstand and flicked on the light.
"Woah! Who's this dude?"
"What happenend?"
My jaw dropped. I was looking at the two not-quite Ponyta from the TV show I had glimpsed earlier today.
"Ash? Why's the light on?" Brock asked wearily. And then he saw the creatures. And for the first time in all of our years of knowing each other, I saw him open his eyes. They were a beautiful shade of chocolate brown. It was like looking through a window into his very soul, a tortured soul who longed for love but was rejected, a kind soul who simply wanted happiness, not just for himself, but for everyone in the world. I heard the angels themselves begin to weep as I stared at his eyes, currently much more interesting than the strange creatures I was currently sharing a room with. I tried to form words, but my brain had ceased to function in the presence of Brock's beautiful, beautiful eyes.
"Pinkie, how in the hoof did we end up here?" I heard one of the faux-Ponyta ask the other, but could not tear my eyes from Brock's angelic brown orbs, from my peripheral vision however, I could see that it was the sky-blue creature with wings and a rainbow mane and tail.
"I dunno, Dashie, but it sure looks different. I think these things are called 'humans,' too bad Lyra's not here, she'd love this."
"Brock… your… your eyes… they're incredible." I drawled.
Suddenly the pink Ponyta-esque creature was in my face, blocking my view of Brock's lovely eyes. I tried to look around her but to no avail, she moved as I did and continued to block my vision.
"Hi! My name's Pinkie Pie, this is Rainbow Dash, we're ponies from Equestria! We don't really know how we got here, wherever here is, but it looks fun! I've seen places like this before and creatures like you before but you look much flatter than the ones I usually see! Oooh! Did you get flattened by a steamroller? Or maybe you had something really heavy fall on you? Did that happen? It would probably be painful, I sure hope that didn't happen, by the way, wanna have a party?"
My god. It's as if she didn't need air.
"Where in the hoof are we?" The pony with the rainbow mane, Rainbow Dash, asked again, more forcefully.
"You're in our world, it's called the Pokémon world. Not like Equestria at all, but I'm so glad you two are here!" Brock explained from his side of the room. I didn't understand a word of what he said but at this point I didn't really know if I wanted to.
"Oooh! The Pokémon world! Hear that Dashie? We're in a whole new world!" Pinkie Pie squealed.
"But how do we get back to our world?" Rainbow Dash asked in a panicky sort of tone.
"Well it'd require a massive amount of pressure on the Fourth Wall, I'm not sure how you two got here, but we should probably get you back to your own universe before ours ceases to exist, I've done extensive research on the subject, and from what I've learned, Sudden Universe Implosion is the most common result of Universe Hopping," Brock said academically.
"What the hell is going on?" I asked.
"We're ponies. You're… whatever you are, we don't mix." Rainbow Dash replied in an annoyed tone.
"Exactly!" Pinkie chimed in, "And we need to get back to our universe before your universe goes 'pop!' or maybe it'd be more like 'crack!' it could go either way, really."
"No, seriously, what the hell is goi-CRACK!
The world around me disappeared, all I could see was white, the two ponies, and Brock who had now, much to my sorrow and despair, closed his eyes again.
"Whoopsie…" Pinkie chuckled nervously.
"Our universe is gone, isn't it?"
"Yep. Very gone."
"Well," Rainbow Dash started, "this is awkward."
Don't ask me where my mind goes when I'm extremely tired, because I don't know. Although I suspect it finds its way somewhere warm and sunny and relaxes for a few hours at a time, because I always feel well rested whenever it returns. Anyway, as stated above, this is a deleted scene, it has no impact on the actual story, I just felt that it was too entertaining not to share. In accordance with FF rules it does not get its own story or chapter.