Disclaimer – Ok, lets just say hypothetically that I do own Pokemon and remember this is a completely hypothetical situation, don't you think May/Kimi would have dropped dead by now and that Ash and Misty would be twenty something years old with 2.5 children? Now considering the fact that May lives, Misty's left and Ash is 2.5 children on his own do you really think I own Pokemon?

On Angels Wings – The Meaning of a Smile

Misty sat silently in a secluded part of the forest.

The sun flickered onto her face through the gaps in the trees above finishing off the perfection of the moment.

It was peaceful, silent, still. She felt as though the world was moving about around her but she just sat there locked still in time while the world carried on without her in it.

She liked that feeling. She liked to be withdrawn from it all, just to sit back and watch without having to play her part. To be a spectator watching from behind the glass knowing that it wasn't her problem.

She felt . . . human.

But she knew the truth though. She knew she wasn't human, she was paranormal, supernatural, and just plain old out of the ordinary. She had a wingspan wider than that of any eagle and a heavenly light that put even the brightest stars to shame. She was an angel, a cherubium, the second highest choir of angels, to be more precise.

She knew it wasn't her problem, but still if she listened carefully she couldn't help but hear their anguished cries for someone like her floating across the breeze. She couldn't escape it, sometimes is would be an almost inaudible whisper others it would echo through her head screaming, praying, wishing for an angel.

At times she just wished they would go away. She wished she hadn't been blessed, been chosen to be one of his almighty angels, a protector of the innocent, the fallen and the protected. She wished she could just be one or the other, human or angel, not both.

But she wasn't, she was like some kind of angelic half-breed. It would be so much easier just to be one and not the other. As an angel she could be withdrawn from the worlds pain more easily and focus only on her case. She wouldn't get attached and she could distance herself from their cries.

As a human she could ignore the cries altogether, not hear them begging for mercy, wishing for her. As a human their cries were meaningless hollers on the wind. As a human she could cry along with them.

She wished that was all they were, nothing more than the wind.

Misty tensed as she felt another presence move in on her little world. She looked up to see one of her best friends standing before her.

"Hey," Misty smiled.

"Hey Kaz," she replied in her thick French accent.

"It's Misty now," she replied quietly.

"Sorry Myst," Emilie replied her angelic face emotionless even though a sly smile could be heard in her voice.

Misty laughed. It was refreshing to feel the laughter flowing through her and the smile pulling at her lips. It reminded her just how much of her was human.

"So . . ." Misty started but was cut off when she heard someone call her name.

"Misty," they called again.

"Over here Ash," she called closing her notebook.

Ash walked over to Misty's secluded little clearing and looked around.

"What?" she asked cocking her head to the side.

"Nothing," Ash said blushing slightly.

'God I would kill to be able to read his thoughts right now,' Misty said to Emilie.

'Exnee on the sixth commandment, ay,' Emilie replied.

Misty giggled. Ash's blush deepened thinking she was laughing at him.

Unbeknownst to Ash, Emilie walked around him inspecting him from each angle just as her sisters had at the gym.

Misty rolled her eyes. 'Why do people always do that whenever they see him?' Misty asked.

Emilie shrugged. 'He's pretty cute for a mortal, don't you think?' Emilie mused.

Now it was Misty's turn to blush.

"So," Misty said hoping to change the conversation and get away from Emilie's thoughts on Ash, "what did you want?" she asked trying her best to sound somewhere between demanding and kind.

"I . . . uh . . ." Ash started scanning the clearing again as if the scenery would jog his memory. "Brock sent me to find you for dinner," he said suddenly.

"Ok Ash I'll just grab my things," she said grabbing the stuff around her.

'How very un . . . you of you,' Emilie said.

Misty poked her tongue out at Emilie who just happened to be standing just behind Ash.

Ash stared at her oddly as if she had just sprouted a third eye or something. Who knows, maybe she had at least that would break the ice for the whole wing and halo thing.

"Um . . ." Misty started pulling her tongue back in.

"Come on," Ash said not even bothering to wait for her explanation. "Brock's waiting."

Sometimes it was just best not to ask questions with Misty. Like the way she would have these staring contests with Pikachu and some how at the end of it all she'd know more than he had told her. Or the way Pikachu would just curl into her arms and be asleep in seconds. Or the way that whenever he saw her he seemed to just loose all sense in his being and ended up doing and saying stupid things trying to impress her.

But then that was something completely different altogether that Ash will understand better at a later date so until then maybe it's best that we just stick with dinner.

"What were you doing so far into the forest?" Ash asked as he handed her a bowl of Brock's infamous noodle soup.

It had been a silent treck back to the campsite as Ash continued to ponder about the girl walking beside him. Trying to figure her out.

Sometimes he thought that she was like some kind of angel, especially late at night when she was sleeping and the moon shone down upon her illuminating her fragile features. But she couldn't be, because as he often reasoned to himself, angels were up there above the clouds, above the stars not walking among us mere mortals as Misty was.

It never even occurred to him how true his thoughts of her could be.

Misty hadn't realized just how far away from their campsite she had wandered until she had to walk back. She had just started walking not caring where she went, not stopping until she came to her clearing. It had been a long way back, which was only lengthened by the silence that fell between them no matter how comfortable it seemed.

"Just trying to get away from it all," she said thoughtfully, gratefully taking the warm bowl of soup from Ash's hands.

She looked up at him and forced a small smile onto her face. The food looked and smelt great, but despite all this she lacked the appetite to take even a small spoonful of it. But she did, for Ash's sake she did because he seemed to almost relax and become less anxious from this simple gesture.

She smiled again, for his sake.

She found herself thinking about the smile on her face. It could quite possibly be the one thing she felt she missed out on as an angel. Smiling. It was something she had missed out on for more than half a millennium yet now it was something she couldn't help but do on a daily basis.

It was amazing how this simple facial expression that took merely nineteen (or is it fourteen, I can't remember) to produce could mean so much to a single person.

She was suddenly reminded of a famous quote her mother had often told her in life. "Love begins with a smile, grows with a kiss and ends in a single tear."

A smile could be the key to your heart, or just another inch in a grave you had already begun to dig long before you knew why. A smile can make you laugh, it can make you cry, it can make everything alright again or it can make you just want to lay down and die. It can do so much with so little yet when it isn't there is often when it holds its most significance. A smile can mend the pieces of a broken heart or force new cracks to appear where the old ones had already begun to heal.

A smile is contagious and it seems whatever its purpose, it usually hits its mark.

Her mother had one of the most beautiful smiles imaginable. People would say that all Elizabeth Waterflower had to do was smile and she would just light up the entire room.

Misty remembered little of her parents, she was so young when they died that the only family she truly knew were her three sisters who had always been there. One of the few things that had remained in her memory was her mother's smile. She had one of those pure smiles – just like Ash did – that always seemed to sparkle through their eyes. Theirs was the type that could never be faked.

Ash Ketchum was one of those people whose eyes said things that others still wasted time struggling to find words to replace the emotions that shone in his eyes. His eyes were what made him vulnerable because no matter how hard he tried to stay strong, and to appear as strong as possible they always exposed the emotions beneath.

"To get away from what?" Ash asked her taking his own bowl of soup and settling himself down next to her on the log.

"You," she teased smiling smugly at him.

"No really, what were you trying to get away from?" he asked again once their laughter had died down.

Misty stayed quiet while she thought up a suitable answer. She couldn't really tell him the truth, he wouldn't be able to handle that, at least not all of it.

"The weight of the world," she told him a slight laugh forced into her voice. He wouldn't know how true the statement was. To him it was just a metaphor, or hyperbole (A/N: I just studied for my English exam, that's my excuse) of her problems but to her and anyone else who heard the cries around her they were her problems.

Ash chuckled at this. "So what's the world done now?" he asked in the same whimsical tone of voice she had used.

'It stole a poor woman's purse of money which she had planned to use to buy medicine for her sick child at home and food for the seven of them so maybe they could eat tonight after she had to sell her most prized possession, an heirloom from her grandmother to get the money,' she though to herself as she listened to a new cry floating on the wind.

"The world is heartless," she replied to Ash looking down at her bowl of soup. "It takes just as easily as if gives and it plays favourites to those who don't deserve it."

"Welcome to the real world Misty," Brock said. "That's just how life works."

"I know," she sighed looking up at the sky. "I guess I just kind of wished it would be different."

"We all do," Brock said, "but then at the end of the day, you just look towards the sunset and hope that there's a reason for it all."

"Its just not as easy as you might think," she sighed.

She looked at her two companions. They, like her were orphans in their own right but they still had more of a family than her.

Brock's mom had died when he was younger and his father had walked out on him and his brothers and sisters later on leaving them all alone until quite recently which allowed Brock to make his own journey. Ash's dad had simply just disappeared, no one really knows where but many suspect it had something to do with team rocket. But he still had his mom, where as all she had was her sisters and she truly was an orphan.

'He works in mysterious way,' she thought looking again at the faces around her.

They were like a second family to her, even Ash's mom who she was yet to meet was like a mother to her. They were a new family to step in for the one she'd lost and the one she had to leave behind.

It wasn't so bad she guessed; they just weren't like the real thing though in some ways she was thankful for that. She hadn't heard the words 'like' 'totally' and 'whateva' come out of either of their mouths and she was sure that was a good thing.

She couldn't possibly imagine life without them, and quite frankly she didn't really want to.

They made up for everything that she missed out on in her first life, the days she never had the chance to live and everything else she was deprived of for that matter.

This was he family. These were her companions, they were fellow travellers on the same journey. They were her shoulder to cry on, a helping hand to help her through the toughest times, a shelter to shield her from the storm.

But most importantly they were her friends, and she couldn't bear to think of this life without them . . . but that's not what this part of the story is supposed to be about.

This is about a new addition to their little family consisting of herself, Ash and Brock, Pikachu, Pidgeotto and Butterfree, Goldeen, Staryu and Starmie, Onyx, Geodude and Zuubat so lets just fast forwards through to tomorrow.

They were, as expected from this particular trio of friends, lost as per bloody usual. This was probably due to the fact that Brock didn't know how to read a map, Ash lacked all sense of direction yet insisted on leading the group into what usually transpired to be danger and Misty was too busy trying to keep accident prone Ash out of trouble to offer any aid, celestial or otherwise.

She didn't even want to think about what happened the last time she left Ash to his own devices for more than a few minutes. Let's just say that it was not pretty and it delayed them for more than a couple of days.

So adding up all those factors – Ash's lack of direction, Brock's lack of map reading skills and Misty's lack of attention – and making a few complicated and rather unnecessary equations in your head, leaves our hero's somewhere amongst one of Kanto's many forests, but then this particular forest was special. It was the one roumoured to hold the hidden Pokemon village, but of course they didn't know that, yet.

"Can we please stop?" Misty begged turning her pleading eyes on Ash who could barely resist them as she lowered herself to the ground so she would look even more vulnerable and dismal from his position.

She was hoping for a few minutes rest so that she might be able to get them all back in the right direction – which she of course knew was the complete opposite to where they were heading – without having to worry about Ash almost killing himself again.

"C'mon Myst," he said sending her a cheeky grin that surely meant she wasn't going to be to chuffed with what he had to say. Strangely enough that naïve grin of his seemed to always put her in to a more agreeable state of mind.

"Don't tell me your wimpling out me?" he continued trying to sound traumatized or amazed. His smile broadened despite the low growl uttered from Misty's lips. "I guess with you being a girl and all you aren't quite up to keeping up with the guys like you thought."

So with those regrettable words said Misty was up in one swift angry motion twisting the heal of her shoe into the most vulnerable part of Ash's foot as she stormed off in any old direction quite rightly expecting the boys to follow her lead eventually as Pikachu was already at her side. How she wished she had been wearing a pair of stillettos.

"Owww!" Ash cried as quietly as he could grasping at his foot once he was sure Misty was out of sight and range. "Dammit, why can't Misty just be like regular girls?" he asked turning to Brock for some brotherly advice.

He tried to ignore that nagging little voice in his head that strangely enough sounded a lot like Brock reminding him that he wouldn't have her any other way.

"Hey don't look at me," Brock said holding his hands up in front of his face, "she's not my girlfriend."

"Wait! She's not my girlfriend!" Ash said frantically waving his arms about. "I mean she's a girl and she's my friend but she's not my 'GIRLFRIEND'. I mean you don't think me and Misty are . . .? It's Misty dammit!"

"You don't have to get all defensive on me," Brock replied, a smug, secretive smile playing on his lips. He kindly resisted the urge to roll his 'eyes' for Ash's sake. "I never said she was your girlfriend," he explained to the hysterical pre-teen the smile never leaving his face, "I just said she wasn't mine. Now I suggest we go after Pikachu and Misty before the poor girl gets herself lost or something."

"I hope she's ok," Ash said absentmindedly, "there sure are a lot of bugs in this forest."

Brock chuckled lightly as he followed Ash's lead into the same direction Misty left to.

'If that's not love, I don't know what is,' he thought as he smiled to himself storing it all into his memory for future black mail material.

'Dammit,' Misty thought to herself angrily. 'Why didn't I take the map with me when I stormed off? Then I could have at least tried to get us in the right direction.'

"Oh just great," Misty muttered to Pikachu. "Now we're even more lost then we were to begin with. How are we ever supposed to get out of this bug infested forest?"

'I'm sure we'll get out eventually,' Pikachu replied telepathically. 'You know Ash tends to have away of getting himself in and out of this kind of situation.'

"Don't I ever," Misty sighed. "Where the hell are they any way? Does it really take them that long to get a clue?"

"Take who how long to get a what?" Ash asked as he pushed his way through a patch of tree's that Misty had walked through a few minutes later.

"Oh nothing," Misty replied nonchalantly. "So now you two lazy slobs have finally caught up can we get going again?"

"Hey, just a few moments ago you were complaining about needing a rest," Ash stated matter of factly daring Misty to retort.

"Do you know how long I've been waiting her for you two to catch up?" she asked hands on her hips and head cocked to the side in the same daring response. Now it was war. "Don't tell me you got lost, again," she stated raising an eyebrow at him.

"Like you can talk Misty," he said stepping up to the challenge and into one of their regular arguments. "Just look who's got us lost now."

Brock shook his head and sighed. He wasn't sure how two people in his mind who were so totally in love could fight the way these two did. He often struggled to remember a time when the two weren't at each other's throats. He supposed it was all just pent up sexual tension that seemed to cause it.

"Are you trying to tell me that we weren't already lost to begin with Ketchum?" Misty said eyeing him angrily.

"Are you trying to say that we're not now?" he asked her in reply.

"Look, will you two just quit this before it goes to far?" Brock told them. "You know the sooner you two stop fighting the soon we can get out of this place."

"Fine," the two said turning their backs on one another.

"Good, now if you'd just follow me I think that bridge over there may be our ticket out of here," he said heading off in the direction of a rather old looking bridge. "Though it doesn't seem to be on the map . . ." he added more to himself than anyone else.

Misty cringed as visions flashed before her eyes warningly.

It was Ash trailing behind herself and Brock as they crossed the bridge. He stopped in the middle as something in the raging river caught his eye. He called for her to come look at it with him but she refused to step off the solid ground beneath her feet and back onto rickety bridge.

He called to her again, pleading with those chocolate brown eyes of his as if he knew the power they seemed to have over her. She sighed as she began to give in. She was about to take a step onto the wooden board when Brock pulled her back because suddenly the bridge wasn't there anymore and neither was Ash.

She had failed.

Misty shook her head as she tried to rid herself of the vision that kept passing before her closed eyes.

She was glad neither of the boys noticed her sudden state because she wasn't sure if she would have been able to explain it to them. Both of them were currently preoccupied with testing the bridge to see if it would hold them or not.

She was the only one who knew the answer for sure. It wouldn't, perhaps for a little while it would hold them in place, but not long enough.

"Guys, I think we should find another way across," she suggested apprehensively hoping that for once they would head her warning.

"C'mon Misty, it's a lot sturdier than it looks," Ash replied their previous fight forgotten as he stepped nonchalantly onto the bridge to prove his point. "You'll be ok Myst," he added.

"It's not me I'm worrying about," she muttered.

Misty sighed. There was no getting through to him now. Ash was stubborn and once he got his mind set on something not even her mallet could sway him.

She hadn't been able to save him in her vision, but this time round she wouldn't fail him. There had to be a way for him to save him, they wouldn't have warned her if she couldn't, they just seemed to think it was fun to watch her work it out on her own.

Boy did it suck being half mortal sometimes.

"Then cross the bridge first," she suggested smugly. "Prove you're as brave as you say you are."

"You're on Myst," he replied his eyes flashing with excitement. "C'mon Pik, we'll show her."

Pikachu's eyes turned to her questioningly for a second before it moved to it's masters side.

'Are you sure?' he asked her apprehensively.

Misty nodded subtely. 'Don't worry, I know what I'm doing.' God she hoped it were true.

Ash and Pikachu crossed to the other side of the bridge without any adverse disturbances.

"See Myst," he called from the other side. "It's perfectly safe."

"Fine," she sighed fauxly as she began to cross the bridge. To be frank, she was just glad Ash had gotten across in one piece.

Brock waited patiently for her to get most of the way across just in case the bridge couldn't handle the weight of two people. He stepped onto the bridge seconds before Misty could get off but it seemed even that was too soon, for at that very moment a swift wind swept by causing the bridge to sway.

The extra weight on the bridge combined with the force of the wind was too much for the thinning ropes that held it all together and they snapped.

Misty and Brock both stood still on the bridge despite the sound of ropes breaking around them. They were paralysed with fear, they couldn't move no matter what they did, they were like a set of deers in headlights with the fear controlling every aspect of their being.

And then it struck her. The bridge was breaking away and she needed to get off it or she would be going down with it.

"Misty!" she heard Ash calling her away from her temporary paralysis.

She turned to face him her mind still trying to understand what was happening around her and what she was to do and for a very long moment all she could do was stand there looking at him blankly.

Her eyes met his and she couldn't look away. All she could do was stand there trying to define all the emotions that passed through them. Worry, that one she could see clearly dominating over any other thought that crossed his mind. For a second she wondered what he was worried about but her mind had already moved on without her before she could get her answer.

She could see fear in there too lying somewhere amongst the anguish and apprehension. She could see pain, shock and all these other easily defined emotions that flashed through his chocolate brown eyes but there was this one thing that held her attention for longer than the rest. There was something in her eyes that she had never been able to understand and for some odd reason it made her pulse accelerate and made it so much harder for her to look away.

"Misty!" she heard him call again. The sound of his voice was beginning to be dulled out by her heartbeat and the thoughts starting to spin around in her head.

It was then that it happened.

The bridge couldn't take it anymore and it snapped with Misty standing only a few steps away from safety. The bridge was falling away beneath her feet just like it had in her premonition so she did the only thing she could think of as she began to fall with it.

She grabbed onto the only available grip of any kind and held on for dear life. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to convince herself that she wasn't suspended above a river holding onto a rickety old bridge as her only life line which had already snapped in two only seconds earlier.

It was kind of funny in an ironic sense that someone who had the ability to fly, who had been dead for almost six hundred years was so afraid of plummeting to her doom right now, but I suppose we all are when faced with our mortality. Even those who are only part mortal, perhaps even the immortal.

"Misty, grab my hand," she heard Ash's voice break through her fear once again.

"I can't," she replied clutching her arms tighter around the board of wood as tears streamed from her closed eyes.

"Misty," he said softly trying to sound as calm as possible.

He was almost as scared as she was. She would probably never know just how scared he was of losing her that very moment and that was the only thing that was going through his mind.

"I'm scared Ash," she admitted quietly still not wanting to open her eyes.

"Please Misty," he said softly doing his best to comfort her. He couldn't stand the thought of losing her now and he was doing anything he could to stop that from happening. "Just open your eyes and look at me."

She cautiously opened her eyes and met his warm chocolate brown eyes filled with all the emotions she saw before but now they held a sense of determination that wasn't present before. He was going to make sure she got through this alive no matter what and that was one thing she was thankful for.

"Take my hand Misty," he told her as he reached for her. "You can do it Misty. I know you can."

Misty nodded and closed her eyes one last time as she took a deep calming breath. Ash believed in her, he believed that she could do it; all she needed now was to believe in her self.

She opened her eyes again and looked up into his handsome face. She couldn't help but notice the way things seemed to sort of blur around them as their eyes met and she couldn't draw herself away even if she wanted to.

So tightening her grip with her left arm around her plank of wood she reached up and clasped Ash's hand in her own.

It was so warm and gentle just like Ash. She shook off the spark of electricity she felt surge where their skin brushed against one another and tried to convince that it was just down to all the fear that she was feeling. To think Ash was doing the exact same thing.

Within a couple of minutes Misty was finally back on solid ground with Ash's arms wrapped around her petite figure.

She fell into his embrace as if it were a warm blanket there to protect her from the evils of this world. It was the only place she could think of where she ever felt truly safe and that was what she needed right then.

For a long time the two stayed like that subconsciously comforting each other's fears of losing one another.

Misty turned her head slightly and looked towards the other side of the gorge searching for their other friend who had also been caught on the broken bridge. He wasn't there and all of a sudden Misty just couldn't handle that.

Brock had been like an older brother to all of them and it was her fault that he wasn't with them, safe on the other side of this massive gully. She had sacrificed Brock's safety for Ash's simply because it was what was expected of her and now he was gone.

Only minutes earlier she had been sobbing into Ash's arms because of her close call with mortality, something she had already experienced before and here was Brock, dead.

'Oh god Brock, I'm so sorry,' she thought as she continually sobbed into Ash's quickly dampening shirt. 'I'm just so sorry, and I just hope that you're able to forgive me.'

to be continued

Hey! I'm sorry for the massive wait on updates, but it's hard for me to find time to update. I'm going to warn you in advance that the next update probably won't be for another few months, (probably not till my next set of holidays at the earliest) but I will try my best though I'm pretty sure I haven't finished writing this next chapter yet.

Anyway, please review and don't be afraid to tell me what you think.