A/N: Can you say "snow day"?

AAML

Ash sat up, rubbing at his forehead. Why would he wake up at…? He looked at the clock and almost fell out of bed. Three in the morning! There wasn't a thunder storm, no rain, no lightning. He glanced at the Pikachu at the end of his bed and smiled. He smoothed the fur over his back, much to the little mouse's pleasure, than turned his ears to the rest of the house. What did he hear? Someone breaking in? That seemed unlikely, considering they were at a pokémon center on their way back to Pallet Town.

A quiet sob.

"Aw, crap," He muttered, swinging out of bed with a quiet thump to the carpeted floor. He had taken the top bunk, it only made sense. His traveling companion couldn't have made it from top to bottom without hurting themselves, or at least waking him up in the process. Besides, he always did like the top bed. It was what he got at home, only seemed right that he would get it on the road as well. Especially when his companion "didn't care" as long as "I can't hear your snoring".

He shook Pikachu lightly, slowly waking the electric mouse up and had him crawl up on his shoulder. The sniffling was making a pathetic effort to stop in the bed across the room without much luck. "Misty? Misty, why ya cryin'? I didn't mean the whole 'aw crap' thing a second ago. I'm just tired. If you're hurt or somethin' I swear I'll try and make you feel better and I won't complain or anything. I promise?" The last bit came out as more of a question than anything else.

"I'm…I'm not crying," Misty replied, her voice strangled with tears.

"You sound like you're crying. It's only normal for it to happen every once in a while, the tears I mean. Every girl goes through it. I don't mind, really. Tell me what's wrong. I'll make it better." He strode across the room and plopped onto the bed next to her.

"Nothing's wrong," She hesitated, "and I'm not crying. My throat's just sore from yelling at you all day. Gimme Pikachu." Pikachu leapt down from Ash's shoulder and poked his nose into Misty's stomach, tail flicking back and forth excitedly. Misty smiled, invisible to Ash's eyes, and gave Pikachu a one handed pet.

"Uh-huh," Ash nodded, not sounding very convinced. "So, how about I just turn this light on and–"

"No!"

"No?" He grinned. "Why not? It's not because you don't want me to see you cry, is it? No, you already said you weren't crying. So why can't I just reach over and flick on those stupid lights?"

"…'cause it'll hurt my eyes, Ash. It'll hurt yours too."

"Mmm, good excuse," He nodded. Then he added, on a more serious note, "Misty, really. No more games. What are you doing crying? Do you want to go to Cerulean instead? I told you it was fine. Your sisters don't need to come back to Pallet to help out. We can go to Cerulean. We're closer to that town anyway. We'll probably be safer in case this all happens earlier than planned. I don't even like Pallet all that much. Cerulean is a thousand times better."

"Are you trying to make me feel better by complimenting my hometown?"

"Is it working?"

"No."

"Then of course I wasn't. What kind of idiot do you think I am?" He grinned, attempting to get a giggle out of her. She didn't say anything. "Well, if you're not going to laugh at a stupid Ash joke, I know something's wrong. Tell me about it."

"I don't want to talk about it Ash," She whispered. She leaned against him, a hand wrapping around his and sending shivers up his spine. "Can't you just…" She sent out a puff of air that warmed more than just his chest. "Stay with me, hold me."

"I really did want to get the queen sized bed. I'm sorry, all I could pull off was one of the rooms like you, me and Brock used to get." He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her close. "Please, Mist, tell me what's wrong. I won't make fun of you. I already had to go out and buy you the most random bottle of perfume just to satisfy your cravings. Trust me, nothing can compare to the looks I get when I go out to buy your stuff."

"You really want to know, don't you?"

"That's what I've been saying, Mist," He said with exaggerated patience. "Now, please, what's wrong?"

She slowly took a hand from his lap and brought it to her inflated stomach, where the infant inside kicked excitedly. "It likes Pikachu better than me. It'll kick whenever it knows Pikachu's there. It never, ever kicks for me. I've talked to it, and sang to it, and it never does unless you or Pikachu are around." Her hand snapped away from his own and held a hand to her mouth, trying to strangle the sobs threatening to rip from her throat. "It hates me."

"The baby does not hate you, Misty. That's completely insane."

"It won't move for me. Whenever I try and speak to it, it plays dead. It hates me and I don't even know why. I haven't even met it and it already figured out I'm a horrible person. It hates me. I've tried everything I can, Ash! I didn't want to let you know but I can't hide it anymore because our baby hates me."

"Misty, the baby loves you."

"No it doesn't!" She shouted, breaking down in tears.

"Aw, crap," Ash muttered, bringing his arms all the way around her. Pikachu leapt to the bed before finding a way to scramble up onto Misty's shoulder, doing his best to help Ash comfort her. "Misty, the baby loves you, you're going to be a great mother, and…you are absolutely nothing like her."

"I'm just like her," Misty spat. "Ever heard that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree?"

"Oh, so then I'm just like my father then?" Ash inquired.

"No, Ash!" Misty gasped, stretching up to give him a kiss on his cheek. "Never. Mew, Ash, you're an angel, that's what you are. I don't know how you got down here on earth, but you're an angel. Don't ever compare yourself to him. I know how much you hate him."

"Then aren't we being a little hypocritical?"

"No, because I really am a horrible person. Everybody says so."

"I'm going to have to kill this guy "Everybody". You know, I don't ever remember meeting this bastard who called you a horrible person. Pikachu, we're going to have to thundershock this guy to hell, aren't we?" Ash ranted.

"Ash," She complained, trying to fight her smile. "You're such an idiot."

"How can you say that and still sound like you're in love with me?" Ash asked. "That's pretty amazing right there. I think that proves that you're a better person than your mother, huh? So what if she left your family? So did my dad. That doesn't mean you will. You're going to stick around and love this baby and me if I have to tie you to the house with chains strong enough to hold a rampaging snorlax."

A giggle. "Why do I laugh at your stupid jokes?"

"I think it's because you love me, but I've been wrong before."

"Love sounds about right," She agreed. Misty groaned. "I can't believe I fell in love with Ash Ketchum. No one's ever going to let us live this down. Every time we try and have a reunion, they'll all be arguing about who fell in love with who and when and who was there to see it and how they were right and…ugh, it'll never end. Not to mention all the never ending teasing from my sisters of how they all married rich and famous and I got stuck with you."

"Isn't Daisy starting to look at Tracey in a whole new way? You know, in a…romantic light?"

"Don't remind me. It's like my sister and brother are going out and the region's made it legal," She moaned. "Mew, it's horrible. I couldn't be any more grossed out if Violet called me up right now and said she was madly in love with me."

"Well, you're feeling better already."

"You know how those hormones are," She giggled. "One minute angry, the next sad, and then I'm all smiles."

It was quiet for a minute, nothing but the sound of three breathing echoing in the small room.

"Boy or girl?"

"I want a girl," Misty grinned. "I'm too afraid the boy will take after you. Last thing I want is a little Ash on my hands. I don't think I'd be able to handle the little monster. His first words out of the womb will be 'I want to be a pokémon master'! Then I'll have to constantly pay people back for their bikes. I'll have to constantly bail this little wild thing out of trouble. He'll end up falling in love with a girl who breaks his bike, and I'll have to deal with a daughter-in-law who's just like me, only younger and prettier."

"Yeah, but if we have a girl, what if it takes after you?"

"Oh, there's a problem if it takes after me?"

"Why, yes there is, Mrs. Ketchum! Do you know what you act like?"

"…You did not just call me Mrs. Ketchum," Misty glared through the darkness.

"Well, that is what the ring on your finger signifies, isn't it? You're Mrs. Ketchum."

"Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no! I did not take your name. I may be your wife, but I am still Misty Kasumi Waterflower and our child will have a first name, a middle name, and take my name and your last name to boot. I don't care if the kid takes an extra year to learn to write their name, that's the way it's going to be. We need the Waterflower name to continue somehow. We've only got four girls and I know the three "Sensational Sisters" are going to take their husbands' names."

"What about the name of Ketchum?"

"What about it?"

"Well, my mom didn't have more than one kid, y'know. Just me. One boy. Named Ash Ketchum. No other way to continue the legacy."

"I don't see what you're getting at. The kid is taking both our names."

"What if we had two kids, and one could take my name and the other could take yours?" Ash asked slyly. "Than we'd both get what we wanted and our kids could pretend they weren't related to one another. Two problems solved. Hey, we could even decide that all boys are Ketchum's and all girls are Waterflower's so we could just keep having kids until we've got at least two guys and two girls or three of each!"

"Ash Ketchum, are you trying to trick me into having more than one child?"

"…Yes…" He blushed. "Come on, Misty. I've always wanted a huge family and this pregnancy thing isn't so bad. You could stand to have another one, couldn't you? You're a fighter! You're strong! You're incredible! You're superwoman, come on, Misty! Let's have four or five kids!"

"Ask me while I'm giving birth."

"I'll ask you when you've got the baby in your arms," Ash giggled.

"Oh, you'd better not! You know no girl can say no when they've got a baby in their arms. That's cheating!" She leaned back into him, almost sending him toppling backward into the process. "So blue eyes or brown?"

"Genetically speaking, the baby is going to have brown eyes."

"You just want the babies to look just like you, don't you?"

"If I had a choice, I'd root for a blue eyed baby. I wouldn't mind if we had a beautiful baby girl who looked just like her mother." He nuzzled into her neck. "A woman who was a late bloomer so the boys would stay away from her and I won't have to beat them away with a stick for trying to defile my princess."

"Ash! The baby isn't even born yet and you're scaring away her potential boyfriends!" Misty laughed. "Ash, we don't even know if it's a girl yet. For all we know it could come out to be a boy who's as girl crazy as Brock."

"Well, that's fine. If it's a boy he can have all the little girlfriends he wants. That just means he's popular." Ash shrugged it off. "I want one of each, at least. Or more of each. You can pull that off, can't you, Mist?"

"Genetically speaking," She mocked, "You're the one that controls the gender of our darling child. I'm telling you, after the hell I've gone through with just one baby, I don't think I'm ready for another baby. I don't know if I ever will be. I'm not even sure if I wanted this one. How did you talk me into this?"

"I didn't. The condom broke."

"You broke it on purpose, didn't you?"

"Well, you didn't exactly say no when I told you my last condom was busted," Ash retorted. "You were perfectly fine. When it comes down to it, I think you really did want to have the baby. You were just too stubborn to admit it. I think you're going to want a big family. You'll like being a mom. I know it. I remember how you were with Togepi and Marill and all those other pokémon you nursed. You want to take care of things."

"Mmm-hmm, you caught me. That's my biggest secret desire. Red or brown?"

"Hair? I don't care about that. How about blonde?"

"No baby of mine is going to have blonde hair," Misty said violently. "I don't want a little Daisy. Blonde hair in my family is just asking for trouble! We're having a red haired, brown haired, or black haired baby and that's all there is to it."

"Fine. Red hair. It's supposed to be lucky."

"Tall or short?"

"What kind of question is that? With our heights, even our combined heights, the baby is still going to be tiny. He or she is going to be short and you know it. Let's get to the real question. What do you want to name the baby?"

"I told you, I want to wait until we see the baby to name it."

"What, so you don't get attached before it's here? Never name something until you know for sure that it's yours, isn't that right?" He teased. "I don't want to name it after anyone we know. I mean, I mean no one we've ever met. I don't care what they say. They'll all be jealous if we name it after someone we already know. We have to give them a way out there name. Something no one's ever heard. How about Jambinasia?"

"Nice name."

"I think it's a great name. It can be a boy or girl name. Don't you think it's beautiful? Jambinasia. It sounds like a foreign flower found by some pretty rainforest river."

"It sounds like a spicy food dish in an Asian restaurant," Misty retorted. "Why don't we just wait like I wanted? I don't want to think of a name until I see the baby. My parents named us after the first flowers they got from their family."

"How'd they get Misty?"

"That one was completely random. I don't know how they got it either. But, please, Ash, I don't want to think about names right now. Can't we just look at the baby before we do?" She smiled affectionately down at her stomach. "Trust me, I'll know. When the baby comes, I'll know what to name it."

"And if you don't."

"We'll name it Jambalaya."

"It's Jambinasia."

"It's retarded, that's what it is," She giggled. She hauled herself to her feet and stood for a moment, wobbling, then sauntered over to the light switch. "Mew, I'm giving birth to another one of you. You, who wants to name our precious child some kind of food or some made up word or whatever you wanted to call her. I can't believe you." She leaned her head against the wall to rest for a moment, then switched on the light.

"Ah! It burns!" Ash shrieked, covering his eyes. Pikachu did so as well, slamming his little paws over already shut eyes and falling off the bed dramatically. "It burns! It burns! It burns like wildfire! Make it stop! Oh, please, anything to make the burning fire stop!"

"Oh, the light's not that bad," Misty teased.

Ash sat up and grinned cheekily. "No, but your face is!"

"Ugh," She moaned, rubbing her temples. "I can't believe you just said that. Why did I agree to bear your child?" She walked back to him, hair down and completely haggard in appearance, and put one hand on her belly, one to her back. "How do I look?"

Ash beamed up at her. "You're positively glowing."

"Oh, Ash," She said, holding a hand to her face.

"And now you're positively blushing."

It was a groan this time, "Oh, Ash."

"Ash, sweetheart?" Came the quiet voice at nine a.m. "Ash, baby, wake up."

"Hn?" Ash rubbed his eyes, sitting up in bed. "Wha, Misty? Is there something wrong? The baby's not hurt, is it? You're not crying again? Oh, Mew, no! This sucks! Wait, nine? We woke up too late! Did you turn off the alarm clock or something, oh crap!"

"Ash…my water broke." Silence. "Ash? Ash? Hello? Ash?" She pulled herself out of bed and stood up to get a good look at her husband. There he was, unconscious, unmoving, practically dead to the world from shock.

"Aw, crap."

Random little me. It was cute. I wanted to write some pregnancy stuff. I had extra time. Evan's oneshot is taking forever to write and I'm having trouble with my plot fic...

Drop a review if you feel like it!