As soon as he spotted the sensational twenty-something year old on the other end of the bar he couldn't take his eyes off of her. Her shining red hair tickled her shoulders. A red cocktail dress hugged her curves. Her tongue ever-so-slightly glided across the shimmer of red lipstick before she bit her bottom lip in a worried way. Her skin so pale it looked as if it was kissed by the moon. An excess of saliva collected in his mouth as he hoped she would notice him. But why would she notice him? He was nothing compared to her. His once simply scrawny frame still maintained its skinniness, but now had a good amount of accumulated muscle which made his build appear a bit awkward. His hair was nothing what it used to be since he was forced to get a buzz cut every month. And all he was wearing was his military uniform, nothing special. So why would she notice him?

"Ash Ketchum, is that you over there?" he heard a voice shout from the other side of the bar.

It took a couple of seconds for him to realize it was the highly attractive redhead who called his name. He immediately perked up at the prospect of her noticing him. Perhaps he did have a chance with her. It didn't take much longer for him to realize that this incredibly beautiful woman was Misty. The voice was unmistakable. He could not believe it. He hardly recognized her when she was all dolled up. But of course her obnoxiously loud voice brought back old memories of their bickering. All of those memories escaped his mind when she arrived at his side. He couldn't get over the fact that this was the same woman he wanted to strangle to death a year ago when they first met.

"I can't believe it's you! I mean, what are the chances?" To his surprise she wrapped her arms around him and gave him a squeeze.

"I can't believe it either." Ash stumbled over his words for he was not expecting her to hug him. "You look… great." He tried not to reveal how much he truly meant that.

She gave him a slight curtsy. "As do you."

A moment of awkward silence passed before Misty finally asked if he was saving the seat next to him for anyone. He gave her permission to sit.

"So what brings you to Fuchsia City?" Ash asked.

Misty looked downcast as she began to explain. She went searching for her sisters in Cerulean after the invasion, but unfortunately she couldn't find them anywhere. She sounded pretty confident in the fact that they got away safely and are now taking refuge in another city, but Ash didn't want to be the one to tell her the poor likelihood of that. Misty continued on by saying she and her fiancé lived in Vermilion City for a while, but he insisted they move since the water surrounding Vermilion gave the Hoes easy naval access to the city. After a couple of months they finally managed to sneak into Fuchsia, which was now home to hundreds of refugees. On top of all that, her fiancé was supposed to meet her at this bar about an hour ago, so his tardiness was probably the cause of her preoccupied expression he noticed before.

Ash felt a rush of disappointment once she mentioned her fiancé. He glanced at her ring finger to confirm that she was indeed still engage. He felt his stomach churn when he saw the same diamond engagement ring on her finger from when they first met. He wondered if she ever admitted to her fiancé that she cheated on him. She didn't seem to regret it at the time. Ash then had to remind himself that he shouldn't feel disappointed because it was Misty: the same loud mouth that he found irritating a year back.

She put a hand on his shoulder. "So have you been? Let me buy you a drink and we can talk until my fiancé gets here."

Ash lifted his beer. "Already got one, thanks."

"Well that one is going to run out eventually, so let me buy you another when it does and you can tell me how you ended up in this uniform," she insisted.

Ash took a sip of his beer before embarking on the tale of how he became a soldier. He told her all about boot camp, and how after boot camp he got based in Fuchsia City and hasn't been assigned much work besides patrolling around and standing guard at certain places.

"I don't really remember you being much of the drinking-alone-in-a-bar type of guy," she said before taking a sip of her margarita.

Ash forced a soft chuckle. "Well, uh… that's because my friend… my friend from back home passed away."

Misty gasped. "I am so sorry."

"He was a really close friend of mine… I'm going to miss him a lot." Ash downed the rest of his first beer. "I just found out today. As you can see, I'm handling it really well." He forced another smile towards his own sarcastic joke.

She rubbed his back in a circular motion. It sent soothing tingles down his spine. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"I'm not sure… I can try I guess." Ash cleared his throat and took a deep breath. "Apparently he got caught stealing food by Hoenn soldiers, which occupy my town. He has a really big family and right now there's not much food available for everyone in Pallet so it doesn't surprise me that he was stealing to feed his family… he got… shot." Ash struggled to say that last part. He held back some tears that had been waiting to trickle down his cheeks all day.

Misty tried looking him sincerely in the eyes, but he had them tightly shut. "It's okay to cry, Ash. Just let it all out." She continued rubbing his back, which did help.

A tear made its way down his cheek and then dangled from his jaw line until Misty wiped it away with her thumb. He opened his eyes and no longer saw the infuriating loudmouth that he wanted to argue with constantly, he saw a beautiful woman and a good friend all in one.

"He always looked out for me. He was always the voice of reason and wanted nothing more than to help people and just enjoy life." Ash tried to keep his bottom lip from trembling. "I hate this war. I hate it."

Misty gave him a comforting hug and tears started to collect in the corners of her eyes now. They held each other for a long time, until both of them felt ready to part from their warm embrace. After that the two talked and shared drinks for a long time. Misty completely forgot about her fiancé and Ash completely forgot that she was even engaged. They shared stories from their new interesting lives and even managed to share some laughs after Ash's tragic news.

The more they talked and the more drinks they consumed the more Ash couldn't keep himself from gazing at Misty's glossy lips. He wanted nothing more than to feel their soft touch against his. He wanted nothing more than to wrap his arms around her and suffocate her in kisses. Perhaps that was just the alcohol talking. Whatever it is was, he wanted it bad.

Misty could feel his eyes on her. She tried to look unaware by concentrating on the rack of different alcohols behind the bar and twirling the straw in her glass. She wanted him to kiss her. She wanted even more than that. She shook her head to eliminate those unfaithful thoughts from her head. It didn't work. She could have sworn her engagement ring tightened its grip around her finger, as if it was nagging her not to succumb to infidelity with this man for a second time.

Ash's heart was pounding against his chest. He worried that if he leaned forward to kiss her he'd accidentally vomit on her instead. He thought about allowing her to have a few more drinks, and maybe, just maybe then, she would kiss him. Ash told himself not to think such things, because getting her drunk would be indecent of him. And why would she ever kiss him? She was engaged to someone else. But then again, she did it the first time.

Misty did the only thing she could think of to keep herself from doing anything she might regret. "It's getting late, so I should probably-"

He did it. He finally went for it and kissed her. She surrendered to these confusing feelings she was experiencing and kissed him back. Soon the two arrived at Misty's apartment where they did more then just kiss.

A loud, content yawn could be heard from the bedroom Misty and her fiancé share. However, last night Misty did not share it with her future husband, she shared it with a certain raven haired man from Pallet Town. A smile crept across her face as she rolled over and reached her arm out, expecting it to caress the soft yet bruised skin of a hard working soldier. Her hand felt nothing but the wrinkly surface of the pillow where Ash's head had once lie. She opened her eyes to verify the fact he was no longer there. Her tired smile quickly flipped into a disappointed frown.

Misty sat up and called out, "Ash?"

Her fiancé walked into their bedroom from the attached bathroom, holding a damp toothbrush. "What did you say, dear?" he asked with toothpaste starting to spill out the side of his mouth.

She collapsed back onto her pillow and sighed. "Nothing."

Ash watched as they lowered the casket into the ground. The weather that day mirrored his exact feelings of misery and hopelessness. The small group gathered around the grave site was quiet, besides a few sniffles coming from his mother. Ash was surprised she wasn't sobbing. Ash was surprised he wasn't sobbing. He hoped this war wasn't already sucking the emotions out of him.

Richie's little brother, the oldest of the siblings remaining, started to bury the casket which contained the teen's lifeless body. The funeral service hadn't been much. A few people said some things about him before the casket was placed into the earth. Ash vaguely remembered getting everyone's attention so he could say a few things, but what those few things ended up being about he could barely remember. The last few days had just been a blank.

Luckily the Hoes didn't care enough to stop any sort of funeral service in Pallet Town, just as long as the people they shot were good and dead. Again, it wasn't much of a funeral service anyway. Richie was just getting buried in the local cemetery next to the other twenty or so Pallet Town citizens who also died from causes of the war.

After his brother finished packing in the dirt, everyone offered the family their condolences. Each of Richie's family members was dressed in shabby hand-me-downs, which draped over their skeletal bodies. Ash felt sick to his stomach as he shook each of their hands and expressed how much he was going to miss Richie. He felt sick because he couldn't stand the thought that this poor family wouldn't have a great man like Richie looking out for them anymore. Now who was going to support them? They didn't even have a father. They lost him to the war a couple years ago.

"Richie loved you, Ash," Richie's mother told him. "He absolutely loved you. There were times where he wanted to join the war to be just like you, but he stayed here to help take care of us all." She began to cry, and Ash didn't know how to react. "You were his most important friend. I just wanted to let you know that."

Ash hugged her tightly, and could not keep himself from crying too.

Delia cautiously headed for the door after hearing two knocks against the wood. After tip-toeing over she peeked through the peep hole to see a man with extremely short, black hair standing on her front steps. He was wearing a suit and looked distracted as he stared off in the distant farmland. She raised a brow but ultimately decided to open the door. Once she realized it was her son she threw her arms around him and began to sob.

"My boy! My boy! My son!" she whaled, squeezing Ash so tightly that she was crushing his ribs.

He allowed her to crush him. After all, they hadn't seen each other in over a year, and she had only heard from him three times. Unfortunately he couldn't contact her much because the army was very cautious on keeping their locations secret. They didn't want to risk having letters intercepted by the enemy. Finally she let go of her son and dragged him into the house. She slammed the door behind them and looked completely awestruck at her transformed son.

"Look at you!" Delia cried. "Your hair is gone and you got all this muscle now. You look… so grown up."

Ash began to tear up because of how proud his mother sounded.

"Mom, I missed you so much." This time he hugged her. He was hugging and crying a lot these last few days.

The two sat at the kitchen table and caught each other up on their lives. Nothing much was new with his mother besides the fact that the Hoenn soldiers now had her taking care of not just them, but their injured Pokemon as well. Ash then told the story of his partner, Pikachu, and the struggle he had to get Pikachu to like him and obey him. It took the mother and son a while to realize the sun had gone down. Ash's stomach rattled with the emptiness of food and his mother immediately jumped to her feet and began preparing as much of a feast as she could.

"So how was the funeral?" Delia was afraid to ask, but she finally summoned the courage as she took a bite of pasta.

"Aren't they all the same?" Ash asked, pushing the food around on his plate with a fork. "Horrible… depressing…"

Delia swallowed before saying carefully, "You realize this is only the first of many losses you'll have to go through now that you're a part of the war?"

"I've always been a part of the war, mom. Everyone is. It's just now I'm fighting in it."

"I just don't want you to get hurt… physically or mentally."

Ash sighed, a bit irritated. "I know, I know. You only want what's best for me."

"I'm not saying that being in the army isn't what's best for you, I'm just saying don't lose yourself out there, okay?"

The loud clang of Ash's fork hitting his glass plate startled Delia.

"I said I know! But of course you wouldn't understand! You just want what's best for me and blah blah blah! But maybe doing this and being out there is what's best for me, ever think of that? How hard is it to ask for a little god damn support? Because not only am I fighting for this stupid country, I'm fighting for you! I don't want you to have to live in this town, in fear everyday, where strange men take advantage of you. I can't stand the thought of it, okay?"

Delia took a moment before answering so Ash could collect his breath and calm down a bit. "The only reason I have to live in fear is that I fear of losing my only child. I fear of losing my best friend."

Ash leaned across the table to embrace his mother once again. The two cried as he reassured her that she would never lose him.

A/N: I'm sorry this is such a short and crappy chapter. Maybe I'll go back some day and try and make it better, but I doubt it. I'm lazy.