Quite sorry, everyone but I had to make a minor back-edit for story thread maintenance. For your reference: the site of the Ruins of Alph is only half a day's distance by vehicle from the nearest outlying field site (B).

Thanks for waiting diligently on this update. Look how long it is! I decided to put two chapters into one because, well, it just felt right this way. The next, and final chapter, will be coming right on this one's heels. Reviews are love.

In Ruins

Chapter 26

The huddle of the camp's tents and temporary shelters were still a few minutes off when Tano and Shigeru crested the hill above the dig site. With the exception of the small bulb over Tano's doorway, everything was shadowy in the dim moonlight, reminiscent of a suspended set in the middle of a dream. It occurred to Shigeru that his 'home' was tucked inside that small community somewhere, just as he'd left it. There probably wasn't even any dust on his samples. There would certainly have been no change to the springs inside his mattress, to the firmness of his pillows, or to the even texture of his sheets in his single week of absence. Even so, he felt gripped by the senseless need to check, to go home and review each fragment of his life piece by piece - to make sure that it was all real, that it was really a seamless whole, and that the ancient and illusory city of Alph wasn't about to barrel back onto him at the smallest provocation.

He was so taken by the thought that he briefly found it difficult to move. But Tano's hand took his arm and steered him to the outskirts of town.

The front door to Tano's building was raised up several feet of steps on what could have only been hastily laid concrete. The door was tightly sealed, and he had to give it a firm shove to unstick the latch. Tano swept in and flicked the lights on, then walked across the long, narrow room to the sink beside his cot. Shigeru came inside the one-room structure quickly after him and automatically bent down to remove his shoes in the doorway. He felt foolish immediately. The ritual wouldn't really make much difference. That he would be guilty of dirtying Tano's house was a forgone conclusion; he was still so dirty from his self-exhuming that a little bit more dirt and sand entering the room from his shoes could hardly matter.

Tano meanwhile turned on the faucet and splashed some water in his face. Shigeru stepped out of his shoes and watched him with more interest than the task deserved. The scene felt so normal that it nearly hurt.

"You can use whatever you need," Tano said calmly as he finished and blotted his old, spotted skin with a hand towel. "You know where everything is; this place has hardly changed since you were here last. You can sleep on the sofa. We'll talk in the morning."

"The morning?" Shigeru started. "But I thought you wanted answers right away."

"We'll take care of it first thing in the morning," repeated Tano.

Shigeru couldn't hide his bewilderment. What had he missed? What could explain for Tano swinging from not being willing to take 'no' for an answer to this?

"I thought we were going to see my grandfather."

"Yes, I said we'd see him, and we will so, let me reiterate, first thing in the morning, and…" Tano cut himself off. "Oh, did you think that I was going to inform your grandfather about your whereabouts tonight?"

"What else was I supposed to think? You were fighting for it so hard."

"I was. But I do know what your grandfather is like," Shigeru could hear Tano's unspoken 'and I know very well what you are like, too.' The man continued, "He's rather thorough, isn't he?"

"That's one word for it," Shigeru agreed hesitantly. "What are you getting at?"

"He's one of the greatest Pokemon researchers in the world for a great reason, but he is just a bit less wise about people. It seems to me that once he finds out that you are alive, he will come over immediately and barrage you with questions, spending untold hours putting you through a series of physical and mental tests designed to assure your total healthiness…. Probably at the risk of remembering that you are human and need to sleep."

When Shigeru failed to hold back a snort, Tano graciously ignored it, concluding, "It seemed to me that you could hold out on speaking with him until the morning for that reason alone, much less for the other reason that you are keeping to your chest, which keeps you from wanting to speak with anyone at all."

"Thank you, Tano," Shigeru said sincerely. "Now stop sounding so all-knowing. It's terrifying."

Tano nodded congenially. "I've sent your grandfather an email to come over here straight away, no questions asked. The message is under instructions to be delivered as soon as he turns his phone back on, which should be no sooner than tomorrow morning."

"Sounds fine." Shigeru trudged across the room. The taut wire that had been holding him upright and aware was quickly losing its salience, and he could feel his body drooping. Even his senses were beginning to feel like they were actively laboring to continue their function. He was rather amazed that he still knew how to move at all.

"Tano," he gathered his thoughts. "I'm about to pass out. If anything happens…"

"I'll take care of it. Just get some rest."

After a few long seconds, Shigeru settled down on the sofa opposite of Tano's desk and workbench. It was a dark, plush green, with a texture like old velvet. He leaned his head back against the cheap wall panels, and the plastic gave a little, denting in. He thought about the thick limestone walls of the buildings in Alph, how they were cold, gritty and unyielding. It felt like there should have been some meaning in the difference, some feeling that was supposed to register as he thought about his abruptly ended adventure - regret, maybe? Nostalgia? A sort of 'missing'? But he couldn't quite put any substance into the impressions he had of his own feelings. Everything was swimming in his head as the exhaustion rushed back to him like water from behind a dam.

He drifted off before he knew he'd shut his eyes.

Shigeru awoke to the warm, rich smell of breakfast and the clatter of kitchen utensils scraping against the bottom of a pan. He wasn't even fully conscious, but his stomach seemed to have been working for some time already, as it was doing flips of anticipatory celebration for the meal. How long had it been since there had been breakfast provided for him? A week? And since when had Satoshi become such a good cook?

"Hey, what's that amazing smell…?" he asked groggily.

"Pancakes. Are you hungry?" came Tano's voice.

Shigeru shot up.

An acrylic blanket was tangled up around his knees. Beyond it sat all the pieces of furniture and modernity that composed his colleague's building at the researcher's camp outside of Alph, and the scene was completed by the presence of the man, flesh and bone in khaki-colored cargo pants and a tucked-in collared shirt. This at least was familiar to Shigeru. Tano had a greased plastic spatula in his hand. A large, battered black-iron skillet sat on the hot plate strapped to the counter in front of him, and on the hot, steaming surface two massive puddles of frothy and yellow batter sizzled. Both Tano and the stove were lit by a single light bulb above the sink, but otherwise, the room was dark.

"Are you hungry?" Tano repeated.

"Yeah. Dead hungry," said Shigeru. He self-consciously patted down his hair as he sat up and struggled to not just take in, but to analyze, his surroundings. "What time is it?"

"4:45. a.m." came his reply. "Sunrise is in half a hour."

"And you're making pancakes at 4:45 a.m. because…?"

"Because you need to eat them before it's light out and everyone wakes up. We have quite a bit of road ahead of us today."

Shigeru glanced out the window above the couch. Using the back of his hand, he pulled aside the plastic blinds to see what was out in the desert. He might as well have not; there was nothing to see beyond the window pane but rolling darkness. There weren't roads running out of Alph, not in the proper sense of the word 'road'; the constantly shifting dunes made the maintenance of any solid structure impossible for longer than a few days. And yet, when he squinted, Shigeru could almost feel the road rolling out in front of him, and he didn't need light to see them or know what they meant. Shigeru thought about Tano's philosophy for a moment longer. There really is quite a bit of road, he thought to himself. There were an almost overwhelming number of choices that he needed to make, and fast. He had to decide what to tell, who to tell, and how to back it up… His brain began to soak itself in theories that longed to be shuffled and discarded in a frenzy of thoughtful play.

But it was too early to think. And this wasn't a familiar morning for him, either; not the least because Satoshi was no longer experiencing it with him. He stared into the eyes of his reflection, and wondered if they'd ever looked so dark and tired in his entire life.

"I think I need a shower," he spoke aloud, and turned to Tano.

He was busy slipping the first of the two pancakes, now both drenched with amber syrup, from the spatula to a white paper plate. "I'd be quite grateful if you showered," Tano answered amiably. "Are you feeling better?"

Shigeru couldn't bring himself to answer. Instead, he slid himself around the couch and touched the balls of his feet to the ground, then waited, letting them dangle momentarily before he placed his whole foot down like he were experimenting with it. The floor was smooth, and firm. Not about to slip away like the fragments of a dream like he'd half-expected it to.

"Tano?" he queried. The researcher looked up expectantly, so Shigeru continued, "Last night, you found me near the trenches, right?"

Tano put the spatula into the sink with a careful motion. "Yes," he said. "You weren't… acting like yourself."

Shigeru scoffed. "I wasn't that strange."

"You were acting like you were going to run away at the slightest provocation."

"Well, that's because I…" Shigeru refrained from saying that it was because he had been acting. He had a lurching feeling that maybe he'd only been acting that he was acting, that he'd been trapped in a role within a role. That after he'd been born again, he'd actually felt the need to cry, and hadn't cared who'd heard. But that was stupid. "I've been through a lot in the past few months," he said instead.

"Week," Tano corrected him.

"Months."

Tano turned back to his pancakes, but not without a wry grin which Shigeru felt to be conspicuously out of place. "I'm not trying to imply that I don't believe you when you say that it was months," he said. "But until you're willing to tell that story to anyone besides me, you need to be a more convincing liar."

"What story?" Shigeru challenged him.

"Come on, now. Aren't I right in guessing that the Unown took you somewhere, à la the Professors Hale?"

Shigeru felt his stomach twist inside his chest. It felt like he'd been punched.

"I- I- How did you-" he stuttered.

"Don't act like I shouldn't have guessed. I wasn't born yesterday," said Tano. "In fact, I'm prehistoric, as you would say. Practically paleolithic."

"Cretaceous," Shigeru disagreed, then shook his head as if that could clear it. "I just… I can't believe you were able to… to guess that the Unown were behind my disappearance. Is that why you didn't immediately tell everyone about me? Because you already knew what was going on?"

"Oh, I didn't know anything for certain until you confirmed it."

"Then why…"

"I did it because I respected your decision, actually." Tano brought the two plates over, one in each hand, and set one down on the couch next to Shigeru. He then sat down across from Shigeru at his well-organized desk, plate on a place mat in front of him with the utmost civility. Shigeru didn't care about civility. He had barely gotten a whiff of the food before he dug into it heartily. He wasn't sure how long it had been since he'd eaten, but it was almost too glorious that his first meal back be maple syrup and nutmeg pancakes. They were almost impossibly delicious.

"This is seriously too good," he said aloud. "Are you trying to butter me up for something?"

Tano chuckled and shook his head. "Like I said, the first thing we are going to do is tell your grandfather that you are safe. The rest, after that, is up to you."

Shigeru gulped down another piece, spewing between chews. "Didn't you also want me to tell you the story," he swallowed a bit, "…maybe even first? That's what you said I'd have to do last night."

"Of course, and you'll have your chance. We do have a long car trip ahead of us."

Shigeru nearly dropped his fork. He adjusted the paper plate on his thigh, asking, "Car trip?"

"Well, yes," Tano answered matter-of-factly. "Didn't I tell you that we he had a long trip ahead of us?"

"You said there was a lot of road."

"Same difference."

"It's not!" he protested. "I thought you were speaking metaphorically!"

Tano looked at Shigeru with the clinical expression of a doctor trying to determine if his patient had been concussed.

"Well, the point is, I can't leave," Shigeru broke out at last. His pancakes forgotten, he racked his brain for reasons that he give Tano to prevent them from leaving that didn't even involve Satoshi, and was pleased that a convincing one came up fairly quickly. "My grandfather is on-site," he said, "So in order to meet with him we have to stay here."

"You're mistaken on that point, I'm afraid," said Tano.

"What?"

"Your grandfather was on camp-site. Unfortunately, he isn't here any longer."

Shigeru wondered if it was appropriate to feel a sense of foreboding as he opened his mouth to speak. "Where," he asked deliberately, "did he go?"

Tano settled himself on his swivel chair, leaning back and then forward again. It took a while for him to prepare his response. "You didn't wake up in the commotion last night," he began at last, "but about thirty minutes after you fell asleep, your grandfather and sister suddenly left us and took off to visit outlying site B."

"They did what!" Shigeru barked. This time his fork did hit the paper plate and he didn't care that the remainder of his entire meal fell off of where it sat on his leg and fell to the ground in a pool of syrup. "You just let my family pick up and go off in the middle of the night to a site flung halfway across the desert, when you knew I needed to talk to them?"

Tano swallowed a mouthful quickly. "I would've woken you, but if we were to show up at that time it would've only caused more questions-"

"- But-"

"- and you specifically said you didn't want to deal with questions," Tano reminded him.

"I would've preferred that to just letting them leave, because now I have to leave too! I can't do that!" Shigeru turned desperate. "I can't go! I have to stay here and find Satoshi!"

"You don't have to do anything because he's already been found. That's what the commotion was all about."

"They found him!" He had a moment of elation that quickly swung around. "And you didn't tell me?"

"Calm down," Tano placated. But Shigeru was now further from calm than he had ever been in perhaps his entire life. He leapt to his feet, his hands clutching at nothing as he absorbed the bad news around him.

His voice rose by it's own accord as he began to shout. "Satoshi was here and safe and you didn't even let him see me?"

"Keep your voice down!" Tano said sharply, also getting up. "Or else everyone in this whole campsite will hear you and wake up. We can discuss this in the car."

"No! No, we can't!" he snapped. "Don't you treat me like a child!"

"Then don't act like one."

"You don't know what's going on!" Shigeru threw his hands in the air, the rage burning in his throat, and in every limb, every square inch of skin in his possession, "You don't know what you've just done! Now Satoshi's gone and it's going to be too late! You're ruining everything!"

"Am I, Shigeru?" Tano asked, voice turning a shade toward cold. "You don't have your cards as close to your chest as you think you do. Look at me, boy - There are things I know."

Shigeru fell silent. Tano let the words hang before him before bending over to pick up Shigeru's plate with effort. He made a little grunt of effort as he continued, "And besides that, Satoshi wasn't - he wasn't quite right when they found him. That's why they're taking him to the temp hospital outside the desert as we speak. Do you see, now, why your grandfather and sister went after him? Do you see why we are also going after them?"

"We could have just gone with them!"

"Shigeru, you're not acting like yourself. You're not being reasonable about this."

At the words, Shigeru felt his brain careening to a halt. Embarrassment and indignation warred with equal strength, and he closed his eyes, fighting to compose himself. The number of times he had been called unreasonable were few enough to count on one hand, and that was how he liked it. He was a scientist; he lived off of facts and reasons. What was he missing? Where was he failing to see reason in this picture?

Breathing took incredible effort.

Tano continued, "Like I was saying, it won't matter if you see him just a few hours later than you would have otherwise."

"How," Shigeru groped at calm, reasonable words, "Can you say that?"

"Because he'll live. He was just in shock, it seemed." Some of the burden lightened, and Shigeru found in himself the tenacity to hazard a glance at Tano's face. It was easier to gauge the man's expression than he'd expected: his face was openly penitent as he spoke. "I didn't mean to hurt you by doing this, but surely you understand that I felt holding my promise to you was more important than consoling a delirious young man by telling him where you were. And you needed your sleep. You needed to be in a state where you were ready to see him, too. I put off telling your grandfather that you were alive, so why are you surprised that I put off telling you that another loved one was alive? All that being said, it's done. Let us move forward."

"Okay," Shigeru answered. His voice sounded desperate in spite of his best efforts, but it was the best that he could do. "We're going to him now, right?"

"Right," confirmed Tano.

"Then it's okay."

"Glad to hear it." Tano crossed the room, and dumped the plate and a tablespoon worth of syrup into a trashcan. "But I still think you should shower before we leave. I'll let you dirty my sofa, but not the Jeep. It's a rental."

Tano's rented Jeep sped through the dunes. The wavering and inconstant sand mountains stood shrouded in massive shadow, their edges only marked by white ribbons of moonlight exposing ridges sculpted by wind. Although beautiful, the eerie effect was fading quickly, and Shigeru was glad for it. As the Jeep crested each hill before powering down again with a storm of sand clouding behind it, Shigeru could see a change breaking out over the expanse. The horizon was creeping outward. They were growing closer to the hospital with every second. Dawn was on its way.

Shigeru watched the landscape calmly as Tano drove, governed by only a navigation system and a compass. The shower had gone a long way to calming him, perhaps more than Tano had intended, though perhaps not. As Shigeru had slipped into the routine of bathing, he'd been reminded of the long hours spent under bamboo pipes with Satoshi, slowly scraping away the grime of a long day's work. That time was already starting to feel like a dream, even though it hadn't been more than half a day since the snow had given way to sand and he had come home. In a way, Shigeru had felt that by removing the dirt on his body, he'd been cleaning off the last remains of his time in Alph. This idea only cemented when he'd turned off the shower and the steam cleared out of the room. It had nearly hurt with a physical pain when he'd had to face the fact that Satoshi wasn't cleaning himself somewhere close by and that he wasn't there at all.

Standing in that lonely bathroom, he had began to think of Satoshi. It hurt to imagine him in a hospital somewhere, also alone and trapped inside walls, and he wondered to himself how he was going to make things right. How was he going to convince Satoshi that yes, he'd been in Alph too, and that he really loved him and that he hadn't just kissed him because he had to, but that he'd really wanted to? Those were bound to be the hardest questions he'd have to answer first. There were, of course, going to be more questions from all sorts of directions. Maybe these questions were more challenging: How were they going to face the world? How could they explain what had happened without sounding insane? Shigeru didn't know how to answer these questions. After all, besides the earthquake, there had been nothing to mark any manifestations of the Unown's power as far as he knew. Was it really just going to be his words against the world's? He could imagine how well it would go over - "Hello, my name is Shigeru Ookido, and I've just spent the last two months (that's seven days, to you) playing the victims of an Unown matchmaking scheme" - in other words, it wouldn't go well at all. In an unreal and perfect world, maybe he and Satoshi could become the subject of spectacle for having had such an amazing, terrifying adventure. But realistically? In a best case scenario, he couldn't imagine ever being respected again in academic circles after making such a preposterous claim. In a worst scenario, both he and Satoshi could end up in a nut hospital, or at the very least unable to hold down jobs for the rest of their lives.

And as these possibilities rolled around in his brain, he had begun to look around himself in terror.

Condensation fogged the mirror, the glass cabinet. The air was still thick with mist. Nothing was clear. He could feel a distant pounding in his head as a tension headache began swelling up.

What am I doing here? he wondered. He felt his hands shaking as he'd fumbled with the latch for the glass cabinet, hoping to find a comb and groom himself in a soothing ritual.

He didn't find a comb inside, but he did find something else. And seeing it, all of his worry fell to pieces.

"Where did you find it?" he asked Tano abruptly. They hadn't been driving for too long, but they had been quiet the whole time, lost in their own thoughts. The older man looked at Shigeru askance, and his fingers drummed on top of the shift gear that sat between them for a moment. The age spots on the back of his palm, Shigeru thought suddenly, seemed to be the same in both this world and in the ancient city of Alph.

"Tano," Shigeru called him to attention.

"Sorry, but I'm not sure what you're talking about," Tano answered. "Where did I find what?"

"That piece of pottery in your bathroom. Where did it come from?"

A smirk pulled at the corner of Tano's lips, but still he seemed more preoccupied with the car than the conversation, and spent a second adjusting his rearview mirror - even though no one was behind them for dozens of kilometers. "Ah, you saw that," he said.

"I couldn't have missed it. It was the only item on the top shelf of that cabinet. Did you put it there for me to see?"

Tano chuckled. "That would be silly."

"I didn't ask if it was strange. I'm asking if you did it for me."

"Shigeru," he said, his eyes focused straight ahead, "You've seen it before. It's been tucked away on the top shelf of my bathroom cabinet ever since I found it buried in a trench 5 years ago."

"But it has my name on it," Shigeru insisted.

"Yes, it does."

The Jeep crested the dune at that moment, and both he and Tano were jostled as it fishtailed for a brief, essential second. Tano corrected the vehicle just in time, and they spun out the tires before hurtling into the descent. Heart pounding in his chest, Shigeru's attention turned out the front window. And his eyes caught the first sight of the sun topping the peaks of mountains on the horizon.

It burned into his eyes, like carvings on a plate. Illuminating everything.

"Shigeru," said Tano. "Your leg. I noticed it hasn't been causing you any problems today."

"No, it hasn't."

They continued on down the sandy bank in silence for nearly a minute. Then, unexpectedly, Shigeru felt the weight of words heavy on his tongue, begging for release.

He let it go.

He began to speak.

"What's that?" said Tano sharply, hitting the brakes on his car and jolting Shigeru back into wakefulness.

Shigeru turned from the window he'd been dozing on and peered into the distance in front of them. It had been easily two or three hours since he had finished the story about Alph, and he had spent most of that time sleeping off his exhaustion. What was what? He wondered, and pulled down his sunglasses over his eyes, trying to see. The landscape, which had seemed austere enough to be lonely at the night, now seemed to be almost psychedelic, the vivid canvas of sky and sand taking turns to wave and melt in the heat. With such a backdrop, it took several seconds before Shigeru realized that there was in fact something in the near distance. It was the blotch of a car, and a small figure beside it.

"Do you think that's a man?" he suggested.

"I do. And forgive me for saying this, but there's only one person in the world who that could be," said Tano.

Shigeru knew that he was right; after all, the universe did seem to have it in for him lately. "My grandfather," he said sullenly.

"Are you ready to tell him everything you told me?" asked Tano.

"I'll have to eventually."

"You don't have to sound so resigned about it."

It was hardly a heart-to-heart encouragement, especially as they were both wearing shades, but Shigeru appreciated Tano's effort all the same.

"What I want to know is why he's out there alone, anyway," Shigeru said. He didn't know why he felt like sharing the thought; to be honest, he could already think of too many explanations that would make sense only in his grandfather's considerably eccentric case. But it was still important.

Not a minute passed before the car was upon them.

Tano shifted down gear until they pulled up to the other vehicle at the speed of a mere crawl. Sand pillared out behind the spinning tires, but the winds were favorable and the clouds of sand didn't catch up with them, nor did they expand enough to becoming obscuring. Not that there was much to see anyway; when they rolled up, Tano and Shigeru were met with the back side, not the front, of a man in a Hawaiian shirt and a wide-brimmed straw sunhat. He was bent over halfway into the back-seat of the car, apparently trying to dig something out of a bag. Tano shifted slowly into park, and rolled down the window. The engine rumbled hesitantly in the background.

"Hello there," greeted Tano pleasantly.

"Hello there!" came what was unmistakably his grandfather's voice, though a bit muffled. "I'm just looking for my sunglasses, be around to see you in a moment! …Can't imagine how I could do without them! Or sunscreen for that matter."

Shigeru's grandfather, stubble gritty as always, had a wide grin. His teeth were as white as his hair (that is to say, they were both a bit off-color in places). His skin was flushed and tan. His voice was cheerful. All in all, he was very much himself. The man wasn't three hundred pounds overweight and covered in tattoos, nor was he in a long white lab-coat that he had even sometimes been caught wearing to sleep. At that moment, Shigeru thought to himself he would have preferred any of the more obscene alternatives than to this, in which his only grandfather, his only parental figure in the entire world, was dressed and smiling like a retired man on vacation, with all the lightness of a life unburdened.

Shigeru slid down in his seat as far as he could.

"I'm quite glad you stopped!" his grandfather said brightly to Tano, who insisted it was no problem. "Nonsense!" He turned and shut the car door behind himself, adding, "I've had a bad string of luck this morning, and I almost feared you were a pokemon coming for me! Ah, that is to say… Who are you?"

"It's Yamatoshi. And next to me is -"

"Yamatoshi Tano!" the jovial tone shifted to one of a much simple, but more thorough-seeming gladness. "I thought I knew your voice. What are you doing away from camp?"

Tano glanced at Shigeru, and it was obvious that the action was meant to suggest that Shigeru speak up and declare his presence. But he shook his head sharply in the negative, refusing. He had been resigned to speak with his grandfather and deal with playing three hundred questions, but he was not resigned for this. No, he thought to himself angrily, why bother telling his grandfather that he was there when the man was obviously quite happy otherwise? Why bother him when he obviously didn't seem to care that his grandson was dead?

"I'm on my way to Outlying Site B," answered Tano, meanwhile. "Do you need a lift?"

The world's greatest pokemon researcher nodded enthusiastically. "Yes, and thank you! A nasty Trapinch caught my tire this morning! I was part of a caravan so I let everyone else go ahead while I waited for them to come back. I was just meaning to answer your mail and tell you about the unfortunate business…"

Shigeru watched his grandfather slam the car door shut and walk in approach to the car. He folded his arms, wishing he could just stay invisible in the seat for the rest of the trip.

Tano leaned over him again, speaking out the open window. "You should be more careful, Yukinari. You could have died of heat exhaustion if you'd stayed outside much longer. This isn't a friendly desert," said Tano from Shigeru's opposite side. But now his grandfather was close enough that in spite of the blindingly bright sun, he could surely make out that Tano was on the far side, the driver's seat, and that someone else was in the front seat, and-

"I had to let the others go ahead, and someone had to stay behind who wasn't… Oh, now who's that with you?" his voice rose predictably as he looked at Shigeru. "I can't see anything in this blasted sun!"

Shigeru gave in to the inevitable and moved into his grandfather's field of sight.

"It's me," he said, sourly. "Your grandson."

His grandfather's smile froze on his face.

And then, unexpectedly, his chin wobbled, and he began to weep.

Satoshi stood in front of the hospital reception desk, absently rubbed the bandage firmly affixed to the inside of his elbow. They'd taken the IV out just thirty minutes ago, and let him get out of bed. It was strange how the simple adjustment had helped him to feel less like he'd been the victim of something terrible and more as if - thanks to his mother's stern lecturing - he'd just been caught getting into trouble.

"…and don't you ever worry me like that again," she was saying. "No more getting trapped in giant mounds of earth, do you hear me young man?"

Satoshi nodded perfunctorily. He knew he should be listening to her more than half-heartedly, but what did it matter? He wasn't young, he hadn't been breaking any rules, and getting trapped in giant mounds of earth really had nothing to do with the problems he'd been having lately. Plus, he was the same height as her when she wore heels these days. She couldn't stop him, and she couldn't stop anything from happening, so what was the point of pretending that she could?

"Mom," he suggested with a hint of impatience, "Don't you think you should be taking care of all that hospital paperwork?"

"Oh! I suppose - I suppose I should." She seemed to weigh the statement and find it valid. But even as she picked up the pen on the counter, she still made time for one last admonishment to him. "Just you wait, mister. You haven't heard the end of this. I'm going to have you doing chores for a week!"

"Okay mom," Satoshi said, striking for a tone between amiable and indifferent. She accepted it, at least for the moment, and began to work her pen across the top-laying form animatedly. Her bangs fell across her face, and she swiped at them momentarily before giving up - she was too wrapped up in her task to care, to preoccupied with speed and thoroughness. Satoshi could tell, in that moment, how much she really loved him. Even if it was just the fact that she cared, that had to mean something, didn't it? Satoshi took back his earlier thoughts, feeling slightly abashed. He was really lucky to have her as his mom.

He swiped a peppermint from a silver tray on the counter-top, and sucked on it while watching the people gathered in the waiting room. Nearly half of the waiting people seemed to have recognized him by this point and a few were staring back at him, some surreptitiously and others more blatantly. Did the world even know that he'd gone missing? he wondered. It was almost a moot point because even if they hadn't, the fact that he'd just been sighted in a hospital probably meant that it was only a matter of time until the news reporters found him.

"Hey, mom," he said, turning away from the increasingly curious faces, "Do you mind if I step outside for a second? I think Pikachu needs to get out and have some fresh air."

"Pika pi?" asked Pikachu, startled from its wandering around his feet.

Satoshi gave the pokemon what he hoped was a significant look.

"Okay, dear," said his mother. She didn't look up from the papers. "Don't go too far."

"Thanks. It's just a deck, I think. Let's get out of here, buddy." He bent and offered his arm to Pikachu. The pokemon ambled up to him with a pleasant buzz of static at its cheeks, looking as if it were preparing to climb up his shoulder when it paused a short distance away from his hand. It flicked its ears intently at an unseen stimuli and then, abruptly, bounded off down the hall, its little claws clacking against the tile rapidly as it flung itself into flight.

"Hey!" Satoshi called out after it, but the yellow creature just let out a rather multipurpose cry and took a sharp turn as the hallway split off, skidding as it angled itself right, and vanished beyond his sight. For a second, Satoshi wondered if he was supposed to follow the pokemon, but when he heard the answering call of another creature (an Umbreon, maybe?) he realized Pikachu was just saying goodbye to a friend it must have made at the hospital before they had to leave.

He turned to his mother. "Mom, you'll make sure Pikachu gets back all right, won't you?"

"Okay, dear," his mother intoned for the second time. He smiled wistfully at her, then turned and walked to the glass door labeled, oddly, not 'EXIT' but 'OUT.'

The bright sun pouring in and refracting through the barrier left little doubt that this was a door leading out, and not to some stank closet, office, or room. As Satoshi stepped into the spilled sun rays that spread out before the entryway, Satoshi felt the healthiest ever since he'd come in to the hospital. Then the door opened and he was as out as much as in, overpowered by dazzlingly bright sun, the cries of bird and insect pokemon, and a mash up of colors in every hue and shade.

"Hanako, my dear flower!" he heard a voice cry out faintly behind him, but it barely registered as he crossed over. The door shut with an automated 'whir,' and then he was truly surrounded. He blinked several times, and the world slowly dropped itself into view.

The sky was blue like pouring water, clear and perfect with foamy clouds drifting on the very edges of the vaulted atrium. The afternoon was getting on, and it was perfect for the deck: there wasn't a speck of shadow but for a small gray smudge behind him that stretched in long and easy lines. The garden had just been watered, and it was pungent with the sweet perfume of early summer grasses and and flowers in pots lining the edges of the balcony. He walked to the railing, and when h reached out, he found the painted wood to be warm under his hands. He stilled and absorbed the scene that lay beyond.

A crescent of trees stood just beyond the garden, their bones invisible beneath draping, leafy wreaths. He could see the hints of Swailow and Tallow nests hiding in the cradles between branches, and even what might have been a darker nook where a Noctowl took refuge during the day. Light dappled in here and there, only sometimes hitting the tawny forest floor. Further on - and not that far at all, really - was the desert, more tangible than visible. It only peaked out between the foliage, yellow and hazy, with a substance that reminded him a bit of dreams. In it was something not overtly organic, perhaps, but nonetheless constantly changing in shape and form.

He closed his eyes and let himself be wrapped in senses and feelings that weren't unfamiliar. He'd been to this site before, years ago. Those memories weren't sharp, but the connecting ones were, and he fondly began to remember the months of walking and the perpetual dirt beneath his fingernails, the smell of pine woods that never seemed to really leave his backpack or his clothes…. Other sweaty smells wouldn't leave, either. But they were good smells. Good memories. Things that had made him feel alive. Things he had slowly forgotten long before he had ever come to the hospital, or even Alph, or even to Pallet Town after he'd won the Championship.

He stood in the sunlight and felt like he was himself again.

The heat fell over his shoulders almost like an embrace as he breathed and his heart echoed, evening out.

After some time had passed, he heard the door open with quiet, mechanical smoothness behind him. As he was caught with a draft of cold, filtered air-conditioning escaping into the afternoon, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up curiously. He shivered, and rubbed the goose-bump speckled skin of his biceps. The sun at least was unbroken, and continued to seep into his skin. He tried to lean himself into it.

"Just another minute, okay?" he asked vacantly.

"Satoshi."

He whipped around.

Shigeru half-stood, half-leaned against the frame with his arms crossed with defiant indifference - the way he had done so many times in Tano's that Satoshi struggled to convince himself that he wasn't just seeing a memory overlapping with his present. But no; he was certain that they weren't in the city of Alph anymore. They were standing together on the balcony of a hospital. And it had to be the real Shigeru who was with him, wearing a white cotton v-neck, loose khakis pants replete with poke-gear and belt, a pair of boots, and a familiar smirk. They were themselves and they were home, and the thought compelled him to smile and take a step forward.

"It's you," he said, caught in wonder. Shigeru shrugged cooly, his hands in his pockets.

"Yeah," he said. "At least it was me the last time I checked."

"They said you were dead."

"And I'm not." Shigeru walked the rest of the way out to meet him. "Aren't you the least bit surprised to see me?"

"Nope. I had a feeling that you'd find me if I couldn't find you first. I knew it was real."

And so was this. Satoshi could feel Shigeru's presence now as easily as he could feel his own skin. And there were other things that he just couldn't imagine about Shigeru that were too convincing to be part of a dream. The auburn in his hair was glowing the way that metal did when it had melted fully in a flame, and its vibrancy distracted Satoshi momentarily. Shigeru didn't seem to notice his gaze, perhaps because he was squinting in the light which he hadn't adjusted to yet.

"I could have still been dead, you know," Shigeru told him. "It was a close thing."

Satoshi tilted his head. "You mean, during the earthquake?"

"No, after the earthquake. I was buried in it."

"Wait," said Satoshi, confused. "Which one?"

"Ha-ha. You know which one," he said, "The one we were in together."

And then suddenly his non-plussed exterior gave itself away as a blush spread across his nose. Satoshi felt his heart skipping beats. He tried not to think about the last earthquake and their kiss, and failed for that exact reason.

"I had a really, really mild case of hypothermia," Satoshi offered. "That's why they put me in the hospital. But you probably heard that already, didn't you?"

"Yeah."

"Figures. Anyway, I just wanted to be outside. The sun feels so good after everything." He stretched out his arms to emphasis the point, and wondered why Shigeru had nothing to say in return. As far as he could tell, Shigeru looked like he was in control again, or at least like he was trying to be. But that didn't make sense.

"Shigeru…"

"Can we talk somewhere that's not here?" Shigeru asked abruptly.

"Sure," said Satoshi, startled from his own thoughts. Shigeru moved off so quickly that Satoshi could hardly process he was leaving until he had already walked halfway across the balcony. Satoshi jogged to catch up, and together they to descended a short flight of white, wooden stairs leading to the rest of the garden.

"What's the hurry?" Satoshi protested, huffing with exertion.

Shigeru spoke tightly as he walked, keeping his gaze ahead. "I've just been trying to think of how to explain and-"

"Explain what?"

"Everything. Anyway, the point is that it would take too much time, so I decided not to bother."

"Because I'd be confused either way," Satoshi accused.

They emerged on the ground level, where the garden swarmed with tall grasses and azalea bushes budding in pink and white. Shigeru surveyed the area calculatingly. Bewildered, Satoshi let himself be led alongside the building and to the bottom of the balcony, where the wooden ballasts holding up the deck were white latticework. At their bases, the grasses were speckled with dandelions.

"Yes, you would be. Also, here is good," Shigeru declared, as if he'd taken a measurement and was confirming its validity. Satoshi had just began to wonder what 'here' could be good for when Shigeru's hand took ahold of his shoulders and pushed them straight back into the white cross of lattice behind him. The air shot out of his lungs and he coughed.

"Hey!" he gasped. "What're you-"

"Making things clear."

Eyes wide open in surprise, Satoshi quickly took in his surroundings. Shigeru's body was pinning him in place, that his arm had settled firmly above his head. Everything inside of him that he could feel was going into shock. His blood was pumping furiously, his skin tingling, his head reeling, all with anticipation as Shigeru angled his head, leaned in, and kissed him hard.

Satoshi grabbed onto Shigeru's shirt, pulling him closer. Finally! he thought, and Yes! as his body was flooded with feelings again.

Their mouths opened, and their tongues collided. Their hands, which had been still, began moving out to feel the shape of arms, backs. Shigeru groaned and dug into Satoshi with his thigh, swept his hand through Satoshi's hair and cupped the back of his neck, drawing him close. Satoshi was suddenly reminded of dancing with Shigeru under the moonlight, the long drags in which they danced as they new wandered across the hidden rooms of each other's mouths, twisting, guiding and engaging. They were partners learning the feel of each other, their souls slowly building a rhythm, and as they touched, their bodies only followed by natural consequence.

When they broke apart, gasping for air, Satoshi opened his eyes and wasn't too surprised that Shigeru's knee had found its way between his thighs. It, and the wall behind him, were the only things holding him up, after all. He blinked back the light that poured into his vision, and Shigeru's face seemed so ethereal that he thought that he'd rather not breathe if it meant they could kiss again, but when Satoshi aimed to move forward, Shigeru diverted him at the last moment, and the kiss landed at the skin beneath his ear.

Shigeru laughed and flinched away slightly. Satoshi could feel the rumble of his laughter against his chest. Rather bemused, he thought to himself that if he lifted up his hand, he could probably touch the source of it, somewhere deep in Shigeru's throat. And then he found himself laughing as well, letting it fly out of him until there was nothing left but a warm, settled feeling in his stomach. It was the only feeling that Satoshi could wrap his head around in that moment. Shigeru's kiss was grounding him, making him feel as if he were, if perhaps not at one with nature, than at least at one in himself and maybe at one with someone else.

"What," Satoshi managed eventually, after they'd relaxed into each other's arms, "was that all about?"

"I'm ticklish under my ears."

"Not that, the rest."

"Oh," said Shigeru, catching his breath. "I wanted to kiss you right this time."

Satoshi turned up his chin and looked at Shigeru's face from the vantage point of his shoulder. The skin on his cheek filled Satoshi's vision, and it was all very close, and warm. Satoshi wanted to touch it, so he did. It was soft for the most part, but scratchy as well.

"What," he asked, "Do you think something was wrong last time?"

Shigeru's voice was incredulous. "Are you serious? When you woke up on this side, weren't you even slightly upset, or at least a bit confused about why I'd asked about your feelings and not said anything back? And then, about why I kissed you?"

Satoshi shrugged and felt Shigeru's arms rise and fall with the motion over his shoulders. "It sucked."

"See? I-"

"It sucked," he interrupted, "when you didn't say anything after I told you that I loved you. My expectations weren't high, so it wasn't as bad as it could've been, I guess, but I…"

Satoshi had too much pride to go any farther, but he was glad that Shigeru didn't push. His arms tightened around him, and Satoshi wished, for a moment, that he never had to leave that position; that he could be given the gift of standing in the grass with Shigeru, literally wrapped up in their feelings, for the rest of their lives.

"I'm sorry," Shigeru said quietly.

"It's okay. Right before the end, when you looked at me… I knew. I could tell you cared about me."

"Yeah, but how long did it take? I wanted to tell you as soon as I realized that you might… that you might feel the same. But by then I was worried that if I did anything to force you along, then we wouldn't accomplish the whims of the legend. It wasn't like some established thing that we would succeed, and by then it was just a matter of time before we were going to die… and I know it might have been wrong, but I just wanted you to be safe more than I wanted you to be happy. You understand why I did that, right?"

Satoshi just shook his head. "Yeah. I mean it sucked then but… Can we just not talk about this anymore? It's over, right?"

"Satoshi…"

"I'm serious, Shigeru. I don't care whether or not we were in a dream for the past week or if we were actually in the past for a couple of months. I was glad you were there with me. I had fun. And right now, I'm just glad you're here again, alive," he said, firmly adding: "And that you love me too."

Satoshi could feel Shigeru's heart rate take a sudden leap. "Wait a second, I didn't say I-" he protested.

"Just shut up, okay?" Satoshi told him, and just to make sure that he would, he covered Shigeru's mouth with his own.

Dimly, Satoshi heard a voice calling out his name.

Shigeru seemed to have heard it too, and they quickly disentangled from each other. Satoshi craned his neck awkwardly to see if anyone was on the balcony while Shigeru tugged ineffectually at his hair in an attempt to restyle it. Satoshi had to admit that having perpetually unkempt hair had its advantages.

"How long do you think we have until we have to go back out?"

"Probably no more than a few minutes, especially if Pikachu's looking for me," Satoshi answered. Then, he put a hand in Shigeru's bangs and mussed it up just to be annoying.

Shigeru swatted at him. "Do you want it to look like we were making out?"

"Do you?" asked Satoshi, suddenly distracted. His brain, for the first time, started to think about what it meant to love Shigeru.

It had been so easy in Alph. All that had mattered was how he felt. No one else's opinion had ever come into play, then - excepting Shigeru's, of course. Would anyone else's opinion matter now? And even if he didn't want them to matter, was it possible that they still might?

"You know," he said to Shigeru, who had shifted his full attention from his shirt to Satoshi, "Things aren't going to be the same as they were in Alph. I mean, people know us here, and expect… all sorts of stuff from us. I'm a league champion, and even though I haven't been doing my job lately, I'm pretty sure there's things that it means. There are expectations, you know? Things I'm supposed to do, things I'm not supposed to do."

Here, Satoshi lost his place. Shigeru urged him. "Go on."

"Is this going to be one of them?" he asked in a burst, "Are we going to be together, or not?"

"What do you want?"

"What do you want?"

"You," Shigeru admitted. "And I'm not going to give you up. If it's a problem for us to be together openly, we'll just figure something out."

Satoshi relaxed and let out a shallow breathe. "Good." He wasn't sure why he felt so relieved to hear Shigeru tell him those words; after all, he hadn't really expected another answer. But… maybe the answer wasn't the point. Maybe he'd needed to hear it for a different reason - perhaps because he needed it to be said to him, first, this time. "I want to be with you, too."

Shigeru stared at him as if trying to figure out one of his puzzles, his smile bemused. Satoshi found it strange being the object of that discerning attention, but not unpleasant.

"You really have changed," he said at last.

This wasn't what Satoshi had expected to hear. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Relax. It's not a bad thing. You used to act like you were still a kid before we went to Alph, and now you don't."

Satoshi couldn't see it, but then, he knew he was a bit behind on self-reflection. He hadn't even looked in a mirror since he'd come back from the Unown's world. He tried to contextualize the idea by looking at Shigeru, appraising him in hopes to discover an answering change in himself. He was taken aback to discover that, in a way, it felt like he was seeing him for the first time.

Objectively, Shigeru looked about the same as he had in Alph, and almost the same as he had before they'd gone there, but something had changed in his eyes. With a rush, Satoshi realized that they weren't angry anymore. They were at peace, just like the sky.

"You've changed too."

"Everything's changed," Shigeru agreed. "I know it's just been a day since we came here, so it's not been a long enough time to tell for sure, but everything that's been familiar to me here seems like it's been turned on its head. Rooms don't look the same anymore. People don't act like I expect them to…"

He paused as the phone on his pokegear lit up and began to buzz. Someone was looking for them, probably, but he didn't seem to care, and silenced it with a quick tap of his hand.

"What did you expect?" Satoshi pushed him, and he shrugged.

"I don't know. But not this. Last night, it felt weird just sleeping on a sofa at the campsite. I can't even imagine what it would be like doing work in the trenches. I don't think I could stand it, and you know what? I don't think I will. I made up my mind this morning. I've been living at Alph for years, and this was my first time to leave since I began. I feel unburdened, almost like I'd been living under a curse put onto me by the Unown themselves. Does that sound stupid?"

"No, I don't think so. But what are you going to do now? Do you have any ideas?"

"A few," he admitted, "Though nothing solid."

Satoshi thought about this, and couldn't help feeling the strangest sense of empathy. "It's hard, isn't it."

"What do you mean?"

"My mom said I could go back home. But as soon as she thinks I've recovered from my injuries, I'm pretty sure she'll just kick me out again. I'd rather find something to do before I find myself without any options, you know? It's not easy figuring out where to go next. So I guess we're in the same position."

"Well," said Shigeru, after a moment's consideration. "We could be."