Chapter Eight: Past

I didn't need words to express my anger at Silver.

The frustration I originally felt bubbled into rage upon his reappearance, and I placed two hands on his chest, shoving him backwards as hard as I could. He stumbled back into the brick wall, his hands acting as a cushion to his impact. But the second he rebounded, I pushed him again, and he tumbled to the ground. Shock painted every crevasse of his face.

"What the hell are you doing, you nutcase?" he demanded, and I would have laughed at him if I could.

I stuck my pinky finger and my thumb out and held my fist against my forehead, staring at him with narrowed eyes. The only other person I had ever been this frustrated with was my mother, but this was a different story entirely. For one thing, at least my mother was smart enough to know when someone didn't want to be bothered—whether she ignored them or not was a separate issue.

Silver rubbed the back of his head, but he didn't make any motion to stand back up. At least he could learn. If he tried to run away like a freaking coward, then he would get what was coming to him. After the way he had treated me, he deserved to be treated like this. I didn't care anymore. He needed this.

And then he made eye contact with me, and I could see something in his eyes that I hadn't before. Usually, he was cold and distant, the light in his eyes nearly extinguished. But this time, there was a certain warmth in his gaze, the cold glare melting into something softer. Something had clicked, changed, and I lowered the hand from my forehead.

I curled my hand over my chest again, the sign for "sorry" that I knew so well these days, and backed away from Silver. It was so unlike me to become violent, but maybe whatever had clicked on in Silver had clicked off in me.

"You don't need to apologize," Silver said, and I froze as he finally rose to his feet.

He… he knew what I said. Silver, this stupid boy who I kept running into all over Johto and who kept ruining all of my brilliant plans, knew what I said. He understood sign language, the language so few knew, and could understand me. How… how long? How long had he known? Could my journey have been so much easier?

I flicked my index finger away from my chin and then pointed at myself, demanding an answer. I should have been happy—happy that someone knew—but all I felt now was bitterness. I hated him more than I had ever hated anyone in my whole life, and when tears started to bubble in the corners of my eyes, I didn't bother wiping them away.

"Well, um…" Silver crossed his arms, and I curled my hands into fists.

Battle, I signed, not even waiting for an answer before calling my Typhlosion and Espeon out. Did you get that?

I stared at Silver, waiting for any sign that he understood, and then he nodded. Admittedly, there had been something different about him since we met in Mahogany. He had mentioned something Lance had told him, and he had seemed really determined and distant just a little while ago at the radio station when he came and messed up my plan. What happened? Was he finally regaining control of his heart?

And… was that why he knew?

I thought about this as we battled, focusing not on my Pokémon's attacks or Silver's commands but on Silver's change. I recalled our first battle, remembering how cold he had been. You got a Pokémon at the Lab. What a waste. That's a Pokémon that's too good for a wimp like you, he had said. He pushed me around, scoffed at me—he had been the epitome of arrogance. And now he couldn't even answer a simple question.

So, I would still hate him. I didn't care how grateful I was to him for helping me figure out how to battle and getting me started, nor did I care about how he had treated me in the past. The two extremes made no difference. Instead, I hated him because he knew, and now I felt weak. Maybe I really was the wimp he said I was.

I twirled my finger, and Espeon cried out to Typhlosion. The fire-type rolled into a flame wheel, striking Silver's last Pokémon, Sneasel, and knocking it out of the battle. My Espeon hurried over to me and rubbed its head against my hand, and I sighed. There was no victory from that battle. I still felt like a loser.

"Why… why do I lose?" Silver muttered to himself, staring down at his hands. "I've assembled the toughest Pokémon. I didn't ease up on the gas. So, why do I lose?" His tone was soft, pitying, and I thought again of how different this was from the Silver I knew. "I don't understand. Is what that Lance guy said true? That I don't treat Pokémon properly? Love… trust… are they really what I lack? Are they keeping me from winning? I… I just don't understand."

Lance. Him again. The dragon-master I had met in Mahogany. Lance had cared so much about Pokémon that he risked everything to stop Team Rocket, and I had helped him. But Silver… he had just wanted to win. More than anything, Silver wanted to be strong, to show everyone that he was powerful.

And… really, that sounded just like me.

"Listen." Silver shoved his hands in his pockets, his eyes drifting to and from mine every few seconds. "Lance told me that you can't talk. I just figured… well, we run into each other a lot, so I figured I should… er, I got a book. But I only got it so I could figure out what those stupid hand signals you use during battles were."

My eyes welled with tears again, but I fought them back this time, forcing myself to keep my composure. Probably didn't help. I make up my own signs for battles, I signed, and I wanted to laugh when Silver's eyebrows furrowed. All right, so maybe it was a little soon for intense sign language. I would just have to stick to one or two word responses.

"Well, all I know is that it's not going to end here," Silver continued, staring now at my Typhlosion and Espeon as they stood closer to me. "Not yet. Not because of this. I won't give up my dream of becoming the world's best Pokémon Trainer! You watch yourself. I'm not going to lose next time we battle."

Silver stormed off without giving me a chance to reply, just like he usually did. Even as he walked away, though, I couldn't help but think of how much had changed between us these past few months. I didn't think he knew how much he had changed, which made me realize that maybe I hadn't noticed, either.

Yeah, I still hated him, but only because I was as clueless as he was.

"How could this be?" Archer, the interim boss of Team Rocket, asked, his eyes wide and his jaw slack. After chasing Team Rocket around Johto, fighting alongside Lance, and dealing with Silver, this was finally done. I didn't have to worry about Team Rocket's shenanigans anymore. "Our dreams have come to naught. I was not up to the task after all. Like Giovanni before me, I will disband Team Rocket here today. Farewell."

Before I could stop him, Archer's Koffing used Smokescreen, and by the time the smog cleared, the man was nowhere to be found. I believed him, though. Team Rocket stood no chance anymore, and they knew it. The third time would never be the charm because there was always going to be someone there to stop them.

Our dreams have come to naught, Archer had said. The words kept replaying over and over in my head, in his voice—not my own, for I had none. Even when the director of the radio station arrived and spoke to me, I kept thinking of those words. Something about saving everyone, something about a silver wing, and everything about dreams ending.

In a way, I felt bad for them: Team Rocket. Sure, their intentions were absolutely dismal, and they needed to be stopped. But I knew what it was like to have a dream, and I knew what it was like to feel like it was unreachable. Team Rocket would never get what they yearned for, and that was a horrible realization.

I stood in the observation deck long after the director left. I stared out the window, watching as the people of Goldenrod all poked their heads out of their doors, checking to see if it was safe. Children bolted out between their parents and the doorframe, throwing their hands in the air and running careless. Their parents would yell for them, but they didn't stop. They were free.

Eventually, those children would grow older and have their own dreams. Maybe some of them would do dumb things, like join Team Rocket and try to start it again, and their dreams would be crushed. Others would leave home and go on their journeys, tagging along with their Pokémon and facing their dreams. That was reality. Sometimes it worked in your favor, sometimes it didn't.

But that same reality also gave us more than one chance. Sure, Archer and the rest of Team Rocket had failed, much to their chagrin and much to the rest of the world's pleasure. Archer would eventually have a new dream after giving up this old one. Things would work out for him somehow. I sincerely wished it.

I was born without the ability to speak. When my mom took me to the doctor, a little while after I should have started talking, they found that I wasn't just delayed—it was never going to happen. Maybe at one point, when I realized that I was abnormal, I wished that I could speak. That had been my dream. But eventually, I replaced that with a dream to be normal.

The thing was, though, I was never going to be normal, either. Here I was, a girl who couldn't speak, and I had a connection with my Pokémon unlike anyone else. I had tried to be normal—I went on a journey just like every other kid had, trained Pokémon, fought gyms… and I still found that I was anything but normal. Another dream out the window.

But just like with Team Rocket, failing to see that dream come true wasn't a bad thing. It opened the door to opportunities that I wouldn't have had otherwise. That was the beautiful thing about it; when one door shut, another one opened. I had no voice, and I certainly wasn't normal—but I was, for the first time in a long time, happy.

Really happy.

The reality was, some dreams were never going to come true. Still, in order to open your eyes and see every other dream, you had to give some things up. Sure, it would hurt. Life wasn't meant to be easy, nor was it meant to be fair—but it was supposed to be happy. And when the pain from failing passed, you would realize for the first time that you were happy.

So, I stayed in the observation tower for a long time, watching the people in the world below and dreaming that they were going to be okay, too.

Author's Note: This is the first time, I believe, that I have strayed from the original script of the English games in a flashback chapter. I know several of you have commented that you like how I kept to the script, but I felt it necessary for this chapter. This is a transition—so I wanted the chapter to represent change.

So… obviously I'm not the most reliable writer at the moment. This story has been a little rough for me, so I apologize for the extremely sporadic updates. But I won't make excuses, nor will I say (again) that the next update will be faster. I can't guarantee that. Just allow me to assure you of this: this story WILL be completed no matter how long it takes me. There's not that many chapters left. It WILL be finished. Don't worry.