An Age of Valour
by the Lady of the Mists
Chapter Twenty-five: Jared Turner
Ecruteak City was, as they had been forewarned by various trainers and travellers on their way, pretty much a ghost town. Almost every single trainer that Lydia encountered as they walked through the town was accompanied by a ghost Pokémon. She didn't understand how people could be so fanatical with Pokémon that could pass right through them.
"And I thought that Azalea was weird because they were obsessed with bugs," she commented, making Jesse chuckle and Jennie smirk as they headed into the Centre. She looked at them questioningly. "So, I have to ask . . . do you guys want me to tag along while you guys go visit your dad? Because if you don't, it's really okay. I can stay here and look up stuff on the internet, see if anything turns up."
"No, don't even think about it, you're coming," Jesse told her. "Besides, if you're right about Dad knowing something about what's going on with your parents and uncle, then you deserve to hear it firsthand."
Lydia looked at him sideways. "Are you sure?" she asked. "I mean, you guys haven't seen your dad for . . . what, eight, nine years? I don't want to intrude on that."
"We wouldn't have it any other way," Jennie said happily as she linked her arm with Lydia. "Now come on, let's get our Pokémon healed and head over there, shall we?"
"Sounds like a plan," Jesse said as he handed over his Pokéballs to Nurse Joy. "I'm going to go and see if Dad's address is in the phone book. Guy's got to have a phone, right?" he asked with a sigh as he headed over to the phone booth. The girls exchanged a look and after she handed her Pokéballs over to the nurse, Lydia went after Jesse.
"So you want to tell me why you're so afraid of going over to your dad's?" she inquired as she leaned against the booth while Jesse flipped through the pages. Jesse's green eyes shot upwards and he glared at Lydia flippantly.
"Who says that I'm afraid?" Jesse challenged her. She sighed and gave him a long look that clearly gave him the answer to that particular question. "I thought we agreed that you weren't gonna go inside my head without permission. What happened to that ethics hype you were so worked up about?"
"Didn't need to go inside your head to know that, Jess," Lydia told him quietly. "You've got fear pouring off of you so badly that even if a person was completely blocked from psyche they would feel it." He stared at her, then looked away, flipping through the pages again as he reached the T's. "What's going on, Jess?"
"It's nothing," he countered, fixing his gaze on the page as he reached the page for Turner. "Good, there's only one listing for Turner in Ecruteak. I don't think it's too far, so we should be able to go straight over there as soon as we're done here."
Lydia sighed, running her hands through her light brown hair. "How long is it gonna take us to be honest with one another?" she asked him. Jesse looked at her. "I can understand if you don't want to worry your sister, Jesse, but I'm not Jennie. Why don't you try me?"
Jesse studied her for a long moment before he sank down onto the chair at the phone booth as she sat down expectantly. "I don't know," he admitted with a sigh. "Lydia . . . I haven't seen or talked to my dad in over eight years and suddenly . . . I'm going out of my way to talk to him when he has never even bothered coming around."
"Well, from what Jennie said . . . he didn't really have much of a choice," Lydia said kindly.
"If he's telling the truth," Jesse said bitterly. "And who knows if that's really true or not. For all we know, he could just be a typical deadbeat dad who would love nothing more than to screw with his kids' lives. What kind of a father abandons his kids, anyway? Maybe I don't want to know him," he said with a sigh.
"Yes, you do," Lydia told him, placing a hand on her best friend's hand and squeezing it gently. Jesse shook his head as he raised his bleak expression to her.
"How can you be sure?"
"Well, because if I had a chance to talk to my father and maybe work things out, then I would do it in an instant," Lydia answered. "Maybe if I did, then I could find out some answers to my past . . . and solve this mystery. But I don't have that option, because my father doesn't even want me in his life anymore. He wouldn't even try and contact me, Jess. Your father has." Jesse's shoulders slumped slightly and she raised his head to look at her. "Besides that, I already know your father." His eyes widened slightly and she smiled at him. "Because I know you," she explained. "If your father is anything like his son, then he's worth getting to know."
That was all that it took for the tension to leave Jesse and he gave her a wry smile that was so reminiscent of the Jesse Turner she had come to know and love that she smiled back. "You're really . . ." he said, shaking his head at her, grinning wildly.
"Aren't I?" she asked with a laugh. "Come on, Jess, let's go meet this father of yours." Helping him to his feet, they made their way into the waiting room until Nurse Joy returned with their Pokémon, fully recovered, and then headed over to Jared Turner's house.
All the while, Lydia noticed that a certain spiky-haired stranger was following them yet again and while she pretended to ignore Hayden's presence, she couldn't ignore the feeling that something was about to happen. Again.
--
Lydia felt a little out of place as they finally arrived at Jared Turner's and Jesse knocked on the door and stepped back as they heard someone inside call for them to wait a minute. Her heart skipped a beat as she heard the voice; it sounded like a much older version of Jesse's. If Jennie noticed it, or even Jesse himself, they took no notice of it.
The moment the door opened, Lydia felt as though she were looking into the future as she stared at Jared Turner. The features, the green eyes, the brown hair . . . it was so obvious that Jesse took after his father. She looked back and forth between father and son, unable to believe her eyes as she saw this. Jennie caught her eye and winked.
"Moltres, Articuno, and Zapdos," Mr. Turner breathed, his green eyes wide as he stared at his daughter and son. "Jesse? Jennie? And who else?" he asked, seeing Lydia. "Not Jamie, surely?"
"Not quite," Lydia said with a small smile at him. "I'm Lydia Talon." The moment that he heard her name, his jaw went slacken and he took a step back, as though stunned beyond belief, and his gaze flickered to all three of them before he recovered.
"Well," he said finally, sounding out of breath, "this certainly is a surprise. Come in, come in, all three of you. We have some catching up to do. Would you like anything to drink? I can make up some tea . . . I have some soda, if you'd rather?"
"Tea would be great," Lydia said, looking at Jesse pointedly. "Jess? You want some tea?"
"Yeah, sure," Jesse said, his voice strangled as he stared at his father. "That would be good." His father smiled painfully as he headed into the kitchen, the trio following him. Once they were sitting down at the table, each with a steaming cup of tea, silence fell over them. It was so silent that Lydia could hear each tick-tock of the clock and it was starting to bug the heck out of her. Finally, she decided to break the silence.
"So . . . uh, what exactly do you do, Mr. Turner?" she asked politely, trying to steer the silence into a conversation.
"I mostly am a tour guide for the Tin Tower in town," he said, looking relieved at someone breaking the silence. "And I help out at the Pokémon Centre sometimes."
"Why?" Jesse said quietly. He was staring down at his mug before he looked up at his father. "Why did you leave us behind? Mom said that you wanted to take us with you, so why didn't you? If you cared so much about us, why didn't you fight to keep us after the divorce?"
Mr. Turner looked down in shame after each question, but waited until his son finally drew a breath to speak. "I wanted to," he said quietly, "but your mother . . ." He took a deep breath. "She and I were in love, you two. We were in love and the harder you fall for someone, the messier the break-up is. Your sister was barely a week old when it happened. I loved the three of you, I did, but . . . your mother didn't want me to mess up your lives the way that I'd messed up hers. And I could see her point. If she hadn't married me . . . she would be living the life of luxury."
"Mom does like the rich life," Jennie said quietly to her brother, who chose not to remark at this comment. "But why would marrying you have changed anything?"
"Well, your grandparents didn't really approve of me," Mr. Turner said with a small smile. "I don't think they thought anybody was good enough for their golden princess, but the fact that she fell in love with a little street urchin made them so furious that they gave her a choice: me or her inheritance."
"She chose you?" Lydia asked, curious despite herself.
Mr. Turner gave her a small smile. "She would have lost it either way," he said gently. "Because if there was one thing that her parents hated more than me, it would've been her losing her reputation." He turned his green eyes to his son. "Having a child out of wedlock would've done that. Things were different back then. It's not as big a scandal nowadays, but back then . . . well, let's just say that she would have faced scorn and disdain for the rest of her life. And so would you, Jess."
Raising his head towards his father, Jesse shook his head. "That's why," he whispered in realisation. "That's why she always ignored me and forced me to do things that I didn't want to do and disowned me the moment that I got enough courage to tell her no. I was her downfall, why she had to give everything up." He stared down at his hands. "Why she always insisted that I was corrupting my sisters."
"She was never as hard on Jamie or me as she was on you," Jennie whispered, wrapping her arms around her brother before she looked at her father. "Can we come here, when we're not on the road? I know that it's a lot to ask, but we don't have anywhere to go . . ."
Those words were all it took for the light to come on Jared Turner's face and Jesse leaped up, half-startling the girls as he hugged his father tightly. Mr. Turner looked taken aback, but after an encouraging nod from Lydia, he hugged his son. Jennie stood up and joined her brother and father in the hug and Lydia watched the happy family.
Jesse pulled away, turning away from the rest of them for a minute. Lydia suspected that he was wiping away tears, because when he faced them again, he had on a determined expression. "Uh, listen, if it's okay, we kind of need to ask some questions about Lydia's parents," he said, nodding towards the brunette trainer.
"I had a feeling that's half of why you were here," Mr. Turner sighed as he looked towards Lydia carefully. "I know very well who you are. You're Rosemary's little girl. You have her eyes."
"That's what everybody tells me." Lydia took a deep breath. "I need to know what happened with my parents. There was a mansion in the middle of the woods on the way here and I was there twelve years ago, with my mother lying dead there. Why did people tell me she died giving birth to me if something else happened? And why won't anybody tell me the truth about it? Is it a joke? To find out how much I can't handle? Because if it is, then I have to tell you, I'm starting to crack." Her temper rose slightly as Mr. Turner leaned back in his chair, staring at her.
"Why not ask your father?"
Lydia sighed. "Yeah, well, my father disowned me after I wanted to go on a Pokémon journey, so he and I aren't exactly speaking anymore."
"Doesn't sound like him," Mr. Turner mused, looking worried. "That's not at all like your father, Miss Talon."
"It's Lydia," she corrected automatically. It sounded too strange for her friends' father to be addressing her so formally. "And according to Uncle Jack, it's exactly like him."
"Dad?" Jesse looked alarmed as his father's face paled considerably. "Dad, what's wrong?"
For the first time, Mr. Turner didn't acknowledge his son. "You don't know, do you?" he whispered. Lydia was suddenly reminded of her conversation with Hayden in the mansion, when she'd addressed Jack as her uncle. "If you don't know, then I shouldn't be the one to tell you."
"Yeah, well, I'm starting to run out of people that I trust right now," Lydia said flatly, staring him down. "Try me, why don't you?"
Mr. Turner stared at her for a long moment. "You are truly your mother's daughter, Lydia Talon," he said with a sigh. She looked down. "All right. I'll try you." He took a deep breath. "Jack isn't your uncle."
Lydia looked up. Jesse and Jennie stared at their father disbelieving. "What?" she asked incredulously.
"Jack isn't your uncle," Mr. Turner said, looking as though he were going against his better judgement. "He's your father."