A/N: Wow guys, I was blown away by the response to the last chapter! I should leave you more often with an evil cliffie. Joking, joking, heh-heh *sweatdrop* Thanks so much though! When I read the reviews for the first time, I got such a big grin on my face, and when I read the reviews for the tenth time, I was still grinning :P
Also, this story is now two years old! *tosses confetti* Though I guess it should've been finished sooner… *cough* On that note, I hope to have this wrapped up soon. But if I stay realistic… Around March 2015? We'll see…
I've actually written out the outline (which is really way longer than I expected), and I'm going to use this story as my NaNoWriMo project. (For those who don't know, NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month, in which you try to write a novel (aka 50,000 words) in one month (November). It's really fun, you can Google it if you like.) So after November I'll have the rough draft written for this story, meaning that everything should go a quite a bit faster after that. I can't say yet if I'll be updating in November, but I'll have more information on that the next chapter.
Again, a little warning, this chapter still contains mentions of teenage pregnancy. If you are offended/disturbed by this, I sincerely apologize, that is honestly not my intention.
And now quickly onto the fun part!
Disclaimer: I don't own Pokémon or the picture used as cover.
Leave It To Brocko
Chapter 19
The shocked silence that followed buzzed loudly in my ears, shutting out all other noises. It weighed heavy on me, and I felt like I couldn't breathe. My body felt numb as my mind was busy processing the very, very unexpected information it had just gotten.
"...abandoned me with the baby..."
The baby…
Oh gods, oh Arceus, oh Mew, oh please, please, please no... Not Dawn, not naive, bubbly, young, innocent Dawn. She couldn't have... And with Paul? And...? Oh gods...
"Oh my Arceus..." Leaf's words were just a quiet whisper, but they did the trick and pulled me out of my numb state.
Swiftly, I grabbed her bag back up from the ground and sprinted off after her. Dawn had already gotten a big head start and had disappeared in the streets, so I had to hurry, otherwise...
Otherwise what?
I didn't know why I was hurrying, actually. I just needed to get to her. I needed to hear it again, to be absolutely, one hundred percently sure, even though, with those words, my mind couldn't conjure up any other reason for her to say those words.
Dawn was knocked up by Paul.
Oh Arceus…
I shuddered, and forcefully pushed the words to the back of my mind. I didn't want to think of it, didn't want to think of Dawn, young, naïve, innocent Dawn, who was like a little sister to me… had actually... Again, I shuddered, and forced my legs to go faster.
"What? What's going on?" Ash asked, running after me. Pikachu looked at a loss what to say to its oblivious trainer. It seemed that even the Pokémon had understood the implications of Dawn's words.
I glanced behind me. The others were following as well, Gary and Leaf and Misty all with wide eyes and pale faces. Ash's eyes were wide as well, but they weren't wide with shock, but with confusion.
He didn't even understand what was going on.
Well, I wasn't going to explain it to him. Dawn could do that, it was her problem after all. Or Paul.
Their problem. Oh Mew…
"Dawn is pregnant, you idiot," Gary growled at him, and Ash stopped dead in his tracks.
"What?" His voice was high, the epitome of innocence. He finally continued running again, his breathing getting heavier from exhaustion. "But- but that's not possible! You have to be married to get a baby, right Gary? Brock? Mom always said you first had to get married! Brock!"
Arceus, I was so not going to explain this to him. Especially not now.
"Paul! Don't you dare run away from me again! Get back here!"
Dawn's voice reached my ears, and I took one last sprint. A few moments later, we found ourselves standing in a thankfully empty street, with the exceptions of Paul, Dawn and us. The purple-haired teenager was almost out of the street, but had paused when Dawn called to him.
He turned around slowly, facing her. Dawn quickly stomped over to him, and we trailed behind her. When she got there, one crackling ball of blazing fury, she jabbed a finger at his chest.
"How dare you! You can't just leave like that! And to another region as well!" she yelled, placing her hands firmly on her hips.
His face remained expressionless. "I told you I was going to Hoenn."
"Dang right you did," she snarled, her eyes narrowed and spitting fire. "Otherwise I never would've found you again. You have a responsibility now, you can't just leave!"
He shrugged. "It's yours. I don't have anything to do with it."
Arceus, that jerk. I'll-
"How dare you!" Dawn almost screamed, squeezing her eyes shut. "A baby deserves its father with it! You can't just leave it without one! That's unfair! I know how it is to grow up without a father, and I won't do that to this one, not when I can prevent it!"
She suddenly deflated, seeming utterly spent by her emotional rant. Her eyes were slightly glassy as she finished in a whisper, "So, please, just… don't leave…"
Paul seemed at a loss what to do, and looked over to us. I shot him the nastiest glare I could muster and he visibly flinched. That's right, he better be afraid of me.
"Dawn," he started, after a sigh. His voice was maybe a bit softer than usual.
Whatever Paul had been planning to say, Dawn interrupted him with renewed energy.
"Please! I know you have to train and all, but I'm sure we can work something out!" Her voice had an undercurrent of desperation in it. "I could- I could travel with you! I promise I won't be a bother!"
Her eyes had lit up slightly with the prospect of a solution. Paul sighed again, and pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation.
"You're such a drama queen." He paused, as if weighing his next words. "Fine. As long as you don't hold me up."
Dawn's whole face brightened and she beamed at him. In one swift motion, she enveloped the boy in a hug. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"
He stood frozen for a moment, before pushing her off him. "Don't do that."
"Right, right, sorry." Dawn was flushed slightly, but still grinning. "Can you get him out, please? Buneary hasn't seen him in three days, she was getting really upset."
...what?
"I refuse that this whole Egg business interferes with my training, understood?" Paul said, as he clipped one Pokéball off his belt and released his Weavile.
Egg business?! With eyes growing wider and wider, I watched the following scene unfold in front of me, my disbelief – and relief – growing with each passing second.
"Of course, of course," Dawn rambled, releasing her own Buneary and then taking a light brown Egg out of the small bag.
"Buneary, buneary!" the Pokémon squealed happily as she hugged the Ice Type enthusiastically. For a moment Weavile stood stiff, then awkwardly returning the hug with a grin on his face. It was obvious he was happy, he just wasn't sure how to express it.
Weavile's eyes were focused on the Egg, and when Buneary noticed, she let go of Weavile and stretched her paws out towards Dawn.
"There you go," Dawn handed the Egg to Buneary, who took it with utmost care, before showing it proudly to Weavile. He looked at in wonder, his mouth slowly forming in a grin.
"So, I guess we're going to Hoenn, eh?" Dawn asked, still grinning excitedly.
Paul nodded to us. "Yes. With them."
Paul's acknowledgement pulled me out of my disbelieving – and very relieved – state, but I was still too flabbergasted to respond.
"Oh, hey guys, I hadn't noticed you had followed me, heh-heh." Dawn laughed awkwardly, seemingly embarrassed we had seen her in such a state. She recovered quickly though, and pointed towards the two Pokémon and the Egg enthusiastically. "Look, Buneary and Weavile had an Egg together! Aren't they cute?"
Although no longer completely mute due to my surprise, I still could only manage a dumb "Uh-huh."
"Brock, are you okay?" Dawn looked confused by our reactions, or lack thereof. "Guys?"
Then Ash started laughing heartily.
"They're just being stupid Dawn," he explained, and let out another laugh. "They thought you were pregnant! Haha, I already told them it was impossible, since you need to be married to get have a baby, but they didn't believe me. Funny, eh?"
He finished with a typical Ash grin.
A moment of silence in which jaws dropped, eyes widened and faces turned red.
"I-I'm not pregnant!" Dawn spluttered finally, her blush increasing tenfold after actually saying the words. "I wouldn't- I-I mean, uh…"
I sneaked a quick glance at Paul. His jaw was clenched and his eyes narrowed dangerously at Ash, but almost undetectably there was a slight blush coloring his cheeks.
"'Course you aren't," Ash agreed whole-heartedly. "Are you okay though? You look kinda red… Do you want some water? It's pretty hot outside."
Dawn spluttered again, then mustered up a shaky smile. "Yea-yeah, I'm fine Ash. Just a bit warm, yeah."
"Cool! So how did Buneary and Weavile get that Egg?" he changed the topic.
It was not a good change.
Dawn's blush returned in full force, Misty face-palmed and Leaf, seeing the ridiculousness of this situation, let out a slightly hysteric giggle.
"Please tell him the kid friendly version," Paul finally spoke up, his expressionless mask back and his voice a bored monotone.
"What? Hey, I'm not a kid! I can handle the adult version!" he told Paul indignantly. Paul just stared at him with a cocked eyebrow, which caused Ash to grow more annoyed. "Well, it's true, I already-"
"So Ash, what are you doing in Johto?" Dawn interrupted the impending argument. Though still red in the face, she had gathered herself again. Before she turned her attention to Ash, she shot the four of us a quick but no less scary glare for making stupid assumptions.
A glare we totally deserved, because we had made a totally stupid assumption.
As Ash started rambling about May and Hoenn and how much trouble we had run into so far, the four of us took a moment to collect ourselves.
Thank you, Arceus, I thought silently.
I looked at the others. Misty seemed to have already recovered from the shock and was watching the two soon-to-be parents – who weren't Dawn and Paul, thank Mew – and Pikachu interact, Leaf was still trying to hold in her giggles and Gary just looked very relieved. When he caught me looking, he gave me a wry smile.
"I can't believe we thought…" He let out an awkward chuckle. Leaf snorted, then quickly covered her mouth with one hand to hold back more giggles – it seemed this situation had pushed her over the edge, and now she had to do her best to prevent herself from sounding like a madwoman.
Gary chuckled at her, which caused Leaf to finally burst, and she started to giggle uncontrollably. Gary quickly joined in, and soon the two of them were in full-blown laughter about who knows what.
Misty cast a wary eye at the two, and cautiously shuffled away, closer to me. "That's scary."
I could only whole-heartedly agree with Misty, so I nodded. In my opinion, they were probably suffering from too much sexual tension, but I wasn't going to tell Misty that.
I don't have a death wish, you know.
To divert my attention from our two crazy companions, I watched as Dawn rapidly grew bored by Ash's extremely long explanations and descriptions. Knowing him, he was probably describing every tree we had seen. Paul also seemed to be growing more and more annoyed by Ash's behavior.
On top of everything, Weavile was glaring at Pikachu, refusing the yellow Pokémon to get any closer to the Egg. Somewhere in this whole situation, Pikachu must've jumped off Ash's shoulder to congratulate his friend on her upcoming motherhood, but obviously, the jealous Weavile had not taken well to that – if Buneary had told him about their 'history' then it was kind of logical too perhaps. Said Buneary was now doing her best to calm her mate down and to prevent him from attacking her old crush.
To summarize, Gary and Leaf were cackling like madmen, Ash was blabbering, Dawn and Paul looked close to exploding on him, Weavile was about to attack Pikachu with Buneary fruitlessly trying to pacify the two, and Misty seemed like the only other sane person left.
And if Misty seems sane, you know it's bad.
Really bad.
Brocko, I think now would be a good time to flee.
A/N: To all of those who guessed that Dawn wasn't really pregnant… smart guys ;) To all of those who thought/hoped that Dawn was pregnant… I was hoping that too XD However, since this is a humor story, I can't make this too serious, eh? :P
Anyway, thanks a lot for reading! I hope you enjoyed it, and I'm looking forward to hearing your comments, so please do review! They are truly appreciated :D
Thank you, and see you in two weeks!
Recommendations:
Pokémon: Girlfriends by EmmyGWrites. An actual in character one-shot about Ash and romance. Bonnie asks Ash if he has a girlfriend and Ash responds… as you would expect Ash to. A funny, friendshippy story about Ash and companions. Great for a light read :)
Pokémon: Separate Ways by CMPerry. A RocketShipping story! A rather cute multi-chap, and it's finished! Maybe a bit cheesy, but it's well written and there aren't all that many good RocketShipping stories out there. But this is definitely one of them, so go give it a look!
Harry Potter: The Fourteenth of October by enomix. A really cute, but at times serious too, multi-chapter story about the relationship of Katie Bell and Oliver Wood. About their friendship and romance with some unexpected twists, and the ending brought tears to my eyes. Give it a look, it's worth it :)
Again, please do send me your recommendations!