I was sitting in an uncomfortable bed in the hospital's burns unit, propped up against a stack of pillows, when they told me.

"They found a body,"

Elliot's hand immediately tightened around mine. I didn't even look up at the faces of the sternly looking policeman and the younger one by his side as they spoke. Instead, I gripped onto Elliot and stared down at the plain white sheets. The words came out surprisingly easily. "It... it's my father, isn't it…?"

There was a pause, before the older of the policemen spoke. "No, miss. The body that was removed from the building was that of a woman."

"A… a woman…?" I repeated, raising my head to look at the policeman. "It's Helene…? Helene Fontaine? She… she died?"

"There has yet to be any formal identification of the body," The older policeman said gruffly. "Are you certain the individuals who attacked the dojo were escaped prisoners Nathan Clarke and Helene Fontaine? Is it possible you could have been mistaken?"

"I assure you, I was not mistaken," I said blankly.

The older policeman murmured something under his breath and scribbled something in the notebook he was holding.

"Do you have any other information?" I asked.

"Not at this present time, no." the older policeman shook his head. "Rescue teams are still currently exploring the wreckage of the dojo and attempting to establish the cause of the explosion. We'll be returning later to collect statements from all of you present at the scene."

"Statements?" Elliot's voice was stony. "Why?"

"In order to effectively piece together what happened."

"But I already told you what happened!" I protested. "Nathan Clarke and Helene Fontaine attacked us! They tried to kill us! They were using some weird freaky technology to control our Pokemon!"

"There is currently no evidence to support your rather… bewildering… story…" the policeman's eyes narrowed behind the notebook he was writing in. "Until we can find proof of what you say—"

"Let me guess, we're suspects?" I asked, feebly beating my fist into the bedclothes. "Unbelievable…"

The older policeman cleared his throat loudly. "Thank you for your co-operation in this no doubt difficult time," he said, before he motioned for the other policeman and the two of them made a swift exit.

Jasmine didn't even wait until the door had shut behind them before spitting out an indignant "How rude!"

"Jazz, those are policemen!" Nikki gasped, her eyes wide and fearful.

"They could at least act like a pair of decent human beings…" Jasmine muttered angrily, casting a look at me. "No other information 'at this present time'…" she said mockingly. "What rubbish! They must know something. At the very least, they've got to know why that explosion happened!"

I let the expectant silence hang heavily in the air for a few moments. "I… I think I know,"

I felt every pair of eyes in the room turn to focus on me. Even the nurse busying herself at the other end of the room seemed to slow down in her work, as if she too was listening in. The amount of attention I was suddenly under made my mouth run dry.

"Sienna," Elliot was looking at me warily.

I let go of his hand to run the smooth beads of my red bracelet between my fingers. The movement felt oddly soothing and calming. "I think… I think my Dad caused that explosion."

A wave of dissent passed through the room, complete with murmurs of disbelief and utterly confused looks.

"Why on earth would your father do that?" Jasmine asked seriously.

I flinched a little at the harshness of her tone. "I… I don't know," I admitted. "I just… I just have a feeling…"

Everyone was quiet, waiting for me to elaborate. I didn't know exactly how to further explain myself and resorted to shaking my head violently to try and clear my head and order my thoughts. Elliot's hand closed around my wrist again.

"Sienna, baby, you should rest…"

"I don't wanna rest!" I said, snatching my hand away. "Look, I don't know, okay? It doesn't make any sense to blow up a building when you're inside it! But he's the only one who could have done it! Nathan was already using Chandelure, he had no need to do anything else! Helene wouldn't so much as lift a finger on her own without Nathan's approval, so I doubt it was her. Dad was the only one who could have done it!"

"But… why…?" Bailey asked, looking

His voice was hoarse and cracking and I immediately softened. I had remembered too late that I wasn't the only one hurting at the news my father was nowhere to be found. After all, Bailey had considered my father as a close personal friend and somewhat of a role model. The uncertainty surrounding my father and whether if he was alive or not was no doubt affecting Bailey too.

"Why would he even do such a thing?" Bailey continued, staring at the ground. His voice was thick with emotion and his hands looked to be shaking. The sight of him made my heart sore.

"I don't know, Bailey…" I whispered, shaking my head hopelessly. "I just don't know…" I swallowed a lump forming in my throat. There was something else I felt I had to say, but giving the words form was proving difficult. I ended up stuttering and stammering the words out. "He said to me just before he went back into the dojo that he had to stop them all permanently..."

"Permanently…?" Bailey's voice caught.

"Permanently…" I echoed, my head falling downwards. A memory resurfaced in me and I spat the words out bitterly, realising that understanding too late had come at a tragic price. "'There will be a price to pay to see this suffering end'…"

"W-what are you talking about…?" Bailey asked. As he looked up at me, I was shocked to see his eyes glimmering with unshed tears. A sickly, twisting feeling gripped my stomach. Just out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jasmine's hand cover Bailey's.

"It… It's nothing…" I whispered. "It's just that… it always seems to me that you can't ever… resolve something without having to give up something in return… Last time something like this happened, we lost that wise old Alakazam… And now…"

"Sienna, don't lose hope…" Nikki pleaded from across the room. "Y-your dad's a stubborn, s-strong guy, r-right? If you made it out okay, then t-there's a chance, right?"

"Yeah, there's always a chance…" Elliot said, reaching out for my hand again. I barely reacted as his fingers coiled around mine.

I decided to remain silent. I didn't want to admit what I truly felt. I didn't even think I could say what I wanted to say. What I believed, what I knew without really knowing… I didn't think I could say it. They wouldn't believe me anyway, I thought with a heavy heart.

Part of me couldn't blame them. However, the longer I thought about it and considered it, the more concrete the idea came to be in my head. Dad had looked so strong and purposeful in the last moments I had seen him. Defiant and confident, despite the tears running down his face. It was the look of someone who had steeled themselves to a fate. Someone who had accepted that things were going to be, and had to be a certain way. Every instinct inside me told me that Dad had blown up that dojo himself. Taken himself out with Nathan, Helene and all the Pokémon that lay in there in a last ditch effort to make things right. What else could he do, I reasoned? There would be no other way to stop them…

I had no physical proof, I knew that. But the words Dad had spoken to me just before entering the flaming dojo was all the evidence I needed. As they chimed inside my head, perfect and untarnished, I started to cry.

"'It all ends where it began. Be proud. Be proud of what you've done. Be proud of who you are. Of what you became. I… I know I am,'"

At this point, I just knew. I knew that those would be the last words I would ever hear from him. The last memory I would form of him. And when I cried, I wasn't sure I was crying for the fact I would never see him again, or the fact that I finally had what I had wanted and yearned from him for my entire life. Perhaps it was even a little of both. All I knew was that he was gone, and I wasn't sure that the fact the last words he ever spoke to me were the exact ones I'd waited to hear for seventeen years, made it easier or made it crushingly harder.

Time passed in a strange way from then on. I stopped believing what the clock was telling me after a while, thinking it too indecisive to pay any attention to it any longer. Sometimes, minutes would pass like hours, but other times, hours would pass like minutes. I grew sick of the plain white walls. I even grew sick of the sights of my friends. I wanted to be alone, but they refused to leave me, even concocting some odd 'shift system' that would allow some to rest and some to keep an eye on me. I didn't want to be 'kept an eye on' like some five year old child and begged the nurse to send everyone out for a while. She agreed, but after ten minutes of being alone with angry thoughts that snagged at me with hook-like claws, I pleaded for them to be allowed back in.

News trickled in frustratingly slowly. I flicked the small TV set in the room to the news intermittently, but the story of the dojo fire dulled into nothingness by late night. I wondered how many people had seen it on the news. Most of them probably weren't even interested, just catching it as they busied themselves making dinner or putting children to bed. I wonder how many of them thought anything more than "Oh no, how terrible…" and how many more of them would forget about it a mere few minutes after seeing it. It seemed so grossly and overwhelmingly unfair that something that impacted me so strongly was so insignificant and forgettable to the vast majority of people. I wondered how quickly it would be forgotten, filed away into the dusty recesses of memory banks alongside phone numbers, addresses and the names of old neighbours.

And then I wondered how long it would take me to forget. How long it would take me to lose that clear, untarnished clarity of the memory of my father's final words and the way he looked at me before he disappeared into the burning dojo. Inevitably, it would fade and maybe one day, I would struggle to remember it at all. Perhaps I'd have to fabricate details, view it as I thought it happened. One day, it would lose its purity and would become nothing more than a fleeting thought that visited me in the middle of the night. A half-formed wisp, a dream that slipped away into blackness once the harsh light of day broke through the curtains. The inkling that something should be there, but never quite being able to bring it back. I wondered what it would be like to forget. Would it be kinder, or would it only make it crueller? The thought of ever forgetting made me frightened, and I put my head into my hands and wept.

The next morning, the policemen came again. They had found someone among the burned out shell of the dojo. He was alive, the policeman said, but barely. The older one's face creased in confusion as he described the state the man had been found in. He was alive, and aside from the damage to his lungs from smoke inhalation as well as some serious burns, he showed no further physical damage. However, the policeman explained, there was something very 'irregular' about him. He didn't seem 'all there', the policeman said, his eyes moving away from my gaze. He seemed disturbed, like he didn't want to give up the information he was holding onto. I pressed him until he eventually elaborated.

"The man was alive, sure… But it was like he wasn't. The lights were on but nobody was home. His eyes… I've never seen such empty eyes before."

"I've only ever seen eyes like that on a corpse," the younger policeman chipped in.

"He just… didn't seem there," the older policeman said, shaking his head. "This blank look, wouldn't speak, wouldn't even make eye contact. It's like… Oh, no, it's ridiculous…"

I had pressed the policeman to explain what he meant.

"Like… there was no spark. Nothing going on behind his eyes." The policeman said. "Doctors suspect brain damage. He's in the hospital now. They're gonna nail him for arson, at least. Well, if he lives."

"They don't think he's going to live?"

"Doctors aren't optimistic." The policeman said. "Preliminary reports indicate that it is Nathan Clarke, the escaped prisoner from Unova, just like you said. However, we can't say anything for sure, not until we investigate further. But they identified the woman as Helene Fontaine, his ex-partner, I believe. We're liaising with the police in Unova to find out more before we send the body back to the family."

"She's got a family?" I had asked.

"Not much of one," the policeman said. "Parents died when she was young. They both died of disease. Her mum's sister took her in, so the body will go back there,"

I nodded slowly. "So… what's going to happen?"

"We need to undertake a thorough investigation," the police said sternly. "Including investigating all of you."

I glared at the policeman. "You think we had something to do with this? Nathan Clarke and Helene Fontaine were totally responsible for this! They wanted to hurt me and hurt my father because we actually tried to stop them—" I broke off abruptly, before thinking tactically. "Look, you know what? You wanna know the story? The whole truth? Speak to Lance."

"Lance?" The policeman said, frowning. "Elite Four's Lance?"

"Yes," I said slowly. "Talk to him. He'll explain everything,"

"Noted," the policeman said, ticking something off on his notebook. "Now, I'd like to take your statement…"

The statement taking process was long, arduous and far too probing for my tastes. I felt like I was the one on trial, not the victim who had likely lost a father. Eventually, we heard reports that there had been Pokémon found dead in the wreckage. Most of the bodies had been too badly burned to be identifiable, but a Chandelure was found dead under a pile of rubble. When I eventually summoned up the courage to tell the others about what Nathan had intended to do with the Chandelure, a shiver of terror went over everyone and Nikki burst into tears of fright. Bailey looked close to tears too, but contained himself when Jasmine pulled him into a hug.

Days passed and still no news came of my father. The man they had pulled out of the dojo who didn't seem 'all there' was identified as Nathan not long after he was taken to the hospital. Doctors couldn't explain what was wrong with him. He had entered some strange coma-like state and they weren't optimistic about waking him up. I didn't feel anything about that. I was too busy focusing on the mystery surrounding my father.

In the end, a body was never found. Not even the remains of a body was found. It was like he had simply vanished. The general consensus was that his body had simply burned to ashes in the flames until there was nothing left. A memorial service was held in Pallet Town after the investigation was officially closed and the burns I had sustained healed enough so that I could leave the hospital. Lance was a godsend, clearing everything with the local police after explaining the events of two years ago. To this day, I don't know exactly how much was told to the police, but I was forever grateful that it was an area of the situation I did not have to deal with. After the memorial service, we drifted listlessly around Pallet Town for some time, the days all melting into each other like an undistinguishable blur. Jasmine, Nikki and Scott all had to go home and Bailey had to stay in Goldenrod. Elliot came home with me, but not even him moving in and being around all the time was enough to bring me out of the depression I had found myself ensnared in. Life seemed to just move on without me.

Until, one day, a little over four months after the incident, I got a phone call from Bailey. He told us excitedly that the Free Spirits dojo had been granted the funds to be rebuilt after the parents of the children who attended it had pushed for it to be reopened. The media response had been huge, he explained, and donations were piling in to reinstate the dojo and provide 'a great service for the children of the community'. Bailey explained that the dojo was still technically in the Volbeda name and as such, needed someone to take charge, build it up and run it again. He admitted that he wasn't cut out for such a responsibility, muttering in an embarrassed fashion that he was also too busy making trips back and forth to Kanto to see Jasmine. I didn't pursue that particular matter at the time, making a mental note to quiz Jasmine herself at a later date.

"B-but, anyway!" Bailey cried. "I was thinking! Elliot told me one time that he'd really like to try teaching children about Pokémon. I really think he should give it some consideration. I mean, it's your dad's dojo, Sienna. It should stay in your family. I know you can't do it because you're going back to become a pastry chef…"

"No, no, I agree with you…" I said, shifting the phone into a more comfortable position. "Even if I wasn't studying in school, I don't think I could do it. I've no idea how to run something like that. Elliot would be a lot better suited for it. He loves Pokémon, he loves kids and he loves teaching. I think he'd love to do it."

"What would Elliot love to do?"

I squeaked as the phone was suddenly yanked out of my hand by a familiar figure. Elliot shot me a sly grin and pressed the phone to his ear. "Hey, Bailey. What's up? Hm? The dojo? Oh, that's fantastic! Wait, what? Someone to take it over? M-me? Why not Sienna? Oh… Yeah... Yeah, I get you. That is true… Well, I'd really have to think about it…" he glanced back at me momentarily. "The dojo is in her family name and I… God, I can't leave her. Alright. Yeah. Yeah… sure. Alright, talk to you then. Bye."

He ended the call and placed the receiver down. He stared at it for a few moments, before he turned to me. "Sienna…"

"It's a good idea!" I blurted out at once. "You've always talked about teaching as a career and now you could end up teaching about Pokémon! You've got a chance here, Elliot, to do something you've always wanted to do! You could live and work in that dojo and carry on my Dad's dream."

"He's your dad. You should carry out that dream."

"I'm not cut out for Pokémon training anymore, Elliot…" I said with a sigh, leaning against the kitchen countertop. "But you are… you could do it. I know you could do it. I know you've always wanted to do something like this,"

"I couldn't leave you here… I couldn't leave you behind in Pallet Town while I was all the way over in Goldenrod."

"Well, the dojo probably won't even be ready for a good few months at least. I don't even know if construction's even started. Once I go back to school, I'll only need another year, year and a bit, maybe. It could work out really great!"

"Sienna…" he moved in close to me and touched my face. The softness of his fingers sent my cheek ablaze. "I couldn't… I couldn't be away from you. Not when you need me…"

"It's okay, Elliot," I told him, my whole face relaxing into his hand, like my face was designed to be able to fit it. "I'd really like to see the Free Spirits dojo back up and running someday. And there's no-one I'd rather have running it than you."

"W-well, I can't lie… Running a dojo for kids would be pretty awesome," he said with a short laugh. "Getting them involved with Pokémon at a young age, teaching them how to raise them properly… that's fantastic. More kids should be involved with Pokémon, regardless of if they end up trainers or not. I've always thought kids should be exposed to Pokemon. Maybe… maybe doing this would help achieve that…" he suddenly looked away. "But I… I couldn't leave you…"

"Elliot, it's okay…" I whispered.

"But me being away from you for so long… making you wait for so long until we could be together again… I'd hate it. And I know you would too. And who's… who's to say that after so long apart you might… not wanna be with me anymore?"

"You idiot," I smacked him around the back of the head. "I love you, you know? I kinda really love you and I always wanna be with you. I'm not gonna leave you just because you go to Goldenrod for a little while. People do long distance all the time. I mean, from the sounds of it, Bailey and Jasmine are doing that now too," I added with a giggle. "And besides, what's stopping me from coming out after I finish school?"

"But Sienna… I don't… I don't want you to come out after you finish school."

His response shocked me and I scanned his face frantically for any sign that would help me deduce what exactly he had meant. "W-what…?"

"No… it's entirely selfish on my part, but… I don't wanna go without you…" Elliot's voice was thick and choked with emotion. "In fact, I can't go without you…"

"Elliot…"

"I want you to come with me, Sienna…" he suddenly lunged for my hands, his eyes bright and shining with a light, a life, that I hadn't seen there for months. "Think about it. Think about it, baby! We… we could do it together…! Break out of this little town and build a new life for ourselves in Goldenrod! A new start! And we could do it together! You and me!"

"T-together?"

"Always." He grinned, gently kissing both of my hands. "Oh, Sienna… I'm fed up of hanging around here, with nothing happening, just existing. I… I wanna… I wanna live! I wanna get out there and make something of ourselves. I'm… I'm fed up for reaching for ceilings! I wanna reach for stars! I wanna reach for stars with you."

Tears were spilling out the corner of my eyes and I gripped his hands tightly. "Elliot, I…I… I wanna reach for stars with you, too… I really do…" I clung to him tightly, like a helpless survivor to a life preserver. "Oh, but Elliot… moving that far away… leaving our friends… our families… our responsibilities… Elliot, could… could we really do something like that? Drop everything here, drop our lives here and go and run a dojo in Goldenrod City?" The idea sounded so ridiculous and yet so horrifically exciting that I burst into mad giggles.

"I don't see why we can't." Elliot was serious. "If we want to, if we really, truly want to, what's gonna stop us? We're adults now. We can make our own decisions about the way our lives should play out. Sienna, Goldenrod is a big place. We'd have the dojo to live in! I could get another job to support us if we have to and you could transfer schools! Sienna! Baby… if we want this… we could find a way to make it happen!" He paused, looking me straight in the eye. "Baby… do you want it…?"

"I… I do want it…" I croaked out, hardly daring to believe what was going on. "I want Dad's dream to carry on! I want out of this tiny little town… I want to get out there and do something for myself. And I want all those things with you."

"Exactly, Sienna!" he cried, cupping my face with his hands and kissing me on the nose, making me squeal with delight. "If we want it, the whole world out there is waiting! Nothing is stopping us! And if someone wants to stop us, then to hell with them! It's our lives! Let's make it for us…"

"Y-yeah… For us…" I grinned shakily and kissed him.

"Y…you sure you want this?" he checked.

"More than anything,"

He grinned, before his face suddenly paled a little. He suddenly looked incredibly nervous. "Well… t-then I guess there's only one thing I have left to do..."

"Huh?" I asked, confused.

"I've, uh… been waiting for a long time to do this, actually. I had hoped I'd be able to ask your father about this, but… Even though he's no longer with us, I know… I just know he'd be supportive. I just wanna do things the right way, you know?"

"Elliot, what are you talking about?"

"I can't afford the actual thing just yet, but I promise the second I get money—"

"Elliot, I don't understand!" I interrupted, perplexed. "What are you on about?"

My jaw practically hit the floor as Elliot suddenly dropped down to one knee. For a moment, I panicked, thinking he may have hurt himself but he grinned reassuringly at me. "The dojo is in your father's name which then means it's going to go to your name once it's rebuilt. I technically don't have any ties to it unless it's official."

"Oh my Arceus…"

"I've wanted to ask you this for a very long time, but… I guess I was never brave enough… What we all went through four months ago… really just put things into perspective. I just… I just wanna keep you safe from everything and make sure you're happy. I love you, Sienna. I never ever want to lose you…"

"I… I love you too, Elliot, but I still don't—"

"Shh, woman, let me talk!" he grinned, reaching out for my hand. "Well, here it goes… B-biggest moment of my life right now." He laughed nervously. "I… I never thought this would be the way it'd happen, but oh well… To hell with tradition." He took a deep breath in and finally, I understood. "S…Sienna Volbeda…?"

I could barely even squeeze out the "Yeah…?"

"Will you marry me?"

Author's Note

Aaaaand yeah. Ending on a HAPPY cliffhanger for once =) It's not even a cliffhanger, 'cos we all know her answer =)

This chapter was a bit of a whirlwind and a whole mess of emotions xP I don't know what, if anything, it did to you guys reading it, but it had me an emotional wreck while I writing it.

So, this is the penultimate chapter, guys... Next chapter is the final one and then you have Epilogue Part One and Two and that's it. Updates may be slow cos I'm now officially on exam leave and have big exams on the 15th and 23rd, but after that, I will do my best to get everything up, ready and sorted =)

Oh yeah, the lovely TheNeverendingMeep wrote a lovely Free Spirits fanfiction entitled "The Spirit Carries On" set immediately after the events of the conclusion, so please check it out if you want to! I thoroughly recommend it =)

Credit also goes to the amazing Scheherazade's Sonata who designed and drew the awesome cover for the fanfiction!

Thanks to my reviewers WildCroconaw, ArchXDeath, MasterFreezeman, Shadow Serenity 57 and TCoBlackRoses. Let's all see the ending of Free Spirits together, guys! Thank you all!

Onward!