(Lyrics! This time they're from "Long & Lost" by Florence + the Machine, which helpfully came out while I was writing this chapter. Thank you, Flo. I appreciate that.)
RETURNING HOME
CHAPTER 3
They show the trio in, and sitting on a chair she brought in from the kitchen Misty bites the inside of her cheek and listens as Ash tells his story again. It doesn't hurt any less.
"Your boss had me kidnapped."
He managed to hold back the anger in his voice a little when he repeated it to Brock. This time he doesn't try, or at least not as much, and his eyes pierce right through the three of them before running back to the carpet. She thinks of the way he told the story to her for the first time, and how he almost spat out the words once he found them, not really holding back then either: you wanted to know, right?
The look on Jessie, James and Meowth's faces goes from confused to shaken as he talks. James' shoulders drop as if taking a blow. Jessie presses her fingers to her lips and there's a moment when Misty thinks she can see her blink back tears. When Ash is done the room is silent for a long while; then James shakes his head slowly.
"...Mew, kid, I'm—I'm so sorry," he stammers. And if she was already pretty convinced that they had nothing to do with it now she feels sure enough just by seeing their reactions, but she still has to ask.
"So you didn't know? Are you absolutely sure? Because if I find out you did I swear I'll—"
Jessie's eyes dart towards her. "Of course we didn't know," she cuts her off. "What kind of... people do you think we are? Okay, we might have tried to steal Pikachu a few times, but this..."
She turns back to Ash and her face scrunches up a little. "...come on, even we aren't this bad."
"Yeah, we would have done something," James adds. He lets out a sigh. "Honest, kid, we've been such complete failures for so long that the boss can't even stand to look at us, he doesn't let us in on his plans. We didn't know."
"Fine," she concedes. She looks at Brock, who gives a slight nod. Ash keeps watching the carpet, his arms crossed, and she lets a couple moments pass before she asks: "Ash? What do you think?"
He glances back at the trio and shrugs. "Guess I believe them."
She nods an okay and purses her lips, trying to figure out what to say next. James stares at Ash, blinking.
"...So you're the boss's kid?" he asks. Ash shoots him a glare.
"Yeah. What, didn't I say it loud enough the first time?"
"Yeah. Sorry." James brings one hand behind his head, rubbing the nape of his neck. "Just—trying to make sense of this whole thing. It's—kinda weird to think about, y'know?"
"Tell me about it," he grumbles. Meowth gives a sort-of shrug.
"But what did he make you do?"
Ash's breath catches. The silence in the room feels suddenly palpable, almost suffocating, and he shuffles uncomfortably on the armchair and presses his lips in a thin line. Misty sees his shoulders tense up under Brock's too-big shirt and wants to smack Meowth's face for asking the same question she's been tossing back and forth in her mind for two days. He keeps his eyes glued to the floor at his feet.
"Let's—get to the reason we wanted to speak with you, shall we?" Brock intervenes. "We were hoping you could help us."
"Help you how?" asks Jessie. Ash breathes out.
"Giovanni is—I know he's looking for me. And he's told me everything about how big the team really is, about... the people inside the police and the government and all that."
"We need to find a way to keep Ash safe from him," she adds. She can see him puff his cheeks a little. "We can't go to the police for help, so we were hoping maybe you might have some information we could use against him or something like that. I don't know, maybe—know about some weak spot he has."
Said out loud it sounds a lot more like a wild shot in the dark than she'd hoped. Jessie and James look at each other. James sucks his lips against his teeth after a moment and glances back at them.
"Maybe—hm..."
"Maybe what?" she urges. He looks at Ash.
"The boss told you about how Team Rocket has people everywhere, yeah? Well, that's true. But perhaps there might be a couple things he, huh, forgot to mention."
"Like what?"
"Well, see, yeah, Team Rocket is huge. And in theory, yeah, he controls all of it. But in practice it's—well, way too big for one single person to be aware of everything that happens within it."
Ash frowns slightly. "What's that mean?"
James purses his lips again and seems reluctant to go on. He turns to lock eyes with Jessie, who sighs and picks up where he left: "It means that not everyone is as content just following his orders as he'll have you believe. There's lots of people who yeah, keep up appearances by pretending to follow his lead blindly like everyone else, but actually care way more about their own gain. Lots of people who wouldn't mind seeing him overthrown, too."
"How do you know?" Ash asks. She shrugs and leans against the back of the couch, crossing her legs.
"Just the kinda thing you start to hear about after you've been part of the team for a while," she replies. Then realizes what she's said and her brow furrows a bit. "...Well, not if the boss has his eyes on you constantly like I suppose he did with you, maybe. But if you've spent your time on the sidelines."
"How does this help us?" Brock wants to know. Jessie turns to look at him and shrugs again.
"You asked for information, that's information. You didn't say we also had to know what to do with it."
"Yeah, if you were expecting us to have some magic immediate solution I'm afraid we're gonna disappoint," James echoes, his shoulders slumping lower. Misty bites down on her lip.
"These people you talked about, do you—actually know any of them?"
He blinks. "Yeah, a few maybe."
"Do you think any of them might ever be willing to help us?"
Ash's eyes shoot towards her. "What, are you crazy? Do you even know what kind of people you're talking about?"
"Yeah, I think I have a vague idea at this point," she retorts, then turns back to James. "Can you answer my question?"
"Uh—" He frowns. "Well, for nothing, I doubt it. Perhaps if you had something to offer."
"No," Ash insists. "We're not doing this."
Misty glances at him again. "Do you have a better idea? Because if you do now is as good a time as any to mention it."
"I already told you my idea."
"Oh, yeah, hide or something, how could I forget. That's so much better."
"Better than—seeking help from someone that for all we know might be even worse than Giovanni? Yeah, you can bet it is."
"Guys," Brock sighs. He closes his eyes for a moment and rubs the bridge of his nose, like to stop an incoming headache; then looks at the trio. "If—theoretically we decided to do this, what kind of offer would we even be talking about? What, money? Pokémon?"
"I can't believe you're considering this," Ash grumbles. Jessie and James turn briefly to each other again.
"Hard to say," James replies with a shrug. "You'd basically be asking people to put themselves actively against the boss. Kinda hard to convince someone to do something that might get 'em killed."
"What if we offered help?"
All the eyes in the room turn towards her. Jessie's brow furrows slightly. "What kind of help do you mean?"
She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and bites her lip one more time. Her stomach twists at the idea of what she's about to say, but she forces the words out of her chest still, doing her best to keep her voice firm: "You said some of these people want Giovanni overthrown. What if we offered to help with that?"
Ash slams his hand against the armrest. "No," he says again. There's a tremble under the harsh surface, like thin cracks on the ice. "We're not doing this. You're not—getting involved in this."
"I'm involved already, Ash. And if there's something I can do to help you I will, so get it out of your head that I'll just sit here and watch."
"We're not taking any unnecessary risks," Brock steps in. "We're just talking about it for now, alright? Would this even be a viable option?"
Jessie taps a finger to her lip, thinking. "Well, it might, maybe. The support of a gym leader might be tempting to some. Not to mention that of the boss's own son." She looks at Ash. "By the way, kid, I know you might have a hard time believing this after what you went through, but not everyone in the team is that bad."
"Yeah, I'm sure it's full of great people," Ash scoffs. She raises her eyebrows.
"I didn't say all of them. Trust me, there's plenty of assholes who are perfectly happy doing what they do. But there's also lots of people who joined because they didn't have a choice, or because they didn't have anywhere else to go."
"Yeah, and then there's us. We aren't so bad," Meowth adds. Ash glares at him and says nothing.
Brock drums his fingers on his knee. "Could you get us in touch with some of these people?"
"Perhaps." Jessie gives another small shrug. "It might take some time, though."
Ash shakes his head and shuffles again on the armchair. "This isn't—we aren't doing this."
"We aren't doing anything for now," Brock tries to reassure him. "We won't be doing anything until we're sure it's safe, how about that? I'd rather avoid this too. But we need a strategy and this is the only one we have for now, it might be worth a shot."
He sinks his teeth into his lip. Misty leans over a little.
"It's gonna be alright. I promise, okay?"
"You can't promise that," he snaps. Then shakes his head again, grumbles "this is stupid" and stands up, and balls his hands tight into fists before storming towards the door.
"Ash—" she tries to call him. She half-stands as well, but Brock gently closes one hand on her arm, holding her back.
"Give him a minute. I think—this is kind of a lot we're asking him to put up with, considering."
"But—" His sudden absence makes her stomach crumple a bit harder, even if he's probably just in the hallway. She breathes in. "Okay. Fine."
Brock turns back to the trio. "So can you do it? Can you get us in touch with these people?"
Jessie nods. "Yeah. You sure you wanna do this?"
He thinks about it for a moment still, pursing his lips. Then lets out a sigh.
"Yeah. We're gonna try."
—-
She tells the trio they can crash at the gym for the night if they want to. They refuse after some awkwardness, saying they'll sleep outside on their balloon and promising they'll keep an eye out for anything suspicious.
She walks to the kitchen to pour herself a glass of water afterwards, her stomach still not entirely unknotted. Brock's voice almost makes her jump.
"Think anything good is going to come from this?"
He's standing on the door, one hand nervously stroking the back of his head. He looks tired. She sighs a little, looking down at her glass.
"I don't know, Brock. What else can we do? Do you have any other idea? Because I really don't."
"Yeah, me neither," he says. He sighs too, then walks to the table and sits down. "If everything Ash said about Team Rocket is true I don't really know what other alternatives we could have."
She finds nothing to reply. He's silent for a bit, his eyes wandering towards the floor; then shakes his head and looks back at her. "How do you think he is, by the way? I mean..."
He doesn't finish the sentence. Misty presses her lips together. "I don't know," she says again after a moment, and her voice cracks just slightly this time, unsteady at the foundations. "How can you even—how could anyone even... feel after something like that, after being—tortured and forced to do who even knows what for a year? Is that something you can imagine?"
"No, it's not," he agrees. His glance trails off once more. He takes a breath and releases it slowly, resting his chin against his hand. "What about—you?"
She blinks. "What about me?"
Brock looks at her. "Are you okay? I mean this is... this isn't easy."
She doesn't have an answer. Something inside her that was barely holding together feels about to finally crumble to pieces. "I don't—Brock, is this really happening?"
"It is," he sighs. Misty bites her lip.
"Then how did—how did we not know? How did we go all this time without knowing that he was alive?"
He says nothing for a few seconds. "There was no way we could have known," he whispers then. "There was a dead body, Mrs. Ketchum saw it. There were all those tests they did. There was a funeral and a grave and everything. There was no reason to suspect anything."
It sounds a little like he's trying to convince himself as well as her. Something like a half-sob finds its way out of her chest, and she bites her lip harder and presses a hand to her eyes. A few seconds later she hears the legs of the chair scrape the floor and Brock's hand closes around her shoulder, his thumb stroking it gently.
"Listen, we're gonna sort this out, okay? We're—we're gonna set things right."
She lowers her hand and looks at him. Her eyes burn. "But it won't change anything. Even this works, even if we can fight off Giovanni—it'll still have happened. All of it."
"I know. But we can still do our best to let Ash know that he's safe now and that nothing like that is ever going to happen to him again."
She sniffles a bit. Brock takes his hand off her shoulder and leans sighing against the edge of the table, his eyes drifting again towards the floor.
"We need to tell Mrs. Ketchum too," he says after a while like he just remembered. "We can't keep it from her. She needs to know that her son is alive, like, right now."
"Too bad Ash doesn't want to see her," she replies, grim. Then shakes her head: "I'll—I'm gonna go check on Togepi, then I'll try to talk to him. See if I can get him to change his mind."
"Fine. Just try—to be patient, okay?"
She rubs the corner of her eye and attempts a half-smile, not exactly managing it. "I'll try. He's not exactly making it easy."
"I know. I think it's not easy for him either."
He speaks softly, but his words still hit her hard enough to hurt. She swallows and nods.
"No, I—it's not. I know."
She sets the glass down in the sink and takes a breath. Out of the window the trio's balloon looms quietly, a darker shape against the night sky.
—-
Her fingers have been clasped on the edge of her chair for so long that they've gone numb. Officer Jenny's words bump edges in her mind like the wrong corners of a puzzle and next to her Delia staggers and presses her hands to her mouth like she's going to throw up, and all she can think is that it makes no sense, that the pieces don't go together; that the picture that comes out is all wrong and not really a picture at all.
"You have to do the tests again," she hears herself say. There's a crack on the floor next to officer Jenny's shoe. Something somewhere feels like a wave, gurgling, swelling. Growing.
"Misty—" Brock tries, but his voice is a whisper and he barely manages that one word. She keeps staring at the crack, her hands grasping the chair so hard they're starting to shake.
"You have to do the tests again."
"They've already been repeated," says officer Jenny. "There is no margin of error, I'm terribly sorry. We're certain it's him."
She looks up. The woman stands solemn and tight-lipped, her hands composedly behind her back."Then you're wrong. You're—you're lying."
"Misty," Brock says again. He means more than just her name, she can tell; he means don't do this, not now. But she turns and shakes her head, and her breath comes out in a broken puff that's not a sob but must not really be a breath either, because it feels as if there's no air at all in her lungs.
"She's lying. She's—it's not him. He wasn't there, there's no reason why he should have been there! She has to be wrong!"
He has to see it too, he has to see that this makes no sense at all, that the body can't possibly be Ash's. But he doesn't. He just presses his lips together and looks at the floor.
She turns back to officer Jenny. "I want to see him."
The woman shakes her head a little: "I can't allow it, for your own good. The body was in the water for nearly—"
"I want to see him!"
The wave crashes against the rocks, raising sprays of white foam, and suddenly she's trembling all over, not just her hands. She stands: "I want to see him, you have to let me see him—"
Brock tries to hold her and she pulls her arm from his grasp. She's furious. At Brock; at officer Jenny, even at Delia and her quiet, held-together grief. Even at him for being dead. She thinks of shoving officer Jenny out of the way, thinks of grabbing that cursed plastic chair she's been sitting on for hours and throwing it against the floor. "You have to let me—"
Her throat is tight. She doesn't think she's crying, but her breath hitches in her chest and her words with it, and her legs shake and almost buckle under the crushing weight of her anger. Anger, that's it, that's all there is. Nothing else. "You have to—" she manages to stammer again in between gasps; and then there's arms, arms wrapping around her and folding her into a hug. Delia holds her to her chest, tight, so tight she can't even move, and Misty tries to tell her to let go, tries to scream it, but her face is pressed against the fabric of her shirt and all that comes out of her is sobs. Delia rocks her back and forth, not talking, her fingers running through her hair.
The sobs won't stop coming. Something in her will break before this is over, she thinks: something will rip, her body can't possibly hold. Delia keeps her arms around her even if she was just told that the body found two days ago at the bottom of a river was that of her child, even if she should be the one falling to pieces on the floor. Even if she struggles and tries to pour on her all of her fury.
She cries into her chest until there's nothing left in her.
—-
Ash doesn't turn around when he hears Misty stop on the door. Instead he pulls his knees a little closer to his chest, biting the inside of his cheek.
There's a knock on the doorframe after a moment. "Can I come in?"
"It's your room."
"Right," she says. She hesitates for a few seconds still, then walks in and sits on the edge of the bed. He can feel the mattress sink even if he keeps not looking. "Still mad at me?"
"I'm not mad," he sighs. "I just—don't want you and Brock to put yourself in danger because of me."
"What if I told you that we won't do anything until we know for sure it's safe? Is that any better as a promise?"
He doesn't answer. Misty sighs and kicks off her slippers, pulling her feet on the bed as well.
"You're not alone in this, Ash, like it or not. Brock and I are in it too. And we're going to help."
He keeps his eyes on the wall and shakes his head. "You don't know what those people are like."
"You're right, I don't know," she remarks. "I can only try to imagine by looking at what—what they've done to you, but I'm sure I'm not even close. But that's one more reason I'm not going to leave you alone."
Ash says nothing again, his bottom lip caught between his teeth, and for the hundredth time wishes he'd gone somewhere else. Even if the thought that she might be at the gym was what kept his legs moving at the end, even if without it maybe he would have fallen to his knees sometime through the second day and not gotten back up. Misty watches him for a bit—he can tell even without looking; he feels her glance like a prickle on his skin—and finally lets out another sigh.
"Ash, listen, there's—there's something else we still haven't talked about."
His gut clenches and he folds himself tighter around his knees, his teeth sinking more into his lip. "You mean telling my mom?"
"Yeah." She pauses again, as if looking for the right words. "I know you don't want to see her. I can—I mean, I can't understand how you're feeling, not really, but I think I can see why. But we can't keep it from her for much longer. She's your mom. We can't let her think that you're dead when you aren't."
"Why not? She's better off not knowing anyway," he retorts, then bites his lip harder, like he could trap the words back into his throat. She seems taken aback for a second.
"What are you talking about?"
Something tumbles out of him anyway. "Like you. And Brock. You didn't need to know, you were okay. You were—better."
"...Now you're being stupid on purpose," she says. Ash gives her a quick glance.
"I'm not. I'm just saying things as they are. You had the gym and your Gyarados and everything. You were okay. Now you're going to do something dangerous and stupid and it's gonna be because of me."
Do you think your friends would ever forgive you?, Giovanni asked him once, the corners of his lips folding into a grin as he spoke, and he looked down at the blood on his hands and knew the answer was no. Misty just stares at him. "...Do you honestly think we'd be happier thinking you're dead?" she asks after a bit, and her voice sounds heavy somehow, like she's hurting. And he thinks of the way she almost staggered when she saw his scars, of how she held her arms around herself as she heard the story.
He bites his lip again. "Yeah."
"Ash—" She leans closer and tries to lay a hand on his shoulder. He can't help flinching, and she stops and shows him her palms before lowering her hands back into her lap. "Okay. Sorry. Listen—yeah, maybe I was okay. That's kinda something you have to start doing after a while, you know? But you're an idiot if you think I'd ever pick okay over knowing that you're alive."
He doesn't reply. She shakes her head. "And I know—Brock will tell you the same thing if you ask him. And your mom would too. And Pikachu. What about Pikachu, don't you want to see him?"
He does. He wants to see him with the same desperation that brought him to her door, and there's a part of him that wants to see his mom too, so badly that the thought hurts. But at the same time the idea of seeing her face when he'll tell her what the man she lied to him about his entire life did makes him want to throw up, so he doesn't say it. She waits for an answer for what feels like at least a full minute, then gives up and sighs one more time.
"I'm serious, Ash. None of us was better. And you need to stop thinking that right now or else I'm gonna—" She pauses, scrambling for her words. "...hit you with my pillow," is what she manages at the end. Ash blinks and turns to look at her after a moment.
"...Was that supposed to be a threat?"
"Yes."
"...I've heard more threatening things."
"You haven't met my pillow," she teases, a tiny smirk finding its way to her lips. And maybe he smiles back a little, he's not sure. "So what do you say? Think you can stand to see her?"
He turns back to the wall. "What do I even—do? Call her and just—what, go hey mom, I'm alive?"
"I think she should see you in person," she says, cautious. Ash glances at her again.
"You mean go to Pallet? It's kinda a long walk from here. I dunno if I'd make it there without getting caught."
"I thought about that. I was thinking maybe we could ask the trio to give us a ride on their balloon."
"...Us?"
"Yeah. I might trust them, more or less, but there's no way I'm leaving you alone with them."
He puffs his cheeks a bit. "I don't need a babysitter, y'know."
"How about a friend?" she sighs. He pulls his knees to his chest again and shakes his head.
"What about the gym? You gonna just leave it unattended?"
She bites her lip. "...Yeah, I might have to ruin my sisters' trip. This is—this is kind of an emergency situation after all, right? I'll call Daisy and see if she can come back."
"Great, as if there weren't already enough people who had a better time before I showed up," he grumbles. Misty stares at him for a second. Then leans over, grabs the pillow and smacks it right on his face.
"...Hey," he protest, trying to push it off. She whacks him again.
"I warned you. Now stop thinking that. Stop right in this instant."
She drops the pillow in her lap and crosses her arms. "You're getting our help, Ash Ketchum, like it or not. And if you keep thinking that we'd rather not do it well, you're wrong. As ever."
He looks at her and he's not sure why despite his irritation and despite the fact that she just threw a pillow in his face there's a sort of flutter in his chest, a sort of warmth, a sort of—something that for a long while he had forgotten along with how you can have a shower curtain with anemones on it or what a freshly cooked breakfast smells like. He wouldn't know how to turn that tingle into words even if he wanted to try, but if he did maybe it'd be something like I missed you. I missed you so much.
"Everything alright in there?"
He turns. Brock is on the door, a steaming cup in each hand. Misty pushes a strand of hair away from her eyes.
"Yeah. We were just discussing."
Brock half-smiles and walks in. "I made some chamomile," he says, handing him one of the cups. "Here. It might help you sleep a little better."
He kind of doubts some tea is going to help much in that regard, but he takes it anyway. Brock gives the other one to Misty and sits down on the bed.
"I was saying that we should probably go to Pallet," she tells him. She blows on her tea. "I think—I think Mrs. Ketchum should see Ash when we tell her. I mean it's—not really something you can say over the phone, is it?"
"Probably not," he agrees. Ash warms his hands around his cup and says nothing. Brock looks at him: "What do you say, Ash? Think you can do it?"
His stomach crumples again. "Yeah," he manages to squeeze out, and Brock nods and he and Misty keep talking, keep discussing the details of the trip to-be, and their voices sound far away. Sound just out of reach. He keeps his hands around the cup even when it starts to hurt, too hot against his palms.
Do you think your friends would ever forgive you?, Giovanni said. If they saw you now, really saw you, if they saw what you've become? Do you think they'd want you back?
He still knows the answer to that.
is it too late to come on home?
are all those bridges now old stone
—-
It takes Misty a bit to work up the nerve to dial the number of Daisy's pokégear.
She slept in the same room with Ash, and this time he didn't wake up screaming but he still groaned and muttered half-words while he slept and jerked awake gasping over and over, and each time he curled up tighter under her blanket, a small trembling shape in the dark. She listened, hardly managing to get any sleep at all. When she looked in the mirror this morning she saw faint purple shadows under her eyes. Her sister is probably going to notice. She bites her lip as she listens to the dial tone, her fingers nervously pulling at the phone wire.
(Please don't make me do this, Ash said at one point, and then something else she couldn't understand.)
Daisy answers after a while. She's half-yawning when her face appears on the screen, her hair up in a scrunched bun. "...'ello? Misty? What's going on? It's, like, six in the morning."
"I know," she sighs. "Sorry."
Her sister squints at the screen. "Are you okay? You look like, weird."
Misty scowls. "Thanks. Listen, um, I need to ask you a big favor."
"What favor?"
"I—need you to come back here."
Daisy's brow furrows. "I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important," Misty adds quickly. "But it's—kind of an emergency. Something's happened and—I need to go somewhere."
"What do you mean something's happened?" Daisy wants to know. She shakes her head, her face scrunching up some more. "Is something wrong with the gym? Or with one of our pokémon, did like some of them get hurt or something?"
"No, Daisy, it's nothing like—"
"Did someone try to break in and steal them? Oh, Mew, are you hurt? Do you—"
"Daisy—"
"—need to go to a hospital, because—"
"Daisy, Ash is alive."
There, she said it. Daisy stops talking abruptly and her eyes go wide on the screen. "...Sis', are you—like, okay?" she asks after a moment. "I—thought maybe leaving you all alone wasn't the best idea, but I didn't think—"
"I know it sounds like I've lost my mind, but I didn't," she grumbles, cutting her off. "He's actually here in the flesh. I'm not hallucinating. I can go get him if you want. And Brock's here too, he can confirm as well."
"But—" Her sister shakes her head again. Her forehead crumples, a thin line appearing at the middle. "They, like, found his body, right? And it was a year ago. How...?"
Misty sighs a bit. "It's—kind of a long story." And a painful one, and one she's not actually sure she'd manage to repeat without breaking down. "I'll explain better later. For now let's just say he was—kidnapped by Team Rocket and held a prisoner until a few days ago. They made us find someone else's body so we wouldn't suspect anything. Then he managed to escape and he came here."
Daisy stares at her. "...Wait, are you—actually being serious right now? Like, is this a thing that's actually happening? You're not making it up or something?"
"I'm not making it up."
"...Wow. That's like, totally crazy."
"As in 'wow, that's really weird but I believe you, sis' or as in 'I think you've gone completely insane'?"
"A bit of both. But mostly the first one."
"Great." She sighs again. "Daisy, listen, Ash needs to get to Pallet to see his mother and I have to go with him. I can't leave him alone. But I can't leave the gym unattended either, so I need you to come back here. I'm sorry, I know I'm ruining your trip. I wouldn't ask if I didn't really need it."
Daisy keeps looking at her for a handful of moments, as if trying to determine if she really went bonkers. Then nods and pulls the corners of her lips into a smile.
"We can totally take another trip at some point, right? I'll let Lily and Violet enjoy the rest of this one. I'll be back there in a couple days."
She wasn't expecting she'd be so easily convinced, and she blinks, surprised. Then smiles back a bit. "Thank you."
Her sister waves a vague hand as if to say it's nothing. "Let's just say you owe me a favor, sis'. Now go take care of him or whatever you have to do."
There's a slight rush of heat to her cheeks. It was a forgotten sensation, and it takes her by surprise as well. "...What do you mean, take care of him?"
"Whatever," says Daisy. "Like, get ready to leave for Pallet or something."
"...okay. Seriously, Daisy, thank you."
"Don't mention it. See you there, sis'."
She hangs up and Misty does the same after a moment, and lingers for a bit with her hand still on the phone before breathing out, feeling as though at least a tiny part of the weight that was crushing her chest just faded. Then bends down to pick up Togepi, tucking her hair behind her ear.
"You don't have to come, you know."
She nearly drops Togepi and quickly turns to find him looking at her. She frowns: "Were you listening to my phonecall?"
"I was in the hallway and I heard. Sorry. You don't have to come. Nor to take care of me or whatever."
"But I want to," she retorts. "And I will. Say whatever you want."
He doesn't say anything. She sighs one more time. "...Let's just eat some breakfast in the meantime, how about that?" she tells him; and he shrugs a little and then follows.
—-
It's been five weeks. She can feel the days pile on each other like sand, harsh and heavy, scraping red marks across her skin. Thirty-five of them. More than a month of him being gone.
Daisy hovers by he door, a vague pink-gold shape at the corner of her eye. "...Hey, sis'?" she says after a bit. She huddles under her blanket a bit more. "Are you—feeling okay?"
"Yeah. I'm great. Can't you tell," she grumbles. Her sister hesitates for a moment and then walks in. She sits on the edge of her bed, fixing her blanket a little.
"I wanted to bring you some hot chocolate," she tells her. "But I like, burned it."
Misty glances at her. "You burned hot chocolate?"
"...Yeah."
"How—nevermind, don't tell me. I don't really care."
She looks back at the wall. The numbers of the digital clock paint a faded green glow around the corner of the nightstand. Daisy is silent for a while.
"...Sis'?" she whispers then. "Can I—ask you something?"
"Yeah."
"Did you—I mean, were you—"
She doesn't go on. Misty turns to look at her again after a handful of seconds.
"Was I what?"
"Were you—" Daisy says again. Then purses her lips, nervously twirling a strand of hair around her finger, and traps a sharp breath back in her throat. "Nevermind. It—it doesn't really matter anyway. Try to sleep."
She stands before Misty can ask more and hurries towards the door after throwing a fluttery smile in her direction. She could go after her and ask what she meant, but her limbs feel limp and boneless, too heavy to lift. She doesn't care enough.
The sand keeps piling. It draws lines; ripples. Thirty-five days, thirty-six when she wakes up tomorrow. He's still not there. He still won't be when she gets up tomorrow morning, not even if she shuts her eyes as tight as she can and imagines with every bit of her strength that she'll open the door and find him there. She does it anyway.
(Did you—?)
—-
Brock tells her he can take care of the gym for the couple days it'll take Daisy to get back home. She squeezes in time for a match against an opponent that's just showed up first; but her mind is elsewhere and she doesn't lose only because the kid is seriously unexperienced. Ash watches her from the bleachers, his elbows resting on his knees.
"I don't usually suck this much," she tells him with a sigh once the kid's gone. He looks surprised.
"You didn't suck."
"Yeah, I just almost gave away a badge for nothing. My sisters couldn't have done better."
"You didn't suck," he insists. He gives a slight shrug. "You looked kind of distracted, that's it. It was—nice. Seeing you battle."
No one else comes after that, so they leave in the afternoon. They decided earlier that James will take them to Pallet while Jessie and Meowth stay and try to get in touch with someone that might help with their plan, so they part behind the gym, the trio's balloon patiently waiting on the grass.
"Can you take care of Togepi as well?" she asks Brock. She bites her lip: "I have some of my pokémon with me, in case we need to defend ourselves from something,"—or someone—"but I'd rather know that Togepi is safe here."
He nods. "Be careful, though. The two of you need to be safe as well."
"I know." She glances at Ash, who's standing far enough not to hear their words. "I'll do my best."
He's silent as they get on the balloon. He grasps the edge of the basket with both hands as they take flight, his face taut and a little pale like maybe he's feeling sick. James notices as well, and gives him a concerned glance as he adjusts the burner.
"You okay there, kid?" he asks. He's taken off the shirt of his Team Rocket uniform. Ash keeps his eyes on the ground below them and presses his lips together.
"Yeah."
His hands are strained-tight on the edge, each tendon visible and tense. She thinks of taking one in hers, but figures he'll probably just jerk away from her touch again. Or he won't, but she'll feel him stiffen even more and know he wants to.
"...It's so weird to think about," James says after a bit. "All that time we were after you and your Pikachu and we had no idea you were the boss's kid."
"Stop calling me that," Ash retorts, sharp. James recoils slightly, blinking.
"Okay. Sorry. Just trying to kick off some conversation. Maybe it wasn't the best topic."
"Yeah, it wasn't," she sighs. Ash keeps looking down, towards the gym that's starting to look small.
They go on in silence. Her stomach crumples a bit as the city below starts to become hard to make out, a sea of rooftops as the horizon turns orange at the edge.
—-
but is it too late to come on home?
It's a long trip, even via balloon. They stop for the night, and James lights a fire and says he'll keep watch if they want to try and get some sleep.
Ash sits away from the fire, his hands knotted around his ankles, and stares at the trees around the clearing with a prickle on the back of his neck. This darkness is scarier than the one in Misty's bedroom, because there at least he knew that whatever might come looking for him would be only in his head. Here it might not.
Leaves crackle under Misty's feet. "Everything okay?" she asks, stopping behind him. He rolls his eyes a bit.
"Yeah. Y'all don't need to keep asking."
"Fine," she sighs. She sits down next to him, tucking her chin in her hands; the light from the fire bounces on her hair. For a while they look at the trees together, without saying anything.
Do you think your friends would ever forgive you?
"I've hurt people," he says after a time. He didn't know he was going to until he does. He can feel her eyes run to him.
"...You were forced to," she reminds him. Ash sinks his teeth hard into his lip.
"But it doesn't change anything. I still did it. I still—remember doing it. They were still hurt."
She's silent for a moment. "You did the only thing you could do, Ash," she says then. "You didn't have a choice."
"I did," he retorts. "I chose their pain over mine. I tried to hold on for a while, but I didn't—I just didn't try enough."
She doesn't say anything. She'll stand up and leave in a moment, he's sure of it, she'll be disgusted just like Giovanni said she would be. He closes his eyes and counts to five, holding his breath. When he opens them she's still there.
"...Ash—you were tortured," she whispers, and her voice falters a little, hitching slightly once or twice. "I don't know what you went through exactly but—you said you were beaten daily. You're covered in scars. There's—only so much pain a person can take."
He doesn't reply. Misty laces her fingers around her knees and breathes in and out. "Listen, you don't—you don't have to tell me what Giovanni made you do if you don't want to. But if you ever want to, I'll listen. And I promise—I promise, Ash, that nothing you could tell me will make me think that you're a horrible person or that—I shouldn't help you or be your friend anymore or anything like that."
Ash bites his lip again. His throat is knotted so tight he almost can't breathe. "But you'll be hurt. I can tell you are, when—every time I say something about it. I can see it."
"Yes," she says. "Yes, you're right, I'm hurt. But I'm hurt because you're hurt. Because you're my friend, and you went through something so—so awful and terrible that I can't even try to imagine what it might have been like. Not because of anything you might have done."
He says nothing. The fire crackles and she sighs, and for a bit she just watches him. Then slowly, the way she might approach something that could bite her, she shifts closer and stretches one hand towards his. Her fingers brush his knuckles, slightly, barely there at all. And he let her glimpse at his darkness for a moment and she didn't turn away, so this time he lets her touch him, even if it takes all of his effort to keep the muscles of his whole arm from tensing up.
She closes her hand around his. She keeps it like that for a while.
"Let's just try to get some sleep now, okay?" she says finally. They do.