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RETURNING HOME

CHAPTER 4

He tries to run once.

There's always at least five or six of them guarding him when Giovanni sends him out of the base, too many to even attempt, and the marks on his back are still fresh enough that he doesn't dare. It's no different this once. What's different this once is the girl.

She's what sets him off. There should have been only the rich businessman here; instead there's his daughter, too (and it must be his daughter—her eyes are the same blue as the ones he saw go glassy as one of the men held his hand around his throat), and she must have heard the struggle in the hallway, and she can't be older than nine and she's huddled against the wall with tears streaking her face and her fingers clasped on the silver-colored fur of an Eevee. The shiny Eevee Giovanni wants.

"Please don't take her," she sobs as he stands with a pokéball in his hand. And he stops. I won't do this he thinks, his stomach crumpled to a knot: doesn't matter what they do to me doesn't matter if they pull the whips again I won't do this. But he hears the whistle they make when they cut through the air and his thumb lingers frozen on the release button, unable to let go.

One of the men walks to the girl and forces her to her feet, and rips the Eevee from her arms as she screams and pleads with all her might. "Come on, shut her up," he tells Ash, his hand grasping her elbow so tight it looks as though it might snap like a twig. "Do it."

He doesn't. The man's eyes run to him, his disinterest quickly turning into impatience. He hands the pokémon over to one of the others and Ash is suddenly sure he's going to hurt her instead and it'll be far worse that anything he might have done. But instead the girl does something. Instead of crying some more she hurls herself at the man and sinks her teeth into his wrist, trying to free herself from his hold. And—

(one of them's distracted one's busy shoving the Eevee into a sack that only leaves three)

—he doesn't think.

"Golbat, quick, use Screech!" he yells, and then throws the rest of his pokéballs too, all but one: "Them! Attack THEM!"

They do—they're trained to follow their handler's commands without question. The girl falls to the floor with a yelp when the man lets her go to fend off Golbat and for the briefest moment her eyes meet Ash's—and "RUN!" he tries to tell her, and then does the only thing he can do: he runs too. Behind him there's a shot and then another, and Golbat's screech ends with a gurgling noise and a thump. He doesn't turn back.

He runs until he's outside and then until his legs feel like gelatin and his side hurts so badly that he tumbles to his knees and throws up, his heart about to explode. He hides then, one hand clutching the one pokéball he kept, curled up tight between the bushes and shaking all over and not even daring to think it—to think that he might have made it, that he might be free. Not even daring to breathe, almost, for fear that someone might hear.

But by dawn there's footsteps and he doesn't get back to his feet fast enough. A hand claws at his wrist and pulls him up, and before he has time to do anything a fist collides with his face sending stars into his right eye and another doubles him over, and moments later he's on the ground again, coughing and trying to shield at least his face from the kicks.

They drag him back to Giovanni's office. "Well, well. Aren't you a bold little thing," he comments, raising his eyebrows as he looks him up and down. "Or a stupid one. Do you want to know how we found you?"

He musters what little strength he has left to spit on the floor. Unimpressed, Giovanni nods to one of the men holding him upright and he hands him Raticate's pokéball, the one he didn't throw. The pokémon materializes in a bright red flash on top of Giovanni's desk. He runs a hand through the fur of its neck, revealing a tiny, pulsating green dot.

"A locator," he explains. "It works from inside the pokéball, too. All my men had to do was follow it. Try again and I'll have to put one on you."

He leans against the back of his armchair with a grin. "But I'm sure it won't be necessary. Go. Teach him a lesson he won't forget," he says. Then adds: "And get this carpet cleaned. There's blood on it."

They do as he ordered.

(He doesn't run again. But it's not only the pain that keeps him from trying.)

—-

Halfway through the afternoon the next day, squinting, he can make out the few rooftops of Pallet and the wind turbine of Professor Oak's lab at the top of the hill. He didn't think they'd be here this soon. His knees feel a little unsteady as the view unravels below, so he grasps the edge of the basket and tries to focus on breathing. In and out, in and out, in and out.

"Does it look like you remembered?" Misty asks, leaning next to him. He swallows a lump of air.

"Yeah," he manages to say. "Bit—smaller from up here."

His house comes into sight after a couple minutes. The last time he saw it was before they left for Johto, and his heart flutters as he recognizes the white picket fence and the tiny orange dot of the mailbox. There's flowers in the garden, little splashes of white and pink and some bright yellow in the corner, and he thinks of his mom kneeling down to water her plants, dusting soil-covered hands on her apron. But it feels too far away somehow, like it's not even a real memory, like maybe it's something he dreamed once; and the back of his eyes stings a bit when he blinks.

He doesn't cry, though. He can't remember when was the last time he did.

"Where d'you want me to land?" asks James. "Right by the house or somewhere a bit more, huh, discreet?"

"...Maybe it's—best if I talk to Ash's mother before she sees us," Misty answers after a second. Ash bites his lip.

"What are you gonna tell her?"

She lets out a little sigh, pushing back the hair the wind blew in her face. "I don't know. That—there's something she needs to know and it's—gonna be a lot to take in, I think. Or something like that. I mean there's—there's not a lot you can say to prepare someone for something like this, right?"

Right.

They fly past the house and towards a patch of trees. His throat squeezes shut as they start landing, and he sinks his teeth into his lip and clenches his hands tighter around the edge, until they're shaking and his knuckles have gone bone-white and the straw bites into his palms. Tree branches scrape lightly against the balloon. James mumbles an "oookay, almost there", and below the grass gets closer and closer.

His heart jumps when the basket hits the ground. Misty's eyes turn to him.

"Ready?" she wants to know. The answer is no, of course, but to say that first he should get his chest to work and that's a problem in its own right. She waits for a moment as he stares at what little he can see of his house from there, a corner of the white fence and a flowered vine spiraling around one of the pickets; then her fingers brush his arm.

"Breathe," she says. He appreciates the reminder. "We can wait a bit if you want."

"Maybe she's not home," he squeezes out. She turns towards the house.

"Well, only one way to find out."

He doesn't reply. It takes him a handful of seconds to finally be able to take in a ragged breath and nod.

"Okay," he whispers. And as he does a swarm of other maybes crowds into his head: maybe she has someone over. Maybe she went out of town for a few days and they've come here for nothing. Maybe she's happy, and seeing him is only going to break her like it did Misty and Brock. Maybe she doesn't need to know.

"I'll be around," James says as they get off the balloon. "I'll keep an eye on the house if you want. But if you want my advice, kid, don't stay in Pallet for more than a couple days. If the boss is looking for you he's gonna look here."

Misty throws the backpack with her pokéballs over her shoulder. "If he shows up he's gonna wish he hadn't," she assures him, but Ash's stomach crumples into a ball because he hadn't thought of that, he hadn't thought that he might have been here already, that he might have assumed he'd try to go straight home and not taken an 'I haven't seen him' as a satisfying answer. He looks frozen at the fence for a moment, images of broken glass and blood scattered across the hallway floor flashing before his eyes; and before he knows it his feet have unglued from the ground and he's almost-running towards the house. Misty hurries after him.

"Ash—wait. Hey—"

He stops and shakes his head, his hands tightened into trembling fists . "What if he's looked here already? What if he's—?"

He can't say it. The second of hesitation he hears tells him she hadn't thought of it either. "...Okay—wait. I'm sure she's fine. We'll find out in a minute, just let me go first."

He does—he's not sure if because she sounds reasonable or because he's afraid of what might be awaiting. They cut through the garden, and as they walk carefully past the kitchen window he stops again: there's a light inside. There's a light and the air smells sweet, smells of something cooking. He blinks a couple times.

"There's someone in."

"See, she's home. She's fine," Misty whispers. She turns towards the porch. "Wait here."

He presses his back against the wall while she rings the doorbell. There's silence for a bit and he holds his breath, his eyes fixed on a pair of yellow gardening gloves hanging on the fence. Then there's footsteps, and the click of the latch being pulled. And then—

"Oh, Misty, honey!" He can't see her from there. He wants to, so badly that his whole body aches, and just as badly he wants to hide his face against his knees and never look up again. Her voice furrows with a ripple of concern: "Is everything alright? I thought you'd be busy taking care of the gym."

A pause. "Hi, Mrs. Ketchum. Yes, it's—I'm okay."

"Do you need something?"

"No—well, it's—" Silence again. Ash bites the inside of his cheek. "There's—there's something you should know."

She blurts it out all at once. Another brief pause follows, then his mother's voice again: "What's it, honey? You're making me worry."

He can hear Misty take a breath. "The other night," she starts, "someone knocked on my door. Mrs. Ketchum, there's—someone you should see, and it's going to be—really hard to take in. But you really need to."

Another moment goes by, then there's footsteps on the porch. He recognizes the creak one of the wooden boards always gives and shuts his eyes for a second, every bit of him scrunched up tight. When he looks Misty has stepped off the porch and is nodding for his mother to come closer, her lip trapped between her teeth. And he doesn't know how he manages to lift his back from the wall and take a step forward.

His mother freezes in place the moment she sees him. Her mouth falls open and a tremble rattles through her, like waves hitting the rocks. She kind of looks like it, too, like she's a rock on the shore and all the tides and waves have taken away little pieces of her: she doesn't look like he remembered. Misty and Brock didn't either, but in her the differences are bigger, easier to spot. There's gray streaking her hair and her face looks older too, little lines and creases around the corners of her lips and her eyes. Her eyes—those are the only thing he can't look at.

She stares at him for a time that seems to stretch on forever. Then slowly, almost stumbling on her own steps, she walks to him and lays her hands on his cheeks. They're crinkled as well around the knuckles, he notices, like for her it wasn't one year and some change but five at least. His skin burns under her touch. There's a tremble stirring deep inside him too, like a scream pushing and pushing.

"Honey," she says. And he thinks: you lied. He thinks you knew and you never said anything. He thinks mom.

He bites his lip. But the words find their way out as soon as he tries to breathe, even if he didn't mean to say it, even if he didn't mean to let them out:

"Why didn't you tell me, mom? About him?"

He can't look at her. She's silent for a moment; "Him...? Who—" she says then, and then her breath catches suddenly and a small strangled noise comes out of her throat. "—oh. Oh, Arceus—oh, no. Did he— did he hurt you—? He—?"

She sounds like whatever he says next might break her into pieces and so he keeps his mouth shut, digging his nails into his palms until they hurt. His eyes sting as well, harder than they did before, but he's not crying. He's not.

"I think we should—go inside and talk," Misty tries to intervene. Her voice goes almost unnoticed for a handful of seconds; then he takes a step back, taking his face away from his mother's hands.

"Yeah," he manages. He keeps his eyes on the grass. "We should do that."

He goes first, carefully avoiding lifting his head until his mother is behind him. Misty helps her up the porch steps. The door's already open, and he holds his breath a little as he walks inside, wondering if the house will reflect the way time went by at a different speed on his mother's face.

But the house hasn't changed. The small red doormat still swallows his footsteps, and there's still the framed photos on the wall going up the stairs and the phone on the counter at his left, and even the floor's as clean-scrubbed as it's always been. His eyes hitch on a single different detail, a potted plant that he doesn't remember having seen before, with large flowers of a bright pink; and something else too, one more photo on the wall. He walks a step closer to look at it. He hears the voice right as he meets his own eyes.

"Pikapi...?"

His breath stops halfway out of his throat. He turns, slowly: Pikachu is standing on the doorway to the kitchen, his ears pricked up high, his eyes wide.

And he's not sure what happens then. All he knows is that a second later Pikachu is running towards him, and his knees have hit the floor and his arms have stretched to catch him. He holds him as tight as he can, all of his shaking, sobbing weight, and he's still not crying but he buries his face in his fur and his eyes are burning, burning, burning.

—-

They sit in the living room. Delia doesn't take her eyes off Ash for an instant, but he keeps his obstinately on the floor, hunched over his lap and Pikachu. He doesn't say anything, and the clock on the wall ticks on and on, the seconds piling up into walls between the three of them.

"...Ash was—kidnapped by someone," Misty says finally, since he won't. He gives a scoffing huff of breath.

"Not by someone," he remarks. "By Giovanni. My father."

Delia's shaky hand runs to her mouth. She looks as though a terrible weight fell on her shoulders, and Ash bites his lips and doesn't go on. Misty shakes her head a little.

"Want me to explain the rest?"

He seems to consider the offer for a bit; then folds his arms around his knees and breathes out again. "No, I—I'll do it."

He does. His words cut like glass even if this time he holds back all the sharpest edges and hurries over the most hurtful bits, and his mother's hand trembles some more and she bends over like she's going to vomit right there and then, a thin anguished noise slipping through her fingers. He still doesn't look up.

"A few days ago I managed to run away," he finishes after he's told her everything else, his nails clawing at the skin of his arm. "I—wasn't far from Cerulean City, so I went to Misty's gym."

Delia doesn't speak. Misty lets out a small sigh. "The body they found," she adds, quietly, "it was someone else's. Giovanni made us find it so we wouldn't look for Ash."

She still says nothing for a few moments. She stares at Ash, and everything in her looks about to crumble, like a house under the pull of a hurricane: "Honey, I—I'm—"

"Did you know, mom?" he stops her. His shoulders tremble slightly. "Did you know that he'd want me sooner or later?"

Her face scrunches up. "No. No, I didn't. I haven't—seen or heard from him since before you were born, I didn't even know if—if he knew you existed at all. I thought—at first I thought he might look for us again if he found out, but he never did, and then thirteen years passed and—I didn't know, honey. I didn't."

"Then why didn't you tell me about him?" Ash wants to know. "Why did you tell me—all those lies about how my dad was a pokémon trainer and all that?"

"...I thought—you'd be safer if you never found out the truth," she says. Her voice cracks. "I was wrong. I'm—honey, I was wrong, I'm so, so sorry. Please believe me. I'm so sorry."

She tries to lay a hand on his face and he jerks away from her touch, drawing in a sharp breath. He presses his lips together as her hand hovers mid-air for a second and slowly falls back onto her lap; then breathes out and stands up abruptly, forcing Pikachu to jump down from his knees.

"I wanna go to my room," he says. Then stops, his eyes turning uncertain towards the stairs. "Is my room still...?"

"It's still there," his mother answers. "I—I left everything."

Ash stands in place for another few instants, balling his hands into fists, then storms off without another word. Pikachu follows immediately after. Misty's whole body shifts forward on impulse as well, but she swallows and stays sitting, her fingers fastened around the edge of the armchair. When the sound of Ash's footsteps fades the silence is thicker than a quilt.

Mimey chooses that moment to walk in and lay a tray with three steaming teacups on the coffee table. Delia doesn't even seem to acknowledge it: instead she stares at nothing for a while, paler than a sheet of paper, and Misty bites her lip and wonders if she should at least try to say something. Before she can think of what though Delia stands suddenly and runs off towards the kitchen, her hand pressed back to her mouth.

She follows her after a second, and finds her hunched over the sink, dry heaving and shaking from head to toe. She doesn't know what to do. She wraps her arms around herself and stands on the doorway, waiting. Delia's hand finally finds the knob and lets the water run for a bit.

"I did this," she says, without turning to look at her. Her voice is a broken whimper. Misty shakes her head.

"You didn't," she replies. "Giovanni did. Not you."

Delia grasps the edge of the sink. "I'm his mother. I should have protected him and instead I didn't even—I saw the body and I couldn't—"

She can't go on. She sobs; then turns the water off and stares at the wall, trying and not quite managing to steady her breath.

"I was—seventeen when I met Giovanni," she tells her, still not turning. "Seventeen. That's not much older than you are now. And then I left him about a year later and after I did I found out I was pregnant. I didn't know what to do. And I thought—when he never showed up again I thought we were safe. I never even—heard his name again until today."

Misty sinks her teeth into her lip. "Ash is alive," she whispers after a moment. "I know this is—really a lot, but—he's alive. We can keep him safe now."

Delia reaches for a towel and uses it to wipe her eyes. She drops it on the counter then, and turns to look at her, her face all red and puffy.

"Misty, honey, could you—be a dear and go check if he's alright? I would, but—I think I'm not the person he wants to see right now."

She nods. "Are—are you going to be alright, though?"

"I will," Delia promises. "Please. I just—don't want him to be alone."

Misty takes a half-step back towards the hallway, then stops, biting her lips again. "I don't think he's—really blaming you," she tries. "It's just—a lot for him too."

But Delia shakes her head. "He should blame me. He's got every right to," she says. Then somehow manages to pull the corners of her lips into a faint smile. "Go. Please. I need you with him."

She nods again and turns to leave, after lingering on her feet for a bit still. She looks back when she gets to the stairs: Delia is bent over the sink again and her back is jumping, like she's crying or trying to hold back the sobs. Misty swallows, something in her crumpled up and hurting; then breathes in and hurries upstairs.

—-

He doesn't answer when she knocks. When she turns the knob and peeks in anyway she finds him standing with his back to the door, staring down at something.

"It's me," she lets him know. He still says nothing, so she walks in and closes the door and draws near to see what he's looking at. He's holding his pokéball-shaped alarm clock, turning it over in his hands like he's not sure what it is or where it came from.

He sets it down on his desk as she watches him. "So, what's it feel like to be home?" she asks; and he gives a little shrug, still looking at the clock. He glances at her after a couple moments.

"Is—my mom okay?"

Misty purses her lips. "She will be," she sighs. "Give her a little time."

Ash looks away. Pikachu is staring up at him from the floor, his eyes still huge. "I didn't want to hurt her. I just—"

He doesn't go on. She sighs a little again.

"I know."

Again he doesn't reply. He picks up something else, a pencil sharpener shaped like a Poliwag; then leans over and spins the globe on his desk. The regions and the oceans turn into a green-blue blur.

"Everything okay?" she asks after a bit. Ash stops the globe, his fingers landing on the Orange Islands.

"Yeah. Told you, you don't need to keep asking."

"Fine, sorry for worrying," she retorts, raising her eyebrows. "You're even quieter than usual, that's why I did."

His fingertips trace the distance from the Orange Islands back to Kanto, and from there to Johto. "I'm fine. It's just—"

"What?"

He purses his lips. Then shakes his head and turns away. "Nevermind. It's just stupid."

"Okay," she gives up. Ash climbs the ladder to his bed and runs his hand over the spines of the bunch of books and videotapes lined on the shelf right above. He picks the last one out and flips through the pages. It's a picture book, yellowed and creased enough to be as old as he is.

"Where are the rest of my pokémon?" he asks. "At Professor Oak's lab?"

"Yeah. We could go see them if you want."

He seems to consider it. Then drops the book on the mattress and shakes his head. "I don't really feel like explaining everything again right now."

"Fine. We can do that another day."

He says nothing. He lies down on his back and stares at the ceiling, his arms spread out across the bed. Pikachu wedges himself in the space between his neck and his shoulder with a faint sound.

She watches them for a bit, then sighs a little again and sits down on the last step of the ladder. Her eyes run across the room, going over the posters and the shelves and the TV and his Snorlax beanbag: all the things that Delia kept dusting even when she thought no one would ever come back to them. She tries to imagine what it might feel like, to be back in this room filled to the brim with remainders of what his life was before, and she comes up with nothing.

When she looks up after a while he's curled up towards the wall. She presses her lips together and sits back down, leaning her arms against her knees. She waits.

—-

There's a timid knock on the door a couple hours later, and Ash bites his lip and keeps his eyes on the wall. "Honey...?" comes his mother's voice after a moment: "Can I—can I come in?"

He bites his lip harder, then sighs and rolls to his back, wincing a little when a slight jolt of pain runs through his injured side. "Yeah."

The door opens. His mother looks like she's done a lot of crying, but she smiles a little bit. She doesn't come in, though.

"I just—wanted to tell you that I made some dinner, if you're hungry," she says. Mimey peeks from behind her. "I—I made hamburgers. Your favorite."

He sits up and shrugs. "Sure, why not," he mumbles, still looking at everything but her eyes. He climbs down from the bed as Misty stands, stretching her back; and stands there for a second before finding the nerve to walk towards the door. Only when Pikachu hops down the steps and looks at him in anticipation he resigns to.

He doesn't look, but he can still feel his mother's eyes not leaving him for a moment, and he hesitates as he's about to walk past her. She takes in a shaky breath.

"Honey, can I—" she starts, then stops, stumbling on her own words. "Can I—can I hug you? It's—it's okay if you say no, I'll understand. And you can still be angry at me. I just—really want to hug you."

Ash's stomach crumples and he presses his teeth into his lip again, staring at the floor and at her pink slippers. But he recognizes the plea in her voice, the same desperate want he felt when he first heard it while he hid behind the corner, and so he gives another shrug, his nails sinking into the skin of his palms.

"If you want."

And she takes a step closer, tentatively, almost uncertain; then slowly folds him into a hug. She smells sweet: like something growing in the oven, like the air outside the kitchen window. Ash stiffens, his face pressed against her cardigan, and keeps his arms frozen at his sides as her hand runs through his hair and she lets out an almost-sob, and maybe there's a tiny bit of him somewhere deep down that just wants to let go, to give into her arms and sob a little as well—but it's so small and so far away that's almost not there at all. The rest of him feels out of place in her hug, the same way he felt when he walked into his room again. The same way he felt when he picked up all the things that were so familiar once, one after the other, and it was like they belonged to someone else.

(It feels like not being really home, he thinks. Like being there but not being there at all.)

His mother's hand runs down his back and he knows he should have broken the hug when her fingers find the scars. She stops and her breath catches, and she holds him even tighter for a moment, shaking: "What has he done to you...?" she whispers, then lets him go to look at him and he steps back almost immediately—too abruptly, probably, because her arms remain outstretched towards the air for a second too many. He kicks the floor a bit, then forces himself to glance up and stretch his lips into a brief sort-of smile.

"I'm fine," he assures her. Then adds: "So, about those hamburgers?"

She nods and turns to make way downstairs, a bit too quickly, like she's trying to hide tearful eyes. Misty gives his arm a little squeeze as they follow.

They sit awkwardly at the dinner table, mostly in silence even if Misty tries to kick off some conversation, and when his mother does speak he thinks of how different her voice sounded before, when she still hadn't seen him. How less broken. He pushes the hamburger around in his plate, his throat too tight to eat.

Outside the window the garden is dark and still, and his eyes keep running to it, expecting to see someone hidden, watching, waiting. But he sees no one.

—-

Giovanni holds his head up and forces water down his throat. He'd spit it right back in his face, but he's hurting too much everywhere to really do anything.

The glass makes a clinking noise against the floor of the cell when he sets it down, somewhere out of his reach. He wishes he was so dazed by the pain that Giovanni's words would be just garbled nonsense, but he's awake enough to have heard everything with perfect clarity. Awake enough to hear him ask: "Are you starting to see it now? How we are not that different after all?"

He closes his eyes, but he can still see his shadow tower over him. "Coraggio, just one word. Yes or no. I'm sure you can manage that."

He swallows. Breathing freaking hurts, and it hurts even more to force out an answer, but he does.

"Yes."

—-

Delia sets up a bedroll on the floor of Ash's room. He tries to insists that he'll sleep in it so Misty can have the bed, but she's not gonna have that: "Come on, you haven't slept in your bed in how long?" she argues, crossing her arms. "I'd say you kinda earned it. I'll be fine."

But when she wakes up after a couple hours of sleep the room's awfully quiet. She sits up and looks at the bed: it's empty, the blankets thrown to the side. Pikachu isn't there either from what she can see, and she lets a few moments pass, her bottom lip caught between her teeth. Then pushes aside her own blankets and stands, running one hand through her hair.

The top floor of the house is all quiet, save for a slight rustling she hears when she walks past Delia's bedroom—she's awake too, probably. There's no light coming from the bathroom or from anywhere else, so she hesitates for another few seconds and then heads downstairs. No lights there either, but in the faint moongleam she makes out the small shape huddled up on the couch. The knot that was twisting her insides a little comes loose.

"Hey," she says, taking a couple steps closer. He doesn't turn to look at her. "What are you doing down here?"

Ash keeps his eyes on the window. "Making sure he's not coming to look for me."

"I can do that for a while, if you want to—"

"He's not," he stops her. She blinks.

"What?"

"He's not looking," he insists. "He should have found me by now. But he hasn't."

"And that's a bad thing?"

"He's not the kinda person who just gives up, so yeah."

She bites her lip again, then walks up to the couch. Pikachu shuffles closer to Ash to let her sit. "Maybe he doesn't know where you are," she tries. Ash gives her a glance.

"I'm sitting in the living room of my own house," he points out. "And I was at your gym until two days ago. He knows who you and Brock are. That should have been one of the first places he checked."

He draws his knees a little closer. He's changed into a clean shirt and pajama pants: those were his, but they still look slightly too big for his body, even if he's taller than he was a year ago. Misty tucks her hair behind her ear and shakes her head. "Okay. Then why do you think he hasn't?"

"He's planning something."

His eyes turn back to the window. Hers follow, and the back of her neck prickles a little despite the garden outside being exactly as still and undisturbed as it was moments ago.

"Like what?"

"I dunno. But you can bet it's not gonna be something nice."

She finds nothing to retort, so she's quiet for a bit, her teeth sinking again into her lip. "Or maybe he thought at this point he'd have brainwashed you for good," she says then. "Except then you escaped and proved him wrong."

Ash looks at her again. "And what? He went oh well, that's a shame and just gave up? I told you, he doesn't do that. You heard what my mom said. She didn't hear anything from him in thirteen years and the whole time he was waiting."

He's right, probably, so she sighs out and says nothing. For a while he doesn't either; he rests his chin on his knees and stares outside, his brow crumpled to a frown.

"I tried to run once before," he tells her after a few minutes. Misty turns.

"And what happened?"

He gives a grim scoffing sound. "I got caught. The pokémon they gave me had locators on. They got me after a few hours."

She doesn't want to hear what comes next, but she asks anyway, her voice faltering a little: "And...?"

"They beat me," he says. Again like it doesn't mean anything, like it's not even worth a hitch in his breath. She holds hers. "I got some broken ribs. But it wasn't—"

He stops and his shoulders twitch. Misty shakes her head. "What?"

"It wasn't—the reason I didn't try again until now," he spits out, and now his voice does shake slightly. He breathes in. "There was—a girl."

"A girl?"

He nods. "Yeah. He—Giovanni sent me on a mission as a test to see what I could do. I was supposed to steal this shiny Eevee and bring it back to him. Well, things didn't go all that smooth and the guy that owned the Eevee, he—he tried to fight, but he was alone and there were five men Giovanni sent there with me, and I'm pretty sure they killed him. And then when we got to the room where the Eevee was supposed to be there was this little girl. I think it was his daughter."

Misty swallows. Her throat's caught on a lump and she's hurting somewhere deep down, and what makes it worse is that he's still talking like he's not, like he's telling her about something that happened to someone else. Or like he's been hurting for so long that it doesn't even register anymore. "And—what happened then?"

"They wanted me to hurt her," he says. "She was crying and one of them told me to hit her so she'd shut up. But I couldn't do it, so I just stood there. And then she—the girl, she bit the guy that was holding her, and there was this—this moment where two of them were distracted, 'cause one of them had the girl and one had the Eevee, and I dunno what I though, I just sent out most of my pokémon and told them to attack the others. And I ran. I didn't even try to take the girl with me. I just ran."

She doesn't want to hear any more. But she listens as he goes on: "After they got me—Giovanni came to see me. He wanted to make sure I'd learned my lesson. And then he told me—"

He stops again. Misty's lips feel numb, prickling. "What?"

He takes a breath and pushes it out again. Now it does sound like he's hurting, and maybe he's shaking a little; but the room's too dark to be sure. Pikachu looks at him, his mouth a worried little o. "He told me—that because of what I did my pokémon were killed, and the girl was hurt too. Bad. I could have tried to take her with me. Or I could have even just done what they wanted and knocked her out so she'd stop screaming, 'cause I knew that if I didn't they'd do much worse. But I didn't. And he said—that in the end we weren't so different. That I could try all I wanted to convince myself that I wasn't like him, but when I really had to make a choice I only thought about myself. And that's—the same thing I'm doing now, ain't it? Putting you all in danger."

She can't say anything. Ash shakes his head, digging his fingers into the fabric of his pants to pull his knees closer still.

"See, you agree."

"I don't," she retorts. It sounds like a sob. She sniffles and angrily wipes the corner of one eye: "Of course I don't, you... idiot."

He doesn't reply. She sniffles again.

"So why didn't you try to run again after that? Come on, finish the story."

Ash lifts his head and looks at her like she's stupid. "Because I did once and because of it people and pokémon got hurt and killed."

"So you stayed," she says. "You didn't try to run from a place where you got beaten regularly and where you—got whipped and got your ribs broken, and—what else? Did they give you food at least?"

He looks away. "Sometimes."

"Oh, sometimes, great. Let me add 'got starved' to the list. And you didn't try to run again. Because you thought if you did others would get hurt."

"Yeah," he grumbles, his eyes still on the floor. "Well, it's not like there were a lot of times when I could have anyway. A couple occasions max. Most of the time they guarded me really well."

"But in those occasions you didn't even try."

"There were other people."

She shakes her head. "So you saw that one chance to escape after you'd been trapped there for—what, months?" He gives a small nod. "From the way you told it it sounded like you didn't even have time to think about what you were doing, you just took what could have been your only chance. And you didn't hurt that girl or your pokémon. They did."

"I did other things," he cuts her off. Misty bites her lips.

"I don't care," she says though. "You're not like that—that piece of shit because you were tortured until you couldn't take it anymore."

He doesn't speak, he just tugs at the fabric again. What things, she desperately wants to ask. What did he make you do to break you so thoroughly. But last night she told him that he didn't have to tell her unless he wanted to, and she's pretty sure he wouldn't answer anyway, at least not yet. So she just sighs and leans her chin on her hands, and for a while they listen to the silence as the clock ticks.

"Fine, so he's planning something," she says after a bit. She holds her head up. "You know what? Big freaking deal. We're gonna be prepared to face him whenever he decides to show up."

Ash glances at her again. "You don't—"

"Yeah, I don't know what he's capable of. I got that," she stops him. "I guess it just means I'll have to be capable of worse, because I'm gonna kick his pathetic ass personally if he even so much as looks at you again, and I'm gonna look at him in the face when I do and tell him that I know you better than he could ever dream to, and that you will never be like him. Never, not even close. It doesn't matter what he forced you to do."

Her voice cracks a little towards the end. Ash keeps looking at her, and maybe for a moment the corners of his lips twitch into the ghost of a smile; but it lasts so little that she might as well have imagined it. Then he shakes his head and turns away.

"You'd be wrong."

"No I wouldn't," she retorts. Then adds, for good measure: "I'm always right."

He raises his eyebrows. "Sure."

"Even Pikachu agrees with me. Don't you, Pikachu?"

Pikachu nods, then snuggles against Ash's side to better illustrate the concept. He jumps slightly, surprised, but after a moment the lines of his face soften and he lowers one arm to stroke the pokémon's back. Misty smiles a bit and stretches her own hand to give his striped fur a ruffle. Ash doesn't draw back when her fingers bump against his. He just looks at her hand for a while.

"Wanna get back to bed?" she tries asking. "I can stay up to keep watch if you want to get some sleep."

But he shakes his head again. "I'm fine. It's just—weird being in my room," he says. "But thanks."

So she sighs an okay, and pulls her feet on the couch, shifting into a more comfortable position. "You don't need to stay here as well, y'know," Ash tells her. She leans her head against the back of the couch and sighs again.

"Shut up."

—-

She calls Brock at the gym in the morning. He answers within moments, like he was waiting or about to call as well.

"Hey," he greets her. "I take you got there safe."

"Yeah." She bites down on her lip a bit. "Well, we got here yesterday actually. It just—slipped my mind to call you, between explaining Mrs. Ketchum and everything."

"How did she take it?" he wants to know. Misty thinks about it for a moment—thinks of Mrs. Ketchum doubled over the sink, of how her hands were still shaking a little at dinner, and her fork klinked against the plate more than it should have. Her fingers tug at the phone wire.

"It wasn't—the easiest thing," she says. "She thinks it's her fault."

Brock breathes out in a sigh. "And Ash?"

"...Let's just say it wasn't the easiest thing for him either."

"I imagined as much," he says. Then runs a hand nervously through his hair, and his eyes drift off for a second before turning back to hers. "Listen, your sister just got back here if you want to talk to her, she's gone to take a shower, but—there's something else we should probably talk about first."

"What?" Misty asks. But she thinks she knows, and her stomach twists a little. Brock purses his lips. At the corner of the screen she sees him drum his fingers.

"Jessie got back at me last night. She said—she's managed to get in contact with one of the people they told us about."