Chapter Ten:
Care

Disclaimer: I do not own Pokémon in any way, shape, or form. The only "ownership" I can claim are the personalities and my interpretation of howPokémonlook in a more realistic light, but other than that...yeah, I don't own anything on them. XD I do, however, own my original characters and writings, unless otherwise stated. In an exceptional case, a few special OCs belong to their respective owners, I'm merely borrowing them for the story that's to unfold. I'll point them out when their time to show up comes. :3

Note: Thanks to those who reviewed! I'm so glad that you enjoy the story enough to reread it! I hope that you keep enjoying this story, my lovelies! :D

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"I know you're in there. I can hear you caring."
-Dr. House, "House M.D."

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Everything hurt; his back, his legs, his tail, and oh, his head. His poor aching skull, it felt like a Dodrio was drilling holes into it. It hurt almost as bad as the sides of his neck. He noticed all of this slowly but surely when he gradually slipped out of the blissful ignorance of the black, and his hurting body began to clamor for his conscious attention. But he was warm, and that was something to be grateful for. It eased most of the pain away, relaxing his tired muscles and he curled a little tighter, and regretted the action almost immediately. A shockwave of pain struck him suddenly, making everything writhe in agony as it rapidly splintered out to every nook and cranny of his scaled hide and he let out a poorly contained wail. His neck especially throbbed and ached, the very last thing to ebb away in its tempo. It didn't completely dissipate, however, as though it was a physical reminder that he couldn't move as much as he wanted. So, he experimented, turning and stretching and inching his body along, so he could draft an idea of what he could and couldn't do, where he could turn and what would be impossible to do at this time.

His groggy mind began to leisurely clear and he felt considerably more like himself as the minutes continued to tick by and he came to a full evaluation of his limits and boundaries. He couldn't turn his neck, especially toward the right, like he was used to, but the left side was more forgiving and bearable.

The question of, where am I, was immediately answered as scents slowly began to filter in. He quietly and quickly processed the familiarity of his settings. He was in a medical recovery room, with clean tiled floors, clean white walls, and the light settings dimmed. The fragrance of antiseptic and bleach crawled so deeply into his lungs, he was quite convinced he'd never get it out of his system. The quiet hum of machinery greeted him next, low hums and gentle beeps that lulled him briefly, a source of familiarity. He spotted them beside the bed he was on. The bedding consisted of warming blankets, although most had been thrashed to the side in an unkempt heap. He carefully angled his body to twirl in a circle, but stopped at a figure sprawled in a visitor's chair beside the bed he was in.

Dirtied, disheveled, and appearing utterly exhausted, Lupin was the picture perfect image of a lone traveler, right down from the dusty traveling satchel to her muddied coat, jeans and boots. She looked like she hadn't even bothered to really clean up. Her head was slumped against her chest, arms crossed loosely on her abdomen, her legs splayed in a makeshift attempt to get comfortable in a considerably uncomfortable-looking hospital chair.

She actually did it. She got me here.

He stared in disbelief at the woman snoozing in front of him. She had done what he thought impossible. A whole half day's travel—well over half a day, in fact, now that he thought about it—and she'd made it in…

Well, he wasn't sure how long it had taken, but it couldn't have been more than a few hours, tops.

He wondered how long he'd been out, but the thought was chased away when a door he'd overlooked in the corner of the room opened. It admitted a woman into the room, her mousy brown hair pulled into a bun. She swept a hand over her skirt and smiled upon seeing Totodile staring at her rather critically.

"Oh, good! You're awake! Nurse Joy was beginning to get worried," she greeted, looking him over before venturing closer. "Try not to move around too much. Your neck is still swollen from where the poison had been administered at the injection site."

Pausing beside Lupin, the woman stooped to gently shake the werewolf's shoulder. She jumped backward just in time when Lupin bolted up right with a snarled gasp, a fist raised and clenched in midair, ready to strike. She halted mid-swing, suddenly aware of where she was. The mousy-haired nurse backed away, looking torn from calling for help and wanting to resolve the situation herself. Lupin stared, unseeing for a few seconds, heaving air to and from her lungs before calming and lowering her upraised arm, slowly adopting a slightly abashed look.

"I—sorry, I don't—I'm sorry, I didn't mean…please, don't—don't do that. I don't like being touched. I'm sorry." She panted out, colour briefly flushing her cheeks in mild embarrassment. She opened her mouth to say more, but stopped with her mouth half-open when she noticed him staring at her. Relief flooded her features and the stiffness in her frame melted in an instant.

"Oh, thank god, you're awake. You slept for two days; I was starting to get really worried about you."

The nurse, briefly forgotten, chose that moment to clear her throat, drawing attention to herself. She avoided Lupin's mismatched, piercing stare, and found better focus on Totodile instead.

"If you hadn't gotten here when you did, your Totodile would most definitely have died. Spinarak, especially newly hatched babies, have extremely potent venom. They tend to inject more than they need until they can gauge how to dispense it properly after they've gained proper experience."

The woman hesitated, then added to Lupin with a faint nod. "You should probably report the nest to the police station. We've had problems in the past with that particular Ariados and her brood before. They tend to migrate, and we'll have a brief period where it's safe to travel between here and Violet City, but around this time of year, she comes back and has a whole nest invading the forest." She frowned, her brow furrowing with worry. "We've had trainers and their pokémon disappear without a trace because of that. The police usually team with the Johto Ranger Division and sweep the forest for them, try to relocate them further away from human establishments, but that Ariados, she tends to come back. It makes traveling hazardous and pitching camp after dark even more so."

Lupin sighed, exhaling loudly and nodding, slumping in her seat once more. "I'll be sure to do that. Thank you." She glanced over at Totodile, studying him, then looked to the nurse again. "How long until he gets discharged?"

"We just need to do one final physical to make sure he's able to travel. I'll let Nurse Joy know that he's awake and that you'll need a prescription for an antidote written up. Do you know where the pharmacy is at?"

"Downstairs on the first floor, I remember."

"Right. Well, just hold on for a few minutes and I'll grab Nurse Joy." To Totodile, she added with a warm smile, "I'm glad to see you up and about, little guy."

Then she took her leave, closing the door quietly behind her as she went. There was a momentary interlude of relative silence, before it was broken by the exhausted, but relieved sigh from Lupin. Totodile looked to the woman, who, if it were even possible, slumped further in her chair.

"Don't ever scare me like that again, or I swear I'll make a pair of boots out of you," she griped, although there was no hint of animosity in her tone whatsoever. Not like there used to be when she spoke to him. Her brow wrinkled and creased with worry as she regarded him carefully, mismatched eyes studiously scouring every inch of him that she could see. She sat up a little more, suddenly looking abashed.

"How…how're you feeling?"

He snorted. "Like death warmed over. But overall…alive."

Her lips twitched, but they didn't quite reach a smile. She cast her eyes downward, staring at the floor, her lips slowly turning into a hard frown.

"I should have smelled those bastards and I didn't. I let us…" She let herself peter out, looking morose and troubled. "I should have checked the area before pitching camp like I'd been doing the past few nights."

"It was starting to rain."

"I can still smell through it. Rain is a nuisance, but it ain't a magical barrier that suddenly kills my nose. That ain't an excuse."

He stared at her, bewildered for several long moments. "You didn't know," he quietly said, then added, "I…I didn't even know."

He felt very small, all of a sudden. He liked to puff up and play the big, bad Feraligatr, but in truth, he knew he was nothing more than a tiny Totodile. He cast his eyes downward. "I didn't tell you to stop through any pokémart and stock up on supplies. If we'd had any medicine, we wouldn't have needed to rush here. You didn't know that and I did. I should have told you."

She pinned him then with a dark stare that sent a chill crawling up and down his spine. Not that he'd ever admit it aloud, but it did slam a lance of fear into his gut, if only for a moment.

"Well, we didn't. And because of that, you wanted to sit there and die. Do you have any idea how much that pisses me off? Just—just to sit there and do nothing and just die? What the hell is wrong with you? If you were bred to be a fighter, then that means fighting everything, not just other pokémon, doesn't it?"

"You don't understand," he muttered, turning to avoid her stare.

"Humour me."

That alone both caught him off guard and didn't surprise him. The juxtaposition of the response had him, for once, floundering for a feasible response. He consented to blame his untimely response on the medication addling with his headspace.

"Some pokémon…" he paused, trying to find a way to word things properly. "Some pokémon can…they can think of possibilities. Abstractions. Outside the box. They can…"

Words momentarily failed him and he choked on his poorly concocted explanation before realization dawned on him.

"If you hadn't been able to get here as fast, would you have still thought you could have gotten me here alive?"

"I sure as hell would've tried," Lupin responded, giving him a puzzled look. "And?"

"I didn't. I didn't believe you could. I didn't believe I would make it, so I was resigned to believe I would die. Why struggle and make my last moments more painful than they already were, to believe in something when it'd only be in vain? What was the point in hoping for something that seemed impossible?"

"So you just chose to lie down and die? When the going gets tough, you just give up? That's a pretty shitty excuse." She spluttered indignantly, her features darkening. "Are you going to do this same damned routine if it gets too tough when you go on your journey?"

He winced at her blunt words, feeling them hurt worse than he was willing to admit because he knew that she was right, and he hated that she was. He could see the oncoming storm building up, had seen it for some time, but he quickly backpedaled, hoping to dissipate the situation's tension and salvage it.

"Did you think I wanted to die?"

"You sure as hell were acting like it."

"Accepting death for what it is and wanting to die are two separate things. I didn't want to die, but I didn't believe there were any other options, given how far away from help we were. Could you smell any other trainers close by us, or a settlement, or even a home within our area?"

She was silent on that, although he could see the next comment already lining itself up, already waiting on the edge of her teeth. He pressed on, not giving her the chance.

"I didn't want to die," he stressed. "But given the circumstances…I didn't exactly see you running over half a day's journey to the nearest center before I did. I didn't…I couldn't see it. I'm—I'm still accepting that you made it here in time. Even if you couldn't do that, you still…you would have tried to do so, wouldn't you?"

It still boggled him how she could press on and defy what would have been an inevitable fate. No pokémon wanted to be poisoned, paralyzed, or burned, or even drained dry of blood or lose a limb. No pokémon wanted to die, not in the wild and certainly not while in the care of a trainer. The instinct to survive was instilled in every living being, some stronger than others. But nature was cruel; his parents infused that credence in him and his nest-mates, even if they hadn't been of the wild, they still accepted and knew that to be the truth. Nature was not kind. It did not weep or take pity on those who fell by her devices and evolutions, the very edges that made predator compete with prey and vice versa.

And yet, humans had the innovation to defy those rules. They weren't always successful, but they pushed forward in the face of diversity, laughed in the face of a challenge and tackled it down until it either yielded or they did. They saw the "what if" and the "what could be" scenarios, always breaking boundaries and pushing limits. It wasn't completely absurd that he couldn't identify similar veins of thought; it was simply harder for him and his ilk to think outside the box, difficult even. But it was this feature that was what attracted him to the battlefield. What could a trainer do to help him reach his full potential, one that he'd never see if he were a wild pokémon? How could they polish him to be a finely-tuned fighter and battling companion? He personally couldn't see that, not beyond the idea of being with a trainer one day traveling the world and fighting to get better.

Yet, he knew that death lurked on the fringes of that life choice, it was a force of nature that loomed, a fearful dark predator that snapped up both the unsuspecting and prepared alike. Those Spinarak and their mother Ariados had been that predator the other night, ready to snatch him away. He struggled at first, like any animal would with the will to live. Survival instinct was strong, but it could only do so much in the face of adversity. When he'd felt the sting of fangs and poison piercing into his flesh while he lay helpless in their webbing, he knew it would have been only a matter of time. There had been no help to call for or rely on, save Lupin, and she hadn't had any antidote on her. Acceptance had been his immediate next step because of that.

He wanted to convey all this, to explain the way he held it in his mind, but words failed him, and he slowly clacked his jaw shut. Exhaustion overcame him again and he carefully turned his head to glance at the door. Nurse Joy was still absent from her appearance. He hoped she'd come soon. He wanted out of here. He turned again to find Lupin pinning him with that intense, mismatched gaze of hers again. Time and again, ever since the full moon, he'd see the other face with that furry snout and glinting, sharp teeth and yellow eyes glowing in the firelight. A predator not of this world, full of human intelligence and a beast's instinct.

He'd heard of many pokémon capable of human-like intelligence in his time at the lab, from the professor's studies. Pokémon that could grasp abstract concepts and lateral thinking, with a sharp learning curve that gave them an edge over others; they were one of a kind. It was this facet his kind as a whole generally lacked rather sorely, especially the wild ones. They relied on brute force to crush foes and annihilate trespassers. Trained ones of his kind had a better grasp of things, a worldly outlook, and could accept further thinking than feral predecessors.

But this was different. She was an enigma, something that wore a very human skin with some very beastly instincts hiding under the surface. He wasn't sure anymore if this was a good or bad thing now. On the one paw, she hadn't harmed him—only scared him a little, admittedly—the night she'd changed. She'd even used her fleet feet to spur them faster toward a town that could help him, a feature he quickly surmised as a natural athletic gift to her…well, whatever she was.

On the other paw…what if that fell away at the drop of a hat?

She stared at him, her gaze intense and her face unreadable. He stared back just the same, unsure of how to continue, how to explain it in full. She slowly crossed her arms loosely over her abdomen in the same manner they had been when she'd slept, a frown finally pulling at her lips.

"You're full of shit beyond your years, ya know that?" She finally said, sighing.

"And you are empty of anything despite yours," he retaliated.

She smirked, and he took it as a good sign. A few weeks ago, she would have snapped at him. Hell, she would have done so last week, even. But now, she seemed less inclined to bark and snarl about his words, just as he felt less prone to baiting her or using sharp words aimed to hurt and disarm.

"Crotchety little thing, ain't ya?"

His jaws parted to spew another comment, but the door in the corner swung open, as if on cue to interrupt them. He was both disappointed and gladdened at the disruption. Nurse Joy entered the room, her bubblegum pink hair bouncing with every step, her uniform prim and proper and clean as she stepped through on light feet. She smiled at the room's patrons, blue eyes sweeping over him and then Lupin. The mousy-haired assistant followed behind her, quietly closing the door, a clipboard full of paperwork pressed to her chest.

"Good morning! I apologize for making you two wait so long. I was dealing with a few last minute arrivals." Nurse Joy beamed, looking rather chipper before she nodded to Totodile. "I'm glad to see that you're awake. We were beginning to worry." She quickly established herself over the machines to check the various bits of data they were projecting, nodding satisfactorily as she went before coming to exam him. "You got here just in time. That Spinarak poison must have been terrible to endure. Did Kara tell you about reporting the encounter to the police station?"

She looked to Lupin briefly, before continuing to remove the bandages on his neck to probe ever so gently at the sensitive and inflamed tissue on Totodile's neck. He winced in spite of himself and the kneejerk reaction to twist and snap kept boiling up at each poke. He allowed her to do her job, however, and after a few moments of enduring everything, she was finished and rerolling a fresh swath of bandages around his neck.

"Uh, yeah. Yeah, she did. Said it was a sort of an ongoing local problem."

"Yes, it is. Not entirely local, but close. There are large populations of bug-type pokémon in the surrounding forests, and several species are very poisonous." The prodding hands removed themselves and Totodile relaxed slightly. His neck ached and throbbed. Nurse Joy moved to a table with various bits of medical paraphernalia such as bandages, cotton balls and cotton swabs. "He's going to experience some discharge for about a week and it might get uncomfortable. There'll be stiffness and soreness in his neck at the site of the bite, but the swelling should go down in the next day or so. You'll need to cover the affected area for the day, let it air out at night. We've cycled out the poison from his system with antidote, but he'll need one more dose before the end of the day and he should be good to go."

Nurse Joy nodded over her shoulder, collecting things from cabinets above the table. Kara moved to Lupin, offering the clipboard. "Discharge paperwork as well as his prescription. He'll need to take it easy for the next few days, so he can heal up. No battling. If you can manage it, let him soak in some water at the end of the day for at least a half hour, minimum. Water helps rejuvenate his species."

"We can get that medication over the counter from any pokémart," Totodile muttered derisively, but Lupin only nodded and mumbled a thanks as she skimmed the paperwork and signed it. She stuffed the prescription in her coat pocket and stood, stretching. Totodile winced when he heard the audible cracks her back made. Nurse Joy returned to the group with a paper bag, offering it to Lupin.

"Bandages and ointment for when it has to be covered. The ones he has right now should suffice until they need to be changed."

Kara moved over to Totodile and began undoing the sensors that he hadn't even noticed that were attached to his body. She was careful and studious of where she touched him, and he was grateful for the gentle touch. He, however, kept a wary eye on Lupin as Nurse Joy gave terse instructions on his care, emphasizing the vitality and jiggling the bag in her hand before handing it over.

Then the way was free between the two of them. She hesitated, looking almost abashed, uncertain. Her hands were fidgeting at her sides, as though they didn't quite know what to do with themselves, something he was sure she wasn't paying much mind to. Then she slowly approached, offering them to him.

"You…ready to go?"

He stared at them, noticing for the first time the minute scars and burns here there on her fingers, the pads of her hands, the backs of them. They were old, he was sure, made from everyday tasks, accidental mishaps. He brought his gaze back to her face, studying it. The one there, across the bridge of her nose and down her right cheek…that one looked deliberate and he briefly wondered why anyone would do such a thing.

And she can't even remember who did it. Maybe it's a blessing in disguise, he thought. For once, he felt a pang of sympathy when he remembered that her entire body had been covered in the slick scars, the pale flesh bare of any fur and standing out starkly against her fuzzy form.

He finally nodded, waddling sluggishly toward her outstretched hands at the edge of the bedding. It hurt to push up to his hind legs, but he endured the small amount of pain for the few seconds he needed. She did the rest, scooping him up under his arms and carefully pulling him against her shoulder, one arm under his back legs, the other across his back. It was…nice. Comfortable. He let a gush of air escape his nostrils as he laid his weary head against her shoulder, relaxing into her grip. His limbs were leaden weights and it was a relief to simply not move and have someone else do the work. He let his eyes close, lulled by the steps Lupin took as she left the room after gathering her things. He was asleep before she even stepped out the door of his recovery room.

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After finished with the pharmacy, Lupin stopped by the video chat consoles, Totodile was still draped across her shoulder, fast asleep. The stray and idle thought of, you just woke up, came flitting through, but was quickly quelled when she remembered he was still recovering. He was stable, and that much was good. When she'd felt him shivering so violently in her arms the last half hour or so before Catallia City, it terrified her enough to put in a last burst of adrenaline into her system to keep going. By the time she came stumbling into the Pokémon Center's lobby, her legs were a quivering mess, barely able to hold her up. Everything ached and throbbed, her hips, knees and ankles on fire as everything settled after she stopped. The medical staff had sprung into action, taking the deathly still and limp Totodile from her, shouting medical jargon too quickly for her to follow. The rest of the night did not pass quickly or easily enough. She had been too exhausted to do much other than sit in the lobby, yet too wired with gut-wrenching anxiety to sleep.

She had been riddled with it ever since, waiting for updates, progress, any scrap of information until she could be cleared to see him. She had completely forgotten to call Phillip or the professor to update them on the situation. She decided that she couldn't do without giving them the courtesy, now that things had calmed down.

She stared at the inert screen with its glowing background, waiting with instructions on how to use it. She scanned them, then went through the steps to place a call. A telephone icon sprung up on the screen, the words "Connecting, please wait" flashing below as speakers from the terminal projected a ring every few seconds.

"Call connected" seared across her screen seconds before the screen cut and showed Phillip's face front and center, the lab presenting a mellow background. She could see some of the pokémon playing a friendly game of tag in a playpen just behind him.

"Oh, Lupin! So glad you called, I was getting worried. How are things going, did you meet Mr. Pokémon?"

She hesitated, taking the precious few seconds to shift Totodile a little against her shoulder. Phillip's smile faded, his attention drawn to the inactive pokémon slumped against her.

"Is everything all right? What happened?"

She took a breath, steeling herself before she dove into it, slowly and halting at first, before it smoothed in transition near the end. The meeting had gone fine, she noted, starting with a good point, before diving into the encounter with the Spinarak and the Ariados after the rains had stopped. She had to omit how far she really had been from Catallia as well as the real manner in which she'd scared the spiders away, but for the most part, she remained as honest as she could on the accounts. Phillip listened with rapt attention, not entirely responsive at first. A wave of disbelief had slowly covered his face as she had regaled on the events. When she finished, she fell silent, and hadn't realized she'd been stroking Totodile's backside until that moment. Hurriedly, she dropped her hand and tucked it under him to relieve her other one.

"That…that…wow. You're…you were very lucky," he finally breathed out. "Legendaries above, you were really lucky. And-and he's okay? Nurse Joy said he'd be fine?"

"Just a little sore in his neck for the next few days. No battling," she nodded. Not that we've done much of that at all to start with.

Phillip expelled a long sigh of relief and ran a hand through his hair. "Oh, thank goodness. You're behind schedule, but…well, all for the better. The professor is too, so there are no worries about that." He smiled reassuringly. "Just…get here in one piece, the both of you."

The conversation dwindled after that with miniscule updates, and a few minutes later, she was hanging up. The screen blanked out and went back to its casual menu one. Lupin sighed, feeling like that was one less thing on her plate. Without much else business to take care of in the Pokémon Center, she took her leave after gaining directions to the police station. She ended up walking three blocks before finding it. Inside, she was assaulted by a myriad of scents that were only just marginally better than the scent of hospital bleach and antiseptic. But only just.

A front desk clerk looked up from his work and squinted at Lupin before putting a pair of glasses onto the bridge of his nose. He leaned back, no longer squinting and he asked, "Can I help you?"

The lobby was empty save two other bodies sitting in a row of chairs against the wall to her left. Shifting Totodile to her other shoulder, she nodded.

"Yes, I, uh, I was advised by the medical providers over at the Pokémon Center to…to…"

The clerk was leaning over to the side, staring at Totodile. He squinted again at him.

"Those damned Spinarak and Ariados, I'm guessing?"

Lupin expelled a breath noisily through her lips and nodded.

The clerk sighed even louder, already reaching toward a paper rack on his desk. "Here. Fill out this paperwork. After it gets filed, we'll get back to you in three days—"

"Three days?"

The officer raised a brow. "Traveling trainer? You got the time to linger in Catallia, don't you?"

"No, I don't. I'm on an errand for Professor Elm. Here, I have…hold on." She unhitched a shoulder strap from her pack and swung it around to her front, digging into a pocket to produce the ID Professor Elm had gotten her. Handing it to the officer, he took his glasses off and squinted once again, lips pulling into a frown.

"Hmm. I guess that this might change things. Hold on, let me talk to my superior real quick, see what she has to say. Maybe we can rush this processing step."

"Wait, why does this paperwork need a processing delay, anyway?"

The officer, halfway out of his seat, sighed. "Well, the thing is, this is the season we need to draw up a paper trail in order to get the Rangers involved for another forest sweep. We can't just call them up on a hunch, sweep through the forest and end up with no evidence of Ariados and her nest residing in it. We've had incidents in the past and now we need to back our reasons for having them come all the way out here to help." He motioned to the paperwork. "Hence, this. We can't afford to rush things all the time, and we need time to review the paperwork itself before we forward this to the Rangers. If we can speed this up, we can let you on your way by the end of the day."

She sighed as he handed her ID back. "Another day here…great."

I guess it's a good thing the professor is delayed, then.

He gave her a sympathetic smile. "Sorry. Just the nature of the beast. I'll be right back. Spinner, c'mon. Let's go," he said, glancing upward. Something dropped down from the ceiling, a bright streak falling by a spindly thread of webbing, and it scuttled over to the officer's shoulder. Lupin jumped back, her tail bristling under her coat. The officer chuckled at Lupin's reaction, reaching up to pet the green and black spider on his shoulder. "Sorry about that. Spinner likes doing that for the shock factor. He's a naughty little guy like that."

"You guys use those little monsters?" Lupin gaped, staring at the green and black spider with suspicion and disgust.

He frowned at her, looking troubled. "Monsters? They're not monsters. You just had a bad run in with some feral Spinarak. It's unfortunate, but it happens. Plus, we've been using Spinarak in Catallia for years now. Growlithe are usually the norm for officers but here, it's tradition for us."

Lupin stared, uncertain and nervous at the little spider. It looked at her with beady black eyes, before lifting its back end. On its abdomen, a comical face was patterned out on it. It showed a smiley face at the angle it presented to her. Lupin remained unconvinced, but took the paperwork regardless, her eyes never leaving the spider.

"I'll just…fill this out while you go and talk it out with your boss."

"Sounds good to me. I'll be back in a few minutes."

Taking a clipboard he slid across the desk before disappearing, Lupin retreated to an empty seat, staring over the forms she was given. She wanted a shower. She wanted a nap. She hadn't had a proper meal in the last few days, and what little she'd had hadn't been quite enough to fill her up. She started scribbling in what information she could, feeling more and more awkward the more personal the information got. Address, pokégear number, trainer ID number, email address…

By the time the officer had come back, she only had the parts she could fill out finished. Then she had to explain her situation, and the longer she tried, the more stilted and difficult it got. Lupin finally ended on the note of, "If you just…call Phillip—the professor's main aide—he can vouch for me. Please. I know how it sounds, but…I was examined by Ms. Joan from Cherrygrove, she came out to the lab to help a few weeks ago. The police have a record of the incident too."

"Whoa, whoa, calm down. Easy, there. I'm not going to arrest you, if that's what you think. We already called up the lab to confirm who you were. Mr. Sykes confirmed who you were, said you just called from the center about twenty or so minutes ago." He smiled disarmingly, taking the clipboard. "My superior's already approved of getting this pushed through today. We just need you to put this on record officially."

"That…that isn't officially?"

"Video records. They go with the paperwork when we forward it to the Rangers. Just a few questions to confirm and follow up on your encounter, and then you're free to go."

That sounded simple enough, she reasoned. She nodded, conceding to follow him.

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"How long was I out for?"

"A few good hours. Here, lemme give you that medicine they had me get before you eat."

Lupin gently pulled Totodile into her lap, the medicine bottle in her hand. He sighed, leaning his head on her knee as she injected the plunger with a soft hiss into the softer bits of his scales. Totodile winced, hissing at the brief blossom of fire as the medicine wormed its way into his system.

"Ow."

"Sorry. At least that's the only batch you need. And now, the bandages. They said to let it air out at night. I already got a bath for you so you can soak."

He was quiet as her hands carefully began to unwrap said bandages from his neck. The sensitive tissue throbbed, the cool air kissing the wounded area.

"Why're you suddenly being so nice to me?"

The inquiry threw her off, he could tell from her stilted silence. Her hands froze, and he glanced up at her to see her expression unreadable. And yet, her eyes were studying him just as intently. Then she was back in motion again, putting aside the bandages on the bed, and picking him up to carry him to the bathroom.

"You've been a pain in my ass since the day I met you, but I'm not heartless enough to be uncaring. I mean…I do care. If I didn't, you'd be in a more questionable condition right about now."

"You don't call this questionable?"

"Point taken," she sighed. They passed through the bathroom door and she immediately turned to the small tub. The water she laid him in was warm and he settled comfortably in it and already, he could feel himself feeling much better. The ache in his neck lessened considerably. Lupin sat on the toilet after putting the lid down to make an impromptu seat. "But I still stand by what I said. Look. If I didn't care, do you think I would've taken you away from every fight you've been trying to get into? Pokémon trainer battles, I can't really do that, I'm not really a trainer. But wild pokémon are a different story. You can defend yourself against them, even if you don't have a license. That's an exception to a rule, as long as it's not instigated by you."

"You've been reading up on these things," he said, surprised. She nodded.

"But if I didn't care…I would've let you go all out and not bother on making sure you were healthy to keep going. Or I would have done a dick move and released you. Or gave you away to someone and gone on my own way. Anything. It…it would've been different if I didn't care. And I do, I just…took a little longer…to actually show it and for that, I…I'm sorry. I know I'm—difficult. It's just…I don't know, I'm…still trying to figure things out."

"That's one way of putting it," he commented quietly. He studied her for a moment, considering. "But I suppose you're right…things would be different. And…I didn't make it any easier on you. I'm not much better."

"Well, at least you're getting a taste of what you'll have to expect when you're out traveling with…well, whoever you end up being a friend with. You're a tough little bastard. I mean it, too. The nurse at the center said most victims your size, they don't make it within the first hour of being bitten. You held out for at least three—I kinda had to omit where we were, exactly, but still. Three hours. You might not look at it this way or at it like this right now, but you got heart."

She smiled and for once, he didn't conceive the image of that other face of hers over it. She looked nice when she smiled, scar and all. And she wasn't hiding half her skull with that hat of hers either. He rather liked her without it.

The moment was there and gone again in an instant, however, when the smile fell away and she sighed, standing. "I'll let you soak for a little. Just call me when you want to get out."

"It might be a while," he warned. He was feeling quite cozy, in fact.

"That's okay. I can wait around for room service, then."

"Can you get me some food, please? I'm…I'm really hungry."

She smiled again. He liked it better when she smiled, he realized.

Lupin nodded, pausing at the door. "Sure. Just sit tight."

Then she was gone and he stared at the doorway for several long minutes before he angled his tail like a rudder to start swimming in circles. How thoughtful of her. She'd filled it up enough so he could do this.

Maybe she wasn't as bad as he'd thought she was.

OoOoOoOoOoO

Note: D'awww. They do care about each other! It just took a lot of insults, name-calling, and antagonistic conversations (not to mention, ankle-biting and tail-nipping) to get through for it to show! And trust me, Totodile did a lot of tail biting when he didn't think he was getting the proper attention he thought he deserved. :P