Candela didn't always pick up on the emotional states of others, at least not other people, but it didn't require a great deal of intuition to tell that Blanche wasn't in the mood to talk just yet. Blanche led the group through the hallway with the icy ferocity of a January cold front. Maybe they didn't see it in themself, but Candela recognized a temper tantrum when she saw one.

Not that Blanche had no reason to be upset. Honestly, they had every reason. As much of a daredevil as Candela liked to be, this deathtrap was weighing on her, too. But moping around and throwing a fit, even in Blanche's saturnine style, didn't do any good. Yes, Candela was angry and scared and starting to think this could be her last adventure, but shy of her outburst about being third-wheeled, she thought she was managing the situation fairly well.

Next to Candela, Spark rode Flicker and swayed with the rhythm of the ponyta's stride. She didn't like how uncharacteristically sullen he was. He kept his eyes forward, but they looked dull and unfocused, like he wasn't really seeing anything. Candela kept waiting for him to make some goofy joke about the bland and unchanging subterranean landscape, but he never did. She thought of him tossing and turning in his sleep back in the first room. She desperately wanted to know what was going on with him and Blanche, but that conversation was on hold while Blanche was still cooling off.

Between the suspense and the silence, Candela's nerves could only endure so much.

Granted, it wasn't total silence. There were the two sets of human footsteps, and the kuh-klup, kuh-klup of Flicker's hooves. And something else… a rushing whisper, very quiet, very regular. It hadn't been there a few minutes ago. Was she hearing things now? Or was that water?

Candela's foot splashed into a puddle, and she exclaimed in surprise. The others halted and looked at her with fearful expectation in their eyes.

"It's OK, it's just water," Candela said, trying to put them at ease. "Jeez, you guys are so jumpy."

"You're the one who just got spooked by a puddle," Spark pointed out.

Candela shook her foot in an attempt to dry her shoe. A joke made at her expense was better than utter silence, she supposed. She walked ahead of Blanche, listening for the water she'd heard before. The further she went, the louder the sound.

"Do you hear that?" she asked.

Blanche cocked their head to the side. "It sounds close. We should watch our step."

The party continued forward at a slow, cautious pace, lest a misstep throw them into an underground river, or drop them through a floor made brittle by water flowing beneath it. All the while, the sound grew and became complex. An almost cheerful burbling, the echoes of dripping water, the hush of a brook over uneven ground.

Candela turned a corner, and the hallway expanded into a wide, cylindrical space, much like the subway tunnels of home. Instead of rails, a small stream swerved along the ground, five feet across at its broadest. It entered the room from a small, circular hole in the cave wall not too far from the hallway the leaders stood in. Crystals hung in clusters from the ceiling, emitting that calm, blue light, reflected in crooked, dancing patterns by the water. It would have been pretty if Candela weren't sick to death of glowing crystals.

Candela ventured forward, eyes peeled for hidden dangers in the seemingly tranquil oasis. She knelt by the stream and dipped a few fingers in, creating a series of tiny eddies and swirls in the clear, shallow water. The temperature was disappointingly lukewarm, but Candela wasn't picky. She cupped some to her mouth and sipped. The liquid soothed her parched throat and revived her dry tongue.

"Candela! We can't know if it's safe to drink," Blanche chastised, but knelt next to her nonetheless.

Candela lifted another handful of water to her lips. "Oh, relax. Would you rather die of dehydration?"

"I'd rather not die of a microbial infection from drinking river water," Blanche said.

Candela shrugged. "Suit yourself. Spark?"

Spark dismounted and, walking gingerly, joined Candela and Blanche by the water. "Isn't volcanic rock supposed to be good for purifying water? I think I read that in a book somewhere," he said as he sat next to Candela and trailed his hand in the water. He brushed his wet hand through his hair and around his neck, cooling himself off and leaving streaks on his dusty skin. He flinched as his fingers touched the butterfly closure Blanche had placed over a small cut near his temple.

"OK, a couple things," Candela said. "Number one: you read things other than comics? And number two: is everyone finally ready to talk about why you look like death warmed over?"

Suddenly, Blanche appeared to be fixated with their reflection in the ripples of the stream, and Spark chanced a drink of water, taking his time to do so. Candela tapped her fingers impatiently. Were they really doing this? She held up her pinky to Spark and waggled it back and forth.

"A promise is a promise," she reminded him.

Spark smirked and crossed his pinky with hers again. "I know, I know. It's hard to know where to start."

"How about the beginning? Would it help if I told you more of my story?" Candela asked.

"Perhaps," said Blanche, still watching the water.

"OK, let's see," Candela said, leaning back. "I woke up in a chair in some kind of office. Very stalactite-chic. Dr. Dillinger was there to greet me, and I thought she was just an obnoxious, awkward scientist trying to recruit me to her creepy cave lab. She said she knew about me through her ex, the Professor, and wanted me on her team. Said her hypno had shared my dreams with her using that diode. I didn't take the bait to join her, so she told me to think it over and look through some of her research while she took care of something elsewhere. Which must have been you guys."

"I believe so," Blanche agreed.

"You seemed pretty torn up about her research when we were reunited," Spark prompted. "What's Dr. Evil been up to, other than trapping legendary pokémon and using them to open a portal to a dimension of nightmarish sandshrew monsters?"

Candela's chest felt tight as she mentally reviewed the contents of Dillinger's binders. She remembered how shocked she'd been at first, how certain she was that she was misreading statistics or not understanding the intent of the studies. Because what she saw couldn't be real. Nobody could do that to pokémon. There couldn't be that many casualties.

And yet, the truth was there, in cold sets of numbers detailing the number and nature of the deaths.

She shuddered, and Spark placed a warm hand on her back. "Candela?"

"I'm sorry," she said, shaking herself from the memories. She'd made a promise. "The reports I read all had to do with creating a psychic bond with pokémon. But it wasn't like Dillinger was just trying to just communicate with pokémon or anything. She was trying to puppet them. No commands or anything, just straight from her brain to her pokémon. At first, it sort of made sense. I mean, think of how close you could be with your team, you know? But then…"

Her reflection shivered in the water as she tossed a pebble into it. She hadn't expected this to be so hard to talk about. But she had to. Blanche and Spark needed to know.

"She carved out the personalities of the pokémon she experimented on. Lobotomies, neural surgery, every kind of risky, painful, evil procedure you can imagine, just to create these shells that she could control. But it didn't work. Dozens of pokémon died during surgery, and dozens more didn't survive the recovery. Their deaths were horrible and agonizing and… and…"

She took a moment to collect herself as Blanche and Spark quietly absorbed the information. Flicker stood behind her and nudged the back of her head gently with his soft nose. Candela turned her eyes toward the star-like crystals above Flicker's shoulder, trying to prevent herself from tearing up. All those ruined lives, and for what?

"The ones that made it to the field experimentation stage didn't last long, either," she continued. "Dr. Dillinger would have a little success, and then the pokémon would suffer fatal seizures, or simply collapse without warning, or… even after having so much of themselves removed, there were still pokémon who just… gave up. Stopped eating, stopped moving. They chose to die to get away from her."

Spark placed his hand over his mouth and stared at the wall across the stream. Tears danced in his eyes, brightening their natural blue. For once, Candela couldn't fault him for being oversensitive. Not after what she'd read.

"Dr. Dillinger isn't a scientist. She's a murderer," Candela said. "I was enraged when she came back to the office, and when she said she'd killed the two of you, I knew she had it in her. I felt this crazy rush of power, which must have been because of Moltres, and I tried to attack her. But Hypno put me to sleep, and the next thing I knew, I was in that stone chair. But something odd happened. Based on the studies I'd read, Dillinger had scooped out the personalities of her experimental subjects, leaving them basically hollow, devoid of identity. But Hypno isn't like that, and I know that because he deliberately didn't tell Dillinger about my dreams that second time."

"In all the chaos, I keep forgetting to ask about what happened to him," Spark said, rubbing the wetness from his eye. "Did he run off while we were sleeping?"

"He did," Blanche said. Their voice carried a soft, subdued sorrow. Maybe the understanding was finally sinking in.

"I'm terrified that he went back to Dillinger. I think he might be one of the few, if not the only, pokémon to have survived her procedure. Maybe that will stop her from killing him, but she's made threats before, and… I feel awful," Candela said.

Flicker nibbled at her hair, and she reached up to pet the soft, velvety fur of his cheek. Her ponyta had always been a little neurotic and skittish, and it moved her that he would set aside his own fear to comfort her and help her friends. Dillinger didn't need diodes to communicate with pokémon. She just needed a heart.

"So, that's my story," Candela said. "Now it's your turn. Spark, you mentioned something back in the throne room about 'mad scientist hide-and-seek'?"

"Something like that, yeah," Spark said. He fidgeted with a smooth rock as he spoke, rolling it between his fingers. "I woke up in a dark maze. Dr. Dillinger showed up to bully me for a while, trying to convince me that I'd been left behind to die, lots of cheerful stuff like that. Then there was this earthquake, and rush of power, and legendary bird blah-blah-blah, we all know this bit. I escaped from Dillinger by tumbling down some stairs. After that, I ran into Blanche."

He spoke so stiffly that he barely sounded like Spark at all. "Uh… OK, and then what?" Candela asked.

"Dr. Dillinger had designed a situation to play into both of our fears," Blanche said, picking up Spark's slack. "Like she did with you, she asked me to join her lab. When I turned down the offer, she made it clear that I didn't really have a choice. She threatened to kill Spark unless I convinced him that I was joining Dillinger of my own free will. She didn't want him trying to save me. Of course, we know now that the true goal of all of her little games was to incite the powerful emotions that link us with the birds. She never intended to kill or recruit any of us."

Candela flicked another pebble into the stream as she mulled over the information. "So, I take it you managed to convince Spark into letting you go?"

Blanche hesitated. "…Yes. I used Resolute to drive him back."

Whether he was aware of it or not, Spark's hand lifted to the bandage on his cheek, and Candela put it together.

"Shit, Blanche!" she said, touching her own cheek in sympathy. That welt had to have come from Resolute's Vine Whip. She'd seen Blanche pull a one-hit KO with that move. Resolute must have held back, but it still would have packed a punch.

Blanche shifted uncomfortably and blinked in that quick, fluttering way of someone dispelling would-be tears. "After Spark left, I also attempted to confront Dillinger, and connected with Articuno in that moment. I tried to pickpocket the pokéballs from Dillinger's coat, but was only able to grab that key we used on the portal. Dillinger attacked me with a jynx, and I passed out. Spark found me and got me out of the cavern before I could freeze to death. He saved my life."

They said the last sentence slowly and deliberately. There was another layer of meaning to what they were saying, but Candela couldn't quite decipher it. Blanche clearly felt guilty about what happened, but there was something more.

"At best, I spared some toes from frostbite," Spark dismissed. "Like you said, Dr. D wasn't out to kill anybody."

"Not intentionally, no. But I hate to think what might have happened if you hadn't come back for me," Blanche said.

"Why did you come back for them?" When Blanche shot her a look, Candela added, "I mean, they convinced you to go, right? What brought you back?"

Spark pressed his lips together in that tight, silly grin he tended to pull before saying something absurd.

Candela hurried to cut him off. "Don't you dare say-"

"Instinct, mostly," Spark said.

Candela dragged her hand down her face dramatically. At least he was being himself for a second. His obnoxious, incorrigible self.

"I'm serious!" Spark said, elbowing her. "I knew something was up with Blanche, and so I hid for a while, then went back to find them."

"But you didn't know something was wrong. Not right away," Blanche said. "You truly believed that I would say and do those things to you."

"But… wasn't that the goal? For you to make him believe that?" Candela asked. Neither Blanche nor Spark made a move to answer. This was getting ridiculous. "OK, I get that we all went through some heavy shit, and it's not easy to talk about. But I feel like I'm missing something big here, and would appreciate it if the two of you could break up the 'Spark and Blanche Show' and let me in for a minute. What is it that I'm not seeing?"

"We told you everything," Blanche said.

"Ugh, it's like pulling teeth with you," Candela complained. "You guys talked this stuff out, right? Spark, you know Blanche didn't mean what they said, yeah? And Blanche, you did what you had to do to protect Spark. Sheesh, are we back in grade school?"

"It's more… complicated than that," Blanche said.

"Then explain it to me, because there's still something not right between you two, and it's starting to drive me crazy," Candela said.

"I'm the thing that's not right, Candela," Spark said with a wincing, uncomfortable smile.

"I don't understand…"

Spark looked everywhere but directly at Candela. "This is another one of those hard things to talk about. But I don't want to keep leaving you out and hoping things get better on their own."

He paused, and Candela nodded encouragingly for him to proceed. He clasped his hands together, stilling their nervous motion, and continued.

"Honestly, if I'd been Blanche, I'd have left me behind. I guess that's why I was so ready to believe them. Because I see myself as a burden to you both, and I keep being proven right at every turn. I'm a perpetual failure. An embarrassment. An idiot. When I told Blanche how I felt, I think I wigged them out a little. Am I right, Blanche?"

Blanche fumbled for words. "I… no, I mean, that is…"

Spark laughed. "It's OK. Because what are you supposed to say when someone tells you that kind of stuff? You can't say, 'No! That's not true!' because they'll just argue with you. You can't agree with them either, because that's just more fuel for their self-pity. So you're stuck, and you feel terrible for any little thing you've ever said that might have hurt this pathetic friend of yours. And you're hyperaware of everything you say from then on out."

His voice had grown gradually louder and more frantic, and Candela could only sit in shock and let him finish. Blanche kept their face turned away, but their ears had turned red.

"Not only that, but you feel like you have to watch that friend's every move, because who knows what they'll do next? Will you have to talk them down from a panic attack? Will they fling themself into a risky situation that you'll have to save them from? You can't trust them anymore, and you hate it, and some part of you is afraid that their life is in your hands. So you're extra careful, and extra kind, and you flinch when other people don't baby your friend like you do."

"Spark, stop," Blanche said, a quiet contrast to the loud, nervous energy of his speech.

"I… I'm sorry," Spark said, lowering his volume and blushing. "I, uh, guess I'd been storing some things up."

Candela whistled. "No kidding, buddy. I don't know what to say."

"Exactly," Spark said. "I shouldn't have said all of that. I know I'm putting you guys into an awkward situation, and I really, really wish I could stop, but I-"

Candela stopped him by hooking her arm around his shoulder and yanking him into a tight hug. She caught Blanche with her other arm and pulled them in before they could protest. She held them both close, savoring their heat and the rhythm of their breathing. Then she pushed them away again.

"Uh, you feeling OK, Candy?" Spark asked, still visibly reeling from the sudden display of affection.

"You're both idiots," Candela said. Blanche scoffed but didn't interrupt. "But you're my idiots, and you're supposed to talk to me about this crap. I wish I had the right words for you, Spark, but I don't. All I have is the promise that whether you're a failure or not, you're one of my favorite people, and I'll always have your back. You two, Blanche. We're gonna figure this out, and we're gonna get out of this fucking cave, and maybe we're all gonna have to go to therapy. Who knows."

Spark chuckled and playfully shoved Candela's shoulder. "I can't believe I've gotten away with calling you 'Candy' at least twice now, and you haven't said a thing."

Candela shoved him back, nearly knocking him over. "You're pushing your luck, Sparky. Don't get used to hugs, either."

It felt so good to see him laugh. Even Blanche cracked a smile. Candela really wanted to know the best thing to say, the thing that would pull him out of… whatever this rut was. She wanted to ask him more questions, reassure him that he wasn't a failure. He just thought differently. Would he understand her if she tried to explain that? She didn't want to spoil the moment, that laugh that took over his whole body, that sunshiny smile, just like…

No, not just like Joule. But maybe not unlike him, either.

Something soft thumped against stone behind Candela, and Flicker reared and whinnied in alarm. The three leaders jumped to their feet, wide-eyed, electrified by adrenaline.

There, alone in the middle of the cavern, was Blanche's duffel.

§

AN: Thanks for all the well-wishes! So many warm-fuzzies! Gawrsh, I'm blushing! OK, trying to break the trend of long notes today, but did want to note that, yes, I also totally believe the Austin Powers film series exists in this pokémon universe, and that Mr. Bigglesworth is a glameow in it, and that Spark and Candela love ridiculous movies like that (to Blanche's horror). This is in relation to Spark's "Dr. Evil" comment. Also, this was an unexpectedly difficult chapter to write, and shouldn't have taken as long as it did.