Walking through the front door of her father's palatial home never failed to make Delaney feel like a child. Originally belonging to Delaney's great-grandparents, it was officially known as the "Pokemon Mansion" and often treated as a tourist destination because of her father's spacious backyard full of pokemon which he opened to trainers. When Delaney had been a child, everything about the garden had fascinated her: from the trainers who visited it to the breeders and collectors who contributed to it. It was through one such breeder that Delaney got Blitzkrieg when he was a feisty prankster of a chimchar.

Now, the strangers on her property made her feel uneasy. More than a couple pointed to her as she followed behind Annette, who had dismounted from her father's staraptor outside of the main gates to the property. Delaney grimaced and shoved her hands into pockets of her oversized black hoodie, purposefully avoiding their gazes behind an oversized pair of sunglasses. She had to force herself not to charge at an older woman who took a picture using her cell phone as Delaney walked by. Where in the hell do these people get off…

Annette opened the door and Delaney followed her inside. As she stared around the front entrance, the winding marble staircases seemed at once bigger and smaller than they once had and even though Delaney had grown up in this house, she felt oddly like a stranger now. "You look too thin." Delaney hadn't noticed her father in the foyer, but there he stood, wearing a pair of khaki shorts, a white short-sleeved shirt and a tan sweater around his shoulders. Though it was hot out, Blake was often cold and kept a sweater on him "just in case". He stared at Delaney like he was looking at a stranger and then gestured towards the hallway. "Come on, we have a lot to talk about."

"We can talk over dinner," she said and at that, she began to trudge towards the stairs to go up to her bedroom.

"We'll talk now," he stated sternly in his "Mr. Backlot Businessman" voice. He only used it on Delaney when he was of the utmost seriousness, and apparently, that was now.

Sighing a bit to herself, Delaney went back down the stairs, knowing there was no way to avoid this conversation. "In the library, Del," he said, and began to walk down the west hallway. Of course, the library was where he held the most detrimental conversations, so this was bound to be a doozy. She followed after him and entered the spacious room a couple of paces after her father. It was her least favorite room in the house. Whereas most libraries felt comfortable, like a place to waste the day in a fantasy world in front of a crackling fire, Blake's was more like a second office, a better office than his own official office. His original office at least had traces of him in it, with Pokemon books scattered around and rare, interesting artifacts on display. This had none of those little inserts, just rows upon rows of books Delaney was certain nobody had ever touched. It seemed almost pretentious, which was odd to her because her father most certainly wasn't.

Or at least, her father wasn't. "Mr. Backlot Businessman" was a bit full of himself.

Delaney took a seat in one of the plushy crushed velvet armchairs, hardly feeling worthy to sit on it, much less make herself comfortable and relaxed. She sat up as straight as a pin (like a proper lady, mind you) and tossed her hair behind her shoulder, because it was her father's biggest peeve to not be able to see her eyes when he was speaking to her. She looked him directly in the eye (hoping it wasn't a move she would regret) and simply said, "Ask away".

"What do you know about Unova?"

Even with the question mark at the end of the sentence, Delaney knew that he wasn't so much asking a question rather than waiting for her to give him information. Before she had started training, he had used the same tactic on her to figure out why she had failed a test or where she had been after curfew. Now it meant that she had done something that was somehow related to Unova that Blake probably didn't like, though what it was she wasn't sure. Had she said something about Unova in an interview back when she had done them? Shit, she didn't know. This was an odd way to begin a conversation.

"Other than the fact that Lydia lives there, nothing," Delaney said. She paused, thinking. "Wait a second-"

"Bear with me, Delaney," Blake said curtly. That was his code for "let me talk without interruption" and had been since she was an adolescent. He grabbed a small box from by his feet and handed it to her.

Delaney looked up at Blake in confusion. "What is this?"

He raised his eyebrows at her and adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses. "See for yourself."

Inside were a pokeball and a note, folded over several times. But which to open first?

Well, she could go for the pokéball, but there was the potential for some sort of bloodthirsty magmortar or garchomp with orders to kill could pop out and that just wouldn't be good. It wasn't like Delaney wasn't on some shit lists, that was for sure.

So the rational side of her grabbed the note first.

It's an oshawott.

I knew that would be your first question, because I knew you'd want to release the pokemon first.

"What in the actual fuck…" Delaney muttered. What kind of crazy stalker psycho was sending her things? And not only that, but they apparently barely knew her to boot, because seriously, who would open the pokéball first?

He was first given to me by Professor Aurea Juniper and when I first saw him, I thought of you. I hope he'll convince you of what I'm about to say.

You need to leave Sinnoh immediately. You aren't safe.

Come to Unova. Come find me.

I know you have questions. I hope one day I'll be able to answer them, but now is not the time for questions. Please listen to me, Delaney. I hope to see you soon.

-A

The note gave Delaney no answers, only questions. Who did she even know whose name started with an A? Aaron, the bug master of the Elite Four. She could cross him off the list immediately; he hadn't been exactly fond of her after she had demolished him as easily as she would some youngster who was a little too obsessed with wearing shorts. There was also a Frontier Brain named Argenta, though Delaney had never met her, so there was absolutely no reason to send her anything.

And what was an oshawott? Delaney grabbed the pokéball to release it, but Blake grabbed it first, his eyes trained on Delaney's face as it wrinkled in utter confusion. "Who's A?" he asked quietly.

"I have no idea," Delaney said honestly. "I don't even know anybody whose name starts with A."

"What reason does this A have to believe that you're not safe?" he asked in the same even tone.

"I have no idea!" Delaney repeated, this time more shrilly. "I rarely leave my damn room. Nobody knows where I am!"

"Well I found you, so if someone was really looking for you, it wouldn't be too hard," Blake retorted. Delaney almost remarked that this was probably in large part due to the fact that he had money, but held her tongue. That wasn't important right now. What was important was who in the hell was sending her foreign pokemon and begging her to leave home?

"I… I honestly have no idea who sent this or why," Delaney said, her violet eyes wide as she looked uncertainly at Blake.

"Well, Delaney, it's not like I'm well-versed right now in what you've been up to and who you've been contacting," he said, adjusting his glasses again. And then came what Delaney was most afraid of- his steely look disappeared and his eyes filled with concern. It's an understatement to say I'm worried about you, Del. I know you went through some difficulties with Team Galactic, but it's been almost a year. I was hoping you could've gotten past this by now."

"You're kidding me, right?" Delaney asked incredulously. "You really asked me here to tell me I should be over some difficulties by now?" Though she wasn't much of a crier, Delaney felt tears sting the corners of her eyes. How dare he insinuate that she should've been past this? How did anybody even get past something like Team Galactic? Blake was continuing to ramble concerned father type things, but all Delaney could focus on was the weird mix of feelings coursing through her. There was the anger, yes, but something also felt a bit like disappointment. While her father hadn't yet given up on the idea of getting Delaney back to "normal", he had given up trying to understand the very not-normal things Delaney was going through.

"You can't just isolate yourself from everyone," Blake continued. "Del, don't you want to be happy?"

And that right there was it. Delaney stood up, leaving a sweaty handprint on the crushed velvet chair as she did so, and stared down at Blake with angry tears running down her face.

"Delaney Christa Caldwell, sit down! This conversation isn't over!" he bellowed. Concerned father was gone. Mr. Backlot Businessman was back, and he was angry that he lost. As Delaney walked out of the library and back down the west hallway, there was an ironic smirk on her face. Despite everything, it was nice to know that she was no longer the only one feeling out of control. The maids whispered as she passed them and she shot them irate glances as well before sliding her sunglasses back on.

"Delaney! There you are!" The first one was a surprise. When she looked towards the voice, there was a bright light, which caused her to see spots, followed by the onset of more flashing lights.

"What in the hell…" Delaney muttered before realizing all too quickly what was going on- someone had alerted the press that she was home. The old woman with the cell phone crossed Delaney's mind before a middle-aged man in a cheap suit shoved a microphone in front of her face.

"Delaney, where have you been training? Nobody's heard from you!" he asked.

"Delaney, are you planning to challenge Cynthia again?"

"Delaney, you look so-"

"Delaney-"

"Delaney!" His red cap was askew as he dropped to his knees to meet her at eye-level. "Delaney, are you injured?"

The blonde-haired trainer couldn't stop crying as she gestured to an unmoving lump a few feet ahead of her. A clump of feathers on the ground, normally an iridescent white, were tinged with a deep maroon.

Lucas took a deep breath. "Oh Arceus."

"Please help him!" Delaney choked out, sobs wracking her narrow shoulders. "Lucas, please help!"

"Get the hell off of my property!" Blake bellowed. Delaney hadn't realized that she had dropped to the ground until she realized Blake had to bend down to reach her. "Get away! What do you think you're doing? She's a teenage girl, leave her alone!"

"What's happening, Mr. Caldwell?" a female with a sharp blonde bob in a patterned tunic asked. "Is Delaney having some sort of flashback?"

"Do you know how many law enforcement agents are at my beck and call, Patricia King?" Blake growled at the blonde. "I would strongly advise you to get off my property immediately?" He placed his hand on Delaney's still shivering shoulder. "Del? Come on, sweetheart, let's go back to the house."

Delaney wasn't quite sure how she was able to get up, or how she was able to walk, even with the assistance of her father. Once they were safely in the door, Annette met them with wide, curious blue eyes. "Is there anything I can do, Mr. Caldwell?"

"Take her up to her room," Blake said. "I'll be up there soon." He had already pressed his cell phone to his ear as he strode back towards the library. Delaney thought she saw the faintest trace of moisture in his eyes, but she wasn't too sure of anything other than Annette's small, cold hand guiding her as she headed upstairs.

It was almost creepy how Delaney felt like she was stepping into a time capsule as she opened her bedroom door. Nothing had been touched since Delaney had left on her journey, save for some dusting. The light pink curtains swayed in the wind as somebody had apparently opened a window some time ago to air her room out. She could hear voices faintly from the outside, though her window was high up enough that she couldn't catch much more than a faint "this is channel nine…" from a stray reporter.

A tote bag had been placed on her vanity amongst make-up and hair products that Delaney hadn't used for over a year. Her tote bag, with all of the items from her journey and her pokemon that she hadn't seen in months. Annette noted where her gaze had fallen. "They're actually in one of your father's back offices. We've all taken turns letting them out to get some exercise. Would you like me to get any of your pokemon, Miss Caldwell? It would really be no prob-"

"Can you please just call me Delaney?" she interrupted Annette. "Miss Caldwell sounds really fucking pretentious."

"Um, sure," Annette said, flustered. "What about your-"

"I don't want to see them," Delaney said shortly.

Annette's eyes got even wider. "Oh, okay, Miss C- Delaney. That's not a problem. We don't need to uh, deal with that just yet. I mean, whenever you're ready, I'm ready. I mean-"

"I get it," Delaney said flatly. She wandered over to the vanity and picked up the bag. It felt lighter than she remembered. She unzipped the main pocket and looked inside, absentmindedly picking up a TM. She looked at it as if she wasn't sure quite what to do with it. "Technical Machine 27- Return" was written on it in her loopy handwriting, her attempt to keep organized while on the road. Delaney smiled sadly and put it back in the bag. It had been far too long since things like TMs were vital to her existence.

"Can I get you anything?" Annette asked anxiously. "Do you need something to eat, maybe? Water?"

"A glass of water would be great, thank you," Delaney said. She actually wasn't thirsty, but Annette looked like a lost growlithe puppy as she scurried around, trying to make sense of what was going on. The younger girl hurried out of her room. She was probably grateful to have even a couple minutes to run to the kitchen to get a glass of water- she definitely had to have gone to the kitchen, because it was the farthest room from Delaney's bedroom. Not like Delaney could blame her.

Delaney set the tote bag back down on the vanity, looking instead at the vast amount of hair and make-up products that were strewn about. As Delaney picked up a tube of mascara, Delaney frowned. It felt like a lifetime had passed since she was a trainer, but she could barely even remember a time when she had cared about something as stupid as how voluminous her eyelashes were. She had rarely ever bothered with make-up on the road- it was a miracle if she did something more with her hair than throw it up in a ponytail.

She set the mascara back down and then opened a drawer. Empty. She opened a second door only to find a pair of pearl earrings and a fake nose ring from an odd rebellious phase from her younger years. Delaney picked them both up, looking at them curiously. She had worn the nose ring for all of five minutes, and that lasted longer than most of the other relics of that age. She hadn't even dyed her hair dark like she had wanted because Blake had pitched a fit at the idea. Thank Arceus he had, Delaney would've looked horrible with black hair.

…Which was why she had sneakily purchased a deep brown color as a compromise, as Delaney was reminded as she opened up another drawer that contained a box of hair dye with a smiling brunette on the cover.

Delaney frowned at the girl on the box. Why was she smiling so wide? What in the hell was she so happy about? It was just hair dye. "You have a gap in your teeth anyways," Delaney grumbled at the girl on the box.

"What was that?" Annette asked, setting the glass of water next to the tote bag on the vanity.

Delaney looked from the smiling box girl to the wide-eyed young blonde girl in the plain black dress in front of her. She was no longer wearing the cheap black flats that had been ruined in Pastoria. Delaney looked at the box girl and her irritating smile again and sighed. "How good are you with hair dye?"

"What in the hell is on your head?" Blake asked as he opened the door. He had brought her the box with the note and the oshawott's pokéball up from the library and set it by the door.

Delaney blinked at him as Annette pushed a dye-soaked tendril away from her face. "Hair dye," she answered matter-of-factly.

"I assumed as much," Blake said dryly.

"Well then why did you ask?" Delaney asked.

"Don't be facetious," Blake sighed. "Where did you get it?"

"In my vanity drawer. I found it."

Blake winced. "Please tell me at least that it's not that awful blue-black color I forbid you from using years ago."

Delaney held up the box, making sure that the awful smiling girl was not facing her. "It's that color, which is definitely brown."

"Okay, here's another question: why?" Blake asked.

Delaney shrugged again. "I wanted to." She was quiet as Annette applied the mixture to the last piece of hair, barely missing her right ear. "Do you think they might leave me alone now? I mean, maybe they won't recognize me."

"Delaney, I'm always honest with you, so I'm going to say it now- no, they probably won't leave you alone. In fact, now they probably have some sort of idea that you've hit bottom and now they're really going to be relentless."

"Great," Delaney said dryly, sighing.

"That's kind of what I want to talk to you about now, Del," Blake began. "It relates to the conversation I just finished having."

"With who?" Delaney asked.

"I talked to your mother," Blake said, not quite meeting his daughter's eyes.

Delaney's eyes widened. "You talked to Lydia?! Of all fucking people!"

"Watch your mouth," Blake said automatically. "Yes, I talked to Lydia. Believe me, I'm not overly pleased about it either, but frankly, I didn't know what else to do. It's no secret that I'm very worried about you, Delaney. Maybe you are hitting some sort of bottom, I don't know, but I just don't know how to help you anymore."

"I'm not asking for your help," Delaney said, glaring at him. "And I really don't want it either. I want to be left alone."

"Del, please just hear me out," Blake said with a sigh. "Listen, she suggested something that seems like a pretty good idea right now.

"If you're going to say I should go stay with her in Unova…" Delaney began.

"That is what I'm going to say," Blake said. "I don't want you to go, but I also know it's the best thing for you. Getting out of Sinnoh is what you need. Either they're going to tear you apart, or you're going to tear yourself apart. You need to leave."

"But why there?" Delaney muttered. Shame settled in behind her frown as she felt tears beginning to cloud her vision. "There are like, a million other places in the world. You can't tell me that out of everyone you know, there's nobody in like, Kanto or somewhere that I can stay with."

"Lydia is your mother and she wants to help, Delaney," Blake shrugged. "Maybe this is a good time to work through your issues with her and-"

"Arceus," Delaney interrupted exasperatedly. "This is not the right time to play therapist. Please just call and tell her I'm not going. There is no way I can deal with Lydia right now."

"Del, you're going to have to start dealing with some things," Blake said. "And Lydia is something you can deal with that has absolutely no ties to Sinnoh or Galactic or Marvel-"

"Please stop," Delaney said. Rage began to boil in the pit of her stomach. "Just stop, okay? You can't make me go. I'll just leave again, and I'll make sure this time you won't be able to find me." A tear slid down her cheek as she looked up at him, defiantly meeting his eyes. She ignored just how exasperated the gaze he gave her in return was.

"Delaney, it's the only logical solution left. Please think about it. Nobody will leave you alone as long as you're in Sinnoh, especially now that they've found you once," Blake implored. "You're not healthy right now, you just keep making things worse-"

"Delaney, we should rinse your hair out," Annette said, suddenly reappearing. Delaney wasn't even sure when she had left the room.

"Annette, if you could just give us a few minutes-" Blake began.

"If you leave hair dye in for too long, it can cause serious chemical burns on your scalp," the young blonde said firmly. "This will take just a moment."

Delaney got up from where she sat on the floor and followed Annette to the spacious bathroom, where she was waiting with the detachable shower head. Annette closed the door and put an old paint-smeared towel on the floor under the chair she had set up for Delaney. "Can hair dye really burn your scalp like that?" Delaney asked, wiping away a tear that had escaped on her trek to the bathroom.

Annette shrugged. "I have no clue. I just thought you might want to get out of there." She gestured to the chair. "Go ahead and sit down. I'll take as long as possible to do this."

"Thank you," Delaney said quietly.

"I'd give you a hug if I didn't think you were going to get that stuff all over me," Annette said, offering her a smile. "Come on, we better start the water at least so your dad doesn't realize I'm just helping you escape."

A rinse, conditioning treatment and a blow-dry and style later, Blake finally had enough of waiting to finish the conversation and knocked on the bathroom door. Annette and Delaney exchanged glances as Annette called "come in!".

Blake did a double-take at the brunette in the folding chair in front of the mirror. "If it wasn't for those eyes of yours, I would swear you were your mother almost twenty years ago."

Delaney cringed. "It's not a bad thing," Blake added quickly. "Lydia was lovely. She probably still is. And you're lovely, Delaney, you just… You look so different."

"That was the goal," Delaney said with a shrug. "You really don't think that this will throw them off?" Them being the vile reporters that were now certainly going to hang around her now that they knew where she was, of course. Blake did have a point there, even if he was otherwise completely crazy in thinking that going to Unova was a good idea.

Blake shook his head. "I don't think anything short of leaving will throw them off, Del."

"What if I get contacts?" she asked hopefully. "Like… blue ones. Or maybe green."

The look on Blake's face answered her question without the need for words. "Okay, so maybe not contacts. What about… a hat? What about… a cloak? Or a cape, like Lance the Dragon Master?"

"Del…" Blake said gently.

"How can Superman just take off his glasses and put on spandex and nobody knows who he is but yet there's nothing I can possibly do to change my appearance?" Delaney groaned. "This is such shit."

"Have you thought about what we talked about?" Blake asked. "Unova? They certainly wouldn't recognize you there with this hair. You could just stay in Nuvema Town with Lydia and nobody would be any wiser. There's a professor that lives down the road from her, I think, that she does some work for. Maybe you could get a job with her?"

"I don't think-" Delaney started.

"Or you could always train in Unova's gym circuit!" Blake interrupted. "I've heard great things about Unova's trainers. They seem quite a bit more socially responsible there. Their gym leaders actually work for a living, so much more respectable…"

"I'm not travelling again," Delaney said firmly. "No more journeying, no more badges, no more battling. No, no, absolutely not."

Blake was quiet for a minute. "So does that mean you'll go?"

Delaney groaned. "I didn't say that! I am not going. Arceus, just drop this!"

"You said you wouldn't travel, but you didn't say no to Unova," Blake pointed out, relentless in his newfound mission to get his daughter out of Sinnoh.

The look in his eyes was absolutely painful. It was almost pathetic to see "Mr. Backlot Businessman" giving her pleading growlithe puppy eyes and even worse, it made her inclined to agree with him after seeing him lower himself like that. He really had to be desperate, and the fact that he was so desperate made her sad.

He was just another casualty of The Incident, really. His life hadn't changed as drastically as her own had, but he knew people. He knew people in Pastoria, in Hearthrome, in Veilstone. He had dropped everything for months to try and help Delaney gain some sense of normalcy, and even though that was pretty much impossible at this point, it had been an honest effort. "Okay." Delaney muttered the word so quietly, one could barely tell the word was two syllables.

"What?" Blake asked pointedly.

"You know what I said," Delaney said with a roll of her eyes. "I said okay. I will go. I will not like it. I will not like her. But I will go."

"I'm not happy you're going either," he said. "I would rather you stay here where I can keep track of you. Make sure you're eating, make sure you're not just sitting around and dwelling on things… But you won't stay here and honestly, now that they know you're here, your staying here would be the worst thing for you. I want you to go because I think it will be good for you."

"Yeah, you said that already." Delaney ignored the pleading, the trying to make her happy with the decision. She was not going to be happy to be going to Unova no matter what Blake said. "When am I supposed to leave?"

"We're going to give it a few days, let the chaos surrounding this anniversary die down." Ugh, that was a thing still- 365 days since Galactic. No wonder they had been so bloodthirsty. "Then we're going to meet Palmer in Canalave. He has a friend who's making a trip to Castelia in Unova and we'll make the trip to Nuvema from there. Palmer's going to see if Dax would like to come with us too. Won't that be fun? You can see him one more time before you leave."

Delaney didn't cringe intentionally, but it still happened. She hadn't seen Dax in months and she could only imagine the reaming she would get from him about all of the missed phone calls and his reaction to her now brunette hair? Yikes. "Nothing about this is fun," she said bitterly.

"Well you know what is fun?" Blake said, tussling her newly brunette hair. "Ice cream. Ice cream is always fun and judging by how thin you are, you haven't had any in a long time. I know for a fact that we have some cherry vanilla in the freezer, so let's go have some."

Delaney almost looked up at him with disgust at how lightheartedly he was behaving, but as she met his eyes, the strain behind his violet eyes that were so like her own was so obvious that she just couldn't bring herself to scowl. "Cherry vanilla it is," she said with a sigh. She glanced over at Annette, who had been silently glancing over as she cleaned up from their hair dye adventure. "Annette, how do you feel about cherry vanilla?"

The blonde smiled brightly. "I quite enjoy cherry vanilla."

"Well you're welcome to join us, Annette," Blake said. "Come on ladies, ice cream awaits!"

Delaney and Annette exchanged looks as Blake made his way out of the bathroom and towards the kitchen. "Ice cream awaits," Annette repeated.

At least it was cherry vanilla.

Author's Note (5/07/14): Well, those of you who are used to me already know to expect delays based on the various other things going on in my personal life, so I'll leave that one alone. Thankfully, my last paper was due today and from here on, it's pretty smooth sailing, so yay! I have a lot of up to chapter 8 or 9 written already, so you can expect pretty regular updates from here on out. Thank you as always to those of you who take the time to read and especially to those of you who take the time to leave some sort of feedback.

And I would of course be insane if I didn't take the time to thank my wonderful, wonderful beta and friend, Noteleks.

And last but not least... OH MY GOD, THOSE R/S REMAKES. SO EXCITED. THERE ARE NO WORDS.

See you guys next week!:)