A new chapter! Yes, I'm still writing this since I started it in like 2009! Geezo, I'm so slow! Anyway, I'll shut up and let you read. Hope like this chapter!

Italics = article

Chapter 17: Home

The car came to gradual halt outside the old town house. Gary turned off the engine but left his keys in the ignition. He had a weird churning in his stomach. What if Bill was lying and Daisy never actually left his place but actually locked up in some room in that house of his somewhere? He was suspiciously adamant about not letting Gary or Leaf in after all. For Leaf that just contributed to the growing and seemingly endless list of why Bill is not good enough for Daisy. And why he's a creep.

Gary let out a long, hard sigh. "Do you thing Bill was lying?" he asked, keeping his gaze on the front door of his house.

They had driven back to Pallet Town after Bill had denied their entry into his home several times and Leaf had drawn a blank – she even used the infamous puppy eyes and still nothing.

"Honestly, yes." Leaf said. "He was so… so determined not to let us in. He's definitely hiding something." Either that or Bill was naturally even more odd than the teens had originally thought.

Leaf's reply came as no surprise to Gary. "What if she's not inside?" Gary asked, referring to his home.

Leaf didn't know what to say to that but luckily she didn't need to think of a reply. They watched as the front door opened and revealed the well styled brunette in question. She was smiling brightly and used the door frame as a prop while she posed for the teens, causing them to crack up laughing. After a tense previous night, it was definitely what they needed.

Xxxxxxxx

"You have no idea how worried we were." Leaf said, "I'm not going to sugar coat this but we thought Bill had looked you up somewhere in his house and was holding you captive in a cold, dark, rat infested basement or something along the lines of that!"

Daisy took a sip of her lukewarm tea and chuckled in response. She had made her brother and Leaf tea too which neither of them had touched. The same could not be said about the custard creams on the plate though; they were almost completely gone before the plate even reached the table.

"No way, Bill would never do that to me!" Daisy said. "He even gave me some information." She added as with a devious smirk.

Gary's eyes were fixed on his sister. This was what caused all the stress and made them miss their trip to the secret sister lab. Gary thought about what kind of information Bill may have supplied them with – for what their missing it better be useful. Was the information even going to be genuine? He hoped so but somehow, Gary had his doubts as did Leaf.

"What did he sa-" Gary started but was interrupted by Leaf.

"Wait. He caught you looking at his files and didn't threaten to arrest you?" Leaf asked. She found it odd that Daisy had not mentioned that Bill had threatened to get her arrested for peeking at highly confidential files when he had pulled out his phone earlier and started to dial for emergency services when Leaf had her little toe still on his driveway. Apparently according to Kanto law, that still counted as trespassing.

"No, actually, I'll tell you what happened."

Daisy's flashback (from chapter 14: Daisy? Also, it's Daisy's POV since she's telling the story)

I had spent a good hour or so waiting for Bill to fall into a deep sleep before I snuck out of the bedroom and into the study across the hall. I knew that Bill always left his computer on so getting into it wasn't a problem and when I brought up one of the minimised windows; I noticed that it happened to be conveniently on the page with the list of all the donor names.

It seemed a bit suspicious that it just happened to be open on that page but I went with it and searched the files of the two guys Gary needed details on easily enough and pretty much as soon as I was done sending the files, Bill came into the room.

"Bill, I thought you were asleep." I said, trying to act natural which was difficult when you know you've just violated the law.

"I was but then I rolled over and thought I'd squashed you but you weren't even there!" he said. "What are you doing on my computer?" he asked, taking a slow steps towards me.

"I couldn't sleep so I was going to see if my brother was online, you know, it's just him and his girlfriend. Just wanted to check up on them." I said slyly. "But he's not online, which I should've guessed." She pulled a fake unimpressed look. "I'll just log out and we can go back to bed."

Then we went back to sleep and I thought I got away with it and I would've if I had shut the files down after I'd looked at them.

END FLASHBACK

"But it didn't end that badly." Daisy said cheerfully. As she clasped her hands together as if something pleasant had just been presented to her.

"How so?" Gary asked her. He looked at her with a quizzical brow raised. "You got caught and could easily be done for it." His sister did confuse him sometimes.

Daisy gave her brother a look of innocence.

"What did he say?" Gary asked.

"He mentioned some guy called Henry." Daisy said.

"He actually said that to you voluntarily?" Leaf asked, she was surprised that Bill would just give out information so freely like that.

"It may've just slipped out. By accident."

Leaf and Gary looked at each other and nodded. "That makes more sense."

"But anyway, I tried to do some research into this guy but there are tonnes of people called Henry in Kanto so I didn't find anything out. But maybe you two will have better luck." Daisy said as she stretched her arms out and yawned loudly. "I'm knackered!" She exclaimed and got up from the sofa, leaving a small dip in the soft cushion.

"Daisy, can we backtrack in your story for one second?" Leaf asked.

Daisy stopped stretching and looked down to the brunette. "Yeah?"

"What did you say to Bill about me and Gary?"

Daisy smiled innocently back at her.

xxxxx

Gary and Leaf had settled down in the library with the fire place lit and a cosy blanket nearby. Leaf had the stacks of papers that they had compiled with information regarding the project on her lap while Gary laid back on the carpet directly in front of the fire place with one arm folded behind his head, resting on the cushions that they had taken from the nearby couch, while the other navigated his track pad on his laptop that was resting against his bent legs. The two teens had decided to go over everything that they had learnt so far.

Drew had sent several texts with information that he'd found and updates on May for him to pass on to Leaf. The information was detailed but not exactly what they were looking for.

"So when are we going to check the other lab out?" Leaf asked. She had gone over the information to herself several times before and every time she did, she seemed to pick out more and more problems than piece things together.

"Maybe tomorrow. I've just sent an email to that guy Ivy gave us the contact of and I've asked Drew to look up anyone who goes by the name of Henry in Kanto." Gary replied. "But Drew's not replied yet, not that I expect fast results from such a small team."

"I don't think working on your own to find someone constitutes as team work." Leaf pointed out.

"I'm looking too." Gary said then moved the laptop off his lap and sat up. "My eyes are starting to cross over from the tiny print." He said, referring to the list of Henry's that he was reviewing on his laptop.

Leaf picked up the laptop and typed something into it then let the total silence sink into the room. Her eyes were fixated on the article she was reading.

Gary picked up from where Leaf left off and read the page of information that they had learnt from Ivy on their recent trip. It was weird to see everything they know down on paper, especially when it was listed in such an order. Gary reached over to his side and grabbed the nearest pen and started to scribble some things down

"Hmm. I thought that might be the case." Leaf said as she signalled for Gary to give her his phone.

"What? Did you find something?" Gary asked.

Leaf handed Gary's phone back to him. "Maybe. I thought there might be an article or something about a Henry being in an accident and possibly died since Bill mentioned him."

"And you found something?"

"Well there are a few articles so I've sent Drew a text from your phone telling him to research someone." Leaf said then shifted over so that she sat closer to Gary. She pointed to the article on the screen. "This tells me that we might've found our guy."

Vermillion Gang Leader Found Dead in Mansion

The leader of a notorious gang in Vermillion City has been found lying dead for over two days. The victim, Christopher Henry, aged 39 has died under suspicious circumstances, according to the forensic team that is in charge of the case.

"I had a feeling that Henry might've been a last name when Daisy mentioned it." Leaf said. "And look what it says. He's thirty-nine too."

Gary looked closely at the picture of man looked relatively young for his age, maybe early thirties at the latest and his bright blue eyes stood out but not nearly as much as his short blue hair. Two of the more unusual features on one person were rare to say the least.

"If you read on, it tells you that his gang was in an on-going feud with another gang, that coincidentally enough happens to be run by George Little." Leaf said.

"It has green eyes too." Gary said, suddenly thinking back to the photo of George Little that Daisy had sent them days before.

"What?"

"The doll, when you first showed me it, it had green eyes but you insisted they were blue. Either you're colour-blind or they were two different dolls with two different eye colours."

"I forgot about that. By the way, they were blue." Leaf said. "Where is my dolly anyway?"

"I saw a doll in my room earlier." Gary replied. "Quite sure it had green eyes."

"My doll has blue eyes, not green Gary." Leaf said disapprovingly as if it were a basic fact that Gary should know off the top of his head.

"Yeah and you insist that the eyes on the doll are blue."

"So?" Leaf asked.

"And George Little has green eyes while Henry has blue."

"Yeah?" Leaf confirmed uncertainly.

"And there are two projects, location of both is somewhere in Pallet, right?"

Leaf thought about where Gary was going with this. There are two people, who both have different eye colours that happen to be exactly the same as her doll's which seems to have two different eye colours… Unless there's more than one doll. "Are you saying what I think you're saying?"

Gary ignored Leaf's question and continued to scan their sheets of gathered information. He reached over for a pen and found the nearest bit of paper with enough space for him to draw a squint table with two columns. He filled up most of the table with his messy writing and then squinted at it when he was done.

Leaf watched him curiously as she tried to work out what her companion was up to. She knew not to speak when Gary was on to something. Breaking his concentration would be like breaking a possible lead and that was something they could not afford to do. She tried to read what Gay had scrawled down and when she had caught on to what he was trying to illustrate, she gasped and automatically drew her hand up to cover her mouth.

Gary looked at Leaf's face. What he wrote was definitely surprising to her.

"No way!" Leaf said as she snatched the paper out of Gary's hands. She was utterly stunned.

"I know. But it doesn't prove anything." Gary said as he laid back.

"But still, that's a weird coincidence, don't you think?"

"Maybe, but I'm not saying that it's a pattern until further investigation." Gary said, he took the sheet from Leaf and tucked it into the folder and stacked everything up on his side further away from Leaf. "We need to rest now. Tomorrow's going to be a long day if we want to get to the lab without gramps knowing."

Leaf nodded as her brain worked on a scheme to get passed the old man.

Xxxxxxx

Sooo, just thought I should make a note to say I hope you appreciate this cause it took me far too long to work out what chapter I was writing! My brain is like completely frazzled from writing down all the fine detail of the story! I swear, I can't even think straight just now!

All there's left to do now is to drop a wee review and make me a happy buni, ken? Then I shall reveal their latest finding that Leaf's gasping over in the next chapter!

*silver-hedgehog