Hey Nuggies! Well I really shouldn't be doing this, but here I am writing another fanfiction since I have writers block on a few of my other ones, and because this won't leave me alone. Here is your warning this will be SLASH! I have decided though that this will not have M!Preg.

Main Pairing: AshxPaul

Rating: M (to be safe)

Chapter Warning(s): Descriptions of giving birth. (Skip from "Leafeon!" to "Ash pulled Eevee" if you don't want to read about it)

Disclaimer: I do not own Pokémon it belongs to Game Freak, Nintendo, Creatures, The Pokemon Company, etc, nor do I write this for profit. This is for entertainment use only!

Please don't forget to head over to A03 for the discord link! You don't need an A03 account to do it.

A/N: Happy Halloween! And to those that don't celebrate the day I hope all y'all had a fantastic day!

Enjoy!

Ash didn't really understand how he got into this predicament in the first place, but nonetheless here he was. Laying in the grass, Pikachu curled up by his ribs, a very pregnant Leafeon curled up by his head, and on top of him was his newly captured Noivern covering both him and Pikachu with his wings. Peering down Ash was face to face with the sleeping dragon, who snuffled a bit in his sleep, before looking back up to the bright blue sky.

After getting back to the Pastures Oak had called in the towns' doctor to tend to his arm in which he ended up with 36 stitches in his arm and two precautionary shots in his other arm. Once his arm was taken care of he took Oak out to the pastures to release Noivern, who thankfully was still knocked out upon release, so that Oak could look at him. Ash watched Oak in fascination as the old man had gotten absolutely giddy when he presented Noivern. He watched the old man run around, taking pictures, documenting everything, measuring the length of various body parts, and so on.

And once Oak had gotten a few vials of blood, some scale shavings, and a bit of hair, the man was off once again back to his lab only to yell that he would be back with the findings in a few hours. Now having to wait a bit more with no explanation Ash did what he thought was best. He used a revive on Noivern and stepped back in case the dragon lashed out.

After getting the dragon to calm down Ash managed to explain what happened to the large blind Noivern. He just didn't expect for the large creature to let out a screech before falling to the ground with tears filling glassy blue eyes. Ash slowly knelt and ran his hand through surprisingly soft fur to comfort Noivern. Once Noivern was calmed down a bit Ash promised to give his mate and hatchlings a burial before they had to leave, and laid down next to Noivern as the dragon began to fall asleep.

And that was how he ended up with Noivern napping on his chest, an adorable picture as proof, and a full bladder. Leafeon, who had spotted him while comforting Noivern, wandered up and greeted him with a headbutt and a lick on his cheek. Her belly was round, and according to a previous check up with Oak, she was only pregnant with one egg and due any day. Gardevoir, also pregnant with one egg, was due a bit later than Leafeon, and Ash hoped to be home before she had it. He wasn't sure he could be for Leafeon so he pampered her as much as he could while he was there.

Ash was just getting to the point where he was going to have to wiggle out from under Noivern to use the bathroom when Oak peeked out the back door of the labs, papers in hand, and a wide grin on his face. Seeing the look on his face caused Ash to crack a smile and recall Noivern into his ball so he could get up to join the old man. This movement and the loss of warmth made Pikachu and Leafeon wake up. The Verdant pokémon stretched and let out a trill before she left to go further into the pastures where Ash could only hope, her mate and den were at. Pikachu on the other hand jumped onto his shoulder and hunkered down in his hood to continue his nap.

"Professor, that was quick," Ash said as he walked through the door Oak had held open for him.

"Ah, well, I did my best to speed up the process," Oak said, "It also helped that I recruited another professor to help me. We just made sense of what I gathered before I came to get you." Ash hummed and nodded as Oak led him to his office, void of the assistant from earlier, and on one of the computer screens was Rowan.

"Hello again, Professor Rowan," Ash greeted with a wave and took a seat in a freed seat.

"Hello, Mr. Ketchum," Rowan replied with a slight nod to his head, "I hear you've got quite the pokémon."

"Yeah, captured just today," Ash said and explain what led up to the capture, "I should also mention that Noivern is blind. No sign of cataracts, but blind."

"I see," Oak murmured as he typed something down on his computer and when Ash took a peek he saw a form filled with Noiverns' information. "Well, I ran the tests, twice I should add just to make sure it was correct, and what I found was absolutely fascinating. We had to take it down its parental DNA just to make sense of what we found," Oak said as he turned from the computer and turned on the larger screen for Ash to see the results.

"Noivern are Dragon and Flying types," Rowan said a few moments after Oak spoke, "They are usually black with purple under scales on their wings and bellies while their scales on their webbing and inner ear are green. They also do have a red nose and red claws. For a moment we thought that perhaps this Noivern had a mutation on their shiny gene which just moves around its coloration to make green its most prominent color, but your Noivern doesn't have a shiny gene."

"So what does that mean?" Ash asked as he turned from the pictures Oak had pulled up to show him a normal Noivern and its shiny counterpart. "Is it just a color mutation like Persian and Charizard? Or is it a whole new classification that hasn't been seen before?"

"I have seen something similar to this before," Rowan said, "I had a trainer a few years back approach me with a newly captured Salamence who had a few extra appendages and such much like your Noivern. It's a combination of natural evolution, not like an evolution stage, but more of an adaptable evolution to its surroundings and genetics. In this case, your Noivern takes more after his father rather than his mother. His father was a Garchomp and his mother was a Noivern. The blue coloration is just the blue from the Garchomp line coming through as a dominant trait in Noivern than the regular Noivern coloration."

"And the extra bits Noivern has is just from adaptable evolution?" Ash asked as he took in the slew of information Rowan gave him.

"Correct!" Oak said with a nod, "Quite fascinating, I do have to admit, and it's something new I learned today!"

"Something new for me too Professor Oak, thank you for looking into this," Ash said with a slight nod, "and thank you as well Professor Rowan!"

Ash bid the two old men his goodbyes as they delved deeper into topics he didn't understand. He made his way back to the pastures to see if he couldn't find Leafeon when his watch let off a small ding. He looked at the notification he got and smiled when he saw that it was Paul checking on him. He sent Paul the picture he had taken earlier of Noivern on his chest. It was a bit of a close up, but it was adorable. He had a slightly further selfie one that he sent as well and he got sent back a video of Pauls' Vaporeon batting at one of Electivires' tails.

Ash chuckled as he walked further into the pastures until he was where he had taken an impromptu nap. From there he walked in the direction Leafeon went in hopes of finding her quickly. He called her name every so often and stopped for a moment when he spotted a couple of small Azurill playing near a waters edge. He continued on when the Azurill dove into the water and was nearing the forest area of the pastures when Leafeons' mate Umbreon approached him. He didn't get the chance to greet the Umbreon when the large eeveelution latched onto his sleeve and began to tug him in a direction. Ash let himself be tugged along, feeling the urgency Umbreon was feeling, until they neared a naturally made hollow of a tree. Kneeling Ash looked into the den and saw Leafeon on her side, ribs bouncing up and down as she panted, and a bit of blood and other fluids around her bottom end.

"Leafeon!" Ash called out and scrambled over to get to her as close as he could, but he didn't fit in her hollow. He didn't know anything about helping a pokémon give birth, but he was sure that they weren't supposed to bleed that much. He grabbed any cloth he could get his hands on from his bag along with his water bottle. His hands shook and in his scattering thoughts he didn't even think to call for Oak with his watch.

He had Leafeon move a bit so he could get to her easier and with a soft apology he reached back and pressed against her backside to see if he could feel why she was bleeding so much. There was a bit of a tear, but it wasn't big so he didn't think that was the reason why she was bleeding so much. He did feel something else while he was down there.

"I thought pokémon birthed eggs!" Ash exclaimed as he felt a leg and something else that felt like a tail, "Okay. Calm down Ash. You know that at least babies are supposed to be born head and front legs first, right?" Ash murmured to himself as he tried his best to keep calm. The baby was backwards, but he had heard his mom tell one of her friends that it was more common than one would think.

"Okay, Leafeon," Ash said as he turned to look at her, "I'm gonna pull your baby out. I'll be as careful as I can, but I need you to push when I tell you, okay?" Leafeon let out a few whimpers, but nodded and began to brace herself. Ash reached back down and managed to pull out the tail and leg he felt before trying to see if he couldn't get the other leg out before he pulled. It took a bit of maneuvering, but he was able to get the other leg out.

"Okay," Ash said as he nodded and firmly, but not crushingly, grasped the baby, "Leafeon, push!"

Ash pulled a bit as she did so and felt the baby start to come out. It didn't come out much, but it was progress. He let Leafeon rest a bit before he was telling her to push. It was a bit of a process. Push/pull, rest, push/pull, rest, and so on until all that was left was her baby's head and front legs.

"One last push Leafeon! It needs to be a big one," Ash said and looked up to see Umbreon grooming Leafeons' head doing his best to encourage and sooth his mate. He let Leafeon move a bit before telling her to push. Ash tugged a bit harder than he had been and with a pop the baby Eevee pulled free with a gush of blood and birthing fluid.

Ash put Eevee onto one of his shirts he had put to the side and began to check it over. No deformities, a bit small, normal in color, large ears. Everything seemed fine to him, except one thing.

"No! No, no, no, no, no," Ash said as he started to rub the shirt against the still Eevees' side, "come on! Breathe!" Ash did his best to clear out the airway by digging his fingers into the Eevees' mouth to pull out any viscous fluid that might have been blocking the airway. He cleaned the nose, vigorously rubbing its side with his shirt, he even began tapping it on the back a bit as he rubbed in case there was any fluid that needed breaking up inside the Eevee. He worked on the baby for what seemed like hours and he was about to stop as it wasn't doing anything when he heard a noise. He brought the baby closer to his ear and gasped as he heard a soft wheeze.

"Yes!" Ash exclaimed as he heard the baby breath a bit even though it sounded horrible. He felt the frantic beating of Eevees' heart against his palm and he rushed to gather his things, leaving the soiled items where they lay, and gently picked up a tired Leafeon. Ash placed Eevee on top of Leafeon and made sure they were secure in his hold before standing up. He called for Umbreon to follow him as he booked it away from the hollow.

Ash didn't think he had ever run as fast as he did and in no time Ash was bursting into Oaks' lab with the old mans' name on his lips. He guessed Oak heard the frantic and fear in voice because right after yelling his name Oak ran into the room. Ash placed Leafeon and her baby on one of the tables and stepped back as Oak came forward with a few of his assistants. He explained what went on to Oak as the man hooked the two up to a couple of machines to monitor their vitals, while one of the assistants prepared an oxygen tank Oak had told him they used on pokémon that needed help with their breathing, or in this care to get Eevee some much needed oxygen.

"As soon as I got Eevee to breathe I picked Leafeon up and ran as fast as I could here," Ash said, a bit tired now that the adrenaline was wearing off.

"You did fantastic, Ash," Oak told him, "given the circumstance, and your very basic knowledge of midwifery, you did absolutely fantastic. It's because of you being there that you didn't lose the baby or Leafeon."

Ash took in a deep breath and nodded a bit as Oak ushered him to the lab bathrooms where he could get cleaned up, and change into cleaner clothes. When he finished and walked out he asked Oak why Leafeon gave live birth, and not an egg like he thought she would have.

"While pokémon do give birth to eggs, there is a small percent chance for them to birth live young," Oak said as he wrote down on a paper, "it's a bit more common in mammalian pokémon as opposed to reptilians and it's non-existent in avians."

"How are they?" Ash asked as the two were finally left alone with the four pokémon. Umbreon laid down beside the table that Leafeon laid on all the while stared at the kennel that held his baby. Pikachu stood on the bed next to a sleeping Leafeon with his tail resting over her.

"Leafeon is doing great. Gave her something for the pain and gave her a potion through IV. Baby Eevee is responding well to the oxygen that's filtering through his tank," Oak said as he led Ash over to the Eevee. It was smaller than he thought, or maybe it was just that it looked small curled up on the blankets.

"It's a boy?" Ash asked softly as he longed to reach forwards and run his fingers through his clean fur. The assistant that was taking care of Eevees' tank must have cleaned him up before placing him in his tank.

"Yes! A fully developed boy," Oak said and placed a hand on Ashs' shoulder, "We do have worries of future sickness since there was fluid in his lungs. He'll need to stay for a bit just so we can monitor him, but then he can go home. He'll need to be watched a bit when he's home as well, but he should be able to leave in about a week."

Ash nodded and thanked the Professor as he turned to Leafeon, who was now awake and looking at him. He gave her a smile and walked over to her. He explained what the professor told him as if she didn't hear it when Oak told him, but in hindsight he may have just been reassuring himself.

"He'll be just fine," Ash said softly to himself and Leafeon as he ran his fingers over her head softly.

The next morning greeted Ash with a few texts from Paul, who he had fallen asleep with on the phone, and with Pikachu staring at him from his side table. He greeted Pikachu and chuckled as the mouse leaped into his chest and tried to bury himself into his trainer. When he finally got Pikachu to stop, he got up and got ready for the day before heading down to get food.

He was surprised to see that Leafeon was chowing down on some food in the kitchen, but his mother had told him that Oak cleared her for light exercise and that her baby was doing much better this morning. He was very excited and relieved to hear that the Eevee has managed to drink a whole bottle of formula for Oak. With the good news Ash decided to slowly eat his food, as he had decided last night to rush over to the lab to check on Eevee, but it seemed as though he didn't need to rush like he thought he was going to. He stayed for a few minutes after breakfast to catch up with his mother and Silver as well as change out one of the books he had gotten in Rota.

Once Silver had gone to his old room, now Silvers' room, Ash softly told Delia about Aster.

"I don't know if it would be safe to keep him here," Ash admitted as he looked down at his hands, "I don't want anything to happen to you or Silver, and this organization has already proven that they want Aura Users. I think it's safer to send him to Rota, but I don't know what to do! I have to figure out something! Aster's counting on me."

"It's truly terrible what happened to that little boy," Delia said as she moved to sit next to her son, her own heart hurting to see her young son in turmoil. She wrapped her arms around Ash and pulled him closer as she continued to speak, "If you believe that Aster would be safer in Rota than here, then so be it. You're not obligated to take care of him. You found him. Saved him, and now you've found a safe place where he will be cared for. You can keep in contact with him, if you want to, but you don't have to do anything beyond seeing him to Rotas' borders."

Ash took a deep breath and nodded as he gave his mother a tight hug before getting up. He needed to go see Oak about it and see if he can't get into contact with the Queen on Asters' behalf. He would have loved to take care of him, but he was young. Too young for children of his own. He didn't feel emotionally, mentally, or physically ready for children, but perhaps someday in the future he might revisit the idea of them.

Ash gathered Pikachu and Leafeon before leaving the house with a lighter heart. His mother always seemed to know exactly what to say and sometimes he wondered if she could use a bit of Aura to do so. Ash smiled as he heard Pikachu chitter in his ear and heard Leafeon reply with a soft growl. It took a few minutes to reach the lab and he let himself in without much further ado. He followed Leafeon back towards the isolation kennel where they had to leave Eevee the day before and his small smile grew as he saw Eevee playing around a bit.

The small brown fox batted at a few toys that someone had put in the cage before tucking and flipping over a berry plush. The kit held it between his two front paws as he kicked at it with his back paws. Ash watched as Leafeon approached the tank and laid down in front of it as she watched her young one. Ash walked forward and sat down next to her to join her.

"He's amazing," Ash whispered softly as he ran a hand down Leafeons' back, "Already so strong." Leafeon let out a purr as the Eevee finally noticed them and sat in front of them while placing both front paws on the glass exposing his toe beans to them.

"She wishes for little Silver to take care of him when she re-joins you," a deep feminine voice suddenly sounded in his head, but he didn't jump. It was familiar.

"Really?" Ash asked as he turned his head a bit to see Gardevoir approaching them and just behind her he saw Oak closing the door to the room to give them a bit of privacy.

"Yes, she told me yesterday when I came to visit her," Gardevoir replied as she slowly moved to kneel using Ash as a brace to make sure she didn't fall over, "She, and I, believe Silver needs a companion. Someone to speak to about things he doesn't feel comfortable to speak to others about. I plan to give him my little one as well."

"You too?" Ash asked as a soft smile graced his face. It would be nice for Silver to have someone like that. His cousin had gotten better, a lot better, since he had moved in, but in the times he had been home it felt as though Silver was holding back. He was sure his cousin was well overdue for a breakdown. His mother hadn't told him if Silver had one already.

"Of course! Silver is family. Family takes care of their own, even if your family is not of your blood but the one you make yourself. You taught us that," Gardevoir said with a soft giggle, "you taught us that family sticks together through thick and thin, through times of grief and to rejoice in the times of happiness. Leafeon and I both wish for our young to take care of Silver like you have taken care of us."

Ash, unable to speak thanks to the lump in his throat, nodded and held his girls closer. He told them that he was so proud of them and that when the time comes for their young to go to Silver then he gives them his love and blessing even if he can't be there when it happens.

Ash let out a huff of air as he wiped the sweat from his forehead and leaned against the shovel he was just using. He was doing as promised to Noivern, and instead of asking for help he decided to dig the grave himself. He decided on one large grave so Noiverns' mate would be buried with her young instead of making seven separate graves. Once he was finished he had Zoroark help him get to the cave while Noivern waited by the open ground below.

He did his best to treat their bodies with respect and when he was alone in the cave he spoke softly to the Noivern wishing her the best in the afterlife. He promised her that he would look after her mate to the best of his abilities and with a brief thought he braided a bit of her fur and chopped it off along with one of her bigger scales. He stuffed the items in his pocket and would ask his mother if she could make something for Noivern to wear with them.

Both Ash and Zoroark managed to get both Noivern, and the box Ash had carefully placed all six eggs in, down safely to the base of the cliff, right under where Noivern and his mate had nested. Noivern let out a soft growly croon as his mate was placed in the grave and Ash gently placed the box right next to her so it looked as though the Noivern was curled up around her eggs. He stepped back and let Noivern have a moment with his mate and hatchlings and when the large blue bat-dragon moved back Ash stepped forward and began to fill the grave.

Ash, Zoroark, and Noivern were completely silent through all of this, only letting the sound of the dirt falling onto dirt fill the silence. Ash smoothed the dirt over the mound and reached into his other pocket for the package of seeds his mother gave him. It was a mix of flowers his mother had gotten from the florist in the next town over and had gifted them to him to put over the Noiverns' grave. If he remembered what his mother told him there were roses, chrysanthemums, lilies, carnations, hyacinth, and gladiolus in the mix. He had also taken the time to make a marker for Noivern. It was simple, but elegant as he wasn't able to get her a gravestone at the moment.

When he was finished Ash sat back and rested a hand on Noiverns' wing to let him know that he was here. He felt Noiverns' body give off little shudders, but paid no mind to them or the tears that dampened the earth below Noiverns' head. They sat there until the sun set and the sounds of nocturnal pokémon picked up as they searched for prey.

The walk home was quiet between the four, but they were greeted with a warm meal and atmosphere when they got to the house. The four quickly ate and Ash said his goodnight to his cousin and mother before heading up to get cleaned and get to bed. He had a long day ahead of him tomorrow with his return to the conference.