Callie finally made it back to the Pokemon Academy, and the first thing she wants to do is break up with Nick?! Why?! What's the matter with her? After all the shit we've been through, can't there just be one night of peace? One nice night before the Pokeathlon Competition begins? This is really starting to become a pain in the ass, hopefully Callie will explain why she wants to break up a little clearer. And hopefully Nick can talk her out of it. Remember to review!

Arbiter8991: Tragedy can do strange things to people.

KedharS: Yeah, it really does suck. Sadly there might not be much Nick can do about it, either, given how much dominance Callie has in their relationship.

Hyphenman: Considering Callie is a walking pile of insecurity, I'd say that's a very safe bet. The poor thing. She's really trying her hardest, too. Hopefully Nick can get through to her, because she's clearly lost it.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 1287

"What?" Nick asked, trying to make sense of what he'd just heard. "Callie… you want… you want to break up?"

He couldn't believe what he was hearing.

From the moment he met her, Callie had been like a typhoon, rampaging through his life and sweeping him up in her wake. Her overwhelming feelings for him had been like a battering ram that beat him down, until he ended up falling for her, too.

With how desperately she'd pursued him, never for the life of him did he imagine that she'd be the one who wanted to break up. He hadn't really imagined getting married, or anything that serious; but when he thought about those things these days, his mind went to Callie. That's how infatuated he was with her now.

So to hear that the girl he loved wanted to break up with him after months of not seeing her, that was more than Nick had the emotional strength to understand. It didn't help either that Callie looked heartbroken herself, staring up into his eyes. She seemed to be on the brink of tears.

"I don't want to," she sniffled. "But we have to. And you can't ask me why, you can't."

Nick scowled. "No!" He protested. "No, I won't!"

Callie's jaw dropped. Her sadness faded for a moment, replaced quickly by anger. "No?! What do you mean 'no'?! You don't get a say in this, Nick! We're breaking up! I'm dumping you! It's as simple as that!"

"I know," Nick nodded. It hurt to say. "That's not what I mean though."

Callie glared at him, her tears burning hot in her eyes. "Then what is it?" She spat. "Why do you have to drag this out any longer than it has to be?"

"I refuse to not ask you why," Nick said. "You owe me that much, at least! So tell me, Callie Callison Crawford, why the hell you want to break up with me!"

His own tears stung as they rolled down his cheeks but he didn't care. At this point, he didn't even care if Callie hated him more after this. He needed to hear the truth, and he needed to hear it from her. Nothing else mattered at this point.

Callie bit her lip, her eyes watering as she stared up at him. She could just leave. She knew that, of course. It wasn't like she HAD to stay here and humor Nick. It would be so simple. She could just go, leave him to his own devices, and wash her hands clean of this entire mess. She would never have to see him again.

But she didn't want that. She didn't want him to hate her, even though she knew that she deserved it for dumping him like this. If Nick wasn't such a good guy, then he would definitely despise her for breaking his heart like this-

After all, she hated herself more than anyone.

She couldn't do it. She couldn't toss aside the boy she loved so callously.

"You deserve to be with someone who can make you happy," she croaked, wiping her eyes with her sleeves. "Someone that isn't me."

"Why not?" Nick pressed. He hadn't expected this line of thinking from Callie of all people. She didn't think that he cared about her? She didn't think she could make him happy? What sort of nonsense was that? "Why can't you make me happy?"

He needed to understand her line of thinking. But she was shaking too much to look him in the eye. She clutched her chest and her shirt ached, and she turned her eyes towards the ground.

"It's all my fault… because I wasn't good enough… I wasn't strong enough…" She sobbed. "Everything that happened, and I just… it's not fair, it's not right, but I couldn't… and now I… I…"

The words refused to come out. Because once she said them, he would look at her differently. Even now, even has wounded as he was by her rejection of their relationship, he still didn't look at her like something hideous and ugly. His eyes were filled with warm care and concern like they had been the day they first met. In that moment, Callie had been sure that this boy she'd never even seen before, who she'd met for the first time that day, was someone who could see her for a person. He didn't care that she was short, he treated her the same way he would treat anyone else.

"That spurred something in me," she whispered.

"What did?" Nick asked, not sure what she was alluding to.

Callie smiled sadly, her eyes glassy with reminiscence and tears. "Do you remember… when we first met? How you helped me?"

"Of course I do," Nick nodded. "You abducted me, it's kind of hard to forget." Keep her talking. Reminisce about the good times. Maybe then she'll change her mind and won't want to break up with me.

He could tell that was wishful thinking. This wasn't some spur-of-the-moment thing. Callie was impulsive, but not THAT impulsive. If she was asking to break up, something that clearly weighed heavily on her heart, then there had to be a good reason for it. And that wasn't something that could be overcome with just talking about the good times.

I wonder if this is what Blake felt when Ayame rejected him after losing her memories, Nick bitterly wondered. But no, these two situations were completely different.

Callie was still staring wistfully at him. "I thought that you were the kind of boy that would treasure me. So I got a little extreme in pursuing you, I'll admit that. I don't… no, I know it wasn't really love back then."

That caught Nick off-guard.

"Wait, what?" He asked, his eyes widening. "You mean you didn't-"

"What, I didn't fall in love with you at first sight?" Callie asked incredulously. "No, you idiot, of course I didn't. It was an infatuation, sure, but love?"

She took a deep breath and exhaled. "That… all that stuff came later."

Nick nodded solemnly. He could understand her perspective when it came to that, at least.

Callie turned and looked out over the water. The sun had set now, casting the entire river in darkness. The ripples in the water illuminated by the moonlight were the only traces of its presence.

"I love you, Nick, from the bottom of my heart," Callie said, her eyes landing on him. They were wet with pain and love. "But I can't be with you. You deserve someone better than me. Someone who can really love you."

"See, you keep sying that, but I don't get it!" Nick cried. "What you mean you can't 'really' love me? You've loved me more than enough!"

Callie just shook her head. Her chest began to ache. She wondered briefly if stitches could come undone from severe enough stress. Her heart was certainly pounding hard enough right now to dislodge them, she figured.

"I can't."

Two simple words. They carried immense weight coming from her lips, but to Nick they meant nothing. Because Callie had told him nothing. She wasn't talking about their future together in any concrete way, or explaining why she couldn't be with him, why she apparently couldn't love him (in spite of everything she'd shown him to the contrary).

None of it made a damn bit of sense. So the words rang hollow.

Nick was brought back in that moment to their date on Valentine's Day. It had only been a few months ago, but it felt like a lifetime given all the events that had transpired since then.

When it came to their relationship, Nick always felt afraid that Callie wasn't really listening to him. Like Cynthia and Sango she was the type of girl who would throw herself headfirst into something regardless of warnings. Maybe it had to do with the fact that people had been looking down on her and underestimating her due to her height her entire life. Whatever the reason was immaterial, though, because to Nick, all she was was someone he wanted to reach.

But he was never good with words. He so seldom found the right combination to talk to her. Right now, he was in some sort of twisted parody of Callie's breakdown on Valentine's Day, when she thought she'd ruined the "perfect" date she'd spent so much time crafting.

"Callie, you always do this," Nick whispered, shaking his head. "You always get so caught-up in your own thoughts that you don't even consider what other people think."

"I know," Callie sobbed, wiping her eyes. "I'm terrible, you can say it. I know that treating you like this isn't okay, Nick, I know it! But please, please… please just… please don't hate me?!" She pleaded. She didn't even want to look him in the eye at this point. She was terrified of what she would see if she tried to.

Rebukement?

Condemnation?

…Pity?

"Callie… remember Valentine's Day?"

Callie wiped her eyes and looked up at him questioningly.

"…What about it?"

"You had this perfect date plan set up, based on all these ideas you got from movies and our friends, but you didn't really think about what either of us really wanted?" Nick reminded her. "We ended up watching wuxia movies instead because that was something we both enjoyed. I think you're doing the same thing now."

"Of course you think that," she spat. "You don't KNOW any better. You think you've got it all figured out, but you don't. You have no idea! No idea what I… never mind."

Nick narrowed his eyes. Close. She'd come so close to coming clean and telling him the truth. But all that had slipped away now, and she was bottled up again.

"If there's something bothering you, tell me," Nick pleaded. "Just talk to me about it, and I promise, we can work it out together. You say you can't tell me, well, I think that's bullshit. I think you're just too scared to tell me!"

Callie swallowed.

"You're right," she admitted. "I am too scared to tell you."

Her expression hardened, and the sadness drained from her face as she put on an emotionless mask. "But so what?"

Without another word, she turned and walked away, leaving the bridge and Nick behind her.

That was the plan, anyway.

Before she could react, Nick lunged forward and wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her into a tight hug.

"N-Nick?! Let me go!" She exclaimed, struggling against his grasp. "Why are you hugging me like this? Just let me go!"

"I'm not going to," Nick cried. "You want to walk out of my life forever without even telling me why? You think you can do that? Come into my life, make me fall in love with you, and then just disappearing without even telling me why? No way! I'm not going to let you go, not while we still have stuff to talk about!"

"Fine!" Callie wailed, slumping back into his arms. "Fine. Then talk."

Nick let go of her, and she turned around to face him. Her eyes were red and puffy and she looked like she was ready to collapse.

Nick took a deep breath. Callie wanted him to talk. But he didn't know what he should say. He stared deeply into her blue eyes and wondered what he could possibly say to improve the situation, to reach her.

The more he stared at her, the more he studied her face. He used that brief time to analyze her mindset. As if sensing that, Callie said nothing, standing in front of him like a statue being appraised by a museum.

She would wait for him to talk all night if she had to.

Finally, Nick realized what he was seeing.

"Are you trying to protect me from something?" He asked. It was the only thing that made sense. Whatever the drama that was going on in the Orre Region, Callie had been involved. She'd gotten hurt, after all! So she was trying to break things off with him for his own protection, it was the only thing that made sense.

Callie's shocked expression, eyes wide with confusion, told him that wasn't the case, though. She shook her head.

"N-No, it's not… never mind." Clearly realizing it was better to let him think that than reveal the truth, Carly tried to wlak it back, but she saw it was already too late. Nick was smart enough to dismiss that possibility immediately, which was troubling.

Because it meant he was dancing around the real issue, and that's the one thing she didn't want. She didn't want to see him look at her with disgust, so she averted her eyes.

Nick stood on the gap where the bridge met the land and thought hard about everything Callie had said tonight.

"You deserve someone better than me. Someone who can really love you."

Why had she said that? Why didn't she think she was deserving of being loved? Incapable of loving him? Nick could sense that was at the heart of this matter, but he had no idea how to address it.

So he did what he should have done in the first place, and said what was on his mind.

"Callie, I don't care about it, about any of it," Nick said, shaking his head. "As far as I'm concerned, there's no one better for me than you."

Callie looked horrified by this assertion.

"No! You're wrong!" She cried, stomping her foot. "There has to be someone, please!"

"Why?" Nick demanded. "Why can't it be you? You clearly don't want to actually break up with me! But you think you have to, and I want to know why!"

"Because you deserve to be with someone better than me!" Callie wailed. "Someone who isn't hideous and ugly and broken!"

Nick had no response. He just stared at her in confusion.

"Come in…" Callie's voice was hollow and empty. She led Nick into her room. It looked as nice as it had the last time she was here.

"We should have had sex."

Her words nearly knocked him over. Callie was blunt by nature, but even for her that was rather direct.

"Wh-What are you talking about?!" He sputtered.

"On Valentine's Day." She looked over at him, her eyes wet. "We should have had sex. It would have been better if we had."

She looked down. "Or no… maybe… yeah, it would probably be even harder to break up if we had, huh? No, this is fine…"

"Callie… what is it you want to show me?" Nick asked.

"I don't want to show you," she whispered. "But I don't have a choice."

It was the thing she'd been trying so hard to avoid. Part of the reason she'd wanted to break up with him in the first place was so he wouldn't see her in this state. But it was necessary, in the end. He needed to see what she'd become.

She began to unbutton her blouse, to Nick's confusion.

"Please… if you have to look… don't do it while I'm staring at you," she pleaded. "I don't want to see your eyes as you become disgusted with me."

Nick was confused. How could she ever think he would find her disgusting? He was so confused and frightened by her serious demeanor that the fact the girl he loved was stripping in her private bedroom hadn't even occurred to him.

Her blouse fell to the ground. But it wasn't a bra Callie was wearing under it. Tight gauze bandages wrapped around her entire body from down just beneath her neck to the bottom of her belly button. The bandages were stained dark.

Callie sucked in a breath of air and the temperature in the room fell. Then she began to unwrap the gauze. Just a little bit. She didn't show him everything. Just enough so he could see how hideous she was.

Nick gasped and she winced. She knew what he was seeing, because she'd stared at her scars in the mirror more times than she could count.

Dark cuts, sewn shut by surgeon's wire. They met in the center in the shape of an "X", just over her breasts. Callie didn't get that far, though. It was enough to just show him the scarred areas.

"You see?" She asked grimly. "Look at me. Look at these scars."

"Oh my god," Nick gasped, rushing over to her. "Are you alright?! How did this happen?!"

"This is my 'injury'," Callie said, her eyes a thousand miles away. "I got slashed by a pokemon's x-scissor attack. It cut me so deeply I'm lucky to be alive. She should have seen how much blood I lost… both times, in face.

Her words were cold and bitter but Nick could hear the pain in her voice.

"The doctor…" Now her voice was trembling. "The doctor said… that they'd never go away… even after the stitches fell out, the scars…"

She broke down crying, collapsing into Nick's arms. "I'm ugly! I'm ugly and hideous and deformed now! You don't deserve that!" She wailed. "You should be with a nice, sweet girl! Someone who can love you without looking… like this."

Nick couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"Callie… you think I care about this?" He asked, more hurt than upset. "I don't care about your scars."

"I care," she spat back at him. "A body like this… it doesn't deserve to be loved by someone like yo-mghf!?"

Before she could say anything else, Nick pressed his lips against hers. She was startled momentarily but she leaned into the kiss. She knew it was wrong, but in the moment it felt so nice just kissing him again. It almost made her forget about the scars.

Until the gauze started to unravel.

"Let me see the whole thing," He pleaded into her ear with a whisper.

Callie trembled. "You'll… you'll think it's ugly…" She whimpered, her voice cracking.

Nick shook his head. "Never. I won't. You're beautiful, even with those scars, I know it.

He unwound the gauze and kept unwinding it, until the last scraps were pulled away from her skin. She winced. It stung a little, feeling the scabs get pulled on. But that pain passed quickly. Now she was standing in her room, alone with the man she loved, and without her shirt on. She turned red, holding her arms behind her back and arching up to present her deformed chest for his approval.

Nick was at a loss for words. He hadn't expected she would go this far. But he was staring at his girlfriend's exposed chest.

The scars were the last thing he cared about at this point.

Callie stared up at him in shock, not sure what to make of the loving look in his eyes. It was outside of her calculations.

Dang. Callie really went through a lot in the Orre Region. It must have been pretty painful, thinking she didn't even deserve to be loved due to what happened to her body. And while her physical scars are starting to heal, it's clear that her emotional ones aren't quite there yet. But Nick doesn't really care about that, clearly. He loves her too much.