Hello, it is the 28th and I am back with a new chapter! Well, it's just gone past midnight in the UK so time has moved on but here I am anyway. I thought about following tradition and uploading a Christmas themed one here but the truth is, I couldn't wait until next month to write this one! It still does take place in December and it is an important one. This is the letter that Jennifer - Sammy and Jorginho's mother - writes to Jorginho to let him know the truth of his upbringing. It's a longer one than usual and I really enjoyed losing myself in this one. I hope you enjoy :)

Disclaimer: I own the story and all the OCs mentioned!

Dearest Jorginho,

It's been over two months now since you embarked on a journey of your own and I have not stopped thinking of you. I wonder if you're okay. I wonder if you're able to eat as much as you'd like. I wonder what you look like now.

I know that two months is hardly a long time, not really. Your hair probably hasn't even begun to spring with curls like it does when it gets that extra length. Maybe you've even had it cut so that it's still the same. I know that two months is barely any time. But to me, it's been a lifetime. I think of you every day. And it haunts me what you said to me before you left.

Do you remember what you told me? I'll never forget it. Not as long as I live.

Will you ever be able to look me in the eye and tell me the truth?

That's what you said to me. That brought me so many feelings. That brought me so many emotions. Fear most of all. And guilt. I can't forget that one. The truth is, I don't know how I'll ever be able to do either of those things.

If it was only me getting hurt in all of this, then I would keep my mouth shut forever. But although I try my hardest to look the other way, I know how much all of this weighs on my family. Weighs on Samuelito – he's not stupid. I know how much it weighs on you. I'm sorry. I know that's why you left. I know that's why you think that joining Team Rocket is the better option.

I'm not writing to reprimand you. I'm not writing to you to alter the path of your future. I'm not even writing to bring you home. I doubt it even feels like home here, does it? Certainly not with me around, haunting you with a past you scarcely know, let alone Peter. I know how hard he can be on you.

It doesn't feel like home even with your grandparents and Sammy too.

I know there is life ahead for you, sweet Jorginho. And I've thought about it long and hard. While I am certain I'll never be able to look you in the eye and tell you the truth, I at least have been able to look to the heavens and get strength from Him to meet you halfway.

Part of me longs to look into those beautiful eyes of yours and tell you. But it would break my heart and you will learn of why. You already know why. But I do wish to tell you myself. You deserve the world. But you deserve the truth most of all.

Yes, I am your mother. Your own flesh and blood. It was destiny when my dear Papá was able to find you again years after you had been adopted in Sinnoh. I wish it had been the kind of fate that made everything seem possible. But alas, life was still life. It was still as complicated as ever. And yet somehow, you came back to me.

I only wish that the same fate had never forced us apart.

I never wanted to give you up when you were a baby, I hope you know that. It's just God – and you know I hate using that name in vain – but God, your eyes haunted me as much as they blessed me with wonderful things in my life.

You have your father's eyes; I need you to know that. Javier – Javi to me and everyone – was the love of my life. My skin boils when I say that because how unfair to Peter who has been good to so many but that is the truth. You never forget your first love. And I will certainly never forget him.

He was wild. He had unruly dark hair, alluring eyes and the most jovial smile you had ever seen. Yes, just like you. He was so broad and so manly for only sixteen years old and he made me feel like such a treasured little lady. We were teenagers when we unexpectedly fell pregnant with you, and I was scared but Javi's love soothed me.

We were going to get married in the future anyway. We were going to be together forever. So, we knew that you were a blessing from above and you would be ours forever too. It didn't even matter that Team Aqua assumed a lot of his attention and he was away a lot of the time. The money that he earned from that, he saved. He saved for me, and he saved for you. He saved all of his love for us as well.

I thought he was beautiful from the moment that I saw him. I believed that even more so when I delivered you into the world at the age of fourteen and I witnessed the way that he cradled you close. His baby boy. We didn't have scans in those days, so we were over the moon when we saw what kind of little baby you were.

He vowed to love you forever the moment that you stopped squealing your little lungs out and decided to look up at your father, barely able to clasp his large finger in your perfectly formed hand. I only wish that that could have been the case. I wish that he could have loved us forever. Basking in his love was a feeling I'll never experience again.

I wish that he could have lived forever. A part of him still does, I'm sure, and he definitely does know while I have a tear in my eye thinking of him for the first time in God knows how many years without you in front of me.

Maybe I should be angry that you've decided to enroll yourself into a team when it was Javi's antics in Team Aqua that snatched him from me. But I'm not. I am many things, but I am not mad. I am not angry. Javi chose his own path in life, and I would never stop you from deciding your own fate. The Lord may frown about me but let Him. I'm told He has forgiven me for other things. So hopefully He will understand that.

I know He has forgiven me for giving you up. I didn't want to live in a world where I had to make that choice, but I knew I needed to make one that would give you the best in life. I wish I could have kept you and raised you as my own. But as the months after Javi's death passed, looking at you brought me more pain than happiness. I knew we both deserved peace. And I knew that we would only find that away from each other.

It was those eyes of yours, you see.

Even when you said goodbye to me in October, it was like saying goodbye to that little baby of mine all over again and my beloved Javi as well. You've changed in so many ways, but your gaze isn't one of them.

It disturbed me at first when you came back to our family. And although it still saddens me, it doesn't make me flinch anymore. Your eyes burden me with knowing what I have put you through. But they are still the eyes of that little baby that I loved more than my own life.

I know it probably doesn't feel like it, but I still love you that same amount. I know you blame Peter. But don't blame him. Don't blame just him. I have the walls of the past locking me inside and I just cannot love you in the way that was once natural.

I tried to be a good aunt to you when it was decided that you would be that to me. But as the months went by, the upset of not holding you close as a mother made the walls go even higher up than ever before and they hardened me and, in the end, I think I was barely more than a friend to you.

At least you had Sammy. Al least you had sweet Samuelito. He knows the truth, I'm sure, not that we've ever spoken it allowed. I wait for him to grow as big and as fast as you have and for him to question me as well. But for the time being, he is just a little boy – one like you were during all the years that I missed with you – and I will cradle him close. I will hold him close for me. I will hold him close for him. But most importantly, I will clasp him close to me for you.

I wish I had held you when we said goodbye. I wish I had kissed you on your brow and the bridge of your nose and told you everything that I feel for you. How proud I am of you. How kind, thoughtful, and funny and a beam of light you are in spite of the hard life you have led. How much joy it has brought to my cold heart to watch you be a big brother to Sammy even though you were not allowed to address him as such.

I'm sorry for the rules smothering your life like barbed wire. I hope you feel at peace now. I hope you feel as free as a bird in Team Rocket. I'm devastated that you might be at peace away from us all. But the important thing is that you feel safe and loved.

I hope Team Rocket does that for you. If we never meet again then I hope you live a life where you can focus on the happiness and any hardship brings you lessons to share with others. I hope you find another to share your life with. And I hope she or he sees the beautiful qualities that I see and everybody else sees. But more importantly, I hope you see them too because that will make the right people walk into your life.

I'm rambling now, aren't I? The truth is, although it may be news to you, I don't wish to say goodbye. I feel as though you are still with me in your own way as I am writing to you, and I feel Javi's wing around my shoulder too.

I don't wish to go. But time is moving on. Sammy will be home from his new school soon and there's always bits to be getting on with around the house. I'm saddened you didn't come with us to Alola. But I'm glad there is no room here for you. You'll have to share with Samuel if you wish to stay. I couldn't bare walking past a room that used to be yours and to have you no longer in it.

I'm going now. I wish you nothing but the best. I hope you are content knowing you've heard the truth. But I must burden you again with asking you not to tell anybody in the family and certainly not Samuelito. Tell your new family, by all means. But I am going to take this secret with me to the grave from now on and I hope you'll do the same.

I love you with all of my heart, Jorginho. I wish we lived a different life, and you could be in my arms as my boy. But God has plans and who am I to question them? I do love you. And I hope you know that that is the truth now I have told you the rest of it.

Be good.

And take care of yourself, my sweet Jorgito. My baby boy. My son.

You will be forever in my thoughts and always in my heart even if never again will you be in my arms.

All my love which I pray is enough,

Jennifer. Your Mamá.

There you go! Thanks so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed :) Sometimes I forget that Jorginho has quite a tragic backstory because he, like Jennifer mentions about his father, is such a jovial character. I've been reading a book lately called Away With The Penguins and some of the details in that really inspired this chapter, as well as more of the backstory of Jorginho's parents, Javier and Jennifer. I always knew that Javi would be in Team Aqua and that they would both lose him far too early. That detail actually came from a song that reminded me of Jorginho as an adult. It's amazing how many details go into characters! Thanks again for reading and I will be back a month from today with another chapter of this story. I explained over on Pikachu Tales that I'm taking a month off from regular uploading to try and write some good stuff :P I hope you all had good holidays if you were celebrating and the beginning of 2023 treats you with kindness. See you soon!

Amy signing out :)