a/n: Hi, everyone! So, I actually went back and did some major revisions to chapters 3 and 4. Chapter 3 was just way too short, and I wanted to build in more of a reason for Arven/Pepper to keep his Source a secret. I don't do sudden changes to stuff I've already posted too often, but in this case, I think it was worth it. Thanks for reading and hope you enjoy!

#

Bridge was back within an hour or so. Not that Ash had a wall clock or anything to keep track of the time. He'd spotted a sundial in the gardens on the way in and asked if Pepper knew how to read it. Pepper told him it wasn't that complicated, but it wasn't very consistent either. An "hour" according to the sundial in winter was way shorter than when you read it in the summer.

"Huh," Ash said. Then after a moment of contemplation, he added, "And I guess at night, time doesn't pass at all, huh?" He laughed a bit too loudly, only to realize Pepper wasn't joining in. Ash shuffled his feet. He liked to think he had a way of getting people to warm up to him through his humor and optimistic attitude. This guy might be a bit more difficult to win over.

That was when Bridge walked in with a folded tunic and dropped into Ash's hands. "Not that we don't appreciate your high spirits," he said. "But if you have time for jokes, perhaps you have time to help with the laundry, too?"

"Laundry?" Pepper huffed. "Do you see those biceps?"

Ash glanced down at his arms. He thought they were pretty scrawny in compared to most people's. But maybe being a whole year older than when he started his journey meant he was getting more muscular, too?

Bridge shook his head in confusion.

Pepper went back to punching his ball of dough. "Yeah, neither do I. An hour of scrubbing, and he'll be back complaining of sore muscles."

Heat rushed to Ash's face. Pepper was starting to remind him a little too much of Gary. Which meant it was time for a witty retort.

"Hey, my face muscles work fine," he said. Then he set the tunic on the nearest open space, hooked his fingers inside his cheeks, and made a show of stretching the edges of his mouth as wide and high and they would go. "See this? It's called a smiiiiiile." He put his hands down and grinned widely. "You should try it sometime."

Bridge let out another hardy laugh and told Ash to get changed so his current attire wouldn't make the rest of the staff uncomfortable. "You can use the cooks' quarters," he said, pointing to a set of stone steps at the edge of the kitchen area. "There's a spare bed down there, as well."

Pepper frowned. "Uh, I've been kind of using that bed as a sitting and storage space."

"Have you?" Bridge said. "Well, if you want extra help, logic would suggest the person doing the help needs a place to sleep." And with that flawless point, he waved good-bye and wished them both luck on the evening meal prep.

Pepper stared at Ash for several moments without saying anything, even as he hands kept working at the dough. Was he trying to size Ash up or something? If this was a stare-down to see which of them was more stubborn, Ash had it in the bag.

Pepper soon relented and shook his head with a long sigh. "I guess I did deserve that," he admitted. Whatever punching was supposed to do the dough, he'd apparently finished. He reached for a wooden rod and began rolling it over the dough next, thinning it out. "I'm sorry. For giving you a hard time, I mean. Especially when you just got here."

"I-it's okay," Ash said. Maybe he'd judged a little too quickly himself. Gary never offered apologies. Neither did Professor Oak, now that Ash thought about it. Maybe it ran in the family.

Pepper laid the flattened dough out onto a paddle and moved it over to what looked like a pizza oven. Probably just an oven oven here. "My friends and I always joked around like that," he continued. "I guess, for a second there, I forgot I'm not at home."

His voice cracked a bit on the last word. Now Ash really did feel guilty. Maybe the reason this guy never smiled was because he didn't have much reason to. "So, how long have you been living here, anyway?" Ash asked, hoping to gently shift the subject.

"Um, a year."

Ash winced, now remembering that Bridge already told him that. And if Pepper was homesick, bringing up how long he'd been away from home would only make it worse. He decided to stay quiet for the moment and picked up the tunic Bridge had brought him. Experimentally, he rubbed some of the fabric between his fingers. "Feels itchy," he said.

"It's not so bad," Pepper said as he poked at the embers in the oven's belly.

"Bad enough," Ash muttered, trying to balance his discomfort with being a polite time-travel apprentice. "Can't I just wear the clothes I have? I'm sure everyone here would get used to it after a while."

Pepper groaned like he was about to explain something that even a toddler should have figured out. "No, you can't. As a matter of fact, it'd be safer to burn them."

Ash dropped the tunic on the ground. His hands flew protectively over his head. "Whoa, whoa. I've carried around a lot of different-but-pretty similar headgear in my travels so far." He released the grip on his noggin and pointed to the hat. "But I pulled this one especially for our trip to Michina Tow-"

"City," Pepper corrected.

"Sorry. City. Anyway, it's a limited-edition release from the Kanto Pokémon League. Only one hundred in existence. Do you know how rare that makes it?"

The barest hint of a smile crossed Pepper's face. Then he swallowed it and went back to poking at the oven.

Maybe Ash didn't know much about ancient cooking, but he was pretty sure ovens didn't need nearly the amount of attention Pepper was giving this one. "Hey, you were gonna make a joke."

"No, I wasn't."

"Yes, you were. And you know what? I think it would do you some good. So let's try that again." Ash pulled the hat off and held it out. "I said, 'this hat is a limited-edition from the Pokémon League. Only one hundred in existence. Do you know how rare that makes it?' What were you gonna answer?"

Pepper finally relented, and a genuine smile broke through. "I was going to say, yes. It makes one out of a hundred."

"There you go, see? Now you've put me in my place, and you've cheered up!" He shoved his favorite headgear back atop its rightful throne. "Also, I'm not burning the hat."

"Okay, okay," Pepper laughed. "Keep the hat if it's that big a deal to you. But you should burn the other stuff. I'm here trying to keep history intact, not mess it up more." He finally stood up from the stove and wiped his hands on his apron. "The bread shouldn't take long. I want a slow heat to start, so I'm holding off any more fuel for now. But keep an eye on the embers so they don't go out, okay?"

"Yeah, sure, but-" Ash pointed back to Pepper. "What about keeping history intact? Are you like a...special time-travel division of the International Police?" Ash asked. Then, as an afterthought, he added, "Do the International Police have a time-travel division?"

Pepper shuddered. "I doubt it. Or if they did, they should have arrested me, my friends, and my parents several times already."

Ash feigned at laughing along, even though it was pretty clear this was some inside reference that only Pepper's friends would get. But the talk of criminal activity-serious or not-got his mind wandering back to his earlier worries. Specifically, who they were preparing a meal for.

"Hey, this might be a weird question, but...what do you think of the senator? I mean, he seems like an okay guy to you?"

"Senator Vital? Sure. I mean, he's stern, but it's clear he cares about the city a lot."

"His name here is Vital?" Ash made a face like he was spitting out some undercooked food. "Ugh. I've been calling him Marcus 2.0 in my head. 'Vital' sounds too...I dunno. Important."

"Who's Marc-you know what? Never mind," Pepper said. "The point being, he is important. And lots of water-type specialists have names like that here." He perused a line-up of plants in little clay pots along the back wall. After selecting one, he plucked several leaves from it and carried it back to his workspace. "Water is a resource where you're mostly at the mercy of nature in this time. Irrigation exists, but even a minor drought can be deadly. The senator has been fighting to get more water specialists in Michina. It was an ongoing thing even before I got here."

"I see," Ash said.

Pepper dropped the leaves into a small stone bowl. Then he took another hunk of stone and began to break them down. Their rough surfaces grating against each other made Ash squirm in his seat.

"Anyway, enough about me," Pepper went on. "Tell me about yourself."

This Ash could do with confidence. He pulled his hat slightly to the side and gave his signature adventurous smile. "My name is Ash Ketchum. I'm from the town of Pallet, and I'm going to be the world's greatest Pokémon Master."

"Oh, um...cool," Pepper said awkwardly. "I more meant tell me about your hobbies and stuff, but...cool." He stopped grinding and busied himself with perusing a line of small jars on a high shelf. Probably he didn't see Ash as master-level material, but that was all right. Ash had a healthy list of people to prove wrong with his accomplishments someday. One more name on that list didn't hurt.

"So...the place where you come from?" Pepper went on. "Pokémon live with people there, right? Not separated?"

Ash nodded emphatically. "Yeah. As soon as I was old enough to be a trainer, I've never been without a Pokémon at my side."

"Same. I keep thinking it's hard to adjust here because all the modern conveniences are gone, but..." He shook his head as his voice got quiet. "...I think, the truth is, I just miss my buds, you know?"

Ash nodded. He was never that great at sitting still and listening, but Pepper sounded so down, it was hard to do anything else. Ash seriously needed to find more ways to lift this guy's spirits or he'd been down in the dumps himself within a week. "Well, maybe the way to get home is to go back the way we came?" he suggested. "How did you get here, anyway?"

"The short version?"

Ash nodded. Assuming both versions were equally depressing, the short one would be depressing for less time.

Pepper finally selected a jar and poured a dash of oil into the bowl. "Before I was born, my...well, someone I know built a time machine. It didn't work at first, but when they got it going years later, it connected to this universe instead of ours."

He returned the jar to its place and picked up what looked to Ash like a small branch. He stirred the mixture rigorously at first but eased off the longer he spoke. "I played around with the machine once when I was little, and well...kind of got myself caught between the two realities. Visiting a bunch of different places on the timeline and stabilizing myself at each stop is the only way to fix it. Otherwise..." His hand slowed until the branch-whisk was barely moving at all. "...otherwise, I'll stop existing in any reality."

Ash swallowed hard. Of all the odd experiences Pepper had shared so far, this was the one he could sympathize with the most. He remembered all too well that moment when Marcus had temporarily changed history. He and Pikachu had both begun to flicker and fade away. Ash had never felt so hopeless and terrified, not knowing if they would reappear in the present or be gone forever. It was a feeling he'd never wish on anybody.

"Not that I'm judging your family or anything," he said quietly. "But where were they when all this happened? A time machine seems like a lousy place to leave a little kid without watching them."

"They, uh, built the machine," Pepper said.

"Oh."

There wasn't much talk between them after that. Pepper finished stirring, then carried the bowl with the oil and spices over to the cut-up vegetables. He set them beside one another, counting out portions, but the more Ash watched, the more he suspected Pepper was just keeping himself busy until the bread was-

Oh, shoot! Ash whirled around and found the embers he'd been told to watch going dark. "Hey, Pepper? Don't get mad at me, but-" he began, just as a final poof of smoke escaped the cooling pile of ash. "I think I messed up."