Hello, it is Wednesday and I am back with a new chapter! This one is a gift for Shannon because, to celebrate our ten years of friendship she came over to visit and spend the day with me. We had such a lovely time and you would have thought I would write her something really happy but this is a tad on the angsty side as we move onto the second half! I know Shannon appreciates that equally as much though :P and especially when it revolves around James and Misty which this one does! This chapter focuses on two very different moments in both of their lives. I don't think I've ever tackled something like this before! But I'm glad I did. I had to for Shannon :D Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I own the story and the OCs mentioned :3
It's amazing how the biggest shifts in our lives can occur with the most mundane objects present. We can just be doing the dishes and then suddenly, our spouse announces that the baby is on its way. We can be staring mindlessly out a window, and in that moment, a phone rings with news that changes everything.
The mundane thing in which connects these two stories is a door. They say that when one door closes, another one opens and that is correct for both of these tales. But just like stepping past a threshold, sometimes something entirely different awaits us. Again, that is the case for both these moments. So, we'll begin now.
"Where shall I put this, Mrs Ketchum?" Misty questioned with a demeanor like the weather on that day as she helped Delia unpack her grocery shopping in the kitchen, holding up a bag of flour in question and a bag of bananas held lower, closer to her hip.
From feeling my mouth stretching wide as I perched in the light of the sunny windowsill, I noticed that she obviously remembered where the fruit was always placed. And then, it dawned on me that not for a single second did Delia roll her eyes towards Misty – out of fondness or impatience that she probably should have known where everything went at that point!
Instead, she simply mirrored Misty's good mood in her own way, her hands filled with the groceries that they had just purchased together. And stopped for a nice cold drink on the way back home too, of course.
"Oh, just in the cupboard above the sink, sweetheart. It's a little higgledy-piggledy, I'm afraid." Delia's words were then followed by giggles that sounded like birds chirping, her mouth becoming concealed with the mesh bag of oranges in her hold. But needless to say, Misty didn't mind, and with a helpful nod of the head, she made her way to place the flour exactly where it needed to be. This encouraged Delia to comment: "You're so helpful, do you know that?" she complimented, her own cheeks as flush as Misty's were surely soon to be as the oranges dangled about her hip then. "I don't know what I'd do without you."
And just like I predicted, the warmth of the sun on my skin paled to insignificance in comparison to how I felt when I saw Misty positively bloom like a flower thanks to the kind words from Delia. Although she was quick to respond and even quicker to wave a dismissive hand, anybody could tell she treasured reassurance from Ash's mother almost more than anybody else.
"It's nothing, really." Misty insisted with cheeks ablaze that gave the Kanto sun on that day a run for its money and after both she and Delia had walked over to the fruit bowl on the kitchen island top together in order to rid their hands of their respective fruit, Misty found herself adding. "It's the least I can do for you after you welcome me here day after day."
Another thing that I recognized within one of my closest friend's was the notion that she probably would have liked to say more than just this. She would have liked to offer very warm, loving words towards the woman who was more like a mother to her than the one she scarcely remembered and had offered her unconditional love and support over the years.
But sometimes, these abilities to express straight from the heart take their time, don't they? And for the time being, Misty felt like she could say it best with her actions and by accompanying Delia shopping week after week. And offering to pay for our three drinks afterwards too!
Delia, on the other hand, found it natural to allow kind words to float out of her as soon as they came to her. After all, she had age on her side and the kind of life experience that made someone hardly ever hold back a single word.
For good or for bad, I would go on to learn! She was not unlike her son.
"Oh, it's my pleasure to have you in my home, my dear." Delia reaffirmed, Misty feeling the cool and motherly touch of her hand on her still tingling cheek even if the flushing had managed to cool down considerably after they, together, had piled yoghurts, milk, and cheese into the fridge. After a pause and a silence where no words filled the air and only rustling of grocery packets as they were organized sounded, something clearly washed through Delia's mind because she ended up saying it. "The more the merrier, I find, especially with my boy coming and going as he does." She began. "I don't suppose-"
Neither Misty then standing by the sink again to load dishwashing soap and laundry detergent underneath it and me still at my place on the windowsill would ever find out what Delia was supposing on that day.
All of a sudden, the sound of the doorbell ringing filled the air. Immediately, we both turned to the older woman, puzzled. And Misty knew that she hadn't been given the luxury of the person on the other side knocking and their rapping noises giving a clue to who might be stopping by.
So out of the two of us, she was the one to ask.
"Are you expecting anyone to stop by, Mrs Ketchum?" Misty wondered, giving her boyfriend's mother no time to remind her because with a teenage energy coursing through her heart and thereby her body, she had already left her new position and was poking her head round the hall to try and get a look that it was. "It can't be Ash. He would have barged straight through the door."
Upon later reflection, I noticed that Delia breezed past answering Misty's initial question, instead choosing to nonchalantly run a dish cloth through her fingers even though there was no way that her hands could have been sullied from how carefully we had all loaded and unloaded the groceries.
But I couldn't have dwelled on it. I was already jumping down from the windowsill and hovering behind Misty, ready to follow her for the question that I could already imagine gracing Delia's lips, a good few seconds before I actually heard it swirling through my eardrums.
"I think maybe I am." She answered with a vagueness that caused my head to momentarily turn around but not Misty's because she was still trying to work out who the person on the other side could possibly be but having a hard time fathoming it thanks to the frosted glass of the panes. "Do you think you could be a dear and answer it for me?" she posed, though she already must've known that the nosy streak of Misty would have not hesitated complying for a single second. "And then I really must talk to you about something. Although I probably should have done that over our orange juice earlier."
This time, for a moment as fleeting as my own gesture had been performed, Misty did turn to look over her shoulder and back at Delia, quizzically. But then, the desire to please the older woman won out in the end and she couldn't stop herself from complying, in spite the fact that the words that tumbled out of her lips were a little befuddled.
"Sure..." she agreed with an elongated noise on the last letter of that word, but Misty did begin to walk straight ahead, down the end of the hall and towards the front door that she intended to answer for Delia.
I could have sworn that I heard the room in which we had left go terribly silent due to the fact that it was suddenly vacant and, in quite a teenager-y way herself that was a little bit sneaky, Delia had carried herself off elsewhere. But that couldn't have possibly been the case!
Or could it?
Regardless, like Misty, I was focused on making my way towards the front door but a few paces behind her. I offered her a confused yet inquisitive look as she met my gaze before turning the handle, still not able to figure out the person on the other side with only a door between us all there and then.
When the door swung open, nothing could prepare us for the sight that we saw. And apparently, the sight of the two of us was equally as alarming, as in surprise, one of the cardboard boxes that the person was holding tumbled down to the porch floor, causing them to hiss the word shit.
Looking back, I can't help but wonder if it was the mishap that caused him to speak this word, or it was coming face to face with Misty and I rather than Delia.
Even then I knew he wouldn't have dreamt of speaking this word if it had been the lady he was expecting.
"Uh…" James swallowed and began from behind a stacked pile of cardboard boxes in his hold that almost concealed him up to his chin with how many there were. He had found a cuss word, so he knew he had to locate the rest of his vocabulary pronto. "Is Delia here?"
James must've known that he had a nerve to be asking this question! He may now just be James rather than James of Team Rocket but with the amount of hassle that he had put both that woman and her son and all of his friends through over the years, he should have probably had some level of pride that made him tread carefully.
Apparently not. Apparently, he went straight there.
Misty and I managed to recover from our shock quick enough but unfortunately, rage and hostility began to appear. Immediately, my stance in the hallway was wide as if preparing for battle and my cheeks crackled with anticipation.
It caused me elation to see James eye me cautiously!
"I think it should be Mrs Ketchum to you, don't you?" Even Misty herself wondered why she chose to begin the interaction with this, but she couldn't stop herself, her own stance wide and preparing for battle, an equal measure of dismay and defensiveness shining across her eyes like light hitting a sword. "What the hell do you think you're doing here?"
I saw James consider, still holding the pile of boxes close to him and his lower lip falling into the rest of his mouth for just a second as his head slanted on the one side. It shouldn't have surprised me that he didn't speak the truth. But then, even I couldn't accuse him of stating a lie because he didn't say anything of this sort either.
Still, my cheeks continued to thunder and crackle inside their natural redness in preparation.
"Uhm, well…" James tried again, not agreeing or disagreeing that he should probably be more formal and address Ash's mother in a different way in the presence of Misty. Both of us were none the wiser to and would have been gob smacked to learn she had already insisted to him that it was Delia as far as he was concerned. "Look. Is she here? Do you think you could fetch her?"
It put a bad taste in my already churning mouth that Delia was referred to as both a she and her there and then because, although James appeared to have none at all, I had a lot of pride and couldn't admit to myself that I would've narrowed my eyes further more at him no matter what he decided to call her!
In the same way that I was not leaving any room for any nonsense, Misty felt similarly to me and she began to plant the palm of her hand against the door on the side that James had just been staring at while he waited for it to open, giving him a strong message that he wasn't even welcome on the porch, let alone inside of the house.
"I'm not doing anything for you and I'm certainly not presenting my boyfriend's mother to you! God only knows what you would do!" Misty exclaimed, James suddenly having to clutch all the cardboard boxes closer to him once more as the orange haired teenager made a lunge, staring him close down in his face before looking left and right. "Where are the other two, then? You can't fool me. What kind of tricks are you up to?"
Even though my pride did get in the way when it came to James and over the years, it would certainly not reach its peak there and then (!), throughout it all, I did mostly know him as a very level-headed person who only resorted to explosive reactions when it truly called for it.
On that day on the porch, he didn't exactly explode, far from it. But it was evident that he had had enough of being treated like a criminal by the both of us when all of us knew that he had hung the Team Rocket towel up only recently.
Somehow, James managed to still clutch at the pile of boxes that were growing heavier by the minute.
"Jesus, the other two are back at my grandparents, calm down." James' mouth pressed together to reveal the presence of dimples that were not usually there naturally. Immediately, I felt that he should've been well accustomed to Jessie and therefore know not to speak the words calm down to Misty. "It's just me. Please. I know you respect Ash's mother very much so can you respect her enough to let her deal with me?" Misty twitched, back to her prior position of inside the house and with her hand pressed against the door. "She was aware I'd be stopping by."
Though I couldn't actually see the expression on Misty's face that James could surely see, with my cheeks no longer crackling but firm bolts of electricity residing inside them, hiding just in case, I imagined that a snide smirk was surely taking over her features, believing that James was speaking nothing but lies.
However, I was vastly stood correct when Misty briefly turned over her shoulder, looking at me. She was considering everything that he was saying! I couldn't believe it. Furthermore, from her expression, I believe that she was... believing him?
My cheeks began to silently crackle once more, my sharp teeth cutting into my lip while my mouth pressed into a firm line, but I didn't care. What was causing Misty to drop her guard down just one percent but a noticeable one percent?
Was it the realization that she had witnessed him leaving the Team Rocket headquarters with his family so knew he had turned his back on this part of his life for good? Or was it the way that she had called her boyfriend by his name and not the usual impertinent word of twerp.
That had to be it. Yes, that just had to be it.
"Fine." She conceded, her hand hesitantly slipping down and away from guarding the door, but she allowed her body to still remain there and that was something that would not move apparently. Her nose began to break the distance with the frame above all our heads. "Mrs Ketchum is downstairs anyway so I'm sure she's heard every word and will-"
For a second time in a short space of time, a sound cut a sentence short. The sound in which presented itself to all of us was familiar to both Misty and I and it was the low creaking, almost moaning sound of the top of the landing, giving away that somebody was upstairs.
Then, we all heard the bathroom door shutting. All Misty could do was grit her teeth, so her own lip felt a jagged sensation and reluctantly mutter the words "well she was in the kitchen..."
A contemplative expression on his face all while he listened to the same noises that we were hearing but learning of them for the first time, James began to quickly figure out what exactly was going on. I hated that. I openly hated that!
But I could rest in the comfort knowing that he was hopefully wounded by the fact that Delia had been hesitant to inform Misty that he would indeed be stopping by.
"Look…" That word from him presented itself all over again and after he embellished the contemplative slant of his neck with an additional movement that caused the hair that had been hanging in front of his eyes to shimmy; he tried to reason with two people that wouldn't see reason. "Can I at least put these boxes in the hall with you and then hop back out here?" his eyes like frolicking through an endless summer as a child dropped down to his very white knuckles. "My arms are killin' me."
I was immensely proud at the response from Misty, even though, in hindsight, I think we were being a little cruel. Apparently, time really does change everything!
"Nope." Misty informed him curtly, causing the whites of his eyes around those meadow orbs of his to appear even brighter and matched the hue that was taking over his knuckles increasingly as he gripped that tower of boxes in his clutch. "Knowing you, you're probably returning lost property that you stole anyway." Misty's eyes became slitted letterboxes and a single dimple appeared on James' cheek out of hurt. And not because of the hurting of his arms. "What are you doing here anyway?"
This time, the squinting of Misty's eyes was for a different reason as she couldn't help but ask, apparently being unable to wait until Delia returned from her very long and drawn-out bathroom visit to get some clarification of why on earth there an ex-Team Rocket member lingering on the doorstep was.
And more importantly, why on earth did he come with boxes in hand? When Misty had peered around the door to try and spot Jessie and Meowth as well, she had noticed that a pile of identical boxes and bags too were the only thing that followed him.
The thing that stopped both Misty and I from making any speculation at once was the sudden groaning noise that overtook James' mouth, me then only just noticing that his smooth top lip resembled that of a blade of grass with morning dew kissing against it.
"Well, if you're not going to let me park them in there then I'll just park them here." He spoke through the strain in his voice as he did exactly what he said, plonking all of the boxes down on his side of the porch and immediately softening with relief, his fingers waggling and stretching out in front of him as they got used to the feeling of comfort once more. "I don't think you'll take kindly to the answer but what the hell. You might as well know because Mrs Ketchum didn't have the time to tell you."
Did I detect sarcasm in his voice towards the last sentence? I didn't put it past him that he, Jessie and Meowth had probably been spying on us and therefore knew we had had plenty of time together on that day and especially over our lovely orange juices at Delia's restaurant.
Nevertheless, I did not have the time to think distrustful thoughts of James in the way I would have liked. One of Misty's eyes narrowed as she tried to continually portray suspicion and the other setting free another part of her, one that was filled with intrigue, James told the both of us the reason for his presence and all the cardboard boxes.
And I don't have to remind myself twice that the truth didn't set either of us free, on the contrary! James told both Misty and I that while him and his family were getting on their feet and settling into finding jobs post Team Rocket, she was allowing all of them to take over the living room and live there with her and Ash as long as they needed.
It's tricky to describe someone with cheeks as pale as Misty becoming even more sheet-like but that is exactly the kind of appearance that they portrayed after hearing the explanation. And then, out of nowhere, like spontaneous fireworks filling a noticeably quiet night sky, Misty's cheeks were aflame but of course for a reason that couldn't be further from when Delia had complimented her!
It was a wonder she was able to speak through such gritted teeth.
"Over my dead body!" Misty immediately protested and I saw a shadow dance across James' face that wasn't the heat of the Kanto sun temporarily hiding behind a cloud. I kid myself that he was telling himself that it wasn't exactly her business either way. "Mrs Ketchum's kindness and trust is going a bit too far." She wrapped her arms around herself in case that sounded like she was criticizing her boyfriend's mother. "Why can't you go and grovel and get the money off your parents like a normal person?!"
This time, as the shadow streaked a second time over James' features and darkened them, I saw them for what they were rather than what I was telling myself. Watching his Adam's apple bob roughly in his throat, I knew that even he couldn't believe that someone who had been labelled as an enemy all those years ago would use that information against him.
James snapped in the only way he knew to snap during those moments of his life. His lower lip began to tremble like a leaf in winter waiting for a rough breeze to cast him aside and then it fell into the rest of his mouth before speaking to try and settle them both.
"Do you think this makes me happy? Proud?" he questioned, Misty beginning to lean back in the doorway in a way that she pretended was disbelief he was questioning her in such a way, but I knew better. James' eyes appeared like mist falling over an undisturbed field. "Mrs Ketchum offered this to us weeks ago and we have only just decided to accept." After years of not telling the truth, real honesty may fall on deaf ears. "As a husband, a father, trying to start again and make ends meet for my family, this doesn't make me feel good. But it's not about me anymore."
Misty could've leaned further back if she wanted to, but she would've ended up with the curviest spine that the Pokémon World had ever known. And truthfully, there was something about James' words that encourages her to lean closer once more and her eyes to drop down.
Apparently after years of being dishonest made the truth cut very clearly when it was finally spoken.
And in spite of her own stubbornness that she most definitely had at that point in her life and would continue to have, Misty knew that James' words had got through to her and there was a part of her that understood.
She felt as though she would have been nothing without Delia's kindness over the years. Without her always answering the door to her no matter when and there always being an offer of her bed when her own home didn't feel like home.
She suddenly realized that she had been perversely lucky, really, even though life at the Cerulean Gym had its own turbulence.
She had a home but had a place to go to which just so happened to feel like a bigger home. What did James have? His teammates and his soon to be three little children, sure. A lifetime of luxury if he gave Jessie up and married someone else instead. The loyalty of his grandparents. But they weren't as young as they used to be. They didn't need their years of peaceful sleep disrupted by his little miniatures.
Misty looked back at James once more as above everything, she considered Delia and she considered her kindness. And in spite of it all, she allowed it to fill her with admiration rather than dread.
"Everybody deserves somewhere." She admitted, her eyes not being able to look ahead any longer and dropping down to a focal point which just so happened to be James' buckled boots. She had to look up and over him all over again when it dawned on her that this was one of the few times she was seeing him in his real clothes and with no Cerulean Cape to surround them. "Fine." She hadn't been able to concede that the word home longed to be uttered instead of the word somewhere. But she didn't even bother to hold back her next few words. "But I think that she's making a mistake."
I hadn't noticed but the crackling of my cheeks had become completely silent and instead, I was focused on the fact that, for a rare occasion, James' words found themselves promptly.
I heard him almost mirror Misty's attitude back to her.
"That's fine." He accepted, his shoulders then moving higher to his ears and in a more normal position as if he had rid himself of some more cardboard boxes that had been weighing him down. He began to see Misty at an angle while her arms folded over her chest again for something to do as a curious question popped into his mind. James would shoot himself in the foot even then by having to know whatever came to him! "Although I am surprised by your whole attitude. It seemed to me that you and I were getting along pretty decently whenever we would meet along the way."
I was glad that James didn't refer to himself and Misty as being friends. I had accompanied her on some of their unusual meetings up at Cerulean Cape while Jessie was on late maternity leave and while even I had to admit they had been fine; I couldn't exactly say they were friends like Ash and her had been. Or like Ash was with anyone, really.
Funnily enough, though I felt at that point in my life I couldn't have been closer to Misty, I was still caught off guard by the sudden red and stinging demeanor of her cheeks. She threatened to recoil all over again and this time, while her hand reached out, it was towards the door frame to steady herself rather than to block James from coming in.
"That's because you weren't in your uniform, and I could pretend you were tolerable." Misty snapped. The tilt she couldn't deny elongating his neck and causing his strands of hair to appear even longer too informed her that she had probably better come up with a better answer. Twirling her own hair stubbornly around a single finger of hers, eventually, she changed her tune. "It feels like home here. I don't know… It's weird that Delia is offering that feeling to your family too."
Listening to this, James' neck slowly straightened all over again as he was told everything that he needed to know. From Misty finally referring to her as Delia, he could feel the respect and the loyalty that she had for her and vice versa. He knew about all of that a long time ago, though.
But there and then, he started to know something else. And it was exactly this that made him proceed in the way that he did, shuffling in those boots of his and standing in his own clothes although Misty had insinuated that the R upon his chest wasn't going to so hurriedly fade even if he didn't don the outfit any longer.
"Well… I can almost guarantee that I won't be doing anything to make you feel that way. Despite my hesitance to accept the offer, I am indebted to Delia and have a lot of respect for her." James began and Misty's mouth naturally looked like she was sucking on a boiled sweet but that was probably to stop it dawning on her that she and James had one more thing in common. Meanwhile, unsaid words rung out in the midst of sentiment that had been spoken. "I'm sure that my children will learn a lot from her."
Out of habit, electricity sparked up in my cheeks once more as James' shoulders began to lean closer to the door and I was left smug with satisfaction when Misty was prompt to keep up her previous stance even with everything that had been said – and had not been said.
"I'm not letting you in here until Mrs Ketchum gives you approval." She said and this left little wiggle room for arguments! But then again, James was married to Jessie, wasn't he? He very often knew his place and he knew it there. Obediently albeit with two pencil lines tracing down between his eyebrows, he nodded his head just once. That nod turned into another tilt as Misty went on to surprise all of us. "I'd better take this box in though. It's getting warm out there and these will warp."
And with that, Misty noticed that one of the few boxes that joined James on the porch contained the remnants of his vinyl collection that hadn't had to be sold and she didn't bother to stop herself from stooping to grab it and bring it in the hall! She left it there as if it was a loyal guard dog – she didn't have the cheek of rummaging through it.
But still, James managed to see the funny side of it, and he did try and share a look with me, but we were not there yet, so I pretended to ignore him.
"Sure…" he spoke, half seemingly in response to Misty offering to get his records out of the heat. Then, as he saw her eyeing a couple of them in particular, he couldn't stop himself from running a hand through his hair and leaning one of his shoulders against the door frame even if he didn't try to come in. He was getting more at home already! "I should probably warn you though." James started and it caused Misty to hurriedly look back at him, in case these words were a warning not to copy his old antics and be on her way with a few sleeves under her arm. "Don't go making friends with any of us. You'll end up making enemies of others."
Between James with his bare arm resting against the frame of the door and the almost suggestive look that took over his face, tugging up his eyebrows, I let out a snicker that allowed my stance to be known! And soon enough, after Misty had encouraged me up under my armpits to reside on her shoulder, she found her own words too.
It seemed that the eye narrowing that she often had reserved for James was not going to become a thing of the past just yet. That gesture paired with a rolling of the eyes was quite a deadly combination!
But nothing could compare to the quickness of her tongue.
Misty scoffed as what James said, to her, sounded like a cheesy line.
"I think out of the two of us, it should be me telling you how things are going to be, don't you?" she retorted and then she was left swallowing roughly and even more determined to have the last word when James didn't even offer her a single word, the raised eyebrows of his continuing and being joined by the corners of his mouth lifting. "I would never make friends with any of you."
After Misty's insisting, you would think that James would finally snap, revealing his temper that we would all get to know over the coming years. However, intriguingly even to me, he just smiled more, and he acted like they were on the same page. Probably because he felt that they were.
Team Rocket members – or rather, ex-Team Rocket members – were an odd bunch!
"Well, great. Sounds like you're going to be chipper all round then." James responded and there and then, she felt that she had half a mind to cross a boundary and begin to go through some of his belongings with how impenitent she felt he was being!
But still, Misty wasn't given the chance. Not that she would ever give him a taste of his medicine in this way. And because, you see, Delia finally decided to descend the stairs and face up to having not gotten round to telling either of us what kind of guests were going to be staying.
I wondered if she had told Ash!
The creaking of the floor at the bottom of the stairs announced her upcoming arrival and then she was standing there, all our heads turning.
"Oh Misty, are you threatening him already?" Delia began, folding her arms over her chest in a light-hearted manner and not bothering to conceal the fact that she had probably been listening to every part of all the interactions from the top of the landing. "You're the stronger one out of the two of us so why don't you help James with his things while I put the kettle on?" she suggested, not missing the fact that James waved a lose hand, not dropping Misty in anything but her own sweaty expression revealing all. "Then we can all talk in the kitchen."
And with that, regardless of all the protectiveness that had run through my being all that time before, I was then distracted by the cool hand that brushed over my cheek and I knew where I wanted to go! I hopped onto Delia's shoulder and followed her into the kitchen, believing it wasn't too early for another orange drink.
I left James and Misty together and, straight away, James knew better than to not comply with something that Delia wanted so he prepared to welcome himself into the hallway at long last. Not until he had bent to fetch some of his belongings, though.
Yet, before he could reach for the three-box tower which had been causing him such gripe all that time before, Misty reminded him what he would be welcoming himself into by snatching the three boxes before he could and preparing to carry them for him.
"I'm stronger than you are too." she hissed, feeling all the more remarkable in herself when her body didn't sway in the slightest between squatting to pick the boxes up and certainly not while carrying them.
But then, something did stand in her way, and it wasn't her strength, and it certainly wasn't James who had decided to give her another, different taste of her own medicine and block the way.
You see, Delia had accidentally shut the kitchen door behind her as she floated into that room and of course, being loaded up in the way that she was, there wasn't a single way that Misty could open it.
Well, there was. She could've momentarily put the boxes down and then opened the door and then gone on through. Surely, she must've inwardly grunted sussing all of this out. But in the end, James acted with the same sprightliness that had encouraged Misty to hiss at him those seconds before.
And despite how she had spoken to him, with no care in the world, he darted forward and opened the door for her. She didn't respond to his smile with an awful lot of gratitude, let alone any of it!
But as I look back now, I realize that in that moment, more than just a physical door was opened between the door of them. I can't say that at that point Misty would label those green eyes following her moves and the sun kissed freckles that were practically invisible to anyone else gave her a feeling of anything other than cautiousness.
Certainly not a feeling of home like the rest of Delia and Ash's household.
But that too, like everything else, would follow at the proper time. Because there really was a new beginning waiting for them all, not just for Jessie, James, Meowth and the children too.
Not all beginnings feel all that impressive at the time or even all that noticeable. And certainly, sometimes they can feel turbulent.
This next tale is more a bit of that. We start with a door, just like the last one ended with such. The door that was at first effortlessly breezed through. And then, it was slammed. So let us see how things got to there.
I might add that I was not present for this one. If I had been, things would have taken another, entirely different turn, I can assure you!
Because James believed that things were exactly the same as they had been the last time that he left them, he did not think twice about letting himself into the home of Ash and Misty, using his very vast and jangly set of keys before heading straight to the living room where he knew his best friend would be.
On this account, he was correct. But contradictory to the other point, things were not quite the same anymore. And eventually, he would have to face up to it.
"Hello, Munchkin." He greeted the back of Misty's head cheerily as soon as he made his way in through the door, then briefly leaving whatever it was that he had been clutching down onto the carpet and only giving her a quick look before focusing more of his attention on the little baby on the play mat on the floor. "And hello, little Rey of Sunshine. What's new?"
In spite of the fact that he had called the baby kicking her legs and grizzling up at the ceiling a particular sunny nickname, it was also he who was positively acting as a sunbeam, acting as if there was hardly anything wrong with such a day.
How could there be, was certain to be the thoughts dashing through his mind?
Whether he thought of this or not or even realized it, before James could reach hold for Rey's sweet starfish hands and plant a kiss on them or certainly give her mother another, longer look, Misty barked down at him.
From the moment that things had taken a turn for her, she decided that she wasn't going to play nicely.
"What do you think you're doing?" her voice drifted through the living room in not so much of an airy way, causing her daughter on the floor to hiccup and stop kicking her legs and, needless to say, James to give her that longer look he probably should have given her a few seconds before!
But still with his good mood dashing through him, he remained crouching on the carpet alongside Rey but looking up at Misty, running a hand through his hair and portraying an expression with just one of his eyebrows shooting upwards.
Then, he spoke too.
"I… Was giving the little one a kiss hello." He answered plainly before that flickering upwards of a single eyebrow was replaced with a smile even at both sides, scurrying off the floor to rectify what he then deemed the mistake that he had made. "But sure, I've got one for you too." Leather jacket still enveloping his shoulders even though his other belongings had been discarded to the carpet, he tried to lean closer to Misty. "How are you today?"
James indeed tried to rectify his wrongdoing by leaning over the sofa and towards where his best friend was sitting under a cozy blanket, puckering his lips to offer her a kiss on the forehead. But Misty wasn't having any of it. She certainly wasn't having any of it then and, unbeknownst to the older male, she had planned to have none of it from the moment that he had text, asking if he could swing by.
Receiving a very particular message from the get-go, and from the second that Misty's shoulders stiffened, James pulled away and did not try to kiss her again, even though his hand remained at the back of the sofa, stretching his arm completely straight and showing that he was present with her as much as he was with Rey.
Apparently, Misty didn't want him to be. Or she did. To be honest with you, she then didn't even know what she wanted.
"Have you got something for me?" Misty's tone barked again. Not that you would have known it, but she told me in hindsight that she tried to soften her second sentence. But as you can see, it was to no avail.
Rey hiccupped a second time but resumed kicking her legs towards the ceiling, distracting her musings with the swirling wonder that put a limit on their home. James' eyebrow shot back upwards towards his hairline yet again, this time the left one.
He may have allowed his best friend's initial tone to slide from the way that he figured she was irked that he made a beeline straight for the baby rather than for her like guests often did when welcomed into their home. But he had made things right, hadn't he? Or at least, he had tried to. Was it his fault that she hadn't wanted a peck as a greeting?
Nevertheless, James decided to let her tone be the least of his worries a second time and he allowed it to dawn on him that her words could make a little bit of sense, even if her attitude was way off. A trait that they both shared were the eyes of a hawk and it hadn't gone unnoticed by Misty that he had been clutching something when he first entered, and it was now down on the floor.
With a soft creaking noise that filled the living room and caused Rey to happily giggle to herself on her play mat, James removed his hand from the back of the sofa. Following that he decided to remove the offensive jacket that had made those sounds despite the fact that, if he had kept it on, those noises would have prevailed, and the beautiful sound of Rey's laughter could've overtaken whatever edge was in the room that he privately took notice of from the moment that he entered.
Deciding to interact with Misty so she couldn't accuse him of not making an effort, James sounded an mm noise from the back of his throat after blowing Rey a kiss seeing as he couldn't give her a proper one, proceeding to reach down for one of the brown paper bags that he had left on the plush of the carpet.
Checking that it hadn't spilled and made a mess, leaving little crystals of sugar on the floor, James held the bag out to his best friend. His smile was back on his face. His eyes were still bright as if he didn't have a care in the world.
Misty did not need to express with words how she hated that.
"Donut?" James offered, managing to keep his eyes steady and straight on his best friend rather than the little girl right by his feet who decided to blow a bubble from in between her rosy lips as soon as she too heard this word.
On any other day of the year or even week, her mother would have had a similar glee-filled reaction, but this was a very particular day in February, you see. In spite of the fact that she wanted to do anything but, Misty still snatched the brown paper bag off James.
Then, she spoke words that made it clear that they couldn't have been further from being on the same page, and this wasn't what she wanted from him at all.
"I mean, haven't you got something to tell me?" she corrected the sentence that she had spoken aloud a few minutes before and watched the way that, since James decided that he better do something else other than hover there from the way that a paper cut was nearly left in wake of the snatch, he settled himself down to open his own paper bag and have at his own donut.
Misty's own eyebrow shot upwards towards her hairline for a vastly different reason as, for a couple of heartbeats, all that filled the living room aside from everyone's breathing and their presence was the rustling of a paper bag. This had the ability to send her right through the roof!
But she managed to compose herself. Managed to wait it out.
James had taken one bite and was half wiping sugar from his own lips in between speaking when he decided that he had also looked back at Misty long enough in response to both get a good look at her and tell himself that this was a good enough answer.
"Um… You look pretty?" he complimented her, his tongue swiping over his lower lip for just a second before going back to removing the sugar with his fingers instead even if it made more mess and the crystals just got sent down towards his black jeans instead. James heard Misty's silence as much as if she had uttered a snort of derision or otherwise. He decided to correct the situation this time rather than correcting anything he had done. "Are we in a fight that I don't know about?" James' hands moved away from his lips, massaging themselves together and sending speckles of sugar down everywhere rather than just his jeans. "It feels like we're in a fight."
James half expected an explosion to happen that was far graver than if the jam had squirted right out of the donut too. It could never have been little Rey because she was still there and she was still kicking, happy as anything despite the things that she could sense invisibly bouncing between both of the adults.
And yet, Misty showed that she could hold her demeanor back, she could soften her tone the way that she pulled her legs closer to her body underneath the blanket and her shoulders almost dropped down enough to join her limbs.
However, the words that she chose to say at first did not match her tone. James had heard that spluttered very differently many times before.
"Oh, we're not in a fight as such." It was Misty's instinct to pull these words close to her, almost for her to hear and her to hear alone. And no wonder given what she was going to come out with next. Following this mildness in which James tried to not and believe her, still sitting cross legged on her living room floor, she then shot him a look in which she hadn't delivered towards him in a very long time. Misty found her words. And Misty found them powerfully. "I was just wondering when you were going to tell me that you decided to get with my mother behind my back."
Everybody has these moments in life. When every essence of aliveness is drained from them in a second and coldness like you wouldn't believe washes over you.
James has had his fair share of these times. But I can tell you that nothing prepared him for this one. Nothing could have prepared him there and then.
All he could do was quickly lie the brown paper bag flat on the floor and the half-eaten donut of his on top of it before he dropped it along with his heart loosening itself from being tucked snugly inside of his ribcage.
He still remembers how Misty looked as she looked right at him. He didn't know how she was doing that. And he didn't know how he was looking at her back. They were, however, both succeeding, managing their way through things.
Air escaped from James' lungs and out of his parted lips and it could be heard by all. Then it was his gaze to drop while he could rapidly feel those still sugar specked fingers of his feeling as though they belonged to that of a deceased person.
Heartbeat beginning to drum inside of his ears in spite of how impossible that felt with how lifeless his hands then were, all he could do was utter one thing and one thing only.
His best friend's name. His supposed best friend's name.
"Misty…" James whispered. Surely his heart had to have renovated into his ears permanently because he could no longer feel it in his chest. He knew his heart was alive and pounding because this was one of the few things that he could hear. But he also knew that his heart was surely breaking.
Misty's own heart was made of glass. But it made her react in different ways.
She suddenly pulled her legs closer to the rest of her all over again and tried to sit further up.
She wanted fire. They may not have been in a fight as she said so herself, but part of her wanted to get into one there and then.
There seemed like no other option.
"I'm very serious, James." She began and James gravely nodded because, what else could he do? He very much knew how serious it was. That was why it had been on the tip of his tongue for so damn long. But it wasn't the time there and then to say any of that. It was the time to numbly listen. "When were you going to do the decent thing and tell me?" Misty met James' hesitant gaze as he tried to merely listen and when his eyes dropped a second occasion, hers inhabited disgust and she knew she didn't even need to verbally say words that she got across in a single, strangled eye squint. "Oh wait…"
In the same way that Misty had straightened her spine on the sofa in order to project her feelings loud and proud, James suddenly altered position too, sitting with both of his legs underneath and his chest as high as he allowed it to be.
He wanted to more than anything, was willing himself to more than anything, but this was a time when he could not look at his best friend.
He wanted to know how she had found out. He wanted to know who had let it slip to her.
But in the end, the last wisp of that person that he had once was snuffed out as if the snort of rage that Misty then decided to set free as she stretched out her legs down and over the sofa had blown any remnants away completely.
All that was left inside of James was the truth. And he made an effort to set it free. Even if he still could not look at her in the same way that she was somehow filling both of her eyes with everything that she saw on the floor in front of her.
"I was going to tell you when I thought you were ready to hear it…" James confessed feebly, the two lines of a frown that looked like they had been drawn in pencil appearing between his eyebrows not doing anything to help him not look terribly guilty.
The truth was, he was very guilty. He felt very guilty. He had done from the moment that he and Lynne had checked out of his hotel room on that very fateful day. He had done when he had to look his family in the eye too and explain what had happened.
But Misty did not want his guilt. She did not want his rage either which was good because that was something that he wasn't going to offer. What she wanted; however, she still did not know. She would know when it was presented to her.
In the meantime, guilt was all that was there and honesty too. But of course, that was something far less palatable after he had kept what Misty had just found out a secret for a couple of months.
"Bullshit." Misty decided to snap each of them away from whatever thoughts they were both happening and leant a bit more forward over the sofa. James managed not to lean back even though he might have liked to. He also might have liked to continue filling his vision with his own jeans, kidding that the only thing that needed to capture his mind was counting the white flakes. But his pupils lifted. Misty was forced to still speak with an attentive audience. "I know it happened in the hospital which makes it even worse."
Misty's voice wobbled when she got that sentence out, so it was another chance for her to hate something. It was her turn for her eyes to dip after she felt the movement of her throat but in the second before she looked down at her own blanket covered lap, she saw her best friend beginning to nod.
Rage is a funny thing. You always expect it to come very suddenly but the truth is, you can equally get there by a very subtle simmer, simmer, and simmer until the pot decides to bubble and boil.
Rage began to twitch under Misty's skin there and then when she saw that disgusting nod. He couldn't agree with her. There was no way that he could agree with or and no way that he was agreeing with her.
Things were too different now. They were too different now. Somehow after everything, they had always patched things up eventually. But this was different.
From the moment that Misty heard, she believed that they could never be them ever again.
"Exactly…" James cut through to Misty's thoughts by confirming what his nod had meant and his nod had meant alone, and it caused her eyebrows to bunch together. It couldn't add up to her that they could even think anything of the same anymore after what he had done. Even though Misty was refusing to look at him, James made a strong effort to take in her shape. His eyes began to wobble and spill like a rickety kettle and unstable teacup. "But I was going to tell you. I was never going to keep it from you for always. Just…"
Just, what, exactly? Misty had had a hard enough time lately without him adding to her already overflowing pot? Their history? That was long resolved, wasn't it? She had never loved him the way that Lynne cared for him.
Jessie had taken it very well considering when she found out. That meant something, didn't it? This was different this time. He was different this time. It had not been an act of helplessness. It was fateful. It wasn't regrettable. He regretted making people feel bad each and every time they found out about it.
But him and Lynne? That was once in a lifetime. And James knew that this was nearly impossible for him to come to terms with, so how on earth was Misty supposed to do it?
"I don't fucking get you." Misty penetrated both of their thoughts for another occasion and this time, as her voice trembled inside of her throat, she didn't loathe it. In fact, as she managed to look at James again for more than a fleeting second it filled her with adrenaline that this seemed to wound him before she even had the chance to carry on. "I thought you were past the days of using people. Seducing them."
Those words felt vinegary on Misty's tongue, and she shuddered, but they felt even worse going through James' ears. He ran a loose hand over the entirety of his cascading locks so somehow offer himself some consolation but, needless to say, there was nothing that was going to be able to comfort him.
He had considered what it was going to be like when Misty was informed and one of the scenarios he had expected was this exact one. But nothing could prepare him for the actual reality. Nothing could prepare him for feeling recently like all the pieces of his heart had made their way all together for the first time in his life and were now lost again, scattered on a temperamental floor, and being stamped upon.
Misty's words hurt because he once believed she knew him better than anyone. She had always known who he had been underneath it all.
Apparently not.
Apparently, his past was always going to define his future. Apparently, you could only outrun your past for so long before it bit you on the behind all over again.
"It's nothing like that…" James whispered again, his hair feeling the flat of a palm swimming over it all over again and while this gesture still didn't bring him consolation, it gave him the courage to speak a little louder after he cleared his throat. Misty tried not to wince for a very private reason. His coughs had always been so damn gentle. "You don't understand."
There was something in these words of James' that spoke, please try to understand even if you don't. But Misty took them as another wall going up between the two of them, adding to the many, many layers that had been growing there since the moment that she had found out.
Air breezed out through her nostrils. Air that she didn't need anymore. How she wished that she didn't need him, but she always had needed him to be her friend and now she couldn't see how he could be that.
"I always knew that you and my mom had some weird bond." It seemed that the air being set free from Misty's lungs made from for the ability for her to be more honest. If this moment could have been rewound, then someone may have spotted almost the desperate laugh that glittered inside the throat. But this was not shown from the lips. And certainly not the eyes. Instead, Misty's eyebrows knotted closer together as if they were the only companions she had before she added: "But this…"
This was a sentence that she could not finish and probably for the best. James was back to his prior position of sitting with his legs crossed on the carpet and the new addition of his head being in his hands, his fingers helplessly roaming through the longest locks at the front of his face which usually hung like curtains. Curtains which drew people in or kept them out usually depended on the day that he was having.
On this day, to be certain, there was no way that they could ever invite Misty back in. James wished that he hadn't discarded his jacket down onto the sofa with Misty almost as soon as he had entered. He possessed a hollow chest and goosepimples on his arms.
And yet, after one more tousling of his locks and burying his eyes away for just one more second, he decided that he knew what he needed to say.
"I love her, Misty…" James admitted and contrary to his prediction, Misty did not wince. She did not blink either. For half a second, like how he felt, he had to wonder if she was really in there either. Only time would tell and so would finding his voice furthermore. "I fell in love with the woman who brought me peace." His hair felt touched for the last time. And then his boots felt the steadiness of the carpet as he looked down at Misty rather than up once again. "But you knew that all along. So, it shouldn't worry you."
Wincing that time, Misty's eyes followed James as he stood up in her house and there was a lost child inside of her that wanted to bite on the inside of her cheeks and insist that she knew nothing. After all, she didn't know what she knew anymore.
In the end, another side of this small child that belonged to her and her alone won out and it was the one that made her speak out through a hoarse throat and without a blanket on her legs as she decided she was far too warm from emotion to need it anymore.
She almost choked when her fingers grazed the leather of James' jacket that was still the one from when he had a motorbike and even more of a baby face than he did there and then.
"I wouldn't need to worry if you didn't jump into bed with every person who was remotely nice to you." Misty said. For a rare occasion, this was not meant to be a calculated cut towards James and yet it still made him wince. His jaw contorted as if her words had been a razor trying to remove the stubble that clung to him when he awoke for the day. "I don't think you understand." She did not need to go on to explain the emotions she felt. Her words summed them up well. "How it felt not hear about it straight from you. And to have my husband tell me what he had overheard what you had been discussing with your wife."
From the outside, nothing different presented itself but from the inside, James' cheeks throbbed, and they burned. To console himself, they nibbled on the inside of his cheek as he figured out the words to say.
How was he supposed to answer that?
Almost as soon as the question popped into his fragile mind, he knew exactly what he needed to say. And despite the guilt which assumed almost all of him to completion, he did not like how it had come to light and how that sentence had sounded.
And not because of how you may think.
"I am allowed to talk things through, you know. At least that shows that I was never going to keep it a secret." James retorted to what Misty had had to say and when the two of them met each other's gazes, he read the message from the second that it was wordlessly sent to him. James had to blow out the air rattling around inside his lonesome lungs when he knew that Misty felt like she had been the odd one out. She was the only one who didn't know. This realization caused James to change his tune and his voice to soften. "I wasn't going to always keep it from you." He quietly reaffirmed. "Is there anything that you want to ask me?"
Misty was not expecting this question to come from her best friend but even so, in her mind it was like the flood gates had been opened and yes, God, there was so many questions that begun to race through her.
The main one was, how could you do this to me? But along with it came, how could you do this to my dad? What on earth were you thinking? How could you be so stupid?
This question certainly cropped up a lot.
Contorting her jaw like James often did, in the end Misty began to shake her head from side to side. She stood up and she said these words, a tiredness filling her tone that she had managed to only just begin freeing herself from.
"I think I've heard enough for one day and we should leave it there." Misty suggested as calmly as she could manage before her eyes dropped down to her daughter still kicking her legs on the play mat and none the wiser to the heaviness that had just befallen both her and the essence of the atmosphere in the last while.
James was then not alone in his guilt. Misty felt guilty that she had forgotten Rey's presence entirely. And she felt even guiltier that she had spoken of many things that she knew were the kind of things in life that a mother wanted to protect her child from.
James' eyes dropped down as he too stayed standing but, in the end, he was too consumed that it meant something that Misty was standing too. She may not be standing alongside him, but they were stood on the same carpet together.
That just had to mean something. That just had to mean that in the end, they would be okay. As long as they kept talking, they would figure it out.
Nodding his head at last to Misty's prior words, James reached his hand backwards and massaged the back of his own shoulder because he knew it was entirely off limits to offer his best friend any sort of physical contact at all.
He missed how it didn't make the same noise without his leather jacket. He didn't realize he would go onto miss something a whole lot more.
"Sure. That sounds like a good plan." James complied and then something filled his mind in such a way that he didn't even need to drop his eyes down to the carpet to check whether this really was going to be his next move. The tiniest of smiles lifted his mouth upwards in the corners. "Do you want to finish off my donut?"
Words didn't follow this question from James. Not - I'm not hungry. And not - it's the least I can do – either. He allowed the sentence to just be.
He wasn't prepared for the promptness of Misty's reply. He was even less prepared for the way that she was backing him into more than just a corner.
"Actually," she started, roughly swallowing and that presenting itself although she had tried to hold it back, she had tried to tame it. Misty began closing the distance with James and it was his instinct to walk backwards before she had even told him how she wanted for things to be. "Do you think that you could go now?"
And because James' body was always moving in that particular way and because of the huge amount of making up to do that he had to do, it wasn't long before that same, complying word of sure had escaped from him all over again and he was complying with his best friend's wishes.
He didn't realize that he needed clarification until they both had left Rey and the two donuts in the living room and James was walking backwards down the hall and towards the front door.
That twitching smile pulled his lips upwards all over again. That time, James tried to pair it with true lightness and the glint in his eyes that he had first entered the house with.
But, like a cloudy night taking over a star filled sky, that glint had almost entirely disappeared.
"You mean go for a bit and not go forever, right?" James forced humor to lace the deep tones that usually made his words sound. But Misty had already opened the door for him. And she was still walking forwards, making him walk backwards. James was on the front doorstep before he knew it and speaking words, needing clarification, moments after he sounded this first question out. "You do mean go just for now and not for always, don't you?"
James questioned, this time more desperation in his voice and the whites of his eyes appearing brighter around his irises and those two pencil lines forming in between his eyebrows all over again.
But, you see, James did not get an answer. Or rather, he did not get a worded answer. Instead, that door which had once been opened to him became the opposite of that there and then.
The door shut in his face with a slam, leaving him standing there and with no one to look at. Any trace of a glint in his eye or a smile on his face vanished for good.
It's true what they say, after all. One door closes and indeed another one opens.
But there and then on the front of Misty's step and with not much to say at all, James swallowed, and he knew one thing and one thing only:
He wasn't sure if he wanted a new door to open for him if it meant another one closing on him.
The End.
There you go! Thanks so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed :) So yeah, two very different moments in James and Misty's lives! Both of them new beginnings, and on the cusp of exciting things. It felt exciting to me to write about subjects which have been a major part of their character arcs for years but have only before been shown the light of day in glimpses. I decided to go all out for these two halves. It was fun to tackle the start of James and Misty's dynamic, and the kindness of Delia for letting the ex Team Rocket members into her home. And while this chapter doesn't focus so much on this particular dynamic, how I loved portraying Delia and Misty's relationship :3 Thanks again and I hope you all enjoyed but especially you, Shannon! Again, thank you for ten years of memories and our time together reuniting after so long. I will be back to upload again next Wednesday so see you then!
Amy signing out :P