Hello, it is Wednesday and I am back with a new chapter! This story features a concept that Shannon and I came up with a very long time ago, way back in 2013, but I don't think I've ever even hinted at it. To save any spoilers, I'll keep this note short and just get on with it. This story focuses on Misty struggling to come to terms with James marrying Jessie on their wedding day. And she seeks comfort - and an unintentional push - from someone from the Team Rocket Trio's past. I hope you enjoy the drama! :D
Disclaimer: I own the story and the OCs mentioned - although I think there's only one :P
Weddings are supposed to be the happiest days of people's lives. At least one of them, anyway. Time has long since moved on from this particular day that we still learn about, and time has encouraged James to look back with a decent amount of perspective. No, his wedding day was not the happiest day of his life. Nor was it the saddest. It was certainly something. You'll see why.
James realized that he probably shouldn't but nevertheless, something stopped him from merely craning his spine to look around the corner that led to the porch of the church. His new, clunky black boots didn't hold back from walking back down the aisle to where James figured Misty was still lurking.
Long raven coat draped over his snowy crisp shirt and waistcoat combination; he could not even pretend that the flamboyance of his wedding day attire was giving him confidence. He had movement in his stomach that was not only nerves from preparing to make it official all over again with Jessie.
When James rested a hand empty of rings against the deep oak of the door frame that was almost the shade of nighttime and saw Misty exactly where he expected her to be, he remembered why his stomach had not stopped churning all afternoon.
Ignorant of the fact that she was feeling the same way, James couldn't help but feel wounded at how she was squashed up against the bench that was barely enough for one person to sit against to change their footwear in the entryway of the church. A seat was there for her along the pews that were meant for her and her only.
But there she was.
James broke his silence as Misty's stomach privately lurched, forcing herself to focus on the matte black shoes in front of her so she could kid herself that she was at least trying to look at him.
"Are you coming to sit down, Misty?" he asked, his touch sliding away from the wood of the door frame and in that second, his silhouette lost any air of confidence that it was managing to muster.
His empty hands buried into both pockets of his floor length jacket, clenching invisible lint inside of there.
Misty let out a shuddered breath which James surely heard but, of course, misunderstood. After batting her eyelids together as she processed what he had decided to say – she needed time to absorb everything that he said lately - she forced her eyes to open and follow the path from his feet up to his face.
But she looked away again as soon as she met his eyes. Her face screwed up, feeling like a crumpled leaf all over again.
"I can't." Was the only reply that she offered. No apology. No reason why. She couldn't even look at him.
She couldn't look at any part of him. Certainly not at how quirky yet how James he looked in the outfit that he had decided to don for his wedding day.
And it wasn't only because he had purchased that coat out shopping with her, and while it had only been a playful thing, she thought it meant he was still a little bit hers when she had tried it on.
James, usually so hesitant to rush saying any words at all, found his voice rather promptly and he tried again. Frustration was latching onto his vocal cords, but his tone didn't harshen in the slightest. In fact, it appeared like a dull day.
"It won't be the same without you. This day is one of the most important days in my life." He swallowed, fiercely trying to ignore the fact that he hadn't been able to speak the word happiest. He hated that Misty noticed this too and she showed it by managing to lift her chin a little more, meeting his gaze for a fleeting second or two. "I want you there."
In the same way that the truth had been undeniable to Misty in the second before, it was crystal clear the fact that James had spoken I and not we. This caused her to scoff albeit feebly from her throat, drawing her legs closer together as she continually sat on the bench and slowly began to shiver in the doorway.
She knew she could reach for her black blazer to be an addition to her black and red print floral dress for the occasion and that would stop her skin from trembling. But she would rather be cold and prove a point to James. She would rather let him know that it was pointless if it wasn't his jacket. And she would rather him realize that a part of her would always feel icy from that moment onwards if he decided to tie the knot officially and in front of witnesses, naively acting like that was going to fix his relationship problems rather than give him more.
All of this and more continued to flood Misty's mind like she was being shunned away to sea. Eventually, she addressed the words that James had chosen to say rather than the many hot tongued sentences she wished she could express.
James would begin to regret wishing she could look him in the eye.
"James, I can't." Her voice began to harden even if his didn't have the energy too. Her legs attempted to draw closer to her body and in the process became partially tucked underneath the bench. As her eye contact dipped, her head began to swing from side to side like a pendulum in a clock. "It's too hard."
Once her gaze had sunk like a pebble hitting with a plink against the surface of the water, it began to plummet down more and more. This confession from her caused her insides to screw up even if it wasn't shown in even the smallest of amounts on her own surface.
God, she was being so pathetic, she tormented herself.
However, her words worked. In some bizarre way that she wasn't expecting, they worked, and James stopped being the continual levelheaded husband that he was acting that he could be and was back to being the only just ex-Team Rocket member – no longer clad in leather and with his motorbike rumbling not too far from him – who was always there for her and trying to make her feel better.
Not caring if the softened spikes of his boots crumpled against the tail of his jacket as he did this, he went down into a crouch in front of Misty on the bench so that she could look down at him if she wanted to, rather than up.
His hands might have escaped from their own prison, but they did not reach for her even if his eyes did. He began to plead. And this had the power to change everything. For good or for bad.
"But I've done everything I could to make this day easy for you. I asked exactly what you needed, and you said that you felt that you could be here." James looked up at Misty whose face was beginning to screw away from him at that point and his eyebrows quivered on his face. He reiterated. "I don't want to do this without you."
Misty once believed that she wanted this long coat clad, soon to be husband again façade of James' to fade away and for the man that she had begun to know to come back to her. But now that he had arrived in all of his care and consideration, she decided that it made her stomach lurch furthermore.
This was just a disguise of its own, of course. Deep inside, her heart was breaking that she knew that nobody would end up being happy over a marriage that was a plaster rather than a destiny.
She found her own words as quickly as James had and her honesty appeared to clap like thunder in his ears.
"Well, I felt wrong." She snapped as much as a person who needed to head to a store to find any emotion to buy could muster. Her voice may have sounded gravelly in her ears but to James they were as flat as a pancake. Just as his had been. He still winced as if he found a bump in a previously very flat road. "There is nothing that you could say, or you could have done to have made this day easy for me."
No apology after her words. No saying sorry for misleading him that she would be brave and not even an apology for making it perfectly clear that she disapproved anyway.
In the end, it was this that caused James to rise from the ground. Paired with the realization that she was fixed in her demeanor, of course. He had learned a long time ago that there was no making Misty do anything that she did not want to do and, as much as he tried to honor her feelings and hear her out, he believed that her stubbornness came down to a place of simply not wishing to comply.
In spite of it all, James managed to nod as he found his feet. And he found words to say that he at least did mean, even if both his heart and his stomach were fighting whether or not he was wounded or relieved that he might not have to profess his love for Jessie in front of someone else who also tugged at his heart.
Misty was back looking at his boots. She knew they would soon enough carry him off back into the church to get married and that made the only food she had stomached on that day to trampoline inside of her.
"I sincerely hope you change your mind." James began, his hands disappearing back into his pockets and not naïve to the twitch that enveloped a singular one of Misty's eyebrows, telling him everything that he needed to know. He found words inside of his coat rather than comfort. "I hope you can find it in yourself to be a part of our special day."
And with that, like an outlaw bidding farewell at a sunset, James' coat swished, and he headed back off to wait to get married rather than sticking around for a response from Misty. This caused more than just her guts to flip over, drawing both her hands and her knees as close to her body as she could as she knew that she wanted to say so much more.
James was mistaken, you see. She was not purposely being difficult. She had woken up with the birds with every intention of being there to celebrate James' special day, whether she agreed with it or not. She had managed to keep everything together surprisingly.
But once she tried sitting down along the pews alongside Ash, all sorts of thoughts invaded her mind and she knew that she couldn't perch herself there for a second longer, let alone act she was okay with her best friend solidifying a relationship that had countless problems, and that wasn't even mentioning the ones she had helped cause.
Misty buried her head in her hands and because of how much she feared this reality smacking down on her, she thought that she began to hear the wedding march playing and James would be lost to her even sooner than she was prepared for. Her arms near enough covered her ears which at least did give her some illusion of warmth even if they didn't do a proper job in blocking out any sound.
They must've blocked some sound out, though. Because she was unaware of the sound of footsteps crunching up the gravel of the church grounds before patting against the old tiles of the entry way. She didn't look up until someone spoke. She didn't snap back to the present moment until she heard a voice that should have been at least vaguely familiar.
"I haven't seen someone look so miserable on the wedding day of Jessie and James since I found out they got married the first time around on the battlefield and I hadn't been invited." The stranger – or not so stranger - began before his hands slid into his suit trousers, adding observantly. "If you keep this up then Jessie will call you blue instead of red like she used to."
This was a jolt back to reality that Misty had not been expecting. She hadn't been prepared to speak to barely anybody on that day. Words were practically stolen from her as frenzied thoughts assumed the most priority in her mind.
Like a toddler that had been caught sulking on the naughty step, Misty's body lurched in a different way and her limbs tried to appear relaxed and casual as the intruder who was a man continued to smile at her, unparted lips moving closer and closer to his ears as his hands didn't reveal themselves again from his pockets.
Misty replayed his words in her mind. How he was speaking to her made it seem like he knew her and while she couldn't help but feel like she had seen him before as her eyes took him in, no names were springing to mind.
That unnerved her.
There had been many occasions where she had bumped into people she had met once or twice while out journeying with Ash, Brock or Tracey and me and memories had been jogged after a while. But because this experience happened to her on quite a challenging day, it didn't sit right with her how he had started speaking to her without any sort of introduction.
He should have known better!
Misty found more than just her bite and barked at the twenty something year old man.
"Who are you?" she interrogated, her arms and legs no longer fretting about appearing casual as they drew closer towards herself all over again as an act of protection.
In the moments that she began to acknowledge that she didn't like the strangers' lack of courtesy, it began to dawn on him that he should have offered a name first. He of all people knew how unsettling it was to be spoken to in a familiar way to by someone whose name you could not place.
His irises grooved inside of their sockets with apologetic sincerity. While one hand slid out of the faded cerulean blue of his suit trousers, like James, he didn't quite go as far as reaching out to Misty. Instead, that hand brushed against the tie of his that was blushing red like the baseball cap that he used to sometimes wear, palm falling flat against his chest.
"My name is Jorginho." He explained, hand still not leaving his body as he made a decision to do the right thing by painting a picture before proving to Misty how much he knew – or remembered. "You used to hang around on Cerulean Cape much like I did while off duty." Misty's eyelashes fluttering on her eyelids informed Jorginho that a bell was being rung. "James introduced us briefly a long time ago. You're Misty."
Out of habit, Misty's insides clenched at being remembered but not remembering. But the more that she allowed herself to pause before answering and she allowed herself to breathe too, she realized that moments that she had forgotten about were coming flooding back to her.
Life before becoming a couple with Ash seemed to be so hazy. But she knew that there had been something about that stranger with his big brown eyes and strong nose and tamed locks and now she realized why.
When they were actually just friends and James was in Kanto for months on end prior to taking a break from following Ash around in Unova so he and Jessie could focus on being parents to the infant twins, they did used to meet up on Cerulean Cape. Jorginho had been a bit of a friendly third wheel more than once. She had liked his backwards red cap to avoid styling his hair on his days off and how he didn't seem like the typical Team Rocket member.
He was a bit like James, she supposed. Or maybe even like Ash.
Misty, still on the bench, slowly began to unclench and nod. She found words to affirm to Jorginho that she remembered him a little bit too.
"I'll forget a name but never a face." She admitted to which Misty received a proper smile from him, his white teeth flashing as his mouth opened and he grinned. As she saw his youthful dimples like the crescents that oftentimes appeared in the night sky, she remembered why she had once enjoyed talking to him back. "Especially not a face like yours."
These words slipped from her before she could stop them. Before she could even figure out why she had said them. And before Jorginho's own amiable face could make his head tilt to the side as he wondered this as well, he then realized that he was doing another thing that could be deemed impolite.
One of his hands no longer over his chest and the other no longer dipped into his trouser pocket, both of them shot out in front of him, animatedly yet without too much speed waving from side to side.
"How rude of me, I'm probably keeping you by forcing you on a trip down memory lane." He began, causing Misty to notice how clumsily these words came out in contrast to his humor of the first words that he had decided to speak. In spite of their difference, both were equally telling of his character. "Feel free to head on inside. Maybe I'll see you in there."
Jorginho's feet in his shiny black shoes firm against the tiles below, he made a point of making sure his shirt was tucked into his trousers before he smoothed down his tie even though it was still in place. Despite his words, he didn't seem to be in a hurry to join everybody else though the wedding march had surely begun at that point.
Misty noticed this. And it was because she saw herself in his hesitance that she found herself showing more of herself, boldly speaking to him.
"Do I look like I'm in a hurry to show my face in there?" she asked. Soon enough, Jorginho's head was swinging from side to side, and it caused a single sprig of his gelled in place hair to escape.
After his mouth pressed together in a shape that was like an upside-down smile and his dimples appeared in different locations on his cheeks, he spoke himself without holding back either.
"You don't." Jorginho admitted, one of his hands casually disappearing back into his trouser pocket and the other waving with a bend in the wrist. That upside down smile of his flipped the other way again as he too related. "I feel the same as you."
And with that, both of his hands hid in his pockets away from Misty's eyes and his shoulders bobbed closer to his ears. It was this gesture of his that told Misty far more than his amiable humor had done or the way that he had been quick to jog her memory in order to make her feel more at ease with his presence.
She should have figured that there would secretly be other people hesitant to join Jessie and James on their special day. But rather than feeling smug and elated, it just caused Misty to feel like her heart was sinking further down and her stomach was doing the same thing so they would never be near each other again.
Then, another thing dawned on her. She spoke of such.
"James hasn't spoken of you for such a long time. I didn't even know you were coming." She began to which Jorginho didn't hold back his nods, slowly and rhythmically. Misty decided to say more words and it was only after they were free, she wondered if she should not have continued. "I did ask after you at least once, but he wouldn't say much."
Jorginho's lower lip pressed against his upper one in a firm line before either one of them could tremble upon hearing this, if this gesture were even going to present itself at all. Misty's eyes dropped down to his expression to his firm Adam's apple bobbing like it was Halloween inside of his throat.
But then she heard more words, so she had to focus on listening.
"I can't say I'm surprised." Jorginho tried to say with a mouth moving into a brave smile and crow's feet etching against the sides of his eyes like occurred naturally when he was filled with merriment.
But he could not deny that more than just hurt caused his throat to bob up and down. He noticed certain things too. Misty didn't bother to speak Jessie's name at all like he had spoken so freely.
After she had her own turn to press her lips together as she tried to piece together why James would have missed him out when informing her of all the people who were scheduled to be there on that particular day, she had to wonder if Jorginho had the streak inside of him too that made him as dishonest as her and James.
Well, perhaps not dishonest, she reconsidered this label. But certainly, evading the whole truth and apprehensive about being fully seen.
"You were invited, weren't you?" Misty asked, the picture suddenly being painted for her of James not telling her about his presence for good reason and how she couldn't imagine him inviting someone to his wedding that he hadn't seen since he left the organization. "I might not be thrilled about this wedding, but I shouldn't let you through if James isn't expecting you."
More words slipped from Misty and this time, Jorginho had his turn to fully incline his head to the side. However, instead of probing why she felt that way even if curiosity was latching onto the forefront of his mind and causing his eyes to shine richer than ever, he decided to show more of himself by almost copying some of her prior words.
More and more, it seemed as if they were not in the same boat, but they were definitely swimming in the same ocean.
"Do you see me hurrying through to join them?" Jorginho posed before leading Misty to see his digits yet again as his hands escaped from his pockets and instead his arms folded over his chest in a hug as much as it was anything else.
Misty knew that he couldn't have felt the cold like she was feeling. This portrayal of Jorginho caused her red lipstick smeared lips to twitch into the smallest of smiles before her head sloped to the one side for the first time, one eye twitching together as well.
"I guess not." She said before silence ensued.
It's interesting how silences can speak everything. It is within silence that sometimes we realize how we feel and what we think. This moment of quietness was a lot of things for Misty and Jorginho but eventually, one thing it was, was a time for clarity.
Their reasonings behind their hesitance was mighty different, both of them would go on to learn. But they were certainly one side of the same coin.
And when it became apparent to Jorginho too, not only did he invite himself down onto the rickety bench opposite Misty with the wood letting out a groan as he made contact, but he invited himself to be real with himself as well.
There was no denying why he felt like he had no right to be sharing Jessie and James' special day with them even if he had once clamored so hard the first time around and been gutted when they wed without his undeniable presence.
Jorginho did a rare thing on that day when he spoke to Misty. He held a spotlight up onto his vulnerability, and he unlayered himself of more than just the physical armor that he had to sometimes wear for his work.
"I was invited which surprised me, but I didn't respond to a single effort of James reaching out to me. The same with Jessie." He admitted. Misty watched him begin to untighten his tie from being so close to his neck even though he had probably only just gotten dressed for the occasion as was the case for her. "Then I woke up with every intention of seizing the day. But when I got here, I got hit with the feeling that I could not." His tie was loosened completely. "Should not."
Misty's lips that matched Jorginho's tie pressed firmly together, and she risked smearing lipstick onto her chin, but she did not seem to care in the same way that she did not seem to care to speak of Jessie and James as a couple like he did.
After her lips had their unison, her eyelids slowly blinked together, and this revealed everything. But her words would go on to say furthermore, knowing deep inside that she related more than she could coherently express with words.
Some things were impossible to say for all of their depth.
"I know how you feel." Was all Misty said on this matter even if the way that she was looking at Jorginho told him things that she didn't verbally have the strength to say. He nodded once more, slowly, and evenly, wishing that his baseball hat were on his head so that it wasn't so darned formal. "I'm sure even if you didn't respond that they would be happy to see you." Jorginho drew backwards as much as he could on the tiny bench. "James wouldn't have invited you if he didn't mean it."
Although her tone did not falter, Misty's stomach stung as if she had been injected with the poison of an insect and she couldn't ignore the fact that she felt that James clearly hadn't meant her invite as much as he believed that he did. She had heard the wedding march playing on a piano in the distant church as much as Jorginho had.
Despite the fact that she felt remorseful about telling Jorginho a bit of a lie to make him feel better, she soon figured that they were different people, so James definitely felt differently about them both.
Heck, he seemed to feel differently about her day to day!
Jorginho managed to tug his lips into a smile which feebly showed off the lined etchings around his eyes and he at least tried to feel reassured by Misty's words. Nevertheless, his feet didn't twitch even an inch on the tiles and his bottom certainly did not rise from the groaning bench.
He still felt as much of a fish out of water as she did. She kind of hoped that it would continue. Then she might not have felt so alone.
"Even if they aren't happy, I could be content that I at least tried to show them my support. I should have done that from the get-go…" Jorginho's own words that had accidentally escaped trailed off. What followed this was a bit of a feeble laugh. Then he hurriedly added more words to take the shine off what he had professed. "So, what's your deal? Are you secretly the one out of the two of us who wasn't invited?"
It was Jorginho's turn to observe equally as much as the younger woman had been doing by seeing the way that her feet in her own black boots drew back underneath the thin width of the bench, her legs with porcelain skin crossing together.
He believed that she would take a minute or two to find her answer. He was mistaken. Unlike before, she wasn't so as prepared to speak candidly to him.
"Not exactly." She said and within that tone of voice of hers that was as level as the concrete that he used to skate up and down while James sat on a bank somewhere along Cerulean City, plucking the strings of his guitar, he could tell that she needed coaxing.
For both the inhale and the exhale that he decided to take for himself there and then, he wondered if it was even his right to coax her. He had given her answers and that had been his choice. It didn't mean that he deserved honesty from her.
But, perhaps, selfishly, he deemed, he too wanted to feel not so alone. Part of him was perversely hoping that she might not deserve to be there either. Maybe James was just the kind of person that you had to let go of eventually. And you would always be wondering what could have been if you had only spoken your mind.
Jorginho knew that this wasn't the kind of life that should have been lived. He could just about make his peace with the fact that the past was never going to come back. But he realized that Misty was younger than him – more able to bounce back – so he might be able to help her see answers that were undetectable alone.
Loneliness might become comfortable eventually. But it shouldn't be settled into.
"What's stopping you from being there, Misty?" he asked her. More than just the way that he spoke her name in the low rumble in which his voice sounded, Misty's breath was snatched away from her with the words that he did not say.
She wasn't foolish. Neither was he. He knew that that it was one half of the couple that was preventing Misty from being as brave as she prided herself on being and it was not the half owning the name that she refused to speak.
Her eyes wandered down to where her knees were crossing over to each other so fiercely they she wondered if they could become one. They very nearly did as her eyes blurred together – not quite with all the way tears – but with enough bewildering emotion that she couldn't see clearly for a second or two.
Misty heard Jorginho's calm breath in between her shuddered ones and it began to allow her mind to see clearly as well as her eyes. She always vowed to never tell people too much. They couldn't be trusted. They could use it against you.
But what was the use in evading Jorginho? He would disappear after that day, and they wouldn't see each other again. In spite of what she said, James may have wanted him there as little as he wanted her so there would be no way the two of them would be brought back together.
There was something safe – almost enticing – about the prospect of being wholly honest with someone who would be a stranger again in the blink of an eye. But it wasn't just that. They were united in their knowing that everything was about to change.
And whatever was to be altered, there would be no coming back from.
"I want to be there. More than anything." Misty confessed and these words sounded strange in her own ears and not because of the fact they had begun to ring. She had told herself that the day was out of her hands, and she didn't want to be part of it at all. "I just… Can't."
Jorginho knew how it felt to feel as though you couldn't do something, not that you would have got that impression when he layered himself up in rock solid armor every morning before work and sometimes had to hold weapons on the field and do things outside his moral compass in order to ensure the safety of all the Pokémon that he was bringing back to Giovanni's arsenal.
He knew what it meant to have a block somewhere. In the head. In the heart. He had lost count of how many people he had shared a bed with had ended up never speaking to him again because he just could not commit. He just could not trust. He just could not love like other people could.
Jorginho could tell that Misty was different. He could tell that she had the capacity to love and the capacity to love so deeply that it was almost as debilitating as his inability to allow himself to surrender. But in spite of their difference, the desperate search for courage was the same.
He went on to express this notion in the way that his voice sounded.
"Why can't you…?" he asked her softly, his earth toned eyes locking onto a pair of oceanic blue reflecting the green seaweed below before his lips pressed gently together, taut jawline of his clenching together. He already knew the answer.
Misty faltered underneath his knowing stare. He didn't intend to make her voice crack. He certainly had never intended to make her crack. But if it led to her learning more of her own strength than she realized before, then he just had to pray that it would be worth it.
He hadn't done that in a number of years. Funnily enough, Misty was bordering on doing the same when he had found her with her head in between her arms.
"Because-" Misty croaked out, her eyes blurring with more than just concentration that time before she fiercely sniffed. Her arms and legs then unclenched from being so close to her body. As she opened her limbs up, her heart flew open too. "There's so many things that I wish to say to him but now it's too late." She poignantly if a little shakily swiped her finger underneath her nose. "James has never been mine. Never more than just a friend." She whispered. "And after today, I'm about as important to him as a stranger in comparison to a wife."
The truth was that James had been a husband near enough the same time as he had been Misty's friend. But there had been no proper ceremony. No celebration. Just settling into it, the way that he found himself effortlessly complying with most of Jessie's wants and expectations.
For a man who liked to wear a number of sentimental rings, that day was the first day in which he was going to wear a silver band identical to the one on Jessie's own ring finger.
But still, Misty knew that after the ceremony on that day then things were going to change even furthermore, and she wasn't sure that she could handle it. Soon enough he would get a house and a mortgage like everybody else and gone would be their adventures and their picnics and her arms around him from behind, hugging onto the leather of his jacket as he rode her home on the motorcycle to make sure she got back safe.
She felt there was so much more she wanted to do, the two of them carefree in spite of their growing ages. She felt there was so much more that she wanted to say. Had always intended to say. But had never been wise enough like he was in order to find the right words.
Now she wouldn't ever be able to.
Or would she?
Jorginho saw things differently.
He leaned closer towards her on her own bench, still not touching her but his own hands clasping so vehemently together that she almost felt it.
"Your words today are equally as important as anybody else's." He told her and it was Misty's turn to clench her jaw, trying to stop an unseemly display of liquid trickling down from her nostril and blotting together the red paint across her lips. Jorginho shook his head from side to side, the floppier, true nature of his locks presenting themselves. "Maybe my own hesitance to speak from the heart gives me no right to advise you-"
Misty caught herself off guard as much as she did Jorginho as she cut him off.
"Or maybe that gives you more of a right." She suggested moving her finger to wipe away any trickling imposters before her makeup was ruined that much more.
Jorginho drew backwards. He swallowed mouthfuls of nothing other than his own tongue. His mouth twitched on one side out closer to his ear and those lines were back again as he conceded.
"Maybe it does." He said before his tone got more serious and his expression presented itself as such too, leaning back closer to Misty and wanting his eyes to speak to her as much as his words did. "Don't do what I did, Misty, because it will eat you alive. Speak while you still have the chance." That expression was back again. Apprehensive. Yet encouraging. "You'll regret it for the rest of your life if you don't."
Misty's mind had been through so many ups and downs on that day but there and then it began to tick. Jorginho was telling her to seize the day like he had tried to do. He might have failed, and he may have ended up sitting there for good, but she was not going to do that. He had just instilled in her that her voice mattered, and she had to believe it did.
She knew that it did.
With shakily adrenaline running through her veins and pumping her legs upwards, Misty showed off a trembling nod before she moved herself towards the doors, intending to head on in and join everybody else foreseeing Jessie and James' special day.
Everything other than her final destination and her blood pumping inside her own ears was invisible to her so she didn't realize that, going against her prior judgement, Jorginho was seizing the day in the same way that she was. He was following closely behind her. That's how he saw what happened next. We all did.
You see, Misty joined the room at quite an important moment in the service. She always drummed into me that she truly meant to take a seat beside Ash, squeeze his hand and sit down and tell James everything that she needed to say afterwards.
But as soon as she stepped into the main room with everybody else and heard the fateful words of the wedding officiant, another, different intention took her over. It was one stronger than she had ever felt before. And with Jorginho close behind her, nearly bumping into her because he expected her to sit down rather than just stand there, Misty seized the day in quite a way.
The officiant standing behind Jessie and James with their hands clasped and looking into each other's eyes asked if anybody had any objections.
Jorginho had enough common sense to begin to twitch towards the nearest seat possible before it seemed as though he did. Misty decided to remain standing on shakier legs than ever before. Jorginho might not have had anything to shout across the church, but Misty did.
Hands balling together against her hips concealed by the skirts of her dress, Misty had an answer for the officiant. And she had an answer that made more than just his or James' head to twitch around and it made Jorginho practically lose balance as he lowered himself into a sitting position.
"I object to this wedding." Misty stated, her fists growing shakier by the second, but determination coursed through her veins. "This wedding should not take place."
Misty spoke her mind, just as Jorginho had encouraged her to do. But whatever he had intended to encourage, it was certainly not that. And he would have to deal with the repercussions alongside her. Everybody would have to deal with them. It was a butterfly effect, you see. Not a single one of the guests was unaffected.
The officiant was trained for such occasions, but his heart lurched into his mouth. Jessie's hands tumbled out of James,' and he had the eyes the size of golf balls as it dawned on him what was actually happening. The rest was a blur to him. The rest was slow motion.
Watching the officiant have to abide by protocol and usher Misty to the one side and ask her to explain her side of the story, see if she had any valid reasons. When it was clear to him as it was to Jessie and James and everybody else in the room why it had been interrupted, he was happy to proceed, realizing it was a moment for dramatics and it didn't mean that a union could not take place.
Misty had chosen to speak her mind after realizing what was going on inside her heart. It had fallen on deaf ears. The ceremony went on its way. James exchanged rings and he became married and remained married, as he always had been. The only difference was the way that he looked at her.
He didn't look in her direction for a single moment during the ceremony after her interruption. But he chose to when he summoned her and Jorginho outside of the church building when all was said and done and the way in which he finally looked at her broke her heart. It shattered the final piece of Jorginho's too. Not that he allowed anyone to know it.
Misty had been so not ready for things to change. But it became apparent that she was the reason that things would.
"James, I-" she tried to begin later on that day when he was joined outside by both her and Jorginho, hands locked inside his pockets like they were a prison with inmates that could not be trusted as his jacket had long since been ripped off.
Misty had seen James seething before but this was different. He was nearly the shade of her lipstick with rage.
"I don't wish to hear it." He cut her off, the point of his finger speaking as much as his words did and it silenced Misty entirely. She had been close to tears before, but that occasion was taking the biscuit. She had never felt so doomed with remorse before in her life. James' expression contorted with hatred. "When I said I hoped you would join our day, did you really think that I meant that?"
Misty's eye make up had disintegrated thanks to the tears that she had privately shed during the ceremony as it continued to take place in spite of her best efforts and now, she didn't care if she ruined her lipstick as well.
Lips trembling like one of the leaves that had dropped down during the Fall Day that everybody was experiencing, she clamped them together before she knew that she had to answer her friend. Former friend. Answer James. Whoever he was to her. He was certainly angry whoever he was.
"I tried-" she tried to begin again but James wouldn't learn what it was that she had tried. Jorginho neither who still lingered there, eyes darting between her and his estranged friend as he couldn't quite believe what he had encouraged Misty to do.
He hadn't meant to be at fault. But he was. And now he knew he had to stand there. This wasn't quite the reunion that he had in mind. But he had somewhat got Misty into it. He couldn't get her out of it. But he was there to foresee it.
In the end he would do more than just that.
"Save it." James raised his voice and it clamped Misty's mouth shut to the point of no return. He half wished he were still wearing his coat from the intense swish it could have made when he turned around to point that accusing finger at Jorginho instead of Misty. It was not how he imagined any reunion of theirs either. "I can't bloody believe you." That accusatory finger began to shake and Jorginho went cross-eyed as he watched it. "I know you set her up to this."
Misty's jaw managed to unhinge as she considered crying out that Jorginho was innocent, but she also feared provoking James even further. Fortunately, she was shown another side to Jorginho as he proved that he could hold his own.
Not that they would have readily admitted to it, but both James and Jorginho had imagined an unexpected crossing of paths many times that perhaps would be destined at some point or another. After all, at one time, so many things had connected them both.
Their eyes that kept locking onto each other's in the heat of this moment spoke of a previous connection. Yet any of the fondness had disappeared. The softness. It was worse than looking into the gaze of a stranger. Far worse.
James possessed hatred for that day. He seemed to feel that way towards Misty. Jorginho was not getting away from it either. And, even if their old connection had long since been severed, they at least felt the same in this way.
Jorginho decided he hated everything about that day too but James especially so.
He stopped appearing so comically cross eyed at the stretched-out finger of James despite the severity of the situation and did not hesitate to allow a sneer to take over his usually cheery features, pushing the rest of James's balling hand back with such natural strength that he shot back half a meter.
"Keep your finger away from me." He warned while James' cheeks flushed more and recovered from the shock of being pushed and this gave him the chance to sidle next to Misty, protecting her, even if he hadn't meant for things to turn out that way. "I did no such thing. I swallowed my pride and I intended to offer you both my congratulations. Now I realize my hesitance to witness you leaving the organization was warranted." He swallowed, moving away from Misty getting so near to James they almost shared breath as Jorginho looked down his nose at him. "You've gone to shit."
James always figured on the rare possibility that he ever bumped into Jorginho again that he wouldn't have changed his tune and would still be bitter that he chose to make a better life for his family.
How dare he say such a thing. He had made a better life for his family. Misty interjecting his wedding was not an indication of how life had turned out for him.
Or was it…?
As if he was a diseased person that he did not want to be near, James bolted backwards away from Jorginho and it caused him to unpleasantly smirk furthermore, encouraging Misty to hug her arms around herself as her teeth chattered, looking wearily between the two men and the scene that was unfolding.
"I didn't want to hear it then and I don't want to hear it now." James responded, Jorginho's eyes revolving in his sockets. This angered James. The pointing finger was back. "Now why don't you get the hell away from here before my wife finds out that you're here and a catalyst for this shit show?" Misty's eye watered and twitched together. Jorginho's arms folded over his chest. At least James was admitting that something was crap. "You've done enough."
Jorginho had heard enough. His arms unfolded almost as promptly as they had joined together over his chest.
"You've never been able to handle yourself, have you?" He retaliated, getting up into his personal space once more before he decided that it wasn't worth it. His hands flew up towards his head and he turned on his heel, preparing to leave.
For half a moment, James believed that he was going to reach out to Misty and even though she was the last person that he wanted to protect there and then, it still caused a volcano to erupt inside his stomach. Jorginho might have offered the smallest of smiles and a nod to Misty but that was it.
Even if that was it, like it had been with his words that had encouraged quite a turn of events, Misty seized this gesture and used it to encourage her to be bold once more. She tried to grab hold of James' arm while it was Jorginho who was walking away.
It was her turn to plead.
"James, please-" she started again. In the same way as had been the case when James broke distance from the floor and looked up at her, telling her how much he wanted her to be there for his wedding, a heart broke yet again.
Although this time, because the begging was in reverse as well, it was indeed James' heart to snap in two. He hadn't expected this to occur. He hadn't expected any of that on that day to occur but certainly not this.
"You're meant to love me." His demeanor changed, bidding farewell to the fury that had taken place before and now existed an expression like a lost puppy being left at the pound and wondering if he was ever going to see his owners ever again. His own eyes became the sea that Misty loved so much.
Her own heart copied his, all of the pieces that made it a whole thing falling away as he shook his head and she needed time to close her eyes before opening them again, trying to get through to him, disagreeing with him as he pushed her hands away.
He used to always reach for them, finding comfort in them. He never did this.
"I… I do." Misty croaked out before nausea rushed through her being and into her throat at the words that she had decided to speak. James saw it too. Or rather, James heard it.
He needed to step away, shaking his head furthermore before a feeble palm raised to that same swaying head, his expression a mix of confusion, anger, betrayal, and sadness. He had never been such a mixed bag of things and that was saying something.
He needed something to get him back to being stable. He needed something to at least get him back to being the one thing. He soon would realize that Jorginho hadn't walked away just yet. It dawned on him when he felt his tentative yet firm hand on the back of the shoulder, trying to offer that stability that he needed as if it was years ago, and it was welcome.
It was not years ago. It was not welcome.
Jorginho had heard every word between James and Misty, and it made her lips burn brighter than ever in comparison to how sickly pale her skin had become.
"Love shows up in funny ways." Jorginho began, not meaning to come across as patronizing despite everything else that he was trying to be. Yet again, his words encouraged reactions that he did not intend to bring to fruition. "You of all people should have learned that after all your years of happy marriage and being away from the prison of Team Rocket."
These words were meant to put a bitter taste in James' mouth. And it worked!
A perverse part of him nearly relinquished into the touch of Jorginho because once, it would have been so welcomed indeed. But that second didn't last very long. The next few seconds were there to say. The next demeanor was there to stay.
James leapt away from him all over again and then watched, Jorginho contented to have just stirred the pot even though he hadn't meant to the first time, prepared to truly turn on his heel that time and leave.
Not learning from her own mistake as well as Jorginho's, Misty tried to offer her own hand to James' shoulder with a swallow. He had the same reaction, and, at that moment, she didn't think she would ever recover.
He venomously spat at her that time even if he had managed to tone down his emotions all those times before.
"You might as well follow him and get the hell out of here!" he switched his attitude up in the snap of a finger like he was capable of doing. Even so, it made Misty clutch at her own heart at the sheer hatred inside of his eyes that were usually filled with such gentility. "You both mean about as much to me as each other right now."
James had added, his voice quietening down and like a jungle cat silently stalking its prey, this seemed to have a more foreboding effect than when he had decided to yell.
Jorginho turned over his shoulder from a good ten meters across the gravel outside of the church and though he considered walking back, giving James a lesson that he wouldn't forget for yelling at a young woman, he decided to stay put, wondering if Misty would follow his advice.
He assumed that she would be done asking other people for advice, given how his encouragement had led her to make a mistake that she well and truly regretted.
You see, normally it would have been James that she decided to follow anywhere and everywhere. How peculiar given she had once been filled with such disdain when he did, stalking her and her friends alongside his own ones! But times always change, don't they? It couldn't help itself like Misty couldn't help herself.
James and Misty were very much each other, always reflecting their qualities and their shortcomings back at each other. Now she feared that that mirror had been shattered for good. It was her own fault. She couldn't blame anybody else. She couldn't even blame Jorginho. There was no going back from that moment. So, she might as well move forward, she thought to herself.
Hugging her arms over her chest and no longer wanting to look James in the eye anymore, she decided to keep her head down and follow wherever it was that Jorginho was heading off to. There was nothing for her back there anymore. She had done the unforgiveable.
Out of love, she had bred hatred. Out of discovering her voice and her heart, she had been silenced. As she joined Jorginho by his side and walked off with him, inadvertently, they both gave James a very clear message:
Love was going to continue to present itself in untamable ways until he could tame the essence that was inside of himself. Deep down, he knew that marriage wasn't going to be the bandage that he wished that it could be, just like how expanding his family might have expanded his heart but expanded his worries even more.
James had a lot to learn. Misty did too. So, I suppose they weren't as on the opposite sides of the coin as they believed they were.
Looking back at this time, I am inflicted with many of my own emotions. Disappointment towards Misty was one of the ones that choked me the most. I didn't know Jorginho enough to loathe him for what he had done. And I was used to James screwing things up at that time.
But regardless of what Jorginho had intentionally encouraged, what James had screwed up and the remorse that Misty spread through more than just herself – I have to tell you that things got better.
Not for a long time. Many tales passed in between this one and the ones occurring as I look back now. One thing that remains, though, is that James is still married. And yes, to the same person that he wedded on that day!
So no, it was not the happiest day of his life, nor was it the saddest. It was something. Something he couldn't wrap his head around for the longest time, let alone celebrate. But it led him to his own ending. And yes, with all of those people back in his life.
I suppose, in the end, everybody learned how to give and receive love in the way that they were meant to.
The End.
There you go! Thanks so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed. I always love tackling an old concept while making it relevant to my ideas now with a newer character/twist. Jessie and James' wedding day was certainly a memorable one - and not exactly in the good way! Of course, Jorginho and the trio caused their twenty year distance from each other themselves but it's easy to see that this particular day - and poor Misty - contributed to it as well. It's quite amazing that they all manage to bounce back. But then again, some dynamics are meant to be, even if they have their dramatic tales :D Well, thanks again for reading and I'm not going to be back with Pikachu Tales until September. I'm going to take a little break and get my queue of stories topped up and focus on writing some things I really want to tackle. I will, however, be updating the last chapter of Letters That Changed Everything on July 28th - and then beginning a new story to upload once a month starting August 28th ;) I'm still around, just going to be enjoying summer and writing when I can! Thanks again and see you very soon :)
Amy signing out!