Hello everyone! It's July 12th, which is my personal headcanon for Misty's birthday! So, of course, she needed her birthday one shot! It's not exactly what I was planning, but it still came out pretty cute and fluffy! So, please enjoy!
Aiden and Michelle: 9 and a half years old
Elizabeth: 3 and a half years old
A Beachy Birthday
"One…two…three…four! There's four shells, Mommy!"
Misty giggled, gently tilting her head to the side. "Yes, there are! Good job, Lizzie!"
"Four's my fav-ite number," Elizabeth informed her mother.
"It is?" Misty questioned playfully. Elizabeth seemed to have a different favorite number every day, and for all different reasons. Apparently, today it was four. "How come?"
"I'm gonna be four!" Elizabeth cheered, holding her arms up above her head.
"Yes you are!" Misty replied. "In just a few weeks! Your birthday is very close to Mommy's."
"Mommy's birfday is today?" Elizabeth asked.
"Uh huh," Misty confirmed. "That's why we came here to be with Grandma and Grandpa and everyone else, right?"
Elizabeth nodded her head, now more preoccupied with placing her four seashells in her pink plastic bucket. "Mommy, are you four?"
Misty laughed at the question. "No, I'm quite a bit older than that!"
"Are you five?"
"No, not five either."
Elizabeth looked up from her bucket and frowned. "I don't know how many, Mommy."
"It's okay, baby," Misty assured her young daughter with a light giggle. "I'm 31."
Elizabeth twisted her mouth as she tried to process the number in her mind. "Thi-ty one?"
"Yeah, close," Misty snickered. "Except there's an 'r' in there. So…thirty."
"Arrr," Elizabeth growled, doing her best impersonation of a pirate.
"Sure, we can say it like that," Misty laughed. "It's definitely a lot more fun!"
Elizabeth beamed as she grabbed the handle of her bucket, getting to her feet. "I wanna look for more shells, Mommy!"
"More?" Misty tried not to groan. "But you have so many already! That bucket is going to be awfully heavy, little girl."
Grimacing, Elizabeth tried to pull the bucket alongside her. She managed to move it a few inches, sand building up along its edges. That was about as far as she could get it, although she certainly wasn't about to stop trying. Elizabeth continued to tug at the bucket, even as it remained stubbornly in place, and Misty soon began to worry that the handle would snap off and the little girl would go flying.
"Let me carry it, sprinkle," Misty quickly offered, gently prying the handle out of the child's hand. In reality, it wasn't all that heavy; Misty had no problem picking it right up off the ground. But for a nearly 4 year old, it was definitely way too much.
When Misty had suggested they sneak away from her parents' vacation home in favor of the beach for a little while, she hadn't been expecting to be searching for seashells and lugging them around on the sand for a majority of the outing. Then again, she supposed there were far worse things she could be doing on her birthday. She adored all three of her children and would do absolutely anything for them. That included dragging a bucket full of seashells on the beach…on her birthday.
"Should we go see what Daddy and Aiden and Michelle are up to?" Misty asked her young daughter. "You could show them all the seashells you got!"
"Uh huh!" Elizabeth chirped.
The two headed towards the other members of their family, settled on a colorful collection of sprawled out blankets and towels. A tray full of food was placed right in the middle of it all, and that got Elizabeth jumping up and down right away. Misty, on the other hand, was not as impressed with the spread.
"Really?" She droned, Ash lifting his head up to look at her. "The first thing you do when Elizabeth and I walk away is buy food?"
"Yeah, me and the twins were starving!" Ash cried.
"We didn't eat breakfast that long ago," Misty murmured. "And you know my mom is making a huge dinner for all of us!"
"But that's no excuse to skip lunch," Ash practically whined. "I mean look, we got lots of stuff to share! Hot dogs, burgers, fries…"
"Right, the quintessential beach lunch," Misty snickered, sitting down beside her husband. Elizabeth had already thrown herself on the blanket and was picking fries out of one of the baskets, gingerly but excitedly eating them. Aiden and Michelle were sitting nearby on their own towels, having already commandeered their own food. "I'm not going to be the one who deals with my mother when those kids aren't ready for dinner."
"Have you ever met our kids?" Ash snickered. "They'll be ready for dinner. Guaranteed."
Misty said nothing in return as she reached for her own fry. Ash quickly became bored of the silence and decided to break it up by asking, "So what did you and Elizabeth do while the twins and I were getting the food?"
"Elizabeth decided she wanted to look for seashells," Misty replied.
"Oh, just like Michelle when she was little," Ash chuckled. "Did she find any?"
Misty grabbed the bucket and tilted it towards Ash, who peered in. As soon as he saw it was full of seashells, he chuckled and leaned back, smirking at his wife. "Plenty, huh?"
"And then she tried to drag the thing back here on her own," Misty sighed. "It weighs twice as much as she does!"
"Ah, she's just determined is all!" Ash scoffed.
"I love her, but sometimes I think she's going to be the death of me," Misty grumbled. "And that honor used to belong to you."
"Thanks," Ash teased, winking at her. Misty simply rolled her eyes in response. "Hey, at least she's keeping you feeling young on your birthday!"
"Young?!" Misty repeated incredulously. "I feel ancient."
Ash twisted his mouth and turned to look at the kids. Aiden and Michelle had already finished their lunches, and Elizabeth was closer to being done with hers than not.
"Hey, why don't you guys head down to the water for a bit," Ash suggested, pointing towards the ocean. "I bet Pikachu and Vaporeon would love to go with you too!"
The two Pokémon and Elizabeth began to cheer excitedly. Aiden and Michelle, however, looked somewhat suspicious of their father's proposal. They both leaned in closer to him, causing the man to furrow his brow.
"What?" Ash deadpanned.
"You're trying to get rid of us," Michelle replied point blank.
"What?!" Ash repeated, this time much more frantically. "No I'm-"
"Come on, we're not stupid," Aiden whined. "You always do this when you want to be alone with Mom!"
"Just cause Lizzie is too little to realize it yet doesn't mean we are," Michelle added.
Ash sighed and hung his head, unaware that Misty was carefully watching and listening to the conversation from behind. "So let me guess…you're not going to go."
"We'll go!" Michelle chirped.
"We just need something from you if we do," Aiden chimed in.
Ash picked his head up, his eyes set wide. "Are you two blackmailing me?"
"That's such an ugly word," Michelle refuted, playfully pouting. "I think it's more like…collaborative!"
"Fine," Ash grumbled. "What is it you two are looking for?"
Aiden and Michelle glanced at one another before Aiden replied, "we want to stay up past our bedtime to watch the World Tournament Junior Cup on TV."
"From Unova?" Ash breathed. "That's going to be so late! Can't you guys just record it and watch it tomorrow?"
"No, cause then we'll find out what happens!" Aiden cried. "The internet exists now."
Ash narrowed his eyes. "You know it existed when I was a kid too, right?"
Aiden was about to respond, but Michelle reached her hand out to cover his mouth. "That's okay. We don't have to go down to the ocean. We can all just hang out here together!"
Ash sighed and squeezed the bridge of his nose. "Alright, fine. You can stay up and watch the Junior Cup."
"Thank you!" Michelle chirped, removing her hand from over Aiden's mouth. "Come on, guys! Let's head down to the water!"
Elizabeth didn't have to be told twice. She jumped to her feet and began running towards the ocean, Pikachu and Vaporeon trailing closely behind. Aiden and Michelle were soon running after them as well, leaving behind a sulking Ash and, unbeknownst to him, a smirking Misty.
"Why do you like bribing our kids so much?"
Ash jumped and whipped his head around. "Hey, I wasn't trying to! They were the ones who started it!"
Misty rolled her eyes, but supplemented it with a giggle. "Sure, Ash. Blame the 9 year olds."
The Pokémon Master shrugged, rolling over to face her. "Hey, I got what I wanted."
Misty giggled softly and bent her head down towards his. "But it's my birthday. What about what I want?"
Ash propped himself up on his shoulders, breaking the intimate moment between him and Misty and causing her to scowl. "What do you want?"
The gym leader hummed and playfully rolled her eyes. "This. I was just messing with you. I want this too."
Snickering, Ash lowered himself back down on the blanket, wrapping an arm around Misty. "Just out of curiosity, what is it that you wanted? Alone time with me or some time without the kids?"
"Oh, the second one. No question."
"Miiist!"
She's teasing, obviously.
It was both.
