Hello, it is Wednesday, and I am back with a new chapter! I wrote this one at the start of the year I believe, and I was excited about it then and I so enjoyed reading this through and tweaking it! As you know, the Team Rocket Trio had a friend back in their Team Rocket days called Jorginho (also Sammy's older half-brother of course) and he ended up being rather frustrated when they decided to quit the organisation for a better future for the three of them as well as the children Jessie and James had. Well, this story tackles exactly that. I had a whale of a time portraying Meowth here! He and Jorginho certainly do not see eye to eye this occasion. I hope you enjoy :)

Disclaimer: I own the story and the OCs mentioned!

The truth is some people are unbelievably bad at dealing with goodbyes but sadly, the universe likes to play a cruel trick on those people by forcing them to deal with that exact predicament quite a lot. This is one of those stories.

And sometimes, goodbyes do not lead to immediate hellos either. Another door does not open in the time that another one closes. Sometimes, no words in between are spoken for an exceptionally long time. This is one of those stories too.

Aromas hit Jorginho's nostrils as soon as he trudged along the halls of the correct corridor and despite it all, it encouraged him to hold himself higher and to make his way to the destination with a tad more vigor. He followed the scented trail like he was a truffle hunting creature and when he landed in front of the door with those usual three numbers; he didn't hesitate to take the briefest of respites with his concealed palm against the wood of the door.

Like most things in his life, however, that moment of rest did not last very long at all, and he didn't bother to stop his touch from trailing down to the knob of the door and turning the handle. The heat from the kitchen area of the dormitory hit him like he was walking into a sauna and a greater degree of herbs and spices embedded into his nostrils like a torrent that could not be ignored.

Jorginho's shoulders twitched underneath his plated uniform. The people he would utter this too were few and far between, but all those sensations combined did things to him. In that single second, Jorginho knew that he felt at home.

"Something smells amazing in here." He might have held back other words, but he put these ones across, only needing to take a few strides to get from the front door to the kitchen area of the dormitory and the causation was the feast for the senses. It was not because the space was lacking.

Jorginho hovered by the being that he often flattered by calling a culinary genius, ridding himself of his helmet rather than the rest of his sturdy uniform so that the feline could see his face even if he would prefer to offer his often narrow-eyed gaze to the plethora of ingredients out in front of him.

The human Team Rocket member would go on to learn and I would in hindsight that Meowth didn't have a problem with looking over at Jorginho and he showed this by doing exactly that, not hesitating to turn his large head over his shoulder and glance at him through steam-filled eyes.

However, while the sense of sight would not betray him, another of the five would and this started to be apparent from the way the gap between his mouth and eyes were overtaken by an invisible puppeteer, starting to groove and twitch.

Meowth shuddered, smelling something more pungent and at a level that could not be disguised by the fruitful aromas of one of his favorite dishes. And, like Jorginho had done on that occasion, he did not like to hold back his words from him.

"Something smells horrendous over there." he recoiled, leaning as far away from the fellow rocketeer as possible and without wobbling off the stool that he was standing on. Not that Meowth needed to, but his shoulder pointed in the direction of Jorginho as if it weren't obvious that he was the culprit. "Nasty."

Known across the organization and even throughout divisions in different regions of the Pokémon World, Jorginho's eyes had the reputation for saying a great deal without having to say anything at all. There and then, those brown orbs of his widened, not out of hurt and honestly, out of sheer indifference.

He blinked, processing what the cat Pokémon was saying. He went on to raise the arm of his that wasn't constricting his removed helmet in between the line of his torso and his hip and moved his face closer to his armpit, giving it a quick surveillance.

Jorginho, rather than showing offence or even an apology with forcing Meowth to inhale an aroma that was far more unpleasant than what he was cooking up in the dormitory kitchen, started to hold his helmet in between his two hands.

Infamous eyes of his rotated in his sockets, whites of them appearing more prominently than Meowth's hard-boiled egg sliced up on one of the chopping boards.

"Give me a break." Was his response at first, still clutching his angular helmet in between both concealed hands, as if this were a prize that he had taken back from his last mission rather than something that helped him through all of them. "I just came back from a day of work harder than you've ever worked in an entire week."

A comment like this could have caused the feline to go into full defensive mode and use his claws for other things rather than the domestic life that he was currently portraying. Meowth did show that that side of his was alive and well by the look that he shot across his shoulder at the standing male.

His initial retort had the same energy.

"Smells like it too!" he barked back to make his own point. After he left Jorginho lulling in the same position for a good moment or two and the sound of him dicing spring onions with his claws was the only noise that filled the air, he offered another response even if his tone didn't alter at first. "Sit down, bub." He offered. After one more slicing motion of his hand into the flesh of a green vegetable, his tone presented itself in a way that was more common those days. "You can have some of this when it's ready."

Upon hearing this, Jorginho's found himself in a different kind of battle than he had been used to for the rest of the day. In the end, he decided that he was far too weary to be inexorable and he could not to deny himself or anyone that he had followed all the aromas for a reason equally as simple as wanting to find his way to a sense of home after what felt like forever away.

He was starving! And Meowth's noodles could not be beat.

So, although he made sure to stare him down and with a slope in his neck to prove just one more point, Jorginho did then indeed make his way over to the sparse chairs in the kitchen area and sit his weary bones down.

He had to do everything in his power not to exhaustibly and visibly groan as soon as his bottom sought refuge against the wood and while he managed to not let out a single sound, he could not resist the urge to be free of a good amount of the armor that he was adorning.

While a part of him still made him cling onto most of it, now that his helmet was plonked in the middle of the small wooden table where a vase of flowers should be, he couldn't stop himself from dumping other bits of his plated uniform along with it.

Wrist gadgets, forearm protectors and shin pads all came off, dumped against a place that was meant for eating, not for undressing. Meowth didn't say anything. It was Jorginho who chose to speak again while in the middle of undoing his laces, one steel capped and heavy boot resting where another person would be prevented from being able to take a seat.

The words that came out of his mouth were not gratitude or even the smallest thank you, however.

"Where's the gang?" he asked, having taken note of the way that one of the saucepans on the stove was beginning to royally bubble and so adjusted his voice accordingly. Jorginho was left showing that expression that should have made its appearance before as Meowth turned around again to give him quite the warning!

A hiss escaped from the mouth of the feline, and this paired with the longest of claws on his dominant hand used to hover against his lips instead. Jorginho often encountered all kinds of people and beings who certainly did not share the same language as him so this one was easily deciphered. Meowth did not need to gesture over towards the back of the sofa that bridged the gap between the kitchen area and the living area of the dormitory.

Jorginho had only just got extra comfortable now that his boots were no longer dragging his ankles down but were lulling away from him, next to his feet instead rather than worn. Still, his bottom rose, and he peeped over the edge of the sofa and wasn't too surprised to see what he saw.

It wasn't exactly surprising why Meowth had reacted in the way that he had. It was still a bit rude, though.

For a few moments, Jorginho filled his vision with Jessie snoozing on her back against the sofa, toddler with hair the color of a rich blooming summer flower cuddled up with her, her small body curling around the bump that eventually would be her brother or her sister.

Jazmyn often made it known that she wanted a sister because she already had a brother!

The male rocketeer remained standing even when he stopped peering over at the sight, making a note to himself albeit a hidden one to be more careful next time he barged into a dormitory or even raised his voice a little more than usual. A different slope in his neck, Jorginho looked over at Meowth who was already looking at him.

The feline answered, knowing the slant in his neck was a question and not from how much that helmet of his weighed on him, dragging muscles of his into other ones of his in a never-ending domino effect.

"It was a rough night." Came his initial reply, imagining that the heavy shadows that had clung under his eyelids during the early hours of the morning were still there rather than something that had faded away as the day progressed. Immediately, Jorginho's shoulders stood firmer. "Neither of the kids slept." Meowth spoke over the boiling water and his own continual chopping of vegetables, not proving a point by keeping his voice the same tone. "Nightmares. This organization sometimes, I swear…"

He trailed off, not that he would have received a chance to continue his musings anyway. Jorginho's bottom was back against the seat of the chair all over again and he had even edged it closer to Meowth, so he had even less reason to raise his voice as he conversed with the fellow rocketeer.

"I didn't see James." He said, reaching out across the table and filling his hands with his helmet once more as if it was a being that couldn't be left alone. But of course, that wasn't the case.

Often in my lifetimes, I marvel at how humans create their own kind of language, and such an understanding transpires between them that they can say the most basic of things and still get their point across.

That is the power of being known and being loved, I learnt. It is, however, a great misfortune when these miracles are not used all the time and grave misunderstanding can occur instead. Sometimes not even the human words that they all share are enough to get people on the same page.

But anyway, I ramble. This was not one of those moments.

Meowth nodded when he heard these words from Jorginho, immediately knowing the meaning behind the simple sentence and knowing that, although yes, James often did still take the other of the children to Jorginho's dorm room when they were disrupting each other from sleep, this was not one of those occasions.

The cat Pokémon sent the truth across.

"He took Justin to the crèche. The boy went the opposite way in his tiredness so needed to let loose." he explained the situation to Jorginho who merely nodded his head, finding his lower lip inside the rest of his mouth as he began to ponder this as well as the words, he had previously cut him off from saying. Meowth chose to smirk as he added, "No doubt is Jimmy curled up in a corner of the nursery somewhere and Justin is drawing on the walls."

And with that, Meowth's smirking mouth stretched further open, and he laughed before going back wholeheartedly to his cooking, wanting to be in that private world of his once more even if he didn't mind having Jorginho in the background, as well as Jessie and Jazmyn too.

The latter, for once, were hardly a distraction!

Meowth chuckled. Jorginho did too. But it felt like forcing a flower to bloom before its time came. A few minutes later, when he felt that he had silently gone over and over the thoughts in his head enough, not only did he take hold of his helmet in the one hand, but he reached for the Pokémon Egg that he had been carrying about for months too, waiting for it to hatch.

It was quite a striking image, his young yet tall and broad stature, chiseled and rock-solid helmet in the one hand and the colorful, innocent egg in the other. But that was the truth. That was Jorginho. And he took both things over to the sunny end of the kitchen where Meowth was preparing a late lunch, deciding to nurture whatever creature that the hatchling was going to be in its brightly decorated shell as well as nurture the words that had been swirling around and around in his mind.

They had been one of the reasons why his brief mission had felt like one of the longest even if he had been adjusting to far more tiresome ones. And they were the reason that he couldn't remain silent for too long.

He had heard things. And he did not want to be caught in a haze.

"I heard something when I was out and about on the field today, getting this thing back." Jorginho began, not expecting to get Meowth's attention straight away and being fine with that, instead using his helmet for quite a different function as he perched it on the windowsill and facing the sun. "Heard something from another team color."

His shoulder had crept closer against Meowth's like he himself was the morning sun streaking across the earth at sun rise. At first, the cat Pokémon's initial response was to gaze on the silhouette on the shape patterned egg resting in the rocketeer collector's helmet like it was a boiled egg in its cup one early morning, flashing across his mind why Jorginho had said the latter part of his words.

That hardly mattered, he mused to himself. And that never mattered to Jorginho. So why was he bringing along this sort of information as if it meant something?

Meowth chose to focus on the beginning part of his words, and it caused his steam-filled eyes to soften, casting a look over Jorginho just the ones in the middle of still preparing one of his favorite recipes.

"Oh yeah?" he merely answered at first, showing no hint of curiosity that he surely felt by Jorginho wanting to share information with him. Or maybe because that sort of thing was known to kill the cat, he knew by warning that it probably wasn't the best idea to encourage this sort of feeling at all.

Unless it was his cooking, Meowth was indifferent. And he just had to wait for Jorginho to find his own voice all over again, the utensil-like nature of his claws becoming outdated as it was time to fry and stir ingredients.

"Yeah." Jorginho affirmed with his Adam's apple bobbing in his throat rather than a nod of his head formulating. He then took a pause that was not for effect. He wasn't trying to remember what he had heard either. The words took a minute or two and Meowth's frying pan slowly heating up to get the courage to stop being in his mind and be out on the tip of his tongue instead. "I heard," Jorginho had to fight the urge not to swallow the natural lump in his throat fully back, removing himself of it. "That Jessie and James might be quitting the organization. You too, Meowth."

The words were finally out there. They hadn't been as difficult to push their way out there as Jorginho had expected. Or had they?

Now that he had formed them, he might no longer have had the urge to swallow any longer, but he felt the peculiar stinging sensation on the tip of his tongue as he waited for a response from Meowth – any response.

He kidded himself that it was because he was loitering so near to the cooking that he had received a taste of the chili already.

Jorginho was left with another kind of sensation – an icy one – when Meowth barely reacted to these rumors at all. The human rocketeer had seen creatures like you would not believe throughout his ventures and deals on the field and sometimes they had cheeks that stung exactly like mine did.

He half imagined that Meowth's own ones would replicate that quality from another creature there and then, out of rage or out of something else entirely, he didn't exactly know.

However, the cat Pokémon's demeanor was as chilled as some of the most stoic people that he could model his behavior on. And it wasn't even naturalness in his mouth that made him appear like he was beginning to smirk all over again.

"Oh really?" he said while Jorginho was still hanging around near him, no longer leaving the egg to be idle but reaching a careful hand across and brushing specs of dust away from it that he imagined to be there, sullying the pristine portrayal of his well-cared for egg.

Meowth didn't look over at him, but he didn't make it his mission to keep his line of vision anywhere other than Jorginho either. Because of this, he saw the way that his thumb started to pause against the curved top of the Pokémon egg.

And he certainly heard his unhesitant reply, too.

"Really." Jorginho confirmed, giving his Pokémon egg one more pat before, as if to constrict his digits from doing anything that they were not supposed to, his arms folded over his broad chest that concealed with just material since his torso plates discarded on the table. "And do you know what I think?"

For some reason, heaviness started to wash over the front of Jorginho's upper body like he was still wearing that protective armor that he needed to keep himself safe when he went out there into the world to fetch and claim Pokémon for the organization that he was a dazzling part of.

This only prevailed more as Meowth copied the lack of breaks between his speech, looking over at him with naturally steady eyes as well.

"What is it that you think?" he wondered, in a tone that to Jorginho felt like a teacher wanting to know the answer from a student out of the possibility of mocking them rather than the privilege of educating.

When Meowth accompanied the bemused words of his with an even bigger smirk tearing open his mouth, Jorginho had to wonder why on earth it was his cheeks feeling like they were burning from the inside out, offering the reaction that he had anticipated in the Pokémon.

The weight underneath his folded arms made him feel like he was still clad head to toe in armor, but he was beginning to wish that he were still wearing his helmet in case those blazing cheeks of his showed on the outside too.

Jorginho knew that he had to hurry; hoping that getting the words out in the open would help him cool down. He would cool down from whatever it was that was making him feel so warm.

Maybe it was the cooking.

"I think that it's bullshit." He stated and at once, he had to deal with the reality that this uttering made his cheeks throb more rather than that sensation to dissipate. Still, he knew that he had to continue. He had words on his mind and this time, he wanted them out there. He wanted Meowth to react. "These people are conspiring against you. Jessie and James are the last people to hang up their uniforms and you are even less." Meowth's eyes were on him, and they saw the way Jorginho's own ones dropped to where he had never been clothed in such a way. That was a trifle. "Where would they have to go? Where would any of you have to go?"

When an interjection happened, it wasn't like the last time, when words trailed off and a natural end occurred. When the interruption took place, no words were circling around in anybody's heads.

Something in Meowth felt words ringing straight from his soul and suddenly, they were out into the ether and for Jorginho to hear. Before he knew what was going on, he had fully rotated around to face him on the stool that he had been standing on and a single claw of his was no longer used to prepare a meal for the people he considered family.

Jorginho should be used to being on the receiving end of a dagger. But he wasn't when it came from a friend.

"You better learn to mind your business as quick as you learn not to take rumors that you hear as face value, kid." Meowth began and although the claw that was beginning held out to him was getting closer and closer to his chest that was only protected by two folded arms, for a single, fleeting, hopeful second, Jorginho believed this meant that he had been fretting over lies. He didn't have the chance to rid himself of all the pent-up air in his lungs. Meowth's own armor faltered while his weapon did. "Red Team, Blue Team, Orange Team. I don't care who said a single thing. Nobody knows any of us. We could make the best of being anywhere."

And with that, Jorginho was left feeling like Meowth had really dragged his raggedy nail across the front of his neck as he witnessed the Pokémon beginning to not only mutter but look away from him, and slowly resuming preparing the dinner that he was making for his loved ones.

How stupid he was. How stupid Jorginho felt. Where was the no nonsense Meowth that he had once known? It was true that he often showed flecks of the person that had once been. But time had changed him. Family had sculpted him. The birth of Jessie and James' children had softened him.

And now, here he was. Him preparing them dinner wasn't the problem. He refusing to give Jorginho a solid answer was somehow not the problem either. He was a quitter. And the organization was not meant to rest on such things.

Jorginho spoke of such.

"This is not the way of someone who truly loves being in Team Rocket." He pointed out and the chuckle that he sensed in Meowth's throat even if he turned back to his cooking once again made his cheeks feel like he had swallowed a volcano and left simmering there. Jorginho had to control himself not to openly react to the way that Meowth had seemingly already moved on. It took a good few minutes of him being seated in the chair at the table once more to speak without lashing out. "Are you all really going?"

From the way that the feline's answers had flattened down to being a mutter, Jorginho expected this same uninflected tone to continue and for him to take a good amount of time before he found an answer.

He was stood correct on both accounts. It wasn't the frying pan that spat after all chopped up vegetables were added to the sizzling oil.

"I don't know!" He thundered. Even he did not know why he did that. Not that he either would openly admit, but he hadn't known a lot of things in quite a long time. Meowth didn't share Jorginho's skill of taking a breath and thinking of words before saying them. "There have been talks. Discussions." He admitted, his tone flattening again but just for a second. It wasn't a coincidence when his claw glinted as he found his proper tone all over again. "Not that it's any of your business, bub."

A torrent of wind escaped from Jorginho's nostrils, this time not an act to compose before saying words. He had a lot inside of him and, not that he realized it, but he needed to get rid of it there and then.

He had been called a lot of names by Meowth over the years and not all of them pleasant. He had a feeling that this was going to become an event more frequent thing if they failed to be on the same page as they were there and then.

One of them needed to give. Like pulling a cracker come Christmas time, one of them needed to give for there to be the sensation of a sense of a winner even if there was none. Out of two inexorable males, it was anyone's guess who was going to, not exactly soften, but be more willing to see things from the other side.

Eventually, it was Jorginho to give this new method a go. The corners of his nostrils crinkled, telling Meowth that he did not appreciate the hostility. And then he decided to lead by example.

"It's probably not anybody's business now that none of you are playing by the code that everybody is meant to agree upon…" Jorginho said and Meowth rolled his eyes. They were not yet on the same page, so this gesture was taken as an act of defiance rather than a telling of the truth. It just wasn't that simple. "I would've wanted to hear from you guys rather than anybody else." At least that was something. The team colors didn't matter. It was just awful hearing something from anywhere other than straight from the Horsea's mouth. A long silence, and then: "Why now?"

Meowth didn't mean to groan. Or rather, he did but because it felt different from the inside of him rather than how it shot across to Jorginho.

While he was trying to concentrate, sizzling the mushrooms and the spring onions in the pan, and watching the noodles simmer after coming to a boil, he reacted in such a way that was like he had indigested all the food already and was suffering from a great stomach-ache.

Those expressive eyes of Jorginho's portrayed hurt. At that point, they didn't try to hide it as eyelashes grooved all around them. Meowth didn't catch sight of this. But something didn't exactly make him have a change of heart – but he certainly had an altering of demeanor.

He turned around on the stool to face Jorginho, his paws planted on his hips for something to do now that they no longer were occupied with preparing food.

"Tired. They're tired." If this answer had come from anybody else, then it would've sounded solemn. But the natural curve of his lips and the glint in his eyes often brushed people the wrong way and stopped Meowth from being wholly sincere. Still, Jorginho knew it was the kind of tiredness not from having kids and being up until all hours of the morning. "It's not what it used to be here. This place has never been one for little people, and the boy and the girl are already feeling it. " Meowth kid himself that the burning in his throat was from standing too near the stove and inhaling the chilies. "What if this next little bub feels it even more?"

Jorginho could have properly softened all his edges when he heard this from Meowth, but it was actually the opposite. The two of them as well as Jorginho's dynamic with a lot of people was a push and it was a pull. Now that Meowth was pondering, it was time for the brown-haired male to be scoffing.

Nevertheless, he thought about the words that he wanted to say, and, in the end, he was still gnawing on the corner of his thumb nail while expressing what kind of thoughts were coming naturally to him. The vision of one of his closest friends flashed across his mind. Even though another friend of his, a friend of them all that they all had lost soon followed; he still decided to stick with these words.

"You can be a kid in Team Rocket and still live a normal life." Jorginho insisted. Although speaking in between having an inch of a thumb in his mouth partially bought him closer to the earth, the knot that started to take over his eyebrows soon after contrasted this. "Everybody has a choice. I thought Jessie and James had chosen theirs."

A fire had been poked and prodded and eventually ignited in Meowth. But it wasn't the kind that Jorginho was expecting. While it wasn't an all-out volcano, it certainly wasn't something better than that.

In fact, somehow, it was far worse.

"Kid, you're the last person who is going to understand." Meowth remained standing while talking to Jorginho, though he may as well have sat down on the stool from the way that he was laying out all his cards on the table. His eye contact could not be avoided. "You don't have children. And with your kind of work, you are not going to so you will never understand." The last card was held up. It was an unintentionally menacing one. "So shut up."

And with that, the feline turned back on his heel and returned to tending to his meal, one paw of his wrapped around a wooden spoon to stir noodles and the other one preventing the frying vegetables from burning too much as he tossed them around.

In a completely rare occasion, Jorginho did what he was told by Meowth, and he did indeed shut up. As anybody could understand, it wasn't these last few words that cut deep. Jorginho never would have said anything, but if there had been anyone properly looking on then it would have been obvious.

Meowth had got him right where it hurt. And it left him pondering for a very long time before he was able to say anything back.

The worst part about what he had said was that they were true. And certainly, they were what Jorginho feared. Not that he ever told anybody. He was very honest with all the people that he had been involved with over the years. He was always hopping from task to task, mission to mission. No way could he give somebody his all in the context of a relationship, let alone would be able to find someone that was willing to still settle down with him when he could only ever offer half of him at a time at the most.

He had been overjoyed for Jessie and James when they found out they were expecting a little one. He was impressed with how they had stepped up in the organization to provide a life for those children before they came along, let alone when they reared their sweet little heads.

That is why Jorginho couldn't help but wonder: why now? Why quit now after everything? Why not straight away when the first pregnancy came to fruition? Why now? Why when Jorginho was beginning to feel like he had a family in them all?

He cleared his throat in between continually biting at his own lip instead of allowing himself to linger on these thoughts of his. At last, he found a question that he could answer so he posed it to Meowth.

"So, what of you?" Jorginho began by putting forth, not realizing that the fellow rocketeer too had drifted off into his own thoughts until his shoulders jerked when presented with another question. He still did not turn around. "You have no children. You are not tied to anybody like Jessie and James are to each other and their children." Meowth's face started to appear over his shoulder in increments and in time with the clock ticking on the wall. "What's stopping you from staying on in the organization and letting the other two crack on with their happily ever after?"

In retrospect, it is blindingly obvious what Jorginho was doing. With a tongue alive with the taste of vinegar, he was trying to find a way – any way – to hold onto any of the people that meant the most to him. Even if, there and then, it was the member giving him the most trouble by delivering the unwelcome news and answering him back.

He didn't care. He couldn't stop himself. He was going to milk Meowth as much as he could. But, of course, he himself would never feel satiated. He was on the cusp of losing a lot of what he had known.

Meowth's noodles were never going to fill him up even when they were presented to him finally in the future. That would always be a gap that remained hollow.

The cat Pokémon looked over at Jorginho for quite a long time, almost allowing a full rotation of the clock's thinnest hand before he decided to open his own mouth and respond back to him. Although he thought that he knew what he was doing, he did not.

Meowth believed that Jorginho was just trying to hurt him in return. So those eyes of his became more weapon-like than the tools that Jorginho often yielded, goading him in return.

"Something that you wouldn't know about is that the three of us," he paused, not just for dramatic effect. In a swift motion with his hands behind his back, Meowth turned off all the rings of the stove. Then, he continued interacting. "Are all for one and one is for all. No one gets left behind. We all move together."

An eyebrow shooting up on his face like an invisible fishing line had latched onto it, Jorginho rid his teeth of the skin of his thumb for good and he considered. A thought flashed across his face that he should smirk and not say anything, just like Meowth often did, reeling in a reaction from him that would be too perfect.

Yet despite it all, Jorginho did not have the heart. Or moreover, he did not have the nerve. He instead started to behave in other ways. To make a point, his leg lifted and rested back on the spare chair once more.

He would fill them all one by one, and nobody could stop him. Who would be there to prevent him when Jessie, James and Meowth were a thing of the past?

"You might think that." Jorginho gave him permission to think at his own accord, but he still didn't find it appropriate to nod. Feeling the cat Pokémon's eyes display like the lines that some of the weapons that lay hiding in his belt could often concoct, he ran the risk of continuing. "But they sure don't. The more kids that they go on to have, it will stop being about you. That is just a fact."

And with that, Jorginho ran yet another risk by leaving the wood of the chair for a couple of moments to glide right by Meowth, picking up his helmet and the egg in one and taking it back over to the table and chairs.

He didn't prove a further point by placing his shell covered companion in the third and final chair that was loitering around the round table. All his points had been proven. And Jorginho had felt Meowth's goaded smirk bedded into him as he moved around him, and he certainly did as the cat Pokémon turned around all over again and didn't bother to hide the fact that he was looking at him.

And he didn't stifle his obvious smolder away from him either. Meowth's large head was swinging from side to side as he watched Jorginho resume swiping away any specs of dirt from his shiny friend, meticulously making sure that it was perfect.

Such care. Such care for someone so mistaken.

Meowth knew that he was going to set him straight from the get-go. He just didn't realize that the corners of his mouth would even out, and his eyes would stop glinting with how he wholeheartedly believed in what he was saying.

"It stopped being about me a long time ago, Jorginho." Meowth began and it was as though a speck of dust was on the cat Pokémon there and then from the way that the fellow rocketeer could not stop himself from staring over, his eyebrows breaking the distance with each other. Meowth did not revel in the fact that he had such an obvious audience, shaking his head and just wanting to get his point across. "We've been a team since our very first day as a trio. And one thing you will never understand is that I couldn't give a shit if they put those kids of theirs ahead of me. They should." Meowth's eyes had the energy to glint again. But it was a different portrayal than usual. "We all want them to have a better upbringing than any of us have ever had. And that includes you."

And with that, he prepared to turn around on his heel all over again with a swallow and dish up the meal for his loved ones that had been ready to go for quite some time. However, something stopped him midway. And it is obvious that it was the voice of Jorginho.

You would think that after having heard of all these things from Meowth that he would take some time to absorb it all and therefore take a little while to think of the things that he wanted to say.

But the truth was that one sentence, and one sentence only rang through the ears of Jorginho, and he knew that he had to let it out into the atmosphere.

Truthfully, it was out there before he could stop himself. He didn't exactly mean to sneer.

"Keep telling yourself that." Jorginho said with a shrug, and he was a fool to thing that he would get away from this scot free.

Suddenly and out of nowhere, a banging noise occurred that rattled all the armor laid to rest on the kitchen table like cutlery clanging at a disrupted family dinner. If all the talking hadn't woken up the sleeping people in the dormitory, then this certainly should have done.

It really had been a rough night!

Meowth had leapt from the stool in front of the counter tops and onto the table in front of Jorginho. This time, although as his brown eyes stared at him and the whites of his eyes were as visible as the palest of sands on some of the beaches far across the Pokémon World, he did not have a weapon of any sort held out in front of him.

He might have wanted to grab him by the collar and dig his nails into him, but Meowth refrained, and he allowed only words to do the talking.

"I will." He answered and Jorginho knew that there surely would be more to come. He was correct. He could not avoid the cat Pokémon's gaze as he stood right in front of him, blocking the way between his arms and one of the Pokémon eggs that he so cared about. "And you keep telling yourself that Jess and Jim will want a single thing to do with you if you keep behaving in this way." Another shake of the head appeared from Meowth, and he decided that he had stood his ground enough. He said these next words while leaping back to dish up the dinner at long last: "Support them."

These words were not said under any breath, but they were still a bit of a whisper in the wind from the way that Meowth had spoken them while in mid-air and leaping from one surface to the next.

I can't tell you if Jorginho heard them or not. So, I can't tell you which was the part of Meowth's words that he was replying to when he said:

"I will." Jorginho muttered under his own breath in between pursed lips, not dreaming of allowing his elevated heart rate to increase from the outside but reaching for the egg when it was back in proximity all over again and removing a strand of fur from sticking to its shell that he swore Meowth left there on purpose.

Jorginho's eyes burnt into the back of the feline. But he didn't say a single thing. They didn't say a single thing to each other. And in fact, no word of an impending goodbye was spoken between any of them for the rest of the day, not even when James returned back from the nursery with a snoozing Justin clinging onto his hip and while Jessie and Jazmyn were already seated for the meal, the little girl choosing to perch on Jorginho's lap rather than her mother's.

He didn't say a thing while his chin pressed against the top of the child's head although he would have very much liked to. But at that moment, it would not be words of harshness or hostility. He didn't know what he would have said. But it surely would have been different.

Jorginho so hated saying goodbye, even if his job and his role in Team Rocket and even his life before the organization meant he had garnered opportunities to try and accept to this exact thing. Despite his hesitance for a farewell, he always made sure to say them because not only was it the right thing to do, but it was the thing that sat most well in his heart.

That's why the last part of this story is so incredibly sad. You can have all the armor in the world and be paid for your courage. But sometimes that is not enough. Sometimes you can be truly cowardly.

Spring was surprisingly hanging about in the air a handful of months later for a day in February and the sun could not stop itself from beaming, the winged creatures unable to refrain their hearts and their beaks from singing loudly.

What a day it was going to be! What a day it had already been. It was time for a chapter to close. It was time for Jessie, James and Meowth to move away from all they had ever known. It was official. They were leaving Team Rocket.

The sadness in their hearts had evaporated like any evidence of morning dew on the blades of grass by the sun as it made its way to its highest point in the sky. They had felt blue when the news properly broke and people had to be told. But it had been months since then. And now gratitude was the thing that strung between them all.

They had a place to go. They actually had a place to go! They had people to be other than the ones that they had been for nearly a decade. Granted, it wasn't the lives that they had imagined for themselves. It wasn't ideal. But they had each other.

So, love was rushing through all three of them, not just the spring that was in the air. Well, it was rushing through almost all of them!

James stopped making sure the straps tying the luggage to the top of his car was secure when he realized that his wife was having a not so internal struggle. A bead of sweat already amusedly clinging to the gap between his eyebrow and the side of his hairline, he was no longer stretching upwards but was cowering down, opening the door of Jessie's side to make sure that she was okay.

She clearly wasn't! But he asked anyway.

"Can I do anything for you, Jessie, sweetheart?" James crooned, his eyes becoming exaggerated rainbows but as time went on, they stopped being falsified and started to become genuine as there wasn't anything that could ruin one of the most important days of their lives.

In that moment, Jessie wasn't quite so on the same page as her husband. She believed that she was keeping her struggle of trying to get the car seatbelt over her blooming bump a private and a silent one and even if that had been the case, James would be sure to catch on any way.

The truth was, Jessie had started to grumble and grizzle like a grumpy bear and even start to mutter a few swear words as well, much to the amusement of Jazmyn in the car seat behind her who, couldn't understand what her mother was saying and why it was rude but was alive with the feeling of joy anyway.

As soon as the former Team Rocket member heard her husband's words, part of her wanted to snap that everything was perfectly fine. In the end, she still snapped, and she snapped that they clearly weren't!

Somehow, James did not leap backwards.

"Yes, James, you can get a normal sized car with normal sized seatbelts so I can actually get them over me!" Jessie barked, much to Jazmyn's amusement, whose giggles were still able to escape despite her two small hands that were pressing over her mouth.

The lavender haired male did take a step backwards, but it was to see things objectively rather than because he feared his wife's temper. Two hands on his hips, his mouth pressed into a polite, knowing line as he took a second to observe his car and knew that it was a normal sized one that came with normal sized seatbelts and, in this instant, nothing about his vehicle was the problem.

But, of course, he wouldn't dream of speaking of such a thing and while Meowth in the middle seat poked his head in through the gap between the front seats, ever the mischief maker even if he too had hung up the R upon his invisible uniform, James chose to soothe his wife in a different way.

He broke the distance between the two of them all over again, patient as ever as one corner of his mouth started to quirk upwards.

"Have you tried taking some deep breaths which will make you feel a lot better and might get the belt over the sweet bump?" he suggested to his wife, head tilting slightly on the one side as he believed this was reasonable.

Before James could however reach out a hand and caress the bump that would produce a new little baby in less than two months, Jessie raged at him all over again. Even if James had been none the wiser, Meowth had seen it coming from a mile off and had decided to draw his head back in, resting it back against the shoulder of Jazmyn and sharing his private amusement with her.

She might get away with it, but he certainly wouldn't!

"I don't know, James, have you tried not knocking me up all of the time by thinking that-"

"Whoa, it is so breezy out here! That's how you know Spring is not on its way just yet." James prevented Jessie from finishing that sentence by pretending to look around at the trees that were not even swaying a single inch before kicking the door shut with his foot all over again, silencing his wife.

Meowth had to share a secret look with his reflection in the window as he knew James would live to regret that. And what a stupid move it was too, because Jessie did get to finish her sentence for the cat Pokémon to hear and for her daughter too, not that Jazmyn was all that switched on to what was said.

She stopped finding the amusement in her mother and the way that, in spite her protests, did take her husband's advice and took deep breaths, using the sensation that washed over her to be able to see things a bit more clearly as well as get the seatbelt strapped across her and her bump.

Jazmyn instead focused on the smile that she saw stretching across her father's face and it made her smile, far more than any amusing antics could have made her feel. She didn't exactly understand everything. But she knew something exciting was going to happen.

She listened from the gap in the window when, after James didn't say anything on the outside for a few moments, his hands went to his hips before he set to checking everything had a place and everything was in its place.

Or rather, unbeknownst to the toddler with a lounging Meowth against her shoulder, he was pretending to do exactly this.

"Luggage up top – check. Luggage in boot – check. Luggage beneath seats – check." He started by going through all the material things at first, before moving onto all that was important to him. "Jessie – check. Meowth – check. Sweet little Jaz – check. Justin – ooh…" James' hand stopped lulling against his hip and instead his finger pointed upwards in the air. He went on to shake his head before opening the door on the other side to Jazmyn, speaking to Meowth to include him in the foolish shenanigans. "I don't suppose you've seen a little boy anywhere, have you? Looks a lot like that little girl over there, slightly longer hair and a bit…"

James couldn't finish his new motion of his hand, gesturing towards his hip in an exaggerated motion to describe how his son was a tad taller than his technically older twin sister. Suddenly, it was no longer Jazmyn filled with raucous laughter and that sound originated in the boot of the car.

Before Jessie could turn around in her seat or her husband could go round to the boot to open it up, Justin's head poked through the gap from the boot leading to the rest of the car, glee written all over his dimpled face and his eyes squeezed tightly together.

"I'm here, Daddy, I'm here!" he announced. The aah sound of relief that escaped from James as he pretended to faint with relief was prompt and it made even Jessie on that day to break into a smile. Justin's expression was then of the opposite. He plaited his eyebrows close together, showing that his arms were folded together even if that part was concealed by being pressed up against guitar cases in the boot. "You nearly forgot me!"

A foot stamped against the pavement outside that could have been mistaken for one of the toddlers, but it was James. He denied Justin's point before doing so with words, clutching his heart, and then choosing to rescue him from being part of the luggage.

"I would never forget you of all people! Maybe Meowth. But certainly not you!" he crooned all over again, this time to his son rather than to his wife. Jazmyn was bursting into giggles again. Jessie poked her tongue out at a scowling Meowth the in the rear-view mirror. Justin couldn't resist his expression from softening quickly and it certainly did when he was back on his father's hip, ready to be strapped into his own seat. "I would never forget you, baby. You're going to help make this place a home."

And with that and with a kiss pressed against his forehead, Justin strapped in his car seat next to Meowth in the middle and with Jazmyn on the next side too. Now that everybody was properly settled, James had a genuine go at making sure everything was there, counting and checking. He did this a few more times than he needed to but no wonder.

Despite it all, he was stalling. And he was also stalling so he would never have to drive back and collect something that had been forgotten. Their new home was elsewhere, not the Team Rocket headquarters that had put a roof over their heads for so long.

In some ways, it had been good to them. But in a great many ways, it was time to do their own thing. Jessie could tell that James was thinking of this when he at last climbed back into his driver's seat and reached out to squeeze her hand when he could tell that she was in a more palatable move.

But she could also tell that James was thinking of other things when he put the key in ignition and asked everybody if they were ready to head off and when he hesitated to spin his hands around on the wheel.

She was not blind to the way that his eyes darted to the rear-view mirror, to look straight out the window at the back of his car rather than their children behind him, and the way that his shoulders buckled, crouching to get a proper look at the gate behind them all.

It had taken such a wretchedly long time to strap herself into the car. But there and then, she freed herself all over again to properly turn to her husband, head on one side and hand on his shoulder.

"Everything okay?" she asked in two simple words, her touch not leaving his material and unable to resist stroking the plain long sleeve white t-shirt that he was wearing rather than the uniform that had been a part of him for so long.

They still had their days off and were hardly dressed in that clothing 24/7. But it was still something to get used to. It would be something to get used to for a long time.

"Mhm." James despite it all answered at first and he tried to show he was genuine by pressing a kiss to Jessie's cheek. Her response was a frown because he knew he was being the opposite of this so James then sighed and was a bit more honest. He decided to especially be that way with Meowth, as if it was easier coming from him. "Did you happen to catch Jorginho?" he asked him, looking at him in the rear-view mirror so he knew that it was him being addressed. James shook his head, feigning a smile like it was an inside joke, and everything was okay. "I looked around and around for him. But nobody knew."

A silence took over the car like a storm cloud enveloping a sunny day. But alas, despite the atmosphere, the sun still shone, and the birds still chirped. A day was still there to seize hold of. Even if some people were being unsupportive.

Sensing something but not knowing exactly what, the children's toes started to point towards the seats of their respective parents who they sat behind, opposing thumbs tucking between each of their lips as they copied the silence.

Jessie's touch moved away from James, and this paired with the words that he had managed to say, made him feel incredibly exposed. Inwardly, he prayed that Meowth would be kind about it.

He should have known not to doubt one of his closest friends.

Although the smile that came was weary, it was one meant to encourage. The bobbing motion of his large head was for the same reason. Meowth leaned back against his own seat to appear relaxed.

"Don't worry about it, Jimmy; you know what he's like. You know how hard he works." Meowth's words were meant to comfort but at first, all James could think about was how little he felt like he knew him recently. The cat Pokémon bravely continued. "He will text. He will text, I'm sure. Or ring. We can't get rid of each other that easily."

Meowth meant well. That's such an unusual sentence for me to agree with but Meowth meant well – Meowth meant so very well.

However, the better intentioned his words were, the more he didn't realize how false they sounded. James knew more than anybody how little Jorginho liked speaking via technology. It was face to face or nothing when it came to him. He couldn't be dealing with any other crap, as he often liked to say.

Trying to focus on the humming engine of his car as it prevailed and attempting to make his hands to go to a ten and two position on the steering wheel, James' lower lip fell into the rest of his mouth. He knew that he needed more reassuring than that but didn't exactly know how to ask of this.

Fortunately, Jessie was feeling attentive after managing to successfully strap herself back into the car for a second time and this caused her to reach back out to her husband, to the crook of his arm this time and squeezing it.

She bobbed her head just like Meowth had done. And her Cupid 's bow mouth smiled at him, hoping to be the one to put him at ease for the last time.

"Onwards and upwards, James." She tried to instill in him. And this paired with the efforts that Meowth had made as well, it partially worked.

A saying that had gone them through so many tough times. When she was first pregnant, and the money just wasn't coming in and they didn't have a single clue what they were going to do as a newly in love couple. When situations almost sent all three of them in separate ways from each other. When I sent them hurtling through the air at various times and at different speeds!

A saying that felt fitting for them. And no doubt James thought about all these times, and many others like one of their old homes of the hot air balloon and the memories that they shared there before he decided to bravely nod his head at his wife and smile too, finally beginning to move the car away from the Team Rocket building.

"Onwards and upwards, Jess." He confirmed and he looked in the rear-view mirror for another time, that time at the peering faces back at him to include all of them as well. It was his adventure; it was Jessie's adventure, and it was all their journeys all together.

They had a place to head to. They still had lives to live. There weren't exactly any solid plans. But there was a future. And that was enough.

But before the future could begin, with Jessie's hand then lingering on the back of his neck while driving and with Meowth and the children relaxing back in the back seats all over again, James felt it appropriate to do a U-Turn, towards the gates of the Team Rocket building and intending to do that so he could have one satisfying swaying motion away from all that they had all ever known.

Fate is a funny thing. Many people argue whether it is real or not, and certainly whether it can be intervened with. Either way, that word cannot help but spring to mind as I recount this story with all the feeling in my heart as when I first heard it.

You see, as James swung the car towards the gate and everyone giggled and he felt a smile tugging up the corner of his mouth, something darted in his peripheral vision and before he realized what was going on, he looked in the mirror rather than at the path ahead to get a better look at what was occurring.

Through his open window that had been letting the spring air circulate throughout his lungs and around his family, he saw two concealed hands clutch at the iron bars of the gate. Everybody else was staring, mouth partially opened. James' heart felt like it had missed a step and the sand of the desert from a distant region had started to fill the roof of his mouth.

This only intensified as those two hands moved away from the iron bars and the black and orange helmet belonging to an Orange Team Bounty Collector was torn away from a face and that infamous stare locked onto the car that was driving away. The car that was driving away without saying goodbye.

Jorginho should have anticipated this. He should have taken this in his stride because he had put these actions forth, he had started them all; he had been the one at first to refuse to say goodbye. Jorginho should have almost perversely respected this. But he didn't.

He felt as though someone had stripped him bare of all his weapons and been brutalized by them all, each one of them slicing through his heart.

James didn't know what to do. James didn't know whether to turn the car around or to keep on driving.

Jorginho was in the same boat. He didn't know what to do. He didn't know whether to jump over the gate and run to say farewell or he should just stand there and do nothing. In the end, his hesitance cost him. In the end, his hesitance put across a message that he had never intended to show.

James driving the car and supported by the other four along with him, decided to focus on onwards and upwards – or rather, keep on moving ahead no matter what – and this led the vehicle to disappear out of sight with not another word and not another action from either side.

Or that's what they all thought, especially James, for a number of unending years.

Jorginho's hesitance cost him. Because of this, nobody saw the way that those brown eyes of his became a puddle of something else entirely, and a hand that was shut away from the world showed more than it had ever done in those few, feeble seconds.

Jorginho swallowed the lump in his throat and waved even if, at that point, he was waving to the ghosts of the past rather than people who had only just been there. He blinked those eyes of his. Those damn eyes of this. They were so famous throughout the organization. But James, Jessie, Meowth and neither Justin nor Jazmyn would see for the longest of time.

It was funny how Jorginho always hated leaving without saying goodbye and then it was something that James not only chose to feel but also perversely chose to be a truth of his own on the day that he drove away from someone who was once a dear friend to them all.

But that is exactly what happened. That is the truth. That is why hesitance will cost you in the end.

None of them would see their friend until the little lad in the back seat of the car and the only one craning around to see the final image of Jorginho putting his helmet on and walking away was the age that his father was in the time that this story takes place.

At least a reunion does happen. That does not always get to occur. And what a reunion it would be! One that not only brought rocketeers back together no matter how long it had been since they hung up their uniforms, but one that certainly felt aligned by the stars. The stars grander than the ones that once were a symbol within the organization which connected them.

But that is another story in itself!

The End.

There you go! Thanks so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed :) I think it's clear by now that the Team Rocket days are a soft spot in my heart, and I just love adding lots of details surrounding what life in the organisation is really like. As you can see here, Jorginho is rather devoted to the cause, and he certainly has his reasons. It's terribly sad that he allows that to distort the friendship that he has with the TRio. The tale of Jorginho is certainly one of how stubbornness can ruin everything - and that wonderful times can get lost. And you have to be really lucky to rekindle them again. Fortunately for him and the other three, they make their way back to each other eventually. It's especially a lucky thing for him and James. As two men, they certainly clash at this time in their lives. But underneath it all, they are both trying to preserve their families - James with the one he has made with Jessie - and Jorginho with the one he feels he has with the TRio :) Thanks again and I will be back again on Wednesday so see you then!

Amy signing out :3