Hello, it's Wednesday and I am back with a new chapter! I wrote this a couple of years ago now, and when I was sorting out old files I read this and thought it was still relevant so gave it a tweak and here it is! This chapter covers a lot of things and certainly a subject that has been tackled before. Justin being outed at his school. This also takes a deeper dive into the past of Team Rocket - especially Jessie - and how her and James' decisions in that organisation lead to something quite serious for their son. I hope you enjoy even though it's on the heavier side!

Disclaimer: I own the story and the OCs mentioned. Butch and Cassidy remained in Team Rocket in my stories, are a couple and have three children, despite it recently being revealed in the anime that they left and went separate ways! Also, this chapter does revolve around being outed so if that's upsetting then give it a miss.

This happens to be one of those stories that seems far too personal for all to know. But there we are. It is also one of those tales, and one of those moments in time that not only changes the trajectory of one person's life but a varying degree of different people. So let us focus on that. And let's leave some of the more intimate details as our little secret, shall we?

It was past midnight in the Morgan Household and everybody else, but James was asleep. At least, that's what he believed. And if the sleeping woman next to him with hair the shade of a paling sunset was anything to go by then he felt like his assumption was a safe one.

In spite of the fact that he had tried to flick the off switch for his brain for quite a few stokes of the clock at that point, as he rolled over, he didn't focus on the niggling of his mind and the white light that shone in his thoughts only for him, keeping him awake. Instead, as he turned over and a hand reached out to the person sleeping next to him, touch brushing their shoulder, the curve of a smile graced his lips.

How lucky he was, he thought to himself. In no time at all, the little bump concealed beneath the covers would be gone and there would be three people in that bed instead of two. What a wonderful thought. No, what a beautiful thought.

A kiss blossomed on the shoulder of Lynne. But it wasn't her and these musings that were preventing James from heading to a far less desirable dreamland. It was something else entirely. It was something he didn't know. But this something still caused him to leave the white pillowed fortress and plant his feet on the floor.

James headed to the kitchen for a glass of water. And on the way, it occurred to him why he might have spent so much time awake in the middle of the night. You see, as he pattered along the hallway and managed to resist tracing a contented finger along each of the doors containing his sleeping children inside, it was a vibrant light coming from another of the rooms that captured his attention most of all.

Stopping outside of the living room and taking a moment to run his fingers along his tattoo decorated arms, a slope accentuated his neck. Maybe he hadn't exactly sensed it and it was purely coincidental. But it was undeniable all the same.

Not even needing to take a minute for his thoughts and his subconscious to intertwine, he knew other things needed his attention other than quenching his midnight thirst.

The palm of a hand was placed against wood of a door. With a low groan, the door swung open. There was then two people in the living room. James watched the person inside, the slope of his neck creasing ever more and locks somehow able to be contained rather than cascading down and framing his face.

The white light of the living room lamp continued to shine, and it bounced off a number of things. The eyes of the person in the room. The gloss of the photographs splayed out. It even refracted off the hair clip that was being used to keep together a bun of hair the hue of a blushing fruit.

James' palm pressed over his own arm, disguising one of the more prominent tattoos underneath his hand and mirroring the way that he had pushed the door open. Of course. If his wife was awake, then he should be too. There was no other thing he should be doing than reflecting her actions in the same way that the light was bouncing off anything it could touch.

"Jess." He began, his voice tumbling off his lips out of habit. Despite this, they had a quality of freshness in their tone, like it was his first-time learning what she was called, not nearing twenty-five years of it being in the forefront of his mind and on the tip of his tongue. "Is everything okay?"

A twitch from his wife's shoulders told him that she didn't realize that anybody was there, let alone him. Even so, the gesture rolled off her frame in a non-violent way and she promptly nodded her head. To her, it was because she was telling the truth, not trying to mislead him in any way.

Her words, however, caused him to silently wonder otherwise.

"Mmm." She said, her own neck slanted as her back was to him. She could feel his eyes flickering to the loose tendrils of hair escaping from the back of her bun more than she could feel his gaze anywhere else. "You should be with Lynne."

Jessie didn't give her husband anything else to look at for a good couple of moments. But then she turned to face him with her head poking over her shoulder when she could sense his eyes fixating on the back of her, his naturally austere jaw hollowing out all the more due to the silence that they shared.

James' own shoulders took a turn to twitch when he saw the side of his wife's cheek. He could gauge her expression. She didn't appear contorted. And so, he could reply with his own bit of truth. And he felt that he wouldn't be unwelcome to join her.

"She's asleep, as I thought you were." He told her and his very light footsteps on the soft grey carpet accompanied his tone of voice. It was his turn to contain his own locks, just one finger tucking a loose strand as best as he could behind his ear. "She won't miss me while she's dreaming."

A smile became the third party of his trio of actions. Inviting himself to sit down next to his wife on the carpet and crossing his legs together, his eyes flickered to her face when they were able to take that in rather than any other part of her. And in that single gaze, he noted her response.

Though Jessie nodded, there was the gentlest of knots in her brow that indicated that she doubted it. Even though it wasn't intended to be shared with her, she knew the kind of words that her husband whispered to the other woman in his life. On many occasions, he was vehement that he would miss her while he slept, and Lynne felt the same way.

Be that as it may, for an occasion that was rare, Jessie behaved as if her tongue was a meal. And instead, she resumed doing what she had been doing long before she had any extra eyes to observe her.

With a sigh that couldn't be heard and only just could be seen from the way that her chest moved outwards before sucking in, more glossy photographs were added to the collection that was already fanned between two hands.

James' eyes dropped down. In the gleaming light of the room, his eyes appeared all the more observational than usual. But still, he asked. He asked even if the answer that should come from his wife was perfectly clear.

"What are you up to?" Unlike his wife, he had nothing to occupy his touch, so James felt his hands quickly going to his lap for something to do. In an instant, he had found a loose threat on his pajama bottoms, and he was given something to pick at.

Jessie had an option of responses to choose from. She could look over at her husband in the mock-daylight glow of the living room with contorted cheeks and eyebrows pointing to the ceiling, telling him that he shouldn't ask such foolish things.

She could of course remain silent, not even clueing him in it all. But then again, was there a reason to do that? There wasn't really. In the end, after a handful of moments and in between adding to her handful of photographs, she replied with honesty.

"Reminiscing." She told him, her gaze far more fixed towards the photographs that were in her hands rather than to the man who had taken the time out of his night to be present with her and make sure that she was okay.

To a fly on the wall, which didn't look good. The total disregard for his loyalty after all those years and her not even realizing when he first made himself present indicated that the light of their love was growing dim.

It was good that I was no ordinary fly on the wall. Understanding this tale in hindsight, I know more than ever that it was in fact the opposite. A true partnership was being able to be yourself, even if the you presented in that moment in time was tricky and kept your other half up at night.

James found himself nodding like he understood perfectly. Maybe he did. Along with the bob of his head, more tendrils of hair couldn't be kept back and because of this as well as what he would go on to do next, he unhooked his reading glasses from being tangled in his hair.

His makeshift hair band was taken away. His spectacles hoped to perform their true function.

"May I see?" he asked. In the few moments of silence that had occurred in between the conversation of husband and wife, James inwardly wondered to himself what kind of faces were looking back at Jessie from being stuck and captured in photograph formed.

If it was her parents, then it was only natural that she was more wordless than she usually could be. He didn't need to tell himself this twice. And if it was anything else then he might need to be clued in. But he would be there regardless.

It goes without saying that for a single second there was a possibility that she wouldn't let him see at all! After all, viewing photos in the middle of the night when everybody else was asleep was hardly the recipe for something that longed to be shared.

Again, something a fly on the wall could misinterpret. And again, something James acknowledged within himself. He decided not to fret. And thank goodness. A handful of the photos was soon entrusted into his old.

He accepted them in just one of his hands and he didn't even cast his glance towards them until his head had shaken, splaying out strands of hair in a way that wouldn't distract him and placing his spectacles on the end of his nose.

While Jessie's turn came for her eyes to flicker before they focused, able to allow herself to study what her husband's reaction to the photo memories that he wasn't a part of was going to be, he didn't exactly portray an expression that was easy to fathom.

If his wife couldn't recognize it or figure it out, then it was utterly useless anybody else trying. James' eyes took in the photograph and the occasion captured from a slight angle, feeling the nudge of a twinge in his neck. He was as silent as he was studious, but he still made an effort not to attach any fingermarks to the print, sullying his wife's collection of old photographs.

At long last, a response came once he had flickered through them a good number of times, seemingly taking everything in that there was there to see although it wasn't his first time viewing them by a long shot.

He spoke his words straight to his wife, looking into her eyes rather than the eyes belonging to her in the past that had been captured on an ageing camera or the purple hued orbs of the person. A slight nod of the head accompanied what he had to say.

"Those were some good times for you, weren't they?" he mused to her. But moreover, he stated to her. As soon as he entered the room and as soon as he knew his wife was awake, he figured that he would be lucky to get any string of sentences from her.

He believed that he was correct even more so when his eyes dropped down and he noticed a shrug threatening to twitch from Jessie's shoulders. Her frame flickered just once. Her own touch gripped further around the photographs in her hand that she had kept for herself.

Again, she had a choice of responses. And that time, though she didn't really want to speak at all, she uttered the opposite of the truth.

"I guess so." She spoke. To anybody else, the position of the mouth could alter upwards, and a wife should see an ever-growing glint in their husband's eyes. But not Jessie. And not James. He looked back at her, the quality of his steady orbs hardly transforming. "I had more fun here."

Whether she noticed his differing response to her disagreeing with his words or not, although part of him felt that he wouldn't be given the permission to see any of the photos at all, he was then holding all of them.

And barely a second after he cast his gaze down, he could tell exactly what his wife was inferring. That time, he did feel the corner of his mouth drawing distance with his ear and because the corner of his nose twitched a fraction, his glasses were made to shimmy lightly on his face.

The last thing he really liked was seeing photographs of him as a young teenager and during their Team Rocket training days. But they were the memories that Jessie was telling him that she preferred. So, he had to lighten up a bit.

"You were a liar then, Jess, and you're still a bit of a liar now." He informed her, taking a chance by allowing these words to tumble out of his lips. It was true that he received a look from his wife that could've caused even the strongest of people to grow faint hearted. But at least his skin was spared from being bruised. Unlike when they were the age of when the photographs in his hold were taken. "God. We were children. And we had no idea what we were doing."

In hindsight and still to this day, I have my own smile on my face as I think of James coming out with these words. To tell you the truth, at the age of the adults that they were then, they still didn't have a clue what they were doing!

But if I'm honest with you, that goes for each and every person. I don't think our training wheels ever come off. And I don't think you ever stop feeling like a rookie at heart.

James had prepared himself for only a handful of words from Jessie. However, when he received the mighty stare from her, he couldn't help but feel like things were perking up. Maybe that was odd, but that was his way of knowing that there were still conversations to be had!

It then dawned on him, though, that no number of years together in marriage or in partnership - Team Rocket or otherwise – could allow himself to read his wife correctly for every single moment of their lives together.

The words that he uttered himself caused his lips to continually slope and a nostalgic glint to form in his eyes while his head shook. But they made Jessie snatch some of the photographs back. In some time, James would learn that it wasn't because she was angry.

After his meadow orbs widened from behind rims and he had just enough time to ponder, it became clear that although there was a degree of hotness there in the pit of her stomach, she wasn't feeling exactly rage. Maybe it wasn't the right thing to be doing by reminiscing. Maybe things were best left behind.

But the past had bitten them all on the bottom in recent events. And the words that her husband uttered to her out of his own reminiscence made her realise this more.

Feeling the photographs that she had previously bestowed upon her husband back in her own hold, an exhale tumbled out from her widened nostrils like she was disgruntled. But like how within any emotion there was usually about a hundred other ones, James could understand the one or two that was the umbrella for all the rest of them.

The words streaking across his mind but them daring not to be sounded out from his lips, one hand tumbled down towards the carpet and planted there, propping himself up. Jessie didn't notice this gesture to be nearer to her. She could only feel his gaze watching her. She focused on him watching her while she watched the image of her and someone from their past – but even more so hers – grow blurry like headlights when you almost fall asleep behind the wheel.

"What are you thinking of?" James asked his wife. The sound of her name didn't need to tumble out from his lips before or afterwards for her to know who his words were meant for. Who else would be listening? The young pair arm in arm in the photograph? Doubtful.

For a good while, all Jessie could focus on was how darn blurry that photograph was growing in her hands. She knew that she had zoned out. But for some reason, she couldn't gather the energy to zone back in again. Or the nerve to. And in the same way, when she glanced back to her husband just once to allow her gaze some reprieve, she couldn't form the words that she wanted to say.

Drawing slightly backwards with one hand fixed against the grey plush of the carpet, James watched as his wife's lips tried to form words and then she developed quite a harsh expression towards herself when she didn't know what to say. Jagged expression found even more strength in order to soften. She tried to wrap her tongue around words.

Another time, she just couldn't pull them out of her. And James knew that he somehow loved her more in time than he had even loved her when they were just eighteen years old.

Back then, she could blurt out any words and just say anything for the sake of it and certainly to get a reaction out of them. Words could sting. No, her words could straight up burn and wound people.

Yet he was one of the people who knew the other side to all of that was someone who longed to find the right things to say but just didn't know how. And just couldn't. That part of her was still there. Since the other part of her hadn't exactly gone away but just didn't rear its head as much, there could be moments that she just couldn't find her voice.

Or she could. But she just didn't trust herself not to explode in ways that might have been very natural for her, but truthfully weren't helpful.

"I don't know." Jessie bought herself time. Any edge to her voice was spoken down towards the memories within the photograph rather than her partner in life right next to her. James' head nodded as though he understood. This encouraged her to continue whether either of them intended things to be this way or not. "Even for a Team Rocket member, I can't believe anybody could be so careless."

James watched the words forming on his wife's mouth, her upper lip contorting as she finally said some of what she had wanted to say. Then, his gaze dropped downwards, and he saw where these words were being spoken to.

Nevertheless, there was a part of him that was a little mistaken. And as he took a moment to inhale, ridding himself temporarily of his own emotions about it all in order to focus on what his wife had to say, he finally removed his hand from the carpet.

He was occupied with tracing the dents in the palm of his hand while he found his own voice.

"Well…" he was her mirror again. The nail of his pointer finger on his left hand dug into one particularly deep dent that had been left by the minuscule fibres of the carpet. "That's just it, isn't it?" It was time for their dynamics to then switch. James was focused elsewhere while his wife looked at him. "Money talks everywhere. But especially there. You know that."

Glance.

James' attention left the painless marks in his skin for a second to look back at his wife that was still focused on him. And in that single second, he knew that he hadn't quite hit the mark.

It was this as well as the head shake that came from Jessie that then caused him to look back at her longer, watching her nostrils send out a torrent of breath. Again, any emotions were not directed towards him. And it was lucky that unlike when he was younger, he didn't worry that they were either.

"I mean her, James." His name wasn't spoken like a gentle breeze by his wife. But that was okay. She would do it on other occasions. That time, she could no longer look down at any photograph in her hand and especially not the one with her and the yellow haired woman with their arms wrapped around each other's waists. "And him."

It was her husband's turn to do the looking. Without outwardly acknowledging that he could see her refusing to look at the images any longer, they were removed from her hold and held in his instead. Different emotions torrented through him when he peered down but none of them were jealous. And oddly, none of them were rage-filled either.

His voice was level road to who knows where when he replied to his wife yet again. And this had the possibility of angering Jessie for real.

"I'm not sure how much of this we can blame them for, Jess…" he pondered. His tone very much could've caused his wife to ignite. But maybe his words should've done as well! James spoke down to the images that he could see, his wife and the sunflower hair hued woman as well as their whole gang all together. "You know what kids are like. They have minds of their own and they're gonna do what they're gonna do. Team Rocket or otherwise."

And in the look that he offered his wife after he concluded looking down to the handful of photographs, he could see her expression transforming. It wasn't like it was just the two of them together and they were whispering to each other, and words were causing their eyes to grow softer than they dared dream.

While it was true that for a split second, Jessie's eyes did smooth out. With no warning, they latched onto her husband with a stare of something far beyond frustration. It was disappointment.

Nostrils flaring only slightly in spite of it all and her head drawing back, her head swung from side to side. The photographs were batted out of his hands. Apparently, she couldn't look at them anymore. And he no longer was allowed to.

"Why are you being like this, James?" Probed Jessie. Photographs fluttering down to the ground, her tone elevated. It was his natural instinct to wince and turn around, out of habit making sure that she wasn't disturbing anybody else. However, he didn't dare. "Why are you being like this?" That was the last of her rising tone. "How are you not so upset right now…?"

Transformation was then the quality of Jessie's eyes. They smoothed out and to contrast the white light glow of the room, they appeared to dull. Her eyelashes were a feeble leaf in the wind.

It was in this very second and within the words that Jessie had decided to use that James couldn't deny himself of the emotions that he too felt. He stopped being there to help his wife deal with hers.

He wasn't going to lie and make out that he didn't feel them either. There was no part of him that could do that at all. And so, he didn't.

Looking away from Jessie for a moment in order to compose himself and not fall in love with her somehow all the more, his upper lip felt a touch from his own fingers. Then after he had rubbed his own right eye lightly, he looked back at his wife clearer than ever.

A shaky breath still came from him before he garnered the courage to speak.

"Of course, I am. Of course, I am." Vehement words were spoken in a level tone. He could hear his wife swallowing even if he didn't look at her throat contorting at the base and travelling up closer to her chin. "I'm… Jess, I'm…" It was his turn to have a hard time picking the words he wanted to use. "I'm devastated. I'm devastated for him…"

It was the last thing that Jessie was expecting from herself when she suddenly nodded in agreement, her eyes like saucers and not only because of the gleaming light that was odd for the middle of the night.

She wondered why she felt so glad that her husband was indeed devastated. Continually allowing her head to do some of the talking, she appeared to find her own voice better after she had watched him struggle to pinpoint his own.

"It's disgusting." She agreed. He just had to nod because he felt compelled to, but it was naturally far slower and filled with more thoughtfulness than her gesture. A shake of the head from her and then Jessie found her words another time. "After everything she advocated… After everything that he's been through too."

Jessie's words formed. And after her words formed, her lip curled like a serpent around its prey. There was no doubt in James' mind at that point from the moment that he saw the spike in her mouth and the glass in her orbs that the anger was threatening to come.

While he didn't exactly wish to dissipate it, for he knew that it would only come back ten times stronger if he did exactly that, there was a part of him that tried to quench it. There was a part of him that tried to quench Jessie.

Or more realistically, he tried to comfort her.

"But… But what is all this going to do? What's done is done…" James' head shook one single time and his hand fell over hers. In his gestures, he indicated that he wasn't in agreement of any kind. "It's diabolical. But it's done… It's been taken care of." His fingers pulled Jessie's against his before she could mistake his intention for anything else. "And our son knows just how many people stand behind him for being him."

Jessie's head twitched towards her husband. Her natural reaction was to wonder whether she should snatch her touch away from his in the same way the photographs had been rid from his hold.

How could he be so accepting of it? How could he be so level-headed about it all? All of it made her head feel as though it was going to explode.

It was lucky that their fingers didn't remove themselves from each other. And it was lucky that James wasn't left with an exploding head of his own after he decided to do what he felt compelled to do next.

After Jessie had a moment to look away at the last words that he had uttered and swallow to herself too, her jaw clenching so much that it became almost as hollow as her husbands, the loose tendrils at the back of her head containing her bun were traced.

She was encouraged to look back at her partner in life. And then she was forced to shut her eyes when not only did his hip nudge against hers, but his head rested against hers too.

"Is this really about Justin…?" he wondered. And no sooner had he wondered this aloud, the thing that could be heard from Jessie was the loudest and the most devastating of sighs. But then, no other noises from her followed.

Her husband had hit the nail on the head and even she could not deny this. Yes, it was about Justin. But it was about so much more too. The group of Jessie, James, Butch and Cassidy had been far more than just friends when they were in their Team Rocket training days.

And then look what had happened.

Jessie felt that she could never reminisce on that closeness especially between her and Cassidy again from the way that their children at done one of her and James' own children so wrong.

Yes, it was about Justin. But it was about many more things too.

I didn't exactly blame Jessie when in the next few days that moment of closeness with her husband hadn't quenched all of her feelings even if he too felt them, albeit in a different way.

I didn't blame her at all for what she went on to do. If I were in her shoes, I knew I would be lying if I said I wouldn't have done the same exact thing.

Not that she ever told anyone but there had a handful of occasions over the years since quitting Team Rocket that Jessie had thought about marching up to the looming grey glass building and swiping her card on the door and entering like it was old times.

Be that as it may, she couldn't believe when she actually seized that opportunity and marched right up to and into her old stomping grounds. And she couldn't believe that this was going to be the reason that she stepped back into the past.

When she imagined returning back to Team Rocket headquarters and no longer with an R printed on her chest but still that same confidence oozing from each step that she always possessed, she thought that she could hear a great many noises as she strutted down the hallways.

Although she knew that it might be a tad delusional even for her that there might be cheers, at the very least she assumed that there would be whoops.

Who would have thought it, would be the words etched on people's lips. Jessie. The Jessie of Team Rocket back again. They wouldn't be able to contain their opinions.

But they would.

And in truth, it was a whole new batch of people by the time Jessie finally made her way down those halls yet again. Nobody cared. If she had a pass key to get in, then she was welcome. And if she had once been a member then she hadn't been a very good one, had she? She had left. And that was the true mark of a traitor. And somebody not worth acknowledging.

It wasn't the realization of this long-pondered fantasy coming to an end that caused Jessie to have the shadow of anxiety rolling through her body and urging her to clench her fists tighter. As she used the elevator to reach the correct door that she had a feeling the family would still be lurking behind, it became clear to her why she was feeling that way.

But still, she hardly dared herself to address it in her mind. Anxiety was something she laughed in the face of. Nerves were something that she used to fuel her. Adrenaline was the outcome. She would need a whole lot of that to continue marching and continue striding, her balling fists still hanging around her sides.

It wasn't luck when it didn't run out. It was simply who she was. Jessie was the type of person to march right up to a door and knock on it and confront what needed to be confronted.

So of course, she did that. And she was left with the knowing of what she had done when she door had been barely stood outside for a single second and a knocking sound erupted around the rest of the Team Rocket Executive Housing lobby area. The practice of balling her fists together came in handy!

To keep her continual cool while she waited, her eyes flickered to the intercom hanging by the door for half a second. She managed to contain her scoff even if her eyes rolled in her then slanted eyes. She hoped it wasn't going to come to that. A face-to-face confrontation was exactly what she wanted.

In hindsight, I still wonder if it was exactly what she needed.

Still not being paid the attention that she suspected when she entered the Team Rocket building yet again, no other people from their rooms came out when they heard the fierce knocking. She caused no single peep from anybody else.

But eventually and after a second bunch of knocks with the same gusto, someone finally came to the door on which she was banging. Jessie was lucky that she hadn't thwacked the door a third time or she might've accidentally landed her fist on the jaw of the person who answered.

Truthfully, I knew she felt like this might not exactly be a bad thing.

"Jeeeez Louise." A voice sounded from the other side before it grew louder because of the sliding open of the door that was activated by a single button on their side. "Everybody knows this time is-" They cut themselves off. They made sure their surprise was not comical. But it still could not be hidden. "Jessie Jess. What in God's name are you doing here?"

From the moment that the shrill voice could be heard on the other side of the door, there was a small part of Jessie's stubborn self that wanted to make a run for it in her boots, even if they were no longer Team Rocket boots!

The voice was enough to send a shiver down one's spine. When she was face to face with a person that she had been through so much with – in youth and then pure spite in later years – there was something that nearly sent her reeling in her boots.

But of course, Jessie being Jessie, she didn't dare allow this to be prevalent on her face or within her own silhouette. She looked ahead at Cassidy. Her lips pressed firmly together in a line.

She had felt prepared from the way that she had seen her daughter, Bonnie, at all of her children's school. But that wasn't enough practice for seeing her mother yet again.

Jessie's voice could be heard from between clenched teeth, trying to keep it together as best as she could.

"I'm sure you know what I'm doing here." She retorted, her eyes travelling to the taller height of the other woman and allowing them to open a bit more past the slits that they wanted to be. Jessie couldn't allow herself to hold her tongue though. "You're blonde but give yourself some credit."

Time had moved on from their bickering Team Rocket days. One of them had left the organization. The other had stayed on and actually made quite a name for herself along with her husband, Butch, after the other trio that I very much knew moved on to other things.

Children had been created by all. Accolades and success had been had. Cassidy had thought that things were water under the bridge and when and if they ever properly crossed paths again other than their children being at the same school then it would be civil.

Apparently not!

All she could do was laugh when, in her mind, Jessie was still the same bitter brat she had always been.

"Oh, you haven't changed one bit. And just so you know, I'm implying that you should." She replied to Jessie. But then that was it. Almost as though she was engaging in it for old times' sake, Cassidy was the one who decided to make it civil like she always anticipated their crossing paths again would be. "Would you like to come in?"

Jessie read her intention as something utterly different. And my God, did it grate her gears! Look at that silly woman trying to be the bigger person, she inwardly hissed to herself. Any more seconds with her annoying voice and her absolutely unbelievable presence then she was going to go insane.

There was nothing she wanted less than being invited into her home. She made this perfectly clear.

"I would like to stay right here." Came her answer. Her gaze locking onto Cassidy's, Jessie's eyes were slits all over again. Why were they wasting time with pleasantries? Jessie knew why she was there. And Jessie wanted to make Cassidy know what she was there for one reason and one reason only. "You better know why I'm here."

Cassidy's eyes rose towards the ceiling like that was the most interesting viewpoint that she could focus her gaze on. But then it fell away again, looking down at the woman that she had once called far more than a Team Rocket partner and friend.

Deciding to leave her home behind when Jessie utterly disregarded it, she shut the door behind her and came into the lobby area with her, still leaning close to the door like she had a duty of protection.

Silence was the only thing that sounded for a little while, both of them looking at each other. Cassidy knew after not long at all it was going to have to be her to relent again. Jessie was left privately trembling on the floor with rage at the other woman acting like she could be the bigger person.

"I may know why you're here." She admitted. She was the complete opposite of clueless to the jagged edge that seemed to lace Jessie's iris. After her eyes bounced towards the ceiling once more, that time traveling towards the roof of the room after than a small porch area, she shrugged. And then a cackle erupted. "Why don't you save your breath, Jessie Jess? We already had that son of yours stomping in here and unleashing that temper that he no doubt inherited from you on my husband and I."

The sound of Cassidy's laughter was like poison to Jessie's veins. But even worse than that was the memory that she had not only met her youngest boy but didn't seem to acknowledge the loyalty that it had taken for him to do that for the sake of his brother.

Of course, she wouldn't recognize that. She was clueless. She was utterly, utterly clueless.

"Jaxon has a firm grasp of what's right and wrong." Jessie began. Inwardly, she gave herself a pat on the back for replying coolly. She did her best to ignore her own twitching eye. And although she couldn't ignore the longing to shrug coming from Cassidy, she didn't blatantly address it with words either.

Cassidy's eyes rolled backwards and forth towards the ceiling. Looking at Jessie once more and folding her arms over an R decorated chest, it became apparent that it simply amused her all. And she still couldn't rid herself of the memory of a fourteen-year-old boy busting into headquarters and telling them what was what.

"Out of all things in life, Jessie Jess, the one thing that I could never be prepared for was a boy who was the spitting image of you." No doubt were the words that came out of her next the opposite of sincere, her arms still hugging around her uniform like she was worried she would rid herself of it like Jessie and James had done all those years ago. "You must be so proud."

It might have been the words. It might have been the looming presence of Cassidy. It might have been the sheer audacity. It might have been it all.

Regardless, something inside Jessie snapped and she wanted to rip the idea of the youngest son out of Cassidy's mind through her eyeballs and whip her tongue out so severely that she couldn't speak of him ever again.

On the outside, however, all she did was squeeze her own arms around her chest and close the distance between the two of them, jaw continually contorted.

"I'm proud of all my sons." she quipped, feeling her own heart hammering in her chest close to her folded arms even though she could feel it in her throat too. One glance into Cassidy's jewel-colored orbs and she had said the words. "Something you shouldn't have the privilege of feeling. If I were you, I would be downright ashamed to show my face to anyone."

Jessie's arms hugged closer to her body, squeezing any breath that she had left out of her own lungs. In an utter contrast, Cassidy's arms fell away from her and down by her sides. She needed a minute. She could expect poisonous words coming from the former Team Rocket member, it was true.

But words such as those? After everything that they had been through. Even after everything that they had been through. And about her children?

"Hey." Cassidy's reply was this at first. Her arms hanging by her sides and contemplating hooking onto her skirt, she looked back at Jessie. Motherly protection was in both of their eyes. With something such as that being the reason for their dispute, it seemed likely that neither of them would ever relent. "I'm proud of the way they've owned up to something they didn't understand the depth of. And I'm proud of them holding their heads high and learning from their errors."

Arms fell away from being so close to a thudding chest and this time it was Jessie feeling her limbs flopping down by her side. And tasting the venom in her mouth that she had for Cassidy and their entire family, she didn't stop herself from spitting words immediately.

"Please." This was of course not a beg. This was not an act of earnestness. She did not buy any of the other woman's words for a single second. Her arms constricted back around her body before they did this to Cassidy, her fingers trembling underneath her armpits as she spat. "They knew exactly what they were doing, and they were not even tempted by money or opportunity! They were driven by spite! The spite that your family has for mine!"

A brief silence. It was a wonder how no one from any of the other rooms had peeked out to see what was going on. Apparently, this kind of thing was normal.

It was then Cassidy's turn to take to the stage and she decided to steal Jessie's words back from her.

"Oh, please!" she exclaimed, her eyes bulging and her taking a turn to close the distance between her and Jessie. Although she was no longer as close to her own door, she didn't stop herself from defending each and every one of the people who could be found inside. "That's rich! You've clearly forgotten where you came from because our children aren't the only Team Rocket children!"

For a good couple of moments, while Jessie caught her breath, she knew that for the first time, Cassidy had stated something with which she couldn't argue. But then when she saw the glint forming in her eyes and her arms folding over in her chest in a different manner, she knew exactly what she wanted to say.

She took a step backwards. With that added distance, she didn't see things from a different perspective, but she saw them from a clearer one. Her thoughts were made all the clearer too.

Her words tumbled out of her effortlessly.

"I haven't forgotten. And ironically, my own husband and I have raised all our children with the key morals that any child is meant to have. And any Team Rocket child especially." Jessie was done breaking the distance. She needed her face right close to Cassidy's as she raised her hand to list on her no longer gloved fingers. "Loyalty. Integrity. Solidarity. Duty. To all things but especially a fellow person." A dry mouthed pause. Jessie was only just getting started. "You steal off the people at the top. Outsiders. Not each other."

Jessie speaking Team Rocket code back to Cassidy must've caused a torrent of emotions through her. After all, it had been her who introduced Jessie to all of those things and that part of life and that organization when they were teenagers.

But alas, the emotions were not nostalgic, and they didn't have a lingering residue of love like ink hanging on the edge of an old photograph. The only emotions at that point were frustration. And defensiveness.

Like I said, it was mother versus mother. And there was no backing down.

"You still think you're so much better than everyone!" Cassidy had another moment to laugh, her expression possessing the falseness of a painted doll as she forced her mouth to widen. "You and your little trio were so pathetic that you would've stolen candy from under the nose of a baby to get by! Records. Booze. Smokes. That's more your motto." She paused. Jessie was firm there was nothing that she could say that would get her. Until that laughter came again, Cassidy covering her mouth. "You spent years stalking a child for a Pikachu!"

That was it. That was what did it. It was odd that it was the subject of me which caused everything to not only boil over but bubble and brew and spit too, but it was what it was. Life choices were never something to be ridiculed. And certainly not the one that lead to everything that she, James and Meowth had built since then, together, and apart.

The sound of Cassidy's cacophonous cackling could be tolerated no more. Arms falling away from her chest and practically vibrating by her sides, Jessie's face could've cracked with how filled with rage she became.

She spat at the woman in front of her. Never again would she have any ounce of love for her in her heart.

"And yet your son stole something from mine that he will never get back!" Jessie's hand slapped against the nearest thing that she could find. It just so happened to be her own forehead and following that, she brushed her fingers through her own locks. Nothing could hurt more than the words that she was saying. "And I hope that none of you ever have to go through a loss like that."

Perhaps it was the second sentence that slipped out. A glimmer of sincerity and empathy in spite of the fact that she vowed she would never feel a softness for Cassidy or her family ever again.

No, I know it was the doing of the second sentence that caused Cassidy to change her tune. Her own cheeks had grown rather hot at the display of Jessie. There was a part of her that wanted to turn around in her Team Rocket boots and leave all the drama behind, just like she had done such a long time ago.

But there was a bigger part of her that stood there, waiting it out. And then there was another part of her that took action.

It was almost a brutal gesture when Cassidy took a step forward to Jessie and yanked her own hand away from her hair so she couldn't add an extra red hue between her own eyebrows yet again. Jessie prepared to practically snarl at being touched. Yet before she could leap away, a voice sounded that was not her own.

"Look… What do you want me to say?" Cassidy asked. It seemed obvious. How could she not know? She could. And she did. "Do you want me to say sorry? Is that what you want me to do?"

The truth was it hadn't crossed her mind to do this at all. Her children were Team Rocket members of their own accord, and they took on missions that they wanted. If one of them happened to be get information of one of the fellow pupils at the school – and they just so happened to be the son belonging to someone who once meant a lot to not only their mother but the whole of Team Rocket too – then so be it.

One of the learning curves of Team Rocket was making your own choices and your own mistakes.

"No…" Jessie's voice sounded out.

She detested how weakly her voice appeared to make itself known there and then but that was the truth. All of her might had then been taken up by not shoving Cassidy out the way and actually spitting at her for everything that her family had done towards the son who had an important chance taken away from him.

Mirroring the weakness of Jessie's tones, a gentle sigh that was an attempt to compose sounded from Cassidy. But then funnily enough, a sparkle glittered in her eye and perhaps in a different attempt to lighten things a bit, she looked at Jessie with what could be perceived as contempt.

"Do you want me to get the kids to write you a letter in the same way that they will be made to by the school to give to Justin?" she wondered, a smirk tugging at the corner of her lip. That expression was soon enough wiped off her face.

Whether it was her beloved son's name being formed on the tongue of Cassidy or the knowing that no apology would ever be enough – to Justin or to her or any member of their family – something made Jessie all of a sudden jerk.

Her arms flailed like she was pushing Cassidy off even though she was no longer touching her. She raged yet again.

"No!" she bellowed, her cheeks alight and her eyes burning too. Understandably, this outburst caused Cassidy to follow suit and yet again, it was mother vs mother in the most heated interaction of the century.

Cassidy blew air out of her lips in disbelief, her bangs blowing before her hands fell out in front of her in exasperation.

"Well then what is it that you actually want? What actually is the purpose of all of this?" she wondered, disbelief in her voice and moving through every ounce of her being. That was only going to grow more and more with the way that Jessie reacted.

Her eyes squeezed together. She hadn't even planned what she was going to say. She hadn't planned what she was going to do. But she certainly didn't plan any of this.

"I don't know!" she practically screamed.

For the first time in nearly fifteen years, she was stood in the Team Rocket building once again. And for the first time in her life, she wanted all of the walls that she had grown up knowing she felt such heritage there to crumble all around her and swallow her up.

Jessie didn't know what to say. Jessie didn't know what to do. Jessie didn't know what she wanted. And all Cassidy could do was watch, helpless and clueless and with no ounce of understanding for the gravity of it all in her heart.

It finally dawned on Jessie how the choices that she had made in her youth had affected her children's future. In the same way that choices had been taken away from her whether she intended it or not, chances for Justin to speak up and be proud of who he was taken from him.

There seemed to be less in the world when something had been ripped from her eldest boy so heartlessly.

And for that, Jessie had not a single thing to say. But everything to feel. And not a single ounce of compassion for the woman she had once loved more than anything.

The End.

There you go, thanks so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed! :) I think it's quite a common opinion in the anime fandom that Jessie and Cassidy were a couple at some point from the way that they bitter so much like bitter exes! I headcanon that myself and it's something I will go into. It's not something I have intentionally shied away from until this point and not something she shies away from either, even though she is very private and I don't think it's really something she would discuss with Pikachu, aka who these stories take place from the point of view from ;) Reading this through again, it's funny how I wrote it so long ago but nowadays I can't help but notice how strikingly similar Jessie and Cassidy's multifaceted relationship mirrors James and Jorginho's, another Team Rocket member. Of course, I can't imagine that any child of his would out anybody though, let alone a child of Jessie and James. Deep down, I'm sure Butch and Cassidy are devastated at their children's decision to do this. Emotions are complicated though, aren't they, certainly when they involve someone from the past? Cassidy seemed to feel a certain way in this chapter. But I'm sure it isn't that straight forward for her either :) Anyway, that was a long ramble from me! Thanks again for reading and I will be back again on Wednesday so see you then perhaps!

Amy signing out :P