.

"Every difficulty slurred over will be a ghost to disturb your repose later on."

–Frederic Chopin

Misty's head felt heavy as she became aware of the sound of water lapping around her and a light breeze on her forehead. Oh, right. She was concussed. And sleeping on the edge of a lake.

And exhausted from a late night forest fire.

Misty groaned as she pushed herself up, noticing that the muscles in her right shoulder seemed to have all ganged up against her into one super muscle of pain. She supposed she wasn't surprised. She'd have to invest in some painkillers some time in this journey—that much was obvious.

Her eyes were dry, as was her tongue, which was just barely enough encouragement to push herself out of the warmth of her sleeping bag with the goal of drinking some water out of the lake. But as she blinked her vision awake, she noticed that Molly was already up and braiding her hair into what seemed to be her signature rope-like hairstyle.

"Hey, sorry I slept in," Misty's voice crackled out. She tried clearing her throat, but that just made it burn with dryness. "I'll be ready in five minutes."

She knelt over by the river and made a bowl out of her hands, taking a few hearty sips and splashing some water on her face for good measure. In doing so, she caught a whiff of her sweaty smell. Oof. Maybe ten minutes. It seemed as though she needed something of an improvised bath.

"No, it's okay," Molly said, eyes totally focused on her braiding. "I was thinking of just heading out on my own."

"On your own?" Misty echoed, turning away from the water. It was dripping off of her face and hair onto her clothes, but she didn't much notice. "Were you going to tell me?"

"Of course, of course!" Molly insisted, finally making eye contact with Misty. "I was gonna wake you up before I shipped out."

Misty looked Molly up and down. She had already packed her things and it looked as though the only thing she hadn't done was her hair—which she was quickly finishing.

There was no use dwelling on it, though. It didn't matter if Molly was lying or not; Misty knew now, and that was the matter at hand.

"Because of the fire?" Misty asked. "If so, I'm really sorry about that. I'll be more careful next time, I promise."

"Um." Molly tied off her braid and looked uneasily at the ground, doing some calf-raises mindlessly. "Yeah. That's definitely part of it."

Misty waited a second for Molly to continue, but her patience didn't last long. "Well, what's the rest of it?"

"I just…" Molly began rolling through her feet, one foot at a time, rocking side to side. "I guess I'm not cut out for this. You said yourself that this stuff was really difficult, and if it's hard for you, then what am I going to do in Cinnabar with you when I can't even beat a rock?"

Molly was shaking her head, her braid flying every which way.

"But," Misty started, confused by this abrupt change in personality, "that's not true. Everyone's going to have different challenges, but that doesn't mean you can't overcome them. I've seen progress in you even in just these two days. As for the fire, accidents hap—"

"I'm not giving up, okay?" Molly said quickly and, honestly, somewhat aggressively. Her tone was so pointed that it sounded like an entirely different person than the one Misty had been talking to for the past couple of days. "I'm just…I don't know. Gonna go home and maybe try again later. Better?"

"Well…don't say that just to please me," Misty said, confused now as to why Molly suddenly had such animosity towards her. "Are you mad at me about the fire? Because I really am sor—"

"No, I know," Molly said, interrupting again. At least this time her voice held a little kindness. "I don't blame you. But you have to admit…that was fucking scary. Things are fucking scary out here."

"They are," Misty agreed. "But that's why we're never alone. We always have our Pokémon and I'm happy to travel with you. Really."

"It's not enough. I just…please, Misty." She was pleading now, her voice making her sound jarringly vulnerable compared with her tough look. "I need to go home."

"I…" Misty was ready to argue. She didn't know why she was fighting so hard for Molly. It wasn't like she had particularly wanted to travel with her, and before this moment, she hadn't even attached the word friend to her.

But she wasn't about to keep someone where they didn't want to be.

"Fine," Misty conceded, trying to keep her voice airy and non-judgmental. It was surprisingly challenging. "Travel safe."

At that, Molly went back to normal for a second, with a look of good humor. "Oh, don't worry. After yesterday, that's all I'll be thinking about."

Misty cracked half a smile. "Right. And, hey, Molly?"

Molly had already turned around, ready to head off back to wherever she was from. But she turned around, braid swinging.

"Good luck."

"Thanks," Molly said with the best grin she could muster. "You too."

Misty watched for a moment as Molly walked away, but given how flat the plains were between Pallet and Viridian, she could likely watch Molly for a good many minutes before she disappeared into the distance. So she turned away and put herself to work.

All she had out was her sleeping bag and her pack, so she first went about rolling up the sleeping bag. Then she shuffled around in her backpack for a protein bar that would make a fair enough breakfast. She wasn't about to cook up anything that needed a fire.

Misty's pajamas were rank with her sweat, and her body felt the layer of salt on her skin. She could taste it on her lips when her tongue darted out to wet them. Honestly, she was surprised that she didn't smell of smoke. And…neither did her sleeping bag or her pack. Maybe it was possible that the crazy wind from the night before had kept any of it from settling? Or perhaps the night had simply worn the smell away.

Well, Misty was no expert on smoke and, either way, she was in dire need of a bath and wasn't about to wait until she got to Pallet Town to do it.

Misty walked into the water, clothes and all, the shock of the cold pressing the air out of her lungs. She didn't dislike it, but she knew she would when she was thirty minutes into her walk and still couldn't warm up, so she made her rinse as quick as possible.

All of her Pokémon were in the water, looking thankfully better than they had the night before. They bobbed up to her and even managed to get a laugh or two out of her. She hopped out of the water as soon as she could, shivering despite herself. Her pale lips were definitely an unhealthy blue by now; she had to get those wet clothes off of her.

There was nowhere around to change. She could have gone back to the trees from yesterday, but even they were sparse enough that they didn't offer that much protection. Finally, she settled on getting Gyarados to lean his body out of the water and coil around her, creating a tiny waterside dressing room. Frankly, it offered more privacy than even the densest of trees could have, so as she dried off and warmed up, she felt a tad smug.

That smugness provided the touch of buoyancy that allowed her to continue with her day. She put on her shoes, tied her hair up, and began walking south along the water, keeping her Pokémon out. It would be rare that she was able to travel with them, so she wanted to take advantage of it.

She'd lost one traveling companion and, in turn, gained four. Kinda.

After a couple of hours of uneventful walking, the sun was at its zenith and Misty was thawed out to the point of even being warm. Her underarms were beginning to sport a little sweat again. For a moment, she dared to think that this was more what she had imagined her journey to be like. If she ignored the fire and the hasty evacuation of her traveling companion, then the moment's peace almost lulled her into complacency. Just a girl and her Pokémon, headed to Cinnabar Island for a well-earned vacation.

But the moment crunched under her toe like dry grass when she spotted two glowing figures up ahead.

Misty's stomach clenched instinctively, but it only took her a moment to recognize how much smaller the second ghostly figure was to the first, and then she knew precisely who she was dealing with. Twenty-four hours weren't enough to forget those two.

Misty darted her head around to see if any other people were in the vicinity. When it was clear that they were the only ones around, she shouted, "Hey, Ash!"

They looked over at her and immediately began to fly in her direction. Ash began to shout back at her. "I was going to just drop in on you, then Pikachu said that maybe we should place ourselves in front of you so that you couldn't say that we surprised you again!"

Well, they had kind of surprised her anyway, but it certainly was an improvement. "Thanks, Pikachu!"

"Chaa!" Pikachu squealed as he upped the pace and came catapulting in her direction.

"Oof!" Misty let out as Pikachu made contact with her ribs. "Hi, cutey."

She ruffled his ears and Pikachu nuzzled himself further into her middle, cooing.

"Hey, Misty," Ash said as he finally caught up. "Long time no see."

Misty smiled wryly. Usually twenty-four hours meant a day of a few battles, some lost but most won, and a buttload of chores. But given her most recent slice of life…

"Yeah, it really was," Misty agreed.

"Woah, are these all your Pokémon?"

Ash had looked at her only long enough to give a dopey smile before his attention had turned to the water. Her Pokémon were going back and forth between being fully submerged and popping up to see that they were keeping stride with Misty. Just then, Staryu and Gyarados had broken the surface, Frillish and Goldeen—Goldeen already getting along well with the group—soon following.

Misty laughed as Ash hovered over the water and then dove in with them. Only Frillish could see him, but Misty knew Ash well enough that that wouldn't keep him from getting up close and personal with her Pokémon.

"So cool!" Ash exclaimed when he flew out of the water again. "I didn't know you had a Gyarados."

"Well, now you do. And, you know, I just caught that Goldeen yesterday."

Ash's eyes sparkled. "Tell me all about it!"

"I don't need to talk about it."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

Misty and Ash were walking side by side south along the lake across the surprisingly coarse, dry grass, which was now showing its true form as a river. And Misty was going to blame the lulling sound of the river flowing and her Pokémon splashing along for her loose lips.

In telling Ash about the previous afternoon—training and catching Goldeen, all of which he'd listened to with the rapt attention of a child hearing a fairytale for the first time—she'd accidentally told him about what had happened after. And Misty learned that Ash wasn't only concerned about Pokémon.

It turned out that her nearly dying was enough to stoke his curiosity as well.

And, well, she'd clammed up.

Ash seemed to interpret this as emotional torment, but Misty just didn't feel the need to have a therapy session and digest how she was feeling. She'd redoubled her distaste for fire, if that counted.

Really, Misty wasn't the most reactionary person. When a bad thing happened—as they often did to her—she didn't gasp or cry or usually show any psychosomatic response to whatever stimulus should be causing her to lose her shit. She had gotten too used to having to pretend to be unaffected and now it was par for the course.

But, to be fair, this was absolutely a situation in which Misty should have been losing her shit. Her shit should have been nowhere to be found.

But that just wasn't the case. When these incidents happened to her, the shock would hit for a moment and then she'd sort of shrug with a 'well, that was bad' demeanor, and brush it off. Let it be something for therapy later in life.

Of course, this attribute made her sisters cry and say that she was unfeeling and insensitive, but Misty couldn't help it. She liked to put a positive spin on it and just say that she carried the emotional endurance for all four of them.

So, no, she didn't feel the need to spill her guts to Ash. She got the feeling that he wouldn't know what to do with her guts once she handed them to him anyway. And, while she knew deep down that her guts were more rattled than usual—as this had been a much worse 'bad thing' than usual—she also knew that the best way to right them again would just be to keep moving.

"Um."

Misty was a little surprised to hear Ash trying to engage her in conversation again. Mostly, she just hoped that he wasn't about to ask her about how she was feeling again.

"What?" she asked, it coming out a little more aggressively than she'd been going for. Ash didn't seem to notice.

"Actually, I wanted to talk to you about something."

Well, that was interesting. Was he finally going to tell her about his death? Was she going to find out the thing that was keeping him tethered to this planet? Misty usually felt nothing but cold apprehension when it seemed like a ghost was about to unload its baggage on her, but by this point with Ash…Well, she'd grown curious.

As Misty pondered these options, she expected Ash to continue with what he supposedly wanted to tell her, but he'd stopped altogether. She looked at him dumbly. "Spit it out, Ash."

"Well, actually," he began again, rubbing the back of his neck, "I wasn't really the one who wanted to talk to you. Someone else did. Well, two someone elses, but…"

Ash trailed off and Misty continued to stare at him, confused by his babbling. But she didn't like where this was going. "Who?" she finally asked.

"Uh, well, don't get mad—"

"No promises," Misty declared. "Who?"

Ash abruptly stopped walking, and Misty did so as well, anger beginning to roil in her stomach. He was hiding his gaze under his cap, but Misty could see guilt tilting his eyebrows, widening his eyes. Like he'd done something he shouldn't have. She was so busy deciphering his expression that she didn't notice that they had company.

Misty dropped Pikachu from her arms when she saw two ghosts standing in front of her, sharing Ash's guilty expression almost to an uncanny degree. Fay and Daniel.

Lots of guilt to go around, it seemed.

And well deserved.

"What the hell are they doing here?" Misty asked, seething. "What, do you have ghost meetings once a week?"

"Don't worry, don't worry!" Ash piped up, jumping in to defuse the situation before Misty's temper grew to a powder keg. "They're here to apologize."

"You promised I wouldn't have to see them again." Misty said this to Ash, but she immediately turned to the two ghosts in front of her and pushed up the sleeves of her sweater. "Look at what you did to me! My arms are covered in bruises and I have a concussion. And you think you can just apologize?"

"That…isn't actually what they wanted to apologize for," Ash said, wincing as he did so as though bracing for impact.

"But we'll apologize for that too!" Daniel piped up.

Misty squarely ignored him and turned back to Ash. "Setting aside how rude it is that they wouldn't see me and be on their knees begging for my apology—especially since I'm now supposed to be figuring out how they died—what the heck else could they have to apologize for?" Ash was about to answer, but only managed to let out a squeak before Misty interrupted with: "And do I even want to know?"

"Yes, they owe you this much," Ash said calmly, turning to the two ghosts, nodding for them to continue.

Daniel, for his part, seemed frightened of Misty, something she wished they'd felt just a few days ago. It would have saved her a world of hurt. Fay was the one to speak up.

"We're sorry we stole your bike."

Well, that wasn't what she'd been expecting.

"You…" Misty blinked. "You what?"

"I moved your bike and tossed it into a ravine."

"H-How? You're a ghost. You can't touch, you know, earthly objects."

Fay seemed to take this as a challenge. "Sure I can."

Fay looked around for a moment before settling on Misty. Misty looked around herself, disturbed, when she felt the weight of her bag lessen on her shoulders. Then, all at once, she felt it fall back down, causing her—almost—to land on her ass.

"What the…how? How do you do that?"

Even Ash seemed intrigued, his eyes wide like a little kid's. "Can I do that?"

Fay ignored Ash. She was having this conversation with Misty. "It's telekinesis. I trained in it back in Saffron City. It's a lot easier now."

She looked at the river and seemed to grab a handful of it with her mind before throwing it into the air.

"So easy that she does it by accident sometimes," Daniel added eagerly. "We figured it out back in the forest when we were…" His young features fell heavy with guilt again. "Uh, right."

"Right," Misty echoed, her voice a little snide. "Well, I guess it's nice to know where my bike went."

"See!" Ash said cheerily, apparently not catching her disingenuous tone. "That was great guys!"

Misty rolled her eyes, but she didn't have anything else to say to these kids. They weren't attacking her, and she wasn't about to try and provoke them, especially since Fay had this extra trick up her sleeve. She'd just let Ash have his little victory and she'd not mention to these kids that their deaths were probably a cold case.

There, that was all the favor they deserved.

"So how do you do telekin—uh, what was it again?" Ash asked eagerly.

Fay shrugged. "All I have to do is concentrate on something. Sometimes it takes more concentration than others. The better you are at it, the easier it is." She shoved Daniel's head a little. "That's why he still can't move anything."

"Hey! I've only been practicing a couple of days! You got to practice for years!"

"Yeah, yeah."

Misty shook her head and started walking again, curving around the ghosts and continuing her path along the river. Her Pokémon had bobbed to the surface and noticed that she was no longer next to them, so they were sitting in the water like buoys a few meters ahead. She waved to them to signal she was catching up, and that they could continue on their way.

She only managed to walk a few steps before she noticed a dark shape barreling at her from above. Misty only allowed herself to freak out for a second before she realized that the shape was very familiar. It was all of three and a half feet of a prankster Ghost Pokémon.

"Hey, Noir!" Misty exclaimed happily. "I was wondering where you'd gotten off to!"

"Bay!" Noir cheered, flying some loop-the-loops in front of Misty.

"Hah, I'm glad you're having so much fun," Misty said dryly. "You won't believe the night I had."

Misty had just finished retelling her story to Noir by the time Ash came back, and she wasn't sure he'd noticed she was gone. He certainly noticed that Noir was back, though. Noir, likewise, noticed him and shifted her position to over the river so that she could hang out with Misty's Pokémon. They were, after all, her friends as well, and she didn't get to hang out with them when there wasn't a body of water around.

Ash didn't seem offended. He seemed rather chipper, actually. Sure, he hadn't been talking about Pokémon with Fay and Daniel, but he'd seemed almost as enthused. She had to guess that when you've been dead for multiple decades, the realization that you could do one more thing was like Christmas, Halloween, and your birthday all rolled into one.

She was still pretty peeved at him, though.

Ash had the good sense not to talk to Misty for a bit and just walk alongside her, keeping a few feet of distance between them. Pikachu was also on the shoulder near to her, so he offered a bit of a buffer. When he finally did speak up, however, it was with just about the dumbest question he could ask.

"Are you mad at me?"

Mad enough to toss him into the river. The only reason why she didn't was because he wouldn't be able to feel it.

And because Pikachu was still capable of Electric Attacks. That was a good reason too.

"What would make you think that?" Misty asked sarcastically.

He didn't pick up on the sarcasm.

"Well, Noir just flew away from us like I'm toxic and a Pokémon's feelings are usually the same as their trainer's," Ash asserted. "So she's mad at me because you're mad."

"Noir doesn't like anyone and of course I'm mad at you, you idiot."

Ash seemed to consider that for a second, then nodded. "Any way I can fix that?" he asked hopefully.

Misty shook her head. "Nope."

Ash nodded again to himself, looking around, as if for inspiration. But, given that they were walking along the plains—all around there was nothing but dry grass, a few trees, and the river coming up to a waterfall—Misty couldn't expect that he would come up with anything. Instead, he changed direction.

"Are you still gonna help them figure out what happened to them and stuff?"

"Yes, Ash."

"Even though we're going…"

After a couple seconds' silence, Misty glanced at Ash, who had all but frozen in midair.

"What?" she asked, her voice low like a growl with irritation.

"Are we going to Pallet?"

Misty looked out of the corner of her eye at Ash.

His face was stiff. No general expression. He was just looking out at the waterfall, pensive if anything. That could either be a sign or not.

"Yeah, we're going to Pallet, and yeah, I don't expect to find anything for the ghosty twins there, but given that I don't have any leads, it's as good a place as any to keep thinking about it," Misty said, her voice becoming less weighted with each word. "And, by the way, what's all this we stuff? Are we going to Pallet? You mean you and me?"

"And Noir and Pikachu. And your Pokémon."

"You mean you're staying with us?"

For once Ash turned to Misty as she looked at him. He gave a cheeky smile. "Didn't you already know that?"

"I wasn't sure," Misty admitted. "You just kind of disappear and show up randomly."

"Yeah, but I keep showing up, don't I?"

"That you do," Misty said, trying to sound annoyed again. She needed to remind him he wasn't on her good side.

Misty turned back to the hill or, rather, the waterfall. She preferred that view to that of the blindingly light blue sky beyond the hill. The water was blinding too, but only on the parts that caught the light. Like the light was dancing before her eyes instead of dancing directly on her eyes.

"Anyway, Pallet is just for the port," Misty continued. "It's the closest spot for getting boats to the rest of the region, and I was planning to go to Cinnabar and maybe Vermillion after that. Hopefully for a vacation."

"Well deserved," Ash commented, though the words came out as little more than a mumble. "I guess you like spending most of your time around the water."

"Yeah," Misty breathed, letting the sound of the waterfall pound over her like a good massage. "Speaking of, we should move away if we don't want to get drenched with it."

Misty had just noticed the way Gyarados was rearing back in the water. This waterfall, steep as it was making the ground, wasn't too tall. A lucky person could probably survive the fall if they accidently made their way down to this part of the river. Therefore, it was definitely short enough for Gyarados to clear with a good jump.

Noir, always the classy act, flew behind Ash and Misty, who moved to the side just in time for Gyarados to launch itself into the air, for once looking like it was deserving of its Flying Typing. More than deserving. Gyarados was soaring in the air, arching far over the waterfall and landing headfirst in a graceful dive.

"Amazing," Ash murmured under his breath.

Misty echoed the sentiment, though she found herself lost in Ash's version of it. It was truly amazing that Ash, after being around for so long and able to do nothing but observe—mostly Pokémon from the sounds of it—could still be touched by something as simple as a Pokémon thriving in its natural habitat.

It was remarkable, though. Gyarados never got the chance to truly stretch his fins like this and she had never seen a jump like that in her whole life. How he dove head first into the water from many meters up in the air, when Gyarados are usually so sensitive to their heads. The massive size often left the upper body and the head itself in pain but here Gyarados was, diving with no regard for pain.

And it meant that the river must have been deep. Deeper than it looked, otherwise Gyarados would have smashed into the bottom and risen by now, angry and thrashing.

But as the water fell back into its regular pattern, everything was peaceful. The kind of peaceful that the world only ever was by the water.

Misty was pulled back naturally, as though she had a magnetic connection with the river, and began walking alongside it again, feeling the pleasant shift in the ground. What had been dry and hard before now had a tangible squish and the little grass by the riverbank tickled her ankles, doodling little streams of water along her skin.

She shifted her shoulders a bit and swung her pack onto her stomach, causing Noir to back off of her and over to the water again. Misty fished around for her PokéBalls and returned her other three Pokémon one by one. She knew they couldn't swim up the falls. Well, at least not on a first try. And she'd left them in the water so that they could heal, not to wear them out.

It was time for a nice, long rest.

Misty found that she couldn't stay mad very long. At least not at Ash—she'd managed grudges against her sisters for, well, years. Any attitude she gave him he either didn't notice or he just sassed her back.

But his quips were so pathetic she couldn't help but thaw out a bit. When Noir noticed, she would fly over to Misty's ear and make fun of her. Misty had no choice but to ignore these statements and fight down the blushes that sometimes accompanied them.

Ash ended up leading the way once they passed the river and there were no real land markers according to Misty's map. They walked through the rest of the short day before setting up camp under a cluster of trees. She was apprehensive about it, but after double checking that she'd stamped out her campfire completely—and spilling a bit of water on it—she managed to talk herself into a turbulent rest.

It helped that Noir was nearby this time.

As they continued walking the next morning there was just grass and the occasional tree as far as the eye could see. Eventually the woods began to gather again and they split around a beaten dirt trail, reaching its peak at a tall hill overlooking Pallet.

It was smaller than Misty had expected. Not that Misty had never been to Pallet before—she had just only been there on late-night ghost missions. Not exactly the best opportunity for sight-seeing. Or even for being able to see what you were looking for, if Misty recalled correctly.

From Misty's high vantage point, Pallet Town just looked like a drawing a small child had toiled over with one tan colored crayon. Everything—houses, roads, acres of farmland—was a monochromatic sandy brown aside from what appeared to be the renowned Professor Oak's laboratory on the fringe of things. It stood out with a bright red roof and a windmill and miles of land behind it. Misty didn't know where the lab ended and where the rest of the world began. Or maybe the rest of the world was Oak's lab.

Again, Misty cast Ash a sidelong glance. He too was looking over at the town, his face stoic and the usual child-like levity that Misty had grown to expect in moments of peace was nowhere to be found.

If Misty had to wager a guess, she would definitely say that Ash had a history in Pallet. Then again, it seemed that he probably had a history in most of Kanto at this point. She was then led to wonder if this is where Ash had died. The war had swept Pallet like a virus, a parasite eating the host from the inside out. The physical battling had never made it to Pallet, or indeed any of Kanto's major cities and towns, but the western region was affected the most. The most of their men and Pokémon were sent to Battle, and the ills of war bled into these towns the most. Stealing, criminal activity. And with so much of its workforce gone, Pallet had remained the more rural settlement that it was today. Maybe Ash had been one of those young men, and maybe this was where he'd been buried.

Misty turned away. It was spooky to think that someone so alive to her could have his skeletal remains in the very land she was looking at. Or in the very ground she was standing on.

"Let's keep moving," Misty said needlessly as she made to go over the hill, stepping for the downhill slide into Pallet.

Pallet was a little greener upon actually stepping foot in town. But it was quiet as it had been when she'd been looking down on it from the hill.

"Hey, so are you heading straight through town to the port or are you going to hang around a little?" Ash asked, casting his gaze about the entrance of town.

"I thought that my Pokémon could use a visit to the Pokémon Center, actually," Misty answered, looking around for that familiar red rooftop.

The town was so sleepy that she felt comfortable talking to him, though even still, she made sure not to act like she was engaging another human being. She kept her eyes straight ahead and spoke under her breath.

"There's no Pokémon Center," Ash said quickly. "If you want your Pokémon looked at, you'd have to go to Professor Oak's lab."

He gestured at the very building Misty had been admiring earlier, visible though it was on the far side of town from where she was standing.

"Alright," Misty said. "It might be nice to talk to him anyway."

"Okay, then," Ash said absently, his voice heavy with more words than he was saying. "I'm going to go…run an errand."

Before Misty could point out that Ash was a ghost and therefore incapable of 99.9% of errands, Ash and Pikachu were off, flying into town.

"Maybe I'll catch up with you later!" he shouted over his shoulder.

"Alright then, I guess it's just you and…" But as Misty turned to look to Noir, she saw Noir winking out of visibility with a wave.

Apparently even Pallet wasn't a sleepy enough town to keep Noir around.

"Well…straight through town, then, I guess."