"There you are!"

"Evelyn–"

"Don't wake her up, she's in a bad state. You guys found her pokemon?"

"Yeah."

"Let's go."

The first thing I said when I opened my eyes:

"Why're you here?"

Thomas looked up from a magazine. "I – uh, I was stopping by and noticed you."

"So where…?"

A hospital, obviously. "How?" I muttered. Then I became aware of my head throbbing. "Nngh…"

"Should I get someone to get you to sleep?"

"No," I grunted, "what happened?"

"Your friends found you in the cellar of the building, with another guy. Bike shop man. Your pokemon were nearby, in pokeballs. They – your friends – broke you out."

"Are they okay?"

"Presumably."

"Are they okay," I growled.

"Yes, they're fine."

"My pokemon?"

"One went through the heal machine, another is getting concussion treatment like you, the third is right there."

"Bui."

I turned over in bed and found Promise looking down at me. "Promise…"

"But you can minimize it. Promise you'll do your best? Stay safe?"

"I make no promises."

He looked haunted, concerned, like there was something he hadn't fulfilled.

"Prom," I said again, voice hoarse, "I should have promised…"

The pain overcame me; I fainted.

I was alone in the room the next time I opened my eyes. My head was feeling much better, though it ached still. The window curtain was drawn, and the lights were off. Promise was asleep on the floor beside me.

There was some sort of IV connection on my wrist, but I wasn't connected right then. I slid out of bed and stepped out of the room.

The ward's halls were dark, except for a light at the desks. A lone night-shift nurse was nodding off at a computer.

"Oh," she said, seeing me, "I was about to check on you. Doing okay?"

I nodded. "How's my monferno?"

"He's recovering from the concussion a little faster than you are."

"Okay… How long have I been asleep?"

"It's been…" She counted in her head. "Two days? A little over that."

I cringed. Losing time fast. "Have my friends… Wait, what city is this?"

"Eterna City. What about your friends?"

I grew concerned. "They were supposed to leave. Did they leave?"

"Not with you in that condition."

"Where are they?"

"They're all right, you don't need to worry about them," the nurse soothed, sensing my agitation. "They're in another room, on the other side of the Center. They're in less danger than you and your injured head."

"Okay," I said. They'd started sleeping with their pokemon out; they'd be all right.

"You had a few visitors today, by the way," the nurse said, clicking to another screen. "Besides those friends, there was a Thomas Zamora–"

I made a disgruntled noise, too soft for her to hear.

"–and an Eleanor Tsai."

"Mom's here?"

"Oh, she's your…?"

"She kept her maiden name when she married," I explained. "When did she arrive?"

"This afternoon. She stayed awhile, but you were asleep. She's here somewhere as well."

I heard a scuff in the hallway. I turned around so fast pain shot through my head, but it was only Promise.

"Bui?" he said groggily.

"Sorry, Prom. I'll come back now. Thanks," I said to the nurse. She nodded and went back to her screen.

In the room, Promise curled up on the floor. "Want to sleep up here?" I asked him. He looked up, seeming uncertain. "There's enough room, come on."

Hesitating, Promise climbed up and curled up just below the pillow. I stroked his fur a few times before we both fell asleep.

In the morning, Promise was still beside me. And Thomas had returned.

"Why do you keep coming back?" I asked.

He jumped and slid the paper he was holding into his wallet. Was that the paper he had that night in Eterna Forest?

"Maybe I was concerned," he said.

"You didn't need to be," I muttered. "And how'd you find out I was here anyways?"

"They… I saw your friends bring you here. I told you."

I stared at him. He stared back. His eyes were not nearly as bright as Lucas's.

"Little creepy though," I said. "Just showing up and sitting there. For at least a few days."

"I only came back cause the nurse said you woke up last night." Thomas stood up. "I'll leave if you don't want me here."

"Okay," I said. "Bye."

He walked out. I waited a minute before getting out of bed myself, trying not to disturb Promise but waking him anyways.

During the morning, I met with Mom. She'd been worried and still was, but I reassured her that it wasn't so bad, and I was all right, and besides it was just a freak accident.

Dawn was glad to see I was awake again. Lucas seemed more irritable than usual, but he smiled when he saw me, too. They said (Dawn said) they hadn't had any problems with Galactic, and they'd just been training to pass the time. We all decided we'd leave the next day – the doctors were making me stay one night more – but I think we all knew I wouldn't stick with them.

We ate lunch in the Pokemon Center – I saw Thomas at a table on the far side, alone. Lucas was the first to finish. He got up and left without a word.

I was training that afternoon, with the two pokemon who weren't recovering from a concussion. I worked with Faith first on sucker punch. She already knew nightshade, so dark type moves weren't totally new to her. Though it kind of seemed like the punch was dragging her forward, rather than her making a fast move.

"Redwood," Faith said suddenly, looking to the side of the field. I turned; didn't see any redwoods, but Thomas was walking out of the Pokemon Center. He looked up; I looked away.

"There's no redwoods there," I said.

"Redwood."

Sucker punch didn't go much farther that day. I brought Promise out next. He kind of tumbled out, the way you do when you're leaning on a door and someone opens it from the other side.

"Are you all right…?"

He nodded gloomily.

"Okay. I guess we'll work on aquajet."

Promise had finally stopped drowning himself in the water source when Dawn came over. "Have you seen Lucas?" she asked.

"Not out here."

"I've been looking for him since lunch. He's not in the Center."

"I'll help you look."

He wasn't in the shops surrounding the Center, or downtown, or at a park. I walked through the marketplace with a sense of growing urgency, reflected in my footsteps and my heartbeat. You'd think he'd have told someone he was going someplace, with Galactic around. I drifted over to the side of the road and breathed.

Okay. He's either nowhere or with Galactic. Okay. Arceus. Let's check nowhere first.

Nowhere being nowhere in the city; nowhere being the place he would go if he had decided to quit the mindless dependent journey that he hated so much to run into a spontaneous independent one. Nowhere being where he would go without telling Dawn and without turning back. Time was ticking, if he was heading for nowhere.

I got out of the marketplace and only then started to jog, so I wouldn't seem like a shoplifter. Even so, it was a matter of half a block or so before I started to sprint towards the Bike Route.

He'd have come walking and then needed to rent a bike, if he was there. I hoped he was there. Anything could've happened if he wasn't for sure there. I knew anything too well.

There was someone entering the route who could've been him. Small, dark hair, the right backpack. "Lucas!" I called, hoping my voice didn't sound desperate.

The boy froze and turned around, expression shifting from concealed alarm to slight relief. It was him. Okay. It was him.

I slowed my footsteps and tried to calm my breaths. "You scared the… the hell out of us," I forced out.

"Sorry," he said. I couldn't tell if he meant it.

"Could've told Dawn," I said, still winded. "She'd be… nice about it."

He made a face that said "I didn't want to deal with that." Well damn, I didn't want to deal with being afraid for your life and yet here I am. But it doesn't matter too much to me because I love you and you're safe and so I'm more relieved than mad anyways.

"Well… good luck," I said, backing up.

"Thanks," he said, glad to go. He hopped onto the pedals and descended into the bike route.

While I tried to slow my breaths, I pulled out a pen and Looker's diary and tore out a blank page. "Found Lucas," I wrote. "He wanted to go on a journey on his own and didn't want to tell you. He's gone, but he's okay."

I signed the note and pulled Promise out of his pokeball. For some reason it seemed he stumbled again. "Could you deliver this to Dawn?" I requested. "You're faster than me by far."

He looked up mournfully at me. "What's wrong?" I asked. "You don't have to if it bothers you."

Promise looked down. "Don't worry. I'll ask Faith."

Faith was okay with it – although I realized as she floated up and away that the mischief she might cause could have been a bad idea.

Promise and I walked back through the marketplace. He was faster than me on four legs and slower than me on two, so he went back and forth between the two modes of travel.

"Think we should get some fresh food before we leave tomorrow?" I asked him.

Which led us to produce-heavy part of the market. Promise kept getting excited around the oran berries, so I bought something like ten of those. It was good to see him in better spirits.

On the way back to the center, we passed the bike shop. The playground beside it was vacant.

"Excuse me?"

I turned around. It was the bike shop man.

"Oh, it's you! I didn't get the chance to thank you properly before."

Cause I'd been unconscious, yeah. "Oh, I – no need to thank me. I didn't even get you out of there. My friends did."

"You were part of the rescue mission. Please, come inside," he said, gesturing for me to follow him into the shop.

"The failed part," I said, obliging anyways. We walked past rows of colored mountain bikes on the walls and pastel street bikes on the floor to the back of the shop. I'd have expected clutter, but the back was extremely well-kept – drawers and cabinets lined the room, labeled with masking tape, and a few tools – maybe the commonly-used ones – hung from a board on the wall. There was space for a table and chairs.

"It's the thought that counts," he said.

"The thought didn't save you," I said bitterly.

The bike shop man – Mr. Dupont, right – glanced at my buizel and smiled. "What is an action without thought? A coincidence."

"How does that…? Anyways, it's because of my friends that you're safe. Not me."

"I hear it was your idea to begin with," he said, opening a cabinet. He rummaged through it.

"Sort of. Only because I knew about it to begin with."

"And how could I have been rescued if no one knew at all?" he said, still smiling. He returned from the cabinet with some pokemon food. The fancy type-specific kind. Water type. "Thanks to you four, I'm back here again, and my pokemon are safe as well."

Something about the statement didn't sit right.

"Speaking of pokemon," he said, filling a bowl with the pokemon food and setting it on the table, "I didn't actually invite you in to thank you. I was interested in your buizel."

"He's not up for trade," I said immediately. Mr. Dupont chuckled.

"Not in that sense." Promise hopped onto the table in a single bounce and tested the food. Finding it suitable, he started to eat. "There's something different about your buizel."

"How so?"

Mr. Dupont observed Promise as he munched. Prom didn't seem too weirded out. "I'm not as good at figuring pokemon out as my daughter is. But he seems attached to you. That's all I know for sure. It's as though something has happened recently to strengthen that attachment, though not necessarily in a positive way."

Hearing this, Promise looked at me. His eyes were solemn.

"Is that so?" I murmured.

Mr. Dupont clapped once. "Anyways. The thing about you two is that you can't have been training for that long – it's trainer selection time, yes? and two of your friends clearly had young pokemon – and yet to have a connection such as this…"

"I've had experience with pokemon before," I explained.

"I see. Well…" He hurried out of the room and returned a few moments later with a straw basket. He set it on the table gently. Inside was an egg.

"Would you mind taking this off my hands?"

"Whoa." I threw my hands up. "What."

He laughed outright. "I know it's sudden. But after what happened at the HQ, I trust you, and frankly, I've been looking for a way to get rid of it. I don't have the time or youth to take care of a youngling anymore. My daughter gave it to me."

I examined the egg. Small, round, white patterned with red and blue triangles. Not hard to guess what was inside. But, just like that? And a fourth spot on my team gone?

But objectively, this was a chance. Togepis weren't common. And I'd never cared for an egg before; it would be a completely new experience.

"Are you sure? I didn't even do much for you…"

He shook his head. "You'd be doing me a favor."

I looked at Promise. He looked excited, and he nodded eagerly.

"Well… I guess so."

Mr. Dupont set me up with an egg bag (like a cushiony drawstring bag) and soon I was on my way. I was halfway out the door when I figured out what had bothered me earlier.

"Mr. Dupont, earlier you said something about 'the four of us'? Who else were you talking about?"

Surprise mounted his face. "Weren't there four? You, the other girl, two boys?"

"I only knew of one–"

Wait.

"What did the boys look like?"

"One was short and one much taller; the short one had a grotle, the tall one's pokemon I didn't see."

"Did the tall one have glasses, dark hair, a green-striped sweatshirt?"

"He did."

No wonder Thomas had lingered around me in the hospital.

"Thank you."

"Oh, thank you."

I found him in the Pokemart, buying medicine. "You lied," I said.

"Who told you?"

"The bike shop guy."

He paid for the bandages and potions and tucked them into his backpack. "Yeah."

"Why?"

"You were unhappy as it was," he said.

"How does that relate?"

"Nice egg, by the way."

"Thomas."

"You hate it when I 'rescue' you," Thomas said, making quotation marks with a hand. "It's not like you needed to know."

Holy frack. He lied for my sake.

"What do you want?"

"What do you mean?"

"You kept showing up in my hospital room? What do you want?"

"Nothing," he said, shouldering his backpack. "Isn't it normal to worry about someone you carried to the hospital with a concussion?"

"You carried me?"

"…again, this is why I lied."

"Whatever," I muttered.

I wanted to hate him. Mostly because I was used to it. But he'd just flipping come to my rescue again and tried to pretend my friends saved me so I wouldn't be disappointed.

"Doing anything tonight?" I asked.

"…are you trying to make an innuendo?"

"Welcome to Sinnoh. It's not an innuendo. It's a board game."

hahahaHA I finally got a chapter out :D There's another one that's almost done, but I'll save it for next week. See you then~