lol it's been a minute hi hello

The plague has cancelled most of my life but at least I had time to finish off the chapter (and write onwards? no Promises yet)

(CW: depression is mentioned briefly)

Megan and I got *coffee the next morning before I left for Canalave. (*She got coffee; I got mocha because putting chocolate in coffee makes it more manageable)

"So what's next?" she asked me.

"I'm visiting some friends, then passing through Jubilife to Canalave," I said. "Thomas should already be there. We're going for the gym."

"That's the steel gym, right?"

I nodded, sipping my mocha.

"Should be easy, then, given your starter's types."

I half nodded, half shrugged. "Hopefully. Byron's pokemon for sure know moves that can compensate for fire and fighting, but having Trust around should be a benefit regardless. As long as I'm feeling up to it, the battle should go fine."

"Feeling up to it?"

I choked on mocha. I hadn't told her yet.

"I'm… um…" Why was this so hard to say?

I made eye contact with Megan. Her eyes were quiet and kind.

"I've been getting depression – uh, depressive spells. It kinda comes and goes, but when it's around I have trouble motivating myself to do anything. It makes battling a lot harder."

Megan nodded solemnly. "Has this happened recently?"

"Yeah – during the tournament it got pretty bad. But the second time around it was better…"

Oh gosh I hadn't told her about Dialga's time fuckery. There was so much to say and I hadn't been prepared to tell her today.

But seeing her – waiting patiently, ready for what I had to say, listening, really listening – I found the courage to tell her everything. I told her about the time jumps I'd been experiencing. I told her about the Pastoria gym and how time froze at the tournament and how it started moving again. I told her there was a chance the time skips were related to the depression – I'd vaguely thought of it before, but now, speaking to her, it was clear. I told her everything – except what related directly to her – and she was quiet except when she asked questions about the things I said.

How did I ever think Lucas was the only one who listened?

"Have you been looking into ways to help your depression?" she asked me.

"I have, actually. Haven't gotten the chance to put them into practice just yet, but I did a little research."

"That's good. You can always talk to me, too."

"Yeah. I'll have to call you more often. I've mostly been relying on Thomas, since he's been nearby."

"How's he doing?"

"He's doing all right. He's been going through some shit, but it seems like it's getting better? Unless he's massively relapsed in the last few days away from me."

Megan took a sip from her cup of bitterness and pain. "Do you…" She rephrased. "You guys have been traveling together, then."

"Yeah, I mean, for a while now."

(Okay let's not pretend I wasn't already hyperaware of the potential implications of her saying that.)

"Is there…" She toyed with the sleeve on her coffee cup. "How are you feeling about him?"

"Feeling?" As if I didn't know what she meant.

"Yeah, like–" Megan made vague hand gestures which, in summary, indicated that she knew I knew what she meant.

"He's just a friend," I said, shrugging. "Nice to be around. Saves me too often."

"Oh," she said.

"Why do you ask?" I asked her.

She shrugged. "Just wondering."

"Oh," I said, unsure what to say. "You didn't think…?"

"No," she said. I couldn't tell if she was floundering as much as I was, or if I was just imagining it. "I just thought I'd ask."

"Oh, okay."

She brought up something else, I don't remember what, and the conversation didn't circle around to that spot again. But surely she'd seen something between me and Thomas? I don't know what I wanted Megan to think. I don't know how I wanted Megan to feel.

I remembered to call Looker on my way out of Twinleaf. "What up?" I asked him, by way of greeting.

"I believe there was inside involvement regarding the theft of the orbs."

I stopped walking. "That… what… you… what?"

"The intruder knew the International Police Headquarters well enough to teleport inside and immediately target the vaults, which indicates not only that they knew the HQ's location and layout, but that the porygon-Z had imprinted on the location as well."

"Okay so–" I rubbed my forehead, exhausted from the weight of that one sentence. "–you mean like it was an agent? Ex-agent? Can people outside the organization go there?"

"We keep strict track of the visitors. I'm in the process of accessing the visitation records to see who visited from Sinnoh with a porygon-line pokemon. The trick is that this doesn't guarantee the intruder has ever been to the HQ, if they're good enough at translating maps to the real world. As far as ex-agents are concerned, the IP is highly protective of the locations of retirees. If the intruder turns out to be a veteran, there will be little I can do to find them."

"Besides hack the IP?"

"Ha ha."

"I'm kind of serious."

"Lyn…"

"I mean, if it comes down to being a little sneaky to save the world…"

"Lyn."

"Okay, well, maybe it won't come down to that."

"I'll keep you informed."

"Okay. Good luck."

I had one more stop to make before Canalave. Def teleported us to Jubilife and I started the trek north. It was a little tedious, mostly because I hadn't had to walk anywhere in a while, but at least Def would get to imprint on new places now.

And walking meant I could have my pokemon train on the way there – Prom went swimming anytime we passed a lake, Faith practiced sneaking up on Trust through the shadow realm, and Trust trained his reaction speed by throwing a mach punch at Faith whenever he noticed her (fighting vs ghost, it didn't hurt her). When we entered the caves, Hope got some experience battling in a tight space (a little chaotic but overall not too bad).

Def, who already knew magical leaf, rechanneled the grass energy into learning leaf blade – I'd intended to have him learn that in Canalave, but this was great. He and Coeur, who were talking out loud together, managed to pass on this knowledge of grass energy: Coeur learned grass knot. I was proud of her for expanding her repertoire, and even more proud of them both for refiguring how they communicate.

I knew it wasn't enough, though. There still had to be a better way.

We reached Floaroma mid-afternoon, stopped for a late lunch, and kept going. I wasn't sure what we'd find when we reached our destination, but it ended up being exactly who I hoped.

A little girl was playing on the lawn outside the Valley Windworks. She looked up; Prom ran up to her.

"Buizel!" Annie cheered, not so much catching him in her arms as being bowled over on impact.

Faith and Hope joined them the instant they sensed it was playtime; Trust, Def, and Coeur approached the fray, almost out of obligation, but were soon running around the Windworks lawn with as much spirit as the rest.

"Hello! Haven't seen you in a while."

I looked up; it was Annie's dad, the Windworks keeper. "Hi! How are you?"

"I'm well! What brings you here?" he asked, joining me on the bench.

"Just figured I should stop by and let Promise and Annie catch up sometimes," I said, gesturing into the field.

"Well, that's kind of you." He watched Annie and my pokemon playing… it might've been some kind of tag? "I see your chimchar has evolved a few times," he said. "And you've formed a full team."

"Yep." I remembered charging into the Windworks with just a chimchar all those months ago. How did Trust and I ever make it out intact? "I sort of resisted forming this team at first – I had some pretty specific ideas about what I wanted my team to be," I said. "But honestly? This is a great group. I kinda just had to let it happen."

The keeper nodded. "Fate does funny things," he said mildly.

"It sure does," I said, thinking of the last tournament's matchups.

We sat there like parents watching their kids play. Hope let Annie grab her feet and took her for a short flight. Annie giggled gleefully.

"Not always for the better, I suppose," he said. I assume he was still talking about fate. "It's hard to believe everything happens for a reason when tragedy strikes."

I nodded. "I feel that. I had a trainer friend who was killed in an accident a while back." Although to be fair, Lucas was now alive again? What did that say about fate and what it wanted?

"I'm sorry for your loss," he said. "A friend of mine passed last year, too."

"Oh. I'm sorry," I said, not really sure what to say.

"Accidents happen, I suppose, but the fact that the universe took his two-year-old daughter at the same time seems particularly cruel."

I froze. "I'm sorry, did you… You don't mean the Warners, do you?"

"Did you know them too?"

"Hey, Faith?" I called at my haunter. "Can you come over here for a sec?"

They definitely knew each other, as it turned out. Faith hadn't said anything to Annie so much as jumped right into playing with an old friend. We explained who Faith was to Annie, who reacted with unperturbed delight to hear that her friend had returned – even in an unfamiliar, purple form. I told the Windworks keeper (whose name is Rusty, by the way – I felt weird knowing his dead friend's name and not his own, so we finally introduced ourselves) about our encounter with Leif Warner's ghost in Solaceon Town.

"So Leif passed on, and Faith's stuck around, huh?" Rusty mused.

"More or less – although I don't know that he's gone gone," I said. "I think he's at peace, since his daughter is being taken care of, but he's still around."

Rusty smiled. "I'm glad she is."

Something occurred to me suddenly. "Wait, if Faith and Annie are friends, and Annie and Promise are friends…?"

Rusty understood. "Your buizel? I don't think he and Faith ever met. We came here a few times, but the day of the fire he showed up in bad shape – poisoned, somehow – and we took care of him. After that, he started to drop by more often. Good timing, in a way – Annie needed a friend."

I looked upstream. "Was… was the fire upstream of here?"

"It was." He looked up the river, and at his daughter playing with the others. "He used to show up with a whole family of buizels. I haven't seen them since that day."

We left around sunset, teleporting back to Jubilife and heading east this time. I kept Prom and Trust out as we walked in the dark. The ferry across the bay was closed at night, but a kid with a lapras offered to take us to Canalave. I probably should have taught Prom surf, but the practical use of the move wasn't super useful, given that I'd basically just end up swimming with him. It would have been a different matter if he could evolve into a floatzel.

I'd considered going upstream to check out the Ironworks where the fire happened. For the first time, I felt close to knowing what had happened to Prom. But I didn't want to hurt him by taking him back there – returning to Lake Valor had been horrifying for me – and besides, what would we find there? A magic flower that plays a record of the past?

At any rate, I got Prom to learn surf from the lapras, since that's how we were getting across anyways. I thanked the kid and the lapras with some chesto berries (neither of them would take my money) and walked the rest of the way to the Pokemon Center.

Thomas was waiting up – we'd been messaging each other via poketch. He'd arrived the day before and had booked a room. I found the door and knocked.

He opened the door. "Hey," he said quietly. He wasn't wearing his glasses.

"Hi," I said softly. "Sorry it's so late."

"It's okay," he said, opening the door wider. "Come on in."

As I walked past him, a rush of feeling swept through my chest. It was pink and painful. I exhaled sharply.

"You okay?" Thomas asked.

"Yeah – yeah, it's, I, I just, I, uh, I had a time thing just now," I stammered.

"Oh, all right. You're okay now?"

"Yeah." I will be once we stop talking and go to sleep.

"Okay."

He closed the door. The feeling didn't return, but something lingered, sore and uneasy.