I have good news and bad news! The good news is I no longer have to worry about the correlation between Chance and real life! The bad news is also that! :')

There's a chance (haha) that I'm gonna try and do NaNo again this year but tbd? I've certainly gone more than a month without publishing before so I guess it's not a big deal but idk. TBD.

The doctor stood up from Thomas's bedside. "It's just a bad cold," he said. "Happens all the time to young trainers running the gauntlet to Snowpoint."

I glared at Thomas, who had the nerve to get sick and make us both look like amateurs. Thomas didn't notice, as he was too miserable to actually keep his eyes open.

"He primarily needs bed rest and fluids," said the doctor. "If you'd like, there are cold medications for sale at the front desk."

I clenched my jaw. Dumbass medicine. The kind of thing you sell at the front desk of a Pokemon Center where dumbasses show up with colds because they gave away all their blankets, those idiots.

"If his temperature surpasses 103 Fahrenheit, ask for a doctor again," said the doctor, pulling a plastic thermometer from his coat pocket. Oh good, now he was giving us dumbass thermometers. Maybe now I could measure the temperature of the cave we'd been in two nights ago and show Thomas what an absolute bastard he was.

"Thanks," I grunted as the doctor left me with the idiot.

I glowered at Thomas for a minute, pissed that his decision to save me from the cold (instead of, you know, trusting that I knew what I was doing and would be fine) had led to this. Thomas was covered in all the blankets from both his bed and mine, plus the spares from the closet, and I could see him shivering still.

I exhaled. "I'll go find more blankets," I said, shaking my head in disdain.

I passed through the cafeteria on my way to the lobby and found Dawn and Lucas eating lunch together. Dawn looked up; I waved from a distance, but she beckoned me over.

"How's it going?" I asked, determinedly not looking at Lucas.

"It's going pretty well," she said. "How were your holidays?"

"Pretty good. Yours?"

"Also good, but short. I've been in Snowpoint for almost a week now." Dawn nodded at Lucas. "He's been here for longer."

In my surprise, I forgot to ignore him. "Did you even go home after the tournament?" I asked, looking his way.

Lucas shook his head. "I headed up here pretty immediately," he said.

Arceus almighty, was that…? My mind went blank at the fact that he'd just willingly talked to me. The realization felt like a blunt force.

"We've been training for a bit, but I think he's taking on the gym pretty soon?" Dawn said, looking at him.

"My team's bad at ice–" Lucas began.

"You're fine," Dawn insisted. "You've got a houndoom."

"Good thing it's a one-on-one battle against her froslass, specifically."

I watched the two of them bicker, a smile sneaking onto my face. I felt the sudden sense of familiarity, of being at home with them. Maybe this was what I'd wanted all along – even last time. To be friends with the other two trainers from my town.

"What's going on? What am I missing?"

The smile on my face melted as I remembered what Dawn and I had talked about at the Trainer Ball. I was hiding so much from both of them. And Lucas… I still wasn't totally certain whether Lucas was on our side.

(I hadn't told Looker this fact. I could not tell you why.*)

(*I absolutely could tell you why.)

"Anyways. Is Thomas here with you?" Dawn asked.

One thing led to another, and a few minutes later I was carrying the extra blankets from their room back to my shivering friend. When I got there, though, all our blankets were off of him. As was his shirt.

I dropped Dawn and Lucas's blankets and covered my eyes, mumbling something about getting him lunch. On my way to the cafeteria, I found Maylene.

"Hey!" Her brow furrowed. "Why's your face so red?"

"No idea," I lied, trying to un-know the fact that Thomas had a birthmark over his left shoulderblade. "What brings you here?"

"I was gonna ask if you wanted to hang out with me and Candice."

Ooh. "I'd love to, but Thomas is super sick today," I let her know.

"Oh no! Because of the night he spent in the cave?" Maylene said in dismay.

"Yep, because the idiot chose not to care about his own wellbeing," I said, not wanting her to blame herself. "I'm getting soup from the cafeteria."

Maylene and I started walking down the hallway. "He really didn't have to give up his blankets," she said.

"I know! The dumbass," I said vehemently.

"It was thoughtful of him, though," she admitted.

"Yeah, thoughtful of him to get sick so I have to worry about him," I grumbled.

Maylene was quiet for a minute as we reached the cafeteria. I irritably took a tray and three paper bowls and filled each with a different kind of soup.

"Can I ask you something?" she said as we walked back to the room.

"Sure?"

"Do you… Are you and him…?"

"There's nothing romantic between us," I said, preempting the question.

"Okay… Cause it's clear he cares about you."

I shrugged awkwardly. "I know." Platonically.

"…and it's also pretty clear you care about him."

I stopped walking. "Is it?" I asked nervously.

Maylene nodded. "You're hiding it behind annoyance, but you wouldn't be this worked up about him being sick if you didn't care a lot. Besides, three soups? You could've just brought one."

I glanced down at the soups on my tray. "I wasn't sure what he'd like," I mumbled.

Maylene grinned. "Would you ask him out?" she asked quietly.

"I dunno. Maybe."

"Do you want help making it happen?"

I blinked. "What would that entail?"

"Depends on what you need," Maylene said conspiratorially.

I nodded slowly. "I'll… I'll let you know," I said.

We reached the door to our room. "See you around," Maylene said. She turned and started back down the hall, leaving me to wonder what to do about Thomas.

Besides, you know, take care of him while he was sick.

The dumbass.

I spent the rest of the day in the Pokemon Center, either fussing over Thomas or going and fetching things for him. My irritation melted over the course of the day as Thomas continued to be miserable and didn't eat his soup and got warmer and warmer. I ran to get a damp cloth to cool him down, which seemed to help a little.

While sitting in the room with him, I decided on a plan for the Snowpoint Gym. Trust could take out Candice's sneasel and abomasnow easily, given the double type advantages. He could also potentially defeat her froslass and maybe piloswine, but Prom could also step in for the piloswine, and Faith or Coeur for the froslass. Hope would almost definitely sit out, and Def would be on communications.

I went back out to the cafeteria to reheat Thomas's soup around six o'clock. Dawn and Lucas were in the lobby, stomping snow from their boots.

"He got the badge," Dawn said proudly.

"Nicely done!" I said to him.

"Are you gonna fight her soon?" Dawn asked me.

"Maybe? I dunno, I just got here."

"You could definitely do it. You're stronger than us."

My face grew warm. "No I'm not."

"You got further than either of us in the tournament."

"I, no, well, I mean–" I stammered, looking for words. "That was, that was a few weeks ago, and like, you've been training more than I have…"

"You could beat the gym," Lucas said, with nonchalant confidence that briefly stopped all motion in my chest.

"The gym's open til eight, if you wanna go. We'll come with you," said Dawn.

"Oh, I–" I gestured at my tray of soup, then down the hall towards Thomas.

"Oh, right, sorry, we won't keep you longer," Dawn said, backing up.

I grinned. "No worries," I said, turning and heading back to the room. "See you guys later."

I hurried down the hall, again wondering why Lucas was suddenly acting normal around me. Was he trying to get on my good side because he was with Galactic? Or had something else happened to fix the animosity between us? I still wasn't sure what had happened to begin with. Part of me wanted to ask him what had changed, but given how he'd responded to all those times I'd asked if he was mad and why, I didn't think that would work.

There was a feeling in my chest I didn't recognize.

"Evelyn," I heard. I turned around to find Lucas running after me. I stopped, more out of surprise than anything.

"Hey, what's up?"

Lucas stopped a few feet from me. "Dawn told me your umbreon knows how to use aura?"

"Yeah?"

His hands fidgeted with his coat sleeves. "I was wondering if you could teach my lucario?"

My breath and my heart stilled. This… Arceus, this was…

This was a reason to talk to him. This was a chance to spend time with him, to regain him as a friend, and maybe even… Well, we'd start by becoming friends again. This was the answer to what I'd been looking for.

I looked into his eyes. Lucas Tristan didn't look away, and my chest flooded with a familiar honeyed warmth.

Hope, and joy, and… and maybe whatever it was that Def referred to as love.

And yet…

I took a deep breath. "I don't know aura very well, and Coeur's only just learned it. You should learn from someone who can do it justice. Ask Riley on Iron Island. He'll probably say yes, if it's for communication and protection."

Lucas nodded. "Riley. Okay. Thanks."

As he turned and walked away, the gold sensation drained from my chest, and I understood the feeling left behind. It was the feeling of a closed door – not a locked one, but one newly shut – with something lovely and sad and familiar behind it. On top of the gold feeling was the sense of dust – the sepia tinge of nostalgia. Thomas had said I was in love with a memory, and this was that.

Absent from the feeling was the desire to open the door again.

I returned to the room, balancing the tray on one arm as I twisted the door handle. "I'm back," I announced, kicking the door open.

Thomas was trying to get out of bed, looking groggy and disheveled. "My pokemon need to eat," he mumbled.

"So do you. You've hardly eaten all day."

"My pokemon–"

"I'll feed your pokemon," I said, irritated. "You need to take let me take care of you for once, instead of you taking care of literally everyone else."

Thomas shut up. I threw the covers back over his legs and draped a blanket over his shoulders, then placed the tray of soups on his lap. I took his temperature again (101 flat, the lowest it had been all day).

"Do you need more water?" I asked.

Thomas shook his head. I scooped up his six pokeballs, leaving my own behind with Thomas.

"Evelyn," he said as I was leaving.

"Hm?" I turned.

"Thank you." Without his glasses, his eyes were more pronounced than usual. Aside from the heavy bags underneath, there was something soft about them.

I hesitated for a moment, the irritated facade cracking to reveal what Maylene had spotted beneath. Then I shook my head dismissively. "Of course. It's what you would do," I said, closing the door behind me.

There was a knock on our door at nine in the morning. Thomas had woken up briefly and seemed to be doing better, but was asleep now.

I opened the door a crack to find Maylene. "Hey. What's up?"

She seemed anxious. "We – Candice and I – we have a situation."

I frowned and went out into the hallway with her. "What is it?"

"We just figured you knew it better, and if not you could ask Agent Looker," Maylene said.

I searched my memory for when she might've met Looker. "Knew what better?"

"The… the thing. You know," she said in a hushed voice.

"I… What?"

"Here, I'll just show you," she said, turning and beckoning for me to follow her.

I grabbed my coat from the room and ran after her, asking Coeur to scan for danger. She didn't spot anything amiss. Coeur kept an eye out as Maylene led me all the way to the Snowpoint Gym.

We entered through the front doors and wove through hallways. Maylene pushed open a door to an auditorium of some kind. The audience seats were empty, but at the front of the room stood Candice, sleeves rolled up, pinning something to the table.

"It was fine yesterday, but started acting up this morning," Candice said.

I stopped in my tracks, completely bewildered, staring at the faintly glowing metallic object trying to shoot out from under Candice's hands.

Why did Maylene and Candice have the Spear Key?

ohO A TWIST

Chance is about to accelerate and I am HYPED.