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"The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone."

–Harriet Beecher Stowe

Misty couldn't sleep.

It wasn't the light headache she'd had since returning back into her body. That was faint, minor after the concussion she'd recovered from, and certainly nothing compared to the more recent poisoning.

Morty had promised the headache was normal, and Misty thought she remembered Phoebe mentioning one as well. He'd referenced the teleporting, and how when Pokémon like Haunter did it too much, they slowed down and grew fatigued as well, and that this was merely the equivalent effect on her human body. Just like how she'd wear the brunt of a Thundershock or Ember Attack more than a Pokémon would.

So the headache was a nuisance at best. No, it wasn't that.

It was all the ghosts.

This wasn't the first night Misty had been kept up by ghosts, and it wouldn't be the last. There were the sleepless nights after her sisters' terrifying ghost stories, and the nights where she'd been roused by tortured spirits, like the one who'd sent her digging in some rural backyard. Tonight was not like either of those instances, though.

It was the ghosts in the walls. Misty was certain they were there. The question was: were they watching her?

She couldn't take it. Ash and Noir had stated their trust in Haunter, which probably spoke well of Morty too, which probably meant that he wasn't using his Pokémon to spy on her. It wasn't like she had anything to hide—any mal intentions anyway. So why would they need to watch her? And if they were watching her, there was nothing for them to see. She'd just be asleep.

But her body wasn't taking the hint.

Misty sat up. Praying for sleep wasn't working. She needed a more solid tool. Well, not solid, but real enough anyway.

It was easy to imagine the room she was in, dark though it was. There was the bed beneath her, and the polished wooden floors and her bag by the dresser drawers. All she had to do was think through the headache, think as hard as she'd done during Morty's test earlier. And when she opened her eyes, Ash was there.

"You called?" he asked. "On purpose this time? Wait, why are you awake?"

"That's the whole problem," Misty groused, relaxing back as Ash walked to the side of the bed. Pikachu appeared a moment later and Misty reached out an arm to take him in her lap.

"Don't like sleeping in an unfamiliar bed?"

Misty shook her head, waving him away as she began petting Pikachu, the repetitive action already doing something for her nerves. She'd slept in enough unfamiliar beds in the last month that this was nothing. Sheer luxury compared to the Viridian Forest.

"No, just a bit creeped out," she said before lowering her voice to a whisper. "From all the eyeballs in the walls."

"Oh," Ash laughed. "They're harmless."

"Harmless doesn't mean not creepy!" Misty insisted. "Imagine sleeping like this!"

Ash smiled, but only slightly. "I'd love to imagine sleeping again at all, actually."

Misty's hand paused over Pikachu's striped back. She'd misspoken again without hardly thinking about it. It was just so easy to forget Ash was a ghost. Tempting, even, if she was honest.

"Sorry," she murmured, stroking Pikachu again.

"Nah, I was just joking," Ash replied. "I can talk to the Ghosts if you want."

"Actually," Misty said, looking at Ash for a moment before dropping her gaze. Pikachu was convenient to look at, the yellow of his fur probably more brown or even green in the blue glow of the night. But it was still the brightest thing in the room, easy to focus on. "Actually, I wanted to talk about what Morty said when he first saw you."

Ash frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"I feel bad, I've never asked," Misty started, wondering if this thought had been part of what had been keeping her awake. The words fell heavy even as she said them, spilling from her mouth like stones. "Do you want me to help you move on?"

She'd had so many opportunities to ask. When they'd first met obviously, or when they'd been helping the ghosts of Cinnabar or when the idea of Ash moving on had occurred to her last time she hadn't been able to sleep and he'd been there to help her out. It had crossed her mind that him telling his story that day might have done it, but it hadn't. And she was glad.

It was selfishness. She'd never asked her mother if she wanted to move on either. That was selfishness, Misty knew, but it also didn't feel like it was her role. She was the child, Fleur was the parent. Mom was the one who was supposed to say what was supposed to happen.

But with Ash, Misty was the one with the Connection. And Ash was the lost ghost. It was her duty.

"I…" Ash started, as thrown by Misty's question, as was fair. She was weeks late, after all. "I…don't know? What would we do?"

Misty shook her head. Usually her ghosts had more of a clue, even if they were terrible at explaining it. She'd never met one as clueless as Ash, and perhaps that was why he seemed so right here, by her side. Like he wasn't planning on going anywhere else.

"I don't know," she said. "We could try and track down your body. We could visit places you were, maybe retrace your final memories. We could talk to the people still around who knew you, like we did with your Pokémon. Actually, I'm surprised that didn't do it for you, now that I think about it."

Misty wasn't even done talking and Ash was already shaking his head. "That all sounds terrible."

"Aw, come on," Misty said softly. "You talking to Charizard was maybe the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Surely there are people you miss that you'd like to talk to?"

Ash thought about it, his eyes also on Pikachu as Misty continued to pet him. "What about Pikachu? What would he need to move on?"

"Pi?" Pikachu chirped, looking up at the sound of being mentioned.

"That's past my expertise," Misty admitted. "I just assumed he'd move on when you did."

"I don't like that assumption," Ash said. "I don't wanna do anything if we don't know what it'll do for Pikachu too."

"There's no way to know any of this," Misty explained. "Even the way Morty was talking down there wasn't a science. It's just people like me and him and Phoebe trying our best."

"Then I say no," Ash said, his voice firm. His eyes were meeting hers now, sharp as flint in the moonlight. "Nothing without Pikachu."

The relief was exhausting. It hit heavily like a wave you wanted to take you down into a riptide, surf tempting you to get lost in the ocean. It was so easy for her to let it happen, though, to smile at Ash and let all thoughts of trying to solve his mystery burble away at sea. This was so much better.

"Okay, Ash," she said, smiling until she caught a glint of something over Ash's shoulder. "What's that?"

She'd seen a flash of white on the floor, but as she moved to look around Ash, squeezing Pikachu between her lap and her stomach, the spot moved. Then there was a glint elsewhere on the floor until she realized it was many glints and they were all over. And they were rising.

"Water?" she asked, legs tearing out from under the sheets as she stood to see the situation.

The whole floor was covered in water that was slowly rising over the wooden legs of the furniture. It brought Misty right back to Phoebe's boat during the rainstorm, and she acted quick.

"Ash! Jellicent's PokéBall!"

Ash was getting faster—it only took a few moments to roll the 'Ball from Misty's bag and depress the button enough for a red light to stream through the room, letting Jellicent take up his broad space on the floor.

"Absorb the water!" Misty commanded.

Jellicent hadn't been in a pool in some time. Despite their trip to the Pokémon Center, he could probably still use a fair amount of hydration before he needed to stream the water out. She didn't necessarily want to just open a window and flood the streets, but that might be her only option for the time being. She'd have to open the window and then run and tell Morty that a pipe had burst. She was just about to hop off the bed and do that when the door to her room flew open and Morty himself was there.

"Foresight!" he shouted, and a Sentret by his feet let out a beam of light from its eyes, not so different from the brighter light of the PokéBall that had just flooded the room. Except this time, it revealed maybe a dozen Gastly and Haunter on the floor of her room.

And not an ounce of water.

Misty turned on Morty, furious.

"Is this your idea of a joke?" she yelled, jumping off the bed onto the dry wood and marching over to her. She snatched Jellicent's PokéBall and returned him before he dried out, of all things. "A sick, stupid joke?"

Morty held up his hands in innocence. "No, Misty, these are not my Pokémon," he defended as said Pokémon began to scatter, weaving through the walls and out of the room like sparks bouncing and flickering out. "Gengar, go after them!" he shouted, and a Gengar appeared through the floor and out the wall as well.

Misty grit her teeth. "This is a house full of Ghosts and you expect me to believe when my room is full of Ghosts pretending to drown me they're not yours?"

"They're not," Morty said, but both he and Misty were surprised to hear Ash say it in unison.

"I spent the day with his Pokémon, and unless he has a hidden den of Pokémon somewhere I didn't see, those aren't his," Ash explained.

A hidden den didn't sound impossible to Misty, so she turned her glare back to Morty.

"Why would I use Foresight to reveal them if this were my prank?" Morty asked, suddenly sounding exhausted. The adrenaline rush almost had Misty forgetting it was the middle of the night.

"That's…fair," Misty admitted, glancing down at the Sentret by his feet.

"That's literally the purpose of this Sentret," Morty explained, patting the Pokémon once on the head before returning it. "So that we're able to use Foresight in training demonstrations."

Another logical point. Misty's shoulders slumped, the fight seeping out of her, though the adrenaline was slower to leave her pounding heart and the new throbbing of her head.

"I'll admit the presence of my Ghosts," Morty continued. "They're the ones that alerted me to the fact that something was happening in here. They said they heard shouting."

So there had been Ghosts around. The vindication was weak in Misty's gut, her previous unease seemingly ridiculous now that they'd proved their use. She'd just have to get used to them as a benign force if she ever wanted to sleep here. Although sleep tonight was still looking less and less likely.

"Still, that was weird," Morty said. "Do you have any enemies, Misty? Any ghost enemies?"

"Enemies?" Misty asked, the question almost insulting. If she had any enemies, it should be ghosts that had earned her wrath, not vice versa. "Not that I know of."

"Okay," Morty said, though he seemed skeptical. "But that seemed targeted. Nothing happened anywhere else in the Gym and nothing like this has happened before. You'd think that Ghosts would know better than to pull tricks in a Ghost Gym."

"Yeah," Misty agreed, a chill running down her spine the moment he'd said 'targeted'. Did she have enemies? Daniel and Fay were her only recent ones, but they'd made up. Every other ghost she'd met since then, she'd helped, not hurt. Perhaps it had just been a prank, like Morty had said people thought Haunter were wont to do.

"Is there anything I can do for you?" Morty asked when Misty made no move to go to the bed. "Tea? Maybe some rice?"

Misty shook her head. She could imagine tea just sloshing in her shaky hands, spilling all over the floor and getting it actually wet. "No, I'll manage."

"Okay," Morty said after a moment's hesitation. "If you need anything, just call my name, and someone will hear and tell me."

That was almost comforting. "I appreciate it."

"Okay," Morty repeated, taking a step back through the doorway. "Goodnight then, Misty."

"Goodnight." She nodded and the door shut.

Misty took a huge breath and sighed, head falling heavily into her hands. Perhaps she should have asked for a glass of water, but then again, there was still a partially full bottle in her backpack. She opened it up and took a swig before closing it tightly and returning it. Then she went back to her bed, thankful for the warmth as she tucked her freezing toes back under the blanket.

"Are you okay?" Ash asked.

"Yeah," Misty said. The lie was okay, because they both knew it was one.

"Do you need anything?"

She couldn't think of anything. It would only take time for her body to relax, time for her to get so tired that her eyes couldn't stay open, time and a great deal of luck for that to actually lead to any kind of sleep.

"Just stay," she said, gesturing for him to come closer as she tucked herself in. She held her blanket open to Pikachu to crawl in and settle in front of her chest. "Just staying is enough."

A floorboard creaked under Misty's foot, and she very nearly turned back.

"Are you sure this is safe?" Misty asked, chilled by the breeze from outside making it into what was theoretically inside.

"It's not," Morty replied, and that was just about the last straw for Misty. "That's why we have Pokémon who can protect us."

Misty threw a skeptical look back towards Ash, Pikachu, and Noir. Ash only shrugged—trust him not to doubt the Pokémon.

For today's lesson, Morty had taken Misty to the burnt-out tower that had decorated the town's corkboards and telephone poles. She'd been very surprised when he'd actually taken her inside.

The ground floor was drafty and dank. Leaves were were piled into the corners, still smelling of last fall's leaf mold. There were little specks of fur from the Pokémon who probably slept in those piles at night, and Misty could only hope that none were there now, ready to jump out at her.

Then, Morty had taken her up rickety steps to the second floor, and the difference between the wood of his Gym and the burnt remains here were stark. The years had caused the wood to warp, bloated in spots from water and heat and shrunken by cold in others. Not to mention the many boards that were snapped, now making for mulch down on the ground floor and the basement Morty had alluded to.

"This is as far as we'll go," Morty said, stopping by a piece of wall that was particularly open, like a jagged window made for meeting your death through. Of course, the fall wasn't quite that far—only one story, after all. But Morty seemed to be more comfortable next to the edge than Misty was.

"It'll be fine," he insisted. "Haunter and Gastly are here to catch us or anything else should something go wrong."

"Usually, I try to avoid situations where that kind of help seems so likely," Misty commented, looking around the ground skeptically. Despite the years of rain and wind to wash away the building's soot, there were still fresh black smudges against the front of her sneakers. As though every step crumbled the building that much more.

"With help this reliable, there's no need for concern."

After last night, the truth was that Misty did trust Morty's Ghosts. And if nothing else, she had three of her own who could certainly catch her if the plank of wood beneath her feet suddenly gave way. So when Morty put a towel on the ground and sat on the building's edge, Misty joined him, letting their legs dangle over the sloped roofing of what once had been a magnificent building.

It really wasn't that high. If she jumped, she could certainly walk away without injury, possibly with a twisted ankle. Nothing terrible. The wind whistled through Misty's ears, the din of the town far away. The forest had eaten up what had probably once been an oft-traveled path. Now she had to squint between trunks and branches to see hints of Ecruteak.

"So?" Misty asked when the silence drew long. "Why are we here? Spookiness?"

"This is a town of history, Misty," Morty said. "We think history is important, that it's meant to be preserved. There were people at this tower once who forgot that and let it burn to the ground. Four hundred years of history turned to a charcoal skeleton."

"People? I thought there was a fire?"

"A fire caused by people," Morty said. "People who wanted the power of Ho-Oh, the Legendary Pokémon who called this tower home. Some claimed afterwards that it was a lightning strike, and it's true that rain put out the fire. But the cause was greed. People and their greed who sent Ho-Oh away."

Misty nodded slowly. "So were there…ghosts here?"

"No, this tower burned down three hundred years ago," Morty said. "I've never heard of a ghost sticking around that long."

"But there were Pokémon who died, right?" Ash asked, his voice grave.

Morty blinked at Ash, pausing for an awkward length of time before speaking again. "Three Pokémon perished, and Ho-Oh reincarnated them as its last act before leaving humans behind."

Misty looked at Pikachu. Who knew what would have become of them otherwise.

"That's the brief history of the building," Morty said, "It would be wrong to come here without knowing it, but it's not why we're here. We're here because of my history."

"Oh," Misty said, surprised. "Okay then."

"My family has lived in this city for generations," Morty began. "Since the time of the burning of the tower, they saw the Bell Tower built in its place to the east. It gives you a sense of ownership over a place. Like you know it better than anyone else. Like you and the town have an understanding. But it wasn't reverence. It was just a kid being a kid."

The words fell from Morty's lips without emotion. He said them as though he were teaching his students—with detached authority.

"Kids think they're invincible," he continued. "So I came here to play. And when nothing went wrong from being in a building that an earthquake or a tsunami should have leveled centuries ago, it seemed as though that was the way things were supposed to be. That it wasn't the same equation of luck every time but an accumulation of evidence."

Already Misty could see where the story was going. This wasn't going to be a story with a surprising twist, but rather one where the ending came barreling toward you and there was nothing you could do to stop it. Like reading a tragedy when you already know the heroes die.

"What happened to you?" she asked.

"A plank fell on me," Morty said. "Heavy thing, and I was around eight at the time. Still have a scar."

Morty lifted up the hair on his neck and adjusted his headband, and underneath was a thick, silvery scar, bald where a section of his hairline should have been.

"That absolutely should have been the end of me," he said. "But instead it was a beginning."

Misty cocked her head. "What do you mean?"

For the first time, Morty turned fully to her, the towel twisting under his seat. "Misty, people only gain the ability to see ghosts when they've had a near-death experience. That was mine. That's today's lesson."

Misty gasped. "I thought no one knew why?"

"Phoebe doesn't know," Morty said. "She thinks that it's something we can't know for sure, but I know the story with her sister. I know my own story. As far as I'm concerned, even that small sample size is more than a coincidence. The spirit of Ho-Oh must have been with the Ghosts here and they saved me. The same thing happened to Phoebe. So."

Morty's gaze was intense, and Misty wanted to scoot back, but the gap in the wall was so small, the towel such a limiting rectangle that there was nowhere to go. She could only be pinned by his gaze and accept his question.

"What happened to you?"

Misty's brain stuttered. He asked so directly that it felt as though the answer should be on the tip of her tongue, but it wasn't. It was choked by time, an answer Misty didn't have, to a question she'd been asking her whole life. How? Why? Why her?

"I don't know," she whispered, her defensive tone undermined by the weakness of her voice. It was a relief when Ash stepped in.

"She's had the Connection for as long as she can remember," he said.

Morty wasn't satisfied. "Is there a near-death experience that you remember from when you were young?"

"I'm not sure…"

"Remember how I said that you should have seen the Spirit World twice yesterday?" Morty asked. "That's because you should have seen it when you gained the Connection. I only barely remember, but it left an impression."

Misty paused. She'd been in such a state when she and Phoebe had first entered the Spirit World that she hadn't had the presence of mind to gauge whether it was familiar or not. But it had been, hadn't it? She'd asked if she'd been there before, but had that sense been because it looked familiar? Or because Noir had described it to her so long ago?

It was difficult to believe. She'd been risk-averse for a long time, also basically since she could remember. Ghosts forced her into bad situations, not to mention the fact that keeping just Noir a secret had kept her reclusive and calculating. When possible, she'd stayed home with Noir, scheming more than daring. What could she have done that would have invited death?

The memory cleared up like dust blown off a photograph. Still gray and speckled, but suddenly visible, something she could fill in the gaps to.

"I nearly drowned when I was five," she said. "I don't remember what happened. I was found and taken to the hospital."

Ash flinched and Misty pushed away her own flashing memories just long enough to remember the story of how he died. That it had probably been a drowning as well. Where she'd lived, he'd died.

"That would do it," Morty said. "Do you remember any Pokémon?"

Her memory was hazy—she couldn't root out the memory from all the other times she'd seen Cerulean Beach. There'd always been tons of Wingull, a big favorite of hers. But her actual favorite had always been Tentacool and Tentacruel. And suddenly, a spot of red appeared in her mind.

"I feel like I remember a Tentacool," she mused, the words slow and sticky on her tongue as her brain tried to sort them out. "I would have gone in the water if I'd thought I'd seen one. That could have caused the whole situation. But I remember pink too. And purple."

"Well, a Tentacool wouldn't have done it," Morty said. "But the story adds up otherwise. Five is young enough that the line between before and after would be blurry. Especially if you were dealing with it all on your own."

Misty's thoughts were still whirling so much that she hardly noticed when the Ghost Pokémon around her began moving more frantically. A Gastly was speaking in its fang-slurred voice, and Morty nodded. A moment later, he was standing up.

"There's a challenger at the Gym," he informed her. "I have to go back. Are you coming?"

Misty wasn't convinced that she wouldn't fall down the sloped roof the moment she stood up with the unsteadiness she was now feeling. Her thoughts were heavy enough that they might even weigh down the ghosts trying to catch her. And despite what she'd established about surviving the fall earlier, if she landed badly that assessment would be a whole other story. And if she'd already survived a near-death experience once, hadn't she burnt out her luck to survive one again?

"I'll stay," Misty said. "I'll catch up later."

"I can leave some Pokémon here?"

Misty looked at her friends, then shook her head. "No, it's fine."

Morty glanced at Ash, Pikachu, and Noir before shrugging as if to say "suit yourself," before turning to leave. As he went, his footfalls crackled and crunched through bits of debris. But they didn't shake the building, didn't cause any boards to fall, as had happened in his story. Through the gap, Misty could watch as Morty made his way through the stomped-out trail. Blocks of brick still poked out from the dirt, hinting towards a past with a clear path that had long-since crumbled.

"Are you okay?" Ash asked, sitting down to take Morty's spot.

Misty's eyebrows furrowed, tense in the kind of way that would bring a headache if she held it for long enough. The headache from the night before was gone, though, had been for hours. Her mind was unclouded as she thought.

"It's nothing new, not really," she answered. "The same pieces, just put together in a clearer image."

"I dunno, still sounds big to me."

Misty smiled. "Maybe. Maybe I'm missing too much of it to be able to tell."

Morty and Phoebe were both so matter-of-fact about their stories. In totally different ways—Phoebe from a long-held emotional peace, and Morty from what seemed to be an ordered, logical view of the situation. But Misty's story didn't have the clear arc of theirs, not with chunks of it missing.

"I just wanna talk to my mom," she confessed. "Someone who remembers me better than I remember me."

"You can do that," Ash suggested. "Maybe she can fill in the gaps."

"I can't," Misty stated. "It didn't work last time."

"You've gotten stronger," Ash encouraged. "It's worth a try."

It was worth a try if it worked, absolutely. But what if it didn't? There were implications Misty didn't dare think about, feelings she didn't dare touch. Despite Ash's statement, the disappointment after getting her hopes up might not be worth it.

Then again, what if it did work? For it to work now and not when her sisters were around—how would she tell them? The idea of telling them that, after how—appropriately—angry they'd gotten after her initial revelation. And then for her to tell them that the moment she was a region away, she could suddenly talk to their mom again. It knotted her intestines around her stomach.

"I'm not sure it is, Ash," she said.

"It is," he insisted. "It's the difference between knowing and not knowing."

Misty was rational. She was rational and she was capable. She could do this.

All the power was in her mind. That was what she'd learned yesterday, imagining the Spirit World and going there, imagining the bleachers and landing on them. So she took an extra moment to take in the sight before her. Trees growing more verdant every day, but currently still the bright green of an inchworm, crawling from bud to bud. Thick trunks of trees that had been here maybe three hundred years ago, after the fire. A periphery of blackened wood, her knees bent before her. That was the image she locked in her mind before closing her eyes.

Then to add the details. Her mom's long red hair. Red, red, like finger paint, like Staryu's center gem. Her tall, willowy frame, her sundress with the straps of a bathing suit showing around her neck. All of that hovering in front of Misty, maybe even standing on the steep roof ledge.

Misty cemented the image. Painted it in lacquer and resin and squeezed her eyes shut around it for a long moment, holding until her anxiousness unnerved her.

When she opened her eyes, Fleur wasn't there.

Misty said nothing. Her heart sank, slow and heavy like a stone in a swamp. Mud encased it in a thick coldness.

She half expected Ash to start talking. To ask stupid questions or test out a joke, but he said nothing either. So finally, Misty spoke.

"Do you think she…"

The words dried out in Misty's throat, begging to not be said. But Ash was looking at her with wide eyes, cluelessly urging her to continue her question. Misty managed a swallow that felt more like a choke and tried again.

"Do you think she moved on?"

"What? No," Ash scoffed, his voice cartoonish, like it was some kind of joke. The 'what' flew up in pitch and the 'no' landed in a pratfall with a raspberry blown at the end.

"I'm serious."

There were tons of reasons a person wouldn't pick up an ordinary phone call. They didn't hear it or they're busy or they're out of the house. No one wanted to think about the time that the phone went unanswered because the person was gone.

"That would be crazy," Ash said. "Why would she be hanging around this long only to suddenly disappear?"

"Maybe because me and my sisters made up?" Misty offered. "I'm sure that's what she would have wanted most. Maybe that's why she didn't answer my first call. Because I was already home, telling them the whole truth."

"…I dunno, Misty, I still don't buy it," Ash said.

But the silence before he'd spoken said volumes.

"You do buy it," she said. "I guess I should be happy. If she moved on, it means she's at peace."

Misty's face was in her lap and she was biting her lip. Not anxiously, but with intention, to try and draw her attention away from her eyes, which were growing rapidly wetter with every second.

"I don't buy it," Ash repeated, but this time his tone was brighter, like it was being spoken through a wide mouth. "Look."

"Misty?"

At the second voice, Misty looked up, nearly cricking her neck with the speed at which she jerked up. "Mom!" she gasped.

It had worked. She never thought it would, but against the odds it had worked.

"Did you hear me call?" she asked.

Fleur smiled. "I thought I heard something faint, so I followed it."

If it was faint even when she'd been thinking as hard as she could, then it made sense that Fleur hadn't shown up in Cerulean when Misty had first tried. Maybe Misty was getting a little better at managing her ghostly powers.

"I wanted to ask you if you noticed a change in me after the incident when I was five? In the ocean?" Misty asked. "We think that might be when I started being able to see ghosts."

"Oh, Misty," Fleur said, smiling sadly. "I was already fairly sick then, I can't be sure. But it's possible. There were times I remember you seeming to talk about people who weren't there."

The answer was almost unimportant as Misty looked at her mom, already planning when she could be back in Cerulean to do this for her sisters. Whether it made her move on or not, it would mean the world to Misty's mom, and Misty couldn't deprive her of that. Or her sisters.

But then Misty looked more closely at her mom. Her ghostly glow was more pronounced, even in the daylight. And where her dress flowed away from her legs, Misty could see the trees behind it.

"Mom, are you okay?" Misty asked, reaching out a hand. She should have imagined her mom into a spot even closer. But then again, Fleur could just float over.

Fleur reached her hand out to grasp Misty's, but when she closed her fingers, they passed right through. Misty felt nothing, not so much as a change in temperature or the tiniest blow of wind. It was nothing but Ecruteak spring all around.

Misty's eyes widened, and she looked up to see that her mom's were the same. Quiet panic.

"What's happening?" she asked, voice higher, more strident than she'd anticipated, nearly scaring herself.

"I think I'm just growing weaker, sweetheart," Fleur answered, pulling back with a melancholic smile. "It must be because you're doing so well."

Misty laughed wetly. "That's hardly encouragement."

"I know, darling, but I'm so proud of you."

Proud should have felt like the soft touch of her mother's hand, but instead it was the tight squeeze of a suffocating grip. Misty could hardly be proud of herself when everything she did was pushing Fleur farther away from her.

"You're not…leaving, are you?"

Fleur shook her head. "Not yet, I don't think. But it seems as though it's coming. It's been harder for me to come and see you."

"Does that mean…should you go back?" Misty asked. "I don't want to waste our time if it would mean you don't get the chance to talk with Daisy, Lily, and Vi."

"I don't know," Fleur said. "I think it's fine to spend a little more time together, though."

But knowing that their time was now limited suddenly trapped Misty of everything she might have wanted to say. The frivolity of their previous conversation—the childishness of her behavior—Misty couldn't imagine acting that way now. Casual chat was no longer profound enough but anything profound would seem to compound the new and horrible feeling of finality.

"Who's this?"

Fleur's sad smile had brightened into the one Misty remembered from her childhood. The true one given to Gym challengers who came up unsuccessful that always seemed to make them feel better. The one she gave the girls before offering to go out and get ice cream. And now it was directed at Ash.

"Oh!" Misty exclaimed, surprised. She'd nearly forgotten the presences of her friends. "This is Ash Ketchum."

He's a ghost, she nearly added, but obviously he was. Yet the urge to defend it or explain it still coated Misty's tongue, despite her mom, the ghost, probably being the person least in need of a disclaimer.

"Hi!" Ash greeted with a wave. "It's nice to meet you, Ms. Waterflower. I've watched some of your Battles before—you're a really good Gym Leader."

If Fleur was surprised by that, she breezed right by it. "Thank you, Ash. How did you and Misty meet?"

"We met in Viridian Forest!" he answered, somehow having the grace to skate around any specifics. "Since then, me and Pikachu've just, I dunno, followed her along on her journey."

"That's lovely," Fleur said, and her expression looked full. Whatever emotion the idea of Ash accompanying Misty gave her, it rounded the apples of her cheeks and widened her eyes, making her look lively despite her increased translucency. "I'm happy she's had a friend."

In that second, Misty swore she saw the tips of Fleur's fingers go clear. Misty swallowed and looked her mom in the eye.

"Mom," she said. "I think you should go. I…I want to make sure the girls get to see you. Okay? So…see you soon?"

"Alright, sweetheart, you may be right."

Fleur straightened up, and sitting down like Misty was, it was almost like when she was a kid. Looking up at her mom, who was almost always the tallest in the room. The Trainers at the time had looked so old, but Misty realized now that they had probably been younger than she was now.

"I don't wanna be right," Misty whispered.

Fleur breathed something like a sigh, reaching towards Misty with a hand she couldn't touch. "That sounds like growth to me."

Misty laughed with a rattling breath as she did everything in her power to keep her eyes on Fleur. To keep an eye on her for any sign of an encompassing glow or any other signal of the end. But instead, she blinked away, like she was moving between planes.

All at once, Misty's breath left her, and her torso collapsed like the structure of this building had so many years ago. Crumbling from the top to a shaky, unstable bottom.

"Shit," Misty cried, hiding her face in her hands.

"Bay bay?" Noir asked and Misty shook her head.

"I'm fine, I'm fine—that just…just wasn't what I was expect…expecting."

She hiccupped between syllables, trying so hard to press her breathing into her stomach, but it bounced up on her every time, choking her.

"Mist," Ash said, putting an arm around her back. An arm she could feel. She hiccupped again. "Are you really fine?"

A laugh gasped out of Misty, but it sounded wet and her face was burning from her nose to her eyes. It burst through her throat and her chest.

"Ash, you idiot."

And then the tears spilled out. They pooled past her hands and dripped down the sides of her face, hot and then chilled as they rolled down her wrists. Ash's other arm came around her front, buttressing her, and Misty wanted to fling it away but didn't have the gumption. Her only remaining energy went to the sobs wracking her body up and down, keeping her breathing as water threatened to drown her.

A moment later, there were two more spots of contact, a small touch on either shoulder. On her right was Noir's stiff, plush form and on her left was the soft fur of Pikachu's stomach. Misty's pointy shoulders jabbed them both with every gasp, but she couldn't care.

"I'm not ready," she sobbed finally, the words falling out before she was even aware of the thought. "I'm not ready."

Ash squeezed her tighter, his nose pressing into the back of her neck. "She knows, Misty. She knows."

The words were hardly a comfort. Knowing wouldn't be enough to make a difference, not in this case. Not for any of them. But still, Misty couldn't help it as her hands dropped from her face and found the arm strapped around her chest. And with every bony knuckle she had, she grabbed it and squeezed it and buried her face into it. And she didn't dare let go. Not for a long, long time.

A/N: Hahaha, just a tidbit from the draft of the email with this chapter to my beta: "Okay, I can hear you screaming from 10-20 chapters ago WHERE'S THE ROMANCE, ANJUM? OKAY WELL I'VE JUST REMEMBERED."

Lol, that was an exaggeration, but? It's definitely not the usual pace for fanfic, but reading the fic back, I think it works for what I was going for. Not sure if that feeling will continue as it amps up (it will, I promise!) but I'm feeling good, even if it isn't for everyone. Anyway, I hope I hit a decent emotional tone at the end. Usually my beta helps wring the emotional bits out of me, but you just got me alone for this one! Hope it was okay.