Chapter Fourteen: Conversations in the Rain
It was two days after Ash's battle with Misty, and Serena and Ash were traveling east, heading for the Rock Tunnel which would take them to Lavender Town. In her guidebook, Serena had read that Lavender Town was mostly famous for the Pokémon Tower, where people came to bury and grieve for Pokémon who had passed on. She had to admit that it was fairly morbid, and that it would be difficult to come up with a good appeal based on something like that, but she had plenty of time left to think about it while they traveled. She still hadn't followed Pikachu's suggestion to talk to Ash yet, either, because every time she wanted to bring it up she got cold feet and backed out, figuring their would be another chance for it.
It was nearing the end of the day, and for the past couple of hours, it had steadily been getting cloudier and darker.
"We should probably eat dinner and set up camp soon," Ash said. "Because it looks like we're in for a lot of rain, and there aren't any Pokémon Centers nearby to get shelter."
"Is our tent good enough to deal with heavy rain?" Serena asked.
Ash shrugged. "I don't know. I guess we'll find out. If we put it on a bit of a slope with the opening facing downhill we can probably at least keep the water from flowing in, but if it leaks…well, let's just hope it doesn't."
It wasn't a very reassuring thought, but Serena had to admit she didn't have any better ideas, and so, when they found a suitable gentle hill facing a river, they set up the tent and quickly made some dinner. Halfway through, it began to drizzle, but when they were just finishing up the rain began to pick up, and they were soon forced to take shelter in the tent, where they silently sat next to each other in the opening, watching as the rain kept increasing in intensity. To Serena's unending relief, the tent did seem to keep out the water.
Because the tent was so small, she and Ash sat shoulder to shoulder, and Serena felt herself heating up a bit at being so close to him. The weather probably wasn't going to clear up anytime soon, so they'd probably spend most of the evening in the tent like that, being unable to do much else — and that's when Serena realized that this would be a great moment to follow Pikachu's advice and talk to Ash.
Despite this, she didn't go for it immediately. It was so comfortable, sitting like this, and she didn't really want to accidentally ruin that somehow, but she knew she'd have to talk to Ash at some point, so it might as well be now.
Her heart began to beat faster, and she simultaneously wanted to get it over with and never ever mention it at the same time, but eventually she took a deep breath and said, "Hey Ash, have you…have you ever liked someone?"
Ash didn't reply immediately, but after a moment he said, "Yeah, I have. I just…never really told them."
"Why not? Were you afraid they wouldn't feel the same?" Serena asked.
"No, I was afraid that they would," Ash said. He seemed to be thinking hard about his next words, so Serena said nothing and just waited. "I…I was never really focused on stuff like that, you know?" Ash said. "At first, I didn't even realize what I was feeling at all. Pikachu knew way before I did. But when I realized it too…I also felt that it didn't matter much. After all, I already had everything I wanted. I was traveling, following my dreams, with people following their dreams. There's nothing better than that, and I enjoy just being friends, just being together with the people I liked in the way I already was. Telling them how I felt, especially if they had feelings for me too…what would that have done?"
He finally stopped looking at the river and looked at Serena, the look in his eyes as intense as it was before a battle. "I've seen, in both people and Pokémon, how jealous they get sometimes, and I never liked it one bit. Friendship, love, however you want to call it, isn't a competition. As long as you're just friends with someone, you can be around them all you want, but once you're in love, you can't anymore? That's stupid. So…I figured, if I simply never tell anyone how I feel, we can all just happily follow our own dreams and we can avoid all the jealousy and whatever."
He grinned sheepishly. "I guess it helps that I really am a bit dense with these things, so people never really questioned it. Well…until now, anyway," he added with a smile.
Serena didn't say anything for a moment as she tried to think of what to ask next. What she really wanted to know, of course, was how Ash felt about her, but the start of the conversation really hadn't gone the way she had imagined it would. Was that what Pikachu had meant by saying she didn't have the full picture? She glanced at him at Ash's side, and he smiled encouragingly at her.
"So…who do you like?" Serena asked with some trepidation.
"Well…Misty would be the first one, though I didn't really realize that when I was traveling with her; I was just too young for it. Then there was May, and Dawn, and Iris…and you."
"That– that many?" Serena asked, trying to sound neutral but unable to keep the disappointment out of her voice completely.
"What about you?" Ash asked, without answering Serena's question.
"I…I like you," Serena said. "I've liked you ever since we met at Professor Oak's camp."
"And you never liked anyone else?" Ash asked, sounding genuinely surprised.
Serena shook her head almost defiantly. "No. I wasn't really focused on it, until I saw you on TV, when you were dealing with that Garchomp in Lumiose City, and then I remembered you and I went to find you."
"Wow, that's…that's pretty amazing," Ash said. "I mean…I knew you liked me. Pikachu knew much sooner than I did, of course, but I began paying attention to it when he told me."
"But you never said anything because…"
"Because I was happy the way we were," he confirmed with a nod. He smiled ruefully. "I know you were feeling a bit jealous, of Misty, at least, and probably also of Dawn. It's just…there was never any reason for you to feel that way."
"But…if you like them better, then–"
"I told you, it's not a competition," Ash interrupted. "That's like saying I like Charizard better than Pikachu. Both of them mean the world to me and I'd do anything to help them, but they're very different Pokémon and I like them for very different reasons. They've been with me on the same journey for a long time, but every memory I have with either of them is unique to them, even though they were with me at the same time. Why would it be any different with people? I like Misty for different reasons than I like May, and I like her for different reasons than Dawn, or Iris, or you, but I like all of you all the same."
Ash could apparently see that Serena wasn't convinced, because he went on, "Look, if you catch a new Pokémon, what does that do to your feelings for the Pokémon you already have? Do you love them any less?"
Serena shook her head. "No, but that's different," she said.
"Why?" Ash asked. "What makes it different?"
"Well, you know, with the person you like, you…do other things than with your friends. It's different," Serena said again.
"But why?" Ash asked again. "It's not the things you do with someone that determines how you feel about them, is it? It's the other way around. You do things with someone because you like them, but it makes no sense to me that you could only do that with a single person and with no one else. I mean, if you and I held hands, that would be different from me shaking someone's hand after a battle, yet the action is the same, isn't it?"
"But the feelings aren't! And I…if you're with somebody, that should be something unique, something you don't have with anyone else," Serena said.
"And it is," Ash said, "because everything I do with anyone is unique to them. Watching that meteor shower in Kalos is a different memory for me when I think about it depending on what I choose to focus on. When I focus on the meteors, I think about how beautiful they looked. When I focus on us as a group, I think about how happy I was getting to watch those beautiful meteors with my friends, and when I focus on you I think about how much I liked your smile and the way the stars reflected in your eyes. It's all the same memory, all the same event, yet that part of it is unique to you, and no one else, even though it wasn't just us there."
Serena blushed at Ash's offhand romantic remark, but she still felt troubled. Everything he said was just so far removed from everything she'd ever considered love to be that it was hard to take it all in.
"But…when you think about that…don't you wish you could've…done more than just being there with me?" Serena asked.
"Like what? Hug you? …Kiss you?" Ash asked, and Serena noticed he blushed when he asked it.
She nodded silently, very aware of the heat in her own cheeks.
"Well…yes," Ash said, and Serena's heart jumped. "Of course I do. But what would that have changed between us? If you'd been…my girlfriend…how would you have reacted to me talking about Misty or Dawn or anyone else the way I usually do? How would you have reacted to meeting them, when you already made it pretty clear how you felt about Misty in your Location Round?"
Serena looked away a bit uneasily and Ash sighed. "Exactly," he said. "Your kindness is one of the things I like so much about you, Serena. But if you were my girlfriend, would you stay kind, if I like seeing my old friends again, if they like seeing me again, if we are the way we've always been? Or would you be afraid that, for some reason, I'd choose them after all, over you, and start acting really jealous? Me liking them too doesn't change a thing about how I feel about you, but if you suddenly became a completely different person, that would change how I see you."
"Well, then what would you do if I suddenly liked someone else, too?" Serena asked.
Ash shook his head. "Nothing," he said, "because I'd be happy for you that you have another person to like, who also likes you."
"And if I'd prefer to travel with them, instead of you?"
"Serena, I always follow my own dreams. I would want nothing different for the people who matter to me, no matter if they're just friends or more than that. Being apart doesn't change a thing about how I feel. You just said that I'm the only person you ever liked, and we hadn't seen each other for like nine years or something, before you saw me on TV. You saw how I was with Misty and Dawn, too, and I haven't seen either of them for well over a year either. Distance doesn't matter, because our bond is stronger than that. Why do you think I always let my Pokémon go if they feel they need to? It's not that I want them to leave, but I do want them to follow their own dreams, and I know that if they and I keep doing that, our paths will cross again eventually."
"And…later? What about a house? Kids?" Serena asked.
Ash shrugged. "I don't have an answer to that right now," he said apologetically. "I haven't reached my goals yet, and I don't see myself giving up on my journey anytime soon. Right now, I'm not interested in thinking about any of that, but I just don't think the way I see things will ever change much. I don't think I'd suddenly stop caring about everyone I care about now."
Serena didn't say anything. She didn't really know what she wanted to say, what she wanted Ash to say. No, that wasn't entirely true. She did know what she wanted him to say, it just seemed like there wasn't much of chance he was going to say it. Still…
"So…does that mean…you'd never actually want to have a girlfriend?" she asked softly.
"I do, but…I don't think we look at that the same way," Ash said uncomfortably. "You want to be the number one, right? The one I'd always choose no matter what?" he asked.
Serena nodded silently.
"But I just can't promise it would always be that way. Love isn't a competition," Ash said.
"You supported me in the Exposition even though Dawn was in it too," Serena said.
"Yeah, but I'd helped you prepare for it, so obviously I was going to support you."
"So what if you hadn't? If Dawn and I had both been preparing entirely by ourselves?" Serena asked.
"Then I would've supported both of you equally, even if you had faced off against each other. Competitions don't say anything about someone's value as a person, or about who I like more. It's just about who performs better at that particular moment. That's also why love could never be competitive, because everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses and they're developing themselves differently. Yeah, Charizard can fly better than Pikachu, because he has wings and Pikachu doesn't. That's never going to change. At the same time, Pikachu can use Thunderbolt, which Charizard will never be able to do. It's no use for either of them to worry about that, so if I praise either of them for using their own skillset, it's not a put-down against the other for not having that particular skill, and neither of them would take it that way. And the same thing goes for people I like. I like them for very different reasons."
"But May and Dawn and I are all performers of some kind, aren't we?"
"Yeah, but that's just a part of who you are, not the main reason I like you."
"Then why do you like me?"
"Because you're you," Ash said. "You're kind, always there for everyone who needs you, always ready to help, and you're brave and want to do the right thing, too. And since you started doing Showcases, you have your own dream that you're following, too."
"But none of that is unique to me, is it?" Serena asked. "Aren't your other friends like that too?"
"I like Misty because she pushes me harder than anyone I've ever met, and she's always done that. I like May because she went from disliking Pokémon to having a crazy on-the-fly Contest style and being passionate about eating as much as I am, I like Dawn because she looks at things in the same way I do, as well as being incredibly competitive and focused on her goal when she really wants to be…none of those things are particularly unique, but they have their own ways of showing it that I really like. And yeah, I've had some pretty big arguments with all of them, too, but that never changed how I felt about them."
"Pikachu did mention that you and Misty really wanted each other's acknowledgement," Serena said slowly, "and I wondered if I should be more like that, too."
Ash shook his head. "Not in that way," he said. "But I was worried for a while that you admired me too much."
Serena hadn't expected that and said, "What do you mean?"
"After the battle with Wulfric, when you said you wanted 'the real Ash' back…well, it was sort of the right thing to say because it snapped me out of my overthinking, but…what did you think, then, the 'real Ash' was?" Ash asked.
Serena hesitated for a moment before answering. "Well…you're…brave, and kind, and you're incredible with Pokémon, and you always support us…" she said.
Ash nodded. "Yeah, but I'm also stubborn, dense, and a lot more selfish than you seem to think I am."
He looked outside again, where the rain was still pouring down. "I was afraid you didn't like me so much as the idea of me," he said. "That's why I've been telling you more about my early time as a Trainer, so you'd know I've made a lot of stupid mistakes on my journey. I want you to know the real real Ash, basically. It's weird. On one hand…I want you to admire me and think I'm really cool, but on the other hand I don't want you to, because you and I are equals. Neither of us is better than the other. So I figured…if you know all the stupid things I've done over the years and you still like me afterwards…you probably like the 'real' me."
"Was that why you were angry back then?" Serena asked.
Ash shook his head. "It was because you thought I was sad about the loss, when I was actually angry that I'd let Greninja get hurt the way I did. I wanted you to understand what was bothering me, but when you didn't…well, we both know what happened."
For a while, neither of them spoke. Then, Ash asked, "So…what now? Now that you know all of these things, what do you think?"
"I…I don't know," Serena said. "I still like you, obviously. I just…I don't really know what to do with all the things you've just told me. I don't really know how to feel about any of it. I'm happy that you like me, but it feels odd to think that you like so many other girls, too. It's just very different from how I've always pictured love to be."
She sighed and leaned into Ash's shoulder a bit more, which seemed to surprise him a bit. "I don't think I'll figure it out today. There's just too much for me to think about. But…I am glad you told me. And I'm glad I'm here with you."
She felt Ash shifting a bit to also lean into her, and immediately her heartbeat spiked. "I'm glad I told you," he said.
And then they fell quiet again, and sat there, leaned into each other, watching the rain as it continued to fall.
Okay, so this is obviously an important chapter, and it'll likely be a bit divisive given how people tend to get about their ships. Again, this fic will only be AmourShipping. Nothing else. Despite that, I'm not going to deny that Ash has feelings for the other girls as well. Now, IRL a lot of the arguments against poly have to do with sexual exclusivity, and I just don't want to get into that in any detail in this fic, nor do I want this to become too much of a soapbox. If anyone has questions about it I'll be happy to answer them in the comments, but the story is meant as entertainment first and foremost, so while this conversation will likely be referenced several times in future chapters as Serena mulls it over, it probably won't go deeper than it was here. Also, sorry to any (former) NegaiShippers for not really mentioning why Ash likes Iris. I haven't seen Unova and I just don't know enough about her to make anything up.