Pokemon (Detective Pikachu)

A Legendary Search

16. Hospital Room

Tim woke to soft beeping and murmured voices. Blinking heavily, he heard a sharp intake of breath from someone next to him.

A hand touched his shoulder; a familiar face loomed over him.

"Are you alright?" Emilia asked him.

It was hard to focus on her; his head felt fuzzy and it was hard to think. His pain, however, was gone. He felt warmer, too.

"Think so… what happened?" His words sounded a little slurred.

"You fainted on us…" was her soft reply. She still looked worried.

"Mm… sorry…" Now Tim remembered; her asking him to stay awake, and himself failing to do so.

She scoffed and shook her head gently. "Don't be. All of this wasn't your fault at all. You just had me scared… I thought we were going to lose you. I thought we had lost you. When Keith told us that he'd already gone after you…"

"I'm ok…" Tim reassured her. "I'm sorry I scared you…"

Emilia sighed, looking him in the eyes. For a moment, they captivated Tim with all of her emotion; gentle, concerned and caring, and deeper than the ocean. Then, the moment was broken.

"Hey, Tim! You're awake!"

Tim knew Pikachu's voice anywhere, though he had to turn his head before he was able to see him. Pikachu grinned at him.

"You know… I completely take back what I told you that last time we found Meowth. You absolutely know how to use your brain to fight like a detective. I'll hand it to you- that plan was brilliant, and on such short notice, too! You did good, Tim."

Tim smiled, a little amused, a little from genuine happiness that his partner had thought so. "Thanks, Pikachu."

"Anyway, I'll be right back. They told me to go and get them if you woke up while you were still here- they're just in the hall. One moment."

Emilia got up and left, leaving Tim confused. He called out, "Who?", but too late; she had already gone through the door.

However, Pikachu was able to give him the answer. "Inspector Holiday and Mr. Baker are out there. Amanda, too. They wanted to speak with you, if they could. But they didn't want to crowd the room."

"Oh…" Now that he had mentioned it, a lot of the murmured voices he could hear didn't seem to be inside the room, but rather were coming from the hallway. The only one he could hear right now, though, was Emilia, who came back into the room after only a few moments, bringing the other three with her.

"Oh, thank goodness you're awake." Amanda said. "After we got the news, and couldn't reach you, we were terrified that the worst had already happened."

"After what news?" Tim was confused.

"The moment we got word that Keith had broken out of prison, I tried to get ahold of you, and when I couldn't, I contacted Mike and Amanda." Inspector Holiday told Tim, gesturing towards Amanda and Mr. Baker. "Among those of us who arrested and interviewed Keith, and from what we were told by the prison guards, Keith wanted revenge. If he got out, he was coming after you. I wanted to warn you before he found you, but… it seems like I was too late." He sighed.

Tim shifted, pushing himself into more of a sitting position.

"Not exactly… I saw that my phone had messages on it, but… I was thinking about something else, and figured I would check them later…"

"I see…"

"Oh, don't worry about it. We caught him again, and with the hospital treatments enhanced with the healing power of Pokemon, Tim'll be out of here in a day, maybe two tops." Pikachu said confidently.

Tim glanced at him, slightly annoyed- he wouldn't be so cheerful if he'd been the one to get hurt.

Still, he was right on one thing; Keith would be locked back up and unable to go after anyone. But that left one question…

"How did Keith even get out, anyway? It seems strange to me."

"Yes… and that's not the only thing that was strange." Mr. Baker sighed. "You see, once Emilia told us what you'd said had happened to you, we sent a team to investigate the crash site. We were trying to map out exactly what Keith did from the moment he got out to the moment he was caught again. We determined the approximate time he rammed you off the cliff, managed to find some tracks that he'd left… it looks like he'd been past that area, nearly to the PCL when he turned around, as far as we can tell, and doubled back to the accident site. It looks like Keith had figured out you would be passing there and went to wait for the best time to push you off in the same place he attacked your father. But the biggest thing is, with how the time matches up from him getting out of jail to coming after you, he headed straight down that road the moment he had a car."

"He came right for where you were, Tim." Inspector Holiday sighed. "The timeline we put together shows that he wasted no time searching for you. He knew where to find you… he knew exactly where you were. Which makes us pretty certain he had outside help. Someone has been keeping tabs on you, Tim."

"Someone who probably wants you gone as badly as Keith does." Baker cut in. "That's the only thing we can come up with. It's possible we're wrong, but… Keith wasn't trying to hide his presence. He wasn't being subtle. With his actions, it was clear he was going to be caught again, and quickly… but Keith didn't seem to care. He was focused on getting to you, then going after GNN… if he'd been hired to do something else, the only other reason I can think someone would have wanted him out of prison, he would have been far more careful so that he could complete what he'd been hired for."

"So his only goal was me… and he didn't really care what happened after that." Tim muttered. "But he's locked up again…"

"Yeah, but his partner's not." Pikachu commented.

"Yes, he's back in jail… at least for now. We don't know who helped him out in the first place… if they're good, or well connected, they might still be able to get him out a second time, even if we increase the guard on him. Which we plan to do, anyway. But since we've got no idea who let him out, Tim, you have to stay on your guard. If their goal is getting rid of you, then the person who released Keith is still out there."

Tim heard a quiet intake of breath from Emilia.

"Even Mayor Helding is taking this seriously. He asked for a revision of all the staff and the protocols in place at the prison, to find any weak points and strengthen them. We're considering moving Kieth to another facility, as well, though we haven't decided yet." Inspector Holiday added. "And you, Tim, be careful. I don't want this," he gestured to Tim in the hospital bed, "to happen again."

"Neither do I. I will be." Tim promised.

Holiday left. Baker looked at him.

"Well, there's not much else I can say. Stay out of trouble, Tim. Don't go anywhere dangerous."

Tim and Pikachu glanced at each other. Baker waited a moment, then sighed. "Except, knowing you, even if you make that promise, you won't keep it, will you? Whenever there's trouble, you just can't seem to help yourself."

"How about… I'll do my best?" Tim offered, smiling.

"I guess I'll have to take it. But somehow, I don't think it will take you too long before you go off again. Telling you not to be reckless sure doesn't seem to work. You're really like your father that way, you know…" Sighing again, Baker left with Amanda following, the latter giving Tim a sidelong glance, then shaking her head with a small smile.

Once the two of them were the only humans in the room, Emilia spoke up.

"Tim…"

Tim wished hard that she had not been in the room to her the discussion. At least they hadn't thought to bring up the café incident possibly targeting him, too. Though it did worry Tim a little- exactly who managed to do this? Whoever it was, they had to have resources of some kind, to not only get Keith out but to be able to send him straight for Tim.

"I'm alright." He told her, then turned his head to look at her. Her expression made him take a deep breath; not only was she worried about him again, but she looked upset as well.

"You call this alright, Tim?" She gestured to him. "I don't. And if someone really is after you, it might get worse than this."

"I'll be ok." Tim told her. "Really. Now that I know someone might be out there, I'll be more careful."

"You say that, but Inspector Holiday and Mr. Baker are right. You just keep being so reckless… you go right into anything you think you need to solve a case, no matter how dangerous it is."

"But if someone is after me, then the safest thing for me is for someone to find them and stop them as soon as possible." Tim pointed out.

Emilia sighed. "Maybe. But do you really need to get involved in that? You looking for them is bringing you right to them, now isn't it? That doesn't seem like a good idea, Tim…"

It was Tim's turn to sigh. "You do have a point there. I'll tell you what- I'll try not to get involved. I won't go looking for evidence for it- I'll stick to the other things I'm investigating. But if my other investigations take me to them, then, well… I can't promise anything."

"I… guess I'll have to accept that. There's nothing I can do to change your mind?" Emilia didn't sound happy about what he'd said.

"Afraid not. If they were able to get someone like Keith out prison without raising any kind of alarm until they realized he was long gone, then they probably have enough resources that laying low wouldn't help me. Finding them will." Tim hated telling that to Emilia, but it was the truth.

She was quiet a moment, and Tim knew she was considering his words.

"Yeah…" Her voice was very soft. "But please, Tim, be careful. I… I don't want to see you hurt again. I was really, really happy to see you at GNN, but… at the same time, injured as badly as you were… you pushed yourself so hard."

"I knew he was coming to hurt you, and the others there." Tim told her. "I, uh, heard him before he left. I couldn't call you to warn you, since my phone was in the car, but… I wanted to make sure I could try to stop him somehow. I was sort of hoping that some of the Pokemon there might slow him down, but I saw hardly any… and there weren't any in the studio. Some of the Yanma were backstage, but… I was surprised to see how few Pokemon were around."

"Keith did work with us once… he knew our schedule." Emilia looked resigned. "He knew that everyone gathers together for the morning before all the filming starts, to go over everything we're doing for the day and make sure we've got it all scheduled properly and memorized. It helps keep things running smoothly. We do that before most of the guest Pokemon get there, and any Pokemon partners are kept in the dressing rooms. It makes it easier to go through things without them running around. The Yanma are often around, but they aren't good at battles or any of that sort, because they've all been trained not to be confrontational. If they got into disagreements with other Pokemon, after all, they might break the camera equipment they carry, so they fled when Keith came in attacking with Skorupi, like they were trained to. I'm surprised you got them to wrap the rope around Keith, actually."

"I see…" Tim muttered. The worst kind of enemy was the smartest, not the strongest, he supposed.

"Well… if you can't stay out of it altogether, then be careful, all right? And if you need anything, tell me. I'd feel better if I knew you weren't trying to do this alone."

"Hey, what am I, then? Filleted Magikarp?" Pikachu said irritably.

Emilia glanced at him, then back at Tim. "I know you have Pikachu with you, but still… tell me what's going on, if you can?"

"I…" Tim was startled by her plea, and a little reluctant- he wanted her involved in as little as possible. This, clearly, was dangerous. But he didn't want to tell her no, either. "Alright. If I can, I will."

"Thank you." She seemed happier with Tim's promise, but her eyes were still filled with worry. "And… please don't do anything rash while you're still healing, Tim."

"I don't think they'll let me out of here while I'm still injured, don't worry." Tim smiled at her.

She gave him a smile back, but it didn't quite reach her eyes.

"And… you were talking about a book that you had to leave near the crash site, right? I can get it for you, if you tell me where it is. That way, you won't have to go and get it…"

"Oh… you don't have to do that, I can-"

"No… I'd like to get it for you. Where is it?"

"I… well… if you're sure, then take Pikachu with you. He knows where it is, you'll be able to get it if he's with you."

"Yeah, Skarmory will give it to me, and we'll bring it back here to have a look at it." Pikachu said, nodding.

Emilia glanced at Pikachu. "Oh… I… I'm a little worried that someone might try to come after you in here… but, then again, Absol might help, huh?"

"Absol? The one that was helping me before?"

"Yeah… I think it's taken a liking to you, Tim. Ever since it was able to get off Keith and let the police take him away, he's been hovering around. Once you were brought here, he sat outside the doors of the hospital, a few feet away, and he's been staring at them. As far as I know, he's still there- he hasn't been moving."

"What? Really?"

"Yeah… I saw someone try talking to him, but he ignored them. He just keeps staring at the hospital doors."

"What? That's… really odd. I wonder why he's been helping me so much?"

"Well, I'm glad he is. If he hadn't rescued you, you wouldn't… wouldn't be here now…" her voice choked off; she cleared her throat. "He does seem like an odd one, though. He's really big."

"Is he? I know that Absol sense disasters with their horns and show up to warn people, but I don't know much else about them…" Tim mused.

"Yes. I was writing down all the research we did on them once in my handmade encyclopedia, so… I was looking it up. Absol are supposed to reach three feet, eleven inches on average, but… that Absol is definitely bigger than that. I'd have to measure it to know its exact height, but there's no doubt it's a lot taller than four feet."

"Huh… well, it does seem to be an odd one." Tim muttered, remembering what Pikachu had said about it sensing all disasters, not just natural ones. "But anyway, aside from that, I don't think you need to worry about anything happening in here. There's too many people around." He assured her.

That hadn't, of course, stopped them from attacking him at the Hi-Hat Café, if that incident was in fact related, but he wasn't going to tell her that. He was trying to get her to worry less, not more.

"I suppose you're right… So then, why don't I take Pikachu with me once visiting hours are over, since Pokemon are only allowed to stay past then if they're in Pokeballs, and we'll get the book and bring it here tomorrow?"

"That sounds… really great. Thank you so much." Tim told her, letting his sincerity ring in his voice.

"You're welcome."

Given the day off work, Emilia spent all of it with Tim in the hospital. After that, the two of them stayed away from any topics of great importance, discussing inconsequential things instead. Tim was glad for it. He didn't want to bury her under the same problems that felt as though they were burying him.

Once, Emilia left to use the bathroom attached to the room. Tim watched her go in, then sighed and lay back down to wait for her to return.

Pikachu started chuckling. "Oh, Tim, you have it bad."

"Oh, just shut up Pikachu." Tim turned his head pointedly away.

Pikachu just continued to laugh until she returned.

When the visiting hours were over, and Emilia was heading towards the door with Pikachu, when she paused.

"Oh, I almost forgot. The hospital staff got rid of the clothes you'd had on, since the crash ruined them, but… they emptied the pockets and left the things in them on the table over there…" She gestured towards a small tray on wheels that could be pulled over to hang over the bed. "I just… wanted to let you know that they were safe."

Tim glanced at the tray. "Oh… thank you very much."

"You're welcome. We'll come tomorrow with the book you left. Good night, Tim."

"Good night."

With just Tim in the room (making him wonder why he'd ended up in a private room in the first place), it seemed far too quiet and much too empty. Tim lay in the hospital bed, thinking about getting up and going somewhere else, but decided against it; for one, he knew he would get in trouble with the hospital staff if caught as they didn't want him to be released just yet, and for two, while healing at an incredible rate thanks to some help from the hospitals' employed Pokemon, he was still injured, and walking would be difficult.

At various points during his conversations with Emilia, doctors and nurses had come in to check on him and give various treatments. They had informed him that he wouldn't be leaving until tomorrow night at the earliest, but more likely the morning after, given the rate he was healing at. They had informed him that several ribs had broken, which he wasn't surprised about, but he'd been lucky enough to avoid a concussion. And when it came to his leg, he'd been told he was also fairly lucky- the cut was deep, but had damaged only muscle and blood vessels, and not vital ones. Those, they had told him, would heal quite quickly with the help of Pokemon abilities. It would take far longer if bone or nerves had been damaged, and he would have been far worse off if any major arteries had been cut.

That, of course, did not help Tim right now. Not when he still was stuck in the hospital with a leg he would damage further if he currently tried to use for more than a trip to the restroom. Not when he was stuck in a silent, rather lonely room.

Tim would have thought that after everything, sleep wouldn't have been hard. He'd expected to be exhausted enough to just close his eyes. But once his company was gone, Tim felt restless.

After lying there, shifting from time to time, he sat up. With nothing else to do, he reached over to the tray to look at the things that were on it.

There weren't too many. He didn't keep a lot of things in his pockets. His keys and wallet were there, of course, and his father's locket- he'd taken to carrying that around. For one, he figured it would come in handy to have a camera where no one would expect it, and for two, Tim wanted to keep this piece of his father with him. His notebook was there, too.

There was one other thing, as well. Tim stared at the small plastic card for a moment before he remembered finding it near Skarmory's nest and jamming it into a pocket. Thinking more clearly now than he had at that time, he wondered why, exactly, he had grabbed it. But since he had nothing else to do, he picked it up to examine.

Upon seeing what it was, his heart almost seemed to stop.

"How lucky can that damn boy possibly be?" The speaker growled into their phone. Once again, they were in their office, behind their desk, the door locked.

At the words from the other side of the phone, the person sighed.

"Don't worry about answering that. Look, it's only a couple of days before the big event. We don't have time to work out something else; just keep tabs on him and we'll see if this keeps him out of the way long enough. It may yet work. And I have already determined how we can manage phase two. We don't need to worry about that any longer."

The person on the other side of the phone spoke again.

"Maybe. I don't know yet. If this goes correctly, I don't think the boy will be much of a threat anymore. But I need to see how this goes. You know how much delicacy this is taking. All of these incidents took very careful maneuvering to get my pawns to think they were the ones who came up with the plans, so that I couldn't be linked to it in any way. No one can know I was doing this. The people they arrested for the R case, they had to think they were the masterminds- the police had to think it, and the people arrested had to think it. The supposed masterminds themselves had to think it. Do you have any idea how difficult that is? And we're running out of time. This has to go right, because we don't have time to manipulate anyone else that way. So we need to watch this carefully. If the boy is still a threat later, then we'll come up with another way to get rid of him. That is all."

A/N: Well, if he wasn't sure that someone was after him before, he's certain now. And Emelia found out, too... just the person he didn't want to worry.

But he found something strange on Skarmory's ledge. What could that be? And what's going to happen now? Guy can't catch a break.