Hello, it is Wednesday, and I am back with a new chapter! PokeShipping Week over on Tumblr was in full swing last week and so like every year, all of November's updates will be focused on Ash and Misty. I cheated a little with this one because it does start out as Ash and Misty but it details some of the reasons why Misty falls for James in the tangled mess that is the situationship of James and Misty xD I really enjoyed writing both parts of this story. Funnily enough, I actually wrote the second half first because it was very clear in my mind and then I worked backwards to do the Ash and Misty scene! The hardest part of this story was naming it. For some reason it was left unnamed until now! Anyway, I hope you enjoy - even if it's a rebellious, angsty addition to the lovely week (or month for me) of Ash and Misty :P

Unbeknownst to me, Misty paced up and down outside of the bedroom of Ash, doing everything in her power to unfurl her closed fist. They fought with all their might to stay shut as if she knew that they would end up this way anyway, though this was entirely lost on her all the time.

All she could think about what waited for her in there. She guessed that everything was fine in there. That Ash was just winding down after his long day. But she knew that would not last for long.

Her sisters had drilled into her that chaos followed her wherever she went. If there was not a problem, she would invent one, Daisy had said. Was that really the truth? Was she doing that now?

Part of her fretted that they all might be onto something, and this caused her right hand to momentarily open, brushing her bangs wearily from her forehead as if they were pesky weeds.

Why was she even doing all this? Should she even be doing all this? She was going to barge right in there and ruin her boyfriend's peace. Did she even have a right to do that?

When she had traipsed up the stairs after leaving Delia watching her favorite soap opera in the living room, she told herself that she had every right to talk about things that were on her mind. She had not been the only person to think so.

But now she was not so sure. Part of her hated that she was making such a big deal out of all this. Maybe things would be okay. Maybe she would march right in there and she and Ash would hold each other, chat and things would be resolved.

Misty's balled fist moved away from her side and hung in front of her abdomen as if pressing her fist into there could cause the dull ache to go away. She did not know why sometimes she hated speaking up when other times words were like a freight train pouring out of her.

Deep down, she knew why. But rather than thinking about that, something surged her into action.

She just had to get on with it.

And so, Misty turned the handle of Ash's door where, unbeknownst to her like her struggles were lost on me, a million and one thoughts were racing through my best friend's mind. I could tell that he did not wish to talk about it. Could tell even more so that nothing I could say would make an impact.

I decided to just sit with him. Be there with him. My heart elevated when Misty suddenly opened the door.

Things would be better now they could be together.

As if he were flicking rain from falling on his brow, Ash shook his head like the thoughts he was having would scurry away with this motion.

He painted a smile across his face that stopped being so falsified the more the seconds passed.

"Mist." he greeted his girlfriend in this simple way that echoed a million other things without them having to be spoken. Uncurling his body from hunching down in his bed with me sat on the mattress next to him, Ash straightened his spine and held one arm open to Misty.

In hindsight, Misty tells me that after she managed an acknowledging smile to me as well, her heart skipped a beat at this gesture from her boyfriend and the siren sounds of worry in her head were replaced by a different mantra:

Things could be okay! Things were going to be okay!

Running with the adrenaline and hope in her heart as if she knew that it would soon run dry and she was making the most of it, Misty scrambled up the stairs of my best friend's loft bed and did not hesitate to join him.

Before she clambered into his arms, I was pushed out of the way and had to retreat to the foot of the bed. But I did not mind. A mantra of my own was echoing through the chambers of my mind:

Things were going to be okay. Things would be better now that they were together.

"Hey, you." Misty greeted Ash in return. Her voice was like that of a relieved sigh. She fell against her boyfriend's chest and felt that arm of his wrapping around her and in an instant, any prior worry that she had faded into the background.

Things were okay after all, weren't they? Maybe they did not need to have a big chat that felt as deep as laying her life on the line as she wore her heart on her sleeve. However, the more that she pressed against Ash and felt his hand hooking onto the belt loops of her shorts, the realizations that she had tried to push away crept back in. Like a shadow casting over an otherwise sunny day.

She knew that if she did not talk about it then she never would. And where would that get her?

James was right. She hated that he was right as much as he was a hypocrite.

Why be with someone that you cannot be honest with?

All the wind was knocked out of Misty's lungs as she fought to come to terms with this and it caused her body to go against her in some ways, drawing a loud breath inward before she could stop herself.

While my ear twitched, my head on one side from the end of the bed, Ash immediately caught onto Misty's sigh though she tried to disguise it by nuzzling into the patch where his neck met his shoulder.

For all the thoughts that had been spinning around in his own head and had not stopped when his fingers bedded into the back of Misty's shorts a couple of centimeters for warmth, Misty's demeanor was not lost on him.

"Everything okay there, Mist?" Ash wondered, gently pulling her away from him to look at her, both his hands resting on her hips instead.

As Misty fought to look into the eyes of the person who had her secretly smitten since she was ten years old, her mouth twitched into a smile like that of a doll with painted scarlet lips.

She really wished that she could nod and tell him everything was okay. The more that time passed, the more that worry crept in again and believed that her sisters were right.

She made a problem out of everything. She was about to turn everything upside down for no reason.

Misty wanted more than anything to meet her boyfriend's eyes and nod her head – or shake her head in reassurance, she could not decide which – and tell him that she wanted to hear more about his day.

It was not lost on her that he had not said much after returning home from being the new Frontier Brain of Pallet Town. That was strange for him to say the least. I had heard more about it before Ash decided he did not wish to talk about it anymore.

All I could do was observe from the foot of the bed, partially waiting for my queue to leave them alone. I saw Misty's eyes finally able to meet Ash's. But they did not linger in there for long.

That should have made alarm bells begin to ring, albeit silently. She was unable to look anybody in the eye for long these days.

"Fine." Misty murmured, her gaze leaving her boyfriend's so her head could dip and nuzzle back against his neck all over again. But it did not hide there for long. She surprised herself by getting the ball rolling. It was now or never. She could not be like her sisters and just wait for life to happen. "I was hoping that we could talk though."

Even saying this short sentence was like climbing a mountain for Misty. She was left feeling a little underwhelmed as well as quietly flattered when her boyfriend was quick to speak, sitting up further on the bed with her.

"I love talking to you." he complimented. Though earnestness existed in those eyes of his that had been passed down from his mother, I read the truth in them easier than I did within Misty.

Talking about anything would be better than revisiting the conversation with Scott over and over again, his words silently echoed.

Invisible to anybody else, inside of Misty, one fragment of her heart fell away. Words rang like alarm bells in her own head, telling her that Ash would not enjoy talking to her once she got going!

But taking a silent, unnoticeable breath inward this time, she reminded herself that she might not need to fear the worst. She was pressed up against Ash, wasn't she? And though these words were not easy to say, he had never really let her down, had he?

Okay, his mind had been drifting lately and the year spent in Pallet Town had not been quite the year of romance she imagined when Ash planned to stop journeying to be with her. But that was the thing that she always admired about Ash, and I felt the same. He always wanted to do better. He would always give more no matter how much he had given previously.

"Me too." Misty uttered girlishly, reaching to press a kiss to his tanned cheek before pulling away entirely, sitting half in between Ash and me as she pulled her legs underneath her. A fraction of her busy mind was already working, telling herself that she could keep things light at first. But her words ran away from her. "I wanted to talk how things have felt a bit messy lately."

Ash was already mirroring Misty's stance, tucking his legs underneath the rest of him as we all sat on the bed together. He, however, seemed to spring up a little more with gusto when the words that she was saying registered within him.

He acted as if the bed that he had left unmade that morning was bothering him too! The frown slowly lacing his thick eyebrows closer together contradicted this.

"Messy?" Ash echoed before more words came, two firm lines slicing above his nose. "Aw c'mon, has my mom put you up to this?" his snub nosed moved on his face. In an instant, I for one was given a flashback to his ten-year-old self. "I've been working so hard! I do not have time to not be messy."

It was not lost on Misty the way he was unable to bear having the same stance as her as he decided to sit back against the bed frame, his legs bent as his feet planted on the mattress. She looked over at me, not to bring me into the discussion or choose sides but simply for something to do.

As she did so it dawned on her that she had been sleeping in this bed when she stayed over in Pallet Town since she was ten years old. But it was a feeling that made her skin writhe rather than brought her comfort.

She had given up trying to tell Ash to change things around a bit, so it felt more like their space.

"Ash, this isn't about that at all." she began a little uncomfortably, her hands feeling empty in her own lap as she had once tried to placate herself by telling herself that they might be holding hands as they tackled difficult conversations. Together. "This is about my feelings." Misty took a brave, long breath. "And how I've been feeling so disconnected from you lately."

A moment passed where the only thing that made a sound was the Poliwag clock still on Ash's desk as it had been for the past seven or more years. As time moved on, I stopped seeing my best friend as that young boy and saw the man he was growing into.

Misty, however, could not shake that ghost that had appeared between them. Her hands latched onto each other for something to do.

"Disconnected?" Ash echoed. After getting this word out of his system – this word that he had to look inside of him to remember what exactly it meant in this context – his eyes blinked together, and a softer version of his gaze could be seen.

The last thing he wanted to do on that evening was figure out what Misty meant when she was trying to tell him how he felt. But he could do it. He would do it. For her.

In that moment, he did not know what she was getting at. But he would try.

His hand slipping in between her clasped ones caused Misty to stop believing in her right to talk, backtracking.

"Well, maybe disconnected is a strong word. " One of her hands left being near to her boyfriend's and reached up towards her bangs as if she would find courage there. She knew that she had to pull it from within her. But talking like this was so new to her. "I guess..." Misty fought to find the words. "I guess I just have felt more like friends lately."

Ash's mind took a second to consider Misty's point of view and this was shown on the outside by that frown lingering on his brow. But then he decided to go with his own instincts, reaching to hold Misty's hand because he hoped that she would like to hold that better than her own one.

As his neck sloped on the one side like mine had been doing when I first perched away from them both, he shook his head, his youthful face breaking into an innocent smile as he could not see his girlfriend's point of view as much as he tried.

"But we are friends." Ash told Misty. His gloveless fingers did not leave Misty's porcelain ones, and he squeezed them, enjoying the feeling of her against him again. His own worries of the day were leaving him. He could not yet worry about her own ones. "Best friends."

In my mind, Misty had fallen in love with the sweetest soul. Our Ash would take the shirt off his own back for anybody without a second thought and he had saved the world on more than one occasion by following his expansive heart.

Ash saw things simply. Very, very simply. It made life – and love – quite easy for the two of them. But Misty was the kind of person who liked to think. Liked to feel and dissect and analyze. Sometimes it was hard for them to see eye to eye.

This moment was one of them.

She hated that her eyes revolved in their sockets in this moment, but they did. She felt her hand growing limp inside of her boyfriend's one.

Misty felt like a hot-headed little toddler again as soon as she was misunderstood.

"I know that." Misty began and her impatience was not lost on Ash. His sweetness was beginning to sour on his face. I knew that I should get out of there but part of me wanted to wait until I was told to. Misty's head shook from side to side as she fought to explain herself. "Between your work and you hanging out with Gary and Cameron, we haven't done anything special in ages." Now she started, she could not stop. "I mean, wouldn't it be lovely to-"

Misty started and somehow could not stop. That was until Ash decided to interject her.

He swiped his hand back out of hers. He had heard enough. The word work made a switch flick in his brain and all he could remember was the day that he had. The meeting with Scott that he had been dragged into.

He had been told that it was amazing that he was Frontier Brain at such a young age, but couldn't he do... more? And in the same breath, trainers were coming to him and having a unique experience with him each day as he adapted the experience to the trainer and the moment. So, couldn't he be... less?

Ash did not know who he should be.

He always felt like he could be whoever with Misty. She was more home to him than Pallet Town was. Even more than the open road. Now he did not know who he should be.

Why was he never good enough?

"I'm tired of everyone wanting what I don't have to give, Misty." Ash began. Already Misty's pale cheeks were tingling. She was no longer Mist. Just Misty. Like she was to everyone else. Ash blinked hard and fought to say more words because he feared he had already said too much. "I don't know who you and my mom expect me to be."

As Ash defensively pulled his legs closer to his chest, words of comfort rung in my ears like tinnitus, but I knew that I could not say them. Should not say them. This was between the two of them.

My blood ran cold as I realized that things might not be as straight forward as I told myself that they could be.

The sensation in Misty's cheeks turned from a tingle to feeling like they had been slapped as she hated how badly this was going. She feared that it would. Knew that it would. Asking for more – or different – from the person you loved more than anybody in the world was a risk.

But then the sound of James echoed in her mind, telling her that she had every right to speak up. And that she should always speak up – should never silence her voice.

She hated how damned calm he was when he said this kind of thing, like he was speaking a mere fact. Loathed how this essence had bled into her because now part of could not stand that Ash did not see it that she was doing this out of love. Doing this for them.

He saw it as an attack of character. Not a desire to reconnect and put behind her the secret foolishness she had been engaged in unbeknownst to anyone for the past month.

"Your mom just wants you to be happy and a good, well-rounded man." Misty began, finding herself defending Delia like her life depended on it. She would not let her boyfriend push everybody away. "And I want you to be the Ash I adore." Misty was left fighting her own tears when Ash's eyes copied a previous gesture of hers, rolling in their sockets. "It just would be nice for you to put some thought into a gesture rather than getting Gary or Brock to set the whole thing up."

The tingling sensation moved from Misty's cheeks to my legs as I knew that I needed to go but I was stuck in one position. The truth is, I was in turmoil. They had argued before – their whole relationship had once basically been built on bickering!

But this was different. I could physically feel the wedge growing between them as they did not – could not – see eye to eye.

Was that why Misty could no longer meet anyone's eye?

Deep down I knew that it was not. But I placated myself with it being this.

As my cheeks felt numb, their redness passed to Ash as his cheeks became ablaze, his legs moving so quickly as they switched to tuck back underneath him. You could see that he wanted to use that frustrated energy to stand up on his bed. But even he had calculated that his head would bash into the ceiling!

"Oh, I'm sorry that I can't whisk you away to Kalos every weekend!" Ash scoffed sarcastically, his arms folding over his chest as they got used to the fact that they would not be used to hold Misty for the rest of the night.

In turn, Misty's cheeks singed with hurt as it took all her might to blink her eyes rapidly together as if they were a buzzing insect taking off while she tried to fight back her tears. She had never been that kind of person and Ash knew it.

It was like a slash to the skin that he was tarring her with the same brush as her sisters. She did not know why she chose to defend herself. Sometimes she abandoned herself without a second thought.

But this time she chose to stand in her corner until the bitter end.

"You know I don't expect that." Misty's hardened tone of voice was a desperate attempt to hold back from spitting in her boyfriend's face at how badly things had taken a turn. She was not exactly surprised. James' words had rung true: how can you be with someone you cannot talk to? "I just was hoping you could put effort into the things that I love like I have tried for you but if that's not good enough-"

Ash interjected Misty a second time.

The words not good enough crackled through his mind like electricity. It was as if Misty had seen into his thoughts and reached in and pulled the fear that was rattling around in his chest, her hand bloody as she held his pathetic heart in her hand.

He had once been so revered across the regions. The Chosen One. The kid who always smiled and showed up and always prevailed. Being a Frontier Brain was meant to continue that legacy even though he had hung up his backwards cap and his fingerless gloves.

Ash wanted a future with Misty. He loved having her at his home in Pallet Town, but no doubt did he want his own place with her eventually so that meant doing the work and saving for their next chapter. Being stuck in Pallet Town and doing the same job was not enough for him alone but it was enough when he thought about what he could build with the love of his young life.

That meeting with Scott had confirmed whispers on the grape vine that had been slowly chasing him for the past couple of months. He was not doing a good enough job. He simply was not good enough.

Now he was not good enough for the only person who saw good in him no matter what. Had seen the good in him and the potential even when he was a snarky little kid.

Ash did not wish to have his heart broken a second time on that day.

"Maybe you should just pick someone more romantic to be your boyfriend then!" he snapped before looking down at his lap, his arms still constricting around his heart.

If he had been wearing his cap, then no doubt would a shadow cast over his eyes. Ash sniffed. But the last thing he wanted was for Misty to think that he was crying. His hand rose to swipe a finger underneath his own.

This gesture told her that his sniff was adamance. He was sticking to his stance if she was so vehement on sticking with hers.

Misty allowed her eyes to puddle for good thanks to Ash looking down and not seeing what this was doing to her. What all this was doing to them.

She was not innocent. God, if she thought about it too much then she knew that she was the opposite of innocent.

But at least she was trying, she told herself. She had not meant to start a war. She just wanted to try again. Clearly Ash did not want to keep putting effort into something that he already had.

Like a Pokémon League trophy, she was merely a prize, she told herself.

Rather than using this to swing her legs over the ladder leading to Ash's bed, she clung to the idea of connecting with somebody who felt they had no more to add to the connection.

"But it's you that I want!" Misty argued. Her hands fought to find Ash's hands and then she held onto them. They did not move in turn. She could not give up hope. Not yet. "But Ash, I love you!" Misty's voice was insistent. Hurt. But mostly insistent.

In the end it wound up hurt.

A gasp escaped my throat as Ash snatched his hands back. Misty's words had not helped. In fact, things got a whole lot worse.

Ash did not yelp out in desperation. As our ears ached, it was because he quieted down, that shadow lingering over his eyes in a way that I had never seen before.

"You could have fooled me." Ash muttered. It was his turn to clench his hands into fists. No room existed to reach out to Misty. Not even to break the distance and hold onto my ear for comfort.

That was my queue to go as well. With ears drooping and my pace slow – helpless – I began to make my way down the ladder.

Misty was stunned in a different way. Unlike could often be the case, Ash's distance with her did not outwardly make her go crazy and begin to cling onto him even more. Like her fingertips had been stung by an angry insect, she snatched her own hands back as if Ash had slapped them rather than just wounded her with his words. With his honesty.

She had found it hard enough to be honest with him. Now she did not know how to process his own point of view.

Her trembling hands hung in front of her mouth like autumn leaves knowing that their time on the branch was coming to an end.

Her eyes pricked with tears again.

"I... I'm sorry you feel like that." Misty said. Part of her was hoping that, like she did – and how she wished she had sucked back all this conversation – Ash would go back on his words.

As he continuously looked down at his barren lap, that spine tinging shadow streaking over his eyes, he did not need to fight to say words.

They were crystal clear in his mind and he felt no qualms about saying them. He pulled his legs to his chest and intended to resume what he had been doing before Misty ruined his peace. Not that there had been peace. And there would not be after the two of us left.

In his bones, he wondered if there ever would be.

"Me too." Ash muttered. And that was that. Misty did not fight to get his attention and beg to talk again or even vow to leave him alone for an hour so they could pick this up after some time to reflect.

It would have been so late at that point.

Misty would have done this a year ago. That is how I knew – and that's how Misty knew too – he was losing her.

She was losing Ash. But yes, he was losing her.

That thought and that thought alone seeped into her brain and sent her cheeks into a frenzy. The thing that she decided would be the right thing to do was to stick her nose in the air, her cheeks burning as she pushed past me on the loft bed stairs and fought to get out the door before me.

The slam of the door ricocheted around the house. I felt as silent as Ash!

When I turned to look at my best friend, I knew that I had to stay. So, that is what I did.

Oh, how I wished that I had not. I knew that he needed me more than anything. Though I know that things have the power to prevail if annoyingly they are meant to, I still believe that I could have done something. Should have done something to stop Misty leaving the front door.

But I did not.

I knew then that I was losing her as much as Ash was.

And so, with cheeks aflame and an icy heart cracking in two, Misty took off out the house to the only place that she knew always had a door open for her. Usually when she visited the Pallet House restaurant, she was searching for a piece of someone else. Delia never turned her away and her soothing words and sweet treats left her feeling like she was part of something bigger than whatever was weighing her down. Part of something better.

This time, Misty was not seeking out the maternal comfort of Ash's mother. Not even was she heading towards a sweet treat. This time, the person that she knew she would find in there was sure to find the piece in her that was missing. It had been cradled in his hands since the first time that his enclosed around hers.

The restaurant owned by Delia Ketchum was hardly much of a walk from the family home. But with as many thoughts as Misty had buzzing around in her head like angry pests, the steps between the sandy gravel of the Ketchum residence and the porch of the diner might as well have been her leaving the region.

Hands clenching into fists at her sides again, she hated the clammy layer resting over her enclosed palms. Her legs, bare in her shorts, marched herself towards where she needed to be. As her feet shook in her sneakers, she knew that it was not the cold. And oh, how she hated this.

How could she have been so stupid, she berated herself.

Her thoughts may have been a swarm of fury – mostly towards herself – but this spiteful musing was as clear as the night sky that winked over Pallet Town.

How could she have been such an idiot?

Her hot-headed mind refused to give her reasons why. Instantly she believed her scolding. She never thought twice about saying something unkind towards herself. I suppose that was the biggest reason that she found herself seeking him out.

I would have hated it back then if I had known what was happening. Part of me loathes it a little now. But if I allow myself to dig a little deeper, I sort of understand.

The greatest remedy for a mind that attacks you is the presence of a person who oozes complete serenity in the face of your demons. And the greatest solace up against somebody who would choose not to listen to you is to seek out the person that always gave you the time of day.

Misty could scarcely listen to anything other than the spiky regret and the thoughts that swarmed because of what she had chosen to do. What she had chosen to say. But part of her knew – a silent knowing against a deafening heartbeat:

He would make things better.

The soles of Misty's sneakers brushed against the welcome mat of Pallet House. Forgetting how the evening had jumped from ten to eleven because the bit in between was a stomach knotting blur, she immediately tried at the door handle, trying to let herself in.

The doorknob groaned and the glass in the panes that still needed to be fixed screamed at her as Misty tried to let herself in the door. Her frozen heart skipped a beat. It was not lost on her that this was the second time that she tried to be let in to no avail.

How torturous it was to see things to clearly as they were happening.

Stubbornly, she tried the door again, this time the burning nature of her porcelain cheeks bleeding into her temper and causing her teeth to grit as she tried to shove it open.

James heard the attempt of the door this time! He adjusted his posture from being bent in half, vacuuming the skirting board next to where a particularly messy couple had missed their mouths for most of the evening, clearly hungry for the moment that they got into the car and could devour each other instead.

With a clicking noise, he shut the vacuum cleaner off. The back of his hand brushed against his forehead even though this was easy work compared to running after his children.

He called out without looking to see who was trying the door.

"We're shut!" he called, his best customer service voice still lacing the tone of the words that he chose to say. In his mind, however, the facade was wearing thin.

He could not wait to get in bed.

How funny to yearn for the covers and a lover who would surely turn her back on him as soon as he broke the distance with the mattress.

Somehow, hearing this from James shattered Misty more than anything else that evening. He might not have been able to hear the scuffing of her shoes as she jolted herself backwards, but he heard the silence and lack of words from her in the few seconds before she did find her voice.

He felt everything then without needing to be clued in to it. He understood all at once.

"Oh." Misty muttered, preparing to turn on her heel and make her way back to... No, she could not go back to the Ketchum household. That home might as well have been the Cerulean Gym to her then from the way that the flowers that Delia grew in her garden seemed to writhe like vines, constricting the house and anything in it.

Misty intended to turn and go. But go where?

For a rare occasion, James moved a lot faster than she did. In the blink of an eye, he was on the other side of the door. And he was smiling at her. A real, genuine smile like he was seeing something to cherish. Not shun.

"O-Oh but not shut to you." James began. It felt like an eternity until he had opened the door because no matter how long he worked there, he could not remember which of the locks he was meant to unbolt first. Luckily, Misty held back from rolling her eyes. The last thing she wanted was James to lose the look in his eyes. The door finally swung open. "I was hoping to see you tonight."

It had not even been a conscious decision to hold back the revolving of her eyes. The truth is, when James seemingly rejected her company, she had lost all ability to do anything. But unlike anything else on that day, confusion had been eased. He had redeemed himself. And now he was saying those words.

For once, Misty did not doubt it. But playing with her cold fingers on one side of the door and James' hand resting up against the other, she could not stop herself from murmuring:

"Really?" she wondered. A segment of her hated how she did this. For he was not like anybody else. There had not yet been a moment that she turned up to meet him from work and found him behaving coldly towards her.

If he was distant there always was a reason. Spying eyes. Someone who could offer a wink and a nudge to somebody else who would do the same to somebody else and so forth.

A gentle chuckle from James eased Misty away from any reverie that she might have found herself getting consumed in. His voice copied her own one and was quieter than usual. But the nod of the head that accompanied his words seemed to sing from the rooftops.

"Yeah..." he began. James was not given the time to explain why. Before he could get a closer look at Misty – and see the way that the pale moonlight made her skin even lighter and illuminated the hollow worry and the bruised nature of her eyes – she vaulted herself towards him.

In the second before she crashed into his arms, her eyes squeezed tightly shut, just in case her sockets had the nerve to spill anything out. Misty's face nuzzled against the white material of his work shirt for good measure, making sure that nothing leaked.

As James' arms raised to hold her tightly, it was clear to her that he was not wearing that leather jacket that she liked so much. Why would he be? He had been working. But it was as though it was an invisible sheath wrapping around him all the same.

Misty breathed in deeply to compose herself and ended up giving herself another reason to feel her knees knocking together.

He just never changed.

This side of him was a kind of predictability that she would have once labeled as boring.

"Are you okay, Misty?" James asked, the quiet concern of his voice as clear as the sky that memorized the scene below. Though his arms longed to keep holding her against him, he knew that he must gently push her away to hear a concise answer.

An honest one.

James might have carefully encouraged her arms from wrapping right the way around his back, but in the second that she stopped elevating herself onto tiptoes just an inch or so, his thumb found the dip of her cheekbone.

The pad of this finger brushed against her skin. The way that he looked at her – saw her – made her want to crumble. But she could not. Not yet anyway. Misty forced herself to nod. But the more time that she spent around him, she knew that any gesture would no longer be fortified.

A second passed after the bob of her head. When it was over, Misty invited herself back into his arms all over again. This time her own limbs did not quite so constrict around him like she was the fairy lights, and he was the Christmas tree, her desperate to fulfil a twinkly purpose.

She could feel James relax against her thanks to the way that she was holding him differently too. She could have melted against the feeling of him melting too and not ruined the moment with words.

Misty, however, knew that she had to answer him.

"Fine." she mumbled in a way that was not believable. After her cooling cheek brushed against the collar of his work shirt, she felt able to speak in a voice that was riddled with the truth. "Just needed... this."

She had not been quite sure what to say. But the feeling of his kiss pressing against the top of her head as he listened to her begin what she chose to say caused her to not conceal the truth at all.

The honesty slipping out of her might have surprised her. But she need not have worried. She did not need to fret that it would fall on deaf ears or worse, cause a disagreement.

This time as arms moved to wrap against somebody, affectionately suffocating them, it was James as he held onto Misty, holding onto his own wrist to secure her tightly against him. His lips might have stopped pressing a kiss to the top of her head, but they did not break the distance from her.

A smile against her scalp turned into words. Words that Misty believed.

"I am so glad that you came by." James spoke against her. Unbeknownst to him, a smile twitched from Misty against the collar of his shirt. He could just feel her eyes squeezing together again as she remained in his hold, and he prayed that he was not being too much. "I was hoping to see you tonight." James reiterated.

His wrists carefully squeezed against the small of her back as he held her. In return, Misty's own wrists that had been hanging loosely near his belt brushed against his waist. As much as she did not want this to be the case, she knew that it was time to pull away from him.

For once, it was not the worry of being seen by other people. On this night, it might as well have been the two of them in their own little world.

"Really?" Misty said this word again. James, who had been slowly recovering from worrying that he too was being too much thanks to her wrists briefly brushing against him, nodded in confirmation immediately when he heard her word. He stepped aside so she could come in the restaurant. "Why tonight?"

No coyness existed within Misty as she asked this. She watched him bolt the door behind them and protect them from whatever world was out there by pulling down the blinds. No coyness existed even when they were stood opposite each other all over again.

As Misty's neck gently sloped to the side, all that she exuded was genuine curiosity. How lovely it was to have a world of possibility set up a home in her mind after everything she had tried hard to be a part of came crashing down.

Despite her lack of shyness, a biting of her own lip mirrored James' appearance when the hand of his that had once traced along her skin was then pushing back the hair from his eyes. But it was perfect. In Misty's mind it was always perfect.

Annoyingly so.

"I just set something up for you." James explained vaguely but in Misty's mind, with charm all the same. His hand forgot about organizing his locks and worked together with his left hand, reaching to enclose both over Misty's. Her heart skipped a beat before she even followed him. "Come and see."

He could have enticed her towards a black pit of nothingness, and she would have followed him without a second thought! His hands engulfing hers in their large, slender entirety was enough to send her head spinning. But she knew that she wished to see what he was playing at.

Not even part of her worried that she would be disappointed. He never did that. James did not have much. But whatever he did have, he was always sure to give her and make her smile.

Nothing was quite like him and his stability.

With gentle hands and even softer footsteps, James lead Misty into the restaurant and passed the bar that he usually liked to stick behind when he was on a shift, pulling pints and brightening the elderly regular's days with his quick wit and listening ears.

Misty followed James with not too many questions in her mind. It did not take long for her to realize that he was encouraging her towards the table that she usually sat at when she came to visit him while he was working rather than finishing for the evening.

It was the same table that was like a second home to her when she came for one of Delia's milkshakes while Ash was still on the road. It was still the same table all right. The same wood and the same legs and the same red checked tablecloth that had absorbed her spillages and her tears at times.

But on this evening, it could not have looked more different. Misty's eyes glowed like the candles that had been lit, probably using the same lighter that he lit his cigarettes with during a break knowing him.

Her hands might have slipped away from his. But her full attention was on his face. Her irises shook from side to side.

"What is all this?" Misty asked. The shy chuckle that escaped from James as he briefly looked down at his shiny black shoes, giving her a rare sighting of a dent in his cheek while he smiled spoke of how obvious the set up was.

His hand roaming back through his hair again, Misty's head shook in disbelief and together they looked upon what James had attentively set up for her. It looked as though the red and white checked tablecloth that usually hung there had been ironed especially. Candles had been lit.

Like always, only one chair rested up against the table that compared to the others was much smaller. But in front of the seat was the biggest milkshake that you had ever seen! James had obviously been carefully watching Delia when she popped by during a lunch time shift to teach the girls how she made her Pallet Town special.

As if the sweetness of the gesture and the milkshake was not enough, a single cupcake perched on a plate too. James could have told Misty that he had indeed worked hard to replicate Delia's finesse as she produced the tastiest shake in all of Kanto. Could have told her that, like there often was, there was a ton of food left over, and he had decided to save her just one cupcake.

Instead, just before words tumbled out of him, he broke the distance with Misty all over again and clasped his hands with hers, this time his fingers intwining between hers. Their hands lingered between each other's chests. But their gazes fixed on each other.

The shrug that rippled off James' narrow shoulders spoke of a casualness that contrasted his obvious care.

"I wanted to be sure that you knew how special you are to me." James told her. The way that Misty looked slightly up at him with a gaze not leaving his and a disbelieved grin that swiped apart her lips speaking everything without saying anything. She felt James' own smile against her nose when he kissed her there. "Sit." he encouraged her gently in a murmur when he pulled away from her.

Never in a million years did she think that she would so gladly be taking orders from a Team Rocket member, let alone trusting him enough to follow his every suggestion! Like the hour between ten and eleven the past couple of years had been a bit of a blur.

But now, suddenly, and certainly when she looked at James, it was like someone had lit a flashlight in a very dark tunnel. Things made sense again. They made sense in a way that they had not before. And that was equally as baffling!

He was just meant to be the guy that Delia had graciously let live along with his family in her family home! He had once been an enemy! Now he was...

Misty was not ready to feel the truth of a sentence that could fill her mind. But yes. James was special to her too.

Her teeth sunk back against her bottom lip, not taking her eyes off him as he pulled the chair out for her, begrudgingly allowing his hands to leave hers after she had settled herself down. Misty inhaled appreciatively. The cupcake smelt even better up close. With a cheeky gesture, her hand swiped forward, and her finger stole a taste the cream on top of the milkshake before it all ended up in her mouth.

She swallowed gratefully, a gaping gap that had been left in her heart slowly beginning to close. Misty watched James moving to do some swiping of his own; in a quick gesture he stole a chair that had been turned upside down on top of the table and positioned it opposite Misty, preparing to sit on it backwards to watch her enjoy her treats before he knew he had to get back to cleaning.

Misty's stomach dropped. Before she had to face the flustering image of him listening to her attentively like that, she knew that she had to ask.

It was unusual that something other than a big slurp of a Pallet House milkshake won on the list of priorities!

"But why tonight?" Misty repeated a prior question when she realized that she had not received an answer. Her main priority might have been hearing James out but that did not stop her from taking the cherry off her shake and popping it into her mouth.

Her tongue rolled around the fruit with curiosity when James' hand was back in his hair and his nose scrunched up on his face in the moments before he answered. Misty had gotten to know the meaning of this expression well over the past month.

Her eyes glinted, curiously amused, as she swallowed her mouthful and tilted her head on one side, waiting for him to come clean. His grandfather's watch on his wrist sent shards of light around the restaurant as, at first, it was his hands that silently did the talking.

But then he told her the truth.

It was rare to see him so tongue tied. So resistant to being honest with her. But then the truth won.

"I... Well... It's been a month." James began at first and it made Misty's head twitch. Before her quick mind could suspect the end to that sentence, he completed it for himself. Well, almost. "Today is a month since the first time that we..."

A flipping motion of James' hands made it look like snow was tumbling down the walls of Pallet House.

Ah.

As for something to do and a reason to settle his hand gestures, James decided to seat himself on the edge of the table rather than the chair he had pulled out for himself, Misty had to fight to think of things other than what she was thinking. Their closeness.

The black and white of his bartending uniform was not really a far cry from the Team Rocket man he had once been but the man that he was becoming to her certainly was.

It had been a month since they... Yes.

James had not spelled out that it had been a month since they first kissed. Since she had first kissed him. Because it had not been just that. No, it had not gone any further. That had been enough to send their hearts into a frenzy and their heads spinning.

But it felt like a lifetime since then. A path had been altered and a road that had once before been no road opened to them both. To Misty, James had slowly been a man so different from the one that she once knew and then it happened all at once.

That man was in front of her there and then, sat close to her on the table so that he was next to her sweet treats, and she was eye level with his thighs. That man was playing with his grandfather, Noah's, watch for something to do. To have some solace against the silence as his own lip fell into his mouth this time.

That man had made the effort to commemorate something so spontaneous between them. Something not that long ago. But still was obviously enough to him to make sure that she knew that he was thinking about it.

This was the man that made her smile. Not just on that night but quite often. But there and then was a smile just for that moment. Misty's cheeks were aflame all over again, but it was the kind of sensation that joyfully lingered rather than longed to be banished for always.

The reflections of light trickling down the walls were in Misty's eyes at that point. She needed to rest her elbow on the table and cup her chin with her hand before her knees buckled for good.

"You remember that it happened a month ago...?" she questioned in disbelief. The creasing motion of her eyebrows could lead one to misunderstand that she thought it was inappropriate. That it was strange.

James might have been one and he might have been a someone, but he was not just anyone. Even he was able to see the girlish enchantment within Misty and oh, how brilliant it felt after silently wondering whether he had been too much for her.

He was often too much for most people. Too giving too quickly. Listened too attentively so that people wondered if he had ulterior motives. He certainly felt far too much for his own good.

But in that moment – and with Misty – he was sure that he felt just the right amount.

He could feel his heart rate skyrocketing in his heart when he read her feelings correctly and he used this to move away from the table all over again. Misty's head tilted to the side and then leaned backwards, following his every move until he was behind her.

The first thing that she felt was his hands on her shoulders. A simple enough touch with hardly any pressure at all. But it fixed her right down to earth which was fortunate because the close-mouthed smile that he gave her had the power to send her towards the heavens.

"Of course I remember." James said with the kind of vehemence that did not lose the quality of his natural gentleness. His fingers on her arms were feather light as they brushed downwards before his own arms wrapped around her, lips breaking the distance with the top of her head. Again, he smiled against her, this time shutting his eyes. "I need you to know how precious you are to me."

And with that, his lips pecked against her before his cheek rested against the red of her hair. As he held her, Misty could have laughed. But it would have been the kind of laugh that concealed something much deeper. Something much truer that she was not ready to set free.

And so, she knew the right thing to do was to keep quiet. But that did not mean that her gestures did not do the talking as she hugged onto the arms that were holding her and as a kiss was put forth again, this time it was her taking the reins – as it had been exactly one month prior – and her lips brushed against his knuckles.

Apart from that, no grand smooch took place. Surely that would come! But as they enjoyed each other's company, their intimacy did not need to be shared by lips merging with another pair of lips. It did not need to be shown with grand gestures either. But it was sweet to Misty that James tried anyway.

She thought to herself walking home with him that evening one very clear thing:

The right person will hear you loud and clear. The right person will do the things that are important to you.

But Misty is older now. The seasons have changed and many a calendar page flipped over. Looking back as she shares this story with me, she knows something else too. Something bigger:

The wrong person will hear you loud and clear as well. The wrong person will do the things that are important to you. You will think that the wrong person is the right person and sadly, that the right person is the wrong one.

The one in the wrong will do things right. The right one will make mistakes too.

So many years have passed since back then and I know Misty wishes that what she knows now, she knew back then. Back when she was seventeen the believed that James and only James held a piece that had been missing from her. She had never been aware of it until she had boldly decided to brush her lips against his for the first time.

Now she knows better. But does she know differently? I am not quite sure. I think that James will always be a part of her. No, I know that he will, and I know that he is. Like a limb that cannot be removed without causing great harm to the host.

But Ash is her forever and that makes me delighted. Without the two of them, I do not believe that these memories would be worth remembering, let alone sharing. Things began with the two of them. And will end with them as well.

We just have some interesting – and occasionally exasperating – moments in the middle that keep things exciting!

The End.

There you go! Thanks so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed :P I always remember a quote when James Bay was releasing his second album and he was talking about how amongst songs detailing togetherness, you need a moment of confusion to solidify the strong outcome. This chapter here shares that purpose! Or maybe it's just my excuse to write some James and Misty. They are a guilty pleasure of mine in the fictional world as I love writing the messy moments before a happily ever after. Not that I would justify any actions - especially belonging to James :D One of my biggest sagas is when Ash and Misty's fifth child is born and Ash succumbs to dark aura taking over him. I think here shows the early signs of his vulnerability to that - what with him not feeling good enough. I feel very sorry for him that he was already feeling that way without knowing what is happening behind his back... Sorry Ash :| Thanks again for reading and I will be back next Wednesday with another story! I am actually uploading a new one, starting with an Ash and Misty chapter and then it will become a part of the upload schedule every so often :) See you soon, wherever and whenever I see you!

Amy signing out :3