Hello! I am excited to be uploading a brand new story. The idea of Pokémon: Love Stories came around very spontaneously which is pretty rare for me! One day I randomly decided to write a chapter of a story that was not narrated by Pikachu like is the case in the format for Pikachu Tales and I didn't know if that one would just stay for me. By the time the PokéShipping Week themes over on Tumblr were announced and I chose this one, I knew that I wanted to upload that mystery chapter under what was then named Pokémon: Love Stories. And so, I decided that this Ash and Misty chapter would introduce that brand new story since the original chapter was a tale of two OCs! I hope you enjoy. PokéShipping Week is over and done with for the year now but if you follow my other fics, you know I make it PokéShipping Month, and all November uploads focus on Ash and Misty. The theme for this one is "Grey Hair". I hope you enjoy :)
Back straight. Remember to smile. No, not like that. Fakeness can be smelt from a mile off. Relax, Misty, relax.
Misty had been in this situation a million times before and gladly so. But still, from the second that she pressed record and got in front of the camera, the fluttering of her heartbeat was sure to follow the invisible echo of the word action.
Misty had been in this situation a million times before. But she needed each time to be better than the previous attempt.
"Hello everyone, Misty here!" Sat on the foot stool in her and her husband's bedroom, Misty beamed to the invisible audience that was thousands of future viewers. "I am back with a new video and today I will be-"
But what would she be?
No, this time it was not the shadow of self-doubt creeping in and stopping her from saying her words, instead filling her mind with all kinds of insults.
Why are you saying that, Misty? Maybe this is the video that nobody will watch. Maybe this time they will see right through you.
These words did not haunt her on this day or even try and poke her cheek with a gnarled claw, vowing to bring her down another day.
Misty let a sigh escape from her scarlet swiped lips, her head turning away from the camera, peering towards the shut door of her bedroom. The sound of laughter had pulled her away from getting in the zone. Not the worst distraction in the world. But still, she had reminded her family that she had a deadline!
Turning back to the camera and the red recording button, she tried again. The movement and giggling noises in the house might be distracting to her but she had been told before in the comments of her videos that people liked that about her content. It made it seem more real.
In a world of broken families, it was nice to be reminded that a harmonious one existed.
"Hello everyone, Misty here!" Misty repeated her way of introducing herself and her videos that had stuck since the very beginning. Back when it was her, Ash, Gary and occasionally James if they managed to rope him into the chaos. Back when it was a juvenile hobby. "I have another video for you! Today-"
Dammit!
Misty was interrupted even sooner that time around!
"If you guys think that you're going to get me then I'm going to prove you wrong by feeding you to the Pokémon in Professor Oak's lab!" Ash called out to the occupants other than Misty in the house.
Just like the children, he had forgotten about his wife's deadline as he stomped along the hall, past their bedroom.
Taking a moment to give a quick, deadpan look into the camera as if she would end up using this footage, Misty then turned to look at the door. She considered getting out of her seat and calling, reminding her family that she was working.
But her mind did not hesitate to tell her that she had only herself to blame.
She did not know why but no matter how long she helped provide for her family by publishing content online, she always found herself recording at the very last minute. She had this video idea swirling around in her mind for weeks!
But did that mean she produced it any sooner? No, she did not!
Her two six-year-old children were not to blame. Besides, it had not been their laughter that had distracted her the first-time round! Part of her shuddered as she was locked inside her bedroom, away from the fun that Ben and Katie were having with Ash and Gary, not to mention Gary's own twins who were the same age.
She wished that she could be in two places at once, satisfying her future viewers as well as pleasing her family and herself by being there. But Misty had made a commitment. The last thing that she was going to do was go back on something that she had set for herself.
She would not let herself rest until it was completed.
"Hello everyone, Misty here!" she was starting to get a little bored of these words coming out of her own mouth! "I hope you're all okay. Today-"
A sudden thud in the hallway broke Misty's train of thought as well as her flowing words.
"You guys can try and trick me all you want but you little brats are going to be disappointed!" Ash called once more, this time further away in the house but Misty could hear them clear as day which meant her viewers would as well.
So much for the harmonious family that they had!
The sound of low stomping continued to prevail. Misty was sure that it was her husband yet again, so she decided to get up off her stool and opened the bedroom door. Swinging her head around the doorframe, she addressed someone other than the camera.
"I'd quite like to get this video done sometime today!" Misty bellowed. Not meanly. She did so comically since it sounded like everyone else was having loads of fun. But two brown eyes blinked up at her. "Oh." It was Ben, not Ash! Why did her husband have to pass every single trait of his onto their son including his surprisingly loud footsteps. "Sorry, honey. Do you think you could get everyone to quieten down just a little? Mommy's working."
Ben's blinking brown eyes that connected him to both Ash and his grandmother, slowed down their movements when Misty's hand broke the distance with the top of his head, running through his unruly locks.
He would have taken the moon down from the sky for her if she had asked.
Ben was about to nod his head earnestly, his body preparing to come alive with electricity at the opportunity to please his mother when stomping noises sounded up the stairs. The six-year-old boy squeaked and continued on his way!
He did not need a crystal ball to guess what was coming.
"Act natural, Ben! Or you're going to get the same treatment as your father!" Gary pounced on the little boy, chasing him along the remainder of the hall.
Misty decided to just sigh and shut her door, not that Gary even noticed! Why, oh why did she think that it was a clever idea to try and film when Uncle Gary was about, riling up her children as well as his own?
But she had only herself to blame. If she had filmed, the video sooner then she could have been playing with them all.
Perching herself back on the footstool and in front of the backdrop that was her designated corner for filming, Misty leaned forward, checking her make up in the view finder before trying again.
"Hello everyone, Misty here!" she began. This time she did not get any further than that and not because of the distractions of everybody else. They had gone back downstairs. As Misty's own words had trailed off, this was the occasion that her thoughts got the better of her.
No, the self-doubt had not crept in. Uncrossing her legs, curiosity oozed into her mind like syrup leaking from the can and she could not help but wonder what it was that Gary, and the gang of children had in store for her husband!
Ash seemed adamant that he would not fall for any tricks. But this was her husband! He was easier to prank than just about anyone.
As Misty positioned herself back into her previous stance, forcing herself to get camera ready all over again, she could not help but be attuned to the cackling noises coming from the children downstairs. It was better than it was before, and her background noise dampening technology of her camera was sure to not pick it up.
But for some reason it stopped her from being able to continue for the next couple of minutes, her manicured hands finding her bangs for something to do.
She needed to get better at applying herself, she told herself. Her fuel for creating needed to come from carving out a designated time that worked out for them all rather than rushing around when it did not suit any of them.
Removing the pads of her fingers from her bangs, her hand thoughtfully went down towards her bump of a belly that was sure to burst any day now. She had told herself that her pregnancy with this new little boy was the perfect time to get her affairs in order. But the ability to get things in order never came.
She needed to be better when he came along, she had drilled into herself firmly. If she found herself running out of time then, then goodness knows what it was going to be like trying to film videos in between taking care of a newborn!
She should have done better, Misty scolded herself. Jayme was just as pregnant as she was and though she was sitting out the antics and having a cup of coffee in the living room, she was still there. Still present with her family.
But Misty had done it again, hadn't she? Had let herself fall for the fuel of anxiety to keep her churning out videos rather than carving a realistic routine for herself.
This time as something was in Misty's bangs, it was the air as she firmly shook her head. No. No more. She had filming to do.
It was not going to get done by wallowing.
"Misty here, hello everyone!" Her thoughts had almost got the better of her. But this time it was not them that had caused her to get her words round the wrong way. It was back to the other distraction to pipe up.
Already, Misty was breaking the distance with the footstool.
"We want some food, Ash!" Came the chantingly harmonious voices of Eddie and Melissa. Misty plopped back down into her seat, this time the shaking motion of her head being down to fondness rather than self-deprecation.
No doubt did her husband want food too! Before the ages of having children, she would have scolded some little brat for acting in such a way. But motherhood had not merely molded Misty so much as given her a whole lease of life.
The signs had been there from the way that she had devoted herself to her little Azurill and before that, dear, sweet Togepi. But motherhood had encapsulated her in a way that she had not been prepared for. Sometimes it made her feel on edge and closer to her emotions in a way that made her want to explode like a silent bomb.
And other times it made every noise around her seem like the lilting melodies of her favorite songs.
"I could go for some cookies too actually." Ash's voice did not surprise Misty as she turned back towards her recording equipment. It was the silence that followed his words that encouraged her to turn back away once again, hearing the silence as if it were a thousand screaming voices.
Misty's mind did not even chatter away to herself, saying the words that's weird.
The feeling that washed over her was in fact more like a creature predicting an upcoming electrical storm rather than words in her head leading her to believe that something was going to happen. Regardless of how it was predicted, Misty knew that something was going to happen.
It was the silence that told her everything, you see. When silence happens in a house full of noisy children, you know that something is going to go down. And it did!
From downstairs, Ash was soon left yelping after he opened the kitchen cupboard. He had been proven wrong! He was easily tricked after all! It had all been a trick! Eddie and Melissa had not been hungry even if his stomach was beginning to feel empty!
Ash's shoulders shook while Eddie, Melissa, Ben, and Gary cackled in unison, pointing at their trick that had been well played, stomping all around him in glee. Jayme poked her head around the kitchen door, her hand on her stomach as even the Oak unborn child found it amusing.
Pikachu hid under her legs, looking up at her for just a second before biting his cheeks at the sight of the merry lot ahead of seeing the way that his best friend's shoulders were sizzling! The vibrating motion coursing through his body caused the flour that had been dumped on his head to spray everywhere!
From behind a white powdered face, Ash's cheeks turned as red as his faithful Pokémon's, doing an excellent job at acting like he had been demoralized.
"Son of a-" Ash began. But then his saw little Katie's face hiding from behind the kitchen table. She had been unsure if the flour bomb should have been left for her father since she understood how she would have felt if she had been the victim. "Don't worry, Katie! I'm okay! You guys got me good!"
And with that, Ash brushed the powder out of his eyes as much as he could and broke the distance with his daughter, holding his hand out to her. His cheeks were left feeling flushed for real when she did not hesitate to shake her head, grimacing at the idea of clinging onto a powdery hand!
But receiving reassurance from her father, Katie cheered up in an instant and although she did not celebrate as much as the others, she became Gary's silhouette, marching right behind him as he pretended to blow an imaginary fanfare.
Ash was left walking out of the kitchen robotically, trying to keep the pile of flour on top of his head until he got to the bathroom. Misty would not have been happy to do extra cleaning following her content creating!
"I guess I'll just go and clean myself up." Ash muttered. But he was not snubbed. Not really. He broke the distance with the top of the stairs right as Misty decided to open her bedroom door, giving up on filming for the time being to see what the silence had birthed. Ash forced a grin like he was the one in front of the camera. "Don't ask."
Misty's eyebrows rose behind her bangs. Her hand went to her mouth though she could not conceal it without smearing red lipstick at the back of her own palm. Oh, how she wanted to reach for her phone and snap the image of her husband because no doubt would James have been sad to miss this! But dammit, she had left her phone on her desk!
An ache formed in her stomach as she suppressed laughter at the way that Ash moved like a character from a sci fi franchise that her son was too young to enjoy like Jessie and James' children. She poked her head further out of the doorway, for the first time since switching her camera on shaking her head with fondness.
"I wasn't going to. It's obvious that you can't cope one minute without me." Misty spoke to her husband in a voice in the same deadpan as when she shot an intentional look into the camera. But after she heard her husband grumble, trying to walk sideways into the bathroom without causing a flour spillage, she added: "I would come and help you, but I really need to film this."
As carefully as Ash could, he raised a hand to give his wife a thumbs up before disappearing into the bathroom. Misty's shoulders would have drooped guiltily if it were not for the smile from Ash that had accompanied his gesture.
He had never let her down.
Even when they were silly teenagers and did not know what to do with this love of theirs, he always wanted to see her do well. Would always want to see her do well. Even if that meant seeing less of her. Even if that meant having to rope in Gary as the second playmate for his children rather than his wife.
After everything that they had been through in their young lives, he was glad that their house was a home for their dreams as well as their love.
And so, with the sounds of the rest of the house switching up as Jayme fixed everybody with a snack while Gary vacuumed the mess that had been left by the prank. As Ash showered, Misty sat back down on her chair and continued her attempt at making a new video for her online channel.
But this time, Misty did not filter out her family life from trickling into the content of her video even if they did not make an in front of the camera appearance like she did. As she set her eyes on the red recording light and smiled for her audience, not a single part of it was falsified.
She should have known: her family was her power.
She needed to tap into that a lot sooner.
"Hello everyone, Misty here!" Misty echoed all over again before moving on while everything seemed to flow better though not much had changed. "They say that you shouldn't work with Pokémon or children, and I would like to add that you shouldn't work with Pokémon or children or husbands around! There's been a lot of distractions here today but that's not going to stop me from getting this new video to you."
The rest of the recording went down without a hitch. Misty could hear her loved ones cracking on without her, but this fueled her to making the best video that she could rather than encouraging her attention away from what she needed to do.
Misty filmed her video of baby nursery essentials – an appropriate video given the adventure that her and Ash were about to be embarking on again – in about forty-five minutes which was great for her. No doubt would it get trimmed down to no more than fifteen minutes, but she felt like she had all the content that she needed.
Getting up from the stool for the last time that day, Misty turned the red recording button off and straight away another button went off in her mind, sharing a message with her:
She wanted nothing more than to get back to Ash. She knew that he was the one who could do fine without her.
And so, Misty made her way from their bedroom to the bathroom, leaving the cookie and apple slices on the plate outside of the door that Jayme had kindly left for her which was a bit of a risk. With Ben about, he was sure to swipe his mother's snack even though he was full of his own!
Misty decided to leave it to chance and break the distance with her own fate. The smell of shower steam and soap hit her, pouring out from the gap underneath the door before she even opened it.
"Knock, knock." Misty called. Ash had left the door unlocked so Misty pushed the door handle down and let herself into the room. "I got my filming done at last and wanted to see if you needed any help."
A second glance at Ash told Misty that, for a rare occasion, he did not need any of her help. Rather than experiencing her shoulders sinking down, her heart elevated with the private assumption that he had tried extra hard not to call upon her when he knew that she had needed to knuckle down.
Ash had always facilitated her dreams. And that made her want to keep imagining up new ones with him forever.
Perching on the edge of the bath and the hairdryer left discarded on top of the closed toilet seat from previously being used, Ash smiled from the second that Misty came to join him. Thanks to adding no product into his hair before blow drying it, Ash's locks were a thick mop on top of his head! But Misty loved that and found her fingers roaming through their soft unruliness from the second that she crept nearer to him.
She had decided a long time ago that she did not trust guys like Gary or James who had more hair products than their wives.
"I'm doing okay in here, Mist." Ash began, his smile being just for Misty as his eyes locked onto her, taking the opportunity to affectionately hold onto her wrists while her hands roamed through his hair before his brow furrowed. "Although there's one bit of flour that I can't get out. D'ya see it? I didn't know that it could stain."
Accompanying the lines that penciled down his youthful brow, Ash's lips puckered together for just a moment. It was unclear whether it was due to the words that he was saying or that he needed to break his hands away from Misty's to reach for the handheld mirror that had been abandoned next to the hairdryer.
Tilting her head with amusement as she was already sure that it was just a case that her husband had missed a spot, Misty took the mirror out of her husband's hold to grip it in between her fingers instead.
Though she did not yet know where this mystery patch was because Ash had not yet pointed it out, Misty pressed a kiss against his hair anyway. Ash softened against her affection. His hands relaxed in his towel covered lap with nothing else to hold.
"Flour doesn't stain." Misty began, flipping the mirror so it was showing its magnifying setting, holding it a few inches away from her husband's mop of hair and the direction that he was then pointing to. To steady herself, one of her hands rested on his damp shoulder. But her knees twitched at the contact and after inspecting his hairs. "Ash..." Misty breathed out. "That's a gray hair."
Ash recoiled like he had been told that he had bird Pokémon nesting in his locks! Immediately his snub nose wrinkled, and he tried to swipe the mirror back from Misty to prove her wrong, but she moved too quickly.
Her spare hand that was not holding the mirror was no longer resting on his shoulder and was instead curling around his lone strand to get a closer look.
"It's not a gray hair! It can't be!" Ash's cheeks streaked with a similar warmth as his wife's hair as he knew that he needed to keep still. But then again, if he moved just enough with Misty holding onto the hair then this surely not gray hair might have been plucked out! "I'm barely twenty-six!"
Ash's eyes pricked with moisture, and he did not know why. He blamed it on the steam of his shower getting the better of him and drying out his eyes. Misty's own cheeks warming up and not due to the temperature of the room, she wanted to giggle from the pits of her belly and insist to her husband that she was right.
But it was not the time for it to even become a possibility that she was enjoying being right and her husband being wrong even though she knew that was how things were. Silently, Misty put the mirror down to inspect with her own eyes, carefully threading her fingers through the rest of Ash's raven black locks while her smallest finger on her right hand hooked around the newcomer.
Misty breathed out gently after holding her breath. Her own eyes threatened to prick with something. Unlike her, she knew exactly what it was. But she did not know how she was going to say it.
She decided to bite the bullet and say words that were somehow a lot easier than the other ones spinning around her head and her heart.
"Your body doesn't care about that." Misty spoke. His nose wrinkling on his face as he hesitantly looked up at his wife, Ash just wanted her to get on with it and thankfully she did. Part of her was still ten years old and did not bother sparing feelings! "It's not flour. It's a gray hair, Ash."
And with that, Misty's lips pressed together. As her fingertips tenderly brushed against all her husband's hairs including his new, gray one, Misty hoped that her actions could do the talking that she would never let her mouth do.
But as Ash looked up at his wife, all he could notice was her lack of words after the ones that she had said as well as her mouth looking like it had been sewn shut. He looked down at his empty lap, feeling the need to rapidly blink through the hotness settling in his cheeks.
However, he then decided to occupy his listless hands and suddenly pulled his wife closer to him. Misty yelped out a noise from her throat rather than her tight mouth, taken aback by her husband's actions.
"You're not mad about it, are you?" That frown was back again and plaiting his thick eyebrows closer together. As he was aware of this gesture on his own part, he hoped there were no whiskery strands there too! But that concern was secondary. He could not tell why his wife was being silent so made up assumptions in his head. "I mean... I know we just got married. But if it is a gray hair, you know it isn't because of that, right?"
Misty could have gotten used to her rounded frame pressed against her husband's bare, slightly damp torso! But then she heard what he was saying. Her hand breaking the distance with his chest to lightly shove him, the knot in Ash's brow was mirrored by Misty.
Her own cheeks flushed, offended!
"I wasn't thinking that at all, thank you very much." Misty muttered, standing next to her husband and her hand lingering on his chest even after her shoving motion became a thing of the past. Ash's eyes closed and became rainbow shaped apologetically though his cheeks remained permanently tinged with red.
He felt relief softening his shoulders as Misty had lingered next to him. But he could see her cheeks and even her collarbones blotching the more that time passed and as her eyes darted, rather than looking at him, they kept homing in on the patch of hair that might have been a host to a gray one.
Ash could not tell what she was thinking just by looking at her. He rarely could. He much preferred just being told. But now his head was filling with all kinds of chatter and that rendered any hope of figuring things out on his own impossible.
Ash's arms tentatively wrapped back around Misty's waist, feeling the bump of their next child brushing against his forearms. Her eyes dropped from his patch of hair and towards his own gaze instead. He decided to just bite the bullet.
He would rather be hurt by knowing what was going on with her than placated with nonsense.
"Then... What are you thinking if it is a gray hair?" A drawn-out breath came tumbling out of Ash after his words. Misty's stomach was already twitching with amusement that her husband was not ready to deal with things head on! Neither was she in other ways. "Do you not like it?"
This could have been the moment to lie. Or rather, this could have been the moment to not let the truth ooze out of her like a wound that's sole purpose was to pour out its entire contents. She could have shrugged her shoulders, teasing her husband about it. But even if she figured that in that moment, he would be less sore at receiving a teasing, Misty knew that was not what she wanted.
Mirroring her husband's gestures but subconsciously so, a lingering breath breezed out of her slowly parting lips. This breath made space for the truth.
It ran away from her before she could stop it. But she did not wish to try anyway.
"Ash... I love it." Misty spoke. For a rare occasion, her facial expressions were stilted even if her gestures were not, one palm pressed against the warm skin of her husband and the other hand using its pinky finger to find that gray hair all over.
It was gray, whether Ash admitted it or not!
But in that moment, he did not care to deny. Ash heard these words omitting from his wife and immediately, they caused his lips to spread apart and he grinned, the blush in his cheeks no longer satisfied there and streaking across his snub nose.
Ash blinked rapidly in surprise.
"You... You do?" Ash questioned. Misty nodded. So, all Ash could do was shake his head from side to side, trying to learn more of this side of his wife. "Why?"
The word why was like floodgates opening in Misty's mind. She had tried so hard to keep it to herself. From the second that she had seen that adorable gray hair; she had been sure that her feelings were too much and too weird for Ash to feel good about them when he already had this new part of himself to get used to.
But Ash would not have asked if he did not wish to know. The truth would leak from Misty eventually. As her own head shook from side to side, for a couple of moments, she was rendered silent as she did not know how to put into words all that she was feeling.
She, however, knew how to put them into actions so she did this, breaking the distance with her husband furthermore and putting her legs on either side of his toweled ones, lowering herself on his lap. Immediately, with a twitch of his kneecaps, he pulled her as close to him as he could with the bump of their baby in between them.
But his main intention was to hear her words. And fortunately for him they came once his hands traced up the small of her back.
The discovery of the gray hair had been so sudden. The feelings that flooded her brain so overwhelming. But thanks to their closeness, she began to process it in little increments. She thought of all that they had been through. How they had once been ten-year-olds together and how, before too long, they would have ten-year-olds of their own. Soon enough they would be parents of three children.
She thought of her own parents. How they had not been given the chance to go through life in the way that she had and would always be stuck at the same age, never given the opportunity to age in the way that she would. Or hoped she would be able to.
In life, you just never knew.
Misty thought about all the heartache that had led her to this point. The love she had wasted on the wrong people when it was so obvious where it always should have pointed.
To Ash.
He was every single one of her dreams.
These thoughts made their way into Misty's mind and, right as she was ready to ready to spill the truth from her, her eyes threatened to spill. She quickly shut her eyes and pressed her forehead against Ash's.
Her words did not stop being true even if her eyelids closed.
"I grew up with you and now I get to grow old with you." Misty whispered, her head tilting as her forehead moved away from Ash's as she instead began peppering his neck with kisses, murmuring against his skin. "What a dream come true."
And with that, it was Ash's turn to be rendered speechless, though his lips did not exactly knot together! Breathing out of his nostrils as if this would save him against the wave of love for his wife that could have knocked him out, Ash's own eyes fluttered shut.
All he could do was wrap his arms around her – all of her – her and the continuation of their family – and breathe in the love that she offered him. His heart could have exploded as he felt the touch of her hand brushing against his gray hair while her lips were on his skin.
He had once dreamed of being the very best, like no one had ever been before. But in that moment, all he dreamed about was being a husband. About being a family man alongside Misty. For the first time in his life, all he wanted was to just be Ash.
At ten years old he had found the person that had shown him what it meant to be the Ash that he wanted to be and would become. As far as he was concerned, his dreams could have ended there because that would have been enough. But thank goodness they did not.
He had never considered growing old with somebody before. But thanks to Misty discovering that gray hair, a dream had been unlocked that he never knew that he had had.
Now, he just could not wait for their forever to continue.
The End.
There you go! Thanks so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed :) I think this is the first time I've ever written about how in between being a stay at home mother at times and achieving her goal of being a water Pokémon Master, Misty creates online content in the form of video blogs and tips for other young mothers and trainers too! We know from Misty's Memoirs that she has a songwriting hobby also, but this is the first time I've ever shown her in front of the camera. It was so weird not narrating as Pikachu as I've been writing as him for so long! I did enjoy writing this chapter though. And I look forward to seeing where I go with Pokémon: Love Stories in general. The idea is to capture a pairing as much as I can in just the one chapter. I intend to write a pairing just once with no repeats. But we'll see! I don't know how frequently I'll be updating this story as I have so many Pikachu Tales chapters I want to get uploaded in probably the first half of 2025. But it's nice to have the opportunity to write shorter chapters given sometimes I now find it hard to find the time to write :) Thank you again for giving this new story a chance! If you like it, I'd love to see you over on Pikachu Tales. My next upload will be Misty's Memoirs on November 28th. Maybe I'll see you there!
Amy signing out :3