With a sigh, he settled back against the side of the building that bordered the small alley he was inhabiting for the time being, shoving his hands deep into the pockets of his own coat. A whole day of walking had gotten them here, Viridian City, where they were scouting for the particular lab which housed the MCD. Pearl hadn't known the exact location due to the fact that she hadn't even known of it's existence until about a week ago. James' section of the city had turned up empty, so all he had left to do was wait for Jessie to meet up with him and head back to their "house", which was actually just an abandoned two-story building where they had set up a temporary place to stay.

But she was five minutes late. He sneezed again, water dripping from his hair into his eyes. Not wanting his hands to lose the little warmth that they had gained, he just blinked the water away. Shifting from foot to foot, he wished that his throat didn't hurt, that his hands weren't shaking, and that his face didn't feel like it was on fire, even though the rest of his body felt covered in ice. Jessie's prediction of him getting sick appeared to be correct. Suppose it was pneumonia...

No, it had to be a cold. There was no way he could tell her he was sick; then she would insist on him resting in bed while everyone else got to carry out the plan. The only problem was trying to hide the fact that he was ill while still sneezing like he had a noseful of pollen.

Sighing again, he turned to look out on the street a second time. When something heavy hit the back of his head, it barely had time to register before he was falling, his vision a rainbow blur of colors fading into pitch black.

"What took you so long?" James demanded when Jessie rounded the corner at last.

She grabbed his arm and headed out to the street. "I got... lost," she admitted, checking for traffic before pulling him across. Without breaking stride, he pulled his arm loose, instead linking his arm through hers. She glanced at him sideways, a pleased expression on her face. At least she knew he wouldn't give her a hard time about it.

After several more blocks they reached the building, set at the edge of the city in a way that made it seem like a shadow. An old shadow, from the cracked stone, thick layer of dust, and half a dozen shattered windows. What it had been before and why it hadn't been demolished long ago was something Jessie couldn't even guess at, not that it mattered to her now. Now what mattered was getting dry and at least semi-warm.

She hurried along with James beside her through the dark entryway into the only room on the first floor, a massive space littered with decrepit pieces of furniture that had ben discarded by their previous owners. Meowth was waiting in the same spot they had left him, curled on a blanket on the middle of the floor. Except he was sleeping now, not waiting. Jessie nudged him with her foot; in answer he squawked like he had been hit by a truck.

"Wake up, furball. Has Pearl been here?"

The cat Pokémon blinked at Jessie's question, then yawned widely. "Aahh... no. Wake me up when she does." With that, he rolled over again.

"Lazy," Jessie muttered, looking at James. He sneezed. "C'mon James, let's change out of these clothes, I can't believe how it's felt so warm lately and now it feels so col..." She trailed off, stepping closer to him in order to see better. He returned her look rather uncomfortably. "Your face is so red..." she muttered. Then, in a louder tone, "How does my face look to you?"

"Fine," he mumbled, his forehead creasing with worry as she stepped even closer and put a hand out to touch his cheek.

"And so hot..." She folded her arms and glared. "I told you. Pneumonia."

He sighed in defeat, shoulders drooping slightly. "I think it's just a cold," he got out before sneezing again.

With a shake of her head, she nearly dragged him up the wooden staircase, saying, "I knew it. Why don't you ever listen to me? You're just so stubborn. Now you really need to change those wet clothes." The only reply she got was his sneezing.

The top floor was divided into a dozen small rooms; the room they all shared had been chosen mainly because the windows were among the few that had remained whole. Jessie closed the door behind them and began a frantic search for the warmest clothes she could find, with James watching nervously. He protested loudly about being treated like a kid when she began peeling off his wet clothes herself, then turned even redder when he fully realized what she was doing.

"It's nothing I haven't seen before," she snapped at him, which didn't do much to help him relax, apparently. Without pause, she stuffed him into dry clothes, toweled his hair off, and pointed him in the direction of his sleeping bag on the floor.

"But Jessie!" he cried desperately, grabbing one of her hands in his and clutching it to his chest. "The plan... I can't just stay in bed when we have something this important to do! I just can't, I..."

"James," she sighed, "I know. We aren't going to do it until tomorrow. So why don't you rest now, and maybe you'll feel better in the morning."

"But I want to wait for--"

"Pearl will be just fine, and we can tell you tomorrow if she's found anything. Now look... your fever is just going to get worse unless you rest. And don't even make that face."

"Okay... fine," he mumbled, letting go of her hand and doing as she said. Jessie changed her own clothes, then knelt beside him for a moment, the worry she felt for him finally showing on her face.

"Get better," she whispered before leaning down to kiss his forehead. It felt like fire under her lips. Smiling for his benefit, she turned to go, pushing aside the urge to linger just a little more. It wasn't like watching him could make him any better.

The rain had slowed to a light sprinkle by the time Pearl arrived. She came through the door to be greeted by the sight of Jessie and Meowth waiting, Jessie holding a towel that was gratefully accepted. "What a horrible day for this kind of thing... but I found it," she told them while rubbing her hair furiously with the towel.

"You have all the luck, you know that," Jessie joked. "So where is it?"

"Over at the very edge of the east side of town... Lime Tea Laboratory."

"Funny name," Meowth commented. "How did ya know that was it?"

"Well," Pearl said with a grin, "the generator behind it quite noticeably had the letters 'MCD' on it. Add that to the fact that it's simply humongous, and..."

"Heh, sounds like a lab for making drinks. Guess it's a good place to hide something bad," Meowth summed up.

"Are you sure this plan is going to work...?" Jessie asked slowly, almost looking like she was talking to herself. "It just seems so... simple."

"It'll work!" Meowth put in before had the chance to answer. "Poil thought it up, so it has to!" One look at Jessie's glare was enough to send Meowth scurrying behind Pearl's legs.

"I hope it does, Jessie..." Pearl finally said. "It has to." Then she looked down at Meowth, still holding onto her leg, and back at Jessie, who had turned around and was rummaging through a bag. "Where's James?"

"...don't have any medicine..." Jessie was muttering to herself.

"He's sick," Meowth said, tilting his face up to look at her.

"He is...?" I bet he's not too happy about that..."

Jessie had turned around and was looking rather worried. "We don't have any medicine," she sighed.

"Well, one of us will just have to go out and--"

What Pearl had been about to say was cut off by a loud thump from the direction of the stairs. James was sitting about halfway down them, moaning and rubbing his back. Pearl thought that Jessie looked furious enough to attack him.

"James!" she exploded, stomping her foot angrily. "What are you doing out of bed?"

He winced, obviously fighting the urge to rub his forehead. He just squinted instead, stammering out, "I just... just wanted... to hear... hear what you said, and I... I..."

"So you thought getting out of bed and falling down the stairs would help you get better?"

"I just... just got dizzy," he protested, trying to get up when she came toward him, but sank down groaning when he couldn't. Pearl shook her head watching Jessie support him back up the stairs, scolding the entire way.

"Guess I better get that medicine," she smiled, giving Meowth a scratch under his chin. "Be a good little kitty."

"Ain't I always?" he asked. "An' don't worry. Jess looked ready to chew his head off, I ain't dumb enough to bother 'em now."

"...could have killed yourself, because you think you can just do whatever you want, even though you're not... are you listening to me?"

Jessie had been jabbering at him the whole way up the stairs; she asked this now as they were going through the door to their room. He was feeling truthful, so he simply said, "No."

Which might have been a mistake. She rounded on him angrily and slapped his face lightly, not even hard enough to hurt. "Now you listen here. If you weren't sick I would have really given it to you. You aren't invincible, and when I told you to rest, it was for a reason. I don't know what got into you, but you'd better listen to me."

"Why?" he questioned wearily, which made her stop what she had been about to say next, leaving her mouth hanging open.

"Ah... because... it's only because I care about you, James. I don't want to see anything bad happen to you if I can do something about it."

He just nodded and went to lay down like she had wanted. Staring at the ceiling, he wished she would come over to him and say something else. What that something else was, he didn't quite know. She was looking at him hesitantly; he closed his eyes and waited.

Sure enough, she came to kneel beside him again, laying her fingers lightly on his chest. "You... you have to think of yourself..." she whispered. Her eyes were filled with tears when he looked up. His immediate reaction would have been to hug her, but feeling too weak to sit up now, he had to content himself with holding her hand tightly.

"I don't want to think about myself... For a long time now, all I've been thinking about was myself, until I realized... it doesn't always make you happy. It makes me happier to think of helping Pearl... or about you. I think I've used up all the time in my life that I should have been thinking of myself already. That's why... why I shouldn't think of myself anymore."

By the time he had finished his speech, she had laid her head down on his chest, still gripping his hand. He let his free hand drift through the soft waves of her hair, which she had left down when he'd told her he liked it that way. Just one small thing out of many lately to show that she thought of others now, too.

"But if something happens to you... who will think of me? So you have to think of yourself... at least for that," she was saying, her voice muffled slightly against his chest. He nodded against her hair, content with silence.

"I'm sorry if I'm interrupting..." Pearl's apologetic voice came from the doorway. Jessie sat up and rubbed her eyes while James shook his head.

"I may not be able to forgive you," he said weakly, but with a glimmer of amusement in his eyes.

Pearl laughed. "You must not be that bad, if you're making jokes... but here's the medicine anyway."

"He is that bad," Jessie asserted, sounding like her old self again. She turned her attention to James. "Now, are you going to take this or do I have to shove it down your throat?"

"Oh, I'll take it... this time," he smiled.

"I suppose it's time to get some sleep anyway," Pearl's voice came through the tired haze he was drifting into.

"Yes... sleep would be nice..."

"You don't get enough sleep, do you?"

Her voice startled him, but he kept his eyes fixed straight ahead. He didn't have to turn his head to see the familiar frosty blue eyes and firy red curls to know who it was.

"You're supposed to get eight hours a night, you know that. Well, are you listening to me?" she demanded, giving him a shove that nearly unseated him from his perch atop the rock he had been sitting on.

"Yes.. what makes you think I don't get enough sleep?"

"You're always sitting here staring at nothing. It isn't proper. What are you doing anyway?"

"I'm thinking, if that's alright with you," he snapped, a little more sharply than he would have liked to. As he had expected, she raised her hand to slap him, but her hand wavered and she lowered it slowly. He looked up, worried, to see her smile, a bitter twisting of her lips that showed no mirth.

"You, thinking? That's something new. I bet I know who you're thinking about." She leaned closer to him, her mouth inches from his ear. "Ever since she left, you've been moping around. Thinking about her. Well, don't worry. You'll never see her again. Never. So stop behaving like a child and come with me. There's a new lesson I want you to learn today."

When she reached for his arm, he pulled away quickly and stood up, leaving her grasping at empty air and glaring angrily. "No... no, I'm not going with you again," he said slowly, backing up a few hesitant steps.

"Now, dear, you are being unreasonable. It will only be worse for you when I--"

"I said I'm not going with you!"

"Whyever not? If I don't teach you, how are you going to be worthwhile? I can turn you into a proper--"

"No! I don't ever even want to see you again!" Almost before he realized it, he was running, feet raising little clouds of dust from the hard ground. Try as he might, he couldn't help but listen to her screaming, "You can't run from me forever! You'll always be worthless without me!"

Maybe she's right... where am I going?"

"Are you feeling alright?"

"Huh? Oh... yeah. I think."

Jessie rolled her eyes at James' reply. They were sitting on the floor on the first story, waiting for Pearl and Meowth to finish getting ready upstairs. James had appeared to be deep in thought for some time now. She shook her head at him. "I don't know... you looked like your brain was taking a vacation. And let me see..." She reached for his forehead for the third time that morning; he dodged and ended up laying flat on his back. "Stop that!" she scolded, simply climbing on top of him and stretching out full length to reach again.

"You don't have to do this every five minutes!" he cried, squirming in vain.

"Yes I do... hmm, still a little hot," she sighed with another shake of her head. "Maybe you shouldn't..."

"Jess, come one. You've tried this before and it isn't going to work this time either. I'm going with you, like it or not. What... what are you doing?"

"What does it look like?" she asked sofly in reply, brushing a light kiss across his lips.

"Umm... well..." he choked out, blushing furiously. "Pearl and Meowth are going to come in soon and they'll--"

"Oh God... I shouldn't have ate breakfast," Meowth's obnoxious voice groaned.

"Oops... oh... sorry to... interrupt... again," Pearl began, blushing herself.

"We weren't doing anything much," Jessie said flippantly before rolling off James and standing up. "Are you all ready then?"

"Yes, we're ready... if you are," Pearl replied with a grin.

"Yeah. We'll meet you outside," Jessie said as she waved them out. Then she looked down at James. "What are you, paralyzed?"

"I've gone numb."

"Stop being silly, I only kissed you. Here." She offered her hand and helped him up.

"Actually, I was hoping you'd lay down again," he pouted at her.

"Oh stop it," she chided while straightening his shirt. "There's time for that later. For now... we've got something very important to take care of." James nodded, a serious expression on his face.

"Promise me."

Jessie had started to walk toward the door; she turned back to stare at him now. "What...?"

"Promise me... that we'll make it together. I mean... when this is all over, we'll both walk away from it."

She went back to him, hugging him tightly while studying his worried face. "I know we will. I'll promise you."

"They're coming," a dispassionate female voice rang through the large room.

"They are? All of them, not just the girl?" came another voice, this one actually sounding excited.

"Yes. Get the Boss on the line and tell him they're on their way. Are the preliminaries completely finished, then?"

"Yep, all the prelims are completed," the eager man replied, rubbing his hands together in anticipation. "Now comes the fun part."

Chapter Nine
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