Rating: G
Disclaimer: I don't own 'em! Nope!
Chapter Six - Lonely Road
"James Eric Stuart! I am mad at you, and I am not speaking to you ever again!"
This made him stop swinging his legs off the edge of the wall fence and bend down enough so that he could see Jessie where she rested on the ground, her arms wrapped fiercely wrapped around her legs, which she had drawn up to her chest. Her expression, what he could see of it, was lethal.
He sighed quietly, still hunched over but now staring at the ground a few feet below his shoes as he pondered her declaration. She had done this before. "Eric" and "Stuart" weren't really his middle and last names. And he hadn't a clue where she had come up with them. But since she seemed to think that yelling at him properly meant using a full name, and since he wouldn't tell her what that was, she had supplied one of her own invention. Wondering about that wouldn't help him now, though.
He tried to breathe silently as he thought, afraid that any noise he made might cause her to jump up and hit him, maybe somehow even knock him off his perch atop the wall; he had gone through so much trouble climbing to the top using the rocks that jutted out as handholds that going back down didn't interest him at the moment. Certainly not falling down, either. True, he was used to being knocked about, but it wasn't like he enjoyed it.
Well, thinking definitely wasn't working. He still couldn't come up with anything he had possibly done wrong, just like always. She just seemed to get angry often, and she liked to take it out on him, even if he had done nothing. At least when she said she would never speak to him again, she never meant it. All there was left to do now was wait for her to calm down.
A few minutes passed before she spoke. Well, she didn't just speak - she stood up, glared, and pointed her little forefinger at him like a weapon. This all happened so fast that he nearly fell over backwards from sitting up too quickly. "Well?! Aren't you going to say something?"
The fury in her voice was enough to make his knees tremble. Hopefully she wasn't noticing that now. "You said.. you said you weren't talking to me."
The moment those words left his lips, he wished he hadn't moved them at all. She could climb a lot better than he could. In a matter of seconds, she was on the wall too, and no amount of scooting over seemed to be enough to get away. At first he thought she was going to clobber him good with her fist, but she drew back momentarily as though thinking better of it, settling instead on pinching his bare leg with those sharp fingernails she had. He winced, rubbing it when she let go, while she just stared at him for a moment.
"You know, you're strange," she announced suddenly. It seemed that she had forgotten she was "mad" at him. "Everything about you is strange. The way you act, the way you talk, even the way you're dressed." She reached out to tug the blue material of his coat sleeve as if to emphasize that last oddity. It had seen better days, looking rather bedraggled and dirty since he had run away. How long ago was that? Three weeks? Four? He didn't know. Jessie's clothes, on the other hand, looked even worse than his. And she looked much skinnier than he did. He didn't know what to make of any of these things, either.
"Why are you so strange?" she asked him next. He tried to think of an answer.
"I... I don't know." Hardly an intelligent response. But she just sighed, seeming to accept it as a decent answer.
"Okay. I'm sorry I pinched you." Her short arms wrapped around him in a brief hug, so brief that he didn't have time to react to it before she was clambering back down the side of the wall, as agile as a Mankey. "Here," she said, extending a hand to him. "Let's go find something to eat."
He stared down at her, into those blue eyes that never wavered from his face. He knew something now. She had just accepted him exactly the way he was. She wasn't going to try to change him. At least for now. But why had she apologized? That was something best left to wonder about later. Confidently, he told her he could manage to get down on his own.
Well, at least the reason he fell wasn't because she had pushed him.
James woke up, blinking hard in the pre-dawn light. What a very strange dream... That had happened years ago, yet the dream had been vividly accurate.
He rolled onto his stomach, groaning. Sleeping on the hard ground, even with a sleeping bag, didn't exactly leave his back feeling the best. Not that he wasn't used to it.
Allowing his thoughts to drift back to the dream, he smiled faintly. Yes, Jessie had accepted him what seemed like so long ago now, and even though she sometimes didn't like his traits and habits, she still accepted them as just a part of who he was. And didn't try to change that. Usually. But now he had changed... maybe in ways Jessie would no longer accept. When he saw her again, would everything be different? Or, as Yume seemed to think, would she understand? He sighed, maybe a little too loudly considering that Myrea was probably still asleep.
"Hey, what's the matter? Stomach hurt?"
He nearly jumped out of his sleeping bag at the sound of Myrea's voice. He looked up to see her sitting exactly where he had seen her last night, but now she was fully dressed with all of her things packed up and sitting beside her. She grinned at him, but today it seemed a little weak. Unsure of what was going on, he just shook his head, then looked to see if his own stuff had been packed as well. It hadn't. She opened her mouth to speak again, but he cut her off before she could even start.
"Can I tell you something?" Without waiting for a reply, he launched into his full life's story, telling her everything but the tiniest details, going through his childhood, why he ran away, how he met Jessie and Meowth, joined Team Rocket, and all things in between. By the time he had finished, the sun had risen, a bright orange ball barely hovering over the rim of the earth. Myrea just stared at him for some time after, her eyes wide with amazement.
"Wow... I never could have imagined... so much has happened in your life... and now you really want to make your friends happy. That's really something." He nodded. He had purposely left out Yume again, afraid that she wouldn't believe him. Or maybe that he wasn't supposed to tell in the first place. Gathering up his courage, he asked her the next question he had on his mind.
"So... so why can't you tell me anything?" He had thought she might balk at this question, but she actually laughed.
"You want to know about my past that much? Well, I'll tell you." He nodded expectantly, propping his chin on his hands and trying to look as interested as possible in case she changed her mind. She smiled at him, just watching; if he hadn't known any better, he would have thought she was adoring him. But of course not. He was relieved when he finally began, though.
The first part of her story was basic, covering what seemed like a very brief childhood. "... then, when I was five or six, my parents just... left. My grandmother always told us kids afterwards, when she was taking care of us, that they went on some kind of... "adventure" and never came back. I know I told you before that they died, but I think they're still alive. But what kind of parents are those?"
James nodded, understanding. At least she would know that he understood now. "Then what happened?"
"Well, my grandmother raised us until I was about fourteen. Then she passed away. We took care of ourselves, mostly, since we're still receiving money since our parents are gone... and we really have no relatives to be with. And... my brother... he was in a car accident... now it's just me and Emily. But I'm sure my little sister is doing fine without me for now. She's pretty responsible."
"You know... compared to your life, my life isn't as bad as I thought it was. I'm sorry."
She shook her head hard, then turned back to look at him again. "It doesn't really matter who's had the worst life. As long as we're both trying to improve it, that's what's important."
"You're right... as usual," he sighed, realizing what he should acknowledge next. "You're leaving, aren't you?
"James... Well, it's only for a little while. Two weeks, tops. I just have to take care of something while we're in the area, and I'll find you in Vermilion. You understand, right?"
"Of course I do. Do whatever you need to."
"You knew I was leaving anyway? I bet that's why you wanted to talk about all that stuff," she mused, mostly to herself.
"Well... yeah," he admitted uncertainly.
"Oh, but before i go, I've left enough food and other things for you to last at least two weeks, and I want you to promise to take care of yourself, don't get sick or hurt or anything, train hard, and maybe have a new badge to show me when I get back, hmm?"
"I... yeah," he replied slowly. She was talking too fast again.
"Okay. One more thing." She stood up, adopting a fierce expression, leaning forward over him with her hands on her hips. "And if you think for a minute that you can slack off because I'm not around and I won't find out, you'd better think again or I'm going to personally make sure you don't sleep for a week while you're making up the time! How clear is that?"
"C... crystal," he stuttered, wondering if she meant that. But she smiled then, and blew him a kiss before she started walking away.
"Bye... see you soon! Don't forget anything now!"
James watched her go. With a threat like that, how could he forget?
The next week was slow. Very slow. The days crawled by, and each day James traveled bit by bit to Vermilion City, training as hard as he could along the way. It was very lonely without Myrea around, and this caused him to think more often of Jessie, which depressed him to no end, since she constantly seemed to be in a foul mood. The mood transferred to him sometimes, but he tried to push it away for the sake of the Pokémon.
Marril usually either rode on his shoulder or hopped along beside him while they traveled, and he often called out Weezing and let it float beside him for a while, talking to it as though it was a person. After all, Weezing was a very old friend to him, and he supposed that it might miss Jessie and Meowth, or maybe even Arbok. The two had fought side by side for so long, even evolved together. James knew what it was like to miss someone so badly, so he made sure to take extra care of Weezing. He hadn't a clue what Victreebel thought about, but his new Seel seemed to love the training he gave it. At least Victreebel hadn't given him any problems since the pool incident.
Early on in the week he managed, with some difficulty, to catch a Dugtrio with Marril's help. And by the end of the week he had arrived in Vermilion City, challenged for and won the Thunder Badge. It wasn't so hard, really. He used Dugtrio to combat Surge's lone Raichu, and won surprisingly fast. The only thing that seemed to be wrong was that Myrea wasn't around to congratulate him. Yet another step toward his goal, maybe, but he felt that she was deeply involved in that goal, now. He was extremely grateful, however, to leave the Vermilion Gym; if Surge called him "pretty boy" one more time, James probably would have decked him. Well, maybe. If he had been a little bigger and stronger, sure.
Later that evening, he sat cross-legged on the ground beneath the tree he had chosen to spend the night under, just outside Vermilion. Halfheartedly, he stirred the three shiny badges on his palm with a forefinger; they glimmered in the fading light, but it didn't make him happy just looking at them. He was feeling rather desperate for human company. As far as he could tell, Jessie was asleep, although it didn't matter because he couldn't see her now anyway. Sighing, he stuffed the badges back in his pocket, where he usually kept them. He had no real desire to flaunt them to anyone.
God, James. You are insane. Next thing you know, you'll be shaving your head bald and dressing like your father.
"Ha... how amusing," he groaned aloud. He felt tired. The sun hadn't even set yet, but he was tired. So he went ahead and lay down without unpacking anything, Marril curling up against his stomach, and soon fell asleep.
He didn't even awaken when the shadow of a person fell over him.
Okay... comments now? Please? *begpleadwhine*
