Jessi's Curse
By: Frogwoman
Alternate Dimension Series #4
Disclaimer: I don't own Jessi or James or Meowth. (wish I actually *had* that kind of imagination!)
Rating: PG (emotional!)
Note: a take on why Jessi might be the way she is (this story happens a few years after the most recent episodes of Pokémon)
Jessi's Curse
She sat in the meadow alone, on a rock, with her head in her hands, wanting to die. She put a hand to her abdomen, rubbing her flat belly and trying not to cry. She wanted something, she knew what she wanted and also knew that there was no way she could ever get it.
What she wanted was James.
She wanted him to love her like she wanted nothing else in the world, but her stupid body had made *that* impossible. Tears welled up in her eyes. Why did she have to be born this way?
It had happened so many times before. Someone would like her, and once..once someone had even wanted to consider marriage, and then she'd been forced to tell her terrible secret and then he had made it obvious to her that no man wanted a defective woman. Nobody wanted her.
She had been dropped on her butt so many times that she had vowed never to take another try at romance ever, ever again.
Then James had come along. She had wanted romance again the moment she saw him. He was so adorable, with his big green eyes and kind of lavender hair. And the way he was so sensitive and caring, and how he was so responsible. He stuck to his mission and was determined to accomplish it no matter what, no matter how many times they 'blasted off' and got hurt. At first it had just been a crush. He was cute and she liked him kind of. But now it was deeper.
Now it was love.
It hurt her every time she hit him or called him stupid, but she couldn't let him think she liked him. He was a man, and, as she'd so painfully learned several times before, no man wanted a defective woman. And she was defective.
Jessi buried her face in her arms and cried until she couldn't cry anymore.
James was sitting by the fire and staring into the flame when she came back. He looked mesmerized by the flickering yellow and orange monster inside the firepit. She rubbed her nose, getting herself looking respectable before he noticed her and looked up.
"Hello, James, I'm back from my walk." she said softly. He looked up at her, his green eyes focusing and widening slightly. He let them trace up and down her body, then looked down at the fire again, his face getting kind of red.
"Hi, Jess." he said softly.
"Anything happen while I was away?"
"Meowth decided to go for a walk himself. And I decided something too..."
"What?" she asked kind of nervously.
"Jess, I've wanted to tell you something for a very long time and I want you to hear it with an open mind and please don't hit me."
"I won't hit you."
"Okay." he said, turning his gaze back to her, catching her eyes and looking at her like he could read her soul. She hoped he couldn't.
"I just wanted to tell you that I...really have strong feelings for you, Jess. I love you." he said, his already soft voice a whisper.
"Why would you love me?" she asked tonelessly, trying to look at the ground so his sharp eyes couldn't read her. But she couldn't break his gaze. He still seemed to be looking through her, with an intense kind of look in his eyes.
"Because, I don't need to tell you how beautiful you are, and I love your strength and your life and the fire in you. You're strong, and you know how to put me in my place." he said softly. Jessi struggled to keep her face straight and impassive.
"Thank you...but...I...you...can't. I'm sorry. I can't get tangled up with you James." she said softly.
He tried to look away from her, but obviously couldn't either. She watched his eyes fill with tears.
"That's okay, Jessi." he whispered, but she knew it wasn't, "I just...want to know...why...?"
"It's not you, James, believe me." she said, imagining how he must be feeling, "It's me. I just...can't..."
"Oh...okay..." he said, trying to keep his voice in control, "I'm heading to bed then."
He went to bed and pulled his head under the covers. She could hear a soft, muffled sniffling, just once. She lay in her own sleeping bag thinking about how she had finally had what she wanted and she'd turned it away like that. She wished she was dead all over again.
"Prepare for trouble." Jessi said without any enthusiasm.
"And make it double." James said, his voice sad.
"To protect the world from devastation."
"To unite all peoples within our nation."
"To denounce the evils of truth and love."
"To extend our reach to the stars above."
"Jessi."
James sighed, "James."
"Team Rocket, blast off at the speed of light." she said, obviously trying to make her voice triumphant like she usually did, and failing.
"Surrender now or prepare to fight." James finished, not sounding very sinister.
"Meowth, that's right!" Meowth crowed, oblivious to the problems of the other two.
"What are you planning this time?" Ash asked.
"It's very simple." James said, sounding peeved, "You give us the Pikachu and we leave."
"You stink and so do your plans!" Misty yelled.
"You're just jealous because I'm the most beautiful girl in the world." Jessi said, trying to make herself feel better. Maybe she was beautiful on the outside, but on the inside she was a black hole.
"Shut up, you conceited hag!" Misty yelled.
"Jessi's not conceited, she just knows the truth." James said, eyes closed. Jessi's eyes started quivering and she looked at the ground.
"Thank you but I don't deserve it..." she whispered. James looked at her, conerned, realizing that something was wrong with her.
"Um...we have other problems right now...so, we'll come back for the Pikachu later." he said to Ash, Misty and Brock and they ran off into the bushes, leaving the three kids to stare after them with huge, confused eyes.
"Jessi, what's wrong?" James demanded, taking her shoulders and looking into her face. She dropped her eyes.
"Nothing." she said, but James could hear tears in her voice.
"Jessi, please, I know...I know you don't...love me...but I love you and you can tell me anything and I won't ever hurt you."
She looked up into his face, "You can't promise me that." she said, almost angrily. She'd heard it before.
He looked shocked, "I won't hurt you. I can't hurt you."
"Other people have said that to me, and claimed they loved me and they..." she choked up and struggled to keep her tears in.
"I *do* love you, Jessi." he whispered desperately.
"I know you think you do, but it's impossible for anyone to love me..."
"No, it's not. Why would it be?"
"I can't tell you! Don't you understand that I cannot tell you?!" she wailed, shook him off and ran into the woods.
She ran in absolute terror. She couldn't tell him. If she didn't tell him she could at least be around him, even if she couldn't make him hers. But if she told...
She could already feel the pain of him rejecting her. Laughing and turning away from her. She would have to leave Team Rocket and him. The pain would be too much for her.
She ran until she couldn't run anymore, then she sat and cried. How long she sat there crying she didn't know, but it seemed like an eternity.
James was confused. He didn't understand his friend Jessi, his Jessi. He sat in the grass after she'd shouted at him and buried his face in his arms, not knowing what to do. If he went after her and tried to offer some comfort he risked losing her, and if he stayed here she might think he really didn't care for her and he could still risk losing her. If he had her at all. He felt his eyes fill up with tears again.
She'd said he couldn't love her.
Why not?
He knew darn well how much he could love her.
He was so glad Meowth was keeping his nose out of this. James climbed heavily to his feet, exhausted, almost wishing he'd never told her, wondering why she couldn't trust him to give her all his love.
He walked into the bushes the same way Jessi had.
She was so deep into her misery that she didn't notice him walking up, didn't notice him at all until he put his arms around her and pulled her against him. Without thinking, she snugged her face against his chest and listened to his heartbeat.
"Shhh..." he said softly, and his deep voice through his chest was so comforting.
He started to sing a song quietly, a song she didn't know, and she had the idea he was making it up as he went. It didn't seem to have any specific words or tune, it just comforted her. She could feel him all around her and smell his sweet scent and feel his heartbeat in her head.
It was going to hurt so much when she couldn't have this anymore.
"Tell me what's wrong, Jessi, tell me what's making you hurt so much."
"I can't."
"Why? Just tell me why..."
"I...you'll stop loving me..."
"I'll never stop loving you."
"Even if...even if there's something so wrong with me that...'there's no hope of any future together'?" she asked, reciting the exact words one of the men she'd been involved with before had said to her. She spoke in a flat, emotionless voice.
"Jess..." he started, and she pulled away from him, putting a hand over his mouth very gently. She looked beaten and sick with her mascara all down her face. His heart throbbed and he wanted to hold her again.
"James, I have a medical condition. Well, I guess that's not the word for it. I was...born defective." she said, her voice still flat.
"What?" he asked.
"I can't...have children. I never will be able to, I never was able to. I...I get my period and I look like a woman, I guess, but my...my...ovaries aren't well developed enough to conceive. I've known since I was 11. So many guys have..." she said the first part very fast and in a very low voice, and then her voice broke down and her eyes welled up again, like every word was hurting her.
"Turned you down..." he said softly, and she was anticipating his refusal, or laughter, or pity without any more love.
"Yes...I know you probably don't want anything to do with me now..." she said, her voice still flat, but now with a painful spike of sadness. He hurt all over with it.
He reached out and touched her shoulder, his heart still throbbing with the same love it had before she'd told him, "I'm sorry..." he whispered, pulling her against him, "...that you didn't think I would love you even with that...I will...I don't care. It's you I love, and...there's no way your...problem...could stop this feeling I have every time I see you. It's like...I don't know..."
"You...." she started, sounding amazed.
"...love my Jessi with all my heart." he finished her sentence, speaking earnestly, pulling away and looking into her eyes. He knew that he couldn't lie to her with a straight face, especially not when he was looking into her eyes. She could see his sincerity, and she collapsed onto him, clutching around his shoulders.
"I'm sorry, James, I'm sorry...I'm so sorry I can't give you children, if you ever want them..."
"It's not your fault...shh..." he said, stroking her back, "We can adopt..."
She looked up into his face, "Adopt?"
"I wanted to give this to you earlier." he said, digging in his pocket and pulling out a small box, "I still do."
She was staring at him like he'd been staring at the fire the night before. He opened the box and pulled out a simple gold band with a small diamond on it. He took her left hand and slid it onto the third finger.
"Marry me and make me happy forever." he said, a pleading note in his voice, "Please..."
"I will." she said softly.
Author's note: Please give me some feedback on this? (frogwoman_66@hotmail.com)
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