Part Seven: Bands and Ties

Cassidy slipped out of bed before James could wake up and began to cook him breakfast. She was depressed. Even now, after he had been separated from his precious Jessie for almost two whole years, she couldn't have him. True, Jessie had met him first, but that was only because the only class they had together had been after lunch.

'How old were we? Eight? Ten?' Cassidy thought nostalgically. She sighed and leaned back against the kitchen cabinet, letting old memories resurface for the first time in years.

It was midyear at Pokemon Tech. Spring was just barely beginning to melt the snow off the trees, but the sun shone with glaring brightness in the clear skies. By first period that day, Cassidy had already heard rumors about a new boy in school, very quiet. Apparently, some of the Tech students had been giving him grief because of his hair. Long and blue, they had said. Well, Cassidy could empathize; she wasn't exactly on their good side, either. In fact, she only had one friend in the whole school: Jessie.

She had been excited all day, the prospect of a new friend thrilling her, until her last period class, when she finally met him. She didn't know what these kids had been talking about, he was the best-looking boy she's ever seen. And he walked in right behind Jessie, what luck! She could introduce the two of them!

She waved at Jessie when she got close enough to be able to see her, not expecting anything in return. Jessie was much to prim to do anything so childish as waving. "Hello, Cassidy," she said smugly when she finally made it to the back of the room, where Cassidy stood, "this is James. He's a new student here."

"Hi," he said off-handedly, following Jessie and taking the seat next to her.

"Hey, wait!" Cassidy said in protest, "that's *my* seat!"

James turned to her-'he's *looking* at me!'-but instead of smiling broadly and beginning a conversation with her, he scowled and asked, "would you mind letting *me* sit here from now on?"

She responded quietly, "no," and sat down in the next seat over. At least she could still sit next to him. Her best friend had slowly started to slip out of her life, always goofing off with James when she should have been studying. Cassidy had confronted Jessie about this several times, but her complaints had always been met with a snide, "You're just jealous, Cassidy!" After they had received the lowest test scores ever on the placement exam, Jessie and James had left together, destroying forever Cassidy's chances with him. And the worst part of the whole thing, the one thing that annoyed her on a daily basis for years afterwards, was that he had never once remembered her name.

"Cassidy," his voice interrupted her. It felt so wonderful to hear him say it, yet it wasn't really the James she knew. He had changed. Maybe it was all for the best, and now could be the chance with him that she had always deserved. "I want to talk to you. After last night, I want to lay all the cards on the table where we can both see them clearly. I'm in love with someone else."

She looked down at his hand, "I know. I saw the wedding ring."

He looked down, a disgusted expression on his face, and twisted the band off. "Not her," he said crossly, "Believe me, I'd love it if I never had to see that witch again."

Cassidy paled at this, having never seen James be anything close to angry before, "Not your wife?" she asked in a meek voice.

"No," he insisted. He walked to the sink and tossed the ring down the drain. Cassidy ran to the sink and tried to recover the expensive piece, but it was too late. James ignored her and left the room.

Moments later, after she had determined that there was no salvaging his ring, Cassidy followed him to the living room, where he was staring silently out the window. "James," she asked, "Who is it that you love?" She didn't know why she was asking this, why she had to torture herself this way, but she *had* to know exactly who kept her from happiness.

"Her name is Jasmine," he said dreamily, "She works for the Bureau of Missing Pokemon. But she...I don't think she wants anything to do with me."

"Oh," Cassidy frowned. Not only was this girl her rival, but she worked for the only remaining threat to Team Rocket operations: a branch of the police dedicated entirely to stopping pokemon thieves.

James flinched and stepped back from the window. "I have to go. I'll see you later," he said coldly as he walked away, grabbing his suit jacket on the way out.

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"Should I go to work today?" Jessie asked as she put on a final coat of mascara.

"Bok?" Arbok replied questioningly.

Jessie scowled, "Why do I even bother asking you? It's not like I can understand you...much, at least."

"Charbok, bok."

She chuckled, "Yeah, well, I'm going. Maybe that job can be used to my advantage. I have a lot of high-level access on the computers that I could do some damage with." She frowned, 'What isn't right about this?' She realized in a moment, and then disgustedly whipped her hair up in that stupid bun again. She put her pocketbook over the shoulder of her all black suit and walked briskly out of the apartment.

She sat lazily at her computer, well aware that Jenny, among others, was already watching her suspiciously. She didn't feel like doing any serious work, so she let the computer run the daily check and turned to things that interested her more. The first thing she did was open her desk drawer and pull out file #000127.

She winced when she saw the pictures of herself, naked, cold and scared in the alley. She remembered that night well now, with the help of Jenny's doctor friend. Giovanni's thugs had thrown her into the alley in the middle of the night to fend for herself. They had taken her uniform so she wouldn't be easily identified, and thrown her remaining personal items out the door after her: Ekans, Lickitung, her hair gel, and a dried rose James had given her that she had saved. It was raining, and she had no shelter, so she had curled into a wet, shivering ball until someone had found her. That someone had been Jenny.

Jenny had spied her on a night patrol and had brought two other police officers with her to pick up the confused girl. They had taken her picture and put her things in bags, but they had left James's rose, only taking two petals that were accidentally mixed in with the lock of hair they cut from her to run through the files for id. There had been no match, all records on her past, and James's, had been destroyed when she had joined Team Rocket.

"Hello," Jenny had said in a soothing voice, looking into her eyes, "What's your name?"

She had shook her head and said hoarsely, "I don't know."

Jenny and the other two had tried desperately to pump information from her, but she had none to give them. She claimed to know nothing of how she got there, either. Jenny had taken her home and helped her to get a decent paying job at the BMP, had helped her get a nice apartment, had always taken good care of her. Jenny had been her best friend. Jessie didn't know what to think about that.

And then there was the matter of what to do now that she was herself again. She knew she couldn't survive in this land of desks and cubicles and protocol, not knowing the freedom she used to have. Jessie couldn't survive as a normal office drone. But even these problems could not even begin to compare with her problem with James.

"James," she mused out loud, "Hmmm." She put the file down and looked to her computer. She cracked her knuckles and set to work, typing in his name. The computer waited a moment, and then came up with three articles.

Jessie leaned forward in interest and opened the first. Momentarily, the computer loaded the headline "Local Millionaire Reunited with Family." She scowled and read on.

"After ten long years of separation, the amnesiac millionaire finally returns to his lavish home. His parents, fiancee, and adoring pet Growlithe were ecstatic about his return. 'With our help, our James will soon remember *everything* he forgot,' his mother stated. 'And expect wedding bells soon in the future!' his eager and beautiful young fiancee, Jessebelle, revealed."

Jessie growled under her breath and clicked the computer's mouse hard. She didn't want to read another word of his family's idiotic drivel, and she had wanted to strangle Jessebelle even before she had married James. She moved quickly onto the next article, of course, a wedding announcement accompanied by a picture of the happy couple. Jessebelle looked serene and happy in her white wedding dress, while James rather looked like he was being slowly strangled by his bow tie. It was purple. What a horrible color for him. Jessie thought that she could have picked better.

She closed that and opened the final article. When it popped up onto the screen, she couldn't help but smile. It was a small but easily recognizable picture of James and a note giving the location and number of his Rocket Member File.

An hour later, she was poring through the records in the BMP's archives. It didn't take her long to find his folder, and-what luck-hers was right behind it. She hid them protectively inside her suit's jacket and snuck back to her cubicle, watching nervously for any sign of Jenny.

She settled back into her chair, as if about to read a good book, and opened her own file first: RM27.

"Jessie (last name unknown,) is the twenty-seventh confirmed and identified member of Team Rocket. Of average height, with red hair and blue eyes. Travels with her partner James (see file RM26) and a talking Meowth.

"Though her background is largely unknown, she is believed to have been a member of Team Rocket since she was fifteen or sixteen. She has attended Pokemon Tech. She is a wanted criminal suspected of numerous crimes from breaking and entering to grand theft auto. A full list of transgressions is included in this folder. She has stolen many pokemon, and if found, will be taken to the Bureau of Missing Pokemon immediately for questioning." A note was handwritten on the bottom of the page, "Has remained inactive for two years. Both she and her partner are currently believed dead-M." One picture was paper-clipped to the top of the paper, a dark silhouette of her and James together on the top of a hill. She ran a hand over it lovingly.

She put that file down on her desk and picked up the other folder, labeled RM26. There were two pictures in this one, the shadowed one of the two of them, and the old photo of James that they used to use for wanted posters.

"James (last name unknown,) is the twenty-sixth confirmed and identified Team Rocket member. He is tall, with blue hair and green eyes, though he tends to disguise himself often. Travels with partner, Jessie, and a Meowth. The Meowth is reputed to be able to speak and walk on two legs.

"Only minimal background information is available, though it is known that he attended Pokemon Tech with Jessie. They are believed to have joined Team Rocket around the same time, between the ages of thirteen and fifteen. For a list of crimes, see attached paper."

Jessie flipped back in the file and found a lengthy list of their various crimes. She couldn't help but grin proudly. She turned back to the front page and skimmed down to its bottom, where there was another handwritten note. "James was believed to have died along with Jessie, though recent evidence has led me to believe that he his alive. However, I may only keep minimal surveillance and cannot investigate him any further unless he has done something incriminating. As far as I know, he hasn't-M."

Jessie put the open folder on her lap and leaned back in her chair, thinking. Whoever this "M" person was, they had brought up an interesting point. James hadn't done anything wrong. She, in the one day she had been truly herself, had kissed a married man, broken into secured files under a false name, and stolen files from the BMP archives. She sighed.

Maybe James would have been better off if they had never met.