Part Five: Triangle

"Jasmine!" a voice hissed from behind the door, "Jasmine!"

Jessie opened one eye, "that voice...it can't be."

James.

She bolted out of bed and ran through her old morning ritual in record speed. Put on her makeup, put gel in her hair, and lastly, picking clothes. She pulled on the outfit she had sewn yesterday. Of course, it fit her perfectly. She had always been the best seamstress she'd ever seen. Maybe someday she could open a clothing store.

After all that, she walked slowly to the door and looked out the peephole. Sure enough, a huge green eye, unmistakably James's, stared through the other side. She sighed-'am I really ready to see him again?-and pulled open the door.

He stood there, hand poised to knock again, with a stupified look on his face. He looked at her clothes and hair, shocked, "Jasmine?" he asked dumbly.

"James," she said hastily, "how did you ever find me?"

He grinned devilishly and cocked a perfectly formed eyebrow at her, "well, when you have as much money as I do, things usually tend to find you. Let's just say I can always get what I want."

She smiled unenthusiastically and looked away, pulling on the door handle. She was about to shut the door on him when her mouth took on a mind of its own, "would you...like to come in?"

He smiled and nodded his head excitedly, like a little child. She blinked in surprise, still confused as to why she invited him in, and walked back inside, leaving the door open in case he actually followed her. She walked into the living room and turned around, and surely, there he was, little more than three feet away from her.

"So...this is your apartment?" he said, trying desperately to make intellegent conversation. 'It's never been his strong suit,' Jessie thought.

"Chaarbok!" came the sudden cry from the corner, startling both. The pokemon slithered quickly toward James's feet and he ducked behind the couch in terror.

Jessie smiled a little at James's perpetual cowardice, obviously unaffected by even the erasure of his every memory, but her face hardened once more when Arbok came into her sight. "Arbok!" she scolded it, glaring at it and hitting it over the head.

James's tinny voice floated over the couch, "is that...Arbok yours?" She looked down at it and it stared right back levelly.

"Yes," she said simply, her eyes clear, "Arbok's my pet, I guess. It's a lost pokemon that was never claimed by its owner." 'Until now,' her mind added.

James returned from behind his bunker with a faint red blush on his cheeks. "Jasmine," he started.

She interrupted him quickly, "please, James, don't call me that."

He looked hurt, "fine then, Miss Burke."

Jessie shook her head. "Or that either," she sighed, "look, James, you just won't understand. You couldn't possibly."

"I could try," he offered with a genuinely tender smile.

She looked away from him, he was painful to look at, "James..."

"Ja...the real reason I came," he put a hand to her face and turned it back to him. He looked into her blue eyes, her beautiful face turned up to his, and couldn't help himself. He encircled his other arm around her waist and pulled her into a kiss.

"Mmmph!" she squealed in surprise, her blue eyes bulging. Within moments, shock melted into happiness as she returned the kiss, entangling her hands in his blue hair.

'This can't be happening,' she thought, 'what I had just wished he'd do for all those years in Team Rocket.' Team Rocket; the name was almost too much for her to bear. All her sudden happiness dissappeared as tears began to form in her eyes. 'I'm not kissing James. He may look like him, and act a little like him, but he's not the same. He's not my James, he's Jessebelle's James.'

He pulled away, and, mistaking her tears for tears of joy, smiled gently at her and said exactly what he shouldn't have. "I think I'm falling in love with you, Jasmine."

She began to cry then, and her mind screamed at her, 'why are you crying? Jessie doesn't cry!'

'But what if Jasmine does?' she thought deleriously. James sat her down on the couch and put his arm around her protectively, "what's wrong?"

Jessie looked up, her eyes burning with rage, "what's *wrong*? You should know! You chose *her*, not me, James! You're married!"

"But I..." he said helplessly.

"But *nothing*, James. Please, go home. Go back to your beautiful home, your beautiful *wife*!" her voice dropped down from a scream to a whimpering sob as she hung her head, "and leave me alone again."

"Jasmine, please..."

She lifted her head up again and looked him straight in the eyes, "don't you understand? You chose Jessebelle. You can't have me. Maybe...someday, maybe you'll understand."

He left, crying just as much as Jessie, who ran into her bedroom. She took one look in the mirror and wailed in anguish. "Damn you!" she screamed, and threw a chair into the mirror, shattering into thousands of pieces on the floor. She collapsed onto her bed and put her face into her pillow, sobbing loudly, "oh James...James, I love you too...James..."