Chapter Thirteen – Everything Under the Sun Is in Tune

Serena spent the night at the Pokémon Center on Route 1. Though she was not a registered trainer in Alola, courtesy of the battle-worn condition of her Pokémon, the center was legally obligated to give her a room. She was glad to have it all to herself.

She slept in fits and starts, moments of impossibly deep slumber interspersed with endless ages of lying awake, unable to silence her mind. The next day was much of the same. While she took a taxi to the airport, waited in the terminal, and boarded her horribly long flight back to Kalos, she drifted endlessly in and out of sleep.

Hours and hours passed on the plane without her moving or even thinking, utterly lost in some detached state of mind. When night fell over the ocean, she drifted off into a deathlike slumber, only to awake when she saw the sun again. When she opened her eyes, she found herself still in the air, over that endless, featureless expanse of blue.

Trying not to disturb her neighbors, Serena dug into her bag. She had long since lost track of everything she had. If anything was left behind at Kukui's lab, it was far too late now.

To her surprise, her spare Poké Ball was missing. Or rather, it was no longer a spare. It felt full. It had an occupant.

Serena eyed it with suspicion. Had Delphox worked some kind of magic with it? She certainly had not caught anything on her own.

She figured she would simply have to wait until they landed to find out what it was. She prayed it wasn't a Pyukumuku. But as she went to place the ball back in her bag, her finger slipped over the trigger, and the ball opened.

It was Cutiefly.

Stunned, Serena sat there with her mouth hanging open as Cutiefly gave her a literal peck on the cheek, then landed on her shoulder. There was a note tied to one of her feet.

Gently, Serena untied the delicate knot, then unfolded the note.

Serena,

You were my first friend. Nothing can ever change that. You will always hold a special place in my heart, no matter what happens between us.

Part of choosing to love is choosing to forgive. I am not ready to forgive you yet, but I think I will be one day. I hope you can forgive yourself. If I know you at all, I know that is what will be hardest for you. It is certainly what would be hardest for me if I were in your position. We're very much alike, after all.

Time may not heal all wounds, but it heals many of them. Please, when you are ready, come back. Until then, I have sent Cutiefly to watch over you.

Your friend,

-Lillie

It was night when Serena arrived in Lumiose City. She considered getting in touch with Clemont and Bonnie, but it was already so late, and she did not feel capable of handling any real human interaction, anyway. Instead, she headed directly for the nearest hotel, keeping her head down the whole way. She stayed the night there.

She left early the next morning, right at sunrise. The walk home took the entire day. At first, the solitude was enjoyable, but as the day dragged on, Serena called out each of her Pokémon, taking turns walking and talking with them. Cutiefly was incredibly energetic, overjoyed to sample the nectar of Kalosian flowers. Things were mostly quiet with Delphox, though.

After what felt both like forever and like no time at all, Serena found herself in front of a familiar gate, right back where her journey began so long ago. She stopped, and she returned Delphox to her ball.

It was dusk. For a while, Serena simply stood at the end of the drive in silence. It was exactly the same as it was when she left. Nothing had changed. Not on the outside, anyway. Rhyhorn slept in his sand pit beneath the old yew tree in the front yard. Fletchling was nowhere to be found at the moment, presumably inside the house with her mother. Dim light came from the windows in the kitchen, and nowhere else. Vaniville Town was silent, save for the rustling of the leaves and the faint chirping of Pokémon in the distance. On the front porch, the swing swayed back and forth ever so slightly, nudged by the breeze.

Serena reached for the latch on the gate. She paused. It was still rusted over, after all this time. For years, her mother had complained about the creaking noise it made every time it opened and closed. Apparently, even with all her newfound time to herself, she never found the time to repair it.

Or maybe it was on purpose, Serena figured. The noise the gate made had always been useful for keeping track of who was coming and going. Maybe her mother had left it this way intentionally. Maybe it was in anticipation that one day, Serena would find herself in this exact position, and the gate would alert her mother to her presence before Serena was ready. Yet another underhanded way to gain the upper hand in the endless cycle of petty arguments.

Or it could have been that it simply didn't matter that much, and that her mother had far more important things to do.

Serena closed her eyes. She inhaled deeply, held her breath for a few seconds, then let it out slowly.

She opened her eyes, and she opened the latch. She pushed on the gate. It swung open, the familiar metallic groan disturbing the peace of yet another uneventful evening in Vaniville Town.

Serena stepped through the gate and closed it behind her, producing the sound again. She secured the latch, then stood and waited. Her mother had to have heard. Any second now, she would peer out the window, then burst through the door.

Seconds passed. Nothing happened. Not a single sound, nor any sign of movement.

She walked up the cobblestone path, from the gate to the front porch. She was not trying to be particularly quiet, but Rhyhorn gave no indication of noticing her as she passed. He was sound asleep, as usual.

The boards thumped as Serena climbed the front steps and crossed the porch, coming to a stop in front of the door. She wondered if she should knock, or perhaps ring the doorbell.

She decided instead to simply turn the handle.

The door was unlocked. With the same sweeping sound it always made, it opened. The foyer opened up before her. It had not changed one iota.

She closed the door behind her. She heard movement in the kitchen, the sound of a chair scraping against the floor, followed by hurried footsteps. They drew closer. Then, they stopped.

Grace entered the hall. She stood in the doorway to the kitchen. The surprise, and perhaps even mild fright, on her face from her unannounced visitor quickly faded. She closed her parted lips. The tightness in her brow loosened. She folded her hands in front of herself, letting them hang low.

A smile formed on her face. It was one that felt so familiar, too familiar. It was one that Serena had worn herself far too many times, the bittersweet kind of smile one makes when there was nothing to smile about.

Serena wanted to close her mouth, but she couldn't. It was like she wanted to say everything all at once, but all she managed was a shaky breath. She saw it clear as day now, like she never had before. She was truly her mother's daughter.

They gaze they shared said everything, more than Serena ever could have said with words alone. Serena's eyes lingered on her mother until she could no longer see, her eyes flooding with tears.

Her mother had no idea what had really happened. But she knew.

Serena broke the silence with a loud sniffle, one so loud it startled even her. The jolt of surprise was all it took to open the floodgates one last time. There was no holding it back now.

An ugly, choked sob echoed through the still hall. Grace's hands parted. As if drawn to each other, Serena and Grace met in the middle of the hall, and Grace wrapped Serena up in a close embrace. Serena did what little she could do to return it as she sobbed into her mother's shoulder.

She knew. That was all that mattered.

Serena wept. She was not sure for how long. It felt like hours. It was only interrupted when she heard a sniffle that was not her own.

She looked up. There were tears in her mother's eyes, as well.

Ten years in the past, Serena held her father's hand as she skipped down the sidewalk. She was happy. It was a big day. It was the biggest day. It was her first day of kindergarten. She was going to the big kid school now, and that meant she was a big kid, too.

She had so much to tell her dad on their walk home. So many things had happened that day. The teacher was nice. She had read a story to the class about a girl with golden hair and a family of Pangoro, and they had colored with colored pencils instead of those big baby crayons, and they even got to use scissors and glue to cut out the pictures they drew and paste them on a big sheet of paper the teacher hung on the wall.

And everyone was jealous of the heart-shaped sandwich in her lunch.

Her dad listened, and nodded along, and kept asking her what happened next. Eventually, Serena ran out of things to say. She had told him about the whole day already. She went quiet for a while. She was trying to remember something.

There was a big calendar on one of the walls in the classroom. There were lots of big words on it. She couldn't remember what they were. She hoped she would never have to spell them.

She asked her dad what day it was. It was Monday.

Serena thought as hard as she could. When was that other big day? There were so many big words, and so many numbers.

Her dad asked if she was thinking about when her mom was coming home. He always seemed to know what she was going to ask before she asked it. Serena looked up at him and nodded.

Her mom was coming home on Wednesday, her dad told her. That was two days from now.

Serena felt a surge of panic through her heart. How was she supposed to tell her mom all about today if she wasn't here? So many things had happened! How was she supposed to remember?

Her dad shook his head. He looked sad. He missed her, too. Serena saw it in his eyes, those big brown eyes.

Wednesday came. It took forever. School was at least a million times longer that day. She couldn't sit still in class. The teacher even talked to her about it. Serena decided she wouldn't tell her dad about that part.

She was so excited when she saw him standing out in front of the school to walk her home. He was excited, too.

But Serena was less excited when her dad told her that Mom wouldn't be home until late at night.

It was an outrage. Ten o'clock? That was after her bedtime! A lot after!

Her dad said it was only a few more hours. It was one of those dumb lies that grown-ups always told to kids, even though the kids never believed them. Ten o'clock was not going to be there before she knew it. It was going to be a really long time, and the hours in between then and now were going to pass slower than ever.

As the evening unfolded, Serena was proven right. The next several hours were so slow it was like time didn't even want to move. She became cranky as the evening dragged on. No became her favorite word. First, she refused to eat her dinner. Then, she refused to take a bath. Both disagreements ended with her in tears.

Her dad got really quiet. He took a bottle with some nasty brown liquid in it out of one of the high cabinets, well out of Serena's reach. He poured some of it into a glass and drank from it.

It was half an hour past Serena's bedtime when he told her it was time for bed. His breath smelled weird. Serena refused again, just like with dinner and the bath, but her dad just shook his head, picked her up, and carried her to her room. Despite her protests, and her kicking and flailing, he said nothing.

He only spoke when he tucked her in. He said goodnight, and that if she left the bedroom, she would lose all her dolls for a week.

So, Serena stayed in her bed.

Time didn't move. The minutes lasted for hours. There was no clock in Serena's room. She had no idea what time it was, if it was close to ten or even past it. She flopped around on her bed so much that she was sure her dad could hear her downstairs. He never came upstairs to tell her to stop, though. He never made a sound.

The next thing Serena was aware of was waking up to a loud sound. Two loud sounds. They were coming from downstairs.

"I can't believe you're stuck on this!"

"I can't believe you didn't call!"

"Do you not see the giant Rhyhorn in our front yard? Do you have any idea what a hassle it was to get him through the airport?"

"Is it really that hard to bring a Poké Ball with you?"

"You know it's not good for keeping up his racing conditioning! Being in that thing leads to cramps. I can't afford that!"

"On the way back you can!"

"We have another race in three days!"

"Of course you do."

"You knew that already. I told you, twice. It's even on the calendar."

"Yeah, yeah…"

"What are you, sixteen?"

"Are you? Out until the middle of the night without the decency to call home and tell us what's going on! Missing our daughter's first week of school! For what?"

"For her future! We've been over this! We decided together it was worth it for me to try this! The money can secure her future!"

"Right now, she doesn't need money! She needs a mother!"

Autumn arrived. The leaves on the trees all turned red and orange and brown. They fell to the ground and covered everything. It made the walk home from school so much more fun. There were so many leaves to stomp! They made such a fun crunching noise!

It became their afternoon routine. Serena would walk home from school hand-in-hand with her dad, and he would listen while she told him all about the things she did that day. While she talked, she would try to step on as many of the fallen leaves as she could.

But as autumn went on, there were fewer and fewer leaves on both the trees and on the road. It became harder and harder to find good ones to stomp. Before long, the trees were all bare, and the Fletchling nests tucked between the branches could be seen. It was darker and darker all the time, like the sun was afraid to show its face. Clouds covered the sky for days on end.

Serena's mom never seemed to be home anymore. She was always away with Rhyhorn, either going to a race or coming home from one, only to turn around and leave again. She was on TV, sometimes. It was never for long, though. The races were always over in a couple of minutes at most. She never won, either.

Every time, Serena saw her dad go to that same high cabinet in the kitchen and pull out a bottle.

It was something about money. That was all Serena really understood. They always showed huge numbers on the TV next to the name of whoever won the race. Even when her mom almost won, the numbers next to her name weren't nearly as big.

One day, they were watching one of her mom's races, and her dad turned the TV off before it was over. When Serena asked him why, he just shook his head and left the room. He went out on the front porch and sat there on the swing for a really long time, all by himself.

He didn't talk much for the next day. Not until Serena's mom got home.

It had been a good day, Serena thought. Her mom actually got home before dinner! They all got to eat together as a family, for the first time in forever. Serena did most of the talking. She had so much to tell her mom about. It had been a big week at school. They were practicing their letters, and the teacher said her handwriting was the prettiest. She even got to be the line leader one day.

Everything was good, she thought. After dinner, she went into the living room and continued playing with her dolls. Her parents stayed in the kitchen, cleaning up together.

That was when everything changed.

"What do you think you're doing?"

Her mother's voice was so sharp that it made Serena look up, like she had been spoken to directly. The question wasn't directed at her, though.

Things became deathly quiet.

"Put that away!"

This time, her mother's voice was followed by the rumbling and rattling of hollow glass against wood. Serena knew what the sound was. She had heard it many times.

More silence. Her mother spoke again.

"Seriously?"

"Yes."

"Since when did you go for a drink immediately after dinner? Since when did you drink at all?"

"Don't know. It's been a few months. It just kind of happened."

"A few months? You mean the whole time Serena has been in school?"

"More or less."

"That's what you're doing with your free time?"

"I don't drink during the day."

"Oh! What a relief! That way, at least no one in public will ever see that our daughter is being left at home alone with a drunk!"

"I don't get drunk. I only have one or two. It just helps calm the nerves."

"Calm the nerves? What do you have to be nervous about? Do you see what I'm putting myself through? Your only responsibility right now is to take care of Serena, and you respond to that by picking up drinking?"

"I'm doing everything around here right now."

"Yes. That was the agreement. We knew it would be like this for a while."

"It's harder than I thought it would be."

"Well, I certainly feel the same way knowing that my husband is drinking every evening while he's at home alone with my daughter. That really puts my mind at ease. So thank you for that."

"It would put my mind at ease if we had a guaranteed payday in our future."

"Oh? Is that so?"

There were a few stomping footsteps. The sound of a cabinet door being thrown open. The rattling of several glass bottles.

Serena couldn't see either of her parents, but she could feel her mother's glare when she spoke again.

"Sure seems like you're concerned about that, what with your suddenly unlimited liquor budget."

"We've been eating nothing but rice and canned food for weeks. I got Serena's new raincoat secondhand."

"Good! Great! Glad to hear that you've been pouring money down the drain, literally! Can't feed or clothe our daughter, but at least you can take the edge off in the evenings when you have to be around her."

"That's not my point."

"It may as well be. What point could you possibly have? You have no ground on which to stand! None!"

"I have plenty."

"Oh? Then tell me, please. I bet this will be enlightening."

"This isn't what I signed up for."

"What? Yes, it is! We agreed to this! Don't tell me your drunken brain has forgotten all the time we spent at that very table, going over how to make this work!"

"I haven't forgotten. I was skeptical then, but I agreed to it because I believed you."

"Believed me? Believed what?"

"I trusted you when you said this would work. That all you needed was one big win, and we'd be set."

"Are you calling me a liar?"

"No."

"Good. I didn't lie to you. What I said was true then, and it's still true now."

"We assumed you would get that one big win a lot quicker than this. You were quite adamant about that, as I recall. Or am I a mistaken, confused drunk?"

"Don't you dare question my abilities as a rider. We talked about this for years."

"I'm not questioning them. I think you're the one who should question them."

"Do you have any idea what I've been going through? Do you have the faintest clue what this has been like for me? Let's see you handle having a camera and a microphone shoved in your face after you've traveled halfway across the continent to miss out on a money finish by five-hundredths of a second and all you can think about is your daughter back at home and what your failure means for her future!"

"What about the present, though?"

"What about it? It's hard. We knew it would be!"

"What about Serena's present?"

"With her drunken father and absentee mother? Can't say I feel too positive about it!"

"I am not a drunk."

"Good. If that's the case, let's keep it that way. You won't mind if I dispose of these, then?"

There was a clinking noise, the sound of several bottles being grabbed at once. Serena's father groaned.

"Oh? Don't like that idea? Why don't we reevaluate whether or not you're a drunk, then?"

"Stop."

"Only when you get your life in order like a man. You're a father!"

"Please stop."

"Why? So you can ignore your problems some more? Avoid responsibility? Give up? Run away?"

"I didn't sign up for this."

"Yes you did!"

Serena jumped in fright as her mother punctuated her statement by slamming one of the bottles on the counter.

"I don't just mean being a stay-at-home dad. I mean our entire current situation."

"You agreed to this."

"I agreed to do this, temporarily, so we could secure Serena's financial future. I did not agree to do this so I could watch you continue to chase your dreams while I watch mine fall apart."

"Your dreams? Dreams of what? Being some office drone for the rest of time?"

"Dreams of financial stability, and of being a functional family."

"You hated your job. Don't even try to pretend you didn't."

"I enjoyed it more than this."

"Do you seriously think you would have been happy if everything stayed the way it was?"

"No, but now that I've seen the other side, I know I would rather go back."

"I am not giving this up."

"I know you won't."

"Then why are we even having this conversation?"

"Because neither one of us is happy, and we're not providing Serena with the best that we can, and you care more about proving yourself than you do about the welfare of our relationship and our family."

"How dare you say that. How dare you imply that I don't care! Do you see what I'm going through?! I'm breaking my back daily to make this happen! I'm doing everything in my power to provide us with the best future possible, no matter how hard it is today! Why can't you understand that this is bigger than what you want?"

"I did not marry you to be told that your dreams are more important than mine."

"We discussed this. We agreed to this."

"It's time to discuss it again. This arrangement is killing us. I know you see that. You would never be this defensive unless you knew that what I'm saying is true."

"What do you expect me to do? Just quit? Give up? Leave my lifelong dreams on the track just because you can't handle it?"

"I expect you to be willing to discuss it with me like a reasonable adult, and not to put your foot down and throw a tantrum like a child who doesn't get their way."

Serena heard the contents of a bottle loudly swishing around.

"You have no grounds upon which to criticize my behavior."

"You have none upon which to criticize mine."

"That's ridiculous."

"So is what you're saying."

"You've lost your mind."

"I'm reasonably certain that I'm not the one who has lost their mind."

"Are you calling me crazy?"

"I don't know about crazy, but other than in name, you bear no resemblance to the woman I married."

"I've grown. You've stayed exactly the same."

"I have not, and you know it."

"Oh, of course! How could I forget? You've added a drinking habit. How wonderful."

"Your competitiveness has turned into something very different. You weren't like this when we met. You were more pleasant than this while fighting with other racers outside the track."

"I didn't have a daughter to take care of or a drunken husband back then, did I?"

"No, but I do know one thing that hasn't changed. You still can't admit it when you're wrong. You never could, and you still can't."

"That's because I'm not wrong."

"I'll let that statement speak for itself."

"Not clever enough to come up with your own rebuttal? Yet another thing that's never changed. You don't know how to fight. You never have."

"What's the point? You're not going to listen."

"Why should I?"

"Because I can't continue to live like this, and I'm dangerously close to leaving."

"Don't even start with that."

"I'm serious."

"Stop. Don't."

"I mean it, Grace."

"Have you lost your mind?"

"I've lost the right to control my own life."

"You are a husband and a father! The world isn't simply yours for the taking! We're not kids anymore!"

"The same goes for you."

"I'm not the one threatening to leave."

"You've already left."

"You signed up for this! I don't care what you say!"

"I signed up to be your husband, not your sidekick."

"You signed up for this, literally, for better or for worse, until death do us part!"

"Grace, I love you, but that's not enough to fix this. Not unless you'll work with me."

"So, what are you going to do, then? Run away?"

"If that's what it will take to make you understand, then yes."

"You're a coward."

"You can call me a coward all you want, but at least I have the courage to admit when I'm wrong."

There was a bitter pause.

"Get out."

"Fine."

"Get out!"

Transfixed, horrified, rooted to her spot on the living room floor, Serena watched her father walk briskly through the hall and out the front door. His footsteps were followed by a scream, and he shut the door behind him a moment before an empty bottle went flying toward it, shattering upon impact.

Serena found her dad asleep on the couch the next morning. She found him there the morning after that one, and the next one, and every morning that her mom was there for the next three weeks. Being with her parents was like walking on eggshells. The tension was so great that it felt like a bomb would go off any moment.

But mostly, nothing happened. There was just silence, and lots of the two of them ignoring each other, not even looking at each other when they passed each other in the hall. There was no more arguing. No more shattered bottles. No more bottles of any kind, in fact.

Her dad seemed determined to pretend that nothing was wrong. He was still there to walk her home from school every afternoon, still always eager to hear about everything that happened each day. Serena wanted to pretend that nothing was wrong, too, but it was hard. Her handwriting had gotten worse. The teacher had noticed. And there was one day when the teacher read the class a story about a mommy and a daddy who got their daughter a Pokémon to be her friend so she wouldn't be lonely, and Serena started to cry and the whole class laughed at her.

She didn't tell her dad about that.

And in the evenings, after dinner was over, her dad would just sit in his chair and stare at the TV forever, never moving, never saying anything. And when he tucked Serena into bed and gave her a kiss goodnight on the forehead, his breath smelled normal, but it was like he wasn't there at all.

And then, one morning, he wasn't there at all.

He never was again.

Autumn became winter, winter became spring, and spring became summer. School continued, but it was never the same. Walking home with her mom wasn't the same. She was never as interested in what Serena had done that day, and always more interested in how she was doing. Her questions were different. It was never What happened next? It was What did the teacher say?

In the spring, when there were lots of great puddles to splash in on the walk home, her mom would never let her jump in them. Serena was sure her dad would have.

The school year ended, and her mom told her about something called summer camp. Summer camp, Serena learned, meant that she was going to be sent on an airplane to a place really far away called Kanto, where she would be staying with a bunch of other kids and an old man named Professor Oak. It was going to be like school, but all the time. It was going to be so much fun. She was going to make so many friends, and so many great memories. She was going to love it.

That's what Serena's mother told her, anyway.

It didn't start out very fun at all. Her mother dressed her in a cute little pink dress and a straw hat, took her to the airport in Lumiose City, walked her to the gate, hugged her, told her to be good, and left her there crying with a flight attendant. She was an unaccompanied minor, and whatever that meant, Serena didn't like it at all.

Serena didn't like the plane, either. It was loud and uncomfortable, and the flight took forever. When the plane landed, another flight attendant escorted her through the airport to a group that was waiting for her - a young woman who was a camp counselor, whatever that meant, and a bunch of kids she didn't know.

And they all got in a van together and drove to some place far outside the city, a place with a bunch of log cabins in the middle of the woods, a place in the middle of nowhere. A place called Pallet Town. Or the outskirts of it, whatever that meant.

She and all the other kids were organized into groups and then taken to their cabins where they would be spending the next two months. After being shown their beds, they had a chance to unpack. But Serena didn't unpack anything. She wanted to go home. She wanted to tell someone, but she never got the chance. Before she could talk to the counselor, they were all on their way down a path in the woods. There was so much to see, she was told.

Serena didn't see any of it. The woods were endless. The trees were taller than any she had ever seen. They stretched forever in every direction. It was mesmerizing. After a while, she wasn't even sure which way was up.

It was then that she realized she was all alone.

The trail was nowhere in sight. The chatter of all the other kids was distant, somewhere far off in another direction. Through the gently swaying limbs of the trees, she could just barely make out the shape of some faraway figure, her only tie to civilization.

She ran toward it. Something was wrong. Through the noise of all the fallen leaves and twigs cracking under her feet, Serena could just barely hear the other kids. They were getting quieter. Was she going the wrong way? She couldn't tell. She lost sight of the figure she was following. She stopped in her tracks. She looked all around. She panicked. She doubted the figure she saw had ever been there at all.

She called out to the others. She called for help. Somehow, even though she knew she was yelling, her voice sounded so quiet. It was so small, so meek in the vast, empty labyrinth of the endless forest, muted by the leaves, swept away by the wind like nothing more than dust.

It became quiet. So quiet. Dangerously quiet. Serena became frightened to move. She looked over her shoulder with every footstep, constantly afraid that the sounds of her own movements were covering the sounds of something else's.

Every direction looked the same. She tried to follow her footprints in the leaves on the forest floor, but it was no use. She had been going in circles. The more she tried to retrace her steps, the more of a mess it all became. She paced about, becoming more and more frantic by the second. The truth dawned on her.

She was lost.

Serena's breaths accelerated. Her palms went damp with sweat. She felt hot and cold at the same time, and like she was going to be sick. One moment, she felt faint. The next moment, she felt like running. She went back and forth between the two, unable to make up her mind.

When the trees began to close in around her, Serena's mind was made up for her. She broke into a blind sprint, running aimlessly ahead, unable to care where she was headed as long as it was not where she currently was.

It was no use, though. No matter how far she ran, or which direction she went, it all looked the same. All exactly the same, in every way. She cried for help again. It was no use. She could hear nothing but her own breaths and footsteps now. There was no one else around to hear her.

When she could run no more, Serena sat down on a fallen log and cried. She wondered what was going to happen to her. Would anyone ever find her? Did anyone even realize she was gone? Was she going to be in trouble when she got back to camp? If she got back?

Then, she heard movement in a nearby bush, and for the very first time, she felt the fear of death.

She went silent. She froze. Was it only her imagination? Was it only the wind? Everything went quiet again.

And then, she screamed as a short, blue Pokémon hopped out of the bush.

It was round, and it stood on two legs. It had a large, flat tail, and a black spiral pattern on its white belly. It had two big, dewy eyes, and a tiny, sniveling mouth.

And it was going to eat her.

Serena pushed herself up from the fallen log so forcefully that she rolled over backward and fell off of it. She scrambled to her feet, saw that the Pokémon was hopping after her, and turned and ran.

The little thing was fast. Every time she looked back at it, it was right behind her. She couldn't escape. She had to fight it. But how?

Serena spotted a fallen branch up ahead. It looked like it was loose. It even still had a few dried leaves on it.

As she ran past it, she snatched it up from the ground. Then, she spun around and threw it.

She missed. The branch was too awkward to reliably throw. It landed short of her target. It bought her some precious time, though, as the Pokémon had to stop in its tracks and then go around it.

Serena ran even faster. There was a denser patch of woods up ahead. The whole area was covered by underbrush. Maybe she could hide in it and escape? It was her only shot.

She broke through a patch of brambles, leaving scratches all over her arms and legs. It was becoming even harder to see where she was going. She wasn't sure if the Pokémon was still behind her or not. There was no time to look. She had to keep going. She pushed herself even harder. There was a dense thicket just up ahead-

Whump.

Serena landed face-first on the ground. Pain shot through her leg. Her diaphragm contracted in an involuntary cry, but her lungs held no air for her to make a sound. It had all been knocked out of her by the fall.

She pushed herself up with her arms and looked back. She could not see her pursuer. What she did see, though, was blood.

It came from her knee. It throbbed with pain. She looked at her feet. They were ensnared in the tangled, bare roots of a giant old tree. Her knee had come down directly on top of a particularly thick one. It had been like a wedge between her leg and her kneecap, with the force of her whole body weight pushing on it.

It hurt to bend her leg. The feeling made her sick to her stomach. This was not some playground boo-boo that moms could fix with a kiss and a popsicle.

Serena turned herself over. She had to untangle herself. She had to find cover. She was done for otherwise.

Right side up, she sat up and pulled the tangled roots away from her feet. Then, pushing herself backward across the ground with the palms of her hands, she backed up until she could lean against the tree.

She looked at her wound. She had no idea what to do. It was a mess. It compelled her to grab it, to apply pressure to it, to do anything to stop it. Touching it was painful, though. It throbbed with every heartbeat.

Her heart throbbed, too. She was all alone.

As the immediate panic faded, a new one set in. She was stuck here. She couldn't walk.

She wanted to call for help, but she knew it was risky. That awful Pokémon would surely hear her. Maybe something even worse was out there. It seemed more likely than anyone from camp ever hearing her.

She sat in silence for a while. It gave her too much time to think. This was the part in all the stories where someone came to rescue whoever was lost, but there was no one coming for her. No one knew she was out here. No one cared. She was stranded.

Silently, or at least as close to silently as she could, Serena began to cry again. She began to get the idea that her story wasn't going to have a happy ending.

This was the end for her, wasn't it? She was going to die out here, wasn't she?

All because her mom made her go to stupid summer camp.

She gasped in fright when she heard a nearby noise. Shivering, she tried to keep silent. It was getting louder, drawing nearer…

She shrieked. The little blue Pokémon hopped out of the bushes. Serena curled into the fetal position, trying to shield herself, to get a little further away from it.

But it ignored her. It hopped away.

Then something else came out of the bushes.

It was a boy. His eyes turned toward her, those big brown eyes. He stopped in his tracks.

He smiled at her.

Ten years later, Serena looked up at the tears in her mother's eyes. There they stood, in the same hallway that had once been covered with shattered glass, in front of the same door which had still held a visible dent from that day, no matter how many times it had been painted over. There they stood, surrounded on all sides by the places where her parents' marriage had fallen apart, the walls which still held the echoes of the words of innumerable arguments, and the memories of times both good and bad, long gone.

"Mom?" Serena whispered.

Her mother did not reply. Instead, she wiped away the tears from the corners of her eyes.

Serena's next question was hardly a whisper, barely more than a breath.

"Why are you crying?"

Grace took a strained look up at the ceiling. She inhaled sharply through her nose. She swallowed, hard. She began to speak.

"Because..."

Grace trailed off. Serena just stared. She hadn't called to tell her mother she was coming home. She hadn't said a word until now. Somehow, her mother still understood everything.

"...because I'm sorry," said Grace.

Serena's eyes fell. She looked at the floor. Her next words simply fell out of her mouth without a thought.

"Me too."

"I did the best I could," said Grace. She wiped her eyes again. "I know you did, too."

Serena looked up at her mother again. Did she understand the double meaning of her own words? What was this about?

What wasn't this about?

"It's part of life, you know?" said Grace. "Sometimes, you can't fix things, no matter how hard you try."

Serena thought for a while.

"Maybe," said Serena. "Sometimes... sometimes it only looks like things can't be fixed, because you can't see the forest for the trees. Sometimes, it feels like you can't fix things because you got lost along the way, and you need someone to show you the way home again. That's part of life, too, I think."

Grace folded her arms tightly as though trying to comfort herself. It was such a familiar gesture, but it looked so strange to Serena from the outside. Grace drew her lips into a tight, strained, bittersweet smile, one meant to stave off another wave of tears for a few moments longer.

Serena could think of only one thing to say.

"I love you, mom."

"I love you, too."

The first few days back at home passed in the blink of an eye. Serena spent the majority of her time asleep, sleeping as though she had not slept in years. Her nights were dreamless, and her days were listless. Every time she opened her eyes, it felt like only minutes passed before the day was done and she was sound asleep again, only to open her eyes when it was well past sunrise.

Things were quiet. Her mother made no attempt to press her for details. They spent their evenings in silence, but in a way Serena had never experienced before. The silence was comfortable.

In the endless empty moments, Serena watched from a distance as her Pokémon adapted to their new home. Pancham spent his time alternating between harassing Rhyhorn and trying to look tough in front of him. When Cutiefly wasn't with Serena, she was either flying around with Fletchling or chatting with Sylveon. Sylveon split her time between comforting Serena and attempting to talk with Delphox.

Delphox kept quiet for the most part, exchanging only a few words with Sylveon here and there. Serena had no idea what to say to her. She had given Delphox a choice, a chance to go on the adventure she assumed Delphox had always wanted, a chance to be with Greninja in the same way she wanted to be with Ash. And yet, for reasons beyond Serena's imagination, Delphox had refused. Delphox had remained loyal to her despite having no incentive to do so. Serena had never felt less worthy.

Delphox spent much of her time beneath the old yew tree in the front yard. She and Rhyhorn seemed to be kindred spirits in their appreciation of silence. Delphox passed the time in meditation, occasionally levitating in moments of intense concentration. At night, when Serena looked out her bedroom window, she often saw Delphox wandering through the field by the light of her wand, gazing at the night sky. Sometimes, Sylveon joined her, animatedly pointing out shapes in the stars.

No one called. No one came looking for Serena. The only sign that the world had not stopped turning was the rising and setting of the sun, and the different stories on the news every day. For a few days, Serena checked her email inbox multiple times a day. Eventually, she stopped checking altogether. Aria never replied. And so, Serena kept to herself. She decided it was the right thing to do. It was her punishment, her penance, this self-imposed exile. It was the first step on a long journey to make things right again.

Days passed. Then, one morning, before dawn, Fletchling and Cutiefly slipped underneath the gap at the bottom of her bedroom door and pecked her awake. It was her traditional alarm clock.

When Serena opened her bedroom door, she saw a box sitting in front of it, with work gloves, coveralls, and a pair of boots.

She stared at it for a minute. Then, she shrugged, changed into them, and headed outside.

Days turned into weeks. The passage of time felt so odd. She had despised farm labor as a child, but now, it was something of a welcome distraction. It was something to focus on other than herself. Her days unfolded as endless expanses of monotonous routine, each one blending into the next. From moment to moment, almost nothing happened at all, yet time flew by.

She had lost track of the days when one afternoon, she came in from the fields to check the mailbox before heading inside, and she found a letter waiting for her.

It was from Ash.

Serena tucked it into her coveralls. She did not want her mother to see it. She wasn't sure she wanted to see it herself. It was strange, the way time and distance acted on the heart and the mind. Serena both felt as though she had spent all day every day thinking about what happened and what she had done, and yet she also felt as though she hadn't thought about Ash in weeks. Her heart skipped a beat upon seeing his name, at the thought of him taking the time and going to the effort to write to her, at the sensation of touching something that he had so recently touched.

Yet, she was not sure she wanted to open it.

She didn't. She stuffed it into the drawer in her nightstand, right next to the handkerchief, back in the same spot where it had resided for so many years.

The next night, and every night after that for the rest of the week, she pulled it out and looked at it for a while, but she never opened it.

Then, she got another.

Once again, Serena tucked it into her coveralls and snuck it inside. When she entered her room, she locked the door behind her, took out both letters, and sat down with them on her bed.

The handwriting on both envelopes was the same, Ash's familiar, untidy lettering. The return address on each was slightly different, two different Pokémon Centers on Melemele Island.

For some reason, one letter was too much for her to handle, but two letters made her ravenous for more. Before, she couldn't bear the thought of discovering what was inside that first envelope. Now, she absolutely had to know.

She ripped the envelope open. Inside it was a single, roughly-folded sheet of paper. It looked like it had been torn from a notebook. It was covered in Ash's handwriting. Breathless, she read.

Serena,

I hope you're okay. I didn't know where to send this, so I hope your house works.

Things have been busy since you left. I stayed at the lab for another week, and then Lillie and I left together on our journey. Hau is with us too, kind of. Sometimes he's with us, and sometimes he isn't. He's a weird guy. Lillie says he's a lot like me.

Lillie was really upset when you left. You hurt her feelings a lot. She cried a lot for the first few days you were gone. Those days were weird. Greninja spent all his time alone, looking at the sea. Pikachu was sad. Everyone was. I know I was. I kind of wish I had followed you, but I know you didn't want me to.

I trust you when you say me being here is important, even if I don't know why. Lillie hasn't told me yet. I'm sure she will one day. She's been quiet since you left. It's really only when Hau is around that things are like they were when we were on the road with Clemont and Bonnie.

I miss you a lot. Everything was more fun with you. Lillie is nice, but it's not the same. She's a really bad navigator, too. I think we've made two full circles of this island without finding everything we're looking for. It really makes me miss looking over my shoulder and seeing you right behind me, always ready to give us our next direction.

I finished my first trial yesterday. I had to beat this big, mean Raticate deep in a mossy cave. It wasn't that hard, but the trial captain was impressed. He gave me another Z-crystal, Normalium Z, and he taught me how to do the pose to use it. I wish you could see it.

I wish you were here. Whatever it is I have to do here, I want to get it done as fast as I can. When I'm done here, I'm going to come back to Kalos. I'll find you again, no matter what. I will come back to you. I promise.

Love,

-Ash

Serena let her hands, and the letter they held, fall into her lap. She stared at the door. Her eyes slid out of focus. Her heart palpitated.

Ash thought about her. Ash missed her. Ash wrote to her. Ash wanted to see her again. Ash promised he would come back to her. Ash used a very particular word.

Love.

Serena's head flooded with questions. She set the first letter aside and ripped open the second, hoping for answers.

She did not find any. She found no answers in the second letter, nor the third, fourth, fifth, or any thereafter. It became her weekly ritual. Every Tuesday - it was always Tuesday - there was a new letter from Ash waiting for her in the mailbox. Serena figured he must always have sent them on Friday or Saturday. But every Tuesday, after a day in the fields, she tucked a new letter into her coveralls and carried it upstairs to her room.

She only read the letters at night. It was partially because she wanted to ensure she would be left alone, but it was mostly because she blushed like mad when she reached the bottom of the letter, and Ash always signed it the same way.

Love.

Weeks went by. Serena began to amass a small collection of letters. While she spent her days laboring away and trying to make sense of it all, Ash was spending his days taking Alola by storm. He quickly defeated Kahuna Hala and moved on to Akala Island. There were three trials there. By his fifth letter, he had passed all of them, too.

His handwriting never improved very much, always remaining just barely legible. He told stories of people and places Serena could only begin to imagine. One trial captain made him fish, another made him dance, and another - Serena would have loved to have seen it - made him cook. He mentioned Pokémon with such bizarre and unfamiliar names that she had to resort to looking up information for them online. In her many searches, Serena printed out a map of Alola's islands. She followed along with his journey, marking all the places he had been.

When his seventh letter arrived, Serena's heart nearly stopped. Through a wild turn of events, he had met Lillie's mother. He thought she was nice. He had also managed to meet a Pokémon from another dimension, a strange creature that looked like a veil draped over an invisible head. He battled it and sent it on its way back home. He thought it was cool.

He had no idea.

Summer faded, and autumn arrived. Every day was shorter than the last. Each morning, it was a little bit darker when Fletchling slipped under the door and pecked her awake. Each evening, the sun set a little bit earlier. Serena wasn't sure where all the time had gone.

Tuesday afternoon saw the arrival of Ash's tenth letter. It was different from all the others. Things had become much more serious. Lillie had been kidnapped. He and Hau were going to work with a guy who was supposed to be in an organization named Team Skull to free her.

Ash had no idea that the kidnapping had anything to do with Nebby. He had no idea that his mysterious accomplice was Lillie's brother. He was the clueless hero, going off to save the princess, as always.

Serena wasn't in the story. She never was.

The next morning, had Serena not seen the clock in the kitchen on her way outside, she would have sworn that Fletchling had woken her up in the middle of the night. It was pitch black, darker than usual. Somehow, it was still the same dreadfully early hour as always.

She shoved a piece of toast in her mouth and stepped outside. The air was cool and crisp. It tasted like fall. The sky was cloudless and clear.

And in startling detail, looming over the distant trees on the horizon, the moon was full and red.

Fletchling fluttered past her as she shut the door. As Serena's eyes adjusted to the darkness, a greater scene came into view. All of her Pokémon and her mother's were gathered in the field, gazing up at the moon. Pancham and Sylveon stood there, silhouetted by the dim red light. Delphox, as she did so often these days, levitated next to them, seated, meditating. Cutiefly fluttered overheard, chirping with excitement. She was joined by Fletchling. Even Rhyhorn had left his sand pit to watch with them.

All was calm. Making as little noise as possible, Serena hopped the fence and joined them in the field. When she arrived, she sat down with everyone else. Sylveon quivered with excitement. Serena rubbed her behind the ears, and her fur felt almost electric to the touch. Pancham could hardly sit still. Cutiefly buzzed and buzzed until finally coming to a rest on Serena's shoulder. Fletchling landed on Rhyhorn's back. As always, both Rhyhorn and Delphox remained stoic.

For a while, Serena just sat there, hands in the dirt, leaning back to gaze up at the moon. She had seen this once before, long ago, in what now felt like another life, another world. Clemont had caused a racket in the middle of the night and woke everyone up to see it, then unintentionally put everyone back to sleep by droning on and on about it.

A lunar eclipse. She could still hear Clemont's voice in her ears, as well as Bonnie's groan, and Ash's yawn, voices from a starry night long past, frozen in time. She never understood back then how lucky she was. The distance and the absence, and the color of the moon, and the taste of the night air all filled her with longing.

And so, to bridge that gap in time, to fill that empty space, she spoke. For a little while, she became Clemont, and the Pokémon all became Ash, and Bonnie, and even herself. Her lecture was much shorter than Clemont's, less accurate, and just as dull. But none of that mattered. For a few minutes, she wasn't there. She wasn't then. She was in that starlit valley, bleary-eyed, struggling to stay awake, listening to Ash yawn and Bonnie complain and Clemont ramble on and on about the moon. And for just a little while, the world seemed endless, her possibilities limitless, and her future exciting and bright.

For just a moment, she felt like her old self again.

The moment she had that thought, Cutiefly buzzed on her shoulder. Serena looked at her, and then Cutiefly fluttered her wings once again and took flight.

She touched Serena on the cheek, then rose high into the air. She seemed to fly directly at the moon, becoming smaller and smaller until she was surrounded by it. She flitted about, dancing in the moon's rust-red light.

And then, she shone like the sun, and she transformed.

And when she floated back down to the ground, all scarf and smiles, she touched Serena on the tip of her nose.

For the first time in longer than she could remember, Serena smiled.

The eclipse passed. The sun rose. Serena's tablet served as a makeshift Pokédex. Ribombee.

As the morning passed, Serena's day unfolded with all the same daily chores she had done for the last two months. She wasn't truly there. She was lost somewhere in her own mind, just as she had been every day for the last few months. She was totally, gloriously, utterly absent, living in the past, and in futures that never were.

And all that fell apart when she stepped out of the barn at midday for lunch and saw three figures walking toward her across the field. When she stopped, they waved.

For a moment, Serena was certain her eyes deceived her.

But they did not. She ran toward them as fast as her legs could carry her. And when she met them, she flung her arms around them, making no attempt to conceal her tears.

It was Clemont, Bonnie, and Korrina.

They were there. They came back for her. And for a while, on that glorious autumn afternoon, nothing else mattered. Everything under the sun was in tune, perfectly imperfect in its harmony.

Serena was not alone. She never would be again.

TO BE CONTINUED