Chapter 34: Closer Every Day

(Gina Ikeda)

Jason followed Edith around sometimes, not realizing he was doing it. She seemed kind enough when it came to his crush on her, and gave him tasks to do when she could think of them. They were very few and far between, though; when one had OCD and lived alone, one learned how to do pretty much everything just right. There were more people living here, though, so invariably the workload increased. Gina got to watch Gav, Orion and Victoria argue with Edith about money, insisting that they pay her much more than simply the cost of their food, which she had so far refused. Evidently her business kept her up and running perfectly fine, and the idea of taking money from unemployed travelers baffled her. Poor Jason looked torn between siding with his brother to give Edith more money, or with Edith to stay on her good side.

At first it had been cute. Gina made fun of him occasionally, but when he seemed genuinely mortified about the whole thing she laid off a little. It was unusual though, realizing that a topic was "off limits" between she and the boy she had come to regard as her best friend. Gina figured she didn't know how it felt since she had yet to feel that way about anyone yet. It piqued her curiosity for sure, and she wondered if it was too unbearably girly to ask Jason about it—later, of course, when he wasn't so embarrassed.

Gina supposed in a way she was jealous. Jason was spending a lot of time around Edith these days, and the two of them seemed to get along quite well. Edith was very nice, in spite of the rocky start she and the group had had, but it was hard for Gina to tell if she was interested in Jason back. Gina hoped that he wouldn't forget to spend time with her if the two of them did start dating, or something. She still had an image of Jason as an immature, gung-ho boy and couldn't imagine him being all lovey-dovey with someone.

"Your move, Gi! Unless you'd like to forfeit."

Gina grinned up at Jason and laughed. "You wish!" she said, shouting an order to Charmander and sending him forth with a torrent of small flames.

The battle ended with a win for Gina, as Pidgey had outmatched Jason's Nidoran after a long struggle. Gina stuck her tongue out in response to Jason's joke about "letting her win" and took Pidgey's Pokéball off her belt to recall him.

Pidgey, however, squawked at Gina and fluttered away from her when she pointed her aiming laser at him. Concerned, Gina dropped the Pokéball and crouched down nearby. "What's wrong?" she asked, reaching a hand out to Pidgey. Pidgey, however, snapped at her and clacked his beak shut on open air near her hand. Gina flinched back and gave her Pokémon breathing room.

"What's going on?" Jason asked, exchanging a concerned look with Gina.

"I don't know," she said, a split second before Pidgey had a full-body shudder and began to grow. It was the strangest thing Gina had ever seen, but there was no way it could be described as anything else. Pidgey was getting bigger.

"Holy crap!" Jason exclaimed, taking a few steps forward and crouching down next to Gina. "We get to watch an evolution!"

"Is—is that what's happening?" Gina asked, her voice tense and louder than she'd meant out of concern for her Pokémon. She yanked her Dex messily from her pocket and peered through the viewfinder, and Jason leaned over her shoulder to smash his cheek next to hers and also look. It was cramped and ungainly but both of them were desperately curious to see what was going on. The little screen, indeed, had a scrolling bar running across it that read evolution in place; do not recall Pokémon to Pokéball. A line of stats beside Pidgey kept on climbing higher and higher. Gina watched, dumbfounded, as the little numbers that indicated Pidgey's strength, speed, attack and such soared upwards.

"Is Pidgey okay?" Gina said, biting her lip. Even though her Dex was leading her to believe this was normal, Gina couldn't help peering at Pidgey with anxiety. Pidgey was getting slowly bigger, not all at once, but in small stages. Little feathers were starting to poke out in between Pidgey's existing ones to make up for the greater surface area of bigger wings. The plume on his head was lengthening as well, creeping farther down his back.

"Pidgey's totally fine!" Jason said, his grin stretching ear-to-ear. "Pidgey's great!"

The process took about five minutes, and then Pidgey—Pidgeotto—ruffled his feathers out and stretched his wings wide. The new wingspan was probably close to six feet. Pidgeotto turned around to Gina, looking a little bit sheepish, and hopped over to her to nudge her hand with his head. Gina stroked the long plume feathers and broke out into a relieved grin.

"Freaking sweet! Oh man! Check you out!" Jason could not keep his mouth shut. "Do you think Pidgey—uh, otto, will let me…?"

"Yeah, I think the nip earlier was just so I wouldn't crowd the process," Gina said, feeling overwhelmed by Poké-love as Pidgeotto bumped against her leg with his head. "Look at you!" she said, dissolving into pride and something embarrassingly close to baby-talk. "You're so awesome! Yes you are!"

(Jason Fremont)

Edith was more of a Pokémon rescue girl than a breeder. This is what Jason had decided, anyway. She was still in the business of raising Pokémon babies of specific types; she had an area for that in the back. For the most part, though, her cottage was a collection of wild Pokémon that couldn't handle Pokéballs, were disabled, had emotional issues or had been abandoned by trainers in the forest. The Eevee breeding program was probably the thing her place was best known for.

"A lot of the times people will keep trying to breed the same two Eevee over and over until the mother gets sick and her pups are born with defects," Edith explained to Jason. Jason at the moment was a bit overrun with brown puppies; they tugged at his sleeves, sniffed at his shoes and nibbled at his fingers. If Edith noticed the current danger he was in of death-by-puppy-burial, she didn't seem to think it was a problem. "Or, they'll often times breed two Eevees from the same litter, which can wind up with the same consequences."

"So, where do you get your Eevees from?" Jason asked, pulling his sleeve away from one and only succeeding in making it more determined.

"I'm in touch with other breeders across Kanto. We trade sometimes to make sure the gene pool stays fresh. You okay there?"

"Oh, yeah," Jason said, trying to sound nonchalant as another few puppies stomped on his stomach. "I love dogs." That part was true, at least; he just wasn't sure he loved this many all over him.

"They seem to like you," Edith said simply. "You must be a good trainer."

"You think so?" Jason asked, sounding a little too interested in her answer. He was tossing away cool points here. "I always thought breeders sort of didn't like trainers," he said, hoping he wasn't generalizing.

"Not me," Edith said. "Of course you get your occasional bad trainer here and there, but I do agree that Pokémon are competitive. They genuinely like to learn and grow and improve. I just know the training bit is not for me."

"Well," Jason said, displacing an Eevee or two as he got to his feet. Edith was a few inches taller than him, which abashed Jason immensely. He made a mental note to drink tons of milk. "I think you'd be a good trainer."

"Thanks," she said, smiling at him, and he had to turn away to preserve his man-points.

(Victoria Larson)

Victoria had a clear view of Jason being awkward around Edith. She and Gav were up on the second floor in his room, and the window in that room had a vantage point of the breeding pen at the back. She couldn't help but chuckle to herself at how uncomfortable Jason seemed in this new situation. The horrors of growing up, Victoria thought as Jason turned away from the girl and made a distressed face.

"I think everyone is alright with the four of us remaining the main investigative team," Gav was saying. Victoria shook the sleepy laziness from her head and turned back to him. It was one of the last warm days of the year, and she knew it would be getting chilly soon. It probably wouldn't snow this far south, but it would definitely not be sunbathing weather.

"That's a funny way to put it," Victoria said. "As if they would physically force themselves upon us."

"You never know," Gav said with faux seriousness.

Victoria had to admit, he had a point there. Orion was almost aggressive with his niceness, Edith was the equivalent of a forty-year old mom trapped in a thirteen-year old's body… many of the others were concerned about them, in a pushy-but-well-meaning sort of way. Victoria might not consider them all friends just yet, but she was growing accustomed to their presence and was happy no one had shot their mouth off to the wrong person yet.

"You think Beth and Kaylee are really happy though?" Gav asked, breaking suddenly from the business talk. Victoria raised an eyebrow at him, confused.

"You mean, here?"

"I mean this," Gav said, indicating the paperwork spread out over the entire surface of the desk. "Doing this stuff."

"I think they're happy to be doing something important. But, you know, it's important that we give them time to relax like this. I mean, after all, they're still kids."

"There's something else," Gav said, scrolling down on his PDA. "Something regarding Saffron."

"Hmm, seems like all the action happens right when we leave," Victoria commented. "What is it?"

"The Silph Company hasn't released any new newsletters in almost six months. Normally this wouldn't be strange, but they've also laid off almost a third of their workers in the same time frame."

"I did read about that," Victoria said. "Before I met you and Kaylee, of course. I figured it was just bad business."

"Well, let's hope that's all it is," Gav said. "I'm gonna start looking into those laid off workers soon. We probably won't be ready for a trip there for quite a while. We'll look into other smaller incidents in the mean time."

"So, this will be a bit of a long-term goal," Victoria said, nodding. "Alright. I can use Edith's computer and take part of your list."

Gav gave her a strange look then, and Victoria raised her eyebrows at him.

"What?"

"Nothing, just…" he smiled thoughtfully, pausing before continuing. "I'm just glad you and Beth got attacked by Fearow that one day. Not to be taken the wrong way."

Victoria gave him a teasing look and a light shove on the shoulder, but inside she was warmed by the compliment. "You should adopt distressed teens into your group more often," she said, indicating the house as a whole with a motion of her hand. "Seems pretty effective so far."

(Gav Harrison)

Gav felt like his eyes were going to turn into liquid and leak out of his face. He shut off his PDA, took the band out of his hair, and massaged his scalp fiercely for a few moments. He let his head hang down over the desk and sighed, struggling to decompress and chase away a migraine. He figured it was probably a little too late for that, though.

Like clockwork there was the knock on his door. Instead of turning around, Gav leaned back in his chair so he could peer, upside-down, at the door. "Come in," he said.

Kaylee pushed the door open and gave him a look. It was a little disorienting to watch her walk across the ceiling towards him. "Sup?" he said.

"Wow, the PDA's actually off. Betcha only switched it off about two seconds ago though."

"That would be correct," Gav said, sitting upright and accepting one of the sandwiches Edith had no doubt made. Kaylee managed to set things on fire even when the recipe didn't call for the oven or stove.

"Well, did you find anything interesting?"

"Naw," Gav said. "Most of the people who got laid off just moved quietly off to new jobs. Some expressed anger in various interviews… almost all of them got new gigs right away, though."

"Yeah, you kind of do when you used to work for Silph," Kaylee agreed. She bit into her sandwich and Gav closed his eyes while he chewed, letting his throbbing temples relax a little. "Gav?" she asked him after a few moments.

"Yeah?"

"Do you think we're getting close?"

He thought about that for a while. "I don't know how close we are to the end. But I do know we're getting closer every day."

"Aw Gav, that's cheesy."

"Hey, you asked!"

(Kaylee Harrison)

Kaylee had to admit she was feeling better as she left Gav's room. Maybe she'd have felt a little better if he'd conceded to come outside and enjoy the end of the warm season with her, but she would take what she could get.

She really liked this place. It was weird, knowing they could come here whenever they wanted, knowing that it was relatively safe. It felt sort of like being home again, but better, if possible. Here there were people laughing and talking, battling Pokémon out back and taking naps in weird places. It wasn't just her and Gav and their memories. Kaylee knew she could get very used to a place like this.

She passed Orion playing with an Eevee and waved to him before heading outside. Gina and Jason were there, and so was Edith. She wasn't sure what they were pointing at off in the distance, but they were laughing about it. It made her happy to see.

In reality, Kaylee knew she could very easily grow too accustomed to this place. Who knew how long it would last? Gav had never revealed to them exactly what he and Edith had talked about during the week of their trial by fire, but Kaylee hoped it was enough to assure their good graces with Edith for a while at least. She'd only been here for a little over a week and already the idea of having to leave was depressing to her.

She didn't want to settle. Settling would mean giving up the project, and there was no way Kaylee was going to do that. She just could not deny the irresistible lure of other people.

Beth was over by the fish pond, letting her team swim about. Kaylee took a seat far enough away to avoid being splashed.

"You feed Gav?" Beth asked, giving Kaylee a knowing smile.

"Yup," she responded. "You know how he is."

"Sure do!" Beth said, reaching into the water to pet Goldeen. Kaylee watched her friend, so different from her in some ways, and so similar in others, and felt grateful all over again. Staryu moved closer to Goldeen, and Beth rubbed down its gem, cleaning the edges where it blended into the starfish's rubbery flesh. Her mind wandered back to her brother, and she wondered how many hours a day he and Victoria were filing away up there, researching Saffron and Silph.

"When do you think they'll figure out the whole mutual attraction thing?"

"What, Goldeen and Staryu?" Beth joked.

Kaylee laughed. "Yes, of course. No, I mean—"

Beth giggled. "I know who you mean. Ah, give 'em time. Sometimes it's like they're still kids."

Kaylee thought to herself that truer words had never been spoken.

(Beth Larson)

Beth, unfortunately, was never good at cooking. She sometimes wondered what kind of wife or mother she would make if she could screw up something as simple as boiling water.

"Edith, I'm so sorry! Oh my God, it's totally gone!" Beth stared down in disbelief at the pot that had formerly held water and herbs. "It evaporated so fast!"

"Water at a boil tends to do that," Edith conceded, but she was smiling. "It's alright, there's more where that came from. She put more hissing water into the pot, turning the faucet on and off twice when she was done, and placed the pot back on the stove. A few moments later more herbs and spices were added to the water. "Just let me know when that starts to go," she said.

"I promise, this time," Beth replied, putting her head in her hands. "Jeeeez. I'm sorry."

"Fah," Edith said, waving her hands at Beth as she walked away down the hall. Edith tended to do that—the "fah" and the retreat—whenever anyone in the house apologized or thanked too much. Beth awkwardly returned to her task of watching the water intently as it slowly began to boil.

As she stood, she let her mind wander. She thought of her letters home to her mother, and the letters to the City Penitentiary in Celadon that would eventually get to her father. She had been keeping the letters just as boring and vague as ever; as far as the Larson family knew, Beth and Victoria were still out meandering slowly across Kanto, raising their teams at a steady pace. It made Beth feel guilty, but she knew telling them anything even close to the truth was out of the question.

That part, at least, Beth could deal with. When it came to the difficulty that even sending a boring letter brought, though, Beth felt boxed in and trapped. She didn't want any of their mail getting tracked here, as paranoid as it sounded. Edith's return address could not be linked to them in any way. This severely limited the ways in which she could get in touch with her father, even if she could still call her mom on occasion. Victoria wasn't as close to their parents, and Beth often admired her independence. She supposed she just wasn't ready to be a separate unit from the rest of their family yet.

Edith seemed to notice Beth's ennui when she returned to the kitchen. Mistaking it for lingering water-guilt, Edith's eyes widened. "Good lord, it's really not a big deal."

"Oh, no, not that," Beth said, shaking her head. "I'm over my failure to cook water. I was just puzzling over the correspondence thing."

Beth managed to not screw up dinner too badly from that point on, mainly because Edith only gave her the simplest of tasks, and instead made Beth explain her troubles to her. Beth only realized she'd been rambling when the smell of the now-complete vegetable lasagna chased all lingering thoughts from her head. Dinner was an affair to remember, since Kaylee managed to upset the Poliwhirl under the table by accidentally kicking it (the meal got a lot soggier from that point on) and Gina's Pidgey had, evidently, evolved earlier in the day.

"Evolution is a lot weirder than I thought it would be!" Gina insisted between bites. "I mean, Pidgey sort of just… grew. It was a really fast process, but it still took a couple of minutes. I'm just glad it didn't seem painful."

"That was the freakin' coolest thing I've ever seen in my life!" Jason insisted, shoveling his food down at lightning speed. "I can't wait until Abra evolves, or Bulbasaur!"

"Don't be so sure," Orion said quietly. He still looked a little worn, but he was participating more in conversations these days. "You know Bulbasaur never does anything in a hurry."

"Yeah, well…"

Beth was enormously full and sleepy when she dragged herself off to the room she shared with Kaylee. Kaylee wasn't there yet, but a note was. It was folded neatly on Beth's bed, and she recognized Edith's cramped, impossibly precise handwriting.

Beth — here's the address of one of my associates in Viridian. I called him and it's okay for you to address the letters to your dad from him. He'll forward any mail for you here. — E

Below it was a neatly copied address block, and Beth held the paper close to her face and grinned her thousand-watt grin.

(Blake Nakawa)

Blake often thought of many things at once. It went a step beyond what most people referred to as "multitasking," though; Blake's brain literally felt like two brains at times. When he was getting reprimanded at age eight for skipping class, he had been trying to remember a peanut butter cookie recipe in the back of his mind. When he was half-asleep in bed he thought about where he would hide and what he would use as a weapon in the event of an armed robbery in a Pokémon Center. When Zeke had attacked him and Zahlia, demanding that they give up before they were hurt, Blake had thought if I live through this, I should really shampoo my hair. It's been a long time and it's super uncomfortable.

Backburner Blake was crazily annoying at times, but right now it was a useful feature. Real Blake was doing his best to keep up in a conversation with Gav, who was grilling him on Zeke and what he knew. Real Blake was trying to keep his facts straight, not say anything wrong, and not look like he was thinking too hard. Backburner Blake was observing Gav's face, stressed and serious, calculating how he would look and what health problems he would have by the time he was middle-aged. Backburner Blake noticed that Gav was not really "all here," and that he kept glancing over at Orion's door.

"Worried about Orion?" Blake asked, changing the subject at the perfect moment, just as Gav sighed and shook his head.

Gav looked up. "Yeah, I am, a little. He seems better but, y'know…"

"Yeah," Blake said. "It was real good of him to come over to Zahlia and me. Jason and Gina, too. We're pretty lucky they believed us. No way I coulda carried Zahlia back to Vermillion alone."

"Right," Gav said. He was getting distracted, remembering that night. Maybe he was thinking about how odd it was that they all had put aside their prejudices and judgments to go out on a limb for one another. Backburner Blake figured that he was also not strong enough to carry Gav, but that was a wayward thought and not very relevant to the situation at hand.

Sure enough, Gav was sufficiently derailed and got up. "Well, thanks for your info. Sorry I keep asking. Just trying to make sure I've got everything."

"No problem," Blake said, shrugging. "Anytime."

Blake headed back to his room, trailing one hand on the wall and counting the planks as he passed over them. This reminded him of OCD, which reminded him of Edith. He wondered how bad her diagnosis was, then wondered if she'd even been properly diagnosed. He wondered if they could prescribe meds, and what the meds would do; then he wondered what would happen if he tried them, just for kicks, not that he would. This train of thought lasted only for the walk down the hall to his room, and branched off into many other sub-categories. Blake often came off as weird and quiet to others, but not particularly shy. Blake was very frequently lost in his head.

He thought of Gav, re-evaluating the idea of lifting him if he used leverage versus sheer strength. Then he shook off the random Gav-lifting thoughts and went back to thinking just of Gav as a person and not as living workout equipment. Gav was a good guy, just trying to help people. Beth, Kaylee, Orion, and all the others were good people too. Victoria was the one who intimidated him the most, but he even liked her, in a weird way. She was honest, at least.

Blake actually really didn't want to keep secrets from them, but Zahlia was keeping secrets from him, and until he knew why, he didn't want to reveal anything. Like a good brother, he would keep her secrets until she was comfortable enough to share.

(Zahlia Nakawa)

Her leg still hurt very much. It twinged in its cast, and she had to wonder if the doctor had been right about the one month recovery period. Maybe she had worsened it with all the travel. The thought of going back to a hospital to get it taken off was not a pleasant one, and she hoped Edith could help her remove it in-house instead. She was pretty good with Pokémon injuries, which gave Zahlia hope. She would not be looking forward to any more trips to major cities. It was bad enough that the group had stayed in Pewter overnight on their way here. She hoped Zeke had been too busy to follow.

He was probably catching on, by now. Zahlia never went this long without reporting in to him, and on a job as important as this, she really should have been sending word back every few days. It had been a few weeks now, and in spite of the fact that Zahlia had dismantled and left the pieces of her cell phone in Saffron, she couldn't shake the feeling she was being tracked.

It had been Orion that had made her start to freak out, as early as Cerulean City. She'd never liked these jobs for Zeke, but she liked it even less when Orion made it so easy for her. He trusted her instantly, in spite of the fact that he had every reason in the world not to. Jason and Gina had been exactly the same. Zahlia had had no idea that the Fremont brothers would lead her to Ando Harrison's renegade children, and that those children were a part of such an interesting project. She hoped Zeke didn't know; the group hadn't talked about it at all until they'd arrived back in Saffron, and she had no clue if Zeke had followed them or not. Even after all these years she still couldn't hear or sense him near. He had been able to appear in her locked room at the Pokémon Center in Pewter more than once.

In the end, it was what she did not know that was killing her. She didn't know if Blake was safe here. She didn't know what Zeke was up to, where he was, and what his new orders might be. She didn't know if anyone in the house suspected her at all. She didn't know what Blake thought of all this; they hadn't spoken about it at all since the day Orion and the others had found her with her busted leg.

She didn't even know what she herself was going to do. There were too many choices, too many factors, and too many consequences if she so much as budged in the wrong direction.

Zahlia's leg gave another pang in its cast. She had been deviating from her orders by trying to escort Blake safely back to Fuchsia, and Zeke never did have good control over his temper when it came to surprises. If she did end up having to go back to him, she would tell him to chill the hell out in the future.

For now, all she could do was wait.

(Orion Fremont)

Kangaskhan was, hands down, one of Orion's favorite Pokémon. Naturally when he had learned that Edith had one in her care, his happiness had been extreme.

It was an female, which were the best kind in his book. The baby in its pouch was blind, but had a great rapport with people and was so freaking adorable Orion thought he would die from it. It liked him immediately, but Orion suspected it liked everyone. The mom was not as easy to convince, but then again, moms never were.

He regretted not being able to visit his own mother in Saffron. He still stood by his guns that it had been a bad idea at the time, but he knew there would be a day when he could safely visit her again.

It wasn't that he didn't like being here. It was downright therapeutic to be around the Pokémon and the people he had come to consider friends. He spoke with Zahlia more and more often, as they were the two bedridden ones, but even the best of days couldn't stave away the nightmares.

Orion crawled out of his mother's pouch, not wanting to leave the warmth even as it was steadily decreasing. He howled to the moon and clawed his way through the dirt and twigs, looking for food as he waited for her to wake up. Months passed in this way, and still she did not move. She was different now, white and hard, and it was not long before he realized he had to leave her and start off on his own.

He wore her skull as a mask and took one of her bones to defend himself. The solitude started to kick in then, the madness, and he knew in that moment of clarity beneath the full moon that life would never be the same.

Orion woke in a cold sweat, his lungs struggling to pull in air and his throat emitting strange, guttural noises. He sat there like that, telling himself that everything would be alright until the sun rose.

Author's Note: Well, that's a wrap, folks. Thank you to whoever got this far. The sequel will be up soon, and as always, if there are any questions, comments, or the like, I love all feedback.

Just my opinion on the Kangaskhan thing: I don't necessarily buy the "Cubone is really a baby Kangaskhan" story, but it seemed like an appropriate motif for my chapter, so I added it into the dream. In my world though, I still say Cubones are a separate species from Kangaskhan :)