Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon.
Author's Notes: I've wanted to write a VatonageShipping fic for a while now (it is SO one of my favorite-est pairings EVAR!), and I finally forced myself to do it!
The Trying Times of Saturday
Keith walked leisurely down the hallway to Kate's apartment, holding their bag of take-out. It was a weekly thing – it had been for years now. Normally, though, Kellyn, Rhythmi, and Isaac would join them, but that Saturday night, Rhythmi and Isaac were going on their first date, and Kellyn had gotten a lead on a mission he'd been working on for a while now, and so ultimately, it was just Keith and Kate.
But the young redhead wasn't complaining. He barely got any time alone with just Kate anymore, and he hoped to just catch up with her like old times at the Ranger School. It had been exactly six years since they had all graduated from their – they were all twenty-one now, and all based at the Union. At his own request, Keith had been transferred from Fiore to Almia so that he could be with all of his friends – especially Kate. He would never admit it, but he had missed her every single day he had been in the Fiore region. She was his driving motivation to be a Ranger.
Finally, after clearing a few more flights of stairs and walking down another series of hallways, did Keith come to her apartment door. Grabbing the doorknob, he twisted it and welcomed himself into her home. He one of the few people in her life who had the privilege to just walk right in whenever he pleased.
The sight he was presented with when he walked in, though, was not at all what he expected. Instead of the usual Kate waiting for him or just watching TV, there were boxes upon boxes stacked on each other and scattered every which where. The familiar set up of her living room that he knew so well was now invaded by even more boxes. He blinked only once at his surroundings, dropping the bag of take-out in shock. He heard footsteps coming from Kate's bedroom, and out she came, holding yet another oversized box in her arms. The box blocked her vision, and as she turned to manoeuvre around her coffee table, she noticed the fiery red hair of her best friend, and she almost dropped the contents in her hands.
"K-Keith! Hi!" she placed the box down on her sofa to prevent herself from actually dropping it, "um, what are you doing here?"
Keith found his voice again, which had temporarily disappeared. "It's Saturday, Kate! It's take-out night, like always!" He bent down and picked up the bag of take-out, motioning it to her frantically. What the hell was with all the boxes, anyway?
"Oh," she avoided eye contact with him, and began to pick up the box again. "As you can see, though, Keith, I'm kind of busy right now. I don't have time for take-out." His mouth visibly dropped – Kate didn't have time for take-out? But she was the one who originally came up with the idea for take-out Saturdays!
Completely forgetting about shutting the door and the take-out, he dropped it again and moved towards her, arms outstretched. "What are you doing with all of these boxes?" he yelped at her. "What's going on, Kate?"
Kate sighed heavily, before placing the box back down again and turning to him. "Look, I haven't told any of you yet, but I'm moving."
Keith didn't know if he felt relieved or even more frantic yet. What context of moving was she implying?
"Like... to a different apartment block?" he asked hopefully.
"No, Keith. To a different region." Instead of the sarcastic tone he wanted with that answer, he got a dead-serious one. "To Johto."
Keith's heart started to race, and his voice began to rise. "W-what?"
"Look," she placed her hands on his shoulders comfortingly. "I didn't want you to find out like this. I wanted to tell all of you at the same time, but I—"
Keith felt his throat contract tightly as he fought back tears and flashes of blind anger. Clenching his fists, he shook her hands off of him and pointed a finger accusingly at her. "So when exactly were you planning on telling us? Because you seem a little too damn busy packing up to tell us anytime soon! What, were you going to tell us the day you were actually planning on leaving? Yeah, because that's what real friends do! Abandon each other!"
Kate, almost cat-like, jumped over the couch and shut her door – she didn't need the neighbours to hear Keith's outbursts. She was back to her original spot in seconds, restraining him. "Please, be quiet, Keith, and let me explain!"
"Why should I?" he growled. She gave him a heart-breaking look, like she didn't want to leave. Then why was she? "Fine," he gave in after a second of looking into her crystalline eyes. He could never resist her, and he hated it. If she ever became the enemy (though he knew she never would), he would be screwed.
She sat him down on the sofa, beside the box, and he stared at it like it was Ice. Kate noticed, and had to continually force him to look at her instead of it. "Keith," she swallowed once she had gotten his full attention. "I'm moving because I need a change."
Keith still couldn't fathom why she would possibly want to leave Almia. Why did she need a change? Everything in her life was going perfectly fine, so he thought! "W-why?" his voiced crack. "Don't you like it here in Almia? With all of us and your family? With... me?"
"Of course, I do," she took her hands in his, rubbing the tops of them soothingly with her thumbs. He looked completely traumatized, to tell the truth. "I love Almia and my family and our friends. I especially love you, Keith. I never want to leave any of you... but I have to." Kate found it weird that she had just told her best friend she loved him.
"Why, though, Kate? You're not giving me a straight answer! Why leave if you love us so much? Stay here!" Keith squeezed her hands, trying to get his point across even further.
"If I gave you the full answer as to why, you'd hate me for it," Kate whispered, getting up from her spot beside him and grabbing the box beside her. She walked into the kitchen, which was intermixed with her living room, and placed it on the bare counter, opening it and then one of the counter drawers. She fished through it nonchalantly, placing utensils and other things into the box as she went along.
"I could never hate you, Kate, and you know that," he told her softly, following her into the kitchen. "Please, just tell me why you're leaving me... us." He almost hugged her, but held himself back.
"Because, like I said, I... I need a change, Keith," she explained. "I do love Almia, and I do love you, but I can't be here anymore. I have done everything I can for Almia, Keith. And it's done all it can for me. And not to mention, I kind of want to start something."
Keith was oblivious to what she was implying. "Start what?"
"A relationship. I don't want to be a Ranger forever, and that why I'm moving to Johto. To start anew where no Rangers are. I want to find someone who I can be with. And I want to be in a relationship where my job isn't constantly risking what I have with that person," she told him.
He blinked, incredulous. Okay, so now, not only was she moving and leaving him and all of their friends behind, but she was quitting being a Ranger to look for a boyfriend. Uh-uh. This wasn't happening. He wouldn't let it! He shook his head at her, "No, no, no! You can't quit being a Ranger, Kate! You said that it's all you ever dreamed of being, and now you are one, and you're going to give it away, just like that? Haven't you even thought about any of this and its consequences?" He didn't even want to go into the relationship topic right then. He didn't need to face his true feelings for her in the current situation he was facing.
"Every day since I decided to move, Keith, every day," she turned away from him solemnly, going back to her packing.
He hated how easygoing she seemed about her decision. Barely even regretful of it all, she seemed. Whereas he was going to lose his best friend if she left, she didn't seem to care at all! "Is there a way you would consider not leaving?" he asked. Hell, it was worth a try.
She shook her head. "No. I've already informed Erma that I'm resigning, and the apartment ward knows, as well. Everything's already pretty much set in stone, Keith. Nothing can be done. I'm going to Johto, and that's final. Please, try to understand that." Her attitude was killing him.
That was it. Keith was over the edge. In less than a half an hour, his perfect world had come crashing down. His mind a flustered, frazzled mess, he kept on thinking of ways to make her stay. Then one came to mind – it was gutsy and impulsive, but at that moment, he was willing to do anything to make her stay with him.
Stepping forward, he placed a hand on her side and forced her to face him. In one swift, thoughtless movement, he kissed her. Kate blinked at him, but found that she wasn't pulling away. He wrapped his other arm around her waist, and pressed his weight against her, causing her to grab onto the box for grip as she kissed him back, her other hand in his fiery hair. The box, however, was not as heavy as she thought, and so it fell from its spot on the counter to the tiled floor of her kitchen.
The clattering of utensils brought Kate back to reality, and she detached her lips from Keith's. Her face flushed when she looked at his, and she felt tears burn at the back of her eyes. To avoid eye contact, she instantaneously fell to the floor and began to scramble around for her forks and spoons.
After a few seconds, she heard his voice from above her. "Kate."
When she ignored him and continued looking for her things, he knelt down and began to help her. As he did so, he said her name again, "Kate."
She turned to him, only to say, "It's okay, I can do this myself. It's my fault anyways."
"Kate, please, talk to me," Keith begged.
She laughed nervously, curtly. "I just did."
"You know what I mean." He padded over to her and passed her the cutlery he had found. She placed them back in the box beside her, and they stood up simultaneously. He was about to bend over and pick up the box for her, but she did it before he could and walked away from him.
"Kate!" he hollered at her after a second. She dropped the box on the floor in front of her, and her resolve for leaving completely left her.
"Why did you do that?" she inquired whisperingly, her shoulders slumping in defeat. "Why, Keith? Why would you do that?" When her shoulders then started to shake, Keith realized that she was crying. He walked closer to her, and finally engulfed her in the hug he had wanted to since the second he found out. He regretted letting a tear of his own fall – he was supposed to be the strong one in a situation like this.
"Because... I thought that maybe I could change your mind. That I could make you stay if I..." he trailed.
"If you kissed me?" Kate finished his reasoning, wiping away a glittery tear. "Keith, I wanted to leave to Johto for a fresh start and I didn't have any qualms about leaving until you what you just did! Everything was fine until you kissed me! I wanted a real relationship with someone, and you took advantage of that, through a dumb, meaningless kiss! Now I have to leave feeling all guilty that you messed us up!"
"Us? There was never an us, Kate, you've made that clear!" It hurt Keith that she thought his kiss was meaningless – he had meant it, he really had.
"Don't play dumb, Keith. We would perfectly fine as friends until your little stunt... now we're... we're... I don't even know!" She made to bolt away from his embrace, but he held her firmly in place and stared down at her with his brown eyes.
"Kate, do you know why I left Fiore after the Darkrai incident?" he asked. It was a simple question.
Kate blinked back him. "What?"
"Do you know why I left Fiore to come be a Ranger in Almia?" he repeated. She simply shook her head, looking away from him.
"I left because I wanted to be with you," he answered his own question. Her eyes went back to his at his confession. He smiled at her. "After all that time I spent with you before we took down Team Dim Sun, and after I saved you, I just... couldn't bear the fact of leaving you once again for Fiore. So I requested that Erma allow me to stay in Almia, and she agreed. You're the reason, Kate. Because I just didn't want to be without you any longer." He felt her body convulse another time, signifying another round of tears.
She still wasn't looking at him, though. After a minute, she spoke. "I'm still leaving. I don't care about your opinion anymore."
"Kate, I—" she cut the shocked young man off.
"Leave, now," she broke free from his hug and pointed at the door. "Please."
Keith finally gave up – there was no way he was going to convince her to stay. The only thing left he could do was tell her he loved her, and he knew she wouldn't believe that one little bit. So with a heavy sigh, the redhead exited her apartment with a broken heart.
One week later...
"What do you mean, 'Kate's leaving us'?" Rhythmi shouted at Isaac, who had just informed that the youngest Top Ranger was moving. After that night, the news had spread like wildfire in the Union. Everyone knew, and everyone was unhappy about it. "Keith, did you know about this?" Rhythmi turned to the sulking Ranger. "Keith?"
"What? Uh, no," he mumbled depressingly, staring at the ground. He hadn't the heart to tell anyone. Murph had found out when he had been updating some folders, and he had been the one to spread the news.
"Why would she do that to us? We're her friends! I—" Rhythmi began to ramble on and on, Isaac rubbing her shoulders soothingly to calm her down. Keith, unable to take any more of it, left the room.
He began to wander the hallways of the Union, regrettably thinking about what he had been trying to avoid all week. For all he knew, she was gone. She was in Johto, going on dates and getting a boyfriend. Keith could only scoff at the thought. No guy was good enough for Kate, but... who? Himself? That was selfish to think, not to mention she had made it very clear she had rejected him that night at the apartment. How did one go to their friend's apartment for take-out, and go out, not even a half an hour later, broken-hearted and rejected? Ah, only Kate could do that.
He stuffed his hands in his Ranger uniform's pocket, sighing as he took an escalator to the ground floor. He needed some fresh air. The young man's face was directed at the floor, and so when he walked out the door, he ran right into someone.
"I'm sorry," he murmured. Usually he would apologize profusely, but he just didn't have it in him anymore.
"It's okay, Keith," he looked up from his place on the ground to see Kate standing front of him, giving him a sad smile while dusting herself off.
"K-Kate," he stammered, pulling himself off the ground, as well. He stood before her, feeling his heart break even further. He tried to appear indifferent. "If you've come to tell Rhythmi and Isaac, they already know. So does everyone else."
She didn't look shocked or accusing – he was sure she would think it was him who had tattled. She still had the same sad expression on her face, though. "Oh," was all she said in response.
"So, what are you doing here?" Keith crossed his arms at her. "Last time I checked, you resigned as a Ranger about a week and a half ago."
"I'm here to return my uniform, actually," she explained, the sorrow tingeing her voice, as well. She pulled said uniform from behind her back, dry-cleaned and neatly folded.
Now it was Keith's turn: "Oh." An awkward moment passed between the two, before he said, "Well, you might want to go now. It's, as you should know, everyone's lunch break and it would be the best time to get in there and out without everyone noticing you." He began to walk away at that.
"Yeah, thanks," she mumbled at him, giving him a pained glance before walking into the Union. And that was the last time he saw her.
Two weeks later...
Keith stood in Kate's empty apartment. Everything was gone – she was gone. And he hated it. He felt so alone without her there.
After that day she had come to the Union to return her Ranger uniform, he never saw her again. She had left for Johto without so much as a goodbye, to any of them. She must have figured that because already they knew, that that was good enough to just up and leave. Well, it wasn't. Isaac couldn't work properly, Kellyn had passed off his mission to someone else, Rhythmi had to take the last few days off because she couldn't stop crying, and Keith was just plain, ol' lonely and still broken-hearted.
The news had passed off to her old colleagues in Vientown, too. Her family, as well. Keith couldn't believe her – leaving without telling her own family? Not telling her friends and him was one thing, but her own flesh and blood was another! – and what about all of her Partner Pokemon? Was she just going to leave them there, abandoned, waiting for their beloved Master to come back to them?
And Kate said she had everything figured out. Ch, yeah, right.
One week later...
Keith angrily sat in his own apartment, staring at the blank T.V. It was yet another take-out Saturday, without Kate and the actual take-out. Keith and his friends hadn't had one since Kate had left them.
Knock, knock!
Keith turned his head to his door, where said knocking sound was coming from. He contemplated whether or not he should open it or not – he hadn't opened his door for anyone over the past few weeks. He wanted to wallow in self-induced pity and sorrow in peace, without any interruptions. But for some reason, he felt compelled to answer his door for the first time in a while. But, who could it be? Not his friends, who were still trying to deal themselves, and he hadn't ordered any take-out... so, who?
He, with a groan, forced himself up from his loveseat, and walked over and opened it. And who was it, standing there before him? Kate. Kate, the girl who had left him. Kate, the girl who he best friends with. Kate, the girl that he was so hopelessly and impossibly in love with.
"H-hi," she managed out shakily, giving him a half-hearted wave.
Keith just blinked his eyes at her incredulously. Why was she standing there, outside his porch? She was supposed to be in Johto with the boy of her dreams, supposedly. Not that he minded that she was back, though...
"Why... what are you doing here?" he asked, trying not to sound accusing as he did so.
"I could never miss take-out Saturdays, now could I?" Kate put a forced smile on her face and pulled a bag of said take-out from behind her back.
Keith scowled. "That hasn't stopped you the last few weeks."
She sighed at him. "Look, can I come in?"
A part of Keith just wanted to slam the door in her face right there and then, but the other part of him wanted to take her into his arms and plead for her to come back to him yet again.
"S-sure," he pushed the door open a little further so that she could enter.
She squeezed in through the little amount of space he allowed her, and padded across his apartment until she came to the cozy living area and sat down on his loveseat. He followed suit, but instead sat in his armchair. He needed to be as far away from her as possible.
They sat in silence for a short while, before he asked his burning question: "Why are you here, Kate? You're supposed to be in Johto."
"I... haven't even left Almia yet," she confessed, looking at the hardwood floor. His eyes went wide at her as she continued to explain, "I've been jumping around from hotel to hotel in Pueltown for the last few weeks... trying to figure out what I really want. And I've come to a conclusion."
Keith tried to keep himself from exploding at her. She'd been in Almia all along? And she hadn't even come to talk to him or at least, Rhythmi? Their blonde-haired friend had been a mess, after all! "And what did you decide?" he asked her coldly.
"It's a no-go. My 'needing' to go to Johto and start a new life was only an impulse. I mean, I don't need a boyfriend or a new life when I've got all of you guys and my Ranger life here," she smiled at him.
Keith's mind was screaming at him to say something to her. 'You're more than a friend to me', 'I can be yours', or yet so simply and so complicatedly 'I love you' would all do! But had she really just passed off their kiss that easily?
"Can you forgive me, Keith? For everything I've put you through?" She broke him out of his trance. When he didn't say anything, she gave him a concerned look. "Keith?"
Inhaling sharply, he, in one swift movement, left his perch and was by her side on the loveseat, his hands firmly holding hers. Staring deeply into her eyes, he said, "I forgive you."
At that, Kate began to cry. Keith had never been more confused in his entire life, and it took everything for him not to straight-out panic. Why were girls so hormonal? "You're too damn nice, you know that, right?" she sniffled at him.
"Yeah," he laughed, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly.
"So if you know that, how come you haven't been able to figure out how I feel about you after all of these years, then?" she blinked away some more tears. He gave her yet another shocked look, to which she then wiped right off of his bright red face with a simple peck on the mouth. Keith swallowed nervously at that, him trying desperately to conceal the big, goofy grin beginning to form on his face. Kate giggled at his expression, before continuing, "I love you, Keith. I love you a lot. And when I was faced with the actual physical prospect of losing you that one night, I realized just what I was doing. How much I would be losing and how much I loved you. And yet I still covered that up with denial – that what I was feeling was fleeting and that I'd be fine when I left. I thought that I would be able to leave you, but when I was finally confronted about the subject, and by you of all people, I... I knew I couldn't. I just needed time to figure that out, and now that I have, I'm staying here in Almia. With everyone, and most importantly, you and as a Ranger."
Keith just barely contained his gigantic smile, and instead settled on a small grin. He finally allowed himself to utter those words: "I love you, too, Kate." He hugged her tightly, and she returned it. Keith pulled away for a second to kiss her, which she joined herself in wholly.
When they finished, Keith gave her his trademark goofy grin and bent down to pick up the almost-forgotten-about take-out bag on the floor beside them. "Now, let's eat some take-out. It is Saturday." Kate could only laugh before kissing him again and nodding with her own huge grin in response.
The End~!
Author's Notes: Shitty one-shot was shitty. But it was nagging me to be written, so I just had to do it, no matter the outcome!
'Til next time!
Fooboo24