A current of warm summer air blew in through the toothy, gaping hole in the side of the bluff, washing over my face and bringing me back to consciousness. The ever-annoying call of the more wild Wingulls emanated from the small flock of them that were perched on the top of our home, and soon enough I was fully awake, and fully irritated as well. I reached over and grabbed a rock from near the wellspring, tossing it up at the ceiling, and grunted in mild satisfaction as my frustration dissipated somewhat. I breathed in and out slightly, wrapping my feet into a pretzel-shape and clearing my mind, beginning to meditate.

Unfortunately, a soft, slightly gooey something-or-other to the face broke my concentration.

My mouth flattened as I opened my eyes, looking at the blue stewed berry in between my legs, the juices that oozed out of it staining the straw bed blue. Deftly plucking it out of my lap, I popped it into my mouth and chewed, letting out a slight 'mmmm' of happiness as the sweet, slightly tangy Oran taste delighted my senses. My face broke into a goofy smile as I glanced offhandedly at the one who had launched the edible projectile at me, her hazel eyes twinkling with merriment.

"You really ought to teach me how to cook someday, Rose," I remarked, and she boiled over with giggles, prompting me to chuckle as well. She trotted over, carrying a small wooden bowl filled with warm, mushy fruits and berries, and placed it in front of the both of us. I breathed in the scent of the meal.

"...aaaaahhh, this smells great!" I complimented, and Rose's nine cream-colored tails furled and unfurled in pride.

"It's nothing much, just took a little practice with Chimecho..." She muttered, bashfully looking over at the wellspring, and I reached over and ruffled her headfur.

"Hey, it's better than I could do. I burned myself unconscious," I said, emphasizing the last word, and she smirked at the memory of the last time I had tried cooking. That is, I had royally screwed up - and burned myself, obviously - and would never live it down. Rose nuzzled my cheek and licked her lips before sitting down and taking a hesitant bite out of the fruit. Resting myself next to her, we both began to share our morning meal. It was in the middle of the meal that our latest adventure would really start.

"So..." I began, and Rose looked up at me, the blue Oran fruits staining her fur an odd bluish color. She looked adorable. "What are our plans for today? Things have been pretty quiet around here for a while... maybe we could go to the guild and check out some of the new job requests?"

She gulped down her bite of food and sighed. "I don't know... to be honest, I... don't really want to."

"Don't tell me you're getting tired of adventuring with me!" I said, mock-horror creeping into my voice, and she gave me a small smile before walking over and rubbing up against me. I wrapped my arms around her neck, being careful not to spear her on my (thankfully small) chest-spike, and rocked back and forth, getting a throaty purr out of her in the process.

"I'm not... tired of it. I'm just..." She stopped, eyes staring upward in thought. "I don't know... I've just enjoyed how peaceful it's been for the past few days. No work, no urgent missions. Just slow, lazy days that I get to spend with you."

She ended her statement playfully, swatting my nose, and I laughed as we continued to rock in place. "Well, we have to start taking jobs again sometime, or else we'll run out of Poke before long."

"I know..." Her face turned wistful as she sighed, and I frowned.

"Is something... wrong?" She shook her head no in what I guess was a panic, and I could tell that she knew she hadn't fooled me. "You don't have to hide it, you can always talk to me. You know that, right?"

She sighed again and stared up at the ceiling before speaking again. "I know. Thanks, Bill," and she nuzzled my cheek one more time before squirming away from my hug and walking towards the door, a wide toothy smile plastered on her face. "Maybe you're right, let's go look at the job bulletins."

I stared at her sudden mood whiplash, rubbing my chin confusedly, before shrugging. She obviously had something bothering her, but I guess I'd ask her later. Hopping up, I ruffled her headfur again and shot a grin right back at her.

"If our track record is any indication, an adventure is just what you need to get that spark of excitement back." Standing up, I walked over and flung our treasure bag over my shoulder. I took the tight belt I always wore and tied it around my waist, letting the two ends dangle in the back, and I walked over to Rose to tie on her trademark baby-blue ribbon. She blushed heavily (quite a feat with all that fur, I thought to myself) as my paws worked around the scruff of her neck, but she thankfully sat still. Now ready to go, I pushed open the trapdoor leading up to the top of the bluff, the sunlight blinding me for a moment before my eyes adjusted.

"It's still pretty early in the morning..." I hopped out and reached down to help Rose out, and as she closed the trapdoor and hid it with our bush, I went to shoo away the Wingull that I had heard before. A couple 'git!'s and a wave of my arms was enough to send them shrieking into the air, and Rose and I watched as they zoomed out towards the open sea. Along with the orange-gold sunrise (although it was mostly over by now) coming from the eastern mountains, it made for a picturesque sight.

"Oh, Bill... it's so beautiful..." Rose cooed as she checked over the hiding bush one more time, and I chuckled as I leaned against our flagpole, the flag still due to the lack of wind. Rose came up to me a few minutes later, and I smiled as she nuzzled my cheek. "Shall we go?"

We left the bluff and entered the mostly empty Treasure Town. It was very early morning, so most of the citizens were asleep or groggy. That was one of the best (at least Rose and I thought) perks of staying on the guild's time schedule after graduation: you always woke up early enough to enjoy the quiet time of the town. The only stall that was open this early was the Kangaskhan storage tent, which was known for being a business with early opening hours.

"Hello, miss Kangaskhan!" Rose piped up, and the large creature turned around, a finger placed to her lips. Rose cowed, if only slightly.

"Sshhhh, the baby's asleep." Miss Kangaskhan gestured towards the young child that always hung around in her pouch, who was softly snoring, occasionally letting out a quiet hiccup. It was actually pretty cute, at least I thought.

"Hard to believe that that's the little guy who causes so much trouble in the storerooms," I remarked. I noticed Rose stifle a chuckle, and Miss Kangaskhan shrugged. "Remember when he got into our part of the storeroom?"

At this, Rose and Miss Kangaskhan both did chuckle, and I did as well. Boy, was that a fiasco. It had been about four weeks after Rose and I had graduated from the guild and found out we couldn't evolve. We had been getting ready for our expedition into the Surrounded Sea when we noticed that the little baby Kangaskhan was missing from his near-permanent spot in his pouch, and all three of us were shocked to find that he had polished off our apple snacks and decided to take a nap on top of our pile of scarfs and things. Trust me when I say his mother game him a good scolding, and he had never touched our supplies since.

"Well, he might be a pint-sized troublemaker, but he's still my little baby," Miss Kangaskhan whispered firmly, and she stroked her child's head as gently as could be. "You might not get it now, but if and when you ever have a child, you'll understand."

"Maybe. We do pick up those eggs and get miss Chansey to look after 'em, but she normally tutors 'em after they hatch, too," I said, glancing at the large, unmistakable Chansey-shaped building a ways away from where we stood. Hearing a quiet yawn, I looked back to see the baby Kangaskhan, out of his pouch, half-awake and tugging on my thigh.

"He always seemed to like you, Bill," Miss Kangaskhan remarked, and the baby rubbed his cheek against my leg. I felt my face flame from the baby's affection, and I knelt down to give it a pat before I picked it up gingerly and plopped it onto my head, where it curled up and began to nap again.

"Hey there..." I said, annoyed at my current predicament. He yawned again and I slowly moved my head towards his mother, who promptly slipped him back into her pouch. Scratching my scalp, I gave her a sheepish smile. "Well, that was... uh... could we get some items out of our storage? Let's see... Rose, what do you think we'll need?"

She didn't answer me as quickly as I had expected, and turned around to look at her, confused at her silence. She was normally quite talkative, at least about the non-personal stuff. "Rose?"

I was surprised to find her shaking quite violently, her tails curled up tight, and her waterlogged eyes told me that she was on the verge of tears. I immediately forgot about asking Miss Kangaskhan about items and strode over to Rose. However, as I reached out to try and grasp her shoulder, she batted my hand away and dashed off without a word. "Rose!"

I didn't chase after her, which in hindsight was probably a bit of a bad idea, and I watched her barrel into the empty streets until she was ought of sight. Turning back to Miss Kangaskhan, she gave me a pitying look and tut-tutted. My eyes narrowed, less in anger and more in frustration.

"What's that look for?" I asked, and she shook her head.

"There's a girl who buckles under her own pressure," The cryptically-worded statement was lost on me, and I folded my arms. Thankfully, Miss Kangaskhan didn't stop there. "There's obviously something bothering her, something around here that set her off. She wants something and doesn't want to talk about it. Remember how long it took for her to spit out that she liked you? It took your whole first adventure, and even then she didn't tell you until a few weeks later. Don't try to tell me otherwise, I remember you two gushing to me about it."

I frowned again, leering at the dusty mat in front of the tent. Miss Kangaskhan was right, of course. We had gone to her for advice ever since we had started working as an exploration team, and she remembered almost every conversation Rose or I (or both of us) had had with her. She was like the mother I never had (or never remembered, rather), and Rose even considered her to be her adopted family.

"She was acting oddly this morning... maybe I should go talk to her," I muttered under my breath, and I yelped as Miss Kangaskhan put her hand on my chin, raising it up until I was peering straight into her confident brown eyes, a complete one-eighty from her typical motherly look.

"You do that," She ordered, and let go of me. My legs felt a little wobbly from the hard, uncharacteristic stare she had given me, but I managed to stay standing. Waving a hasty goodbye, I hoofed it through the city, which was finally beginning to wake up. Electivire gave himself a jolt of electricity to banish the sleep from his eyes, the sound of thwacks and thuds could be heard emanating from the Marowak Dojo, and citizens were breaking free from slumber and beginning to exit their homes. Despite it all, there was no sign of the Ninetales that I hunted for, which meant that either she had gone to the guild to pour her heart out to everybody there (which was unlikely, considering that she had never liked making a spectacle of herself), or she had gone to the one place that she could be alone for a little while. Grunting, I let a little more strength into my legs as I dashed towards the beach.

Sure enough, there she was, laying down on the sandy beach, crying her eyes out. I let out a sigh as I slowed to a stop and leaned against a boulder nearby. I didn't like Rose when she was sad, since if she was sad then I got sad too. I was an Aura Pokemon, for Arceus sake, I had the ability to read emotions (even if I wasn't any good at it). Emotions were my game, my thing, it was only natural that my emotions would also depend on my partner's. Summoning up my courage, I stepped forward until I was right next to Rose and knelt down to her level.

"Rose?" I spoke softly, as so not to startle her. Unfortunately I did that anyway, and she leapt up, dashing a good few feet away until she was standing in the shallow surf. She let her pose slacken when she realized that it was just me.

"Bill... you scared me," She said in a somewhat chirpy tone, probably try to hide the fact that she had been crying. I wasn't falling for it. Placing my paws on my hips, I leaned forward and gave her a knowing look.

"Can it, Rose. Something's wrong, I can tell," She shrank back a bit. Had I been too harsh? I didn't want to hurt her feelings, but whenever she got like this she was just too thick-headed to listen to any advice that was sugarcoated. Dammit, I was worrying too much and not focusing on her. "And I want to know exactly what."

She shook her head. "N-no, Bill... nothing's wrong, nothing at all!" She shook her head and gave me a big fake smile. I didn't smile back.

"Don't give me that, Rose, that's a load of crap and you know it," She flinched, stung by my words, and looked down at her feet. For a good while, all we heard was the sound of the waves lapping against the shore. The soothing ambiance helped defuse some of the stress in the situation, at least for me. I liked water a lot; Rose did too, although not as much due to her Fire typing. I exhaled, only just realizing that I had been holding my breath, and I walked over, tousling her tuft of headfur again.

"Even though you've evolved, you haven't changed a bit," I said. Her head snapped upward to look at me, confused. "You're still stubborn, you still can't spit out your feelings on things..."

I gave her a warm smile and wrapped her into a hug. "Heh, and I still love you."

I didn't have to move my head to tell that she was blushing, since she spat out a couple embers in embarrassment, and she snuggled into my grip. I sat down, letting the cool, salty spray hit us both head on. The wind had picked up now, I noticed. Rose lifted her head to look at me, and I saw that while the lower areas of her eyes were tearstained, she was smiling at me, a genuine smile this time.

"Bill..." She whispered, and I let go, allowing her to move over to my side, where she sat again. I turned to her now that she seemed to be calm again.

"Rose, now that you're feeling better, would you please... tell me what's on your mind?" She tensed again, and so did I. "You know that I'll always listen to whatever you have to say."

She looked down at her feet again and waited a few seconds before mumbling something that I didn't quite hear. "What?"

She spoke again, louder this time. "I... I want to know whether or not you want... a child, someday, Bill."

I froze. Children? She wanted to ask about children? I suppose it made sense, since she only ran off once the baby Kangaskhan started playing with me, but... "What brought this on? You never asked about it before..."

"I... well... I mean... oh, forget it!" She yelled, swerving her head away to look at the entrance to the Beach Cave. I reached over to pat her shoulder.

"Hey... c'mon..."

"I... it's just that we've evolved and everything... I mean, we're getting older... It's been almost two years since I met you, you know that?"

"No way, really...?" I wondered aloud. I didn't really ever find out what specific day I had shown up on, but now that I thought about it, our first adventures took about four months, then a month between... my disappearance... and then about seven months of work before fighting Darkrai, and it had been a year since the Darkrai incident... so I guess she was right. "It all seems so long ago..."

"That's what I mean... I mean, look at the guild. Sunflora and Loudred both graduated and left at the beginning of this year, and they came back to visit last month and had adopted a little baby Cottonee. And, and those two new apprentices, the ones that are using our old room in the guild?"

I raised my head in thought. Last time we had visited, Bidoof had introduced us to the guild's two newest members, a rather mousey-ish mole girl named Drilbur and a shady-looking guy named Sandile. Apparently they had both joined up as "Team Diggers", and Bidoof had wanted them to meet his 'former students'. Drilbur was very friendly, but Sandile seemed reluctant to have anything to do with us. Either way, they were both pretty nice and I had a good time visiting with them. "You mean the two new kids? What about 'em?"

Rose sighed again. "It's just... Sunflora and Loudred seemed so happy with Cottonee, and the guild seems really happy with their two new apprentices... even Miss Kangaskhan seems to be really happy with her baby. I just..."

She trailed off, and I wrapped her into a hug again. "You want to know what it feels like to be a mother?"

I guess I had hit the nail on the head, since she nodded. "I... I really do... yeah."

We were silent, which gave me plenty of time to think. I wasn't gonna lie, I agreed that both Sunflora and Loudred seemed really happy when they were playing with Cottonee. The tyke was an adorable little thing... and so fluffy. And Miss Kangaskhan had always adored her child, despite his occasional hijinks. I wasn't sure if I could breed or not, since I was a human-turned-Pokemon, after all, but who knew. I was glad that Rose had gotten it out in the open, since I could tell from her aura that she had taken a huge load off of her mind. I lay down on the sand, my arms spread wide, and Rose flopped onto her side next to me, her muzzle inches away from my cheek, sunlight making her fur seem golden. Arceus above, she was beautiful.

"Well..." I started, and I turned my head to look at her. "I don't really know... it's a pretty sudden thing to ask."

Her head sank, disappointment written all over her face, and I quickly rolled onto my side, using my paw to lift her chin back up to look at me. I gave her a smile.

"But... I think I'd like a child too. So while I don't think now is the best time... I'll promise that we can try to have one someday. And no matter what, I'll always be with you," I finished, and her eyes sparkled with happiness. She quickly crashed her head into mine, licking me all over, and I laughed at her affectionate treatment. Wrapping her into yet another hug, I felt her body temperature rise, probably a side-effect of her euphoria.

"Thank you so much, Bill... you don't know what this means to me... I love you..." She whispered into my ear, and I stroked her back. Her happiness rubbed off on me, as I started to feel an inexplicable joy fill my heart as well. That was the power of emotion... when she was happy, so was I.

"Rose... I love you too," I told her back, and I lifted her up and stood. A childish giddiness took over me, and I bopped her nose. "Race ya to the bulletin boards!"

Before she could react, I took off, leaving the waves behind. And less than a second later, Rose followed, laughing all the while.