Written for the Ash v Misty team challenge on the Livejournal community, satokasucastle!

If you like it, please review! :)

She Kissed Him Instead

The day had started out sunny and clear, but by the time afternoon had come around, black clouds had darkened the spring sky and sheets of rain had instantly soaked the crowd on the bleachers of the Pokémon Stadium. Despite the furious downpour, the battle had continued, tensions mounting as the storm increased in rage. By the time the fight was over, the stadium was nearly empty.

Misty, sitting on a bench on the eastern side, didn't move, even when Brock placed a hand on her shoulder. He wanted her to come with him, to the Pokécentre, get out of the rain. She wasn't really listening and might have mumbled something in reply. Considering the fact that he shrugged and left was a response, she must have said something. Her attention was transfixed elsewhere.

He was kneeling there, on the soaked ground. Mud had soaked into his jeans and his blue jacket clung wetly to his arms and chest. The red and white cap that was rarely resided anywhere but on his head lay forgotten a few metres away, thrown clear by an attack that had hit too close to the mark.

"Ash."

Misty's voice was faint, even to herself, as she breathed his name into the falling rain. He looked so small and forlorn, so pained and lost all alone on the battleground. She was on her feet before she even realised it, stumbling and tripping her way down the stairs, hardly seeing where she was going and not caring. When the barrier at the bottom of the bleachers blocked her way, she spat out a curse, kicked the impediment and used a bench to vault it, landing heavily on the wet ground on the other side.

She staggered the last couple of steps to his side and fell heavily to her knees in the mud. He wasn't looking her at her even as she couldn't tear her eyes from him. Now that they were closer, she could see that the wetness on his face was not only the rain.

"Ash."

This time her voice was stronger, because she willed it to be stronger. For him; he needed her to be strong now, when he could not be.

"Ash."

She repeated his name again. He finally raised his head a little, soft brown eyes meeting brilliant blue. The hurt and sadness and defeat in that one look was a knife to her heart and she could feel her own eyes welling up, breaking down the invisible barrier that had stopped her crying when he'd lost the first and second rounds within minutes of the battle beginning. She choked back the tears and reached out.

Her fingers traced his cheek, cold to her touch, and continued upwards to brush damp strands of black hair from his forehead. She cupped his face in her hands so that he would look her fully in the eyes.

There were so many things she wanted to say to him, kneeling there in the twilight, the incessant patter of rain on the already sodden ground around them the only sound apart from the quiet breaths mingling in their closeness. There were so many things she could say to him, as they knelt in the wake of defeat.

But she would say none of them aloud. She didn't trust her voice not to break. She was not gifted with a way with words; she did not want to shatter his dreams any further with the wrong thing said at the wrong moment. Yet she needed to comfort him, to show him what she wanted to say. He had to know that this was not the end, that a loss was a loss, but he could learn, could grow, could keep fighting, because that was what he did. She needed him to know.

So, with her head full of unsaid words, her eyes full of unspent tears and her heart full of unspoken emotion, she kissed him instead.