Shine On

Hi beautiful readers. This fic came to me suddenly and I hope you like it. It deals with some pretty emotionally heavy stuff. Misty has got to be one of my favourite characters ever to write. :) Please leave me a review and let me know what you think. :)

"I remember it like it was yesterday. I remember it was nearing the end of summer, an especially hot summer in Cerulean City. The days seemed to stretch on endlessly, and we never wanted them to end. I was almost ten, and this would be my last summer in Cerulean before I set off on my big adventure - my Pokemon journey. Though I was excited about leaving and setting off on my own, I was also afraid, and I knew I would miss my family. That was why that summer had been so special to me. The days I spent with my mother and father and my three older sisters were some of my best memories.

My father Logan was the Cerulean Gym Leader, and my mother Arianna a marine biologist at the Gym, which normally kept them extremely busy, but that year, my dad closed the Gym for the summer to spend time with us. We would spend our days at the beach, my sisters would lay out on the sand all day 'working on their tans' and giggling as boys walked by, but I wasn't interested in that. I just wanted to be in the water.

My dad taught me how to surf - it took me a while to get up on the board, but I did it! You should have seen his face when he saw me stand, he was so thrilled. He took me fishing and would sit with me for hours on end until I'd caught something. I had a special relationship with my dad. Where my sisters were more interested in boys and hair and makeup and fashion, I wanted to be just like my dad. He was strong and independent, he could make you laugh just with a look, and he always stuck up for me when my sisters teased me about being the 'runt' of the family.

"Misty's a special one," he would say, and I loved him for it.

I would always tag along with my dad on Gym duties. When I wasn't at school, I would watch him battle the trainers that came into the Gym. I was fascinated by Water Pokemon just like him. He taught me all about their characteristics, what their strengths and weaknesses were in battle, and how to look after them.

My mother was a beautiful woman - she was a model when she was at College, where she met my father, but she was also a brilliant mind. She had long hair the exact shade of mine, something I was always proud of. I would stay in the lab with her for hours on end as she did her research.

My parents loved each other. I could tell by the way they looked at one another. I always said that one day, I wanted to have a love like theirs, have someone love me the way they loved each other.

The relationship between my sisters and I was different. I loved my sisters and I knew they loved me, but they were a lot closer in age than I was to any of them, and they treated me like a baby, which I hated, because most of the time I felt like I was way more mature than any of them.

All of a sudden, it was late August, and the endless sunny days had given way to a summer storm. Dark clouds came rolling in, thunder crashed in the distance and lightning lit up the sky. I was with my sisters, watching a stupid girly movie - well, they watched it while I read the latest Water Pokemon Journal that my mother had given to me. My parents had been out for the afternoon on a rescue mission for a Wailord that was trapped in a reef on one of the small islands near Cerulean. They were supposed to be back an hour ago, and I was worried about the storm, but I assured myself that they were okay. My father was strong and my mother smart; I decided that they were probably just waiting out the storm. The soft lull of the TV and my sisters' gossiping faded into background noise as I fell into slumber. I had been out all day with my dad and I was exhausted.

"Misty." The next thing I knew I was being gently shaken awake by my oldest sister, Daisy. The first thing I noticed was that the black stuff she put on her eyes was smudged all the way down her cheeks.

She must be crying from that stupid movie, I thought, because they seemed to cry about everything lately.

I sat up and discovered that we were in the room alone. It was raining heavily outside.

"Are mom and dad back yet?" I asked, and Daisy seemed to flinch.

"No, Misty," she shook her head and seemed to take a deep breath. "I need you to get up and go put your jacket on, okay? We need to go to the hospital."

"The hospital? What for?" Daisy was acting strange, more than usual, and it was making me nervous.

"Mom and dad have been in an accident, Misty," she said the words slowly, or it felt that way, because each one felt like a slap across the face, and I was suddenly completely awake.

"Wh-" I started, and Daisy reached up and pushed my bangs from my face.

"It's going to be okay, Misty. Go and get your rain jacket, okay?"

I left her sitting alone on the couch as I did what I was told. I went to my room and grabbed my yellow rain jacket with a Starmie on the pocket - it was my favourite, my dad had bought it for me.

Daisy took me to the car where Lily and Violet sat silently. Daisy got in the driver's seat beside Lily in the passenger seat and Violet took my hand and seated me next to her. She had her arm around me the whole time as we drove to the hospital. The rain beat down upon the car and the radio droned on with sappy love songs. I looked at the clock, realising I had no idea what the time was, and discovered it was 1:35 am.

"What's going on, Violet?" I whispered to her.

"It's okay," was all she would say. My body was tired but my mind alert. I couldn't work out my sister's behaviour, or why they weren't telling me what was wrong. I had never seen them act this way before. Were my parents going to be okay? Of course they were, I told myself. Perhaps they just got hurt. Violet's embrace became tighter as we neared the hospital."

A nurse greeted us inside. I had never been to Cerulean Hospital before. It was a huge glass building and it was all white and it smelled funny. I didn't like it. It felt cold and empty. Violet held onto my hand as we walked through corridors and doors, following the nurse. A doctor met us at the other end of the hospital and took Daisy and Violet into his office, while Lily waited outside with me.

"What's going on, Lily? Why are Daisy and Violet going in there?" I asked. Lily didn't answer my question, but instead suggested that we play a game my parents always liked to play with us where we would think of a Water Pokemon and give clues until the other person would guess what it was. We were about five minutes into our game when Daisy and Violet came out of the door.

They were crying. Violet was crying hysterically. Lily gasped and made this horrible wailing sound and Daisy rushed over to me, tears pouring down her face and she looked so afraid.

"Misty," she sat beside me. She was shaking. I started to panic. Why were they crying so much? Where were my parents?

"What's going on?" I demanded.

"Misty..." Daisy's face looked pained, and it took her a few tries before she could say the words.

"Mom and dad have been in a terrible accident."

"Where are they?" The impact of her words hadn't quite reached me yet.

Daisy was crying so much that I could barely make out what she was saying.

"D-daddy didn't make it, Misty. Mom is hurt really badly, and we have to go see her now, okay? We have to say goodbye. Do you understand?"

It wasn't that I didn't understand. I knew about death, I knew that people died when they were old, or if they were sick, or in an accident. My mother had explained to me that sometimes, people left this earth, and that that left their family sad because they couldn't be with them anymore. I understood but I couldn't fathom how Daisy's words could be true. I couldn't believe it.

Daisy continued to cry as she waited for me to respond. Violet came over and took me in her arms and held me as Daisy's words started to sink in. Dad was gone. That meant that I couldn't be with him anymore. But...I didn't want that. I wanted to see him again. I wanted to be with him always. How could they say that I couldn't? And mom...we had to say goodbye? How could I do that?

I felt suddenly very afraid and alone. The doctor from before reappeared and looked at me sadly. He led us through more corridors into a small room were a machine was beeping very slowly. A woman laid in a hospital bed connected to all sorts of wires and machines, and somehow, that woman was my mother.

"Oh my God..." Daisy stared at her with her hands clasped over her mouth. Violet was holding onto my hand so tightly it was starting to hurt, but that pain was nothing compared to the other pain I was feeling.

"Mom..." Daisy moved close and took the woman's hand.

I stayed back, I was too scared to get close, as though staying back meant that maybe it wasn't her - maybe they had been mistaken.

My sisters' cries filled the room. Violet held out her hand to me and I took it. She pulled me over to the woman's bedside. Her face was pale white, almost the same colour as the sheets and the walls. But she had that unmistakable red hair, the same shade as mine, and that's how I knew it was her. My mother.

When she died, I ran away. I thought, it must all be a dream. I must still be on the couch in our living room, asleep as my sisters watched their movie. I ran onto the street into the rain and let it wash over me. I waited there to wake up, but I never did. Lily came for me. I don't even know how long I'd been out there. She held me on the street in the rain and I cried into her arms.

After the funeral, we went out on my dad's boat. He had named it 'Arianna' after our mother. We emptied their ashes into the ocean. We knew that's where they would want to have been laid to rest - in the ocean, the place they loved the most.

Just as the summer had disappeared, so had our parents. We were lost and empty, left to go back to our supposed normal lives, but there was a big gaping hole in all of us. Our parents had loved us so completely that without their love we had no idea how to live on our own. Daisy did her best to keep us all together but she was trying to deal with her own grief as well.

One day, a lady in a suit came over to speak with us. She took out a piece of paper and began reading from it. It turned out that our parents had left everything to us, including the Gym. At 19, Daisy was old enough to be assigned as our legal guardian, meaning we could all stay together. The woman asked Daisy to sign a bunch of papers. She gave me a sad smile as she handed her a pen. Violet stroked my hair in a way that calmed me down.

That night, I overheard my sisters talking in hushed voices in the living room.

"What are we going to do, Daisy?" Violet asked. "How can we run the gym by ourselves?"

"I don't even want to be a Gym Leader," Lily added. Daisy looked ahead thoughtfully, chewing on her bottom lip which was something she only ever did when she was nervous.

"We...we may have to sell the place," she said slowly. I gasped and ran into the living room, unable to sit back while they decided our fates without me.

"No!" the words were out of my mouth before I could stop them.

"Misty," Daisy scolded, "we were having a private conversation."

"You're going to sell the Gym? After all mom and dad did for this place and you're just going to sell it?"

"Misty - we don't want to be Gym Leaders-" Lily said, but her whining only made me more angry.

"I don't care! Mom and dad left this place to us and you can't give it away. I will be the Gym Leader."

"Misty, you're only ten years old..." Daisy said with a sigh. She looked tired, and I felt bad for her, being the eldest and now the sole responsibility of her three younger sisters. But my anger far outweighed my empathy. Violet stood and knelt down in front of me. Her eyes always had the ability to calm me down.

"Misty, please understand, we're trying to do what is best for our family."

In the silence that followed her comment, my anger quickly gave way to misery. My body started shaking and tears poured down my face.

"It's all we have left of them," my voice shook as I pleaded with them desperately. "Please, don't sell it. Mom and dad wanted us to have it. You can run the Gym, I just know it. And when I'm old enough, I'll take over. I promise."

My sisters looked at me sadly. Daisy put her head in her hands and Lily turned and walked out of the room. Violet took me into her arms and held me. I didn't know if I had reached them, but I sure as hell wasn't quitting until they agreed to keep the Gym.

"Come on," Violet let go of me and gave me a small smile. "Let's get you up to bed."

The next day, my sisters told me that we were keeping the Gym, that they would keep it running until I was old enough to take over. I hugged each one of them and thanked them.

It took me a long time to come to accept my parents' death. For a long time, I didn't understand why they had been taken from me. I was angry and though I had my sisters, I felt terribly alone. They tried to be there for me but something always separated me from them, and I spent a lot of time alone. I didn't have many friends at school, or at least not anyone who cared enough about how I was feeling to ask me. I turned ten, but I didn't go on my Pokemon journey. I helped my sisters run the Gym, but I always got the feeling they wanted me to leave, like having me out of the way would be easier for them. I always felt like I was another weight they had to carry around just because I was their little sister. They continued to tease me about how I was so different from them, that I wasn't pretty or ladylike, that I had to curb my temper and be more graceful like them, and without my dad there to stick up for me I developed remorse towards them. I watched them run the Gym like they didn't care about Pokemon Training and it made me angry. I knew they didn't want to be there, but they could at least have tried.

After a year had passed, I grew tired of living in their shadow and I left, telling them that I wouldn't return until I became a Water Master, when I would be ready to take over as Gym Leader on my own."

"I've...never told anyone that," Misty let a tear fall down her cheek. Sitting on the grass across from her, Ash's lips turned up in a heartbroken smile.

"I like to think my parents sent you to me, Ash. I was a mess when I fished you out of the river that day. I was lost and afraid and I needed a friend. Even though our relationship was messy at the start, you was there for me, and although you didn't know it, I needed you. You were the best thing that ever happened to me Ash, and I owe you everything. You made me feel like life was worth living again. You made me feel like I could go on, that I could find my place in the world, and that I could be everything I wanted to be for my parents."

Misty's words floated away with the late summer breeze, but they had already touched his heart.

"You know what I think?" She glanced up at him nervously. She had just spilled her heart out to the boy sitting across from her and she felt awkward and exposed.

"What?"

"I think your dad was right. You are special."

Misty's eyes widened at his unexpected words. She felt her cheeks burn slightly and hoped he couldn't tell.

"Ash..."

"No, I mean it. You're the most amazing person I know, Misty. You said that you owe me a lot, but I owe you a lot as well. Without you I wouldn't be half the person I am today. I have no doubt that your parents would be proud of the person you've become."

Misty was rendered silent as his words reached her. Ash smiled and catching her off-guard, he leaned forward and pressed his lips to her forehead. When he pulled away, he smiled awkwardly into her shocked eyes and stood, brushing the grass from his jeans.

"Come on," he extended a hand down to Misty, who took it and allowed him to pull her to her feet.

Their hands never parted as they walked away.

The End