notes: posted here on request!

Morty visits her on a Saturday in the summer. She recognises him from the purple scarf and the blond hair and the ghost pokémon floating at his shoulder and suddenly over hers. They've never spoken face to face before and know each other by virtue of being gym leaders, but she feels compelled to be polite to a colleague. Force of habit.

"This is a nice place," he says, admiring the gallery of plants Erika and her ladies have spent afternoons tending to. "I can't ever imagine taking care of another living thing," and the haunter hovering next to him sticks its tongue out, as if to remind her that it's only a joke.

"It's not easy," Erika says, tugging the crease out of her kimono. "And to what do I owe this visit?"

Morty shrugs his shoulders. "Sabrina wasn't in today."

Ah. "I see. Would you like to battle, then?"

Morty hesitates for a moment, and Erika has to remind him, "This is a gym, despite all appearances."

Morty loses and Erika gives him a potted chestnut.

He holds it carefully in his hands, his gastly passing through the skinny stalk of the growing plant, playing with its heartbeat. Erika doesn't know quite what to say to that, but she thinks that Morty deserves a flower. She doesn't give out her flowers easily. This is something she doesn't tell him, but he seems to understand it either way, because he smiles weakly at her and nods his head.

"Thank you."

On Sunday, he calls her to ask about planting it in the backyard. On Monday, about watering. On Tuesday, about types of fertilizer to consider. On Wednesday, he talks not about the chestnut, but about Ecruteak at this time of the year and how it looks beautiful and Erika almost promises to visit. On Thursday, he's back to talking about the chestnut, about exposure to the sun and pests. He doesn't call her on Friday, and on Saturday, he calls her one last time.

"They died," he says. Honest and plain and frivolous. A young, young man.

"Oh," Erika says.

Oh.

And she puts the phone back in its cradle.