Chapter 330 – The Sowers, Reaping

Chapter 330 – The Sowers, Reaping

CHAPTER 330 - THE SOWERS, REAPING

It was late at night as I skulked into Maylene's Gym, feet uneven against the ground. In my backpack, I carried the clothes Maylene had told me to wear, neatly folded so they would wrinkle as little as possible. Getting them from Emilia had been as easy as saying that now that I lived with my parents, I had enough space to store them. Having access to League Kadabra as our personal taxis was a Godsend—though now I needed to go through Maylene to get them because we weren't at the League any longer. If we hadn't, then Emi would have needed to either send them via mail, or I would have had to fly all the way to Hearthome on Princess and carry them back home.

The Gym was usually closed at this time, so a trainer needed to let me in—one of the few on night shifts. I recognized the one who pulled up near the wide glass doors. He was a relatively older trainer in his thirties with red-orange hair, and he'd seen me come into Maylene's Gym countless times at this point. Her employees were used to seeing me around.

"Fabian—sorry for bothering you so late." I nervously stepped into the lobby. It was difficult not to feel like anxiety was eating at my skin, considering how significant tonight was going to be.

He closed the doors behind me and locked them. "No worries, Grace; I'm on security duty tonight, anyway. I've passed through the lobby like twenty times already." He cleared his throat with a fist in front of his mouth. "May—" he cut himself off. "Leader Maylene's been waiting for you. She should be in her room upstairs; she had a little bit of work to finish. I'm sure she would have come down to greet you otherwise."

I gave him a silent nod and a little sound of affirmation before going on my way. The Gym's hallways seemed longer at times like these. Narrower, too, like they were attempting to suffocate me. The dim lighting allowed shadows to dance at the edge of my vision, and I'd occasionally hear a cough or a voice between the minutes of silence from the few trainers or janitors who worked the night shift. The gentle hum of air conditioning filled the air, and I couldn't help but quicken my step. I jumped up the stairs and practically broke into a jog by the time I reached Maylene's room, my backpack bouncing on my spine. The broken hinge from her father's outburst had been fixed a week ago.

My knuckles knocked against the door. "Maylene?" I whispered, knowing she'd hear me thanks to her superhuman capabilities. "I'm here. Sorry, I'm a bit late."

It took a few seconds for her to answer the door. Already, she was in her Gym Leader outfit. A thin, dark blue tank top that left her well-defined arms and shoulders exposed; fingerless blue gloves; white jogging pants with a thin, pink strip at their sides; a thick band-aid on the bridge of her surprisingly delicate nose. She was also barefoot, with her long pants covering a part of her feet.

She looked just as nervous as I was. Her fingers fidgeted together, and she couldn't bear to look me in the eye, doing that trick she did where she stared at people's foreheads instead. Even that didn't work. Her irises kept darting between that and everywhere else like she just had no idea where to look. Even when nervousness was eating her alive, she was pretty. There was something about seeing her so exposed, so unguarded, that made me feel as if I were glimpsing the truest version of her.

We'd met each other like this a million times, but in this instance, it mattered more than any other. Fifteen minutes of practice, and finally addressing the first time we ever met instead of burying it under the sand while wearing the exact same clothes. It was as if she knew exactly what made me tick—what tickled the right parts of my brain. She knew what I loved: stories, mirroring, symbolism, and she didn't...

No, she probably did think it was weird, but that was okay. Because she loved the good, the bad, the strange, the ugly—everything about me, anyway, even if she still wanted me to change for the better.

"Hi." My voice was so meek I could barely recognize it. "Um, sorry I'm not dressed yet. I figured it'd be good if you first saw me in those clothes when we go to your arena." I'd come as differently and simply dressed as possible, so it'd really pop when she saw me, and my hair tied up in a simple ponytail.

Imagining what we'd feel when seeing each other in the exact same position I'd hurt her in made me bite my lip, and her darting eyes suddenly honed in on them. Like she couldn't focus on anything else.

It took a few seconds for the spell to break, and Maylene forced herself to smile. "No, I get it." She pointed back into her living room with a thumb. "Do you want to come in, or... how are we doing this?"

"We should probably talk in here first, right?" I asked. "About what we were thinking and stuff."

She let out a nervous laugh. "Yeah. Sorry, I'm—I'm really nervous. And excited? Does that make sense?"

"I'm the same. I think part of me always yearned for this, but I was just too—" I didn't exactly know how to phrase this. "I was too focused on atoning instead of, like, communicating. With you."

Her fake smile turned real in the most subtle of shifts. It stretched a smidge longer across her face, and there was a hint of teeth. "I'm glad I had this idea, then." She scratched her arm—God, I wanted to touch her so bad. "We should probably stop standing around like two statues and head in."

"Right."

Maylene's living quarters were the same as always. Instead of stopping on her living room couch, or her asking me if I wanted anything to eat or drink like she always did, a wordless agreement passed between us, and we went straight to her bedroom. Lucario, along with the rest of her team, were in their Pokeballs tonight, as were my Pokemon.

We were alone.

"Beautiful ladies first," Maylene said, outstretching her hand to lead me in.

I breathed out a laugh as I entered her bedroom. "You just made that up."

"No, it's a thing. Or I'm pretty sure it's a thing? Candice says it sometimes."

"I wouldn't rely on Candice for common idioms."

"Well, you are," Maylene muttered, face flushed with blood. "Beautiful, I mean. And you should go in first. So."

My toes curled in my shoes. I wasn't really wearing anything special yet. Just jeans and a shirt. Despite the effects her words had on me, I wanted to taunt her for not being as smooth and confident as usual, but couldn't bring myself to ruin the moment. "I—you too."

"You can't just say 'you too!'" Maylene sat herself down and patted the ground next to her. My spot. "You gotta get better material, Grace."

"You catch me off-guard every time!" I complained in a high-pitched whine. "I can't just instantly recover and find the perfect words like you do."

"They're not perfect. Actually, they are, but just because it's you hearing them."

I could have asked what that meant.

I didn't. Because I—I couldn't.

Sitting down next to Maylene, I made an effort to scoot myself close to her as I grabbed my laptop from my bag, making sure to snag it away quickly so Maylene wouldn't see— "No peeking!" I grumbled, clutching my bag against my chest so she couldn't see. "That would be cheating."

"I already know what you looked like! It wouldn't be."

"Yes it would!"

"No, it wouldn't!"

"Oh, you want to see me in them so bad, don't you?" Somehow, I found myself teasing her, and for once, she was the one reduced to a stuttering, blushing mess. "Behave; there has to be a proper order to things."

"I—I know, I was just curious, gosh." Her fingernails dug into her sleeping mats strongly enough to leave a fading mark. "Where should we start, then?"

"Let's look back to that day," I said. "What do you remember, what were you thinking—things like that."

"Oh. I guess I'm going first, then?"

"I mean, I don't know." My fingers drummed anxiously against the back of my laptop, where I'd saved all my notes about Maylene when I'd studied her. The truth was, I was terrified what she'd think about them. From what I remembered, they were pretty brutal. "It'd probably be better."

The confused look she gave me was proof she didn't understand why—and that was because there was no reason—but she nodded anyway. "Okay. So that day... is kind of a blur besides our battle. I can't really remember details. Everything this year is kind of a blur until that day, to be honest." The shaking of her trembling breath, followed by the shivering of her fingers, made me want to grab her hand. "I thought I found a good groove, but it was the kind of schedule I just couldn't keep up. That would burn me out."

"Was it like that the entire year until I arrived?"

"After the first month, pretty much." She nodded with a somber expression. "The longer it went on, the worse of a person I became. Yelling at my employees, threatening to fire them for any minute mistake, taking more and more workload for myself... I wanted to do everything myself because I thought I'd be a terrible Gym Leader otherwise—but you already know that."

"Hmhm."

"So I guess that when you came through, I thought it'd just be another fight. I already knew who you were—kind of. You were involved with the Darkest Day, and I remember feeling really sad when I thought a group of kids had been lost in Coronet and really happy when they were confirmed alive in Snowpoint. Candice talked a little about your Gym Battle and how she went nuts with her Darmanitan during the fight." Maylene laughed. "I remember scolding her about that."

"I would have loved to hear that call." The corner of my lips crept upward.

"She was really sorry, for what it's worth."

"Yeah. I remember her saying she would have given me the badge even if I lost." Everything had been so much simpler back in those days, even if Coronet had nearly chewed us up. I missed it. "To be honest, it was a fun battle. Not as fun as Gardenia's, but I literally passed out because of how intense it was."

Maylene's eyes nearly fell out of their sockets. "What?! She never told me about that!"

"Yeah!" I chortled—the laugh made me move an inch to the side, and my shoulder touched Maylene's. We shared a glance, but we both pulled away—her faster than me. "I was really nervous about losing because I didn't want to stay stuck up in Snowpoint all this time and hold everyone back. It was just such strong catharsis that my body just gave away."

"Arceus, you're so weak. You're basically made of glass."

I laughed. "What? Passing away after intense battles is a documented phenomenon! I looked it up after!"

She rolled her eyes in a far more exaggerated manner than was needed. "Sure," she said, drawing out the word with irony. "Whatever you say; I totally believe you."

I restrained the urge to shut her up by doing something that I put away from my mind the moment the idea appeared. "If you were well-researched enough—you know what, this is off-topic! This was supposed to be a serious conversation, you goofball!" I bumped her leg with my knee.

She did the same, always so softly despite her strength. Then I did. Then she did. And I wanted to push her—

"Okay, okay, I'll continue," Maylene said, interrupting more nefarious ideas to worm their way into my brain. "So. The months pass, Team Galactic gets worse, and Cynthia's methods to hunt them down didn't help my mood. I was immature, so I take all of my frustration out on my employees and challengers—then you get there. I'm pretty sure I remember having a good day before that fight. Relatively speaking."

I did remember her looking slightly more relaxed than I had hoped when stepping on the podium.

"What'd you think when you saw me?" I asked. To be honest, I'd always been curious.

"Well at first, it was just work, you know?" I deflated immediately. "Hey, don't look so sad; God, you're so extra! You were just another challenger, how was I supposed to know you were going to be special?"

I pouted, half serious, half joking. "Whatever," I sighed, containing my smile at the notion that I was special. It just would have had a better shape if she instantly was drawn in by me.

She—honestly, thankfully—decided to ignore my mini-tantrum. "So yeah, I got really annoyed you weren't attacking and just running away and changing the field. It just made me feel like I had no control, and I couldn't stop wishing I had my actual team there to stop you." Maylene cringed, her body tensing—I sneaked in a look at her arms. What was wrong with me? She was pouring her heart out, and I couldn't stop looking at her. "Honestly though, it wasn't worse than usual until you... until Infernape."

It was my turn to cringe, now. "Yeah. Sorry."

"You should apologize to her one of these days..." the Gym Leader trailed off, and grimaced for a moment. "I instantly hated you after that." She snapped her fingers. "It was like you flipped a switch in my brain. I thought you were..."

"Speak freely," I said.

"I thought you were disgusting. And a sociopath who took pleasure from tormenting others. It's why I spoke out immediately."

My fingers slid against the spine of my laptop, almost a self-soothing motion. The cold metal felt good on my skin. "You were kind of right. Actually, not kind of. It—it felt good doing that to you. I felt so righteous for no valid reason—because it felt like your reaction was proving something. And I've done my best to change since then."

"I know," she whispered, staring at me with a genuine smile. It was so soft, so gentle that I felt like I wanted to tear up. After all of this, she still believed in me. And I'd started to believe in myself in the last few weeks thanks to her too. She had pulled me out of the deepest levels of my self-hatred. "You—you really knew how to push my buttons. Just—it was like you were in my head, and I hated how that made me feel. The entire time, I'd tried to pretend nothing could get to me, that I was invulnerable, but you just tore down that wall in a single twenty minute fight and left me feeling the weakest I'd ever felt in my entire life. And it was so hard to reconcile that."

"You recovered in the end, though," I remembered. "When you used aura."

"I was getting to that. I did recover, because in a way, it felt good to finally stop pretending to be someone I wasn't. It's why I found the end of that battle fun despite everything you did." Maylene pulled her knees close to her chest and rested her head on top of them. "And you know, that was only temporary. Because after the battle, I tried to get back to how I used to do things, but I just—couldn't."

When she stopped, I couldn't help myself. I grabbed her hand and squeezed it tight. Her legs went flat again, but she didn't pull away. "Do you still want to continue, or do you want to take a break? I can go, if you need to."

"No. I can do this," she said, thumb caressing the side of my hand. "One, I was used to reading everything people said about me, and it was a lot." I remembered seeing the threats, the call to fire her, and the countless insults going her way after our fight. From the public's perspective, while what I'd done to Infernape had been considered scummy (they only knew that I'd stopped Maylene from recalling her), she'd been the one to be unprofessional and who had gone too far. "And I couldn't stop thinking about our fight after that. I kept playing it over and over in my mind, coming up with ways to expose you if I could ever had a do-over. I didn't want to think about you, but I couldn't stop."

That was a surprise. "I thought you'd put me out of your mind and try to move on, especially when you took that one month break and started therapy."

"It's what I wanted to do. Again, I just couldn't. And—is it okay to talk about Dialga and the timelines?"

My throat squeezed, making it difficult to breathe for a second. "Sure."

"The point at which my timelines diverged. It was our Gym Battle," Maylene revealed. I struggled to even comprehend that notion; I'd thought it would be something from her childhood, or an incident with her father. Not me. "More specifically, the way you approached the fight."

I blinked at her. "What?"

As she explained how each Grace that came up to her was different—and there was a timeline where she didn't come at all—I slowly began to understand that for some reason, we'd basically seen the exact same events, but from a different perspective. Our fates had somehow been linked, but more than that, it meant that I was the defining moment in her life. That notion alone took away the half fake annoyance and made my heart throb instead. It beat against my chest like a drum even more than it already was. I followed suit soon after, telling her about Virtuous, Anguished, and Beast. It felt liberating to finally speak of Beast and how terrified I still was of the fact that I could have been her to someone.

"You made names for them?" she asked.

"I didn't... make them. I felt them in the moment where they were reborn as new people." Maylene not having any names for hers was somewhat surprising. I honestly thought it was something everyone had gone through. Since Cecilia hadn't told me what happened in hers, there had been no way for me to know until tonight. "You know... you were actually in love in me. Uh, I mean, Virtuous me."

Maylene glanced down at her legs. We'd stopped holding hands at some point. "I kind of figured, now. She was really dense about it, though. I think it's a trait we all share—or shared. I'm not dense anymore."

"Really?"

"Really," she assured me. "I know a lot of things. And with that knowledge comes freedom, but also pain."

Again, there was silence. The beating of hearts, the exhaling of breaths growing shallower and shallower, as if the very air itself had been siphoned from the room. Eyes locked, words lost, and all that remained was a herculean effort to return to normalcy. Maylene was the one to take charge by clearing her throat. Twice, so I would break out of the spell.

"Moving on!" she exclaimed, sweat dripping down her tense, luscious neck. "I just mentioned this because I wanted to tell you how important that battle was to me. So..."

My throat felt dry. "What comes after? Like in between the fight and when we met again at the lake?"

"Just more of the same. I told you when I blew up at you, didn't I? That I'd pictured that conversation in my head a thousand times and that I thought you'd be monstrous," she said. "I mean you have your faults, but... that's okay. You're doing better."

My face warmed. "Thanks."

"Feeling a little better?"

"I am! And I'm not lying." Talking this out with her was what had been missing instead of just brushing it off with the notion that she'd forgiven me. I did believe her, but it felt more... tangible if we could bring it up openly despite the hurt. "Should I go now?"

"If you're ready."

"Okay. So I guess I should start by saying that Solaceon kind of fucked with my head." I'd just told her about how it had defined my entire life up to this point, so she knew the gist of it. "I'd just killed for the first time, Justin had gotten screwed by Shiftry's darkness, Cecilia's leg got mangled by a Krokorok... I discovered that Princess had accidentally been influencing my behavior for months because of the way she trained with Fairy Wind. I needed some space to find myself again. Travel on my own a little bit." The difference was that I'd actually spoken to Cecilia about it instead of just—never mind. "Anyway, I stumbled upon a Hatterene..."

Maylene knew about Bella, which I expected given her position as a Gym Leader. She'd never met her before since Cynthia's Togekiss still handled those meetings, but she had heard a few things about her. Mostly protocol about what to do if she ever went rogue, along with her known behavior.

"I was lost, and she found me," I fondly spoke with a smile. "She accepted me for who I was and made me feel like I belonged—and while it helped a lot with my confidence and stuff, it kind of—well, not kind of. It made me into a worse person, because I started to think like her. I wanted to be like her."

"You look up to her anyway?" Maylene guessed.

"I do. I love her," I said. "She just thinks differently than we do, and that's okay. Plus, I'd like to think I changed her a little bit. I should take you to meet her." It'd have to wait until her kid was born, but I'd love for them to speak. It was technically a part of Maylene's job.

"I don't think we'd get along much..." she mumbled, unsure of herself.

"If she can get along with Sunshine, she can get along with you." I held back a grimace when I remembered how their first interactions had gone. "You'll need to meet her at some point for your job anyway."

"Cynth probably thought I was too hardheaded for it."

"You were," I confirmed.

"Don't just agree!" she yelled—but I could see her holding back a smile.

Ah, being with her was so much fun, even in tense conversations like these. "So... I was very full of myself coming into Veilstone." That confidence was something I did miss, though I hoped that when I'd regain some of it, it wouldn't be at the expense of others. "I had a lot of pent up anger within me. When I heard about trainers being pissed at you for being too difficult of a challenge, I started looking into you." I lifted my laptop screen. "Um, a warning. This is gonna look weird."

"That's okay."

That reply was so... nonchalant but in a good way. I ignored her giggle when I typed in Princess' birthday as my password. The notes I'd taken about her were already stored in a tab I hadn't opened since beating her. "Here. I started researching you."

Maylene squinted at the screen. "Gosh, why is the font you use always so tiny—" a pause when she realized what she was looking at. "Grace..."

"I told you it was weird!"

"I said that was okay!" she exclaimed, a little frustrated. "I just didn't expect... all of this."

There were pages upon pages of documented behaviors from previous battles of my badge level at the time, from the way her body moved at certain events to what she tended to say when she enjoyed or hated a fight. There were even behaviors recorded outside her Gym like press conferences with Cynthia about Team Galactic. Most of the notes were actually about her and not the Pokemon she used, though those took a large chunk of the document as well. I flinched when she read past my documentation of her apparent issues with her father, making sure to tell her I didn't know about the abuse, but she didn't blow up at me for it. She just paused, hand hovering over the trackpad, let out a little "huh," and continued scrolling. She had to lean my way to maneuver the laptop, since it was still on my thighs. I could have handed it to her, but she hadn't asked, so there was no reason to.

She smelled so, so good. It'd be weird to inhale too much, but I really needed to figure out what the perfect blend of Maylene and whatever washing products she used was. Right now, it was obvious she'd showered before my arrival, so it was mostly artificial. There was something missing, given that I really enjoyed her natural smell as well. There was probably—like—a Goldilocks zone of smells I could figure out if given enough time. Was it weird to think like this? I stared at Maylene, who was focused on the screen, and internally sighed out a whatever. She'd find it weird if she ever found out, maybe make a few jokes about it here and there, but that was fine.

"A lot of these I haven't even noticed," she whispered. "You—you kind of dissected me, huh?"

"Yeah. I—my goal was to make you realize you weren't handling your Gym properly, but I went about it in the most roundabout and obtuse way possible."

Her eyes were still transfixed on the screen when she asked, "do you do this for every Gym Leader?" The question sounded almost... wanting.

"...not to this extent. At least I don't focus on the person as much, mostly their Pokemon."

Maylene played with a short strand of her pink hair. "Oh."

"It's part of why I can read you so well, even if your body language has changed a decent amount since then. It's actually kind of fascinating how people unconsciously change the way their body moves—actually, let's not get lost in that tangent."

"You almost sounded like Nia there," Maylene noted. The eyes she was making at me—wide and a sign that I had her full attention—made me feel so accepted in that moment. She was probably the only person in the world I could talk about this stuff with and not feel like I was walking on a minefield. "Give me an example?"

"Of what?"

"My body language. It doesn't have to be something I'm doing now."

I blinked, momentarily thrown off by the request. "Your body language?" I repeated, trying to organize my thoughts. "Um, the evil glint in your eyes every time you have a really good come back prepared for me. But there's not just your eyes—your head kind of gets a little lower, like you're just about to pounce. You also try to stop yourself from smiling to not give it away, but you fail horribly like nine times out of ten, but whatever you say catches me off guard regardless—I just know it's coming. Also, your lips get really crooked because of it—you're doing it right now."

Her constrained smile turned devious. "You're so obsessed with me. You're such a creep."

Unlike her, I managed to hide the coming smile very well, but not the flutters in my stomach that always came when she playfully called me something bad and made me squirm in place. "You can read me pretty well, too," I countered. "And don't act like the obsession doesn't go both ways."

"Prove it," she challenged.

"I could. Easily. I know what makes you tick," I said, leaning toward her with my voice low.

"What I'm hearing is that you're too chicken to actually say it."

"Maylene, you literally—you played with your hair when I said you were the only one I looked into that much!" Obviously, she didn't enjoy the battle itself, nor the aftermath, but maybe a part of Maylene enjoyed having someone look into her that much. "Don't pretend."

"Technically, that just means I liked the care you took when looking into me. It doesn't mean I'm obsessed."

She was looking at my lips. The lips I'd started to bite out of habit whenever she stared at them like that—like she was practically begging.

I repeated what she said, but in a voice clearly mocking her, and this... whatever this was fizzled out.

"During the fight, I was kind of disassociated. Like it's this thing I used to do where I became kind of a machine whose only purpose is to get to her goal—and that goal was beating you in a specific way." Maylene stared at me in disbelief. "What? I grew out of it."

She couldn't really make sense of what I was saying. "Grew out of it?"

"Yes. It makes me too prone to making mistakes." Not in the sense that I might screw up in a fight, but in the sense that I might accidentally kill too many people or not value the lives of the people I love. "It was too dangerous. I think it was the first time I did it fully, though. Bella's the one who taught me; she sometimes uses it to be completely impartial for deals."

"So I was like your lab rat?"

"Kind of. Granted, I broke out of it at some point and started actually enjoying the fight—that's the thing I don't like about it also. Like, you can't enjoy a battle if you disassociate." That was why I hadn't done it with Volkner, Wake, or Byron. Gym Battles were meant to be fun. "Um, like I said, the fight is kind of a blur to me because I've tried not thinking about it much. I considered watching it tonight with you, but I—I don't think I'm ready for that yet."

"That's okay. We don't even have to do it—or we can do it whenever you want. I've watched it plenty."

"What?"

"What? I told you I was imagining comebacks I could have said, didn't I?! They were angry rewatches!"

"I never stated otherwise!" I raised my hands up innocently. "I was just surprised you'd subject yourself to that."

And she said she wasn't obsessed with me. Hmph!

"I told you, didn't I? I'm a big girl." She pointed at herself with her thumb with a smug expression. "I can take it."

"After the fight... well, it hit me right away that I'd gone way too far, especially with torturing Infernape. I hid that one from my friends for a while." I'd even only told Cecilia during our break when I confessed everything to her over the phone in Solaceon. Backlot, the powers—everything. "But, um, then Cynthia summoned us, and there was the entire end of the world stuff, so I couldn't really focus on it. Not until after Pastoria, anyway."

Maylene's lips went flat. "The raid."

"It's when I finally pulled my head out of the sand and decided I couldn't keep going like this, or I'd end up like Mars. Or Beast—though I didn't know about her existence at the time. And I started thinking about how to apologize to you over those weeks of soul-searching. Candice actually wanted to help me..."

"Yeah, I knew about that." She scratched the back of her head, averting her eyes. "I wasn't ready to forgive you yet."

"That's fine. I'm just happy you forgave me now."

She wasn't wearing sleeves, and I wasn't about to breach protocol again tonight, but I desperately wanted to lean against her shoulder. Instead, we just stayed quiet for a minute or two, letting everything we'd said settle in for good. We'd made it. We'd pushed past that day and come out stronger for it. Now, all that remained was my outfit to perfectly end this tale.

"Do you feel better now?" Maylene asked.

"So much better. I know this is a common saying, but it's like a weight's been lifted from my shoulders. I feel so much lighter now." Now that we'd gone into detail about that day and the weeks and months surrounding it, I finally found the will to forgive myself for what I'd done. I had fucked up. Seriously fucked up. But I'd atoned enough, and she'd forgiven me. "And look at us now, all chummy," I noted with a quirk at the corner of my mouth. "Who would have thought?"

She snorted. "Not me. Like, at all."

"Oh! I forgot to ask, but how was work today? Fabian told me you were finishing up something before I arrived."

Her face soured. "That snitch."

For a few minutes, she told me about her day like usual and how the reason she'd been working this late was because she hadn't been able to focus throughout the day and she still hadn't finished. I enjoyed hearing about the small stories she had to tell about incidents with Pokemon or internal Gym drama—the nonserious kind. It kind of made me wish I had as many little happenings to report on, but my daily life wasn't nearly as interesting yet. I was still finding my footing; it was a lot more stable than it had been weeks ago. It was nowhere as crippling to be away from Cecilia or Maylene, and I was actually doing things on my own these days.

I did have old stories about my journey to tell, but I was kind of running out of those. The interesting, non-depressing ones, at least.

"It's been nearly an hour," I said after staring down at the time on my laptop's screen. "I should go change. Unless you want to talk more?" I'd never be against that; she was just so much fun to be around.

"I don't mind starting now; it's up to you."

"...then I'll go change."

"You can use my bathroom if you don't want to go all the way to the basement." Maylene stood up and went to open her bedroom door, and there was a squeeze around my heart. "I'll be waiting down at the arena anyway."

"Sure. That's convenient." I followed suit and left her bedroom with her, making sure to turn off the lights.

When we reached her bathroom, she spoke again.

"Then I'll see you in a few? The doors to the arena will be unlocked." Her eyes drifted across my body, like she was taking the sight of me in one last time before I became Grace from the past. It felt so good when she looked at me.

"Yep," I said, accentuating on the p.

She didn't wait to leave, practically running away before I could even enter her bathroom. It was, I realized, my first time in there. Every time we hung out, we only did for at most two hours, and somehow, I'd never needed to use the bathroom before at her Gym. Maylene's bathroom was as minimalistic as it got—clean, uncluttered, and quietly functional. Really, it was just like her. The walls were a soft, neutral beige, with no artwork or decorations to break the uniformity. A simple white sink sat beneath a frameless mirror. The countertop was clear, save for a single soap dispenser, a toothbrush in an empty cup, citrus-flavored toothpaste, and a neatly folded towel. The shower was enclosed in plain glass with a few cleaning products on the ground neatly arranged against the wall. I spied each brand out of the corner of my eye before I started changing.

I slid the tights above my knees, then my waist, the fabric tense and warm against my skin. The pleaded skirt followed, its edges settling around my thighs, and finally, the sweater. Maylene had called it a little too big for me, and she was frustratingly still correct—It draped loosely over my frame, a subtle reminder that I hadn't grown much, if at all, in the past few months. I pulled my old sneakers from my bag, and my feet slid into them without any resistance. Finally, I untied my ponytail and ran my fingers through my hair, letting it fall naturally over my shoulders just like that day.

It felt both wrong and right to stare at myself in the mirror. It was like I'd been transported back to that day. My body thrummed with a mix of excitement and shame, and somehow, it felt almost as if I'd been about to battle her again; it was so weird. After a few final adjustments with my hair, I put my Poketch Watch around my wrist and started making my way down. When occasionally crossing paths with the Gym staff, I felt the urge to hide as if they'd somehow know what I was doing.

So stupid.

When I got to the Gym's waiting room for challengers, I sat on one of the long wooden benches along the wall with my eyes closed. Besides just... mirroring what had happened with Maylene, if I closed my eyes, took a few deep breaths, and let the silence overtake me, I could almost picture the subtle noise from the crowds that spectated Gym Battles. The sound, albeit fake, made my entire body feel warm. I'd missed this feeling. Being on edge, the way the stakes felt so high for a digital badge. Something given value through society, or more precisely, the countless stories of trainers who had trodden this path before me for hundreds of years. Walking the steps of my ancestors, all with their different goals and dreams and pains and vices—it was a feeling only this room could give you.

And I had kind of missed it, even if no battle was going to take place tonight. I had... considered asking for it, but there was a reason I hadn't asked to train my team with Maylene despite knowing that Princess could potentially delve into aura. It just felt like a step too far. The way I battled hadn't changed at all since Coronet. In fact, during my training with Ramon, my brain had constantly reached for kill angles and opportunities to win through murder instead of through knockouts.

I had never actually done so, of course, and my Pokemon wouldn't have stooped that low even if something had slipped. It just made battling not as enjoyable as it could be. The exciting edge had gone from the fear or loss to the fear that I was fighting someone out to kill me.

I was working through it. Slowly.

But I was getting sidetracked. I'd nearly missed the loud blaring sound of the battlefield's lights turning on one by one. My hands slowly felt at the wood below me until they gripped the bench with anxiety. One more minute, just to be sure she'd be in her spot, and it was time to go.

I was almost in a trance when I pushed the doors open. Usually, a trainer would open them after outfitting me with a microphone. They were heavier than they looked—I heaved against the metallic handle and was met by two rows of hundreds of empty seats. I was so used to seeing them at least half-filled that it felt so alien. Like I'd entered another room and not a Gym's main arena. My steps reverberated across the enormous room, and there were no claps, no hoots, no snide remarks or words of support. I slowly climbed the stairs and was met with a battlefield lower than I remembered—

She'd changed it, with spires that almost looked like buildings—

I... it didn't matter. The moment I saw her, she was all I could focus on. A jolt shot down my spine, sharp and undeniable. My eyes locked onto her like I had no control, and hers never left mine either. The air between us felt charged, like something unspoken but powerful was holding us in place. I could barely breathe, each exhale shallow, every inhale tighter, as if the room had suddenly shrunk around us. My heart pounded in my chest, and yet, somehow, everything felt right. The tension wasn't crippling—it was electric, alive, writhing, like a living thing, like something just waiting to happen.

It was easy to focus on Maylene. Somehow, as small as she was from this far, she managed to fill every corner of my vision as if she was the only person who would ever matter. My eyes narrowed at her as if we'd been preparing to battle, every muscle in my body coiled tight, and my teeth clamping down on my lips to help me focus. Her legs trembled beneath her like she could barely stand upright. For a moment, I thought I'd screwed up, but then I noticed how harshly she was breathing, how flushed her face was despite the fact that she was shaking like some cornered Eevee, and I realized that she was enjoying this like I was. And how could I not? This felt so cathartic, like a loop finally closing, or a ribbon neatly tied together after a hundred attempts. The climax of a story right before the denouement could begin.

Time had no meaning here. We could have been standing like this for a minute, or maybe it was ten, or twenty. The world outside didn't exist. It was just us—her eyes darting, her mouth partly open, her breathing uneven—and I wish she'd worn a microphone so I could hear it—her body twitching and shivering in uncontrollable ways, changing with every little action of mine. I could feel the tension between us tightening with every second, an invisible thread wanting to pull us closer, making everything more intense. Each subtle reaction of hers felt like a spark within my chest, fueling this silent exchange.

Then;

I took a step back, unable to wait any longer. She knew what it meant—she followed suit and started walking down her platform. I was so lightheaded I nearly tripped on my way down, but I caught myself and jumped the last few stairs. Don't run. Don't run. Don't run. The notion had to be beaten into my legs so I didn't just make a mad dash toward her as we walked along the edges of the arena. Intentionally or unintentionally, we were replicating exactly what had happened after my victory against her—walking up to each other so she'd hand me a badge. But there was no badge. Neither victory or defeat, but a quiet understanding that this was the perfect moment to practice, precedent be damned. For my part, at least.

Precedent, not rules. Nothing in the contract said that we weren't allowed to practice even if we had slightly under an hour left tonight—

I blinked at Maylene, my eyes almost fluttering. She was so sweaty—I was so sweaty, and it certainly wasn't just because I was wearing winter clothing. The sweat clung to her skin, making her glow in the bright industrial lighting. Beads of it traced down her temples, slipping past her jawline and down her neck. Her hair stuck in damp strands around her face, framing her in a way that somehow made her look even more alluring. There was a sheen in her arm outlining her muscles—but my eyes couldn't stray from her mouth for too long.

"Was that—" she asked.

"Should we practice now?" Words spilled out of me faster than I could register them, and heavy breaths followed suit.

Maylene was having difficulty breathing too. The fact that I'd rendered her this way by just looking at her was... I didn't know what it was, but it was pleasant. "H—here? I thought we'd go back in my room."

"Think about it. Isn't the moment perfect?" I flashed a ravenous smile at her and licked my lips. "Months ago, we stood in this very spot, and you handed me my badge with only hatred in your eyes. Isn't this perfect?" I asked again, still speaking so quickly that my words were barely coherent. "I really don't want to lose that thread; it would be so unsatisfying. If we just walk away now, the story'll be gone."

She gave me a tightened nod, her chin barely moving, and said, "I'm ready, then—wait, the alarm!"

Fuck, I'd nearly forgotten. Maylene quickly set up the alarm. She messed up a few times, her sweaty fingers slipping on the screen, but eventually—

"Remember the safe word."

I was the one who'd said it this time.

There would be no order to it. No turns. Maylene touched me first, and I felt her fingertips glide up the fabric of my skirt, the gentle pressure of her palm following the curve of my thigh. The warmth slipped through the tights—we stumbled around, barely able to stand still until I pushed her toward a wall under the stands. Where she'd been slow and deliberate before, hers was a fraying and desperate movement now. Forceful, demanding, yearning for me in a way that made me feel so loved. At the same time, her other hand found its way to my neck, fingers grazing the skin just beneath my jaw. The touch was light at first, almost tentative, but it lingered, warm and steady. Her thumb brushed the side of my throat in slow, deliberate strokes, sending a shiver down my spine. It wasn't forceful, but there was an undeniable weight behind it—a quiet intensity that rendered me nearly breathless.

Her aura flared up when I started touching her moments later, enveloping the both of us in flashing blue fire that was both so cold and so warm and just so hypnotically her. One of my hands had already slipped under her shirt, fingers pressing against the tight skin of her stomach, feeling the rise and fall of her uneven breaths beneath my palm. Sometimes I moved too far up and felt the edge of her sports bra, but I—I barely controlled myself, instead enjoying the little noises and bursts of aura I could draw out of her like she was my instrument. Not that I was any better. My other hand tangled in her hair, fingers gripping tight as my nails dug against her scalp. Every pull, every press drew her closer to me. There was no taint anymore, no darkness wherever I touched her. She'd accepted me fully as I was and as I would become.

The flickering blue light reflected in her eyes, wide and searching; her chest rose and fell in rhythm with mine. My heart pounded in my ears as the tension between us tightened, every second stretching out as her face hovered just inches from mine. Closer. Closer. Maylene stared into my eyes as her hand somehow made contact with the skin of my thigh, and I could barely stop myself from looking at her lips. The curve of her lower lip seemed to tremble ever so slightly with each sweet breath reaching my nose. They were soft, slightly parted, and glistened faintly in the dim light as if they'd been waiting to be—to be—

I couldn't—

I—

Looked at her in the eyes. Stars sparkled around her.

I wanted to ask her how her trip went. What she'd gone through, experienced and everything in-between, but that was not what I was owed.

"I'm so sorry, Cecilia," I said. "I cheated on you."

The statement hacked her to pieces. Her jaw clenched; she made a pained groan like I'd just driven a stake through her heart; she burst into tears and started to sob.

I was crying too, unable to come up with any more words. I didn't know what to say. There was nothing I could say.

"How far did it go?" Even through her tears, her death had allowed her to speak as if she was fine. Yet I knew how hurt she was.

"Kissing—" no, that made it sound like a quick, one and done peck. "I made out with her yesterday night; I left when I realized what I was doing. But it was—dates, too. Or basically dates." I stopped to see if I could keep going. She nodded at me. "Did Chase tell you about practice?"

"Yes." Anger was barely contained in her tone.

"I did that with her too. And it was—it was more than just grabbing my wrist. It wasn't cuddling either; it was more intense than that. But it also wasn't sex."

She wiped her tears, her eyes full of rage, rage, and more rage the deeper I looked. Had I ever seen her angry at me? Genuinely angry? "I came here to apologize to you." Her voice trembled with the weight of contempt. "To tell you how I'd screwed up our relationship and how I wanted to start over again from zero." A step toward me, then another, and another until I flinched when she was right next to me. "All those days spent telling me about how much you struggled with the idea of reconciling with your mother because of what she did to Arthur—and you do that to me?!" she hissed. Her breath collided with my face.

I'd never thought she could be intimidating. "I—I'm sorry. I fucked up." Her eyes were an ocean of anger and sorrow. "I don't know what to say."

For a moment, I thought she'd continue raging at me, but she started pacing around like my father had, as if she couldn't even put her feelings into words.

"I hoped. I really hoped that we could have made it work," she said. "Why—no, not why. I know why. It's because I—"

"Don't blame yourself—"

"Let me speak!" she screamed before looking at me as if she'd been about to apologize. None came. "I hate what you've done to me. A small part of me thought it could be a possibility, but—I know you, Grace. I know you're going to take this conversation in and think that it's all on you."

"Isn't it?" I said, bitterly.

"Before this? No, it was mostly my fault. Now?" She clenched her fist. "I want to say yes, but there's no point in making it a competition." Cecilia looked at the sky, where orange and blue mixed into a beautiful tapestry of color she couldn't see. "I'm breaking up with you."

I inhaled sharply through my teeth. "I know."

"I can't even look at you without feeling angry."

"I know."

"You owe me something," she pressed.

"I'll do whatever you want."

"I wanted to speak about our mistakes when I came here—about the problems we had that were always left unspoken. I hoped this would lead to new kindling in the relationship, but it would be a beautiful final act, don't you think?"

The most depressed of smiles flashed under the sunset as she outstretched her arms. A Wingull cawed overhead; the calm waters crashed against the canal's walls; the light reflected off her tear-filled white eyes and danced across her face.

She was beautiful.

"Fine. Then... can I be frank?" I asked.

"Of course. It's not like there are going to be turns; I have gripes as well."

"Gripes? How many? You're the one who—" it was odd to be on the offense. Wrong. "You said it was mostly your fault." I struggled to sound confident. The statement had been a probing one, something to test the waters. "Tell me a gripe, then."

"You cheated on me," she said as smooth as water. "That's the first one."

"That one is obvious."

"Oh, are you getting angry I'm pointing it out?" she asked in a harsh, mocking tone. "Should I keep going?"

"You—if we ignore—" I had no idea how to phrase this! "All of this could have been avoided if you told me to just leave her be! You told me to keep seeing her! I thought you were genuinely worried about her!"

"I was. But I was also blinded by my hatred of her father, because I saw herself in me and I didn't want Oscar to win," she explained. "But let's be honest here, Grace. You'd just told me she was the only person you could have fun with, and I was about to break your heart. I was worried about what you might do."

"You? Worried?"

"Yes. Do you think I don't worry about you?" she pressed.

I laughed harshly. "Cecilia, you killed yourself." The statement made her recoil for the first time as if I'd physically struck her. "You committed suicide, and we never even fucking talked about it!"

"You never even asked!" she yelled.

"Because I thought you wouldn't like it!" I lashed out. "I thought you wanted to move past it! But do you know how it feels to have your girlfriend kill herself? To have to relearn the way she speaks, moves, sees things, and how you interact with her? Did you even think about me before having Lehmy use Perish Song?"

Cecilia squinted at me, and she readied to yell, inhaling like an Exploud. "Of course I thought about you! I always, always think think about you to the point where I can't—couldn't do anything else!"

I scoffed. "Oh, so now it's my fault for just fucking existing, then?"

"It's not. It's my fault for never separating myself from you and learning to become a person!"

"Don't change the subject. I can keep doing this all day." For so long, I'd suppressed all of this. Buried my head in the sand to bask in her love and the comfort she afforded me. "We never talked about it. And then you just run. Again! Because we never fucking talk! About anything!"

"Do you think I never wanted to say something?" she asked.

"Then why didn't you?! It's all I ever wanted, Cecilia!"

"Because I thought you wanted me as I was! I thought that if I changed or shackled you with too many of my issues, you'd drop me for someone else! And evidently, you fucking did!"

"Wha—that's what I felt!"

"Well only one of us shoved her tongue down another girl's throat." The smile she gave me was so vicious I wanted to both run away in tears—not that I wasn't already crying as she was—and to blow up at her even further. "I wanted to be... whatever you wanted me to be. I just wanted to be with you, Grace. And to be there for you."

Well you did a horrible job at it was the horrible thought that wormed itself into my mind. "You weren't. And I also wasn't for you. I—I couldn't help but feel like I was walking around eggshells after Coronet." What if I said this, and she tried taking her own life again? Or that, and she ran away again without a word? "And can I—I'll be real for a second, you made me feel so abnormal sometimes!"

"What?"

"Like—I wanted to be normal for you. I wanted to be an average girl that wouldn't embarrass you, and whenever I failed, you made me feel like worse than dirt."

She looked at me like I was insane, the sheer non-understanding on her face so exaggerated that I'd never seen her so emotive, even before her death. "Are. You. Kidding me?!"

"No! Obviously I would not be kidding in this very awful fucking moment!"

"Grace, I love you because you're abnormal," she said. "I'm the furthest thing from normal—look at me!" She stared, white eyes wide and hands pointing at her scarred face. "I wasn't a person until a few weeks ago!"

"What does that even mean?!"

"It means I didn't know how to live without you! And I still don't!"

"So a few weeks away from me and everything goes so well for you?" I bitterly noticed.

"Don't you even start," she said.

"You told me to start! And now I can't stop! You said you like that I'm not normal, but I—I can't be my full self around you!"

"How? I have seen you at your worst and best. Engulfed within the depths stories, revenge, symbolism and everything else, and every single time, I have stood by you!"

"Well—maybe in practice!" I faltered. "But it didn't feel like it. It felt like you were pushing me a certain way. Like—random one off comments you said to me that I'd turn over in my head for days."

"Grace, do you really think I had the inner strength to actually mean any of that?"

"I wouldn't have known!"

"Why didn't you—" why didn't you tell me, she'd wanted to ask, but we both had the answer to that.

"And it felt like you never trusted me. Not truly, anyway. Like when you asked me not to look at your emotions? I mean, I get it, okay? I fucking get it!" I threw my hands up in frustration. "And I know I'm prone to addiction, and that it's within your rights, but it hurt me, okay? It hurt me so, so bad to think that you thought I was some kind of... some kind of monster."

Again, the story was much the same. "I didn't mean for any of that. I just couldn't—I didn't even get a day to let knowledge about your powers sink in! And that was while learning about Backlot and the full extent of your Gym Battle with Maylene!" Cecilia yelled. "It was hard for me to—after Malamar—" she sat down on a bench with a sigh and ran her hands over her face. "I never thought you'd actually do anything. I just wanted to set... boundaries. How could I have phrased that better?"

"I don't—I don't know!"

"Should we scroll through the text? I remember being as gentle as possible. I told you I trusted you, that I forgave you. That I loved you despite everything."

"Well it's difficult to tell over text—"

"You were the one who wanted it to be a text, remember?!" she cried out. "We called, then you hung up, and you decided to text! I didn't want to pressure you!"

My teeth clamped down on my inner cheek. "I...that's not the part my mind focused on."

"I can't read your damn mind, Grace!"

Again, it was the lethality of silence that did us in. So many instances where worries that had festered could have been dealt with by using a single sentence, sometimes a single word. The fight kept going for a while. She brought up how uncomfortable me fixing Louis' fear of the end of the world made her; I brought up her reaction to the ring I'd gotten her for our birthday party and how humiliating her reaction had been. She brought up how jealous me talking to her about the ins and outs of Maylene in Veilstone made her at the time, and I brought up how I'd tried to change for the better after Backlot while she'd thrown herself into the throes of revenge and how her path up Coronet had left a trail of blood behind her because of how obsessed she'd been with the idea of killing. Of course, she told me that she thought I'd agree with revenge when she'd revealed Justin's death, but it was never that simple, was it? I'd expended all this effort to be better, and she'd just done the opposite. She complained I'd never told her about what I'd seen with Dialga, and I did the same. I asked her when the last time we went on a date was, and she just looked at me in disbelief before wondering out loud when, exactly, since the bombs, would have been an appropriate time to go on one of those, and that was when I realized we'd never really seen eye to eye.

It was painful, it was raw, it was everything we should have done before today. It went back and forth and back and forth like a never-ending merry-go-round, each word spinning us deeper into a cycle we couldn't break. The heat of frustration rose with every exchanged glare, every bitter remark. We both knew we were circling the same issue, but neither of us wanted to stop, to let the silence fall when it had engulfed us for so many months before. Each time there was a moment when it felt like one of us would give in—just a breath, a pause—but then the stubbornness crept back in, pushing us to speak once more.

Everything was aired out within that single hour, and we were left exhausted by the end. Like we'd been battling. Cecilia was sagging against the stone bench, and I was lying on the floor, struggling for every breath. My voice was almost dead, as was hers from all the yelling, but the situation felt strangely cathartic. Even if we both were crying again, and she now despised me for what I'd done to her. Even if I hated myself for cheating on her. Even if I so desperately wanted to embrace her in my arms, kiss her and to start over again in the moment. I wanted to see her growth as she learned what she liked, hated, and who she wanted to become.

I wanted to be a part of her life. I wanted to matter to her. I wanted her to hug me and tell me that all was forgiven.

This wasn't that kind of story.

Catharsis also didn't meant it was bittersweet. It wasn't even just bitter; it was acidic, poisonous, ruinous. A calamity ignored, the build-up of tension no longer able to be contained after so long, lest we both withered away and lost each other again just after having caught a glimpse of the light at the end of the tunnel.

Cecilia sniffled on the bench. The sun had set now, and our only source of lighting was flickering street lights and a dim, half-moon.

"It's over, isn't it?" she said.

Yes. Not over in the sense that she was breaking up with me—that much had already been said. There was just nothing left. No trust, no connection, no life; the remaining embers of love churning in the furnace would never be enough to sustain this. We'd both hacked away at the rotting wood that was our foundation, using emotional lethargy as our weapon, and I'd given the last kick to send the whole structure tumbling down.

"It's over," I said.

"Do you think we could have made it work if you hadn't cheated?"

"I don't know. I hope so. I want it so be so." Then, a pause. "Will you ever forgive me? Like... years down the line?"

"Probably not—I do not know. The rancor I feel for you is deep—I resent you."

A prickle in my eyes. I'd run out of tears. "Yeah."

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry," I said.

"I know. I'm sorry too."

I rolled onto the bricked floor, turning to stare at a boat passing us by. There were so many lights. When it was gone, Cecilia spoke up again.

"A word to you," she said. "It's going to be tough with... our friends." She was obviously going to tell them; that was fine. "I doubt you'll find much refuge within the group. Denzel will stick around." He probably would, even though I didn't deserve it. We were tight. "You already did the deed, so... don't isolate yourself from the other people in your life."

My eyes widened. "What?"

"I'm not going to spell it out for you," she rebuked me. "Just... go be happy. Don't smother your own hope to death."

I shot up, clothes dirty from lying on the ground for so long. "Are you sure?"

"Why are you asking for permission? It's not like you did while I had my back turned," she said, her voice full of venom. "Just—just go."

When I checked the time on my phone, it read 7:23 PM. I adjusted my collar, patted down my clothes and looked at Cecilia one last time. She was splayed out on the bench; you'd be able to mistake her for a corpse rather than a living, breathing person with how little her chest and stomach rose with each breath. Her eyes had taken a tint of red from crying so much.

"I'm—"

"One last thing," she interrupted. "I met Honey's parents on route 220; they told me that they wouldn't meet them again and that you should tell Cynthia to stop looking for them. Or him, I suppose."

"Wha—"

Her hand grazed the side of one of her Pokeballs, and Slowking appeared with a familiar pop and hiss. "Do me a favor, darling. Please carry me back to the Pokemon Center; I've no energy left to walk." Something was said between them, but I wasn't included in the psychic link. "You could say that would be severely underselling it," she said. "I'll tell you when we're back home."

The water type glanced at me for a moment, but a wave of his hand, and Cecilia was encased in a transparent bubble where she lay curled up into a ball. I tried calling out to her, but she didn't even react—he must have cut off sound from the outside world.

Just like that, she was gone.

Gone forever.

I stood there in a daze—cheating or not, Honey's parents wasn't something Cecilia wouldn't have lied about that; she knew it was too important, and Honey had nothing to do with my actions. So she'd... met them, and they'd said to stop looking?

No. No, I would not do so unless Honey himself told me to, even if it took years to find them. He was owed.

But right now—

I unlocked my phone screen, sending a message to Maylene. It was just her name, nothing long-winded yet, but the red circle next to the chat bubble meant I'd been blocked—fuck, fuck, fuck. What could I do? I didn't have access to Kadabra now that I was out of the Lily, and Maylene had been the one to constantly supply me with Teleporters when in past few weeks.

There was only one option remaining.

I needed to fly back despite the fact that it meant I'd arrive in the middle of the night. I loved her. The others would judge me for the brazenness of it, and I didn't deserve happiness, but I sure as hell wanted to be! With renewed determination, like a second wind at my back, I released Princess and hopped on top of her before even explaining anything or putting on a saddle on her back.

She smiled up at me, not even needing to ask me where to, and burst through the air eastward. I placed myself flat against her, gripping her fur tightly as she sped up until the world below us became a blur. The wind whipped past, cool and sharp against my face when I realized that we'd just broken a law by taking off from there.

I glanced back to see if any Rangers would show up and follow me, and only relaxed when there were none tracking me out of the city. Mimi vibrated against me, their form loose against my neck.

"I know what I want!" I yelled, though I wasn't certain they could hear me at this speed. I could barely keep my eyes open. "Now I just have to hope she gives me a chance!" The clouds swallowed us whole, thick and damp, until they parted like curtains to reveal the stretch of horizon ahead.

Please wait for me.

—

My clothes were damp by the time we landed in Veilstone right in front of Maylene's Gym. I shivered as I got off Princess, who shook herself off like a wet Herdier, but it didn't do much to dry her. She still looked thin when all her fur clung to her skin, and to not embarrass herself in public, she demanded I recall her this instant until she could be dried.

I acquiesed before checking my phone. Maylene was set to wake up in a few hours, since she did so every day at five in the morning for work. I'd be waking her up early but—but if I waited any longer, I'd get cold feet and lose myself in a self-deprecating quagmire that meant I would never have been doing this. I already knew I was awful; repentance for that could come later, or at least an attempt at it. With a spring in my step, I jumped from stair to stair up to the entrance, and I knocked repeatedly until my knuckles hurt.

A sleepy-looking short woman named Jenna frowned at me through the glass door before opening it. "Grace?" She gave me a questioning look. "Are you here to see Leader Maylene again? We weren't informed—"

"I need to talk to her; this is urgent," I said. "Please, let me in."

She stared at me as if she'd been about to tell me ten reasons why that was a good idea, but a good look at my resolve told her it'd be too much work, and she shrugged, sighing out a defeated "okay."

If I hadn't spent enough time here to become a common sight, she never would have let me in. It gave me a little sense of belonging that made me feel warm as I climbed the stairs and made my way to Maylene's room. I stopped at the door, taking a sharp breath. I'd come this far; stopping now would be idiotic. Once again, my fingers violently knocked against the newly-repaired wooden door until I heard slow, lumbering steps behind it. Oh, Legendaries. What would I even say? I hadn't come with a plan or anything—

Maylene opened the door.

Tired. She looked tired like she hadn't slept since we'd kissed, and all she was wearing was one of her khaki tank tops and a blue pair of boxers she probably slept with. She froze in place when she saw me, like I was the last thing she'd expected.

Her face turned away and stared at the doorframe. "Grace. What are you doing here?" she asked, the life and usual joy sucked out of her tone. What remained was a withered, flaky voice that I barely recognized. I'd seen her angry; I'd seen her sad; I had never seen her crushed.

"Maylene!" My voice was a little raspy from all the yelling. "I—I—" just. Fucking. Say it. "I came to talk to you about yesterday. And that—first of all, you should hear these words from me. I love you. Like, I seriously, seriously love you."

She blinked at me. "What?" she uttered in disbelief. Had she expected me to break things off officially with her if I ever came back?

"Can I come in?" Please."

She leaned against the doorframe and sighed. "I'm... not sure that's a good idea, Grace."

"Then I'll say it out here, okay? Cecilia and I broke up—well, she broke up with me, but there was just... so many issues in the relationship that it—it kind of felt mutual by the end? Obviously I'm the one at fault, though." There was no denying that we would have tried again without Maylene in the picture. "And I know how this looks, okay? You might think that I'm only coming back here for you as some kind of cheap rebound because she left me—"

"Isn't that what's happening?" she asked.

"No! I—okay, listen. Before the argument even began, Princess asked me a question. If I could choose between you two, who would I pick? And I said you. And the answer felt so—it felt so right that I didn't know what to think." I grabbed her wrist and touched her skin; it felt like fire against my palm. "Look at me, Maylene. I would never... I want to hope that I would never use you like that. I want us to be rock solid."

She started tearing up. "Grace, I ruined your—"

"It was already ruined," I interrupted. "And yes, you and I both did wrong. We were both horrible people." A sad little laugh escaped me. "But we can't take it back. We opened the box, and we can't put our feelings back in. Or at least I can't. I love you, Maylene," I said again.

Maylene wiped her eyes with an arm. "So what are you asking?"

"I—I'm asking if you would want to at least try things out with me. And I'm—I'm sorry, I'm not sure I'm ready for labels yet." I was determined to make this work, but... "So soon after... it would feel so unmerited. I'd like to take things slow, but if you want, I can just take that leap. If you think it has a shape that's more solid, and it reassures you."

"No, it's fine—" she paused and exhaled in defeat. "Just come in." She dragged me inside and shut the door behind me. Her dimly-lit laptop sat on her coffee table in front of her couch. "Do you want anything?"

'You' would have been a good answer here, and the absolute truth, but now wasn't the time for comedy. "It's fine."

She didn't keep talking, instead making her way to her bathroom. A few seconds later, she brought me one of her towels and gently placed it on my head.

"I'm just going to ask straight up, Grace. Is this real?"

"What? Yes it is!" I forced out, feeling a little anger rise within.

"It's hard to tell sometimes. Sorry." She started drying my hair—she was so close. "Even I get swept up in your stories. You're very... good at bringing people into your own train of thought. And very good at masking the truth to yourself. I just want to know if this is another façade that's going to collapse in a month and leave me even more hurt."

"It's not!" I grabbed her hand and placed it on my chest so she could feel my heartbeat. "This is real. I'm so anxious I feel like I'm going to die, Maylene. I want this to work out so badly with you that—that it's difficult to breathe."

She was blushing. I could tell even if her living room was dark because of her breathing pattern.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean it in like, a pervy way," I mumbled, letting her hand fall from my chest. ""I love you so much that it hurts, Maylene. I love how silly you are and how you try to make me laugh when I'm feeling down. I like how combative you are and how banter feels like verbal sparring with you. How vulnerable you let yourself be with me. I love your strength, not just in battles, but in how you face everything life throws at you with that quiet determination. You let me see the parts of you that no one else gets to, the raw and real side, and I wouldn't trade that for anything. I don't just love the good moments—I love the messy and the quiet ones, too. The ones that remind me how real we are, how real this is."

She smiled at me, genuine and slightly misty-eyed. "Then I—I think I'd be willing to try with you. And I'm okay with taking it slow."

My heart danced in my ribcage, and I couldn't help but grin at her. "I promise you won't have to wait long to call yourself my..." the final word was already implied. "Thank you for believing in me."

"Don't make me regret it, 'kay?" she asked.

An awkward silence settled in, and I kicked the air, unable to stop smiling from ear to ear. In a few hours, the high would probably pass, and the bad thoughts would come again, but that was okay. She was here to help me stand on my own.

"We should probably—go over the contract again, no?" I asked.

"Yeah. Yeah, that's a good idea," she immediately said.

We sat down on the couch, somehow more shy about being so close than we'd ever been before. I was so hyper aware of her that I started to think about how amazing her fingers looked when she was using her phone and her soothing the sound of her breath was in the total silence of her living room. As we shared a single document, and she was better at typing than me even when she focused to make no grammatical mistakes or abbreviations, she was the one who'd update the contract while I watched.

"Even though we're kinda sorta... dating, it doesn't change your predicament," she said. "You're prone to self-justification to breach boundaries, and to co-dependency. And since I'll still be working a lot, especially ahead of the Conference, our schedule will have to stay pretty rigid. I don't know what it's going to be like with your friend group..." she trailed off with a hint of guilt.

"Oh. Well, I'm pretty sure Chase and Pauline are going to hate my guts," I sighed. "Emi and Louis? We'll probably be on speaking terms, but not friends anymore. I think. Denzel... things will be awkward, but we'll be fine."

"Are you okay?" she asked. "I mean, you've known them for a long time."

"I don't think it's sunk yet, honestly. I'm not... comprehending it yet. I probably will when I start getting their furious text and get kicked out of their group chat."

"Okay. Well—you'll have to rely on Denzel, Marley and Jess, then. And maybe the Poketch people? You need more friends."

"Hey..."

"I mean more close friends, jeez," she said. "You only have Denzel right now. I have Nia, Candice, Volkner, Roark—wait, they're probably going to hate me for this."

"Hate's a strong word."

"Right... they'll be disappointed, at least. And the older Gym Leaders too, 'cause I want to be honest with them. Whenever we go... public. That's fine, right?"

"Yeah." I grabbed her hand and smiled at her. Never would I have thought that she'd be the one wanting to tell the world we were dating. "I'll tell Melody right away so Poketch makes some preparations." That seemed to put away all remaining doubts Maylene had about this.

She smiled at me. "Okay... well, I don't think Cecilia would say anything, but what about the others?" Her fingers interlaced with mine.

"I don't think any of them would, honestly," I said. "They're good people." Unlike me.

"Okay. So I guess our meetups will be the same, we can schedule more of these later." We hadn't really, given that Cecilia had been coming back soon. "Maybe we can go at the arcade or something."

"Oh, I'll definitely beat you at the arcade." The last time I'd gone had been with Emilia, so I was experienced, and Maylene never played games.

There it was—her competitive streak I'd grown to love. "You're on. The winner's the one who wins the most games overall, and she gets one favor from the loser."

"Be careful what you wish for," I threatened teasingly. "Sounds good to me, though."

Next, Maylene moved on to the biggest topic on the contract: practice.

"Honestly I—I kind of like practice?" I shyly mumbled under my breath. "When we were doing it yesterday, the darkness entirely disappeared, but... can we keep it? It kind of keeps me grounded, and it gives me something to look forward to. Not that just being with you isn't great!"

"Only if you ask nicely," she said, all smug.

Ugh. I knew she wanted to keep it just as badly as I did, or she would have voiced her disagreements already. Still, I'd entertain her for now. "Can we please keep practice in our relationship." I made sure to accentuate the word to press her buttons and make her blush and fumble pathetically. "Heh."

"Heh," she mimicked to mock me. "Fine."

Maylene did make sure to include that we'd only practice once every two meetups. She'd gone for three originally, probably hoping to entice me with that number, but she wouldn't fool me!

"Oh. Y'know, I kind of graduated, didn't I? We should make every session fifteen minutes," I said.

Another win, and that one came far easier, since she seemed just as eager as I was. We also decided that every greeting and farewell would warrant one free hug that couldn't go above ten seconds. There were special clauses for a bunch of different situations, like handholding when out and about, or small, innocent touches I liked to make all the time. There were limits, especially when compared to my relationship with Cecilia, but we were still far freer now than we'd been before.

"Um. Wh—what about... k—ki—"

"Oh, kissing? Sure, let's talk about it." I beamed at her, fingers playfully grazing her arm. She froze at my touch. "I mean, while I'd love for there to be no limit—"

"Grace. You would kill me."

"What? Not at all!"

My protests fell on deaf ears. "You were terrifying yesterday when you kissed me," she said, finger fondly tracing her lip. "It felt... really good, and it was a good kind of scary, but it was scary nonetheless. I felt like I was being hunted..."

I waved a dismissive hand at her. "Don't exaggerate; there was just a lot of pent up desire in that kiss. Not every single one's gonna be like that—wait, that was your first, wasn't it?"

"I did tell you that you're the first person I fell in love with, so yeah..." she was so cute when she was bashful. "I'm not really experienced at anything."

"That's fine! You were honestly great," I said. Maylene discreetly smirked at the praise. "Sorry about how forceful I was; we'll take it slow from now on. What about... I don't know, five kisses every time we meet?"

"Five?"

"That too much? Give me a number."

"I was thinking two!" she exclaimed. "Maybe one when we see each other and one when we leave?"

"How about three? It's a nice, clean number."

"Oh, so now you like threes." She scoffed when I stuck out my tongue at her. "Give me your argument for three."

"Well, obviously I want to kiss you, I mean, look at you," I said. I kept going, ignoring her flustered reaction. She was always used to doing the complimenting, and not the other way around. "It's true that three is satisfying in terms of numbers, but I think your framework is too rigid. Knowing when the kisses come takes the fun out of it, I think we should be allowed to do it whenever."

"Hm. That's... pretty fair."

"Also, does this mean three per person or three total?"

"Let's start with three total for now—and I assume you're going to follow the spirit of the rules and not just take them all for yourself every time." She made expecting eyes at me, and I was forced to agree. "Good. If you behave, then maybe we'll think about making it three per person. Now let's go over..."

We continued to define the length and intensity of what would be a proper kiss. Obviously, as much as I wanted it, what had happened yesterday wasn't something that could count as one kiss. That was in the Making Out Clause, which was TBD until we settled into the relationship a little more. Overall, we must have spent nearly an hour going over every nook and cranny of the contract, and I gave both my verbal and written signature on the document. Of course, all of this would have to be reworked when we went long distance, but hopefully we'd be able to make that work. She had said she'd probably be able to go to Unova for a month at some point if she proved herself capable of handling the responsibilities of a diplomatic mission, and worse-case scenario, maybe I'd be able to go see her on a trip. Like, for a week or two maximum if I had the time. Unlike this year, it wasn't like much was going to happen.

Maylene really pressed on the point that I needed to meet new people there, though. Without Cecilia with me, I'd only have Melody. That was a big step for someone like me, who 'needed a big support network.' Maylene's words, not mine. Not that I disagreed with her.

"And... one last thing, Maylene," I said. "I—I want us to communicate well, so I need to tell you this." Honestly, it should have been said far earlier, but I've been so swept in the joy of her accepting me that I'd forgotten to say it. "I still have feelings for Cecilia. Now that doesn't mean anything for us!" I quickly added before her expression soured too much. "I'm not gonna try and get back with her or anything. Even if she wanted to, I'd say no. I just want to be honest."

She let the thought sit with her for a moment. "That's okay. I can't expect your feelings to change just like that." Maylene snapped her fingers. "Thanks for telling me."

"Thanks for understanding. And for trusting me. Arceus knows I don't deserve that after..."

Maylene cupped my cheek and looked into my eyes, not to kiss me, but just to reassure me. "We fucked up," she agreed. "But I love you, dork. Let's try and make this work."

I nodded and put my forehead against hers with a smile. "Let's."

A/N: Well, that's the end of this... arc. I'm sure this won't be controversial whatsoever! Cecilia fans, don't fret; she'll keep being a main character even if she's stopped dating Grace. That's kind of like, the whole point, really; the break up has been foreshadowed since Solaceon, where they talked about the longevity of their relationship, and cracks continued showing up all throughout. Also, a reminder that I abhor cheating, and none of what happens in the fic means I approve of Grace's actions. Byebyee.