Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

They’re able to settle into a routine, him and Silver. Well, it’s more of a rhythm than a real routine.

They don’t train every day, because Silver has his own things to do. On some days, he goes off to help Professor Elm with an errand, or assist his friend Crystal in Professor Oak’s lab. Sometimes, Blue takes him somewhere—maybe some sort of parlor, because Silver’s hair always looks more well-kept after his days with her. His friend Gold drags him off on some days, to try some new restaurant or such. On Fridays, however, he always does go to Gold’s house, no exceptions. He usually sleeps over there, too.

(Lance really tries not to eavesdrop, but sometimes it’s difficult when the house is so small—so he ends up hearing something about “Proteam Omega,” whenever Silver’s on the phone with Gold. Whatever that is. But it does sound like it’s a TV show.)

He isn’t Silver’s only teacher, either; sometimes, he trains with the Gym Leader in Viridian City, who is conveniently close. But not as often, because Green is much busier than Lance is. At this point, Lance is fairly sure that Silver is more than ready to take on Giovanni, and win. But Silver seems uncontent, and determined to continue chasing after an impossible standard he set for himself.

(There’s also another friend of Silver’s who is also in Viridian City. But Lance doesn’t hear that name from Silver’s mouth at all, even though he’s sure they must see each other sometimes. He’s certain that Silver knows, and is just trying to avoid an awkward conversation.)

On some days, though, Silver sends him a brief text, usually in the evening, that he’d be staying at one of his safe houses for the night. He usually gives the reasoning that it’s nearer to where he currently is, etc., etc. Lance tries not to worry; after all, Silver is a competent trainer in his own right who can take care of himself. It’s a feat that Silver apparently trusts him enough to give him a heads up.

Silver is still just his student. It shouldn’t matter when Silver can’t come ‘home’ because, well, it’s not really home, is it? He’s simply giving his student a place to stay. So that they can keep up his training more regularly.

Despite his best efforts, a small part of him—that he can’t seem to control, much to his frustration—insists on worrying for the boy anyway.

His own pokémon are growing increasingly fond of Silver too. Dragonite has gotten especially protective of him, and watches out for him whenever they train. It helps, because Silver tends to have a reckless streak that’s gotten him in a few close calls. Her latest concern, which she’s been complaining to Lance about incessantly, is how thin Silver is. So Lance tries to slip him more food; if Silver notices, he doesn’t say anything.

It’s still a little strange, having Silver around. Lance hasn’t lived with another person in a very long time. It’s strange being back in the cabin in general. He’s tried his best to chip away at his personal project of deep-cleaning the house, but with every layer of grime he mops away, it feels like he’s time-travelling. Slowly, the house looks more and more like it used to.

It kind of bothers him. And he’s torn between his instinct to clean, and the pains of the past he wants so desperately to avoid.

He’s gotten around to fixing a lot of things in the house, but he still hasn’t touched the piano. He can’t bring himself to.

“Do you play?” Silver asks once, eyes darting sideways in the piano’s direction. He keeps his tone casual, but it sounds a little forced. Lance could tell that he’d been meaning to ask the question for a while.

Lance only shrugs and answers, “I used to.” Honestly, he doesn’t know if he could still play the thing today. He hasn’t touched any instrument in years. He’s probably all forgotten it now.

Aside from cleaning the house and training Silver, he doesn’t allow himself to do much. He listens to the news. His pokémon are back on regular intel runs again, though it’s been quiet, so far. He does the laundry and folds clothes, even Silver’s. He calls Clair, because he promised. Sometimes he will read—his mother’s historical romances have particularly gotten him hooked—but that’s as much as he will allow himself.

He certainly hasn’t gone into town. From what he can tell, it’s grown quite a bit since he was last here. And he was never good with crowds. Or people in general.

You are an exile, he repeats to himself every night, before he goes to sleep. Truthfully, “going to sleep” is always an ordeal that never happens as quickly and painlessly as he wishes it would. You are an exile. You are an exile. You are an exile.

(Also, not that it matters, but his chronic aches haven’t gone away. A part of him possibly hoped that moving back to Viridian would help—something about the fresh air or whatever—but it doesn’t seem to have any effect. It still hurts. Every damn day.)

There’s a knock at the door one day, while the two of them are having breakfast. They both jump at the foreign sound.

“Are you expecting someone?” Silver asks.

“No,” Lance says, setting his chopsticks down. Maybe it’s Clair. But if it were her, the knock would’ve sounded much more impatient and aggressive, he thinks. And there would have been yelling.

When he opens the door, there’s a grinning, straw-hatted kid in shorts (how he’s not cold in this weather, Lance doesn’t know), holding up a bucket of what looks to be cleaning supplies. There’s a bug net strapped to his back. “I finally found ya, mister!”

“Sammy,” Lance says, feeling the tension release from his frame. At least it isn’t anybody bad. “What are you doing here?”

“I told you I’d come over to share supplies, right? I don’t break a promise, y’know.”

Lance opens the door wider for Sammy to come in, and he toes his sandals off at the entrance. “Cozy place you got here,” Sammy says, gawking around. His eyes fall on Silver at the table. “Oh, hello!”

Silver stands abruptly, his chair creaking against the wooden floor. He looks like a Deerling in the headlights. It occurs to Lance that Silver is possibly not just aloof and standoffish, but shy. “Hello,” he says in a quiet, almost confused, voice.

Sammy extends a hand. “I’m Sammy, a friend of Mr. Lance’s. Nice to meet ya.”

Silver gingerly takes his hand and shakes it, offering a veiled, incredulous glance at Lance that says, You have friends? “...Silver.”

Lance scratches a spot just behind his own ear. “We met in the forest.”

Sammy chuckles at that. It wasn’t even funny… “Sure. Mr. Lance here saved my Weedle! With his powers! You know about the powers?” he asks Silver. Silver nods, still looking at least a little confused. “Anyway, I promised I would give ‘im some cleaning supplies in return, so here I am.” He sets the bucket down on the table.

Silver stares at it. “Cleaning supplies…? Is this some sort of custom around here?”

Sammy laughs. “No, silly! Mr. Lance asked for it specifically.”

At that, Silver finally stops looking confused, as his expression brightens (as much as it could with Silver, anyway) with recognition. “Ah, that makes sense.” 

Well, that makes Lance frown and knit his brows, if only in embarrassment. This “mister” business is grating, too; he’s not that old… he never liked the archaic titles they called him in Blackthorn, either, much preferring that they’d respect him for his skills, not his lineage. He clears his throat. “Thank you, Sammy. Now, if you would…”

But Sammy’s not listening. He’s taking a turn around the room, poking his stubby nose about. He lets out a whistle when he sees the piano. “Wow! Do ya play, mister?”

“...I used to.”

“Well…” Sammy drawls, stretching out the word and putting his hands behind his back in a polite pose. “Y’see, I actually came here for somethin’ else too, not just to drop those off.” He digs into the pocket of his shorts and pulls out a card. It’s crumpled, so he straightens it out, grinning, before shoving it into Lance’s face. “I wanted to invite you to my birthday party!”

Lance takes the card. It looks handmade, with a doodle of a Weedle, appropriately bundled up for this time of year with a scarf and beanie (unlike its trainer), and a speech bubble with the words “You’re Invited to Sammy’s 13th Birthday Party.” Along with an address (somewhere in town, not a cabin in the middle of the woods), and a date and time. It’s on Saturday.

“You’re invited too, Silver,” Sammy adds. “The more the merrier!”

Silver’s peeking over Lance’s shoulder to look at the card. He has to lean up a lot, because Lance is tall. “I’m free on Saturday,” he says, shrugging.

Lance shoots him a look, and is about to say something along the lines of, We can’t possibly go to a thirteen year-old’s birthday party, before he remembers that Silver himself is sixteen, and hasn’t really had the chance to associate with other people his age. Outside of the Pokédex holders, that is. And maybe Lance shouldn’t take that opportunity away from him.

“We’ve established that weekends are non-training days for rest, right?” Silver says, looking up at him.

He can’t argue with that. “Yeah, that’s true.”

“Cool!” Sammy says cheerfully. “I’ll see you both, then!”

He turns to leave, whistling on the way, before Lance stops him in his tracks. “Wait.” Sammy freezes, giving Lance a questioning look. “How did you know where I live?”

Sammy puts a hand on his hat, looking embarrassed. “It wasn’t that hard… I knew there was a house around here, and I’d never seen ya in town before, so I took a guess.”

Lance folds his arms. “Hrm. Okay.” He doesn’t like the idea that he’s that easily found. But whatever.

Sammy gives them a cheeky salute and leaves.

Lance considers Silver. “I wouldn’t have guessed you were the type of person for parties.”

Silver shrugs and diverts his gaze to the floor. “Not really, but Gold and Crystal both think I should have more… ‘normal’ experiences. Since I’ve missed out on a lot as a kid, because… you know. And I know Blue is going out of her way to get those experiences, so I thought… that I should make at least some effort, too.”

Lance isn’t an idiot; he knows what going to Sammy’s party means. If Sammy’s inviting him—of all people, after their very limited interactions—then he must be the type of person to invite all his friends. Which means that Lance is going to have to face that person.

After he found that photograph with his aunt, he shoved it back into the cabinet and hasn’t touched any of the albums again since. He really does not want to think about it. Besides, it could mean nothing. Lots of people have blond hair. In Viridian City. Maybe. That doesn’t change the fact that he’s been on edge while cleaning, paranoid that some other potential piece of evidence could jump at him at any moment.

He hasn’t come across anything, though. So it could be nothing.

(Probably just the leftover nerves from being tortured by that face, which he should be over with by now.)

“It’s nice,” Silver says, and from the look on his face, he’s straining to get the words out. “For a stranger like him to see me and not think I’m… creepy.”

He can’t help the sigh that comes out of his chest as he tells Silver, “Okay. Fine. We’ll go to that party.”

It lightens his chest to see Silver’s eyes brighten at his words.

Clair visits him, on her rare free day. Of course she doesn’t want to help him clean (which Lance grumbles about), so he takes her fishing by the river. She had just missed Silver by a sliver of time, who had left that morning; he had mumbled something about heading off to Violet City to help Crystal with some school.

The both of them are heavily bundled up. Lance is wearing an old scarf of his father’s that he found in a closet. Silver had given him a weird look that morning; apparently, he didn’t think it was cold enough to be dressed so warmly. True, it was only late autumn. But Lance and Clair were raised to not take the cold lightly.

“Remind me why we’re doing this out here again,” Clair says. Her Kingdra had tried to take a swim in the river earlier, but asked to return to her ball after feeling how cold the water was. “Can’t we go into town? I bet we could find a place with some nice hot tea or chocolate.”

“It’s quieter here,” Lance replies, a bit gruffly. Fishing isn’t so exciting this late in the year. Above them, beyond the canopy of trees that were starting to lose their leaves, the sky was a calm gray.

Clair rolls her eyes. “Right. Forgot how much of a social butterfly you are.”

“Tch.”

“Let’s just go back to your house,” she whines, and Lance is brought back to when they were kids and Clair was complaining about something or the other. Usually about him stealing bites of her ice cream or tugging on her ponytail. He snorts at the memory, and Clair shoots him a look. “What?”

“Nothing.” He bites back his smile.

She glares at him and shoves his arm. “Why did you want to go fishing, anyway?”

He doesn’t really know. It had just occurred to him as one of the things you simply do while in the forest. His dad liked fishing. Loved it, really. Lance never really got why he was so fond of it. Maybe because lazy fishing days in the forest seemed much far off from his old routine in Blackthorn. Dad always had some corny fishing joke up his sleeve, too. Where do Magikarp keep their Pokédollars? At the river bank, of course…

“Were these your dad’s?” Clair asks, considering the fishing pole in her gloved hands.

“Yeah.”

Clair hums thoughtfully, and Lance realizes that she’s staring at him. He knows that she’s already figured out something that he doesn’t want to admit, so he doesn’t say anything. She turns her gaze back to the water. “We’re not going to catch anything, are we?”

“Don’t think so.”

She sighs before getting up, and extends a hand out to him. “Come on. Let’s go sit in front of your stove.”

When they’re back in the cabin, Clair hogs the warmth in front of the wood-burning stove. Lance takes the opportunity to sew up some tattered seams he found on a couple of pillowcases.

“This place hasn’t changed a bit,” she says. “You cleaned up really well.”

Clair had only visited him and his parents in Viridian a handful of times, back before his mother died. But those few visits were memorable; they had felt so different from whenever they were together in Blackthorn. In the forest, they weren’t under the watch of a grandfather who constantly pitted them against each other. He knew that Clair was able to let loose in the forest in a way she hadn’t ever been able to, back home. She was the one who bore the brunt of their grandfather’s harsh words, even more so than Lance did.

Lance bites off the thread with his teeth. His canines have always been particularly sharp. His mom had called them his “dragon teeth.”

As he begins stitching, his mind wanders off to the invitation card he kept away in one of the drawers.

He’s been giving it some thought, and he’s now convinced that the best course of action would be to show up at the party, and face the music. He needs to stop avoiding that person. Needs to stop being such a coward.

It had all finally clicked when he made the realization. It would be illogical, moronic even, to continue avoiding that person out of fear, when that person is possibly the only one left who can give him what he needs. 

Because if Blackthorn had denied him consequences, then who better else to answer to than the very person who defeated him?

Yellow will be his judge. If there’s anyone on this planet who should be capable of holding him accountable, it would be her. The other child of the forest, his parallel, who knows perfectly well how exactly he’s failed everything he was meant to be.

“You’re thinking about something,” Clair says.

“Just wondering where I can get some more thread. I’m starting to run out.”

She rolls her eyes. “I told you, you’re gonna have to go into town eventually. Doesn’t matter how much you hate other people.” She turns her gaze back to the fire, and grumbles something that almost sounds like, “You really should get a TV in here.”

Lance snorts.

Clair’s eyes light up. “Oh, I nearly forgot.” She scrambles to get up, and sits in the chair next to him. “I brought my nail set with me. And I noticed your polish was growing out. Come on, give me your hands.”

She knocks the needle out of his fingers and pulls him towards her. Lance tries to look annoyed, but can’t help the small smile that slips across his face as she takes his hands into hers.

He had nightmares a lot, when he was a kid. (He still does.) It came with the powers; all the hurt and pain he felt from pokémon never left him.

In this one dream, he was in an eerie and empty house. It was dark outside the windows, and no matter where he looked, his parents and their pokémon were nowhere to be found. There was a thick layer of dust over everything, as if the place had lay forgotten for years.

When he stepped out, the forest was quiet and bare. The trees have lost their leaves and color. There were no chirps from the wild pokémon that he had grown so used to hearing. His Dratini was nowhere to be seen, either. As he moved forward, as if in a trance, he saw that the pond didn’t look right; the water had an odd tint to it. 

Something beyond his control always compelled him to peer over the edge, even if it was always the most dreadful sight in the dream. Along the edge of the pond, in murky waters the color of oil, bobbed lifeless husks. Several Magikarp, a few Poliwag. A Dratini.

There was no one else in this world. Only him. Whatever had happened, he only had himself to blame. And there was nothing to do.

(Growing up, he’s had more time to think about what these dreams signified. He’s since identified them with his fear of abandonment. His own abandonment. Of the forest, of the pokémon, of the people he cared for. If he didn’t do his duty—if he didn’t do anything—this is what would happen. Lifelessness and decay. So he had to do something. He spent many years of his life determined to do something.)

He woke up from the dream with a horrible start, the heavy dread having followed him into the waking world. On the pile of blankets on the floor, Dratini was sound asleep; it was a relief to find her snoring softly. He stumbled out of bed and rushed to his parents’ room—hating the feeling of having his back bared to the air, and how unsettling that openness felt—and crawled into their bed.

All the moving and rustling around woke his mother up as he nestled himself in between his parents. She smoothed a hand over the side of his head, with sleep-laden eyes. “Bad dream, sweetheart?”

He nodded. On the other side of him, his dad was snoring.

“It’s okay. It was just a dream. You’re safe.”

It wasn’t about him, though. It was everybody else. He burrowed into her side.

His mom wrapped an arm around him. “Everything’s okay. Go to sleep.”

Next to him, his dad stirred, blinking awake. His lips stretched into a smug smile. “Honey, there’s a humongous Rattata in our bed.”

“I’m not,” Lance whined, just as he caught a glimpse of his mom giving Dad the stink-eye.

His dad turned towards him, and covered him with an arm, squeezing his shoulder once. “He’s cuddly, though.”

“Go back to sleep,” his mom mumbled.

He was still scared. The dream still lingered with him, waiting in the dark corners at the edge of his vision. But the warm solidness that surrounded him, enveloped in his parents’ bed, at least chased away the frightening feeling of being exposed. He fell asleep soon after, and didn’t remember any dreams.

Lance wakes up with a start, after a freezing gush of ice-cold air hits his face. It sends his body into a state of tense alarm—until he sees that it’s only Weavile, crouching over him. 

The door is slightly ajar. From the window, it’s still dark outside. Weavile whines.

“Okay, okay…” He lifts a hand up to Weavile's forehead, and concentrates. His tone softens as he comprehends what Weavile’s telling him. “Oh. All right, then. Up we go.”

They both pad softly across the house to the door of Silver’s room—the guest room, Lance corrects himself. Weavile looks up to him with big, concerned eyes. Lance pushes the door open.

Moonlight streams through the window, faintly illuminating the figure on the bed. Silver is tossing in his sleep, his face contorted in invisible distress. 

If there’s anything his brief time with Clair in his most recent visit to Blackthorn has taught him, it’s that he still knows how to be a big brother. So Lance goes to kneel next to the bed, and—as gently as he knows how to do—puts a hand on his shoulder.

“It’s okay,” he whispers. “Silver. It’s okay. You’re safe.”

With a strangled gasp, Silver’s eyes shoot open and he stares at Lance, mortified. “What are you…”

“Just me.” He puts his hands up. Weavile jumps up on his bed and nuzzles Silver’s cheek. “Weavile woke me up.”

Silver sits up and rubs his eyes. He’s wearing some old clothes that used to belong to Lance. They’re too big for his frame, making him look even smaller. “Sorry.”

“No need to apologize. I’ll get you some water.”

He goes to the kitchen to get a cup. As he fills it with water from the pitcher, he thinks about Silver. There must be plenty of things for him to have nightmares about. The Masked Man, the Lake of Rage, getting turned to stone. Pryce is dead now; that part, at least, Silver’s now safe from, forever. But Lance knows just as well that old wounds don’t heal overnight.

He hands the cup to Silver, who takes it with a sleepy, grateful look. “Thanks.”

This is probably the time where he should ask if Silver wants to talk about it. But he feels like those words don’t really fit in his mouth. So all he ends up saying is, “I have nightmares too.”

The kind of nightmares he has nowadays are different from the ones he had as a kid. Now, they were of a volcano at the center of an island; the judgment of a mythical bird; the sinister smile of a certain face framed by blond hair, worn like a mask. Always, he woke up from them with his body aches feeling worse than before, like they were fresh again.

Silver looks down at his cup. “I’m used to it.”

“Yeah, me too. Doesn’t make it suck any less, though.” He fiddles with the doorknob. “Well… you should get some more sleep.”

Silver shakes his head, placing his cup down on the nightstand. “In a while. I need to try to calm down.” He’s quiet for a moment, and Lance isn’t sure if he should leave or stay. His eyes seem to glaze over, as he stares down at his limp hands. “He’s gone now.”

Lance nods. “He’s gone. You’re safe, Silver.”

Silver gnaws on his lip. “Do you think it was…”

Lance thinks he knows what Silver means. He’s been wondering about it himself. That earthquake that hit Mahogany was simply too convenient. It had to be the work of a pokémon. Not just any pokémon, but one in the hands of a skilled trainer. Most likely, a Ground-type specialist.

Nevertheless, it’s still mere conjecture. “I don’t know, to be honest. But it could be.”

Silver gives him one slow nod. Lance wonders, briefly, if the conversation is over and if he should leave. Then, softly, “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.” Lance takes a seat at the wooden chair next to the small desk.

“What were your parents like?”

He pauses, taken back by the question. 

When he doesn’t answer right away—because he’s thinking of what to say—Silver amends, “It’s just… that sort of thing is curious to me. Sorry.”

“No, it’s alright,” Lance says, shaking his head. He starts slowly. “They were… nice.” Which is such a non-answer, and it gnaws at him for how much of an understatement it feels like. “They were good parents.”

Silver’s looking at him with waiting eyes.

“My father was the strongest trainer I knew.” That’s true, but it isn’t wholly representative of who his dad was. “But he walked away from all of that. He found normal work in town. Carrying heavy things around, working with Machamp, things like that. Laying brick. Was a union leader, actually.” Because his father was raised as someone who would someday lead, and that stayed with him, even outside of Blackthorn.

He remembers his dad having the other workers over, gathered around the table and talking in serious tones. It was better for them, sometimes, to meet at their house, hidden away in the forest, away from any hired goons. Once, his parents brought him to the picket line; he was too young then to really understand much. But that was where he learned that fighting back was possible.

“Was he the one from Blackthorn?”

“Yeah.” Lance feels a lump growing in his throat. “It angered my grandfather greatly that he moved here. He thought it was below him. I think my dad was going out of his way to piss him off. He actually kept up a hobby of doing comedy, if you could believe that. On Friday or Saturday nights or such my dad would do stand-up in town. And he would practice at home.”

The words tumble out of his mouth sooner than Lance can stop himself. He doesn’t know why he’s saying all of this. He hasn’t spoken about his parents like this in a long time. 

Silver frowns. “Stand-up?”

“It’s…” This is a little ridiculous, to have to explain comedy to Silver. “How a comedian performs in front of an audience. They go on stage, and just stand there telling jokes.”

“Can’t imagine you having a comedian for a father.” There’s an amused knit to his brow.

“Because I’m not funny?” Lance asks, his tone light. In a softer voice, he says, “No, I take after my mother more. We were both more serious.”

“Was she a musician?”

“Not professionally, no. She made medicines for pokémon with herbs from the forest. But I think she could have been. I don’t know why she didn’t pursue it as a career.”

There’s a lot of things he still doesn’t know about his parents. About his family.

Silver settles his head further down his pillow. “You must miss them.”

Lance swallows the growing lump in his throat. “Yes, I do.”

Silver blinks heavily, sleep starting to cloud his eyes. “Sometimes, I wish…” His sentence is cut off by a big yawn.

Lance gets up, faster than he intends to. “Good night, kid,” he says, passing a hand over Silver’s hair. Despite his shaking hands, he manages to gently pull the door closed with only a soft click. 

When Saturday rolls around, Lance realizes that it had never crossed his mind to prepare a gift. He comes to the realization while he’s feeding his team outside the cabin, and as he watches them nibble on their food, he tries to calculate how much of a faux pas it would be to show up to the party empty-handed.

He hasn’t celebrated anyone’s birthday in a while; how was he supposed to remember? There was no need for etiquette in the Whirl Islands. After the Masked Man was defeated, he’d send Clair the annual greeting, but nothing more. Before all the Elite Four business, he supposes that he and Lorelei ate out once, at some dingy diner for her birthday. He vaguely recalls having gotten her some sort of stuffed toy, but he doesn’t really remember. His memories of that period of his life were consumed by the overwhelming feeling he’d felt then, of needing to do something.

His brow is knitted in thought when he steps back inside. Sammy had given him those cleaning supplies—which he appreciated—so surely the ball was now in his park to return the favor… But where on earth could he procure a gift in so short a time? And he isn’t willing to pop into a store on the way there…

Lance stops when he sees Silver seated with a crisp, elegant paper bag on the table. He;s in the middle of writing something on a notecard. The paper bag has a shiny, polyester satin bow stuck to it.

“Where did you get that?”

“I got it the other day in Violet City. Crys helped me pick it out. I mentioned the party and she insisted that I needed to get something. It’s just something generic, though. I don’t really know Sammy.”

Lance reaches into the bag—carefully, mindful not to wrinkle it—and pulls the gift out. It’s a box of traditional sweets, with a dainty Bellsprout design.

“That was thoughtful of you,” he says.

A moment passes.

“Do you want me to write your name on the card, too?” Silver offers kindly.

“...If that’s alright.”

Walking out of the forest and into town is an ordeal.

First of all, Lance doesn’t do well with crowds. He never did. And Viridian City’s only gotten bigger than when he was last here. When he was a kid, it still felt somewhat like a small town, even as urban expansion was threatening to grow. Now, it’s nowhere near the likes of Saffron or Celadon still, but it’s certainly different. There are more people, more cars, more trash, and more noise.

Lance and Silver (and Weavile, who’s out of her ball) must have passed by at least three convenience stores on their way to Sammy’s neighborhood. He can’t help but grimace in distaste.

Silver knows his way around Viridian City much better than Lance does. As they pass the Gym, he points out some spots nearby where Green would help him with his training. Earlier that day, when they double-checked the address on the invitation before leaving, Silver’s eyes had lit up in recognition. “Oh, that’s near…” he began to say, but didn’t finish the sentence, hastily avoiding Lance’s gaze with a guilty look.

Lance can make a pretty good guess as to which friend Silver had been referring to.

Which brings him to the second reason this walk has turned into such an internal difficulty.

Since the day Clair came to visit, he’s been trying to mentally prepare himself. Whatever happens, however bad, he deserves it. He’s been trying to drill that idea into his head nearly every minute—and maybe he went overboard. Obviously, he wasn’t able to get a good sleep last night, too haunted by the memories of Cerise Island that seem closer and stronger than ever, now that he knows he’ll be seeing Yellow so soon. 

He woke up that morning with the worst aches he’s felt in a long while. Even now, walking with Silver on the sidewalk of a residential area, he falls behind with a slightly sluggish pace. Silver has been shooting him concealed, worried looks the whole day. Lance tugs his scarf a bit tighter around himself, and avoids his gaze.

It’s not difficult to find the address. There’s only one house on the street that seems to be bursting at its seams with people, pokémon, and music. It’s a modest house, with multi-colored balloons and other party decor scattered about. A Growlithe chases a Nidoran, a Butterfree flies between balloons, and a Meowth sleeps on a table next to a slice of cake. A myriad of people are present: children much younger than Sammy are running around, some teenagers are huddled together and raucously laughing over something, and adults even older than Lance are chatting along the sides, drinks in hand. 

“Arceus, did he invite the whole city?” Lance mutters. He feels a migraine coming on.

Next to him, Silver seems equally dumbfounded. “I kind of thought it would be… smaller.”

Lance pats his shoulder in sympathy. The poor kid doesn’t look prepared to socialize in a crowd of what looks to be at least eighty people. “We don’t have to stay for long. Come on, let’s find Sammy so we can drop off the gift.”

The music gets louder as they make their way through the house, weaving through the people and pokémon. With the amount of children and teens running about, trying to spot Sammy is a downright challenge. He also seems to have quite the number of other bugcatcher friends, who are similarly dressed in tank tops and shorts, which certainly doesn’t make it any easier.

“I think I see him,” Silver says, and Lance follows his line of sight to find the back of a straw hat, on someone turned away from them, facing the cake table. Silver reaches out to tap their shoulder, and the person turns, and—

“Oh!”

It’s not Sammy.

“Silver!” Yellow’s face breaks out into a big, beaming smile. She has a paper plate with a thick slice of chocolate cake in her hands. A Pikachu, wearing a flower on its ear, climbs up her arm and perches on her shoulder. “What in the world are you doing here? Do you know the birthday boy, too?”

“Yellow…” Silver seems to be on the verge of panic. He glances nervously in Lance’s direction.

Yellow’s eyes land on Lance, and her smile falters into a shocked, blank expression. “Oh.”

For a handful of seconds, nobody talks. Yellow stares at Lance with the same look of frozen surprise. He squares his shoulders and tries not to back down from her gaze, meeting her with steady eyes that hopefully don’t betray the frantic beat of his heart. Silver anxiously flits his eyes between them, like a ping-pong match. Around them, the rest of the party continues.

“We, um,” Silver says, “we got invited. Well, Lance got invited. He met Sammy first. In the forest. He said.” He raises his arm to show Yellow the paper bag they brought, his fist tightly clenched around the twine handle. “We brought a gift.”

Yellow closes her mouth, and she scratches her cheek with a small, bashful smile. “Why… don’t we find somewhere the three of us can talk?”

She leaves her plate behind and leads them out of the living room, through some sliding glass doors that open into a small backyard where there are still some people, but much less than elsewhere in the house. Just two kids huddled in the corner, playing on some sort of handheld console. Everyone else would rather stay warm inside.

Yellow leans back on the lone tree in the backyard, away from the direction of the children. Her Pikachu, which Lance realizes now isn’t the one which nearly electrocuted him to death on Cerise Island, sidles up next to her. Silver’s Weavile bounds away to climb up the tree and settle on a branch bare of leaves.

“So…” She fiddles with her hands, gaze shyly darted to the side. “What’s up?”

Lance and Silver exchange a look.

“Like I said, we were invited. That’s really it,” Silver says, shrugging. “Why are there so many people here?” 

“Oh, Sammy’s mom is a preschool teacher. She pretty much knows everybody in town. She was my teacher before, too,” Yellow answers. “So these people are her students, her former students, the parents of students and former students… And, well, Sammy is Sammy. He can’t help but make friends wherever he goes.”

Her eyes land on Lance, and he tries not to squirm.

“Did… Sammy’s mom teach you, too?” she asks him, in a light tone.

Lance shakes his head. “My mother taught me at home.”

“Oh.”

Nobody speaks; the only sounds are the murmuring coming from the two kids and the muffled noise from inside the house.

“I think I just saw Sammy,” Silver says, pointing towards the glass door. He looks at Lance. “Can I…?”

“Go ahead.”

“Are you sure?”

He can’t help the deep sigh that comes out of his chest. “Yeah. Don’t worry about it.”

“I’ll be quick.” Silver leaves, and Lance and Yellow are left alone.

This is probably the right time for him to say something. To say the spiel he’s been building up in his head for the past week. No, for the past few years, even. The great, long speech about how he was wrong, how he made the worst mistake of his life, how he will be atoning forevermore. How it was a lesson of humility to be defeated by a trainer from the same hometown, with the same gifts as himself.

But now, faced with the perfect opportunity, he finds himself tongue-tied. Yellow is staring at him with piercing, amber eyes—and what gets to him is that she’s not looking at him with anger, or hate. But something soft, like sympathy.

It’s totally undeserved, and throws him off completely.

She’s the one who breaks the silence. “You’re the one who helped Sammy with his Weedle in the forest, weren’t you?”

Lance nods.

“I thought so. He told me about it. Said you had a cape.” There’s a friendly smile on her lips as she says it. Lance has to look away. He hears Yellow sigh. “Look, Lance…”

He braces himself.

“Don’t you think we could be friends?”

He whips his head towards her, brow furrowing in disbelief. No, he can’t have heard her right.

“It’s just that, I know you’ve been helping Silver. And I heard about the thing with Arceus. I know that you helped against the Masked Man, too, so…”

No, no, no. But those weren’t enough. His slate isn’t clean. There’s still too much to make up for.

“And I think it would be a shame for us to be enemies, because we’re both from the Viridian Forest…”

He feels like he’s back on the cold, hard ground of the Dragon’s Den, kneeling before his grandfather, being forced to listen to some nonsense about birthright—

“Um… Hello? Could you say something…?”

Yellow’s face had twisted into a shade of embarrassment. He shakes his head. “I don’t know,” he says softly.

She tilts her head. “You don’t know what?”

Lance frowns. “I don’t think you should want to be my…” He swallows. “Friend.”

Yellow visibly deflates. “Well, if you don’t want to be mine, you can just say so…”

Lance’s hands clench into fists at his sides. “No, that’s not really what I…”

He’s cut off by the sound of the glass door sliding open, and Silver steps outside to rejoin them. He looks worn down. “Sorry, I got stuck with Sammy. When he saw the gift, he started telling me all about his aunt and cousins who live in Violet City. Then he started telling me about the gift his mother gave him. Apparently, it was a train ticket to Goldenrod so he could join the bug-catching contest in the National Park.”

“Oh, that’s great!” Yellow says, clasping her hands together. “Sammy’s always wanted to join one of those. I’m so happy for him.”

“Yeah,” Silver mumbles, eyes darting between the two of them. He looks relieved. Maybe to see that they haven’t strangled each other while he was gone.

The air is still so tense that Lance startles when the kids on the other end of the backyard cry out in frustration, something about losing a level in their videogame or something. Yellow chuckles; whether at him or the kids, he doesn’t know. She smiles at him and Silver. “Hey, do you guys want to go for a walk? It’s getting a little stuffy in here.”

Silver, who has been looking overwhelmed the whole time they’ve been here, looks grateful for the suggestion. Lance could say the same for himself. They file out of the house, with Yellow in the lead and making brief chit-chat with familiar faces she finds on the way (of which there are plenty), promising Sammy’s mother that she’ll be back soon as she collects her coat and scarf.

He almost feels like he can finally breathe again once they’re out on the street and in the open air, but not quite. Yellow and Silver fall into step with each other, chatting idly, followed by Weavile and Yellow’s Pikachu. Lance follows a few steps behind.

He tries not to listen, but ends up hearing snippets of their conversation anyway; apparently the Gym Leader, Green, was also invited to the party, but is currently away on some business on behalf of his grandfather. They end up in a small park nearby. Neither of them have said a word to him since they left Sammy’s house, though Silver has been shooting him concerned glances every now and then. He doesn’t expect anything else from Yellow, though. Maybe he should come up with an excuse so he could leave the two be.

“I’m guessing you two won’t be going back to the party after this, huh?” Yellow asks, scratching the back of her head.

Silver huffs; it comes out sounding exhausted. “I don’t think so. But to be honest, I’m kind of disappointed… I was actually hoping it would be fun. And that I’d have a normal experience, for once. It’s too bad it ended up being too much for me.”

“Bailing on a party is a normal experience you shouldn’t miss out on, too,” Lance says, before he can stop himself.

The two of them turn to him with wide eyes, and Lance only gives them a shrug. Yellow gives Silver a sheepish smile. “You know, I guess he’s right. You just have to adjust your perspective.”

Yellow insists on walking them up to the edge of the city, and Lance suspects that it’s partly to cheer Silver up and keep him company for just a bit longer. It’s the kind of gesture a nice person like her would make. Silver’s lucky to have such a friend.

Just as Yellow and Silver are about to say their goodbyes, Lance steels himself, takes a deep breath, and makes a decision.

“Wait,” he says, making the two of them pause. “Silver, would you mind if I speak to Yellow for a moment?”

Silver blinks at him before glancing at Yellow, who gives him a small nod. “Okay, I’ll just step aside.”

Lance watches him cross to the other side of the road, followed by his Weavile, and walk a bit down the street, where there’s a bench to sit on. He feels a bit guilty at sending him away, but he’s not sure when he’ll have this opportunity again. When he turns back to face Yellow, she looks tense. Maybe a bit scared. Her Pikachu is curled protectively around her lower leg.

This is wrong. He never meant to be in this kind of position again. He has to make it right.

“I’m sorry.”

Yellow’s eyes snap up to meet his. Her mouth pouts into a frown. “It’s really alright. I guess I was the one who made you uncomfortable earlier, so you don’t have to—”

“You know I’m not talking about earlier,” he says, tilting his head. “I meant before. With Cerise Island. And the Elite Four. And Lugia. All my plans. It was wrong. And I’m sorry.”

Yellow’s shoulders loosen. “It’s okay. You’ve done a lot to help since then.”

Obviously, that isn’t right. “But I still needed to say it out loud.”

She gives him a slow nod, looking down at the ground.

“I’m sorry, too, for hurting you. I had no business doing…” He lets out a sharp sigh, as he tries to fit the words properly into his mouth. “I thought I was doing the right thing, and that I had to win at all costs. It didn’t matter to me, back then, if I hurt people like you. I was blind. And you were right.”

Yellow only gives him another nod.

He exhales deeply. “Anyway, that’s all I wanted to say. If it’s alright with you, we can call Silver back, and—”

“Do you like fishing?”

Lance stops. Yellow’s waiting for him to answer, with a patient, hopeful expression. “I don’t… mind it.”

Yellow smiles, with bright, heartened eyes. “Well, I love fishing. Can we fish in the forest, sometime?”

He frowns. “You really don’t have to…”

“I think we should try to be friends. At least try. We have the same powers, and if we work together, maybe we could do some real good for the forest. So what do you say?”

He doesn’t know what to say. He opens and closes his mouth a few times, at a total loss. Then, finally, “When I apologized, I wasn’t expecting you to forgive me. In fact, I don’t think you should.”

Yellow shrugs, still smiling. “It’s not up to you, though.” She fishes a Pokégear out of her pocket. “Can we exchange numbers? Oh, we should call Silver back now. Hey, Silver!”

He still thinks this is wrong. It’s not right at all. He was counting on Yellow to serve him the consequences that he deserves. To be met, instead, with friendship… it’s not something he should encourage. But maybe keeping in contact with Yellow would be the right move here. If they see each other again, he can still do something. He can still atone for what he’s done. He keeps this in mind as he punches his number into Yellow’s Pokégear, trying his best to keep his fingers from shaking too much.

Silver jogs up to them followed by Weavile. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah!” Yellow says cheerfully. She slaps Lance on the back—he has to try not to stumble, she’s surprisingly strong. Hopefully she doesn’t make as much of a habit of it as Clair does. “Me and Lance are going to go fishing sometime.”

Silver’s brows shoot up higher than Lance has ever seen them. “You are?”

“What can you say?” Yellow pokes Silver with her elbow. “Viridian trainers have to stick together! That includes you too, Silver. You’re from here, too.”

She kindly doesn’t mention his father, who Lance doesn’t think should be extended the same grace, given that Team Rocket nearly destroyed the forest into permanent desolation just a few years before his own Elite Four plans began. Then again, who is Lance to judge?

Silver gives both Yellow and Lance a small smile. “I guess I am.”