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Green smiles through gritted teeth as she leaves the arena.
No one’s waiting for her once she reaches the backstage, and she slides down against the wall, hyperventilating as she clutches at the new pokedex, telling herself that it would be monumentally stupid to smash the thing to pieces.
It’ll probably sell for a decent price. And thanks to Oak, she’s going to be hurting for money now, so smashing it just to get back at him is a bad idea.
But now Team Rocket’s disbanded, so maybe she won’t even be able to find someone to sell to.
(Breaking into Silph had not been remotely worth it.)
She’s trembling as she hears an announcer say something about a delay before the next match.
She should probably get up. Either Red or Blue will be in here in a few minutes, and she doesn't need either of them seeing her like this.
(Didn’t really need the entire stadium to see her have a panic attack on stage either. Not to mention how many people are watching from elsewhere, but it’s fine.)
She pulls herself up and takes a shaky step away from the wall.
She makes it out to the hallway, and she doesn’t like how much she’s leaning on the wall as she walks, but her pride’s taken enough blows today that she doesn’t really care.
“Green! Wait!”
She freezes in place, trying to place the voice without turning around, and a moment later, Bill steps around her into view.
“Are you alright?”
“Go away.”
Having someone to perform for at least forces her into straightening up a bit.
Bill sighs.
“Do you want to go talk to Professor-”
“No, thank you. But you’re free to go tell him I hope he has a heart attack like the pathetic old man he is as soon as he gets home.”
She can see Bill recoil just a bit at how sweet her voice is as she says it, before he says, “You don’t mean that.”
“You don’t know that.”
“He’s doing his best.”
“His best sucks.”
“Green-”
“Go away!”
“Is everything alright?” The woman’s voice from down the hall makes both of them jump, and Green looks over to see a lady with bright red hair that puts a knot in her stomach standing by a door.
It doesn’t take a whole lot of effort to work up tears before Green opens her mouth and bursts out with, “Please get him away from me!”
Bill gives her an exasperated look before looking back to the lady and saying, “I don’t really want to leave her by herself at the moment.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Green, please…”
“I can walk her down to the infirmary, if you want,” the lady offers. “That might go smoother.”
“You don’t need to-”
“I’m a doctor, and I’m friends with the nurse here. I really don’t mind,” she says with a shrug, before looking at Green. “Is that okay with you?”
“Does he have to come with?”
“Not unless you want him to.”
She slips around Bill without another word, darting over to her, and the lady sets a hand lightly on her shoulder as she stops by her (she has a wedding ring and an expensive-looking watch that Green is too grateful to bother thinking about grabbing).
“She’ll be fine with me.”
Bill gives Green another worried look before nodding. “Thank you. I’ll make sure someone comes by to get her before everything’s wrapped up.”
“I’m not leaving with Professor Oak,” Green says the instant Bill’s slipped through a door, and the lady makes a noise that might be a muffled laugh.
“That’s fine. I don’t like him either.” She turns, keeping a hand on Green as she leads her down the hall. “Your name is Green, right?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“My name’s Grace. Ma’am makes me feel old.”
Green smiles, but doesn’t say anything else as they continue down the hall, just sneaks a few glances at her, trying to figure out as much about her as she can.
Grace smells like a mix of perfume and fresh dirt. Not in a bad way, just like she’s been around a ground-type pokemon at some point today.
And Green’s spent enough time leafing through fashion magazines to be pretty sure that her heels and purse are really expensive, which means that if she’s lying, or tries to start something, Green can swipe the bag on her way out, and that probably won’t be as good as tournament winnings would have been, but it’d be something.
But Grace just leads her to the Indigo Plateau’s little infirmary, where there are two women, one in scrubs and one in a Pokemon Center uniform, and two blissey, watching a screen showing the battlefield.
They both look over when Grace clears her throat.
“Oh, that’s…”
“Is she hurt?” the one in scrubs asks as she stands up.
“Are you?” Grace asks, looking down to Green, who shakes her head.
“I think we’re mostly hoping to avoid Oak,” Grace says, looking back to the nurses, who both nod, not looking surprised.
The people-nurse gestures towards a row of small beds in the back, separated by curtains. “You can go lie down if you want. And you can do whatever you want with the curtains.”
“Thanks.”
Green pads to the back of the room, picking the bed furthest from the door, and tugs the curtains most of the way closed before flopping down on the bed. She’s mostly stopped shaking by now, but her breathing is still faster than it should be.
“What’s up with Oak anyway?” she hears the Center nurse ask. “I’ve never seen him act like that.”
“He was missing for a while, wasn’t he? It had something to do with Team Rocket. You can’t really blame him for being off.”
“I can blame him for blowing up at a kid, though.”
“He’s honestly always been kind of a self-righteous prick,” Grace cuts in, and Green hears one of the nurses sigh.
“You want to ruin the magic around anyone else?”
“Erika doesn’t do her own gardening. She has her students do all of it.”
“I knew it!”
There’s a brief burst of laughter before Grace adds, “I can stay down here if you two want to go catch the last match.”
“Are you sure?”
“They invited me out to smile for cameras, and I think I’ve done more than enough of that. And if I don’t have to talk to the directors after, I’d rather not.”
“Well, thank you.”
“Thanks.”
Green hears both of them get up, and after they leave, a blissey nudges the curtains apart to offer her a juice box and a package of cookies that she takes without a second thought.
“Is there anyone you’d like me to call for you, Green?” Grace asks, and Green looks over to see her sitting on one of the wheeled stools the nurses had abandoned.
“No.” She looks down at the cookie package as she opens it. “There’s no one to call.” Silver doesn’t have a phone, and if she could call her parents, she wouldn’t be here.
“No one?”
“No one with a phone.”
Grace nods, and Green takes a bite of the cookie.
They’re not great, but the blissey had probably just been trying to cheer her up. Or maybe they just feed anyone who shows up.
“How do you know Oak?” she asks after a few minutes.
“Mostly just in passing. We end up at a lot of the same events.”
“Oh.” Then, after a moment, “He probably thinks I work for Team Rocket.”
“Why?”
“It makes more sense than blowing up that much over one pokemon, doesn’t it?”
“I supose.”
“You don’t have to stay,” Green adds after a few seconds.
“Technically, there needs to be someone in here with any patients. Even if you’re not hurt.”
“Sorry,” is all Green says, because she probably has better things to be doing.
“I don’t mind.”
Before Green can say anything else, there’s an announcement over the speakers, informing everyone that Professor Oak had dropped out of the tournament (what a shock) and that Red and Blue’s match would be the final round.
Green scowls, but shifts enough to see the TV screen, now showing Red and Blue walking onto the battlefield.
Grace looks like she’s glaring at the screen, and really, Green doesn’t feel like watching either, so after another few seconds, she says, “You can turn it off.”
Grace nods, reaching for a remote on the counter, and the screen flicks off a second later.
“They’ll probably both hate me now, too,” Green mutters.
“You seem like a smart girl. I’m sure you’ve got more friends than just them.”
“No one cares about smart. They just want pretty and complementary.” Pretty dresses and crying get you free food. Compliments make stupid boys bet too much on battles. Trying to be smart had just gotten her most consistent source of cash disbanded, and the police on high alert. If she were actually smart, she’d be running around in a Rocket uniform right now.
“You can be all three.”
Green flops onto her back.
“I have another friend in Johto, but I don’t have a way to contact him right now.”
“What’s his name?”
“Silver.” One of the blisseys looks over at Grace as Green adds, “He’s a little bit younger than me. His hair kind of looks like yours, actually.” Or at least it would if he brushed it more than once a week. “He was…”
“Kidnapped around when you were,” Grace fills in quietly when Green trails off, and Green’s head snaps up.
“How did you know?”
Grace sighs, and, as she slips her watch off, says, “This isn’t only why I helped you; Oak’s being a pain just because he can, there’s maybe two other people here who’ll tell him no on anything, but-” she gets up, clicking something on the watch that makes it pop open like a locket, before walking over to pass it to Green once she sits up “- is that him?”
Green doesn’t actually need to look at the photo to have an answer, because now that she’s actually looking at Grace’s face, there’s something very familiar about the gray of her eyes. And the exhaustion in them; her almost-surgically precise makeup is doing a lot, but up close, Green wonders when the last time she slept a full night was.
But she looks down at the photo, and she’s nodding almost immediately.
It’s a picture of Silver, probably not very long before he’d been kidnapped, sitting with a pokemon Green’s never seen before that looks a lot like a pie. Silver’s grinning up at the camera, and holding up hands that are covered in flour.
“You’re his mom?” she asks quietly, and Grace nods, holding onto one of the poles for the curtains.
“Do you know where he is?”
“I told him to stay in Goldenrod. He has Sneasel, we thought his family was probably in Johto.” Or at least, Green had. Silver doesn’t think there’s anyone, but that seems mean to say right now. “He’s supposed to wait at the train station for the eleven o’clock train on Fridays. That’s the one I said I’d take if we needed to meet up. That’s two days from now, I could meet you at the train station in Saffron.”
“Why don’t you just come home with me, for right now?”
Grace calls someone from the parking lot, while Green sprawls out in the back seat (she hadn’t been allowed in the front because “I’m sorry, I don’t remember the age limit for it”), and Green catches bits of a low male voice, and, in the brief few seconds between Grace lowering her phone and hanging up, catches the name “Giovanni” on the screen.
Which sounds vaguely familiar, but if Green’s being honest, she doesn’t really care enough to try and figure out from where.
She found Silver’s (rich) parents.
She’s the best big sister ever!
And she thinks she deserves at least the next two days of not worrying about anything.
Grace takes a shaky breath as she settles in the driver’s seat, but when she asks if Green needs anything, her voice is perfectly even.
“I don’t,” Green says after a moment. Less because she’s above milking things and more just because she’s tired.
It’s been a really long day.
Grace had let the League’s nurse know that Green was leaving with her, so, theoretically, if Bill goes looking for her, he’ll get an answer, even if it probably won’t be very helpful for him. And then he can pass that on to Oak if he needs to (though Green suspects no one’s likely to care anyway). And Grace hadn’t seemed particularly interested in cooperating with him, so maybe Green can just ignore him altogether.
It’s getting dark when they pull up to a house in the forest, and Grace leads Green inside, and through a living room to the kitchen, where a man in dark pants and a red sweater is finishing up something at the stove.
He turns towards them as they step into the room, and before Green can stop herself, she’s blurting out the (probably rude) question of, “Are you a gym leader? You look familiar.” There had been a handful of posters up at the Plateau (albeit ones in out-of-the-way places, since, y’know, Sabrina. And the other two).
There’s a very slight pause as he studies her for a moment before he says, “Yes, though the gym is closed for repairs for the next few months.”
Green nods, vaguely remembering seeing something about Team Rocket doing something to a gym in some final petty act, or whatever. It hadn’t really had anything to do with her, so she hadn’t paid much attention to it. And if Red or Blue knows anything about it, well, she doubts they’ll tell her now.
Not that she cares. The smart move would have been handing both of them over in Silph anyway. Rocket can do whatever. The boys are the ones with hero complexes.
“Green, this is my husband, Giovanni,” Grace says as she slips behind him to get at something on the counter.
And Green nods.
Then blinks.
Then, as the pieces of “Silver’s mom” and “her husband” click together into “Silver’s father”, she quickly adds, “Silver will be at the train station in Goldenrod at eleven on Friday. I can go with and help find him. And he was doing okay the last time we talked.”
He nods, stepping over towards the island in the middle of the kitchen to give Grace room to pull a loaf out of the breadbox. “Grace told me over the phone. Thank you.”
He sounds like he genuinely means it, and it puts a knot in Green’s throat.
“Green, you can sit down. Do you want anything to eat?” Grace asks from behind him.
“Um…” Green swallows, trying to steady her voice. “Yes, please.”
She crumples, quietly, into a chair at the table as they both finish dishing up dinner, in an easy rhythm like they do this every night, and she’s trying very hard to not let her brain suddenly convince her that she remembers her parents doing this, because she knows she doesn’t.
(She does notice that Giovanni’s moving a bit stiffly, like he’s hurt. She wonders if he was in the gym when whatever it was happened, but she doesn’t feel like asking.)
Eventually, they all end up sitting at the table, with a pasta dish, salad, and homemade bread, and it’s been so long since Green’s had a meal that didn’t require a ton of work.
“Have you been out to Pallet Green?” Giovanni asks after a few minutes. “One of us can take you after-”
“I’ve already been. My parents aren’t there anymore.”
She can’t quite read either of their expressions, but Grace’s grip on her fork is suddenly very tight.
“I suppose it’s possible they’ll have seen the tournament footage and come looking,” Grace says after a moment, though Green’s not sure she actually believes that.
“What happened with the second-to-last match anyway?” Giovanni asks, changing the subject. “They cut it almost immediately. Even with the delay, it had to have gone wrong fairly quickly.”
“What happened,” Grace mutters, “Is that if Agatha hasn’t murdered Oak, I’m going to.”
“That doesn’t narrow things down.”
“He swarmed her with birds until she admitted to breaking into his lab. I’m surprised they cut it. I didn’t think they would.”
Giovanni looks over at Green. “You broke into his lab?”
“Not the recent one.” When he’d been kidnapped. “But a few months ago. I just took a squirtle.”
Before she can stammer out any more justifications, she realizes he’s smiling.
“That’s not a problem?”
“No, why would it be?”
Green hesitates, then shrugs, and before she can come up with anything else to add, Grace says, “I don’t understand how he was able to enter in the first place.”
“Former champions can enter whenever we want,” Giovanni says, looking back at her with a smirk that she rolls her eyes at.
“Galar’s tournaments have an age limit.”
“Galar’s league is also run by some of the most insufferable people I have ever met in my life.”
“Why weren’t you at the tournament?” Green asks when Grace’s only response is a resigned nod.
“Meetings about repairs for the gym, mostly. And as I don’t have a student at the moment, Grace went for me, so the League Directors don’t feel ignored. Which I appreciate.” He looks at Grace as he says it.
“You’d better,” she says, her tone flat. “And speaking of students, Green, you should let him take a look at your nidoran tomorrow.”
“Would you?”
“I’d be happy to.”
Green spends the night in a guestroom and stays still in bed for another hour after she wakes up, relishing in having an actual bed for once.
But eventually she makes herself get up and head downstairs.
And then she ends up freezing in place on the last step, staring out the back door where she can see a pidgey sitting on the porch.
There’s an envelope a little way in front of it, but she suspects it’s been told not to leave until she picks up the message.
She stays rooted to the step, only inching over to the side to get out of the way when she hears someone else coming down, and Giovanni pauses when he reaches her.
“What’s…?” He spots the bird. “Oh. Is that Oak’s?”
“Yes.”
He nods and steps down, just as a persian goes leaping past both of them over to the door, to stare at the bird through the glass.
“Will she eat it?” Green asks, still clutching at the railing.
“Do you want her to?”
Any answer to that from Green gets cut off by a threatening snap of, “If she guts something, you’re cleaning it up,” from Grace in the kitchen, which makes him smirk.
“You don’t get to pretend to be squeamish,” he calls back, before opening the door.
Persian stays back, looking far better behaved than Green had been expecting, and Giovanni sinks down to pick up the letter, ignoring the angry chirping from the pidgey, and Green’s pretty sure she hears him threaten to let the cat out before he comes back in.
The pidgey leaves.
“Do you want it?” he asks, looking over at Green.
“Is it an apology?” she asks, not remotely getting her hopes up.
He opens it, and skims it, before saying, “Only if you have a very loose definition.”
“I don’t want it.”
He nods and tucks it into a pocket before heading into the kitchen with just a wave to tell Green to follow.
“Apparently, Oak feels you keep very ‘disreputable company’, Grace,” he’s saying when she steps in. “I can’t imagine who that could be.”
“Is that how he put it?” she asks as she passes him a cup of coffee.
“More or less.”
“He doesn’t want me here?” Green asks.
“It looks bad if someone notices that you’re not sticking with him after you tearfully made up,” Grace says. “And the kettle is tea, if you want any.”
“Thanks.”
After breakfast, Green lets Nido out on the back porch for Giovanni to look at, like Grace had suggested, and she perches on a bench as he settles on the ground with Nido.
“I almost got someone to trade me a male one,” Green says idly as he prompts Nido into launching a Poison Sting across the porch. “Then I could have had both.”
“They don’t always appreciate being kept in pairs. I got very lucky with the fact that mine tolerate each other.”
“Oh.” Nido looks over at her. “Which one’s more dangerous?”
“That depends on what you consider dangerous. The males have stronger venom and shorter tempers, but the females are a lot more likely to ensure they’ve completely stopped a threat if it gets too close to their nest.”
Green nods slowly.
“How long is the gym going to be under repair?” she asks after a moment.
“Realistically, at least a month. Why?”
“You said something about students.”
He looks almost amused. “I suppose I did.”
“Do you think that maybe I could…”
He raises an eyebrow as he looks back at her.
“What else do you have?”
She lists off her team.
“That’s a lot of fairies,” he says when she’s done. “Which Grace can do a lot more to help you with than I can. The other two I can work with, if you want. But you also don’t need an excuse to stay. And Grace had a point last night, it’s possible your parents will be contacting the League at some point in the next day or so.”
“Professor Oak doesn’t like either of you, though, right?”
The brief bark of laughter that gets from him surprises her. “You could put it that way, sure.”
“So if he finds out I’m training with you, he’ll probably leave me alone.”
“If he’s dropped charges for the break-in, he can’t do anything to you anymore.”
“I’m not worried about police,” Green mutters.
“Just more theatrics?”
“I guess.”
“Well,” he stands up, “you’re welcome to stay, and I’ll help you with what I can. For right now, she should be on food specific to poison types, it’ll increase the toxicity of everything she does. I can show you what I have here tonight when we feed everyone.”
“Thanks.”
He nods, leaning against the wall of the house as he looks over the yard and the various pokemon wandering around it.
“Does Silver still have Sneasel?” he asks after a moment, startling her.
“He does. That’s why he’s still in Johto, I thought he was from there because of her.”
“Her breeder is in Blackthorn,” he says idly. “She’s about the only competent trainer in the city, but she turns out decent pokemon.”
Green nods. “Sneasel’s always been really good.” She wouldn’t have left Silver behind if she wasn’t.
Grace’s phone rings over dinner, and Green’s sort of curious for the first five seconds before she says, “Hello, Professor,” in about the flattest tone Green’s ever heard.
And she’s pretty sure she hears him ask, “Where’s Green?” before Grace stands up, leaving the table.
“Why?”
…
“I don’t really see what you have to complain about right now.”
…
“No, I took a visibly distraught child to the infirmary so someone could keep an eye on her while she calmed down, and then offered her a place to stay.”
…
“The Center is going to be packed for the next week until everyone’s left from the tournament, and you know it.”
…
Grace covers the phone with her hand before looking over to Green.
“Do you want to talk to him?”
When Green doesn’t immediately answer, Giovanni says, in a quiet voice, “You don’t have to. It will make her day if she gets to tell him you’re still too mad to talk.”
So Green shakes her head, and Grace smiles, before turning back to the phone.
“She said no. Can’t imagine why. I’m going to let you go now, we’re in the middle of dinner.”
Grace hangs up, then settles back at the table, looking just a little smug.
“He’ll drop it at some point,” she says, smiling at Green.
Despite Green’s plans with Silver, she’s never actually taken a train before.
It’s crowded, and she doesn’t really like it all that much, and she’s trying very hard to focus on Grace’s ninetails, who’d climbed into her lap the moment they all sat down.
They’d driven out to Saffron this morning. Which had meant getting up earlier than just taking a train from Viridian, but according to both adults, going into the city the first few days after a tournament was a terrible decision, given how many people would still be around from it.
It’s cold and rainy out, and Green’s got both arms wrapped around the ninetails, who keeps licking her every time she starts looking around the train car too much.
Maybe she can tell she’s nervous.
Next to her, Grace is resting her head on Giovanni’s shoulder, and if her grip on his arm hurts, he’s not showing it, though it definitely looks tight enough to.
Neither of them seems antsy (at least now that they're out of Saffron, but Green's pretty sure everyone is on edge there right now), though Grace has an unopened book in her lap that she’s done more picking at than reading, until Giovanni had caught her hand, and Green can’t tell if he’s massaging or just holding it, but she hasn’t pulled it back.
The ninetails whines as the train finally pulls into Goldenrod’s station, and Green has a knot in her stomach as the dog jumps down to let her stand up.
“It’s okay, Nine,” Grace says when she nudges at her, and Nine tilts her head, but stays quiet, and, when they all get up to get off, Green notices her sticking directly behind Grace.
Green doesn’t wait to be asked where Silver’s supposed to be; she slips away from both of them as soon as they’re all off, scanning the crowd quickly.
He’s probably huddled up against a wall somewhere to avoid getting run over.
Nine follows Green as she works her way to the walls of the station, scanning for messy red hair and Sneasel.
She spots him, finally, on a bench in a corner, looking incredibly bored.
Sneasel sees her before he does, and hops up to dart over, and she sees the brief panic on Silver’s face (probably assuming she’s off to steal something) before he sees Green, and scrambles up to follow Sneasel.
“When did you get a ninetails?” he asks when he reaches her, and Nine sits, head tilted, and one paw held up.
“She’s not mine,” Green says as Sneasel sniffs at Nine, who ignores her. “I found your parents.”
He freezes. “What?”
“I found your parents. Nine is your mom’s.”
He still looks confused as Nine twists, looking back for a moment, before letting out one bark, and Green turns to see Giovanni and Grace heading towards them.
Green slips behind Silver, setting a hand on his back, hoping she won’t need to actually push him towards them.
Sneasel darts over as they reach them, and Giovanni catches her when she jumps at him, before sinking down so he’s kneeling in front of Silver.
“Hello, Silver,” he says, sounding exhausted suddenly, and Green maybe nudges Silver a bit more than she needs to to send him over.
He’s trembling just a bit, and Green sees the moment his knees give out on him, but Giovanni catches him before he hits the ground, and then Silver’s clinging, his face hidden in his shoulder.
Grace sinks down next to them, one hand on Nine to keep her out of Silver’s face, and the other gently rubbing at Silver’s back.
When she looks back to Green, the makeup around her eyes is very lightly smudged, and all she says is , “Thank you.”