Ash POV

My eyes narrowed at the way he said the last part. Like there was absolutely no room for discussion, which meant that mom had pretty much agreed to whatever decision dad had made. But why? The answer dropped into my mind with ease and I sighed. Of course. A common tactic of the conniving business man.

"Dad," I said firmly, waiting for him to make eye contact before I continued. "Did you bribe her into doing this?"

His next words threw me off, so condescending and utterly pompous was his voice.

"I made her an offer that she couldn't refuse." He said, staring down at me. Face to face. "Anyway, you wanted to bond with her, now's your chance."

Did he never understand? He actually thought he was doing me a favor? Sure, I wanted to bond with my mother, but not this way! This just seemed too forced for my liking, catering to what Giovanni Ketchum wanted without much regard to anybody else.

"But she'll hate me for this," I whispered, my body growing cold.

I never thought that my acting out would impact so many people on so many different levels. I ran a shaking hand washing over my face, trying to slow my heart rate with deep breaths. Was this it? I had to leave behind everyone and everything I loved and all because I tried to be a total degenerate to get my dad's attention? Well, I had certainly succeeded at getting him to pay attention, but at what cost? Now my mother was giving up her dream, not to mention her whole life, for me. I wondered what the hell dad had offered her to get her to agree and groaned as the sudden answer hit me. He'd offered her me.

"No. I won't hate you, Ash."

I gasped as mom walked through my room's open door, her hair flowing over her ears.

"Mom, I don't want to go. Don't do this," I pleaded, starting to get to my feet and groaning with pain as my head pounded. With a grunt of frustration, I sat back down, my hands clenched into fists. "Don't give up your life for me." I knew I sounded as melodramatic as a soapie actor but I couldn't help myself.

Mom smiled serenely as she sat down next to me. "I'm not. Well, I am, but it's for the best." She stroked my forehead as she went on. "I'd rather practice medicine in an office in Pallet and have you near me than be out in Kanto knowing that you're here. Your dad has had you to himself for all these years. Now it's my turn and if I have to go into private practice to have you, then go into private practice I will."

"There you go, everything's settled," dad exclaimed, a mock hearty note in his voice as he clapped his hands. "Get some sleep and read up on your new school in the morning. I pulled a lot of strings to get you into Kanto and I don't want you to mess it up."

I knew full well what that look on his face meant. Case closed, class dismissed. That could only mean one thing. I was going to Kanto region in just two weeks' time. How the hell was I going to break it to Sere?

Dropping a kiss on my cheek, mom whispered, "Goodnight, Ash. I'll be here bright and early to explain more."

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Making things right with a specific ex friend was only part of my preparations to leave Kalos. The bigger and most important part was telling Sere I was leaving. I still hadn't done that yet.

My flight was just over a week away and I still couldn't muster up enough courage to tell her I would be gone for a year. That's right, I would rather apologize to Calem for punching him than tell Sere I had to leave due to my own stupidity. My one-way trip had only started to sink in when I had to explain to Leaf why people were packing up my stuff at home. I was only taking a couple of cases of stuff with me, the rest was going into storage. Having to hold Leaf as she cried wasn't something I ever wanted to go through again.

"But I need you," she kept wailing, as I soothingly whispered in her ear, wanting to cry myself. "You can't leave me, Ash! I need my big brother!"

Yeah, that was tough.

Calem picked up on the second ring, sounding disoriented. Guess I shouldn't have called him at 7am on a Saturday. Calem wasn't a morning person.

"Yeah?" he said, his voice raspy.

Swallowing nervously, I spoke up, "Hey, Calem, it's me. Ash."

There was a short silence and for a moment I thought he had hung up on me. "Ketchum?"

I grinned at the familiar nickname. Nobody but Calem called me Ketchum. "Yeah."

"What the hell, dude? What happened to you? You just disappeared off of the face of the world and- is it true that you're in hospital?"

"Yeah," I said slowly.

Calem sucked in a breath. "What happened, dude?"

Pointedly, I replied, "If you'd really wanted to know I think you would've found out by now."

Okay, so I wasn't calling him to start something else, but I couldn't help feeling slighted that I had been In the hospital for two and a half weeks and nobody knew what had happened to me. Even though we'd been fighting, it still rankled to know that my so-called friends didn't really care enough to find out why I'd been hospitalized.

"I tried, man," Calem said slightly petulantly. "We all tried to find out what was up, but you know how the grapevine at school is! Can't trust it. Dawn wasn't talking, so I couldn't get the scoop from her. I called your cell phone a couple hundred times- nothing."

"Why didn't you ask Serena?"

I couldn't help feeling heartened by hearing that Calem had tried to find out where I had gone and what had happened.

"We tried but she blew up at us." Calem let out a shaky sounding laugh. "It was scary, dude. She went all super saiyan on us. Called us fake and phony." He laughed again and I chuckled, imagining it in my mind's eye. You did not want to get on Sere's bad side. I had found that out the hard way. "It was pretty impressive, but yeah. What happened with you?"

"I had an aneurysm and it ruptured."

"No way!" Calem sounded shocked.

I nodded sagely, even though he couldn't see me on the other end. "Yup."

"And- and you're okay now?"

"All things considered, yeah. I'm pretty good."

His voice was tinged with awe as he said, "Wow. That's insane, dude."

"Thanks, Calem."

"Jeeze, I had no idea!"

"Yeah, I've had the aneurysm for a while now. That's why I was getting all those headaches," I explained.

"Why didn't you tell us?" Calem asked.

I sighed. "Calem."

"I guess we would have been jerks about it, huh?" Calem answered sheepishly.

Tugging a hand through my bed head hair, I replied, "That's what I thought." Hesitantly, I continued. "Speaking of jerks, I- I wanted to say sorry for the whole fight club incident. I'm sorry."

"You mean the battle royale?" Calem laughed. "That was my fault. I shouldn't have baited you."

"I shouldn't have swung at you."

"But I should have tried to tell the truth to Principal Sycamore," Calem protested.

I snickered loudly. "Dude, you told so many lies that I thought your nose was going shoot off!"

"I'm sorry."

"It's all good." And just like that, it was all forgotten.

"I guess I was pissed coz you were changing," Calem said slowly.

I raised my eyebrows. "I was?"

"Yeah, man. You know we only started hanging out and becoming tight right before Gary's accident, when you were the badass, pissing off daddy dearest left right and center."

Nodding, I said, "Yeah." I remembered those days with a pang of regret. If I had done things differently, who knows where I would have ended up?

"Gary and me didn't get along coz he was such a good guy when we started hanging out. You were more like me, selfish, inconsiderate, and stuck-up."

I sighed. "I remember that."

"When you started hanging out with Serena you started changing just like Gary did. You reminded me of him."

That gave me a jolt. "I did?"

Calem chuckled. "Yeah. And it pissed me off coz you were changing for the better and everybody noticed." He sighed as I listened intently. "I wanted you to stay the same. Party all night, drink all day, and never mind what the haters say. But you started to care and you started to blow us off for Serena and it made me mad coz I was jealous. I envied you, Ash. I envied how you could just change for the better without looking back."

"So that's why you tried to block me," I said lightly.

"I didn't want you to be happy, I guess. Especially with my best friend. I was a hater, Ash. But now- I'm over it. I'm happy for you. Seriously."

My mind reeling from Calem's revelation, I said, "I don't have much time to be happy with her, though."

"What? Why?"

Briefly, I told him about my dad's plan for me to finish school in Pallet, of all places.

"When do you leave?"

"Next week."

A sharp intake of breath. "S***."

"I know."

Hesitantly, like he was sure I would say hell no, Calem asked, "Can I come visit you before you leave? I have a sudden desire to hear you say 'pound it' one more time."

"Anytime, man."

Serena POV

The weekend found me at the May's house hanging out with May and Dawn as we watched a couple of sappy movies. Ah, there's nothing quite like a girls night out. We were trying to get in our fair share of bonding in preparation for my trip to Hoeen. I was starting to get excited about it myself, even though I couldn't help being nervous. I'd never travelled outside Kalos and now I was going all the way across the region to stay with the father I had just met. I was scared. What if I don't like Hoeen? But I tried to keep all the negativity in check because I had no idea what was in store for me. The power of positive thinking is a force to be reckoned with.

Anyway, I really didn't have anything to be stressed over right now. My face was almost back to normal, people had stopped looking at me like I was a pathetic victim and my boyfriend was awake. What more can a girl ask for?

May sank onto a body pillow with a bag of popcorn in her hands. She glanced at Dawn, who was busy texting on her new cell phone.

"Who are you texting?" she exclaimed, thumping her fist on the floor.

Dawn glanced up and stuck her tongue out at May before resuming her textathon with furious concentration. "Paul," she replied, the 'duh' tone in her voice cracking me up.

"I can't believe it," I giggled, reaching forward to grab a handful of popcorn from May's bag. "You two have been dating for almost four months."

May's lips curled up in a teasing grin. "Are you going to dump him soon?"

Don't judge us; we just weren't used to seeing Dawn stick with one guy for more than two weeks. And Paul had seemed so generic from the get-go. Forgive me for thinking that he wouldn't last long.

"I don't think so." Dawn shook her head, finally letting her phone slip from her hands. She beamed. "He's just- he's Paul, you know?"

"He's got that good good?" May asked, dropping a large, theatrical wink in her direction.

Dawn immediately grabbed a cushion near her and throwed it at May which it missed and bounced off my head. Dawn snorted playfully. "Get your mind out of the gutter, May. We haven't bumped uglies yet!"

Calem snorted with laughter as he strolled into the lounge.

"Bumped uglies? Nice one, Dawn," he chuckled, plopping himself right in between me and May. Swiping the popcorn bag from May, he took a handful, grinning friendlily at me. "Hey, Serena."

Uncertainly, I smiled back. "Hi."

Calem had resumed being nice to me since I yelled at him and his cronies that fateful day. He had actually walked up to me the day after and asked me if I wanted him to rough up the guy who had beaten me up. When I told him that he was in prison, he said that was where he belonged. Sure, it was a nice change, having Calem being really nice to me all the time, but with him there was always a catch. His sudden spurts of niceness never lasted for long. Let's see how long he can keep it going this time.

"So, I hear you're going to Hoeen this summer?" he asked me, a curious look in his grey eyes.

I nodded. "Yeah, I am."

"That's good," he said, hiding a yawn behind his hand. "At least you won't have much of a chance to miss Ash while he's in Kanto."

For a few seconds after Calem spoke, his words didn't register. Then all of a sudden it hit.

"What?" I exclaimed, whipping my head around to face him. Quailing under the look I had fixed him with, my eye was twitching and my nostrils were flared. Calem bit his lip tensely as he realized that he had let slip something I didn't know.

"Uh oh," Dawn said, looking up from her vibrating phone long enough to notice the rising tension in the room.

Calem ran a hand over his face. "Oh, f***. He didn't tell you yet."

It wasn't a question.

I pushed back my short hair with both hands as I frowned. "What did you mean, when Ash is in the Kanto region?" I asked slowly, my mind whirling.

"If he hasn't told you yet then I don't think I should be-," Calem started, sounding like he was getting some tips in how to be diplomatic from May, who was watching the show with her mouth wide open.

Shaking my head, I cut in. "You've already told me. The least you can do is embellish."

Rubbing his temples, Calem sighed deeply. The look on his face said it all- he was busted and he damn well knew it.

"Ash's dad is sending him to finish school in Kanto," he said in a rush. "I thought you knew otherwise I wouldn't have-."

I stood up, pulling down my creased skirt. "Can you do me a huge favor, Calem?" I asked, my whole body suddenly shaking.

"Sure," Calem said immediately, obviously seeking to make things right.

Shrugging into my hoodie, I said, "Can you please drive me to Ash's hospital? I need to know if this is true."

"Of course," Calem said.

I followed him out of the lounge as behind me, Dawn yelled, "Shotgun!"

--------------

The ride to the hospital was relatively quiet, apart from the vibration of Dawn's phone and the constant growling of May's stomach.

"Hey, I made that popcorn for a reason, okay?" she said defensively the umpteenth time her stomach rumbled and I shot her a side eye.

It wasn't like I had any reason to doubt Calem, but I needed to find out for myself. I'd been to visit Ash faithfully every single day since he woke up and not once had he dropped a hint about his dad sending him away. What's going on? Why did he feel the need to keep something thin huge from me? Did he just want to leave in the still of the night then call me from across the pond to tell me where he was? Didn't he think that I had the right to know? Haven't we been through enough for me to deserve to find out something like this from him?

Once we arrived at the hospital, I slipped out of the car and trudged up the staircase to Ash's room alone, my feet feeling heavier with each step. There was a huge lump in my throat, making it hard for me to breath. I didn't know what to think. Part of me was hoping that Calem had just reverted to being his old jerk self and was lying about Ash leaving, but a small, niggling feeling told me that it was the truth. If it was the truth, how was I supposed to deal with that? I would only be gone for two months; Ash would be gone for a full year!

I found Ash in his room, playing solitaire with a deck of cards on the floor. He looked up as I opened the door and stepped in, his eyes lighting up.

"Hey, beautiful," he smiled, getting to his feet with a wince as I crossed my arms over my chest, staring at him and trying to pick out any awkward body language from him. Is he hiding something? It didn't seem like it, he was acting like his normal self as he came over to me and pecked me on the lips. Did that mean Calem was lying or was Ash just really good at hiding things? "What are you doing here so late? Everything okay?"

My voice shook with emotion as I stared him directly in his hazel eyes and rhetorically asked, "Is it true you're going to school in Kanto for a year?"