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Only A Week	By : jvperric Category: Pokemon > General Views: 5602 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don't own Pokemon. That belongs to Game Freak/Nintendo. I make no gains, monetary or otherwise, from this story.

Chapter List
- 1-Day 1
- 2-Day 2
- 3-Day 3
- 4-Day 4
- 5-Day 5
- 6-Day 6
- 7-Day 7
- 6
- 7
*****Day 7*****

“I bet Dad sent you some useless Pokémon, like a Magikarp or something,” a fifteen year-old Casey said as he flicked Jack in the ear.

“And if it’s a blue Magikarp, you’re going to want to take it for yourself,” he said, swatting at his brother’s hand. There were a half dozen healed cuts on the underside of his arm.

“Whatever.” He stood up and left Jack’s room. He had been in there for three days, since his thirteenth birthday. On his lap was an egg from their father, the blue bow still attached with a note: ‘Needs to stay warm.’ The incubator it had arrived in was in the corner of the room, discarded as its recipient took over its function. Not a minute had gone by without the egg in his arms or on his lap, and he smiled to himself whenever the creature inside moved.

Another hour passed without him moving, only stroking the side of the egg. He had nothing better to do, and if he had his plans would be cancelled. Jack brought the egg up to his chest and rested his chin on the top, trying to guess what the Pokémon inside was.

Suddenly, it moved. Not one of the tiny wobbles it had been making for the past few days, but a larger rattle. With one hand still wrapped around the fragile thing, Jack swept everything off the desk in front of him, not wanting his Pokémon to imprint on anything else in the room. Carefully, he set it down on the wood as it began to crack.

He squealed in excitement, and then looked out to the hall to make sure no one had heard him. The fracture in the shell grew, and he turned back to watch it split down the middle. It was definitely a Hoenn-native Pokémon; his book with all the Kanto-native Pokémon eggs told him nothing about the green egg with red stripes.

A large chunk of shell fell onto the desk, and a thin white arm poked out of the side. Jack started running through all the Pokémon it could have been, but a red horn at the top, followed by another, broke the shell and his concentration. He shook his head and looked again, because he couldn’t believe that his father had sent him—

A newborn Ralts fractured the rest of its egg and looked at Jack with a pair of big, ruby-red eyes.

“Wow,” he said, letting Ralts grab his finger with its small hand. The tiny Pokémon stretched and whispered its own name, and Jack took a few kibbles from the bag under his desk. He let it pick them out of his hand and quietly chew on them, watching its new Trainer smile at it.

“Hey, buddy,” Jack said, running his thumb along the horns on its head. “I’m Jack.”

“Ralts,” it said back, repeating his intonation.

“You look okay,” he mused, picking up Ralts and looking over its body. “No cuts or anything. I was worried when you smashed your egg. Okay, your front horn is a little bigger than your back one. That’s supposed to indicate your gender, right?”

It looked at Jack in confusion as he bent down and looked through a book next to the bag of food. He flipped through the pages with one hand, his other fingers occupied in a game of tickling. There was a ripping sound, and the book’s chart on gender dimorphism came up.

“Ralts, Ralts, Ralts…” he said to himself, to which the Pokémon repeated its own name and laughed. Jack scratched its head and laughed with it. “Okay, here we go. This says you’re a girl. Let’s just make sure…”

He picked up Ralts, blushed, and set her back down. “I’ll take the book’s word for it next time.”

But she didn’t seem to notice Jack’s red face. Instead, she nuzzled herself into his chest. He picked her up off the desk and let her curl around his hand, sighing contentedly as she did.

“Ralts,” she said, detaching her face from his torso. She looked around the small room and saw the bag of kibbles, which she pointed to excitedly.

“You’re hungry?” he asked, making a chewing motion with his mouth. The tiny girl in his hand nodded. “Makes sense,” he continued, holding her in one arm and scooping up a handful of kibbles. She squeaked happily and munched on them, smiling up at the boy. Jack gently set her back on the desk and retrieved a cup of water from his nightstand.

He set the cup next to her, and to the small Pokémon it was the end of the world. The kibbles in her hand flew up as she squealed and backed away, cowering behind his other hand. Her eyes poked up above his finger, surveying the container, but Jack could only chuckle.

“It’s not going to hurt you, Ralts,” he said, bending his head down and lapping up some of the water. Jack took his hand from between her and the cup and edged her closer to it. “Come on, you have to be thirsty. Just do what I did, okay?”

Everything in her body was screaming to stay away, but she trusted the boy in front of her. Carefully, she crawled over to the strange object and, following his example, stuck her tongue into the liquid inside. She had been thirsty without realizing it, and drank half the water before sitting down, looking at Jack, and falling asleep.

He laughed quietly. Jack slid his hands under Ralts and set her on his bed pillow, her tiny chest rising and falling in rhythm. He pulled the sheets over her, stopping below her chin. She didn’t wake as he backed out of the room, grabbing his wallet and shutting the door behind him.

His mother was gone, as usual. Jack left his house and ran to the Pokemart, hoping to return before Ralts woke up. It was a humid April afternoon, and a bead of sweat trickled down the back of his neck, but he ran full break all the same, until he crashed into his brother while rounding a corner.

“What’re you rushing for? Did it hatch yet?”

Jack bit his lip and stood up. “No,” he lied. Ralts was his Pokémon, not something for his brother to mess with like he did him.

“Probably some stupid fish,” Casey said before continuing down another street. Jack walked into the Pokemart and made a beeline for the section dedicated to products for infant Pokémon. He picked out a small, plushy bed, a Pokéball, and a more detailed book on Psychic-types before ringing it up, spending the last bit of money he had, and walking home.

He could barely contain his excitement when his house—his home—appeared at the end of the street. He had a Pokémon to care for, to protect, to train, to love. There was an appreciable distance between him and his own family; his mother was constantly working, he was lucky to see his father once a year, his sister was married in Sinnoh and couldn’t be bothered to visit, and Casey was far from the best older brother.

But now, he had his own little family, just for him. Ralts was his tiny, newborn daughter, and Jack would do his best to play a father figure for her. In the little time he had spent with her, a connection was already weaving itself between them, bonding them for the course of their lives. It was simple, capable of carrying only the most primitive emotions between them, but love was one of those, and when she hatched he felt it, clear as day.

When he returned, Jack dug a few plastic toys from the hall closet and set them on his bed, and he and Ralts played with them until late into the night. He had tried to get her used to the Pokéball once, but when he recalled her, it shook violently and wouldn’t shrink to carrying size. Jack let her out immediately, seeing that she hated the ball. She would just stay out with him, and neither of them seemed to mind that.

“Ralts?” Jack asked, sitting down on the floor and putting the toys out of reach.

“Ra?” she answered, jumping into his lap.

“I’d like to give you a name.”

She said nothing, tilting her head slightly as she wrapped her mind around the new word.

“It’s like, uh…” he started to say. How could he explain something as simple as a name? “It’s a special word I would say to call you. It would be just for you, and no one else.”

As if picking up on his excitement, Ralts squeaked and nodded enthusiastically.

“Okay, how about Sarah? A pretty name for a pretty girl.”

“Ra-alts,” she said, trying to stretch her name into two syllables in the same way that ‘Sarah’ did.

“Very good,” Jack said, beaming. He looked at his clock; it was nearly midnight. “It’s getting kind of late, we should go to sleep. Where would you like me to put your bed?”

Sarah chirped and tried to climb up onto Jack’s small twin bed. “No that’s my—oh, why not,” Jack said, setting the smaller bed down and placing his baby Pokémon on his own mattress. She let her head droop onto his pillow, her light breathing the only sound in the room. Jack ducked into his closet and emerged in his sleepwear, smiling as he crept into the sheets. Sarah curled up in his chest, resting her back against his torso. As he turned out the light, Jack could feel a faint heartbeat in sync with his own, and matched his breathing with Sarah’s. He slipped a hand over her shoulder, protecting her fragile body.

“I love you, Sarah.”

As he was about to close his eyes, Jack thought he heard, if only in the back of his mind, a soft feminine voice say the same to him. Sarah sighed deeply and fell asleep, and her Trainer followed.

*****
Jack sat in the Pokémon Center lobby, a smile on his face. It had been a long time since he thought of that day, and it was one of his best memories. When the gravity of his current situation returned like a slap in the face, though, his smile faded and his thoughts shifted back to the present day.

Nurse Joy came out of the back hall, unnoticed by the man in front of her. “Jack?”

“How—how is she?” he asked, worry carved into every line on his face.

“She’s going to be just fine,” Nurse Joy said happily. “We purged the alcohol from her system and excised the cirrhotic part of her liver. It was only a small section, and it’s already growing back. She’s awake now, in room three. I’d like her to stay the night, but you can take her home in the morning. I know she’d like to see you now.”

“Thank you so much,” he said. Jack started for the medical wing, but stopped when he heard his name again. “Yes?”

“Has your Gardevoir…mated recently?”

“I think she might have,” Jack said, growing uneasy. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, it looked like she was pregnant for a while, but the egg didn’t fertilize. It was probably an incompatible Pokémon.”

He laughed inwardly. “Oh, I’ll tell her, thanks.” Jack went to the back section of the Center and finding room three.

“Hey,” he said quietly, poking his head in. Sarah heard his voice and her ears perked up while her mouth stretched into a smile. She was sitting up in her bed, reclining against a stack of pillows.

‘Hello,’ she said cheerfully, holding her arms out for him.

Jack went to her bedside, pulling her into an embrace that lasted for several minutes. When they let go, they were both smiling, put at ease by each other’s feelings. Jack took her hand and rubbed it, happy to see her skin was back to its usual pure white.

‘I guess that stuff was really bad for me?’ Sarah asked, massaging her abdomen. ‘It damaged my insides.’

“Yeah, alcohol’s really bad for Pokémon. I always tell Casey it’ll kill him someday.”

‘I’m sorry I made you worry, Jack.’

He smiled and swept a lock of hair from in front of her face. “You’re amazing, Sarah. You come this close to dying, and then you’re the one apologizing. Don’t be sorry. It’s my fault for not telling you how I feel. Ever since you evolved for the second time, I’ve had…romantic feelings for you.”

Sarah’s eyes widened. ‘What?’

“When we were in the Ilex Forest and you, well, changed, I couldn’t get over how beautiful you looked. I was up all that night because you were pressed up next to me in my sleeping bag and, I don’t know, I thought you would get disgusted and leave if I ever told you.”

‘I would never do that. I love you.’

“And that makes me the happiest I’ve been in a long time, but I didn’t know it back then. If anything had happened to you just now…well, you’re okay, and that’s what’s important and what I care about.”

She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know that her Trainer placed her well-being above everything else in his life. Sarah settled for putting her head against a pillow and smiling at her Trainer—her friend.

“And since we’re being honest, I have to show you this,” he said, rolling up his sleeve and revealing all of his healed-over cuts. Sarah was still silent, pulling down the green fabric covering her arm and showing him her own scars.

“I didn’t make you do this, did I?”

Sarah thought it was best to leave his question unanswered. Jack ran his hand over her skin, wincing every time he came to a red line running across it. He took his hands away and let her roll her sleeve back up, doing the same with his shirt.

“Well, I’m not doing that anymore.” Jack put his head over her chest, above her fin. “No reason.”

‘Then I won’t, either.’

“Sarah?”

‘Yes?’

“I can hear your heart beating. It’s going at the same speed as mine.”

‘That’s nice,’ she said, unsure of whether she was supposed to answer.

“It reminds me of the day you hatched, and that first night you slept in my bed. I felt your heart going with mine when you were cuddled in my chest. Do you remember that?”

‘Yes, it was the first day of my life. I broke my egg, you tickled me, and then you got all nervous when you found out I was female. It’s a funny memory.’

He blushed like he had that day. “I always thought you never noticed that.”

‘And then you took me in your arms, fed me, gave me water, and then I fell asleep.’

“You really hated your Pokéball.”

‘I was a little shocked when you put me in. It was like being suspended in a void. All I knew was you and your room, and I had already imprinted on you. When all of that disappeared, I panicked until you let me back out. Then you gave me my name, and I was so thrilled to have that special bond with you.’

“Yeah. You know, now that we’re, together, I’m wondering if Viridian City is the right place for us.”

‘What did you have in mind?’ Sarah asked. ‘Traveling again?’

“Maybe not a change as drastic as that, but…a little island off southern Hoenn?”

‘Oh, Jack, I’d love that!’

“Good,” he said, picking his head up and kissing her. “Good.”

*****The End*****
A/N: No, that’s not really the end, but you know that, don’t you? The story continues in my other works, and I assure you the ending is much less saccharine than this cutesy little one. If you want to believe Jack and Sarah live happily ever after, well, let their saga end here. If you want the full story, the full, heartstring-wrenching, smile-killing, keep-some-tissues-nearby story, check out “Storm.”
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Only A Week