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Only A Week	By : jvperric Category: Pokemon > General Views: 5600 -:- 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
- 1
- 2
*****Only A Week*****

*****Day 1*****

Along a wide tract of road, winding around houses small and large alike, with the sun beginning to dip down past the horizon on a cool spring day, when leaves and flowers were starting to bloom again after a long winter, a man rode his bicycle over the asphalt. It was becoming harder to see with every passing minute, but he never faltered, even with the bags of food dangling from both handlebars, swaying this way and that when he made a minor correction to his bearing. He rode faster than a walking pace, but only just so; two joggers easily overtook him and went past.

He gradually slowed and came to a halt in front of an old, decrepit building, the abandoned Viridian City Gym. He knew the place well, or he had when it was open; the hard-won Earth Badge sitting in a display case he owned spoke to that. There was a sorry look about the place, as if it were begging for a Leader to occupy it. There was none; the most recent one had retired to his research and the one before was sitting in jail.

The man shrugged and continued on the road, riding a little faster to counterbalance the weight of the bags he was carrying. His home was unfortunately placed on the very northeastern tip of the town, and a trip to the market necessitated the navigation of three quarters of the main road. He had to pass every notable building in the city to get anywhere, but if it bothered him then he kept it to himself.

About halfway home, he went by the Pokémon Center. Any passing Trainers had come and gone for the day, he thought. From what he could see of the inside there were no non-employees present, only a half dozen Chansey and the nurse who was running out to meet him.

“Jack!”

Jack came to an abrupt halt, almost losing his balance atop his bicycle, and only with a carefully timed foot to the ground did he manage to stay upright.

“Hello, Nurse Joy, what’s going on?” he asked.

She took a brown paper bag from a larger one slung over her shoulder and handed it to him. “The tonic that you ordered for your Milotic came in earlier. I meant to bring it to your house, but I was swamped all day.”

“Actually, I don’t think there would’ve been anyone home today,” he said, sliding the bottle of medicine into one of the grocery bags. “Amy and I both had work. Thank you, though.”

“Oh, where’d you go today?”

“Hoenn, for one of the professors in Fallarbor Town. His Shelgon refuses to learn anything, though.”

“I’m sure you’ll find a way to teach it, Jack.” She noticed the food sticking out of the grocery bags. “Dinner plans?”

“Yeah, Amy and Sarah are supposed to be making a buffet.”

“Oh, well, I won’t keep you then. Goodnight, Jack.”

“Goodnight, Nurse Joy.”

The young nurse went back inside her Center, shooting Jack one last glance as he rode off again towards the northern end of town. Medicine in tow, Jack sped home, getting there a few minutes later.

About half of the sun was still visible over the horizon when he wheeled his bicycle into its port and, bags in hand, opened the door and went inside after a long day.

“Amy? Sarah? I’m home,” Jack said, pulling the door shut and bringing the groceries to the back of the house.

“We’re back here, Jack,” he heard his wife call from the kitchen.

Slipping into the cooking area, Jack snuck up behind Amy, dropped the bags of food, and threw his arms around her midsection, pulling her away from the counter and burying his face in her neck. She smiled and indulged him, nuzzling the side of her head on his.

“Okay, okay,” she said, pulling back and turning around to face her husband. “So how was your day, honey?”

“Seven hours under a volcano trying to tutor a Dragon-type. The usual.” Jack cocked his head to the right. “Hi Sarah, how are—”

His Gardevoir ran up and nearly tackled him at the mention of her name. Getting as close as she could without the fin on her chest impaling her Trainer, Sarah threw her arms around Jack and stuck her head at the base of his neck.

“I’ll take that as fine,” he said, running a hand through some of her hair.

‘Yes, I’m fine Jack, thank you for asking,’ Sarah said back over their mental link. ‘Amy and I were just making dinner.’

“Well, it smells delicious.” Jack put the grocery bags on the counter next to Amy. “Here’s the stuff for you asked for. Any mail?”

“Oh, there was something from the League,” Amy said, motioning to a stack of letters on the table. “They keep sending them, no matter how many times you shoot them down.”

“Maybe it’s an apology for bothering me so much.” They both laughed under their breath. “Well, I can hope, right? I’ll be in my office.”

Amy nodded and began taking out her fresh supplies while Sarah went back to mixing the salad dressing and pouring it into a large bowl of greens. Jack rifled through the mail, took the envelope addressed to him, and ducked into his study on the other side of the house.

His office was not an especially large room, but it suited Jack fine. The plush leather couch against one wall beckoned him over, but for the moment he passed it and went towards the back of the study, where a large wooden desk was situated in front of a pair of all-glass doors that opened to the backyard.

Jack tossed the letter onto the desk and sat in his chair. He paused for a moment, looking at the two dozen Badges resting in a display case on a nearby cabinet. Above them, in their own cases, two Champion’s certificates sat on the wall, their gold-trimmed edges shining in the sunset. A smile slowly crept across his lips; he earned those, he knew, he had earned them with his team, and even the slightly demeaning jobs of move tutor and breeder he had now couldn’t take away the sense of satisfaction that swelled up when he looked at them.

He snapped out of his recollections and tore open the letter waiting for him. It was overly ornate, almost nauseating in its formality, and Jack knew what it was going to say before he started reading.

“Dear Mr. Jack Harris,” he read aloud in a singsong voice, “We would again like to blah blah blah, extend our offer, blah blah blah, Leader position in the Viridian City Gym, blah blah blah, currently no Leader. This is an offer we do not extend lightly and hope you will take into consideration.”

Jack pulled out a piece of paper and began to write a reply. “Dear Mr. League Commissioner, I am rejecting your offer for the position of Viridian City Gym Leader again for the same reasons that I have before. Firstly, the Viridian Gym has always been a Ground-type establishment; I have no Ground-types to speak of. Secondly, and I have previously sent you the records to confirm this, my Pokémon are simply too powerful to be a reasonable match for seven-Badge Trainers. Even if you were to allow me to run a multi-type Gym, my least powerful roster would have an average level of sixty. This is not to speak of the team I would actually use, which would be more powerful still. Thirdly, and I am sure you are aware of this, I have a job that requires regular international travel and would mean that I would be unavailable to take Gym challenges for a good deal of the week.

“Once again, thank you for the offer, but I do not accept. There are a number of other competent Trainers here in Viridian City, and I would appreciate not being asked again to take the job. Sincerely, Jack Harris.”

He looked the letter over, nodded, and stuck it in the reply envelope they sent, hoping that this would be the one to stop the stream of mail.

‘Maybe that’ll stop their letters.’

“Fat chance,” Jack muttered as he set the correspondence aside. “I told them I didn’t want the job, but no, they—”

There was a soft knocking at the door to the hallway. “Yeah, come in.”

The door slid away to reveal Sarah standing on the threshold, her head bowed in a deference that Jack had tried to work out of her multiple times.

‘Amy said that dinner will be ready soon,’ she said, walking forward when Jack waved her in.

“Good, I’m really hungry.” He turned around and peered out the window, looking at the Pokémon outside. “Do you know if the others got fed yet?”

‘I don’t think so.’

“Alright, I’ll do it then…would you come with me?”

‘Of course.’

They slipped out the back door and to the rear of the property, where Amy’s and the rest of Jack’s Pokémon were waiting patiently for their dinner. Jack took a large bag of feed from a shed attached to the house and filled up all the bowls lined up nearby, jumping out of the way so as not to block the hungry creatures from their meal.

They stood there, transfixed, watching the food disappear, before Jack put the feed away and pulled a bucket of chum out of the shed.

“Alright, let’s go feed Millie,” he said, dragging the container northward.

Sarah nodded and followed her Trainer through the woods bordering their property, finally emerging on the shore of a large lake that reflected the sunset and covered the surrounding grass in shades of red and yellow. There was a large ripple coming from the center of the water, and a pair of large black eyes disappeared under the surface when their owner saw the two shapes coming toward it.

“Millie, dinner,” Jack called. A few defiant bubbles floated up from the lake, but there was no other reply. “Come on honey, food! I don’t know why she’s always so difficult about this.”

‘Maybe she isn’t hungry,’ Sarah suggested.

“Yeah, maybe, but if I don’t feed her now then she’s going to wake us all up at three in the morning, crying for food. Would you mind letting her know…”

Sarah nodded, knelt down, and put a glowing hand into the water. For a moment nothing happened, but then the bubbles started again, growing closer and closer to them until a large Milotic shot its head up out of the water, rising twenty feet before coming back down and licking its Trainer across the face.

“Ah! Alright, alright,” Jack said, sputtering and wiping his face clean, “Here’s your food. Eat up, girl.”

Milotic squeaked and buried her head in the mess of chum her Trainer was pouring into the water. When it had vanished and she had gone back to dancing through the water, Jack sat down beside Sarah, spinning the food bucket in his hands.

“I think if this thing with the Viridian Gym doesn’t stop, we’ll have to go down to the League ourselves,” Jack said, poking ripples in the water his finger. “Maybe you can beat some sense into them.”

‘Oh, look at the sunset,’ Sarah exclaimed, leaning forward, almost over the water.

Jack looked up at the orange the sun was turning to trees around them. The blue of the lake, too, was reddening in the twilight, casting a purple tinge onto their reflections.

“Yeah, it’s really nice now that there’re some leaves on the trees.” He looked at his watch. “We should probably go back up, I’m sure dinner’s ready by now.”

‘Okay.’

“Here, I’ll help you—oop!”

As Jack stood up and took Sarah’s hand, he chose a poor place to place his foot—on the absolute edge of the waterfront—and his left leg went splashing in up to his knee. His other foot shot out towards Sarah, sending them both to the ground, Pokémon atop Trainer, in the lake if not for the inch of grass separating them from the water.

Sarah groaned, shaking her head clear, when she felt the fin on her torso digging into Jack’s chest. She pushed up and off him, pushing her knees forward to get her chest up without moving her head too far away.

“Ow. Sorry, Sarah, I put my foot in a real bad place.”

Jack opened his eyes. Sarah stared back at him, a few locks of her hair bristling on her friend’s face and tickling his nose. A pair of brown eyes looked up at two bright red ones, and they held the gaze for a moment before Sarah rolled off Jack and sat up, fidgeting with her hands.

“You alright?” Jack asked, rubbing his chest.

‘Yes, thank you…for, for asking, I mean,’ she added quickly, getting up and bowing her head. ‘Not for—’

“Hey, it’s fine,” Jack said, standing up. “Come on, let’s go back up and eat.”

Sarah nodded, flung the water off Jack’s pant leg, and followed him back up through the woods and to their backyard. Jack paused, trying to let her catch up, but she stopped when he did. When he took a step back, she did too. It was only when he turned around and ushered her forward that she was even with him.

“You don’t have to walk behind me, Sarah, you know that.”

‘I know, it’s just instinct,’ she said, wavering back and forth but ultimately staying put.

Jack opened the back door and Sarah followed him inside, fighting the impulse to stay a step behind. They went into the kitchen, where Amy had just finished setting the table with a large bowl of rice.

“Hey guys,” she said, pulling out three sets of silverware. “Did you feed everyone else?”

“Yeah, all the Pokémon are good.” Jack plucked a bit of meat from the plate in front of him. “Mmm, delicious. You two outdid yourselves.”

They sat down and dug in, working through helpings of salad, rice, and meat with earnest. Once the sun had disappeared completely and only darkness filtered in through the window over the sink, the food disappeared too.

“Well, that was great,” Jack said, pushing his chair back. “My compliments to the chefs.”

Amy smiled and finished her drink while Sarah got up and began taking their plates to the sink. “It was good, wasn’t it, Sarah?” Amy asked.

The Pokémon blushed a little and froze up. ‘Oh, um, yes, it was very good.’

Amy sighed as Sarah went about cleaning the plates, avoiding her gaze and ducking her head down. Amy looked at Jack, but he did not seem to notice the exchange. He had busied himself with digging through one of the bags on the counter, eventually pulling out a small bottle.

“I’ll be right back,” he said.

Ten minutes later, when all the dishes had been washed and put away and Sarah had retreated to her room, Amy trudged through the thicket of trees north of their house and came out on the lakefront, where Milotic had her head sprawled out on the shore. Jack was beside her, smearing a tonic across her neck.

“…There you go, Millie,” he said, rubbing the skin between her eyes. “All done.”

Milotic squealed happily, reared up, and dove back into the water, disappearing under the surface. Jack stood up, put the tonic away and turned around, hugging his wife and giving her a quick kiss on the neck.

“What’s up, honey?” he asked.

“What was that tonic for?”

“It’s to help her adjust to the temperature change. It stays colder for longer up here than in Hoenn, so her species isn’t used to it being this cold now.”

“Jack, I think we need to talk.”

“Well, we’re talking right now.”

“No, I mean about—about Sarah.”

“What about her?”

“I don’t think she likes me very much.”

“She’s known you for four years, Amy. Why would you think she doesn’t like you?”

“Just these little things…she won’t talk to me unless I talk to her first, she won’t look me in the eye, stuff like that.”

“She’s a Gardevoir,” Jack said, rubbing Amy’s hand. “She’s deferential by nature. It’s not anything about you, it’s just who she is. There’s no way she doesn’t like you, you just have to make an effort with her.”

“What did you have to do?”

“I—I was the first thing she saw when she hatched,” Jack said, surprised she would forget that. “Trust me, she does like you.”

She nodded, but the look on her face told him she wasn’t convinced. “Alright, how about I talk to her tomorrow, ask her to open up to you a little more.”

“I’d like that.”

Jack kissed her again and they walked, hand in hand, back up to their house, her head on his shoulder.

*****

One last held-in breath blew through Jack’s lips while his wife’s hands clawed at his bare chest. He winced as her nails dug into his skin, putting his hands on her wrists as she buried her head into a pillow to stifle a scream.

Amy rolled off Jack, still biting her lower lip as they both panted. She curled up next to him, tracing lines along his skin with her fingers, but Jack didn’t seem to notice. All he did was lie there, staring up at the ceiling while absently stroking his wife’s hair.

“Something wrong?” she asked.

“No, nothing’s wrong. I think I ate too much at dinner, that’s all.”

Amy pulled their comforter over them. “Okay. I’m going to sleep, love you.”

“I love you, too.”

An hour of staring out the window and into the moonlit woods did nothing to lull Jack to sleep. He tossed and turned, trying to find a comfortable position, but to no avail; his mind refused to shut down. Amy moaned in her sleep and turned towards him, her forehead pressed on the base of his neck. He put his arms around her midsection and pulled her body against his, but the extra warmth did nothing.

‘Come on, go to sleep. I’m tired, too.’

‘I’m not trying to stay awake here, alright? You’re not helping, just leave me alone.’

‘Go take a walk, maybe that’ll tire you out.’

Jack sighed and slipped out of bed. Amy rolled over into his empty spot as he put on a jacket and shoes, crept down the stairs, and went out the back door. Memory allowed him to step over the loose rocks and large roots that dotted the path to the lake behind his house.

Milotic was still dancing in the lake, spinning on the surface and swimming laps on the shoreline. When she saw Jack coming down, though, she swam up and put her head out on the ground next to him.

“Hey Millie, you can’t sleep either?” Jack asked. She squeaked affirmatively as he kissed her head and splashed her tail in the water behind them. “Did that stuff help with the cold?”

She nodded. “Good.”

Milotic ducked her head back down and Jack sat on the shore, looking up at the moon. He shivered; a gust of wind blew by and forced him to pull his jacket tighter around his torso.

‘Weather’s a little screwy this year.’

“Yeah,” he said out loud. “I wish it would warm up.”

‘So what are you going to tell Sarah to make her warm up to Amy?’

“I don’t know. I’ll just ask her, I guess.”

‘Maybe she’s moody because it’s spring.’

“What does that have anything to do with it?”

‘It’s their mating season, genius.’

“Oh yeah…”

‘Too bad you don’t know anyone with a Gallade. Doesn’t your neighbor have a Lucario?’

“No, that Lucario’s female. I do feel kind of bad that she doesn’t have anybody, though.”

‘What about Rapidash? Or Spiritomb? Or any of your other Pokémon? Don’t you care about them?’

“Of course I do. I just…I just see her more often, that’s all.”

‘Maybe you want to see her more often.’

Jack said nothing else. He frowned, shook his head clear, and went back towards his house. When he got back he saw the sun was beginning to climb over the tree line and some of Amy’s Electric-types were beginning to stir. Raichu looked up at him from her spot next to the back shed, where she was curled up with her baby Pichu, and then to her empty food bowl, whining as she did.

“Fine, might as well feed you all.”

Jack undid the lock on the shed, pulled out the massive bag of kibbles, and poured breakfast into a dozen handmade bowls lined up nearby. Raichu skulked out of her little den and dragged her bowl back to it, picking up a kibble and gently putting it in Pichu’s mouth. The smaller creature chewed on it, completely blind; its eyes still had yet to open, and it went entirely by feeling and its mother’s guidance.

“Guess I’ll have to make another bowl, huh?” Jack asked, scratching Raichu’s head. “I’ll do that later.”

Feeling his eyelids growing heavy, Jack stood up and went back into the house, sitting down at the kitchen table, mentally counting the number of meals he had laid out. He racked his brain for a moment until he realized he had left one out.

He was no cook, and more than once his fire extinguisher made an appearance, but by following Amy’s recipes to the letter, Jack put together a small meal. He put everything on a tray, topped it with a flower and a note—‘Good morning sunshine’—and carefully brought it upstairs, creeping on his toes to avoid the noisy floorboards under the carpet. One of his feet pushed open a bedroom door, revealing his Gardevoir sprawled out on her bed, snoring lightly and turning over to keep the day’s first light out of her eyes.

Jack smiled, set the tray of food on her nightstand, and kissed her forehead before ducking out of the room, retreating to his own bed where, eyes finally heavy, he was able to grab a few hours of sleep.

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Only A Week