Heart and Soul

Chp 2: Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again (Phantom of the Opera)

~*~

Tracey shoved his hands in the pockets of his shorts, and managed an innocent whistle of sorts as he made his way carefully through the throng of people on the platform. A squeal from behind him made him whirl around in alarm, to find Brock staring at his hands.

"What?" he said impatiently.

"I-I just went to tap this girl on the shoulder…" stuttered Brock, still gazing at his hands. "A-and…and…"

"Your hand went right through her?" guessed Tracey. Brock nodded. "Yeah well what were you expecting – we’re ghosts…haven’t you ever seen Ghost?" Brock stared at him bewildered, and Tracey sighed. "Come on."

With a screeching sound, the Magnet Train blew into the large station, and halted immediately. Tracey waited impatiently for the woman in front of him to press the open door button.

"So...I’m guessing we don’t need to buy tickets right?" Brock asked, meekly.

~*~

The train slid smoothly to a halt, stopping the conversation. There was a roar and a massive squeeze as what looked and sounded like the population of Johto poured out between the tiny automatic doors and disappeared into the smog of Saffron City. Tracey walked out slowly; he was getting used to this ghost stuff.

"Well you’d better get going Brock, you’ve got a long walk to Pallet!" Tracey laughed as he jogged northwards from the station.

"Hey wait a second!" Brock yelled, grabbing Tracey’s green tee-shirt, and feeling relived that he could at least touch Tracey without going straight through him. "Okay fine, I’ll go to Pallet, but we’ve got to meet up to…find out what the hell is going on!"

"I dunno. Makes it more exciting?" Tracey called over his shoulder as he began to walk again.

"Hey how are we going to get into the place when it’s all closed up for the night." Tracey shrugged.

"Walk through the wall?" he grinned. "See you then Brock!"

"Uggh…" Brock sounded as Tracey disappeared behind the corner of the Fighting Dojo. Brock shuddered unhappily as he looked down at his feet. It was around noon on a bright sunny day…he had now idea what month or day it was, and could only guess at what year it was. Slowly he began to move, walking as he would if he were alive, carefully along the sidewalk, making sure not to bump into anyone subconsciously, even though it didn’t matter any more.

~*~

Misty Waterflower leant over the counter and fiddled idly with her dangly earring as she waited for her food.

"Marina!? Anytime now!" she called impatiently. A weary head with half moon glasses and dark blue styled hair leant backwards so she was visible around the corner that lead to the cafés’ kitchen. Misty stifled a giggle and Marina stuck her tongue out as she practically threw Misty’s bowl of rice at her. "Thank you!" Misty teased cheerfully, as her friend disappeared into the greasy depths.

And outside, as pressed up to the dirty window as he could without actually touching it, Tracey stood, his eyes wide as he stared, and gulped. He knew he was dead, but seeing Misty all grown up just seemed to prove it – he had been gone for five whole years. Really. Truly. He couldn’t stop his shoulders from shuddering as he digested the proof, that it really wasn’t a dream.

Oh well. Work to do. Tracey waited tolerantly outside the café, as nobody seemed to want to come into or leave the small café on the gritty street in Cerulean’s central district. He watched Misty eat her rice, and smiled as he saw a girl he seemed to remember from somewhere bring her out a heaped bowl of ice-cream, and saw her devour it just as she did when she was 12.

Misty…he had last seen her as a gangly fifteen year old, going gaga over the latest Lorelei Tips For Training video she had seen in Trovitopolis, and arguing with Ash, who thought that Karen was much better – on what he guessed was the day he died.

Well, she wasn’t scrawny anymore, but she was tall and lanky, with the same long legs that she used to curl up under her in some freaky yoga position when they all rode on Lapras. Her bright orange hair was pulled into a messy bun at the nape of her neck, and the flyaway wispy tendrils were held into place by little glittery clips. Her eyes were still large and free of makeup, and her skin and face were also clear save a little shimmery lip-gloss. She wasn’t stunning, but she was quite attractive, thought Tracey.

Shouting goodbye to Marina over her shoulder, Misty left the café as the shadows lengthened, and her hair glowed an even fiercer orange in the sunset. Tracey dutifully tailed her the short way to the Gym, and slipped in the door to avoid the coldness of having to walk through the wood. Misty dropped her keys on the nearby table with a clatter, and a young looking Eevee rushed in from another room, straight through Tracey, and chattering excitedly at the return of its mistress, went up on its back legs and bumped Misty’s fingers with its head. Smiling lazily, Misty scratched its head gently with her fingernails.

"Hey baby" she crooned gently, before making her way across the silent residential part of the Gym, and into the kitchen. The Eevee was about to follow her, but suddenly it tensed up, and the fur on its neck shot into menacing spikes as it growled in Tracey’s general direction.

"It can sense me…" Tracey whispered. The Eevee squealed in fright and ran into the kitchen, tripping on its long tail and skidding across the tiles. "And hear me apparently…" Tracey looked around, and winced. There were a lot of photos around – some of him, some of Brock, some of the Waterflower sisters, Marina and other relatives…but in most of the pictures, jagged squares, rectangles and oblongs were hacked out – leaving in some cases only the top of a well remembered hat, the tips of fingers, the edge of a spike of black hair, or the yellow and brown tail of a Pikachu.

Tracey sighed, and at that moment, Misty walked out of the kitchen with a glass of diluted sake, trying to coax her petrified Evolution Pokémon into the living room with her. Suddenly she stopped.

"Brrrrrrrrrrr it’s cold in here – it was warmer outside!" Tracey hung his head dismally and guiltily as Misty returned from another room with a sweater and stared in astonishment at the central heating dial that was on maximum. "Darn thing must be broken…" she muttered, and turned around in time to see Eevee hurl itself into the air, trying to bite something. She shook her head and raised her hand to her brow. "What is going on round here?"

~*~

Brock walked into Pallet as the shadows were getting long; and he noticed with distaste that he no longer had one. He walked slowly past Professor Oak’s lab, and thought of the day where he had got his hospital results; they had all been there, him, Ash, Misty, most of his brothers and sisters, the Professor, Mrs. K…

Brock had convinced himself it was just a cold, that had become a virus that was affecting him.

But the harshly typed words on the bland hospital stationary told him otherwise; Dear Mr Slate….regret to inform you…antibodies failing…treatment to stabilise…four months to a year…dreadfully sorry…signed some man, woman or thing he’d never heard of in his life. With Tracey’s death only eighteen months earlier, this had hit them all hard, and he remembered the seventeen year old Misty fall sobbing into Ash’s arms, as he cried too, and gently stroked her hair as he welcomed the scarily quiet Brock into the group hug.

He remembered lying in the hospital bed only a few short months later…his senses were swooning and all he could focus on were the clear eyes of his friends and family; the rest of their figures were fuzzy. There was a white blur fiddling with the machine next to him. Brock felt so tired, so very tired.

"Tired…" he mumbled. Nearby, Misty sobbed again, and folded herself into Ash’s arms, who stood solidly by the side of the bed, containing his tears.

"Then go to sleep, Brocko…" he whispered, as he held the shaking girl to his chest, so she wouldn’t have to watch their best friend go to sleep for the last time…

Brock was woken up from his memories as he walked through a fence, and shivered violently.

"MAN I HATE THAT!" he yelled. A nearby Rattata stopped, and hissed at hum between its teeth before hurrying off.

"Oooh I wonder what got into that little Pokémon?" came a musical, familiar voice. Brock looked up to see Delia Ketchum holding a handful of weeds as she stared blankly at the empty road where the Rattata had been. She rose from her kneeling position, and flicked the dirt off her blue knee length skirt.

"Mom! I’m hungry!" came a voice from inside the pleasant Pallet cottage.

"Coming sweetie!" called Delia, as she hung up her straw hat and wandered into her kitchen. "I’ll get you something right away!"

Brock walked in the open door, and then into the dark lounge, where an almost unidentifiable lump was sprawled over the sofa with a Pikachu curled up on his stomach. Brock smiled. From the looks of it, Ash had gotten a lot taller and broader. "Can you turn the central heating up sweetie, it’s gotten awfully cold all of a sudden?"

"Sure mom,’ said Ash, as he pushed Pikachu gently off him, and swung his legs off the sofa. Pikachu yawned, showing her sharp little teeth, before stopping and looking around wildly. Brock tensed. Pikachu raised her snout in the air, and sniffed. She stopped looking even more confused.

"Pika-kaaaa…?" she whispered slowly. Brock smiled.

"Here Ash!" came Delia’s voice from the kitchen.

"Oh great I’m starving!" Ash replied. Brock wondered if he was missing his special patented ‘Lazy Boy, No Chew Stew’, that did them all for many a dinner during their journeys.

"Eat up!" chirped Delia. "I made it as fast as I could for you Ash!"