I'll Be Home For Christmas- The Extended Version Part 2 By Finaille Nailo "Ash?" Misty mumbles questionably. Ashton looks down at her. "Ashton." He grins at her. "Oh, right, sorry." Misty smiles back and takes a moment to gaze at Ashton. He stood about three inches taller than her, had beautiful black hair and gazed at Misty with raven eyes. Of course, it took Misty a moment to realize her hand was still in his. She blushed and freed her hand from his grip. "I'm Brock." Brock says with a grin, shaking Ashton's hand. "Nice to meet you." Ashton says, smiling back. In Misty's mind, those smiles seemed too fake, but she figured she was just freaking out. Ashton looked like Ash, I mean, even their names were so incredibly close. "I've gotta go back out on the dance floor." Ashton tells Misty, shaken away from her thoughts. A slow song starts to play. "I'll be back, and maybe we can dance later." He smiles at her, and gets lost in the crowd. Misty looks over at Duplica, who has a huge grin plastered on her face. Duplica grabs Misty's arm and walks her over to an empty table; they both sit down. "So, what do you think of Ashton?" Duplica asks excitedly. "He seems nice, but he really reminds me of someone I haven't seen in nearly," She tries to hold from breaking down into tears, "ten years." "Really? Who is it?" Duplica asks curiously. "It's no one." "No really, who is it?!" Duplica asks impatiently. "Ash. Ketchum." Misty stammers out. "Really? Yeah, I totally agree about him looking like Ashton. But Ash was so immature, and Ashton's much cuter." Duplica responds with an evil grin. "No he wasn't! Sure, he was a little strange, but he really was mature! And I think Ash is much cuter than Ashton!" Misty defends. "What? Did you have a crush on Ashy-boy Ketchum?" Duplica coos. Misty turns bright red. "Um, is it that obvious?" Misty timidly asks. "Yeah, like, totally!" Duplica grins. A new song starts, much faster than the previous one. "Ash was really sweet, I just wish we didn't get into that. WAAHHHH!!!" Misty screams startled as a person taps her on the shoulder. She turns around to see Ashton with an evil smirk on his face. "Got ya!" Ashton says with a laugh. "Wanna dance now?" Misty looks up at him. "Sure, I guess." Misty looks over at Duplica, and she winks at Misty. Misty grins and looks up at Ashton. "Let us wander out onto the dance floor, m'lady." Ashton says in his best medieval voice. Misty rolls her eyes as Ashton takes her hand and leads her out onto the crowded dance floor. Ash puts his hands on her sides and they start dancing to the beat. "So, been out here much?" Misty yells to Ashton. "Just a few times, you?" He yells back to Misty. "I live out in Cerulean, so I usually go to the dance club there. Brock forced me out all the way here in Pallet tonight." Misty screams as the music and the crowd grows louder. "Misty. Yawa? You're the Cerulean Gym Leader, aren't ya?" "Yeah, that's me." Misty says with a cute grin. They dance a while longer until the song stops. The DJ gets up to the microphone and starts to talk, but Misty and Ashton can't interpret what he's saying because of the noisy crowd. The crowd finally settles down a bit a moment later, and they can finally understand what the DJ is saying. ". my friend was in a terrible car crash on this night two years ago, and she's here today. I want to dedicate the song, "I'll Be Home For Christmas" out to her." The crowd cheers loudly as the newest remix of the song starts playing. The first words started to be heard. I'll be home for Christmas. You can plan on me. "This is my favorite Christmas song." Ashton says with a smile as he wraps his arms around Misty's torso, and Misty wraps her arms around Ashton's neck. "Really? It was Ash's too." She realizes what she says and cups her mouth. Ashton gives her a surprised look for a moment, then continues. "Yeah. it's really sweet. but until a while ago, it had no meaning." "What do you mean by that?" Misty looks up into Ashton's raven eyes. "Something, well, happened." "Really? What?" "I don't want to talk about it, because it always makes me think it was my fault." "Ok, I'm totally lost, but that works." Misty grins. Ashton leans closer to Misty; their noses almost touching. "You remind me of this girl I once knew, she was so beautiful." He says, leaning closer to Misty until their lips touched. When Ashton broke the kiss, Misty had a very surprised look on her face. "I, um, I think I should probably go find Brock you know, he's probably wondering where I am." Misty says, lying as quickly as she could. "Bye Ashton, it was nice to meet you." She said with a fake smile and ran through the crowd. "Misty, wait! I'm Ash!" Ash yells to her as she runs, but it was too late. Misty never heard him. Misty ran as fast as she could to find Brock. After searching in the crowd, she spotted Brock flirting with Duplica at a table by the bar. "Brock!" She yelled. "We need to go! Please!" She had a hopeless but demanding look on her face. Brock looked at Duplica for a moment. "Well, guess I'm going. Sorry." Brock says to Duplica. Duplica just looks at him meaningfully and nods. "I understand." She replies. "Come on, Misty, let's go." Brock says, looking to Misty. They slowly walk out of the dance club. "What happened?" He asks her after they are out of the dance club. "Um, it was nothing." Misty mumbles quietly. They get into Brock's car. "Nothing, right. Please, what happened?" "Fine, well, Ashton kissed me." Misty says blandly. "And you're upset?!" Brock asks questionably. "Well, I dunno, it was strange because he was so much like Ash." "Was it Ash?" "I don't know, maybe?" Misty says innocently. Brock curses under his breath. Misty looks at him funny. "What's wrong?" "It's nothing." "Brock?" She asks with an annoyed voice. "What?" "Nothing. Let's go, ok?" "Ok." They pull out of the parking lot and head back towards Cerulean. In the dance club Ash is sitting at a table, looking miserable. Duplica comes up and sits next to him. "What did you do to her?" Duplica asks quietly. "I kissed her." Ash replies miserably. "Did you tell her?" "No. I mean, I did, but it was too late, she was gone." "You were SUPPOSED to tell her before you kissed her." Duplica reminds him. "Yeah, I know that! I don't know, I guess I just let passion get the better of me. I couldn't help but kiss her." Ash says. "Oh well, I guess we'll have to try something else. Got any ideas?" "I dunno, why don't we just go to her house tomorrow night and I'll tell her who I am? She can't run off then." Ash says with a slight smile. "That works, but why don't we spice things up a little?" Duplica says with an evil grin. "Come on, I've done enough damage to Misty's heart tonight." "No, listen to me, this is a really cute idea." She goes up to Ash and whispers in his ear. A smile overtakes the miserable look in his face. "You think it's gonna work?" "Yeah, I know it's going to work." Duplica smiles at him. ************************************************************************ The next morning, Misty is sitting on her bed, gazing at the photo of Ash. She looks out the window once again, but the sky was cloudy. "How perfect, it's been ten years and it's gonna rain." She says with a frown. "Well, at least the weather understands me." She looks back at the picture of Ash, when a wave of shock runs over her. She thinks to herself, "This seems a little too familiar, I don't understand." But before she can figure out why this moment seemed so familiar, Brock yelled up to her. "Misty! Aren't you coming down? I called you a half-hour ago, did you fall asleep?" "No, sorry Brock! I'm coming!" She yells back down to him. She sets the picture on her bed, and starts to head out of her room, when she stops to look at herself in the picture. "I guess I have changed a lot in the last 10 years." She says with a smile. She walks downstairs to find Brock in the kitchen. "So, it's been 10 years since you've seen Ash now, huh?" Brock says with an almost too cheery smile. He got a call from Duplica early in the morning so he knows exactly what was going to be going on. "Oh, shut up." Misty demands as she sits down at the table. "Awww, is poor Misty gonna cry?" "I SAID SHUT UP!" "Ok, I'm stopping." He says and then mutters to himself, "Scary lady." "I heard that." "Hey, chill! Well, maybe to make you feel somewhat better I could give you my Christmas present a little early." "Sure, you can try and make a feeble attempt to make me feel better." Misty smirks. Brock rolls his eyes (can he do that?). "Come on Misty, cheer up!" Brock says as she sets her present down on the table. Misty snatches it and opens it carefully. She opens the box to find a locket in the shape of a Pikachu head. "Oh, wow, it's beautiful." "Go on, open the locket." Brock tells her. She opens it to find a picture of Ash, herself, and Brock at a kimono festival. "Oh wow, I remember this." She says with a smile, looking to the other photo. It was a picture of Ash and her dancing at the kimono festival. "We were so happy." She says happily to herself. "Do you like?" Brock asks with a grin. "Yeah, I love it! Thanks Brock!" She says, hugging him tightly. "Woah girl, you're gonna suffocate me!" Brock says with a laugh. "Now come on, eat your breakfast, it's already cold." "Ok, DAD!" "What did you call me?" "Nothing. I didn't call you anything." "You called me dad, didn't you?" "Um, maybe." Misty grins. "Come on, eat your breakfast." ************************************************************************ Ash and Duplica are in Ash's living room, thinking of how the day's events would go. "You don't suppose I could send her an email or something?" Ash asks. "Well, you don't have her email address." "Oh." Ash looks down sadly. "Well, I got it from Brock. It's minimisty1225@pokenet.clr (not a real email address, so you know). Now, what I think you should do is do something of the "secret admirer" sort. Be mysterious, first email her, then call her, then do something else. I don't know what we could do, though." "Well, I do know that Cerulean has a Christmas requests, where you can send in requests and during their parade they'll play them on TV." Ash suggests. "That's a great idea!" Duplica shrieks. "Alright, then what should I tell her?" Ash asks. They pause for a moment. "Here, tell her this." She whispers in his ear and he smiles again. He gets on his computer. "Alright, this is the first one then." He types for a few seconds, then hits enter. He looks over at Duplica and they both grin at each other. A/N- I hope this is much better than my original story. Please review people, I want peoples opinions on what is better!