Eh… tired

Chemistry and Biology midterms coming up. Aiyah… oh well. The muses and plotbunnies shall not be denied!

Disclaimer: Pokemon belongs to Nintendo and Shogakukan Comics. This non-profit, non-copyright infringing fanfiction belongs to me under international copyright laws and taking it is plagiarism. Thank you. *Phantomness bows*

Notes: <> for telepathy, ** for thoughts, italics if a pokemon talks

Timeline: Kanto League, Pre-end of Indigo Season

Title: For those left behind

Pairing: Championshipping (Lance x Ash)

Chapter 1

In a typical fairy tale, boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, girl rejects boy and they have huge argument, yet in the end boy comes back to save girl’s life and they live happily ever after. Usually, the boy manages to save the world or something equally impressive, even if he’s suffering from amnesia or in severe depression and ready to slit his wrists before the girl steps in. Then, boy and girl live happily ever after, of course.

But what happens to those left behind?

The tears had dried on his cheeks by the time he tripped over a convenient cliff and landed in the icy flow below. The water was so cold that it jolted all thoughts but survival from his mind. It made sense, in any case…

Biting chill at last forced him to succumb into death’s embrace, or at least he assumed. Pity his life was not so easily snuffed out.

He lost consciousness and drowned.

Lance sighed as he fished the drenched and barely breathing teen out of the lake. “Crazy neighbor’s kids…”

Wait a second…. This did not look like one of the Browns. The family of eight children lived several miles away from his dragon preserve, but they were still annoying. They kept sneaking through his family’s land and trying to catch the wild pokemon that were supposed to live there undisturbed.

This one didn’t have their white-blonde hair…

Interesting.

He searched the wanderer then, found a backpack filled with poke balls and pokemon items and some canned food, plus a few changes of clothing…

No. Something was wrong.

There was no pokedex. That might not have been so odd, but there were no poke balls either. No pokemon…

That was not correct.

Even the weakest child should have a pokemon to protect him, or a few…

So perhaps he was a wandering trainer that had just started? Except here near the hidden valley, there were no professors to give out their starter pokemon and pokedexes, and from his clothing sate, he had been traveling for a few months at least…

How confusing.

Lance shrugged as he dried the boy off, put him in clean, if oversized red pajamas, tucked him into bed, and fed him chamomile and mint tea to ward off a chill.

He watched as the boy awoke and when he asked the first question and saw confusion in those brown orbs, he knew the truth.

The child had no memory.

Sometimes, there is something known as equivalent exchange... if you want to forget you fear, that is all well and good, but then that’s selective amnesia and hardly a choice to make with consequences. Therefore, we have total amnesia so you forget the joy and the pain.

It is not fair to remember only one or the other after all…

Ash didn’t know where he was when he woke up. He wasn’t sure of whom he was, either. He was warm, and wearing red flannel pajamas too big for him and he was thirsty. When the boy with the long red hair gave him warm milk and sugar cookies, he ate them without question.

It was a sort of strange equivocal trust that only children possess. And wasn’t it odd, that childlike innocence can persist even when there are no memories to support it?

But then there are no harsh lessons to reinforce the loss of innocence either…

“What’s your name?” The strange boy asked. At least Ash thought he was a boy since he wasn’t wearing a skirt, but he had long hair almost to his waist and gold eyes. Gold like the sun…

“I don’t remember.” He couldn’t remember. When he tried to reach for memories all he saw was gray, gray mist…

At least it didn’t hurt.

Lance frowned, but shook his head. “I’m Lance.”

“Lance?”

“Yes. I’m a pokemon trainer. I think you are too.”

This Ash remembered. He remembered pokemon, he remembered watching them on T.V., and playing with stuffed dolls of pokemon, somewhere, and maybe even seeing real pokemon once or twice, no, all the time, there were some pokemon kept as pets around his home…

Wait… that was confusing! How could he remember home?

There was a wrenching sensation in his head.

Apparently a memory or two had escaped. That would not do at all.

Ash was suddenly faced with more blankness. “I can’t remember… but I do know what pokemon are.” However, this was purely academic knowledge. He could recite several entries on the pokedex, seemingly at random…

Lance shook his head. “Well, we’ll have to give you a name at least.”

“A name…”

“Names are important things. Saying a word often gives it power. For example, if you tell a pokemon to attack, it will attack. So the attack names are important.”

Ash nodded. “I… I remember something.’

“You do?”

“Red.”

“Red? You want your name to be Red?”

Ash – now Red, nodded.

“Very well. Red it is…”

“Did you save me?”

“You were drowning, yes. I pulled you out of the river.”

“Thank you very much!”

“It is nothing.”

“But… thank you anyways.”

“I found these on you.” Lance handed over the backpack. Red looked through the items – a few pairs of jeans and underwear, a black t-shirt, a stuffed Jigglypuff doll, two potions and a full heal, and three empty poke balls, mixed in with a cup ramen and a bottle of lemonade, half empty.

“Do you think… that it could be...?”

“I think you were a pokemon trainer.”

That made sense. Almost everyone on Indigo worked with pokemon. Wait! How had he known that?

Everything was very confusing.

“I…”

“Do you have anywhere to go?” Lance suddenly asked.

Red shook his head.

“You know, I could contact the local authorities and send someone out to look for you, try and contact your relatives…”

“No!” Red suddenly said. “Don’t send me back there!”

“Back where?”

“Back there! I will not go back! I won’t! I’ll die first!”

Lance blinked. Now that was an odd reaction.

Red thought so too, for a second later, he seemed to calm down and stare at himself in extreme bewilderment.

“What just happened?”

“I was hoping you could enlighten me. It seems you have a rather unique aversion to society.” Well, not so unique, since Lance also suffered its effects, but even so…

Red shook his head vehemently. “I can’t. It’s just a feeling.”

Frigid sunlight eyes studied the flushed countenance thoughtfully. “A mere sensation could not cause such distress in a child…”

“I felt like I was being crushed underneath a mountain when you mentioned going back to find people..”

Bizarre and perplexing, such a mystery would require diligence and time to unravel. But Lance loved a good challenge, and surely, this boy could not be a wanted criminal…

Perhaps he had been an abused child?

There were several cliffs leading to the river a few miles away. Perhaps this boy had been murdered – perhaps his family had been murdered, perhaps Team Rocket was after him, perhaps some large company, perhaps a rival, oh the possibilities, really, how could one know?

The only person with the answers was not speaking his mind and had lost his memories. Of this, Lance was fairly certain. Even an accomplished actor would have difficulty managing the facial expressions and rapid switch between states of mind.

“All right, I guess you can stay with me….”

A hug was his reward and Lance sighed inwardly. What had he gotten himself into?

End Chapter

Completed 9/29/05

Red/Ash: Amnesia! Fic again?

Phantomness: I like it

Lance: I have a bad feeling about this