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She’s been marking off each day on the calendar with a rising dread. It’s - been okay. She’s been managing. She wakes up, she pushes through her nausea, and she runs Pallet House from open until close, just as she has every day since she was ten years old. And now that Mom’s gone, she was going to…she was going to sell the restaurant. It could’ve been great.
It doesn’t matter now, though. She’s here, and she’s - happy, maybe, or something like that.
But now it’s today, and she’s closing for the evening, and she’s all alone and wishing, more than anything, that she never even met the fucking asshole that abandoned her here.
It was supposed to be a team effort. They were supposed to be a team. They were supposed to go on a journey together.
The door opens, the bell jingling, and she says “We’re closed!”
“Oh, Delia, even for your favorite neighbor?” Sam says, and she looks up, her mood instantly lifting. “Sam!” she says, a smile growing on her face. “What are you doing here?”
He holds up a box and smiles. He walks closer and sets it on a table near her. He lifts up the top, revealing a cake. “Happy birthday, Delia,” he says, fondness softening his features.
She purses her lips, trying to tamp down the immediate surge of sadness. “Oh,” she manages to say. “Sam, you shouldn’t have.”
“But I did,” he responds. “Come on, Delia. You’ve been working all day. Won’t you indulge an old man?”
She smiles. “You’re not old. You’re the same age my dad probably is, somewhere.”
“Exactly. I’m ancient,” he says, and she can’t stop the laugh that bubbles out of her. Sam gains a more somber look. “Just put down the broom for a moment? I promise I didn’t poison it.”
“You made this yourself?” she asks, the sadness once more weighing heavily on her chest. She has to take a breath as she sets the broom aside and slides into the booth next to him. He cuts and serves her a piece, placing a candle in. “I considered bringing nineteen candles,” he says, “but I thought you might not appreciate the risk of a fire breaking out, so there’s just the one. I hope you don’t mind.”
It’s not that she - minds; in fact, the gesture is incredibly kind. It’s just - it’s too much, now, after everything. But she breathes through it for his sake, and maybe for hers, too.
“I’ll skip the song,” Sam jokes, and she laughs. He lights the candle, and she clenches her hands under the table.
It’s just that, this year’s so much different than last year, and the force of it is overwhelming. She’s never been a huge fan of birthdays, but she always enjoyed them. But last year was her eighteenth birthday, and she was still running Pallet House with Mom. Last year was her eighteenth birthday, and she hadn’t even met the asshole that ruined her life, the dreamy-eyed pokemon trainer who swept her off her feet and promised her the journey of a lifetime, just the two of them, catching pokemon and battling and becoming champions; the asshole who married her and then left her pregnant, fleeing at the first mention of it, not even sending a postcard letting her know where he is.
And now she’s turning nineteen and her house is empty: no Mom, no husband (gods, did she really marry him?). She’s alone except for what’s growing inside of her, and she’s really fucking terrified.
She takes a breath, and she blows out the candle. She doesn’t make a wish.
Sam hands her a fork and she carefully carves a bite out of it, bringing it to her lips. She closes her eyes and lets the flavor spread over her tongue, trying to let this be good. Be good.
“You know,” Sam starts, and she immediately knows she won’t like what’s coming next. “Nineteen isn’t…Delia, you have your whole life ahead of you.”
She squeezes her eyes even tighter. Her throat is dry. “Sam, don’t. Please.”
She doesn’t even realize that she’s curled her arms around her middle.
She really hates the life inside of her. She hates it. She hates it with every part of her. She hates her stupid husband and she hates his stupid baby and she hates her stupid mom for dying and leaving her lonely, perfect for a man to enter the picture so she can throw her love at him.
She hates herself most of all.
Happy birthday, Delia.
“I know it feels like it’s the end of the world, but I promise it isn’t. It isn’t.”
Gods, she hates Sam too, right now. She hates herself even more for thinking that. This is too much. She doesn’t care whether he’s right or wrong. She just can’t.
She stands up. “Sam!”
He stops talking, looking up at her. Gods, he looks like Mom, worried about her whenever she’d wander off in the woods to help a stray pokemon.
Delia wonders whether the baby will be more like her or more like her asshole of a husband.
The thought, a physical weight, drags her back down into her seat. “Sorry,” she says. “I just…it’s too much right now.”
He smiles, ever patient. He’s not even offended, and that just makes it worse.
She loves Sam, really. He’s unique; he’s been here the whole time for her, and yet never once has she seen pity. Just this quiet understanding and support. He was the one she ran to when it happened, when she got a positive on the test and her husband fled in response, packing his bags and gone within the hour, barely even a goodbye. He was the one who helped her pick up the pieces of herself. He was the one that ran Pallet House for a few days while she sat in the back, reading books about parenting and pregnancy and trying not to fall apart.
“You’re going to be a wonderful mother,” he says. “And he’s going to be just like you.”
She smiles, a fragile thing. “He? You think it’ll be a boy?”
Sam smiles, a twinkle in his eye. “I’ll bet my life on it.”
She laughs, feeling lighter. “And he’s going to be just like me?”
“Just like you.”
She breathes in, and she breathes out.
Happy nineteenth birthday, Delia.
--
Five months later, she laughs in his face. “So much for it being a boy, huh, Samuel?”
He’s the only other person in the hospital room with her. She wants to feel sad, and lonely. She wants to miss her mom. She wants to be angry at her husband. But, honestly, there’s no one else she’d rather have by her side than Sam.
He’s got that twinkle in his eyes. “Just you wait, Delia,” he says, that knowing smile once again on his face. She accuses him of being a sore loser, but in the back of her mind, she wonders.
She wonders.
--
Six years later, he walks into Pallet House once more after closing. “Well,” he says, a twinkle in his eye. “I do believe some congratulations are in order.”
She looks at him, and sets her broom aside. She pulls out the cake she made earlier today and serves him a slice, rolling her eyes at his shit-eating grin. “I just don’t get it,” she says, once they’re both sitting down in the same booth they shared six and a half years ago. “How’d you know?”
“An old man has his secrets,” he says, frustratingly opaque. She swats him on the arm. “You’re not old,” she chastises. “Besides, what does that even mean?”
He just laughs. He finishes his slice, and then he stands up. “Do keep your son away from any celebi until he’s a little older,” he advises, patting her on the shoulder.
“What?” Delia asks, alarmed, but he’s already out the door, the bell announcing his exit.
She’s left alone, watching him out the window, when a six-year-old runs in, hugging her legs. She’s still watching Sam’s back as she picks him up, placing him on the seat. She doesn’t even admonish him as he starts to eat the cake, digging into the whole thing with his hands.
--
Four years later, she watches her son leave on the journey she’s always dreamed of, an untamed Pikachu in tow. She doesn’t understand why, but she trusts Samuel. She knows it was purposeful he got the Pikachu. She knows Sam knew that Ash would sleep in late.
She knows, and she watches him leave, until she’s alone in her mother’s old house once again.
--
It’s nine years later when her son, a Champion, the winner of the World Coronation, comes home, Pikachu in tow once again, and takes her on a journey of her very own, one that rivals what her asshole husband once promised her they would do together.
Ash is better than his father ever was, and she’s starting to realize that maybe it’s because of her.