Ash was not asleep.
He had been not asleep for approximately an hour and twenty minutes, which was long enough that he had stopped pretending otherwise, at least to himself. He was on his back with his hands folded on his chest and his eyes open and the ceiling offering him nothing useful, which was consistent with every other time he'd looked at it tonight.
Pikachu was at the foot of the bed. Also not asleep. Pointedly not asleep, in the way Pikachu did things when he wanted Ash to know he was choosing solidarity.
"You don't have to stay up," Ash said.
"Pika," Pikachu said. I know.
Through the wall, distantly, the sound of voices. He couldn't make out words. Just the rhythm — talking, then laughter, then talking again, the particular sound of a room full of people in the middle of something that mattered.
He reached for his phone.
Not intentionally. Force of habit — the hand moved before the thought did, the way it did when the day had been too full and the brain wanted something familiar.
The screen lit up.
Seventeen PokéCord notifications.
He stared at this for a moment. Then sat up, crossed his legs, and opened the app.
PokéCord was what happened when someone decided the Pokémon world needed its own version of every communication platform that had ever existed, combined them, and then added a feature where your Pokémon could have their own accounts. Pikachu's account — which Pikachu managed himself with an expression of complete seriousness — had more followers than Ash's. Ash had accepted this.
The notifications were from #general — ketchum-household. Green had created the server eight months ago with the stated purpose of household coordination and the actual purpose of being able to message everyone at once without physically finding them.
He scrolled up to where the chain had started.
PlatinumBeauty_Cynthia
Has anyone heard from Ash today? Feeling a distinct lack of Kanto chaos in the usual channels.
DragonHeart_Iris
same tbh. ash where are you
DragonHeart_Iris
WAIT
DragonHeart_Iris
CYNTHIA
DragonHeart_Iris
CYNTHIA HIS DAD
PlatinumBeauty_Cynthia
I saw.
PlatinumBeauty_Cynthia
Iris.
DragonHeart_Iris
I KNOW I KNOW I'm being calm
DragonHeart_Iris
I am being SO calm right now
PlatinumBeauty_Cynthia
You've sent four messages in three minutes.
DragonHeart_Iris
that's calm for me and you know it
Ash exhaled through his nose. Not quite a laugh. Close.
PlatinumBeauty_Cynthia
@Ash_Ketchum whenever you surface — no rush. Just checking in. The Garchomp says hello. (She doesn't. She's asleep. But she would if she were awake.)
DragonHeart_Iris
@Ash_Ketchum haxorus says hello and also wants to know if you're okay but mostly hello
DragonHeart_Iris
okay mostly wants to know if you're okay
DragonHeart_Iris
haxorus is worried. I'M not worried. I'm calm. haxorus is the worried one
PlatinumBeauty_Cynthia
Iris.
DragonHeart_Iris
okay fine I'm a little worried
Ash looked at the screen for a moment. Then typed.
Ash_Ketchum_Official
I'm here. Sorry, long day.
The response was immediate. Both of them — which meant they'd been online this whole time, waiting with the specific patience of people who were not going to push but were absolutely still there.
DragonHeart_Iris
ASH
PlatinumBeauty_Cynthia
There he is.
DragonHeart_Iris
okay are you okay. first. before anything else.
Ash_Ketchum_Official
Yeah. I'm okay. It was a lot.
PlatinumBeauty_Cynthia
I imagine it was.
DragonHeart_Iris
did he just. show up. like that. no warning.
Ash_Ketchum_Official
Knocked on the door at dinner.
DragonHeart_Iris
AT DINNER
DragonHeart_Iris
that's so
DragonHeart_Iris
that's SUCH a Red thing to do isn't it
Ash_Ketchum_Official
Yeah. Yeah it really was.
PlatinumBeauty_Cynthia
How was it. Actually. Not the summary version.
Ash looked at this for a moment.
The honest answer was complicated enough that it would take more words than he had right now, and some of those words he hadn't found yet, and some of what he'd felt when Red walked through the door was still sitting in the part of him that processed things slowly and wouldn't be done for a while.
He typed the version that was true without being all of it.
Ash_Ketchum_Official
Strange. In a good way I think. He doesn't talk much.
PlatinumBeauty_Cynthia
He never did. I met him once, at the Sinnoh invitational. Years ago. He was already the kind of quiet that made everyone in the room adjust around it.
Ash_Ketchum_Official
That's accurate.
DragonHeart_Iris
okay but ALSO there was someone else?? the server has been going insane about this
DragonHeart_Iris
who came with him ash
Ash_Ketchum_Official
Her name is Anabel.
The pause before Iris responded was four seconds, which for Iris was equivalent to a very long silence.
DragonHeart_Iris
...okay
DragonHeart_Iris
and she's
Ash_Ketchum_Official
My fiancée apparently.
DragonHeart_Iris
APPARENTLY???
PlatinumBeauty_Cynthia
Ash.
Ash_Ketchum_Official
It's confirmed. I just found out tonight along with everything else.
DragonHeart_Iris
okay I have so many questions starting with WHAT
PlatinumBeauty_Cynthia
What's she like.
Ash considered this.
What Anabel was like was something he'd been quietly working on since the moment she walked in behind his father, and he had more data than he'd had two hours ago and still less than he needed for a complete answer. She was precise. She perceived things sideways. She had made Delia laugh twice. She had passed Pikachu's assessment in twenty minutes, and Ash trusted those results implicitly.
Ash_Ketchum_Official
Quiet. Notices things. Pikachu approved her.
PlatinumBeauty_Cynthia
That's the most reliable endorsement you could have given.
DragonHeart_Iris
okay but what does SHE notice. like what kind of things
Ash_Ketchum_Official
Everything, I think. She's just quiet about it.
DragonHeart_Iris
...huh
DragonHeart_Iris
I don't know how I feel about that yet
PlatinumBeauty_Cynthia
That seems like a fair place to land for tonight.
Ash_Ketchum_Official
Yeah. That's kind of where I am too.
PlatinumBeauty_Cynthia
Are you actually okay. The real version.
He looked at the question for a moment.
Through the wall, faintly, a burst of laughter. May's, he thought. Then Dawn's underneath it. Then Misty saying something dry that set them both off again.
He thought about his father sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of tea, reading the room with those quiet certain eyes. The coat on the hook by the door that was new and somehow also looked like it had always been there.
He thought about the squashed Oran berry in a small box on Serena's shelf.
He thought about Anabel in borrowed pyjamas sitting in the middle of a room full of people who didn't know her yet, receiving everything with that complete unhurried attention.
Ash_Ketchum_Official
Yeah. I think so. It was a strange day. But the strange was mostly good.
PlatinumBeauty_Cynthia
Good. Get some sleep. Big days tend to need a night behind them before they make sense.
DragonHeart_Iris
also when you come to unova haxorus needs the practice and I'm not pretending otherwise
Ash_Ketchum_Official
When things settle down slightly.
DragonHeart_Iris
SLIGHTLY I'll take slightly
PlatinumBeauty_Cynthia
Goodnight Ash. ✨
DragonHeart_Iris
night!! 💪
PlatinumBeauty_Cynthia
Always.
DragonHeart_Iris
always
He set the phone down.
The room was the same room. The ceiling the same ceiling. But something in it had shifted — the difference between being alone with too many thoughts and being alone with enough of them.
Pikachu looked at him.
"Going to sleep," Ash said.
"Pika," Pikachu said, settling back down. Finally.
Ash closed his eyes.
Through the wall, more quietly now, the voices continued — lower, slower, the rhythm of a conversation winding toward its end. He listened to the shape of it without trying to hear the words.
He was asleep before it stopped.