While You Were Sleeping (An Amourshipping Story)

Chapter 14

As soon as she entered the apartment with Fennekin, Serena walked to the bedroom to plop onto her bed front first and covered her head with her pillow. With her blanket covering her mouth, she cried, letting out how she lost the family she grew to love and who loved her back, how she hurt them by letting the facade go on as long as she did, but most all, she wept over how she lost Ash.

She looked back on the time she spent with him and thought of ways she could have told him earlier. Her first thought was telling him when they were first in Calem's apartment instead of relying so much on luck. Her second idea was telling him when he came to her apartment to apologize or share her secret when he confessed to being a Pokemon trainer. Maybe when Sonia told Serena that she found out and that she shouldn't tell the family anything, Serena would have requested that Sonia at least helped her tell Ash. Better yet, she should have told the family straight out when she had the chance the day Calem fell, and they would invite her to Christmas anyway for saving his life, and she would have Ash that way. Anything that would have kept him from finding out right as she was about to marry his brother.

But she didn't do any of those things. She played along to the very end. She let her desires for a family and a man offering everything she ever wanted to get the better of her, and she paid the price for it. She accepted that she will never see Ash, or Delia, or Mimey, Dawn, Piplup, Grandpa Ramos, or Sonia ever again. There's nothing left but her everyday life with Fennekin and her job as a token fare conductor. She had her week and a half of happiness, but now it was time to face reality.

Fennekin hopped onto the bed and walked over to lick Serena's hand. Serena lifted her pillow from her face to look at her Pokemon, her eyes pink from crying. The fox Pokemon walked over to sit beside her, cuddled up in a ball. Serena half-smiled and pulled Fennekin closer to her for a hug.

The honey blonde woman and her Pokemon continued to lie down on the bed for a few hours, eventually falling asleep. When Serena woke up, it was late in the afternoon, and she felt hungry.

"That's right. We didn't get a chance to eat before we left," she thought.

Serena got up and changed from her wedding dress to a pink sweater and gray sweatpants. She went into the kitchen and heated up some leftovers. She poured a bowl of Pokemon food before eating just in time for Fennekin to come in, having woken up. After two of them ate together, with Fennekin sitting on the table while eating its food, Serena sat back on her chair and furrowed her brow, thinking about what to do next.

"Hey, Fennekin, why don't we take down our Christmas tree?" She suggested. "No sense in keeping it up when Christmas is over, and we have nothing else to do."

"Fennekin," Fennekin answered.

Serena put the dishes in the sink, and together, she and her Pokemon began taking down the Christmas tree decorations. For the next twenty minutes, they worked together to take down the ornaments and lights and put them back in their boxes. When they were half done, there was a knock on the front door. For a brief moment, Serena dared to hope that Ash or all of the Ketchums were on the other side as she walked down, but her hopes were quickly dashed when she found Tierno instead. The heavy-set man was giving her a nervous smile while scratching the back of his head.

"What do you want, Tierno?" Serena asked, uninterested in seeing him.

Tierno turned his head away for a moment, thinking of what to say before he looked back at Serena.

"Look, uh, my old man found out from someone near the hospital, and, well, I'm sorry that it didn't work out with that guy," he said. "I imagine right now that you're upset and you want some comfort from all of the pain, and..." he snapped his fingers a few times. "Don't go off eating cookie dough and whip cream, and blowing up like my Uncle Robert while watching corny romance movies or something like that, cause you deserve better. Okay?"