All for You

Chapter 73

"Ughnn..." Ash slowly opened his eyes, taking in a well-illuminated room.

He slowly sat up and yawned. He was sore and stiff, but that made sense since the last thing he remembered was falling asleep on a hard tile floor.

What didn't make a lot of sense was the sling around his arm, since he didn't remember hurting that, but he figured he must have hurt it at some point without realising, maybe during Arceus' dragon pulse.

Pikachu was sleeping on the foot of the bed, and Ash gently moved the pokemon into his lap, petting his fur gently. He made sure he didn't jostle him; he certainly didn't want to wake Pikachu up and get zapped.

He looked around the room. It was actually pretty familiar-looking. Wait a minute... Am I in a pokemon center?

He looked at the other side of the room, where he saw a tall figure standing over something, his back facing Ash.

"Hello?" He asked the figure.

"Ash, you're awake!" The figure exclaimed, turning around.

"Brock?!?" The sleepy teen exclaimed in suprise. "What are you doing here?!"

"Well, for one, visiting you. And second, I'm training to be a pokmeon doctor, so I've been travelling all over to help Nurse Joys at pokemon centers everywhere, trying to learn how to treat as many pokemon as I can." He explained. He had happy stars in his eyes as he talked about pursuing his dream and spending time with Nurse Joy.

"Really? Cool!" Ash said, happy for his friend.

Then he realised something he said didn't make sense. "Wait, you're here visiting me? How did you know I was here? How long have I been asleep?" He asked.

Brock chuckled. "Ash, you've been asleep for 37 hours straight."

Ash quickly sat up in suprise before realising that wasn't a good idea."37 hours?!" He asked, rubbing his now-hurting shoulder.

Brock chuckled again.

"Yep, 37 hours. You were probably the easiest patient I've ever had. But besides exhaustion, I had to treat you for burns on you hands and torso, and a slight fracture of your collarbone, presumably from when you collapsed, so make sure to take it easy, alright?"

"Okay." Ash, taking it easy. Yeah right.

But he did wonder; he broke his collarbone from...colapsing?

Sure, he might have colapsed on his shoulder, but that had never hurt him before.

He realised with a (slightly painful) jolt that his aura must have stopped him from getting seriously injured as well.

That actually cleared up some other questions, like how he had managed to land unharmed from jumping off high places, how he did so many dangerous things without getting hurt, or how he shook off Arceus' dragon pulse like it was nothing, even though it was clearly bad enough to leave burns.

"How's Serena? And Lucario?" He asked, looking around the back of the pokemon center to see if there were any pokeballs contaning his friend.

"Serena wasn't injured, and Lucario's fine. He and your other pokemon are with Gary so they didn't have to sit in the center all day while you were out.

"But I think the more important question is, who's Serena to you? She's been beside your bed for fourteen hours over the last two days, even though you were just asleep." He noted

Ash smiled and blushed, thinking about the last thing he'd done before falling back asleep.

"I guess I kinda figured out what you meant about love, Brock." He said, rubbing the back of his head with his non-beslinged arm.