Invisible by Marvech93

Chapter 17: Homecoming

Beware. There's a lot of feels in this one. And langue because of guess-who.

Chapter 17: Homecoming

Margaret walked out on her front porch like she did every morning, a comforting cup of coffee in hand, watching passively as Pallet Town slowly came to life. The lonely woman took a sip and her thoughts drifted from one thing to the other, though her only son was always in the back of her mind. She watched as the postman came by, waving at him as usual. A handful of people, all absorbed in their daily activities walked by. When Margaret finished her coffee, the sun was already perched high in the sky and she decided it was high time she did something with herself. Putting on a wide brim straw hat, she headed to the back of her house to tend to her garden.

The big colorful flowers attracted a whole lot of butterfree and the vegetables, a handul of ratattas. She shooed those away of course, but she didn't mind the butterfrees; they were basically helpers when it came to maintaining her garden.

As she got to work trimming and cleaning her impressive variety of plants, she noticed two very far away silhouettes headed towards the town from the didn't look like anything special; they were too far away to make out any details so Margaret paid them no more mind and continued working.

A couple minutes later, she noticed them again out of the corner of her eye. They had gotten closer. Though not so close she could distinguish their faces but for some reason, the two silhouettes caught her attention. One of tem in particular looked awfully familiar...

Margaret dropped what she was doing and actually walked towards the main path, her eyes glued on the walking figures. When she saw a red cap, her heart skipped a beat.

She finally recognized the first figure's tell-tale strawberry blonde hair as Blue, who was heading purposefully towards her and right beside him stood her missing son, his head low, but alive and well. Margaret's eyes locked with Blue's for a moment and the young gym leader stopped a few meters from the Papenbrook house, allowing the reunited mother and child their space. Red walked past his former rival and Margaret closed the distance between them, removing her hat.

Red slowly looked up at his mother from underneath his cap. His big brown eyes were filled with shame and regret. Margaret put both hands on his cheeks as if to reassure herself that he was not an illusion; that he was really, truly there after more than four years of disappearance. Four years of total silence from what used to be her small ten year old champion. Her precious little boy had grown up so much, he was actually taller than she was now, his scrawny, shapeless childish body slowly being replaced by the broader, stronger body of a man, though it still had ways to go. She was overjoyed to see him safe and sound at last; so much so that she decided to scold him for his years of silence later.

Margaret held her son tightly in her arms, holding back the tears of joy and she smiled broadly when she felt him slowly, hesitantly, return it. They remained suspended in time and Red's hold got stronger and stronger and his mother could feel all of his emotions; his unspoken apology for having abandoned her like her no-good ex-husband did so long ago.

"Don't ever do that again, you hear me?" she demanded from her son, holding both of his shoulders. Red, his head still hung low like a kicked growlithe's, nodded wordlessly.

When she let him go, she saw Blue, who had been watching from a distance with a subtle smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. Margaret turned to the gym leader, who looked like he was about to leave and approached him. The youngest Oak raised an eyebrow. Visibly, he hadn't expected to be included in the moment. Margaret laid both hands on his forearms and took him in a grateful embrace.

"Thank you so much for getting me my son back."

Red watched his former rival accept the hug, stiff as a board. His eyes were wide and darted nervously around and his arms remained glued to his sides like he didn't know how hugs worked. Red decided it was better to be amused at the sight of his arrogant and overconfident surprise helper blushing and looking all flustered.