The Bucket List

The Love Letter

"What man art thou that thus bescreen'd in night, so stumblest on my counsel?" May read from the stack of papers in front of her.

"By a name I know not how to tell thee who I am: My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself, because-"

"Okay stop! Just stop," Daisy yelled over the group of people seated at the square table. "That was terrible. It needs more passion! Like, this is the most famous scene. If we screw this up, it's going to be terrible!"

"But it's Misty," Ash argued from beside her. "She won't care."

"Well, I care," Daisy snapped. "My directing career is on the line, so this better be good."

Ash rolled his eyes. He pictured Misty doing the exact same thing, but the image fell short of the actual thing. Daisy was better at theatrics than she was at directing.

"I didn't come all the way from Hoenn to be yelled at," May argued back. "I'm trying to do a nice thing here."

Upon returning from visiting Misty after her surgery, Ash had called up May, Max, and Dawn to ask them for their help. If he was going to pull off some of the items on Misty's bucket list, he was going to need all the help he could get. Before he could explain his whole plan, May had all but hoped on a plane to Cerulean, dragging her poor travel companion with her and saying she would call Dawn. Max had been a little harder to get a hold of, but once Ash did, Max was more than happy to come to Cerulean. In fact, he'd been planning on it, but he wanted to let Misty heal from her surgery first.

"Let's start at the top of the page. May, remember, this is the first time you're seeing the person you love. Gary, you and I both know you're better than that."

"Just pretend it's Drew," Dawn whispered in May's ear. "Ouch!" Dawn winced in pain, holding her side where May elbowed her.

"She's really bossy," Ash mumbled.

OoO

As he slowly opened his eyes, Ash looked around to see that the table was empty. Beside him stood Layla with a smirk on her face. "Hi there sleepy head. Have a nice nap?"

"Yeah, but where is everyone?"

Layla shrugged. "They all left to do their own thing,"

"Oh. Are we done?"

"Well, at least for today," Layla explained. "I didn't realize Misty's sister was so...intense."

Ash laughed as he nodded. Layla may have called it intensity, but Daisy would argue it was passion. Since he'd first met her, Ash knew that Daisy took her director role very seriously.

"So what would you like to do?" Layla asked.

Ash jerked his head upward, the perfect idea coming to him. "Want to help me with one of the bucket list items?"

"Sure, I'd love to."

"Awesome! Come with me!"

OoO

Layla stared at Ash, amazed, and slightly uncertain at what she was seeing. "Since when do you play the guitar?"

"I don't," Ash smirked as he used his thumb to strum the chords. Although the sound that emanated from the guitar wasn't a bad one, it wasn't musical either. "I borrowed it from Brock. I figured it's not too difficult to learn a few chords, though, right?

Layla shook her head. Sure, maybe he could learn a couple of basic chords, but she had a feeling he had no idea what he'd gotten himself into. One of her older brothers had learned to play the guitar and she remembered the blistered and swollen fingers that had calloused over time.