Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He’d really, really been hoping not to have to step back inside a hospital so soon.

Like everything in Seafolk Village, the town’s Pokecenter was relatively small. There was hardly enough room for a vendor section in here, let alone medical backrooms anywhere near capable of treating human injuries or illness, but sure enough if you looked out the back you could find another set of boats on the water just for that very purpose. The largest of the lot was painted an alabaster white, shining like the reflection of the moon on the water regardless of whether it was day or night, but as the wooden floorboards creaked and rattled under his feet there wasn’t much room in his mind to appreciate the artistry of it all. Nanu had a job to do, after all. 

Hopefully, it’d be the last.

(And he remembered the screaming, the roaring, the sound of that poor girl’s bones snapping under the crushing claws of the monster that loomed high above their heads. They’d tried to save her, they really had. After realizing his horrific mistake, his fellow agent had tried to divert the beast’s attention long enough for them to escape—his Croagunk chittering anxiously from the cave wall, slinging mud bombs and flighty taunts in an attempt to stop the monster’s unrelenting assault. Even if it had worked, it wouldn’t have mattered. By the time they’d all regrouped in Seafolk Village, covered in blood and dirt and the devastating weight of their failure, they knew it was already too late. She died in the hospital hardly an hour later, with not a soul in the world—or even their universe—who knew her well enough to say one mournful word about it.)

(Nanu couldn’t provide the next best thing, either. He’d spent the rest of that day screaming himself hoarse over the phone, to his superiors, and to that stupid fucking rookie agent who’d gotten her killed in the first place. Bait, he’d called her. You would rather let that woman die than admit you didn’t really know how to help her, to help any of them. I saw it target her, I know it’s not just a coincidence, and you- Let her walk in there with nothing-)

(Two days and two hundred grievances later, they found a woman washed up on the beach, her memory gone and clothing tattered. He wouldn’t call himself a particularly superstitious man, but there really weren’t any more damning signs than that.)

Nanu gave the door in front of him a cursory little knock before letting himself in. Over the past couple days they’d grown used to this sort of routine—every so often one of them would pop in to talk to her, in an attempt to seem nonchalant instead of overwhelming or interrogating. Ask her how she was doing, if she could remember anything yet. Keep the demeanor calm and encouraging—reassure them if they panic, and never insinuate that anything they lost can’t be brought back. They’ll have to trust us in order for us to help them. They’ll grow to understand in time.

The script had been burned into the back of Nanu’s mind for years, from that very first faller to picking up case files about a beast in Alola a couple weeks ago, but he couldn’t remember the last time he’d really believed it. Maybe he’d never had. And even if he did…

Well, the years had been long. He could hardly call himself the man he’d used to be.

When he first opened the door, Anabel was already up out of bed and gazing through the window. She’d been getting steadily better over the past few days—from barely being able to walk when they’d picked her off the beach to now, standing tall and proud and only slightly leaning on the windowsill for support. It took her a moment to realize he was there—the ocean was catching the light of the sun, and Nanu could hear Wingull cawing somewhere beyond the sea—but when she did, a bright smile quickly flashed over her face. “Mr. Nanu!” The friendly wave she tried to give him was awkward and stilted, in that way that signified it was something her body remembered and not her mind, but for every bit of discomfort that showed in the way she stood she had a brighter expression on her face to make up for it. When she automatically stuck out a hand to shake, Nanu was already waiting to take it. “I was hoping you’d be back today. I finished the magazines you left for me, and I’m already halfway through that Alola region travel guide,” The look of genuine confidence on her face, already faint, suddenly began to fade. “But, uh- Not a lot of progress in the memory department, hah, nothing’s really clicked yet-”

“Easy, Anabel, easy,” Despite it all, Nanu felt a smile prickling at his face that he could only hope didn’t look offputtingly smug. “I didn’t even start asking anything yet. Not that I would’ve tried it, anyway. I’ve been nothing but busy, and it’s not like I’m gonna put more on my plate,” He barked a laugh that sounded more like a Lycanroc’s growl than a noise from a real human being. “I won’t be in too long anyway. They still treating you alright in here?”

Anabel shrugged, but the lingering tension in her body had visibly eased the moment he’d started reassuring her. “I still think it’s all a bit of an overreaction. I’m fine, really. I just needed a minute to- Lie down, y’know?” As if to prove her point, she took a couple energetic steps to the side with what even Nanu could recognize as practiced perfection. “Seriously, do you hear the sound of those waves outside? I feel like it’s worse for me that I’m stuck in here when there’s such a beautiful kind of day to be enjoyed out there.”

It wasn’t, and it wouldn’t be. No matter how hard she tried to hide it, Nanu could still see the lingering tremors and gaunt appearance that marred her tired frame. It had been so much worse on the day they’d found her—when the nurse had run all those tests and come back with results that screamed malnutrition, dehydration, and exposure damage that looked more like hypothermia than something you’d get from a casual walk on the beach. There was never any doubt that she would recover—both in a medical sense and the resolute way Nanu had tried to assure himself he would not see another person die that day—and yet… There had been something eerie and off about her the first time he’d reached for her wrist (in a supernatural sense, obviously—any uncertainties he’d had about her as a person were quickly clarified when she was able to get up and tell him herself), looking for a pulse in a way he could only hope didn’t look overwhelmingly panicked. She’d been so cold, and the shock of it had him recoiling at the touch, a spark of something in the air that hadn’t gone away until she’d finally started coughing up seawater on her own. Something wrong. Something so auspiciously out of place it felt almost otherworldly.

By the time she started speaking, a vacant and lost little whisper that rattled nearly beyond recognition, it didn’t take very long for them to figure out what that something was.

Instead of saying any of that, however, Nanu responded with a cursory shake of his head and bemused shrug. “Can’t help you there, kid,” Anabel wasn’t that young, per se—Nanu’s original guess had been early 20’s—and although he’d been basically right it had always been hard to disassociate that bright gleam in her eye with anything other than the youthful fervor he saw in the newest of their agents before the rough side of the job started catching up to them. “Got something else for you, though. You feel up for a couple visitors?” And then, finally, he got to place his hands inside the bag held snugly against his side and pull out the entire reason he was here at all—two ultra balls, both a little scuffed from years of use, their identification stickers peeling at the edges and coated in dust. It had been a pain in the ass to transport them all the way from Hoenn, and he’d had to pull the Interpol card more than once just to make it possible, but it had been worth it. Nanu held them out expectantly and waited for Anabel’s response.

She reached for them automatically, more out of instinct than anything else—Nanu hadn’t been able to help his skepticism upon hearing her say that one of the only things she could concretely remember was being a serious, powerful trainer—but there was a confidence in the way she held those pokeballs that reminded him of the competitive fire he’d used to have so long ago. Anabel turned them over quietly to stare at the label, the logo of the old Hoenn Battle Tower stuck immaculately on their sides. Almost unconsciously, she started to lean back against the hospital bed she’d been staying in for the past couple days. And then, finally—when whatever test she’d been trying to perform in her mind had concluded, her expression just as uncertain and wary as ever—she pressed the release button on them both, and in the blink of an eye-

The boat they were standing inside of rocked treacherously as two towering creatures materialized into the room. The Snorlax blinked sleepily while they all struggled to stay on their feet, and the Alakazam’s whiskers twitched in confusion upon being suddenly subjected to the light. There was a moment of confusion from the both of them—in hindsight it might’ve been a better idea to test this idea out first, but Nanu could barely talk with people sometimes as it was—up until their eyes cleared enough to recognize the person standing in front of them, tired and battered but alive, and with a joyous shout-

“Hey- Hey! What are you-” The laughter had been in her voice from the start, if not slightly overshadowed by accompanying shock and surprise, but it was clear that regardless of how nice it must’ve been to see someone other than Nanu’s wretched old self for a change being pulled into a crushing hug by a Snorlax was just a little too much to handle. The giant creature gave a soft, toothy smile as he wrapped one massive paw around her back, completely ignoring her attempts to get free. “Let me go! Mr. Nanu, if this is your idea of a joke, I swear I’m gonna-”

Lucky for him, he didn’t have to lift a finger. After the Snorlax had had his moment, gleefully holding Anabel close like a child would do with a stuffed toy, the Alakazam gently reached out with a hum of psychic energy to get him to release her. The moment she was back on the ground, they were face to face—Anabel blinking in visible confusion, the Alakazam staring deeply and plaintively into her eyes like it would convey the weight of this reunion and all that it meant. The moment his ears drooped and whiskers started to tremble was the first bad sign of many. He circled her once, claws tapping on the wooden floor, brushing the fabric of her borrowed clothing and letting out a sad little whine that seemed so unbecoming of a creature as stuffy as this that it made even Nanu uneasy. Something was wrong.

Anabel, her expression equal parts worry and bewilderment, finally sprung into action when the Alakazam started to whimper again. “Woah, what’s wrong?” She reached forward almost automatically to brush the silky tufts of fur adorning the creature’s cheek, and although the gesture was clearly familiar to him he seemed to take little comfort in it. “Why the long face, big guy? I know I’m a little worse for wear right now, but- It’s not that bad, is it?” She managed a soft chuckle that didn’t fully meet her eyes. It took her a moment to rip her gaze away long enough from the Alakazam’s near-mournful expression to look back at where Nanu was standing. “Mr. Nanu- Where did you find these two? They’re awfully sweet, but- I’m doing fine in here, really, you didn’t have to bring a couple pokemon to cheer me up-”

“They’re yours,” Nanu had to make himself say it before he couldn’t anymore, the last of his smile fading to a soft and somber frown. He’d tried so, so hard to push this possibility out of his head, to imagine a situation where this was able to work just once. “They’re yours, Anabel.”

For a minute, she froze. Her breath caught in her throat, rough and haggard, and her hand stilled where she had been absently brushing the Alakazam’s— her Alakazam’s—fur. “Oh,” Anabel’s voice was wavering, something deep and dark and shameful flickering across her face. “Oh, I…”

It had already happened a couple times before, so it wasn’t as much of a harrowing surprise as it could have been, but it stung nonetheless when Anabel suddenly winced in pain and brought a hand to her head. Like the ceiling had come crashing down on her, she struggled to stay standing—and eventually, before she actually had the chance to fall, her Alakazam frantically herded her back to the bed in time for her to sit down. For a moment she just sat there, trembling, eyes screwed shut against a pain neither of them could see. There was a time when Nanu would have rushed to her, would’ve talked her through it and helped her stand, but now…

Now, the only thing he could do was wait.

It took a while for the episode to fully pass. The first time it had happened it had gone on for nearly ten minutes, the pain of remembering too difficult for her to bear, and had left them all standing awkwardly around her while she clearly wished they were just about anywhere else. Eventually he tried to step forward, even if it was just to lean against the end of the bed with as much gentle patience as he could muster, but a short growl from her Snorlax had him lingering hesitantly in the middle of the room instead. By the time she was able to lift her head again, Nanu had counted to around three and a half minutes—which should have been an improvement, but the look of quiet discomfort on her face had him wisely (for once) deciding to stay silent. It took longer—a lot longer—for her to gather the courage to speak.

“Um,” Anabel’s voice was a whisper, strained with the effort it took to keep herself from cracking over how much she wanted to pretend this had never happened. Her Alakazam had come to sit next to her, furry snout pressed into her shoulder and ears twitching worriedly. Nanu wondered if she’d even noticed. “Um, I- How did you-”

“I reached out to some people I knew in Hoenn. These were the two they’d let me take,” It wasn’t a lie—not entirely, just a simplification of the truth. Nanu couldn’t justify making it any more complicated for her right now. “I should have asked you first. I’m sorry.” He didn’t apologize often, and the times he’d done it sincerely were even fewer. The words felt heavy on his tongue as he said them. “This isn’t your fault.”

“I know that,” Anabel snapped, in a tone of voice that had both of them flinching in surprise. She was too shaken right now to hide the look of guilt that flickered over her face. “It’s just… Kind of a lot, right now. I’m glad you brought them here, really, but-” He watched as she glanced to and from everyone in the room—to her Snorlax, still standing guard, to her Alakazam, glued to her side in worry, and back to Nanu himself. When she opened her mouth to speak again, they all winced at the fragile break in her voice that she obviously had never wanted any of them to hear. “I- I don’t-”

Years ago, Nanu would have rushed to her side. Years ago, he would have placed a hand on her shoulder, calm and comforting, and said That’s alright. That’s normal. Nobody’s expecting you to get it all back in a day. This is on me, alright? Everything’s gonna be just fine. Years ago, he might have even believed it—that she would get better someday, that she could go back to the life she couldn’t even remember losing, that this could all fade into a bad memory to look back on during cold and rainy and regretful days. Instead, Nanu sat at the edge of the bed and averted his gaze the moment those scared, frustrated tears started to well up in Anabel’s eyes. He listened to the sound of her pokemon’s worried whimpers, and he looked away.

There was a fundamental difference about the Nanu now and the Nanu he’d used to be. The Nanu then hadn’t watched the people he worked for use a woman who’d lost everything like a worm on a hook, fishing for a threat she never could’ve prepared for. The Nanu now would never, ever have lied about it.

But he wouldn’t have told the truth, either.

He waited for her to wipe the tears away, for her to get to a point where she could say something back to him without her voice breaking. He waited a little longer than he could have, really—it wasn’t exactly easy to read her expression when he wasn’t even looking at her—but he hadn’t lived this long without learning how to read a room. Finally, when the sniffles had faded and she seemed at least somewhat composed, Nanu glanced over to meet her eyes. “I… Shouldn’t have put this on you so soon.”

Anabel shook her head sharply, like she was still trying to get rid of the lingering blurriness haunting her vision. “No, it’s fine. It’s fine,” They were both quiet for a moment, the weight of the lie settling between them. “Honestly, I- I was starting to get a little lonely in here by myself. Don’t tell your friend I said that, though, he’s such a worrier,” She managed a quiet chuckle, and Nanu could feel his expression souring at even the mention of his fellow agent. “I think the only reason he doesn’t stay here full-time is because I told him not to. It’s kind of funny,” She laughed again, but this time it was a little weaker. At this point, her Alakazam was actively nudging her shoulder with his snout to keep her upright—she was clearly exhausted, but fighting it hard enough to put on a brave face through it all. She was a tough kid. She’d be fine.

She’d be fine.

That’s all he’d needed to hear.

“My lips are sealed,” Despite how incredibly dry and weary Nanu’s voice was, he still managed to get one last laugh out of her. He stood up and stretched, the empty bag clanging against his side. “I’ll leave you be, now. Seems like you’ve got a lot of catching up to do,” He gestured broadly to the scene in front of him—Anabel, her Snorlax looming over her like a watchful guardian, and her Alakazam glued to her side like he was afraid she’d disappear at any moment—and tried not to wince when a flicker of guilt raced through her expression. “Take care, Anabel. You’ll be alright.”

Distantly, as he turned to leave, he could hear Anabel calling out to him one last time. He was out the door before he could listen to the rest.

There was a moment as he stood in that little hallway, exhaustion weighing down on his body, that everything was silent. There was a moment where, for the very first time, he seriously imagined himself never returning to that room at all—or to work, or to his office, or to just about anyone he knew at all. Throwing in the towel. He’d worked hard these past couple years—given it his all, when he’d still had all of himself to give, and nobody at Interpol could deny who he was and everything he’d done. He wondered if it would be enough for him to leave quietly—amiably, even. It didn’t always have to be as hard as he made it out to be in his head.

There was a reason, though, why he thought like that in the first place.

(When the dust had finally settled, he’d listened to Interpol’s best analysts scour their endless databases for everything they needed to know about their newest faller. Salon Maiden Anabel from the Hoenn Battle Tower, and the youngest of their seven frontier brains. Her two officially registered pokemon were an Alakazam and Snorlax, and she’d been involved with conservation efforts regarding legendary pokemon in Johto and Hoenn in the past. Was put on a watchlist for psychic abilities at a young age, and presumably used that gift to bond with pokemon regarded near-untrainable, such as the two aforementioned Johtonian Beasts. They’d proceeded to go into an expected, but still wildly uncomfortable amount of detail about her personal life—how and when she’d caught her first pokemon, Abra, school records elaborating on conflicts she’d had with her peers, medical prescriptions for hormone replacement therapy that had quietly assured any remaining doubts about who they were looking for—until they’d eventually gotten to the end of the line. Several years ago, Anabel had silently vanished from the Battle Tower, leaving every last one of her possessions and pokemon behind. There had been no leads. There had been no evidence. At the time, she’d only been nineteen years old.)

(Some people, in an absence of credible theories, had thought she’d jumped. They weren’t very far off.)

(Anabel was not defenseless. She had survived an ultra wormhole, lasted years inside a world that ran by different rules and by all means should have killed her long ago. She was not inexperienced, or untrained, or even just an average civilian, but the moment they’d finished reading through it all he’d known it wouldn’t matter. Because the truth was—underneath the mask of dutiful care and seemingly unconditional support—every last one of them were all so, so incredibly afraid of fallers. Scared of where they’d come from, scared of what they could do, scared of the dangers they might unknowingly attract by simply daring to survive. A normal life just wasn’t possible for them anymore, they’d rationalized. They would never be safe on their own. Which was why they could never, ever let them go.)

(She would be fine. She just wouldn’t be free.)

“... Sir?”

Nanu opened his eyes, saw who was standing in front of him, and grimaced.

Before he’d left for Alola, he’d been given a rookie to babysit. The agent—100kr, #836, whatever stupid ass codename they’d come up with this time—had looked him in the eye, smiled wide and bright, and instantly Nanu had decided he couldn’t stand him. He was too eager, too earnest, and worst of all—looked up to him far too high. Not a single bark or snap seemed to deter him. He kept following Nanu around like a lost Growlithe, footsteps fast and talking faster, and no matter what happened he just- Never stopped, he never stopped, not even when-

“What?” He snapped, and grimaced even harder when the rookie stared down at him completely and irrevocably undeterred.

“Sir, you’re on the floor.”

Truth be told, he hadn’t noticed—not that he’d ever let him know that. “We don’t pay you to state the obvious,” Nanu let out a long, irritated sigh, pointedly ignoring his fellow agent’s outstretched hand when his legs wobbled a little getting back up. “Put your hand down. I’m not that old just yet.”

To his credit, he waited until he was comfortably leaning against the wall to speak again—a rare moment of patience from a man who never seemed to stop doing something, regardless of how much Nanu tried to tune him out. “Uh, anyway, I just got off a transmission from HQ. They said they wanted to talk to you- I tried to tell them you were busy, but they were a little insistent about it,” He let out a soft chuckle as his hand brushed against the single pokeball strapped to his belt, that finicky Croagunk of his undoubtedly napping inside. “While the creature we encountered was contained by the cave-in we caused, they’re worried that Anabel’s reappearance might be signaling that there’s another one out there. They want us to make another sweep of the island, just in case- But really they wanted you there, you’re the one who knows Alola best, and they had a search plan they wanted you to look over before we start-”

Well, he’d been planning to go out with a bang anyway. Why not now?

“... Why didn’t you fire, rookie?”

For the very first time, the other agent fell silent. The look of shock superimposed on his face was so blatant, so unanticipated, it had been like Nanu had reached over and physically punched him in the face. It took a moment for him to find the will to speak—visibly withering under the stern glare on Nanu’s face—and even when he did it was little more than a hoarse whisper. “I- What?”

“You heard me,” He shrugged, but the gesture was anything but casual. “We had the beast in our sights, and everything was going according to plan. One good shot would’ve finished out the cave-in and stopped it from causing any more trouble than it already had. Why didn’t you fire?” Nanu took a step forward, his hands in his pockets and his voice a grim drawl. “That’s an order from your superior, by the way. I wanna know why you thought your hesitance was worth someone else’s life.”

The beat of silence that followed felt like a gunshot, an earthquake, a bomb going off right where they stood. Nanu watched as his fellow agent wavered a little on his feet—then, after the initial tremor of his words stopped reverberating through the earth, cracked a little smile at the sight of the rookie suddenly steeling himself under Nanu’s burning gaze. “That is not what happened,” He said resolutely, with more determination than he would’ve ever expected. “The… The plan went wrong. We still completed the mission. We did everything we could to try and get help in time,” It was only then that his voice started to crack, grief and regret spilling into an expression that hadn’t quite learned how to properly harden into unreadability yet. “If I had known what… I never wanted something bad to happen to-”

And if he had been a smarter, kinder, braver man, Nanu would have stopped. He would have smiled, and sighed, and slumped down against the wall—and then he would’ve beckoned his fellow agent to join him, the two of them sitting awkwardly in the hallway of a wooden boat that rocked back and forth on the sea. He would have apologized. He would have told him that he was tired, and paranoid, and afraid, and that he wished he could feel even an ounce of his colleague’s life and energy once again. He would have told him to watch out for Anabel, make sure she never had to spend another day wandering lost and alone, and answer her questions regardless of how hard it was to tell the truth. He would have told him to hold onto that passion for everything he did as long as he possibly could. He would have told him to never, ever end up like he did—bitter, cowardly, and completely and utterly alone.

But he wasn’t. So instead, with a bitter scoff and quiet voice, Nanu shook his head and said “Yeah, I know. You’re just not very good at it.”

Before he turned to leave, he glanced back at the rookie one last time. “Let me give you a piece of advice, yeah?” Nanu cracked a small, weary smile at the sight of him struggling to find a way to respond. “Next time—because there will be a next time—don’t fuck it up. Starting with her,” He pointed towards that hospital room door and stared—and stared, and stared some more, until his dreary expression finally cracked with a cackling Mightyena laugh. “If anything happens, I’ll never forgive you—but why should you care? I’m just some nasty old man who won’t stop getting on your case. Bet you’ll be glad to see a wretch like me gone from the office.”

He began to walk away, and just like before a voice tried to follow. “Sir- Sir, where are you going?”

This time, however, Nanu finally had an answer. He supposed they at least deserved a resignation letter. “Does it matter? I’m done. Stay alive long enough and maybe you’ll manage to get there too.”

Nanu closed the door behind him. This time, he didn’t look back.