Work Text:
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
(Harlem, Langston Hughes)
Dinner tastes like ashes, and there are thorns in Liko's throat.
When she excuses herself to retreat, nobody's eyes are on her. They don’t even notice her escaping the room. The Rising Volt Tacklers have never looked this helpless until today.
Nobody’s crying at this funeral, but maybe it’s because it’s not one yet. Still, it feels like one when their voices have been dead for hours.
She lets herself sink into Flora—no, Meowscarada’s warm fur as soon as she closes the door to her room. She wishes the tears stuck in her throat would just come out, but instead, she swallows the thorns and tastes blood on her lips. Meowscarada is steady, still there since the beginning, so the girl lets herself sink into this anchor and closes her eyes.
She opens them after what feels like seconds, but when she looks at the window, the stars stare back at her. She must have slept for at least an hour, but the thorns are just as painful. There’s a second knock at her door, and she realizes she had ignored the first one.
She says, “Come in,” just before asking, “Where is Roy?” because Dot is alone in the doorway of Liko’s room. Her eyes are, as always, hidden by her bangs, but Liko doesn’t need to see them to know her friend looks miserable. Liko is, too.
“With Cap,” Dot replies shortly as she sits awkwardly beside Liko. She doesn’t seem to know what to do with her hands, so she shoves them into her pockets. Liko notices that her friend’s brief response is meant to mask the shakiness of her voice. Dot still hasn’t looked at her.
Their thighs are inches apart as they sit in silence, and Liko tastes its bitter salt before breaking it:
“He’ll be okay, right?” she asks in a pained voice, because her friend always knows everything. Dot will be able to provide data, affirmation, and reassurance. But then Dot finally looks at her, and Liko realizes: they’re both children, both lost, both unable to cry at the not-quite-funeral of the man who took them in—the man they watched sacrifice his life to save them.
They’re looking at each other like statues when Roy opens the door. Cap is in his arms.
He sits on the floor, so Liko joins him. Dot stays on the bed.
“I talked with Cap,” Roy starts. “I’m gonna find him.”
Dot stirs a little. Liko feels a twinge of shame; while she was consumed by her own helplessness, Roy was already making plans.
“I was thinking the same,” Dot replies. She takes her phone from her pocket, taps the screen, then shows a map to her friends. “I studied the wind’s direction and where we were when he—” she swallows hard—“when he fell. He should have landed here,” she says, pointing to an area on the map.
Roy’s eyes burn with determination, and for the first time since they returned to the Brave Olivine, there is a scent of hope in the air.
“We should talk to the others and start searching for him tomorrow,” Roy suggests.
Dot shakes her head. “We’re all exhausted, and our Pokémon even more. It’d be wiser to wait a few days—to rest and seek help.”
“The longer we wait, the less chance we have to save him! He could be injured and need our help now.”
“We can barely stand on our feet as it is. We’ll be useless if we don’t take time to recover.”
They both turn to Liko. Oh, that’s right. They’re a trio—they make decisions together.
She folds her legs to her chest, and a whisper escapes her. “I just want to go home,” she admits, and suddenly, she feels ashamed.
Roy looks at her, confused. “Aren’t we… home right now?”
Liko searches for words, but they slip through her fingers like sand.
She lets her forehead fall to her knees and pleads, “I’m just so, so tired. Can’t we just let the adults handle this?” She twists her hands before adding, “From the start, we wanted to do everything ourselves, but I can’t help wondering… Would things have turned out better if we hadn’t been reckless kids playing at being grown-ups? I’m so scared of ruining everything again if I go with you.”
“Liko—” Dot starts.
“Friede would still be here if I had never started my adventure,” she finally confesses. And that’s it. The most painful thorn in her throat—she can finally name it. She feels guilty.
Roy and Dot look startled, and Liko realizes—it’s the first time any of them have spoken Friede’s name. They had danced around it without daring to form it.
Before she can say anything else—an apology, a cry of agony, she isn’t sure—Roy suddenly hugs her. Liko’s eyes widen. None of them are strangers to marks of affection, but they don’t often embrace like this.
“I’m sorry for not noticing how bad you were feeling, Liko,” Roy says softly. “It was a hard day for you. You have every right to rest.”
She wants to scream, It was hard for you too, so why am I the only one who wants to give up? But she swallows the words and returns Roy’s hug.
Dot stands, hesitates, then awkwardly presses her back against them. Her cheek rests against Liko’s hair, and in another situation, Liko might have noticed how fast her heartbeat is. But right now, she just closes her eyes and breathes— and it feels like the first time in hours.
They are three children, suffering from the same loss, the same pain.
When Roy and Dot leave her room, the three of them know, without saying it aloud, that this is their farewell.
Their paths had intertwined, tangled together, then cut the moment Friede last smiled at them before fading away.
When she wakes the next morning to Mollie’s screams and a worried shake of her shoulders, saying that Roy and Dot have disappeared, Liko simply smiles sadly.
Liko doesn’t cry until she feels her mother’s arms around her, holding her as if she’s made of thin glass.
“I know, sweetheart, I know,” her mother whispers, playing with her hair as she lets out muffled sobs.
And her mother—this strong, unbreakable woman—has tears in her voice. Liko realizes that while she lost a mentor, her mother lost a student.
The burden of loss is shared.
Liko bids farewell to the crew of the Brave Olivine. Mollie squeezes her palm for a long time before assuring her she can call anytime. Murdock offers her a box of sweets he made last night. Ludlow murmurs some cryptic wisdom about farewells not being endings, just pauses in fate’s thread. Orla pulls her into a firm hug.
As Liko walks away with her mother, she keeps looking back every few steps—until they disappear from view.
Dawn has pink fingers, and in its eerie, ethereal light, Liko wants to forget how much she misses all of them.
Sometimes, out of habit, she checks for the Ancient Poké Balls—then remembers she lost them that fateful day. She often wants to pat Pogogo’s head, but it still hasn’t woken up. When she eats breakfast, she expects to hear Roy’s chatter, but all her ears receive is silence.
They’ve called three times since they last saw each other. Dot and Roy searched for Friede for weeks, but besides dust and bitter resentment, they found nothing. Dot went back to her mother’s house. Roy retreated to his island to train and to become stronger. They talk at great length during their calls, but Liko still misses them.
She returns to Indigo Academy, but everything feels off and numb. She feels so alien to other students. They spent the past year growing as trainers, making memories, being teenagers. Liko spent it chasing an adventure, a wishful dream, only to watch it crumble in her hands.
The first time she sees Spinel on TV, she almost falls to her knees.
He looks healthy. Content. Reliable. His words are silky and smooth. People listen to him.
He’s rewriting the story. Making himself the hero of the tragedy.
Liko feels sick.
(She can’t do anything but scream—but who would listen to a scared little girl, when there’s a well-composed man on TV?)
It’s her birthday, but all she feels is a tugging string in her heart.
Her father bought her a lovely cake, and the fire dances just in front of her eyes.
She blows out the candle, wishing only for Friede to come back, for things to repair themselves.
They all had one goal. Achieving it only made them collapse. Liko wishes, on that day, that her dream had never come true.