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Usually, when Gary needs help with the new lab, they stop in Pallet Town first and leave Lemon with Professor Oak or Tracey or, sometimes, even, with Delia. Often, even, they’ll come back to Pallet Town at the end of the day and spend the night at the Lab, too. It’s been this way since the first time Gary admitted to Goh on that quiet, sleepless night that he didn’t think he could do all this alone. That the only person he would want to help him with it is Goh.
It’s not like this is the direction either of them expected their lives to take. Even in his worst moments, Goh knows he wouldn’t change any of it; but sometimes, he can’t help thinking about all those lost opportunities that have passed him by. Especially on those days he does go to help Gary set up the lab. It’s when he really understands why Gary was so eager to return to work in the first place, because he finds himself missing it too, even just from those small, menial tasks that make up so much of the work they have to do right now. Cataloguing and inventorying and balancing the budgets.
But, then—each time the thought crosses his mind, his blood runs cold. It’s harder to get to sleep on nights like that. He isn’t completely sure why. After all, didn’t he tell Gary, well over a year ago? They both have always worked hard because they love the work they do. It’s not a slight against their daughter to want to continue to do that work. Anyone in Gary’s position would want to get back to work. And isn’t he in that position now, himself?
This is a good balance for them, though. To allow Goh an opportunity, every week or two, to do something other than take care of their child. He doesn’t want to go back to work yet. The whole reason he took the time off in the first place was to spend time with her. But a few hours of work here and there, just to push through the mundanity of his increasingly domestic lifestyle, isn’t a bad thing.
Except, today, Gary really needs the extra hands—and there’s no one in Pallet Town who can watch over Lemon.
When Tracey tells him over the phone that he’s gone to Cerulean with not only Professor Oak but Delia as well for the entirety of the weekend, Goh briefly entertains the idea of just bringing Lemon with him. Except, the only reason Gary needs help at all is because of the shipment that’s expected to arrive later today. There will be so much movement, of such large and potentially unsafe equipment, that having a toddler underfoot could only possibly spell disaster.
So, he goes down his contact list and tries making a few more calls.
Professor Cerise and his team have their hands full today with a presentation at the Institute happening this afternoon. Chloe is in Sinnoh for the next half a week. Her mother is in Saffron helping Parker move in preparation for the next academic year.
With each failed phone call, he wastes more and more time. On the other side of the room, Lemon remains oblivious to his dilemma; she’s completely immersed in acting out a Pokémon battle between two of her favourite plushies.
He lets out a shaky breath, and looks down at his phone again. He’s already run through all his other options. And, in any case, it is ridiculous to feel guilty for taking up his parents’ time when he knows they would be happy to spend more time with their granddaughter. They say so all the time. Sometimes, he even thinks they may be more eager to spend time with her than they ever were to spend time with him growing up.
It's just—he’s never had to ask them to spend time with her alone. Sure, sometimes, maybe, when she was a baby, they would keep her occupied while Gary and Goh accidentally fell asleep on the couch, assured in the knowledge that there were other adults in the room who could keep an eye on her. The idea of it, of asking them to give up one of their rare days off just to keep an eye on her so he can go help Gary with work…something about it sits wrong with him, a heavyweight atop his breast.
But it’s the only option he has left. Though his heart races, he clicks on his mother’s contact and presses call.
It rings twice before she picks up, saying, “Hello? Goh?”
“Hi, Mom.” With some effort, he forces the air out of his lungs, and sits down on the edge of the couch, keeping a close eye on his daughter all the while. It settles something within him, allows him to ask in spite of the sweatiness of his palms, “Are you busy?”
“Just trying to catch up on some sleep,” she jokes. “Your father’s only just getting out of bed, if you can believe it.”
“Oh. If you need to stay home and rest, then—”
“No, no,” she says quickly. “We’re free. Do you need something? Should we come over?”
“I just need a babysitter,” he admits. “I know it’s a bit last minute, but…”
“Is that all? Of course we don’t mind!”
“Are you sure?” he frets. “We won’t be home until pretty late, and I know you have to work tomorrow…”
“Don’t be silly,” she chastises. “We’d love to help out. When do you need us there?”
“As soon as you can, I guess.”
She’s quiet a moment, and then she tells him, “Give us half an hour, okay?”
He breathes out. “Okay. Thanks, Mom.”
“Don’t mention it. See you soon!”
And with that, she hangs up.
He takes a moment to compose himself with a few deep breaths, and then pockets his phone and approaches Lemon. As he settles down on the floor across from her, she shoots him a beaming smile and picks up her Joltik plush, shoving it at him.
“Battle me!” she says boldly, gesturing between Joltik and the other plush in her hands, a Bellossom.
His anxieties leave him with a light laugh. “Okay,” he agrees. “But before we battle, I wanted to tell you Grandma and Grandpa are coming over.”
Her eyes widen in excitement. “Will they battle Pokémon?”
He smiles. “I’m sure they will. But they’re going to be here all day while I go help Papa with some work, okay? That means we won’t be here at bedtime.”
If she’s disappointed by that, it doesn’t show. She just says, “‘Kay. Battle now?” and he has no choice but to acquiesce. It’s not as if it’s the first time her parents haven’t been there to put her to bed over the past few months. Once the preparations at the Viridian lab are finished enough for them to make the move from Vermilion, things will settle again. But for now, she has grown accustomed to how much Gary comes and goes, to all the things they have, slowly but surely, been boxing up more and more of in the past weeks in preparation for that day.
Their battle doesn’t last long. Though he anticipated his parents to take an hour, rather than half of one, they actually arrive about twenty minutes later. When Goh stands to open the door for them, Lemon races past him to greet them at the door, grabbing her grandfather by the wrist and begging him to take Goh’s place on the floor to resume her Pokémon battling with a new rotations of plushies.
Camille watches with a soft, indulgent smile for a moment, before turning to offer Goh a quick hug. All over again, his heart is racing, though he can’t exactly say why. Maybe it is just that he knows he will be cutting it pretty close if he wants to make it to Viridian City before the time Gary said the delivery was supposed to arrive.
As he pulls away from his mother, he wracks his brain for everything that makes up their regular routine: “We already ate breakfast, but you’ll have to make lunch around noon, and then make sure she takes a nap before one even though she definitely won’t want to. She doesn’t sleep well if it’s off-schedule, and she’s already going to be a little out of sorts once she realizes that us not being there at bedtime means Gary won’t be here to tuck her in. She’ll be fine, she always is, but she pouts a little, that’s all. She just misses him. Um, and there are leftovers in the fridge for dinner. Have all of it, it’s not really a big deal, just—I didn’t portion anything out, because I didn’t think about it, but I can do it now, if you want me to, I mean—”
“Goh.”
He stops, chest stuttering, as he registers the amused gleam in his mother’s eyes. A flush rises to his cheeks.
“S-sorry.” He laughs a bit, though without any mirth. “I just…want to make things easier.”
“We’ll be okay,” she promises him.
“But you can call me. Any time. Or Gary.”
“I know.”
“I can come back any time, too,” he adds.
“You won’t need to.”
He swallows, and nods. “Okay. Then, I—I need to go, but if there’s anything—”
“You don’t need to worry about us.” Camille glances over at Lemon and Walker, who are deeply engaged in their own make-believe Pokémon battle now. “Take as much time as you need. We’ll look after her.”
It’s not as reassuring as he knows it ought to be. Aching emotion stabs through his heart, dragging it down low into his chest. The best he can do is duck his head in understanding, take in a few stabilizing breaths, and then step past his mother to crouch down beside his daughter.
As he does, his father pulls back, setting the plush Lemon thrust upon him down in front of his folded knees. Lemon takes the cue for what it is, though Goh can appreciate that she looks a little annoyed with him when she turns to face him.
“I’m not interrupting for long,” he promises. “Just promise me you’ll be good for Grandma and Grandpa, okay?”
She puffs out her cheeks. “I will.”
“And you’ll eat all your lunch and your dinner.”
She huffs. “Yes, Daddy.”
“Okay. Then, I’m going to go, okay?” He reaches out to draw her into his arms, and then runs a hand to smooth her hair back in order for him to press a kiss to her forehead. “I love you.”
“Love you too!” she chirps, before swinging back around to face her grandfather, Gengar plush in hand.
Amused, Walker looks up as Goh gets back up to his feet and tells him, “Safe travels, son.”
He opens his mouth to express his gratitude, and instead finds himself saying, “You’ll call me if anything happens, right? Or if you need a break and want me to come home?”
“We will,” he says.
“Okay.” He breathes in, and out. “Okay. I’m gonna go. I’ll let you know when we’re on our way home.”
His mother comes around him, in order to settle on the floor next to Walker. As she does, she says, “Okay. Be careful driving!”
“I will,” he tells her absently, already turning to grab the keys. And then: “Bye.”
He waits for one of them to hold him back, but when three long beats pass with only the echoes of their farewells to occupy them, he forces his hand into motion, and opens up the door and steps outside. Though he knows he doesn’t have to, he takes a moment to lock it behind him, if only to calm his breathing before he has to get in the car and drive three hours to Viridian City.
As, at last, he makes himself go, he finds himself struck by the sudden and overwhelming desire to be near Gary. It has been a few days now since they drove to Viridian together and Goh left him there to look after the ongoing preparations at the lab. Most of the major construction will be done soon, with today’s equipment delivery being the last thing Gary says he ought to personally oversee. Of course, he wouldn’t trust the contractors to know left from right with such sensitive equipment. It’s the whole reason he called Goh last night and asked if he could come help.
It's not the first time he’s spent a few days away getting things ready for the lab’s grand opening. Mostly, Goh doesn’t find himself missing him—not like this—except late in the evening when he has to tuck their daughter into bed and tell her it will be a few more days before her papa will be back to do it in his place. They agreed this was for the best; they agreed that it was only for the short-term, in order to make things better for them all in the long-term. But right now, for reasons he can’t explain, all he can think about is the moment they will see each other again, the moment Gary will wrap his arms around him and hold him tight in greeting.
It's better to think about this than to think about his parents, or his daughter. Even still, he knows he is driving faster than he should be. That he is, maybe, a little more distracted than he should be, his hands clenching the steering wheel just a little tighter than is strictly speaking normal. He turns on the radio and tries to lose himself instead in his own reactions to the talk show hosted by the former student of Professor Elm’s that Gary is always calling “the most obnoxious, head-in-the-clouds phony wannabe in the world.” Goh’s noted, though, that he never turns the show off when he catches it airing.
Today, she’s interviewing a Pokémon breeder who claims to be an expert in raising Pokémon for battles. They’re saying something about Egg Moves. Something about how they’re special, because when a Pokémon knows an Egg Move, they will pass it on to any of their own offspring. That it can be tempting to teach a Pokémon a different move, but, really, why would you? It isn’t just about the Move being unique; the Moves tie the Pokémon to their families, too. It makes them easier to bond with, and to raise.
It's the sort of thing Goh knows Gary would scoff at and call pseudoscience. But as he listens, he can’t help thinking that there may be some merit to parts of the evaluation, at least. Just as soon as the thought crosses his mind, though, he thinks of what, exactly, it means for a Pokémon to have that kind of attachment to its parent. Is inheriting its parents’ Moves always even advantageous?
Pokémon aren’t so different from humans, in that respect. Are they?
And in spite of his best efforts, his mind turns again to his parents and his daughter. He tells himself, firmly, that he is being stupid. They have raised a child of their own. If anything, they know more about taking care of a kid than he does. With a shaking hand, he reaches down and turns off the radio; but even as the silence expounds around him, he finds his chest still heavy, and aching. He brings his hand back to the steering wheel, and grips it more firmly still. It only seems to make the trembling in his hands worse.
He doesn’t notice until the road begins to blur in front of him that he is, suddenly, having a difficult time breathing. More aggressively than he intends to, he eases off the gas and applies pressure to the brakes instead. It barely occurs to him to be thankful that the roads are so quiet today as he pulls off on to the shoulder and struggles to put the car in park. All at once, the air has begun to stifle him. It takes a few tries for him to even manage to open the car door and stumble out, breathing hard—and yet, still, not enough. It’s as if there really is a weight around his chest. Hands around his neck. And through it all, he thinks of his parents, of the fact that he is two and a half hours away from home and he has no way of saying whether they are even still there with his daughter.
Something caught between righteous fury and all-consuming fear cuts through him. But when he leans back into the car to find his phone, it’s not his mother’s or his father’s number he finds himself calling.
It barely rings through once before Gary picks up. “Goh? Are you on your way? I was going to call and let you know they pushed back the delivery time, but I figured you were already driving.”
Goh opens his mouth to respond, and then stops when he realizes that he can’t. His breathing is too fast, too heavy, to sustain words. Perhaps Gary can hear it, too, because after a moment he asks in alarm, “What’s going on? Where are you?”
“I—I—” He presses his other hand against his chest, hard, to no avail. The next time his lips part, it is around a sob. His lungs burn and sear; no amount of inhale-exhale seems enough to bring his heart rate back down.
“Goh,” says Gary, sounding somehow far away even though the speaker is pressed right against his ear. “Can you hear me? At least tell me you’re not driving.”
“I—I’m not,” Goh gasps.
“And you’re safe?”
“Y-yes.”
“Okay. Good. Try to breathe, okay? Want me to talk? Distract you?”
“O-okay.”
“Okay,” Gary repeats. “Then—back to what I was saying about the delivery. Apparently, some idiot loaded up the wrong models and no one noticed until the mid-shift supervisor came around and realized there was something weird with the stock. I tried to tell him I’ve got a husband and kid at home and I don’t much feel like wasting my whole day waiting around because of someone else’s incompetence, but apparently they can’t double their speed to Viridian City just because I asked them to. Nicely, I might add. Best they can do is knock a few dollars off the price. Like that’s gonna do anything. So, I figured, since I’ve got the extra time, I might as well go get some shopping done for the yard. Which, by the way, the fencing is atrocious. Someone’s gonna have to paint that, and it’s not gonna be me. In what world would I ever tell someone to order bright red fencing for anything, let alone for an enclosure of Pokémon? And everyone has the gall to tell me I’m being unreasonable…”
As Gary complains, Goh focusses on the sound of his voice, more than on the words. As steady and consistent as it is has ever been; and, sometimes, when he is feeling particularly sentimental, he can sense the irony in that. There was a time when Gary’s voice alone would have done anything but grounded him. But it’s the fact that he always knows, sometimes even before Goh does, exactly what Goh needs to hear. Right now, it’s a lot of nothing of particular importance. He will not hold it against Goh later if Goh remembers nothing substantial from his rant, because that was not the point of it, and they both know it.
He goes on, but by now, Goh is so focussed on the sensation of his lungs filling and then deflating, he can’t be bothered to try to make out the words. A few more cycles of breath later, he finally says, “I think I’m okay.”
Immediately, Gary stops. He does not even pause before asking, “Where are you?”
“Almost to Viridian.” With a sigh, Goh leans against the hood of the car and looks up to the clear blue sky with stinging eyes. “But I guess I don’t need to worry about being late anymore.”
“Is Lemon with you?”
He winces. “No. Your grandfather and Tracey are both out of town. And Ash’s mom, too. Some kind of symposium in Cerulean City this weekend, I don’t know, I didn’t really ask…”
“Oh. So, she’s with the Cerises?”
“No. They were all busy, too.”
“Oh. Then—”
“My mom and dad are with her.”
Silence, and then: “I see.”
“Are you mad?” Goh worries. “I asked everyone else first. I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t want to make things harder for you. I just—”
“Whoa, whoa, slow down. Mad? Why would I be mad? Your parents love her. I’m sure she’s fine.”
“Th-then what do you mean by…?”
“Well, that’s why you’re upset right now, isn’t it?”
Is it? He pauses, and considers that. It’s not that he doesn’t trust his parents with Lemon. They’ve spent plenty of time with her before. Really, if anything, he’s happy that they like spending time with her so much.
But, even still, sometimes when he sees them with her, a chasm seems to open up within his chest, with every intention of swallowing him whole. Those are the days when he finds himself reaching out for Gary’s hand a little more often. The nights where he cannot bring himself to close his eyes and fall asleep until Gary is holding him against his chest, muttering something along the lines of “I’m here” or “You’re okay” or even “Go to sleep, I’m not going anywhere.” It’s no wonder that Gary would have noticed it, no matter how much Goh has always hoped he never would. They’ve talked about it before, more times than Goh can count at this point, about how he wants to be more present for Lemon than his parents were with him. It should not come as a surprise that, within all that, Gary has heard the things he hasn’t said, too.
“I didn’t want to ask them,” he admits. “Even now, I…I feel guilty about it. I don’t know why.”
“You’re not exactly wired to ask your parents for help with things,” Gary points out. “And it kinda says something that even though you were freaking out about leaving Lemon with them, you called me instead of them.”
“I don’t want to offend them,” Goh mutters. “They try really hard for her. I just… I don’t know. Even right now, thinking about her alone with them makes me worry. So many of my memories from when I was young are just of them saying they would be there and then…they weren’t.”
“Well, why don’t we give them a call to check in when you get here? If you can still drive, that is. I’m sure I could get out there and drive us back if you need me to. We’ve definitely got the time to kill.”
“Don’t be stupid.” Goh sighs, straightening up again. “It’s not that far, and I’ll be careful.”
“What, worrying about you is stupid now? You’d do the same thing if our positions were reversed, and you know it.”
“Yeah, but our positions wouldn’t be reversed.” At last, Goh opens the driver side door and climbs back in the car. He takes a moment to connect his phone to the speaker, before adding, “I don’t think either of us have ever had to sit around worried that your grandfather might leave our three-year-old unattended for longer than it would take him to walk in and out of the kitchen.”
“Well, that’s kind of a moot point, ‘cause I’m pretty sure you don’t really believe your mom and dad are gonna do that, either.”
“They did it to me,” Goh points out as he checks over his shoulder and then pulls back out on to the highway.
“Yeah,” says Gary. “Which is the reason why you’re so upset right now. But I’d hope that you wouldn’t have called them in the first place and left our child with them if you really thought we couldn’t trust them to take care of her.”
“Well…I guess so. But still.”
“I’m starting to think you just want to argue with me.”
At this point, he’s too exhausted to do anything more than stare at the open road ahead of him, and say, mildly, “I’m not trying to have a fight.”
“I know. I’m only teasing.” There’s silence for a moment, until: “Let’s just talk about it when you get here. Want me to stay on the phone?”
“Yes. Please.”
“Okay.” He says it so simply. As if he doesn’t have mountains of work he could be attending to instead of wasting the next half-hour talking about nothing in particular just to keep Goh’s mind off his parents.
But that’s exactly what he does. Never once does he mention anything that needs to be done, or that he’d rather be doing. He talks more about how the construction at the lab is going. He talks about conversations he’s had recently with Professors Rowan and Sycamore about some of the equipment he’s ordered for the lab, and about an—according to him, much more frustrating—conversation he had with Professor Elm about the best incubators for Pokémon Eggs. As bad as he knows it is, it’s the most focussed on driving Goh has been all day, and he even finds himself feeling almost relaxed by the time he makes it to the lab.
By now, he can’t be surprised by the things Gary does for him. When he gets out of the car and find Gary already waiting for him outside, he just steps into his embrace and lets him hold him and stroke his hair for a few minutes. They don’t talk. Goh closes his eyes, and relishes in the feeling of it, in Gary’s unwavering presence.
Finally, finally, they pull apart, and Gary quirks an eyebrow up at him.
“So?” he asks. “Wanna give them a call?”
“Maybe,” Goh admits. “You’re right. I don’t really think they’d leave her alone. I do trust them. But it would make me feel better, I think. Just…just to be sure.”
“All right,” Gary says. “I’m right here.”
It’s all he really needs to hear. With a deep breath, he pulls his phone from his pocket again and dials his mother’s number. He puts it on speakerphone and holds it between himself and Gary. After two rings, it is his father who picks up, asking, “Did you make it to Viridian City?”
“Hi, Dad. Yeah. I did. Gary’s here too.”
“Thanks for babysitting for us,” Gary puts in. “Sorry it was so last minute.”
“Nothing to be sorry for,” Walker says brightly. “Your mother just went to get Lemon up from her nap.”
“Did she sleep okay?”
“Yes.” He laughs. “She was pretty worn out from all that Pokémon battling.”
Despite himself, Goh feels his lips twitch up. He shares an amused glance with Gary, and then says to his father, “I’m really sorry about this, but there was a delay with the shipment, so we’re going to be even later than expected…”
“It’s no trouble, Goh. We don’t mind.”
Goh hesitates a moment, and then asks, tremulously, “Would you…mind giving me a call before you put her to bed? Just so—so we can talk to her?”
“If that’s what you want. Of course.”
He lets out a relieved exhale. “Thank you. I just— I know she’d want to hear Gary’s voice. That’s all.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Gary smile. It’s a soft, tender expression; the sort he has only become so accustomed to sharing with them because of Lemon.
“Do you want to talk to her now?” Walker asks.
For a moment, Goh considers it. If they put her on the phone, then he would be able to tell, wouldn’t he, that they really are there with her, paying attention to her, keeping her happy and healthy and safe?
But, he knows—he doesn’t need proof. He’ll be anxious anyway, until he and Gary get home later tonight. It has nothing to do with his parents in this moment; it is his parents of twenty years ago that he cannot bring himself to believe in anymore.
“It’s okay,” he says softly. “I just wanted to make sure everything was going okay. We can talk before bed.”
“We’ll give you a call later, then.”
“Okay. Thanks, Dad. Talk to you later.”
“Bye, Goh.”
With a shuddering exhale, Goh ends the call, and then says, pointlessly, “She’s okay.”
“Yeah,” Gary says. “She is. Are you?”
“I…I don’t really know.” He pockets his phone, and reaches for Gary again, dropping his head down on top of his shoulder and taking in a deep breath. Finally, he mutters, “I think I’m just really, really tired.”
A hand on his cheek has him opening his eyes again, just as Gary guides his head back up to lock gazes with him. As he does, he leans forward and presses a fleeting kiss against Goh’s lips, then pulls back and turns them around, toward the door, saying, “Well, lucky for you, we have a lot of time to waste now, and I wouldn’t be so averse to a nap myself.”
Something within Goh seems to settle, and lighten. Feebly, he asks, “Are you sure? There must still be a lot to do around here.”
“It’s the perfect time for it. The contractors left for their lunch not too long before you got here. It’ll be nice and quiet. Just the two of us.”
“That does sound nice,” Goh has to admit.
“Then, I guess you’ve just gotta trust that I know what I’m doing, here. C’mon. We’ll both be better off with a little rest anyway, right?”
It’s not like Gary’s accommodations here are so great, right now. An air mattress made up with some cheap sheets in the adjoining living space, only because, as he says, he doesn’t see any point in furnishing things when they have perfectly good furniture waiting to be packed up and moved here already. But it’s not really about anything more than this: Gary’s arm wrapped around him, his warmth, the steadiness of his heartbeat next to Goh’s. It’s more than he ever had when he needed it, growing up. Gary knows it as well as he does. There’s no need to talk about it, not by this point.
They lie down together. Gary says nothing of the way Goh buries his face in his chest. Merely holds him, and whispers, “Get some sleep. I’m not going anywhere.”
For right now, it’s more than enough.