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“How’s the leg coming along?”
N had seen the Champion coming out of the corner of the corner of his eye, but the question still caught him off-guard.
“Fine.” He straightens up against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest, glancing between the champion and the door across from him.
“How’s Hilda doing? Have you seen her?”
N has, briefly, when he was given the ok by the doctors to leave his room for short periods of time. But then an older woman he could only assume was her mother showed up, frantic and angry, and N quickly made himself scarce. After all, it was his fault that Hilda was lying there. He was the one who dragged her into everything.
He nods, but doesn’t say anything else. A nurse bustles by Alder from behind, and he moves to lean against the other wall.
“I saw Cheren and Bianca on my way up,” the champion continues, and N glances at him before looking away. Idly, he starts to rub his thumb over his Zoroark’s Pokeball. “They said she was going to be okay, but she might be here for a couple more days.”
Earlier, he had seen Bianca enter Hilda’s hospital room, and stayed there for about an hour before leaving. Although she had invited him to get food from the cafeteria afterwards, he suspected it was more out of social obligation than any real desire to spend time with him.
As for Cheren, N hadn’t seen him since he woke up—nor does he have any particular desire to. Though he doesn’t consider himself good with people, he’s under no impression that the boy actually likes him. And why shouldn’t he? N wasn’t a good person. It was N’s fault that Cheren’s friend was in the hospital.
“Are you waiting out here because you want to see Hilda?”
He hides a scowl, before remembering he doesn’t particularly care what Alder thinks of him. “Her mom is in there,” N says by way of explanation.
Alder hums. The nurse that passed by earlier comes back this way with her companion, the two of them talking about something in hushed tones. Somewhere down the hall, he can hear some sort of monitor beeping.
“Well, if you’re not going to talk to me, you should at least get something to eat if you haven’t already.”
N doesn’t feel like eating, particularly with Alder. But he wonders if turning him down meant that Alder was just going to hang around here as if he doesn’t have a whole mess of N’s issues to clean up after. “If I go with you, will you leave me alone?”
“Deal.”
The walk to the cafeteria is long, infuriatingly so. N’s never had a broken leg before but he’s definitely not a fan of hobbling to the elevator on crutches that hurt his hands and armpits, or the way Alder hovers nearby as though waiting for N to fall over.
But they make it to the hospital cafeteria without any incident, and at least Alder is useful for carrying his plate of food and paying for it once N has it picked out. He’s gotten a salad, while Alder has stuck to pizza.
They eat in tense silence, N picking the tomatoes out of his food while Alder cuts his pizza with a fork and knife. He isn’t an expert on pizza, but he’s pretty sure that’s not how you're supposed to eat it.
“How are you doing, N?”
It wasn’t as though N wasn’t expecting the question, but it still surprises him nonetheless. He glances up at Alder, lips thinned into a line, picking at the food with his fork.
After a minute, he shrugs, because… he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know what to do with all these complicated emotions swirling around inside his chest.
He wasn’t supposed to lose.
That’s the crux of the whole issue, he thinks, twirling the fork between his fingers. I wasn’t supposed to lose. This… I didn’t anticipate any of this. Losing wasn’t in the plan.
N was going to win and show Hilda the truth and everyone would realize people and Pokemon were better separated. And he had won. He had left Alder, defeated and humiliated, on the floor of the Champions’ room, disgraced. To be left behind in N’s new world, free of humans and the pain they cause Pokemon.
He wasn’t supposed to be sitting here, across from N, eating pizza in a way that was getting looks from several of the other people in the cafeteria, his dreams shattered in front of him, his own father…
“What happened to fa-” N starts, stops, bites his lip. The word tastes sour in his mouth now, recalling the last words said to him before he had unleashed Hydregion. “-to Ghetsis?”
Alder glances around, as if to make sure no one is listening in, before he leans forward in his chair, resting his arms on the table. “He’s in custody. The International Police took him in a few days ago, and now he’s under arrest without bail while waiting for trial.”
Arrested. Ghetsis was arrested. A human term for when someone has been taken into custody for committing crimes. N stares down at his food, wishing he could sink into the floor.
“I see,” he says after a minute, setting the fork down, his eyes flicking up to Alder. “Does that mean I’m going to be arrested too?”
Even if Ghetsis had… even if everything was all… N was still very much a participant in this. He was the one who had broken into Relic Castle, the one who had risen the castle from the ground, and Hilda had mentioned Team Plasma had stolen dozens of Pokemon across Unova in the past year. At first, N hadn’t wanted to believe it, but…
Well, he was coming to learn he had believed in a lot of things.
He had stupidly, blindingly trusted Ghetsis, and everything that he did, that Team Plasma did, was on N’s shoulders, too. Was that why Alder was here? To arrest him?
“No,” Alder says, plain and simple, throwing N for a loop.
“You’re… not?” That feels like a trap, though he can’t quite place his finger on as to why. “But Ghetsis-“
“His actions were his own.”
His hand clenches around his fork. “They were mine, too. I… I’m just as responsible for the mess this caused as he is.”
“Maybe. But you didn’t really know what Ghetsis was planning, did you?”
N glances away, feeling a little ill. “I knew enough.” He knew from the very beginning that this plan was going to hurt people, the people like Hilda who did have those connections with Pokemon he had been searching for, but he didn’t listen anyway. Because it was supposed to be for the best. Because it was supposed to be good.
“N.” Alder’s voice is soft, softer than he would expect from the man. “It’s not a bad thing to want Pokemon to be taken care of properly. Your sentiment isn’t wrong—there are plenty of people that have hurt Pokemon.”
Why isn’t he arguing with this? When Alder showed up, he expected resentment, anger, not… not whatever this was. Treating N like he wasn’t a bad person.
“I was going to separate people and Pokemon. Shouldn’t that be enough to pass judgment?”
“For having your kindness and selflessness towards our companions be taken advantage of?” Alder raises an eyebrow, and N falls silent, his hands falling on his lap. “Sure, maybe your execution was flawed. But your idea isn’t wrong. You wanted to do something that was, objectively, good. Ghetsis is the one who used that for his own ends.”
He stares at his hands, running his thumb over some of the faint, faded scars he’s gotten over the years, most prominently the bite mark his Zoroark gave him as a pup. He was the first Pokemon that Ghetsis had given him, scared and angry and lashing out at anyone who got close.
It took several bite marks before N gained his trust, and more still before he coaxed the story out of his companion. Most of them have faded by now.
They finish their food and go back, N hobbling his way back to the elevator. As Alder goes to press the button for the fifth floor, N briefly debates asking him to go to the fourth one instead. But Hilda’s mom was likely still there, and he didn’t exactly fancy running into her. Or Cheren, for that matter, if he had wandered back over by this point.
“What’s going to happen to me now?”
The words spill out of his mouth before he’s consciously aware of it, and by the time N is aware of them, it’s too late to take it back. He glances up at Alder instead, flexing his fingers around the handlebars of his crutches.
“Well, right now, you’re going back to your room and let your leg heal,” Alder says conversationally.
The elevator jolts to a stop two floors up, and a doctor and a nurse alongside an Audino step into the space. N gulps as he’s lightly pressed to the back wall, almost shoulder to shoulder with Alder. The closeness makes his heart crawl up into his throat.
When they get to the fourth floor, the other people part to let him pass, but it’s still awkward with his leg being the way it is. N stumbles out into the hallway, Alder close behind him.
“I mean- after that,” N grits out, if only in an attempt to get Alder to stop looking at him like that, like he was going to fall. “If you’re not going to arrest me, then- then why are you here? What’s your play?”
Something like pity seems to cross Alder’s face as N rights himself. Reshiram had told him that what Alder said in the throne room was true, that he didn’t think N was a bad person, but…
“N, there is no play here,” Alder says gently, and he reaches out a hand and-
N flinches.
It’s a small, barely there thing, but he knows Alder saw it. And somehow, the knowledge that Alder saw that was worse than anything else N had said or done to the champion so far. He squeezes his eyes shut so he doesn’t have to look at Alder’s expression.
“Hey. N. It’s okay.” His voice is gentle, still, and the hand comes to rest upon his shoulder, giving it a small, painless squeeze. “It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you.”
“I don’t-“ N works his jaw, but he has to take several slow breaths before he can find it in himself to speak. “I don’t understand this.”
That’s the crux of the issue, he thinks, standing there and trying desperately not to start crying. Everything he did in the past had logic, reason and meaning behind it. The decision to put his team in Pokeballs was because the Gym Challenge required it. His decision to find the Dragon of Ideas was meant to be a way to show the people the idealized world he had hoped to achieve. Even his fights with Hilda were done in the logic that, if he could beat someone as strong and stubborn as Hilda, beat someone who was partnered with the Dragon of Truth, then the people of Unova would see that he was right.
But the foundation for all of that was gone. Ghetsis had lied to N the entire time he’d called himself father. With Ghetsis locked up and his dream shattered, N didn’t know what to do next. There was no plan or reason to fall back to as he had done before. And with all of his actions in mind, why was Alder seemingly so intent on absolving him from said actions?
Maybe Ghetsis had lied to him, true—but N was under no illusions about the consequences of his dream. Wouldn’t that make him as complicit as Ghetsis? Why was Alder—and to some extent, Hilda—unable to see that?
“I’m not a good person. Whatever… Whatever father’s plans were, my actions were my own, too. I’m just as guilty as he is.”
Alder gives N something that isn’t quite a smile but isn’t exactly a frown, either. “N, you’re a smart kid. You should know that this situation isn’t fully black and white. It’s like I said. Maybe the way you went about helping Pokemon wasn’t perfect, but that doesn’t make you a bad person. Just someone misguided. Especially if Ghetsis was manipulating you the entire time.”
N looks down, wishing he could rub his arms or play with his fidget cube. It’s one thing to recognize the fact Ghetsis was… was using him like a pawn, but another to…
“That doesn’t change anything.”
“Maybe you think that, but… listen, if you feel that guilty about it? Take that guilt and use it.” Alder kneels down a little, just enough to be eye level with N, which meant he was more awkwardly squatting than actually kneeling. “You have a unique gift, N, and a sharp mind. But more than that, you have a kind heart. There’s lots of ways to help Pokemon in need that don’t involve complete liberation.
“And it may be messy, and hard, and upsetting and maybe it will never truly be perfect. And there’s only so much even someone like me can do about that. But I think you’ll find that there are a lot more people that care about Pokemon than you may think.”
N bites his lip, nodding slowly, and says nothing as Alder helps him back to his hospital room.
“Do you think-“ he starts, then stops, after he’s sat down on the bed.
“Do I what?”
He looks down, tracking the crinkles in the bedsheet below him. “Do you… think Hilda will…” N trails off, unsure of how to finish that sentence.
Across the room, Alder smiles, and it feels… reassuring. “I think everything between you and Hilda will work out just fine.”