bookmarking | leaf 011 [text; action for Goldenrod; past midnight]

leaf 011 [text; action for Goldenrod; past midnight]

Seven and Lotus are gone.

[Ten minutes pass before she texts another message.]

If you could contact one person from your world right now, who would it be, and what would you tell them?

[Private to Santa]

I've got an extra Eevee. [The last one had been given to June.] Want him?

[People who are out at this hour or who decide to go looking for a pink-haired girl will find Clover strolling toward the radio tower, obviously wanting some real alone time. Her long pink hair is down, so no pigtails tonight. That jacket is buttoned all the way up to her ribbon, and she has thrown a coat over everything. While she's still in a skirt, her legs are in pale pink leggings. Gear in hand, she just walks idly on, a downcast expression on her face.

There is much on her mind...not only Seven and Lotus' disappearances, but also Snake, her older brother. It felt like an eternity since she had discovered that he was gone. Probably three months, more or less? And she was beginning to miss him again.

Actually, she always missed him. She had friends in Johto, sure, but...no one could ever replace her brother.]

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...You're going to freeze, Clover. [He doesn't plan to ask about her brother, or press her for any details. He is worried, though, that she's standing out here at night in this cold. (He is, too, but he's been through this before.)]

No, I won't. [She turns away slightly.] Don't worry about me. I just...wanted to take a walk.

[But the more she told herself she wanted to be alone, the more she realized that she wanted others with her.]

... [He tugs on his scarf. It's a blue one that he received from Ken last Christmas. He thinks about how he's been friends with him for almost a year, now... sometimes it feels like they'd be friends forever. Other times, the thought that either of them would be taken away from Johto hovers over his head like a dark cloud.

He thinks, also, about the people he knew and had lost, over time--people from Johto and people from home. Where are they now? What are they doing? How are they feeling?]

Who would you talk to, Clover? [He doesn't move from his spot, staying a step away from her and not raising his voice so much.] If you could talk to anybody, who will you choose?

[Clover doesn't move either, hands in her pockets. But she glances at him over her shoulder.]

...if you've known me for this long, you probably know the answer to that.

What will you tell him?

I'll tell him...I'll tell him I miss him, and that I'm okay...that I want to see him again...

[Her voice trails off and she kneads her hands together. It had been so easy to just type it all out. But saying everything out loud stirred up her feelings even more.]

I think he feels that way about you, too. [Without question, he'll reach for her hands--she'll get an eleven-year-old's sternest look if she isn't wearing any gloves--and tug on her hand.]

Come on, it's late. Even if you say you want to be alone, I'm not going to leave you outside in this cold.

[Don't worry, she is. They're carnation pink with little clover buttons, even. She looks at him...and is once again reminded of Snake.]

I...know. But I'm all bundled up...it's really fine...

[But she doesn't pull away from him. Instead, she takes the hand that tugged on hers.]

... It still gets chilly. [He grips her hand, not tightly as if expecting her to pull away, but just a pressure to say that he is here.]

It's December. What d'you expect?

[The sarcasm is completely lost. Or rather, it's a pitiful attempt at trying to sound sarcastic, as if nothing's wrong and she's just being her usual self.

LIES.

Clover bites her lip, and Miles may notice her eyes shining. Not shining with delight. Far from it. After so many conversations with people...running into them...she couldn't hide how she truly felt about not being with Snake any longer.]

[He'll pull her, not too forcefully, until they reach home or somewhere that is open and warm at this time of night.]

I don't like seeing people cry during winter.

[At first, Clover resists, but she finally follows him slowly, turning her head briefly away to wipe her tears.]

Do you prefer seeing them cry during summer, then?

[Her humor is halfhearted at best.]

I don't know. I just don't like it. [There was himself. There was Ken. Then there was Fuu and now Clover.

Why did everybody cry during winter? He didn't like it at all.]

[Because winter is a horrible, horrible season. Clover rubs another tear away from one blue eye with the back of her gloved hand.]

I...I don't like crying either, but it happens.

[She had kept everything inside for the longest time, putting on a smile for everyone, laughing, trying to brighten up Ken's and Miles' lives like a ray of sunshine. Of course, Snake was never far away from her mind.]

We don't mind if you just let it happen, you know.

[He'll sit her down at the nearest chair--maybe a bench in the Pokémon Center's lobby, as that place is always open--and remain standing; it's easiest to talk this way.]

Ken and I aren't weak. We've cried, too. We've seen each other cry, sometimes.

You don't have to smile for us. It's not just your smile that we're friends with--it's all of you.

[Clover sits...rather obediently.]

I wish I could've been there with you, when you cried, or when Ken cried. I know crying doesn't mean you're weak, but...

[Her shoulders begin shaking, and she knits her hands together again. Those blue eyes don't seem to run out of tears - and she pulls out a handkerchief from one of her pockets.]

I've never been far away...so far away from Light this long.

Yes, that's right. Snake was only his code name. Light is his real name.

[And then she buries her face into her hands, sobbing silently.]

I know, Clover. I know.

[Of course, their situations had obvious differences. While Clover would still find her brother once she returned home, Miles would never meet the person he lost ever again.

But the sentiments were similar. It was still a loss. It was still loving that person and missing them, wishing they were close and wishing to see them once more. Just one more time. It was feeling lonely and lost, and not knowing what to do. He understood those.]

Cry. We don't mind. We can't replace him or bring him to you, but if you need to cry, we can be here for you. Ken and I weren't alone because we had each other; you don't have to be alone either.

[He climbs onto the bench next to her, now, hesitating for a fraction of a second before wrapping his arms around her shoulders. The act of comforting and sharing feelings is stil new to him, and it still fills him with uncertainty, but he's getting used to it. ... He can do this, he thinks.]

[Clover finally looks up, her cheeks marked by the tracks of so many tears that were being cried at last. She grips her handkerchief tightly.]

I'm not asking either of you to replace him or anything like that. I know you and Ken are different...and you two will always be my friends, no matter what.

Still...even though I know crying isn't a sign of weakness, sometimes I just don't want to cry because I have to be your big sister, the one who looks out for you and Ken. And I end up feeling weak anyway...I feel like I'm back in the operating room with Junpei, telling him my brother could be dead and I could be next...

[Without further ado, Clover opens her arms and embraces him, holding him close to her the way she had hugged Snake when she first saw him rise from the coffin, alive and well and not dead.

She held him as if she would fall apart if she let go, and the tears didn't stop.]

Being alone is horrible.

[He struggles to stay on his knees on the bench, determined to stay taller than her for this moment--taller, to be the bigger and stronger one just for now.]

It's okay to feel weak, sometimes. It's not wrong to be weak. [Oh, what would his sister say if she heard him now? What would von Karma say?] No matter how much you cry, as long as you're in Johto you won't find yourself back in any sort of strange room. I promise.

[He wonders for a moment if there might be another difference in their pain. Was Clover's longing for something she could still reach different from his and Ken's longing for the parents they could never have? Was it any different, any more or less painful? Two different kinds of loneliness...]

You won't have to be alone here.

[Clover doesn't let go, crying but managing to speak between bouts of weeping and wiping her eyes. If she closed them, she could almost imagine that she was back home, hugging her brother for some reason or other. She rests her head on his shoulder - perhaps if she was still her usual bubbly self, she would have made some sort of joke about him being taller than her for a while.

She felt a little guilty; here were two boys who had suffered greater losses than she (and hers was a temporary loss, even), and she was the one being comforted. They were the ones promising to keep her safe, to take care of her. Was it selfish of her to cry for a brother she would see again someday, when Ken and Miles had more to cry about?

Clover's resolve to be the strong one (for her brother, for her friends, and for herself, remembering the leaf words) was great...but it was rapidly crumbling. No, actually, now it was a pile of rubble.]

If either of you need to cry...if either of you need me for anything, I'll be there. Just like you and Ken were there for me when Light left.

I know he's waiting for me back home, but he's out of my reach...like we're on opposite sides of a mirror and when I stretch out my hand toward him, all I feel is glass...

... It's hard, to have someone on the other side of the mirror. [He hugs her a little closer. His mind is running a mile a minute to keep talking. To keep her talking. To let her get her emotions out so they don't eat away at her from the inside.]

My sister used to be here, too. She was ten years older than the girl I know back home. She fought a lot with Ken and I, and we had started the relationship here terribly. She disappeared almost right as we started getting along better... so I think I know. [His sister, little Franziska, is still in Germany. The one piece of family he's lost that he could still pick up. He would never have the chance for that relationship with thirteen-year-old Fran again, but he knows he would see some version of her when he returns home.]

I think I know what it's like to hit that glass. We're living in the same house now, you and I and Ken. We're going to have to rely on each other. So I know. When you're feeling better you can go back to acting like our older sibling.

[Clover wasn't fond of the thirteen-year-old Franziska, but who was she to judge? That feisty girl wasn't her sister, after all - and they had only spoken once or twice over the network. Still, she knew Miles probably missed her, even if they weren't siblings by blood like Clover and Snake.]

At least things with you and your sister turned out okay, even if Johto had to be a jerk and cut it short. Even though she was sort of different, she's still your sister, right?

And...and we'll always help each other out, no matter what. Like family.

[That's right. By assuming the role of the big sister, she was essentially treating Ken and Miles like family. A second family, different from Snake or her parents or anyone back home, but family nonetheless. A family she would do her best to always, always remember.]

She is a sister whose world I may eventually destroy, in the same way that my own was.

[So he had hoped (tried to fool himself, to some extent) that maybe the two of them would just be stuck here forever. They got along. She made Ken miserable at first, but by the end of their few months together Miles and Franziska weren't fighting with each other any longer. He would probably lose all of that if, in the future, he ended up arresting Manfred von Karma, and he wasn't sure if he wanted to think about such losses.

(Not that any of it mattered now, he thinks to himself, since he was aware of--and had accepted--the fact that he would have to risk losing everything for the sake of pursuing the truth.)

Aside from her and her family, I don't have anybody back there. It makes me very happy to have you and Ken to call my family here.

[Clover raises her head slowly. That first bit didn't make sense to her at all.]

But...why would you eventually destroy her world?

... I don't know for sure if it would happen. [Because for him to be sure about it, he has to be sure that the people who told him about this were not lying, and those people are gone, now.]

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