Retrouvaille

Chapter 5

Clemont stood up and faced Dawn and offered his hand towards her. "Come on, let's go find Ash and fix this as you said, you don't want to remember your last hours with him, not even talking to him"

Dawn looked up at him.

Bonnie jumped up. "Yeah! Come on!"

She looked towards the young girl, then back at Clemont. She nodded.

"You're right!"

They went then went back towards the cafe, hoping that Ash would still be there.

...

When they arrived, they saw Serena sitting alone at the table, just stirring her drink around.

"Where's Ash?" asked Dawn.

Serena looked towards the girl. "I tried to talk to him, but he stormed off into the forest!"

With that Dawn went off and ran towards the trainer.

Clemont and Bonnie sat down at the table. They all just sat in silence.

"You do know why Ash is so upset?" asked Bonnie.

Serena looked down. "It's because of the vision Olympia had of Dawn" Serena paused, "He kept saying 'I can't protect her"

The silence roared once again, realizing why Ash had been distraught over the vision. It was hard for them to not worry about their friend.

Clemont looked towards the forest and smiled. "They really care for each other, don't they?"

Serena repeated Clemont's actions, except her smile was more forced than the inventor. "Yeah... they really do"

...

Dawn was running all over the forest looking for Ash.

If I was Ash, where would I go?

Then, and an idea came to her head. Dawn headed towards an open field, somewhere perfect for training.

Just saw she predicted, there was Ash, commanding Pikachu to use thunderbolt on some nearby boulders.

"Ash?"

Ash turned around to face where the voice was coming from, immediately recognizing who's it belongs to. He didn't make eye contact though, his hat was covering his eyes.

Dawn walked up towards the boy. "Ash, what's wrong?"

Ash didn't respond. By then, Piplup and Pikachu walked away together, knowing that their trainers needed to be alone.

"Ash, you can tell me anything"

Still no response. Even though the silence was frustrating Dawn, she wanted to make Ash feel better and nothing was going to stop her from doing that.

"Ash, you know I'm always here if you-"

"That's just it"

Dawn didn't understand.

"What do you mean?"

Ash still looked down towards his red shoes. His hands became fists. They trembled because of how hard he was squeezing them.

"You're not always going to be here. You're leaving in a couple of hours Dawn and I-I..."

Ash stopped and looked into Dawn's sapphire eyes. "

"I can't protect you"

Dawn then realized what caused him to be so upset. She then rushed over to the boy and gave him a hug. At first, Ash was shocked at what the coordinator did. But then, he returned the hug and buried his face into her shoulder.