Author's Note:
So here we have it, the last chapter. I honestly never thought I would get here when starting this book. I'm the kind of person who starts writing something and then never finishes it. I've always had a love of words and have started so many pieces only to never complete them. The creative flow is kind of like a drug to me, really.
I've noticed how much my writing has evolved over the course of this book and I'm extremely grateful to this community for shaping the writer I am today. If you were to read my first chapter and then this last one, you probably wouldn't recognize it as the same author. I do plan on making some edits and changes to the beginning but nothing that will effect the end. Simply because my ideas have evolved and I think some of my earlier choices were risky and not developed enough. I just want this piece to be perfect.
Anyways, I know I've never really accounted for any mile stones, be it 1k reads, 5k reads, 10k reads and now we're at 16k! Thanks to all of you who have stuck by me throughout the entire story, you mean so much to me. We've also surpassed 800 votes. That's amazing! Every single one of them has made me smile! Also, we made the What's Hot list for #satosere and #ashxserena. I never thought my fanfiction would reach where it has. I remember when I posted the first few chapters and I tried to look for it under the hashtag Amourshipping. I spent ten minuets scrolling until I found it.
If anyone is interested, I do have a new book called The Pandemonium of Elaina. It's a book full of one shots of different events that happened
in Elaina's life. You all know the basics of her backstory but this gives much more information. After all, Our Alternate Ending is mainly focused on Ash and Serena, so there really was no place for more of Elaina. But there is a lot more too her than just explained in this book. The Pandemonium of Elaina has stories from her childhood, to her time in Sinnoh, even more info of her journey with Ash and Serena. Just letting you know if you're interested.
Now regarding a sequel. There is a sequel to this book, however, I'm not entirely sure what to call it cause Our Alternate Ending can still be read as a stand alone. I will be writing an epilogue for this book, but the sequel will take place in the time frame between the last chapter and the epilogue. Some questions that may be raised in the epilogue will be answered in the sequel, but in the end, the epilogue will be the last of these character's story.
Anyways, enjoy the last proper chapter of Our Alternate Ending.
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"Queen Serena, what exactly is your relationship with Ash Ketchum?" I heard amongst the onslaught of questions being hurled at me as I walked into my staff manager's office building. It was this question that caught my attention, as I was still asking myself the same thing.
The uproar was so loud in my ears I could hardly hold a straight face. Reverberations rattling my brain against the walls of my skull. Was silence too much to ask for?
I wanted to scream, scream until the paparazzi ceased to reminded me of the thin-lipped smile on Ash's face, or his bister glowing eyes, or the way it felt when he took my wrist in his hand. The exhale I forced to keep myself placid was shaken. I had to demand my legs to take another step. Never had I been so grateful of the shelter provided from the office building.
Once the heavy glass door clicked closed behind me and the chorus of questions simmered into background hum, I felt tension drain away from my hunched shoulders. My staff manager, Stella, stood waiting for me in her red silks and white shawl, plucked eyebrow raised curiously. She didn't know about Ash.
"Bad blood? Black history? Heartbreak? Ash Ketchum?" She asked through her pearly whites. I huffed, pushing passed her to where the elevator was situated. All I wanted was to get this fitting over and head back home, where I could train until I forgot my problems.
"All of the above." I told Stella as she clicked her pretty little stilettos into the elevator along side me. The door closed and the sea of paparazzi under a sky paved with storm clouds was irradiated from sight.
"Don't worry, I told everybody you wouldn't be taking any interviews or answering any questions." The middle aged woman told me, putting a manicured hand on my shoulder. I shuddered in a mixture of relief and angst, throwing my head against the elevator wall, as if it were too heavy to hold.
"Thank you so much. You're a life savior, Stella." I gushed, pleasantly solaced with the news. Answering questions was the last thing I wanted to engage in, especially when many I could not answer.
"I've never seen you look like such a broken doll. Whatever mess you got into with the champion of Kanto really left some cracks." The staff manager resorted, looking at me from the corner of her green eyes, as if anticipating some sort of explanation. I knew she wouldn't force it out of me, but she was inquisitive, nonetheless. My reluctance to talk meant all response was indefinably halfhearted.
"Cracks. More like entire breaks."
The elevator pinged, signifying that we had arrived at our destination. The steel door slid open and I had an odd recall; Ash and I trapped in an elevator. The memory paralyzed me for a short moment, before I gathered myself together and pushed the thought aside. Out of sight, out of mind.
The 16th floor of this office building was entirely dedicated to Kalos Queen and Performance. It had become a familiar atmosphere to me over the past year, the endless background chatter, click of keys and buzz of the coffee machine. I mindlessly followed Stella through the rows of cubicles to where the grand fitting room was installed.
It was manned behind two intricate timber doors towards the back of the expanse. Stella always loved to make an exquisite entrance, so she'd swing the doors open at once, flash her blinding smile, then step aside for me to enter. I walked in with a lopsided frown. Perhaps, I should have been grateful for the distraction, pulling my thoughts elsewhere from the boy who ruptured my world to severed pieces. But in some strange format, I didn't want to think about anything else.
You're still trapped, Serena. You never really did get out of that cage.
One of the girls who worked as my fitting staff took my hand and lead me to the elevated platform in the middle of the room. She was no older than I with wide-spaced eyes, like that of a doll. A few more girls stripped me of the skater-skirt and bodysuit I'd chosen to wear today, preparing for the fitting.
Once I had been imperially positioned upon the platform, couples of staff heaped a bundle of fabric out of the oversized Queen dresser. They staggered with the extravagant dress in hand, attentively unfolding the textiles. I craned my neck above the bustling girls in order to glimpse the dress.
It was huge, as a mere description, not anything I had ever worn on stage before. To queenly walk down the golden steps of the Anistar City stadium would be a struggle adept to that of gambling a game with no chances. My jaw dropped, hanging agape like it would detach from my head any minuet.
"Stella, it's..." I started, only to be cut off by an effusive staff manager.
"Beautiful!" She beamed, like all the sun's rays pouring in from the stylized windows had been hoarded into her smile.
"I mean, didn't you tell me that I would be wearing a sleek, charmeuse dress? And didn't you say it would be a rose color?" I questioned, remembering our talk on the phone about my next performance in Anistar City, the other day. The dress she described sounded sublime, Kalos handcrafted by a local designer with fabrics as pure as 24 karat gold.
"Oh yes, you were going to wear that. And don't worry, it's still in your closet waiting to be worn during your next performance. But plans changed yesterday." Stella informed me as she commanded her posey of fitting girls with flicks of her thin-boned wrist. Two girls wrapped a crinoline around my waist, fixing the steel contraption while I stood as still as my grievance state would allow.
"What caused the plans to change?" I asked, slightly being yanked off balance as another two girls hitched a linen corset around my torso. As they attached the clasps, I gasped, all air being forced out of my lungs. I was used to wearing corsets, however, this one was unusually taut. It involuntarily urged my spine dead straight.
"Ash Ketchum came to town." She replied, as if it were the most obvious thing imaginable. Shrugging her blanched shawl further up her shoulders, Stella strut towards me with a very proficient grin. The deadpanned expression on my face was most likely a result of breathlessness.
"Oh sweetheart, if you don't mind me saying, you've caught a good one there. The champion of Kanto, who would have thought it?" One of the fitting girls exclaimed as I was repeatedly prodded and pinched. There were haphazards to being Kalos Queen.
"I guess all I've caught is a boy with talent." I groused.
"I'm sure he can't be that shallow." Another fitting girl stated, one lifting my left arm to make sure the corset was suited perfectly.
"Is it true that he came to apologize to you? If so, he seems like a fine man to me." The third girl spoke.
"You'd have a different opinion if you knew what he was apologizing for. If you were there three years ago." I grumbled, not wanting to discuss the topic anymore. It was like pouring bleach down my raw throat. The hateful words like pretty little lies scaring my larynx each time I summoned them. I wanted to hold onto resentment, it's how I was supposed to feel.
But I saw him right in front of me. Under the same city lights. Still looking like he held the entire universe in his arms. And, gosh, how much I wanted to relish in the feeling of the entire universe.
"Oh my, history deeper than I thought."
Feelings deeper than I anticipated. Storms stronger than I wished for. A red blindfold thicker than I'd foreseen.
"So this dress is for Ash?" I queried, not sure wether I'd like the answer or not. Or if I would even choose to commit to the stage after getting it. All I new was that I still startled whenever I heard his name roll off my own tongue. And I liked it.
"Precisely. I'd bet your whole career that Ash will show up at that performance. He'll see you in this dress and will be so entranced, he won't realize the showcase has finished even after you've exited the stage." Stella cooed, red silks clinging to her legs as she swayed fancifully.
"Excuse us, Miss." A fitting girl whispered, stressing under the weight of her load. Both her and another held the enormous dress, displaying it upright so I could witness all of it's glory. And, no matter how much I dreaded to dance in the gown, there was no denying it's arduous artistry. The entire garment was an deep ultramarine, like harvested from the purest lapis lazuli. A high neckline of lace was beaded in silver rhinestones, intricate and meticulous. Rich folds of chiffon embellished upon the voluminous skirt. And it shimmered, like a thousand stars had been painted onto every square inch.
"The richest tulle in all of Johto, the best quality of lace from Alola, handcrafted rhinestones and of course, chiffon from the one and only Kalos. It doesn't get any finer than this." Stella gushed, stepping aside to let the fitting girls hoist me into the lavish garment. The fibers were heavy, thick sheets enveloping my body in the most complementary way possible. One girl lifted my honey locks, hair that had grown out in an attempt to become the girl before Ash Ketchum once again.
"Stella, how did you get your hands on such a thing?" I quizzed as fitting girls proceeded to fiddle with the pleats of fabric until it settled on my body just right. The silk corset ribbons were laced up tightly, squandering any gaps.
"I have my sources. Besides, who wouldn't want to see their Queen looking so stunning? Kalosians take pride in you." My staff manager lectured, the same lines I'd heard a thousand times before. Kalosians take pride in you. I sighed.
"Is that why you're going to such lengths to make Ash feel for me? Because for the Kalos Queen to date a champion would only up her reputation? Can you ever stay out of my personal life?" I huffed, feeling the need to cross my arms in acrimony but fearing the slightest touch on my dress could ruin it. But I knew the next words that would leave her pouted lips. They were words I'd heard countlessly already. Stella took my face in her supple hands.
"Oh sweetheart, it's my job to know every detail about you."
*. *. *. *.
I swiped my access card into the slot on the pent house door, hearing the faint click and subsequently pushing it open. The halls were quiet and I wondered if my roommate was even present, but as I made my way into the living room, I found her lolling on a satin couch. She had one hand lethargically caressing Espeon's fur and the other grasping a spoon loaded with a swampy mixture of brownie and ice cream. Elaina looked at me from beneath her thin lashes.
"What?" The gold haired girl remarked, scoffing down another mouthful. It was only ten o'clock in the morning. "I needed something to wash away the sour aftertaste."
"Fair enough." I shrugged, taking a seat next to her. I noticed Elaina's right hand was still wrapped up in gauze, healing from her bone-cracking punch yesterday. I felt her stare, as if she awaited something. Anticipating something from me.
"No scolding? You know, how I'm not supposed to hit people?" She asked, face disfigured into one that somewhat resembled a child's. Her eyes immense, puppy like. I giggled at her expression, thus quirking a meager smile on her lips.
"No. No scolding. If anything, I should have cheered you on back there. He got what was coming for him." I replied, after the giggles depleted. The slender smile had now adapted into a full blown grin.
"If only I had planted that shot in public." Elaina stated, chuckling listlessly at the prospect. A sighed swallowed the last of her laughs, a grim look crossing her face as she took another spoonful.
"A little cruel, but it'd certainly do him good." I resorted, taking the spoon from Elaina's cream coated fingers and savored my own mouthful of ice cream and brownie.
"Either way, I think he's learned his lesson. Seeing him though, sparked a new kind of anger. In that moment, I was capable of murder. It was rather scary actually, I've never felt that unhinged in all my life. What about you? This must really be taking a toll. You still love him?" My best friend asked, and for the longest time, I contemplated not answering. However, I reckoned she deserved an answer.
The shallow layers of my heart wanted to blurt 'No'. Final and uncrossed. The flaking layers wanted to keep up this facade that had driven me through those three years. But the depths wanted to disagree, spill ardor in the form of direst cruelty. So I said the only thing that could really shape my feelings in that moment.
"I don't know."
"You feel something, though?" I could have expected Elaina to be relentless with this fact, but she wasn't. Possibly, she accepted that crawling out of love was a tenacious task.
"I feel so many things at once. I could hit him but embrace him at the same time. However, what I do know, is that I've displayed all the symptoms according to my most trusted love professor." I looked Elaina out of the corner of my eye to witness her reaction. She cracked up, throwing he head back in hysterics, excess ice cream streaming from the edges of her lips.
"Are you seriously taking my sixteen-year-old lessons as the gospel of love?" She questioned after her laughter died once again.
"You were not dumb at sixteen." I told her, a smile gracing my lips.
"I was naive." She countered. And I was about to take the contrary again, but I was cut off by the sudden knock on the front door. We both perked up, silently making assumptions on the identity of our visitor. We both knew who it was. "You answer it."
Was there any point arguing? Elaina most certainly couldn't open the door, cause if it really was the person we suspected, there would be nothing but screaming and more split blood.
So, shaking limb from limb, I walked to the polished mahogany door. I wasn't sure if I wanted to talk to him. Or if I wanted to hold onto those last threads of loathing instead. Hold onto the shielded girl that won her title, her crown. I didn't know if softening would work in my favor or not.
Sure enough, he stood behind the door, looking as breathtaking as ever. And I saw it, I saw the entire universe in the look on his face. In the wells of his eyes. I saw it stitched between fibers of his palms. Even behind the gauze taped onto his tender nose.
His head was beaded with casndecent droplets of water. The rain. He'd ran through the rain to see me.
Ash looked on sincerely, like if he dare make a move too quickly, I'd shatter, or vanish into thin air. Instead I stood guardedly, waiting for something I knew I wouldn't get. The right words to make me snap, pulverize the feet between us that felt so heavy in that doorway, to something as lucid as tinfoil. Yesterday, the air felt almost thin between us, but I left him at the Pokemon Center, building a wall as I went.
"Don't apologize again." I muttered. An apology was what Serena three years ago would have wanted. Not Serena now.
"I won't. But I don't know what else to say." There was pleading in Ash's voice. Like his very next heartbeat depended on me.
"The right thing, Ash. Say the right thing." It was a stupid request to ask for. But it was the only way I could express what I needed. I refused to let go of those threads unless he dragged me from them.
"I don't know what that is!" He almost yelled. It was as if panic started to solidify in his veins, as if I was slipping from his fingers.
I don't know what compelled me to leave, really. All I knew was that I couldn't be there, as I gave him that broken expression. I couldn't be there, grasping onto hope that he'd say something I could find purchase on. Something that would make up for those three years. Replace them, fill the gap. It was too much too ask for, and I didn't want to be around for the let down.
"Serena, where you are going?! It's pouring outside!" I heard him shout after me. I didn't care if the biggest storm of all my lifetime was brewing out there, I was leaving.
"If I can't get away from you here, then I'm going somewhere else!" I replied as the building elevator invited me in, pinging its usual upbeat note.
"Serena, wait!" But the elevator doors had already closed.
The whole way down, all I could think about was Ash and I trapped in that elevator in Camphrier town all those years ago. The way I fell asleep on his lap. It haunted me like a nightmare. I loved the memory. Soon, the doors opened again and I stormed through the building lobby. As I was exiting I peered over my shoulder only to see that the second elevator was opening, and out stepped Ash.
Despite, I continued my crusade to absolutely nowhere. Stepping outside was like being tossed into a bleak ocean. The rain was freezing. Pelted at me in a frenzy. The weather would have to work a lot harder to drive me back inside.
The streets which were normally bustling with people were now dead, everyone rushed inside for shelter from the rain. I trudged on, feeling at the rain seeped into my hair and clothing, until I resembled more of a drowned Purlion than a queen. My legs took me in random directions, aimlessly and without thought. And I was perfectly aware of Ash a few meters behind me.
"Serena!" He called. I could have stopped right there. I could have told him to go away. But I didn't want to. "You're acting like those three years weren't hell for me too!"
At that, I spun around on my heels to face him. We were in the middle of the shopping boulevards now, near where Lumiose park was. Brick roads and birch trees. Icy rain.
"I'm sorry for your mum. I really am. She never deserved what happened. And nobody deserves to see their mother like that, not even you. Especially not you. I understood that you didn't want to talk while the wounds were still fresh, but as you healed, would it have killed you to just tell me that you were okay?" I vented, droplets of water cascading down my face, into my mouth and eyes.
"I tried! I tried to speak to you once, but you were in Hoenn. You'd already gone!" Ash countered, taking steps forward. I stood my ground, watching as the meters between us slowly eroded away.
"Did you really expect me to wait forever?!" I yelled.
"No." He sighed in defeat, pausing his approach. My bottom lip quivered as his gaze left mine to attain the ground's.
"Sometimes I wondered if you even remembered being in Kalos. If you even remembered me." I jeered, taunting and almost falling to my knees in the process.
"I would run away with you, Serena." He was filling my head with pretty little fantasies. Sunsets and kisses washed in vermillion firelight.
"Instead you chose to runaway from me." I whispered, hating the way the words tasted on my tongue. There was a short silence as we just listened to the rain crash against our skin, stares unwavering.
"I made mistakes. Lots of them. But coming back here is not one of them. I'm not leaving until that is downright factual." He said, continuing with his gradual approach. My mind was spinning so much I couldn't think what would happen once he reached me.
"Gosh, you know, at one point I actually thought I set a flame alight in your eyes. But I'm so stupid, cause it was just the reflection of the one you set in mine." I muttered in a soft tone braided with anguish.
"You're wrong. Serena, you didn't set a flame alight in my eyes. No, you created whole explosions, entire wildfires. Maybe you were too scared of getting burned to notice." He replied, rendering me speechless for a while. But I gulped back the lump in my throat and tasted the salty rain drops on my lips.
"I guess I was smart then, cause I got burnt regardless." My jaw trembled as the words came out.
He was so close to me now. I could smell his distinct spice again like a sudden wash of euphoria. I remembered when he would lean on me while having a vision of Greninja and I would try to memorize exactly what it felt like to breath him in. Looking up, I became enveloped in his auburn eyes, rimmed in thick lashes that I was always jealous of. A tattered bandage was still secured across his nose but it didn't smother any aspect of his face. Jet hair clung to his sun-kissed skin that hadn't darkened a shade since I'd last seen him, in the dead middle of the night, three years ago. Ash settled his hands on my shoulders, savoring the way my drenched skin felt, like he wouldn't be able to touch me again for another three years.
"You know how nothing can survive without the sun?" He kept my gaze locked in his. I merely nodded. "We revolve around the sun everyday. We depend on it for survival. Even at night, when we can't see it, we rely on the fact that it will rise again in the morning. I need you to let me in like I need the sun to rise at dawn. Cause if not, the sky is just grey, and slowly, things stop surviving. You are my sun, Serena. My world doesn't live without you."
"I don't want to be your sun."
The look that crossed his face was one that could have just emerged from a walk through hell.
"W-why?"
"Cause the sun is a billion miles away from you."
I didn't have much time to relish in the sight of his smile, simply because he pulled my face right against his and smashed his lips onto mine. Bewilderment sparked through every nerve in those first few moments, until the very hands of temptation forced me out of paralysis. I couldn't help but explore every inch, crevasse and wrinkle of his lips.
The elation that secreted into every living fiber of my being was an exhilaration so addictive, I swear I would never need to breathe. An adrenaline rush so overpowering I became immortal for a sweet second. Thunder could have cackled in the background but the blood rushing through my ears roared much too rambunctious for me to hear. The rain had been frigid, but in that moment, it didn't exist.
I knew, right then, if I could spend all those years chasing after something I had so little chance of retrieving again, I would. I'd go through all the pain, the heartache and the bitterness, just to relive this moment. All those years fantasizing in a thousand ways possible and it was worth every second. It may have been in one of the worst circumstances feasible, however, no grain of me seemed to care.
Every blush or stutterer or skipped heartbeat melted into the movements of our lips.
Sixteen year old Serena was screaming.
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So there you have it. Thank you for reading and I hoped you enjoyed, my lovelies!