The shed welcomed them back like a bunker after a failed sortie.
The heavy wooden grate fell shut behind them with a dull, final *thud*, sealing out the jungle, the feral hunger, the memory of glowing amber eyes. For a long moment, no one moved. They just stood there in the dim light, soaked with seawater and the cold sweat of adrenaline, chests rising and falling in ragged unison. The silence was thick with shared understanding.
Ash leaned forward, hands braced on his knees, breath fogging the dusty air. His muscles weren't just tired; they vibrated with the aftershock of control, of having held everything so tightly together until the immediate danger had passed. The tremors were a release, not a weakness. He let them happen.
They had come back alive.
Not victorious. Not successful.
But alive.
That had to be enough for today. It was the only currency that mattered.
Charmeleon sank down near the door, tail flame dropping from a battle-ready roar to a low, steady campfire glow. It wasn't a weapon now—just warmth, just a fixed point in the dark. Squirtle dropped the single plank it had dragged for miles, the wood clattering against the concrete, and sat beside it, blinking slowly, methodically clearing saltwater from its eyes. Ivysaur slid down the wall, its vines loosening from their tight defensive coils, going limp against the floor as its breath deepened into something like rest. Butterfree perched on the highest beam it could find, wings still trembling faintly with the ghost of exertion. Pikachu climbed Ash's leg, a small, deliberate ascent, and settled on his shoulder, pressing its whole body against his neck, tiny paws gripping his collar like it was the only solid thing left.
Pidgeotto landed last on the windowsill, feathers ruffled and out of alignment, its sharp eyes scanning the room one last time before the focus faded into a profound, bone-deep tiredness.
No one spoke. Words felt too heavy, too unnecessary. The space between them was filled with the unspoken language of shared survival: the sound of breathing, the shift of weight, the quiet trust that no watch needed to be kept just yet.
Eventually, when the trembling in his hands subsided to a faint tremor, Ash straightened. The motion felt monumental.
"Water," he said, and his voice was a quiet rasp, stripped of all inflection.
They drank in a silence that was almost ritualistic. Deep, greedy pulls from the battered kettle, water spilling down chins, soaking into already-damp clothes. It wasn't comfort. It was function. It was the recalibration of a machine that had run too hot for too long.
Only after the shaking stopped, after the cold knot in his gut began to loosen, did the thinking begin.
The inlet replayed in his mind not as a scene of terror, but as a schematic. A blueprint of failure and opportunity superimposed. The broken hull. The promise of the barrels. The potential in the rope and planks. The open sea beyond, a blank and terrifying possibility. And cutting across it all, the Houndour—a stark, living reminder that danger here wasn't just scale and steel; it was tooth and claw and desperate hunger.
Opportunity and danger. The two were welded together on this island, inseparable. You couldn't have one without risking the other. That was the first law of this place.
That night, they didn't talk about the beach. They didn't strategize or debrief. They ate the last of the cold, roasted potatoes and the tart Cheri Berries in silence. Then, one by one, they found their places in the dark shed.
Ash lay on his back on the hard floor, Pikachu a warm circle on his chest, and stared up at the patterns of rust and shadow on the corrugated roof. The hum of the core was a constant, vibrating lullaby. He didn't sleep peacefully. Images flashed behind his eyelids: the lunge of a shadow, the glint of a fang, the feeling of the raft plank in his hands—too light, too flimsy. But he slept deeply. A sleep of absolute exhaustion, a surrender to a temporary, hard-won safety.
---
They went back at dawn.
Not as scavengers, wide-eyed and hopeful.
As engineers. Cautious. Methodical. Respectful of the cost.
---
The second expedition to the northern inlet was a different creature entirely. It moved slower, quieter, tighter. A deliberate procession rather than a hopeful dash.
There was no frantic energy, no rush of discovery. No illusion of safety to shatter. Pidgeotto flew higher and wider, its flight paths systematic grids rather than curious arcs. Butterfree stayed low, skimming the canopy line, a living sensor for movement in the undergrowth. The jungle itself felt different—not a mysterious wall, but a watchful entity. It was alive in a way the dead metal valley never could be, and its life was indifferent, often predatory.
When the gap in the trees opened to reveal the inlet again, Ash didn't step onto the sand. He held up a fist—a silent command he'd never used before, learned from a military manual he'd once skimmed in his father's study. The team froze behind him.
He studied the beach like a general studies a battlefield, but his objectives were reversed. He wasn't looking for where to attack; he was looking for how to extract.
He noted the rock formations that could provide cover. The slope angles for a quick retreat. The depth of the water near the wreck for launching. The tide lines to gauge timing. The subtle pull of the current visible in the way seaweed drifted. This wasn't a place to fight. It was a place to work, efficiently and with an exit always in mind.
The Houndour were gone. Not defeated, not driven off—simply elsewhere, attending to the infinite business of survival in their own territory. That was fine. Conquest wasn't the goal. Extraction was.
"Alright," Ash said, his voice low. "We work in shifts. Squirtle, Ivysaur—you're on primary material recovery. Focus on the hull ribs and any plank longer than six feet. Pidgeotto, Butterfree—rotating overwatch. High and low. Charmeleon, you're with me on processing."
They moved in. The work was fast, but never careless. It was rhythmic, almost meditative in its focus.
Squirtle and Ivysaur became a single unit. Squirtle would tap a plank, listening for the solid *thunk* of good wood versus the hollow *crunch* of rot, then use its claws to pry it loose. Ivysaur's vines would slither in to help lift, test the weight, and drag the prize to the growing pile at the water's edge.
Pidgeotto and Butterfree crisscrossed the sky in a silent, vigilant dance. One high, a speck against the grey, the other low, a flicker of color in the salty breeze.
Charmeleon's role was transformation. Under Ash's direction, it used narrow, focused jets of heat—not to burn, but to cure. It swept the flame over damp planks, steaming the moisture out, hardening the fibers. It heated pieces of thick, amber resin that Ash scraped from the trunks of jungle trees, dripping the sticky liquid into cracks and seams, where it cooled into a hard, waterproof seal.
Ash was the architect. He measured planks against each other, not with a tape, but with spans of his arms and lengths of vine. He visualized the raft in his mind: a platform, buoyancy, stability. He directed Ivysaur in binding pieces together. They used the salvaged rope, but also fresh, green vines Ivysaur harvested—braiding them in layered, crisscrossing patterns, creating joints that were flexible yet strong. Redundancy was key. Every lashing was doubled. Every knot was reinforced.
The first frame they built—a simple square of lashed timbers—collapsed when they tried to lift it. The wood groaned and the vines snapped. Ash didn't swear. He knelt, examining the failure points. "The cross-brace was weak. We need a diagonal support. And the vines need to be greener, thicker."
The second frame twisted, one side rising higher than the other, a useless spiral. "Weight distribution," Ash muttered, more to himself than the others. "The barrels need to be placed asymmetrically to counter the drag of Squirtle's tow."
The third frame, smaller and sturdier, actually floated when they pushed it into the shallows. For a glorious minute, it bobbed there, holding the weight of a few rocks Ash placed on it. Then, with a sound like a gunshot, a critical lashing gave way and the whole thing split apart, dumping its cargo into the water.
Ash stood in the surf, watching the pieces drift. A cold, clinical part of his brain noted the failure: *Torsional stress on the central joint exceeded tensile strength of vine binding.* The human part of him felt a deep, weary frustration. But the trainer part looked at his team, their faces falling, and knew he couldn't let it show.
"That was good," he said, wading in to retrieve the wood. "We learned. The design is sound. The binding is the problem. We need to triple-lash the stress points. And we need to test incrementally."
He wasn't just building a raft. He was teaching them, and they were teaching him, the brutal, practical physics of hope.
Buoyancy: how much weight the barrels could actually support.
Balance: how to arrange that weight so the platform didn't flip.
Weight distribution: how Squirtle's pull would affect the frame.
Drag: how the shape of the raft would fight or flow with the water.
By sunset, it wasn't a boat. It would never be a boat. But it was a raft.
It was crude. Ugly. A Frankenstein's monster of grey wood, blackened seams, and braided fiber. It sat low in the water, looking sodden and reluctant. But it was real. Three sealed, empty barrels were lashed beneath a platform of the straightest planks they could find. A raised front lip made from a curved piece of hull helped cut through waves. A central, massively reinforced rope harness point waited for Squirtle.
It wasn't seaworthy. It wasn't safe.
But it was *possible*.
As the last of the grey light bled from the sky, Ash stood barefoot in the cold surf, water washing over his ankles, and just stared at the thing. The mainland wasn't visible from here. There was only the horizon—a razor-thin line of slightly darker grey between the sea and the sky. An endless, empty expanse of water and uncertainty.
This wasn't a heroic departure. It wasn't an adventure.
It was a gamble. The highest-stakes gamble of his life, with the only chips he had left.
---
They launched at dawn.
There were no speeches. No ceremony. No grand declarations. There was only motion. Only need.
Squirtle entered the water first, the thick, braided rope harness secured around its shell and over its shoulders. The other end was bound to the raft's front beam with knots so complex they looked like stone. Squirtle tested the tension, kicked experimentally, adjusted its angle in the water with small, precise movements of its limbs. It looked back at Ash and gave a short, sharp nod.
Ash's heart was a drum in his throat. He stepped onto the raft.
It was like stepping onto a living thing that resented his presence. The platform dipped violently under his weight. Icy seawater surged over the planks, soaking his legs instantly. He froze, arms out for balance, every muscle locked. The raft groaned, the barrels underneath protesting. For a terrifying second, he thought it would simply sink.
Then, slowly, stubbornly, it steadied. The barrels held. The platform rose back to a precarious, bobbing equilibrium.
Barely.
Charmeleon climbed aboard next, moving with deliberate slowness, distributing its weight near the center. The raft dipped again, but less severely. Ivysaur followed, using its vines to slither aboard without a jarring impact, anchoring itself to the frame. Pikachu clung to Ash's shoulder, a tiny, static charge of anxiety. Butterfree perched on a central beam, tucking its wings in tight. Pidgeotto lifted off from the shore, circling above them, a silent guardian against the empty sky.
Squirtle looked back once more, its expression unreadable.
Ash took a final, deep breath of the island's metallic air. He swallowed, his mouth dry despite the water everywhere.
"Forward."
Squirtle kicked.
The rope snapped taut.
The raft lurched, shuddered, and then, with a sound of scraping wood on sand, it began to move.
The shore began to slide away. Slowly. Reluctantly. As if the island itself, this terrible, mechanical mother, didn't want to let her children go.
The open water changed as they left the inlet's partial shelter. It grew deeper, darker, a more profound and endless blue-grey. The waves were no longer gentle lappings; they were solid, rolling hills of water that slapped against the raft's sides with wet, meaty *thwacks*, spraying stinging salt across their faces. The raft groaned and complained with every swell—wood creaking, rope stretching, barrels gurgling beneath the surface. It wasn't sailing. It was being dragged, a stubborn, reluctant cork behind a determined, tiny turtle.
Ash used the long pole he'd fashioned not as a paddle, but as a stabilizer and rudder. He jammed it into the water, pushing against the direction of a spin, fighting the current's attempt to turn them in circles. Ivysaur anchored extra vines deep into the frame, creating a web of tension that reduced the sickening sway. Charmeleon stayed low and still, a living ballast weight. Butterfree kept its magnificent wings folded tight, a conscious conservation of energy. Pikachu pressed its whole body against Ash's neck, silent, its usual sparks dormant.
Pidgeotto flew ahead. Always ahead. A moving, living point of certainty in a formless world of water.
The current was stronger than he'd anticipated. It grabbed the side of the raft and pulled, hard. The whole structure twisted, yawing sideways. Squirtle strained, its powerful legs pumping in a frantic rhythm, its breaths coming in sharp, audible gasps between strokes.
Fear spiked in Ash's chest—clean, sharp, and analytical. Not panic. Calculation. "Easy," he called out, his voice straining to be calm over the wind and water. "Don't fight it directly! Angle left! Use the pull, ride it!"
Squirtle, ears twitching, adjusted its body a few degrees. The fight lessened. They stopped resisting and began a slow, diagonal drift across the current. It was slower progress, but it was sustainable.
Progress was measured in heartbeats, not miles. Each minute felt like an hour of concentrated strain. Every wave that rose higher than the others was a mountain to be climbed. Every ominous creak from the raft's structure was a potential death sentence. The island behind them didn't vanish in a cinematic fade; it stubbornly shrank, a dark, jagged lump of grey and green dissolving into the universal haze of sea and sky.
Ash didn't look back. There was nothing for him there. His world had narrowed to the water ahead, the position of Pidgeotto's circling form, the rhythmic pull of Squirtle's rope, and the faces of his Pokémon sharing this floating prison.
About halfway—a guess, based on the burning in his arms and the deepening fatigue in Squirtle's strokes—the real fatigue hit. It wasn't just tiredness; it was a systemic drain. Squirtle's powerful kicks lost their crispness. Its breathing became a ragged, wet wheeze. Ash felt it through the rope—a terrifying slackening of tension.
The fear returned, colder this time. If Squirtle failed, they were dead. They would drift until the raft disintegrated or the sea claimed them.
Without a word, without a conscious decision, Ash moved. He secured his pole, slid over the side of the raft, and dropped into the water.
The cold was a physical assault. It punched the air from his lungs, a shocking, breathtaking agony. Saltwater flooded his nose and mouth, burning. He surfaced, gasping, eyes stinging. He swam the few strokes to Squirtle's side, grabbed the rope ahead of the harness with both numb hands, found a rhythm with his kicks, and pulled.
He added his own meager, human strength to Squirtle's waning Pokémon power. It wasn't much. But it was shared weight. Shared effort. Trainer and Pokémon, not in a hierarchy of command, but in a primal partnership of strain. He felt Squirtle's pace steady beside him, felt a renewed determination in its strokes. They were in this together. All the way.
A sharp, triumphant screech sliced through the air from above.
Pidgeotto.
Ash looked up, water streaming from his hair.
Land.
Not a smudge on the horizon. Not a trick of the light.
*Land.*
A solid, undeniable shape. Green slopes rising from the water. Dark rock cliffs. The distant, regular lines of what might be buildings. A coastline. The mainland.
Real land.
Not the giant's island. Not a cage of metal and illusion.
Hope, a physical, electric force, shot through the freezing water. Squirtle seemed to feel it too. Its tired legs found a new, final reserve of power. So did Ash. They stopped drifting. They stopped fighting the current.
They *pulled*.
They kicked and hauled with a single, unified purpose. The last few hundred yards were a blur of salt, spray, burning muscles, and the deafening roar of waves crashing against rock. The raft scraped against submerged stone, wood groaning in protest. Rope fibers stretched to their screaming limit.
Then—
***CRUNCH-THUD.***
Impact.
Not water. Stone. Solid, unyielding, immovable rock.
The shock traveled up through the raft, through Ash's bones. The world stopped moving.
For a second, there was only the sound of water sloshing and their own desperate, heaving breaths.
Then Ash was moving, driven by instinct. He hauled himself, hand over numb hand, onto the slick, barnacled rocks. He turned, water pouring from his clothes, and reached back.
One by one, he helped them. He pulled Charmeleon up, its claws scraping for purchase. He lifted a waterlogged, shivering Butterfree onto a flat stone. He guided Ivysaur's vines onto dry land. He half-dragged, half-carried the utterly spent Squirtle from the water, its shell heavy with exhaustion. Pikachu simply leapt, a final spark of energy carrying it to his shoulder before it slid down his chest and pressed against him, eyes closed, a tiny, damp bundle of relief.
Pidgeotto, who had never stopped, never faltered, landed beside him on the rock, its chest heaving, its proud head drooping for the first time Ash could remember.
Charmeleon sat heavily, its tail flame sputtering, gasping, then stabilizing into a weak but steady flame. Ivysaur lay flat, vines spread like spilled ink, utterly limp. Squirtle didn't move, its eyes closed, just breathing. Butterfree's wings were plastered to its body, too weary to unfold.
Ash didn't stand. He didn't survey their new surroundings. He simply collapsed backward onto the rock, the cold stone a brutal comfort against his spine. He stared up.
The sky wasn't grey. It wasn't the dull, metallic white of the island's perpetual haze.
It was blue. A pale, watery, but undeniable blue. Wisps of real cloud, not heat-haze from a machine stack, drifted across it. The wind that touched his face was clean, carrying the scent of pine and earth, not ozone and rust.
No hum vibrated in his teeth. No giant, silent shapes loomed in his peripheral vision. No feral eyes glowed from the shadows.
Just sky. Air. Space.
They hadn't escaped the world. They had escaped the cage.
A sound bubbled up in Ash's chest, unfamiliar and raw. It burst from his salt-cracked lips—a weak, breathless, almost disbelieving laugh. It was the sound of a pressure valve releasing, of a breath held for twenty-seven agonizing days finally, shudderingly, let go.
They weren't home. They weren't safe. The journey ahead was unknown, and Red and Misty were still lost somewhere in that vast blue.
But they were no longer trapped.
And in that moment, on a cold rock on a foreign shore, with his battered, magnificent team scattered around him like broken and beautiful treasures, that changed everything.
The world was quiet. Not the dead, watchful silence of the mechanical island, but a living quiet, broken by the gentle crash of waves, the cry of distant, real Wingull, and the ragged symphony of their own breathing. The absence of the deep, resonant *hum* was a physical relief, a weight lifted from Ash's very bones.
For a long time, they simply lay on the cold, barnacled rocks, feeling the solid, unmoving earth beneath them. The sun, pale but genuine, warmed their soaked clothes and chilled skin. Exhaustion was a deep well they had finally reached the bottom of, and for a while, there was nothing to do but exist in the quiet miracle of *here*.
It was Pikachu who stirred first, pushing itself up on Ash's chest with a soft, determined *chu*. It nudged his chin with its nose, its eyes wide and alert. The message was clear: *We can't stay here.*
"Right," Ash croaked, his voice barely a whisper. He pushed himself up on trembling arms. A quick, assessing glance over his team confirmed the obvious: they were spent. Squirtle was unconscious, not sleeping. Charmeleon's flame was a guttering, weak ember. Ivysaur's vines lay inert. Butterfree couldn't lift its wings. Pidgeotto's head was tucked under a wing, its whole body shuddering with fatigue.
They needed help. Professional help. They needed a Pokémon Center.
The thought was a beacon. He forced himself to stand, legs protesting, and scanned the coastline. They'd landed in a small, rocky cove. To the north, the land rose in forested cliffs. To the south, the rocks gave way to a narrow strip of grey-sand beach, and beyond that, he could just make out the geometric lines of a small town nestled in a bay. The familiar, comforting silhouette of a Pokémon Center's red roof was just visible.
A surge of energy, pure and desperate, cut through the fatigue. "There," he said, pointing.
Gathering his team was a tender, arduous task. With infinite care, he recalled Butterfree, Ivysaur, and Pidgeotto into their balls. The red light seemed to accept them gratefully. Squirtle was too heavy to carry far in his arms. He looked at Charmeleon, who met his gaze with exhausted understanding. With a final, affectionate scratch under Charmeleon's jaw, he recalled it as well. He gently, so gently, lifted the unconscious Squirtle, cradling the Water-type in his arms. Its shell was cold.
"Just you and me, buddy," he murmured to Pikachu, who clung to his shoulder, providing a tiny, steadying warmth. "Let's go home."
The trek from the cove to the town was a blur of pain and focus. Every step sent jolts through his battered body. His waterlogged shoes chafed his feet raw. Squirtle grew heavier with every yard. But the red roof grew larger, a lighthouse guiding him in.
He stumbled into the small, neat Pokémon Center on the outskirts of the town, a figure of dripping seaweed, salt-stiffened clothes, and raw desperation. The nurse at the counter, a young woman with kind eyes, gasped.
"Oh, my goodness! Young man, what happened?"
Ash couldn't form a coherent sentence. He just held out Squirtle, then wordlessly placed the five Poké Balls from his belt on the counter with a soft, final clatter.
The nurse's professionalism snapped into place. "Right. Joy! We need a full trauma team! Stat!" Another Nurse Joy appeared, and together they whisked Squirtle and the balls away on a stretcher cart.
The head nurse turned back to Ash. "And you? Are you injured?"
Ash shook his head, though every part of him ached. "My Pokémon… the long-term immersion… electrical and physical exhaustion…" he managed, the analytical part of his brain still trying to file a report.
"We'll take care of them. You need to rest." She gestured to the Center's lobby, with its soft sofas and warm lighting. "Sit. I'll bring you some tea and a blanket."
He didn't argue. He sank into the nearest sofa, the soft cushions feeling alien after weeks of rock and hard floor. Pikachu slid from his shoulder into his lap, curling into a ball. The familiar, clean scent of antiseptic and potion, the quiet hum of the healing machines from the back, the soft chatter of other Trainers—it was a sensory overload of normalcy that made his eyes sting.
The nurse returned with a thick blanket, a mug of sweet, honeyed tea, and a towel. "Here. Dry off. Your Pokémon are in the best possible hands."
He drank the tea. It was the most delicious thing he'd ever tasted. The warmth spread through his chest, unlocking something tight and frozen. He wrapped the blanket around himself and Pikachu, and for the first time since the S.S. Anne listed, he felt truly, profoundly *safe*.
Hours passed. He dozed fitfully, Pikachu a constant, purring weight on his legs. Every time the doors to the treatment wing swished open, he jolted awake, his heart in his throat.
Finally, the head nurse approached, a soft smile on her face. "They're going to be just fine," she said, and the words were a balm. "Severe exhaustion, malnutrition, minor scorching on Charmeleon and Pikachu, some ligament strain on Squirtle's flippers from the towing. But no permanent damage. They're sleeping now, resting deeply. The healing machines are doing their work."
The relief was a physical collapse. Ash slumped back into the sofa, a shuddering breath escaping him. "Thank you," he whispered.
"There is one thing," the nurse said, holding out a small tray. On it lay his six Poké Balls. "The seawater immersion compromised the internal mechanisms. They're non-functional. We can't recall or release with them in this state."
Ash picked one up. It felt lifeless, just a smooth, cold sphere. A symbol of his journey, broken. He nodded. "I'll need to repair them."
The nurse pointed him to a small, public-use workshop at the back of the Center—a room with basic tools for Trainers to perform minor gear maintenance. It was quiet and empty.
Sitting at the workbench with his broken Poké Balls and a borrowed toolkit, Ash found a strange, profound peace. This was a problem he could solve. It was technical, precise, quiet. Pikachu watched from the bench, eyes half-closed.
One by one, he opened each ball's outer casing with a delicate screwdriver. Inside, he found the expected corrosion on the miniature circuit boards and the tiny, kinetic energy converters that powered the containment field. Using a can of compressed air and a fine, anti-static brush, he carefully cleaned away the salt and grime. He tested connections with a multimeter, identifying and bypassing fried circuits with spare micro-wire from the workshop's supplies. For the physical latch mechanisms, stiff with salt, he applied minute drops of lubricant.
It was meticulous, absorbing work. His hands, which had shook with exhaustion and fear, were steady. His mind, which had been a storm of survival calculations, was focused on a single, clean task. As he worked on each ball, he thought of the Pokémon inside. Of Ivysaur's patient vines, of Squirtle's stubborn loyalty, of Butterfree's fragile resilience, of Charmeleon's fierce protectiveness, of Pidgeotto's unwavering watchfulness.
This wasn't just repair. It was an act of care. A silent apology and a promise. *I brought you out. I will keep you safe.*
He saved Pikachu's ball for last, though it was unnecessary. When he finished, he snapped the final casing shut on the sixth ball. He held it in his palm, then pressed the button.
A perfect, solid *click*. The red light on the front glowed steadily.
A small, real smile touched his lips for the first time in weeks. It felt strange on his face, like using a forgotten muscle.
He returned to the main lobby, the repaired balls secure on his belt. The nurse informed him his team would need a full 24 hours of supervised rest in the healing tanks. It was the hardest order to follow, but he knew it was necessary.
With a small loan from the Center's emergency fund (against his Trainer ID), he bought a hot meal from the cafeteria—real food, with flavors that exploded on his tongue—and a set of cheap, clean clothes from the Center's lost-and-found. A shower was a revelation, washing away the last layer of salt, grime, and the psychic residue of the island.
That night, he lay in a real bed in the Center's spare dormitory. The mattress was impossibly soft. The sheets were clean. Pikachu was curled on the pillow next to him, breathing deeply.
He was alone in the room. For the first time since the shipwreck, he was physically alone, his other Pokémon resting in their balls, healing in the sterile calm of the Center's back rooms.
The silence should have been heavy. Instead, it was light. It was just quiet.
He looked at the six Poké Balls on the bedside table, their surfaces gleaming dully in the night light. Then he looked at Pikachu, a small, yellow mound of peaceful sleep.
He wasn't alone. He never had been.
He reached out, not to recall Pikachu, but simply to rest his hand on its back, feeling the steady rise and fall of its breath. The connection was there, solid and unbreakable, with or without a ball.
He closed his eyes. The plan for tomorrow—to contact Professor Oak, to inquire about Red and Misty at the local port authority, to begin the search in earnest—was already forming in his mind. But for now, he let it drift away.
For now, there was only the clean silence, the soft bed, the warmth of his partner beside him, and the deep, knowing peace that they had crossed the impossible sea, and were, against all odds, here.
Ash Ketchum slept, and for the first time in a long time, he did not dream of drowning.