What a couple of weeks it had been.

She’d still yet to contact MATIAS SILPH much—just the occasional text to assure him she was ‘okay’ or ‘fine’ or ‘better’ or ‘just cooking, you know’.

Crying. That’s what she’d been doing. But no one knew the lieutenant to cry, and that wasn’t going to change now. That was for the comfort of her dingy Rustboro apartment.

But, something did give, finally.

She’d seen his name. She’d wondered. Was it him?

And when she saw him, she knew it was. So, when she got close enough to see his face, she ran, broke the distance, crashing into him a bit maybe, and wrapped arms tight around him, burying her head into his shoulder wordlessly at first.

She never thought she’d see him again. These days, all things considered, seeing an old face felt like a miracle.

“It’s a really long story,” she muttered into his shoulder.

She was taken back in time as well—to a place in Kanto, several, several blocks from where she’d stayed. A nice place, where she’d learned how to make food she’d never eaten before. It had become the thing she gave; how she connected with others.

Cooking was a gift that had changed her life entirely, and she had Sénon to thank for that.

But food wasn’t all. It was the hair, the smell…

He’d grown, though; no longer a kid. He was broader, stronger, older.

She pulled back, getting a good look at him. Her face wasn’t smiling, although her heart was happy to see him. There was pain in her expression. She looked tired.

“You’ve grown.”

He lifted her from the ground in his hug, embracing her for just a while longer before letting go.

In a set moment in time, when he was more than a boy but still not enough to be a man, sagira mosse etched a place in his soul; somewhere between sister, friend and lover.

He cared for her so uniquely that he could lovingly send her away, to a greater love and yet couldn't turn his back on her.

He'd let himself think she was somewhere safe and happy in the silence of their communication but it tugged at his heart to see the weariness on her very being didn't match joy he could hear in her voice.

What could you do for someone you loved who seemed to have suffered since your last sight of them?

"You haven't." The least he could do is make her smile.

“Yeah.” Back on her feet, she looked down at herself, and then up at him with light scrunch of her face. “Maybe not, huh?” Her smile leaked laughter and warmth which slowed too soon to a trickle, nearly dried up.

She’d always have it for him. There was a special place in her heart which he filled and would never leave.

As much as she wondered about his story, it was almost too much to ask. Kanto had been the last time she’d seen him—before it had fallen. Before absolute tragedy had struck their region down. She’d wondered time and time again if he’d made it.

“I’m so glad to see you safe.” Eyes fell to her hands a moment, and her head shook in regret, or something that felt similar. For what, she wasn’t sure. For whatever she hadn’t done that she should’ve or could’ve, even though she’d felt at the time that she’d done it all.

With a sigh, she willed herself towards difficult conversation.

“What are you doing here? You’re League, now?”

The dark and strange of the cave around them now seemed more apt. Just as during her reunition with MATIAS SILPH , a story of tragedy fell between them. How could it not? From where they’d come, few had good stories to tell of such a time in history.

Her eyes hung, solemnly. There was so much guilt for having left the fight.

“I’m so sorry, Sénon.” Her apology was for more than just him, and for an abundance of things he couldn’t yet know. There had simply been too much loss, spread too far, to mourn specifically anymore.

A hand went up to lay on his shoulder familiarly. Comforting, sincere.

Regardless of her own numbness, she remembered how much they meant to him, and that was the part that saddened her the most.

“So… you’re here to fight them, then?”

To stop the spread of the disease that had ravaged their home.

Something like that. She eyed him with the smallest trace of suspicion, but didn’t press.

She’d come to reunite with MATIAS SILPH , but it had turned out that they really weren’t meant to be together, after all. Seeing Sénon, now, gave her a glimmer of hope again. Of longing for companionship, and she tried to push the warm back down; snuff it out under the weight of reality and level-headedness.

To Sage, food was more attention-grabbing than the rock they were about to dig up—not that a meteorite wasn’t interesting.

“Sounds good. Bet you know all the best places, huh?” A smile, and she reached for a pokéball to release one of her oldest partners, but still not one Sénon would have recognized.

“Cacturne—use INGRAIN to loosen the dirt.” She pointed. “There.”

From beneath the plant-man’s feet, thick roots began to push their way through the ground and create a much softer, easier site for extraction.