Orion's a night owl. He prefers late shifts and evening hours, so he's not disturbed from sleep when his phone buzzes on the coffee table. He is surprised, for most he knew kept to regular schedules and wouldn't be up at this time. He knows it's not a Ranger emergency; it's set to ring, then, and loudly.

Nikita...?

His brow furrows as he reads the text a couple times over, processing. A personal matter. That didn't sound good. Anxiety and empathy for a situation he's not yet sure the status of war in the tightness of his chest.

He wants to ask for more details, but doesn't want to press her over text if she's not comfortable.

In the end, he offers a simple reply.

be there in a few

He checks himself over in the mirror to ensure he doesn't look like a half-drowned rat, digs through his pokeballs for the one belonging to his Alakazam, and TELEPORTS to the Pokémon Center in Mauville Hills.

Faced with the daunting sight of her apartment door, he has to take a moment to compose himself. He rings the doorbell and then rings his hands, rocking back on his heels to dissipate the nervous energy that builds. It's not long before Nikita opens the door, and he can tell immediately that something is wrong.

"Are you—" He stops short of asking if she's OK. People didn't ask their friends over in the middle of the night and answer the door with a wine glass and on the verge of tears if they were OK. Looking awkward and apologetic, he amends, "Of course, it's no trouble at all."

The place is grand, exquisite in its decoration. Orion feels dwarfed by the floor-to-ceiling windows as he follows Nikita inside, unsure of where to politely settle his gaze.

"This place is — really nice."

That feels inadequate, but he can't find better words.

It seems he's not alone in this, for Nikita doesn't offer up any clue to her condition beyond the immediate pouring of a second glass of wine so soon after she'd finished the first. He doesn't press her. Instead, he offers a fleeting smile in response to the question.

"Oh, yeah, sure."

Orion takes a delicate, polite sip of wine, anxiety discouraging a more heavy indulgence. Nikita looks as if she's on the verge of some kind of breakdown, and he wants to ensure proper ability to support her should his intuition prove correct.

Her request feels abrupt, but he doesn't protest.

He reads, quiet, an expression of concerned confusion softening to one of shared grief as he delves further into the e-mail's contents. He's heard of the attacks on Galar in the wake of Hoenn's own Darkest Day. He hadn't realised that Nikita's family were in danger.

No, not in danger anymore. Deceased.

"I... I'm so sorry." That doesn't quite feel like the right thing to say, but other words fail him as he opens and closes his mouth. He sets the tablet down gently and regards her with his emerald eyes wide and sad. "I don't know what to say," he admits, quietly frustrated with himself, "but, ah, I'm here for you. Whatever you need."

Even if it's just to get hopelessly drunk with a friend.

He knows how it feels to fall apart.

Not in this way, not for this reason, but the fear and uncertainty reflected in the glassy sheen of Nikita's gaze is one he's seen in the mirror one too many times. When life threw complications and your world shattered.

He didn't grieve for his own family, when one of his older brothers had perished in the Three Day War. They didn't deserve even a passing consideration in his mind. But he'd grieved for Annie Mei, for Ruby Walker, for others friends whose lives had been taken too early.

And he'd grieved for himself, for the person he'd been before Rocket's trauma.

He pieces together these scattered experiences and tries, in whatever way he can, to empathize.

"You're going to feel whatever you feel," he says, after a pause to find the words. "There's no right or wrong way about it. If anyone tries to tell you otherwise, well, fuck them." It's not the most eloquent, but hell. "You don't have to explain how it feels. Not to me, or to anyone." You just have to feel it, and endure it, and keep on living.

"I don't know much about running a company," he admits, with an apologetic grimace. "I was Council, but I wasn't Silph, if that makes sense. But isn't there someone else you could appoint, if it's not what you want?"

Bradley? His brow furrows, but after glancing at the e-mail again he makes the connection with B. Dartmoor. His language was stiff and formal, but as someone with social anxiety Orion hadn't read too deep into the clipped tone. Arceus knew he was awful at e-mails. Still, Nikita had grown up around the man, so who was he to doubt?

He traps another apology behind his tongue, brushing aside platitudes in the hopes of something productive he might say to salve her grief.

But nothing would bring her family back.

"Whatever you're feeling, you can say it to me." It's the best he can offer her. "I know it's not the same as ⁠— someone who knew them." Who'd known her since she was a girl, who should have been there for her. "But you don't have to be without an outlet. That's what friends are for."

They didn't know each other terribly well, and yet Orion felt Nikita understood him in a way few others could.

"You don't have to decide right away. They can't force you."

Not with a barrier around the region and the world ending... but he keeps that morbid addition to himself.

Someone else might've drawn amusement from Nikita's wonderment, but Orion understands. He remembers that feeling of freedom: eighteen years old, the day he'd become an adult and all of his family's influence lost its hold on him. It's sad, he thinks, that it's taken so much of Nikita's life to experience that feeling.

Sadder that it was on the back of her family's deaths.

I don't know who I am, Orion.

"There's no rush in finding out." Well, maybe the imminent meteor impact, but he was doing his best not to think about that. The League has it handled. I hope. "It probably feels really overwhelming right now, but that's OK."

She's right, they don't know one another all that well, and yet Orion feels a rare sense of trust in the other woman. It's not something he develops quickly with most others unless he's enamored with them for other reasons, but in Nikita he simply sees a potential for friendship.

"No one should have to go through this alone." He might be awkward and easily flustered, but he does care about people. The meaning behind it is simple: I could tell you needed the company.

He does laugh in response to her own, strangled sound.

"If that's what you want, absolutely."