She'd never had much. Before the house, before Rocket, she'd never had much.[break][break]
She'd had a grandmother, who'd loved her, who'd rocked her to sleep smelling of tobacco and wet tea-leaves, but who'd died just like the rest. A shrine to visit, where she'd rung bells and asked questions that nobody ever answered. An Eevee she'd pulled from a bramble brush, spent hours plucking the thorns from the fluff of his mane one painstaking barb at a time. Valerian had been her only real friend.[break][break]
There is some wisdom she's heard before - nobody can be somebody's everything - that surfaces as Parker speaks. And maybe, just maybe, if the world had been a little less cruel to her, a little less unforgiving, she would actually believe it.[break][break]
"I'm sorry," she says, because it will never be the same again. There will be passion, but there will also be blood, from now on. "For all of it."[break][break]
They both know it's Nomi who keeps them chained to Rocket, not Parker. Never Parker.[break][break]
"But I found something we can salvage," she croaks, scrambling over mud and marbles to get to her all-that's-left. She leans in to press chapped lips to Parker's cheek.[break][break]

TAGS – parker jones[break]
NOTES[break]
- Takes place immediately following the battle of Sootopolis

[attr="class","pkmn"]