She'd hate him when this was over. It had been easy to tell Ameena that risking his darkest secrets for elucidation was easy in the heat of the moment, but now yesterday was piling up. It was a sacrilege to keep it hidden. Howard had always valued the truth. Even if June's sacrilege had been necessary, it had turned his mouth to ash.

She deserved to know, but now that she was asking... As June grew closer, he tried to compact himself into a smaller space, as if she wouldn't see him with eyes that cut through the darkness. Violet was a cruel patron. Howard wondered if she had gotten that power specifically for a moment like this.

Don't look at me.

"There are plans in place." He said softly. "From the moment you forgot, I've asked around to figure out how to restore your memory."

A horrible thought bloomed in his head. If she knew the truth, she'd possibly break off from Team Rocket and return to the League. She'd be miserable, but she'd be free from the same curse that had ruined his life a year ago and Grigori's decades before.

He could break this cycle.

"It's safe." He lied. Safe for her, dangerous for him. His dreamscape, his mind, his experiences. Her reactions. "They're here in Mauville, too. I've worked with them before, and they're remarkably intelligent."

It'd be so easy to end everything. He heard another drip of blood against stone and turned his head towards her by a few fractions of a degree.

"You fucked your hands up." A statement, not an observation. Just looking at them made his missing eye tingle. "Can I see?"

---

june sleigh

June looked down at the miserable mess of a man. How he refused to look her way. Was it the guilt from the island that continued to haunt him, or some other thing made his seek shelter so? He looked as miserable as Matchstick had with her cast. The cast he caused. Pity flooded her senses and mixed with the fear and anger.

It felt awful in her brain. Thank Arceus she couldn’t taste it on her tongue.

“Then… make it happen.”

After a moment, June bent down. Now they were mere feet apart. A red hard reached forward, but not to his good eye. Past his face and to his shoulder. It hurt like hell, so she looked to Violet. “C’mon. Need to get him out of here.”

It nodded. Stone shifted beneath futuristic metal as it prodded over and down into the hole. It was warmly cold. A paradox of physics pressed against the archeologist. It wouldn’t let him remain buried in the past. The future was now, and it was only getting brighter.

“You can look at my hands when a doctor is looking at your leg,” she said. No room for arguments existed. Not when space was a premium. “Or when we talk to your friend. I can still walk out of here– so unless you can do a continuous handstand for who knows how long…”

“Stop hiding and hurry up.”

---

howard slayte

"You need your hands more than I need my leg." He protested as June grasped for his shoulder. The sensation felt unpleasant, a reminder that she was human and fallible and her body was broken and she was in pain. "How're you going to-"

Hold things? Feel things? Experience anything other than pain?

"...work?"

Sometimes, it felt like that was the only thing she understood. Work, work, and work some more. As if grinding her soul into dust due to monotonous, grueling labor was somehow equitable to having a life. Sometimes he wondered if she had a life outside of her job, then he thought of the woman who she had caught Regieleki with and killed that thought immediately.

"Fine. Help me up." Rather than let broken fingers hoist him to his feet, Howard clawed up June, using Violet as a handhold as he did so. He collapsed on the mechanical bike, breathing heavily.

He didn't hate this Paradox Pokemon. It wasn't one of yesterday. It was one of tomorrow. He could abide it, because it didn't mock the purpose he had sold his life to.

"Doctor. Then leg and hands." His voice slurred slightly as he rattled off several addresses. "And I'm not hiding!"

He slumped forward as they escaped the tunnels. His last sentence died on his lips.

I'm just afraid.

---

june sleigh