Paving Paradise
Title: Paving Paradise
Author: crystalpool
Series: Pokémon (mangaverse)
Rating/Genre: T; Family/Drama/Romance
Word Count: 2659
Characters: Green, Daisy / Bill
Summary: Sometimes, we don't know how important family is until it's too late.
Disclaimer: I don't own or the characters.
Note: Daisy is approximately six years older than Green.
…
…
don’t it always seem to go
that you don’t know what you got
till it’s gone
…
…
He’s two when she tells him about Pokemon for the first time.
Green sits in his high chair on a Saturday morning, howling. Daisy is perched on a stool next to him, attempting to send an airplane full of apple sauce into his mouth. He blatantly refuses, flailing his arms and nearly upsetting the bowl all over her skirt.
She sighs and puts her hands on little girl hips, trying to mother him.
This is tricky, since she’s never really had a mother either. Just an absent woman who stopped by her famous father-in-law’s house every now and then to drop off the check, and then later a baby boy she doesn’t know how to take care of.
Daisy doesn’t care about her mama, since she can do a better job than her. She’s learned quick how to be reliable and to make sure her baby brother (or half brother, or something like that) doesn’t starve to death.
“Green, eat your applesauce!” she tells him urgently.
“No!” he screams at her. “Give me pudding!”
It’s trickier to take care of him when he’s articulate. Daisy changes tactics. “If you eat your applesauce, I’ll tell you the story about the Rattata that tricked the Meowth again! Don’t you want to hear that?”
“Pudding!” he repeats, this time flipping the applesauce onto the floor.
She stares at him stolidly, then replies, “Only if you behave!”
Green’s arms fold impudently over his chest, and she can’t help but giggle. “Fine!” he yells, like the volume will make his decision less of a compromise and more of a dictation. “Pudding.”
Daisy flounces over to the fridge, where she obtains said treat. She opens the aluminum peeling and sticks a plastic spoon in the cup and then sits back down, her baby brother eating away happily.
“Playtime!” he yells. Green has no more motivation to behave, and so he reverts to his old ways.
Not that she minds. She carefully lifts him out of the high chair. He sucks on his right thumb and carries a stuffed animal in his left arm. And together they toddle outside.
“Let’s battle!” he yells. “Go, Pidgey.”
And he tosses his stuffed bird to the grass.
“No, don’t do that!” Daisy says, hurrying over. “Mr. Tweety shouldn’t be outside. He’ll get dirty!” She picks up the stuffed animal and tries to grab Green’s hand. “Come on, let’s go put him back inside.”
But his hand slips, and he falls over on the pavement.
“Ow!” he yelps, uncurling his leg from underneath him. “It hurts, Daisy!”
She examines the knee; little droplets of blood are forming along a little cut, and it’s red like the surface of a strawberry. “C’mon, let’s go get you a band-ade.”
Daisy gets a bandage and fixes Green up. After she’s done, they go outside to play again.
…
…
He’s five when he stops wanting to play games with her.
Three years wear well on Daisy. She’s eleven and acts like she’s fifteen. You grow up fast when you’re the only one in your house who knows how to cook and do laundry.
At the same time, she feels like a child lost in the past. Her brother’s a genius, she tells her few friends. At five years of age, he spends his days in the fields, trying to fight wild Pokemon with his bare fists.
Well, maybe not a genius, she decides affectionately. But he’s getting there.
However, he wants nothing to do with his big sister, who isn’t living up to his ideas of perfection. “You’re eleven!” he screeches one day as he walks into the kitchen, stomping mud onto the freshly cleaned linoleum floor. “You’re supposed to be a Pokemon trainer.” He glares accusingly, then walks away before she can begin to defend herself.
Truth is, she doesn’t want to be a Pokemon trainer. She doesn’t enjoy traveling, not even to Viridian City.
It’s a dangerous world, especially for little girls like herself, and all the heroines she’s ever heard of are tough, clever, or well-disguised. Or they have tons of money and guards to keep them safe.
She’s none of those, and neither is her Chansey, who tries to comfort her by hugging her legs. “It’s okay, Lucky-tchi,” she tells the Pokemon. “He’s only five, he doesn’t understand…”
Green doesn’t understand. It’s not something that his sister can teach him, anyway. That takes years of training overseas with a man that’s the father he wishes he had.
…
…
He’s ten when she gets her first job.
Not that he cares, though, since he also gets his first job. Both are for the same man. Their grandfather. Daisy is to assist with research. Green, however, is to do field work.
His departure would be sadder if he hadn’t already been gone for four years.
Green stays at home for a week before setting out again. He looks completely different from the unruly six-year-old who left home (although his hair is still a mess). She doesn’t say anything, though, because he bristles at the slightest mention of ‘how much you’ve grown!’ or ‘your family must be so proud’.
She feels old. Four years is a long time for children, and she constantly has to remind herself that she is still a child. Sort of. After all, ten-year-olds are the ones who save the world these days.
She misses the days when a bandage could fix everything.
Before Green leaves again, she tells him, “You’ll do better than me… I wasn’t cut out for that sort of thing.” He nods, accepts the present she hands him (a little necklace in the shape of an amber tear drop) and disappears again.
No, she was never meant to be the star of the show. Green will become everything he wants to be and more. She’ll just sit back and watch, wishing that he would look back and remember.
She doesn’t understand.
She says nothing to her grandfather. His kids have been gone for years and years. He wouldn’t understand either.
…
…
He’s twelve when she leaves home and meets the man of her dreams.
It’s always been her dream to be a famous researcher, like Gramps. But research means science, and science means education, so she sets off for Celadon City and the big universities where you can study anything.
One day, she’s sitting in class taking notes when a boy with caramel-colored hair (neat, professional) slips into the seat next to her, late. His face is flushed, like he had sprinted to get to physics on time, and he pulls out a laptop, then hesitates.
“Hi,” he says nervously. “What have I missed?”
The professor is saying something, but she can’t tell what, since her heart is beating fast and her breath is coming slow. “Um…” she says, eyes darting between her notes and his curious, innocent face. “Nothing important. I’m Daisy, by the way.”
“Bill,” he says casually, starting to type the information from the projector. Then he pauses again. “Nice to meet you.”
They go out for coffee after a few weeks, and after a few more weeks, they’re inseparable.
Midway through the spring semester of their sophomore year, he disappears for two weeks and then comes back, claiming to have saved the world with the help of his Vulpix.
Most people laugh. Daisy sees a different side, since she’s the one who knows how to patch up the burn marks all down his side.
She calls Green, just to check up on her kid brother, but he’s unavailable. Grandpa says he’s still traveling, no one knows when he’ll be back, the normal nonsense.
She sighs in frustration and tries again two weeks later, and this time he’s home. “What’s up, sis?” he asks. “How’s school going?”
“Great,” she squeaks. “Green, it’s just so good to hear from you again…”
She hears the static over the phone. “Yeah, whatever.”
She hadn’t planned on it, but suddenly she starts gushing about her perfect grades and Bill and their first kiss just the other night and…
“That guy’s no good for you!” he says adamantly, and it doesn’t occur to her that he’s just trying to be an overprotective older brother (except he can’t, since she’s the one who’s supposed to protect him). “Daisy, quit being stupid. He’s obviously trying to use you.”
“You’re wrong,” she tells him, and it sounds like whining but it’s the strongest voice she has. “He’s a good guy, and I trust him.”
Green doesn’t get angry much, but he slams the phone down now, and Daisy is left staring sadly at her PokeGear.
She doesn’t understand, but Bill tells her it’ll be alright and she lets it go. Because you can’t save paradise from a forest fire.
…
…
He’s fifteen when she has a quiet wedding on the beaches of Olivine City.
Daisy doesn’t send an invitation via mail. She calls him two days before the wedding, though, since he’s the second most important man in her life (well, now third) and her grandpa already gave his permission.
After all, Bill is a respectable man who knows how to take care of someone special.
“Sis, I don’t care,” he says. “You know how I feel about you getting married to Bill.” He spits the last word, and Daisy winces. But he keeps talking, oblivious to the fact that he’s stabbing her in the heart. “He’s a lazy slacker. He doesn’t finish his work on time, and he’s just going to ruin you.”
Green’s years as a Gym leader have given him the voice and the temper of a man five years his senior, and she is taken aback by his insistence.
“You sound like you know him personally,” she says dryly, giving up trying to reason with him and just hoping that maybe he’ll at least show up for the ceremony and maybe the after party.
“I do.”
“From where?” She’s surprised, since Bill has never mentioned knowing Green. Although, with the bratty way he’s acting now, she doesn’t blame her fiancé.
He sighs. “He’s helped us save the world a couple times.” He switches back to the topic. “But I’m not coming to your wedding, and that’s final.” He pauses, then adds, “Smell you later, I guess.”
She’s left laughing and crying at the same time on her bed, and the Maid of Honor - an old friend from college named Courtney - finds her, she tries to explain about the childish joke she and Green share from when they were still kids. Except she can’t, since her face is all puffy and her nose is spewing like a fire hydrant.
“I don’t get it,” she says. “Why is this happening to me?”
“It’s okay, dear,” Courtney says, stroking her forehead. “If the kid’s being such a brat, obviously he needs to learn what he did wrong. Let it be.”
She shouldn’t take that advice, but she does. She manages to ignore the hollow feeling when she doesn’t see Green’s spiky hair in the front row next to Red and Blue and Yellow.
She doesn’t call him afterwards. She doesn’t see him for more years.
And when Bill and the other Dex holders are called to save the world one more time, it turns out to be one time too many. His face in stone turns out to be too much, and she breaks down.
Her baby brother’s hurt, and she can’t fix this.
(Months later, when he’s all better, he still won’t talk to her. Always a stubborn kid. She doesn’t understand that she’s the stubborn one in this case.)
…
…
He’s eighteen when she calls him at his gym, intending to apologize for the years of silence.
She gets the answering machine and struggles with words, and so it comes out in a jumble of tears and emotion and ill-prepared words.
“Green, I… well, it’s Daisy, and it’s… it’s my fault. I’m sorry for not talking to you for all these years… but I miss you, and… well… you’re my brother…” The answering machine cuts out, and she doesn’t have the courage to try again.
Two days later, she gets a knock on her door, and opens it, and Green’s standing there, jacket hunched over against the rain outside. Startled, she lets him in and helps him take the jacket off.
“Weird weather,” he comments, referring to the tropical storm.
She replies, “We always have storms up in Celadon Bay during the summer.” She hesitates. “Do you… do you want some tea?” He nods, and Daisy walks to the kitchen and starts boiling water.
As she does so, Green watches her movements, like a kid watching his mom make dinner. She walks a little slower than he remembers, and she’s so happy. In fact, she’s simply glowing.
It takes him a little while to realize exactly why she looks so different, but when he does…
“You’re pregnant,” he says accusingly as she sits down with two tea cups and two plates of cake. She nods, humming, and they eat in silence. And then they sit in silence, because Green is stunned speechless and Daisy is still sipping at her tea and staring out the soaked window.
“You know, that’s why I called,” she finally said. “I thought you should know.” She smiles in his direction. “I didn’t expect to see you, though. Why didn’t you just call? You must be busy…”
He hesitates again. “It was worth it. I…” he stuffs his hands into his jacket pockets and sighs heavily. “I didn’t like not talking to you for so long… you’re my sister. I missed you.” There’s another heavy silence, and then he asks, “How long?”
Daisy puts her hands on her belly, which is just slightly larger than he remembers. “I’ve still got a good six months or so.” She laughs. “I have a feeling he’ll be trouble…”
“Does he kick?”
Daisy bursts out laughing at this. “Green, you really don’t know much for a smart kid, do you?” she says, chuckling. “It’ll be a little bit before he - or she - starts kicking. But he or she will.”
“Oh.” To his credit, Green takes this newly learned information in stride. Then he has another question. “Have you thought about names?”
Daisy nods. “I want to follow tradition, you know.”
“Tradition?”
“Tradition of naming the great heroes of the age after an unorthodox color,” she says. “If it’s a girl, I think I’ll call her Olive.”
“And a boy?”
Daisy blushes. “Oh. Um… well, I was going to name him Green. After his uncle, you know. I’m sure he’ll appreciate the namesake…”
“Oh.”
After that, Green is blushing too. And they’re silent for a long time.
His next words are awkward and hesitant. “You know, I still have that necklace you gave me when I was just a kid…” He takes a deep breath. “I mean, it’s mine, isn’t it? And I’ll be an… an uncle…”
She chuckles. “Do you want to give him that necklace?”
“…maybe.”
“Well, I’m sure he would love it,” she tells him comfortingly.
This little reunion is perfect, she decides. He is perfect. None of the violent excitement of his youth. None of the self-righteousness of his adolescence.
Strangely, something in her misses both of them just a bit.
He’s saying something, though, and she hasn’t been listening. “Sorry… What did you say?”
“I said, you’ll be a great mother.” He smiles lightly. “You always have been, at heart.”
His words take her so much by surprise that she just sits there in blank contemplation for a full five minutes, Green smiling gently into his tea cup.
“I don’t understand,” she finally says, and for the first time in a long time, Green laughs gently.
Her laugh.
“Maybe you don’t have to.”
…
…
…