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Side by Side Ch 4

Gloria/Bede (dressedinpinkshipping)

Tags: Angst with a Happy Ending, Heavy Angst, Fluff, Not Actually Unrequited Love

CW: Stalking, choking, physical assault (in THIS chapter)

-

Gloria returned Zacian, her vision blurring. The air in her lungs felt cold. Leon’s Charizard gave a triumphant roar, a spurt of fire billowing from its mouth, before Leon returned it. The world tilted beneath her feet. She blinked but nothing looked right. Nothing felt right. She barely registered the weight of the Ultra Ball in her hand.

The elevator doors opened behind her. She knew it was Hop before he spoke.

“Gloria!” He ran up to her, grabbing her shoulder to turn her to face him. “What happened? Tell me you didn’t battle Leon!”

She clenched her jaw tight as a lump wedged in her throat. Heat poured behind her eyes and she looked away from Hop, knowing he could see her tears form.

Hop’s hand fell from her shoulder. “No… you didn’t…?” He took a breath. “You lost?”

Gloria turned from him, busying herself with putting Zacian’s Ultra Ball into her bag, refusing to let anyone see her cry. “That obvious, huh?” she said, her voice cracking.

“Glo-”

“Don’t.” She pushed Hop’s hand away when he reached for her again. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine!” Hop huffed. He cut a fiery look towards Leon. “Why did you do that?”

“She… She wanted to battle.” The regret in Leon’s voice twisted Gloria’s heart.

“You didn’t have to beat her!” Sonia scoffed.

“Just stop it!” Gloria snapped. She palmed away her tears and glared at them. At Hop, at Sonia, at Leon. “I wanted to battle, alright? I made my choice. And-” she took a sharp breath, “-And if Leon hadn’t battled me properly, that would have been worse, okay? At least- at least Leon respected my wishes.”

Gloria turned from the three of them as burning tears spilled from her eyes again.

“Gloria-”

“I’m fine,” she said, cutting Hop off. “I just- I need to be alone.” She made for the elevator, before whirling on her feet and jabbing a finger at Hop as he made to follow her. “Don’t follow me.” She let him see her tears. The anger on her face. Her defiance. “I mean it.”

And with that, she stepped into the elevator and left the Battle Tower, fighting her tears the entire journey home in a Sky Taxi.

Gloria’s eyes were raw and aching by the time she trudged up to her front door, her street silent save for the beating of the Corviknight’s wings as the Sky Taxi took off. All the lights were off, and when she tried the handle, she found the door was unlocked. Gloria scoffed. She’d told her mother hundreds of times not to leave the door unlocked, even if she was coming home late. She pushed the door open and stepped into the wedge of darkness.

“Typical,” Gloria muttered to herself as she kicked off her shoes and shrugged her bag off her shoulders, tossing it to the floor. She fumbled her hand across the wall by the door until she found the lightswitch and clicked it on, finding herself face to face with a man.

A scream leapt up her throat, caught by Elliot as he grabbed her face with his hand. His fingers dug into her cheeks.

Elliot. She hadn’t seen him since the Gala. Since he’d plied her with alcoholic drinks with the sole intention of getting her drunk for his own sick entertainment.

And he stood in front of her. In her house. Her eyes flicked to the side at the sight of movement, and she spotted a Machamp standing by the door to her mother’s bedroom, both pairs of its arms folded.

“Ah, good. You’ve noticed,” Elliot said, tilting his head. His blue eyes bore into her. Despite the crystalline colour, his eyes were dark. “If you want your dear mother to come out of this unscathed, I’d suggest you keep quiet. No screaming. Do you understand?”

Despite the hold Elliot had on her jaw, her jaw trembled as she nodded. He yanked back his hand, wrinkling his brow in disgust, and brought out a pristine handkerchief to wipe his palm on.

For that split second, his attention moved from her, and Gloria thought of the Pokeballs in her bag. All her Pokemon but a metre away. She could lunge for her bag. Rip open the zip. Grab and throw as many of the Balls as she could get her hands on. Any one of her Pokemon would suffice. Even her Gyarados, which would fill up the entire living room, was better than nothing.

Gloria couldn’t move. She screamed internally at herself, at her frozen muscles. Do it. Now. While he’s wiping his hand. Go for your Pokemon…!

But she could barely breathe. Her body felt numb. Heavy. Like it wasn’t her own. Like she wasn’t here, like she was watching the scene from afar.

Elliot made a sound of disgust as he shoved his handkerchief back into his pocket, his eyes fixing on Gloria’s again.

“Now, where were we?” he asked, his voice a soft whisper that sent an icy chill down Gloria’s spine. “Do you know how much of a nuisance you’ve been to me?” He stepped towards her.

Somehow, she jutted a step backwards. Further away from her bag, her Pokemon.

Her mother had always told her not to dump her bag on the floor the second she got home. Why didn’t she listen? Tears pricked her already raw eyes. Why, why didn’t she listen?

“You took everything from me,” Elliot said. He drew another step closer. “So I’m going to take everything from you. Piece by fucking piece. That’s what you get for ruining my life.”

Fear trickled out of Gloria’s throat as she said, “you ruined your own life.”

Elliot’s eyes flashed. “What did you just say?”

“You can’t blame me for the consequences of your own actions,” Gloria managed to say. Her heart thundered in her chest, in her throat, she couldn’t hear herself think. She didn’t know what she was saying, how she managed to speak through her fear, feeling her voice crack and waver with every word. “It was your fault you got sent to Kalos-”

“You bitch!” Elliot lunged at her, his hand slamming against her throat. His fingers dug into her flesh, cutting off her air.

Gloria staggered backwards a step. She grabbed his wrist, his arm, panic searing through her veins. She blinked, gasped, gaped like a magikarp on land. Elliot pushed her backwards, driving her against a bookshelf. Her head slammed against it. Her lungs burned. She kicked her feet, hoping her weight would make him release her throat, but he only tightened his grip.

“I’m going to make you suffer for what you did,” he hissed, drawing his face close to hers. She could see the blood vessels in his eyes. The heat of his breath seared across her cheeks. “And then I’m going to do the same- no, worse, to that Fairy Gym bastard.”

Bede.

Gloria’s heart thumped harder, faster, in her chest as her vision began to blur and speckle with patches of darkness. Her nails dug into his skin, tore at the flesh of his wrist, the back of his hand, but he didn’t flinch. The veins on his neck bulged with effort as he crushed her windpipe. Gloria squeezed her eyes shut, clenched her jaw. She didn’t want his face to be the last thing she saw.

And then she remembered. She remembered where she was. In a final, desperate gamble, Gloria stamped her left foot to the side, saying a silent apology in her mind, and stomped on Munchlax.

The baby Pokemon immediately let out an ear piercing wail. Elliot startled, stepping back and dragging Gloria with him as he recoiled from the Pokemon who’d been sleeping in his bed behind the couch. Gloria took her chance the instant his grip loosened and tore herself free.

“Fuck!” Elliot spat as Munchlax kept wailing. Gloria fell to the floor, no strength in her legs, as her assailant returned his Machamp and fled through the front door. She coughed and hacked, tears welling in her eyes, air filling her aching lungs. She heaved on the floor as a thud sounded from her mother’s room, the door flinging open a second later.

“What’s going on-” Her mother’s voice caught. “Gloria!”

She barely heard her mother ask rapid fire questions beneath the crying of Munchlax, the hammering of her heart in her ears, and her own coughing. Somehow, she managed to speak. She managed a single word. A name.

“Elliot.”

-

The hours that followed were a blur. An ambulance arrived and ferried her to hospital, where she was surrounded by doctors and nurses in the emergency room as they monitored the bruising and swelling around her throat. She had a cannula inserted into the back of her left hand in case the swelling around her throat obstructed her breathing and she needed to be intubated. They didn’t bother giving her painkillers to swallow and used the line to give her pain relief instead. Gloria was thankful for that, at least.

She tried to block out the police presence the entire time, not wanting to be reminded of what had occurred, but it was impossible. Images flashed in her mind. Elliot’s chilling blue eyes. The hiss of his voice. The pressure around her throat. Pain like she’d never felt before blooming in her lungs as her oxygen ran out. A blond-haired nurse walked past the gap in the curtain shielding her cubicle from view and sent Gloria into a panic attack.

After that, they gave her something to calm her down, and she fell asleep.

-

When Gloria awoke, she was in a private room, her mother dozing in a chair by the window. There were ice packs delicately balanced on either side of her neck. Pain crushed her throat and she gasped when it hurt to breathe. It hurt to swallow. Her mother jolted awake in the chair and called for the nurse, and another round of questions and medications followed. They managed to get her to sip water, and she winced when she swallowed what couldn’t be more than a teaspoon. It felt like the lining of her throat had been cleaved away. When she tried to speak, her words came out in a dry croak. The sound of her own voice made her cry, despite being reassured that it was a good sign that she could speak. Apparently, she looked and felt worse than she actually was. When the nurses asked if she wanted to see her neck, Gloria declined, even when they expressed sympathy and told her, again and again, that “it’s not that bad.”

Whatever that meant.

When the nurses left, Gloria turned to her mother, and croaked, “they let you stay?”

“I’m surprised too,” her mother said, shuffling her chair closer to the bed. She ran her fingers through her daughter’s hair, making Gloria’s eyes droop shut. “I guess being the Champion has its benefits.”

Gloria snorted, then grimaced at the pain laughter caused. Now that she was awake, the police came into the room to ask questions. She answered as best she could, through the pain, through the memories that returned. When she told them that she’d scratched his wrist, they brought in another officer to clip her nails and secure the evidence. Gloria looked down at her short nails and silently wept.

It felt strange, pathetic even, to cry over her nails. She’d finally managed to grow them, to shape them nicely, something she’d never been able to do before because she’d always anxiously bite or pick at them.

And now they were short again.

-

Bede followed Hop mechanically, one foot in front of the other, barely registering where they were going. His heart thumped in time with his steps. His thoughts jumbled. Adrenaline combined with a lack of sleep made it feel like time was stretching out to infinity. They turned a corner in the hospital and Hop pushed a button for the elevator. Bede swallowed. His throat was dry. His hands clammy, mind dizzy.

It didn’t feel real.

The elevator arrived and Bede followed Hop inside, trying to snap himself out of his stupor. He needed to get it together - if not for himself, then for Gloria.

Fuck.

Gloria.

His throat tightened. He didn’t know what floor they were going to, what room. He’d hardly taken in any information at all after that phone call, after rushing to the hospital in the dead hours of the morning with his heart in his throat. Hop had looked as distraught as Bede felt, spilling what little he’d heard from Gloria’s mother in frantic sentences.

She’d been attacked. Strangled. By someone Bede never thought he’d hear from again.

Other than the fact that Gloria was alive, they knew little else, and the tortuous hours of waiting before visitors were allowed in felt like a nightmare within a nightmare. He kept repeating in his mind that she was alive. That she’d be okay.

That she wasn’t going anywhere. He hadn’t lost her.

He hadn’t lost her.

“You alright, man?” Hop’s voice broke the silence of the elevator, broke Bede out of the darkness creeping into his mind.

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that question?” Bede had never felt more inadequate in his life. This was Gloria’s best friend, her childhood friend, her “practically family” friend. Shouldn’t he be the one comforting Hop? He’d known Gloria for what, two years? That was nothing compared to the lifetime that Hop and Gloria had spent together already.

“You’re the one who looks like he’s about to faint,” Hop said.

Bede inhaled shakily and tried to slow his breathing. Tried to focus on where he was, what he was doing. Where he was going. The elevator chimed, doors opening, and Hop gave him one final look of concern before stepping out.

“I’ll be fine,” Bede said, more to himself than to Hop, and fell in step beside him.

“Just… try not to react, okay?” Hop glanced at him.

Bede almost shuddered to a halt. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Look, I don’t know the details, but… from what Gloria’s mum told me, there’s a lot of bruising.” They turned a corner. “Like, a lot.”

Bede clenched his hands into fists, feeling them shake at his sides as he walked. “That- That bastard…!”

Hop stopped and grabbed Bede’s arm, his voice lowered to a whisper. “And none of that, either, okay? I get that you’re angry. We all are. But this is about Gloria, not-” Hop’s mouth twisted, refusing to give the fiend a name.

Bede shifted on his feet as Hop released his arm, and nodded. “I understand.”

This pain, this anger swelling inside him, now wasn’t the time to let it billow forth.

After what felt like a eon wandering endless halls of white, Hop finally drew up in front of a room and nodded to Bede. They’d arrived. He steeled himself as Hop knocked on the door. Gloria’s mother opened it and let them in with a tired, but grateful, smile.

“Thanks for coming, you two,” she said, but any response Bede could have said died on his tongue when his gaze landed on Gloria.

She looked small. Weary. As if she’d aged impossibly in the hours since he’d seen her, shadows at home beneath her eyes. She tried to smile, her lips wobbling with the effort.

But it was her voice - barely louder than a whisper - that broke something deep in Bede’s heart. “You didn’t have to come so-” she coughed, voice faltering, “-so early.” Gloria took the plastic cup of water offered by her mother and sipped slowly, grimacing when she swallowed. “They’re going to discharge me in a few hours anyway.”

She kept her tone light, despite the cracking of her voice, but Bede knew the look on her face. How close she was to crumbling. To shattering. It kept his feet rooted to the floor. His eyes on her face, not the blooming colours enveloping her neck. It was impossible not to notice. It was the first thing he saw. The first thing everyone saw. If it looked anymore like a handprint, Bede would have torn from the hospital and unleashed hell until he found the one responsible.

“You serious?” Hop asked, shooting a pointed look at Bede, and rounded the side of the bed so he was close to Gloria. “They’re throwing you out of here already?”

Bede finally uprooted his feet and stepped further into the room, stopping by the end of the bed. His gaze dropped to the plaster on the back of Gloria’s hand. To the window and the sleepy world outside. He didn’t know where to look.

Gloria snorted at Hop, her short laugh overtaken by a hiss of pain. “You make it sound like they’re just gonna turf me out on the street. The doctors only wanted to keep me in overnight as a precaution, and since it looks like my airways aren’t going to collapse on themselves anytime soon, I’m free to go.”

“As soon as the doctors sign your discharge form,” Gloria’s mother added.

“I know, I know.” She took another slow sip of water. “It’s not like I’m all that eager to go back there, anyway…” Gloria’s expression faltered, the carefully crafted mask slipping for an instant, and Bede gripped the end of the bed to steady himself. Her home, her safe place, was no longer that.

“He-” Gloria swallowed, turning her attention to Bede. “He mentioned you.”

Bede’s gaze snapped to her. His blood ran cold. “He what?”

She nodded stiffly, a tiny dip of her chin, the fear in her eyes palpable. “He said- that after he was done with me, he’d…” her voice broke. Tears welled in her eyes. “He’d…” She pressed her lips together firmly to stop them trembling. Blinked up at the ceiling to stop her tears. The sight splintered Bede’s heart.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Hop said, rubbing Gloria’s arm as she swiped at her tears. “Nothing happened to Bede.”

“But he’s not going to stop!” Gloria cried. “Not until he- not until he’s taken everything from me…”

“We’re not going to let him do that,” Hop said. He met Bede’s eyes. “Are we?”

Bede mustered confidence, a look of defiance, from somewhere deep inside. “Of course not.”

Gloria sniffled, looking between the two of them. “But how? We- the police don’t even know where he is.”

“We might be able to help with that,” a voice came from the doorway. Gloria gasped and Bede turned, and he stilled in quiet surprise as members of the League stepped into the room.

-

Gloria’s heart fluttered as she took in, one by one, all the Gym Leaders as they entered. Milo, Nessa, Kabu, Bea, Gordie, Marnie, Raihan, as well as Leon, Sonia, Piers and Miss Opal, filed into the room. Bede came round the side of the bed in order to make room, looking as surprised as she felt.

“What- What are you all doing here?” Gloria asked. She tried to clear her throat as subtly as possible, reaching again for her cup of water.

“I went and got ‘em all,” Marnie said. She stepped up beside Hop and took Gloria’s hand.

“Sorry for eavesdropping,” Nessa said, her smile carrying a hint of sheepishness. “We were going to come in when the opportunity presented itself, but-” She shot a look at Raihan. “Some of us can’t help themselves.”

Raihan grinned, leaning against the windowsill as if he owned the place. “What, I’m supposed to just keep to myself the fact that we might be able to help our dear Champion in her time of need?”

Sonia rolled her eyes. “It’s called tact.”

“Marnie reached out to us,” Leon said, stepping forward before Raihan could retort. “Because when someone hurts one of us, they hurt all of us.” He looked at the crowd gathered in the room. “You’re part of the League, Gloria. That makes you family.”

Gloria’s heart flopped. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Marnie squeezed her hand, a warm, gentle smile on her face, and nodded. It snapped the final thread holding Gloria’s composure together. Tears came without abandon. She crumbled into her hands, palming her eyes, and wailed despite the pain roaring in her throat. Arms surrounded her, cradled her, as she cried. She didn’t know whose they were. She didn’t care. Even with the turmoil roiling inside her, the pain and grief and fear, she felt grounded. She felt safe. Safe to cry, safe to bear her bruises and fear, safe to let it all out.

And so she did.

-

Gloria was the first one to break the silence, after calming down enough that she could soothe her throat with another desperate sip of water, and asked, “what did you mean when you said you might be able to help us?” She looked to Raihan.

“Marnie told us the jist of what happened,” Raihan said, “including everything about this scum who’s name is dead to us.”

Gloria gave him a thankful smile. Talking about him, about what happened, was hard enough without hearing his name.

“He should have been in Kalos,” Miss Opal said. She tapped the tip of her umbrella on the floor in frustration. Her eyes glinted dangerously in a way Gloria had never seen before. “And he was, according to his uncle, until last week, when he apparently ‘vanished.’” She gestured, unconvinced, in the air with that word.

“When you’re that rich, you’re bound to have friends in high places,” Gordie said. “Probably called on a mate to fly him to Galar. Private, almost certainly untraceable.”

“And that,” Raihan said, flashing a smile at Gloria, “is how we’ll get him.”

“How is that going to help?” Bede asked. Gloria jolted, not realising he was at her side. Nor did she realise, until then, that one of the hands on her back was his. “You just said it was ‘almost certainly untraceable.’”

“We’re not talking about the plane, or his friend,” Raihan said. “But the fact that this is a rich brat who’s used to every convenience under the sun.”

Kabu nodded. “The staff.”

“Exactly!” Raihan’s grin was one of self satisfaction. “Wherever he’s staying, whoever he’s staying with, they’re bound to have staff. Chefs, cleaners, security. Someone would have seen him.”

“I’ve got a friend who’s a private chef for that section of society, and Bea’s trained with lots of high-end security guards,” Nessa said. Bea nodded in agreement. “And I’m sure they’ll be on board once we tell them what’s happened.” She met Gloria’s eyes. “If that’s alright, of course. We’ll have them swear to secrecy.”

Gloria absently picked at the edge of the plaster on the back of her hand. “Are you sure?”

“Cross my heart,” Nessa said.

“But aren’t people like that known to keep their client’s secrets?” Hop asked. “Otherwise they’d lose their jobs.”

Nessa threw him a look. “They’re not heartless. And I know my friend - she’s not going to keep silent about someone harbouring a fugitive who assaulted a friend of mine.”

“Neither will my friends,” Bea said confidently.

Nessa continued, “once we find out where he’s hiding, we’ll contact the police and-”

“And then what?” Gloria spoke up before she knew what she was doing. “He’s not naive. He’ll… He’ll probably have it all worked out. An alibi, an excuse for the scratches on his hand, for the-” she choked on her words “-for the DNA under my fingernails.” Gloria shook her head. “He’ll have the best lawyers. The best defence. And I… I know what happens in court. How they twist everything against you, turn your words against you…”

She felt small. Impossibly small under the weight of what she was facing.

“Then… what do you want to do?” Nessa asked.

Gloria lifted her head. She took a breath, then another. All eyes in the room were on her. “I want to make him regret taking on the League. I want to face him. To stand on my own feet and make it so he can never touch me, or any of us, again.”

Raihan grinned. “Well, I’m in.”

Sonia gave him a blank stare. “Of course you are.”

“If you don’t mind me asking,” Milo chimed in, “how do you plan on doing that? It sounds… well, almost impossible.”

“She’s got guts.” Piers said, looking at Gloria with a gentle, protective smile. “I’ll give her that.”

Gloria managed a smile in return. “I think I have a plan,” she said, glancing between the friends and family gathered around her. “But I’ll need help. From all of you.”

The reply was unanimous. They had her back, no matter what.

-

Gloria wasn’t sure what it would be like to return home, to come face to face with the memories clawing at the forefront of her mind. She didn’t know whether seeing the place where it happened would bring it all back. Whether her house would be forever tainted by the horrors that took place the night before.

But in the daytime, in the light of the morning sun, there were no shadows to be found in her heart. Her bag was there on the floor where she’d tossed it. In the living room, books were scattered on the ground, having fallen from the bookshelf when Elliot had shoved her into it. Gloria walked over to the books and picked them up, one by one. Held them in her hands. Waiting for the impact of last night to hit her, as if the books carried her silent screams, inanimate witnesses to the assault.

“Let me do that,” Gloria’s mother said, hurrying over to her daughter. She went to take the books, but Gloria shook her head.

“It’s okay. I want to do it.” She placed them back into the bookshelf methodically, fingertips lingering on their spines. These were her dad’s books, she realised. Untouched for years, the dust disturbed on the shelf as they’d fallen. Silently, in her heart, she whispered, I’m okay. To herself, to the memories of her father, as if by coming home, by whispering those words, whatever remained of him would hear her.

After stacking the books, Gloria knelt down and gave Munchlax’s belly a gentle rub.

“I’m sorry, Munchie,” she said quietly, not wanting to disturb the well earned rest of the sleeping Pokemon. “Guess you’ll never know that you saved my life last night, huh?” She stood and gave her mum a sheepish smile. “Think he’ll ever forgive me?”

“Oh, hun, of course he will.” Gloria’s mother embraced her in a soft hug. “For all he knows, it was an accident.”

“He deserves a treat and a half, anyway,” Gloria said. “The best berries, Combee honey, anything he wants. It’s on me.” She checked her phone, heart thumping in anticipation, only to drop when she saw there were no messages. Not yet.

“Give it some time,” Gloria’s mother said. “I’m sure they’ll find him soon.”

Gloria nodded. “I know.” But her nerves weren’t going to calm until this was over. In order to pass the time, and to scrub off the scent of the hospital that lingered on her skin, Gloria decided to have a bath.

It should have been so simple. Undress, have a bath, dry herself off, get dressed. But the second she stepped into the bathroom, the second she caught sight of the bruises wrapped around her neck, everything stopped. Her legs buckled. Air sucked from her lungs. She fell into the bathroom counter, knocking her toothbrush to the floor. A broken wail filled her ears. The pain in her throat told her the sound was her own. She slid to the floor, curling in on herself, as the bathroom door was thrown open behind her. Her mother held her tight as her cries filled the room. What remained of her nails dug into her palms. Into her hair. The pain that burned in her throat was nothing compared to the anguish tearing through her body.

“I’m here, Gloria, I’m here,” her mother’s words grounded her. Like pinpricks of light filtering through the clouds. “You’re safe. You’re safe.”

And together, they rode out the storm within her heart.

-

By the time Nessa’s message arrived, Gloria had collected herself, managed a bath, and was so put together that other than the bruises on her neck, she didn’t look any different to normal.

“Is it time?” Gloria’s mother asked, seeing the look of cold determination on her daughter’s face.

Gloria nodded. “It’s time.”

After a not-so-brief hug, where Gloria felt seconds from crying all over again, she departed on her Corviknight, heading for the address she’d input into her Rotom Phone’s GPS.

With her arms wrapped around the neck of her Corviknight, she went over the plan again and again in her head. What she would say, what she would do. How she would face Elliot after everything he’d done to her. She touched her forehead to her Corviknight’s dark feathers and took a deep breath. It was up to her now.

When the mansion came into view, Gloria’s heart tripped and stuttered in her chest. It was a glorious, modern three-storey house that looked like something out of a movie. Huge pillars flanked the entrance. An intricate fence spanned the perimeter, dual fountains working a dazzling display in the garden on either side of the driveway. Gloria instructed her Corviknight to land right by the front door. She slid off her Pokemon, adjusted her jacket to make sure it was sitting right, and had just pocketed her Pokeball when a security guard opened the front door.

“This is private property, Ma’am. I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” he said, stepping through and closing the door behind him. He towered over Gloria on the front steps, arms folded.

“I’m here to see Elliot,” she said. “Elliot Murdoch.”

The security guard’s face didn’t change. No hint of recognition in his steely eyes. “You need to leave.”

Gloria swallowed and stood her ground. “Tell him the Champion is here to see him. I’m sure he’ll let me in. I know he’s here.”

The guard opened his mouth to speak before he stopped. His eyes shifted from Gloria for a split second, before he nodded. “I’m bringing her through,” he said, touching the tiny earpiece in his ear that Gloria wouldn’t have noticed otherwise. He opened the front door, the hard expression on his face unchanged, and said, “Follow me.”

Gloria followed the guard as quickly as she could without appearing nervous. She let out the tight breath she’d held in her lungs and swallowed the urge to look behind her. She had her part to play. Now wasn’t the time to doubt her plan.

The guard led her through the house to a lounge room with a sprawling white leather lounge suite, huge glass doors that overlooked the immaculate garden, and a TV the size of a Snorlax on the wall displaying the CCTV captured from around the house. The figure reclining on the couch stood and turned off the TV, tossing the remote aside.

“Now, this wasn’t very smart of you, was it?” Elliot said, cocking his head at her. His blue eyes, icy as ever, bit into Gloria’s skin. “Do you have a death wish, or are you just a masochist?”

“I’m here to end this, Elliot,” she said, stepping into the room. She walked around the couch, facing Elliot and the gardens behind him.

Elliot breathed a laugh. “You really are an idiot. What makes you think I’d listen to you?” He gestured to the guards standing outside without turning around. The one that had led Gloria into the room remained in the doorway. “You’re outnumbered. And before you think that your Pokemon count, each of my guards has six of their own.” He stared down his nose at her. “And so do I.”

“I’m not here to battle you,” Gloria said. She kept her eyes on him, despite the urge to look away. To run away.

“I don’t care why you’re here,” Elliot said. “You’ve just made everything so much easier for me, you know that?” He took a step closer. Then another. “I didn’t get to finish the job last night.” His icy gaze dropped to her neck. “I have to admire my handiwork, though. You really do bruise nicely.”

Gloria didn’t move an inch. “You wouldn’t dare. Not with witnesses.”

Elliot stopped a few feet from her and laughed. “These men wouldn’t bat an eye if I choked the life out of you like I did last night,” he said, baring his teeth as he grinned. “Although, I have something more planned for you now, after what you did.” He flexed his wrist, dark scabs showing where Gloria’s nails had torn through his skin. “What do you say to that? Oh wait, hold on, I don’t care.”

Elliot reached for Gloria’s throat.

“I’d have to say, ‘you’re a natural,’” a voice came from behind Elliot as the doors to the garden were thrust open. Elliot whirled as a flash of movement came from the entrance to the lounge, and Gloria cut a few quick steps away as Bea pinned the guard to the floor. Nessa and Raihan stepped through the glass doors, Leon on their heels, as Kabu, Milo and Piers made quick work of the guards outside.

At their entrance, the two Rotom Phones hidden in Gloria’s jacket flew across the room to their respective owners. Nessa and Raihan kept them trained on Elliot.

“Say hello to your audience!” Raihan said, flashing a grin. “Instagram is really lapping this up. I’ve already got 1.5 mil and counting!”

“That’s nothing,” Nessa said. She swept a lock of dark hair off her shoulders. “I’ve got 2.2.”

“You- what?!” Elliot turned, his eyes flashing, and lunged at Gloria. He didn’t get far. Bea crossed the distance from the doorway to Elliot in record time, and had him on the ground before anyone could blink. He roared, struggling aimlessly beneath Bea’s grip.

“That’s what you get for targeting my friend,” she hissed, pressing her knee firmer into Elliot’s back.

“And that’s that!” Raihan said, talking to the livestream casting from his Rotom Phone. “Thanks for joining us!” With a final wave, he and Nessa cut their streams, and Gloria sagged to the ground. It was only then that she spotted Bede and Hop in the doorway by the guard who’d surrendered his Pokemon after being upended by Bea.

“Fuck!” Elliot roared. “Get the fuck off me, you demon!”

“I’d stay silent if I were you,” Leon said. “The police will be here soon.”

“You’ve got nothing on me!” Elliot continued his rant. “Those videos mean nothing! I did nothing! Get- Get off me!”

Gloria felt dizzy. Her vision swam as someone took her arm and helped her from the room to the front of the house. The adrenaline that had kept her upright, kept her focused, suddenly flooded from her body. Her mind reeled. She felt sick. Someone ordered her to sit and she all but collapsed on the front steps. She registered Hop beside her when he put his arm around her back. She glanced up from her knees and caught Bede’s eyes before he quickly looked away.

“You alright?” Hop asked. Her hands were trembling in her lap.

“I-I think so,” she said. Her throat ached. Her body felt heavy. It didn’t feel real. “Did it work?”

“Not sure it constitutes evidence that’d be allowed in court,” Hop said, “but I doubt any judge would grant him bail after seeing that.”

“You won’t have to worry about him for a long time,” Bede said. Gloria looked up at him, wondering what look he had on his face, but seeing his back, seeing him stand tall and confident, was enough for her.

Gloria nodded slowly before resting her head on Hop’s shoulder. “Thank you,” she said quietly.

“That’s what friends are for, isn’t it?” Hop said, giving her a sideways hug.

Gloria held onto those words, held onto what everyone had done for her, until long after they’d left the mansion, Hop taking her home on the first Sky Taxi they could get. She collapsed into bed, putting off sleep long enough to take some painkillers, forcing them down through the pain in her throat, before succumbing to the weight of exhaustion.

-

It was late afternoon when Bede stepped out of a Sky Taxi outside Gloria’s house in time to see two teenage girls chase a group of reporters down the street.

“Get outta here!” one of them cried, her Drednaw shooting a powerful spray of water towards them.

“And don’t even think of coming back!” the other shouted. Her Peliper dive-bombed the reporters, making them scramble away even faster.

The two girls glanced towards Gloria’s house, shrinking when they saw Bede. It took a few moments before he recognised them as the two girls Gloria had denounced as bullies, the ones she’d said had harassed her throughout their childhood, only to act like it’d been nothing but a childish mistake when she’d become Champion.

“Is… is she okay?” the girl with the Drednaw asked.

“Don’t!” the other hissed, grabbing her friend’s arm and dragging her away.

Bede didn’t answer. He waited until they were further down the street before he turned and headed for Gloria’s front door. It wasn’t his second chance to give.

He went to knock when the door opened, Gloria’s mother glancing down the street where the two girls had gone. “They’ve been keeping reporters away for the last few hours,” she said. “It doesn’t make up for what they did, but…”

Bede nodded, stepping inside as Gloria’s mother let him in, understanding what she meant even if she didn’t voice it.

“How is she?” he asked. He glanced towards the closed door of Gloria’s bedroom.

“Tired. Well, ‘exhausted,’ is how she put it,” Gloria’s mother said. “I think it’s all catching up to her now. What happened to her, what you guys did… it was a lot.”

“And… Elliot?” Bede lowered his voice as he said the name, angling himself away from Gloria’s room. “Have you heard anything?”

“Arrested, awaiting charge, is what I’ve been told.”

Bede let out a quiet breath. “Good.”

“Did you want to see her?”

He shifted on his feet. “I don’t want to be a bother.” The ache in his heart said otherwise.

“You’d never be a bother,” Gloria’s mother said, gently touching his arm. “She’s awake. Go and say hi.”

There were so many more things other than “hi,” that he needed to say to her. With a silent nod towards Gloria’s mother, Bede headed for Gloria’s room. He knocked gently, heart thundering in his chest.

“Come in,” Gloria called, and so he did.

She sat upright in her bed, leaning against a mound of pillows and cushions, looking remarkably better than she did hours earlier in hospital. The light, however faint with exhaustion, was back in her eyes.

“Hey,” she said, before clearing her throat. “Sorry, my voice is still a bit croaky.”

Bede shut the door behind him before stepping as casually as he could up to her bed. “How’s the pain?”

“It’s… manageable,” she said with a shrug. “I had some honey and lemon tea earlier, that seemed to help. Along with a steady dose of painkillers.” Gloria laughed, but it was quiet, barely an echo of the laughter he’d known to come from her.

Bede swallowed the lump in his throat and sat down on the edge of Gloria’s bed, close but still a respectable distance from her. He dropped his hands into his lap, looking away from her.

“I heard from Hop that you challenged Leon,” he said slowly. Saw Gloria stiffen in the corner of his eyes.

She folded her arms, drawing her knees to her chest. “Not you, too. Hop and Sonia already tried to lecture me. I don’t need another.”

Bede glanced at her. She was looking out the window, through the sheer curtains and to the fields of Wooloo and Dubwool in the distance. There was a defiance in her eyes that Bede had seen before. One that he, too, had felt before. A burning defiance to prove oneself, no matter what.

“I’m not here to lecture you,” Bede said. “I only want to know why. Why after all this time?”

Gloria sighed. “I guess… I wanted to know for myself.”

“Know what?”

“Whether or not me beating Leon was a fluke. Whether or not, if we’d been battling on even ground, I’d have won.” She turned further away from him. “And… I lost.”

“And what does that prove?”

“It proves that I’m not meant to be Champion!” Gloria huffed at him, turning back to him with a start. “The only reason I beat Leon was because he was injured. Last night proved that.”

“Does it?” Bede kept his eyes on hers. Challenged her with his gaze.

“Of course it does!”

“And when you challenged him, were you thinking straight?”

“What- of course I was!”

He raised an eyebrow. Kept his demeanour as calm as he could, despite the rising urge in his chest to plead with her that she was wrong. Arguing wouldn’t help. He needed her to see it for herself, with her own words, not his.

“Well…” Gloria shrank a little under his gaze. Her knees plopped back onto her bed. “I hadn’t really thought my team through,” she admitted. “I just… rushed over there and challenged him.”

There. That was where he’d start to unravel the tangled mess she’d gotten herself into.

“And if you’d thought it through?”

Gloria unfolded her arms, tracing the embroidered flowers on her quilt cover with a finger. “I wouldn’t have chosen so many physical attackers,” she said. “My team was unbalanced. Leon always sends out Aegislash first, yet I… it threw me. I kept trying to power through Aegislash’s King Shields… It was a mess from the start. And once I’d made that mistake, I couldn’t recover. I ended up with Zacian facing Leon’s Charizard, and there was only one way that would go…”

“How come you weren’t thinking straight?” Bede asked. It wasn’t like her. Gloria thrived on adrenaline. It focused her, like an arrow pulled taught by an expert marksman. It seems, this time, that the string had snapped.

Gloria pursed her lips, picking at a loose thread on her quilt cover. “There was this kid,” she said with a huff, “after the Star Tournament. He stayed behind after everyone else left, and I thought maybe he was just shy or something, but… then he made all these accusations…”

The letter Bede had received right before the Star Tournament flashed in his mind.

“About Rose?” he asked.

“Yeah!” she looked at him in surprise. “He said that I was in cahoots with Rose, that we’d staged the whole thing with Eternatus so that Leon would be injured and I’d become Champion. How did you know it had to do with Rose?”

Bede reached into his pocket and pulled out the letter. He’d taken it with him, kept it with him, as it held too many burning questions for him to discard so flippantly. He handed it to her and said, “I think we’ve been set up.”

Gloria read the letter in silence, her eyes widening, before she reached the part that mentioned a photo, and Bede handed that to her as well.

“But this- this isn’t Rose!” she gasped.

Bede shrugged. “It fooled me.”

Her expression dropped. “You mean…?”

“A League Staff member handed that letter to me right before the Star Tournament began,” he said. He glanced away at the sudden realisation that filled her eyes.

“Is that why…?” she let her unfinished question linger in the silence between them. “Oh, Bede…”

“It’s my fault for being taken in by it,” he said. Irritation laced his words. Shame. Regret. “I shouldn’t have…”

“It’s okay,” Gloria said, touching his arm, barely gracing him with her fingertips, but it was enough to burn through to his skin. “I understand.”

Did she?

“I wanted to prove myself,” he admitted. “But I also… I also wanted you to look at me. To see me.”

The barely-there touch of Gloria’s fingers solidified as she gave his arm a gentle squeeze, making him look at her. Unable to hide the heat behind his eyes.

“But I do see you,” she said.

And it was too late.

“Not in the way I want you to,” Bede said.

-

The words died in Gloria’s mouth. Her heart, already thundering loud enough to deafen her thoughts, sped to a crescendo. She was caught. Trapped in Bede’s gaze, by his words. By the depth in his eyes.

“What-” she couldn’t think. “What do you…?” Her hand, lightly resting on Bede’s arm, felt aflame.

She couldn’t breathe.

“I know it’s not what you want to hear,” Bede continued. “But after… after everything, after almost losing you again, I…”

Don’t, her mind cried. Don’t say it.

Don’t stop- Her heart echoed in response.

“I know how you feel about love,” Bede said. His gaze dropped. He looked away from her, across her room, but in that split second before he’d turned, she saw the hurt in his eyes. “But I don’t want to hide how I feel anymore, even if it means you despise what I say, even if it changes things between us. I want you to see me. All of me. And that includes my heart.”

With that, Bede stood, and Gloria’s hand fell silently onto her bed.

“That’s… all I wanted to say.” He turned to leave.

“Wait-” Her voice made him stop. He glanced at her over his shoulder, something fragile in his eyes.

“If it’s all the same to you,” he said quietly, “I’d rather not… hear your answer, as I’m sure I know what it is.”

Again, he made to leave. Took a step towards the door.

“Bede, wait, please!” she cried, heart leaping into her throat. The sudden outburst made her cough, and she croaked his name. “Bede…!”

He turned back to her, eyes wide. Mouth agape.

Gloria blinked back tears. Tears of pain, tears of heartache, of realising he thought she was going to reject him. That his feelings were unreciprocated.

She tried to breathe, tried to form the words, anything to convey what she needed to say to him. “Please, I need…” she swallowed a gasp, a sob. “I’m scared,” she finally managed to say.

Bede remained where he stood, watching her, emotions she couldn’t read building and falling on his face.

“I can’t… I can’t just…” She held back another sob. “I need time. And I know it’s not fair, it’s not fair of me to ask you this, to ask you to wait, but…” Gloria balled her hands into her quilt, blinking through her tears, and met Bede’s eyes. “Will you wait for me?”

He watched her, studied her, took in her words. Tension slowly ebbed from his body. “I’ll wait,” he said quietly. “For as long as you need.”

Gloria nodded, mouthing a broken “thank you,” as tears slipped from her eyes.

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