#verse time

main / pkmn — if you think you don't know him, you've probably seen him somewhere without realising it. he's your champion! he's your chosen one. he's your saint and saviour. or is he really the reason the world around you is shivering apart, little bit by little bit? he couldn't tell you as a child, and he still couldn't tell you now. this beleaguered old legend still ambles from lead to lead on his path to some kind of ultimate understanding, some kind of zenith to his messianic condition. he doesn't know what he's for, but that's okay, he knows you don't know what you're for either. the learning curve never ends. this ash can be encountered almost anywhere in the pokémon world, known to regularly drift from region to region, gig to gig, battle to battle, apocalypse to apocalypse. surely, one day, this curse will lift ... won't it?

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A/N: Mom is Donna, and Dad is Eric, obv.

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The plus sign has been branded in her brain.

Well, physically, it's in her churning stomach. She earned a sick day, but at what cost?

Having trouble keeping even Cheerios down, she mindlessly stirs a milk and cereal-laden bowl.

Leah angrily sighs. "Life is so unfair."

Rather than an enthusiastic affirmation, like her father's, she receives a solemn nod. "I know."

She wants to tell her mother, and they can have their little secret, but that's wishful thinking. She can be the parent that's dutifully notified, while keeping her father in the dark.

But that's wishful thinking, so she's notably cryptic. And purposeful, of course. "I wish I could be somebody who knows the right thing to say. The right things to do. But I don't."

The right thing to say is certainly her father's pitfall. The doing, though, is all her mother's.

She's heard the troubling teenage stories. Smoking and failing English to get attention, dating Casey Kelso when her mom left. The whole nine yards.

So Mom knows, and as an adult, she knows how to tackle it. Head on. "You just have to think, before you decide what to do."

Leah nervously smirks. "Like, plot and plan?"

In turn, she sighs. Exasperated, to the core. "To do the right thing."

She knows exactly what that sigh means. "And not cause trouble. Got it."

"Not all trouble is a bad thing, if you're doing the right thing."

Now, it's time to vaguely probe. "But does the right thing involve telling Dad?"

Mom stiffens in her seat. "What did you do?"

At a bare minimum, she probably knows that it's not a thing Dad would let her get away with, but she wouldn't. It's a moral thing, or something that shatters the illusion that she's his little girl. Come hell or high water.

Leah has, much like a certain predecessor, preferred to keep him in the dark. To keep up the illusion that she's just a young Gryffindor with a bunch of stuffed animals on her bed.

Mom knows better, though. She refuses to have the wool pulled over her eyes, although she doesn't know all of the details.

"Umm..." She trails off, without the right thing to say. "A lot of things."

Now, Mom is the prober. About to put her on probation, most likely. "Like?"

I'm pregnant. Please help me. "I got my belly button pierced last summer."

"What the hell?" She dutifully exclaims, before settling back down, "Is that why you were wearing that one-piece bathing suit in front of us?"

"Well...yeah." Mom senses more, though, like she always does. "I'm sorry. For lots of things."

So, she presses her hand atop of her daughter's, in surprising solidarity. "It's okay."

"Really?"