Chapter Sixteen: hard times

Jessie felt tears forming in her eyes for the millionth time, and she angrily hacked at a tree with a small kitchen knife. She had decimated several small shrubs, but was now seeking larger targets to destroy. It was the only way she knew how to deal with anything. And hell, it felt good. She took another swing at the doomed tree, then threw the knife at it. she was breathing heavily, and sunk to her knees in silent fury. *(she’s pretty pi…upset.)*

"And where the Pokémon is James in all this?!" she yelled.

"Hi." James said, swallowing loudly, as he and Jaycee entered the camp site cautiously. James surveyed the various slaughtered trees and shrubs, "Um, Jessie, are you okay?"

Jessie whirled around to him, "Yeah, I’m just perfect." She snapped, wishing she hadn’t thrown the knife.

James looked at Jaycee, and spoke softly, "Jay, you can go if you want. I’ll meet you in town later, okay? Near the showers?"

Jaycee nodded, grabbing her small back pack with her meager possessions in it. she wanted to kiss James goodbye, but not with Jessie there, "I’ll see you." She said softly, turning to leave.

James quickly turned her back around to face him, kissed her discreetly on the cheek. She grinned, and walked away. James watched her leave, then his attention was brought back to Jessie, who sat on the ground in her usual distressed position, with her legs spread from her knees.

"Jess, do you want anything to eat?" James asked carefully, deciding to at least get her more relaxed before attempting to talk.

Jessie shook her head, "No. not hungry." She muttered.

"Did you have anything to eat last night?" James asked.

Jessie shook her head.

"did you have breakfast this morning?"

Jessie once again shook her head. She glared at him, "And it’s none of your business."

"I didn’t say it was." James said quickly. He searched for something to say, "I’m, um, glad you’re back though. I missed you. Meowth did too."

"where is Meowth?" Jessie asked, looking around.

"I’m not sure." James said, "I haven’t seen him. I don’t think he came back with us from Team Rocket Head Quarters."

They both shared a puzzled glance at each other.

Meowth grinned wickedly, as he crept through the ventilation system in Team Rocket Head Quarters. He could see perfectly in the murky darkness, thanks to his cat like vision. He found a vent and looked through the slatted tile. Below, he could see a room. It was definitely Giovanni’s. Meowth growled, and silently shifted the vent tile so that there was a gap large enough for him to squeeze through. He dropped to the floor neatly, and stood up on his hind legs to walk around.

"Hmm, let’s see here." He said thoughtfully.

He roughly pulled open a draw in Giovanni’s expensive desk, and began to rummage through the important looking papers.

"That looks important." Meowth said, shredding the paper with his claws. He shredded several more business proposals, then jumped up onto the desk top. He tipped over the inkwell onto the carpet, then jumped to the floor and smeared the ink daintily along one of the walls. Still not satisfied, he began an assault on Giovanni’s extensive wardrobe, ripping at the expensive business suits among other things. He frowned.

"none of dis stuff means that much to the boss." He said thoughtfully. Then he grinned. What did Giovanni love more than anything else? Money, of course. And he did all his banking by computer, Meowth knew. He switched on Giovanni’s laptop.

"Now, what password does Giovanni always use?" he asked himself, "When I was his favorite Pokémon, it was always ‘Meowth’, so now…"

he typed in ‘Persian’, and sure enough, got access to Giovanni’s desktop. He knew the boss was hopeless at remembering stuff like pin numbers, so his pin number was probably his birthday or something stupid like that. this was gonna be sweet revenge.

"I don’t wanna talk!" Jessie yelled, "I want revenge, sweet, sweet revenge!"

James tried to calm her down, grabbing her lashing arms, "Jessie, stop it!" he begged in distress.

Strangely, Jessie stopped yelling, and simply wrenched her hands away. She sat down on the ground, "Everything’s messed up." she said unhappily, "all because I took that stupid position."

James sat beside her, keeping his distance, "Jessie, I need to know what happened," he said, "We always tell each other everything, don’t we?"

Jessie didn’t look at him, "No." she said indignantly.

"Well, okay, maybe not everything." James said, "But we are friends, aren’t we?"

Jessie sighed, "I don’t know. I guess so."

"And friends tell each other stuff don’t they?" James prompted, "I’ll understand if you don’t want to tell me, but you can’t just keep torturing yourself with whatever it was."

"I don’t remember much." Jessie said, "I knew it wasn’t wine we were drinking. Something stronger. That’s why I don’t remember anything. I couldn’t move, I remember that much." Her face wore a stone expression, "I tried to get away from him, but he…" her face grew sad, and she stopped.

James looked at her with growing concern, "Jessie, you don’t mean…"

"And I told him to stop, sure." Her face grew angry, "And I hate him so much for it. I guess I, afterwards I.. blacked out, and I woke up with a head ache, and, I ran away."

"Jessie," James said, putting his arm around her, "I had no idea…"

Jessie let him hug her, and she hugged him back. James would have given anything to make her feel better again, but she’d never had to deal with anything like this, and he didn’t know what to do. Jessie was always so strong and confident. Sure, she was overbearing too, and downright mean, sometimes. But no one deserved this. James held her until she couldn’t cry anymore, and then they sat in silence for some time, until Jessie spoke,

"I, want something to eat." Jessie said softly.

James nodded, "Of course, Jess." He rummaged hurriedly through their food supply bag, "Pasta okay?"

Jessie nodded, "Yeah."

Jaycee still felt strange about showering in this place. She thought of James as she washed her hair. And of Jessie. What had happened to that poor girl? On TV, Pokémon was always so: cheerful. Any problems incurred were always solved in half an hour, unless it took two episodes. She rinsed the conditioner out of her hair, and turned off the faucets. Her towel hung on the back of the shower door. Showering here was like showering at a public pool, she realized. She remembered going to swimming for inter school sport. Yuck. That had been awful. They’d had to walk to the pool, then after they cooled off in the water, they were expected to walk back to school again, hence getting even hotter than they had been originally. She dried herself, and dressed. Her hair was still damp, and was surely making a wet patch on the back of her dress. She squeezed some water out of her hair, and unlocked the shower door. She walked outside, and decided to get some work done while she waited for James. she sat down, and pulled out her sketch pad and a pencil.

"What are we gonna do, James?" Jessie asked, "We’ve got no jobs, so no money…Sure, Jaycee’s little drawings bring in a bit of cash, but it’s not gonna be enough, is it?"

Jessie and James were walking away from where their camp site had been. They had packed up camp, and were heading to Pallet Town.

"We’ll be alright." James said, doubting his own words, "I mean, we have skills other than in being criminals, don’t we?"

Jessie kicked at the ground as they walked, "I guess. But where are we gonna live? If we’re gonna get real jobs, we can’t very well keep camping out, can we?"

James shrugged, "Jess, don’t think about that now, we’ll work it out when it needs to be worked out."

Jessie didn’t reply. They entered the small town, and headed towards the showers. James spotted Jaycee sitting nearby, and made his way over to her. Jessie followed.

"Hi, Jay." James said.

There was something different in his voice, but Jaycee brushed it off, "Hey. Are you guys going to the showers?" she asked.

Jessie and James both nodded.

"Don’t be too long, okay?" Jaycee said, turning back to her drawing.

Jessie and James walked off. Jaycee snuck a glance at the two. They both seemed really unsettled over something or other. At least Jessie had stopped cutting up trees.