Chapter 16 – After
White ceiling.
Didn't know where he was for a second. Just white ceiling and that smell and something beeping and his body felt completely wrong, heavy and hollow at the same time, like something had wrung it out and left it there.
The beeping.
Pokemon Center.
"DEINO" Ryan screamd
He was upright before he'd decided to move, legs over the side of the bed, feet hitting the floor, the room tilting so badly he grabbed the bed frame with both hands and nearly went down anyway.
"He's alive."
Rowan. Rowan was in the chair beside the bed and Ryan hadn't seen him, hadn't seen anything except the door, he needed to find the door, he needed to find
"Ryan. He's alive. Joy has him."
The room kept tilting. Ryan held onto the bed frame and breathed and tried to make the tilting stop and it didn't stop, not for a long moment, his knuckles white on the metal frame and his heart going too fast and somewhere underneath all of it the sound of Deino hitting the ground was playing on a loop that he couldn't turn off.
"He's being treated right now," Rowan said. Steady. Calm. Not going anywhere. "You got him here in time. He's alive."
In time.
Ryan's legs gave up the argument and he sat back down on the edge of the bed. Put his face in his hands. His hands were shaking both of them, badly, and he couldn't make them stop, couldn't make any of it stop, the sound, the weight of Deino in his arms, the blood on his jacket cooling in the cold air
He breathed.
Tried to breathe.
Deino was alive. Joy had him. He was being treated.
Okay.
Okay okay okay
"Take your time," Rowan said quietly.
Ryan sat there with his face in his hands for a while. Long enough that the shaking slowed down.Long enough that he could lift his head and look at the window and see grey morning light and understand where he was and why.
Sandgem. Pokemon Center. Recovery room.
He'd made it.
Deino had made it.
His eyes were burning. He hadn't noticed that either.
He pressed the back of his hand against them and looked at the ceiling and got himself together the way he'd gotten himself together his whole life piece by piece, quietly, where nobody could see the work it took.
Rowan waited. That was the thing about Rowan he waited. Didn't fill the silence, didn't push, just sat in the chair with his hands folded and let Ryan find his way back at his own pace. Ryan had met him four days ago and somehow that felt like the most reliable thing in this world so far.
"Okay," Ryan said finally. Voice came out rough and too quiet. "Okay. Tell me how bad."
"Two broken ribs. Deep lacerations on the left side, some internal bruising." Rowan paused. "Joy worked through the night. He's stable. It's going to take time but he's going to be fine."
Ryan closed his eyes.
Fine. He was going to be fine.
Something that had been wound very tight since he'd hit the floor of the Pokemon Center since the route, since the trees, since the sound loosened just enough to breathe around.
"Piplup," Ryan said.
"Minor scratches. It's been sitting outside Deino's door since you came in."
Of course it had.
Ryan looked at his hands again. Still not quite steady. Probably wouldn't be for a while.
"I need to know what happened," Rowan said. Not pushing just the voice of someone who needed information and knew this was the moment. "Can you do that?"
He looked up. Rowan's face was unreadable but his eyes were sharp not cold, just focused.
Ryan opened his mouth. Closed it. Tried to find where to start.
"Two men," he said finally. "Tree line, about an hour from Sandgem. They stepped out and one of them looked at Deino and said" His jaw tightened. "He said that's him. Like he knew him. Like they'd been looking for him."
Rowan went very still.
"They threw out a Golbat. It went straight for Deino, didn't wait for a command, just went for him. I tried to call something but it was already" He stopped. The sound Deino had made when the claws connected was right there, ready. He pushed past it. "It hit him from above. He went down hard and I just I picked him up and ran. They were between me and Sandgem and I didn't know what else to"
He stopped talking.
Rowan let the silence sit for a moment. "They knew what he was," he said. Not a question. "Not just that he was unusual."
"Yeah. The way they looked at him" Ryan shook his head. "They knew him. Specifically."
Rowan nodded once, slowly. Stood and moved to the window, hands clasped behind his back, looking out at Sandgem. Whatever he was thinking he kept it to himself for now.
"Did they follow you?"
"I don't know. I just ran." Ryan said
"I'll make inquiries," Rowan said. "Carefully." He turned. "You did the right thing getting him out. Remember that."
Didn't feel like it. Felt like he'd been an hour too slow noticing something was wrong and Deino had paid for it.
He didn't say that.
---
Joy let him see Deino an hour later.
The room was warm, equipment humming quietly in the background. Deino was on a low padded surface, bandaging across his ribs and left side, breathing in the slow careful way of something working hard just to do that one thing.
Ryan sat on the floor beside him.
Didn't say anything for a while. Just sat there and looked at the bandaging and the slow rise and fall and the way Deino's ears were flat against his head the same way they'd been in Rowan's doorway that first day, pulled inward, making himself small.
Like he was back there. Like the last few weeks hadn't happened.
"Hey," Ryan said quietly. "I'm here."
Deino's ear moved. Just slightly.
"I'm sorry." He leaned his arms on the edge of the surface, close enough that Deino could smell him. "I knew something was wrong when you stopped on the path. I felt it too and I just I kept walking." His throat felt tight. "That's on me."
Deino made a sound. Faint and tired.
"You scared me." Ryan looked at Deino's face. The bandaging. "When you went down I just I don't know, I stopped thinking. I picked you up and ran because I couldn't think of anything else and the whole way back I was just" He stopped. Tried again. "I don't have a lot here. I know that probably doesn't make sense. But you walked through that door and you chose me when you didn't have to and I'm not" His voice went wrong on the last part. "I'm not ready to lose that. So you need to get better. That's all I'm asking."
Deino's ear turned toward him.
Then slowly, carefully, like it cost him something, he shifted his head a fraction closer to Ryan's arm.
Just that.
Ryan stayed exactly where he was and didn't move and didn't say anything else for a long time.
---
Piplup was in the hallway when he came out, sitting against the wall opposite Deino's door. Back straight. Expression carefully neutral in the way of something that had been there for hours and wasn't going to make a thing of it.
Ryan slid down the wall and sat beside it.
Piplup looked at the opposite wall.
"He's going to be okay," Ryan said.
"Pip." Quiet. The kind that meant it had needed to hear it even if part of it had already known.
They sat there together. The Pokemon Center moved around them footsteps somewhere, the distant sound of equipment, someone checking in at the front desk. Ryan's back against the wall, Piplup beside him, both looking at nothing.
After a while Piplup shifted slightly closer.
Ryan didn't say anything about it.
---
Rowan came back in the afternoon.
Sat down beside Ryan in the hallway. Didn't explain it, just sat, back against the wall, legs stretched out. Piplup looked at him. Decided he was fine. Looked away.
Silence for a moment.
"I lost a Pokemon once," Rowan said. "Long time ago. Route in northern Sinnoh. Bad encounter, nothing I could have done differently." A pause. "Forty years later I still know exactly where on that route it happened."
Ryan looked at him.
"I'm not telling you it gets easier," Rowan said. "I'm telling you that you got him here. You picked him up and ran an hour back to Sandgem." He glanced at Ryan. "That matters."
Ryan looked at Deino's door. "I knew something was wrong when he stopped on the path. I felt it. And I kept walking anyway."
"Yes," Rowan said. "You should have stopped."
Not what Ryan had expected.
"Next time you'll stop," Rowan said. "Not because someone told you to. Because your body remembers what happened when you didn't." He looked at Ryan steadily. "You're two weeks into this. Act like it."
Not unkind. Just true.
Ryan looked at his hands. Still not quite steady. "The men on the route they knew what Deino was. Not just that he was unusual. They knew him specifically."
"I know," Rowan said. "I've been thinking about that since this morning." He stood. "Come to the lab when you're ready. There are things we need to talk about." He looked down at Ryan. "Not today. When you're ready."
He walked away without looking back.
Piplup watched him go.
"Pip," it said.
"Yeah," Ryan said. "Me too."
He leaned his head back against the wall. Through the door he could hear the equipment monitoring Deino's breathing steady, slow, working.
Still there.
He closed his eyes and listened to it and didn't try to figure out what came next.