Title: Back Home
Fandom: Pokemon (Diamond/Pearl, gameverse)
Pairing/Characters: Dawn, Barry, Dawn/Barry
Warning(s): None
Genre: Gen

The relationship between Dawn and Barry, renowned across Sinnoh, was a rather amicable rivalry – they were friendly competitors at the highest level of battle artistry. They were both roaming Champions who had taken down Cynthia but refused to be tied to her position; instead, they travelled across the world, sometimes together and sometimes separate, and battled occasionally.

Their favourite meeting place was the Resort Area in north-west Sinnoh. Before that it had been Twinleaf, but they were growing famous enough that whenever they met a crowd of paparazzi and trainers jostling for a chance to see a world-class battle would materialize out of nowhere, and the last thing they were interested in was taking away the peace and quiet that their hometown deserved. So they met in secret in a tucked-away part of their world where they could battle if they wanted, or just sit and talk.

Often they did just that. The world was large and full of stories, and where Dawn was a storyteller Barry was a story embellisher and they cobbled together long afternoons of idle chat over sandwiches and lemonade. Sometimes they would stick their feet in the water and do a little fishing or amble into the grass and run the Poké Radar to look for strange-coloured Pokémon – Dawn had completed her Pokédex, being more of a collector than a battler, so her world was a little bit smaller that way.

Sometimes they would just talk and talk and talk for hours about their own journeys, right from the moment they had decided to search for the Red Gyarados north of town and stumbled on a forgotten briefcase. But Dawn had an Empoleon and Barry had his Torterra now, and it had been years since they were so young and naive.

They fell in love with their world, and perhaps with each other – but that was another journey, one that had lead them across Sinnoh and then back home.