"What's to tell?" Misty countered.

"ARRGH!"

Dr. Kegel turned his sleepy-eyed countenance to the wall-clock, then announced, "You're making great progress. Let's move on, shall we?"

----------

"I think," the doctor said thoughtfully, pacing back and forth with one hand in his pocket and the other continuing to stroke his goatee, "that one of the main problems with your relationship may be found in your inability to communicate with one another in a civilized fashion. Both of you have very aggressive personalities, and this naturally leads to clashes and power struggles. I believe that this may help. Misty, why don't you go first?"

"Okay. This—" Misty held up the small dry-erase board that the doctor had handed to her, "—is Ash, the Psychotic Pokemon Trainer." Drawn on the board was a crude rendering of a boxer-shorts-clad Ash, still wearing his Pokemon League hat and green fingerless gloves. Upon his face was a cocky smirk, and one arm was extended, the fingers in the 'V' for victory pose. Using the marker as a pointer, she said, "Note the sloping Neanderthal forehead, a clear indication of his slight intelligence. He is wearing Pikachu boxer shorts, so that he can be as physically close to his Pokemon without actually strapping them to his body—a scenario that is actually quite likely to become reality in the coming years. Ash's face is permanently set in that stupidly egotistical smirk that has sent many people into murderous rages and causes them to attempt to kill the idiotic young trainer." She set the board down and looked expectantly at Ash.

He tried; oh, how he tried. But he just couldn't keep that infamous smirk off his face. "Ya know, Mist," he said slowly, "I really thought that I had been too harsh when Dr. Kegel said to draw our interpretation of each other. But now I think we're even." He flipped over his board and proudly held it out for Misty and the psychiatrist to see.

"Uh…" the joint response came.

"What do you mean, 'uh…'?" Ash asked quizzically. "See how her head is completely filled with water? The vacant stare? The vaguely offensive footnotes on her disturbing obsession with tentacle-y Pokemon?"

"Uh, Ash…almost the entire thing got wiped away," Misty noted, tapping the white surface with her index finger.

"What?" he cried, turning the board back into his line of vision. Sure enough, all that remained of his wicked drawing of Misty were a bunch of dark blue swipes. "How could this have happened?!" He looked down into his lap and, upon observing the deep-blue ink stains settling into his khakis, mentally cursed himself for being stupid enough to have rested the dry-erase board in his lap while Misty explained her drawing.

"It's alright, Mr. Ketchum," Dr. Kegel said sympathetically—well, as sympathetically as a monotone can possibly sound. "We can wait while you draw another one."

"Um, okay…" Ash said awkwardly, quickly scribbling something down upon the board and then turning it to face them. "See, uh, here's Misty—" He pointed to the hastily-drawn stick figure. "—and, uh, there's flames coming out of her head. 'Cause she's always mad." He sat the board next to him on the couch and leaned back, blushing deeply.

Two pairs of eyes stared at him questioningly. "That's it? I guess I got off easy," Misty remarked, smiling infuriatingly at him.

Ash just scowled and blushed a darker shade of red.

"So how are you two feeling about your relationship now?" Dr. Kegel asked them.

Ash and Misty turned to look at each other, then simultaneously stuck their tongues out.

----------

Two sets of word associations, five inkblots, and countless shouting matches later, Ash and Misty sat as far apart as possible on the small pastel-colored sofa, staring angrily in opposite directions. Dr. Kegel's exercises in "truth-building" had done nothing to improve their relationship nor help their attitudes; rather, it had resulted in mutual mudslinging and several off-color statements about each other's sexual performance that had resulted in Misty giving Ash a black eye, which he was now nursing with a wet cloth.

"Well," Dr Kegel said after a long stretch of silence, "I've come to a conclusion."

"If it's anything like your other conclusions, I doubt it's going to be very beneficial for us," Ash said angrily, wincing as he felt another stab of pain shoot through his left eye.

"It's quite simple, actually," the psychiatrist said, flipping through the pages of notes he had made throughout the session. "You are obviously not meant to be together; such strong personalities cannot be equal partners in a relationship. One person must submit or back down, and since neither of you seem willing to do so, I'd recommend calling it quits."

"What?!" Ash cried, springing to his feet at the same time as an equally-surprised Misty.

"From what I've seen today, you and Miss Waterflower are completely incompatible," Dr. Kegel said frankly, setting down his notebook and clasping his hands in his lap. "How you've been able to stay together this long is beyond me."

Ash was all set to begin screaming obscenities, to tell this nutcase that there was no way that he could possibly know anything about Misty and him, that if he'd bothered to pay any attention at all in the last hour he'd realize how much they meant to each other, despite all the yelling and screaming, when…

"Wait just a damn minute!" Misty said angrily, fire in her eyes. "Dr. Kegel, we came here under the impression that you could help bring us back together after we'd been separated for over two months, barely even speaking. But from the second we came in, you seemed positively bored with the whole thing. You've barely paid any attention to what just might be going on, but if you had, you'd realize that despite how badly we treat one another, we really do love each other!"

"That's right!" Ash interjected.

"Shut up, Ash, I'm talking!" Misty yelled back.

"Sorry…"

"The bottom line is, Ash and I have been fighting and yelling and beating up on each other for ten years, and we're still together, and nothing you can say or do will change that!" she said with great finality. "What do you have to say to that?"