A/N: I'm back! Just like I promised! Sorry this has taken me so long; I've been really stuck on how I should begin this chapter. I wrote and rewrote it like, three times, and I started working at a summer camp for preschoolers two weeks ago, so I've been really tired most days when I get home from work. There are a lot of trouble kids in my group. Anyways, sorry for the delay, I really appreciate all the feedback and support you guys have given me. Special thanks to The Anonymous Coward (his/her screen name, I'm not calling anyone a coward) who's review is the one that finally kicked my butt into gear to just sit down and write the damn thing, even if I don't like how I start it. And actually, even though it took a while, I'm pretty happy with the way I segued into this. Enjoy!

Part 2

Misty ran for a long while before she finally tuckered herself out and sat down by a creek to finish crying. It was ironic, she thought once she finally calmed down, that she had met Ash by pulling him out of a river and was now probably dealing with the end of their relationship by a river as well. Sure, Ash was the sort of person who would feel bad for her and try to stay friends — to let her keep tagging along – but she knew their friendship would become tense and awkward, and that they would eventually have to part ways. She was so angry, angry about all of this! That Brock had made her speak, that Ash had eavesdropped, that she was having her heart broken to pieces as every moment passed without him following her. He must really hate her by now. He'd surely hate her for lying about why she had followed him all this time, for giving him such grief over her stupid bike. Either that or he'd become an egotistical maniac and tease her about her feelings relentlessly. This sucked!

Noticing a small cluster of daisies by a little closer to the water, Misty crawled over to pick one. She knew her ensuing antics would be childish, but she needed that childish comfort right now, just the same.

"He hates me." A petal fluttered to the ground.
"He hates me not." Another petal.
"He hates me." One more.
"He hates me not."
"He hates me."
"He hates me not." There was one left.
"He hates me."

And then a voice invaded her quiet. "He hates you not."

Misty jumped at the sudden intrusion, whipping her whole body around to face the boy who had stumbled onto a private moment of hers once again.

"Geeze Mist," he complained, "did you have to run so far? If Brock hadn't leant me his Vulpix to sniff out the way, I might never have caught up with you!"

Misty didn't really know how to react to Ash's (clearly somewhat forced) casual manner, so she played along, reacting as casually as she knew how to.

"Vulpix?" She flicked her shoelace, trying to seem indifferent – distracted. Did she sound nervous? She hoped she didn't sound too nervous. She felt like she sounded nervous. "Why didn't you just use Pikachu?"

Ash sighed and took a seat on the riverbank, right next to Misty. "Well," he gave half a shrug as he folded his left arm to rest atop his bent knees, "I figured this was gonna be a kinda private conversation, you know?" Ash reached up with his right arm and pulled his Pokémon league cap down over his eyes. Once finished he placed his open palm on the dirt behind him, leaning his weight against it. "Pikachu hates his pokéball."

Misty nodded. After her mute response, a silence settled over the two of them. Both knew that the conversation was about to turn serious, but neither knew where to start. As usual, it was Misty who lost patience first. She was the one to break the silence.

"Look, it's okay if you don't want me around anymore," she admitted, trying to fight back the tears that were once again threatening to leak from her eyes. She wasn't very successful. "I get how we-weird it probably is to be a-around me now that you nuh-know how I f-f-feel," she sobbed.

"Misty," he began to reply, his voice a gentle whisper, but of course she heard none of it.

"-I, I mean, I've been luh-la-lying to you for so la-long that you must ha-ha-hate me by now!"

"No!" he exclaimed, wanting to stop her train of thought. "I don't hate you Misty. I could never hate you. No matter what."

Although he had meant to be reassuring his words seemed have the opposite effect, because Misty hid her face in her hands out of complete shame over her current lack of self-control. She wailed a muffled word that sounded like his name – but he couldn't be sure.

"You know," he began, turning away from her and refusing to face her as he spoke. He was too embarrassed to be talking about his feelings to even be able to look her in the eye like she deserved. "After you left, I was kind of freaked out at first," he admitted. "I couldn't even breathe right."

"This is supposed to make me feel better?" Misty snapped.

"I'm getting there!" Ash exclaimed in annoyance. She ceased bickering then, choosing instead to quietly fume, so he continued. "Anyways, I couldn't breathe until Brock came over and shook me out of it. And then I kind of flipped out at him. Panicking and stuff. Hah-ha."

Misty huffed at his nervous laughter, leaning forward to rest her head atop the folded arms on her knees. Ash could be such a jerk sometimes. Such a dense idiot. Couldn't he just get to the point and tell her how he wanted to end their friendship, or in what way he wanted to make it eternally unbearable? Really, what a-a… an Ash-hole.

She grinned slightly, hiding the lower portion of her face in the crook of her arms. It wasn't a funny or clever joke, but the nastiness of her stupid little pun left Misty feeling vindicated none-the-less. Any pleasure she gained was short lived, however, as Ash went onward.

"I told him how messed up I thought it was that you like me; how we were friends and just kids and stuff. How this was all wrong and awful and weird and I just wasn't ready for this sort of thing!"

Misty glared at the large rocks across the water from her. It was a lucky thing that Ash could be so tactless at times. It made it much easier for Misty to convert her sorrow into anger. She wondered how long it would take her to smash those rocks into dust using only her bare fists. Probably half an hour, at the rate he was pissing her off.

"And then he made me calm down, and asked me what I thought of you."

Oh hell no, she thought. Misty did not want to hear this.

"And I said that I thought you were a good friend. That you were smart, and funny and stuff. How I like it when you laugh at my jokes. How I don't even mind our arguing all that much."

Misty stopped drilling holes in the rocks with her imaginary laser-eyes and actually turned her head to the side so she could watch Ash's profile while he talked. What he was saying now didn't really seem to follow from any of his previous statements. Where was he going with this? Did she dare to hope...?

"And then he asked how you looked, and I thought he was nuts because he had just seen you five minutes ago. So I told him that you were obviously a red-head, but then he got all annoying and said he meant whether I thought you were pretty or not. Which is stupid, by the way, because that is not what he asked me and he should've just been clear with his stupid questions. But I answered anyway."

Ash swallowed, having a very hard time admitting as embarrassing a thought as Misty being pretty to anyone, let alone the girl herself.

"I said… I said that I, uh, I thought you were pretty and so then he starts saying that we should date and stuff and I'm like 'No way!' because I'm not a Pokémon Master yet, and still have all this kid stuff left to do, you know?"

Misty did not know, and she had no idea what point Ash was trying to make. He sure was pissing her off though. Unbeknownst to Ash, that little vein on Misty's forehead was beginning to throb again, and she was gritting her teeth and clenching her fists with terrifying force. Thankfully, Ash was lost enough in his own thoughts to remain blissfully unaware of his love's building ire.

"But Brock told me… He said that growing up wasn't like that. Something about black and white and grey and stuff. He said how he did all these adult things like taking care of his brothers and sisters, but that he was still being a kid, traveling around with us. And he thought that maybe, I could be like that too. Just a little bit grown up. Kind of like-"

"WHAT POINT ARE YOU TRYING TO MAKE?" Misty suddenly screamed, unable to contain her anger any longer.

"Ah! I, ah— I think I'm in love with you!" He exclaimed as he looked at her in pure horror, completely flustered and thrown off his game. Too anyone less experienced in the ways of Misty Waterflower, it would have been downright eerie how quickly she calmed down after hearing that. Maybe she was in shock at his answer, though.

"You… what?" she asked, not believing her ears.

"W-well, Brock got me thinking that maybe it was okay to feel like I kind-of-sort-of like you 'n all, even if I'm not ready to be all grown up yet and I still think that kissing is icky and stuff like that."

A quiet settled over the space between them then. It was not awkward, but rather peaceful. They could both sense that Ash had just said what they both had needed him to, and in so doing had cleared the air.

A shiver ran down Misty's spine.

"S-so, you don't hate me then?" she asked.

Ash nodded.

"So, maybe... would you want to... like… say we're dating or something? You know… like boyfriend and girlfriend?"

His whole face was redder than a tomato, but Ash nodded again.

Misty smiled, looking shyly –anxiously – up at him through her eyelashes. "Cool," she said. "Me too."

Ash finally felt like he could breath again, and he lost some of the color that was flooding his face. He smiled back at her sincerely. It was that same brilliant, boyish grin that she had fallen in love with all that time ago.

"Cool," he agreed. Then he took a deep breath, and boldly held out a hand for her as he pushed himself up from the bank. Butterfree swirled about in both their stomachs as she grabbed it and used it to pull herself up beside him. They looked at each other for a moment, and then they both laughed – feeling silly, awkward. Two kids. Two fools in love.

Without letting go of each-others hands, they turned around and headed back through the brush toward their campsite. Brock was waiting for them – waiting to see their smiles.

The End.