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Frontier Town The Wanderin' Zera

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Gerome exhaled and nodded. "Happened not too long ago. Like instinct, felt it. Had a thought, what if I went back? Figured I'd've talked to you guys about it... never worked up the courage. Now it's passed... 'n I'm still here. Guess I found the answer myself."

He looked at the glass.

"...Weird how fast time moves. I'd be an old man back home, or long dead. With a family that didn't want a thing to do with me. A daughter who hated me for not bein' there when she needed me. A wife, same way.

"...Makes me wonder if I ran away by choosin' here. But they're better without me. Guess I just wish I could've told'm they were right."
 
...A wife and daughter, huh.

Funny. As long as he'd known about Gerome's family, that he'd settled down and found a wife on Forlas and had a kid with her, he hadn't really considered what the guy might've left behind back home.

Dave took a heavy swig of his drink. Jean was looking at Gerome with her ears held low and eyes moistening, probably about to say something cute and hopelessly naïve.

"Do they think you died...?" she said. Okay, maybe not. Good question, actually. Supposedly they'd return right back to the moment they'd left with no memory of any of this, but if Gerome stayed in Forlas for good, what happened back in his world? Would he have just gone to bed one day and then never woken up, dead in his sleep from unexplained causes? God. What a depressing thought.
 
"...Mm. Yeah. That's probably what happened," Gerome said simply. "Time flowed. I ain't coming back. So I died. Heart attack from drinkin' too much, I figure. Not hard t' mistake what happened there."

He exhaled, looking up.

"Was brought here by chance. Faller, I bet. Got lucky... or unlucky, and I remember it all. Figured maybe this was all one big stupor from goin' out, drinkin' too much one day, or drinkin' something a little worse'n alcohol. But it's been too long. And once that threshold was reached, somethin'... shifted."

He eyed Dave, putting a claw to his own chest.

"Like I was sittin' up all this time, not totally sinkin' into this body, until just then. That final thread that connected me to bein' a 'human' went away, and now... I'm settled here. Like I c'n finally sit down. Finally breathe out.

"You probably won't ever feel it. Feels normal t'you now. But I guess if y'get stranded here, you'll get it... Bah. That's stupid, though. You actually got somethin' to go back to."
 
Jesus. Gerome'd been a sad sack back home, it sounded like. Was it fucked up that he'd ended up tending a fucking bar in the cowboy Pokémon universe? Got to be a constant temptation, right?

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I've got shit to go back to." He glanced at Jean. She still didn't remember, did she. That there were only six kids to go back to now.

He took a swig of his drink. "Well, I'm glad it's got you feeling freer. No regrets about crossing over, made a better life for yourself, got settled in your new body. Sounds like a win to me. Me, I'll be happy to get out of here. No more being a fucking dog, hey."

"Do you ever miss your old family?" Jean murmured.
 
Gerome smiled at Jean, but Dave could see the sadness behind it.

"Yeah," he said. "But I'd miss this family, too. Maybe it was a mistake t' start one here if I figured I'd've gone back, or might've, but... I dunno. Somethin' changed one day. You run into the right people, start wonderin', ponderin', and... just happens. Maybe a small part o' me knew from the start that... no matter how much I miss'm, sometimes it's better not t' go back. That I'd regress--that means, that I'd 'go back' to being a bad person again. That they'd go back to bein'... uncomfortable."

Gerome tilted his head back. "Figure best case, they're glad I'm gone. Maybe one day I'll find out... but I figure I deserve it if that day never comes. My home's here, now. I had a second chance. Have a kid that's a prodigy and a wife that can handle my crazy... and she's a little crazy herself. It works.

"...Just... promised myself, on the day I passed the threshold, that I wasn't gonna mess up a second time."

Six Mimikyu huddled around for storytime, their false heads tilting every which way.
 
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