After the incident with Team Rocket, Ash, Misty, and Brock sat relaxingly on the lawn, Ash seated in the middle. He was no doubt recovering from what he considered the worst Team Rocket encounter ever, even though nothing really terrible had happened. Ash was now all smiles, his legs tucked under him comfortably, Pikachu resting pleasantly on his lap. His friends sat closely to him, Misty occasionally resting her head sympathetically on his shoulder. With a small chuckle, Ash accepted her friendliness openly, happy to have people who really cared about him.

Jay sat facing them, a small pile of Pokéballs in his lap. He felt that now was a good time to show them his Pokémon, hoping that it would calm Ash. It was working, too, and Jay’s smile grew wider as he saw his son’s eyes glisten at each Pokémon he let out. He had ten of them, but had only brought four with him from Viridian. After all, he hadn’t been expecting to see Ash on this trip.

Along with Arcanine, Ash, Misty, and Brock were amazed at his Feraligatr, Vaporeon, and Blastoise. Ash got more and more spunky at each one that came out, but Jay knew that Ash didn’t want to battle now. Both Pikachu and Chikorita were recovering, and Ash was in low spirits.

Jay ran a hand through his black hair and got up, stretching a little.

"Gonna be okay, Ash?" he asked sweetly.

"Hmm?" Ash asked, looking up as he heard his name. Though he loved seeing his dad’s Pokémon, he was in a different world. "Oh . . . oh, yeah. Sure, I’m fine. I’ll be okay."

"Good," he said. "Well, I got some work to do. I’ll see you guys later, ‘kay?"

"All right," Ash replied.

Jay left them there, shuffling his Pokéballs in his hands. For a moment, the three sat in silence, Misty and Brock tugging grass out of the ground and Ash gently rubbing Pikachu’s worn body. Misty glanced up worriedly at him.

"Ash," she said softly, waving her hand in front of his face, "you okay?" She finished with a small laugh, and Ash smiled.

"Yeah," he replied affirmatively.

"You look like you’re in lala land," she giggled. "Thinkin’ about something?"

Ash took a deep breath and nodded. "Sure am."

"You’re thinking about your parents again, aren’t you?" Brock asked, already knowing the answer.

Ash nodded, his face falling into a frown. "I miss my dad." His gaze returned to Pikachu, and he tilted his head worriedly at his poor, tired Pokémon. "I guess I never realized how much."

Misty’s heart fell. "Awww." She reached up and rubbed his shoulder affectionately.

She and Brock became silent again, feeling bad for Ash’s misfortune. Suddenly however, Ash’s head rose enthusiastically, and Misty and Brock startled at his huge smile.

"Tonight, though," he announced, pointing his finger at both of them. "Tonight’s the night."

"What night?" Misty asked confusingly.

"Oh no," Brock moaned, burying his head in his hands. "You’re not gonna make me cook again, are you?"

Ash broke into laughter. "No! Heh heh, no, but I do have a plan."

"Another one?" Misty groaned, but with a grin.

Ash made a face at her. "You think I’m gonna give up that easily? Me, Ash Ketchum, give up?"

"Well, you certainly do have the stubbornness for this little project of yours," Misty shrugged with a giggle. "What’s the plan?"

Ash got up, cuddling Pikachu in his arms. "C’mon back to the house. I’ll tell ya on the way."

What Ash didn’t tell Misty and Brock was that he seemed to know that Jay wasn’t going to stick around much longer. Which meant that they didn’t have forever. Earlier that morning, Delia had told Ash that she needed the night alone with Jay, but held back the reason why in worry of upsetting him again. But Ash knew why anyway. As soon as those papers were all signed, and they were sent in and confirmed, that would be it. It was time to work fast, especially when he was so close.

He couldn’t help but get fidgety when, once again, Delia sounded a bit sad, not cheery the way she had the night before or that morning. But that was just because she had enjoyed her evening with Jay, Ash figured. Of course! That had to be it! If Delia hadn’t enjoyed the dinner, she would have let Ash know it. Either by the sad, horrid face she would have given him or by screaming at him, demanding to know just what was going on in his mind. But no, she was smiling, she was happy. She was in a great mood. The signs were positive.

Ash, Misty, and Brock exchanged secretive grins throughout the entire dinner. They had already set up half of the project, or booby-trap, as Brock had called it. It had taken a while and they had to sneak around, but it was done. The second half of the plan was in the waiting, and Ash prayed that the night would unfold the way he hoped. He ate his supper with an optimistic attitude, feeling his plan was nothing but fool-proof.

"Would you like me to do the dishes, Mrs. Ketchum?" Brock asked kindly, only to get a hard slap on the shoulder from Ash. "Uh, I mean . . ." He shrugged.

Delia giggled. "No, that’s okay. I got it. You did them last night, anyway."

"Okay," Brock said, and he and Misty followed Ash out of the kitchen and upstairs.

"Ash, on the other hand . . ." she began, but Ash was already sprinting up the stairs, Pikachu in tow.

"Sorry Mom! Can’t hear you!" he yelled, causing Delia to chuckle.

"Go on you guys," she said to Brock and Misty. "Guess he wants you."

Brock and Misty smiled, and met Ash halfway up the stairs, where he was waiting.

"Are you insane?" Ash demanded, glaring with an evil smile at Brock.

Brock grinned and sweatdropped. "Heh heh, sorry."

Ash sighed. "Forget about it. C’mon, let’s go get ready!" A huge smile spread across his face, and the three of them dashed up the stairs swiftly. As soon as Ash got to his room, he turned his stereo on. Misty and Brock settled themselves on the beds.

"You got the CD?" Misty asked.

"Yeah," Ash replied, bringing it out from one of his drawers. "I’m glad I found it. I swear, my mom has more CDs than a music store."

Ash stared at the CD in his hand, almost unable to believe that he had found it. He turned it around, scrolling down to verify that song number six was the one he needed. The one that was his best shot. It had to be. Gazing at the title fondly, he smiled widely.

"Oh man, I can’t wait till they hear this!" he exclaimed. "They’ll think they’re back at their senior prom all over again!"

Misty and Brock suddenly looked confused.

"Senior prom?" Misty asked. "I thought you said Stars Fell on Alabama was their wedding song!"

Brock frowned. "Yeah."

"Pika!" Even Pikachu was a little surprised.

Misty was beaming. "Your parents went to the senior prom together? You didn’t tell us that!"

Ash grinned. "Yeah. I can’t believe I didn’t tell ya." He tapped the CD with his finger. "Stars Fell on Alabama was the first song they ever danced to. That’s why they made it their wedding song."

"At the senior prom?" Misty asked, still shocked. "Wow."

Brock cut in now. "So, they were prom dates?"

Ash nodded. "And they knew each other a grand total of one day." He giggled at Misty and Brock’s stunned faces. "My mom met him the day before, and she was kinda upset that she didn’t have a date. So she asked him."

"Just like that?" Brock asked.

"Just like that," Ash replied. "And my dad didn’t even go to her high school. He was on a Pokémon journey."

Misty got up and paced. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on! Ash, how we supposed to do this tonight if you haven’t even informed me and Brock about all this stuff? Me especially! There’s so much more we could have done!"

"Calm down," Ash soothed. "What we did will be fine. Besides, when they hear the song, hopefully that’ll do it. If it doesn’t . . . well, I dunno."

Ash realized that he never did tell his friends of his parents’ colorful history. It just had never come up in their conversations, but he figured he would fill them in as the evening went on. Right now, all he could picture in his mind was his parents downstairs, wondering if they had settled down in the living room, where part one of his master plan would launch.

"Ash!" All of sudden, Ash’s ears pricked at his mother’s voice, and he jumped up with a start. He ran to the top of the stairs, where sure enough she stood.

"What, Ma?"

"Ash dear, lower the music a little," she said, emphasizing her request in whisper. "Your father and I can’t hear ourselves think."

Ash’s heart leaped excitedly. They must be sitting down to work! "Okay, no problem."

"Thanks." She turned away, and with a small hop, Ash returned to his room.

"Okay, okay! Here we go!" Almost tripping over Pikachu, who had found a comfortable spot sprawled out on the floor, he immediately went to lower the radio, but just a little. "They’re goin’ to work now."

Misty and Brock got up.

"What do we do now?" Misty asked.

"Ummm, oh! Go down the stairs quietly, and watch to see if she finds the pictures. You’ll be our look-out."

"Okay," Misty sighed. "C’mon Togepi, time to do some spying."

Ash stuck his tongue out at her as she left, which she happily returned. Ever so quietly, Misty tip-toed to the stairs, making her way down silently. Holding a hand gently over Togepi’s mouth, she poked her head slightly around the wall, catching a small but good view of the living room. Jay was seated in the single chair, a newspaper held up to his face. Delia was nowhere to be seen, but before Misty could whine to herself about waiting around for a while, she came out of the kitchen, a cup of coffee in her hands.

Misty’s eyes rose in interest, searching around to make sure everything was as they left it. There were the new divorce papers stacked neatly on the coffee table, but all Misty was concerned about was what was underneath them. She uncomfortably shifted around on her feet, waiting patiently for Delia to pick up the papers.

Jay never looked up from the newspaper, and Misty figured he was reading something interesting. He must have been, for Delia stared at him.

"Are we gonna do this, or what?" she asked despondently.

Jay’s eyes rose from the paper. "Sure, I guess."

Delia shrugged and sighed, reaching for the papers. Misty’s stomach flip-flopped excitedly and she beamed as their plan went under way.

That’s it! she thought. C’mon, find them! Find them! Yes!

Almost immediately, Delia’s eyes caught the culprit, and she stared at them bewilderingly.

"What’s this?" she asked no one in particular, setting the divorce papers off to the side, and reaching out to grab the small stack of photos that had appeared underneath.

Misty went up a few steps, and turned back to Ash’s door, where he was waiting nervously, his hands wrung around. She gave him an ecstatic thumbs-up, and he did a small, joyous bounce. She returned to her look-out point, and watched as the booby-trap was executed before her eyes.

A small smile spread across Delia’s face as she held the old pictures in hands, going onto the next after looking at each one intently. There were at least fifteen of them there, all from various years. The first one on the pile was perhaps the earliest photo she had of her and Jay, when she was only eighteen and he was nineteen. She gazed fondly at it, the color fading a bit but still clear enough to show her silky, yellow prom dress, her arm locked into Jay’s, the boy she had only met the day before. Looking at him in the picture and then sitting before her, she realized that he didn’t change much, looks-wise.

The next was just a casual picture of the two, apparently taken at some sort of festival, which she immediately recalled was the county fair. That had been taken that summer, the summer when she and Jay were practically joined at the hip, their small spring fling beginning to blossom into true love.

Her silent escape into the past caught Jay’s attention, and he grinned. "Whatcha got there?"

She looked up at him for a moment with a warm smile, and motioned for him to come over. He got up and sat beside her on the couch.

"Whoa!" she said softly and with a chuckle as the couch sloped under Jay’s weight, sending her sliding down into him.

He giggled and leaned over. "Pictures?" he asked. "Where’d they come from?"

"Three guesses," Delia replied, her eyes still glued on them. "Someone’s been going through the photo albums." For a moment, she tried to scoot over a little so that she wasn’t leaning on Jay, but the slope was too much, so she forgot about it. "Awww, look at this."

"Awww," Jay repeated, gripping the picture himself. Together, they gazed down at a snapshot of the two of them in the hospital, a barely one-hour-old Ash cradled in Delia’s arms.

Delia laughed. "Oh, I look awful in this picture!"

Jay shrugged. "Well, you just got done giving birth to a beautiful baby boy. Whaddah ya expect?"

"Guess you’re right on that," Delia answered softly, sighing happily. "He is beautiful, isn’t he?"

Jay nodded, and Delia flipped to another picture, this one being a few years later. They were at a park, smiling happily into the camera. Jay and Delia had their arms around Ash, who was about four at the time, lifting him up off the ground. She remembered that it was at Jay’s company picnic, one of many. For a second, Delia felt upset, becoming aware of just how much she missed those outings.

Back on the stairs, Ash and Brock had joined Misty, and they watched the scene attentively. Ash could barely control himself, but he did. He bit down on his lower lip hard, the smile breaking through anyway. His eyes sparkled more and more as he listened to his parents converse, flipping from one photo to the next. He remembered throwing in a lot of their wedding, but mostly ones with him. Though their backs were turned to them, Ash could tell when they had a picture with him in it, because either they would "awww" sweetly or laugh.

But what really made Ash excited was the way that the divorce papers were thrown off to the side, temporarily forgotten. As he starred down at the dreaded documents, he wished his eyes were capable of setting things on fire. The sight of them suddenly stirred up his ambition again, and he nudged his two friends.

"Come on," he whispered excitedly. "It’s time for part two."

Brock gave him the thumbs-up, marking his cue. While Ash and Misty remained on the stairs, Brock bounded for the room, opening the CD case and plopping the disc into the machine. He remembered what Ash had told him, and for safe-keeping, scrolled to song five first.

Ash heard it blare out of his stereo, for it was still set pretty loudly despite what Delia had said. But he figured she wouldn’t mind, since this did happen to be one of her favorites. A song that Ash vaguely remembered hearing before going by the title of Nice Work If You Can Get It floated to his ears and hopefully down to his parents a floor below.

He couldn’t wait to see what happened next.

TO BE CONTINUED . . .