The Great Lawn looked smaller with the tents half down, like the whole festival had been holding its breath and was finally letting it out. Trainers folded canvas into duffel bags. A cart wobbled past loaded with crates of berries. Somewhere near the fountain, a Poliwag chirped at nobody in particular, just because it could.
Raven stood with her cloak bunched in both fists, trying to pry a Togepi loose from the hem without hurting it. The Togepi had other plans. It burrowed deeper, chirping in what sounded suspiciously like triumph.
"This isn't a permanent arrangement," Raven told it.
The Togepi disagreed, apparently, because it tucked its head under the fabric and went still, the picture of a creature settling in for good.
A few yards off, Beast Boy crouched in front of a Bidoof with the focused patience of someone who refused to accept defeat twice in one weekend.
"Okay, but blink twice if you understand me."
The Bidoof blinked. Once. Then went back to gnawing on a fallen twig.
"That's progress," Beast Boy said, to no one who was listening.
Marcus worked a few tents down, hauling a folded canopy toward the supply truck, Lillipup trotting figure-eights around his ankles the whole way. He'd almost gotten the canopy loaded when a woman broke off from a cluster of departing families and crossed the grass toward him, a boy of maybe eight trailing behind her, still clutching a stuffed Shinx toy against his chest.
"You're the one who ran the demonstrations," she said.
Marcus set the canopy down. "Parks Department, yes. I helped organize the—"
"My son wouldn't go near a Pokémon two days ago." She put a hand on the boy's shoulder. "Now I can't get him to stop talking about them."
The boy held the stuffed Shinx up like proof.
"He fed one a berry," the woman said. "By himself. I just wanted you to know that."
Marcus opened his mouth and nothing came out right away. He reached up and straightened his collar out of habit, though it wasn't crooked.
"Thank you," he finally said. "That means more than you probably think it does."
The woman smiled, said something to her son about saying goodbye, and the two of them headed back toward the parking lot. Marcus watched them go until they disappeared past the vendor row, then looked down at Lillipup, who had stopped circling and was just sitting against his shoe, patient.
"Yeah," he said. "I heard it too."
He picked the canopy back up, but he was standing a little straighter carrying it.
By the time the sun dropped low enough to turn the grass gold, most of the tents were gone. Orion stood near the fountain, cane planted in the earth, watching the last of the trucks pull away one by one. Latias stood beside him in her human disguise, arms loose at her sides, watching the same thing.
"Feels different, doesn't it," she said. "Empty like this."
"Not empty." Orion nudged a fallen leaf with the tip of his cane. "Just resting. Same lawn that had three hundred people on it this morning."
"That's not what I meant." Latias tucked a strand of red hair behind her ear, a human habit she still hadn't quite shaken even now. "I meant us. Standing here with nothing left to manage."
Orion considered that for a moment, the way he considered most things, like there was no rush to land anywhere. "A Slowpoke doesn't worry about what comes after a nap. It just naps."
"That's not advice, that's just a fact about Slowpoke."
"Most good advice is."
She laughed, quiet and real, and leaned her shoulder against his for a second before straightening again. Neither of them said anything else for a while. The fountain kept running behind them, the only sound left on the whole lawn besides a few stragglers' voices carrying from the parking lot.
"I meant to ask you something two days ago," Latias said eventually, "and I never found the moment."
"You have it now."
"Are you happy?" She wasn't looking at him when she asked it, her eyes still on the empty grounds. "Not proud. Not satisfied that it worked. Happy."
Orion didn't answer right away, which was its own kind of answer. He reached over without a word and set his hand over hers where it rested against the fountain's edge.
"Yeah," he said. "I am."
Latias didn't say anything back. She didn't need to.
The Titans found them a little while later, backpacks slung and ready to go. Starfire flew the last few feet instead of walking them, hovering just off the ground the way she always did when she forgot to think about gravity.
"Farewell, Orion! Farewell, Latias!" She wrapped Orion in a hug that lifted his heels an inch off the grass. "This gathering has been most wondrous!"
"Careful with the cane," Orion said, laughing, and she set him down.
Raven approached last, cloak still occupied. She'd apparently given up the fight, because the Togepi was now perched happily on her shoulder instead of buried in fabric.
"It won't let go," she said, flat.
"Looks like it adopted you," Orion said.
"I noticed."
Beast Boy gave the Bidoof one last salute on his way past, which the Bidoof ignored completely, and then the three of them were gone, cutting across the grass toward wherever their ride was waiting.
The next morning, Pokémon Home opened its doors right on schedule.
Orion stood behind the front counter, ringing up a woman buying a starter kit of Poké Blocks while her Eevee sniffed curiously at the display case. The line by the door was already eight people deep. Pikachu sat on the counter's edge, tail flicking, watching the whole thing with the same bored satisfaction it always wore on a Tuesday.
"Is it safe for children?" the woman asked.
Orion smiled. He'd answered that one more times than he could count.
"Very safe," he said, "provided the children are safe around it."
***
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