Love
by Leto
Lisa sat on the living room sofa, playing with a strand of her hair. She looked very tense. For the hundredth time in the last ten minutes, her eyes strayed up to the clock on the wall.
"2:13..." she thought. "Where are you? You're not usually this late."
Then she heard his car in the driveway.
She immediately jumped up and ran to the door. She waited expectantly in the doorway, the cold night air brushing against her skin, as if trying to warn her.
A man approached her, and she swallowed hard. It was a man dressed all in black, with a tiny red 'R' embroidered on his chest.
It was not her husband.
"It's my duty to inform you that your husband won't... be with you any more."
She paled but didn't reply.
"You know Team Rocket has no appreciation for opposition. Tell his friends that."
She narrowed her eyes but again said nothing. Merely nodded. She could not afford to make this person angry.
"Your child has a strong trainer's blood in him. He will belong to Team Rocket. He cannot escape that, and you can't avoid his having that fate."
He smiled thinly. She saw the darkness in his eyes as he turned to leave. Then she sank back down in her chair.
"He speaks the truth," she whispered, "if Team Rocket wants him, when he grows up, they'll get him. What a miserable life he'll have..."
Presently, Lisa stood up, went into the kitchen and silently rummaged through the doors until she found what she was looking for. Then she went into her bedroom.
In the corner lay a crib. Lisa stood by it for a long time, watching her tiny son sleeping. His tiny dark eyelashes fluttered and he smiled slightly. So peaceful... her only child.
You know, some say that there is no greater love than to lay down your life for another.
That is not true.
There is a greater love.
Lisa took up the knife and quickly plunged it into her child's chest.
She watched in horrified fascination as the baby writhed for a few moments, then stopped.
Its tiny chest lay still. Its once-blue blankets were stained a horrible dark red.
She felt a mother's sadness come over her, but she couldn't move from her child's side. Her eyes never left it for the rest of that dark morning.
"May you never be unhappy," she whispered. "Oh Ash... I wonder what you could've become."