Ash POV

Sometimes I speak without thinking and realise that I've just said the smartest thing possible.

That was one of the times.

While I was being mutely seated. Grace went still, as if she was frozen in place, her round eyes still on me after I confessed about her daughter. Finally she nodded, as I was wondering what the f*** I had just said and knowing that I meant every word of it. "There we go." She was silent for a few seconds. "There's no conceivable way you two will ever be together, you know that. You're a Ketchum, an heir living on Park Avenue. Serena is my daughter, the teen junkie." Her face was filled with sadness and pain as she looked at me from across her seat. "It can't work. Life and circumstances will keep you apart."

I shrugged as in response. Like today was the first time I'd heard that. "Funny, that's what everybody keeps telling me," I replied. Thinking of all the previous comments about me and Sere, which I didn't even care of what they say about us, all that matters is that I have Sere with me.

"And what do you say?" She questioned in a suspicious tone.

"Stranger things have happened." I answered back to her.

"Are you really serious about this?" Sere's mom asked rapidly, wrapping her long scarf around her neck as a particularly gusty draft blew through the small room. I noticed that one of the windows was covered with plain cardboard.

Running a hand through my messy raven hair, I asked, "About what?" in a confused tone with my eyebrows narrowed down.

"Serena." She replied.

"Of course I am, Miss. Yvonne! She's really special to me." I told her truthfully from the bottom of my heart. And yes it was true after I've realised all my actual thoughts, feelings and her own safety from abuses.

When I first met her, I didn't even had those before, just played around and tease her more often. But right now I had them all in my grasp.

I was just like my own father who uses women all the time and plays around with his life, but not anymore. I was changed from that. Not by myself, but someone changed it for me, and that was the help from Sere. All those times I've used and played her were all gone to dust and replaced with what I've actually felt about her.

She helped me tons of times and forgave me more often, while I didn't do anything at all to repay her back. I felt ashamed of the thought of this, it made me feel useless over the fact that I didn't do anything to help her. However, there maybe a way to repay my mistakes by bringing Sere's father back into her life again.

Dryly, Grace said, "I'm beginning to realise that. I just don't want to see her hurt." She trailed off from her words. I could sense she really cared very much of her daughter's safety. But I didn't even know why she doesn't realise of her big bruises. So I didn't complain.

I just nodded and continued on with the long conversation were having. It been past minutes now and the light was beginning to fade from the covered window, probably the sun was starting to set down over the horizon. "I'm the last person who would never hurt her." I said softly as I could. My words escaping from my mouth.

"I beg to differ," Grace retorted bitterly, folding her hands in her lap. "You've hurt her in the past."

Biting my lip apprehensively, I nodded in agreement truthfully. She was right. I had hurt Sere before in the past. "I know." I muttered in a low voice and continued. "But she's given me another chance."

Grace pondered this for a second, then came at me with another roadblock. "What if Serena's dad doesn't want to meet her? That would crush her."

I shook my head. "She won't ever have to know that I even contacted him if he decides he doesn't want to meet her. I swear, Miss. Yvonne, I have Serena's best interests at heart."

Heaving a deep breath, Grace quietly asked but I could clearly hear every word she said, "What if he does want to meet her and takes her away from me?" She trailed off.

I frowned slightly at the tone in Grace's voice. Jealousy? That's what was preventing her from telling Sere about her dad? It all made sense, as annoying as it was. Maybe Sere's mom had a valid reason for wanting Sere to herself since she raised her singlehandedly, but it wasn't a tug-of-war game. Sere's dad had the right to know that he had a daughter, whether he wanted anything to do with her or not.

"You of all people should realise that Serena's dad taking her would be a blessing," I started, trying to keep from blowing my top and going off on her. It was hard enough trying not to tell her about Alain abuse. I guess it was up to me to knock some sense into her head. "That's why you sent her to Lumiose, to get her out. I don't mean to be rude, but if you don't want Serena to meet her dad because you want her to live with you, that's selfish of you."

I mean, talk about double standards.

Grace's lips quivered and her voice, when she spoke was barely a whisper. "Serena's the only reminder that I have left! If my husband claims custody, I'll lose her." Her voice shook and I gulped guiltily as she dabbed at her eyes with her cotton sleeve. "I don't want to lose her." She cried out. Moving her hands in to her face and cries out, her wails travelled around the room and into my ears.

I felt bad as I looked at her, I really did. But I felt worse for Sere, who had to live in fear every day. She deserved more than that, way more.

Taking a heavy swallow. I spoke in my normal voice. "I understand, Miss. Yvonne. But Serena needs a father figure. You've been the best mother possible, but you can't be both." I told. looking at her from across as Grace let's out her last sniff, stopping herself from crying again and slowly moves her hands away from her face which gave me a wide view.

With that, We sat in silence for a long while as Grace (hopefully) thought over my argument. I was starting to think that all hope was lost and she was just trying to come up with a polite way to ask me to leave, when to my surprise she stood up and walked to a small chest of dusty wooden drawers that was against the plain wall.

"You're a very persuasive young man," she commented over her shoulder as she opened the top drawer and rummaged in it. I was trying to take a sneak peek at what she was looking for when she carefully closed the drawer and came up to me with a sized picture in her hand. Wordlessly, she handed it to me.

"Huh..." I murmured under my breath and took a look at the photo in my hand, my eyes gazing directly at the picture.

It was a small photo booth picture of two happily grinning teens with their arms around each other. I recognised the girl immediately from the picture that Sere had in her locket. Small and cheeky looking, with a long honey hair. However, It was the boy that got my attention. He looked so much like Sere it was unbelievable.

"They have the same eyes, don't they?" Grace suddenly spoke, folding her hands behind her back and pacing back and forth beside my seat.

I looked up at her, the picture still intact in my hand. "Have you ever shown her this?"

"What do you think?" Shaking her head as in no for an answer. Grace sat down in her original seat again, leaning back against the chair. "His name is on the back." I turned the picture over and saw a neat handwriting saying Mark Yvonne. "He's part Hoeen, and he has his very own 'stud'." She smiled wistfully.

"I thought you told Serena that you didn't know his last name."

Looking embarrassed, Sere's mom said, "I lied to protect her. The last thing I wanted was for Serena to start her own search. But now... maybe it is time." I nodded in agreement as she continued. "How will you track him down?"

"To be honest" I paused for a moment. "I'm not too sure. But as long as I know his name..." Images of me hiring a Private Investigator to get on the case floated around in my head as I waved the photo in the air. "Do you mind if I take this with me? I'll bring it back, I promise. It's probably my best bet in getting Serena's dad."

Slowly, with great reluctance on her face, Grace nodded. "Okay. But you'd better leave now. Alain might be coming home soon, and he doesn't exactly like guests."

I got up to my feet immediately without wasting any time. Not looking forward to seeing Alain come through that door. Or Sere, for that matter.

"Thanks for your help, Miss. Yvonne," I said fervently.

"I just hope I won't live to regret this."

Shaking my head, I said, "It's Serena's dream to meet her dad. If all goes well, you won't regret it."

-----

You know how sometimes you worry at a problem for so long that it seems unsolvable, then you take a break from thinking about it only to realise that the answer is right there? Well, I had one of those moments the night after visiting Sere's mom. Worn out from over thinking out ways to find Sere's father, I went into the kitchen in search of a snack and got to talking to Cilan. He was in a talkative mood and he yammered on and on as I chewed on some pistachio nuts that were on the table.

"And I searched for my college name and the year I graduated and there was a picture of my graduating class! It's amazing what you can find on the internet these days."

I grinned inwardly at the awestruck tone in his voice. Some people are easy to please.

"Oh, yeah. The internet is a big place," I remarked, popping a T3 into my mouth and chugging it down with a glass of fizzed Dr.pepper. Nothing like a Tylenol 3 to take away the dulling pain of an aneurysm provoked headache. In my opinion, at the least.

"Very useful. My brother's neighbor found his lost dog on the internet. He typed the name on that website- Facebook, is it? And lo and behold, his dog showed up." He said, finishing his sentence off and doing his actual pose 'the evaluation time'.

I was just trying to stifle a laugh at Cilan's use of the phrase 'lo and behold' when the rest of what he had said caught up with me.

Facebook!

Almost everybody had Facebook these days, myself included.

I didn't use it all that much these days because I didn't have any friends, but I still had my account. Even Sophocles had Facebook, and he was one of the most technology challenged people I knew.

"I'll be right back."

I jumped to my feet, ignoring the flash of pain that sprouted in my temples, and sped up to my room. Jumping onto my soft tidied bed, I grabbed my laptop before switching it on, typed in Sere's fathers name in Google and hit search. And the first result that popped up for Mark Yvonne was...you guessed it. A Facebook profile.

My heart was thudding with anticipation as I clicked on the link and waited for it to load. It was too easy. This definitely wasn't going to be Sere's dad- how many people had this same exact name? With my luck, it was probably going to be a bad ass teenager.

My heart skipped a beat as the profile loaded and my eyes honed in on the profile picture. It was him. The same sapphire eyes almost identical to Sere's, the same face as in the picture, albeit aged some years...

"It's him," I muttered out loud, staring right at the laptop's bright screen.

Hurriedly, I got the picture of him and Sere's mom from my top drawer and scanned it. Photographic evidence- check. Then I hit 'send message' and the screen popped up. But what to say to him that would convince him that I wasn't just playing a prank on him?

Wait a second, I had a picture of Sere too. I'd uploaded the press pictures that had been taken at the gala onto my laptop. Dad always gets copies from the press photographers on a memory stick. I quickly found one of Sere, looking radiant in her gorgeous dress, attached it to the message along with the other picture and wrote 'Mr. Yvonne. This might come as a shock to you. Do you remember Grace from Kalos? She had a daughter. Please tell me if the girl in this picture reminds you of anyone.'

It sounded stupid and contrived, but my mind was moving at a sluggish rate, thanks to the meds, which were starting to kick in. I shrugged and hit send, wondering whether Mark was going to dismiss the message as a joke or whether he would reply.

Leaf knocked on my door and swept in, wearing her pink party dress.

"Ash! I'm having a tea party! In my room. Wanna come? It's gonna be fun!" she wheedled, pulling at my sleeve.

I gave a mock growl, grabbing her up into my arms. "Okay, but you better make sure you got real people food, okay? I don't eat playdoh."

"Okay! Let's go!" she chirped, dragging me from my bed.

When I came back a couple of hours later, I had all but forgotten the message I sent but I remembered as soon as I saw the notification on the screen.

Mark's Yvonne response was simple, to the point and filled me with hope that at last, everything might work out for Sere after all- 'Where is my daughter?'