Chapter Three - Jessie's Room


Jessie arrived at the door marked with a plaque that simply read "Jessie: Agent Number 647". She and James, like most other agents, each had a room at the main Team Rocket Headquarters in Viridian City, even if they were usually out in the field and too busy to use it. It offered a little comfort, at least to Jessie, to have something of a fixed abode. Jessie quickly looked around the hall to make sure nobody was watching her, as tears were still in the corners of her eyes. Nobody else was in the hallway, and that made her feel a little better. She reached into her shirt, and pulled out a chain with a key on it. She inserted the key into the lock on the door, and turned it. The lock clicked, and she stepped into her room. She hesitated for just a second, lingering in the doorway as her eyes glanced over at the door across the hall with the plaque that read, "James: Agent Number 253". Her lip trembled as she stepped into her room and closed the door. Fumbling on the wall, her gloved hand found the light switch, and the room was suddenly illuminated.

The room was a mess. It had been nearly a month since she had been in here for a few nights before taking off with James in the balloon again. Jessie stepped over a pile of dirty clothes, including some of her favorite disguises and a charred uniform (a souvenir of one of Pikachu's many attacks) and sat down on the pink blanket on her bed, the only thing she had managed to hang on to from home. She had taken it along to Pokemon tech, had stuffed it into her old Army backpack when she was with the Bridge Bike Gang, and thrown it on the bed in here when she had joined Team Rocket. It was a comfort that she hardly ever dared to take in the field with her, for fear that it would be burned by that stupid electric rat.

Jessie looked around the room, and realized that she wasn't likely to find comfort here, as the walls were covered with pictures of her and James from various times. Some had them in disguise, some had them just in uniform, and there was even one of them both wearing bikinis. In the past, the pictures had always made her smile. Now, they only reminded her of what she had lost. The only picture that was of any comfort at all was a black and white photo of Ash holding Pikachu and grinning like an idiot. The picture was covered with small holes from the many darts she had chucked through it. Knowing that a game of darts usually relaxed her, especially when she would land one right between Ash's eyes, Jessie stood up and pulled the darts out of the wall. She reached her arm back and aimed, but couldn't throw the dart. It was as if she had no will to do anything left.

Jessie dropped the darts and collapsed on her bed. She looked up to her bedside table, where a picture sat in a silver frame; her favorite picture of herself and James. They were both much younger, wearing their outfits from the Bridge Bike Gang. James was trying to look tough and mean as he leaned on a 10 speed with training wheels. Jessie was smirking, holding a large heavy chain at her side as she leaned against her own bike.

Jessie smiled, and knew she had to do something to take her mind off her troubles. She reached over to a boom box on a small dresser and hit play, not knowing which CD she had left in there last month. As the stereo started to play and a song began, she laid back down and stared at the ceiling, the only part of the room with out some picture of James. The song began, and Jessie realized that she had left her Fiona Apple CD in the stereo. She had liked Fiona, a tough, dark girl not very much unlike herself from the first time she had ever heard one of her songs. Now, the intro to "Criminal" wafted out of the stereo, and Jessie closed her eyes, letting the music play and hoping she could forget the situation, at least for a little while.

I've been a bad bad girl

I've been careless with a delicate man

And it's a sad sad world

When a girl will break a boy just because she can... Jessie's eyes slowly opened as the meaning of the words hit her like never before.

Don't you tell me to deny it

I've done wrong and I want to suffer for my sins

I've come to you 'cause I need guidance to be true

And I just don't know where I can begin

What I need is a good defense

'Cause I'm feelin' like a criminal

And I need to be redeemed to the one I've sinned against

Because he's all I ever knew of love... Jessie was stunned. How could fate have known that it would take a song- this song- to make her see what was wrong? Jessie continued to stare at the ceiling, her stomach churning as she sang along to the familiar, and now all-to-applicable lyrics.

Heaven help me for the way I am

Save me from these evil deeds before I get them done

I know tomorrow brings the consequence at hand

But I keep livin' this day like the next will never come

Oh help me but don't tell me to deny it

I've got to cleanse myself of all these lies till I'm good enough for him

I've got a lot to lose and I'm bettin' high so I'm beggin' you

before it ends just tell me where to begin... Jessie slowly began to smile to herself. The root of her problems were becoming clearer and clearer...

Let me know the way before there's hell to pay

Give me room to lay the law and let me go

I've got to make a play to make my lover stay

So what would an angel say?

The devil wants to know.... Jessie suddenly sat up in her bed. She knew what she had to do. She had to find James and tell him the truth, tell him how she really felt.... no matter what happened. She couldn't go on lying to him, pretending that she didn't care at all. Now was the time. Jessie immediately switched the stereo off and marched to the door. She opened the door and peered across the hall at the closed door to James' door. James would be in there. Jessie was sure of it. The door was a mere ten feet away... but never before had anything so close seemed so far away to Jessie.
Criminal Chapter Four: James' Room