#she can telecommute for sinnoh champion duties and cynthia is still sorta in charge anyway

[madd-nix]

I'm fully blaming my sister @soulguana for planting this seed in my brain yesterday. But consider: Ingo x Johanna (protag's mom in Diamond/Pearl)

My basic thought process for this is long, so below the cut it goes!

We'll say Dawn is the protag here for the sake of simplicity. When Dawn finishes her quest and finds all Pokemon in Hisui, she goes to Arceus and asks them to send her home. But! She asks if she can bring Ingo with her since she's certain that they're from the same time period. Arceus agrees and after saying goodbye to everyone, she and Ingo leave to return home.

They get to modern day Sinnoh and of course Dawn has a very sweet reunion with her mom. Tears, hugging, it's very emotional. Once they're calmed down, Dawn points out that Ingo still doesn't have his memories back and asks if he can stay with them for a little while until he can figure out where he needs to go. Johanna, being the kind and welcoming woman she is, agrees and even though she doesn't have a guest room, Ingo can have the futon/couch in the living room.

Ingo's stay with them goes on for a few days, then a week, then two weeks, and so on. He talks with Johanna and she helps repair his coat and hat, and offers as much help as she can while he slowly gets his memories back. They slowly start to fall for each other, but Ingo is too nervous and polite to say anything since this is Dawn's mom after all, and Johanna doesn't want to potentially make things weird between Ingo and Dawn. However, they both eventually end up talking about their feelings late one night, and they agree to talk with Dawn the next morning. Dawn is a little surprised, but she's overall very happy to see her mom happy, and she's always really liked Ingo and saw him as family anyway. So it all works out.

They go on like this for a few months as Ingo continues to get his memories back. Since he's not actively searching out clues to his memories, they come back fairly slow. But once he remembers Emmet, a lot comes flooding back to him and he realizes he has to get to Unova. He's at first worried for a second about how this could affect his and Johanna's relationship, but Johanna insists he go to Unova. She won't keep him from his brother. So, Ingo, Johanna, and Dawn take a flight as soon as possible over to Unova to get to Emmet.

Once there, Ingo decides to head to the subway first. Johanna and Dawn agree to give him some time alone with his brother, so they go sightseeing. Ingo makes his way to the subway and realizes that Emmet is on the Doubles line. He challenges the Doubles line and hides part of his face somehow (scarf? hat? high collar? idk) since he's not yet ready to make his reappearance known to everyone there just yet. Emmet is more important.

He quickly makes his way through the Battle Subway until he reaches Emmet. Cue brotherly reunion with tears and hugs and apologies and reassurances. Ingo explains what happened as best he can and Emmet listens and tries not to ask too many questions even though it's all verrry confusing. By the end of his explanation, Ingo then comes to the part where he has been living in Sinnoh for the past few months while his memories slowly returned. He then awkwardly explains that he now has a girlfriend. Emmet is at first verrry shocked about this, but then he adds that he's dating Piers from Galar (cuz this is my story, shut up, I'll ship Emmet and Piers all I want). Anyway, both brothers are very happy for each other and Emmet calls off for the rest of the day as they track down Johanna and Dawn so that Ingo can introduce them to Emmet.

Also, at some point when Johanna and Dawn are not around, Emmet teasingly says, "So my brother likes milfs, huh?" Much to Ingo's embarrassment.

But anyway, I just think this is a cute ship cuz it's Ingo getting to love this wonderfully supportive and kind woman, and Johanna gets this very caring and polite man, and Dawn gets to have Ingo as her stepdad! Johanna learns to love again after whatever happened to Dawn's father (died, or he left, or who knows?) and Ingo gets this wonderful family and it's just all sorts of fluff. Also Emmet gets to make milf jokes.