IThis fic takes place after Season 1...Here I make use of author's licence, and pretend Season 2 didn't happen!! And thus I also took some liberty with the characters and what happened to them after Season 1, so forgive me that. At the time at which the fic starts, Sora, Matt, Tai etc. (i.e. the older kids) are 18, thus making Kari and TK 16, I guess! And for those who don't like Sorato, be warned, I believe this may end up like that. But nothing too excessive! Just hints. And there will be more of the other characters featuring in my up and coming chapters - this is just setting the scene....OK, enough babbling. /I

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon. Sad, but true. Not making money from writing...(this or otherwise) Again, sad, but also true. Anyway, on with the fanfic!

Living the Past : Chapter 1 - Storm

The sky was heavy with storm clouds. Sora sighed as she stared out of her small window at the deluge outside. It seemed as if the rain would never stop. A roll of thunder sounded nearby and it shook her from her thoughts.

Lunch, she thought mechanically, as she realised how hungry she was. She crossed to the little fridge and opened it, only to find it almost empty.

"Damn," she muttered, as her stomach growled in response to this discovery.

"The downpour it is then." She flung her coat on, flicked off the light switch and shut the door of her flat. She had just reached the bottom of two flights of stairs (because, conveniently, the elevator wasn't working, for the third time this week,) said hi to Phil who passed over her gas bill and two letters, from the mail pigeon-holes beneath his desk, and was about to set off into the storm when she ran into someone coming through the big glass doors. Literally.

She would have gone sprawling if it hadn't been for the quick reactions of the person she had crashed into.

"Are you OK?"

Sora swore she knew that voice. A second later, she realised that she did.

"Matt?" She asked, stunned. "Is that really you?"

The tall, slender blonde that she had known -what, five, six years ago now - looked at her properly, raised his eyebrows and said coolly, "do I know you?"

Sora was so taken aback by his failure to recognise her that she stood there with her mouth hanging open, unable to think of a response.

"Well, if you're OK - and you seem to be - I've gotta go." Matt dismissed her casually and turned to the doorman.

"Hey, Phil. Any letters?" Matt asked.

"Your usual," Phil replied with a grin, handing over a stack of envelopes of varying colours. Matt returned the grin.

"Your fan-base still loves you, evidently." The big, dark-haired man said as Matt accepted the letters and turned to go up the stairs, leaving Sora dumb-founded and not knowing what to make of the situation.

As she walked through the rain, she was still taken aback by the strangeness of their meeting. She had only moved into the block of flats a couple of weeks ago, but surely she would have met Matt before now? How odd it was, after years of no contact, that they should, by chance, end up living in the same block of flats.

She knew that Matt and his father had moved away to Los Angeles that very same year that they had finished High School, when they were 16. She remembered Tai being devastated at his best friend's departure, and TK even more so, because he would see his brother even less now.

They had had a party, a last reunion of the digidestined kids, all eight of them, because Mimi too was leaving to attend Finishing School in New York, and Joe was setting off to a far-off university for medical students. Tai, Kari, Sora, Izzy and TK were the only ones who remained in Odaiba, and even then they saw little of each other. Sora and Izzy went to college, Sora to do English; Izzy, Computer Studies. Tai buried himself in working and football trials, and TK and Kari remained at High School.

Sora felt tears come to her eyes as she remembered that party. None of them had wanted it to end, and when midnight came and they had to go their separate ways, they had clung to each other in a group hug that had seemed to last forever, but was altogether too short as they broke apart for the final time.

Mimi had sent letters from time to time, but they had become few and far between, and she hadn't been back to visit since the Christmas after she had left. Matt had never returned to Odaiba as far as Sora knew - certainly Tai did not ever speak of him now -and often she had wondered how he was getting on. Joe had come back the year before and was working long, unsocial hours at the local hospital, but it hasn't been the same without the entire group.

IHow long had Matt been in Odaiba?/I Sora wondered. IAnd why had he not contacted any of his old friends?/I She snapped out of her musing as she realised she had reached the grocery store. A large sign proclaimed it CLOSED. Sora groaned, stuffed her hands in her pockets and marched on to the coffee shop, shaking her wet hair out of her eyes.

Matt sauntered up the first flight of stairs until he was out of sight from Phil, and then tore up the next two, reaching his door and fumbling with the keys. He slammed it when he got in, threw down his guitar and the envelopes, adding to the growing stack on his desk, then sprawled on the bed, staring at the ceiling. His thoughts were buzzing around in his head so fast he could barely lie still. What was Sora doing here? He had never imagined he would see her, or any of his friends again. In fact, that was the way he had wanted it to be, once he returned to his home city. He didn't want them to know how much he had changed. They were part of his past life, one he had been forced to forget. Ever since that fateful day when his dad had been killed in a car accident, a couple of months after they had moved to LA so his dad could take up that new job that he was so looking forward to, Matt's life had been hell. Feeling numbed by the news of his dad's death, yet oddly capable and independent, Matt found himself out almost every night, just so that he didn't have to sit at home, alone in the apartment, thinking about his past and wishing he could go back in time. It was in L.A. that he had met the members of his now world-famous band, the Teenage Wolves.

The band had gone from strength to strength in the public's eyes, though as the years went on, Matt found himself wishing that he could return to his old life, though he knew for certain that he could not - he had been irrevocably changed by his experiences. He stopped writing to Tai, even broke all contact with his brother, refused to talk to either of them whenever they rang his cellphone. In the end, though it sickened him, he achieved his objective, which was to cut them out of his life entirely. He couldn't bear to let them see what he had become, and so upon returning to his home city, he did not advertise the fact that he had returned.

Sometimes he felt ashamed, thought he should have done something differently, but he buried those feelings and instead poured everything into his music, knowing nothing good could come from wishing and making himself feel guilty. He had been forced to change, that's what he told himself, and he wasn't going back. There was no point. Music and the band were all he had left now...

IA/N: OK...There's my first chapter! Not entirely sure where this fic's going - who's to say what the workings of my strange mind will produce? Not I. Anyway, hope you enjoyed my ramblings so far...On with the next chapter.

P.S. Please Read and Review (no, I'm not going to come up with an original way to say that!!! Well, not yet anyway.)/I ^_^