Matt Ishida stared at the group that surrounded him, each residing within their dream worlds. A warm fire sat in the center of them and Matt's gaze lingered on it. Thousands of questions berated him as he stared deep within the dancing flames. He wondered about why they were the ones chosen to come, why they were here. The boy struggled to look into the future, but only felt uncertainty.
His gaze flicked back to the beings that surrounded him – seven digimon and six digidestined. Gabumon was snoring loudly beside him, keeping his warm fur next to Matt so he could keep his partner warm. Matt's thoughts wandered to each of his comrades in turn.
Tai Kamiya wasn't sleeping to far away with Augmon, his body sprawled out across a good three meters as usual. In Matt's opinion, he was the most infuriating in the group: the self-designated team leader who thought he could take on the world with his soccer skills. Matt had to silently admit that he was jealous of the boy. They were rivals that's all he would openly admit to. He often felt that Tai would be the one to march them into death, and he wasn't about to let that happen to any of them, especially not to TK.
Next to Tai was Joe Kido and his digimon partner, Gomamon. Matt considered him to be the basic worrywart. He was the one who was scared long before the rest of them, and for even longer afterwards. Joe was the one most likely to graduate at the top of his class, and become as high up in status as any other doctor ever could.
Then there was Izzy Koushiro and Tentomon. If Joe was most likely to be the top of his class, Izzy was the one most likely to graduate at the top of his class three years before the rest of his age group, of course that was if he could ever get his head out of his computer long enough to do so. Basically, he was even more so the brains of the operation than Joe was.
After that was Sora Takenouchi and the small pink bird, Biyomon. Matt counted her as being the least bothersome of the group, second only to his little brother TK. She was as sporty as Tai was, and had known him for years. She was the tomboy, and could take Tai on any day in soccer, which Matt would pay good money to watch her win any day. Sora was also the responsible on of the group, keeping everyone in check when Matt was too busy arguing with Tai to do so.
Mimi came next, along with Palmon. The only way possible to describe Mimi, was the Drama Queen. She blew everything far more out of proportion than even Joe did. She never failed to have something to whine about, whether it was her legs hurt or her dress was stained. The strong point about her though, was she was more honest than the rest of them for the most part. If she was happy, than that's how she acted. If she was too tired to move, she would tell you straight up. Unlike the rest of the group, she didn't try to hide anything, at least not when it came to how she was feeling.
Last but not least, was his little brother TK Takaishi, and his partner Patamon. A few years before the two brothers had been separated by their parents during a divorce case, but they still remained close. TK may cry a lot, but Matt would never stop protecting him. He had rarely seen his brother lose hope, and he wasn't about to have him start losing faith in his older brother now. They had already been through too much.
As a whole, the group looked like a motley crew of people sharing too many differences to get along, but they still had potential. It would take awhile to settle there differences, but through hard times anyone can learn to live with each other, not necessarily entirely peacefully, but together none the less.
Matt knew all these things, that's why despite Tai's irritating mannerisms or Joe being afraid of every little thing, he stayed up that night, watching the darkness to make sure nothing emanated from it's depths.
That was Matt's way of caring.