"What happens when humans die, Takeru?"

Takeru had sighed at the time, "There are as many theories as there are books on shelves."

Patamon had tilted his head, unable to understand. Only dimly had he grasped that all the black clothed people present were not only grieving because Takeru's mother was gone, but because there was no way of knowing what was happening to her after death. For a digimon, who knew its life was an unending cycle of ever-recompiling data, it was hard to envision death as the sudden halt and impassible wall it was for humans.

Now that Takeru was dead, Patamon thought he understood.

There was a hollow where he used to be in Patamon's world, and it seemed there was a constant empty wind flowing out of it. He had thought he would leave immediately when Takeru died, but he didn't. He stayed for the funeral, and remained in the empty apartment alone. He was certain that if he left, the hollow would grow, and devour him entirely. The first night after Takeru's cremation, Patamon dreamed of that hollow. It was massive, deep, and impenetrably gloomy, pulling at him like…Like the vortex where the creatures of darkness were imprisoned in the digital world's Net Ocean.

He was sure he could hear things whispering from it, but he didn't understand them. He wanted to escape, but without Takeru he was on his own. Tiny, voiceless, and unable to run.

The whispering voices were crying. They were all his, all asking the same thing. "Where did you go…?"

Every night after, he dreamed the same dream, while in the day he watched the things that used to be Takeru's disappear. His family had sorted out his affairs, and the apartment he lived in was slowly husked out. The furniture where they spent their days lounging and napping was sold; the computer with all the things Takeru had idly written between his to-be-published works, like a child doodling in the margins of their notes, was given to his son. And the books…The endless sources of entertainment and inspiration for Takeru were packed into plain boxes, the last thing to be removed.

All through the night, the hollow moaned and sighed. "Where did you go…?"

He woke to the sound of the door opening. He knew it would be Takeru's son, there to take the box away, but the first thing he saw was Tailmon.

"What are you doing here?" he asked sleepily.

At some point, he had perched on one of the boxes before falling asleep, and she looked up at him with her unreadable eyes. "Once these boxes are gone, the apartment will be empty. You're going to weaken if you stay here much longer."

That was true. He certainly felt sleepy despite the high morning sun coming in through the barren windows, but Hawkmon had remained for weeks before needing to leave. Was it that dreams that had him so exhausted?

His voice came out a heavy croak. "Why did I stay here watching all of these things that used to mean something to him be taken away? It's not like he was in any of them… He's dead."

"You know you won't go back to Primary Village if you die here in the real world." Her eyes moved beyond him, to the window. "You'll be just another ghost."

She was still blunt…but that meant she was worried about him, didn't it?

"I don't want to die," he assured her. "I want to live and never forget him." Tears popped out onto his cheeks in big rolling droplets. "I want to sleep, without this nightmare..."

Her tail ring chimed. "Nightmare?"

"I dream of a hole. A big, dark hole like the one in the Net Ocean. It tries to pull me in, and I can't get away. I can't speak, even though I want to call out for Takeru. My voice comes out of it…asking where he's gone…"

Silence answered him. Tailmon was staring at him with concern, but her tail was bristling, and she had curled her paws into fists.

It had been so long since he had seen her ready to fight that even such small cues jumped out at him. Because it was her, he understood why.

He had the potential of an angel digimon in him, just like she did. And the price of having the kind of heart that could access the holy power was susceptibility to corruption. It had happened to Lopmon, and he was in danger of having it happen to him. Perhaps in his simplicity, he had ignored the possibility, but Tailmon's reaction made it very clear.

He forced himself to stand, and leapt down from his cardboard perch. "I'm going to the digital world."

"What will you do there?" she demanded.

"I'm not going to be sucked into darkness. I promise." He hesitated. "But, just in case…" He held out his paw to her. "Don't let me hurt anyone…?"

Her mouth jerked into a grimace, as though he'd put something bitter in it, but she accepted his paw.


Patamon resolved to find a way to recover and stay strong, but like all digimon in the life after, he had little idea of how to save himself. The rumors and whispers of a digital world filled with orphaned partners were not lost on him. He was uncertain; afraid that by giving in to the desire to see his partner again he might be somehow giving in to the swirling chasm that haunted his sleep, but in the end he buried his digivice. There were no results for several days, but he waited patiently, enduring his dreams as best he could.

One night they simply didn't come, and he woke up to Takeru's face; the one he had as a young man who had only recently become a father. He had simply appeared, as real as Patamon himself. A tiny garden of pages and pens had surrounded them overnight.

It took another day for Takeru to open his eyes, but he did not respond to anything outwardly. Patamon could only communicate with him by reading the pages flowering up around them. Then Takeru began to speak. At first, they were mere slivers of things that he had said in the past, but as the days piled on, he soon became thoughtful and able to answer dynamically. The contents of the pages grew complex, expanding to encompass more than just Takeru's thoughts on what Patamon was saying. He no longer needed them…but Patamon continued to read, even while he spoke with the shade of his partner.

They talked about nothing, and everything. Sometimes Takeru appeared in his young and childish form and they fought. Sometimes he was an older man and they talked idly of life and happiness and nostalgic things.

It was blissful, but Patamon knew he could not use it as a crutch forever. No day passed when he didn't consider what it was he should do when he uprooted the digivice. He read the pages of Takeru's garden, looking for some hint. In life, he wanted to help Takeru achieve his dreams. Why should that not be what he did now?

"Are you having trouble reading again?"

Patamon's ears twitched and he looked up in surprise. For some reason, Takeru did not appear before him as an adolescent very often, but today was one of those rare days. Most of the things growing in the garden were susceptible to sudden changes depending on how old Takeru appeared to be, and no other arrangements were ever quite as vivid as the one summoned by his adolescent self. Fallen spires, broken dark rings, and shards of the things they defeated—Vamdemon's mask, the Digimon Kaiser's glasses, and Devimon's wings—were scattered around like mulch. From them grew strong flowers, some full of light, some merely blossoming with schoolwork, other still blossoming with timeworn shreds of a family photo. Here and there, seedlings sprouted; their tips showing just the tiniest bits of blank paper, their stems made of plastic with flowing ink inside.

The biggest plant there was a flower of brilliant light. Familiar pink hairclips grew from the young buds closer to the ground. An unceasing, distant echo of ocean waves surrounded it and the shadow it cast seemed to flow and gather around it like a moat. HolyAngemon's sword, off of which hung Takeru's crest, seemed to be warding those shadows away.

Had he ever thought that there were so many things in Takeru's world at that time? He would stake his wings that he knew Takeru better than anyone, but the naked presentation of it…the meaningful nature of every single detail was intense even for Patamon.

"I shouldn't have done this. I feel like I'm reading your diary."

Takeru laughed.

It washed over Patamon like it always did; so real it hurt. The first time Takeru had smiled, Patamon knew he wasn't some ghostly after image of his partner. It was him. His memory. His feelings. His mannerisms. There wasn't a single thing that was distinguishable from the real thing.

Except he wasn't.

Patamon had been warned against telling the 'fake' otherwise, but he suspected that this Takeru knew he wasn't the real thing anyway, and existed as something else. He couldn't leave the garden, and didn't seem to want to pursue the things he would have in the real world. Every day was a lazy Saturday afternoon, and instead of going to movies with friends or visiting his family, he spent much of his time in a sleep so deep and serene that it even lacked his usually energetic snoring. He was something human in everything but fact, like a lucid dream. He was the idea of Takeru, correct in every detail down to the unconscious tilt at the corners of his mouth as he gazed at the brightly shining flower which could be nothing his idea of Hikari.

"You've gotten better you know," said Takeru.

"At what?"

"Reading." He pointed to the words on the page Patamon was holding. "You would never have been able to read a word like onomatopoeia by yourself before."

Patamon blushed, but his chest puffed up with pride. "I feel like I could read through all of your hard books now. You've helped me learn a lot." He smiled sadly. "About lots of things…"

Takeru tilted his head. "What's wrong?"

He twiddled his paws. He was hesitant to discuss death with this Takeru. Time and sequence did not always make sense. Sometimes his childhood form talked about things from his adulthood, while other times he was confused when Patamon mentioned Wormmon and Ken. He was worried that just by mentioning death it would somehow make this Takeru aware of his death and break the spell.

"Someday…"he began carefully. "Someday you'll be gone, Takeru… I'm not very brave or very strong without you, so I don't know what I'll do. What if I'm so sad that I become like Lopmon?"

"I don't think that will happen to you." Takeru placed his white bucket hat playfully over Patamon's serious face. "You're very strong, in your own way. If you get scared, just remember me."

"But then when I die, you'll be entirely forgotten!"

Takeru pulled Patamon into his lap and looked up at the brilliant sky of the digital world. "Don't be silly. I'm not so important that I should be remembered forever. It's fine if the people I love remember me. If anything should be remembered forever, it's what we fought for." He nestled down, leaning his cheek against Patamon's head. "I'll definitely… write a book about it…"

He was falling asleep again. His wheat-colored hair was spilling over Patamon's face, obscuring everything else. This boy would write a book; had already written it and given the real world their story.. There was no reason the digiworld shouldn't have it too.

Patamon shook softly, and felt tears roll from his eyes only to be absorbed by Takeru's hair.

"Are you crying, Patamon…?"

Patamon nodded.

"Why…?"

"Because I know what my new purpose is, and that means it's time for me to leave."

"We'll see each other again…"

"I don't think we will this time."

Takeru was already asleep, with the slightest of smiles. He looked perfectly at peace there, asleep in the garden of his own memories; young and full of hope for a future that had come and gone.

Patamon closed his eyes. "Goodbye, Takeru."