Three Years Later

by Sora Takenouchi Ishida

Take a look at the Destined Children three years after defeating Apocalymon and how they work their way on reconnecting with each other. Prequel for Back to Your Heart. Hikari's POV for most of the story.

6. Partners

Here I am again! This is the chapter. I apologize if it's a little awkward, I sort of struggle to write it. The Digital World and the kids' partners will be a recurring part of this fic from now on, since I plan on using some of the flashbacks from "Back to Your Heart" on it. They won't be there all the time, though. I want it to focus more in their life outside the Digital World and how they interact with each other. So, I hope you enjoy! Please review.

Chapter 6: Partners

Taichi and I began to search for our partners as soon as we separated from everyone else. We decided to head north, he had a feeling we would find at least one of them in that direction.
"I'm sorry I almost ruined your special day."
"Our special day, Taichi." I corrected him. "I don't get why you credit only me. Everyone wanted this, I think."
"I didn't realize some of us would be angry about it." The teenager shrugged. "It's like all this time apart turned us into hateful people."
"I don't think that's it." I put my index finger under my chin. "We all are busy with our lives. Some of us handle it better than others. We can't judge them."
"You're right." Taichi sighed deeply. "I was naïve to think we could go back to how we used to be. Of course not, we all grew up since then."
"Exactly." I nodded. "But that doesn't mean we can't have that again later on."
"Have you seen the way Yamato acted towards Sora after she called him out?"
"What about it?" I asked him, not knowing exactly where this was going.
"I've never seen him doing such thing to her before."
"Am I sensing a little jealousy?"
"What?" The brunette had his eyes widened and he tried so hard to hide the reddish blush on his cheeks. "I'm not jealous."
"Then why are you so worked up about it? Maybe being a rock star helped Yamato overcome his shyness. But I'm sure that was just a friendly thing."
"Except they don't hang out together at all. That whole thing was weird."
"If you say so." I replied rather absentmindedly. "Tailmon, where are you?"
"Taichi!" A familiar voice echoed in the woods.
"Agumon!" Taichi had a really large smile on his face as he ran towards his partner.
I smiled watching my brother and his partner getting affectionate. I couldn't blame them, we all would behave like that after meeting our Digimon. I looked around and resumed my search for Tailmon.
"Right." Taichi said as he stood up and looked at me. "Agumon, can you talk us to where Tailmon is? You still know it, don't you?"
"Yes, I do. It's right this way."
My brother and I started following him. I could barely hold my smile, knowing I'd be holding Tailmon soon.

Mimi and Sora went south. They were strolling around the woods in silence while the auburn haired girl decided to break the silence.
"I can't believe you came all the way from New York, Mimi. This is crazy!"
"Why? I couldn't miss this day. Now that the tradition is back on, expect me to do it every year."
"Were your parents okay with it?"
"They don't know it."
"What?!" Sora screamed. "Mimi!"
"They don't know the whole thing. Of course I had to tell them something. I couldn't just disappear for a day. You've known them, they'd freak out."
"I sure do." She smiled. "Sometimes you're just like your mother."
"No, she's worse than me." Mimi made a face and laughed. "If my father didn't want to be courageous, Togemon would have never turned into Lilimon."
"That's right. Odaiba was a chaos during that time."
"It was, but I had so much fun, as much as I was a crying baby back then."
"You were a child, so I can't hold it against you. It was a new thing for all of us. When would you expect to be saving the world? We were either teens or children."
"But you have to admit it was cool, Sora."
"It definitely was." Sora laughed. "I kind of miss that, you know? Jumping into another adventure."
"I wouldn't be able to join you, though." The pink haired girl said sadly. "Time-zones suck. I'd miss most of the adventures because of it."
"I'm sure we could work something out for…" The tennis player stopped talking. "Huh?"
"What happened, Sora?"
"You have to promise me you won't scream, but I think I found something."
"What?" Mimi's voice was shaky. "What is it, Sora?"
She watched her friends go further in the forest, but was unable to move. She feared running into a snake or something like that. She hated bugs.
"You're not afraid of what you may find?"
"The worst case scenario is finding a Kuwagamon, I guess. There are no snakes or other bugs in the Digital World, Mimi. Unless they are Digimon. You don't have to worry."
"They are creepy, Sora." She wrapped her arms around her chest, as if the simple thought of a bug gave her shivers.
"I found it!"
"If this is a prank on me, I will kill you." Mimi said as she saw her friend coming back with her hands behind her back.
"Will you calm down?" Sora asked exasperated. "I would never do such thing to you. I only do that to Taichi."
"Then what's it?" She didn't even have to wait for her answer. The auburn girl stepped out of the way and Mimi's jaw dropped and she screamed on top of her lungs. "Palmon!"
"Mimi!" The Digimon screamed just as loud.
"You two haven't changed at all." Sora exclaimed amusedly, with her hands on her hips.
"Shut up!" Both of them said at the same time.

Yamato and Takeru decided to go east, to the mountains. It wasn't exactly Patamon's ideal place, but it was Gabumon's and they decided to look for him first.
"Do you think we can find him here?"
"I don't know, but I'm willing to try."
The bearer of Hope didn't reply, he just lowered his head and continued walking.
"You might want to know I apologized to Sora."
"What?" He lifted his head and looked at his brother. "Seriously?"
"Yeah, why? I realized I was too hard on her and shouldn't have. Also, you opened my eyes. So I have to thank you."
"It's okay, Yamato. You don't have to. I just didn't want you two to become completely strangers."
"I know you had the best intentions, Takeru. That's why I owe you an apology too."
"Apology accepted." He smiled. "So when did that happen?"
"When we landed here. Koushiro and I fell near her and Mimi, so it wasn't hard to find them. I apologized to her right after she woke up. We're on good terms now, apparently."
"I'm glad to hear it, brother."
"Thanks." He smiled weakly and turned his attention to the other side. "Gabumon, where are you?"
Takeru decided to take his chance too. "Patamon! Patamon!"
"Let's check that cave. Something tells me we will find Gabumon there."
"Okay." Takeru followed his brother and ran inside the cave.
"See, I told you we'd find him." Yamato said with a smile after they entered and he ran to his partner. "Gabumon, it's me. Yamato."
"Yamato." The Digimon slowly opened his eyes, barely believing he heard his voice. "Is that really you?"
"Of course it's me, who else would it be?" The blonde knelt down and hugged him.
"How did you get here? I thought the portal was closed."
"So did we. But apparently the digivice was able to open it again. We were dragged into the ocean once again."
"We? Does that mean the others came too?"
"Yes, but we all went different ways to find our partners faster. I hope they succeeded, at least partly."
"Brother, let's go find Patamon and get back to where we should meet the others."
"Alright." Yamato stood up and looked at his brother. "Do you have any idea where he might be?"
"Not exactly." He shrugged. "But I know he doesn't exactly like cold, so this isn't a place where he would be."
"So we'll have to start again."
"Sadly, yes."
"Flying Digimon usually like to stay in the center area of the Digital World, where it has most of the supplies they need to survive."
"So are you saying that's where we'll find Patamon?"
"Not just him, but Piyomon and Tentomon are likely to be there too."
"It's close to where we're supposed to meet afterwards." Takeru looked at Yamato. "Should we text Sora and Koushiro and tell them about it?"
"I'm on it." The rock star grabbed his phone and sent a text to his friends. "Done."
"Great, now let's go."
"I'll show you the way." Gabumon took the lead and the brothers followed him.

"I didn't think you'd be coming at all." Agumon said to his partner as we continued our search to find Tailmon.
"Neither did I." Taichi replied, shrugging. "We didn't think the portal would open again, but it did. We couldn't miss this chance."
"That's right." I agreed automatically. "It's too bad we couldn't come on August 1st."
"But we can change that next year." My brother put a hand on my shoulder and startled me.
"I know." I tried to put on my best smile. "I'm glad we're here now. Better late than never, right?"
"I couldn't agree more." He smiled at me and then looked around, searching for his partner. "Where's Agumon?"
"Taichi, Hikari." He appeared in the middle of some bushes. "I'm right here."
"What are you doing there?" Taichi asked as we ran towards Agumon.
"Guess who I found?"
"Hikari!"
I couldn't hide my smile when I saw Tailmon coming behind Taichi's partner. I bent down and opened my arms as she came running to me.
"Tailmon!"
"I thought I was never going to see you in person again."
"I knew we would see each other again. That's why I said 'See you soon'. I never doubted it for a second."
"Now I feel stupid for not believing it. I'm sorry."
"That's okay, Tailmon." I held her in my arms and I stood up. "Don't worry about it."
"Hikari, we should head back now. I think the others might be waiting for us."
"Alright, let's go."

"Mimi, will you stop squeezing Palmon? The poor Digimon is gonna die from asphyxiation." Sora had an amused tone in her voice, but she was also rather serious.
"Oh my God! I'm sorry, Palmon. I didn't mean to hurt you." She immediately let go of her.
"What?" The tennis player girl reached for her pocket and took out her phone. "It's a message from Yamato."
"Is he finally asking you out?" Mimi teased.
"Shut up, Mimi." Sora stuck her tongue at her and opened the message. "He said flying Digimon usually stay in the center area of the Digital World. Great, we came all this way almost for nothing. Now I have to wait a little more to find Piyomon."
"Don't complain, Sora." The pink haired girl said frustrated. "We would have to come here anyway. How else would we find Palmon?"
"You have a point." She couldn't find anything to argue that. "Now that I think about it, you never actually thanked me for doing that."
"I will thank you when you do what you promised me."
"And what's that again?" Sora rolled her eyes, trying to remember what she had said.
"Oh my god, you don't remember?" The bearer of Purity was shocked. "You promised you'd try to see if Taichi had feelings for me."
"That's right! I completely forgot, I'm sorry. But I will talk to him when we get back to Japan."
"You better. Otherwise you won't be marrying a certain blonde in the future."
"Don't be delusional, Mimi. Or I won't talk to Taichi."
"You're so mean, Sora." She pouted. "I want my friend back."
"I'm still here." Sora couldn't help but laugh. "Now let's go. I'm dying to see Piyomon."

Koushiro and Jyou returned to the place settled for everyone to meet when he got the message from Yamato. Luckily, they weren't too far from it. They were sitting by a tree, waiting for everyone.
"You've really grown, Koushiro." Tentomon said, taking a good look at his partner.
"Would you stop doing that?" He begged. "I don't really like it."
The red haired boy always had a hard time when people sort of measured him up and down. He felt like his looks meant more than his personality, it bugged him a lot.
"You don't want to grow up?"
"It's not that. I just don't like people judging me by the way I look."
Tentomon accepted that for an answer and landed beside his partner. Taichi and I arrived right after.
"Hey!" The brunette waved excitedly.
"Taichi, Hikari."
"Where's everyone?"
"They should be arriving soon, I hope." Koushiro replied as we sat in a circle.
"Takeru!"
"Patamon!" The eleven year old boy exclaimed as he held out his arms to his partner. "I've missed you so much!"
"I've missed you too."
"Hey, everyone." Yamato said in a laid-back way.
"Sora, wait for me!" Mimi's voice could be heard from a distance.
"I want to see Piyomon, Mimi. Hurry up."
"I've been running since we found Palmon. I can't keep up, I'm tired."
"Sora!" Piyomon flew off a tree to her partner.
"Piyomon!" She replied teary.
"You've changed a lot since I last saw you."
"Don't be silly." The girl said rather embarrassed. "Three years had gone by since then. Of course I changed."
"I'm so happy to see you again!" The pink bird threw herself into her friend's arms.
"We're all here now, so what should we do first?" Taichi asked looking at me.
"I'm starving." Mimi said with closed eyes.
"I guess we're eating then."
"I think you aren't even hungry." I teased. "You just said that because Mimi is starving, right?"
Everyone started laughed, making him really uncomfortable because he went bright pink.
"I did not!" He pointed a finger at me. "You don't want me making fun of your crush on Takeru, do you?"
"What?!" I rubbed instantly, unable to even face my brother.
"Can we just eat now?" Sora asked, noticing my discomfort and trying to change the subject.
I whispered a 'Thank you' to her as we all set up the items in the large red-and-white towel.

So, what did you think of it? Liked, hated? Your opinion is very important to me. If you have any suggestion, please feel free to voice it. Thanks for reading.