Don't own it nah-na-na-nah Stop! Disclaimer time!


Spirits of Ages

Chapter 8

"I'm sorry ma'am but no pets allowed in the rooms." Some women behind a desk said to them as they walked into the hospital. Off course this pissed Tai off big time and he would have voiced his complaints.

If Kari hadn't covered his mouth.

"I know but this is a rather exceptional case." Kari said. "I'm sorry, it's just not possible, there is to much of a risk."

"Oh come on lady, give us a break!" Tai yelled after he broke free from Kari's grip. "I'm just trying to visit an old friend, so throw the dog a bone, will you?"

The receptionist was rather speechless as she had just been yelled at by a puppy.

"Okay then, but just this once." She said when she recovered from shock. "And don't let my boss find out, else he'll hang me."

"Your secret is safe with us." Taichi said, obviously not noticing all the people in the hall.


"Well, I'm off to see Joe, I've got some questions for him." Taichi said. "Later!"

With that said the big-haired copycat disappeared towards Joe's office.

"Wow, thought we'd never get rid of him." Tai said as soon as his nephew was out of sight. "Hey! He's your nephew, remember?" Kari scoffed at the puppy in her arms. "And he's your partner, somehow. So the two of you will have to learn to get along."

"Yeah yeah, I know." Tai sighed.

The way towards Mimi's room was rather uneventful. Tai just thought of what Kari told him on the way there.

Flashback

"So what's everyone up to lately?" Tai asked as he sat down in the backseat of Kari's car.

"Want the whole story or the short one?" Kari asked as the car was guided out of her driveway.

"The short one, you can tell me the long one later." Tai said quickly. He'd rather know how everyone was, not their life stories.

"Well you know about TK and me, he's a writer and I'm a kindergarten teacher, though the school is starting very late this year. Apparently there's something wrong with the building and they need to sort stuff out first."

Kari thought about the other people in their team. "Joe's a doctor, so no award for guessing that. He got married and has a daughter, you'll probably meet her today."

"So Joe got hitched after all?" Tai wasn't surprised actually. Joe was a good guy, only a bit nervous. And geeky. And he has two left hands. And…

"Yeah, but I'll leave the details to Joe to tell." Her tone betraying that it was something serious. But she just didn't feel like discussing it so freely either.

"Matt is on Mars, but he's also a rock star." Kari said, clearly amused by the look on Tai's face. "Still the same band?"

"Yeah, they're big here and in the rest of the world as well. Oh and he's married to Sora. She has her own clothesline and the two of them moved to America."

"Always knew that would happen." Tai said. "Sora always had something with clothes, even if she never showed it."

"And then there's Izzy. He's the one responsible for sending Matt into space. Davis is currently leading fire-fighter." The thought of the arson Davis caused still in the back of her mind. "Eh… Cody is an lawyer and got married, he's got a son a few years younger then Taichi. Ken and Yolei got together and Ken is a detective and Yolei fixes computers in her spare time. They've got two daughters and a son."

"That guy scares the crap out of me you know." Taichi said lazily. "Always reading some difficult book. I think he's trying to absorb all there is to know about science before he turns fifteen."

End flashback

There you had it. Everything he needed to know about his friends in a few sentences. Tai thought of it as odd that you can summarise human lives so short but he wasn't complaining. He'd hear the whole stories sooner or later.

After they found out he was back. Perhaps he would be able to break his own record.

"You ready?" Kari asked as they stood before the blue door of Mimi's hospital room. "Don't know."

"There is only one way to find out." Kari said as she moved her hand to the doorknob. Then an idea crossed her mind.

Her smile scared the crap out of Tai.


"Hey Mimi!" Kari said cheerfully as she walked into the room, hands behind her back. "Hey Kari! Nice of you to come visit." Mimi said, once again dressed in that awful hospital gown. "School still hasn't started?"

"Nah and it's Wednesday, so I would have come by anyway."

"Hello misses Takaishi." A young blue-haired girl sitting next to Mimi's bed said politely. "Hinata…what did I say about that? Just call me Kari."

"Okay Kari." Hinata said, she still found it weird to call a grownup by their first name. even if it were her father's friends.

"So have you been a good girl lately?" Kari asked. "She's been very good." Mimi answered for the child. "At least that's what daddy thinks, isn't it?" A mischievous smile graced both Mimi and Hinata's faces.

"If I didn't know any better I would think you were a bad influence on the girl." Kari said as her eyes took in the room. As always Mimi was hooked up to a life monitor and some IV stuck in her arm, slowly delivering some type of medication into her body.

Currently Tai was sweating bullets. Mimi, his crush was in a hospital bed, hooked to a life monitor. The constant, steady beeping was getting on his nerves!

Oh how he wanted to just yell at it to stop. But that would probably upset Mimi and scare off the little girl. Who was the girl anyway? Was she Mimi's daughter? Had she moved on and found herself some new guy?

Like Kari said, only one way to find out.

"Hey Mimi. Guess what." Kari suddenly said. "What?"

"It's fluffy, has a temper and you haven't seen it in years." Kari told her. Mimi rolled her eyes. "Kari, aren't we a little old for riddles?"

"Did you just refer to yourself as old?" Kari gasped. "Off course not!" Mimi shrieked. "And is it a rotten omelette?"

"Close enough." Kari said and pulled Tai out from behind her back. "Hey." Tai said softly, waving a paw at her.

Mimi's mouth fell open. It had been twenty-five years since she saw that puppy. And not a day had gone by without her thoughts wandering off to the boy she had a thing for.

Twenty-five years since she held that same puppy close to her.

And now he was back! She was sure that it was him! Twenty-five f'ing years and he was back!

Mimi did the one thing most people could do when confronted with something like this. Her eyes rolled back and she fainted.

"Is she okay?"

'teeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee'

Her life monitor stopped beeping and only produced a harsh, monotone sound. Kari immediately panicked. "Nurse! We need help here!"

Some nurse showed up, took one look at the device and banged it with her fist. Miraculously it started beeping again. "It does that sometimes. Don't worry, a new one is on the way."

Kari sweatdropped, Hinata was a bit in shock and Tai… well let's just say it's not healthy to think your girlfriend from earlier times died. And so he was knocked out as well.

Casualty count so far: 2


"Yo Joe!" Taichi said as he stepped into the blue-haired doctor's office. Joe was currently amusing himself with his PSP.(number god-knows-how-many)

"I'd prefer it if you call me doctor." Joe paused his game. "It shows a certain amount of respect."

"Since when do you respect anything?" Taichi asked as he sat down in an empty chair in front of Joe's desk. "Good point. So what brings you here?"

"I want to know about my uncle." Taichi said seriously.

"Last I heard of him he was stuck with his fellow Martians." Joe said as he looked out of the window, as if he expected Matt's ship to land any given time.

"No the other one. The one that turned into a fluffball." Taichi said, a bit annoyed at Joe's (read: the Author's) attempts at humour.

"Oh. That guy. Haven't seen him in twenty-five years." Joe said as he pushed his glasses back up. "What about him?"

"I want to know what he was like." Taichi stated. "What kind of person he was. You know stuff like that."

"Let's get this out of the way first. He was an idiot." Joe said, eyes shining with a hint of mischief. "But also a darn good leader and friend. Didn't you read your dad's books?"

"I'm getting to that." Taichi said, motioning Joe to continue. "Very well then. Like I said he was an idiot. But he was our idiot." Joe emphasised the 'our' in that sentence. "He was stubborn as hell and could find a ray of light in nearly every dark situation."

"Interesting." Taichi said half-hearted.

"Truly. He saved me from my drinking problem." Joe said. "Well, somewhat. He landed on my head when I claimed to stop drinking when I got hit by a meteor. Haven't touched a glass since then." Joe thought deeply about that. "Well mostly that is."

"Okay." Taichi already knew about the meteor-incident and Joe's drinking problem. But still, it was an impressive feat to do something like that just by hitting someone on the head.

"Then some stuff happened and we ended up saving the world. Again." Joe said, finishing his story rather quickly.

"So, that's it?" Taichi asked. "No epic story?"

"There is one but I don't feel like telling it entirely." Joe said, unpausing his game. "Besides I'm very busy."

"How nice of you to say that." Cuddy walked. "Oh crap, the boss." Joe whispered to Taichi. "It's time to go see one of your favourite patients." Cuddy said, handing him a file.

Moments later Joe stood in a room with an elderly man, discussing if it was a pimple or a tumour on the poor man's behind. Joe obviously chose the later.

"Come see Mimi when you're done, okay?" Taichi said to Joe before making himself scarce.


"What did I miss?" Taichi asked as he walked into Mimi's room. What he saw somewhat surprised him. Mimi was out cold, with his uncle on the bed with her and his mother sitting in a chair with a goofy smile on her face. "Apparently a lot." Taichi answered his own question.

"Taichi!" Said boy groaned as something with blue hair clung to his leg. "Hey Hinata. Let go off my leg."

"No." She answered.

"Damn fangirl." Taichi muttered under his breath. For some reason Hinata always latched on to him. No one knew why but they thought it had something to do with Joe reading TK's books to her.

"Okay Hinata, you can let go now." Kari said, trying her best not to laugh. "You embarrassed him enough for today."

"Fine." Hinata let go off Taichi's leg and sat back down on her seat. "Thanks. And what happened here?"

"Well… I thought it would be a good idea to surprise Mimi." Kari said, a small smile on her face. "Turns out it was actually a bad idea. Her heart monitor flat-lined and Tai fainted."

"But don't worry, she just fainted." Kari quickly said as she saw the shocked look on his face.

"What about the heart monitor then?" He asked, pointing at the thing that happily beeped at a steady pace.

"Apparently it's defective." Kari shrugged. "So, did you get the answers you wanted from Joe?"

"Not really." Taichi admitted. "He's rather vague about the details."


Tai slowly regained consciousness. The last thing he remembered was seeing his girlfriend, a loud noise and then everything turned black.

He opened his eyes slowly and what he saw nearly made his heart stop. Mimi's face was just a few inches away from his. For a second he feared she was dead, until he noticed her soft, steady breathing. He remembered that face. A quarter of a century had gone by but he'd never forget those features.

Mimi's eyes opened. She blinked a few times when she saw brown eyes looking into hers. They belonged to the puppy next to her. The one she knew as an old friend, an old crush, a love she never wanted to forget. She had waited a long time to see them again.

She blinked a few more times, to make sure she wasn't dreaming.

"It's been quite some time." She whispered. "Indeed." The puppy said softly. "Way to long, if you ask me."

"You never were the patient type." Mimi joked.

"Hey!"

"Oh look, they're awake." Kari said as she looked in the general direction of the yell. "Back amongst the living uncle?" Tai's annoying nephew asked.

Tai sat up and glared at his sister and her son. "Do you mind?"


Omake of sorts.

Meanwhile in TK's car.

The timer of Tai's nuclear device went off. Too bad for Tai he didn't get a warhead but the means to propel one into space.

The same time on Mars.

"Houston? We have a problem." Matt said as his little brother's car flew by them. With his brother still inside.

"I want one of those." Gabumon said as TK's rocket propelled car flew off into space.


Ta-da! Poor TK is currently orbiting through space. But he'll probably be back by next chapter. If the oxygen in his car lasts long enough.

Also: Tai and Mimi meet up again! Happy feelings for everyone! Well, except Joe, who is currently investigating some dude's behind.

Reviews.

Lord Pata: Well… Tai's got mad fuzzball powers. Let's keep it at that. And don't worry. TK will live. If he can hold his breath long enough…

Vigatus: There you go, and yes a rather big part but don't tell anyone else! 'is clueless'

Firehedgehog: like my grandfather used to say: who on earth wants a stable character? And I agree to that.

Martiny the one and only still: relax, Tai's getting rid off Taichi sooner or later. Probably later.

Princessjaded: glad you like it!

Super garurumon: Yeah, I know. I'm putting a lid on my jar full of plot bunnies. Or if anyone needs one, contact me!

Depthmon: I prefer applepie but that's probably because I'm from Belgium. There are apples everywhere! 'twitch-twitch'

anime25: Yes. Yes he is.

A.YamiYugi: Well, since TK touched his sister he has no other option. After all, he is Kari's big brother. And besides, Matt is on Mars, so what is he gonna do about? 'evil laugh'

WolfSummoner93: poor TK, lost forever in the cold, dead space. Until next chapter that is.

Takari4ever3012: Nah, but the lack of air will

Beth: There, happy? Two casualties and more coming soon.

R&R people, next time Gatomon and Patamon meet up with their adopted son. Oh boy…