Happily Ever After

by YukiraKing

The glimpse of an epilogue you saw through the eyes of Takeru at the end of 02 is now here and in clearer details. This is what we've been leading up to. The reason for our immense amount of writing, just to make the epilogue make sense, and so here it is. I hope you like it, I hope it fits and makes more sense than it did like twelve years ago, and yeah :D

10. The End

Y/N: This is it, the end of the Epilogue that we've worked so hard to get to. It's the whole point of our series, which was originally thought up to bridge the gap between 02 and the seemingly preposterous endings they gave each characters. The idea sort of exploded into a far more detailed series than we'd planned, but I wouldn't change anything. I'm happy with the way it went.

U/N: Heyyyy this is the last chapter ever in the Digimon Adventure Series. Kind of. But we'll let you know about things later if we decide to get our behinds in gear and do something about it. It isn't what you'd expect though, and we don't expect anyone to read it necessarily. It's just that writing these seven stories (03, HIMTM, 04, HCTB, 05, Moments, and of course, HEA, this one) has greatly improved our writing skills, and that was really the goal, setting out on this task in the first place, and as we both wish to be writers in the future, this is the best way to get started on that goal. Of course you all reading it and reviewing with thoughts, theories, ideas, criticism and, of course positive input, was what made it better I'd say :P And of course we'd love if you guys checked out our new story at some point whenever we get it going, but if not, thank you very much for coming through twenty eight years of these characters lives with us, and for helping us along the way. We're still writing it. But if you're done here, that's cool. Have a wonderful life, and enjoy the new season of Digimon next spring! :D Though I might disregard it from canon after all of our work xD
I hope you like this chapter though, and byyyeeee...

but you should totally review this or a sea of lava will flow from the skies and devour your first born child later in life. There will be a monster involved. I think. Though I can't see the future. And I'm not threatening you fo reals. I'm joking.

Title: Happily Ever After

By: Yukiraking

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon or its characters

Chapter 10: The End

Daisuke Motomiya: 10:00 pm

"Can we get a wheelchair over here?" Jou called loudly. I was busy supporting Kurayami, keeping her from falling to the floor. Ken was on her other side. Her knees were giving out at random intervals, and he wasn't about to abandon his best friend's wife in her time of need. He was pretty awesome like that. Or it could just be him returning the favour, since I was one of the only ones Miyako would permit to come to Taro's birth earlier that year. Ken and I were beyond excited to have kids born the same year—again. We might have another set of best friends on our hands! I loved how Mai and Haruki's friendship mimicked ours, while still being so very different at the same time.

"Thank you!" Jou shouted sarcastically. "I'll just do it myself shall I?"

"We're getting one as we speak," a nurse said, trying to calm him down. It probably wasn't such a good idea to have a ridiculously angry Jou in charge. Usually he was better at separating his personal life with work. Granted he wasn't technically on the clock at the moment. And his office was actually in the Digital World...

"Good," he growled. "Daisuke, you're going to have to fill in the paperwork."

"Uh..." I said awkwardly. Kurayami tightened her grip on my shoulder, refusing to let me leave. Hikari grabbed the papers a second nurse was holding, and turned her back to me. Takeru handed me a pen, and I used Hikari's back as a table as I tried to fill in the blanks without having a panic attack. I was having a baby! Well, I wasn't. Kurayami was. But I was going to be a dad again. And I was freaking out! I couldn't really remember what it was like to have a kid around that couldn't take care of itself.

What if I was a horrible father to a new born just because I'd grown complacent as Haruki grew? Oh no!

"Calm down," Kurayami told me through gritted teeth. "You'll be fine. Haruki loves you. This one will love you too. It doesn't matter if you mess up a couple of times while you find your groove. Everything will be fine."

Then another, equally horrible thought hit me: what if Haruki got jealous of the new baby? I didn't want him to think we were replacing him with a newer, younger version. We weren't going to love him any less. We'd just have less time for him. And less attention to shower on him. Especially for the first little while. What if Haruki thought he could get away with absolutely anything because we were so busy with the new baby?

"Daisuke," Kurayami growled. "Worry about that later."

How did she always know what I was thinking about?

"You're muttering out loud," she told me. "Finally!"

I looked to see yet another nurse rushing forward with a wheelchair, and I could finally lower Kurayami into it. She grabbed my hand as I went to finish the paperwork.

"Stay with me?" she pleaded.

"I'll be right there," I promised. "This needs to be filled out first."

"I'll hold you to that promise," she swore. Labramon tried to follow the nurse and Kurayami into the room, but the nurse wouldn't allow a dog into the delivery room. Didn't we know how unsanitary it was? I rolled my eyes. Clearly she hadn't met Kurayami yet. I filled in the last couple blanks on the paper, smiling when I heard the nurse scream out: "Fine, fine the dog can come! Just stop it!" That was my wife for ya. She was scary as hell when she wanted to be. And you weren't keeping her digimon away from the birth of her child. They did everything together. They had since Kurayami found him, since she'd realized that Apocolymon wasn't actually her partner. They'd had a lot of catching up to do. There were very few digimon-partner relationships that I could think of that rivalled theirs. Takeru and Patamon. Mari and her Lalamon. Tenshi and Salamon. They were even closer than me and Veemon, and that was saying something, since Veemon was legitimately my business partner.

"Thank you," that first nurse said with wide eyes as I handed her the pages. She was clearly just as scared of my wife as her latest victim was. I'm not gonna lie. I was actually pretty scared to go in there. But I had to. I promised after all.

"There you are!" she screamed when she caught sight of me. "You were taking so long, I thought you'd forgotten."

"I couldn't forget you," I said. "Or the little guy."

"It could be a girl," she said, with a half-hearted smile. She was in a lot of pain.

"Where are the doctors?" I demanded.

"Don't know," she said. "Can't wait to see them."

"I can't wait to meet our new baby," I said with grin.

"Think about it," she told me. "Our baby, and baby Taro, they'll be about the same age as Emiko's baby. They can all be friends."

"Let's not talk about Emiko having a baby right now," I suggested.

"You're not still on Jou's side?" she asked with warning in her voice.

"Of course I am," I said. "Jou's one of us. And I'm going to support him through and through."

"Then you can go and support him in the waiting room," she said.

"You can't be serious," I said, shocked. "Just because I don't think Emiko having a baby is a good thing. You're going to kick me out?"

"Yes," she said. "I was born in darkness. My child isn't being born with negative energy around us. And your's is a negative energy right now. You could send Hikari in on your way, though. That would be helpful."

"No way," I said. "You are serious. You're kicking me out because of Emiko. There's another reason to be against her."

"Shut up," she said. "And GET OUT!"

"Fine," I said angrily. "I'll send in Hikari. She might enjoy watching my kid being born."

I'm not gonna lie. I was furious. And I was a little immature about it. I was pouting and stomping my feet the whole way to the waiting room. I didn't understand her at all. She made me promise to be there. I wanted to be there. It wasn't fair. Emiko should've waited another day or two to announce her "little bundle of joy". I'd only been looking forward to this for nine months—or close to it, I mean I didn't know she was pregnant the instant it happened, actually it wasn't until the two and a half month mark...but still!—and she went and ruined it.

"I honestly can't believe you right now!" Miyako was shouting as I finally arrived at the waiting room. I was majorly disappointed, but also quite relieved, that no one noticed my miserable mood and childlike behaviour.

"Me!" Momoe screamed at her. "What about you? You're my sister. We fight sometimes, but when it counts we've got each other's backs!"

"And we're always there to let each other know when we're being completely STUPID! And that's you right now!" Miyako argued.

"Jou, please tell me you've actually taken time to think about this situation," Iori was pleading with Jou in a completely separate argument that was overlapping with the other one.

"Of course—" Jou started to say, but Iori cut him off.

"No. You obviously didn't. If you had you'd realize what a terrible father—no. Not just father, person. You're being a horrible person right now. I don't even know why I'm talking to you. I really don't. I can't stand the idea that you're being this way. You're making my skin crawl," Iori said, shivering in disgust.

"I don't see how it's any of your business," Jou said. "None of you are directly involved. It's between Momoe, Emiko and me."

"You're only saying that because you're losing," Iori said rolling his eyes. "Everyone's ganging up on "poor" Jou. You'd think that fact would get through to you and you'd realize you're wrong. But I guess I overestimated your brain-capacity. And I thought I knew you. I don't even recognize you today. Where'd my best friend go? I guess you ditched him the way you ditched your daughter in her time of need."

"I'm not the one being stupid," Momoe exclaimed. "What the hell was Emiko thinking?! She wasn't thinking at all. How could she do this?"

"How could you do it?" Miyako snapped. "You swore to me, you swore, that you wouldn't end up like Mom and Dad. But you're doing it anyway. I can't even look at you right now."

"Guys, can't you lay off just a bit?" I asked. "We are in a hospital."

"And YOU!" Miyako snarled, targeting me now, instead of her sister. Why did I open my mouth?

"What did I do?" I asked defensively.

"You're on their side. How could you side with them? After everything you went through with your parents, you'd support Jou and Momoe when Emiko is the real victim here? Yes, she got pregnant, but it happened already. She just needs friends and family to take care of her during this time, and I'm going to support her, because I'm not like my parents, I'm not like Daisuke's parents and I'm sure as hell not like Jou's. I'm going to stand by my niece. My goddaughter. And if that means I have to take her in to do it, I will. I will not let her stay in a negative environment. Not while she's pregnant, and even if she wasn't, I wouldn't stand for it. I won't allow it!" Miyako shouted. Jou and Momoe stared at her, before stalking off down the hall with an exasperated "We don't need to hear this!"

"Daisuke," Taichi said—a hell of a lot calmer than Miyako was—once they were gone. "You can't tell me that you really believe in the cause you're fighting for, can you?"

"I dunno," I said. "I'm just standing with Jou. You know, since he's my friend, and Emiko put shoelaces in the noodles I was making at my cart last week. I sold those!"

"So you've got a grudge against the kid," Ken said. "You're holding it over her, this petty grudge of yours, instead of helping her in her time of need?"

"I guess, yeah," that sounds about right..." I said slowly.

"Oh whatever," Mimi said, rolling her eyes. "You're about to be a dad, right now. If you were still a kid, and Taichi was dead set against it happening, how would you feel?"

"Why would Taichi's opinion matter?" I asked, confused.

"He's your hero," Mimi explained. "And Jou is Emiko's. How would you feel, as an eighteen year old kid, if Taichi told you that he hated your child just because he didn't like the idea of it?"

"I'd never want to speak to him again, I guess," I said. But then I really thought about it. Hard. "I guess it would be the worst sort of betrayal ever. And it would definitely divide us into teams, and as much as I hate to admit it, most of you would've chosen to side with Taichi. And I'd feel even more betrayed. And we'd be split, instead of united, which we have to be, since we're really all that's keeping the peace between the worlds, and if we're in disarray, then I suppose the worlds would be too..."

"And your life would suck, when it should be a joyous if slightly scary time," Takeru said. "So yeah, you're siding with Taichi in that situation right now. Doesn't sound so great, does it?"

"No, I guess not," I agreed.

"Wow there sure are a lot of people here!"

"And digimon. I wonder what they're all doing here?"

"I think that's Gomamon..."

I turned, deciding these people sounded both familiar, and like they actually knew us, and I was embarrassed to find out that it was my sister, her husband and her daughter.

"Daisuke!" Jun said. "Was there an emergency? Is Kurayami alright?"

"Where's Haruki?" Kaoru—my niece—asked.

"Kurayami is relatively fine," I assured Jun. "She's in the delivery room right now. I kinda got kicked out..."

"So where's Haruki?" Jun demanded, repeating her daughter's question.

"In the Digital World, with everyone else," I told her.

"Get him here," she said. "He's going to be upset if he's not, like, the second person to meet the baby. You know that. He's just as excited as you."

"Right," I said. "We should get them here..."

"I'll call Rei," Taichi said, already dialling the number on his inter-dimensional phone. "Hey, Rei, it's me. Yeah, we're ready for you guys now. Kurayami's fine, she's in the delivery room. I think she's ready to have the baby. No, no. Don't worry about your chair. I'll get one ready for you. What do you mean I've got to reserve them? Never mind. I'll do it. See you soon."

"They're coming I take it?" I asked.

"Yeah. I've gotta get a chair, excuse me," he said, heading off down the hallway.

Everyone was pretty awkward with each other after that. Jou and Momoe hadn't come back yet, I sent Hikari in to see my baby being born, since I wasn't allowed back in. Which was stupid. But whatever. Taichi came back with a chair, and then we all just sort of...waited for the kids to arrive. They did, eventually. It was only like ten minutes, but still, with tensions running high, and nobody talking to one another, ten minutes felt like forever.

"Dad!" Haruki yelled, running up to me. "Why aren't you with Mom? Did she have complications like Rei had with Nikko? Is she gonna die?"

"No," I said quickly, before the kids around him could start freaking out too. "Your dad just got in trouble is all. No big deal."

"You got in trouble?" he asked with a snicker. "What a loser."

"Haruki!" Kaoru cheered, and she dragged her cousin away before I could scold him.

"How are things going?" Sora asked.

"Good, I guess. They haven't told me otherwise. Hikari's in there, you could probably go check if you want. You didn't get on Kurayami's bad side," I told her. She slipped down the hallway to check on my wife, while Hideto made his way over to my side.

"If they ask for stories, it's your turn," he told me.

"What?" I asked. "Why?"

"Think of it as additional punishment, for upsetting your pregnant wife," he said happily.

"You couldn't think of anyone else to do it? I already took a turn," I said pouting.

"And I had like four turns all at once. You can handle two," he said a little snappy in my opinion.

"So," Mimi said, sneaking up on the both of us. "I'm doing a thing."

"What kind of thing?" we asked together, warily.

"I'm on Jou's side again," she said, with a wink.

"You just talked me out of that," I pointed out.

"But that's what makes it a great thing," she said. "No one will expect it. I'm like a double agent."

"Mimi that doesn't sound like a good plan," Hideto said gently.

"Well, I'm not good at scheming," Mimi said, rolling her eyes. She turned away and flipped her hair in my face. Literally. I got a mouthful of Mimi's hair. It was really disgusting. "Jou!" she shouted, noticing Jou and Momoe begrudgingly walking back to the group. When they spotted Emiko, they almost turned tail, but Mimi's exclamation drew too much attention to them for them to get away with it.

"Hi Mimi," Jou said.

"I'm on your side," she said, emphasizing it far too much. I looked at Hideto, and he clearly didn't see what Mimi was trying to pull off either. She really should've talked this plan over with the both of us...

"Thank you, Mimi," Jou said, genuinely pleased.

"Hold up. What'd you just say?" Emiko demanded.

"I'm on Jou's side," Mimi told her. "Oh, Chika? Where are your shoes?"

"In the river," Chika said giddily.

"That's it: You're banished," Mimi declared.

"Yay!" Chika cheered.

"Banished is bad," Makoto told her, looking at his mother funny.

"Mimi," Koushiro said warningly, holding his arms open for his daughter—now crying—to run into. Makoto stepped back away from his mother slowly, afraid she'd be banishing him next.

"What?" Mimi said, twirling her hair around her finger. "Those shoes were expensive."

"Do you think that's any way to treat your daughter?" Jou asked, looking at Mimi like he didn't know her.

"I don't know Jou," Mimi said, turning on him. "I've been getting lessons on parenting from you so you tell me!"

"What are you talking about?" he demanded.

"You aren't happy with Emiko's choices, so you decided she's not worthy or something," Mimi said. "You seem to know what you're doing though, so I thought I better follow your example."

"What?" Jou asked, sounding just as confused as before.

"You're being a bad dad," Renjiro explained to him. "And I don't like you anymore."

"Renjiro," Momoe scolded.

"No," Renjiro said. "I'm right. And you're not being a good mom either. You're being too hard on Emiko. I want her to have a baby. That makes me an uncle. That means I can be a positive influence on another human being. How cool is that? But you guys are being mean to her. She's not gonna want you to be influential at all."

"Screw influential," Emiko said. "How about uninvolved. You don't want me to have a baby? Fine. You won't see the baby. How's that? You can pretend you aren't grandparents, and I can go on with my life, without you. See, I don't do so good with bad influences. Dad taught me not to. And I can't be around you when you're acting like this. And you'll be glad I'm gone. Won't you? I'm just a mistake after all."

"Emiko," Momoe said pleadingly. "We love you. We just want what's best."

"You have a funny way of showing it," Emiko snapped.

"We're trying!" Jou told her. "It's hard. And I can't accept it."

"You don't have to. Just give me the word, and I'm gone," Emiko said. "I'm not just a mistake am I? I'm a disappointment too."

"Not to me," Renjiro said. "You're my big sister. And I love you. And I want you around. And I want to meet the baby. And I'll love him enough for them too."

"Thanks kiddo," Emiko said, snorting at her own pun—which several others laughed at too. Well, we pretended not to laugh—we pretended we weren't there for the little family tiff—but really? Kiddo. Kido. It's a classic. "And I'll try not to make you cry quite so much. But yeah, that's all I can promise. I'm not gonna stop pranking you."

"I'm not asking you to," Renjiro said. "Just don't cut me out with Mom and Dad."

"I won't," Emiko promised.

"Cut us out?" Momoe gasped. "You're not being serious right now."

"I can be," Emiko told her. "You can't stop me."

"I can," Jou said defiantly. "You can't leave us."

"Watch me," Emiko snapped. She was close to breaking. I could see it.

Michael was wincing. Tatum was next to him, holding a sleeping Madlyn while Mari—at Tatum's side—held a screaming Iris. Willis was looking back and forth, following the argument, clearly not liking the turn of events. Ken looked furious about the whole thing. And he had to hold on to Miyako, who desperately wanted to rush over and grab Emiko, hold her in her arms and never, ever, let her go. Mai was holding Taro close to her chest, he was wiggling around and trying to break free. He wanted his mom, and he wanted everyone to stop fighting. Osamu was hiding out with Elliot and Nikko in the corner, trying not to draw attention, and holding his hands over his ears. Elliot and Nikko seemed to be telling each other stories, while patting Osamu on the back, trying to calm him down. Terriermon and Lopmon were standing near them, holding their ears spread out, to block the view of the fight for all of the in-training and baby digimon. They didn't seem to be taking it too well, although Salamon seemed to be trying to keep their attention by doing tricks—not well, but still, it was a noble effort.

Chika was crying into Koushiro's shoulder, and Makoto was leaning back against him. Mimi was trying to explain how her plan was supposed to get Jou to think about his current parenting technique, but it got a bit out of hand—and she didn't mean it!

Shouta was freaking out. He didn't want to be here anymore. And he was horribly over-tired but there wasn't a lot we could do about that, with the family spat going on. Aika was doing her best to protect him though. She was standing with her back to the fight, telling him all sorts of things they'd get to do when he gets bigger. He didn't stop crying, but the screaming did stop. Biyomon and Gabumon took it upon themselves to stand between the fight and Aika, since she was being such a good big sister, and they always felt the need to protect their partner's children, even from a verbal fight. Sora and Yamato were not too far away either. Yamato had his arm around Sora's shoulders and Sora was very upset with the fight, though it was clear she was going to support Emiko, whatever the outcome.

Monmon was standing with Azura behind Emiko. Both with determined looks on their face. One—or both—would probably be joining the fight soon. Gomamon and Bearmon however looked like they'd rather be with them, instead of behind Jou and Momoe. They clearly didn't support Jou's Team. It looked like it was down to just Jou and his wife too. Shouldn't the fight be over soon then? One could only hope.

Louisa—who only like happy stories—was openly sobbing, and Haruki, who happened to be standing next to her when she started was being a gentlemen about it, and had wrapped an arm around her neck, letting her cry into his shirt. Veemon, Pal and Pul were telling jokes, trying to get her to laugh, but she wasn't having it. She wanted them all to be happy again. Haruki kept looking down the hall to where his mother was, probably giving birth to the baby right now, with only Hikari and Labramon there to witness it.

Kana wasn't even three feet away from them, staring at the fight with wide eyes. If eyes could be heart shaped, I'd bet hers would've been. Renjiro had never stood up for anything in his life. With a sister like Emiko, he'd never really had a chance. It was usually Kana that had to do it for him. But he'd done it now, for his sister, and against his parents of all people. She was definitely proud of him. I was too.

Iori was too focused on glaring at Jou and Momoe. Hating their actions so much it was practically tangible. Natsuni and Goblimon were worried. They both cared so much about Momoe, but they didn't like how she was acting. Armadillomon was rolling around in a big circle the floor, curled up in a ball, going around Izumi, as she giggled, effectively distracted and thankfully not crying for once. Hawkmon was performing a soliloquy of some sort, while Wormmon scuttled around her too. She wasn't lacking any distractions. Hopefully it would be enough to keep her entertained until the tensions dispersed.

Hideto, Kiyoko, Neo and Taichi were all standing together, with Dracomon, Agumon, Gabumon and Tapirmon. Taichi's Agumon was over with Rei, who was kind of stuck close to the fight, because there wasn't an opening big enough to fit her chair through so that she could get away. Agumon decided to brave the fight with her so she wouldn't be alone. Shuu, Jun and Kaoru were standing awkwardly with Meramon and Otamamon. They didn't know exactly what the fight was about, but they looked like they wished they weren't here to witness it. I understood that. Tentomon and Palmon were hanging around Hiro, while Patamon and Gatomon were with Tenshi. They were playing a word game together, and Takeru was getting anxious about the fight. He looked like he wanted to be here for the baby, but he also looked like he wanted to get his kids, and all of their digimon and get home. But Hikari was—again—still in with Kurayami.

And me?

I was angry. At the lot of them. They came here to wait for my baby. Not to get into the mother of all fights in the waiting room. If they wanted to fight, why did it have to be here?

The sound of footsteps stopped Azura and Monmon from joining in, and they are also the reason that I can remember what everyone was doing at that moment. I thought it was the announcement that I could go back in there and finally meet my new baby and I wanted to cement the exact memory into my mind for when this kid inevitably asks for a story someday.

But it wasn't a birth announcement. It was Isao. Jou's dad.

"What is going on out here?" he demanded. "You're causing Mrs Motomiya stress. Stress isn't good. Especially for her. Did you know that when stressed she gets angry? And did you know that when angry she begins to emit a dark shroud? I can't see what I'm doing anymore, and she's terrifying."

"So Hikari's in there to deliver the baby alone?" I cried out.

"No," he assured me. "Shin is there. He's a trained professional."

"Shin gets to meet my baby first!" I whined. "Not fair!"

"Life isn't fair," Isao snapped. "Now, tell me what's going on. Or I'm sorry, but I'll have to ask you to leave."

"Dad's mad because I'm pregnant," Emiko said. "And now he hates me."

"I don't hate you," Jou corrected.

"Sounds like it," Emiko said. "You called me a mistake. You told me that no daughter of yours would do this. You hate me now."

"Jou," Isao said. "This is neither the time nor place for this, but as it's already happening, let me give you a little advice. Don't do what I did. You'll regret it for the rest of your life."

"B-but," Jou protested weakly.

"No," Isao said. "As your father, do as I say, not as I did."

"She can't," Jou said, his voice cracking as his hard exterior chipped away, and he became a fragile, raw bundle of emotion. "She's my baby girl."

"I felt the same, when you were in her position, and look what it got me," he said. "A lovely young granddaughter, and a daughter-in-law. And then later a grandson. There was nothing to fear. Nothing to resent, but I did it anyway. Are you following in my footsteps? Or are you going to do what you promised, and trudge your own path?"

"It feels like only yesterday, Dad. Yesterday that the worlds were combining and I was holding her for the first time. She can't be having a baby. I'm not ready to let go," Jou said, his eyes shimmering with tears. "I'm not ready."

"And you thought trying to hurt her was going to keep her here?" Isao asked gently.

"I don't know," Jou cried. "I thought it might. She's my baby, Dad. I had to do something. I already have to let her go away to that stupid school, and who knows if she's ever coming back. And now she's going to be a mom? She doesn't need us anymore. She won't be here like she always is..."

"Think back, Jou," Shuu suggested. "Remember how you and I felt when Dad was doing the same over-bearing thing you're doing now. We hated it. It only pushed us away further and faster. She's going one way or another, Jou. You've got to let her free."

"I'm scared!" Jou said, snapping completely.

"How do you think she feels?" Miyako asked. "Remember when you two were having a baby, and you didn't tell anyone because you were too scared to see their reactions? Emiko was brave telling you at all. She knew she didn't have to. You guys didn't. But she wanted you involved. She wanted you to be there. She's not ready to let go either."

"And I never will be," Emiko admitted. "You're my Mom and Dad. I'm going to need you forever. I need to know that it's okay to come home after school is over. I need to know that you're going to love me no matter what I do or say."

"We do love you," Momoe said, openly crying. "I don't want you to leave."

"And I don't want to leave," Emiko said. "I really don't. But I have to, because of school. But I'm going to be alone there, so I need to know that you'll still want me when I come back."

"I'm not going to let you be completely alone," Azura told her. "I'll see you ever weekend. We promised."

"Yeah," she said. "It's not going to be the same though."

"And it never will be," Isao told her. "But you will always have a place back home. Right Jou?"

"Yes. God yes. I'm not losing you," Jou told Emiko. "I can never lose you. You're my daughter. I love you more than life itself."

"Thanks," Renjiro said lightly, causing the tension to disperse, just as we'd all hoped it might.

"We love you just as much," Momoe said.

"I'm sorry," Jou apologized to Emiko. "I should never have unloaded all of my fears onto you. It wasn't fair."

"No," Emiko agreed. "It wasn't."

"I'm sorry too," Momoe said. "Even though I'm still not sure how to feel about the whole baby thing. I guess it'll just take me some time to get used to it."

"Thanks, Gramps," Emiko said, smiling at him. "If I'd have known that you could get Dad to do anything, I would've used you as a secret weapon ages ago."

"Is the fighting over?" Makoto asked, looking from his sister, to Iris, to Shouta, to Louisa, all of which were still crying.

"Yeah," Jou said. "Sorry we scared you."

"I wasn't scared," Makoto said bravely.

"Sure you weren't," Koushiro said, ruffling Makoto's hair. Makoto pulled away quickly and glared at his dad, patting his hair back into place.

"Are you okay now, Louisa?" Haruki asked.

"I will be," she said through her sobs. "Just as soon as someone tells me the rest of Yamato and Sora's story."

"Oh my god," Hideto whined. "I'm not telling it. Daisuke is."

"What?" I said, but then I remembered his stupid punishment rule. "Urgh. Okay. I guess it's story time. Again."

---

We were going to a concert. Not all of us. Just a few, but it was an odd group. Sora was going, which I found odd, since she and Yamato had been avoiding each other for ages, and it was his concert. Hideto was a no brainer. He was the one that scored us the tickets. Ken was dying to go, even though he was pretending like it was a bit of a chore to do so. Miyako was at home with Mai and Osamu. And Kurayami just really wasn't all that interested, so it became a friends thing. Point is, we had really good seats, and it was going to be awesome.

"I can't believe he's finally having a concert," Hideto squealed.

---

"I didn't squeal," he protested.

"I thought you weren't telling the story," Mari said.

"Go on," he sulked.

---

"I know right," Ken agreed. "He released his solo album ages ago. Why wait so long?"

"His girlfriend—what's her name—she didn't want him to go on tour right away," I reminded them. "Thought their relationship was too new to survive it. Turns out it didn't survive anyway."

"I knew it wouldn't," Hideto said. "But wow, did their relationship add something new to his sound."

"Yeah," Ken agreed. "It's not all break-up songs anymore. He also has angry songs. He must not have liked her that much."

"Those songs aren't about her," Hideto said knowingly. "They're about a certain guy that was dating a special little lady."

"You mean Douche?" Sora gasped. She looked a little pleased. "He's writing songs about hating Douche?"

"Yeah," Hideto said. "Didn't you listen to the album? His lead single is about a douche-bag that gets the girl every time even though he's incapable of loving anyone other than himself."

"Wow," Sora said. "I didn't get that when I listened to it."

"Really?" Ken, Hideto and I all asked her.

"I mean...I guess I hoped," she said. "But I wasn't sure."

"Well, it's true," Ken said. "It's pretty obvious."

Just then the lights went wild and the crowd followed suit. Yamato walked out onto the stage, with a band following him—not the Teenage Wolves, just some other guys. They all went on solo gigs, remember?—and he grabbed his guitar off of its stand.

"Heeeelllllloooooo everybody!" Yamato called into the microphone. "Am I ever glad to see all your smiling faces! It's been too long. Don't you think?"

The crowd screamed out their agreement.

"I'm glad you think so too," Yamato said. "I'm going to start us off with an old one. No, no, no. Don't worry. It's not what you think. It's the first song I ever sang on a stage that I'd written myself. It's called Turn Around!"

Several die hard Teenage Wolves fan were screaming. I couldn't help but feel excited too. I mean I'd actually heard this one before, and I knew it wasn't completely horrible. Hideto looked like he was going to die of pure euphoria.

You've got a boy, you've got a girl,
Sittin' underneath a tree.
They sit there every day.
And even though, you may think, that this is the way that things should be,
It may not always be that way.

"I can't believe he's singing this song," Sora shouted over the noise of the crowd. "It's always been my favourite of his."

"Mine too," Ken called out.

"I can't believe there hasn't been a digimon attack yet," I joked.

"No," Hideto said. "There can't be one. I need this concert like you wouldn't believe."

You can't take nothin' for granted,
You've gotta live life today.
I turn around, I can see what's behind me,
I turn back around, I can see what's ahead,
And if you don't believe I've been here all along,
Just turn around,
Just turn around.

"Whoo!" Sora and Hideto cheered loudly. "Go Yamato!"

"You wanna pretend we're not with them?" I asked, turning to look at Ken. He was dancing a little jig on the spot, and I realized I was alone in my embarrassment.

You wanna get, you gotta give,
There is no other way to be, so give it a try.
If what I say, is really so,
You gotta let somebody see,
You can't just keep it inside.

"I didn't know there was a second verse," I shouted.

"You didn't think he planned the tyransmon attack, did you?" Sora asked, rolling her eyes.

You can't take nothin' for granted,
You've gotta live life today.
I turn around, I can see what's behind me,
I turn back around, I can see what's ahead,
And if you don't believe I've been here all along,
Just turn around,
Just turn around.

Yamato started on an intense guitar solo, dancing around the stage while playing the part expertly. I couldn't help it. The music was infectious. I joined Ken, Hideto and Sora in their crazy cheering, dancing combination.

You can't take nothin' for granted,
You've gotta live life today.
I turn around, I can see what's behind me,
I turn back around, I can see what's ahead,
And if you don't believe I've been here all along,
Just turn around,
Just turn around.

"You guys join in now!" Yamato shouted out, before starting on the final chorus. The crowd seemed to agree to his every whim and everyone—myself included—were screaming along with the final chorus.

You can't take nothin' for granted,
You've gotta live life today.
I turn around, I can see what's behind me,
I turn back around, I can see what's ahead,
And if you don't believe I'll been here all along,
Just turn around,
Just turn around.

"I'm glad you all liked it," Yamato called out. "I was afraid it was too old for you guys to remember. I'd forgotten how much fun it is to sing too. I love that song. It meant so much to us as band. But you guys didn't come here to hear me reminisce. You wanted to hear some music!"

The cheering started up again, and soon we were completely lost in the collection of songs. Yamato was with a different producer now, as a solo artist, and so he was contractually obligated to sing all sorts of sappy break-up songs, though he did sing his favourites of them. He seemed to finally be letting loose and enjoying his dream for the first time in...well, ever. His good mood was affecting the entire audience. Sora was practically glowing with happiness the entire time. There were a couple of break-up songs that put a bit of a damper on her mood, but she always bounced back.

---

"This is taking forever," Nikko complained. "Is the baby ever gonna get born? I wanna go home soon."

"Don't interrupt him!" Louisa told him. "He's finally telling the story I want to hear."

"Can I keep going?" I asked. "Or are we finished here."

"Keep going!" Mai and Kana pleaded.

"Okay then. I'll try and speed things up," I promised.

---

Nothing really happened until near the end of the concert, when Yamato told the audience that there was a special treat for one of us, as the first stop in his new tour. His drummer had a ticket stub, whoever had the matching piece won a chance to get up on stage while he sang one of his last songs, and depending on the person, the song would be different. Or something like that anyway. Point is, if I won, he'd sing a different song than if say...Sora won. He probably only had a boy song and a girl song, but it was still cool.

"Drum roll please," Yamato asked his drummer. "Okay, whoever in seat C 46. C 46 anybody?"

"Oh. My. God," Hideto said. "That's me. I won. I can't believe I won."

"I can't believe it either. I mean, what are the chances?" Sora said with a smile.

"Sora," Hideto said. "I can't believe I'm saying this. I don't know that I even want to be saying this. But you've got to take it. You have to be the one that goes up there."

"But, you love his concerts," Sora gasped.

"But you love him," Hideto pointed out. "As much as it means to me, sometimes you've got to make a sacrifice—and believe me, this is one of the worst ones you could ask me to make—to help a friend out. Now take it, before the suspense kills me."

"Fine," she said, hugging him, and kissing his cheek. "But I owe you one serenade."

"If you could pull that off I would love you forever," he promised.

"Seriously, C 46," Yamato called again awkwardly. "We didn't bring a different number...so if you could come on up, that would be awesome. I guess there were some kinks in our plan after all... Ha, ha."

"Go," Hideto hissed. "He's floundering up there."

Sora weaved her way through the aisles, and the body guards checked Hideto's ticket, gave their approval, and helped her over the barricade. She made her way up the stairs, and Yamato dropped his microphone at the sight of her. He scrambled to catch it before it hit the stage. And the way he ended up holding it totally broadcasted his end of the conversation to the crowd.

"Sora," he said. "What are you doing here?"

I won, I imagined her saying. Where's my song.

"Right, yeah, um. There's the stool. If you could sit there, that could be great," he said awkwardly. "Sora Takenouchi everybody!" There was a loud cheer—because seriously, he could say anything and they'd cheer on cue.

Ken, Hideto and I watched as he sang a sweet, heartfelt love song to our friend, his friend, his ex-girlfriend. The girl he'd been in love with for nearly as long as I'd known him. It was almost painful to hear him shying away from the most meaningful lines, afraid of her reactions to them. Clearly he didn't know about her complete about turn about the situation—Hideto still wouldn't explain it to me, or tell me why he knew anything about it at all. The three of us cringed, knowing the last few words of the song, and fearing how he'd react to them.

Because I love you

He'd barely finished singing the words before Sora threw her arms around him, obviously not realizing that the microphone was anywhere near her.

"I love you too, Yamato," she told him. He pulled away, and looked at her.

"You're serious?" he asked awkwardly.

"More serious than anything in my entire life," she swore.

"What about Douche?" he asked grumpily.

"What about him?" she asked, throwing caution to the wind. "I don't love him. I never did. I love you. I always have. You were right. And you were right about me being scared. And about me being a hypocrite and...and...and about EVERYTHING! But I'm not afraid anymore. Biyomon and Hideto helped me. They finally told me exactly what I needed to hear. And I'm sorry for making you wait so long. And I'm sorry for being such a jerk. But I love you. And if you've finally moved on, then that's okay. Just as long as you know that I've loved you forever. And I probably always will. Just...tell me what you think?"

It was silent. Which was odd, of course, since it was a concert arena. But still, you could hear the crickets in the place.

"Oh my god, just ANSWER HER!" Hideto screamed out at Yamato. That caused a few laughs before the chanting started.

"ANSWER HER! ANSWER HER! ANSWER HER!" on and on, louder and louder until it was hurting my ears. And then finally he answered her.

---

"The suspense is killing me," Louisa said. "Stop slowing down the story and just tell us already!"

"They're married with two children..." Makoto told her. "You know what happens."

"Shut up," Louisa whined. "You're just gonna ruin it."

---

Silence filled the arena again as Yamato purposefully held the microphone in front of his mouth. Sora was waiting with bated breath, Hideto was about to pass out if he didn't just talk already. Ken and I were curious—but not nearly as invested as Hideto. Seriously, what was up with that guy? And why did Sora go to him? I mean, I know now, but that's what I was thinking at the time.

"Sora," he said slowly. "Marry me."

"What?!" seemed to be the general reaction of the audience.

"You once told me that I needed to be spontaneous. That I couldn't plan everything. This is me...not planning. Throwing caution to the wind. We've been in love for years. We can do this. If you want to," Yamato said.

"You remembered that?" Sora said, and I could hear the tears in her voice. "That was so long ago." She seemed lost in a memory, and then she shook her head, realizing he was actually waiting for an answer to a very important question that he asked in front of literally ten thousand people. "Of course I'll marry you."

"Really?" Yamato asked sounding genuinely surprised.

"Yes!" Sora shouted. The two were tangled in each other's arms and were kissing intensely. The crowd went wild, and only then did they remember they were on a stage, and that he wasn't finished his concert yet.

"Just, uh, wait backstage, would you?" he asked.

"Okay," she said happily. "Oh, and you owe Hideto one serenade."

"I what?" he asked, before shaking it off. It didn't matter, he was engaged to the girl he'd loved most of his life. And everything was finally okay with them.

---

"And he never serenaded me, ever," Hideto said grumpily. "I only got him a wife. But I guess that's not good enough for a song."

"I wrote you a song," Kiyoko said. "You said it was perfect and you didn't need any more."

"But...but...please?" Hideto whined.

"I'm not gonna lie," Yamato said. "It'll probably never happen."

"Wasn't that just the most romantic tale you've ever heard?" Louisa sighed, dreamily. "And then you guys got married."

"Just a year later," Sora agreed. "I was pregnant at the time."

"She didn't want to have the baby without being married first," Yamato added.

"I'm old fashion like that," Sora said with a sappy smile.

"And the lucky ducks had the most amazing wedding ever," Taichi grumbled. "No one objected."

"No one dark digivolved," Koushiro said wistfully.

"They didn't have a daughter for anyone to kidnap," Jou reminisced. "And the worlds weren't ending."

"Sora showed up," I said. "Before the guests left."

"She didn't try to run away," Takeru added.

"They didn't have to elope," Iori pointed out.

"It wasn't the dead of night," Willis said.

"Paparazzi didn't try to break in," Michael sighed.

"Absolutely nothing went wrong," Ken said jealously.

"Not true," Sora said. "Yes, it was a lavish event, with lots of beautiful drapery and flowers, but, the ribbons for the bouquets were the wrong shade of blue."

"Oh the horror," Miyako said, rolling her eyes. No one could really compare to her disaster of a wedding. "Some ribbon wasn't right."

"My mother did the flowers," Sora pointed out. "And she knew what shade of blue Yamato's crest is. And she knew that I had a sash for my waist in the right colour. The flower girls had the right blue, the men had blue ties. Everything was perfectly coordinated, except the ribbon on the bouquets. Seriously, it still haunts me."

"It's true," Shouta slurred, dozing at his sister's side. "She comes to my room crying 'bout it sometimes."

"I don't," Sora said, face flushing bright red.

"No one even noticed the ribbon," Hikari assured her.

"Of course they didn't," Sora said. "I took them off."

"Then what was the problem?" Taichi asked incredulously.

"There were no ribbons on my bouquets!" Sora hissed.

"And then there was the fact that we were pretty much oozing our crests, and affecting everyone around us," Yamato reminded us.

"True," I said. "Everyone was swooning and sighing and disgustingly happy."

"So, yeah," Sora said. "Something bad happened at my wedding too. Something bad—no matter how minor—happened at everyone's. Except Iori's."

"No one got to go to mine," Iori said defensively.

"Mine was alright," Neo said. "Rei, and Alias III were there, and that's all I needed."

"You're MARRIED!" Louisa screeched. "What about Evelen. She's so perfect. You just sunk my favourite ship."

"Whatever," Neo said, rolling his eyes.

"Were you ever going to tell us?" Mimi complained. "Why didn't you bring her today?"

"She was volunteering at the hospital," Neo said. "She said she wasn't ditching it no matter what. And I was fine with it because this day doesn't really mean anything much to me."

"Take that back!" Mimi cried.

"Why?" Neo wanted to know.

But the new fight couldn't escalate into anything, because Hikari came running down the hall, with a big grin on her face. "It's a boy!" she shouted, running over to hug me. "Shin's going to bring him out in a minute. Once Kurayami will let go of him, so he can get cleaned up. Shin's too scared to just take him."

"I would be too," Isao muttered.

"And here he is!" Shin announced, coming into the waiting room with a small blue bundle of joy. "Kurayami named him Yukai, I'm assuming it was the planned name?"

"Yeah," I said. "If it was a boy."

"After her brother?" Hikari asked.

"You bet," I said, holding out my arms as Shin handed me my new son. He was small, and wiggly. But he wasn't crying, which I was thankful for. He had dark, unfocused eyes, and I wondered what shade they would settle into in the months to come. His little fingers were curling and uncurling, and he had a shock of black hair on his head. His face was still bright red, but he looked comfortable.

"Can I see him?" Haruki asked. I held my arms lower, so he could take a look at his brother. "He's so small."

"Not for long," I assured him. "Not for long. You want to hold him?"

"No," Haruki said quickly. "I don't want to break him."

"Okay," I said. Not that he could, but still. I didn't want to force him. Then I remembered: Emiko. She was pregnant, she'd be the next to have a baby. "Hey, Emiko."

"Yeah," she called, standing with her Dad. They weren't quite fixed, but they were close. I was glad for that.

"Come and see what'll make the next nine months worth it," I told her. She looked a tad reluctant, but she came over, and I handed my son over to her. It was something I'd never thought I'd do in a million years, but it made sense in a way.

"Oh my god," she said. "I'm holding a baby. Dad look! I'm holding it. I'm not gonna break it am I? I can't be held responsible if I do. You handed the thing to me."

And I sure regretted that decision. I was wondering how to get my baby back from the demon spawn that is Emiko, when I heard a new voice break through the din.

"Why is it so crowded in here?" a girl with dark—really dark, pretty much black—hair and a stylish black ensemble asked as she tried to weave her way through the hallway. "I was pretty sure there was a limit on occupancy."

"Yeah, well, the digidestined don't do anything by half," Neo joked. She spotted him and her eyes lit up. She walked to him and pecked him on the lips right in front of everyone. I heard lots of little boys gagging at the sight of it.

"No way," Louisa gasped. "Drop dead gorgeous woman, the most beautiful girl I've ever seen...you can't be, there's no way."

"Can't be who?" she asked, looking at Louisa confused.

"Evelen?" Louisa asked nervously.

"Yes?" the woman—Evelen I supposed—said.

"Oh, I knew you two were perfect for each other. I just knew it!" Louisa cried, rushing over and hugging Evelen and Neo both at the same time. The two adults looked quite uncomfortable, but Louisa was having the time of her life. "My OTP is cannon!"

"I'm starting to think that you've convinced all the children we're just characters in your novels, Takeru," Michael said slowly.

"Oops," Takeru said with a laugh. And soon we were all laughing. Despite all of the rough patches, the day turned out pretty great after all. I got a son, Jou and Emiko reconciled. Emiko and her friend might be heading somewhere, Louisa's OTP came true. We all learned a little something about each other, that we never knew before. I thought days like that were passed now that we were getting older. It was nice to know that wasn't true.

"Oh, hey," I called, remembering something important. "Emiko, when's your due date?"

"Oh, yeah," Emiko said with a grin, holding my baby closer to her chest. "Thanks for all the support and whatever, but yeah...I'm not pregnant."

"What?!"

"Yeah, it was all a kind of hoax," she said sheepishly. "I just wanted to see if you'd accept me back if I did the worst thing I could think of. And look at that, you do! Took a bit of work, I'll admit, but I'm so proud of each and every one of you."

I'm pretty sure everyone was glaring at her. I couldn't tell, exactly, since I was glaring at her, and not looking around, but I mean, it was probably a pretty popular reaction. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw both Louisa and Kana take a threatening step towards her, and then everyone was talking all at once. Kana was barely a step away from Emiko—the girl had played her best friend after all, and she was going to get revenge, since we all knew he wouldn't get it for himself—when Emiko shouted above all the noise. "You can't hurt me! I'm holding a baby!"

"Guess the day's not over yet," I said to myself sighing, before setting off to get my baby back.

Jou Kido: 10:30 pm

The feeling inside me was completely incomprehensible. I'd need time to mull it over really. I was happy. Happy that I'd get another chance when the real deal was finally upon us. Sad though. Sad that I'd been tested on such a personal level only to fail more extremely than I'd ever failed before. I became a monster today, the exact thing I wanted to avoid in life. I wasn't there for my daughter when she needed me, and I treated her in a way that my father scarred me with.

I had to talk to Emiko... but I couldn't. She was crowded.

It took a while before everyone had settled down, but the entire time all I could do was watch as they all flocked around my daughter who could only laugh. Momoe was next to me and I wanted to look to her and ask her what to do before the time came when I was forced to make the final decision, but I could not force myself to look to her, and my mind was blank. There were no solutions to my problem. My problem didn't exist.

The children were sent back away from Emiko while the parents all gave her a piece of their mind, with Jun standing as a body guard for her, not really knowing the true story of what was going on.

Eventually though, everyone had had their say, including my father who was ultimately the one who forced it all to come to an end. All of the fighting was over and Daisuke was able to pop back out of Kurayami's room where he had retreated when the fighting got out of hand.

Everyone sort of returned to their children and separated into families that way everyone always seems to do when the atmosphere tells us that the day is almost over. And that it was. It was nearing time to go home. Of course everyone wanted a chance to see the baby before we all went home, and a few of the kids were sitting together trying to wrack their brains as hard as they could to ensure that they forgot nothing in terms of the stories they had been told.

There was of course. So many things they hadn't heard. None that were important though. Not to them. But to me. To the others. All the little things became the most important parts of our lives. The fights and saving the world—they were our childhood. But we had time to grow up since then. A chance to calm ourselves and live the life of normal people... kind of.

It was strange though. Always hearing these stories retold. The first twenty five years of my life were documented into Takeru's books, and now with the movies, television shows, card games... well, it was impossible to forget the amazing memories we'd all gathered.

The most amazing part of my life was when I was finally married to Momoe though. Because when it was finally settled, the world was also finally at peace. Well... for years to come at least. And that meant I could finally relax and be in love with my wife, and have my children... Of course I had always imagined that Emiko would get herself mixed up with the destruction of the final great evil, but now that it was done and over with as well I could finally relax. She wasn't in danger... nor was she the final great evil... which was good to know as well.

I tried to pretend Emiko wasn't sitting alone at that moment because I didn't know what to say to her. I wanted to tell her to punch me repeatedly until I bled to death. Well not really, but pretty much. I had been so horrible. I wouldn't be surprised if years from now Emiko told stories to her children and referred to me simply as Jerk, just as we had done with Douche today.

"I think I'm going to go talk to her." Momoe said bravely, and without another word she was gone. Her place was filled quickly though by Azura who I was pretty sure had to have been waiting for a chance to talk to me alone judging by the look on his face.

"Hi, sir." Azura said, nervously adjusting his hair. He made eye contact with me and his face flushed quickly so he busied himself with the loose strings on his ripped jeans.

"Hello Azura," I said with a grin, looking away. "Before you say anything, I want to apologize to you."

"Me?" Azura asked, "Why?"

"Because I've set a horrible example." I said, "I've treated my daughter horribly, and forced you to watch as I scrutinized your best friend for being human. I want you to understand that I feel horrible about that. I want you to realize that this person. Me. The person you saw today is the exact opposite of who you should be as a father one day."

"I know." Azura said softly, he quickly shook his head and tried to fix the issue at hand but I laughed and he relaxed a little, "I just mean that you were the opposite of who you really are. And since the person I've always seen you as was a kind and supportive father, I already knew that the man I saw today wasn't the person I wanted to be."

I smiled down at him as he was shorter than me which made me feel happy for some reason. "If I didn't know any better I'd say you were trying to butter me up."

"Oh, no sir." Azura said, flustered. "I just wanted to apologize to you. For lying. And for going along with Emiko's plan."

"Azura, I forgive you," I chuckled.

"And also to ask you for Emiko's hand." He said very quickly.

"Marriage?" I asked shocked, "I-I mean sure. I guess. I don't want to regress again, I can't be judgemental. I mean marriage is more mature than a child anyway—sure I mean yeah—I mean, you're dating her?"

"N-no." Azura said. "That's actually what I meant. Permission to date your daughter."

"Ohh..." I said nodding, "I think that would be wonderful Azura." Honestly I was surprised he had enough courage to ask me. From what I'd seen the two of them had been head over heels in love with each other for... a long time. He'd never said a word of it to her as far as I could tell... why did I believe she was pregnant?

"Really?" Azura asked. "I'm gonna tell her!" He was excited. "Eventually. I think I'm going to go throw up now." He was off before I could say anything else so I merely laughed and headed straight to Renjiro. I needed to set things straight with him as well.

I crept up behind him. He was sitting with Iori's family along with the digital half of our own family.

Gomamon and Bearmon were talking with Armadilomon and Natsuni as Goblimon sat silently by Iori's side as he talked to Kana and Renjiro. Upamon and Bukamon were both sleeping in their partner's arms.

"And honestly, I think today turned out alright." Kana was saying, rubbing Upamon's head affectionately.

As I approached Iori's eyes flicked up and locked with mine. I threw my hands up in a defensive form and hung my head. "Hello all," I said politely, if not a tad awkwardly. "I am here to plead for forgiveness." Iori rolled his eyes but smiled.

"You should be good at that." Renjiro pointed out to Iori helpfully.

"I'm sorry, to all of you," I said, mostly looking to Renjiro, "for the way that I acted and I can only hope that you will see it in your hearts to forgive me."

"Holy dramatics." Iori joked. "I forgive you Jou. I understand how flustered you get. You didn't get a chance to let this run through your brain before you were forced to decide how to react. I think we all get it."

"Just don't do it again." Kana finished for him meanly.

"I won't." I promised her cautiously.

"Good." She decided, standing up and turning to face me. "I don't want to hear one day that you've been treating Renjiro poorly."

"Kana," Natsuni warned.

"No," I said, "it's okay. I deserve it. I promise I won't though." I declared firmly. "And thank you for expressing yourself and your concerns for my son, I'm glad he has someone like you around."

Kana blushed and waved her hand as if it was nothing.

"Dad," Renjiro said quickly, reaching up for my hand, and holding it with both of his. "Before you get any more emotional. I want you to know that I forgive you too. I understand not wanting another Emiko around."

"But I—" I stopped myself and just nodded. "Thank you," I told him, ruffling his hair a bit. "Now I have to talk to Emiko. I turned and saw her and Momoe laughing together in the uncomfortable blue waiting room chairs, and suddenly my heart was beating quickly and my chest and throat were burning. "But first I need to vomit."

I turned and set off for the washroom. I threw the door open when I got there and stared at myself in the mirror, running warm water in the tap.

"You can do this Jou." I said to my reflection, "Just go talk to her."

"Funny." Azura said, startling me to no end, "I just said the same thing."

"Well by all means," I said, composing myself. "You go first."

"Well better sooner rather than later, right?" Azura asked sheepishly. And then he was off, out of the bathroom.

I returned to the mirror and gave myself a quick pep talk, and threw some water at my face. I could do this. There was a knock on the door and Gomamon's voice floated through the closed doors, muffled. "Jou are you okay?"

"Fine," I told him.

"Are you throwing up?" He asked. "Because if you are then I don't want to come in."

"I'm not," I laughed.

"Oh good." He relaxed, shoving the door open and slipping inside. "I didn't want to seem like a jerk for not coming in, but seriously I've seen enough human vomit for a lifetime." I knew he was referring to the time that Momoe and I had left for a week long vacation and both Renjiro and Emiko got sick. He didn't tell us though because he didn't want to ruin our vacation, so he dealt with it all by himself. Of course he wanted something out of it, so that's why he did it really, but it was still nice of him. "What's up though?" he asked.

"I just don't know what to say to Emiko." I told him as I washed my hands to busy myself. "I want to apologize, but I know that if I do she won't believe me... I want to tell her that her leaving to school is the most painful thing in the world. Emiko is one of the most important people in my life. I... don't know what I'm supposed to do without her. You know as well as I do that she gives me all kinds of advice for work, and she's actually a really good influence on Renjiro when she's not making him cry. She's a wonderful big sister. I want to tell her to be careful because the world is dangerous, and she's going to be sad a lot. There's nothing I can do to fix that, though I wish I could. She's so fragile even though she likes to pretend she's not... I just wish my mother was here. She was the only good parent I've ever known. She'd know what to do."

"Jou," Gomamon said, uncharacteristically serious. "Your mother was, I'm sure, a wonderful parent, but she wouldn't know what to do any more than you do. Parents make things up as they go. They never know really what's going on. You'd think you'd know that by now." I looked to Gomamon, shutting the tap off, and kneeling down to be closer to his level. "Emiko's a freak. In the best way possible. And I may not be your mother, but I've been around you a pretty long time. Twenty eight years I've known you. And I can honestly say that you just need to tell her exactly what you told me. Just tell her."

"You're right." I said, standing up quickly.

"I know," Gomamon smiled, "Now go. Do it."

"I think I will." I said heading straight for the door and throwing it open. I was halfway down the hall again before I realized that Gomamon would have to find a way to pull the door open from his height if I didn't go back and open it for him, so I did that quickly and he dryly thanked me before setting off down the hall with me.

"So what did you want to talk about?" I heard Emiko say.

Oh good, she was close.

"Something important." Azura's voice responded.

I froze right on at the corner, stopping Gomamon with my foot placed in front of him. He looked up to me to object but I had a finger to my lips. He nodded and we stood as close to the wall as possible. I could see their reflections vaguely in the window of the door that was at the end of the hallway. Emiko was leaning against the wall, relaxed as Azura stood in front of her, trying to compose himself. Running his fingers through his hair again.

"Yes I know," Emiko laughed nervously, "You said that you wanted to talk to me about something important."

Azura made a horrible choking sound and shook his hands as if he was preparing for something very daring. "I just... I'm really going to miss you Emiko, and you're my best friend."

"Your only friend." She said, "I keep telling you to make more friends, your life would be easier—"

"I don't need any other friends though." He said softly. "I just need you. And I promised you that I'd come see you every weekend, but I need you to know why I promised that."

"I already know." She said boldly.

"No, you don't." He said.

"I do." She argued.

"No you don't!" He was insistent.

"Yes I do, you know." She said, putting her hand on his shoulder. "You're not very good at hiding it."

"Neither are you." He said with a relaxed laugh.

"Also," Emiko said, stepping closer to him, "I looked up what it means to elope." She giggled.

That, I didn't want to know about, and I turned away as he finally leaned in to kiss her. I was happy, but really didn't need to be around for any kissing my daughter got herself tangled up with. Except the one single kiss on her wedding day.

That was the plan anyway.

"I need to go find my dad." Emiko said finally, "Just wait here, everyone's getting ready to go home anyway, I'll walk you home."

I looked back to the reflection and saw that Emiko was walking toward Gomamon and I and we both frantically looked around for a hiding spot and ran to random places on the wall to inspect them.

"I think this brick is very well kept." Gomamon improvised as Emiko came around the corner.

"This one as well." I nodded, "Interes—hey look it's my daughter!" I looked to Emiko with feigned shock.

"Dad," Emiko rolled her eyes, "You're so weird." She ran up to me and hugged me though. "Renjiro told me you wanted to apologize, and you really don't have to." I shook my head, but she didn't let me talk. "I need to. I turned all your friends and family against you, lied to you, made you feel like a horrible person and put shampoo into the cookies I made you this morning."

"What?" I asked suddenly, but she ignored me.

"I did it because I was scared you didn't love me." I said quietly, "Honestly I've always been kind of afraid of that, but whether you love me or not, the fact that you've always supported me, and even with something this serious you eventually turned around and supported me. And I love you."

"I love you too Emiko. So much." I told her, hugging her. My eyes were watering, but I certainly didn't want Gomamon or Emiko of all people to see that, so I hid it to the best of my ability.

"Also, mom forgave me and says that she'll be the most super supportive grandmother ever one day." Emiko said with a smile, then a sudden giggle, "Also Azura kissed me!"

"Pshhhh!" I hissed, "What? No way. Really?"

"You knew?" She asked, "Whatever. I kind of lied to him too... I hope he doesn't mind. I told him this prank was to get him to open up. Which it sort of was. I involved him because I wanted to give him the chance to tell me that he likes me. It worked."

"I know," I told her. We had all three walked to the end of the hallway together and Emiko's eyes slowly looked toward the window where we could see a group's reflections now.

"You were eavesdropping on me." Emiko declared suddenly.

"No, he asked me if he was allowed to date you that's how I know." I said quickly.

"Maybe but you still eavesdropped." Emiko dared me to lie to her again with her eyes.

"Maybe?" I tried.

"That's so gross and invasive." She shivered, "But it's also very close to mischievous. I like that side of you, Dad. It's nice."

"Ha!" I laughed coldly, "Though Father did once tell me that he forced the prankster out of me when I was young. So I wouldn't be surprised if you brought it back out one day. You're pretty much the exact opposite of him after all."

Emiko started ranting about how funny it was to think of me as a prankster as we rounded the corner and found Momoe waiting with her hand on Renjiro's shoulder. Bukamon was in his arms and Bearmon was at his side. Monmon bound down the hallway and leapt into Emiko's one arm as the other stretched out to take Azura's hand. Gomamon, still walking by my feet looked up with his eyebrow raised and winked at me. I rolled my eyes back at him and wrapped my arm around Momoe as we all set off down the hallway. We didn't really need to say goodbye to the others because we'd see them all soon enough.

We may not exactly be made of perfect families, but all of the imperfect families together made a family of sheer perfection, and there really never is a way to say goodbye to family.

I looked to Emiko and smiled.

Family would always found their way back home.

Willis Kennedy: 10:45 pm

"Oh thank goodness." Nikko said with a sigh the moment Jou and Momoe had taken their children out of the hospital. "Now that Emiko's gone the real party can begin without fear of condemnation!" He jumped up on a chair and Elliot was on the one next to him in seconds followed by Osamu and Aika. They were dancing like lunatics.

"Guys, that's mean." Tenshi said boldly, his arms crossed with Louisa and Kana on either side of him, imitating his upset face. "There's no need to talk behind Emiko's back."

"Yeah!" Kana agreed, "You can talk to her face and it wouldn't even hurt her feelings."

"No need to be gossips and bullies about it." Louisa finished.

Kids were funny. They were so much more normal than we were when we were younger, probably because their life wasn't always in peril. Though I suppose when we were that age we weren't quite in danger all the time yet either.

"Izumi." Hiro was saying to Izumi whose attention was solely on him. He was on his knees in front of her trying to get her to say her name properly but he was ambushed by Iris and Madlyn who were pulling him to the ground laughing maniacally. Shouta was standing nearby looking like he was having fun without taking part in anything. Like he really wanted to, but didn't think anyone would let him join, so he was happy just watching.

"Are you ready to go home?" Mari asked me, stepping up behind me and slipping her hand into mine.

"Of course," I told her, "I'm always ready—"

"Don't say anything lame." Mari groaned, but I continued anyway.

"Because home is where the heart is, and since you have my heart, as long as I'm with you, I'll always be home."

"God, you're a loser." Mari groaned.

"But I'm your loser." I grinned.

"Ugh." Mari said, "Stop doing that!" she pushed me playfully and then stepped off to say goodbye to Hideto and Kiyoko. I decided it was my duty to round up our children, but like, that wasn't an easy thing to do because our children were pretty much the embodiment of caffeine. Like, if coffee were a person it would be Madlyn. Iris was more like a calming tea, but when mixed with the coffee coursing through Madlyn's blood it was like a deadly explosion of excitement and energy.

"Girls," I said, which caught the attention of Kana and Louisa instead.

"We have names." Kana said boldly.

"I was talking to my daughters." I told her.

"They have names too." Kana said, stepping toward me, "You are discriminating against the female race thinking we all want to be referred to as our gender's label. Well sir, I hope you're proud of who you are because I will officially be calling you Man." Tenshi and Louisa were by her side in a second having given up their attempts to calm the rowdy ones, but man Kana could be mean sometimes. I guess she got that from her dad. "Right Tenshi? Right Louisa?"

"Uhhh" Tenshi hesitated.

"Yeah," Louisa nodded, "Sure." She turned to me, "Hey Willis," she said, giving up immediately, "Can I babysit your kids now?"

"Right now?" I laughed, "No Louisa, we're going home."

"Well whose gonna babysit them right now then?" Louisa asked, "Because you're not, and I don't think Hiro is doing a good job."

"Wait, what?" I asked, turning toward Hiro who was tripping over his own feet on his way out the door. He wasn't chasing my girls was he? I groaned as I looked around the room realizing they must have gone. "Terriermon! Lopmon!" I shouted, rushing from the room with my digimon bounding after me.

"Your kids are a nightmare!" Terriermon called out.

"Kids these days," Lopmon said in return, "Am I right?"

"You are, my friend," Terrerimon agreed, "I mean, we were never this bad!"

"Right?" Lopmon shouted, "I mean we never caused any trouble!"

"Oh please!" I laughed.

"Not in public?" Terriermon tried to remedy their claim.

"Uh huh," I nodded, "And that twenty foot silver statue of the mayor just fell over on its own?"

"Details!" Terriermon defended himself.

"Your kids have done some pretty crazy things too though," Lopmon said, as we rounded a corner. There they were at the end of the hall! We could catch them before anything bad happened. "What about that time they somehow cut off all of the power in the entire city!"

"Lopmon that was one hundred percent you," I laughed again.

"Was it?" Lopmon asked.

"The point is!" Terriermon shouted, "I'm getting too old for this stuff!" Lopmon nodded in agreement and I couldn't help but laugh. They could still do back flips through flaming hoops. I would know. We tested their agility just last week. They were not too old for this stuff.

We reached the point where we'd seen the girls and looked down the hall and groaned. There were two directions and I didn't watch to see where they'd gone.

"They're this way." Terriermon said, pointing left. "My distinctly canine sense of smell tells me so." I grinned at him and turned left, heading down the hallway. We headed straight for the end and turned the only direction and I laughed once more.

"Zoomi fell sleep." Iris explained to me. She was sitting next to Izumi who was curled up on the floor with Iris stroking her hair roughly in her attempts to be gentle. Madlyn was down the hall doing somersaults in a repetitive fashion. I picked up Izumi and motioned for the others to follow me. "Come on girls, let's go back, okay?"

The girls followed me along with Terriermon and Lopmon all the way back to the waiting room.

"You all need to leave." A nurse was telling them, "Only family members allowed."

"We are family," Agumon was trying to explain.

"You?" The nurse asked, "You're an orange lizard and the patient is an asian woman."

"I was adopted!" Agumon shouted in frustration.

"We're leaving anyway," Taichi said defeated, "its fine. Chill lady."

Mari caught sight of me and made her way toward me, picking up Madlyn who was trying to climb her leg. Hideto was standing by the door so I handed off his daughter and picked Iris up for myself.

"Leaving now?" Hideto asked.

"Hopefully." I smirked. I was definitely ready for sleep.

"Michael!" Mari called. Michael turned and saw that we were by the door and he lit up like a Christmas tree. He grabbed Tatum's hand and motioned for Monodromon and Betamon to join him on his way toward us. Louisa and her Hopmon were there a moment later, and Chapmon was dragging Elliot away from his friends.

"Bye nurse girl," Michael called out to her, waving. I rolled my eyes and waved to everyone else while Elliot tried to wave to his friends one last time before being dragged out of the room. Louisa shouted a farewell to Tenshi and Kana and then we were gone. Finally.

Mimi Izumi: 10:55 pm

"Mimi," Palmon said, hopping onto the chair beside me. "Why aren't you talking to anybody?"

"I don't feel like it," I lied, not looking her in the eye. I just nestled myself further into the corner I was hiding away in.

"Why are you over here, when the celebration is over there?" Palmon pressed.

"Because I'm mad okay," I said with a huge, overly dramatic sigh.

"At who?" Palmon wanted to know. "Me? Is it me? I can leave if it's me."

"Not you," I said, grabbing her arm before she could get away. "Me. I'm mad at myself. I'm always doing stupid stuff. Why can't I be smarter? Everything would be better if I was."

"You don't believe that," Palmon scolded.

"I do," I told her. "Look at them. They don't even care that I'm not there. They're just talking to each other, because they don't love me anymore." And then I started crying. Big, fat teardrops, splashing down on my lap, my shoulders shaking, as Palmon and I watched my own family stand there and ignore me. Okay, maybe they weren't ignoring me, so much as they didn't see me. I was hiding in the corner, between two chairs, on the floor, after all. But still. They were talking about me!

"Dad," Makoto said warily, cradling his Tanemon in his arms, rocking him back and forth. Tanemon's eyes were drooping, and he snuggled deeper into Makoto's arms with a contented sigh. "Are we allowed to go home, yet?"

"What exactly are you referring to?" Koushiro asked.

"Mom banished Chika, remember?" he pointed out.

"Chika's not banished," Koushiro said firmly, looking directly at Chika who didn't look so sure—despite the fact that she still didn't know what banished meant... "Your mother always does things like this. She's impulsive. She tries to help, and eventually she'll get her way, but she doesn't always think things through. She's apologized eleven times so far. Which is more than usual, so I'm sure she didn't mean it."

"You say that, yeah," Makoto said. "But I don't know if she means it. She's always doing stuff like this. She says things, mean things, and then apologizes, but like, why not just not say the mean things at all?"

"She's had this problem for years," Koushiro told our son. I was scandalized, and stared at him, still crying to myself. Palmon slid off her chair, and moved it out of the way so she could sit directly beside me on the freezing cold hospital floor. She wrapped her arms around me, and I felt better. Marginally, but still...better. "No matter how many times she tries to change this about herself, she ends up doing it again."

"She should try again," Makoto said, glancing at his little sister, who was snuggling up with Koushiro, hugging him around the legs, while her Motimon hugged hers. "Because this sucks."

"This time is different," Koushiro said. "I'll give you that. And she definitely should've thought it through more before involving Chika, yes. But I don't want her to change."

I gasped, and starred at him in awe. Palmon held my hand and squeezed it tight. She was smiling at me. I could almost bring myself to smile back. Almost.

"But Dad," Makoto complained.

"It's a part of who she is, son," Koushiro said. "It's one of her many quirks. And it is probably her least desirable one, I'll give you that. But she puts up with Chika's wild imagination, and she learned that secret language just so she could communicate with her on a more personal level. She goes to all of your plays, even though she doesn't like acting—says it's just masking your true self—but she supports you anyway. She puts up with your blunt carelessness. Chika's every whim. She'd drop anything just to go play with the two of you outside if you want her to. You know this. She puts up with all of our quirks, because she loves us very much. And if she can do all of that, can we not accept that she has a few peculiar habits of her own?"

"But she made Chika cry," Makoto argued.

"I made your mother cry," Koushiro told him. "Multiple times. I couldn't communicate very well. I still can't. She just understands me better now. I used to ignore her rather than try to deal with her, but that didn't work. I picked a computer over her, and that clearly didn't gain me much appreciation. She puts up with so much from me. She's the only reason that I haven't been the one making you two cry. She's patient. I have so very many faults compared to her few. So please, give her a chance."

"I got grounded the last time I made Chika cry," Makoto said stubbornly.

"He did," Chika agreed, finally pulling her face out of Koushiro's pant leg. "For two whole days."

"He threw a rock at your head," Koushiro said, raising his eyebrow. "Somehow, I'm sure this is a very different situation."

"I think it's worse than a rock," I said loudly, pushing myself to my feet, wiping away the few stubborn teardrops that just wouldn't quit coming. "I made her doubt me. I'm her mom. She should always be able to come to me with things. I can't go around banishing my children to prove a point to Jou. I should've thought of a different way."

"You should have," Koushiro nodded.

"I know I should have," I said. "But I didn't. And I don't think I deserve forgiveness for this. So don't forgive me. Can we just, move passed it anyway? I miss you guys."

"It's only been, like, an hour," Makoto said looking at me like I was crazy.

"An hour with my kids mad at me? For something that isn't taking the garbage out, or rinsing your dishes, or picking up toys, or bedtime or getting grounded. I banished her. I didn't mean it, obviously, I was just making a point that Jou could hopefully understand. But still. I betrayed their trust. How can you guys ever believe in me again?"

"Well..." Makoto said with a slow, wicked smirk. "I can think of a few things."

"You're not getting a raise on your allowance," Koushiro told him. "And you're not getting a 'Get out of grounding' free pass. This isn't a game of monopoly."

"Fine, take away the really good and usefully things," Makoto pouted. "Can you take Chika and me to the amusement park? Or is that a no-no too."

"I like the big rides," Chika grinned. "And the spinny rides. And the swings, and the loopy ones. I like all the rides!"

"You sure do," I smiled. "You take after your mama. Dad's a party pooper. He doesn't like any of them."

"Not true," Koushiro protested immediately. "The Ferris wheel isn't too bad, and the swings, and...and the merry-go-round. So there you go. Three rides."

"All the baby rides," Makoto teased. "Can we go? We'd even forgive you if we can go."

"Yep, yep," Chika agreed quickly.

"I don't know," I said slowly, fighting off a grin. They would forgive me! "It feels an awful lot like I'd just be bribing you to do that, and I don't want to be that parent."

"You'd rather be the parent that banishes kids for losing their shoes?" Makoto said, raising his eyebrow in an eerily Koushiro-esque way.

"In my defense, they were really cute shoes, and expensive, and your grandmother hired a cobbler specifically to make them," I pointed out. "And your grandmother is quite terrifying."

"You banished her," Makoto repeated. Koushiro was laughing—the traitor. He was far more scared of my mother than I was. "I think she deserves some sort of compensation."

"Then shouldn't it be Chika that chooses?" I asked.

"Touché," Makoto said.

"I like the museum," Chika said, starting her list. "And the planet-ar-i-um, and the zoo. And—"

"No you don't," Koushiro said grumpily. "I would know. I've only been trying to get you to go to one your whole life."

"But Mommy doesn't like them either," Chika said quietly. "And she would get bored, and she wouldn't like it. And I didn't like it when she was mean to me."

"Chika," I sighed, getting down on my knees, and holding my arms open for her to come into. She did. But reluctantly. I hugged her with all my might. "I love you. And I can never say it enough times. You aren't banished. If I ever say it again, just ignore me. Because I won't mean it. I will never mean it. Seeing Jou with Emiko today. Seeing how scared he is to see her leave. I'm like that. I don't ever want you to go."

"I'm five," Chika said.

"I know," I said, feeling the tears come back. "But times flies when you're older sweetie. I feel like if I blink for just a second too long, you'll be grown up, and I'll have missed it. Soon, you'll be winning your first science fair or spelling bee. Makoto will graduate and move on to secondary school. I'll miss first dates and dances. Graduations. I'll be sending you both off to school before I know it, and then there'll weddings and babies. I'll miss it all."

"I'm still five," Chika said.

"And I'm not going to ever go on dates, or get married, or have kids," Makoto assured me. "So you wouldn't be missing too much anyway."

"You say that now," I teased. But I sobered up quickly. "I don't want to miss anything. So I will never actually banish you."

"At most, you'd be banished to your room," Koushiro added. "Because you'd be grounded."

"Oh," Chika said. "So I'm grounded?"

"No," I said. "We'll tell Grandma that the shoes were too small now, so we gave them to charity."

"We're gonna lie to Grandma?" Chika and Makoto asked with awe in their eyes.

"Of course," I said. "She's scary. But you can never lie to me or your father, is that clear?"

"Yeah," Makoto said. Chika just nodded.

"Okay," I said with grin. Now let's get you two home, it's way passed bed time," I pointed out.

"But no one else is gone," Makoto whined. I gestured for him to look around. He did so, and realized that there weren't very many people and digimon left after all. Daisuke was still hanging out with his baby, and so his son and corresponding digimon were still present. Yamato and Sora looked like they were trying to get Aika to leave, so they'd be gone soon. Hikari was still in with Kurayami, but Takeru had the two boys and their digimon in the waiting room, fittingly waiting for Hikari to come out so they could go home. "Oh," Makoto said softly.

"Yeah, oh," I said. "Now let's go catch the bus, shall we?" I scooped Motimon up into my arms, and Tentomon flew above Makoto—who still held his Tanemon. Chika was nestled in Koushiro's arms, where she was falling asleep with her head propped up on his shoulder. Palmon walked at my side, and winked at me.

"I told you were perfect," Palmon said. "That you didn't need to change. I know that they love you, and when you love someone, you don't need them to change. And I love you Mimi."

"I love you too, Palmon," I said, my heart full of happiness. Yes, I did a stupid thing today, but I was probably going to do stupid things tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that. It was a part of who I am. And I couldn't change that. And I didn't want to. Not when being myself led me to this family of mine. I loved them and wouldn't change them for the world.

But I might have to get some tickets to the amusement park...

Yamato Ishida: 11:00 pm

"When're you leaving?" Takeru asked me casually as I leaned against the door way, watching Sora continue to struggle with Aika. The girl was usually so calm, it was only when she was tired that she reminded me she was the age she really was. Usually she was fairly mature and fit in with the older kids, and more often than not chose to play with them rather than the younger kids. Though I suppose that could have something to do with Chika and how she was the only one Aika's age, and she never played with anyone except her imaginary friends...

"Soon hopefully." I responded immediately.

"Lucky." Takeru joked, "Hikari is apparently needed to keep Kurayami happy. Which is odd, you'd think she'd want to like... hold her baby."

"I don't think Daisuke wants to let him go," I said with a flick of my eyebrows. Takeru laughed as we both looked to Daisuke and Veemon who were practically smothering the baby as Haruki tried to keep just one eye on his new brother. The brother that was named after Kurayami's brother... or something. All I knew of that story was what was in Takeru's books. No one really ever talked about that... no one has ever still talked about it, even after the books. Our best kept secret I guess.

Our only kept secret... only not really. It was written into a famous book series for the world to read about. So. Whatever.

"Daddy," Aika said, jumping up to me, "Look, listen, sweetheart." She put her hand on my leg and batted her eyes. Takeru snorted, "Mommy is making me go home."

"It's time to go home, that's why." I laughed, leaning down and picking her up. She started screaming and squirming and trying desperately to get out of my arms, but I just kissed her forehead and she screamed louder, but stopped squirming and instead tried to wipe my disgusting germs off of her face.

"Can I sleep at your house?" Aika asked suddenly turning to her uncle.

Takeru looked shocked, and then looked to me for an answer before answering himself, but I saved him the effort. "You have a soccer match tomorrow and you're going to lose if you don't relax and get home to sleep."

"If I don't win that means Nikko wins." Aika said very quietly.

"That's riiiight," Sora said, catching up with Shouta in her arms.

"And if you don't win we can't buy you any celebratory ice cream." Takeru said, swiping his fist through the air in fake disappointment... though maybe it was real disappointment. Takeru craved ice cream more than all of the pregnant women I'd ever seen combined.

"I get ice cream if I win?" She asked slowly. "Kay, let's get home." She squirmed out of my arms and slid to the ground. "Yokomon!" Yokomon wasn't far off and was quick to jump into Aika's arms. "We have to get home. We'll practice together before the game tomorrow, okay?"

"Sounds good!" Yokomon said brightly before letting her face fall, "Unless you're using me as the ball again."

"No, Mom bought a new one." Aika said laughing. I tried to pretend Takeru wasn't looking horrified at my daughter. It wasn't like we didn't punish her for using her friend as a ball. I didn't need the lecture.

I did however let my eyes wander until they caught sight of Gabumon and Biyomon who were walking toward us, the latter holding Tsunomon in her arms and talking to him comfortingly. Apparently Tsunomon was just as tired as Shouta, because both of them were in a state very near sleep. The way kids sometimes bob up and down and fail at staying awake, but try desperately anyway.

"Are we ready to go?" Biyomon asked, looking up to her partner and rubbing her head on Sora's leg affectionately, still holding Tsunomon.

"Of course." Aika nodded, turning to lead the way out of the room.

"See ya later uncle Takeru," Aika winked to Takeru then she left without another word.

"I guess we're gone," Sora laughed, "Bye Takeru," Sora smiled before rushing after our daughter.

I took one look around the room first, it was hard to believe another year passed so quickly, and hard to believe it had been twenty eight since our first trip. Every year celebrating so many anniversaries became hard to keep track of, and yet somehow, even with birthdays and wedding anniversaries and everything else, this was the one everyone cared about most. Not that there was a lot of time left of the night. Just another hour and a half...

I shrugged and waved to Takeru, letting Gabumon go ahead of me, and then leaving the waiting room. Today was possibly the least fun I'd had in a long time. Not only did we start a war that pitted me against my wife, there was also a lot of crying, and noise... not to mention bringing up horrid memories about how dumb I was in the past.

"You okay?" Gabumon asked.

"No," I laughed sheepishly, "I just don't like remembering the past."

"Oh," Gabumon said simply. I thought I'd offended him, so I just kept my mouth shut. I was tired and figured I'd just make it worse, and it wasn't until we reached the end of the hallway, but he spoke again. "I do." Was all he said.

"Do you?" I asked as cautiously as I could.

"I do." Gabumon said, looking up and thinking. "I like to think of the memories I have with you, and with Takeru and Patamon and Sora and Biyomon."

"Not my kids?" I asked with a grin.

"Oh them too," Gabumon nodded, "Of course them too!" He was practically frantic to make sure I understood that he liked my kids.

"I know," I laughed, "I know. I like to think of those memories too," I told him quietly, "I dunno. I guess I just don't like thinking about how sad I was." I shrugged it off as if it were nothing—which, honestly, now it was nothing, but at the time, it was definitely painful.

"Are you sad now?" Gabumon asked seriously without making eye contact. He knew me well enough to know he'd never get any honest emotional answers out of me if we made eye contact.

"No," I smiled, "I'm not."

"Then the sadness you went through to get here to true happiness is what you should be proud of." Gabumon said, "The journey you took was stressful and hard, but you made it here. You're here now in a world of happiness and of love, and you fought through the sadness all by yourself. You're very strong now because of it."

"I didn't do any of the fighting," I said, ruffling his fur. "That was all you."

"Well yes," Gabumon agreed without hesitation. "But that was all physical fighting. You fought your own battles alone."

"No," I said shaking my head, "That was you too. You helped me through. Couldn't have done that without you." Gabumon looked away immediately and I knew he was blushing, but he played it off well, staring up to the sky.

The night was warm and bright, like any other summer night, and I relaxed as we made our way to the van where Sora was doubled over inside buckling Shouta into his seat. It made me wince to see the damned van... I mean, I was all for family safety and all that, but I'd gotten rid of my motorcycle to get the van. Which was simply not a fair trade.

Gabumon threw the side door open and Aika laughed and giggled as Gabumon climbed over her, tickling her on the way to get to the back seat to sit with Biyomon, Yokomon and Tsunomon. Not that there were enough seat belts for all eight of us, but there wasn't much we could really do about that. I mean what were we supposed to do? Get a limousine?

I instinctively got into the passenger seat because I refused to be seen driving a van even by my family, and finally Sora was getting into the driver's seat.

"Nice of you to join us." Sora said coldly.

"Well it looked to me like you had it covered." I said quietly, unsure of where her comment was coming from. "I mean, Shouta hates when I buckle him in."

"Well you're not very gentle." Sora said with a shrug, starting the car and pulling out to start on our way home. Finally.

"I'm not as detail oriented as you. I just throw him in and buckle him in." I said, "Why does it have to be done smoothly?"

"Because he's a baby?" Sora pointed out.

"He's like four!" I argued, but kept my voice quiet. I looked to the mirror and saw that Aika and Shouta were both sleeping already. Apparently it had been quite a busy day for them.

"Are we mad at each other?" Sora asked sharply. "I mean I'd like to know." She was suddenly very timid and distant, "I don't know why we would be, but... are we?"

"Nah," I said, "I'm not mad at you at least. Maybe it's just all those dumb stories. We probably got caught up in all our teenage angst."

Sora laughed out loud using her beautiful, genuine laugh. "That was only a few years ago I'll have you know. We were by no means teenagers."

"We were teenagers at heart." I said with a smile. "I mean I was trying to be some lame rock star, and you were trying to understand the meaning of love."

"Both of those are still true today though." Sora said with a sly sort of smile and sideways glance.

"Ah, yes," I smiled back, "Well I guess we're still teenagers then. No need to get old anyway."

Sora was relaxed now, "Well you'd better call the teenage wolves—we're getting the band back together!" Sora laughed, but I just shook my head.

"No see, we may not have aged, but the boys have." I said with a worried expression, "Have you seen em?"

"I have." Sora laughed, "Though I wasn't going to say anything."

"Well I wasn't going to say anything to you either." I said, "But you're getting old too."

"Hey!" Sora laughed, "Well so are you Mr Rockstar."

"There's no one else I'd rather get old with than you though." I told her with a smirk, reaching over to grab her hand.

"Ditto." She said.

"Ditto?" I asked, "You're the digidestined of love and all you have to say is 'ditto'? No, 'I'll love you until the end of time' or 'You are the one, you always have been and always will be,'? Or how about 'You are the one I'd like to chase kids off my lawn with while clutching a dusty old broomstick and a battered rag shouting like a lunatic'?"

"That's what ditto means silly," Sora said squeezing my hand. "I do love you."

I beamed at her—I wasn't sure I could never get over hearing her say that. "Ditto."

Kurayami Motomiya: 11:05 pm

"I just think maybe if you tried smiling then the frustration would go away?" Hikari practically pleaded.

I responded with a snarl.

"Hikari's right." Labramon nodded.

"My husband won't give me my baby back." I said through gritted teeth. Which was true. I had the baby. I was happy. Daisuke took the baby out to meet Haruki and then just didn't come back!

Untrue. He slipped back in for a moment when there was an outbreak of an argument outside.

The door opened and Daisuke flung himself inside as if he were being chased by a madman, my baby wrapped in his arms. I was relieved to see this, so I tried to stand, but Hikari, always one to follow the Doctor's rulings, kept me still. Probably a good thing. There were nurses in the room doing whatever nurses do, and I didn't want them to restrain me.

"Oh good," I said, content with staying in my bed. "You've decided to return my baby to me."

Daisuke looked to me confused, "What are you talking about?" He asked.

"The baby." I said, "In your arms. Give it to me." I held my arms out, trying to keep a positive expression.

"Oh!" Daisuke laughed. "Right." I nodded laughing along with him. "This baby." He looked to the baby in his arms.

"Yes, that one." I said flatly.

"This isn't Yukai." Daisuke said firmly.

"What are you talking about yes it is that is my son I want him, I want my son." I was not happy anymore.

"No," Daisuke laughed, "that's funny you'd think that. This isn't Yukai though, no, no." Daisuke shook his head. "It's...Emiko's baby."

"That's not true you're a liar." I was speaking all my words quickly with no breaks as if they were all one word, and I didn't care because I knew the message was solid.

"No, not a liar, just a kidder," Daisuke said, "I was just kidding."

"Oh," I sighed, "Well I'm not in the mood, give me my baby."

"I'll go find him," Daisuke nodded, turning to the door.

"HE'S IN YOUR ARMS DAISUKE." I bellowed.

Daisuke laughed, "This is Shouta." And then he left.

Just like that. Gone.

"I want my baby." I declared.

"I know, I know," Hikari comforted me, patting my shoulder, "And if you let me leave I'll go get him for you."

"You can't leave me." I said, grabbing her wrist tightly. "I need the two of you to be around me right now. You know I fear nurses."

"Which makes no sense." Hikari said soothingly.

"When I was younger they chased me and stole my candy." I told her quietly.

"And I don't believe that at all." Hikari sighed. "Like, not at all."

"Well it was Halloween, and the little girls all dressed up as nurses and they took my candy and left me in the rain to cry. They called me a maggot." I explained. It was a bad day. I never liked that day.

"Why were you in the rain to begin with?" Hikari asked, "And why did they call you maggot?"

"Well I was dressed as a maggot." I explained.

"Well that's a... well..." Hikari stuttered, "Costumes are fun." She decided.

I glared at her. She was being so rude to me. How could she not love my costume? She just didn't understand the beauty of it, and I never would know beauty either because I didn't have my baby and I just really wanted him back.

Labramon looked up to me and chuckled, "Are you crying?"

"No that's dumb!" I shot, turning from him and wiping my eyes. "I just want my baby."

"Well, call someone else to come wait for you and I'll get the baby." Hikari suggested.

I gaped at her, "You want to steal my baby, too? Don't you?" I sat up straighter, "HUH? YEAH. I SEE RIGHT THROUGH YOUR LITTLE PLAN. You can't hide from me! I have a sister who rules all nine worlds."

"Norn!" Hikari reminded me her name. I knew her name. What the heck kind of a person did she take me for—oh. She was telling me to call Norn!

I snapped my fingers, "Norny-bear!" I called out.

A light appeared at the end of my bed and it grew into the familiar shape of Norn who was now in the body of an eighteen year old girl. She grew slower, but if she had to live forever I guess that seemed fair.

"I was wondering when you'd invite me over!" Norn smiled, "Where's the little squirt? I wanna see him!" I smiled maliciously.

"That's what I need your help with." I said slyly. "I need you to kidnap Daisuke and take him to a remote corner of the universe so I can have my baby back. It's up to you Norny-bear."

"Seriously, you need to not call me that." Norn rolled her eyes, and turned, "I'll get your baby back."

Norn left the room quickly, and Hikari looked to me, shocked. "You don't think she'll really take Daisuke away, do you?"

"Nah," I shrugged. "She never has. Not after that first time. It took her a week to find him. He got lost trying to find his way home." Hikari's jaw dropped, but I didn't care, because Norn was coming back into the room, dragging Daisuke by his ear. In his arms was my beautiful baby boy.

"Found him." Norn said with a smirk. She released Daisuke and took Yukai from him gently, and yet forcefully at the same time. She looked to the baby in her arms as she walked toward me and smiled to him as she set him gently into my arms.

Relief washed over me as I looked down to the ugly little potato in my arms. I loved him though. In a different way than I loved usual potatoes. Like in a way that I didn't want to put him in a bowl and mash him up to serve with gravy. I loved him in a—in a Haruki kind of way.

I looked up to my eldest son as he was now standing next to Labramon, Demiveemon on his head. "Do you want to hold him?"

"Oh so he's allowed to hold him." Daisuke whined.

I turned to him and saw the room turn dark around us as I hissed at him ferociously.

"N-no." Haruki shook his head, catching my attention and making me forget about Daisuke quickly causing the room to return to normal. "I don't want to hurt him."

"You won't." I assured him.

Haruki looked from me to the baby to Hikari and then back to the baby and nodded. "Yeah I'll do it." Slowly and bravely he reached to the baby in my arms and gently took him from me. Haruki froze as he beamed down at the little child in his arms. "He's cute." He decided.

Yukai lifted his arm ever so slightly and Haruki jumped, thinking the child was falling, and in doing so, the baby rolled out of his arms and cascaded toward the floor.

"MY BABY!" I shrieked, "YOU KILLED MY BABY!"

"No it's okay!" It was Veemon, holding Yukai above his head. I tore my baby away from him and back to my arms. "I caught him." Veemon looked proud.

"Thank God." I whispered holding Yukai tightly.

"I think I'll go now, if that's alright." Hikari said, brushing her hair behind her ears. "There're enough people here now to save you from the nurses."

"Okay," I nodded, "Thank you Hikari. So much. Goodnight!"

"Goodnight!" She called back, leaving the room, leaving room for Norn and Daisuke to take her side of the bed.

"It's not your fault." I assured Haruki quickly, "You didn't drop him on purpose. Don't worry, just be more careful next time."

"Next time?" Haruki asked, "Nu-uh. Never holding him again. I want him to live."

"Oh me too." I smiled.

"Okay," A doctor who was most certainly not Shin, nor Isao, said, popping into the room. "Visiting hours are over, you'll all have to leave now."

"Go away." I said, "I just had a baby. I need them."

"They can come back in the morning." The doctor told me.

The word morning rang through my head on repeat. Did he really expect me to stay overnight? Alone? In this tiny room with nurses patrolling the corridors. Nu-uh. No sir. Nope. I was getting out of here.

"I'll be going home too then." I said with a nod, sitting up and preparing to get out of bed.

The doctor laughed and came into the room, "Nonsense, you'll stay here over night. It's no trouble."

No trouble, huh? We'll see about that. The doctor then ushered Norn, Daisuke, Haruki, Demiveemon and Veemon out of the room. He didn't see Labramon at first because he hid under the bed in his noble attempt to go undetected, but Labramon was found and led out as well leaving me alone in the scariest place possible, holding my wonderful baby.

The doctor left and I threw the covers off of me and got up to make a run for it, but a nurse entered the door as I tried to leave.

"You should be resting!" She insisted.

"GET AWAY!" I shrieked, running to the opposite wall where I was backed up against a large window. "Don't touch me!"

"I-I... okay." The nurse nodded, "Are you okay?"

"How dare you ask me about my personal feelings." I said with a snarl. I looked to the window and saw Daisuke and the others at least four stories below, in the parking lot. And I had an idea.

"Goodbye my dear sweet nurse. I hope you have a nice life." I said, kicking the window open.

"NO!" The nurse cried out as I leapt through the open window, holding my baby close to me.

"LABRAMON SAVE ME." I demanded. Labramon was instantly in his mega form catching me gracefully and gradually so as not to disrupt my baby too much.

"MOM YOU FREAK!" Haruki laughed hysterically as Daisuke checked to see if Yukai was still alive. He was. Because I knew how to break out of hospitals.

"Let's go home." I smiled to the others, leading the way to the car.

Neo Saiba: 11:10 pm

I closed the door behind us as we stepped into our home. Dracomon was already off, flittering about the kitchen trying to find something to eat, Evelen was laying on the couch, still in her jacket and boots and I was still locking the door.

"Rough day?" I asked Evelen who looked up to me with raised eyebrows and then dropped her head back down again.

"That's an understatement." Evelen said, finally sitting up. "I had to give six people sponge bathes today." She shuddered, "Remind me again why I volunteer there?"

"Because you don't like getting people drunk every night by being a bartender so you thought it would a nice way to show you do actually care about people's well beings." I recited to her, the same way I would every night.

"Right, right," She smiled. "Well it is worth it." She decided, standing up and untying her jacket and taking it off. She strode across the room to hang it up and then started on her boots when she paused. She was thinking again.

"Something wrong?" I asked her as I made my way to the opposite end of the room.

"What?" She asked, looking up with a half hearted smile, "No, nothing." She said, unzipping her boots.

"Nothing is always something," I reminded her, "What is it?"

I knew it wouldn't take much coaxing to get her to open up. Honesty was a policy in our relationship, and it had been since day one. Although getting her tragic back story didn't happen until later, but still, in most cases, honesty was the policy and I knew she was about to tell me what was wrong.

She had her boots off now and she lined them up perfectly—our house was never a mess—ever. She stood and looked to me with a sigh. "I was just... wondering." She said, "Since you always seem so happy after spending time with your friends... are you sure you're okay without having kids?"

"Evelen," I said, breathing deeply, I moved across the room and hugged her, "Of course I am. Kids are gross."

"I agree," Evelen decided, "But even so, you love kids."

"I do," I told her honestly, "But I'm glad I don't have any of my own. But if you want one... we could talk about it?"

"Oh God no!" Evelen laughed, "No, I don't want any kids. I was just worried that..."

"I might leave you to find someone capable of giving me what I need?" I asked, and she nodded. "Well that would be really hard to find anywhere except for right here. You are everything I've ever needed. Well, you and Dracomon." I heard a muffled, "Thank you!" from the kitchen, "I don't need any kids. I don't want any kids."

"Maybe... one day we could invite more than just Nikko over?" Evelen asked, "I liked that one girl. The American one!"

"Louisa," I laughed a little, "Well she liked you too."

"I know!" Evelen joked, "Why do you think I like her so much?"

"Neo!" Dracomon called, "I need your help, I can't find the peanuts!"

"Move stuff around!" I shouted to him, "You didn't even look! Move stuff around!"

"I can't, I don't want to." Dracomon argued.

"Besides," I said to Evelen, retreating to the kitchen, "We've got this little dweeb."

Evelen laughed as Dracomon barked, "I heard that!"

"You were meant to!" I said in a sing song voice before grabbing the peanuts off of the counter right in front of Dracomon.

Kiyoko Izumi: 11:10 pm

"Next year, I say we just don't go," Hideto told me as he hung his black coat on his hook by the door. I was juggling Izumi and her large diaper bag, waiting for him to take one, so I could remove my own coat—white, long and water-proof. He had made fun of me when I insisted on packing coats before we'd left. 'We won't be there long, it's not going to get cold, we don't need them!' But I was right. It was nearing eleven, and the night's chill had set in. He'd asked for his coat immediately upon leaving the hospital. I'd thought about not giving it to him, saying I hadn't packed his since he thought we wouldn't need it, but I gave in when he turned his pleading eyes on me.

After so many years, he could still get away with anything.

"You say that now," I sighed. "But you'll change your mind."

"No I won't," he swore. "They'll just make us tell stories again. Why did we have to tell the stories? We don't lead very interesting lives."

"I think our lives are very interesting," I protested. "I live with you. We were evil, now we're good. I'm an architect, and you're a high school councillor. We've got a baby girl. And there're so many digimon in our day-to-day activities that it's ridiculous. We're not boring."

"We've got two of the most boring jobs ever," Hideto pointed out.

"Not to us. You love being a councillor. And architecture is my passion. It makes me feel alive in a way that only you've achieved otherwise. At least we're not accountants. That would definitely be boring," I said.

"I just wish we'd had better stories. I know most of those kids wanted real action, save-the-world type stuff. But I don't have any more of those. When did our lives get boring?" he complained.

I was still standing there, waiting for him to offer to take our daughter, only now I was glaring at him. "I don't think we're boring. I'm sorry I'm not interesting enough for you."

"That's not what I meant, and you know it," he argued.

"Yeah well, if you're going to complain about your lot in life, you could at least take your daughter so I could properly storm away," I snapped, shoving Izumi—as gently as I could since I was hoping she'd fall asleep soon, though she was stubbornly fighting it—into his arms, throwing her diaper bag on the floor, and ripping my coat off and dropping it on top of the bag. I then glared at him and stalked off. Yes, I was aware I was acting like a teenager, but I was tired, my daughter would probably be awake for another hour or two, so I wouldn't be allowed to sleep until then, and my boyfriend—because that's what he still was after years and years, and I thought life-partner sounded silly, since that's technically what Tapirmon already was and you couldn't really have two of them—was complaining that our life together was boring.

"Kiyoko!" Hideto shouted after me. I ignored him, and slammed our bedroom door, throwing myself face down on the bed. There was a gentle tapping. I knew it was Tapirmon. I called for him to leave me alone, but he ignored my requests, and came in anyway.

"Don't you think you're over reacting?" Tapirmon inquired.

"Probably," I admitted. Talking into the mattress. "But I'm mad. And it's not fair. We're not boring. We're not."

"Don't you think saving the world and peaceful living are very different things?" Tapirmon wanted to know.

"I know they are," I said, rolling over onto my back, starring at the ceiling. "But I like what we have now more than saving the world. I like that the world is safe and that we don't have to go around risking our lives anymore. I like that our daughter isn't going to know how scary it is to have to go out and save the world. I don't want Izumi to be exposed to forces like Sigma. I don't want her to ever be like me. I like being at peace. I don't want to see evil anymore. Not true evil. And I don't want her to see any."

"I think you're looking too deep into this..." Tapirmon said, trailing off.

"I'm exhausted, and I've been thinking about the past a lot today," I said with a sigh. "And I don't get why he's not happy with me. Aren't I enough for him?"

"You're really sensitive, you know that?" Hideto said, opening the door, holding a squirming Izumi in one arm. She'd been crying, and my heart sank, knowing that I was the probable cause. She caught sight of me and leaned over in Hideto's arm, stretching both her hands out towards me. I rolled off the bed, onto my feet and took her from him. I bounced her on my hip, refusing to meet Hideto's eyes.

"Oh come on!" he said, jumping onto the bed behind me. He was kneeling, bouncing, trying to get my attention, but I didn't want to give in.

"Kiyoko," Tapirmon tried.

"Listen, listen, listen," Agumon and Gabumon chanted, jumping on the bed on either side of Hideto. DemiMeramon was clearly asleep in his pot—turns out all bed materials are highly flammable, so we ended up with kitchen appliances on a hot pad—snoring. It was actually really, really annoying at first, but now I hardly ever notice it. The fact that Agumon and Gabumon both snored louder than him, and Hideto also snored made it easier to deal with really. They all claim that I snored too, but I don't think it's true. Also, we still hadn't gotten around to getting a bigger apartment. We kept talking about doing it, but we'd never let it amount to anything. We went out and rented a single bedroom apartment after Mari moved out of the Alias III headquarters, and haven't looked back.

"Kiyoko," Tapirmon said again.

"What?" I demanded.

"I love you," Hideto stated. "Don't doubt that."

"How am I not supposed to?" I said. "You said your life got boring after saving the world. We didn't get together until after all that. That means that I made your life boring. And now you're complaining about how boring it is. So you're complaining about me. And that makes me think that you resent me. And you don't resent people that you love."

"Wow," Hideto said. "You're just twisting all of my words. All of them."

"Am I though?" I asked.

"Maybe not," Tapirmon said. "You're wrong about him not loving you, obviously, but maybe you guys are kind of boring."

"Well, that's true," Agumon said. "We have way more fun than you guys do."

"You only go to work and take care of Izumi. And she's a cry baby, so she's no fun," Gabumon said. "You never go out together. Not alone anyway."

"You don't watch movies together," Agumon remembered.

"You guys don't own a TV," Tapirmon said. "You both work a lot in a week. Like almost all the time. But you don't spend your money on anything except food and shelter. Also, toys for Izumi."

"I buy concert tickets," Hideto protested.

"But that's all you can think of," Gabumon said, undoubtedly smirking.

"I pay bus fare," I said suddenly.

"No wonder he's bored with his life. If you thought about it, you'd be bored too. Concerts can't be the only source of entertainment," Tapirmon told me.

"Maybe," I said slowly. "But I like our boring life. I like hanging around the house after work, with just you guys. I like watching Izumi learn something new each day. I don't want to miss any of that."

"But...?" Hideto said trailing off.

"We'll talk later," I promised him. "I've got to get her to bed. Now get out of the bedroom. She won't go to sleep if there are witnesses."

"I'm holding you to it. I've got ideas," Hideto told me with a big grin. "And I'm looking forward to it."

"Yeah, yeah," I said, shoving him out of the room. Agumon and Gabumon followed him, laughing. Tapirmon lingered, before floating out of the room on his little cloud. I looked down at my daughter, holding her close to me, rocking her back and forth. I turned the lamp off and the night-light automatically. "You're not going to make this easy for me, are you?" I asked her. Her eyes were still wide open, and she seemed to be taunting me.

I was doomed.

But I was also really excited by the challenge, though I was kind of dreading the inevitable conversation.

Iori Hida: 11:15 pm

"I find it hard to believe that we spent the last twelve or so hours rehashing stories from our past," I sighed, heading to the refrigerator. Armadillomon was hungry, and though Kana hadn't said anything yet, I knew she was too. There hadn't been much to snack on after the food fight.

"Really?" Natsuni asked me, eyebrow raised. "You and Jou still meet each week to do exactly that."

"We only talk about what happened during the week between meetings," I corrected her. "Can you grab the rolls?" She shook her head at my clarification, but reached over to the bowl in the centre of the table she was seated at, opening the bag of rolls that was waiting there. She picked one out, and chucked it at me. I thanked my grandfather for his training, since it was due to that training that my reflexes went into action and I was able to catch it, just before it hit the ground. Natsuni giggled, and took another one out and tossed it far more gently. I caught it easily. I set them down, preparing to go get the fixings to make some sandwiches, but was hit in the back with a third roll. "What?"

"I thought you were making some for everybody," she said with a wink.

"Is this you asking for one?" I asked her.

"It's me asking on behalf of Goblimon, Upamon and myself," she said diplomatically. I rolled my eyes, but opened my hands, catching the rolls she sent my way. She debated throwing a sixth, and I nodded. If I was going to make a slew of sandwiches, I was going to eat one.

"I like when you tell stories, Dad," Kana said, adding to the conversation she didn't realize we'd been having. She was dressed in her pajamas now, white with little flowers in varying shades of red and pink. She was adjusting the little sleeping cap on Upamon's head, setting him down on the tray of his highchair—which Natsuni insisted we use for him, due to the sheer expense in buying it when Kana was a baby. "You know what else I like? Babies."

"Very nice," I said, spreading butter thinly on each side of the rolls, and getting the lettuce out of the fridge. "I like spending hours in the dojo with Meiyomon and Kotemon. It's good for bonding."

"I like watching movie marathons that last all through the night," Natsuni said dreamily. "Which I haven't been able to do since you were born..."

"I like sandwiches," Armadillomon added. "Iori's making me one. I'm excited."

"I like spending time all together," Goblimon said. "As a family."

"I like my night hat," Upamon said cutely. Natsuni cooed at him.

"That's not what I was getting at," Kana said grumpily. "Why don't I have a brother or sister?"

"Uh..." Natsuni and I said as one.

"I mean, yeah, Nikko doesn't have any either, but that's because there were complications, Taichi said so today," Kana said. "But Aika has Shouta, and Tenshi has Hiro, Makoto's got Chika and then there's Emiko and Renjiro, Iris and Madlyn, Louisa and Elliot. Mai has both Osamu and Taro. And now Haruki's got baby Yukai. That means you're not too old right? Since you're the same age as Kurayami. And she just had a baby. So...?"

"Was there a question hidden in there somewhere?" I asked idly. I sliced the tomatoes with a little extra force, and decided to add a side salad to our dinner. I had to use the tomato somewhere. I got the lettuce back out and waited for Natsuni to cave and answer our daughter.

"You know what I want," Kana said.

"How about a puppy?" Natsuni said. "No. We're not getting a puppy. There's too many of us here as it is, and I don't want a new puppy throwing off the dynamic. What about a fish?"

"I don't want no stinking fish," Kana said. "I want a brother. Or a sister. I'm not picky."

"Izumi and Nikko are both only children," Armadillomon pointed out.

"For obvious reasons," Kana pointed out.

"This isn't one of those battles where you can reason with us to ensure your victory," I told her firmly. "This isn't your decision."

"But—" Kana protested.

"No," Natsuni said gently. "Your father and I only ever wanted one child. And you turned out so beautifully. You're more than we ever imagined. And you're not alone. You've got Upamon, Goblimon and Armadillomon."

"It's not the same," she said, looking down.

"Isn't it?" I said. "My mother's digimon is my brother. And by the same logic, my grandfather's is my uncle. So why can't Goblimon and Armadillomon be your brothers?"

"I suppose they already are," Kana said, smiling softly. "And then Upamon is their nephew. Right? Since someday, Upamon with be the brother of my own kids?"

"Yup," Upamon said cheerfully.

"I'm glad you consider us siblings," Goblimon said sheepishly.

"You've been around my whole life. You and Armadillomon must be my big brothers. Oh, I feel sorry for whatever boy I decided to bring home in the future. I've got two big strong digimon looking after me," she said happily.

I finally finished with our meal and brought the plates over to the table. I'd forgotten to bring over water though, so I had to go get it. Natsuni snuck up behind me and wrapped her arms around my waist. "I'm so glad she didn't pester us," she said, kissing my cheek before going to grab Armadillomon and Upamon's special drinking dishes. Neither of them could actually hold a glass, but I felt a watering bowl wasn't dignified enough for members of our family. They weren't animals. So we had a glass blower create dishes, that were wider than normal glasses, and shorter, but still not bowl shaped. They were fun colours, at Armadillomon and Natsuni's requests. And when Upamon joined us, Kana got to go with Natsuni to make some especially for him.

"Me too," I murmured. "It was all very awkward. And she was trying to out logic us."

"We raised a smart girl," Natsuni said happily.

"She's not raised yet," I told her quickly. "There's still a ways to go yet. Don't rush her."

"Don't worry," she said. "I'm not ready to let her go yet either. We still have at least eight years with her."

"That doesn't seem very long," I sighed.

"Don't eat so fast, Upamon!" Kana scolded as Upamon choked down his sandwich whole. "You won't get to appreciate the flavours if you do."

"But I'm so hungry," Upamon whined.

"At least chew, okay?" Kana pleaded.

We didn't get to hear his answer though, because our door burst open and Meiyomon waltzed in like he owned the place. "You guys would not believe what I've been up to these last couple weeks." I rolled my eyes. No. I didn't know, but I knew he was about to tell me.

"Yay!" Kana cheered. "Story time."

Michael Washington: 11:20 pm

"Do you guys remember when Kiyoko told us about how he thought Hideto was his boyfriend but Hideto didn't even know?" Louisa asked as we all tried to make our final rounds through the house before bed time.

"Mhm," Tatum hummed patiently.

"Do you remember when the paparazzi tried to invade your wedding?" Louisa asked.

"No," I said sarcastically.

"Or when Yamato told Sora that he hated her, but he didn't mean it!" Louisa assured us all, "He could never mean it. He loved her the moment they met."

"That's likely." Elliot said just as sarcastically. "Love doesn't exist. At least not for eleven year olds which is how old he was when he met her."

"I'm eleven." Louisa said proudly, "And I love things."

"Like Haruki?" Elliot said, prodding Louisa in the shoulder sharply.

Louisa's jaw dropped and her hand clutched her chest in shock, she tried a few times to speak, but no coherent words came out, then finally, "I meant Mom. And Dad. And Hopmon and Chapmon."

"Love you too," Elliot rolled his eyes.

"You thought I'd include you in the list of people I loved after you so incorrectly assumed that I had feelings for one Mr Haruki Motomiya?" Louisa barked, "As if."

"Well, you can't love Chapmon then." Elliot declared, scooping his partner into his arms.

"But I do." Louisa said sharply, "I love him more than you love him."

"That's not true!" Elliot shouted.

"When was the last time you fed him?" Louisa asked.

"I'm teaching him independence." Elliot explained as Louisa collected her beads off of the marble and glass coffee table in the living room. I was doing my best to follow the two of them casually so I could make sure they didn't punch each other or something.

"He's a baby." Louisa growled.

"No, you're a baby." Elliot retorted oh so cleverly.

"Nu uh!" Louisa shot.

"Uh huh!" Elliot growled.

"Nu uh!"

"Uh huh!"

"Guys!" Tatum shouted, "What happened to earlier? You two weren't arguing then!"

"That's because Elliot showed me he had a heart." Louisa said with a shrug, "He joined the side of good against the evil king Jou leader of the baby haters."

"Yeah, because babies are cute." Elliot said simply

"So... since I'm a baby... you think I'm cute?" Louisa asked.

"Nu uh!" Elliot said quickly, his face turning red.

"Uh huh!" Louisa shouted, "You like me, you like me!"

"Nu uh!" He shouted quickly, rushing from the room, Chapmon in his arms.

"He likes me." Louisa smiled to me on her way by, Hopmon, fittingly, hopping after her.

Tatum sighed with a sense of freedom as she sat down on the couch. I understood how she felt. Kids were annoying. And dealing with like seven hundred in one day was a difficult feat. The kids I dealt with on set weren't this annoying.

But I did love my kids. Even though they sometimes made me want to rip my head off.

"Silence is golden." Betamon whispered, laying down in front of the coffee table as Monodromon nodded his fervent agreement.

"Can we get cages, and just keep the kids in them until they're old enough to love each other?" I asked. It was a joke. Seriously—I was kidding.

Tatum laughed because she knew I was joking. "No. Because they do love each other. They just have a text book brother-sister way of showing it." Tatum leaned over to me and rested her head on my shoulder. She was silent for a bit, breathing slowly, my arm around her shoulders.

"I'm so glad we have a full year between these events." Betamon said slowly, "I don't think I could handle any more than just the one."

"I agree." I laughed, "Maybe we could just leave the kids with a babysitter and just have the adults hang out."

"All those kids with one babysitter?" Betamon asked, "I guess it'd be cheap. Because the babysitter would be dead by the end of the day."

"Good point." I sighed. "Oh well. It was worth a shot."

"But the kids are what make it fun." Betamon said, "They're funny and cute and they still have life in them. If it was just you adults you'd all sit around and not know what to do."

"Are you calling me old?" I gasped.

"He's not wrong." Tatum giggled. "Gramps."

"I'm not even forty yet!" I said.

"Pretty soon you can play the floating-glowing Gennai in the show instead of the young fit attractive one." Betmaon joked.

"That's impossible." I said shaking my head, "I'm far too tall."

Betamon and Tatum laughed and then we fell into a blissful silence.

"MOM!" Louisa shrieked, "ELLIOT PUT HIS SNAKE IN MY ROOM AGAIN!"

"Ugh." Tatum and I groaned together, getting up in unison.

"You get the gloves," Tatum said, "I'll get the net."

"Deal." I shook her hand and we set off in opposite directions.

Hikari Takaishi: 11:20 pm

"I just don't see why I should have to clean up my room," Hiro was saying in his usual explanatory voice where he would draw words out longer than they ought to be. "It's not my mess."

I crossed my arms and leaned back in my chair, "Then whose mess is it?"

"Dad's," Hiro nodded. He checked over his shoulder to ensure that Takeru was still closed into his study, then turned back to me, "Yep, mhm." He nodded with a grin. Tenshi rolled his eyes from behind his brother and turned toward his bedroom which was down the hall along with Patamon's bedroom and Hiro's bedroom. Salamon rushed after Tenshi, not interested in Hiro's attempt to get out of chores.

"Though that's not entirely unbelievable," I said, leaning forward, my arms rested on the table, "I know it's your mess because your father doesn't play with your dinosaur toys."

"Okay, okay." Hiro nodded, "Can I clean it tomorrow? It's late. I'm so tired I think I might die."

"Yes, that's fine." I smiled to him.

"Okay," He grinned, "Can I have a snack?"

"You're far too tired," I relayed his information back to him.

"Not for eating!" He gasped. I gave him 'the look' and he backed down instantly, sliding off of his chair and retreating back down the hallway.

"Goodnight Hiro," I called after him before making my way from the kitchen on the main floor, downstairs and into the living room. The living room was sunken, as Takeru claimed it simply had to be, and I had to admit it was pretty cool. I slipped into a seat on the couch where Gatomon was watching television.

She was flipping through the channels with little to no interest in what was going on. "Why can't we live in the Digital World? What was that reason?"

I sighed, "There isn't one." I told her.

"Oh, right, right." She looked up to me with her wide blue eyes. I knew her reasoning. It was, in all technicality, still the digimon's duty to be looking after the Digital World. Sure, the worlds were in everlasting peace—but peace was not indefinite and it was not absolute. Neo had a fairly good team of Knights, but there was no telling what might slip under their radar and become a larger threat. Every now and then Gatomon, Patamon and the others were to go back to the Digital World and survey their sectors. Gatomon wanted to be in the Digital World so it would be easier to do. That and she didn't like Earth as much. Too many industries. The air was polluted. The noise was unbearable. Everything was unnatural. Or... too natural really.

"I told you, we're thinking about it." I told her with a gentle smile. "We might do what Jou did, and have a half and half house." I explained, and then we had a small banter about how Earth really wasn't important—but that's where my workplace was, and my family. Eventually we settled on the half and half house plan.

"Not that it's really my decision," She pointed out, "I'm just saying. I'd like to go home. But I want to stay with you. So..."

"I know," I told her, stroking her head behind her ear. "Wizardmon's here on Earth though."

Gatomon shook her head. "Hardly, he's a Knight, remember?"

"Oh, right..." I sighed, trying to think of something new to retort with, but I heard footsteps from above. Gatomon and I exchanged knowing looks and I got to my feet, jumped off of the couch and crept toward the stairs. I stood at the bottom of it and saw Hiro sneaking past the top of the stairs from the kitchen door. "Hiro?" He jumped and turned his head toward me, freezing in place, trying to pretend he wasn't there. It was hard to see, but it looked like he was holding something in his hand. "What have you got there?"

"Nothing." His distinctly full mouth tampered with the sound of his voice.

"Mhm," I said on my way up the stairs. He shot off back to his bedroom, and slammed the door shut, so I followed him to the door, and pressed my ear against it.

"What did you get?" Tokomon asked excitedly.

"Jackpot!" Hiro responded in a whisper.

"Ew." I couldn't be sure but I was fairly sure that had been Patamon. "We can't eat that." It was. "That's not a snack Hiro. I sent you on your first solo mission in hopes you'd bring something tasty. This is a blasted cucumber."

"But they're delicious." Hiro whined. "Besides, the treats are too high, you can fly, why didn't you just go?"

It sounded as if Patamon groaned, and there was some shuffling from inside before the door opened. "I guess I'll have to do it myself." Patamon was saying as he flew straight into me.

"Hey Patamon," I smiled, "Hungry?"

"Uhhhhh..." He drew his sound out very long, "Nope. G'night!" He shouted, flying off.

I looked into the room to see Hiro and I sighed at the sight of the toys cascading across Hiro's floor. He was hiding his cucumber behind his back, but I wasn't going to punish him for eating healthy. Besides, we hadn't had much to eat for supper, and I wasn't about to send him to bed hungry. "This place is a mess." I told him again.

"Tomorrow," Hiro promised as Tokomon held his breath looking very obviously between Hiro's back and myself.

"Goodnight Tokomon," I said, "Goodnight Hiro, enjoy your cucumber." I closed the door softly and I heard the muffled, shocked whispers from within. "How did she know!?" "She's got eyes on the back of her head!" "She's a sorcerer!" "A mind reader!"

I smiled and looked across the hall to where Tenshi's bedroom door was open just a crack. I reached for the door but stopped after hearing a crash coming from Patamon's room. "I'm okay!" He shouted. I laughed and knocked on Tenshi's door.

"Come in," His soft voice came. I looked inside and smiled at his perfectly organized room. He had a soft yellow rug under his bed and a dark wooden box at the end of his bed. The floors were clean, shining and made of light wood, his sheer white curtains hung straight to the floor, not entirely hiding the dark sky outside, but adding to the room which was painted yellow with white trim. His closet was closed, but I knew his clothes were hung up neatly, and in its place was his cello, in the corner with his wooden stool that he would sit on to practice. Tenshi however was sitting at his desk, his lamp on a dim setting shining down at the book he was reading. He finished his paragraph and turned to me, smiling, "Hello mother,"

"Hello Tenshi," I bowed politely. It was something the rest of us had come to do when in Tenshi's presence as a joke because he always acted so professional it just seemed like something we had to do.

"Did you come to say goodnight?" He asked me.

"I did, yes," I said, stepping forward and kissing his forehead. He smiled up at me, but it faltered quickly. He looked to me, his shoulders sagging slightly. "Is something wrong?"

He shook his head, "Well, no. Maybe." He looked confused, so he spun around in his wooden chair so he could face me. I sat down on the wooden box at the end of his bed. "I know you and dad were on the same side today in the battle between Jou and Emiko, but some parents weren't." He paused, "And, well, it got me thinking. What if you and Dad aren't always on the same page?"

"I'm not sure I understand." I said slowly, "I know your father and I will have disputes if that's what you mean. It's not possible to agree on everything."

"Like where to keep the eggs in the refrigerator." Tenshi said flopping his hand through the air with a small smile.

"Well they just don't go on the top shelf." I sighed, "That's just silly." Tenshi laughed lightly, but shook his head.

"I mean to ask you if you will ever divorce Dad." Tenshi said boldly and straight forwardly. I immediately shook my head, but he had more to say, "It's just... Grandma and Grandpa aren't together. They've each met someone else, but they got a divorce, and it ripped Dad and Uncle Yamato apart. I don't want that to ever happen to Hiro and I."

"You don't need to worry about that Tenshi." I promised, "I love your father very much, and I know he loves me."

"I know," Tenshi nodded. "I just wonder sometimes what life would be like if we had to separate."

"Don't," I said, standing kneeling to the ground in front of him and hugging him. "We love you, your brother and each other far too much to let anything happen to this family. Intentional or not."

"Thanks Mom," Tenshi said, hugging me back. I saw over his shoulder what he had been reading before. It was written on paper with messy and familiar writing. Tenshi noticed and he shoved it out of the way quickly, "You can't look at that."

"Why not?" I asked, hurt, standing up. Tenshi had never not shown me anything before. "Are you working on something? Can I see it when it's done?"

"It isn't mine." Tenshi admitted, looking to the door. "It's Hiro's. He wrote a poem. And he drew a picture... look." He looked to the door once more and slid the paper across the table guiltily. "Don't read the poem at least." He said, taking the page back, leaving only one page in my hand where there was a beautiful pencil drawing of a wolf.

"Hiro drew this?" I asked, staring in awe at the lines.

"Mhm." Tenshi hummed, "He's so good, isn't he?" I looked to Tenshi and saw he was smiling brightly. "And you can tell I'm not lying because there's a mustard stain on the page."

My eyes trained in on a gross yellow mark dangerously close to my thumb. "Oh, so there is." I set the page down and smiled. "Why didn't he tell me?"

"He doesn't want to make a big deal out of it I guess." Tenshi shrugged. "He never told me why it was a secret, I'm just guessing. But he doesn't like much attention. He gets even more flustered and clumsy than he already is."

"That's true," I smiled, "Well I hope he tells me for himself one day."

"Well I can't promise you that." Tenshi smiled, turning back to the poem.

"I know," I said, "Goodnight Tenshi." I said, kissing his head again. "I love you."

"Love you too Mom," He said brightly, back to his usual optimistic self.

Miyako Ichijouji: 11:20 pm

My kids were driving me batty. We'd spent a really long day in the Digital World, and then the hospital. Didn't they think I deserved to sleep at some point? I loved my kids. I loved spending time with them, and playing games with them, but I also loved the short amount of time at the end of the night, when I got to unwind after a day of running about and cleaning up after a pre-teen, a rambunctious eight year old, and a baby that was already attempting to crawl. I liked a bit of relaxation before going to bed. Mostly because I knew I'd be awoken only a few, short hours later by that same little baby.

"I can't believe how many exclusives I got today," Mai was telling Ken. "I hit the jackpot. No other journalist could ever get this many scoops in one sitting."

"Technically it wasn't one sitting," Ken pointed out, but our daughter was talking a mile a minute and elected to ignore him. She ranted and raved about how exciting it was to "finally" be getting ahead in her career. I very wisely didn't point out her age, but Ken apparently had no qualms about it. "You're twelve. You haven't been around long enough."

"You can never start too early, Dad. I'm just being ambitious. If I can get ahead of those stuffy old people, then why shouldn't I?" Mai demanded. "I deserve to be happy too. And I want to be a journalist, like Takeru's Mom. Only better. I won't have to write any exposés on toilet paper. No sir. Not me."

"You realize that you wouldn't be considered a hard hitting journalist if you published a bunch of personal memories of several celebrities, right? You might just be categorized as paparazzi, or you might just get given a gossip column, instead of what you want," Ken said gently.

"I just need something that will get my name known," Mai said. "I can work from there. As you said, I'm twelve. I've got time. I don't want to just be Mai Ichijouji—the digidestined's kid. That's all anybody refers to me as. Why do you think I don't have many friends? I don't trust anybody to be interested in me, rather than getting this sort of gossip. I figure if I'm the one that puts it out there, no one will ever have to ask me again."

"Mai," I sighed sadly. "Why didn't you tell us?"

"What could you do about it?" she said, raising her eyebrow at me. "If you showed up to lecture them, then they'd be getting exactly what they wanted. So instead, I ignore them, most of the time anyway. There have been a few altercations, girls thinking that by getting close with me they could be Haruki's girlfriend later on, boys thinking they could convince me to date them—and clearly they don't realize that I'm dedicating my time to my future career. I may have punched a couple of them. I'm not going to be a stepping stone for some airhead that thinks she can date my best friend. Not going to happen."

"D-date?" Ken asked anxiously.

"Yes Dad. Dates," Mai said rolling her eyes. "We're twelve. It's a very real possibility for most people my age. Heck, most of them have dated since kindergarten. Nothing serious yet, of course, but there's been a lot of hand holding going on in my grade, and a little bit of kissing when the teachers don't look."

"You haven't, right?" Ken wanted to know. I sighed at him. He was such a protective father, but didn't he know that things were a bit different from when we were kids? Dating was happening at much younger ages these days. He needed to get with the times.

"Didn't you just hear me Dad?" Mai said. "I'm focussing on my career. I don't have time for distractions. Now I'm going to go write my report and send it to a magazine for an exclusive. You guys don't mind do you? Great! Thanks. C'mon Poromon, we've got work to do."

Poromon looked up from the game he was playing with Taro—Poromon's own version of peek-a-boo—and nodded, muttering a goodbye before bouncing off down the hallway, after a rapidly moving Mai. I heard her bedroom door slam about thirty seconds later. I would give her twenty minutes before I make her go to bed. It was late. She could work on it tomorrow.

"Osamu," I called, looking for my little boy. His head popped up sheepishly from behind the couch. He'd been hiding since we'd gotten home. I figured he wanted to see how long it would take for us to notice he wasn't in bed. Clearly, it hadn't taken as long as he'd have liked. "Shouldn't you be in bed?"

"Uh-huh," he said, nodding his head sadly. "But I'm bigger than Taro and he never has to go to bed, it's not fair!"

"He's a baby," I said. "He slept all day."

"I don't like him," Osamu said grumpily.

"Of course you like him," I told him. "Someday you're going to be his hero. And he'll have to go to bed before you soon. You just need to wait until I wean him off of nap time. That won't be for a little while yet. He's only five months old. But someday, he'll go to bed at seven thirty, and you'll get to stay up until nine. How does that sound?"

"Like I don't want to be a baby," Osamu said with a grin. I was so relieved to hear him say that, to see that smile. I'd been worrying since I found out I was pregnant with Taro. I didn't know how the kids would feel about having a baby brother. There was a nearly eight year gap between Osamu and Taro. And twelve years between Taro and Mai. I didn't think they'd take to him well. I was afraid they'd try to get rid of him. I know that I was always worried as a kid that my parents would realize that they had too many kids and need to get rid of one. It wasn't something I came up with by myself either. Chiziru told me that if one needed to go, it would be me, since I was the newest, and therefore easiest to return. I was petrified for weeks before Mom caught on to Chiziru's scheme. And I was scared that Mai and Osamu would try to do the same to little Taro.

But I'd always wanted a big family. It had been too quiet with just Ken, Hawkmon, Wormmon and I. And once we had Mai it was better, but it wasn't enough. I needed another person to love, and we had Osamu. We'd always intended to have a third not long after Osamu, but it just wasn't feasible. Ken was starting up his own P.I. business and it had a pretty rocky start. It was awhile before anyone was willing to hire him. Once he'd gotten a few good cases behind his belt, things started getting better, but that took a good three years, and it was another two before we could loosen up our strict budget. It was hard feeding eight mouths on one salary. We knew we couldn't have gotten through it without all the overtime I'd put in at work. It was worth it now, but I knew that I could never have gone on maternity leave during that time, and so we had to wait for baby number three.

And in some ways, I feel like its better that we waited. Mai is older now, and more self-sufficient. She can babysit once I go back to work after my maternity leave ends. Unless she doesn't want to, and then our neighbour could do it, I suppose. Which might be better, since I've yet to convince Mai that she can change Taro's diapers if she'd like to.

But I do think we really ought to have waited before hunting down Taro's digimon. He was so small that he couldn't care for Leafmon, and Leafmon was small enough that he needed constant care.

I had three children, which was one less than my own parents had. I was missing me. Well, child number four anyway. I didn't have her, but there were five of us. No. There were ten of us. Wormmon, Hawkmon, Poromon, Minnomon and Leafmon counted. None of us could be here if it weren't for digimon.

"Mom?" Osamu called.

"Yes dear?" I said, realizing that I'd been staring at his face during the entire duration of my inner musings. I tried to make it look like I was looking past him, but thankfully he didn't seem to care about that.

"Can you, uh, tuck me in?" he asked nervously.

"I thought you were too old for that," I said, trying to suppress my smile. He'd come home from a sleepover at Elliot's house, with Nikko, Makoto, Hiro, Aika and Tenshi, one day and suddenly declared that he didn't want me to do that anymore. Apparently, they all claimed they were too old for it, when they realized that Elliot wasn't tucked in anymore. To my understanding, Michael and Tatum had a sort of free reign policy. They could go to bed whenever they wanted, but they had to be up and at breakfast at a certain time—to keep the kids from staying up too late. I would've loved that as a kid. As a mother, I can totally understand why I never got it. But Michael and Tatum had a far bigger house than Ken and I, so they probably could get their relaxation time whether the kids were in bed or not. Their kids were also the most mature kids I'd ever met. Sure they had kid moments, but they were really mature.

I envied them sometimes—like when Osamu colours all over the walls with the crayons and blames Taro, or when Mai starts screaming at me for even thinking that she could part with her old dolls—but I wouldn't change my kids for the world.

"Not yet," Osamu said softly, grabbing my hand. "I think Minnomon's scared of all the monsters in my closet and under my bed still, so we need you to check it out."

"Minnomon, huh?" I asked.

"Definitely Minnomon," he assured me. My little scaredy-cat.

No, I didn't have four children, but I had the three best, and that was more than good enough. For now.

Sora Ishida: 11:20 pm

"It's bed time Shouta," Yamato said stifling laughter as Shouta tried desperately in his sleep deprived state of mind to explain to us why it wasn't bed time just yet.

"But you should... uh..." He jumped up and down on his bed, accidentally bouncing Tsunomon as well as he searched frantically for something to keep himself awake with. "Read me a story!" He leapt off the bed and grabbed the first book Takeru had written.

"Not tonight, okay?" I told him, taking the book and putting it back on his shelf.

"Mom...?" He said quietly, climbing back on the bed. "Can I go on a adventure sometimes too?"

I looked to Yamato and we both smiled, I didn't think there'd ever be a need to send the kids on a life or death mission, but even so there was nothing keeping them from creating their own adventure one day, so I shrugged.

"Of course you can," Yamato said, "But not tonight. It's bed time."

"But I'm not tired..." He yawned, wiping his eyes as he hugged Tsunomon close to his chest, and laid back on his bed.

"Yes you are," I told him.

"No I'm not," He argued, but by the time he'd finished his sentence he was asleep. I smiled down at him and pulled the thin chain of his mushroom shaped lamp and shut the light off.

"Goodnight Tsunomon," Yamato said, his voice coming from the doorway.

"Goodnight!" Tsunomon hissed through the darkness.

I followed Yamato to the door and out into the lit hallway, closing the door behind me. I saw that Yamato was already on his way to the kitchen, probably to make a sandwich or something equally unhelpful in putting our daughter to bed. But I didn't mind.

I knocked on Aika's door and she hummed her response, allowing me to come in. I pushed open the door and saw, through the horrible disaster that was the mess in her room, Aika, on her knees searching for something.

"Mom," Aika said, stifling a yawn. "Where did you put my lucky underwear?"

I rolled my eyes. She was so unlike me sometimes. "I didn't put it anywhere. I didn't find it in your laundry hamper, so I couldn't wash them."

"Well I didn't put any clothes in the hamper." Aika said as if it were my fault, "You should just clean my room for me!"

"I'm not going to do that and you know it." I told her, "Look, we can find them in the morning, I suggest you go to bed for now, or you'll never get enough sleep."

"I won't have time in the morning." Aika said, "I'll be getting ready!"

"I'll find them!" Yokomon beamed, wiggling across the floor to Aika. "Don't worry. I wouldn't let you play a game against Nikko without your lucky underpants."

"You're the best." Aika said, patting Yokomon on the head. "Now, mom, if you don't mind, I'd like to go to bed."

"O-Okay." I nodded, turning to the door.

"But first kiss me goodnight." Aika said quickly as she leapt into her bed, throwing off some empty boxes that once had chocolate inside. She pulled a ratted pink and blue bear from the crack between her bed and the wall and held it tight. I smiled to her and started the adventure across the uneven terrain and kissed her forehead when I finally got to her. "G'night Mom." She said, rolling over.

"Goodnight Aika," I said to her, working my way back to the door, tripping on something that I was too scared to look back at. I was pretty sure it had moved on its own.

I shut the light off and started leaving when Aika spoke up.

"Mom," She blurted out. "Mom wait." I turned back into the room, but didn't turn the light back on.

"What is it Sweetheart?"

"I... am sorry," Aika said, "Sorry for saying your stories were stupid." Well I hadn't actually told any stories today, but I knew what she meant. "I don't think they're stupid. I like hearing about you and Dad..."

"You do?" I asked, dropping my jaw a little.

"Yes," Aika said after a moment of silence, "I love you Mom."

"I love you too Aika," I smiled. "Goodnight."

"Mhm..." was all she said. I rolled my eyes as I closed the door to the room. She could be so much like her father sometimes. Not that it was a bad thing. Just difficult sometimes.

Speaking of difficult... In the kitchen I found Yamato trying desperately scraping at the mayonnaise jar trying to make a sandwich, but just this morning he had emptied the mayonnaise. And so I told him there was more in the cupboard, but he didn't listen, and now he was frantic, hoping to get enough mayonnaise for his sandwich...

I grabbed some from the cupboard and placed it in front of him.

"Ah, you're beautiful." Yamato said, dropping the jar he was holding and reaching for the new one.

"Thank you," I winked to him.

"I was talking to the mayonnaise." Yamato joked, wrapping his arms around me from behind and pulling me toward him, "But you're not so bad looking."

"Really?" I asked, "Because I have this weird scar on my arm and—"

"Scars are what you should be proud of." Yamato said, "The journey you took was stressful and hard, but you made it here. Scars are proof of the battles you faced."

"You stole that from Gabumon didn't you?" I laughed as he kissed my cheek ignoring the fact that once again I saw right through him.

"You know what Sora?" Yamato said quietly, "I'm proud of us."

"And why is that?" I asked, eyeing up Yamato's sandwich as he returned to making it.

He turned his back on me and sighed as he opened the refrigerator, "Well, we were pretty slow, but after years and years of stupidity we really came out on top. We have two beautiful children, our digimon get along wonderfully, a house that is perfect for the two of us, we both have our dream jobs—I've been to space for Heaven's sake."

"You went to space for the sake of Heaven?" I asked, "Did you find it?"

"Sora," Yamato laughed as he threw some kale onto his sandwich, "I'm serious. We really came out on top. We've got everything we could ever need."

"We've got each other," I added to his list. "No matter how cheesy it is to say."

"Cheese!" Yamato clapped his hands together and turned to find some cheese for his sandwich. "And it's not cheesy. It's true. We've finally got each other. We ploughed through everything fate threw at us, evil digimon, the end of the world, death, douche ex-boyfriends and, well, we still both managed to be friends with Taichi—and we're in love and together and... I dunno. I love it. I love being happy." I didn't say anything, just laughed as he leaned in to kiss me. When he turned back to the fridge Biyomon pushed open the kitchen door and flitted across the floor as I snatched up Yamato's now finished sandwich and went to take a bite.

"I'm hungry Sora," Biyomon said.

I froze and looked to the sandwich that was so close to my mouth now and handed it over to her with a smile.

"But this is yours!" Biyomon said, shaking her head, you keep it.

"No," I said, "I insist. I'd do anything for you Biyomon, you know that." Biyomon smiled at me and just went straight ahead eating the sandwich.

Yamato turned around excited to eat his sandwich and gasped at the empty plate, and upon seeing Biyomon with the half eaten sandwich he raised one eyebrow to me and I jumped toward him and dragged him to the middle of the kitchen.

"I'll make you another." I promised him, throwing his arms around me and I started dancing.

"Well I do have experience waiting." Yamato joked, "And if I had to wait, I'm glad to have been waiting for you."

"And of all the times you've said goodbye, this one hurts the most, because I know you're coming back to me but we've only just returned to the way we used to be." I finished the quote of the song he wrote me so many years ago—right before I left for school.

"You know all my tricks," Yamato joked.

"I like it that way." I told him as he held me closer, still swaying on the spot.

"I thought you liked spontaneity." Yamato said, confused.

"Well I do." I told him, "But I know you inside and out, and you know everything there is to know about me. There are no more plot twists. This is endgame. This is what we've been fighting for."

"You should have said yes the first time I asked you." Yamato sighed, "We could have had this sooner."

"It would have been different though." I told him, pulling away a little and looking him in the eyes. "And I wouldn't want to change a thing. I'm happy just where we are."

"Ditto," Yamato smirked kissing me once more. He pulled from the kiss and clapped his hands together, "So about that sandwich?"

"Alright," I laughed, "But could you turn the heat up?" I asked him, "it's kind of cold." Yamato nodded and headed for the thermostat while I reached to make a sandwich.

"You two are so cute." Biyomon said, startling me, I had forgotten she was there. "I'm happy you're happy too Sora."

"I'm happy you're happy," I told her in return, but then covered my mouth with my hand in shock. "I can see my breath! It's August!"

"The weather might be broken?" Biyomon asked, still not entirely understanding human technology even after all of these years.

"Maybe," I agreed with a smile, "Do you want to ask Gabumon if he wants a sandwich before bed?"

Biyomon left immediately, and I was alone for the first time in nearly a week. I knew it would be short lived so I made the most of the situation and took in the quiet. It was nice to know that even with all the children, relaxation was still possible. But I was glad to have the kids and I was happy with the way things turned out. No matter how hard you try to change it, fate always has a clear plan in mind.

And really, I thought as I looked around to the pictures hanging on the wall documenting the years of our lives, fate really does know what it's doing.

Hideto Fujimoto: 11:30

I'd been waiting on the couch for a good long while, waiting for Kiyoko to get Izumi to sleep. Yes, she was a handful. But she didn't usually take this long. Not after an exciting day like this one. I was starting to think he was avoiding me again. It took nearly half an hour, before he finally emerged, looking completely exhausted, and not at all triumphant.

"Still awake?" I asked.

"Still awake," he said sounding frustrated.

"Well," I said. "If we ignore her for a little while she might get the hint."

"I don't know if I can ignore her though..." Kiyoko said, looking to the bedroom wistfully.

"We have a talk to have," I reminded him.

"I don't wanna," he said grumpily. He crossed his arms and plopped himself on the couch between Agumon and Gabumon—clearly trying to find a spot I couldn't get near. I took that to be a sign that he was still mad. I sighed.

"Well, we gotta," I told him. "You're mad. I get that. You feel slighted, and it makes sense. But its how I feel. We're boring. Not just as a couple, but in general. We sit at home and talk. We're talked out, Kiyoko. We need more."

"Why haven't you said anything before?" he wanted to know. "Why did you wait until now? We could have fixed things, if you'd just said something."

"We're not breaking up," I told him bluntly. Then I paused. Did that seem too demanding? "Unless...you know, you want to."

"No!" he said quickly and loudly. Izumi started crying for us. She didn't want to be in her crib. She didn't want to go to sleep. Kiyoko winced, and Tapirmon looked ready to float to the bedroom, but I stopped him with a glare.

"Do you even need us here?" Tapirmon said with a pout.

"Yes," I told him. "I have ideas, remember?"

"If you don't want to break up, then what's the problem?" Kiyoko said, though he seemed much more relaxed now.

"You need fun," Agumon said in my place. "We all need to do fun stuff."

"Like what?" Kiyoko asked warily.

"I had so many things I wanted to do, but then I put them off because of school, and then we got Izumi, and I love that we did. Never doubt that for a second, but I still want to do all sorts of things," I said. "I want to go all over the place, doing cool things that'll get my blood pumping. I want to train and try the Tour de France, and I want to go to Spain and experience the Running of the Bulls. I want to go skydiving, parasailing, skiing. I want to swim with the dolphins. You know how you can be put in a cage and then go down and see the sharks? I want to do that."

"That all sounds like dangerous stuff," Kiyoko pointed out. "What about Izumi? She can't do any of that."

"That's the beauty of it," I announced. "We plan trips that have nothing to do with those things, and I just do them while we're there."

"I want to see big cities," Gabumon said nervously, as though we'd shoot his ideas down. "I want to see them all over the world. The really big ones like New York, and Rome, and Paris."

"I want to see Earth," Agumon decided. "Just whatever Earth has to offer. Mountains, oceans, rivers, forests, and just whatever. I want to see the animals, see how different they are from us Digimon."

"That sounds good," Gabumon agreed. "And we could go exploring!"

"Yeah!" Agumon cheered.

"I think we should go see the Digital World," Tapirmon suggested softly. "I haven't really seen all that much of it yet."

"But you're a Digimon," I said, confused.

"He is," Kiyoko said, when Tapirmon looked too embarrassed to explain. "But he wasn't born in the Digital World. The fairy that wanted to recruit me created him out of a cloud. She formed his data right on the spot. He's not recycled data, he doesn't have memories stored in his code. He's younger than most Digimon are."

"Interesting," I said. "I wonder if my fairy created you two..."

"I don't think so," Agumon said.

"But I don't know for sure either," Gabumon told me.

"I want to see my home world," Tapirmon said. "I want to climb Infinity Mountain. I want to ride a Whaemon across the oceans. I want to explore File Island and the Continent of Server. I want to see it all. I want to know where I come from—where I should come from anyway. I want to meet other Taprimon in the Digital World, find out their stories. I want to know if their stars are the same as these ones. I want to know how the seasons differ, find out where it came from. Discover something that's long been lost."

"That sounds beautiful," Kiyoko assured Tapirmon. "And doable. Izumi could even come with us. We could camp out for a week, exploring new terrain. That would be easy."

"But we're not just going camping," I told him. "We're going to make lists, and do everything on those lists."

"That sounds like a lot of work," he said slowly. "And expensive...and...and...and can I please go and get Izumi? It's driving me crazy, listening to her crying and just not getting her."

"How will she learn to sleep through the night if we always coddle her?" I asked him, rolling my eyes.

"Fine," he sighed. "But if she's still crying in five minutes..."

"You can get her," I allowed. "What about you though? What do you want to see? To do?"

"I don't know," he said. "I guess...I'd like to see the Great Wall of China."

"And I'd like to walk it," I said. "So that'll work."

"And Beijing is there," Gabumon added.

"Where can we climb a mountain?" Agumon wanted to know.

"Peru," Kiyoko said quickly. "At the top of one, there's Machu Picchu, an ancient civilization that I'd like to see."

"Start a list," I told him. "Just say whatever comes to mind."

"The Eiffel Tower," he said. "The Coliseum. The Leaning Tower of Pisa. The Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo—I guess all of the Louvre, the ROM. Stonehenge, the Paris Catacombs, the Golden Gate Bridge, Big Ben."

"The zoo, a safari," Agumon added. "A great big waterfall."

"London, Venice, Toronto," Gabumon listed.

"Coela Beach, Dragon's Eye Lake, Factorial Town," Tapirmon said.

"I want to go parachuting, surfing, snorkelling," I said. "White water rafting. I want to zip-line through the Rain Forest."

"I want to see the Aurora Borealis!" Kiyoko said excitedly. I was glad to see he was finally getting into it. "I want to see the Great Migration in the Serengeti."

"I want to ride a hot air balloon," Agumon said.

"A plane, a train, a cruise boat, a bus," Gabumon cheered.

"And I want Izumi to see it all," I said. Kiyoko looked at me and smiled. "We'll take loads of pictures, videos. We'll buy souvenir sweaters, and when she's got enough, we'll get Sora to sew them together into a quilt for her."

"And when she's big enough, she can join in on the not-so-tourist-y stuff," Gabumon agreed. "She can go snorkelling and skiing and surfing."

"And can zip-line over the trees with one of us," Tapirmon said. "And if anything goes wrong, we can just digivolve and get her out of there."

"You know," Kiyoko said. "It might be better to ease into these crazy adventures. Start small?"

"I like the sound of that, adventures," I said, closing my eyes and picturing it. Agumon and Izumi are standing on the beach, an abandoned sandcastle behind them, their shovels and bucket thrown about. They peer excitedly into a tide pool, gasping at the pretty starfishes, and looking in awe at the sea anemones. The water glistens off the shell of the mussels, and the little sea palms stood proud, scattered throughout the nearly waterless pool. Agumon reaches over to stop Izumi before she can fall in—having climbed up the side in her excitement, scratching her bare feet against the rocky terrain. Sand coats her skin, and covers her little pink bathing suit, her towel long forgotten. Gabumon has found a crab, and is mimicking it's ever action, laughing to himself every step of the way. He's still wearing his fur, despite the high temperatures—he doesn't feel comfortable without it. Not far from him is a cooler, filled with beverages, the ice long melted, because Gabumon hadn't replaced the lid. Tapirmon is drifting along the shore, picking up every shell he finds, explaining to DemiMeramon what type each are, and what creature it used to belong to. DemiMeramon isn't listening though. He's too busy laughing at Kiyoko's attempts at snorkelling. He can't keep his head under the water for more than ten seconds. And he doesn't like the feeling of the little fish nibbling on his legs and toes. But he's caught sight of a school of bright, tropical yellow fish and he's sure he's seen a glimpse of a tortoise, and he's far too curious to quite now. I can see it all, of course, because I'm strapped to a parachute, and attached to a boat with a thick rope. I'm having the time of my life, and I know I can't wait to tell Mimi all about it, to convince her to give it a shot.

It would be a story worth telling. A fun adventure just for our little family.

"I can't wait," I said with a smile.

"So..." Kiyoko said, drawing the word out, his lips pulling into a bright grin. "Where do we go first?"

"I know just where to go," I said. "How do you feel about the beach?"

Mari Goutokuji: 11:30 pm

"Izoo is my friend." Madlyn was telling Lopmon. "Really."

"Mine too." Iris assured Terriermon.

Madlyn was cuddling with Lopmon and Gummymon in her bed on one side of the room that was painted bizarre colours, just the way she wanted it, while Iris was on the subtle pastel coloured room with Terriermon and Budmon. Not that they needed to share a room, there were enough rooms in the house. Now that Jenna was gone, there was her old room, the room that Hikari once used, that I eventually took over, Michael and Tatum's old bedroom, and the bedroom that had always been left empty. The girls were sleeping in Willis' old bedroom, as he and I had moved into the master bedroom finally—his mother's room.

"We're all friends." Iris said, looking to Madlyn.

"Mhm!" Madlyn agreed.

"They're so bloody cute." Willis whispered into my ear. I jumped in surprise. I had gone off to the bathroom but stopped on the way after hearing them talking instead of sleeping. But he wasn't wrong. It was like a cute little bundle of joy and adorableness in each bed. "Did you have fun peeing?" He asked me.

"I got distracted." I told him.

"Well you missed your chance." He said, backing up, "My turn now. I've really gotta go." He was gone a moment later, leaving me and my full bladder to find something else to entertain us.

I made my way down the hall and decided on going outside. I headed quickly down the stairs, then slipped behind them and out the sliding glass doors. I closed my eyes tightly as my stomach seized up. This was where I had been sitting the second time Lalamon had died in front of me.

And outside, in the place where she actually had died, there was a single flower. Willis nor I had planted it, and it never seemed to die. It was tall, and pink with big thick green leaves. I walked forward and sat down next to it, and sighed, leaning back into the grass and staring up at the stars.

"You know Lalamon," I said quietly, "I miss having someone as calm as you around." I waited an appropriate amount of time before continuing, "You know what I mean. I love Willis. I love my girls. I even love the digimon. But I miss you." Again, she was obviously unable to respond so I continued, "I'll figure it out though. I'll get by."

"Well I'll be here to help you through that." It was Willis, flopping down on the grass next to me.

"I know," I said, pushing him in the side playfully before rolling on my own side to be closer to him and look him in the eyes.

"I'm serious." He said, "I'm here."

"Are you?" I asked, "I thought you were in Spain."

"Spain?" Willis asked, "Nah, Spain's not for me. I'd much prefer Iceland."

I smiled at him and relaxed, my head on his shoulder.

"Mari," Willis said slowly. "I'm happy."

"I'm happy you're happy." I smiled.

"Well I was gonna say I was happy because you were happy." Willis laughed, "But I guess this works out well, doesn't it?" I laughed, but then he added, "Seriously though. I'm happy you're in a safe state of being."

"Stop being so lame and romantic-like." I said, but I couldn't deny I was happy he'd said it.

"Well let's talk about something else then?" Willis asked.

"Okay..." I said slowly, "Ooh!" I jumped up into a sitting position and flipped around to face him. "Guess who was just hired as the neighborhood's garbage men?"

"We're in New York City, Mari, we'll need more than one garbage man."

"Men." I corrected him. "There are three."

"No..." Willis said, sitting up, a smile spreading across his face. I nodded, "Seriously?" He asked.

"Yep!" I said, "Richard, Tyler and Marshall." Willis fell back into the grass and laughed.

"That's priceless." He said through his laughter. "What are the odds that the three of them were hired?"

"Oh, no you misunderstood." I told him, "They're not getting paid."

"No?" Willis asked, confused, perked up and propping himself up by his elbows. I shook my head and bit my lip to avoid smiling, "Then what?"

"They got out of jail on good behaviour." I told him, and again he was laughing, "Their punishment is community service. They have to clean up New York City."

"That's the funniest thing ever," Willis roared with laughter, "I'd stay in jail!"

"I dunno," I shrugged, "But I might help them out a little."

"Yeah?" Willis asked, confused.

"Yeah, give them something to do." I nodded with a grin, "We've got some junk we could lay out in the park for them to clean up." Willis was laughing again and I relaxed, laying down beside him. He went on for the next few minutes about how funny this new information was, and I listened and laughed along with him all the while, staring at the mysterious flower as it glowed under the light of the moon.

There was a small gust of wind and the flower shook and a small speck of shimmering golden dust flew out into the wind.

I sat up quickly, staring to the flower and a grin split across my face.

Koushiro Izumi: 11:35 pm

"If you value your computer, I think you should probably come and take it from Mimi," Palmon told me, pulling my attention away from the reports I was reading. There's no rest for the weary. And Taichi really needed these finalized before the next meeting—which was coming up quite quickly, and I hadn't had much of a chance to read them through.

But I did value my computer, so I put them down with a sigh, and followed Palmon to the kitchen, where Mimi was seated at the island, muttering viciously at the screen in front of her.

"Don't know what I'm supposed to do," Mimi was saying. "Why can't you be straight-forward? Huh? Why not? Because you're stupid, that's why. I don't even know why I'm doing this. No. I do know why, but that doesn't mean I have to give you the satisfaction. I will be victorious you useless website. I. Will. Win!"

"Mimi," I said. "What appears to be the problem?"

"This stupid website won't sell me the tickets I need," she said, her frustration was quite evident in the tears forming in her eyes. "I need these tickets. Why can't it understand that?"

"You're going to wake the kids," I told her. "Why don't you take a deep breath and let me know what I'm dealing with, okay?" She glared at me, but took a deep breath anyway. "Good. I realize you're attempting to purchase tickets. But what are they for?"

"The amusement park," she said. "I promised to take the kids to make it up to them, and I intend to keep my word. And since I didn't want to forget, I thought I'd buy them now. But the website keeps telling me I filled in the spaces wrong and I don't get it!"

"Okay," I said, taking one glance at the screen and realized that she was attempting to purchase today's tickets, which would be entirely useless to us—which is what the red letters at the top of the screen were telling her. Instead of pointing out the obvious, I decided inquiry would work better, and so I asked "What day do you want to go?"

"Tomorrow," she said, looking at me confused. "But what's that got to do with it?"

"Just curious," I lied, inputting the newly acquired data in, and the computer allowed me to put the order through. "We just need to print these off now."

"No way," she said. "There's no way you did that. I've been trying for the past twenty minutes."

And that's when her intentions dawned on me.

"Tomorrow?" I asked miserably. "I don't want to go to the park tomorrow."

"It's too late now," she said. "I've written it on the calendar." And I'd bought the tickets too. Damn. It was too late.

"You couldn't have waited a week? Today was exhausting. I've no doubt the kids will appreciate the early morning—they actually enjoy the rides. But I'm not looking forward to being your pack mule. I've got work to do, reports to read. Taichi needs them by Tuesday, and that only leaves tomorrow," I said logically.

"But it's a Monday," Mimi said, as if that were explanation enough. "And no one goes to the amusement park on a Monday. That means there won't be any long lines, and the kids can go on all the rides they want as many times as they want. That means I'm the best mom ever, that means they'll love me again, and won't hold this banishing thing over my head for the rest of my life."

"Do you want me to be honest?" I questioned her.

"Not really," she said with a sigh. "But you will be anyway. Proceed."

"They will hold this over your head," I told her. "They now know that by mentioning it, you will do whatever they desire to make amends. And eventually, when they stop using it to manipulate you, it will be something they joke about. You're never going to forget it happened."

"I know I won't," she said miserably. "But I wish they would."

"Mimi," Tentomon called, walking into the room. He was very careful after the kids' bedtime to keep his feet on the ground. We discovered early in Makoto's life that the buzzing of Tentomon's wings could wake my son no matter where in the house Tentomon was. The sound just called to Makoto. Now, in the interest of letting us all get some rest, Tentomon simply walked. He was much better at it now than he'd been in the past. He had a poor grasp on his equilibrium and was constantly falling over.

"Yes," Mimi asked.

"Motimon had a nightmare," Tentomon said sadly. "And he does not wish for me to comfort him. Evidently, I am not comforting. He wants you."

"I'll be right there," she said concerned. "I wonder what's bugging him."

"From what I gather," Tentomon said. "It has to do with Mari's story. He does not wish to lose his partner, and he doesn't want Chika to lose him either. I wouldn't be surprised if Chika wakes up soon too."

"They are on the same wavelength," Mimi said with a sigh. "I'm going to get some milk. He likes that. You might want to get some sleep Koushiro, sweetheart. You're going to need to get up early tomorrow."

"Sweet talk will get you nowhere," I assured her.

"And what about kisses?" she said, batting her eyes at me, exaggerating the motions.

"They've proven to have better success," I assured her. She leaned down and kissed me once, before rushing to the fridge.

"If that didn't work, you'll have to wait until later. There's a baby up there who needs me!" she said cheerfully, grabbing a tumbler cup and filling it with milk. "I'll be back when he's ready to let me go. Remember to set the alarms, because I won't, and I don't want to miss out on any rides." She blew a kiss to Palmon and Tentomon and flitted out of the room. I could hear her make her way up the stairs. Slow footsteps, trying to keep her weight off of the floor, so she wouldn't wake Makoto. I was so glad that Chika wasn't the same as her brother. She could sleep through a tsunami if given half a chance.

I sighed. "Well, she's gone."

"She is," Palmon said, jumping onto the stool beside mine, looking to the computer screen, seeing the tickets that were taunting me. "Eight tickets. That means we digimon have to go too."

"Of course you're going," I said, as though the thought were preposterous—which it was. "We never have family outings without you. We couldn't. You're just as big a part of this family as any of us."

"I know that, silly," Palmon said. "I just don't like rides."

"I do," Tentomon said. "Because I know that nothing bad can happen to me. And if the ride freezes and everyone gets stuck, I can just fly down to safety."

"I don't like my feet leaving the ground," Palmon told him. "I'm a plant. I'm not meant to fly."

"Unless you're Lilymon," Tentomon pointed out smugly.

"But she's a plant fairy. Fairies are supposed to fly," Palmon said, rolling her eyes. "Why don't you like them Koushiro?"

"I get motion sickness. And I don't see why I need to go at all. They've gone plenty of times without me in the past. Mimi knows how ill I get. The last time I attended an amusement park was on our one-year wedding anniversary, at her request. I spent most of the day bent over a trash receptacle," I complained.

"I brought you home at four," Mimi said, sneaking up on us all. She was holding a dozing Motimon. He had one of his three fingers in his mouth, and he curled himself as close to Mimi as he could. "I made you chicken soup, and we watched our favourite show together for the rest of the night."

"I suppose the memories of that day aren't the worst," I said, remembering the day. We still had a poster for that show up on our wall, above our bed. Space travel and unicorns, it was a classic.

"I'll say," Mimi said smiling at me. "I seem to remember the soup becoming a tradition."

"It's my favourite," I said. I had to smile back at her. Her smile always had the ability to remove any control I had over my own. It was an impulse.

"I checked, and I have all the ingredients necessary," Mimi told me. "I think I know what we're having for dinner tomorrow."

"Now you're really just trying to butter me up," I said, feeling any protests I still had flee my mind. I really liked that soup.

"Is it working?" she asked coyly.

"Well," I said. "I've got to get to bed. We've got an early morning tomorrow."

"Yes!" she shouted in excitement. All of us froze. I strained my ears, and swore. Makoto was awake.

Ken Ichijouji: 11:40 pm

"Goodnight Mai," I said. She was already asleep, but I said it anyway, leaning down and pressing a small kiss to her forehead. I found Poromon sharing her pillow and kissed him as well, covering him up with his own little blanket that Mai wouldn't steal. She was such a cover hog. Her room was what I would call organized chaos. There were crumbled up papers everywhere, and we'd covered her walls with corkboard, so that she could pin "important documents" to them, also posters. She had at least seven posters hanging up. I planned on taking a peek at her "article" but couldn't find one anywhere. I sighed. I'd have to wait then.

I tiptoed out of her room, and nearly ran into Miyako, who was checking on Osamu.

"She asleep?" Miyako asked.

"Yeah, him?"

"Like a little baby," Miyako told me.

We both burst into grins. Finally, we'd have a bit of peace and quiet. Or we thought so, but we realized that Hawkmon and Wormmon were having a bit of difficulty with Taro downstairs. Why did I always forget that he was the biggest handful of the lot of them? We sighed and walked down the stairs.

"I can't get him to stop," Hawkmon said, sounding exasperated. He had wrapped his wings around the baby, and was bouncing him, but Taro wasn't interested. He was crying—not wailing yet, thankfully—and he definitely wanted something.

"None of our games are calming him down," Wormmon informed us. Wormmon had baby Leafmon, and was holding a ball that Leafmon was following with his eyes. He was such a sweetheart.

Miyako scooped Taro out of Hawkmon's wings, and Hawkmon sank down to the floor in relief. "I don't know how you do it," Hawkmon said. "Three kids. I have trouble just watching over Poromon."

"You know that's Mai's job," Miyako said, patting Hawkmon's head as she bounced Taro. He'd stopped crying and was grabbing fistfuls of her hair.

"But he is another of my own species," Hawkmon said. "I did not think I would ever find one. I feel it necessary to watch over him. I feel as though he is to me what Mai and Osamu and Taro are to you."

"He's a piece of you?" Miyako asked him, seconds away from cooing at the thought.

"Not exactly," Hawkmon said. "He's my hope for the future. I wish to protect him always and help him carve his way with his own human partner. I want to bestow all of my learning onto him. I want him to grow into the best digimon he can, so that someday he can be to Mai what I am to you."

"You sound like a proud daddy," Miyako said, tears in her eyes. "I'm so proud of you, Hawkmon. I hope for the same things, for my children, and for the digimon too."

"I feel the same way about Minnomon and Leafmon," Wormmon stated quickly, looking shy and nervous.

"I'm proud of you too," Miyako cried. "I'm sorry, I don't know why I'm crying. I've never done this before."

"Cry?" I said incredulously. "You cry all the time."

"Not like this though," Miyako said. "I can usually stop it if I want to. I don't have any control. It's not fair. It wasn't like this any of the other times."

"I don't know what you're talking about," I said, taking Taro from her arms, since she stopped bouncing him and he was going to cry again. I didn't think I could handle two criers. Hawkmon was scooped into her arms once the baby was gone, and he glared at me. I could feel his frustration.

"D-d-d," Taro gurgled. "Da!"

"Dad," I urged. "Come on. Say it with me: Dad."

"Da!" Taro tried again. "D-d-d-d-da!"

"I'm going to count that," I announced. "Miyako, his first word is Dad."

"That's just not true," she moaned. "He's supposed to say Mom."

"Just because the other two did, doesn't mean he has to," I protested.

"He'll be your only one," she declared. "I won't even let the next one see you, until she's said my name."

"She?" I said. Then I stopped, noticing what she'd said. "What next one? I thought three was the goal?"

"But we don't have me," she said, sniffling her nose. Hawkmon ran and got a tissue for her and she blew her nose—which sounded more like honking a horn, not that I would ever tell her that.

"You lost me again," I said.

"Mai is our Mantarou, Osamu is our—admittedly miles better—Chiziru, Taro here is our Momoe. But we don't have me!" she complained. "And I want to."

"Okay, how long are we planning to wait?" I asked. "Until Taro's two maybe?"

"I was thinking maybe seven months," she said slowly.

"You want to wait until he's seven months, or you want to wait seven months?" I asked, confused.

"I was thinking the baby's going to arrive in seven months, whether we're ready or not," she said. I looked at her, tilting my head, asking for clarification. "I'm pregnant," she said. "I'm pregnant!"

I shifted Taro onto my hip, and hugged her close to me with my free arm, peppering her face with kisses. She was laughing and crying and Wormmon was doing a little gig. Leafmon and Taro didn't understand what was going on, but they knew that Miyako was really happy, and so they thought they should be happy too.

It was only Hawkmon that wasn't so excited. "Four, Miyako? Four. But you always hated being the fourth child."

"I know," she said. "But I'm not going to be like Mom and Dad. I'm going to pay attention to all of my kids. And all of our digimon. And if you think about it, there's a pretty good chance you'll be getting another baby too, Hawkmon. I mean, our family could be complete with a Pururumon, don't you think."

"We're having a baby!" Hawkmon cheered, excited by the idea that they even might be another one of his species out there, waiting to join our family.

"What are we going to tell the kids?" I asked her.

"We aren't telling them anything until the first trimester is finished, and then we can tell them. I want to wait until the four month mark for everyone to know though, just like we did with Taro," she said.

"Alrighty," I said excitedly, though I still wasn't sure how we'd manage with twelve in the house. We might need a bigger place. We probably would, actually. Taro was still rooming with us, and I didn't think it was fair for Osamu to have to share with his little brother when there was such an age gap. And if this next baby was a boy—which I hoped it was—then he'd have to share with two...

"Stop worrying," Wormmon told me, clearly knowing me better than anyone if he could tell exactly what I was worrying about with just a glance. I smiled at him. To think, there was a time when I could have lost him forever, when I hated the sight of him. Those days were long, long gone though. He was one of the best things that ever happened to me. Right up there with marrying Miyako and the birth of our three—soon to be four—children. But none of those things would've been possible without him. I never would have even met Miyako, the worlds would still be in chaos. That scared me a bit, the thought that if even one thing had changed, if any one of us had chosen differently, even once, the worlds wouldn't be the same. Every last one of us was necessary. "Ken," Wormmon said, snapping me out of those thoughts. "Things will work out. They always do. If the biggest problem you can come up with, is finding room to put a baby, then that's not so bad, is it? We've faced much worse."

"We really have buddy," I said. "I love you Wormmon." He looked down at Leafmon, embarrassed.

"I love you too, Ken," he said.

"And I love all of you," Miyako cried, hugging Hawkmon closer to her. I looked at Wormmon, and he nodded his head. He prompted Leafmon to join in, and we all collapsed into a group hug. We didn't move until Taro's head fell onto my shoulder, too exhausted to stay awake any longer. I kissed Miyako and went to put him to bed.

"I'll do that," she said, taking Taro from me. "I think I need you to go to the store. We're out of ice cream, and I really, really want some. Mint chocolate chip."

"Yes dear," I said, watching her disappear up the stairs with our baby. Wormmon followed with Leafmon. "Hey, Hawkmon, you want to come for a walk?"

"Yes," he said quickly. "I can't believe she's started her cravings already."

"She hasn't," I told him. "She's trying to brainwash Taro into saying Mom before he gets the hang of Dad. He'll be saying it within the week."

Takeru Takaishi: 11:45 pm

I was getting a bit frustrated, and so I was tempted to just close the laptop and leave it at that. I wasn't sure how to do this. I had to somehow create an atmosphere totally different from the first installments of my book, maybe a bit darker than the first two, but not as dark as the fifth, and I had to write in the perspective of children I had met only once.

It wasn't easy honestly, but at least I only had to work on the main three for a while. That was nice.

But there was one thing I didn't understand. How had they moved around in the Digital World? It sounded to me like the streams of data that Meiyomon had created, but other than that there was nothing that fit their description... but what was Meiyomon doing tampering with the kids adventures. I'd have to find him and question him later, but until then I couldn't really get into the Digital World plotting of the book.

I groaned and leaned back in my chair.

I'd already told my publisher about the concept of the book and he wanted it written before Halloween. That was only three months. He'd never given me such a short time to write before, but I had enough faith that I could do it... hopefully.

I decided I was done, so I closed everything up and pushed my chair back, ignoring the annoying sound of wood scraping wood.

I got up and was out of my study quickly. I leaned my back against the wall and sighed. I didn't like pressure. It always made it harder to sleep. Reminded me of when we were in peril all the time.

I ran my hand over my face and took a deep breath. Had to relax.

Then I saw a thin line of light seeping into the dark hallway from underneath Hiro's door. It was far too late for him to be awake... what was he doing? I was by his door a moment later, ready to knock and tell him to sleep, but I heard his whispers and stopped to listen.

"All I want in life is an adventure." He was telling Tokomon, I assumed. "I always told myself if life presents me with the opportunity, I'd have to take it."

I smiled, but still knocked on the door. "Bed time Hiro," I told him.

"Kay Dad!" Hiro called out. I was about to check on Tenshi when Patamon caught my attention, flying out of his bedroom. He landed on my head and relaxed immediately. It was interesting to believe that Hiro wanted to have adventures like his parents. He wanted to live a life like ours, and although I would never want him to be in constant danger all the time—never want him to go through what I had—it was certainly good to know. I wouldn't say no to him camping out in the Digital World if it would satisfy his desires, but I didn't want him to go through his partner being in danger all the time. It was a stressful time. And I'd lost my partner twice. It wasn't fun. And that's just how it was.

I'd also lost Sora once—she was practically my sister at the time, and now she... was. Sort of. Sister in law. Close enough. And I was happy she was. It took a long time for them to sort everything out, but Yamato and Sora were both happy, and that's what I'd wanted since day one. I was there when she first laid eyes on him and everything. That was right before that fateful snowfall.

Thinking of snow brought me to the reality of how cold it was, and as if on cue, Patamon shivered as I came to the conclusion.

"You okay?" I asked him.

"Oh, just cold." He said. Without another word I reached up and pulled him into my arms to hug him. "That's better," He said, scrunching his nose up as he dug his face into my chest for warmth.

"Do you think Hiro and Tenshi could go on adventures?" I asked Patamon, who resurfaced with an indescribable expression on his face. He shook his head simply. "Well Tenshi's got Salamon, they could protect Hiro and Tokomon... maybe you and Gatomon could go with them?"

"Well, I'll not say no." Patamon said, "But I certainly don't think it's a good idea just yet."

"Why not?" I said. No, I'll admit it. I was whining.

"Hiro can't even clean his own room yet." Patamon said, "He doesn't have a moral compass yet. Tenshi's a little better off, but they're both just kids."

"Tenshi's nine." I said, rolling my eyes, "I was eight when I first went."

"And you had Jou, and Yamato and Taichi, and Sora and... well, me to take care of you." Patamon said.

"And Mimi and Koushiro."

"No, not them." Patamon said, smiling, "They didn't look after anyone at their age."

"I guess that's true." I agreed, "I liked Mimi though. All those late nights eating chocolate and talking about anything and everything."

Patamon smiled and nodded, acknowledging it, but his nodding slowed and he looked back to me, "How come I don't remember that?"

"You were sleeping," I told him softly, "I'd already tucked you in, and then I'd go out to watch the stars and every night Mimi was there too. She said she loved the way the lit up the sky."

"Sounds to me like you had a crush on Mimi,"

I spun around to find Hikari standing by the cupboards. I hadn't noticed she was even there. I was leaning against the counter in the dark kitchen, about to get a snack. Hikari, as well as pretty much everyone knew that it was true though. I totally did have a crush on Mimi when I was eight. That's just how life worked. A pretty girl who liked spending time with me and loved chocolate as much as I did just plopped into my life. But that was all before I met Hikari.

Then everything changed.

I smiled to her as she flicked on the light, having it pour down and shine off of her long brown hair. "You're beautiful." I blurted out.

"So you've said." She smiled.

Patamon flew from my arms with a small 'ugh' as I stepped toward Hikari. "Well I'm not wrong." I told her.

"You're beautiful too." Hikari said, I was close to her now, and I smiled down at her, wrapping my arms around her waist.

"See I don't want to hear that." I rolled my eyes playfully, "I want to hear how macho and tough I am. And how sensitive and sweet I am on the inside, or some crap."

"That's not crap," Hikari said, "that's all true."

"Mhm," I said sarcastically, "Sure." Hikari laughed that beautiful laugh of hers and leaned in to kiss me, but right before our lips touched I felt a sharp pain in the side of my head. I turned to see Gatomon sitting inside the cupboard next to us looking very apologetic.

"S-sorry," She stammered, holding up a small can, "I was just looking for some tuna."

Hikari laughed and helped her down from the cupboard, and glanced sideways toward me. "You are beautiful though."

"So are you." I said kissing her quickly on the cheek. "I love you." I said in a whisper.

"I love you too." Patamon and Hikari said together.

Then there was a loud thump from Tenshi's room and he groaned loudly. "I'm okay!" He insisted in a voice that sounded much more like his brothers than his own.

Hikari and I exchanged a look of bemusement and shrugged before grabbing our partners and the can of tuna before heading down to the living room to watch a re-run of Digimon on the television.

Taichi Yagami: 11:50 pm

"I'm not cleaning it up," I said stubbornly.

"Well, I'm not doing it by myself," Rei snapped.

"I didn't say you had to," I said. "We shouldn't have to clean it up. Just write someone's name on a piece of paper, we'll see who got the most votes."

"Fine," she said, crossing her arms. "As long as it's not me."

"Okay," I said. I grabbed a piece of paper out of Nikko's art supply kit—the one he never ever uses—and ripped it into seven pieces. "Nikko, you'll have to write for Koromon."

"Will do, Dad," he said. And everything got quiet, except for the sounds of pens and pencils scratching names on pieces of paper. I gathered them up, and started reading them aloud.

"Jou," I said, reading my own. "That's a good choice. Another one for Jou. Oh, this one says Momoe." Pal and Pul gave each other high-fives. "There are two in here that say Emiko—I think I know who put those in." I looked at Nikko and Koromon, who looked pleased with their choice. "This one says...Sora?"

"She's the one that decided we were at war," Rei said defensively. "I thought it made sense."

"But Jou's the reason that there was one at all," I whined.

"You were on his side," she reminded me.

"So were you," I pointed out.

"Who's the last one, Dad? Please say it's Emiko," Nikko begged. I pulled it out and made a face, looking to Agumon confused.

"Agumon?" I said.

"I thought we were picking out of who was already here," he said, embarrassed. "I thought I should help."

"Noble thought buddy, but I guess we'll be informing Emiko that she's still got a bit of bonding time with her dear old dad before she heads off to school. We have buckets right?" I asked. "I think they'll need buckets."

"And rubber gloves," Nikko said, crinkling his nose up. "And clothespins for their noses. It smells out there."

"We're not going to help them at all?" Agumon asked, sounding disappointed.

"They were the ones in charge of that food fight," Rei said firmly. "And we voted on it. The two of them got the majority vote. They'll have to be the ones that clean up the yard. Sorry, Agumon."

"But not all of the food is bad yet, right?" he said sadly.

"It's kind of all garbage now, bud," I said.

"I'll bake a cake tomorrow for us," Rei said. "Will that make it up to you?"

"You bet," Agumon said cheerfully.

"Can I do the icing?" Pal wanted to know.

"No, me!" Pul said. "She always gets to."

"Maybe I'll make two cakes," Rei suggested. "And you both can decorate one."

"Two cakes!" Nikko cheered. "Alright!"

"There'll be no cake for you if you don't go to bed, young man," I scolded.

"Aw," Koromon said. "Do we halfta?"

"You do," Agumon said seriously. "Because we won't get cake if you don't. And I want cake."

"Me too," Koromon said. "I didn't get any t'day."

"Me neither," Agumon said sadly.

"Then let's get to bed, Koromon," Nikko said brightly. "Then tomorrow will come faster and then we get cake."

"Yay!" Koromon cheered. "Race ya!"

"You won't beat me," Nikko challenged. The bolted out of the room. They sounded like a herd of elephants when they trampled up the stairs.

"Well," Rei said, clapping her hands. "I'm exhausted. What about you?"

"I think I'm going to stay up a bit longer," I said.

"Well, I'll read for a little bit," she said. "I'll wait until you get up there to sleep. Okay? You're not going to take too long?"

"No." I shook my head. I just felt like something was going to happen. She kissed my cheek, and went to try and wrestle Pal and Pul to their room, even if they didn't go to sleep right away. They were adults in human standards. Rei had been with them about as long as Emiko had been alive, and they'd been around before they met Rei. So, they were technically adults. They just didn't act like it, and if they were given free reign, they would destroy the house while we all slept. It'd happened six times already. Six. I didn't want it to happen again.

I rubbed my arms, feeling goosebumps there. Why was I so cold? I went to the big window in the living room, the lights were out, but the moon was bright outside. Bright enough that I could see sparkling white fluffs falling gently to the ground. I walked over to our electric fireplace and turned it on, only realizing how odd it was that I needed to do that once I'd finished. It was August first—nearly the second—why was it snowing?

I swallowed thickly, remembering a day twenty eight years ago, also August first, when the exact same thing happened.

Nikko!

I bolted to the stairs. I had to see my son. Now!

Daisuke Motomiya: 11:59 pm

"Can I hold him?" I whined. I'd been asking since we left the hospital. But Kurayami wouldn't let me hold Yukai. My new baby boy. And I wanted to hold him!

"Will you give him back? I think not," Kurayami said. She was laying in our bed, pillows and blankets all fluffed about her. I didn't want her to have to move about for anything. I had an array of drinks on her night stand, and there were diapers for Yukai on my pillow. One of those diapers was already used, and smelled horrid. I decided the moment she smirked at me and placed it there that I was going to sleep on the couch.

I didn't know how long she'd hold this over me. I ended up on Emiko's side, and then it didn't matter anyway, since you know, she wasn't even pregnant. So I told her that—Kurayami I mean—again. She just laughed.

"That's not what I'm mad at anymore," she said. "I'm mad that you stole my baby and wouldn't give him back."

"I gave him back," I said.

"Only when Norn made you," she said. Then she looked really sad instead of angry. "Why didn't you give him back when I wanted him?"

"Because I loved him instantly, and didn't want to give him up to anybody," I said. "He's my son too you know. And he's just so little. I don't want anything to get to him."

"And you thought I would hurt him?" she asked sounding hurt.

"No," I said. "But I can't control you. I knew I could hold him and keep him safe because I could control every situation. I can't control you. And I don't want to. But if I can't control the situation, how will I know he's safe? You saw what happened when Haruki held him."

"But he's fine," Kurayami said. "I don't want to be mad anymore. I can't even think straight."

"I know," I said. "It's hilarious."

"Let's not fight," she said. I nodded.

"But I'm still sleeping on the couch," I said. She looked sad, before looking at my pillow and bursting into peals of laughter. I walked out the door to see Labramon hanging just outside the room. "Well, she's all yours, Labramon," I told him.

"Gee," he said sarcastically, hearing her laughter—which had turned sort of maniacal. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it," I said with a laugh. Veemon heard me come down the stairs and ran at me.

"Daisuke, Daisuke come and see," he said. But he wasn't excited. He looked terrified. I heard the clock strike midnight. It was a gift from Kurayami's dad at our wedding. An old, creepy grandfather clock. It chimed annoyingly every hour. One chime per hour, so I knew it was midnight because the chiming went on forever. I still hated it, after being married thirteen years. I knew I always would too—hate it I mean.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Just come see," he said. He grabbed my hand and dragged me to the kitchen counter. For a brief moment I thought he was talking about the giant mess on the counters, but I knew he wasn't. There was a piece of paper tapped to the countertop. I pulled it off and started to read.

Dad,

I know I'm going to get grounded for leaving, but it was something I had to do. There are a group of digimon that need help getting back to Earth since some guy sent them back. They miss their partners, and it's up to us to get them back. We were sent an actual mission Dad! Tell Mom not to worry. Benjamin and the council believe we can do it. And it's not just me and DemiVeemon, it's everybody. Well, not the babies, but everyone else.

Don't be mad Dad. We get to go on an adventure, just like you used to. And I know it's not as cool as any of yours, but it's something. Wish us luck Dad. And don't worry. We make a great team. I knew we were ready for it when you gave me the goggles this morning.

I love you. And Mom. And Veemon. And Labramon. Oh, and baby Yukai. Don't miss us too much!

Love, Haruki (And DemiVeemon!)

I crumpled the note in my hand and ran up the stairs, slamming open his bedroom door. His bed was made, completely not slept in.

"Daisuke, what're you doing?" Kurayami yelled.

"Haruki's gone!" I shouted back. "He's gone!"

"WHAT!?"

Next Time on Happily Ever After: Nothing DDDD: Nothing at all ! :O Oh no! AHHH. Nothing. THE END. This is THEEE END. KINDA.